Posted on 07/06/2002 5:20:39 PM PDT by Pokey78
Terrorists are planning a series of spectacular attacks on American, British and Israeli targets to coincide with the anniversary of the destruction of the World Trade Centre on 11 September last year.
Intelligence agencies in the UK, southern Asia and the Middle East are detecting an increased volume of communications between suspected al-Qaeda cells as the organisation, led by the fugitive Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden, accelerates efforts to pull off a major operation in the days around the anniversary of the New York and Washington attacks.
According to sources in Pakistan, al-Qaeda activists there have been given a three-month deadline to work with associates from local hardline Islamist organisations to target Western interests in the region.
British intelligence sources told The Observer that the UK is third on the list of al-Qaeda's preferred targets - after the US and Israel, and confirmed last night that credible reports of planned al-Qaeda attacks had grown.
'The threat remains high and the background noise has been growing over recent weeks. It's a question of when, rather than if, they will attempt another spectacular,' said one Whitehall source.
Western security agencies predominantly rely on communications intercepts, which they correlate with tip-offs from informers and information from questioning arrested suspects to alert them to forthcoming attacks. Increases in the volume of communications between known al-Qaeda suspects also suggest that action may be imminent.
Abu Zubaydah, the top al-Qaeda operative arrested in March in Pakistan, has told his American interrogators that the terrorist group was planning a wide range of 'mass casualty attacks'.
Bin Laden is believed to be hiding in the rugged mountains that line the frontier between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Many of his followers remain in Pakistan.
Last week four al-Qaeda gunmen and three paramilitary policemen died in a shoot-out near Kohat, on the borders of the semi-autonomous tribal areas where an estimated 300 al-Qaeda fighters are hiding.
Investigators in Karachi, probing last month's bomb attack on the US consulate in the city, believe that al-Qaeda operatives are now linking up with local Islamic terror and crime groups to carry out their attacks.
The new warning is the second such alert issued by intelligence services in the last seven months. The CIA and MI6 issued a warning at the end of last year after interrogations of al-Qaeda suspects in Camp X-Ray in Cuba revealed that the al-Qaeda high command had regrouped after the bombing of Afghanistan and was already planning attacks across the world.
Moroccan intelligence sources told The Observer last month that they had been told by their American and British counterparts that al-Qaeda reconnaissance cells had been sent from Afghanistan after the bombing of the Tora Bora mountain HQ last December with detailed instructions to carry out attacks on Western and Jewish targets.
As a result the Moroccans were last month able to foil a 'spectacular' designed to hit British and American troops in the Strait of Gibraltar by arresting a cell of three Saudi al-Qaeda operatives. Following the destruction of their support infrastructure in Afghanistan last autumn, bin Laden's operatives have dispersed throughout the region and into the Middle East.
· Additional reporting: Leyla Tabrizi
My chosen name comes from the Frank Herbert novel "Dune" whereby the Butlerian Jihad's chief commandment as found in the Orange Catholic Bible is:
"Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind."
My battlefield is on the cultural level, which once used to be democratic. I endeavor to redemocratize the culture which has been expropriated by elitist liberals.
Waco made that easy ---and Ruby Ridge. Funny how our government is willing to take on American citizens but foreigners from the Middle East must be treated with much respect.
Message to the Senate Transmitting the International Convention on Salvage, 1989
September 11, 1991To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit herewith, for the advice and consent of the Senate to ratification, the International Convention on Salvage, 1989, done at London April 28, 1989, and signed by the United States on March 29, 1990, subject to ratification. I also transmit, for the information of the Senate, the report of the Department of State with respect to the Convention.
This Convention is designed to promote sound environmental practices by commercial salvors and to strengthen the maritime transportation industries by ensuring that salvors receive adequate compensation. This Convention also incorporates the essential provisions of the Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules of Law with Respect to Assistance and Salvage at Sea, done at Brussels September 23, 1910 (27 Stat. 1658, TS 576, 1 Bevans 780), which it will replace for States Party to both Conventions to the extent their provisions are incompatible. The 1910 Convention reflects the traditional international admiralty principles that a salvor may be remunerated for salvage services only if successful, and the salvage reward is limited to the value of the property salved.
The 1989 Salvage Convention offers increased protection for the marine environment by requiring both the vessel owner and the salvor to use due care to protect the marine environment and permits the salvor to be rewarded for preventing or minimizing damage to the environment during salvage operations.
The United States played an active role in the development and negotiation of this Convention. The affected public sectors have been fully consulted. All recommend expeditious ratification of the Convention.
I recommend that the Senate give early and favorable consideration to the 1989 Salvage Convention, and give its advice and consent to ratification.
George Bush
The White House,
September 11, 1991.
Message to the Congress Transmitting the Annual Report of the Railroad Retirement Board
September 11, 1991To the Congress of the United States:
I hereby submit to the Congress the Annual Report of the Railroad Retirement Board for Fiscal Year 1990, pursuant to the provisions of section 7(b)(6) of the Railroad Retirement Act, and section 12(l) of the Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act.
The Railroad Retirement Board (RRB) serves nearly 900,000 railroad retirees and their families and almost 280,000 railroad employees who rely on the system for retirement, unemployment, disability, and sickness insurance benefits. Beneficiaries depend on the financial integrity of the pension funds for payment of their benefits.
This report includes the RRB's 18th actuarial valuation of the railroad retirement program's assets and liabilities. The valuation concluded that, barring a sudden, unanticipated, large drop in railroad employment, the railroad retirement system will experience no cash-flow problems for at least 20 years. The long-term stability of the system, however, remains questionable, and under the current financing structure, actual levels of rail employment in the coming years will determine whether additional corrective action is necessary.
The Railroad Retirement Reform Commission, created by the Congress to give the rail sector a chance to address the financial instability of the rail pension, issued its report in September of 1990. I strongly oppose the report's recommendation to renew the diversion of Federal income taxes to the rail pension. Since 1983, approximately $1.5 billion in such taxpayers subsidies have been given to the rail pension fund. Railroad pension benefits should be financed solely by rail sector resources, and I will continue to oppose any additional general revenue funding measures for the railroad retirement system.
Other Commission recommendations such as privatization hold promise as equitable reforms to the system; rules protecting private pensions (ERISA) should also apply to the railroad's private pension system.
The Commission adopted a proposal contained in the Administration's FY 1992 budget to extend benefits to all rail sector beneficiaries, such as widows and divorced spouses. These individuals would have been eligible for benefits under Social Security but are denied equivalent benefits by the rail system. Conforming rail social security and Social Security would make the rail pension benefit structure more equitable. This Administration has a strong belief in just governance and supports such a measure that would conform benefit eligibility under the Railroad Retirement Act with the Social Security Act.
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) was concerned with the overall management of RRB programs and engaged in a thorough management review of its operations. As a result of this review, an agreement was reached between OMB and RRB that included a 5-year management plan outlining the specific improvements and resources necessary to achieve much needed reforms at the RRB. Both OMB and RRB are committed to many substantial reforms, and the RRB leadership is demonstrating a new and progressive approach to addressing inefficiencies, debt collection, and automation modernization. I commend the Board for its efforts and urge the Congress to support appropriations for these measures to enhance RRB efficiency, eliminate material weaknesses, and to protect the integrity of the trust funds. The RRB Inspector General's Office also deserves praise for its diligence in monitoring and enforcing industry compliance with the pension contribution statutes. Such efforts help to preserve the integrity of the rail pension funds, on which rail employees and retirees depend.
George Bush
The White House,
September 11, 1991.
September 11, 1990 -- President Bush calls the Gulf War an opportunity for the New World Order. In an address to Congress entitled Toward a New World Order, Mr. Bush says: "The crisis in the Persian Gulf offers a rare opportunity to move toward an historic period of cooperation. Out of these troubled times...a new world order can emerge in which the nations of the world, east and west, north and south, can prosper and live in harmony....Today the new world is struggling to be born."
Can ANYONE post an actual source for that? I thought it was pure conjecture.
Here's one.
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH(LONDON)
June 24, 2002, Monday
SECTION: Pg. 01
LENGTH: 388 words
HEADLINE: Prepare for new terror, al-Qa'eda warns US
BYLINE: By Toby Helm in Berlin and David Rennie in Washington
BODY:
AL-QA'EDA'S high command told America yesterday to "fasten its seat belt" and prepare for more terrorist attacks in one of its most defiant and confident public statements since September 11.
Speaking on a videotape broadcast by the Qatar-based al-Jazeera satellite channel, an al-Qa'eda front-line spokesman insisted that Osama bin Laden was "in good health" and would soon appear on television to prove it.
After months of doubt, Suleiman Abu Ghaith also confirmed that al-Qa'eda had been responsible for an attack on a synagogue on the Tunisian island of Djerba in April which killed 19 people including 14 German tourists. The video broadcast came as the head of the US Senate intelligence committee admitted that America believed Osama bin Laden was still alive.
Senator Bob Graham told Fox Television yesterday: "Our best intelligence estimate continues to be that he is alive and probably someplace in those tribal areas on the western side of Pakistan."
The senator added his voice to recent reports that al-Qa'eda is regrouping after the defeat of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
"What we have seen is a disturbing pattern of the reformulation of al-Qa'eda and their renewed willingness and capability to conduct terrorist attacks."
In the video, Abu Ghaith, warning that its war against western interests had only just begun, said: "America must prepare itself and fasten its seat belt. We will arrive from where they are not expecting. Yes, we will undertake attacks, but at the right time, in the place we choose and in the manner we want." New attacks against US and Jewish targets would come within "months".
About 98 per cent of al-Qa'eda's leaders, including bin Laden's deputy Ayman Zawahri and the Taliban leader Mullar Omar, were alive, unhurt and active, he said.
"So long as America persists in its unjust policy toward Muslims, we will go on hitting it everywhere . . . and we have the means to carry out our threats."
The attack on Djerba, caused when a lorry carrying gas exploded, had been carried out by an al-Qa'eda member "who couldn't bear to see his brothers in Palestine being killed while Jews walk around enjoying themselves," said Abu Ghaith.
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation has warned that July 4 festivities might be a target for terrorist activity.
When I'm constipated I use Fiber-Con©,
but when I want to be full of crap, I use Farrakhan.
That article did not say it, but another of the same day cites the Arabic web site as insinuating the date as July 4.
Ok.
NY Post, same day. I don't have time to post it.
They dropped a couple just south of town. Right into the permafrost. The object was painted a bright color so they could find it again, which they did.
That is the nature of terrorist intelligence - a lot of noise, surrounding an occasional pearl of intelligence. Most of the BS used to get filtered out, along with some of the real intel, resulting in 9/11. After all the criticism heaped on the Administration, they will not make that mistake again. Hence the crys of WOLF.
Yeah, I saw those other websites touting the supposed 10 year anniversary story. It sounds more believable to claim that September 11th was chosen by al Qaeda for that very reason.
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