Posted on 07/01/2007 8:58:07 AM PDT by TrebleRebel
Kenneth J. Dillon, a former Foreign Service officer and intelligence analyst, is as brilliant as he is polite. Five years ago, he wrote:
“On why Democratic Senators Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy were targeted, Dillon noted that this has been viewed by some as an indication that the letters were the act of a domestic right-winger. But in fact, he said, Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ), the key component of al Qaeda under Dr. Ayman Zawahiri, head of al Qaeda’s biowarfare program, had targeted Senator Leahy because of his role as head of a panel of the Senate Appropriations Committee that had developed the so-called “Leahy Law” in 1998. Dillon explained, “According to the wording of the Leahy Law, the U.S. Government was authorized to ‘render’ suspected foreign nationals to the government of a foreign country, even when there was a possibility that they would be tortured, in ‘exceptional circumstances.’ When the Leahy Law was applied to send EIJ members captured in the Balkans back to Egypt, Zawahiri fiercely denounced the United States. So Leahy was a high-priority target.”
He was also way ahead of the public on the UK (Rauf Ahmad) connection. Moreover, his Jdey hypothesis has withstood the test of time.
Sen. Leahy Raises Possibility That West Nile Virus is Bioterror Attack
Sept 12, 2002
By DAVID GRAM
MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) - Sen. Patrick Leahy urged Thursday that the government explore the possibility of a terrorist link to an outbreak of West Nile virus that has killed 54 people this year.
“I think we have to ask ourselves: Is it coincidence that we’re seeing such an increase in West Nile virus or is that something that’s being tested as a biological weapon against us?” said Leahy, who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and was the target last year of an anthrax-laden envelope sent to his office.
***
A report issued in July 2000 by the minority staff of the Senate Government Affairs Committee said “law enforcement, public health, and intelligence officials have investigated the possibility that West Nile virus resulted from a bioterrorist attack but believe that this is very unlikely.”
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=519&u=
/ap/20020912/ap_on_re_us/leahy_west_nile_1&printer=1
Here is what Senator Leahy is told NPR last December:
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 03, 2006
The Anthrax Scare of 2001... Five Years Later.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6588682
Senators Grill FBI Head on Investigations, Priorities
All Things Considered, December 6, 2006
ARI SHAPIRO (NPR REPORTER)
For Repulican Charles Grassley of Iowa, the issue of the day was anthrax. Five years ago, anonymous letters containing anthrax spores killed five people. The mystery is unsolved. Grassley said despite his requests, it’s been three years since Congress was briefed.
SENATOR GRASSLEY
This investigation is one of the largest efforts in FBI history, I’m told. Congress has a right and a responsibility to get some detailed information about how all those resources are being used.
ARI SHAPIRO (NPR)
Mueller said the case is before a grand jury and any briefing could compromise the proceedings. Ranking Democrat Patrick Leahy of Vermont interjected,
SENATOR LEAHY
I avoided making many public comments about the anthrax case, especially on the five-year anniversary I might note at least two people who touched the envelope that I was supposed to open — died.
ARI SHAPIRO (NPR)
Leahy told Director Mueller,
SENATOR LEAHY
I’m not satisfied with this investigation. I’m not satisfied with the briefings I’ve had. I’m not satisfied with the information I’ve received on it.”
ARI SHAPIRO (NPR)
Leahy said he expects to ask the FBI more questions about the anthrax investigation once he becomes committee chair.
Question:
“Who Tried To Kill Pat Leahy With Anthrax And Why? “
(video of Specter, Gonzales and Leahy discussing matter; Gonzales referring to “very complex investigation” and Daschle referring to “tremendous resistance” to briefing; Specter discusses Committee’s oversight jurisdiction)
Answer:
US-based operatives of the Vanguards of Conquest, which is the military wing of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and led by Ayman Zawahiri. Members of the Egyptian Islamic Group also assisted (notably Mohammed Islambouli, who was subject of the CIA’s December 4, 1998 PDB to President Clinton on the planned attack on the US using aircraft and other means). Islambouli at one point was in a cell with KSM based in Doha, Qatar. He was head of Abdel-Rahman’s Services Organization in Peshawar until 1993, where he lived in a large house with Ayman, when he fled 100 miles west to a place in Afghanistan.
It was a lot like Schumer living with George Miller, but it was Ayman who never made his bed.
Senator Leahy has an idea why he was targeted even if Ed doesn’t. He and Attorney General Gonzales had many months of tense discussion of rendition and torture — so you can imagine how AG Gonzales might not have wanted to broach the reason he was targeted.
Cairo attorney Montasser al-Zayat met Abdel-Rahman after Montasser had been tortured for 12 hours. He was near a mental breakdown. Abdel-Rahamn came over to where he was huddled in a corner of a cell, bent over and whispered:”Rely on God; don’t be defeated.” Mohammed had spoken the words in the Koran. Al- Zayat would become one of Sheik Omar’s most trusted legal advisers and a lawyer on the defense team of El Sayyid Nosair, the Egyptian who had served as Abdel-Rahman’s bodyguard was tried in New York in 1990 for the murder of Rabbi Meir Kahane.
Leahy video re torture
2 min - Jan 18, 2007
Sen. Pat Leahy blasts at Alberto Gonzales and identifies the elephant in the room (rendition).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucRGsLvI8K4
US Postal employee Sattar, who had been the blind sheik’s spokesman after his 1993 arrest, in a 1999 Frontline interview spoke of the role of appropriations and torture in fueling the islamist rage:
” this is the same old story happening again, and again, and again. American government don’t get it. ... The American government [is] deceiving the American people. They’re not telling them what’s really going on. You can kill Osama bin Laden today or tomorrow. You can arrest him and put him on trial in New York or in Washington. ... Tomorrow you will get somebody else, his name probably will be different, Abdullah, or Muhammad. ... It’s not going to end. Until you, take a hard, and a good look at your policies in the Islamic world and the Muslim world, as long as you’re supporting dictators like Mubarak ... as long as you are giving aid to regimes that [are worse] to their people than Saddam Hussein, things will get ugly, and you cannot control the emotion of people when you are tortured in Egyptian prison by an American trained Egyptian officer. He is torturing you, and he is bragging that he was in the United States getting his training, when the equipment that he is using is American made. ...”
Leahy video re torture-
5 min - Oct 1, 2006
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJ5aTtlaZ4Q
The founder of Egyptian Islamic Jihad Kamal Habib (who wrote for the IANA quarterly magazine) told scholar Fawaz Gerges:
“The prison years also radicalized al-shabab [young men] and set them on another violent journey. The torture left deep physical and psychological scars on jihadists and fueled their thirst for vengeance. Look at my hands — still spotted with the scars from cigarette burns nineteen years later. For days on end we were brutalized — our faces bloodied, our bodies broken with electrical shocks and other devices. The torturers aimed at breaking our souls and brainwashing us. They wanted to humiliate us and force us to betray the closest members of our cells.
I spent sleepless nights listening to the screams of young men echoing from torture chambers. A degrading, dehumanizing experience. I cannot convey to you the rage felt by al-shabab who were tortured after Sadat’s assassination.”
Leahy video re torture -
9 min - Jun 27, 2007
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPMRr7DkoII
In a videotape that circulated in the summer of 2001, Zawahiri said “In Egypt they put a lot of people in jails — some sentenced to be hanged. And in the Egyptian jails, there is a lot of killing and torture. All this happens under the supervision of America. America has a CIA station as well as an FBI office and a huge embassy in Egypt, and it closely follows what happens in that country. Therefore, America is responsible for everything that happens.”
Leahy video re torture
7 min - Jan 21, 2007 -
Leahy questions Gonzales over the extradition and torture
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OHdRvfpSIU
An August 29, 2001 opinion column on Islamway, the second most read site for english speaking muslims, illustrates that the role of “Leahy Law” was known by educated islamists: There is an intolerable contradiction between America’s professed policy of opposition to state-sponsored terrorism, exemplified by the Leahy Law, and the U.S. Congress’ continuing sponsorship of Israeli violence against Palestinians.” The article cited “References: CIFP 2001. “Limitations on Assistance to Security Forces: ‘The Leahy Law’” 4/9/01 (Washington, DC: Center for International Foreign Policy) Center for International Foreign Policy Accessed 8/28/01.Hocksteader, Lee 2001. “The next day, in the same publication, there was an article describing the 21-page document released in Ottawa on August 29, 2001, in which the CSIS claimed that Canadian detainee Jaballah had contacts with the Egyptian Islamic Jihad leader Shehata and sought to deport Jaballah.
”They represent something to him,” says James Fitzgerald of the FBI Academy’s Behavioral Analysis Unit. “Whatever agenda he’s operating under, these people meant something to him.” To more fully appreciate why Leahy — a human rights advocate and liberal democrat — might have been targeted as a symbol, it is important to know that Senator Leahy has been the head of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, the panel in charge of aid to Egypt and Israel. In addition to the Senate majority leader, anthrax was mailed to the position symbolic of the 50 billion in appropriations that has been given to Israel since 1947 (and the equally substantial $2 billion annually in aid that has been keeping Mubarak in power in Egypt and the militant islamists out of power).
Leahy video re torture
2 min - Jun 12, 2007 -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9ZJGwaryGE
That aid goes to the core of Al Qaeda’s complaint against the United States. (The portion going to Egypt and Israel constitutes, by far, the largest portion of US foreign aid, and most of that is for military and security purposes.) Pakistan is a grudging ally in the “war against terrorism” largely due to the US Aid it now receives in exchange for that cooperation. The press in Pakistan newspapers regularly reported on protests arguing that FBI’s reported 12 agents in Pakistan in 2002 were an affront to its sovereignty. There was a tall man, an Urdu-speaking man, and a woman — all chain-smokers — who along with their colleagues were doing very important work in an unsupportive, even hostile, environment. The US agents — whether CIA or FBI or US Army -— caused quite a stir in Pakistan along with the Pakistani security and intelligence officials who accompanied them.
Leahy video over torture
3 min - Feb 2, 2007
CNN Feb 1. 2007 Leahy exchanges words with Alberto Gonzales
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6032104506326224537
Within a couple weeks after September 11, a report in the Washington Post and then throughout the muslim world explained that the President sought a waiver that would allow military assistance to once-shunned nations. The militant islamists who had already been reeling from the extradition of 70 “brothers”, would now be facing much more of the same. President Bush asked Congress for authority to waive all existing restrictions on U.S. military assistance and exports for the next five years to any country where the aid would help the fight against international terrorism. The waiver would include those nations who were currently unable to receive U.S. military aid because of their sponsorship of terrorism (such as Syria and Iran) or because of their nuclear weapons programs (such as Pakistan). In mid-March 2003, Washington waived sanctions imposed in 1999 paving the way for release in economic aid to Pakistan. Billions more would be sent to Egypt, Israel and other countries involved in the “war against terrorism.”
In late September 2001, the Washington Post quoted Leahy: “We all want to be helpful, and I will listen to what they have in mind.” The article noted that he was chairman of both the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Appropriations foreign operations subcommittee, which were considering the legislation. “But we also want to be convinced that what is being proposed is sound, measured and necessary and not merely impulsive,” said Leahy. “Moral leadership in defense of democracy and human rights is vital to what we stand for in the world. Acts of terrorism are violations of human rights. Now is the time to show what sets us apart from those who attack us,” he said.
Patrick Leahy
4 min - Jan 21, 2007
Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont questions Attorney General Alberto Gonzales about the “extraordinary rendition”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhQUX0p9JFw
The options being considered in response to the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington included potential cooperation with virtually every Middle Eastern and South and Central Asian nation near Afghanistan. “Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists” would be the only test for foreign aid. The “Leahy Law” plays a key role in the secret “rendering” of Egyptian Islamic Jihad (Al Qaeda) operatives to countries like Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Algeria where they are allegedly tortured. Richard Clarke, counterterrorism czar during the Clinton Administration, has quoted Vice-President Gore saying: “Of course it’s a violation of international law, that’s why it’s a covert action. The guy is a terrorist. Go grab his ass.” Although humanitarian in its intent, the Leahy Law permits continued appropriations to military and security units who conduct torture in the event of “extraordinary circumstances.”
In an interview broadcast on al-Jazeera television on October 7, 2001 (October 6 in the US) — about when the second letter saying “Death to America’” and “Death to Israel” was mailed — Ayman Zawahiri echoed a familiar refrain sounded by Bin Laden: “O people of the U.S., can you ask yourselves a question: Why all this enmity for the United States and Israel? *** Your government supports the corrupt governments in our countries.”
A month after 9/11, late at night , a charter flight from Cairo touched down at the Baku airport. An Egyptian, arrested by the Azerbaijani authorities on suspicions of having played a part in the September 11 attack, was brought on board. His name was kept secret. That same night the plane set off in the opposite direction. Much of the Amerithrax story has happened at night with no witnesses, with the rendering of University of Karachi microbiology student Saeed Mohammed merely one example. Zawahiri claims that there is a US intelligence bureau inside the headquarters of the Egyptian State Security Investigation Department that receives daily reports on the number of detainees and those detainees that are released. At the time Ayman Zawahiri was getting his biological weapons program in full swing, his own brother Mohammed was picked up in the United Arab Emirates. He was secretly rendered to Egyptian security forces and sentenced to death rendered in the Albanian returnees case.
Leahy video re torture
4 min - May 1, 2007
re Bush Administration’s “extraordinary rendition” program.
Patrick Leahy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYGrsabdyIQ
Throughout 2001, the Egyptian islamists were wracked by extraditions and renditions. CIA Director Tenet once publicly testified that there had been 70 renditions prior to 9/11. At the same time a Canadian judge was finding that Mahmoud Mahjoub was a member of the Vanguards of Conquest and would be denied bail, Bosnian authorities announced on October 6, 2001 they had handed over three Egyptians to Cairo who had been arrested in July. In Uruguay, a court authorized the extradition to Egypt of a man wanted in Egypt for his alleged role in the 1997 Luxor attack. Ahmed Agiza, the leader of the Vanguards of Conquest (which can be viewed as an offshoot of Jihad), was handed over by Sweden in December 2001. Mr. Michael Scheuer the former chief, Bin Laden Unit, defended the extraordinary rendition program he had launched at the request of President Clinton and his advisors before Congress in April 2007.
One islamist, a Hamas supporter, summarized why the anthrax was sent in an ode “To Anthrax” on November 1, 2001: “O, anthrax, despite, your wretchedness, you have sewn horror in the heart of the lady of arrogance, of tyranny, of boastfulness!” In an interview that appeared in the Pakistani paper, Dawn, on November 10, 2001, Bin Laden explained that “The American Congress endorses all government measures, and this proves that .. [all of] America is responsible for the atrocities perpetrated against Muslims.”
A December 2002 conference held by “Accuracy in Media,” former State Department analyst Kenneth Dillon noted concurred that Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ), the key component of al Qaeda under Dr. Ayman Zawahiri, head of al Qaeda’s biowarfare program, likely targeted Senator Leahy because of his role as head of a panel of the Senate Appropriations Committee that had developed the so-called “Leahy Law” in 1998. Dillon explained, “According to the wording of the Leahy Law, the U.S. Government was authorized to ‘render’ suspected foreign nationals to the government of a foreign country, even when there was a possibility that they would be tortured, in ‘exceptional circumstances.’ When the Leahy Law was applied to send EIJ members captured in the Balkans back to Egypt, Zawahiri fiercely denounced the United States. So Leahy was a high-priority target.”
The commentators who suggest that Al Qaeda would have had no motivation to send weaponized anthrax to Senators Daschle and Leahy as symbolic targets — because they are liberal — are mistaken. The main goal of Dr. Zawahiri is to topple President Mubarak. He views the US Aid as the chief obstacle and is indifferent to this country’s labels of conservative and liberal.
Zawahiri likely was surprised that the plainly worded message of the letters accompanying the anthrax was not deemed clear. Perhaps the talking heads would not have been so quick to infer an opposite meaning if no message had been expressed using words at all. Perhaps the public the sender had relied only on what KSM describes as the language of war — the death delivered by the letters — the pundits would not have been so misdirected. But why was Al Qaeda evasive on the question of responsibility for the anthrax mailings, dismissing the issue with a snicker, and falsely claiming that Al Qaeda did not know anything about anthrax? Simple. Bin Laden denied responsibility for 9/11 until it was beyond reasonable dispute. On September 16, 2001, he said: “The US is pointing the finger at me but I categorically state that I have not done this. I am residing in Afghanistan. I have taken an oath of allegiance (to Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar) which does not allow me to do such things from Afghanistan.” Before that, Ayman had denied the 1998 embassy bombings too. On August 20, 1998, coincidentally on the day of strikes on camps in Afghanistan and Sudan, Ayman al-Zawahiri contacted The News, a Pakistani English-language daily, and said on behalf of Bin Laden that “Bin Laden calls on Moslem Ummah to continue Jihad against Jews and Americans to liberate their holy places. In the meanwhile, he denies any involvement in the Nairobi and Dar es Salaam bombings.”
The targeted Senators have another connection pertinent to the Egyptian militants. The United States and other countries exchange evidence for counterterrorism cases under the legal framework of a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (”MLAT”). Egypt is signatory of such a treaty that was ratified by the United States Senate in late 2000. For example, when the Fall 2001 rendition of Vanguards of Conquest leader Agizah was criticized, the US explained that it was relying on the MLAT. In the prosecution of Post Office worker Ahmed Abdel Sattar, the MLAT was described. Sattar’s attorney Michael Tigar, at trial in December 2004 explained: “Now, that might be classified, it’s true, but we have now found out and our research has just revealed that on, that the State Department has reported that it intends to use and relies on the mutual legal assistance treaty between the United States and Egypt signed May 3, 1998, in Cairo, and finally ratified by the United States Senate on October 18th, 2000. The State Department issued a press report about this treaty on November 29th, 2001 and I have a copy here.” He explained that “Article IV of the treaty provides that requests under the treaty can be made orally as well as under the formal written procedures required by the treaty, that those requests can include requests for testimony, documents, and even for the transfer to the United States ... if the treaty conditions are met.”
Leahy video over torture
5 min - Jan 26, 2007 -
Sen. Patrick Leahy gives Inquisitor General Albero Gonzalesa lesson on Congressional oversight as he rakes him over the coals for torture.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4qyxZio5nQ
Vanguards of Conquest spokesman Al-Sirri was a co-defendant in the case against post office worker Sattar. In the late 1990s Sattar and he often spoke in conversations intercepted by the FBI. Al-Sirri’s fellow EIJ cell members in London were subject to process under those treaties at the time of the anthrax mailings. Those London cell members had been responsible for the faxing of the claim of responsibility which stated the motive for the 1998 embassy bombings.
As reason for the bombings, in addition to the rendition recent EIJ members to Cairo, the faxes pointed to the detention of Blind Sheik Abdel-Rahman and dissident Saudi Sheik al-Hawali . Al-Hawali was the mentor of GMU microbiology student Al-Timimi who spoke in London in August 2001 alongside 911 Imam Awlaki (also from Falls Church) and unindicted WTC 1993 conspirator Bilal Philips. Al-Hawali was the mentor of GMU microbiology student Al-Timimi who spoke in London in August 2001 alongside 911 Imam Awlaki (also from Falls Church) and unindicted WTC 1993 conspirator Bilal Philips. Al-Timimi was in contact with Saudi sheik Al-Hawali in 2002 and arranged to hand deliver a message to all members of Congress he had drafted in al-Hawali’s name on the first anniversary of the anthrax mailings to Senator Leahy and Daschle.
For a time Al-Timimi once worked for White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card when he was at the Department of Transportation. He got a letter of commendation from the White House.
Ooh yeah, Attorney General Gonzales wasn’t anxious to tell Senator Leahy why he was targeted or where the know-how, if not the actual Ames, was acquired. Given that Leahy and Specter work so well together, and Mueller has such integrity, there’s no reason that progress can’t be made in advancing the public understanding consistent with due process and the needs of a national security investigation.
But now let’s give AG Gonzales fair time for his rebuttal issued an hour ago:
Gonzales hurls full-bore defense of terror tactics - 1hr. ago
http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/politics/blog/2007/09/gonzales_hurls_fullbore_defens.html
For example, our intelligence-gathering efforts were instrumental in capturing dozens of Osama bin Laden’s closest associates, including the mastermind of the September 11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, as well as Abu Zubaydah, who we believe had run a terrorist camp in Afghanistan where some of the September 11 hijackers had trained. Based on the information he provided, we were able to capture other terrorist leaders, such as Ramzi bin al Shibh, a coordinator of the 9/11 attacks. And the capture of those terrorists has led to actionable intelligence that has disrupted many other terrorist plots and has saved lives.
We have broken up a cell of 17 Southeast Asian terrorist operatives being groomed for attacks inside the United States; uncovered key operatives in al Qaeda’s biological weapons program—including a cell developing anthrax to be used in terrorist attacks. ...
Would you say anthrax has touched your life?
You should come down to Texas. We have millions of acres of cattle land that is contaminated with natural, unweaponized anthrax spores.
“Avoiding Surprise,” September 7, 2007
http://washingtontimes.com/article/20070907/COMMENTARY/109070018/101
“The CIA is a bureaucracy. Bureaucracies are hell on artists, which is OK if you’re pushing pencils but not OK if you are puzzling through an intricate design. The September 11 plot was an intricate design.
Intelligence is an art — a grand, interpretive collusion of linguistics, geography, mathematics, history, theology, psychology, physics, metaphysics and every other human means of analysis and explanation. Former CIA Director James Schlesinger nailed it in October 2003 when he said: “But major organizational change [of U.S. intelligence agencies] is not the salvation. I would submit the real challenge lies in recruiting, fostering, training and motivating people with insight.”
...
So-called “future studies” try to analyze trends and from those analyses anticipate crises. Intelligence, diplomatic, financial and security capabilities, if timely applied, may resolve or mitigate the problems. These kind of studies are useful only at the “large-scale,” however. Stopping any single terrorist strike is another matter. Only gumshoe detective work, steady, tedious monitoring of terrorist suspects and the political will to either arrest or kill terrorists before they strike will stop a particular attack —maybe.
***
Extreme civil libertarians bemoan the “police state.” However, an “aware state” isn’t a police state. What constitutes an aware state? One where individual citizens know their own liberty and safety requires community action.”
The CIA’s December 4, 1998 PDB to President Clinton explained that Mohammed Islambouli, the brother of Sadat’s assassin, was planning an attack using aircraft and other means on the United States and that he was expecting to travel to the United States in making preparations. After Bojinka, which can be thought of as the origin for the 911 planning, Islambouli had been in a cell with KSM in planning the attacks. KSM came to be head of the cell planning to use weaponized anthrax on the United States. Therefore, it is important to understand who Islambouli knew.
Now the surest way to know who he knew would be to go back to the late 1970s leading up to Sadat’s assassination and study membership in the Egyptian Islamic Jihad cells at the universities.
But the story also can fruitfully be picked up a decade later in the context of Islambouli’s ongoing connection on a routine basis to Brooklyn, NY.
One 1992 memo from the Peshawar office read:
“The military wing of the Jihad seals its news with success everywhere. However, the matter is the hands of the leadership to form the Islamic government to manage the country.
* ... (Amir of Jamiyat Al Islamiya, Afghanistan) informed us that the USA warned the Mujaheed to stop the military operations. And, in reply to this, he confirms: ‘Till we have reached oall our goals’. ... we would not accept any party to enter our affairs and dictate us their points of views.”
...
* Engineer Hikmatiyar confirmed that we will not give to any foreign power the right to form our own government in Afghanistan.
Sheik Abdel-Rahman would visit Islambouli in Pakistan from Brooklyn in 1989 and during the early 1990s. It was not until April 1993, upon a crackdown on the foreign fighters, that Islambouli and Zawahiri had to move their operations into Afghanistan. Islambouli moved a scant 100 miles.
In 1992, Mohammed Islambouli,was in regular fax contact from his Peshawar Mujahedeen Office in Peshawar, Pakistan and the Brooklyn Al-Kifah office.
Even back then, moreover, there was a connection between Brooklyn and the Moro National Liberation Front in the Philippines.
(GMU biothreat analysis student has seen the translated FBIS newspaper articles at fas.org that mentions the early involvement of the Moro National Liberation Front. )
For example, a 1992 memo read:
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:
...
THIS IS TO CERTIFY that the Moro National Liberation Front,”2nd Infantry Divsion” Bangsamoro Armed Forces endorses the developments, program and projects of:
AL-KIFAH REFUGEE CENTER INC.
P.O. Box - 294, Brooklyn NY 11217
Telephone No. 718 797-9207
We urge you to support them and to support them and to contribute to their developments, programs and projects in order that they may do their part in accomplishing our jihad and mission of raising the World of Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala and the Message of our Prophet Muhammad (saw) to the Highest.
Thank you and may Allah bless your efforts in His Noble efforts....
A November 24, 1992 memo read:
THIS IS TO CERTIFY that according to the records of this office, that Mr. Abdul Zindani had shown his sincerity, loyalty, and devotion to his work and noble project as Chairman of:
AL-KIFAH REFUGEE CENTER OF AMERICA
P.O. Box - 294, Brooklyn NY -11217
Telephone No. 718-797-9207
We urge you to help all kinds of support needed to all concern Islamic movements, specially our Muslim Mujahideed around the Globe including those in Bosnia Herzegovinia, Palestine, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Kurdisn, Burma, Bangladesh, Eritrea, Lebanon, India, Trinidad, Somalia and Bangsamoro in Southern Philippines.”
The United States government in its indictment of the Vanguards of Conquest spokesman in London (who is yet to be transferred to the US for prosecution) explained that on July 4, 1993, United States Postal employee Ahmed Abdel Sattar spoke to the press about Abdel Rahman’s arrest and said “we haven’t decided the time or place, but our Muslim community will demonstrate its outrage at the arrest of the Sheik.” In the indictment of the Staten Island Post Office employee who worshipped in Brooklyn, the United States government alleged: “Following his arrest, Abdel Rahman urged his followers to wage jihad to obtain his release from custody. For instance, in a message to his followers recorded while he was in prison, Abdel Rahman stated that it was the duty of all Muslims to set free any imprisoned fellow Muslims, and that “[t]he Sheikh is calling on you, morning and evening. Oh Muslims! Oh Muslims! ... It is a duty upon all the Muslims around the world to free the Sheikh, and to rescue him from his jail.” Referring to the United States, he implored, “Muslims everywhere, dismember their nation, tear them apart, ruin their economy, provoke their corporations, destroy their embassies, attack their interests, sink their ships, and shoot down their planes, kill them on land, at sea, and in the air. Kill them wherever you find them.”
His list is a pretty concise summary of the terrorist actions taken over the next decade.
The tactic of lethal letters delivered by the US Post Office — although not mentioned in this list by Abdel-Rahman - - was not merely the modus operandi of the militant islamists inspired by Abdel-Rahman, it was their signature. The islamists sent letter bombs in late December 1996 from Alexandria, Egypt to newspaper offices in New York City and Washington, D.C. and people in symbolic positions.
I was wondering how you'd slither away to avoid the question. The question was:
"Why don't you explain to us how saying two people were killed by touching an envelope is a metaphor for saying they were killed by breathing in spores?"
I didn't ask if you could use "touched" as a metaphor.
But, no need to reply further. You'll just twist things again. There doesn't seem to be any way to get a straight answer out of you about anything.
If you ever feel in the mood to give a straight answer, you might try answering this question: Should we consider AFIP to be incompetent becauses they didn't report detecting polymerized glass in the Daschle anthrax?
Then you should do some research about natural spores. If you do, you'll quickly learn that what you believe about coatings is absolute and total nonsense.
AFIP announced that silica was the key aerosol enabling component used in the Daschle anthrax.
Your fantasies about elaborate conspiracies plotted between AFIP and the Whitehouse to falsely claim silica was present are the ravings of a madman.
Bin Laden’s video is being held until 9/11 — an anniversary date. When Ayman release a video on October 7, 2001 (October 6 here), no one publicly explained the anniversary, even though it was hugely important for profiling the anthrax mailings.
Expert Michael Scheuer, formerly with the CIA, has said that Al Qaeda does not plan attacks around important dates, so far as the CIA can glean. But take Ayman at his word when he says he at least plans some of his messages around anniversaries, as he did by sending anthrax on the date of the Camp David Accord and the related Sadat assassination (Armed Forces Day).
Analysts should pay special heed to the terms dar al-harb (abode of war), dar al-salam (bode of peace) and dar al-’ahd (abode of the treaty). The religious doctrines were applied to the relationships between Islamic and non-Islamic countries. What the anti-war supporters do not realize is that the central belief of these Salafists is that Israel must be destroyed and there can be no peace with Israel. The Camp David Accords are central to the beef they have with the US. The Salafists are not at all peace-loving. The invasion of Iraq just played perfectly into Bin Laden’s hands.
Just as Zawahiri’s thinking on weaponizing anthrax was gaining traction in emails to Atef in the Spring of 1999, the Vanguards invoked an anniversary relating to the signing of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty and issued a statement marking its 20th anniversary. The group said at the time it was reiterating its enmity toward the US and Israel to mark the 20th anniversary of the signing of the treaty in March 1979. Signed on March 26, 1979, the Egypt-Israel peace treaty was a direct result of the Camp David Peace Accords, signed in September 1978. The statement was issued by the Vanguards of Conquest spokesman Al-Sirri, who was in touch with US Post Office employee Sattar in Brooklyn.
Ayman also issued messages in 2004 on the third anniversary of 9/11 and then in 2005 on the third anniversary of the transfer of prisoners to Guantanamo. He said: “These days we are marking three years since the transportation of the first group of Muslim prisoners was sent to the Guantanamo prison ... “ The Vanguards of Conquest did the same thing in the late 1990s.
The first round of letters was sent to ABC, CBS, NBC, the New York Post, and the publisher of the National Enquirer and Sun. Letters were sent to Senators Daschle and Leahy in a second batch, using a much more highly refined product. The letters to the news organizations were mailed — coincidentally or not — on September 17 or September 18, either the day the Camp David Accord was signed in 1978 or the next day when it was approved by the Israeli knesset. Abdel-Rahman, the blind sheik, in the early 1980s, said: “We reject Camp David and we regret the normalization of relations with Israel. We also reject all the commitments that were made by the traitor Sadat, who deviated from Islam.” He continued: “As long as the Camp David Agreement stands, this conflict between us and the government will continue.”
The CIA and FBI analysts should pore over translations over the journal Al-Manar Jadeed published by the Ann Arbor-based Islamic Assembly of North America from 1998 - 2002 by writers based in Cairo. It mainly concerned Egyptian politics and planned the strategy based on all that had ever gone on before.
Update on Al Qaeda vs. Wisconsin bowler theory
Forbes - NEW YORK (Thomson Financial) - CIA director Michael Hayden warned today that Al-Qaeda was plotting fresh attacks on the United States aimed at producing massive casualties. Our analysts assess with high confidence that Al-Qaeda’s central leadership is planning high impact plots against the American homeland,’ Hayden told the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. ‘Al-Qaeda is focusing on targets that would produce mass casualties, dramatic destruction and significant economic aftershocks,’ he added, speaking a week ahead of the sixth anniversary of the Sept 11 attacks.
League bowling news - Meanwhile, in EdWorld, Mary Johnson in the Tuesday night league bowled a perfect 300. She reports that going vegan helped purify her and give her a calm needed for that pesky nerve-wracking last ball. The substitute on the team that night, Linda, denies she is an undercover FBI agent investigating Amerithrax. She had asked Mary for a story done by Mary’s 7th grade nephew only to be polite she says.
“My nephew uses a “Catholic R” Mary explained dismissively. And that’s a FACT.
Update #2 on Al Qaeda Theory vs. Wisconsin bowler theory
AFP - “I want to be as clear as I can about the threat we face,” Hayden said, saying the Central Intelligence Agency would use “every inch we’re given” by the US government to wage the “war on terror” and hunt down militants.
“We bear responsibility for standing watch on this threat,” he said. “Our nation is in a state of armed conflict with Al-Qaeda and its affiliates. It’s a conflict that is global in scope,” he added.
“It’s very hard to see this thing as anything less than war” criticizing the media for references such as a “so-called war on terror.”
The danger the United States faced, he said, was “more real than anything our citizens at home have confronted since our Civil War.”
“This is a form of warfare unlike any other in our country’s history. It’s an intelligence war as much as a military one, actually maybe it’s an intelligence war more than it’s a military one.”
Church newsletter — Meanwhile, in EdWorld, the mother of the Wisconsin bowler reported today that she only called the police in September 2001 on her son because while mowing, he carelessly cut down her beloved browned-eyed Susans the week before. She says that that she suspects the lady at the church bake sale to be an undercover FBI agent given that he didn’t seem to know that the walnut brownies should be priced higher. “This sort of sloppy priciing,” she says, “has cost the church a lot of money — COINTELPRO has resulted in a direct loss of coins. After 6 years of bake sales, it adds up.”
CIA chief defends rendition of terrorist suspects
1 hour ago
NEW YORK (AFP) — CIA director Michael Hayden on Friday defended the US government’s controversial rendition and detention of terrorist suspects, saying the program was highly targeted and smaller than many thought.
***
“The individuals that we detain provide us with a bunch of new puzzle pieces,” in the hunt for fugitives and the fight to prevent future attacks.
“These programs are targeted and they are selective. They were designed only for the most dangerous terrorists and those deemed to have the most valuable information, such as knowledge of planned attack,” he added.
**
The so-called rendition program — which involves the CIA moving terrorist suspects to or through foreign countries, allegedly often involving torture — was actually far smaller than many believed, he said.
“(Since) it began with the capture of (top Al-Qaeda suspect) Abu Zubaydah in the spring of 2002, fewer than 100 people have been detained at the CIA’s facilities,” he said of the detention and interrogation program.
“The number of renditions — that’s moving a terrorist from A to B — apart from that 100 that we’ve detained, the number of renditions is actually a smaller number — midrange two figures,” he added.
Comment: He’s mixing apples and oranges. Actually, CIA Tenet has previously testified that prior to 9/11, 70 Egyptian militants had been rendered. The rendition program began in 1998 — as distinguished from what above is described as the “detention and interrogation program” beginning in the spring of 2002.
One cannot very well accurately profile the anthrax mailings when there such is such a muddling of information such as above.
And there’s always been a huge irony in Michael Scheuer’s emphasis on how OBL is attacking the US for its policies without recognizing the importance of the rendition policy is to those planning the attacks.
For the purpose of true crime analysis, it’s not rendition as a policy or human rights issue that is the question presented. It is walking in the shoes of your adversary — seeing things in terms of what motivates them to act.
During the course of his new speech, bin Laden references the 62nd anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which occurred on August
6, 1945, as occurring only a few days prior to his speech.
It’s another example supporting the significance of the mailing dates of the anthrax.
The letters were mailed on the anniversary of the Sadat assassination and Camp David Accord in conveying a message — “we have this anthrax.”
For all those who scratch their heads about why supporters of the militants would target the media, Bin Laden touches on the same point in his tape to air on the sixth anniversary of 9/11. A jihadist fighter “Barbaros” speaks pretty directly to the issue in a 1994 interview in the arab language Assirat. GMU microbiology grad Al-Timimi was on the advisory board of a publication Assirat. In 1994, Al-Timimi spoke alongside Comm. Abu Abdel Aziz ‘Barbaros’ (Bosnia) at the annual IANA conference. The best evidence available of Dr. Al-Timimi’s own views on the subject are his online speeches, “The Negative Portrayal Of Islam In the Media” and “Crusade Complex: Western Perceptions of Islam.”
Understanding Jihad
INTERVIEW:
With Comm. Abu Abdel Aziz ‘Barbaros’ (Bosnia)
http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:RKSW4BEOcxkJ:www.seprin.com/laden/barbaros.html+Hussam+Sword+Care&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=24&gl=us
THE MEDIA CAMPAIGN (AGAINST JIHAD)
Q. Within the context of the International media campaign against Jihad, how do you evaluate the Muslims’ approach to Jihad, especially after the intended distortion of the Afghan experiment?
A. The main purpose of the International media campaign against Jihad is to paint it with the trait of terrorism and things of that sort. (This is done) to push people away from it. They know that Muslims, if they hold tight to Jihad, will achieve the intended thrust which will make them reach whatever Allah wills. They know quite well that the Muslim zeal to Jihad stems from the belief that Allah is the sole source of victory, He will send His help from the sky and that if the Mujahid dies, his abode shall be the highest Firdaws (Peak of Paradise), among the prophets (Nabiyyin), the truthful (Siddiqin) and martyrs (Shuhada’), and those near to Allah, as Allah, praised be He, said, “They are with their Lord receiving their bounty (Rizq).” The media campaign wants to convince people and prove to them that the Jihad in Afghanistan failed, that the Afghan experiment is utter shame. This thesis is widespread whether you consider Western sources or the secular (Arab ones). The truth of the matter is that there is a confusion of facts. ...
The roots of the tree that is Amerithrax lie in Brooklyn’s Al-Kifah (the Blind Sheik’s Service’s Organization).
After WTC 1993, the Boston al-Kifah branch was renamed Care International.
In March 2007, there was a superseding indictment in the case pending in Worcester, Massachusetts that added another former President. This summer the defendants moved the Court to unseal the evidence collected under FISA that the Government says must remained classified and under seal. The indicted official who resides near Worcester worked for Ptech, a software company that worked for DARPA and other similar government agencies.
Al Kifah/Care published a pro-jihadist newsletter, al-Hussam, or The Sword.
Here is a 1996 newsletter to give you a flavor. The headline: “And Time Went By O’ Muslims: Rise!” (In short, if someone unjustly gets convicted, it is your duty to take action). Psssst... it’s about revenging the blind sheik’s imprisonment.
http://web.archive.org/web/19990117034607/www.cybercom.net/~cib/alhussam/may96/may96.htm
Investigators raided a storage facility confiscated 18,000 pages of material relating to Care International, 40 videotapes, four computer hard drives, and 100 computer diskettes.
When the Amerithrax indictment comes, it is going to be loaded with concrete detail from this and many other raids.
The FBI and CIA have known The Solution to Amerithrax for years.
Won’t someone please tell Leahy?
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