BBC: Spy lifts lid on al-Qaeda

BBC ^ | Thursday, 16 November 2006, 21:01 GMT | Gordon Corera BBC security correspondent

[Marine_Uncle]

Sure appears opinions will have to be modified in due time.

[DTA]

>>>>>>Thousands - probably tens of thousands - graduated from al-Qaeda's training camps in the 1990s and the spread of ideology has left an equally lasting legacy in terms of radicalisation. <<<<<<<

We should give credit where credit is due for this. This is Clinton's gift that keeps on giving.

Throughout the 1990s U.S. and British services activelly assisted AQ to set up beach head in Europe, in Bosnia and Kosovo. British made a deal with Islamists, they were free to stage operations from Londonistan on condition they do not attack targets on British soil.

Americans provided diplomatic support, military muscle and weapons in cooperation with Clinton's "brothers in arms" - Iranian mullahs.

AQ worked closely with U.S. services in Bosnia and got first hand account how U.S. services operate. A nice refresher of knowledge gathered in MAK/CIA days in Pakistan.

What happened 9/11 was predictable and preventable. It is enough to google "Bosnia" and your AQ suspect of choice to get the picture.

This is not a blowback. It was planned that way.

Ever wondered what documents Berger stole from the National Archive?

[tgambill]

I have to tell you......you are right on target and this is so hard to get people to understand this concept.

Bravo!!!

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

There is a book (now available in paperback ):

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Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left
(Hardcover)
by David Horowitz

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And reviews:

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Editorial Reviews

Rich Lowry, Editor National Review

David Horowitz is synonymous with pyrotechnics. A historian and polemicist of the first order, he is paid the ultimate compliment --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Davis Hanson, Author, Ripples of Battle

An original look at those who want us to fail in the Middle East, both at home and abroad. The --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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See all Editorial Reviews

Fascinating Analysis of Leftist Goals, August 13, 2006

Reviewer: N. Sincerity - See all my reviews

A former 1960s radical, Horowitz is well-acquainted with the Leftist mindset. In this book, he strives to explain the modern alliance between left wing progressivists and radical Islamofascists. He argues that this alliance is based on a common desire to destroy Western capitalism. Leftist sympathy with Islamofascist ideas makes no sense from an intellectual point of view, given that countries ruled by radical Islamists are among the most racist, sexist, theocratic states in the world today. However, Leftists have recognized that they can benefit politically from destructive terrorist attacks on the Western world. A West under attack can be made to turn on its leaders in fear and desperation (as they did in Spain after the Madrid train bombings). Only once people reject current government structures can the Left execute its anti-capitalist revolution and build a new reality that mirrors the Leftist view of utopia. The complete and utter idealogical hypocrisy of the Islamofascist-Leftist alliance is distressing, but as Horowitz reminds us, Leftists radicals truly believe the ends justify the means.

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[piasa]

"Recruits were also trained how to resist interrogation and provide false information - Nasiri's mentor at the camps, Ibn Sheikh al-Libi, would go on to provide false evidence of links between al-Qaeda and Iraq after he was captured by the US."

I noticed that BBC line... also noticed the article uses a source by the name of former CIA employee Michael Scheuer of the Jamestown Foundation. I wonder if he was the source of that line about al-Libby.

1998 : (BIN LADEN ASKS IRAQ FOR ADVANCED WEAPONS INCLUDING CBW AND "POISONS" ACCORDING TO INTEL FROM VARIOUS SOURCES - See AL QAEDA'S IBN AL-SHAYKH AL-LIBI) Then we have the smoking vial, the intelligence that a link-up between the maniacs of al Qaeda with the resources of the Baathist terror-state [Iraq] was real, and that it could lead to attacks more devastating than 9/11: 26. During a custodial interview, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi [a senior al Qaeda operative] said he was told by an al Qaeda associate that he was tasked to travel to Iraq (1998) to establish a relationship with Iraqi intelligence to obtain poisons and gases training. After the USS Cole bombing in 2000, two al Qaeda operatives were sent to Iraq for CBW-related [Chemical and Biological Weapons] training beginning in Dec 2000. Iraqi intelligence was "encouraged" after the embassy and USS Cole bombings to provide this training. The analysis of this report follows. CIA maintains that Ibn al-Shaykh's [Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi a senior al Qaeda operative's] timeline is consistent with other sensitive reporting indicating that bin Laden asked Iraq in 1998 for advanced weapons, including CBW and "poisons." Again, all this is amazing stuff: a phenomenally important story, if true. "-------- http://www.andrewsullivan.com/

[piasa]

Interesting thread :

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1923465/posts

from the thread:

Startling implications of a Jihadi letter
American Thinker ^ | November 09, 2007 | Ray Robison

New light is being shed on the 2001 anthrax attacks in a fascinating open letter to Ayman al Zawahiri of al Qaeda, written by a jihadi living in London.

Numan Bin Uthman, a former leader of an armed Islamic group in Libya, provides yet more evidence that the global Islamic jihad movement is losing its resolve.  But the letter contains a startling admission. Uthman tells us of a conversation he had with al Qaeda leaders before the 9/11 attacks in which he urged them not to use WMD. From AKI News:

Uthman also said that he had taken part in an important al-Qaeda summit in Kandahar, Afghanistan in 2000, in which al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden had defined search for and use of weapons of mass destruction as a "Sharia obligation". "During this occasion, I had a strong dispute with the martyr Abu Hafs al-Kumandan, because he was heavily involved in acquiring weapons of mass destruction," he said in the letter.

I was unfamiliar with the name "al Kumandan" but there is a well known al Qaeda leader named Abu Hafs who is a "martyr" and was killed by U.S. Forces in Afghanistan. Looking up Kumandan on the internet I found a reference and it seems to mean "commander". Abu Hafs has been identified as Usama bin Laden's WMD chaser. He fits Uthman's description. He was the number three man in al Qaeda.

Controversial informant Ibn Sheik al Libi identified Abu Hafs, otherwise known as Mohammad Atef as a contact between al Qaeda and the Saddam regime for procurement of WMD, before he recanted.

In a previous article I noted that a new al Qaeda document matched very well with a Saddam regime document. The linkage between the documents gave a chain of command and time-line from a Saddam regime order to "hunt Americans" in Somalia followed by a Abu Hafs order just two days later that would lead to that ultimate end. 

I have also argued publicly that the 2001 anthrax attack makes a lot more sense as a continuation of the 9/11 attacks than as the plot of some embittered scientist....(/snip)