posted on June 2, 2007 09:46:00 PM new
We must be doing something right....time after time we are catching those in the US who wish to achieve their goal of murdering American citizens.
======================
MSNBC News Services
Updated: 8:00 p.m. CT June 2, 2007
NEW YORK - Four Muslim men were foiled from carrying out a plot to destroy John F. Kennedy International Airport, kill thousands of people and trigger an economic catastrophe by blowing up a jet fuel artery that runs through populous residential neighborhoods, authorities said Saturday.
Three men were arrested and one was being sought in Trinidad on Saturday. In an indictment charging the four men, one of them is quoted as saying the plot would “cause greater destruction than in the Sept. 11 attacks.”
One of the suspects, Russell Defreitas, a U.S. citizen native to Guyana and retired JFK employee, said the airport was a symbol that would put “the whole country in mourning.”
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
Ann Coulter
[ edited by Linda_K on Jun 2, 2007 09:48 PM ]
posted on June 3, 2007 05:41:56 AM new
The "plot" was hatched up by simple infiltration and entrapment of those who have been mistreated and as a result have some animosity toward this country. These people have no connection to Al-Queda or other known terrorist organizations.
The goal is to produce fear and justification for a continued military stance while at the same time assuring the American people that the situation here is under control.
posted on June 3, 2007 07:01:36 AM new
The "plot" was hatched up by simple infiltration and entrapment of those who have been mistreated and as a result have some animosity toward this country. These people have no connection to Al-Queda or other known terrorist organizations.
What a crock!
It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.George S. Patton
posted on June 3, 2007 07:50:11 AM new
Most news reports I've heard this morning are downplaying the seriousness of it.
Experts calling alleged terror plot not very serious
Caroline Franks
Sunday, June 3, 2007
Counter Terrorism experts are now saying the alleged plot to blow up fuel tanks and a fuel pipeline at New York.s J-F-K tanks as not very serious.
Former chief counter-terrorism adviser in the United States Richard Clarke says the threat was not significant because it never got past the planning stage.
Clarke says the suspects never actually built a bomb or got a hold of any explosives.
Three of the four suspects are in custody and the fourth is believed to be somewhere in Trinidad.
posted on June 3, 2007 08:32:09 AM new
I really am not surprised that you are so influenced by this propaganda, Bear. Just as the consent for the war in Iraq was manufactured, this propaganda was manufactured for those who are easily influenced.
posted on June 3, 2007 02:45:31 PM new
Yea, Bear, after all the ONLY propoganda helen and kiara believe is what our enemies say.
Their answers here should come as NO surprise to anyone who has read their anti-American posts for years now.
===============
Jun 3, 2007 2:21 pm US/Eastern
Ex-Airport Worker Plots Massive Attack On JFK
Officials Believe Attack Could've Been Worse Than 9/11
Watch The Entire FBI Press Conference Here
Local Radicalized Muslim Man At Center Of Plot
Scott Weinberger
Reporting
(CBS) NEW YORK Russell Defreitas, a U.S. citizen native to Guyana and retired airport employee was the mastermind behind a plot to destroy John F. Kennedy International Airport, kill thousands of people and trigger an economic catastrophe by blowing up a jet fuel artery that runs through populous residential neighborhoods, authorities said Saturday.
Defreitas developed his hatred for America a decade ago while working as a cargo handler at JFK airport. While working at the airport, he said he saw military parts being shipped to Israel that he thought would be used to kill Muslims. Last August, he began planning an attack along with three other Muslim men, one of which was an FBI informant.
The FBI says they have recorded several conversations between the two during an 18-month investigation. Sources tell CBS 2 that on Friday, Defreitas told the informant he believed the authorities may be on to him, prompting the feds to move in.
Three of the men were arrested and one was being sought in Trinidad on Saturday. In an indictment charging the four men, one of them is quoted as saying the plot would “cause greater destruction than in the Sept. 11 attacks.”
Authorities said all four were motivated by a pattern of hatred toward the U.S., Israel and the West.
Defreitas said the airport was a symbol that would put “the whole country in mourning.”
“Anytime you hit Kennedy, it is the most hurtful thing to the United States,” he said on a recording made by a police informant. “They love John F. Kennedy like he’s the man ... It’s like you can kill the man twice.”
The plot, which the men code-named “Chicken Farm,” never got past the planning stages, authorities said.
“The devastation that would be caused had this plot succeeded is just unthinkable,” U.S. Attorney Roslynn R. Mauskopf said at a news conference, calling it “one of the most chilling plots imaginable.”
Despite their “extraordinary efforts,” the men never obtained any explosives, authorities said.
Mayor Bloomberg was briefed about the plot, and issued this statement:
"The fact that plotters conspired to plan an attack on John F. Kennedy Airport is another reminder that in today's world we face constant threats from people who want to take away our freedoms and destroy our way of life. Working together, NYPD and other local and federal law enforcement agencies have been on top of this unfolding plot for months, and they deserve our thanks and praise. This plot was only in its planning stages and at no point was anyone in imminent danger. New Yorkers should be comforted that the layers of safety provided by counter terrorism officials stopped these individuals before they could do any harm to our way of life."
“Pulling off any bombing of this magnitude would not be easy in today’s environment,” said Former U.S. State Department counterterrorism expert Fred Burton, though he added that it was difficult to determine the severity of the threat without knowing all the facts of the case.
Richard Kuprewicz, a pipeline expert and president of Accufacts Inc., an energy consulting firm that focuses on pipelines and tank farms, said the force of any explosion would depend on the amount of fuel under pressure, but it would not travel up and down the line.
“That doesn’t mean wackos out there can’t do damage and cause a fire, but those explosions and fires are going to be fairly restricted,” he said.
Since Defreitas has worked at the airport, security has tightened, and his knowledge of the operation was severely outdated.
The men tried to reach out to a Trinidadian radical Muslim group, Jamaat al Muslimeen, which launched an unsuccessful rebellion in 1990 that left 24 dead, according to the indictment.
Defreitas, a 63-year-old Brooklyn resident, first hatched his plan more than a decade ago when he worked as a cargo handler for a service company, according to the indictment. He was recorded saying he “wanted to do something to get those bastards,” and he boasted that he had been taught to make bombs in Guyana.
He was arraigned Saturday afternoon in federal court and was to be held pending a bail hearing scheduled for Wednesday, prosecutors said. He did not enter a plea at the arraignment.
His court-appointed lawyer, Drew Carter, reportedly told Magistrate Judge Kiyo A. Matsumoto that officials’ version of events was only part of the story. He said he would detail what he meant at trial.
Two other men, Abdul Kadir of Guyana and Kareem Ibrahim of Trinidad, were in custody in Trinidad. A fourth man, Abdel Nur of Guyana, was still being sought in Trinidad.
Trevor Paul, the top police official in Trinidad and Tobago, a twin-island nation off Venezuela’s coast, said Kadir and Ibrahim would likely be extradited to the U.S. after court hearings in Trinidad. He said he could not disclose whether the suspects were believed to be in Trinidad seeking support from Jamaat al Muslimeen.
Phone calls to Yasin Abu Bakr, the radical group’s leader, went unanswered Saturday.
The suspects believed explosives could ignite the pipeline at JFK and destroy the airport and parts of Queens, where the line runs underground, according to the indictment.
The U.S. Joint Terrorism Task Force recorded and surveilled the men, learning that Defreitas drove around and videotaped JFK on four occasions this past January.
When Defreitas returned from Guyana in February, U.S. customs officials searched his belongings and found Kadir’s name and telephone number in Defreitas’ address book. The government moved to foil the plot as Defreitas told an informant he was suspicious authorities knew about the plan.
The pipeline, owned by Buckeye Pipeline Co., takes fuel from a facility in Linden, N.J., to the airport. Other lines service LaGuardia Airport and Newark Liberty International Airport.
Defreitas, who retired from his job at JFK in 1995, was nabbed Friday night walking out of a Brooklyn diner.
A friend said Defreitas was not a danger, but was just a “two-bit hustler” who was always thinking up ways to make money.
“He’s not that type of person,” Trevor Watts told The New York Times after learning of his friend’s arrest. “He’s not smart enough.”
Kadir, a former member of Parliament in Guyana, was arrested in Trinidad for attempting to secure money for “terrorist operations,” according to a Guyanese police commander who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Kadir left his position in Parliament last year. Muslims make up about 9 percent of the former Dutch and British colony’s 770,000 population, mostly from the Sunni sect.
Isha Kadir, the Guyanese suspect’s wife, said her husband flew from Guyana to Trinidad on Thursday. She said he was arrested Friday as he was boarding a flight from Trinidad to Venezuela, where he planned to pick up a travel visa to attend an Islamic religious conference in Iran.
“We have no interest in blowing up anything in the U.S.,” she said Saturday from the couple’s home in Guyana, which neighbors Venezuela on South America’s northern coast. “We have relatives in the U.S.”
Investigators received information about the plot in January 2006, according to the indictment.
Buckeye spokesman Roy Haase said the company, which moves petroleum through pipelines in a number of states, had been informed of the threat from the beginning, but he declined to detail the company’s security measures.
“Given the nature of Buckeye business and the importance of this transportation network, we have an intense and ongoing communications relationship with the Port Authority, the New York City fire and police departments, the federal Department of Homeland Security and the FBI,” he said.
JFK and the area’s other airports remained at a heightened state of alert Saturday, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said.
Jeanie Mamo, a spokeswoman for the White House, said President Bush had been briefed and updated regularly as the investigation into the plot progressed.
The arrests mark the latest in a series of alleged homegrown terrorism plots targeting high-profile American landmarks.
A year ago, seven men were arrested in what officials called the early stages of a plot to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago and destroy FBI offices and other buildings.
A month later, authorities broke up a plot to bomb underwater New York City train tunnels to flood lower Manhattan.
And six people were arrested a month ago in an alleged plot to unleash a bloody rampage on Fort Dix in New Jersey.
=================================
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
Ann Coulter
[ edited by Linda_K on Jun 3, 2007 02:51 PM ]
posted on June 3, 2007 03:08:42 PM new
Maybe helen and kiara believe the terrorism threats in Australia are also only US propaganda. tsk tsk tsk
Talk about living in blind, total denial....the two of them hold the record.
=====================
May 30, 2007
9 Terror Suspects Plead Not Guilty
SYDNEY, Australia (AP) - Nine men accused of stockpiling bomb-making chemicals and plotting to avenge perceived injustices against Muslims pleaded not guilty to all charges Thursday in Australia's largest alleged terrorist conspiracy.
The men, all Muslims, are charged with conspiring between June 2004 and November 2005 to carry out an attack with bombs or other weaponry to advance a "political, religious or ideological cause." If convicted, they face a maximum penalty of life in prison.
Their lawyers have steadfastly maintained their clients' innocence, saying the chemicals found at their homes were for ordinary household or industrial uses.
At a pretrial hearing earlier this year, prosecutors claimed the nine suspects bought unrestricted chemicals that can be used in making explosives, and downloaded instructions from the Internet that included how to mix the cocktail of agents used to make the bombs used in the deadly 2005 London subway attacks.
Prosecutors allege the men were devotees of a radical Muslim cleric sympathetic to Osama bin Laden, and struck a pact to launch a terrorist attack because they felt their religion was under attack.
No planned target has been revealed, but police alleged the suspects had Australia's only nuclear reactor - a small facility used to make radioactive medical supplies - under surveillance.
The men were arrested in 2005 in a series of pre-dawn raids in Sydney and the southern city of Melbourne, where cleric Abdul Nacer Benbrika and other followers also were detained and now face separate charges of belonging to a terrorist group.
Authorities said police found transcripts of bin Laden speeches and other al-Qaida material, as well as videos of people being beheaded, in some of the suspects' homes.
The nine suspects are Mohammed Ali Elomar, Mazen Touma, Abdul Rakib Hasan, Khaled Cheikho, Moustafa Cheikho, Khaled Sharrouf, Mirsad Mulahalilovic, Omar Baladjam and Mohammed Jamal.
Judge Anthony Whealy said the trial should start next February.
--
===================
Then of course we STILL have the madman of Iran who continues to call for the destruction of Israel......and the fools believe they plan on doing that with a nw ENERGY program. LOL LOL
Deny what we hear on tapes from the terrorists themselves......yep that's the out-of-touch, heads stuck in the sand, pretend we can talk them out of their goals.....total idiots.
==============================
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
posted on June 3, 2007 03:17:12 PM new
On both yahoo news.com and reuters today:
Four arrested in plot to blow up New York airport By Chris Michaud
Sat Jun 2, 2:22 PM ET
Four people, including a former member of Guyana's parliament, have been arrested in connection with a plot to blow up New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport, U.S. officials said on Saturday.
Another one of the suspects was a former cargo handler at the airport. The four were charged with conspiring to attack the airport by planting explosives to blow up the airport's major jet fuel tanks and pipeline, the U.S. Justice Department said and other law enforcement officials said in a statement.
The attacks would result in destruction of "the whole of Kennedy," one suspect said in a recorded conversation, according to the statement. He predicted very few survivors.
This was "one of the most chilling plots imaginable," Roslynn Mauskopf, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, told a news conference. "The devastation that would be caused ... is just thinkable."
The 40-mile fuel pipeline to the airport extends from New Jersey and through the New York boroughs of Staten Island, Brooklyn and Queens.
The plot was foiled well before it came to fruition and the FBI said there was no threat to the public from the plot.
Mark Mershon, assistant director of in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's New York field office, said there was no indication of any connection with al Qaeda.
"We believe this threat has been fully contained," he told the news conference.
LINKS TO CARIBBEAN
The plot, which was investigated from January 2006 to the present, tapped into an international network of Muslim extremists from the United States, Guyana and Trinida.
The four defendants were identified as Russell Defreitas, a U.S. citizen and native of Guyana who was arrested in Brooklyn. Authorities said Defreitas was the former airport employee.
They said two suspects were in custody in Trinidad and Tobago, and identified those two as Abdul Kadir, a citizen of Guyana and former member of its parliament, and Kareem Ibrahim, a citizen of Trinidad and Tobago.
The fourth was named as Abdel Nur, described as a citizen of Guyana. Merchon said Nur was a fugitive who was believed to be in Trinidad. The authorities said Kadir and Nur were associates of Jamaat Al Muslimeen, which was behind a deadly coup attempt in Trinidad in 1990.
"Any time you hit Kennedy, it is the most hurtful thing to the United States. To hit John F. Kennedy, wow ... they love John F. Kennedy like he's the man ... if you hit that, this whole country will be mourning. You can kill the man twice," Defreitas said in another conversation, it said.
"Even the twin towers can't touch it," referring to the September 11 attacks in another comment that the law enforcement authorities said was recorded last month. "This can destroy the economy of America for some time."
The law enforcement authorities said the investigation was helped by an informant, who recorded the conversations with the suspects.
(Additional reporting by Xavier Briand and Jim Vicini in Washington)
[ Reuters Limited]
===========================
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
posted on June 3, 2007 03:52:51 PM new
Kiara, ""Most news reports I've heard this morning are downplaying the seriousness of it.""
Well, it shouldn't BE serious. Our airports should be SO safe, SO well protected that NOTHING could happen.
IF they aren't....and whose fault would that be....then it would be serious.
posted on June 3, 2007 04:09:37 PM new
Linda_K, I know you have a serious reading comprehension problem so I will try to make this as simple as possible for you.
I made a comment about news reports I heard this morning.
Nowhere did I give my opinion about the threat.
I did not have enough information about it.
Can you understand that or is it still too complicated for you?
posted on June 3, 2007 04:12:04 PM newInformant plays key role in JFK plot
By LARRY McSHANE, Associated Press Writer 18 minutes ago
NEW YORK - A convicted drug dealer who agreed to pose as a wannabe terrorist among a shadowy group now accused of plotting to blow up John F. Kennedy International Airport secretly fed information to federal investigators in exchange for a lighter sentence.
posted on June 3, 2007 10:32:47 PM new
Yes, mentioning that the news was downplaying it.....means nothing. Whatever YOU need to believe kiara. I just see yours and helens posts as always so quick to defend those our nation accuses of working to do us harm. While at the same time being so quick, willing to accept anything negative said about our troops....without proof...just false accusations.
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
It's been revealed that Russell DeFreitas is a former employee of Evergreen, an aviation company with longstanding ties to the CIA.
From Cannonfire...
"One thing I'd like to know is just when the 63 year-old Russell DeFreitas retired from his job. It would be terribly embarrassing if the administration allowed a man with connections to Jamaat Al Muslimeen to work as a baggage handler after September 11, 2001."
"I think we need to know a lot more about Russell DeFreitas, associate of the dangerous Jamaat al Muslimeen -- and former employee of the CIA."
posted on June 4, 2007 10:58:55 AM new Feds Hoped to Snag Bin Laden Nuke Expert in JFK Bomb Plot
Fox News
Monday , June 04, 2007
NEW YORK —
Al Qaeda's reported nuclear whiz kid — a "tantalizing terror figure" with a $5 million bounty on his head — was the figure investigators had hoped to snag in their 18-month probe of a plot to blow up a New York airport, the New York Post reported Monday.
The name of Adnan Gulshair el-Shukrijumah, reportedly the man Usama bin Laden tapped to lead a previous plot to detonate nuclear bombs simultaneously in several U.S. cities, came up at several points in taped conversations during the probe, law-enforcement sources familiar with the investigation told the paper.
Three Muslim men were nabbed Friday in the alleged plan to attack John F. Kennedy International Airport, which involved exploding a jet-fuel pipeline that snakes from New York to New Jersey. A fourth suspect is at large.
Click here to read the full New York Post story.
Given Shukrijumah's notoriety in the terror world and the fact that he grew up in Guyana, as did three of the suspects, investigators immediately homed in on him, the Post reported.
• Get complete coverage in FOXNews.com's War on Terror center.
"We thought he could be the invisible hand. He's always in the shadows, particularly in [the Caribbean]. He's passed through it, he's known, his name came up in the conversations," one law-enforcement official told the Post. "He would have been the prize."
Meanwhile, federal authorities said the informant who helped break up an alleged plot to bomb a fuel pipeline feeding the city's busiest airport was so convincing to the suspects that they actually thanked God he was with them.
The suspects, accused mastermind Russell Defreitas, 63, is in custody in New York, where he will have a bail hearing on Wednesday.
But two other suspects, Kareem Ibrahim and Abdul Kadir, a former member of Guyana's Parliament, were in Trinidad and will fight extradition to the United States, their lawyer, Rajid Persad, told a Trinidadian court on Monday.
The two made their initial court appearance there on one count each of conspiracy to commit a terrorist act against the government of the United States. The judge set a bail hearing for June 11 and an extradition hearing on Aug. 2.
The informant made several overseas trips to discuss the plot against the airport, even visiting a radical Muslim group's compound in Trinidad, officials said. He also joined the plotters on airport surveillance trips — where authorities were waiting, they said.
The suspects were convinced the informant was guided by a higher purpose: The ringleader believed the informant "had been sent by Allah to be the one" to pull off the bombing, according to a federal complaint.
The four-person plot, revealed Saturday, demonstrated the growing importance of informants in the government's efforts to combat terrorism, particularly as smaller radical groups become more aggressive.
Tom Corrigan, a former member of the FBI-New York Police Department Joint Terrorism Task Force, said the Kennedy airport case and the recent plot to attack Fort Dix illustrated the need for inside information. Six men were arrested in a plot to attack soldiers at the New Jersey military base after an FBI informant infiltrated that group.
"These have been two significant cases back-to-back where informants were used," Corrigan said. "These terrorists are in our own backyard. They may have to reach out to people they don't necessarily trust, but they need — for guns, explosives, whatever."
Without informants, Corrigan said, investigators are often left with little more than educated guesswork. "In most cases, you can't get from A to B without an informant," said the ex-NYPD detective.
In the Kennedy airport case, the informant was a twice-convicted drug dealer who found himself in the midst of a terrorist plot conceived as more devastating than the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
"Would you like to die as a martyr?" the informant was asked, according to the indictment.
He unhesitatingly replied yes and soon was making surveillance trips around the airport — the "chicken farm," as the planners dubbed their target.
Authorities said the JFK scheme was an example of homegrown terrorism. The man accused of being the mastermind, Defreitas, 63, immigrated to the U.S. more than 30 years ago, but he told the federal informant that his feelings of disgust toward his adopted homeland had lingered for years.
"Before terrorism started in this country," he said in one secretly recorded conversation.
Defreitas, in custody Sunday pending a bail hearing, was arrested Friday night outside Brooklyn's Lindenwood Diner — a spot once bugged by federal officials tracking former Gambino family boss John A. "Junior" Gotti.
The four Muslim men accused in the JFK plot didn't turn to Pakistan, Iran or Afghanistan for support after targeting the airport, home to an average of 1,000 daily flights and 45 million passengers annually.
Instead, according to a federal complaint, the informant and defendants Kareem Ibrahim and Defreitas visited a compound belonging to Jamaat al Muslimeen, a radical Islamic group known for launching a bloody 1990 coup attempt in Trinidad that involved taking the prime minister and his Cabinet hostage. It left 24 people dead.
Though Jamaat al Muslimeen did have contact with the men accused in the Kennedy airport plot, it is not accused of offering them any support. The group, whose followers are largely black converts to Sunni Islam, has faded as a political force in Trinidad as its leader, Yasin Abu Bakr, fends off criminal charges of inciting violence.
The rebels in the 1990 raid on Parliament surrendered and were pardoned.
When Defreitas discussed his radical "brothers" with the informant, he made it clear they were not Arabs, but from Trinidad and Guyana.
The complaint made clear the informant had deeply infiltrated the group. Defreitas, a retired JFK airport cargo worker, made four reconnaissance missions to the airport, authorities said. They captured each one on audio and video equipment.
Ibrahim and another suspect, Abdul Kadir, were in custody in Trinidad awaiting extradition hearings. Officials identified Kadir as a former mayor of a Guyanese town and a member of the country's Parliament.
Authorities in Trinidad were still seeking a fourth suspect, Abdel Nur.
=========================================
The Associated Press contributed to this
report
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
posted on June 4, 2007 11:05:05 AM new
Just in case helen misses this part:
The man accused of being the mastermind, Defreitas, 63, immigrated to the U.S. more than 30 years ago, but he told the federal informant that his feelings of disgust toward his adopted homeland had lingered for years.
posted on June 7, 2007 03:58:19 PM new
"We must be doing something right"......as are our allies in the war on terror that edwards and some other crazy liberals deny is present.
Italian, UK police break up Islamic militant cell
Thu Jun 7, 2007 12:22PM EDT
By Sara Rossi and Marie-Louise Gumuchian
MILAN (Reuters) - Italian and British police arrested nine suspected members of a North African Islamic militant group linked to al Qaeda, which had the potential to strike targets in Europe, Italian police said on Thursday.
The arrests targeted a cell of the al Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb, previously known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, or GSPC, police in Milan said. The nine arrested were Tunisians.
Police said the cell was a financial and logistical base sending money to camps in Afghanistan, but also recruited fighters and had links to attacks in Tunisia and Algeria this year.
"The group ... was a cell inspired by al Qaeda ... and potentially able to strike targets in Italy, Europe and other countries in the world," said a copy of the arrest warrant obtained by Reuters. It named all those detained.
"The organization created a logistical base in Italy and a channel to recruit mujahideen in the terrorist jihadist fight in Afghanistan, Algeria, Tunisia, Chechnya and Bosnia," Domenico Grimaldi, head of a police criminal investigation unit, added.
One of the suspects, 46 year-old Habib Ignaoua, was detained at his home in north London on a arrest warrant issued by Italy, British police said, in an operation linked to the Milan swoop.
British police said he was wanted for offences including terrorism and forgery and that the warrant alleged that "between 1997 and 1999 he convinced and organized volunteers to undergo military training in Afghanistan for jihad with the use of false documentation".
TRAINING CAMPS
In Italy, one of the chief suspects, Essid Sami Ben Khemais, was about to leave jail last week after a six-year sentence when the new arrest warrant was served.
The detentions, made after a former cell member collaborated with police and described the training camps, appeared to be the first against the group in Europe since it changed name in January to position itself as the North African arm of Osama bin Laden's network.
While some European counter-terrorism sources view the name change as a propaganda exercise, others fear a broadening of the threat to both North Africa and parts of Europe.
The group claimed responsibility for the April 11 bombings in Algiers that killed 33 people. Security experts say a spate of suicide bombings in Algeria and Morocco that month marked a switch to the tactics used by al Qaeda in Iraq and Afghanistan.
France's top anti-terrorism investigator, Jean-Louis Bruguiere, told Reuters this week that the former GSPC might now try to expand its network into France, Spain and Italy.
"The GSPC has become, as it were, a sort of regional branch of al Qaeda, its mission being to federate all the radical, Salafist organizations in North Africa -- Moroccan, Libyan and Tunisian -- and, at the same time, to provide logistical support to the Iraqi networks," Bruguiere said.
(Additional reporting by Mark Trevelyan in London)
================================
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
Ann Coulter
[ edited by Linda_K on Jun 7, 2007 04:00 PM ]
posted on June 7, 2007 04:03:18 PM new
Ya but if we're fighting them THERE...how can they be HERE ???
Well, it shouldn't BE serious. Our airports should be SO safe, SO well protected that NOTHING could happen.
IF they aren't....and whose fault would that be....then it would be serious.
posted on June 7, 2007 07:00:36 PM new
Did you see how any of the reports failed to mention the arrests were the result of Bush's terrorism measures. Nothing like good old fashion police work to capture criminals.
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
posted on June 8, 2007 11:17:57 AM new
"terrorism measures" include global agencies keeping track of these dirtbags and informing each other, plus following money trails of "suspect" organizations. All of which seem to be paying off quite well.
posted on June 8, 2007 01:09:14 PM new
That is just ordinary police work that governement agencies like the FBI and CIA were doing before 9/11. That is not anything Bush created.
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
