Category Archives: al-Qaeda

Libya Islamists ‘seize arms, take hostages’

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From Middle-East-Online

TRIPOLI – Islamist gunmen have stormed a military arms depot in Libya and a nearby port and seized numerous weapons and army vehicles after killing four soldiers, a security official said on Sunday.

The group also took several hostages, both soldiers and civilians, and is “threatening to execute them unless a siege by security forces is lifted” in Al-Baida, the official said, asking not to be named.

“This criminal gang assaulted an army weapons depot and seized 250 weapons, killed four soldiers and wounded 16 others” in the Wednesday operation in Derna, which lies east of Al-Baida and 1,300 kilometres from Tripoli.

“Army Colonel Adnan al-Nwisri joined them and provided them with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, three pieces of anti-aircraft artillery and 70 Kalashnikov” assault rifles, the source said.

On Friday, he said they attacked the port in Derna and seized an assortment of 70 military vehicles.

It was not immediately clear who the civilians were or where they had been taken hostage.

The group calls itself the “Islamic Emirate of Barqa,” after the ancient name of a region of northwest Libya, and the official said its leadership is made up of former Al-Qaeda fighters previously released from jail. Continue Reading →

Britain facing ‘unstoppable wave of home-grown suicide bombers’ warns MI6

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DAILY MAIL:

Secret Intelligence Service official claims new Jihadists will slip ‘under the radar’
The terrifying prospect of a wave of suicide bombings by home-grown terrorists unknown to authorities was revealed today.

The problem is set to blight Britain for a generation, an MI6 officer warned in secret intelligence documents.

The Secret Intelligence Service official warned that radicalised British Muslims who undertake training will become ‘suicide operatives’ who will target innocent civilians.

British-born terrorists were behind the July 7 2005 London bombings and the four men involved had been radicalised and received terror training abroad.

The warning came in a briefing of U.S. congressmen who visited the UK in 2008 and was contained in a cache of American diplomatic cables obtained by whistleblowing website WikiLeaks.

The documents also reveal American concerns that British intelligence workers are failing to contain domestic terrororist because of budget cuts.

The warning was revealed by the Daily Telegraph as the independent reviewer of anti-terror laws claimed that European human rights rulings had made the UK a ‘safe haven’ for suspected terrorists.

In his annual review of legislation, Lord Carlile of Berriew backed the Government’s attempts to deport foreign suspects with assurances over their treatment once returned home.

According to the U.S. embassy’s record of the congressmen’s visit, the MI6 official told them that the UK was ‘wholly or largely dependent’ on help from the CIA and other American sources for monitoring terrorism. Continue Reading →

Spain reports arrest of 2 in al-Qaida forgery ring

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Yahoo News:

MADRID – Spain says police in Belgium arrested two Pakistanis allegedly connected to a cell that forged passports for al-Qaida-linked militants.

The Interior Ministry said Thursday the brothers were detained in Brussels on a European-wide warrant issued by Spain’s National Court. It did not say when the arrests were made.

So far eight alleged members of the cell have been arrested in Barcelona and three in Thailand, where the group was allegedly based. Spain named the new detainees as Mudaser Butt, 32, and Naveed Shahzad Butt, 30.

Spain says the group sent stolen passports to Thailand to be doctored and distributed to groups linked to al-Qaida, mainly Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based terror group blamed for the 2008 Mumbai, India, attacks that killed 166 people.

Synagogue torched in Tunisia: Jewish leader

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(AFP) – 4 hours ago from 11:30 AM EDT

TUNIS — Arsonists set fire to a synagogue in the southern Gabes region of Tunisia, a leader of the local Jewish community said Tuesday.

“Someone set fire to the synagogue on Monday night and the Torah scrolls were burned,” Trabelsi Perez told AFP, criticising the lack of action by the security services to stop the attack.

“What astonished me was that there were police not far from the synagogue,” added Perez, who is also head of the Ghriba synagogue on the island of Djerba, the oldest synagogue in Africa.

Twenty-one people were killed, including 16 European tourists, when Al-Qaeda bombers attacked Ghriba in April 2002.

‘This Is a Historical Moment for Egypt’

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In this interview, a Nobel Peace prize winning Egyptian suggests that Egypt follow tunisia’s example and form a new government with the Islamic brotherhood.

From Der Spiegel:

By Erich Follath and Dieter Bednarz

Mohamed El-Dakhakhny

Egyptian opposition politician Mohamed ElBaradei: “I won’t leave them in the lurch.”

In a SPIEGEL interview, Egyptian Nobel Peace Prize recipient Mohamed ElBaradei, 68, discusses the urge for change in his home country, possible cooperation with Islamists in the next election and the prospects of driving autocratic Hosni Mubarak out of office.

SPIEGEL: Mr. ElBaradei, some six months ago, you announced in an interview with us that you wanted to retreat from public life. After 12 years as the chief of the United Nations nuclear weapons inspectors in Vienna, you only wanted to give lectures. Now you are challenging President Hosni Mubarak. What happened?

ElBaradei: The decisive moment was my return to Cairo in February. I really only wanted to visit my country again and spend a few weeks at my house here near the pyramids. But then, 1,500 people were standing there at the airport. It was a cross-section of our society: students, business people, workers and surprisingly many women, including Egyptian women with head scarves and veiled faces. Some called out: “This country must be changed, please help us make that happen!” Others held signs reading: “ElBaradei for President!” It electrified me.

SPIEGEL: And that’s why you changed plans? According to the constitution, you can’t even become a candidate for the presidency without your own party.

ElBaradei: I have traveled through the cities and through the villages. I was shaken by the backwardness of my country, deeply moved by the people’s palpable desire for change, overpowered by the sympathy and enthusiasm I was met with. And then it was the regime itself that gave me no other choice than to become politically active. With the help of the state-controlled media, they launched an unprecedented smear campaign against me, denounced me as a foreign agent.

SPIEGEL: You know what happens to challengers of Mubarak. The last man to contest Mubarak for the presidency landed in jail.

ElBaradei: I was in Alexandria a short time ago with Ayman Nour at a protest event dedicated to the victims of the regime’s torture. I’m privileged in that I can rely somewhat on the fact that my international recognition protects me. Of course my wife and my children are afraid of violent attempts against me. But my family knows that I have no choice: We live in a special time of awakening. This is a historical moment for Egypt …

SPIEGEL: … in which many see you as a kind of messiah.

ElBaradei: I neither can nor want to be a savior. This mentality of sitting back and waiting for a savior is exactly what I am fighting against. The people have to effectuate change themselves and they have to dedicate themselves to it — that is the only way to achieve decisive progress. And that is exactly what is happening these days, with a breathtaking mobilization in completely new ways.

SPIEGEL: How so?

ElBaradei: Volunteers from all over the country, from every level of society are joining us. They ask: What can I do? There are already a good 15,000 supporters who are fanning out in the cities and villages to inform people about the “National Movement for Reform.” Many are joining us in our signature-gathering campaign and are saying with their names and passport numbers: We have had enough, we want change! And because our state of emergency laws prevent more than five people from assembling for a demonstration, we are creating a virtual town hall through the media.

SPIEGEL: You’ve become a blogger?

ElBaradei: A short time ago, I didn’t even know what Twitter and Facebook were. Now I use the new media and we have almost 30,000 permanent users on our website and two Facebook groups with 250,000 users each. Things are starting to move in my country.

SPIEGEL: Why is this only starting now?

ElBaradei: The country has been governed under state of emergency laws for the past 30 years. The security services are omnipotent, the police act arbitrarily. This has created a culture of fear. Should a figure be needed to represent this awakening, I will do everything I can to be a catalyst for this change.

SPIEGEL: For a long time though, as director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency and as the Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2005, you were something for the regime to be proud of.

ElBaradei: Oh yes. Just four years ago, President Mubarak awarded me this country’s highest medal and gushingly praised me as an outstanding son of Egypt to the point that it was embarrassing for me. Since I have become actively involved in the Egyptian political opposition, the state authorities have, in a subtle way controlled my public exposure, such as appearances on television. Some of my supporters were detained, and hoteliers who offered me a meeting room were pressured to cancel the booking.

SPIEGEL: Many Egyptians refer to Mubarak as the “Pharaoh” because he has been ruling the country from his palace for almost 30 years now. How do you see him?

ElBaradei: Mubarak is a one-man show without checks and balances, with no real contact with the people, who has allowed Egypt to become a police state. The regent of a country that has fallen deeply, dramatically lost stature and forfeited influence.

SPIEGEL: Iran and Turkey appear to dominate in the Middle East. Has Egypt now been relegated to playing second fiddle?

ElBaradei: Cairo was once the undisputed cultural and economic center of this region. Today close to one-third of the 80 million Egyptians are illiterate, more than one out of every five people is forced to survive on less than $1 a day. But, according to Transparency International, we have a leading position in the list of the world’s most corrupt states. Egypt is even on a list of countries threatened to become failed states — that just shows how far things have gone with us.

SPIEGEL: That is a Herculean task for the next president.

ElBaradei: Yes, because foreign policy and domestic policy can no longer be separated. A state that wants to have international clout must have a lively and open civil society — only then will it be attractive elsewhere.

SPIEGEL: Nonetheless, the West still sees Mubarak as a partner. Despite his deficits when it comes to democracy, he is seen as a guarantee for a certain amount of stability. No other country outside of Israel receives as much American aid.

ElBaradei: You are touching on a dilemma for the West: Mubarak has convinced the United States and Europe that they only have a choice between two options — either they accept this authoritarian regime, or Egypt will fall into the hands of the likes of bin Laden’s al-Qaida. Of course that is not exactly true. Mubarak uses the specter of Islamist terror to prevent a third way: the country’s democratization. But Washington needs to know that the support of a repressive leadership only creates the appearance of stability. In truth, it promotes the radicalization of the people.

For the rest of this critically important article please click here:

9/11 mastermind slaughtered Daniel Pearl.

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From The Ottawa Citizen

September 11 mastermind blamed for Pearl murder

BY BEN FARMER, THE DAILY TELEGRAPH

JANUARY 20, 2011 5:37 PM

© Copyright (c) The Daily Telegraph

The journalist Daniel Pearl was beheaded by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-confessed mastermind of the September 11 terrorist attacks, according to a newly-released FBI forensic test.

The analysis, which matched veins on Mohammed’s hand with one in the video of Mr Pearl’s murder, has been disclosed after a three-year independent investigation into the killing. It casts further doubt on the conviction of the Briton Omar Sheikh for the murder, which was filmed and put on the Internet.

The Pearl Project concludes Pakistani authorities “knowingly used perjured testimony” to pin the murder on the former public schoolboy.

Mr Pearl was kidnapped in the Pakistani port of Karachi on January 23, 2002 while researching Islamic militants and four weeks later a video of his execution was delivered to American officials.

While Sheikh and the other three convicted of the killing were involved in the kidnapping, they were not in the room when the Wall Street Journal reporter was murdered, the inquiry found.

He had been seized and held in a “multifaceted, at times chaotic conspiracy” involving at least 27 men from three militant groups. Only 14 of those have been arrested and Mr Pearl’s actual murderers are unlikely to face trial.

After his kidnap, he was handed to an al-Qaida gang led by Mohammed, a strategist for the terrorist network, who killed him. The inquiry by academics, journalists and students involved hundreds of interviews with American and Pakistani officials.

Mohammed was captured in March 2003 and confessed to masterminding the 9/11 attacks. The al-Qaida number three is being held in Guantanamo Bay military prison and has also previously confessed that he beheaded Mr Pearl.

Doubts have surrounded the confession, because it may have been extracted under “water boarding” torture.

The Pearl Project found Michael Dick, an FBI investigator, used video of Mr Pearl’s beheading to create stills of the hand of his masked killer.

The photographs were shared with CIA colleagues holding Mohammed, who used a forensic technique called “vein matching” to determine the hands belonged to the same man.

One reported: “The photo you sent me and the hand of our friend inside the cage seem identical to me.” Both the CIA and FBI use the mathematical modelling technique, though it is not considered as reliable as fingerprinting.

The investigation found Sheikh, who studied mathematics at the London School of Economics, orchestrated the kidnap, but was sidelined when Mohammed became involved.

The conspirators were “inept, plagued by bungling plans, a failure to cover their tracks, and an inability to operate cameras and computer equipment”.

Sheikh was sentenced to death in July 2002 for murder and kidnapping and three others were given life terms. Their appeals have stalled.

Rai Basheer, a defence attorney, said the prosecution was delaying the process because it knew it would lose on appeal.

© Copyright (c) The Daily Telegraph

Blazing Cat Fur brings us the newest edition of ‘Inspire’ for the Muslim faithful

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As has been said so many times by so many brilliant people, ‘When a Jain or a Christian for that matter becomes more religious you have to worry less about them. When a Muslim becomes more religious you have to be more concerned.’

Here is the latest edition of ‘Inspire’ for the truly faithful in Islam thanks to BCF

The black flag of jihad.

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One can’t help but notice that whenever Muslims do something awful, they do it in front of a black cloth with Arabic writing on it. The writing, is the declaration of faith of Islam. Specifically, “There is no god but….” and the rest of that nonsense we are all too familiar with. But why behead people in front of that? Surely if Islam is a religion of peace, the declaration of faith to Allah would be a highly inappropriate standard in front of which, to cut people’s heads off. It must just be a few ‘misunderstanders of Islam’ right?

Cut to Armistice day 2010 in England. Tommy Robinson’s group, The English Defence League, confronts a group of Muslims calling themselves, “Muslims against Crusaders” who chanted insults at British soldiers both living and dead. No doubt Anjem Chaudery’s bunch who used to be called Sharia for UK and changed their name to avoid a ban by the British government. A weak and stupid strategy if there ever was one by the Brits I might add.

Tommy Robinson was arrested for what he did that day. So a number of us, myself, a British lawyer working with Tommy’s legal defence team, (Lawman) and Baron Bodissey of The Gates of Vienna, put in some time over the last few days to research exactly what this black flag with white writing is all about as we see it whenever Muslims threaten, or actually do us harm.

This is the result.

Here are some more photos of the declaration of war, this time in Oz:

Melbourne:

Washington Times: The glaring omissions in the Obama perspective on the terror in the past week.

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EDITORIAL: When Muslims kill Christians

Obama sweeps jihadist motives under the rug

By THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The Washington Times

5:48 p.m., Tuesday, January 4, 2011

MugshotCoptic Christians weep under the broken remains of a sign celebrating “2011” Sunday in the blood-spattered Saints Church in Alexandria, Egypt. Just after a New Year’s Mass, 21 worshippers were killed and about 100 wounded in an apparent suicide bombing. (Associated Press)

Radical Muslims detonated a car bomb outside a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria, Egypt, on Saturday, killing 21 and wounding many others. The White House condemned the attack as a “barbaric and heinous act” but – true to form – remained silent on the jihadist motives of its perpetrators.

The car bombing marked an escalation in an ongoing siege against Egypt‘s oldest indigenous religious community, which previously had been subjected primarily to shootings and vandalism. The White House admitted the bombing targeted Christian worshippers, and if something similar took place in this country it would be called a hate crime, with the perpetrators and their reasons for conducting the attack precisely described. The Obama administration, however, is committed to the intellectually insupportable argument that the best way to combat jihadist terrorism is to ignore its Islamic content. It is the equivalent of telling police to solve crimes by looking into means and opportunity but ignoring motive.

The White House further watered down the impact of the attack in Egypt by combining that condemnation with another denouncing a same-day terror attack on a military barracks in Abuja, Nigeria. The latter bombing was probably the work of a radical Muslim sect called Boko Haram (“forbidden knowledge”), also known as the Nigerian Taliban, but the president chose not to point any of that out, either. Also left unmentioned was the church that the jihadists burned that day in the city of Maiduguri, or the dozens that Boko Haram killed in a series of Christmas Eve bombings in central Nigeria.

On Friday, the State Department condemned attacks by gunmen on Iraqi Christians and took the opportunity belatedly to mention the Oct. 31 bombing at the Our Lady of Salvation Catholic Church in Baghdad that killed 58. The bombing was credited to an al Qaeda affiliate organization, not that anyone would learn that from the State Department.

For the rest please click over to the Washington Times

Dutch Coptic churches threatened by al-Qaeda

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I very much hope that the powers-that-won’t take this very seriously. If the attack on the Coptic church in Alexandria wasn’t enough for them, and it won’t be, and the attacks that have already happened to Churches in Europe aren’t enough, and they will be dismissed as the work of kids and vandals and petty thugs, then the published lists of Coptic targets in Canada and elsewhere should be enough. Al Qaeda is, as they say, an inch deep and a mile wide at this point. But the selective murder of soft targets is where a mile wide counts.

From RNW in The Netherlands

Three Coptic Orthodox churches in the Netherlands feature on an al-Qaeda list of possible bombing targets, say church spokespeople.

The churches in Eindhoven, Utrecht and Amsterdam are named on the website Shumukh al-Islam, along with dozens of other Coptic churches in Egypt and across Europe. The website has called for bomb attacks on the churches during the Coptic Christmas on 7 January.

The al-Qiddisin Church in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, where at least 21 people were killed in a bomb attack on Saturday, also featured on the list.

Jozef Rizkalla, the priest of the Coptic Church in Eindhoven, said “There’s nothing we can do, we can only pray and refer the matter to the police. We will go on with our celebrations.”

British terrorists offered safe houses in France by gangsters accused of carrying out robberies to fund Al Qaeda

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From The Daily Mail:

By Peter Allen
Last updated at 5:57 PM on 3rd January 2011

  • Cross-Channel links between Islamic radicals emerge during trial of eight men

British terrorists were regularly recruited and offered safe houses by French gangsters allegedly involved in the financing of Al Qaeda, a court heard today.

The sinister links between Islamic radicals on both sides of the Channel came to light at the trial of eight men at the Paris Assizes.

All are accused of carrying out post office raids and other robberies in order to raise funds to carry out terrorist atrocities across Europe.
Clichy sous BoisSuspect operation: Clichy sous Bois, the suburb of Paris where one of the alleged terrorists ran his business, was frequented by terrorists from all over Europe

Among them is Farid Boukemiche, a 34-year-old French Algerian who spent three years in a British prison on terrorist charges before trying to claim political asylum in the UK.

When this failed Boukemiche moved back to France where, in 2003, he opened a cafe in Roubaix, near Lille.

This ‘housed many brothers, particularly British ones’, according to prosecution documents in the current Paris trial.

More… Continue Reading →