Recent Appearances...

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Recent Appearances...

Europe

Belgian woman sentenced on terrorism charges

2010-05-10

A Belgian court has convicted a 50-year-old Belgian woman of setting up, directing and financing a terrorist group and sentenced her eight years in prison.

Malika El Aroud and seven others were found guilty Monday and sentenced to prison terms ranging from 40 months to eight years. One defendant was acquitted for lack of evidence.

The nine were arrested in December 2008 after police intercepted an e-mail from one suspect that they said suggested a suicide attack was imminent. Prosecutors have not said where the attack was to occur. The nine defendants had denied the charges in the trial, which opened March 8.

El Aroud's first husband died in a suicide attack on a top anti-Taliban leader in Afghanistan just two days before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.for lack of evidence.

Link

Europe

Belgian trial of Al-Qaeda cell suspects underway

2010-03-08

Nine alleged members of an Al Qaeda terror cell, suspected of having recruited jihadists and prepared attacks, go on trial in Brussels Monday.

It comes 15 months after dramatic raids in Brussels and Liege when police arrested nine suspects ahead of what the security services feared was an imminent attack. The arrests, in December 2008, came just days ahead of a European Union summit in the Belgian capital.

Seven of the suspects will be in court when the trial gets underway Monday morning, with an experienced terrorist case judge presiding. Two others, still on the run, will be judged in absentia. While no details of an imminent terrorist attack or explosives were uncovered, the accused face a possible 10 years in jail for their alleged membership of a terrorist group.

The central figure in the trial is 50-year-old Belgian-Moroccan Malika El Aroud. Aroud, who is being held under high security, is the widow of one of the killers of Ahmed Shah Massoud, head of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance in Afghanistan.

According to the Belgian federal prosecutor Aroud, an admirer of Osama bin Laden, led the recruitment of jihad fighters in Belgium, sending young Muslims off to train on the Afghan-Pakistan border. They were sometimes escorted by her second husband, Moez Garsalloui, who is one of those being tried in absentia. According to the prosecutor, he had ties with "important" Al Qaeda figures.

The prosecution evidence includes a farewell video, the kind of last testament left by suicide bombers. In this case it was made by another of the accused: Hicham Beyayo, 24, according to press reports. He had received the "green light to carry out an operation from which he wasn't expected to return," and "had said goodbye to his loved ones," Belgium's federal prosecutor Johan Delmulle said.

Beyayo has denied intending to carry out a terror attack. Malika El Aroud has dismissed the prosecution case as "empty".

The terror probe got underway in late 2007, following information gleaned during investigations into an escape plan made by Tunisian Nizar Trabelsi. He was serving a 10-year sentence in Belgium for planning an Al-Qaeda attack in September 2001. Under that plan, a truck bomb was to have targetted a military base housing US troops.

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India-Pakistan

Bryant Neal Vinas: An American in Al Qaeda

2009-07-25

Bryant Neal Vinas, a 26-year-old from Long Island, N.Y., has been charged with attacking a U.S. military base and providing information to the Al-Qaeda terror network. Although Vinas pled guilty to the charges in January, court documents remained classified because their publication could have compromised other ongoing investigations. They were unsealed on July 22, providing insight into one of the few Americans known to have joined or trained with Al-Qaeda.

Fast Facts:

A onetime Boy Scout who grew up in Medford, Long Island, Vinas was raised Catholic and is said to have liked football, baseball and video games.

Vinas' Peruvian-born father and Argentinean-born mother divorced when he was a teenager. Instead of going to college, Vinas joined the U.S. army at age 18.

He started attending Islamic services three or four years ago and eventually converted. He joined the the Islamic Association of Long Island, a mosque where most attendees are from Pakistan. While there, he went by the name Ibrahim.

Vinas became a licensed truck driver but quit his job and left home in 2007, saying he wanted to study Islam and Arabic. His parents had no idea where he went.

His confiscated computer revealed that prior to leaving home, Vinas had visited jihadist websites.

Because the young American had no previous criminal record and no connection with any other terrorist groups, he was able to travel freely through foreign countries.

Traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan in late 2007 or early 2008, where he went by a number of names, including Ben Yameen al-Kanadee and Bashir al-Amriki (Bashir the American).

After a truck bomb killed more than 50 people at the Islamabad Marriott hotel in September 2008, the FBI interviewed the Vinas family about their son. According to Vinas' father, they indicated that it was just routine.

Vinas was in Peshwar, Pakistan in November 2008, supposedly to buy supplies and use the Internet, when he was arrested by Pakistani authorities. Authorities have not revealed how they located him.

He has been linked to a Belgian-French terror cell and also to Moez Garsallaoui, a Tunisian Islamist militant whom he may have met while in Pakistan.

Vinas was charged with conspiracy to murder U.S. citizens, providing information to a terrorist organization, and receiving "military-type training" from a Al-Qaeda. He originally pled not guilty but switched on Jan 28 and pled guilty to all charges.

According to court documents, he admitted to firing rockets on a U.S. military base in Afghanistan in September 2008.

Vinas informed U.S. officials of an Al Qaeda plot to blow up a Long Island Rail Road commuter train in New York's Penn Station, saying that he had provided them with details of the New York transit system. This revelation lead authorities to issue a Nov. 25 2008 terror alert.

He is expected to be a key witness in the cases of other Al Qaeda members, including that of Malika El Aroud, a Morrocan-born Belgian woman accused of recruiting Al Qaeda members over the Internet.

Vinas is currently in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service in an undisclosed location somewhere in New York.

Link

Home Front: WoT

Long Island Sonny Boy Turns Terrorist

2009-07-23

And, as you'll read, his mother doesn't love him anymore ...

He was the terrorist next door.

A former Boy Scout from Long Island turned his back on his All-American life and converted to Islam, joining al Qaeda in Pakistan and firing rockets at a US military base in Afghanistan, authorities said yesterday. Bryant Neal Vinas, a 26-year-old son of South American immigrants who came to the United States to give their son a better life, instead became a jihadist hell-bent on destroying America.

"He broke my heart. This is not my son," his Argentinian-born mother, Maria Vinas, of Medford, LI, told The Post, choking back tears. "I hope I never see him again."

The one-time devout Catholic's zeal to shed American blood was not contained to conflicts abroad, authorities said. According to court papers filed in Brooklyn federal court, he also handed over to his al Qaeda handlers "expert advice and assistance" about how to blow up the subway here in New York and the Long Island Rail Road.

When he was finally arrested on the battlefield in Afghanistan and US officials caught wind of the plot, it prompted a massive security alert at Penn Station and other transit hubs last Thanksgiving.

Vinas' bizarre journey from an average suburban life in Suffolk County to that of a bearded mullah in the terrorist no-man's land of Waziristan in Pakistan has emerged as a cautionary tale of militant Islam's reach.

"A wonderful boy, my sweetheart," his mother said. "I called him my teddy bear."

Maria lost track of her son not long after giving up custody when she and her husband divorced nine years ago. When he moved out, Bryant, a one-time Scout, was active in the Catholic church. "My husband was very religious," she said. "He destroyed my son, obviously."

The father, Juan Vinas, originally from Peru, told the Los Angeles Times that his son was living with him as late as September 2007 and became immersed in Islam after he began attending a mosque in Selden, LI. He said Bryant grew increasingly reclusive and headstrong.

No kidding. Really? Gosh, you could never have seen that coming, huh Pops?

Bryant began wearing Islamic robes and a skullcap, said, Juan Vinas, who was extensively interviewed by the feds. "He became very excited" about Islam, converted from Catholicism and even tried to get his father to convert.

The imam at the Islamic Association of Long Island, Nayyar Imam, said Bryant showed up there in mid-2006 and quickly began attending four to five times a week. He stood out as the only Latino at the mosque that primarily is attended by immigrants from Pakistan. "He never mentioned anything happening in the news or anything in the newspaper," Imam said. "I just can't believe that this sort of person would do this. I'm shocked."

Floored. Never saw it coming. Didn't preach anything in the mosque other than peace, harmony and good will. No idea where Vinny got all that bile about hating the Jooz ...

Law-enforcement sources said Vinas had discovered a different, more dangerous kind of Islam when he began perusing militant Web sites.

As opposed to the peace and fluffy bunny Islam at the mosque ...

In late 2007, Vinas left his hometown abruptly, without telling his father where he was going.

"Hey Boy, where you going?"
"None of your beeswax, Pops!"

Federal investigators say Bryant turned up in Pakistan in December 2007 and convinced al Qaeda recruiters that he was sincere about his commitment to radicalism. Someone close to the group vouched for him, the LA Times reported.

And who might that be, and what connection does he have with the mosque back home? A real shame we can't, you know, check telephone records or something ...

"He had a good reference, so they trusted him," an anti-terror official said.

"Boss, Mahmoud just called. Sez Vinny is a good fella."
"Hokay, that's enough for me. Vinny, you're a made man!"
"Gosh, you mean it? This is the happiest day of my life -- well, until I can go explode somewhere!"

As a result, he received "military-type training" from May to August at an al Qaeda camp and went on a mission near the lawless Afghan border. Vinas became known by other names, including Ibrahim, Ben Yameen al-Kanadee and Bashir al-Ameriki -- "Bashir the American."
AKA; Cannon Fodder
He was dispatched to bring jihad to the next level. In September 2008, he and a group of cohorts fired rockets at a US base in Afghanistan, according to court papers filed by Assistant US Attorney James Loonam. The papers did not specify if there were any casualties.

Missed by a country mile?

The papers also revealed that Vinas provided al Qaeda with detailed information "based on his "specialized knowledge" of New York's subways and the LIRR.
Got the T-shirt with the subway map printed on it
But in November, he was captured by Pakistani forces. He immediately sang to investigators with critical information about meeting with al Qaeda operational chiefs about a plot to blow up the transit systems, although law-enforcement sources said it never got beyond an "aspirational stage."

In reality, Vinas was just a wannabe talking a big game and did not have inside information about the transit systems, having never worked for them, a source said. Instead, he had the kind of commuter knowledge that any Long Island resident would have.

Which was more than any Peshawar resident would have ...

The MTA said yesterday it had been "in constant communication with local and federal authorities" as the probe developed. "There was never an imminent threat to the system," the agency said in a statement.

After Vinas was captured, he was taken into custody in Brooklyn. On Jan. 28, he pleaded guilty in a closed-door hearing before federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis.

Didn't even have to play Muskrat Love to get him to confess?

Since then, he has also been cooperating with European investigators, who are probing cases in Italy and Belgium, allegedly involving al Qaeda terrorists who Vinas met in Pakistan.

One case involves Malika El Aroud, 50, the Belgian ex-wife of a man behind the slaying of Afghan leader Ahmed Shah Massoud. Massoud was a key anti-Taliban leader assassinated in a bomb attack two days before Sept. 11, 2001. Aroud was one of five terror suspects captured in Belgium last winter. Vinas is expected to be a star prosecution witness when the case against Aroud, a prominent pro-terrorist blogger, goes to trial. He is currently being held at an undisclosed location.

"I think the FBI know where he is," said his father, Juan. "But they won't tell me. They don't want to tell me."

Relatives told the LA Times that they were interviewed last year after a truck bomb killed 55 people at the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan. The agents said they were checking on Americans living in Pakistan and had determined that Bryant Vinas was there.

Since those interviews, Juan Vinas said, he hasn't been able to get any information from the FBI.

You didn't seem to care a whole lot when Vinny went off to Pakistain ...

His mother first learned of his al Qaeda connection when The Post called her Medford home yesterday. "I know he's crazy, but not that crazy. This is horrible," she said. "I thought he was dead when the FBI [first] contacted me."

Wait ...

Vinas' identity was a closely guarded secret as the investigation into his al Qaeda ties expanded. The case is part of probes in at least seven countries. "It is a massive case," a Justice Department official said.

Vinas' mother could think of little to say to her son, whom she hasn't seen in eight years. "He chose to be like this. I feel very sorry," she said. "Good luck."

Link

Europe

6 alleged Islamic extremists charged in Belgium

2008-12-13

Authorities on Friday arrested the Belgian widow of a man involved in killing an anti-Taliban warlord, saying she was part of an al-Qaida group that was about to launch a suicide attack. Malika El Aroud, 49, was charged with belonging to a terrorist organization. Five men in their 20s were also charged; eight others were released for lack of evidence

El Aroud, dressed in black from head to toe, was pushed into a police car during a night raid early Thursday a few miles away from, and a few hours before, a summit of European Union government leaders was scheduled to open. Authorities said she was too dangerous to walk the streets and even considered calling off the summit.

"It was considered as a possibility," said Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme at summit headquarters. In the end, the gathering went smoothly. Authorities said they cannot say whether an attack was planned in Brussels or elsewhere.

The arrest added to the aura of El Aroud, who is known for using the Internet to support radical causes.

"She is a beacon and a catalyzer in the radical movement, and she is very smart in using it," said Brice De Ruyver, a Ghent University professor and former government security adviser. "Our freedom of expression has always given her a safe conduct to use the Internet and attract vulnerable youths," De Ruyver said. One of the five men charged was said to be on the verge of carrying out a suicide attack.

Repeated phone calls to the office of her lawyer went unanswered.

El Aroud has figured in almost every major Belgian terror probe since 2001, investigators say. An official in the Federal Prosecutor's Office said she frequently switched laptops and wireless Internet services to evade investigators. The official, who has knowledge of years of investigations into El Aroud, spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case.

Last year, she was detained in a pre-Christmas anti-terrorism sweep, and authorities were convinced they had averted a terrorist attack.

El Aroud has had a tumultuous life. As a child, she moved from her native Tangiers in Morocco to Belgium, where an unhappy youth led to failed relationships before she discovered fundamentalist Islam.

She and her husband, Abdessatar Dahmane, went to Afghanistan, where he was killed during the assassination of anti-Taliban warlord Ahmed Shah Massoud two days before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States.

Turned into the widow of a martyr, El Aroud returned to Belgium, where, experts say, she since has been involved in radical networks in Belgium and Switzerland. Investigators suspect her current husband, Moez Garsalloui, is now an important link of El Aroud's group in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

But Claude Moniquet, the president of the Brussels-based think tank European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center, said he believes any attack would probably have targeted Europe rather than Afghanistan. "Some of the terrorists who were arrested were just back from that country after they had received training; they would not go there anymore," he said. "It is unlikely from a strategic standpoint that a new attack in Afghanistan would change much. In Europe, however, the impact would have been huge."

Link

Terror Networks

Boomerette talent scout arrested in Belgium - Flashy clothes gave her away

2008-12-12

(CNN) -- Belgian police Thursday arrested a woman they called an "al-Qaeda living legend" as part of an operation to thwart a terror attack being planned to coincide with an EU summit in Brussels, a Belgian police source told CNN.

Police seized 14 people, one of whom was planning to carry out a suicide attack in Belgium, the source said. They had contacts at the "highest levels of al-Qaeda," the source said. The police source said officers "had only 24 hours to act."

The leaders of the European Union's 27 member states are meeting in Brussels Thursday and Friday. It is not clear that the heads of state and government themselves were the target of the planned attack.

The federal prosecutor's office in Belgium identified one of the suspects as Malika El-Aroud, the widow of one of the men who assassinated a key opponent of the Taliban in Afghanistan two days before September 11, 2001. El-Aroud's late husband was one of two men who killed Ahmed Shah Massoud, a leader of the Northern Alliance, in a suicide mission ordered by Osama Bin Laden.

Belgian police aimed to prevent El-Aroud, whom the police source called an "al-Qaeda living legend," from moving to Afghanistan to play a role in the fight against the coalition forces there, the source said. She is thought to be a recruiter for the anti-Western network, rather than a fighter, the source said.

El-Aroud described the "love" she and her late husband felt for Osama bin Laden in a 2006 interview with CNN. "Most Muslims love Osama. It was he who helped the oppressed. It was he who stood up against the biggest enemy in the world, the United States. We love him for that," she told CNN then.

Gazing into CNN's cameras she said, "It's the pinnacle in Islam to be the widow of a martyr. For a woman it's extraordinary."

"Most of those arrested" Thursday had Belgian passports, the police source said. All 14 are of Moroccan descent.

Three of the suspects had traveled to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region to participate in fighting or training camps, and were in contact with an unnamed suspect who had direct links to important al-Qaeda figures, police said. Two of those three returned to Belgium several months ago and started surveillance operations, and the third returned to Belgium a week ago, police said. Intelligence showed that third person was ready to carry out a suicide attack, police said.

Information showed the suspect who was to carry out the attack had received the green light to execute the operation, police said. Investigators noted the suspect had said goodbye to his family "because he wanted to go to paradise with a clear conscience," police said. Authorities also found a video meant for the suspect's family, which police said was probably a farewell tape. They did not find any explosives, the police said in a statement.

The 14 suspects were arrested after police carried out 16 search warrants in Brussels and one in the western Belgian city of Liege. During those searches, police seized computer equipment and documents and the 14 people, including the three who traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan and 11 others suspected of having given them logistical and material support.

Police said their investigation has been under way intensively since the end of 2007.

Link

Europe

Belgian Internet Warrior Rallies Women to Support Al Qaeda

2008-05-28

Malika El Aroud has become one of the most prominent Internet jihadists in Europe. In her living room, Ms. El Aroud, a 48-year-old Belgian, wears the ordinary look of middle age: a plain black T-shirt and pants and curly brown hair. The only adornment is a pair of powder-blue slippers monogrammed in gold with the letters SEXY. But it is on the Internet where Ms. El Aroud has distinguished herself. Writing in French under the name Oum Obeyda, she has transformed herself into one of the most prominent Internet jihadists in Europe.

She calls herself a female holy warrior for Al Qaeda. She insists that she does not disseminate instructions on bomb-making and has no intention of taking up arms herself. Rather, she browbeats Muslim men to go and fight and rallies women to join the cause. Its not my role to set off bombs thats ridiculous, she said in a rare interview. I have a weapon. Its to write. Its to speak out. Thats my jihad. You can do many things with words. Writing is also a bomb.

Ms. El Aroud has not only made a name for herself among devotees of radical forums where she broadcasts her message of hatred toward the West. She also is well known to intelligence officials throughout Europe as simply Malika an Islamist who is at the forefront of the movement by women to take a larger role in the male-dominated global jihad. The authorities have noted an increase in suicide bombings carried out by women the American military reports that 18 women have conducted suicide missions in Iraq so far this year, compared with 8 all of last year but they say there is also a less violent yet potentially more insidious army of women organizers, proselytizers, teachers, translators and fund-raisers, who either join their husbands in the fight or step into the breach as men are jailed or killed. Women are coming of age in jihad and are entering a world once reserved for men, said Claude Moniquet, president of the Brussels-based European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center. Malika is a role model, an icon who is bold enough to use her own name. She plays a very important strategic role as a source of inspiration. Shes very clever and extremely dangerous.

Ms. El Aroud began her rise to prominence because of a man in her life. Two days before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, her husband carried out a bombing in Afghanistan that killed the anti-Taliban resistance leader Ahmed Shah Massoud at the behest of Osama bin Laden. Her husband was killed, and she took to the Internet as the widow of a martyr.

She remarried, and she and her new husband were convicted in Switzerland for operating pro-Qaeda Web sites. Now, according to the Belgium authorities, she is a suspect in what the authorities say they believe is a plot to carry out attacks in Belgium. Vietnam is nothing compared to what awaits you our lands, she wrote to a supposed Western audience in March about wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Ask your mothers, your wives to order your coffins. To her followers she added: Victory is appearing on the horizon my brothers and sisters. Lets intensify our prayers.

Her prolific writing and presence in chat rooms, coupled with her background, makes her a magnet for praise and sympathy. Sister Oum Obeyda is virtuous among the virtuous; her life is dedicated to the good on this earth, a man named Juba wrote late last year.

Link

Europe

Swiss court tries 2 Muslims for e-terror

2007-06-21

Switzerlands first Internet terrorism trial opened on Wednesday with the prosecution accusing two Muslims of running web sites that supported Al Qaeda linked groups and showed terror executions.

The two suspects - Moez Garsallaoui, a Tunisian based in Switzerland, and Malika El Aroud, the Belgian-born widow of an Al Qaeda suicide bomber - appeared in the high security courtroom.

They were accused of running web sites showing the slaying of hostages and giving details of bomb making and carrying out attacks. The suspects had been detained in February 2005 during anti-terror raids in two Swiss states, the federal criminal court said. The presentation of arguments in trial in Switzerlands federal criminal court is scheduled to last up to two days.

According to the indictment, Garsallaoui, the 39-year-old main defendant, is accused of running different web based discussion forums that were used by terrorists for information sharing.

The sites also were used to publicise claims of responsibility for attacks and threats against western countries.

The Federal Prosecutors Office said a forum on one of the sites, called Islamic-minibar, had been used to publish letters claiming responsibility for a July 2004 suicide bomb attack in Pakistan. Swiss media reported two years ago that the beheading of American engineer Paul M Johnson, Jr in Saudi Arabia was one of a number of executions aired on the sites.

El Aroud, a Belgian citizen of Moroccan descent, has been charged as a co-defendant for operating a jihadi web site. The 48-year old woman is the widow of one of the suicide attackers who killed anti-Taliban warlord Ahmed Shah Massoud two days before the 9/11, according to Swiss Federal Police. Swiss authorities shut down all the web sites in 2005.

Link

Europe

Swiss court to try two Muslims accused of running terror websites

2007-06-06

Two Muslims suspected of running websites showing hostages being slain and giving details of how to make bombs and carry out attacks have been named as defendants in Switzerlands first Internet terrorism trial later this month.

The two suspects were detained in February 2005 during anti-terror raids in two Swiss states, the Federal Criminal Court said. Swiss media previously identified the two as Moez Garsallaoui, a Tunisian based in Lausanne, and Malika El Aroud, the widow of an Al Qaida suicide bomber.

According to a schedule posted on the courts website, the charges include providing support for a criminal organisation. The two suspects are also accused of publicly inciting criminal acts of violence as well as the manufacturing, concealment and transfer of explosives or poisonous gases.

The trial begins on June 20, the schedule stated. A verdict is expected the same day, but may be withheld by authorities until a later point. The court said Garsallaoui, the main defendant, is accused of running different websites with discussion forums that were used by terrorist groups to share information. Prosecutors have said the sites were setup to promote racially motivated crimes.

The sites were also used to publicise claims of responsibility for attacks and threats against Western countries. Swiss media reported two years ago that the beheading of American Paul Johnson, Jr in Saudi Arabia was one of a number of executions aired on the sites.

El Aroud, a Belgian citizen of Moroccan background, has been charged as a co-defendant for operating a jihadi website.

She is the widow of a suicide attacker who killed anti-Taliban warlord Ahmed Shah Massoud two days before the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US, according to Swiss Federal Police.

Swiss authorities shut down all the websites in 2005. The Federal Prosecutors Office said a forum on one of the sites, Islamic-Minibar, was used to publish letters claiming responsibility for a suicide attack in Pakistan in July 2004.

Other postings included a threat to kill Italian aid workers Simona Pari and Simona Torretta, who were abducted in Baghdad in September 2004. The two aid workers were later freed.

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