Breaking Al-Qaeda Code Islamically: New OBL Video Possibly Announcement Of His Death
CAIRO - The head of Al Qaeda in Egypt has fled the country for the Gaza Strip, arrested members of the network revealed during interrogation, a security official said on Sunday.
Khaled Mahmud Ahmed fled to Gaza, which is now under the control of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, as Egyptian authorities began arresting members of his group in April, the official said
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Jails set for 1,000 radicals (U.K.)
July 16, 2007
The number of al-Qaeda terrorists held in UK prisons could top 1,000 in five years, jail bosses said yesterday. And it is feared the extremists will plan attacks from inside and try to radicalise young convicts.
Forty trials involving Islamic fanatics have yet to come before UK courts and MI5 has 2,000 terror planners under surveillance. Steve Gough of the Prison Officers’ Association said: “We are possibly going to have hundreds more entering the prison system. “The radicalisation of young men will be our biggest problem.”
HMP Belmarsh in South East London — the prison where most terrorists are housed — is already close to full. The POA’s warning comes as security chiefs revealed 4,000 extremists have visited terror training camps in Afghanistan then returned to Britain. Last week the head of Interpol accused the UK of failing to check people entering the country against a terror suspect database.
A new Home Office report reveals one in four terror suspects arrested in Britain is an asylum seeker. Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said: “Our porous borders have got worse under this Government.”
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2007320792,00.html
Fears Grow Over Mega Mosque
Sunday July 15,2007
Gordon Brown is under pressure to block a £75million “mega mosque”, amid claims one of the suspected Glasgow Airport bombers belongs to the radical Islamic group behind it.
More than 200,000 people have signed a Downing Street petition calling on the Prime Minister to intervene over plans for the mosque near the Olympics site in east London. It is being funded by the fundamentalist Tablighi Jamaat sect. One member of the sect is said to be Kafeel Ahmed, who was engulfed in flames when a Jeep laden with gas canisters crashed into a Glasgow Airport building two weeks ago.
The 27-year-old from Bangalore is fighting for his life in hospital after suffering 90 per cent burns. He is said to have taken up the teachings of Tablighi Jamaat after he was asked to leave his local mosque which he had tried to convert to what he called a purer form of Islam. The 7/7 suicide bombers Mohammed Siddique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer attended the European headquarters of Tablighi Jamaat at Dewsbury, West Yorkshire.
The sect’s plans for a huge mosque just a mile from the main Olympics stadium have caused much concern. Local Tory councillor Alan Craig said: “It will be a horrendous security nightmare if they are allowed to build this large mosque so close to the Olympics. “They have a growing and ominous track record as further young men follow Tablighi teaching about Islam and then go on to plan horrendous atrocities.” The Newham councillor accused the sect of radicalising and dehumanising young Muslims and said: “The dangerous truth about Tablighi Jamaat is coming out.
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http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/13553/Fears-growing-over-
Thanks for the ping Oorang and to a Special Freepmailer.
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Thanks for the link.
Interesting.
MY OPINION: UBL is an icon for jihad.
He is an icon for jihad whether he’s dead or
alive.
You see, his iconic image stil inspires jihadis/
jihadi supporters and jihadi wannabes.
That is my concern.
Al Qaeda issued a similar tape with previously unseen footage last year a few days before the 9/11 anniversary, (tape released three or four days prior to the day of the attacks) but I don’t believe there was audio with that footage as there is now. It was considered remarkable by some that old footage like that had emerged. So this just-released UBL tape has a precedent.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/09/07/terror/main1982773.shtml
That UBL video footage was taken immediately before 9/11. This new video was supposedly taken right after 9/11. And this video has us finally see UBL speaking for the first time since October 2004. Whether the footage is from five weeks ago or five years ago, the fact remains that it is the first time we have both seen and heard UBL in almost three years.
Whether or not the footage is archival (as some commentaries today are emphasizing) is beside the point, and drawing hopeful inferences regarding UBL’s condition based on the tape (as many are doing) is not only misguided (as this continues a theme begun with last September’s tape), but most likely, encourages an indulgence in a dangerous type of wishful thinking.
In the context of the media-related chatter in recent weeks, this video should be viewed as extremely alarming. He most memorably expressed his desire for martyrdom in his February 2003 tape where he recited a poem about dying in the belly of the eagle. And for the first time in almost three years, he finally is seen speaking to his foot soldiers on video. And in those 50 seconds, only one message is given - - a call to martyrdom.
The structure (memorialization of 9/11 in the 9/2006 and 7/2007 video clips using previously unseen archival footage of UBL both times), theme (an explicit call to martyrdom heard and now seen from UBL’s own lips), and context (concentration of communications with repetitious Quranic phrasings and warnings) is more consistent with a signal for an imminent attack, not a signal of UBL’s demise.