| Al-Haramain Brigades | Al-Haramain Brigades | Peninsula Lions Brigade | Arabia | 20050612 |
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| Kuwait prosecution demands death penalty for 34 militants | |
| 2005-06-12 | |
 KUWAIT CITY - Kuwait's public prosecutor demanded Saturday the death penalty for 34 of 37 militants suspected of links to Al Qaeda and deadly clashes with police in January as their trial resumed here. The request for the death sentences against 34 militants, including a woman, came in the charge sheet.
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| Heart Failure ... MP Wants Answers |
| 2005-02-11 |
 The leader of a cell which allegedly plotted to kidnap US soldiers and other Westerners in Kuwait died in custody overnight of heart failure, the Interior Ministry said Wednesday. Kuwaiti daily Al-Qabas added on its website that the suspect was being questioned by prosecutors Tuesday when he began to feel ill and was examined by doctors before he died. "Amer Khleif Al-Enezi died last night of heart failure," an Interior Ministry statement said. Enezi, 29, was detained on Jan 31 along with five of his supporters after a nine-hour firefight with security forces in which four gunmen were killed.Another man who was arrested later died of his wounds. The cell of militants allegedly plotted to kidnap US soldiers and other Westerners and film their murders and carry out attacks on US military convoys heading for Iraq. The London-based Islamic Observatory, which monitors the treatment of Islamist prisoners in the Middle East, charged that Enezi had died "under torture" and demanded an independent commission of inquiry. "Enezi was killed because he refused to give information" on wanted Islamists, it said in a statement received by AFP in Dubai. "We call on the authorities to authorise the setting up of a neutral commission of inquiry, made up of Kuwaiti MPs, lawyers' unions representatives and doctors to elucidate the circumstances and reasons for this killing." Kuwaiti Islamist MP Waleed Al-Tabtabei, meanwhile, sent questions to Interior Minister Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah about the "circumstances surrounding the death" and whether Enezi's body was examined by forensics. The lawmaker, who demanded copies of the report on Enezi's death, also asked if security authorities had complied with the Constitution which bans the torturing of suspects during interrogation. Enezi was a mosque preacher in Jahra, 40 kilometres (25 miles) northwest of Kuwait City, until a few months ago when he was reportedly dismissed by the Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic affairs because of his "extremist views". Enezi's younger brother, Nasser, allegedly his right-hand man, was killed on Jan 30 in a gunbattle with security forces in Kuwait City during which a police officer was also killed. Security forces have fought gunbattles with al-Qaeda-linked Islamist gunmen, killing eight of them and capturing at least 14 others over the past month. Four police officers were also killed and 10 others wounded. According to press reports, Enezi confessed during interrogation that his group, the Peninsula Lions Brigade, was linked to the Saudi militant Al-Haramain Brigades, which has links with al-Qaeda. Enezi also reportedly confessed that his younger brother underwent explosives training in Iraq and that the group was planning attacks on US military convoys using Kuwait as a transit point to Iraq. Newspapers have reported that the ringleader told investigators the militants' aim was to set up an "Islamic emirate." |
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| Madness | |
| 2004-04-23 | |
| Now, if only they could apply this reasoning to their clients, the Palestinians, then surely there, would be peace in the Middle East. But itâs not going to happen, is it?I If one man has a dispute with another, how would he try to convince the world of the correctness of his argument? Would he set out his case point by point so that the virtue of his position could be judged? Or would he instead take a totally innocent 11-year-old girl whom he had never met and slice her into little pieces? If he did the second, how significantly would he be advancing his cause? What would he be proving? The obvious answers are that he would not only be exposing his arguments to revulsion but would be demonstrating conclusively that he was mad. Such a person is somewhere in the Kingdom now. On Wednesday he sent one of his fanatical accomplices in a car loaded with explosives to Al-Washm Street. Among the four dead was an 11-year-old Saudi girl. What virtue, what nobility, what sense is there in a cause whose supporters can stoop so low as to write their propaganda in the blood of a child? The only good thing that came out of Wednesdayâs horror was that with the death of the bomber there is now one less demented bigot in this country. Something calling itself the Al-Haramain Brigades, which boasts of links with Osama Bin Ladenâs Al-Qaeda, has said it was responsible for the Riyadh crime. For most ordinary people, admitting to such barbarity beggars belief. No civilized person could ever do such a thing. It is clear therefore that we are dealing with men who have lost all decent instincts if they ever had them in the first place. The one emotion that can blind moral judgment, destroy all traces of humanity and lead to the wicked enormities in Riyadh is hatred. Hatred is a deadly poison, because it so often springs from fury at shortcomings within the hater himself. One man hating alone develops psychotic responses. A group of men who channel their hatreds together into a single cause rapidly feed each otherâs bigotry and malevolence. The cause is incidental to their own sickness. What really matters is the opportunity it gives them to share their intolerance and fanaticism. Together they pass into a world of utterly distorted reality, where they will actually congratulate themselves on the general revulsion and loathing that their evil deeds inspire. There are therefore men who could be living close to any of us today who regard the blood baths on Wednesday in Riyadh and Basra as wonderful victories, who rejoiced at the gruesome wreckage they helped create. These, then, are our enemies. They deserve not a momentâs sympathy, not a nanosecond of consideration. Utterly consumed by hatred, they are deaf to reason and blind to the great wrong that they are doing. They dishonor the cause of Islam. They dishonor the dust they walk on.
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| Saudis Outraged by Riyadh Car Bombing | ||||||||
| 2004-04-22 | ||||||||
| EFL: Saudi Arabia's top cleric said on Thursday the people behind a suicide car bombing in Riyadh would "burn in hell" for killing innocent Muslims in the attack, which a militant group linked to al Qaeda said it carried out.
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| Saudi militant group claims Riyadh bombing | |
| 2004-04-22 | |
A Saudi militant group claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that targeted a building housing security forces in the capital Riyadh, killing at least four people and wounding 148 others.
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| Regional terror groups seen as growing threat | |||||||||
| 2004-02-07 | |||||||||
| The landscape of the terrorist threat has shifted, many intelligence officials around the world say, with more than a dozen regional militant Islamic groups showing signs of growing strength and broader ambitions, even as the operational power of Al Qaeda appears diminished. Thatâs because theyâre all part of Binnyâs International Front. Since al-Qaeda has been hit hard over the last couple of years, the group is now having its affiliates fold back into the core in order to strengthen it, hence the merger last fall between al-Qaeda, the GSPC, and the Yemeni groups. Some of the militant groups, with roots from Southeast Asia, Central Asia and the Caucasus to North Africa and Europe, are believed to be loosely affiliated with Al Qaeda. But others follow their own agenda, merely drawing inspiration from Osama bin Ladenâs periodic taped messages calling for attacks against the United States and its allies. Yet the money flows in from the same source, as does most of the training and leadership. Itâs more or less the subsidiary principle taken to a whole new level. The smaller groups have shown resilience in resisting the efforts against terrorism led by the United States, officials said, by establishing terrorist training camps in Kashmir, the Philippines and West Africa, filling the void left by the destruction of Al Qaedaâs camps in Afghanistan. But what is also worrisome to counterterrorism officials is evidence that, like Al Qaeda, some of them are setting their sights beyond the regional causes that inspired them. We already knew about the camps in Kashmir and Mindanao. West Africa is a new one for me, Iâm guessing that it refers to the al-Qaeda/GSPC bases in the Algerian Sahara or else to operations that were set up in Liberia or Burkina Faso. Northern Nigeria is also a definite possibility. The Islamic militant organization, Ansar al-Islam, for example, has largely fled its base in northern Iraq and elements of the group have moved to several European countries where they are believed to be actively recruiting suicide bombers for attacks in Iraq and Europe, officials said. Thatâs because the Ansar are little more than an arrow in the quiver of al-Tawhid, which is run by Zarqawi, who works for Binny. Itâs really not all that complicated ... The mutation of the cells was illustrated last October when the authorities in Australia arrested a Caribbean-born French citizen who they believe was sent by a little-known Pakistani group to scout possible targets for attacks. The group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, was previously thought to be focused only on the struggle of Muslims in Kashmir. The LeT has been sending jihadis abroad to fight in Chechnya and Mindanao for years. This was just the first time that they started targeting Australia, here again at the behest of al-Qaeda. Thereâs been some speculation that the LeT is being used by al-Qaeda to fill the role of being the public face of the International Front while the latter remains underground. The activity of such organizations is one reason intelligence officials believe that the threat of terrorism against the United States and its allies remains high. But the mobility and murky associations of the groups, most of which were operating before the Sept. 11 attacks, makes it difficult for agents to monitor their communications or follow their money. "They are like little time bombs that have been sent out into the world," said Gwen McClure, an F.B.I. agent and the director of counterterrorism at Interpol, the international police organization based in Lyon, France. "You never know where it might go off."
That situation changes dramatically if heâs staying at an IRGC military base with Ayman though, donât it? The officials said their view of Al Qaeda had changed. The terror network today is different from the Qaeda that existed before Sept. 11; a "credible argument can be made that itâs finished," said a senior Australian official. "However," he added, "to talk about it being finished is to ignore what it is." He said it was more accurate to see it as a movement of individuals who view the United States and the West as the enemy. "Every day around the world, we are discovering Al Qaeda members and cells previously unknown," he said.
The evidence would seem to suggest otherwise. They point to the May 12 suicide bombings of three Western housing compounds in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, that killed 25 residents, including 8 Americans. Four days later, in Casablanca, suicide bombers carried out five simultaneous attacks, killing more than 30 people. The Riyadh bombings were ordered by Saif al-Adel and Zarqawi likewise called in for the attack in Casablanca. How is that not direct contact? In both cases local groups, with loose ties to Al Qaeda, carried out the attacks. While investigators have not found solid evidence that the attacks were coordinated, "we donât believe it was mere coincidence," a senior European intelligence official said. Skipping through what we already know about Brigitte ... But the most unusual part of the case is that the authorities believe that Mr. Brigitte was a low-ranking member of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a militant Pakistani group that was formed a decade ago with help from Pakistanâs intelligence service to fight against India in Kashmir. The group was not known to have operations outside that region. Before the Taliban were driven from power, Lashkar-e-Taiba trained its men at camps in Afghanistan alongside Qaeda camps. Even though the group was banned by Pakistanâs president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, it continues to exist with training camps in Kashmir, officials said. A minor detail, no doubt ...
Iâm not exactly sure why itâs so shocking that Brigitte would have triple membership in al-Qaeda, LeT, and JI. I can be a member of multiple departments in a corporation too ... Skipping past a primer on JI ... Still, counterterrorism officials in the region say the group is recruiting and reorganizing and training men in the Philippines. It has a dedicated cadre and access to large caches of explosives, which make it a continuing serious threat. It may also be switching tactics, to the assassination of important Westerners and the use of bicycles for suicide attacks, a senior Indonesian intelligence officer said recently. Skipping past a primer on Ansar al-Islam ... The blurring of boundaries is also the case in Algeria, where the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, better known by its initials as the G.S.P.C., is growing more powerful and expanding its geographical operations. A year ago, G.S.P.C. kidnapped a group of European tourists, including nine Germans. The hostages were released after the German government paid a ransom of more than $1 million. The money has allowed the group to buy weapons, including sophisticated antiaircraft missiles.
The GSPC is also, by the word of their own leader, part of Binnyâs shadow army. Iâm still trying to figure out the level of resistance for recognizing the terror machine for what it is ... | |||||||||
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| Al-Qaedaâs whacking some Soddy big-shots | ||
| 2003-12-30 | ||
| Islamic militants in Saudi Arabia with links to Al Qaeda appear to be making a concerted new effort to destabilize the Saudi government by assassinating top security officials. "Security" in the Magic Kingdom being a relative term, of course. A series of assassination attempts in the last month, including a failed car bombing in the Saudi capital on Monday, have also included a previously undisclosed shooting in early December of Maj. Gen. Abdelaziz al-Huweirini. As the No. 3 official in Saudi Arabiaâs Interior Ministry, he is the kingdomâs top counterterrorism official. General Huweirini, who has worked closely with American officials, was moderately wounded in that Dec. 4 attack, the American officials said. No one has been killed in the attacks, which continued despite major setbacks for Al Qaeda in a battle with Saudi security forces. One Saudi king, Faisal, was assassinated in 1975 by a militant who was also a relative, but assassination attempts against Saudi officials have otherwise been almost unknown. Until this year, most major attacks by suspected Qaeda militants in Saudi Arabia have been directed against American or other Western targets. The Qaeda militants have carried out a wave of major suicide-bomb attacks in Riyadh, the capital, killing at least 50 people in the last seven months. But they have also been punished by a Saudi security crackdown in which hundreds of militants have been arrested and dozens more killed, and secret caches have been uncovered that contained tons of weapons and explosives. "The Saudis have done a good job of taking down a lot of their leadership," a senior American official said Monday of Qaeda members in Saudi Arabia. "But they continue to be very dangerous and to go after royal family-related targets."
Al-Haramain Brigades arenât al-Qaeda though, they seem to be a wannabe group to fight the royal family while the real al-Qaeda preoccupy themselves with taking out the Great Satan. Itâs also a really great negotiating tool for al-Qaeda to have a rogue jihadi group running around whose actions they can disavow. In the Monday attack, reports said the vehicle had exploded while parked in front of a building in the Salam residential district in eastern Riyadh. The site was quickly surrounded by the police, and security officials confirmed that the car belonged to a major from the Interior Ministry. A statement read on Saudi state television said firefighters had put out a blaze ignited by what was described as a small explosion. Youssef al-Ayeri, a militant who was believed to have commanded Qaeda operations in Saudi Arabia, was killed in June in a shootout with Saudi security forces. But American and Saudi officials have said they believe that he has been replaced by Abdelaziz al-Miqrin, also known as Abu Hajir, who was trained at a Qaeda camp in Afghanistan, fought in Bosnia and served previously in Algeria. I think that al-Ayyeri was more the ideologue than anything else, with the top al-Ghamdi being the nuts and bolts guy, though there are so many controllers in Soddy that itâs confusing sometime. My guess is that Louis replaced al-Ayyeri and that Abu Hajirâs taking over the nuts and bolts job from al-Ghamdi. | ||
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| Al-Haramain Brigades sez to kill Soddies |
| 2003-12-24 |
| The second story from MEMRI, this one focused around what look like al-Qaeda wannabes. Saudi Arabia does not lack for radical Islamists interested in filling the void left by Al-Qaâida when it gave up direct attacks against the Saudi regime. One example is a new organization called The Al-Haramayn [Two Holy Places] Brigades, which has so far published two communiqués claiming to have carried out, on December 5, 2003, the shooting of a high-ranking Saudi security officer. Its first communiqué stated: "The aim of this operation was, first and foremost, to let him [the Saudi officer] and every apostate tyrant know that he will not in any way be protected from the Mujahideen and their weapons, Allah willing⊠This operation was the first measure by the Brigades in the land of the two holy places, and part of its plan to purge it, as it was decided that the first stage would focus on the two groups of apostates: |
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