For the ever so imaginative jihadists, definitely not a first. "US finds clues in bakery to foil Iraqi terror plot," by Phillip Robertson for NewsChannel 8, September 8 (thanks to Jeffrey Imm):
MOSUL, Iraq from NewsChannel 8 - Lt. Christopher Hanes knew something was wrong as soon as he stepped into the Friends bakery. The oven was unused, the water tank was empty and a large concrete bin was full of dirt that the two employees claimed was used to cool cakes. Hanes and his soldiers moved the water tank and found the entrance to a 50-foot tunnel heading straight for the nearby provincial government headquarters.The U.S. military believes insurgents planned to tunnel underneath the compound's blast walls and blow up the headquarters building. With 250-300 Iraqis working in the governor's office and perhaps hundreds more there for business, casualties from such a blast could have been catastrophic.
Discovery of the tunnel Sept. 1, the first day of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, drove home a message: Sunni militants have been battered but not defeated despite a monthslong operation by U.S. and Iraqi forces to clear Mosul, Iraq's third largest city, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad.
[...]
"As soon as we went inside, you could tell that they weren't baking bread," said Hanes of Grandview, Mo. "I started asking the two men questions, and they were calm, acting like nothing was wrong because the U.S. had been there a few times before."
The first clue was dirt in a bin that was attached to a wall. The soldiers' didn't buy the explanation that it was used to cool cakes.
Troops searched some more. Inside sacks of flour they discovered digging tools. The two Iraqis explained they were digging to install a water pipe.
"Next to the oven, which hadn't been used in a long time, there was a water pipe connected to a water tank that had been very recently painted," Hanes said, suspecting the pipe might be an air hose.
He moved the tank and discovered a pipe sticking out of the concrete. He pulled the pipe - and uncovered the opening to the tunnel.
Hanes and his soldiers descended into the darkened entrance. They found a laser level and a compass so the diggers could make sure they were moving in the right direction. They also found a plastic container that could be reeled back to the entrance to remove dirt.
"I am not a tunnel expert, but it was looking pretty good to me," he said. Every six feet, wooden arches shored up the wall to prevent cave-ins.
Inside the tunnel, troops found a map indicating the militants planned to dig two branch tunnels toward other buildings in the government compound.
"There was a map with targets on it. They were definitely going to drop the provincial hall." Hanes said. "We tested the hands of the two individuals for explosives and they came back positive for TNT."
The two Iraqis were promptly arrested. A U.S. military statement identified them as al-Qaida operatives. American soldiers ran their names through a database of detainees and found their pictures - indicating they had been arrested but released, possibly for lack of evidence or in an amnesty announced early this year.
"When I showed the man with glasses his picture and said 'this is you,' he started crying," Hanes said.
What a waste of manpower. They go to all that trouble to blow it up?
East and West Berliners dug such tunnels to get their loved ones to freedom. Theirs were single use tunnels because once their families were out, they could all leave.
You'd think these guys would have better use for this tunnel than a one-time job. Think of all the secret meetings that could have been had between terrorists and government officials. Someone enters the bakery and comes out half an hour later with a birthday cake and maybe an envelope of cash or a favor from a politico. The politicians maintain plausible deniability because no one sees the terrorist enter the HQ.
Didn't the Gazans build tunnels with all the comforts of home? There's jobs for them in Iraq.
Lt. Christopher Hanes knew something was wrong as soon as he stepped into the Friends bakery. The oven was unused, the water tank was empty and a large concrete bin was full of dirt that the two employees claimed was used to cool cakes.
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I just love "dirt-cooled" cakes--they're an Iraqi specialty! Seriously, hadn't any Iraqis ever wandered into the "Friends bakery" before, and found themselves in the middle of the Monty Python "cheese shop" sketch? If so, did any of them find this a bit odd?
I imagine many of them had learned, even back when old Saddam Hussein was in power, not to ask too many questions. Some, I'm sure, met this "bakery" with a wink, and others were probably terrified. Clearly, none of them had ever thought to notify the Americans or the Iraqi government.
Real civic-spirited, those Iraqis. What's it to them if a building full of their fellows is blown up?
To borrow a word from Tolkien...Orcs.
This makes me wonder how many other jihadis are busy digging tunnels or constructing secret cellars/ basements/ bunkers/ ammo dumps, and not only in Afghanistan, or Iraq, or Gaza.
Might be an idea to take a good, close look, with an army sapper's eye, at mosques - and Muslim-owned premises, such as bakeries, yes, and restaurants, and shops, and even the larger private homes - in the kafir lands.
I recently read a long article about US Special Forces "task force" teams that include FBI, CIA, NSA and others...all working together with Army and Marine Special Forces, where communications intercepts result in lightening night-time raids and captures, immediate interrogations and then, as a result of information gleaned, more raids the same night.
The gist of this article was that these task forces, and the terrorist assets they keep rolling up, have been as much a reason as the surge for the dramatic decline in the violence in Iraq. What a dramatic example this is of what can happen when different federal agencies cooperate instead of fighting over turf.
Muslim moles are hard at work digging tunnels, determined to wreak havoc on civilization; but what allah's minions do not know, is that there are no virgins beyond lifes threshold - but rather - a hell hole similar to the one they've dug to be used against others. Oh, and fire too, lots of fire, making fire-in-the-hole a common phrase among the damned.
from above:
That unnecessary little detail troubles me.
IIRC, it wasn't long ago that reports like this would keep details about our troops personal lives out of public reports. I can think of no value to disclosing the quoted details.
This, while many Iraqis, some who served as interpreters for coalition troops, assume refugee status here in the US for safety.
from
http://www.garlicandgrass.org/issue8/Robert_Sheer.cfm
it conceivable that Al Qaeda, as defined by President Bush as the center of a vast and well-organized international terrorist conspiracy, does not exist?
To even raise the question amid all the officially inspired hysteria is heretical, especially in the context of the U.S. media's supine acceptance of administration claims relating to national security. Yet a brilliant new BBC film produced by one of Britain's leading documentary filmmakers systematically challenges this and many other accepted articles of faith in the so-called war on terror.
"The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear," a three-hour historical film by Adam Curtis recently aired by the British Broadcasting Corp., argues coherently that much of what we have been told about the threat of international terrorism "is a fantasy that has been exaggerated and distorted by politicians. It is a dark illusion that has spread unquestioned through governments around the world, the security services and the international media."
If Osama bin Laden does, in fact, head a vast international terrorist organization with trained operatives in more than 40 countries, as claimed by Bush, why, despite torture of prisoners, has this administration failed to produce hard evidence of it?
How can it be that in Britain since 9-11, 664 people have been detained on suspicion of terrorism but only 17 have been found guilty, most of them with no connection to Islamist groups and none who were proven members of Al Qaeda?
Why have we heard so much frightening talk about "dirty bombs" when experts say it is panic rather than radioactivity that would kill people?
Why did Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld claim on "Meet the Press" in 2001 that Al Qaeda controlled massive high-tech cave complexes in Afghanistan, when British and U.S. military forces later found no such thing?
Al-Qaueda is a Godly curse on Islam and it will always be there as a thorn in the eyes of Muslims.
Don't these people watch "Weeds"?
"When I showed the man with glasses his picture and said 'this is you,' he started crying," Hanes said.
Save your tears for the people you were trying to kill.
Posted by: asif1986 - it conceivable that Al Qaeda, as defined by President Bush as the center of a vast and well-organized international terrorist conspiracy, does not exist?
You know what, Asif, you're right! Al Qaeda doesn't exist.
So it's just islam, pure and simple. Now instead of us fighting an enemy that blends into civilian populations we should just lay waste to any and all things islamic.
I'm in. Anyone else?
This story kinda makes you wonder what is underground around your local mosque. Sorry for being so politically incorrect,...not.