War against terror

[EiZei 0]

.. or not to mention the little thing called due process.

[Bordoy 0]

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-1195170,00.html

Quote[/b] ]HUNGER STRIKERS 'WILL DIE'

blah blah...

These guys (the terrorists) would take you, they would chop you up into little pieces, they would eat your ball bag, they wuld scramble your ball bag up with some lamb and eat it.

And? Your point is? I think its safe to assume that most of the people their are some pretty nasty people but that doesn't mean that we, as in the west, should debase ourselves to their level. It is possible to be hard on people without losing the moral high ground in so far as the treatment of captives goes.

I know what you are saying, but what the feck do they want be treated like? Like kings?

It's a prison, and not just any prison. It holds terrorists, I think they should be harder on them then in any other prison but, like you say, not stoop to their level.

[walker 0]

Hi all

A bit of good news  

The Australians have captured a whole terror cell just before they were about to commit an act of terror.

Quote[/b] ]Group committed to jihad, court hears

A Melbourne court has been told a man allegedly connected to a Melbourne terrorist group wanted to seek revenge for actions in Iraq.

Sixteen people were arrested in raids conducted by more than 400 police on a number of suburbs in Sydney and Melbourne overnight.

Two alleged members of a Melbourne terrorist group must wait until the morning to see if they have been granted bail.

The two men are a part of a group of nine who have been charged with being members of a terrorist organisation, which is allegedly linked to another group in Sydney.

There were no bail applications by the other seven men.

One of the men, 45-year-old Abdul Benbrika, is also charged with directing the activities of the group.

The court has been told the group was committed to the notion of jihad, and had been recorded discussing bomb-making and martyrdom.

Police allege one of the men who was named in court as Abdul Amahi, expressed a wish to become a suicide bomber to seek revenge on infidels for their actions in Iraq.

The court was told that members of the group were instructed to curb his enthusiasm because it was feared he would draw attention to the group.

A police officer also told the court there are a number of people who have not been arrested.

A lawyer representing one of the men has objected to media statements made by the Victorian and New South Wales police commissioners that the arrests supported an imminent terrorist attack.

He has told the court the statements were gravely improper, were designed to put pressure on the courts and have not been backed up by evidence.

Defence lawyers suggested the men were paintball enthusiasts and that jihad did not include military action but a spiritual struggle for religious purity.

The court was told security officials wanted the Magistrate to know about an incident outside court between a group of the men's supporters and the media where a cameraman was assaulted by four men...

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200511/s1500537.htm

The film of the four or five guys attacking the cameraman is well worth looking at to see a bunch of frustrated terror supporters. There is a whole bunch of body language and for those who care to read it.

On other notes, we need to stop calling this a war on terror; it is a police action. War is things like: WWII or GWII or the Russian Afghan war or the Vietnam War or the continuing action in Iraq is War. (It is one the coalition has supposedly won according to George Bush Jnr, a couple of years back when he pretended to fly on to that carrier, yet people still seem to be fighting and dieing there. Hmm when is an insurgency not a war? Was the War between the Afghans and the Rusians war? )

This world wide terrorism thing, that is not war. It is police action; requiring lost of policemen and security agents but not battalions of troops, squadrons of fighters, fleets of ships, artillery barrages, all arms assaults and multilayer battle plans with generals and the rules of war.

I think the decision by George Bush Jnr to call it a war legitimised the terrorists. If it is a war the Geneva convention applies. People need to stop calling it a war. We should probably change the title of this thread and stop glorifying the terrorist. After all they are really just criminals like burglars or drug dealers or pedophiles.

We need more police and security service actions to catch these criminals like these successful ones in Australia that is how to beat the terrorist criminals.

Kind Regards Walker

[chops 111]

The two men are a part of a group of nine who have been charged with being members of a terrorist organisation, which is allegedly linked to another group in Sydney.

Well if the police have foiled a major plot, why have they only been charged with being members of a terrorist organisation? Why not conspiracy to murder?

The current government has a history of using the police and the military to stir up fear of immigrants.

As for those thugs out the front of the court. Well they've done a great job of showing how non-violent the people they're supposed to be helping are. Morons.

[theavonlady 2]

The current government has a history of using the police and the military to stir up fear of immigrants.

Who needs the police and the military!!!

Quote[/b] ]Australia police say Muslim cleric led attack plot

Tue Nov 8, 2:36 AM ET

CANBERRA (Reuters) - An Australian Muslim cleric who said     Osama bin Laden was a "great man" has been named by police as the spiritual leader of a group of 16 men charged on Tuesday with planning a terrorist attack in Australia.

Abdul Nacer Benbrika, also known as Abu Bakr, has long been monitored by Australian authorities and grabbed headlines in August after he praised bin Laden, blamed for the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

He is a self-styled leader of a fundamentalist Islamic group of young followers in the suburbs of Australia's second-biggest city, Melbourne. Some of these followers, local radio reported, attended militant training camps in Asia.

"Osama Bin Laden, he is a great man," Benbrika, 45, told Australian Broadcasting Corp. (ABC) radio in August.

Following police raids in Sydney and Melbourne on Tuesday, Benbrika was charged with directing the activities of a terrorist organization and remanded in custody until January.

Benbrika's passport was confiscated in March on advice from the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, which then raided his Melbourne home in June, ABC radio has reported.

But Benbrika, a dual Australian/Algerian citizen who has at least six children and has lived in Melbourne since 1989, denied he was a security threat.

"I am not involved in anything here. I am teaching my brothers here the Koran and the Sunna, and I am trying my best to keep myself, my family, my kids and the Muslims close to this religion," he told the ABC, referring to the holy book and the code of conduct for Muslims.

Benbrika said he opposed anyone trying to harm his religion. He also said it was a "big problem" for Muslims reconciling their religion with life in Australia.

"There are two laws. There is Australian law. There is Islamic law," he said, adding the only law that needed to be spread was Islam.

"Jihad is part of my religion, and what you have to understand that anyone who fights for the sake of Allah ... (with) the first drop of blood that comes from him out, all his sin will be forgiven," he said.

Other Australian Muslim leaders have said Benbrika represented a minority view, and Prime Minister John Howard did not invite Benbrika to a summit of key Muslim leaders in August.

But go ahead. Fear nothing.

[Acecombat 0]

OMG what a total retard this guy is . Why'd he move over to Australia in the first place is beyond me , i mean wasnt Afghanistan under the Taliban (1990's) the ideal dreamland for him .

[theavonlady 2]

OMG what a total retard this guy is   . Why'd he move over to Australia in the first place is beyond me

To spread Islam. I understood him clearly.

Quote[/b] ]i mean wasnt Afghanistan under the Taliban (1990's) the ideal dreamland for him

Or Algeria:

The men were followers of a Melbourne-based cleric, Abdul Nacer Benbrika, known for his extreme Islamist views. A former aircraft engineer from Algeria, Benbrika arrived in Australia in 1989. After overstaying his visa and being declared an unlawful non-citizen, he was eventually granted citizenship after marrying a Lebanese-born Australian citizen.

Benbrika became a follower of the controversial Sheik Mohammed Omran, leader of the fundamentalist Ahlus Sunnah Wal Jemaah group in Australia, who currently resides in Melbourne. Sheik Omran is a supporter of the British-based Al Qaeda leader Abu Qatadah, whom he hosted on a speaking tour of Australia in 1994. Omran was also named in Spanish court documents as an associate of the Madrid-based Al Qaeda chief, Abu Dada, an accusation that Omran has consistently denied. Sheik Omran's key lieutenant in Sydney, Sheik Abdul Salam Zoud, was identified in a dossier compiled by France's leading terrorism investigator, Judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere, as "the recruiter in Australia of volunteers for the jihad".

- Spotting the terrorism suspects

[Acecombat 0]

Maybe , or maybe he thought of using Ayers rocks as a base camp or something (inspired by the taliban) .

So whats keeping australia from slingshotting these pricks back to their home countrys?

P.S: These news agencys definitely need to work on their spelling of muslim names .

[chops 111]

Trial by media eh? I don't care what he said about Bin Laden. That's the price you pay for free speach, having to listen to the lunatic fringe. I'd rather have this wingnut espousing his filth than have the terrifying "Anti-terror" laws that Howard and his minions have rammed through Parliment. You can go to jail for 5 years for telling somebody that you've been arrested, as can a reporter for reporting it.

Fair dinkum

[ozanzac 0]

It's comforting to know the government acted before anything was allowed to happen.....

Little Johnies 'Be alert, not alarmed' terror hotline seems to have worked!

[chops 111]

Little Johnies 'Be alert, not alarmed' terror hotline seems to have worked!

It wasn't a tip off from the public.

[ozanzac 0]

Little Johnies 'Be alert, not alarmed' terror hotline seems to have worked!

It wasn't a tip off from the public.

Wrong....

Read Avon's article find above.

There's a hell of alot more to it than what's given in the mainstream headlines.

[edit] Bugger it, I'll post the article for you. [/edit]

Quote[/b] ]Spotting the terrorism suspects

http://www.abc.net.au/news/indepth/featureitems/s1497514.htm

By Sally Neighbour

It was an observant lawyer going about his business in Collins Street Melbourne who noticed something that struck him as odd - a man filming the Australian Stock Exchange building with a small home video camera. The suspicious lawyer rang the Government's anti-terrorism hotline and gave a detailed description of the amateur cameraman and his car.

Not long afterwards, another Melbournian spotted someone filming a city train station and also reported it. When police investigated they found the same car had been used, and when they traced its owner, alarm bells starting clanging.

The vehicle used on both occasions belonged to the father-in-law of a man already high on the watch-list of ASIO and the Australian Federal Police (AFP). The suspect was a member of an extreme Islamist group based in Melbourne, which was already under surveillance, in a major investigation code-named Operation Pandanus.

The stakeout had begun in August last year, after a tipoff from an insider connected to Melbourne's most radical Islamist prayer room, the Michael Street mosque in suburban Brunswick. The tip was that a group of men who gathered there was discussing a possible terrorist attack on Australian soil.

During 10 months of bugging and surveillance, the group was heard discussing terrorist attacks overseas, and investigators became convinced they were considering an attack in Australia. According to a well-placed source, "considering" is the operative word; the men had not discussed details or chosen a target, but were canvassing whether such an attack would be possible in Australia.

As the surveillance continued, one of the group was intercepted at an airport, about to leave Australia for Lebanon. In his luggage was a videotape containing the footage shot at the Stock Exchange and the train station. The tape was seized but the traveller provided a plausible enough explanation, telling agents that the filming had been part of his training as a taxi driver, according to one account. The authorities were sceptical; in previous cases, footage of potential targets has been sent overseas to get approval for bombings.

Operation Pandanus continued for 10 months. But the authorities had no grounds on which to charge the handful of men under surveillance. They had not committed any criminal offence. Under the existing law, prior to the amendment rushed through Parliament yesterday, investigators needed evidence that a specific terrorist act was being planned.

The men under surveillance were well-known to ASIO and the AFP as key players in a web of Islamic extremists in Australia.

The men were followers of a Melbourne-based cleric, Abdul Nacer Benbrika, known for his extreme Islamist views. A former aircraft engineer from Algeria, Benbrika arrived in Australia in 1989. After overstaying his visa and being declared an unlawful non-citizen, he was eventually granted citizenship after marrying a Lebanese-born Australian citizen.

Benbrika became a follower of the controversial Sheik Mohammed Omran, leader of the fundamentalist Ahlus Sunnah Wal Jemaah group in Australia, who currently resides in Melbourne. Sheik Omran is a supporter of the British-based Al Qaeda leader Abu Qatadah, whom he hosted on a speaking tour of Australia in 1994. Omran was also named in Spanish court documents as an associate of the Madrid-based Al Qaeda chief, Abu Dada, an accusation that Omran has consistently denied. Sheik Omran's key lieutenant in Sydney, Sheik Abdul Salam Zoud, was identified in a dossier compiled by France's leading terrorism investigator, Judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere, as "the recruiter in Australia of volunteers for the jihad".

Benbrika's views were even more extreme than those of others in Sheik Omran's group, and they eventually parted ways. Benbrika is a self-confessed Osama bin Laden devotee. In August this year he told the ABC, "Osama bin Laden, he is a great man. Osama bin Laden was a great man before 11 September, which they said he did it, and until now nobody knows who did it."

Benbrika cultivated his own following among zealous young Muslims in Melbourne, among them a number of young Australian-born converts, to whom he preached his views of jihad. He told the ABC, "Jihad is part of my religion and what you have to understand, that anyone who fights for the sake of Allah, the first - when he dies, the first drop of blood that comes from him out, all his sin will be forgiven."

From at least early 2001, Benbricka's followers were travelling to Afghanistan to train in bin Laden's camps. Documents tendered in one terrorism court case reveal that in May-June 2001, three Melbourne men, all Australian born and all followers of Benbrika, were enrolled in Al Qaeda's leading boot camp for foreigners, Camp Faruq, near Kandahar.

The trio included one man who is currently facing terrorism charges, who cannot be named for legal reasons, and another two who have since returned to Australia and remain under surveillance. Adelaide man David Hicks, who will soon face a US Military Commission trial in Guantanamo Bay, was in another section of Camp Faruq at the same time.

The Australian recruits all completed Al Qaeda's tatziri or beginners' course, which included topography, military tactics, explosives use and training in weapons ranging from AK-47s to rocket-propelled grenades.

While the Australians were in training, Osama bin Laden was a frequent visitor to Camp Faruq. One of the Melbourne men, known by the alias Abu Jihad, described a meeting with the Al Qaeda chief in a statement to the AFP. According to Abu Jihad, bin Laden took a personal interest in events in Australia. "Our group had a short conversation with Osama bin Laden, during which he asked who we were and where we were from. He also asked how the Muslims in Australia were going."

The Melbourne group that was the focus of Operation Pandanus is also closely connected to the Sydney branch of Sheik Mohammed Omran's Ahlus Sunnah Wal Jemaah, based in Lakemba.

A key conduit between the two groups is a Sydney man in his early 30s who goes by the alias Abu Asad. Abu Asad was named in Sydney's Central Local Court in June this year, during the committal case against another Sydney man Faheem Khalid Lodhi, who is currently awaiting trial on terrorism charges.

A key witness in the case testified that he met Abu Asad in a training camp in Pakistan run by the outlawed Pakistani terrorist group Lashkar-e-Toiba in late 2001. The witness said that Abu Asad was completing a 45-day combat course, similar to the Al Qaeda beginners course in Afghanistan. One of Abu Asad's fellow trainees was the Frenchman Willie Brigitte, who was later sent to Australia to carry out a terrorist attack "of great size", in the words of France's Judge Bruguiere.

After returning to Australia, Abu Asad is believed to have passed on his training to four Melbourne men at bush training camps held in Victoria.

During Operation Pandanus, Abu Asad was monitored meeting with the Melbourne-based group that was under surveillance. He was accompanied by another Sydney-based suspect also well-known to ASIO and the AFP. This man was the owner of a rural property in New South Wales which was raided in the lead-up to the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. It was described by former ASIO agent and Intelligent Risks chief executive, Neil Fergus, as having "all the hallmarks of a full-blown terrorist training camp".

After 10 months of physical and electronic surveillance, the investigators running Operation Pandanus finally moved in June this year, raiding at least eight properties in Sydney and Melbourne. Benbrika's home in Broadmeadows was among the houses raided.

However no charges were laid, because under the existing terrorism laws no criminal offence had been committed. There had been no specific terrorist act planned, and the fact of having trained with an overseas based terrorist group prior to 2002 was not illegal. All that is about to change, after John Howard's emergency amendment and the new raft of anti-terror laws expected to be passed by Christmas.

The details of the "specific new intelligence" cited by Prime Minister Howard remain unclear. Nor will Australians be privy to the fresh risk assessment that persuaded state and territory leaders to agree to the new raft of terrorism laws due to be passed by Christmas.

What is clear is that the men whose actions last year did not constitute criminal conduct can expect to feel the full brunt of Australia's draconian new anti-terrorism laws. They should expect another knock on the door from ASIO any day.

Sally Neighbour is a reporter with ABC TV's 4 Corners and author of In the Shadow of Swords: on the trail of terrorism from Afghanistan to Australia. This article also appears in The Australian newspaper.

[chops 111]

...Wrong!

Lawyers aren't people

[Bordoy 0]

...Wrong!

Lawyers aren't people

........They're ambulance chasers.

[pogingwapo 0]

Quote[/b] ]International Terrorist Reveals All

Created: 01.12.2005 15:40 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 15:44 MSK, 12 hours 10 minutes ago

Bakhtiyar Akhmedkhanov

The Moscow News

A Tashkent city court delivered a guilty verdict against members of the Akromiylar movement who took part in the Andizhan events (May, 12-13, 2005). The authorities allege that militants from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) were also involved. Shukhrat Masirokhunov, 34, a former chief of the IMU counterintelligence service who was extradited from Pakistan several months ago, is now awaiting trial in Tashkent. He faces 20 years in prison.

It is widely believed that people join the militants out of despair. Do you come from a poor family?

Well, my father was a CPSU regional committee functionary in the city of Andizhan. I never walked to or from school but went in a car. When I finished Grade 10, my father gave me a Model 6 Zhiguli sedan. I have a degree in history from the local university.

I worked at the Russian Communist Youth League (Komsomol) regional committee and then at the regional administration. I engaged in privatization programs and controlled an investment fund. Operations with securities brought as much money in a single day as an ordinary person might not even earn in 10 years.

So how did a Komsomol activist end up in the IMU?

Very easy. An ideological vacuum [that came with the breakup of the Soviet Union] was soon filled. First, they talked at the highest possible level about the need to restore Islamic values and then Muslims were made into enemies. I probably had more money than was good for me — drinking, playing around with girls, you know, leading an unhealthy lifestyle. Then I got sick: a stomach ulcer. One day a friend advised me to live like a good Muslim — stop drinking, start praying. I joined a Koran study group. We met and talked. Someone said there was a madrasa in Chechnya that was open to all those willing to join. I went there in 1998.

There was a training center called Kavkaz (Caucasus), near the village of Avtury, and I was accepted. At first, we studied religion and then took a course of combat training. There were about 50 Uzbeks there. The teachers were Arabs who spoke fluent Russian. It was there that I met Khattab. He was a real soldier and a cheerful guy who liked a good joke. Basayev was just a politician, but a very smart one. After a year of studies, I decided to leave: the local climate was humid and I caught pneumonia. Before leaving, I received instructions to send money to Chechnya to support the Uzbek jamaat. It was also planned to abduct a number of children from rich families in Tashkent, mainly Jewish. They were to be held in Kazakhstan, while ransom would be paid to people based in Chechnya. But after a series of bomb attacks in Tashkent in the winter of 1999, I had to run away. The abductions were carried out by the brothers Yuldashev and Murad Kaziev: We had trained in Chechnya together.

Eventually, I and several other men got to Afghanistan — via Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and Iran, to the Char Asyab camp near Jalalabad.

Did you take part in the Andizhan events?

No, it was probably the work of the Islamic Jihad of Uzbekistan: they pulled out of the IMU. They are even more radical and intransigent. They are mostly young men.

But are events of this type not coordinated, for example, by al-Qaeda?

Al-Qaeda translates as “foundation,†“baseâ€. So we also began with a base, but now everyone is on his own. Information and instructions are issued via the Internet. There was an al-Qaeda camp adjacent to ours in Chechnya, but the two kept entirely separate from each other. We had mainly Uzbeks, Tajiks, and Kyrgyz, while they had Arabs and Europeans, but some recruits occasionally moved from one camp to the other. There was no rigid structure.

For example, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq. He is portrayed as a bin Laden representative, but this is not so; he is on his own. We got in touch with him not very long ago, offering to help, but he refused. I met with Zarqawi two years ago. He did not stand out in any special way. At that time, I was higher within our hierarchy.

Are you acquainted with bin Laden?

Would not say acquainted, but I have met him on several occasions. He addressed us in Afghanistan in 2000. He said that he was pleased to see representatives from 56 countries there and that we should unite. Some people proposed a series of attacks in a number of countries, for example, blow up a dam near Tashkent or explode a “dirty bombâ€. But he said that “we will have time to do that yet.†He asked whether there were any physicists among us.

There was also talk to the effect that the raw materials for a “dirty bomb†had been bought in Russia and Ukraine, specifically from a scrap-yard for decommissioned nuclear submarines.

Are you saying that al-Qaeda has a “dirty bomb�

Yes, I think it does. At least Takhir (Takhir Yuldashev, the leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan who is now in Pakistan or Afghanistan. — Editor.) told me that bomb material had been acquired from Dr. Abdul Kadyr Khan in Pakistan, who, as is known, met with bin Laden in Kandahar. I also know that the Americans found two nuclear research laboratories in Kandahar, but for some reason the fact was suppressed.

In 2000, I took a 20-day training course in making chemical agents and explosives. A poison can be made literally from any material — cigarettes, honey, and even bread. We worked at a special laboratory near Jalalabad. Our instructor was Abu Habbob Misriy, a former chemistry teacher from Egypt. There were about 200 men taking that course, including 14 or 15 from the North Caucasus who returned to Russia a year later.

There was a similar laboratory in the Pankisi Gorge in Georgia, where chemical agents were synthesized by a hired scientist, apparently a Russian. That laboratory was then supposed to be moved from Georgia to Pakistan. There were plans to start using bacteriological and chemical weapons. The first targets for attack were to be in Italy and Moscow — why, I do not know.

Who funds all these camps?

I do not know about all of them, but we received money and weapons from the Taliban. There were no limitations: we got as much as we asked for. For their part, their funds purportedly came from donations, but there was too much money to have come from donations. Generally, money was not a problem. I spent seven years in Afghanistan and I regularly sent money home — often quite large amounts, up to $10,000. To do that, I had to travel to Iran since Western Union did not operate in Afghanistan. I often went there on business trips. We had no problem crossing the border: A vehicle from the other side would come and take us there.

What were your duties in Afghanistan?

I was to expose enemy agents, test and run background checks on our people, and recruit our own agents. The last task was by far the easiest. If a police officer gets $150 to $200 a month, hates his boss and distrusts his state, it is very easy to buy him.

Each new arrival was placed under a one-month quarantine. He was tested and studied very closely. For example, at lunch somebody knocks his plate out of his hands. How will a person behave in this situation? Or he is given psychotropic drugs before going to bed, and we listen to everything he says in his sleep.

Did you expose many enemy agents?

Yes, we did. Once we even caught a Federal Security Service agent. He was called Khashim, from the city of Naberezhnye Chelny. He confessed everything. I even spoke with his mother on the telephone from Afghanistan and tried to get in touch with his FSB minder but unfortunately did not get through. I turned him over to the Taliban. Subsequently, he ended up with the Americans who took him to Guantanamo.

The enemy agents that we caught were, as a general rule, used to disseminate false or misleading information. We did not kill them but used them for our own interests.

Do intelligence and security services from other countries also help you?

Do you know how special operations against militants are conducted in Pakistan? They will pin us down in some place and the situation seems to be hopeless, but then the Pakistani soldiers show us an escape route.

If Pakistan goes to war with us, the country will explode because the people sympathize with us. So they pretend to be helping the United States, while in fact they are helping us.

Where is bin Laden? In Pakistan. They cannot catch him? That’s because they do not really want to catch him.

But you were detained in Pakistan, right?

Yes, in Peshawar. I was certain that the Pakistanis would let me go. They promised not to extradite me to Uzbekistan. When I was in a local jail, U.S. intelligence officers talked to me on several occasions. I was blindfolded and taken somewhere. I did not see their faces, but they spoke Farsi with me.

Did they interrogate you?

No, they tried to recruit me. I was offered cooperation. I was to take part in some operations in the Caucasus, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan and in return for that they promised to get me into Europe or some Arab country. They also said that it was senseless to fight against the Americans in Afghanistan and that our common enemy was the Karimov regime: it had to be brought down for democracy to be established there.

I refused since I thought that the Pakistanis would release me. I also thought that Takhir would bail me out. It turned out that he had ditched me.

Have there been other contacts between the Americans and your men?

They tried to get in touch with Takhir Yuldashev. They met last winter in Kabul. In addition to Takhir, there was also Mawlawi Sayyed (the leader of the Islamic Movement of Afghanistan. — Ed.), as well as other field commanders. They promised to help us.

The Americans are also playing a double game: They are fighting us but also trying to set us against others.

What is happening in Afghanistan? Who is in control?

The Americans control Kabul (but only in the daytime) and several bases, but they are afraid to stick their noses out of them. As a matter of fact, it is not a case of them looking for us but us searching them out. We will mine an area around their base and then fire a missile and wait. First, helicopters arrive and then people — Afghans: they are always sent in first; they are paid $100 to do that. The Afghans are followed by Americans aboard Hummer vehicles, and we blow them up.

Or do you know how they run that weapons buy-back program? An old Afghan man will bring an old Soviet-era assault rifle and they will pay him $300 in compensation. Then he will go and buy a brand new rifle for just $100. Weapons are easily available. In Tajikistan, it is your Russian servicemen who sell them.

The Americans will pull out of Afghanistan: there is no way they can hold on there. And they will also have to leave Iraq.

What is the IMU like today?

An Islamic movement, party or organization — whichever you like best. Except that it is not IMU but IMT — the Islamic Movement of Turkestan. This is what it is called now because it is comprised of representatives of all Central Asian republics plus Uyghurs.

Once our organization had a dozen members, but now there are hundreds of members and thousands of supporters in various republics. The movement is led by Takhir Yuldashev, but he is not a real leader. He is, rather, a politician inclined to compromise. The late Namangani was an entirely different matter: People were ready to follow him to the end.

Where are the militant training camps based?

Where they have always been based — in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Those that I know of are located on the border between these two countries — in the Khanta Thal gorge and near the village of Wana. Each has about 100 men — from Central Asia and Russia, and there are also Arabs. There are camps in Tajikistan and there are plans to set them up in Kyrgyzstan.

But surely this is impossible without high-level support?

It is there all right. In Kyrgyzstan, we are supported by a local drug baron, Erkinbayev, as well as a member of parliament. I do not know his name, but he went to Iran to meet with Makhmud Rustamov, who was in charge of external relations. They discussed Kyrgyz POWs who we had taken during the Batken events.

One route from Afghanistan to Uzbekistan lies through Tajikistan and then on to Kyrgyzstan. Our men were carried there in vehicles from the Tajik Emergency Situations Ministry. This ministry helped many of our men to get jobs and housing. For example, Rasul Okhunov, a member of our movement, worked for the ministry.

Incidentally, U.S. instructors — specialists in explosive demolition and commando operations — trained government servicemen at the Ministry’s bases in Kairakkum, Taboshar and Shurabe.

Have you been subjected to “enhanced interrogation techniques†in Uzbekistan?

There was no need. We are all professionals. I know that today there is no problem getting any information from a person so I cooperated voluntarily.

Where is your family now?

My mother and brother are in jail here in Uzbekistan. My wife and children are in Pakistan. I hope that they will be taken care of.

[Placebo 28]

Merged pogingwapo's post into here, obviously

[walker 0]

Hi all

So there we have a statement that Al Qaida has had a dirty bomb for at least a year.

Quote[/b] ]There was also talk to the effect that the raw materials for a “dirty bomb†had been bought in Russia and Ukraine, specifically from a scrap-yard for decommissioned nuclear submarines.

Are you saying that al-Qaeda has a “dirty bomb�

Yes, I think it does. At least Takhir (Takhir Yuldashev, the leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan who is now in Pakistan or Afghanistan. — Editor.) told me that bomb material had been acquired from Dr. Abdul Kadyr Khan in Pakistan, who, as is known, met with bin Laden in Kandahar. I also know that the Americans found two nuclear research laboratories in Kandahar, but for some reason the fact was suppressed.

An Excelent article and one that rings true pogingwapo but can you post up a link to the source?

K found it myself

http://english.mn.ru/english/issue.php?2005-46-2

Kind Regards Walker

[walker 0]

Hi all

On slightly better news it apears that two top Al Qaida operatives have been killed.

Quote[/b] ]Official: Blast kills senior al-Qaeda operative in Pakistan

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP)-

A senior al-Qaeda operative has died in an explosion in a northwestern Pakistan tribal area, an intelligence official said Saturday.

Hamza Rabia was among five people killed in the explosion Thursday in North Waziristan, a tribal region bordering Afghanistan, the official said on condition of anonymity due to the secretive nature of his job.

Rabia was believed to be operational commander of al-Qaeda militants in the North Waziristan and adjoining South Waziristan, he said. An NBC report on MSNBC.com describes Rabia as the No. 3 official in the al-Qaeda organization.

Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao could not confirm Rabia's reported death.

The explosion near North Waziristan's main town, Miran Shah, was triggered as suspected Islamic militants were making a bomb, a top government administrator, Syed Zaheerul Islam, said Thursday.

Islam said the blast also killed four other people, including two area residents, and wounded two people. He did not identify them.

Pakistan's Dawn newspaper reported Saturday that Rabia, believed to be of Syrian origin, was killed in a missile attack on a mud-walled home in Isori, a village east of Miran Shah...

Follow Link for full story

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-12-03-alqaeda-pakistan_x.htm

Second source

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/12/03/terror/main1095154.shtml

Third Source

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10303175/

An interesting fourth source with a different perspective.

http://newsfromrussia.com/world/2005/12/01/68912.html

A fith source with official confirmation of Hamza Rabia's death

http://www.metronews.ca/reuters_international.asp?id=113113

The Wiki of Senior Al Qaida members I can not find Hamza Rabia's name there but it may be an Alias

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_alleged_al-Qaeda_members

MSNBC lists him as being one of the top 5 operatives in Al Qaida.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4686491/page/6/

Regards Walker

[Balschoiw 0]

This is what you get when you outsource torturing and "intelligence" work to "working" democracies like Egypt:

Iraq war intelligence linked to coercion

Quote[/b] ]The Bush administration based a crucial prewar assertion about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda on detailed statements made by a prisoner while in Egyptian custody who later said he had fabricated them to escape harsh treatment, according to current and former government officials.

The officials said the captive, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, provided his most specific and elaborate accounts about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda only after he was secretly handed over to Egypt by the United States in January 2002, in a process known as rendition.

The new disclosure provides the first public evidence that bad intelligence on Iraq may have resulted partly from the administration's heavy reliance on third countries to carry out interrogations of Qaeda members and others detained as part of American counterterrorism efforts. The Bush administration used Libi's accounts as the basis for its prewar claims, now discredited, that ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda included training in explosives and chemical weapons.

The fact that Libi recanted after the American invasion of Iraq and that intelligence based on his remarks was withdrawn by the C.I.A. in March 2004 has been public for more than a year. But American officials had not previously acknowledged either that Libi made the false statements in foreign custody or that Libi contended that his statements had been coerced.

A government official said that some intelligence provided by Libi about Al Qaeda had been accurate, and that Libi's claims that he had been treated harshly in Egyptian custody had not been corroborated.

A classified Defense Intelligence Agency report issued in February 2002 that expressed skepticism about Libi's credibility on questions related to Iraq and Al Qaeda was based in part on the knowledge that he was no longer in American custody when he made the detailed statements, and that he might have been subjected to harsh treatment, the officials said. They said the C.I.A.'s decision to withdraw the intelligence based on Libi's claims had been made because of his later assertions, beginning in January 2004, that he had fabricated them to obtain better treatment from his captors.

At the time of his capture in Pakistan in late 2001, Libi, a Libyan, was the highest-ranking Qaeda leader in American custody. A Nov. 6 report in The New York Times, citing the Defense Intelligence Agency document, said he had made the assertions about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda involving illicit weapons while in American custody.

Libi was indeed initially held by the United States military in Afghanistan, and was debriefed there by C.I.A. officers, according to the new account provided by the current and former government officials. But despite his high rank, he was transferred to Egypt for further interrogation in January 2002 because the White House had not yet provided detailed authorization for the C.I.A. to hold him.

While he made some statements about Iraq and Al Qaeda when in American custody, the officials said, it was not until after he was handed over to Egypt that he made the most specific assertions, which were later used by the Bush administration as the foundation for its claims that Iraq trained Qaeda members to use biological and chemical weapons.

Beginning in March 2002, with the capture of a Qaeda operative named Abu Zubaydah, the C.I.A. adopted a practice of maintaining custody itself of the highest-ranking captives, a practice that became the main focus of recent controversy related to detention of suspected terrorists.

The agency currently holds between two and three dozen high-ranking terrorist suspects in secret prisons around the world. Reports that the prisons have included locations in Eastern Europe have stirred intense discomfort on the continent and have dogged Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during her visit there this week.

Libi was returned to American custody in February 2003, when he was transferred to the American detention center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, according to the current and former government officials. He withdrew his claims about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda in January 2004, and his current location is not known. A C.I.A. spokesman refused Thursday to comment on Libi's case. The current and former government officials who agreed to discuss the case were granted anonymity because most details surrounding Libi's case remain classified.

During his time in Egyptian custody, Libi was among a group of what American officials have described as about 150 prisoners sent by the United States from one foreign country to another since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks for the purposes of interrogation. American officials including Ms. Rice have defended the practice, saying it draws on language and cultural expertise of American allies, particularly in the Middle East, and provides an important tool for interrogation. They have said that the United States carries out the renditions only after obtaining explicit assurances from the receiving countries that the prisoners will not be tortured.

Nabil Fahmy, the Egyptian ambassador to the United States, said in a telephone interview on Thursday that he had no specific knowledge of Libi's case. Fahmy acknowledged that some prisoners had been sent to Egypt by mutual agreement between the United States and Egypt. "We do interrogations based on our understanding of the culture," Fahmy said. "We're not in the business of torturing anyone."

In statements before the war, and without mentioning him by name, President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Colin L. Powell, then the secretary of state, and other officials repeatedly cited the information provided by Libi as "credible" evidence that Iraq was training Qaeda members in the use of explosives and illicit weapons. Among the first and most prominent assertions was one by Bush, who said in a major speech in Cincinnati in October 2002 that "we've learned that Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb making and poisons and gases."

This is what you get when you doge legal limits and want to play supersmart without getting your vest dirty.

I laughed my ass off whenever Condi held a press conference this week. Nice rhetorics, keeping in mind that the US still wrangle about a definition of "torture". So torture is not torture. it´s a matter of US definition that still has to be determined. What a lousy government.

Where is Lee Harvey Oswald when you need him ?

[EiZei 0]

Where is Lee Harvey Oswald when you need him ?

So you'd rather want president Cheney?

.. or president Ted Stevens, Donald H. Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales or even doctor Rice herself if you really start working down the line so to speak.

[Balschoiw 0]

The days of bolt action rifles are over

[Jinef 2]

You think?

[harley 3 1185 0]

Tell that to the Maoist Rebels in Nepal - the word doesn't seem to have reached them yet . They're armed predominantly with S.M.L.E.s and S.L.R.s and a smattering of AKs, and they're putting them to brutal use last time I checked.

[Balschoiw 0]

Read back and you will hopefully understand

[harley 3 1185 0]

I already understood thank you very much. Manlicher-Carcanos are so passe...

I was just seizing the oppurtunity to make the point that Bolt-Action Rifles are still being used to instil terror into ordinary people.