Threat Matrix: June 2007

Previous Thread ^

[Cindy]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=nigeria
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=nigerdelta
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=mend

#

http://www.jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?articleid=2373463
TERRORISM FOCUS

“MEND’s Fluid Leadership Structure”
By Bestman Wellington

(June 12, 2007)

[Cindy]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=lebanon

#

http://www.jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?articleid=2373461
TERRORISM FOCUS

“Are Outside Actors Funding Sunni Islamist Groups in Lebanon’s Camps?”
By Andrew Exum

(Added June 12, 2007)

[Cindy]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=ubl
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=binladen

http://www.jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?articleid=2373460
TERRORISM FOCUS

Islamist Forum Debates the Fate of Bin Laden
By Abdul Hameed Bakier

(Added June 12, 2007)

ARTICLE SNIPPET: “In response to an article posted in an Islamist internet forum entitled “Bin Laden...The Puzzling Disappearance,” forum users spent a week discussing the possible reasons behind the disappearance of Osama bin Laden from the international spotlight (http://www.tajdeed.org , May 20). The article was authored by the user “Shab,” a member of the Tajdeed forum since 2002, who argued that bin Laden has historically been the director, guide and leader of al-Qaeda since its establishment. Shab asserted that bin Laden was in control of the Islamic leadership as well as al-Qaeda operatives abroad, citing the example of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was appointed by bin Laden as the amir of Iraq. Yet, Shab pointed out that the disappearance of bin Laden for the last year and a half and the frequent surfacing of his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, have raised speculation about al-Qaeda’s attempts to fill the void created by bin Laden’s absence from the international arena. The following three issues were discussed by forum users in response to the post:”

[Cindy]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1849111/posts

“Bush casts doubts on Putin missile offer”
Washington Times ^ | June 12, 2007 | Joseph Curl

Posted on 06/12/2007 1:43:31 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe

#

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1849103/posts

“Putin ‘not kidding’ on missile threat, Yushchenko warns”
theglobeandmail.com ^ | June 12, 2007 | MARK MACKINNON

Posted on 06/12/2007 1:28:24 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe

KIEV

[PGalt]

Outstanding link at #558. Many thanks to a Special FReeper and to you, Cindy.

[Cindy]

Yep, I did not recall Gore saying this.
It was an eye-operner.

[Cindy]

http://www.truthusa.com/IRAN.html

#

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070612/wl_afp/irannuclearpolitics_070612171055

“Iran cranking up uranium enrichment capability: diplomats”
by Michael Adler Tue Jun 12, 1:13 PM ET

ARTICLE SNIPPET: “VIENNA (AFP) - The UN atomic agency thinks Iran could have 8,000 centrifuges enriching uranium by December, a significant rise in nuclear capability likely to fuel fears that Tehran seeks nuclear weapons, diplomats said Tuesday.

ADVERTISEMENT

“The concern is that they will have a sensitive number of centrifuges without having resolved the question marks surrounding the history of Iran’s programme,” a diplomat close to the watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said.

“It becomes more sensitive the more they have. It becomes a greater proliferation concern,” the diplomat told AFP.

The diplomat said IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei has been telling political leaders in private conversations that Iran was making “steady progress” in uranium enrichment and shows no sign of slowing down.

“ElBaradei is saying that Iran will have 8,000 centrifuges running if the current pace (of installation) continues” at its enrichment plant in Natanz, the diplomat said, adding that, from a proliferation point of view, ElBaradei was becoming “increasingly concerned.”

ElBaradei had Monday told an IAEA meeting here that the “brewing confrontation” with Iran over its atomic ambitions “must be defused.””

[Cindy]

Note: The following text is a quote:

http://www.ice.gov/pi/news/newsreleases/articles/070611elpaso.htm

June 11, 2007

ICE arrests suspected key player in alien and drug smuggling network
Tornillo-based organization at one time allegedly smuggled 100 people a day

EL PASO, Texas - U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Office of Investigations special agents Friday arrested a man believed to be one of masterminds of an area criminal network that has smuggled people and drug loads into the U.S. for at least the past five years.

Julian Juvenal Vera-Valencia, 30, was arrested Friday in his Tornillo, Texas, home. He made his initial appearance in federal court today and has been criminally charged with aiding and abetting illegal aliens to enter the U.S. for financial gain, conspiring to smuggle aliens, conspiring to possess a controlled substance with intent to distribute, possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance and importation of a controlled substance. Agents with U.S. Border Patrol, a division of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), participated in the investigation and arrest.

Vera-Valencia, a U.S. citizen, is being held in the El Paso County Detention Facility with no bond.

The Vera-Valencia organization has operated in the Tornillo area for at least the past five years, allegedly moving as many as 100 illegal aliens a day. Vera-Valencia has also been linked to four marijuana seizures since September 2004.

The smuggling organization was known to illegally smuggle people into the U.S. from various South and Central American countries, and at least in one instance, from Poland. The average smuggling fee was $2,100 per alien. The network smuggled men, women and children.

After smuggling the aliens in and around the Tornillo area, the Vera-Valencia group was known to move them to drop houses throughout the area, including El Paso. There the aliens would wait to be transported to various U.S. cities. According to court documents, the guides would provide little, if any, food and water to the aliens. In some instances, the smugglers allegedly charged aliens for food. One Tornillo drop house used by the Vera-Valencia smuggling organization had neither electricity nor running water.

Roberto G. Medina, special agent in charge of the ICE Office of Investigations in El Paso, said: “ICE will not tolerate criminal networks, such as this one, to use our border to profit from their illegal activity. Our special agents are committed to dismantling these smuggling organizations bringing their leaders to justice.”

— ICE —

[Cindy]

Thanks to a Special Freepmailer for pointing to this article:

http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9307323

“Russia’s opposition
Viktor the unvictorious”
Jun 7th 2007 | MOSCOW
From The Economist print edition

“Viktor Gerashchenko, an implausible presidential candidate”

###
###

and on a broader note...

Note: The following text is a quote:

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=46380

Bush: Lessons of Communism Apply in Confronting Terrorism Today

By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, June 12, 2007 – Lessons of the Cold War are important, because the same hatred that led to millions of people’s deaths during the 20th century is still at work today in the world, President Bush said today as the dedication of the new Victims of Communism memorial here.

Bush lauded the new memorial in the U.S. capital as a lasting tribute to an estimated 100 million innocent men, women and children whose lives were cut short by imperial communism.

They include innocent Ukrainians starved to death during Josef Stalin’s great famine, Russians killed in his purges, and Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians loaded onto cattle cars and deported to Soviet death camps, the president said. Others were Chinese killed during the Cultural Revolution, Cambodians slain in Pol Pot’s killing fields, East Germans shot attempting to scale the Berlin Wall, Poles massacred in the Katyn Forest, and Ethiopians slaughtered during the Red Terror. Still others were Mosquito Indians murdered by Nicaragua’s Sandinista dictatorship and Cubans who drowned in a desperate effort to escape tyranny.

“We’ll never know the names of all who perished,” Bush said today. “But at this sacred place, communism’s unknown victims will be consecrated to history and remembered forever.”

Bush said the new memorial helps ensure that future generations remember the crimes of the 20th century to ensure they’re never repeated.

“In this hallowed place, we recall the great lessons of the Cold War,” he said. One lesson is that “freedom is precious and cannot be taken for granted.” Another lesson: “Evil is real and must be confronted.” A third lesson: “Given the chance, men commanded by harsh and hateful ideologies will commit unspeakable crimes and take the lives of millions.”

These lessons are important to remember, Bush said, “because the evil and hatred that inspired the death of tens of millions of people in the 20th century is still at work in the world.”

That hatred showed its face on Sept. 11, 2001, when more than 3,000 Americans died during terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon, and in Shanksville, Pa., he said.

“Like the communists, the terrorists and radicals who attacked our nation are followers of a murderous ideology that despises freedom, crushes all dissent, has expansionist ambitions, and pursues totalitarian aims,” he said.

And the similarities go beyond hatred, Bush said. “Like the communists, our new enemies are dismissive of free peoples, claiming that those of us who live in liberty are weak and lack the resolve to defend our way of life,” he said. “And like the communists, the followers of violent Islamic radicalism are doomed to fail.”

Bush said it’s important that people recognize these comparisons and heed the lessons imperial communism left behind.

“By remaining steadfast in freedom’s cause, we will ensure that a future American president does not have to stand in a place like this and dedicate a memorial to the millions killed by the radicals and extremists of the 21st century,” he said.

Related Sites:
Transcript
Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation

[Cindy]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1849121/posts

“Hands off my gun!”
swissinfo ^ | June 11, 2007 | Simon Bradley

Posted on 06/12/2007 2:04:57 PM PDT by neverdem

[nw_arizona_granny]

Bush said it’s important that people recognize these comparisons and heed the lessons imperial communism left behind.

“By remaining steadfast in freedom’s cause, we will ensure that a future American president does not have to stand in a place like this and dedicate a memorial to the millions killed by the radicals and extremists of the 21st century,” he said.<<<

Thank you for the article, I had missed it.

It is important that we become aware that the radical muslim and the radicals of the communist world are one and the same.

You cannot tell them apart in a group or protest.

[Cindy]

“Bush said it’s important that people recognize these comparisons and heed the lessons imperial communism left behind.”

DITTO.

“You cannot tell them apart in a group or protest.”

Generally speaking, I agree EXCEPT when the protesters
are carrying signs — then at times one can tell them apart.

[Cindy]

Note: The following text is a quote:

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/016885.php

June 12, 2007

Meaning of ‘jihad’ key in Padilla case

Does the meaning of “jihad” determine whether or not he was hoping to set off a dirty bomb? From The Associated Press (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist):

MIAMI — Defense attorneys in the Jose Padilla terrorism support trial are going to great lengths to suggest to jurors that jihad is not necessarily Muslim holy war and that mujahedeen could just as easily be freedom fighters as terrorists.

The meaning of words, especially Arabic words, is center stage as federal prosecutors play hours of FBI telephone intercepts involving Padilla and two other defendants charged with participating in an Islamic extremist support network....

The legal battle about definitions goes to the heart of the defense argument that what Padilla, Adham Amin Hassoun and Kifah Wael Jayyousi were doing from 1994 to 2001 was not supporting terrorism, but providing humanitarian aid to oppressed and persecuted Muslims worldwide.

Prosecutors, however, must show the trio were involved in violence — that the “jihad” they were fighting involved killing and armed struggle.

Posted by Robert at June 12, 2007 6:01 PM

[Cindy]

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=25831_Video-_Wife_of_a_British_Jihadi&only

#

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_scnjcyVRpE
“Former Wife Of A British Muslim Extremist.”
(Added June 12, 2007)

#

Previously...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZV0a8Zz6EO4
“British Muslim Survey on 7.7. London Bombings.”
(Added June 4, 2007)

[Cindy]

OFF TOPIC
RECAP:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1890354.ece

From The Times
June 6, 2007

“Muhammad is No 2 in boy’s names”
Helen Nugent and Nadia Menuhin

“Explore The Times Book of Names and discover what your name says about you”

ARTICLE SNIPPET: “Muhammad is now second only to Jack as the most popular name for baby boys in Britain and is likely to rise to No 1 by next year, a study by The Times has found. The name, if all 14 different spellings are included, was shared by 5,991 newborn boys last year, beating Thomas into third place, followed by Joshua and Oliver.

Scholars said that the name’s rise up the league table was driven partly by the growing number of young Muslims having families, coupled with the desire to name their child in honour of the Prophet.

Muhammad Anwar, Professor of Ethnic Relations at Warwick University, said: “Muslim parents like to have something that shows a link with their religion or with the Prophet.””

[Cindy]

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=/Nation/archive/200706/NAT20070612a.html

“Federal Court Panel Rejects Bush’s ‘Enemy Combatant’ Policy”
By Susan Jones
CNSNews.com Senior Editor
June 12, 2007

[Cindy]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=nuclear

#

DHS.GOV - DOMESTIC NUCLEAR DETECTION OFFICE
http://www.dhs.gov/xabout/structure/editorial_0766.shtm

#

FBI.GOV - WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION Homepage
http://www.fbi.gov/hq/nsb/wmd/wmd_home.htm

###
###

http://www.fbi.gov/page2/june07/nuclear061207.htm

“NUCLEAR TERRORISM
Examining the Issues”

06/12//07

#

Previously...

http://www.fbi.gov/page2/june07/nuclear061107.htm

“NUCLEAR TERRORISM
Talking Prevention in Miami”

06/11//07

[Cindy]

http://internet-haganah.org/hmedia/27apr07/27apr07-salafy_forums.html

#

http://www.memritv.org
http://www.memritv.org/Search.asp?ACT=S5&P1=9
http://www.memri.org/jihad.html

#

http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=subjects&Area=jihad&ID=SP161907

Special Dispatch Series - No. 1619
June 13, 2007 No.1619

“Islamist Websites Monitor No. 111”

[Oorang]

Balkins again, thanks Cindy.

[Oorang]

FBI Investigates Possible Threat Against Davis-Besse Nuclear (Washington)
June 12, 2007

OAK HARBOR -- The FBI is investigating a possible threat against the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station near Oak Harbor. Ottawa County Sheriff Bob Bratton says he called the bureau to report the threat on Monday.

Bratton says a waitress in a Port Clinton restaurant overheard two men talking about the nuclear power plant on Sunday. She told police one of the men wrote "boom" on a napkin. Bratton says the waitress told police the men were "arab-looking."

Patrols have been increased at the plant, but a spokeswoman for First Energy, the owner of the plant, says local authorities don't think the threat is credible. The FBI continues to investigate.

Excerpted

http://www.wtol.com/Global/story.asp?S=6646196