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NORTH AMERICA

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Humanizing al Qaeda, Demonizing the Bush Team
July 22, 2008; Page A17
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121668330059071911.html?mod=todays_columnists
David Addington and Omar Khadr are two names that will forever be linked to the war on terror.
Mr. Addington is chief of staff to Vice President Richard Cheney and a former colleague of mine. He’s the son of a West Point man who earned a bronze star in World War II and went on to become a general. Before coming to the White House, David put in stints at the CIA, at a congressional intelligence committee, and at the Pentagon — all giving him an expertise on intelligence and national security issues only a handful of others can match.
Then there’s Mr. Khadr. He is the son of a man who helped found and finance al Qaeda, and who died in a 2003 gun battle with Pakistani troops near the Afghan border.
So close were the family ties that the Khadrs lived for a while in the bin Laden family compound in Jalalabad, Afghanistan; and when Mr. Khadr’s sister was married, bin Laden was an honored guest. Mr. Khadr himself went through weapons training at an al Qaeda training camp, and was captured in 2002 after a battle in which he is alleged to have killed a Special Forces medic. Ultimately he was brought to Guantanamo, where he awaits trial before a military commission for war crimes.
Guess who gets the sympathy in the press?
A few days ago, Mr. Khadr’s attorneys released a videotape from February 2003 of their client being questioned by visiting Canadian officials. At first he was hopeful, but he quickly became sullen and withdrawn when he realized the Canadians were not going to get him out. The tape shows the young man, then 16, crying for his mother, and complaining about treatment for the wounds he suffered while fighting alongside al Qaeda.
The response has been illuminating. The Montreal Gazette calls him “a victim,” “not a villain.” Closer to home, our headlines run along the lines of “Tape shows ‘frightened boy,’” “Teen on video: ‘Help me, help me’” or “Teenage detainee pleads for help, tells of torture on video; Rights group seeks immediate release.” About the only one willing to say anything unpleasant about Mr. Khadr is the soldier who lost an eye in the same firefight in which Mr. Khadr is alleged to have thrown the grenade that killed Army Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer.
It would be easy to denounce the treatment of David Addington and Omar Khadr as an example of moral equivalence. But moral equivalence would be a step up for David.
While the operative for al Qaeda is humanized, the counsel for the vice president is demonized. Such is the temper of the times that Rep. William Delahunt (D., Mass.) felt free to joke during recent hearings that he was sure al Qaeda was watching — and was “glad they finally have the chance to see you.”
And so it goes. Reasonable people can disagree with David, and many did. But the aim here is not reasonable debate. The aim is to close debate by shouting accusations so often that they become accepted.
Thus memos that are mostly about a commander-in-chief’s legal authority are now routinely described as “torture memos.” Thus the drumbeat for hearings on “war crimes.” And thus the Washington Post column on David’s congressional testimony, where he is described “hunched” and said to have “barked,” “growled” and “snarled” — language you would use to describe an animal.
For these purposes, David makes a convenient villain. For one thing, outside the Beltway he is relatively unknown, which feeds the aura of conspiracy; one documentary presented his photo as though it were a rare shot of the Yeti.
More to the point, David does not leak to the press, in sharp contrast to many of his adversaries. I am thinking in particular of the “former high-ranking administration lawyer” who figures so prominently (and so anonymously) in the New Yorker profile that did so much to cast David as some sort of cartoon.
In his own book, Jack Goldsmith — former head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel and perhaps David’s greatest critic — put it this way: “Our sharp disagreement over the requirements of national security law and the meaning of the imponderable phrases of the U.S. Constitution was not a fight between one who loves the Constitution and one who wants to shred it.” Mr. Goldsmith went on to say that “whether and how aggressively to check the terrorist threat, and whether and how far to push the law in so doing, are rarely obvious” — and that for all their fights, David is a man is who acted “in good faith” to serve his country.
It’s a tribute to our society that even amid a terrible war we are capable of seeing the humanity of an enemy raised and trained to hate and kill us. Some of us are still waiting for that same presumption of humanity to be extended to the good men and women doing their imperfect best to keep us safe.

INTERNATIONAL

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Militants Threaten Nigeria’s Main Oil Pipelines
http://www.newsmax.com/international/nigeria_oil_unrest/2008/07/23/115465.html
Wednesday, July 23, 2008 10:30 AM
LAGOS, Nigeria — Nigeria’s main militant group on Wednesday threatened to destroy the nation’s major oil pipelines within 30 days to counter allegations it had struck a $12 million deal with the government to protect them.
A spokesman for the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta denied claims it said had been made by the country’s petroleum company that the state-run organization was paying militants to protect pipelines. Officials of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation could not immediately be reached for comment.
“MEND will never sell its birthright for a bowl of porridge when the impoverished masses in the region continue to live in abject poverty,” the statement said.
Militant attacks on Nigeria’s oil infrastructure have slashed this west African nation’s oil output by almost a quarter in the past two years, helping push world crude prices to historic highs.
The e-mail said profits of the alleged deal were split among military and government officials. The group also said “huge payments” had been made by authorities to criminal gangs in the Niger Delta to protect oil facilities, but those groups were not part of the militant movement.
To prove “we are not a part of this deal, the Chanomi Creek pipeline and other major pipelines will be destroyed within the next 30 days,” the militant statement said. Chanomi Creek is located in the western Niger Delta.
Militants say their attacks are aimed at forcing the federal government to send more money to the six states comprising the southern Niger Delta.
Nigeria is Africa’s biggest oil producer and is routinely ranked one of the most corrupt countries in the world.
© 2008 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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U.K. Court Rejects Terror Plotters’ Appeal
http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/britain_bomb_plotters/2008/07/23/115427.html
Wednesday, July 23, 2008 9:00 AM
LONDON — A British court has rejected an appeal by five men, serving life sentences for plotting a bombing spree, to overturn their convictions.
Omar Khyam, Waheed Mahmood, Jawad Akbar, Anthony Garcia, and Salahuddin Amin were convicted in April 2007 of plotting attacks against a construction firm, utilities or London’s Ministry of Sound nightclub using fertilizer-packed explosives.
The yearlong trial exposed links between them and the men who blew themselves up on London’s transit system in July 2005.
The bomb plotters’ lawyers had criticized the trial judge’s handling of their case.
On Wednesday, three judges at London’s Court of Appeal said the criticisms were unfounded and refused to overturn the sentences.
© 2008 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Mukasey Seeks War Declaration on al Qaeda
http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/mukasey_war_declaration/2008/07/21/114847.html
Monday, July 21, 2008 3:01 PM
WASHINGTON — Congress should explicitly declare war against al Qaeda and write new rules for legal challenges by terrorism suspects following a Supreme Court ruling on the rights of Guantanamo prisoners, U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey said on Monday.
Mukasey urged Congress to pass such legislation as the first U.S. war crimes trial got under way at the U.S. Naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where prisoners in the U.S.-declared war on terrorism are held in a detention center condemned internationally for harsh treatment.
Democrats in control of Congress and civil rights groups reacted coolly to Mukasey’s proposals, saying they would avoid judicial oversight and stack the deck in favor of the administration.
The legislation is needed to conform with a landmark Supreme Court ruling last month that Guantanamo prisoners have the constitutional right known as “habeas corpus” to challenge their detention in federal court, Mukasey said in a speech to the American Enterprise Institute.
A new law should prohibit courts from ordering a detainee to be released within the United States, protect secrets in court hearings, ensure that soldiers are not taken from the battlefield to testify and prevent challenges from delaying detainee trials,
In addition, he said, “Any legislation should acknowledge again and explicitly that this nation remains engaged in an armed conflict with al Qaeda, the Taliban and associated organizations, who have already proclaimed themselves at war with us.”
“Congress should reaffirm that for the duration of the conflict the United States may detain as enemy combatants those who have engaged in hostilities or purposefully supported al Qaeda,” and related groups, he said.
A week after the September 11 attacks Congress authorized “all necessary and appropriate force” against nations and groups that planned or supported the attacks. It did not specifically mention al Qaeda, which carried out the attacks, or their Taliban allies.
Some critics have said the Bush administration was too broad in asserting a nameless “war on terrorism,” and some legal challenges have said the government failed to show a detainee’s sufficient connection to al Qaeda to justify continued imprisonment under the 2001 resolution.
Mukasey said the administration already has legal authority to battle terrorism. However, he said, “It would do all of us good to have the principle reaffirmed, not that that principle itself is in doubt.”
DETAINEE CHALLENGES
A new declaration of war specifically naming al Qaeda would give the administration more power to detain suspects, including by limiting courts’ ability to determine a suspect’s links to terrorism, said Vincent Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional
Rights.
He said Mukasey’s proposals would sidestep principles and processes established in earlier court rulings.
“This will be the third time after a very clear Supreme Court ruling on what the law is that Congress has been called upon to ... stack the deck in favor of the administration,” Warren said.
But Mukasey said the new rules were needed to establish an orderly court process for challenges and end delays in trying those already charged. He said the Supreme Court ruling on detainee challenges stopped short of saying how they should proceed.
The trial of Osama bin Laden’s former driver, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, began at Guantanamo on Monday. He faces charges of conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism and could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted by a jury of U.S. military officers.
The prison at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval base houses about 265 alleged al Qaeda and Taliban suspects, including accused plotters of the September 11 attacks.
A federal judge last week said the Hamdan trial could go ahead despite the Supreme Court ruling. He held that a 2006 law creating the military commissions allowed challenges to the process only after a trial had taken place.
Mukasey said the Supreme Court decision did not invalidate the military commission system which is trying Hamdan.
© 2008 Reuters. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters.

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‘Saudi Qaeda hit Danish embassy’
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008\07\22\story_22-7-2008_pg1_5
LAHORE: Al Qaeda commander in Afghanistan and close aide of Osama Bin Laden Mustafa Ahmad Abu Yazeed alias Sheikh Saeed said on Monday that a Saudi member of Al Qaeda carried out the suicide attack on Danish embassy in Islamabad on June 2.

In an interview with Geo News, Saeed said there was no Muslim present at the Danish embassy at the time of the attack. daily times monitor
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Three die as blasts hit three Chinese buses
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008\07\22\story_22-7-2008_pg4_4
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
BEIJING: Deliberate explosions on three Chinese buses killed at least three people and injured 14 in the southwestern city of Kunming on Monday, media said, amid a security clampdown ahead of next month’s Beijing Olympics.

The official Xinhua news agency blamed the blasts on “sabotage” and said police had started roadside checks in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province, to try to find the person or persons responsible. It did not elaborate. The attack happened less than three weeks before the Beijing Games which China has warned could be a target of terror attacks.

An explosion on one bus happened at the Panjiawan stop at 7.10 a.m. and the second blast was nearby, Xinhua said. Pictures showed a gaping hold in the side of one of the buses and glass scattered in the street. Another explosion occured near Minshan, also nearby, the semi-official China News Service said in a report on its website (www.chinanews.com.cn).

Two people were killed at the scene and one died on the way to hospital, the report said. But a Yunnan government official said by telephone from Kunming there had only been two explosions, and declined further comment. China has occasionally witnessed bus explosions staged by disgruntled farmers or laid-off workers wanting to air grievances over poverty, demolitions or corruption. The Kunming blasts also came two days after Yunnan police opened fire and killed two rubber farmers in the province’s Menglian county in a clash that also saw 41 police officers injured.

The clash was sparked when police tried to arrest five people in Menglian for allegedly attacking a local rubber company in a long-running dispute between farmers and the private firm, state media said. Chinese authorities have directed officials to redress local residents’ grievances and act on complaints to try to resolve disputes and ensure a “harmonious social atmosphere” in the Olympics period. But the country has struggled to curb unrest. In June, 30,000 residents rioted in the streets of Weng’an, in Guizhou province, after allegations spread that police had covered up the rape and murder of a local teenage girl. Reuters
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BOMBERS MAY BE EXECUTED BEFORE RAMADAN
http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/Story.asp?Article=223790&Sn=WORL&IssueID=31124
JAKARTA: Three Indonesian militants on death row for the 2002 Bali bombings could be executed before the start of the Muslim fasting month in September after exhausting all their legal options.
The three Islamic militants - Amrozi, his brother Mukhlas alias Ali Ghufron, and Imam Samudra - have been on death row since 2003, when a Bali court sentenced them to death for their roles in the nightclub bombings that killed 202 people.
The three lost their final appeal last week and have said they will not seek a presidential pardon.
“My hope is it could be done before the fasting month, but if it falls in the fasting month, we will discuss it more specifically,” the attorney general said yesterday.
“The problem is a person who wants to conduct his religious rituals. Can an execution be done while someone is conducting a religious ritual?” he asked.
Indonesia does not make public the timing and exact location of executions which, under law, are conducted by firing squad.
He said the three men had exhausted legal appeal rights and his office held documents signed by them and their families waiving their right to a presidential pardon.
A lawyer for the bombers said the men, who have repeatedly said they are ready to die as martyrs and will not seek clemency, could still decide to seek a pardon. They are being held in a jail on Nusakambangan island off Central Java.

MIDDLE EAST
Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center
http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/English/eng_n/html/ct_e001.htm
at the Israel Intelligence Heritage & Commemoration Center (IICC) July 20, 2008
Terrorism and Internet: charges have recently been filed against two Israeli Bedouins, members of the Islamic Movement. They are suspected of acting on behalf of Al-Qaeda. They formed and maintained contact with Al-Qaeda through the Internet, based on their ideological affinity with radical Islam. 1
The homepage of Al-Ikhlas, one of Al-Qaeda’s major websites, accessed by one of the suspects. Left: information on terrorist attacks in Iraq. Right: a photograph of Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama Bin Laden’s deputy. Access to the forums on the website is only allowed to registered users using a password.
1. Joint activity of the Israeli security forces in May-June 2008 led to the arrest of two Bedouins, who are suspected of joining Al-Qaeda and acting on its behalf and on behalf of global jihad elements against Israeli citizens. The two suspects are Taher Abu Skut and his nephew Omar Abu Skut, both aged 20-21, from the Bedouin town of Rahat in south Israel , members of the Islamic Movement. During interrogation, the Israel Security Agency discovered an extensive network of contacts the two had made with Al-Qaeda and global jihad elements, based on their ideological affinity with radical Islamic ideology.

Omar bin Salama Abu Skut

Taher Abu Skut
The Internet connection with Al-Qaeda
2. The charges filed at the Beersheba District Court shed light on the connection Taher Abu Skut and his nephew Omar Abu Skut held with Al-Qaeda operatives through the Internet. Following are some highlights of their online activity: 2
a. In 2002-2006, Taher Abu Skut started becoming closer to Islam and act within the Islamic Movement in the town of Rahat . In 2006, Abu Skut, who is knowledgeable about computers, started reading Islamic articles online and access Islamic websites using his home computer and from other locations. Some of the websites he accessed belonged to Al-Qaeda and global jihad elements and called for the destruction of Israel .
b. Taher Abu Skut accessed Al-Qaeda’s Al-Hisba 3and Al-Tartiq 4 (?) websites, where he registered using the nickname Abu Mus’ab and was given a secret number to identify himself on the forums. During his participation in those forums and in online conversations, he met an operative known as Izzat al-Islam, who was the director of Al-Qaeda’s world media front and the head of the online forum. In early 2007, Taher brought his nephew, Omar, to the Al-Hisba website. Later, in early 2008, Abu Omar Skut also accessed two other websites associated with Al-Qaeda: Al-Ikhlas 5and Al-Buraq. 6

The homepage of the Al-Hisba forum site, one of the major websites associated with Al-Qaeda. It includes technical information pertaining to the Internet (including information published by hackers working for Al-Qaeda), a wealth of information on Al-Qaeda’s ideology (including radical Islamic literature), news, and updates. The company hosting the website seems to be located in Singapore.

Al-Buraq, a well-known, major forum website associated with Al-Qaeda in Iraq . It contains a great deal of information on Al-Qaeda in Iraq , radical Islamic ideology, video and audio clips praising jihad (holy war). The company hosting the website seems to be located in South-East Asia ( Singapore or Malaysia ). The website is probably managed from Pakistan .
c. During his activity on the Al-Hisba and Al-Tartiq forums, Taher Abu Skut met many Al-Qaeda operatives under various nicknames. As part of their correspondence, the operatives asked him to provide them with information on Israeli sites frequented by many people in order to perpetrate suicide bombing attacks against civilians. He was also asked to provide information on the process of issuing an entry visa to Israel and to locate sites on the border between Israel and the West Bank where Al-Qaeda’s jihad warriors ( mujahedeen ) can infiltrate into Israel in order to perpetrate terrorist attacks.
d. In response to the Al-Qaeda operatives’ request, Taher Abu Skut communicated information about a club in Eilat, the central bus station in Beersheba , the border between the West Bank and Israel , the power station of Ashkelon, and IDF bases in Beersheba . In early 2008, he sent additional information on a bus station in Beersheba, night clubs in Eilat, railroads, the Azrieli Towers in Tel-Aviv, the Ben Gurion Airport, soldiers’ gathering places in the Negev desert, and areas from which it is possible to infiltrate into Israeli territory.
e. During his activity on the Al-Tartiq and Al-Hisba forums, Taher Abu Skut was asked to distribute “information files” on Islam and global jihad, articles, movies and such through the Internet. On a request by Abu Abd al-Rahman, the advertising director on Al-Qaeda’s forums, Omar Abu Skut designed images, announcements, posters, and articles pertaining to global jihad and distributed them to other websites. On a request by another operative, Taher and his nephew produced movies about the activity of global jihad and about Muslim captives. The two also distributed Islamic books and articles from the Al-Hisba website to other websites on the Internet.
f. Omar Abu Skut had two hard drives on his computer, which contained documentation of terrorist attacks perpetrated by global jihad across the world, including in Afghanistan and Iraq . The hard drives also included books on jihad warriors ( mujahedeen ), books on manufacturing explosives, as well as videotapes of Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden and his deputy Al-Zawahiri, in which they speak about jihad against the Jews and the Christians.
3. In the charges filed against them on July 9, 2008 , by Israel ‘s Southern District Prosecution, they were accused of such serious offenses as membership in a terrorist organization, assisting the enemy in a time of war, and communicating information to the enemy with an intent to compromise state security.
Al-Qaeda’s online handling of terrorists worldwide
4. Al-Qaeda and global jihad organizations make massive use of the Internet both for indoctrination and for operative activities, including recruitment and handling of terrorist operatives across the world. In the present incident, the Internet once again was used to recruit Israeli citizens to the ranks of global jihad based on their affinity with the ideology of Al-Qaeda and radical Islam, distributed online.
5. The phenomenon of Al-Qaeda’s recruiting and handling terrorists from across the globe through the Internet was extensively covered in a report published by the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on May 8, 2008 . Titled “Violent Islamist Extremism, The Internet, and the Homegrown Terrorist Threat”, the report discusses the extensive use made of the Internet by Al-Qaeda, global jihad elements, and groups associated with radical Islam, and voices concerns over the exposure of American citizens to the websites of Al-Qaeda (the full report is available on the Senate website). 7 Those issues should also be of concern to other countries (including Israel ) facing “homegrown terrorists” handled by Al-Qaeda. Those terrorists go through a process of losing their own identity and embracing the jihadist ideology of Al-Qaeda and radical Islam, distributed through the Internet and in other media. 8
Example materials from Al-Qaeda’s websites

Q&A on matters of religious law on the Al-Hisba website: here, a web surfer asks on the forum about the status of an Islamic operative killed while attempting to infiltrate “the lands of jihad in Afghanistan, Palestine, Kashmir, Chechnya, the Philippines, and other places” (updated on July 14, 2008).

The Al-Hisba website: a transcript of Bin Laden’s tape, titled “The Road to Thwarting the Plots”, released on December 29, 2007.

The Al-Buraq website: an example of a message written by one forum member in response to a claim of responsibility for a terrorist attack against the US forces in Iraq (updated on July 14, 2008): “Allah, bring victory to the jihad warriors [walking] your path; Allah, let them [reach] the necks [of the enemies]; may Allah bless you, lions of the two rivers [Tigris and Euphrates]; may Allah bless the army of the jihad warriors”. The website contains several claims of responsibility for terrorist attacks against the American forces operating in Iraq .
A link on the Al-Buraq website to praise songs for the “Islamic Army” in Iraq . The song collection is called: “Rejoice, Nation of Islam”. The songs contain incitement to violence.
1 According to a report by the Israel Security Agency and the charges filed against the two at the Beersheba District Court.
2 Further details on the affair can be found in a Yedioth Ahronoth article by Ronen Bergman: “The Secret Forum of Terrorism: an Inside Look” ( July 11, 2008 , in Hebrew).
3 Al-Hisba is the enforcement of the Islamic commandment of “doing good and preventing wrongdoing”. There formerly existed the function of policeman/supervisor called muhtasib, whose role was to monitor public and Islamic morality in markets.
4 We are not familiar with a website by this name.
5 Ikhlas— devotion, loyalty, particularly in the religious context (that is, religious devotion or loyalty).
6 Al-Buraq— according to Islamic tradition, one night Prophet Muhammad rode from Mecca to Jerusalem on a beast of heavenly properties, a winged horse of sorts, called Al-Buraq. When Muhammad arrived in Jerusalem , he prayed on Temple Mount and then ascended to heaven, where he was given by Allah the precept of performing the five daily prayers of Islam. Muhammad is then said to have returned from Jerusalem to Mecca . The Wailing Wall is called Al-Buraq by Muslims.
7 http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/_files/IslamistReport.pdf .
8 See our Information Bulletin: “Terrorism and Internet: a US Senate report 1 analyzes the extensive use made by Al-Qaeda of the Internet in its war for hearts and minds. The report voices concerns over the exposure of American citizens to the websites of Al-Qaeda and other radical Islamic organizations” ( July 14, 2008 ).
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Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center
http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/English/eng_n/html/ct_e002.htm
at the Israel Intelligence Heritage & Commemoration Center (IICC) July 21, 2008
The Israel security forces recently detained six Israeli and East Jerusalem Arabs, some of them students. They planned to set up an Al-Qaeda network and planned to carry out terrorist attacks in Israel, including downing the helicopter of the American president during his visit to Jerusalem. 1
1. During June and July 2008 six young Arab men, two of them Israeli citizens and four residents of East Jerusalem , were detained by the Israeli security forces. The six, some of them students at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem , were members of a closed religious network in Jerusalem which planned to set up an Al-Qaeda network and carry out terrorist attacks against Israel . On July 18 they were indicted in the Jerusalem district magistrate’s court.
2. The six are:
i) Ibrahim Nashef , 22, from Taibeh , studying physics and computers at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem .
ii) Muhammad Nijm , 24, from Nazareth , studying chemistry at the Hebrew University .
iii) Yussuf Sumarin , 21, from Beit Hanina in East Jerusalem .
iv) Anis Shweiki , 21, from Jabel Mukaber in East Jerusalem .
v) Kamal Abu Qweidar , 22, from Jerusalem ‘s Old City .
vi) Ahmad Shweiki , 22, from the Shuafat refugee camp in East Jerusalem .
3. Interrogation of the six revealed that they belonged to a radical Muslim group which customarily met in Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem . They planned to establish an Al-Qaeda network in Israel to implement the organization’s ideology. In February 2008 the group joined Al-Qaeda. Its leader was Yussuf Soumarin , a resident of Jerusalem and a former political prisoner who had recently been released from an Israeli jail.
4. The network’s activities consisted of enlisting operatives and planning terrorist attacks in Israel (which were not carried out). Muhammad Nijm , a Hebrew University student, lived in a student dormitory and surveilled a helicopter landing pad near the university’s stadium. He used his cellular phone to photograph helicopters landing and taking off. He also asked an Al-Qaeda-affiliated Internet site about the possibility of downing President Bush’s helicopter . In January 2008, after having collected the information, he decided to try to down the helicopter of an important public figure landing on the pad (at that time, President Bush was visiting Israel ).
5. The six absorbed their radical Islamic ideology from various Internet sites, some of them affiliated with Al-Qaeda . Instructions for manufacturing explosives and explosive devices downloaded from the Internet were found in some of their computers. It is yet another example of the intensive use Al-Qaeda and other jihad groups make of the Internet for indoctrination and operations, including the enlisting and activating of terrorist operatives around the world. 2
6. The group’s exposure is another in a series of recent discoveries of Israeli Arab groups which support radical Islamic ideology and plan to carry out terrorist attacks in Israel . In that context, it should be noted that two residents of the Bedouin town of Rahat , members of the Islamic Movement, were recently detained. They had used the Internet to contact global jihad and Al-Qaeda networks, and even collected information for them about possible Israeli targets. 3
1 According to an Israel Security Agency report
2 For further information see our July 14, 2008 Bulletin entitled “Terrorism and Internet: a US Senate report analyzes the extensive use made by Al-Qaeda of the Internet in its war for hearts and minds” .
3 For further information see our June 22, 3008 Bulletin entitled “Terrorism and Internet” .
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Palestinian Attacks in Jerusalem Near Obama Hotel
http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/israel_attack/2008/07/22/115082.html
Tuesday, July 22, 2008 9:00 AM
JERUSALEM — A Palestinian man from east Jerusalem rammed a construction vehicle into three cars and a city bus in downtown Jerusalem near the luxury hotel where presidential candidate Barack Obama is supposed to stay Tuesday night as he kicks off a visit to Israel. The attacker injured four people before an Israeli civilian shot and killed him, police and witnesses said.
The attack was a chilling copycat of a similar incident earlier this month when another Palestinian from east Jerusalem plowed his huge front loader into a string of vehicles and pedestrians on another busy Jerusalem street about 3 miles away. Three people were killed in that attack and dozens were wounded before an off-duty soldier shot and killed the assailant.
Police said in the latest attack, a civilian driving nearby saw what was happening, jumped out of the car and shot the driver, bringing traffic to a halt. A border policeman who rushed to the scene also shot the driver. Police sealed off possible escape routes into predominantly Arab east Jerusalem and were searching for two suspects who fled the scene, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.
The attacker struck a busy part of downtown Jerusalem, several hundred yards from the luxury King David hotel where Obama is scheduled to stay Tuesday night. The incident took place about seven hours before Obama was to arrive in Israel.
The driver of the bus said he was chased by the assailant as he wielded the construction vehicle’s shovel.
“I was driving on the main road when the (vehicle) hit me in the rear on the right hand side,” the driver, who was not identified, told Channel 10 TV. “After I passed him, he turned around, made a U-turn and rammed the windows twice with the shovel. The third time he aimed for my head, he came up to my window and I swerved to the right, otherwise I would have gone to meet my maker.”
Like the perpetrator of the previous attack, the driver in Tuesday’s incident was a Palestinian from east Jerusalem with an Israeli residence permit and he drove the same type of front loader vehicle, police said. Israeli police called it a “terror attack” but no group immediately claimed responsibility.
Israeli rescue services said they had evacuated one person whose leg was partially severed and Israeli media said he had been in an overturned car.
Witness Moshe Shimshi said the Palestinian driver, who was wearing a large, white skullcap commonly worn by religious Muslims, slammed into the side of the bus, then sped away and went for a car.
“He didn’t yell anything, he just kept ramming into cars,” Shimshi said.
The driver then headed for cars waiting at a red light “and rammed into them with all his might,” he added.
Channel 10 TV said a mother and her baby were also injured.
“This was another attempt to murder innocent people in a senseless act of terrorism,” said government spokesman Mark Regev. “All people who believe in peace and reconciliation must unequivocally condemn this attack. Unfortunately, it is clear that we as a society will have to remain vigilant against terrorism.”
Minutes after the attack, the driver, wearing shorts and black shoes, was sprawled backward in the construction vehicle’s cabin, his legs dangling lifelessly.
Firetrucks rushed to the scene, where the smell of gas was wafting in the air. Sirens wailed in the background, and a police helicopter hovered overhead.
A four-door sedan next to the vehicle had been rammed from the rear and had crashed into a utility vehicle. A compact car stood nearby, its driver’s side smashed, and its hood and engine destroyed. Another four-door sedan was overturned on the sidewalk.
Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski was in the area when he heard a commotion and rushed over to the scene.
The attacker “is from east Jerusalem,” he said. “They keep on inventing ways to attack us,” he said. “Every work tool has become a weapon.”
The three latest attacks in Jerusalem have been carried out by Palestinians from the city’s eastern sector.
Israel captured east Jerusalem in 1967, along with the West Bank, and annexed it. The 208,000 Palestinians who live there make up less than a third of the city’s population. They are not Israeli citizens but carry Israeli ID cards that allow them freedom of movement throughout Israel, unlike West Bank Palestinians. Many east Jerusalem Palestinians work in construction in the Jewish parts of the city.
© 2008 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Senior Al-Qaida Leader Gives Interview
http://www.newsmax.com/international/pakistan_al_qaida/2008/07/22/115036.html
Tuesday, July 22, 2008 5:00 AM
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A senior al-Qaida leader has urged Pakistanis to help Afghans fight U.S.-led coalition forces and condemned President Pervez Musharraf for arresting Arab and Afghan fighters and handing them over to Washington.
In a rare on-camera interview given to Pakistan’s Geo TV and broadcast late Monday, Mustafa Abu al-Yazeed reiterated al-Qaida’s claim of responsibility for the June 2 suicide car bombing on the Danish embassy in Islamabad that killed six people.
Al-Yazeed, an al-Qaida commander in Afghanistan, praised Pakistani tribesmen for helping Afghans fight _ a reference to the Taliban-led insurgency in the country _ but lashed out at the Pakistan government.
“Pervez Musharraf and his government has committed crimes for which there are no examples in the entire world,” he said.
Al-Yazeed said that secret organizations _ an apparent reference to Pakistani spy agencies _ had “arrested Arab mujahedeen and handed them over to infidel Americans.”
“This is such an ugly spot on Pakistan’s history which cannot be forgotten until doomsday,” he said.
Geo TV said the interview was conducted a few days ago in the eastern Afghan province of Khost. The footage shows al-Yazeed wearing a white turban, black-rimmed glasses and brown jacket. It is filmed against a canvas backdrop with a rifle lying to his right side. He spoke Arabic during the interview, which was dubbed into Urdu for local audiences.
Al-Yazeed has previously made video statements distributed through al-Qaida’s media arm, al-Sahab, but such an interview of an al-Qaida leader with a television network is rare.

Musharraf made Pakistan a key ally of the United States in its war on terror and rounded up hundreds of al-Qaida militants after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The former army strongman has been sidelined since elections earlier this year, but Pakistan remains a Washington ally although it is facing growing criticism for failing to halt the infiltration of militants from its tribal regions into Afghanistan. Concern is also growing that al-Qaida leaders enjoy sanctuary in the tribal regions, including in Waziristan, which lies opposite Khost.
Al-Yazeed said the Islamabad embassy attack was launched in response to the publication of cartoons of Islam’s prophet. The cartoons were originally published in Danish newspapers.
He said the man who carried out the attack was from the “holy land” of Mecca who had come to fight jihad in Afghanistan or Kashmir.
“But when infidels insulted the prophet, peace be upon him, he could not tolerate to live further with humiliation and said death is dearer to me in the way of God,” he said.
Al-Yazeed first claimed al-Qaida’s responsibility for the attack in an Internet posting soon after the bombing.
In the interview, he called for more Pakistanis to fight in Afghanistan _ where U.S. and NATO forces back the elected government that succeeded the hard-line Taliban regime ousted in 2001.
“Thanks be to God” that Muslims from Pakistan’s tribal regions are continuing to help Afghans, he said.
“In fact it is obligatory for them to render this help and is a responsibility that is imposed by religion. It is not only obligatory for residents of the tribal regions but all of Pakistan,” he said.
Associated Press writer Sadaqat Jan contributed to this report.
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SPOTLIGHT
(This is a two-part article concerning the threat to a dam in North America and a response to readers concerning whether the threat was contamination of the water or to the dam itself)
Another Dam Threat

July 16, 2008
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/another_dam_threat
By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart
At the stroke of midnight July 8, the Denver Water Board closed the road over Dillon Dam in Summit County, Colorado, citing security concerns. The board’s decision, which was implemented without advance notice to local governments and citizens, has not been well-received. It has sparked protests by enraged residents and has even prompted officials from Summit County, three affected towns nearby and the local fire and rescue department to file suit in state district court in a bid to force Denver Water to reopen the road.
The road is one of only a few traversing Summit County, so residents are understandably upset at the inconvenience caused by the closure. Local fire and rescue departments also say closing the road negatively affects emergency response times. This not the first time the road has been closed, however. The road was shut down for a week in January after a report of suspicious activity in the area — activity investigated by authorities and found to be nothing more than two men from Denver filming a music video. The Water Board has spent several million dollars to improve security for the mile-long dam road, and in May it even hired a private security company to conduct 24-hour armed patrols of the dam.
Denver Water has said the decision to close the road was not made in response to a specific threat, and we tend to believe this. With the heat they’ve received over the issue, they surely would have cited evidence of a specific threat to assuage public anger if there had been such information.
But the ruckus raised over the closure of the Dillon Dam road provides a prime opportunity to re-examine the ability of jihadist militants to operate inside the United States, and to look at the types of targets militants might be most likely to select for an attack.
Assessing the Militant Threat
To assess a threat against a potential target like the Dillon Dam, several important tactical realities must be considered. The first is that as long as the ideology of jihadism exists and at least some jihadist militants embrace the philosophy of attacking the “far enemy” — aka the United States — there will be some threat of attacks against targets on U.S. soil. Indeed, there has not been a time since 1990 when some group of jihadists somewhere was not plotting such an attack.
A second tactical reality is that the U.S. government and the American people simply cannot protect every potential target. There are simply far too many of them. While insights gained from al Qaeda’s targeting criteria can help authorities protect select high-value targets, there are just too many potential targets to protect them all. The federal government might instruct state and local authorities to protect every dam, bridge, power plant and mass-transit system in their respective jurisdictions, but the reality on the ground is that there are not nearly enough resources to protect all of these, much less to protect the far more plentiful array of potential soft targets.
Another tactical reality is that simple attacks against soft targets are very easy to conduct and very difficult to detect in advance and thwart. As an attack plan becomes larger and more complex, however, it requires more individuals, more materials and more infrastructure. This means that the bigger the attack plan is, the more difficult it is to conduct and the greater the chances it will be discovered and thwarted.
That said, just because attacks are possible — and indeed likely — and because there are a large number of vulnerable targets does not mean that all the vulnerable targets will be attacked. The capabilities and targeting criteria of militants also must be considered.
Capability
Let’s begin with the capability question first. When considering the capability of militants to strike in the United States, one must recognize that with regard to militant jihadists there are generally three different levels of actors to consider. First, there is the core al Qaeda organization; this is the small vanguard of jihadists led by Osama bin Laden attempting to lead a global rising of the Muslim masses. Second, there are al Qaeda’s regional franchises (such as al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb), which are local or regional jihadist groups that have aligned themselves with al Qaeda, hoping to capitalize on the group’s popular brand name. And third, there are the local, self-motivated grassroots jihadists who think globally and act locally.
All three of these actors have different target selection criteria and different levels of capability. There is currently no al Qaeda franchise in the United States or even in the Western Hemisphere. This means that the main threat of an attack against a target in the United States will come from either the core al Qaeda group, a grassroots organization or a combination of the two, so we will focus our attention on those two actors.
Grassroots actors lack sophisticated terrorist tradecraft in crucial areas like preoperational planning and bomb making. Recent cases such as the July 7, 2005, attacks in London, the failed July 21, 2005, attacks in London, and the June 2007 attacks in London and Glasgow demonstrate the limited abilities of grassroots militants. They can sometimes kill people, but they do not have the ability to conduct large, strategic strikes.
Because of this, grassroots militants will often attempt to reach out for assistance if they desire to undertake a major attack. This is exactly what we saw in the early 1990s in New York. Grassroots operatives there were able to pull off a simple attack like the assassination of Rabbi Meir Kahane, but they needed assistance for their bigger, more complex plans. In the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the local cell received assistance in the form of Abdel Basit (aka Ramzi Yousef), who helped them organize, plan their attack and construct a large truck-borne explosive device. In the second 1993 case, the local cell turned to an FBI informant for bomb-making expertise and were apprehended before they could strike.
The 2006 plot to bomb a series of airliners in the United Kingdom was likewise a case where a local grassroots cell received assistance from an al Qaeda operational commander but was thwarted before it could carry out its attack — mainly due to the complexity of the plan and the number of people involved.
Thus, without assistance the odds of a successful attack by a grassroots group against a target like a dam are low. Perhaps the greatest threat posed by a grassroots group is that one of its operatives could gain employment as an engineer at a dam — therefore gaining the opportunity to sabotage the equipment controlling the dam from the inside and turning the dam into a weapon against itself. This is similar to the threat posed by insiders at chemical plants. There have also been concerns previously that a savvy cyber-jihadist could assume control of the dam’s equipment via gaps in the information security of the entity running the dam.
As for the al Qaeda core, while the group may theoretically have personnel with the expertise to undertake such an attack, they have been extremely limited in their operational ability since the U.S. response to 9/11. We came under widespread criticism last July when we wrote that the al Qaeda core was a spent force that did not pose a strategic threat to the U.S. homeland, but our assessment holds one year on. Indeed, the vast majority of attacks attributed to the al Qaeda brand name since September 2001 have been conducted by regional franchises like Jemaah Islamiyah, al Qaeda in Iraq or al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, not core al Qaeda. In our assessment, the al Qaeda core might have some ability to attack, but it no longer has the ability to conduct a devastating strategic attack such as 9/11.
The Dam as a Target
It is possible to destroy a dam. Indeed, the British Royal Air Force destroyed German dams during World War II, and aircraft from the United States and its U.N. allies destroyed a North Korean hydroelectric dam during the Korean War. In general, however, dams are very large structures designed and built to withstand powerful forces such as floods and earthquakes. Because of this, it would be very difficult to destroy one with an improvised explosive device, unless the attacker could strike at a strategic location that would cause a leak in the structure (as the British did in their attacks on German dams) or at a location that would allow the water to overtop the dam and erode it — in either case, using the power of the water behind the dam to cause the structure to fail catastrophically.
Even with massive resources, however, it is not easy to destroy a large dam made of earth and rock. For proof, one need only to look at the massive efforts of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in China to unblock the Qingjiang River after it was dammed up by debris following the powerful May 12 earthquake. The PLA has used heavy machinery and massive amounts of explosives in their efforts. One July 2 blast on the Shibangou section of the river reportedly involved 6 tons of strategically placed explosives alone. It is very unlikely that militants would have the ability to carefully place that quantity of explosives on a dam in the United States without being detected.
Obtaining explosives in Western countries is also becoming more difficult in the post-9/11 era. Even the 2006 airliner plot involved small amounts of improvised explosives rather than an attack with a huge device, and the 9/11 attacks involved no explosives at all. The grassroots militants involved in the London and Glasgow attacks in the summer of 2007 also had problems obtaining explosives, and they instead chose to try using improvised (and ill-designed) fuel-air explosive devices in those incidents.
If a militant group planned properly and somehow amassed a sufficient quantity of explosives, it would be possible for it to destroy a dam. But that does not mean a group like al Qaeda would target a dam. Even if the group had the ability to conduct such an attack, it probably would choose to use such a large quantity of explosives to attack a far more symbolic target than a dam in rural Colorado.
While al Qaeda’s Taliban cousins have conducted several unsuccessful attacks against dams in southern Afghanistan, the situation on the ground in Afghanistan is far different than that in the United States. The Taliban in Afghanistan are a large, well-supplied insurgent force that regularly strikes at infrastructure such as roads, bridges and even schools.
Conversely, there is no large jihadist element in the United States. There are only scattered grassroots operatives and perhaps a few transnational al Qaeda-types available to conduct attacks. To our mind, that means that these operatives will want to maximize their efforts and undertake the most meaningful and symbolic attacks possible. Rather than choosing targets based on military utility (like the Taliban in Afghanistan), al Qaeda generally chooses targets in the United States for their potential symbolic value so as to elicit the greatest political or psychological impact, which they then hope will translate into economic impact.
This is not intended as an insult to the people of Colorado, but the Dillon Dam simply does not strike us as the kind of target that will carry the type of symbolic or economic impact al Qaeda would seek in an U.S. attack. Symbolic targets need to be readily recognizable not only by the people who live close to them, but also by people looking at a photo in a Pakistani newspaper. The World Trade Center, the Pentagon, the U.S. Capitol, the United Nations, or even the Library Tower in Los Angeles, the Sears Tower in Chicago, the strip in Las Vegas or the Space Needle in Seattle are highly symbolic targets that would meet these requirements. The Dillon Dam does not. In fact, we are Americans and had not even heard of this specific dam until the reports of the controversy over the road closure emerged.
Does this mean that jihadists will never strike in Denver? Not at all. Lone wolf or grassroots operatives could very well strike there. As seen in past cases in New Jersey, Florida and California, such people normally seek to strike in familiar territory close to where they live, and there might well be jihadists residing in Denver. But again, such a strike by grassroots operatives or lone wolves would likely be a smaller attack aimed at a soft target. We remain skeptical of the idea of al Qaeda dispatching a team from their headquarters in Pakistan to travel to the United States to destroy the Dillon Dam. The Democratic National Convention in Denver, maybe — but not the Dillon Dam.
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Part 2 continues below

Water Over the Dam

July 23, 2008
By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart
The response to last week’s Terrorism Intelligence Report
on the Denver Water Board’s decision to close the road running over the Dillon Dam took us a bit by surprise. We were not necessarily caught off guard by the volume of responses, but rather by a common theme that emerged in the responses we received. A substantial percentage of the readers who wrote in did so to ask if we believed the decision to close the road could have been made due to a threat to contaminate the drinking water in the reservoir, rather than a threat to destroy the dam itself. In fact, a few readers even accused us of having tunnel vision for not addressing the contamination threat in our analysis.
We consider the readers who write to us to be a representative cross-section of our total audience. If this is indeed true, it indicates that there are a lot of people out there who are curious to know whether the Dillon Dam was indeed closed due to the threat of contamination. It also reveals that there is perhaps an even greater number of people who are concerned about the broader threat of the intentional contamination of drinking water.
Because of this, we’ve decided to do something a little unusual this week and return to the topic of last week’s Terrorism Intelligence Report in order to address these two issues. We will briefly discuss the Dillon Dam situation to assess whether contamination could have been the threat that resulted in the road closure, and then use that discussion as a springboard to the larger issue of drinking water contamination.
Dillon Dam Contamination Threat
In order to understand the contamination threat to the water contained by the Dillon Dam (the Dillon Reservoir), we must first understand the layout of the dam, the road that runs over the dam, the reservoir itself, and the area surrounding it. First, the road that runs over the dam is separated from the water by several yards. A recreational trail that is several feet lower than the road runs between the road and the reservoir. Second, the road over the dam is patrolled 24/7 by armed guards and monitored by closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras.

(click map to enlarge)

The Dillon Reservoir itself is very large. It has a surface area of 3,233 acres, is surrounded by 26.8 miles of shoreline and contains nearly 83 billion gallons of water. It is not only used as a source of drinking water for the city of Denver, but also serves as a major recreational area for camping, boating and fishing. The towns of Dillon and Frisco are both located on the edge of the reservoir, and both have marinas. There are also a number of campgrounds and picnic areas surrounding the lake, and there are many places where the roads surrounding the reservoir run in close proximity to the water.
Because of these factors, we did not see the threat of contamination to the reservoir to be a realistic one. Contaminating 83 billion gallons of water to a meaningful level of toxicity would take a very large amount of agent. To take the contamination level of the water in the reservoir to just 10 parts per million would require 830,000 gallons of contaminant. That would require a fleet of over 55 tanker trucks carrying 15,000 gallons each. Manufacturing, transporting and distributing that quantity of agent would require a tremendous amount of effort.
Secondly, even if one were able to manufacture a substantial quantity of toxic agent and transport it to the reservoir, from an operational standpoint, the road over the dam is simply not an ideal location from which to dump it into the reservoir. Draining a large amount of liquid from a tanker truck takes time, and any large vehicle that stopped on the road over the dam would be quickly noticed by the dam security force. Furthermore, the placement of the bike path between the road and the water would make it very difficult to ensure that whatever was dumped from the road would make it into the reservoir unless a long hose were used. Tactically, such an attempt would have a much higher chance of success if it were conducted in a more discreet place with less security and better access to the water’s edge. Backing a tanker truck down a boat ramp and dumping the contents of the truck directly into the water would likely be more effective.
All in all, because the dam is not an optimal place to release a contaminant, and because the more suitable areas for doing were not closed to public access, it was fairly easy for us to deduce that the dam was closed due to the perceived threat of a bombing attack and not contamination. The statements published by the Denver Water Board also clearly indicate that the board made the decision to close the road over the dam due to the threat to the structure of the dam, and not a threat to the water behind it.
Even though the Denver Water Board did not make its decision based on the contamination threat, let’s now take this opportunity to explore the topic of drinking water contamination.
Water Contamination
In general, there are several different types of substances that can be used to contaminate drinking water: pathogens, toxic metals, toxic organic compounds and radioactive material. Many of these elements are already present in water. Some occur naturally, like the pathogens E. coli, giardia and cryptosporidium, while others, like dioxin and Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), result from human activity. Still others, like mercury and arsenic, find their way into water from both natural and human sources. Indeed, there are many places in the world where drinking water has been heavily contaminated by these toxins. Even in wilderness areas where the water appears to be crystal clear and pristine, people can still become sick from naturally occurring microorganisms like giardia.
Because of the natural and man-made contamination in water, treatment plants have evolved over time, developing methods to either filter or kill potential hazardous elements. Most water treatment plants use a series of different processes to remove contaminants. Some of the processes are designed to remove the solids, while others utilize substances such as sand and activated carbon to filter it. Still other processes employ ozone, chlorine and chloramine to disinfect water. In some locations, treatment plants will even use technologies such as ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis to remove impurities.
For the most part, water treatment plants do a good job of removing contaminants. Occasionally, however, a water treatment plant will experience a failure or be overtaken by a flood, which can result in contaminated water being delivered to homes. In 1993, for example, a water plant failure in Milwaukee led to the cryptosporidium infection of more than 400,000 people. More than 100 of those infected died as a result. Frequently, after a flood has compromised a water treatment plant, the community will be advised to boil drinking water until tests ensure that it is free of pathogens and other contaminants.
Such water testing is not done only in emergency situations. Under Environmental Protection Agency guidelines (which are not just guidelines, but legally enforceable standards), drinking water must be regularly tested for the presence of various contaminants, including microorganisms, organic and inorganic toxins and radionuclides.
Now, let’s look at intentional water contamination. Even if there were no water treatment plants that could detect or remove contamination, most water supply systems are enormous, and contaminating them with enough material to make the water toxic after the agent is diluted by all the water in the system would be very difficult. For example, there are 83 billion gallons of water in Dillon Reservoir. Denver Water, the company that operates the Dillon Reservoir, provides water to more than 1.1 million people and can process up to 715 million gallons of water a day at its three water treatment plants.
This large quantity of water means that even if one could manufacture or otherwise obtain a large quantity of some sort of a pathogen or toxic compound, say, 3,000 gallons (the amount contained in a small tanker truck), the millions of gallons of water that flow daily through the major water mains in an urban area would still likely result in significant dilution, unless the contaminant could be injected into the system at a point close to the end of the line.
Water systems handle about 168 gallons for each person served, which accounts for the hundreds of millions of gallons treated and transported daily. For example, a small concentration of something like sodium cyanide would have a harmful effect on people exposed to it over the long term. But in order to achieve an acute poisoning effect on a victim — the lethal dose for cyanide ingested by mouth to humans is between 50 milligrams and 200 milligrams — the concentrations would have to be much higher, and high concentrations are difficult to achieve in a system that involves hundreds of millions of gallons of water. In fact, it would take hundreds of thousands of tons of cyanide to contaminate the hundreds of millions of gallons of water that flow daily through the Denver Water system to the point where one glass of drinking water would contain enough cyanide to kill a person. This is not to mention that even the most incompetent of management at the worst water t reatment center in the world would find it impossible to miss toxicity levels of such magnitude.
Because of this dilution effect, toxins such as cyanide and ricin, which could conceivably be used to contaminate water, are generally more effective when used for targeted assassinations than they are in mass terror attacks. Even though a small amount of such substances is in theory enough to kill a large number of people, its distribution and dilution within a water system is difficult to predict, and efficiently dispersing such a substance in uniform, lethal doses would prove a daunting task. Furthermore, any person attempting to obtain a huge quantity of something like a cyanide compound from a commercial source would be carefully scrutinized in the post-9/11 environment.
Existent waterborne pathogens could be injected into the system post-processing (and some pathogens are resistant to neutralizers like chlorine or chloramine in treated water), but the pressure in water lines makes such an attack difficult. Once water leaves the treatment facility, it is pressurized by pumping stations so that it will run through the thousands of miles of distribution pipelines and up into high-rise buildings. Injecting a contaminant into these pressurized water lines could prove difficult without the proper equipment to overcome that pressure. There are also pressure gauges and alarms on the pipelines, and any attempt to access them to inject a contaminant could trigger an alert. Using an existent pathogen, however, once again raises the issue of obtaining enough of the organisms to effectively contaminate the water system.
The quantity problem could be overcome if some sort of super-pathogen were developed that could reproduce rapidly in water, bypass filtration, withstand disinfection and somehow pass water quality tests undetected. If such a bug were developed, a small quantity of the organism could conceivably be sufficient to contaminate an entire reservoir or water system. However, the development of such a vector would be very difficult and occupy a considerable amount of time and resources. This is because no such bug exists at present. Realistically, it would require the resources of a state, and not a lone wolf actor or a militant group, to design. Even then, the person engineering the organism would still have the additional challenge of assuring that it was sufficiently virulent to acutely infect its victims. Virulence is a huge issue in bioterrorism. It is something that groups who have carried out biological attacks in the past, like Aum Shinrikyo and the Bhagwan Shri Rajneesh c ult, have struggled with.
Granted, terrorist planners like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed have contemplated such attacks, among other chemical and biological weapons plots, but we have not seen concrete steps taken to implement such plans. This is likely due to the difficulty of conducting such an attack. Such schemes sound good when you are throwing ideas around, but they are very difficult to implement.
Realistic Vulnerabilities
In general, we do not believe that drinking water systems are the type of targets a militant organization such as al Qaeda or Hezbollah would choose to strike, as they do not have the inherent symbolism these groups generally look for when selecting targets. Such an attack would also not generate the same type of “shock and awe” effect that a suicide bombing or other more traditional attack would. However, a strike against the drinking water system of a highly recognizable city such as New York, Washington or Los Angeles might be seen as meeting this criterion. Other entities or actors, such as a delusional lone wolf or apocalyptic cult, might see the drinking water system in a particular city, like Denver, as a more attractive target.
That said, there are still some vulnerabilities in the water supply system that would not require a super pathogen and are within the reach of many militant actors, should they choose to attack. Perhaps the largest vulnerability in any system is the water treatment plant itself. As we saw previously in the Milwaukee example, a failure at a treatment plant can result in a very large contamination incident. Such a failure could be induced by sabotage at the plant, though such sabotage might be quickly noticed if it were not conducted in a subtle manner, and warnings would be sounded. Because of this, perhaps the greatest threat to a treatment plant is that posed by insiders, such as engineers who understand the system and know how to disable or bypass the safeguards in that system. Another threat to the plant could come in the form of a clever and knowledgeable hacker who could assume control of the plant’s fu nctions and subtly shut down critical systems. Such attacks would require far less resources than a program to genetically engineer a superbug.
Another factor to consider is the psychological impact of even an unsuccessful attack if it were conducted in an obvious manner. The perpetrators could even conduct such an obvious attack knowing that they were not going to induce mass casualties, and that the water treatment system was going to thwart their plans, but proceed anyway in an effort to sow panic and create a huge disruption.
This is where psychology comes in. If people hear that there is an incident at a water treatment plant due to a malfunction or flood and are asked to boil their water until further notice, they will do so without too much hysteria. However, if five apparent militants are seen dumping buckets into a reservoir — even if the contents of those buckets is green Kool-Aid — and people are asked to take the same course of action, the response is likely to be quite different. Even if tests failed to turn up evidence of a toxic substance, or enough of a toxic substance to make a measurable difference, the hysteria created by the specter of terrorism could very well have a tremendous psychological impact. Mass panic is likely to erupt.
Like many other potential targets, the drinking water system is vulnerable to attack. In fact, it could be easily attacked — though such an undertaking would most likely be unsuccessful at creating mass casualties. Like the 2001 anthrax attacks, however, such an event could trigger mass panic that would cause far more disruption and economic impact than the immediate effects of the plot itself.
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Commentary
McCain vs. Muslim Radicals—A McCain spokesman tells the truth; Muslims demand apologies.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=4CF35AA6-16FB-4115-8693-B5432C2CBC98
| 7-23-08 | Robert Spencer
Muslim spokesmen in the U.S. are outraged over remarks made last Friday by Bud Day, a key supporter of John McCain. Day, a much-decorated Air Force Colonel and Medal of Honor recipient who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam with McCain, said during a conference call organized by the Florida Republican Party that “the Muslims have said either we kneel, or they’re going to kill us.” Day added: “I don’t intend to kneel, and I don’t advocate to anybody that we kneel, and John doesn’t advocate to anybody that we kneel.”
The reaction was swift. Saif Ishoof, president of the Center for Voter Advocacy, said that Day’s remarks were “perpetuating a form of Islamophobia.” Khaled Saffuri, the Executive Director of the Islamic Institute (which he co-founded with Grover Norquist), was also deeply offended. “‘This is as close to racist as it gets,” he declared. “These are cheap street tactics. Even if this is called a mistake or a slip of the tongue, it shows a bigger problem with racism. McCain and the Republican party should denounce this.” (Keith Olbermann also termed Day’s words “racism and religious hatred,” although neither he nor Saffuri explained what race Islam is.)
Corey Saylor, national legislative director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), also called on McCain to distance himself from Day, stating that “CAIR would like to see Senator McCain come out and make a clear statement repudiating these remarks. We don’t believe they’re helpful at all in either putting out the campaign’s message or winning the hearts and minds in the Muslim world that America needs to be winning.”
However, a repudiation from McCain was not immediately forthcoming. McCain campaign spokesman Michael Goldfarb said only: “The threat we face is from radical Islamic extremism.” However, a spokeswoman for the Republican Party, according to the Miami Herald, “said later that Day acknowledged he misspoke and ‘made an unfortunate mistake’ because he meant to say ‘terrorists’ and not ‘Muslims.’ The Herald itself took for granted that Day had said something wrong, calling his remarks a “gaffe on Muslims.”
Unnoticed, however, in the controversy over Day’s remarks was the fact that what he said was essentially accurate. While it is certainly true that not all Muslims are trying to “make us kneel,” there can be no legitimate question whatsoever that there are indeed Muslims who are engaged in such an effort. The Muslim Brotherhood in the United States is, according to a Brotherhood operative, engaged in a “grand jihad” aimed at “eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”
What’s more, there is considerable reason to suspect that some of the Muslim leaders who have been most indignant over Day’s words are involved in this “grand jihad.” Investigative journalist Kenneth Timmerman wrote in 2004 of Khaled Saffuri’s considerable influence in Washington, and then noted that “some of the very people Saffuri introduced to Bush and Rove are in federal prison on terrorism-related charges. Others have been expelled from the country. Still other former colleagues and donors have become subjects of a massive federal probe into U.S. funding of terrorist organizations that is code-named Operation Greenquest….Saffuri’s ties to radical Islamists and apologists for terror are neither superficial nor coincidental.” And CAIR, of course, was in 2007 named an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation Hamas terror funding case, and has had several of its officials arrested and convicted on terrorism-related charges.
Why was none of this been mentioned in mainstream media coverage of this story? It isn’t really surprising that it wasn’t, given the tendencies and perspectives of the mainstream media – indeed, it would have been more surprising if they had mentioned it. But Bud Day’s remarks should have been judged for their accuracy: are there, or are there not, Muslims trying to make us kneel? No one would have objected in 1944 if a military spokesman had said that “the Germans are trying to make us kneel,” and someone who took offense to such a statement on the grounds that not all Germans were pro-Nazi would only have been ridiculed. However, CAIR has shown in the past that the accuracy of statements to which it takes umbrage does nothing to mitigate their hurt feelings. And now the primacy of hurt feelings has been enshrined into law in Canada: as we have seen in the Mark Steyn trials in Canada, truth and accuracy is no defense against charges of “hate speech.” In a sane world, instead of taking offense, Islamic spokesmen in the U.S. would have been assuring reporters that they were working energetically within Muslim communities against those who wished to make non-Muslims kneel. But sanity is at a premium in the public debate on Islamic jihad today.