Threat Matrix: Daily Terror Threat - Thread Twenty-Three

[Oorang]

Filipino-Indonesian terror link seen
By Carlos H. Conde International Herald Tribune
Friday, January 14, 2005
Expert cites actions by at least 5 groups

MANILA As many as five terror groups from Indonesia are operating in the Philippines, participating in terrorist plots and establishing links with local extremists, an American expert on terrorism said Thursday.

These groups have operated in the Philippines for some time but their involvement in recent attacks here indicates a growing presence, which could complicate the war on terror in Southeast Asia, said the expert, Sidney Jones, who has extensively studied Jemaah Islamiyah, the Indonesian terrorist organization that reportedly has ties to Al Qaeda. Jones is project director for Southeast Asia of the International Crisis Group, which is based in Brussels.

Members of the groups had cooperated with Filipino terrorists in attacks in the southern Philippines, such as in the cities of General Santos and Davao in 2003, Jones said at a forum organized by the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines.

Excerpted

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/01/13/news/manila.html

[Oorang]

January 2005 / Islamic Movement

Muslimedia.com is the internet edition of Crescent International, newsmagazine of the Islamic Movement.

The origins, foundations and history of the global Islamic movement

This is the first part of a three-part article by DR MUZAFFAR IQBAL discussing the emergence and nature of the global Islamic movement. This part deals with the foundations and development of the Islamic movement. The next will discuss the current phase of the movement, and the third will, insha’Allah, focus on future directions.

Excerpted - long read

http://www.muslimedia.com/globalislmove1.htm

[Oorang]

Feds Find Millions Wasted On Border Camera System
Audit Sparked By KIRO Team 7 Investigation
Chris Halsne KIRO 7 Eyewitness News Investigative Reporter

POSTED: 4:12 pm PST January 13, 2005

A Team 7 Investigation into a defective camera surveillance system along the U.S.-Canadian border has sparked a massive federal probe.

Now, the results are in: Auditors say taxpayers paid millions of dollars for "phantom" cameras, missing parts and fraudulent repair bills.

Two years ago, we showed you how a border security tool called "Remote Video Surveillance" was badly broken. Now, the U.S. Inspector General confirms our findings in a 423-page audit, plus adds new charges of fraud and tax waste.

Computerized, see-all cameras scan the Washington-British Columbia border for intruders day and night. That is, when they're working.

A KIRO Team 7 Investigation discovered thousands of breakdowns in the first year of operation.

Excerpted (copyright)

http://www.kirotv.com/news/4081213/detail.html

Others articles on this investigation:

Snip from article at link below: SNIP:
That's certainly true for one smuggler, named "Abraham." Our undercover team caught him along a desert road illegally running a truckload of diesel engines between Mexico and the US. Abraham told me crossing the border with drugs or people or weapons would be just as easy.

"It doesn't matter how may cameras or barricades they put it, if they don't have an officer presence there, they got nothing."

KIRO Team 7 Investigators spent a day with Lanning as a guide, testing Border Patrol responses. We didn't see an agent for three hours while we traversed between Mexico and the US.

He showed us road after road where illegal immigrants sneak into America to stay for good.

"No reason to crawl through the fence if you can drive through the gate," he said.

http://www.kirotv.com/news/1979477/detail.html

http://www.kirotv.com/news/1868615/detail.html

http://www.kirotv.com/news/1868633/detail.html

[all4one]

You are kindly welcome!

The following is an update to a story that I posted earlier regarding an explosion at a high-rise apartment building in Washington, D.C.:

100+ Displaced After Explosion in High Rise (Updated 1/13/05)

WASHINGTON - Investigators believe a build-up of natural gas is what led to the deadly blast and fire at an 11-story high rise in Southeast.

But they say they may never know exactly what led up to the explosion that left more than 100 people displaced Wednesday morning at the Marbury Plaza Apartments in the 2,300 block of Good Hope Road, SE.

"There was a tremendous explosion inside this building. It has obliterated three or four apartments. It has obliterated a laundry room," says D.C. Fire and EMS spokesman Alan Etter. Etter also says it's impossible at this point to say whether thieves trying to steal money out of the washers and dryers tampered with the gas lines.

An 18-month-old girl died and her mother was critically burned in the blaze that is believed to have started on the second floor. A firefighter also was injured when he fell down an elevator shaft.

At one point, about 1,200 people were evacuated from the building. Five people were taken to the hospital and 20 were treated on the scene.

[Oorang]

Not terror related, but, odd none the less.

Man Found Dead In Smoldering Car In Federal Way
POSTED: 8:59 am PST January 13, 2005

FEDERAL WAY, Wash. -- A man died after being pulled from a smoldering car in this suburb between Seattle and Tacoma, but the fire apparently was not a factor in the death, authorities said.

Investigators in the King County medical examiner's office identified the man Wednesday night as Ralph Smithers, 60, of Federal Way, but the cause of death was not available. Police were investigating.

Excerpted (copyright)

http://www.kirotv.com/news/4079328/detail.html

[Godzilla]

B I N G O Godzilla, that is exactly where I got it!

Hi Jill. How much validity should we hold this source to? Have they provided accurate info in the past?

[Domestic Church]

"OK FGS who is picking these people for DHS?????????"

Reading this made me feel rather queasy.

[Oorang]

Wow, that is major.

I could be wrong here, but, I don't recall all these incidents a few years ago or even before that. What is causing all this "build-up of natural gas"? (Rhetorical question). This just isn't adding up.

[Hegemony Cricket]

Good question, Oorang! Cause & Effect. Sure seems that effect has changed, so what cause has changed?

[Oorang]

UW Proposes National Bioterrorism Lab
POSTED: 5:43 am PST January 12, 2005

SEATTLE -- The University of Washington has applied for a $25 million federal grant to build a laboratory that would be equipped for the study of potential bioterrorism agents such as anthrax.

As described in the proposal to the National Institutes of Health by the university's medical school late last month, the 56,000-square-foot "regional biocontainment laboratory" would be built just north of Portage Bay in the southwest part of the campus.

Besides the grant funds, the university would need to raise $22 million to build the high-security lab for research on biodefense and infectious diseases. NIH's decision is expected by September.

The application, supported by Mayor Greg Nickels, outgoing Gov. Gary Locke and Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, has drawn concern from some faculty leaders and activists.

"I don't think anybody objects to the task," said G. Ross Heath, an oceanography professor and chairman of the Faculty Senate. "The question is whether it should be sited on a university campus in a large urban environment next to a body of fresh water."

Excerpted

http://www.kirotv.com/news/4074317/detail.html

[all4one]

I don't recall all these types of gas incidents a few years ago or before that either. Especially so many on a weekly basis.

There were times that during the winter months with a heavy freeze you might hear of a gas leak or maybe one explosion....but even one would be big news. Maybe even someone hitting an underground line by accident while doing construction, but not very often. There could be some type of explanation regarding the age of the underground gas piping systems....but that may be a stretch.

[Jill St Claire]

Godzilla, Quite honestly, I don't know the history of the poster. The reason that the post caught my eye is because of the number association to other events that is mentioned.

There is some sort of sick logic as to when attacks are made. So far as I can tell, there is not a real consistent and solid pattern, which is why it is hard to know for sure. After a major happens, it usually is justified in the forums as being so many days after this, or so many years after, and on the anniversary of some date that the Jihadi's believe has some significance. But as we all know, they can also stage a terrorist attack at will, so, your guess is as good as mine on this one!

The good news is that I haven't seen anything more about this yet, and hopefully I won't.

[Oorang]

Well alrighty then. Add this to the list.

Underground Explosion in Center City (Philadelphia)

January 13, 2005 — Firefighters in Center City are investigating an underground explosion. It happened around 5:00pm on 16th between JFK Boulevard and Arch.

The explosion blew two covers off of manholes.

One person was hit. The victim is at Hahnemann Hospital

http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/news/011305_nw_manholecovers.html

[Oorang]

Thanks for your input and your work Jill. Your efforts are appreciated.

[all4one]

Come on Oorang.....I beat you to it...see post #2506....like they say "you need to get up pretty early in the morning"...speaking of that....once again it is getting late here on the eastern seaboard....have a great evening Oorang and keep up the great work for those of us who are three hours ahead and mighty tired...g'nite all!

[Oorang]

My apologies! I better start reading backwards and catching up. Back to my corner now :-)

[WestCoastGal]

Thank you for the link to the thread.

As you can see I'm really behind trying to catch up.

[Oorang]

You're welcome. I understand the being behind part :-)

[Oorang]

Affirmative Action for Radical Islamists at Rochester Institute of Technology?
By Beila Rabinowitz, Director - Wahabi Watch

Pseudo-scholar and historical revisionist Ali Mazrui, is being foisted upon students as part of a course requirement in the guise of providing a cartoon “Muslim counter-balance" to Dr. Daniel Pipes’ impeccable Middle Eastern scholarship.

It is a poor commentary on the state of America’s universities when protests against the upcoming lecture by Dr. Daniel Pipes, the distinguished scholar, and member of the United States Institute of Peace, are being heard months in advance of his lecture at RIT while scrutiny of another scheduled lecturer, Ali Mazrui, reveals that he is a leading figure in numerous radical Islamist organizations which have been raided in connection with terrorism.

Ali Mazrui’s documented connections to radical Islam should prompt The Catherine Werner Gannet Lecture Series coordinator, Dr. Paul Grebinger to withdraw his invitation to speak at the Rochester Institute of Technology Campus on the grounds that Ali Mazrui is a propagandist whose Islamist agenda renders his message devoid of scholarly integrity and precludes the possibility of an honest exchange of ideas.

Ali Mazrui is a radical Islamist who lectured last year at the Bin Laden funded ICPI - International Center for he Propagation of Islam, whose founder and director, Ahmed Deedat - and his son Yusuf - are directly funded by the Bin Laden family and have boasted about meeting Bin Laden 'several times'.

Besides being a guest speaker at the Deedat's Bin Laden Centre, Mazrui is also on the board of the Association of Muslim Social Services, the sister organization of the IIIT - The International Institute of Islamic Thought, a Wahabist Islamic propagation front which was raided by the FBI and the JTTF in 2003 for ties to the funding of terror. The executive secretary of the AMSS is Kamran Bokhari, the North American spokesman for the group Al Muhajiroun, which Dr. Pipes cites as "one of the most extremist groups operating in the west today"

For more information on the AMSS and the CSID see AMSS & CSID

The controversy surrounding the Gannet Lecture Series at RIT, featuring Dr. Pipes and Ali Mazrui was sparked by an interview in student newspaper called “The Left Hook," which published an interview with members of the Campus Anti War Network. In that interview their North Atlantic Representative, Monique Dols, disingenuously stated that “ in order to graduate, seniors will be forced to listen to a lecture by Daniel Pipes.

Dols failed to mention the fact that while some RIT senior students are required to attend the lecture series as part of their coursework, they have the same obligation to attend the lecture of Dr. Pipes as that of Ali Mazrui. One of the interviewees was the Campus Anti War Net’s representative on the RIT campus, Josh Karpoff, who did nothing to refute Dols’ false claims.

Gannett lecture series organizer Dr. Paul Grebinger and the RIT Provost Simone have been on the defensive justifying their invitation to Dr. Pipes, while the real focus of condemnation and concern should be the invitation of Binghamton professor, Ali Mazrui, whose revisionist pseudo-scholarship disqualifies him from the role of someone who can, in the words of the organizers, '"provide a counterbalance to Dr. Pipe’s views." Even a cursory examination of Ali Mazrui's work and associations shows that he is a radical Islamist with no commitment to either intellectual honesty or open debate.

Mazrui's statement in support of ex University of South Florida professor/jailbird Sami Al Arian are indicative of his intellectual dishonesty and academic bankruptcy. The charges of terrorism against Al Arian documented in voluminous indictment which includes the names of nearly 100 murder victims of terrorist attacks, including that of Brandeis University student Alisa Flatow - in a bus bombing financed by him and his group Palestinian Islamic Jihad - was dismissed by Mazrui who lamented that:

"...al-Arian was just a "victim of prejudice and of popular ill will..."

RIT's hosting of Ali Mazrui under the guise of “balance" is similar to the disingenuous excuses given by the administration of Duke University, who defended their hosting of an Islamist conference under the guise of the need to provide a forum for “other views." The Duke conference ended up being not only a terrorist recruiting event for the International Solidarity Movement, but the Duke University administration’s defense of the conference unleashed a wave of anti-Semitism and conflict which continues to engulf the campus. The situation at Duke was summed up in this opinion piece in a recent Wall Street Journal article entitled: "The Intifada Comes to Duke :

"...Moreover, and whether or not a university has a duty to license the unfettered expression on its campus of every venomous notion under the sun, the real issue at Duke was always the refusal of the licensing authorities to call such notions by their proper names--in this case, bald anti-Semitism and incitement to the murder of innocents. That refusal on the part of the university and its president, a mark not of "constructive" liberality but of cowardice and complicity, is what led infallibly to the post-conference outbreak of anti-Jewish hatred. Once the guardians of the citadel granted permission to open the gates, is it any surprise that the in the case of Duke the marauding hordes came storming through?"

Mazrui is not only an anti-Semite, but an active participant in groups and a member of organizations which have been accused of funding terrorism. There are zero degrees of separation between Mazrui giving two lectures at the Osama Bin Laden funded International Center for the Propagation of Islam in South Africa - whose director, Ahmed Deedat, and son Yusuf, boasted of having met and received funding from Osama bin Laden, and his family - as there are between Mazrui’s being a lecturer and member of the board of directors of the Graduate School for Islamic and Social Sciences which:

“… Operation Green Quest investigators raided (GSISS offices) in March 2002, along with 23 other organizations. According to search warrants, federal agents suspected GSISS and the others of potential money laundering and tax evasion activities and their ties to terrorists groups such as al Qaeda as well as individual terrorists [including] Osama bin Laden…"

Additionally, Mazrui is also listed as a member of the “international advisory board" of a dubious institution called “The Center for Balanced Development," an offshoot of the IPO- International Progress Institute, run by an Islamo-facist, Hans Koechler, whose personal photo page shows him together with a bevy of international terrorists and tyrant such as Arafat, Saddam Hussein, and Ghaddafi, whom he visited accompanied with Ramsey Clark. The IPO website can be navigated to link to groups such as the Arab Socialists, whose site includes a page entitled - “!0 Reasons Why Killing Israeli Jews is Kosher" - which ended with the message “Indeed those human bombs are not only justified - more of them is (sic) needed." and signed "More later - Ibrahim Alloush."

Mazrui's working relationship with Koechler is further proof of his radicalism, as is the case of his ties to Ahmed Deedat.

Obviously, he has no problems with groups and individuals who openly support suicide bombings.

The administration of the Rochester Institute of Technology should go beyond due diligence in the interests of homeland security and take into account the damage which will be done to the integrity of their institution by hosting Ali Mazrui. His ties to an institute funded by Osama Bin Laden and his role as a board member of several institutions which have been raided in connection with terror funding makes a mockery of the democratic spirit of debate and open exchange of ideas which the administration of RIT claims their institution is aiming to promote.

http://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=rabinowitz%2Ehtm

[Cindy]

Thanks Velveeta for the link.