War against terror

[Balschoiw 0]

What makes it special is that they went straight to Charlie, 2nd highest aler level and indicating immedeate threat.

The intel came from a courtsession where former Iraqi papers were reviewed. It´s a terror case. It´s all a bit misty atm. We don´t get too much info about why and what. Maybe tomorrow morning there will be a press conference.

I don´t know much guys in the Luftwaffe. They´re just too "special" like any Air force guys I guess.

We´ll see what happens.

[theavonlady 2]

All qiuet on the western front?

edit: no related to the German alert but:

Quote[/b] ]NATO Simulates Al Qaeda Nuclear Attack

Tuesday, May 04, 2004

BRUSSELS, Belgium — European officials conducted a simulation showing how Al Qaeda could kill 40,000 people and plunge the continent into chaos if a crude nuclear device were detonated outside NATO headquarters in Brussels.

[Balschoiw 0]

Bombs Rock Central Athens Police Station

Quote[/b] ]ATHENS (Reuters) - Three timebombs exploded outside a central Athens police station early on Wednesday, doing heavy damage to the building but causing no serious casualties, a police official said.

Authorities had cordoned off the area around the station in Kalithea after an anonymous caller warned a newspaper about them, the official said.

Kalithea is near hotels to be used by Olympic officials during the August 13-29 Olympic Games (news - web sites). Fears have been running high that the games could be a target of political violence and security forces have been put on high alert.

"The first two explosions went off in a span of five minutes. The third exploded half an hour later as bomb experts were still looking for it," the police official told Reuters.

"The caller had given police only ten minutes to find the bombs." An ambulance was called for one policeman slightly hurt by the third blast.

The explosions at the back of the police station caused heavy damage to the building and its garage.

"The police are treating this matter very seriously with only three months to go until the games," the official said. "You have three sophisticated time bombs going off outside a police station, that's serious enough for police."

...

Greek authorities in 2002 dismantled their biggest domestic security threat, radical leftist group November 17. But bomb squads have been called out several times since then to defuse home-made explosive devices planted by fringe groups, sometimes in protest against the Olympics.

[theavonlady 2]

Bombs Rock Central Athens Police Station

Forgot about that. Was on the news early this morning.

And something doesn't smell right in France:

Quote[/b] ]Stolen Fertilizer Is Sought by French Police

By CRAIG S. SMITH

Published: May 4, 2004

ARIS, May 4 — French police are scrambling to locate 1,100 pounds of fertilizer that could be used to make a powerful bomb after the material was discovered missing on Monday in northern France.

The fertilizer, ammonium nitrate, is believed to have been stolen over the Easter weekend from the port of Honfleur near the mouth of the Seine river, according to officials quoted by local media. The officials said large quantities of the fertilizer were stored at the port without any particular security measures.

Ammonium nitrate is highly explosive when mixed with diesel or fuel oil and has been used for some of the most destructive terrorist bombs in recent history, including the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the bombings that killed 62 in Istanbul last year.

Sales of ammonium nitrate are strictly regulated in the European Union, where rules require that the fertilizer be produced with large, dense granules to prevent it from absorbing oil and being transformed into bomb material. But the granules can easily be broken up with commercial grinders.

The theft comes at a time when European security forces are on alert for terrorist attacks following the deadly March 11 training bombings that killed 191 in Madrid.

While the Madrid bombs were not made with ammonium nitrate, two unexploded bombs found on French rail lines in recent months did contain the fertilizer. The group that claimed responsibility for planting those bombs called itself AZF, an apparent reference to the name of a chemical company whose ammonium nitrate plant in southern France exploded in September 2001, killing 30 people.

In its last communication with the government, AZF said it was suspending activities while it improves its capabilities.

In late March, British police seized more than half a ton of the fertilizer in West London in a raid on suspected Islamic terrorists. Earlier this month, Turkey joined the European Union in regulating sales of the fertilizer because of fears that it could be used again for bombings there.

On the above article's page, there was also a link to this article from early last week:

Quote[/b] ]Militants in Europe Openly Call For Jihad and the Rule of Islam

By PATRICK E. TYLER

and DON VAN NATTA Jr.

Published: April 26, 2004

LUTON, England, April 24 — The call to jihad is rising in the streets of Europe, and is being answered, counterterrorism officials say.

In this former industrial town north of London, a small group of young Britons whose parents emigrated from Pakistan after World War II have turned against their families' new home. They say they would like to see Prime Minister Tony Blair dead or deposed and an Islamic flag hanging outside No. 10 Downing Street.

They swear allegiance to Osama bin Laden and his goal of toppling Western democracies to establish an Islamic superstate under Shariah law, like Afghanistan under the Taliban. They call the Sept. 11 hijackers the "Magnificent 19" and regard the Madrid train bombings as a clever way to drive a wedge into Europe.

On Thursday evening, at a tennis center community hall in Slough, west of London, their leader, Sheik Omar Bakri Mohammad, spoke of his adherence to Osama bin Laden. If Europe fails to heed Mr. bin Laden's offer of a truce — provided that all foreign troops are withdrawn from Iraq in three months — Muslims will no longer be restrained from attacking the Western countries that play host to them, the sheik said.

"All Muslims of the West will be obliged," he said, to "become his sword" in a new battle. Europeans take heed, he added, saying, "It is foolish to fight people who want death — that is what they are looking for."

On working-class streets of old industrial towns like Crawley, Luton, Birmingham and Manchester, and in the Arab enclaves of Germany, France, Switzerland and other parts of Europe, intelligence officials say a fervor for militancy is intensifying and becoming more open.

In Hamburg, Dr. Mustafa Yoldas, the director of the Council of Islamic Communities, saw a correlation to the discord in Iraq. "This is a very dangerous situation at the moment," Dr. Yoldas said. "My impression is that Muslims have become more and more angry against the United States."

Hundreds of young Muslim men are answering the call of militant groups affiliated or aligned with Al Qaeda, intelligence and counterterrorism officials in the region say.

Even more worrying, said a senior counterterrorism official, is that the level of "chatter" — communications among people suspected of terrorism and their supporters — has markedly increased since Mr. bin Laden's warning to Europe this month. The spike in chatter has given rise to acute worries that planning for another strike in Europe is advanced.

"Iraq dramatically strengthened their recruitment efforts," one counterterrorism official said. He added that some mosques now display photos of American soldiers fighting in Iraq alongside bloody scenes of bombed out Iraqi neighborhoods. Detecting actual recruitments is almost impossible, he said, because it is typically done face to face.

And recruitment is paired with a compelling new strategy to bring the fight to Europe.

Members of Al Qaeda have "proven themselves to be extremely opportunistic, and they have decided to try to split the Western alliance," the official continued. "They are focusing their energies on attacking the big countries" — the United States, Britain and Spain — so as to "scare" the smaller states.

Some Muslim recruits are going to Iraq, counterterrorism officials in Europe say, but more are remaining home, possibly joining cells that could help with terror logistics or begin operations like the one that came to notice when the British police seized 1,200 pounds of ammonium nitrate, a key bomb ingredient, in late March, and arrested nine Pakistani-Britons, five of whom have been charged with trying to build a terrorist bomb.

Stoking that anger are some of the same fiery Islamic clerics who preached violence and martyrdom before the Sept. 11 attacks.

On Friday, Abu Hamza, the cleric accused of tutoring Richard Reid before he tried to blow up a Paris-to-Miami jetliner with explosives hidden in his shoe, urged a crowd of 200 outside his former Finsbury Park mosque to embrace death and the "culture of martyrdom."

Though the British home secretary, David Blunkett, has sought to strip Abu Hamza of his British citizenship and deport him, the legal battle has dragged on for years while Abu Hamza keeps calling down the wrath of God.

Also this week, over Mr. Blunkett's vigorous objection, a 35-year-old Algerian held under emergency laws passed after Sept. 11 was released from Belmarsh Prison. The man, identified only as "G," suffered from severe mental illness, his lawyers told a special immigration appeals panel, which let him out of prison and put him under house arrest.

Mr. Blunkett insisted that that should not be the final judgment on a man already found by one court "to be a threat to life and liberty."

In an interview on the BBC over the weekend, Mr. Blunkett advocated a stronger deportation policy, initially focused on 12 foreign terror suspects held without charge since the Sept. 11 attacks.

Despite tougher antiterrorism laws, the police, prosecutors and intelligence chiefs across Europe say they are struggling to contain the openly seditious speech of Islamic extremists, some of whom, they say, have been inciting young men to suicidal violence since the 1990's.

One chapter in Sheik Omar's lectures these days is "The Psyche of Muslims for Suicide Bombing."

The authorities say that laws to protect religious expression and civil liberties have the result of limiting what they can do to stop hateful speech. In the case of foreigners, they say they are often left to seek deportation, a lengthy and uncertain process subject to legal appeals, when the suspect can keep inciting attacks.

That leaves the authorities to resort to less effective means, such as mouse-trapping Islamic radicals with immigration violations in hopes of making a deportation case stick. "In many countries, the laws are liberal and it's not easy," an official said.

At a mosque in Geneva, an imam recently exhorted his followers to "impose the will of Islam on the godless society of the West."

"It was quite virulent," said a senior official with knowledge of the sermon. "The imam was encouraging his followers to take over the godless society."

While such a sermon may be incitement, recruitment takes a more shadowy course, and is hard to detect, a senior antiterrorism official said. "Believers are appealed to in the mosques, but the real conversations take place in restaurants or cafes or private apartments," the official said.

While some clerics, like Abu Qatada — said to be the spiritual counselor of Mohamed Atta, who led the Sept. 11 hijacking team — remain in prison in Britain without charge, others like Sheik Omar, leader of a movement called Al Muhajiroun, carry on a robust ideological campaign.

"There is no case against me," Sheik Omar said in an interview. Referring to calls by members of Parliament that he be deported, he added, "but they are Jewish" and "they have been calling for that for years."

Among his ardent followers is Ishtiaq Alamgir, 24, who heads Al Muhajiroun in Luton and calls himself Sayful Islam, the sword of Islam. He says there are about 50 members here but exact numbers are secret.

Most days, he and a handful of his followers run a recruitment stand on Dunstable Road much to the chagrin of the Muslim elders of Luton.

Mainstream Muslims are outraged by the situation, saying the actions of a few are causing their communities to be singled out for surveillance and making the larger population distrustful of them.

Muhammad Sulaiman, a stalwart of the mainstream Central Mosque here, was penniless when he arrived from the Kashmiri frontier of Pakistan in 1956. He raised money to build the Central Mosque here and now leads a campaign to ban Al Muhajiroun radicals from the city's 10 mosques.

"This is show-off business," he says in accented English. "I don't want these kids in my mosque."

Other community leaders look to the government to do something, if only to help prevent the demonization of British Muslims, or "Islamophobia," as some here call it.

"I think these kids are being brainwashed by a few radical clerics," said Akhbar Dad Khan, another elder of the Central Mosque. He wants them prosecuted or deported. "We should be able to control this negativity," he said.

In Slough, Sheik Omar spent much of his time Thursday night regaling his young followers with the erotic delights of paradise — sweet kisses and the pleasures of bathing with scores of women — while he also preached the virtues of death in Islamic struggle as a ticket to paradise.

He spoke of terrorism as the new norm of cultural conflict, "the fashion of the 21st century," practiced as much by Tony Blair as by Al Qaeda.

"We may be caught up in the target as the people of Manhattan were," he told them.

And he warned Western leaders, "You may kill bin Laden, but the phenomenon, you cannot kill it — you cannot destroy it."

"Our Muslim brothers from abroad will come one day and conquer here and then we will live under Islam in dignity," he said.

Patrick E. Tyler reported from Luton, Slough and London and Don Van Natta Jr. from London. Souad Mekhennet contributed reporting from Germany.

And at least the UK appears to be very generous with freedom of speach:

Quote[/b] ]http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm....5041846

Demonstrators chant 'Bomb London, bomb New York' and 'We

are terrorists' outside Downing Street, London, Tuesday May

4, 2004, on the day that the British government announced

that it will make a statement concerning the photographs

which allegedly show British soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners.

(AP Photo/John D McHugh)

[SPQR 0]

Let them come and get some !

[theavonlady 2]

Let them come and get some !

Some what? Sour dough baguettes?

Now I made myself hungry.

[IsthatyouJohnWayne 0]

Muhajiroun are nothing new. Its mostly about publicity and being shocking. Theyve been talking about turning Britain into an Islamic state for, what, ten years? At least.

In fact i hear theres a movement afoot to make them a proscribed organisation following some recent output of theirs.

Shouting 'bomb London, bomb New York' is not really enough reason to arrest someone in itself, nor i fear will the dangerous terrorists be the ones who go through the streets shouting 'we are terrorists'.

Having said that, some Muhajiroun statements seem to breach racial hatred and indeed incitement to violence legislation as i recall which is why they may be investigated.

[Akira 0]

img]http://netfiles.uiuc.edu/pzavisla/hostedmilitaryimages/fd%20up.gif[/img]

What a misleading and pathetic cartoon considering Tillman didn't join up because of Iraq. His decision had nothing to do with Iraq.

[theavonlady 2]

Muhajiroun are nothing new. Its mostly about publicity and being shocking. Theyve been talking about turning Britain into an Islamic state for, what, ten years? At least.

I've updated my earlier post, above, to incorporate the full text of the same article in the NY Times. Here's the link again:

Militants in Europe Openly Call For Jihad and the Rule of Islam

So, you think they're nothing more than a bunch of obnoxious impotent loudmouths and you have nothing to fear but fear itself?

[theavonlady 2]

http://netfiles.uiuc.edu/pzavisla/hostedmilitaryimages/fd%20up.gif

What a misleading and pathetic cartoon considering Tillman didn't join up because of Iraq. His decision had nothing to do with Iraq.

Quote[/b] ]Why we pulled Monday's Ted Rall cartoon

Item did not meet MSNBC standards of fairness and taste.

MSNBC.com pulled a cartoon by syndicated political cartoonist Ted Rall on Monday.

Rall’s cartoon, distributed widely by Universal Press Syndicate to scores of newspapers and Web sites, concerned the late Pat Tillman, the NFL player who quit football to join the Army. Tillman was killed last month in Afghanistan.

The cartoon, like others on MSNBC.com, is published daily on the site via an automated syndication feed. Such feeds are rarely reviewed. However, MSNBC.com Editor in chief Dean Wright concluded Monday’s Rall item did not meet MSNBC.com standards of fairness and taste.

[IsthatyouJohnWayne 0]

theavonlady-

Quote[/b] ]So, you think they're nothing more than a bunch of obnoxious impotent loudmouths and you have nothing to fear but fear itself?

No, nor did i say such a thing. But if all their adherents acted on half of what they have said over the years there would have been a massively greater number of incidents than there have been.

I seem to remember when the Spice girls were at their peak of popularity, some Muhajiroun people were reported as saying that under their proposed islamic state the spice girls would be executed for indecency, but they didnt go ahead and assasinate them. Of course what they have been saying for years is partly rhetoric, words paying lip service to their grand ideals of islamic unity and world conquest, but of course there is a smaller group of dangerous individuals who will go and carry out attacks of some kind, this has already been seen.

I didnt find the NYTimes article particulary objective (i feel fairly confident that i watched the investigative TV report from which much of that article appears to be derived), many of the qualifying remarks made some of those quoted are missing. But despite that i dont feel particularly inclined to defend or trust those individuals so i wont.

Certainly there is a group of dangerous people who may need to be put under close surveillance. The current world situation is likely to have increased adherence to extremist groups and also activism (in the form of planned attacks/training) within them. But equally there is some hot air and non violent feelings of disaffection.

Anyway i must go.

[walker 0]

Hi all

Just to let you know Disney is now in charge of CENSORSHIP in the US.

Quote[/b] ]Disney Blocks Anti-Bush Film

CBS/AP) Disney has ordered a subsidiary not to distribute a Michael Moore film critical of President Bush's stance on terrorism, according to a newspaper and Moore's Web site.

The New York Times reports Disney has barred Miramax films from distributing "Fahrenheit 911," an upcoming film in which Moore explores alleged connections between the Bush family and wealthy Saudis, and criticizes the president's counter-terrorism policies both before and after Sept. 11.

A Disney executive says it told Miramax last May that it did not want to be connected to the North American distribution of the film because it could be politically divisive.

But Moore claims Disney is worried it could lose tax breaks it gets in Florida, where the president's brother Jeb Bush is governor. Disney denies that, according to The Times.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories....8.shtml

Michael more is the Oscar Wining film maker of bowling for Columbine and author of record breaking New York Times bestseller lists books like: Stupid White Men and Dude Where is my country?http://www.michaelmoore.com/

McCartheyism is alive and well in Holywood

Censorship just gets worse and worse in the land of the chained.

Sadly walker

[theavonlady 2]

McCartheyism is alive and well in Holywood    

Censorship just gets worse and worse in the land of the chained.

And all this time I thought freedom of choice also included not being forced to say what you don't believe in.

How silly. Let's just all tow Walker's and Moore's line just so that we have what to chit chat about on the forum.

[Balschoiw 0]

I have read Moore´s books but I didn´t like them thaat much. You know he has a point with some of his claims, but I think he overdoes it sometimes and makes a concept of it. He writes like an angry little boy sometimes who is fat, has no friends and thick glasses.

[theavonlady 2]

I have read Moore´s books but I didn´t like them thaat much. You know he has a point with some of his claims, but I think he overdoes it sometimes and makes a concept of it. He writes like an angry little boy sometimes who is fat, has no friends and thick glasses.  

Disney made that movie already!

[Balschoiw 0]

Yeah but Moore still looks like the Kid

I guess he wished he had turned into Bruce

[denoir 0]

Say hello to our new friends in the war on terror:

Libya 'to execute' foreign medics

Quote[/b] ]Libya has sentenced six Bulgarian medics to death by firing squad for deliberately infecting 400 children with HIV, Bulgarian radio says.

The sentence, also passed on a Palestinian doctor, can be appealed, Bulgaria's national radio reported.

The medics were accused by the Libyan leader, Colonel Gaddafi, of taking orders from the CIA and the Israeli secret service, Mossad.

They had been on trial in the Libyan city of Benghazi for almost five years.

The idea that the CIA and Mossad paid Bulgarian health workers to murder Libyan children in order to destabilise the country may seem too fantastic for any spy novel, says the BBC's correspondent in the region, Paul Wood.

But for the past five years, it was an accepted fact in Libya - a theory put forward by Colonel Gaddafi himself, and had been used as the basis for the trial.

The medics, five nurses and two doctors, were working at a hospital in Benghazi when they were arrested in February 1999.

They called expert witnesses, including one of the team which discovered the Aids virus, who said this was an epidemic caused by poor hygiene at the hospital, not by any international conspiracy.

The Bulgarians did sign confessions, but told the BBC's correspondent they were tortured by the police, with daily beatings, sexual assault and electric shocks.

Western diplomats say the prosecutions arose because the authorities simply needed someone to blame for a tragedy which caused outrage in Libya - more than 400 children infected in Benghazi.

With Libya moving to end its international isolation, there had been hopes that the medics would be released.

Let's let Blair shake Gaddafi's hand some more and let's invite Gaddafi to Europe some more so that he can pose with EU flags in the background  

[theavonlady 2]

Let's let Blair shake Gaddafi's hand some more and let's invite Gaddafi to Europe some more so that he can pose with EU flags in the background  

LOL.

Are you so easily willing to forfeit Gaddafi's Angels?

[theavonlady 2]

More on this case. The man needs to be put in a padded cell - long overdue.

Quote[/b] ]US presses Libya for release of Bulgarians in AIDS case

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States is pressing Libya for the release of six Bulgarians and a Palestinian on trial potentially for their lives for allegedly intentionally spreading the AIDS virus at a hospital in Benghazi, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said.

Verdicts in the case are expected to be handed down on Thursday and Powell told visiting Bulgarian Foreign Minister Solomon Passy that Washington was using whatever pressure it could on Tripoli to secure their release.

"I hope that the Libyan decision coming down from the court ... will be a positive one and we can resolve this matter," Powell told reporters after his meeting with Passy at the State Department.

"I assured the minister that the United States will continue to follow this matter very closely and do everything we can to bring pressure on the Libyan government to resolve this matter so these people are released and can return home," he said.

[IsthatyouJohnWayne 0]

Theres little doubt in my mind that Gaddafi is somewhat nuts, but probably most dictators are a little bit. I agree for the most part with the British diplomacy as regards Iran and Libya. Blair has criticised the human rights situation in Libya repeatedly but they did make an important gesture in willingly giving up what there is of their proscribed weapons program and agreeing to compensate the families of Lockerbie bomb victims, plus allowing British investigators to look into the murder of PC Yvonne Fletcher in 1984. The British of all EU nations have reasons to look with distrust at the Libyans but i think bringing Libya out of the cold and hopefully moderating some of Gaddafis extremes has to at least be worth a try. I think this is one of Blairs actions i am happy to stand by (lots of Eurocrats including Prodi welcomed him).

[edit Most of these type of cases with foreigners in the arab world seem to end with reduced sentences or pardons so we'll have to wait and see if they go through with it . ]

[denoir 0]

Theres little doubt in my mind that Gaddafi is somewhat nuts, but probably most dictators are a little bit.

Dictators do not at all have to be nuts. They can be ruthless and sadistic, without being nuts. Gaddafi however is certifiable.

Quote[/b] ]The British of all EU nations have reasons to look with distrust at the Libyans but i think bringing Libya out of the cold and hopefully moderating some of Gaddafis extremes has to at least be worth a try.

Yeah, but don't you think releasing the Bulgarians should have been a basic prequisite for even starting the talks?

And dealing with him does not mean that we have to like him. Sure lift the sanctions through negotiations etc, but that doesn't mean he should be paraded around Brussels and get his picture taken with various EU leaders.

[theavonlady 2]

I think this is one of Blairs actions i am happy to stand by (lots of Eurocrats including Prodi welcomed him).

Read his lips and watch him like a hawk.

Quote[/b] ]Gaddafi to West: Don't Force us Back to Bombing

Tue Apr 27, 1:35 PM ET

By Marie-Louise Moller and Paul Taylor

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - On a turbulent maiden visit to the European Union, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi appealed to the West Tuesday to seize his offer of peace and not force his country back to its bad old days of the gun and the bomb.

Read the rest and roll some of the things he says on your tongue. They should leave you with a bad taste in your mouth.

[IsthatyouJohnWayne 0]

Quote[/b] ]Dictators do not at all have to be nuts. They can be ruthless and sadistic, without being nuts. Gaddafi however is certifiable

I agree that dictators dont have to be nuts but i think having absolute power for decades would tend te send anyone a bit crazy. Just look at the histories of absolutist monarchies.

Quote[/b] ]And dealing with him does not mean that we have to like him. Sure lift the sanctions through negotiations etc, but that doesn't mean he should be paraded around Brussels and get his picture taken with various EU leaders.

I agree, but i think that was more an EU wide slip than a Blair organised one (Prodi etc enthusiastically greeting Gaddafi off the plane).

[denoir 0]

I agree, but i think that was more an EU wide slip than a Blair organised one (Prodi etc enthusiastically greeting Gaddafi off the plane).

Indeed and my criticism was directed at the EU policy in general. As a matter of fact I was much more bothered with with his pictures with Prodi and the EU flag than his handshake with Blair.

[theavonlady 2]

Quote[/b] ]Dictators do not at all have to be nuts. They can be ruthless and sadistic, without being nuts. Gaddafi however is certifiable

I agree that dictators dont have to be nuts but i think having  absolute power for decades would tend te send anyone a bit crazy.

When would you say the world started noticing Gaddafi 's nutsiness?

Late on in his dictatorship, or decades ago, when he was new on the job?