Threat Matrix: March 2007

Previous Thread ^

[Cindy]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=yemen

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https://www.osac.gov/Reports/report.cfm?contentID=64316

"you are here: Home > Reports > Consular Affairs Bulletins > Report
Warden Message: Southern Sana'a Fighting Ends
Consular Affairs Bulletins
Middle East / N. Africa - Yemen
2 Mar 2007"

U.S. Embassy Sana'a issued the following Warden Message on March 2:

WARDEN MESSAGE SNIPPET: "The fighting reported by the U.S. Embassy near the Shahran Hotel in southern Sanaa ceased late on March 1. While U.S. Embassy personnel are no longer restricted to their residences, the Embassy has instructed personnel to remain vigilant and cautious in their movements. Individuals may report suspicious or threatening activity to the Embassy at any time via the telephone numbers listed below."

[Cindy]

http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/tw/tw_2918.html

Travel Warning
United States Department of State
Bureau of Consular Affairs
Washington, DC 20520

This information is current as of today, Sat Mar 03 2007 02:42:52 GMT-0800.

EAST TIMOR

March 2, 2007

[Cindy]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=russia
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=syria

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http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?c=JPArticle&cid=1171894555363&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Mar. 2, 2007 10:30 | Updated Mar. 2, 2007 22:38
"Israel slams Russia for arming Syria"

[Cindy]

ON THE NET...

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=nuclear

[Cindy]

http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/tw/tw_922.html

Travel Warning
United States Department of State
Bureau of Consular Affairs
Washington, DC 20520

This information is current as of today, Sat Mar 03 2007 02:50:48 GMT-0800.

ISRAEL, THE WEST BANK AND GAZA

January 17, 2007

[Cindy]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=france

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http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=24670_French_Intifada_Appeasement_Watch&only

Friday, March 02, 2007
"French Intifada Appeasement Watch"

[Cindy]

http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/pa/pa_1161.html

PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesman
This information is current as of today, Sat Mar 03 2007 02:54:47 GMT-0800.

Worldwide Caution

October 11, 2006

[Cindy]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=afghanistan

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http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=3238

"As Afghan Troops Build Capacity, Decisive Battles Loom"

By Tim Kilbride
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, March 2, 2007

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http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/tw/tw_2121.html

Travel Warning
United States Department of State
Bureau of Consular Affairs
Washington, DC 20520

This information is current as of today, Sat Mar 03 2007 13:04:03 GMT-0800.

AFGHANISTAN

June 22, 2006

[Cindy]

http://www.dhs.gov/xnews/testimony/testimony_1172853501273.shtm

Statement of the Honorable Michael Chertoff, Secretary U.S. Department of Homeland Security Before the United States Senate Judiciary Committee"
Release Date: February 28, 2007

[Cindy]

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/03/03/news/sandiego/21_41_063_2_07.txt


"Agent's assailant sentenced to prison"
By: North County Times -

ARTICLE SNIPPET: "SAN DIEGO -- The driver of a car that dragged a Border Patrol agent into oncoming traffic in North County was sentenced Friday in San Diego to 15 months in federal prison, authorities said.

U.S. District Judge Dana M. Sabraw also ordered defendant Francisco Javier Rodriguez-Salazar, 21, to serve two years of supervised release when he is released from custody.

Rodriguez-Salazar, a Mexican citizen who is in this country illegally, pleaded guilty Dec. 15 to a grand jury indictment alleging assault on a federal officer, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Ott.

He said the agent, who has since retired, was bruised and sore after the Aug. 17 incident on North River Road near Bonsall.

"Everybody's very lucky that the agent wasn't injured severely or dead," Ott said."

[Cindy]

http://www.officer.com/article/article.jsp?id=35122&siteSection=1

"1997 LAPD Shootout Changed Policing
LAPD Marks 10th Anniversary of Historic Shootout"

Updated: March 2nd, 2007 10:32 AM EDT

AP Photo/Mike Meadows, File
By PETER PRENGAMAN
Associated Press Writer

[Cindy]

Note: The following text is a quote:

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http://www.ice.gov/pi/news/newsreleases/articles/070302CINCINNATI.htm

March 2, 2007

President of Garcia Labor Companies sentenced to 15 months in prison for conspiring to provide illegal workers to a national air cargo firm
Companies ordered to forfeit $12 million, the largest such forfeiture ever


CINCINNATI — The president and co-owner of two temporary labor service companies was sentenced in U.S. District Court here today for his role in a conspiracy that provided hundreds of illegal aliens to work for a national air cargo firm in Wilmington, Ohio.

Maximino Garcia, 43, was sentenced today by Senior U.S. District Judge S. Arthur Spiegel to 15 months in prison followed by two years of supervised release, and he was fined $25,000. His companies were also required to forfeit $12 million, representing the illegal proceeds of the crime. This is the largest ever forfeiture in an illegal labor case. Garcia was also order to forfeit property located at 586 Prairie Ave. in Wilmington, Ohio.

Garcia’s companies conducted more than $12 million in financial transactions that represented proceeds of harboring, transporting, and inducing aliens to reside and remain in the United States illegally. Garcia is expected to enter into a restitution plan with ICE to settle the forfeiture.

Today’s sentence was announced by Gregory G. Lockhart, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, Julie L. Myers, Assistant Secretary for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), William Cotter, special agent in charge, U.S. Social Security Administration Office of Inspector General, Chicago Region and Gordon S. Heddell, Inspector General, U.S. Department of Labor.

“Today’s sentence includes the largest forfeiture amount ever ordered in an illegal labor case,” said Julie Myers, Assistant Secretary for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). “Companies that use cheap, illegal alien labor as a business model should be on notice. ICE is dramatically enhancing its enforcement efforts against illegal employment schemes.”

Garcia owned Garcia Labor Co. Inc., incorporated in Morristown, Tenn., and Garcia Labor Co. of Ohio Inc., based in Wilmington, Ohio. The companies pleaded guilty on Oct. 3, 2006 to one count of conspiracy to encourage, and induce, and aid and abet illegal aliens to reside or remain in the United States for the purpose of commercial advantage or private financial gain.

Beginning in December 1999, Garcia’s companies began contracting with ABX Air Inc., a cargo transportation company that operates an airline providing package sorting, handling and line-haul services in Wilmington, Ohio, to provide temporary workers to sort freight.

“The workforce of temporary laborers assigned to ABX was almost entirely made up of Hispanic workers of Mexican origin who, for the most part, did not read, write or speak English,” Lockhart said. “Until at least mid-2003, applicants filled out employment eligibility forms, known as I-9 forms, which were pre-printed to list two specific forms of identification: a Resident Alien card and a Social Security card.”

Gordon S. Heddell, Inspector General, U.S. Department of Labor, stated “Companies and individuals that circumvent the foreign labor certification process to commit immigration fraud through the hiring of undocumented workers must be held accountable for their actions. My office will continue to work closely with the Office of Inspector General, Social Security Administration, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices on such cases to help ensure the integrity of our nation’s immigration laws.”

Garcia and McCarroll conducted financial transactions in the amount of more than $12 million that represented proceeds of harboring, transporting and inducing aliens to reside and remain in the United States illegally.

The Social Security Administration issued a number of notices in 2002, 2003 and 2004 in which hundreds of Hispanic workers employed by Garcia Labor were listed as using invalid Social Security account numbers. Despite such notices, Garcia Labor continued to employ these workers and took no substantive action to determine whether they were authorized to work in the United States.

Two others pleaded guilty in the case and have been sentenced. Gina Luciano, 40, director of Human Relations for Garcia Labor Co. in Tennessee, was sentenced on Feb. 15 to eight months in prison, followed by two years of supervised release; she was also fined $7,000. Dominga McCarroll, 53, Garcia’s sister and former vice president of the two companies was sentenced on the same day to two months in prison followed by two years of supervised release; she was also fined $5,000.

Lockhart commended the cooperative investigation by agents of ICE, Social Security and the Department of Labor’s Inspector General, along with the Clinton County Sheriff’s Office, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Anne Porter, who prosecuted the case.

-- ICE --

[Cindy]

ON THE NET...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=GLOBALJIHAD
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=jihad

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http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=Taliban
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=Taleban

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=iraq
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=afghanistan

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Note: The following text is a quote:


http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/015483.php

March 03, 2007

Mullah claims Taliban, Iraqi jihadists sharing fighters, intel
While any claim by Mullah Dadullah is worth taking with a grain of salt, the appearance of Iraq-style tactics in Afghanistan lends credence to the idea of a somewhat organized exchange. "Afghan Taliban says sending fighters to Iraq: TV," from Reuters:

DUBAI (Reuters) - A senior Taliban commander said in remarks broadcast on Friday that the Afghan Islamist group was sending fighters to Iraq to support anti-U.S. insurgents.

"Whenever there is a chance the (Afghanistan-based holy fighters) mujahideen travel to Iraq and the opposite is also true," Mullah Dadullah told Al Jazeera television in an interview.

"We have very strong relations with the mujahideen in Iraq. The mujahideen stay in Iraq for a month for example then they come here," he added in remarks dubbed in Arabic. "We also share intelligence."

"Travel from and to Iraq is at a peak currently ... if any mujahid wants to carry out an operation in Iraq he can travel."

Several Sunni Muslim groups including a wing of al Qaeda, which is allied to the Taliban, have been fighting U.S.-led and Iraqi government forces in Iraq.
[...]
Dadullah was speaking to a Jazeera correspondent outdoors interview with heavily armed bodyguards nearby.

Dadullah said the Taliban has obtained weapons but did not say from where, adding that the group was making its own weapons when necessary.
"The Taliban today is not the same as the Taliban of five years ago," he said.
NATO, the United States and the Taliban are promising spring offensives in what they and analysts regard a crunch year in a country still in crisis more than five years after the Taliban's fall.

Posted by Marisol at March 3, 2007 06:49 AM

[Cindy]

http://www.profilesinterror.com/updates/

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http://counterterrorismblog.org/2007/03/compare_contrast_taliban_and_t.php

"Compare & Contrast: Taliban and Tamil Tiger Attacks on U.S. Officials"
By Aaron Mannes
(March 2, 2007)

[Cindy]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=australia

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http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1794695/posts


"Weak West welcomes Islam"
Sydney Morning Herald ^ | March 4, 2007 | Miranda Devine

Posted on 03/03/2007 1:46:11 PM PST by NCjim

ARTICLE SNIPPET: "If you find it difficult to understand how a home-grown al-Qaeda-trained terrorist such as David Hicks has acquired sacred cow status in Australia, or why community concern about Muslim gang-rapists targeting non-Muslim teenage girls in western Sydney was dismissed by academics as "moral panic", it helps to read the book Londonistan by Daily Mail columnist Melanie Phillips.

Phillips, who was in Sydney last week, contends in the 2006 bestseller that Britain and much of the West is in denial about the threat of radical Islamism, is engaged in "galloping cultural surrender" and has become so weak and decadent it seeks "not only to appease but [to] believe and absorb the ideas and assumptions of the enemy that intends to destroy them".

After interviewing Peter Costello, Alexander Downer and Philip Ruddock for her Daily Mail column, Phillips spoke last week at a Quadrant magazine dinner in Sydney.

Londonistan, she said, was a "term of abuse coined by the French for a Britain that had allowed itself to become the European hub of al-Qaeda".

"I wrote Londonistan as a warning, as I believed Britain was deeply in denial over the threat of radical Islamism," she said.

She identified a "lethal confusion, not just in Britain but throughout the West, in which people who claimed to be progressive and liberal were actually promoting the very opposite. As we could see in Britain when so-called progressives, committed to causes like gay rights and anti-racism, marched shoulder to shoulder alongside Islamists who believed in death to gays and the subjugation of Jews and Christians."

Phillips worked happily for 20 years at the left-wing Guardian newspaper, but in 1987 when she wrote a column about the difficulty of finding decent education in London for her two young children, she suddenly found herself branded a right-winger.

After a column about family breakdown, her critics moved her into the "ultra right" category, she said, and when she continued with her apostasy, labelled her a fascist and then, because she was Jewish, a Zionist. Finally now, she says, her critics dismiss her as "mad".

But her analysis of Western kowtowing to Islamic demands is persuasive and her arguments always buttressed by facts."

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Note: The following text is a quote:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1793810/posts


MP lashes out over Hicks (Terrorist bagging ALERT!!!)
Herald Sun ^ | 2 March 2007

Posted on 03/02/2007 1:42:34 AM PST by Aussie Dasher

UPPER House MP Bernie Finn has launched an attack on accused Australian terror suspect David Hicks, saying people were trying to turn him into a national living treasure.

"I must offer a word of caution to those seeking to elevate Hicks to national hero status," Mr Finn told State Parliament.

"David Hicks was not in Afghanistan to judge the Kabul beach babe contest.

"He was there fighting for one of the most oppressive regimes on earth, which is and was a supporter and promoter of terrorism both locally and internationally.

(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.au

[Cindy]

EVENT:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1794693/posts

[Cindy]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=cartoonjihad

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A Look at More Than Cartoons
http://www.truthusa.com/MoreThanCartoons.html

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http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=24678_AP-_Danish_Exports_Up_9%25_Outlook_Bleak&only

Saturday, March 03, 2007

SNIPPET: "Overall Danish exports are up by 9 percent over last year, but the Associated Press wants you to think that the dreaded cartoons of blasphemy are still costing Denmark. (Hat tip: Paul.)"

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http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/world/16826368.htm?source=rss&channel=dfw_world

Posted on Sat, Mar. 03, 2007

"Cartoons still costing Denmark"
The Associated PRess
COPENHAGEN, Denmark -

[callmejoe]

This was posted a couple hours ago on another thread. ABC ran the story tonight but did not mention UBL.

They don't want to get too far ahead of themselves too soon since they don't yet know who the target is.

Let's hold out hope they just broke one of the biggest stories ever. (But we've been disappointed before.)

Of course, if this turn out to be true, there would likely be massive retaliation. So it would be "good news-bad news" in the extreme.


http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/03/afghanistan_us_.html

Afghanistan: US forces attack suspected al Qaeda hideout
March 03, 2007 3:12 PM

Christopher Isham and Gretchen Peters Report:

For the past two days, U.S. and NATO forces have been conducting a major attack against a compound in a remote area of Eastern Afghanistan where Osama bin Laden or another senior al Qaeda leader may be hiding, ABC News has learned.

According to eyewitnesses and local reporters in Kunar province, Coalition forces launched a fierce attack on a small enclave in the village of Mandaghel, approximately 17 miles from the border with Pakistan, on Friday afternoon. Warplanes pounded the positions ; U.S. special forces and Afghan National Army soldiers moved in shortly afterwards.

The assault appeared to meet stiff resistance from militants at the compound. Heavy artillery and gunfire could be heard for hours, local witnesses said . A handful of civilians were reportedly wounded in the strike. Though sealed off from outside access, the area now appears to be under coalition control.

U.S. officials declined to identify who the operation was targeting, but indicated they were after a "High Value Target" (HVT) . Official sources would not rule out that al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden himself was the intended victim. Afghan officials said the target could be another senior ranking al Qaeda leader.

The Coalition, which generally refuses to discuss ongoing operations, declined to make an official comment.

According to a local official, the compound under attack belongs to an Islamic militant and suspected drug trafficker named Haji Aminullah. The area of Kunar province is known as a stronghold of Wahabbists—followers of the strict sect of Sunni Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia, according to Barnett Rubin, senior fellow at New York University. Since the 1980's, the area has been a haven for Arab militants, including Osama bin Laden.

[Cindy]

"But we've been disappointed before."

Very true, but thanks for the post, though, CallMeJoe.

[fanfan]

Ping to post 98, FYI.

Thanks for posting Joe.

Hi Cindy.