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Terrorism Summary 04/13/05

The potential for an attack on the Vatican has initally passed. However I am concerned about the potential strike against whoever is selected as the next Pope. Another good analysis from www.Stratigypage.com.

Let me know if you want on or off the Ping list.

04/13/04 Current National Homeland Defense threat level is YELLOW

1. Attack threat windows - America
04/13/04 Primary Window: Currently on a 60 day watch due to the 02/20/05 release of a video on Al-Jazerra of AQ number two - Al Zawahiri. Past history has shown that there is a strong likelyhood that this video may be the signal for an attack somewhere within the next 60 days. This watch ends approximately 21 April 2005.

04/13/04 Secondary windows: None currently identified.

2. Attack Indicators
04/13/05 Al-Zawhari video message (see above). No other significant indicators

3. Current Terrorist Operations

INTERNET
04/08/05 Jihadwatch noted on 28 February 2005 that there had been a significant increase in the number of Egyptians using the Al Ansar forum (currently called inn4news.net). So no, Jihadwatch not surprised by this attack, nor do I expect it to be the last.
Neil MacFarquhar (New York Times): A bomb stuffed with nails exploded Thursday near the heart of the main tourist bazaar in Cairo, killing 2 people including a French woman and wounding 18 others, including four French, three Americans, an Italian, a Turk, and nine Egyptians. Nurses said many had nails more than an inch long embedded in their bodies. Shopkeepers said they feared that the bombing, the first such attack on foreigners in the capital in more than seven years, would scare away tourists who have been visiting Egypt in record numbers.
http://www.internet-haganah.us/harchives/003928.html
Godzilla note - Traffic level monitoring is a key indicator. However, it would have been better to have some transcripts to confirm topic(s) as there could be other factors involved.

AQ / OBL
04/13/05 Godzilla - I’ve noted various comments that AQ is struggling to focus its efforts regarding what to do post-Iraq. Al-Zarqwai wants to liberate Iraq from the crusaders, Al-Zawhiri wants to take over Saudia Arabia, and OBL wants another strike against the US. This is causing different sectors to operate independently without any stratigic guidance or goals, all the while consuming resources.

Southern ASIA Region

General Seaborne
04/12/05 A spate of pirate raids on ships in the Malacca Strait could tempt terrorists to stage a seaborne attack, the vice-commandant of the US Coast Guard said Friday. "We have some concerns that what the pirates might be doing is showing the terrorists where opportunities exist," Vice-Admiral Terry Cross told reporters. Cross, who is on a tour of Asia to bolster maritime cooperation and port security, was speaking against the background of five pirate attacks on ships in the Malacca and Singapore straits in the past six weeks.
The Malacca Strait is used by about 50,000 ships a year carrying a third of world trade, and the ease with which pirates board vessels has given rise to concern that terrorists could hijack a tanker to use as a floating bomb or to block the vital channel and disrupt world trade. In the latest attack, a gang of pirates attempted to board a huge Japanese-owned crude oil tanker off Indonesia's Karimun islands, where the southern tip of the Malacca Strait joins the Singapore Strait. The tanker managed to outrun the pirates, but in four earlier attacks ships were boarded and robbed and crew members were kidnapped.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1521&u=/afp/malaysiausmaritimepiracy&printer=1

Indonesia - State Dept. Travel Warning issued 03/24/05
04/13/05 An Indonesian court jailed two Muslim militants, one of them from Malaysia, on Wednesday for involvement in the 2003 bombing of the JW Marriott Hotel in Jakarta that killed 12 people. Sunarto, a 56-year-old Indonesian man also known as Adung, was jailed for seven years for providing assistance to the bombmakers and possession of a firearm.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?storyID=8169194&type=worldNews>

Thailand
Monitoring - AQ attack watch #2 through 12/31/05
The documents show that in 2005, the militants plan to attack "soft targets" such as the tropical beach resorts of Pattaya and Phuket, which draw tourist from around the world. Recent attacks have hit other resort areas not affected by the tsunami.
http://www.trackingterrorism.com/Default.asp?dismode=article&artid=1305

04/09/05 THE bombing of Hat Yai airport last weekend was the latest in a succession of attacks causing regional security experts to ask if southern Thailand's insurgency is evolving into something even nastier. Specifically, has a revived and Islamised separatist movement among the ethnic Malays who predominate in the three southernmost provinces, under pressure from a heavy-fisted government, adopted a terrorist strategy of striking at civilian targets?
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,12798937^2703,00.html

4/8/05 Four soldiers were injured Monday in a blast in Thailand's Muslim-dominated South, less than 24 hours after three bomb rocked the region, sources to Xinhua said. In Yala, one of the three southernmost border provinces in the kingdom, an explosion occurred at 1:30 p.m. Monday on a college campus where a football [match] was held. Four soldiers were seriously injured in the blast. The bomb, planted in the area where the military vehicles were parked, was triggered by remote control, said the source.
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/2005/04/005664print.html

East ASIA Region

Phillipines
04/12/05 Many American and Filipino counter-terrorism officials believe that the southern Philippines is becoming a new base for training terrorists. In that region, members of al Qaeda, Jemaah Islamiah (JI), Abu Sayyaf, and factions of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) are cooperating to train new terrorists, and carry out attacks in the area. The Filipino government, however, believed that the situation in the southern islands is under control. While sometimes called a "new Afghanistan," the southern Philippines is also full of police, troops and pro-government civilians.
http://www.strategypage.com//fyeo/qndguide/default.asp?target=PHILLIP.HTM

Middle East / SW Asia

Pakistan
04/13/05 Americans have been told to avoid the area around the consulate and the nearby Marriott hotel, said Greggory Crouch, press attache at the US Embassy in Islamabad. “The consulate is closed today,” Crouch told AFP. “We have received credible information of a threat and that has heightened our security concern,” he added. ...snip...
Two senior police officials told the Associated Press on condition of anonymity that an officer posted outside the diplomatic mission received a threat on his cell phone on Monday night..
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_13-4-2005_pg1_2

04/12/05 Pakistani security forces have arrested four Iraqi nationals suspected of having links with Al Qaeda militants, a local security official said yesterday. …snip…
The suspects had identified themselves as Iraqis, he said. They were captured on a tip off from an intelligence source on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. One of the detainees, identified as Abdul Aziz, is a fluent speaker of the local Pashtu language. He was caught with computer discs and other documents, the official said.
http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=World_News&subsection=Pakistan+%26+Sub-Continent&month=April2005&file=World_News20050412112636.xml

Iran
04/13/05 Godzilla - Lots of RUMINT about the status of Iran’s nuclear program and that it could be as little as one month away from having enriched uranium. France seems to think a nuclear Iran wouldn’t be a bad thing (no suprise here). Israel’s patience with the EU’s bargaining has got to begin to wear thin soon. However, Sharon is having troubles at home and could either be too focused on that or is holding out the wag-the-dog option to distract the public from internal trouble and rally behind him.

Afghanistan
04/12/05 Twelve Taliban insurgents were killed on Monday in a battle with U.S. and Afghan government forces in the volatile southeast of the country, police said. Two soldiers from the U.S.-led foreign force in Afghanistan were wounded in the fighting which also involved U.S. aircraft, a U.S. military spokeswoman said. The two wounded troops were in stable condition.
http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=143&sid=5675848&cKey=1113236458000

04/08/05 US troops and warplanes reinforced Afghan forces that were ambushed on a high mountain pass in a firefight that killed about 12 fighters and wounded two American soldiers, officials said Tuesday. In other reminders of Afghanistan’s instability, farmers fought a gunbattle with counternarcotics police in the south, and authorities said they arrested three men suspected of trying to abduct an American in the capital.
http://www.frontierpost.com.pk/

Iraq
04/12/05 Godzilla - This guy at Strategypage.com has been hitting it squarely on the nose in connecting the post-Iraq election dots that the MSM seems to overlook.

The rift between hard-line Sunnis, and more moderate ones, seems to be widening. While many imams (religious leaders) are not openly siding with the 64 Sunni Arab clerics who issued a Fatwa (religious decree) saying Sunnis should support the new government and join the security forces, the more extreme imams who tried to issue counter-decrees have apparently been ignored. The Sunni religious leaders are caught in a bind. Much to their dismay, their calls to fight the “occupiers” has only resulted in a lot of Iraqis getting killed by other Iraqis and foreign Moslems. No one expected this, but the Americans proved expert at defending themselves. The next available targets were Iraqi police and soldiers. These poor guys were not as good at defending themselves from terrorist attacks. And when the terrorists hit the police and troops, they tended to kill nearby Iraqi civilians as well. In some cases, this included numbers of children. Even before the Second Battle of Fallujah last November, the videos of dead Iraqi children, slain by Islamic terrorists, was forcing the Sunni Arab clerics to reconsider their position as cheerleaders for the terrorists.

Then came the Second Battle of Fallujah last November. To most Iraqis, it was no surprise that the Americans tore right through the town, killing or capturing several thousand terrorists and anti-government fighters assembled there to slaughter the “occupiers.” Again, the Americans proved expert at avoiding casualties, while wiping out the “Holy Warriors” who swore they would prevail. Then came the January 30th election debacle. Hundreds of Iraqi civilians were killed in January, as terrorists did all they could to discourage Iraqis from voting. It didn’t work, and failed in a spectacular fashion as millions of Iraqis fearlessly came out to vote.

In February, you could hear the sermons at Friday prayers were getting less bloodthirsty. Many clerics were having second thoughts about whose side they were on. The terrorists and anti-government gunmen were looking like losers and killers who had only Iraqis for victims. Many of the Sunni Arab clerics believed the sermons they were preaching, calling for armed insurrection against the occupiers. The Sunni Arabs saw themselves as the guardians of Islamic orthodoxy in a sea of Shia blasphemy. But what’s the point if you can’t get at the occupying infidels, and they can kill you with impunity. What’s the point when the Sunni Arab “Defenders of Islam” can only kill Moslem civilians.

But it was getting worse. The police and soldiers were getting better at defending themselves. The Americans not only provided training, but also materials and assistance in building attack proof police stations. These little forts used the same plans and security methods the Americans used to make their own bases impregnable. The Iraqi police certainly had an incentive to listen to the Americans, for the alternative was death at the hands of some Sunni Arab suicide bomber. By March, it had been four months since a police station had been successfully attacked.

Iraqi police were increasingly seen patrolling with American troops. The Iraqi police knew who they were looking for, and with American troops as backup, knew they were invincible if attacked. The Americans also trained thousands of Iraqi police and soldiers in SWAT tactics, making it possible for more raids on mosques. Americans had refrained from raiding mosques, even though it was widely known that the terrorists were using places of worship for storing weapons and housing gunmen and bomb makers. As the number of raided mosques increased, more evidence of religious leaders participating in the violence appeared.

More and more terrorist sells and anti-government gangs were going dark, just disappearing. Sunni Arab clerics could tell by the regulars who were not showing up for Friday prayers anymore. Inquiries revealed that the missing men were dead, in prison, or had hastily moved away. There was no place left to hide for many terrorists.

The clerics still hate the Americans for taking power away from Sunni Arabs, and letting the despised Shia Arabs take over. But you have to be realistic. During the 1990s, most Sunni Arabs didn’t get all the lavish handouts from Saddam that the Sunni Arab clergy received. Most Sunni Arabs were not happy with the way the Sunni Arab clergy were urging on the Sunni Arabs to kill, especially when most of the dead were Sunni Arab civilians. Preachers could tell from the number of frowns and scowls they were now getting during their fiery sermons. The violence began in the mosque, and that’s where it’s sputtering to an end.

Although the radical Shia leader Muqtada al Sadr is not happy with the course of Iraqi politics, he apparently is trying to curb the more radical elements among his supporters. He organized a mass demonstration for April 9th, which attracted more Western media attention than participants. Al Sadr has reined in proposals to resume armed resistance. Despite this, he is also believed to be trying to rebuild his militia.
http://www.strategypage.com//fyeo/qndguide/default.asp?target=IRAQ.HTM

Saudi Arabia
Monitoring - AQ attack watch has ended, however threat of an attack is still high.
Call for attacks on oil infrastructure in Iraq and Gulf region by Osama bin Laden

04/07/05 Saudi security forces killed another key al Qaeda operative, Abdulrahman al-Yazji, in raid Wednesday in S. Riyadh. He was one of four still free on Saudi wanted list of 26, after three-day battle in northern town of Ar-Rass left 14 terrorists dead, among them Saudi al Qaeda cell leaders, Saud al-Oteibi and Moroccan Abdel Karim al-Majati.
http://www.debka.com/
Godzilla - The claim that al-Yazji ‘s death has been disputed in more recent commentaries.

Yemen - State Dept Travel Warning issued 4/8/05
Godzilla - This area is becomming a hot spot, possibly due to AQ suspecting that the government is unable to sustain counter-terror operations to prevent AQ from establishing a new operational base in the region.

04/12/05 On 11 April 2005, the U.S. Embassy reopened after remaining closed for two days due to security concerns. Though no specific threat has been reported, the embassy indicated that it had received information related to general security threats. A diplomatic source reported that the closure was not related to ongoing clashes between government forces and Shiite rebels in the northern province of Saada. The embassy of the United Kingdom, which also closed on 9 April, reopened on 10 April.
http://www.airsecurity.com/hotspots/hotspots.asp#105488

04/10/05 OPINION SNIPPET: "The recent reports about armed followers of some of the Salafi extremist groups entering mosques brandishing their guns and demanding that even the government appointed Friday Sermon preachers step down from the speaker’s platform so that their speaker takes over is a serious new development. One is inclined to pray that our extremist brothers have not decided to take on a more militant posture at this time, especially with the war on terror still at its zenith. This is exactly what Common Sense was pointing out in the last column in noting that the Government is indeed giving the extremists what they need in terms of a signal to proceed with taking over all the religious activities in our society and imposing their own uncompromising dogma on the good Moslem citizens of this country. Because they are unable to develop a majority following amongst the mostly moderate Moslems of Yemen, they are now insisting that any new mosques built should be controlled by extremist preachers and caretakers. With most traditional Moslem institutions being either marginalized by the state and not enjoying the privileges that these extremists have been allowed to enjoy over the last couple of decades, including the right to roam around in bands of armed men, even in the middle of the major towns, these extremists have become a frightening sight to most common citizens. Now with their open assaults on mosques, the moderate peace loving worshippers will not even be able to enter mosques to pray until they swear allegiance to the extreme renditions of Islam that these militants insist on imposing upon the society."
http://yementimes.com/article.shtml?i=831&p=opinion&a=1

04/09/05 The US embassy in Yemen has closed to the public for security reasons after the State Department warned Americans not to travel to this volatile Arabian Peninsula nation, diplomats said. ...snip...
On Friday, the State Department said the security threat to US citizens remained high due to "terrorist activities", and authorised the voluntary departure of non-emergency personnel and eligible family members. It also advised US citizens to avoid unnecessary travel to Yemen.
The State Department said it was concerned extremists might carry out attacks against US citizens or interests and that the embassy might temporarily close or suspend public services occasionally for security reasons. ....snip....
"The American warning is more than a week old and the British warning is three days old," the official said, adding there was no specific threat linked to either.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/F40599B2-012E-47B0-8905-E1CBF3D033A3.htm

Egypt
04/12/05 Egyptian security forces have arrested three Islamists suspected of planning last week's suicide bombing in a Cairo bazaar which killed three foreigners, an interior ministry source said. The source also revealed that the suicide bomber who carried out the attack which killed two French nationals and an American was identified as an Egyptian from the Nile Delta region of Qaliobya, north of Cairo. The suicide bomber -- whose name is to be revealed at a news conference at an unspecified date -- planned the attack along with the three detained accomplices, the source told AFP.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050410/wl_mideast_afp/egyptblastarrest_050410192727

04/12/05 Egyptian police have detained 30 people in connection with last week's deadly bombing in a Cairo tourist bazaar, including the suspected bomber's mother, three brothers and 16 other relatives, prosecutors said. Police arrested the family members after identifying the mangled body of the bomber, who died in the blast that killed two French tourists and an American and wounded 18 others in Cairo's Khan al-Khalili bazaar on Thursday night.
The suspected bomber, Hassan Rafaat Ahmed Bashandi was a student who became a religious extremist after his father's death, the Interior Ministry said.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/04/11/egypt.bombing.ap/index.html

04/10/05 Egyptian authorities are investigating whether a homicide bomber carried out an attack that killed three people, including an American tourist, in a packed Cairo (search) market, officials said Saturday. The rudimentary 7-pound bomb packed with nails exploded Thursday in Khan al-Khalili (search) tourist bazaar, killing an American, a French woman and an unidentified third person, who investigators have said probably was a homicide bomber.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,152964,00.html

Israel
04/13/05 Godzilla - Relatively low levels of activity. Minor human bomb incidents. More definite were concerns that a radical group of Jews would storm the temple mount, igniting warfare.

Europe

04/13/05 Godzilla - Europe has been relatively quiet now that the Pope’s funeral and Prince Chaz’s wedding are over.

Spain
04/13/05 Some new practices of the ETA were revealed by the Spanish daily newspaper El Mundo. Some militants of the separatist Basque organization " would disguise themselves" as pregnant women in order to hide explosives in their bellies. A true decoy, discovered by the police last February 17th at the time of the arrest of two presumed members of the ETA. The women would in fact use a foam structure (in the shape of a belly) to hide 25 cartridges of dynamite 100 grams each. A dangerous baby!
http://www.ribaat.org/services/forum/showthread.php?t=29274

The Americas

United States
04/12/05 Three men have been indicted on charges they plotted to attack financial institutions in New York, New Jersey and Washington.
A four-count indictment unsealed Tuesday accuses Dhiran Barot, Nadeem Tarmohammed and Qaisar Shaffi of scouting the New York Stock Exchange and Citicorp Building in New York, the Prudential Building in Newark, N.J., and the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in the District of Columbia.   The three men, already in custody in England, were charged with three conspiracy counts and providing material support to terrorists.
U.S. officials claim that Barot is a senior al-Qaida figure, known variously as Abu Eisa al-Hindi, Abu Musa al-Hindi and Issa al-Britani, who scouted prominent financial targets in the United States at the behest of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.   Prosecutors say the men conducted surveillance on the buildings between August 2000 and April 2001, including video surveillance in Manhattan around April 2001.
Last August the government raised the risk of a terrorist attack to "high" for those specific financial institutions. The color-coded threat level for the rest of the nation remained at yellow, or elevated, the middle of a five-point scale.   Federal authorities, who acknowledged the threat was based mainly on years-old intelligence, said the decision to raise the threat level was based on an abundance of caution and because of the lengthy planning and plotting record of the terrorist network known as al-Qaida.   The threat level was lowered to yellow for the buildings in November.
http://www.wnbc.com/news/4370589/detail.html

04/08/05 An anti-terrorism task force headed by the FBI has issued a special alert bulletin concerning a man who authorities said took flight lessons while in the United States illegally. The man, Zayed Christopher Hajaig, has been located in the United Kingdom, said Steve Emmett, a special agent with the FBI in Atlanta.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/04/08/suspiciouspilot/index.html

04/07/05 Two 16-year-old girls from New York City were arrested last month and charged with immigration violations after the F.B.I. asserted that they intended to become suicide bombers, according to a government document. A spokesman for one of their families, however, said the accusation was false and said the government had probably misinterpreted a school essay written by one of the girls.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/07/nyregion/07suicide.html

4. Attack method.
11/23/04 No real change in the preferred method of choice of AQ which are bombs - the bigger the better. There are special concerns regarding the use by terrorists of the following types of vehicles:

1. Uhaul type cargo trucks.
2. Gasoline / Propane supply / tanker trucks.
3. Emergency vehicles (ambulances, police cars, fire trucks)

04/13/05 Godzilla - Bio-terrorism concerns have increased due to avaian flu, Marburg and other deadly diseases breaking out in the third world. CDC is very sensitive to this and the President has updated an executive order to included avaian flu actions and quarantines.

5. Personnel
04/13/05 Nothing significant to report.

6. Significant meetings canceled:
04/13/04 No new cancellations.

7. Security has been heightened in specific cities
04/13/04 NYC is at a locally declared ORANGE where it had been since. 9/11/01.

GENERAL: Ongoing work to upgrade security at sea ports and airports.

8. Military operations.
04/13/05 No announced operations out of normal.

9. Dept of Homeland Security. / State Department
04/8/05 Travel Warning
United States Department of State
Bureau of Consular Affairs
Washington, DC 20520
This information is current as of today, Mon Apr 11 07:28:26 2005.
YEMEN
This Travel Warning is being issued to warn U.S. citizens to defer non-essential travel to Yemen at this time and inform them that the Department of State has authorized the departure of dependents and non-emergency personnel from the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa on a voluntary basis. This supersedes the Travel Warning for Yemen issued on November 16, 2004.

The Department of State warns U.S. citizens to defer non-essential travel to Yemen. The security threat to all U.S. citizens in Yemen remains high due to terrorist activities in Yemen. The Department is concerned about possible attacks by extremist individuals or groups against U.S. citizens, facilities, businesses and perceived interests and therefore has authorized the voluntary departure from Yemen of non-emergency personnel and eligible family members. From time to time the Embassy may temporarily close or suspend public services for security reasons. Emergency assistance to U.S. citizens during non-business hours (or when public access is restricted) is available through Embassy duty personnel. …snip…
http://travel.state.gov./travel/cis_pa_tw/tw/tw_936.html

10. Suspicious Domestic Incidents Not Currently Linked to Specific Terrorism Attempts
04/11/05 Wayne County deputies and the FBI are investigating an explosive placed under a railroad track just east of Fairfield. A potentially dangerous situation was averted, but what makes this case so un-nerving is this incident could very easily be repeated with devastating results. Wayne County chief deputy David Zola says, "It would have been a real bad situation, yes."
Railroad employees working on the tracks just east of Fairfield found a pipe bomb nestled between the gravel and the rail. "We believe the bomb was powerful enough that it would have done some significant damage on this one rail causing the very next train coming down the railroad to possibly derail."
Zolar says the bomb’s fuse was lit, but for some unknown reason the fuse went out. ….snip….
http://www.14wfie.com/Global/story.asp?S=3190156&nav=3w6oYVD6