[osint] Bush Urged: 'NEVER apologize to Muslims
Good advice...doubt that the State Dept would let the President follow it though. Bruce http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=44627 Tuesday, June 7, 2005 WAR ON TERROR Bush urged: 'Never apologize' to Muslims Administration officials reportedly inspired by classic John Wayne movie - Posted: June 7, 2005 1:00 a.m. Eastern - copy; 2000 WorldNetDaily.com--© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com Some members of the Bush administration have taken a cue from a classic John Wayne Western and are advising their boss to take the film's advice Never apologize when dealing with Muslims, reports geopolitical analysts Jack Wheeler. In a column on his intelligence website, To the Point, Wheeler explains Wayne's She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, made in 1948, though lesser known than many of the star's films, includes what's been called one of the top 100 movie quotes of all time. Wayne's character, Capt. Nathan Brittles, who is facing an Indian attack, advises a junior officer: Never apologize, son. It's a sign of weakness. It's that attitude that some employees of the Pentagon, State Department and White House are urging President Bush to take when dealing with charges of Quran desecration and other allegations from radical Muslims. They've even sent a DVD copy of the film to the commander in chief. Their numbers are small, explains Wheeler, but they are seriously sick and tired of squishing-out to the hadjis (the nickname our soldiers give the Muslim terrorists in Iraq and their sympathizers pronounced 'hah-geez,' referring to the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca called the hadj). These sympathizers now include not just rioters on Pakistani streets but Newsweek magazine and Amnesty International. 'The more we kiss the hadjis' tushes, the more they denounce us and the less they respect us,' one of them told me. 'Just take a look at the DOD's procedures for the handling and inspecting of detainee Korans . You won't believe how impossibly respectful and careful they are. What good does this do us? All we get is lies, lawsuits and riots in return.' Wheeler says the goal of the John Wayne aficionados is to eliminate any We're sorry message in State Department cables and communiqués, National Security Council analyses, and Pentagon press briefings and inserting in their place, however subtly worded in diplo-speak, the message: 'If you don't like it, stuff it.' In his column, Wheeler quotes from a message the anti-apology staffers would like to see in a future Bush speech: I want to make it very clear that neither this administration nor the American military nor the American people owe an apology whatsoever to the religion of Islam and its believers. The American people have every right to take enormous pride in the respect which our military treats believers in Islam, and in the fact that the American military is not just the most powerful but the most humanitarian fighting force in the history of humankind. It is the Islamic terrorists and their followers who owe us an apology for making war on us, and owe an apology to their fellow believers in Islam for making war on them. Writes Wheeler: So cross your fingers he takes the movie and the message to heart. The day the president of the United States announces that Muslims owe an apology to us and not the other way around will be the day we truly begin to win this war. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Give underprivileged students the materials they need to learn. Bring education to life by funding a specific classroom project. http://us.click.yahoo.com/FHLuJD/_WnJAA/cUmLAA/TySplB/TM ~- -- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For
[osint] Spiegel: Praying to Allah in Mexico
DER SPIEGEL 22/2005 - May 28, 2005 URL: http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,358223,00.html Praying to Allah in Mexico Islam Is Gaining a Foothold in Chiapas By Jens Glüsing Long a bastion of Catholicism, southern Mexico is quickly turning into a battleground for soul-savers. Islam, too, is gaining a foothold and the indigenous Mayans are converting by the hundreds. The Mexican government is worried about a culture clash in their own backyard. Subcomandante Marcos of Chiapas entered into an alliance with a Muslim movement in the mid-1990s. AFP Subcomandante Marcos of Chiapas entered into an alliance with a Muslim movement in the mid-1990s. Anastasio Gomez, a Tzotzil Mayan from Mexico, fondly remembers his pilgrimage to Mecca. He circled around the Kaaba, the highest sanctuary of Muslims, seven times. At Mount Arafat he prayed to Allah and then he, together with 15 other Indians, sacrificed a sheep before boarding the flight back to their Mexican home. In Islam, race plays no role, the young man says joyously. His enthusiasm is understandable. After all, in his home state of Chiapas, Mexico's poorest, the indigenous people are viewed as second class humans, and whites and Mestizos treat the Indian majority as if they weren't there. In the southern Mexican provincial metropolis San Cristóbal de las Casas, the descendants of the Maya even have to move onto the street if a white person approaches them on the sidewalk. Gomez, 23, converted to Islam eight years ago; ever since then, he has called himself Ibrahim. On his first pilgrimage seven years ago, the Indian was still something of an anomaly. Today, however, Muslim women in headscarves have become a common sight on the streets of San Cristobal. Conquerors from Spain About 300 Tzozil-Indians have converted to Islam in recent years and it's a development that is beginning to worry the Mexican government. Indeed, the government even suspects the new converts of subversive activity and has already set the secret service onto the track of the Mayan Muslims. Mexican President Vincente Fox has even gone so far as to say he fears the influence of the radical fundamentalists of al-Qaida. But the Indians have no interest in political extremism. Rather, they belong to the Sunni, Murabitun sect that was founded by the Scotsman Ian Dallas and is seen as an offshoot of a Moroccan religious order. The Murabitun followers represent a sort of primal Islam: Earning interest profits through money lending is a no-no and they preach a literal interpretation of the Koran. The see themselves as restorers of Islam, says the anthropologist Gaspar Morquecho, author of a study of the Muslims of Chiapas. Their defiance of capitalism is similar in many respects to the critique of globalization espoused by many left-wingers. More and more Mayans are finding their way to Mecca. DPA More and more Mayans are finding their way to Mecca. While the Mayan Muslims in Chiapas have been receiving extra attention of late, the Tzotzil conversion has been underway for some time. In the mid 1990s, a group of Spanish Muslims embarked to Latin America to spread the word; their leader was Aureliano Perez, who is now worshipped by the Maya-Muslims as Emir Nafia. He offered the Zapatista rebels fighting under Subcomandante Marcos, whom Perez supported, an ideological-religious alliance. Marcos was hesitant to enter the odd pact, but the Muslim missionaries were unperturbed: They discovered that the Tzotzil Indians made up the majority of the Zapatista rebels and were quite open to the teachings of the prophet Mohammed. The battle for the souls of Chiapas is nothing new. In the 16th century, the Spanish conquistadors used brute force to convert the Indians to Catholicism. Half a millennium later, evangelical preachers from the US have turned Latin America into a religious battleground in their efforts to lure Catholics away from the Church. In the town of San Juan Chamula alone -- whose church is seen as something of a spiritual center by the Tzotzil Indians and attracts thousands of tourists a year -- there are 11 different congregations seeking to save the souls of the Indians. The loss of cultural roots The Catholics, however, are still, for the most part, in control. They belong to the mafia-esque former state party PRI run the town hall and the lucrative weekly market. In face of the advance of the evangelists, however, they fear that their influence may be waning and they have chased out more than 30,000 protestant Indians out of San Juan Chamula in the last three decades and hundreds have been killed or assaulted. Most of the refugees settled down in the slums on the outskirts of San Cristobal. Cut off from their cultural and religious roots, the Indians are easy prey for all manner of soul-savers. In Islam, the Indians rediscover their original values, claims Esteban Lopez, the Spanish secretary general of the Muslim community. The Christians destroyed their
[osint] Terror trial defendant sentenced for fraud
Probation? The justice system can't handle terrorists. Bruce Terror trial defendant sentenced for fraud Sameeh Taha Hammoudeh and his wife get probation. The terrorism trial starts Monday. By JENNIFER LIBERTO, Times Staff Writer Published June 4, 2005 _ TAMPA - On the eve of a massive terrorism trial, one of the accused got a bit of good news. Sameeh Taha Hammoudeh, 44, and his wife Nadia Ibrahim Hammoudeh, 41, were sentenced Friday to probation with no jail time on federal tax, immigration and mortgage fraud charges. They also agreed to be deported back to Ramallah, Palestine, after Sameeh Hammoudeh's terrorism trial finishes. If he is convicted in the terrorism case and sentenced to federal prison, the rest of family would still be deported. In accordance with a plea agreement worked out in February, each of the Hammoudehs had already pleaded guilty to three of 14 counts of fraud, originally levied last August in a 48-page indictment filed in federal court. The Hammoudehs were convicted of conspiring to defraud the United States, making false statements to a federal agency and filing a false federal income tax return. The U.S. Attorney's Office dropped the rest of the charges. The fraud charges carried a maximum penalty of five years in prison and as much as $250,000 in fines. Yet prosecutors had recommended that the Hammoudehs receive lenient penalties. U.S. District Court Judge James Moody agreed and sentenced the Hammoudehs to five years of probation for each charge, all to be served at the same time. Moody also waived all additional court fines, except a $300 special assesment fine for each Hammoudeh. Nadia Hammoudeh's attorney Stephen M. Crawford said he was pleased with Moody's ruling and called Moody courageous. If my clients' names were Smith or James, we wouldn't be here, Crawford said. A spokesman for the federal prosecutor's office declined to comment. A former Arabic instructor and doctoral student, Sameeh Hammoudeh will remain in jail through the duration of his terrorism trial, which starts Monday with opening arguments. Hammoudeh, Sami Al-Arian, Hatem Fariz and Ghassan Zayed Ballut are accused in a 53-count indictment of conspiracy, racketeering and giving material aid to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The organization is considered a terrorist group by the U.S. government and is blamed for more than 100 deaths in the Middle East. While Nadia and Sameeh Hammoudeh didn't look at each other during the hearing, Sameeh Hammoudeh spent much of hearing glancing back at his oldest daughter, Weem Hammoudeh, 18, who sat in the audience. Once Hammoudeh's fate is known on the remaining terrorism charges, the entire family, including six children, will go back to Palestine. Some of their children are U.S. citizens, but they are too young to stay on their own. The Hammoudehs were accused of concealing their employment at the Islamic Academy of Florida in Tampa and filing inaccurate tax returns. They owed the Internal Revenue Service about $8,000, and were ordered to pay the government. According to records, Sameeh Hammoudeh, was born and educated in Jordan, then worked at the Arab Studies Society in Jerusalem before coming to the United States in 1992. He entered the country on a British passport, and was encouraged by Al-Arian to seek admission to the University of South Florida. After his wife and family joined him in Tampa, Hammoudeh pursued a master's degree in political science, according to a USF report. Hammoudeh earned a master's degree, then pursued one in religious studies. He became a teaching assistant in 1995. Most recently, he was working on a doctorate in applied anthropology. --Times researcher Cathy Wos contributed to this report. [Last modified June 4, 2005, 06:14:28]http://www.sptimes.com/2005/06/04/Hillsborough/Terror_trial_defenda n.shtml All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. FAIR USE NOTICE: All original content and/or articles and graphics in this message are copyrighted, unless specifically noted otherwise. All rights to these copyrighted items are reserved. Articles and graphics have been placed within for educational and discussion purposes only, in compliance with Fair Use criteria established in Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976. The principle of Fair Use was established as law by Section 107 of The Copyright Act of 1976. Fair Use legally eliminates the need to obtain permission or pay royalties for the use of previously copyrighted materials if the purposes of display include criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Section 107 establishes four criteria for determining whether the use of a work in any particular case qualifies as a fair use. A work used does not necessarily have to satisfy all four criteria to qualify as an instance of fair use. Rather, fair use is determined by the overall extent to which the cited work
[osint] Former Investigator to 'Tell All' about Jewish Centre Bombing
Former Investigator to 'Tell All' about Jewish Centre Bombing Marcela Valente http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/interna.asp?idnews=28967 BUENOS AIRES, Jun 6 (IPS) - A former investigator of the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community centre in the Argentine capital, in which 85 people were killed and hundreds were injured, said he would reveal everything he knows about the terrorist attack and the alleged cover-up. Criminal lawyer Claudio Lifschitz, a former federal police intelligence agent, was named chief investigator to federal Judge Juan José Galeano in 1995 in the investigation of the attack on the Argentine Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA). No one has yet been convicted in connection with the bombing. Lifschitz worked with Galeano until 1997, when he resigned. In 2000 he accused the judge of taking part in a cover-up by the government of Carlos Menem (1989-1999) designed to steer the case into a dead-end alley. Galeano has since been removed from the case. The investigation, now in the hands of prosecuting Judge Rodolfo Canicoba Corral, points in the direction of members of the pro-Iranian Lebanese militia Hezbollah, which also has support from Syria, and diplomats from Iran, who are facing arrest warrants issued in connection with the case nearly a decade ago. From the very start, the investigators believed the attack was carried out with local logistical support, which may have come from Argentine security bodies. The probe focused in that direction over the past decade, until it turned into a complete fiasco, fraught with irregularities and outright crimes committed by people involved in the investigation. According to Lifschitz, the State Intelligence Secretariat (SIDE) was able to infiltrate Iranian sleeper cells in Argentina months before the attack. SIDE thus found out about plans to bomb the AMIA building, and decided to mount a controlled operation in which it even provided logistical support for the attack, with the idea of aborting at the last moment, Lifschitz told IPS. But things got out of hand, he added. Lifschitz said he got that information from a high-level official in the Menem administration, whose identity and full account of events he plans to reveal in court. Lawyer Pablo Jacoby, who represents the families of victims of the AMIA blast linked in the group Active Memory, told IPS that he believes Lifschitz's version could be true, and noted that so far, all of the information provided by the former investigator has proven to be accurate. It's true that he was a police intelligence agent, but that doesn't discredit him, said Jacoby. On the contrary: he doesn't deny it, and we know he qualified for the position as Galeano's chief investigator because he knew about police intelligence matters. Lifschitz's testimony was a key factor in the trial of a group of former Buenos Aires province police officers and a mechanic, Carlos Telleldín, who was accused of fitting out the vehicle used as a car bomb to blow up the AMIA building. But in 2004, the court ordered the release of the suspects, and an investigation of Galeano and other officials, on charges of taking part in a cover-up. The case against those tried by Galeano was thrown out because of the large number of irregularities, the most serious of which was the payment of 400,000 dollars to Telleldín's family in exchange for his testimony accusing the former police officers of receiving the car-bomb vehicle from him. During the trial, SIDE agents admitted to providing the money for bribing Telleldín to testify against the police officers. Active Memory was the only organisation of victims' families that backed the court verdict that freed Telleldín and the police - not because the group believed they were innocent, but because it rejected the cover-up mounted by Galeano, Menem administration officials and leaders of Argentina's Jewish community (the largest in Latin America). Lifschitz had testified that Galeano began to pursue the police involvement angle after a meeting with then interior minister Carlos Corach. After that meeting, anything that contradicted Telleldín's testimony was ignored or removed from the file, said the former investigator. For example, Galeano disregarded strong leads, like the so-called Syrian connection, he said. In addition, a textile factory owner, Jacinto Kanoore Edul, of Syrian descent, was arrested in 1994. His phone number had appeared in Telleldín's address book, and he was suspected of helping to prepare the car bomb. But Edul was released for lack of merit after a phone call to Galeano's office from Munir Menem, the brother of then president Menem - who is also of Syrian origin - asking about Kanoore Edul. A year later, Lifschitz found the name and telephone number of another suspect in the date book confiscated from Kanoore Edul. The suspect was Moshe Rabbani, cultural attaché in the Iranian Embassy, for whom an
[osint] Anti-proliferation focus to anti-terror exercises
Anti-proliferation focus to anti-terror exercises Singapore June 5, 2005 - 1:02AM http://www.theage.com.au/news/World/Antiproliferation-focus-to-antiterror-ex ercises/2005/06/05/1117825111343.html# Singapore will host maritime exercises this year aimed at stopping shipments of weapons of mass destruction, the city-state's defence minister said today. The announcement by Defence Minister Teo Chee Hean came shortly after US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld told an Asia-Pacific security conference that impoverished North Korea would sell anything,' including its nuclear technology. A number of countries will come together to work through some of the practices needed'' to prevent weapons proliferation, Teo Chee Hean said on the sidelines of the Singapore conference. He said Japan would participate in the manoeuvres, to be held in August, but did not say what other countries would join. The exercises are part of the US-sponsored Proliferation Security Initiative to block shipments of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, as well as the missiles that could be used to carry them and the materials and equipment needed to make them. Over 60 countries are signatories to the initiative. Earlier today, Mr Rumsfeld said communist North Korea poses a worldwide security threat because of its record of selling missile technology. One has to assume that they'll sell anything, and that they would be willing to sell nuclear technologies,'' Rumsfeld said. Singapore is one of three countries that straddle the Malacca Strait, through which ships pass to get to the Middle East and Europe. Teo also told reporters he ``wouldn't rule out'' joint Malacca Strait patrols with Malaysia and Indonesia - the other littoral countries along the piracy-wracked waterway - to prevent a terror strike. He said detained members of the South-East Asia terror group Jemaah Islamiah told authorities that the al-Qaeda linked body had ``cased'' ships transiting north of Singapore several years ago. Yesterday, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said terrorists had been scouting maritime targets. Observers say the 50,000 commercial vessels that ply the waterway yearly are vulnerable to a seaborne attack from al-Qaeda linked extremists. - AP . All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. FAIR USE NOTICE: All original content and/or articles and graphics in this message are copyrighted, unless specifically noted otherwise. All rights to these copyrighted items are reserved. Articles and graphics have been placed within for educational and discussion purposes only, in compliance with Fair Use criteria established in Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976. The principle of Fair Use was established as law by Section 107 of The Copyright Act of 1976. Fair Use legally eliminates the need to obtain permission or pay royalties for the use of previously copyrighted materials if the purposes of display include criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Section 107 establishes four criteria for determining whether the use of a work in any particular case qualifies as a fair use. A work used does not necessarily have to satisfy all four criteria to qualify as an instance of fair use. Rather, fair use is determined by the overall extent to which the cited work does or does not substantially satisfy the criteria in their totality. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml THIS DOCUMENT MAY CONTAIN COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL. COPYING AND DISSEMINATION IS PROHIBITED WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE COPYRIGHT OWNERS. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- DonorsChoose. A simple way to provide underprivileged children resources often lacking in public schools. Fund a student project in NYC/NC today! http://us.click.yahoo.com/EHLuJD/.WnJAA/cUmLAA/TySplB/TM ~- -- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human
[osint] Bin Laden 'gave me right to kill him'
http://english.people.com.cn/200506/07/eng20050607_10.html Bin Laden 'gave me right to kill him' A former personal bodyguard to Osama Bin Laden has revealed how the al-Qaida leader survived at least three assassination attempts during his time in Afghanistan http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/data/afghanistan.html and rejected several requests to return to his native Saudi http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/data/sa.html Arabia - including one delivered in person by his mother. Abu Jindal, 35, a Yemen http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/data/yemen.html i who claims to have worked for Bin Laden from 1995 to 2000, said he was given right to kill the terrorist chief if he seemed about to be taken by his enemies. I was the only member of his bodyguard who was given this authority, he said when interviewed in Yemen by al-Quds al-Arabi, the London-based Arabic newspaper. I took care to keep the two bullets in good condition and cleaned them every night... If enemy forces surrounded Sheikh Osama and there was no possibility that he would escape, I was to kill him before they could catch him alive. Abu Jindal said there were at least three assassination attempts during his time with Bin Laden in Afghanistan. The first was in 1998 by a young Uzbek, allegedly sent by the Saudis and offered a reward of 2 million Saudi riyals (US$540,000) and Saudi nationality. He was only 18 and had been deceived. He was crying in a very pathetic manner and said, 'I made a mistake.' Finally, Sheikh Osama said to release him. Following another failed assassination attempt in Jalalabad, Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban leader, convinced Bin Laden to move to the comparative safety of Kandahar in the south. Abu Jindal said Bin Laden and his family were guarded by 14-16 bodyguards who travelled with them at all times. The Saudis tried many times to coax Bin Laden back to Saudi Arabia. At one time the Saudi Government sent his mother and his half-brother by a special Saudi plane that landed at Kandahar airport, said Abu Jindal. On another occasion, Prince Turki al-Faisal, now Saudi ambassador in London, arrived in a large aircraft intending to return with Bin Laden and his retinue. The ex-bodyguard, whose real name is Nasir Ahmad Nasir al-Bahri, served a short prison sentence after returning home. Source: China Daily [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Take a look at donorschoose.org, an excellent charitable web site for anyone who cares about public education! http://us.click.yahoo.com/_OLuKD/8WnJAA/cUmLAA/TySplB/TM ~- -- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[osint] Islam on march south of border
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/printer-friendly.asp?ARTICLE_ID=44636 Tuesday, June 7, 2005 _ _ size=1 width=100% noshade color=gray align=center Islam on march south of border Mexico agrees to monitor foreign groups as Muslim recruitment rate skyrockets _ Posted: June 7, 2005 1:00 a.m. Eastern By Joseph Farah _ C 2005 WorldNetDaily.com WASHINGTON - Islam is on the move in Mexico and throughout Latin America, making dramatic gains in converting the native population, increasing immigration, establishing businesses and charities and attracting attention from U.S. government officials who have asked their neighbors to the south to keep an eye on foreign Muslim groups. The monitoring of foreign groups is intended to avoid problems in Mexico that have an impact in the United States, said the head of the Attorney General Office's special terrorism investigation unit, Gen. Jorge Serrano. The ones who ... are being watched by migration (authorities) are foreigners, Serrano said, without revealing the number of people being monitored or their countries of origin. Serrano said no Muslim terrorists have been found living in Mexico, though the office is investigating alleged terrorist activities being carried out by Mexicans. The recruitment of new followers is especially active in southern Mexico and among the indigenous Mayans who are converting by the hundreds, according to a report in Der Spiegel. The Mexican government, the report says, is concerned about a culture clash in its own back yard. About 300 Tzozil-Indians have converted to Islam in recent years and it's a development that is beginning to worry the Mexican government, said the Der Spiegel report. The government even suspects the new converts of subversive activity and has already set the secret service onto the track of the Mayan Muslims. Mexican President Vincente Fox has even gone so far as to say he fears the influence of the radical fundamentalists of al-Qaida. Indeed, with Islamic charities under increasing international pressure and scrutiny to cut ties with terrorists, al-Qaida and other allied organizations are expanding operations throughout Latin America, establishing both legitimate and criminal enterprises to fund future operations. According to U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela Charles Shapiro, almost every extremist terror group is now represented in Latin America. One tool of the Islamists in Latin America is the small business loan. Both newcomers to the movement and veterans of past operations are given loans to establish small businesses. These modest ventures involve food and clothing stores, transportation companies and other legitimate businesses stretching from minor real estate investments to funding of small airlines. In return these businesses repay the loans with cash accrued from their trading revenues. The money is collected by roving collectors who change from time to time to avoid being traced. According to Islam, adding interest on loans is regarded as usury and is strictly forbidden. Instead the business owner is asked to add a donation based on the initial principal. This can range from a few to thousands of dollars in each case. Some businesses, identified as having been established by terror groups in the infamous Muslim triangle around the border region between Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil, often are plain newspaper stands, corner stores or family-run tailor shops. In the so-called Muslim triangle, where the borders of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay meet, a growing number of Arab-owned businesses are being forced to identify with the Palestinian cause. In the business town of Punte Arnes, the home of many Palestinians in touch with Hamas and Islamic Jihad, stores carry names of Palestinian communities and are decorated with the colors of the Palestinian flag. Bus companies owned by Islamic militants are also painting vehicles with the colors of Palestine, giving the vehicles Arabic names, which leave no doubt as to their ownership. It's all an indication of the growing power and spread of Islamist ideology in Latin America. Pentagon officials have confirmed human smuggling rings in Latin America are attempting to sneak al-Qaida operatives into the U.S. In a Defense Department briefing in February 2004 about National Guardsman Ryan Anderson, suspected of trying to give al-Qaida information about U.S. capabilities and weaponry, reporters were also told to expect Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to provide details on two other subjects: Guantanamo Bay prisoners freed only to rejoin al-Qaida and Taliban cells in Afghanistan and al-Qaida's Latin America connection. No further announcements were ever forthcoming from the Pentagon, prompting some sources to wonder whether the administration was conflicted over this news - given President Bush's political problems with his illegal immigration across a porous Mexican border. Before the
[osint] Fighting Blind in Iraq
Fighting Blind in Iraq http://query.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=tnt http://query.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=tnttntget=2005/06/07/opinion/07p osen.htmltntemail1 tntget=2005/06/07/opinion/07posen.htmltntemail1 By BARRY R. POSEN Published: June 7, 2005 Cambridge, Mass. INSURGENCIES and counterinsurgencies are, above all, intelligence wars - for both sides. Insurgents are invariably at a disadvantage in terms of troops and firepower. They survive only if they have superior information, which they derive from broad popular support. This support - whether voluntary or coerced - allows them to hit, run and hide; to kill and survive to kill again. Their effort collapses when their opponents possess superior information. Thus in Iraq, the American and Iraqi counterinsurgents face two key tasks: they must collect intelligence on the insurgents, and they must prevent the insurgents from collecting intelligence on their own troops. Though there have been a few successes, the weight of evidence suggests that the Americans and Iraqis are failing on both counts. The insurgents have very good information. Many reports suggest that they have operatives within the Iraqi security organizations and bureaucracies. They also have a vast network of observers who simply watch what the security forces do everyday and report what they see to insurgent gunmen. Assassinations of Iraqi government officials, including senior security officials, and ambushes of security forces reveal a formidable intelligence apparatus. Car bombs seem to be regularly directed at American convoys; the insurgents must know their routes and their schedules. Most American and joint military operations have proved indecisive and costly, as scores of insurgents somehow slip away - often after seeding their hideaways with improvised explosive devices. Sabotage of oil pipelines and electricity plants appears to be carefully aimed at chokepoints - suggesting a knowledge not only of how the energy system was put together but also of just where it is now experiencing problems. In terms of collecting intelligence about the insurgents, things are no better. Since the Iraqi election, American officials have treated the news media to stories about how much more information Iraqis are providing. This may be true, but it is not nearly enough. In late March, just before the recent flurry of bombings in and around Baghdad, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told reporters that his metrics and indicators were improving. It is clear then, that the recent bombing campaign, which has killed more than 700 people, was a surprise. Many of the suicide bombers seem to be foreigners, particularly Saudis. Saudi Arabia is ostensibly a regional ally of the United States, a partner in the global war on terrorism. Yet the flow of suicide bombers across the border has not been stopped. This is an intelligence failure. Finally, we must ask how it is that the group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi - sometimes referred to as Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia - which is ostensibly a small group of foreigners, manages to sustain its operations throughout central Iraq. Local residents must be providing these foreign terrorists with food, shelter and information about American and Iraqi troop movements. The main reason that the intelligence campaign is going badly is that the insurgency is more deeply entrenched in Iraqi society than American and Iraqi officials have acknowledged. Perhaps tens of thousands of supporters of the Baath Party, including many security officers from the old regime, live amid their 5 million Sunni Arab kinsmen. These people resent their loss of status and power, and this anger, combined with blood ties, provides plenty of supporters for the insurgents. Newly awakened religious feelings have been a double-edged sword - while faith has provided emotional succor to some Iraqi Sunnis, it has also led to increased support to religious fanatics like Mr. Zarqawi. American and Iraqi security officials know full well that they need to solve these intelligence problems. In principle there are three ways to do so - but all three present grave difficulties in Iraq. First, one can try to place informers within the resistance, men who can eavesdrop on the terrorists' communications and pass word to the government. Unfortunately, because many Sunnis live in traditional extended families, or served together under Saddam Hussein, they know whom they can and cannot trust and they can police one another very well. In addition, by now they probably know from hard experience how to foil or evade electronic listening devices. It is unlikely that the intelligence campaign can be won through a series of small successes. Another approach is to saturate the insurgents' stronghold areas with troops and police officers - mainly to observe every possible insurgent move and protect the citizens who support the government. The problem is that this requires a lot of manpower,
[osint] Authorities Stage Terror Drill in Boston
http://www.securityinfowatch.com/article/article.jsp?id=4329 http://www.securityinfowatch.com/article/article.jsp?id=4329siteSection=38 4 siteSection=384 SecurityInfoWatch.com http://www.securityinfowatch.com : Printable Article Information, Assessment and Community Updated: June 6th, 2005 02:41 PM PDT Authorities Stage Terror Drill in Boston Drill simulated hijacking; similar to December 2001 shoe-bomb incident Boston's Logan Airport was the scene for an anti-hijacking/anti-terrorism exercise. AP Photo/Michael Dwyer Massachusetts State Police take a captain and co-pilot into precautionary custody as part of a hijacking drill at Logan International Airport on Saturday, June 4, 2005. Boston's Logan Airport was the scene for an anti-hijacking/anti-terrorism exercise. AP Photo/Michael Dwyer The rest of the flight crew is also taken into custody as part of the hijacking drill, which examined what the the proper response for a transportation security breach would be. Boston's Logan Airport was the scene for an anti-hijacking/anti-terrorism exercise. AP Photo/Michael Dwyer A dummy used to simulate an executed hostage is thrown from the plane as part of Saturday, June 4, 2005's hijacking/terror drill at Logan International Airport. Boston's Logan Airport was the scene for an anti-hijacking/anti-terrorism exercise. AP Photo/Elise Amendola DRILL Carlo Boccia, right, director of Boston's Office of Homeland Security, speaks during a news conference at Logan International Airport in Boston, announcing the Operation Atlas security exercise. Michael Kunzelman Associated Press BOSTON (AP) - Authorities staged an elaborate anti-terrorism drill Saturday at Logan International Airport, responding to a simulated hijacking reminiscent of the December 2001 plot to detonate a shoe bomb aboard a trans-Atlantic flight. Operating on the premise that gun-toting terrorists were trying to hijack a United Airlines plane carrying 169 passengers from Paris to Chicago, two F-15 Eagle fighter jets intercepted the airliner over the Atlantic Ocean and forced it to land at Logan. On the ground, FBI and State Police tactical teams stormed the plane, freed the volunteer hostages and arrested two terrorists after negotiators failed to yield a peaceful end to the fictional hijacking. Things went just as we hoped they would go, said Amy Corbett, regional administrator for the Federal Aviation Administration. Operation Atlas, which cost roughly $700,000 and brought together about 50 federal, state and local agencies, was billed as the first training drill involving a real airborne intercept of a commercial airliner. Boston Mayor Thomas Menino said the exercise, paid for by a federal Homeland Security grant, was money well-spent. It's about practice, he said. I would rather have a glitch today than (during) an actual terrorist attack. Many of the same emergency workers from Saturday's drill also responded to the 2001 incident on American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami. That flight was diverted to Boston and landed safely at Logan after Richard Reid, a self-proclaimed member of the al-Qaida terrorist network, tried to ignite explosives in his shoe. Reid, now serving a life sentence, was subdued before the flight landed and then arrested. Logan officials had warned neighboring residents, pilots, airlines and passengers in terminals that Saturday's display was only a drill. The exercise didn't cause any delays at Logan, according to a Massport spokesman. In April, New Jersey and Connecticut teamed up for the five-day TOPOFF 3 drill, which included a simulated bioterror and chemical weapons attacks resulting in 6,508 fake deaths and the arrests of five mock terrorists in a raid. _ Printable version may be for personal use only. Content many not be duplicated, re-used or otherwise replicated without expressed, written consent from SecurityInfoWatch.com http://www.securityinfowatch.com and/or the original author/source. Visit SecurityInfoWatch.com http://www.securityinfowatch.com daily for the latest industry news, commentary, features and more. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Give underprivileged students the materials they need to learn. Bring education to life by funding a specific classroom project. http://us.click.yahoo.com/FHLuJD/_WnJAA/cUmLAA/TySplB/TM ~- -- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT,
[osint] Markov's umbrella assassin revealed
Markov's umbrella assassin revealed http://www.mg.co.za/articlepage.aspx?area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__inte rnational_news/articleid=242447 06 June 2005 08:16 For 26 years the assassin's work has been one of the most ubiquitous and chilling episodes of the Cold War, but his identity one of its enduring secrets. The Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov (49) felt a sharp prick in his leg as he waited for a bus in 1978 on Waterloo Bridge. An opposition activist and BBC broadcaster living in political exile since 1969, Markov was an acute irritant to the authoritarian communist government of Bulgaria. He had been receiving warnings that his life was in danger, but thought little of the pain in his thigh, and continued on his way to work. Yet amid the jostling commuter crowd was an assassin from the Bulgarian secret services with a specially adapted umbrella. He used it to push beneath Markov's skin a deadly 1,7mm-wide pellet containing the poison ricin. Three days later Markov was dead, and the identity of his killer a mystery of the dark arts of cold war espionage. But now a Bulgarian journalist, Hristo Hristov, has named one of the Soviet era's most renowned assassins as Francesco Gullino, a Dane of Italian origin who travelled to Britain under the le Carré-esque cover of an antiques salesman. His name was in the archive of Bulgaria's national intelligence service, Hristov said on Sunday. It took me six years to find. A senior Bulgarian government official has reportedly confirmed the authenticity of the documents that name Gullino, serialised recently in the Bulgarian daily Dnevnik. Hristov will publish a book on his findings. Gullino travelled Europe in an Austrian-registered caravan, and came to Britain to neutralise Markov on the orders of the Bulgarian secret services, the Durzhavna Sigurnost. The murder was sanctioned by Todor Zhivkov, the country's fanatically pro-Soviet ruler. Gullino had been arrested smuggling drugs and currency on the Bulgarian border in 1970, and was recruited to Bulgaria's security services. Working under the codename Agent Piccadilly, he flew to London three times in 1977 and 1978, leaving the capital the day after Markov was hit by the umbrella, for Rome, where he met his handler. The Bulgarian files confirm he was their only agent in London at the time, according to Hristov. A Scotland Yard spokesperson said on Sunday the particularly long and complex investigation into the murder remained open and they were keen to bring the killer to justice, although she declined to comment on the apparent identification of one of their most elusive targets. On February 5 1993 Gullino was briefly detained in Copenhagen where British and Danish detectives questioned and fingerprinted him. He admitted espionage, but said he had no connection to the Markov killing, and was later released because Denmark had no case against him. He sold his Copenhagen house and left the country that year. Hristov believes he is still alive. Hristov said he had last met Agent Piccadilly in 1990, and in 1993 declined a request from Denmark for further information on him. In 1992 General Vladimir Todorov, the former Bulgarian intelligence chief, was sentenced to 16 months in jail for destroying 10 volumes of material relating to the assassination. General Stoyan Savov, the deputy interior minister who ordered the murder, killed himself before facing trial over the cover-up of the assassination. After Zhivkov's regime collapsed in 1989 a stack of the special umbrellas was found in the interior ministry. - Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005 [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- DonorsChoose. A simple way to provide underprivileged children resources often lacking in public schools. Fund a student project in NYC/NC today! http://us.click.yahoo.com/EHLuJD/.WnJAA/cUmLAA/TySplB/TM ~- -- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that
[osint] Line Between Ideas, Aid Is at Issue as Terrorism Trial Begins
This issue has nothing to do with either ideas or aid.it is about terrorism and terrorist supporters. Period. Bruce http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-terror7jun07,0,3580768. story?coll=la-home-nation THE NATION Line Between Ideas, Aid Is at Issue as Terrorism Trial Begins By John-Thor Dahlburg Times Staff Writer June 7, 2005 TAMPA, Fla. - A lawyer for an ex-university professor facing charges that he supported and helped finance a terrorist group in the Middle East tore into the government's case Monday, claiming that Sami Al-Arian was being prosecuted not for any illegal deeds but for expressing pro-Palestinian views. This case will be about Dr. Al-Arian's right to speak, your right to hear him and the attempt of the powerful to silence him, defense lawyer William Moffitt told jurors in his opening statement. Under beefed-up security in U.S. District Court, federal prosecutors opened their case against Al-Arian, 47, and three others accused of racketeering, conspiracy to murder people outside the U.S. and providing material support to Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a group designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. government. Each man could be sentenced to life in prison if found guilty. The government alleges that Al-Arian and codefendants Sameeh Hammoudeh, 44, Ghassan Zayed Ballut, 43, and Hatem Naji Fariz, 32, although not personally responsible for acts of violence, promoted Palestinian Islamic Jihad - an organization known as PIJ that calls for the destruction of Israel - helped facilitate its international communications and raised money to support it. These people were way above the level of any fool going to strap a bomb on himself and go stand by people waiting for a bus, Assistant U.S. Atty. Walter Furr told jurors. Al-Arian, the prosecutor claimed, was the secretary of the board of directors of the PIJ. For a time, he was maybe the most powerful man in the world in that organization. Furr said that in a letter hand-carried to Kuwait in February 1995, soon after Palestinian Islamic Jihad suicide bombers killed 19 Israelis, Al-Arian, who has made statements disavowing terrorism, asked for true support so operations like this can continue. They were very effectively leading double lives, Furr said of the defendants. They were pure PIJ. Providing a preview of Al-Arian's defense, Moffitt argued that U.S. law did not bar people from belonging to a terrorist organization or espousing such a group's cause as long as the individuals did not engage in illegal actions. He promised jurors that during the trial, which could last six months to a year, there will be no evidence any violent act took place, and no violent act was ever planned to take place in the United States. The outstanding feature of this case is freedom of speech, Moffitt said. He noted that the government planned to call numerous witnesses from Israel, and predicted jurors would conclude that the Israelis are here to silence Dr. Al-Arian. The Kuwait-born son of Palestinian refugees, Al-Arian was arrested Feb. 20, 2003, and fired from his position as a professor of computer engineering at the University of South Florida in Tampa after his indictment. He has been in custody since his arrest. Furr said the government intended to prove that Al-Arian used a think tank he founded while at the university, as well as charities he started, to promote and assist Palestinian Islamic Jihad. In June 1995, the director of the think tank, Ramadan Abdullah Shallah, left Tampa. Later that year, he became leader of Damascus, Syria-based Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Furr said the evidence would show that the defendants used 20 bank accounts to launder money. From 1990 to 1993, the federal prosecutor said, they received $1.8 million from overseas sources, chiefly from Iran, to pay local expenses, organize U.S. conferences and fundraisers and pay for three-way telephone calls that enabled Palestinian militants in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to talk to people in Iran or Syria. But, Moffitt said, not one bomb, not one stick of dynamite could be proven to have gone to Palestinian Islamic Jihad as a result of the telephone conferences organized by Al-Arian. The prosecution has also claimed that Al-Arian and the other defendants helped perpetuate a cycle of terrorism by sending money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers and imprisoned militants, thereby encouraging fresh attacks. But Moffitt said sending the aid was not a criminal offense unless prosecutors could establish that there had been a promise of assistance for terrorist activities in advance. It is not against the law for Dr. Al-Arian or anyone to feed women and children, the defense lawyer said. Ridiculing the government's allegation that Al-Arian had been a key figure in Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Moffitt said that in wiretaps from 1994 to 2003, the FBI listened in on 472,239 of his client's phone calls and deemed 295 relevant
[osint] Pentagon takes aim at rank and file of al Qaeda
This tactic won the drug war, right? Bruce http://washingtontimes.com/national/20050607-121910-3725r.htm http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20050607-121910-3725r.htm Pentagon takes aim at rank and file of al Qaeda By Rowan Scarborough THE WASHINGTON TIMES Published June 7, 2005 _ The Pentagon is discussing war-strategy changes for defeating Islamic terrorists that would place more emphasis on killing, capturing or discouraging midlevel operators who enable top al Qaeda leadership to function. Interviews the past week with Bush administration officials show that policy-makers are thinking the only way to ultimately win the war is to take down the lower-level operators who form the networks that support Osama bin Laden and scores of other al Qaeda lieutenants around the world. President Bush, in assessing progress in the war, often cites the statistic that 75 percent of known al Qaeda leaders have been killed or captured. The strategy has been generally that if you cut off the head of al Qaeda, the body will eventually die. But more than three years into the war on terrorism, some officials are leaning toward a new policy that would place just as much emphasis on taking foot soldiers off the street. DOD is pushing a strategy of going after the al Qaeda network, a well-placed administration official told The Washington Times. Getting the leadership alone is not going to do it. The source said Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is putting pressure on the system to come up with new ideas, but has not endorsed a new plan. One official, who asked not to be named, said the recent arrests of two American al Qaeda planners are examples of how the United States can methodically disable terrorist cells, leaving chieftains with few to carry out their orders. Another change being discussed in an ongoing interagency review by the Pentagon, State Department, CIA and White House National Security Council is a strategy that emphasizes this is a war that targets Islamic extremism, not Islam itself. We have to convince Muslims that al Qaeda is their mutual enemy, said the administration official. There is a belief by some officials that the phrase war on terror is not specific enough, said a second official. And a third topic is finding new ways to discourage Muslim clerics from preaching hate and encouraging violence. The Washington Post first reported last week that the Bush team is re-evaluating its anti-terror strategy. The Times subsequently conducted interviews to learn details of some of the ideas. Officials told The Times there is some frustration at the review's slow pace. One called it a complicated process and blamed the National Security Council staff at the White House for delays in pushing all sides to agree. The Pentagon has been trying to overcome a lot of resistance, said the second Bush official. Anytime they make their case, they get resistance. That official said the Pentagon wants the intelligence community to put more emphasis on signal intercepts to identify al Qaeda foot soldiers. The United States is essentially fighting a three-front war: Iraq, Afghanistan and the global theater. U.S. Special Operations Command, based in Tampa, Fla., was designated by Mr. Rumsfeld in 2003 as the combatant command in charge of global counterterror operations. Socom has set up a relatively new structure, the Center for Special Operations, to do the battle planning. Two defense sources said Socom has struggled to set up the battle-planning staff and coordinate with regional commands. Trust me, said one of the sources. Changing from supporting to supported and getting cooperation from the regional commands have been difficult, at best. Supported refers to a command, such as U.S. Central Command, that plans and carries out its own missions. Until 2003, Socom was a supporting command, meaning it carried out missions dictated by others. Said Col. Samuel T. Taylor, a command spokesman, I disagree with anyone's assertion that Socom is struggling. A major transition, such as the one we are undergoing, requires extensive planning and coordination. ... We are moving forward in the right way, at an appropriately rapid pace. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Take a look at donorschoose.org, an excellent charitable web site for anyone who cares about public education! http://us.click.yahoo.com/_OLuKD/8WnJAA/cUmLAA/TySplB/TM ~- -- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED
[osint] Florida Terrorist Trial defendants
http://www.sptimes.com/2005/06/07/State/The_defendants.shtml The defendants By wire services Published June 7, 2005 _ SAMI AMIN AL-ARIAN , 47 Al-Arian was a computer engineering professor at the University of South Florida and founder of the World Islam and Studies Enterprise and the Islamic Committee for Palestine, which federal officials say were terrorist fronts. The indictment describes him as a top leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a group the U.S. government has declared a terrorist organization. He arrived at USF in 1985, by way of Kuwait and Egypt, Illinois and North Carolina. He was born in Kuwait, the son of Palestinian refugees. His parents had moved there a decade earlier, when the nation of Israel was born. Al-Arian has said his mother's forebears trace their roots to Jerusalem, 1,400 years ago. His family moved to Egypt, where Al-Arian studied engineering. When a cousin living in Illinois suggested he pursue engineering at Southern Illinois University, he applied. He arrived in 1975. He went to graduate school and earned a master's degree and doctorate at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. Al-Arian said he fell in love with the Tampa Bay area because its gulf vistas and palms reminded him of the Middle East. Al-Arian married his wife, Nahla, in 1979, after asking his mother to look around for a likely candidate, according to the Miami Herald . They have five children. Al-Arian's brother-in-law, Mazen Al-Najjar, was jailed for more than four years on secret evidence without ever being charged with a crime. The federal government deported him to Lebanon in 2002. Al-Arian had applied for U.S. citizenship, but his application was derailed by controversy and later criminal charges. Al-Arian also taught Islamic Studies at Islamic Academy of Florida. SAMEEH HAMMOUDEH , 44 Born in the West Bank, now a resident of Temple Terrace, he is a teaching assistant and doctoral student at the University of South Florida and a director at the Islamic Academy of Florida. The indictment accuses him of being a fundraiser for Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Hammoudeh is the only one besides Al-Arian who has remained in jail since the arrest in February 2003. Hammoudeh and his wife, Nadia Ibrahim Hammoudeh, 41, were sentenced Friday to probation with no jail time on federal tax, immigration and mortgage fraud charges. They also agreed to be deported back to the West Bank city of Ramallah after Sameeh Hammoudeh's terrorism trial finishes. A former Arabic instructor, Hammoudeh and his wife have six children together. HATEM NAJI FARIZ , 32 Born in Puerto Rico to Palestinian parents and raised in America, Fariz was president of the Chicago Islamic Center in 2001. In early 2002, he moved to Spring Hill to work as an office manager for a local medical clinic run by Dr. Ayman Osman. He was living in Spring Hill when he was arrested on Feb. 20, 2003, and charged with raising money for Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Fariz had been released on $1.1-million bail. Then, last year, Fariz was arrested again on unrelated charges of cheating the federal food stamp program. He's accused of pocketing money meant to buy food through the U.S. Department of Agriculture food stamp program at a neighborhood grocery he owned, called T T Foods in Chicago's Humboldt Park neighborhood. He was released on $100,000 bail on those charges. Fariz and his wife, Manal, have two children. GHASSAN ZAYED BALLUT , 43 A West Bank native now living in Tinley Park, Ill., and owner of a small business, Ballut is accused of being a member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad cell in Chicago. Until his arrest, Ballut was president of the Martyr Izzedine al-Qassam Mosque in Chicago's South Side, a neighborhood Islamic center founded by him and Al-Arian in 1991. Fariz headed the mosque before Ballut. Ballut flew to Tampa in 1998 under subpoena as a federal grand jury here was considering the activities of Al-Arian's brother-in-law. Ballut sought immunity for his testimony, but prosecutors refused. Ballut didn't end up testifying. Ballut and his wife, Hanan, have children. --Information from wires and Times archives was used in this report. Research by Jennifer Liberto and Caryn Baird. [Last modified June 7, 2005, 02:15:48] [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- DonorsChoose. A simple way to provide underprivileged children resources often lacking in public schools. Fund a student project in NYC/NC today! http://us.click.yahoo.com/EHLuJD/.WnJAA/cUmLAA/TySplB/TM ~- -- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe:
[osint] More than 50 dead in bus bombing
More than 50 dead in bus bombing By Devendra Man Singh in Madi, Nepal June 07, 2005 From: Agence France-Presse AT least 53 people were killed and 72 wounded when a powerful bomb ripped through a crowded bus in Nepal today. An army officer said the bus was torn apart by the force of the blast and passengers were badly mutilated by shards of metal and glass. (The bus) rose into the air ... quite high and came down and split into two, the officer said, quoting witnesses. State radio and officials gave the death toll as 53, but warned it could rise. The radio report, quoting police superintendent Surendra Bahadur Shah, said 16 seriously injured people had been transferred to hospitals in Kathmandu for treatment. Supt Shah said the attack was the work of terrorists, a word the police and military in Nepal use to describe Maoist rebels. Officials said many of the victims were women and children, and that three military personnel on their way home for a holiday were among the dead. The blast occurred at Madi village in the Maoist-controlled district of Chitwan, about 180km southwest of Kathmandu. The military cordoned off the scene so medics and family members could search for items that could prove helpful in identifying some of the victims, officials said. A search for the bombers was also under way throughout the district. Witnesses at the scene of the blast said the explosion left a hole in the dirt road 2m across. The charred and twisted bus had been pulled into a nearby field. An army officer in Chitwan district, who declined to be named, said a homemade bomb planted in the road was used by the suspected rebels to blow up the bus. As the bus came near, the improvised explosive device was set off by remote control, he said. Another officer said: The bodies of the dead were badly mutilated or blown to pieces by the explosion. There was no immediate claim of responsibility from the Maoists, who have been fighting to install a communist republic in Nepal since 1996. The insurgency has already claimed more than 11,000 lives. The Maoists have stepped up their campaign through road blockades and attacks on troops since King Gyanendra sacked the Coalition Government, imposed a state of emergency and assumed absolute power on February 1, saying it was necessary to tackle the insurgency. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Give underprivileged students the materials they need to learn. Bring education to life by funding a specific classroom project. http://us.click.yahoo.com/FHLuJD/_WnJAA/cUmLAA/TySplB/TM ~- -- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[osint] A study in abuse: The media ignores the facts about Koran abuse and piles on the ARMY
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/698fxmcs.a sp A Study in Abuse The media ignores the facts about Koran abuse and piles on the Army. by John Hinderaker 06/06/2005 11:30:00 AM WHEN NEWSWEEK REPORTED that a Guantanamo Bay guard had flushed a detainee's Koran down a toilet, the Muslim world erupted in protests, some of which turned violent. Newsweek later retracted the story. More significantly, so did the detainee who made the original allegation--a fact that went largely unreported. Nevertheless, the U.S. military commissioned Brigadier General Jay Hood to look into allegations of Koran mishandling at the Guantanamo facility. General Hood delivered his report on June 3; it can be accessed here. The report, read together with the ensuing press coverage, suggests how far our public discourse has diverged from any realistic understanding of war, prisons, or human behavior. The Hood report documents an exquisite concern for the religious sensibilities of Guantanamo's detainees. Consider the implications of this incident: On 18 AUG 03, two detainees complained that the guards had violated the Koran search policy when they touched the surgical masks used to hang detainee Korans from cell walls during a security, safety, and welfare inspection. The incident was recorded in the electronic blotter system. The guards stated in the blotter log that they were not violating Koran search policy because they did not actually touch the Koran when they squeezed and felt for bulges in the surgical masks. The SOP in place at the time of the incident did not address searching the Koran through the masks. Or this one: On 5 JAN 03, a translator was called to translate during a search of a cell. The detainee residing in the cell refused to show his Koran during the search. The guards informed the detainee that if he did not show his Koran they would be forced to search it. The detainee did not comply. The MPs put on clean latex gloves and used a clean towel as they conducted the search. During the search, detainees in nearby cells continuously threw water at the MPs. As the translator departed the cell, the detainee spat on him. The translator recorded the incident in a sworn statement. Or this: On 18 AUG 03, at 1220 hours, a guard conducted a routine search of a detainee's cell. During the search, the guard accidentally knocked the detainee's Koran out of its holder (a surgical mask) and onto his bunk. The block NCO responded to the cell and explained to the detainee that the incident was an accident. The ICRC asked MG Miller, Commander JTF-GTMO, about the incident during a meeting on 09 OCT 03. MG Miller told the ICRC that he had investigated the incident and determined it to be an accident. A guard recorded the incident in sworn statement. There can't be a single instance, in all of human history, where the spiritual sensitivities of captured enemy combatants have been so scrupulously regarded. This is borne out by those few cases where abuse was actually found; they are, in the words of the often-puzzling cliché, exceptions that prove the rule. Consider what the apology and disciplinary action taken in this instance tell us about the rarity of such events: On 25 JUL 03, a contract interrogator apologized to a detainee for stepping on the detainee's Koran in an earlier interrogation. The memorandum of the 25 Jul 03, interrogation session shows that the detainee had reported to other detainees that his Koran had been stepped on. The detainee accepted the apology and agreed to inform other detainees of the apology and ask them to cease disruptive behaviors caused by the incident. The interrogator was later terminated for a pattern of unacceptable behavior, an inability to follow direct guidance and poor leadership. We consider this a confirmed incident. In one widely-reported incident, several copies of the Koran got wet when guards tossed water balloons into the detainees' compound: On 15 AUG 03, two detainees complained to the swing shift guards (14002200 hrs) that the detainees' Korans were wet because the night shift guards had thrown water balloons on the block. The swing shift guards recorded the complaints in the block blotter log in accordance with normal procedures. We have not determined if the detainees made further complaints or if the Korans were replaced. There is no evidence that this incident was investigated. There is no evidence that the incident, although clearly inappropriate, caused any type of disturbance on the Block. We consider this a confirmed incident. The Hood report doesn't explain what led up to the water balloon bombardment, but in the murderous context of Islamist terrorism, it's hard to get exercised about torture via water balloons. The other incident that was widely reported following the Hood report's issuance involved an unlucky soldier who couldn't wait to relieve himself until he went off duty, and chose an unfortunate spot:
[osint] BOSNIA: Wahhabis blamed for several incidents in Bosnia
Wahhabis blamed for several incidents in Bosnia World News BBC Monitoring Text of report in English by Croatian news agency HINA [via [EMAIL PROTECTED] Banja Luka, 29 May: The police in the northern Bosnian district of Brcko on Sunday [29 May] reported an incident that occurred last Thursday in Maoca near Brcko, when a local Muslim man, in an attempt to protect two Serb girls from members of a radical Islamic organization known as Wahhabis injured a member of the organization with a knife. The incident occurred when Fuad Sabanovic, a 47-year-old local Muslim, stopped a jeep that had been following two Serb girls living in the nearby refugee settlement Prutace and started a scuffle with 33-year-old Dzevad Kopcalic, one of the three men in the vehicle, whom he injured with a knife. Sabanovic was arrested and placed in custody, while Kopcalic, on whom the police found a gun, was hospitalised. Conflicts between local residents and members of this radical Muslim organization in Prutace started with the arrival of radical Muslims in Gornja Maoca, on the border of the municipalities of Srebrenik and Brcko. Previously they had lived in the village of Bocinja near Maglaj, from where they had to move after frequent clashes with Serb returnees and pressure by the international community. Radical Islamists have been clashing frequently with Muslims as well, and several days ago they beat up a Muslim cleric in Zenica saying that he did not perform a religious service according to the Arab ritual. The ideology of the Wahhabis, radical war veterans and members of the Organization of Active Islamic Youth (AIO), can be compared to that of the followers of the 18th century Arab preacher Muhammad Abdul Wahhab, whose conservative doctrine is dominant in modern Saudi Arabia. They observe Islamic laws and consider the Koran their constitution. AIO was registered as an organization in Bosnia-Hercegovina back in 1995. It is believed to have several thousand members, but the figure has never been officially confirmed. Source: HINA news agency, Zagreb, in English 1506 gmt 29 May 05 Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Take a look at donorschoose.org, an excellent charitable web site for anyone who cares about public education! http://us.click.yahoo.com/_OLuKD/8WnJAA/cUmLAA/TySplB/TM ~- -- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[osint] President Bush, With the Candlestick...
Iraq overthrow planning at the Bush43 White House began in January 2001, according to Clarke and O'Neill. January 2001 was long before Bush43 focused on Islamic terrorism after 9/11/2001. Also, Cheney's energy policy planning group asked the Energy Department for Iraq oil infrastructure plans in March, 2001; again, long before 9/11. In the context of all of this prior planning about Iraq and its oil, it is apparent the war on terror had little to do with Bush43 intentions or intelligence about Iraq. David Bier http://www.consortiumnews.com/Print/2005/060605.html consortiumnews.com President Bush, With the Candlestick... By Robert Parry June 7, 2005 The clues are falling into place, pointing to the incontrovertible judgment that George W. Bush willfully misled the United States into invading Iraq, in part, by eliminating the possibility of the peaceful solution that he pretended to want. Many of the clues have been apparent for three years and some were reported in outlets such as our own Consortiumnews.com in real time but only recently have new revelations clarified this obvious reality for the slow-witted mainstream U.S. news media. The latest piece of the puzzle was reported by Charles J. Hanley of the Associated Press in an article on June 4 describing how Bush's Undersecretary of State John Bolton orchestrated the ouster of global arms control official Jose Bustani in early 2002 because Bustani's Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons [OPCW] was making progress toward getting arms inspectors back into Iraq. If Bustani had succeeded in gaining Iraq's compliance with international inspection demands, Bush would have been denied his chief rationale for war, even before U.S. military divisions were deployed to the Persian Gulf. Bustani had made himself an obstacle to war, so he had to go. `Red Herring' On the surface, the Bush administration needed other reasons for ousting Bustani. So the arms control official was accused of mismanagement and Washington threatened to withhold dues to the OPCW if Bustani remained. Even at the time, skeptics of Bush's motives charged that the real reason for Washington's bullying was the threat that Bustani posed to Bush's war plans. But a senior U.S. official dismissed those suspicions as an atrocious red herring. [Christian Science Monitor, April 24, 2002] So, U.S. officials called an unprecedented special session of the OPCW to vote Bustani out, only a year after he had been unanimously reelected to a five-year term. A vote of just one-third of the member states was enough to boot Bustani on April 22, 2002. Three years later, former U.S. officials have stepped forward to tell the AP that Bustani's firing indeed was sparked by his insistence on pushing Iraq and other Arab states to accept a ban on chemical weapons, which would have opened those countries to international inspections. It was that that made Bolton decide he [Bustani] had to go, said retired career diplomat Avis Bohlen, who served as Bolton's deputy. (Bolton is now Bush's nominee to be U.S. ambassador to the UN.) By dismissing me, Bustani told the UN-sponsored OPCW in a failed plea for his job, an international precedent will have been established whereby any duly elected head of any international organization would at any point during his or her tenure remain vulnerable to the whims of one or a few major contributors. Bustani warned that genuine multilateralism then would succumb to unilateralism in a multilateral disguise. Bustani's words proved prophetic. With Bustani and the OPCW out of the way, Bush and his advisers pressed ahead with their invasion plans based on assertions to the American people that Hussein was hiding dangerous weapons of mass destruction and defying international demands for inspections. Hanley noted that if Bustani's Iraq plan had worked out in 2002, Bustani's inspectors would have found nothing, because Iraq's chemical weapons were destroyed in the early 1990s. That would have undercut the U.S. rationale for war. [AP, June 4, 2005] British Memo Another recent disclosure has added more new pieces to the puzzle of Bush's pre-war deceptions. According to the so-called Downing Street Memo, British Prime Minister Tony Blair two weeks before Bustani's firing secretly agreed to Bush's plan for invading Iraq. In other words, the die had already been cast for war, said the memo, which recounted a meeting on July 23, 2002, between Blair and his top national security officials. At that Downing Street meeting, Richard Dearlove, chief of the British intelligence agency MI6, also described his trip to Washington in July 2002 to discuss Iraq with Bush's National Security Council officials. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy, Dearlove said. The memo added, It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take
[osint] Russert failed to correct Mehlman's claim that 9-11 Commission, Senate report
http://mediamatters.org/items/200506060008 Russert failed to correct Mehlman's claim that 9-11 Commission, Senate report totally discredited Downing Street Memo On the June 5 edition of NBC's Meet the Press, moderator Tim Russert questioned but failed to correct Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman's claim that the findings of the Downing Street Memo, a secret British intelligence memo suggesting that the Bush administration manipulated intelligence to support its case for war in Iraq, have been totally discredited by everyone who's looked at it, including the 9-11 Commission and the Senate. In fact, neither the 9-11 Commission nor the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence addressed the Bush administration's use of pre-war intelligence. In the same appearance, Russert also failed to correct Mehlman when he made the misleading claim that the Bush administration is the first administration ever that has funded with federal dollars embryonic stem cell research. In fact, Bush's stem cell policy replaced a less restrictive set of rules issued by the Clinton administration, though those rules had yet to take effect. When Russert raised the issue of the Downing Street Memo's contention that, in the Bush administration's push for war in Iraq, the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy, Mehlman replied: Tim, that report has been discredited by everyone else who's looked at it since then. Whether it's the 9-11 Commission, whether it's the Senate, whoever's looked at this has said there was no effort to change the intelligence at all. When Russert noted I don't believe that the authenticity of this report has been discredited, Mehlman reiterated: I believe that the findings of the report, the fact that the intelligence was somehow fixed, have been totally discredited by everyone who's looked at it. The Senate Intelligence committee's report examined the creation of the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, which was the intelligence community's most comprehensive and authoritative statement about Iraq. But the committee decided at the outset not to investigate the Bush administration's use of intelligence, including public statements by administration officials, in the first phase of its investigation. Though the committee initially planned to conduct the second phase of its investigation following the 2004 election, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) indicated in March that the committee's investigation into whether the administration misrepresented intelligence judgments in its public statements would be indefinitely postponed, because of administration officials' insistence that they believed the intelligence, and the intelligence was wrong. [W]e sort of came to a crossroads, and that is basically on the back burner, Roberts said. The 9-11 Commission report said even less about the Bush administration's use of intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war. The 567-page report focuses entirely on issues surrounding the September 11 terrorist attacks, addresses Iraq only in the context of Al Qaeda and September 11, and does not assess the accuracy or honesty of the Bush's public statements about the Iraqi threat. Other official reports have similarly avoided the question of whether the Bush administration politicized intelligence. The Robb-Silberman commission's report on intelligence regarding weapons of mass destruction noted: [W]e were not authorized to investigate how policymakers used the intelligence assessments they received from the Intelligence Community. The Duelfer report presented the results of the Iraq Survey Group's hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq following the invasion but did not compare these findings either with Bush's prewar statements to the public or with the prewar assessments of the intelligence community. The British inquiry into prewar assessments of Iraq's weapons program, known as the Butler report, determined that Bush's 2003 State of the Union address claim that the British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa was well-founded, but did not examine the administration's other uses of intelligence. But despite the report's findings, Bush's statement clearly contradicted the judgments of the U.S. intelligence community: in a statement released in July 2003, then-CIA Director George Tenet said agency officials differed with the British dossier on the reliability of the uranium reporting. Beyond the Downing Street Memo, other evidence indicates that the Bush administration misused intelligence. For example, as Media Matters for America has documented, accounts by Bush administration and U.N. intelligence officials and consultants, documented by CBS News, the Associated Press, and Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, indicate that the administration and CIA were aware at the time that much of the information provided in former Secretary of State Colin Powell's February 5,
[osint] After Downing Street
http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20050620s=cobble After Downing Street by STEVE COBBLE [posted online on June 6, 2005] It's not exactly a news flash that the Bush Administration lied to the public before the invasion of Iraq. What should be on front pages, though, is new proof of the Bush Administration's lies brought to light by the previously unknown Downing Street Minutes, recently obtained and printed in the Times of London. (The Downing Street Memo is a transcript of minutes of a secret meeting chaired by Tomy Blair in Britain in July of 2002 to discuss preparations and propaganda before going to war. It was marked Secret and strictly personal--UK eyes only.) The Downing Street Minutes are deserving, in the words of constitutional lawyer John Bonifaz, of an official Resolution of Inquiry directing the House Judiciary Committee to launch a formal investigation into whether sufficient grounds exist for the House of Representatives to exercise its constitutional power to impeach George W. Bush, President of the United States. Bonifaz, who two years ago took the Bush Administration to court on behalf of a coalition of US soldiers, parents of soldiers and twelve Members of Congress (including John Conyers Jr., Dennis Kucinich, Jesse Jackson Jr., Jim McDermott, José Serrano, Sheila Jackson Lee) to challenge the constitutionality of the Iraq war, adds: The question must now be asked, with the release of the Downing Street Memo, whether the President has committed impeachable offenses. Is it a High Crime to engage in a conspiracy to deceive and mislead the United States Congress and the American people about the basis for taking the nation into a war? Is it a High Crime to manipulate intelligence so as to allege falsely a national security threat posed to the United States as a means of trying to justify a war against another nation based on 'preemptive' purposes? Is it a High Crime to commit a felony via the submission of an official report to the United States Congress falsifying the reasons for launching military action? As in previous investigations of High Crimes and Misdemeanors, such a Resolution of Inquiry is the appropriate first step in launching this investigation. Bonifaz's memorandum making the case for launching a Resolution of Inquiry is posted at www.afterdowningstreet.org/, a new website founded by David Swanson, Bob Fertik, Bonifaz and others (including this writer), together with a broad array of public interest groups that is posted on the web site. Our memo is written to Representative Conyers, both because he is the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee and because he has been a brave truth-seeker on this issue and so many others. We support his letter demanding answers from the Bush Administration, signed originally by eighty-eight of his House colleagues; his call for 100,000 signatures to back up that letter; and his plan to go to London to seek more answers. We have also made contact with several other members of Congress, and we believe that it will not be long before a group in Congress officially calls for an ROI. Unfortunately, as most Nation readers know, the Downing Street Minutes have only been a story in the rest of the world, especially in Britain. In the United States it is taking much longer for the mainstream to pick up on it, and the issue is still being treated far less seriously than the seriousness of the charges warrant. Fortunately, the blogosphere has found this new proof of George W. Bush's misleadership much more compelling than the mainstream press has; writers like Apian have posted incisive diaries on www.dailykos.com/, which regularly covers the story, as has Georgia10 and her friends, who founded the wonderful site www.downingstreetmemo.com/. Despite a slow start, the Downing Street Minutes may have a long life expectancy, and the Misleader of the Pack may yet have to confront the truth. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- DonorsChoose. A simple way to provide underprivileged children resources often lacking in public schools. Fund a student project in NYC/NC today! http://us.click.yahoo.com/EHLuJD/.WnJAA/cUmLAA/TySplB/TM ~- -- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of
[osint] The Other Bomb Drops
Michigan Democratic Representative John Conyers has called the latest revelations about these attacks the smoking bullet in the smoking gun, irrefutable proof that President Bush misled Congress before the vote on Iraq. When Bush asked Congress to authorize the use of force in Iraq, he also said he would use it only as a last resort, after all other avenues had been exhausted. But the Downing Street memo reveals that the Administration had already decided to topple Saddam by force and was manipulating intelligence to justify the decision. That information puts the increase in unprovoked air attacks in the year prior to the war in an entirely new light: The Bush Administration was not only determined to wage war on Iraq, regardless of the evidence; it had already started that war months before it was put to a vote in Congress. This article can be found on the web at http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050613s=scahill The Other Bomb Drops by JEREMY SCAHILL [posted online on June 1, 2005] It was a huge air assault: Approximately 100 US and British planes flew from Kuwait into Iraqi airspace. At least seven types of aircraft were part of this massive operation, including US F-15 Strike Eagles and Royal Air Force Tornado ground-attack planes. They dropped precision-guided munitions on Saddam Hussein's major western air-defense facility, clearing the path for Special Forces helicopters that lay in wait in Jordan. Earlier attacks had been carried out against Iraqi command and control centers, radar detection systems, Revolutionary Guard units, communication centers and mobile air-defense systems. The Pentagon's goal was clear: Destroy Iraq's ability to resist. This was war. But there was a catch: The war hadn't started yet, at least not officially. This was September 2002--a month before Congress had voted to give President Bush the authority he used to invade Iraq, two months before the United Nations brought the matter to a vote and more than six months before shock and awe officially began. At the time, the Bush Administration publicly played down the extent of the air strikes, claiming the United States was just defending the so-called no-fly zones. But new information that has come out in response to the Downing Street memo reveals that, by this time, the war was already a foregone conclusion and attacks were no less than the undeclared beginning of the invasion of Iraq. The Sunday Times of London recently reported on new evidence showing that The RAF and US aircraft doubled the rate at which they were dropping bombs on Iraq in 2002 in an attempt to provoke Saddam Hussein into giving the allies an excuse for war. The paper cites newly released statistics from the British Defense Ministry showing that the Allies dropped twice as many bombs on Iraq in the second half of 2002 as they did during the whole of 2001 and that a full air offensive was under way months before the invasion had officially begun. The implications of this information for US lawmakers are profound. It was already well known in Washington and international diplomatic circles that the real aim of the US attacks in the no-fly zones was not to protect Shiites and Kurds. But the new disclosures prove that while Congress debated whether to grant Bush the authority to go to war, while Hans Blix had his UN weapons-inspection teams scrutinizing Iraq and while international diplomats scurried to broker an eleventh-hour peace deal, the Bush Administration was already in full combat mode--not just building the dossier of manipulated intelligence, as the Downing Street memo demonstrated, but acting on it by beginning the war itself. And according to the Sunday Times article, the Administration even hoped the attacks would push Saddam into a response that could be used to justify a war the Administration was struggling to sell. On the eve of the official invasion, on March 8, 2003, Bush said in his national radio address: We are doing everything we can to avoid war in Iraq. But if Saddam Hussein does not disarm peacefully, he will be disarmed by force. Bush said this after nearly a year of systematic, aggressive bombings of Iraq, during which Iraq was already being disarmed by force, in preparation for the invasion to come. By the Pentagon's own admission, it carried out seventy-eight individual, offensive airstrikes against Iraq in 2002 alone. It reminded me of a boxing match in which one of the boxers is told not to move while the other is allowed to punch and only stop when he is convinced that he has weakened his opponent to the point where he is defeated before the fight begins, says former UN Assistant Secretary General Hans Von Sponeck, a thirty-year career diplomat who was the top UN official in Iraq from 1998 to 2000. During both the Clinton and Bush administrations, Washington has consistently and falsely claimed these attacks were mandated by UN Resolution 688, passed after the Gulf War, which called for an end to the Iraqi
[osint] E-Mails Detail Air Force Push for Boeing Deal
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/06/AR2005060601715_pf.html washingtonpost.com E-Mails Detail Air Force Push for Boeing Deal Pentagon Official Called Proposed Lease of Tankers a 'Bailout,' Report Finds By R. Jeffrey Smith Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, June 7, 2005; A01 For the past three years, the Air Force has described its $30 billion proposal to convert passenger planes into military refueling tankers and lease them from Boeing Co. as an efficient way to obtain aircraft the military urgently needs. But a very different account of the deal is shown in an August 2002 internal e-mail exchange among four senior Pentagon officials. We all know that this is a bailout for Boeing, Ronald G. Garant, an official of the Pentagon comptroller's office, said in a message to two others in his office and then-Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Wayne A. Schroeder. Why don't we just bite the bullet, he asked, and handle the acquisition like the procurement of a 1970s-era aircraft -- by squeezing the manufacturer to provide a better tanker at a decent cost? We didn't need those aircraft either, but we didn't screw the taxpayer in the process, Garant added, referring to widespread sentiment at the Pentagon that the proposed lease of Boeing 767s would cost too much for a plane with serious shortcomings. Garant's candid advice, which top Air Force officials did not follow, is disclosed for the first time in a new 256-page report by the Pentagon's inspector general. It provides an extraordinary glimpse of how the Air Force worked hand-in-glove with one of its chief contractors -- the financially ailing Boeing -- to help it try to obtain the most costly government lease ever. The inspector general's report, slated for release today at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, adds a new dimension to what Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), John W. Warner (R-Va.) and Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) have already called one of the most significant military contracting abuses in several decades. Already, the scandal has resulted in prison terms for former Air Force principal deputy assistant secretary Darlene A. Druyun, and a senior Boeing official, Michael M. Sears. Besides documenting precisely who was responsible, the new report details the Air Force's vigorous efforts on Boeing's behalf. It also shows how Air Force leaders and Boeing officials jointly manipulated legislation to authorize the deal and later sought to suppress dissenting opinion throughout the Pentagon. After interviewing 88 people and reading hundreds of thousands of pages of e-mails, the inspector general's office concluded that four top Air Force officials and one of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's former top aides, Undersecretary of Defense Edward C. Pete Aldridge, violated Pentagon and government-wide procurement rules, failed to use best business practices, ignored a legal requirement for weapons testing and failed to ensure that the tankers would meet the military's requirements. The report also connects Rumsfeld to policymaking on the lease, recounting a statement by former Air Force secretary James G. Roche that Rumsfeld had called him in Newport, R.I., in July 2003 to say he did not want me to budge on the tanker lease proposal, despite criticism. Earlier, after Roche made what he acknowledged was a special pleading for the lease at a key meeting with Rumsfeld on Jan. 31, 2003, Pentagon spokesman Lawrence T. Di Rita jokingly said that my comments 'were brought to you by the Boeing Company,' Roche later told Air Force Chief of Staff John P. Jumper in an e-mail. I didn't rip his heart out, Roche added. Air Force spokesman Douglas Karas said he could not comment on the report in detail until it has been officially released. He said, however, that we've learned from this experience and will apply the lessons to future procurement of large weapons systems. Di Rita and Rumsfeld were in Thailand yesterday. A Boeing spokesman said the company could not comment on a report it has not read. The Pentagon and Congress ultimately killed the lease deal. Pentagon officials have noted that the department is now conducting special oversight of Air Force weapons-buying, in part because of the problems with the Boeing deal. In the copy of the report obtained by The Washington Post, 45 sections were deleted by the White House counsel's office to obscure what several sources described as references to White House involvement in the lease negotiations and its interaction with Boeing. The Pentagon separately blacked out 64 names and many e-mails. It also omitted the names of members of Congress, including some who pressured the Pentagon to back the deal. The report is nonetheless the most damning of the three reviews of the tanker deal completed by the inspector general since early 2004. It includes, for example, a statement from an unnamed cost analyst that numbers were contorted a lot of different ways to sell the program. It
[osint] Critics: Pentagon in blinders
There's nothing that you can do in Iraq today that will work, said Lind, one of the original Fourth Generation Warfare authors. That situation is irretrievably lost. http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news3/chtr19.htm Chicago Tribune Critics: Pentagon in blinders Long before 9/11, the military was warned about low-tech warfare, but it didn't listen By Stephen J. Hedges Washington Bureau June 6, 2005 WASHINGTON -- Nearly 16 years ago, a group of four military officers and a civilian predicted the rise of terrorism and anti-American insurgencies with chilling accuracy. The group said U.S. military technology was so advanced that foreign forces would be unlikely to challenge it directly, and it forecast that future foes would be non-state insurgents and terrorists whose weapons would be suicide car bombs, not precision-guided weapons. Today, the United States is spending $500 million apiece for stealth bombers, the group wrote in a 1989 article that appeared in a professional military journal. A terrorist stealth bomber is a car with a bomb in the trunk--a car that looks like every other car. The five men dubbed their theory Fourth Generation Warfare and warned that the U.S. military had to adapt. In the years since, the original group of officers, joined by a growing number of officers and scholars within the military, has pressed Pentagon leaders to acknowledge this emerging threat. But rather than adopting a new strategy, the generals and civilian leaders in the Defense Department have continued to support conventional, high-intensity conflict and the expensive weapons that go with it. That is happening, critics say, despite lethal insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan. They don't understand this kind of warfare, said Greg Wilcox, a retired Army lieutenant colonel, Vietnam veteran and critic of Pentagon policies. They want to return to war as they envision it. That's not going to happen. Wilcox is just one of a number of maverick officers, active and retired, who have been agitating for change. Others include Marine Col. T.X. Hammes, whose recent book on the subject is required reading in some units, as well as Marine Col. G.I. Wilson, currently serving in Iraq, and H. John Poole, a retired Marine who has written extensively on insurgencies. Together they make up the public face of a much larger debate within the U.S. military over whether the Defense Department is doing enough to train troops to fight insurgents. It is a debate with enormous consequences. Though most of the more than 1,350 American combat deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan have been caused by low-tech insurgent weaponry such as roadside bombs, the Army plans to spend more than $120 billion in the next decade on a future combat system of digitally linked vehicles, weapons and unmanned aircraft. It is based largely on conventional warfare theory. The Army also is reorganizing its 10 divisions into 43 more flexible, 5,000-soldier brigades that can be plunked down in a war zone. But the weapons and training those forces receive still will lean heavily toward the traditional view of conflict, with heavy tanks, helicopters, close air support and terrain-holding troops. Soldiers take initiative The mavericks' Fourth Generation Warfare theory is about as far as one can get from current Pentagon doctrine. But many of the captains, corporals and privates fighting today have adopted the mavericks' theories and tactics. So much of it was validated that it's theoretically right on the money, said Jim Roussell, a chief warrant officer in the Marine Reserves who focuses on gang crime in Chicago as a sergeant in the city's Police Department. He recently returned from Iraq after leading a Marine unit against insurgents. Army and Marine Corps officials in Washington declined to answer questions on the changes suggested by the mavericks. But in November, the Army issued a revised field manual on fighting insurgencies that had not been updated in more than a decade. It has received a mixed reception. We really have a lot of institutional friction right now, said Lt. Col. Jan Horvath, the Army manual's primary author. There are a number of junior officers who understand this. Senior officers, Horvath said, have been less accepting. Still, some units are adapting. The Army's 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, for instance, last month began its second tour of Iraq after months of innovative training, including a requirement that all officers and soldiers receive basic Arabic language and culture training. It's working, said Col. H.R. McMaster, the regiment's commander, who has lectured at U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y., and written a book about the failures of the Vietnam War. It's a hard problem. Nothing is easy over here. But I'm telling you we're getting after it, we're pursuing the enemy, we are totally on the offensive right now. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's office has given irregular warfare a higher priority in the upcoming
[osint] Iraqs politically savvy insurgency proves its staying power
...hopeful talk of significant troop reductions by year's end - that began circulating at Pentagon briefings shortly after the successful Jan. 30 elections - has disappeared. http://www.armytimes.com/print.php?f=1-292925-895732.php June 06, 2005 Iraq's politically savvy insurgency proves its staying power By John Yaukey Gannett News Service The insurgent stronghold of Fallujah fell in November. The parliamentary elections Jan. 30 came and went. Iraq's new elected government took power in April. Each was touted as a major victory against Iraq's insurgents. And yet Iraqi forces, backed by U.S. troops, are now conducting the largest offensive in Iraq since Baghdad fell two years ago. The mission is to root out what has become an insurgency with proven staying power and evolving sophistication especially capable of exploiting political vulnerabilities. May saw a bump in U.S. casualties the highest since January as insurgents ramped up a car bombing campaign largely responsible for killing 79 U.S. troops and hundreds of Iraqis. So far, more than 1,600 U.S. forces have been killed in Iraq, and American taxpayers have spent more than $190 billion - with no end in sight. Experts say the insurgents will get a major opportunity at creating political chaos this summer and fall as Iraq's recently assembled constitutional committee attempts to draft the document that will guide Iraq to a second round of elections at year's end. The real struggle for power in Iraq is going to be over the constitution, said David Phillips, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of Power Sharing in Iraq. It will define the country's future for decades to come. The troops' view For the 138,000 American troops in Iraq, the rebounding insurgency and the looming constitutional drama raises once again the question of how much longer the campaign will last as some units are facing third tours of duty. But then, experts say, that's the question the insurgents want lingering. The insurgents are trying to wage a protracted fight, because they know they can't win a short conflict, said Marine Corps Col. Thomas Hammes, author of an acclaimed book on modern insurgency warfare titled The Sling and the Stone. So that raises the question: Can we sustain the force long enough for our side to win? President Bush and Pentagon officials have said they're determined to make sure Iraqis can secure their own country before U.S. troops leave. That might explain why hopeful talk of significant troop reductions by year's end - that began circulating at Pentagon briefings shortly after the successful Jan. 30 elections - has disappeared. Vice President Dick Cheney recently predicted on CNN that fighting in Iraq should end before the administration leaves in 2009. If U.S. forces leave that year, the war will have lasted six years. Dangerous summer Ever since the transfer of sovereignty from American civil authorities to the Iraqis on June 28, the insurgents have struck especially hard at political targets. The delay in forming the interim government in the late spring gave the insurgents the opening for the current wave of violence that has lasted weeks. For the upcoming constitutional process to succeed, Iraq's majority ruling Shiites must negotiate power sharing with the Sunni Arabs, now fueling much of the insurgency, and the Kurds who want to retain their autonomy. Not yet fully under way, the constitutional process could drag on for nine months if all the time-extension provisions are enacted. If the 101-member constitutional committee cannot produce a draft by August, it can seek a six-month extension. But American commanders clearly would prefer the Iraqis complete the task sooner rather than later. The sooner the post-constitutional elections can be held, the sooner the Sunnis, who stayed out of January's elections, can re-enter the political process with the hopeful result of a reduction in violence. If the constitutional process bogs down in debate, or worse, it will serve as great stage on which to launch sectarian violence, said Thomas Sanderson, with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld recently said he was encouraged by the political process so far. The (Shiites) are reaching out to the Sunnis and allowing them to come into the constitutional drafting process in a very constructive and healthy way, Rumsfeld said. So there's an awful lot good that's happening in that country. Initially, only one member of the 55-member constitutional committee was a Sunni, but the committee was expanded so 18 of the now 101 members are Sunnis. That said, noted Iraq war analyst Anthony Cordesman cautioned against trying to read too much into the early signs of anything in an insurgency. Insurgencies involve patterns that can play out over years and sometimes decades, Cordesman writes in the early draft of his book, Iraq's Evolving Insurgency. It is easy to claim
