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Garnaoui's trial is reminiscent of the mafia trials of the early Sixties, what with the witness amnesia, missing evidence, etc. The European bungling reported here reminds me of the Yee, Al-Arian, and Mayfield cases stateside. From the Washington Post, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:
BERLIN -- The defendant, a Tunisian man with a bushy beard, sits inside a bulletproof glass box in the courtroom. Since his arrest more than a year ago, German authorities have declared the suspect, Ihsan Garnaoui, to be a terrorist and a threat to national security, a man who plotted attacks against U.S. and Jewish targets here.But since his trial began earlier this month, prosecutors have struggled to make their accusations stick. Witnesses for the state have displayed shaky memories. Security officials have refused to allow two confidential informants to take the stand. And a key police report is missing.
At the same time, European authorities have been less aggressive than American investigators in the pursuit of some well-known radicals.
U.S. officials unsealed a federal grand jury indictment last week against Abu Hamza Masri, a radical London cleric, accusing him of orchestrating a hostage-taking plot in Yemen, among other crimes. The case involved the 1998 kidnapping of 16 Western tourists, a dozen of whom were British.
British officials have long considered Hamza a public menace because of his outspoken support for al Qaeda and have sought to strip him of his citizenship, possibly so he could be deported. But they have never been able to develop a criminal case against him, or to take him into custody until last week. And that was only in response to a U.S. request for his extradition.
On Friday, British Home Secretary David Blunkett said U.S. officials had simply been able to assemble more evidence against Hamza. "If we had that evidence and it related to our country," Blunkett told BBC radio, "we would have been able to take action through our courts."
In Germany, where the government estimates that more than 30,000 people belong to radical Islamic groups, the biggest targets have similarly remained beyond the reach of the law.
A German court last year did convict a Moroccan man, Mounir Motassadeq, of more than 3,000 counts of accessory to murder for aiding the Hamburg al Qaeda cell that carried out the Sept. 11 hijackings. But that verdict was overturned in March by federal appellate judges, who ruled that he was denied a fair trial and deserved a new one. Another alleged 9/11 accomplice, Abdelghani Mzoudi, was acquitted outright in February.
In the Motassadeq case, the appellate court threw out the verdict in part because U.S. officials would not allow testimony or interrogation transcripts from Ramzi Binalshibh, an al Qaeda leader and accused ringleader of the Sept. 11 plot. The defendant's lawyers had argued that Binalshibh could have verified that their client was unaware of the hijackers' plans.
As a result, some Germans have blamed the United States for the outcome of the case and the fact that Motassadeq remains a free man.
"We have a huge problem with the behavior of the U.S. authorities," said Ulrich von Jeinsen, an attorney representing Americans who lost family members in the Sept. 11 attacks. "It is a question to the American side: What are they willing to give us? It is simple and easy. We will have a reluctance [to pursue other cases in court] unless we have an exchange of cooperation among intelligence services."
Some legal experts, however, said German prosecutors and intelligence agencies should be held at least equally accountable. Christoph Safferling, a criminal law professor at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, said the appellate judges wanted to send a signal that the German judiciary should be more skeptical of evidence in future terrorism cases.
"When you read the decision handed down, it is in some passages quite angry," Safferling said, referring to the overturning of the Motassadeq verdict. "It is quite angry that this person was convicted on such weak evidence, and also very angry with the intelligence services' [lack of] cooperation." ...
Public sentiment is building to change laws in an attempt to bolster security. An April poll by the Allensbach Institute found that 57 percent of Germans surveyed feared that there would be terrorist attacks in the country in the near future, the highest level recorded by the firm since shortly after the Sept. 11 hijackings.
Last week, after years of debate, German political leaders reached a compromise on a new immigration policy that among other things will make it easier for the government to deport terrorism suspects and keep them under closer surveillance.
"It needs to be possible to remove these people from Germany," said Reinhard Grindel, a member of the German Parliament from the opposition Christian Democrats. "There were holes in the laws here, and [the new immigration law] will now close them. The political consequence is that these people will no longer be able to stay in Germany."
Despite the assumptions of some Western analysts, Islamic radicalism never was remotely close to being a personality cult centered around Osama. But just in case someone didn't get the point, here is some information about some lesser-known but powerful terrorist leaders. From AP, with thanks to Peter Rockas and Jeffrey Imm:
From the dusty Sahara to the jungles of Indonesia and in the cauldron of unrest that is US-occupied Iraq, a new generation of Osama bin Ladens is emerging to take the place of elders who have been killed, captured or forced underground. The new class has already written a new history of terror in blood - from Istanbul to Madrid to Yanbu, Saudi Arabia.'These are the men that are the new 21st-century terrorists,' said Mr Evan Kohlmann, a US-based terror expert.
At the fore of this group is 38-year-old Abu Musab Zarqawi, a former Osama commander who has links to terror groups from North Africa to the Caucasus.
If you thought being a terrorist might be a cushy career choice, you're wrong.
Increased risk means the life expectancy of today's generation of terrorists will probably be short.'But these guys don't care,' said Mr Evans, of Jane's. 'They consider themselves to be the first members of the new Islamic vanguard. There will be plenty more Zarqawis bubbling up to the surface.'
Why? Not just because of American policy. There were Zarqawis long before there was a United States of America.
He lived by the sword, he died by the sword. From Reuters, with thanks to Nicolei:
KARACHI, Pakistan (Reuters) - A senior pro-Taliban cleric in Pakistan was gunned down Sunday outside his mosque in the southern city of Karachi, and his death unleashed violent protests in which at least 17 people were hurt.Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai, who had called for a "jihad," or holy war, against the United States after the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, was fatally wounded, police said.
The mob seems to have heard that fast food can kill.
In the middle-class neighborhood of Gulshan-e-Iqbal, an enraged mob threw stones at an outlet of American fast food chain Kentucky Fried Chicken, and broke its windows, police said. A government-run National Saving Center was also attacked.
More on Siddiqi, from WND. (Thanks to FreedomNowNews and Jeffrey Imm.)
WASHINGTON – The California imam who helped convert an al-Qaida suspect to Islam headed a Muslim activist group under investigation here for possible financial ties to terrorist front groups.Adam Gadahn allegedly traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan to train at al-Qaida camps following his conversion while attending the Islamic Society of Orange County in Garden Grove, Calif., in the late 1990s. Siddiqi is head of the mosque there.
Congress is reviewing the financial records of the Islamic Society of North America, or ISNA, as part of a post-9-11 investigation into alleged ties between tax-exempt Muslim organizations and terrorist groups.
Siddiqi served as president of ISNA from 1996 to 2000. He still serves on its board. ISNA did not return phone calls to its Indianapolis headquarters.
From Reuters, with thanks to Nicolei:
KHOBAR, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - "Are you Muslim or Christian? We don't want to kill Muslims. Show us where the Americans and Westerners live," Islamic militants told an Arab after launching a shooting spree on Westerners in Saudi Arabia.The four gunmen, aged 18 to 25 and wearing military vests, grabbed Abu Hashem, an Iraqi with a U.S. passport, in front of his home in the Oasis compound in Khobar but let him go when he told them he was a Muslim.
"Don't be afraid. We won't kill Muslims even if you are an American," he quoted them as saying.
That's odd. I keep hearing terrorism is caused by American foreign policy.
Abu Hashem, the director of a Saudi firm who has been in Khobar for six months, said he wanted to move to Bahrain.He said the four gunmen had been polite and calm.
"They gave me a lecture on Islam and said they were defending their country and ridding it of infidels," he told Reuters at Qusaibi hotel.
"The gunmen were so polite. I cannot comprehend this politeness they showed me because I am a Muslim and this cruelty to others," said Abu Hashem, who declined to give his first name.
In response to the above, an urgent press release from the World Lebanese Cultural Union (thanks to Walid Phares):
WORLD LEBANESE CULTURAL UNION (INGO) Office of the Secretary General www.wlcu.orgCONCERNS ABOUT LEBANESE VICTIMS OF TERROR IN SAUDI ARABIA
The World Lebanese Cultural Union (WLCU), the legitimate representative of the Lebanese Diaspora expresses its utmost concerns as a result of the Terrorist attacks in Khubar in Saudi Arabia. From media reports and sources within the community, the WLCU has learned that the armed Terrorists have targeted Lebanese nationals among other nationals and are holding a number of them as hostage, till this hour.
The WLCU was particularly concerned by the fact that the Terrorists have once again targeted a particular religious community among the Lebanese nationals, as reported by survivors and the media. The attacks of last October were a warning. Today's attack confirms our concerns about the security of the Lebanese community, in Saudi Arabia.
The WLCU condemns these attacks, and calls on
1) The Saudi Government to do all it can to protect Lebanese lives.
2) The UN to intervene and help rescuing thousands of Lebanese workers and business people in Saudi Arabia.
3) The Lebanese Government to take all measures needed to face the terrorist threat against its own citizens and nationals abroad. The Lebanese Government is responsible for the security of these citizens. It must condemn the perpetrators firmly and crack down on their support organizations based in Lebanon. Failing to do so, will engage the responsibility of the Lebanese Government as well.
As developments are taking place, the WLCU will monitor the situation of the community in Saudi Arabia and remain in contact with its branches in the Arabian Peninsula as well as with concerned Governments around the world.
The Office of the Secretary General.
For media contacts, please contact the Commission on Information of the WLCU at wlcuuscanada@aol.com
From AP, with thanks to DC Watson:
JERUSALEM — A senior Hamas commander, his assistant and a bystander died in a fiery Israeli airstrike in Gaza City early Sunday, hours before Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was to confront his Cabinet over his plan to pull soldiers and settlers out of Gaza. Hamas called the attack a "cowardly assassination crime" and said it killed Wael Nassar, 38, a top Hamas commander; his assistant, Mohammed Sarsour, 31; and an unidentified bystander. The two Hamas leaders were on the motorcycle when it exploded, witnesses said.The Israeli military said its air force carried out the strike, aimed at "two senior Hamas commanders who were responsible for many attacks against Israelis, including suicide bombings, and were planning further attacks."
Witnesses said they saw a flash in the sky before the motorcycle exploded. Outside the hospital morgue, angry Palestinians, most of them Hamas supporters, chanted "God is great." Amplified statements from local mosques mourned Nassar, one of the founders of the Hamas military wing, called Izzedine al-Qassam. Nassar planned many Hamas attacks against Israelis, Palestinians said.
Notice that the Palestinians confirm what Israel said: this man planned many attacks against Israelis.
Why is it so easy to get people to sign up? Why won't American Muslim spokesmen move beyond "the Qur'an forbids suicide" and answer that question? From AFP, with thanks to Twostellas:
TEHRAN: Hundreds of Iranian men and women, even children, declared their willingness to carry out suicide attacks in Iraq and Israel following Friday prayers in Tehran.The "volunteers" signed their names and gave their telephone numbers to an obscure group calling itself the Committee for the Commemoration of Martyrs of the World Islamic Movement.
A spokesman, Mohammad Yasser Samadi, said the action was to "show our friends in Iraq and all other Muslims that we are ready to give our lives to defend our honor.
"Suicide operations are the best way to fight the oppressors and they have already shown their worth in Lebanon and during the war between Iran and Iraq," he said, referring to the neighbours' bloody 1980-88 conflict.
However, there was no evidence the action was anything more than symbolic, and Samadi said they would renounce suicide operations if asked to by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
As far as I know, there is no sign that he has asked them to yet.
Doesn't he know that the Qur'an forbids suicide?
KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan police have arrested a man suspected of trying to recruit students to carry out suicide attacks on international peacekeepers in Kabul, a spokesman for the multinational force said on Saturday.
Pakistan sends a message to India.
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan successfully test-fired on Saturday a ballistic missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads, as part of efforts to boost defenses in its rivalry with India.
If they murder people how can they be "innocent"?
BANGKOK, May 29 (AFP) - Assailants decapitated an elderly Buddhist in Thailand's Muslim south Saturday and vowed more such killings if Muslims continued to be arrested for the months-long unrest in the region, police said.It was the first decapitation in the violence, which has claimed some 190 lives since January, police said.
Sieng Patkaoe, 63, was attacked by men with machetes early Saturday as he tapped rubber trees on his plantation in the southern province of Narathiwat, district police said.
Sieng's severed head was left along a village road. His body, found some 60 metres (yards) away, had a note pinned to it threatening more killings, police said.
"If innocent Malayu (the predominant ethnic group in the Muslim south) continue to be arrested, we will murder more Buddhists," police quoted the note as saying. It was written in Thai and printed by computer, they said.
The U.S. Embassy said one American was confirmed dead
More trouble in Saudi Arabia:
DAMMAM, Saudi Arabia (AP) - Saudi security forces stormed an expatriate residential complex Saturday seeking gunmen who had taken hostages after a shooting rampage on two compounds housing oil company offices, killing at least six people - including a 10-year-old boy.At least one American and two other Westerners were among those killed in the second deadly attack on oil industry targets in the Saudi kingdom this month. There were reports the death toll could be as high as 15.
Saudi forces fired shots inside the residential complex in the eastern city of Khobar, officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity. They gave no further details.
Earlier, a police officer inside the housing compound told The Associated Press that all hostages had been released and negotiations were under way.
And here's an Update from AP: Saudi Forces Hunt Militants After Attack. Islamic militants, no less. Who'd have guessed?
And also a list of recent attacks in Saudi Arabia.
"While many of us will be blessed to live a longer life, few of us will ever live a better one," — John McCain
FORT BRAGG, N.C. (AP) - Former pro football player Pat Tillman was "probably" killed by friendly fire as he led his team of Army Rangers up a hill during a firefight in Afghanistan last month, the U.S. Army said Saturday.
Just as the army that investigated Abu Ghraib way back in January, now they have investigated Tillman's death and issued a public report.
Such transparency conflicts with the fevered imaginings of those who think Bushitler and Ashcroft are rounding up dissenters and dragging them to the Ministry of Love, while shadowy neo-cons fling truth down the memory hole.
I just flew back to the US from another country last Tuesday, and security still seemed lax at the departure point. Of course, the US has no direct control over that, but surely some sort of efforts could be made. Meanwhile, security is, at least according to this report, stepping up efforts stateside. From AP, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:
WASHINGTON (AP) - The federal official in charge of the nation's airports said Friday security has been "stepped up a notch" in the face of renewed terror warnings this holiday weekend and said authorities are asking the public to be vigilant."If they see anything unusual, report it - an unattended package, something that just doesn't look right, even odd behavior in the terminal or on the aircraft," FAA Administrator Marion Blakey said on NBC's "Today" show.
She said photographs of seven suspected terrorists released Wednesday by the FBI "are everywhere" and that screeners have been redeployed to some of the busiest airports in anticipation of heavy Memorial Day holiday travel.
From MEMRI, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:
The London Arabic-language daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat reported that "an Iranian intelligence unit has established a center called The Brigades of the Shahids of the Global Islamic Awakening to replace the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' Department of Liberation and Revolutionary Movements, which had been in charge of helping and training revolutionary forces across the world." [1] The article went on to report a speech given by an official of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, threatening the U.S. with suicide and missile attacks at already-selected sensitive targets, and threatening to "take over" Britain. The following is the report: [2]Iran Stands Ready to Attack the West
"A source close to [Revolutionary Guards] intelligence confirmed that P.R. has been appointed secretary-general of a new office that has begun registering the names of suicide volunteers to be sent to Iraq, Palestine, and Lebanon.
"[The newspaper reported that it had obtained] a tape with a speech by H.A., a [Revolutionary] Guards intelligence theoretician, who teaches at the Revolutionary Guards' Al-Hussein University. [In the tape, H.A.] spoke of Tehran's secret strategy aimed at taking over the Arab and Muslim countries by means of helping revolutionary forces and organizations. H.A. is regarded as one of the advisors of a branch in the organization, and has published a number of works on exporting the [Islamic] revolution and the method of the struggle against the world arrogance [i.e., the U.S.].
"In his speech at a secret conference attended by students who are members of the Ansar Hizbullah movement at Al-Hussein University, [H.A. said]: 'Iraqi oil constitutes 11% of the world oil reserves, and it has fallen into the hands of the U.S. and Britain. The value of the intelligence documents that the U.S. obtained because of its takeover of Iraqi intelligence is greater than $1000 billion. Whereas our [Iran's] Foreign Ministry was expressing willingness to reconstruct the statue of the Buddha [destroyed by the Taliban in 2001] in Afghanistan – that is, to build an idol, which is an act that is against the principles of Islam – the U.S. managed to force its rule on Afghanistan.
"'(President Muhammad) Khatami speaks of the dialogue between civilizations, and I have grave doubts about this. It is a dubious idea. We do not want to take over the British Embassy, since they (the British) have already cleared the embassy of documents; we must take over Britain [itself].'
"After [H.A.] harshly attacked Khatami and the reformists, he said in his speech: 'The West sees us as terrorists, and depicts our strategy as terrorism and repression. Had our youth agreed to Khatami's teachings and interpretations, it would never have fought the arrogance, and would never have defended the holy places – because Khatami speaks always of being conciliatory, of patience, and of rejecting terrorism, while we defend [the line of] toughness and war against the enemies of revolutionary Islam. I take pride in my actions that cause anxiety and fear to the Americans.
"'Haven't the Jews and the Christians achieved their progress by means of toughness and repression? We have a strategy drawn up for the destruction of Anglo-Saxon civilizationand for the uprooting of the Americans and the English.
"'Our missiles are now ready to strike at their civilization, and as soon as the instructions arrive from Leader ['Ali Khamenei], we will launch our missiles at their cities and installations. Our motto during the war (in Iraq) was: Karbala, we are coming, Jerusalem, we are coming. And because of Khatami's policies and dialogue between the civilizations, we have been compelled to freeze our plan to liberate the Islamic cities. And now we are [again] about to carry out the program.'
"In his speech, he added: 'The global infidel front is a front against Allah and the Muslims, and we must make use of everything we have at hand to strike at this front, by means of our suicide operations or by means of our missiles. There are 29 sensitive sites in the U.S. and in the West. We have already spied on these sites and we know how we are going to attack them.'
"In another part of his speech, he emphasized, 'If Israel dares attack the [nuclear] installations at Bushehr, our losses will be very low, because [only] one structure will be destroyed – while we [i.e., Iran] have means of attacking Israel's nuclear facilities and arsenals such that no trace of Israel will remain.'"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), May 28, 2004.
[2] Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), May 28, 2004.
From Reuters, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:
MOSCOW, Russia (Reuters) -- A bomb blast derailed a passenger train in a Russian region bordering Chechnya on Saturday, but no one was seriously injured, a railways spokesman said. blockquote>Posted at 6:31 AM | Comments (1)
From Thailand's Nation:
In a stall recently set up near the historic Krue Se Mosque, a young man is busy selling VCDs, CDs and books that mostly cover various aspects of Islam. One of the VCDs is entitled "Global Jihad Movements".The stall owner, a native of Pattani who spoke on condition of anonymity, tells me while I glance at his extensive range of products that VCDs on jihad have sold out quickly after the April 28 incident at the mosque which left 32 suspected insurgents dead.
In all, 108 suspected insurgents died on April 28, while five security personnel also perished.
The Islamic word jihad has often been associated with international terrorism since the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.
"The VCDs on jihad have been selling like hotcakes," he says.
The young businessman tells me that he usually sells his goods at major mosques in Pattani and Yala, including the Central Mosque of Pattani. He set up a stall at Krue Se Mosque after April 28.
"There are a series of VCDs on jihad movements in Afghanistan, Chechnya and also about [Osama] bin Laden," he says, adding that his merchandise comes from Malaysia.
It is hard to know what the buyers of these VCDs have in mind. Perhaps they want to know more about how fellow Muslims pursue jihad - the struggle against any act of aggression in defence of Islam - in other countries.
Jihadwatch is occasionally discovered by those hoping to learn more about how to wage violent jihad and who are subsequently disappointed to learn that the site is against it.
The illustrious and deservedly beloved Hugh Fitzgerald has sent me this precise,
perceptive, and courageous address by Singapore's Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong. Notes Hugh: "Goh Chok Tong has given no indication of being a devout follower of Pat Robertson. Nor is there any record of his changing his name from something reminiscent of Perle or Wolfowitz... He does, however, live between Malaysia and Singapore, and has a lifetime of experience with Islam."
Chris Patten would do well to read this speech carefully. What follows here are some good excerpts, but it is all excellent. Read it all.
The war against terrorism could shape the 21st century in the same way as the Cold War defined the world before the fall of the Berlin Wall. To win, we must first clearly understand what we are up against. Terrorism is a generic term. Terrorist organizations such as the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka or ETA in Spain are only of local concern. The virulent strain of Islamic terrorism is another matter altogether. It is driven by religion. Its ideological vision is global. It is most dangerous. The communists fought to live whereas the jihadi terrorists fight to die, and live in the next world. My perspective is formed by our own experiences in Southeast Asia which post Sept. 11 has emerged as a major theater for terrorist operations. In December 2001, Singapore arrested 15 people belonging to a radical Islamic group called the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI). They were plotting even before Sept. 11 to attack American and other Western interests in Singapore. In August 2002, we arrested another 21 members of this group. Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand have also made many arrests of terrorists. The JI regional leadership spanned Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and the Southern Philippines. Its tentacles even probed into Australia. JI's objective was to create a Daulah Islamiyah, an Islamic state in Southeast Asia. This was to be centered in Indonesia but would include Malaysia, Southern Thailand, Southern Philippines, and, inevitably, Singapore and Brunei. But the most crucial conclusion our investigations revealed was this: the existence of a transregional terrorist brotherhood of disparate Southeast Asian groups linked by a militant Islamic ideology to each other and to Al Qaeda. Whatever their specific goals, these groups were committed to mutual help in the pursuit of their common ideology: they helped each other with funds and support services, in training and in joint operations.In 1999, JI formed a secret caucus called the Rabitatul Mujahidin, meaning Mujahidin Coalition, to bring together various militant Southeast Asian Islamic groups. It was responsible for the bombing attack against the Philippine Ambassador to Indonesia in Jakarta in August 2000. The brain behind the attack was Hambali, the link man between Southeast Asian terrorism and Al Qaeda. Fortunately, he is now under arrest.
But the threat remains. It stems from a religious ideology that is infused with an implacable hostility to all secular governments, especially the West, and in particular the U.S. Their ultimate goal is to bring about a Caliphate linking all Muslim communities. Their means is jihad which they narrowly define as a holy war against all non-Muslims whom they call "infidels."
Likewise, JI's ultimate goal is a Caliphate, by definition not confined to Southeast Asia. The dream of a Caliphate may seem absurd to the secular mind. But it will be a serious mistake to dismiss its appeal to many in the Islamic world, though the majority do not believe in killing and dying for it.
But there are radicals and militants who do. The terrorist brotherhood in Southeast Asia and its links to al Qaeda were first forged through the struggle against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Ibrahim Maidin, the leader of the Singapore JI cell, underwent military training in Afghanistan in the early 1990s. His encounters with the Mujahidden deeply impressed him. Maidin wrote several letters to the Taliban Supreme Leader Mullah Mohammed Omar and to Osama bin Laden. He asked whether Mullah Omar was to be regarded as the Caliph of the Islamic World. After returning to Singapore, Maidin arranged for JI members to visit Afghanistan and to undergo training there.
Islamic militancy is not new to Southeast Asia. But what is new is this type of fanatical global ideology (including the phenomenon of suicide bombers) that has been able to unite different groups and lead Southeast Asian groups to subordinate local interests to the broader struggle.
Ibrahim Maidin has confessed to a senior Singapore intelligence officer that
in retrospect he had made the mistake of moving too quickly and should have
waited for Malaysia, Indonesia, the Southern Philippines and Singapore to
become an Islamic state before acting against U.S. interests. But he still believes that his side would ultimately win.
From our experience in Southeast Asia, I draw three principal conclusions that I believe have a wider relevance.
First, the goals of these terrorists make the struggle a zero-sum game for them. There is no room for compromise except as a tactical expedient. America may be the main enemy but it is not the only one. What Osama bin Laden offered Europe in April was only a "truce" [if it stopped "attacking Muslims or interfering in their affairs including [participating] in the American conspiracy"], not a lasting peace. The war against terrorism today is a war against a specific strain of militant Islamic terrorism that wants, in effect, a "clash of civilizations."
The JI has tried to create the conditions for Christians and Muslims in Southeast Asia to set against one another. In December 2000, it attacked churches in Indonesia, including one church in an Indonesian island off Singapore. It has sent its members to fight and stir up trouble in Ambon against Christians.
One of those we detained in Singapore was a service engineer with an American company. He confessed that he actually liked his American friends
and bosses. He was nevertheless involved in targeting American interests. We
have a sense that he had struggled with this. He eventually decided to testify against the spiritual leader of JI, Abu Bakar Bashir, but only because he felt betrayed by Bashir's denial of the very existence of the JI organisation which Bashir headed and to whom he and other members had sworn allegiance.
And just as Osama bin Laden is trying to drive a wedge between Europe and America, in Southeast Asia, JI was plotting to do the same thing by blowing up the pipelines that supply water from Malaysia to Singapore. The JI knew that water from Malaysia is a matter of life and death for Singapore. They knew that race and religion have historically been the major fault lines within and between both countries. The JI's intention was to provoke a conflict between Singapore and Malaysia and portray a "Chinese Singapore" as threatening a "Muslim Malaysia," and use the ensuing confusion to try and overthrow the Malaysian government and establish an Islamic state in Malaysia.
That particular plot failed. The governments of Singapore and Malaysia could not have allowed it to succeed. We know only too well what is at stake.My second conclusion is that it is only through absolute and unsentimental clarity about the threat we face that we can define, differentiate and therefore, isolate militant Islamic terrorism from mainstream Islam. It is not sufficient to repeat, mantra like, that the majority of Muslims are peaceful and do not believe in violence. Unfortunately, we too often sacrifice clarity to be politically correct.
This brings me to my third and perhaps most important conclusion. Just as the Cold War was an ideological as well as a geopolitical struggle, the war against terrorism must be fought with ideas as well as with armies; with religious and community leaders as well as police forces and intelligence services. This ideological struggle is already upon us. Unless we win the battle of ideas, there will be no dearth of willing foot soldiers ready to martyr themselves for their cause.
We know that we should work with the moderates and isolate the extremists. But as we seek to separate the wheat from the chaff, we need to recognise that both come from the same plant. How we seek to engage and encourage the Muslim world to fight the ideological battle against the extremists must reflect this sensitivity and awareness.
This is complicated but not impossible. In Malaysia, Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi fought the Islamic party, PAS, on the issue of the kind of Islamic state that Malaysia should be. He won a resounding victory in the general elections. He checked PAS' advance towards an austere Muslim state with Sharia laws with his vision of an Islamic state that is Islam Hadahri or "Progressive Islam." He has joined issue not on whether Malaysia should be an Islamic state but on the nature of such a state; and the struggle to define Malaysia's Islamic state will continue for a long time. In Indonesia, Islamic based parties generally did not do as well as parties that do not campaign under the banner of Islam in the recent parliamentary elections. But the Islamic parties will remain a crucial swing factor in the presidential elections later this year.
Let me conclude with a few words about the role of the U.S. Only the U.S. has the capacity to lead the geopolitical battle against the Islamic terrorists. Iraq has become the key battleground. Before he was killed in Saudi Arabia, Yousef Al Aiyyeri, author of the al Qaeda Blueprint for fighting in Iraq, said: if democracy succeeds in Iraq, that would be the death of Islam. That is why Osama bin Laden and others have put so much effort to try and break the coalition and America's resolve to stay the course to build a modern Iraq that Muslims will be proud of. Those who do not understand this, play into their hands. The key issue is no longer WMD or even the role of the U.N. The central issue is America's credibility and will to prevail. If that is destroyed, Islamic extremists everywhere will be emboldened. We will all be at greater risk.
If we are to win the war against terrorism, we must, as Sun Tze in "The Art of War" says, understand the enemy. And we must, all of us, Muslims and non-Muslims, Americans, Europeans, Arabs and Asians, unite against it. But we must create the conditions that will make this essential unity possible.
Malfunctioning anti-terror mechanism update: Denny's manager in Denver calls FBI to report the presence of two of the Seven Wanted in his restaurant last Wednesday. Agent is bored, indifferent, bureaucratic.
The Al-Qaeda types, meanwhile, were, "demanding, rude, and obnoxious." Hey -- don't they know it's a religion of peace?
Anyway, I don't know if these guys were really in Denny's. I don't see any a priori reason why not, and why a follow-up effort couldn't be made. From the Denver Post, with thanks to Diana West:
Samuel Mac, manager of the Denny's in Avon, isn't happy with the response he got from the FBI when he reported that two of them ate at his restaurant Wednesday.When he called the FBI in Washington, D.C., Mac said the man who answered the telephone said he had to call the Denver office and declined to take down any of the information.
When he called the Denver office, he was shuttled to voice mail because the agents were busy, Mac said. It was five hours before a seemingly uninterested agent called back.
Mac said two men - he subsequently identified them from their photographs as Adnan G. El Shukrijumah and Abderraouf Jdey - came into Denny's, which is just off Interstate 70, about 8 p.m.
One ordered a chicken sandwich and a salad, the other just a salad, Mac said. They were demanding, rude and obnoxious, he said.
For some time now the comments here have been almost entirely unmoderated. My staff and I are quite overtaxed as it is, and I have entered an extraordinarily busy period involving much travel and several hot deadlines. Also the site has grown so much lately that there are many more comments than there used to be.
Thus while I read most of them when the site was new, now I only read the occasional thread. But when I do, occasionally I see questions addressed to me. These, of course, may occur in other threads that I don't see, so please note that if you really want to ask me something, the best way is through the email feature here ("Contact us" at left), and not in a comments thread. Thus if you have asked me something and I haven't answered, most likely it's because I didn't see your question.
Also, this means that if someone says something that is ban-worthy, I most likely haven't seen it. Please email me if you are concerned about something specific.
The resistance against global jihad is a struggle to defend of the equality of rights and dignity of all people — male, female, of all races, Muslim, non-Muslim, etc. Thank you for your support and assistance.
Fawaz Damra case from the Cleveland Plain Dealer. How could Damra's statements about terrorism be irrelevant and prejudicial to a case about his past links to terrorism?
The government's chief witness in Fawaz Damra's case says the indicted imam is a "classic case study of a radical Islamic militant" with ties to associates of al-Qaida and other terrorist groups.In a report filed in federal court, Matthew Levitt says Damra actively aided "in the persecution of Israelis and Jewish people in general." The report, interpreting Damra's Arabic speech, quotes him as saying in 1989, "The first principle is that terrorism, and terrorism alone, is the path to liberation. . . . If what they mean by jihad is terrorism, then we are terrorists."
"There was some people out there that wore long clothes, but the only time we ever saw them was at the post office"
What they're thinking in the town where the Feds say Abu Hamza was hoping to set up a terrorist training camp. This article and this one at Dhimmi Watch show how important it is for Americans to have a full and working knowledge of Islam and the goals of Islamic radicals like Osama bin Laden and Abu Hamza. From AP:
Dean Lawrence used to think it was a joke when he heard all the talk about terrorists thinking about training on a sheep ranch outside his tiny hometown of Bly, Ore.He was rethinking things Thursday after the arrest of a Muslim cleric in London on charges of trying to establish a terrorist training camp near Bly, a logging and ranching town in the sagebrush-dotted high desert of southern Oregon.
"A small town like this - I read in the paper one time there was 15 people came down to look" at the ranch, Lawrence said Thursday in a telephone interview from the gas station he owns in Bly.
The townspeople have been slow to believe terrorists were really targeting their town.
Two people connected to a mosque in Seattle, Semi Osman and James Ujaama, were charged in 2002 with trying to start a training camp for Al-Masri, but the charges were dropped in exchange for guilty pleas on lesser charges.Authorities have said Ujaama sent al-Masri a fax proposing a camp outside Bly, and al-Masri sent two representatives to evaluate the site. The two were reportedly disappointed that the property had no barracks for trainees, and the camp was never developed.
The Klamath County Sheriff's Department got a tip from Interpol about the ranch in 1999 and sent some deputies to keep an eye on it, but they did not notice much beyond a dozen people taking target practice, said Sheriff Tim Evinger.The shooting was not enough to catch the notice of neighbor Don Wessel, a retired logger who himself is used to taking shots at gophers on his ranch. He saw the news about Al-Masri's arrest on television.
"There was some people out there that wore long clothes, but the only time we ever saw them was at the post office," said Wessel.
Finally one wonders, "Why Oregon?"
Oregon had a brush with terrorism in 2002, when seven Portland-area Muslims, most of them American-born, were charged with plotting to join the Taliban to fight in Afghanistan.Only one, accused ringleader Habis Abdu al Saoub, made it to the battlefield, where he was killed by U.S. forces last year. The others met with visa and money troubles and returned without firing a shot. They pleaded guilty to various charges and are serving three to 18 years in prison.
Posted at 6:11 AM | Comments (14)
From the San Diego Channel, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:
SAN DIEGO -- A 34-year-old Saudi national believed to have ties with two of the deceased Sept. 11 hijackers was arrested Thursday in San Diego by agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.Hasan Saddiq Faseh Alddin, a legal permanent resident of the United States, was taken into custody on immigration charges, resulting from two prior domestic violence convictions, according to Mike Unzueta, deputy special agent-in-charge for ICE investigations in San Diego.
Perhaps his connection to the hijackers was coincidental.
Memo to all permanent residents: you will attract less law enforecement attention if you don't beat your wives.
Imam arrested in a Pennsylvania mosque. From Philadelphia's WPVI.com, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:
Members of the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force descended on a house and mosque this morning and arrested the Imam in front of his wife and children.Meriem Moumen says she and her husband were dropping their daughter off at school when they were surrounded by Philadelphia police, FBI and other federal agents.
They detained Mohamed Ghorub, the Imam of the Ansaar Allaah mosque in Bridesburg.
Many complain about the "use" of "immigration issues" to harass "law-abiding" Muslims. I thought they were immigration laws, not suggestions.
He was arrested a year ago, and released on bond which has now been revoked. The FBI says Immigration was the lead agency on today's raid.Immigration says the raid was initiated by the FBI. In the past, the FBI has used immigration issues to detain and question people indefinitely. Moumen says they asked her where they were hiding the guns and where do they get their money. She says they have nothing to hide.
Adam Yahiye Gadahn was apparently expelled from Muzammil Siddiqi's Islamic Society of Orange County, but what I want to know is this: what did he learn from Siddiqi before that? In this AP story, Siddiqi says: "He was becoming very extreme in his ideas and views. He must have disliked something."
And then there was the mysterious arrest:
Gadahn, who was named Wednesday as one of seven suspected Al Qaeda operatives sought by the FBI, was later expelled from the mosque after attacking an employee. Records show he pleaded guilty to assault and battery charges in June 1997 and was sentenced to two days in jail and 40 hours of community service."He was becoming very extreme in his ideas and views," said Muzammil Siddiqi, the society's religious director. "He must have disliked something."
But what did he learn from Siddiqi before that? After all, Kenneth Timmerman has noted that:
During an anti-Israel rally outside the White House on Oct. 28, 2000, Siddiqi openly threatened the United States with violence if it continued its support of Israel. "America has to learn ... if you remain on the side of injustice, the wrath of God will come. Please, all Americans. Do you remember that? ... If you continue doing injustice, and tolerate injustice, the wrath of God will come." By "injustice," he meant U.S. support for Israel.Siddiqi also has called for a wider application of sharia law in the United States, and in a 1995 speech praised suicide bombers. "Those who die on the part of justice are alive, and their place is with the Lord, and they receive the highest position, because this is the highest honor," he was quoted as saying by the Kansas City Star on Jan. 28, 1995.
So said Adnan El'Shukri-Jumah, one of the Seven Wanted Ones. And what was he willing to do to bring that law here? From an otherwise annoyingly irrelevant and unrevealing puff piece about this man's family in the Sun Sentinel, with thanks to Wendy and Mentat:
For El'Shukri-Jumah's family, Ashcroft's announcement served only to renew the despair they have endured since a similar FBI announcement brought the world's attention to their doorstep in March 2003. The family last saw the eldest son in 2001, before the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. His mother said he has called once since then. He said he was teaching English in Morocco, had married and had a son; she warned him to stay away, telling him that the U.S. government was imprisoning Arab and Muslim men without letting them see a lawyer, Ahmed said.
His mother explains further:
He may have been uncomfortable with the open expression of sexuality in the American public, but her son never expressed hatred or the desire to harm anybody.He appreciated this country, its cultural diversity and the kindness of its people, she said.
"You know something," she said, "he and I used to say, `If this country had Islamic law it would be the best country on the Earth.'"
From AP, some information about six of the seven Islamic radicals wanted in possible connection with planning for a major attack in America this summer. Strange thing -- nary a Buddhist among them:
AAFIA SIDDIQUI: A Pakistani woman who studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She received a biology degree in 1995 and wrote a doctoral thesis on neurological sciences in 2001 at Brandeis University. Authorities have not charged that Siddiqui, 32, is a member of al-Qaida but believe she could be a "fixer," someone with knowledge of the United States who can get things done for other operatives. FBI officials believe Siddiqui also spent time in the Maryland suburbs of Washington.The FBI issued a global alert for her arrest in March 2003 and requested that Pakistan locate Siddiqui. A month later, Siddiqui's mother, Ismat, claimed she saw her daughter get into a minicab with her three children for a journey from Karachi to Islamabad. But a senior Pakistani security official said Wednesday that she could not be found. Her husband, Dr. Amjad Mohammed Khan, also is wanted by the FBI for questioning.
FAZUL ABDULLAH MOHAMMED: A native of the Comoros Republic in the Indian Ocean, he is believed to be al-Qaida's ringleader in eastern Africa. He has been indicted in the United States in the 1998 al-Qaida bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 231 people. Since the indictment, Fazul's face could be seen on the walls of Kenyan police stations, and he has a $25-million bounty on his head. He is thought to be hiding in Kenya or Somalia.
AHMED KHALFAN GHAILANI: A Tanzanian who also goes by the names "Foopie," "Fupi" and "Ahmed the Tanzanian." He is under indictment in the United States for the embassy attacks.
AMER EL-MAATI: Born in Kuwait, he is wanted by the FBI for questioning about possible al-Qaida links.
ABDERRAOUF JDEY: A Tunisian who obtained Canadian citizenship in 1995. He was among five men who left suicide messages on videotapes recovered in Afghanistan at the home of Mohammed Atef - reportedly Osama bin Laden's military chief who was killed in a U.S. airstrike in 2001.
Also recovered from the home was a suicide letter by Jdey from August 1999. In the letter, he pledged to die in battle against infidels, according to information released by U.S. authorities in 2002. Jdey also goes by the names Farouq Al-Tunisi and Al Rauf bin Al Habib bin Yousef Al-Jiddi. He might have a Canadian passport. His last known address was an apartment building in Montreal.
ADAM YAHIYE GADAHN: A 25-year-old U.S. citizen who also goes by the names Adam Pearlman and Abu Suhayb Al-Amriki. FBI Director Robert Mueller says he attended al-Qaida training camps and has served as an al-Qaida translator. Gadahn says on an Islamic Internet site that he grew up on a goat ranch in Riverside County, Calif., and converted to Islam in his later teenage years after moving to Garden Grove, Calif.
Note that Iqbal Sacranie, the voice of moderate Islam in Britain, is suggesting that Hamza is being treated unfairly. Search this site for Abu Hamza, read some articles, and tell me there isn't a reasonable case for arresting this man. From the BBC, with thanks to EPG:
Controversial cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri has been arrested on an extradition warrant issued by the US government, which is said to relate to terrorism.Scotland Yard has confirmed a 47-year-old man was seized at his home in west London at 0300 BST on Thursday.
The cleric, who preaches outside the Finsbury Park mosque in north London, will appear before magistrates at Belmarsh on Thursday.
Hamza and his mosque have been conncected with terrorists in the past.
But Iqbal Sacranie, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said it was still important that the principle of "innocent until proven guilty" be observed."He has certainly made provocative statements... but we need to be very clear [about the difference] between those remarks, that are perhaps deeply offensive to us, and whether there has been a breach of law," he told BBC News.
"I think for any British citizen, irrespective of where you come from, what your feelings are, what your thoughts are, the law should be applied equally."
From AP, with thanks to DC Watson:
KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) -- Two car bombs exploded minutes apart by a language school close to the U.S. Consul's residence in Pakistan's biggest city Wednesday, killing a police officer and wounding 25 other people.The attack came days after police in Karachi said they smashed an Islamic militant ring accused in a deadly bombing outside the U.S. Consulate two years ago and a failed assassination plot against Pakistan's pro-American president.
The fact that one of the seven wanted Al-Qaeda members is an American citizen, a convert to Islam, speaks volumes. Of course, several converts have already won headlines in the war on terror: John Walker Lindh, Juan Padilla, Richard Reid, Jack Roche, etc. It is obvious why Islamic terrorist groups would want to recruit such people. Less often noted is the significance of the fact that they can be recruited at all. For they approach the Qur'an and other Islamic texts without the culturally ingrained ways of understanding them that Muslims pick up in Islamic societies. In other words, they come to Islam more or less in a pure, abstract form. The force of any given passage of Qur'an or Hadith is not blunted by cultural habit and familiarity. This is extremely revealing of the nature of the Qur'an and Sunnah.
[Last night I posted the above graphic with a similar story. I was surprised to see that it quickly disappeared, but it was while the site was being worked on by the technicians. So I posted it again, made sure it was up, and turned to other work. Now this morning I find it gone again. I am no computer expert and don't know why this is happening, but I suspect it is also why some of you have found you can't post occasionally, or encounter other difficulties. Apologies for any inconvenience, and I will try to figure out what's going on. I thought the problems had been taken care of, so this is really puzzling.]
From the Washington Post:
The nation's top law enforcement officials, saying they are convinced al Qaeda is planning an attack on the United States in the coming months, issued an urgent plea yesterday for information about seven people who they said could be involved in such an effort.FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III asked for the public's help in tracking down six men and one woman associated with al Qaeda who either are familiar with the United States or have a history of involvement in attacks on U.S. interests.
All but one -- Adam Yahiye Gadahn, 25, a Southern California convert to Islam linked to top al Qaeda captive Abu Zubaida -- have been sought for many months by the FBI. Officials said they do not know whether any of the seven is in the United States. ...
"Credible intelligence, from multiple sources, indicates that al Qaeda plans to attempt an attack on the United States in the next few months," Ashcroft said. "This disturbing intelligence indicates al Qaeda's specific intention is to hit the U.S. hard." He said the information has been "corroborated on a variety of levels."
The problems you may be having getting to Jihad Watch today stem from efforts to resolve continuing space problems. The readership is growing very quickly, and we are doing our best to accomodate. All problems should be resolved soon, and thanks for your patience.
Step back for a minute and imagine an army led by a Buddhist monk or Christian priest, who was only one of many such clerics who preached violence from the pulpit and led armed forces. Then tell yourself that the Islamic identity of people like Al-Sadr and his lieutenant is incidental to what they are doing. Yet this politically correct myopia continues to afflict most Western policymakers, to our detriment.
From AP:
BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. troops captured a key lieutenant of radical Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr during overnight clashes in Najaf that killed 24 people and wounded nearly 50, hospital and militia officials said.
Here is a Fox story (thanks to Jeffrey Imm) about the latest threats.
Counterterrorism and law enforcement officials told Fox News Tuesday that they are extremely concerned that terrorist groups like Al Qaeda may be planning an attack during one of the major events scheduled for this summer. The comments came after a think tank study revealed that despite the elimination of several key figures, Al Qaeda still has a functioning leadership, over 18,000 potential terrorists in its global network and a swelling membership thanks to the war in Iraq.
I wrote about Sgt. Hasan Akbar's attack on his fellow American troops in Onward Muslim Soldiers. Now comes confirmation of my contention there that he attacked them solely out of loyalty to Islam, not because of racism or anything else (contrary to widely published reports). From AP, with thanks to LGF:
FORT BRAGG, N.C. - A prosecution witness testified Monday that a soldier charged with killing two officers in a grenade attack during the Iraq war confessed to the crimes after his arrest, saying he feared the wartime deaths of Muslims.
The SITE Institute has published excerpts of a training manual for Muslim kidnappers. The entire article is well worth reading at that site. One illuminating point is that the manual clearly sees kidnapping as an Islamic religious act, and even — astonishingly enough — as an opportunity to call people to Islam:
• Abide by Muslim laws as your actions may become a Da’wa [call to join Islam].
You may be annoyed when proselytizers knock on your door, but one thing you can say about the Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and others: they aren't under any illusions that kidnapping and murder will make their faiths any more attractive to nonbelievers.
Another convert to Islam ends up mixed up with terrorists. Where, o where, is this grand religion of peace we keep hearing about? From the New York Times, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:
ARIS, May 25 — A Paris court today sentenced a Frenchman with ties to a suspect in the Madrid train bombings to four years in prison for helping Islamic terrorists in Europe.The man, David Courtallier, was convicted of conspiring with criminals engaged in a terrorist enterprise and was not implicated in the Madrid bombings, which killed 191 people on March 11. But Mr. Courtallier, a cheese vendor from France's Savoy region who converted to Islam in 1997, had been in contact with Jamal Zougam, one of the first suspects arrested in the Madrid attacks.
In both Onward Muslim Soldiers and Islam Unveiled I discuss the British Sheikh Omar Bakri, who has long boasted about using Britain's freedom of speech to advocate the establishment of a Sharia state in Britain. Here is more about him, from the Dallas Morning News:
LONDON – The puzzle of Sheik Omar Bakri Muhammad is the puzzle of growing ranks of militant Muslims across Europe today. Some are talkers, others are doers, and often it isn't easy to distinguish between the two.Sheik Bakri, a controversial London-based cleric, counsels the hundreds of young men and women who attend his weekly sermons to exercise restraint and nonviolence. Yet, he says martyrdom is a key to paradise. Under some circumstances in the defense of Islam, he says, violence and killing may be necessary.
Europe may be the scene of martyrdom attacks soon, Sheik Bakri warned in an interview, although he placed numerous caveats on how that could unfold.
He regards the West as the enemy, confers upon Osama bin Laden the honorific of "sheik," and praises as "magnificent" the 19 al-Qaeda members who killed themselves in the Sept. 11 attacks. But he also preaches kindness and respect for non-Muslims and condemns indiscriminate attacks as "forbidden" in Islam.
Taqiyya alert: Bakri taught two young British Muslims who journeyed to Israel to become suicide bombers.
A commentary last year in the Guardian newspaper mistakenly described Sheik Bakri, who walks with a cane but is otherwise able-bodied, as "one-eyed, hook-handed."
That would be Abu Hamza, Bakri's partner in crime.
An April 26 New York Times story listed Sheik Bakri foremost among European clerics allegedly expressing sympathy toward terrorist attacks against Europe. He was so angered, he banned members of al-Muhajiroun from speaking to the non-Muslim news media and accused the New York Times of attempting "to stir up hatred towards Muslims and to whip the masses into a frenzy of fear and animosity."Rankling officials
Nevertheless, Sheik Bakri acknowledged in the April 22 interview that he has deliberately tried to rankle the British and U.S. governments with his fiery sermons, which he delivers several times a week at mosques and community centers around England.
By praising al-Qaeda as "magnificent," the cleric said, he is able to draw media attention and spread his message to a wider audience. But because he stops short of calling for his own followers to stage attacks, he explained, he has been able to avoid arrest for inciting terrorism.
Key to his rhetorical strategy is a carefully worded explanation of Islam's "covenant of security," which obliges Muslims to behave themselves when they have been invited into their enemy's domain. It is forbidden, the cleric explained, for Muslim immigrants to launch attacks in the Western countries where they reside because, as guests, they must abide by a covenant of nonaggression.
He said there currently is no one who can be described as the undisputed leader of all Muslims. However, he describes Mr. bin Laden as, hands down, the most popular and widely respected person in the Muslim world today.
"If you want to make free elections in the Muslim world, I doubt if anyone could compete with him. Even moderate Muslims, if they are given the free hand to vote and are given the power, they would vote for Osama bin Laden," he said. ...
Muslims who regard Mr. Bin Laden as their supreme leader might regard themselves as free to rise up against their European hosts, Sheikh Bakri said.
"What we do is all part of the same struggle," said Anjem Choudary, the chief deputy of Sheik Bakri, who described the jihad being waged by al-Muhajiroun in the United Kingdom as the same as those being waged by Muslim guerrillas in Iraq, Afghanistan and Chechnya.
"It's right that we're fighting against it [oppression by the West]. We just don't do so militarily," he said.
Sheikh Bakri says he makes a point of sending advance copies of his sermons to British police so they can judge for themselves whether he is the terrorist demon portrayed by the media. So far, police have not intervened. In spite of calls by members of Parliament for his arrest and deportation, British authorities say Sheikh Bakri has the right of free speech as long as he doesn't incite violence.
Kids love him, too — a tiny minority of kids, of course
This story is an AP version (thanks to Jake) of the Reuters piece below. This one is far more concerned than the Reuters piece with portraying these findings as showing that the war on terror has failed.
However:
1. Doesn't the fact that half of Al-Qaeda's leadership has been killed or captured indicate that the war on terror thus far may not have been as dismal a failure as the lead paragraph suggests?
2. Estimates of the number of people who went through Al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan have ranged as high as 120,000. Low-end estimates are still in the 70,000-80,000 range. If only 18,000 of them are still active, doesn't that indicate some success? Of course, these 18,000 could inflict tremendous damage, but I'd still rather have 18,000 to deal with than 100,000.
3. The idea that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have boosted Al-Qaeda is dear to the hearts of people like Ted Kennedy, but where would we be now if there had been no response to 9/11, or if that response had amounted to just a few cruise missiles lobbed into Waziristan? Would the Al-Qaeda members who already existed before 9/11 have folded up shop and stopped attacking Westerners?
4. Also, if Muslims joined Al-Qaeda because of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, doesn't that indicate that they didn't have any serious objection to Al-Qaeda's activity even before joining? After all, if they considered Osama and Co. to be heretics who were defaming Islam by using it to justify terrorism, that wouldn't change because the Americans invaded, would it? Surely in that event it would have been possible to create a non-terrorist force that was not allied with Al-Qaeda, that would have really constituted the indigenous militiamen that Ted Rall and his ilk imagine the terrorists to be? But doesn't the fact that this didn't happen indicate that the ideological divide between Al-Qaeda and the rest of the Islamic world wasn't as large as most analysts continue to believe?
LONDON - Far from being crippled by the U.S.-led war on terror, al-Qaida has more than 18,000 potential terrorists scattered around the world and the war in Iraq is swelling its ranks, a report said Tuesday.
Well, if this report is true, we now have a count of the tiny minority of extremists: evidently, there are 18,000 of them. But of course Reuters — and few analysts — seem to care how these 18,000 were recruited, and whether such recruitment efforts are still effective among Muslims worldwide.
From Reuters, with thanks to nevermindlv:
LONDON (Reuters) - Al Qaeda has more than 18,000 militants ready to strike and the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq has accelerated recruitment to the ranks of Osama bin Laden's network, a leading London think-tank says.
In all the excitement around the Jihad Watch offices lately here in sunny Secure Undisclosed Locationville, we once again neglected to post links to two new articles by Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer: "The Jihad in America and the Judeo-Christian-Islamic Way," which appeared in Human Events; and "The Enemy is Not Just Al-Qaeda," from FrontPage. Both appeared last Thursday, although I assure you they were not written simultaneously.
U.S. News and World Report has this. In the days after the Madrid bombing everyone asked what would happen if the American election was targeted. Would Americans go the way of Spain or be roused to greater action?
Al-Qaeda would like to find out.
The chatter was persistent--and alarming. In the weeks after the deadly March bombings of four commuter trains in Madrid by al Qaeda operatives, the supersecret U.S. surveillance network, Echelon, intercepted a number of messages from suspected terrorists suggesting planning for a massive, multipronged assault on the United States. When? Between this summer's political conventions and October, one month before the presidential election. The intelligence appeared to confirm information obtained from some seized al Qaeda computers and from several human sources, government officials say. Officials at the CIA and the National Security Agency, which runs the Echelon program, believe the information is credible but worry that the human sources were on the periphery of the now widely dispersed al Qaeda network. Nevertheless, the information pointed to two, perhaps three, targets, the sources say: New York, Washington, and Las Vegas. The objective of the suspected attack, the officials continued, would be not only to cause mass casualties and devastation of U.S. infrastructure but to roil the presidential race. The Madrid bombings, which killed 191 people and wounded 1,800, also toppled the Spanish government and triggered the withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq. "Since Spain," says a Bush administration official, "al Qaeda has had the feeling of 'We can do this. We can affect an election.' "
More holy fighting in the holy city of Najaf where a holy shrine was damaged— but not it seems wholly destroyed.
NAJAF, Iraq (AP) - One of the most sacred shrines of Shia Islam suffered minor damage during clashes Tuesday between U.S. forces and radical Shiite militiamen that killed at least 13 Iraqis, some of them civilians. It was unclear who was responsible for the shrine damage.
A wonderful hi-tech dream that will fall apart if differing agencies do not share information.
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The Department of Homeland Security is on the verge of awarding a 15-billion-dollar contract for creating an elaborate system of databases that would track visitors to the United States long before they arrive.On Sunday, The New York Times said the contract, which will probably be awarded in coming days to one of three final bidders, is already generating considerable interest as federal officials try to improve their ability to monitor those who enter the United States at more than 300 border checkpoints.
No one wonder he thinks bin Laden seemed like a "nice man". More in The Age on the trial of Australian terror suspect Jack Roche.
Al-Qaeda leaders talked about destroying American and Israeli airlines flying to Australia a year before the September 11 attacks in the United States, a court heard yesterday.The strikes were part of a plot outlined in early 2000 in the Pakistan city of Karachi by al-Qaeda's second in command, Mukhtar, in talks with alleged al-Qaeda conspirator Jack Roche.
Roche, 50, a British-born Islamic convert, has denied plotting with senior al-Qaeda officials to bomb the Israeli embassy in Canberra, with intent do endanger lives.
On day six of his trial in the Perth District Court, the jury was played part of a nine-hour videotape of an interview with Roche conducted by two Australian Federal Police agents in November 2002.
Roche says in the interview that he and Mukhtar also talked about the assassination of Americans and Israelis in Australia and how Melbourne Jewish leader Joe Gutnick would be a possible target.
"Mukhtar was thinking about any airlines that regularly came to Australia from either the US or Israel," Roche says in the recording. "But he mainly was interested in the American airlines that flew into Australia and people who could be targeted."
There is no way for cases like this not to be highly politicized from the beginning, and the FBI should have known that.
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - A federal court threw out the case Monday against an American lawyer arrested in connection with the Madrid train bombings, lifting a a cloud of suspicion that has surrounded the attorney since his arrest earlier this month.Robert Jordan, the FBI agent in charge of Oregon, said the agency "regretted" any hardship caused by the arrest, and said the agency would be reviewing its practices on fingerprint analyses.
ADDENDUM: If this case had really been a witch hunt, of course, Mayfield would never have been released. But greater care is needed, as I called for in this article about the case: "No Margin for Error in Terror War." It appeared in Human Events on May 13:
An American lawyer named Brandon Mayfield was arrested last Thursday. Reports indicated that his fingerprints were found on one of the bags holding the explosives that blew up in Madrid on March 11. Adding to the suspicion was that he was a convert to Islam — and therefore possibly, like John Walker Lindh, a convert to jihad ideology. Among Mayfield’s clients had been another Muslim convert, Jeffrey Battle, who was convicted some time ago of participating in a conspiracy to aid Al-Qaeda. (Mayfield didn’t represent him on that case, but on an earlier one involving child custody.)But a significant question arose almost immediately. Not long after the FBI took Mayfield into custody, Spanish officials expressed grave reservations about the incriminating fingerprint (it turned out to be just one). It was, they contended, not similar enough to fingerprints known to be Mayfield’s.
Now, I’m not saying that Mayfield is innocent. Nor am I saying he’s guilty. What I am saying is the FBI better have more than a single fingerprint on which to base their case, and that they need to make their case as convincing in the court of public opinion as in a court of law. They need to assure Americans that they do have other evidence — even if they’re not able to say what it is at this point. This is because there is no way for cases like this not to be highly politicized from the beginning. The doubts about the fingerprint just feed suspicions such as those expressed by Mayfield’s brother: “I think the reason they are holding him is because he is of the Muslim faith and because he is not super happy with the Bush administration.”
The idea that the FBI is now rounding up random Muslims and critics of the Bush Administration is a cherished fantasy of the loony Left, but cases like this only feed the paranoia. If the fingerprint turns out definitively to be not Mayfield’s, his case will form a nice companion, in the hysterical annals of Bushitler’s reign of terror, to that of Muslim Army Chaplain James Yee. Yee was arrested last September and suspected of mishandling classified documents at Guantanamo; officials intimated that a treason charge could be in the offing. But then it all got curiouser and curiouser: prosecutors asked for more time so that they could determine whether the documents Yee had were really classified at all. The charges were reduced, revised, and finally dropped altogether.
American Muslim advocacy groups and their allies have tried to make Yee’s case into a cause celebre, clamoring for an official apology and comparing Yee to Alfred Dreyfus, the Army Captain who was convicted of treason on charges trumped-up by anti-Semites in France a hundred years ago. Just last Saturday the Chicago Tribune huffed: “No apologies by the military would fully restore Yee’s reputation or compensate his family for the suffering they endured. Yet a formal apology would be a good place to start. The military ought to consider, too, how this witch hunt has damaged its image, its plans to recruit Muslims and Arabs into its intelligence services — an urgent task — and its reputation among Muslims at home and abroad.”
Maybe Yee hasn’t received an apology because of the unanswered questions that linger about his case. When the charges were dropped, Major General Geoffrey D. Miller, commander of Joint Task Force Guantanamo spoke cryptically of “national security concerns that would arise from the release of the evidence” if the government continued to prosecute Yee.
What on earth did Miller mean? That the documents Yee was carrying were so sensitive that a trial would bring to light information that must not come out? If that was so, then why was he sent back to work? But if he didn’t have classified documents, why not dispel all remaining suspicions and allow this innocent man to get on with his life without any clouds hanging over him?The stakes are too high in the war on terror to allow for the kind of bungling that marked, or seemed to mark, the Yee case, and which now threatens to turn another high-profile terror prosecution into a fiasco. The problem is not that all this makes Bush look bad. It is that there are plenty of real terrorists still at large. Whether Justice is trumping up charges against innocent people or mishandling the prosecution of real jihadists is equally damaging. Abu Ghraib is just one example: there is today simply no margin for error.
Saudi Arabia's plentiful chickens come home to roost again.
RIYADH: (AFP) A German national was shot dead in Riyadh on Saturday, becoming the seventh Westerner to be killed in Saudi Arabia this month, hours after authorities reported seizing bomb-making material in a terror "den"."An expatriate holding German citizenship was shot and killed by unknown elements in eastern Riyadh. Security authorities are still (investigating) the incident," the capital's police chief said.
From The Telegraph:
Note also:
Common wisdom in the Iraqi capital is that nearly all the Mahdi army fighters in the holy cities are poor and ignorant Shias from the sprawling Baghdad suburb of Sadr City.But most of those fighting the Americans this weekend were local. Some were educated and from well-off families.
And it's 1 2 3 What are we fightin' for? Don't ask the major TV networks. (AP)
A speech in which Bush is expected to lay out details of the transfer of power to Iraq, and reassure Americans about that war, will not be covered by the major networks.
According to Hollywood Reporter:
The broadcast networks are not expected to carry President Bush's primetime speech tonight, in which he will lay out a "clear strategy" for the future of Iraq. The Bush administration has not requested the Big Four to air live the president's address to an audience at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Penn., scheduled for 8 p.m. EDT on the last Monday of the crucial for the network's ad rates May sweep period.NBC, Fox and ABC will proceed with their scheduled programming for the 8-9 p.m. hour -- an episode of "Fear Factor," the finale of "The Swan" and the broadcast premiere of Oscar-winning "A Beautiful Mind," respectively. NBC and Fox's sibling cable channels, MSNBC and Fox News, will carry the speech.
Everybody loves Raymond, but nobody loves W.
CAIR responded to the murder of Nicholas Berg by circulating a petition against terrorism called “Not in the Name of Islam.”
The “Not in the Name of Islam” petition states: “We, the undersigned Muslims, wish to state clearly that those who commit acts of terror, murder and cruelty in the name of Islam are not only destroying innocent lives, but are also betraying the values of the faith they claim to represent. No injustice done to Muslims can ever justify the massacre of innocent people, and no act of terror will ever serve the cause of Islam. We repudiate and dissociate ourselves from any Muslim group or individual who commits such brutal and un-Islamic acts. We refuse to allow our faith to be held hostage by the criminal actions of a tiny minority acting outside the teachings of both the Quran and the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.
Islam Online says the petition is “Not in the Name of Islam”
On the other hand, it promotes a message of pacifism to Muslims in the US and around the world, disregarding Islam’s instructions to fight oppression and invasion. This is suggested when the term reject violence is used.Violence and all its forms are subjectively interpreted. To non-Muslims, the desired interpretation would be “Drop all of your beliefs in fighting against our oppression.” Another possible connotation would be that Muslims should not support the death penalty or corporal punishment. The death penalty, whether by stoning, hanging or beheading, is considered a violent act by many.
Desperate to curry favor with non-Muslims, CAIR has successfully been trapped in a catch-22. Now that we’ve suggested that Muslims do not believe in violence, non-Muslims will tear us up in their writings by accusing us of hypocrisy for daring to take up arms against an occupying force.
UPDATE: Read the comments. In haste I missed the crucial point that the Islam Online article was written by an American Islamic chaplain. Thanks to Charles and all the others who provided the info.
KARBALA, Iraq (AP) U.S. forces battled fighters loyal to radical Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in his stronghold of Kufa overnight Sunday, and at least 18 people died. Many militiamen returned to their homes after abandoning the center of another holy Shiite city, Karbala, witnesses said.The clashes broke out when American tanks and troops moved into the city for the first time as part of an effort to weaken the militia of al-Sadr, a fierce opponent of the U.S.-led occupation who launched an uprising against the coalition in early April. He routinely delivers a sermon at Friday prayers in Kufa.
It seems as if even AP is getting tired of "the holy city of ..." designation. It calls to mind a recent Scrappleface headline: "New York, Washington Declared Muslim Holy Cities." Now that's thinking outside the box, and an interesting tactic to boot.
Back to AP:
The U.S. military has said al-Sadr's forces are using mosques and shrines to store weapons and organize attacks, while the radical cleric's supporters have accused the military of desecrating holy places.
Meaning: if al-Sadr's forces attack from the mosque it is not a desecration, but if U.S. forces follow them back to their lair, it is.
Thanks to Jeffrey Imm, this story from The Telegraph:
...there is no disguising the fact that hundreds of angry young Shias - some poor and ill-educated, others from relatively well-off families - are flocking to the Mahdi army.
The article concludes:
"I am no fan of Moqtada al-Sadr but it is the Americans who are causing our suffering. Every day they kill innocent people. They should just leave our country. They promised democracy and freedom but all they have delivered is torture and abuse."
Jihad Watch was temporarily off-line, ironically because the site was just upgraded to handle more data and bandwidth.
Apologies for any inconvenience.
In today's Dallas Morning News, by Andrew McCarthy:
For Islamic militants like Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, Osama bin Laden and those who follow them, jihad means killing the enemies of the militants – which is pretty much anyone who is not a militant. That sounds crazy to us – we're from a diverse, tolerant, live-and-let-live culture. But if we are going to appreciate the risk – the threat – we face, the reality is: It matters much less what we think about the militants than what they think about themselves.
Mort Kondracke mentions that
The decapitation of Nicholas Berg - which, it merits reminding, required several cuts of the knife to stop his screaming - was a front-page story for just one day. Only one newspaper that I know of, the Dallas Morning News, plus the Weekly Standard magazine, made the point that Berg's murder is "why we fight."
Don't mess with Texas.
BAGHDAD, Iraq — U.S. officials believe they have "rock solid" evidence that Iraqi Governing Council member Ahmad Chalabi (search), once a darling of the American government, passed secrets to Iran, Fox News has learned."There is no need for an investigation because we're quite certain he did it," one senior Bush administration official said.
The official first described the evidence against Chalabi as "pretty solid" and then characterized it as "rock solid."
U.S. officials won't describe the information Chalabi's alleged to have passed to Iran or how he's supposed to have obtained it, but they said he does not have the clearance to possess American classified information.
According to Reuters, however, this is not what yesterday's raid was all about.
An Iraqi judge, Hassan Muathin, said the raid was carried out under an arrest warrant for several men wanted for stealing state-owned vehicles, but Chalabi accused U.S.-led authorities running Iraq of a "targeted attack" against him.Squads of soldiers and police sealed off the neighborhood around the headquarters of the Iraqi National Congress (INC) and a nearby house used by Chalabi, removing computers, files, a copy of the Koran and other personal items, Chalabi said.
UPDATE: Michael Rubin of the American Enterpise Institute sees it this way:
On May 20, U.S. forces raided the home and office of Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmad Chalabi. At a press conference following the operation, Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) spokesman Dan Senor told assembled journalists that U.S. forces did not participate. To be kind, Senor appeared to misspeak. There was a non-Iraqi American citizen in Chalabi's house at the time of the raid. As armed men pointed guns at Chalabi's head, the U.S. citizen demanded to know who was in charge. A number of heavily armed Americans (judging by language and accent) in civilian clothes, upon learning of the presence of a non-Iraqi witness, scurried outside and waited in U.S. military humvees while Iraqis searched Chalabi's house.Those conducting the raid stole a Chalabi family Koran, smashed a portrait of Chalabi's father, and destroyed computers and family heirlooms. Chalabi's name did not appear on the warrant they presented. Iraqi police conducting the raid under American supervision sheepishly apologized in Arabic; they did not know they were to target Chalabi.
Iraqis--fans and foes of Chalabi alike--saw the raid as another sign of the contempt the CPA shows for ordinary Iraqis. By sending forces to break into Chalabi's house and then by holding a Governing Council member at gunpoint, Bremer sought to humiliate Chalabi. Bremer has not learned from the Abu Ghraib scandal. Humiliation backfires.
Simultaneously, the inside-the-beltway rumor mongering made clear both the irrational contempt and ignorance that many professional pundits feel for any proponent of Arab democracy. Those academics, pundits, and commentators who have never met Chalabi reserve for him the greatest vitriol.
And, via LGF, Michael Ledeen, also of the American Enterprise Institute, spells it out further:
Yet the State Department's and the CIA's Middle East gangs have hated him and fought him for more than a decade, because he is independent and while he is happy to work with them, he will not work for them.
If we can't take a picture of Aunt Mabel on the D train ("ummm, how did we wind up at Coney Island?"), the terrorists win.
The New York Daily News on proposed new regulations to help deter terrorism in the subways:
Smiling will still be allowed on the subways, but - sorry, tourists - taking pictures may soon be banned.Transit officials, at the request of police, yesterday proposed prohibiting photography and videotaping in the subway system and on buses - hoping to thwart terrorists from gathering information for an attack.
There are various other rules proposed, such as no walking between cars (I committed that particular crime quite often back when I lived in Gotham City); no shoes on the seats, and no jumping the turnstile even if you have a valid fare card that malfunctions.
NYPD Transportation Police Chief Michael Scagnelli said police would use discretion in issuing summonses to shutterbugs. But violators could be questioned and subjected to background checks, he said, and have their film confiscated.
New York officials were recently planning for possible subway terrorism in a four-hour drill, coordinated by the Office of Emergency Management and sponsored by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
NEW YORK (AP) _ City officials staged a mock explosion in a lower Manhattan subway station early Sunday May 16, simulating an incident with 200 injured and 40 killed to test protocols and communications among emergency personnel from multiple agencies.
More info on the arrests on Tuesday.
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S.-led forces in Iraq are holding two people suspected of possible involvement in the kidnap and beheading of American Nicholas Berg earlier this month, the U.S. military said on Friday. Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, a spokesman for the forces, told a news conference four people had been detained in a raid in Baghdad two days ago and two had subsequently been released. Of the other two, he said: "We may find out that they have no association with the murder."
AP spoke to an anonymous Iraqi official who said the group that killed Berg was led by a relative of Saddam Hussein.
The group that was involved in the killing of Berg was led by Yasser al-Sabawi, a nephew of Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi security official said. He said American intelligence had asked Iraqi authorities to hand over the suspects, but they were still in Iraqi hands.Al-Sabawi was not among those arrested, the Iraqi official said.
Scotsman.com reports on claims by terror suspect Jack Roche to have had lunch with Bin Laden in March 2000. (Thanks to Jean-Luc.)
“Yeah a very nice man ... I would rather meet him than George Bush I can tell you,” he told the reporter. “He is a very nice man, but I only met him for a short time ... just outside Kandahar.”Roche told the reporter he sat down to start eating, “and I looked across and I said ‘whoah – that’s like the bloke on the telly.”’
Prosecutors say Roche was in Afghanistan to undergo explosives training with al-Qaida.
Roche, a convert to Islam said,
“If someone punches you, you are allowed to punch them back. I am very concerned about my brothers and sisters of Islam who are being punched by these people,” Roche said during the interview.
Time reports that the FBI has sent a bulletin to law enforcement agencies, warning that individual suicide bombers may attempt to strike inside the United States.
Law enforcement professionals should be on the alert for "people wearing heavy, bulky jackets on warm days, smelling of chemicals, trailing wires from their jackets" and should know that "suicide bombers may disguise themselves in stolen military, police or firefighter's garb, or even as pregnant women."
Note the last paragraph:
In fact, U.S. analysts are at a loss to explain why the homeland has thus far escaped such attacks, since a number of extremist groups, particularly Hamas, have a sizeable presence here. One factor, officials say, is that terror leaders still regard America as a cash cow, and don't want to antagonize moderate Muslim donors. Another reason, says one specialist, may simply be that while there seems to be an endless supply of fanatical youths willing to die for the cause in the Middle East, most of them simply can't get visas to the U.S.
As I have recently pointed out, there is No Margin For Error In the Terror War.
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - A lawyer who had been arrested two weeks ago in connection with the terror attacks in Spain was set free Thursday after evidence pointed to another suspect in the deadly bombings.
A debate by Intelligence Squared, the London Forum for live debate.
Speakers for the motion:
Some of Taheri's remarks:
This debate is not easy.For Islam has become an issue of political controversy in the West.
On the one hand we have Islamophobia, a particular affliction of those who blame Islam for all the ills of our world.
The more thin skinned Muslims have ended up on regarding every criticism of Islam as Islamophobia.
On the other hand we have Islamoflattery that claims that everything good under the sun came from Islam. ( According to a recent PBS serial on Islam, even cinema was invented by a lens-maker in Baghdad, named Abu-Hufus!)
This is often practised by a new generation of the Turques de profession, Westerners who are prepared to apply the rules of critical analysis to everything under the sun except Islam.
They think they are doing Islam a favour.
The opposite is true.
Depriving Islam of critical scrutiny is bad for Islam and Muslims, and ultimately dangerous for the whole world.
The whole thing is well worth reading. He concludes:
Muslims can build democratic society provided they treat Islam as a matter of personal, private belief and not as a political ideology that seeks to monopolise the pubic space and regulate every aspect of individual and community life.Ladies and gentlemen: Islam is incompatible with democracy.
The motion was carried by 403 votes for, 267 against. 28 were undecided.
Other spins: "Bush Seeks to Rally GOP Around Iraq Plan" (later headline from AP); "Bush Rallies Worried Republicans on Capitol Hill" (Reuters).
This rare meeting seems to be becoming an annual event.
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush sought to rally Republican lawmakers around his Iraq plan Thursday, saying Iraqis are ready to "take the training wheels off" by assuming some political power, but warning that violence is likely to worsen as that transfer approaches.The president made a rare visit to Capitol Hill as lawmakers prepare to head to their home states for the Memorial Day recess.
"This has been a rough couple of months for the president, particularly on the issues of Iraq, and I think he was here to remind folks that we do have a policy and this policy is going to be tough," said Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa. "Things, as I think he commented, are very likely to get worse before they get better."
But later
It was the second year in a row that Bush met behind closed doors exclusively with his fellow Republicans just ahead of the congressional Memorial Day break. The stakes were especially high this year: Bush and most lawmakers face re-election, and Iraq is still plagued by chaos and violence six weeks before the United States cedes some power to Iraqis.
Ach so! Intelligent intelligence from Deutschland:
Germany's Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BFV), one of three national intelligence services in Germany that is charged with gathering information on domestic as well as foreign extremist and terror groups active on home soil, stressed on Monday that Islamic terrorism posed the biggest security threat in Germany.Presenting the annual domestic security report 2003 in Berlin, German Interior Minister Otto Schily said, "Unfortunately we still face diverse dangers in Germany of which Islamic terrorism and Islamic extremism form the focal point."
Schily added that recent terrorist attacks such as the ones in Madrid in March this year that killed almost 200 people targeted so-called soft targets worldwide."We can't assume that Germany lies outside the reach of such targets," Schily warned, saying that in the eyes of Islamic terrorists Germany counted as an ally of the United States and Israel and was also actively involved in the war against terrorism through its peacekeeping deployment in Afghanistan.
Many thanks to all who sent variations on this story. Although Dumont used a forged passport, the 90 day visa reiterates the importance of Daniel Pipes' observations, Europe's