Jihadists Infiltration of the U.S. Military

On Nov. 5, 2002 Abdul Raheem Al Arshad Ali, a former Marine and Gulf War veteran, became the third suspected terrorist associated with the Dar-us-Salaam mosque in Seattle (now renamed the Dar ul Islam Masjid mosque) to be arrested for alleged ties to al Qaeda.

Authorities earlier had arrested James Ujaama and Semi Osman on charges connected to the scouting of a ranch in Bly, Ore., as a possible terrorist training site in 1999.

Ujaama reportedly first came to the attention of federal agents in 1999 when he faxed radical London cleric and reputed Al Qaeda recruiter, Abu Hamza Al-Masri, a proposal for creating a “jihad training camp” in the United States.

British informants place both Ujaama and Osman in al-Masri’s mosque in 1998; the same mosque attended by shoe-bomber Richard Reid and 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui. During their visit both men had worn the garb of Afghan mujhadeen, lectured on the need for a jihad (holy war) against the West, and later traveled to Afghanistan to deliver laptop computers to the Taliban regime.

Suspected terrorists detained at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have reportedly also confirmed dealings with Ujaama.

Ujaama runs a non-profit organization called StopAmerica.org, whose website is sponsored by the Global Alliance for U.S. Foreign Policy Change, “an officially registered non-governmental organization (NGO) in Pakistan” with pending registration in Indonesia and Nigeria,” according to the website.

The website’s anti-American articles contain statements such as “the evil U.S. and British governments,” the “terrorist U.S. military and CIA,” and the incriminating “My brother and I will join those who fight in the cause of Allah.” The brother referred to on the website is Mustafa Ujaama, who was converted or recruited to radical Jihadist Islam while serving in the U.S. military.

Most alarmingly, Semi Osman was a drilling Construction Mechanic 3rd Class in the U.S. Navy reserve at the time of his arrest. Osman served in the U.S. Navy’s Supply Support Battalion 1, Company F, a fueling unit based in Tacoma, Wash., with access to fuel trucks similar to the type used by al Qaeda in the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers and the 2002 bombing of a synagogue in Tunisia. Such converted fuel truck bombs possess the equivalent energy of 10-15 tons of TNT.

Ali, Mustafa Ujaama, and former Army sergeant and alleged sniper John Muhammad appear to be indicative of an emerging threat of Jihadists attempting to infiltrate or turn members of the U.S. military. However, at this time only Osman, former Army sergeant Ali Muhammad (a conspirator in the Tanzania and Kenya embassy bombings), and former Army reservist Jeffrey Leon Battle, indicted in October 2002 of conspiring to levy war against the United States and “enlisting in the Reserves to receive military training to use against America,” have definitively been proven to participate in jihadist activities concurrent with their military service.

The threat of enemy operatives within our homeland is not a new challenge to those charged with our security. There exists a long history of hostile governments seeking to take advantage of our open society to turn or plant operatives within the American government and military. For the most part, these operatives are people who had access to information or technology that would be of value to our enemies during times of war: diplomats, intelligence agents, key military personnel, scientists and federal agents.

It is with this longstanding threat in mind that our military’s operational security (OPSEC) and Personnel Reliability Plans (PRP) have been developed and implemented. OPSEC is primarily geared towards denying our enemies insight into our plans and capabilities, and uncovering those who would commit acts of espionage against the United States. PRP is a special program controlling access to nuclear weapons or their launching mechanisms.

The threat of infiltration posed by Islamic extremist, however, is markedly different in nature.

Unlike our Cold War era enemies, jihadists target “low visibility” recruits with access to secure but non-intelligence related targets. Captured al Qaeda manuals evidence instruction to jihadist recruiters to target “workers at coffee shops, restaurants and hotels, and security personnel at borders, airports and seaports.” Indicators of the implementation of this strategy are manifested in jihadist activities such as the hosting of Tri-State area bridge and tunnel workers at the al Fuqra compound in Hancock, N.Y. as discussed in a DefenseWatch article by Christian M. Weber, “Examine Gunman’s Possible Ties to al Fuqra,” (Oct. 30, 2002).

While all military personnel undergo background screening when entering the service, heightened and continuous scrutiny is generally only paid to those in occupations that require enhanced levels of clearance.

However, A significant threat potentially exists from jihadist operatives in traditionally non-security-clearance related military occupational specialties.

A jihadist operative in a food service or supply unit could potentially contaminate the meals of our troops, similar to the salmonella attacks by Rajneeshee cultists in Oregon in 1984, or the clothing articles of military personnel in a method reminiscent of British colonials giving smallpox tainted blankets to Indians in 1763 and 1767.

Jeffery Leon Battle had been slated for a non-combat specialty in the Army Reserve. According to Lt. Colonel Boyd Collins of Army Reserve national headquarters in Atlanta, Battle “would have worked the supply room and issued supplies.”

All traditionally low clearance positions, but with significant windows of opportunity that could enable jihadists to do harm to our military personnel.

In 1963, former CIA Director Allen Dulles identified six reasons why an operative betrays his country: blackmail, money, sympathy for the cause, for “kicks,” or for “reasons that defy rational analysis.” All of these reasons apply to potential jihadist operatives.

Some argue that scrutiny of suspected jihadists potentially steps across the line of infringing upon the religious freedom of Muslims. However, jihadism eclipses the bounds of religion by seeking to create a world system, much in the manner that Communism was a perversion of economics. While jihadism does maintain strong elements of religion, so too did Communism have its own “prophets,” “holy scriptures,” and its own version of a “holy war” that would usher in a utopian society.

Jihadism diverges from Islam in that it advocates and systematically teaches the duty or necessity to overthrow secular governments and establish Islamic caliphates. The participation of military personnel in a jihadist organization is seditious conspiracy, punishable under Title 18, US Code, Section 2384 and Section 2385.

Investigations into acts of sabotage, espionage, spying, treason, sedition or subversion are generally “incident investigations” initiated after the act has been perpetrated, such as with the sabotage of Marine parachutes at Camp Lejeune, N.C., in September 2002. Thus, it is imperative for the United States to be proactive in its counter-terrorism efforts.

The five-step OPSEC process of identifying critical targets to be protected, analyzing the threats, analyzing the vulnerabilities, assessing the risks, and applying countermeasures remains our best defense and should be applied to all aspects of our armed forces – not just the traditional nuclear and intelligence-related areas.

Furthermore, the Defense Security Service (DSS) should be provided with the funds and resources to expand its screening to include random security checks of active-duty and reserve personnel in all military occupational specialties, particularly those with traditionally low security-clearance requirements.

Through heightened vigilance and proactive countermeasures we can combat the threat of jihadist infiltration.

Tom Knowlton writes about military affairs and terrorism. He can be reached at TKnowlton@defense.com.

Hmm...I wonder what would happen if their servers were to receive SO much traffic that they couldn't keep up with the demand...repeatedly...?

Looks like somebody beat you to it. stopamerica.com is the correct name of the site not stopamerica.org which is unrelated. The site was shut down and replaced with a pro-American site. There are some entertaining comments there like the following:

www.stopamerica.com isn't anti American??? who are you kidding? I am the one who alerted Yahoo to you terrorists using their fine service to forward your activites. I'm proud to see they shut you off. I'm proud that American authorities have put the owner of this site in jail and pray to the Great Spirit that terrorist stays there. Hopefully, he'll be raped in prison then slaughtered for the animal he is. Your cause is futile. I pray to the Great Spirit each night that islam is seen for the terrorist religion it is and that there will be MILLIONS of FORMER muslims. I will spread the word of your ip address to hackers worldwide so that they may attack you in the way you attack us. There will be no peace for terrorists. We will hunt you down and bring you to justice. The Great Spirit teaches us to reach out to those who attack us, reach out with better weapons. Peace through superior firepower. Remember that, terrorist." - yownuh, 2002-08-20

You posted this question: Is much of what this guy is discussing, al Fuqra?

The problem with many writers and even good writers is their own minimal awareness and knowledge of al Fuqra and its potential to harm America with home grown Islamakazis.

Also, it appears to be the old problem that the media has in getting real stories read. They have to put sizzle in their stories to get readership. Most Americans know about al Qaeda and know basically nothing about al Fuqra. So the writers put a little tag re al Fuqra some where in the article after trying to link home grown Islamkazis to al Qaeda to keep the readers interested in their story.

Last but not least, the problem of Political Correctness at the editorial and publisher levels is probably limiting real stories on al Fuqra. Documenting who is an al Fuqra, re how they became connected with al Fuqra flies right into the face of Political Correctness in America at the editorial and publisher levels.

U.S. Army Muslim chaplain questions duty
Captain gets mixed signals from foreign Islamic leaders

Article here...

America's Fifth Column ... watch Steve Emerson/PBS documentary JIHAD! In America
New Link: Download 8 Mb zip file here (60 minute video)

Who is Steve Emerson?

You posted this question: Is much of what this guy is discussing, al Fuqra?
The problem with many writers and even good writers is their own minimal awareness and knowledge of al Fuqra and its potential to harm America with home grown Islamakazis.
Also, it appears to be the old problem that the media has in getting real stories read. They have to put sizzle in their stories to get readership. Most Americans know about al Qaeda and know basically nothing about al Fuqra. So the writers put a little tag re al Fuqra some where in the article after trying to link home grown Islamkazis to al Qaeda to keep the readers interested in their story.

Thanks for the clarification. Unfortunately, ignorance and cowardice make for a vicious circle: the lack of information on al Fuqra makes it that much harder for an enterprising journalist to do a good job, and the cowardice of many editors and publishers makes it that much easier for other editors and publishers to rationalize being gunshy about commissioning series on al Fuqra. (And it is also very expensive to pay reporters to do the spade work.)

I really don't think that many editors and publishers allow their reporters to do real spade work re reporting any more.

Any so called spade work is an interview with 12 illegal alien families about how hard it is to be on welfare, MediCal and food stamps in Kalifornia and be objects of finger pointing.

Dave Berry has a really funny book about a reporter who gets fired for wanting to do real reporting instead of coming up with the pro diversity sob stories for the Politically Correct newspaper he worked for. The newspaper was not interested in murder, mob violence and hired killers. (I can't remember the name of the book, but it is a riot for a conservative to read).

We know a professional photographer who retired after decades of being photographer for a newspaper that turned into a left wing maggot fishwrap in the last 10 years.

He was not allowed to take a picture of any criminal arrested unless he was white and mean a$$ed ugly white. They did not want pictures of new Churches being built or renovated. His last two years, he was told no pictures of Christian Churches during Christmas or Easter as these pictures offended the non Christians. Kwanza and whatever as long as it was not Christian or Jewish photos in December were in demand.

Any picture of a car wreck where people were injured or killed by an illegal alien driving often without even a phoney driver's license were not allowed.

Any renta mob picture or group of homosexuals protesting or at a meeting had to be postioned so that a few looked like a lot.

If one of the local highshools had a great male football or basketball team, they limited him to one shot per week, and it there was a minority playing, he was the centerpiece of photos. He had a quota of 3-5 pictures per week of various women atheletes in action. So he spent a lot of time at volleyball games.

So when he could retire, he jumped at the chance. He said that he was just the tip of the iceberg re political correctness and the worship of diversity versus news.

Hey, Grampa Dave, didn't I just run into you at the Iraqi thread?

Thanks for the background. Presently, I'm reading William McGowan's book, Coloring the News: How Crusading for Diversity Has Corrupted American Journalism, which details how major papers (and in some cases, TV) -- in particular, the New York Times, Washington Post, and L.A. Times -- have variously ignored or misrepresented stories on race, sex, and immigration. One-third of the way through, I have not seen any discussion of photo quotas, or of the responsibility of "J-schools" for the present impasse. So, while McGowan does an excellent job of showing how the major dailies misreport big stories, the crisis runs much deeper.

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