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Noordin Top
A top anti-terrorism official informed the AFP on Thursday that Noordin Mohammed Top is likely hiding out in Java, Indonesia’s main island. Top is accused of masterminding the deadly July suicide bombings on hotel in Jakarta. The Malaysian is one of Asia’s most wanted terrorists and is believed to have chosen to stay on the densely populated island despite a nationwide manhunt, security ministry anti-terror chief Ansyaad Mbai said.
Noordin allegedly also masterminded a 2003 attack on the Marriott that killed 12 people, as well as the 2004 bombing of the Australian embassy and 2005 attacks on tourist restaurants on the holiday island of Bali.
Police believe they narrowly missed Noordin in a dramatic televised raid in August on a safehouse in Temanggung, Central Java.
“We’re sure Noordin is in Indonesia, basically in Java,” Mbai said. “Even sometimes he has gone out of Java but he always comes back. Basically there are groups in Java that support him… his favorite place is Central Java.”
Police also said on Thursday they were investigating the possibility the attacks were funded by phone or internet banking from the Middle East.
“We’re going to keep following this and making sure, but activities in Yemen and Saudi Arabia are the key link with Indonesia. We will have to look into it first however,” national police chief Bambang Hendarso Danuri expanded on the matter.
Police this week said they had declared as a suspect Mohammed Jibril Abdurrahman, a radical publisher who went by the online moniker “Prince of Jihad”, for allegedly funding the bombings, possibly from foreign al-Qaeda brokers.
A Saudi national has also been arrested and accused of helping to fund the attacks.
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A former commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards has been nominated by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s president, to head the country’s defense ministry, despite being listed on Interpol’s wanted register for the 1994 bombing of a Jewish cultural center in Argentina.
Argentinian prosecutors joined Jewish groups last night in condemnation of Ahmadinejad’s decision to propose Ahmad Vahidi for the senior cabinet post.
Vahidi has been on an Interpol “red notice” since November 2007, in connection with the car bomb attack on the Israeli-Argentine Mutual Association (AMIA) building in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people and injured 150 – the worst attack on a Jewish target outside Israel since the second world war.
Interpol’s red notices are alerts to its 187 member nations. They are not arrest warrants but are sometimes interpreted as a request for apprehending a suspect.
At the time of the attack Vahidi, who is currently Iran’s deputy defence minister, commanded a notorious unit of the Revolutionary Guards called the Quds Force. It is known for orchestrating Iran’s overseas operations including working alongside Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group, which is accused of carrying out the Buenos Aires attack on the instigation of Iran.
Iranian lawmakers have yet to ratify the 21-member cabinet. Fears have been voiced that his selections were based on their loyalty rather than experience.
Sometimes you have to wonder if Ahmadinejad is really making all of these moves for the betterment of Iran, or just because he likes the media attention it gives him. Perhaps he also is trying to higher those who are most against the Jewish population, as if he needed to solidify his beliefs in that arena. Regardless, just because the people aren’t protesting in the streets of Tehran any longer, very strange events are still occurring basically everyday in Iran. Don’t let that country slip out of the spotlight.
UPDATE: The Cabinet has been approved by parliament.
Ahmad Vahidi (Interpol)
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The British government decided it was “in the overwhelming interests of the United Kingdom” to make Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, eligible for return to Libya after discussions between Libya and BP over a multi-million-pound oil exploration deal had hit difficulties. These were resolved soon afterwards.
In this photo taken Thursday, Aug. 20, 2009, Libyan Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, who was found guilty of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, center, is helped down the airplane steps on his arrival at an airport in Tripoli, Libya. Britain has condemned the "upsetting" scenes of jubilation in Tripoli at the return of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi and considered canceling a royal visit to Libya as a sign of displeasure. (AP Photo)
This information came from leaked letters sent two years ago by Jack Straw, the justice secretary, to Kenny MacAskill, his counterpart in Scotland, who has been widely criticised for taking the formal decision to permit Megrahi’s release.
Edward Davey, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, said: “This is the strongest evidence yet that the British government has been involved for a long time in talks over al-Megrahi in which commercial considerations have been central to their thinking.”
Two letters dated five months apart show that Straw initially intended to exclude Megrahi from a prisoner transfer agreement with Colonel Muammar Gadaffi, under which British and Libyan prisoners could serve out their sentences in their home country.
In a letter dated July 26, 2007, Straw said he favoured an option to leave out Megrahi by stipulating that any prisoners convicted before a specified date would not be considered for transfer. Downing Street had also said Megrahi would not be included under the agreement.
Straw then switched his position as Libya used its deal with BP as a bargaining chip to insist the Lockerbie bomber was included. This deal, for oil and gas, is potentially worth up to £15 billion and was announced in May 2007. Six months later the agreement was still waiting to be ratified.
On December 19, 2007, Straw wrote to MacAskill announcing that the UK government was abandoning its attempt to exclude Megrahi from the prisoner transfer agreement, citing the national interest.
In a letter leaked by a Whitehall source, he wrote: “I had previously accepted the importance of the al-Megrahi issue to Scotland and said I would try to get an exclusion for him on the face of the agreement. I have not been able to secure an explicit exclusion. The wider negotiations with the Libyans are reaching a critical stage and, in view of the overwhelming interests for the United Kingdom, I have agreed that in this instance the [prisoner transfer agreement] should be in the standard form and not mention any individual.”
Within six weeks of the government climbdown, Libya had ratified the BP deal. The prisoner transfer agreement was finalized in May this year, leading to Libya formally applying for Megrahi to be transferred to its custody.
Saif Gadaffi, the colonel’s son, has insisted that negotiation over the release of Megrahi was linked with the BP oil deal:
“The fight to get the [transfer] agreement lasted a long time and was very political, but I want to make clear that we didn’t mention Mr Megrahi. At all times we talked about the [prisoner transfer agreement]. It was obvious we were talking about him. We all knew that was what we were talking about. People should not get angry because we were talking about commerce or oil. We signed an oil deal at the same time. The commerce and oil deals were all with the [prisoner transfer agreement].”
His account is confirmed by other sources. Sir Richard Dalton, a former British ambassador to Libya and a board member of the Libyan British Business Council, said: “Nobody doubted Libya wanted BP and BP was confident its commitment would go through. But the timing of the final authority to spend real money was dependent on politics.”
Bob Monetti of New Jersey, whose son Rick was among the victims of the 1988 bombing, said: “It’s always been about business.”
BP denied that political factors were involved in the deal’s ratification or that it had stalled during negotiations over the prisoner transfer talks.
A Ministry of Justice spokesman denied there had been a U-turn, but said trade considerations had been a factor in negotiating the prisoner exchange deal. He said Straw had unsuccessfully tried to accommodate the wish of the Scottish government to exclude Megrahi from agreement.
The spokesman claimed the deal was ultimately “academic” because Megrahi had been released on compassionate grounds:
“The negotiations on the [transfer agreement] were part of wider negotiations aimed at the normalisation of relations with Libya, which included a range of areas, including trade. The exclusion or inclusion of Megrahi would not serve any practical purpose because the Scottish executive always had a veto on whether to transfer him.”
FBI Director Robert Mueller
FBI Director Robert Mueller sharply criticized Scotland’s justice minister for releasing the Lockerbie bomber, an act that “gives comfort to terrorists” all over the world.
The angry tone of the letter is out of character with the normally reserved Mueller, indicating his outrage is personal as well as professional. He also sent copies to the families of the Lockerbie victims.
“I have made it a practice not to comment on the actions of other prosecutors. Your decision to release Megrahi causes me to abandon that practice in this case. I do so because I am familiar with the facts, and the law. … And I do so because I am outraged at your decision, blithely defended on the grounds of ‘compassion.’”
Before he became FBI director, Mueller spent years as a Justice Department lawyer leading the investigation into the 1988 airplane bombing that killed 270 people, most of them Americans. Mueller said Thursday’s release was “as inexplicable as it is detrimental to the cause of justice. Indeed your action makes a mockery of the rule of law.”
His letter was dated Friday, and was made public Saturday.
Releasing the convicted bomber “gives comfort to terrorists around the world who now believe that regardless of the quality of the investigation … the terrorist will be freed by one man’s exercise of ‘compassion.’”
I wrote up a post for the Penn State online media outlet Onward State last week and they put it up on the site yesterday. It doesn’t pertain to anything related to this blog, so I won’t post it here, but if you follow this link you can read it.
I felt that I needed to speak my mind about an overpriced piece of technology being used in the Penn State classrooms, we will see what I can do about it from here.
Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said Monday people “are hyperventilating” about his assertion that politics played a role in talk of raising the terror alert before the 2004 elections.
“A consensus was reached. We didn’t go up. The process worked,” Ridge told ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
Now, I really like Tom Ridge. What he did for PA before moving on to DHS cannot be forgotten. That said, what did he expect to happen after making those statements. I don’t think anyone was real happy to hear that the terror alert system could be vulnerable to political pressure instead of raw intelligence.
I hope Obama overhauls that system.
This post came from my iPod. It is the first of it’s kind.
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An unidentified militant pretended to surrender to authorities, then blow himself up while being searched in an assassination attempt on the Saudi Deputy Interior Minister Muhammad Bin Nayif. The blast occurred in Bin Nayif’s private office in Jidda, close enough to lightly wound the Prince.
The attack is the first confirmed jihadi assassination attempt on a senior prince in Saudi history. There have been rumours of such attempts in the past, but none have ever been confirmed. The attack was claimed by al-Qaida on the Arabian Peninsula (QAP), showing that it is definitely after the royal family. The attack underlines QAP’s ideological turn as they move to a more revolutionary direction and away from focusing exclusively on Western targets.
Muhammad Bin Nayif’s role in the Saudi counterterrorism apparatus is as the top CT official and the main contact point between the state and the radical Islamist community. Militants go to see him when they want to surrender. He has been doing personal behind-the-scenes liaison work with the jihadi community since at least the late 1990s.
Because of this, Bin Nayif has received hundreds of jihadis in his office and never experienced any security problems. Over time, this made the office overconfident about their security. Also, the fact that it was 11.30 at night during a popular Ramadan reception probably made security even more lax. The bottom line is that it didn’t take a lot of planning to pull this off, so it doesn’t say a whole lot for QAP’s operational capabilities. However, I doubt access to Bin Nayif will be hard to come by in the coming months.
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Iraq’s senior leadership was given a report by the Iraqi Intelligence Service indicating the existence of three terrorist organizations or groups which carry the name of al-Qaeda – two of which are financed by Iran.
The first organization is linked with the al-Quds Brigade (Failaq al-Quds) under the supervision of General Qassim Suleimani. It has recruited citizens from the provinces of Baghdad, al-Anbar, and Mosul trained in Iran but redirected into Iraq through other Arab countries to carry out murders, kidnappings, and bombings against targets in their respective provinces.
The second organization is known as the Islamic State of Iraq, led by Abu Hamza al-Muhajer, an Egyptian citizen with connections to al-Qaeda. The activities of this group have been constrained because many of its leaders have been killed or captured. However, they still continue to carry out assassination and bombings.
The third group is Ansar al-Islam, which is active in Iraqi Kurdistan and the other provinces in northern Iraq. The leadership of the group receives its orders from Iran and has occasionally suspended its activities for political reasons.
The intelligence report focused on a pivotal point regarding a change in the tactics used by Iran, which is to send terrorists to Iraq from other neighboring countries [most likely Syria] to remove any suspicion of Iranian involvement. This new tactic has enabled the Iranians to recruit a large number of people, several times the number of traditional agents who work with the al-Quds Brigade in Iraq. Political quarters with strong connections in Iran have refused to deal with the report, because of the sensitive issues it raises and because it concluded that Gen. Suleimani is the principal organizer of large-scale bombings aimed at destabilizing Iraq, and was behind the deadly bombings in Baghdad on August 19.
Intelligence sources claim that Iraqi intelligence chief Muhammad al-Shahwani has resigned in the wake of information he submitted about Iranian involvement in the August 19 bombings. Sources in the Iraqi Intelligence Service maintain that the Service has submitted information over the last 6 months about the al-Quds Brigade carrying out bombings of churches and Shi’ite mosques, which reached its zenith on August 19. According to these sources, al-Shahwani attended a high-level security meeting at which he presented information as well as video and audio documentation, in addition to information from inside Iran, about the instruments that were planned to be used on August 19. A number of senior officials, associated with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki have insisted that Iran was not officially accused in the bombings or in the bombing of the churches and the mosques. As a result, al-Shahwani has submitted his resignation and left Iraq [there is conflicting news from Baghdad as to whether al-Shahwani has resigned or was forced to retire.] Instead, Iraqi authorities have prepared a fabricated story [accusing a senior Ba'th member of the bombing; see Senior Iraqi Ba'th Official In Syria Behind Attacks In Iraq]; Terrorism in Baghdad: The Iranian Connection]instead of laying the blame on the al-Quds Brigade and its role in Iraq.
UPDATE
The NEFA Foundation has obtained and translated a new communique from Al-Qaida’s “Islamic State of Iraq” (ISI) claiming responsibility for the coordinated August 19 suicide bombing attacks on Iraqi government ministries in the capital Baghdad. According to the statement, “disciples of the Islamic State have launched a new blessed battle in the heart of stricken Baghdad, to attack the infidel dens and deviant fortresses of the apostate government… The ground shook beneath their feet and their hearts were torn apart with terror and fear. Their weakness and the fragility of the nation–and how it is divided–has been revealed.” The statement also addressed the issue of civilian casualties: “if we have accidentally killed or harmed those of Sunni Muslim blood who were located in these places, then we send our wishes to those wounded persons for a speedy recovery, and for those who were killed, [we wish them] to be raised as martyrs. We beseech them [Sunni Muslims] to Allah to avoid passing by or being in these places as much as possible. We will not stop our jihad against the mushrikeen and defending against the infidels for the sake of those fallen martyrs.”
An English translation of the Al-Qaida communique can be downloaded from the NEFA Foundation website.
Law enforcement and intelligence agencies in the United States and abroad are preparing to go on high alert as part of a massive terrorism prevention exercise. An exercise like this has never been attempted.
The 5 day scenario is that an attack occurs outside of the U.S., followed by the receipt of intelligence that a follow-up attack is planned inside the U.S., forcing agencies inside and out of the country to test their coordination, intelligence and terror prevention skills.
The National Level Exercise 2009 includes Britain, Mexico, Canada, and Australia and “will be the first major exercise conducted by the United States government that will focus exclusively on terrorism prevention and protection, as opposed to incident response and recovery,” the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) said in a statement.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano gave some quotes on the event:
“Coordinating with our partners across the United States and around the world is critical to protecting the nation from terrorists attacks.”
“The National Level Exercise allows us to test our capabilities in real-time to refine and strengthen our strategies for preventing terrorist attacks.”
The exercise aims to test intelligence sharing, counter-terrorism investigation, border security, infrastructure protection, security alerts and international coordination, “lessons learned from the exercise will provide valuable insights to guide future planning for securing the nation against terrorist attacks, disasters, and other emergencies,” FEMA said.
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Bryant Neal Vinas, a 26-year-old from Long Island, N.Y., was charged back in January with attacking a U.S. military base and providing information to the Al-Qaeda terror network. The court documents remained classified because their publication could have compromised other ongoing investigations, but now they have been released and provide insight into one of the few Americans known to have joined or trained with Al-Qaeda.
The Facts:
- He started attending Islamic services three or four years ago and eventually converted. He joined the the Islamic Association of Long Island, a mosque where most attendees are from Pakistan. While there, he went by the name Ibrahim.
- Vinas became a licensed truck driver but quit his job and left home in 2007, saying he wanted to study Islam and Arabic. His parents had no idea where he went.
- His confiscated computer revealed that prior to leaving home, Vinas had visited jihadist websites.
- Because the young American had no previous criminal record and no connection with any other terrorist groups, he was able to travel freely through foreign countries.
- Traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan in late 2007 or early 2008, where he went by a number of names, including Ben Yameen al-Kanadee and Bashir al-Amriki (Bashir the American).
- After a truck bomb killed more than 50 people at the Islamabad Marriott hotel in September 2008, the FBI interviewed the Vinas family about their son. According to Vinas’ father, they indicated that it was just routine.
- Vinas was in Peshwar, Pakistan in November 2008, supposedly to buy supplies and use the Internet, when he was arrested by Pakistani authorities. Authorities have not revealed how they located him.
- He has been linked to a Belgian-French terror cell and also to Moez Garsallaoui, a Tunisian Islamist militant whom he may have met while in Pakistan.
- Vinas was charged with conspiracy to murder U.S. citizens, providing information to a terrorist organization, and receiving “military-type training” from a Al-Qaeda. He originally pled not guilty but switched on Jan 28 and pled guilty to all charges.
- According to court documents, he admitted to firing rockets on a U.S. military base in Afghanistan in September 2008.
- Vinas informed U.S. officials of an Al Qaeda plot to blow up a Long Island Rail Road commuter train in New York’s Penn Station, saying that he had provided them with details of the New York transit system. This revelation lead authorities to issue a Nov. 25 2008 terror alert.
- He is expected to be a key witness in the cases of other Al Qaeda members, including that of Malika El Aroud, a Morrocan-born Belgian woman accused of recruiting Al Qaeda members over the Internet.
- Vinas is currently in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service in an undisclosed location somewhere in New York.
Interrogation
Vinas’ testimony gives us a unique view inside al-Qaeda and how they operate. Notes include the classes he took at ‘terror school.’
In Waziristan between March and July 2008, Mr. Vinas undergoes a proper Qaeda education. There were three basic courses, each with 10 to 20 students, according to the interrogation notes.
The first course offered an introduction to the AK-47, the machine gun and the pistol. Then came a class in what became Mr. Vinas’s concentration: explosives. This 15-day course taught students to manufacture suicide belts, how to tuck the belts around their waists and how to test the battery and voltmeters.
Classmates become comfortable seeing, smelling and touching various explosives, according to the interrogation summary.
The third Qaeda class offered an introduction to rocket-propelled grenades. Shortly after, Mr. Vinas graduated from terror school. (Other classes offered instruction in forgery, poison and advanced bombs. None mentioned the Geneva Conventions or the treatment of prisoners and civilians, the summary notes.)
“Soon after Vinas had completed the courses, A. S. told him that all of the students underwent a written evaluation of their performance during the courses, and that these reports were kept in the student’s personal file,” the interrogation summary notes, without identifying A. S.
Qualified now to attack American and NATO bases, Mr. Vinas hiked off with a unit and twice tried to fire rockets at American bases. The first attack failed because of radio problems, and in the second case, the missiles fell short of the base.
“I consulted with a senior Al Qaeda leader and provided detailed information about the operation of the Long Island Rail Road system which I knew because I had ridden the railroad on many occasions,” he said, reading from a prepared statement. “The purpose of providing this information was to help plan a bomb attack of the Long Island Rail Road system.”
Analysis
So we now know that al-Qaeda may be more successful in recruiting Americans than we previously thought. We also know that they are interested in our mass transport systems, something that has been taken advantage of in other countries. Because the public is so far behind in getting this information, which I think was a good move by the government, we can’t fully grasp what needs to be done. I would sure hope that, because 6 months have passed, security was stepped up at the Long Island Rail Road system. I think our mass transportation systems across the country need to be looked at. Especially with the crash in Washington D.C. and the subsequent realization that the system had been essentially ignored for a long time. If we do nothing, the country remains vulnerable to attack, I don’t believe the government is just sitting idly by, but I would also like to see some documented progress. I would also like to find out who this mysterious A.S. is.
