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Terror Networks
Al-Qaida May Be Planning "Death Blow"
2003-11-01
Source: Middle East Online, JUS News Desk
Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network is planning a "death blow" against Americans during the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, a Saudi magazine reports in its issue due out Friday. "Al-Qaeda is going to carry out a death blow against Americans during the month of Ramadan," Al-Majallah said, quoting an e-mail sent by Abu Mohammed al-Ablaj, identified as a senior member of al-Qaeda.
I get e-mails regularly, too. One of them — actually quite a few of them — tell me I've won the lotto in Europe... Ablaj, aka Mullah Seif el Din, and Thabet ibn Qais, by the way, are the guys who gave the brag on the Riyadh bombings...
Ablaj, who regularly communicates with the London-based weekly via e-mail, did not specify if the threatened strike will be carried out in the United States or against American interests abroad. "Muslims have the right to draw the blood of Americans, civilian or military, everywhere in the world," Ablaj said.
"That's because... ummm... we're Muslims."
He did not dismiss the possibility of a "painful" strike in Iraq, which is currently under a US-led occupation following the overthrow of dictator Saddam Hussein.
I doubt that would be a "death blow."
"Bin Laden has ordered his supporters to carry out a guerrilla war against Arab and Muslim countries where there is an American military and commercial presence," Ablaj said. "The guerrilla war decided by bin Laden and his assistants won't be limited to martyr (suicide) operations mentioned in his last two messages. This war will be carried out by other means and using different types of weapons," he added.
We'll be curious to see what they are. Or if the weapons are nothing but wind. Remember Sully telling us to "fasten our safety belts"? And Binny was soon going to appear on the teevee?
In a message purported to be from bin Laden and aired October 18 by Qatar's Al-Jazeera television station, the terror chief threatened to send suicide bombers to the United States and attack any forces joining the US-led coalition in Iraq.
Posted by:Fred Pruitt

#9  I'm with AP and OP in terms of how the American public would react if, God forbid, there were to be a second major strike. They don't call it the Silent Majority for nothing. Our response to 911, despite all the hot air coming from our own defeatists, has been controlled and rational. We're using JDAMS to make sure we get Achmed but not Mahmoud. The next time, if there is one, we may use weapons that are not nearly as precise. And I agree with OP too that if there is a next time I wouldn't want to be a Berkeley professor who happened to be visiting Fort Benning.
Posted by: Matt   2003-11-1 10:33:27 PM  

#8  The looney-tunes may whine and bitch that it's all our fault, but from what I've seen - on Rantburg, in the local super market, in my daily newspaper, and in a dozen other places, the message isn't selling. If it's a really BAD hit - dirty nuke in DC, an exploding oil tanker in Baltimore, or some other such crap - I think you'll see the guy in the street start blaming the appologists, as well as the turbantops. That could get really, REALLY nasty in a hurry.

Could you imagine what would happen if a large shipment of ammonium nitrate or some such blew up in the Mississippi River at New Orleans, killing a few hundred longshorement? Then have Peter Jennings and Dan Rather quote some left-wing nutcase from the Democratic Party say it's all our fault? How high do you think that will fly with the Teamsters?

The truth is, the islamofascists have finally gotten THEIR message through - they want to kill us all, simply because we're not exactly like them. There are still enough people in this country that don't want Islam imposed upon them to stand up - not only to the crackpots on the left, but to the bombers and baby-killers in the Middle East.

Bin Laden cannot be that stupid. If he is, he has the potential of bringing total destruction not only on Islam, but the House of Saud and the governments of some twenty Islamic nations. If the Islamic nations want to continue to survive, they need to stop this fruitcake before he REALLY makes us mad.
Posted by: Old Patriot   2003-11-1 9:53:28 PM  

#7  Yes, Robert Crawford is right. The U.S. won't be defeated by ragtag Islamists or "international pressure," but it might defeat itself, if those "domestic enemies" gain some traction in the political debate that would surely follow another attack.
Posted by: Alan Sullivan   2003-11-1 8:49:56 PM  

#6  Unfortunately, I think Robert Crawford is right on both counts.

While I hope this threat is just hype, there has been enough missing nuclear material from the ex-Soviet Union, for example, that I'm not ready to totally discount the possibility of an attack that would kill or contaminate tens of thousands of people somewhere or other. Even discounting a dirty bomb, there are still hundreds of tons of conventional arms we keep stumbling on in Iraq. As I recall, Saddam stockpiled about 1/3 of the tonnage that the whole US military maintains. We haven't begun to find and destroy most of that stuff yet and a whole lot of it is in hand I'd rather not see have it, as the contents of recent car bombs makes clear.

Remember that these are people who don't hesitate to destroy other Moslems, or other Arabs, in their fanatical war against us and all we stand for. They would have no qualms about spreading nuclear material or chemical poisons across the Iraqi countryside, or blowing up a lot of Iraqis in order to kill Americans.

I agree that a really nasty strike, especially somewhere in the US itself, would unleash a demand by many Americans for massive retaliation. But would we actually respond that way? Whom do you attack? I know who I'd like to attack, but can the case be made clearly that the ordinary people of Syria and Iran, for instance, should be attacked?

Unless there were overwhelmingly convincing evidence of governmental involvment in the attack, international pressure not to respond would be very very strong and could possibly include cutting off oil exports to the US, central banks selling off dollars and other economic sanctions against us. Not likely, but not impossible either.
Posted by: rkb   2003-11-1 7:26:41 PM  

#5  Alaska Paul -- sadly, I think you're wrong. Any future attacks will be blamed on Bush, and the domestic enemies of civilization will restrain us from doing ANYTHING.

The 9-11 attack temporarily shocked the left into silence because they thought the world really was at peace during Clinton's term. Now, though, they have their balance back and know "who the real enemy is". Any future major attack will be blamed on either the invasion or Iraq or the US support for Israel, or both.
Posted by: Robert Crawford   2003-11-1 6:10:08 PM  

#4  Another hit by Al-Q, especially a big hit will result in Waziristan becoming a big smoking hole in the ground and nothing but empty goat trails leading to nowhere. And other sites, too.
Posted by: Alaska Paul   2003-11-1 5:03:58 PM  

#3  Oh! No! Its the Mother of all Battles all over again! Run! Hide!
Posted by: CrazyFool   2003-11-1 4:23:01 PM  

#2  If the result of this "death blow" brings about Al-Qaida's demise, then let's get it on already. The sooner those losers are out of the way, the better it will be for those Muslims that WANT to be part of the modern world.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama   2003-11-1 3:51:10 PM  

#1  Remember: "Rivers of blood and mountains of bodies..."???

Even if this twit is right about an attack, there are 300 million of us and they tend to have diarrhea of the mouth -- exaggerating beyond comprehension. In the West, you'd get laughed out of town for telling a whopper, In Islam, everybody tells lies: small, medium, large, and Mother-of-All sized. The saddest thing is how hard it is to prove when some asshat act has been stopped in advance. One can only guess how many, but one or two will get through even while they're running Ops on a shoestring. Sigh. The PR (and the media's eagerness to trumpet hits) goes to the braggarts.
Posted by: .com   2003-11-1 3:27:37 PM  

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