Are terrorist groups sending young men to med school so that they can serve as medics for the mujahedin? From the Sydney Morning Herald, with thanks to Nicolei:
Izhar ul-Haque, the medical student arrested in Sydney last week, may have been studying to become part of a medical unit to support terrorist fighters in the field, according to a terrorism expert in Pakistan.Amir Rana, an author and journalist, told the Herald that al-Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) had long held ambitions to establish their own medical field units to care for injured fighters and had been sending students abroad.
Ul-Haque allegedly underwent a training course in Pakistan last year but decided to return to Sydney to continue his medical studies after being told he would better serve his cause as a doctor, not a martyr, Central Local Court was told last week.
LET began with the goal of liberating Kashmir but it has strong links with al-Qaeda and many of its followers fought in Afghanistan. The detained Australian David Hicks allegedly trained in one of these camps, as did the Frenchman Willie Brigitte.
Ul-Haque's arrest on Thursday stemmed from the investigation into an alleged terrorist plot involving Brigitte.
Ul-Haque knew one of Brigitte's associates, a man known as Abu Hamza, who was, according to Brigitte, the Australian "representative" of LET.
Yesterday, Mr Hamza's lawyer, Stephen Hopper, said his client had no significant link to ul-Haque. He described their relationship as "non-significant" and "non-relevant".
Mr Hopper would not say where the pair met. "It was an association that was no more than a hi-bye relationship. There was no close relationship at all.
"My guy [Hamza] basically knew who [ul-Haque] was. It's not like they'd come around to his place and have food. He has never been to this guy's place."
According to a Western intelligence source in Islamabad, LET-trained fighters are now turning up in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Philippines and Chechnya. A number of individuals and small groups have also been arrested in western countries, including Australia.
The source said highly trained LET terrorists had now turned their attention to Islamic causes around the world.
The Aqsa camp, where police allege ul-Haque trained, was used to introduce young men to the world of terrorism.
Students attended three-week courses where they would be drilled on their faith, their knowledge of the Koran and their commitment to the holy war.
The training was conducted in modern buildings, with an Islamic library and computers, and the students would study from early in the morning and relax by playing sport in the afternoon. They also received some light weapons training.
Those deemed suitable would graduate to another camp, where they would be given advanced military and explosives training. Others would be singled out to work in specialist fields, such as medicine.
The journalist Mr Rana said the leaders of al-Qaeda and LET had sought out bright students to run their medical units because their fighters often died from relatively minor injuries due to do a lack of basic care.
"I have been told by LET sources that some students were sent to London and Europe, and even Australia, to get the best education in medicine," he said.
Let them train in their own countries. In the war against Islamic terrorism, denial of education is a just weapon. Why train people whose intent is to kill you? If they want to live in a 7th century society, then we can help them by refusing to educate them. The war against terrorism is military, it also has a law enforcement component, and should have a denial of services one, too.
"...some students were sent to London and Europe, and even Australia, to get the best education in medicine."
more evidence of the parasitic nature of this phenomenon. they hijack our planes to turn them into missiles; they acquire our weapons to fire them at our boys; they attempt to develop our nuclear technologies to use them for mass murder against us; and now they want our medicine to heal their fighters so they can kill more of us. in disease biology, we call this an INFECTION.
They could also want docs who could inflict massive damage on infidel patients. For example, what if one of them had access to lactated Ringer's solution, or any of the several other fluids that are often used in patient care. The terrorist "doctor" could contaminate the solutions with succinyl choline or curariform drugs, which are commonly used by anesthesiologists during surgical procedures.
These drugs are used to paralyze patients, requiring respiratory support. If enough bags were contaminated and used in patient rooms rather than in the operating room, literally thousands of patients could be killed.
Can you imagine how that would affect people who needed hospitalization, or the cost of testing the entire fluid supply, and so forth?
There are so many ways a terrorist could do his dirty work if he had a good medical education. It would greatly aid in creative ways of using their biological and chemical agents, too. Access to a variety of potentially dangerous (to us) resources would be available to them, especially if, in addition to being educated, they were licensed. They could take out a whole roomful of people with Fentanyl, a narcotic anesthetic agent, just as the Russkies did in that theater in Moscow. Unless it's reversed, it can be fatal.
It's the stuff of which entire novels could be written. I sure hope that the terrorist disguised as a physician is one of the scenarios being considered by our spooks.
Wounder if he would have taken the oath to heal all persons not just muslims of islam. But i guess not because he would be unable to heal or mend anyone that was not a muslim, at least live to say so.
There was a similar flap in Florida a couple of years ago where three muslim med students were over heard talking about a bomb at a resturant in Georgia.
They were going to Miami in two cars. They wound up on the West coast of Florida, which is were a terrorist had a safe house and was arrested at Miami airport the day before these guys ran a toll booth.
A bomb sniffing dog went crazy when they were stopped by Florida State Patrol. Alligator Alley was closed for hours.
The cops turned up nothing of physical evidence but noted that the three gave misleading and conflicting answers to questioning.
I was down there on vacation at the time. The national media played up like these guys were innocent victims and everybody over reacted in a descrimination farce against muslims.
Well now we know what these guys could of been really up to.
Wesley