Posted on 12/09/2002 5:02:06 PM PST by Destro
09 Dec 2002 18:31
Dutch intelligence says al Qaeda network recruiting
AMSTERDAM, Dec 9 (Reuters) - Islamic militants linked to the al Qaeda network are succeeding in a drive to recruit young men, in mosques, cafes and prisons, for a "holy war" against the United States, the Dutch secret service warned on Monday.
The report was issued to the Dutch parliament amid growing concern about Islamic militant activity in the Netherlands after two men were accused at a trial in Rotterdam of plotting to set off explosions at the U.S. embassy in Paris.
"The recruitment of these youths shows a violent radical Islamic current is stealthily taking root in Dutch society," the Dutch secret service, AIVD, said in its report.
The recruiters are legal and illegal immigrants who almost all have a background of fighting in Bosnia or in Afghanistan, AIVD spokesman Vincent van Steen told Reuters. Many were trained in al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan.
The AIVD warned the successful recruitment, also in other western countries, indicated that the threat of "Islamic terrorism" towards western countries was growing.
Several dozens of youths are being trained to partake in the jihad, the report commissioned by the interior ministry said.
"Those recruited in the Netherlands are mostly, but not exclusively, youths of Moroccan origin who were born in the Netherlands or moved here at a very young age," the report said.
"After the first contact recruits are isolated from their environments and indoctrinated. The recruitment process is completed with a testimony for descendants and a paramilitary training."
Van Steen said: "The jihad, or holy war against the enemies of Islam, eyes a large group that at the moment includes the U.S., Israel and Great Britain, but also France and in the future perhaps the Netherlands."
Dutch Interior Minister Johan Remkes called on the Muslim community to recognise recruitment attempts and said that parents, imams and mosques carried an important responsibility to act against those attempts.
He said the Netherlands, which has a large Muslim population, would also continue its integration policy.
Isn't that an oxy-moron?
The guy who's mission was to bomb LAX was a Moroccan. He went to France, then Canada and was arrested in when entering the US via Washington state.
A number of the extremists "would travel with impunity and conduct, plan and stage terrorist acts with impunity while hiding behind their Bosnian passports," the former official said.
In several instances, terrorists with links to Bosnia have launched actions against Western targets:
* An Algerian with Bosnian citizenship, described by one U.S. official as "a junior Osama bin Laden," tried to help smuggle explosives in 1998 to an Egyptian terrorist group plotting to destroy U.S. military installations in Germany. The shipment included military C-4 plastic explosives and blasting caps, the former U.S. official said. The CIA intercepted the shipment, foiling the attack.
* Another North African with Bosnian citizenship belonged to a terrorist cell in Montreal that conspired in the failed millennium plot to bomb Los Angeles International Airport.
* One of Bin Laden top lieutenants--a Palestinian linked to major terrorist plots in Jordan, France and the United States--had operatives in Bosnia and was issued a Bosnian passport, according to U.S. officials. After the foiled plot against American bases in Germany, the U.S. suspended without public explanation a military aid program to Bosnia in 1999 in an attempt to force the deportation of the Algerian leader of the group, Abdelkader Mokhtari, also known as Abu el Maali.
Among those who Western intelligence sources say was granted Bosnian citizenship and passports was Abu Zubeida, one of Bin Laden's top lieutenants. Zubeida, a Palestinian from the Gaza Strip, was in charge of contacts with other Islamic terrorist networks and controlled admissions to terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. He arranged training for unsuccessful millennium bomb plots in Canada and Jordan and a recently foiled suicide attack on the U.S. Embassy in Paris, according to court records and investigative reports.
Zubeida also asked LAX bomb plot figure Ahmed Ressam to get blank Canadian passports that would allow other terrorists to infiltrate the United States, according to testimony from Ressam, who was convicted in the bomb plot and is cooperating with investigators.
Another terrorist with Bosnian credentials is Karim Said Atmani, a Moroccan who was Ressam's roommate in Montreal and who was in the group that attempted to bomb LAX, according to testimony. The Bosnian government arrested him in April, and Atmani was extradited to France, where he awaits sentencing on terrorism charges.
Beginning in 1992, as many as 4,000 volunteers from throughout North Africa, the Middle East and Europe came to Bosnia to fight Serbian and Croatian nationalists on behalf of fellow Muslims. They are known as the moujahedeen. A military analyst called them "pretty good fighters and certainly ruthless."
"I think the Muslims wouldn't have survived without this" help, Richard Holbrooke, the United States' former chief Balkans peace negotiator, said in a recent interview.
BBC NEWS: "REDGRAVE - ACTRESS AND CAMPAIGNER" (ARTICLE SNIPPETS: "Film star Vanessa Redgrave stepped in to help in the release of fellow actor Ahmed Zakayev, a Chechen rebel envoy accused of mass murder, who is seeking political asylum in the UK."..."In 1977 during her acceptance speech at the Academy Award ceremony, she attacked "Zionist hoodlums" who had campaigned against her because she had defended the Palestinian Liberation Organisation.") (120602)
NATIONAL REVIEW.com online - Guest Comment by Evan Kohlmann: "RELEASED! Al-Qaeda Mastermind Not a Criminal in the Kingdom" (COMMENTARY SNIPPET: "If knowledgeable al Qaeda sources are to be believed, the Saudi government seized an al Qaeda terrorist mastermind and placed him in their custody, only to abruptly and illogically release him in mid-1999. Now, that individual, Abu Asim Al-Makki (a.k.a. Muhammad Hamdi Al-Ahdal, Muhammad al-Hamati), is figuring prominently in the investigations of multiple terrorist attacks attributed to al Qaeda, including both the suicide-bombing of the USS COLE and the recent copycat terror attack on the French supertanker Limburg.") (120502)
INSIGHT On The News online: "JIHADISTS CHANGE TERROR STEREOTYPE" by Scott Wheeler (ARTICLE SNIPPET: ""It's the Joseph coat of terrorism," one former terrorism investigator tells Insight, referring to the Old Testament account of Joseph's coat of many colors. "The next wave of terrorism could be carried out by people with fair skin, blond hair and blue eyes." More than 10 years ago, Iran and the al-Qaeda terrorist network began recruiting and training Bosnian Muslims for war against Orthodox Christian Serbs and Catholic Croats in order to expand the Muslim base in Eastern Europe. After an international peace agreement left a Muslim leader in a power-sharing role, mujahideen fighters no longer had a cause for martyrdom in the former Yugoslavia. But experts tell Insight that the sponsors of the Muslim campaigns in the Balkans have not decommissioned their jihadist forces in Bosnia, Albania and elsewhere in the region. Efforts by U.S. policymakers to save Muslim lives and autonomy in the Balkans by imposing peace plans that included Muslim power-sharing apparently were unappreciated, and dismantling the jihadists' training camps there was not a priority of the U.S. government.") (December 2, 2002)
Dubai GULF NEWS.com: "ISLAM FASTEST-GROWING FAITH IN AUSTRALIA" (ARTICLE SNIPPET: ("Australia's Muslim community is drawn from more than 60 different countries, and started to flourish in the wake of World War II, as European Muslims, mainly Cypriot Turks, sought a new life in Australia. Lebanese migrants, many of whom were Muslims, began arriving in larger numbers after the outbreak of civil war in Lebanon in 1975. Since then Muslim migrants have arrived from a range of other countries, including Turkey, Indonesia, Egypt and Bosnia.") (120802)
THE COURIER MAIL.news.com.au: "TERRORIST-LINKED GROUP TRAINS IN VICTORIAN FOREST" (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "The Courier-Mail's Insight team also has been told that senior UK-based Al-Qaeda operative Abu Qatada, accused of being a key influence in the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, attended the camp as a spiritual guest speaker.") (ARTICLE NOTE: Abu Qatada is also known as Omar Mohammed Othman.) (120302)
HAARETZ DAILY.com: "ALLEGED QAIDA STATEMENT CLAIMS RESPONSIBILITY FOR KENYA ATTACK" (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "A purported al Qaida statement posted on the Internet on Monday claimed that the Islamic group had carried out last Thursday's twin attacks on the Paradise hotel and Arkia airliner in Kenya. Internet analysts said that the statement includes phrases, terms and nicknames that have characterized other remarks made by the group. The statement surfaced on www.arabforum.net, and was signed by the "Political Office of Qaida al-Jihad."") (120302)
FOX NEWS.com: "MISSILE LAUNCHERS IN KENYA SUGGEST AL QAEDA LINK" (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "WASHINGTON - Two shoulder-fired missile launchers found outside the airport in Mombasa, Kenya, last week are from the same production batch as a launcher used to fire at a U.S. fighter jet in Saudi Arabia last May, Pentagon officials told Fox News on Monday.") (December 2, 2002)
SEATTLE TIMES.com: "MISSILES SHOT AT JET ARE READILY AVAILABLE" by Jonathan S. Landay, Knight Ridder Newspapers (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "In May, the FBI warned U.S. law-enforcement agencies and airlines that intelligence reports indicated that Islamic extremists may have smuggled SA-7s and U.S.-made Stinger anti-aircraft missiles into the United States. The reports were based on monitors of Internet chat rooms that Islamic extremists use.") (113002)
stepping back in time...JEWISH WORLD REVIEW.com: "AL-QAEDA'S IRANIAN ESCAPE HATCH" -Column by Richard Z. Chesnoff (COLUMN SNIPPET: "Senior counterterrorist agents in Europe have told me that, despite emphatic denials by the Iranian government, fugitive troops loyal to Osama Bin Laden continue to slip freely across Afghanistan's 600-mile border with Iran. From there, say the sources, they are being smuggled by members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard to a variety of countries in the Middle East, South America and possibly elsewhere.") (March 13, 2002)
JERUSALEM POST.com (The Associated Press, London): "MUSLIM CLERIC SAYS AL-QAIDA PARTLY RESPONSIBLE FOR KENYA ATTACKS" (ARTICLE NOTE: The "Muslim Cleric" is identified as Abu Hamza Al-Masri. Muslim Cleric Abu Hamza Al-Masri leads prayers at London's Finsbury Park Mosque. (113002)
What on earth are you talking about?
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