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Locked on 10/02/2007 7:20:00 PM PDT by Lead Moderator, reason:
New Thread: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1905661/posts |
Posted on 09/01/2007 6:24:54 PM PDT by nwctwx
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Reds will be ready, Blues will not.
Thank you Gdzilla.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1891316/posts
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QUOTE:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1891316/posts?page=136#136
Thanks to Godzilla for pointing to the Powerline blog link.
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http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2007/09/018410.php
September 8, 2007
“Connect the Dots”
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http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-29414820070908?feedType=RSS&rpc=602&pageNumber=1
“German suspects had deadline for attacks-report”
Sat Sep 8, 2007 10:31PM IST
By Erik Kirschbaum
ARTICLE SNIPPET: “BERLIN (Reuters) - Three suspected Islamist militants who were planning to attack American targets in Germany had orders to act by Sept. 15 and knew police were hot on their trail before their arrest, a magazine said on Saturday.
The plan was foiled on Tuesday when police arrested two German converts to Islam and a Turk in the biggest German police investigation in the last 30 years.
According to surveillance details published in Der Spiegel magazine, the men had been given a two-week deadline for their planned strikes in a late August call from northern Pakistan that was monitored by German police.
In another detail to emerge on Saturday, a spokeswoman for the Federal Prosecutors Office in Karlsruhe confirmed a Focus magazine report that the suspects had obtained three small used vans in France and brought them to Germany.
The suspected militants, identified by German media as Fritz Gelowicz, Daniel Martin Schneider and Adem Yilmaz, had material to make bombs with power equal to 550 kilograms of TNT and were believed to be planning simultaneous car bombs across Germany.”
136 posted on 09/08/2007 2:24:32 PM PDT by Cindy
Thank you Oorang.
I don’t know Patriot Philly.
OPINION-SPECULATION: It could be a religious type confirmation like when we say our prayers and the preacher says, “Amen” and some people raise their hands up when we all say “Amen.” Could be something like that, but I don’t really know what UBL was/is thinking.
Note: The following text is a quote:
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=47357
Coalition, Iraqi Forces Capture Terrorism Suspects
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Sept. 8, 2007 – Coalition forces captured five terrorism suspects in raids today, and other operations by Iraqi and coalition forces in recent days have taken more alleged terrorists off the streets, military officials reported.
Officials also provided details of a recent unmanned aerial vehicle mission that was a “first” for the Army.
Separate raids in Kirkuk today targeted the head of the city’s car-bombing network and a key communications link within the al Qaeda in Iraq terrorism network. The ground forces detained three suspected terrorists in the operations. In Mosul, coalition forces detained two suspected terrorists while targeting close associates of al Qaeda in Iraq senior leaders.
“We’re continuing to put pressure on al Qaeda’s networks to squeeze them out of their hiding places and into our custody so they cannot attack the Iraqi people,” Army Lt. Col. Charles Perenick, a Multinational Force Iraq spokesman, said.
In other recent operations:
— Iraqi security forces with U.S. Special Forces advisors detained a key leader and a supporter of an Iraqi criminal network during an early morning raid yesterday in Saiwaia, near Samarra. The suspected leader is directly related to kidnappings and murders of Samarra citizens, officials said.
— In an intelligence-driven raid near Qaim in Iraq’s Anbar province Sept. 6, Iraqi security forces detained a man believed to be responsible for providing weapons, water and food to insurgents operating in the southern Rutbah deserts south of Qaim.
— Also on Sept. 6, coalition and Iraqi forces conducted a combined ground and air assault in southwestern Kirkuk province as part of Operation Lightning Hammer II. U.S. soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, with units from the 4th Iraqi Army Division, maneuvered into the Riyadh valley and began operations to deny insurgents safe haven. The combined forces now are clearing villages to identify and root out Sunni extremists suspected to be in the area, officials said, and have detained at least eight people for alleged terrorist activity. Simultaneously in the neighboring Rashad valley, more than 400 coalition and Iraqi ground combat forces swept nearly a dozen villages. Partnered with 4th Iraqi Army Division soldiers, along with local police and the Iraqi Emergency Services Unit, U.S. soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, 35th Infantry Regiment, worked to clear the villages in the area and to provide food and other humanitarian aid to families. Nine people were detained.
—Iraqi soldiers discovered multiple vehicle bombs and a large improvised explosive device in Iraq’s Ninewah province Sept. 6 as part of Operation Lightning Hammer II.
The 2nd Iraqi Army Division soldiers found three vehicles rigged as bombs and 21 IEDs in western Mosul. A search of nearby homes uncovered three sedans being prepared as car bombs, 18 rocket-propelled grenades, a PKC machine gun with 600 rounds of ammunition, three AK-47 assault rifles and 10 grenades. The Iraqi soldiers also detained 19 suspected enemy fighters.
— In Diyala province on Sept. 5, 5th Iraqi Army Division soldiers, partnered with U.S. soldiers from 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, conducted Operation Wickersham III in support of Task Force Lightning’s Operation Lightning Hammer II. The operation, designed to remove al-Qaeda influence south of Buhriz, resulted in the discovery of three weapons caches and five improvised explosive devices. Four detainees were located in the vicinity of a cache and were transferred to a facility for further questioning.
A “first” for U.S. Army Aviation took place Sept. 1, military officials announced today, when a Hunter unmanned aerial vehicle engaged and killed two suspected roadside bomb emplacers near Qayyarah in Iraq’s Ninewah province.
A scout weapons team from 2nd Battalion, 25th Aviation Regiment, 25th Combat Aviation Brigade, saw the men in a tactical overwatch near a roadside. The team requested Hunter UAV support. The pilots guided the Hunter operator to the scene, where it set up for a strike mission and dropped its precision munition, killing both men and marking a first in Army Aviation history.
“It’s very humbling to know that we have set an Army historical mark in having the first successful launch in combat from an Army weaponized UAV,” said Capt. Raymond Fields, commander, Unmanned Aerial Surveillance Company. “This would not be possible without my soldiers and civilians working hard day in and day out in Iraq to accomplish this feat.”
Fields said he believes the success will set the tone for Army Aviation in years to come. “We will see more weaponized Army unmanned vehicles being used instead of manned platforms to save not only our aviator brethren but (also) our Army ground brethren from enemy contact.”
Army Col. A.T. Ball, 25th Combat Aviation Brigade commander, said the ability to use UAVs provides “a precise and discriminate means for our Army to successfully engage the enemy in counterinsurgency warfare.”
(Compiled from Multinational Force Iraq, Multinational Corps Iraq and Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force Arabian Peninsula news releases.)
Today I've had the news on, in the background, while I putter in the kitchen. I'm dumbfounded at all the talking heads and supposed terrorism experts stating "nothing significant in the OBL tape" and reporters quoting Homeland Security that there is nothing important in the tape. It seems they are truly whitewashing and the sheeple aren't even aware.
By Mark Trevelyan, Security Correspondent
...snip...
By dyeing his hair and beard and wearing Arabic robes, bin Laden was trying to portray himself as a new, mature figure -- the spiritual leader of al Qaeda, Atwan said.
Others said the makeover was bizarre.
"It makes him, a man who claims he wants to be a martyr, look vain and ridiculous," said M.J. Gohel of the Asia-Pacific Foundation, a London think-tank.
Despite the lack of dramatic content, analysts said they could not rule out the possibility that bin Laden's first appearance since the eve of the 2004 U.S. presidential election was a rallying cry for a new attack.
"Because video tapes featuring bin Laden speaking to camera are so rare, the release of this particular tape could herald a major attack, though remarkably this message contains none of his usual open threats against the United States," Gohel said.
Atwan, who has interviewed bin Laden, told Reuters: "Maybe this is a warning that an attack could happen soon...This is a sort of rallying video. Maybe there is a message to his followers: go ahead and do what you want to do."
LONG SILENCE
Bin Laden did not explain his long silence, which had prompted speculation he was too sick or too tightly holed up in a hiding place somewhere along the Pakistan-Afghan border to be able to make and smuggle out a message.
...snip...
But Mohamed el-Sayed Said, deputy director of the Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo, said the video, despite the lack of specific warnings, was "much more threatening this time."
"It's confident, it uses iconic language that suggests, 'I'm commissioned to wage an unending war against you, and the only way to get peace is to convert to Islam'," he said.
"He's in a state of battle, a state of constant, unending war until he Islamises the world."
...snip...
"This is just a message to his followers and foes that he exists and that he is still the leader of al Qaeda," said Saudi analyst Fares bin Houzam.
"I am 100 percent sure that this man has no power to plan (for al Qaeda). He is just giving signals to his followers around the world."
Most of the experts are probably expert at something, but what, I don’t know.
I’m glad I’m not an expert.
Common sense is still a valuable commodity and I know you and I (and most of the TMers) are filled to the brim with common sense.
(CBS) "People of America," he says, "lend me your ears."
So says the most wanted man in the world, Osama bin Laden, appearing in a new videotape which has surfaced nearly six years after the attacks of September 11, 2001.
In it, he rails against Western corporations, neoconservatives, and Democrats in Congress, telling Americans they had voted for Democrats to stop the war, but in his words, the majority party hasn’t made a move worth mentioning.
CBS News consultant Michael Scheuer, a former CIA analyst and author of "Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror" and "Through Our Enemies' Eyes: Osama bin Laden, Radical Islam, and the Future of America" (Potomac), has been critical of the administration's efforts to capture bin Laden, and says the newly-released video shows an al Qaeda leader taunting the U.S. for failing to catch him.
Scheuer spent years tracking al Qaeda as the head of the CIA's bin Laden unit.
Discussing the video with CBS Saturday Early Show anchor Maggie Rodriguez, Scheuer said, "First of all, the setting is very relaxed, very comfortable. He is not in his camouflaged jacket. There's no rifle. What he is trying to say is that he is under no pressure from the Americans. The Americans are failing in their effort to kill him, and in their effort to destroy al Qaeda."
Of our progress in battling al Qaeda, Scheuer said, "It points directly to the fact that we failed utterly in Afghanistan to send enough either intelligence officers or military people.
"You know, we have about 30,000 troops there, and we've asked them to defeat the Taliban, keep President Karzai's government in power, build a democracy, eradicate the opium industry - and in their spare time go after Osama bin Laden."
The mere appearance of bin Laden, four years after the last new video recording and six years after the 9/11 attacks, "is the reminder of a failed policy."
The tape's script seems calculated to authenticate its currency by including pointed references to the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, both of whom took office earlier this year.
Informed sources tell CBS News they now believe he is holed up in a rugged no-man's land in Northern Pakistan.
"Well, I think they're blowing a little bit of smoke," Scheuer said. "They have to say something now that he is back in the public eye, but if you look at the territory, it is impossible to find any single person up there, and we don't have enough people to do it, and we respect Pakistan's sovereignty. I guess they're not going to go into Pakistan."
Bin Laden makes mention of Scheuer's writings, saying in the tape, "If you would like to get to know what some of the reasons for your losing your war against us, then read the book by Michael Scheuer."
Scheuer said the referral makes the point that the former CIA analyst communicates what recent American presidents have not said about the nation's war against Islamic fundamentalism.
"The war is motivated on the enemy's side by the impact of our policies," he said. "It's not about democracy. It's not about women's rights. It's not about freedom or elections. It has everything to do with the impact of our foreign policy in the Muslim world. It's not to say that our policy is wrong, it's simply to try to understand the motivation of your enemy."
The Intel Center, an independent analysis group which has studied the tape, said that bin Laden makes no overt threat, no indication of an impending attack upon America or its citizens. Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff has also said there is no reason to push the panic button now.
But Scheuer is not convinced.
"The Intel Center is almost always right," he said. "I think there's an overwhelming threat in it. Bin laden, again, offered us a chance to convert to Islam, which is required in their religion before they attack us. So to say there's no threat in this message is just 180 degrees incorrect."
And the timing of the message, on the eve of the anniversary of the September 11 attacks, "is not a coincidence at all."
"He is gloating. They think they're winning, and I think they're probably correct at the moment."
“Common sense is still a valuable commodity and I know you and I (and most of the TMers) are filled to the brim with common sense”
I second that...
We are still in the opening moves of this war, as I fear we will see in the future.
I hope we win.
Otherwise....
Thanks for the pings nwctwx.
Interesting report, thanks Ian.
They are MSM accomplices.
“Willfully ignorant” is the phrase I use often in describing those who will not see, those who will not hear, those who will not think types.
Real Fears Of Nuclear Terror Threat
Saturday September 08, 2007
Sky News has learned that there are real fears in White House circles that al Qaeda could get hold of a nuclear bomb from Pakistan.
Former US Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, a confidante of the Administration declared: "I think there is a very real threat that if Musharraf falls or is assassinated, that a radical Islamic government will take control. Pakistan has nuclear material"Then you would have a very grave threat of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal being used for international terrorist purposes." Osama bin Laden has always said he hopes to detonate a nuclear device in Western cities.
Pakistan has enough material for 70 nuclear weapons, an unstable military regime, strong Islamic fundamentalism in military and government circles and groups like al Qaeda on its territory. That may be the perfect cocktail for the first fundamentalist finger on the nuclear trigger.
Although President Musharraf discounts the idea, his potential next PM, Benazir Bhutto, thinks this is exactly what al Qaeda wants: "I think that's what makes Pakistan so attractive to them. "Can you imagine the clout of the extremists and terrorists, how they would blackmail the entire global community if they could get hold of Pakistan's nuclear weapons?"
And the threat could come close to home. Nuclear material from Pakistan may also be siphoned off into a dirty bomb. It may not kill many people but imagine the terror and the economic consequences. Gregory Schulte, US Ambassador to the IAEA said: "The repercussions would be global. "Think of 911 when WMD were not used, and factor a dirty bomb into that. All countries would suffer."
http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-1283254,00.html?f=rss
Yes to the first part of the sentence and BALLOCKS to the second! That single erroneous statement has me spitting mad. Terrorists are real good at frightening the sheep. A sheepdog is a different matter. No Sheepdog would ever make such an assertion while his heart continues to beat. This "expert" is a spokesman for the sheep.
MULLAH KREKAR UPDATE:
http://news.google.com/news?q=%22KREKAR%22&hl=en&lr=&filter=0&um=1&sa=N&tab=wn
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http://www.norwaypost.no/cgi-bin/norwaypost/imaker?id=100013
07.09.2007 08:06
“Krekar stripped of voting rights”
SNIPPET: “Terrorist suspect Mullah Krekar had until Thursday planned to cast his vote in the Norwegian municipal election, but he has now been stripped of his voting rights.”
ARTICLE SNIPPET: “In February 2003 the Norwegian authorities decided that Mullah Krekar would lose his refuge status, his travel documents, as well as his work and residence permits in the interest of national security.”
(NRK/Norway Post)
Same here. They all seem to have developed collective “ostrich syndrome”. I sometimes think they are trying to give the masses a nationwide dose of Xanax.............just keep ‘em goin’ to Walmart and flying United.
As is often quoted here, “Nothing to see here, move on”. What is so frightening is that most really believe it. As my Dad always says, “the masses are asses”.
September 9, 2007 Germans hunt 49 in ‘Fritz the Taliban’ terror plot
Sept. 9, 2007
GERMAN police questioning “Fritz the Taliban”, a 28-year-old Munich-born terror suspect, revealed yesterday that they are hunting up to 49 Islamist plotters over a conspiracy to use truck bombs to blow up air-ports, bars and discos.
SNIP:
Yesterday Germany’s federal police revealed that the network of suspects across the globe had widened substantially, while officers were still focusing on a “hard core” of seven to 10 individuals. Two of these are believed to be under surveillance in Germany, while others are on the run in Germany and the Middle East.
Excerpted
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2414586.ece
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