FoxNews reports that a hijacking attempt on an El-Al flight from Tel Aviv to Istanbul was foiled when on-board security guards overpowered the Bad Guy. The guy is an Arab Israeli, and he tried to take a stewardess hostage with a knife he either had with him or that was stashed on board.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
11/17/2002 03:45 pm ||
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Good going El Al! Here's a toast to you!
Posted by: Anna ||
11/17/2002 16:40 Comments ||
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Afghan troops were dispatched to end a land dispute between nomads and a rival tribe who battled each other with mortars and rocket launchers in eastern Afghanistan. Nomadic Kuchis fought members of the Piran tribe in Piran village, five miles south of Khost on Saturday night, said Mohammad Khan Gorbuz, a spokesman for the province's governor.Gorbuz said Gov. Hakim Taniwal sent a delegation and a unit of Afghan soldiers to the village, which was reported quiet on Sunday. This isn't unrest directed against the government. This is sweet normality among the turban and automatic weapons set who live in the area.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
11/17/2002 09:50 am ||
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Al Qaeda is once again training terrorists inside Afghanistan. The camps are much smaller and more transient now, but there are said to be at least a dozen, and their new graduates, mostly from inside the country, are believed to number in the hundreds. Their goal, as unlikely as it may seem, is to turn Afghanistan back into a global base for Osama bin Ladenâs followers. In the past few weeks NEWSWEEK has found and interviewed three Afghans who independently told of attending programs at three different clandestine camps this past summer. Military experts in Washington believe the stories are exaggerated, but they do not deny that such camps exist. The trainees insist their strength is growing. âSoon there will be Afghans and Al Qaeda behind every rock in Afghanistan,â Rasul brags. âYou will seeâwe will kill Americans the way we Afghans chop onions.â
His confidence is in sharp contrast to the harsh conditions at some camps. Jalal Shah, 30 (also a disguised name), is a Taliban bureaucrat who fled to Peshawar when the Americans took Kabul. In August he traveled with four other Afghan exiles to a largely deserted mountain village in a remote corner of eastern Afghanistan. There they were joined by five Arab recruits: three Saudis and two Yemenis. One carried an American passport, Shah recalls. The place was run by a leathery Qaeda veteran, a Saudi named Abu Yasser. He and the campâs four other foreign instructors bunked with the 10 trainees in a crumbling two-story mud-walled house with no bathroom, little furniture, a few blankets and only rudimentary facilities for cooking and eating. The trainers seemed to expect trouble at any moment. They never took off the hand grenades that hung from their belts, and everyone was required to take turns on sentry duty at night.
The class spent two weeks learning to assemble car bombs, make time bombs and lay land mines. The subject of explosives had particular significance to Shah, who says heâs an old friend of convicted World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef. Shahâs class also studied suicide bombing, especially how to pack explosives and strap them to their bodies. The campâs director told the recruits he had trained a total of 26 Afghans and Arabs in three similar courses elsewhere during the preceding weeks. In his parting speech he told Shahâs group it was up to each individual to decide whether to become a suicide bomber. âWe donât want to push you,â he said. âIt depends on the strength of your Islamic spirit.â
Now the campsâ graduates seem to be getting out into the real world. Rocket and bomb attacks against U.S. forces and Afghan government targets around the country have increased markedly in the past three months, and there have been several unsolved explosions in Kabul, although none of them was fatal. Reached by satellite phone last week, one senior Taliban official, a friend of Mullah Mohammed Omarâs, warned that Americaâs troubles have only begun. âThe Americans have started a huge campaign, and they should be really sorry for themselves, because theyâre caught in the middle of this big web,â he said, adding: âAfghanistanâs geography has made it a natural bunker for jihad.â
Most recent attacks have been far less imaginativeâand less disruptive. âA lot of the violence is not very professional,â says a knowledgeable official in the Bush administration. âIn August in Kabul there were 12 bombings, but only one was a decent piece of work. My judgment is that they have lost a lot of expertise. But I donât doubt they are out there retraining in some areas.â Some parts of the country are âstill pretty hairy,â he concedes. But even in those places, the antigovernment forces seem to have only limited resources. It shows in the way the violence shifts from place to place in response to U.S. military pressure.
Al Qaedaâs leaders are frustrated by their traineesâ lack of progress so far. According to Taliban sources in Karachi who work closely with Al Qaeda operatives, bin Ladenâs lieutenants are complaining that their Afghan allies donât seem really serious about taking the war to the Americans. âAl Qaeda men are unhappy,â says one Taliban source. âThey say they have spent a lot of money, put in a lot of time training and reorganizing the Afghans with little result.â The impatience has been particularly intense since September, when 9-11 plotter Ramzi bin al-Shibh was arrested in Karachi. Since then the groupâs fugitive leaders have tried to stay on the move, never spending two consecutive nights at the same safe house and keeping their use of satellite phones to a minimum.
The new recruits agree that the past year has held some major setbacks and hardships for the war against America. Many tons of Qaeda and Taliban munitions have been confiscated and destroyed as a result of U.S.-led military sweeps in the countryside. Rasul admits as muchâbut he hastens to add that those arsenals are being rebuilt. Jalal Shah also insists that the troubles are only temporary. âAllah is simply testing our faith through these hardships,â he says. Both men seem convinced that the Americans are losing the war. âOsama bin Laden and Mullah Omar are still free and leading us,â says Rasul. âThis is proof of the U.S. failure.â He may well be overstating his case, but he certainly has a point There is more at the site above
Posted by: Paul ||
11/17/2002 08:55 pm ||
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The British Embassy in Yemen was closed to the public on Saturday and Sunday but embassy staff were still working their usual hours.Another embassy official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the embassy was closed as a precaution and was ordered after consultations with the British Foreign Office. He said the closure was not a long-term measure. On Friday, the Foreign Office, citing a "heightened" terrorist threat, advised Britons not to travel to Yemen and told those already there to consider leaving. The Foreign Office declined to give details. We can guess some of the details, if the reports of Binny's presence in Yemen are true. If the SAS is getting too close, the Bad Guys will counterattack. Hell, they'll probably counterattack anyway...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
11/17/2002 09:46 am ||
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U.S. fighter jets have patrolled Yemen's northern border with Saudi Arabia as Yemeni forces hunt for al-Qaida operatives. An official said U.S. jets were patrolling the border provinces of Marib and Jawf, strongholds of Muslim militants where the al-Qaida terror group is believed to be active. The official said operations were designed to "tighten the grip on al-Qaida suspects who are believed to be relocating in these tribal strongholds in the wake of the latest U.S. attack." Tribal leaders in the region said Americans have also been seen on the ground aiding Yemenis special forces troops. U.S. officials at the Pentagon and National Security Council did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment. The Pentagon and NSC are probably very busy right now. Why don't you guys try sometime next week?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
11/17/2002 09:55 am ||
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So are they trying to keep Al Qaeda from moving from Yemen into Saudi Arabia or vice versa? It seems only a matter of time before we call the Sauds for the enemies they are...
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/17/2002 13:34 Comments ||
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Iran's top leader has ordered the country's chief judge to review a reformist scholar's death sentence that has prompted Iran's largest protests in years, a lawyer for the scholar said Sunday. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's order likely means university professor Hashem Aghajari's death sentence will be overturned. He issued the order after hundreds of university teachers wrote to Khamenei asking him to intervene, lawyer Saleh Nikbakht told The Associated Press. The riots in the streets probably had something to do with it, too...
In the past, Khamenei has intervened in judicial matters only after political crises deepen or when he felt Iran's national unity or security endangered. The last time he intervened in a judicial matter was in January when he ordered the judiciary chief to release a reformist lawmaker convicted of insulting the judiciary, defusing a political crisis between the parliament and the judiciary. Wonder how many times crises can be defused without the process either becoming routine, or being viewed as weakness?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
11/17/2002 09:46 am ||
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Eight senior Iraqi officers were executed after they were accused of triggering an explosion at a missile storage site which they supervised, a Kurdish weekly said on Sunday. The Mediya reported that the officers, who were responsible for the depot in Biji, north of Baghdad, were executed on November 8 in the presence of Ali Hassan al-Majid, a cousin of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Typical, purge the ranks before going to war. Sammy is known to admire Stalin.
It published the names of the officers, including those of a general and a colonel. There was no confirmation of the report by the Iraqi authorities or other sources. It sounds real.
The Mediya weekly is published in the UN enclave of northern Iraq, where the majority ethnic Kurds have enjoyed a degree of autonomy since Iraqi troops were defeated in the 1991 Gulf war. Radio Azadi, which broadcasts from Iraqi Kurdistan, said meanwhile that the bodies of 12 women, who were freed from prison under an Iraqi amnesty on October 20, were found lying in a vacant lot in Baghdad. The amnesty did seem too good to be true. Of course it could be their families just trying to clear the shame from the family tree.
Posted by: Steve ||
11/17/2002 05:52 pm ||
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Tariq Aziz, Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister, gave his clearest warning yet yesterday that Baghdad would launch strikes against Israel if it was attacked by Britain and America. Mr Aziz's threat came as he repeated his government's denial that it was developing weapons of mass destruction and said full access would be given to UN weapons inspectors. "We don't have them, but we'll use them if attacked..."
His remarks followed a prediction by Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, that Saddam Hussein would be "making the mistake of his life" if he failed to comply with the latest UN resolution on disarmament. Interviewed on ITV1's Jonathan Dimbleby programme, Mr Aziz said that any military action against Iraq would endanger not just Britain and America but also their allies such as Israel. Israel's said almost every month lately that they'd hit back if such a thing happens. Don't say you haven't been warned...
Asked what the Iraqi strategy might be if, as suspected, it is militarily weaker than it was in the 1991 Gulf War, Mr Aziz replied that his government was "capable of defending our nation". He added: "We are an old nation and we could survive. But I tell you, if the US and UK wage a war against Iraq, the consequences will be very bad to them and their friends in the region. If they don't care about their friends, then that gives you an idea about their real intentions. This is going to be devastating, not only to Iraq, but to them also. The aggressors will also suffer a great deal of losses." "One false move and the Jews get it!"
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
11/17/2002 09:23 pm ||
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Explosions ripped through two Serb Orthodox churches in western Kosovo, marking the first such attacks in more than a year. Explosives damaged the interior of a church in Djurakovac, 30 miles west of Pristina and completely destroyed a second church in the nearby village of Ljubovo, U.N. spokesman Andrea Angeli said. No one was injured in the explosions late Saturday and early Sunday, Angeli said. Churches in Kosovo have often been targeted in the past, in part because they are symbols of the years of Serb dominance under former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. Most ethnic Albanians in Kosovo are Muslim, though the southern Yugoslav province is largely secular. The jihadis who flocked there weren't, though, and they've been trying to build an Islamobase...
Bishop Artemije, the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Kosovo, blamed the United Nations and NATO for the attacks, charging that lax security measures made it possible for attackers to act. I'd blame the crazed killers, myself.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
11/17/2002 09:37 am ||
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Every Orthodox Church in Muslim dominated sections of Kosovo has either been desecrated or destroyed. Some of the frescos and murals dated to the 14th century. From the burning of the Alexandria Library, for its possession of works that did not conform to what "Allah said" in the koran, the the Taliban's destruction of the Buddhas, Islam practices a scorched earth policy to other cultures.
A portrait of Adolf Hitler has long adorned the study of Ahmed Huber, a 74-year-old Swiss convert to Islam who lives outside this small capital city. After Sept. 11, he twinned the picture with one of Osama bin Laden. "A provocation," said Huber, the voluble proponent of a strange alliance, one apparently strengthened in the aftermath of Sept. 11: Muslim fundamentalists and neo-Nazis, who share a hatred of the United States, Israel and Jews.
For years, Huber has been barnstorming the far-right circuit, speaking to a European congress of neo-Nazi youth organizations and Germany's far-right National Democratic Party. And then there's his other identity. Huber works frequently with militant Islamic groups. He acknowledges having met al Qaeda operatives, but denies any financial role in the organization. "The alliance has come," Huber said. "The 11th of September has brought together [the two sides] because the New Right has reacted positively in a big majority. They say, and I agree with them 100 percent, what happened on the 11th of September, if it is the Muslims who did it, it is not an act of terrorism but an act of counterterrorism." "But if it's the Jews, it only goes to prove they are the most evil and dispicable people of all time..."
Other members of far-right groups and people who study the movements agree that the September attacks pushed some members of the groups together. "There is a sense of sympathy, [a sense] that there is common ground," Horst Mahler, a member of the National Democratic Party, said in an interview at his home outside Berlin. "There are contacts with political groups, in particular in the Arab world, also with Palestinians. That's a fact that is not being concealed."
Certainly the events of Sept. 11 produced fits of joy among some members of the European far right, according to groups that monitor hate speech, Young supporters of the National Front in France drank champagne on the evening of Sept. 11, according to groups opposing neo-Nazis. A Czech far-rightist, Jan Kopul, proclaimed bin Laden "an example for our children." At a fascist youth rally in Switzerland, activists wore bin Laden badges. And just think about how great the world would be if they both 'won', we'd get to see the Jihad/race war to end all wars!
Authorities in the United States and Europe are skeptical of an enduring alliance. "It's an unnatural bond," said an FBI official in Washington. A German official offered a similar assessment: "I don't see it. They both hate the Jews, but in the end, they also dislike each other." This seems like more of a rhetorical alliance cooked up by the 'intellectual' Nazis. I'm sure the average German skinhead will still keep on beating up all the brown skinned 'wogs' in their country regardless of what their leaders say.
According to Huber, some Nazi veterans also feel common cause with Islamic militants. By his account, a group of aging SS officers and members of Hitler's personal guard who meet every few weeks in the German state of Bavaria for beer and conversation recently bestowed the title "honorary Prussian" on bin Laden. One of the members called Huber after the meeting to tell him that henceforth they had decided to call the al Qaeda leader "Herr von Laden," Huber said. This makes some sense, since the Muslim Brotherhood, the father of all modern fundo movements, was created in the 30s to emulate the Fascist movements of Europe.
Posted by: Paul ||
11/17/2002 08:57 pm ||
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Former US president Jimmy Carter, this year's Nobel Peace Prize winner, called on Friday â for disarmament by the United States...â Hello? We're at war and he wants to disarm?
"One of the things that the United States government has not done is to try to comply with and enforce international efforts targeted to prohibit the arsenals of biological weapons that we ourselves have," Carter said on CNN's Larry King Live programme broadcast late Friday. Let's spin the wheel at moral relativism...We have them, the terrorists want them, let's give the weapons to the terrorists so its nice and fair.
"There is a sense that the United States has become too arrogant, too dominant, too self-centered, proud of our wealth, believing that we deserve to be the richest and most powerful and influential nation in the world," the 78-year-old lemming... surrender monkey former president said. It's OK, we sure as hell didn't feel that way when you were el Caudillo, that's why the American people overwhelmingly turned you out...
"I think they feel that we don't really care about them, which is quite often true." It's the voice of irrelevency...the fading voice...
Posted by: Brian ||
11/17/2002 03:08 pm ||
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The lemming and surrender monkey was supposed to have strike through. I'm sorry.
Posted by: Brian ||
11/17/2002 14:37 Comments ||
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Fixed...
He's right. I don't really care a rat's patou. I do care when they attack us. If I was president, I'd dump all the bioweapons we have; they're too dirty from my moral standpoint, and from a practical standpoint they're too hard to control. But I'm not president. Neither, luckily for us all, is Carter, anymore.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/17/2002 15:11 Comments ||
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they're useful for defence reearch (designing chem&bio warfare suits, building protection + venting, and other countermeasures.... just like we hold onto smallpox, ebola, yada yada yada) should NEVER get rid of them
A statement attributed to al-Qaida threatened more attacks in New York and Washington unless America stops supporting Israel and converts to Islam, an Arab TV reporter who received the unsigned document said. If such attacks come off and I get killed — I work in the D.C. suburbs — you can put on my headstone that I'd rather be in the ground, decomposing, than convert to Islam...
Yosri Fouda, correspondent for the satellite station Al-Jazeera, told The Associated Press on Saturday that he received the six-page document Wednesday. That was a day after the TV station broadcast an audiotape purportedly made by Osama bin Laden. Fouda, who is known for good contacts within al-Qaida, would only say that the statement came from his sources with the group. But he insisted he was certain it came from the terrorist movement's leadership. Fouda, speaking by telephone from London, said the statement called on Americans to stop supporting Israel and other governments that "oppress" Muslims or face more attacks. The statement also called on Americans to convert to Islam, he said. Does the phrase "in a pig's ass" mean anything to you?
Fouda is a prominent Arab television journalist who has broken several important stories about al-Qaida. In September, Al-Jazeera broadcast Fouda's interviews with two top al-Qaida operatives hiding in Pakistan, Ramzi Binalshibh and Khaled Sheik Mohammed. He's al-Jazeera'a ace terrorism reporter. Here's hoping he's also under surveillance 64 ways. Given the way Ramzi was snagged, he might be...
Fouda said the statement also referred to the crisis between the United States and Iraq as one more reason to attack Americans. "You are placing Muslims under siege in Iraq, where children die every day. Oh, how weird that you don't care for 1.5 million Iraqi children who died under siege, but when 3,000 of your compatriots died, the whole world was shaken," Fouda quoted the statement as saying. That's because Iraq has a government — a secular government, we might add — that could have disarmed and gone back to being just another Middle Eastern petroleum kleptocracy. Instead, Sammy wanted to keep his collection of weapons. If he'd done what he said he would do, the sanctions would have ended in due course. The alternative to sanctions, if you think back, was war. So don't blame us for his problems.
That does emphasize, first of all, the solicitude the religious-based al-Qaeda thugs have for Sammy's brand of murderous authoritarianism. I don't think that's so much because they love Sammy, but because he's an Arab, a member of the Master Race.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
11/17/2002 09:33 am ||
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The Bush administration has begun to monitor Iraqis in the United States in an effort to identify potential domestic terrorist threats posed by sympathizers of the Baghdad regime, senior government officials said. The previously undisclosed intelligence program involves tracking thousands of Iraqi citizens and Iraqi-Americans with dual citizenship who are attending American universities or working at private corporations, and who might pose a risk in the event of a United States-led war against Iraq, officials said. Some of the targets of the operation are being electronically monitored under the authority of national security warrants. Others are being selected for recruitment as informers, the officials said. In the event of an American invasion of Iraq, officials would intensify the program's mission through arrests and detentions of Iraqis or Iraq sympathizers if they are believed to be planning domestic terrorist operations. The civil liberties crowd will be bitching and moaning about this, but it's nothing but good sense. I give it 48 hours on the outside before somebody decides it's racially motivated.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
11/17/2002 11:49 am ||
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RAMALLAH â Palestinians residents have complained to authorities that mortar shells fired by Hamas toward Israeli communities have struck their homes instead. These guys are not only evil but incompetent as well. Whoâda thunk?
Paletinian Authority officials said Fatah and Hamas mortar attacks have struck Palestinian homes near the city of Dir El Balah in the Gaza Strip. PA authorities also noted that getting a home improvement loan isnât so easy there, either.
"Palestinian residents of Al Barka and areas close to the community of Kfar Darom have called on the nationalist and Islamic forces to stop firing, and especially from firing mortar bombs, from areas close to inhabited houses," the newspaper said. "Firing from densely populated areas just brings damage and destruction to the residents and their property." Firing from densely populated areas, however, manages to keep you alive when your Western, civilized enemy canât bring itself to waste the entire neighborhood to get you.
Fatah commanders have been urged to end their mortar attacks toward the Gush Katif bloc of Israeli communities in the central Gaza Strip from the nearby cities of Dir El Balah and Khan Yunis. This reminds me of the old M*A*S*H episode with Five OâClock Charlie bombing the outhouse. Apparently no one in the Axis of Evil⢠can shoot straight.
The PA and Palestinian insurgency groups employ a range of mortars. They include the 60 mm, 82 mm and 120 mm mortars. The maximum range of the mortars is said to be about 2.5 kilometers. The PA has no clue what the maximum range is: if they did, the shells wouldnât be landing on their own houses, now would they?
"The residents call upon you to take into account the well being of the population and to ensure their security before carrying out any kind of militant action," the newspaper quoted the Al Baraka residents as saying. âCriminy, Mahmoud, if we did that weâd NEVER git to shoot anything!â
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/17/2002 09:09 am ||
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Rats. I didn't get my name in the slot before clicking submit, and my hilites didn't work. This weblog stuff is harder than it looks!
I'll do better next time, Fred, honest!
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/17/2002 0:44 Comments ||
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This Guest Poster thing isn't working for me today..
Posted by: Paul ||
11/17/2002 3:43 Comments ||
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I fixed your post, Steve. The rocket artists don't seem any more competent than the Kashmir grenade artists...
Paul, let me know what kind of error you got and I'll try and chase it down.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/17/2002 9:16 Comments ||
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Don't worry, I figured out it was because I didn't fill in the URL for where I got the article from. Mostly because I got it in an e-mail and couldn't track down where it came from, so once I filled in all the fields it posted okay.
Posted by: Paul ||
11/17/2002 19:08 Comments ||
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Israeli Occupation Forces on Friday arrested nine jugheads foreigners, including three US citizens, who were attempting to prevent the destruction of Palestinian trees and land to make way for a âsecurity fenceâ designed to separate the reoccupied West Bank from Israel. Nope. Couldn't have a "security fence." It might prevents a few "murders."
Three Americans were detained Friday by the Israeli army. Robert Smith of St. Paul, Minn., said soldiers threw concussion grenades and tear gas, before dragging protesters away. At least one activist was beaten severely, he said. (Tap. Tap. Tap.) Sympathy meter still seems busted...
Smith said the activists belong to a pro-Palestinian group called the International Solidarity Movement. He identified the arrested Americans as Susan Barney, of Boston; Radhika Sairah, a Californian man of no fixed address whose hometown was not known; and Gordon Hutchins, a Methodist apologist pastor from Yakima, Wash. The six other foreigners detained were either Canadian or European, he said. Protesters at the scene said that soldiers fired tear gas and live ammunition at about 100 Palestinians and 30 foreigners from the US and Europe, who were blocking bulldozers trying to clear trees at Jayyous near Qalqilia. "At first we managed to push the bulldozers back," said Huwaida Arraf, an American protester of Palestinian descent. Huwaida's the blushing bride of Shapiro the Hero, who held Yasser's hand during the siege of Ramallah last April...
"There was a standoff for two hours between the Israeli military and people. Basically our position was that we wouldn't let them uproot any more trees," Arraf told the British daily Al-Guardian. "Then there was an ultimatum that we had to move or they would use violence. The soldiers moved forward shooting at the people running away. A few of us stepped forward to block the soldiers from shooting and at that point they turned the guns on us and they started beating us." What part about "Get the hell out" didn't you understand?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
11/17/2002 11:24 am ||
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I like the beating part. If she has her teeth and is still talking, the Israelis showed admirable restraint
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/17/2002 14:05 Comments ||
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At its narrowest point Israel is a scant nine miles wide. And they are surrounded by hostiles. Americans should respect Israeli security needs.
Police investigating last monthâs deadly nightclub bombings in Bali have identified a key suspect, Imam Samudra, as the chief planner of the attacks and said he learned how to make bombs while in Afghanistan. The holy man's directly involved? That's unusual, ain't it?
Major General Made Mangku Pastika, head of the multinational investigation team, on Sunday (17/11/02) described Samudra as âthe field coordinatorâ who decided where to place the bombs in the crowded Kuta nightlife area of Bali. That's the kind of knowledge that only comes with a thorough knowledge of the holy book...
He said another conspirator, Dulmatin, helped to assemble the bombs and triggered them on the night of October 12 by dialing the numbers of handphones that had been set to vibrating mode and wired to the explosivesâ detonators. "Dulmatin is from Central Java... he is a second-hand car dealer, an electronics expert and his role was to detonate the bombs by cellular phone," Pastika was quoted as saying by Reuters.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
11/17/2002 10:30 am ||
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Authorities were interrogating a Kuwaiti man on Sunday who confessed to being a senior al-Qaida member, having links to the bombing of the USS Cole two years ago, and plotting to blow up a Yemeni hotel frequented by Americans. A Kuwaiti Interior Ministry official identified the man as 21-year-old Mohsen al-Fadhli. The official refused to provide any details about al-Fadhli, other than to confirm newspaper reports surrounding his arrest two weeks ago. Picked him up two weeks ago, huh? Looks like a pattern, grab them, beat talk to them awhile, then report the capture.
The newspaper said al-Fadhli told police the tanker attacker, al-Qaida's Shihab al-Yemeni, filled his boat with explosives and went out to sea looking for a target. It was "pure coincidence" that he chose the Limburg. Ran into the first thing he saw.
Al-Fadhli also confessed he had ties to the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in the Yemeni port of Aden, which killed 17 American sailors, the report said without elaborating.
A U.S. Embassy official in Kuwait refused to comment on al-Fadhli's arrest. Al-Fadhli? Never heard of him.
Like the Failaka attackers and many other Kuwaitis, al-Fadhli reportedly had fought in Afghanistan and Chechnya. Al-Fadhli told investigators he was planning to bomb a hotel in the Yemeni capital of San'a frequented by Americans, Al-Watan reported. The plot involved filling a black GMC Suburban with explosives and ramming it into the unidentified hotel, he reportedly told interrogators. Ain't Islamic traditions wonderful?
During interrogations, al-Fadhli identified the man who was to be the driver as Osama al-Yemeni, 25. Yemeni officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they had no knowledge of a hotel bomb plot. They said Kuwaiti authorities have briefed them on the al-Fadhli investigation. For not making any progress in the war on terror, a whole lot of bad guys are in the slammer
Posted by: Steve ||
11/17/2002 05:30 pm ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
