Posted on 10/13/2001 8:37:10 PM PDT by vannrox
SECRETLY recorded tapes have revealed plans by followers of Osama Bin Laden for a chemical weapon attack in Europe using a poisonous invisible gas that security sources say was cyanide. A gang of terrorists active in Britain, Germany and Italy plotted to use tins of tomatoes to transport "a liquid that suffocates people". The plan was foiled after a Libyan at the centre of the plot was arrested in Munich on Wednesday. The evidence is the first that Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda organisation was preparing to use weapons of mass destruction. The tapes were made by Italian anti-terrorist police, who bugged an apartment outside Milan that the gang thought was a safe house. The suspects discussed getting 10 litres of the poison, enough to kill thousands if released indoors. One theory is that the group planned to spread the poison in an American government building in London or Rome. A witness who trained in one of Bin Laden's camps said he was instructed how to put cyanide in a building's ventilation system. The tins of tomatoes could have been used to transport cyanide crystals before they were dissolved into a liquid, which could then be dispersed through the ventilation ducts. If large quantities were available, the vapour produced could kill many occupants of a building within 10 minutes. The transcripts are part of evidence compiled by Stefano Dambruoso, an Italian prosecutor, against five suspected members of the Salafist Group for Faith and Combat, a militant offshoot of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), backed by Bin Laden. The five are in custody in Milan. At least two had links to Britain. Last Friday the US Treasury named the Islamic Cultural Institute in Milan, to which cell members were linked, as "the most important base of Al-Qaeda in Europe". It said the institute was used by Bin Laden's organisation "as a station from which weapons, men and money travel the whole world". The clandestine recordings were made in March and April, when gang members were becoming impatient to receive instructions from Bin Laden and to be told the target. They also reveal claims that female followers of Bin Laden were being trained as potential suicide attackers. The most chilling conversations took place between Ben Heni Mohamed Lased, a 32-year-old Libyan arrested in Munich last week, and Essid Sami Ben Khemais, 31, a Tunisian, believed to be the leader of the Italian cell, who was arrested in Milan in April. Khemais is believed to have met Mohammed Atta, one of the 19 hijackers behind the American attacks. Khemais and Lased spent a week in an apartment near Milan to plan terrorist atrocities, unaware it was bugged. Lased is heard trying to teach Khemais to conceal a bomb in a personal cassette player, to which Khemais responds by asking about chemical weapons: "I'd like to learn how to use the medicine, I'd like to see what effect it has when someone breathes it in. The Libyan has the formula; he's a chemistry professor." Another activist said: "What's going on - you are putting down your guns and taking up industrial products?" Lased replied: "There's a liquid which is extremely efficient because it suffocates people. Do you want to try it?" The other man said: "Yes, why not. A few barrels." In another conversation, Khemais urges Lased to get in touch with "the sheikh", believed to be Bin Laden, about recruiting attackers. "Talk to the sheikh. I need two people who I have already got in mind, the Libyan and the Kurd from London. What I need is not an army but two people who have got a brain, training and nothing to lose or to gain. They spread the gas and say goodbye. I only need a barrel of 10 litres and a few documents. God is with us." On the evening of March 9, Lased confided: "Believe me, the sheikh is planning something. He has an objective and he wants to realise it, just like he has achieved all his desires. It's not a little thing." Predicting the success of Bin Laden's terror campaign, Lased said: "God loves us because Europe is now in our hands. Now we are emigrant fighters, that's the task we've got to carry out with honour. We have to be like snakes. We have to fight and then hide." Lased also explains how to reach Bin Laden's training camps by obtaining a visa from Iran's London embassy, ostensibly for visiting Mecca. "In Iran there is an organisation which helps mujaheddin brothers to cross the border. There's total collaboration with the Iranians," he said. Khemais talked about trips to Afghanistan during which he saw Bin Laden's weapons, including captured US cruise missiles launched against the camps in 1998 but which failed to explode. "The Americans are probably convinced that bombing the sheikh's training camps was a victory, but the truth is it was a defeat. Most of the weapons didn't even explode and they have enriched the sheikh's arsenal," he claimed. |
I am shocked! This can't be so! Not the religion of peace! < /sarcsm >
Note that mosques and "cultural centers" in New Jersey and Brooklyn are at the center of today's FBI investigation, and that 3 of the 9-11 hijackers lived for a year in the home of the founder of the San Diego Islamic Center. (But he "didn't know nuttin'")
More and more, Islam seems like a great cover for bald faced aggression and terror. Muslim irridentism and imperialism.
Just strap that sarin onto the proper explosive and have it diperse in a crowded subway station. How about 10 stations simultaneously? No one will get on the subways for weeks. That ought to tank an economy.
Not to mention the many dead and permanently disabled.
What do you (and you all) actually make of these "white powder" attacks? Do you think they are centrally directed? Do you think they are supposed to all contain anthrax but have mostly become nonviable through incompetence and poor planning?
I think they are being carried out by agents in place who are now almost certainly cut off from raghead central. I don't think Al-Qaida (or maybe anyone) has a viable delivery system for broadcasting viable weaponized anthrax spores.
And I think they can do much more damage with AK-47s and dynamite, which makes me think they will switch soon, especially when it's clear that Big Daddy is in a world of hurt over in Nowherestan.
Mission accomplished - they ARE snakes.
So do I, if they wanted to actually kill a mass if people. They don't want to do that yet. I say yet, because they will attack again, and in a massive way against civilians. But they will not attack where they know there will be resistence. They will attack populated areas that have low security.
I would stay away from large malls that are not in large cities, but close enough. I would stay away from events that are telivised live (sporting events), I would continue with your everyday activities. If you BB-Q on sunday, then do it! If you go to the beach, lake, mow the grass, do it. If you go to every NASCAR event, then damn it, do it!
Not comfortable going out, then don't. When you are, then go out. Listen to yourself. 99% of the time you will be wrong but that 1 time you are right, you were right.
I would rather hug my kids for years to come then never hug them again.
I am not saying be afraid to go out. Let your kids live, and enjoy all of those things that give kids life. They have life in every moment. It is up to us to see it.
Seeing my son laying in the yard looking at the clouds is better than making sure he is safe in the crush after a baseball game.
I think they are being carried out by agents in place who are now almost certainly cut off from raghead central. I don't think Al-Qaida (or maybe anyone) has a viable delivery system for broadcasting viable weaponized anthrax spores.
And I think they can do much more damage with AK-47s and dynamite, which makes me think they will switch soon, especially when it's clear that Big Daddy is in a world of hurt over in Nowherestan.
Bio weapons are the ideal terrorist weapon, with a reaction from the target population far exceding the weapon's actual impact. This has been true since the Black Death of the middle ages.
I am sure this was a planned follow up to the Atrocity and is probably having far less effect than they had hoped. I am also sure, that they were far more lucky at the WTC, than they imagined. That the twin towers pancaked, undoubtedly surprised them as much as it did us.
I expect 2 more styles of attack. First, the use of a tanker truck most likely liquified natural gas. The Russians use this in their air fuel weapons. High-jacking one of these outside of a refinery, would be easy. Second, I think they will try a chemical attack, phosgene I think, inside a mall. Beyond those I can't imagine. I think OBL expects us to retreat everywhere. He really doesn't understand us. He expects us to do another Lebenon or Somalia. But we were just trying to help others, in those places, unlike now when we are threatened.
Very good point, just because the cultures come up negative doesn't mean there weren't spores put into the envelopes. I too will not fly and I will not take my kids or myself to crowded places, I know the government wants us to go about like nothing is happening, but meanwhile they leave the foreign enemies here with complete access to everything in this country. They are a complete threat as long as they are here, they don't need to be here, many are not even here legally but they continue to allow them to be here.
Cyanide does not need to be delivered as a gas to be effective. It has been used that was in military applications because of the battle field environment. Civilian populations are much greater risk of exposure from other methods of delivery.
Exactly. For those who like to be daring or take risks, they can fly and go to crowded places, they can let themselves be strip-searched before getting on an airplane if they like that kind of thing. The government chooses not to deport these people who are danger to us all as long as they are here living in this country. Eventually I believe they will deport them but not until some high-profile people are killed first. Maybe when some Hollywood celebrity or famous news anchor is one of the victims.
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