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.