Author Archives: taffy

Germany arrests al-Qaeda suspect

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BBC News… A German-Turkish citizen is being held in Germany on suspicion of preparing explosive devices and posting al-Qaeda propaganda on the internet, police say.

They said the 24-year-old, named only as Adnan V, was arrested on Thursday.

A small amount of explosives and a suspected detonator were also seized in two police raids in the Frankfurt area.

The suspect was not immediately linked to videos that emerged ahead of last Sunday’s elections threatening al-Qaeda attacks within Germany.

Those videos, made by al-Qaeda’s media production arm, warned of an impending attack within two weeks of the elections if German troops were not withdrawn from Afghanistan.

Germany has some 4,000 troops based in northern Afghanistan.

Some 35 have died and a recent poll showed 55% of Germans wanted a pullout.

The videos prompted heightened security measures in Germany’s tourist spots, airports and main train stations.

Another slap on the wrist for terrorist in Canada

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 Ali Mohamed Dirie [far left in court art picture] and his family [masked gang] are allowed to hide amongst us because they are Muslim.

mohamed1220Ali Mohamed Dirie's family. Masked gangToronto Star… A Scarborough man whose role in the so-called Toronto 18 was to supply it with firepower so the group could launch a deadly terror attack in downtown Toronto was sentenced in a Brampton court on Friday to seven years.

Ali Mohamed Dirie was given credit of five years in pre-trial custody, meaning he will have to serve an additional two years. The Somali-born man will be eligible for parole in one year.

The 26-year-old pleaded guilty last week to participating in the activities of a terrorist group and confessed he had obtained handguns and ammunition knowing they were for the group’s alleged ringleader.

While delivering his sentence, Superior Court Justice Bruce Durno said he believed Dirie’s “moral culpability is high.”

“Terrorism offences strike at the heart of Canadian values and society,” Durno told the court, as Dirie’s mother, brother and cousin sat expressionless.

Durno also ordered Dirie submit a DNA sample, and be prohibited from handling firearms for life.

In a joint submission, the Crown and defence had suggested a seven-year sentence. However, they disagreed on how much credit he deserved for the time he has already spent behind bars. Crown prosecutor Clyde Bond proposed Dirie serve two more years, while defence lawyer Robert Nuttall suggested that he be released.

After the sentencing, Nuttall told reporters that he and his client’s family were satisfied with the judge’s ruling.

“Mr Dirie, I can say, profoundly regrets and is extremely remorseful for the means adopted in advancing his beliefs,” said Nuttall, explaining that “maturity” had helped his client see the errors of his ways.

The terror plot first surfaced in 2005, when Dirie and a co-accused were stopped at the Canada-U.S. border in a rented vehicle while attempting to smuggle firearms and ammunition into the country.

Officers found two loaded handguns on Dirie and bullets in his socks, court heard.

While Dirie was serving a two-year sentence for gun smuggling, other members of the alleged homegrown terror cell pushed forward with their plot, which they hoped would prompt the withdrawal of Canadian forces from Afghanistan.

Some in the group attended a so-called terrorist training camp in December 2005 and others pushed ahead with an explosives plot targeting the Toronto Stock Exchange, the Toronto offices of Canada’s spy agency and an unidentified military base off Highway 401.

In June 2006, police busted up the alleged homegrown terror cell after members purchased three tonnes of ammonium nitrate fertilizer destined for truck bombs.

Dirie, who was already in jail, was charged with terror-related offences in 2006, along with 13 other adults and four youths.

Court heard that even after he was incarcerated on gun smuggling charges, he continued to play an important role in the group.

During a March 2006 intercepted telephone conversation from jail with the alleged ringleader, whose name is covered by a publication ban, Dirie was described as “a major asset to the circle.”

According to wiretapped calls, Dirie was trying to find jailhouse connections who could supply fake passports guns for the group.

During their phone conversations, Dirie and the alleged ringleader used code words such as “wives” and “girls” and “black chicks” for firearms, and “food” for ammunition.

Court heard that while in jail, Dirie received a package of books and CDs dubbed a “Qur’an kit,” which contained hidden violent videos of attacks and bombings of military personnel. He was also actively recruiting inmates to adopt hardcore jihadist beliefs.

Although specific details such as terrorism targets were not revealed in these conversations, the calls formed the basis of the Crown’s case against Dirie and prompted his guilty plea, the court was told.

Bond said it was clear Dirie intended to play a role once he was released on parole in May 2006, after serving time on his gun smuggling conviction.

Bond argued that Dirie continued to foster terrorism behind bars by trying to recruit other inmates to his extremist views, which Dirie admitted to doing.

However, Nuttall argued that his client had changed his extremist views and while he was still opposed to the military presence in Afghnaistan, he understood that using violence to bring about change was wrong.

Dirie was the second person to plead guilty. Saad Khalid and Saad Gaya also pleaded guilty to conspiring to cause an explosion. Last year, Nishanthan Yogakrishan was found guilty.

Seven more await trial.

Somali Islamists clash over port

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_45210460_shababap226bBBC News… Two Islamist groups who were previously working together in Somalia have become embroiled in a fierce fight for control of the southern port of Kismayo.

At least 12 people have been killed and hundreds have fled their homes.

Al-Shabab is reported to have gained the upper hand over Hizbul-Islam, some of whose fighters have left the town.

The two groups have been national allies against the weak, UN-backed government, but tension has been building in Kismayo in recent weeks.

The Islamist pair together control most southern and central areas of the country.

‘Brothers’

The BBC’s Mohammed Olad Hassan in the capital, Mogadishu, says fighting started at dawn with sporadic gunfire.

But residents told him it quickly escalated with fighters on the streets of the town using light and heavy machine-guns as well as rocket-propelled grenades.

Some of those he spoke to had already fled their homes and he could hear loud explosions in the background.

“We were attacked by our brothers with no reason,” local Hizbul-Islam spokesman Sheikh Ismail Haji Adow said, according to the AFP news agency.

“They [al-Shabab] launched their offensive on several fronts very early this morning.”

Our reporter says the Islamist groups have been in an uneasy alliance to run the town for almost a year.

But last week al-Shabab named a new administration which excluded Hizbul-Islam.

The tension escalated through the media, with both sides advising their fighters on Wednesday to ready themselves for possible conflict.

A Hizbul-Islam official warned on Wednesday that if fighting started it would spread across the country, but correspondents say other Islamist leaders may not have the stomach for all-out war.

Our reporter says the fallout could mean that battles erupt in villages and towns around the country where there are joint administrations.

Analysts say it could be a turning point for the embattled government.

At the moment it controls only small areas of the capital, with the help of African Union peacekeeping troops.

President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, a moderate Islamist, was chosen in January after UN-brokered peace talks.

He has vowed to implement Sharia but al-Shabab, which is accused of links to al-Qaeda, regards him as a Western puppet.

The country has been wracked by conflict since 1991, when it last had an effective national government.

Some three million people – half the population – need food aid, while hundreds of thousands of people have fled the country.

Muslims Not ‘Free of Being Mocked,’ Danish Cartoonist Says

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DENMARK-CARTOONIST/INTERVIEWFox News…  Muslims need to develop a sense of humor and an appreciation of satire — and they need to understand that they are not “free of being mocked or being offended,” says the Danish caricaturist whose cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad incited rage throughout the Muslim world four years ago.  
Kurt Westergaard told roughly a dozen listeners Wednesday night that he will “always” be ready to defend an individual’s right to religious freedom.
“As the Danish tradition is for satire, we say you can speak freely, you can vote, you can speak out anytime, but there’s only one thing you can’t do — you can’t be free of being mocked or being offended,” Westergaard said. “That’s the conditions in Denmark and so many countries.”Several months after the cartoons were published, a Pakistani cleric reportedly offered 1.5 million rupee — roughly $16,700 — and a car to anyone who killed Westergaard. Mohammed Yousaf Qureshi, prayer leader at the Mohabat Khan mosque in the northwestern city of Peshawar, announced the bounty in February 2006 at the mosque and the Jamia Ashrafia religious school that he leads.

Westergaard spoke at a private residence in midtown Manhattan in conjunction with the Hudson New York Briefing Council. It was just his second appearance in the U.S. since the 2005 publication of his notorious cartoon, which depicted Muhammad wearing a turban resembling a lit bomb. In Islam, any depiction of Muhammad is forbidden and considered blasphemy.

In June 2008, Westergaard and ten newspaper editors were reportedly summoned by Jordan’s public prosecutor on charges of “blasphemy” for reprinting the cartoons. Three men were arrested last year in Denmark for allegedly plotting to assassinate him.

Security at Wednesday night’s event was heightened, with two uniformed New York Police Department officers stationed outside the building as Westergaard spoke. Additional security measures were also taken earlier in the day when Westergaard spoke during a luncheon at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research and at Princeton University. He is scheduled to speak at Yale University on Thursday — an appearance that is causing some controversy on the Ivy League campus.

Members of the Yale Muslim Students Association have said they are “deeply hurt and offended” that Westergaard will speak on the New Haven, Conn., campus, though they do not plan to protest. The group said Yale fails to recognize the “religious and racial” sensitivities surrounding the matter. Continue Reading →

German Authorities Arrest Alleged Terror Suspects

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 MUNICH  —  Two men with suspected links to Islamic extremists were taken into custody by Munich police, and security at the Oktoberfest beer festival has been increased as videos threatening Germany continued to surface on the Internet, officials said Monday.
Two men from Arab countries were arrested Saturday, the same day authorities banned flights over Oktoberfest, said Munich police chief Wilhelm Schmidbauer.

Such bans are usually imposed only during visits by high-ranking state visits. Traffic was also restricted around the Theresienwiese, the 77-acre festival grounds where Oktoberfest is held for 16 days each year. This year’s event began Sept. 19.

At least five videos by Islamic terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda and the Taliban have threatened Germany in recent weeks. A video released by the Taliban late Friday included pictures of Oktoberfest and threatened an attack.

In the latest message, a 28-minute audio recording released Monday, Al Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri criticized Germany and Turkey, saying the former is “lying” about the nature of its mission in Afghanistan and accusing Turkey of taking part in a war against another Muslim nation.

Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann said Monday that two videos have referred to the festival while leveling threats. But he added, “There is currently no concrete evidence of an attack in Germany.”

Schmidbauer said one of the detained men had contact with Bekkay Harrach, who was identified as the speaker in several recent videos threatening Germany for the country’s military presence in Afghanistan. The second knew Harrach through a relative.

Schmidbauer would not release their names, but said both men have lived in Munich a long time.

“We are not making accusations of any criminal acts,” Schmidbauer said.

Two judges approved a police request to keep the men in “preventative custody” until Oktoberfest ends on Sunday. German authorities have taken similar action in the past, for instance to hold unruly football fans during the World Cup in 2006.

Oktoberfest has been targeted in the past. Saturday’s festival opened with a minute of silence to honor the victims of a bomb attack that killed 13 people and injured 200 others on Sept. 26, 1980

 

 

A virus called ‘Shariah’

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Canada Free Press…By Frank Gaffney Jr.  Monday, September 28, 2009

A Denver airport shuttle driver from Afghanistan who plotted to blow up subway trains in New York City.  A Jordanian who tried to destroy one of Dallas’ tallest skyscrapers.  An American who thought he was detonating a truck bomb aimed at a federal courthouse in Springfield, Illinois.

Law enforcement authorities who successfully stymied these alleged attacks have been at pains to emphasize that there are no connections between the three.

Of course there are.

Maybe it will prove to be the case that the three men at the heart of these interrupted plots – Najibullah Zazi, Hosam Maher Husein Smadi and Michael Finton (also known as Talib Islam) – had no connection in a tactical or operational sense.

Still, it is absurd, and extremely dangerous, to insist that they are not connected in at least one way:  What apparently animated all three of these suspects (and perhaps a number of others believed to have been involved in the New York plot who are still at large) is the seditious, supremacist theo-political-legal program authoritative Islam calls “Shariah.”

Shariah requires its adherents to engage in jihad – the struggle to bring about the triumph of Islam worldwide through whatever means are available.  Shariah explicitly calls for the use of violent techniques designed to instill terror in those who stand in the way of a global Muslim theocracy.

Lethal truck-bombs, pellet-laced explosive vests and backpacks and bombs or hijackers aboard aircraft have already been used for this purpose.  It is a matter of time before vastly more destructive weapons of mass destruction (chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear) become available to jihadists who believe that, pursuant to Shariah, they are fulfilling Allah’s will when they kill “infidels” or otherwise force them to submit to Islam. Continue Reading →

Smuggled US Arms Flood Pak Tribal Belt

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American taxpayers are unwittingly arming the enemy.

SatellitePESHAWAR — Sophisticated US-made arms, either snatched from foreign troops in neighboring Afghanistan, or sold out by cash-strapped Afghan soldiers, have flooded the arms markets in Pakistan’s northern tribal belt and are in high demand too.

“We have various kinds of US-made arms, which we procure from Afghan arms smugglers,” an arms dealer from the town of Darra Adamkhel in Pakistan’s western frontier province (NWFP) told IslamOnline.net.
Darra Adamkhel, virtually the arms factory of the tribal areas, is also the hub of illegal shipments of weapons throughout the country and one of the biggest private arms’ markets in Asia.
Till a few years back, China-made weapons and their replicas undisputedly ruled the tribal arms markets.
But after the arrival of stolen US-made arms, the sale of Chinese weapons has reduced to a great extent.
“The (US-made) weapons, we procure, are usually stolen from the warehouses of the US troops,” the arms dealer said.
Not only stolen, the arms are also sold out by Afghan army soldiers who need money.
“A number of Afghan police personnel have sold their pistols to the arms smugglers, who later smuggle them into tribal arms markets.
“In southern and northeastern Afghanistan particularly, Afghan soldiers sell their weapons, provided by US, to the arms smugglers, and report to their high-ups that their weapons were snatched by Taliban,” the arms dealer added.
“Many of them have replaced their actual weapons by replicas made in Pakistani tribal arms market.” Continue Reading →

Somali militants execute ‘spies’

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BBC News… Islamist militants in Somalia have executed two people they accused of spying for foreign organisations.

Hundreds watched as a firing squad arranged by the al-Shabab group shot the pair in the capital, Mogadishu.

Al-Shabab officials said the men had been found guilty of working for the US CIA and African Union peacekeepers.

Analysts say the killings may have been in retaliation for a US raid earlier this month, in which an al-Qaeda suspect is said to have been killed.

The BBC’s Mohammed Olad Hassan in Mogadishu says al-Shabab has carried out amputations and lashings in the past, but this is their first public execution in the city.

He says the death sentence was announced and the men were shot almost immediately by 10 masked men.

He says an al-Shabab official told reporters before the execution that the men had admitted spying – one for the AU, the other for the CIA. Continue Reading →

Another ‘Toronto 18’ member pleads guilty

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tt_saadgayaAOL News… Another member of the “Toronto 18” group that plotted attacks on city buildings has pleaded guilty to a terrorism charge.

Saad Gaya, 21, pleaded guilty Monday in a Brampton, Ont., court to committing a criminal offence for a terrorist group. At the time of his arrest in 2006, Gaya was a high school honour student.

Gaya’s lawyer Paul Slansky said Monday his client was duped by other members of group, was assured no one would be injured, and was unaware of the bomb plot.

If Gaya had been aware that they meant to kill people then he would not have joined, Slansky said.

Gaya is the third adult to admit guilt in the plot, which was never carried through.

Last week, Mohamed Ali Dirie, 26, pleaded guilty to one count of participating in the activities of a terrorist group. He is to be sentenced Friday.

His plea came four months after Saad Khalid, 23, pleaded guilty to one count of participating in a militant plot with the intention of causing an explosion. He was sentenced earlier in September to 14 years in prison, but was credited with seven years for time already served.

Nishanthan Yogakrishnan, a minor at the time of his arrest, was tried under youth justice laws and convicted in September 2008 of conspiring to bomb several targets. He was the first person convicted under Canada’s anti-terrorism laws.

The presiding judge found he had continued his activity with the group past his 18th birthday, so he was sentenced as an adult in May, getting a 2½-year prison term. The judge then freed him, granting him credit for time already spent in custody.

In all, 17 men and youths were arrested in the Toronto area in June 2006 and detained following an investigation by CSIS. An 18th person was arrested in August that year.

Seven of the 18 people arrested have since had their charges dropped or stayed.

Israeli police clash with Palestinians at Al-Aqsa mosque

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Israeli police fired tear-gas and stun grenades on Sunday to disperse some 150 Palestinians who began hurling stones as foreign tourists visited a sensitive religious site in the Old City.

Nine policemen were hurt, a police spokesman said, and doctors said 13 Palestinians were treated for injuries after the clash at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, a site revered by Muslims and Jews that has been a major faultine in the Middle East conflict.

Protesters threw stones and chairs as riot police rushed to the scene. Video showed them trying to drive police away from the doorway of the mosque, but there was no sign that police ever entered it during the clash.

One witness said police told him religious Palestinians at the holy site were angry over what they considered the immodest dress of some of the tourists, and grew violent after police ignored their complaints.

The disturbance occurred a few hours before the start of Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, in the complex known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as al-Harm al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary).

Police restored calm and closed the complex, which is the size of a large city square. It includes al-Aqsa mosque, the third holiest site in Islam, and the Dome of the Rock, above the Jewish prayer site at the Western Wall.

Jewish visitors require special permission from Israeli police to visit the site and usually do so under guard. Israel also restricts access by Palestinian Muslim men under 50.

Temple Mount is the most sacred site in Judaism. The gilded Dome of the Rock sits over the spot where Jews and Christians believe Abraham was about to sacrifice his son Isaac to God before an angel stayed his hand.

In Muslim tradition, Prophet Mohammed ascended to heaven from the rock at the centre of what is now the Dome of the Rock. Al-Haram al-Sharif is the third holiest site for Muslims after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia.

Pakistan discovers ‘village’ of white German al-Qaeda insurgents

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Telegraph… Investigators have discovered a “Jihadi village” of white German al-Qaeda insurgents, including Muslim converts, in Pakistan’s tribal areas close to the Afghan border.

The village, in Taliban-controlled Waziristan, is run by the notorious al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which plots raids on Nato forces in Afghanistan.

A recruitment video presents life in the village as a desirable lifestyle choice with schools, hospitals, pharmacies and day care centres, all at a safe distance from the front.

In the video, the presenter, “Abu Adam”, the public face of the group in Germany, points his finger and asks: “Doesn’t it appeal to you? We warmly invite you to join us!”

According to German foreign ministry officials a growing number of German families, many of North African descent, have taken up the offer and travelled to Waziristan where supporters say converts make up some of the insurgents’ most dedicated fighters.

The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which has a foothold in several German cities, has capitalised on growing concern over the rising profile of German forces in Afghanistan. Their role has become increasingly controversial in Germany in recent weeks after dozens of civilians were killed in an air strike ordered by German officers.

Last night a foreign ministry spokesman told The Daily Telegraph they were now negotiating with Pakistani authorities for the release of six Germans, including “Adrian M”, a white Muslim convert, his Eritrean wife and their four year old daughter, who were arrested as they were making their way to the “German village”. They are particularly concerned about the welfare of the child.

They are being held in custody in Peshawar after their arrest in May shortly when they crossed the border from Iran. They are understood to have left Germany in March this year.

The spokesman said negotiations were “under way” with Pakistani authorities “concerning a group of German citizens” and that it had been aware that the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan had been recruiting in Germany “since the beginning of the year”.

Their recruitment drive has been led by “Abu Adam”, a 24-year-old German believed to be of Turkish or North African descent who was raised with his, and fellow Jihadi, Abu Ibrahim, in the smart Bonn suburb of Kessenich.

Adam, whose real name is Mounir Chouka, received weapons training from the German army as part of his national service, and later spent three years training at the Federal Office of Statistics where colleagues described him as a “nice boy”.

He left in 2007, telling colleagues he was joining a trading firm in Saudi Arabia, but is believed to have joined a terrorist training camp in Yemen.

In another recruitment video released earlier this year he urged supporters to: “Die the death of honour.”

Khalid Khawaja, a former Pakistan intelligence officer, who describes himself as a friend of Osama bin Laden, said he was aware of a German contingent and that there were a number of Swedish converts too who had arrived in Pakistan “for Jihad”.

“The Europeans are there [in Waziristan]. The most dedicated people there are from Europe. They will do anything for Islam. They are not there because their father’s are Muslim, but by choice,” he said.

Where Do Little Terrorists Come From #1 – Poverty?

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Scragged… Shortly after 9-11, liberal sociologists saw opportunity in the poverty which is so highly visible in the Palestinian territories neighboring Israel, and throughout the Middle Eastern Islamic world.  The liberals declared that poverty was the root cause of terrorism.  Like their Great Society predecessors of decades before, they promised that if the American taxpayers would only spend enough money fighting poverty, terrorism would melt away just as American crime had melted away when we fought the “War on Poverty” in the United States.

That notion was ridiculous on its face – most of the 9-11 terrorists turned out to be university-educated, middle class Saudis – but the idea of being permitted to spend large sums of taxpayer money fighting poverty is always attractive to liberals.  They kept banging the drum for a program to fight global poverty in the name of fighting terrorism.  The idea that poverty causes terrorism became so pervasive that someone had to write a book disproving the link between poverty and terrorism.

An article “The Poverty Myth” was published on p. 104 of the Winter 2008 issue of the Wilson Quarterly.  This article reviews the book What Makes a Terrorist: Economics and the Roots of Terrorism by Alan B. Kreuger.  The review begins:

“The belief that poverty is a root cause of Islamic terrorism has been thoroughly discredited.  Numerous studies of terrorism have debunked the notion.  Islamic terrorists themselves, as well as those who live among them and know them well, have repeatedly attributed Islamic terrorism to primarily to religions and ideological motivations and to the logic that – against America and the west – terrorism is used because it works.” [emphasis added]

The reviewer credits Dr. Kreuger, a Princeton economist, with a much-needed act of intellectual hygiene.  “As a group,” Kreuger notes, “terrorists are better educated and from wealthier families than the typical person in the same age group of the societies from which they originate.”

We commented some time ago on the great wealth of the Bin Laden family from which Osama bin Laden emerged.

One study examined 48 Palestinian suicide bombers and found that “almost 60 percent of the suicide bombers had more than a high-school degree, compared to less than 15 percent of the general population.” Continue Reading →

Gadhafi has cancelled visit to Canada: report

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Calgary Herald… Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi has cancelled a planned visit to Canada next week.

 Officials confirmed Saturday that Gadhafi had scrapped plans to land in Newfoundland this Tuesday to refuel his plane.

 One report said hotel reservations for the leader had been cancelled and his advance team had left.

 The planned visit had caused a stir in Canada, with Prime Minister Stephen Harper ordering Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon to greet the despot upon his arrival to express this country’s outrage over the reception Libya recently gave to the newly released Lockerbie bomber.

 Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, an alleged former Libyan intelligence officer, was treated as a hero upon his arrival in Libya after Scotland released him on compassionate grounds because he is terminally ill with cancer.