Threat Matrix: January 2007

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[nwctwx]

Fighting Jihad: Strategic Thinking Needed
-Full Story-

The United States of America has some of the smartest leaders in government, military, and business in the world. Yet the American government has failed to collectively use this formidable brain-power 5+ years after the attack by Jihadists on the American homeland to develop a truly strategic plan to fight the global threat of Jihad and Islamist extremism. In one of the most complex wars in American history, rather than starting with holistic, big-picture thinking towards the challenges and prioritizing resources and actions accordingly, America has spent much of the past five years after 9/11 in reactive and bureaucratic churning.

	Zawahri Decries Moderate Arabs | Transcript: LauraMansfield.com
	There Is No Substitute For Knowing Your Enemy
	A Terror So Great We Forgot It At Once?

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[all4one]

The news video is indeed chilling...prayers for all involved...especially those who looked like they were doing everything they could to help.

[Oorang]

The article you posted regarding Mullawala is quite the plot thickner. Thanks Velveeta.

SNIP from article:
What is the significance of numerous “problematic” phone calls to or from his cell phone, that appear to connect with people “of national interest” with regard to “terrorist-type indicators?” as state police Maj. Steven O’Donnell said.

[Oorang]

Thanks to you both for the head ups.

[Cindy]

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=2859

"Bush Lauds Iraqi Performance in Najaf Fight, Warns Iran"

By Gerry J. Gilmore
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Jan. 30, 2007

[Cindy]

Note: The following text is a quote:

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=2863

Iraqi, U.S. Troops Find Bombs, Other Weapons During Iraq Operations

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Jan. 30, 2007 – American military engineers in Iraq discovered and detonated an anti-tank mine; Iraqi police were attacked by an improvised explosive device; and Iraqi soldiers nabbed an insurgent during operations in Iraq over the past few days, officials said.
During a route clearance mission east of Baqubah yesterday, soldiers from the 72nd Engineer Company, 1st Engineer Battalion, attached to the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, discovered an anti-tank mine after receiving a tip.

The convoy was about to leave a village when a local citizen stopped the soldiers and gave them a "boom" signal, Army Sgt. 1st Class Sean Thomas, of 72nd Engineer Company, said. After talking with the townsperson, the soldiers realized there was an anti-tank mine in the area.

"This means a lot to us," Thomas said. "It means they trust us and know that we are not there to bring them harm. We are there to protect them. To me, they don't want the terrorists around. They disrupt their business and their day-to-day lives.”

The engineers blew up the bomb with no damage or injuries to the forces or the local population.

In other news, Iraqi emergency response personnel, Iraqi police and civilians in northwestern Ramadi were attacked by a suicide truck-bomber early Jan. 28. Iraqi police and U.S. soldiers from 2nd Battalion, 37th Infantry Brigade, worked together to provide medical assistance and evacuate the casualties. Along with the suicide bomber, 16 people were killed in the attack.

Also on Jan. 28, Iraqi soldiers arrested a local citizen implicated in a drive-by shooting incident near Taji. Iraqi troops from the 2nd Brigade, 9th Iraqi Army Division (Mechanized), were on a patrol when the suspect, riding in a car, allegedly opened fire on their T-72 tanks. The troops detained the man and confiscated an AK-47 assault rifle. The suspect is being held for further questioning.

(Compiled from Multinational Force Iraq and Multinational Corps Iraq news releases.)

[Cindy]

Well, good.

Thanks to a Special Emailer for pointing to this article:


http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-6154457.html?tag=sas.email

"FBI turns to broad new wiretap method"
By Declan McCullagh, CNET News.com
Published on ZDNet News: January 30, 2007, 4:00 AM PT

[Cindy]

Thank you for checking Velveeta.

Smiling...family and work comes first.
FR - TM will always be here -- archived and indexed, of course.

[Cindy]

Thanks all4one.

Watching Fox News and waiting for an update.

http://www.foxnews.com

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=%22gas%20station%22&btnG=Google+Search&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wn

[Cindy]

Thanks to Velveeta for the ping to this thread:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1776084/posts


"New Iraq Report Makes Case for Victory"
US Newswire ^ | Tuesday, January 30, 2007 | Kristinn

Posted on 01/30/2007 7:18:39 AM PST by kristinn

[Cindy]

http://www.internet-haganah.com/harchives/005903.html

30 January 2007
"Active sites of Palestinian Islamic Jihad"

SNIPPET: "As a reminder, this is what the PIJ looks like in the real world:"

===
===

Note: The following text (minus the graphic) is a quote:

http://www.internet-haganah.com/harchives/005902.html


30 January 2007
Palestinian Islamic Jihad promotes Jimmy Carter's book
You are surprised?


Screengrabs: 600px wide, full size
Archive of page
Source: http://www.qudsnews.net/kotob/9.htm

Posted on 30 January 2007 @ 12:01

[Cindy]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1761584/posts?page=1760#1760

---

http://www.internet-haganah.com/harchives/005901.html

30 January 2007
"Fly and spy by wire(less)
Jihad UAV research continues"

[Cindy]

ON THE NET...

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=hezbollah
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=hizballah
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=hizbullah

===
===

Note: The following text is a quote:

http://www.internet-haganah.com/harchives/005899.html

30 January 2007
Anti-shiite PSYOPS: "Hizballah involved in killing Sunnis"
Arabic source

Posted on 30 January 2007 @ 11:58

===
===

http://sfir-arabicsource.blogspot.com/2007/01/1999.html

[Velveeta]

At least 4 killed in gas station explosion in Ghent

GHENT -- An explosion destroyed a gas station near the Winterplace ski resort Tuesday morning, killing at least four people and seriously injuring at least five others.

At least one of the dead at the Flat Top Little General Store on U.S. 19 was a firefighter or paramedic, State Fire Marshal Sterling Lewis said at a press conference Tuesday afternoon. Celeste Hinzman, spokeswoman for the state Department of Homeland Security, said both a firefighter and a paramedic were among the dead.(snip)



"It looks like somebody put something in that building and it blew 360 degrees.''(snip)


http://wvgazette.com/section/News/200701306

[Oorang]

Kenya: We have hacked al-Qaida laptop

Jan. 30. 2007 -- Kenyan authorities say they have cracked the password on a laptop computer belonging to one of the most wanted al-Qaida suspects in Africa. A report by the Kenyan newspaper, The Daily Nation, on its Web site Monday quoted anonymous "senior police sources" as saying that the computer "contained vital information on terrorism training and intelligence collection including spying."

The report gave no further details, but said the computer was seized from the wife of Fazul Abdullah Mohammed -- indicted by federal prosecutors for his role in the al-Qaida truck bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa in August, 1998. Fazul's wife, Halima Badroudine Fazul Husseine, was arrested earlier this month with her three children, crossing the Kenyan border from Somalia -- where her husband is widely believed to have been hiding until the turn of the year, when the Islamic militias allegedly sheltering them were routed from Somalia by the Ethiopian military.

The newspaper said police believed Fazul had given her the computer for safe-keeping or delivery to someone else. Despite calls from Muslim groups in Kenya for Badroudine's release, the government deported her back to Somalia over the weekend, along with two dozen others who have been picked up crossing the border in recent days.

Excerpted

http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20070130-014509-5190r

Court reinstates key charge against Padilla
1/30/07

MIAMI - A federal appeals court on Tuesday reinstated a key terrorism charge, the only one carrying a potential life sentence, against alleged al-Qaida operative Jose Padilla. A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with federal prosecutors in Miami that the charge that the U.S. citizen and his two co-defendants conspired to "murder, kidnap and maim" people overseas did not duplicate other counts in the indictment.

The Atlanta-based court reversed a decision last summer by U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke, who said the three charges in the indictment contained nearly identical elements and could subject the defendants to extra punishment for the same act, violating protections against double jeopardy.

Excerpted

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16892540/

Terror police 'found 9/11 speech'
30 January 2007

A speech by al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden was found at a London flat used by the alleged 21 July plotters to make rucksack bombs, a court has heard. The November 2004 speech addressed the American people on the "causes" of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US.

Excerpted

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6313799.stm

[Oorang]

Pentagon Suspends Military Surplus Sales
1/30/07

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon said Tuesday it had halted sales of spare parts from its recently retired F-14 fighter jet fleet, even as lawmakers pledged tougher oversight of the military's surplus sales to stop buyers for Iran and other countries from acquiring gear.

Sales of F-14 parts were suspended last Friday pending a comprehensive review, said Defense Logistics Agency spokesman Jack Hooper said. "It was the prudent thing to do," he said.

Excerpted

http://kiplingerforecasts.com/apnews/XmlStoryResult.php?storyid=296302

Venezuela Plans to Obtain Air Defense Missiles Systems, General Says
Tuesday, January 30, 2007

CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuela plans to obtain air defense missiles to guard strategic sites such as oil refineries and major bridges against any air strike, a top military adviser to President Hugo Chavez said Tuesday. Gen. Alberto Muller said Venezuela is looking to buy surface-to-air missile systems from Russia or another country to defend refineries, hydroelectric dams and "other strategic points in the country."

"They are for air defense," Muller told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "They are not for attacking anybody... We are not the United States of America. We don't have imperialist ambitions."

Chavez, a close ally of Cuban leader Fidel Castro, has repeatedly warned against a possible U.S. invasion, and his government is bolstering military defenses in Venezuela, one of the world's largest oil exporters. American officials insist they have no such military plans, but Chavez insists Venezuelans must be ready just in case.

Russia's Interfax-Military News Agency reported Tuesday that between 10 and 12 Tor-M1 missile systems could be supplied to the South American country. The ITAR-Tass news agency said that report was denied by Venezuela's Defense Ministry, but Muller said there are indeed plans to purchase missiles, though he did not say what type.

Excerpted

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,248719,00.html?sPage=fnc.world/americas

[Oorang]

Analysis: Cyber-jihadis use of encryption

WASHINGTON, Jan. 30 2007 -- U.S. Cyber-security specialists have been examining an encryption software package released earlier this month by the Global Islamic Media Front, a Web forum for supporters of Islamic terrorists.

The software package, dubbed "Mujahedin Secrets" by its authors, is an executable file that can be installed on removable media, like a thumb drive, and used on computers in libraries other public places to encrypt e-mail or other files being sent over the Internet, according to iDefense, an Internet security consultancy which is analyzing the program.

"The program's 'portability' as an application (not requiring installation on a personal computer) will become an increasingly desirable feature, especially considering the high use of Internet cafés worldwide by pro-terrorist Islamic extremists," said iDefense Middle East analyst Andretta Summerville.

"Mujahedin Secrets," which can be downloaded for free, offers "the five best encryption algorithms, with symmetrical encryption keys (256 bit), asymmetrical encryption keys (2048 bit) and data compression," according to a translation of a Global Islamic Media Front's announcement about the software on Jan. 1, provided by Middle East Media Research Institute.

Excerpted

http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20070129-053607-9471r

Russians used dead spy's photo as a target
Tue. Jan. 30 2007

MOSCOW -- The head of a center that trains security personnel and held a competition for Russian special forces confirmed Tuesday that it has used shooting targets showing the photo of a former agent who was fatally poisoned in London last year.

However, Sergei Lysyuk, head of the Vityaz Center, said he had been unaware that the photo target showed the poisoned ex-agent, Alexander Litvinenko. "The fact that it was Litvinenko, we only found out later from the press," Lysyuk told The Associated Press. "We did not shoot at Litvinenko, we shot at a target."

Excerpted

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070130/spy_photo_070130/20070130?hub=World

U.S. trains Tajik forces in anti-terrorism

DUSHANBE, Tajikistan, Jan. 30. 2007 -- The United States military is assisting with anti-terrorism training near the capital of Tajikistan, the Tajik national security body said. RIA Novosti, quoting the body, reported American troops were in a joint training course at the Fakhrabad military training center near Dushanbe. The course began Jan 28 an ends March 9.

Tajik border guards and Special Forces units are being shown tactics in anti-terrorism and techniques to defend themselves against attacks by illegal armed groups. This is the first joint military training that U.S. and Tajik forces have conducted.

Excerpted

http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20070126-124114-3746r

[Oorang]

Dutch citizen pleads not guilty to U.S. terrorism charges
01/30/2007

WASHINGTON -- An Iraqi-born Dutch citizen pleaded not guilty Monday in what the Justice Department called the first U.S. terror charges against insurgents targeting Americans in Iraq. Wesam al-Delaema, 33, has been wanted by the United States since 2003, when he and his fellow "Mujahideen from Fallujah" videotaped themselves planting explosives along an Iraq road used by U.S. troops. The explosives did not result in any deaths.

He was extradited from the Netherlands over the weekend after being held there for nearly two years, and will become the first suspect tried in a U.S. court for alleged terrorism in Iraq's bloody insurgency. "After a lengthy extradition process, this defendant will now face justice for his efforts in orchestrating and launching roadside bomb attacks against our men and women serving in Iraq," Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Wainstein said Monday.

Al-Delaema has claimed he is innocent, and his lawyers have argued the U.S. does not have the right to try him. He nodded his head and spoke in broken English with his attorneys during a 10-minute hearing in front of U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman in Washington. Prosecutor Gregg Maisel said the government would be seeking hair and saliva samples from al-Delaema, which the Justice Department said could link him to the crimes.

As part of the extradition agreement with the Netherlands, Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said that al-Delaema will be tried in a federal court -- not by a military commission such as those set up for terror suspects being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The U.S. will also not oppose al-Delaema serving his sentence in a Dutch prison if he is convicted, Boyd said. Al-Delaema's attorney, Victor Koppe, had argued that he feared al-Delaema could be tortured by U.S. authorities and said the U.S. legal system couldn't be trusted.

Al-Delaema traveled to Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion. Evidence against him includes a videotape he filmed of a group called "Warriors of Fallujah" preparing a roadside bomb, which was widely shown on Arabic TV stations. The tape was seized by police who raided al-Delaema's house in the Dutch city of Amersfoort in May 2005 following a tip from U.S. authorities.

In extradition hearings in the Netherlands, al-Delaema argued that he was forced to make the video after being kidnapped and beaten. He said he feared being beheaded if he resisted.

In a 2003 interview broadcast on Dutch television, al-Delaema accused the U.S. and its allies of waging war in Iraq to control its oil reserves. "The Americans and British are coming to our country to steal oil and everyone knows it," he said. "I don't care if I myself die or not. I want to offer myself up for my land, for my people. I'm not more or less important than the women and children who you see on television dying because of America," al-Delaema said. His family said the interview was intended as a joke.

http://www.yorkdispatch.com/nationworld/ci_5117989

[Oorang]

First defendant found guilty in 'Houston Taliban' case
Jan. 30, 2007

The first defendant tried in the so-called Houston Taliban case was found guilty today of unlawful possession of a firearm. Shiraz Syed Qazi, 26, waived his right to a jury trial, opting for a decision from U.S. District Court Judge Lee Rosenthal. The trial lasted 15 minutes. Federal public defender Brent Newton, who is representing Qazi, said he plans to appeal to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Qazi and three other men arrested last year are accused of material support of terrorism by training to fight with the Taliban against U.S.-led forces. He is scheduled for sentencing May 17.

His cousin, Adnan Mirza, is charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States and three illegal firearms possession charges. Mirza, a 30-year-old Houston Community College student, is scheduled for trial in June.

Also charged is Kobie Williams, 33, who pleaded guilty late last year to a conspiracy charge. Williams admitted to paramilitary training and making financial contributions to the Taliban. The Rice University engineering technician and University of Houston-Downtown student is scheduled for sentencing in May. Syed Maaz Shah, a 19-year-old University of Texas at Dallas student, is charged with two weapons violations. His trial is set for March.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4511973.html

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1776345/posts

[Cindy]

UPDATED at 5pm today:

http://wvgazette.com/section/News/200701306

January 30, 2007
Web Tools: [print] [email]

"At least 4 killed in gas station explosion in Ghent"

By Staff, wire reports
Updated at 5 p.m.

ARTICLE SNIPPET: "GHENT -- An explosion destroyed a gas station near the Winterplace ski resort Tuesday morning, killing at least four people and seriously injuring at least five others.

A paramedic and a firefighter were among those killed at the Flat Top Little General Store on U.S. 19 was a firefighter or paramedic, said Celeste Hinzman, spokeswoman for the state Department of Homeland Security.

- advertisement -

Authorities said a 500-pound propane tank outside the building was leaking. They believe propane collected inside the building and ignited somehow, said State Fire Marshal Sterling Lewis.

"It is our initial thought that the fumes entered into the building and had to have an ignition point,'' Lewis said. "It looks like somebody put something in that building and it blew 360 degrees."

[Cindy]

I wonder what else was on that laptop.

---

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/images/news/photos/070110-badguys-fazul.jpg

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=%22Fazul+Abdullah+Mohammed%22&ie=UTF-8&scoring=d