Threat Matrix: July 2007

Previous Thread ^

[nwctwx]

Threat Matrix:
July 2007

June 2007

Threat Matrix Index

Theat Matrix Handbook

Theat Matrix 'BOLO'

Invaluable Tips

Preparedness

US Steps Up Security Following Attack in Britain

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff made appearances on several television talk shows.

He told ABC's This Week program there is no indication of a linkage between the events in Britain and any specific attacks on the United States. "We do not have, at this point, specific, credible intelligence that there is an attack, a particular attack, focused on this country," he said.

But at the same time, speaking on CNN's Late Edition program, Chertoff said U.S. authorities are concerned about the threat of terrorism, especially in the coming months. "We have had a number of al-Qaida leaders quite publicly talking about how they want to carry out their threats against the West. So, given that and given the history that we have had over past summers, with attacks in Britain, I think we were clearly focused on this as a possibility," he said. Full story...

	More United Kingdom Attacks Possible
	More US Air Marshals on Flights to Europe
	Officials: Car Bomb Plot Bears al Qaida's Trademark

[Cindy]

PERSECUTION.ORG
http://www.persecution.org

[Cindy]

http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/pa/pa_1161.html

PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesman
This information is current as of today, Tue Jul 10 2007 03:59:20 GMT-0700.

Worldwide Caution

April 10, 2007

[neverendinghunt]

Thanks. A few months ago i managed to catch the thread in the latest posts section on the site. I can see from the archives i’m a little bit late but it’s nice to know there is a group that is actually aware of this clear and present danger.

Most i talk to are oblivious to the facts and because of our selective vivid entertainment we envelop ourselves in, have unfortunately fallen back into 9/10 mode. I can’t even bring it up with a colleague or friend without being mocked, thats how bad i believe that frame of mind has gotten.

Sorry for my rant, but glad to be onboard!

-hunter

[Rushmore Rocks]

Welcome, and I give you fair warning...........once here, no one ever leaves. Best and most informative thread on FR.

[Godzilla]

placemark

[nwctwx]

Al-Qaeda threatens Britain in new audio tape

CAIRO (AP) — Al-Qaeda's No. 2 issued a new audiotape on Tuesday threatening to retaliate against Britain for having honored novelist Salman Rushdie, a U.S.-based intelligence monitoring group said.

Ayman al-Zawahri's 20 minute speech was entitled "Malicious Britain and its Indian Slaves." It was produced by as-Sahab, the multimedia wing of al-Qaeda, to be distributed to extremist websites, said the US-based SITE intelligence group, which monitors al-Qaeda messages.

The authenticity of the tape could not be independently confirmed.

Osama bin Laden's deputy lashed out at Britain for having awarded a knighthood to Rushdie last month, saying it was defying the Islamic world by granting the honor to the author of "The Satanic Verses," deemed to insult Islam.

A "very precise response" is in preparation to retaliate against this offense, al-Zawahri was quoted as saying by SITE.

Addressing British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the al-Qaeda deputy chief said Britain's strategy in the Middle East "has brought tragedy and defeat upon you, not only in Afghanistan and Iraq but also in the center of London."

"And if you did not understand, listen, we are ready to repeat it for you," al-Zawahri was quoted as warning the British prime minister.

[null and void]

eh? The møøslimbs are offended?

Inconceivable!

[RDTF]

Ramirez on that:

[nwctwx]

“Malicious Britain and its Indian Slaves” – An Audio Speech by Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri Produced by as-Sahab Media
By SITE Intelligence Group

Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the number two leader in al-Qaeda, speaks in regard to Britain’s conferring knighthood upon Salman Rushdie, and fighting in Lebanon and Palestine in a 20:44 minute audio speech produced by as-Sahab, the multimedia wing of al-Qaeda, and titled, “Malicious Britain and its Indian Slaves”. The video was issued to jihadist forums today, Tuesday, July 10, 2007. Only an image of Zawahiri is shown, a duplicate used in a previous Sahab release from June 2007, “Forty Years Since the Fall of al-Quds [Jerusalem]”, with his voice playing as an audio track. The title of the speech refers to Britain and what is considered to be an insult to Islam and Muslims in honoring Rushdie, an Indian novelist who wrote The Satanic Verses and who was sentenced to death in 1989 after its publication by a fatwa from Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini for blasphemy against Islam and the Prophet Muhammad.

Zawahiri views the knighting as an act motivated by sheer anger towards Islam, claiming that Queen Elizabeth II and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair implicitly delivered a message to Muslims that though their forces may be defeated in Iraq and Afghanistan, they can take revenge by cursing their prophet. In response, Zawahiri threatens that a “very precise response” is in the stages of preparation, and addresses current Prime Minister Gordon Brown, stating: “The policy of your predecessor has brought tragedy and defeat upon you, not only in Afghanistan and Iraq but also in the center of London. And if you did not understand, listen, we are ready to repeat it for you, with the permission of Allah. We are sure that you have quite understood it.”

The remainder of the speech moves away from Zawahiri’s enmity and warnings to Britain, and rather discusses the state of Muslim affairs in Lebanon, Palestine, and Pakistan. Zawahiri reiterates words he has stated often in prior speeches, castigating Hamas for its participation in the Mecca Treaty and ceding four-fifths of Palestine, and calling upon its leaders to return to Salafist Jihadi doctrine and follow the paragon of deceased Hamas leader, Dr. Abdul Aziz al-Rantisi. He also rails against Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, declaring to Muslims that opposition to him should not be through farcical elections, but through supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Regarding Lebanon, Zawahiri lauds an attack which struck international forces in the south of this “precious part of the land of Islam”, referring to a car bombing on June 24, 2007 that killed six UN peacekeepers. He then calls upon all Muslims in the Lebanon to rebel against the forces which oppose Islam and have encircled them, and threatens: “those who conspire against jihad and the Mujahideen in Lebanon through American weapons, Zionist corruption, and Saudi money must start to dig their graves with their own hands.”

Making overtures to Muslims for participation in jihad and support to the Mujahideen, Zawahiri concludes his speech with an appeal that what occurs in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, and Somalia may be repeated in any Muslim land; “the Jews and the Americans are not from the planet Mars, but they are on our borders and in our land with their gear, equipment, and numbers.” Only jihad and unity, rather than secular calls, nationalism, and other political movements, is determined as the solution.

[Godzilla]

I wonder if this tape was in transit when the failed London/Glasgow attacks occured and the ‘center of London’ reference was intended to refer to those (assuming that they would be successful)

[processing please hold]

bttt

[nwctwx]

I wonder if this tape was in transit when the failed London/Glasgow attacks occured and the ‘center of London’ reference was intended to refer to those (assuming that they would be successful)

I would tend to think not. One, this is audio with an old image pasted on screen. Effort to record, transmit, produce, is probably marginal. I also don't think al Qaida would allow a tape to go out and mention an attack as successful if it was not. Another possibility is that he is referencing the failed attacks as what they were, but also letting us know that there are many more on the way. Or of course, he could be talking about the successful attack in the heart of London 2 yrs ago.

I am still pretty sure this was not their "spectacular" attack for Britain/Europe. Even if successful it is possible that the numbers dead would not have surpassed 7/7 by a whole lot.

Overall, it seems to be a lot of the same. He's looking to incite people to rise up and possibly alluding to the "spectacular" event we have now seen several intelligence agencies mention.

The frequency of messages from him is pretty high right now, that's for sure.

[Godzilla]

I am still pretty sure this was not their "spectacular" attack for Britain/Europe.

Agreed and the reference to the 'center of London' is generic enough to cover a lot.

He's looking to incite people to rise up and possibly alluding to the "spectacular" event we have now seen several intelligence agencies mention.

That generated a lot of response, so his follow-up to maintain the momentum makes sense. Time will tell if frequency = pre attack troop rallying.

[callmejoe]

“Indian slave(s)” (not just a reference to Rushdie)

http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2007/06/09/al_qaida_declares_holy_war_on_india/

Al-Qaida declares holy war on India
By Aijaz Hussain, Associated Press Writer | June 9, 2007 (excerpt)

SRINAGAR, India —A group claiming to represent the al-Qaida terror network declared a holy war on India over its partial control of the divided Himalayan region of Kashmir, Indian officials said Saturday. A statement and video was sent Friday to the Current News Service, in Srinagar, the main city of India’s Jammu-Kashmir state, in which a masked man standing next to an automatic weapon read the declaration.

“We declare righteous holy war against India on behalf of God the great in which Jammu and Kashmir will be the launch pad for holy war in India,” said the statement signed by Abu Abdul Rehman al-Ansari, purportedly the chief of al-Qaida Fil Hind or al-Qaida in India.

While this is the first time the group has been heard from since it announced its establishment in July, police said they were taking the threat seriously. . .

There have been allegations that Islamic militants fighting to wrest predominantly Muslim Kashmir from India have ties to al-Qaida, but these links have not been proven. . .

http://jurnalo.com/jurnalo/storyPage.do?story_id=47107

Bin Laden speeches found in terror suspect’s house in Bangalore
Tuesday 10 July 2007 13:30 (excerpt)

Inflammatory speeches by al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and propaganda against the United States and Britain have been seized by police from the house of a British terror plot suspect in the southern Indian city of Bangalore, a news report said Tuesday.

The material was found in three CDs that were seized along with a computer hard disk from the house of Kafeel Ahmed, who is suspected of being the person who drove a flaming vehicle into Glasgow airport, the Times of India newspaper reported.

While Kafeel Ahmed is in a hospital in Glasgow with burn injuries over 90 per cent of his body, his brother Sabeel Ahmed is being detained by the British police. Their cousin Mohammed Haneef is being questioned by the police in Brisbane, Australia. . .

The Times of India quoted police sources as saying that Kafeel Ahmed and his associates were believed to have visited Pakistan more than once to seeek approval for the Britain terror plot.

The police also suspect that al-Qaeda operatives have been at work in India recruiting young people.

“Al-Qaeda operatives have infiltrated the country in a big way and are acting as sleeper cells, spreading messages brainwashing youths. They have a long-term, methodical plan. It will not be long before these sympathisers turn operatives,” an official of Karnataka Police’s anti-terrorist cell was quoted as saying.

The official said al-Qaeda was targetting young educated Muslims who could be sent to the United States and Europe for terrorist activities. . .

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0710/p01s02-wosc.html

from the July 10, 2007 edition
Global terror’s India connection

The Glasgow attack is the first known act of global terror involving an Indian Muslim.

By Mark Sappenfield | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
and Mark Rice-Oxley | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

NEW DELHI and LONDON (excerpt)

When President George Bush visited this country of 150 million Muslims last year, he introduced his wife to the prime minister with a fact surely intended to amaze: “Not one Indian Muslim has joined Al Qaeda,” he said.

At a time when Muslim nations from Algeria to Indonesia have emerged as incubators for anti-Western extremists, India – by some estimates the world’s second-most-populous Muslim nation – has remained a unique case.

Yet reports from Britain suggest that, for the first time, an Indian Muslim is likely to be implicated in an act of international terrorism. Khafeel Ahmed, the man who police say crashed a Jeep into Glasgow’s airport on June 30, is an engineer from Bangalore, a city previously known only as the high-tech capital of the new India.

Until now, Indians’ disinterest in the global jihad had been largely taken for granted, experts say. In recent days, however, the nation has been left to try to piece together why a man who holds a PhD in aeronautics from India’s golden city was driven to such rage against the West – and whether there will be more to follow. . .

[JellyJam]

U.S. officials worry of increased risk of terror attack this summer

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. counterterror officials are warning of an increased risk of an attack this summer, given al-Qaida’s apparent interest in summertime strikes and increased al-Qaida training in the Afghan-Pakistani border region.

On Tuesday, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told the editorial board of The Chicago Tribune that he had a “gut feeling” about a new period of increased risk.

He based his assessment on earlier patterns of terrorists in Europe and intelligence he would not disclose.

“Summertime seems to be appealing to them,” Chertoff said in his discussion with the newspaper about terrorists. “We worry that they are rebuilding their activities.”

[Palladin]

Rushdie is a brave man.

[Cindy]

Thanks nw for the heads up.

[Oorang]

Oakland Airport reopened after security mishap
Tuesday, July 10, 2007

OAKLAND -- Operations at Oakland Airport were shut down for nearly two hours this morning after someone ran past the security screeners, officials said.

The security breach occurred at 9:05 a.m. in Terminal One, said spokeswoman Joanne Holloway. Alameda Sheriff's Sgt. J.D. Nelson said a man somehow bypassed the Transportation Security Administration screeners and ran into the terminal.

Both terminals reopened their security screening operations at 10:52 a.m., Holloway said, and flights are beginning to resume. Security lines are extremely long, she said, snaking out of both terminals and down the sidewalks in front of the airport. Delays are expected to continue for sometime, Holloway said. Travelers should check with their airline or visit www.flyoakland.com for more information on their flight status, she said.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/07/10/BAG68QU1TP4.DTL&feed=rss.news

Imam Accused in JFK Plot Wanted Help From Iran
July 10, 2007

A Shiite imam accused of plotting to blow up fuel tanks at John F. Kennedy International Airport wanted to seek Iranian backing for the terrorist plot. The disclosure came yesterday in a court decision denying bail to the Trinidadian-based cleric, Kareem Ibrahim.

Mr. Ibrahim, 62, is one of four men arrested last month on charges connected to the plot. At the time, American law enforcement officials said Mr. Ibrahim encouraged his co-conspirators to seek funding for the attack from outside their home countries of Trinidad or Guyana. While American authorities have not provided more details, a judge in Trinidad wrote that evidence, including tape recordings, suggests Mr. Ibrahim intended to seek backing for the plot from individuals in Iran or Britain.

In those recordings, Judge Prakash Moosai wrote, Mr. Ibrahim "refers to an ‘Iranian brother' passing through Trinidad and Tobago, and of sending a ‘trusted brother' to Iran to speak to the top men of the revolutionary movement there about the plan." The judge's decision does not clarify whether "the revolutionary movement there" refers to the government of the Islamic Republic. Nor does Judge Moosai state whether the plotters actually disclosed the plan to contacts in Iran or simply considered doing so. Mr. Ibrahim also spoke of contacting "brothers in England," the decision said.

Mr. Ibrahim's alleged efforts to find foreign backing mark the second Iran connection to surface in a case that initially appeared confined to the Western Hemisphere. At the time of his arrest, another of the defendants, Abdul Kadir of Guyana, was preparing to travel to Iran to attend an Islamic conference, according to news reports. Two of Mr. Kadir's children were studying in Iran at the time of his arrest, according to reports.

Excerpted

http://www.nysun.com/article/58115

[neverendinghunt]

In other news:

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN1036768720070710

seems like everything is clear although they haven’t said what was in the bag...

[Oorang]

Morocco: Iran trained one of militants in 2003 Casablanca attacks, police sources
10 July 2007

- Saad al-Houssaini, a Moroccan militant arrested in March in a police raid on an internet cafe in Casablanca, lived in Iran before the 2003 Casablanca suicide attacks in which 45 people died, according to police sources in Rabat. Al-Hossaini, an explosives expert, is suspected of involvement in the attacks.

The man allegedly left Afghanistan in 2001 after US troops invaded the country following 9/11 and travelled to Iran, where he received training in a camp of the Revolutionary Guards, the Pasdaran, together with Salafite militants close to al-Qaeda.

According to Moroccan police al-Houssaini, who studied chemistry at the university of Valencia in the 1990s, was specifically trained in Iran in the preparation of bombs for suicide attacks.

http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Security/?id=1.0.1095235068

Pakistan: Death of radical mosque leader a 'sad moment' says Grand Mufti
10 July

Islamabad - The Grand Mufti of Pakistan, Rafi Usmani has referred to Tuesday's killing of the radical mosque leader, Abdul Rasheed Ghazi, as a sad moment. In an interview with Pakistani television channel, the Mufti, who was part of the negotiating team that was trying to bring about a peaceful end to the crisis between the government and Islamabad's Lal Masjid (Red Mosque), said that those who fought for Allah are martyrs while those who died as part of their their jobs because their commanders had asked them to do so, are not.

The Pakistan army has said that at least 50 militants have been killed in the operation and eight soldiers. The military stormed the mosque compound early Tuesday morning after 11 hours of talks between Ghazi and the government failed. The Grand Mufti told Adnkronos International (AKI) that the talks failed after the draft accord reached by the two sides had been rejected by Pakistan's president General Pervez Musharraf.

Pakistan's interior ministry officials confirmed that Ghazi had been killed and that his body was found at the basement of the mosque. The interior ministry spokesperson said that he was initially injured and was asked to lay down his weapon but as he refused and tried to resist, he was killed.

Meanwhile many parts of Pakistan including the tribal areas of Swat, Maland and Bajaur, which lie along the border with Afghanistan, have been rattled with attacks on Pakistani security officials. There have been no reports of casualties so far. Reports also said that armed supporters of the militants in the Lal Masjid had blocked the Himalayan Karakorum Highway linking to China in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province. They had reportedly taken positions on the mountains along the Silk Route near Batagram.

In recent days, the army has redeployed thousands of troops in northwestern Pakistan where pro-Taliban militants opposed to Musharraf have been carrying out a string of attacks said to be linked to the mosque siege. In his final telephone interview on Pakistan television channels before he was killed, Ghazi said that the Pakistani government had not told the truth about those in the mosque and the amount of weaponry that they had with them.

"The government talked to us not to resolve anything but to break us. The government did a lot of propaganda about our weaponry. I want to tell that we have just 14 AK-47 guns and most of them are licensed," Ghazi said in the interview. The Pakistani authorities had said that there were hardcore militants inside the mosque and that they were well-armed with rocket launches and grenades and that they had been using women and children as human shields.

"I know I would be killed so I want to clarify that the government had given information against us,” Ghazi said in his last recorded interview telecast on local Pakistani channels. “There were religious political clerics who approached me but only to terrify me with the government's wrath," he said. "God would ask them on the Day of Judgment on their role," he said. "I want to thank the press with whom I have spent a good time and they always presented my point of view,” Ghazi said.

In other interviews before he died, Ghazi reportedly said that if he was killed, there would be a strong reaction against the Musharraf government.

http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Security/?id=1.0.1095408190