Oh, he was probably just checking on the weather in Damascus. "Calls key in terror case," from the Times Union, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:
ALBANY -- The spiritual leader of an Albany mosque repeatedly called a phone number in Syria that an FBI report indicates had been used to gather terrorist intelligence for Osama bin Laden, according to classified documents unsealed late Tuesday in U.S. District Court. The FBI report, which was based on information from a confidential informant, was among several once-secret documents that federal authorities say raise questions about Yassin Aref's connections to terrorist organizations across the Middle East.Aref, 35, a Kurdish refugee who moved to Albany with his family in 1999, is in jail without bond while awaiting trial on charges related to an FBI counterterrorism sting. He has denied any connections to terrorism.
But federal authorities paint him as an intelligent religious scholar with strong ties to some of the world's most notorious terrorists, including Mullah Krekar, the founder of a violent Iraqi terrorist organization with ties to al-Qaida.
The FBI report on bin Laden is undated and heavily redacted. It states that an informant told the FBI that during October 2001 he was approached by someone soliciting intelligence about "flight training schools, access to airports in (redacted)" and information about "how close the individual could get to an aircraft."
The informant said he was instructed that any information could be distributed to "brothers" through two phone numbers in Damascus, Syria. One of the numbers was called repeatedly by Aref from his Albany home, according to federal authorities.
Is not this the tool of eavesdropping that Democrats are wanting Bush to be impeached with? cant have anyone eavesdrop on a terrorist call to AMerica now!
hope they never stop it! now if they can put those monster in jail or better send back!
A Kurdish refugee. He should be thanking his lucky stars (and moon) for the United States.
I guess that would underscore how much Muslim identity trumps national identity (even in the midst of the fierce Kurdish nationalist movement) in that part of the world. Of course, that's a mentality that those in favor of global Sharia and a caliphate would like to export, along with turncoat refugees.
OH Now come on sure-ly he was just calling for mor money for that ice cream stand and the pizza shop?
Yes this is what the democrats have said the American people should not have the right to do.
Lula you say deport I say we need to start putting some of these Tratiors to death remember the rosenburgs yes they were hangged from given info to the russians I would say this is a real war and needs to be fought like a real war!!!
Deporting just aint going to cut it just leaves these monsters to do their dirty work somewhere else and they way our world is oceans don't protect us anymore 9/11/2001 showed that.
No deporting just don't cut it.
Just a poit about deporting was today a Frenchman threw something over the Whitehouse fence BUT he was deported in 2004 for doing the same thing The BIG Q? is how did this Frenchman get back into the country what was he allowed to come in It is the State Depatments job to put him on a no fly list after all he was deported??
Did this man come across the border in the south or the north or just get on a plane how could someone who was deported get back into this country??
NO Deporting just aint going to cut it any more.
Part of the American Tribe
Squirrel Hunter
Spider Killer
GOD BLESS THE USA AND HER FIGHTING FORCES AND ALL WHO FIGHT WITH HER GIVE THEM STRENGTH, WISDOM, SIGHT, AND COURAGE TO DESTROY ALL ISLAMIC TERRORIST AND ALL WHO SUPPORT THEM LET NOT THE WORLD BE DECEIVED BY THEM GIVE THE WORLD COURAGE TO STAND TOGETHER TO FIGHT THIS EVIL AMEN
PS
Always Remember
http://www.ci-ce-ct.com/Feature%20articles/02-12-2002.asp
Taqiyya and kitman: The role of Deception in Islamic terrorism
Tradecraft. Persona. Deception. Disinformation. Cover: Western operational terms and techniques. But, Islamic terrorists have their own terms: taqiyya (pronounced tark-e-ya) : precautionary dissimulation or deception and keeping one’s convictions secret and a synonymous term, kitman: mental reservation and dissimulation or concealment of malevolent intentions...
Taqiyya and kitman or ‘holy hypocrisy’ has been diffused throughout Arabic culture for over fourteen hundred years since it was developed by Shiites as a means of defence and concealment of beliefs against Sunni unbelievers. As the Prophet said: 'he who keeps secrets shall soon attain his objectives.’
The skilful use of taqiyya and kitman was often a matter of life and death against enemies; it is also a matter of life and death to many contemporary Islamic terrorists. As so often in the history of Islam, a theological doctrine became operational
During the Spanish inquisition, Sunni Moriscos attended mass and returned home to wash their hands of the ‘holy water’. In operational terms, taqiyya and kitman allowed the ‘mujahadeen ’ to assume whatever identity was necessary to fulfill their mission; they had doctrinal and theological and later jurisprudential sanction to pretend to be Jews or Christians to gain access to Christian and Jewish targets: ‘the mujahadeen can take the shape of the enemy’.
Taqiyya is common to both Shiite and Sunni Muslim discourse and has significant implications for understanding Islamic fundamentalism and terrorist operations. The theory and practice of counter terrorism would be counter productive, indeed pointless, and even harmful, without reference to taqiyya and kitman and the crucial role of deception ranging from Islamic jurisprudence to Al Qaeda training manuals, which carry detailed instructions on the use of deception by terrorists in Western target countries.
According to Christian ethics lying is a sin; In Islamic jurisprudence and theology, the use of taqiyya against the unbelievers is regarded as a virtue and a religious duty
But federal authorities paint him as an intelligent religious scholar with strong ties to some of the world's most notorious terrorists, including Mullah Krekar, the founder of a violent Iraqi terrorist organization with ties to al-Qaida.
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"Religious scholar" new PC term for terrorist.
The Texican.
Freedom, the only cost at any cost.
Jihad Watch is only as good as an effective Jihad STOP.
I called this number and they answered:
"Falafel exchange, how may we serve you?"
I asked if they had any Havarti and they hung up.
I guess that would underscore how much Muslim identity trumps national identity (even in the midst of the fierce Kurdish nationalist movement) in that part of the world. Of course, that's a mentality that those in favor of global Sharia and a caliphate would like to export, along with turncoat refugees. Posted by: Shinoliite
Shinoliite
While I am naturally suspicious of Muslims from the get go, I wonder whether this would be representative of even most Kurds. They have taken it on the chin from Arabs, and Iraqi Kurdistan has been a much more stable democracy in the last 10 years than any Arab country. Given that the Kurds (and the Barbers, as Hugh pointed out in the D/W thread on the Algerian ban on Christianity) have experienced Arab repression first hand, I doubt that the above Kurd is any representation of Kurds any more than Noam Chomsky or Grover Norquest is of you or me.
This leads to an exercise as to which nationalities can be expected to be hostile to Islam, and which ones not. One metric that I use is non-Islamic/pre-Islamic history/heritage. If a people have an independent pre-Islamic identity of their own that isn't subsumed in another identity, it is fair to say that given the chance to bolt from Islam, they will. However, if they don't have such a track record, they are less likely to. The other one is their proximity to, and repression by, Arabs. The higher that factor, the more likely it is that they would jettison Islam.
Some examples of pre-Islamic precedent: Iran. Given that they were one of the leading pre-Islamic civilizations with their own identity, I don't doubt that given the opportunity, they'd bolt. After all, if they do, they could always aspire to emulate their Parthian/Sassanian forebears, and join the rest of the world on the world stage. Same with Indonesia and Malaysia. Even though their pre-Islamic heritage is Hindu, they are distant enough from India, and their language, Bahasa Indonesia, though derived from Sanskrit, is distinct enough from mainstream Indian languages. If they ceased to be Islamic, they wouldn't suddenly become Indian. Some other possibilities - Bosnia, Kosovo, Albania, all of which could be viable European countries once they jettison Islam.
As for the repression by Arabs, I believe that the Kurds are very likely to look at alternatives - preferably distant alternatives. Given their history of subjugation by not just the Arabs, but Turks and Iranians, I believe they'd look to something distant, like Christianity, rather than Zoroastrian, which was their pre-Islamic faith. As for Barbers, they have been clandestinely converting, hence the Algerian ban. I believe that that example would be followed throughout North Africa once Islam is weakened.
So who are the exceptions? The Turks, for one. After all, what was their pre-Islamic claim to fame? None (don't count the Mongols in this - Chengiz Khan, Hulegu Khan, etc. Stick to the Turks - be it the Seljuks, the Timurides or the Ottoman). Which is my theory why after close to 90 years of Kemalism, they still haven't thrown off Islam. The Afghans are another group for whom Sunni Islam provides a national identity distinct from Shia (or would be Zoroastrian) Iran, and Hindu/Sikh India (unless they were to pick Buddhism). Which partly explains why even after the fall of the Taliban, Islam is still going strong. Don't expect that to happen in Iran if the Ayatollahs collapse.
The remaining big Muslim countries are Pakistan and Bangladesh. Here, I strongly doubt that they'd change, since Islam is their only claim to legitimately be separate from India. As a result, I don't see them switching. In the case of Bangladesh, that country started of under Bengali nationalism, but today is far more allied to Islam than to Bengali nationalism.
Having said all that, I agree with your bottom line - ban Muslim immigration here, and elsewhere in dar ul Islam. Let them fight it out. Support the likely apostates with weapons so that they can oust their oppressors. Once Iran, Indonesia, Malaysia, Kurdistan and North Africa switch from Islam, you'll see it defanged, since its population will be a lot less than the magical threshold figure of 1 billion, which is the number Muslims have used to keep the Dhimmi world in awe.
OT: Can anyone list which are the HTML tags that work on this site? I try so many, but they disappear during the preview? There are quite a few styles, like the cite, bullets, that I'd like to use for different purposes, but don't know which ones will work.
So far the ones that I've found to work are
b - bold
i - italics
ul, ol - indented text
Which are the others?
OT: Can anyone list which are the HTML tags that work on this site? I try so many, but they disappear during the preview? There are quite a few styles, like the cite, bullets, that I'd like to use for different purposes, but don't know which ones will work.
So far the ones that I've found to work are
b - bold
i - italics
ul, ol - indented text
Which are the others?
I've found that the blockquote tag works. For anyone who doesn't know how to use it - see here:
http://www.htmlcodetutorial.com/linepar/_BLOCKQUOTE.html
And, of course, although the board software will autolink web-addresses, you can also link URLs with the a=href syntax.
So you can say, for example, Boris Johnson, the MP for Henley on Thames correctly observes in an article entitled "The Shabina Begum case never had anything to do with modesty", in today's Telegraph that:
However, I feel that even Mr. Johnson (to say nothing of Cherie Blair) misunderstands the import of the case. This is part of a larger strategy - aggressive or conciliatory, propagandistic or terroristic by turns (beware those "moderates") - aimed at destroying our way of life. For some sobering commentary on this, see this article by military historian J. R. Dunn in the American Thinker:
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=5348
By the way, Mr. Johnson will doubtless be posting his essay on his blog later. If anyone feels moved to comment, here is it's address:
http://www.boris-johnson.com/
Oh, good grief, I never used to make grammatical errors like that. Perhaps it comes with age. :-)
Testing this
Thanks, Yojimbo. I'll explore some more, and see what I find.
bear in mind that Syria has been protected by Western diplomacy and news services over the last 30 years. The Syrian occupation of Lebanon was allowed to proceed. Israeli preemptive and punitive actions against Syria's Hizbullah proxies were thwarted, Assad & Co. were described as a stabilizing or even peacemaking factor in Lebanon, etc. Now it turns out that al-Qa`ida has agents working there. And Syria is a country with a very high degree of surveillance of the population.