Viktor Bout and the UAE, an Important Lesson?

By Douglas Farah

One way to determine how a person or entity will act in the future is to see how they have acted in the past. As the debate over the UAE ownership of ports heats up, it is worth looking at how the leaders there have handled another important security issue related to radical Islamic terrorism--Viktor Bout. The response is deeply troubling.

Viktor Bout, the world's largest illegal weapons dealer, made $50 million selling weapons to the Taliban, according to the U.S. Treasury Department. He continues to feed murder and mayhem across Africa by selling weapons to rogue regimes and nonstate actors. And he continues to maintain several dozen aircraft in UAE--one of only three countries in the world to recognize the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

Bout and 30 of his companies are designated by the U.S. Treasury Department and the United Nations Sanctions, meaning every country is bound to freeze the assets of those companies and individuals. Yet the UAE has made no move to go after Bout's aircraft, even though one of his designated companies, IRBIS, continues to fly openly, and has not even bothered to change its name. His aircraft sit on the runways of Sharjah, and his pilots continue to fly daily from there, including recent flights for the U.S. military and its contractors.

The United States, for the past EIGHT YEARS has been asking the UAE to crack down on Bout's illicit activities there, with no results. Read the full post here.

The DP World Port Sale: Overblown Fears

By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross

In an election year, it certainly makes for a powerful rallying cry: "They want to turn our port security over to Arab states!" Indeed, politicians on both sides of the aisle have already been leaping to skewer the administration for approving the Dubai Ports of the United Arab Emirates (DP World) taking over the operation of six U.S. seaports. But moving beyond the politics of the situation, the fears surrounding DP World's purchase appear overblown.

First of all, after this sale, DP World won't suddenly become our only recourse for port security. There is in fact a layered set of security checks that operates independent of DP World. These checks include the following:

• A 24-hour Manifest Rule that requires sea carriers to provide U.S. Customs with detailed descriptions of the contents of containers bound for the U.S. a full 24 hours before the container is loaded onto a vessel. This allows U.S. Customs officers to assess risks and scan the containers in overseas ports before they enter the U.S.
• The Coast Guard remains responsible for port security regardless of who manages the ports, while Customs and Border Protection maintains responsibility for container and cargo security.
• As containers enter the U.S., officers on the ground screen the containers using imaging and radiation detection technology.

These security procedures will not change even if DP World takes over port operations. Whether or not one believes that these security procedures are sufficient, the fact remains that we won't be left any worse off.

Just as the security procedures and those who are charged with carrying them out will remain the same, we are unlikely to witness a change in the composition of the workforce at the six ports that DP World would run. Robert Palaima, the president of Delaware River Stevedores, pointed out that when the British company P&O Steamship Navigation Co. ran the ports, there wasn't a sudden infusion of British workers. He doesn't expect that this will change once the partner is based in Dubai rather than Britain. (My colleague Victor Comras noted DP World's rapid expansion; this makes it more likely that they will simply use American employees.)

A third reason that security concerns are overblown is that DP World isn't exactly a fly-by-night operation that came out of nowhere to buy up P&O. Rather, it is a multi-billion-dollar operation that bought up the British company for a whopping $6.8 billion. DP World operates ports around the globe. If a terrorist attack came through one of its ports, its entire business could be shattered. That is a high price to pay, and means that DP World has at least the same kind of incentive that any other company would -- indeed, perhaps more of an incentive -- to ensure strong port security.

How Recently Were Abu Musab al-Zarqawi & Family in Afghanistan?

By Andrew Cochran

A highly respected terrorism analyst in Washington sent me information on the possible presence of the al-Zarqawi clan in Afghanistan since the 2003 American invasion of Iraq, and I asked Evan Kohlmann to comment on it. I invite other comments. First, the information from the terrorism analyst:

"In June 2004 the Pakistani military raided a house in the Shakai valley (see photo at end of post) in South Waziristan. In a secret basement inside one of the buildings, the Pakis found computer and video equipment, as well as a trove of documents. One of these was the passport of one of Abu Musab al Zarqawi's brothers, who was supposed to have stayed in the house. It was later established (through the interrogation of Uzbeks who had been arrested in the house) that the house was Al Qaeda's command and control center in South Waziristan, and even that Ayman al Zawahiri had stayed there multiple times after November 2001. A lot of propaganda videos were cut and printed on CD-Roms there also, then distributed throughout Pakistan and the Gulf to raise money. Al Qaeda even had a name for this "production company": "Ummat Studios". You can see its logo on a lot of propaganda stuff that I have with me here."

Evan Kohlmann comments: "From the waning days of the Soviet-Afghan jihad in the 1980s, the nascent Al-Qaida movement constructed a network of mujahideen frontier guesthouses strung along the Afghan-Pakistani border. When recruits would arrive seeking to join the mujahideen, they would first register and deposit their documents at the guesthouse "for safekeeping" before entering training and combat on the Afghan battlefields. From that moment on, the fighters adopted new insurgent identities. If recruits were killed before they would return to the guesthouses, their documents could be recycled in order "to help brothers in need." Collections of such documents can date years, if not decades back. Thus, even assuming it is true that the Pakistanis did seize a passport of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's brother in this South Waziristan village, this doesn't necessarily mean it has any recent significance.

US Ports, the UAE and US visas

By Bill West

There may be a number of reasons to not allow Dubai Ports World (DPW) from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to take control of operations in several major US ports. Various Congressional representatives and terrorism and security experts have enumerated those reasons. The Administration, of course, is attempting to reassure us that all is fine with this deal; that our Intelligence and law enforcement agencies have "reviewed" the matter and have come away convinced there are no security threat concerns and we should trust the Government's decision to allow DPW to assume control of port operations. The Government explains that port security will, after all, remain as it is...under control of local, state and Federal law enforcement officials, to include the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Basically, the White House has said, "Trust us, we're from the Government, we know more than you and we're here to protect you." OK.

The Cartoon Riots: The Price of Freedom

By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross

As the violence that erupted over Danish cartoon depictions of Prophet Muhammad continues, an obvious fatigue is developing around this issue. Commentators have had their say, and many believe that little more thought is possible on the issue. Consequently, the public's interest is also waning.

Thus, I thought it beneficial to make clear the cost of the riots to date:

• Deaths. At least 70 people have been killed and more than 280 injured in the worldwide protests. The numbers could be higher than this, as there is confusion about how many people were killed in some countries. The toll includes at least 49 people dead in Nigerian riots since this weekend -- but the number could be higher there. The Christian Association of Nigeria claims to have counted more bodies than the Red Cross did. Also, Reuters reports that 207 people injured in the riots are in critical condition, so the death toll could rise further. (It is worth noting that some Nigerian opposition politicians claim that the riots were not about the Danish cartoons, but rather were designed to protest a planned constitutional amendment to allow Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo to seek a third term in 2007.) In addition to the deaths in Nigeria, at least three people (including an eight-year-old boy) were killed in the chaos in Pakistan; at least ten people died in Libya after protesters tried to storm the Italian consulate; and police killed four people in Afghanistan when enraged Afghanis marched on a U.S. military base. There have also been significant instances of violence where, fortunately, nobody was killed. These include 300 Palestinians overpowering a police detail and attacking an international observer mission in Hebron; a confrontation between police and about 10,000 demonstrators marching on a Danish embassy in Bangladesh; and an incident where Kenyan police fired at hundreds of demonstrators, wounding at least one. UPDATE, FEB. 22, 2006: Reuters reports that the death toll in Nigeria climbed even higher on Wednesday: "At least 20 people, mostly Muslims, were killed in the eastern Nigerian city of Onitsha on Wednesday by Christians taking revenge for the killing of Christians in northern Nigeria at the weekend." UPDATE, FEB. 23, 2006: As of today, the Nigerian death toll has risen to at least 93. Sadly, the fighting in Nigeria appears to be far from over.
• Targeting of Christians. Sadly, Christians living in the Islamic world have become targets of this continuing violence. The L.A. Times has linked the recent burning of a church in the city of Sukkur in southern Pakistan to the climate of unrest caused by the cartoon riots. The day before that, Muslims protesting in the city of Maiduguri in Nigeria attacked Christians and burned 15 churches. And shortly after the cartoons were published, a 60-year-old Roman Catholic priest was shot to death in Turkey in an incident that observers believe to be linked to the cartoons.

President Promises Veto of Port Legislation, But Our UAE Source Supports Critics

By Andrew Cochran

The White House has started a full-court press to defend the purchase by UAE-controlled DP World of the British company which operates six U.S. ports. President Bush, flying on Air Force One this afternoon, promised to veto any legislation which would attempt to negate it. At today's Pentagon briefing, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and JCS Chairman Gen. Peter Pace strongly defended the UAE as a strong partner in U.S. military and counterterrorism efforts in the region. And during the press conference to discuss the indictment of three men in Ohio on terrorism support charges, Attorney General Gonzales noted that DHS port security procedures don't change regardless of port ownership. So the political battle is joined.

But a CT Blog fan, who once worked for DP World and still resides in the UAE, agrees with the critics who want to negate the deal. I quote from that person's e-mails to me today, with changes to protect the identity:

I've lived and worked here for years and have worked for this group. The employees I worked with ran the gamut of liberal to very conservative - understand? This deal should not, not, not have been approved. Typical of the current 1600 PA Ave folks, there has been no critical thinking applied to future ramifications. They continue to apply Western logic and judge everyone by those attending inside-the-beltway parties. This opens a door that we'll never be able to close. It's clearly a bad decision- raising my personal def con level to panic. If we the people don't win this one, the same folks who came calling in 2001 will completely understand our vulnerability - they are watching and listening.

My personal opinion: If we're going to engage in "business profiling" to prevent companies from Arab companies from buying national security-related assets, we might as well start "personal profiling" to keep Arab terrorists from penetrating our border and transportation security. It doesn't make sense to me to do one and not the other.

Did the Accused Ohio Terrorists Commit Immigration Fraud?

By Michael Cutler

While much has been made about a need to secure the physical borders of the United States, especially the border that is supposed to separate the United States from Mexico (and clearly does not), the way in which we fail to properly adjudicate applications for immigration benefits for aliens in the United States is no less critical in its impact on the security of the United States. I apologize for being repetitious, because I know that I have made this point a number of times before, but I believe that it is important to remind you that it has been said that a good spy (or terrorist) is someone who would not attract the attention of a waitress at a "greasy spoon" diner. Maintaining a low profile is critical for the bad guys to operate within a country. When we grant resident alien status or, even worse, United States citizenship to a terrorist we facilitate his/her ability to keep a low profile and not call attention to himself. Lawful alien status and to a greater extent, United States citizenship not only enables terrorists to embed themselves in our country, permitting them to hide in plain sight, it also enables them to travel far more easily to other countries around the world.

This article and the DOJ press release on the Ohio indictments are reminders that there are terrorists operating within our country. It is not a matter of if there are terrorists operating in our country, only a matter of how many are here and what are they doing to undermine our security and the security of our allies. What is disturbing is that all three suspects made use of the immigration system in order to embed themselves in our country. Two of them are identified as being naturalized United States citizens, while one is a resident alien. While the indictment does not mention immigration law violations, I am quite certain that their immigration files are being scrutinized to determine if they committed fraud in the manner in which they secured resident alien status and United States citizenship. This was a responsibility I had as an INS agent when I worked jointly on investigations with other agencies such as the DEA and FBI.

New Arrests in Ohio for Support of Terrorists in Iraq (with indictment, press conference highlights, and suspects' pictures)

By Andrew Cochran

Here is the full indictment (Acrobat file) courtesy of Steven Emerson's Investigative Project on Terrorism:
Download OhioIraqiSupportCase.pdf. Here is the Justice Department press release on the arrests of three men in Ohio for supporting terrorist attacks in Iraq. The men pleaded "Not Guilty" today in federal court. Some details from Toledo's WTOL (tip to reporter Alan Baker):

In count 1 of the indictment, prosecutors say the three met together many times, going back as far as November 2005. The three reportedly conspired to recruit and train others for a violent jihad against United States forces and US allies in Iraq. They also reportedly put together the funding needed for the operation, and collected the equipment needed. Prosecutors also say the three communicated by computer with an individual in the Middle East, passing information about potential attacks and terrorist training materials back and forth, as well as communication about potential weapons and targets.

In count 2, the grand jury found that the three had similar plans to kill US citizens abroad in addition to service members.

The last two counts in the indictment dealt specifically with Mohammad Zaki Amawi. One count said Amawi distributed information on bomb-making, which in itself is a federal crime.

The final two counts of the indictment say that on or about October 14, 2004, and March 15, 2005, Mohammad Zaki Amawi knowingly and willingly verbally threatened President Bush to another person.

AG Gonzales at a press conference today (see DOJ release of his prepared remarks here): The defendants learned to use plastic and nitro explosives. They sent money to Iraq and used a business and a charity to further support co-conspirators in Iraq and cover their travel overseas. FBI Deputy Director John Pistole credited "improved information sharing and intel-gathering techniques." AG Gonzales would not state whether the NSA surveillance program was responsible for indictment information and didn't name the Iraqi terrorist group(s) which the defendants allegedly supported. AG Gonzales also refused to state whether one defendant was arrested in Jordan or even where they were arrested. This last tidbit is definitely worth pursuing.

Evan Kohlmann emailed me that the indictment mentions "a specific suicide bomb vest video that these folks were using to prepare themselves... I have excerpts of the video posted on my website from last year" - see here on his site.

Fox News reports that "respected member of the Muslim community" was responsible for assistance in this case. The Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Northern District confirmed only that information came from the area, including the person referred to as the "trainer" in the area (whom Fox News credited as the "respected Muslim").

Suspects' pictures from AP (in order, Mazloum, El-Hindi, and Amawi):

Nigeria on the Edge, Again

By Douglas Farah

With the recent hostage-takings by armed militants in the Niger Delta, the disruption of key oil supplies, and the simmering religious tensions in the north where 17 people have been killed and 30 Christian churches burned, Nigeria is again teetering on the edge of chaos. About 20 percent of Nigeria's oil production has been shut down, sending jitters through the market. More troubling is that fact that there is no end is sight or realistic solutions for the current crisis.

Saturday's abduction of nine foreign oil workers, including three Americans, is the latest sign of the growing militancy of the well-armed militias that now control much of the Delta. Many of their grievances are legitimate. The international oil companies have left vast swaths of the once-pristine Delta an environmental wasteland. The burning of gas, the oil spills and other pollution have ruined the water, killed the fishing and spoiled the hunting there. The history of abuse and misuse of the oil companies is appalling.

But the real concern of the militias is unlikely to be the legitimate problems. The real interest is in protecting the criminal networks that steal or "bunker" oil before it gets put into the official oil network. While Nigeria officially pumps 2.6 million barrels a day, the real number is more like 3.3 million barrels. Almost 750,000 barrels a day are taken before it enters the production line and sold illegally, generating huge, illicit revenues. Much of the crude is sold to China and North Korea at discounted prices. If the selling price of the stolen oil is $35 a barrel, as it is now, that yields $184 million a week in illicit proceeds, or $9.6 billion a year. If that kind of flow of illicit money does not scare you, then nothing will. Here is the full blog.

GSPC Confirms Death of Senior Official in Algeria

By Evan Kohlmann

The Algerian Salafist Group for Prayer and Combat (GSPC)--a known Al-Qaida affliate group active in North Africa--has confirmed the death of a senior GSPC official Shaykh Ahmad Abul Baraa (a.k.a. Ahmad Zarabib) during a January 17 clash with Algerian military forces in the mountains of the Bejaia province east of the capital Algiers.  According to the statement, Abul Baraa held rank as "the Chief of the Shariah Council and the Judiciary Council [of the GSPC] for many years and he is considered to be one of the co-founders of the GSPC."

Click to view English translation of communiqu� c/o Globalterroralert.com

DP World Expands Worldwide, including to United States Ports. What effect on Port Security?

By Victor Comras

The sudden announcement that Dubai Ports of the United Arab Emirates (DP World) will soon take over the operation of six US seaports has set off alarm bells in Congress and among homeland security specialists. A bipartisan Congressional group has written a letter to Treasury Secretary John Snow, strongly objecting to ceding control of US ports to a country with a spotty record on terrorism. The US approval of this transaction couldn�t have come at a worse time for the Department of Homeland Security which is already reeling from Katrina criticism. Post 9/11 it just doesn�t sound right to most Americans.

The projected takeover includes the seaports of New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia. It stems from DP World�s $6.8 billion acquisition of P&O Steamship Navigation Co., a staid British Company that has been operating ports through out the world since the Nineteenth Century. With the backing of the UAE government, DP World has grown rapidly from a small local port operation into an international conglomerate. In fact, DP World�s rapid expansion into the world�s third largest port operator raises some questions about its ability to oversee and administer its vast holdings, especially in the light of worldwide security requirements. The P&O acquisition brings an additional 29 container terminals, many in Europe as well as the United States, and the logistic operations of more than 100 ports under DP World�s control. It also gives DP World operational control over ferries running between the UK and France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland and Spain. Much of this expansion has been supported by the UAE Government and the huge inflow of petro-dollars. But, DP World�s acquisition of P&O is reportedly being financed mostly through a (syndicated) term loan facility through Barclays Capital and Deutsche Bank.

DP World first began expanding its operations outside of the UAE in 1999 when it took over operation of the Jeddah Port�s container facility. In 2000, DP World won the contract to manage the entire Port of Djibouti. Thereafter, it won concessions to develop and run container terminals at the Indian ports of Vizag, Cochin, and Vallarpadam. In 2003 DP took over management of the container terminal at Constanza, Romania. The just concluded P&O acquisition follows closely on the heals of DP World�s absorption in 2004 of CSX Corporation�s international terminal business and related interests. That transaction cost DP World some $1.15 billion and expanded its operation to ports in Europe, Latin America, Hong Kong, China, Korea and Australia.

US seaports have long been viewed as seriously vulnerable to possible terrorist activity. The burden of inspecting containers and cargos moving into these ports is overwhelming. On average, about 25,000 seagoing containers are offloaded at America�s seaports everyday. And few are subjected to any real inspection. Following 9/11 the United States undertook urgent measures to enhance US seaport security. This led to the so-called Container Security Initiative (CSI) which promotes the inspection and securing of containers at their point of origin and while in transit to the United States. It's true that the UAE became the first Middle East country to sign on to this CSI program, but that didn�t occur until December 2004, about two years after the Initiative was started.

DP World and senior UAE government officials pressed hard for, and got, quick UK and US government approval for the P&O takeover. The transaction was reportedly vetted and approved by the US Department of Homeland Security and TRANSEC, the UK�s Department for Transport's Security Division. It was also approved by the US Treasury Department's Committee on Foreign Investment. Nevertheless, security experts in both the UK and US remain dubious. They question the wisdom of turning over control of so many major ports around the world, and particularly in the US, UK and Europe to this relatively new UAE based company. DP World�s senior management, they point out, draws mostly from a small circle of UAE nationals close to UAE�s traditional rulers. The concerns they express range from possible relaxation of security measures to potential infiltration into DP World�s administrative cadre by Al Qaeda supporters. Al Qaeda operatives working inside DP World might have access to sensitive port information including layout, vulnerabilities, and cargo and container movements. After-all, they point out, the UAE has a less than stellar record when it comes to dealing with terrorism. Critics note that the UAE was one of three countries that recognized the Taliban. And, UAE based charities and financial facilities have been implicated knowingly, or unwittingly in financing various Islamic fundamentalist terrorist groups. The UAE was used as an operational and financial base for the hijackers who carried out the 9/11 attacks. The critics also point out that lax controls at UAE ports made them a convenient transfer point for shipments of nuclear components smuggled to Iran, North Korea and Libya.

The tenor and strength of the bi-partisan and public reaction to the transaction may give rise to further congressional resistance to the deal. It may cause the Administration to take a second, closer look, and it certainly puts DP World on notice that it still has a long way to go to convince the American public that it can carry out its security and other responsibilities in running US ports.

Congress Hearing on al Qaeda and the Militant Jihadist Threat

By Zeyno Baran

On Thursday, February 16, I testified before the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities. Chairman Jim Saxton was impressive in his understanding of the importance of the ideology in dealing with terrorism and militancy. That said, there is still a long way to go for the US Congress and the Administration to fully recognize the essence of the threat.

For my testimony, please click on
Download barancongress_testimony_feb_06.DOC

New "Martyr" Biographies from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq

By Evan Kohlmann

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's Al-Qaida's faction--now a leading force within the so-called Iraqi "Mujahideen Shura Council"--has released several new biographies of fallen Al-Qaida members killed during past clashes with U.S. and Iraqi government forces, including: Al-Hazbar al-Nahdi (Saudi Arabia),  Abu Abdullah al-Turki (Turkey), Abu Khaled al-Suri (a Palestinian from Syria), and the infamous commander Omar Hadid (a.k.a. Abu Khattab from Fallujah).  Separately, a video excerpt is now available for download of a song performed by members of Zarqawi's Al-Baraa bin Malik Martyrdom Brigade in Iraq during an Al-Qaida production named in honor of Omar Hadid.  The song features the following lyrics:

"Pleasing Allah is our goal, and it is our purpose, and Shaykh Abu Musab [al-Zarqawi] has raised the banner, and Shaykh Abu Musab [al-Zarqawi] has raised the banner.  Our commander is Bin Laden, O' you who terrorizes America.  Our power is our [faith] and our weapon is our PK [Kalashnikov]... Our leader is the Mullah [Omar], he has not abandoned his religion.  All the warriors have sold their souls to Allah.  Every warrior has sold his soul to Allah.  If they say 'terrorist', then I say this is an honor for me.  Our terrorism is praiseworthy, a divine call.  Our terrorism is praiseworthy, a divine call.  Iraqi police: apostasy and hypocrisy.  We have come to you to slaughter you -- no, no negotiations.  We have come to you to slaughter you -- no, no negotiations.  We destroyed America with a civilian plane.  The World Trade tower is simply a pile of rubble.  The World Trade tower is simply a pile of rubble."

Click to view documents c/o Globalterroralert.com
- Al-Qaida's "Distinguished Martyr": Al-Hazbar al-Nahdi
- Al-Qaida's "Distinguished Martyr": Abu Abdullah al-Turki
- Al-Qaida's "Distinguished Martyr": Abu Khaled al-Suri
- Al-Qaida's "Distinguished Martyr": Omar Hussein Hadid
- Video excerpt from "The Battle of Omar Hadid"

The Case of Louai Sakka

By Douglas Farah

The Washington Post today has a fascinating story on al Qaeda operative Louai Sakka, a would-be bomber who accidentally set off the bomb in his own apartment in Antalya, Turkey. What is interesting is not just that Sekka has been active for years, learned how to make bombs in Iraq, provided dozens of Salafist jihadi with fake documents, and had big plans for blowing up Israeli and U.S. targets.

What is really interesting is that he had money to burn. He had undergone plastic surgery on his face to alter his identification, put down $60,000 on a luxery apartement near the beach, owned a 27-foot yacht and lived a life of luxery. He had been traveling widely in Europe, was able to pay cash for expensive bomb components, and worked with a companion.

This clearly shows that, when they need to, al Qaeda operatives can gather the cash to carry out expensive, long-term plans to inflict damage. The cash pipeline, while perhaps not as freeflowing as before, exists and is able to pump out the money when needed.

The total cost of the operation, had Sakka been a better student in Iraq, would have only registered at a few thousand dollars. The real cost of setting him up, allowing him to live and gather the specific information he needed from visiting Israeli tourists, was far higher. This is the argument for keeping the heat on the terror finance front, despite resistence and lack of attention in much of the intelligence community. Here is the full blog.

American Al-Qaida Operative Surfaces Again in Bin Laden Video Release

By Evan Kohlmann

As wire agencies are now reporting, Al-Qaida's As-Sahab Productions unit has released a full-length visual presentation of Usama Bin Laden's latest audio recording first broadcast on Arab satellite television last month.  Interestingly, one of the versions of the UBL audio released by As-Sahab includes English-language voice-overs by "Azzam al-Amriki", an American Al-Qaida operative who has been identified as California-native Adam Gadahn.  Gadahn is thought to play a significant role in the workings of As-Sahab--a role that can be traced as far back as videos documenting the martyrdom wills of 9/11 suicide hijackers.

"Associated Press: Osama bin Laden promised never to be captured alive and declared the U.S. had resorted to the same �repressive� tactics used by Saddam Hussein, according to an audiotape purportedly by the al-Qaida leader that was posted Monday on a militant Web site.  The tape appeared to be a complete version of one that was first broadcast Jan. 19 on Al-Jazeera, the pan-Arab satellite channel, in which bin Laden offered the United States a long-term truce but also said his al-Qaida terror network would soon launch a fresh attack on American soil.  �I have sworn to only live free. Even if I find bitter the taste of death, I don�t want to die humiliated or deceived,� bin Laden said."

Treasury Dept. Freezes Assets of Hamas-associated "KindHearts" Charity (updated 2/20)

By Andrew Cochran

The Treasury Department announced that it is freezing the assets of "KindHearts," an Ohio-based Islamic charity, pending further investigation of possible terrorist financing. Quote: "KindHearts is the progeny of Holy Land Foundation and Global Relief Foundation, which attempted to mask their support for terrorism behind the fa�ade of charitable giving," said Stuart Levey, Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. "By utilizing this specialized designation tool, we're able to prevent asset flight in support of terrorist activities while we further investigate the activities of KindHearts." The Holy Land Foundation was the top U.S. fundraising charity for Hamas before it was shut down in 2001, and Holy Land's founders were convicted in Texas of funding Hamas.

UPDATE 2/20: The Treasury Department's press release includes important information on the ties between KindHearts' founders and Hamas:

Abu Sayyaf Target US Forces

By Zachary Abuza

A bomb exploded in a small karoke bar outside the headquarters of the Armed Forces of the Philippines Camp in Jolo around 8:45 on Saturday night. One person was killed and 28 were wounded, though no Americans were reported to be among the casualties. Roughly 250 US forces are in Jolo, based at the camp, engaging in the Balikitan training exercises with 4500 AFP troops. Jolo is a bastion of Abu Sayyaf Activity and the scene of intense fighting in early to mid- 2005. A US Special Forces soldier was killed by an Abu Sayyaf bomb in nearby Zamboanga City in 2002.

Danish cartoons: new political tool

By Lorenzo Vidino

Over the last few days the CT Blog revealed how the whole cartoon controversy has been manipulated (by using fabricated cartoons) and used by various forces in the Muslim world for their political interests. The most recent wave of cartoon-related violence comes from Libya, as 11 protestors were killed while attacking the Italian consulate in the city of Benghazi. And once again, the protests seem to be far from spontaneous.

Last week Libyan Leader Col. Muhammar Ghaddafi made his first comments after the beginning of the whole cartoon saga. After an attack against unspecified �European schools that teach the children that the Muslim Prophet was not a messenger of Allah but a liar,� he went on to say that the riots that took place in Paris last fall were �only the beginning of the armed struggle of the Muslims against discrimination in Europe�. He also added that �probably one day Europe will be subordinated to the Islam.� Not exactly a tension-diluting statement.

But parts of the Libyan establishment hold a particular grudge against one European country: Italy. The North African country was, in fact, an Italian colony, and a certain animosity towards Italy has always been widespread in Libya since its independence. All that Libya was waiting for was a good opportunity to create problems for Italy and the pretext was given by the Italian Minister for Reforms, Roberto Calderoli, who decided to sport a t-shirt with the Danish cartoons during an appearance on Italian TV. The perfect casus belli. As the Egyptian columnist Magdi Allam noted on today�s Corriere della Sera, Libyan authorities immediately understood they had a great opportunity and masterfully orchestrated the backlash. The President of Libya�s Parliament, in fact, gave a fiery speech on national television, strongly attacking Italy. �We have to reopen the dossier with Italy. The Congress asks the end of relations with Italy,� said the President. �The time has come for the people to act against the cartoons that mock our Prophet and against the Italian Minister for Reforms who has launched a crusade against Islam.� The invective bordered the ridicule when the President said: �The Italian Minister asked the Pope to start a new Crusade against Islam, he wants to use force against Islam. They want to raise the Cross in the land of Islam. We say no.�

Few days later, what a surprise, came the mass demonstrations (in a country where normally all assemblies are strictly prohibited by the security forces) and the attack against the Italian consulate in Benghazi. The whole Muslim world took notice that Italy too was an �infidel country� that �disrespects Islam� and the picture of the Italian Minister has even appeared on a pro-al Qaeda website. Libya just added its name to the long list of states, political forces, and individuals in the Muslim world who have taken advantage of the cartoon controversy for their political gains.

Robert Werner Appointed as Director of FinCEN

By Dennis Lormel

U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow named Robert (Bob) Werner as the new Director of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). Bob will be succeeding Bill Fox, who resigned a few weeks ago to accept a position with the Bank of America. FinCEN plays a pivotal role in the U.S. government�s efforts to fight terrorist financing and money laundering. FinCEN has the unique position of dealing with a diverse constituency that includes law enforcement, regulatory agencies and financial institutions. In addition, FinCEN is a visible leader in the international community among its companion Financial Intelligence Units, who are joined together in the Egmont Group. This diverse constituency requires FinCEN to deal with a multitude of sensitive issues. In many instances, the interests of law enforcement, regulators and financial institutions vary with respect to specific issues.

Bill Fox did a masterful job of dealing with the varying issues. He strove to establish and maintain strong partnerships with all constituencies. Bill made a point of personally attending and addressing audiences at numerous industry forums to hear about the issues and concerns, and more importantly to address such issues and concerns.

Bob Werner will be coming to FinCEN from the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) where he has served as Director for the past few years. Bob has worked diligently to make OFAC a more transparent and responsive agency. I know from direct observation, contact with former colleagues in law enforcement, other segments of government and the private sector that Bob is highly respected. Like Fox, Werner has worked vigorously to establish strong relationships with the financial sector, other government components and with foreign counterparts. Bob has participated in numerous industry forums that I�ve attended. He is consistently open and responsive to questions, concerns and recommendations. Based on his experience and receptiveness Bob has established a sense of credibility and is considered industry friendly.

In the press release issued earlier today, Secretary Snow stated �I have full confidence that Bob will continue to protect our country against terrorist financiers, money launderers and other financial criminals in his new role as Director of FinCEN�. When Fox announced his resignation, I was concerned about the possible direction FinCEN would take in the future. I�m at ease with Bob�s appointment and share Secretary Snow�s optimism. Good luck Bob.

Lessons From the Harmony Papers

By Douglas Farah

It is encouraging to see new signs that the military intelligence community is actively pursuing new, critical analysis both of al Qaeda's operational structure and ways of improving counterinsurgency stategies, particularly in Iraq. Given the recent British intelligence assessment that al Qaeda has a 50-year plan of attack, these developments are important.

The West Point CTC project called "Harmony and Disharmony: Exploiting al Qaeda's Organizational Vulnerabilities"-written about by Andrew Cochran earlier-analyzing documents seized from al Qaeda and declassified from the Harmony database, is particularly enlightening on al Qaeda thinking. It shows the new trend in U.S. intelligence-finding exploitable vulnerabilities in the enemy structure. Prior to 1999 there was no overall assessment of al Qaeda's organizational or financial infrastructure. In the post-9/11 world, survival and insurance against another attack led to little real emphasis being placed on al Qaeda's internal organizations, and even less was known about ways to excert pressure on the organization because vulnerabilities were not clearly identified.

Now it is clear that al Qaeda is a decentralized organization that spends considerable time, perhaps more time than our own intelligence community and armed forces, on studying "lessons learned" from unsuccessful operations, both of itself and others (i.e. the Muslim Brotherhood experience in Syria). It has, or at least has had, a coroporate structure that deals with everything from salaries to vacation schedules. It has internal discrepanies over tactics, targets and resource allocation. The complete blog is here.

Wall Street Journal Europe: A Solid Start

By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross

Today my op-ed on Hamas's electoral victory, co-authored with my colleague Nir Boms, appeared in the Wall Street Journal Europe. The op-ed is only available online to subscribers, but I reproduce it in full here with their permission.

A Solid Start

By Nir Boms and Daveed Gartenstein-Ross

The Wall Street Journal Europe, Feb. 17, 2006

Election season has arrived in the Middle East. It seems that most of the residents of this troubled region have cast ballots in the past 12 months. Truly, what appeared impossible a few years ago is now happening before our eyes. While there is justifiable anguish about Hamas's recent victory in the Palestinian elections and the Muslim Brotherhood's rise in Egypt, we must not lose sight of the broader trend toward democratization. This trend provides reason for hope, as well as reason to place more emphasis on the liberal institution-building that can build a democratic tradition in the long run.

Even a cursory look around the region turns up increased democratization. The most prominent elections occurred in Iraq, where throngs of voters defied terrorist groups in three major elections last year.

Beyond that, Lebanon's June elections brought to power a new coalition led by Saad Hariri, son of slain former prime minister Rafik Hariri. His Rafik Hariri Martyr List won 72 of the 128 available seats in the Lebanese parliament. To be sure, the continued interference of Syria and Hezbollah into Lebanon's internal affairs poses a major obstacle. But the people of Lebanon have clearly voted in favor of independence -- a point that was punctuated by this week's demonstrations, in which more than a million Lebanese commemorated the anniversary of Hariri's murder by demanding an end to Syrian meddling.

Saudi Arabia held its first elections since the 1960s from February to April 2005, as 178 different municipalities opened the ballot box for local elections. These were only partial elections, in which only men could vote and only half of the seats were up for grabs. But nonetheless, this was the first time that most Saudi citizens have had any input into their public lives -- and this step wouldn't have occurred were it not for the pressure that was brought to bear on Saudi Arabia following 9/11.

Another Protest Led by Danish Imam Ahmed Abu Laban

By Evan Kohlmann

In recent days, a number of my colleagues--most notably Lorenzo Vidino--have helped reveal the deceptive behavior of the supposedly moderate Danish Imam Ahmed Abu Laban, who helped deepen anger in the Muslim world over a recent series of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed by spreading additional offensive cartoons that were not originally printed by any European publication.  However, it should be noted that the latest controversial cartoons are not the only thing that Abu Laban has led vocal protests against.  In October 1995, Abu Laban led a group of 500 Muslim demonstrators in Copenhagen angrily denouncing the capture of Talaat Fouad Qassem, one of the most senior leaders of the notorious Egyptian terrorist organization Al-Gama`at al-Islamiyya.  The protest occurred as Al-Gama`at's spiritual leader Shaykh Omar Abdel Rahman was nearing a conviction in the U.S. for his role in conspiring to wage a campaign of terrorism against civilian targets in the New York metropolitan area.  For further information, see my book Al-Qaida's Jihad in Europe, pages 26-27, 149-154.

[Associated Press - October 6, 1995]: "Some 500 Muslims demonstrated Friday to protest the disappearance of a militant Muslim leader who went missing during a trip to Croatia last month.  Spokesman Ahmed Abulaban said Egypt, the United States and Croatia "are the beneficiaries" of the disappearance of Talaat Fouad Qassem who has been living in Denmark since 1992 as a political refugee.  Wanted by Egypt on charges of attempting to overthrow the secular government, Qassem was ordered out of Croatia on Sept. 18, and left for an unknown destination, according to Croatian officials.  Under President Clinton's anti-terrorism initiative, Qassem's name was put on a list of people to whom transfer of funds are to be blocked. The initiative also froze the U.S. assets of groups the U.S. deemed used terrorism to subvert peace activities.  Qassem also appears on a U.S. Department of Justice list of possible co-conspirators to Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, an Egyptian religious leader, and nine other Muslims who have been convicted of conspiring to bomb the United Nations and other buildings in New York.  The demonstrators, including Qassem's pregnant wife Amani Farouk, went to the Croatian embassy where Abulaban, a Copenhagen imam, handed over a letter to a diplomat.  Before dissolving, demonstrators raised their fists and shouted 'God is Great' outside the downtown Copenhagen building... Qassem, 38, co-founded the outlawed al-Gamaa al-Islamiya, which has been blamed for much of the violence in a three-year campaign by militants to restore strict Islamic rule."

Al Qaeda...in Lebanon

By Olivier Guitta

Revelations of Al Qaeda's presence in Southern Lebanon has not been given much press. It seems to me nonetheless an interesting and important development. I just wrote a piece on that topic for TCS Daily.

You can read the whole article here.
Here's an excerpt:

In an explosive interview with the French daily Liberation, Ahmed Fatfat, the new incoming Lebanese Interior Minister, revealed details about Al Qaeda's presence in Lebanon. Fatfat noted:

"For the past forty-five months, Al-Qaeda has been trying to settle in Lebanon. The organization infiltrates combatants and recruits on the ground. We recently dismantled two groups suspected of belonging to this network. One month ago, we stopped thirteen individuals, coming from various countries of the Middle East,� who were preparing attacks inside the country. We also have just stopped five people implied in attacks against military positions."

Regarding the December rocket attacks against Israel from the south of the country that Zarqawi (Al Qaeda's leader in Iraq) claimed responsibility for, Fatfat confirmed it was indeed the work of Al Qaeda. He added that it was an attack carried out by the Palestinian terror group FPLP-GC based out of Damascus, but financed directly by Al Qaeda. Finally Fatfat affirmed that FPLP-GC answers directly to Damascus and that a branch of Al Qaeda could be manipulated by Syrian security services.

Recruiting for Iraq: not a crime

By Lorenzo Vidino

�The recruitment of volunteers to fight in Iraq against American soldiers cannot be considered under any point of view a terrorist activity.� These words, which would have been more fitting in the speech of a radical anti-war militant, were the core of the ruling with which a Milan Court of Appeals acquitted three men linked to Ansar al Islam (the motivation of the November 2005 ruling were made public only recently and excerpts from it can be found here).

As shocking as it might sound, this is nothing new in Italy. The Court of Appeals, in fact, only upheld the first degree ruling of another Milan-based judge, Clementina Forleo. In January 2005, Mrs. Forleo decided that the men were indeed part of a network that was recruiting fighters for the Iraqi conflict, but that the operations taking place in Iraq constituted �guerrilla warfare� and not terrorism. In her view, �Ansar al Islam was structured as an Islamic combatant organization, with a militia trained for guerrilla activities and financed by groups in Europe and orbiting in the sphere of Islamic fundamentalism, without having goals of a terrorist nature, goals probably shared by only some of its members.� Because one of the men on trial, Mohammed Tahir Hammid, conveniently declared that he did not agree with Ansar al Islam�s tactic of using suicide bombers, Forleo considered Ansar al Islam to be a �heterogeneous� organization whose members had conflicting opinions on the valid means to use in fighting enemy forces.

Therefore, according to the judge, Ansar al Islam could not be considered a terrorist organization as a whole and those who recruit and raise funds for it cannot be considered terrorists. Two men, while found guilt of minor crimes such as document forging, were acquitted of all the charges involving terrorism. The third, Mohammed Daki (who, incidentally, happened to be a close friend of top 9/11 planners Ramzi Binalshibh and Said Bahaji while living in Hamburg) was cleared of all charges and now lives happily in his native Morocco (after the Italian Ministry of Interiors deported him).

The ruling is the quintessential example of the divide between the United States and parts of the establishment in Europe. Naturally, many Italian politicians harshly criticized the ruling, both from a legal (Ansar has been designated as a terrorist organization even by the United Nations) and political point of view. Franco Frattini, security and justice commissioner of the European Union, commented the verdict: "This sends a devastating signal. Fundamentalist Islamic cells can now think that there are safe havens in Europe. The judge has interpreted the law wrongly�

Over the next few days two other very important trials will come to an end in Europe. An Amsterdam court will judge members of the Hofstadgroep, the home-grown group that planned various attacks inside the Netherlands (including the assassination of Theo van Gogh), while a Brussels court will render a verdict against a maxi-cell linked to the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group. In both cases a new anti-terrorism legislation is being tested. We can only wait and see what the outcome will be.

Al Gore's Outrageous Comments Remind Us of Clinton Administration's Politicization of Immigration

By Michael Cutler

I have made the point repeatedly that Democrats and Republicans have contributed to the lunacy that passes for immigration policy and that has resulted in the utter chaos that now threatens the sovereignty and security of our nation especially as we confront the possibility of future terrorist attacks being launched within our country more than four years after the worst terrorist attack ever committed on American soil. In many of my e-mails I have focused on the current administration simply because I am appalled that they have not secured our nation's borders nor have they restored integrity to the immigration system, further imperiling our nation's security. But, you must understand that the politicization of immigration is not the invention of this administration nor is it the invention of the Republican Party.

Last week former Vice President Al Gore went to Saudi Arabia and made absolutely outrageous statements that accused our law enforcement officers at ICE and other agencies involved in national security investigations with unfairly enforcing immigration laws where citizens of Arab countries were concerned. His diatribes infuriated me and caused me to think back to the Clinton Administration when the administration of immigration laws was literally perverted by an overwhelming desire to crank out new citizens who would, it was apparently believed, vote for the Clinton-Gore ticket in the 1996 election. The name of this program was Citizenship USA or simply "CUSA." Here's an article detailing the findings of the former counsel for the House Judiciary Committee, David P. Schippers, when he investigated Citizenship USA. Mr. Gore's recent statements caused me to think back to how easily he ordered INS district directors to approve large numbers of applications for United States citizenship under the threat of losing their jobs if they failed to comply.

West Point Center Issues Al-Qa'ida Study With Newly Released Documents (updated 2/16)

By Andrew Cochran

(UPDATE 2/16: See "USA Today" story on this study.) The Combating Terrorism Center at the United States Military Academy at West Point has produced an interesting new study entitled, "Harmony and Disharmony: Exploiting Al-Qa'ida's Organizational Vulnerabilities" (browser-friendly view). The study includes documents, captured in the course of operations and stored in DOD's "Harmony" database, and released here for the first time to the academic and policy community. Brief summaries of the released documents and the full texts can be accessed from within the report, both in Arabic and in English. You can also download Acrobat files of the report segments here. Some interesting excerpts:

Harmony document AFGP-2002-600080 recounts al-Qa�ida�s �lessons learned� from the Syrian jihad. It articulates the organization�s failure to balance the need for operational security with financial efficiency and tactical control. The experiences of the Muslim Brotherhood and the al-Tali�a al-Muqatila (The Fighting Vanguard) in Syria from 1976-1982 provide a textbook case of an organization that initially possessed little awareness of the agency problem that in retrospect likely doomed the effort from the start...These documents do not provide compelling evidence that U.S. counterterrorism policies to date have been misguided or have overlooked any major developments. To the contrary, the documents reflect ongoing jihadi concerns about operational security and sustainability in the midst of America�s counterterrorism efforts. Encouragingly, some of the documents even reflect al-Qa�ida�s fear that U.S. intelligence collection efforts are in some cases exceeding al-Qa�ida�s ability to enact countermeasures.

Congrats to the CTC and its chairman, General (Retired) Wayne A. Downing, for this and other important contributions to the counterterrorism effort. Late last year, the CTC released a 3-volume set entitled, "The Making of a Terrorist: Recruitment, Training and Root Causes," which included essays on the subject by Zachary Abuza and Evan Kohlmann. I look forward to expert analysis of its new study, especially the documents, for new insights.

Deportation Points to Continuing Immigration Vulnerabilities

By Michael Cutler

I saw the news about the deportation of an Iraqi with ties to a senior al Qaeda operative suspected of helping plan the attacks on the USS Cole in 2000 and the U.S. embassy bombings in 1998. It is well worth reading because it illustrates a number of issues that relate to national security. First of all, it shows how the visa requirement can and indeed, has kept terrorists out of our country. As we wage a war on terrorism this should be a major concern for our nation and our citizens. Second, it shows how terrorists employ immigration benefit fraud in order to gain access to our country and then embed themselves inside our country as they prepare to attack our country. Often a component of the fraud that they commit is to obtain identity documents in false names which leads me to the third area of concern.

The administration and a number of elected representatives in both houses of Congress and in local and state governments as well have been vociferous proponents of a Guest Worker Program that the President has, of late, taken to referring to as a Temporary Worker Program. Quite a few industries have been pushing hard for this program because they want to benefit by being able to hire cheap and compliant labor. I have often made the point that while I am opposed to the Guest Worker Program, AKA Temporary Worker Program AKA Amnesty for a bunch of reasons, the reason that I find most disturbing and that keeps me awake at night, is the simple fact that such a program for illegal aliens, who will claim to be "undocumented aliens," are not in possession of valid identity documents in their true names. This would enable millions of illegal aliens and among them, terrorists, to show up at immigration offices throughout the United States, provide false names to the beleaguered immigration bureaucrats and succeed in walking away with official identity documents in whatever name these aliens assume, potentially allowing them to travel freely around the United States, travel freely across our nation's borders and the borders of many other countries and circumvent various watch lists including the "No-Fly" list thereby potentially gaining access to airliners, trains and other sensitive buildings and venues. Additionally, these documents could be used as so-called "breeder documents" that would enable terrorists to obtain other documents to help create an entire new identities with driver's licenses, bank books and other such documents in false names.

Saudi Arabia, Iran and Syria's holy partnership in the Cartoon Jihad

By Olivier Guitta

While many pundits mention Syria and Iran regarding their profiting from the Danish cartoon controversy, Saudi Arabia has really been the main driver behind this whole charade. I wrote a piece detailing this for FrontPage Magazine. You can read it here. Here's an excerpt:

In fact, as a brave Algerian editorialist from Le Soir D�Algerie pointed out Saudi Arabia had two major opportunities to start this campaign in December: one was the Hajj (the Pilgrimage which millions of Muslim attend), and the other one was the meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference which took place in Riyadh. The Conference adopted a resolution to create an Observatory against Islamophobia citing the example of the Danish cartoons but that was it. One of Saudi King Abdullah�s goals is to unite the Muslims of the World and defend them. This controversy played well in the classical scheme of Muslims being oppressed by the West. That is why the Wahhabi regime took the lead by being the first country to recall its Ambassador in Denmark and starting the boycott of Danish products. Also hardliner Interior Minister Prince Nayef called on international religious institutions and especially the Vatican to step in to defend the Muslims (which by the way the Vatican agreed to do). He added defending the Muslim outcry, �If freedom has reached this degree, I think it is unacceptable no matter what�.

The collusion with Iran can be assessed with a phone call between King Abdullah and Iranian President Ahmadinejad reported by the Saudi daily Al Riyadh on February 3. Indeed, Ahmadinejad told Abdullah �the offensive caricatures against the Prophet were done to test the will of Muslims and Islamic countries�. He also reminded Abdullah of the major influence that Saudi Arabia and Iran enjoy in the Muslim world regarding regional and international issues. He finally added, �In light of the friendship between our two countries, we hope for more cooperation and coordination to strengthen the solidarity in the Muslim world.� Iran has been on a diplomatic offensive in the Arab world in the past few weeks, especially with diplomats visiting Tunisia, Algeria and Syria. Their goal was to gather support for Iran�s nuclear program and prepare a counter offensive against the international community. So, while things were heating up, Iran decided thanks to the cartoons to play the card of the Muslim world oppressed by the West. Also as Emanuele Ottolenghi noted in National Review Online on February 6, it might not be a coincidence that Iran is targeting Denmark now. Indeed, Denmark is going to chair the United Nations Security Council when the issue of nuclear Iran and sanctions is going to be addressed.

Leading Blog Attacked by Muslim Cyber-terrorists (updated)

By Andrew Cochran

Michelle Malkin, one of the most-read and referenced bloggers on the Internet, announced just now, "Last Tuesday, during or immediately after my appearance on Fox News Channel to discuss the Mohammed Cartoons, this blog was hit by a large, foreign-based denial of service attack. Last night, my hosting service notified me that it is receiving ongoing threats from individuals vowing to take down this site--and others along with it..." In her announcement, Michelle provides more background on this developing cyberwar and links back to my post about the Seattle girls club. This escalation in the cyberwar is an intentional attack to deny our Constitutional right to free speech and expression, and it warrants a response by the entire tech and internet community and the federal government. Moreover, such a blatant attempt to take down a highly visible and influential voice in the fight against terrorism could not have been undertaken by amateurs. I wonder if a terrorist group with internet expertise has started to target her and other allies.

UPDATE: Thanks to Tim for sending me a hacked web page, which includes a message from those who hacked into Tracy Twyman's site (see my post yesterday). Note the self-identification as followers of Islam, the criticism of Osama Bin Laden, and the threat to "erase all of your sites from internet," reprinted below:

Another Example of Muslim Hacking of American Websites

By Andrew Cochran

This morning, I received an e-mail from CT Blog fan Ms. Tracy Twyman in Portland, OR, in response to my report yesterday about a hacking of a Seattle-area website by Muslim cyber-terrorists (that's what I'm calling you, get used to it) - quoting her below with edits for the links:

"Thanks for covering the story about the cyberterrorists. If you're keeping a list, you might like to know that my websites, Dragon Key Press and Plus Ultra Blog, were hacked about 1 and a half weeks ago, because I was republishing the Mohammed cartoons, as well as other incindiary material. Both websites were down for about a day until our web host was able to fix it. To tell you the truth, I never thought about going to the police or the FBI about it. I assumed they wouldn't do anything.

I did come across some interesting info though. Lately my website has received frequent visits from people in Turkey clicking links to the site that have been posted on two separate forums, each of them clearly forums for Islamic cyberterrorists. They are here and here. I was not able to get into these forums to see what they were saying about my website, but I can only assume they were discussing plans of attack. I thought you might be interested in this information."

This afternoon, a very interesting follow-up from Tracy (thanks Tracy!), which I hope will attract attention from law enforcement and ideas from other knowledgeable CT Blog fans:

Saddam's Intel Stash: No Breakthroughs So Far (UPDATED 2/15)

By Andrew Cochran

On January 7, intrigued by a Weekly Standard article, I expressed hope that the Pentagon, Congress, and the CT community would delve further into Saddam Hussein's massive stash of intelligence documents for his possible links to terrorists. The author of that article, Stephen Hayes, wrote another on January 21, in which he reported that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence had delivered selected documents from the stash to the House Intelligence Committee, and Hayes predicted, "It appears that we will know more soon." That hasn't happened yet, and Hayes hasn't released anything new on the subject since. (EDIT: I wrote that without catching up on the Weekly Standard's new issue; Hayes' latest says that the House Intel Committee chairman will release the documents "within 2 weeks." Hayes also writes of CD's, floppy disk, and documents which document links to the insurgents, but none of these have been released to the public yet.)

What's new is that terrorism investigator John Loftus claims to have audio tapes of Saddam's voice, and the tapes will provide "a few definitive answers to some very important-and controversial-weapons of mass destruction questions." On Washington radio station WMAL-AM this morning, ABC News veteran investigator Brian Ross stoked the issue by announcing that ABC intends to play one or more of the tapes tomorrow, and that they include "intriguing tips" and "Nixonlike statements" about attacking the U.S. Some government intel agencies remain skeptical; two officials told "Newsweek" that "the tapes in no way prove that WMD stockpiles or programs existed at the time of the U.S. invasion or were moved to another country before U.S. troops arrived." I've been told that federal officials consider the tapes now in Loftus' possession to include nothing new and that the tapes were taken from federal custody in some way other than through a proper transfer of ownership. Of importance to me is that none of the tapes appear to include any information about Saddam's links to terrorists. Loftus will present the tapes on Saturday at the Intelligence Summit, a conference on intelligence and terrorism issues. I'm still hopeful that the House Intelligence Committee will release a study about the tapes in its possession, whatever the outcome, and I hope this issue is pursued to an objective and final solution.

UPDATE 2/15: ABC News reveals some of the text in this story preceding "Nightline" tonight. Saddam predicts: "Terrorism is coming. I told the Americans a long time before August 2 and told the British as well...that in the future there will be terrorism with weapons of mass destruction." See this analysis of the tape issue back on January 20 in Congressional Quarterly.

Is Rumsfeld's Optimism on North Africa Warranted?

By Douglas Farah

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is upbeat on on North Africa elminating terrorist havens. In recent comments, Rumsfeld said there was an "extremely low" possibility of al Qaeda or its affiliates establishing themselves in Northern Africa, in large part because Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia have taken significant steps to make sure the region is not fertile ground.

However, that optimism may be premature. Algerian-led al Qaeda affiliates operate both inside Algeria and across Mauritania, Mali, Chad and Sudan. There are many other groups that inter-mingle with the self-proclaimed al Qaeda affiliates in the region, from disgruntled soldiers from Chad to bandits, organized smuggling rings and those that rape and pillage across southern Sudan. All of these factors make hiding and working in the region much easier than it would be without these factors.

The states Rumsfeld visited and praised are also authoritarian, where dissent is not tolerated and where Islamic extremism appeals for precisely that reason. While the countries have been successful, perhaps, in keeping Islamic Salafists from gaining a permanent presence inside their countries, the potential threat has simply been pushed a bit to the south, where it is being nurtured and growing. You can read the full blog here.

Illegal Aliens Arrested Working at Chemical Weapons Depot

By Bill West

On February 10, the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced that agents from its Salt Lake City, Utah field office had arrested nine suspected illegal aliens from Mexico working for a contractor on the Dugway Proving Ground located some 85 miles southwest of Salt Lake City.

Dugway Proving Ground serves as a chemical and biological weapons testing facility for the Department of Defense. The arrests were part of ICE�s Project Shield America, which seeks to identify illegal aliens working at locations and for employers involved in national security matters, to include those wherein unlawful acquisition or export of sensitive technology and weaponry may be a factor.

Seattle-Area Website for Girls Club Hacked by Angry Muslims and Nobody Cares (edited)

By Andrew Cochran

On February 8 I posted about the hacking of Danish and Western websites by Muslim cyber-terrorists over the cartoon controversy. Last night I received an e-mail from a knowledgeable CT Blog fan in the Seattle area about the hacking of a recreational website, and I posted the text of that e-mail. This afternoon, that fan sent me a request to change what I posted this morning in order to clarify the situation after a day of investigation, with important new information:

The Muslim Web Hack Attacks have reached Seattle, attacking (of all things) a girls' scooter club. The website has been restored by the web hosting company, Flux Services of Bothell, Washington. Flux Services graciously provided the webpage hacked by "nEt^DeViL" for CT's archives.

One Seattle TV station, KING-TV, and its partner Northwest Cable News, both owned by Belo Corporation, featured a story on the web hack on their Sunday news programs. Due to an error in the domain registry entry (the responsibility of domain owners), KING-TV erroneously reported that the website was hosted by Drizzle, a highly-reputable Seattle Internet service provider (ISP) and web-hosting company with more than a decade of experience. In fact, the hacked website is and was hosted by Flux Services. KING-TV also reported that the FBI was notified about the hack but had not responded to the website owners. There is no independent confirmation of FBI action or inaction.

The list of Islamist web hacks worldwide since the Cartoons hit the fan is now into the tens of thousands. There is no coordinated response from law enforcement. There seems to be a lack of appreciation to the gravity of the matter. These are not just hacks for their own sake, these are probing attacks similar to skirmishing in conventional warfare.

As previously noted, Zone-H catalogs thousands of Islamist web attacks. Zone-H isn't an IT security group, a computer security foundation or a White Hat society. It is mainly a group of European hackers, some aged out from their Black Hat days. Several comments from their contributors, especially in Italy are rather ominous. One of Zone-H staff, Simona Sapienza, wrote an extensive paper of Islamic terror financing in Europe (Word file).

US law enforcement response to attacks crippling critical infrastructure has recently been good. Criminal indictments were handed down just last week on "botnet" attacks which crashed the computer systems at Northwest Hospital and Medical Center last January, 2005.

The outstanding question is law enforcement response to Islamist "hack-tivists" defacing or otherwise compromising non-critical websites. Again, considered in isolation, defacing a women's motorcycle club website for a day or two is an aggravation but not a threat to society. Considered in aggregate, however, defacing and compromising thousands of webpages is a dangerous pattern, a sure sign of probes preliminary to a coordinated attack of potentially massive proportions.

You might ask, "Why Seattle?" Maybe because a local paper published "the cartoons."

Iran: The Internal Political Clock is Ticking

By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross

My recent article "The Mullah Wars" (which I discussed on the CT Blog) examines internal poltical fissures in Iran that the West should try to exploit as it attempts to stall Iran's production of weapons-grade uranium. The key internal battles are between president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the establishment mullahs who have controlled the country ever since the revolution. Ahmadinejad is a true believer in the Khomeinist vision, while the mullahs have grown fat off the revolution and no longer fully identify with its aspirations. Ahmadinejad hasn't hesitated to point this out. The establishment mullahs have engaged in a campaign of character assassination directed at Ahmadinejad in response, which has only caused Ahmadinejad to escalate his verbal assault.

In the article, I mentioned that even supreme leader Ali Khamenei could be threatened by Ahmadinejad's dangerous idealism: "Khamenei is very much an establishment figure, having served two terms as president before being elevated to supreme leader. Ahmadinejad favors Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, who is considered more ideologically pure than Khamenei. Observers think it possible that Ahmadinejad could try to replace Khamenei with Mesbah Yazdi. While there have only been two supreme leaders in Iran's history, Ahmadinejad could make the switch if he's able to stack the powerful Assembly of Experts with figures loyal to him." Yesterday Amir Taheri had an important article in Asharq Alawsat that explores this threat to Khamenei's power in greater depth. He states that even while the world focuses on Iran's nuclear program, "the other clock, that of the nation's domestic politics, is all but ignored by most commentators":

The event to watch is the forthcoming election of a new Assembly of Experts, a body of mullahs whose task is to elect the "Custodian-Theologian", more commonly known as the "Supreme Guide", who has virtually unlimited powers under the Khomeinist constitution. . . . The common assumption in Tehran is that Khamenehi, the current "Supreme Guide", will be confirmed in his position at least for the time being. But, when it comes to Iranian politics, common assumptions often prove wrong. In last summer's presidential election, for example, many had expected Rafsanjani to sweep to victory. The more knowledgeable had speculated that Mohsen Qalibaf, a retired police chief and the favoured candidate of Khamenehi, would win. As it turned out, Ahmadinejad won in a landslide.

Taheri states that Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi "could emerge as the leading candidate" for supreme leader if Khamenei were forced out. However the election of the new assembly of experts goes, it will have a major impact on Iranian politics. Taheri writes that if the "new radical elite" don't win a majority, the establishment mullahs could forge an alliance with Khamenei and oust the new guard. Conversely, if "the new guard captures control of the Assembly of Experts, it may well launch a major reform of the Islamic Republic's political structures with the aim of 'full mobilisation for the coming clash of civilisations', as foreseen by Ahmadinejad and Mesbah-Yazdi."

Either way, those who care about the direction Iran will take (and with the country rapidly nuclearizing, everyone should care) should pay close attention to the election of the new assembly of experts. Taheri's article is a good place to start.

The Muslim Brotherhood behind the Cartoon Jihad

By Olivier Guitta

Thanks to my colleague Lorenzo Vidino for revealing here the extent of the implication of Danish Imam Abu Laban in the controversy over the Danish cartoons.
I wrote a piece for the Weekly Standard showing the involvement of the Muslim Brotherhood in this and how it fits into their global strategy of infiltrating the West.
You can read the whole piece here.
Here is an excerpt:

Abu-Laban's labors were not in vain, and everywhere the loudest protests have come from the Muslim Brotherhood. On February 3 in Paris, Larbi Kechat, an imam linked to the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, said, "The most abject terrorism is the symbolic kind, which spreads unlimited violence." Meanwhile, in Qatar, al-Qaradawi was calling for an "international day of anger for God and his prophet," describing the cartoonists as "blasphemers" and Europeans as "cowards." Acknowledging the latter's role, the pan-Arab daily Asharq Al-Awsat, in London, stated on February 8, "The issue disappeared from the radar until Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the mufti of Al Jazeera TV, seized upon it and called for Muslims worldwide to protest."

Finally, according to the Moroccan daily Le Matin, the U.S. branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Muslim American Society (MAS), called on Muslims everywhere to use their economic power to punish European countries where the cartoons were published. After French and German newspapers reprinted the controversial cartoons, MAS executive director Mahdi Bray commented, "Denmark has already paid an economic price for disrespecting Islam. If France and Germany want to be next, then so be it."

THAT THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD would seek to inflame this controversy makes perfect sense, given the organization's Islamist philosophy and past links to al Qaeda. What may not be sufficiently appreciated, however, is the extent of the Brotherhood's deliberate planning for an Islamist takeover of the West--and how neatly the cartoon jihad conforms to its strategy.

Proposed FY 2007 Budget Insufficient for Immigration Enforcement & Fraud Detection

By Michael Cutler

The Bush Administration's budget for FY 2007 has been released and where immigration is concerned, all I can say is, here we go again! You can download the overview of the entire appropriations request for DHS below, and I have pasted some of the highlights to this post as an image to the end of this post.

The President is, once again, requesting fewer special agents than the 800 per year that was recommended as a result of the findings of the 9/11 Commission. It is also of critical importance to realize that the 800 new special agent positions per year for each of the next five years was recommended without any thought being given to a Guest Worker/Amnesty Program. It has been estimated that there are anywhere from 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens currently in the United States at the present time. If a significant percentage of these aliens seek guest worker status, how will ICE police the millions of aliens who will apply for this program? Yet the administration is making it clear that he wants this Amnesty program that he is now referring to as the Temporary Worker Program. I guess the President or someone in the administration figured that by substituting the word "Temporary" for the word "Guest" would make this Amnesty program more palatable. As Shakespeare said, "A rose by any other name..." If we are unable to remove the millions of illegal aliens who currently flaunt our laws on a daily basis, secure in the knowledge that they have the tacit approval of many of our nation's alleged "leaders" how will this nation seek to remove these Temporary/Guests when their "Temporary" period of employment expires?

FY 2007 DHS Budget Overview (Acrobat file)

Download 07bib_dept_of_homeland_security_fact_sheet.pdf

Fast and Easy with the LA Terrorist Plot

By Zachary Abuza

There is something terribly disingenuous about the President�s assertions today that a 9/11 styled attack on the West Coast was thwarted. The President, then later his Homeland Security Advisor Fran Townsend in a conference call with the press, argued that un-named Al Qaeda operatives arrested in un-named countries were actively planning the attack (though they would not say how far along it was) at an un-named time. All details are classified. How convenient. How un-verifiable for the public. The administration is simply trying to justify its blatantly illegal NSA wire-tapping program to the public. The failure of their legal arguments has been reduced to one point: we are defending America, so anything we do goes.

But was the President�s example really an active plot? I have been studying JI for over five years now and it does not smell good. The facts and history just do not add up to what the president said:

"We now know that in October 2001 Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the September the 11th attacks, had already set in motion a plan to have terrorist operatives hijack an airplane using shoe bombs to breach the cockpit door and fly the plane into the tallest building on the West coast. We believe the intended target was Liberty Tower in Los Angeles, California."

Actually this is not new information. The 9/11 Commission Report makes very clear that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had proposed a 9/11 styled attack on the West coast to the Al Qaeda leadership, yet this proposal was rejected on two key grounds: First they wanted KSM to stay focused on the 9/11 attacks. There was concern that this was getting too complex. The Al Qaeda leadership thought that the New York and Washington attacks were sufficient. Second, there was a dearth of trained pilots within JI ranks. The President�s assertion that �Rather than use Arab hijackers as he had on September the 11th, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed sought out young men from Southeast Asia whom he believed would not arouse as much suspicion,� is true. KSM, who had worked with his nephew Ramzi Yousef in Southeast Asia in the mid 1990s, saw the potential of using Southeast Asian jihadis against America.

The president continued:

"To help carryout this plan, he tapped a terrorist named Hambali, one of the leaders of an al Qaeda-affiliated group in Southeast Asia called JI� Hambali recruited several key operatives who had been training in Afghanistan. Once the operatives were recruited, they met with Osama bin Laden and then began preparations for the West Coast attack."

Fran Townsend stated that this �Absolutely� was stage two of 9/11:

Again there is absolutely no evidence in the public record that this transpired. Starting in December 2001 through January 2002, there were a series of arrests of members of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) in Singapore and Malaysia. Just under 20 people were detained, giving regional authorities � as well as the US Government, their first real understanding of the terrorist organization. At the time, these cells were planning to blow up the US embassy and other commercial interests in Singapore; there is also evidence that they hoped to execute a USS Cole-styled attack against US naval vessels calling on the city state. As a result of these arrests Hambali held an emergency meeting in Bangkok that included 5 other people. All but one were members of JI, none were pilots. It was at this meeting that Hambali made the decision that JI should focus their energies on soft targets in which westerners would be the primary target. This of course led to the Bali bombings in October 2002. There was an AQ operative at the meeting, a young Kuwaiti-Canadian, KSM had recruited, Mohammad Mansour Jabarrah. He was arrested in Oman in March 2003, and had no pilot training.

Hambali then went on the run. He was in Thailand for a while and then Cambodia. He was plotting other attacks, including trying to recruit personnel for attacks against the APEC summit in Bangkok in mid-2002. Again, he did not have the resources to carry out the attack while on the run.

Who was the �key AQ operative� who was arrested in February 2002? There is no public record of this arrest having taken place. What about the other four cell members? Fran Townsend said two were South Asian, two were Southeast Asian. All have been detained, but she won�t reveal their names or what countries they were arrested in. She mentioned that the four met with Bin Laden in Afghanistan where they pledged an oath of allegiance to the Sheikh before returning to Southeast Asia. When asked when this meeting took place Ms. Townsend revealed in October 2001; interesting timing seeing that US forces had just invaded the country.

Who were the trained pilots? And this is an important point. Because the President and Fran Townsend differentiated this from Richard Reid�s shoe bombing plot in December 2001. Reid simply wanted to blow a hole in the side of the airplane to depressurize the cabin over the mid-Atlantic. But that was not the case here according to the President: the �operatives [planned to] hijack an airplane using shoe bombs to breach the cockpit door.� JI, to my knowledge has no trained pilots.

It is true that one Singaporean member of JI, Mas Salamat Kastari plotted to hijack an Aeroflot jetliner in Bangkok and to crash it into Singapore, but the plan was on hold, Kastari was not a pilot, and one can assume that there was no one in the organization to assist him. Kastari then fled to Indonesia where he was later arrested.

How far along was this plot when it was �disrupted?� What was their level of operational planning? Were they close? Fran Townsend replied:

"We don't know exactly when the plot was scheduled for. The intelligence tells us that Khalid Shaykh Muhammad began to initiate it in October of 2001. We know that between then and when the lead operative was arrested in February of '02, between those two periods of time, they traveled through Afghanistan, they met with bin Laden, they swore biat, they came back, and the lead guy is arrested, which disrupts it in February of '02. So you see what I'm saying? It's during that short window of time, between October of 2001 and February of 2002, but we don't know when they planned -- we don't know when it was planned to actually be executed."

If this plot was real, then why has it taken 4 years to come to light? How come the names or cooperating countries can�t be revealed? Why wasn�t it played up at the time, especially in a region whose populations are vastly skeptical of the US-led war on terror?

The point that the President and Fran Townsend make about the transnational networks of affiliated jihadists is accurate. These groups do work together and coordinate; Al Qaeda is a network. To that end, cooperation with foreign intelligence and law enforcement services is essential.

But was the plot that the president described far enough along to pose a real threat? It is possible, but I have grave reservations. It is clear that JI and AQ had thought about replicating the 9/11 attacks. But there is no public evidence that the plot was operational at the time and there is no public evidence that the plot was thwarted because of NSA wiretaps that the administration seeks to justify. Like so much else from this administration, it is bits of cherry picked intelligence and facts that the President expects the public to buy hook line and sinker.

Lebanese Anti-Syrian Leader Agrees to Hezbollah's Terrorism Agenda

By Andrew Cochran

On Monday, Michael Aoun, Member of Parliament and leader of the Free Patriotic Movement, met with Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah's Secretary General, to discuss collaboration. These two leaders were on opposite ends of the Cedar Revolution that freed Lebanon from Syrian occupation last year, and Aoun is seeking the presidency after being kicked out of the country 15 years ago. The meeting produced a "memorandum of understanding" between the two, and it looks like Aoun is perfectly willing to let Hezbollah continue to pursue its agenda of terrorism against Israel and other Western interests. The MoA refers to Israel as "enemy territory" from which Lebanese should return (paragraph 6); it calls for renewed relations with Syria and the Palestinians without expressing any concern for their terrorist activities in the region (paragraphs 7 & 8), and doesn't limit Hezbollah from possessing and using its arms in any way (paragraph 9). Nasrallah seemed to support Aoun's bid for president, "We see in Aoun a serious and competent candidate who enjoys wide popularity." At a Shiite ceremony today in Beirut, Nasrallah said, "Defending the prophet should continue all over the world. Let Condoleezza Rice and Bush and all the tyrants shut up...We will uphold the messenger of God not only by our voices but also by our blood." We should hope that Aoun's backers, many of whom profess to be Christians, aren't so willing to compromise with terrorism.

The Administration Chooses to Ignore Taylor

By Douglas Farah

Yesterday the House International Relations subcommittee on Africa held a hearing on Liberia and its long path toward reconstruction. What is truely astonishing is that the lead administration person on Africa, assistant secretary of state Jendayi Frazer, mentioned Charles Taylor exactly twice, in the same paragraph. It was a pro forma statement of interest in getting Taylor handed over for trial. That was it. The other administration officials testifying made no mention of Taylor at all.

This is astounding, given Taylor's continued influence despite his ties to terrorists, transnational criminal groups and crimes against humanity. He wields influence in Liberia through his proxies such as his ex-wife Jewell, House speaker Edwin Snowe, and myriad other criminal associates on the U.S and UN travel ban lists but now holding positions of power in Liberia. The administration made no mention of Taylor's ongoing activities, his past assassination attempts against other West African heads of state or trying to track his wealth stashed abroad.

Fortunately, there were other voices that brought these concerns to the forefront. Rep. Ed Royce R-California, a long-time champion of Africa in general and having Taylor stand trial, fully understands and clearly articulated the role Taylor continues to play.

Here is part of his opening statement, which is far more eloquent and realistic than anything Frazer or other administration officials had to say:

"The new Liberian government's road ahead would be far less treacherous, however, and the futures of the country and West Africa would be far more secure, if the warlord who brought so much destruction to the region was forced to face justice before the Special Court for Sierra Leone, which has indicted Charles Taylor on 17 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his destruction of Sierra Leone. You can read the full blog here.

President Bush Releases Details of Foiled Terrorist Hijacking (updated)

By Andrew Cochran

President Bush today at the National Guard Association (text of speech at White House website): In October 2001, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who masterminded the 9/11 attacks, set in motion a shoebombing plot to hijack plane and fly into Liberty Tower in Los Angeles (actually the "Library Tower," since renamed the U.S. Bank Tower), the highest building on the West Coast. He recruited young men from SE Asia and tapped Hambali of JI (Jemaah Islamiyah) to lead it, who then recruited operatives training in Afghanistan. They met with Osama Bin Laden and began preparations. In early 2002, a "South East Asian nation" arrested "a key operative." The debriefings revealed the plot and helped others capture the other operative. Then, in the summer of 2003, our "partners in South East Asia" captured Hambali. The President did not refer to NSA intercepts in this segment. In a post-speech press briefing, the White House told the press that this attack was supposed to be virtually simultaneous with the 9/11 attacks, but OBL vetoed it because of a lack of personnel. Also, four unnamed countries were apparently involved in the capture of the plotters. Lorenzo Vidino's comment to "Christian Science Monitor": "The timing of this clearly has to do with politics...but that doesn't mean the [L.A. plot] isn't true."

On October 7, 2005, the White House released a list of foiled terrorist plots. This was described as follows at that point: "1. The West Coast Airliner Plot: In mid-2002 the U.S. disrupted a plot to attack targets on the West Coast of the United States using hijacked airplanes. The plotters included at least one major operational planner involved in planning the events of 9/11."

Zachary Abuza has referred to Hambali's activities before:

The Thai Insurgency Two Years On: "Hambali, JI�s operational chief and a senior member of al-Qaeda, was of course captured in Thailand, along with his two lieutenants, Zubair Mohamad and Bashir bin Lap (Lillie) who were charged with perpetrating a major terrorist attack in Bangkok."
More on the Thai Passport Scandal
Bombings in Thailand

Senate Building Reopened After False Alarm

By Andrew Cochran

Chief Terry Gainer of the U.S. Capitol Police announced on CNN's Larry King Show that the "all-clear" has been given, and a U.S. Senate building can be reoccupied. It was emptied after a security sensor indicated the presence of a nerve agent.

THE CARTOONESQUE JIHAD?

By Walid Phares

Walid Phares

                                           -  PART TWO -

Brussels, the European Parliament, London, the House of Commons.

This piece was authored in conjunction with the presentation of my new book at the European institutions. link

�Cartoon Jihad� was the title of a piece by American leading cartoonist Daryl Cagle posted on January 10, in which he warned about the explosion to come link . The term was coined since around the world, especially in a series of investigations by German daily Der Spiegel. The term itself is a reverse of the campaign mobilized by the critics of the cartoons. While Islamic groups and governments have escalated their protests, many of which in violent forms, and accused the �caricaturists-perpetrators� of waging a cultural war against Islam, artists and their supporters responded by disseminating the initial drawings and drawing more. The latter claimed a political war is being waged by the Islamists against cultural democracy and Jihadi terror is being staged against media. On al Jazeera, commentators and guests are now accusing the whole West of launching an all out �crusade� against everything Islamic, while in return, Jihad-critics are accusing the ideological movement worldwide of being behind all urban intifadas against the West not just the Denmark cartoon violence. In the Italian press and across the continent, dots are being connected between the Hijab uprising in France, the Van Goh assassination in Holland, the French so-called youth intifada, the Australian beach clashes, and other �moves� within the West. By the day fault lines are emerging between the two camps and unspoken sentences are piling up. Historians may well realize few years from now, that the Denmark�s drawings were only the straw that broke the camel�s back between the two ideological worlds: Pluralist Democracy and Islamic Fundamentalism.

But as Europe and the World are witnessing the widening of the Cartoon Jihad and its mutation into multiple levels of diplomatic, political, intellectual, militants and terror actions and activities, the investigation of the core issue is still in progress: What did the Danish cartoonists really breach? Where is the red line within Islam and under whose responsibility the protest fall? What is the real aim of the �protesters� and are they one group or more? Is the West responding right and is it really unified in this matter? Multiple questions I will attempt to address, as I continue to interact with European legislators, experts, think tanks in Vienna, Brussels, London and Paris. The bottom line now is the bigger picture not those little drawings. The consensus cannot be clearer with regards the grand principles: Freedom of speech cannot be reversed by any ideology that doesn�t believe in the latter�s value. And at the same time, hurting the core feelings of any religion, including Islam, is not acceptable by coexistence standards. But the question is this: Is it really about the drawings themselves or between the drawers of cartoons and the drawers of fatwa? Let�s examine this..

Torturers, Terrorists and Iraq

By Bill West

In May 2004, I wrote an article concerning the potential of US law enforcement and intelligence agencies, led particularly by the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), identifying and pursuing former Saddam Hussein regime operatives who served as members of elite military, intelligence and security forces who were involved in torture, political murder and other human rights abuses. The purpose of such an operation would be to identify those perpetrators within Iraq for possible criminal prosecution there, and from a US law enforcement perspective, to insure they were properly listed in immigration, visa and border security lookout systems so, like the torturing terrorists they are, they would hopefully be prevented from ever entering the United States.

OFAC Designates Libyan al Qaeda Affiliate

By Douglas Farah

The Treasury Department's OFAC designation today of leaders and entities affiliated with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) is an important step in at least tracking and identifying the leaders of lesser-known al Qaeda affiliates. It will have little real economic impact because the group does not have assets in the United States, but if the measure is extended to the UN, it could make it more difficult for the group to operate.

The LIFG was formed in Afghanistan in 1995, tried to overthrow Moamar Gadaffi in Libya in the mid-1996s and then decamped into exile, largely in Great Britain, when Libyan security forces cracked down. There, the LIFG has served as a part of the hub of organizations that have been facilitating the movement of money, false documents and couriers to al Qaeda affiliates around the world.

One of the most interesting people designated was Abd al-Rahman al-Faqih, a senior leader of the LIFG and one of the chief purveyors of false passports and money to LIFG organizations in different parts of the world. He also appears to be a key link between LIFG and the Moroccan Islamic Combat Group (GICM). The GICM carried out the May 16, 2003 suicide bombings in Casablanca that killed more people and injured more than 100. Go here to read the full blog.

A Response to Media II

By Douglas Farah

The William Allen White editorial, does, in fact, go to one of the premises of the current debate on the media--whether the government has the right to curb free speech in times of crisis and fear. It is a broad and vital debate, but one that cannot be fully carried out if any administration--and this one in particular--spreads the blanket of secrecy so far that it is very hard to discern the real threats from the often corrosive desire for secrecy for the sake of secrecy.

In the specific cases I believe Dennis Lormel is referring to--the NSA story in the New York Times and the renditions story in the Washington Post, a clear argument can be made that the public interest outweighed whatever national security gains were being made. Given the broad bipartisan questioning of the NSC actions, from stauch conservatives to liberals, I think it is clear the revelation of the program falls within the public's right to know, or at least to have Congressional oversight and ensure the rule of law. It is a debate that will rage for quite some time, but one where there is a clear argument that, when fundamental liberties are going to be eroded despite specific laws to the contrary, the public has a right to participate in the debate. If the law can be deemed subject to waiver, for whatever reason, then the terrorists will have made a fundamental gain in reshaping our society.

On the renditions story, to me the case is even more clear cut. Al Qaeda knows that its senior operatives are held in separate facilities where they are subject to interrogation techniques that would not be permitted in the United States. The story gave the terrorist organizations no information that they did not already have. Do they think Khalid Sheik Mohamed is in the U.S. or Guantanamo? Somewhat unlikely. It is generally the case, and I know specically in some cases with the al Qaeda captures, that the window of opertional benefit is a few hours, at most days, before the enemy will reconfigure itself, roll up potentially compromised operations and go into its most fierce damage-control mode. Telling them that their high profile targets are in special prisons, after the practice has been going on for more than four years, is unlikely to give them what they do not already have.

I have been in debates over what to publish and when. My experience--and I know it was the experience in both these cases--is that, if the administration can give a good-faith reason why things should not be public, or suggest ways to make a story useful to the public without compromising national security, those steps are taken. The threshold is fairly low for cutting things from a story, higher for killing story outright. In both these cases there were extensive, constructive discussions with the administration and intelligence community before publication--a clear bending of the traditional separation the media from government influence on what is published, but part of the new era.

There will always be tension between allowing the public information that is vital to make intelligent decisions and the desire for secrecy to protect programs that sometimes do merit protection. There is a lot more grey than just asking where does social responsibility start. Sens. Lindsey Graham, Patrick Leahy and many others--and many true American patriots--view the NSC story as something so fundamentally important it reshapes our national identity, and therefore should not be hidden, especially when efforts were made along the way to legally and jointly modify the existing structure to make it more agile and responsive. The media walk a fine line and sometimes overstep. But so does an administration that cloaks everything in secrecy rather than that which is necessary.

Muslim Hackers Assaulting Websites Since Cartoon Controversy Began (updated)

By Andrew Cochran

An article yesterday on Britain's "Computer Shopper" website caught my eye. It discussed the assault of Danish and other Western websites by gangs of Muslim hackers. "Gangs of pro-Muslim computer hackers have unleashed a withering cyber attack on Danish and other websites in the past week, escalating their defacement barrage to coincide with dozens of violent street-level demonstrations across the Arab world in protest at the publication of a cartoon depiction of the Prophet Mohammed. The number of Danish websites alone - those carrying a '.dk' suffix - knocked offline in the past week numbered 578 between 30 January and 6 February, according to Zone-H.org, a cyber-crime observatory that tracks website defacements. Hundreds more websites of European, Israeli and American companies and private citizens have also been defaced during that period, with the vast majority occurring after the re-publication last week of the cartoons in European newspapers."

iDefense is the security intelligence arm of VeriSign, Inc., which operates the systems that manage the ".com" and ".net" domains, handling over 14 billion Web and email look-ups every day (note: VeriSign is a client of the GAGE consulting firm where I am a Vice President). I asked Jim Melnick, iDefense's director of threat intelligence and one of the top experts in the business, what he could tell us about the hacking activity. "All the ingredients are now present for a possible explosion of global hacktivism and retaliation - a warning we put out to our clients on Monday. We've already seen the spike in anti-Danish (.dk) defacements in the last day or so; some Western hackers, having seen the sensitivity of the Muslim world to the cartoons, could retaliate with even more offensive defacements, escalating the crisis still further. The passions of some hacktivists often wear out after they have made their initial point in a few defacements and that could happen here; on the other hand, if long-term boycotts are sustained as part of the protests against the cartoons, ongoing pro-Muslim hacking in support of such efforts also seems likely. The next stage of concern from our standpoint will be to see if hacking against Danish and other European sites now goes to the next level, which would probably be organized denial of service attacks."

This episode is a warning that Muslim extremists are trained, ready, and able to attack websites and networks as one tactic in the larger war against the West.

UPDATE: Another friend in the business who also follows certain terrorist groups and individuals had the following informative and disturbing comments:

Abu Hamza al-Masri Conviction: An Important Step Forward in the UK's War on Terrorism

By Victor Comras

The conviction in British criminal court of radical Islamic cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri (aka Mustafa Kamel Mustafa), and his sentencing to 7 years in prison, stands out as an important landmark in the war on terrorism. Great Britain has long been a beacon of tolerance. It has provided safe-haven to those who espouse radical positions and preach radical ideas, however offensive or dangerous. This tolerance stands as an exemplary standard for all who value high principles of freedom of thought and expression. But, there is a line, and a critical distinction, between preaching radical or offensive ideas on the one hand, and inciting to violence and recruiting for terrorism on the other. The Abu Hamza al-Masri decision has helped to better delineate that line.

Back in July 2005, at the time of the London Bombing, I was critical of the UK�s failure to go after Hamzi and others responsible for the indoctrination and recruitment of naive, and often self-aggrieved Muslim youth and for turning them into a new generation of pseudo religious zealot/terrorists bent on causing death and destruction. Hamzi had used his religious authority to help convince these Muslim youth that killing �infidels� was their religious duty. And his Finsbury Park Mosque served as a principal meeting place, indoctrination hall and recruitment center for radical jihadi groups.
Hamzi al-Masri�s arrest and the subsequent delays in moving ahead with his trial appeared to me, and many others, at the time, as serving only to side-step US indictment and extradition proceedings against him. I wrote:

While our democratic societies must remain dedicated to protecting religious freedom and to respecting ethnic sensitivities and diversity, we should be able, by now, to make the distinction between fundamentalist religious proselytizing and teaching on the one hand, and recruitment for hatred, violence and terrorism on the other. We can no longer tolerate the preaching to violence by the likes of Abu Hamza al-Masri or Omar Bakri Mohammed..

Perhaps with the Hamzi-al Masri conviction the UK will turn a page and make it clear that it will no longer tolerate the kinds of activities that went on at Hamzi-al Masri�s Finsbury Park Mosque. Masri was convicted on 11 counts under the UK�s Terrorism Act of 2000,. Offences Against the Person Act of 1861, and Public Order Act of 1986. This included six of nine counts for soliciting-to-murder charges and two of four charges of �using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behavior with the intention of stirring up racial hatred�. He was also found guilty of being in the possession of terrorism material including a ten volume set "The Encyclopedia of the Afghani Jihad," which contains information "of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism." The �Encyclopedia� included instructions on how to make explosives. It also identified key international landmarks, such as Big Ben, the Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower as potential terrorist targets.

Question to the Media - Part II

By Dennis Lormel

With all due respect to Doug Farah's post, I don't believe in force, suppression or tyranny. Despite the eloquence of the editorial highlighted in the post, it is quite dated. Not only do we have a whole new world since 1922; we have a whole new world since 9/11. The threat we confront today is much different and more deadly than any we have confronted, especially on our own shores.

Our current environment requires cooperation and consideration of all segments of society, to include the media. I also believe in accountability, which revisits the question... at what point is the media accountable for compromising intelligence and investigative collection techniques?

U.S. Law Enforcement and Intelligence Agencies Deserve Our Gratitude and Respect

By Dennis Lormel

During the State of the Union address last week, when leading up to urging Congress to reauthorize the U.S. PATRIOT Act, President Bush cited the �superb professionals� in law enforcement and intelligence agencies, as well as the military. He commented that they deserve our recognition and thanks and stated they deserve the tools to fight terrorism. Clearly, the military deserves our utmost respect, recognition and gratitude for the marvelous work they do 24/7 under incredibly challenging circumstances.

We should also pause to pay tribute to the men and women in law enforcement and intelligence services who work ever diligently, often under trying circumstances, to fight and thwart terrorism in their own right. Unfortunately, most of the recognition they receive is negative. This is disheartening because, in reality, the work these unsung heroes perform has protected us from terrorist attacks.

A Response to Questions for the Media

By Douglas Farah

As a member of the media for more than 20 years, I want to briefly respond to Dennis Lormel's earlier post to the media. I reproduce below an editorial by William Allen White in the Emporia Gazette, July 27, 1922. It says it all, more eloquently than I could, except for the arcane sexism that was the language of the day.

To An Anxious Friend

You tell me that law is above freedom of utterance. And I reply that you can have no wise laws nor free enforcement of wise laws unless there is free expression of the wisdom of the people-and, alas, their folly with it. But if there is freedom, folly will die of its own poison and the wisdom will survive. That is the history of the race. It is proof of man's kinship to God.

You say freedom of utterance is not for time of stress, and I reply with the sad truth that only in times of stress is freedom of utterance in danger. No one questions it in calm days, because it is not needed. And the reverse is true also; only when free utterance is suprressed is it needed, and when it is needed it is most vital to justice.

Peace is good. But if you are interested in peace through force and without free discussion-that is to say, free utterance decently and in order-your interest in justice is slight. And peace without justice is tyranny, no matter how you may sugar coat it with expediency.

The state today is in more danger from suppression than from violence, because, in the end, supression leads to violence. Violence, indeed, is the child of suppression. Whoever pleads for justice helps keep the peace; and who tramples upon the plea for justice temperately made in the name of peace only outrages peace and kills something fine in the heart of man which God put there when we got our manhood. When that is killed, brute meets brute on each side of the line.

So, dear friend, put fear out of your heart. This nation will survive, this state will prosper, the orderly business of life will go forward if only men can speak in whatever way given them to utter what their hearts hold-by voice, by post card, by letter or by press. Reason has never failed men. Only force and repression have made the wrecks in the world.

Buried in Proposed Budget: Counterterrorism Programs & Palestinian Funding Issues

By Michael B. Kraft

Buried in the Bush Administration�s new budget sent to Congress containing huge requests for the military are modest increases for civilian programs to counter terrorism overseas. The budget bill also includes funding for the Palestinians -- with caveats following the Hamas election victory.

The Fiscal Year 2007 International Affairs budget request submitted to Congress yesterday includes $135.6 million for the State Department�s anti-terrorism training assistance (ATA) Program, which provides a wide variety of courses to improve the capabilities of civilian law enforcement officials in friendly countries, ranging from airport security to bomb detection, hostage negotiation and to handling threats from weapons of mass destruction threats.

This request is only $2 million more than the $133.5 million the Administration requested for FY 2006 and $12 million above the $122.3 million that emerged last year from the Congressional budget requests. It is also inexplicably less than the $150 million that the budget request includes for FY 2007 for the West Bank and Gaza, as discussed below.

The UK and France not clamping down on Hamas charities

By Olivier Guitta

Talking or not with Hamas and supporting financially the Palestinian Authority or not have been questions in the minds of Europeans and US officials.
If some in Europe, especially the UK and France, refused to close down Hamas charities while Hamas was not in power, I do not think they will do so today.
I wrote a piece for Front Page Magazine on that topic.

Here is an excerpt:

Some Europeans leaders have adopted a wait and see attitude and decided to give Hamas time to �get their act together�. In light of past history, one should not be surprised by this European appeasement. Indeed, way before this election and the Hamas victory, some Europeans have been unresponsive in clamping down on the terrorist group.
One telling example is that of some of Hamas charities, based in Europe. They are flourishing, left alone by European authorities. The British Interpal and the French Comit� de Bienfaisance et de Secours aux Palestiniens (CBSP) are among them.
As early as 1997, the CBSP was outlawed in Israel. The U.S. followed suit in 2003 with Executive Order 13224, which entailed freezing assets of the CBSP and designating it as a supporter of terrorism. President Bush then personally asked France to do the same and clamp down on this Hamas front headquartered in Paris.

Proof of CBSP�s involvement with Hamas is piling up. In fact, Israel arrested on September 25 one of Hamas top fundraisers, Abu Asama. The fund managed by Asama was used for rewarding the families of shahids (martyrs, i.e. Palestinian suicide bombers) and financing Hamas. According to Israeli policed cited by the Jerusalem Post, most of the funds were collected in Europe through mainly Interpal and CBSP. They were using as conduit an umbrella organization called the Charity Coalition, founded by Sheikh Yusuf Al Qaradawi, the radical Qatari Muslim preacher and star of Al Jazeera. Incidentally CBSP�s and Interpal�s leader, respectively Khaled Muhammad Ahmad Al Shouli and Assam Yusuf Haber Ben Amni, head the Charity Coalition.

Abu Hamza al-Masri Convicted in the UK

By Evan Kohlmann

Abu Hamza al-Masri, the notorious hook-handed cleric formerly based in the Finsbury Park Mosque in London--and connected with a host of infamous terrorists (including Lionel Dumont, Zacarias Moussaoui, Djamal Beghal, and Richard Reid)--has today been found guilty in a UK court of six charges of soliciting to murder, two charges of using abusive language to incite racial hatred, and an additional Terrorism Act charge for his possession of the 'Encyclopedia of Jihad.'  During the summer of 2002, I interviewed Abu Hamza at his London mosque for several hours and discovered firsthand the ugly secrets hiding inside...

See: Behind Bars: The Arrest of Abu Hamza al-Masri (2004)

THE CARTOON OFFENSIVE...

By Walid Phares

Walid Phares

- Brussels, the European Parliament

                                          - PART ONE -

"In my religion" said Imam abu Laban, leading Muslim cleric of Denmark , �drawing images of Prophet Muhammad is forbidden.� In my country, said the editor in chief of Jyllands Posten �there is a freedom of press.� The BBC TV forum was attempting to educate its vast public worldwide about the Cartoon drama. Unfortunately, the debate left viewers in greater disarray. The anchor seemed to ignore why theological Cartoons are offensive to Muslims to start with, but also missed why secular democracies are clashing with their antithesis. World media, and behind them their respective Governments have been reacting to television images rather than to direct knowledge. The crisis of the �offensive cartoons� has in fact become a �cartoons offensive.� Here is why: 

A Question for the Media

By Dennis Lormel

Last Thursday, February 2, 2006, Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte, and the heads of the primary U.S. Intelligence Agencies testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee. CIA Director, Porter Goss, called for an investigation into the leaks of classified intelligence information and techniques that the media seemed compelled to report. Stories published include intelligence operations about secret renditions, interrogation techniques, secret joint intelligence centers with other countries, secret prisons, and most recently, the NSA eavesdropping program. One can debate the merits, morality and legality of said techniques. One should ask� how much concern for morality or legality do the terrorists factor into their planning cycle? Do we really need a reminder of who the bad guys are? What resonated from Goss� comments was the fact that many of these valuable intelligence gathering techniques have been rendered useless or their effectiveness has been greatly diminished. That consideration is more then unfortunate, it�s frightening! Many of these techniques, to include renditions and interrogations, produced significant intelligence which has been successfully used to thwart terrorism. As an example, information learned through the renditions and interrogations of Al Qaeda leaders, such as Khalid Sheik Mohammed, led to the disruption, dismantlement and prevention of terrorist activities. The media disclosures also create collateral damage affecting the credibility of the intelligence community.

When I was Chief of the Terrorist Financing Operations Section in the Counterterrorism Division of the FBI, I was a direct beneficiary, and witnessed first hand, the investigative achievements such intelligence information has afforded. One of the benchmarks for success for intelligence and investigative agencies has been the disruption and/or dismantlement of terrorist organizations or operations.

My question to the media�when you report stories that compromise sensitive intelligence gathering operations, is your benchmark for success the disruption and/or dismantlement of government techniques and methodologies that prevent terrorist activities? This is an extremely important issue, and question, because there are other ongoing sensitive intelligence and investigative techniques and methodologies which have not yet been compromised by the media. As the trend to break these types of stories becomes seemingly more important, I�d like to know� at what point is a determination made that the �public need to know� becomes more important than national security?

And on to Southeast Asia

By Zachary Abuza

Protests over the cartoons has spread to Southeast Asia. Demonstrations began on 3 February organized in Jakarta by the Islamic Defenders front, a small group of militants that has engaged in everything from conducting �sweeps� of hotels to drive away foreigners, to trashing bars and nightspots, to recruiting people to Iraq to join the jihad. Around 300 people demonstrated in front of the Danish Embassy, briefly entering the lobby of the office building where the embassy is housed. The BBC reported that the situation was diffused after the Danish ambassador met with several protestors and offered an apology.

Despite an appeal from the spokesman of Indonesia�s largest and decidedly moderate Muslim Organization, the Nadhalatul Ulama for calm and for Muslims not to be provoked by what he called "the stupid actions of those who belittle our prophet," protests have spread.

Yesterday demonstrations spread to Indonesia�s second largest city and commercial hub Surabaya. At least 200 protesters stoned the Danish consulate in Surabaya before descending on the US consulate, where police had to fire warning shots to disperse the protestors.

Protests have also spread to Thailand. On 6 January, between 300-400 Muslims from the troubled south protested outside the Danish Embassy in Bangkok. The protests were dwarfed by the mass protests organized by the country�s political opposition against Prime Minister Thaksin.

While smaller, less vociferous and less violent than in other parts of the world, the protests in Southeast Asia are gaining some traction and allowing Islamists to forge both a greater sense of solidarity and identification with their co-religionists around the world and reinforcing the already high-degrees of anti-Americanism prevalent in the region.

Indonesian Authorities Turn Over Leading Member of JI to Singapore

By Zachary Abuza

Indonesian anti-terror police announced that they deported a leading member of Jemaah Islamiyah, Mas Salamat Kastari, to Singapore, on 3 February, two weeks after re-arresting him in East Java, on 20 January. At the time of his arrest, Kastari was visiting his son at his madrassa using a fake ID card. Kastari, a Singaporean citizen was one of the leaders of JI�s network in the prosperous city-state. He fled Singapore in late-2001. In 2002, he and several other JI members plotted both to bomb Singapore�s Changi Airport and plotted to hijack an Aeroflot jetliner from Bangkok�s Don Muang Airport and crash it into Singapore, in a show of Islamic solidarity with Chechnyan rebels. Kastari has been at the top of Singapore�s most wanted list since then, and it is assumed that they provided key intelligence to Indonesian officials who arrested him in Bintan, an island close to Singapore, in 2003.

Kastari was sentenced to 18 months in prison for nothing more than an immigration violation and was quietly released in late-2005. Why was he re-arrested? "We have arrested him (Kastari) for immigration offences (and) we have deported him because he was on the wanted list in Singapore," national police spokesman Brigadier General Anton Bahrul Alam told reporters. That was not a consideration in 2003.

At the time, the Singaporean government was pressing the Indonesian government for Kastari, but the Indonesian�s insisted that as there was no bilateral extradition treaty, that there was little that they could do. In reality, the Indonesians had long been furious with Singapore�s refusal to turn over several very high-profile Indonesian businessmen who were wanted by government authorities in Jakarta for corruption, the theft of state assets and corporate failings going back to the 1997-99 Asian Economic Crisis.

It is significant that the Indonesian government turned Kastari over to Singapore. But it was too long in the making. His jail term, for nothing more than immigration offenses when he was found with bomb-making manuals in 2003, was absurd. Even more so to release him in 2005 when his leadership in JI and his propensity for mass-casualty attacks was known.

While the Indonesian government was culpable in this, so to was the Singaporean government. As terrorism is a transnational concern, it requires state cooperation, which in turn requires quid pro quos. Is the negative impact of planes crashing into Orchard Road greater than the impact of some laundered illicit gains? Of course. And Singapore�s long-term economic well being is contingent on Indonesia�s economic development, which necessarily entails helping them clean up their corrupt state-owned enterprises and notorious culture of graft, kickbacks and embezzlement.

Links to First Senate Hearings on NSA Surveillance Program

By Andrew Cochran

The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee holds the first hearing today on the NSA surveillance program, with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales as the sole witness. The hearing begins at 9:30 ET. You can access the committee's webcast from the hearing page here, and you can obtain hearing documents from that site during and after the hearing. You can also watch C-SPAN's webcast from its site, and here is the latest Associated Press story on the hearing (updated 3:10 pm ET.).

Zeyno Baran: "Will this be the much-needed wake up call for the West?"

By Andrew Cochran

Zeyno Baran is on travel in Europe and asked me to post the following comments on the Danish cartoon controversy - please quote her:

Many Western governments have been so focused on defeating the �terrorists� they have actively ignored combating groups like Hizb ut-Tahrir and Al-Muhajirun, who incite others to violence but are not violent themselves. In simplest terms, the division is between those who use violence and those who don�t. This inability to see how these groups have tactical differences but common end goals, has even led several European countries to work with people like Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, believing that working with the Muslim Brotherhood will make them safe.

If the latest set of incidents in relation to the cartoons is not a wake up call, then I don�t know what will be one. Denmark has been the key target of the radical Islamists, such as Hizb ut-Tahrir, for years; they even have a webpage in Danish. In 2002, Fadi Abdel Latif, the spokesman for HT Denmark was already referring to the Koran and urging the killing of Denmarks� members of the Jewish community. Since then HT Denmark has incited Danish Muslims to kills members of the government and encouraged Muslims to go fight the Americans in Iraq. Denmark like many Western countries has for too long been �tolerating intolerance� which I have been now arguing for many years. They should not have tolerated such incitement to violence. No Western or Muslim government should tolerate people calling for killing of people in the name of their religion�tolerating such statements is appeasing the radicals, and is betraying the more than 90% of Muslims who do not want to be represented by these people who claim to speak in their name.

Similarly, the West also should not have tolerated insulting the world�s 1.3 billion Muslims in the name of �freedom of speech�. Regardless of the initial purpose of publishing the cartoons, once it was made clear to non-Muslims how in the Islamic faith Muslims don�t even portray the face of their Prophet, common sense should have prevailed. Second, in the atmosphere when radical Islamists (those using violence and those who have different tactics) are trying to convince the world�s Muslims that the �war on terror� is really a �war on Islam� and the �Christian world� is united against the �Muslim world� and �we are already in a clash of civilizations� it is extremely depressing to see that over 4 years after 9/11, so few Western leaders, strategists and commentators have understood how these cartoon case was going to be used by the �enemy��the enemy of not just the �Western civilization� but of those 90% of Muslims.

CT Blog has already explained how a delegation of Danish Muslims, led by Copenhagen imam Abu Laban, toured the Middle East to garner support and orchestrate the mass protests we have been seeing over the last several years.

The Danish Cartoon Controversy in Context

By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross

With all the attention that politicians and the media have devoted to the controversy generated by Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten's publication of twelve cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, it's important to understand this controversy in its proper context. Jyllands-Posten decided to publish these cartoons because it wanted to test what editor-in-chief Carsten Juste described as "an article of self-censorship which rules large parts of the Western world."

In other words, Juste contended that there is a real fear of being seen as criticizing Islam in large parts of the Western world, and that this fear has bred self-censorship. Juste is right on both counts. An article that I wrote for the Daily Standard back in November documents in some detail the trend toward criticism of Islam being met with threats or actual physical violence. Examples of this include Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa sentencing writer Salman Rushdie to death after publication of The Satanic Verses; the murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh after he directed a film dramatizing the mistreatment of women born into Muslim families; the death threats directed against actor and Muslim convert Omar Sharif after he praised his role as St. Peter in an Italian TV film; Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali being driven underground by threats after admitting in a televised debate that she had left the Islamic faith; and Dutch painter Rachid Ben Ali being forced into hiding after one of his shows featured satirical work critical of Islamic militants' violence.

These are but a few examples of a far broader trend toward speech crticizing Islam being met not with counter-speech, but with threats -- and in extreme instances, with death. So Jyllands-Posten's publication of the cartoons of Muhammad is best understood not as an attack on Islam, but as a reaction to this trend, and an attempt to dramatically reassert the primacy of free speech. In the past, when criticism of Islam was met with threats, Westerners haven't always been vigilant about standing behind speech rights. After a bounty was placed on Rushdie's head, for example, British novelist John le Carr� offered an excuse for Rusdie's would-be assassins by stating that "there is no law in life or nature that says that great religions may be insulted with impunity." Likewise, Western legal systems -- through such vehicles as religious vilification laws -- frequently send mixed signals by suggesting that the slander of religion can be punished by law.

So it is encouraging to see that the controversy over these cartoons wasn't met with wholehearted Western self-flagellation and apologies, but rather with defiance. When newspapers like France's France Soir, Germany's Die Welt, Italy's La Stampa, the Netherlands' Volkskrant, and Spain's El Periodico republished the cartoons, they did so not out of anti-Islam animus, but rather because they understood the principles that are here at stake.

More lies from Danish Imams (Updated 2/5)

By Lorenzo Vidino

Last Friday the CT Blog revealed how a delegation of Danish Muslims, led by Copenhagen imam Abu Laban, toured the Middle East in December and showed fabricated cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed in a very offensive fashion, even though the pictures had never appeared on Jyllands Posten.

The controversy has now exploded in Denmark. Friday night Danish public television, DR, ran two interesting stories about Abu Laban, the man who organized the delegation's trip to the Middle East. While the first profiled him, showing his extensive links to the Egyptian group Gamaa Islamiya, the second showed his double-talk. Abu Laban, in fact, was first shown speaking on Danish television condemning the boycott of Danish goods (in English), then shown interviewed on al Jazeera, cheerfully commenting on the effectiveness of the boycott (in Arabic). To see the stories go to DR's website, click on "Se TV AVISEN" on the right and select the news broadcast from Friday, Feb. 3, at 9 PM (the stories start on the 23rd minute).

Moreover, Andy Cochran has just made available to me the English translation of the Arabic letter that the Danish Muslim delegation presented during their tour of the Middle East. To see the document, irrefutable proof of the delegation's intent to create animosity, click here: Download danish_letter.pdf

UPDATE 2/5: The original files in Arabic and Danish, first published in the Danish daily Ekstra Bladet, can be found here.

"We Want Blood on the Streets of England"

By Evan Kohlmann

Despite intense press coverage of the latest Denmark cartoon controversy, many observers have deftly ignored the larger implications of the outcry from conservative Muslim circles at the perceived blasphemy of the Prophet Mohammed.  Those implications are quite clear to me and should have been to anyone else who attended today's raucous protest rally outside the Danish embassy in London organized by the Islamic militant group formerly known as Al-Muhajiroun.  A representative of the organizers proclaimed through a loudspeaker that the cartoons were a desperate attempt to draw attention away from the "defeat" of the "infidels" in Iraq at the hands of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.  Loud cries reverberated through the crowd of hundreds calling upon Usama Bin Laden to "bomb Denmark", alongside similar emphatic screams to "nuke Germany, nuke France, nuke the USA."  Other angry demonstrators demanded--as a result of the Danish cartoons--that Al-Qaida launch 9/11-style terrorist attacks not just in Denmark, but also in France, the U.K., and elsewhere.  One protest organizer explained simply, "the language of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Usama Bin Laden is the only language that they understand."  When Al-Muhajiroun militants triumphantly burned a flag, it was not the Danish or Norwegian flag--but rather that of the European Union.  Indeed, the uproar over the Danish cartoons is merely the latest eruption of growing tensions between Muslims and non-Muslims across the European continent.  Eventually, it seems all but certain that these ongoing tensions will manifest themselves into further acts of terrorist violence.  Anyone who remains skeptical of this serious threat to the political stability of Europe should come and listen to extremist British Muslims gleefully express their desire to "spread blood in the streets of England" in "another 7/7"--precisely as they did today in front of hundreds of police and other onlookers.  There can be no clearer warning to the Western world.

See also: Al-Ghurabaa (UK) - "Kill those who insult the Prophet Mohammed."

Nigerian Gangs Expand into Afghan Heroin Trade

By Douglas Farah

A series of recent conversations confirm what a recent UN report (available here) touched on: The growing reach of Nigerian and other sub-Saharan drug trafficking gangs into the heroin trade, particularly the heroin trade in Afghanistan.

While Nigerian gangs have long been invovled in transshipping cocaine and heroin from Latin America to Europe and the United States, and expansion into Afghanistan signals a major expansion of their reach and capabilities. It also signals a new danger for the influx of massive amounts of cash into a region where disaffected armed groups are growing in power and influence while corrupt, incompetent governments continue to crumble and breed contempt. It also intersects with a region of the world where Salafist groups are expanding their appeal, reach, and support for armed conflict.

These groups are not necessarily related, but the history of weak and failing states intersecting with organized crime and terrorist networks makes it reasonable to assume the relationships can and will exist when conditions make such tactical alliances mutually beneficial. And, without intersecting directly, the benefits of chaos and the flow of weapons into the region will not be lost on the Salafists. To read full blog, go here.

In Hollywood, the U.S. is the enemy, not the terrorists

By Andrew Cochran

It's clear from the Oscar nominations and current crop of movies that Hollywood just isn't going to aim its cameras at the terrorists who hate us (especially the Hollywood culture) and who try to kill us. In Hollywood, the enemy is the United States of America. Note this wire story about the "political action" in movies says about Oscar nominee "Syriana" and its producer-star, George Clooney: "Clooney and his Section Eight production partner Steven Soderbergh also put their clout on the line to produce "Syriana," writer-director Steven Gaghan's journalistic investigation of the machinations of the U.S. government and oil companies in the Middle East." Has George ever "put his clout on the line" to tell the history of the Syrian Assad family's long support for Hezbollah, Hamas, and other terrorist groups who have murdered Americans, Israelis, and other innocents for decades?

The sickest and most egregious display of anti-Americanism and ignorance of Islamic terrorism might be "Valley of the Wolves Iraq," a Turkish-made film with Hollywood veterans Gary Busey and Billy Zane. One article describes it as "American soldiers in Iraq crash a wedding and pump a little boy full of lead in front of his mother. They kill dozens of innocent people with random machine gun fire, shoot the groom in the head, and drag those left alive to Abu Ghraib prison - where a Jewish doctor cuts out their organs, which he sells to rich people in New York, London and Tel Aviv."

Steven Spielberg, Mr. Hollywood, who twisted the terrorist murder of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics into a criticism of Israeli anti-terrorism tactics in his Oscar-nominated "Munich," provides the rationale behind the burst of political statements, "These movies are asking sensitive questions about racial intolerance and Middle East politics...Some of it is due to our own insecurity about the voices representing us in government right now. We feel like our government has set us adrift, and we're trying to make our voices heard. We're telling them to be worried about these things." Excuse me, we're supposed to be "racially tolerant" of terrorists?!

There are NO movies about our heroes in Afghanistan who liberated a country from the Taliban's and Al Qaeda's murderous grip - not one movie about the detective work that went into the arrest and conviction of Americans who funded Islamic terrorism in the 1990s through the misuse of charities and companies - not one in-theater movie about the victims of the 9/11 attacks and the heinous plot intended, as Bin Laden said afterwards, to kill up to 30,000 innocents. Many of the biggest stars won't visit troops in Iraq, even in the safest zones. Spielberg's statement says it all - these movies are about supporting the "Hate America" movement, and Hollywood really doesn't care about terrorism.

Why is DHS turning border security over to the private sector?

By Michael Cutler

Here is an article that should surprise me, but I am absolutely beyond being surprised where immigration law enforcement is concerned. We have read a number of stories about how our government has squandered many millions of dollars on cameras that were supposed to have been installed along the border to detect the illegal entry of aliens into our country. As it turned out, many of the cameras were never installed and quite a few of those that were installed didn't work. We have heard much criticism of the way that US-VISIT, the program that is supposed to fingerprint and photograph aliens entering our country is being implemented. Apparently Accenture is the company that has been given this costly contract that, from what I have read, may be paid more than 10 billion dollars and will require many years to be fully operational. Our government has about ten thousand Border Patrol agents and thousands of other employees who have experience in enforcing and adjudicating the immigration laws. However, I guess that the temptation of awarding yet another lucrative contract to the private sector is just too tempting for this administration.

I have never heard of a municipality hiring a private firm to deal with law enforcement, but that won't stop this administration. In fact, according to another article I just read, a subsidiary of Halliburton, KBR announced that the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) component has awarded KBR an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contingency contract to support ICE facilities in the event of an emergency. KBR is the engineering and construction subsidiary of Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) With a maximum total value of $385 million over a five-year term.

Records Show Terrorist Ties of Khalil Shikaki, Self-Proclaimed "Moderate"

By Steven Emerson

The following is a two-page summary of an extensive report on Khalil Shikaki's links to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. For a complete background file on the documents, tapes, declassified wiretaps, financial transactions and court records relating to Shikaki, please go to the page on The Investigative Project website.

A U.S.-based Palestinian scholar who insists that he is a political moderate and rejects violence has run afoul of evidence showing extensive ties with extremists and terrorist groups, including multiple financial dealings. Although he has claimed that he has no connection with or knowledge of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorist group, documents, video, financial records, government exhibits, declassified wiretaps and audiotapes show that Khalil Shikaki served as a pivotal intermediary in the operation of the PIJ in the United States and the West Bank and Gaza from 1989 through 1994. No one is claiming that Shikaki is himself a terrorist today, but rather he has not owned up to his extensive connections with known members of the PIJ and role as a intermediary in the operations of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad organization and its front groups in the United States. There is no evidence that Shikaki has been involved with or connected with any radical Islamic group since 1995.

Shikaki�s name came up during the Tampa trial late last year of Sami al-Arian, a former professor at the University of South Florida, on terrorism-related charges. Al-Arian was acquitted on eight of the charges, while the jury deadlocked on nine others. He remains in custody. Wiretapped conversations introduced in the Al-Arian federal prosecution suggest that Shikaki agreed to distribute funds for the terrorist PIJ, under the guise of aiding Palestinian charities.

For the European Union, Al Qaeda is NOT a terrorist organization (edited 2/5)

By Olivier Guitta

In fact, while researching a paper on EU-US cooperation, I found out that Al Qaeda was not included in the EU's main list of terror organizations. Here is the complete list.
European officials confirmed to me that stunning fact.
I need to clarify my earlier post here:
THE EU is using two different lists: this one and the one mirrorring the UN Consolidated List.
But recently talking to European officials, they confirmed that there was a heated debate to include AQ on the main list that I linked to. But the refusal front won.
Even though the EU has another list, it still does not make any sense why they did not put Al Qaeda on the main list. Every nation has just one terrorist list except the EU, why make things complicated?

I wrote an article for Tech Central Station on that very topic. (You can read it here)

Here are some excerpts:

Following the September 11 attacks, the European Union formulated an official list of terrorist organizations. Groups such as the Basque separatist organization ETA, "the external security arms of Hezbollah, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad", the real IRA, and the Orange Volunteers were placed on this list, which obliges member states to seize their assets. But there was no mention of Al Qaeda and this was three months after the attacks in New York and Washington DC. The most recent EU list of December 2005 includes now 48 groups (they removed Hezbollah altogether) but still no Al Qaeda.

As a comparison, Al Qaeda is of course included in the US State Department list as well as the UK and Australia ones, which seems only natural and common sense. So, how come the European Union does not consider Al Qaeda a terrorist entity?

Even though the EU has a different definition of terrorism than the US, there's no way Al Qaeda could not fit it. Europeans have been historically lenient towards what they assume to be "freedom fighting" groups or "mostly social" entities such as Hezbollah. But Al Qaeda cannot be considered either a freedom fighting group, except if one assumes that they are liberating the ex Caliphate, or a social group. But still the EU would not have it; Al Qaeda does not seem to fit its definition of a terrorist group.

Fabricated cartoons worsened Danish controversy

By Lorenzo Vidino

The controversy over the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed is expanding, as more Muslims join the boycott and protests against Denmark and various European newspapers decide to publish the cartoons, mostly out of solidarity with Jyllands Posten and to make a strong political stand. One issue that puzzles many Danes is the timing of this outburst. The cartoons were published in September: Why have the protests erupted from Muslims worldwide only now? The person who knows the answer to this question is Ahmed Abdel Rahman Abu Laban, a man that the Washington Post has recently profiled as �one of Denmark's most prominent imams.�

Last November, Abu Laban, a 60-year-old Palestinian who had served as translator and assistant to top Gamaa Islamiya leader Talaal Fouad Qassimy during the mid-1990s and has been connected by Danish intelligence to other Islamists operating in the country, put together a delegation that traveled to the Middle East to discuss the issue of the cartoons with senior officials and prominent Islamic scholars. The delegation met with Arab League Secretary Amr Moussa, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Sheikh Mohammad Sayyed Tantawi, and Sunni Islam�s most influential scholar, Yusuf al Qaradawi. "We want to internationalize this issue so that the Danish government will realize that the cartoons were insulting, not only to Muslims in Denmark, but also to Muslims worldwide," said Abu Laban.

On its face, it would appear as if nothing were wrong. However, the Danish Muslim delegation showed much more than the 12 cartoons published by Jyllands Posten. In the booklet it presented during its tour of the Middle East, the delegation included other cartoons of Mohammed that were highly offensive, including one where the Prophet has a pig face. But these additional pictures were NOT published by the newspaper, but were completely fabricated by the delegation and inserted in the booklet (which has been obtained and made available to me by Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet). The delegation has claimed that the differentiation was made to their interlocutors, even though the claim has not been independently verified. In any case, the action was a deliberate malicious and irresponsible deed carried out by a notorious Islamist who in another situation had said that �mockery against Mohamed deserves death penalty.� And in a quintessential exercise in taqiya, Abu Laban has praised the boycott of Danish goods on al Jazeera, while condemning it on Danish TV.

President Bush's Speech: What About Terrorist Infiltration Through Our Borders?

By Michael Cutler

As you know, I generally focus on immigration-related articles because of my long years of experience in dealing with immigration. Today however, I will break with that tradition but simply discuss my reaction to the President's State of the Union Address that he delivered yesterday. I will also, in passing, note comments made by Timothy M. Kaine, the newly elected governor of Virginia as the member of the Democratic Party who was selected to provide a rebuttal to the Presidential speech.

The President spent a good deal of time talking about our nation's war on terror. Some of the analysts on the various networks said that Karl Rove and other advisors to the President felt that national security is where the President and the administration is strongest and he apparently wanted to use the area of strength for the focus of the State of the Union Address. The President paid homage to the soldiers fighting in Iraq and elsewhere to protect our nation. I believe that virtually all Americans are united in their support for our valiant men and women who serve our nation in the military, so this was an easy topic for the President to rely on for some positive reaction from the politicians assembled to hear his address. He spoke about the need to support law enforcement, another easy issue to support from virtually everyone listening. He spoke about the wiretaps and surveillances and tried to make his case for going forward with this controversial program. And then he got to the immigration issue and spent barely two sentences on this critical issue.

To my thinking, immigration, especially illegal immigration is worthy of greater consideration than the less than one minute the President expended on this issue. As I have stated on many occasions, illegal immigration significantly impacts more aspects of this nation than perhaps any other single issue. Consider the first two sentences of the preface of the 9/11 Commission staff report on terrorist travel: �It is perhaps obvious to state that terrorists cannot plan and carry out attacks in the United States if they are unable to enter the country. Yet prior to September 11, while there were efforts to enhance border security, no agency of the U.S. government thought of border security as a tool in the counterterrorism arsenal.�

The State of the Union Address and Terrorism

By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross

In Tuesday's State of the Union address, President Bush discussed four major topics related to terrorism. He was strong when discussing Iran and Iraq, but his speech left something to be desired in its discussion of the linkage between democracy and peace and its discussion of the NSA's warrantless surveillance.

Iran. The address was hawkish on Iran. Bush made an important move by emphasizing the divsion between the clerical regime and the Iranian people. He said that Iranians are "held hostage by a small clerical elite that is isolating and repressing its people." Bush also spoke directly to the Iranian people about America's respect for their freedoms. The United States has not always drawn this sharp divide between the Iranian government and its citizens. But Bush's words in the State of the Union address, coupled with other recent pronouncements of high-level officials (such as Nicholas Burns's late November speech at the School of Advanced International Studies) indicate that this will be the administration's approach in the coming months.

Iraq. Bush's most significant statement about Iraq was that, although troops levels will decline as we progress in the ground war and as Iraqi forces are able to take over, "those decisions will be made by our military commanders, not by politicians in Washington, D.C." This is the right approach in Iraq. It is good to hear Bush affirm it in the State of the Union address. Bush's words should be encouraging to Americans and Iraqis alike.

Bush also did a good job explaining that regardless of whether we believe that the Iraq war was justified, a sudden withdrawal would be disastrous: "A sudden withdrawal of our forces from Iraq would abandon our Iraqi allies to death and prison, would put men like bin Laden and Zarqawi in charge of a strategic country, and show that a pledge from America means little. Members of Congress, however we feel about the decisions and debates of the past, our nation has only one option: We must keep our word, defeat our enemies, and stand behind the American military in this vital mission."

Bush also offered a three pronged plan for Iraq consisting of building an inclusive government, continuing reconstruction efforts, and striking terrorist targets while training Iraqi forces. While Bush oversells this as "a clear plan for victory," it is at least a reasonable approach going forward.

Democratization and peace. In this address, Bush provided -- as he has many times before -- the theoretical basis for the linkage between democracy and peace: "Democracies replace resentment with hope, respect the rights of their citizens and their neighbos, and join the fight against terror." The problem with the administration's approach to democratization to date is that it has placed great emphasis on voting and much less emphasis on the liberal institutions necessary for citizens to have true options at the ballot box: institutions like freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of religion.