Threat Matrix: Daily Terror Threat

Thanks to Calpernia for the ping to this thread:
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http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1444410/posts

"Who shorted British pound? (Currency fell 6% in 10 days before London terror attacks)"
WorldNetDaily ^ | 7/16/05 | WorldNetDaily

Posted on 07/16/2005 1:38:48 PM PDT by wagglebee

WASHINGTON

Have fun Velveeta, we'll miss you... it is good to get away for breaks though!

I agree, but looking at the past, and what has happened recently... I think we are running out of borrowed time.

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http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/2005/07/007201print.html

July 16, 2005

Are you ready? Tomorrow you will be in Paradise . . .

What motivates a suicide bomber? Nasra Hassan interviews a young Muslim who survived his intended 'martyrdom' and describes the terrorists' rigorous training. From the UK TimesOnline, with thanks to Cliff May.

...“How did you feel when you heard that you’d been selected for martyrdom?” I asked.
“It’s as if a very high, impenetrable wall separated you from Paradise or Hell,” he said. “Allah has promised one or the other to his creatures. So, by pressing the detonator, you can immediately open the door to Paradise — it is the shortest path to Heaven.”

S was one of 11 children in a middle-class family that, in 1948, had been forced to flee from Majdal to a refugee camp in Gaza, during the Arab-Israeli war that started with the creation of the State of Israel. He joined Hamas in his early teens and became a street activist.

In 1989, he served two terms in Israeli prisons for intifada activity, including attacks on Israeli soldiers. One of his brothers is serving a life sentence in Israel.

I asked S to describe his preparations for the suicide mission. “We were in a constant state of worship,” he said. “We told each other that if the Israelis only knew how joyful we were they would whip us to death! Those were the happiest days of my life.”

“What is the attraction of martyrdom?” I asked.

“The power of the spirit pulls us upward, while the power of material things pulls us downward,” he said. “Someone bent on martyrdom becomes immune to the material pull. Our planner asked, ‘What if the operation fails?’ We told him, ‘In any case, we get to meet the Prophet and his companions, inshallah.’

“We were floating, swimming, in the feeling that we were about to enter eternity. We had no doubts. We made an oath on the Koran, in the presence of Allah — a pledge not to waver. This jihad pledge is called bayt al-ridwan, after the garden in Paradise that is reserved for the prophets and the martyrs. I know that there are other ways to do jihad. But this one is sweet — the sweetest. All martyrdom operations, if done for Allah ’s sake, hurt less than a gnat’s bite!”

S showed me a video that documented the final planning for the operation. In the grainy footage, I saw him and two other young men engaging in a ritualistic dialogue of questions and answers about the glory of martyrdom. S, who was holding a gun, identified himself as a member of al-Qassam, the military wing of Hamas, which is one of two Palestinian Islamist organisations that sponsor suicide bombings. (Islamic Jihad is the other group.) “Tomorrow, we will be martyrs,” he declared, looking straight at the camera. “Only the believers know what this means. I love martyrdom.”

The young men and the planner then knelt and placed their right hands on the Koran. The planner said: “Are you ready? Tomorrow, you will be in Paradise.”...

Posted at July 16, 2005 06:05 PM

Thanks to Calpernia for the ping:

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http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1444516/posts

"This is what we are up against"
News of The World ^ | 7/16 | Wil H

Posted on 07/16/2005 6:56:59 PM PDT by Wil H

ARTICLE SNIPPET: "THis is the kind of brain Numbing stupidity we have to combat...

THE uncle of suicide bomber Shehzad Tanweer last night told the News of the World the 22-year-old's murderous act did not make him a terrorist.

In a searingly frank and shocking exclusive interview, Bashir Ahmed claimed Tanweer was a "desperate" young man "driven" to commit the atrocity by the West's treatment of Muslims.

And he BLAMED Tony Blair and George Bush for the July 7 bombings, warning: "There will be more."

"These (suicide bombers) are desperate people," said Ahmed. "They can see that their brothers are not getting their rights, so they take extreme action."

The businessman was pictured on TV worldwide last week talking with dignity of his family's shock at the news that Tanweer had detonated the Aldgate Tube bomb, killing himself and six others."

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http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/07/20050715-12.html

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
July 15, 2005

Captive Nations Week, 2005
A Proclamation by the President of the United States of America

America stands for freedom and supports those who are oppressed. During Captive Nations Week, we reaffirm our commitment to advancing democracy, defending liberty, and protecting human rights around the world.

When President Eisenhower issued the first Captive Nations Week proclamation in 1959, freedom was being denied by communist regimes in Europe, Asia, and Latin America. Millions were deprived of their rights to freely practice religion, assemble in public, and exercise freedom of speech. The Cold War and the captivity of millions of people in Central and Eastern Europe have since ended, and we have witnessed the rise of democratic governments in countries across the globe.

Building a free and peaceful world is the work of generations, and this work continues. America believes that freedom is God's gift to each man and woman in this world and that spreading freedom's blessings is the calling of our time. We are continuing to work to help spread liberty and democracy to people who have known fear and oppression. The gains in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, Ukraine, and Georgia have been achieved through the courage, determination, and sacrifice of millions of men and women in those countries, with the assistance of the United States and other allies.

As a Nation forged from the ideals of freedom, justice, and human dignity, we will continue speaking out on behalf of oppressed people. We will support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation. This young century will be liberty's century, and during Captive Nations Week, we pledge to advance the cause of liberty for all people.

The Congress, by Joint Resolution approved July 17, 1959 (73 Stat. 212), has authorized and requested the President to issue a proclamation designating the third week in July of each year as "Captive Nations Week."

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim July 17 through July 23, 2005, as Captive Nations Week. I call upon the people of the United States to observe this week with appropriate ceremonies and activities and to reaffirm their commitment to all those seeking liberty, justice, and self-determination.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this fifteenth day of July, in the year of our Lord two thousand five, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirtieth.

GEORGE W. BUSH

# # #

http://www.satp.org
http://www.saag.org

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http://www.saag.org/papers15/paper1458.html
Paper no. 1458
15.07.2005
"DANIEL PEARL & THE LONDON BLASTS"
by B.Raman

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http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1444613/posts

Jihad Made In Europe
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/836esgwz.asp ^ | July | Reuel Marc Gerecht

Posted on 07/16/2005 11:34:02 PM PDT by mal

THE JULY SUICIDE BOMBINGS IN London--some or all of whose perpetrators were Muslims born and reared in Britain--are likely to produce in the United Kingdom the same intellectual reflection on Muslim identity in Europe that is already underway in nearby countries. The French began this reflection in earnest ten years ago, after bomb-happy, lycée-educated, French-born Islamic holy warriors terrorized France. The Spanish began it after their own train bombings in March 2004, and the Dutch after the brutal slaying of the film director Theo van Gogh by a Muslim militant in November 2004. Quite likely the British will reach the same conclusion the French already have, to wit: Islamic terrorism on European soil has its roots in the Middle East. "British Islam"--the behavior and spiritual practice of Muslims in the United Kingdom--it will be said, is by and large a progressive force standing against pernicious and retrograde ideas emanating from the Middle East. There are big problems of acculturation at home in mother England, all will confess, but the holy-warrior mentality is imported.

(Excerpt) Read more at weeklystandard.com ...

The guest on coast to coast is talking about muhammed

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,22989-1695442,00.html

July 15, 2005

"TATP is suicide bombers' weapon of choice"
By Philippe Naughton, Times Online

ARTICLE SNIPPET: "In the occupied Palestinian territories, you can tell who the 'engineers' are: they are the ones covered in burn marks who might be missing fingers, or even a whole hand.

The engineers are the bomb-makers for the young suicide bombers sent to kill Israelis by the Islamic militant organisations such as Hamas. And their explosive of choice, triacetone triperoxide or TATP - named today as an explosive used in last week's London bombings - is the reason for their disfigurement.

TATP's base ingredients - drain cleaner, bleach and acetone - can be bought easily and without attracting suspicion; its chemical composition is simple; and in its finished form it is almost undetectable by sniffer dogs or conventional bomb detection systems.

For the same reasons that Hamas uses TATP to send suicide bombers undetected into Israel, the al-Qaeda network has adopted TATP for its terror missions abroad."

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http://www.worldpress.org/Mideast/2033.cfm

"Science Takes on the Mother of Satan"
Erik Schechter
Worldpress.org contributing editor
Tel Aviv, Israel
February 21, 2005

Middle East and North Africa

E-mail this article Print this article Write to the editor

"Science Takes on the Mother of Satan"
Erik Schechter
Worldpress.org contributing editor
Tel Aviv, Israel
February 21, 2005

ARTICLE SNIPPET: "Ehud Keinan, a chemistry professor at Haifa’s Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, faced airport security at its most vigilant when he flew into Baltimore/ Washington International just three weeks after the 9/11 tragedy. Personnel rummaged through Keinan’s luggage; had him turn on his laptop to make sure it was really a computer, and even confiscated his nail clippers. Yet a vial holding two grams of triacetone triperoxide (TATP), an improvised plastic explosive, went completely undetected.

First employed by Palestinian bomb makers, the highly unstable TATP — also known as the “Mother of Satan” — is difficult to detect by dogs and conventional hi-tech methods, such as nuclear quadrupole resonance. If the mild-mannered scientist had been a terrorist, and if he had whipped up a larger batch of TATP, he could have downed his connecting flight to Los Angeles, killing hundreds of passengers. Fortunately, Keinan has devoted many years of research to combating such threats.

At the McDonald’s in the terminal, the professor poured the white explosive powder on a table, and, as oblivious patrons lunched on Happy Meals, he demonstrated for an American government official a working prototype of his pen-shaped Peroxide Explosive Tester (PET). Three and a half years later, PET is ready for use by police and security agents; all Keinan needs now is a company to manufacture the device."

Thank you Karl.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1444609/posts

"It's time to eliminate causes of terror"
Realclearpolitics.com ^ | Imam Mohammad Ali Elahi

Posted on 07/16/2005 11:14:46 PM PDT by F14 Pilot

PERSECUTION.ORG
http://www.persecution.org
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http://www.assistnews.net/Stories/s05070058.htm

ASSIST News Service (ANS) - PO Box 2126, Garden Grove, CA 92842-2126 USA
Visit our web site at: www.assistnews.net -- E-mail: danjuma1@aol.com

Friday, July 15, 2005

THREE WOMEN STAND TRIAL IN INDONESIA ON CHARGES OF CHRISTIANIZATION

By Michael Ireland
Chief Correspondent, ASSIST News Service

INDONESIA (ANS) -- Three women in Indonesia involved in a children's holiday camp are currently standing trial on charges of Christianization. If convicted they face jail sentences of up to five years.

According to Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), the charges against Dr. Rebecca Laonita, Mrs Ratna Mala Bangun and Mrs Ety Pangesti stem from the women's involvement in a children's holiday initiative called Happy Week in Haurgelis, West Java.

CSW says the camp was organized for local Christian children but, with parental consent and supervision, Muslim children were also welcomed.

In a report received by ASSIST News Service (ANS), CSW says the program consisted of opening and closing prayers, singing songs, practical tutoring in reading, writing and mathematics and trips to parks and swimming pools. The initiative proved so successful that it came to the attention of the local authorities.

The report states: "The case of Christianization was brought against the women by the local chapter of the Indonesian Council of Muslim Clerics (MUI) who alleged that the women enticed Muslim children to participate and that they tried to convert the children to Christianity by giving them gifts."

CSW says the women were arrested on May 13 despite the fact that all the
children had full parental consent and that none of children had changed religion. Reportedly no complaints have been lodged by the children's families. The women have been incarcerated in the Indramayu Prison up to now.

The CSW report says: "Their trial, which commenced on June 30, and is set to continue for several more weeks, has attracted considerable national attention. The presence of over a hundred Mujahadeen militants at the court hearings and reports of extremists interfering with witnesses, have led observers to fear that a great injustice will be done."

CSW commented: "It seems that the militants hope to set a legal precedent from the Child Protection Laws of 2002 which would prevent Muslim children from attending Sunday schools or any Christian-led activities. Moderate Muslim leaders have spoken out in favor of the defendants with the former President of Indonesia, Abdurrahman Wahid asking for the case to be withdrawn."

CSW adds: "This case appears to be symptomatic of the growing influence of a radical Islamist agenda in the area and in Indonesia as a whole. At the local level, reportedly over 100 churches have been closed down or destroyed in West Java in the last five years."

CSW says that at the national level, several high-ranking politicians including the Head of Parliament, Hidayat Nur Wahid, are known to be sympathetic to the introduction of Shari'ah law in Indonesia.

Commenting on the case, CSW's Advocacy Director, Tina Lambert, stated that, "For three women to be arrested, detained and charged for simply organizing a children's holiday club in good faith illustrates how serious the situation for Christians in Indonesia is becoming. CSW urges the British government to raise this case with the Indonesian government."

According to CSW, Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim nation, has long enjoyed a reputation for religious tolerance and freedom. The majority of Indonesian Muslims are moderate and respectful of minority faiths. Unfortunately in the last few years more extremist factions have continued to increase in influence in the political, military, legislative and religious fields.

CSW concludes: "This is particularly apparent in the legislative area. Having failed to gain support for the introduction of Shari'ah law into the Indonesian constitution, the extremists adopted a strategy of trying to incrementally introduce Shari'ah law and restrictions of religious freedom through various legislative amendments. They were successful with the National Education law adopted in 2003."

For more information, please contact Richard Chilvers, Communications Manager at Christian Solidarity Worldwide on 020 8329 0045 or email richard.chilvers@csw.org.uk or visit www.csw.org.uk
** Michael Ireland is an international British freelance journalist. A former reporter with a London newspaper, Michael is the Chief Correspondent for ASSIST News Service of Garden Grove, CA. Michael immigrated to the United States in 1982 and became a US citizen in Sept., 1995. He is married with two children. Michael has also been a frequent contributor to UCB Europe, a British Christian radio station.
** You may republish this story with proper attribution.

This man may help Britain unravel its domestic menace

Long Globe and Mail article, dated today, which also mentions a familiar name almost at the end. Worth reading the whole article at the link.

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Mohammad Momin Khawaja remains locked up in maximum-security detention at Ottawa's Regional Detention Centre, as he has for more than a year, denied bail as he stands accused of conspiring in a plot to blow up British citizens.

On the face of things, that alleged plot bears a remarkable resemblance to the jihadist strike that killed 53 Londoners on the city's transit system last week. And as investigators in London grapple with how four homegrown lads became suicide bombers, they may well see an important case study in the matter of a 26-year-old Canadian and his alleged British and U.S. cohorts.

Allegations of that previous plot remain a major concern in their own right: Sources say U.S. President George W. Bush brought up Mr. Khawaja when he met Prime Minister Paul Martin at a security summit in Texas during the spring.

Presumed innocent while awaiting trial, Mr. Khawaja's life bears some parallels to the bombers who died in last week's carnage, according to broadcast and news reports. He wasn't always regarded as particularly zealous, but a friend of his said in an interview that his personality seemed to change after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Family and friends knew him as a harmless, even shy, young man, but he also allegedly took an interest in playing paintball and firing guns, even using code names for fear of being watched.

He didn't escape attention. Months before he was accused of terrorism, Mr. Khawaja allegedly travelled to Pakistan, where he is said to have become close to an admitted al-Qaeda-linked figure. That 30-year-old man, a Pakistani American named Mohammed Junaid Babar, has pleaded guilty in a New York court to running training camps and procuring ammonium nitrate, an explosive chemical, for al-Qaeda.

“They wanted to, you know, plot or target some targets in the U.K.,” Mr. Babar told a judge when he pleaded guilty, without naming names. Now co-operating with police, he said that plot fell apart in “March of '04.”

Around that time, as terrorist figures met in Pakistan to fine-tune plans against Britain, Mr. Khawaja allegedly went on to the United Kingdom, where, according to British prosecutors, he met fellow conspirators in an Internet café and talked to them about making bombs. Fears sparked by communications intercepts were made tangible weeks later when Scotland Yard seized a half-tonne of ammonium nitrate from a storage shed.

On that same March day, officers belonging to the RCMP's tactical squad broke down the door of the Khawaja family's two-storey, white-frame home in the Ottawa suburb of Orleans. They briefly detained relatives as they found their suspect at his job: Mr. Khawaja had recently returned from Britain to go back to work fixing computers for Canada's Foreign Affairs Department.

A CBC documentary, and various other reports and interviews, have shed some light on what are alleged to be Mr. Khawaja's activities. A publication ban exists on the preliminary hearing in the Canadian court case.

The RCMP have said they picked up Mr. Khawaja in connection with the arrest of the nine U.K. residents of Pakistani heritage — all of them are accused of making a collective journey into violent jihad, an allegation they deny. It is that alleged plot that has made them subjects of interest to global intelligence agencies studying the London bombings.

Was there any overlap? It's unclear. French and British officials appear to be at odds in public comments over whether one of the suicide bombers — Mohammed Sadique Khan, 30 — was a target of the 2004 roundups, and a French official's assertion that some of the suicide bombers were arrested and got away the previous year has been dismissed as having “absolutely no foundation” by the British Home Secretary. The New York Times has also quoted an anonymous investigator as saying at least one of the suicide bombers may have had telephone contact with one of the men arrested in connection with the 2004 plot.

The Jamaican-born suicide bomber, Jermaine Lindsay, was connected to the suspected 2004 plot, one official told The Wall Street Journal.

The clear common denominator, however, is carnage, or fear of it. Police allege that the first group of suspects had hoped to convert the ammonium nitrate into powerful cellphone-triggered bombs, and explode them inside London nightclubs or train stations. If a half-tonne of the potent explosive material were to have been used to that end, the body count could have been much worse than the subway attacks.

Ottawa lawyer Lawrence Greenspon suggests that his client, Mr. Khawaja, may be the victim of misguided perceptions of Muslims by Canadian security agencies.

“We believe he is innocent,” Mahboob Khawaja, the young man's father, said yesterday.

The elder Mr. Khawaja condemned the new attacks as “heartbreaking,” but stressed they have nothing to do with the arrest of his son. “We do not see any connection between those incidents in Britain, because my son has been locked up a long, long time before.”

Regardless, police on both sides of the Atlantic seem firm in their convictions that last year they nabbed bona fide terrorists who had nearly slipped through cracks as Western society had yet to wake up to the threat of homegrown extremists. Scotland Yard called its undertaking Operation Crevice. The Mounties dubbed their investigation Project Awaken.

(snip)

Even before that, Mr. Khawaja was allegedly becoming more devout, growing a beard, praying daily and working out more frequently. Friends say he could bench press up to 300 pounds.

He was studying computers at Algonquin College, but in his spare time, according to his friends, he began playing paintball with some friends. Given the Sept. 11 backlash, they thought it prudent to do this somewhat surreptitiously: When making plans on the phone, they said they were about to play “hockey” and gave themselves Western names like Robert and Matthew when they talked about doing this.

“You never know who is listening in and reading our e-mails,” Mr. Lasfar told the CBC. “So maybe they might not hear about it and we'll just play in peace.”

At this time, Mr. Khawaja was also allegedly stepping up his Internet activities, reportedly logging on to chat rooms and running a blog.

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service declassified some reports this year in which the spy service expressed fear about young Muslim extremists playing paintball and logging on to the Internet. “Canadian jihadists are also very computer literate,” one report said. It added, “the young extremists also have access to a greater international on-line network than is available in the developing world.”

In 2003, Mr. Khawaja went to Pakistan, telling friends he was off in search of a bride. He had courted an Pakistani American on the Internet. But there was another figure Mr. Khawaja allegedly saw in Islamabad — Mohammed Junaid Babar, whom he brought to dinner at the house of his bride-to-be, she said in an interview with the CBC.

A naturalized American from Queens, Mr. Babar arrived in Pakistan after leaving a $70,000-a-year computer job in New York — his mother reportedly had to flee down the stairs of the World Trade Center during the 2001 attacks. Yet, his sympathies were with al-Qaeda.

“My loyalty has always been, is and forever will be, with the Muslims,” he told a Canadian camera crew that caught up with him in Pakistan in 2001. “I can't stand by and live in America while my Muslims are being bombed in Afghanistan.”

(snip)

It and other sources have suggested that police believe an as-yet-unidentified “British-born mastermind” of the subway attacks knew a senior al-Qaeda figure who took part in an al-Qaeda terror summit.

Another of the alleged attendees was Adnan Shukrijumah, a fugitive al-Qaeda organizer whom the United States fears may be travelling on a false Canadian passport.

There were others.

“From Queens in New York city came Mohammed Junaid Babar, a Pakistani American who arrived with cash, sleeping bags, other supplies for the mountain-bound jihadis,” writes the Asia-Pacific Foundation.

The American's Canadian friend was no longer in Pakistan at that point, however, having moved on to England. The spring of 2004 would be a turning point for both.

Western security agencies had picked up telephone conversations and e-mail traffic that made them fearful of an attack on Britain. Mr. Khawaja was watched as he arrived in London.

British prosecutors now say he was spotted talking to other local men at an Internet café in London. The finer points of using cellphones to explode bombs — a technology used in the recent Madrid attacks — was allegedly discussed, according to the Crown. (snip)