Terrorist Attack _______________ Information Only

Top 505. Jan 10, 2002 12:54 PM

» BPyles - Drug arrests

No mention of terrorist connection except most of defendants are Middle Eastern descent, i.e., Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, Kuwait and Mexico.

U.S. Arrests More Than 100 in Drug Crackdown1-10-02

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. drug enforcement officials announced on Thursday a nation-wide
crackdown on methamphetamine production, arresting more than 100 people involved in smuggling or distributing a key ingredient used to make the drug.

An official from the Drug Enforcement Administration said the crackdown, known as Phase 3 of Operation Mountain Express, was under way on Thursday morning in 11 cities across the country.

In addition to 54 arrests on Thursday, 67 individuals had previously been arrested as part of the investigation, the DEA said. Federal agents executed 49 search warrants on Thursday, confiscated 96 automobiles and seized $350,000 in cash.

The arrests were the latest stage in the operation which netted the seizure of drugs that could produce up to 18,000 pounds of methamphetamine, commonly known as speed, with a street value of up to $144 million.

``The defendants are mostly of Middle Eastern descent,'' the DEA official said of those taken into custody on Thursday, noting they were from countries including Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, Kuwait and Mexico.

The operation began in late 1999 to investigate and arrest individuals involved in the distribution of pseudoephedrine -- a key ingredient in the formula to manufacture speed.

Pseudoephedrine is also a common ingredient in over-the-counter cold medications.

The operation began as an effort to stop licensed ''registrants'' who were diverting their stock of
Pseudoephedrine to methamphetamine production laboratories -- located mostly in California and
Mexico.

In late 1999 and 2000 DEA and other officials arrested 140 people and closed down 68 registrants.

Once the local supply of Pseudoephedrine was dried up, traffickers looked elsewhere and began
buying the drug legally in Canada and smuggled it over the border. The official said over the past year the DEA and other law enforcement agencies have made several large seizures of smuggled
pseudoephedrine near Detroit -- the main point of entry used by the smugglers.

Over the past year officials have seized nine operational labs and 16 tons of pseudoephedrine, which equates to 18,000 pounds of finished methamphetamines.

Average street value of a pound of methamphetamine ranges between $6,000 and $8,000.

The DEA said the arrests were carried out in Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Houston, Phoenix, Las
Vegas and the California cities of Los Angeles, Riverside, Fresno, San Diego and Carlsbad.

-- posted by BPyles

Top 506. Jan 10, 2002 1:26 PM

» JenL_2 - Re: Drug arrests

In response to message posted by BPyles:

Betty - Hmmm - interesting....

I think that Bush is going after possible terrorists, and their possible money sources by any means possible. Only makes sense to use the DEA with their expanded powers for our War on Drugs already in place...to help with our War on Terrorism......Jen

-- posted by JenL_2

Top 507. Jan 29, 2002 6:53 AM

» Lawhawk - The Washington Post (http:

The Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com ) is running a great series on the 10 days of September that began with the attack on September 11. It includes much of the work that went on behind the scenes in the first chaotic hours after the attacks while the country was trying to figure out what was going on.

It portrays the government, and specifically the President and high level administration officials, in a very good light. It is often said that crisis can bring out the best in people and it certainly appears that it has done just that with most in the Bush Administration.

-- posted by Lawhawk

Top 508. Feb 25, 2002 9:45 PM

» JenL_2 - Re: Somalia

In response to message posted by BPyles:

This posted to the "India-Pak" thread:

from India's Top 20 Terrorist List in 1/13 Guardian posted above:

Maulana Masood Azhar is the leader of Jaish-i-Mohammad (Army of the Prophet Muhammad), the group blamed for the attack on India's parliament on December 13, 2001 which pushed the two nuclear neighbours to the verge of war.

His group is also blamed for the suicide attack on the Jammu and Kashmir State Legislative Assembly in which 38 people were killed on October 1 last year. Azhar was arrested in Indian-adminstered Kashmir in 1994 and was released at Kandahar in exchange for the crew and passengers of an Indian airliner which was hijacked during a routine Kathmandu-New Delhi flight in December, 2000.

Azhar is believed to be very close to the Taliban. Jaish conducted three suicide attacks inside Kashmir before the Parliament attack. One of the suicide attacks launched by the group on the Kashmir headquarters of the Indian Army on the eve of Chrismas in 2000 involved a British Muslim - Mohammad Bilal.

Jaish is an offshoot of another Jihadi group, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, which was alleged to be responsible for the kidnapping of five western tourists in 1995, one of whom was a Norwegian who was later killed. The fate of the other tourists is still not known. Jaish-e-Mohammad claims to be fighting to establish a puritan Islamic rule in the Muslim world and seeks an end to Indian rule in Muslim-dominated Kashmir.

Steven - presently Maulana Masood Azhar is under house arrest in Pakistan, correct? And I haven't seen any reports in the media connecting him to the Pearl abduction.

But there's this report of his Somalia Connection in 2/25 LATimes:

<img src="http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2002-..." width=400 height=300 align="left">Maulana Masood Azhar, leader of the militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed, admitted to advising Somalian fighters, Indian police say.(AP)

Somalian Link Seen to Al Qaeda

By PAUL WATSON and SIDHARTHA BARUA, Special To The Times

JAMMU, India -- A Pakistani terrorist who Indian police say admitted to aiding the 1993 street war against U.S. forces in Somalia may be the long-suspected link between Osama bin Laden and the killing of 18 U.S. soldiers in Mogadishu.

Evidence of the Al Qaeda connection to the fighting in the Somalian capital has been sitting in an Indian police file in the disputed state of Jammu and Kashmir since 1994, when Indian police arrested Maulana Masood Azhar. His supporters have been accused of kidnapping and killing Americans in India and Pakistan during at least the past seven years.

Azhar, leader of the banned militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed, also is the mentor of Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, whom Pakistani authorities arrested as the lead suspect in the kidnapping and killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

In a prison diary on file in an Indian court, Sheikh also admitted to kidnapping Californian Bela Josef Nuss and three British backpackers in October 1994 in a failed bid to spring Azhar from jail.

And FBI agents questioned Azhar in connection with the 1995 kidnapping in Kashmir of an American hiker, who is presumed to have been killed.

Azhar told Indian police after his arrest in Kashmir that he traveled to Nairobi, Kenya, in 1993 to meet with leaders of the Somalian group Al-Ittihad al-Islamiya, which the U.S. accuses of receiving Al Qaeda's help to train Somalian fighters for attacks on U.S. forces.

Azhar said the Somalis asked for assistance and got recruits and money from the ranks of a Pakistani militant group that Washington later named as part of Bin Laden's terrorist network.

According to the confession, Azhar was dispatched to meet with the Somalis by another Pakistani militant, Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil.

U.S. Suspected Somalis Were Al Qaeda-Trained

The Somalian group surfaced again after the Sept. 11 attacks, when U.S. officials identified it as a possible target for airstrikes.

U.S. officials have long suspected an Al Qaeda connection to the 1993 Somalian conflict. The alleged link was central to the prosecutors' case in the trial of four men convicted last year of the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The attacks killed 224 people, including 12 Americans.

Prosecutors argued that members of the same Kenya-based cell that helped train Somalis to kill U.S. soldiers in 1993 went on to carry out the 1998 embassy bombings, which have been blamed on Bin Laden. At least one of the four men convicted in the embassy bombings was a member of the Somalian group, FBI special agent John Anticev testified.

Indian intelligence officials claim Azhar not only traveled to Kenya but made as many as three journeys to Somalia and was a key player in the Al Qaeda operation there.

Azhar told Indian police that in his meetings, Al-Ittihad leaders complained that Pakistan's army, which was taking part in the international mission in Somalia, "is working in favor of America and America is trying to establish its rule in Somalia."

Al-Ittihad benefited from Pakistan's decision in 1993, under international pressure, to expel between 400 and 500 foreign veterans of the Afghan war, according to Azhar's confession.

Most did not go home, either because they weren't allowed to or because they feared persecution, Azhar said. Instead, the majority went to Sudan, where Bin Laden was then based, and from there to Somalia, Azhar said. The "militants continued the correspondence with us from Somalia," he said.

Senior Indian intelligence sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the clandestine nature of their work, say they also believe Azhar helped bring mercenaries from Yemen to Somalia with the help of Yemeni militant leader Tariq Nasr Fadhli.

Tariq is said to have fought under Bin Laden's command in Afghanistan's guerrilla war against Soviet troops in the 1980s. Tariq, reportedly at Bin Laden's bidding, then led a guerrilla war against the Marxist government of South Yemen, which collapsed in 1994 and once again became part of Yemen.

Yemeni authorities identified Tariq as a suspect in two December 1992 hotel bombings in Yemen that targeted U.S. Marines headed for Somalia. The explosions killed a tourist and a hotel worker.

Indian authorities arrested Azhar in Kashmir in February 1994, after he arrived from Karachi, Pakistan, on a fake Portuguese passport. They say he was headed to Kashmir on a mission to unite militants fighting Indian rule in the Himalayan region.

But during interrogation, Azhar also provided information on the Somalian operation, which just four months earlier had inflicted the heaviest casualties U.S. forces had suffered in a single battle since Vietnam.

The apparent Somalian link takes up less than two typed pages in a confession of more than a dozen pages. Azhar also spoke about his interest in the Somalian conflict as a magazine editor, fund-raiser and traveling spokesman for Harkat Ansar, one of Pakistan's most ruthless terrorist groups.

India freed Azhar, Sheikh and another jailed terror suspect in December 1999 to win the release of passengers on an Indian Airlines flight hijacked to Afghanistan.

Azhar then founded the Jaish-e-Mohammed militia. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf banned the organization in his January crackdown on militants, when Azhar was accused of making inflammatory speeches and Pakistani police detained him. India says he has clear ties to both Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Agency and Al Qaeda, and that his fighters continue to launch attacks in Jammu and Kashmir state.

FBI Had Questioned Azhar on Kidnappings

The FBI also has had a long interest in Azhar.

It questioned him in Indian jails during an investigation into the July 4, 1995, kidnapping of Donald Hutchings, a neuropsychologist from Spokane, Wash. He was abducted along with two Britons, a German and another American, John Childs, who managed to escape.

The decapitated body of a Norwegian kidnapped after Childs fled was dropped on a mountain path, and police recovered the body of a British hostage two years ago. None of the other captives was ever found.

Officials at New Delhi's Tihar jail say the FBI interviewed Azhar there in 1996. On April 27, 1998, the U.S. Embassy asked permission for two FBI agents to interview Azhar again, along with three of his jailed supporters. Indian authorities said it appeared that the 1998 request was granted.

The embassy letter, signed by charge d'affaires E. Ashley Wills, said FBI agents were still investigating the Kashmir kidnappings, which Indian police blamed on a breakaway faction of Harkat Ansar.

Khalil, Harkat's supreme leader, added his signature to Bin Laden's February 1998 fatwa declaring it a Muslim's duty to kill Americans, including civilians.

Bin Laden claimed credit for the clashes that drove U.S. troops out of Somalia, but some experts dismissed his claims as idle boasting, saying Somalian gunmen had enough expertise and anti-American fervor to fight without outside help. However, federal prosecutors argued in the embassy bombing trial that Bin Laden's 1998 edict, issued under the banner "International Islamic Front for Jihad Against the Jews and Crusaders," had its roots in the 1993 attacks on U.S. troops in Somalia.

Months after entering Somalia in 1992 to help end its famine, U.S. troops were seeking to arrest warlord Mohammed Farah Aideed, whose militia was blamed for a June 5, 1993, ambush that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.

During frequent attempts to grab Aideed or his lieutenants, the Americans used UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters armored to withstand 23-millimeter antiaircraft shells.

On Sept. 25, 1993, Aideed's gunmen managed to bring down their first Black Hawk with a rocket-propelled grenade, a weapon normally used against ground targets. Three U.S. soldiers died in the crash.

Eight days later, rocket-propelled grenades brought down two more Black Hawks in the Oct. 3 battle that left 18 U.S. soldiers dead and about 75 wounded. At least 500 Somalis died in the 16-hour fight. The incident was portrayed in the movie "Black Hawk Down."

A theory emerged that someone had taught Aideed's gunmen how to alter the fuses on the rocket-propelled grenades, or RPGs, so that they exploded in midair. Afghan fighters learned from U.S. and British military advisors in the 1980s that a helicopter's weak spot is the tail rotor.

It is hard to hit a tail rotor with ordnance designed to explode on contact, but a grenade exploding in midair could spray it with shrapnel. That is how a man hiding in a tree shot down the first Black Hawk on Oct. 3, setting off a catastrophe that Bin Laden cited five years later as proof of American weakness.

Bin Laden told a CNN interviewer that the Somalis had cooperated with Arab veterans of the Afghan war.

"After a little resistance, the American troops left after achieving nothing," Bin Laden said.

During the embassy bombing trial, federal prosecutors argued that Al Qaeda was involved in the Somalian conflict.

"One of the principal goals of Al Qaeda was to drive the United States armed forces out of Saudi Arabia (and elsewhere on the Saudi Arabian peninsula) and Somalia by violence," prosecutors charged in an indictment that named Bin Laden and other defendants.

Army Pilot Testified in Embassy Bombing Trial

The prosecution's last witness at the embassy bombings trial was James Yacone, a platoon commander who piloted one of the two Black Hawks that dropped troops near Mogadishu's Olympic Hotel.

Yacone said he watched as a rocket-propelled grenade exploded near the tail rotor of the second chopper, piloted by Clifton Wolcott and Donavan Briley. The aircraft spun out of control and crashed, killing them.

Yacone told the jury that he saw more than 100 RPGs fired at helicopters that day, and each exploded about 500 yards in the air.

"I wasn't able to see all the RPGs being shot but, you know, every thirty seconds or so we'd see the streak of smoke and then the puff of where the thing would detonate in the air," Yacone said.

Within minutes after flying in to help, a second Black Hawk was hit by an RPG in the tail boom section and crashed when "their tail rotor just came apart," Yacone said.

An RPG round also hit his Black Hawk, blowing off the door gunner's leg and spraying shrapnel into Yacone's left arm. With the cockpit full of smoke and one of his two engines disabled, Yacone managed to reach the Somalian coast and crash-landed in friendlier territory.

District Court Judge Leonard B. Sand ordered the jury to disregard Yacone's testimony, since Al Qaeda fighters apparently were not directly involved in the incident.

Prosecutor Kenneth Karas continued to press the Al Qaeda connection in Somalia. In his closing argument, he told the jury that testimony had shown Somalia was "a magnet for Al Qaeda people."

Bin Laden issued an edict "to the members of Al Qaeda to do what they can to stop the Americans, to drive them from Somalia," Karas said.

"The specific words that Bin Laden used were, 'We have to cut off the head of the snake,' " Karas said. "As far back as 1993, this is what is on Al Qaeda's mind: the United States presence in Somalia."

....Jen

-- posted by JenL_2

Top 509. Feb 26, 2002 9:49 AM

» BPyles - Pakistan terrorist attack

Another one of those reports that does not seem to fit any topic - Pakistan - Shi"ite vs. Sunni - nothing more than terrorism, even if they call it sectarian violence.
---------------

Nine Shi'ite Muslims Killed at Mosque in Pakistan Tue Feb 26,10:21 AM ET

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (Reuters) - Unidentified gunmen shot dead nine people and wounded more than 10 others in an attack on a Shi'ite mosque in Rawalpindi, near Pakistan's capital Islamabad, a doctor said Tuesday.

"We have placed nine bodies in the hospital morgue and wounded are pouring in," the doctor at Holy Family Hospital said.

A witness said an unknown number of gunmen opened fire on between 30 and 40 worshippers during evening prayers in the Shah-i-Najf mosque.

"It was a sudden firing and many of us immediately lay on the floor," Anjum Abbass, who was
wounded in the gun attack, told Reuters. The wounded included two teenaged boys.

Mainly Sunni Muslim Pakistan is plagued by sectarian violence, which claimed 400 lives in 2001

-- posted by BPyles

Top 510. Feb 26, 2002 7:06 PM

» Steven_Russell - Re: Somalia - Maulana Masood Azhar

In response to message posted by JenL_2:

Steven - presently Maulana Masood Azhar is under house arrest in Pakistan, correct?

--------------------------------------------------

================================================================

Top 20 Pakistani and Kashmir Terrorist Group Leaders and Fugitives wanted by India

================================================================

1 Maulana Masood Azhar -------------------------------- Pakistan PRISONER remanded to 90 days' custody at Mianwali prison December 30, 2001; briefly arrested for questioning on December 23, 2001, about Indian Parliament attack; founder of Jaish-e-Mohammad; released from Indian prison in December 1999 Air India hostage crisis; arrested in Kashmir in February 1994; admitted aiding the 1993 street war in Mogadishu, Somalia, that killed 18 US soldiers; met leaders of Somali terror group in Nairobi, Kenya in 1993
On India's top 20 list. 1993 Mogadishu, Somalia attack associate. General Secretary and top idologue of Harkat ul-Ansar. Released from prison in the Air India hostage crisis was Maulana Azhar and two others. Azhar is Founder leader of the Pakistan-based jehad group, Jaish-e-Mohammad (Army of the Prophet Muhammad).

-- posted by Steven_Russell

Top 511. Feb 28, 2002 3:19 PM

» BPyles - Montana militia

One of those news items that does not seem to fit in anywhere. Montana....who would have thought it...expect will have more problems closing this bunch down that al Qaida...wonder what religion they are doing this for?

February 28, 2002, New York Times

Authorities Probe Montana Militia's Assassination Plot

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 7:11 a.m. ET

KALISPELL, Mont. (AP) -- A Montana militia organization was planning to assassinate as many judges, prosecutors and police officers as possible, amassing a weapons cache that included 30,000 rounds of ammunition, a targeted sheriff said.

``It all certainly supports the theory that there was going to be big trouble,'' Flathead County Sheriff Jim Dupont said Wednesday. ``The last I heard, it didn't take 30,000 rounds of ammo to kill a turkey.''

He said the group, which called itself ``Project Seven,'' hoped to kill enough officials to force the state to call in the National Guard. The militia then hoped to kill enough National Guard troops to catch the federal government's attention, beginning an unchecked escalation, Dupont said.

Among the items in the group's arsenal were fully automatic weapons, survival equipment, booby traps, body armor and explosives materials, Dupont said. The militia group also collected ``intelligence files'' on the officials and their families, Dupont said.

Dupont said charges were expected, though it was unclear how many people belong to the organization.

He said the group was headed by 38-year-old Dave Burgert, who was arrested earlier this month after an armed standoff that lasted nearly seven hours.

Burgert had been awaiting trial on charges he assaulted a police officer in January 2001. He also faced charges of obstructing a police officer in a November 2001 incident.

Dupont said Burgert faked his own death and disappeared as a judge was ordering he be taken off house arrest and placed in jail. He was nabbed after an informant member of Project Seven led officers to the home of Tracy Brockway, where Burgert was hiding out.

Burgert and Brockway remain jailed.

Investigators said a search of property the two were sharing turned up ``hit lists'' containing
the names of local law officers, a prosecutor and judges. The list included addresses, phone
numbers and information on spouses and children. Dupont said he was among those on the list.

The group has circulated a ``wanted poster'' for the informant, but the man is safe and an investigation is under way by national law enforcement agencies, Dupont said.

Brockway, 32, is charged with obstruction of justice for harboring Burgert. She also is suspected of using her job as a cleaning woman at the Whitefish Police Department to gather information about officers and their families.

The militia's name refers to Flathead County license plates, which all begin with the number
seven. A similar cell, called Project 56, is believed to be operating in adjacent Lincoln County.

-- posted by BPyles

Top 512. Mar 10, 2002 9:46 PM

» JenL_2 - Sultan Dr. Bashiruddin Mahmood

In response to message posted by Steven_Russell:

Steven - don't know where your latest update is but this is from your Top al Qaeda body count, Dec 15,01:

14 Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood
--------------------- disappeared from Kabul, November 2001, Pakistani nuclear scientist whose Kabul house was used for studying anthrax and helium
One of Pakistan's leading nuclear scientists. Mahmood had founded and became president of a Pakistani aid group, The Foundation for Construction, after retiring from his job at Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission in 1998. His Kabul house was a shabby, two-story villa located in a quiet residential area of Kabul favored by a number of international charities. The house is next to the British charity Save the Children and a few doors from the offices of the United Nations refugee agency. Neighbors say the house had been occupied by three Pakistani men and their wives and children, and they said they had no reason to believe the occupants were engaged in anything other than charitable work. Those living in the house left abruptly after Sept. 11, leaving behind one man. In October 2001, Pakistani authorities detained Mahmood along with another retired nuclear scientist. Mahmood was questioned about his links with the Taliban amid concerns that he may have shared Pakistan's nuclear secrets with Osama bin Laden. He denied ever meeting bin Laden and insisted that his frequent contacts with the Taliban were due to his involvement in the delivery of humanitarian aid. No evidence of wrongdoing was found. The one man left residing at Mahmood's Kabul house was later joined by a number of Pakistani fighters, local guards said. They all left on the night the Taliban fled Kabul, November 12, 2001. Northern Alliance fighters visited the house soon after that and ordered local residents not to go inside, said the guards, who added that three foreigners wearing masks and gloves visited the house a few days later and removed boxes of materials. The men spoke English and had a document from local commanders giving them permission to remove the material, said a guard who sits outside a house across the street. In November 2001 after the discoveries at the house, Mahmood and his associate, Abdul Majeed, were detained for questioning again, although Pakistan still insists it has found no evidence that he was involved in wrongdoing. "There is no linkage established at all with any anthrax-related capability," said a Pakistani government spokesman, Maj. Gen. Rashid Qureshi. Pakistan also has denied Pakistani newspaper reports that Mahmood had been involved in the development of Pakistan's nuclear bomb. Nothing was found at the house to suggest any link to nuclear weapons or efforts to acquire nuclear expertise, nor was there anything directly linking the house to bin Laden, apart from a newsletter published by Al Qaeda. But items found at the house since the Taliban fled Kabul on November 12, 2001 suggest that Mahmood's Islamabad-based "charity" Foundation for Construction may have been interested in something other than helping Afghans rebuild their country. The house contained sheaves of disturbing documents. These include the results of a massive Internet search on anthrax vaccines, and a report titled "Bacteria: What You Need to Know." Investigators also found a report titled "Iraqi Anthrax Troops," and a New York Times article on Plum Island, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's animal-disease center near the north fork of Long Island. The Plum Island center does research to help guard the United States "against catastrophic economic losses caused by foreign animal disease agents accidentally or deliberately introduced into the U.S.," its Web site explains. Also at the house in Kabul, piles of documents containing detailed information about the use of anthrax in biological warfare, boxes containing gas masks and diagrams suggestive of a plan to use a helium-filled balloon to disperse anthrax across a wide area were found in the house by journalists. But someone either living at the house or visiting it had taken a close interest in anthrax and in studying ways to deliver biological weapons. In one upstairs room, there were dozens of copies of documents about anthrax, including details about the U.S. military's vaccination program downloaded from a Defense Department Web site and other Defense Department documents relating to anthrax. One, titled "The bacteria: what you need to know" contains the statement that anthrax spores "can easily be spread in the air by missiles, rockets, artillery, aerial bombs and sprays." There were 10 copies each of most of the documents, suggesting that a seminar or perhaps a brainstorming session had taken place. On the floor, there was what appeared to be a disassembled rocket alongside a canister labeled "helium," as well as two bags of powder, which journalists have refrained from inspecting. An elaborate diagram on a white board depicts what appears to be a balloon rising at various trajectories, alongside a fighter jet apparently shooting at the balloon. Beside the jet are the words, "You are dead, bang," which appear to have been added later because they are written in a different color. There are also pictures of ground missiles linked by lines to the balloon. Mathematical calculations indicate the height at which the balloon would fly, the distance from which it would be shot down and the area over which its contents would be dispersed. Next to one of the balloons is the word "polystyrene"; next to another is the word "cyanide." There is no mention of anthrax on the diagram, but the impression is of a plan to deliver biological agents by packing them into the gondola of a balloon that would be shot down by a jet or a missile. Loose sheets of paper containing scribbles of missiles and balloons similar to those on the board were found among the documents, suggesting that those at a possible seminar had been taking notes or elaborating on the calculations. The photocopied documents are faded, suggesting they have been there awhile. Western diplomats in Kabul, speaking on condition of anonymity, say that they have no reason to believe the evidence was planted but that they had not studied it. "We know there were a lot of houses like this, and many that have been found by journalists in very similar circumstances," one diplomat said. Investigators know Al Qaeda had been trying to acquire weapons of mass destruction, he said. "It's a question of whether they have the availability, and there's no evidence yet that they do have the availability or the capability. The evidence is inconclusive." As of December 2, most of the documents found have been removed by journalists, and at least some have been turned over to Western diplomats.

Daniel Pearl reported on Dr. Bashiruddin also in 12/26 WSJAsia - he was abducted on 1/23:

Pakistan Is Tied to Group It Wants Curbed

Government Has Links to Activities of Scientist Accused of Discussing Nuclear Weapons With bin Laden

Defenders Say Man Was Trying to Help Afghanistan's Economy, Not Pass Secrets

By Daniel Pearl and Steve LeVine

12/26/2001
The Asian Wall Street Journal
Page 4

ISLAMABAD -- Pakistan has pledged to clamp down on a humanitarian group headed by a nuclear scientist, but the military government also has ties to the organization, which is accused of sharing nuclear information with terrorists.

The organization, Ummah Tameer-e-Nau, used a former military officer to pursue a large agricultural project near Kandahar, Afghanistan, according to three people involved in the venture. The officer recently obtained a senior position in a regional commission aimed at combating government corruption.

Moreover, a former head of Pakistan's military intelligence service, Gen. Hamid Gul, says he was UTN's "honorary patron" and encouraged Pakistani businessmen to invest in UTN. Gen. Gul saw the nuclear scientist, Dr. Bashiruddin Mahmoud, in Kabul, the Afghan capital, in August -- the same month Dr. Mahmoud is alleged to have discussed nuclear weapons with Osama bin Laden, whom the U.S. blames for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

President George W. Bush on Thursday ordered UTN's assets frozen, saying the group "claims to serve the hungry and needy of Afghanistan" but "provided information about nuclear weapons to al Qaeda," Mr. bin Laden's organization. A Pakistani foreign ministry spokesman later said Pakistan also would freeze UTN's assets.

Pakistan's military government said it originally detained Dr. Mahmoud on Oct. 23 after the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency raised questions about his visits to Afghanistan.

Still, UTN's connections with former military officials suggest Pakistan had been monitoring Dr. Mahmoud and the Afghanistan trips for some time. "If he was a nuclear scientist on the loose, why was the Pakistan government not aware of it?" said Gen. Gul, who maintains contacts with some active members of the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate. Gen. Gul said he never heard of any discussions between Dr. Mahmoud and Mr. bin Laden.

One former ISI colonel said the intelligence organization was always aware of UTN's activities and had encouraged Dr. Mahmoud's Afghanistan trips. He said the ISI learned last year that Dr. Mahmoud had recently discussed nuclear matters with Mr. bin Laden, and Dr. Mahmoud agreed not to do so again.

The colonel's account couldn't be verified. Dr. Mahmoud, released from custody Dec. 13, declined to be interviewed. So did his son, Shahzad, who accompanied his father on a May trip to Afghanistan and was trying to establish a development bank in Kabul.

Dr. Mahmoud's defenders have insisted that he did nothing wrong but was simply a fervent Muslim who wanted to buoy the Afghan economy. And the idea that UTN served merely as a cover for Dr. Mahmoud to pass nuclear secrets seems simplistic at best.

One Pakistani military analyst said it was inconceivable that a nuclear scientist would travel to Afghanistan without getting clearance from Pakistani officials and being debriefed each time. Pakistan maintains a strict watch on many of its nuclear scientists, using a special arm of the Army's general headquarters to monitor them even after retirement.

Pakistani analysts doubt Dr. Mahmoud, or a second nuclear scientist associated with UTN, had the expertise to deliver nuclear weapons plans to Mr. bin Laden. Dr. Mahmoud, 61 years old, headed Pakistan's nuclear power program and was forced to retire in 1998, when he spoke out against the idea of Pakistan signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

Dr. Mahmoud, who advocated nuclear explosions for the building of dams and reservoirs, was a scientific gadfly. In a 1997 book, he linked events such as the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan during World War II to the seasonal effects of solar radiation on world leaders' emotions. He later said he wrote to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf asking him not to be swayed by the "catalytic effect of solar radiation," which Dr. Mahmoud feared could lead to chemical or atomic warfare.

Dr. Mahmoud's religious mentor was Dr. Israr Ahmed, a Lahore-based political and religious leader who has called for strict implementation of Islamic law and strongly backed Afghanistan's Taliban regime, which sheltered Mr. bin Laden. Dr. Ahmed, interviewed at his religious academy, said Dr. Mahmoud "wanted to help Afghanistan, not al Qaeda."

In a Sept. 23 interview, Dr. Mahmoud said he had learned of Mr. bin Laden through charity work. "Osama bin Laden, as I came to know, was helping in different places, renovating schools, opening orphan houses, (helping with) rehabilitation of widows," he said, but he stopped short of saying the two had met.

Dr. Mahmoud didn't hide his connections with Taliban officials. A video he commissioned of a trip by UTN directors to Kabul in May shows Dr. Mahmoud, clad in a white turban, and other directors of UTN sitting across a table at a hotel from Taliban bureaucrats. According to an itinerary, the delegation spoke with the Taliban about the development of oil and natural gas fields, and iron, copper and coal mines.

Today, a UTN plant in Kandahar produces 200 tons of flour a day, said a relative of Dr. Mahmoud. But other projects remained on the drawing board.

UTN's members and associates lost money on the planned farming venture, in a village called Dasht-e-Zeray, north of Kandahar. It was structured as a $400,000 Islamic investment, promising $250 in profit over three years for every $1,000 share purchased, according to a brochure promoting the investment. Ten percent of profits were to go to UTN's charitable activities.

Hashim Sheikh, a Karachi philanthropist who accompanied Dr. Mahmoud on the May trip, said that he later persuaded several friends to invest but that the deal fell victim to the war in Afghanistan. Mr. Sheikh said the man who explained the farming venture to the trip's delegates was Brig. Gen. Mohammed Ali, a UTN director. Gen. Gul and a third man, Mohammed Hayat, who was consulted on how to level the land, both confirmed that Gen. Ali was in charge of the project, and a UTN document identifies him as a director.

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....more "very sensitive issues"!.....Jen

-- posted by JenL_2

Top 513. Mar 10, 2002 11:52 PM

» JenL_2 - Re: Top al Qaeda body count, December 15, 2001

In response to message posted by Steven_Russell:

Steven - to add to your latest al Qaeda body count - this from 3/10 WashingtonPost and published at MSNBC.com:

Suspects sent to third countries

U.S. bypassing extradition for questioning in Egypt, Jordan

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Peter Finn
THE WASHINGTON POST

JAKARTA, Indonesia, March 10 — Arriving here from Pakistan in mid-November, Muhammad Saad Iqbal Madni told acquaintances that he had come to Indonesia to disburse an inheritance to his late father’s second wife. But instead of writing a check and leaving, he settled into a small boarding house in a crowded, lower-middle-class neighborhood, where he visited the local mosque and spent hours on end watching television at a friend’s house.

STOCKY AND BEARDED, Iqbal, 24, betrayed little about his life in Pakistan, except to hand out business cards identifying him as a Koran reader for an Islamic radio station. In early January, however, the CIA informed Indonesia’s State Intelligence Agency that Iqbal had another occupation, according to Indonesian officials and foreign diplomats. Iqbal, they said, was an al Qaeda operative who had worked with Richard C. Reid, the Briton charged with trying to detonate explosives in his shoes on an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami on Dec. 22.

The officials and diplomats said the CIA provided information about Iqbal’s whereabouts and urged Indonesia to apprehend him. A few days later, the Egyptian government formally asked Indonesia to extradite Iqbal, who carried an Egyptian as well as a Pakistani passport, a senior Indonesian official said. The Egyptian request alleged Iqbal was wanted in connection with terrorism, he said. It did not specify the crime, he said, but Indonesian officials were told the charges were unrelated to the Reid case.

By Jan. 9, Iqbal was in the hands of Indonesian intelligence agents. Two days later — without a court hearing or a lawyer — he was hustled aboard an unmarked, U.S.-registered Gulfstream V jet parked at a military airport in Jakarta and flown to Egypt, the Indonesian officials said.

Since Sept. 11, the U.S. government has secretly transported dozens of people suspected of links to terrorists to countries other than the United States, bypassing extradition procedures and legal formalities, according to Western diplomats and intelligence sources. The suspects have been taken to countries, including Egypt and Jordan, whose intelligence services have close ties to the CIA and where they can be subjected to interrogation tactics — including torture and threats to families — that are illegal in the United States, the sources said. In some cases, U.S. intelligence agents remain closely involved in the interrogation, the sources said.

“After September 11, these sorts of movements have been occurring all the time,” a U.S. diplomat said. “It allows us to get information from terrorists in a way we can’t do on U.S. soil.”

SUSPECT BELIEVED LINKED TO REID

U.S. officials would not comment on evidence linking Iqbal to Reid, but Western diplomats in Jakarta said Iqbal’s name appeared on al Qaeda documents discovered by U.S. intelligence agents in Afghanistan. Indonesian officials said U.S. officials did not detail Iqbal’s alleged involvement with terrorism other than to say he was connected to Reid, and as a consequence, he was highly sought by the U.S. government.

Iqbal remains in custody in Egypt, intelligence sources said. The sources said he has been questioned by U.S. agents but there was no word on his legal status, a situation that resembles that of other Islamic activists taken into custody in cooperation with the CIA.

In October, for instance, a Yemeni microbiology student wanted in connection with the bombing of the USS Cole was flown from Pakistan to Jordan on a U.S.-registered Gulfstream jet after Pakistan’s intelligence agency surrendered him to U.S. authorities at the Karachi airport, Pakistani government sources said. The hand-over of the shackled and blindfolded student, Jamil Qasim Saeed Mohammed, who was alleged to be an al Qaeda operative, occurred in the middle of the night at a remote corner of the airport without extradition or deportation procedures, the sources said.

U.S. forces seized five Algerians and a Yemeni in Bosnia on Jan. 19 and flew them to a detention camp at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, after they were ordered released by the Bosnian Supreme Court for lack of evidence — and despite an injunction from the Bosnian Human Rights Chamber that four of them be allowed to remain in the country pending further proceedings. The Human Rights Chamber, created under the U.S.-brokered Dayton peace accords that ended the 1992-95 war, was designed to protect human rights and due process.

PROCEDURE KNOWN AS ‘RENDITION’

U.S. involvement in seizing terrorism suspects in third countries and shipping them with few or no legal proceedings to the United States or other countries — known as “rendition” — is not new. In recent years, U.S. agents, working with Egyptian intelligence and local authorities in Africa, Central Asia and the Balkans, have sent dozens of suspected Islamic extremists to Cairo or taken them to the United States, according to U.S. officials, Egyptian lawyers and human rights groups. It is also the step U.S. authorities are urging Pakistan to take with the chief suspect in the kidnapping and killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

In 1998, U.S. agents spirited Talaat Fouad Qassem, 38, a reputed leader of the Islamic Group, an Egyptian extremist organization, to Egypt after he was picked up in Croatia while traveling to Bosnia from Denmark, where he had been granted political asylum. Qassem was allegedly an associate of Ayman Zawahiri, the number-two man in Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda network. Egyptian lawyers said he was questioned aboard a U.S. ship off the Croatian coast before he was taken to Cairo, where a military tribunal had already sentenced him to death in absentia. Egyptian officials have refused to discuss his case.

U.S. intelligence officers are also believed to have participated in the 1998 seizure in Azerbaijan of three members of Egypt’s other main underground group, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, according to testimony provided to their attorneys in Cairo.

Also in 1998, CIA officers working with Albanian police seized five members of Egyptian Islamic Jihad who were allegedly planning to bomb the U.S. Embassy in Tirana, Albania’s capital.

After three days of interrogation, the five men were flown to Egypt aboard a plane that was chartered by the CIA; two were put to death. The five were among 13 suspects known to have been picked up in the Balkans with U.S. involvement and taken to Egypt for trial.

Between 1993 and 1999, terrorism suspects also were rendered to the United States from Nigeria, the Philippines, Kenya and South Africa in operations acknowledged by U.S. officials. Dozens of other covert renditions, often with Egyptian cooperation, were also conducted, U.S. officials said. The details of most of these operations, which often ignored local and international extradition laws, remain closely guarded.

Even when local intelligence agents are involved, diplomats said it is preferable to render a suspect secretly because it prevents lengthy court battles and minimizes publicity that could tip off the detainee’s associates. Rendering suspects to a third country, particularly Muslim nations such as Egypt or Jordan, also helps to defuse domestic political concerns in predominantly Muslim nations such as Indonesia, the diplomats said.

Sending a suspect directly to the United States, the diplomats said, could prompt objections from government officials who fear that any publicity of such an action would lead to a backlash from fundamentalist Islamic groups.

COVER STORY: VISA VIOLATION

In Iqbal’s case, Indonesian government officials told local media that he had been sent to Egypt because of visa violations. A spokesman for the immigration department said Iqbal failed to identify a sponsor for his visit to Indonesia on his visa application form, which was submitted in Islamabad, Pakistan.

A senior Indonesian government official said disclosing the U.S. role would have exposed President Megawati Sukarnoputri to criticism from Muslim-oriented political parties in her governing coalition. “We can’t be seen to be cooperating too closely with the United States,” the official said.

The official said an extradition request from Egypt and the discovery of Iqbal’s visa infraction provided political cover to comply with the CIA’s request. “This was a U.S. deal all along,” the senior official said. “Egypt just provided the formalities.”

Indonesian officials believe Iqbal, who arrived in Jakarta on Nov. 17, came to the vast Southeast Asian archipelago not to plan an attack but to seek refuge as the Taliban neared collapse and al Qaeda leaders sought to flee Afghanistan. Western officials said they do not have a full picture of what Iqbal was doing in Indonesia and they cannot rule out the possibility that he was engaged in terrorist activities here.

Iqbal had lived in Jakarta as a teenager while his late father, who also was an expert Koran reader, taught at the Arab Language Institute. Shortly after Iqbal arrived in November, he returned to his old neighborhood, a district in east Jakarta with narrow, winding streets and open sewers. There he met up with one of his father’s former students, Mohammed Rizard, who helped him get a room at a nearby boarding house.

Rizard, a printer, said Iqbal often would spend afternoons at his house, watching television and singing Indian karaoke tunes. Although Iqbal said he came to Indonesia to distribute an inheritance to his father’s second wife, he appeared to be in no hurry to perform the task, Rizard said.

“He was taking it easy,” Rizard said. “He was more interested in talking about girls and singing karaoke.”

Just before his arrest, Iqbal visited Solo, a city in central Java, Indonesia’s main island, saying he was going to see his stepmother. The city is regarded by Western and Asian intelligence officials as a base for Jemaah Islamiah, a militant Muslim group with bases in Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia that is alleged to be affiliated with al Qaeda. The group is accused of plotting to blow up Western embassies and U.S. naval vessels in Singapore and of aiding two of the Sept. 11 hijackers during a trip they made to Malaysia in 2000.

Rizard said he never discussed politics with Iqbal or inquired about his life in Pakistan. “He never talked about jihad or America,” Rizard said. Rizard also said he rifled through Iqbal’s suitcase and “found nothing suspicious.”

NO INCRIMINATING DETAILS

In December, Iqbal sent several letters to friends in Pakistan, Rizard said. Three replies arrived at Rizard’s house, which Iqbal used as a return address, after he had been seized and sent to Egypt. Rizard gave the unopened letters to correspondents for The Washington Post and the Weekend Australian newspaper.

The handwritten letters, in the Urdu language, contain no incriminating details but do suggest that Iqbal’s missives had expressed deep frustration and despair.

“Why have you lost all hope?” one of his friends, Hafiz Mohammad Riazuddin, wrote. “Please keep your head and spirits up.”

“Surprisingly you have asked about the Taliban,” Riazuddin continued. “How did you become interested in politics? Anyway, by the time you sent this letter, Taliban rule has ended in Afghanistan. U.S. and British troops have landed in Afghanistan. The U.S. has taken bases in Pakistan and Pakistan’s nuclear program is in danger.”

A lengthy letter from a woman who appears to be his girlfriend suggested Iqbal had left Pakistan suddenly and had not told those close to him where he was going. “It gives great pleasure to know that you are alive,” she wrote.

Another letter, from a man named Shahid, refers to plans to visit an “uncle in America” and talk to an “Uncle Babar” in Malaysia.

Despite criticism from some U.S. officials as well as from neighboring Singapore and Malaysia that Indonesia is not moving aggressively enough against suspected terrorists, particularly members of Jemaah Islamiah, officials here quickly point to Iqbal’s rendition as proof they are cooperating, albeit quietly, in the global fight against terrorism.

“The CIA asked us to find this guy and hand him over,” the senior Indonesian official said. “We did what they wanted.”

Finn reported from Berlin. Correspondent Howard Schneider in Cairo, special correspondent Kamran Khan in Karachi, Pakistan, and staff writers Dan Eggen and Walter Pincus in Washington contributed to this report.

IMHO - whatever it takes to get these evil-doers - the end justifies the means!....Jen

-- posted by JenL_2