Threat Matrix- Daily Terror Thread (4):

Also - I forgot to add - one of the men, who were both Algerians, worked in a "locutorio," which is a sort of private telephone/fax/internet center often used by immigrants to communicate with folks abroad. There might be some interesting records there, too.

Check this out! Any new requests for service in the Mountains of Afghanistan?

Al-Qaeda member tried to set up satellite TV link so bin Laden could watch 9/11

Fair use policy http://www.spacedaily.com/2004/0402...8.4unc3519.html

One of the two alleged al-Qaeda members charged on Tuesday tried but failed to set up a satellite television connection so Osama bin Laden could watch the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, according to the indictment.
Ali Hamza Ahmed Sulayman al Bahlul of Yemen was described by the Pentagon as a "key al-Qaeda propagandist" and former bodyguard to bin Laden, mastermind of the 2001 hijacked plane attacks on New York and Washington which left nearly 3,000 people dead.

The Pentagon announced Tuesday that Al Bahlul and another alleged al-Qaeda member held at Guantanamo Bay, Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al Qosi of Sudan, had been charged with conspiracy to commit war crimes and would face trial by military tribunal.

According to the indictment, "from late 1999 through December 2001, al Bahlul was personally assigned by Osama bin Laden to work in the al-Qaeda media office.

"In this capacity, al Bahlul created several instructional and motivational recruiting video tapes on behalf of al-Qaeda," the indictment said.

"On September 11, 2001 Osama bin Laden tasked al Bahlul to set up a satellite connection so that bin Laden and other al-Qaeda members could see news reports," the indictment said.

"Despite his efforts, al Bahlul was unable to obtain a satellite connection because of the mountainous terrain," it added.

"In the weeks immediately following the attacks of September 11, 2001, Osama bin Laden tasked al Bahlul to obtain media reports concerning the September 11th attacks and to gather data concerning the economic damage caused by these attacks," it added.

Al Bahlul and al Qosi are the first of the more than 650 detainees at Guantanamo to be charged.

Well, good, I prefer a short timeframe - my nerves can't take these 20-30 day waiting periods anymore....it only seems fair that if they are going to threaten they keep the timeframes short - after all Americans have a short attention span....sarcasm.

LMAO liz.

And it is a good thing I got to the bottom of that post and saw that it originated by daleel. I thought it was another freeper callin us stupid. I was ready to jump down their case.

Thank you.

Interesting if any connections....with the Spain arrests in light of the guy's occupation.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1084764/posts
FBI Takes Computer Servers From Internet Chat Room Company
AP ^ | 2-24-04

Posted on 02/24/2004 4:28:27 PM PST by nuconvert

Reminiscent of the InfoCom Bust in Dallas, September 7, 2001. Also not officially acknowledged as terror related initially, IIRC.

Doesn't mean it will happen. During WWII the government stockpiled over 100,000 hospital beds when they expected to invade Japan. They sat in warehouses for decades. Everybody got lucky. It could happen again.

Great minds think alike.

That was my first thought on reading that article today, particularly since they were rather shadowy with the details. And of course, a lot of terrorist activity is first detected through following plain old criminal activity, such as certain kinds of sales tax fraud, money laundering, etc. That's how the Spanish have been doing it, too.

I agree. We are winning. How many orange alerts, Zawahiri tapes, countdowns, etc has there been in the last 29 months? How many successful attacks has this led to on US territory?
ZERO!!!!!!
I, for one, am not going to hyperventilate 50 times a year, just because Al Qaeda threatens us 50 times a year.

Someone needs to tell "daleel" to quite playing with his computer and get a life.

I do think we are winning. But it will be that one time we don't go orange or let our guard down that we get hit. Today, the intelligence community sure seemed concerned.

Yes. It troubles me that the British are saying that an attack on Britain is "inevitable"

I think we are "winning" as well, but I think AQ is still going to pull off some extreme attacks.

>>>they seem to be following me around

Jihadi magnet, eh? You lucky seductress, you- and I bet you didn't even have to try.

Thank you.............it's GREAT!!!!!I think the first one had FReeRepubic.(no "L") This is much better.

Although, I have nothing against "pubics". Kinda like A-holes...we all have them. Aside from that, it's SCARY time again. Eyes wide open, everyone...and ears, too.

BTW, the B-1-B's from Ellsworth AFB have been quite active the past few days.....more than we usually hear and see.

There was this from yesterday: Canada received warnings about threats to airliners, official says

I started this research due to Sean's insistance of the 12/20-12/22 capture of OBL in Iran posts, Mansoor Ijaz's constant reports of OBL sightings of OBL since 11/2004, and the almost non existence of American media reports of the joint US/Pakistan hunt for OBL and that he was cornered. When I did a google search for the Sunday Express article on Sunday all foreign media was running with the story but hardly any American media. That caught my attention, so I decided to do some research.

This researched is based on cities in Iran where Ijaz states that bin laden had been sited: Qazvin, Kermanshah, Karaj, Harmada, individuals that were reported that were/are aware of OBLs presence/past in Iran: Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, Ayatolla Rafsanjani, Others (names not given), other players I found in my research Abdul Qadeer Khan, Jamaat-e-Islami and time period the nuclear blackmarket reports hit the media.

From (thread is locked, but is viewable) http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1072462/posts?q=1&&page=4701 post# 4709 and post 4914

US aware of Pak nuke scientists in Afghan during Taliban rule

Sunday February 8 2004 11:20 IST

PTI

NEW DELHI: With the US asking Pakistan to ensure that "private network and individuals" do not become a source of proliferation again, reports say that Washington was well aware of Pakistani nuclear scientists being based in Iran and Afghanistan during the Taliban rule.

Two former senior Pakistani nuclear scientists who were based in the Afghan town of Kandahar had also met Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden several times.

They were later detained and questioned on their return to Pakistan, according to reports including in Pakistani dailies The News and Dawn.

Much before the proliferation issue bogged down Pakistan, there were reports about Pakistani scientists working at a nuclear research centre being developed by Iran at Qazvin near Moallem Kalleiah, 150 km West of Tehran in the El Burz mountains.

Khan was also reported to have secretly visited this facility on several occasions in 1980s and early 1990s.

The reports said in 2002, Iran was engaged in a secret nuclear project and as many as 30 Pakistani nuclear scientists were working on it. They had sought assistance from Shanghai Nuclear Engineering and Research Institute in China.

As late as on February 26 last year, 18 Pakistani scientists and engineers had reached Tehran to replace the experts working there, they said.

Earlier, American satellites had tracked a Pakistani plane as it picked up ballistic missile parts in North Korea in July 2002, US officials were quoted as having said.

The US intelligence officials also believed that Pakistani centrifuge designs helped Libya's nuclear programme.

In August 2000, Pakistani commerce ministry had published a full-page advertisement in major dailies containing an application form for the export of 11 radioactive substances, including depleted uranium, enriched uranium, plutonium and tritium, besides 17 types of equipment including nuclear power reactors, nuclear research reactors and reactor control systems, the reports said.

The would-be exporters, the advertisement had said, must have to declare that the sale would be for peaceful purposes only and the material will not be re-exported and pay a 1400-pound application fee.

The IAEA also continued to monitor proliferation activities in Iran, Libya and North Korea and submitted detailed reports through these years.

Since the days of President Gen Zia-ul Haq, when top Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan's underground proliferation activities were on, the Jamaat-e-Islami had developed very close relations with the general headquarters (GHQ) and the doors of GHQ were thrown open to the Jamaat teams giving them a chance to indoctrinate army officers.

In an interview to BBC quoted by the Pakistani press earlier this week, Jamaat chief Qazi Hussain Ahmed came out in Khan's support saying he had committed no crime.

He also claimed that Khan was "willing to attend any public meeting or a press conference to be called by Jamaat, to explain charges of his involvement in nuclear proliferation". But now he could not do so because of "intense pressure" and restrictions, Ahmed was quoted as saying.

The Jamaat and the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal have staged protest demonstrations in Pakistan against the "harassment" being caused to the scientists few days ago.

Also multiple links to news articles of Khamenei and his visits to Qazvin, Iran here: News for Qazvin, Iran

Jamaat-e-Islami

Scientist: Pakistan Didn't Know of Leaks

The government has insulted Abdul Qadeer Khan by forcing him to read out a statement on state television," said Shahid Shamsi, spokesman for Jamaat-e-Islami. ...

Police Arrest Mastermind of September 11, 2001 Attack on the United States

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - The suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed,

has been arrested in one of the biggest catches yet in the war on terrorism, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told The Associated Press.

Mohammed, perhaps the most senior al-Qaida operative after Osama bin Laden and Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri, was one of three people arrested in Rawalpindi, near the Pakistani capital of Islamabad on Saturday, Ahmed said.

His arrest is a major coup in the effort to stifle al-Qaida. Mohammed, who is on the FBI most wanted list, had a hand in many of the terror organization's most notorious attacks in recent years.

In Washington, U.S. President George W. Bush exclaimed "That's fantastic!" after his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, delivered the news.

CIA officers and Pakistani authorities carried out the operation that led to Mohammed's capture, according to American officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The tip-off came about a week earlier following a raid in the southwestern town of Quetta and the arrest of a Middle Eastern man, possibly of Egyptian origin, according to a Pakistani government source who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

"At the time of that raid in Quetta the authorities were looking for Khalid Shaikh but he escaped and from there they followed him to Rawalpindi," said the official. "They got information from the man they picked up in Quetta and from phone calls until they tracked him down to Rawalpindi."

Mastermind of the September 11, 2001 Attacks Khalid Shaikh Mohammed U.S. officials regard Mohammed as a key al-Qaida lieutenant and organizer of the terror mission that sent hijacked passenger jets crashing into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and into a field in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, killing more than 3,000 people.

Mohammed was arrested along with a second man of Middle Eastern origin and a Pakistani, Ahmed Abdul Qadoos, 42, a member of one of the country's best organized and well established religious parties, Jamaat-e-Islami. The identity of the Middle Eastern man has not been revealed.

JAMAAT-E-ISLAMI, HIZBUL MUJAHIDEEN & AL QAEDA

Paper no. 699

29. 05. 2003

The Nuclear Jihad

If you have not ran across the following link, it is full of info.

ITALIAN INTELLIGENCE REPORTS BIN LADEN IN IRAN

Several members of the Al-Qaeda terrorist organization are currently under arrest in Iran, Dubai's Al-Arabiyah television reported on 27 June. Among the detainees are Ayman Al-Zawahiri, Suleiman Abu-Ghayth, Osama Bin Laden's son, and several other Al-Qaeda associates. On the same day, Doha's Al-Jazeera television reported that Tehran and Cairo are discussing the extradition of some eight Egyptians who were arrested in Iran in the last two months.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Assefi on 28 February rejected the reports about the presence of al-Zawahiri and Bin Laden's son in Iran, IRNA reported.

A confidential Italian intelligence report submitted in early June asserts the Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was in Iran in May, Milan's "Corriere della Serra" reported on 25 June. In early May, bin Laden and seven Arab extremists met in Tehran to plan attacks in Italy, Pakistan, and Turkey. The extremists are using forged Iranian passports and traveling as businessmen, but they do not speak Persian. A later Italian intelligence report, according to the Milanese daily, describes an Al-Qaeda meeting in Jeddah at which the decision was made to attack U.K., U.S., and Israeli interests, as well as tourists, security personnel, and political and religious leaders in pro-Western Arab countries. (The Iranian Embassy in Rome rejected this report, baztab.org reported on 27 June.)

Iranian government spokesman Abdullah Ramezanzadeh had said on 23 June that Tehran has identified "many" Al-Qaeda suspects that it has in custody, IRNA reported. "If those identified turn out to be nationals of friendly countries, we will hand them over to their country of origin; but if they are found guilty of committing a crime in Iran, they will be tried here," he added. The courts will decide what to do with nationals of countries with which Tehran does not have diplomatic relations, he said. Ramezanzadeh refused to say how many Al-Qaeda members are in custody or whether they include any senior members, according to Reuters.

Iranian Foreign Ministry adviser Sabah Zanganeh told AP on 24 June that some of these individuals would be turned over to Saudi Arabia. "Some of the identified Al-Qaeda members are Saudi nationals. We will hand them over to our Saudi friends," he said. A date has not been set for the extraditions, according to Zanganeh. Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef Bin Abdul Aziz said on the same day that it is not known how many Saudis are being held in Iran or if they have any connection with the May 2003 bombing in Riyadh that killed 34 people, including eight Americans, Reuters reported the next day.

The Saudis' arrest of one of the suspects in the May 2003 bombing was announced on 26 June. Ali Abd al-Rahman al-Faqasi al-Ghamdi (a.k.a. Abu Bakr al-Azdi) was arrested after turning himself in to the authorities, "The New York Times" reported on 27 June. Saudi officials described al-Ghamdi as the most senior Al-Qaeda member in the country and said that he has close links with Al-Qaeda security chief Saif al-Adel and other leading members of the organization. According to "The New York Times" report, Al-Adel is believed to have spent time in Iran recently. (Bill Samii)

KERMANSHAH, IRAN

11/30/03 Iraqi delegation headed by Ahmad Chalabi arrives in Iran

Member of Iraq's Governing Council Ahmad Chalabi, heading an Iraqi delegation, arrived in Qasr-e Shirin, Kermanshah province on Sunday through the international Khosravi border, to hold talks with Iranian authorities, IRNA reported.

Chalabi was welcomed on arrival in Iranian territory by Qasr-e Shirin Governor Hossein Khosh-Eqbal and a number of provincial officials.

In a meeting at Khosravi border, Chalabi and Khosh-Eqbal discussed expediting the process for the pilgrimage of Iranians visiting the sacred sites in neighboring Iraq, given the growing number of pilgrims arriving in the country via Khosravi border.

For his part, Chalabi noted the increase in the number of Iranian pilgrims visiting Iraq through the indicated border.

At the meeting, Khosh-Eqbal called for the increased use of the border by the Iranian pilgrims intending to visit Iraq, given the current infrastructures and facilities available in the border city of Qasr-e Shirin.

Head of Iraq's National Congress left for Tehran to meet Iranian officials on matters of mutual concern, after his meeting with Qasr-e Shirin governor.

To Be Continued.