Home Front: WoT | ||||
Gitmo judge weighs detainee's request for psychologist | ||||
2010-07-01 | ||||
A military judge will decide whether a Sudanese detainee who says he has undergone "various methods of interrogation" since 2002 can use an Arabic-speaking psychologist with experience in post-traumatic stress disorder to help him prepare for trial. Arguing Wednesday before military judge Navy Capt. Moira Modzelewski, attorneys for Noor Uthman Mohammed said the psychological assistance is critical to evaluate statements Noor has made that the government plans to use against him. Prosecutors accuse Noor of running a terrorist training camp in eastern Afghanistan. "Without developing the defense we really will not have an opportunity for a fair trial," said defense attorney Navy Cmdr. Katharine Doxakis. Noor was captured in Pakistan in March 2002 along with a dozen or more captives who were rounded up at the same time as a better known detainee now held here, Zayn al-Abdeen Mohammed Hussein, better known as Abu Zubayda. Declassified documents say Abu Zubayda has told interrogators that the Khalden training camp that Noor allegedly ran was a rival to training camps run and sanctioned by bin Laden, wasn't associated with al-Qaeda, that it was first set up by the U.S.-backed resistance to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and was committed to a defensive, not offensive, jihad. At least one of the people arrested on that day, former Russian Army ballet dancer Ravil Mingazov, was ordered released after a U.S. district judge in Washington ruled that the Pentagon had no evidence to hold him. Doxakis argued that Jess Ghannam, a clinical professor of psychiatry and global health sciences at the University of California, San Francisco, would help the defense determine whether 17 statements attributed to Noor were reliable and given voluntarily.
Ghannam thinks that there's a "great possibility" that Noor - who wasn't in court Wednesday - suffers from PTSD or depression. Prosecutors, however, said Noor has said he wasn't "tortured or mistreated" while in U.S. custody and quoted him as saying he was "surprised that Americans have been so kind to him and treated him so well."
The court quickly dispatched another issue in the case: whether an Army reserve officer, Maj. Amy Fitzgibbons, would be permitted to continue to defend Noor. Fitzgibbons, Noor's first Pentagon-appointed defense lawyer, is now based at Fort Lewis, Wash., and has asked to continue representing Noor, but her Army colonel supervisor rejected her request. Fitzgibbons told the judge that her new supervisor has agreed that she could stay on the case as long as the Office of Military Commissions paid for her travel. "It's nice to have the whole team back for this hearing," Modzelewski said. Noor is one of five Guantanamo prisoners whose trials before a military commission Attorney General Eric Holder authorized in November, but there's little likelihood that he'll be tried soon. In April, Modzelewski said it would take her until January or February to sift through classified evidence the prosecution intends to use against him and that the trial couldn't begin before she'd done that. | ||||
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Britain | |
Al Qaeda dad wins right to stay in UK because his kids are 'settled' | |
2010-05-09 | |
Suspect T - who arrived here on a false passport and has also admitted lying to the security services and committing fraud - has claimed it's not safe for him to go back to Algeria. Trained in Afghanistan to handle Kalashnikovs and explosives, the dad-of-four tried to get into France and Germany in 1993 and 1997. THEY kicked him out. But the aces in his pack when it comes to the UK have proved to be his children born after he sneaked into the country in 2001. Allowing his THIRD appeal since the Home Office ruled him a threat to national security in 2005, the Special Immigration Appeals Commission said he could stay - because his kids like it here. Mr Justice Mitting insisted that European Human Rights laws, and guidance titled Every Child Matters means a "fine balance must be struck" between the potential risk to the UK population and the interests of T's family. The judge even considered evidence from a primary school teacher that the terror suspect's eldest child is "happy" and from T's solicitor who claimed the eight-year-old has "an ambition to be a doctor." The judge also predicted their 39-year-old father - who now lives in Birmingham and has been on bail since 2005 - will be able to appeal against deportation repeatedly because he is at the back of a queue of eight other Algerians whose cases have to be decided. The judgment comes despite the 39-year-old's links with extremist al Qaeda fighters, and the fact he attended the Khalden terror training camp in Afghanistan where airliner shoe bombers Richard Reid and Saajid Badat were indoctrinated. He later lodged in London with active terror group member Mustafa Melki and associated with Abu Doha, who leads an organisation which backed a bid to bomb LA airport in 1999 and a plan to attack Strasbourg. T was originally detained as part of a Government attempt to deport ten suspected extremists, who launched a series of appeals. All were backed by legal aid and, throughout his appeals, his accommodation and living costs have been taxpayer- funded through benefits and housing allowances. He has also been living under strict police surveillance, estimated to cost £250,000-a-year. So the bill runs into millions. | |
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Britain |
British terrorist freed to walk in the park |
2009-01-16 |
An alleged al-Qaeda terrorist said to be connected to Osama bin Laden has been freed to take regular walks in a park to stop him developing a fear of open spaces. The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is claimed to have once been a senior al-Qaeda instructor and one of the world's most wanted terrorists. He was arrested in connection with separate plots to blow up Los Angeles airport and the Christmas market in Strasbourg and is said to have "direct links to Osama bin Laden and other senior al-Qaeda figures". The government says he is a "leading organiser and facilitator of terrorist activity" and is trying to have him deported to his native Algeria but the Telegraph revealed last year that he was to be released on bail and put under a 24-hour curfew. His bail conditions, similar to a control order, have now been varied to allow him twice weekly walks, for one hour, in a local park in a south coast town and go to a cafe, accompanied by one of four named supporters who have been given security clearance by MI5. The man's legal team claimed he was suffering from high blood pressure and was in danger of becoming agoraphobic - scared of open spaces - as he had not been outside often enough. The Security Service objected to the proposal but a judge at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) ruled against them. Mr Justice Mitting told a hearing in central London, attended by the alleged terrorist: "I do not need to be reminded that this appellant is one of the greatest concerns of the Security Service and the commission." He admitted there was a "great risk to national security and a modest risk of absconding" and said the man had "not disavowed his previous beliefs" but he said he was allowing the walks "out of consideration for humanity and appropriate consideration for the health of the appellant". He said the conditions under which the man was living were "the most draconian" ever imposed by SIAC, which also ordered the release on bail last year of the radical preacher Abu Qatada, said to be Osama bin Laden's "right hand man in Europe". A legal order bans this newspaper from naming the town where he is living but we can reveal that he has a room in a house normally rented out to students. His landlord, a local councillor, told The Daily Telegraph: "I have let rooms for people at the university for many years and a friend rang and asked if I could take in an asylum seeker for a few months. It so happened that I had a room vacant so I said yes. He's just another student as far as I'm concerned." SIAC has said there are "credible grounds" for believing the allegations against the man, referred to as "U", and said he was a "significant risk to national security". Now 45, he arrived in Britain from France in 1994 and claimed asylum but allegedly spent the late 1990s with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. He was arrested in February 2001 at Heathrow trying to board a flight to Saudi Arabia on a false passport. It is claimed U met bin Laden at the Khalden training camp in Afghanistan which he is said to have helped run. He admits attending the training camp and meeting Ahmed Ressam, now in jail for the Los Angeles plot, but denies being part of any conspiracy. |
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Home Front: WoT |
Suspected al-Qaida operative held in El Paso |
2008-12-28 |
A Lebanese man who was part of a complex federal investigation into a suspected U.S. terrorist network with ties to al-Qaida is in custody at the El Paso immigration detention center facing deportation, officials have confirmed. According to court documents, Mohamad Kamal Elzahabi, 44, told the FBI he was a freedom fighter in 1988 and 1989 against the Soviets in Afghanistan, where he also attended a jihad military training camp, provided small-arms instruction and was a sniper. Elaine Komis, spokeswoman for the Executive Office of Immigration Review in Falls Church, Va., said her office could not discuss anything about the case due to a "non-disclosure order" by the Department of Justice. She said that the Department of Homeland Security initiated the case, and that it's now up to the Justice Department to decide Elzahabi's immigration status. Adelina Pruneda, spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration & Customs Enforcement, in San Antonio, said Elzahabi is being held at the El Paso federal detention center. No other details, including his hearing date and name of his new lawyer, will be released as long as the non-disclosure order is in effect. Elzahabi caught the attention of authorities in Canada, Minnesota, New York and Massachusetts, who learned he and three other men fought in Afghanistan and all became cab drivers in Boston. Elzahabi has continually denied he was part of a sleeper cell or terrorist group. "Elzahabi (alias Abu Kamal al Lubnani) stated that he was a Lebanese national who entered the United States in 1984 on a student visa. (He) admitted that he thereafter paid a woman in Houston, Texas, to enter into a marriage with him and help him obtain legal permanent resident alien status," according to a federal complaint filed in Minnesota. The federal complaint also states Elzahabi decided to travel to Afghanistan in 1988 after he attended a religious conference in the U.S. Midwest. Elzahabi said that while in Afghanistan, "he knew Musab al Zarqawi, Raed Hijazi and Bassam Kanji, aka Abu Aisha, (and) identified photographs of each of these persons." The document further states he told agents of "knowing of Khalid Sheik Muhammad," who U.S. authorities later said had masterminded the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C. The others mentioned in the documents: Musab al Zarqawi, a Jordanian al-Qaida associate accused of directing terrorist attacks against U.S. and coalition members in Iraq. He was killed by U.S. forces in 2006 during an air raid in Iraq. Elzahabi also told U.S. federal agents that he returned to Afghanistan in in 1991 and remained there until 1995. He also admitted acting as a combat sniper and being a small-arms instructor for jihadists at the Khalden training camp in eastern Afghanistan. Military officials said the camp near Tora Bora, where Osama bin Laden was thought to have hidden, was used by al-Qaida to train terrorists. Hoping to strike bin Laden, U.S. forces bombed the camp. The complaint also states Elzahabi admitted knowing Abu Zubaida, a senior al- Qaida associate. Elzahabi told FBI agents he traveled to Lebanon and Chechnya and returned to the United States in 1995 "because he was in need of medical care after suffering an abdominal gunshot wound in combat," records state. Elzahabi and his brother operated an axle-repair business in New York from 1995 to 1997 before he moved to Boston, where he worked as a cab driver "and he again associated with Raed Hijazi and Basam Kanj," who were employed by the same cab company. The 2004 complaint signed by FBI Special Agent Kiann Vendenover alleges Elzahabi lied about not knowing the contents of packages he helped ship from his axle business to Pakistan and other countries -- packages that contained radios and other communications equipment. The FBI also alleged he lied about helping Hijazi obtain a Massachusetts driver's license, and about letting him use Elzahabi's U.S. address for that purpose. Elzahabi, who has been in custody since May 2004, was convicted last year by a Minnesota court of possessing fraudulent immigration documents based on his marriage to a dancer who worked at the Pink Pussy Cat Club in Houston (he and the dancer had divorced in 1988). He was sentenced to time served and two years of supervised release. After the trial, the Department of Homeland Security turned him over to the Department of Justice for deportation proceedings. |
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Terror Networks |
Abu Zubaydah Denies Running Al Qaeda Training Camps in Afghanistan |
2007-04-17 |
An alleged terrorist being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, denied U.S. government accusations that he managed al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan or facilitated a failed terrorist attack on Los Angeles in 1999, according to a transcript released today from his March 27 tribunal hearing. The detainee, Abu Zubaydah, told the tribunal through an interpreter that he didn't support Osama bin Laden's philosophy of targeting innocent civilians as part of waging jihad, or holy war. He was captured during a raid at a safe house in Pakistan on March 28, 2002. The tribunal was held to determine if Zubaydah, 36, could be designated as an enemy combatant. A U.S. government witness, Ahmed Ressam, who is also being held at Guantanamo, told officials at the hearing that Zubaydah was a staunch bin Laden supporter, had run at least two terrorist training camps for al Qaeda in Afghanistan and had also helped him, Ressam, gain access into the U.S. to conduct terrorism before the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the United States. Ressam was arrested after crossing the U.S.-Canadian border at Port Angeles, Wash., Dec. 14, 1999. A Los Angeles federal court found him guilty on several counts of terrorism and other felony charges on April 6, 2001. Federal prosecutors alleged Ressam's car contained bomb-making materials and that the Algerian was planning to bomb New Year's celebrations in the United States. Ressam, who told U.S. officials that he'd planned to place a bomb at Los Angeles International Airport, stated that he studied for the mission in April 1998 at a terrorist training camp near Khost, Afghanistan, a facility that Zubaydah had overseen. A Federal Bureau of Investigation source said Zubaydah, who was born in Saudi Arabia, had traveled to Saudi Arabia in 1996 and delivered $600,000 to al Qaeda kingpin Osama bin Laden. Zubaydah told officials at the tribunal that he never visited bin Laden at that time or had transported money to the al Qaeda chieftain. "I only met him in the year 2000," Zubaydah said. "I'm not his (bin Laden's) partner and I'm not a member of al Qaeda." Regarding Ressam's accusations, Zubaydah acknowledged he had assisted in the obtaining of passports, but "not fake ones." He did not dispatch Ressam to perform mayhem in the United States, he said. "I wanted five real Canadian (only) passports to be used for personal matters, not terrorist-related activities," Zubaydah said. The government said Zubaydah had expressed his desire to wage holy war on the United States through some entries in his personal diary, in which the detainee stated he would instigate racial riots and set off timed explosives targeting gas stations, fuel trucks and forests. Zubaydah responded that his writings "were strictly hypothetical - they were not plans that I intended to execute against non-military targets in America or anywhere else." Zubaydah also told tribunal officials that he'd never visited or managed the Khalden training camp in Afghanistan that was cited by Ressam. Instead, Zubaydah said he'd worked out of Pakistan to help facilitate logistics for people en route to the camp. "But, I knew nothing about the details of the actual training at the (Khalden) camp," Zubaydah said, noting that he "was not the head of the training camp." Zubaydah also told the tribunal that he didn't support al Qaeda's philosophy of conducting total war against enemies of Islam, including the killing of civilians. "I disagreed with the al Qaeda philosophy of targeting innocent civilians like those at the World Trade Center," Zubaydah asserted. "I never believed in killing civilians," he added. |
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Great White North |
Khadr denies al-Qaeda membership |
2005-12-11 |
In his young life, Abdullah Khadr has been labelled a fugitive, a suicide bomber, even a terrorist-training-camp instructor. Yet he insists that the reality is far less interesting. "I was never in al-Qaeda," the unassuming 24-year-old said yesterday in his first remarks since returning to Canada last week. "I have no problem with anybody," he said in halting English. "Why should anybody have a problem with me?" One of several Arab-Canadian siblings raised in Afghanistan by notoriously fundamentalist parents, Khadr describes himself as an aspiring businessman who is walking around in borrowed clothes until he can put his life back together. He quietly returned to Toronto under RCMP escort last Friday after spending the past 14 months in Pakistani jails. The Khadr family first came to Canadians' attention when the patriarch, Ahmed Said Khadr, was arrested in Pakistan on suspicion of being involved in a deadly 1995 bombing. After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the elder Mr. Khadr was killed and each of his four sons was separately jailed and accused of links to terrorism. The only one still in prison is Omar, accused of killing a U.S. soldier. Most of the family is now in Canada, but the fate of Abdullah Khadr was unknown until this week. Mr. Khadr was accompanied by his mother, Maha Elsamnah, for an interview yesterday at a Toronto lawyer's office. He said he had explanations for most of what's been reported about him. He also accused Canadian and U.S. agents of turning a blind eye to the conditions of his imprisonment. Western agents who came to question him when he was in prison knew his Pakistani jailers abused him, he said, but were more concerned with asking him about top al-Qaeda figures and certain Canadian Muslims. He said he was beaten and threatened during the early phases of his 2004 arrest. "It is torture," he said. "They [the Pakistanis] have a big stick and they said, 'We'll put it inside you.' " Mr. Khadr says RCMP, CSIS and CIA agents questioned him several times in Pakistan, and he suggested they knew of the abuse. The Canadian government won't comment on his story. Mr. Khadr says he was asked about Canadian Muslims who were also arrested overseas in recent years, including Maher Arar, Abdullah Almalki, and Ahmad El-Maati, all detained in Syria. He also says he was asked about Aly Hindy, the controversial Scarborough imam who has complained Canada's spy service is targeting him. Mostly, however, agents were interested in the Khadr family's relationship to al-Qaeda figures. The elder Mr. Khadr moved his children from Canada to Afghanistan in the 1980s so they could be reared in an Islamic state. Family members say they were there to do charity work for war orphans. "We were close to Osama bin Laden, but living in a different compound," said Mr. Khadr. "I don't know if my father did any military work. I never saw it. I never heard." His family fled Afghanistan for Pakistan after the 2001 U.S. invasion. Unlike his brothers, Abdullah Khadr was not arrested until late 2004. In public remarks, Khadr family members have been inconsistent on whether they attended training camps. Mr. Khadr's brother Abdurahman has said that, when he was imprisoned by the Americans, he made up the story that Abdullah was a terrorist trainer in the hope they would let him go. Abdullah Khadr would only say yesterday that he's "not friendly" with his brother at the moment. "Instructors have to be very, very, very, very, very inside [al-Qaeda]," he said, insisting that he spent only about two weeks at the infamous Khalden training camp when he was about 13 years old. He said he always cared more about mechanics than violent jihad. "I wasn't interested in that stuff. I was more interested in cars." Mr. Khadr says that he was nowhere near when his father was killed in a battle in 2003; that he lived openly in Islamabad for almost a year after that. He said he was with one of his father's friends "drinking juice" when Pakistani agents arrested him. In the initial days after his arrest, he said, he was hooded, beaten and not allowed to sleep. He said his Pakistani captors never made good on the threat to rape him with a stick, but came close. An agent with an American accent told him that "whatever you saw here was nothing, compared to what we can do if you were sent to Egypt." After he was transferred to a less harsh prison, he said Canadian consular officials visited him, often bringing spies. He said he had at least three visits with CSIS agents he knew as "Mike and Bob," as well as visits from a Mountie assigned to monitor the Khadr family, Sergeant Konrad Shourie. Mr. Khadr said that Canadian consular officials were not much help to him. He also said he couldn't give them full details of the abuse. "I was never left alone with a Canadian," he said. "I couldn't say anything." He said he was never charged with any crime. This month, he said, he was suddenly let go, accompanied back to Toronto by Sgt. Shourie. He said the Mountie lent him his cellphone to call his family once he arrived in Toronto. They screamed with joy to hear he had come home. |
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Home Front: Politix |
Newsweek has more on al-Libi |
2005-11-11 |
A CIA document shows the agency in January 2003 raised questions about an Al Qaeda detaineeâs claims that Saddam Husseinâs government provided chemical and biological weapons training to terroristsâweeks before President George W. Bush and other top officials flatly used those same claims to make their case for war against Iraq. The CIA document, recently provided to Congress and obtained by NEWSWEEK, fills in some of the blanks in the mysterious case of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, a captured Al Qaeda commander whose claims about poison-gas training for the Qaeda group by Saddamâs government formed the basis for some of the most dramatic arguments used by senior administration officials in the run up to the invasion of Iraq. As NEWSWEEK first reported last July, al-Libi has since recanted those claims. The new CIA document states the agency ârecalled and reissuedâ all its intelligence reporting about al-Libiâs ârecantedâ claims about chemical and biological warfare training by Saddamâs regime in February 2004âan important retreat on pre-Iraq war intelligence that has never been publicly acknowledged by the White House. The withdrawal also was not mentioned in last yearâs public report by the presidential inquiry commission headed by Judge Laurence Silberman and former Sen. Charles Robb which reviewed alleged Iraq intelligence failures. The declassified CIA document about al-Libi was recently provided to Sen. Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who has been pressing for a more aggressive investigation by the Senate Intelligence Committee into the Bush Administrationâs handling of pre-war intelligence on Iraq. It has not been officially released because of Senate Intelligence Committee rules restricting public disclosure of information it receives as part of its inquiresâeven if the data has been declassified. Levin did, however, release other material last weekend that he received through his membership on the Senate Armed Services Committee. This included declassified portions of a four-page February 2002 DIA Defense Intelligence Terrorism Summary (DITSUM) that strongly questioned al-Libiâs credibility. The report stated it was âlikelyâ al-Libi was âintentionally misleadingâ his debriefers and might be describing scenarios âthat he knows will retain their interest.â A DIA official confirmed to NEWSWEEK that the DITSUM reportâwhich also questioned whether the âintensely secularâ Iraqi regime would provide such assistance to an Islamic fundamentalist regime âit cannot controlââwas circulated at the time throughout the U.S. intelligence community and that a copy would have been sent to the National Security Council. In addition to the new issues the latest al-Libi disclosure raises about the handling of pre-war Iraq intelligence, it also raises questions about the reliability of information gleaned from high-value Al Qaeda detainees who have been incarcerated in secret CIA facilities or ârenderedâ to foreign countries where they are believed to have been subjected to harsh and even brutal interrogation techniques. Al-Libi, who was the âemirâ of Al Qaedaâs Khalden training camp in pre-9/11 Afghanistan, was originally captured by U.S. forces in the fall of 2001 and, for a while, was in FBI custody. But according to Jack Cloonan, a former FBI counter-terrorism agent who was involved in the handling of his case, al-Libi became the subject of a heated battle between the FBI and CIA over which agency should retain control of him. In early 2002, Cloonan says, al-Libi was ordered turned over to the CIA and, with his mouth covered by duct tape, the shackled Al Qaeda operative was transferred in a box onto an airplane at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Cloonan says he was later told that al-Libi was flown to Egypt, which CIA officials believed was his country of origin. (In fact, the FBI believed that al-Libi, as his nom de guerre suggests, was actually from Libya.) The CIA, as part of its standard policy relating to its handling of all Al Qaeda captives, has declined to comment on what interrogation methods were used, where al-Libi was taken or where he is now being held (although some reports suggest he has since been transferred to the U.S. military facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.) What is known is that starting in the fall of 2002, al-Libiâs statements to his interrogators became the principal basis for a series of alarming Bush administration assertions about training that Saddamâs regime purportedly provided to Al Qaeda terrorists in the use of chemical and biological weapons. President Bush first referred to the claims in his Oct. 7, 2002, speech in Cincinnati where he strongly emphasized Saddamâs ties to international terror groups in general and Al Qaeda in particular. âWeâve learned that Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases,â Bush said. (Ironically, this is the same speech that the White House, at the CIAâs request, deleted references to Iraqi attempts to purchase uranium âyellowcakeâ from Africa because of questions about the reliability of the information.) The claim about poison-gas training resurfaced four months later in greatly expanded form during a particularly dramatic portion of then Secretary of State Colin Powellâs Feb. 5, 2003, speech to the UN Security Council that refers exclusively to al-Libiâalthough he is not actually identified by name. Towards the end of his speech, just after a passage that talked about Al Qaedaâs interest in acquiring weapons of mass destruction, Powell said he wanted to âtrace the story of a senior terrorist operative telling how Iraq provided training in these weapons to Al Qaeda. Fortunately, this operative is now detained, and he has told his story,â said Powell. âI will relate to you now, as he himself, described it. âThis senior Al Qaeda terrorist was responsible for one of Al Qaedaâs training camps in Afghanistan,â he continued. âHis information comes first hand from his personal involvement at senior levels of Al Qaeda.â Powell then said that Osama bin Laden and one of his deputiesâthe since deceased Mohammed Atefâdid not believe Al Qaeda had the capability to make chemical or biological weapons in Afghanistan on their own. âThey needed to go somewhere else. They had to look outside of Afghanistan for help. Where did they go? Where did they look? They went to Iraq.â Powell then continued, citing the unidentified operativeâs story (from al-Libi) that Iraq offered chemical or biological weapons training to two Al Qaeda associates starting in December 2000. A militant identified as Abu Adula al-Iraqi had also been sent to Iraq several times between 1997 and 2000 for help in acquiring poisons and gases and that the relationship forged with Iraq officials was characterized by al-Iraqi as âsuccessful,â according to Powellâs remarks. (Although it is not entirely clear from Powellâs speech, two U.S. counter-terrorism officials told NEWSWEEK they believe the information about al-Iraqi came exclusively from al-Libi.) Powell concluded this portion of the speech by saying that âthe nexus of poisons and gases is newâ and the combination of the two âis lethal.â In light of âthis track record,â Powell said this about Iraqi denials of support for terrorism: âIt is all a web of lies.â The administrationâs drumbeat citing the claims from al-Libi continued the next day when President Bush gave a brief talk at the Roosevelt Room in the White House with Powell by his side. âOne of the greatest dangers we face is that weapons of mass destruction might be passed to terrorists who would not hesitate to use those weapons,â Bush said. âIraq has bomb-making and document forgery experts to work with Al Qaeda. Iraq has also provided Al Qaeda with chemical and biological weapons training.â But according to the newly declassified DIA and CIA documents provided to Levin, the credibility of those statements by Bush and Powell were already in doubt within the U.S. intelligence community. While the DIA was the first to raise red flags in its February 2002 report, the CIA itself in January 2003 produced an updated version of a classified internal report called âIraqi Support for Terrorism.â The previous version of this CIA report in September 2002 had simply included al-Libiâs claims, according to the newly declassified agency document provided to Levin in response to his inquiries about al-Libi. But the updated January 2003 version, while including al-Libiâs claims that Al Qaeda sent operatives to Iraq to acquire chemical and biological weapons and training, added an important new caveat: It ânoted that the detainee was not in a position to know if any training had taken place,â according to the copy of the document obtained by NEWSWEEK. It was not until January 2004ânine months after the war was launchedâthat al-Libi recanted âa number of the claims he made while in detention for the previous two years, including the claim that Al Qaeda sent operatives to Iraq to obtain chemical and biological weapons and related training,â the CIA document says. Michele Davis, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said that President Bush's remarks were "based on what was put forward to him as the views of the intelligence community" and that those views came from "an aggregation" of sources. She added, however, that it was impossible at this point to determine whether the dissent from the DIA and questions raised by the CIA were seen by officials at the White House prior to the president's remarks. A counter-terrorism official said that while CIA reports on al-Libi were distributed widely around U.S. intelligence agencies and policy-making offices, many such routine reports are not regularly read by senior policy-making officials. For their part, Levin and Sen. Jay Rockefeller want the Senate Intelligence Committee, as part of its reinvigorated Phase II investigation into the handling of Iraq pre-war intelligence, to answer key questions about al-Libi: What happened to the February 2002 DIA report questioning al-Libiâs credibility? Were the CIAâs caveats circulated to the White House before President Bush made his assertions? And why did the intelligence community declassify the substance of al-Libiâs original claims so they could be used in Powellâs speech in February 2003âbut fail to publicly acknowledge that he had recanted until NEWSWEEK reported on it more than a year later? The new documents also raise the possibility that caveats raised by intelligence analysts about al-Libiâs claims were withheld from Powell when he was preparing his Security Council speech. Larry Wilkerson, who served as Powellâs chief of staff and oversaw the vetting of Powellâs speech, responded to an e-mail from NEWSWEEK Wednesday stating that he was unaware of the DIA doubts about al-Libi at the time the speech was being prepared. âWe never got any dissent with respect to those lines you cite ⊠indeed the entire section that now we know came from [al-Libi],â Wilkerson wrote. |
Link |
Terror Networks & Islam |
Predator footage reveals failed chances to kill Binny - in 1999 |
2005-09-04 |
PREVIOUSLY unseen footage of Osama Bin Laden taken by a CIA spy drone reveals how close the Americans came to killing the Al-Qaeda leader two years before the September 11 attacks. The pictures were filmed by a Predator unmanned aircraft and show Bin Laden, in white robes, with a small group of followers at a training camp near Khost in eastern Afghanistan at the end of 1999. The drone was one of the first to be used in Afghanistan by the CIA, but because of bureaucratic wrangles it was unarmed. The pictures, thought to be the first spy plane footage of Bin Laden to be published, have been obtained from American sources by Al-Jazeera, the Arabic language television station. âWe had no doubt over his identity. Bin Laden can clearly be seen standing out from the rest of the group next to the buildings,â said Michael Scheuer, a former CIA officer who headed Alec Station, the agencyâs unit which tracked Bin Laden during the 1990s. He added: âNobody at the top of the CIA wanted to take the decision to arm the Predator. It meant that even if we could find him (Bin Laden) we were not allowed to kill him.â The pictures are part of a mass of evidence now emerging of the missed opportunities to kill or capture Bin Laden and his associates before they launched the terror attacks on America in 2001. They include at least three further occasions in Afghanistan between 1998 and 2000 when the CIA had Bin Laden in its sights but was prevented from acting. There were divisions between the agency and the White House over who would have the authority to fire and the legality of killing the Al-Qaeda leader. On one occasion a satellite photographed the Al-Qaeda leader on a hunting trip, but the White House ordered the CIA not to launch a missile attack after finding out that princes from a friendly Arab country were in his party. On another occasion a raid by local tribesmen on Bin Ladenâs base in Kandahar, southern Afghanistan, was called off after American officials could not agree on whether it should go ahead. The third episode, also in Kandahar, involved a human spotter tracking him for five days, but the decision was taken not to attack because of fears over civilian casualties. The missed opportunities are documented in Blinking Red, an Al-Jazeera series beginning this week to mark the fourth anniversary of September 11. It describes how Bill Clintonâs administration turned down an offer from the Sudanese government to help to capture Bin Laden when he was living in Khartoum in the early to mid-1990s. It also shows how the Americans âlostâ two of the September 11 hijackers despite having them under surveillance. The two men later entered America. âThe Bush administration has still not come clean with the American people about 9/11. Our investigation, which has taken a year to complete, has raised many outstanding questions that urgently need to be answered, not least over the missed opportunities to take out senior leaders of the organisation,â said Al-Jazeera. The nearest the CIA came to killing Bin Laden was on the hunting trip in February 1999, just a few months before the Predator incident. The site was a camp in the desert south of Kandahar where Bin Laden had gone with wealthy visitors from the United Arab Emirates. Afghan agents reported the trip to a CIA station. Tracking teams were immediately dispatched and by February 9 they had located the isolated camp, close to a large airstrip. Richard Clarke, Clintonâs senior counter-terrorism adviser, has written in his memoirs: âWhen word came through that we had a contemporaneous sighting from our informants, the counter-terrorism security group met immediately by secure video conference.â An attack on the camp using cruise missiles was the only option the Americans could employ at such short notice. The previous year a similar strike using dozens of missiles had been launched on the Khalden training camp in the east of the country, but there were few casualties and the work of the camp was hardly disrupted. This time, with a smaller, more clearly defined target, the intelligence experts believed they would have more luck. The attack was planned for February 11, but according to Scheuer the White House stalled. Officials wanted more information about Bin Ladenâs movements. In addition it was now clear that the hunting party consisted of minor princes from the United Arab Emirates, an American ally in the Gulf. As the White House dithered, the hunting party moved on. âAll that was left was a pile of burning garbage in the desert,â said Scheuer this weekend. He claimed that the group had left after Clarke called a senior figure in the Emirates royal family. âItâs hardly surprising that they pulled out so quickly and that we lost our chance to kill Bin Laden,â said Scheuer. The Al-Jazeera series also reveals how the January 2000 meeting in Kuala Lumpur, at which the September 11 attacks were planned, came to light after the CIA tracked the telephones of Khalid al-Midhar, later to become one of the hijackers. Most of the senior planners of the attacks, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh, were at the meeting, which was also photographed by intelligence agents. Shortly afterwards Al-Midhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, another of the future hijackers who was also at the Malaysian meeting, flew to San Diego using their real names and passports. They were so casual that Al-Hazmiâs name appears in the San Diego residential phone directory for the period when they were in the area. The ease with which the two men were able to operate in America came partly because the CIA did not show its evidence to the FBI â responsible for internal security â until June 2001, 18 months after the planning meeting and well after the two had entered the country. The failures revealed in the Al-Jazeera documentary were echoed last week by further revelations about the so-called Able Danger military intelligence unit. Two members of this unit have come forward in recent weeks to say that Mohammed Atta, leader of the September 11 hijackers, was known as a terrorist suspect at least a year before the attacks. Lieutenant-Colonel Anthony Shaffer and Captain Scott Philpott, former members of the unit, said that Atta and three of the other hijackers had been identified. They say that they testified to the September 11 commission but their testimony was not taken seriously. The Al-Jazeera series, together with Scheuerâs disclosures, add to growing pressure on the American authorities over their performance in the run-up to September 11. In an unpublished report to Congress last week John Helgerson, the US governmentâs inspector-general, delivered a scathing attack on George Tenet, CIA director at the time of September 11, and a score of other agency personnel for their failure to develop a strategy against Al-Qaeda. The report recommends a public reprimand against Tenet, James Pavitt, former deputy director of operations, and Cofer Black, former head of the counter-terrorism centre. |
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Europe |
Sakra's still singing |
2005-08-24 |
Two weeks ago, Turkish police arrested an Islamist with ties to many upper tier al-Qaida members. The man not only tried to get asylum in Germany, but claims to have known about the London bombings beforehand and to have helped the 9/11 pilots. The Turkish interrogators in Istanbul's high-security prison wanted to be polite; they wanted to show respect for Islam. They offered their prisoner, an Islamist named Luai Sakra, 31, a chance to pray during a pause in questioning. They'd done the same thing with earlier suspects. The move was supposed to establish trust. But this prisoner reacted a bit differently. "I don't pray," Sakra answered politely, "and I like alcohol." When the baffled officials didn't want to believe him, he elaborated: "Especially whiskey and wine." It wasn't the only surprise the Syrian-born suspect presented to investigators. Turkish anti-terror officials held the suspected al-Qaida member for four days. Just after his arrest two weeks ago, Sakra admitted to planning strikes against Israeli cruise ships; he hoarded 750 kilograms of explosives for the purpose. When some of those explosives went up in flames in his Antalya apartment, he fled. What Sakra told officials during his interrogation suggests a deep jihadist career. The Syrian, who knows weapons as well as he knows his whiskey and wine, has obviously played a far more important role in the terrorist underground than officials first suspected. According to his own testimony, he knew about the London bombings before they happened, and supported the pilots on 9/11. "I was one of the people who knew the 9/11 perpetrators," Sakra reportedly said in passing during the interrogation, "and I knew the plans and times beforehand." He claims to have provided the pilots with passports and money. These details, if true, close some gaps in the narrative of the worst terrorist assaults in history -- and they raise a question which German investigators have wrestled with in past week: Did Sakra -- who lived from September 2000 to July 2001 with his wife and two small children as an asylum-seeker in the southern town of Schramberg -- work with anyone else in Germany? Are there any unknown contacts still out there who know what he knows? Western investigators accept Sakra's claims, by and large, since they coincide with known facts. On September 10, 2001, he tipped off the Syrian secret service -- which had chased him since 1999 for his role in a revolt in a Lebanon refugee camp -- that terrorist attacks were about to occur in the United States. The evidently well-informed al-Qaida insider even named buildings as targets, and airplanes as weapons. The Syrians passed on this information to the CIA -- but only after the attacks. Sakra owes his rise in al Qaida to the Palestinian Abu Subeida, a bin Laden confidant now in custody, who ran a sort of recruiting office for new mujahideen in the Pakistani city of Peshawar. From Abu Subeida's testimony, the CIA knows that he and the young Syrian soon came to trust each other. With help from his mentor in 1997, Sakra attended a military training camp in Khalden, where he drilled with about 80 other volunteers. They trained with Kalashnikov rifles and practiced using explosives, especially TNT and C4. In Khalden, Sakra also met the German Christian K., a Muslim convert who later served as his translator when he was waiting for asylum in Schramberg. Christian K. married one of Sakra's sisters in Aleppo in 1998. Abu Subeida sent the Syrian back and forth to Turkey, to help build new branches of his terror network. When bin Laden started a new camp for Syrians and Jordanians in 1999 in Herat, Afghanistan, he handed leadership responsibilities to five Arabs. One was Sakra; another was the Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the current chief of al-Qaida in Iraq. The two of them quickly became friends. Those years in Herat helped establish a still-growing terrorist network that's responsible for a large portion of attacks in the Near and Middle East. During one of his interrogations, Sakra claimed to have fought personally for Zarqawi in Iraq, apparently in Fallujah, the rebel stronghold where American forces found a number of torture chambers after a raid in late 2004. A video allegedly recorded in Fallujah played an important role for Turkish investigators: Sakra boasted to an Istanbul magistrate that he'd attended the execution of a kidnapped Turkish truck driver in Iraq. The video shows the death of driver Murat YÃŒce in August 2004, at the hands of armed, masked fighters for Zarqawi. Sakra gave a running commentary with a slight smile and no remorse: "Look, now they'll cut off his head. Soon they'll take that pistol off the table, so the blood won't ruin it." And, like a ballistics expert: "Blood wrecks the insides of a pistol." This cold-bloodedness -- mixed with moments of high emotion -- may be related to Sakra's shaky mental health. He comes from a well-to-do family, but officials who arrested him at an airport in Diyarkbakir found phony papers under the name "Ekrem Oeyer," along with $120,000 in cash, as well as a bottle of psychopharmaceuticals and antidepressants. Officers of the CIA and the Turkish intelligence services (MIT) who took part in this operation thought it was strange that such a hot-tempered mujahid, in custody, could sometimes act so extroverted, while at other times become so apathetic. The man's mental condition, his precisely-timed arrest shortly before an attack, and his statements in the meantime have provoked speculation that Sakra was in contact with several secret-service agencies for years. Turkish media reported that the CIA had contacted him twice in 2000, and tried to tempt him with money, apparently very large sums. Then the CIA lost his trail and turned to the Turkish MIT for help. Sakra's attorney, Ilhani Sayan, who believes some of Sakra's statements but not others, claims that in August 2001 -- four weeks before the assaults in America -- the MIT picked up their man, but let him go. Sakra himself says he was arrested twice by the MIT but freed again, both times. In 2003, his wife was also supposedly detained and interrogated for 20 days. Sakra's family lived in Turkey from 1960 on, but then emigrated to Syria, and subsequent financial strain may have been a reason for the fanatical Islamist to cooperate (at least sometimes) with officials. But Sakra never became the high-value al-Qaida informant which the CIA so desperately needs; and in the meantime the various intelligence agencies realized that any hope of controlling Sakra was just a deadly dream. |
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Afghanistan/South Asia |
Pakistan Grilling Man Linked to London Bombers |
2005-07-21 |
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm...Grilling! LONDON â The British Al Qaeda leader linked to the London terrorist attacks was being questioned by police in Pakistan last night after the discovery of mobile phone records detailing his calls with the bombers. Haroon Rashid Aswat has emerged as the figure that Scotland Yard have been hunting since he flew out of Britain just hours before the attacks which killed 56 people. Is he done on that side? Let's flip him over. Aswat, 30, who is believed to come from the same West Yorkshire town as one of the bombers, arrived in Britain a fortnight before the attacks to orchestrate final planning for the atrocity. He spoke to the team of bombers on his mobile phone a few hours before the four men blew themselves up and killed fifty-two other people. A little more marinade please... Intelligence sources told The Times that during his stay Aswat visited the home towns of all four bombers as well as selecting targets in London. Aswat has been known to Western intelligence services for more than three years after the FBI accused him of trying to set up Al Qaeda training camps in the United States. When he was arrested in a madrassa (religious school), Aswat is understood to have been posing as a businessmen and using a false name. He was picked up in a raid at a madrassa at Sargodha, 90 miles from Islamabad, by Pakistani intelligence officials and flown to a jail in the capital. Press him down. Let's get some of those nice grill marks on him. Security sources there told The Times that he was armed with a number of guns, wearing an explosive belt and carrying around £17,000 in cash. He had a British passport and was about to flee across the border to Afghanistan. Did the explosive belt at least go with his shoes. I notice he didn't have the balls to set it off. Another "never surrender" jihadi pussy. Aswat, who is thought to have stayed in the madrassa with two of the British bombers, is being questioned over claims that one â Mohammad Sidique Khan â telephoned him on the morning of the July 7 attack. Intelligence sources claim that there were up to twenty calls between Aswat and two of the bombers in the days leading up to the bombing of three Tube trains and a double-decker bus. A senior Pakistani security source said: âWe believe this man had a crucial part to play in what happened in London.â Tony Blair has telephoned President Musharraf about the crackdown on militants which has led to more than 200 arrests in Pakistan since the weekend. Officials in Islamabad say that eight men are directly linked to the London investigation, and were in telephone contact with Shehzad Tanweer, 22, and Khan, 30, a former primary school assistant. Aswat is believed to have had a ten-year association with militant groups and met Usama bin Laden while attending an Al Qaeda training camp at Khalden in Afghanistan. FBI documents obtained by The Times reveal details of how a London-based cleric sent Aswat to America in 1999 to set up camps in Oregon for U.S.-born recruits. The papers indicate that Aswat spent three months in America and engaged in firearms and poisons training but decided against using a remote ranch in Bly as an Al Qaeda camp. The CIA is keeping in close touch with Aswatâs interrogation and British detectives are seeking permission to speak to him. He should be about well done by then. The FBI is to question a number of figures held in the United States, including James Ujaama, an American convert to Islam who met Aswat, and a second Al Qaeda emissary in Seattle. Ujaama has pleaded guilty to assisting the Taliban and is now a âco-operating witnessâ who has given details of Aswatâs activities in the United States. Wonder how long they had to grill him to get him to flip? |
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Afghanistan/South Asia | |||||||
Top al-Qaeda Briton called Tube bombers before attack | |||||||
2005-07-21 | |||||||
THE British al-Qaeda leader linked to the London terrorist attacks was being questioned by police in Pakistan last night after the discovery of mobile phone records detailing his calls with the suicide bombers. Haroon Rashid Aswat has emerged as the figure that Scotland Yard have been hunting since he flew out of Britain just hours before the attacks which killed 56 people. Aswat, 30, who is believed to come from the same West Yorkshire town as one of the bombers, arrived in Britain a fortnight before the attacks to orchestrate final planning for the atrocity. He spoke to the suicide team on his mobile phone a few hours before the four men blew themselves up and killed fifty-two other people. Intelligence sources told The Times that during his stay Aswat visited the home towns of all four bombers as well as selecting targets in London.
Aswat flew into New York on November 26, 1999, on an Air India flight with Oussama Abdullah Kassir, who has Swedish nationality. Kassir, 38, described himself as âa hitman for Osama bin Ladenâ and claimed to have fought in Afghanistan and Kashmir. Ujaama drove the pair to the ranch but they complained that it did not have the facilities â especially barracks for potential recruits â that they had been led to believe existed. During November and December 1999, Aswat and Kassir met potential candidates for jihad training. The FBI document details how they secured the Bly property with guard patrols and passwords and they and others received training in firearms and âimprovised poisonsâ. Aswat and Kassir were still in the United States in February 2000. They were living in Seattle where they âexpounded the writings and teachingsâ of their London-based mentor in lectures to young Muslims at a city mosque. Kassir also provided what the FBI described as âurban tactical trainingâ. In 2002, an associate of Kassir was arrested in Stockholm, the Swedish capital, attempting to board a flight to London carrying a revolver.
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Great White North |
Canada and the War on Terror |
2005-07-16 |
Since September 11th, al-Qaeda terrorists have been consistently thwarted in their attempts to âtake the battle inside Americaâ. Despite some incidents involving mostly non-U.S. citizens, Americaâs security perimeter has not been breached, and potential cells have been pre-emptively dismantled. There are fears, however, that Americaâs southern, and especially northern boundary, perceived as largely undefended, could be the entry point for the next terrorist attack. The 4000 KM border with Canada has been subject to at least one attempted case of cross-border terrorism involving an explosives-laden car targeting the Los Angeles airport in December 1999, the so-called millennium plot. The perpetrator, Ahmed Ressam, was a member of a large North African jihadist network composed of veterans of the Afghan and Bosnian wars. While based in Montreal, the network stretched across Canada and the United States, and had links to Islamist networks operating in Europe, the Balkans and the Caucasus. Since the mid-1990s, Franceâs leading anti-terrorism judge, Jean-louis Bruguiere had been investigating the cases of Algerians, many with links to the GIA (Armed Islamic Group), livingâin many cases illegally--in Canada. Among them, Fateh Kamel, a Montreal businessman; veteran of both the Afghanistan and Bosnian Jihads was believed to be one of the main coordinators of support networks, providing forged documents for the Algerian GIA as well as a number of Salafi Jihadists based in Canada and Europe. In September 1994 Fateh Kamel, along with two Moroccan-born Canadians, Mohamed Omary and Abdallah Ouzghar, left Montreal to join the war in Bosnia. [1] Stationed in the Bosnian town of Zenica, which at the time was an Islamist stronghold, Fateh Kamel fought within the ranks of the El Muzahid unit, composed exclusively of foreign fighters, under the command of the Algerian Abu El Maali. While in Zenica, Fateh Kamel also met French converts Lionel Dumont and Christophe Caze, the future members of the ultra-violent French Jihadist group known as the âGang de Roubaixâ. After Bosnia, Fateh Kamel joined Osama bin Laden in Khartoum, where he acted as an interface between the GIA and al-Qaeda. [2] He eventually returned to his Montreal headquarters and participated at the highest levels in the coordination and logistical support to operational cells in Europe, the Balkans and North America. Two other Afghanistan and Bosnia veterans, the Moroccan Karim Said Atmani and Hamid Aich whom Kamel had also met in Zenica clandestinely arrived in Montreal in late 1995 (following the Dayton Accords) and proceeded to join his burgeoning network. Fateh Kamelâs network specialized in the procurement of funds and forged documents, particularly Canadian passports, for international jihadists. Helping them was a group of semi-affiliated local thieves, led by Said Atmani and a young Algerian named Ahmed Ressam. In 1996 Montreal, Ressam, now part of Fateh Kamelâs logistical support cell, encountered an increasing number of young North African men returning from training in Afghanistan. Among them was a past trainee turned al-Qaeda recruiter, Tunisian Abderraouf Hannachi. Many in Montrealâs Islamist circles had initially been approached by Hannachi, who also doubled as the Muezzin at the Assuna mosque in the mid-1990s. The mosque had been frequented by both Fateh Kamel and Omary, and it is very likely that the first contacts between future cell members were made there, including Abdallah Ouzghar, Mokhtar Haouari and Ahmed Ressam. The Mauritanian Mohamad Walid Salahi, closely liked to bin Laden and suspected of having recruited two of the 9/11 hijackers in Germany, had been an Imam at the Mosque and had met Ressam on several occasions. [3] In March 1998, a few weeks after Osama bin Ladenâs declaration of war against America, Ahmed Ressam, having been ârecommendedâ by both Kamel and Hannachi, flew to Pakistan where he met senior al-Qaeda figure Abu Zubayda. The senior al-Qaeda recruiter sent Ressam, along with two of his former Montreal roommates, Said Atmani and Moustafa Labsi, to the Al-Khalden camp. [4] The operational âMontreal cellâ which would be involved in the millennium plot was formed in the Khalden camp. It was there that Ressam and others would plot to conduct suicide bombing operations in the U.S., the Middle-East and Europe. Out of a group of about thirty Algerians (as well as Tunisians and Moroccans), several cells were formed and sent on different missions throughout Europe and North America. The man in charge of coordinating, supervising and facilitating the travel of the different cells was the London-based Algerian Abu Doha. The operational Montreal cell was to be composed of Ahmed Ressam and five other Algerians, including Labsi and Atmani. Ressam, who came back to Canada in February 1999, would soon learn that the rest of the cell had all been thwarted in their plans to reach Canada. Further complicating things was the arrest of Fateh Kamel and another Montrealer Noureddine Saidi in Jordan in April 1999, at the request of the indefatigable Bruguiere. The people who would end up helping Ressam were not the jihadists that were originally planned, but all were Montreal Algerians interconnected with the GIA and part of Fateh Kamelâs network; including Abdelmajid Dahoumane, a key player linked to an Islamist cell in Calgary, and Hassan Zemmiri, currently held in Guantanamo after his capture in Afghanistan. [5] Others included Mourad Ikhlef [6] (convicted in absentia of the 1992 terrorist attack on the Algiers airports), Adel Boumezbeur, Samir Ait Mohamed and Moktar Haouari. Each would render financial, logistical, material or technical support, but Ressam would travel alone across the U.S. border to Port Angeles Washington. Ressamâs plot was ultimately foiled on December 14 by Diana Dean, a U.S. border employee, but his capture would reveal that operatives were also inside America waiting to liaise with their counterparts across the Canadian border. Algerian and Brooklyn resident Abdelghani Meskini was the man supposed to meet Ressam in Seattle and was arrested a few days after the latterâs capture. On December 19, Canadian Lucia Garofalo was also arrested trying to smuggle an Algerian at a remote border crossing in northeastern Vermont. Garofalo was found to have contacts with Atmani and Meskini as well as high-ranking members of GIA cells in Europe. [7] Another Algerian with links to Meskini, Abdel Hakim Tizegha, was arrested on December 24 in Seattle, accused of being part of Ressamâs group. In the weeks that followed, a number of Algerians were stopped and questioned in major cities and border regions across the United States and Canada. Inside the North American theater, the Fateh Network--and by extension Ahmed Ressamâs cell--was linked to a number of cells spread out across Canada. Among these jihadist groups - and because of cultural and ideological similitude - the closest contacts were established with other North African groups; specifically the GICM (Moroccan Islamic Combat Group); the entity believed to be ultimately responsible for the recent suicide attacks in Morocco and the March 11th Madrid train bombings. Arrested by Canadian security services, Moroccan-born Odil Charkaoui is suspected of being a member of the GICM; he is alleged to have sent money to cell members in Madrid before the train attacks. [8] Noureddine Nafia, the âEmirâ of the GICM (currently jailed in Morocco), recognized him as one of the members of a cell implanted in Canada. He also revealed the existence of another cell member in Ottawa known as âAbdeslam the Canadianâ. [9] There seems to be numerous links with the now defunct Montreal cell. Indeed, Odil Charkaoui had had contacts with Tunisian recruiter Hannachi, as well Samir Ait Mohamed, Sait Atmani, Abdallah Ouzghar and Ressam, the latter having identified him as âZubeir Al-Magrebiâ with whom he had trained in Afghanistan in 1998. Ressamâs testimony is supported by Abu Zubayda who said he saw Charkaoui in Afghanistan in 1993, 1997 and 1998. In addition, Charkaoui had links to Abousofian Abdelrazik, a Montrealer from Sudan described as a high-ranking cadre close to Abu Zubayda. Once used solely as bases of operations, nations such as France, the United Kingdom, Italy and Spain have all become targets of jihadists. Could Canada be next on the list? Ressam had admitted that in 1999 he and another cell member, Samir Ait Mohamed, had planned to stage a large bomb attack in a Montreal neighborhood; the Outremont district, because of its large Jewish community, featured prominently in the discussions. Any wishful thinking that, Canada was not in the crosshairs of Jihadists, were dispelled in a November 2002 audiotape attributed to Osama Bin Ladin, where Canada, along with five other western nations, is specifically threatened because of its involvement in Afghanistan. In March 2004, âAl-Battar military campâ an alleged al-Qaeda manual published on various Islamist websites ranked Canada as the 5th most important âChristianâ target. The dismantling of the Montreal Cell led to the uncovering of a wider network of interconnected Jihadi cells which, while loosely affiliated to al-Qaeda, were not under its direct orders and thus largely independent in both means and targets. It also illustrated that groups like the GIA or the GICM which are seemingly animated by local concerns can be manipulated to strike the âdistant enemyâ, the United States. More ominously, Canadian security realized that Ahmed Ressam was not an isolated individual and that other cells remained in Canada, not only using the country as a launching pad for an attack on the United States but also viewing it as an eventual, softer target. |
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