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Nobodies are the real terrorist threat
The Netherlands - tolerating a time bomb
Suicide bomber books sold in Sydney
The aim - Muslim state from Spain to Indonesia
One young man's concern on extremism
Europe's Mujahideen - Statistical article
Disaffected Muslims in Europe are a ticking time bomb
Yonkers on lookout for terrorists
By JORGE FITZ-GIBBON
jfitzgib@thejournalnews.com
THE JOURNAL NEWS
Timeline: Ties to terrorism
Since the first bombing of the World Trade Center, current or former Yonkers residents have been linked to terrorism cases
Feb. 26, 1993: A massive bomb goes off in a public parking garage at the World Trade Center, killing six people and injuring more than 1,000. A Muslim cleric, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, and a number of his followers are later convicted.
June 23, 1993: Mohammed Ali Saleh, a Yonkers gas station manager, is arrested at his Burtis Avenue home by federal agents for his complicity in a plot to blow up New York City targets, including the Lincoln and Holland tunnels.
Sept. 11, 2001: In the largest terror attack on U.S. soil, two hijacked planes destroy both towers of the World Trade Center. The extremist Muslim group al-Qaida claims responsibility for the attacks, which killed more than 2,500 people.
Sept. 13, 2002: Yahya Goba, a former Yonkers resident, is among six men arrested in the Buffalo suburb of Lackawanna. Known as the "Lackawanna Six," they had trained at an al-Qaida camp in Afghanistan. Some met al-Qaida leader and U.S. nemesis Osama bin Laden.
Feb. 26, 2003: Four Yonkers men are among 17 arrested by the FBI in Wisconsin for their alleged role in a coupon-redemption scheme. Federal prosecutors said some of the proceeds were sent to Jordan and the West Bank, although the U.S. Attorney's Office in Milwaukee would not comment on any links to terrorist groups.
May 20, 2005: Tarik ibn Osman Shah, who lived on Oak Street in Yonkers for years, is arrested and charged with aiding al-Qaida. Shah was alleged to have links to the terror group and had tried to establish a martial arts training camp for al-Qaida jihadists.
March 31, 2005: Fernando Sero, a Yonkers resident, is indicted — and later pleads guilty — to shipping parts for automatic weapons to an island in the Philippines plagued by Muslim insurgencies. Sero, a Christian, primarily sold the parts to Christians fighting extremist Muslim groups on the island of Mindanao, his lawyer said.
(Original publication: July 17, 2005)
YONKERS — The March arrest of a city man for shipping weapons' parts to the Philippines drew a straight line from the state's fourth-largest city to a hotbed of Muslim extremism.
Fernando Sero, who pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in White Plains last month, sent the parts to his gun shop on the island of Mindanao, where his clientele were primarily Christians targeted by a Muslim insurgency tied to al-Qaida, his lawyer said.
It was the latest in a series of fleeting links between Yonkers and international terrorism, including three arrests of current or former Yonkers residents in the past three years.
With last week's terror bombings in London raising fears over security in the U.S., authorities said Yonkers is a potential haven for extremists because it is close to New York City and has a diverse population that allows outsiders to blend in. Yonkers police say those factors have prompted the department to be more vigilant.
"Our close proximity to New York City makes Yonkers a convenient bedroom community for any person who might be interested in committing crimes or acts of terrorism in the New York area," said Yonkers Police Commissioner Robert Taggart.
"I don't see any evidence of (terrorist) cell activity, but more or less the transient kind of thing. Someone who is on their way to New York City could choose to travel through Yonkers, or to stay here. I don't see the city of Yonkers as, let's say, a target area that cells would be looking to do something in."
James Margolin, a spokesman for the FBI, said the agency works closely with local law enforcement on terror-related cases, but declined to comment further.
The state Office of Homeland Security did not return phone calls seeking comment on the topic.
Terror cases
Yonkers' most direct link to terrorism took place 12 years ago this month, when federal agents raided a modest home on Burtis Avenue. Startled homeowners watched as Mohammed Ali Saleh, a hardworking father of three, was led away in handcuffs.
Saleh later was convicted in a plot to bomb key targets in New York City, including the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, and for providing fuel for bombs from the gas station he managed at Bronx River Road and Yonkers Avenue.
Since Saleh's arrest June 23, 1993, Yonkers has had other brushes with high-profile terror cases, particularly amid the heightened enforcement after Sept. 11, 2001.
One year and two days after the World Trade Center attacks, six men were arrested in the Buffalo suburb of Lackawanna and were charged with providing "material support and resources" to al-Qaida. Among them was Yahya Goba, an unemployed 25-year-old Yemeni described by prosecutors as a former Yonkers resident.
Goba and the other men had trained at the al Farooq al-Qaida camp in Afghanistan and reportedly were addressed by Osama bin Laden, according to a criminal complaint filed by federal prosecutors in Buffalo.
On Dec. 11, 2003, Tarik ibn Osman Shah, a jazz musician by trade who had lived with his wife on Oak Street for years, was arrested by Yonkers police on a charge of petty larceny.
But officers also found contact information for known international terrorists, and they notified federal investigators. The investigation led to Shah's arrest in the Bronx this year by the FBI.
An indictment handed up May 27 by the U.S. Attorney's Office accused Shah of taking an oath to al-Qaida and attempting to set up martial arts training for jihadists.
And on March 31, Sero was indicted on charges that he illegally shipped parts for automatic weapons to Cotabato City, a Christian enclave in the Philippines plagued by militant Muslim groups, like Abu Sayyaf and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
"He had a gun store there, so he sold some weapons parts to people there who needed weapons parts," said Sero's attorney, Richard Willstatter of White Plains. "But they were not terrorists. They're trying to protect themselves from the terrorists."
Closer scrutiny
Police Commissioner Taggart said his department has been particularly attuned to possible terrorist activity — much like many communities in the New York metropolitan area. Yonkers' intelligence unit remains active, and the department routinely works closely with federal agencies such as the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
Yonkers' tips to federal agents led to the arrests of Sero and Shah, for instance.
Taggart said Yonkers was one of only a few departments to receive training in weapons of mass destruction before Sept. 11.
But some experts say bombings like those in London are less likely in the U.S. "We have some Arabs and Arab-Americans and Muslims," said Charles Strozier, director of the Center on Terrorism and Public Safety at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan. "But they're not terrorists.
"We just don't have disgruntled, colonized populations of people who embrace the ideology, the jihadist ideology, that are going to carry out the kind of chronic attack Europe is subject to."
He said America is more vulnerable to attacks by foreign nationals, like on Sept. 11.
A large Arab-American or Muslim community also would be a less likely place for even transient terrorists to set up shop, said Ralph Stein, a professor of national security law at the School of Law at Pace University in White Plains. Such communities, especially in urban areas, would be under closer scrutiny and offer too many opportunities for other members of the community to report suspicious activity, he said.
"Obviously, you're not going to find terrorists, transient terrorists, in upper-class, affluent Westchester communities where they're going to stick out like a sore thumb," Stein said. "But I don't see any reason why a terrorist group trying to plan something wouldn't hang out in Peekskill or Eastchester as opposed to Yonkers."
Unlikely place
Yonkers is one of the region's most diverse cities, according to the 2000 U.S. census.
The census reported 2,697 Arab-Americans, although local officials say the actual number is higher. The population pales in comparison to other ethnic groups, including Hispanics, who numbered 50,852 in 2000.
Taggart said diversity makes Yonkers a place where "you can become a little bit invisible."
But tensions have at times been high since Sept. 11.
In May 2002, one day after a disaster-preparedness drill in Yonkers, near-hysteria erupted when six Egyptian immigrants became ill, raising fears of a chemical attack. It turned out to be food poisoning from bad meat.
Councilwoman Sandy Annabi, a Jordanian Catholic who is the city's first elected Arab-American, said it would not be fair for anyone to suggest her community would be hospitable to terrorists. She said Yonkers, a city where Arab-Americans and Muslims have become part of the fabric, would be an unlikely place for extremism — regardless of how many high-profile terrorism cases have tenuous links to the city.
"It's unfortunate, because these are acts of a small group of extremists," she said. "They in no way represent the Arab community, especially in Yonkers. ... We denounce them."
And Brian Jackson, a terrorism analyst with the RAND Corp. in Washington, D.C., said that even with a significant number of arrests in a given area, "it's always hard to tell" whether a terror cell could emerge.
"The problem with a lot of terrorism-related activities is that it's a small sample, so it may simply be that it's coincidental," he said.
ON THE NET...
http://www.rewardsforjustice.net
http://www.fbi.gov
http://www.dhs.gov
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Thanks angcat for pointing to this article:
http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050717/NEWS02/507170367/1017
ARTICLE SNIPPET: "James Margolin, a spokesman for the FBI, said the agency works closely with local law enforcement on terror-related cases, but declined to comment further.
The state Office of Homeland Security did not return phone calls seeking comment on the topic."
Thanks to RushmoreRocks for pointing to this thread:
===
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1444987/posts
"FBI bulletin outlines possible terrorist plot at Texas border"
Dallas Morning News via Kansas City Star ^ | Posted on Sat, Jul. 16, 2005 | ALFREDO CORCHADO AND JASON TRAHAN
Posted on 07/17/2005 5:25:28 PM PDT by archy
Ping to Post 1104 warning of attack on boarder.
It looks like our people are keeping a sharp eye on some things.
Bomb squad called to check out suspicious object in train tunnel
http://www.oregonlive.com/newsflash/washingtonstate/index.ssf?/base/news-14/1121649027289460.xml&storylist=orwashington
Thanks TW.
Thanks.
I'd noticed that.
Quite interesting in view of the warning from Meri's friend.
THANKS.
SOBERING.
Note: The following text snippet is an exact quote from infovlad.net:
===
http://www.infovlad.net
07.18.05
Jihadi Files Update - July 2005
Posted in General at 5:00 am by Vladimir
July 18
http://crusader.rulez.jp/files/ansar_alsunnah_traning_in_sweden.mpg
- Carbomb training by members of Ansar Al-Sunnah somewhere in south Sweden. (thanks doubletap!)
July 17
http://crusader.rulez.jp/files/0717200501.zip
- A line with the original file was “fatwa”.
July 16
http://crusader.rulez.jp/files/0716200501.wmv
- The original filename as “Islamic.wmv”
http://crusader.rulez.jp/files/0716200502.wmv
- The original filename as “alrashdeen.wmv”
July 15
http://crusader.rulez.jp/files/0715200501.swf
Message from OBL to all the allied countries.
http://www.internet-haganah.us/harchives/004517.html
July 17, 2005
"Majallat Minbar Surya al-Islami
New publication of the Syrian Islamists"
===
===
ON THE NET...
http://www.nnuu.org
Have you ever read the original piece on the "American Hiroshima" chatter Nicholas Kristoff? I cannot seem to find it on the internet..
Actually, cancel that... I suppose that's not where it originated.
Hope the bad guys are prepared for the "notch-up" variety of heat they'll experience in their afterlife based on their hateful barbaric behavior.
Yep.
Hell is never full and just waiting for them, that's for sure.
"The US does not consider it a terrorist act to throw atomic bombs at nations thousands of miles away, when it would not be possible for those bombs to hit military troops only. These bombs were rather thrown at entire nations, including women, children and elderly people and up to this day the traces of those bombs remain in Japan."
Transcript of 1997 bin Laden Interview w/Peter Arnett:
http://www.anusha.com/osamaint.htm
Yes the medium thing from yesterday has me very "IRKED" as we call it. They are usually off by a little bit and damn it sounded serious.
-pez
"Through history, American has not been known to differentiate between the military and the civilians or between men and women or adults and children. Those who threw atomic bombs and used the weapons of mass destruction against Nagasaki and Hiroshima were the Americans."
John Miller's 1998 Interview with UBL:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/binladen/who/interview.html
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