Posted on 10/15/2002 5:28:57 PM PDT by RCW2001
The deadly bomb attacks in Indonesia were likely carried out by locally-based sympathisers of al Qaeda terrorist group acting after a taped message broadcast from Osama bin Laden's deputy, expert believed.
A tape played on the Qatar-based Al Jazeera television last week from Ayman al Zawahiri and later authenticated by the Americans seemed to have triggered the recent wave of attacks. According to the British Daily Telegraph, that has suggested to Western experts that al-Qaeda has now devolved the timing and possibly the targeting of terrorist attacks to its cells in the field.
In the message, Zawahiri sought to inspire Islamic extremists by citing the American campaign to remove Saddam Hussein. "The campaign against Iraq has an objective that is far beyond Iraq to reach the Arab and Islamic world," he stated.
Officials in Washington said his message appeared to be an attempt to justify and incite renewed violence against US targets. The day after the Zawahiri broadcast last Monday, the anniversary of the first raids of the US offensive in Afghanistan, two al-Qaeda gunmen launched a suicide attack against 1,000 US marines exercising on an island off the Kuwaiti coast. One US soldier was killed and another one was wounded in this clash.
On Saturday, the Bali attack took place. Andrew Tan, a researcher at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies in Singapore told the newspaper: "This attack coincides with reports that al-Qaeda has decentralised to leave local radical groups to take on the Americans. Given the current situation within al-Qaeda, this seems to be their modus operandi. It may well be that local radicals have decided to take advantage of the situation."
Asian and American terror experts said that last week's recording - and another attributed to bin Laden - suggest a broad approval for attacks that leave the specific timing of strikes to al-Qaeda cells in the field.
Terror experts, including Yossef Bodansky, of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism in Washington, said that the effect of the new al-Qaeda messages had been to spark several attacks against US and Western interests abroad. The FBI is concerned that new attacks may stem from the tape recordings, the British newspaper added.
Meanwhile, a signed statement allegedly from Osama bin Laden claimed Monday that recent attacks in Yemen and Kuwait were designed to coincide with the anniversary of the war in Afghanistan (and to send a "clear and strong message" to the world that his al-Qaeda network is still active.
The statement was faxed to the Al-Jazeera network and posted on an Islamic Web site. There was no way to authenticate the statement.
Monday's statement accused the United States of occupying Afghanistan and planning a war in Iraq in order to conquer the Muslim world. It praised two Kuwaitis who opened fire on U.S. Marines as brothers-in-arms with the Sept. 11 hijackers.
"The heroic Kuwait operation proved the extent of the danger that confronts American soldiers wherever they go in the Islamic world," the statement read. "America is getting ready for a new round of its crusade against the Islamic world, this time ... against the Muslim Iraqi people, aiming at completing its plan to divide the Islamic nation and tear it apart, looting its wealth, and preparing for establishing the state of greater Israel after expelling the Palestinians." (Albawaba.com)
Perhaps its time to unpower the terrorists communication facility. Too bad Joe Davis didn't go over there with Bonoirs and that other creep.
I know that I've heard that name before.
Perhaps McDermott Arnold? Benedict McDermott? hmmmmm.... I just can't place it.
Great minds think alike! :-)
I was thinking that station ought to have an "accident", or the communications tower could "fall down".
I'm so pissed off.
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