Anti-U.S., anti-Israeli groups meet in Beirut(CNN connects Iraq to Al Qaeda in Feb. 2001!)

CNN ^ | 2/12/2001 | Andrea Koppel

[Diddle E. Squat]

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. officials are eyeing the January meeting of several anti-Israeli and anti-American militant groups in Beirut, U.S. sources told CNN.

A number of groups that U.S. officials consider the most dangerous were represented at the Beirut conference, including Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida organization; Hamas; Hezbollah; and the Islamic Jihad, U.S. officials said.

[Diddle E. Squat]

Thanks to freeper xzins for finding this on the web. He posted it here:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/742323/posts?page=125#125

but it really deserves its own thread.

[goldstategop]

A bunch of real sweethearts from the 14th century over there.

[Diddle E. Squat]

Forgive me if ya'll already knew about this article, but it was news to me. Seems like a great find by xzins.

[Howlin]

Oh my.....talk about a paper trail.........LOL.

[DoughtyOne]

If Israel does not exile everyone on the West Bank and Gaza, they are going to reap the whirlwind. IMO it's only a matter of time until a terrorist state obtains the bomb. Once it does, terrorists will have the bomb. And once they do, Israel will have no defense against it.

If people can bomb buses, sneak in at night and shoot up communities, they can sneak in a nuke. Isreal must expand it's buffer zone. It must expel those who wish to do it harm.

This is going to be very unpopular. So what. In the long run Israel has no choice. Well I take that back. It has a choice to watch as a nuke goes off on it's soil, or evaquate the West Bank and Gaza.

It's that cut and dried as far as I am concerned.

[DoughtyOne]

Thanks to both of you for bringing this to our attention. Iran has been biding it's time. It's time is comming.

[xzins]

It definitely puts Iraq and Al Qaeda in the same room at the same time, pre- 9/11, doesn't it?

And by no less than CNN's Andrea Koppel who must've "forgotten" about it.

[MHGinTN]

'Be right back' bump

[MHGinTN]

Just wanted to find a quote regarding suicide murderers of the Pali and Islamic persuasion:

The Palestinian Islamic mother of the 20 year old who murdered so many on the recent bus bombing in Israel spoke out in praise of suicidal murder of Jews and anyone else of a collateral nature: The Um Shadi went on to say "I am proud of my son's deed, we must fight for our faith and not for our nation."

Until this suicidal murdering methodology of the Palestinians changes, there can be no rational reason to produce a 'nation' autonomous for Palestinians. To do so would place the stamp of utility on suicide murdering and this infestation in Islam will spread world-wide through Hamas, Hezbollah, al Qaeda, Islamic Jihad, etcetera. The only way to end this maniacal allahism-fed blood lust is to NEVER reward it. If Islam can exist peacefully with other world religions, then let it be the non-fanatical Moslems that repudiate this insanity, else all of Islam must be repudiated, for the survival of civilization and the freedom to worship.

If the Allah of Islam compels worship at the point of a sword or suicide murderers, then allah is merely a demon and this religion cannot co-exist with other religions.

[Diddle E. Squat]

night owl bump.

[American in Israel]

It definitely puts Iraq and Al Qaeda in the same room at the same time, pre- 9/11, doesn't it?

very good point

[Miss Marple]

Well! How interesting! Amazing how the press keeps asking for a definite link, isn't it? I guess Andrea forgot.

[xzins]

Do you work night shift? Or are you just an insomniac like me?

[xzins]

I wonder what they thought those terrorist organizations wanted to talk about?

No doubt free tickets to EuroDisney. </sarcasm>

[xzins]

same room, same time

considering the presence of other terrorist organizations, one can only surmise that

1. Highly possible that a discussion of terrorism ensued.

2. Highly possible that coordination of various represented elements ensued.

[wgeorge2001]

"It definitely puts Iraq and Al Qaeda in the same room at the same time, pre- 9/11, doesn't it?

And by no less than CNN's Andrea Koppel who must've "forgotten" about it."


Will the appeasment journalists have one less argument to use or will they continue to simply ignore the truth.
CNN's ratings are dropping consisently because people want to hear the truth and are tired of info-babes(a Rush Limbaugh quip) and other socialists force feeding them lies and bias.

[xzins]

Those "info-babes" and "info-preps" from the major news media have left the American public woefully uninformed about the complicity of an Iraqi/Al Qaeda connection.

America should realize that connection is not just possible. It is probable and can be spoken of as having a high degree of certainty.

[tallhappy]

Great find.

Bump it.

Make it known everywhere.

Everyone says there is no evidence. That's not true, there's plenty of evidence. What they mean is there's no proof.

But this is pretty much 100% proof and I ain't talking hooch.

It's even a pre-911 meeting.

[tallhappy]

Christian Science Monitor (Boston, MA)

February 16, 2001, Friday

SECTION: USA; Pg. 1

LENGTH: 883 words

HEADLINE: A terrorist version of NATO?

BYLINE: Peter Grier Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

DATELINE: WASHINGTON

HIGHLIGHT:
As trial continues, a new picture emerges of bin Laden's vast network of alliances.

BODY:
The terror group already had an army of extremist fighters. It had an economy, too, as its leader ran everything from a
Middle East construction firm to a sesame farm in the Sudan.

Then in the 1990s, Osama bin Laden decided that Al Qaeda ("The base") needed something more: foreign allies. Federal
prosecutors allege that throughout the decade, Al Qaeda leaders worked on a three-way alliance with the Islamic Front of
Sudan and elements of the Iranian government.

This terrorist "NATO" may have never really solidified. But the mere fact that Mr. bin Laden planned it shows the breadth of
his ambition, say US officials.

In his quest to wage jihad, or holy war, against the United States, bin Laden may have constructed something that is
bigger than a guerrilla group and more complex than a multinational corporation. Call it a virtual country - the Republic of
Jihadistan.

"It has statelike aspects, but without state borders," says Richard Rosecrance, an expert on terrorism at the University of
California at Berkeley.

This does not mean that bin Laden has replaced the Soviet Union - or even Iraq - on the scale of dangers to American
national interests. Personifying extremist threats in one individual, as the media and some US officials are prone to do,
undoubtedly exaggerates that person's influence and power.

Nor is Al Qaeda's loosely organized, ideologically motivated network unprecedented in Western history. A century ago, a
dedicated transnational terrorist group - anarchists - wreaked havoc around the globe, notes Gideon Rose, deputy director
of national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

Between 1894 and 1901, anarchists assassinated the president of France, the prime minister of Spain, the empress of
Austria, the king of Italy, and William McKinley, president of the United States.

"We've all forgotten just how successful they were," says Mr. Rose. "Imagine how worked up we'd be if some group
knocked off so many heads of state today."

But bin Laden's network appears to represent the coming thing in the age of modern terrorism. The sponsorship of terror
groups by geographical states such as Syria and Libya appears to be on the decline. Their place is being taken by virtual
states such as Al Qaeda, which have little physical infrastructure to attack and less in the way of safe harbors against
which economic sanctions can be effective.

The head of the US National Security Agency has publicly complained that Al Qaeda's sophisticated use of the Internet and
encryption techniques have defied Western eavesdropping attempts. Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet told
Congress this month that bin Laden and his network are the nation's most immediate and serious transnational threat.

And officials remain worried that bin Laden's network will link with other networks to become a terrorist Warsaw Pact. A
recent CIA study of the world of 2015 concluded that while it is not the most likely future, it is possible that "the trend
towards more diverse, free-wheeling transnational terrorist networks [will lead] to the formation of an international
terrorist coalition with diverse anti-Western objectives and access to Weapons of Mass Destruction."

Bin Laden's Jihadistan has been under particular scrutiny in recent days due to the ongoing trial in New York of four of his
alleged followers on charges that they conspired to bomb the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998.

The government's first witness in the trial, a man named Jamal Ahmed Al-Fadl, who describes himself as a former Al Qaeda
paymaster, has painted a vivid and detailed picture of bin Laden's organization.

He has described the organization's former headquarters in Khartoum, Sudan, where bin Laden had the first office on the
left and office work went on like anyplace in the world - except it dealt with such things as the purchase of clandestine
passports and the purchase of uranium and elements of chemical weapons.

Silicon Valley dotcoms offer workers cappuccino and game rooms. Al Qaeda offered bonuses in the form of office deliveries
of sugar, tea, and cooking oil. "Sometimes they busy. They can't go shopping," said Mr. Al-Fadl.

The alleged bin Laden insider also described the organization's nascent foreign policy. Al Qaeda had relations with a
number of different terrorist organizations, he said, including some in Lebanon, Libya, Yemen, Syria, the Philippines, and
Chechnya.

The rise in Israeli-Palestinian violence is providing the bin Laden group an opportunity to further broaden its reach, say
experts. At a conference in Beirut this week, bin Laden representatives joined with followers of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and
other extremist groups and pledged to work to expel all non-Muslims from Jerusalem.

"It was a meeting of the minds," says David Schenker of the Washington Institute of Near East Policy. "Traditionally bin
Laden's No. 1 issue has been expelling Americans from the Gulf, but he is willing to work with [other branches of Islam] in
the short term."

(c) Copyright 2001. The Christian Science Publishing Society

[Diddle E. Squat]

Normally a night owl, but my schedule varies a good bit. But better than it was, I used to work on call 24/7 with no set sleep pattern for weeks at a time. That can take years off one's lifespan.