Posted on 12/17/2006 4:03:30 PM PST by DAVEY CROCKETT
VEVAK learned its methodology from the Soviet KGB and many of the Islamist revolutionaries who supported Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini actually studied at Moscow's Patrice Lumumba Friendship University, the Oxford of terrorism. Documented Iranian alumni include the current Supreme Leader (the faqih) Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, under whose Velayat-e Faqih (Rule of the Islamic Jurisprudent) apparatus it has traditionally operated. Its current head is Cabinet Minister Hojatoleslam Gholam-Hussein Mohseni-Ezhei, a graduate of Qom's Haqqani School, noted for its extremist position advocating violence against enemies and strict clerical control of society and government. The Ministry is very well funded and its charge, like that of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (the Pasdaran) is to guard the revolutionary Islamic Iranian regime at all costs and under all contingencies.
From the KGB playbook, VEVAK learned the art of disinformation. It's not so difficult to learn: tell the truth 80% of the time and lie 20%. Depending on how well a VEVAK agent wants to cover his/her tracks, the ratio may go up to 90/10, but it never drops below the 80/20 mark as such would risk suspicion and possible detection. The regime in Teheran has gone to great lengths to place its agents in locations around the world. Many of these operatives have been educated in the West, including the U.K. and the United States. Iranian government agencies such as embassies, consulates, Islamic cultural centers, and airline offices regularly provide cover for the work of VEVAK agents who dress well and are clean shaven, and move comfortably within our society. In this country, because of the severance of diplomatic relations, the principal site of VEVAK activities begins at the offices of Iran's Permanent Mission to the UN in New York.
Teheran has worked diligently to place its operatives in important think tanks and government agencies in the West. Some of its personnel have been recruited while in prison through torture or more often through bribery, or a combination of both. Others are Islamist revolutionaries that have been set up to look like dissidents - often having been arrested and imprisoned, but released for “medical reasons”. The clue to detecting the fake “dissident” is to read carefully what he/she writes, and to ask why this vocal “dissident” was released from prison when other real dissidents have not been released, indeed have been grievously tortured and executed. Other agents have been placed in this country for over twenty-five years to slowly go through the system and rise to positions of academic prominence due to their knowledge of Farsi and Shia Islam or Islamist fundamentalism.
One of the usual tactics of VEVAK is to co-opt academia to its purposes. Using various forms of bribery, academics are bought to defend the Islamic Republic or slander its enemies. Another method is to assign bright students to train for academic posts as specialists in Iranian or Middle East affairs. Once established, such individuals are often consulted by our government as it tries to get a better idea of how it should deal with Iran. These academics then are in a position to skew the information, suggesting the utility of extended dialogue and negotiation, or the danger and futility of confronting a strong Iran or its proxies such as Hizballah (Hezbollah). These academics serve to shield the regime from an aggressive American or Western policy, and thereby buy more time for the regime to attain its goals, especially in regards to its nuclear weaponry and missile programs.
MOIS likes to use the media, especially electronic media, to its advantage. One of VEVAK's favorite tricks is setting up web sites that look like they are opposition sites but which are actually controlled by the regime. These sites often will be multilingual, including Farsi, German, Arabic French, and English. Some are crafted carefully and are very subtle in how they skew their information (e.g., Iran-Interlink, set up and run by Massoud Khodabandeh and his wife Ann Singleton from Leeds, England); others are less subtle, simply providing the regime's point of view on facts and events in the news (e.g., www.mujahedeen.com or www.mojahedin.ws). This latter group is aimed at the more gullible in our open society and unfortunately such a market exists. However, if one begins to do one's homework, asking careful questions, the material on these fake sites generally does not add up.
Let's examine a few examples of VEVAK's work in the United States. In late October, 2005, VEVAK sent three of its agents to Washington to stage a press event in which the principal Iranian resistance movement, the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MeK), was to be slandered. Veteran VEVAK agent Karim Haqi flew from Amsterdam to Canada where he was joined by VEVAK's Ottawa agents Amir-Hossein Kord Rostami and Mahin (Parvin-Mahrokh) Haji, and the three flew from Toronto to Washington. Fortunately the resistance had been tracking these three, informed the FBI of their presence in Washington, and when the three tried to hold a press conference, the resistance had people assigned to ask pointed questions of them so that they ended the interview prematurely and fled back to Canada.
Abolghasem Bayyenet is a member of the Iranian government. He serves as a trade expert for the Ministry of Commerce. But his background of study and service in the Foreign Ministry indicates that Bayyenet is more than just an economist or a suave and savvy businessman. In an article published in Global Politician on April 23, 2006, entitled “Is Regime Change Possible in Iran?”, Bayyenet leads his audience to think that he is a neutral observer, concerned lest the United States make an error in its assessment of Iran similar to the errors of intelligence and judgment that led to our 2003 invasion of Iraq, with its less than successful outcome. However, his carefully crafted bottom line is that the people of Iran are not going to support regime change and that hardliner President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad actually has achieved greater popularity than his predecessors because of his concern for the problems of the poor and his fight for economic and social justice. To the naive, Bayyenet makes Ahmadinejad sound positively saintly. Conveniently overlooked is the occurrence of over four thousand acts of protest, strikes, anti-regime rallies, riots, and even political assassinations by the people of Iran against the government in the year since Ahmadinejad assumed office. So too, the following facts are ignored: the sizeable flight of capital, the increase in unemployment, and the rising two-figure rate of inflation, all within this last year. Bayyenet is a regime apologist, and when one is familiar with the facts, his arguments ring very hollow. However, his English skills are excellent, and so the naОve might be beguiled by his commentary.
Mohsen Sazegara is VEVAK's “reformed revolutionary”. A student supporter of Khomeini before the 1979 revolution, Sazegara joined the “imam” on his return from exile and served in the government for a decade before supposedly growing disillusioned.
He formed several reformist newspapers but ran afoul of the hardliners in 2003 and was arrested and imprisoned by VEVAK. Following “hunger strikes”, Sazegara was released for health reasons and permitted to seek treatment abroad. Although critical of the government and particularly of Ahmadinejad and KhameneМ, Sazegara is yet more critical of opposition groups, leaving the impression that he favors internal regime change but sees no one to lead such a movement for the foreseeable future. His bottom line: no one is capable of doing what needs to be done, so we must bide our time. Very slick, but his shadow shows his likely remaining ties to the MOIS.
http://www.ocnus.net/artman/publish/article_27144.shtml
http://www.ocnus.net/artman/publish/article_27144.shtml
ping to new thread.......
Found: Saddam's Weapon of Mass Destruction
By Greg Palast 3/12/06
Dec 5, 2006, 10:04
"These are 'dirty' arrows, capable of delivering radioactive material wherever shot," said Snow. While conceding that there was as yet no evidence that Saddam had the capability to 'nuclearize' these warheads, sources close to the Office of Special Plans at the Pentagon stated that, "The purpose of a 'dirty arrow' is not to kill but to spread destructive mass panic." The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, added "Imagine the deadly effect if one of these babies was shot into the goal post at the Super Bowl game during Shakira's half-time show."
Administration defense policy advisor Richard Perle, speaking from the American Enterprise Institute, noted that Saddam clearly had the means to greatly multiply the deadly panic effect of a dirty arrow attack by use of a "war whoop," which Perle demonstrated by repeatedly placing the closed fingers of one hand against his lips while intoning, "whoo-whoo-whoo-whoo."
The discovery of hard evidence of Saddam's dirty arrow program vindicates the claims of Iraqi exile leader Ahmad Chalabi that Saddam had concealed large caches of war paint and battle feathers.
During a scheduled impromptu chat with the press held at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, the President said, "Well, this should put an end to my critics and the nay-sayers and the cutters and runners who said we were fibbing about Saddam's WMDs."
more at link...
http://www.ocnus.net/artman/publish/article_26952.shtml
new ping list
Dark Side Last Updated: Dec 16th, 2006 - 12:36:51
Olaf Dastych: Was My Son Poisoned in England?
By David Dastych 15/12/06
Dec 16, 2006, 12:36
In mid-December, at 04:00 a.m., I received a sudden phone call: “Your son, Olaf, died tonight.” It was a terrible shock. “Could that be real?”, I thought in the first moment, still emerging from a sound sleep. “Maybe this was a bad dream?” But it wasn’t. I called my ex-wife, Kalina, and she burst into tears. “How did it happen?,”I asked her. And she told me about the sudden death of our son, witnessed by Agnes, his fiancée. It took only a few minutes, and an emergency team arrived very soon, but nothing could be done. Olaf died almost at once. How this could happen to a young, active and full of vigor man of 24? Nobody could explain. Doctors claimed it was a very strong infarct, but they were not sure. Agnes told us, he died in her arms. She was deeply shocked, and so we all were.
There was no autopsy made on the body. Olaf’s mother refused it. The funeral was arranged on the fifth day, with a crowd of people attending and Olaf’s friends playing music for him in the funeral house. It was a frosty winter, and a new part of the huge Northern Graveyard in Warsaw, still bare, with almost no trees and bushes, resembled a snow-covered field in Siberia.
Homecoming from Bradford Olaf Dastych graduated with honors from the Warsaw Higher Economic School (SGH) in 1996. A day after his graduation ceremony, he went to England, where he was granted a scholarship for the MBA studies at the Bradford University. This was not his first term abroad, as he had a chance to study in Denmark before. But this time he expected to accomplish much more: a full post-graduate Master of Business Administration course that could open a bright professional career for him in Poland and elsewhere. He worked very hard. Ged Yardy, his friend at Bradford MBA, wrote to me after Olaf’s death: “I think we were one of the best teams on the MBA. Olaf was central to this, his razor-sharp mind demonstrated an intelligence and maturity beyond his years. I’m sure he would have gone on to do great things. He was well liked by all.”
SNIP
Why these enemy forces would hit my son? A defector from the Soviet secret services, whom I had met, warned me that: “They never forget”. There is a real possibility that these enemy elements could have revenged themselves on me, poisoning my son with a non-traceable substance, causing a natural death. All leads point to England as a possible place of the poisoning. And the timing of this attempt on Olaf’s life is also ominous: almost exactly two years after my accident in France, in mid-December 1994.
http://www.ocnus.net/artman/publish/article_27141.shtml
Alexander Litvinenko: "killed for sensitive info on Kremlin boss"
Died from polonium-210 poisoning
A former Russian KGB major says Alexander Litvinenko was killed because he had collected sensitive information on a high-ranking Kremlin official.
by NewsNetNebraska
December 17, 2006
Yuri Shvets, a former Russian spy now based in America says Alexander Litvinenko was killed because he had collected sensitive information on a high-ranking Kremlin official.
Shvets made the revelation in a story published by the Sunday Times in Great Britain and said Litvinenko, a former Russin spy had been doing due diligence work for a British company on the official, who was facilitating a business deal.
Yuri Shvets, a former KGB intelligence officer trained at the KGB Academy in the same class as Russian President Vladimir Putin. Shvets claims Alexander Litvinenko was killed because he had collected sensitive information on a high-ranking Kremlin official. Photo:CI Centre
Shvets believes Litvinenko had put together a damaging eight-page dossier with details on the official which may have ruined a multi-million-dollar deal with the British company.
The claims shed new light on the activities of Litvinenko, who died on November 23 after being poisoned with polonium-210, a radioactive substance.
His death has been the subject of several theories, including claims that he was murdered in a Kremlin plot to silence his criticism of Vladimir Putin’s regime.
Shvets is a former KGB major who now works from Washington, advising businesses on corruption and security in the former Soviet Union.
He has been interviewed by detectives from Scotland Yard. He gave his first full interview last week to his friend Tom Mangold, a journalist, in a programme for BBC Radio 4.
Shvets says Litvinenko came to him for help after a British security company had offered him a $100,000 contract to do due diligence work on five Russian figures.
One of the five, whom Shvets refused to name, is said to be a powerful Kremlin official.
more on the story at link
http://www.newsnetnebraska.org/vnews/display.v/ART/45857d26112f6
Russians remember dead journalists
Russian journalists lit candles today and read a roll-call of more than 200 colleagues who have died violently since the fall of the Soviet Union at a rally heavy with criticism of President Vladimir Putin.
Holding photographs of murdered reporters such as Anna Politkovskaya and Paul Klebnikov, two of 211 journalists killed in Russia in the past 15 years, supporters accused authorities of not doing enough to track down the assassins.
About 250 journalists and supporters rallied in a central Moscow square under writer Alexander Pushkin's statue, hemmed in by hundreds of police.
"When journalists are killed and the authorities do not find their killers it means that the authorities do not want people to know the truth," said Alexei Yablokov, an academic.
"Such a country is going nowhere, has no future and is going towards fascism. That is why I am here: I do not want my Russia to become a fascist country."
"Who ordered the murder of Anna Politkovskaya?" asked one placard. Politkovskaya, a journalist known for her opposition to Kremlin policies on Chechnya, was killed on October 7th outside her central Moscow apartment. Another read: "Anna Politkovskaya - the country's conscience."
The Russian Union of Journalists says 211 journalists have been killed in Russia since 1992. Of those, 109 were killed while former president Boris Yeltsin was in power and 102 have been killed in Putin's six years in power.
Some were killed in car accidents but most were murdered.
http://www.ireland.com:80/newspaper/breaking/2006/1217/breaking44.htm
Russia's New World Order
Buoyed by expensive energy and a booming economy, the Kremlin is once again flexing its muscles abroad — but very carefully
By J.F.O. MCALLISTER
From The Magazine: The Kremlin's Crude Power
Oil Boom: Russia Gets Rich
Russia: Putin's Vision Thing
Sunday, Jul. 02, 2006
There aren't many clubs harder to join than the G-8. You have to be at the top of the global heap: one of the very richest industrialized countries, potent enough to help steer the world's economy. And you're supposed to be a functioning democracy too. So when Vladimir Putin opens this year's G-8 summit next weekend at the sumptuous Palace of Congresses overlooking the sea 15 km from St. Petersburg, the famously stone-faced Russian President can be forgiven a brief flicker of a smile. The former kgb officer in East Germany will be in charge of a gathering to which, by any objective measure, he should not have been invited.
Even now a small army of diplomats is buttoning up the communiqués that will record a bland consensus on three topics Putin has chosen for the first G-8 Russia has ever hosted: energy security — which Moscow itself made controversial in January by cutting off gas supplies to Ukraine after raising the price of the commodity by 400% — and the less contentious areas of education and infectious disease. But the main focus of attention will be Russia itself: a Russia awash in oil money and emboldened by it, becoming less free at home and more assertive abroad, in ways that have increasingly disappointed and worried leaders who used to talk of a "strategic partnership" but now fear, as one scholar recently put it, that "Russia is leaving the West."
The George W. Bush who in 2001 said of Putin that "I looked the man in the eye … I was able to get a sense of his soul" and "found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy," sent Vice President Dick Cheney to Lithuania in May to declare that Russia should stop using its oil and gas supplies to keep customer countries Also on TIMEeurope.com
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The Presnyakov brothers' witty, disturbing plays about
in line, and to complain that Putin's government "has unfairly and improperly restricted the rights of her people." Privately, the other G-8 leaders regret giving Russia the nod four years ago to host this year's gathering. Instead of a carrot to induce improved behavior, the venue has become a spectacular stage for Putin to proclaim his rather different message: Russia is back, and I'm in charge.
That's why the St. Petersburg summit may be more significant than most such gabfests. It will focus the world's attention on two crucial questions: What does Putin's Russia really want? And will that lead to more conflict with other countries, even another cold war?
Churchill's old saw about russia being a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma continues to have force now that the Iron Curtain has long since been pulled back. Moscow's more muscular approach to the world has roots in its domestic politics. And there, a contradictory welter of good and bad developments contend for dominance, giving the Kremlin cause for both expansive confidence and prickly insecurity. The economy is booming. Since 1999, growth averaging more than 6% a year has produced a cumulative expansion of 65%. High oil prices are the main reason. Still, says Roderic Lyne, a former British ambassador to Moscow, "the boom doesn't stem from oil alone. Genuine entrepreneurs have built good businesses in telecom, information technology, retail, brewing, food processing and consumer credit."
A government that was broke under President Boris Yeltsin has had six budget surpluses in a row, just agreed to speed repayment of its foreign debt, and has socked away over $70 billion in a rainy-day fund. More than 6 million Russians a year now take foreign holidays. There are more than 100,000 U.S.-dollar millionaires. It's also true, as Lyne argues, that Russians have rarely been so free. "They are vastly freer than the Chinese. They can live well and have fun. They can read, watch, say what they like and access the Internet." Perhaps unsurprisingly, in polls Putin's approval ratings are high, nearly 70%.
But these positive trends coexist with many signs that Russia is stumbling on the path toward free-market democracy — so much so that some U.S. and European legislators and human-rights groups want to kick it out of the G-8. Russia's postcommunist transition was always going to be slow and erratic, but what worries many experts now is that the direction of travel in many areas is reverse. U.S. pro-democracy organization Freedom House's annual country ratings show a steady decline in Russia's adherence to fair elections, representative government and press freedom. State-controlled companies already run 40% of the economy, and the share is rising — part of a wider pattern of centralizing power in the hands of the President and his closest associates. One result is that the World Economic Forum ranks Russia poorly on corruption: 106th out of 117 countries, for example, in "favoritism in decisions of government officials," and 108th in protection of property rights.
story continues at link
http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/article/0,13005,901060710-1209926,00.html
If Putin has noticed such criticisms, he gives little sign of it. He has turned the Duma, political parties and regional governments into elaborate rubber stamps. "The separation of powers has been dismantled," says Vladimir Ryzhkov, one of the very few independent liberal deputies left in the Duma. "All power belongs to the President and his administration, and 1.3 million federal bureaucrats." People don't go to jail for expressing deviant views anymore (though a bill about to pass through the Duma will soon make that possible), but organized politics have been switched off in favor of direct rule. People can watch and read what they want, but the state apparatus controls all TV news and steers most newspapers. Many nongovernmental organizations (ngos) that might shine a light on official abuses have been curbed; George Soros' Open Society Institute was shut down. These restrictions, which Putin argues were necessary to halt a slide into anarchy, are a big reason why others in the G-8 are critical.
It's a problem that goes deeper than Putin: his approach has won substantial popular support, which means that any successor will likely continue along his path. Buoyed by stability and economic growth at home, Russia under Putin has been able to develop a foreign policy that seeks to re-establish its place as a key actor on the world stage, and which preserves what Russia thinks of as its traditional prerogatives in its immediate neighborhood. A senior Bush Administration official says the main message from the Kremlin is that "Russia's back, back like it hasn't been since the breakup of the Soviet Union." What does that mean for the rest of the world?
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From the Jul. 10, 2006 issue of TIME Europe
This blog has another interesting theory on the Polo 210 affair which if true might necessitate all sorts of cover spin:
http://www.strata-sphere.com/blog/
plane crashes
Mexican Military Plane Crashes Into Sea
Washington Post - United States
AP. MEXICO CITY -- A Mexican military plane crashed into the sea near the resort city of Acapulco on Saturday and rescue teams were searching for its four crew ...
Three dead after plane crashes into lake
KSWO - Lawton,OK,USA
... injuring another. Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Roland Herwig says the plane went down in the lake around 6:47 PM. Herwig ...
See all stories on this topic
Military plane crashes into sea
News24 - South Africa
Mexico City - A Mexican military plane crashed into the sea near the resort city of Acapulco and rescue teams were searching its four crewmembers, said the ...
See all stories on this topic
plane crashes
Mexican Military Plane Crashes Into Sea
Washington Post - United States
AP. MEXICO CITY -- A Mexican military plane crashed into the sea near the resort city of Acapulco on Saturday and rescue teams were searching for its four crew ...
Three dead after plane crashes into lake
KSWO - Lawton,OK,USA
... injuring another. Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Roland Herwig says the plane went down in the lake around 6:47 PM. Herwig ...
See all stories on this topic
Military plane crashes into sea
News24 - South Africa
Mexico City - A Mexican military plane crashed into the sea near the resort city of Acapulco and rescue teams were searching its four crewmembers, said the ...
See all stories on this topic
plane crashes
Mexican Military Plane Crashes Into Sea
Washington Post - United States
AP. MEXICO CITY -- A Mexican military plane crashed into the sea near the resort city of Acapulco on Saturday and rescue teams were searching for its four crew ...
Three dead after plane crashes into lake
KSWO - Lawton,OK,USA
... injuring another. Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Roland Herwig says the plane went down in the lake around 6:47 PM. Herwig ...
See all stories on this topic
Military plane crashes into sea
News24 - South Africa
Mexico City - A Mexican military plane crashed into the sea near the resort city of Acapulco and rescue teams were searching its four crewmembers, said the ...
See all stories on this topic
Great find DC and I am with this opinion...$10 million of polonium-210 to poison him, one person, I think a .22 is less than a dollar?
All I can say is it is about time the media stop obsessing with less and less plausible assassination theories and look at the other alternatives. And I don’t say this to hope for vindication, but because the people of London and the UK need to know which threat they are dealing with. If it is was an assassination attempt it would be over. If it is something else it may just be beginning. That is important information to anyone facing dangerous nuclear materials floating around a major city. The amount of material is VERY important because the more that is being shipped around the more people who must be involved, and the less likely this is an assassination (or cheap to pull off).
Davey has given us a new thread for the world of terror and her first posts, well, they will raise the blood pressure and curl your hair.
Thank you to Davey Crockett.
Ping to a new World of Terror thread #6.
Russia related articles to start, and then to the world for the terror news and history, as we find it.
train derails
Train derails in Qld, two injured
The Age - Melbourne,Victoria,Australia
Two women have been injured when a train carrying about 250 passengers derailed at a Brisbane railway station. Police said the train ...
Several injured as train derails in central Iran
Iran Focus - Iran
17 – At least four people were injured as a passenger train derailed near the central Iranian city of Kashan early on Sunday, state media reported. ...
NEWSWEEK: Taliban Source: Al Qaeda Training Western Operatives in Pakistan; 'English Brothers' to Return to Home Countries to Organize Al Qaeda Cells There
Sunday December 17, 12:52 pm ET
Britain's Foreign Office Spokesperson Says: It Is 'Common Knowledge' That Jihadist Recruits Have Been Traveling From Britain to Pakistan for Instruction and Training
NEW YORK, Dec. 17 /PRNewswire/ -- For the past year, a secret has been slowly spreading among Taliban commanders in Afghanistan: a 12-man team of Westerners was being trained by Al Qaeda in Pakistan for a special mission. Most of the Afghan fighters could only rely on hearsay, but some told of seeing the "English brothers" (as the foreign recruits were nicknamed for their shared language) in person, report a team of Newsweek correspondents in the December 25, 2006-January 1, 2007 issue (on newsstands Monday, December 18). Omar Farooqi, who serves as the Taliban's chief Qaeda liaison for Ghazni province, in eastern Afghanistan, says he spent roughly five weeks this past year helping to indoctrinate and train a class of foreign recruits near the Afghan border in tribal Waziristan, and among his students were the English brothers. The 12 included two Norwegian Muslims and an Australian, along with nine British subjects, Farooqi tells Newsweek. Their mission, Farooqi says, will be to act as underground organizers and operatives for Al Qaeda in their home countries -- and their yearlong training course is just about finished.
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(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20061217/NYSU007)
In the current issue, Special Correspondent Sami Yousafzai, South Asia Bureau Chief Ron Moreau and Investigative Correspondent Mark Hosenball report that U.S. and British security agencies have known this threat would come sooner or later. While saying he could not confirm the English brothers' case specifically, a spokesman for Britain's Foreign Office (unnamed as a matter of standard policy) calls it "common knowledge" that jihadist recruits have been traveling from Britain to Pakistan for indoctrination and training. American intelligence officials tell Newsweek that their people are definitely concerned about terror suspects and operatives shuttling back and forth between Britain and Pakistan. "For the most effective background checks on passengers, the United States needs information and assistance from the country where the traveler resides," says Homeland Security Department spokesman Russ Knocke, adding that such help should be "routine."
While the Americans talk, Farooqi says Al Qaeda is pressing on with its training plans. He confidently described those plans to a Newsweek correspondent at a mud-brick house in Afghanistan's Paktia province, not far from the Pakistan border, mentioning the English brothers almost in passing as an example of the jihad's recent successes. The specifics of his story could not be independently corroborated. But among the dozen or so Taliban gunmen guarding the house one, with most of his face hidden by a black and white kaffiyeh, appeared to be a European with light-colored eyes; Farooqi later confirmed that the guard was one of the brothers. An open notebook lay on the carpet where Farooqi was seated, and the correspondent caught a fleeting glimpse of scrawled names and telephone numbers, including several that were preceded by the United Kingdom's country code: 44.
Farooqi tells Newsweek he first met the brothers, all of them in their 20s, soon after they reached Waziristan in October 2005. He recalls one of them, known as Musa, telling him that the 7/7 bombings in London "were just a rehearsal of bigger acts to come." A few, he couldn't say how many, had arrived in Pakistan by air, but most had taken a clandestine overland route, across Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan, escorted by a network of professional smugglers. According to Farooqi, the brothers' travel arrangements were made by Abdul Hadi al-Iraqi, one of Al Qaeda's top operations men and a liaison with insurgents in Iraq. The transcontinental journey took a month to complete, but Farooqi claims the brothers left no official traces of their passage, slipping past every border-control post without showing any travel documents.
Still, Al Qaeda wasn't taking any chances with the English brothers' safety. They received much of their training behind the mud-brick walls of the sprawling compounds that are typical of Pakistan's tribal areas. The idea was to keep the men hidden from U.S. and Pakistani reconnaissance planes. Farooqi says the recruits were taught a wide variety of subjects, from religious and ideological doctrine to the art of molding, assembling and detonating state- of-the-art Iraqi-style shaped-charge IEDs. They learned how to make and use suicide-bomb vests; how to rig car bombs; how to motivate other men to sacrifice their lives for the jihad, and how to maintain communications with Al Qaeda on the Afghan-Pakistan frontier. They're not meant to be suicide bombers themselves, Farooqi says; they are far too valuable to waste.
The English brothers -- and the Pakistan pipeline -- are signs that Al Qaeda, as an organization, is still in action. Farooqi says he believes, based on overheard conversations, that Al Qaeda is planning for the very long term, a decade into the future. He says the terrorist group is talking about gradually fielding more than 1,000 jihadists in Europe over the next 10 years. From what he has heard, only 10 percent of those operatives are in place so far. Based on information from the British security service M.I.5, the British Home secretary, John Reid, recently warned that a terrorist attack in the United Kingdom could be highly likely during the holidays.
(Read entire article at www.Newsweek.com)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16240565/site/newsweek/
Thank you for the new thread, it is perfect.
The prior threads in this series are:
World Terrorism prior threads:
WT Thread #1: [Started on January 1, 2006]
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1550424/posts?page=4809
WT Thread #2: [The communist manifesto, muslim manifesto and list of elected in U.S. who belong to the Socialist party, on the first page of the thread]
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1607641/posts?q=1&&page=4951
Thread #3:
Beginning of Israel/Lebanon War and so much more.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1650751/posts?q=1&&page=4601
Thread #4:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1679491/posts?q=1&&page=1
Thread #5:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1711256/posts?q=1&&page=1
Greetings and thanks for pointing me to this new thread. Please add me to the ping list.
I will ask Alan to post the lead article about VEVAK and MOIS on http://www.antimulah.com ASAP.
In the meantime FR once again appears to have an infiltrator from the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) who was previously banned, back operating again under a new name.
As a linguist and writer, who can spot the cadence and patterns of speech and presentation of facts, I know these are hard to hide. The new poster is virtually an exact copycat of the person previously banned.
In fact another Freeper sent me mail asking if that previous person were back again since they spotted the similarity, too.
Israel warns of Al Qaeda attacks in GoaPublished: Thursday, 14 December, 2006, 10:22 AM Doha Time
JERUSALEM: Israel said tourists visiting India’s Goa state during the Christmas holidays face a "concrete threat" of an Al Qaeda attack and advised its citizens yesterday against travelling to the popular beach resort.
Last month, Indian authorities decided to strengthen security in Goa after intelligence agencies warned of a "Bali-like" attack, referring to the 2002 bombings that killed 202 people, many of them foreigners on vacation.
Goa’s police chief, saying federal agencies did not want to take any chances, denied at the time there was any specific threat against the region.
In a travel advisory on its Hebrew-language website, Israel’s foreign ministry said: "Within the framework of Al Qaeda’s terror threats in India, there is now a concrete threat focusing on the Goa region where multitudes of visitors, including Israelis, gather ... in late December."
It said Israel’s Counter-Terrorism Authority recommended Israeli citizens stay away from sites in Goa popular with Westerners and Israelis over the next few weeks. – Reuters
http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=122402&version=1&template_id=40&parent_id=22
Thank you Davey. I really appreciate the ping.
And may God be with all of us as we prayerfully follow all of the developments in these times.
Blessings,
jm
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