Threat Matrix: September 2007

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[nwctwx]

The Birth of al Qaedastan

In the year 2016, the world may find itself gloomily marking September 6 as the tenth anniversary of the creation of the Islamic Emirate of Waziristan. The Emirate received de facto recognition when the Taliban used the name on the ceasefire agreement they signed with Pakistan on that day in 2006. If things go terribly wrong in the coming decade, they could come to rule a mountainous fragment of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The Emirate would be a nightmare state: Osama bin Laden as sultan, Ayman al Zawahiri as vizier, and Mullah Omar the spiritual leader. An economy built on smuggling and heroin. Primary export: terrorism. Welcome to ‘Al Qaedastan’.

Analysts say the rise of a terrorist state straddling the rugged area between Pakistan and Afghanistan is now viable. The reason is a number of troubling trends. One, the revival of a Taliban firmly in the control of Al Qaeda. Two, the seeming inability of either Kabul or Islamabad to defeat the new threat militarily. Three, and the most striking, the Taliban’s systematic supplanting of the traditional tribal leadership in the area. Full story...

	Lebanon: Tiny Country, Big Threats
	Islamist Web Site Explains 'How to Join Al Qaeda'
	The Ongoing Hunt for Osama bin Laden

Threat Matrix:
September 2007

August 2007

Threat Matrix Index

Theat Matrix Handbook

Theat Matrix 'BOLO'

Invaluable Tips

Preparedness

[JellyJam]

another crazy person:

St. Pete passenger arrested in bomb threat

ST. PETERSBURG (AP) - A North Carolina woman handed a flight attendant a threatening note about a gun and a bomb before locking herself in a bathroom and apparently lighting a match or smoking a cigarette, authorities said Friday. No firearms or explosives were found.

[Oorang]

Way too many crazy people in this world. *sigh*

[Cindy]

So you know...

Good luck.

I froze my cut up my fruit last week.

Today, it’s seedling trees, but the ground is hard..

And I know you know about that, too.

Bulbs coming in soon for planting.

Meanwhile it’s pruning, pruning, pruning.

[Cindy]

From Post no. 1358...Thanks JellyJam...

Memory jogger....

"remote control" ... "remote control device" ... "toy car" ..."remote controlled boat"...

[Cindy]

EVENT (This Weekend):

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1895418/posts

http://hotair.com/archives/2007/09/14/hot-air-video-get-ready-for-gathering-of-eagles-iii/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YG0ds6VQxUo

http://www.victorycaucus.com

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

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1896850/posts

[Cindy]

ON THE ‘NET:

http://www.internet-haganah.com/harchives/006233.html

#

www.youtube.com/user/baitalmaqdes
www.youtube.com/profile_favorites?user=baitalmaqdes
www.youtube.com/user/palfact
www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=palfact
www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dN2QZqJpfU

[Cindy]

RECAP (Older Video):

video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8775600212065945479

[Cindy]

http://img49.imageshack.us/img49/2498/52654674dflg9.gif
http://img127.imageshack.us/img127/8653/9fea7a5005wf0.jpg
http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/8325/ansar44zi2.png

[Cindy]

Mumbling out loud...so many jailed terrorists...there’s more room in the jails and prisons for these terrorists. Let’s fill ‘em up!

[Cindy]

www.ekhlaas.info
www.ekhlaas.info/forum/
www.c1ass1c.com/up/uploads/de63f2b849.gif
www.ekhlaas.info/forum/showthread.php?t=82125

[Cindy]

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

#

Note: The following post is a quote:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1896797/posts

Then There Was Syria
IBD ^ | September 14, 2007

Posted on 09/14/2007 5:44:52 PM PDT by Kaslin

Axis Of Evil: North Korea may be supplying nuclear equipment to Syria. Another terrorist state following Iran in seeking nuclear weapons should remind Americans we are in a long war of global scope.

Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy Andrew Semmel, in Rome for nuclear proliferation talks, told reporters Friday that the U.S. is aware of North Koreans in Syria, and he “wouldn’t exclude” the possibility of a connection to the supply network involving disgraced Pakistan nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan.

The Khan network provided nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea.

The Washington Post had reported earlier in the week that Israel provided high-ranking U.S. officials with “dramatic satellite imagery” from the past month showing a facility in Syria that could be used to produce nuclear material for weapons.

There may be a link between this development and Israel’s raid on targets in Syria last week. Israel reportedly hit a facility that builds unconventional weapons.

An unnamed Bush administration official told the New York Times last week that Israeli reconnaissance flights recently had taken pictures of possible nuclear installations that Israeli officials think may have been supplied with materials from North Korea.

The real possibility of a nuclear-armed Syria is eye-opening in a number of ways:

(Excerpt) Read more at ibdeditorials.com ...

[GorillaMa]

More about the “Massive Put Option” (I hope this is the real reason for the contracts!) Managers adopt new volatility tactics Renée Schultes, 13 Sep 2007 Hedge funds and institutional managers look for profitable trading strategies from the market turmoil The summer credit crisis and the precipitous changes it has produced on a daily basis across almost all asset classes has left fund managers facing a new world of higher volatility. Strategies such as box spreads, dispersion trades and put spread collars have become increasingly common as managers attempt to turn the volatility to their advantage. Traders say the new levels of volatility are likely to become the norm for some time. Several spectacular trades have caught the eye of investors over the past few weeks. Options trades flashed across Bloomberg screens last week, which suggested some investors were betting on a 50% decline in equity markets by September 21. The number of options taken out assuming a fall in the S&P 500 index to 700 – less than half its current levels – reached almost 120,000 contracts last week, compared with 819 on the equivalent contract a year ago, according to the Chicago Board Options Exchange. But far from being so-called Bin Laden trades – referring to bets that were allegedly placed on a sharp fall in US stock markets just before the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks – a large part is down to a cheap funding strategy known as a box spread. A box spread involves combining two pairs of options with the same expiry date. For example, a trader buys S&P 500 calls with a strike price of 700, which gives it the right to buy the index at a set price and time, and sells 700 puts, which gives it the right to sell the index at a set price and time. The third and fourth legs involve buying puts with a strike of 1,700 and selling 1,700 calls simultaneously. This structure has a pre-determined pay-off, regardless of where the index is trading on September 21 at expiry. It is called a funding strategy, because it allows one party to lend money, typically a bank with a high credit rating, at a more attractive rate to another borrower, which does not have a balance sheet and usually pays more to borrow money, such as a marketmaker or hedge fund. Traders usually use the widest possible strike prices, so that they can trade the fewest contracts and minimize trading commission costs. A head of equity derivatives sales at a London-based bank said: “There has been a lot of noise on these deep out-of-the-money positions, but most of them tend to be related to funding strategies, in which one leg is to buy a well out-of-the-money put option. You tend to do them well out of the money to make sure the market doesn’t move to that level. If you look at the current environment, it makes sense to use a stable funding vehicle, although it may cost you a little more.” These trades have become more popular through this liquidity squeeze, because they allow banks to lend money at a higher rate to hedge funds or marketmakers than they can earn in the inter-bank market. Many banks have ceased lending money to each other in this environment. On the other side of the trade, the hedge funds can borrow more cheaply than usually. Box spreads explain about half of the open interest in S&P 500 put options with a strike price of 700. According to the Chicago Board Options Exchange, there are about 65,000 of September 1,700 put options open, which matches against 76,000 September 1,700 calls. On the other side of the trade, there are 65,000 September 700 calls open, but 120,000 September 700 puts. This suggests there are at least 55,000 put options outside the box spread trades. A more popular trade among asset managers in Europe over the summer was the put spread collar, which is designed to provide some protection from falling markets at a low cost. A put option is a type of insurance, for which a premium must be paid. But as uncertainty in financial markets grew over the summer, the cost of that protection has risen. Mike Ward, head of equity derivatives flow sales at Merrill Lynch in London, said: “One of the best strategies recently has been put spread collars, where you buy an at-the-money put option, sell an out-of-the-money put and sell a call with a strike at or near the market’s high for the year.” Asset managers and hedge funds are also becoming more active traders of volatility itself, as uncertainty rises in the global economy. From mid-2004 until July this year, equity markets were in a low-volatility regime, which Nicolas Mougeot, head of options strategy for Europe at Deutsche Bank, believes has changed. He points to an increase in long-term volatility since the beginning of the summer, which did not happen in previous corrections in February this year and May last year. Mougeot said: “We just moved from a low-volatility to a medium-volatility regime. Third-quarter earnings will be critical to see if the liquidity crisis translates into an economic crisis and affects corporate earnings. Today’s situation has similarities to 1997 and 1998, when we had the Asian crisis and the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management. But there was more leverage at a corporate level then, which is not the case today. European companies are still cash rich, but if we see a change in corporate earnings, that could move the market to a higher-volatility regime.” Stock market volatility on the S&P 500 has historically been inversely related to the index’s returns. A long position in volatility leads to modest positive returns on average, but strong gains in periods of market stress. The increasingly liquid markets for instruments, including variance swaps – a derivative contract that provides a pure exposure to the variability of an underlying market or stock, without directional risk – means it is getting easier for fund managers to trade volatility. Mougeot said: “With the new Ucits III directive, we should see more interest for pure volatility products. Many asset managers are interested in volatility products, but they’re not ready to do over-the-counter trades yet. Sometimes it can be more of a question about how they manage risk internally.” New volatility products, such as options on variance, have grown in popularity this year because traders like to cap potential losses, which is possible with an option trade because the maximum loss on a put is the insurance premium. Max Darnell, chief investment officer of Pasadena-based First Quadrant, is one asset manager to trade volatility but others, including Deutsche Asset Management in New York, have hired specialists to develop trading strategies. Darnell said: “We trade in that space and it’s been very profitable, but we do it in a hedged way. “We have a defined range of market activity to play in and that lets us take advantage of a spike in volatility. We’re nicely up year to date in trading volatility, whereas a large number of players are suffering.” from: http://www.financialnews-us.com/?page=ushome&contentid=2448724807

[Cindy]

Thank you Gorilla Ma for this post.

Godzilla and tmp02 ping to post no. 1372.

[txhurl]

Megahed’s release merits a thread of its own, IMO.

[Cindy]

If there isn’t one started txflake, go ahead and start it.
It will be good for the archives, at the very least.

[txhurl]

Very well. Need to compose a Goose Creek ping list.

[Cindy]

Thank you.
Also, you will find the FR keyword “goosecreek” is a good resource.

[Cindy]

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=27049_CODEPINK_Tantrum_Tomorrow_in_DC&only

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GATHERING OF EAGLES
September 15, 2007

http://gatheringofeagles.org/

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CAN YOU HELP?
Thank you.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1896869/posts?page=11#11

[Cindy]

Re Port Botany in Australia - UPDATE:

http://abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/09/13/2031816.htm?section=australia

“Chemical scare site gets all clear”
Posted Thu Sep 13, 2007 12:00pm AEST

ARTICLE SNIPPET: “They think the chemicals were from a fumigation that was carried out there last night.”

#

Previously...

http://www.theage.com.au/news/National/Sydney-port-building-evacuated/2007/09/13/1189276852180.html

[Cindy]

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2007/20070907/science.htm

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2007/20070907/science.htm#1

“Portable explosives detector”
Dr S.S.Verma

ARTICLE SNIPPET: “A proof-of-principle prototype is currently under operation and several agencies have invested in the development of MEMS based sensor technology.

It is expected that in the times to come, portable explosive detector capable of detecting traces of plastic and high-vapour-pressure explosives - giving clear results with alarm, with easy usability and low cost will be available for a common man.

Moreover, these will be equipped with flexible power sources like rechargable DC external battery packs and AC adapter, making it convenient to use in virtually all application environments. They will be able to detect and identify minute traces of most military and commercially available explosives like C-4, TNT, Dynamite, PETN, Semtex, EGDN, DMNB, RDX, Nitroglycerine, ICAO and Taggants (DMNB, EGDN, o-MNT, p-MNT).

Future portable explosive detectors are expected to be self-contained, low-cost, lightweight, ready to use when and where needed with a minimum operation time allowing for non-invasive searches of luggage, mail, vehicles, documents and containers.”