World Terrorism: News, History and Research Of A Changing World #10 Security Watch

The Climate Engineers
by James R. Fleming

Beyond the security checkpoint at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Ames Research Center at the southern end of San Francisco Bay, a small group gathered in November for a conference on the innocuous topic of “managing solar radiation.” The real subject was much bigger: how to save the planet from the effects of global warming. There was little talk among the two dozen scientists and other specialists about carbon taxes, alternative energy sources, or the other usual remedies. Many of the scientists were impatient with such schemes. Some were simply contemptuous of calls for international cooperation and the policies and lifestyle changes needed to curb greenhouse-gas emissions; others had concluded that the world’s politicians and bureaucrats are not up to the job of agreeing on such reforms or that global warming will come more rapidly, and with more catastrophic consequences, than many models predict. Now, they believe, it is time to consider radical measures: a technological quick fix for global warming.

“Mitigation is not happening and is not going to happen,” physicist Lowell Wood declared at the NASA conference. Wood, the star of the gathering, spent four decades at the University of California’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where he served as one of the Pentagon’s chief weapon designers and threat analysts. (He reportedly enjoys the “Dr. Evil” nickname bestowed by his critics.) The time has come, he said, for “an intelligent elimination of undesired heat from the biosphere by technical ways and means,” which, he asserted, could be achieved for a tiny fraction of the cost of “the bureaucratic suppression of CO2.” His engineering approach, he boasted, would provide “instant climatic gratification.”

Wood advanced several ideas to “fix” the earth’s climate, including building up Arctic sea ice to make it function like a planetary air conditioner to “suck heat in from the midlatitude heat bath.” A “surprisingly practical” way of achieving this, he said, would be to use large artillery pieces to shoot as much as a million tons of highly reflective sulfate aerosols or specially engineered nanoparticles into the Arctic stratosphere to deflect the sun’s rays. Delivering up to a million tons of material via artillery would require a constant bombardment—basically declaring war on the stratosphere. Alternatively, a fleet of B-747 “crop dusters” could deliver the particles by flying continuously around the Arctic Circle. Or a 25-kilometer-long sky hose could be tethered to a military superblimp high above the planet’s surface to pump reflective particles into the atmosphere.

Far-fetched as Wood’s ideas may sound, his weren’t the only Rube Goldberg proposals aired at the meeting. Even as they joked about a NASA staffer’s apology for her inability to control the temperature in the meeting room, others detailed their own schemes for manipulating earth’s climate. Astronomer J. Roger Angel suggested placing a huge fleet of mirrors in orbit to divert incoming solar radiation, at a cost of “only” several trillion dollars. Atmospheric scientist John Latham and engineer Stephen Salter hawked their idea of making marine clouds thicker and more reflective by whipping ocean water into a froth with giant pumps and eggbeaters. Most frightening was the science-fiction writer and astrophysicist Gregory Benford’s announcement that he wanted to “cut through red tape and demonstrate what could be done” by finding private sponsors for his plan to inject diatomaceous earth—the chalklike substance used in filtration systems and cat litter—into the Arctic stratosphere. He, like his fellow geoengineers, was largely silent on the possible unintended consequences of his plan.

The inherent unknowability of what would happen if we tried to tinker with the immensely complex planetary climate system is one reason why climate engineering has until recently been spoken of only sotto voce in the scientific community. Many researchers recognize that even the most brilliant scientists have a history of blindness to the wider ramifications of their work. Imagine, for example, that Wood’s scheme to thicken the Arctic icecap did somehow become possible. While most of the world may want to maintain or increase polar sea ice, Russia and some other nations have historically desired an ice-free Arctic ocean, which would liberate shipping and open potentially vast oil and mineral deposits for exploitation. And an engineered Arctic ice sheet would likely produce shorter growing seasons and harsher winters in Alaska, Siberia, Greenland, and elsewhere, and could generate super winter storms in the midlatitudes. Yet Wood calls his brainstorm a plan for “global climate stabilization,” and hopes to create a sort of “planetary thermostat” to regulate the global climate.

Who would control such a “thermostat,” making life-altering decisions for the planet’s billions? What is to prevent other nations from undertaking unilateral climate modification? The United States has no monopoly on such dreams. In November 2005, for example, Yuri Izrael, head of the Moscow-based Institute of Global Climate and Ecology Studies, wrote to Russian president Vladimir Putin to make the case for immediately burning massive amounts of sulfur in the stratosphere to lower the earth’s temperature “a degree or two”—a correction greater than the total warming since pre-industrial times.

There is, moreover, a troubling motif of militarization in the history of weather and climate control. Military leaders in the United States and other countries have pondered the possibilities of weaponized weather manipulation for decades. Lowell Wood himself embodies the overlap of civilian and military interests. Now affiliated with the Hoover Institution, a think tank at Stanford University, Wood was a protégé of the late Edward Teller, the weapons scientist who was credited with developing the hydrogen bomb and was the architect of the Reagan-era Star Wars missile defense system (which Wood worked on, too). Like Wood, Teller was known for his advocacy of controversial military and technological solutions to complex problems, including the chimerical “peaceful uses of nuclear weapons.” Teller’s plan to excavate an artificial harbor in Alaska using thermonuclear explosives actually came close to receiving government approval. Before his death in 2003, Teller was advocating a climate control scheme similar to what Wood proposed.

Despite the large, unanswered questions about the implications of playing God with the elements, climate engineering is now being widely discussed in the scientific community and is taken seriously within the U.S. government. The Bush administration has recommended the addition of this “important strategy” to an upcoming report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN-sponsored organization whose February study seemed to persuade even the Bush White House to take global warming more seriously. And climate engineering’s advocates are not confined to the small group that met in California. Last year, for example, Paul J. Crutzen, an atmospheric chemist and Nobel laureate, proposed a scheme similar to Wood’s, and there is a long paper trail of climate and weather modification studies by the Pentagon and other government agencies.

As the sole historian at the NASA conference, I may have been alone in my appreciation of the irony that we were meeting on the site of an old U.S. Navy airfield literally in the shadow of the huge hangar that once housed the ill-starred Navy dirigible U.S.S. Macon. The 785-foot-long Macon, a technological wonder of its time, capable of cruising at 87 miles per hour and launching five Navy biplanes, lies at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, brought down in 1935 by strong winds. The Navy’s entire rigid-airship program went down with it. Coming on the heels of the crash of its sister ship, the Akron, the Macon’s destruction showed that the design of these technological marvels was fundamentally flawed. The hangar, built by the Navy in 1932, is now both a historic site and a Superfund site, since it has been discovered that its “galbestos” siding is leaching PCBs into the drains. As I reflected on the fate of the Navy dirigible program, the geoengineers around the table were confidently and enthusiastically promoting techniques of climate intervention that were more than several steps beyond what might be called state of the art, with implications not simply for a handful of airship crewmen but for every one of the 6.5 billion inhabitants of the planet.

Ultimate control of the weather and climate excites some of our wildest fantasies and our greatest fears. It is the stuff of age-old myths. Throughout history, we mortals have tried to protect ourselves against harsh weather. But weather control was reserved for the ancient sky gods. Now the power has seemingly devolved to modern Titans. We are undoubtedly facing an uncertain future. With rising temperatures, increasing emissions of greenhouse gases, and a growing world population, we may be on the verge of a worldwide climate crisis. What shall we do? Doing nothing or too little is clearly wrong, but so is doing too much.

Largely unaware of the long and checkered history of weather and climate control and the political and ethical challenges it poses, or somehow considering themselves exempt, the new Titans see themselves as heroic pioneers, the first generation capable of alleviating or averting natural disasters. They are largely oblivious to the history of the charlatans and sincere but deluded scientists and engineers who preceded them. If we fail to heed the lessons of that history, and fail to bring its perspectives to bear in thinking about public policy, we risk repeating the mistakes of the past, in a game with much higher stakes.

Three stories (there are many more) capture the recurring pathologies of weather and climate control schemes. The first involves 19th-century proposals by the U.S. government’s first meteorologist and other “pluviculturalists” to make artificial rain and relieve drought conditions in the American West. The second begins in 1946 with promising discoveries in cloud seeding that rapidly devolved into exaggerated claims and attempts by cold warriors to weaponize the technique in the jungles of Vietnam. And then there is the tale of how computer modeling raised hopes for perfect forecasting and ultimate control of weather and climate—hopes that continue to inform and encourage present-day planetary engineers.

James Pollard Espy (1785–1860), the first meteorologist employed by the U.S. government, was a frontier schoolmaster and lawyer until he moved to Philadelphia in 1817. There he supported himself by teaching mathematics and classics part time while devoting himself to meteorological research. Working through the American Philosophical Society and the Franklin Institute, Espy gained the support of Pennsylvania’s legislature to equip weather observers in each county in the state with barometers, thermometers, and other standard instruments to provide a larger, synoptic picture of the weather, especially the passage of storms.

Espy viewed the atmosphere as a giant heat engine. According to his thermal theory of storms, all atmospheric disturbances, including thunderstorms, hurricanes, and winter storms, are driven by “steam power.” Heated by the sun, a column of air rises, allowing the surrounding air to rush in. As the heated air ascends, it cools and its moisture condenses, releasing its latent heat (this is the “steam”) and producing rain, hail, or snow. The thermal theory is now an accepted part of meteorology, and for this discovery Espy is well regarded in the history of science.

His stature has been diminished, however, by his unbridled enthusiasm for rainmaking. Espy suggested cutting and burning vast tracts of forest to create huge columns of heated air, believing this would generate clouds and trigger precipitation. “Magnificent Humbug” was one contemporary assessment of this scheme. Espy came to be known derisively as the “Storm King,” but he was not deterred.

Seeking a larger stage for his storm studies and rainmaking proposals, Espy moved in 1842 to Washington, D.C., where he was funded by the Navy and employed as the “national meteorologist” by the Army Medical Department. This position afforded him access to the meteorological reports of surgeons at Army posts around the country. He also collaborated with Joseph Henry at the Smithsonian Institution to establish and maintain a national network of volunteer weather observers.

The year Espy moved to Washington, the popular magazine writer Eliza Leslie published a short story in Godey’s Lady’s Book called “The Rain King, or, A Glance at the Next Century,” a fanciful account of rainmaking set in 1942 in Philadelphia, in which Espy’s great-great-grand-nephew offers weather for the Delaware Valley on demand. Various factions vie for the weather they desire. Three hundred washerwomen petition the Rain King for fine weather forever, while cabmen and umbrella makers want perpetual rain. An equal number of applications come from both the fair- and foul-weather camps, until the balance is tipped by a late request from a winsome high-society matron desperately seeking a hard rain to prevent a visit by her country-bumpkin cousins that would spoil the lavish party she is planning.

Of course, when the artificial rains come, they satisfy no one and raise widespread suspicions. The Rain King, suddenly unpopular because he lacks the miraculous power to please everybody, takes a steamboat to China, where he studies magic in anticipation of returning someday. “Natural rains had never occasioned anything worse than submissive regret to those who suffered inconvenience from them, and were always received more in sorrow than in anger,” Leslie wrote. “But these artificial rains were taken more in anger than in sorrow, by all who did not want them.”

Leslie had identified the fundamental political pitfalls of manufactured weather that dog it to this day. But the enthusiasm for pluviculture was just beginning. During the Civil War, some began to suspect that the smoke and concussion of artillery fire generated rain. After all, didn’t it tend to rain a day, or two, or three following most battles? Skeptics wondered whether generals simply preferred to fight under fair skies, with rainy days therefore tending naturally to follow, and some pointed out that Plutarch had noticed the correlation between battles and rainfall long before the invention of gunpowder. Nevertheless, in 1871 retired Civil War general Edward Powers argued in favor of cannonading in his book War and the Weather, or, The Artificial Production of Rain.

Two decades later, the publication of the second edition of Powers’s book coincided with a severe and prolonged western drought, prompting a congressional appropriation of $10,000 for a series of field experiments. Secretary of Agriculture Jeremiah Rusk, nominally in charge of both this project and the newly formed U.S. Weather Bureau, chose as the lead investigator Robert St. George Dyrenforth, a flamboyant patent lawyer from Washington, D.C., who possessed no scientific or military experience. Dyrenforth arrived in Texas in August during a severe drought, but also conveniently at the traditional (and commonly noted) onset of the Texas rainy season. He brought an arsenal of explosives, including bombs, cannon, and hydrogen balloons, to be detonated at various altitudes, and engaged in what one observer called “a beautiful imitation of a battle.”

After several months of assaults on the heavens, it did indeed rain. Dyrenforth claimed victory, concluding that his practical skills, combined with his use of special explosives “to keep the weather in an unsettled condition,” could cause or at least enhance precipitation—when conditions were favorable! He warned that bombarding the sky in dry weather, however, would be fruitless, since his technique could stimulate clouds and precipitation but not create them.

The Nation, which criticized the government for wasting tax dollars, observed that the effect of the explosion of a 10-foot hydrogen balloon on aerial currents would be less than “the effect of the jump of one vigorous flea upon a thousand-ton steamship running at a speed of twenty knots.” But if there is one lesson from the long history of efforts to modify the weather and climate, it is that neither commonsense criticism nor flops deter geoengineers.

Just over 100 years after Espy arrived in Washington, another seminal episode in the history of weather and climate control commenced at the General Electric Research Laboratory in Schenectady, New York. On a warm, humid day in 1946, a laboratory technician named Vincent Schaefer dropped some dry ice into a home freezer unit he was using as a cloud chamber. To his surprise, he saw the moisture in his breath instantly transform into millions of tiny ice crystals. He had generated the ice cloud from “supercooled” water droplets. As Schaefer recalled, “It was a serendipitous event, and I was smart enough to figure out just what happened. . . . I knew I had something pretty important.” Soon after, another member of the GE team, Bernard Vonnegut of MIT, discovered that silver iodide smoke also “caused explosive ice growth” in supercooled clouds.

On November 14, 1946, Schaefer rented an airplane and dropped six pounds of dry ice pellets into a cold cloud over Mount Greylock in the nearby Berkshires, creating ice crystals and streaks of snow along a three-mile path. According to Schaefer’s laboratory notebook, “It seemed as though [the cloud] almost exploded, the effect was so widespread and rapid.” Schaefer’s boss was Nobel laureate Irving Langmuir, a chemist who had worked on generating military smoke screens and de-icing aircraft in World War II—and who did not lack for media savvy. Langmuir watched the experiment from the control tower of the airport, and he was on the phone to the press before Schaefer landed. According to an article in The New York Times the next day, “A single pellet of dry ice, about the size of a pea . . . might produce enough ice nuclei to develop several tons of snow,” or perhaps eliminate clouds at airports that might cause dangerous icing conditions, thus, in the words of the story’s headline, “Opening Vista of Moisture Control by Man.” The Boston Globe headline read “Snowstorm Manufactured.”

From this moment on, in the press and before the meteorological community, Langmuir expounded his sensational vision of large-scale weather control, including redirecting hurricanes and changing the arid Southwest into fertile farmland. His first paper on the subject used familiar military terminology to explain how a small amount of “nucleating” agent such as dry ice, silver iodide, or even water could cause a “chain reaction” in cumulus clouds that potentially could release as much energy as an atomic bomb, but without radioactive fallout. The Department of Defense took due note. It would take an intense interest in the military possibilities of weather modification in the years ahead.

Ironically, in 1953, at the very same time Langmuir was involved in making exaggerated and highly dubious claims for the efficacy of weather and climate modification, he presented a seminar at GE titled “Pathological Science,” or “the science of things that aren’t so.” Yet there is hardly any scientific foundation for most claims about weather modification. Cloud seeding apparently can augment “orographic” precipitation (which falls on the windward side of mountains) by up to 10 percent. It is also possible to clear cold fogs and suppress frost with heaters in very small areas. That is the extent of what has been proved. Nevertheless, millions are still spent on cloud seeding today, largely by local water and power companies.

About the time Langmuir was giving his seminar, the great futurist and science-
fiction writer H. G. Wells toured the GE labs, and the young publicist who escorted him tried to interest the writer in its weather control research. Wells gave a lukewarm response. The young man was Bernard Vonnegut’s brother, Kurt, and he took up the subject himself in the novel Cat’s Cradle (1963), in which a quirky and amoral scientist named Felix Hoenikker, loosely modeled on both Irving Langmuir and Edward Teller, invents a substance called “ice-nine” that instantly freezes water and remains solid at room temperature. Hoenikker’s intent is to create a material that would be useful to armies bogged down in muddy battlefields, but the result is an unprecedented ecological disaster. Vonnegut got the idea of ice-nine from Langmuir, who suggested it to Wells as a story line.

Weather modification technology seemed of such great potential, especially to military aviation, that Vannevar Bush, a friend of Langmuir’s who had served as head of the Office of Scientific Research and Development during World War II, brought the issue to the attention of Secretary of Defense George C. Marshall and General Omar Bradley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Pentagon immediately convened a committee to study the development of a Cold War weather weapon. It was hoped that cloud seeding could be used surreptitiously to release the violence of the atmosphere against an enemy, tame the winds in the service of an all-weather air force, or, on a larger scale, perhaps disrupt (or improve) the agricultural economy of nations and alter the global climate for strategic purposes. Military planners generated strategic scenarios such as hindering the enemy’s military campaigns by causing heavy rains or snows to fall along lines of troop movement and on vital airfields, or using controlled precipitation as a delivery system for biological and radiological agents. Tactical possibilities included dissipating cloud decks to enable visual bombing attacks on targets, opening airfields closed by low clouds or fog, and relieving aircraft icing.

Some in the military had already recognized the potential uses of weather modification, and the subject has remained on military minds ever since. In the 1940s, General George C. Kenney, commander of the Strategic Air Command, declared, “The nation which first learns to plot the paths of air masses accurately and learns to control the time and place of precipitation will dominate the globe.” His opinion was echoed in 1961 by the distinguished aviator-engineer Rear Admiral Luis de Florez: “With control of the weather the operations and economy of an enemy could be disrupted. . . . [Such control] in a cold war would provide a powerful and subtle weapon to injure agricultural production, hinder commerce, and slow down industry.” He urged the government to “start now to make control of weather equal in scope to the Manhattan . . . Project which produced the first A-bomb.”

Howard T. Orville, President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s weather adviser, published an influential 1954 article in Collier’s that included a variety of scenarios for using weather as a weapon of warfare. Planes would drop hundreds of balloons containing seeding crystals into the jet stream. Downstream, when the fuses on the balloons exploded, the crystals would fall into the clouds, initiating rain and miring enemy operations. The Army Ordnance Corps was investigating another technique: loading silver iodide and carbon dioxide into 50-caliber tracer bullets that pilots could fire into clouds. A more insidious technique would strike at an adversary’s food supply by seeding clouds to rob them of moisture before they reached enemy agricultural areas. Speculative and wildly optimistic ideas such as these from official sources, together with threats that the Soviets were aggressively pursuing weather control, triggered what Newsweek called “a weather race with the Russians,” and helped fuel the rapid expansion of meteorological research in all areas, including the creation of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, which was established in 1960.

Weather warfare took a macro-pathological turn between 1967 and ’72 in the jungles over North and South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Using technology developed at the naval weapons testing center at China Lake, California, to seed clouds by means of silver iodide flares, the military conducted secret operations intended, among other goals, to “reduce trafficability” along portions of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which Hanoi used to move men and materiel to South Vietnam. Operating out of Udorn Air Base, Thailand, without the knowledge of the Thai government or almost anyone else, but with the full and enthusiastic support of presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon, the Air Weather Service flew more than 2,600 cloud seeding sorties and expended 47,000 silver iodide flares over a period of approximately five years at an annual cost of some $3.6 million. The covert operation had several names, including “POPEYE” and “Intermediary-Compatriot.”

In March 1971, nationally syndicated columnist Jack Anderson broke the story about Air Force rainmakers in Southeast Asia in The Washington Post, a story confirmed several months later with the leaking of the Pentagon Papers and splashed on the front page of The New York Times in 1972 by Seymour Hersh. By 1973, despite stonewalling by Nixon administration officials, the U.S. Senate had adopted a resolution calling for an international treaty “prohibiting the use of any environmental or geophysical modification activity as a weapon of war.” The following year, Senator Claiborne Pell (D.-R.I.), referring to the field as a “Pandora’s box,” published the transcript of a formerly top-secret briefing by the Defense Department on the topic of weather warfare. Eventually, it was revealed that the CIA had tried rainmaking in South Vietnam as early as 1963 in an attempt to break up the protests of Buddhist monks, and that cloud seeding was probably used in Cuba to disrupt the sugarcane harvest. Similar technology had been employed, yet proved ineffective, in drought relief efforts in India and Pakistan, the Philippines, Panama, Portugal, and Okinawa. All of the programs were conducted under military sponsorship and had the direct involvement of the White House.

Operation POPEYE, made public as it was at the end of the Nixon era, was dubbed the “Watergate of weather warfare.” Some defended the use of environmental weapons, arguing that they were more “humane” than nuclear weapons. Others suggested that inducing rainfall to reduce trafficability was preferable to dropping napalm. As one wag put it, “Make mud, not war.” At a congressional briefing in 1974, military officials downplayed the impact of Operation POPEYE, since the most that could be claimed were 10 percent increases in local rainfall, and even that result was “unverifiable.” Philip Handler, president of the National Academy of Sciences, represented the mainstream of scientific opinion when he observed, “It is grotesquely immoral that scientific understanding and technological capabilities developed for human welfare to protect the public health, enhance agricultural productivity, and minimize the natural violence of large storms should be so distorted as to become weapons of war.”

At a time when the United States was already weakened by the Watergate crisis, the Soviet Union caused considerable embarrassment to the Ford administration by bringing the issue of weather modification as a weapon of war to the attention of the United Nations. The UN Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques (ENMOD) was eventually ratified by nearly 70 nations, including the United States. Ironically, it entered into force in 1978, when the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, where the American military had used weather modification technology in war only six years earlier, became the 20th signatory.

The language of the ENMOD Convention may become relevant to future weather and climate engineering, especially if such efforts are conducted unilaterally or if harm befalls a nation or region. The convention targets those techniques having “widespread, longlasting or severe effects as the means of destruction, damage, or injury to any other State Party.” It uses the term “environmental modification” to mean “any technique for changing—through the deliberate manipulation of natural processes—the dynamics, composition, or structure of the Earth, including its biota, lithosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere, or of outer space.”

A vision of perfect forecasting ultimately leading to weather and climate control was present at the birth of modern computing, well before the GE cloud seeding experiments. In 1945 Vladimir Zworykin, an RCA engineer noted for his early work in television technology, promoted the idea that electronic computers could be used to process and analyze vast amounts of meteorological data, issue timely and highly accurate forecasts, study the sensitivity of weather systems to alterations of surface conditions and energy inputs, and eventually intervene in and control the weather and climate. He wrote:

The eventual goal to be attained is the international organization of means to study weather phenomena as global phenomena and to channel the world’s weather, as far as possible, in such a way as to minimize the damage from catastrophic disturbances, and otherwise to benefit the world to the greatest extent by improved climatic conditions where possible.

Zworykin imagined that a perfectly accurate machine forecast combined with a paramilitary rapid deployment force able literally to pour oil on troubled ocean waters or even set fires or detonate bombs might someday provide the capacity to disrupt storms before they formed, deflect them from populated areas, and otherwise control the weather.

John von Neumann, the multi-talented mathematician extraordinaire at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, endorsed Zworykin’s view, writing to him, “I agree with you completely. . . . This would provide a basis for scientific approach[es] to influencing the weather.” Using computer-generated predictions, von Neumann wrote, weather and climate systems “could be controlled, or at least directed, by the release of perfectly practical amounts of energy” or by “altering the absorption and reflection properties of the ground or the sea or the atmosphere.” It was a project that neatly fit von Neumann’s overall philosophy: “All stable processes we shall predict. All unstable processes we shall control.” Zworykin’s proposal was also endorsed by the noted oceanographer Athelstan Spilhaus, then a U.S. Army major, who ended his In weather control meteorology has a new goal worthy of its greatest efforts.”

In a 1962 speech to meteorologists, “On the Possibilities of Weather Control,” Harry Wexler, the MIT-trained head of meteorological research at the U.S. Weather Bureau, reported on his analysis of early computer climate models and additional possibilities opened up by the space age. Reminding his audience that humankind was modifying the weather and climate “whether we know it or not” by changing the composition of the earth’s atmosphere, Wexler demonstrated how the United States or the Soviet Union, perhaps with hostile intent, could alter the earth’s climate in a number of ways. Either nation could cool it by several degrees using a dust ring launched into orbit, for example, or warm it using ice crystals lofted into the polar atmosphere by the explosion of hydrogen bombs. And while most practicing atmospheric chemists today believe that the discovery of ozone-destroying reactions dates to the early 1970s, Wexler sketched out a scenario for destroying the ozone layer using chlorine or bromine in his 1962 speech.

“The subject of weather and climate control is now becoming respectable to talk about,” Wexler claimed, apparently hoping to reduce the prospects of a geophysical arms race. He cited Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev’s mention of weather control in an address to the Supreme Soviet and a 1961 speech to the United Nations by John F. Kennedy in which the president proposed “cooperative efforts between all nations in weather prediction and eventually in weather control.” Wexler was actually the source of Kennedy’s suggestions, and had worked on them behind the scenes with the President’s Science Advisory Committee and the State Department. But if weather control’s “respectability” was not in question, its attainability—even using computers, satellites, and 100-megaton bombs—certainly was.

In 1965, the President’s Science Advisory Committee warned in a report called Restoring the Quality of Our Environment that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide due to the burning of fossil fuels would modify the earth’s heat balance to such an extent that harmful changes in climate could occur. This report is now widely cited as the first official statement on “global warming.” But the committee also recommended geoengineering options. “The possibilities of deliberately bringing about countervailing climatic changes . . . need to be thoroughly explored,” it said. As an illustration, it pointed out that, in a warming world, the earth’s solar reflectivity could be increased by dispersing buoyant reflective particles over large areas of the tropical sea at an annual cost, not considered excessive, of about $500 million. This technology might also inhibit hurricane formation. No one thought to consider the side effects of particles washing up on tropical beaches or choking marine life, or the negative consequences of redirecting hurricanes, much less other effects beyond our imagination. And no one thought to ask if the local inhabitants would be in favor of such schemes. The committee also speculated about modifying high-altitude cirrus clouds to counteract the effects of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide. It failed to mention the most obvious option: reducing fossil fuel use.

After the embarrassment of the 1978 ENMOD Convention, federal funding for weather modification research and development dried up, although freelance rainmakers continued to ply their trade in the American West with state and local funding. Until recently, a 1991 National Academy of Sciences report, Policy Implications of Greenhouse Warming, was the only serious document in decades to advocate climate control. But the level of urgency and the number of proposals have increased dramatically since the turn of the new century.

In September 2001, the U.S. Climate Change Technology Program quietly held an invitational conference, “Response Options to Rapid or Severe Climate Change.” Sponsored by a White House that was officially skeptical about global warming, the meeting gave new status to the control fantasies of the climate engineers. According to one participant, “If they had broadcast that meeting live to people in Europe, there would have been riots.”

Two years later, the Pentagon released a controversial report titled An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security. The report explained how global warming might lead to rapid and catastrophic global cooling through mechanisms such as the slowing of North Atlantic deep-water circulation—and recommended that the government “explore geoengineering options that control the climate.” Noting that it is easier to warm than to cool the climate, the report suggested that it might be possible to add various gases, such as hydrofluorocarbons, to the atmosphere to offset the effects of cooling. Such actions would be studied carefully, of course, given their potential to exacerbate conflict among nations.

With greater gravitas, but no less speculation, the National Research Council issued a study, Critical Issues in Weather Modification Research, in 2003. It cited looming social and environmental challenges such as water shortages and drought, property damage and loss of life from severe storms, and the threat of “inadvertent” climate change as justifications for investing in major new national and international programs in weather modification research. Although the NRC study included an acknowledgment that there is “no convincing scientific proof of the efficacy of intentional weather modification efforts,” its authors nonetheless argued that there should be “a renewed commitment” to research in the field of intentional and unintentional weather modification.

The absence of such proof after decades of efforts has not deterred governments here and abroad from a variety of ill-advised or simply fanciful undertakings. The NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts, for example, has provided $475,000 for atmospheric scientist Ross Hoffman’s research on beaming satellite-based microwaves at hurricanes as a means of redirecting them—as if it were possible to know where a storm was originally headed or that its new path would not lead straight to calamity. In 2005, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R.-Texas) introduced legislation “to develop and implement a comprehensive and coordinated national weather modification research policy and a national cooperative Federal and State program of weather modification and development.” (Significantly, the Texas Department of Agriculture already supports weather modification programs covering one-fifth of the state.) And China has announced that its Study Institute for Artificial Influence on the Weather will attempt to manipulate Beijing’s weather by cloud seeding in order to ensure optimum conditions for the 2008 Olympics.

With great fanfare, atmospheric chemist Paul J. Crutzen, winner of a 1995 Nobel Prize for his work on the chemistry of ozone depletion, recently proposed to cool the earth by injecting reflective aerosols or other substances into the tropical stratosphere using balloons or artillery. He estimated that more than five million metric tons of sulfur per year would be needed to do the job, at an annual cost of more than $125 billion. The effect would emulate the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, which covered the earth with a cloud of sulfuric acid and other sulfates and caused a drop in the planet’s average temperature of about 0.5°C for roughly two years. Unfortunately, Mount Pinatubo may also have contributed to the largest ozone hole ever measured. The volcanic eruption was also blamed for causing cool, wet summers, shortening the growing season, and exacerbating Mississippi River flooding and the ongoing drought in the Sahel region of Africa.

Overall, the cooling caused by Mount Pinatubo’s eruption temporarily suppressed the greenhouse warming effect and was stronger than the influence of the El Niño event that occurred at the same time. Crutzen merely noted that if a Mount Pinatubo–scale eruption were emulated every year or two, undesired side effects and ozone losses should not be “as large,” but some whitening of the sky and colorful sunsets and sunrises would occur. His “interesting alternative” method would be to release soot particles to create minor “nuclear winter” conditions.

Crutzen later said that he had only reluctantly proposed his planetary “shade,” mostly to “startle” political leaders enough to spur them to more serious efforts to curb greenhouse-gas emissions. But he may well have produced the opposite effect. The appeal of a quick and seemingly painless technological “fix” for the global climate dilemma should not be underestimated. The more practical such dreams appear, the less likely the world’s citizens and political leaders are to take on the difficult and painful task of changing the destiny that global climate models foretell.

These issues are not new. In 1956, F. W. Reichelderfer, then chief of the U.S. Weather Bureau, delivered an address to the National Academy of Sciences, “Importance of New Concepts in Meteorology.” Reacting to the widespread theorizing and speculation on the possibilities of weather and climate control at the time, he pointed out that the crucial issue was “practicability” rather than “possibility.” In 1956 it was possible to modify a cloud with dry ice or silver iodide, yet it was impossible to predict what the cloud might do after seeding and impracticable to claim any sense of control over the weather. This is still true today. Yet thanks to remarkable advances in science and technology, from satellite sensors to enormously sophisticated global climate models, the fantasies of the weather and climate engineers have only grown. Now it is possible to tinker with scenarios in computer climate models—manipulating the solar inputs, for example, to demonstrate that artificially increased solar reflectivity will generate a cooling trend in the model.

But this is a far cry from conducting a practical global field experiment or operational program with proper data collection and analysis; full accounting for possible liabilities, unintended consequences, and litigation; and the necessary international support and approval. Lowell Wood blithely declares that if his proposal to turn the polar icecap into a planetary air conditioner were implemented and didn’t work, the process could be halted after a few years. He doesn’t mention what harm such a failure could cause in the meantime.

There are signs among the geoengineers of an overconfidence in technology as a solution of first resort. Many appear to possess a too-literal belief in progress that produces an anything-is-possible mentality, abetted by a basic misunderstanding of the nature of today’s climate models. The global climate system is a “massive, staggering beast,” as oceanographer Wallace Broecker describes it, with no simple set of controlling parameters. We are more than a long way from understanding how it works, much less the precise prediction and practical “control” of global climate.

Assume, for just a moment, that climate control were technically possible. Who would be given the authority to manage it? Who would have the wisdom to dispense drought, severe winters, or the effects of storms to some so that the rest of the planet could prosper? At what cost, economically, aesthetically, and in our moral relationship to nature, would we manipulate the climate?

These questions are never seriously contemplated by the climate wizards who dream of mastery over nature. If, as history shows, fantasies of weather and climate control have chiefly served commercial and military interests, why should we expect the future to be different? Have you noticed all the cannons? From Dyrenforth’s cannonading in Texas to Crutzen’s artillery barrage of the stratosphere, military means and ends have been closely intertwined with thinking about control of the weather and climate. In 1996 the U.S. Air Force resurrected the old Cold War speculation about using weather modification for military purposes, claiming that “in 2025, U.S. aerospace forces can ‘own the weather’ by capitalizing on emerging technologies and focusing development of those technologies to war-fighting applications.” In addition to conventional cloud seeding methods, the Air Force visionaries proposed computer hacking to disrupt an enemy’s weather monitors and models and the use of emerging technologies to create clouds of particles that could block an enemy’s optical sensors. Hurricanes were also fair game for weaponization. The Air Force pointed out that weather modification, unlike other approaches, “makes what are otherwise the results of deliberate actions appear to be the consequences of natural weather phenomena.”

Given such mindsets, it is virtually impossible to imagine governments resisting the temptation to explore military uses of any potentially climate-altering technology.

When Roger Angel was asked at the NASA meeting last November how he intended to get the massive amount of material required for his space mirrors into orbit, he dryly suggested a modern cannon of the kind originally proposed for the Strategic Defense Initiative: a giant electric rail gun firing a ton or so of material into space roughly every five minutes. Asked where such a device might be located, he suggested a high mountaintop on the Equator.

I was immediately reminded of Jules Verne’s 1889 novel The Purchase of the North Pole. For two cents per acre, a group of American investors gains rights to the vast and incredibly lucrative coal and mineral deposits under the North Pole. To mine the region, they propose to melt the polar ice. Initially the project captures the public imagination, as the backers promise that their scheme will improve the climate everywhere by reducing extremes of cold and heat, making the earth a terrestrial heaven. But when it is revealed that the investors are retired Civil War artillerymen who intend to change the inclination of the earth’s axis by building and firing the world’s largest cannon, public enthusiasm gives way to fears that tidal waves generated by the explosion will kill millions. In secrecy and haste, the protagonists proceed with their plan, building the cannon on Mount Kilimanjaro. The plot fails only when an error in calculation renders the massive shot ineffective. Verne concludes, “The world’s inhabitants could thus sleep in peace.” Perhaps he spoke too soon.
James R. Fleming, a public policy scholar at the Wilson Center and holder of the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Roger Revelle Fellowship in Global Environmental Stewardship, is a professor of science, technology, and society at Colby College, in Waterville, Maine. His books include Meteorology in America, 1800–1870 (1990), Historical Perspectives on Climate Change (1998), and The Callendar Effect: The Life and Work of Guy Stewart Callendar (2007).

Reprinted from Spring 2007 Wilson Quarterly

The Wilson Quarterly, One Woodrow Wilson Plaza, 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C.

http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=wq.essay&essay_id=231274
Phone:202/691-4200
E-mail:wq@wilsoncenter.org

2,061 posted on 09/28/2007 4:51:11 PM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (This is "Be an Angel Day", do something nice for someone today.)

To: FARS; milford421; DAVEY CROCKETT; Founding Father; Velveeta; LibertyRocks

See #2061 for the history of weather control.

2,062 posted on 09/28/2007 4:54:36 PM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (This is "Be an Angel Day", do something nice for someone today.)

To: All; FARS; Donna Lee Nardo; Founding Father; milford421; DAVEY CROCKETT

http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=topics.home&topic_id=230972

The North Korea International Documentation Project (NKIDP) serves as an informational clearinghouse on North Korea for both the scholarly and policymaking communities by widely disseminating newly declassified documents on the DPRK from its former communist allies as well as other resources that provide valuable insight into the actions and nature of the North Korean state.
[more]

Featured North Korea Document Collections

North Korea in the Cold War

The Korean War

Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea

USS Pueblo Crisis

Collections by Subjects
DPRK in the Sino-Soviet Split | DPRK-GDR Relations | DPRK-Hungarian Relations

DPRK-PRC Relations | DPRK-Soviet Union Relations | DPRK and the United Nations

Korean People’s Army | Korean Workers’ Party | North Korea in 1956

North Korea’s Nuclear Program | Soviet Aid to North Korea | Soviet Specialists in North Korea

Unification of Korea

News
NKIDP in the News
South Korea’s official governmental news organization, Yonhap News Agency, provides coverage of a Korea-related event at the Wilson Center.

NKIDP welcomes visiting scholar Young-jong Lee

NKIDP welcomes visiting scholar Kihl-Jae Ryoo

Mining Archives Reveals North Korean Political Patterns
In this Centerpoint column, the Wilson Center’s James Person describes the importance and relevance of mining the archives of North Korea’s former communist allies.

Understanding North Korea
The Western world knows little about the leadership and political system of North Korea, a nation high on the world’s radar. By disseminating newly obtained archival materials and conducting conferences, the Wilson Center’s North Korea International Documentation Project works to help fill this informational void.

NKIDP Welcomes James Person as new NKIDP coordinator

NKIDP Coordinator James Person quoted in the New York Times

Event Summaries
The Cold War and the Korean Peninsula: State Formation and Foreign Relations of North and South Korea
Friday, September 21 2007, 8:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Event Summary

North and South Korean Strategies for Re-unification during the Cold War: New Revelations from the Archives
Friday, July 20 2007, 3:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Christian Ostermann, Director, North Korea International Documentation Project; Meung-Hoan Noh, Director, Institute of History and Culture, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Republic of Korea; Bernd Schafer, Research Fellow, German Historical Institute in Washington and CWIHP Senior Research Scholar; Commentator: Miryang Youn, Woodrow Wilson Center Public Policy Scholar, Deputy Director General, Office of South-North Dialogue, Ministry of Unification, Republic of Korea
Event Summary

North Korea: Not Just Nukes, But People Too
Wednesday, July 11 2007, 3:30 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.
Miryang Youn, Woodrow Wilson Center Public Policy Fellow; Donald Macintyre, Stanford University; Stuart Thorson, Syracuse University
Event Summary

Director’s Forum with Korea Foundation President Yim Sung-joon
Wednesday, June 06 2007, 2:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.
Ambassador Yim Sung-joon, President of the Korea Foundation and former National Security Advisor to President Kim Dae-jung.
Event Summary

a sample, there is a ‘more’ button.

and these:

http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=news.item&news_id=275871

Nuclear:

http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=news.item&news_id=275858

Congressional Hearing on U.S.-Brazil Relations

http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=news.item&news_id=284809

[snipped from article]

Let me return to the alcoves for a moment. I spent most of four years in them, from 1939 to ‘43, one year as a Trotskyist and the rest as an unaffiliated anti-Stalinist socialist. I came to know the four men in the film well, and remained friends with three of them afterward.

The alcoves were the heart of radical politics at City College, a venue for a steady stream of debate and invective between Stalinists and anti-Stalinists. They were room-sized chambers in the college cafeteria with wooden benches on three sides and an opening to the main eating area. In front of each alcove was a large table, strong enough to hold the orators who frequently stood atop it to harangue those who gathered. The Stalinist or Communist alcove was known as the Kremlin, and the one next door, inhabited by a variety of anti-Stalinist radicals—Trotskyists, Socialists, anarchists, socialist Zionists, members of assorted splinter groups—was called Mexico City in honor of Leon Trotsky’s exile home. Proximity, of course, led to shouting matches, even though the Communists forbade their members to converse with any Trotskyists, whom they defined as fascist agents. My recollection is that students, occasionally joined by some junior faculty, were there all day, talking, reading, arguing, and eating.

http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=wq.essay&essay_id=4647

News file:

http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=news.welcome&view_from=11

Keep digging, as there are many declassified papers on this site, I have read them before.
granny

2,063 posted on 09/28/2007 5:16:36 PM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (This is "Be an Angel Day", do something nice for someone today.)

To: All; FARS; milford421; Founding Father; DAVEY CROCKETT

Listen on computer to history and today, world subjects, from their radio and TV programs at Wilson Center, looks interesting to me.
granny

http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=dialogue.index

2,064 posted on 09/28/2007 5:26:41 PM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (This is "Be an Angel Day", do something nice for someone today.)

To: All; FARS; milford421; Founding Father; DAVEY CROCKETT; Donna Lee Nardo

http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=topics.home&topic_id=230972

Featured North Korea Document Collections

North Korea in the Cold War

The Korean War

Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea

USS Pueblo Crisis

Collections by Subjects
DPRK in the Sino-Soviet Split | DPRK-GDR Relations | DPRK-Hungarian Relations

DPRK-PRC Relations | DPRK-Soviet Union Relations | DPRK and the United Nations

Korean People’s Army | Korean Workers’ Party | North Korea in 1956

North Korea’s Nuclear Program | Soviet Aid to North Korea | Soviet Specialists in North Korea

Unification of Korea

News

2,065 posted on 09/28/2007 5:31:20 PM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (This is "Be an Angel Day", do something nice for someone today.)

To: All; FARS; milford421

You have been hearing on the news about a video tape found in the desert, near Pahrump, Nevada, which is about 50 miles from Las Vegas.

The man who found the tape called the Police, for some reason, he was not believed and has been under arrest.........today he failed the Lie Detector test.

Today, there was an alert for a local man, about 33 years old, with a past history of sexual abuses.

The news, only a couple minutes ago, said they have found the four old girl and she is at the Police station with her parents and is ok.

I have no idea where this one will go, maybe locals will take care of the one who raped her, ok with me.

The standoff is still going on in Las Vegas, several hours now since the man came home and found the robbers in his home.

Full swat team on location, people removed from line of fire homes, and the school is still under lockdown, that is nearby.

2,066 posted on 09/28/2007 5:38:21 PM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (This is "Be an Angel Day", do something nice for someone today.)

INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP - WEEKLY UPDATE

for the week of 24 September 2007

Conflict areas and subjects covered in this week’s update:

* Reports & briefings: Nepal
* Media release: Myanmar/Burma
* Commentary: Uzbekistan

Crisis Group reports published this week:

Nepal’s Fragile Peace Process
28 September 2007
The Maoist walk-out from government earlier this month has not derailed Nepal’s peace process, but keeping it moving requires compromise, confidence-building and better performance from the mainstream parties.
full report: http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=5082&l=1

Crisis Group media release:

Myanmar: Time for Urgent Action
25 September 2007
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon should hold urgent talks with the foreign ministers of China, India and Singapore, the current ASEAN chair, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly and lead a joint attempt to encourage peaceful dialogue in Myanmar/Burma.
full release: http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=5092&l=1&m=1

Crisis Group commentary:

Uzbekistan: “Death of a Director”
Alain Délétroz, International Herald Tribune, 22 September 2007
full article: http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=5091&l=1

2,067 posted on 09/28/2007 5:48:02 PM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (This is "Be an Angel Day", do something nice for someone today.)

To: All; FARS; milford421; Founding Father

For Immediate Release
September 28, 2007

Washington D.C.
FBI National Press Office
(202) 324-3691

FBI’S Top Ten News Stories
For the Week Ending September 28, 2007

1. Operation Raw Deal Nets 124 Arrests Nationwide

An international investigation targeting the illegal manufacturing and trafficking of anabolic steroids and its raw materials, mainly from China, resulted in the arrest of more than 124 individuals in the US. These law enforcement operations were the result of “Operation Raw Deal,” the largest steroid enforcement action in U.S. history. Full Story

2. Anchorage: Former Alaska State Speaker of the House Convicted on Public Corruption Charges

Former Alaska State representative and former Alaska State Speaker of the House Peter Kott was found guilty of bribery, extortion, and conspiracy. In exchange for casting votes to benefit a major Alaska oil company, Kott received cash, checks and the promise of a future job with the company. Full Story

3. Miami: Three Defendants Sentenced in $826 Million Securities Fraud Conspiracy

Raquel Kohler, Ameer Khan, and Stephen Ziegler were sentenced to five years imprisonment followed by three years supervised release and were ordered to pay $826 million in restitution for their conspiracy to commit securities fraud. Full Story

4. New York: Extradition of Accused Terrorist From Czech Republic

Oussama Abdullah Kassir has been extradited from the Czech Republic for conspiring to provide material support and resources to al Qaeda. Kassir operated several terrorist websites as well as participated in the effort to establish a jihad training camp in Oregon. Full Story

5. San Francisco: Two Indicted for Economic Espionage

Lan Lee of Palo Alto, CA, and Yuefe Ge of San Jose, CA, were indicted on charges of economic espionage, theft of trades secrets, and conspiracy. While employed by NetLogics Microsystems, the two allegedly conspired to steal trade secrets related to computer chip design and development from their employer and from another company, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation. They sought funding from the Government of China for their company, SICO Microsystems, Inc., which they created to develop and market products derived from and using the stolen trade secrets. Full Story

6. Chicago: Manhunt for Fugitive Brothers Intensifies

The Chicago Division of the FBI is seeking public assistance locating fugitives Ismael Saucedo, Jr. and his brother, Lionel Saucedo. The two are wanted for drug conspiracy in connection with the operation of a massive drug distribution business that supplied cocaine from Mexican drug cartels to Lake County, IL, street gangs. The two failed to appear at trial in 2006. Full Story

7. Los Angeles: Water District Board Member Charged With Lying About Receiving Congressional Medal of Honor

Xavier Alvarez, a member of the Three Valleys Municipal Water District Board of Directors, was charged with falsely claiming to have been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. Full Story

8. Memphis: Two Indicted on Conspiracy and Bribery Charges Related to Issuance of Fraudulent Driver Licenses

Tennessee Department of State driver license examiner Latoya Cooper of Nashville, and Terry Biles of Murfreesboro were indicted on conspiracy and bribery charges related to the issuance of fraudulent driver licenses. Biles and Cooper are both charged with conspiracy to commit bribery concerning programs receiving federal funds. Biles is also charged with offering and giving bribes concerning programs receiving federal funds, while Cooper is charged with accepting and agreeing to accept bribes. Full Story

9. Sacramento: Russian Man Pleads Guilty to Participating in Identity Theft and Fraud Ring

Roman Karelov pleaded guilty to conspiracy to transport goods obtained by fraud in connection with his participation in a scheme to defraud businesses in the U.S. by purchasing items with stolen identity information and sending the goods to confederates in Russia. Karelov is the second Russian citizen convicted in the case. Full Story (pdf)

10. New Haven: Six Charged as a Result of Operation Phony Pharm

Using several sophisticated techniques, Operation Phony Pharm has targeted web sites and individuals who are selling anabolic steroids. Operation Phony Pharm has focused on raw material manufacturers/suppliers, underground laboratories and numerous websites distributing materials. Operation Phony Pharm and Operation Raw Deal provide mutual assistance in their investigations. Full Story

http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel07/topten_092807.htm

2,068 posted on 09/28/2007 5:52:09 PM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (This is "Be an Angel Day", do something nice for someone today.)

September 28, 2007 PM Anti-Terrorism News

(U.S.) No verdict yet in terror-financing trial of Muslim charity
http://www.ktre.com/Global/story.asp?S=7144096

(U.S.) The Element of Surprise - L.A. Int’l Airport using random placement of security checkpoints
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21035785/site/newsweek/?from=rss

(U.S.) Virginia: Muslim American Society President Omeish Says He’s ‘Victim of Smear Campaign — appointee to Virginia commission resigned
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/28/AR2007092800789.html
— related IPT videos on Omeish
http://www.youtube.com/user/InvestigativeProject

(U.S.) $24 Million to Nonprofits at Terror Risk - for homeland security protective measures
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/09/28/national/w111930D19.DTL

(UK) Islamic group accused of al-Qaida link wants to open second school - Tablighi Jamaat to open madrassa for 500 boys
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/publicservices/story/0,,2179871,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=19

(UK) London Internet whiz was vital militant link: FBI - “Irhabi 007” (”Terrorist 007” or Younes Tsouli) the vital link in 3 plots
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070928/wl_canada_nm/canada_security007_col_2
- see CT Blog posts on Tsouli
http://counterterrorismblog.org/fastsearch?query=Tsouli
- and FBI Director’s speech
http://www.cfr.org/publication/14323/

(Iraq) US-led forces kill top al-Qaida leader - Abu Usama al-Tunisi “the emir of foreign terrorists,” led kidnapping & killings of U.S. soldiers
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070928/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_iraq_al_qaida_6

(Iraq) US Military in Iraq Reports Success Against Terrorists - U.S. military says core leadership of al-Qaida in Iraq crippled
http://www.voanews.com/english/2007-09-28-voa62.cfm

(Iraq) Exclusive: First Images of Controversial Blackwater Incident - ABC News with photos of Sept. 16 incident
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/09/exclusive-first.html
- see State Dept. report
http://noquarterusa.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/spot-report-on-blackwater.pdf

(Syria) Muslim cleric suspected of smuggling fighters to Iraq shot dead in Syria
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1189411505775&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

(Iran) Key nations agree to delay Iran action - U.S., 5 others delay new U.N. resolution until November
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070928/ap_on_re_us/un_iran_nuclear_13

(Somalia) Tensions rise in northern Somalia
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/09/28/africa/AF-GEN-Somalia.php

India warned of suspicious transactions
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India_warned_of_suspicious_transactions/articleshow/2412984.cms

(India) Woman jailed for terrorist links - 5 years for funding conduit
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/Woman_jailed_for_terrorist_links/rssarticleshow/2413367.cms

(North Korea) Japan: Keep North on terror list, Komura urges Rice - Japan wants past abductions of Japanese resolved
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/rss/nn20070929a6.html

(North Korea) Macau government to cease oversight of bank accused of money laundering for North Korea
http://beta.malaysia.news.yahoo.com/ap/20070928/tbs-as-fin-macau-nkorea-money-laundering-e285837.html

Other News:

(Canada) Sharia-bank bids trigger concerns
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070924.RSHARIA24/TPStory/Business

Italy: First Islamic bank in Italy to open in 2008
http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Business/?id=1.0.1351258771

2,069 posted on 09/29/2007 4:28:34 AM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (This is "Be an Angel Day", do something nice for someone today.)

September 29, 2007 Anti-Terrorism News

Iraq: Sectarian violence kills 18 - Mosul carbomb, drive-by shooting kills Sunni sheik, US military hands over 9 bodies in Samarra
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/iraq;_ylt=AkduajD_58KHSEwChbtrWCVX6GMA

(Iraq) Mosul Car bomb kills police in northern Iraq
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070929/wl_mideast_afp/iraqunrestmosul_070929121812;_ylt=AufE3oCOrGf4nPnFVbe84W5X6GMA

(Iraq) U.S. soldier killed by gunfire in Diyala province
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/09/29/africa/ME-GEN-Iraq-US-Casualties.php

(Iraq) Extremist brigade commander detained by Iraqi, U.S. Special Forces — in New Baghdad
http://www.kuna.net.kw/home/Story.aspx?Language=en&DSNO=1023902

(Iraq) Counterterrorism Analyst Evan Kohlmann Raises Doubts About Alleged Death Of
Top Al Qaeda Leader
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/09/29/kohlmann-tunisi/
http://counterterrorismblog.org/2007/09/a_tale_of_two_tunisis_question.php

(Iraq) US army recovers bodies of murdered Sunni couple in Baghdad’’s Adhamiyah
http://www.kuna.net.kw/NewsAgenciesPublicSite/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=1844648&Language=en

(Iraq) MNF find ads, items supporting 9/11 attacks in Iraq
http://www.kuna.net.kw/home/Story.aspx?Language=en&DSNO=1023851

(Iraq) US regrets if civilians killed in Baghdad raid
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/focusoniraq/2007/September/focusoniraq_September201.xml&section=focusoniraq

Iraqi civilian deaths part of war on terror: US military
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070929/wl_mideast_afp/iraqunrest_070929121207;_ylt=Apa6eAETA0c1hPG3g8T3CksTv5UB

(Afghanistan) Kabul bus bomber kills 30 troops — Taliban claims responsibility
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070929/ts_afp/afghanistanunrestblastkabul_070929115207;_ylt=AvxXSyk_PWbo53tX2sy_PkrOVooA

(Afghanistan) 4 Red Cross hostages freed in Afghanistan
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/09/29/asia/AS-GEN-Afghan-Kidnappings.php

(Afghanistan) Karzai calls for stronger action against terrorism after blast
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070929/wl_sthasia_afp/afghanistanunrestblastkabulkarzai_070929085030;_ylt=AhjnuCnlBuGpQcRgZKSA7GzOVooA

Afghan president offers Taliban a place in government for peace deal
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/09/29/asia/AS-GEN-Afghan-Taliban-Talks.php

(Afghanistan) Taliban constitution made public — “Constitution of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan”
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2007/09/29/taliban_constitution_made_public/8380/

(Afghanistan) Commentary:’Why Won’t the AP Describe the Taliban as Terrorists?’
http://www.americandaily.com/article/20432

(Pakistan) Nine wounded, 12 arrested in militant attack on Waziristan checkposts — in Mir Ali, Khajori and Jabler areas
http://www.kuna.net.kw/home/Story.aspx?Language=en&DSNO=1023867

(Pakistan) US drone ‘shot down’ in N Waziristan
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\09\29\story_29-9-2007_pg7_3

(Pakistan) Terrorist alert triggers security sweep in hotels — Raja Bazaar
http://www.dawn.com/2007/09/29/nat19.htm

(Pakistan) Woman beheaded in Mohmand Agency — letter claims murder for “moral” reasons
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\09\29\story_29-9-2007_pg7_2

(Pakistan) Lal Masjid back in news: students threaten government
http://in.news.yahoo.com/070929/43/6lcue.html

(India) Suspected Bangladeshi terrorist held in West Bengal
http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEP20070929032240&Page=P&Headline=Suspected+Bangladeshi+terrorist+held+in+West+Bengal&Title=Nation&Topic=0

(India) Hyderabad twin blasts: Police arrest suspect’s brother and his aide
http://news.webindia123.com/news/Articles/India/20070929/779882.html

(India) Hyderabad cops to grill terror suspect
http://www.hindustantimes.com/Redir.aspx?ID=c3c6f0bd-90aa-4911-ade5-0d462140795d

(India Kashmir) Two rocket launchers recovered from terrorists hideout in J&K
http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=6e3dcea3-97c2-4929-950d-478fa03d91ed&MatchID1=4562&TeamID1=6&TeamID2=1&MatchType1=2&SeriesID1=1145&PrimaryID=4562&Headline=Two+rocket+launchers+recovered+from+terrorists+hideout+in+J%26amp%3bK

(India) 41 persons sentenced in 1998 Coimbatore serial bomb blasts case
http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/detailed_news.asp?date1=9/29/2007#9

(India Assam) Three construction company employees abducted by Black Widow militants in Assam
http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/detailed_news.asp?date1=9/29/2007#7

(U.S.) Jury set in Miami terror trial — plot to blow up Chicago’s Sears Tower and bomb FBI offices
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070928/ap_on_re_us/terrorism_investigation_1;_ylt=AhwwKm._3BhCmPbUAQWQbSkTv5UB

(U.S.) GOP Urged to Cite ‘Islamic Terrorists’
http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnews/20070928/ts_usnews/gopurgedtociteislamicterrorists

(U.S.) Terrorists still slowing mail on Capitol Hill — requires bio-chem testing
http://www.register-herald.com/local/local_story_271225639.html?keyword=topstory

(U.S.) FBI’s three-front war on terrorists
http://www.nypost.com/seven/09292007/news/worldnews/fbis_three_front_war_on_terror.htm
— FBI stated during 9/11 congressional hearing that it has no role in “war of ideas”
http://washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070914/NATION04/109140086/1008&template=nextpage

Algerian security forces kill four militants, arrest three others
http://www.kuna.net.kw/home/Story.aspx?Language=en&DSNO=1023921

(Algeria) Founder of Algerian Salafi group surrenders to authorities
http://www.kuna.net.kw/home/Story.aspx?Language=en&DSNO=1023885

(Algeria) 6 Algerian security force officers killed in attacks by Islamic militants
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/09/28/africa/AF-GEN-Algeria-Violence.php

(Algeria) Al-Qaeda leaves Iraq and goes to Algeria, says Iraqi Prime Minister
http://www.echoroukonline.com/english/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=7774

(Somalia) Four civilians killed in fresh Somalia violence
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070929/wl_afp/somaliaunrest_070929081706;_ylt=ArF6zY78dEFBDMe9LQDJOMiQLIUD

(Somalia) Troops forcing residents from homes in Somali capital, rights group says
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/09/29/africa/AF-GEN-Somalia.php

(Turkey) Twenty Kurdish rebels killed by Turkish army during past 15 days
http://www.kuna.net.kw/home/Story.aspx?Language=en&DSNO=1023920

(Turkey) Four terrorists killed, one surrenders
http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=123458

Iran’s Parliament Signs Resolution to Label CIA, Army as ‘Terrorist Organizations’
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,298590,00.html

Iran urges world powers to wait for IAEA report
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/middleeast/2007/September/middleeast_September380.xml&section=middleeast&col=

(Iran) Ahmadinejad: US putting him in same boat as bin Laden
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/middleeast/2007/September/middleeast_September381.xml&section=middleeast&col=

Iran Wins 2-Month Reprieve From New U.N. Sanctions Over Nuclear Program
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,298492,00.html

(Syria) Radical Syrian cleric ‘shot dead’ — update on Friday story — recruited foreign militants to
Iraq — Sheikh Mahmoud Abu al-Qaqaa aka Mahmoud Qul Aghassi
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7019253.stm
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1189411505775&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

(Syria) Fatah al-Islam’s God Father Assassinated in Syria
http://www.naharnet.com/domino/tn/NewsDesk.nsf/getstory?openform&3F13BBE6DDC2FE86C2257365002D0146

Hamas Struggles to Beat Boycott Squeeze
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/H/HAMAS_MONEY?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2007-09-29-10-26-45

(Canada) Millions in terrorist assets flowing free
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=4ec49387-fb14-457c-ad1a-c85ecaea5915

(UK) BBC’s Newsround fed youngsters Al Qaeda propaganda, claims ex-spy
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23414300-details/BBC%27s+Newsround++fed+youngsters+Al+Qaeda+propaganda%2C+claims+ex-spy+chief/article.do?ito=newsnow&;

(Sri Lanka) 12 tourists wounded in first-ever bomb blast in the Maldives
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/09/29/asia/AS-GEN-Maldives-Explosion.php

(Sri Lanka) Warplanes hit Tiger territory
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070929/wl_asia_afp/srilankaunrest_070929072543;_ylt=Av0gJGyOxUPh_uAIwmY36nItM8oA

North Korea tells US to drop ‘hostile policy’ in nuke talks
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070929/wl_afp/nkoreanuclearweaponstalks_070929072157;_ylt=AmZHrYkJ0.9ycn.57OKxbaiCscEA

North Korea nuclear talks shift focus to energy aid
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/theworld/2007/September/theworld_September812.xml&section=theworld

Other News:

(Turkey) Nation does not see headscarf as political symbol — Most Turks favor a lifting of the ban
on the Muslim headscarf
http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=123460

French teens jailed for riot bus attack
http://www.expatica.com/actual/article.asp?subchannel_id=25&story_id=44422

(U.S.) Illinois: School district considers banning traditions seen as offensive to Muslims — Christmas and Halloween party traditions debated, after Jello banned
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/578734,CST-NWS-oaklawn28.article

(U.S. Postal Service) Muslim holiday stamp reissued at new rate
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/09/29/business/news/22_58_279_28_07.txt

US judge rules against New York City taxi drivers in GPS battle
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/09/29/america/NA-GEN-US-Taxi-Technology.php

(U.S.) Tylenol Tampering Case Unsolved at 25
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/T/TYLENOL_POISONINGS?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

2,070 posted on 09/29/2007 10:00:17 AM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (This is "Be an Angel Day", do something nice for someone today.)

To: All; FARS; DAVEY CROCKETT

[old, but interesting report]

Has Ahmadinejad saved Iran from sanctions?

29/09/2007 RIA Novosti Agence russe
Has Ahmadinejad saved Iran from sanctions?
http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20070927/81351709.html

MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Pyotr Goncharov) - Everyone
is used to the escapades of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He
was expected to surprise the world again at the 62nd UN General
Assembly
session in New York, and he made quite a performance.

In a fit of fiery eloquence, Ahmadinejad felt all but a messiah and
warned the powers that be: “If the world powers listen to my advice,
they will live in peace and security. If not, they will sink into
darkness, as the Quran says.” Even his idol, the architect of the
Islamic revolution in Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini, would not have dared
issue such a warning.

But as the New Testament goes, “Render unto Caesar the things which are

Caesar’s, and unto God the things which are God’s.” We should not
forget
about worldly problems. One of the most burning issues is Tehran’s
nuclear program. The world community expected the Iranian president to
speak about its civilian direction but heard only appeals to turn to
God. There is no doubt that Ahmadinejad’s impressive performance is
just
the beginning.

It will be continued on September 27 when the foreign ministers of the
Iranian Six gather in the UN headquarters to discuss further action on
Tehran’s nuclear program. The Six consists of the pro-Iranian Russia
and
China, and the anti-Iranian United States, France, Britain and Germany.

Further action means tougher sanctions, which are advocated by the
later
four. Iran has not complied with the previous resolution of the UN
Security Council No. 1747 on the moratorium on all uranium-enrichment
procedures, and is not going to abide by it. As for the sanctions, they

have produced no impression on Iran at all, but Russia and China are
ready to give it another chance to avoid punishment.

Sanctions are not likely to be toughened, because Russia and China have

a well-grounded position demonstrated by Russian Foreign Minister
Sergei
Lavrov. He said that the Security Council may discuss tougher sanctions

in the future but the time was not yet ripe for that - now the Council
should support the Iran-IAEA agreements and give Tehran an opportunity
to carry them out.

The Six should primarily try to remove vague points in Iran’s nuclear
program rather than introduce new sanctions. As a result, the Six would

“become clear on many issues that have remained unanswered up to this
day,” Lavrov explained.

Having recently stepped up its cooperation with the IAEA, Iran has done

away with a number of white spots in its nuclear program, but all of
them are from the past, like the issue of the plutonium trace in
Iranian
centrifuges. The main question is still there: Why should Iran go for a

full nuclear cycle - commercial uranium enrichment - if it does not
have
the ability to produce heat-emitting pellets? Nuclear fuel is loaded
into a reactor exclusively in pellets, but Iran will not be able to
produce them in the foreseeable future. Why is it still developing its
nuclear-enrichment cycle? Ahmadinejad has not answered this most
important question.

Meanwhile, his position does not enjoy undivided support in Iran. Akbar

Hashemi

Rafsanjani, his main rival in the presidential elections, the former
president and now the chairman of the Council of Experts, Iran’s number

one authority, maintains that while being a national priority, the
Iranian nuclear program should not bring disaster to the Iranian
people.
An obvious majority in the Council of Experts shares this view.

Ahmadinejad’s impressive performance in New York was meant not only to
win him sympathy in the UN but also to help him retain support at home.

The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s and do not
necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.

2,071 posted on 09/29/2007 10:30:57 AM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (This is "Be an Angel Day", do something nice for someone today.)

To: All; FARS; milford421; DAVEY CROCKETT

[update-more details]

FAA Says Memphis Outage Caused by AT&T

WASHINGTON (AP) — AT&T Inc. manages the telephone line that went down
at a
Memphis air traffic control center causing nationwide airline delays
Tuesday, the head of the Federal Aviation Administration told
lawmakers.

Acting FAA Administrator Bobby Sturgell said the communication
equipment
failure was a “BellSouth/AT&T problem” during a House subcommittee on
aviation hearing exploring the recent run of record airline delays. He
added
that the agency was working with the company to address the issue.

“The service disruption was a result of equipment failure ... (and) the

company is conducting a comprehensive investigation to determine the
cause,”
according to a statement from AT&T that said no additional information
was
available. AT&T, which is based in San Antonio, acquired BellSouth
Corp.
last year.

The communications failure, which limited the center’s ability to talk
to
flights passing through its airspace and to other air traffic control
facilities for about three hours, shut down all airline traffic within
250
miles of Memphis.

The FAA’s action caused dozens of delays, diversions and cancellations
at
Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and in Nashville. Disruptions
affecting fewer flights were reported at airports serving Miami, Los
Angeles, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Tampa, Fla., and Raleigh and Charlotte,
N.C.

National Air Traffic Controllers union spokesman Doug Church on Tuesday

called the outage a major safety problem and said controllers had to
use
their personal cell phones to talk to other air traffic control
centers.

An FAA spokeswoman on Tuesday would not comment on the union statement,
and
could not identify the telephone company that operated the line at that

time.

The Memphis center is one of 20 air traffic control facilities
nationwide
and handled almost 3 million flights last year.

[unknown url]

2,072 posted on 09/29/2007 10:42:16 AM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (This is "Be an Angel Day", do something nice for someone today.)

To: All; FARS; milford421

Navy jet crashes on King Ranch, pilot ejects

KINGSVILLE, Texas (AP) — A Navy student pilot ejected safely just
before
his T-45 Goshawk jet trainer crashed Thursday on the King Ranch in
South
Texas.

The student with Training Squadron 21 was returning from a routine
training
flight, said Lt. Sean Robertson, spokesman for the chief of naval air
training in Corpus Christi.

The cause of the crash was under investigation.

Robertson said the student was taken to a hospital in Kingsville with
minor
injuries. No identity has been released.

[unknown url....]

2,073 posted on 09/29/2007 10:46:47 AM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (This is "Be an Angel Day", do something nice for someone today.)

To: All; FARS; milford421

Jet engine fire grounds Delta flight in Indy; no one hurt

An airliner headed from Indianapolis to Atlanta on Thursday afternoon
never
got off the ground when an engine caught fire, according to
Indianapolis
International Airport officials.

The MD-88 airplane stopped on a runway and the fire was put out by
airport
firefighters, said Susan Sullivan, spokeswoman for the Indianapolis
Airport
Authority.
Delta Flight 1253, with 132 passengers and a crew of five, was
scheduled to
leave Indianapolis for Hartsfield Jackson International airport at 3:02
p.m.
Thursday, said Susan Elliott of Delta Air Lines corporate
communications.
The airplane was ready to make a departure from Indianapolis when the
pilots
thought they had a blown tire, said Sullivan. The takeoff was stopped
and
airport firefighters were called, and found the fire in the left engine
of
the two-engine airliner.
No injuries were reported. A bus was sent to the airplane to pick up
passengers and return them to the terminal where they were rebooked on
other
flights.
The MD-88 was towed to a hangar where mechanics planned to inspect it
and
find the cause of the fire.
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070927/LOCAL/709270572/1195/LOCAL18

2,074 posted on 09/29/2007 10:48:27 AM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (This is "Be an Angel Day", do something nice for someone today.)

To: All; FARS; Founding Father; milford421

Islamic group with al-Qaida link wants to open second school

· Plan to build complex near 2012 Olympic village
· Members deny FBI charge of fostering extremism

Riazat Butt
Saturday September 29, 2007

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/publicservices/story/0,,2179871,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=19

http://www.guardian.co.uk/ The Guardian

An Islamic missionary group accused of being a recruiting ground for
extremists is planning to open a madrasa for 500 boys near London’s
2012
Olympic village.

The school will form part of an 18-acre complex being developed by
Tablighi
Jamaat, the same movement behind proposals to build Britain’s biggest
mosque, with the capacity for 12,000 worshippers.

It will be the second madrasa in Britain operated by the group. Its
Institute of Islamic Education in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, has more
than
300 pupils. Teenage boys devote six mornings a week to Islamic history,
theology, law, Qur’an recitation and Arabic. Afternoons are set aside
for
the national curriculum.

A 2005 Ofsted report praised the institute’s “secure Islamic
environment”
but criticised the “unsatisfactory” teaching of secular subjects.

Tablighi members say students, who will be charged up to £3,000 a year,
will
be taught the national curriculum at the east London site and that
staff
will be recruited locally. About 40% of places will be reserved for
boarders.

The FBI has expressed concern about Tablighi Jamaat, stating in 2003
that
al-Qaida used it as a recruiting ground. The group denies involvement
in
terrorism.

Hafiz Malik, 45, who has been involved with Tablighi Jamaat for 30
years,
told the Guardian: “We are Muslims and our belief is that for anyone to
attain salvation, Islam is the only way.

“Christianity is a proselytising religion. They would say the same
thing.
But Tablighi does not go out of its way to convert Britain. Our focus
and
concern is for Muslims.”

He rejected the idea that withdrawing from mainstream society
encouraged
segregation. Nor did he accept that incorporating Islamic principles
into
everyday life was a sign of fundamentalism.

“We have to change ourselves, to mould us into Allah’s ways,” he said.
“We
can’t change Allah to suit us. Muslim youth are getting dissolved.
There is
nothing to show they are Muslim.

“Islamically, this worldly glamour is not what we are supposed to be.
Muslims revert to Islam because it is their natural state, it is their
alternative.”

He said Tablighi Jamaat was increasingly popular with Muslims.

Abdul Rashid Bhatti, another Tablighi member, said: “Tablighi Jamaat
has
been the subject of many investigations but nobody has proved anything.

“We are not radicals, we are not extremists, we are not political. If
anyone
came here with radical views, they moved on because nothing we do
resonated
with them.”

Tablighi does not have a registration scheme and there is no leadership
or
hierarchy. This open door policy makes the group vulnerable as no one,
not
even the most senior members, can vouch for someone’s involvement with
Tablighi or the extent of his participation.

Another member, Abdul Sattar Shahid, said: “People come and go at will.
We
have thousands passing through every week. You cannot control the
movement
of people, you don’t know what’s in their minds.

“If we found someone had extreme views we would disassociate ourselves
from
them. If people with radical views came here for long enough we might
have
been able to sort out their twisted brains.”

Designs for the complex include a visitor and conference centre and a
new
entrance to West Ham tube station. A submission to planning authorities
is
some months away but the scheme has attracted much criticism, with more
than
270,000 people signing a Downing Street petition opposing it.

Mr Bhatti said: “The figures have been blown out of proportion. We were
never going to have a 70,000 or 80,000-capacity mosque - that’s Wembley
Stadium. This is 18 acres. It was never going to be funded by public
money
... We feel threatened and saddened by the way the project has been
hijacked.”

2,075 posted on 09/29/2007 10:56:46 AM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (This is "Be an Angel Day", do something nice for someone today.)

NEFA Report - IRHABI007’s connections to US and Canada (Osage)

www.nefafoundation.org

Irhaby007â€™s American

Connections

Report #6 in a NEFA Series, â€œTarget: Americaâ€

A NEFA analysis of U.S. v. Ahmed

July 2007

U.S.-Based Plotters

On July 19, 2006, Syed Harris Ahmed, a naturalized U.S. citizen
studying at Georgia Tech

University, and Ehsanul Islam Sadequee, a U.S. citizen who reportedly
met Ahmed at the

Al-Farooq Masjid in Atlanta,1 were indicted for conspiring to provide
material support to

terrorists.2

When announcing the indictments, David Nahmias, U.S. Attorney for the
Northern

District of Georgia, commented, â€œThe indictment does not [emphasis in
the Department

of Justice press release] allege that these defendants had proceeded to
the point that

they posed an imminent threat to the United States. But in todayâ€™s
world we no longer

wait until a bomb is built and ready to explode.â€3

Providing additional analysis, FBI Director Robert Mueller told the
Senate Intelligence

Committee in January 2007 that Ahmed and Sadequee â€œhad long-term
goals of creating

a large network of extremists in preparation for conducting attacks,
possibly inside the

United States.â€4

The Casing Targets â€“ D.C. Landmarks and Locations in Virginia

According to the Ahmed indictment, â€œon or about April 11, 2005, Ahmed
and Sadequee

made short digital video recordings (â€˜video clipsâ€™) of symbolic and
infrastructure targets

of potential terrorist attacks in the Washington, D.C., area, including
the United States

Capitol; the headquarters building of the World Bank in downtown
Washington; the

Masonic Temple in Alexandria, Virginia; and a group of large fuel
storage tanks near I-95

in northern Virginia.â€5

1 Bill Torpy, â€œTech Student Charged with Supporting Terror Group,â€
The Atlanta Journal-

Constitution, April 20, 2006.

2 U.S. v. Ahmed, (N.D. GA.), No. 1:06-CR-147-CC, Indictment, Filed July
19, 2006.

3 â€œSuperseding Indictment Filed in Atlanta Terrorism Support Case,â€
Department of Justice Press

Release, July 19, 2006,
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/gan/press/2006/07-19-06.pdf.

4 Statement of Robert Mueller, Director, Federal Bureau of
Investigation, Before the Senate Select

Committee on Intelligence, January 11, 2007,

http://www.fbi.gov/congress/congress07/mueller011107.htm.

5 U.S. v. Ahmed, (N.D. GA.), No. 1:06-CR-147-CC, Indictment, Filed July
19, 2006.

â€œIrhaby007â€™s American Connectionsâ€

www.nefafoundation.org â€“ info@nefafoundation.org 2

Transmitting the Surveillance Video to British Co-Conspirators

Federal prosecutors assert that Ahmed and Sadequee â€œmade these video
clips to

establish their credentials with other supports of violent jihad as
well as for use in

support of violent jihad.â€ 6

After making the tapes, Sadequee sent them to Younis Tsouli,7 a
twenty-three-year-old

Moroccan with U.K. residency who studied Information Technology at
Westminster

College of Computing.8 According to U.S. prosecutors, Tsouli â€œstored
the video clipsâ€¦on

computer equipment in his home in the United Kingdom.â€9 Sadequee
allegedly

communicated with Tsouli â€œboth before and after the April 11, 2005,
trip to Washington

D.C.â€ 10

The Arrest and Conviction of the British Co-Conspirators

Tsouli and Waseem Mughal, a twenty-three-year-old who holds a
biochemistry degree

from the University of Leicester, 11 were arrested in October 2005 in
England and

indicted in November 2005 on a number of charges, including conspiracy
to murder and

conspiracy to cause an explosion; a third individual, Tariq al-Daour, a
twenty-year-old

Jordanian who became a British citizen in 2004 and had applied to study
law,12 was

indicted on terror financing charges.13 In July 2007, two months into
their trial, all three

men pled guilty to inciting murder for terrorist purposes.14

Younis Tsouli Tariq al-Daour Waseem Mughal

6 U.S. v. Ahmed, (N.D. GA.), No. 1:06-CR-147-CC, Indictment, Filed July
19, 2006.

7 U.S. v. Ahmed, (N.D. GA.), No. 1:06-CR-147-CC, Indictment, Filed July
19, 2006.

8 â€œThree Men Admit Using Internet to Incite Terrorism in First
British Case,â€ Crown Prosecution

Service Press Release, July 5, 2007,
http://www.cps.gov.uk/news/pressreleases/137_07.html and

Sean Oâ€™Neill, â€œAl Qaedaâ€™s â€˜British Propagandists,â€ The Times
of London, April 24, 2007.

9 U.S. v. Ahmed, (N.D. GA.), No. 1:06-CR-147-CC, Indictment, Filed July
19, 2006.

10 U.S. v. Ahmed, (N.D. GA.), No. 1:06-CR-147-CC, Indictment, Filed
July 19, 2006.

11 Sean Oâ€™Neill, â€œAl Qaedaâ€™s â€˜British Propagandists,â€ The
Times of London, April 24, 2007.

12 â€œThree Men Admit Using Internet to Incite Terrorism in First
British Case,â€ Crown Prosecution

Service Press Release, July 5, 2007,
http://www.cps.gov.uk/news/pressreleases/137_07.html and

Sean Oâ€™Neill, â€œAl Qaedaâ€™s â€˜British Propagandists,â€ The Times
of London, April 24, 2007.

13 â€œThree Men Charged with Terrorism Offences,â€ Metropolitan Police
Service Press Release,

November 4, 2005,

http://cms.met.police.uk/news/arrests_and_charges/terrorism/three_men_charged_with_terroris

m_offences. Note: At the time, press sources reported the British trio
may have been targeting the

White House and the Capitol using homemade bombs. See: Mark Hosenball,
â€œU.K. Officials Reveal

Plot to Blow up White House, Capitol,â€ Newsweek, November 4, 2005.

14 â€œThree Men Admit Using Internet to Incite Terrorism in First
British Case,â€ Crown Prosecution

Service Press Release, July 5, 2007,
http://www.cps.gov.uk/news/pressreleases/137_07.html.

â€œIrhaby007â€™s American Connectionsâ€

www.nefafoundation.org â€“ info@nefafoundation.org 3

During the course of their trial, British prosecutors noted that
Tsouli, Al-Daour, and

Mughal, who believed they were fighting a â€œglobal conspiracyâ€ to
eradicate Islam,15 had

a â€œparticularly close affiliationâ€ with Al Qaeda in Iraq.16 The
Crown Prosecution Service

added, â€œbehind the apparent normality of their daily lives, these
young men firmly

believed, supported and set about inciting others to follow an extreme
ideology of

violent holy war against so-called disbelievers.â€17

Not surprisingly, when searching their homes, authorities seized an
array of jihadist

material, including beheading videos. At Tsouliâ€™s house, officials
discovered a

Powerpoint, which an expert later labeled â€œa detailed guide to the
science and use of a

variety of military and improvised explosives.â€18 Additionally,
al-Daour possessed CDs

with poison and explosives instructions; British prosecutors claimed
that one file

provided details on a rotten meat toxin that is â€œthe most toxic
substance known to manâ€

when pure. Anti-terrorism police also found information on
rocket-propelled grenades

and excerpts from The Book of Jihad at al-Daourâ€™s residence.19
Similarly, a raid on

Mughalâ€™s home turned up a recipe for rocket propellants and a
26-minute video titled

â€œMartyrdom Operations Vest.â€20

Still other details are equally revealing. For example, according to
British prosecutors,

when queried during an online chat about what he would do with â‚¬1m,
al-Daour

responded, â€œSponsor terrorist attacks, become the new Osama.â€
Al-Daour also advocated

suicide bombings only if they resulted in a significant number of
deaths because â€œa

Muslim life is worth more than that.â€ 21 And following the 7/7 London
suicide bombings,

Tsouli wrote, â€œBrother I am very happy. From the moment the infidels
cry, I laugh.â€ He

added, â€œI seriously think there are certain individuals that should
be assassinated, striking

at precise targets.â€22

In July 2007, Tsouli received a ten year sentence, while Al-Daour was
jailed for six and a

half years. Finally, Mughal was given a seven and a half year
sentence.23

(Note: For more information on Tsouli, al-Daour, and Mughal, see
below.)

15 â€œMan Admits Using Internet to Urge Jihad,â€ The Guardian, July 4,
2007.

16 â€œThree Men â€˜Urged Holy War on Web,â€ BBC, April 23, 2007.

17 â€œThree Men Admit Using Internet to Incite Terrorism in First
British Case,â€ Crown Prosecution

Service Press Release, July 5, 2007,
http://www.cps.gov.uk/news/pressreleases/137_07.html.

18 â€œCourt Told of â€˜Suicide Vest Film,â€™â€ BBC, April 24, 2007.

19 â€œMan Admits Using Internet to Urge Jihad,â€ The Guardian, July 4,
2007.

20 Mark Hosenball, â€œU.K. Officials Reveal Plot to Blow up White
House, Capitol,â€ Newsweek,

November 4, 2005 and Brian Krebs, â€œTerrorismâ€™s Hook Into Your
Inbox,â€ The Washington Post,

July 5, 2007.

21 â€œMan Admits Using Internet to Urge Jihad,â€ The Guardian, July 4,
2007.

22 Sean Oâ€™Neill, â€œTerrorist 007 â€˜was Internet Propagandist for
al-Qaeda,â€™â€ The Times of London,

April 26, 2007.

23 â€œTrio Jailed for Using Internet to Incite Murder,â€ Metropolitan
Police Service Press Release, July 5,

2007,

http://cms.met.police.uk/news/convictions/terrorism/trio_jailed_for_using_internet_to_incite_mu

rder and â€œThree Men Admit Using Internet to Incite Terrorism in First
British Case,â€ Crown

Prosecution Service Press Release, July 5, 2007,

http://www.cps.gov.uk/news/pressreleases/137_07.html and Sean
Oâ€™Neill, â€œAl Qaedaâ€™s â€˜British

Propagandists,â€ The Times of London, April 24, 2007.

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Traveling to Canada to Meet with Co-Conspirators to Discuss

Potential Targets

As detailed in the Ahmed indictment, on March 6, 2005, 24 Ahmed and
Sadequee, who

attended high school in Canada, traveled to Toronto â€œto meet with
like-minded Islamic

extremists.â€25 According to court filings, the men stayed until March
13th and26 â€œmet

regularly with at least three subjects of an FBI international
terrorism investigation.â€27

Press reports have identified two of those individuals as Fahim Ahmad
and Jahmaal

James.28 Further, Ahmed and Sadequee â€œstayed with an individual with
whom they

were conspiring concerningâ€¦plots against civilian and military
installations in the United

States.â€29

During interviews with FBI agents, Ahmed admitted that while in Canada
the men

â€œdiscussed strategic locations in the United States suitable for a
terrorist strike, to include

oil refineries and military bases.â€30 The Ahmed indictment notes that
after returning from

Canada, Ahmed and Sadequee specifically talked about â€œthe possibility
of attacking

Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Marietta, Georgia.â€31 Court filings
allege that while in

Canada, the men â€œalso plotted how to disable the Global Positioning
System in an effort

to disrupt military and commercial communications and traffic.â€32

The Arrest of the Canadian Co-Conspirators â€“ Plotting Attacks in

Canada

On June 2, 2006, Canadian authorities arrested seventeen individuals,
including Fahim

Ahmad and Jahmaal James, on terrorism-related charges.33 Following the
arrests, FBI

spokesman Richard Kolko acknowledged that some of the Canadian suspects
â€œmay have

had limited contact with the two people recently arrested from
Georgia.â€34

24 U.S. v. Ahmed, (N.D. GA.), No. 1:06-CR-147-CC, Indictment, Filed
July 19, 2006.

25 U.S. v. Sadequee, (E.D. N.Y.), No. M-06-335, Affidavit of FBI
Special Agent Michael Scherck in

Support of Arrest Warrant, Filed March 28, 2006. Note: Sadequee studied
at the Institute of

Islamic Learning in Ajax from 1999-2001. See: Tim Harper, â€œAtlanta
Terror Suspects: Danger or

NaÃ¯ve?â€ Toronto Star, June 16, 2006.

26 U.S. v. Ahmed, (N.D. GA.), No. 1:06-CR-147-CC, Indictment, Filed
July 19, 2006.

27 U.S. v. Sadequee, (E.D. N.Y.), No. M-06-335, Affidavit of FBI
Special Agent Michael Scherck in

Support of Arrest Warrant, Filed March 28, 2006.

28 Doug Struck, â€œSchool Ties Link Alleged Plotters,â€ The Washington
Post, June 11, 2006. Note:

The third individual may have been British-Pakistani Aabid Khan (a.k.a.
Abu Umar), who was

arrested at Manchester Airport in England in June 2006 after returning
from Pakistan. Khan was

allegedly in Canada at the same time as Ahmed and Sadequee. See: Kate
Jaimet, â€œBritish

Connection in Terror Plot,â€ The Ottawa Citizen, June 8, 2006 and
Stewart Bell, â€œU.S. Prosecutors

Link Alleged Terror Cell to al-Qaeda,â€ National Post, July 20, 2006.

29 U.S. v. Sadequee, (E.D. N.Y.), No. M-06-335, Affidavit of FBI
Special Agent Michael Scherck in

Support of Arrest Warrant, Filed March 28, 2006.

30 U.S. v. Sadequee, (E.D. N.Y.), No. M-06-335, Affidavit of FBI
Special Agent Michael Scherck in

Support of Arrest Warrant, Filed March 28, 2006.

31 U.S. v. Ahmed, (N.D. GA.), No. 1:06-CR-147-CC, Indictment, Filed
July 19, 2006.

32 U.S. v Sadequee, (E.D. NY), No. M-06-335, Affidavit of FBI Special
Agent Michael Scherck in

Support of Arrest Warrant, Filed March 28, 2006.

33 â€œSeventeen Arrested on Anti-Terrorism Charges,â€ Royal Canadian
Mounted Police Press Release,

June 3, 2006, http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/news/2006/2006_06_03_e.htm.

34 â€œToronto Terror Plot Foiled â€“ Canada,â€ CNN, June 3, 2006.

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Elaborating on the charges against the Canadian cell, Royal Canadian
Mounted Police

Assistant Commissioner Mike McDonell told the media that these
â€œindividualsâ€¦were

planning to commit a series of terrorist attacks against solely
Canadian targets in

southern Ontario.â€35

He added, â€œThis group took steps to acquire three tons of ammonium
nitrate36 and

other components necessary to create explosive devices. To put this in
context, the 1995

bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City that killed 168
people took

one ton of ammonium nitrate. This group posed a real and serious
threat. It had the

capacity and intent to carry out these attacks.â€37

Media reports have speculated that the cell considered an array of
plots, including a plan

to behead Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, as well as to bomb
the Toronto

Stock Exchange and the Toronto office of the Canadian Security
Intelligence Service.38

Ahmedâ€™s Desire to Join Lashkar-e-Tayyiba

According to federal prosecutors, Ahmed traveled to Pakistan in July
2005 with the

intention of joining and fighting with Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LET).39 The
U.S. has designated

LeT a Foreign Terrorist Organization.40 Prosecutors allege Ahmed hoped
to participate

â€œin violent jihad in Kashmir or elsewhere, including in the United
States if so requested.â€41

Training for Jihad

The Ahmed indictment charges that â€œon several occasions in or around
late 2005 and

early 2006, Ahmed, Sadequee, and another personâ€¦engaged in physical
and

rudimentary training, including activities with paintball guns, in
Northwestern

Georgia.â€42 More specifically, during a bond hearing, federal
prosecutors asserted that

these â€œmilitary-style training exercisesâ€ took place in â€œthe
mountains of Georgia.â€43

Additionally, in July 2005, Ahmed flew to Pakistan in an effort to
obtain â€œparamilitary

training.â€ However, Ahmed was unsuccessful and returned to the U.S.
44 Back in the U.S.,

Ahmed â€œresearched shaped explosive chargesâ€ and â€œreviewed a copy
of Gun List

magazine, a periodical for gun enthusiasts and would-be buyers and
sellers of

firearms.â€45

35 Transcript of Press Conference Featuring RCMP Assistant Commissioner
Mike McDonnell, June

3, 2006, http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/news/2006/mcdonell_20060603_e.htm.

36 According to press reports, investigators intervened and controlled
the delivery of the

ammonium nitrate. See: â€œSting Led to Canada Terrorism Arrests,â€
Associated Press, June 5, 2006.

37 Transcript of Press Conference Featuring RCMP Assistant Commissioner
Mike McDonnell, June

3, 2006, http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/news/2006/mcdonell_20060603_e.htm.

38 Mark Hosenball, â€œNarrow Escape?â€ Newsweek, June 7, 2006.

39 U.S. v. Ahmed, (N.D. GA.), No. 1:06-CR-147-CC, Indictment, Filed
July 19, 2006.

40 â€œU.S. Redesignates Jaish e-Mohammed and Lashkar e-Tayyiba Foreign
Terrorist Organizations,â€

U.S. State Department Press Release, December 23, 2003,

http://usinfo.state.gov/ei/Archive/2004/Jan/09-880609.html.

41 U.S. v. Ahmed, (N.D. GA.), No. 1:06-CR-147-CC, Indictment, Filed
July 19, 2006.

42 U.S. v. Ahmed, (N.D. GA.), No. 1:06-CR-147-CC, Indictment, Filed
July 19, 2006.

43 Stewart Bell, â€œProbe Had Global Dimension,â€ National Post, June
5, 2006.

44 U.S. v. Ahmed, (N.D. GA.), No. 1:06-CR-147-CC, Indictment, Filed
July 19, 2006.

45 U.S. v. Ahmed, (N.D. GA.), No. 1:06-CR-147-CC, Indictment, Filed
July 19, 2006.

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Countermeasures Utilized to Avoid Detection

Court filings paint a portrait of two individuals who went to great
lengths in an effort to

shield their plans from law enforcement.

For instance, the indictment alleges that between September 2005 and
March 2006,

Ahmed repeatedly â€œengaged in efforts to detect and evade suspected
surveillance by

government authorities.â€ In support of this activity, Ahmed
researched â€œmethods to

defeat surveillance by government authorities.â€ Further, during a
conversation in

November 2005, â€œAhmed cautioned another individual to avoid
discussing certain topics

on the telephoneâ€ as he believed the government was monitoring his
calls. That same

month, while communicating with â€œanother supporter of violent
jihad,â€ Ahmed

â€œencouraged this individual to read the federal terrorism indictment
against Jose Padilla,

claiming that the indictment provides information on how much the
government can

monitor and how much code the government knows.â€ 46

Moreover, during interviews with federal agents, Sadequee and Ahmed
lied repeatedly.

For example, when questioned about his trip to Canada, Sadequee told
agents he went

to Toronto by himself, stayed with his Aunt, and traveled in January
2005.47 (Sadequee,

who was arrested by the FBI on April 20, 2006 in Bangladesh,48 was
initially charged

with making false statements in connection with an ongoing federal
terrorism

investigation.49) And, during an August 19, 2005 interview at
Atlantaâ€™s Hartsfield

International Airport, Ahmed claimed â€œhe went to Canada simply to
visit friends and

family and that he went to Pakistan simply to see family and attend
religious school.â€50 In

March 2006 interviews with Joint Terrorism Task Force agents â€œAhmed
attempted to

conceal the true nature of his, Sadequeeâ€™s, and their
co-conspiratorsâ€™ discussions,

activities, and plans.â€51

Additionally, when authorities searched Sadequeeâ€™s luggage following
his return from

Bangladesh in August 2005, they discovered a CD-ROM with encrypted
files in the lining

of his suitcase.52 Remarkably, FBI experts have not been able to decode
those files.53

Finally, prosecutors charge that Ahmed and Sadequee utilized multiple
email addresses

and â€œcoded language.â€54

Additional Information â€“ The Role of the Internet and Irhaby007

According to open source reporting, radical websites played a vital
role in connecting

Ahmed/Sadequee, the Canadian cell, and Tsouli/al-Daour/Mughal.55
Notably, media

46 U.S. v. Ahmed, (N.D. GA.), No. 1:06-CR-147-CC, Indictment, Filed
July 19, 2006.

47 U.S. v. Sadequee, (E.D. N.Y.), No. M-06-335, Affidavit of FBI
Special Agent Michael Scherck in

Support of Arrest Warrant, Filed March 28, 2006.

48 â€œSuperseding Indictment Filed in Atlanta Terrorism Support
Case,â€ Department of Justice Press

Release, July 19, 2006,
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/gan/press/2006/07-19-06.pdf.

49 U.S. v. Sadequee, (E.D. N.Y.), No. M-06-335, Affidavit of FBI
Special Agent Michael Scherck in

Support of Arrest Warrant, Filed March 28, 2006.

50 U.S. v. Ahmed, (N.D. GA.), No. 1:06-CR-147-CC, Indictment, Filed
July 19, 2006.

51 U.S. v. Ahmed, (N.D. GA.), No. 1:06-CR-147-CC, Indictment, Filed
July 19, 2006.

52 U.S. v. Ahmed, (N.D. GA.), No. 1:06-CR-147-CC, Indictment, Filed
July 19, 2006.

53 U.S. v. Sadequee, (E.D. N.Y.), No. M-06-335, Affidavit of FBI
Special Agent Michael Scherck in

Support of Arrest Warrant, Filed March 28, 2006.

54 U.S. v. Ahmed, (N.D. GA.), No. 1:06-CR-147-CC, Indictment, Filed
July 19, 2006.

55 Stewart Bell, â€œWeb Forum Linked Cells,â€ National Post, June 15,
2006 and Saundra Contenta,

â€œIrhabi007 Linked to Terror Suspects,â€ The Toronto Star, June 17,
2006. Note: In a March 2005

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reports allege that investigators first stumbled upon the Canadian cell
while monitoring

jihadist websites and observed a number of individuals â€œreading and
espousing anti-

Western sentiments and vowing to attack at home, in the name of
oppressed Muslims.â€56

The central player in that online network was Younis Tsouli, who was
known on the

Internet as â€œIrhaby007â€ (or â€œTerrorist 007â€). Tsouli occupied
an exalted status in the

online jihadist community and served as an Internet jack-of-all-trades,
registering over

180 web site domains in Europe and the U.S.57 As the Crown Prosecution
Service noted,

Tsouli and his co-conspirators used those websites â€œto publish daily
statements and films

of the murder of coalition forces, police, officials and civilians
together with footage of

the beheading of hostages.â€58

Media reports reveal that in August 2005, one of those websites,
irhabi.007.ca, received

over 14,000 hits from Mexico, Canada, France, Britain, Belgium, Sweden,
and other

nations.59 More significantly, Tsouli also set up and administered60
the Muntada al-Ansar

al-Islami chat forum, which was Al Qaeda in Iraqâ€™s mouthpiece at the
time.61 Providing

additional details, the Crown Prosecution Service asserted that the
forum was a place

where â€œterrorists were recruitedâ€ and where they â€œcould become
acquainted, inspired

and educated from the explosives and weapons manuals and presentations,
shared and

available for downloading.â€62

During the course of his work, Tsouli developed especially close ties
with Abu Maysarah

al-Iraqi, the media chief for then-Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi. (Note:

The following paragraph is drawn from NEFA researcher Evan Kohlmannâ€™s
â€œThe Real

Online Terrorist,â€ Foreign Affairs, September/October 2006 which
provides an in-depth

look at Tsouliâ€™s online activities.) For example, in July 2004,
Tsouli helped distribute

Zarqawiâ€™s first full-length video â€œThe Winds of Victory,â€
assistance that was desperately

needed due to Al Qaedaâ€™s inability to mass distribute a 90 megabyte
video file.63

Expressing his appreciation in a rare public statement, Abu Maysarah
remarked: â€œBless

the terrorist, Irhaby 007. In the name of Allah, I am pleased with your
presence my

beloved brother. May Allah protect you.â€64 The relationship between
Abu Maysarah

and Tsouli became so tight that Tsouli even began building an official
website for Abu

online conversation with a member of the Toronto cell, Tsouli wrote,
â€œIâ€™m moving inshallah this

summer to Jihadlandâ€¦So if you want to come with me, inshallah, we can
go together or even

with some of your friends.â€ The Toronto suspect responded, â€œYea, we
see wut happens inshallah.

The bros here are leaving also in the summer so with the permission of
Allah, may Allah allow us

to be martyrs in his cause in wutever land he wishes for us.â€ See:
Stewart Bell, â€œTerror Suspects in

Canada, U.K. Made Plans Online,â€ The National Post, April 26, 2007.

56 Michelle Shephard, â€œTerror Cops Swoop,â€ The Toronto Star, June
3, 2006.

57 Brian Krebs, â€œTerrorismâ€™s Hook into Your Inbox,â€ The
Washington Post, July 5, 2007.

58 â€œThree Men Admit Using Internet to Incite Terrorism in First
British Case,â€ Crown Prosecution

Service Press Release, July 5, 2007,
http://www.cps.gov.uk/news/pressreleases/137_07.html.

59 Sean Oâ€™Neill, â€œTerrorist 007 â€˜was Internet Propagandist for
al-Qaedaâ€™,â€ The Times of London,

April 26, 2007.

60 â€œThree Men Admit Using Internet to Incite Terrorism in First
British Case,â€ Crown Prosecution

Service Press Release, July 5, 2007,
http://www.cps.gov.uk/news/pressreleases/137_07.html.

61 Brian Krebs, â€œTerrorismâ€™s Hook into Your Inbox,â€ The
Washington Post, July 5, 2007.

62 â€œThree Men Admit Using Internet to Incite Terrorism in First
British Case,â€ Crown Prosecution

Service Press Release, July 5, 2007,
http://www.cps.gov.uk/news/pressreleases/137_07.html.

63 ftp://www.ahtd.state.ar.us/incoming/GIS/ALQA3EDAH, July 2004. See
also:

http://www.ansarnet.ws/vb/showthread.php?t=39830, July 12, 2004.

64 http://www.ansarnet.ws/vb/showthread.php?t=76510, October 11, 2004.

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Musab al-Zarqawi.65 In an online exchange with Mughal, Tsouli also
boasted that Al

Qaeda had asked him to translate their publication Thurwat al-Sanam, or
The Tip of the

Camelâ€™s Hump.66

Despite his central role in the cyberjihad, Tsouli sought to become
more actively involved

and expressed a desire to fight in Iraq, telling Mughal in an online
conversation, â€œIt sucks

that we are here and not there.â€ Reassuring Tsouli of the
significance of his efforts,

Mughal responded, â€œA lot of the funding that the brothers are getting
is coming because

of the videos. Imagine how many have gone after seeing the videos.
Imagine how many

have become shahids.â€67

Additional evidence highlighting the importance of the Internet in this
network is the

case of Abu Umar, an individual mentioned briefly in the Ahmed/Sadequee
indictment.

According to that document, â€œSadequee provided Ahmed with the name
and contact

information of Abu Umarâ€¦Sadequee advised that Abu Umar could assist
Ahmed in

obtaining paramilitary training in Pakistan to prepare for violent
jihad.â€68 Abu Umar, who

has been identified in the press as Aabid Khan,69 frequently posted on
the Al-Tibbyan

website, a jihadist forum where he forged relationships with members of
the network.70

In one posting, Khan labeled LeT â€œthe best group in Kashmirâ€ and
noted that â€œit would

be really sad if they had left the path of jihad.â€71 Khan visited
members of the Canadian

cell at the same time as Ahmed and Sadequee72 and helped Jahmaal James
attend an

LeT training camp in Pakistan.73 Khan was arrested at Manchester
Airport in England in

June 2006 after returning from Pakistan.74

Examining this case and others like it, authorities have expressed deep
concern about

the impact of the Internet on terrorist recruitment. In a May 2006
speech, Jack Hooper,

Deputy Director of Operations for the Canadian Security Intelligence
Service, observed

that the World Wide Web â€œis used increasingly as a multi-faceted tool
for

communications, recruitment, proselytizing and the transfer of
techniques.â€75 And in a

June 2006 speech, FBI Director Robert Mueller commented:

â€œRadical fundamentalists are particularly difficult to pinpoint in

cyberspace. There are between 5,000 to 6,000 extremist websites on the

Internet, encouraging extremists to initiate their own radicalization
and to

cultivate relationships with other like-minded persons. Although we
have

65 http://209.51.152.42/~aqcorpo/pages, April 9, 2005.

66 â€œMan Admits Using Internet to Urge Jihad,â€ The Guardian, July 4,
2007.

67 Sean Oâ€™Neill, â€œTerrorist 007 â€˜was Internet Propagandist for
al-Qaeda,â€™â€ The Times of London,

April 26, 2007.

68 U.S. v. Ahmed, (N.D. GA.), No. 1:06-CR-147-CC, Indictment, Filed
July 19, 2006.

69 Stewart Bell, â€œU.S. Prosecutors Link Alleged Terror Cell to
al-Qaeda,â€ National Post, July 20,

2006.

70 Stewart Bell, â€œAn Exclusive Report: Training Ground,â€ National
Post, September 2, 2006.

71 Stewart Bell, â€œWeb Forum Linked Cells,â€ National Post, June 15,
2006.

72 Stewart Bell and Joseph Brean, â€œBritish Arrest May Have Toronto
Link,â€ National Post, June 8,

2006.

73 Stewart Bell, â€œHoly Warriors or Just Holy?â€ National Post,
September 6, 2006.

74 Kate Jaimet, â€œBritish Connection in Terror Plot,â€ The Ottawa
Citizen, June 8, 2006.

75 Statement by Jack Hooper, Deputy Director Operations Canadian
Security Intelligence Service

to the Senate Committee on National Security and Defense, May 29, 2006,
http://www.csisscrs.

gc.ca/en/newsroom/speeches/speech29052006.asp.

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destroyed many terrorist training camps in the past five years,
extremists

increasingly turn to the Internet for virtual instruction. Of course,
not

every extremist will become a terrorist. But the radicalization process
has

become more rapid, more widespread, and anonymous in this Internet

age, making detection that much more difficult.â€76

Additional Information â€“ Tsouliâ€™s Contacts with a Bosnian-Based

Terror Cell

Younis Tsouli provided assistance, including funds and an instructional
video on making

a bomb vest, 77 to members of a Bosnian-based terror cell convicted in
January 2007.78 A

Bosnian indictment alleged that the cell, which was composed of a
Swedish citizen, a

Turkish national, and three Bosnians, planned â€œto commit a terrorist
act inâ€¦Bosnia and

Herzegovina or some other European countryâ€ to force the withdrawal
of â€œforces from

Iraq and Afghanistan.â€79

According to that indictment, when Bosnian authorities raided an
apartment where

some of the cell members were staying, they discovered a pistol with a
silencer,

ammunition, a â€œvideo recording displaying how to make an improvised
explosive

device,â€ and an audiotape containing the following message: â€œThese
brothers are ready

to attack and inshallah, they will attack Al-Qufar who are killing our
brothers and

Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan, Shishahn and many other countries. These
weapons are

going to be used against Europe, against those whose forces are in Iraq
and in

Afghanistan.â€ 80 Cell members also acquired at least twenty kilograms
of explosives,

which two of the men â€œpartially cut, shaped and prepared for
theâ€¦suicide belt.â€ 81 While

investigators never explicitly identified a target, media reports
speculated the target may

have been the British Embassy in Sarajevo.82

A key figure in the Bosnian cell was Swedish citizen Mirsad Bektasevic,
who used the

Internet name â€œMaximusâ€ and whose voice â€œmore than rather
likelyâ€ was on the tape

threatening attacks.83 Bektasevic reportedly served as an online
recruiter for the Iraqi

jihad84 and communicated via email with Tsouli and his British
co-conspirators.85 Further,

76 Remarks Prepared for Delivery by Director Robert S. Mueller, III,
Federal Bureau of Investigation,

The City Club of Cleveland, June 23, 2006,

http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/speeches/mueller062306.htm.

77 Sebastian Rotella, â€œA World Wide Web of Terrorist Plotting,â€ The
Los Angeles Times, April 16,

2007.

78 â€œBosnia Jails 4 in Plot to Blow up European Landmark,â€ CBC News,
January 11, 2007.

79 Indictment against Mirsad Bektasevic, et al., Prosecutorâ€™s Office
of Bosnia and Herzegovina,

Sarajevo, No. KT-392/05, April 6, 2006.

80 Indictment against Mirsad Bektasevic, et al., Prosecutorâ€™s Office
of Bosnia and Herzegovina,

Sarajevo, No. KT-392/05, April 6, 2006.

81 Indictment against Mirsad Bektasevic, et al., Prosecutorâ€™s Office
of Bosnia and Herzegovina,

Sarajevo, No. KT-392/05, April 6, 2006.

82 Daniel McGrory, â€œBritish Computer Whiz-Kid Exports Terror Via
Internet,â€ The Times of London,

June 7, 2006.

83 Indictment against Mirsad Bektasevic, et al., Prosecutorâ€™s Office
of Bosnia and Herzegovina,

Sarajevo, No. KT-392/05, April 6, 2006.

84 Anton La Guardia, â€œArrests Reveal Zarqawi Network in Europe,â€
The Guardian, December 22,

2005.

85 Mark Hosenball, â€œOnline Face of Terror,â€ Newsweek, June 12,
2006.

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the Bosnian indictment notes that both Tsouli and Waseem Mughal â€œwere
in possession

of a Swedish telephone numberâ€¦and Bosnian telephone numberâ€¦used
byâ€ Bektasevic.86

Bekatasevic, who spent time living in Copenhagen,87 was also in contact
with a cell in

Denmark that was dismantled in the wake of the Bosnia arrests.88
Following the arrests,

Danish police spokesman commented, â€œWe had a very short period to
investigate but

our information indicated that their action was imminent.â€ 89 In
February 2007, Abdul

Basit Abu-Lifa was sentenced to seven years in Danish prison for his
involvement in the

Bosnian plot; three of his co-defendants were convicted by a jury but a
three-judge panel

overturned the decision.90 Bekatasevicâ€™s indictment references a
conversation between

Bekatasevic and Abdul Basit about procuring a bomb belt, in which
Bekatasevic said, â€œtry

to see if we can get more money, because Iâ€¦found some really good
stuffâ€¦â€91

While the Canadian and Atlanta cells have not explicitly been tied to
the Bosnian group

in open sources, The Los Angeles Times reports that the Bosnian cell
â€œwas in contact

with suspects inâ€¦North America.â€92

Additional Information â€“ Financing Terror Through Crime

According to the Crown Prosecution Service, Tsouli and his
co-conspirators bought the

web sites they administered â€œusing stolen identities and credit card
details.â€93 In fact, an

extensive Washington Post article reveals that Tariq al-Daourâ€™s
computer contained

nearly 37,000 stolen credit card numbers, which were procured using
Trojan horses and

phishing scams. Using those numbers, al-Daour and his associates
charged more than

$3.5 million in purchases; some of those purchases included hundreds of
prepaid cell

phones and over 250 plane tickets.94 Al-Daour also used 43 online
gambling websites,

including BetonBet.com, AbsolutePoker.com, and ParadisePoker.com, to
launder

money.95

As authorities have clamped down on traditional financing pipelines,
such as charitable

front groups, and as terrorist networks have grown more and more
decentralized,

86 Indictment against Mirsad Bektasevic, et al., Prosecutorâ€™s Office
of Bosnia and Herzegovina,

Sarajevo, No. KT-392/05, April 6, 2006.

87 While in Copenhagen in 2005, Bektasevic and his Danish associates
made a video in which

they identified themselves as â€œAl Qaeda in Northern Europe.â€ Younis
Tsouli allegedly designed a

logo featured in that video. See: Sebastian Rotella, â€œA World Wide
Web of Terrorist Plotting,â€ The

Los Angeles Times, April 16, 2007.

88 â€œDanish Terror Suspects Linked to Bosnian Arrests,â€ Associated
Press, October 28, 2005.

89 â€œDanish Terror Suspects Linked to Bosnian Arrests,â€ Associated
Press, October 28, 2005.

90 Jan Olsen, â€œDanish Teenager Sentenced to 7 Years in Bosnia-Linked
Terror Plot,â€ Associated

Press, February 16, 2007.

91 Indictment against Mirsad Bektasevic, et al., Prosecutorâ€™s Office
of Bosnia and Herzegovina,

Sarajevo, No. KT-392/05, April 6, 2006.

92 Sebastian Rotella, â€œA World Wide Web of Terrorist Plotting,â€ The
Los Angeles Times, April 16,

2007.

93 â€œThree Men Admit Using Internet to Incite Terrorism in First
British Case,â€ Crown Prosecution

Service Press Release, July 5, 2007,
http://www.cps.gov.uk/news/pressreleases/137_07.html.

94 Brian Krebs, â€œTerrorismâ€™s Hook Into Your Inbox,â€ The
Washington Post, July 5, 2007. Note: The

Post further notes, â€œal-Daour and Mughal compiled shopping lists for
items that fellow jihadists

might need for their battle against the American and allied forces in
Iraq, including global

positioning satellite (GPS) devices, night-vision goggles, sleeping
bags, telephones, survival knives

and tents.â€

95 Brian Krebs, â€œTerrorismâ€™s Hook Into Your Inbox,â€ The
Washington Post, July 5, 2007.

â€œIrhaby007â€™s American Connectionsâ€

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terrorists have increasingly turned to criminal activities to finance
their operations locally.

Throughout the world, Al Qaeda,96 Hamas, and Hezbollah operatives have
involved

themselves in an array of criminal enterprises, including
counterfeiting, drug dealing,

cigarette smuggling, credit card fraud, auto theft, and kidnapping.

According to press reports, terrorist involvement in criminal activity
has been

greatly facilitated by increased cooperation with organized criminal
networks. As Robert

Charles, formerly the State Departmentâ€™s Assistant Secretary of State
for International

Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) under Secretaries Colin
Powell and

Condoleezza Rice, assessed, â€œtransnational crime is converging with
the terrorist

world.â€97 The head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime,
Antonio Maria

Costa, has echoed Charlesâ€™ analysis, noting â€œthe world is seeing
the birth of a new hybrid

of organized-crime-terrorist organizations.â€98 In the years to come,
the crime-terror nexus

will likely be further strengthened due to the spread of radical Islam
in prison.

Although criminality is outlawed under Islamic law, the Al Qaeda manual
advises that

â€œnecessity permits the forbidden.â€99 Reflecting this theory, when
Jemaah Islamiyah (JI)

operatives questioned whether hacking into foreignersâ€™ bank accounts
was acceptable

in Islam, JI leader Abu Bakr Bashir reportedly responded, â€œ[if] you
can take their blood;

then why not take their property?â€100

Additional Information â€“ Terrorist Exploitation of Paintball &

Outdoor Training

As noted above, the Ahmed indictment alleges that Ahmed, Sadequee, and
another

individual â€œengaged in physical and rudimentary training, including
activities with

paintball guns, in Northwestern Georgia.â€101 Significantly, members
of the Canadian cell

with whom Ahmed/Sadequee had contact trained with paintball guns and
live

ammunition at a remote woodlands site in Washago, Canada during a
ten-day â€œwinter

survivalâ€ exercise.102

Terrorists have demonstrated a strong affinity for paintball in recent
years. For example,

throughout 2001, a Northern Virginia-based cell affiliated with LeT
regularly played

paintball in Spotsylvania County, Virginia. A court ruling in the case
notes that the men

used â€œpaintball as a vehicle for jihadâ€ and in â€œpreparation for
real combat;â€ further, â€œto

improve their paintball skills, the group asked those with military
experienceâ€¦to lead

drills.â€103 Similarly, members of a Miami cell, indicted in June
2006104 for plotting to wage

96 In February 2002, Dennis Lormel, Chief of the FBIâ€™s Financial
Crimes Section, testified before

Congress that â€œAl Qaeda has been known to encourage and instruct
terrorist cells in terrorist

training camps in Afghanistan in ways they can fund their terrorist
activities through various

criminal activity.â€ See: Statement of Dennis Lormel, Chief, Financial
Crimes Section, Federal Bureau

of Investigation, Before the House Committee on Financial Services,
Subcommittee on Oversight

and Investigations, February 12, 2002,

http://www.fbi.gov/congress/congress02/lormel021202.htm.

97 David Kaplan, â€œPaying for Terror,â€ U.S News and World Report,
November 27, 2005.

98 David Kaplan, â€œPaying for Terror,â€ U.S. News and World Report,
November 27, 2005.

99 â€œThe Al Qaeda Manual,â€ http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/manualpart1_1.pdf
and

http://web.archive.org/web/20040726172407/www.justice.gov/ag/manualpart1_3.pdf.

100 David Kaplan, â€œPaying for Terror,â€ U.S. News and World Report,
November 27, 2005.

101 U.S. v. Ahmed, (N.D. GA.), No. 1:06-CR-147-CC, Indictment, Filed
July 19, 2006.

102 Jackie Bennion, â€œThe Radical Informant,â€ PBS, January 30, 2007.

103 U.S. v. Khan, (E.D. VA.), No. 03-296-A, Memorandum Opinion, Filed
March 4, 2004.

â€œIrhaby007â€™s American Connectionsâ€

www.nefafoundation.org â€“ info@nefafoundation.org 12

â€œâ€˜jihad,â€™ against the United States government,â€ 105 trained by
playing paintball, even

using an American flag for target practice.106 And, according to the
BBC, investigators

determined that 7/7 suicide bomber Mohammad Sidique Khan regularly
played paintball

with a group of radical associates â€œimmediately after watching
extremely violent videos

depicting Muslim suffering around the world.â€107

Reflecting this trend, the official British government report on the
7/7 bombings states,

â€œCamping, canoeing, white-water rafting, paintballing and other
outward

bound type activities are of particular interest because they appear

common factors for the 7 July bombers and other cells disrupted

previously and sinceâ€¦ It is worth noting that for some extremist
activities â€“

e.g. fighting overseas â€“ physical fitness and resilience are
essential. They

[such trips] may also be used to help with bonding between members of

cells already established, or for more direct indoctrination or
operational

training and planning.â€108

Additional Information â€“ Other Plots Targeting Military

Facilities in the U.S.

As noted above, during interviews with FBI agents, Ahmed admitted that
while in

Canada meeting with his co-conspirators, the men â€œdiscussed strategic
locations in the

United States suitable for a terrorist strike, to includeâ€¦military
bases.â€109 The indictment

notes that after returning from Canada, Ahmed and Sadequee specifically
talked about

â€œthe possibility of attacking Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Marietta,
Georgia.â€110

Since 9/11, other indicted terrorists have considered launching attacks
against military

facilities in the U.S. In May 2007, authorities indicted six men who
were allegedly plotting

to attack the Fort Dix Army base in New Jersey. A court filing states
that one of the

suspects â€œexplained that they could utilize six or seven jihadists to
attack and kill at least

one hundred soldiers by using rocket-propelled grenades (â€œRPGsâ€) or
other weapons.â€ In

a separate conversation, the same suspect declared, â€œmy intent is to
hit a heavy

concentration of soldiersâ€¦â€ The men considered Fort Dix an
appealing target because

one of the suspects, Serdar Tartar, used to deliver pizzas there and
thus knew â€œit like the

palm of his hand.â€111

Court filings allege that the group also conducted surveillance of Fort
Monmouth (N.J.),

Lakehurst Naval Station (N.J.), Dover Air Force Base (DE), and the U.S.
Coast Guard

104 U.S. v. Batiste, (S.D. FL.), 06-CR-20373, Indictment, Filed June
23, 2006.

105 U.S. v. Batiste, (S.D. FL.), 06-CR-20373, Governmentâ€™s Motion for
Pretrial Detention, Filed June

29, 2006.

106 â€œFeds: Miami Terror Cell Practiced with Paintball,â€ Associated
Press, July 6, 2007.

107 â€œ7 July Bomberâ€™s Motives Examined,â€ BBC, November 17, 2005.

108 â€œReport of the Official Account of the Bombings in London on 7th
July 2005,â€ House of

Commons, May 11, 2006.

109 U.S. v. Sadequee, (E.D. N.Y.), No. M-06-335, Affidavit of FBI
Special Agent Michael Scherck in

Support of Arrest Warrant, Filed March 28, 2006.

110 U.S. v. Ahmed, (N.D. GA.), No. 1:06-CR-147-CC, Indictment, Filed
July 19, 2006.

111 U.S. v. Duka, (District of N.J.), No. 07-M-2046(JS), Criminal
Complaint, Filed May 7, 2007.

â€œIrhaby007â€™s American Connectionsâ€

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Building in Philadelphia. The men even discussed attacking the
Army-Navy football game

and American warships that were docking in the Port of Philadelphia.112

And, on August 31, 2005, federal prosecutors indicted four California
men on an array of

charges, including conspiring to levy war against the U.S. government.
113 An FBI

affidavit filed in the case cites an interview with one of the indicted
individuals who said

that â€œthe first group of targets consideredâ€¦were military
recruitment offices in the

southern California area. The plan was to attack approximately 10
recruitment offices for

which they estimated 30 to 40 casualties.â€114

The FBI affidavit cites an interview with another of the indicted
individuals in which he

laid out details of the planned attack:

â€œSamana said that the plan was for co-conspirator #1 to enter the
military

location selected as the first target, followed by co-conspirator #2
and

Samana. All three participants would then begin shooting the people in

the military location. The plan was not to become martyrs during this

attack, but rather to attack and then flee in a car they drove to the

location. Co-conspirator #1 told Samana that they would be â€˜quietâ€™
about

the attack while they planned their next action. In other words, the
group

not claim credit for the attack.â€ 115

In preparation for the attack, members of the group conducted
surveillance of U.S.

military facilities in the Los Angeles area.116

112 U.S. v. Duka, (District of N.J.), No. 07-M-2046(JS), Criminal
Complaint, Filed May 7, 2007.

113 U.S. v. James, (C.D. CA.), No. 05-CR-214, Indictment, Filed August
31, 2005.

114 U.S. v. Samana, (C.D. CA.), No. 05-16662M, Affidavit of FBI Special
Agent James Clinton Judd,

Filed August 2, 2005.

115 U.S. v. Samana, (C.D. CA.), No. 05-16662M, Affidavit of FBI Special
Agent James Clinton Judd,

Filed August 2, 2005.

116 U.S. v. James, (C.D. CA.), No. 05-CR-214, Indictment, Filed August
31, 2005.

_____

From: Kuperberg, Benjamin
Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2007 7:54 AM
Subject: NEFA Report - IRHABI007’s connections to US and Canada (Osage)

http://www.nefafoundation.org/miscellaneous/Irhaby007_AmericanConnections.pdf

Benjamin Kuperberg

Analyst

mailto:benjamin_kuperberg@sra.com benjamin_kuperberg@sra.com

SRA International, Inc.
The ORION Center
8280 Willow Oaks Corporate Dr.

Fairfax, VA 22031

703.652.8714 Phone

703.652.6901 Fax

2,076 posted on 09/29/2007 11:16:04 AM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (This is "Be an Angel Day", do something nice for someone today.)

To: All; FARS; Founding Father; DAVEY CROCKETT; milford421; Velveeta; LibertyRocks

NEFA Report - IRHABI007’s connections to US and Canada (Osage)<<<

Post 2076 is a collection/file of the 007 terrorist plans and actions, it is long and interesting.

2,077 posted on 09/29/2007 11:21:08 AM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (This is "Be an Angel Day", do something nice for someone today.)

To: All; FARS; milford421; DAVEY CROCKETT; Founding Father; Velveeta

I am sure that you all heard how President Bush could have avoided the Iraq war, that Saddam asked to be allowed to leave, I heard it several times yesterday on the news.

This link takes you to a real translation of the document that the information was in.............how interesting that Saddam would have escaped with one billion dollars and his WMD..............

This is worth reading, it is amazing what 3 letters of the alphabet can mean “WMD”.............

http://wwwwakeupamericans-spree.blogspot.com/2007/09/ooooops-sorry-wrong-translation.html

2,078 posted on 09/29/2007 11:52:02 AM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (This is "Be an Angel Day", do something nice for someone today.)

To: All; FARS; Founding Father; milford421; DAVEY CROCKETT

[I am listening to this, now....there are replays on several interesting programs also on this page...granny.]

Date / Time: 9/28/2007 12:00 PM
Duane Patterson and the Week in Review!

Duane “Generalissimo” Patterson joins me for the week in review, our traditional Friday fare. What will we cover? I’ll probably talk about Newt Gingrich’s Solutions Day, as well as the various free-speech arguments over Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech at Columbia and Lynne Stewart’s participation on the Hofstra panel on legal ethics. We’ll definitely talk about Burma, and I’ll ask Duane why LA jurors can’t close the deal on celebrity criminals. As always, Duane will brief us on the upcoming Hugh He

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/hrr

Heading Right Radio
Ed Morrissey from Captain’s Quarters discusses national politics, foreign policy, and current events. Be sure to join in the discussion!
Posts

UPCOMING SHOW: 10/1/2007 6:00 PM

Heading Right Radio with Ed Morrissey

Ed Morrissey

Date / Time: 10/1/2007 6:00 PM

Category: Politics Conservative

Special time for special news!

2,079 posted on 09/29/2007 12:17:29 PM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (This is "Be an Angel Day", do something nice for someone today.)

To: All; FARS; milford421; Founding Father

http://cernigsnewshog.blogspot.com/2007/09/iran-can-play-rush-to-war-too.html

Saturday, September 29, 2007
Iran Can Play “Rush To War” Too

By Cernig

Doubtless egged on by their own equally-crazed versions of Kyl and Lieberman, Iran’s parliament has passed a non-binding resolution of its own:

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran’s parliament on Saturday approved a nonbinding resolution labeling the CIA and the U.S. Army ``terrorist organizations,’’ in apparent response to a Senate resolution seeking to give a similar designation to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The hard-line dominated parliament cited U.S. involvement in dropping nuclear bombs in Japan in World War II, using depleted uranium munitions in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq, supporting the killings of Palestinians by Israel, bombing and killing Iraqi civilians, and torturing terror suspects in prisons.

``The aggressor U.S. Army and the Central Intelligence Agency are terrorists and also nurture terror,’’ said a statement by the 215 lawmakers who signed the resolution at an open session of the Iranian parliament. The session was broadcast live on state-run radio.

The resolution, which is seen as a diplomatic offensive against the U.S., urges Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government to treat the two as terrorist organizations. It also paves the way for the resolution to become legislation that - if ratified by the country’s hardline constitutional watchdog - would become law. The government is expected to wait for U.S. reaction before making its decision.

They could have added in the Iran/Contra debacle, death squads in South America, repeated fomenting of coups in foreign nations, warrantless surveillance on their own countrymen, detention and rendition in contravention of the Geneva Conventions and even arming terror groups such as the MeK and PKK. On the evidence alone, there’s as much justification for the Iranian resolution as the American one.

However, the arguments against passing such resolutions - that designating a branch of a foreign government or armed service in such a way is unsupported by international law and is simply flagrant posturing at best but dangerous warmongering at worst - still hold. I’m as opposed to this move as I was to the U.S. one. Yet it is indicative that Iran’s hardliners are as certain that they will come out top from any conflict as America’s hardliners are sure of their own victory. Indeed, independent experts have assessed that the Iranians are quite possibly correct. Which should give the rest of us pause to think before enabling any more of the same kind of tit-for-tat rhetoric.
Submit to BuzzFlash Buzz it

Posted by Cernig at 9/29/2007 11:27:00 AM

2,080 posted on 09/29/2007 12:33:25 PM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (This is "Be an Angel Day", do something nice for someone today.)

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