Category Archives: al-Qaeda

EDITORIAL: Iran’s al Qaeda connection in Yemen

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Iran is busy these days. No wonder they want the Israeli’s to save them. I wish they could.

From The Washington Times.

By THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The attempted Christmas Day underwear bombing of Northwest Flight 253 may have Iranian fingerprints, but those are dots the Obama administration doesn’t want to connect.

Iran and al Qaeda have made mutual war on America in Yemen before. In November 2008, Western security officials intercepted a letter signed by bin Laden deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri thanking Iran for its “vision” in helping al Qaeda establish a foothold in Yemen after being routed from Iraq and Saudi Arabia. The terror leader praised Tehran for its “monetary and infrastructure assistance” related to a September 2008 attack on the U.S. Embassy in Yemen’s capital Sana’a. Sixteen people were killed in the attack, which featured machine gun and rocket fire supporting a double suicide car bombing.

Last January, Saudi Guantanamo alumnus Mohammed Atiq Awayd al-Harbi (a.k.a. al-Awfi, or detainee No. 333) turned up in a videotape as a leader of the newly formed al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the organization that recruited Flight 253 bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. Al-Awfi had been released to Saudi custody in 2007 and went through Saudi jihadist deprogramming before being set free. He turned himself back in to Saudi authorities in February 2009 and testified that Iran was involved in supporting Shi’ite rebels in Yemen, and was also making cash available to al Qaeda.

Some intelligence analysts downplay the idea of cooperation between al Qaeda and Iran because the two are ideological foes. But both detest the United States and have mutual interest in collaborative efforts that hurt U.S. interests. Iran has provided a safe haven – Tehran calls it “house arrest” – to scores of al Qaeda operatives since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. One of Osama bin Laden’s wives, six children and 11 grandchildren are reportedly living in Iran. Former Guantanamo detainee No. 372, Said Ali al-Shiri, who like al Awfi joined al Qaeda in Yemen after Saudi deprogramming, had been in Iran shortly before being picked up by Coalition forces in 2001. Al Shiri was reportedly killed in an air strike in Yemen in December 2009 and may have been one of the planners of the attempted Flight 253 underwear bombing.

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Hate rants by Alleged al-Qaeda boss Anwar al-Awlaki on sale in London

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MIRROR… Rantings by the terror chief accused of coaching the Christmas Day syringe bomber are on sale in London.

Alleged al-Qaeda boss Anwar al-Awlaki was hailed a hero by fanatic Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who tried to explode a bomb concealed in his underpants on Northwest Airlines flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit.

Yesterday our investigators found a wide selection of al-Awlaki’s hate-filled tirades on sale in an Islamic bookshop yards from the East London Mosque which was regularly attended by Abdulmutallab.

We found DVDs of his chilling speeches prominently displayed next to the counter at Al-Furqan books on Whitechapel Road.

They included Constants on The Path To Jihad – described as “a virtual bible” for terrorists.

Somalia Terror Forces Halt to UN Food Aid

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World Food Program Says al Qaeda-Linked Militants Demanded Protection Money; 1 Million Left in “Dire” Need

CBSNEWS… The U.N. food agency is stopping aid distribution to about 1 million people in southern Somalia because of attacks against staff and demands by armed groups that aid groups remove women from their teams, the agency said Tuesday.

The World Food Program is moving staff and supplies to northern and central Somalia from six areas in the south that are largely controlled by the al-Shabab Islamist group, said Emilia Casella, a WFP spokeswoman. The U.S. State Department says al-Shabab has links to al-Qaeda.

“Up to a million people that have been dependent on food assistance in southern Somalia face a situation that is particularly dire,” Casella told reporters in Geneva.At least four of WFP’s staff have been killed over the past 18 months, and militants threatened and looted three of its offices in the south, Casella told The Associated Press.

Armed groups have also increasingly been demanding that the World Food Program and other aid groups remove women from their staff and pay tens of thousands of dollars in protection money to guarantee the aid workers’ security, she said.

The agency had tried to resolve the demands of armed groups through meetings with village elders, but was unable to win the necessary guarantees for the security of its staff and protection of its humanitarian work, Casella said.

“We need concrete guarantees from the leadership” of the armed groups, she said.

The World Food Program is now preparing for a mass exodus of hungry Somalis from the south to other parts of Somalia and to neighboring countries, she said.

The agency supplies aid to some 3 million people in the war-torn country, which is also struggling with drought and produces only a third of the food it needs every year.

OUTRAGE AS YEMEN GETS £37M OF TAXPAYERS’ CASH FOR JOBS

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Daily Express…TAXPAYERS are being forced to contribute millions of pounds to job-creation schemes in Yemen in an attempt to counter a surge of Muslim terrorist activity.

The Government is to hike overseas aid to the Arabian republic by almost 50 per cent to £37million next year amid fears it is becoming a haven for Al Qaeda militants.

Most of the cash will be pumped into new roads, reservoirs and dams with the aim of providing jobs for around 300,000 jobless Yemenis.

Increased aid is understood to be part of a new blitz by Britain, the US and other Western nations.

But the move has sparked anger about Treasury cash being lavished on work-creation schemes abroad while dole queues grow in Britain.

Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “British taxpayers already spend huge amounts on aid. Frankly this extra money is needed at home.

“It may be a well-intentioned proposal, but with huge numbers of people losing their jobs in Britain we should not be spending a ­fortune trying to solve Yemeni unemployment. When people pay tax they are told it is to protect them if they fall on hard times. We are in those hard times now and our Government’s priority should be helping British people get back on their feet.”

Britain gave £25million to aid projects in the country on the southern tip of the Arabian peninsular last year, but the figure could rise to £40million in 2011-12. More than £120million of British taxpayers’ money is due to go to the war?ravaged nation in the next four years.

Some officials claim boosting economic development and ­tack- ling poverty is the key to ­combating the growth of terrorist sympathies in the Yemen, where failed Christmas Day airline bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is thought to have been trained. Unemployment in the country is estimated at around 35 per cent of the working- age population and ­rising. Yemen is also facing a ­growing economic crisis as the country’s oil is expected to run out by 2018. And it is suffering from an acute water shortage.

But critics of the aid policy point out that many Al Qaeda terrorists have come from wealthy backgrounds rather than out of poverty.

Yemen’s population is one of the fastest growing in the world with around a third of its 24 million ­citizens reckoned to be under 24.

The Department for International Development said: “The UK is increasingly concerned about the situation in Yemen and the number and scale of the challenges facing the Government of Yemen.

“Yemen is the only low-income country in the Middle East – 35 per cent of Yemenis live under the ­poverty line.

“It is becoming increasingly unstable. Any further deterioration of security and stability in Yemen will have great implications not only for the Yemeni people, but also for the region and beyond.”

Kenya Seeks To Deport Muslim Cleric To Jamaica

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 NYT–LONDON — The Kenyan authorities were reported on Monday to be planning to deport a Jamaican-born Muslim cleric, Abdullah el-Faisal, who may have helped inspire the Nigerian man accused of trying to bomb an American airliner headed to Detroit on Christmas Day.

Mr. Faisal has long been known to law enforcement agencies in the United States and Europe. He was tried in Britain in 2003 on charges of spreading racial hatred and urging his followers to kill Christians, Hindus, Jews and Americans. He was deported from Britain in 2007.

Reuters reported from Nairobi, the capital, that Mr. Faisal was in Kenya on a preaching tour. But intelligence officials feared that his speeches would encourage radicalism in a country that has been a target of attacks ascribed to Al Qaeda, including the 1998 bombing of the American Embassy. He was arrested Sunday in the port city of Mombasa.

“The minister in charge of immigration has declared him as an unwanted immigrant. We don’t want him in this country,” a police spokesman, Eric Kiraithe, told Reuters. It was not clear when Mr. Faisal would be deported.

“From what he says, he was coming to preach,” Mr. Kiraithe said. “The contacts he was maintaining, according to our intelligence, are not the best, are not in our national interests.”

Mr. Faisal settled in Britain in the early 1990s and became imam of the Brixton mosque in South London, which was reported to have been frequented by Richard C. Reid, the so-called shoe bomber who sought to blow up an airliner bound for the United States just before Christmas in 2001.

Abdul Haqq Bakr, the chairman of Brixton Mosque and Islamic Cultural Center, said at the time that Mr. Reid had joined prayers at the mosque in late 1995 and left in 1998.

Zacarias Moussaoui, who was sentenced in the United States in 2006 to life in federal prison after he admitted knowledge of the Sept. 11, 2001, plot, also prayed at the Brixton mosque.

Mr. Faisal, a Jamaican-born convert to Islam who studied in Saudi Arabia, was found guilty in 2003 of encouraging followers to use chemical and nuclear weapons against their enemies from other faiths. He was sentenced to seven years in prison.

He was deported four years later after the authorities accused him of influencing Germaine Lindsay, one of the four attackers in the London bombings of July 2005. Mr. Lindsay was also a Jamaican-born convert to Islam.

Mr. Faisal’s name surfaced much more recently in investigations into Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian man accused of the attempted attack on a Northwest Airlines flight.

In an online posting in May 2005, under the name “farouk1986,” Mr. Abdulmutallab referred to Mr. Faisal as a cleric he had listened to, according to American military and law enforcement authorities.

In his posting, Mr. Abdulmutallab wrote: “I thought once they are arrested, no one hears about them for life and the keys to their prison wards are thrown away. That’s what I heard Sheik Faisal of U.K. say (he has also been arrested I heard).”

It was not clear how Mr. Faisal had made his way to Africa after being deported to Jamaica in 2007. The Kenya newspaper Daily Nation quoted the immigration minister, Otieno Kajwang, as saying that he entered Kenya from Tanzania using a border post at Lunga Lunga that was not connected to a central database in Nairobi.

Daily Nation reported Sunday that Mr. Faisal has previously been denied entry into Kenya.

He had traveled to Nigeria, Angola, Mozambique, Swaziland, Malawi and Tanzania before arriving in Kenya, the newspaper said. He was arrested after attending prayers at a mosque.

The newspaper quoted Mr. Kajwang as saying: “We are not deporting him because he is a Muslim. We are deporting him because of his terrorist history and the fact that he is on the international watch list. ”

Some Muslim threatens a Swedish cartoonist.

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H/T Snaphanen Somali threats against Swedish illustrator

Somali threats against Swedish illustrator

Published: 4 Jan 10 16:21 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/24198/20100104/

Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who sparked outrage with caricatures of the Muslim prophet Muhammad as a dog, has received threats via telephone from Somalia.

Police in Helsingborg in southern Sweden are taking seriously the threats made against Vilks, which come just three days after Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard was subjected to an axe attack at his home in Denmark.

The first of two phone calls to Vilks came on Monday morning. A subsequent check by the Swedish artist revealed that the call originated in Somalia, where the Islamic militant group al-Shabaab has gained increasing influence in the war torn country.

Al-Shabaab is also believed to have ties to al-Qaeda.

In the last month, al-Shabaab supporters who reportedly used to live in Denmark have killed at least 22 people, including three ministers, in a suicide bomb attack carried out in the Somali capital of Mogadishu.

According to Vilks, the man who threatened him spoke Swedish.

“The man, who spoke accented Swedish, asked me if I knew about what happened in Denmark and to the artist Kurt Westergaard. I said I certainly did,” Vilks told the Helsingborgs Dagblad newspaper.

“The man then explained that they were out after more and that they would soon come for me. I told them they were welcome,” said Vilks.

According to Patrik Peter, a spokesman for Swedish security service Säpo, the incident is being investigated by local police.

“It may be that the police will ask for our help in which case we’ll obviously do what we can,” Peter told the TT news agency.

The Helsingborg police have refused to comment on the incident.

“I have no comment whatsoever on how our investigation of the threat is being carried out,” police spokesperson Göran Hassel told TT.

Westergaard was one of the Danish artists who drew cartoons of the Muslim prophet Muhammad for Denmark’s Jyllandsposten newspaper. Westergaard’s drawing portrayed Muhammad with a bomb in his turban.

TT/The Local (ne**@******al.se/08 656 6518)

British Muslim terror group threaten sniper soldiers family with death

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Al-Qaeda plot to murder family of sniper soldier

Mirror News U.K.

EXCLUSIVE by Rupert Hamer, Defence Correspondent

3/01/2010

Sniper (Pic:MOD/SM)

British-based al-Qaeda fanatics threatened to kill a soldier’s ­family after learning his ­sniper team had killed 32 ­Taliban.

Armed police were sent to his home after anti-terrorism officers uncovered the plot to murder his parents.

The plans came to light when the security services monitored ­“chatter” – ­believed to be on ­mobile phones or the internet – between al-Qaeda ­extremists.

It is the second time a ­soldier or his loved ones are known to have been targeted in the UK by groups linked to al-Qaeda. Continue Reading →

New game: What do these events have in Common?

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Here is a one minute BBC clip of the days news. The object of the game is, to guess what all three events have in common. The winner may actually get to save his family,, his civilization and even his history as a people and culture. The loser? well I’m not sure what they get exactly but I know exactly what the last thing they ever hear is.

Somali arrested last month at airport with chemicals, syringe

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Article’s topics: Al-qaida,  Somalia,  Detroit From The Jerusalem Post:

A man tried to board a commercial airliner in Mogadishu last month carrying powdered chemicals, liquid and a syringe that could have caused an explosion in a case bearing chilling similarities to the terrorist plot to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner, officials told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Illustrative Photo.

Illustrative Photo.
Photo: AP

Israel & Region |  World
The Somali man – whose name has not yet been released – was arrested by African Union peacekeeping troops before the Nov. 13 Daallo Airlines flight took off. It had been scheduled to travel from Mogadishu to the northern Somali city of Hargeisa, then to Djibouti and Dubai. A Somali police spokesman, Abdulahi Hassan Barise, said the suspect is in Somali custody.

“We don’t know whether he’s linked with al-Qaida or other foreign organizations, but his actions were the acts of a terrorist. We caught him red-handed,” said Barise.

A Nairobi-based diplomat said the incident in Somalia is similar to the attempted attack on the Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day in that the Somali man had a syringe, a bag of powdered chemicals and liquid – tools similar to those used in theDetroit attack. The diplomat spoke on condition he not be identified because he isn’t authorized to release the information.

Barigye Bahoku, the spokesman for the African Union military force in Mogadishu, said the chemicals from the Somali suspect could have caused an explosion that would have caused air decompression inside the plane. However, Bahoku said he doesn’t believe an explosion would have brought the plane down.

A second international official familiar with the incident, also speaking on condition of anonymity because he isn’t authorized to discuss the case, confirmed that the substances carried by the Somali passenger could have been used as an explosive device.
Continue Reading →

More on the thong-bomber

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First here is a short video on what that explosive can do in small amounts, and then some on his background:

Now, pasted from a well researched article from Gates of Vienna. However this does not include the revelation that 4 conspirators had art therapy in Saudi Arabia after being released from Gitmo:

Monday, December 28, 2009

Flight 253: Pentrite, an Accomplice, and Cheers on 9-11

by Baron Bodissey

Our Flemish correspondent VH has collected and translated the latest Dutch-language material related to Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab and the attempted bombing of Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day.

First, concerning the explosive Pentrite, an entry from Stan de Jong’s blog:

Pentrite, the favorite explosive of terrorists

by Percolator

Christmas Day, 2009. Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, a Nigerian Muslim terrorist, a son of the wealthy Islamic Banker hajj Umaru Abdul Mutallab (who had sixteen children)[1], wanted to blow himself up together with almost three hundred other people on board an aircraft approaching Detroit airport, as seems to have been announced in an Al Qaeda video days before (December 21)[2]. For this attack Mutallab made use of the explosive pentrite (pentaerythritol tetranitrate, or PETN). This substance is one of the major components of the dreaded semtex.

The reason explosives such as pentrite and semtex are so popular with terrorists is that they are relatively easily available on the free market and have an enormous destructive power. Moreover, these explosives cannot be detected by metal detectors and X-ray equipment, which are used as standard equipment during check-in at airports.

Modern 3D body scanning devices would easily be able to detect explosives such as were attached to the leg of Abdul Mutallab. But yes, cost and privacy, eh. In the Netherlands this is decisive. The government does not care[3] about a few hundred lives when some euros can be saved. Fortunately there are bold types like Jasper Schuringa (and brave cabin crews)[4] aboard threatened aircraft. Otherwise there would currently much sadder news to report.

To give an impression of what exploding pentrite may cause, here a few images of amateur experiments with this material: 8 grams, 20 grams and 250 grams. [And here when mixed with Ammonium nitrate. The Muslim terrorist had 80 grams of PETN on him, while 50 grams would be enough blow away part of the hull and sections of the wiring of an aircraft: here a video: 90g mixed with 200g ANFO.]

That this attack was planned for Christmas also gives a nice glimpse into the twisted minds of the Muslim fundamentalists. The Western authorities always exert extreme efforts to imprint in the indigenous bourgeoisie a display of respect for Muslim festivals and customs. But reciprocity will not be a part of this for a while yet, I fear.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   * Continue Reading →

Breaking: 4 condom-bomber conspirators were GITMO grads

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Just got this from a youtuber. From Chicago Breaking News:

Men believed behind airplane plot were freed from Gitmo

Two of the four leaders allegedly behind the al Qaeda plot to blow up a Northwest Airlines passenger jet over Detroit were released by the U.S. from the Guantanamo prison in November, 2007, ABC News is reporting, quoting American officials and citing Department of Defense documents.

American officials agreed to send the two terrorists to Saudi Arabia where they entered into an “art therapy rehabilitation program” and were set free, according to U.S. and Saudi officials, ABC News reported.

Guantanamo prisoner #333, Muhamad Attik al-Harbi, and prisoner #372, Said Ali Shari, were sent to Saudi Arabia on Nov. 9, 2007, according to the Defense Department log of detainees who were released from American custody. Al-Harbi has since changed his name to Muhamad al-Awfi.

More from ABC.GO

Two al Qaeda Leaders Behind Northwest Flight 253 Terror Plot Were Released by U.S.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab Says More Bombers On the Way; Al Qaeda Promises to Hit Americans

Authorities investigate Northwest flight 253 on the tarmac at Detroit Metro Airport in Romulus, Michigan December 27, 2009.

(Reuters/U.S. Marshal’s Service)

Two of the four leaders allegedly behind the al Qaeda plot to blow up a Northwest Airlines passenger jet over Detroit were released by the U.S. from the Guantanamo prison in November, 2007, according to American officials and Department of Defense documents. Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the Northwest bombing in a Monday statement that vowed more attacks on Americans.

American officials agreed to send the two terrorists from Guantanamo to Saudi Arabia where they entered into an “art therapy rehabilitation program” and were set free, according to U.S. and Saudi officials.

Guantanamo prisoner #333, Muhamad Attik al-Harbi, and prisoner #372, Said Ali Shari, were sent to Saudi Arabia on Nov. 9, 2007, according to the Defense Department log of detainees who were released from American custody. Al-Harbi has since changed his name to Muhamad al-Awfi.

M.E.N.D. Issues curious statement.

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M.E.N.D., a terrorist group for the emancipation of the Niger Delta has issued a statement about the Nigerian Muslim who attempted to bring down a U.S. Jet over Detroit Dec. 25th. In this statement, they appear to insinuate that the Government of Nigeria, who they fight, is complicit with Islamist forces wordwide and that the worlds microscope should focus more on the Islamic forces within Nigeria, as opposed to MEND and it’s activities. While this is not surprising, it may contain at least a grain of truth.

Eeyore for Vlad

MEND reacts to attempted terrorist attack on US plane

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) has condemned the attempted attack on the Delta Flight 253 bound for the United States by a Nigerian youth, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

“The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) condemns the attempted act of terrorism on Delta flight 253 into the United States by a misguided Islamic extremist from the Northern part of Nigeria,” the statement, signed by its leader, Jomo Gbomo, said. “Had the plan been successful, it would have left many families across the globe grieving on a day when Christians celebrate the birth of a peace maker, Jesus Christ.

“It should by now be evident that the threat to world peace will not emerge from the Niger Delta, a region agitating for justice as is acknowledged by every right thinking human being, but from the Islamic extremist northern part of Nigeria covertly supported by its elite who assume leadership of Nigeria to be the birthright of this region.”

In the statement, the group suggested that the Niger Delta is unfairly singled out for violent acts, saying “The Nigerian government has persistently turned a blind eye to Islamic extremists coming from Northern Nigeria, choosing instead to focus and waste its resources on military hardware and troop deployment in the Niger Delta. In spite of this embarrassment to the nation, the government will not re-direct its military to the North, neither will the rights of these violent people be trampled as is the case in the Niger Delta.

The group also suggested that Mr. Mutallab had Nigerian cohorts. “The young man who attempted this cowardly act is not alone,” Mr Gbomo said. “And governments around the world should pay more attention to northern Nigeria with its threat to world peace than to agitation for justice in the Niger Delta which only threatens world oil prices.”

The group did not provide any material or names to support the assertions or name the specific groups in the North which it claims are threats to world peace.

It will be recalled that, based on reports, the young man has not been close to his Nigerian home for a long time. According to the country’s minister for information, speaking to the press on Sunday, “The man in question has lived outside the country for a while. He sneaked into Nigeria on December 24 2009 and left the same day.” His father had also earlier reported his son’s activities to the US authorities in Nigeria.

Second man of interest aboard flight, also Nigerian

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From The Washington Post:

Man removed from same flight as Christmas attack

By ED WHITE

The Associated Press
Sunday, December 27, 2009; 2:55 PM

DETROIT — A passenger onboard the same Northwest Airlines flight that was attacked on Christmas Day was taken into custody in Detroit on Sunday after becoming verbally disruptive upon landing, officials said.

A law enforcement official said the man was Nigerian and had locked himself in the airliner’s bathroom. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing.

Delta Air Lines spokeswoman Susan Elliott said crew members requested that security remove the man from Flight 253 after he became disruptive. The remaining 255 passengers got off safely, she said.

Airport spokesman Scott Wintner said it was the same flight on which a man tried to set off an explosive on Christmas Day.

“The pilot requested emergency assistance upon arrival,” he said.

Security and airline personnel are on edge since the attempted terror attack on Christmas Day, and the law enforcement official said that lesser incidents had been reported on other flights arriving in Detroit, but the incident with the Nigerian man had sparked the most concern.

—-

Associated Press writers Devlin Barrett and Nyia Hawkins in Washington contributed to this report.