WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of terrorist incidents around the world dropped to a 25-year low in 1996, but casualties rose sharply in line with a trend toward more ruthless attacks on civilian targets, a State Department report released Wednesday said.

The study said Iran “remained the premier state sponsor of terrorism,” conducting at least eight dissident assassinations outside Iran in 1996.

There were 296 acts of international terrorism last year, 144 fewer than in 1995, the report said, and the number of casualties reached a near-record 311 dead and 2,652 wounded.

The worst incident was a bombing in Sri Lanka that killed 90 and wounded more than 1,400.

Among the year’s other significant attacks was the truck bombing at a U.S. military housing facility near Dharan, Saudi Arabia, that killed 19 U.S. citizens and wounded some 500 people.

The attack was the highest number of U.S. citizens killed in a single act of international terrorism since the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in which 189 U.S. citizens were among the 270 dead.

According to the report, a total of 24 Americans died in terrorist incidents last year — the 19 in Saudi Arabia and five in bus bombings and drive-by shootings in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

The number of Americans wounded in terrorist incidents rose to 250, five times the figure for 1995.

Terrorism peaked 10 years ago

Titled “Patterns of Global Terrorism,” the annual report said the number of incidents reached a peak of 665 in 1987. Of the 296 last year, two-thirds were minor acts of politically motivated violence against commercial targets, which caused no deaths and few casualties, it said.

The report said also that terrorists proved again last year they can “command a worldwide audience for their crimes and cause great disruption, fear and economic damage.”

It cited in particular the June bombing in Saudi Arabia and suicide bombings in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem by extremist groups aiming to destroy the Middle East peace process. The death toll from the attacks against Israeli targets was 60.

Sponsors of terrorism

The list of countries designated by the United States as sponsors of terrorism remained unchanged from 1995: Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria.

It gave the following account on each country:

Cuba — Cuba no longer actively supports armed struggle in Latin America and other parts of the world but remains a haven for international terrorists and maintains close ties with other state sponsors of terrorism.

Iran — Tehran continues involvement in the planning and execution of terrorist acts by its own agents and by surrogates such as Hezbollah in Lebanon. It continues to encourage violent rejection of the Middle East peace process.

Iraq — A variety of Palestinian groups opposed to the Middle East peace process, including Abu Nidal’s Fatah-Revolutionary Council, receive havens in Iraq.

Libya — Palestinian terrorist groups operate freely in Libya. Also, Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s government has refused to turn over two suspects wanted in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103.

North Korea — A small group of Red Army members wanted for an airplane hijacking in 1970 enjoy asylum in North Korea. Sudan — A number of international terrorist organizations, primarily of Middle East origin, used Sudan last year as a “refuge, nexus and training hub.” Sudan also condoned many of the “objectionable activities” of Iran such as funneling assistance to terrorist and radical Islamic groups operating and transiting Sudan.

Syria — Several radical terrorist groups maintain training camps or other facilities on Syrian territory. In addition, Damascus grants basing privileges to a variety of groups engaged in terrorism in areas of Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley under Syrian control.

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Al Qaeda’s Alibi Armory Using The Word to bolster evil (National Review Online, 020509)

[KH: Mainline Protestant churches doing PR for terrorism]

By Kenneth Lloyd Billingsley

If the statements of Protestant clerics and denominational bureaucrats are any indication, the current sex scandal in the Catholic Church is far from the only church story that needs further investigation. Indeed, terrorism finds in these quarters a kind of theological public-relations agency.

In late October of last year, while the ruins from the World Trade Center still smoldered, the Justice and Ministries Board of the United Church of Christ charged that the “war on terrorism,” revealing placed in dismissive quotes, was being used “to justify a rushed legislative agenda in Congress, some of which is irrelevant to the crisis and which includes, for example, fast-track authority on trade treaties, authorization for oil drilling in the Arctic. National Wilderness Area, expansion of Plan Colombia and other foreign military investments, promotion of the National Missile Defense System, and tax cuts which ignore the needs of the poor.”

Further, “unrestrained federal spending since September 11, focused on military retaliation and antiterrorism measures, threatens to further weaken economic protection for the poor and elderly, including prescription drug relief for the elderly, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, Social Security benefits, health care and other programs.” In addition, “Low wage workers, especially immigrants, are losing their jobs by the thousands everyday in industries impacted by the war and the global economic recession.”

Like other major American denominations, the United Methodists avoided direct condemnation of those responsible for the September 11 attacks. Barely a month had passed before the Methodist General Board of Church and Society rejected the use of military force to fight “criminal” acts of terror.

Konrad Raiser, General Secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC), to which more than 30 American denominations belong, condemned the U.S. war on terrorism. This should come as no surprise since, in its heyday the WCC functioned as Soviet lobby and anti-American echo chamber. But consider Vernon Broyles III, associate director for Social Justice and Associate for Corporate Witness in the National Ministries Division of the Presbyterian Church USA, the man responsible for theologically framing national and social issues for his denomination.

Four days after Sept. 11, the Rev. Broyles found a moral equivalence between those who attacked the World Trade Center and those they attacked. He questioned whether it was even appropriate to ask whether the incineration of several thousand innocent civilians from dozens of nations was an act of terrorism, a term he puts in dismissive quotes, when the United States once bombed cities in Japan.

The Sept. 11 perpetrators, in fact, were not “terrorists” at all, the Presbyterian official wrote, but “part of a guerrilla fighting force that uses the methods typical of every guerrilla army in history that is fighting against a force far superior to their own.”

These guerrillas were motivated by grievances that the Rev. Broyles thought were legitimate. The problem was that “we have ignored many people suffering injustice at the hands of those we support.”

Veterans of the Maquis, other Resistance fighters, indeed, “every guerrilla army in history” would be surprised to discover that they shared tactics with the Sept. 11 bombers. But Rev. Broyles’s loathsome nonsense, which his type likes to call “speaking prophetically,” is perfectly consistent with his working environment. Protestant bureaucracies remain a kind of interlocking directorate of the religious Left, for whom anti-Americanism is more theological than political. In these quarters, America really is the Great Satan. Therefore the sins of America will always receive more attention than those of terrorists, be they the Baader Meinhof gang, Red Brigades, or genocidal Islamic fascists.

Truly, anti-Americanism covers a multitude of sins. Perhaps St. Paul said it best. “If any man among you be ignorant, let him be ignorant.” But there is more in play here.

In their pastoral letters, resolutions, and appearances before government committees, the religious Left curia gives the impression that they represent millions of rank-and-file church members. They don’t, and never have. Church members ought to publicly disown and defund the fevered apologists for terrorism. Relatives of the Sept. 11 victims might want to show up with protest signs. National leaders should of course pay them no need whatsoever, though perhaps they should consider a law requiring terrorism’s alibi armory to register as a lobby.

— Kenneth Lloyd Billingsley, a journalist based in Sacramento, is author of From Mainline to Sideline, the Social Witness of the National Council of Churches.

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The Weakness of the West: Stopping al Qaeda (National Review Online, 020917)

By Rita Katz and Josh Devon

Despite recent international successes against the group, we are not treating al Qaeda as a global entity. Borderless and stateless, the terrorist organization has cells all over the world, but we are failing to make our effort against the group a global one. With abetting cells in Germany, Italy, Malaysia, the Philippines, and several others, including, of course, the United States, September 11 proved that al Qaeda functions globally. Focusing on a global effort, the cells operated in a transnational web — all cohesively coordinating plans, personnel, financing, and other material support. Without the cells’ seamless support for each other, September 11 could not have happened.

Reeling off the success of the uncovery of al Qaeda cells in New York, Michigan, and Oregon, the United States has put the emboldening Patriot Act to excellent use. But domestic success will not prove effective in the long run, given al Qaeda’s global nature. Though the U.S. has enacted new laws such as the Patriot Act to combat terrorism, the other nations of the West have not followed our necessary lead.

International counterterrorism cooperation has so far been moderate at best. Limited cooperation between Western countries has been effective — our success in Afghanistan is an example, and the reserved willingness to share information between countries has led to several arrests and prosecutions, including the recent capture by Pakistani authorities of September 11 ringleader Ramzi bin al-Shibh. There remain, however, several inexplicable gaps in the coordinated effort against terrorism, stemming from the inherent values upon which Western culture is based. Al Qaeda recognizes these gaps and exploits them at every possibility.

Al Qaeda has adapted to Western culture. They understand the way by which Western countries cooperate. The group knows our laws, our judicial system, and our way of life. Cells blend in extremely easily all over the Americas and Europe. Al Qaeda training manuals teach what to do in case of capture and indictment — to lie and exploit the pathos the West has for mistreated prisoners. One manual seized in Britain notes, “If an indictment is issued and the trial begins, the brother has to pay attention to the following...the brothers must insist on proving that torture was inflicted on them by State Security.”

Western countries have failed to recognize al Qaeda’s abuse and exploitation of civil liberties and the Western justice system. Nowhere is this more apparent right now than in England, which is openly harboring several militant supporters and leaders of al Qaeda, some of whom the U.S. has indicted and requested their extradition. Thus far, England has not allowed the extradition of any of these al Qaeda members or supporters to the United States.

Khalid al-Fawwaz, indicted by the U.S. for his direct role in the 1998 East Africa U.S. Embassy bombings, helped bin Laden plan those attacks from his base in London. Though al-Fawwaz was bin Laden’s point man in England, British authorities have not permitted his extradition to the United States, which was requested in September 1998.

Fawwaz is a man with unparalleled knowledge of al Qaeda’s inner workings. Serving as a top leader in al Qaeda, the United States could extract crucial information from his intimacy with al Qaeda. The U.S. has also indicted two of al-Fawwaz’s assistants, Ibrahim Eidarous and Adel Abdelbari, and asked for their extradition. Though Britain has in fact granted extradition rights to the U.S. to al-Fawwaz and his accomplices, they remain in jail in England exploring legal avenues by which to challenge the ruling.

Abu Doha, indicted by the U.S. for his direct role in the plot to blow up the Los Angeles Airport in 2000, remains in British jail. Providing material and financial support to Ahmed Ressam and the others involved in the plot, Abu Doha was the mastermind behind the planned bombing. The U.S. requested his extradition over a year ago, but Britain has not complied.

These men, thankfully, are at the very least in jail, where they harm they would do can be regulated. While the information they contain might prove extraordinarily valuable to the United States in preventing future attacks, Britain has been uncooperative. Far more dangerous, however, is Britain’s inexplicable tolerance for so-called “activists,” who do nothing more than vituperate the United States and its allies and incite hatred and violence. These men push the Western notion of “Freedom of Speech” to new limits. Some openly recruit for Osama bin Laden, yet the British government does nothing to stop them.

Yassir al-Sirri, a supporter of al Qaeda indicted by the U.S. for functioning “as a facilitator of communications” between terrorist groups, walks the streets of England a free man, under the guise of a bookseller. Though the U.S. has requested his extradition, Britain has not cooperated. Sentenced to death in Egypt for plotting to kill the prime minister, al-Sirri has repeatedly denied any connections to al Qaeda or any other terrorist group. England believes him, where a British judge at his most recent trial ruled that al-Sirri was nothing more than “an innocent fall guy.”

Another al Qaeda supporter based in Britain and who fought in Afghanistan alongside bin Laden in the 1980s is Abu Hamza al-Masri, whom the U.S. has designated a terrorist entity and has frozen his assets. Abu Hamza currently resides in London, claiming disability from the British government. He is the Sheikh of the Finsbury Park Mosque, the same mosque where shoe-bomber Richard Reid prayed, as well as Zacarias Moussaoui, charged in the September 11 catastrophe. Abu Hamza was also named as an unindicted coconspirator in the charges against James Earnest Ujaama, who was indicted for attempting to set up a militant training camp in Oregon. For several years, Abu Hamza has been spitting anti-Western rhetoric and inciting violence, always remaining distanced enough from any terrorist activity to avoid direct prosecution. The U.S. has requested Abu Hamza’s extradition, but he is currently free.

A braggart who boasts about his recruitment efforts for jihad, Omar Bakri is the head of the fundamentalist al-Muhajiroon group based in London. Bakri reportedly has called for the assassination of Tony Blair, while claiming disability from the British government. In 1999, Bakri submitted an open letter to Osama bin Laden that he posted on his website and read aloud in several mosques around the country, offering his full support to bin Laden. Bakri, of course, vehemently denies being in contact with Osama bin Laden, despite having received a fax from bin Laden in 1998 that enumerated how to wage jihad against the United States, urging to “bring down airliners.” Britain has declared al-Muhajiroon to be a designated terrorist supporter, but it has done very little to deter Bakri’s fanaticisms and incitement. Omar Bakri remains free, proclaiming at a rally in Trafalgar Square two weeks ago, “We believe in the same philosophy as bin Laden.”

These al Qaeda supporters are shrewd enough to place themselves on the thin line between terrorist and innocent fall guy, just as the famed Italian mafia in the United States once did. Al Qaeda members do not leave an easy trail of evidence to follow and when questioned under oath either in court or interrogated by police, they have an easy way out — they lie.

They proclaim their innocence, knowing full well that any Western government must prove their guilt, as their innocence is assumed. These men care little for our “Western” rules and laws. Lying has little effect on their consciences — they are taught to lie. Should we be surprised? Do we expect them to proclaim their affiliation and support of al Qaeda?

We try them by a standard in which they do not believe. They cannot be tried by a “jury of their peers” because they are peerless. These men can stare at a judge, a lawyer, or a jury member and lie indefinitely, and we have no choice but to believe them because we have values and scruples and morals. They are terrorists. They manipulate those handcuffs which we should place on them, and instead put those handcuffs on us.

We are playing a deadly game with these terrorists. We have defined the rules, but they do not play by them. We must figure out a different game to play, starting with unanimous cooperation in the war on terror. Countries must aid one another by making arrests, providing information, and extraditing criminals.

We must also recognize that our laws and culture have become a shield for al Qaeda activists. Understanding the limitations of our laws in the war on terror, the United States passed the Patriot Act, which broadened the powers of law enforcement, enabling us to stop terrorist attacks before they happen. The terrorist cell uncovered in Buffalo has hopefully precluded a dangerous situation. No longer must we wait until after an attack to arrest and indict terrorists. Other countries must take the same initiative. Al Qaeda has made a global effort to destroy the West. We must make a global effort to stop them.

— Rita Katz is the director of the SITE Institute, based in Washington, D.C. Josh Devon is an analyst at the SITE Institute.

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Timeline: Recent Terrorist Attacks in 2002 (Foxnews, 021029)

• Mon., Oct. 28 — U.S. Agency for International Development worker Laurence Foley is shot dead outside his house in Amman, Jordan, by unknown gunmen. The assassin pumps eight shots into Foley’s head, chest and abdomen.

• Thurs., Oct. 24 — At least 40 Chechen rebels take 800 hostages in a Moscow theater, threatening to kill them unless Russian troops pull out of Chechnya. On Saturday, Oct. 26, Russian special forces storm the theater, capturing or killing all the rebel captors. However, Moscow’s chief doctor says all but one of the 117 hostages killed in the 58-hour siege died from the knockout gas Russian special forces used during the rescue.

• Mon., Oct. 21 — A Bus is attacked in Tel Aviv, killing 14 and wounding almost 50.

• Sun., Oct. 20 — A homemade bomb explodes near a Roman Catholic church in Zamboanga, killing one person and injuring 18. Abu Sayyaf, a group of Muslim militants that has been linked to Al Qaeda, is believed to be responsible.

• Fri., Oct. 18 — A bomb rips through a bus in suburban Manila, killing at least three people and injuring 23 others. The attack comes hours after a grenade blast in Philippine capital’s financial district in which no one is killed.

• Thurs., Oct. 17 — Seven people are killed and 52 wounded in bombings at two department stores in the Christian city of Zamboanga in the Philippines. Abu Sayyaf may be responsible for the attack.

• Mon., Oct. 14 — U.S. forces come under fire from two civilian vehicles near a training area in northern Kuwait. No one is hurt

• Sat., Oct. 12 — More than 180 people are killed in a double terrorist bombing in Bali, Indonesia. Over 300 people — many of whom were foreign tourists — are injured in the attack on a nightclub on the resort island. Jemaah Islamiyah, an Islamic extremist group allied with Al Qaeda, is believed to be behind the blasts.

• Sat., Oct. 12 — A bomb blast damages the 2-story U.S. consulate in Manado, on north Sulawesi island in Indonesia, just a few hours before the Bali nightclub bombing.

• Thurs., Oct. 10 — An attack on a bus terminal in Kidapawan City, Philippines, kills eight people and injures 19 others.

• Tues., Oct. 8 — Two gunmen in a pickup truck open fire on Marines engaged in urban assault training in Kuwait. One Marine is killed and a second is wounded. The attackers then drive to a second location and attack again before being killed by Marines. Although there is no clear evidence linking the attackers to Al Qaeda, the leader of the cell and one of the assailants have pledged allegiance to Usama bin Laden.

• Sun., Oct. 6 — An explosives-laden boat rams a French oil tanker off the coast of Yemen. A Bulgarian member of the crew is killed, a gaping hole is torn into the vessel and some 90,000 barrels of oil are released into the water. Yemeni Interior Minister Rashad al-Eleimi calls the attack “a deliberate act of terror.”

• Wed., Oct. 2 — A Nail bomb explodes in a restaurant frequented by U.S. troops in Zamboanga, Philippines, killing four, including an American Green Beret. The attack is blamed on Abu Sayyaf.

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Terrorism & Trust: At the gates, again (Part II) (National Review Online, 021120)

By Brink Lindsey

The civilized world’s exposure to barbarian assault arises today, as it did in the past, out of the very sources of our prosperity and power. Most obviously, Western technological prowess can now be turned and used against us. The logic of technological progress is that it democratizes power over the elements. As we continue to innovate and grow richer, more and more people have ever-greater access to increasingly potent capabilities. Since the capabilities themselves are morally neutral, the consequence is this dark irony: The more technological dynamism unleashes the creative energies of the best among us, the more widely available are destructive energies to the worst among us.

We now know the horrific purposes to which commercial aircraft can be put. Many other humdrum, taken-for-granted aspects of our technology-intensive lives can likewise be used to stock the armory of terror. Remember, after all, what Timothy McVeigh did with fertilizer, fuel oil, and a van. And more exotic technologies raise even more terrifying possibilities. Tons upon tons of enriched uranium and weapons-grade plutonium have been produced and stockpiled; if only a few pounds of this vast amount were to fall into the wrong hands, millions could die. Large and growing stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons pose similar threats. And terrorists need not restrict themselves to scavenging military production: Many commercial labs have the capacity to weaponize chemical and biological agents.

Our vulnerability goes deeper than the physical damage that can be inflicted. The root of our vulnerability is the same as the root of our technological virtuosity: our fantastically elaborate social organization and the institutions that make it possible. To put the matter as simply as possible, all the wonderful material blessings that we in the West enjoy rest ultimately on the amazing extent to which we are able to trust each other. Terrorism strives to shatter that trust.

The West is rich because its people participate in a globe-spanning, mind-bogglingly complex division of labor. Every moment of our lives is supported and enhanced by the anonymous creativity and hard work of untold millions of people. In the words of F. A. Hayek, the 20th century’s greatest theorist of this “extended order”:

The more civilized we become, the more relatively ignorant must each individual be of the facts on which the working of his civilization depends. The very division of knowledge increases the necessary ignorance of the individual of most of this knowledge.

Which raises the question: How is this possible? How do we come to trust each other so implicitly that we are able to put our lives routinely into the hands of strangers? To bring the matter down to concrete detail, how is it possible to fly to another city, or even another country, hand a complete stranger a piece of plastic, and get a $20,000 car, which you then promise to return to another stranger in another city?

The answer, in a word, is institutions. First of all, formal legal and political institutions define and enforce property and contract rights, thereby facilitating the ability of people without personal connections to do business with each other. In the parlance of economists, those institutions reduce the “transaction costs” associated with potential market exchanges. In other words, they make it possible for strangers to trust each other — which in turn makes possible the highly evolved division of labor on which our affluence depends.

But formal institutions are not enough. They must be buttressed by intangible cultural institutions — invisible bonds of reciprocity that restrain members of society from taking advantage of each other to the maximum extent the law allows. If the terms of every economic transaction had to be reduced to writing, and every ambiguity in that writing then led to litigation, the transaction costs of dealing with strangers would be staggering. Consequently, the potential for open-ended specialization, and for the kind of large-scale, long-term investments that produce Western-style prosperity, would be fatally compromised. Large-scale divisions of labor thus require that participants in that order share, to some minimum extent, a kind of Golden Rule ethos that inhibits opportunistic behavior.

“How effectively agreements are enforced is the single most important determinant of economic informance,” states Douglass North, a pioneer in the fast-growing field of institutional economics. The rich countries of the West thrive because their institutions — both the “hard” institutions of police, courts, and bureaucracies, and the “soft” institutions of cultural values — allow agreements to be enforced between total strangers across the span of years and continents.

Terrorism strikes at the foundation of the distinctive, Western form of civilization — namely, our unprecedented ability to trust one another. Just as the new barbarians turn our technology against us, so do they “weaponize” the institutions that make advanced technology possible.

Terrorism’s random acts of destruction, because they are targeted at nobody in particular, make everybody feel unsafe. Consequently, they make us apprehensive, wary — distrustful. Every Arab-looking passenger on your flight sets off personal alarm bells. So did every piece of mail from a stranger during the anthrax attacks. So did every white van in the D.C. area just recently.

Terrorism thus leverages its acts of physical destruction into larger contagions of economic and social disruption. Air travel plunged after September 11, and has yet to recover. Not just the airlines but the tourism industries as well have been dealt a heavy blow. Mail delivery more or less ground to a halt in the cities affected by the anthrax scare. All outdoor activities, including trips to shopping centers, were victims of the Washington-area sniper attacks.

The disruptions we have suffered to date, however burdensome they were or are, pale into insignificance when compared to what is possible. Imagine that a “suitcase nuke” is detonated in downtown Seattle or Atlanta — and that the group claiming responsibility announces that a second device has already been planted in another city. The massive casualties, the economic devastation that would befall the shattered, contaminated target city — those would be only the first dominoes to fall. What would happen in the rest of the country? What would be the consequences — economic, political, and cultural — of the mass evacuation from cities that followed the first blast?

Here is the grim truth: We are only one act of madness away from a social cataclysm unlike anything our country has ever known. After a handful of such acts, who knows what kind of civilizational breakdown might be in store?

Terrorism, of course, is nothing new: Its modern history dates back at least to 19th-century Russia. But the march of economic development and technological progress has, perversely, led to a qualitative increase in terrorism’s virulence. The power to inflict physical damage has grown by orders of magnitude, while the escalating intricacy of the division of labor means a similar, exponential increase in the economic and social costs associated with any particular act of physical destruction. As a result, the leading edges of civilization are now prone to outside attack for the first time in half a millennium. If we do not now take the full measure of this threat, and bend our considerable energies towards countering and neutralizing it, we are likely to pay a grievous price for our complacency.

— Brink Lindsey is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and author of Against the Dead Hand: The Uncertain Struggle for Global Capitalism. He also publishes www.brinklindsey.com.

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This War We’re In: Taking extremist Islam seriously (National Review Online, 021126)

By Paul Marshall

Osama bin Laden’s November 12 audiotape claimed that one reason for the brutal bombings in Bali last month was Australia’s role in protecting East Timor and allowing it to separate from Indonesia’s clutches. Typically, most analysts ignored this. The Washington Post even printed the relevant paragraph with this section missing, and with no ellipses to indicate its absence.

This continues a pattern in which our media and political leaders ignore the forthright and articulate religious motives and ideology that drive al Qaeda and its allies. We are engaged in a war in which we resolutely ignore our enemies’ stated goals.

On September 11, we were attacked by explicitly religious terrorists who said their prayers before going out to slaughter infidels. The movement they represent consistently outlines its goals through a plethora of books, websites, and videos, and gives a clear and articulate theology and view of history to justify and explain its actions.

Bin Laden’s 1998 al Jazeera interview stressed this point: “There are two parties to the conflict: World Christianity, which is allied with Jews and Zionism, led by the United States, Britain, and Israel. The second party is the Islamic world.” His 1998 merger with Egypt’s Islamic Jihad formed the “World Islamic Front for Holy war against Jews and Crusaders,” al Qaeda’s real name, and he has described President Bush as fighting under the “sign of the cross.”

Al Qaeda’s manual begins by recalling “the fall of our orthodox Caliphates on March 3, 1924.” Bin Laden’s November 3, 2001, videotape proclaims, “Following World War I, which ended more than 83 years ago, the whole Islamic world fell under the Crusader banner….” Their grievance, continually expressed, is the collapse of the Islamic world in the face of “Christendom,” a collapse that can only be explained by Muslims’ apostasy from Islam and only be reversed by returning to their version of Islam.

Hence al Qaeda and a network of extremist groups from Algeria to the Philippines consistently fight to impose their version of Islam on Muslims and, then, the rest of the world. They want a restored caliphate in which each country will submit to their version of Islamic sharia law. The Taliban wanted a Caliphate in Afghanistan, Uzbekistan’s IMU in Central Asia, the Philippines’ Abu Sayyaf and Indonesia’s Jamaah Islamiya and Laskar Jihad in southeast Asia. Al Qaeda wants one for the whole world.

Yet in fighting these enemies we ignore these clear goals and filter their acts through a grid of western nostrums about alienation, economics, and the Middle East. We are told that al Qaeda’s primary grievance is America, “the West,” or freedom, or the plight of the Palestinians.

But though al Qaeda has made it crystal clear that, in its own view, it is attacking, inter alia, Christians, whom it calls “crusaders,” as well as Jews (and Hindus and Buddhists), American analysts, inside and outside the government, insist that its agenda is not religiously based but is simply anti-American.

Thus when, in August, newly acquired bin Laden videotapes explicitly denounced “crusaders and Jews,” CNN claimed that he was really targeting “the United States and the West,” while CBS described his foes as “Americans,” and the Associated Press asserted, without argument, that “Bin Laden has used the term ‘crusaders’ to refer to Westerners.”

In September, after the latest massacre of Pakistani Christians, in Taxila, Pakistan’s center of Christianity since the second century, the New York Times called it an assault on “western targets,” and Reuters headlined “Pakistan attack seen aimed at West, not Christians.” Meanwhile, the attackers themselves said, they “planned to kill Christians” and that they “killed the nonbelievers.”

In October, the statement claiming credit for attacking an oil tanker off Yemen referred to a “crusader oil tanker.” Despite this explicit religious reference to al Qaeda’s purported Christian enemies, the Washington Post declared that they were opposed to the U.S. and have “often referred to the United States as ‘crusaders.’” This attempt to equate crusaders with the United States is especially confusing since the tanker in question was French.

The Oct 12 bombing in Bali was also described by the media as directed at “the West,” though it took place in Indonesia’s only Hindu majority territory and coincided exactly with bombings on the Philippine consulate in Manado, a Christian area hundreds of miles away. Al Qaeda affiliates in Indonesia had already orchestrated the bombing of 36 Christian schools and churches in Indonesia during Christmas 2000, while its allies have massacred thousands of Christians in eastern Indonesia, the latest assault being the August 12 destruction of the Christian village of Sepe.

The November 12 bin Laden audiotape says that Australian victims were picked partly because of Australia’s “despicable effort to separate [Catholic] East Timor” from Indonesia, thus undermining the hoped-for Southeast Asian Islamic state. Meanwhile, in the Philippines itself, Abu Sayyaf continues to massacre local Christians.

Similar tales can be told of the world’s bloodiest conflict, in Sudan; of the slaughter of over 100,000 moderate Muslims by extremists in Algeria; of attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh, on Buddhists in Thailand, and on Hindus and Buddhists in Afghanistan; of the over six thousand dead in the conflict over the introduction of Islamic sharia law in Nigeria; of the Chechens’ release of the Muslims amongst their Russian hostages in Moscow; and of attacks on Jews throughout the world. The largest death tolls from Islamist extremism do not occur in America or the West or Israel, but in Sudan, Algeria, and Indonesia.

America has become a focus of Islamist rage because, when the terrorists seek to wreak their havoc around the world, whether in Israel, Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, or Afghanistan, we stand in their way, thwart their intentions, and defeat their fighters. We also undercut their beliefs by urging the equality of women and individual and religious freedom. They are rendered impotent in all but death as long as American military might and American cultural power stands in their way.

Now, as Islamist terrorists repeat endlessly, their strategic goal must now be to make the United States retreat so that they can achieve Islamist rule elsewhere. Thus the chief demand of the November letter, ostensibly from al Qaeda, is that America end its support of those throughout the world who fight radical Islam: “Leave us alone or expect us in Washington and New York.”

What does this mean for our current war against extremist Islam? First, that we are not fighting merely “terrorist” groups but a worldwide Islamist insurgency. Second, that our enemies are not driven simply by opposition to U.S. policy on Israel or the Middle East. They must be faced as an aggressive, expansionist, global ideological movement with its sights set also on Africa and Asia.

Third, the attacks on America are explicitly designed to strike fear in us in order to keep us from interfering with Islamist attempts to impose their will throughout the world. Hence any American withdrawal from conflict with extremist Islam, whether in the Middle East or Asia, will not guarantee peace and harmony. It will be a victory for Islamist terrorism, the fulfillment of their first strategic goal, and a prelude to expanded attacks elsewhere.

— Paul Marshall is senior fellow at Freedom House’s Center for Religious Freedom. His latest books, Islam at the Crossroads and God and the Constitution: Christianity and American Politics have just been released.

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Terrorism in the Classroom: The truth about international-relations textbooks (National Review Online, 021127)

By Stanley Michalak

Terrorism is a strategy to weaken a hated political authority. It is a security threat, but almost the opposite of the nuclear one: little pinpricks instead of a huge bang.”

Last winter, when the shock of 9/11 was drawing down, I decided to peruse the international-relations textbooks on my home and office shelves. “What would students learn,” I wondered, “if they consulted any of these texts in order to make sense of the events that had so shocked the nation?” What I found in reading these works was in most cases simply appalling — and I consulted not one or two, but ten textbooks in all — published by such major houses as Addison-Wesley, McGraw-Hill/Dushkin, Harcourt Brace, Longman, McGraw-Hill, Prentice Hall, Simon and Schuster, and W. W. Norton (they’re listed at the end of this essay).

What I found were sloppy definitions, specious moral equivalencies, the uncritical perpetuation of myths about terrorism, descriptive and unanalytical filler, superficiality, and banality.

WHAT IS TERRORISM?

On this rather simple question, no consensus exists among these texts. Some define terrorism so broadly as to make it indistinguishable from any use of force. For example, does it serve any purpose to define terrorism as “seeking to further political objectives through the threat or use of violence, usually in opposition to state governments?” (Kegley and Wittkopf, p. 222) or as “the use of violence to achieve a political objective” (Papp, p. 127)? What would not be considered terrorism under these definitions? Does it make sense to throw coercive diplomacy and conventional war into the same bucket as terrorism?

Sure it does, if one is seeking to establish moral equivalence between terrorists and their victims. As one author writes, “[D]efining terrorism is a difficult task [. . .] Indeed, several countries throughout the world consider the United States, several Western European states, and Israel as undertaking terrorist actions” (Papp, p. 14).

MORAL EQUIVALENCE

While all of the texts take a stab at a definition, we quickly learn from the vast majority of them that terrorism is largely in the eyes of the beholder. Almost all, in fact, trot out uncritically the cliché that one person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter. One text makes this point four times in about eight pages. Even a six-line description of the Terrorism Research Center’s website contains a warning to students: in looking at “terrorist profiles and the Definition of Terrorism controversy, [k]eep in mind that one group’s ‘freedom fighters’ may be another group’s ‘terrorists’” (Kegley and Wittkopf, p. 241). Four warnings in eight pages.

If students learn only one thing from most of these texts it is this: While no one really knows what terrorism is, whatever it is, we’re guilty of it too. Consider the following examples:

To a great extent, whether an organization is defined as a terrorist group or not depends on one’s perspective. When seen from an American perspective, the “Indians” of the Boston Tea Party were American nationalists making a political point: when seen from a British perspective, they were terrorists destroying property and endangering life (Papp, p. 127).

Pressure to respond to [random acts of terrorism] is very strong because people worry disproportionately about terrorism, even though it kills a relatively small number of people. Despite better devices for protection, committed individuals or groups of terrorists are difficult to deter. As the well-known phrase puts it, one person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter (Mingst, p. 179).

It is easy to condemn such [terrorist] activities when they are conducted by countries or groups of which you disapprove. What about assassination and other such actions by a country with which you may have sympathy? . . . Those who question the legitimacy of such acts [Reagan’s strike against Qaddafi and Clinton’s strikes in Somalia and Afghanistan] argue that what constitutes terrorism is often in the eye of the beholder and, in this case, killing civilians with a bomb dropped on a building by a warplane is no different than killing civilians by planting a bomb in a building (Rourke, pp. 346-47).

As the last quotation indicates, some authors hide their moral equivalence behind a veil of specious objectivity by referring to an often unnamed “some” or “observers.” Consider the following from the author last quoted: “It should be noted that in the view of some, the way that the United States and some other militarily powerful countries define terrorism is self-serving” (Rourke, p. 347).

And who are the “some?” Well, in this case, one of the “somes” is none other than Osama bin Laden. According to the author,

Osama bin Laden, who allegedly masterminded the attacks on the U.S. embassy in Kenya and Tanzania in 1988, charges that, “American history does not distinguish between civilians and military, and not even women and children. [Americans] are the ones who used the [atomic] bombs against the Japanese” (Rourke, p. 347).

While it’s one thing to point out that people use the term terrorist in self-serving and indiscriminate ways, it’s quite another to throw up one’s hands at defining what terrorism is. Clearly, we know what contemporary terrorism is: it is a strategy that explicitly targets innocent civilians. Thus, America’s retaliation against Qaddafi for the Berlin disco bombing was not an act of terrorism, as terrifying as that response may have been and as tragic as the civilian deaths may have been. The target in those attacks was not innocent civilians but the perpetuator and root of the terrorist campaign.

Labeling as “terrorist” any violent action that results in civilian deaths makes any effort to classify the uses of force impossible. Not ends or consequences, but means, defines terrorism. Moreover, terrorism used in a good cause is terrorism nonetheless, and even the best of good causes can never make terrorism good or moral, as Michael Walzer pointed out his book Just and Unjust Wars over 20 years ago. Using random and horrific acts of violence against unsuspecting and innocent non-combatants is terrorism, and moral people will condemn such acts no matter who undertakes them.

THE PERPETUATION OF MYTH

Rather than engaging in what Charles Hyneman once termed “the rigorous examination of ideas,” too many of these political scientists merely pass on and legitimize egregiously shallow and uncritical thinking. For example, one of the most simplistic myths perpetuated by almost all of these texts is the portrayal of terrorists as powerless, despair-driven people — “the international homeless,” as one set of authors put it. Terrorism, we are told, is “usually used by the powerless against the powerful” (Mingst, p. 178); it is “the strategy of the weak for weakening the strong” (Roskin and Berry, p. 4). “Terrorist groups,” according to another text, “seek the political freedom, privilege, and property they think persecution has denied them” (Kegley and Wittkopf, p. 222). Somewhat strangely, the authors of this last assertion devote their first case study to “international organized crime,” which they claim is “one increasingly active category of terrorist groups” (p. 222).

Obviously, most terrorists do not have the military capabilities of the parties against whom they wage war; however, military asymmetry does not in itself mean that terrorist groups are necessarily powerless, weak, or even poor. Hezbollah, Hamas, and al Qaeda — even when these books were written — could not have been considered groups comprised of the uneducated, “great unwashed.” Al Qaeda is as well-financed as any terrorist organization can be, and its leaders and many of its minions are or have been well-educated. Moreover, to describe members of terrorist organizations are powerless implicitly accepts and legitimizes their rejection of normal and peaceful measures for settling differences. Hamas and Hezbollah do not want a settlement with Israel; they want Israelis expunged from the Middle East. Timothy McVeigh was not seeking to argue his case in the American political arena; he wanted to destroy that very arena.

But the more important myth lies on the other side of the equation — in the claim that the targets of terrorism are “the powerful.” As Walter Laqueur pointed out almost 30 years ago, terrorism is rare in truly powerful countries such as Iraq, Syria, North Korea, the Soviet Union, Mao’s China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, or even in Afghanistan during the reign of the Taliban. Rather, since the end of the Second World War, the targets of terrorism have been concentrated in permissive democracies such as the United States, Great Britain, and the Western European social democracies, or in soft authoritarian regimes such as Egypt and Algeria. Truly powerful and totalitarian regimes never have a problem with terrorists.

TERRORISM AS A STRATEGY: EFFECTIVE OR NOT?

Assessments of whether terrorism is a successful strategy for groups seeking change are seldom attempted in these texts, and when they are, the efforts are usually superficial. Moreover, among the texts, the conclusions are contradictory — reflecting, perhaps, the state of the discipline. Consider the following three assessments:

In the end, terrorism, like most forms of violence, exists because terror tactics sometimes do accomplish their goals. However much one may condemn the acts themselves, it is also accurate to say that over the years Palestinian terrorists almost certainly played a role in increasing the willingness of Israel to deal with them, in enhancing the global awareness of and concern with the Palestinian cause, and in bringing pressure on Israel by the international community to reach an agreement with them (Rorke, p. 350).

Does terrorism work? Rarely and seldom alone . . . In most cases, however, and especially after innocent civilians have been killed by terrorists bombs, it just stiffens the resolve of the target country. No amount of Palestinian terrorism, for example, can persuade Israel to go out of business (Roskin and Berry, No. 5, p. 199).

[I]t is safe to conclude that the activity of most terrorist nonstate actors is undermining the authority and sovereignty of legitimate existing states (Kegley and Wittkopf, p. 225).

While terrorists have wrought havoc, they also have seldom succeeded in gaining major goals except when their activities were part of a larger military or political strategy. North Vietnam engaged in the systematic assassination of over 9,000 South Vietnamese village officials in the early 1960s, but even though this terrorist campaign was enveloped in a large-scale guerrilla war, the North Vietnamese were still unable to defeat the South Vietnamese — in the end, it took a conventional military invasion of South Vietnam to do that. Had the U.S. Congress not refused to re-supply South Vietnamese forces and permitted the use of American air power to resist that invasion, South Vietnam might have endured.

As for the Palestinian terrorists, the success of Yasser Arafat has had much more to do with western dependence on Arab oil than upon the terrorist tactics of the PLO, Hamas, or Hezbollah. Were Israel located elsewhere, American news channels and newspapers would be giving about as much attention to the PLO as they now give to the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka or the terrorist violence in Indian-controlled portions of Kashmir.

THE ABSENCE OF CRITICAL ASSESSMENTS

Most of the texts have little to say about strategies to combat terrorism, and few make critical assessments of the various countermeasures. Equally rare are attempts to classify different kinds of terrorists, undertake a comparative analysis of strategies and tactics, assess unilateral and multilateral countermeasures, or discuss success rates. For example, one text’s conclusion consisted of the following:

In the aftermath of a number of such high-profile cases, the international community responded by signing a series of international agreements designed to tighten airport security, sanction states that accepted hijackers, and condemn state- supported terrorism. The International Convention against the Taking of Hostages is a prominent example of such an agreement (Mingst, p. 178).

That’s it. No assessment. No critical discussion.

TERRORISM AND THE FUTURE?

Reading these texts, it is not even clear whether terrorism is a significant problem, though most do predict its persistence and, in several cases, authors dangle truly apocalyptic scenarios in which we, in the democracies, stand helpless and (presumably) hopeless. However, consider the following two assessments — drawn from the same database and scholarly literature:

Given the nature of the problem and the draconian methods that would probably be required to eliminate it, it is likely that terrorism will be with the international community for the foreseeable future (Papp, p. 129).

Terrorism, despite occasional outbursts, is in decline. The same forces that are reshaping international relations in other areas are also reducing terrorist violence. The end of the Cold War brought about major power cooperation. This removed the target for many ideological terrorists groups . . . In addition, the worldwide rise of democracy has reduced domestic terrorism directed against repressive regimes (Roskin and Berry, 1999 ed., p. 252).

BANALITIES

What do I mean by banalities? Consider:

Terrorists are non-state actors (Mingst, p. 178).

Terrorism is group activity (Roskin and Berry, 1999 ed., p. 253).

Terrorism has come of age (Papp, p. 443).

“Targets, too, have become diverse; today they include buses, large buildings (New York’s World Trade Center) and tenements (in India and Germany)” (Mingst, p. 179). “Terrorists are not crazy ‘Dr. Evils.’ They pursue their political goals by deplorable means because that is often the only way open to them” (Roskin and Berry, 2002 ed., p. 199).

“Ordinarily, the death and destruction caused by terrorism are limited, at least in comparison with the death and destruction caused by war” (Papp, p. 128).

From a section entitled “Who Are the Actors in World Politics”:

In recent years another type of individual has had a significant impact on world politics: terrorists. Examples of such are Abu Nidal and Osama bin Laden who have become commonly known because of their sponsorship and involvement in terrorism (Caldwell, p. 56).

But the prize for banality must surely go to the authors who presented students with the following list of “Five ways to reduce international terrorism”:

“(1) Avoid wars. Avoid making enemies by avoiding threats and child-killing economic sanctions in foreign policy. Stabilize deterrence through arms control and confidence building agreements. Use diplomacy vigorously.

(2) Free colonies, whether the colony is called the West Bank or Ulster.

(3) Avoid oppressing one’s own people or occupying other nations.

(4) Avoid making or propping up hated governments or unarming popular ones.

(5) Try to avoid extreme measures in dealing with an extremist domestic opposition; too tough countermeasures only make things worse” (Roskin and Berry, 1999 ed., p. 269).

To be fair, this list, which appeared in the 1999 edition of this text, was gone by the 2002 edition: The entire subject of terrorism had been condensed from one chapter to a box because, presumably, the authors believed terrorism would disappear in an evolving post-Cold War and increasingly democratic age.

NOT ALL IS BLEAK

Two of the ten books stand out as models of scholarly treatment. In five and a half pages, David Ziegler does a superb job in eviscerating cant and politically correct clichés, and making the scholarly literature accessible to students in a well-organized fashion. His presentation in War, Peace, and International Politics presents meaningful distinctions and categories and contains a balanced discussion about dealing with terrorism. He even considers the difficulties in devising measures for countering terrorist events.

Similarly, one can find an excellent discussion of terrorism in Frederic S. Pearson and J. Martin Rochester’s International Relations: The Global Condition in the Twenty-First Century. Pearson and Rochester present a wealth of relevant information and draw well on the scholarly literature. In addition, they also eviscerate many of the clichés that pass as profundity in other texts. To the cliché that “one person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter,” they reply, “[If that is to be accepted], then any act of violence can be excused and legitimized so long as someone invents a justification” (p. 448). They also write that “although some have called the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima in 1945 an act of terrorism — because it represents to them seemingly indiscriminate violence against innocent civilians — this is more accurately designated an act of interstate warfare” (p. 450). Finally, their critical discussion of the strategies for dealing with terrorists is about as well done as one could find without delving into the body of scholarly literature itself.

THIS IS HIGHER ED?

Still, these two texts are the exceptions rather than the rule. While most of the works surveyed do cite solid scholarly works on terrorism in their bibliographies, somehow very little of the knowledge in those books actually makes its way into their discussions of the subject! Many of the myths about terrorism that Walter Laqueur debunked over 25 years ago in his groundbreaking book, Terrorism, continue to appear in far too many of these texts.

Sadly, discussions of terrorism in most of today’s IR textbooks amount to melodramatic or sensational introductions, portraits of different kinds of terrorists, descriptive case studies, and superficial assessments about the future — all low-level, unanalytical, and simplistic. But what may be most dismaying of all about these texts is what they reveal about the overall state of the discipline.

Texts Reviewed

Dan Caldwell, World Politics and You (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2000). Subject not covered.

W. Raymond Duncan, Barbara Jancar-Webster, and Bob Switky, World Politics in the 21st Century (New York: Addison-Wesley/Longman Inc., 2002).

Charles Kegley Jr. and Eugene R. Wittkopf, World Politics: Trends and Transformation (Bedford: St. Martins, 2001).

Karen Mingst, Essentials of International Relations (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2001, 2nd ed.).

Daniel S. Papp, Contemporary International Relations: Frameworks for Understanding (New York: Longman, 2002, 6th ed.).

Fredric S. Pearson and J. Martin Rochester, International Relations: The Global Condition in the Twenty-First Century (New York: McGraw Hill, 1997, 4th ed.).

Michael G. Roskin and Nicholas O. Berry, IR: The New World of International Relations (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1999, 4th ed.).

John T. Rourke, International Politics on the World Stage (Dushkin/McGraw-Hill, 1999, 7th ed.).

David Ziegler, War, Peace, and International Politics (New York: Addison, Wesley, Longman, 2000).

— Stanley Michalak is the John C. Kunkel Professor of Government at Franklin and Marshall College. His latest book is Primer in Power Politics. This was written for the Foreign Policy Research Institute and is reprinted with permission.

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Terrorists brandish their global reach: Israeli hotel, plane attacked in Kenya (National Post, 021129)

Stewart Bell

‘GOD SAVED US TWICE,’ TERROR SURVIVOR SAYS: Passengers embrace upon their safe arrival at Ben Gurion International Airport at Tel Aviv yesterday. At least two missiles were fired at the jetliner they were aboard as it was leaving Kenya, and the resort many of the passengers had been staying at was simultaneously bombed.

A brazen attack on Israeli tourists in Kenya that destroyed a beach hotel and nearly blew a jetliner out of the sky has underscored the worldwide nature of the threat posed by terrorists driven by ancient religious hatreds and armed with modern weapons.

Security agencies have been bracing for an escalation in terrorist violence since the Arabic-language television station Al-Jazeera broadcast a statement, allegedly recorded by Osama bin Laden, warning the Western allies that “as you kill, you will be killed.”

The call was apparently heeded by an obscure group calling itself the Army of Palestine, which yesterday drove a car bomb into the Paradise Hotel near Mombasa and fired two surface-to-air missiles at a Tel Aviv-bound Boeing 757 carrying 261 passengers and 10 crew members.

At about the same time, two Palestinian gunmen opened fire on a bus station and a Likud party polling station in Israel, killing five. At least 36 were wounded in the attack, which took place as Likud held a leadership vote. The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, an offshoot of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, claimed responsibility.

The Kenyan blast, which some authorities said had all the hallmarks of an al-Qaeda operation, followed recent attacks in South Asia, Europe, the Persian Gulf, the Mideast and North Africa.

Yesterday’s bombing is evidence that terrorists have declared open season on civilians.

“What it shows is they can hit you anywhere, anytime,” said Michel Juneau-Katsuya, a former Canadian Security Intelligence Service agent. “It is the true nature of terrorism, which is to inflict terror. What they are going after is hurting the population on the other side.”

Indonesian al-Qaeda operatives blew up a crowded tourist bar in Bali on Oct. 12, and other affiliated radical Islamic groups have staged deadly attacks at a Tunisian synagogue, killing German tourists, a Christian church in Pakistan, a French tanker in Yemen and a U.S. aid worker in Jordan.

What the attacks have in common is that they were motivated by rage against the U.S., Israel and their allies, made use of powerful weapons such as C-4 explosives and have deliberately targeted innocent non-Muslim civilians travelling or living abroad.

Muslim terrorist leaders claim such attacks are justified because Western and Israeli civilians pay the taxes that finance their militaries, making them legitimate targets. But the attacks also appear to be part of a new strategy to hit soft Western targets wherever they can be found.

If al-Qaeda truly wanted to damage Western military interests in Africa, it could have tried to bomb the U.S. army training base in Djibouti. Instead it chose to assault an undefended tourist hotel in Kenya and a passenger plane bound for Israel.

The attack is consistent with al-Qaeda’s historic opportunism. Aside from its Sept. 11 attack on the Pentagon, al-Qaeda has tended to strike areas of weakness in Western defences, such as embassies, tourist hotels and churches.

“If it shows anything, its our vulnerability, our inability from a law enforcement point of view to come around with a 100% safety blanket,” said Mr. Juneau-Katsuya.

“Here we are talking about Israel, the nation that probably per capita is spending the highest amount of money next to the U.S. on security matters and they are still being targeted and hit on a regular basis.”

The attacks appear to be achieving their intended consequences. Western countries such as Canada are closing their foreign embassies, tourists are growing nervous and financial markets are reacting — exactly the kinds of unease that terrorists want to foment in order to push their agendas.

The list of the countries that Canadians are advised not to visit due to terrorism concerns was expanded yet again this week, when the Department of Foreign Affairs warned against travel to the Philippines and closed the Canadian embassy in Manila due to a “credible threat.”

Yesterday, the Foreign Affairs department warned about “a dangerous deterioration in the security problems in Kenya. This along with the heightened tensions as a result of the Iraq situation, and increased threats globally from terrorism, put Canadians at greater risk.”

The Mombasa attack shows that despite the international crackdown that has followed the Sept. 11 hijackings, the dozens of like-minded terrorist groups that emanate from Muslim countries remain capable of mounting sophisticated operations throughout the world.

Tourism industry officials portrayed the Mombasa attack as an escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but not a general cause for alarm among Western travellers. If al-Qaeda was behind the operation, it was the group’s first direct attack against Israelis.

But it also appeared to mark an escalation in the larger Islamist terror campaign whose leader, Osama bin Laden, signed a declaration in 1998 calling for the death of non-Muslims wherever they can be found.

First, the attack signals the return of Islamic terrorism to East Africa, where two American embassies were bombed by al-Qaeda in 1998. It also shows that terrorists possess powerful weapons and are willing to use them to maximum effect against civilians.

The “alarming fact,” said Richard Bennett, a British terrorism expert, is that “the ordinary man and woman in the street, on a charter flight or in a holiday hotel” is now at the frontline of the terrorist war.

“Al-Qaeda has survived a massive onslaught from the West and has shown a disturbing ability to escape the attentions of the intelligence community and secure its communications,” Mr. Bennett said.

“It would still appear that the true nature and range of the terrorist threat has not been fully appreciated by many Western governments or perhaps worst still that the sheer magnitude of the problem has paralyzed the decision-making process.”

The SA-7 missiles fired at the flight skimmed over the wing. Passengers said they had first been “full of trembling and fear,” but as the plane touched down they burst into applause, cheered and then sang popular Israeli songs.

“Thank God we are here,” said one passenger as he emerged from the plane.

Another passenger said: “Until three in the morning, I felt secure. It [their hotel] was an Israeli holiday village — a nice place. It’s very scary now, because we had a feeling that God had saved us twice, once here and once there.”

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Al-Qaeda roots run deep in Africa: Terror breeding ground (National Post, 021129)

Peter Goodspeed

If Osama Bin Laden’s al-Qaeda organization was behind yesterday’s simultaneous attacks on a hotel full of Israeli tourists and an Israeli charter jet in Kenya, it will be something of a homecoming for the stateless terror network.

Africa is familiar ground for al-Qaeda. While bin Laden was fighting the former Soviet Union in Afghanistan when he created al-Qaeda (The Base) in 1988, he transformed his guerrilla network into a terrorist group in Sudan in 1992 — just after he was expelled from Saudi Arabia for declaring jihad against the United States.

It was from his African base that bin Laden initially dispatched Muslim guerrillas to fight in Somalia, Chechnya, Algeria, Egypt and the Balkans, and it was there that he plotted the Feb. 26, 1993, terrorist car bomb attack on New York’s World Trade Center.

In the aftermath of last year’s second attack on the World Trade Center and the subsequent expulsion of al-Qaeda and its Taliban allies from Afghanistan, it was in Africa that the terror group first began to reform and reassert itself.

In Tunisia, Nizar Nawar, a 24-year-old al-Qaeda veteran from Afghanistan, carried out the first post-Sept. 11 al-Qaeda attack when he blew up a gas truck outside the oldest synagogue in Africa, killing 21 German tourists.

Last May, another three Saudi Arabian men with al-Qaeda links were arrested in Casablanca, Morocco, while they were planning to attack British and U.S. navy vessels in the Strait of Gibraltar.

Then in September, Kenyan police arrested an al-Qaeda suspect from Yemen, Hassan Omar Hussein, as he tried to enter the country with false Kenyan identity papers.

“There has been information circulating in Western anti-terrorist circles for the past three weeks that the Yemeni head for East Africa and the Horn of Africa ... was looking to pull off an attack,” said Roland Jacquard, head of the International Observatory on Terrorism in Paris.

Africa is a natural breeding ground for terrorism. Ravaged by poverty, torn by unrest and riddled with failed states and weak governments, it is highly likely the troubled continent drew al-Qaeda members like flies when their bases were destroyed in Afghanistan and they were forced to flee U.S. retaliation for the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

Kenya and its port city of Mombasa would have been natural shelters for fleeing al-Qaeda members because of the large population of western tourist targets and a large Muslim population that provides a natural cover for the fugitives.

In the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11, Kenyan intelligence officials were quoted as saying pro-bin Laden graffiti sprouted on some Mombasa walls and one of the city’s streets was unofficially named after the Saudi terrorism mastermind.

Kenya is also a country of wild borders and weak police. Abutting Tanzania, Uganda, Sudan, Somalia and Ethiopia, it provides any terrorist group with easy access to all of Africa in an atmosphere of almost permanent lawlessness.

The Kenyan border with Somalia is particularly troublesome and for decades has been a preferred route for African arms smugglers. A recent U.S. survey of Kenya warns: “There are indications of ties between Muslim extremist groups, including Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda organization and these roving groups of Somali gunmen.”

Still other U.S. State Department reports designate Kenya’s neighbour Sudan as one of seven state sponsors of terrorism and name Somalia as “a potential breeding ground, as well as safe haven, for terrorist networks.”

“International terrorist organizations with Islamic ties, including al-Qaeda and the Lebanese Hezbollah, have a presence in Africa and continue to exploit Africa’s permissive operating environment — porous borders, conflict, lax financial systems and the wide availability of weapons — to expand their networks,” a recent U.S. State Department report said.

“All along East Africa, from Somalia down to Kenya, Tanzania — even extending down to South Africa — there is an al-Qaeda presence,” warned Magnus Ranstorp, deputy director of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. “It’s a blind spot in the ‘war against terrorism.’ “

In 1998, when the U.S. embassy in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, was attacked with a car bomb that killed 219 people and injured another 5,000, al-Qaeda claimed the attack in the name of “the Islamic Army against the Jews and the Crusaders.”

Yesterday’s attacks were claimed by a previously unknown group called “The Government of Universal Palestine in Exile, the Army of Palestine.”

But the highly co-ordinated, synchronized attacks have all the hallmarks of an al-Qaeda operation.

During the last six months, Kenyan intelligence officials have been picking up reports their country might be targeted by terrorists, Musalia Mudavadi, Kenya’s Vice-President, said yesterday.

“We can’t rule out the group that struck at us in 1998,” he said.

Al-Qaeda cells and their allies appear to be an increasing rather than a receding threat. Lately, there have been Islamist attacks on U.S., Australian and European targets in Tunisia, Pakistan, Kuwait, Russia, Jordan, Yemen, the United States, the Philippines and Indonesia.

Last month, U.S. Central Intelligence Agency director George Tenet told a U.S. Senate hearing al-Qaeda is now stronger than it was just after Sept. 11, 2001.

“They’ve reconstituted, they are coming after us,” he said.

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Hezbollah calls for global attacks (Washington Times, 021204)

LONDON — The leader of the Lebanese Muslim group Hezbollah is urging a global suicide bombing campaign, increasing the prospect that the regional conflict between Arabs and Israelis will expand to mimic or even merge with al Qaeda’s war against the West.

Two recent speeches by the Lebanon-based Hezbollah leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, have raised the specter of attacks outside the region by a powerful and well-organized military force — a force that successfully pushed the Israeli army out of southern Lebanon two years ago.

“By Allah, if they touch Al Aqsa we will act everywhere around the world,” Sheik Nasrallah told an estimated 10,000 gun-toting, bearded fighters in southern Lebanon on Friday. Several hundred “suicide commandos” also took part.

Al Aqsa refers to a sacred Muslim site in Jerusalem that, although under Israeli military control, is in practice administered by Palestinian Muslim authorities.

The site, holy to both Jews and Muslims, is a flash point for tension and outbreaks of violence.

Taken alone, Sheik Nasrallah’s remarks might be interpreted as no more than a warning to Israel not to alter the status quo.

But earlier in the week, at a rally in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, Sheik Nasrallah issued a far more ominous threat.

“Martyrdom operations — suicide bombings — should be exported outside Palestine,” he said.

“I encourage Palestinians to take suicide bombings worldwide. Don’t be shy about it,” he added.

Both speeches were broadcast by a Hezbollah-owned TV station in Lebanon.

The sheik has made no direct comment on Thursday’s twin attacks in Kenya, in which missiles were fired at an Israeli passenger jet and suicide bombers attacked an oceanfront hotel.

However, a previously unknown group calling itself the Army of Palestine claimed responsibility for the attacks in a press statement sent from Beirut.

“The rapid statement, and the peculiarity of Lebanese fundamentalist terminology used in that statement, leads me to believe that this was the hand of Hezbollah,” said Walid Phares, a professor of Middle Eastern studies and religious conflict at Florida Atlantic University.

The Palestinian militant groups in Gaza and the West Bank insist they have no intention to take their battle with Israel outside the region.

Islamic Jihad spokesman Nafez Azaam said yesterday his group’s “ideology and strategy is based on fighting the occupation and liberating the Palestinian lands.”

“We have no interest in transferring the battle to any field outside Palestine,” he told the Associated Press by phone from Gaza.

Hamas spokesman Ismail Abu Shanab also told AP his group had “no interest in engaging in battle with anyone else outside the land of Palestine.”

But Mr. Phares warned that Hezbollah had been establishing closer ties with Palestinian radical groups, holding meetings in Lebanon with representatives of Hamas and Islamic Jihad every couple of weeks and issuing joint press statements.

Although Palestinian groups in exile actively attacked Western targets in the 1980s with high-profile hijackings and bombings outside the region, the focus shifted with the onset of the first Palestinian uprising against Israel in 1988.

Throughout the 1990s, Hezbollah and Palestinian groups operating from the West Bank and Gaza Strip pursued a strictly national agenda.

Since Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in May 2000, Hezbollah has sought a new and expanded role, and had strengthened its contacts with radical Muslims including al Qaeda, Mr. Phares said.

In that context, Mr. Phares described Sheik Nasrallah’s comments as a “benchmark.”

Hezbollah enjoys strong financial backing from its mentor Iran, and has been permitted and encouraged to operate, within certain confines, by Syria, which controls Lebanon.

Its military prowess has been seen as a model by Palestinian leaders, who had hoped that by initiating a second uprising against Israel in September 2000, they too could force a similar withdrawal by Israeli forces from the West Bank and Gaza.

Hezbollah would never openly declare an alliance or relationship with al Qaeda, according to analysts, because that would embarrass Syria.

Syria is actively being courted by the United States because of Syria’s longtime animosity toward its neighbor Iraq.

Hezbollah has already made some inroads into Palestinian insurgency: Its yellow flag, with the words “Allah is Great” inscribed in green, appears at many radical Palestinian demonstrations.

The flag can even be seen in some Arab villages in Israel.

Israel’s defense force chief, Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, on Monday said al Qaeda was already operating against Israeli targets.

He said his forces had already foiled many al Qaeda attacks in Israel, adding that the organization made use of Palestinian operatives in the West Bank and Gaza.

In some ways a tacit alliance between the two is surprising, in that al Qaeda along with Hamas and Islamic Jihad are strong adherents of Sunni Islam, while Hezbollah’s followers are Shi’ites.

The two branches of Islam reflect a schism that occurred in one generation after the founder Muhammad.

However, the branches’ common hatred of the West appears to have muted social and doctrinal differences. Hezbollah has close Sunni allies in two key Lebanese cities, Tripoli and Sidon.

Imad Mughnieh, the Hezbollah official who masterminded the attacks against the U.S. Marine barracks, French Marines and the U.S. Embassy in 1983, fled to Iran. Intelligence sources report he met with al Qaeda operatives in the late 1990s.

Of concern for anti-terror agencies is the stronghold Hezbollah has established in Canada, which is seen as a springboard for future actions and influence inside the United States.

Canada’s government has been under fire from the opposition, lobbies and some parliamentary members of the ruling Liberal Party to ban the organization. Canada’s only action so far has been to order banks to freeze the assets of the group’s “External Security Force,” the National Post newspaper reported.

The newspaper also reported that Bill Graham, the minister of foreign affairs, had decided not to outlaw Hezbollah in its entirety because the group is also involved in social and political work in Lebanon.

The group has been using Canada as a source of money, forged documents, stolen cars, recruits and military-use equipment, the Post reported Saturday, citing unnamed police and intelligence officials.

One of Sheik Nasrallah’s top men, Ayub Fawzi, 38, operated from Canada for several years. He was on the list of 22 wanted terrorists published by the United States after the September 11 attacks.

At some point, he moved back to the Palestinian territories and was captured by Israeli security forces in June.

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Terror Tools: Saudi-funded front in Michigan (National Review Online, 030311)

By Rita Katz and Josh Devon

The Saudi-funded, al Qaeda propaganda machine is in full effect behind the Islamic Assembly of North America (IANA), an ostensibly mainstream organization that had five of its members arrested and indicted at the end of February. Four of the men were running an IANA spin-off charity, Help the Needy, and funneling money illegally through it to Iraq. The fifth, Samih Al-Hussayen, a student at the University Idaho, was arrested for knowingly neglecting to list his affiliation with IANA on his visa application when he entered the country. Al-Hussayen’s employment and activities at IANA should immediately be worrisome — one federal source stated to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, “He’s in touch with people who could pick up the phone, call UBL, and he would take the call.”

IANA receives half its funding from the Saudi government and the other half from mostly Saudi private donors, according to a New York Times interview with IANA’s director, Mohammed al-Ahmari. Al-Hussayen’s indictment notes that IANA’s proselytization activities included the “dissemination of radical Islamic ideology the purpose of which was indoctrination, recruitment of members, and the instigation of acts of violence and terrorism.” Backed by the Saudis, IANA has become a glorified al Qaeda recruitment center.

Two of the most radical sheiks in Saudi Arabia who provide religious justification for al-Qaeda, Salman Al-Awdah and Safar al-Hawali, have several fatwas (religious rulings) and statements plastered all over IANA’s websites. These fatwas legitimize suicide bombings, terrorist attacks, and spit hatred towards the West. Both Al-Awdah and al-Hawali received phone calls from Mounir Motassadeq, a member of the Hamburg-based September 11 cell who was recently convicted in Germany of aiding the hijackers and being an accessory to over 3,000 murders. U.S. officials maintain al-Hawali is linked to the al Qaeda cell that bombed the U.S. embassy in Kenya in 1998. In bin Laden’s 1996 declaration of war against the West, the terrorist commander “bemoaned” the arrests of the two sheikhs, who are frequently incarcerated in Saudi Arabia for their support of terrorism and for criticizing and condemning the royal family.

Paradoxically, however, it was Saudi Prince Nayef bin Abdelaziz who in 1999 released the two “religious scholars” from one of their stints in jail, and according to the Mideast Mirror, “warmly received” them and promised “there would be no official curbs on their activities.” Despite the two sheikhs hatred for the Saudi royal family and their radical fatwas, the Saudi government continues to fund their fanatical propaganda on IANA’s websites, but why? Any Arabic speaker familiar with the Arab world (which presumably those in the Saudi government are) can immediately recognize IANA’s lineup of radical “scholars” who support and legitimize al Qaeda’s activities.

The only conclusion is that elements within the Saudi government knowingly support IANA as a jihadist recruitment center — but the recruitment is clandestine to most Americans, including law enforcement. For the most part, IANA has attempted to mask its vitriolic propaganda, publishing its most radical content solely in Arabic. IANA’s English products and publications are conspicuously absent of the harshest al Qaeda and terrorist propaganda. Only in Arabic, on IANA’s several websites, can an individual read about the glory of suicide missions or navigate to audio clips religiously justifying terrorist attacks and calling for jihad.

One fatwa in particular appears to have given the justification to the hijackers to carry out the September 11 attacks. A government translation of a fatwa by a “radical Saudi sheikh” ominously published on one of IANA’s websites, Alasr.ws, in May 2001, stated, “[T]he mujahid must kill himself if he knows that this will lead to killing a great number of enemies…this can be accomplished with the modern means of bombing or bringing down an airplane on an important location that will cause the enemy great losses.”

Radical proselytization, both written and spoken by other prominent radical sheikhs, like bin Laden’s mentor and founder of al Qaeda, Abdullah Azzam, populates IANA’s websites. IANA also hosts recruitment videos for jihad, with clips displaying the dead bodies of mujahedeen from terrorist operations and glorifying them. To see one such video, one can visit (if it is taken down after this piece is published, please contact the SITE Institute for a copy). This clip is of martyrs from Chechnya, funded by al Qaeda, who have been killed in operations and are now being honored. (It is a very graphic clip, and only individuals who are strong of mind and stomach should view it.)

Backed with copious Saudi funding, IANA has created a series of websites respected by al Qaeda members from around the world. Azzam Publications, the English mouthpiece of al Qaeda named for Abdullah Azzam that was shut down by the FBI, had a direct link from its former website, Azzam.com, to IANA’s main website, Iananet.org. Another of IANA’s websites, Islamway.com, advertised for the Saudi charity, Al-Haramain, which had two of its branches raided in Bosnia and Somalia for supporting al Qaeda and is an entity being sued by the 9/11 Families United to Bankrupt Terrorism. The link to al-Haramain, taken off the website only very recently, always remained conspicuously absent from the English-language version of the website.

Once again, we see the Saudi government maintaining to be an ally of the United States, while at the same funding a rampant systematic radicalization of the worldwide Muslim population. Like IANA’s websites, the Saudis maintain one thing to the United States in English, while snickering behind America’s back in Arabic. With incredible hubris, Saudi Arabia utilizes North America as a base of global indoctrination. IANA is just one example, that even pervades into the U.S. prison system. According to IANA’s website, last year, the organization sent 106 packages of Islamic propaganda materials to prisons nationwide, at a cost of $100 a package. This year, the website maintains, IANA hopes to send 250 additional packages to prisons. Their goal, they say, is to reach 1,000 prisons.

If propaganda tools like IANA are legitimized and allowed to operate in the United States, we can expect the hatred towards the U.S. to balloon. Saudi Arabia succors the hatred of the West, and so long as the Kingdom continues to fund jihadists and their propaganda, our war on terror will have to overcome increasing burdens. The U.S. government is to be commended for its job in arresting several of the individuals behind IANA’s activities, but the victory is a hollow one. IANA and several other organizations like it are still active in the United States and will no doubt continue their propaganda programs and their incitement to drive individuals to commit terrorist attacks, unless concerned citizens refuse to legitimize these organizations and expose them.

— Rita Katz is the director of the SITE Institute, based in Washington, D.C. Josh Devon is an analyst at the SITE Institute. The SITE Institute is one of the investigation teams for the 9/11 Families United to Bankrupt Terrorism.

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Baghdad and Beyond: Another Victory for the Bush Doctrine (National Review Online, 030410)

By Alan W. Dowd

The Bush Doctrine of coercive diplomacy, preemptive action, and regime termination has passed another important test. First, in Afghanistan, it destroyed the terrorist regime run by the Taliban and bankrolled by al Qaeda. Now, in Iraq, it has dismantled one of the centerpieces of global terrorism and preempted the use or transfer of weapons of mass murder onto the American homeland. But there’s more to come — and also more happening than meets the eye.

As the U.S.-led Coalition swept through Iraq, the Pentagon quietly continued its ongoing operations throughout the eastern hemisphere — a fact underscored by the large-scale raids in eastern Afghanistan timed to coincide with the initial assault on Saddam’s regime. In Pakistan, the Bush Doctrine’s coercive diplomacy has converted President Pervez Musharraf from the Taliban’s only friend into a dependable ally in the war on terror. U.S. special forces now roam freely along the Pakistan-Afghanistan frontier, conducting search-and-destroy missions on both sides of the border — sometimes deep inside Pakistani territory, and often with the assistance of Pakistani troops.

In the Philippines, teams of U.S. troops are conducting what the diplomats call “counterterrorism training missions” with the Philippine army. But if this is training, it’s on-the-job training. As in Afghanistan, the U.S.-led force has smashed and scattered the enemy. Likewise, in Georgia and other former Soviet republics, U.S. troops are training and equipping local forces to clean out al Qaeda and its kindred movements.

From their perch in Djibouti, U.S. intelligence agents and military task forces are conducting operations in and around Yemen (recall the Predator strike on al Qaeda commanders in November 2002), monitoring terrorist activity in the lawless lands of eastern Africa, reminding the Sudanese and Libyans that there’s a new sheriff in town, and intercepting suspicious ships in the vital waterways around the Horn of Africa. One of those ships was a North Korean vessel loaded with SCUD missiles and bound for Yemen. Although the ship was allowed to continue to its destination, the episode sent an unmistakable message to North Korea and its ilk: America is watching and can strike at will.

Yet all of this made for little more than background noise as the United States waged and won two major military campaigns in the span of 18 months. Like some 21st-century posse, U.S. special forces rode into Afghanistan on horseback, the Marines joining them by helicopter. The warplanes came from the Arabian Sea, the Indian Ocean, the former Soviet Union, and the continental United States. The Taliban promised another Vietnam, a replay of Mogadishu. But what the world witnessed was liberation in its fullest sense, as this improbable task force rewrote military history and helped Afghanis take their first steps toward freedom in a generation.

Then, before a new government had even been installed in Kabul, the United States swung its sights to Iraq and began assembling an invasion force like no other. Once called into action, it moved across the sands and skies of Iraq like lightning across the heavens. Saddam wanted a Stalingrad, a Dresden, a Grozny. He wanted oil fires and mass casualties, to show the world that the allies were no different than his thugs. But what the world has witnessed instead is the power of restraint, the shock and awe of a military juggernaut limited only by the conscience of a moral people. From the airmen and sailors using their missilery like a sniper’s rifle to the Marines and soldiers sharing food with Saddam’s victims after destroying his armies, America’s finest have risked their own lives to limit the bloodshed.

Saddam’s Baathists have done the very opposite. Cribbing their battle plan from bin Laden’s al Qaeda and Arafat’s al-Aqsa Martyrs, they march noncombatants in front of tanks, use school buses and pregnant women as time bombs, and convert holy sites into missile sites. Yet none of this deterred the liberators of Iraq. Instead, they fought harder and plunged deeper. Could it be that every fake surrender, every suicide attack, every atrocity, reminded the Americans of the men who had planned and executed September 11?

In all of this, one recalls what an awestruck Churchill observed in the middle of World War II: “With her left hand,” he marveled, “America was leading the advance of the conquering Allied armies into the heart of Germany, and with her right, on the other side of the globe, she was irresistibly and swiftly breaking up the power of Japan.” Such is the reach of a wounded America.

But to paraphrase Churchill after North Africa , Iraq marks not the beginning of the end, but only the end of the beginning. The next test for the Bush Doctrine is literally as close as next door.

Just west of Iraq, the Syrian government grants office space in downtown Damascus to Hamas. Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, controlled by Syria, is a training ground for Hezbollah, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The State Department concludes that Syria serves “as the primary transit point for the transfer of Iranian-supplied weapons to Hizballah.” And as the Iraq war intensified, Syria sent military supplies and volunteers to rescue Saddam’s dying regime. Damascus could send far worse in the months ahead — guerillas, suicide bombers, poisons.

A recent State Department report called Iran “the most active state sponsor of terrorism” on earth. Tehran provides Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestine Islamic Jihad, and others with funding, training, and weapons. Contrary to the critics’ claims, these organizations aren’t just “Israel’s problem.” Hezbollah does advocate the elimination of Israel, a strong U.S. ally, but it’s worth noting that until September 11, Hezbollah had also killed more Americans than any other terrorist group on earth. In fact, a full year before the attacks on Manhattan and Washington, the FBI arrested 23 members and supporters of Hezbollah — in suburban North Carolina. And in February of 2003, eight people with ties to Palestinian Islamic Jihad were arrested in Florida.

Simply put, al Qaeda is just one branch of a global terror network with roots and branches virtually everywhere. And the Iranian and al Qaeda branches in particular have grown closer since 2001. Western officials have evidence that Tehran has provided safe haven and safe passage to al Qaeda. And during the war in Iraq, Tehran slipped hundreds of members of its Badr Brigade across the border. We can’t be sure what they will do inside Iraq, but we can be sure of what they won’t do — help the United States and the United Kingdom to build a democratic, pluralist Iraq.

Inside Iran, the mullahs are racing to build a nuclear bomb. A year ago, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld concluded, ominously, “The nexus between weapons of mass destruction and the terrorist states that have those weapons — and that have relationships with terrorist networks — is a particularly dangerous circumstance for the world.” We may soon see just how dangerous.

Of the 19 men who attacked the Pentagon and World Trade Center on September 11, 15 had been born and raised in the cloistered wealth of Saudi Arabia. It was a Saudi millionaire who trained and indoctrinated them, and many of them had their first taste of his poisoned brand of Islam in Saudi-supported schools. These schools dot the Muslim world; they are producing tomorrow’s bin Ladens by the thousands; and they are graphic evidence that the current Saudi regime is no friend to America. Like Pakistan’s government in 2001, Saudi Arabia’s leaders must be called to task and given a simple choice: Either change the behavior of your regime or face the consequences.

Of course, those consequences don’t necessarily translate into full-blown warfare. Already the terror masters have watched the U.S. military destroy in five weeks the nightmare regime that the Taliban took five years to build. They have watched intelligence agencies, special forces, and pilotless planes systematically dismantle a global terror network spanning 60 countries and six continents. They have watched U.S. bombers drop JDAMs, while U.S. cargo planes drop MREs. They have watched America reward its friends and warn its enemies. They have watched Washington shrug off the diplomatic doublespeak and doomsaying. They have watched a divided, ambivalent America coalesce behind a mission and burden that other nations and prior administrations had refused to accept. They have witnessed the flexibility and fury of preventive war. And, soon, they will witness yet another expression of American might: When the last of Saddam’s regime is defeated, thousands of Americans will quietly withdraw from the land of Mecca and Medina. They will join the quarter-million U.S. troops already in Iraq, and take up long-term residence on the borders of Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. And so will begin the next phase in the war on terror. Blending the surprise and deadliness of traditional warfare with the tension and stalemate of the Cold War, what lies ahead is something altogether different — a colder, harsher strain of conflict.

America is well suited and well rehearsed for this “colder war.” In fact, we have been practicing it for months, if not years. Since September 12, 2001, the United States has been on guard, alternately showing restraint and resolve, the clenched fist of war and the open hand of friendship. Of course, this is not the first time America has called on its political and military leaders to be ambidextrous: Recall the long test of will with Moscow that began with a humanitarian airlift into a divided Berlin, spawned a war in Korea that still hasn’t ended, threw open the door to Doomsday in Cuba, and ended with celebrations in a united Berlin.

As before, the United States will menace the enemy, even while rebuilding the cities and society of a liberated Iraq. America’s very presence will change the behavior of Iraq’s neighbors. And, one way or another, the United States will replace these enemy regimes with something better. If you doubt this, just take a look at what’s happening in Kabul and Baghdad — or try to find a Soviet armored division in Berlin or Budapest. For that matter, try to find the Soviet Union on a map.

Simply put, just as regimes come in many forms, so too do the tools of regime change — from coercion and Cold War to combat and colder war. The enemy is learning that the Bush Doctrine, like its author, is flexible and audacious enough to employ any of these tools.

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Hamas accused of Canadian plot (National Post, 031205)

Israel says Ontario man was trained to kill in North America: Lawyer says client admits group recruited him, but argues confession was under duress

The terrorist group Hamas recruited and trained a Palestinian-Canadian to carry out attacks against Jewish and Israeli targets in Canada and the United States, an Israeli embassy official said yesterday.

In what is being described as a new direction for the radical Palestinian group, Hamas allegedly gave weapons and explosives training to the 23-year-old Canadian in an attempt to expand its war against Israel to North America.

The embassy official said that Jamal Akkal of Windsor has confessed he was assigned to assassinate visiting Israeli dignitaries, booby-trap the cars of Jews and Israeli diplomats, and murder Jews whenever the opportunity arose.

“He is a member of Hamas,” said Ofir Gendelman, second secretary at the Israeli embassy in Ottawa. “Basically, he is part of a new cell that planned terrorist attacks in North America against Israeli and Jewish targets.

“This is very, very dangerous, a novelty so to speak in terrorist activities done by Hamas,” the embassy spokesman added. “Hamas has always, or most of the time, concentrated on Israel and the territories. In some cases they plan to execute terrorist attacks in Jordan, but this is the first time that we are getting information about terrorist attacks in North America by Hamas.”

Jamil al-Qhateb, the lawyer representing Mr. Akkal, said the Canadian admits he was approached by Hamas to carry out attacks in North America but said he never agreed to do so, and that his confession was extracted under duress.

“You know how they take all this information. For 20 days they interrogated him without sleep. He was all the time sitting in the chair ... and what he has said, I think that [was] because he was tired or because he didn’t sleep at all.”

He said he asked Mr. Akkal if he planned to conduct attacks in North America and he said he did not. He also said allegations that Mr. Akkal underwent Hamas military training were overblown. “It’s just eight bullets he was shooting, that’s it, and they tell him it’s military training.”

Mr. Akkal appeared at a brief court hearing in Israel yesterday, where his case was transferred to the military for prosecution. His lawyer said he faces charges of conspiracy and military training.

Mr. Akkal, also known as Jammal Zakariya Hadi Abed El Aqel, was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in the Gaza Strip but moved to Canada four years ago and is a former student at the University of Windsor.

He returned to Gaza for a visit in October. His family said he went to find a wife. But he was arrested on Nov. 1 as he was leaving for Egypt, where he planned to catch a flight home to Canada. He has since been held by the Israeli Shin Beit security service.

“He admitted during his investigation that during his stay in the Gaza Strip ... he was drafted into the military wing of Hamas and had a series of military trainings that included the use of small arms and preparation of explosive devices,” Mr. Gendelman said.

“The aim of this training was committing a series of terrorist attacks against Israeli and Jewish interests in North America. One of the plans was shooting at an Israeli VIP, a minister that would come to visit North America. He was supposed to tail that minister, get close to him and shoot him.

“Another scenario was booby-trapping cars of Israelis and Jews.... And he also wanted to kill a Jew wherever he meets him, like in the street if he would see an Orthodox Jew, he had orders to kill him on the spot.

“He admitted to all those. He said in the investigation that he was planning to do all those things. So we are not talking about allegations but about facts.”

The Department of Foreign Affairs said it had no information about the confession but was seeking details from the Canadian embassy in Tel Aviv. “We are not aware of the elements quoted by the National Post,” said spokesman Reynald Doiron.

Wayne Easter, the Solicitor-General, said in a speech in Ottawa yesterday that Americans unjustly view Canada as a “staging base for terrorist acts in the U.S. and other forms of unlawful activity. That is a perception, but keep in mind it is not a correct one.”

Israeli officials said Mr. Akkal appears to have been recruited for just such a mission, and he was selected largely because of his ability as a Canadian citizen and passport holder to move freely within North America.

“He wouldn’t arouse any suspicion because he is a Canadian,” Mr. Gendelman said. “We think that because he was Canadian and they knew he was Canadian, they didn’t see him as just another Palestinian coming from abroad. They wanted to use his documents, his citizenship, as a tool to carry out terrorist attacks.”

This week, another Canadian, Abdurahman Khadr, admitted at a news conference in Toronto that he had trained at a notorious al-Qaeda terrorist camp in Afghanistan. He returned to Canada on Sunday following his release from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Hamas, an acronym for the Islamic Resistance Movement, is a Palestinian terrorist group based in Gaza that is committed to the destruction of Israel. It carried out many of the suicide bombings that have killed hundreds of Israelis over the past three years.

The group was outlawed under Canada’s Anti-Terrorism Act on Nov. 27, 2002. While Hamas has used Canada in the past for fundraising, propaganda and sanctuary, this is the first suggestion it has tried to use Canada as a launching pad for attacks.

Mr. al-Qhateb said he had not seen what other evidence the Israelis had, but he said he doubted the strength of Mr. Akkal’s confession.

“What he had already admitted, it seems to me, it is not all the truth.”

He said Mr. Akkal does not speak Hebrew and would not know what the Israeli interrogators were saying or writing down. “They can write whatever they want and, really, I ask him if he had an intention to do attacks in Canada or in America or somewhere else, and he said to me that, ‘no, I didn’t have any intention to do it. Just it was someone who asked me if I agree. I didn’t decide it.’ That’s what happened.”

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Europe’s Non-Strategy: The E.U. isn’t taking terror seriously (Weekly Standard, 040510)

IN THE WAKE of the March 11 Madrid train bombing, Romano Prodi, president of the European Commission, said, “It is clear that force alone cannot win the fight against terrorism.” Prodi was hardly the first continental leader to implicitly criticize U.S. policy as short-sighted and to suggest that there are clear and compelling alternatives to America’s strategy in the war on terror.

Soon after 9/11 itself, French prime minister Lionel Jospin traced terrorist acts to “tension, frustration, and radicalism,” which in turn “are linked to inequality,” which would have to be addressed. In 2002, France’s foreign minister famously termed U.S. policy toward terrorism “simplistic” precisely because it did not look to “root causes, the situations, poverty, injustice.” Norway’s prime minister, Kjell Bondevik, insists that “fighting terrorism should be about more than using your military and freezing finances,” and convened two international conferences on the root causes of terrorism in 2003. And after Madrid, German chancellor Gerhard Schröder said that “terrorism cannot be fought only with arms and police. We must also combat the roots of terrorism.”

This view isn’t restricted to the other side of the Atlantic. John Kerry said in January 2003 that President Bush “has a plan for waging war [on terror] but no plan for winning the peace” over the long haul. “We need more than a one-dimensional war on terror,” he went on, requiring us to “recognize the conditions that are breeding this virulent new form of anti-American terrorism.”

There are only two things wrong with this line of

criticism. The United States is mounting a long-term strategy against terrorism. And Europe isn’t offering any alternative.

American conservatives may not be famous for their “root causes” explanations of terrorism, any more than of crime. But in several major speeches that echo neoconservative thinking on the subject, President Bush has articulated what amounts to a root-causes theory of terrorism. “As long as the Middle East remains a place of tyranny and despair and anger,” he says, “it will continue to produce men and movements that threaten the safety of America and our friends,” because dictatorships incubate “stagnation, resentment, and violence ready for export.” And his administration has begun to implement a strategy based on this theory. It has outlined a far-reaching “greater Middle East initiative” aimed at offering incentives for political reform and democratization in the region. More pointedly, the United States invaded Iraq in no small part to create a new democracy which the administration thinks might catalyze liberalization throughout the Middle East.

The United States doesn’t exactly have the strongest track record when it comes to transformational policies in the Middle East. And there are grounds to be skeptical of the “tyranny” theory of the origins of anti-Western extremism. But it cannot be denied that this administration is trying something bold and serious, something expensive and risky, to solve the terrorism problem from the roots up. Britain, Poland, and several other European countries have of course joined in the Iraq initiative.

By comparison, what are European critics offering as an alternative? All European countries have mounted assertive intelligence-gathering and law enforcement policies against terrorists and plotters in their midst. And several have military forces in Afghanistan. But both those measures are parts of the bombs-and-bullets strategy they insist is not enough. So what major initiative have they—say, the governments of France, Germany, Belgium, and Scandinavia—launched to address what they consider terrorism’s root causes, whether alone, jointly, or through the European Union? No such initiative is anywhere in sight.

Is it too early to expect more? It’s only a little over a month since Islamist terrorists attacked a major E.U. capital, killing 191 people and wounding 1,500. But Europeans have had two and a half years since al Qaeda put terrorism on everyone’s agenda. Moreover, they have had major domestic terrorist problems for decades, unlike the United States. So there has been ample time to formulate what French president Jacques Chirac has called for: a “European plan against terrorism.” And Europe has the means. The E.U. countries have a total GDP of around $8 trillion, and they stand at the crossroads of both international diplomacy and the global economy.

What are the leading candidates for a European “root causes” initiative? Sweden’s Social Democratic Olof Palme Center declares that “world poverty, exclusion, and class divisions” are key root causes of extremism. As is well known, the link between poverty and terrorism is suspiciously difficult to establish. But let’s assume many Europeans believe that poverty is generating a major threat to the security of the West. Several E.U. governments famously give foreign aid at higher rates than the United States, especially the Scandinavians. But they have been giving at these rates for decades, the same decades in which anti-Western extremism was growing. In answer to post-9/11 calls for changes in policy, these leaders might have launched—or at least proposed—a major shift in which countries receive their aid or in how they monitor its effectiveness. Or they could have proposed to dramatically increase the amount

of aid—the recipients of the Marshall Plan now “giving back” to the international community. But they haven’t done any of these things. For example, European official development assistance levels and practices generally remain steady.

Other Europeans argue that global economic inequality is a source of resentment. If so, France, Germany, and other E.U. countries could try to revise the rules of the global economic game to promote growth in developing countries. They might have started by opening their own markets to textiles and especially agricultural products from developing countries. But instead they’ve chosen to maintain import barriers and extensive subsidies to their own producers. By depressing the prices of goods made in Europe, these measures decrease incomes in the developing world, at levels almost certainly outweighing the value of Europe’s foreign aid. If anything, Europe (and especially France) has been playing a regressive role on agriculture in world trade talks in recent years.

Other European commentators highlight political root causes, such as the lack of political and human rights in many developing countries. Decades of experience suggest that mild pressure on developing countries to reform has little effect. So have these Europeans outlined a transformational strategy aimed at political reform in, say, the Middle East? So far they haven’t. Indeed, nothing has attracted their criticism as much as America’s pursuit of a democracy-seeking transformational agenda in the region.

Finally, Jacques Chirac and former French prime minister Alain Juppé are among many who trace Islamist anger to “conflicts,” often a code word for the Arab-Israeli conflict. The evidence for this thesis, too, is not persuasive, to say the least. But have Europeans launched a major initiative aimed at resolving or even substantially mitigating this dispute? Here is the one candidate on this list on which Europe’s leaders have expended effort and (some) treasure trying to encourage progress and increase their leverage over events, mostly by funding Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority with over $100 million a year. This has not solved the problem (and may well have made it worse), but it’s a rare attempt to follow through, however partially, on one root-causes theory of terrorism.

So where have continental European leaders been focusing the bulk of their counterterrorism efforts? Since 9/11, and again since “3/11” in Madrid, they have dramatically intensified surveillance, gathered intelligence, revealed wide-ranging plots and recruiting networks, and made a pleasing number of arrests of known and suspected terrorists in their midst. Pleasing, but not satisfying, because arresting on-site conspirators deals only with the tail end of an enemy’s overall assault. Dick Cheney points out that such a law-enforcement strategy “leaves the network behind the attacks virtually untouched,” able to continue recruiting, training, and dispatching new teams of bombers whenever it wishes. This is the furthest thing from a root-causes strategy.

The result is that there is a real difference between European and American strategies in the war on terror, but not the one you might think. It’s not that Europeans are thinking long-term while the United States is thinking short-term, or even that their theories of root causes are distinct (though they are). The real difference is that only the United States has translated a theory of root causes into a strategy and started to implement it.

What might explain this? One disturbing possibility is that the real long-term strategy of many Europeans might be to lie low while the United States takes the heat: in other words, to take Osama bin Laden up on his “separate peace” proposal even while denouncing it. This might have made sense to some people immediately after 9/11, when violent Islamists seemed to be treating Europe only as a staging area for attacks on America. But in the succeeding months, al Qaeda affiliates and sympathizers repeatedly targeted E.U. citizens and assets—in Pakistan, Tunisia, Turkey, and on the open seas. The Madrid train bombing brought the war to an E.U. capital. And even since Spain’s elections, ongoing plots have been uncovered in Spain, France, and Britain. In the wake of Madrid, there is little evidence that many Europeans believe they can deflect the threat.

Another possibility is that Europe’s multinational nature makes coordination and implementation complicated. That’s no doubt true. But it does not explain the lack even of well-developed proposals for addressing the root causes of terrorism.

A more plausible explanation is that many Europeans aren’t as convinced of their root-causes theories as their talk would suggest. Their skittishness over the Iraq operation in particular and the “greater Middle East initiative” in general leaves the distinct impression that it is Europeans who are averse to transformational agendas and more comfortable with the muddling-through approach that the Bush administration now criticizes. The E.U.’s December 2003 “European Security Strategy” traces “violent religious extremism” to “the pressures of modernization, cultural, social, and political crises, and the alienation of young people living in foreign societies,” including in Europe. In which case, they should be the first to mount a bold initiative aimed at alleviating those very pressures and crises. Yet what has angered Europeans most is not America’s failure to pursue an ambitious strategy but its insistence on doing so—starting in Iraq.

Gerard Alexander is associate professor of politics at the University of Virginia and author of The Sources of Democratic Consolidation (Cornell University Press).

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Good manners is no way to win a war on terrorism (Washington Times, 040622)

By Diana West

Why have the media continued to report, obsess and revel in the same old humiliation photos from U.S.-controlled Abu Ghraib even as they ignore never-before-aired videotape that documents the hacking, maiming, bloody torture that took place at Abu Ghraib under Saddam Hussein?

Terror expert Michael Ledeen told the New York Post’s Deborah Orin, who posed this excellent question, that “most journalists want Bush to lose.” Former Defense Department official Richard Perle also blames “faint hearts in the administration” who believe it’s “politically incorrect” to showcase the savage reality of Saddam’s regime. Ms. Orin offers another explanation: “We highlightU.S.prisoner abuse because the photos aren’t too offensive to show. We downplay Saddam’s abuse precisely because it’s far worse — so we can’t use the photos.”

Or don’t want to. That might burst the bubble. The beautiful, shining sanctimony that lines the stormy denunciations of abuse, such as it was, at Abu Ghraib (and by extension at prisons for suspected Islamist terrorists the world over) would lose some of its feel-good luster. This goes a long way to explain why, as Ms. Orin noted, “the world sees photos of U.S. interrogators using dogs to scare prisoners at Abu Ghraib, but not the footage of Saddam’s prisoners getting fed — alive — to Doberman pinschers.”

More than anything else, the emanations of Abu Ghraib — which quickly spread to jihad prisons in Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan, even Israel — have enveloped opponents of the Iraqi war policy in a vacuum-packed morality, a cocoon of virtuousness from which they judge the world as it should be, not the world as it is. In their never-never land, there is never, never cause for mistreatment of any kind. This condition may feel good, particularly as it eliminates the need to weigh the well-being of suspected terrorists against the well-being of unsuspecting victims, and act accordingly. Indeed, there is no need to act, period — except, that is, on the urge to “feel good about yourself.” In pursuit of this essentially selfish experience, terrorism and defeat become interchangeable with security and victory.

Seeing the world as it should be (something resembling a croquet lawn) rather than the world as it is (consumed in a global struggle against Islamist jihad to reclaim national and international security) is not unique to Abu Ghraibists basking in a rosy glow.

The Bush administration, for example, pledges to Arab American leaders to eliminate security checks for men entering the country from mainly Muslim countries. Is such a pledge appropriate to this precarious stage in the war? I’d rather see the Bush administration pledge to Arab-American leaders to eliminate security risks entering the country from mainly Muslim countries. But maybe that’s not good manners. “Our long-term goal,” said Homeland Security’s Asa Hutchinson, “is to treat [all visitors] the same way, and not based on where you come from.” This may sound polite — an Equal Rights for Aliens Amendment in the making — but it is wholly incompatible with national security.

In Ohio, a federal judge tells prosecutors not to mention Osama bin Laden or al Qaeda during the trial of Fawaz Damra, an imam charged with lying to immigration authorities about his terror-network connections. Despite evidence linking both Mr. Damra and bin Laden to a Muslim aid group in Brooklyn that the government says later evolved into al Qaeda, mum’s the legal word. Huh? According to U.S. District Judge James S. Gwin, “the risk of inflaming the jury is too great.” Prosecutors can’t even call Mr. Damra, an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center attack (and they can’t mention that, either), a “radical Islamic militant.” Clearly, the spectre of saying the wrong thing looms larger than the importance of seeking the right verdict. Which begs the question: Is this a terrorism trial or a tea party?

Maybe it is this fear of the faux pas that prevented the media — with the notable exception of frontpagemag.com’s Ben Johnson — from pointing out that Mohammad Magid, the imam invited to Ronald Reagan’s funeral at the National Cathedral, has “disturbing ties to suspected terrorists.” Across the pond, a similar reticence characterized the BBC’s reporting on Sheikh Abdur-Rahman al Sudais, the Saudi-appointed imam of Mecca’s Grand Mosque, who recently visited London to open a massive new Islamic center. Describing the sheikh as “one of Islam’s most renowned imams,” the BBC failed to mention his well-documented (renowned?) record of poisonous invective toward Jews, Christians and Hindus.

External threats aside, Western civilization appears to be threatened from within by a paralyzing attack of terminally good manners: see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil (except Abu Ghraib). This may be one way to ride out the war on Islamist terrorism. It’s no way to win it.

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Terrorists testing jets, crews say (Washington Times, 040721)

Flight crews and air marshals say Middle Eastern men are staking out airports, probing security measures and conducting test runs aboard airplanes for a terrorist attack.

At least two midflight incidents have involved numerous men of Middle Eastern descent behaving in what one pilot called “stereotypical” behavior of an organized attempt to attack a plane.

“No doubt these are dry runs for a terrorist attack,” an air marshal said.

Pilots and air marshals who asked to remain anonymous told The Washington Times that surveillance by terrorists is rampant, using different probing methods.

“It’s happening, and it’s a sad state of affairs,” a pilot said.

A June 29 incident aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 327 from Detroit to Los Angeles is similar to a Feb. 15 incident on American Airlines Flight 1732 from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport.

The Northwest flight involved 14 Syrian men and the American Airlines flight involved six men of Middle Eastern descent.

“I’ve never been in a situation where I have felt that afraid,” said Annie Jacobsen, a business and finance feature writer for the online magazine Women’s Wall Street who was aboard the Northwest flight.

The men were seated throughout the plane pretending to be strangers. Once airborne, they began congregating in groups of two or three, stood nearly the entire flight, and consecutively filed in and out of bathrooms at different intervals, raising concern among passengers and flight attendants, Mrs. Jacobsen said.

One man took a McDonald’s bag into the bathroom, then passed it off to another passenger upon returning to his seat. When the pilot announced the plane was cleared for landing and to fasten seat belts, seven men jumped up in unison and went to different bathrooms.

Her account was confirmed by David Adams, spokesman for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS), who said officers were on board and checked the bathrooms several times during the flight, but nothing was found.

“The FAMS never broke their cover, but monitored” the activity, Mr. Adams said. “Given the facts, they had no legal basis to take an enforcement action. But there was enough of a suspicious nature for the FAMS, passengers and crew to take notice.”

A January FBI memo says suicide terrorists are plotting to hijack trans-Atlantic planes by smuggling “ready-to-build” bomb kits past airport security, and later assembling the explosives in aircraft bathrooms.

On many overseas flights, airlines have issued rules prohibiting loitering near the lavatory.

“After seeing 14 Middle Eastern men board separately (six together and eight individually) and then act as a group, watching their unusual glances, observing their bizarre bathroom activities, watching them congregate in small groups, knowing that the flight attendants and the pilots were seriously concerned and now knowing that federal air marshals were on board, I was officially terrified,” Mrs. Jacobsen said.

“One by one, they went into the two lavatories, each spending about four minutes inside. Right in front of us, two men stood up against the emergency exit door, waiting for the lavatory to become available. The men spoke in Arabic among themselves ... one of the men took his camera into the lavatory. Another took his cell phone. Again, no one approached the men. Not one of the flight attendants asked them to sit down.”

In an interview yesterday with The Washington Times, Mrs. Jacobsen said she was surprised to learn afterward that flight attendants are not trained to handle terrorist attacks or the situation that happened on her flight.

“I absolutely empathize with the flight attendants. They are acting with no clear protocol,” she said.

Other passengers were distraught and one woman was even crying as the events unfolded.

The plane was met by officials from the FBI, Los Angeles Police Department, Federal Air Marshal Service and Transportation Security Administration. The Syrians, who were traveling on one-way tickets, were taken into custody.

The men, who were not on terrorist watch lists, were released, although their information and fingerprints were added to a database. The group had been hired as musicians to play at a casino, and the booking, hotel accommodations and return flight to New York from Long Beach, Calif., also checked out, Mr. Adams said.

“We don’t know if it was a dry run, that’s why we are working together with intelligence and investigative agencies to help protect the homeland,” he said.

Mrs. Jacobsen, however, is skeptical the 14 passengers were innocent musicians.

“If 19 terrorists can learn to fly airplanes into buildings, couldn’t 14 terrorists learn to play instruments?” she asked in the article.

The pilot confirmed Mrs. Jacobsen’s experience was “terribly alike” what flight attendants reported on the San Juan flight.

He said there is “widespread knowledge” among crew members these probes are taking place.

A Middle Eastern passenger attempted to videotape out the window as the plane taxied on takeoff and, when told by a flight attendant it was not permitted, “gave her a mean look and stopped taping,” said a written report of the San Juan incident by a flight attendant.

The group of six men sat near one another, pretended to be strangers, but after careful observation from flight attendants, it was apparent “all six knew each other,” the report said.

“They were very careful when we were in their area to seem separate and pretended to be sleeping, but when we were out of the twilight area, they were watching and communicating,” the report said.

The men made several trips to the bathroom and congregated in that area, and were told at least twice by a flight attendant to return to their seats. The suspicious behavior was relayed to airline officials in midflight and additional background checks were conducted.

A second pilot said that, on one of his recent flights, an air marshal forced his way into the lavatory at the front of his plane after a man of Middle Eastern descent locked himself in for a long period.

The marshal found the mirror had been removed and the man was attempting to break through the wall. The cockpit was on the other side.

The second pilot said terrorists are “absolutely” testing security.

“There is a great degree of concern in the airline industry that not only are these dry runs for a terrorist attack, but that there is absolutely no defense capabilities on a vast majority of airlines,” the second pilot said.

Dawn Deeks, spokeswoman for the Association of Flight Attendants, said there is no “central clearinghouse” for them to learn of suspicious incidents, and flight crews are not told how issues are resolved.

She said a flight attendant reported that a passenger was using a telephoto lens to take sequential photos of the cockpit door.

The passenger was stopped, and the incident, which happened two months ago, was reported to officials. But when the attendant checked back last week on the outcome, she was told her report had been lost.

Recent incidents at the Minneapolis-St. Paul international airport have also alarmed flight crews. Earlier this month, a passenger from Syria was taken into custody while carrying anti-American materials and a note suggesting he intended to commit a public suicide.

A third pilot reported watching a man of Middle Eastern descent at the same airport using binoculars to get airplane tail numbers and writing the numbers in a notebook to correspond with flight numbers.

“It’s a probe. They are probing us,” said a second air marshal, who confirmed that Middle Eastern men try to flush out marshals by rushing the cockpit and stopping suddenly.

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Post-Saddam militants fund Palestinian terror? (WorldNetDaily, 040929)

Captured document reveals continued support to intifada

Remnants of deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s regime may be seeking to fund terrorism against Israel by continuing the payments to families of Palestinian suicide bombers that Hussein previously provided, a document recently seized in Iraq and obtained by WorldNetDaily indicates.

The document, discovered by a U.S. military unit on the body of an Iraqi combatant in Northern Iraq, is a general “Certificate of Martyrdom” honoring a family member who carries out a suicide attack against Israelis. It was provided to WorldNetDaily by an American military source in Iraq.

Certificate of Martyrdom

Unlike documents Hussein issued while in power, the new certificate refers to the former Iraqi leader as a “Freedom Fighter,” and is not signed by Hussein himself, but by the “Iraq Sector Command,” a reference not previously used in such certificates, indicating that post-Hussein militants may be seeking to fund Palestinian terrorism.

Military analysts experienced in Iraqi affairs told WorldNetDaily the document appears indeed to be post-Hussein, although it is unclear whether it was printed while Hussein went into hiding or after he was captured in December 2003.

While in power, Hussein paid the families of Palestinian suicide bombers as much as $25,000 a piece. The checks were thought to provide major financial motivation to underprivileged teenagers who could help their cash-strapped families with the payments that would be issued upon completion of a suicide mission.

According to documents captured in 2002 by Israel’s Operation Defensive Shield, Hussein set up an “Arab Liberation Front” – a Ba’ath party department in the Palestinian areas used to encourage terrorism and issue checks, usually through the Palestine Investment Bank, to the families of suicide bombers.

The payments were $15,000 at the start of the intifada, and were later raised to $25,000.

Hussein would also issue checks of $10,000 to the families of “ordinary” Palestinians killed in the intifada by other means, such as “through the aggression of the Zionist army.”

Along with the checks came the martyrdom certificates, signed by Hussein, that read: “A gift from President Saddam Hussein to the family of a martyr in the al-Aqsa intifada. To those who irrigate the land with their blood. You deserve the honor you will receive from Allah and you will defeat all who bow before your will.”

A $25,000 check and martyrdom certificate, for example, was transferred on June 23, 2002, to Khaldiya Isma’il Abd Al-Aziz Al-Hurani, mother of the Hamas terrorist Fuad Isma’il Ahmad Al-Hurani, who carried out a suicide attack on March 19 of that year in Jerusalem’s Moment Cafe. Eleven Israelis were killed and 16 wounded in the attack.

Checks for $15,000 each were given along with the martyrdom certificates to the families of Hamas suicide terrorists who blew themselves up in Zion Square in Jerusalem on Dec. 1, 2001. Receipts were attached to the checks, in which the family confirmed they received the “President Saddam Hussein’s Grant” from the “Arab Liberation Front.”

Photo of a 2002 ceremony in which a check and certificate of merit were granted to the family of a killed terrorist from Khan Yunis.

Fatah and the Iraqi Ba’ath Party held a public ceremony Feb. 8, 2001, in which checks and certificates of merit were granted to families of those killed and wounded in the intifada.

And CNN recorded a ceremony in Gaza on July 18, 2002, in which a check and martyrdom certificate were granted to the family of a killed terrorist from Khan Yunis.

The mother proudly showed off the certificate to the cameras. But the document in view, which is signed by “President Saddam Hussein” and identical to those issued while Hussein was in power, is different from the certificate recently captured in Iraq. The new certificate calls Hussein “Mr. President Commander Freedom Fighter Saddam Hussein,” lacks any official Iraqi state affirmation, and is signed by the “Iraqi Sector Command,” a reference that has been used to refer to Iraqi insurgents.

The captured certificate, titled “Certificate of Voluntary Martyrdom for the Liberation of Palestine,” reads: “For responding to the summons of Supreme President Freedom Fighter Saddam Hussein to serve Allah and his subjects, (fill in name of Martyr) is recognized for the high honor of his voluntary service for the liberation of Palestine and Jerusalem from the treacherous cheating Zionists and for this high achievement this certificate of Martyrdom is conferred.”

It is unclear whether any of the new certificates have been issued, or whether Baathist money has been transferred to Palestinians since Hussein’s downfall and capture. Palestinian terrorism has sharply declined since America occupied Iraq and Israel began construction of its security fence.

Daniel Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum, told WorldNetDaily: “Iraqi money for Palestinian suicide bombers for years helped to legitimize atrocities. Should that money have continued after the end of Saddam Hussein’s rule, it points to the deep and abiding connection between his horrific regime and the horrific Palestinian killers.”

An Israeli security source said, “the continuation of funding for Palestinian terrorism could serve Iraqi insurgent interests because it continues to stress their connection to the Palestinian and Arab causes, and helps them to recruit Palestinians to fight in Iraq.”

Aaron Klein is WorldNetDaily’s special Middle East correspondent, whose past interview subjects have included Yasser Arafat, Ehud Barak, Shlomo Ben Ami and leaders of the Taliban.

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Tensions Rise in Netherlands as Fears of Terrorism Increase (Christian News, 041113)

Tensions are continuing to rise as fears of Islamic extremism permeate through the country.

Flames engulfed a mosque in southeastern Netherlands early Saturday, in the latest series attacks following the murder of a controversial Dutch filmmaker. Meanwhile, tensions are continuing to rise as fears of Islamic extremism permeate through the country.

Since the Nov. 2 killing of filmmaker Theo van Gogh by a suspected Muslim radical, there have been more than 20 incidents of fires and vandalism at Muslim buildings—and a handful of retaliatory attacks on Christian churches, reported by the Associated Press.

In the latest incident on Saturday, which occurred in the village of Helden near the German border, a Muslim mosque was largely destroyed.

There was no immediate word on the cause.

Van Gogh’s murder last Tuesday, which has been linked to Islamic extremists, has brought calls for a crackdown on fundamentalists and renegade preachers, the UK-based Scotsman reported on Nov. 7.

Van Gogh, who had made a controversial film about Islamic culture, was shot and stabbed to death in Amsterdam as he cycled to work. A note pinned to his chest with a knife threatened Islamic holy war, or Jihad, against non-Muslims.

Since then, racial tension and hostility towards foreigners has been on the rise leading to calls from the white Dutch community for Muslims either to accept “Western ways” or leave the country. Even once liberal commentators now want Muslim hardliners to be thrown out of the country, the Scotsman reports, even if they have Dutch passports, and greater surveillance of the wider Islamic community.

“If this is what has happened to this man, who did nothing but express his opinion, then one can no longer live decently in this land,” said Justice minister Piet Hein Donner, regarded as a stern Calvinist with little in common with the ultra-permissive outlook personified by van Gogh.

The Netherlands-based Volkskrant newspaper declared that while Muslims might be infuriated by Van Gogh’s film, they should have taken the filmmaker to court rather than engaging in acts of violence.

It said, “Muslims will have to learn that, in a democracy, religion, too, is open to criticism—this applies to Islam no less than to Christianity. Theo van Gogh, in this respect, always purposefully went to the limits of decency.

“Many have regularly had reason to feel hurt or offended by him. In a democracy, those who want to defend themselves against this can go to court. Any other curtailment of free speech is inadmissible.”

The Dutch cabinet, meanwhile, has made it clear that it is considering new ways to tackle Muslim extremists, including stripping criminals with dual citizenship of their Dutch nationality, increasing police powers and boosting the budget of the security service.

Van Gogh, whose great-great-grandfather was the brother of artist Vincent van Gogh, has been described as the Netherlands’ Michael Moore.

His ten-minute film, “Submission,” which criticized the treatment of women under Islam, caused uproar in the country when it was broadcast at the end of August.

Van Gogh claimed that he had been deliberately cautious, and would have made the film differently if he really had wanted to shock.

Nevertheless, death threats were soon received up until the time of his death.

The 26-year-old Dutch-Moroccan accused of van Gogh’s murder, identified by Dutch media as “Mohammed B,” is said to have been a peripheral member of a Netherlands-based international network of Islamic radicals called the “Hofstadnetwerk” which Dutch security services have been trailing since the summer of 2002, according to a Financial Times correspondent in Amsterdam.

Subsequent arrests have given European security officials important new insights into the fragmented and localized character of the terrorist threat.

According to the correspondent, experts fear they are witnessing the start of a new phase of the threat that bears little resemblance to the original al-Qaeda network.

Most recently, Dutch police raided sites across the Netherlands and arrested 37 people suspected of training to become paramilitary members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, a group labeled a terrorist movement in the European Union.

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Churches Attacked as Religious Tensions Mount in Netherlands (Christian News, 041111)

Two churches in the Netherlands were nearly burned down in the latest series attacks following the murder of a controversial Dutch filmmaker, police said Thursday

Two churches in the Netherlands were nearly burned down in the latest series attacks following the murder of a controversial Dutch filmmaker, police said Thursday. Since filmmaker Theo Van Gogh was shot and stabbed to death by an Islamic extremist on Nov. 2, a total of 18 religiously linked sites have been attacked.

According to the Associated Press, two Molotov cocktails were thrown at a Protestant church in the port city of Rotterdam. While one was apparently thrown through a smashed window, the second hit the sidewalk, police said.

Shortly after, police in the central city of Utrecht were called after a fire broke out at a small church. A window had been smashed, a police statement said. The blaze was easily extinguished.

Meanwhile, in Eindhoven, the same city where a bomb exploded at a Muslim school on Monday, a school classroom was seriously damaged in an overnight fire, police spokesman Pieter van Hoof told AP. Though the school is predominantly Catholic, it is attended by students various religious backgrounds.

In all three attacks, no injuries were reported.

Dutch authorities say the arsonists’ attempts to burn down the Protestant churches are in retaliation to the half-dozen recent attacks on Muslim sites in what they fear are part of reprisals after van Gogh’s killing a week ago.

According to the New York Times, anger toward the Netherlands’ Muslim community percolated among the crowd that gathered outside van Gogh’s funeral on Tuesday.

Van Gogh, one of the most outspoken critics of fundamentalist Muslims, had publicly and repeatedly used epithets against Muslims, the Times reported. His last film, Submission, criticized the treatment of women under Islam.

For many years, such criticism of Islam and Islamic customs, even among Dutch extremists, was considered taboo, despite deep frustrations that had built up against conservative Islam in the country.

That began to change, however, after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, when the Netherlands, like many other countries, began to consider the dangers of political Islam seriously.

Since then an intensified anti-immigration debate has alienated Netherlands’ Moroccan community—to which a majority of the nation’s Muslims belong to—from Dutch society and, many people argue, has also helped fragment the Muslim community.

While only about 20% of the Netherlands’ estimated 900,000 Muslims practice their religion, according to one government study, officials say as many as 5% of Muslims in the country follow a conservative form of Islam.

The Amsterdam Council of Churches published paid notices in some Dutch newspapers pledging solidarity with the Muslim community. But the government’s response has been to promise more money for fighting terrorism and stronger immigration laws.

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Terrorism is Terrorism, UN Reform Panel Says (CNS, 041130)

(CNSNews.com) - An international panel of experts studying ways to reform the United Nations apparently has taken a stance on terrorism that has long been resisted by the Arab-Muslim world.

A report written by the panel reportedly states that terrorism against civilians “is never an acceptable tactic, even for the most defensible of causes.”

The 60-page document was drawn up by the 16-member High-Level Panel for Threats, Challenges and Change — a panel appointed by U.N. secretary-general Kofi Annan. The report is due for release on Thursday, but leaks have started to appear in some Western media.

Those leaks include the bid to define terrorism as well as a recommendation that pre-emptive military strikes are legitimate for self-defense, as long as the decision is approved by the Security Council.

The panel also grappled with the tricky issue of Security Council reform, and reportedly offers two possible models to expand the body but without extending the power of veto beyond the current Big Five - the U.S., Britain, Russia, China and France.

Attempts over many years to define terrorism have been elusive — stymied by the Arab-Muslim bloc and non-aligned governments, which say that exceptions should be made in the case of those who are fighting “occupation,” usually a reference to the Palestinians.

According to published reports, the U.N. panel’s report tackles that argument head-on, saying “there is nothing in the fact of occupation that justifies the targeting and killing of civilians.”

It reportedly proposes a definition of terrorism as “any action that is intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants, when the purpose of such act, by its nature or context, is to intimidate a population, or compel a government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act.”

One of the panel’s members is Amr Moussa, the Egyptian chairman of the Arab League.

In 2002, Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) foreign ministers met in Malaysia for the stated purpose of defining terrorism and dissociating it from Islam in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks seven months earlier.

But despite a call from the chair in an opening speech for the meeting to include Palestinian suicide bombings in its definition of terrorism, the representatives of the world’s Islamic states disagreed.

Iranian foreign minister Kamal Kharrazi declared that “fighting foreign occupation should not be condemned as terrorism,” while OIC’s secretary-general Abdelouahed Belkeziz in his address decried “disturbing statements portraying the liberation struggle in Palestine as terrorist action.”

“We must take extreme caution in international forums to ward off this threat to our brotherly Muslim fighters who are giving the most magnificent example of altruism and self-sacrifice,” Belkeziz added.

In the end, the meeting ended with a statement that said, in part: “We reject any attempt to link terrorism to the struggle of the Palestinian people in the exercise of their inalienable right to establish their independent state with Al-Quds Al-Sharif [Jerusalem] as its capital.”

There has been similar equivocation from some governments with regard to campaigns by other violent groups, for example the Islamic extremists fighting to end Indian rule over part of disputed Kashmir.

Some media organizations, notably the Reuters wire agency, avoid using the term “terrorism” outside of quotation marks.

Some UK media are prepared to use the word with reference to bombings by Irish extremists fighting British rule in Northern Ireland, but not in the context of Palestinian suicide bombings in Israeli cities.

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Iraq Inspiring Copycat Beheadings (Foxnews, 041106)

ANKARA, Turkey — It was called “Operation Baghdad” and, to be sure, the headless bodies of the three police officers recalled the violence in that city. But these attacks happened in Haiti, not in Iraq.

The brutal beheadings in Iraq appear to have inspired militants in other parts of the world who are drawn to the shock value of the horrifying attacks and the intense publicity they attract.

Thailand and the Netherlands are two other countries where suspected extremists recently beheaded or slit the throats of their victims in what appear to be copycat attacks.

Rime Allaf, associate fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, said beheadings are spreading because the practice “has so horrified us in the West.”

“It achieves results and it makes the headlines,” Allaf added. “People are talking about groups that we’ve never heard about before.”

The horrifying tactic has spread as far as the Caribbean island nation of Haiti, where loyalists of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide seized on the Iraqi beheadings as a symbol of strength and intimidation.

The headless bodies of three police officers were found in Port-au-Prince early last month, and authorities said the militants had launched a terror campaign called “Operation Baghdad.”

Nobody claimed responsibility for the decapitations, but Aristide supporters echoed that thought.

“We’ll be in the streets until death or Aristide comes back,” protester Milo Fenelon said a few days later. “We won’t stop. If they come in here, we’re going to cut off their heads. It’s going to be just like Baghdad.”

In Thailand this week, a Buddhist village leader was beheaded after being shot in the chest. A note was left on his body saying his slaying was to avenge the killing of Muslim rioters by government forces.

And in Amsterdam, a suspected Islamic extremist shot and killed Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, then slit his throat. A note was left impaled by a knife on his body quoting from the Quran and threatening more killings.

“It’s an ideal terrorist tool,” said Jonathan Stevenson, senior fellow for counterterrorism at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Washington. “It is a horrifying image and I would say it is disproportionately frightening.”

The first beheading by Islamic militants in Iraq was the slaying in May of American civilian Nicholas Berg. The killers posted a video on the Internet showing them pushing a bound Berg to his side, putting a large knife to his neck and cutting off his head as a scream sounded and the killers shouted “Allahu akbar!” — “God is great!”

A month later, an Al Qaeda-linked Saudi group beheaded an American engineer in Saudi Arabia. The group did not mention Iraq but the executioners called themselves the “Fallujah Brigade” after the city in Iraq that U.S. forces had been besieging.

Since then, at least 12 foreigners, including three other Americans, have been beheaded in Iraq as part of a wave of kidnappings. Videos and the Internet were used to distribute the horrifying images across the world, compounding the shock value.

“I think the initial reason for the beheadings was true shock and awe,” Allaf said. “These people are extremely media savvy.”

The first beheading of a foreigner touted by Islamic militants was that of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, slain in Pakistan in 2002.

Decapitations had previously occurred in Algeria, Kashmir, Chechnya and the Muslim-dominated southern Philippines but had rarely been used in past militant attacks in the Middle East.

The high-profile killings have inspired some revulsion from Muslims and in recent days there has been a heated debate on Web sites as to whether Islam endorses beheadings.

Mainstream scholars and intellectuals also have spoken out against beheadings, with some saying that the bloody practice is tarnishing the name of Muslims across the world.

“Beheadings and the mutilation of bodies stand against Islam,” said Egypt’s foremost religious leader, Mohammed Sayed Tantawi.

The shock value also has been decreasing with so many beheadings in Iraq, experts say, and newspapers and television stations are devoting less time and space to the killings.

“The benefit of these spectacular kidnappings and beheadings is going down and down,” said Michael Radu, a terrorism analyst at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia.

“Sooner rather than later terrorists will have a problem in that killing innocents is not bringing them what they want and what they want is spectacular media coverage,” he said. “Terrorism is part theater. When the theater part of it is cut off, then it doesn’t make sense to kill or kidnap people.”

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Saudi Scholars Urge Iraqis to Back Militants (Foxnews, 041106)

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Prominent Saudi religious scholars urged Iraqis to support militants waging holy war against the U.S.-led coalition forces as American troops prepared Saturday for a major assault on the insurgent hotbed of Fallujah.

The 26 Saudi scholars and preachers said in an open letter to the Iraqi people that their appeal was prompted by “the extraordinary situation through which the Iraqis are passing which calls for unity and exchange of views.” The letter was posted on the Internet.

“At no time in history has a whole people been violated ... by propaganda that’s been proved false,” Sheik Awad al-Qarni, one of the scholars, told Al-Arabiya TV.

“The U.S. forces are still destroying towns on the heads of their people and killing women and children. What’s going on in Iraq is a result of the big crime of America’s occupation of Iraq.”

In their letter, the scholars stressed that armed attacks by militant Iraqi groups on U.S. troops and their allies in Iraq represent “legitimate” resistance.

The scholars were careful to direct their appeal to Iraqis only and stayed away from issuing a general, Muslim-wide call for holy war. They also identified the military as the target, one that is considered legitimate by many Arabs who view U.S. troops and their allies as occupiers.

The independent scholars — some of whom have been criticized in the past for their extremist views — apparently did not want to antagonize the Saudi government, a U.S. ally, or appear to be flouting its efforts to fight terrorism.

Saudi Arabia has sealed off its long border with Iraq and bars people from crossing into that country. Its most senior clerics issued a statement last year saying the call for jihad — or holy war — should only come from the ruler and should not be based on edicts issued by individual clergymen.

Saudi officials did not comment on the latest statement.

The clerics’ appeal came as U.S. troops, backed by air and artillery power and Iraqi security forces, were gearing up for a major assault on Fallujah.

The clerics issued a fatwa, or religious edict, prohibiting Iraqis from offering any support for military operations carried out by U.S. forces against insurgent strongholds.

“Fighting the occupiers is a duty for all those who are able,” the letter said. “It is a jihad to push back the assailants. Resistance is a legitimate right. A Muslim must not inflict harm on any resistance man or inform on them. Instead, they should be supported and protected.”

Besides al-Qarni, the prominent scholars signing the letter included Sheik Safar al-Hawali, Sheik Nasser al-Omar, Sheik Salman al-Awdah and Sheik Sharif Hatem al-Aouni.

Al-Hawali, who was jailed in the 1990s for five years without trial because he criticized U.S. involvement in the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq, once was close to Saudi-born al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. He opposed the presence of U.S. troops in the kingdom.

His name appeared this month on a list issued by a group of Arab intellectuals seeking to prosecute prominent clerics for encouraging terrorism.

The scholars said inter-Iraqi fighting would cause “great damage to the Iraqis and give a free service to the Jews who are infiltrating into Iraq and to the coalition forces which exploit differences to consolidate their domination.”

Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam and home to its two holiest cities, has launched a campaign against militants. The crackdown began after al-Qaida-affiliated operatives attacked three residential compounds in Riyadh in May 2003 and killed dozens of people, bringing terrorism to the kingdom for the first time since the Sept. 11 attacks.

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Holland’s Deadly Tolerance (Weekly Standard, 041122)

Another political assassination and its aftermath.

by Christopher Caldwell

THE AFTERNOON of Election Day in Washington, one of the Dutch journalists in town to cover the vote mentioned to me that there had been a spectacular killing in Amsterdam that morning, which would be international news as soon as the dust cleared from the Bush-Kerry contest. True enough. Most of the world now knows that a Muslim assailant intercepted the controversialist filmmaker Theo van Gogh as he rode his bike through Amsterdam, and shot him several times. As van Gogh pled for his life, the murderer slit his throat. He then used the corpse as a sort of human bulletin board, pinning a letter to the torso with a dagger.

What was curious was the journalist’s explanation of why the ordinarily open and liberal Dutch government had not released the contents of that letter. He speculated that it contained radical Islamic pronouncements and further threats against politicians, and that the reaction of the public to it would be violent. The letter, published early this week, did indeed contain death threats against two members of parliament: Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somalian-born immigrant who has repudiated Islam and blames it for violence against women; and Geert Wilders, a longtime liberal politician who has turned to anti-Muslim demagoguery and heads an embryonic populist movement. Both are now in hiding.

Both rose to prominence in the wake of the killing in 2002 of Pim Fortuyn, the charismatic gay politician who won a massive overnight following by warning that high Muslim immigration was overburdening the country’s institutions and threatening its ethos of easy come, easy go. It took him only weeks to turn his new party into the country’s second largest, but he was soon shot dead by a deranged environmentalist. It was the first political killing in Holland since the sixteenth century.

Van Gogh, on the other hand, had been a loud—one could even say obnoxious—critic of Islam. He had referred to Muslims as “goatf—ers” and, with Hirsi Ali, had made a 10-minute agitprop film that mixed pornography, violence, and Muslim prayer. But even if the van Gogh killing was different in its particulars, it looked to certain Dutch observers like a second salvo in a revolution. The past 10 days have seen almost continuous protest. At least a dozen mosques and Muslim schools were set on fire. The subsequent firebombing of several churches fanned the fury. There were raids across the country on Moroccan, Kurdish, and Pakistani terrorist cells. At one pre-dawn arrest of two suspects in the Hague, police were met with a grenade attack, and a siege that lasted 15 hours, while the cornered suspects hollered, “We will behead you!” There were dozens of arrests. Most of the suspects were Arab immigrants. But, quite disturbingly, some, like Mohammed Bouyeri, van Gogh’s alleged killer, were Dutch-born Dutch citizens. Two of those arrested—known only as Jason W. and Jermaine W.—were Dutch-American converts to Islam.

After decades of trying to fight social problems with ever more tolerance, the Dutch are at a loss before terrorism. Queen Beatrix limited her involvement to visiting immigrant kids at a Moroccan “youth center.” This was hardly what public opinion was clamoring for. At this point, the Dutch seem more inclined to move from Live and Let Live to its opposite, and are calling for laws that make the Patriot Act look like Kumbayah. Strict laws against government surveillance over religious establishments, a centuries-old inheritance from the United Provinces’ battle against Spanish occupation, appear set to go by the boards. On Friday, the Dutch parliament requested a new law that would forbid mosques to employ imams who had been educated elsewhere. One member of parliament was quoted in a wire report as saying: “It’s better to have 10 possibly innocent people temporarily in jail than one with a bomb on the street.”

Complicating matters further is the big story from neighboring Belgium, where authorities last week banned the Vlaams Blok, the most popular party in the Flemish (Dutch-speaking) part of the country. In recent years, the party has argued with increasing stridency for dissolving Belgium and building links with the Netherlands. There are not that many Dutch-speakers in the world. The unhappy result is that stories about Holland’s immigrant menace and the Belgian government’s banning of one of Europe’s most popular right-wing parties have been mixed together in the same media pressure cooker.

There was naturally a lot of solipsistic hand-wringing in the Dutch press, warning the country against reacting like the United States or Israel, since “violence only begets violence.” But for a change, that was not the only response.

Alternatives to rightism and pacifism are not lacking. The most hopeful sign of the week may have been the U.S. visit of the pro-American NATO chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, who as Dutch foreign minister was one of the architects of the Netherlands’ pragmatic engagement in the Iraq coalition. De Hoop Scheffer met President Bush on Wednesday; the following day, in an interview in New York, he warned that there is a gap between the United States and Europe in their perceptions of the terrorist threat. “If the gap is to be bridged,” he added, “it has to be done from the European side.” Events, alas, are seeing to that.

Christopher Caldwell is a senior editor at The Weekly Standard.

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Dutch counterterrorism (Washington Times, 041115)

In the wake of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh’s murder by an Islamist extremist, the famously tolerant Netherlands exploded in violence last week with a rash of attacks on mosques and the firebombing of a Muslim school. In all, the Dutch sustained just one victim of Islamist terrorism — not the nearly 3,000 murders Americans sustained on September 11 — but that one death pushed the country from an extreme of nonchalance to a reaction unknown in the United States.

The good news is that the experience seems to be forcing some clear-headed thinking among Dutch elites. Over the weekend, dozens of suspected militants were arrested in a sign the government is finally taking the threat of Islamist terrorism seriously. We hope the rest of Europe is watching.

Dutch politicians previously known for their dovishness as well as the liberal media are calling for a tightening of the country’s laws on security and immigration. The cabinet is considering stripping dual citizens of their Dutch citizenship if they have criminal records. There is talk of bolstering budgets for the security services, too. But most telling is the about-face the murder caused in the country’s newspapers and overwhelmingly liberal commentariat. The country’s leading newspaper, the Telegraaf, last week made a call for action inconceivable in a pre-van Gogh Netherlands.

The Telegraaf argued for “a very public crackdown on extremist Muslim fanatics in order to assuage the fear of citizens and to warn the fanatics that they must not cross over the boundaries.” The editorial continued: “International cash transfers must be more tightly controlled; magazines and papers which include incitement should be suppressed; unsuitable mosques should be shut down and imams who encourage illegal acts should be thrown out of the country.” Extremists with dual nationality “have no business here,” the paper argued. “The range of extremists to be kept under surveillance needs to be expanded. If more money is required for all this, then that money must be made available. It is more than worth it for the sake of the citizens’ safety.”

The irony of all this is that the United States has been urging the Europeans to take many of those steps for years. For one, the Treasury Department and the CIA have long been urging movement on the international cash transfers question. As terror-financing expert Lee Wolosky told the September 11 commission last year, although cooperation had been improving, “America’s closest allies in Europe ... [were] refusing to block bank accounts in some cases.” As an example of the prevailing attitude, he pointed to the EU’s policy of allowing fund-raising for Hamas’ “humanitarian” branches despite common knowledge that such funds were being used to support terrorist activities. That has to stop.

The attitude of blithe disregard for common sense should change. The Dutch government appears to be moving in the right direction in dealing with this problem. While it does so, it will also need to be be prepared to act forcefully against thugs and vigilantes who target innocent Muslims. Let’s hope the rest of Europe is watching, because the Dutch case shows that Islamist terrorism spares not even the most tolerant of countries.

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Militant recruiters out in open in Tehran (Washington Times, 041216)

TEHRAN — The 300 men filling out forms in the offices of an Iranian aid group were offered three choices: Train for suicide attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq, for suicide attacks against Israelis or to assassinate British author Salman Rushdie.

It looked at first glance like a gathering on the fringes of a society divided between moderates, who want better relations with the world, and hard-line Muslim militants hostile toward the United States and Israel.

But the presence of two key figures — a prominent Iranian lawmaker and a member of the country’s elite Revolutionary Guards — lent the meeting more legitimacy and was a clear indication of at least tacit support from some within Iran’s government.

Since that inaugural June meeting in a room decorated with photos of Israeli soldiers’ funerals, the registration forms for volunteer suicide commandos have appeared on Tehran’s streets and university campuses, and there is no sign that Iran’s government is trying to stop the shadowy movement.

On Nov. 12, the day that Iranians traditionally hold pro-Palestinian protests, a spokesman for the Headquarters for Commemorating Martyrs of the Global Islamic Movement said the movement signed up at least 4,000 new volunteers.

Spokesman Mohammad Ali Samadi told the Associated Press that the group had no ties to the government.

And Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters recently that the group’s campaign to sign up volunteers for suicide attacks had “nothing to do with the ruling Islamic establishment.”

“That some people do such a thing is the result of their sentiments. It has nothing to do with the government and the system,” Mr. Asefi said.

Despite the government’s disavowal of the group and some of its programs, there are indications that the suicide attack campaign has some legitimacy within the government.

The first meeting was held in the offices of the Martyrs Foundation, a semiofficial organization that helps the families of those killed in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war or those killed fighting for the government on other fronts. It drew hard-line lawmaker Mahdi Kouchakzadeh and Gen. Hossein Salami of the elite Revolutionary Guards.

“This group spreads valuable ideas,” Mr. Kouchakzadeh said.

“At a time when the U.S. is committing the crimes we see now, deprived nations have no weapon other than martyrdom. It’s evident that Iran’s foreign policy-makers have to take the dignified opinions of this group into consideration,” said Mr. Kouchakzadeh, who also is a former member of the Revolutionary Guards.

Iranian security officials did not return calls seeking comment about whether they had tried to crack down on the group’s training programs or whether they thought any of Mr. Samadi’s volunteers had crossed into Iraq or into Israel.

In general, Iran portrays Israel as its main nemesis and backs anti-Israeli groups such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah. It says that it has no interest in fomenting instability in Iraq and that it tries to block any infiltration into Iraq by insurgents — while pleading that its porous borders are hard to police.

In 1998, the Iranian government declared that it would not support a 1989 fatwa against Mr. Rushdie issued by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. But the government also said only the person who issued the edict could rescind it. Ayatollah Khomeini, angered at Mr. Rushdie’s portrayal of the Islamic prophet Muhammad in “The Satanic Verses,” died in June 1989.

Mr. Samadi described the movement as independent, with no ties to groups such as al Qaeda.

Despite its very public canvassing for volunteers, the group can be secretive. Mr. Samadi agreed only reluctantly to an interview and insisted that it be held in the basement of an unmarked building in central Tehran — not the Martyrs Foundation offices.

Mr. Samadi refused to identify any of his volunteers or the wealthy sympathizers who he says underwrote their efforts. Asked to describe the training programs, he would say only that classes were sometimes held in open spaces outside cities but more often inside, away from prying eyes.

Mr. Samadi said that 30,000 volunteers have signed up and that 20,000 of them have been chosen for training. Volunteers already had carried out suicide operations against military targets inside Israel, he said.

But he said discussing attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq “will cause problems for the country’s foreign policy. It will have grave consequences for our country and our group. It’s confidential.”

As devoted Muslims, members of his group were simply fulfilling their religious obligations as laid out by Ayatollah Khomeini, he said.

In his widely published book of religious directives, the ayatollah said, “If an enemy invades Muslim countries and borders, it’s an obligation for all Muslims to defend through any possible means: sacrificing life and properties.”

Mr. Samadi said: “With this religious verdict, we don’t need anybody’s permission to fight an enemy that has occupied Muslim lands.”

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Holland Daze (Weekly Standard, 041227)

The Dutch rethink multiculturalism.

Amsterdam

THE SMALL CITY of Schiedam, on the Nieuwe Maas river near Rotterdam, has played a big role in the Dutch imagination of late. Five years ago, the historian/journalist Geert Mak entranced the country with a long narrative called My Father’s Century. It is still in bookshop windows and is now in its 27th printing. It begins in Mak’s great-grandparents’ sail-making business in Schiedam, and follows the lives of his family members as they collide with Dutch history in the twentieth century: the Dutch Reformed faith they drifted in and out of, the herring they ate, how much money they made, what it felt like to live under Nazi occupation, their shyness (or boldness) about sex, the jokes they told, and how they faced the 1960s. The book consoled Dutch people that however tumultuous the changes the 20th century had wrought, there was an ineffable “Dutchness” that somehow perdured. Schiedam played the role in the Dutch imagination that Macomb County, Michigan, or Luckenbach, Texas, did in the American imagination in the mid-1980s: You could look there to see how the “real” people in the country lived.

Early this month, another Schiedam native, a 30-year-old man known in his police dossier as Farid A., was found guilty of issuing death threats over the Internet. When the conservative Dutch politician Geert Wilders described Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat last year as a “terrorist leader,” Farid A. posted a picture of him on an Islamist website urging: “Wilders must be punished with death for his fascistic comments about Islam, Muslims, and the Palestinian cause.” That was a year ago, and since then, Wilders has done even more to tick off Muslim radicals. He left the conservative Freedom and Democracy People’s party (VVD) after a personal spat with the party leadership, promising to launch his own “Geert Wilders List,” along the lines of the one-person movement that turned the gay populist Pim Fortuyn into the most popular politician in the Netherlands in early 2002. Wilders has focused on Turkey, crime, and the unsustainability of high immigration. He has warned that many of the more than 1 million Muslims who live in the Netherlands “have already opted for radical Islam,” and has urged closing extremist mosques.

There is a market for his forthrightness. In early November, a poll in the left-leaning daily de Volkskrant showed that Wilders could win several hundred thousand votes, which would translate into nine seats in the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of the national legislature. When the gadfly filmmaker Theo van Gogh was shot and knifed in southeastern Amsterdam on November 2, the letter that his killer pinned with a knife to his corpse contained a promise to do the same to the Somali-born feminist VVD member of parliament Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Wilders got similar threats shortly thereafter. There were two results for Wilders. First, his popularity shot through the roof: A second poll in de Volkskrant showed Wilders would now win almost 2 million voters, taking 28 seats, or a fifth of the parliament, and that he was drawing support across party lines and in every single sector of Dutch society, despite—or perhaps because of—perceptions that he is a single-issue candidate.

But Wilders also had to go into hiding. He now appears in public only for legislative sessions in the Hague, where he travels under armed guard. He complained in mid-December that the death threats had hampered his ability to build his party. The head of a conservative think tank told newspapers he had been advised by security personnel to stay away from Wilders. Anyone who declared himself for one of those 28 seats that looked ripe for the plucking would thereby place himself on a death list, too. One strange but highly professional video that can be downloaded off the Internet shows drawings of machine guns, then photographs of Wilders with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and then captioned panels reading:

name: geert wilders

occupation: idolator

sin: mocking Islam

punishment: beheading

reward: Paradise, in sha Allah

In early December, an appeals court in the Hague confirmed the punishment of Farid A. of Schiedam. He was sentenced to 120 hours of community service.

Only the beginning

This is why the murder of one Dutch filmmaker 911 days after 9/11 is described by people in Holland as having had the same effect on their country as the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 in the World Trade Center towers. Dutch people have the sense that, for the first time in centuries, the thread that connects them to the world of Geert Mak’s father, and that world to the world of Erasmus and Spinoza and Rembrandt and William the Silent, is in danger of being snipped. Part of it is the size and the speed of the recent non-European immigration. The Netherlands, with a population of 16 million, has about 2 million foreign-born. By some estimates, a quarter of them do not speak Dutch.

What’s more, the public has been told for two decades now that they ain’t seen nothing yet, that this is only the first wave of a long era of immigration, which they’d better learn to love. The immigrants the country now hosts have been difficult to manage. Part of the problem is the interaction of high immigration and what was for years a generous, no-questions-asked welfare state: As many as 60% of Moroccans and Turks above the age of 40—obviously first-generation immigrants—are unemployed, in the only major economy in Europe that has consistently had unemployment at or below American rates.

Most of these immigrants are Muslims. Muslim immigrants had begun to scare people long before Pim Fortuyn, the charismatic populist, turned himself into the country’s most popular politician in the space of a few weeks in 2002, by arguing that the country was already overloaded with newcomers. (Fortuyn was assassinated by an animal-rights activist in May of that year.) Already in the 1990s, there were reports of American-style shootouts in schools, one involving two Turkish students in the town of Veghel. This past October, newspaper readers were riveted by the running saga of a quiet married couple who had been hounded out of the previously livable Amsterdam neighborhood of Diamantbuurt by gangs of Muslim youths. There were incidents of wild rejoicing across Holland in the wake of the September 11 attacks, notably in the eastern city of Ede. The weekly magazine Contrast took a poll showing that just under half the Muslims in the Netherlands were in “complete sympathy” with the September 11 attacks. At least some wish to turn to terrorism. In the wake of the van Gogh murder, Pakistani, Kurdish, and Moroccan terrorist cells were discovered. The Hague-based “Capital Network,” out of which van Gogh’s killer Mohammed Bouyeri came, had contact with terrorists who carried out bombings in Casablanca in 2003. Perhaps the most alarming revelation was that an Islamist mole was working as a translator in the AIVD, the national investigative service, and tipping off local radicals to impending operations.

The question naturally arises: If immigrants behave this way now, what will happen when they are far more numerous, as all authorities have long promised they will be? It has been estimated that the country’s two largest cities, Amsterdam and Rotterdam, will be “majority minority” very soon (Rotterdam is today at 47%), and already 65% of primary and secondary students in both cities are of non-Dutch parentage. London’s Daily Telegraph, citing immigration experts and government statistics, reported a net outflow of 13,000 people from Holland in the first six months of 2004, the first such deficit in half a century. One must treat this statistic carefully—it could be an artifact of an aging population in which many are retiring to warmer places. But it could also be the beginning of something resembling the American suburban phenomenon of “white flight,” occurring at the level of an entire country.

The pillars fall

Perhaps the Dutch did with immigration what most countries do with most things: They thought too much about their own history, and then misapplied it. The concept that Dutch political scientists use more than any other to describe their society is “pillarization.” For all that it is thought of as a Protestant society, the Netherlands is a quarter Catholic. Over the centuries a system of separate institutions developed. In the world of Geert Mak’s father, Catholics not only went to their own churches but also had their own schools, newspapers, trade unions, social clubs, and the like. Protestants lived in a similarly separate world. There was a secular pillar as well. Elites from these different walks of life met to carve out a modus vivendi among different confessional groups.

The Netherlands was a society with a high level of religious affiliation and intensity—as it still is in its own “Bible Belt,” which stretches in a rough southwest-to-northeast diagonal across the country. A political system that empowered church-affiliated organizations to perform temporal tasks created a mighty role for religion. That is why the world revolution of the 1960s—which was seen as a revolution against class in Britain, against de Gaulle in France, against the World War II generation in Germany, and against Vietnam in the United States—was seen in Holland as a rebellion against church authority.

The natural result was the libertine public square that will be recognized by any American who visited the Netherlands with a Eurail Pass at age 18—the Milky Way, the legalized prostitution, hashish in the “coffee shops,” the laissez-faire immigration policy, a law enforcement system whereunder you get 120 hours of community service for threatening to kill someone. The essential fact about this dispensation, at the political level, is that most Dutch people don’t like it. 80% of Netherlanders tell pollsters their country is “too tolerant.” But the post-sixties tolerance seemed to have antecedents in the national mythology: Apostles of the new ethic claimed—without much justification—the mantle of the pre-Enlightenment tolerance that once led the Netherlands to welcome persecuted dissenters from across Europe: Huguenots from France, Jews from Spain, the Mayflower pilgrims from England.

This conflation of two regimes had its appeal even to conservatives who were unhappy with the new world of hashish, gay marriage, and euthanasia. Better to claim to be pursuing a difficult but very Dutch social arrangement than to admit to having been wiped out in a political struggle. The Dutch talked themselves into believing that this valueslessness was a perennial feature of their society. When immigrants began to arrive, authorities fantasized that they’d seen it all before—after all, they’d welcomed John Locke and René Descartes. So they could build up an “immigrant” or a “Muslim” pillar and then let it collapse into postmodern individualism, following the same historic route that Protestantism and Catholicism had taken, as if that route were the product of an iron historical law. In came an ultra-neutral, respect-centered vocabulary: Foreigners became “allochthonous,” as opposed to natives, who were henceforth “autochthonous.” In the 1980s, the government started creating Muslim schools. It poured public money into the construction of mosques.

There were two voices warning that history was not following this multicultural script. In 1991, Frits Bolkestein, the conservative statesman who occupies a position in Dutch political life that is an odd mix of Ronald Reagan and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, wrote a long article in de Volkskrant in which he warned that there was nothing inevitable about assimilation. Noting the threat of Muslim separatism to freedom of religion and freedom of expression, he warned, “Everyone in the Netherlands, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, is expected to obey the laws that stem from these principles.” He was dismissed as a reactionary, and worse.

The multicultural drama

In 2000, the journalist and literary critic Paul Scheffer wrote an article called “The Multicultural Drama,” which was the first attack from the left on this system of postmodern pillarization. For Scheffer, the system was a means of excluding Muslims, creating a kind of segregation by which people could “coexist without interacting.” Real pillarization of the sort that worked in the past rested on shared and nonnegotiable understandings of three things: language, history, and law. But Dutch society had become too self-loathing to insist on any of them. Now people weren’t even expected to learn Dutch. Scheffer complained that the Labor party (PvdA), to which he belonged, “wanted to cut the subsidies of cultural organizations that were not sufficiently concerned with ethnicity.” He threw up his hands at one educator who had questioned the relevance, in a world of high immigration, of teaching Holland’s history (“We’re not going to bother Turkish children with the Occupation, are we?”).

Dutch multiculturalism, when Bolkestein and Scheffer began to question it, was an unassailable certitude. Now it lacks a single full-throated defender. Wouter Bos, the new leader of the PvdA, many of whose members privately think the country has overreacted to the van Gogh murder, insists that “Islam is part of our country,” and faults those who, “under the pretext of women’s rights, try to claim that Islam doesn’t belong here.” He seems to want to punt the Netherlands’ problems away to blue-ribbon committees and international bodies when he warns that we “underestimate the international character of the threat we’re dealing with: radical political Islam.”

Nonetheless, Bos, too, has been stung by recent history, particularly his party’s great blunder of treating Pim Fortuyn (a former PvdA intellectual himself) as some kind of sociopath or prankster. Bos admits that in recent years, “tolerance became a pretext for not addressing problems.” When asked whether his party would enter a coalition with Wilders, he does not rule it out.

The man who has been the most ardent defender of the old multiculturalist model has himself received threats from Islamists, and travels with bodyguards. Amsterdam’s PvdA mayor Job Cohen was always so keen to embrace foreign cultures that Theo van Gogh (who was not above Jew-baiting) once wrote of him: “Of all the swindlers who have tried to pass off the fifth-column of goat-f—ers as some kind of an enrichment of our oh-so-marvelous multicultural society, Job Cohen is the most cunning.” Questions within the Muslim community about whether they ought to be happy living under a Jewish mayor first arose under the mayoralty of Cohen’s predecessor, Ed van Thijn, also Jewish, who ran the city in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Threats have been made, too, against Cohen’s deputy, the Moroccan-born alderman Ahmed Aboutaleb, who has his own security detail.

Many discussions of the Netherlands suggest that the country’s multicultural model is “under threat.” Maybe that was true a year ago. Now it would be more accurate to say there is a society-wide consensus that it has failed. Even before he left office in 2002, PvdA premier Wim Kok had begun tightening the country’s asylum laws, and under the conservative premiership of Jan Peter Balkenende, the reforms have picked up pace. One of the top priorities has been marriage laws. Several immigrant groups have an endogamy rate approaching 100%: Young, marriageable people return to their homelands to find a bride or groom and bring them back to Holland. Many Dutch believe the marriage laws are being abused simply to confer automatic citizenship and the right to welfare payments on as large a number of foreigners as possible. As a result, foreign spouses marrying Dutch citizens must now be 21 and speak Dutch, and their eligibility for welfare is not immediate. Education in foreign languages has been phased out, so the Dutch can concentrate on teaching their own endangered language.

Muslim Voltaires

But with the killing of van Gogh, the Dutch immigration crisis—which, as elsewhere in Europe, is a polite way of saying its Islam crisis—has moved to a higher pitch than in any other country in the West. Naturally, security concerns are also driving reform. Justice minister Piet Hein Donner wants tougher laws to permit holding terrorist suspects without trial. Most everyone in the Netherlands, whether they support or oppose it, believes something like the Patriot Act is coming to their country, too.

But on top of that, the Dutch public is being presented with an interpretation of their crisis that other publics in Europe are not. Namely, the view that the problem is not “radicalism” or “marginalization” or “fundamentalism” but Islam—that Islam and democracy don’t coexist well. There are several reasons that the debate has taken a different turn in the Netherlands, but primary among them is the presence of outspoken Muslims. Afshin Ellian is an Iranian-born legal scholar in his late 30s who is seeking to modernize Islam. He takes heart that scholars in Iran, particularly the imprisoned theorist of democracy Akbar Ghanji, are doing the same. Ellian himself is living under police protection.

When Ellian writes provocative op-eds in the country’s major journals, he gets dismissed by Muslims as a “fundamentalist of the Enlightenment.” They are not necessarily wrong. Ellian has a view of Western intellectual history that casts tolerance as the fruit of attacks on Christianity rather than of Christianity itself. He thus thinks that what Islam needs is its own Nietzsche, Voltaire, and the Marquis de Sade. Four days after the van Gogh murder, he wrote an article entitled “Make Jokes About Islam!”

The most outspoken of these foreign-born Dutch, though, is the feminist member of parliament Ayaan Hirsi Ali. The daughter of prominent Somalians, she fled the country with her family when war broke out. When she arrived in the Netherlands in the early 1990s, via Saudi Arabia, she was still wearing a veil. She soon dropped it and began proclaiming the superiority of Western values to Islamic ones. She has spoken out against female circumcision, which is clandestinely practiced in the Netherlands and Belgium. She was elected to parliament in 2003 in the wake of the killing of Pim Fortuyn. Hirsi Ali has been under constant police protection since she described the prophet Mohammed as a “perverted tyrant” in the newspaper de Trouw two years ago and said she no longer believed in God. She wrote the screenplay for Submission, the violent and semi-pornographic movie about repression of women in Islam for which Theo van Gogh was murdered. Many of Hirsi Ali’s associates believe that she was the preferred target of the murderers, and that van Gogh was chosen only because they could not penetrate her security arrangements. They are probably right. She is in hiding and has not been seen in public since the killing.

Hirsi Ali, like Ellian, belongs to what one could call the écrasez-l’infâme school of reformers of Islam. She and Wilders recently cowrote a column in the NRC Handelsblad calling for a “liberal jihad.” Like Pim Fortuyn (who once said, “I have nothing against Moroccans; I have them in my bed all the time”), she has a tendency to taunt her political foes. And like Fortuyn, who could play up his gayness to an almost preposterous level of camp, she is aware that her outsider status makes her a natural leader for a society that fears it will die if it does not change, but would rather die than be accused of racism, gay-bashing, or Islamophobia.

So Hirsi Ali appears to many Muslims as the country’s premier moral monster, and to many Dutch people as something like Joan of Arc. It is her position on women’s issues that is potentially most explosive. Many European countries, notably France, are trying to recast arguments about the wearing of the Muslim headscarf as a matter of women’s rights, as if that will somehow mollify fundamentalists by moving the discussion from a religious plane to a political one. But it risks doing something different: moving the discussion from an interpersonal level to a psychosexual one. It conveys that the West hopes to assimilate Islam by stealing its women out of the seraglio.

The Dutch minister for immigration and integration is Rita Verdonk, a woman, as it happens. In late November she went to the town of Soesterberg to speak about “Dutch values.” There she was introduced to an imam named Ahmad Salam. He refused to shake her hand.

In the hours after van Gogh’s death, Verdonk had given a speech that had drawn fire from a representative of the radical, Antwerp-based Arab-European League, who likened her to Hitler. (“All she was missing,” he said, “was the little moustache.”) But that wasn’t what bothered Salam.

“I cannot shake hands with a woman,” the imam explained. “Well, then,” Verdonk replied, “we have plenty to talk about.”

Christopher Caldwell is a senior editor at The Weekly Standard.

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Tolerance tested in Holland (Washington Times, 041220)

First of three parts

AMSTERDAM - Parliamentarian Geert Wilders sees himself as the legendary Dutch boy, finger in the dike, holding back a rising tide of immigrants that threatens to swamp the Netherlands and all of Europe.

“Immigration is the biggest problem that Dutch society is facing today,” said Mr. Wilders, in his office in The Hague.

“We have been so tolerant of others’ culture and religion, we are losing our own. ... Europe is losing itself. ... One day we will wake up, and it will be too late. [Immigration] will have killed our country and our democracy.”

The intense politician spoke under the watchful eye of bodyguards, as his picture has been posted on Muslim Web sites calling for his beheading.

Mr. Wilders’ passion reflects a problem confronting much of Europe.

Old, cold and settled in its ways, the Continent struggles to absorb waves of immigrants, to protect itself from the growing hatred of Muslim militants in their midst and to live with the dark fear of a world spinning out of control.

“If Europe does not take the full and effective integration of its immigrants to heart and change its message from ‘You are not welcome. You don’t belong,’ to ‘We are in this together,’ Europe is going to have a very hard time,” said Demetrios Papademetriou, president of the Migration Policy Institute in Washington.

Said Mr. Wilders: “In the last 30 years, the Netherlands population has grown from 13 million to 16 million, about 25%, but the immigrant population has grown from 160,000 to 1.6 million — 1,000%. 90% of our prison population is immigrants.”

“[Immigrants] are the most dependent on our [welfare] schemes. They are non-Westerners and not speaking our language,” he said.

“In the next [few] years, 75% of our population growth will be non-Western immigrants; only 8% will be native Dutch. This is fact, not opinion,” he said, dismissing a somewhat different picture that emerges from official statistics posted on government Web sites.

For example, Netherlands’ Central Statistical Office shows that about 50%, not 90%, of the prison population is foreign.

And Mr. Wilders’ 1.6 million figure can only be reached by including second- and third-generation children of immigrants, who were born in Holland and are citizens — individuals who would never be considered foreign in the United States.

Nevertheless, the thrust of his argument is gospel for Dutch immigration reformers.

Moratorium sought

Mr. Wilders demands, and many support, a five-year moratorium on all non-Western immigration, even to unite a legally working husband with his family.

He wants illegal immigrants and failed asylum seekers deported, and all immigrants to have a working knowledge of the Dutch language before they arrive.

To remain in the Netherlands, a newcomer should pass a basic civics exam, one that few Dutch could pass.

Mr. Wilders calls mosques “houses of terror and recruitment” for jihad. He describes Islam as “dangerous” and “fascist,” articulating the fears of many.

He says that Muslims beat their wives and children, and occasionally kill a daughter who wishes to marry outside the faith. He says that imams preach that homosexuals — even in a society where same-sex “marriage” is legal — should be executed.

“I am talking about non-Western immigration to the Netherlands,” Mr. Wilders said in a recent interview.

“The lessons of Pim Fortuyn have not been learned.”

Mr. Fortuyn, a charismatic homosexual anti-immigration activist, was gunned down while running for prime minister in 2002 on an anti-immigration platform.

After the assassination — by a deranged animal-rights activist — his party went on to capture 26 of 150 seats in the Dutch parliament.

Earlier this year, the conservative People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) expelled Mr. Wilders because of his extreme views on immigration and his opposition to Turkey’s bid to enter the European Union.

That made the bottle-blond politician leader of his own one-man party, a figure easily dismissed by mainstream pundits as a political sideshow, a racist and in some Dutch newspapers, a Nazi.

But that changed with the Nov. 2 slaying of Theo van Gogh, the anti-Islamist crusader and social provocateur, gunned down and then slashed with a knife by a Dutch citizen of Moroccan descent in broad daylight on an Amsterdam street.

Within days, at least 19 other members of the Netherlands parliament were supporting Mr. Wilders — at least on immigration issues.

The Netherlands has 16 million people, including 1 million Muslims.

Its Muslims include about 300,000 Moroccans and another 300,000 Turks, who came as “guest workers” during Holland’s economic boom years.

Holland is now their home and their children are full Dutch citizens who have never felt welcome in Europe’s most permissive society, where marijuana consumption, prostitution and same-sex “marriage” are either tolerated or legal.

Dutch intelligence says that an estimated 50,000 Muslims are devout and may be sympathetic to extremist goals and perhaps 150 might actually engage in criminal or terrorist acts.

Fear of terrorism

The September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States and March 11, 2004, terrorist bombings in Madrid amplified the fear and estrangement between the native Dutch and the Muslim communities.

Polls consistently show that about 50% of voters support tighter restrictions on immigration and asylum, even though the largest immigrant populations in the Netherlands today are Germans and Indonesians from the former Dutch colony.

Exacerbating the gnawing unease over swarthy men and women in head scarves on the streets of The Hague, Rotterdam, Utrecht and Amsterdam, there is the fear of foreigners taking jobs away from native Dutch.

The Netherlands, like all of Western Europe, is facing what demographers call a “birth dearth.”

The native Dutch are having fewer children — about 1.7 per woman — which is lower than replacement rate. People are living longer, retiring and drawing government pensions longer.

Economists predict the Netherlands’ extensive social-welfare network will go broke if there are not enough younger workers to pay taxes.

“If Europe doesn’t employ immigrants, who will empty the bedpans ... who will pay the taxes needed to fund the retirement programs,” said Ben Wattenberg of the American Enterprise Institute and the author of “Fewer,” which details the demographic crisis in Europe.

Meanwhile, the population of immigrants, their children and grandchildren is becoming politically active.

“I am not a guest in the Netherlands, and I will not act like a guest, asking permission in someone else’s home to sit here or move the furniture there. I was born here. I am a citizen,” said Nabil Marmouch, the Dutch-Moroccan head of the Netherlands’ Arab-European League, a political action group that plans to field candidates in upcoming elections.

“[Muslims] have nothing to be ashamed of. We can be proud of our religion, our culture, our traditions. We do not have to assimilate or integrate. ... We do have to act like responsible citizens, obey the laws and get involved in the political process,” Mr. Marmouch said.

Like other Muslim organizations, he condemned the killing of Mr. van Gogh, but dismissed Mr. Wilders’ bodyguards as a “fashion statement” designed to create fear of Muslims and draw attention to his anti-immigration politics.

Some say that the real lesson of Mr. Fortuyn was “kill the heretic, adopt the heresy” as the mainstream parties, including the VVD, scrambled to adopt the Fortuyn prescriptions.

In the days after the van Gogh killing, Mr. Fortuyn was named one of the most important persons in Dutch history, outpolling Vincent van Gogh (of whose brother the slain filmmaker was the great-grandson) and Rembrandt, philosopher Desiderius Erasmus and Anne Frank, who was not Dutch, but a German asylum seeker.

“The VVD understood that you can win an enormous amount of votes playing the migration and integration card,” said Rinus Penninx of the University of Amsterdam’s Institute of Migration and Ethnic Studies.

Mixed emotions

But in a typical Dutch paradox, the local politicians are refusing to cooperate with national law enforcement charged with rounding up illegals.

“People are saying, ‘Illegal immigrants and failed asylum seekers should leave, but not ours. Ours are fine.’ They are protesting the closing of local asylum centers. The mayor of Amsterdam told the government he won’t help unless the individuals are causing a nuisance,” Mr. Penninx said.

Eduard Nazarski, head of the Dutch Refugee Council, said that the myth of Dutch tolerance is overstated.

“Anne Frank is a symbol, an example of Dutch intolerance,” said Mr. Nazarski, who says anti-immigrant hysteria has made the Netherlands the most restrictive nation in Europe for immigrants and asylum seekers.

“Asylum seekers, illegal immigrants, legal immigrants, the politicians don’t make a distinction. They are all foreigners. ...

“About 50% of the Dutch people are fed up with too many foreigners being here. Thirty [percent] to 40% think that we have 100,000 asylum seekers a year, when it is really 20,000 to 30,000 a year.

“It is all emotion. The government is not interested in the facts,” Mr. Nazarski said.

Jan Rath, who also teaches ethnic and immigration studies at the University of Amsterdam, said that Holland’s historic acceptance of religious minorities such as the Mayflower Pilgrims masks a different reality.

When Reform Protestants took power in Holland in the 16th century, Catholics were allowed to stay and worship, but only if they did so in “hidden” churches. He said the Muslims would be facing less resistance today if they were not so obvious.

“I understand the emotional difficulty of seeing your society change before your eyes. My mother is an older Catholic, and the people in her neighborhood and church are very upset that they are building a mosque in her neighborhood.

“The priest had to remind them that not so long ago there were restrictions on Catholics, like her, from building churches” in Protestant Holland, Mr. Rath said.

While Dutch churches are all but empty today, the minarets of the largest mosque in Europe tower over Rotterdam.

Foreigners unwelcome

At a flower market along the Singel Canal, Donald van Achthoven, a tulip seller, says aloud what was once whispered:

“My opinion is they have to be like the Dutch, if they come here. Leave their religion in their own country.

“Live here with the rules of the Dutch. We are a tiny country, with too many people, too many for such a small place. ... I won’t hire them. If they come here, they should speak our language and follow our rules.”

Mr. Papademetriou of the Migration Policy Institute said it is natural for immigrants who feel unwelcome in Europe to turn inward.

“Naturally, they close in and look to themselves for comfort. ... It is like the immigrants to New York City in the early 1900s. Someone can be here 50 years and still only speak Greek or Italian,” he said.

Historically, the second generation generally learns the language, moves out of the ethnic neighborhood and assimilates. “This will happen in the Netherlands, too,” Mr. Papademetriou said.

Ask anyone in Amsterdam to identify a “bad” neighborhood, or a Muslim “ghetto,” and a visitor is pointed, with a shudder and a warning, to Mercator Plein.

It is a working-class district in Amsterdam West that is about 50% “foreign,” mostly Turks and Moroccans, and 50% native Dutch.

Far less “ethnic” than Maryland’s University Park or the District’s Adams Morgan, the streets are clean and feel safe.

Women in head scarves shop at the outdoor market alongside Dutch mothers pushing strollers. People of various races eat Turkish pita and meat sandwiches, while others duck in and out of cell-phone, appliance and grocery stores.

Rachid ben Larbi, a Moroccan from Tangiers, in Holland only 18 months, already speaks Dutch, to go along with his Arabic, Spanish, French and English.

“The problem is not with the new generation, but with the old generation,” he said while helping customers with new cell phones, easily switching among English, Dutch and Arabic.

“How can you ask a 45-year-old woman, from the Moroccan countryside with three or four children, to integrate? The government should give her time,” he said.

Multicultural neighborhoods

Elske Wouters, a white Dutch secretary who has lived in Mercator Plein for 10 years, calls it a perfect neighborhood.

“The idea that it is a bad area is nonsense. There is very little crime, especially compared to the United States. ... Everyone gets along. I go to that Turkish coffee shop often and sit for hours. ... Everyone speaks Dutch.”

In de Pijp, another working-class foreign enclave near the Albert-Cyup Market, Tom Vossenberg has been principal of Dalton public elementary school for 30 years. He has 400 students, about 40% foreign, representing some 20 nationalities.

“We’ve never had any trouble at the school. Sometimes [in the neighborhood] there are people who cause trouble, but on the whole, people are living together in a harmonious way,” Mr. Vossenberg said.

“I understand the emotional problem people have with immigration, but, with Pim Fortuyn and Geert Wilders, I think we are taking steps backward,” he said.

Sylvia Blom, a history teacher from Hoofddorp, had her middle-school students line up along the canal in front of the Anne Frank House to see an exhibit on Pim Fortuyn’s right to speak against Muslims compared with an imam’s religious right to condemn homosexual relations.

The day before, Mrs. Blom had taken her students to Leiden, where the Mayflower Pilgrims lived for 11 years, to a museum dedicated to the 16th-century Dutch overthrow of Spanish rule.

“I want these children to know that most of the industry developed in Holland in the 16th and 17th centuries was developed by immigrants, from Germany, Belgium, Spain, Portugal,” she said. “Nothing has changed. The Netherlands was as multicultural 400 years ago as it is today.”

“Time solves a lot of things,” said Mr. Rath, of the University of Amsterdam. “It is a process of the Netherlands, of Germany, of France redefining who and what we are. Right now, we don’t know who we want to be. All we know is that we don’t want it to be Muslim.”

==============================

The Italian dilemma (Washington Times, 041221)

By Tom Carter

Second of three parts

VERONA, Italy - A towering statue of Daniele Comboni, the first bishop to Africa, embracing two black children marks the entrance to the Veronetta neighborhood.

In the shadow of the monument inscribed with the words, “Either Blackness or Death,” Marco Corini serves espresso and cappuccino to locals he has known his entire life.

“Veronetta has always been a poor neighborhood. I was born here. I grew up on these streets. I moved away 10 years ago. It has changed an awful lot in the last 20, 30 years,” he said, looking out his cafe window.

“There is crime, vandalism. ... They killed someone here a month ago. The area is not nice anymore.”

Just across the Adige River lies Verona’s 1,900-year-old Roman Arena, where early Christians were devoured by lions and Maria Callas once sang her arias. Nearby stands a balcony said to be the one where Romeo and Juliet fell in love.

Veronetta has been invaded by Africans from Ghana, Nigeria and Sudan — and more recently outsiders from Eastern Europe, Mr. Corini says.

“The Italian people have all gone. The authorities don’t look after us. Veronetta is filled with extracomunitario,” he said, using the Italian word for immigrants from outside the European Union.

Mr. Corini and Italy, like the rest of Europe, are struggling to deal with immigrants, black and brown faces on streets that were once all white, smells and music emanating from ethnic grocery stores, high unemployment, crowded mosques next to empty churches, crime, depleted pension funds and, most of all, the gnawing anxiety of what the future may bring.

While such concerns are not new, the recent advent of Islamist terrorism on a global scale has added a frightening new dimension to bread-and-butter issues such as fears of immigrants taking jobs and altering the cultural face of Europe — especially in nations such as Italy with large Muslim immigrant communities.

A 2000 United Nations report sounded an alarm in Rome when it found that with Italy’s low birth rate, the population could shrink from 57 million to 41 million over the next 50 years.

That would force Italy’s retirement age to 77, in order to keep the required ratio of four workers to one pensioner.

Verona — whose most beloved bishop was St. Zeno, a black African who converted Verona to Christianity in the fourth century — has a long history of missionary work both to and from Africa.

But the familial ties have become strained. Verona is also a center of Italy’s Lega Nord, the Northern League (NL), one of the most virulent anti-immigrant political parties in Europe.

Matteo Bragantini, the Northern League’s provincial secretary, said that it is his party’s dream for the region to secede from Italy and create its own nation, Padania, free, independent and hostile to outsiders.

He, and posters around the NL headquarters in the industrial quarter of Verona, describe Italy’s national government in Rome as “the thief.”

Simple rules

The NL, which has 5% support nationally and about 14% in the north, is not racist, Mr. Bragantini says. Its position on immigration is simple:

“You can come only if you have a job and somewhere to stay,” he said. “If immigrants don’t have a legal job, then you are surviving illegally, on drugs, or crime or something else,” he said.

He said unemployment in his Veneto region was high, at about 5%, “there is not that much work,” but local businesses were happy to welcome immigrants, because it lowers costs.

“Then they unload the social problems onto the state,” he said, sitting beneath a poster proclaiming “Padania: Land of Christians. Never the land of Muslims.”

He said Italian amnesties for immigrants, like similar programs in the United States, only made matters worse.

“Word got out [about the amnesty] and many Muslims came. They do not respect our rules and regulations.

“They are demanding that crucifixes be removed from our schools and demanding that pork be taken off school lunch menus, not just for Muslims, but for Christian children as well.

“Christmas holidays can no longer be called Christmas. They are winter festivities,” he said in disgust, laying out newspaper clippings on each outrage.

“It is natural for Muslims to beat their wives. For us, it is unthinkable and illegal. The mosques are not mosques. They are political centers. Imams are inciting the young to hate Christians,” Mr. Bragantini said. “There is a minaret in Rome that is higher than St. Peter’s. You could not build a church like that in Saudi Arabia.”

Lorena Gardini, spokesman for Antolini Luigi & Co., Verona’s largest marble and granite cutting and polishing factory, one of some 350 firms located in the area, said that about 20% of the work force was immigrant labor, mostly from Ghana.

“They are good workers. Very good people. We need them,” said Luca Girardi, an Antolini foreman of a 20-man crew. “Their families are here. Their kids go to school. These lads from Ghana run the whole cutting process.”

Asked if his workers came as illegal immigrants, Mr. Girardi replied:

“Sometimes we help them get their documents sorted out,” he said, with a shrug.

“At the beginning of the century, Italians came to America and you gave us jobs. We opened restaurants and respected the laws and you respected us. It is like that here. We are selective. If they are good, we keep them,” he said.

Workers welcome

Down a small road, white with marble dust, Fernando Leardini, the third-generation owner of Intermarmi marble, a much smaller family operation, said 80% of the area’s economy was based on marble, and it would collapse without immigrant labor. He said of his 12 workers, three are from Africa.

“The guys from Ghana have been with me for 12 years. I don’t know how I’m going to replace them. They are correct people and work seriously,” he said. Two workers plan to return to Ghana soon, one to open a bicycle shop and the other to make furniture.

“I have more problems with my Italians. ... The Italian work force isn’t really available for this work,” Mr. Leardini said.

Anyone ordering the fresh pasta, with mussels, clams and cherry tomatoes, seasoned with olive oil and basil at the Alla Torre, a traditional Veronese restaurant in the heart of the 800-year-old historic Piazza Erbe, might be surprised to find that it was cooked by Himas Rajakaruna, a chef who arrived from Sri Lanka seven years ago.

“I don’t care about a person’s race or country of origin. It is the person who is important. A professional is hard to find. I try them for five months. If they work out, I keep them,” said Guglielmo Rossi, who has owned the Alla Torre for nearly 30 years. He said he serves 25,000 customers a year and “always” hires immigrants.

“I have a waitress from Brazil and another one from Sri Lanka. In the restaurant business in Verona, Rome, Florence, Venice, you have to have foreign workers,” he said.

But Mr. Rossi says he avoids hiring Arabs. “They have no history for doing this kind of work. It is not in their culture,” he said.

Soup kitchens

Meanwhile, at the Cloister of San Bernardino, where figs and olives grow in the 600-year-old courtyard, Franciscan Brother Ezio is preparing to feed the dozens of homeless who line up outside his “poor man’s refractory” every lunch hour.

“They could be illegal immigrants or locals. We don’t ask. We are Franciscans. We open the door. Whoever comes in, any race, creed or color, is our brother,” said Brother Ezio.

The homeless are given a meal, can shower and hand-wash their laundry in the outdoor sinks. The volunteers helping the brothers include a neighborhood woman who is not Catholic, but sympathetic to the plight of the illegals, and a medical doctor who works in the kitchen on his lunch hour.

Brother Ezio said that 10 years ago, those coming through his door were out-of-work Veronese.

Five years ago, his clients were North Africans from Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria. Today, 90% are Eastern Europeans from Ukraine, Moldova and Romania.

The tonsured Franciscan said the homeless sleep in parks, under bridges or in railroad boxcars, eat at San Bernardino and get by with occasional day work in construction and agriculture.

He said the police know they are here, but never intrude into the sanctuary, unless they are looking for someone specific, wanted for a crime.

Around the corner, the Basilica of San Zeno is built on top of a Roman cemetery, where Zeno, the “laughing bishop” who converted all of Verona to Christianity, was buried 1,600 years ago.

His relics now rest in the church. Brother Ezio said that Christianity came to Italy and Verona from Africa, recalling St. Augustine, Zeno and other African missionaries.

“Not all our parishioners are comfortable with the changes. The local council has beds to offer and free meals, but for that you need documents that recognize your being here legally. ... Almost all here are illegal,” he said.

He said he tries to comfort the elderly parishioners with the changes they see and fear by explaining church history.

“St. Zeno and St. Augustine were both Africans. Christianity came to Italy from Africa. Nothing strange about a black man or foreigners in this neighborhood,” he said.

Back in Veronetta, a young couple, students from the nearby University of Verona, were searching for an affordable apartment among the African shops playing shaba music, the Nigerian Internet and “call shops,” the Indian grocery stores and struggling Italian osterias.

“We are looking for a home here,” said Mirco Galie, 29, who is completing his doctorate in biology. “It is not dangerous here. That is the stereotype, but not true. We like the ethnic mix.”

Elenora, 22, a philosophy major who declined to give her last name, said her parents might object to this neighborhood, but she and Mirco liked it.

“I don’t see any problem with immigrants. It depends on the individual. ... There is a correct equilibrium here,” she said.

==============================

Love-hate affair in Switzerland (Washington Times, 041222)

By Tom Carter

Third of three parts

ZURICH - Jean-Marc Buhler, manager of the Hotel Zurcherhof, says that 55% of his hotel, kitchen and dining-room staff are foreigners — from the Philippines, Eastern Europe and Germany.

“Absolutely, they are good workers. I couldn’t stay open without foreign workers,” Mr. Buhler said.

A good waiter can make $45,000 a year, he said.

“But the Swiss won’t do this work. They want to work in a bank, sit behind a desk or work on a computer.”

His restaurant is a well-regarded traditional Swiss stube, catering to both locals and tourists, where world-class wines from Valais accompany the cheese fondue, raclette and other Swiss specialties.

Mr. Buhler said that in Zurich almost 30% of the population is foreign-born, compared with about 20% in the rest of Switzerland and about 12% in Europe as a whole and in the United States.

“The older Swiss are not feeling so well about this, but for business, it is a good feeling, not bad,” he said. “They speak German. They know the system. Most have been here for a long time.”

Suspicion of newcomers by old-timers is to be expected in Switzerland, Europe and anywhere else. But the threat of Islamic terrorism readily turns that suspicion to fear, especially in European nations such as Switzerland, that have large Muslim immigrant populations.

That fear notwithstanding, European nations also need to keep importing workers from elsewhere because the European birthrate has dropped.

Eduard Gnesa, director of Switzerland’s Office of Immigration, Integration and Emigration, said 9% of the Swiss economy is tourism, hotels and restaurants.

“The Swiss economy would collapse without foreign workers. In tourism, 50% are foreigners. Many are also in the construction business,” Mr. Gnesa said in an interview in his Bern office.

“And the Swiss are only having 1.4 children per couple. That is enough reason already that we need immigration. The question is who, who in the interests of the economy and humanitarian reasons?” he asked.

Fiercely independent, Switzerland is a confederation of cantons, or states. And each canton has an enormous say over its governing.

Switzerland is not a member of the European Union and still uses the Swiss franc as its currency, even as the nations around it have converted to the euro.

The tiny mountainous nation has a population of 7.2 million, including 1.5 million foreigners. An estimated 50,000 to 300,000 are illegal.

A multicultural and diverse society by definition, Switzerland has four official languages — French, Italian, German and Romansch.

Like other European nations after World War II , Switzerland imported guest workers to build its roads, housing and an extensive tunnel system. Young men from Spain, Portugal and Italy, and later Turkey, came and worked. Many never went home.

The next wave began more than a decade ago, as tens of thousands of refugees began pouring into Switzerland from the Balkans, escaping the war and ethnic strife in the former Yugoslavia.

Today, Switzerland is the destination of thousands of Eastern Europeans looking for jobs and a better life.

“The Swiss accepted 30,000 Bosnians officially, and 60,000 unofficially, 1% of their total population,” said Rustem Simitovic, a Bosnian academic who came to Switzerland in 1968 and is now a Swiss citizen.

“The Swiss treat those who are ready to integrate well. If you accept the Swiss way of life, you can be comfortable here,” Mr. Simitovic said.

Many of Switzerland’s immigrants have been there for 10, 20 or 30 years. Everything except their passport is Swiss.

For their children, Switzerland is the only place they know.

“You cannot see the difference between them and our children. They go to school and speak our [Swiss-German dialect], but it is difficult for them to become citizens,” Mr. Gnesa said, because approval is required at the city, canton and federal level.

This year, measures were put on the ballot to clarify and streamline the Swiss citizenship process.

Along with a large majority in the Swiss parliament, Mr. Gnesa’s office was one of the many government agencies that backed it.

But on Sept. 26, the measures were soundly rejected by the Swiss electorate, 58% to 42%, with voters lining up along what is known in Swiss politics as the “Rosti Grabben” or potato ditch, with the French cantons voting in favor of the measure and the potato, or rosti,-eating German cantons against.

There also was a stark divide between the cities, which voted for the measure, and the rural areas, which voted against. The mayor of Zurich, who supported the measure, said the results made him feel ashamed.

The anti-referendum campaign was led by Christopher Blocher’s anti-immigration Swiss People’s Party, which has come to prominence in Switzerland by campaigning against foreign entanglements, the European Union, the United Nations and immigration, specifically blaming immigrant Africans and Albanians for Switzerland’s crime rate.

Ironically, because Mr. Blocher is a member of the government, holding the position of Swiss justice minister (making him Mr. Gnesa’s boss), he was forced to show reluctant public support for the citizenship referendum, despite his personal and his party’s opposition.

During a walk in the Claraplatz neighborhood of Basel, an area that has become home to large number of Indian, Moroccan and Albanian immigrants, elderly Swiss-German women walking miniature dachshunds and gray-haired couples walking along the Rhein refused to give their names, but were nearly unanimous in the way they had voted — “nein.”

Their reasons varied: “There are too many of them.” “They make too much noise.” “I’ve lived here my whole life. Now, I’m afraid.” “Be careful if you go over there.”

Tapping this Swiss anxiety, Mr. Blocher’s “Vote ‘No’ 2 X [times]” featured political advertisements that the Swiss newspapers regularly compared with Nazi propaganda posters and charts of the 1930s and 1940s.

One featured black and brown hands, in the old socialist painting style, each grabbing a Swiss passport from a basket.

Another showed a graph projecting the growing foreign population in Switzerland at intervals 40 years out until there are no Swiss left in Switzerland — a near replica of Nazi anti-Slav posters on display at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.

“I feel very comfortable here and have never experienced anything remotely racist; but during the campaign, I’ve never seen more racist political advertising in my life. It was shocking,” said Brian McAdoo, a black geology professor on leave from Vassar College doing research and teaching at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich.

“The cities said ‘yes,’ and the farm areas said ‘no,’ “ said Mr. Gnesa, the immigration minister. “Where people live together and see [foreign] people every day, there is less fear.”

Urs Gruber, 32, is chief engineer, bottle washer and winemaker at the Schinznach wine cooperative in Aargau, a farming region known for its thermal baths. People here voted about 65% against the citizenship initiative.

Mr. Gruber, who makes about 350,000 liters of wine each year for his cooperative’s 91-member vineyards, said that although local farmers occasionally hire seasonal workers for the harvest, most of the work on each of the small holdings is done by family members.

Over a glass of his pinot noir — to go with a local veal dish and the ever-present Swiss-German hash browns, or rosti — he said that although most residents in the area could be categorized as anti-immigrant, there are very few immigrants living in the area.

“When the Swiss people see an immigrant works hard and is quiet, we are fine with that,” said Mr. Gruber, who is engaged to marry a Thai immigrant.

“The only time it is acceptable to be loud is when Swiss men sit together at a round table, drinking wine and beer and are discussing politics. ... We can be a little closed, we say ‘farmer’ headed. It is always about the land. There is a fear that there are too many people here.”

Elizabet Ghilardi, a smartly dressed teacher in high heels, designer jeans and dangling earrings who has been teaching preteens in Zurich’s public-housing neighborhood of Grunau for 30 years, was given a small gift recently.

A young Albanian girl in her French class gave her a small book of poetry, in French and Albanian.

As she was showing it to a visitor, tears welled up.

“As far as the class being multicultural, there is no problem. It is an enrichment to be educated in this environment. But as a teacher, I need a great variety of professional skills, great tolerance and more engagement [than if they were all Swiss]. These are great kids; they come to school early, eager to learn,” she said.

She said, for example, the stress of the war in Yugoslavia was very difficult on the children from that region, requiring professional care and skills not needed when educating Swiss children of Swiss parents.

Barbara Strauli, who is one of a nine-member team that oversees Grunau and designs and implements Zurich’s school-integration program, said 100,000 students — 27% of the canton’s students — are from immigrant families, most born in Switzerland, but unlike children of immigrant parents born in the United States, they are not citizens.

“Society asked these workers to come. We have 30 years’ experience in integrating them. I think we’ve managed very well,” said Mrs. Strauli, who specializes in working with Kurdish and Turkish students.

“When the parents are educated, the children get it. The immigrant children from middle-class families don’t have any problem.

“The problem we face is not language or culture, but social structure, the poor, uneducated. The parents, although they want to very much, cannot help their children very much.”

Of the 17 children in Mrs. Ghilardi’s class, all have either the name of U.S. hip-hop star Usher or the U.S. television show “Charmed” written in marking pen, like a temporary tattoo, on their arms.

Only three of her students are native-born Swiss, with Swiss parents. The rest, although born in Switzerland, have parents who are from Spain, Italy, Albania, Ghana, Sri Lanka, Hungary, Romania and other countries, and are not citizens.

She said her best student was from Pakistan and next year probably would go to the elite academic high school for students going to college.

“I feel comfortable here,” said Thomas Lanier, a black from Huntsville, Ala., who played football for Auburn University and has lived in Switzerland for 11 years. “There is an underlying sense of fairness here. If you respect their culture, there are opportunities. The Swiss want to be Swiss. They want anyone who comes here to respect their culture.”

Asked about the anti-immigration campaign and racism, he said: “There are dumb people everywhere, and Switzerland is no exception.”

==============================

Tackling a root cause of terrorism (Washington Times, 041221)

The United States should criminalize a root cause of terrorism: hate speech teaching that indiscriminate murders are morally justified to further a crazed religious, racial, ethnic or political cause. Europe has been more perspicacious than the United States on that score. The splenetic epithets heard in many madrassas or mosques or taught in many Islamic textbooks are exemplary of the evil. The grisly carnage and generations of conflict born of such appeals to madness justifies the prohibition. Freedom of speech does not include expression that hopes to provoke violence in order to destroy democracy, the rule of law or human rights. As Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson warned in Terminiello vs. Chicago (1949), the Bill of Rights is not a suicide pact.

The Intelligence Reform Act initialed last week by President Bush featured commendable anti-terrorism provisions. Terrorist offenses were added to the category of crimes carrying a presumption of no bail. The definition of “material support” for a terrorist organization was clarified and expanded. So-called lone-wolf terrorist suspects were made subject to foreign intelligence surveillance warrants. Receipt of military-type training at a terrorist camp was made a federal crime. But attacking terrorism closer to the source was neglected.

It is born of psychologically warped minds. As John Locke observed, the mind begins like a blank slate. There is no predisposition towards terrorism. But neither is mankind born with natural virtue. Moral acuity and decency must be cultivated to prevent civilization from degenerating into anarchy and a war of all against all. As Hamlet observed, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

The causes of human behavior are too complex to know with absolute certainty the constellation of motivations and circumstances that culminate in terrorism. Osama bin Laden and Timothy McVeigh defy a common explanation. But the overwhelming majority of Islamic terrorism — which dwarfs all other terror in magnitude and gruesomeness — is sparked by indoctrinating Muslims to despise Christians and Jews as infidels, and the United States and Israel as enemy states. Imams in madrassas and mosques around the world regularly instruct their followers in the necessity of jihad. Islamic textbooks frequently teach scorn or contempt for Christianity or Judaism.

These Islamic fulminations do not ordinarily provoke instant violence. They aim to plant seeds of fanatical hatred in the expectation that time will ripen those vile thoughts into terrorism against the alleged infidels. And the mullah success rate in breeding Islamic terrorists is too great for the law to ignore. Think of the September 11 wretches, Richard Reid or Zacarias Moussaoui.

The United States should thus make criminal the advocacy of jihad or sister terrorist activity against any nation or racial, ethnic, religious, or political group with the specific intent of provoking such terrorism. To borrow from the Supreme Court in Chaplinsky vs. New Hampshire (1942), like obscenity and fighting words, “Such utterances are no essential part of expression of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality.”

When terrorism is the goal, the argument made by Justice Louis Brandeis in Whitney vs. California (1927) that “the fitting remedy for evil counsels is good ones” is unpersuasive. Those indoctrinated in jihad live in a demented intellectual universe. They characteristically insist that September 11 was perpetrated by the CIA and Jews to provide an excuse for the United States to steal Arab oil. They are beyond reason. Osama bin Laden cannot be talked into civilized behavior.

Justice Brandeis also trips in declaring that advocacy is shielded from punishment under the First Amendment unless it aims at immediate or imminent serious violence. The Supreme Court later embraced that maxim in Brandenburg vs. Ohio (1969). It declared that “the constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.” No explanation is forthcoming, however, as to why a democratic State should be arrested in fighting those who would destroy democracy, free speech, and every other earmark of civilized life by banning the punishment of advocacy with a delayed time fuse. Although the wildest ravings of Adolf Hitler did not invariably produce immediate violence against Jews, they set the stage for Kristallnacht. Weimar Germany was destroyed by speech celebrating violence and terror.

Freedom of speech is cherished because it facilitates the search for political truths and peaceful changes in the law in accord with majority sentiments. It should not protect advocacy that champions change through terrorism.

Bruce Fein is a constitutional lawyer and international consultant at Bruce Fein & Associates and the Lichfield Group.

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Terrorist Television: Hezbollah has a worldwide reach (National Review Online, 041222)

Late last week, the State Department added al-Manar, the official television station of Hezbollah, to the Terrorism Exclusion List (TEL), effectively prohibiting it from broadcasting in the United States. While this action is welcome, it must be the beginning, not the end, of the effort to combat propaganda of a new and much more ominous sort.

Al-Manar is viewed by an estimated 10-15 million people a day across the world. Its mission was explained to me with chilling clarity by one al-Manar official: It is meant to “help people on the way to committing what you call in the West a suicide mission. [Its videos] are meant to be the first step in the process of a freedom fighter operation.”

The State Department officially categorized Hezbollah as a terrorist organization in 1997. One wonders why it took so long. In Beirut in 1983, Hezbollah suicide bombers killed more than 250 American Marines and diplomats. Until 9/11, no terrorist organization had murdered so many U.S. citizens. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage has called Hezbollah “the A Team” of terrorism.

Hezbollah launched al-Manar in 1991. Much of its programming is intended to spread hatred of America and Israel, and to induce viewers to express that hatred in meaningful ways. Appearing on al-Manar, Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah frequently calls for “Death to America.”

Among al-Manar’s specialties are videos, inspired by MTV but with a difference. For example, one shows the Statue of Liberty as a ghoul, her gown dripping blood, a knife instead of a torch in her raised hand. In Arabic the video enumerates America’s involvements around the world — e.g. Vietnam, Chile, Iraq — and concludes with the words: “America owes blood to all of humanity.”

Another video, set to martial music, calls for suicide bombers to kill U.S. soldiers in Iraq. It ends with the image of an exploding suicide belt.

In other al-Manar videos, Koranic verses are sung, the words scrolled across the screen while footage in the background shows American and Israeli flags being burned, demonstrators waving a “Down with U.S.A.” sign, a suicide bomber recording his valediction.

Many of the videos unabashedly aim to recruit terrorists. Viewers are told that “the path to becoming a priest in Islam is through jihad” and implored to focus on the rewards of martyrdom — in the afterlife and on judgment day. Mothers are encouraged to give up their sons, to prepare them “for battle knowing that their blood will mix with the soil.”

Also of concern is the possibility that al-Manar broadcasts may contain coded communications — a way for Hezbollah’s terrorist “generals” to command their “troops” in the field, for example sleeper cells in the United States and elsewhere.

Until last weekend, al-Manar was broadcast to America through Intelsat, a Barbados-owned company with offices in Washington, D.C., and GlobeCast, a French-owned satellite provider. Both reportedly removed al-Manar immediately following the State Department’s designation.

These quick results show that government action — even one as simple as calling a terrorist organization a terrorist organization — can be effective. As a next step, the U.S. Department of the Treasury should designate the station a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) entity. This would enable the government to freeze financial assets tied to the station or to individuals or organizations that associate with it. It also would permit the sanctioning of foreign banks that provide services to the station, which would significantly limit its operations.

Further steps include investigating those employed by al-Manar’s Washington bureau for violating executive orders and taking money from a terrorist organization. Public pressure should be brought to bear against companies that advertise on al-Manar or do other business with al-Manar. For example, the BBC continues to buy al-Manar footage from Iraq.

Consider the irony: Al-Manar recruits for Hezbollah; Hezbollah recruits carry out attacks against Americans; al-Manar photographers film the attacks and then sell the footage to Western media for broadcast on the evening news. With the profits earned, al-Manar can begin the cycle all over again.

Finally, diplomatic pressure should be put on the Saudis and the French, who own Arabsat and GlobeCast respectively, to end their relationships with al-Manar.

Stopping al-Manar from broadcasting in the United States is a crucial first step, but al-Manar’s audiences in the Middle East, Europe, Africa, Asia, and South America are still being fed a caustic diet of radicalism, hatred, and incitement to terrorist violence. Al-Manar is recruiting soldiers — and those soldiers may one day receive their orders to attack from the same source.

Film at 11.

— Avi Jorisch is a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) and author of Beacon of Hatred: Inside Hizballah’s Al-Manar Television. He is the executive director of the Coalition of Terrorist Media, a project of FDD, which includes Muslim, Christian, Jewish, and secular organizations urging action against al-Manar.

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Hate TV vs. peace on Earth (Washington Times, 041222)

While the West is basking in the tunes of Christmas carols, a different tune is being played by the two leading jihadi TV channels, al-Jazeera and al-Manar. The radical Sunni al-Jazeera, broadcasting from Qatar, the flagship of anti-Western Islamist propaganda, is funded and tolerated by the Qatari royal family, reportedly to the tune of $30 million a year. It has become the main conduit of al Qaeda tapes to the Arab and Muslim world, suggesting an exclusive arrangement with the elusive jihadi leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri.

Al-Manar, a Shi’ite satellite and cable operation out of Lebanon, belongs to Hezbollah and funded by the Islamic Republic of Iran to the tune of $15 million a year, and is even more anti-American in its pitch. Both channels are available worldwide, including the United States, via satellite. Canadian cable operators are now offering al-Jazeera and al-Manar via easily obtained and cheap subscriptions.

Robert Spencer, director of Jihad Watch, says that al-Jazeera provides foreign-based terrorists with a source of news, encouragement and instruction. It serves radical Muslims as a useful recruiting tool. For jihadist recruiters, al-Jazeera is like an electronic madrassa beaming the teachings and perspective of radical Islam into the living rooms of Muslims around the world 24 hours a day, Mr. Spencer says.

Since September 11, the U.S. government has expressed its concerns about al-Jazeera’s biased coverage to the emir of Qatar. A State Department official told CNN that Secretary of State Colin Powell and the emir “had a frank exchange” on the issue, and “there should have been no mistake of where we are coming from.” Condoleezza Rice has also criticized the channel.

No wonder. A typical coverage would include the following pictures shown in quick succession: tiny bodies of Iraqi children supposedly killed by American bombs, a woman in a chador sobbing, a giant U.S. B-52 bomber and fireballs lighting up the Baghdad night sky. One American observer in the Middle East calls al-Jazeera “All intifada, all the time.”

Al-Manar, however, makes al-Jazeera look like PBS. A new study by Avi Jorisch, a former Pentagon Arab media and terrorism expert, published by the Washington Institute for Near East Studies, exposes this deadly media weapon wielded by Hezbollah. “The United States is one of al-Manar’s main targets. Hezbollah views America as a terrorist state.... Al-Manar is used to further that perception, attempting to win the hearts and minds of Arab and Muslim viewers by waging a powerful public relations campaign against the ‘Great Satan,’ “ writes Mr. Jorisch.

He quotes Sheik Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s secretary general in a March 2002 speech:

“Today the main source of evil in this world, the main source of terrorism... the central threat to international peace and to the economic development... the main threat to the environment, the main source of... killing and turmoil, and civil wars, and regional wars is the United States of America. The American political discourse is to terrorize the countries of the world. America is a beast in all meanings of the world. A beast that is hungry for power and blood.”

Al-Manar focuses much of its broadcasts on alleged American atrocities toward native Americans and blacks, and cites the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, while stating that U.S. “oppression” continues unabated. Al-Manar brainwashes its audience, including its viewers in the United States, that U.S. foreign policy is designed to “enslave the governments and people of the Middle East and their resources.”

Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, Hezbollah’s spiritual leader, as well as Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the late Ayatollah Khomeini are often quoted on al-Manar vilifying the United States, its leaders and its policies.

Al-Manar constantly calls upon the “Arab masses” to “mobilize” and “resist” the U.S. presence in Iraq and elsewhere, while it glorifies murder-suicide bombings against civilians in Israel. While al-Manar and Hezbollah officials profess their neutrality toward the American people in interviews in English, Mr. Jorisch writes, the channel often quotes its leader Ayatollah Fadlallah’s vitriol, “The instincts of American people are filled with hatred for Arabs and Muslims.”

In fact, according to Hezbollah, it is the United States and Israel that are “terrorist states” whereas “jihad, resistance, martyrdom ... is actually removing terrorism. Humanity will not be blessed without removing America’s type of terrorism.... We have to continue our jihad in all different types in order to save humanity from the [American] terrorist thinking.”

Little response has come to date from Washington to this global brainwashing. Today, al-Jazeera is launching its English language global satellite channel. Al-Manar is broadcasting unabated, and its popularity is growing. Al Qaeda is recruiting hundreds, if not thousands, through chat rooms around the world. Jihadi Web sites are proliferating like poisonous mushrooms in Arabic, English, French, Farsi, Urdu, Uzbek and in the languages of the Indian subcontinent and East Asia. After September 11, the CIA experienced an acute shortage of funds and lacked the qualified linguists who would be needed just to keep track of these spewing Niagaras of hatred. The battle of ideas has thus far been an American weak spot in the war on terror.

In the second Bush administration it is imperative to go beyond the Radio Sawa and Al Hurra TV channel funded by the U.S. government to answer the jihadi propaganda. It was inconceivable that Der Sturmer, the propaganda sheet put out by Hitler’s propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, would have been allowed to circulate unchallenged in the Allied countries during World War II. Today, it is simply self-defeating for the West to permit American, French and other Western satellites and cable systems to carry al-Jazeera and al-Manar.

The intelligence community has yet to develop a capable covert political action arm, which would launch or support liberal and pro-Western TV channels, radio stations and Web sites to counter the media promoting radical Islamist hatred of either the Sunni and Shi’ite brands.

The State Department has yet to develop a comprehensive strategy, which would demand U.S.-friendly Muslim regimes to bring government-funded mosques, school curricula and university education into harmony with the rest of the planet — multicultural and theologically messy.

As time is running out before the next terror attack, on al-Jazeera and al-Manar, preachers and propagandists are still calling for death to the infidels. Somewhere, another ignorant 16-year-old is being recruited by an al Qaeda operative in an on-line chat room, another “mother of shahid” is being given her 30 seconds of global glory in return for the willful death of her child and the murder of many others. It is time to stop the bloody charade of the global electronic jihad.

Ariel Cohen is a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation.

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QDR Time (Weekly Standard, 050106)

The next Quadrennial Defense Review will reveal what lessons we’ve learned in the fight against terrorism.

ONE OF THE OLD STANDBYS of Pentagon defense planning—particularly in the age of PowerPoint—is the notion of the “spectrum of conflict.” The concept attempts to plot the gamut of military operations—from Kantian peace to Hobbesian Armageddon—along one axis, with the proper allocation of resources along the other. In practice, the embedded conclusion of these exercises invariably finds that the kind of war that deserves the most attention and the most money is also—coincidentally enough—the kind of war most preferred by America’s professional military: decisive, swift, high-tech, and conventional.

Thus it comes as both a surprise and pleasure to discover that defense guidance and official briefing-chart policy for the upcoming Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) finds the “conventional-conflict camel’s hump” inverted. Now, “guerilla fighting” and “peacekeeping operations” on the low end of the spectrum and “emerging rival power” conflict and “catastrophic terrorist attack” on the high end are deemed to be “moderately” more deserving of resource allocation than aerial dog fighting, fleet operations, and open armored warfare—the old major regional conflict scenarios. It’s a cryptic but undeniable indication of progress at the Pentagon.

It’s also a sure sign that the reality of the post-Cold-War, post-Iraq world has begun to penetrate even the deepest reaches of the Defense Department bureaucracy—and given the stress on U.S. ground forces in Iraq, it’s not a moment too soon. As one military official told the New York Times last week, “It doesn’t matter if you can win a war 20 years from now if we lose the global war on terror next year.”

Equally encouraging, the QDR will also grapple with some of the nightmare scenarios that, previously, were considered too diplomatically dicey or militarily difficult to garner serious consideration. While past defense reports focused on conventional combat against North Korea or Iraq, QDR planners are at last considering what we would do if, say, Pakistan’s nuclear program slipped from Pervez Musharraf’s grasp. “The more the scenarios hit a nerve . . . the more I know I am onto something,” a shrewd Pentagon official confided to the Wall Street Journal’s Greg Jaffe.

To be sure, there’s a long way to go before the QDR is complete and plenty of mischief will be made before that happens. Moreover, the Office of Management and Budget has already hamstrung the defense review by mandating overall defense spending cuts. As at the beginning of President Bush’s first term, the White House’s domestic political priorities, and in particular its tax policy agenda, are at odds with the military’s real needs. Despite the “unexpected” difficulties in Iraq, the White House has not only resisted the requirement to increase regular defense spending but actually proceeded to make deeper cuts than anticipated in previous projections. The Bush administration continues to fund its “generational commitment” to transforming the greater Middle East by one-year “emergency” supplemental appropriations.

This borderline contradictory approach goes a long way to explaining the recent spate of press reports about the Pentagon’s decision to curtail major weapons programs. Look in the months ahead for even more stories about reductions in major aircraft and shipbuilding programs and the resulting complaints from contractors. The Lexington Institute, often a leading-edge indicator of industry opinion, has put out a spate of “issue briefs” in recent weeks complaining that the administration is in danger of frittering away the U.S. lead in conventional capabilities. “The Air Force and the Navy are paying the bills to fix the Army’s shortfall in resources,” Lexington chief Loren Thompson told the Post on Wednesday. On the other hand, the Army and Marine Corps are paying the bills in casualties in Iraq.

Under such circumstances, it’s hard to get sentimental about the defense industry, but since they are entirely subject to the whims of the government, they do have a point: it will be almost impossible, for example, to maintain two separate shipyards capable of building nuclear submarines if the Navy is only going to buy one boat per year. It certainly makes no financial or budgetary sense. Ironically, it appears as though President Bush is about to fulfill his 2000 campaign pledge to “skip a generation” of weaponry—just not in the way originally planned.

DESPITE THE INCREASES in actual defense spending of the first Bush term—both the “normal” defense budget and the “emergency” supplementals that have grown exponentially since 9/11—the Pentagon finds itself facing the same dilemma as when the president took office four years ago. The gap between U.S. strategic ends and military means is as larger, if not larger, than the gap left by the Clinton administration.

Almost as important as the sheer size of this gap is the need to allocate defense dollars more wisely—and it’s here that the QDR rumors provide a glimmer of hope. For years, we have been telling ourselves that the only thing that mattered was our own unsurpassed capabilities, allowing us to fight in a manner of our own choosing. Our enemies, by contrast, chose to attack us at those points along the “spectrum of conflict” where we were least prepared and had allocated the fewest resources.

It’s time for the Pentagon to develop forces that can display the same kind of primacy in unconventional combat as already achieved in its conventional capabilities. Given that, just a few months ago, the National Military Strategy all but ignored the problem of counterinsurgency warfare, the willingness of QDR planners to put the sledgehammer of the old “spectrum of conflict” is an encouraging sign, indeed. Put another way: resource allocation is just strategy by another name.

Tom Donnelly is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a contributing writer to The Daily Standard.

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Zarqawi vows war on democracy (Washington Times, 050124)

BAGHDAD — Terrorist leader Abu Musab Zarqawi yesterday declared war on democracy in Iraq “and all those who seek to enact it,” in what was seen as an attempt to intimidate voters from participating in nationwide elections on Sunday.

Polls have shown that most Iraqis plan to vote despite such threats and unremitting violence, but the fear is palpable in conversations with Iraqis, many of whom refuse to be photographed or even to talk to Westerners.

“Please, please, you cannot come here, it is too dangerous for us, you must understand,” pleaded the wife of an Iraqi who previously had agreed to be interviewed by The Washington Times. “Please, my husband cannot go to meet with you. Please, I am afraid.”

It is commonly assumed that insurgents have placed spies in all hotels and other places where Westerners gather. Any Iraqi seen talking to or working with foreigners risks being kidnapped and forced to give information, held for ransom or killed. The capture of a Westerner can earn an Iraqi up to $5,000 and twice that for an American.

In an apparent bid to elevate the fear level, an audiotape attributed to Zarqawi appeared on two Islamist Web sites yesterday, threatening anyone who dares to vote.

“We have declared a bitter war against the principle of democracy and all those who seek to enact it,” said the speaker, whose identity was not confirmed.

“Those who vote ... are infidels. And with God as my witness, I have informed them [of our intentions],” he said.

It was not clear whether the threat would deter Iraqis from taking part in the election, which is expected to hand power to the nation’s Shi’ite majority after decades of rule by a Sunni elite led by ousted dictator Saddam Hussein.

Recent polling by the International Republican Institute found that more than 80% of potential voters are planning to turn out, including more than half of those in the insurgency-troubled Sunni heartland.

Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said yesterday that his government would do everything in its power to secure about 5,000 polling places, one of which was blown up yesterday by terrorists in Hilla, south of Baghdad.

U.S. Ambassador John D. Negroponte also promised a massive effort to protect voters when he appeared on U.S. television networks yesterday, although he acknowledged that there were serious security problems.

“There will be some problematic areas,” he told “Fox News Sunday.” “But even there, great efforts are being made to enable every Iraqi eligible to do so to be able to vote.”

But such promises have done little to reassure families like that of the man who begged off an interview with The Washington Times, a former victim of Saddam’s repression who asked that his name not be used.

His 8-year-old daughter has begun writing poems wondering when the violence will end: “... and the happiness is gone. Why did it have to go and fly from our land like a plane? The happiness is gone from our hearts. Hey! Happiness, please come back to us and make our days happy.”

Others who deal regularly with Westerners also live in fear. One hotel worker said he had left his home completely and began living in the hotel for fear of being killed. First, his family was threatened. Then, several months ago, a note was left at his house saying he would be killed. He has not been back since.

U.S. officials estimate that the insurgents and their sympathizers now number as many as 200,000. Informants are everywhere, according to both Iraqis and U.S. intelligence reports.

The atmosphere can be deceiving at times. Inside homes and hotels, people watch sensuous music videos from Egypt and international news broadcasts. Traffic still fills the streets, and shops are open.

Yesterday, children filled one amusement park, happily riding on a Ferris wheel as adults strolled around, some of them dipping into large bags of potato chips.

Feelings among Iraqis range from rampant fear to resignation to a certain pride at being able to survive in spite of horrendous conditions.

“I spent seven months in Lebanon. It is beautiful, but I could not stay there. The women talk about such small things,” said one young woman who spends her days working for a Western company in Baghdad and at night tries to bathe in a small bucket of water.

“Yes, of course, I will go voting,” said another woman who has taken part in the electoral process. But, she conceded, “We are afraid a little.”

U.S. officials have warned that lethal attacks are likely to spike this week, and security officials describe the polling stations as a “target-rich environment.”

U.S. security reports have estimated that there are about 150 car bombs parked and ready to explode around Baghdad and that snipers will be targeting Iraqis who walk into polling stations.

Some foreign reporters have hired armed security teams to escort them when they leave their hotels. Others are opting for no security at all, so as not to attract attention. Conversations focus on road closures, security decisions and the establishment of buddy systems in case of emergencies.

Most Western contractors living in Baghdad are in a state of siege. They have stockpiled water and food and have weapons cocked and ready whenever they go into the streets. Many have simply left the country until after the election.

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Renewed Call to Boycott France (Foxnews, 050218)

By Bill O’Reilly

When are we Americans going to wise up? How many times does the French government, led by Jacques Chirac, have to put all of us in danger before we get the picture? France is helping worldwide terrorism.

Here’s the latest. France has said no to Secretary of State Rice, who asked the Chirac government to designate Hezbollah as a terrorist group. If France would do that, Hezbollah could not raise money in Europe, which it is now doing through various charitable fronts.

There is no question Hezbollah is a terrorist group. It was responsible for killing more than 200 U.S. Marines in Lebanon back in 1983. And since then has murdered thousands of civilians primarily in and around Israel.

The secretary general of Hezbollah, a guy named Hassan Nasrallah, has openly stated that the group’s slogan is “death to America.” Hezbollah’s head of security, a guy named Imad Mugniyah, met at least once with bin Laden and has a $5 million price tag on his head put there by the U.S. government.

Hezbollah is funded and harbored by Iran and Syria. And even the new Palestinian leadership wants them branded a terrorist group because they oppose any peaceful solution vis-a-vis Israel.

Jacques Chirac won’t call Hezbollah terrorists. When is enough enough, ladies and gentlemen? When will the American people realize that Chirac and his minions are putting this country and millions of other of people in danger?

So I am again calling for all responsible people not to buy French products, not to travel to France, and to contact the French embassy in Washington, and let them know Chirac’s conduct is unacceptable.

Now President Bush travels to Europe on Sunday. He’ll meet with Chirac in Brussels. The administration continues to tell us things are improving regarding France. Don’t believe it. Until we see the French government do something to help in the war on terror, we should consider that country hostile to our safety.

And so, the boycott of France is on. Bumper stickers are available on www.billoreilly.com. Get a bunch of them. Spread the word. France is helping Hezbollah and other terrorists. Until that stops, we’re not buying their stuff. No spin, no whine.

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Terrorism’s victims: Actually, they’re mostly Muslims (townhall.com, 050218)

Clifford D. May

It is a common misperception that most terrorism is directed against Jews and Christians. The fact is no group has suffered more than Muslims from radical Islamist violence. Especially at risk are those bold enough to speak out for such values as freedom, human rights and democracy.

In Beirut this week, former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri was killed by a powerful car bomb – apparently in reprisal for his opposition to Syria’s continuing occupation of Lebanon.

In Iraq, scarcely a day goes by when innocent men, women and children are not murdered for such “crimes” as following the Shi’a tradition of Islam, joining the police force, exercising their right to vote or simply going to the marketplace when supporters of Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden are in the mood to create carnage for the evening news.

Tunis, Casablanca and Istanbul are among the Muslim-majority cities that have been attacked. Terrorist groups have turned Palestinian communities into ghettoes where every mother must worry that one day a “militant leader” will fit her child for a suicide bomb vest.

But it is in Algeria, with relatively little international attention, that the slaughter has been most extensive: Over the years, more than 100,000 Algerians have been murdered by Islamist terrorists.

Once a French colonial possession, Algeria fought a brutal, 8-year war for its independence. John F. Kennedy was among the many Americans who idealistically and publicly supported the Algerian struggle against France.

But independence in 1962 did not bring freedom. Instead, Algeria’s post-colonial leadership came to be dominated by authoritarian military officers who rotated not as a result not of ballots cast but of coups waged. Those who held liberal democratic views were either marginalized or maneuvered from positions of real power to the diplomatic service where their sophistication was useful to the regime.

The only place opposition could be organized was in the mosques where — with assistance from abroad — radicals soon seized control. As Yale Professor William J. Foltz has written, the extremist clerics “stirred up and armed gangs of young thugs, whose murderous violence” was often directed “against the small, internationally-minded intellectual elite, hated by the Islamic fundamentalists…”

Among those targeted was Ambassador Salah Fellah who on Dec. 7, 1993 was gunned down in front of his home in Algiers. Fellah, Prof. Foltz has pointed out, was despised by the Islamists “both for who he was” – an advocate of freedom, human rights and democracy – and for “what he did”: He was the diplomat who broke relations with Iran because of the ayatollahs’ support for Algerian radical Islamists. Were the ayatollahs behind Ambassador’s Fellah’s assassination? His son, Zakaria Fellah, is convinced they were, and he is hardly alone. The Iranians, he said, have even placed their allies and “henchmen” in Algeria’s political system. Algeria’s current Minister of Foreign Minister, he points out, has been among the Iranian regime’s most fervent supporters.

Not long after his father’s murder, Zakaria applied for political asylum in the United States. Had he returned to Algeria and espoused political views similar to his father’s, he too would have found himself in the cross hairs.

“Islamism is a form of Fascism,” he told me. “The mission of the Islamic fundamentalist terrorists is to eliminate all persons with differing opinions who may threaten their political and religious aspirations. They are the No.1 threat to democracy and civilization today. But too many Europeans, and too many Americans, do not realize the danger threatening their societies.”

Two lessons to take away from all this: The Iranian ayatollahs are Shi’a Muslims, while the Algerian radicals are Sunni Muslims. For years, many in the U.S. diplomatic and intelligence communities have insisted that such collaboration was a “theoretical” impossibility and therefore not to be seriously considered, much less combated. (They have said the same about alliances between “secular” Baathists and Islamists.)

Second: One expression of the pathology of the broader Middle East is that often the choice is between ruthless authoritarianism on one side, and religious totalitarianism on the other. Paradoxically, it is in the interest of despots of both stripes to suppress advocates of liberal democracy, to make certain there is no third way.

In the past, this strategy has succeeded – which is why today the Middle East is dominated by dictators, dynasties and terror masters of various political and religious stripes. The changes occurring in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Palestinian territories — coupled with increasing American support for the dissidents and freedom fighters of the Muslim world – might change that. It’s hard to imagine what else could.

Clifford D. May is the president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a policy institute focusing on terrorism and a Townhall.com member group.

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Terrorist claims Syrian training (Washington Times, 050224)

BAGHDAD — Iraqi state television aired a video yesterday showing what the U.S.-funded channel said was the confession of a captured Syrian officer, who said he trained Iraqi terrorists to behead people and build car bombs to attack American and Iraqi troops.

He also said the terrorists practiced beheading animals to train for decapitating hostages.

Later, Al Iraqiya aired another round of interviews with men it said were Sudanese and Egyptians who also trained in Syria to carry out attacks in Iraq.

Syrian officials could not be reached for comment on the claims.

The videos come as the Bush administration is stepping up pressure on Syria to stop meddling in Iraqi affairs by allowing rebels to cross into the country to fight coalition troops and by harboring former Iraqi regime members. Syria has denied the charges.

In the first video, the man, identified as Lt. Anas Ahmed al-Essa of the Syrian intelligence service, said his group had been recruited to “cause chaos in Iraq ... to bar America from reaching Syria.”

“We received all the instructions from Syrian intelligence,” Lt. al-Essa, 30, said on a video broadcast by state-run Al Iraqiya, which can be seen nationwide.

The first tape apparently was made in the northern city of Mosul, but no date was provided. It was not possible to authenticate the claims.

The State Department said they were looking into the report, but as of late yesterday, they could neither confirm nor deny the veracity of the broadcast or that a Syrian intelligence officer had been captured.

The Al Iraqiya channel is thought to be widely watched by Iraqis — mainly those who cannot afford satellite dishes offering the Gulf-based Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya stations.

But the station, which went on the air in May 2003 with help from the Pentagon, is viewed by many Iraqis as an American propaganda tool.

Top officials in Iraq’s interim government have called on Syria to hand over former Iraqi Ba’athists who fled there after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, which Syria opposed.

In the video, the bearded Lt. al-Essa, dressed in a gray jacket and shirt, claimed to be leader of the al-Fateh Army, which has not been heard of before.

He was one of 11 men on camera who said they were recruited by Syrian intelligence officers. The other 10 were identified as Iraqis.

Lt. al-Essa said his need for money was the motive for accepting an offer by a Syrian intelligence colonel whom he identified as Fady Abdullah to carry out attacks inside Iraq.

“I was trained on explosives, killing, spying, kidnapping ... and after one year, I went to Iraq with Fady Abdullah,” Lt. al-Essa said.

He said he infiltrated Iraq in 2001, about two years before the U.S. invasion, because Syrian intelligence was convinced American military action loomed.

Another man, Shawan al-Sabaawi, was identified as a former lieutenant colonel in Saddam Hussein’s army. He said he received training from Syrian intelligence on how to behead hostages.

Lt. al-Essa said the group used animals for training in beheadings. He said it required “at least 10 beheadings” for a member to be promoted to a group leader.

“I had to send a report to Syria about how the operations are going,” he said.

Weapons, explosives and equipment were all provided by Syrian intelligence, Lt. al-Essa said. He added that the group members received $1,500 a month.

International pressure on Syria has grown since the Feb. 14 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, who died along with 16 others in a massive explosion in Beirut.

The Lebanese opposition blames the killing on the Damascus government and its Syrian backers. Syria has 15,000 soldiers in Lebanon and is under growing international pressure to withdraw.

In Iraq yesterday, terrorists continued attacking civilians.

A car bomb killed two persons and wounded 14 in the northern city of Mosul. Its target was not clear. Witnesses said no U.S. or Iraqi forces were in the area.

A soldier from the U.S. Task Force Liberty was killed when assailants set off the bomb near Tuz, 105 miles north of Baghdad, the military said.

Near the northern oil city of Kirkuk, two Iraqi civilians were killed and another seriously wounded when a rocket-propelled grenade hit the car in which they were traveling, police said.

Back in Mosul, U.S. soldiers fatally shot a civilian in a pickup truck who approached their convoy too closely to pass it, policeman Ahmed Rashid said.

Separately, CBS News reported last night that investigators have decided not to charge a U.S. Marine who was filmed killing a wounded Iraqi during the November assault on Fallujah, citing a lack of evidence.

But a Marine spokesman last night said the case “is still very much open.”

The shooting occurred during a search of a mosque and was condemned by human rights groups, but investigators said the Marines thought the wounded Iraqi might have been reaching for a weapon.

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Close Mexican border to terrorists (Washington Times, 050301)

CIA Director Porter Goss’ warning that al Qaeda might try to use “chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons” in his Feb. 17 testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee overshadowed a more urgent intelligence warning. At the same hearing, Vice Admiral James Loy, deputy secretary of Homeland Security, testified that al Qaeda has changed tactics for inserting terrorist teams into the United States.

According to Adm. Loy, al Qaeda plans to use Mexico’s professional people smugglers — known as coyotes — to infiltrate terrorists across our southern border. Adm. Loy’s information is based on recent interrogations and has been confirmed by ongoing counterterrorist operations.

This story ought to have led the news on every network. But Adm. Loy’s Mexican bombshell didn’t generate widespread media coverage because it was buried in written testimony instead of being delivered in telegenic soundbites. Al Qaeda’s departure from its previous modus operandi of using terrorists with valid documents (the majority of September 11 hijackers fit into this category) means the organization intends to attack us using new methods for which we are unprepared.

Adm. Loy attributes al Qaeda’s interest in using Mexico as a springboard to the conclusion by al Qaeda’s leaders that their “operational security” will be enhanced. They are right. Under current conditions, terrorists can easily enter the United States undetected in the stream of hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens who cross from Mexico annually.

At present, the United States has no defense against this contingency. Washington’s decades-long policy of benign neglect of illegal immigration has spawned a global infrastructure of underworld industries to facilitate the flow of undocumented aliens.

This underground pipeline originates in countries as far away as China, Brazil and Nigeria, where professional smugglers charge thousands of dollars to transport aliens to the United States. Many of these smuggling networks converge in Mexico, where coyotes intimately familiar with the gaps in our security take over the task of transporting aliens beyond the border into our cities. Aliens who prefer can travel to Mexico’s border towns and hire their own coyotes as guides for the final passage. To assist them, the Mexican Foreign Ministry has prepared a handbook for illegal aliens.

Once inside the United States, newly arrived migrants are directed to forgers who create phony documentation, including Social Security cards and birth certificates. These documents satisfy employer requirements and, in most states, are more than sufficient to obtain a driver’s license. Some states will knowingly license undocumented aliens. Illegal aliens can also obtain credit cards from sub-prime lenders. With a driver’s license and a credit card, an alien can open a bank account, lease a safehouse, rent a car, buy weapons, or purchase an airline ticket for use in a suicide mission.

Three-and-a-half years after September 11, we have not begun to address the security issues posed by an internal community of illegal aliens believed to number between 8 and 10 million. Last month, the House of Representatives made a start by passing H.R. 418, Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner’s bill to tighten standards for driver’s licenses and improve physical security on the border.

H.R. 418 limits the issuance of licenses to those legally in the country or with pending visa and asylum applications. Licenses cannot remain valid for periods of time that exceed the applicant’s legal stay in the United States. Citizens, residents, and legal aliens will have to submit documentation before being licensed. Visa status will be verified through federal databases, and those who make or issue licenses will have to get security clearances. After a three-year phase-in, identification from states that don’t meet the federal standards will no longer be valid ID for federal transactions. Residents of laggard states won’t be able to board aircraft or pass an instant background check for gun purchases using their driver’s license.

These are reasonable precautions, given Adm. Loy’s warning about al Qaeda’s change of tactics. But they won’t take effect unless the Senate acts, and even then it will be years before the measures are implemented. If Mr. Goss’ warnings about al Qaeda attacks using weapons of mass destruction are right, we can’t afford to lose time getting control over the illegal immigration pipeline into and inside our country and if Mr. Goss believes what he told the Senate Intelligence Committee, perhaps the CIA should take covert action to disrupt alien smuggling networks and corral the coyotes before they deliver the next band of al Qaeda killers to our doorsteps.

John B. Roberts II served in the Reagan White House. He writes frequently on terrorism and national security.

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Hezbollah: We’ll be ‘destroyed’ if added to terror list (WorldNetDaily, 050303)

Violent Lebanese group fears request for EU sanctions

If the European Union follows Israeli recommendations this week and places Hezbollah on a list of official terror organizations, the economic consequences of sanctions would “destroy” the Lebanese terror group, Hezbollah’s leader told Arabic language television.

Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom Monday called on the European Union to add Hezbollah to its list of terrorist groups – a step Europe so far has been reluctant to take. The request follows a suicide bombing Friday in Tel Aviv that Israel says was directed by Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad with funding and assistance from Syria.

Shalom said he reiterated the long-standing Israeli request regarding Hezbollah during a meeting this week with his Belgian counterpart, Karel De Gucht, and will express the Jewish state’s concerns to other EU members.

Shalom told reporters Hezbollah operates dozens of terror cells, directs a group of Palestinian terrorists and offers millions of dollars in assistance to West Bank militants.

“We see they make every effort to sabotage progress in the peace process,” Shalom said.

The United States also has attempted to persuade the EU to list Hezbollah as a terrorist group.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said European blacklisting would “destroy” his group.

Designating Hezbollah a terror group in Europe will mean “the sources of [our] funding will dry up and the sources of moral, political and material support will be destroyed,” Nasrallah told Al Manar, Hezbollah’s satellite television station.

“The political option [used by the Israelis], which is more important and dangerous, is manifested by the Israeli-Zionist unceasing efforts to lay siege to [Hezbollah] in Lebanon and in the future in Palestine and globally, internationally, regionally and even locally in Lebanon. That is the most dangerous challenge we have had to face during the past few years, and we stand firm today and will stand firm in the future,” said Nasrallah.

France has already responded to Israel’s Hezbollah request, with French President Jacques Chirac claiming the timing was not right for such a move.

Israeli officials told reporters the French are aware of the information linking Hezbollah to terrorism, but they are now allegedly focusing their efforts on the civil uprising in Lebanon and say they don’t want to risk harming relations with the group.

France’s objections are considered the main obstacle to the EU approving the move to add Hezbollah to the terror list.

Israel this week also launched a major diplomatic offensive lobbying for increased international isolation of Syria. Military intelligence chiefs in Jerusalem met several foreign ambassadors, mostly from European countries, to present information linking Syria to the Tel Aviv bombing. Presentations are also scheduled for Washington, London and Paris.

“What we are doing is trying in every capital of the world ... to show them the direct links from Syria to Islamic Jihad, which has a direct connection to what we saw on Friday evening in Tel Aviv,” said Ron Prosor, a spokesman for Israel’s Foreign Ministry.

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The ransom of the red reporter (townhall.com, 050309)

Michelle Malkin

International furor over Giuliana Sgrena, an Italian communist writer who claims American troops in Iraq may have deliberately shot at her car after she was released by kidnappers, misses the bigger scandal.

The scandal is not that an anti-war propagandist has accused the U.S. of targeting journalists. That’s par for the course. (Yes, hello again, Eason Jordan.)

The scandal is not that mainstream media sympathizers are blaming our military and dredging up every last shooting accident along the treacherous routes to Baghdad Airport. Again, no surprise here.

The scandal is that Italy — our reputed ally in the global War on Terror — negotiated with Sgrena’s Islamist kidnappers and may have forked over a massive ransom to cutthroats for Sgrena’s release.

Where is the uproar over this Islamist insurgency subsidy plan?

Iraqi politician Younadem Kana told Belgian state TV that he had “non-official” information that Italy paid the terrorists $1 million in tribute. The Washington Times, citing the Italian newspaper La Stampa, pinned the ransom figure at $6 million. Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported that the Italian government forked over between $10 million and $13.4 million to free Sgrena.

Whatever the final tally, it’s a whopping bounty that will undoubtedly come in handy for cash-hungry killers in need of spiffy new rocket-propelled grenade launchers, AK-47s, mortars, landmines, components for vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices, and recruitment fees. (To put this windfall in perspective, bear in mind that the 9/11 plot was a half-million dollar drop in the bucket for Osama bin Laden.)

Or maybe Italian advocates of this terrorist get-rich-quick scheme think the thugs will spend their money on Prada handbags and Versace couture.

Both the Italian government and members of the Iraq Islamic Army who abducted Sgrena vehemently deny that money was exchanged. Yet, even as his government officially rebuffed reports of a ransom arrangement in the Sgrena affair, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was quoted by the newspaper Il Messaggero conceding: “We have to rethink our strategy in dealing with kidnappings.”

A little late for a do-over, don’t you think?

According to the New York Post, Lucia Annunziata, former president of Italian state television RAI, said government sources estimate Italy has paid kidnappers nearly $15 million for hostages in the past year alone. Indeed, last September, Gustavo Selva, chairman of parliament’s foreign affairs committee, confirmed that two Italian aid workers — who praised their kidnappers as “resisters” — were freed after the government paid at least $1 million in cash to their Iraqi captors.

The admission came after heated denials by top government officials. Selva, auditioning Italy for a spot in the Axis of Weasels pantheon, mused at the time: “In principle, we shouldn’t give in to blackmail, but this time we had to, although it’s a dangerous path to take because, obviously, it could encourage others to take hostages, either for political reasons or for criminal reasons.”

How do you say “No duh” in Italian?

To be fair to Italy, which continues to maintain a 3,000-troop presence in Iraq despite enormous anti-war pressure, its reported payoffs to terrorists are dwarfed by the mollycoddlers in Manila and Malaysia, who have fed Abu Sayyaf’s head-chopping kidnappers tens of millions in tribute over the past several years — money that is now reportedly being channeled to worldwide al Qaeda operations.

Still, you would expect a country that once embraced the defiant spirit of Fabrizio Quattrochi — the murdered Italian security guard taken hostage in Iraq last year who stoically told his assassins, “I’m going to show you how an Italian dies” — to resist the Quisling impulse with every fiber of its collective being.

The consequences of capitulation are bloody obvious. When you allow your people to be used as terrorist collection plates, the thugs will keep coming back for more. Might as well hang a sign around the neck of every Italian citizen left in Iraq: Buon appetito.

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Danger Up North: Canada’s welcome mat for terrorists (National Review Online, 050321)

Let’s hope Honduras is awash in American agents. Al Qaeda’s Abu Musab al-Zarqawi reportedly has dispatched Islamo-fascist murderers to penetrate the U.S. via Tegucigalpa, where bribe-hungry authorities allegedly sell passports to smooth passage through Mexico to the human highway known as the U.S.-Mexican border.

But American officials better eye the northern frontier, too. Canadians seem rather relaxed about some who inhabit the land nestled between Alaska and the Lower 48. While most Canadians are as friendly as Labrador retrievers, that attitude is not universal.

“I’m not afraid of dying, and killing doesn’t frighten me,” Algerian-born Canadian Fateh Kamel said on an Italian counterterrorism intercept. “If I have to press the remote control, vive the jihad!”

Kamel, who jet-setted among Afghanistan, Bosnia, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, was arrested in Jordan on December 15, 1999, and extradited to France. He was convicted of distributing bogus passports and conspiring to blow up Paris Metro stations. He was sentenced April 6, 2001, to eight years in prison.

But after fewer than four years, France sprang Kamel for “good behavior.” (What is it about iron bars and German shepherds that mellows people so?) Kamel flew home to Canada January 29.

“When Kamel arrived in Montreal, the RCMP [Royal Canadian Mounted Police] was not even at the airport to greet him,” Canada’s National Post reported last month. “As far as they’re concerned, he is an ex-convict who has done his time and has committed no crimes in Canada.”

Kamel now freely strolls Canada’s streets. That’s just fine, so long as he limits his violence to moose hunting and such. But what if he has humans — Americans, even — in his crosshairs?

“We should be looking at him and possibly sending him back to Algeria,” Conservative-party deputy leader Peter MacKay said in the February 27 Toronto Star. “There is a strong circumstantial case right now to suggest this guy isn’t deserving of Canadian citizenship.” MacKay sees Kamel as emblematic of Ottawa’s peaceful, easy feeling toward terrorist killers. “What crossed my mind was that the French authorities wanted him out of the country, and we were all too willing to take him in.”

Kamel is not alone. Canada crawls with terrorists, suspected violent extremists, and folks worthy of 24-hour surveillance.

“There have been a number of instances where Canadians or individuals based here have been implicated in terrorist attacks or plans in other countries, at least a half dozen or more in the last several years,” Canadian Security and Intelligence Director Jim Judd told a Canadian Senate panel in Ottawa March 7. “There are several graduates of terrorist training camps, many of whom are battle-hardened veterans of campaigns in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya and elsewhere who reside here...Often these individuals remain in contact with one another while in Canada or with colleagues outside of the country, and continue to show signs of ongoing clandestine activities, including the use of counter-surveillance techniques, secretive meetings, and encrypted communications.” Among other things, Canadian-based terrorists have aspired to whack a visiting Israeli official, bomb a Jewish district in Montreal, and sabotage an El Al jet over Canada.

On March 16, British Columbian Supreme Court Justice Ian Bruce Josephson found Sikh separatists Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri not guilty of planting a bomb that destroyed Air India Flight 182 off the Irish coast on June 23, 1985, killing 329 people. Two baggage handlers also were killed in a subsequent explosion at Tokyo’s Narita Airport.

An acquittal is an acquittal. Just ask Robert Blake. Still, the testimony against Malik remains fascinating. One witness quoted him as saying: “We had Air India crash. Nobody, nobody can do anything. It is all for Sikhism.”

For his part, Bagri reportedly told the founding conference of the World Sikh Organization: “Yes, there must be our handshake with the Hindus. We will shake hands. Where? On the battlefield.”

“This verdict sends a message to terrorists around the world that you can get away with these kinds of acts in Canada,” Liberal-party legislator Dave Hayer told the Vancouver Sun. His publisher father was assassinated after agreeing to testify in the trial.

Egyptian refugee Mohammad Majoub remains in a Toronto jail — for now. Federal court justice Elinor Dawson has blocked efforts to deport him to Egypt for fear he may be tortured there. Majoub admits to working on Osama bin Laden’s Sudanese farm in the 1990s and meeting with members of Canada’s terror-tied Khadr family. Judge Dawson’s thoughts on the “security certificate,” which has permitted his detention without bail or charge since June 2000, highlight the logic that eventually could free someone like Majoub. “When reviewing the reasonableness of a security certificate,” Dawson ruled, “at issue is whether there are ‘reasonable grounds to believe’ certain facts. The issue is not whether those facts are true.”

Meanwhile, Adil Charkaoui was released February 18 on bail of $50,000 Canadian (about $41,500 in U.S. dollars). Charkaoui claims no terrorist ties, but al-Qaeda honcho Abu Zubaida and convicted terrorist Ahmed Ressam say they met him in 1998 at an Afghan terror training camp.

Algerian-born Ressam, a failed Montreal refugee applicant and suspected Fateh Kamel protégé, was caught by U.S. Border Patrol on December 14, 1999, at Port Angeles, Washington after crossing the Canadian frontier in an explosive-laden car. He dreamed of ringing in the millennium by blowing up Los Angeles International Airport.

“CSIS was aware of him since 1995 and was surveilling him, but they never put him out of business,” the National Post’s Stewart Bell, author of last year’s Cold Terror: How Canada Nurtures and Exports Terrorism to the World, told journalist Bill Gladstone. “On the other hand, the second he entered the United States, he was stopped, arrested, and turned into a very good government informant.” In his book, Bell writes: “Canada has tried to smother terrorism with kindness...Its most valuable contribution to the war on terrorism may well be its terrorists.”

Canadian Zaynab Khadr flew from Islamabad, Pakistan to Toronto February 17 with her daughter, age 4 1/2, and teenage sister. She joined her mother and brother, Karim, who returned to Canada last April. Karim was wounded when Pakistani forces raided a suspected al-Qaeda hideaway. Her Egyptian-born father, who was killed in that attack, previously had been arrested in Islamabad after a 1995 Egyptian embassy truck bombing. Another brother, Abdurahman, returned to Canada in December 2003. He told Canadian Broadcasting that he grew up in an “al-Qaeda family.” (To be fair, he briefly worked for the CIA.)

“No one likes killing people,” the burka-clad Ms. Khadr to the Toronto Star, referring to September 11. “But sometimes killing people can solve a problem, a bigger problem.” She added: “A man doesn’t just get on the plane and put himself in a building unless he really believes in something.”

The Washington Times reported last September 24 that Adnan G. El Shukrijumah, an al-Qaeda cell leader with a $5 million U.S. bounty on his head, visited Canada in 2003 seeking nuclear materials for a dirty bomb.

Paul Martin, Canada’s Liberal premier, attended a May 2000 dinner while finance minister. Its hosts: The Federation of Association of Canadian Tamils, a front for the Tamil Tigers, a Sri Lankan terrorist group. It has killed at least 60 people, including two Americans, and injured more than 1,400 others, the State Department reports. Martin, and international cooperation minister Maria Minna, ignored security officials who urged them to stay away. Wooing Canada’s sizable Tamil minority apparently was irresistible.

Canadian immigration agents admitted Mahmoud Mohammed Issa Mohammad in 1987, despite his role in attacking an El Al aircraft in Athens in 1968. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine alumnus has foiled deportation through relentless legal tricks.

“There are known al-Qaeda cells in Montreal and Toronto,” one congressional expert tells me. She nonetheless detects progress among Canadian counterterrorists. “They are very sensitive about being called a conduit for terrorism. Since September 11, Canada has been on the offense. The RCMP has some joint intelligence centers where both Americans and Canadians operate.” Still, this aide sees areas of danger, from porous borders to vulnerable infrastructure. Detonating the Canadian side of the Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, for example, could cripple the most economically valuable trade route linking our two countries.

The Capitol Hill staffer, who spoke anonymously, added: “Canada has stepped up their visa application procedures, but there are huge populations of people they have let in under refugee and asylum status and as immigrants who may be of concern. They are changing their laws to allow them to deport those people. But increasing that effort and deporting those people is something the United States would encourage.”

Harvey Kushner, author of the hair-raising counterterrorism best-seller Holy War on the Home Front, is less sanguine. “It’s quite disturbing that Canada’s immigration policies have let this situation fester and grow,” he says. “We do not have an electrified fence. When you have a neighbor who is not on the same page, it’s indeed troublesome.”

What can America do about all this? Pressing the Canadians to tighten up may require constant engagement. Amplifying the calls of Canada’s Tories for stricter immigration and easier deportation would help. For starters, President Bush should broach border security when he meets his North American counterparts in Mexico on March 23.

The warm U.S.-Canadian relationship, illustrated by our 3,145-mile unprotected boundary, cooled somewhat when Ottawa recently refused to help Washington develop defenses against incoming nuclear-tipped missiles. But that modest dispute will pale beside the northward-flowing rancor that will erupt if a terrorist attack kills innocent Americans, and U.S. officials discover that the butchers slipped past complacent Canadians.

— Deroy Murdock is a New York-based columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service and a senior fellow with the Atlas Economic Research Foundation in Fairfax, Va.

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Confessions of a Premature Anti-Terrorist: The McCartney sisters and reality (National Review Online, 050324)

The McCartney sisters seem to have won American hearts. These, you may recall, are the sisters of Robert McCartney, who was murdered outside a Belfast bar January 30. The occasion of McCartney’s murder was, that he had got into an argument about something or other with an IRA capo at the bar. Irritated, the IRA man had ordered his associates to deal with the offender in appropriate style. The IRA soldiers obediently took Mr. McCartney outside and stomped, clubbed, and hacked him to death.

In spite of the fact that the pub was crowded at the time — the patrons included two candidates for political office from the Sinn Fein political party, the IRA’s front organization — Belfast police have not been able to find any witnesses to the attack. Nobody, including the two prospective legislators, saw or heard a thing.

President Bush invited McCartney’s sisters (and Bridgeen Hagans, mother of his children) to the White House St. Patrick’s Day bash, in lieu of IRA boss-of-bosses Gerry Adams. Poor Gerry has been removed from the President’s Rolodex, Yasser Arafat-style, for being a liar, a terrorist murderer, and the accomplice of bank robbers. The presidential “divorce” comes many years too late, in the opinion of those of us who have been watching Northern Ireland affairs a while, since Adams has been those things all his adult life. It is, nonetheless, very welcome. The fact that the McCartney sisters, along with their deceased brother, seem to have been loyal Sinn Fein (which is to say, IRA) voters all their adult lives, does not seem to have been held against them by official Washington.

As you might be guessing by this point, whoever else’s hearts the McCartney sisters won, they didn’t lay a finger on mine. Let me try to explain why.

Following their meeting with the president on St. Patrick’s Day, the McCartney sisters (and Ms. Hagans) wrote a column for the U.S. press, in which they pleaded eloquently for Robert McCartney’s killers to be brought to justice. So far, so good; but then my reading was brought to a dead stop by the following:

What Americans need to understand is that ten years ago the IRA were freedom-fighters — but today it is a different story. We are no longer in a conflict, yet atrocities are still being performed — this time by elements of criminality.

What has happened to Robert at the hands of individual IRA members goes against everything Republicanism stands for. Republicanism is about justice, it’s about equality and it’s about freedom. That’s what the past 30 years of the struggle is all about. That’s why ten hunger strikers starved themselves to death.

Let’s just parse that. “Ten years ago the IRA were freedom fighters.” Really? Ten years ago would put us in early 1995.

I have just pulled down the most detailed chronicle of the Northern Ireland “Troubles” that I possess, Lost Lives, by David McKittrick, Seamus Kelters, Brian Feeney, and Chris Thornton. Let’s see what is recorded for 1995, shall we?

That was in fact an exceptionally quiet year, with only nine Troubles-related deaths. (The yearly numbers for the 1990s as a whole were: 84, 102, 91, 90, 69, 9, 22, 21, 57, and 6.) Most were Catholic civilians killed by the IRA under suspicion — in one case hotly denied by relatives of the deceased — of being involved in drug trafficking. The IRA called this their DAAD program — Direct Action Against Drugs. You don’t have to be a fan of drug dealing to notice that due process played no part whatsoever in these IRA actions on behalf of “justice, equality, and freedom,” and that the opportunity to work off personal grudges in an operation of this kind are legion.

Here is the actual tally for 1995 in detail:

March 2: James Seymour, civilian, Protestant, 55, married, 2 children. Seymour had been shot in the head by an IRA gunman 22 years previously while helping guard a police station. Suffering massive brain damage, he seems to have been conscious for those 22 years, but could not communicate.

April 29: Mickey Mooney, civilian, Catholic, 34, married, 4 children. DAAD killing.

September 5: Anthony Martin Kane, civilian, Catholic, 29, married. DAAD killing.

September 28: Billy Elliott, terrorist, Protestant, 32, married, 2 children. Killed by a fellow member of his gang, the Red Hand of Ulster Commando (Loyalist terrorists).

November 27: Norman Harley, civilian, Catholic, 45, single. Apparently a purely sectarian murder of opportunity. Two Protestant men were convicted.

December 8: Paul Edward Devine, civilian, Catholic, 35, married, one child. DAAD killing. Devine was a known associate of Mickey Mooney.

December 18: Francis Collins, civilian, Catholic, 40, married, five children. DAAD killing; though Collins’s family deny he had anything to do with the drug trade, and the authorities agreed. Collins did, however, have a long rap sheet, both for terrorist and “ordinary” crimes. The terrorist (both sides) and criminal classes in Northern Ireland overlap a lot.

December 19: Christopher Johnston, civilian, Catholic, 38, married, five children. DAAD killing. Johnston was on bail on a cannabis-possession charge at the time.

December 27: Martin McCrory, civilian, Catholic, 30, married, two children. DAAD killing. McCrory was a known petty thief, joyrider, and small-time drug dealer.

This is, as I said, not a representative sample of IRA “freedom fighting.” In other years, they were much more active at murdering London newsvendors (2/9/96: Inan Ul-haq Bashir, who was selling newspapers from a family kiosk when the Canary Wharf bomb went off), Christmas shoppers (12/18/83: Caroline Kennedy, 25, mother of 1, killed by the Harrods bomb), elderly royals (8/27/79: Louis Mountbatten, 79), census takers (4/7/81: Joanne Mathers, 25, married, 1 child — NB: census takers are “legitimate targets” to the IRA, along with all ofther U.K. government employees), infants in car seats (10/26/89: Nivruti Mahesh Islania, age 6 months, daughter of an RAF corporal, shot in the head at point-blank range by brave IRA warrior Desmond Grew, whose career was later terminated with extreme prejudice by Britain’s SAS), citizens gathered to pay respects to the dead of the World Wars (11/8/87: Eleven dead when an IRA bomb planted in the Enniskillen war memorial went off — NB: the IRA describe the World Wars scornfully as “England’s wars”), and thousands of others, including a steady cull of farmers and their sons in border areas of Northern Ireland as part of the IRA’s Zimbabwe-style “land redistribution” program.

I should like to ask the McCartney women a few questions: DO YOU REALLY THINK THAT IRA ACTIVITIES THROUGH THE 1960S, 1970S, AND 1980S HAD ANYTHING TO DO WITH “FREEDOM FIGHTING”? DO YOU REALLY THINK YOUR BROTHER WAS THE FIRST PERSON KILLED BY THE IRA FOR NO GOOD REASON?

The Northern Ireland story is a long and tangled one, with plenty of blame to go around. There are certain things, however, that cannot be reasonably doubted. One of those things is, that the IRA is a perfectly amoral terrorist organization, whose members believe that absolutely any act is justified if it advances the cause — the cause, that is, of driving from Ireland anyone who, in the IRA’s opinion, is insufficiently Irish. Another is, that anyone with a pair of eyes and a grain of sense who did not know that fact by 1995, or for that matter by 1975, was practicing willful self-delusion to a degree that beggars the imagination.

Looking back across Ireland’s history through the 20th century, I should like some IRA apologist to tell me anything, anything, that was won by what Gerry Adams so winsomely calls “the physical force tradition in Irish nationalism.” A united Ireland? The entire effect of the IRA and its “freedom fighting” has been to drive the Irish apart further than ever. Ireland would have been united long since but for the IRA. The independence of the 26 counties? At the opening of the 20th century, everyone in Britain knew that some variety of Home Rule was inevitable. Large swathes of the British political classes supported it. The constitutional changes in Britain prior to WW1 made it only a matter of time, whatever happened in Ireland herself. International sympathy? If sympathy is measured by actual physical assistance, the IRA’s main 20th-century sympathizers were Yasser Arafat, Muammar Khadaffi, Leonid Brezhnev, Adolf Hitler, and Kaiser Bill.

Sinn Fein voters in both Northern Ireland and the republic, their sympathizers in the United States, and dimwitted dupes like the McCartney sisters, should all face the fact that the “physical force tradition in Irish nationalism” has, quite aside from matters of morality, been a total bust, bringing to Ireland misery, destruction, gangsterism, and hate, and that its positive achievements can be counted on the fingers of no hands at all. Time for the IRA to close up shop? I would say so, Paula, Catherine, Gemma, Donna, Claire, and Bridgeen. I would say so indeed. But then, I would have said so 30 years ago, when your “community” was handing out posies to the boys in the ski masks. Call me a “premature antiterrorist.”

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Responding to terrorism (Washington Times, 050329)

Responding to the threat of terrorism today above all requires knowing the full spectrum of challenges posed by those who would do harm. In this light, few books are as insightful or as comprehensive as Boaz Ganor’s “The Counter-Terrorism Puzzle.”

In this compelling discussion of terrorism, Mr. Ganor, who is considered one of the world’s most prominent experts on terrorism and counterterrorism, identifies terrorist threats and delineates ways in which governments could most successfully proceed to address them.

The “puzzle” of the book’s title hints at the myriad ways a response to a terrorist threat can take shape. Mr. Ganor’s approach is an analytic one, and examines with precision the magnitude of the terrorist threat and counteraction in the form of policy making, intelligence collection and analysis, deterrence, and offensive and defensive countermeasures (and how to avoid the “boomerang effect”).

Mr. Ganor also includes a discussion of how democratic (as opposed to authoritarian) governments counter terrorism. Of note is his chapter on punitive legislative and judicial laws (anti-terrorism emergency laws, such as the Patriot Act). He also weighs in on the role of print and electronic media in covering attacks and the distinction between responsible and irresponsible reporting. The psychological impact of terrorism on society and the role of international cooperation and international treaties in defeating terrorism are also considered.

This is a broad and ambitious book covering the most wide ranging topics in counterterrorism analysis. Fortunately, Mr. Ganor is able to weave his observations into a coherent and powerful overview. A former officer in Israeli military intelligence, Mr. Ganor (whom, for the sake of full disclosure, I know in a professional capacity) was the founder and executive director of the International Policy Institute for Counterterrorism (ICT) at the Interdisciplinary Center, in Herzliya, Israel.

“The Counter-Terrorism Puzzle” is actually two interwoven books. It originated as a doctoral dissertation on dilemmas in Israeli counterterrorism, so about half of the book focuses on how Israel has addressed counterterrorism dilemmas in its response to the Palestinian terrorist threat. The other half of the book suggests how governments such as the United States can effectively counter the threats posed by the insurgency being mounted by al Qaeda and its allies.

Mr. Ganor makes the important point that in order to facilitate appropriate legal and operational response measures, including international cooperation, a terrorist threat must first be defined. Mr. Ganor writes that “Terrorism is a form of violent struggle in which violence is deliberately used against civilians in order to achieve political goals (nationalistic, socioeconomic, ideological, religious, etc.).” He asserts that the use of “deliberate” targeting of civilians in order to achieve political objectives is what distinguishes a terrorist act from guerrilla warfare, where military units are targeted.

Such a formulation is important because it facilitates the outlawing of terrorism by the international community since all nations can agree that the deliberate targeting of civilians is illegitimate and should be universally legislated as a crime, whereas attacks against military personnel would be considered as part of regular warfare, including the right to retaliate by a country’s armed forces against those perpetrators. Mr. Ganor concludes that if acts of terrorism were universally outlawed as a form of warfare by the international community, then terrorist groups would have no choice but to “abandon terrorism and focus on guerrilla activity to achieve their political aims.”

Mr. Ganor is also at his best when he discusses the psychological toll of terrorism. He writes that terrorism is a form of warfare in which a localized violent incident is intended to spread a “paralyzing sense of fear within each individual in the targeted community that he or she could be the victim in the next attack.” By instilling a state of insecurity, terrorism aims to undermine the targeted country’s “ability to function” in order to “drive public opinion to pressure decision makers to surrender to the terrorists’ demands, thereby restoring the sense of personal safety they feel has been lost. In this way the target population becomes a tool in the hands of the terrorists to promote their political interests.”

Mr. Ganor then offers a detailed way in which governments might help strengthen the population’s psychological resilience to what he calls “psychological and morale-related warfare.”

The book’s greatest strength is its systematic approach to dealing with ways we know that terrorists have acted and will act in the future. The book’s analysis thus provides an important guide not only to decision makers but also to all those who are involved in trying to understand how to formulate effective counterterrorism policies and programs.

Joshua Sinai is an analyst on terrorism issues at ANSER in Arlington.

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French appease Hizballah, undermine international peace and security (townhall.com, 050502)

Armstrong Williams

Two decades ago Hizballah pioneered suicide bombings. In the time since, Hizballah has become the main sponsor of terrorism in the Palestinian territories. According to Israeli intelligence, Hizballah backs at least 51 terrorist cells in the territories - 36 in the West Bank and 15 in the Gaza. Last year, they transferred around 9 million dollars to the West Bank and Gaza for the purpose of encouraging and organizing terrorist attacks, procuring military equipment, and paying terrorists & families of suicide bombers.

Right now Members of Hizballah are spending their day figuring out ways to kill people. The world knows this. Yet the European Union refuses to clamp down on terrorist groups and freeze their assets. Why? Because France, which holds a veto power over any European Union action, won’t let them.

In the French view, the European Union should continue to appease and nurture Hizballah as a power broker in Lebanon, so as not to disturb the already delicate domestic situation in that country. So France pretends that Hizballah is just another political group, as deserving as any of political contributions. France pretends that Hizballah doesn’t use this money to convince children to strap bombs onto their chests and detonate themselves in public.

But some things cannot be ignored. Like the fact that Hizballah plots 9-11 style terrorist attacks. Or that they spend their days training and funding terrorist cells. Or that they dedicate their lives to perpetuating destructive historic myths which have been a source of anti-Semitism for centuries. They use Israel as an excuse for attacks against freedom and democracy everywhere. These are the same people who prevent the Middle East from becoming anything other than an incubator of hate. And their influence is spreading disease throughout Europe.

A recent European Commission poll revealed that 59% of European citizens consider Israel to be the top threat to world peace, greater even than Iran and North Korea. “An even stronger Muslim presence in Europe is certainly endangering the life of Jewish people,” Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said during a recent interview. England, France, Germany, and the Scandinavian countries have all witnessed a spike in violent Anti-Semitic attacks. Almost daily, Jewish schools and synagogues in Paris are vandalized.

After World War II we swore never again. But such sentiments mean nothing if they are not animated with action. We need to stop groups like Hizballah from spreading their anti-human agenda. A good first step would be for the European Union to freeze their funds. Hizballah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has admitted that a European Union ban would effectively destroy his organization: “The sources of funding will dry up and the sources of moral, political and material support will be destroyed.”

Clamping down on Hizballah would send a message throughout the world that the Europeans are sincere in their opposition to terrorism. It would reaffirm the shared goals of global peace and security. It would remove, surgeon like, a constant threat to the Israeli-Palestinian cease-fire. And it would effectively end much of the terrorist recruiting in Europe.

Sadly, France quivers at taking action, and so the European Union is paralyzed. And Hizballah continues to raise money as a “political party,” and to spend their days figuring out ways to kill people. Just as they’ve done for the past twenty-two years.

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Terrorists Strike London With Series of Blasts (Foxnews, 050707)

LONDON — A series of explosions struck London’s public transportation system Thursday in what Prime Minister Tony Blair called a coordinated series of “barbaric” terrorist attacks, most likely to coincide with the opening of the G-8 summit in nearby Scotland.

After several hours where public officials cautioned against reaching conclusions about what caused at least six blasts on subways and buses, Blair gave a brief televised address where he concluded it was a terrorist action.

“It’s important, however, that those engaged in terrorism realize that our determination to defend our values and our way of life is greater than their determination to cause death and destruction to innocent people and a desire to impose extremism on the world,” an emotional Blair told the world.

“Whatever they do, it is our determination that they will never succeed destroying what we hold dear in this country and in other civilizations in the world.”

At least two people were killed and nine injured in the nearly simultaneous blasts, and officials shut down the entire underground transport network. Media reports said the number of casualties was about 90 people. Police said they believe there may be a “number of” fatalities.

“There have been a number of dreadful incidents across London today,” said Home Secretary Charles Clarke, Britain’s top law enforcement officer. He said there were “terrible injuries.”

“At the present time, we’re still trying to establish what exactly has happened,” said Blair. “Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families” of the victims.

The near simultaneous explosions came a day after London was awarded the 2012 Olympics and as the G-8 summit was getting underway in Scotland.

A previously unknown group, “Secret Group of al Qaeda’s Jihad in Europe,” claimed responsibility in the name of Al Qaeda for the blasts, according to the Italian news agency ANSA. The group claimed the attack in a Web site posting and warned Italy and Denmark to withdraw their troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, ANSA said.

The claim could not be verified and did not appear on any of the Web sites normally used by Al Qaeda.

An explosion destroyed a double-decker bus near Russell Square not long after several blasts were reported on London subways, police said. A witness said the entire top deck of the bus was destroyed.

“I was on the bus in front and heard an incredible bang, I turned round and half the double decker bus was in the air,” Belinda Seabrook told Press Association, the British news agency.

She said the bus was packed with people.

“It was a massive explosion and there were papers and half a bus flying through the air,” she said.

One Sky News reporter in Russell Square reported that “body after body” is being pulled from the Russell Square tube station as ambulances show up. Doctors apparently are wandering around in orange suits going down into the tube tunnels. Some of the wounded are exiting the station covered in silver blankets; many stretchers are being carried out.

One witness, Darren Hall, said some passengers emerging from an evacuated subway station and that some passengers had soot and blood on their faces. He told BBC TV that he was evacuated along with others near the major King’s Cross station and only afterward heard a blast.

One Sky News reporter covering Scotland Yard said sources told him there are indications that one bus explosion was caused by a homicide bomber.

Officials shut down the entire underground network after the explosions. Initial reports blamed a power surge, but officials were not ruling out an intentional attack.

The attacks came a day after London was awarded the 2012 Olympics and as the G-8 summit was getting underway in Scotland.

A spokesman for the Olympic committee says it still has full “full confidence” in London as the host of the 2012 Games.

Blair, who was hosting the world’s most powerful leaders at Gleneagles, Scotland, said he would leave the G-8 meeting for awhile to meet with police and other officials but said the rest of the leaders would remain. The G-8 gathering is focusing on climate change and aid for Africa — but from which Iraq has largely been left off the agenda.

“Each of the countries around that [G-8] table have experience with the effects of terrorism and all of the leaders ... share our complete resolution to defeat this terrorism,” Blair said in his address Thursday. “It’s particularly barbaric this has happened on a day when people are meeting to try to help the problems of poverty in Africa, the long-term problems of climate change and the environment.”

The G-8 leaders are expected to issue a statement of their own regarding the attacks.

Police said incidents were reported at the Aldgate station near the Liverpool Street railway terminal, Edgware Road and King’s Cross in north London, Old Street in the financial district, Russell Square in central London, near the British Museum, Aldgate Station and Leicester Square, which is the equivalent of New York City’s Time Square. A police official also told reporters there was an incident on a bus in Tavistock Place.

London Ambulance Service said several vehicles had been dispatched to the area near Liverpool Street station.

Bradley Anderson, a subway passenger, told Sky News that “there was some kind of explosion or something” as his train reached the Edgware Road station in northeast London.

“Everything went black and we collided into some kind of oncoming train,” Anderson said.

Simon Corvett, 26, who was on an eastbound train from Edgware Road station, said: “All of sudden there was this massive huge bang.”

“It was absolutely deafening and all the windows shattered,” he said. “There were just loads of people screaming and the carriages filled with smoke.

“You could see the carriage opposite was completely gutted,” he said. “There were some people in real trouble.”

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Bush had been briefed, but offered no other details. Secret Service spokesman Tom Mazur said that Bush’s presence had agents monitoring the situation in London, but that the investigation was being left to British authorities.

U.S. officials said they had no intelligence that suggests similar attacks are planned for the United States; there are no plans currently to raise the terror alert system.

Bomb-sniffing dogs and armed police officers were sent to patrol Washington’s subways and buses Thursday. About 1.2 million people a day ride Washington’s buses and trains. A senior U.S. counterterrorism official said recent intelligence indicated that London was considered a prime target for Islamic extremists, in part because Al Qaeda was having difficulty getting people into the United States.

Candace Smith, spokeswoman for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, said security in Washington’s transit systems was stepped up “immediately” in response to the rush-hour explosions in London.

Liz Kirkham, spokeswoman for Tayside Police Force, which covers the Gleneagles area, said no additional security precautions were being taken at the summit as a result of the blasts, as substantial measures had already been put in place.

Despite early reports that British police warned the Israeli Embassy in London of such possible attacks just before the first explosion, Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said Israel was not warned about possible terror attacks in London.

“There was no early information about terrorist attacks,” Shalom told Israel Army Radio later. “After the first explosion an order was given that no one move until things become clear. “

Israel was holding an economic conference in a hotel over the London subway stop where one of the blasts occurred. Israeli Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was supposed to attend the conference, but “after the first explosion our finance minister received a request not to go anywhere,” Shalom said.

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London Calling: We can’t forget. (National Review Online, 050708)

It’s a war. Whenever we begin to forget that, we get a horrific reminder.

This summer the air palpably began to leave the war on terror. In the U.S., media coverage gravitated to shark attacks and missing girls — just as it had prior to Sept. 11. The world, at least that portion of it represented by the G-8 summit, had focused its attention on self-flagellating debates about who is and who is not providing enough humanitarian aid to Africa.

We had “moved on,” or at least were trying to. But just as President Bush had hoped to move on from Iraq to domestic issues after the successful Jan. 30 elections, only to learn that a live shooting war cannot be ignored, so it is that the larger struggle with al Qaeda and its affiliates cannot be ignored either, because it too is a live shooting war. British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s efforts to placate Bono and friends on global poverty look faintly ridiculous now that the London attacks have laid bare what should be his chief duty and that of other Western leaders — protecting the public from slaughter.

We are facing a global insurgency of Islamic militants who will hit anywhere, from Mosul to London. Their goal is totalist. They want, first, to drive us from the Middle East, then, to establish a caliphate there, and finally, to absorb the West into their theocracy. If this seems absurd, well, fanatical murderers are not usually known for their finely modulated objectives.

Critics of Bush and Blair argue that the Iraq war has nothing to do with the war on terror. But the terrorists have always known better. They realize that Arab radicalism’s loss of Iraq and the establishment in Baghdad of a decent, stable, antiterrorist state would be a grave ideological blow. So it is probably no accident that two of the most high-profile terror attacks since 9/11 have been directed at Spain and Britain, whose leaders stood with Bush in a key meeting at the Azores islands in Portugal in March 2003 to give Saddam Hussein one of his last ultimatums.

The Spanish cut and ran from Iraq after the Madrid train bombings in 2004, hoping to take the target off their back, but painting one all the larger on the backs of any countries supporting the fight against extremism in Iraq. The Brits, having suffered much worse during the Blitz and the height of the IRA bombing campaign in the 1970s, won’t surrender so easily.

In this war someone can be on the front lines whether he is on a bus in Tavistock Square or on a U.S. Army helicopter in Jalalabad. Unfortunately, there are limits to how much can be done to protect the home front, which is why it is preferable to try to kill terrorists and sap them of their ideological energy overseas. Commercial aviation appears pretty well locked down in the West — or so one hopes — but mass transit, with its multitude of access points and its countless fast-moving passengers, is impossible to secure in a similar fashion.

Americans can take some cold comfort in the fact that al Qaeda surely would prefer to hit here in the States, but seemingly can’t manage it. Such an attack, of course, could take place tomorrow. But that it hasn’t yet is probably some testament to the efficacy of the Patriot Act, the immediate detention of hundreds of Muslim immigration violators after 9/11 (most, no doubt, innocent of any evil intention, but perhaps a crucial handful not), and tighter border control in general. Britain passed a new Prevention of Terrorism Bill only in March and, like most European countries, has relatively lax immigration and asylum policies.

Of course, all of these antiterror initiatives in the U.S. have been criticized by the ACLU and the usual suspects on the left. What they don’t acknowledge is what we’ve been reminded of yet again — it’s a war.

— Rich Lowry is author of Legacy: Paying the Price for the Clinton Years.

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London Bombers Believed to Be Homegrown (Foxnews, 050713)

LONDON — At least three of the four suspected homicide bombers who carried out the deadly attacks on London’s transit system last week were born in England, and all four men came from Leeds in the English Midlands, according to British media.

British media also reported Wednesday that authorities were hunting a fifth man as a suspect in connection with the blasts last Thursday, which claimed at least 52 lives on three subway trains and on a bus in central London.

Scotland Yard was unable to confirm the report.

According to British media reports, three of the four are described as British nationals of Pakistani origin, all of whom lived in and around Leeds, which is heavily populated with lower- and lower-middle-class blue-collar workers.

News reports have identified three of the four as Shahzad Tanweer, a 22-year-old cricket-loving sports science graduate; Hasib Hussain, 19; and Mohammed Sidique Khan, the 30-year-old father of an 8-month-old baby. Press Association, citing police sources, said police had identified the fourth suspect, but no name was reported.

Police have not publicly confirmed any of the identities. Investigators will now have to determine whether the men acted alone — or had help in planning the bombings.

Tanweer’s uncle, Bashir Ahmed, said his nephew had gone to Pakistan earlier this year to study religion, and that the family believed he was attending “some religious function” on the day of the bombings.

“It was total shock, I mean, it’s unbelievable,” Ahmed told reporters.

“Our lives have been shattered. It’s impossible to describe it. We have had a very pleasant time here. I don’t think we can continue here.”

Many Pakistanis immigrated to the area several decades ago to work in textile mills, many of which have since shut down. The area is rife with ethnic tension and was the site of notorious race riots in 2001.

In London, Prime Minister Tony Blair met with British Muslim lawmakers and pledged to open dialogue to tackle a “perverted and poisonous misinterpretation” of Islam. He also said his government would begin consultations on new anti-terrorism legislation.

Addressing the House of Commons, Blair said the government also would look urgently at how to strengthen the process for excluding from the United Kingdom those who incite hatred and make it easier to deport such people.

Christina Corbett, a London intelligence analyst, told FOX News that if the attacks were the work of Al Qaeda, the terror network would most likely have sent an expert to train the cell and extracted this person before the attack was carried out.

“It’s highly likely that these four men were not working alone,” Corbett said. “One of these men reportedly was 19, which is way too young to be training in a [terrorist] camp in Afghanistan.”

Corbett said the developments in the case could help uncover other terror cells operating in the United Kingdom.

“I don’t think that further attacks have been ruled out; they were certainly expected after the [bombings in London],” Corbett said. “But as the criminal investigation proceeds, it will certainly become more difficult for the terrorists to carry out their activities.”

Cops Search for Explosives, Evidence

Police raided six homes in Leeds Tuesday searching for explosives and computer files. They arrested a man, identified by the British news agency Press Association as a relative of one of the suspected bombers.

Acting on six warrants, British soldiers blasted their way into an unoccupied Leeds row house. Streets were cordoned off and about 500 people were evacuated. Hours earlier, police searched five homes elsewhere in the city. Police still weren’t letting the evacuees return to their homes early Wednesday.

Authorities removed a silver Honda Accord from outside of Khan’s home yesterday. The property remained clad in scaffolding and white plastic sheeting today. Documents belonging to Khan were found in the debris of the Edgware Road blast.

Neighbors of Tanweer in Leeds’ garbage-strewn rows of Victorian-era red brick houses were apprehensive and hostile, walking fast past reporters gathered at the cordons. One warehouse worker, who would only give his first name, Saj, said Tanweer was a “good lad” and an athlete.

“He was quiet,” he said. “He was religious. He went to every mosque here. There are loads of mosques here.”

Mohammed Iqbal, a town councilor who represents the City-on-Hunslet section of Leeds, told AP that all of the homes raided belong to “British citizens of Pakistani origin.”

Three of the homes were in the neighborhood he represents, Iqbal said in a phone call with AP’s office in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. He said he had just met with police about the investigation.

“This is not good for Muslims,” Iqbal said. “We have businesses here. There will be a backlash.”

Did Bomber Blunder?

One of the suspects had been reported missing by his family at 10 p.m. Thursday, and some of his property was found on the double-decker bus in which 13 died, said Peter Clarke, head of the Metropolitan Police anti-terrorist branch.

Some witness accounts suggested the bus bomber may have blundered, blowing up the wrong target and accidentally killing himself. A witness who got off the crowded bus just before it exploded told AP he saw an agitated man in his 20s fiddling anxiously with something in his bag.

“This young guy kept diving into this bag or whatever he had in front of his feet, and it was like he was taking a couple of grapes off a bunch of grapes, both hands were in the bag,” said Richard Jones, 61, of Bracknell, west of London. “He must have done that at least every minute if not every 30 seconds.”

One theory suggested the attacker may have intended to leave his bomb on the subway but was unable to board because his coconspirators had already shut the system down.

Investigators also found personal documents bearing the names of two of the other men near seats on the Aldgate and Edgware lines. Police did not identify the men.

Clarke said police had strong evidence that the man believed to have carried a bomb onto the subway train that exploded between the Aldgate and Liverpool Street stations died in the blast, and they were awaiting confirmation from the coroner.

“We have now been able to establish that he was joined on his journey to London by three other men,” he said.

Leeds, about 185 miles north of London, has a population of about 715,000. About 15% of the residents are Muslim, and many come from a tight-knit Pakistani community, mostly from Mirpur, south of Islamabad in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir. Other pockets of the community are mostly Arab.

Khalid Muneer, 28, a spokesman for the Hyde Park Mosque in Leeds, said the community was surprised by the raids and police claims that the bombers may have come from there.

“That connection would surprise us all, even shock the whole community. We still think it’s too early to say,” he told AP, adding that Muslims in the area were not opposed to Britain.

“I’ve seen no calls in this area for jihad against British or American forces. You will not get that sentiment expressed around this mosque.”

Profiles of the Suspects

Closed-circuit TV video showed all four men arriving at King’s Cross by 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, about 20 minutes before the blasts began, said Clarke.

U.S. intelligence agencies are checking the names of the London bombers against their databases looking for any U.S. connection, President Bush told chief executives at a private White House meeting Tuesday.

The three suspects appear to have come from a moderately affluent sect of British society. They reportedly rode in a rental car to London, toting military style backpacks. The fourth bomber remains unidentified, but is believed to be from the Luton area northwest of London.

Several officials, including Foreign Minister Jack Straw, have said the attacks bore the “hallmark” of Al Qaeda, and one of the questions investigators presumably are trying to answer is whether the four had outside help in planning the attacks.

Jeremy Shapiro, director of research at the center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution, said Europeans had been involved in suicide attacks in the Middle East, but he knew of no previous such bombings in Western Europe.

Britain has produced a handful of would-be bombers over the last five years but, until last Thursday, only one successfully completed a mission. That bomber was Asif Hanif, 21, from London, who walked into Mike’s Bar, a blues joint on the seafront at Tel Aviv, in 2003 and blew himself up, killing two musicians and a waitress and injuring more than 40 others.

His British accomplice, Omar Khan Sharif, 27, was a father of two from Derby. He went into the bar but failed to detonate his bomb and, after a scuffle, escaped. His decomposed body was found a week later floating in the sea near the bar.

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London: The Pakistani Connection (Weekly Standard, 050714)

Those paying attention to Britain’s Jamaati culture shouldn’t be surprised by London’s home-grown terrorists.

IN THE FIRST FEW DAYS after the horror in London on July 7, media in Britain and abroad focused considerable attention on “Londonistan”—the local zoo of Islamist agitators, almost entirely Arab, who have made headlines for years with their extremist preaching. Analytical lines, many of them useful, were drawn to al Qaeda and Iraq, but almost nobody looked at domestic Muslim extremism in the United Kingdom.

Close observers of the British Islamic community, however, few of whom seem to have been consulted by reporters or the government, had been discussing for months a dramatic increase in radical agitation by Pakistani Muslim immigrants in Britain, as well as among their children.

According to the authoritative Muslim Council of Britain, the British Islamic population, totaling 1.5 million, has a plurality of 610,000 Pakistanis, with an additional 360,000 from Bangladesh and India, and 350,000 Arab and African. Unfortunately, Pakistan is the world’s second most significant front-line state (after Iraq) in the global war on terror. Pakistan produced the Jama’at-i-Islami (Community of Islam) movement, founded by Abu’l Ala Mawdudi, a theologian who died in 1979, strangely enough, in Buffalo, New York, at age 76. Known as Jamaatis, the followers of Mawdudi have attained exceptional influence in the Pakistani army and intelligence services, and were a key element in the Pakistani-Saudi alliance to support the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

Western academics and journalists are often at pains to distinguish between the Jamaatis and Wahhabism, which is the state religion in Saudi Arabia. But differences in theological details,

although they do exist, are secondary; mainly, the Saudi Wahhabis hold to a deceptive alliance with the Western powers, while the Jamaatis were always frontally anti-Western. The Jamaatis study in Saudi Arabia and share with the Wahhabis a murderous hatred of Muslims who do not conform to their ideology, considering those who reject their teachings to be apostates from Islam. They regularly massacre Shia Muslims, in particular, in Pakistani cities. They also completely reject participation by Muslim immigrants in the political and social institutions of Western countries in which they live, and they consider suicide terror legitimate. Pakistan has very few energy resources, and the Saudis have used cheap oil to support Wahhabi infiltration. In the system of radical Islam, if Saudi Arabia may be compared with the former Soviet state, Pakistan could be a parallel to the former East Germany.

For these reasons, the identification of four British-born Muslims of Pakistani origin as the perpetrators of the London atrocity comes as no surprise to those who have been paying attention to these matters. The seething, ferocious rhetoric heard in Pakistani Sunni mosques, at Friday services every week in outlying cities such as Leeds, is far more insidious, as the London events may show, than the antics engaged in by Arab loudmouths like the Syrian Omar Bakri Muhammad, the hook-handed Egyptian Abu Hamza al-Masri, or the bogus Saudi dissident Saad al-Faqih, all of who mainly perform for non-Muslim media attention.

Social marginalization and underemployment of second generation ethnic Pakistani youth in Britain may be cited as a cause for the extremist appeal among them; but the constant drumming of the Jamaati message from the pulpit is much more significant. It is interesting to hear first-generation Pakistani Sunnis in Britain claim shock and surprise at the presence of terrorists among them. Pakistani Islamist radicalism dominates British Islam much as the “Wahhabi Lobby” in America monopolizes the voice of the Muslim community on our shores.

Stephen Schwartz is a frequent contributor to The Weekly Standard.

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The Post-Attack Disaster: Britain’s Muslims must turn on terrorists in their midst. (National Review Online, 050715)

Jonah Goldberg

London — I arrived in this city the morning after the bombings. I didn’t come here to do any reporting, but when a city is attacked in such a way, every stroll amounts to newsgathering. All in all, the city was pleasantly empty and the people didn’t seem particularly terrorized. Then again, the fact that the city was pleasantly empty was perhaps the best proof that the “7/7” murderers had some of their intended effect. This was a Friday in a normally bustling city, and many Londoners simply opted to wait until Monday before trying the bus or subway again.

Obviously, modern terrorism is a psychological weapon more than an overtly military one. Its aim is to persuade civilian populations to surrender where military forces never would.

And, alas, it often works. Europe has become steadily more pro-Palestinian in no small part because of Palestinian terrorism. The French abandoned Algeria because of terrorism. The IRA has had mixed success from terrorism. And of course the most strikingly successful terrorist attack in recent years was the Madrid bombing, which — with the help of some political incompetence — resulted in the Spanish withdrawal from Iraq.

And here in the United Kingdom, there are those who believe Tony Blair should have followed Spain’s lead into similar retreat. George Galloway, the British MP who has been embroiled in the U.N. Oil-for-Food scandal, immediately called on the British to follow Spain’s example and respond to the bombings by immediately pulling all of its troops out of “harm’s way” in Iraq. It was unclear whether he thought Tony Blair should bend over and let Osama bin Laden smack him with a paddle while the prime minister shouted, “Thank you, sir! May I have another?”

The peculiar irony of the British left’s position is that they are so keen to “blame the victim” — normally a major left-wing no-no. Gary Younge, a writer for the execrably anti-American newspaper the Guardian, proclaimed that the attacks were a direct result of the war in Iraq and that they never would have happened otherwise. The war, Younge writes, “diverted our attention and resources from the very people we should have been fighting — al-Qaida.”

Of course, the same Mr. Younge believed that the invasion of Afghanistan was unjustified, and after the 9/11 attacks he wrote eloquently about why so many Arabs, Muslims and anti-American Europeans had legitimate reasons to cheer.

In their caricatured asininity, Young and Galloway are extreme examples of a more widespread mindset that assumes that America (along with its British and other allies) is the problem. And if we would just stop bothering the beehive, the bees would just stop stinging us.

This is nonsense. Everything we’ve learned about the jihadis in recent years points to the fact that they are more like killer bees than conventional ones. They spread. They’re aggressive. And they seek to replace the traditional population wherever they appear.

Regardless, the real danger isn’t from a tiny rabble of jihadi useful idiots, but from the great mass of the British public. In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, The Independent ran a splashy front page story on the “backlash” against Muslims. The worst assaults on London since the Blitz, and the “backlash” amounted to little more than a broken window and a man getting roughed up in a pub. One has to wonder how many more pub beatings took place that same weekend because some idiot said something unkind about Manchester United.

The scandal wasn’t that there was a “backlash” against the Muslim community. It is that there wasn’t more of a backlash within the Muslim community. We now know that the attackers were British born and raised Muslims. Yet there’s precious little evidence that the Muslim community is eager to turn on the enemy within with any admirable enthusiasm. And there are even fewer signs that the British media has any interest in contributing to a “climate” that would encourage such a development.

This is a recipe for unmitigated disaster. Obviously, it makes terrorism more likely. And it also makes precisely the sort of climate the press and moderate Muslims fear most. If normal Muslims can’t be counted on to turn on terrorists in their midst, how can a nation avoid taking measures that will seem unfair to normal Muslims? Already nine out of ten Brits support sweeping new powers for the police. If jihadis can hide among the larger Muslim population, it’s obvious that the larger Muslim population will come under greater scrutiny. The logic of the cancer cell kicks in, and even more young Muslims feel “oppressed” and the number of jihadis will grow.

But even if the number doesn’t grow, the danger is already enormous. The official number of British Muslims is 1.6 million, though most observers say it’s closer to two million or so. The “official” guess at how many of these Muslims are jihadis is 16,000, based on the assumption that no more than 1% could be extremists.

This, of course, could be wishful thinking. And wishful thinking is the enemy’s greatest asset.

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Al Qaeda’s information war (Washington Times, 050715)

Terrorism as practiced by al Qaeda — and, for that matter Saddamist killers in Iraq — is 21st-century information warfare. Terrorists don’t simply target London and Baghdad, they target the news media.

Al Qaeda understands our media crave the spectacular. But don’t place all the blame on headline writers and TV producers. Like sex, violence sells, and al Qaeda has suckered audiences by providing hideous violence.

At present, the truly biggest story on the planet is democratic political change in the Middle East, beginning with Iraq. It’s huge history, and a looming political disaster for tyrants and terrorists. When Western audiences decide this is the real news of our era, and it is, al Qaeda will be dealt a death blow.

German strategic theorist Carl von Clausewitz called war “politics by other means.” Physical intimidation and physical threat are implicit in that analysis. Al Qaeda’s terror campaigns certainly rely on intimidation and threat, but al Qaeda is an extremely limited organization. Its military limitations are obvious. As U.S. Central Command’s Gen. John Abizaid recently noted, al Qaeda has yet to win a military engagement with U.S. forces at or above the platoon level (about 30 troops).

This also holds true for Taliban guerrillas in Afghanistan and what military analysts call the “former regime elements” (FRE — i.e., pro-Saddam forces) in Iraq.

Al Qaeda doesn’t have much education policy, beyond bankrolling Islamist schools. Al Qaeda says it will redistribute the wealth of corrupt Middle Eastern petro-sheiks. Though that is an economic promise, it isn’t a long-term economic plan.

Al Qaeda, however, understands the power of perceived grievance and the appeal of Utopia. In the late 1990s, Osama bin Laden said al Qaeda’s strategic goal was restoring the Islamic caliphate. Bin Laden expressed a special hatred for Turkey’s Kemal Ataturk, who ended the caliphate in 1924.

History, going wrong for Islamist supremacists at least since the 16th century, really failed when the caliphate dissolved.

Though al Qaeda’s timeline to Utopia remains hazy, once the caliphate returns, the decadent modern world will fade, as Western power collapses — and presumably Eastern power, as well. (Islamists are active in China’s Sinkiang Province.)

At some point, bin Laden-interpreted Islamic law will bring strict bliss to the entire world. If this sounds vaguely like a Marxist “Workers Paradise,” that’s no accident — the communists also justified the murder of millions pursuing their atheist Utopia.

The appeal to perceived grievance and promise of an Islamist utopia, however, made al Qaeda a regional information power in a Middle East where political options were denied by tyrants. The September 11, 2001, attacks on America made al Qaeda a global information power — they were an international advertising campaign. Four years later, al Qaeda remains a strategic information power, but little else. In ever other measure of power and success, al Qaeda is very weak.

Maj. Gen. Doug Lute, operations officer for CENTCOM, argues that IEDs (improvised explosive devices, bombs like those used in London) are “perfect asymmetric warfare weapons” for 21st century terrorists. (“Asymmetric warfare” pits mismatched enemies. The weak side tries to avoid its own destruction, while targeting the strong side’s political or military vulnerabilities.)

“IEDs are relatively effective,” Gen. Lute says — meaning when they go off, they usually kill and wound. “IEDs are cheap to make. They are available (i.e., explosives and triggers, as well as skills required to assemble them).” Moreover, “IEDs are anonymous. This makes them the enemy’s most effective weapon because they are really an IO (information operations) weapon. They intimidate, sow fear, but do so without certain identification.”Anonymity means “the terrorists can be a very small group” of people or politically weak organization, he adds.

What makes the small and anonymous appear powerful and strong? In the 21st century, intense media coverage magnifies the terrorists’ capabilities. This suggests winning the global war against Islamist terror ultimately requires denying terrorists weapons of mass destruction and curbing what is now al Qaeda’s greatest strategic capability: media magnification and enhancement of its bombing campaigns and political theatrics.

Austin Bay is a nationally syndicated columnist.

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Net widens as al-Qaeda bomb link is confirmed (Times Online, 050715)

THE British-born mastermind of the London attacks had direct links with al-Qaeda, police sources confirmed yesterday.

He is believed to be connected to a senior figure who took part in an al-Qaeda terror summit in Pakistan 16 months ago where a list of future targets was reportedly finalised.

While the police priority is to trace any bombers still at large, intelligence agencies are trying to confirm that al-Qaeda had a hand in the London attack.

Forensic scientists said last night that the explosives used by the London bombers was the same type used by the convicted British shoe-bombers Richard Reid and Saajid Badat. Scientists hope to establish today whether it originated from the same batch.

It was made from ingredients known to be taught to al-Qaeda recruits in Afghanistan training camps and elsewhere, confirming suspicions that the London bombings were the work of al-Qaeda.

It was first suspected that it was the work of a UK radical group that sympathised with Osama bin Laden’s ideas, and the operation had been planned and executed in Europe. That view may now have to refined.

The mastermind, who is of Pakistani origin, is thought to have been trained in an alQaeda camp in Afghanistan and has been linked to previous terror operations.

The authorities were more interested last night in tracking down this alleged mastermind, rather than hold an inquest into how someone on MI5’s watchlist was able to slip in and out of Britain. They also need to know whether he recruited another cell of suicide bombers who are awaiting orders elsewhere in Britain. Whatever his legacy, he followed al-Qaeda’s standard procedure of ensuring that he left Britain before the attacks. He is understood to have flown out of a London airport the night before.

Organisers of the Madrid and Istanbul bombings are believed to be in Iraq, well beyond the reach of Western security services.

As police piece together how this man had spent the past weeks in Britain they are investigating how he first made contact with the men from West Yorkshire. The conjecture is that he could have met at least one of them in Pakistan when they were on religious study in the past year.

Experts say that it is unlikely that the three Leeds men would have known initially that this was a suicide operation.

Investigators are also tracing the mastermind’s alleged links to three major al-Qaeda figures. One of these is said to be in US custody.

Intelligence is being re-examined from the summit held last year in a mountain village in the northwestern province of Waziristan.

A month after he took part in that summit, Mohammed Barbar, a New York computer executive, was arrested near his home in Queens. He admitted to being an “al-Qaeda sleeper”. He had arrived at the summit carrying cash and supplies for jihadis fighting in Afghanistan.

Babar, 29, has betrayed a number of fellow sleepers during his interrogation and the information led to the arrest of 13 people in Britain. The US authorities have charged him with trying to buy materials to make bombs for attacks in the UK. Britain has asked the FBI to question him about the London operation. Another key suspect in US custody, Abu Faraj al-Libbi, was handed over by Pakistan last month. He was described as al-Qaeda’s operational commander, so is expected to know what was discussed at the summit last year. So far he has been unco-operative.

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Two-thirds of Muslims consider leaving UK (WorldNetDaily, 050726)

Hundreds of thousands of Muslims have thought about leaving Britain after the London bombings, according to a new Guardian/ICM poll.

The figure illustrates how widespread fears are of an anti-Muslim backlash following the July 7 bombings which were carried out by British born suicide bombers.

The poll also shows that tens of thousands of Muslims have suffered from increased Islamophobia, with one in five saying they or a family member have faced abuse or hostility since the attacks.

Police have recorded more than 1,200 suspected Islamophobic incidents across the country ranging from verbal abuse to one murder in the past three weeks. The poll suggests the headline figure is a large underestimate.

The poll came as British Islamic leaders and police met to try to boost recruitment of Muslim officers, improve efforts to protect Muslims from a backlash, and improve the flow of information from Muslims to the police about suspected terrorist activity.

Nearly two-thirds of Muslims told pollsters that they had thought about their future in Britain after the attacks, with 63% saying they had considered whether they wanted to remain in the UK. Older Muslims were more uneasy about their future, with 67% of those 35 or over having contemplated their future home country compared to 61% among those 34 or under.

Britain’s Muslim population is estimated at 1.6million, with 1.1million over 18, meaning more than half a million may have considered the possibility of leaving.

Three in 10 are pessimistic about their children’s future in Britain, while 56% said they were optimistic.

Nearly eight in 10 Muslims believe Britain’s participation in invading Iraq was a factor leading to the bombings, compared to nearly two-thirds of all Britons surveyed for the Guardian earlier this month. Tony Blair has repeatedly denied such a link.

Muslim clerics’ and leaders’ failure to root out extremists is a factor behind the attacks identified by 57% of Muslims, compared to 68% of all Britons, and nearly two-thirds of Muslims identify racist and Islamophobic behaviour as a cause compared to 57% of all Britons.

The general population and Muslims apportion virtually the same amount of blame to the bombers and their handlers, with eight in 10 or more citing these as factors.

The poll finds a huge rejection of violence by Muslims with nine in 10 believing it has no place in a political struggle. Nearly nine out of 10 said they should help the police tackle extremists in the Islamic communities in Britain.

A small rump, potentially running into thousands, told ICM of their support for the attacks on July 7 which killed 56 and left hundreds wounded - and 5% said that more attacks would be justified. Those findings are troubling for those urgently trying to assess the pool of potential suicide bombers.

One in five polled said Muslim communities had integrated with society too much already, while 40% said more was needed and a third said the level was about right.

More than half wanted foreign Muslim clerics barred or thrown out of Britain, but a very sizeable minority, 38%, opposed that.

Half of Muslims thought that they needed to do more to prevent extremists infiltrating their community.

· ICM interviewed a random sample of 1,005 adults aged 18+ by telephone on July 15-17 2005. Interviews were conducted across the country and the results have been weighted to the profile of all adults. ICM is a member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules.

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The red foam of the River Thames (Townhall.com, 050720)

Jonah Goldberg

I’ve come to have a strange new pride in the American left’s practice of flag-burning. This is not to say I like the practice. In fact, I think I’m with many Americans when I say that burning the American flag should amount to “fighting words” under the First Amendment. But, rather, the fact that burning the flag is considered fighting words by so many is a sign that the Stars and Stripes still arouses passion and meaning for all Americans. In other words, one could say flag-burning is a sign of cultural health. It’s only when the people don’t care about the flag at all that a country really gets into trouble.

That’s what I’ve concluded after traveling around the United Kingdom recently. Large swaths of Britain - and certainly most of its elite - doesn’t care much one way or the other about their flag. To listen to them talk about it, you’d think the Union Jack was little more than a bit of kitsch, the stuff of sno-globes and souvenir letter-openers.

I’m reminded of the line from Virgil’s “Aeneid”: “Like the Roman, I seem to see the River Tiber foaming with much blood.”

OK, I’m not really reminded of the poem itself so much as the now largely forgotten speech by the British scholar and - briefly - politician Enoch Powell, who, in 1968, recited the verse to suggest that Britain was heading down a path that could only lead to social division and multicultural chaos. Powell lamented the usual rogue’s gallery of villains: runaway immigration, secularism, feminism, et al. His worry was that the new barbarians were tearing apart the institutions, values and norms that tend to hold a nation together.

Powell was denounced as a racist and something of a fool for his “Rivers of Blood” speech. But in 2005, as George Jonas notes in Canada’s National Post, Enoch Powell is enjoying something of a revival.

From this American’s perspective, the debate in Britain in the wake of the bombings - over Powell, immigration, Islam, “Britishness” and the rest - reveals the extent of this proud nation’s problems, and to a certain extent, the profound decline of Britain.

Here, the only real debate about the British flag is whether it is in some way analogous to our own Confederate flag. Immigrants, schooled in the jargon of multiculturalism, complain that being “subjected” to the Union Jack in the workplace is a form of oppression and discrimination because it reminds them of colonialism or whatnot.

Meanwhile, the denizens of the new, “cool Britannia” have sullied one of the great “brands” in global culture. A few years back, the CEO of British Airways scrubbed the Union Jack from the entire fleet in favor of a hodgepodge of world-ethnic goo.

Britishness, for all its faults, was once seen around the world as a distinctly valuable and admirable quality. Decency, respect for law, intelligence without so much bloody abstraction, propriety, manners: These were the attributes invariably attributed to the Brits. Since Powell’s speech, however, the British have turned their backs on all of that. Their popular culture is vastly more coarse than America’s. Worse, they have seized the kingdom’s leading institutions and scraped out the best traditions and customs like so many tumors.

“We allowed our patriotism to be turned into a joke, wise sexual restraint to be mocked as prudery, our families to be defamed as nests of violence, loathing, and abuse, our literature to be tossed aside as so much garbage, and our church turned into a department of the Social Security system,” writes Peter Hitchens in his wonderful book, “The Abolition of Britain.”

All of this came about because the British lost confidence in themselves. Confidence in the greatness of your nation is a wonderful bulwark against those who’d like to turn it into something else. When William of Wykeham founded New College at Oxford in 1379, he planted a grove of oak trees on the assumption that the school’s beams might need to be replaced in about 500 years. That’s a sign of cultural confidence. The founder of the Guinness beer dynasty signed a 9,000-year lease for his brewery.

Now a person can move to this country and complain that the British flag is oppressive, and the Brits don’t have the national spine to laugh the complaint away. Britain has given in to the “besetting temptation of all politics to concern itself with the immediate present at the expense of the future.”

Now the future is here. Islamism is filling the yawning vacuum created by multiculturalism. England is producing homegrown suicide bombers who are supremely confident in a very non-British future for Britain. For years, the police here have looked the other way as citizens have slaughtered their wives and daughters in “honor killings.” To clamp down would be “insensitive” to cultural differences. They’ve looked the other way, as jihadi ideologues have turned London into the Comintern of Muslim extremism. In other words, they opened their minds so wide, their brains fell out. And now the Thames, like the Tiber, is foaming with much blood.

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Out for a pillion ride (Townhall.com, 050720)

Tony Blankley

Britain’s highly respected (until now) Chatham House, formerly known as the Royal Institute of International Affairs, announced their considered judgment last week that Britain’s alliance with the United States in Iraq contributed to the cause of the terrorist strike on London a fortnight ago. The report then went on to pronounce that the key problem in Britain for preventing terrorism is that the country is “riding as a pillion passenger with the United States in the war on terror.”

What a vile, lying, contemptuous assertion. For those unfamiliar with the term, a pillion is a padded, woman’s passenger seat on a motorcycle driven traditionally by a man. The British are riding as a “pillion passenger”?

Tell that to the Royal Scots Dragoons, The Black Watch Regiment, The Irish Guard, the 7th Armoured Brigade, the Royal Highland Fusiliers, the 33rd Engineers Explosive Ordinance Disposal Regiment, the Royal Marines, The Special Air Service (special forces), the Staffordshire Regiment, The Royal Air Force, The Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment, and the many other British military units fighting and dying in Iraq and Afghanistan. Pillion passengers? My horse’s backside! (and it’s even wider than my own).

According to the British newspaper The Guardian, Chatham House is staffed by “leading academics and former civil servants. “ For such as these to disparage the flower of British manhood, which may yet again be the savior of the nation — as it has countless times through her history — is shameful.

These unworthy heirs to an England that “Never did, nor never shall, Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,” to an England that is “this royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle, this earthly majesty, this seat of Mars,” these unworthies, by their analysis and conclusions prove they have as little between their ears as they presumedly do between their legs.

These hapless, hopeless “thinkers” are following in the foolish, timorous tradition of the European “neutrals” who were the object of Winston Churchill’s wise but unheeded guidance back in January 1940.

The Nazis had conquered Poland in the winter of 1939, and then paused to digest their meal. The French army and the British Expeditionary Force sat warily watching toward the East and waiting. It was the season of the Phony War, the Sitzkreig.

Churchill, then only First Lord of the Admiralty (he became prime minister in May) gave a speech on Jan. 20 in which he impleaded to the neutral states (Norway, Holland, Belgium, Romania among others): “What would happen if all these neutral nations I have mentioned — and some I have not mentioned — were with one spontaneous impulse to do their duty in accordance with the Covenant of the League, and were to stand together with the British and French Empires against aggression and wrong? At present their plight is lamentable; and it will become much worse. They bow humbly and in fear to German threats of violence. 

“Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last. All of them hope that the storm will pass before their turn comes to be devoured. But I fear — I fear greatly — the storm will not pass. It will rage and it will roar, ever more loudly, ever more widely. It will spread to the South; it will spread to the North. There is no chance of a speedy end except through united action.”

For the Chatham House experts — and their legion of similarly mentally impaired co-thinkers in America and Europe — they deduce from events that Britain would be safer waiting for the Americans to successfully suppress the Islamist insurgency worldwide. (Or, if the Americans fail, appeasing the insurgent passions).

Of course it is true in any fight, those who first step up to confront the enemy are certain of being bloodied. That is the commonplace that the Chatham House worthies have brilliantly discovered.

But the coward’s calculation is also extremely risky. If he added his arms to the fight early, he risks being hurt, but he increases the chance that his side will survive the lethal enemy attack. By holding back his share of the common defense, he risks the enemy defeating each of its targets, in seriatim.

In World War II, Holland and Belgium bet wrong. Had they joined the alliance in January, their stout defense — backed up by properly positioned British and French troops might have held the line against the Germans in May 1940. That was certainly Churchill’s hope.

But does all this misty recollection of WWII have any relevance to today’s danger? Of course, the operations of this war are as different from WWII’s operations as one can conceive. And yet the principals are the same. Each European country that is not ferociously aggressive against the nests of Islamists in their midsts not only endanger themselves but provide another close base of operations from which their neighbors may be attacked.

The danger is like an insinuating virus. The larger the contagion-free zone, the safer for every body.

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Explosions Hit Three Tube Stations, One Bus (Foxnews, 050721)

Two weeks to the day when terrorist attacks in London killed a total of 56 people, explosions struck three Underground stations and a bus Thursday afternoon.

The London police commissioner confirmed that four explosions occurred in the subway and on a bus in the Hackney neighborhood of East London. None of the explosions appear to have detonated properly. Officials are hoping that the left-over explosives will provide a wealth of forensic evidence to help investigators hunt down the bombers.

Police said there was one report of an injury.

One Sky News reporter on the ground said officials said the explosive device on the bus appears to be the same type used in the July 7 bombings in London. The material is highly explosive, which is why such a large area around the bus has been cordoned off.

Police also said an armed police unit had entered University College hospital. Press Association, the British news agency, said they arrived shortly after an injured person was carried in.

Sky News TV reported that police were searching for a man with a blue shirt with wires protruding. Officers asked employees to look for a black or Asian male, 6 feet 2 inches tall, wearing a blue top with a hole in the back and wires protruding.

Scotland Yard said there have been two arrests, one at Downing Street and one at greater Scotland Yard, but officials are stressing the arrests may not be related. There will be a police briefing at 12:30 p.m. EDT.

Prime Minister Tony Blair said Thursday that officials hoped that London would return to normal “as soon as possible.”

“We can’t minimize incidents such as this,” Blair said during a news conference with visiting Australian Prime Minister John Howard, adding that such attacks are attempted “to make people worried and frightened and taking responsibility off the shoulders of people who engage in these acts.”

Blair said the police and security services were “fairly clear” on what happened and what the next steps were, and it was “important to respond by keeping to our normal lives.”

“People have seen our country react to terrorist attacks that are meant to make people worried and scared and react, and people have reacted with great dignity ... it’s not going to change us … our reaction’s got to be the same” as it was after the July 7 attacks, Blair added.

He said it was too early to speculate on who might be responsible for the attacks.

Howard told Blair that Australia would remain a “steadfast partner” with Britain in the fight against terrorism.

“Terrorism is an enemy to all free people,” Howard said. “Terrorism is not just about individual circumstances and individual events.”

‘People Were Panicking’

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Ian Blair described the incidents as “serious.”

“We’ve had four explosions — four attempts at explosions,” Blair said outside police headquarters at Scotland Yard. “At the moment the casualty numbers appear to be very low ... the bombs appear to be smaller” than those detonated July 7.

The Warren Street, Shepherd’s Bush and Oval stations were evacuated. Emergency services personnel were called to the stations, police said. There were reports of a nail bomb that exploded and/or a backpack that exploded at Warren Street but those reports have not yet been confirmed.

Police in chemical protection suits were seen preparing to enter the Warren Street station but no chemical agents were involved in the explosions.

There was also an incident at 10 Downing Street, where the British prime minister’s offices are located. Two police officers trained their guns on a man before leading him off the premises; his shirt was unbuttoned in the front.

The head of Scotland Yard said in a brief press conference Thursday that commuters and other Londoners should stay exactly where they are; he said it’s possible more portions of the transit system will be shut down.

Some witnesses said they heard gunshots at the Warren Street stop but according to Sky News, police believe those noises were actually detonators going off for bombs that didn’t explode.

“People were panicking. But very fortunately the train was only 15 seconds from the station,” witness Ivan McCracken told Sky News.

McCracken said he smelled smoke, and people were panicking and coming into his carriage. He said he spoke to an Italian man who was comforting a woman after the evacuation.

“He said that a man was carrying a rucksack and the rucksack suddenly exploded. It was a minor explosion but enough to blow open the rucksack,” McCracken said. “The man then made an exclamation as if something had gone wrong. At that point everyone rushed from the carriage.”

Services on the Victoria, Hammersmith and Northern lines were suspended, the London Underground said.

“I was in the carriage and we smelled smoke — it was like something was burning,” said Losiane Mohellavi, 35, who was evacuated at Warren Street. “Everyone was panicked and people were screaming. We had to pull the alarm. I am still shaking.”

Stagecoach, the company which operates the stricken No. 26 bus, said the driver heard a bang and went upstairs, where he found the windows blown out. The company said the bus was structurally intact and there were no reports of injuries.

Closed-circuit TV cameras on Hackney Road showed the No. 26 bus immobilized at a stop with its indicator lights flashing. The area around the bus had been cordoned off.

Keith Roberts, a shopkeeper near where the bus was sitting empty, said the bus driver was speaking to police and not only the bus but nearby houses were also evacuated. Roberts and another witness from the Shepherd’s Bush station who called in to Sky News said they were told by police to get off their cell phones.

The concern is that authorities believe that at least two bombs have not gone off, one of which could be on the bus. Cell phones work on radio frequencies, which could set off the potential bombs.

The reports came exactly two weeks to the day that four homicide bombers attacked three subway stations and a double-decker bus in London, killing 52 others.

Although not as serious, Thursday’s incidents were hauntingly similar to the blasts two weeks ago, which involved explosions at three Underground stations simultaneously — quickly followed by a blast on a bus. Those bombings, during the morning rush hour, also occurred in the center of London, hitting the Underground railway from various directions.

Thursday’s incidents, however, were more geographically spread out.

London Ambulance said it was called to the Oval station at 12:38 p.m. and Warren Street at 12:45 p.m. The July 7 attacks began at 8:51 a.m.

Prime Minister Blair was scheduled to meet with various British intelligence agencies Thursday. He canceled a visit to a school in East London, which was in the same general area as the potential bus bomb.

President Bush was briefed on the London incidents, according to White House spokesman Scott McClellan, who said U.S. officials are “monitoring the situation closely.’”

Washington, D.C., Metro officials said the city’s subways, which have been on a higher alert since the July 7 London bombings, will see an increase in security and bomb-sniffing dogs.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has also been advised and is monitoring the situation. There is no plan to change the terror threat level at this time; the Department of Homeland Security is still gathering information.

The concern among U.S. officials in these situations is whether there would be legitimate follow-up attacks by the same group responsible for the July 7 bombings, or “copy cat” incidents, of lesser severity and effectiveness.

The explosions came as Pakistani intelligence officials said authorities are seeking the former aide of a radical cleric in Britain in connection with the July 7 bombings.

The officials said British investigators asked Pakistani authorities to search for Haroon Rashid Aswat, who reportedly had been in close contact with the suicide bombers just before the July 7 attacks. Aswat, 31, was of Indian origin and may not be in Pakistan, according to two intelligence officials in Islamabad and one in Lahore.

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The beginning of the reckoning (Townhall.com, 050717)

Caroline B. Glick

Reacting to Neville Chamberlain’s Munich Pact with Adolf Hitler in the British Parliament in October 1938, Winston Churchill warned, “You have to consider the character of the Nazi movement and the rule which it implies....There can never be friendship between the British democracy and the Nazi power, that power which spurns Christian ethics, which cheers its onward course by a barbarous paganism, which vaunts the spirit of aggression and conquest, which derives strength and perverted pleasure from persecution, and uses, as we have seen, with pitiless brutality the threat of murderous force. That power can never be a trusted friend of British democracy.”

With the outbreak of World War II one year later, Churchill’s warning that Munich was “the beginning of the reckoning” with an implacable foe was of course proved correct.

In the week since last Thursday’s attacks in London we have repeatedly heard the analogy between those bombings and the Nazi bombing war against Britain. Most of these analogies have to do with the famous British stiff upper lip in the face of terror and carnage. Some of these parallels relate to the determination enunciated by Queen Elizabeth and Prime Minister Tony Blair never to surrender to the forces behind the bombings. Indeed, in most cases, the analogies drawn between the two circumstances have to do with the British response to the attacks and not to the parallel nature of the perpetrators.

In truth though, just as the British stoicism recalls the same from 65 years ago, so too, there is a deep and instructive similarity between the Nazis and the Islamic-fascist forces that attacked then and attack today. The fact of the matter is that even more important than invoking the famous British “stiff upper lip,” to fight this current war to victory requires understanding and accepting the similarities between the Nazis and the Arab-Islamic terrorist armies.

On Tuesday The Wall Street Journal published an investigative report into the establishment and growth of the Islamic Center in Munich. As Stefan Meining, a German historian who studies the mosque, told the paper, “If you want to understand the structure of political Islam, you have to look at what happened in Munich.”

According to the report, the Munich mosque was founded by Muslim Nazis who had settled in West Germany after the war. These men, who were among more than one million citizens of the Soviet republics who joined the Nazis while they were under German occupation, were transferred by their Nazi commander to the Western front in the closing stages of the war to protect them from the advancing Red Army.

The Journal report explains that the first leader of the mosque was a native of Uzbekistan named Nurredin Nakibhidscha Namangani. Namangani served as an imam in the SS and participated in the liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto and the putting down of the Jewish uprising in 1943.

According to the article, the exiled head of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, Said Ramadan, participated in a 1958 conference organized by Namangani and his fellow Muslim Nazis to raise money to build the mosque.

The article then outlines the subsequent takeover of the mosque by the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1960s and its transformation, with Saudi and Syrian funding, into a nexus for the spread of Islamic-fascist ideology and its call for jihad and world domination.

Ignored by the report is that there was no particular reason, other than perhaps turf warfare, for the Nazis to have had a problem with the Muslim Brotherhood. As German political scientist Matthias Kuentzel chronicled in his work “Islamic anti-Semitism and its Nazi Roots,” the Muslim Brotherhood, which spawned the PLO’s Fatah as well as al-Qaida, Hamas and the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, owes much of its ideological success and pseudo-philosophical roots to Nazism.

In the 1930s, the mufti of Jerusalem, Amin el-Husseini, rigorously courted the Nazis. When, in 1936, he launched his terror war against the Jewish Yishuv in the British controlled Palestine Mandate, he repeatedly asked the Nazis for financial backing, which began arriving in 1937.

From 1936-39 Husseini’s terror army murdered 415 Jews. In later years, Husseini noted that were it not for Nazi money, his onslaught would have been defeated in 1937. His movement was imbued with Nazism. His men saluted one another with Nazi salutes and members of his youth movement sported Hitler Youth uniforms.

Husseini was allied with the new Muslim Brotherhood movement that was founded by Ramadan’s father-in-law, Hassan al-Banna, in the 1920s. The impact of his terror war on the movement was profound. From a 1936 membership roster of 800, by 1939 the ranks of the Brotherhood had risen to 200,000 official members backed by perhaps an equal number of active sympathizers.

As Kuentzel argues, the notion of a violent holy war or jihad against non-Muslims was not a part of any active Islamic doctrine until the 1930s and, as he notes, “its concurrence with the arrival of a newly virulent anti-Semitism is verified in no uncertain terms.” Husseini’s gangs in the Palestine Mandate were joyously praised by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, which held mass demonstrations with slogans like “Jews get out of Egypt and Palestine,” and “Down with the Jews!”

For the Nazis, the Jews were seen as the principal force preventing them from achieving their goal of world domination. As Hitler put it, “You will see how little time we shall need in order to upset the ideas and the criteria for the whole world, simply and purely by attacking Judaism.” In his view, once he destroyed the Jews, the rest of the world would lay before him for the taking. “The struggle for world domination will be fought entirely between Germans and Jews. All else is facade and illusion,” he said.

Husseini, who became an active Nazi agent  fomenting a pro-Nazi coup in Baghdad in 1942 and then fleeing to Germany where he spent the rest of the war training a jihad army of Bosnian Muslims; exhorting the Arab world to rise up against the Allies; participating in the Holocaust and planning an Auschwitz-like death camp to be built in Nablus after the German victory  escaped with French assistance to Cairo after the war. There he was embraced as a war hero.

Hitler’s obsession with the Jews as the source of all the evils in the world became so ingrained in both the Arab nationalist and Islamic psyche that it has become second nature.

At the 2002 trial in Germany of Mounir el-Moutassadeq, who was accused of collaborating with the September 11 hijackers, witnesses described the world view of Muhammad Atta who led the attackers. One witness claimed, “Atta’s [world view] was based on a National Socialist way of thinking. He was convinced that ‘the Jews’ are determined to achieve world domination. He considered New York City to be the center of world Jewry, which was, in his opinion, Enemy Number One.”

In light of the wealth of historical documentation of the Nazi roots of Islamic fascism, it is absolutely apparent that the collaboration between Nazis and the Muslim Brotherhood in the building and developing of the Islamic Center in Munich was anything but coincidental or unique.

It is also hardly surprising that PA chieftain Mahmoud Abbas, whose predecessor, Yasser Arafat, was Husseini’s follower, devoted his doctoral dissertation to a denial of the Holocaust and a justification of Nazism.

The thing of it is, just as with the Nazis, it is impossible to separate the Islamist ideological and military quest for world domination from its genocidal anti-Semitism. As with the Nazis, they are two sides of the same coin. And, just as was the case from the Nazi ascent to power in 1933 through the end of World War II, the British and, to a lesser though increasing degree, the Americans refuse to acknowledge that the war against the Jews and Israel is the same as the war against them.

There are reasons for the attempts to separate the inseparable. The discovery that the London bombers were flowers of British immigrant youth  like the British-Pakistani al-Qaida-Hamas terrorists who committed the suicide bombing at Mike’s Place in Tel-Aviv in April 2003, and Omar Sheikh, the British-Pakistani al-Qaida terrorist who kidnapped and murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in a Nazi-style execution in January 2002  shows that the enemy today is largely homegrown.

One of the most difficult challenges for a democratic society is facing up to the presence of an enemy fifth column in its midst. Aside from this, the fact of the matter is that the global economy is fueled by oil, which is controlled by the same forces that stand at the foundations of the current war against the Jews and Western civilization.

Much easier than contending with these realities is to engage in the politics of denial. As the British and French blamed German anti-Semitism and warmongering in the 1930s on their impoverishment and humiliation by the Treaty of Versailles, so too, the British, like their European allies and large swathes of American society, today blame Arab and Islamic anti-Semitism and aspirations for global domination on poverty and perceived humiliation at the hands of Western imperialists and by the establishment and continued viability of the State of Israel.

It is the duty of the State of Israel (much ignored by its own leadership today) to point out this inconvenient reality to the rest of the world. And it is the duty and responsibility of all who treasure freedom and the right to live without fear to accept this reality in spite of its inconvenience. Refusing to do so is not simply a matter of cowardice. It is a recipe for suicide.

Caroline B. Glick is the senior Middle East fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C., and the deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post, where this article first appeared.

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Row over tougher rules on preachers of hate (Times Online, 050805)

THE most sweeping anti-terrorism proposals since the Second World War were announced yesterday as Tony Blair started a crackdown on preachers of hate.

Dozens of Islamic extremists face deportation this autumn in a surprisingly draconian clampdown which has shattered the cross-party consensus after the London bombings.

As the measures were unveiled, the Bank of England said that it had frozen the bank accounts of the four men held on suspicion of being the July 21 bombers, amid allegations that they had collected more than £500,000 in benefits.

“Let no one be in any doubt, the rules of the game are changing,” the Prime Minister said.

Many of his tough new proposals took the Home Office by surprise, with officials learning of them only at a press conference in Downing Street.

Making clear that public anger over the extremists had prompted urgent action, Mr Blair said: “Coming to Britain is not a right and, even when people have come here, staying here carries with it a duty.

“That duty is to share and support the values that sustain the British way of life. Those who break that duty and try and incite or engage in violence against our country or our people have no place here.”

His proposals will trigger fresh battles with the courts, which have ruled previous anti-terrorism laws illegal and have stopped deportations to countries where people could face inhumane treatment.

Mr Blair is seeking assurance from North African and Middle Eastern countries that deportees would not be tortured if they are made to leave Britain.

He warned judges that if they continued to prevent the deportation of extremists, he would amend the Human Rights Act. Most of the proposals, including new grounds for deportation, can be implemented without legislation.

Senior police officers said that the proposals provided scope for firm action to tackle the small number of people involved, but civil liberties groups condemned them as harsh.

Shami Chakrabati, director of Liberty, said that anyone in Britain believed to have incited terrorism should be dealt with in the British courts.

Charles Kennedy, the Liberal Democrat leader, who was informed of the measures only 30 minutes before they were announced, told the Prime Minister not to count on his party’s support. He said that they risked “inflaming tensions and alienating Muslims” when the country needed all communities to pull together.

But the tough stance on deportation was welcomed by David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary, who urged the Government to press ahead with them as soon as possible.

The most significant changes on deportation and will come into force early next month, after a brief consultation.

Grounds for deportation have been extended to take in “fostering hatred, advocating violence to further a person’s beliefs or justifying such violence”. The measures will be implemented retrospectively, so any radicals known to have publicly supported suicide bombers in Britain or abroad can be thrown out.

Mr Blair emphasised that the measures were aimed at extremists and not at “decent, law-abiding” Muslims. “Most people recognise the climate in which these measures are being taken is somewhat different,” he said. “People can’t come here and abuse our good nature and our tolerance, come here and start inciting our young people into violence.”

Mr Blair’s wife Cherie, a leading human rights lawyer, recently warned the Government not to interfere with the independence of the courts.

The Prime Minister insisted that freedom from terrorism was a human right. “I have never accepted this idea that there is a choice between the concept of human rights and the concept of protecting the country from terrorism,” he said.

The Prime Minister, who leaves for his summer holiday this weekend, gave a clear hint that MPs will be recalled in September to debate the measures.

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Britain Bars Return of Radical Cleric (Foxnews, 050812)

LONDON — Britain on Friday barred radical Muslim cleric Omar Bakri from returning to the country that was his home for the past 20 years, saying his presence was no longer “conducive to the public good.”

The decision came as the country’s top legal official defended plans to deport another radical Muslim cleric and nine other foreigners suspected of posing a threat to national security.

Lebanese authorities, who had detained Bakri Thursday, released him Friday after determining he had committed no crime, the prosecutor general said.

Judge Said Mirza told The Associated Press that he ordered Bakri’s release after it appeared “that he has not committed any crime and there are no criminal records against him.” Mirza added Bakri was a free man.

It was not immediately clear where Bakri was headed after his release.

Bakri, 45, left Britain on Saturday, one day after Prime Minister Tony Blair proposed tough new anti-terrorism measures including the deportation of extremist Islamic clerics who preach hate.

Bakri, who has dual Syrian and Lebanese citizenship, had come under increasing pressure from the British government for his hardline rhetoric after last month’s transit bombings. He had insisted that he planned to return to north London, where his wife and children live.

Lebanon’s General Security department said in a statement that Bakri was being interrogated about the circumstances of his entry to Lebanon.

Lebanese newspapers reported that Syria would like Lebanon to hand over Bakri, but this could not be confirmed with the Syrian authorities on Friday — the Muslim sabbath.

He caught British public attention recently when he said he would not inform the police if he had known Muslims were planning attacks such as the July 7 bombings in London, in which four suicide bombers killed 52 people.

He claimed Islam prohibited him from reporting Muslims to the British police.

Home Secretary Charles Clarke had written to Bakri to inform him he would not be allowed back into Britain. The cleric has 14 days to appeal.

“The Home Secretary has issued an order revoking Omar Bakri Mohammed’s indefinite leave to remain and to exclude him from the U.K. and the grounds that his presence is not conducive to the public good,” the Home Office said in a statement.

Bakri founded the now-disbanded radical Islamic group al-Muhajiroun, which came under scrutiny in Britain, particularly after some of its members praised the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

A spokesman for Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service said Thursday prosecutors were looking at Bakri’s recent remarks to assess whether he could be charged with solicitation of murder or incitement to withhold information known to be of use to police.

Meanwhile, Jordan said Friday it would ask Britain next week to extradite one of the 10 detained, cleric Omar Mahmoud Othman Abu Omar, also known as Abu Qatada. Spanish officials have described him as Usama bin Laden’s “spiritual ambassador in Europe.”

Britain’s plans to deport the 10 foreigners have sparked fears for their safety in their destination countries.

The Home Office did not identify the detainees. But a government official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, confirmed that Abu Qatada, a Palestinian cleric who carries a Jordanian passport, was among them.

A statement from Abu Qatada’s lawyer said the detainees were “primarily Algerians.”

Lord Chancellor Charles Falconer said it was necessary to balance the risk of a deportee being mistreated against the threat they pose to Britain. He added that the government may seek new human rights legislation to make the deportations easier. The measure would be among a raft of tough new anti-terrorism laws announced in the wake of the July bombings.

“The deportee has got rights, but so have the people of this country,” Falconer told British Broadcasting Corp. radio. “If they are threatened in terms of national security, that is something that the government has got to protect them against as much as possible.”

As a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights, Britain is not allowed to deport people to countries where they may face torture of mistreatment. The government has been trying to sign agreements guaranteeing humane treatment of deportees with 10 countries, including Algeria, Lebanon, Egypt and Tunisia. The first such memorandum of understanding was signed with Jordan on Wednesday.

The detentions and are another indication of the dramatic impact of last month’s bombings in a country until recently regarded as something of a safe haven for radicals.

“The circumstances of our national security have changed, it is vital that we act against those who threaten it,” Home Secretary Clarke said.

Abu Qatada was granted political asylum in Britain in 1993. He has been in jail or under close supervision here since 2002, but now faces deportation to Jordan where authorities convicted him in absentia in 1998 and again in 2000 for involvement in a series of explosions and terror plots.

British authorities believe Abu Qatada inspired the lead Sept. 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta and he is suspected of having links with radical groups across Europe.

Jordanian Interior Minister Awni Yirfas said his country would request Abu Qatada’s extradition next week. A spokesman for Britain’s Home Office had no immediate reaction.

The cleric’s lawyer, Gareth Peirce, condemned the detentions. Her firm said in a statement that the detainees had not been allowed to see their lawyers.

Like Abu Qatada, some of the foreigners detained Thursday had spent up to three years in jail without trial under sweeping anti-terror legislation until their release in March after Britain’s highest court ruled the detentions unlawful. Since then, they have been supervised under so-called control orders, such as curfew or house arrest, and banned from using the telephone or Internet.

The Home Office said the detainees had five working days to appeal deportation — a process that could drag on for months. A spokeswoman insisted they would not be deported until the British government gained assurances from the destination countries that they will not be treated inhumanely.

Civil rights campaigners and the U.N. special envoy on torture, Manfred Nowak, have warned, however, that such assurances carry no weight in international law and would not sufficiently protect the deportees.

“The assurances of known torturers, many of whom deny the use of torture even when it is widely documented, are not worth the paper they are written on,” said Mike Blakemore, a spokesman for Amnesty International.

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The Overlooked Case Of Mohammed Afroze: Al Qaeda’s terrorism isn’t really motivated by the Iraq War and Israel. (Weekly Standard, 050811)

AFTER A STRING OF BOMBINGS in London, the British media began peppering Tony Blair and John Howard with questions about the effects of Britain’s presence in Iraq on suicide-bomber recruitment. During the hastily-arranged press conference the day of the second series of attempted bombings, journalist Paul Bongiorno noted that one Australian injured in the July 7 blasts had blamed the Iraq War for the attacks, prompting a tough response from the Australian prime minister. The unnamed victim is not alone; an ICM poll for the Guardian showed that two-thirds of Brits believe that the bombings have some linkage to military action in Iraq.

Today the political situation remains unchanged for Blair and the British. George Galloway, the Scots MP who recently declared his sympathy with the Iraqi “insurgents,” told Syrians on July 31 that the British, Americans, and the West needed a cure for their imperialism, not the Arabs for their radicalism and oppression. In fact, Galloway told Syrians that the Arabs appeared to be doing nothing but standing by while the West raped their “daughters”:

Two of your beautiful daughters are in the hands of foreigners—Jerusalem and Baghdad. The foreigners are doing to your daughters as they will. The daughters are crying for help, and the Arab world is silent. And some of them are collaborating with the rape of these two beautiful Arab daughters. Why? Because they are too weak and too corrupt to do anything about it.

Galloway this week referred to Iraqi terrorists

conducting suicide attacks as “martyrs” and told the BBC that Tony Blair and George Bush were the real terrorists. Even though pundits consider Galloway a voice from the fringe, when he says that Islamist terror arose from the first Iraq War and the occupation of Jerusalem, he speaks for a not-insignificant number of Brits, and Yanks as well.

All of which makes the forgotten case of Mohammed Afroze all the more significant.

On the day after the failed July 21 bombings in London, an Indian court in Delhi sentenced Mohammed Afroze to seven years in prison for his participation in a wider plot which had been planned for September 11, 2001. Afroze led another al Qaeda cell which planned to use commercial airlines as missiles to destroy several international targets. The Islamist terrorists intended to send a global message through coordination with the attacks on America. Their plan failed when the terrorists lost their nerve and fled Heathrow.

Afroze and his compatriots from Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and Pakistan had planned on flying their Manchester-bound flights into the House of Commons and the Tower Bridge in London. Attacking Parliament would have sent a message to the British government about the continued sanctions on Iraq. Blowing up the Tower Bridge would kill a slew of British civilians, with the intent of terrorizing them into demanding a withdrawal of British troops from the Middle East and a halt to support of American actions in the region.

But Afroze had other targets as part of his plan—and these reveal something much deeper and broader than Galloway and the media wish to contemplate.

AFROZE HAS ALSO ADMITTED to targeting the Rialto Towers in Melbourne, Australia. Australia has a long history of courageous alliance with Britain and the United States, of course, but Australia never set foot in Iraq before the 2003 invasion. They had provided a naval support contingent of three ships with 600 sailors and their own air defense squad. Their mission consisted of interdiction on shipping in the Persian Gulf to ensure no arms made their way into Saddam Hussein’s hands during the blockade that preceded the war.

Australia had helped free East Timor from a military occupation by Indonesian paramilitary forces two years earlier. The Portuguese pulled out of Timor in 1976, and the Indonesian military invaded the island nine days later, annexing the territory and imposing an increasingly brutal regime on the Catholic Timorese. In 1999, Indonesia president B.J. Habibie unexpectedly offered a referendum to East Timor, and an overwhelming majority backed independence. This touched off a revolting nightmare of murder and terror by Indonesian paramilitary forces which only ended when an Australian-led U.N. force took control of East Timor and effectively liberated it from the Indonesians.

Clearly the notion that an attack on Melbourne would send a message about Iraq and Jerusalem, therefore, hinges on shaky ground. It seems much more likely that al Qaeda harbored a grudge against the Aussies for their efforts to free East Timor (now Timor Leste) from primarily Muslim Indonesia. However, that doesn’t square with the critics who insist that Western policies about Iraq

and Jerusalem lie at the heart of Islamofascist terror, especially when some of those same critics—such as Noam Chomsky, Mother Jones, and organizations like Common Dreams—insisted on Western nations intervening in East Timor to free the Timorese from Indonesian tyranny.

In fact, Chomsky sounded themes in his essay demanding military action remarkably similar to those George W. Bush would use five years later while demanding action to free the Iraqi people from the grip of Saddam Hussein:

Not long before, the Clinton administration welcomed Suharto as “our kind of guy,” following the precedent established in 1965 when the general took power, presiding over army-led massacres that wiped out the country’s only mass-based political party (the PKI, a popularly supported communist party) and devastated its popular base in “one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century.” According to a CIA report, these massacres were comparable to those of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao; hundreds of thousands were killed, most of them landless peasants. The achievement was greeted with unrestrained euphoria in the West. The “staggering mass slaughter” was “a gleam of light in Asia,” according to two commentaries in the New York Times, both typical of the general western media reaction. Corporations flocked to what many called Suharto’s “paradise for investors,” impeded only by the rapacity of the ruling family. For more than 20 years, Suharto was hailed in the media as a “moderate” who is “at heart benign,” even as he compiled a record of murder, terror, and corruption that has few counterparts in postwar history. . . .

The picture in the past few months is particularly ugly against the background of the self-righteous posturing in the “enlightened states.” But it simply illustrates, once again, what should be obvious: Nothing substantial has changed, either in the actions of the powerful or the performance of their flatterers. The Timorese are “unworthy victims.” No power interest is served by attending to their suffering or taking even simple steps to end it. Without a significant popular reaction, the long-familiar story will continue, in East Timor and throughout the world.

Somehow Chomsky’s—and much of the left’s—concern for “unworthy victims” would disappear when the Iraqis, afflicted with a similarly genocidal tyrant, received the same round—or more accurately, sixteen rounds—of indifference from the United Nations.

BUT AFROZE HAD ONE MORE TARGET in mind for his suicide attacks: the Indian Parliament. Again, anyone with a sense of history understands the long antagonism between Muslims and Hindus on the Asian subcontinent. The division of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh after the British withdrawal in 1947 touched off a religious and political conflict that persists to this day. Any aggression against India by al Qaeda would hardly seem surprising given this well-known dynamic.

What would seem surprising is the notion that an al Qaeda attack on India’s Parliament would have anything to do with Iraq or Jerusalem. India followed its historical precedents in the month before the March 2003 invasion, in a letter to the United Nations. India argued that they wanted more time before the Security Council authorized military action and that they opposed the invasion of Iraq. More to the point, India had a long history of trade with Saddam’s Iraq, right up to the first Gulf War. The Indian government restarted trade with Iraq in June 1991 (almost immediately after the war), working within the sanctions but clearly supportive of trade with Saddam Hussein.

Nor has India expressed any solidarity with Israel. India joined the Non-Aligned Movement, which has repeatedly and publicly sided with the Palestinians. India’s U.N. voting record shows that it remains essentially sympathetic to the Palestinian claims over the occupied territories, and its rhetoric shows that it considers the plight of the Palestinians analogous to the struggle of India against the British Empire.

THE CASE OF MOHAMMED AFROZE puts all claims that Western opposition to reasonable goals of Muslims caused September 11, the London bombings, or any of al Qaeda’s other attacks going back into the early 1990s. The goal all along has been for Osama bin Laden and his Islamofascist terrorists to seize control of the region that produces the world’s energy in order to bring the infidels under their heel—and to be sure we stay there, regardless of our previous sympathies.

Edward Morrissey is a contributing writer to The Daily Standard and a contributor to the blog Captain’s Quarters.

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On condemning terrorism (townhall.com, 050812)

Jeff Jacoby

When Muslim extremists murder innocents in cold blood, there is often a politically-correct reluctance to call the killers terrorists, or to denounce them unequivocally. But there was no such reluctance last week when an Israeli Jew, Eden Natan Zada, opened fire inside the bus he was riding through the Arab town of Shfaram in northern Israel. Zada, 19, was active in the outlawed extremist Kach movement, and had deserted his army unit to protest Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. His rampage left four Arabs dead — Michel Bahus, 56; Nader Hayak, 55; Hazar Turki, 23, and her sister Dina, 21 — and another 12 wounded.

Zada was immediately labeled a terrorist and widely condemned. “A reprehensible act by a bloodthirsty Jewish terrorist,” one Middle Eastern leader called the massacre. Another said he was “deeply shocked and distressed by the murder of innocent people.” From a senior cleric came a statement expressing “disgust and severe condemnation at the despicable act . . . . a murder that is impossible to forgive.”

Israel and its supporters complain with reason that Arab terrorism against Jews is too often shrugged off or excused by Arab and Muslim leaders, or that a murderous attack will be condemned in English for international consumption, while the government-run local media extols the killers in Arabic. But when the terrorists themselves are Jews — admittedly a rare event — do Israel’s defenders live up to the standard they expect of others? How many of the statements quoted above, for example, would leading Israelis have been willing to make?

All of them.

It was Prime Minister Ariel Sharon who described Zada as a “bloodthirsty Jewish terrorist” and Shimon Peres, the vice prime minister, who referred to the attack as “the murder of innocent people.” The cleric who pronounced Zada’s “despicable act . . . impossible to forgive” was Rabbi Shlomo Amar, the Sephardic chief rabbi of Israel. And headlines in all the country’s major newspapers bluntly labeled Zada a terrorist.

Equally harsh was the judgment of the Yesha Council, the organization of Jewish settlements in Gaza and the West Bank. Though passionately opposed to the Gaza evacuation, it denounced Zada as “a terrorist, a lunatic, and immoral.” The chairman of the council added: “Murder is murder is murder, and there can be no other response but to denounce it completely and express revulsion.” Especially noteworthy were the words of Rabbi Menachem Froman of the West Bank settlement of Tekoa, who spoke at the funeral of two of the Arab victims. “We the Jewish people in the land of Israel share in the pain and suffering” of the mourners, he declared. “All people who believe in God . . . express their outrage at such an act.”

Indeed, so horrified were Israelis by Zada’s bloody crime that, as the newspaper Ha’aretz reported on Sunday, “No cemetery will accept Jewish terrorist’s body.” (Zada was lynched by Shfaram residents in the wake of his attack.) The defense minister banned an interment in any military cemetery, saying Zada was “not worthy of being buried next to fallen soldiers.” Neither his hometown of Rishon Letzion nor Tapuah, the settlement to which he had recently moved, wanted his grave to be within their borders.

The denunciations weren’t limited to Israel. Among American Jews, too, the repudiation of the Israeli terrorist was swift and unsparing.

The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations issued a statement almost as soon as the news broke: “We unequivocally condemn today’s attack. . . . Such acts must be denounced by all responsible leaders.”

The American Jewish Committee “condemned in the harshest language” the slaughter in Shfaram, while the Zionist Organization of America called it “a terrorist act which we condemn unreservedly.” The Anti-Defamation League said it was “horrified” by Zada’s “unspeakable act,” and the Simon Wiesenthal Center pronounced it “nothing less than a shameful act of terror that should be universally condemned.”

Speaking for more than 900 Reform Jewish congregations nationwide, Rabbi David Sapirstein of the Religious Action Center in Washington deplored the massacre, calling it “a betrayal of the dream of Israel as a pluralistic nation and an attack” on its fundamental values. In Boston, the Rabbinical Assembly of Conservative Judaism assailed the killings as “a desecration of God’s Name” and prayed that “never again will a Jew so wantonly spill blood.”

The reaction of the Orthodox leadership was equally fervent. Agudath Israel of America said it was “tragic” that any Jew could adopt “the methods and madness of the enemies of the Jews.” The Orthodox Union declared: “Acts of violence in the name of Zionism and/or Judaism must be eradicated from the midst of the Jewish people.”

All of these statements — and this is far from a complete listing — were made within a day or two of the atrocity in Shfaram. Without having to be prompted, without making excuses, Jewish communities instinctively reacted to Zada’s monstrous deed with disgust and outrage, all the more angrily because the perpetrator was a fellow Jew. When that is the way *every* community responds to terrorism, terrorism will come to an end.

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Hamas: Armed struggle is sole strategy (Jerusalem Post, 050817)

Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal declared on Wednesday that the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank marked the beginning of the end of the Zionist dream in Palestine.

Mashaal was speaking to reporters in Beirut and his remarks were broadcast live by a number of major Arab TV satellite stations.

Dubbing the pullout a “defeat in the face of Palestinian resistance and a significant step with historic dimensions,” Mashaal said that as far as Hamas was concerned, the disengagement marked the beginning of the death of the Zionist dream.

“The resistance and the steadfastness of or people forced the Zionists to withdraw,” he boasted. “The resistance is capable of ending the Israeli occupation and achieving all our rights. The armed struggle is the only strategy that Hamas possesses.”

Mashaal reiterated his movement’s refusal to lay down its weapons, saying Hamas’s duty was to defend the Palestinians and help them restore their rights. “As long as Palestinian lands remain under occupation, Hamas won’t law down its weapons,” he stressed.

He said, however, that Hamas was not interested in a confrontation with the Palestinian Authority. “Hamas is not competing with the Palestinian Authority, but we reject attempts to monopolize power,” he explained.

Mahmoud Zahar, Hamas’s overall leader in the Gaza Strip, said in an interview published on Wednesday that his movement will move its activities to the West Bank after the disengagement.

“Now, after the victory in the Gaza Strip, we will transfer the struggle first to the West Bank and later to Jerusalem,” Zahar told the London-based pan-Arab daily Asharq Al-Awsat. “We will continue the struggle until we liberate all our lands. This is an important day for the Palestinians and proof that the armed struggle has born fruit.”

Asked about Hamas’s future plans, Zahar said: “Neither the liberation of the Gaza Strip, nor the liberation of the West Bank or even Jerusalem will suffice us. Hamas will pursue the armed struggle until the liberation of all our lands. We don’t recognize the state of Israel or its right to hold onto one inch of Palestine. Palestine is an Islamic land belonging to all the Muslims.”

Zahar said the disengagement would boost morale in the Arab and Muslim world and positively influence the [anti-US] campaign in Afghanistan and Iraq. “We are part of a large global movement called the International Islamic Movement,” he explained.

Ismail Haniyeh, another Hamas official in the Gaza Strip, expressed his fear that Israel would target Hamas after the disengagement. He also warned the PA against cracking down on Hamas supporters as it did in 1996.

Meanwhile, the Popular Resistance Committees, an alliance of various Palestinian militias operating in the Gaza Strip, said it was planning to transfer the technology of rocket manufacturing to the West Bank after the disengagement.

Muhammed Abdel Al, one of the leaders of the committees, said his group would move the battle against Israel to the West Bank. “We will make every effort to transfer all forms of resistance [to the West Bank] because [Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon intends to move his defeated soldiers to the West Bank,” he told reporters.

Abdel Al, who is better known by his nickname Abu Abeer, said his group had already begun transferring the technology of rockets and other military expertise to the West Bank. “We will transfer two-thirds of our budget to the West Bank,” he said. “Our rockets have a range of 18 kilometers. This means that is we fire them from Kalkilya, they will hit the occupied city of

Tal al-Rabi [Tel-Aviv].”

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Strategic thinking (townhall.com, 050901)

Clifford D. May

If American forces were not in Iraq, they’d have to be sent there.

At least that would be the case if Americans were serious about waging a war against militant Islamism. The fact is that al-Qaeda in Iraq is the most active and efficiently lethal branch of that transnational movement. Month after bloody month, its commander, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, deploys suicide bombers, takes hostages and cuts off heads.

It does not appear that Osama bin Laden is nearly so industrious.

Zarqawi is evil but not foolish. If his aim were merely to get Americans to leave Iraq there is a simple means to that end: Stop fighting. Were he and his followers to lie low for, say, six months, American military commanders would probably conclude – with relief — that their primary mission had been accomplished.

Under pressure from Republican members of Congress looking toward the 2006 elections, the White House would substantially reduce troop levels. It would be postulated that, with al-Qaeda no longer in the equation, Iraqi units should be able to handle a few thousand Baathist insurgents.

Once Americans were out the door, Zarqawi could re-start his offensive, weakening the government through resumed bombings and assassinations and then staging a coup.

Zarqawi doesn’t do that, one must suppose, because his goal is not to get Americans out of Iraq but to be seen on television screens around the world fighting Americans; and, he believes, eventually to claim credit for forcing Americans to turn tail and run. That would establish his legend. That would prove that bin Laden was right along: America is like the World Trade Towers – it looks big and strong but once hit, it quickly collapses.

That the U.S. cannot afford to lose to al-Qaeda in Iraq should be obvious. That the U.S. is fighting al-Qaeda in Iraq in the best possible way is debatable. Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr., a retired army lieutenant colonel and the author of a well-regarded book on Vietnam, argues in the September/October issue of Foreign Affairs that while the Bush administration has the right goals, it lacks a coherent strategy to reach them. “The United States and its coalition partners have never settled on a strategy for defeating the insurgency,” he insists.

The administration’s critics, he adds, also have done no strategic thinking. They have merely proposed “an accelerated timetable for withdrawal” with vague hopes about what might happen after.

Krepinevich makes the case for an “oil-spot strategy.” He would have American and Iraqi military forces provide intensive security to key areas, then gradually expand control over additional sections of the country — “hence the image of an expanding oil spot.”

Reconstruction and development would be confined to the secured areas for safety’s sake, because resources are limited, and to provide further incentives for Iraqi populations to assist with their defense. U.S. commanders who show an aptitude for this sort of unconventional warfare – not the kind of war Pentagon planners prepared for in recent decades – would be promoted and retained in the field rather than rotated in and out.

Other strategies can be devised and should be considered. For example, a strong argument can be made for taking the war, sooner rather than later, to regimes such as those in Syria and Iran that are providing material support to forces targeting Americans.

A little over two years ago, when the US went into Iraq, the belief was wide-spread that America’s smart bombs and sophisticated technology would “shock and awe” the enemy, destroying his will to fight. Not for the first, this enemy was underestimated. The pyrotechnics did not faze him.

Instead, he has found a way to use vivid televised images of bloodshed to “shock and awe” us. An increasing number of Americans at home – though few on the battlefield — have lost their will to fight and now argue that the U.S. should accept defeat. To some – Cindy Sheehan and her friends, for example – defeat is what the United States deserves.

In other words, America’s primary enemy has a serious strategy. The job of the White House and the Pentagon is to be absolutely certain that America has a strategy that is better.

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Bush Says 10 Plots by Al Qaeda Were Foiled: Speech Aims to Rally U.S. Support for War (Washington Post, 051007)

The United States and its allies have thwarted at least 10 serious al Qaeda terrorist plots since Sept. 11, 2001, including never-before-disclosed plans to use hijacked commercial airliners to attack the East and West coasts in 2002 and 2003, President Bush and his aides said yesterday.

The reported plots aimed to strike a wide variety of targets, including the Library Tower in Los Angeles, ships in international waters and a tourist site overseas, the White House said last night. Three of the 10 were directed at U.S. soil, officials said. The government, they added, also stopped five al Qaeda efforts to case possible targets or infiltrate operatives into the country.

Most of the plots were previously reported in some form; a few were revealed yesterday. The White House had never before placed a number or compiled a public list of the foiled attempts to follow up the Sept. 11 attacks, but it offered scant information beyond the location and general date of each reported plot — making it difficult to assess last night how serious or advanced they were or what role the government played in preventing them.

Bush cited the disrupted plans in a speech yesterday intended to shore up sagging public support for the war in Iraq and address more extensively than ever before the philosophical framework undergirding Islamic extremism. The radical movement, he said, goes beyond “isolated acts of madness,” animated by a coherent philosophy akin to Soviet Communism and Nazi fascism with the goal to “establish a radical Islamic empire that spans from Spain to Indonesia.”

“While the killers choose their victims indiscriminately, their attacks serve a clear and focused ideology, a set of beliefs and goals that are evil but not insane,” the president said. The disruption of some plots, he said, means that “the enemy is wounded but the enemy is still capable of global operations.”

Bush singled out Syria and Iran for condemnation, calling them “allies of convenience” of Islamic radicals “with a long history of collaboration with terrorists” and saying they “deserve no patience from the victims of terror.” He rebuffed calls to withdraw from Iraq, dismissing the “dangerous illusion” that pulling out would make the United States safer. And he rejected the argument that the Iraq war has only fostered terrorism, a position taken even by some in government.

The 40-minute address to the National Endowment for Democracy outlined no new strategy for the nation’s four-year-old battle with al Qaeda but inserted Bush directly into the underlying war of ideas, as many security specialists have been urging for some time. In the past few years he has avoided personalizing the conflict for fear of building up terrorist leaders, but yesterday he talked repeatedly and in unusually personal terms about Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab Zarqawi, the leader of the insurgency in Iraq.

Bin Laden, Bush said, deludes his followers into becoming suicide bombers. “He assures them that . . . this is the road to paradise — though he never offers to go along for the ride,” Bush said.

The president likewise quoted Zarqawi calling Americans “the most cowardly of God’s creatures” and offered a direct rebuttal. “Let’s be clear,” he said. “It is cowardice that seeks to kill children and the elderly with car bombs and cuts the throat of a bound captive and targets worshipers leaving a mosque.”

In the speech, Bush cited the numbers of disrupted plots and casings without giving details, and at first White House spokesmen were unable to document them. After scrambling all day and debating how much could be disclosed in response to media inquiries, the White House produced a list last night.

The three plots targeting U.S. territory included the well-known case of Jose Padilla, who was arrested after he allegedly explored a possible radiological “dirty bomb” attack, and two plans to use hijacked planes to attack the West Coast in mid-2002 and the East Coast in mid-2003. The White House document gave no further details about the timing or targets of the latter two.

Two sources familiar with intelligence information said the West Coast plot targeted the tallest building in Los Angeles, since renamed the US Bank Tower, and involved Malaysian militants and Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, who was captured in 2003. Previous reports on Mohammed’s interrogations in custody said that before Sept. 11 he mapped out an attack on the tower that was later aborted.

The seven foreign plots said to be disrupted by the United States and its partners included plans to strike London’s Heathrow Airport using hijacked planes, to hit ships in the Persian Gulf region and the Straits of Hormuz, to attack Westerners in Karachi, Pakistan, and to set off multi-target explosions in Britain.

The five “casings and infiltrations” in the United States involve better-known cases, such as the capture of Iyman Faris, who was accused of exploring the destruction of the Brooklyn Bridge and ultimately pleaded guilty to providing material support to al Qaeda. Another involved a man sent to scout gas stations in the United States, an apparent reference to Majid Khan, who was reportedly assigned by Mohammed to explore simultaneous bombings of gas stations.

Many of the thwarted attacks on the White House list seem tied to Mohammed. “Disruption of these plots in particular demonstrates how even a single arrest involving a lone individual can have a seismic effect on a terrorist group’s capabilities,” said Bruce Hoffman, a Rand Corp. terrorism analyst.

In his speech, originally scheduled to mark the four-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks but postponed after Hurricane Katrina, Bush had many terms for his enemy, calling it variously “Islamic radicalism,” “militant Jihadism” and even “Islamofascism.” He did not declare an end to his “global war on terror,” a phrase that some advisers had pushed to abandon in favor of “strategy against violent extremism.”

But he did offer what Hoffman called a “far more nuanced” portrait of his enemies, essentially adopting the view of experts that al Qaeda has morphed into a global enemy — as Bush said, “more like a loose network with many branches than an army under a single command,” with operatives united by ideology but not “centrally directed.”

Bush, however, rejected the idea that “extremism” had been “strengthened” by the ongoing U.S. war in Iraq, taking strong issue with analysts who believe that Iraq has become a “melting pot for jihadists from around the world, a training group and an indoctrination center” for a new generation of terrorists, as the State Department’s annual report on terrorism put it this year.

“To say Iraq has not contributed to the rise of global Sunni extremism movement is delusional,” said Roger W. Cressey, a former White House counterterrorism adviser under Bush and President Bill Clinton. “We should have an honest discussion about what these unintended consequences of the Iraq war are and what do we do to counter them.”

Some experts have been pushing for Bush to characterize the enemy as an ideology with specific political objectives, such as re-creating an Islamic caliphate to unite all Muslim countries. They argue that in the past Bush handed foes in the Middle East an easy weapon by not making such a distinction, leaving him open to the charge that the United States is waging war on Islam.

“The explanation of who we’re facing should have been done in the first year after the 9/11 attacks,” said Walid Phares, a scholar at the conservative Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. Bush has finally “moved from a war on terror to a war with an evil ideology.”

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Bali’s terror barometer (Washington Times, 051007)

On Oct. 12, 2002, terror bombers murdered 202 people on the Indonesian island of Bali. The terrorists belonged to Jemaah Islamiya (JI), al Qaeda’s nom de guerre in Southeast Asia. Eighty-eight Australians died in that attack.

Two months later, in Singapore, I interviewed a U.S. law enforcement official who had been advising Southeast Asian nations on security operations and investigation techniques.

“Bali’s a Hindu island with Australian tourists,” the officer told me. “Australia is an active U.S. ally [in the War on Terror]. That blast was an economic shot at Indonesia. New York Times Sunday travel section readers know where Bali is.”

He also added: “The religious dimension [Hindu Bali in Muslim Indonesia] is there, and the tourists. But JI wants to shake up Indonesia, test its response.”

He meant, strategically, the October 2002 attack would test Indonesia and other Southeast Asian nations’ ability to respond with judicial and governmental action, as well as police security.

This Oct. 1, suicide terrorists struck Bali, leaving 26 dead. No one missed the attack’s economic dimension — Bali’s tourist industry had begun recovering from the 2002 massacre.

Stopping a self-immolating fanatic as he walks from the beach into a restaurant is a tough challenge, particularly on a resort island with a laissez-faire ambience. Suicide bombers still penetrate Israel, which arguably has the planet’s best counterterror police policy.

Nevertheless, the attack embarrassed Indonesian officials who claim security on Bali has improved since 2002. After the attack, hotels emptied, as tourists returned home.

However, based on the public outrage in Indonesia, in Southeast Asia and internationally, JI’s latest murder binge is anything but a victory for jihadist terror. These reactions suggest that, since 2002, “something has changed” — and not in al Qaeda’s strategic favor.

For one thing, the death toll is far smaller. The Indonesian government has also tried to co-opt JI. Jakarta convicted JI’s “spiritual leader,” Abu Bakar Bashir, for conspiracy in the 2002 bombings, but has since treated him with deference. This has led to a diplomatic contretemps with Australia. However, the jailed Bashir said he disagreed with the latest attack, since it “sacrificed innocent people.”

But something larger seems at work. One indication is the overall tone of news coverage and public reaction — call it anger with a shrug. While terrorist apologist and British Member of Parliament George Galloway may yet sally forth with “root causes” rhetoric and anti-American agitprop, at the moment, the latest Bali blast has not produced demands that the world “understand what the terrorists want.” Everyone knows the jihadists want to sow fear.

Fear, however, doesn’t seem to sell as easily as it did.

In retrospect, the Madrid strike in March 2004 may prove the high point of terror’s offensive. Spain left the Iraq coalition. The jihadists since have had many headlines but no victories.

London’s bulldog response to this July’s attacks was a distinct rejection of fear, but it is one of many. Arguably, Afghanistan began the trend with its successful October 2004 presidential election, in the face of al Qaeda’s vow to stop it. Arab media have noticed the Iraqi people’s grit and guts. The Iraqis have not buckled despite daily massacres by “al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.” These are massacres in a Muslim land launched by jihadist extremists — a point no one misses.

Al Qaeda also is dogged by an extraordinary “policy failure.” In the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, al Qaeda proclaimed a new “global caliphate.” Jemaah Islamiya’s sole policy goal remains creation of a grand “Islamic state” stretching from southern Thailand through Malaysia and the Philippine and Indonesian archipelagoes.

Three years after Bali, four years after September 11, the jihadists “God-ordained empire” hasn’t materialized.

We might also consider the possibility of “media saturation.” Terrorists don’t simply target Bali and Baghdad, they target the news media. A bomb produces searing, gripping TV footage. But over time, sensational violence becomes, well, less sensational. The latest Bali attack is treated as a heinous echo of 2002, not a harbinger of jihadist revolution. When al Qaeda’s explosions lose media sizzle, al Qaeda will have lost completely.

Austin Bay is a nationally syndicated columnist.

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Why Bali? (Townhall.com, 051006)

by Clifford D. May

The latest suicide-bombings in Bali should make us stop and think: What did the people of Bali do to so anger Militant Islamists?

Balinese troops are not battling Baathist insurgents and al-Qaeda terrorists in Iraq. Bali was not involved in toppling the Taliban in Afghanistan. Bali hasn’t sided with India over disputed Kashmir or with Israel over the disputed West Bank.

Indeed, Bali’s foreign policy can hardly be regarded as objectionable by anyone – because Bali has no foreign policy. The predominately Hindu island is not independent. It is part of Indonesia which happens to be the largest Muslim nation in the world.

Yet Bali has now been struck twice by terrorists, the first time three years ago. There also have been two attacks in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, one outside the Australian Embassy last year, the other at a hotel in 2003.

What do the Islamists want? The purpose of terrorism is to terrorize – to frighten, to intimidate. The Islamists want relatively liberal democratic Indonesia to knuckle under.

Like the Nazis and Communists, Militant Islamists are totalitarians – they despise democratic societies. The difference is that where Nazis saw democracy as decadent, and Communists viewed democracy as bourgeois, Militant Islamists regard democracy as blasphemous: It awards to citizens powers that belong to God — as interpreted by them, of course.

Islamists also are offended by Indonesia’s traditional tolerance of its religious minorities. In the militants’ view, Hindus, Christians, Jews and other groups living in “Muslim lands” can aspire only to be dhimmis — second-class citizens who are grudgingly endured and whose faiths are aggressively discouraged.

And, of course, Bali hosts Australians, Americans and other infidels who sit on beaches wearing skimpy clothing, drinking alcohol and engaging in additional behaviors of which Islamists disapprove. The Indonesian journalist Sadanand Dhume wrote last week that “Saudi and Gulf petrodollars” have been used in recent years to undermine the country’s “easy-going” Islamic traditions while indoctrinating young Muslim men to react with violence to “the sight of a beer bottle, a church steeple or a woman’s bare head.”

Indonesia is not the only Muslim country the Islamists are targeting. In August, scores of bombs rocked Bangladesh. Only a few people were killed and the international community shrugged. But Bangladeshis got the message loud and clear: “Become more like us, more Muslim – as we define the term — or we will make you suffer. No one can protect you. No one will even try.”

Similarly, and again with little attention from the U.N., the media or just about anyone else, southern Thailand has become the bloodiest killing ground for Muslims after Iraq. Although most Thais are Buddhists, Muslims predominate in three southern provinces. There, bombings, beheadings and drive-by shootings have killed more than 1,000 people, including moderate Muslims and Buddhist monks and teachers.

One conclusion should be obvious: If nations such as Indonesia, Bangladesh and Thailand can not make themselves inoffensive to Militant Islamism there is no way that the United States could perform such a feat, no matter which policies we changed or how much our public diplomacy improved.

Americans received no credit in the eyes of Islamists for their assistance to Muslims rebelling against Soviet domination of Afghanistan, their rescue of Kuwait from Saddam Hussein’s clutches, their intervention on behalf of Muslim communities in Kosovo and Bosnia.

But, as Vice President Cheney pointed out in a speech to Marines in North Carolina this week, the militants did take note when Hezbollah suicide bombers chased American forces out of Lebanon in 1983, and when terrorists caused U.S. forces to flee Somalia ten years later. In these and many other instances, Cheney said, “the terrorists hit America and America did not hit back hard enough.”

The Islamists believe they now have a real chance to drive America out of Iraq, thereby demonstrating that Lebanon and Somalia were not isolated events but the unfolding of a historical pattern of American defeat and retreat under fire.

Combine that with the pressure the Islamists are exerting in such places as Indonesia, Bangladesh and Thailand and you begin to see how a new geo-political reality could take shape.

In time, Islamists believe, they will become the dominant force throughout Southeast Asia, across the Middle East, into Africa and beyond. They intend to create – they would say re-create – an empire, a caliphate, that will challenge the Great Satan, the “Crusaders,” the “unbelievers,” the Zionists, and the Muslim “apostates” as well.

The Islamists are convinced that the stronger they become, the less they will be resisted and the more they will be appeased. Who can say for certain that they are wrong?

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The Light and Dark Sides of the War on Terrorism: What we’re dealing with. (National Review Online, 051019)

Let’s start with al-Reuters’ thoughtful contribution to the well-being of the Western world. One of their star reporters finds a new way to bash the United States: We’re not paying off the crystal-ball operators.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil, Oct 6 (Reuters) — A Brazilian court will consider a psychic’s claim that the U.S. government owes him a $25 million reward for information he says he provided on the hiding place of ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

Brazil’s second-highest court, the Superior Court of Justice, decided on Thursday the Brazilian justice system could rule on the matter and told a court in the psychic’s home state of Minas Gerais to judge the case. The lower court had earlier told Jucelino Nobrega da Luz it could not take up his claim and it would have to be judged in the United States, but the higher tribunal ruled otherwise.

“The Minas Gerais court will work with the claim,” said a spokesman for the Superior Court of Justice. “Jucelino da Luz alleges that the U.S. armed forces only found Saddam based on his letters that provided his exact location, the very hole where he was hiding in Iraq. So he filed a court case to claim the reward.”

The U.S. government offered the award for Saddam in July 2003 after the U.S.-led forces occupied the country. He was captured in December of the same year. The court said Da Luz sent letters to the U.S. government from September 2001, describing Saddam’s future hiding place — a tiny cellar at a farmhouse near Tikrit. He never received a reply.

“His lawyers attest that the author has an uncommon gift of having visions of things that will come to pass. ... Via dreams, he sees situations, facts that will happen in the future,” a court statement said.

In case the court upholds the claim, it will be sent via diplomatic channels to the U.S. State Department.

Anybody wanna bet what the Minas Gerais court is going to rule? Could any self-respecting Brazilian court resist this glorious opportunity to stick its fingers in the teary eyes of the USG? I don’t think so.

The real question is how Condi will respond...maybe she’ll ask Harriett for a legal opinion...

Then, inevitably, to Iran, that happy country where people celebrate all the time. From the indispensable Dr. Zin’s website, aptly named www.regimechangeiran.com, comes this summary of recent festivals:

Iran Press News reported on the protest and conflict at Najafabad University. A first hand account.

Iran Press News reported that students from the Abbasspour University for Water and Power Industry protested against the regime’s guards in their university.

Iran Press News reported that an angry mob, protesting the violent and oppressive actions of the disciplinary forces of the regime, attacked governmental bureaus in the Province of Qeshm.

SMCCDI reported that drivers of many Iranian Collective Buses refused to validate passenger’s tickets, today, in order to protest against their poor conditions.

SMCCDI reported that dozens of Iranian women gathered at the “Enghelab” square in order to protest peacefully against the social and poor economic conditions in Iran.

SMCCDI reported that hundreds of students of Beheshti University of Tehran protested, yesterday night, against the repressive measures and poor conditions.

Iran Press News added that the Beheshti University students then set their dorm on fire. ISNA published photos.

SMCCDI reported that another young man was killed by the Islamic regime’s security forces in the Greater Tehran area, Friday.

SMCCDI reported that a riot took place, on Saturday, in the Island of Gheshm located in the Persian Gulf.

Agence France Presse reported that witnesses claim, Iranian police shot and killed a motorist after he failed to stop when spotted eating during holy month of Ramadan. Winston, The Spirit of Man reported on the IRGC units nightly live fire exercises in the mountains of eastern Tehran.

So the country is in turmoil. And what is the regime doing about it? The answer comes from the folks at Roozonline.com. A bit of background is necessary in order to get the full significance of the news. According to the Shiite faith, the 12th imam (the authoritative successors to the Prophet Mohammed) disappeared from this earth, and at the end of mortal time he will reappear, to usher in the Kingdom of Allah. The Iranian Shiites believe that the imam is hiding at the bottom of a well in Ifahan, known as the Jamkaran well, around which a magnificent mosque has been constructed. Okay? Now you can understand the story:

In a formal cabinet meeting chaired by Iran’s new president’s first deputy, the ministers printed and ratified an agreement with the Shiites’ 12th Imam. In his opening remarks, Parviz Davoudi, Ahmadinejad’ first deputy suggested that the cabinet ministers should sign an agreement with 12th Imam, the same way they signed a pact with the new president. The ministers collectively agreed and so there is now an agreement between the two! The ministers then questioned how the 12th hidden Imam will sign the agreement!

The solution was resolved when the government’s cabinet ministers agreed to ask Saffar Harandi, Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance how president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad planned to take the letter to the holy Imam. Next Thursday night, Saffar Harandi dropped the signed agreement to the Jamkaran well, a spot that Moslem religious groups believe is where the Shiite 12th Imam is hidden. This well is also the resting place for tons of letters and requests from Muslim pilgrims.

A short while after the cabinet ministers’ collective agreement, the government spent 70 billion rials to feed the needy pilgrims of Jamkaran Mosque. At the Transportation Minister’s suggestion, this money would be spent to reconstruct the roads leading to Jamkaran and to allocate large amount of money for other similar projects. There was strong criticism on this from all fronts and even Ahmadinejad seemed very offended. He said that this government was not in power to build roads and that it should be thankful to 12th Imam’s blessing for being in power.

We are talking about some of the highest-ranking officials in the Islamic republic. So far as I know, this is not political satire, it’s reportage. And the point is obvious, isn’t it? We are not dealing with people like us (although a couple of the more hyper columnists at, say, the New York Times might well suspect that there are lots of evangelicals who secretly aspire to this sort of behavior). The Iranian people are suffering enormously at the hands of this regime, whose president “was not in power to build roads” and owes its legitimacy to a vanished religious figure at the bottom of a well in one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

And for those who thought that Iranian “elections” somehow gave a form of democratic legitimacy to the president and his cabinet, read it again. It’s the 12th imam, not the people of Iran, who bestows power.

There are two groups of people who ought to be made to read this account several times: those European pseudo-diplomats who think that you can reach a rational modus vivendi with the mullahs; and the innumerable failed diplomats and elected officials (I am thinking, as I so often do, of Senator Richard Lugar and his buddies on the Foreign Relations Committee, who do not deign to take testimony from critics of the Iranian regime) in this country who keep on calling for normalization with Iran.

We’re talking about real fanatics here. Fun reading, yes, but they kill a lot.

— Michael Ledeen, an NRO contributing editor, is most recently the author of The War Against the Terror Masters. He is resident scholar in the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute.

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Democracy as a weapon (Washington Times, 051020)

Over the weekend, Iraqis struck back with a crucial blow to the terrorist insurgents as voters went to the polls for the second time this year and voted in support of a constitution. The election comes on the heels of an important announcement. Last week, U.S. intelligence officials released the 6,300-word al Qaeda playbook for what they hope is the gradual defeat of coalition forces and an emerging democracy in Iraq.

Just four days prior to the referendum vote, U.S. intelligence officials released a letter from Ayman al-Zawahri, al Qaeda’s No. 2 operative, to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a leader of the insurgency in Iraq. In the letter, al-Zawahri predicted that American forces “will exit soon” and he acknowledges that the war in Iraq will be won “in the battlefield of the media.” Al-Zawahri’s belief that the insurgency must improve its efforts in engaging in geo-political warfare proves that the battle for the hearts and minds of Iraqi’s still goes on. It should come as no surprise that al Qaeda members in Iraq are now attempting to denounce the letter as a fake.

The letter proves that the media war is a key aspect to their overall effort to thwart democracy in the Middle East. The 6,300-word document outlined the terrorist political campaign to defeat coalition troops in Iraq, not by traditional military victory, but by carefully plotting an offensive on American public opinion.

Their short-term objective is clear: The insurgency must succeed in defeating an emerging democratic Iraq by eliminating its current military protectors. The insurgents’ plan is simple: Drag the fight on by continuing to murder innocent Americans and Iraqis until American public opinion has waned.

More importantly, al-Zawahri’s letter outlines long-term goals for the terrorist network in Iraq. These goals include: 1) the expulsion of U.S. forces, 2) the establishment of an Islamic authority in Iraq, 3) expanding the fight to other secular countries in the Middle East, 4) taking the fight to Israel.

The goals of the al Qaeda network constitute the means to a desired ending that the United States simply cannot allow.

Withdrawal from Iraq or setting a timetable for retreat would give way to the terrorists’ goal of transforming Iraq into a fascist regime based on religious fanaticism.

If al-Zawahri’s letter proves one thing, it proves that a time-table or so-called exit strategy is irresponsible at best and deadly at worst. Understanding al Qaeda’s goals leads us to the certain fact that Muslim extremists have planned to export their terrorist ideology long before the invasion of Iraq. It is important to remember that coalition soldiers were not in Iraq on September 11; in fact, we have been a longtime target of their hate.

The offensive in Iraq is a response to the growing disease of Islamic extremism, not a symptom. The ultimate solution, however, cannot be attained with soldiers and guns; it can only be won through the democratic process, which is a vehicle for freedom and hope.

The will of a people seeking freedom from fear cannot be deterred by violent attacks; it can only be defeated with oppression, violence and hatred, which al Qaeda can adequately supply. The road to democracy is one that requires time and patience. Yes, the costs have been high, and with every life lost they get higher. However, the rewards of a free Iraq will be much greater and will save even more lives in the end.

The constitution vote signifies a huge victory in the “media battlefield” in the war for Iraqi freedom. As an Iraqi official said recently, “they [the terrorists] are frightened by democracy in Iraq.” Now, more than ever we must remain steadfast as Iraqis continue to move toward an independent democratic society.

Surely, democracy is the biggest and most effective weapon in America’s arsenal. The war on terror cannot be won without it.

Rep. K. Michael Conaway, Texas Republican, is a member of the House Armed Services Committee.

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More Danish Terror Arrests (Foxnews, 051029)

COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Two more men suspected of belonging to a terrorist network planning a homicide attack in Europe were arrested in Denmark, police said Saturday.

The two men, who were not identified, are suspected of assisting four young Muslims arrested in Copenhagen Thursday on charges they were planning an “imminent” terror attack.

The two suspects, described only as young men, were to face a preliminary court hearing later Saturday, police officer Ole Schultz said.

“They will then be charged with assisting terror attempts,” Schultz said without elaborating.

The arrests were made Friday.

Danish police have said the four men arrested on Thursday are linked to the arrests of a Turkish, Swedish and Bosnian national in Sarajevo on Oct. 19-20 on suspicion of preparing a terrorist attack.

Police said they found explosives, firearms and other military equipment in connection with those arrests. The Bosnian national has since been released.

No weapons or explosives have been found in connection with the Danish arrests, police said.

Danish police are working with Bosnian investigators on the case but said it is still unclear where the alleged terror attack was intended to take place.

According to Sarajevo’s Dnevni Avaz daily newspaper, one of the three suspects arrested in Bosnia was an 18-year-old preparing a suicide attack on the Sarajevo embassy of a European Union country. Police have not confirmed the report.

Terrorists have not hit Denmark in 20 years, but the London bombings in July stirred fears that the Scandinavian country could be targeted for its participation in the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, where Denmark has about 500 troops.

In 1985, a bomb detonated outside the offices of North West Orient airlines in Copenhagen, killing one person and wounding 16. Three Palestinians living in Sweden were convicted of planting the bombs and sentenced to life in prison in 1989.

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Australian police foil ‘catastrophic’ attack and seize 17 (Times Online, 051109)

ANTI-TERRORISM laws rushed through the Australian Parliament last week have prevented a “catastrophic” attack by Islamic extremists, the Australian authorities claimed yesterday.

The legislation, approved despite opposition from civil liberties groups, enabled the police to seize 17 suspects in raids by 500 officers on 24 homes in Sydney and Melbourne yesterday.

One man, shot in the neck after allegedly opening fire on the police, was later identified as a former actor on the television soap Home and Away. Omar Baladjam, 28, played the part of a graffiti artist in the programme. On another occasion he appeared in the ABC crime drama Wildside, portraying a criminal who kills two policemen.

Police said that chemicals that could have been used in bombs were found in some of the houses raided. Ken Moroney, the New South Wales police commissioner, said: “I’m satisfied that we have disrupted what I would regard as the final stages of a terrorist attack or the launch of a terrorist attack.”

The chemicals were similar to those used in the London Underground attacks of July 7. The police would not identify the likely targets, but the suspects alluded to the transport system and the stock exchange in conversations monitored during months of surveillance.

Last night the Australian Government trumpeted the arrest of 16 Muslims in night time raids on homes in Sydney and Melbourne as vindication for its decision to introduce an urgent amendment to its controversial anti-terrorism Bill.

The key amendment to the Bill allowed the police to arrest the suspects on charges of intent to commit a terrorist attack, even if they could not specify the target. Carl Scully, the New South Wales Police Minister, said that that change had allowed his officers to prevent a “catastrophic act of terrorism”.

John Howard, the Prime Minister, who was accused of exaggerating the terrorist threat to ensure the Bill’s passage last week, claimed vindication. He said: “We were advised that the change would strengthen the capacity of the authorities to respond to the situation that had been identified, and it is the view of two police commissioners and the Victoria Premier that that is precisely what happened.”

Steve Bracks, the Victoria Premier, said the police had disrupted “probably the most serious preparation for a terrorist attack that we have seen in Australia”. Peter Costello, the Treasurer and Liberal Party deputy leader, said the raids proved that “the threat of terrorism is real, that we cannot be complacent about it . . . It is no consolation to wait until after an event and then try to pick up the suspects.”

The Bill is one of the most draconian pieces of legislation to have gone before parliament. It allows the detention of people for up to 14 days without charge and seven-year prison sentences for those found guilty of sedition.

The suspects detained in the raids were mainly Australian Muslims of Lebanese extraction. Their alleged leader was an outspoken cleric named Abdul Nacer Benbrika, also known as Abu Bakr, who was among those arrested in Melbourne. He came to prominence in August when he voiced his support for Osama bin Laden. Police and intelligence officers are believed to have identified him as a security risk earlier , but lacked the power to arrest him.

The suspects appeared before courts in Sydney and Melbourne yesterday on charges that included conspiring to plan a bomb attack and belonging to a banned organisation.

Melbourne magistrates were told that those arrested had formed a terrorist group designed to kill innocent men and women. The court was told that the group had been recorded discussing bombmaking and martyrdom. Several had allegedly undergone military-style training.

Police and security services refused to give details of the surveillance methods employed against those arrested, but sources indicated that telephones had been tapped and conversations monitored over many months.

Outside the Central Local Court in Sydney, Adam Houda, for the defence, said that the police had no evidence that a terrorist attack was being planned. “These matters are scandalous, political prosecutions that shame this nation,” he said. Families caught up in the raids accused the police of failing to respect their religious traditions by not allowing female members of households time to dress properly.

Fighting erupted outside the Melbourne court, where supporters of the accused men clashed with television cameramen and threw chairs at reporters.

The police said that more arrests could be expected as the anti-terrorism operation crackdown continued.

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Zarqawi’s Big Mistake: The Jordan attacks may hurt. (National Review Online, 051114)

You know that a terrorist attack has backfired when the bad guys start blaming it on us. Rumors are spreading on the insurgent websites and chatrooms that last week’s hotel bombings in Amman, Jordan, were part of a CIA plot, a Mossad intrigue, or a take-your-pick conspiracy. Since al Qaeda has already admitted the attack was theirs, this line will have a hard time playing, but it shows that at some level the terrorist sympathizers know that this was a bad move.

As angry Jordanians poured into the streets to denounce hometown zero Zarqawi, he rushed out a second statement seeking to justify the attacks. He explained that these hotels had been under observation for some time, and that they “had become favorite spots for intelligence activities, especially for the Americans, the Israelis, and some West European countries, where the hidden battle is fought in the so-called war against terrorism.” In other words, they were not seeking to kill civilians, but aiming at a legitimate military target. I doubt this argument will sway the masses, since many of the victims were attending a wedding at the time. In p.r. terms it is probably the worst event a terrorist can bomb. Only the hard-core psychopaths will get a warm feeling from blowing up someone’s nuptials.

Attacks like this are not only criminal, they are foolhardy. They rarely benefit the terrorists, and often harm their cause. Recent history makes the case. The 9/11 attacks unified and motivated our country to unleash incalculable harm on al Qaeda. The 2002 Bali bombing had the principle strategic effect of making the Australians their implacable foes. The 2005 London bombings rallied British public opinion against the continuing threat. The 3/11 bombings in Madrid may have helped influence the Spanish elections to bring in a government with a less cooperative Iraq policy, but in other areas of the War on Terrorism Spanish policies have if anything gotten tougher. In Jordan, a researcher found that since the bombing, nine of ten people he surveyed who had previously held a favorable view of al Qaeda had changed their minds. This is no way to run a revolution.

King Abdullah has rightfully taken umbrage at statements, particularly from myopic Western pundits, that Jordan was attacked primarily because of its relationship with the United States. Al Qaeda has plenty of reasons to attack Jordan that have nothing to do with the U.S. or the war in Iraq. Those rushing to link everything to Iraq (and, by implication, U.S. policies) should remember that Zarqawi was jailed in Jordan from 1993-1999, and there is no love lost between him and the Jordanian government. Furthermore, Jordan sentenced him to death in absentia for complicity in the murder of American diplomat Laurence Foley in Amman in 2002. Zarqawi would be killing people whether Coalition forces were in Iraq or not. It’s his job, and he likes it.

Noteworthy in Zarqawi’s second announcement was his list of intelligence services working with the U.S., which includes those from Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the Palestinian Authority. The last is significant because lately al Qaeda has been seeking to raise its profile in the Palestinian community. Al Qaeda has never had a high opinion of the Fatah faction (Yasser Arafat’s security forces opened fire on Palestinian demonstrators carrying pictures of bin Laden in October 2001) and as the government of the Palestinian Authority seeks to move towards a measure of respectability, al Qaeda is moving in to take over the market in violent resistance. They announced the formation of a franchise in Gaza and won praise from a local imam. Members of Hamas, frustrated at their organization’s drift away from violence, are already starting to defect to the more motivated al Qaeda. This is a development well worth watching.

Another lesson learned for the terrorists is that multiple suicide attacks do not always go off as planned, and when they fail they leave behind living bombers who make excellent intelligence sources. For example: In the May 2003 Casablanca bombings (which Zarqawi was allegedly involved in as well), one of the cell leaders chose at the last minute not to detonate his bomb and collect a trip to paradise. Instead, he was arrested and helped bring down what was left of the organization in Morocco.

So too with the Amman bombing; 35-year-old Sajida Mubarak Atrous al Rishawi suffered a wardrobe malfunction and now has become an invaluable asset in understanding the means, motives and methods of the suicide cell. Al Qaeda actually helped investigators by rushing out information on the bombers not knowing that Sajida was still alive and trying to go to ground. Zarqawi’s statement tipped off police that there was a woman involved, and she was the wife of one of the bombers. After quickly connecting some dots, she was in custody.

Early reports have it that Sajida is the sister of Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi, said to be a Zarqawi lieutenant killed fighting Coalition forces in Fallujah. Her pseudonym for the operation was “Sajida Abdel Qader Latif,” which could be an homage to Latif al-Rishawi, head of the Abu Risha (or Al Burayshah) tribe of al Anbar, who was killed in Ramadi in a clash with U.S. troops in February 2005. The previous tribal leader, Sheikh Khamis Futaikhan, was gunned down in November 2004 in Ramadi by unknown assailants. It’s a tough gig. But if Zarqawi is sending members of the inner circle on suicide missions, you have to wonder how many people he has left.

Less is being reported about Sajida’s husband, Ali al-Shamari, though someone by that name helped lead a mutiny of 200 Iraqi soldiers in April, 2004, when they were ordered into action against insurgents in Fallujah. This could be a coincidence of names, but if not it adds to the picture; it illustrates the insurgent technique of penetrating the Iraqi security forces in order to sow various forms of chaos. I guess he ran out of missions and wanted to go out with a big one.

Incidentally: Back on September 14, 2000, an Iraqi national named Adil al-Rishawi hijacked Qatar Airways flight 404 as it was heading for Amman, Jordan. He surrendered to Saudi authorities after the plane made a forced landing in Hail. At his trial in Doha, Qatar, he said he was trying to draw attention to the plight of Iraqis under U.N. sanctions. One report stated that al-Rishawi took over the plane armed with “a sharp tool.” Sounds familiar. No word whether he ever visited Saddam’s terrorist training camp at Salman Pak, but if he is still being held in Qatar maybe someone should go talk to him.

It will be interesting in coming days to see if Zarqawi keeps trying to explain the Jordan bombings, and how al Qaeda’s limitless appetite for violence will affect public opinion in the Muslim world. People who think this attack is evidence of al Qaeda’s strength or momentum have it backwards. This is a sign of weakness, of rashness, of desperation. It has hurt their legitimacy and damage their movement. As the old saying goes: In politics if you are explaining, you are losing, and Zarqawi has a lot more explaining to do.

— James S. Robbins is senior fellow in national-security affairs at the American Foreign Policy Council, a trustee for the Leaders for Liberty Foundation, and an NRO contributor.

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The Cicero Article: A German magazine offers insight into Iran’s ongoing support for terrorism. (Weekly Standard, 051110)

WHILE IRANIAN PRESIDENT Mahmood Ahmadinejad’s recent call to wipe Israel off the map has elicited a great deal of much-needed international condemnation, relatively little focus has been paid since to Iran’s long-standing support for international terrorism. Thankfully, a recent article published in the German political magazine Cicero, titled “How Dangerous is Iran?” serves as a welcome supplement to the Iranian president’s remarks that, among other things, argues that Iran is currently harboring the surviving al Qaeda leadership.

This information is by no means new. In September 2003 for example, the Washington Post reported that “after the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the locus of al Qaeda’s degraded leadership moved to Iran. The Iranian security services, which answer to the country’s powerful Islamic clerics, protected the leadership.” But the same article also claimed that after the May 2003 Riyadh bombings “the Iranians, under pressure from the Saudis, detained the al Qaeda group.” Most news reports on Iranian support for terrorism since then have claimed that the al Qaeda leaders are being held in some form of light detention or perhaps loose house arrest.

According to the new information in Cicero, however, whatever the situation might have been in May 2003, it is no longer the case.

After spending some time addressing the disillusionment of the Iranian reformist movement in the wake of the triumph of Ahmadinejad and his hardline backers as well as the threat posed by the Iranian nuclear program, the Cicero article shifts its focus to the issue of Iranian support for terrorism, leaving little doubt that the Iranian regime views terrorism as a legitimate means of achieving its policy objectives. A member of the Jordanian intelligence agency GID is quoted as saying, “Ahmadinezhad [sic] can and will use the terrorist card every time as extortion against the West . . . If Europe does not accommodate Iran in the dispute over the Mullahs’ nuclear program, they will threaten terrorism against British soldiers in Iraq and French interests in Lebanon.” If British accusations of explosives being shipped into Iraq from Iran for use against Coalition troops are any indication, this card is already being played.

The article’s revelations, however, go far beyond that:

The author of this article was able to look at a list of the holy killers who have found safe refuge in Iran. The list reads like the Who’s Who of global jihad, with close to 25 high-ranking leadership cadres of Al-Qa’ida—planners, organizers, and ideologues of the jihad from Egypt, Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, North Africa, and Europe. Right at the top in the Al-Qa’ida hierarchy: three of Usama Bin Ladin’s sons, Saad, Mohammad, and Othman.

Al-Qa’ida spokesman Abu Ghaib enjoys Iranian protection, as does Abu Dagana al-Alemani (known as the German), who coordinates cooperation of the various jihadist networks throughout the world from Iran. They live in secure housing of the Revolutionary Guard in and around Tehran. “This is not prison or house arrest,” is the conclusion of a high-ranking intelligence officer. “They are free to do as they please.”

Saif al-Adel, military chief and number three in Al-Qa’ida, also had a free hand. In early May 2003, Saudi intelligence recorded a telephone conversation with the organizer of the series of attacks in the Saudi capital Riyadh that claimed over 30 victims, including seven foreigners, in May 2003. Saif al-Adel gives orders for the attacks from Iran, where he operated under the wing of the Iranian intelligence service.

For years, according to the findings of Middle Eastern and Western intelligence services, Iranian intelligence services have already worked together repeatedly with Sunni jihad organizations of Al-Qa’ida. “As an Islamist, I go to the Saudis to get money,” the Jordanian GID man outlines the current practice of Islamist holy warriors. “When I need weapons, logistical support, or military terrorist training and equipment, I go to the Iranians.”

The journalist who authored the article, Bruno Schirra, is no lightweight. In the spring of 2005, he wrote another piece for Cicero, titled “The World’s Most Dangerous Man.” An exposé of Iraqi insurgent leader Abu Musab Zarqawi, Schirra quoted extensively from German Federal Office of Criminal Investigation (BKA) documents that collated data from German, American, French, and Israeli intelligence sources. These documents, some of which were classified, listed the Zarqawi’s activities, passports, phone numbers, mosques used or controlled by his followers in Germany, and his benefactors. In addition to confirming much of the evidence presented by Collin Powell to the United Nations Security Council on the activities of Zarqawi’s network in Europe, the documents also stated point-blank that Iran “provided Al-Zarqawi with logistical support on the part of the state.” Schirra’s ample use of classified documents in making his claims appear to have alarmed the German government—in September 2005, German authorities raided Cicero’s Potsdam offices as well as Schirra’s home at the order of then-Interior Minister Otto Schily. These efforts to learn the identity of Schirra’s source prompted widespread outrage from the German parliament and, ironically, seem to have verified the truth of Schirra’s original article.

As the United States continues to debate both internally and with its European allies over how to deal with Iran and its new president, it would seem that this new information, coming from a country that strongly opposed the Iraq war, would be a welcome contribution to the discussion.

Dan Darling is a counter-terrorism consultant for the Manhattan Institute’s Center for Policing Terrorism.

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Zarqawi Calls for Jordan King’s Head (Foxnews, 051118)

AMMAN, Jordan — The Mideast’s most feared terrorist sought Friday to justify a triple suicide bombing on Amman hotels that killed 59 civilians, insisting he did not deliberately target a wedding party and appealing to Muslims to believe that he was not attacking them.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, took an unusually defensive tone in an audiotape posted on the Internet, seeking to shore up support after widespread anger over the civilian deaths, even among sympathizers.

Still, the Jordanian-born al-Zarqawi made clear he was not about to stop the bloodshed, warning he will attack more tourist sites in Jordan and threatening to behead King Abdullah II. He said he was targeting Jordan because it is serving as a “protector” for Israel, helps the U.S. military in Iraq and has become a “swamp of obscenity,” with alcohol and prostitution in its tourist sites.

“Your star is fading. You will not escape your fate, you descendant of traitors. We will be able to reach your head and chop it off,” al-Zarqawi said, referring to the king.

Al-Zarqawi, who has a $25 million bounty on his head from the U.S., told Jordanians to stay away from bases used by U.S. forces, hotels and tourist sites in Amman, the Dead Sea and the southern resort of Aqaba and embassies of governments participating in the war in Iraq, saying they would be targeted.

“People of Islam in Jordan, we want to assure you that we are extremely careful over your lives ... you are more beloved to us than ourselves,” he said.

The authenticity of the audiotape, posted on an Islamic militant Web forum, could not be confirmed independently, but the voice resembled that of al-Zarqawi on previous tapes.

The tape was posted following widespread outrage over the Nov. 9 bombings against three Amman hotels that killed 59 people, 30 of them in a Jordanian-Palestinian wedding party held in a ballroom.

Jordan has seen a series of large demonstrations denouncing the attack, including one on Friday. Thousands marched through downtown Amman, chanting “Al-Zarqawi, you coward,” and carrying banners that read “Al-Zarqawi, you are the enemy of God.”

Contributors to militant Web forums — who generally lionize al-Zarqawi and praise his attacks — criticized the bombings. In the militant leader’s hometown of Zarqa, east of Amman, many residents denounced him, saying he has lost any sympathy he had there.

In the past, al-Zarqawi has defended Muslim civilian casualties in attacks by his suicide bombers in Iraq, saying they were justified because the attacks are part of a “jihad” against U.S. occupiers and their Iraqi allies. “God ordered us to attack the infidels by all means ... even if armed infidels and unintended victims — women and children — are killed together,” he said in an audiotape released in May.

But he sounded more penitent in Friday’s audio.

“People of Jordan, we did not undertake to blow up any wedding parties,” he said. “For those Muslims who were killed, we ask God to show them mercy, for they were not targets. We did not and will not think for one moment to target them even if they were people of immorality and debauchery.”

In the deadliest of the triple attacks, a bomber set off his explosives belt in the Radisson hotel, killing 30 people at a Jordanian-Palestinian wedding party in a ballroom. Both the bride’s parents were among the dead, as was the father of the groom.

But al-Zarqawi insisted that Jordanian officials’ accounts that the bomber specifically targeted the wedding were a “lie.”

Al-Zarqawi claimed the bomber struck a hall where Israeli and American intelligence officials were meeting at the time. Part of the roof fell in on the wedding hall, either from the blast or even — he said — from a separate bomb placed in the roof, though not by Al Qaeda.

“Our brothers knew their targets with great precision,” he said. “God knows we chose these hotels only after more than two months of close observation (that proved) that these hotels had become headquarters for the Israeli and American intelligence,” he said.

Al-Zarqawi accused the Jordanian government of hiding casualties among Israeli and American agents.

The Radisson attack involved two bombers — an Iraqi husband and wife. Witnesses told Jordanian security officials that the couple talked their way into the wedding, telling hotel employees they wanted to watch, then went to different sides of the hall. When the woman’s explosives belt failed to go off, her husband told her to leave, then he jumped on a table in the ballroom and set off his blast, Jordanian officials have said.

Al Qaeda in Iraq issued a claim of responsibility soon after the blasts, saying a husband and wife carried out one of the attacks — a statement that appears to have backfired, alerting Jordanian authorities that a woman was involved and leading to her capture four days later.

The woman, Sajida al-Rishawi, later made a televised confession, saying she and her husband entered the wedding party ballroom.

Bassam al-Bana, the spokesman for the Radisson, denied al-Zarqawi’s claims about an intelligence meeting. “There were no meetings of Israelis there,” he told The Associated Press.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev refused to comment when asked whether Israeli intelligence officers were meeting at the hotel. “This man has the blood of many innocents on his hands, most of them Muslims. To claim that those innocent victims in Jordan were working for Israel is simply ludicrous and deserves ridicule,” he said.

The only Israeli killed in the blasts was an Israeli Arab who was attending the wedding. Four Americans were killed in the triple bombings — including the Syrian-born moviemaker Mustafa Akkad and his daughter, who were guests at the Radisson wedding reception.

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Jordan King Calls for All-Out War on Islamic Militancy (Foxnews, 051124)

AMMAN, Jordan — Jordan’s King Abdullah II urged his new prime minister Thursday to launch an all-out war against Islamic militancy in the wake of the triple hotel bombings earlier this month that killed 63 people.

In a letter to newly appointed Prime Minister Marouf al-Bakhit, Abdullah said the Nov. 9 bombings “increase our determination to stick to our reform and democratization process, which is irreversible.”

“At the same time, it reaffirms our need to adopt a comprehensive strategy to confront the Takfiri culture,” Abdullah said, referring to the ideology adopted by Al Qaeda and other militants who condone the killing of those they consider infidels.

Abdullah said the strategy should “not only deal with the security dimension, but also the ideological, cultural and political spheres to confront those who choose the path of destruction and sabotage to reach their goals.”

Al-Bakhit was Jordan’s ambassador to Israel until appointed to head the national security council six days after the bombings.

Prime Minister Adnan Badran resigned earlier Thursday, the official told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not allowed to speak to the press.

The official Petra news agency confirmed Badran’s resignation, saying the prime minister, had tendered his Cabinet’s resignation to the king and the monarch accepted it. Badran took office in April.

The change of government is part of general shake-up following the suicide bombings, which hurt Jordan’s reputation as one of the most stable countries in the Middle East.

Al-Bakhit was appointed Nov. 15 to head the national security council.

Government officials said the king may have chosen al-Bakhit because of his reputation as a tough former general who ran a southern Jordanian university that trains army and police recruits.

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Children and patients die in hospital suicide blast (London Telegraph, 051125)

A suicide car bomber killed dozens of people in an Iraqi town yesterday when he rammed his vehicle into American and Iraqi soldiers as they handed out toys and sweets to children outside a hospital.

But instead of inflicting mass casualties among the soldiers, the bomber’s victims were mostly children, medics and patients, killed when the brunt of the blast was taken by the hospital’s emergency room, which was wrecked by the explosion.

The attack in Mahmoudiyah, south of Baghdad, claimed at least 30 lives and was followed by a second blast last night in a shopping district in Hilla, also south of the Iraqi capital, where up to 11 people were reported to have died.

Six American soldiers were also reported to have been killed in attacks elsewhere in Iraq since Wednesday.

The American military said that four of its servicemen were lightly injured in the Mahmoudiyah attack. Hospital officials said that seven Iraqi policemen and three soldiers were among the dead.

But the bulk of the casualties were children at the gates of the hospital and civilians inside the emergency room.

“The bomber was parked in a nearby garage, and drove at the Americans when he saw them going into the hospital,” said a hospital security guard. “But he missed them, and hit children, women, men and old people.”

A doctor and five other medical staff were among the civilian dead. Many of the dozens of wounded were transferred to Baghdad for treatment.

Mahmoudiyah is one of a belt of towns with mixed Sunni and Shia Muslim populations around the southern periphery of Baghdad that have been riven by sectarian tensions in recent months.

In the nearby town of Yusufieh the bodies of two young men and two young women were found yesterday morning. They had apparently been tortured and strangled in killings that appeared to have sectarian overtones.

Further south, another car bomb exploded at dusk in Hilla, a city that came to prominence because it was the scene of a massive suicide bombing that killed 125 people.

Laith Kubba, an Iraqi government spokesman, predicted that the violence would escalate as the Dec 15 elections approached. He also said that Iraqi troops had discovered a car packed with booby-trapped toys to the west of Baghdad.

An American military statement later clarified that a man had been arrested after a single grenade had been found hidden inside a teddy bear.

In a development that offered a glimmer of hope, four insurgent groups were reported to be considering entering talks with the Iraqi government.

American and Iraqi officials are reported to believe that their best chance for a negotiated - settlement of the insurgency involves driving a wedge between religious extremists and groups led by former members of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party, who are ultimately more interested in power than in fighting.

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Defining terrorism (Washington Times, 051202)

By Diana West

Two international conferences last month wrangled over definitions of terrorism. The conference in Europe, the Barcelona Euro-Mediterranean Summit, promised to fight terrorism but couldn’t agree on what “terrorism” was. This somehow added up to “an unprecedented feat,” according to summit organizer and Spanish prime minister Jose Zapatero, who fatuously ballyhooed the “unmitigated, energetic,” but literally meaningless condemnation of terrorism offered by European and Middle Eastern nations. Hooey is right.

The other conference was in the Middle East. The Iraqi reconciliation talks, sponsored by the Arab League in Cairo, agreed on a definition of terrorism all right, but it was one that seemed to legitimize the blowing up of American soldiers, even as they fight terrorism.

For starters, this Iraqi communique — hammered out by some 200 Shi’ite, Sunni and Kurdish leaders — called “resistance” a “legitimate right.” You know, “resistance”: the killers who blast soldiers on patrol, or kids getting candy or worshippers inside rival mosques to bits. This line was already a poisonous sop to Sunni proponents of “resistance” (read: death squads).

The communique went on to note that “terrorism does not represent resistance,” which sounded a little more promising. Then it said: “Therefore, we condemn terrorism and acts of violence, killing and kidnapping and targeting Iraqi citizens and humanitarian, civil, government institutions, national resources and houses of worship.” Notice who and what is missing from the Iraqi convention’s protection list: our own fantastic soldiers of the US military.

What did Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have to say about this unacceptable omission? “I think what they were trying to do was to get a sense of political inclusion while recognizing that violence and terrorism should not be part of resistance,” she told CNN.

Trying to get a sense of “political inclusion” — by signaling open “resistance” season on U.S. soldiers? This is happy, Oprah spin, the doctrine of Feelpolitik — not superpower strategy. She continued: “After all, do Iraqis really want to — any Iraqi, sitting around that table — want to suggest that killing an innocent Iraqi child standing at a bus stop is legitimate? Or that killing Iraqi soldiers who are lining up at recruitment centers is legitimate? Or even that multinational forces” (that’s us) “who are, by the way, there under a U.N. mandate” (I feel better?) “are somehow legitimate targets?”

Well, no and yes, Madame Secretary. It’s no good to appeal reflexively to a Western framework of fair play without considering what the Iraqi document actually says. Yes, the document specifically protects the Iraqi child standing at the bus stop, and maybe even the Iraqi recruits. It’s the Americans risking their lives 24-7 to protect that child and those recruits who seem to have become “legitimate” targets, according to this declaration by leaders across the Iraqi political spectrum. Shouldn’t that set off, not soothing psychobabble, but angry sirens in Washington? Funny how some stories never build a head of steam. Running smack into Thanksgiving weekend didn’t help, but no holiday hiatus should have put this one on ice. It feels as if it hasn’t played out at home, although I wonder if it registered overseas.

Days later, at the Barcelona conference, the attempt to reach a Euro-Arab consensus on terrorism practically blew up the conference — metaphorically speaking, of course. That’s because European Union leaders refused to sign onto an Arab-Muslim definition of terrorism similar to the one in the Iraqi communique, one that would have legitimized the Arab-Muslim notion of “resistance” to “occupation” — as in “resistance” (suicide bombing) to “occupation” (Israeli buses and supermarkets, not to mention coalition troops in Iraq). Perhaps having lately suffered enough “resistance” in their own backyards, the EU countries — miracle of miracles — felt spinally enhanced enough to stick to their stated conviction that terrorism is never justified. Conversely, this was a moral statement the Arab-Muslim countries refused to endorse.

But it was the Europeans who were characteristically apologetic about the failure to reach a Euro-Arab consensus. “It’s been difficult to find that perfect word to explain that concept which is shared by everybody,” said EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana in one news account, sounding a little absurd. “We all know what we mean by terrorism,” he said in another, sounding a little desperate. “In reality, there is total cooperation between the countries north and south of the Mediterranean against terrorism.” Come on. One place there is not total cooperation is in reality. More than a language barrier separates the Western and Islamic definitions of terrorism, and no amount of happy talk about “inclusion” or conferences about “cooperation” changes that.

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Why We Don’t Trust Democrats With National Security (Townhall.com, 060104)

by Ann Coulter

It seems the Bush administration — being a group of sane, informed adults — has been secretly tapping Arab terrorists without warrants.

During the CIA raids in Afghanistan in early 2002 that captured Abu Zubaydah and his associates, the government seized computers, cell phones and personal phone books. Soon after the raids, the National Security Agency began trying to listen to calls placed to the phone numbers found in al Qaeda Rolodexes.

That was true even if you were “an American citizen” making the call from U.S. territory — like convicted al Qaeda associate Iyman Faris who, after being arrested, confessed to plotting to bring down the Brooklyn Bridge. If you think the government should not be spying on people like Faris, I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.

By intercepting phone calls to people on Zubaydah’s speed-dial, the NSA arrested not only “American citizen” Faris, but other Arab terrorists, including al Qaeda members plotting to bomb British pubs and train stations.

The most innocent-sounding target of the NSA’s spying cited by the Treason Times was “an Iranian-American doctor in the South who came under suspicion because of what one official described as dubious ties to Osama bin Laden.” Whatever softening adjectives the Times wants to put in front of the words “ties to Osama bin Laden,” we’re still left with those words — “ties to Osama bin Laden.” The government better be watching that person.

The Democratic Party has decided to express indignation at the idea that an American citizen who happens to be a member of al Qaeda is not allowed to have a private conversation with Osama bin Laden. If they run on that in 2008, it could be the first time in history a Republican president takes even the District of Columbia.

On this one, I’m pretty sure Americans are going with the president.

If the Democrats had any brains, they’d distance themselves from the cranks demanding Bush’s impeachment for listening in on terrorists’ phone calls to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. (Then again, if they had any brains, they’d be Republicans.)

To the contrary! It is Democrats like Sen. Barbara Boxer who are leading the charge to have Bush impeached for spying on people with Osama’s cell phone number.

That’s all you need to know about the Democrats to remember that they can’t be trusted with national security. (That and Jimmy Carter.)

Thanks to the Treason Times’ exposure of this highly classified government program, admitted terrorists like Iyman Faris are going to be appealing their convictions. Perhaps they can call Democratic senators as expert witnesses to testify that it was illegal for the Bush administration to eavesdrop on their completely private calls to al-Zarqawi.

Democrats and other traitors have tried to couch their opposition to the NSA program in civil libertarian terms, claiming Bush could have gone to the court created by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and gotten warrants for the interceptions.

The Treason Times reported FISA virtually rubber-stamps warrant requests all the time. As proof, the Times added this irrelevant statistic: In 2004, “1,754 warrants were approved.” No one thought to ask how many requests were rejected.

Over and over we heard how the FISA court never turns down an application for a warrant. USA Today quoted liberal darling and author James Bamford saying: “The FISA court is as big a rubber stamp as you can possibly get within the federal judiciary.” He “wondered why Bush sought the warrantless searches, since the FISA court rarely rejects search requests,” said USA Today.

Put aside the question of why it’s so vitally important to get a warrant from a rubber-stamp court if it’s nothing but an empty formality anyway. After all the ballyhoo about how it was duck soup to get a warrant from FISA, I thought it was pretty big news when it later turned out that the FISA court had been denying warrant requests from the Bush administration like never before. According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the FISA court “modified more wiretap requests from the Bush administration than from the four previous presidential administrations combined.”

In the 20 years preceding the attack of 9/11, the FISA court did not modify — much less reject — one single warrant request. But starting in 2001, the judges “modified 179 of the 5,645 requests for court-ordered surveillance by the Bush administration.” In the years 2003 and 2004, the court issued 173 “substantive modifications” to warrant requests and rejected or “deferred” six warrant requests outright.

What would a Democrat president have done at that point? Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack. Also, perhaps as a gesture of inclusion and tolerance, hold an Oval Office reception for the suspected al Qaeda operatives. After another terrorist attack, I’m sure a New York Times reporter could explain to the victims’ families that, after all, the killer’s ties to al Qaeda were merely “dubious” and the FISA court had a very good reason for denying the warrant request.

Every once in a while the nation needs little reminder of why the Democrats can’t be trusted with national security. This is today’s lesson.

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Lest we forget (Washington Times, 060120)

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf continues walking on eggshells. He has survived eight assassination plots since seizing power in 1999. The nationwide outcry over the U.S. bombing of a small village, which killed at least three al Qaeda operatives, is a timely reminder that more than half the country sympathizes with Osama bin Laden, still the most wanted terrorist leader in the world.

The tribal areas that straddle an unmarked, more than 1,000-mile long frontier of jagged mountains and desert flats are populated by several million people who see bin Laden as a “freedom fighter.” The Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP), one of Pakistan’s four provinces, is actually governed by a pro-Taliban politico-religious alliance known as Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA). One of MMA’s co-chairs is Sami ul-Haq, a long-time personal friend of bin Laden and Mullah Omar, the former Taliban chief who is still in hiding.

Baluchistan, the other province that shares a long common border with Afghanistan, is also governed by a coalition of MMA and other anti-U.S. parties. Military operations to put down Baluchistan’s fourth insurgency since the eve of World War II seldom get reported as the entire province is banned to foreign reporters. Quetta, the provincial capital, is home to many former Taliban officials. The government doesn’t even try to arrest them, but claims it is actively pursuing al Qaeda terrorists. Mr. Musharraf may believe this to be the case but on-the-scene verification by UPI showed a different picture.

In an unauthorized trip to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) on the Afghan border last September, this reporter, accompanied by a UPI team of Pakistani nationals, heard from villagers that several thousand al Qaeda fighters had been living in their midst since they escaped from the battle of Tora Bora in December 2001. Many had married local girls. Uzbeks, Tajiks, Chechens, Yemenis and other Middle Easterners were mentioned.

These were some of the fighters who took on the Pakistani army as it swept through FATA in 2004, sustaining heavy casualties. The army had been banned from FATA by treaty with tribal leaders ever since independence in 1947. U.S. pressure to seal off the escape routes into Pakistan from Tora Bora forced Mr. Musharraf’s hand. The army captured several dozen al Qaeda fighters on their way out of Afghanistan, but several thousand simply faded into friendly tribal villages and welcoming mosques. The army was not authorized to search the thousands of mudbaked dwellings or places of worship.

These were the villagers who told this reporter’s UPI team four years ago that Osama bin Laden and his party of about 50 escaped through Pakistan’s Tirah valley on Dec. 9, 2001.

Last September, FATA locals also said bin Laden had a mobile dialysis machine that worked with a small generator.

Mr. Musharraf knows the CIA uses Predator pilotless planes, controlled from Washington by satellite, to drop the occasional guided missile on suspected al Qaeda targets on the Pakistani side of the border. Known as the Durand Line, the border legally ceased to exist in 1993. The treaty that established it was signed in 1893 by the king of Afghanistan and a British colonial official for 100 years. But Mr. Musharraf’s wink and nod to the Bush administration for CIA missions is very unpopular among some of his fellow generals and ISI, the Interservices Intelligence agency.

Because he has hung on to the all-powerful Army Chief of Staff position for the last six years, several candidates for the post had to retire before they could be considered, which has not enhanced his popularity among senior officers.

The gigantic Oct. 7 earthquake that killed almost 100,000 and left more than 3 million homeless also dealt Mr. Musharraf’s presidency a major political blow. MMA moved in faster with relief supplies than the slow-moving military machine. The U.S. army, as well as British and German units, with helicopters reassigned from Afghanistan, are still working round-the-clock, high-altitude relief operations.

TV footage still shows men, women and children, barefoot on ice and snow, making their way down to tent cities where they huddle in subfreezing temperatures. Hundreds still die from the cold every day.

The “Death to America” demonstrations from Peshawar to Karachi were also directed against “Busharraf,” as some editorial cartoonists refer to President Musharraf.

Arnaud de Borchgrave is editor at large of The Washington Times and of United Press International.

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Palestine’s willing executioners (townhall.com, 060201)

by Jonah Goldberg

Three of Maryam Farahat’s children died in the process of murdering Israelis. In a recently released video she exhorted her youngest living son, Mohammed, 17, not to come back alive from a mission against the Jews. Indeed, she hopes all three of her remaining sons will die in the process of slaughtering Jews.

Farahat isn’t merely an unconventional stay-at-home mom. She has a day job. She’s one of the Hamas delegates swept into power by an electoral landslide in the Palestinian territories.

I bring this up not to repeat the already-conventional wisdom that this was a victory for terrorism or that Hamas’ surprise win offers some sorely missed “clarity” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Rather, the Hamas landslide clarifies another issue. In 1996, Daniel Jonah Goldhagen wrote a hugely controversial book, “Hitler’s Willing Executioners.” The thesis was straightforward: The German people were in on the Holocaust; German culture and history harbored and nurtured an “exterminationist” version of anti-Semitism that simply awaited ignition from Nazism’s torch.

Goldhagen’s thesis was overstated but fundamentally accurate. There was something unique to Germany that made fascism genocidal. Around the globe there have been dozens of self-declared fascist movements (and a good deal more that go by different labels), and few of them embraced Nazi-style genocide. Indeed, fascist Spain was a haven for Jews during the Holocaust.

Goldhagen’s book was immensely controversial in Germany, where an odd cult of victimhood had settled in. According to this view, Germany was in effect “occupied” by the Nazis, and the German people were victims, too. Obviously, this is a very convenient interpretation for a country understandably desperate to distance itself from the Holocaust and various brutal military adventures.

But variations of the don’t-blame-the-people thesis have been around for a long time far outside of Germany. Democracy can be wonderful, but some of its boosters across the ideological spectrum assume that all democratic outcomes are good outcomes, and that’s nonsense. Also, the left historically has located political morality in the interests and desires of the masses, therefore it is heretical to blame “the people” for evil deeds. Causes must be “hijacked” by small cabals of bad guys.

The classic Marxist definition of fascism, put forward in 1935 by Georgi Dimitroff, holds that fascism is “the open terroristic dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital.” This notion that the Nazis were the fighting brigade of the rich and powerful has had a remarkable shelf life. The only problem, as countless scholars have demonstrated over the years, is that this isn’t true. Nazism was a popular movement that crossed all class and regional lines in Germany. Hitler was hardly a tool of the rich, and to the extent he was helped by a few wealthy individuals, the fact remains that the Nazis achieved their electoral success by portraying themselves as defenders of the little guy and of national pride.

Today, various pragmatists, optimists and apologists for the Palestinians say they weren’t voting for mass murder and terror, but for honest government and efficient social services. Fatah, the “party” of that terrorist carbuncle Yasser Arafat, was corrupt and incompetent while Hamas has successfully delivered much-needed social services. Hamas ran on “change and reform,” proclaim the apologists, not terrorism. Fine, but that was equally true of the Nazis, who traded soup kitchens for indoctrination. Fascist movements have always gained popularity by delivering for the needy, the forgotten and the left out. They have always captured the imagination of the middle class by promising to reform the government, root out corruption, make the trains run on time. And fascist movements have always promised, as Hamas has, to bring about a moral and national restoration.

The overnight nostalgia for Fatah is, of course, laughable. It hardly governed as a party of peace, democracy and secularism. But looked at through the eyes of many Palestinians, it probably looked a lot like the Weimar government did to many Germans: institutionally corrupt, ineffective and tainted by humiliating concessions to foreign powers and occupiers. (People forget how much the League of Nations carved up Germany - and how much it rankled Germans).

There are serious differences between German or Italian fascism and Hamas’ Islamism. But these are largely intellectual and academic distinctions. As a social phenomenon, the Palestinians voted for politicians such as Mrs. Farahat. She belongs to a brutal, terroristic, irredentist, militant organization dedicated to restoring national pride at the expense of exterminating millions of people, who just happen to be Jews. This was no secret, and it is a form of condescension bordering on infantilism to assert that the Palestinians didn’t know what they were voting for. If the new government had the means, it would be Palestine’s willing executioners.

Recognizing this fact doesn’t automatically mean we should treat the Palestinians like cartoon villains who can never change. That’s as foolish as assuming they didn’t know what they were getting when they cast a ballot for Mrs. Farahat.

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Jordan Sentences Al-Zarqawi to Death in Absentia (Foxnews, 060215)

AMMAN, Jordan — A Jordanian military court on Wednesday sentenced to death nine men, including Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, for a plot to carry out a chemical attack against the kingdom.

Al-Zarqawi and three others received the death penalty in absentia. But the plot’s alleged mastermind, Azmi al-Jayousi, and four co-defendants were in the courtroom when the judge handed down the sentence for the 2004 plot, which security officials foiled before it could be carried out.

“Bin Laden’s organization is rising and we will be back!” the defendants shouted after the sentencing, referring to the Al Qaeda terror network led by Usama bin Laden.

The court sentenced two of the 13 defendants to prison terms of between one and three years, and acquitted another two defendants.

After the sentencing, the convicted men turned on one of the acquitted, a Syrian, and accused him of being an informer. They threatened to kill him, but they did not attack him in the dock.

The 13 men — Jordanian, Syrian and Palestinians — were charged with conspiring to attack various sites in Jordan by setting off a cloud of toxic chemicals that would have killed thousands of people, according to prosecution estimates.

The prosecution told the court that al-Zarqawi sent more than $118,000 to buy two vehicles which the plotters were to use in the attack. Suicide bombers were to drive the vehicles, loaded with explosives and chemicals, into the grounds of the General Intelligence Department in Amman and detonate them, prosecutors said.

The plot also planned to attack the U.S. Embassy, the prime minister’s office, and various intelligence and military court officials, the indictment said.

The indictment said that when investigators conducted an experiment with small amounts of the chemicals found with the defendants, it produced “a strong explosion and a poison cloud that spread over an area of 500 square meters (yards).”

From the geographical data that mastermind al-Jayousi had collected, it appeared he aimed to kill thousands of people in the chemical attack, the indictment said.

Eight of the defendants were accused of belonging to a previously unknown group, “Kata’eb al-Tawhid” or Battalions of Monotheism, which security officials say is headed by al-Zarqawi and linked to Al Qaeda.

The eight were also charged with conspiring to commit acts of terrorism and possession and manufacture of explosives.

Previously, Jordan’s military courts have condemned al-Zarqawi to death in absentia for the 2002 assassination of U.S. diplomat Lawrence Foley in Amman and for a failed suicide attack on the Jordanian-Iraqi border in 2004.

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Send Us Your Terrorists: The U.S. should be eager to keep terrorists in Guantanamo Bay. (National Review Online, 060215)

Given the February 5 escape of 23 convicted Islamic extremists from a Yemeni prison, how can America and its allies in the war on terror keep Muslim murderers incarcerated? The answer, ironically, lies on Liberty Street. Five stories below Manhattan’s financial district, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York stores some $90 billion worth of gold belonging to 60 foreign governments and central banks. These clients believe their bullion is safer under American stewardship than on their own soil.

Similarly, America should turn the U.S. Naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, into an international terrorist depository. Any nation that decides its own Islamo-fascists would be more secure under Navy supervision should be invited to leave them at Gitmo. Since America is terrorist Enemy No. 1, it would be wise for the U.S. to house these killers at no expense to depositing countries. Indeed, Washington even might pay each arriving terrorist’s home country a cash reward for letting the Navy isolate these anti-American butchers someplace where they can do no harm.

This reverse-rendition policy should begin at once. The problem of terrorist jailbreaks is even worse than it appears. The Center for Security Policy (CSP) helped me document a dozen instances since September 11, 2001, when at least 138 suspected or convicted Muslim terrorists have fled from behind bars in Afghanistan, Russia, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Yemen. Collectively, these killers have murdered at least 328 individuals and injured 518 others.

“This number is probably far too low, as there undoubtedly have been cases that were not made public,” says Robert T. McLean, a CSP research associate.

These 12 breakouts alone paint a frightening portrait of Islamic killers who have outwitted their jailers and, in some cases, slipped loose with the active assistance of their guards.

1) February 5, 2006: 23 convicted terrorists escaped from the high-security headquarters of Yemen’s military intelligence agency in the capitol of Sanaa. They traversed a 460-foot tunnel that exited through the quieter women’s section of a nearby mosque. At least 13 of these convicts are al Qaeda members, including American Jaber Elbaneh, 39, charged in 2002 for belonging to an al Qaeda cell in Lackawanna, New York.

Fawaz Yahya al-Rabeei also is on the lam. Interpol believes he helped blow up the French tanker Limburg on October 6, 2002. That explosion killed a Bulgarian sailor and poured 90,000 barrels of petroleum into the Gulf of Aden. He was convicted of firing at a helicopter owned by a Texas-based oil company on November 3, 2002, slightly injuring two Hunt Corp. employees as they flew over Yemen. He also triggered a car bomb at the headquarters of Yemen’s Civil Aviation & Meteorology Authority.

Yet another top al Qaeda operative who disappeared is Jamal Ahmed Mohammed Ali al-Badawi, mastermind of the October 12, 2000, attack on the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen’s port of Aden. That assault on a Navy destroyer killed 17 American sailors and injured at least 40 others. This was Badawi’s second escape from Yemeni custody; he also participated in an April 11, 2003, group departure from an Aden detention facility, also run by Yemeni military intelligence.

“This man has escaped twice, and that means he has a strong network of supporters outside prison,” an anonymous Arab security official said in the February 7 Newsday. “It could also mean that he has received assistance from within the security agencies.”

Interpol secretary-general Ronald Noble warned of these fugitives: “Unless the world community commits itself to tracking them down, they will be able to travel internationally, to elude detection, and to engage in future terrorist activity.”

2) January 22, 2006: Seven Taliban members escaped from the Policharki Prison outside Kabul, Afghanistan. According to the Associated Press’ Amir Shah, these convicts used fake hand stamps like those used to distinguish visitors from inmates.

“There were so many visitors at the jail on the Sunday that the prisoners exploited the guards’ confusion and sneaked out,” said Deputy Justice Minister Mohammad Qasim Hashimzai.

Afghan authorities arrested 10 guards for colluding in the Taliban fighters’ escape from their 16- and 17-year prison sentences.

3) January 2006: Two followers of slain Islamic rebel leader Badreddine al-Houthy escaped from a Yemeni prison, according to United Press International. Last December 3, a Yemeni court convicted al-Houthy adherents Yehya Dalimi and Mohammad Moftah of armed insurrection and working with Iranian agents in hopes of “undermining state security and inciting sectarian strife.”

4) July 11, 2005: Four al Qaeda operatives escaped the highly fortified U.S. airbase at Bagram, Afghanistan. They are: Syrian Abdullah Hashimi, Kuwaiti Omar al Faruq (AKA Mahmoud Ahmad Mohammed), Saudi Mahmoud Fathami, and Libyan Mohammed Hassan. These four men appeared on videotape last October 18 on Al Arabiya television. Claiming to be at a Taliban camp in the Afghan outback, these terrorists bragged about picking the locks in their cells, hiding on the base for several days, then fleeing with the help of Taliban colleagues.

Hassan, the Libyan escapee, appeared in an online video posted just last Thursday. As Agence France Press reported, he seemingly led a successful attack on Afghan soldiers. Then, on the battlefield, he pointed his rifle at the cadavers of these American allies.

“Several apostates were killed while the others were taken captive or ran away,” after the January 7 confrontation, Hassan said. “They have died like dogs and [Afghan President Hamid] Karzai will not be of any help for them,” he continued. Hassan also threatened to “leave America in the mud.”

Hassan and his comrades’ getaway from the well-guarded American facility mystified rank-and-file Afghans. “As far as I know, a mosquito cannot get out of the Bagram base,” pharmacist Imran Mujahid told the Los Angeles Times’ Paul Watson. “Then how could these people get out and escape?”

Escapee Omar al-Faruq is considered the highest-ranking al Qaeda member ever caught in Southeast Asia. He collaborated with Jemaah Islamiyah, al Qaeda’s Indonesian franchise, which staged the October 12, 2002, Bali nightclub bombing that killed 202 and injured some 300 people. JI also bombed dozens of Christian churches across Indonesia. Al-Faruq plotted attacks against American embassies in Asia and tried to take flight lessons in the Philippines so he could commandeer an airplane for a suicide mission.

“He’s a very committed, very intelligent man,” Rohan Gunaratna of Singapore’s Institute for Defense and Strategic Studies told the Christian Science Monitor’s Dan Murphy last November 7. “I expect him to be deeply involved with Al Qaeda again, now that he’s free.”

5) November 2004: Mushtaq Ahmad fled a Pakistani jail, according to officials the Associated Press cited in a January 12, 2005, dispatch. Ahmad had been arrested for plotting two assassination attempts on Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. While no one was hurt in the December 14, 2003 attack, an assault that Christmas Day spared Musharraf but killed as many as 13 others.

6) April 10, 2004: 53 inmates escaped the Philippines Basilan Provincial Jail. A sizeable but undetermined number of them are considered Abu Sayyaf members. Eleven were recaptured, and eight were killed, while the violence injured three guards. The fugitives fled with two rifles and a shotgun.

7) July 14, 2003: Three terrorists broke out of Philippine National Police headquarters in Quezon City. They included Abu Sayyaf extremist Merang Abante. He allegedly participated in the kidnapping of Jeffrey Schilling of Oakland, California, who later was freed.

Abdulmukim Ong Edris, another Abu Sayyaf agent, is thought to have helped kidnap 20 victims, including three Americans, on the resort island of Palawan. As Richard C. Paddock explained in the August 9, 2003 Los Angeles Times, “Guillermo Sobero, a tourist from Corona, California, was beheaded, and missionary Martin Burnham of Wichita, Kansas, was killed during a rescue raid.” Edris’ other alleged bombings injured at least 24 and killed 12 people, including a fatal October 2, 2002, attack on U.S. Special Forces Sergeant First Class Mark Wayne Jackson, age 40.

Jemaah Islamiyah bombsmith Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi also ran. “Mike the Bombmaker,” as he was nicknamed, had been sentenced to a 10-to-12-year prison term for acquiring more than a ton of explosives he hoped to detonate at embassies in Singapore. He confessed to the nearly simultaneous bombings in December 2000 of a Manila transit station and four other civilian targets. Those explosions killed 22 and injured 100. Police eventually found al-Ghozi, an Indonesian, and killed him.

8) April 11, 2003: 10 al Qaeda agents suspected in the U.S.S. Cole bombing left a military intelligence lockup in Aden, Yemen, reportedly through a hole in a bathroom wall. All of these terrorists were recaptured within the next 11 months. Perhaps they spent that time at home reading the Koran. Of course, they could have spent almost a year raising money, recruiting new terrorists, training inductees, or even committing mayhem for which they never were caught. As was mentioned above, the U.S.S Cole attack’s ringleader, Jamal al-Badawi, joined this breakout; he, too, was caught, only to escape a second time.

9) September 2, 2002: Chechen terrorist Ahkmed Magomedov slipped from his handcuffs and vanished from the prosecutor’s office in Makhachkala, capitol of the predominantly Muslim Russian Republic of Dagestan. He is tied to seven terrorist incidents including a January 2000 bombing that killed seven Russian soldiers and injured four more, and a May 9, 2002, explosion in Kaspiysk that wiped out 43 people.

10) August 7, 2002: 12 Pakistanis and a Kyrgyzstani, all suspected Taliban or al Qaeda thugs, escaped a Kabul detention facility. According to Pamela Constable’s account in the August 21, 2002, Washington Post, “The fugitives hijacked three trucks, beat a farmer who tried to stop them with his bird-hunting rifle, killed three soldiers with the soldiers’ own weapons, and took a local policeman hostage.” As they retreated to a rock quarry, they pounded the kidnapped cop for wearing pants and not wearing a beard. The escapees used three stolen Kalashnikov rifles to fight about 100 Afghan soldiers who found them and killed them.

11) June 29, 2002: Al Qaeda operative Walid Abdullah Habib escaped a prison in Aden, Yemen. Officials there believe Habib, a Yemeni, fought U.S. forces in Tora Bora, Afghanistan, in December 2001, before he was captured trying to sneak back into Yemen along its border with Oman.

12) December 19, 2001: 20 al Qaeda members scattered after a violent uprising on a bus carrying 48 prisoners from Parachinar, Pakistan, to a hoosegow in Kohat. The one-hour gun battle in and around the bus — one of four vehicles in a convoy transporting 156 detainees — killed six terrorists and seven Pakistani soldiers and injured at least a dozen on both sides, Paul Salopek and Lisa Anderson reported in the next day’s Chicago Tribune.

Beyond these escapes, several attempts have failed, but not before killing and wounding many inmates and guards. Philippine officials, for instance, thwarted a March 15, 2005, jailbreak bid in Manila, but not before its two Abu Sayyaf leaders and 15 others were killed.

U.S. officials could prevent more such chaos by canceling plans to shrink Guantanamo’s current terrorist population 68% — from 510 to 164 — by repatriating 110 Afghans, 129 Saudis, and 107 Yemenis, as Josh White and Robin Wright revealed in the August 5, 2005, Washington Post. In fact, the Pentagon plans to ship these Afghan Guantanamites to Policharki Prison — the very same facility from which seven Taliban operatives escaped last January 22!

“We, the U.S., don’t want to be the world’s jailer,” Matthew Waxman, a Pentagon detainee-affairs official, told the Post. “We think a more prudent course is to shift that burden onto our coalition partners.”

Nonsense.

The stakes are too high — and too many people could be killed — to risk more overseas terrorist escapes, just to save a few million dollars in Koranically correct meals and laundered uniforms. There is ample room in the $2.77 trillion 2007 federal budget to offset the expense of indefinitely detaining as many bloodthirsty terrorists as can be shoehorned into Guantanamo.

More than Sing Sing, Leavenworth, or even a re-opened Alcatraz, Guantanamo is a dream location for harboring terrorists. Detainees are guarded by well-armed, patriotic American GIs unencumbered by bottomless anti-Americanism. Any combatant who tried to walk out would face hundreds of unsympathetic sailors with machine guns at the ready. If he eluded them, he would have to evade snipers in watchtowers, leap twin rows of barbed-wire fences, then tiptoe through the landmines installed by Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. If he reached the beach, Haiti is only 110 miles southeast. Happy swimming, Hafez!

Of course, craftier enemy combatants could avoid these hazards by tunneling out. If they actually burrowed into the Caribbean, they are more than welcome to terrorize the sharks. As the CSP’s Robert McLean says, “If there is a more secure location to detain these terrorists than Guantanamo, I would like to know.”

Naturally, turning Guantanamo into a Yucca Mountain for terrorists will make Leftists wail. Let them. It’s hard to believe, but the shrieks of liberals are easier on the ears than the blasts of bombs.

— Deroy Murdock is a New York-based columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service and a senior fellow with the Atlas Economic Research Foundation in Arlington, Va.

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All praise Prof. Alan Dershowitz (townhall.com, 060222)

by Tony Blankley

Next week a vastly important book will be published: “Preemption: A Knife That Cuts Both Ways” by Alan Dershowitz. Yes, that Alan Dershowitz: the very liberal civil libertarian, anti-capital punishment Harvard Law School professor. And but for my lack of his legal scholarship, there is nary a sentence in the book that I — a very conservative editor of the Washington Times, and former press secretary to Newt Gingrich — couldn’t have written.

The premise of his book is that in this age of terror, there is a potential need for such devices as profiling, preventive detention, anticipatory mass inoculation, prior restraint of dangerous speech, targeted extrajudicial executions of terrorists and preemptive military action including full-scale preventive war.

In his own words, from his Introduction: “The shift from responding to past events to preventing future harms is part of one of the most significant but unnoticed trends in the world today. It challenges our traditional reliance on a model of human behavior that presupposes a rational person capable of being deterred by the threat of punishment. The classic theory of deterrence postulates a calculating evildoer who can evaluate the cost-benefits of proposed actions and will act — and forbear from acting — on the basis of these calculations. It also presupposes society’s ability (and willingness) to withstand the blows we seek to deter and to use the visible punishment of those blows as threats capable of deterring future harms. These assumptions are now being widely questioned as the threat of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of suicide terrorists becomes more realistic and as our ability to deter such harms by classic rational cost-benefit threats and promises becomes less realistic.”

Yet, such policies conflict with traditional concepts of civil liberties, human rights, criminal justice, national security, foreign policy and international law He shrewdly observes that historically, nations — including democracies — have resorted to such deviations from law and custom out of necessity. But that it has all been ad hoc, secret or deceptive. Prof. Dershowitz argues that now, rather, we need to begin to develop an honest jurisprudence of prevention to legally regulate such mechanisms. It is better, he argues, to democratically decide now, before the next disaster, this new jurisprudence — the rules by which we will take these necessary actions.

To see the difference between traditional Anglo-American criminal jurisprudence and his proposed jurisprudence of prevention, he raises the great maxim of criminal law: better that ten guilty go free, than one innocent be wrongly convicted. That principle led our law to require proof beyond a reasonable doubt before conviction in criminal trials. Most of us agree with that standard.

But then Prof. Dershowitz updates the maxim thusly: “Is it better for ten possibly preventable terrorist attacks to occur than for one possibly innocent suspect to be preventively detained?” I would hunch that most people would not be willing to accept ten September 11th attacks (30,000 dead) in order to protect one innocent suspect from being locked up and questioned for a while.

Is it possible to go beyond such gut instincts and ad hoc decision making during a crises, and begin to develop a thoughtful set of standards for conduct in this dangerous new world? I don’t know.

As Prof. Dershowitz observes, a jurisprudence develops slowly in response to generations, centuries of adjudicated events. But to the extent we recognize the need for it and start thinking systematically, to that extent we won’t be completely hostage to the whim and discretion of a few men at moments of extreme stress.

At the minimum, an early effort at a jurisprudence of prevention would at least help in defining events. Consider the long and fruitless recent debate about the imminence of the danger from Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, or the current debate on Iran’s possible nuclear weapons. Under traditional international law standards they are both classic non-imminent threat situations: “early stage acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by a state presumed to be hostile.”

But as Dershowitz points out, while the threat itself is not imminent, “the opportunity to prevent the threat will soon pass.” Once they have the weapons it is too late.

Or, a low price in innocent casualties might soon pass. For instance, in 1981 when Israel bombed Iraq’s nuclear site at Osirak, if they had waited much longer the site would have been “radioactively hot” and massive innocent civilian casualties would have been incurred from radioactive releases. It is simply not enough anymore to say a country violates the norm by acting in its ultimate, but not imminent, self-defense. We need new standards for a new age.

The new realities of unacceptable risk require new — and lower— standards of certainty before defensive action is permitted.

As we develop a jurisprudence of prevention, we increase the chance of justice and rationality being a bigger part of such crisis decisions that our presidents will be facing for the foreseeable future.

Dershowitz’s sound, practical scholarship is commendable. But what I find heartening is the political fact that a prominent scholar of the left has finally entered into a constructive conversation about how to manage our inevitably dangerous WMD/terrorist infested future.

If such as Dershowitz and I can find common ground, there should be space there for a multitude. And from that common ground can grow a common plan for a common victory.

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And the losers are: the Jews (Townhall.com, 060302)

by Cal Thomas

Jews run Hollywood, some say. If they do, one might expect them to produce films that better reflect their heritage and values, rather than serve as apologists for those who wish to exterminate the Jewish people.

This Sunday’s Academy Awards ceremony will not only be about the gay-friendly flick “Brokeback Mountain,” but also about whether the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will award an Oscar to a film called “Paradise Now,” which in January won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film. The Golden Globes often foretell which movies are likely to win Oscars.

“Paradise Now” is well-produced propaganda for the Arab-Muslim-Palestinian side and a justification for people who blow themselves up and take innocent children, women and men with them. The film is about two young Palestinian males and their decision to become homicide bombers (I deliberately use the word “homicide,” because it better reflects the true intentions of the killers, rather than “suicide,” a word used to describe people who take only their own lives).

Click to learn more...

The film recalls a real event when a homicide bomber boarded a bus in Haifa, Israel, on March 5, 2003. Ironically (or maybe deliberately), this Sunday, March 5, is the date of the Oscar presentations. The killer dispatched 17 people from there to eternity. Nine of the dead were schoolchildren, ages 18 or younger. Most people would find such a horrific act beyond the pale of any religion or politics, much less entertainment, but apparently Hollywood thinks it good movie material.

Yossi Zur, the father of one of the dead children, inspired a petition drive that at last count had collected more than 30,000 signatures. The petition asks the Academy to revoke the “Paradise Now” Oscar nomination. In an article written for The Israel Project, Zur expresses his grief for his then-16-year-old son, Asaf, adding, “‘Paradise Now’ is a very professional production, created with great care for detail. It is also an extremely dangerous piece of work, not only for Israel and the Middle East, but the whole world.”

Zur went to see the film and wonders, “What exactly makes (it) worthy of such a prestigious (Golden Globe) award?” He asks if Hollywood might also think a film sympathetic to the objectives of the 9/11 hijackers could someday be made. Why not? Didn’t those men believe their act was righteous and in their “desperation” thought it the only way to get America’s attention for their “plight”? Zur wonders if the terrorists get their hands on a nuclear, biological or chemical device that they use to kill 100,000 or more people whether the film industry will think that worthy of cinematic and sympathetic treatment.

Some critics of Steven Spielberg’s “Munich” think that film crossed the line in portraying the Palestinian murderers of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics sympathetically and the Jewish avengers who hunted down the perpetrators as responsible for the continuing “cycle of violence.” Jewish guilt can be hazardous to Jewish health.

What is especially troubling is that Hollywood’s reservoir of sympathy is shallow and extends only to certain “favored” subjects. Would the film industry do a movie about Joseph Stalin and how the forced famine he instigated in the 1930s in which an estimated 7 million people died was really about putting overweight Russians on a needed diet? How about a film on the life of China’s Chairman Mao, considered the top killer of the last century? A talented scriptwriter might portray Mao’s genocidal acts as a commitment to population control.

It’s probably too late to influence the Academy, but as Zur wrote after the Golden Globes ceremony, “Awarding a movie such as ‘Paradise Now’ only implicates the Hollywood Foreign Press Association in the evil chain of terror that attempts to justify these horrific acts, whether the number of victims is 17 (as on that Haifa bus) or 17,000.”

The same might be said of the Academy on Sunday night, depending on who “the winner is.”

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Putin Vindicated? In 2004 the Russian president said that Saddam had planned terrorist attacks on America. New Iraqi documents suggest he may have been right. (Weekly Standard, 060407)

IN JULY 2004, DURING THE COURSE of a little-publicized event while on a visit to Kazakhstan, Russian President Vladimir Putin made some unusual remarks:

I can confirm that after the events of September 11, 2001, and up to the military operation in Iraq, Russian special services and Russian intelligence several times received . . . information that official organs of Saddam’s regime were preparing terrorist acts on the territory of the United States and beyond its borders, at U.S. military and civilian locations.

Putin’s remarks were little noticed by the American press, coming as they did so soon after the release of the 9/11 Commission’s report. Moreover, despite his strong opposition to the war in Iraq, Putin was unabashedly in favor of Bush’s reelection, having earlier criticized Senator Kerry for supporting unilateral action against Serbia while opposing it with regard to Iraq. Putin went so far as to claim in October 2004 that “The goal of international terrorism is to prevent the election of President Bush to a second term.”

And one of the newly-released Iraqi documents, BIAP 2003-000654, indicates that Putin may have been on to something. On page 6 of the document it is revealed that:

The top secret letter 2205 of the Military Branch of Al Qadisya on 4/3/2001 announced by the top secret letter 246 from the Command of the military sector of Zi Kar on 8/3/2001 announced to us by the top secret letter 154 from the Command of Ali Military Division on 10/3/2001 we ask to provide that Division with the names of those who desire to volunteer for Suicide Mission to liberate Palestine and to strike American Interests and according what is shown below to please review and inform us.

Written by the commander of Iraq’s Ali Bin Abi Taleb Air Base, this document, if authentic, indicates that Iraq was actively recruiting suicide bombers with the intention of targeting U.S. interests at least as far back as early 2001. Nor is this the only document released with the intention of making it clear that Saddam’s intentions for carrying out terrorist attacks against other nations—the plans for Blessed July appear to lay out a similar agenda focusing on using the Saddam Fedayeen to carry out a bombing and assassination campaign in London, Iran, and the “self ruled” areas of Iraq, a likely reference to Iraqi Kurdistan. While these documents do not by themselves prove the veracity of Putin’s remarks, if they are deemed to be authentic they would appear to indicate that his claims did not occur in a vacuum.

IF EITHER DOCUMENT can be verified as accurate, it would seem to refute a long-standing contention among members of the U.S. intelligence community that Iraq ceased its involvement in international terrorism after its failed 1993 plot to assassinate former President George H.W. Bush. Indeed, the following exchange is reported in former counterterrorism chief Dick Clarke’s book Against All Enemies:

[Anti-terror czar Dick Clarke said], “I am unaware of any Iraqi-sponsored terrorism directed at the US since 1993, and I think FBI and CIA concur in that judgment?” CIA Deputy Director John McLaughlin replied, “Yes, that is right. We have no evidence of any active Iraqi terrorist threat against the US.”

It would be sad to learn that the Russian Federation’s intelligence service was better informed as to Iraq’s terrorist capabilities than were their American counterparts.

Dan Darling is a counterterrorism consultant.

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Terror in Egypt: It isn’t going to stop any time soon. (Weekly Standard, 060428)

IN THE WAKE of two terrorist attacks in Sinai this week, first against the tourist sector in Dahab, then against the Multi-National Peacekeeping Force, some observers have related Mubarak’s situation to that of President Anwar al-Sadat in 1981. It’s a useful comparison because, like Sadat at the time, Mubarak seems hapless at present. Before Sadat’s assassination in October of 1981, he arrested scores of critics, intellectuals, and journalists (such as former Nasser confidante and current al Jazeera retread Mohammed Hassanein Heikal) none of whom actually wanted to kill him, as the Islamists eventually did. Thus, because he went after marginal figures rather than the most serious threat to his rule, those arrests indicated Sadat’s weakness not his strength.

Similarly, every time Mubarak’s security services arrests a Bedouin, the regime is telling us it is weak because it is not catching the real culprits. When they arrested over 2,000 Bedouin after the first Sinai attack in Taba in October 2004, they announced that they were floundering, and that if the regime wants to preserve its existence, Mubarak’s son Gamal or military intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, or more likely both, should take the helm ASAP. The old man can’t cut it any more.

It appears that the Bedouin are responsible for operational assistance, but it is extremely unlikely that they are the “big idea” men behind the Sinai bombings. The Bedouin are involved in many illegal enterprises, like smuggling weapons and drugs, but they are largely apolitical. Some Egyptians joke that the Bedu liked it better when the Israelis occupied the Sinai because they turned it into a tourist paradise and thus made the Bedouin money as the Egyptians never did, could or will. Assuming the Bedouin are helping, it is most likely because they are getting paid, and that they are angry because they feel the regime abandoned them—and that was before the security services embarked on a campaign of mass arrests and collective punishment.

SO WHO IS REALLY BEHIND the three large attacks on Sinai resorts since October 2004? The target itself is significant. The second attack was against Sharm al-Sheikh, Mubarak’s favorite place in the world and the destination he usually chooses (over Cairo) to entertain his most important foreign visitors. Which means that it’s not about Israeli tourists; it’s about Mubarak himself.

The smart money is on al Qaeda, or more precisely, Qaedat al-Jihad, as some Egyptian analysts designate the bin Laden-Zawahiri organization to indicate its Egyptian origins. Zawahiri’s Islamic Jihad had its greatest local success when it worked with al-Gama’a al-Islameya to kill Sadat. Of all the possible reasons for the latest attacks—bin Laden’s new address, the defunding of Hamas—perhaps the most compelling link is that the Mubarak government recently released 900 middle-aged al-Gama’a al-Islameya militants, whose war against the regime ended a decade ago in a 1997 truce. Perhaps someone else is saying that the war has just begun in earnest.

ACTUALLY, it began in 1952 when Nasser cut the Muslim Brotherhood out of the regime. Which is to say that this decades-long fight is not ideological so much as it is about shares of power and who gets to rule Egypt. The rhetoric and agenda of the regime and its Islamist opponents are virtually identical; the principle difference between the two is that the latter would like a lot more sharia law in the Egyptian constitution and are willing to kill ordinary Egyptians to make that happen.

Why would Islamist extremists be striking now after Mubarak ostensibly put them down in 1997? Maybe because the far enemy, the United States, has proved more difficult to attack at home than the near enemy, Egypt. Or perhaps it is because the Mubarak regime is an aging one that, for instance, was surprised when the Muslim Brotherhood won 88 seats in the November-December parliamentary elections.

It seems that Mubarak has reached the point in his career when underlings are afraid to bring him bad news and his exhausted regime’s hands are already full fighting the U.S. agenda in the region. Perhaps someone, surmising that Mubarak can’t manage warring on two fronts, smells blood.

The Islamists will continue to attack Egypt, which makes an overt alliance between the regime and the more moderate Muslim Brotherhood, like the one suggested in an al-Hayat column by Islamist lawyer Montasser Al-Zayat, more plausible. Among other things, that will ensure Gamal’s accession, which is the regime’s top priority and why it is fighting the U.S. democratization agenda. Then it will be Gamal’s task to war against the extremists and leverage the Muslim Brotherhood as he pleases, variously counting on their support and then keeping them in their place, as his father did. Though it is unclear that a novice with no military credentials is a hard enough strongman to pull it off. He’ll get no help from the United States since the regime already played its Islamist card in those parliamentary elections and Washington is trying to cope with the fallout of “regional transformation.”

Lee Smith is a visiting fellow at the Hudson Institute and based in Beirut.

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North Korea trying to weaponize bird flu: Bio-warfare experts call it potentially ‘greatest threat al-Qaida could unleash’ (WorldNetDaily, 060508)

LONDON – The pariah state of North Korea is trying to weaponize the bird flu virus, making it the ideal threat for al-Qaida, the British intelligence agency MI6 has learned.

The Bush administration has given briefings classified “Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information” to members of Congress and the Senate on the threat.

In aerosol form it would be undetectable at all border crossings and virologists at Porton Down – Britain’s research center responsible for developing antidotes against biological attacks – fear that a genetically engineered version of the virus would be far more lethal than any current threat from the virus.

World ranking experts have said that it would be “the greatest threat al-Qaida could unleash.”

In an exclusive interview, Dr. Ken Allibek, the former director of the Soviet Union’s biowarfare program, Biopreperat, who is now a senior adviser to the Bush administration on bio-defense, said: “The threat of a weaponized bird flu virus cannot be over emphasised. It would be the most terrible weapon in the hands of a terrorist. The advantage for al-Qaida is that an aerosolized weapon would be impossible to detect from one spread naturally by birds. But a lab-produced virus would be far more lethal.”

Professor Peter Openshaw, a leading virologist at Imperial College, London, called it: “more terrifying than engineered smallpox. That would be relatively easy to contain because there is a vaccine. But with improvements in laboratory technology, it’s becoming much easier to engineer these viruses. It’s becoming a terrible concern.”

A CIA document presented by Goss showed that the World Health Organization has warned the virus would affect one-fifth of the world’s population “with 30 million requiring hospitalisation and at least 2 million people could die.”

The decision to keep the briefing secret has led to fierce criticism from public health officials in the United States.

Dr. Irwin Redlener, a director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness in Washington, said: “This is Cold War secrecy being applied to a public health issue. The truth is that the United States is seriously unprepared to cope with an avian flu outbreak – the more so if it is terrorist inspired.”

Professor Hugh Pennington, a leading microbiologist at Aberdeen University, Scotland, said: “A clever molecular biologist could also try to mix the virus with other viruses so that it could spread person to person, which would be the greatest threat.”

Scientists in America have recently recreated the Spanish flu virus that killed 50 million people in 1918. The full genetic sequence was published in specialist magazines earlier this year and is available via the Internet.

Openshaw said: “The sequence of the 1918 strain has just been published and there are obvious security concerns. There are many labs around the world that would be capable of recreating the same virus.”

North Korea’s biological warfare program is now the largest in the world. Among its 300,000 scientists, technicians and laboratory assistants are some 800 scientists who worked on the Russian bio-warfare program, Biopreperat. Some of them had been trying to exploit the 1918 Spanish flu virus as a potential weapon.

When Biopreperat collapsed with the end of the Soviet Union, a number of its staff were recruited by North Korea. In return for huge salaries they were given a comfortable lifestyle and unlimited research facilities to continue their work.

A high-ranking defector from North Korea’s Academy of Sciences has told intelligence officers that the research to weaponize the virus is now a priority. The project is under the control of the country’s top geneticist and head of its biological warfare program.

Dr. Yi Yong Su, 54, is known to have a close relationship with Kim Jong II, the country’s supreme leader. A CIA profile describes her as conducting terminal experiments with anthrax on prisoners.

She has assigned eight research centers to work on various aspects of successfully weaponizing the bird flu virus.

One center is concerned with researching cereal rust spores, a disease which attacks crops. The spores are dusted on to the feathers of homing pigeons. When they return to their coops, they are checked to see how long the spores remain on their feathers.

But the sophisticated research on bird flu is being conducted at Institute 398 at Singam-Ri, south of the capital Pyongyang.

U.S. satellite images show the area is ring-fenced by three battalions of soldiers. Only visible above ground are a cluster of concrete-block buildings and fuel storage tanks.

The defector has said the laboratories, including two dealing with the latest molecular biological technology, are hidden far below ground.

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Florida teen’s massacre called ‘gift from Allah’: Terror leaders threaten Americans, hope boy, 16, ‘goes directly to hell’ (WorldNetDaily, 060515)

TEL AVIV – The death yesterday of Daniel Wultz, a Florida teenager critically injured last month in a suicide bombing at an Israeli restaurant, is a “gift from Allah” and revenge against American Jewish support for Israel, Abu Nasser, a leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, one of the groups responsible for the deadly blast, told WorldNetDaily.

Abu Amin, a leader of the Islamic Jihad, which also took responsibility for the April 17 bombing in which Wultz was injured, told WND last night his terror group may target Americans in the near future.

Wultz, 16, was one of over 60 people injured in the attack in which a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowded section of Tel Aviv as Israelis celebrated the fifth day of the Passover holiday. The blast ripped through a falafel restaurant just outside the city’s old central bus station, killing nine. The same restaurant was hit by a suicide attack in January, wounding 20. A tenth Israeli victim passed away this weekend. Wultz’s demise yesterday brought to 11 the total number of deaths from the suicide blast so far.

Wultz was a resident of Weston, Fla. He was on Passover vacation in Israel along with his family. The teenager was seated with his father, Yekutiel, at an outside table of the targeted restaurant when the bomb was detonated.

Described as an avid basketball player, Wultz lost his spleen, a leg and a kidney in the attack. Doctors at Tel Aviv’s Ichilov Hospital had reportedly been fighting to save his other leg, which was suffering from severely reduced blood flow. Wultz’s father suffered a fractured leg in the attack.

Wultz had been lying in a coma in the intensive care unit since the bombing, though he briefly was aroused last month.

His story had generated extensive international media coverage and had prompted a flurry of e-mails across the Internet asking people worldwide to pray for the young terror victim.

Islamic Jihad and the Al Aqsa Brigades, the declared military wing of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah Party, claimed responsibility for the bombing.

In a WND exclusive interview yesterday, Abu Nasser, a senior leader of the Al Aqsa Brigades in the West Bank, rejoiced in Wultz’s death. Abu Nasser is part of the Brigades leadership in the Balata refugee camp suspected of plotting the attack.

“This is a gift from Allah. We wish this young dog will go directly with no transit to hell,” Abu Nasser said.

“[Wultz] was part of the American support machine that helps our enemy. All these young American Jews come here to support the occupation, they build and live in the settlements ... . I imagine him as one of these Nazis who live here [in the settlements.] There is no difference between him and them.”

Regarding U.S. policy in the Middle East, Abu Nasser commented, “I say to the Americans if you will not change than we wish you more Daniel Wultzes and more pain and sorrow because it seems that this is the only thing you deserve.”

Abu Nasser went on to pledge more suicide bombings inside Israel.

“We will hit whenever we will think it is suitable and do not expect that I give details but we can hit everywhere,” he said.

Also speaking to WND, Islamic Jihad senior leader in the northern West Bank Abu Amin called Wultz’s death a “message from Allah to the unbelievers that he will always be at the side of those who believe and fight for him.”

Comparing Wultz to the suicide bomber who killed the Florida teenager, Abu Amin said, “Our hero believed in Allah and died while fighting for Allah but your pig was killed in a restaurant in an area full of prostitution.”

He said Wultz’s death should demonstrate to Americans “that even if you live in the U.S. the hand of Allah and the sword of the Jihad fighters will reach you and you will find the same end [as Wultz].”

Asked if his group would specifically target Americans in Israel, Abu Amin replied, “Concerning the Americans we do not target them but I will not be surprise if the resistance organizations would reconsider this matter. America is a full partner of the enemy in the siege against our people.

“If we know there are Americans in a place we plan to attack, we will not cancel the operation. On the contrary this would be a sign from Allah that this is a more blessed operation. Killing Americans and Jews in one operation – it can be great.”

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Report: Complex Sting Used in Canada Terror Arrests (Foxnews, 060605)

MISSISSAUGA, Ontario — The Royal Canadian Mounted Police itself delivered three tons of potential bomb-making material to a group that authorities said wanted to launch a string of attacks inspired by Al Qaeda, according to a news report Sunday.

The Toronto Star said the sting unfolded when investigators delivered the ammonium nitrate to the group of Muslim Canadians, then moved in quickly on what officials called a homegrown terror ring.

The newspaper said that investigators learned of the group’s alleged plan to bomb targets around Ontario, then controlled the sale and transport of the fertilizer.

Authorities refused to discuss the Star’s story and have revealed few details of the purported plot, or how the sting developed.

Police arrested 12 adults, ages 19 to 43, and five suspects younger than 18 Friday and Saturday on charges including plotting attacks with explosives on Canadian targets.

The oldest, Qayyum Abdul Jamal, led prayers at a storefront mosque attended by some 40 to 50 families down the street from his home in a middle-class neighborhood of Mississauga, west of Toronto.

Imam Qamrul Khanson said the language of Jamal’s Friday night prayers had a more strident tone than other prayer leaders’, but there was never any talk of terrorism or violence.

Khanson said at least three of the suspects regularly prayed at the Al-Rahman Islamic Center for Islamic Education.

“Here we always preach peace and moderation,” Khanson said at the one-room mosque.

“I have faith that they have done a thorough investigation,” Khanson said of authorities. “But just the possession of ammonium nitrate doesn’t prove that they have done anything wrong.”

Officials said the operation involved some 400 intelligence and law-enforcement officers and was the largest counterterrorism operation in Canada since the adoption of Canada’s Anti-Terrorism Act following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

Citing an unnamed Canadian federal official, The Canadian Press reported that Web surfing and e-mail among the suspects led to the start of the probe in 2004.

“The Internet was, according to the police, was a very important part of their activities,” Canada’s ambassador to Washington, Michael Wilson, said in a TV interview.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the operation was “obviously a great success for the Canadians.”

The 17 suspects represent a spectrum of Canadian society, from the unemployed to the college-educated. The 12 adults live in Toronto, Mississauga and Kingston, Ontario.

Police said the suspects, all citizens or residents of Canada, had trained together.

Cpl. Michele Paradis, a spokeswoman for the Mounties, said no more arrests were expected in coming days.

“Once we once analyze and sort through everything that was seized as a result there may be (more arrests),” she said. “At this point we are confident that we have the majority of people.”

Rocco Galati, a lawyer for two of the men from Mississauga, said: “Both of their families are very well-established professionals, well-established families, no criminal pasts whatsoever.

He described Ahmad Ghany, 21, as a Canada-born health sciences graduate of McMaster University whose father, a physician, emigrated from Trinidad and Tobago in 1955.

His other client, Shareef Abdelhaleen, 30, is an unmarried computer programmer who emigrated from Egypt at age 10 with his father, Galati said.

Two suspects, Mohammed Dirie, 22, and Yasim Abdi Mohamed, 24, already are in an Ontario prison serving two-year terms for possession of illegal weapons.

Neighbors said the oldest suspect, Jamal, was often home and did not seem to work regularly, although his wife drove a schoolbus. The couple has three small children, neighbors said.

Brazilian immigrant Jerry Tavares said Jamal was unfriendly and rarely spoke with neighbors.

Lawyers and relatives of other suspects could not be reached for comment Sunday.

Mike McDonnell, an assistant commissioner with the Mounties, said Saturday that the amount of ammonium nitrate acquired by the alleged terror cell was three times that used to blow up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 people and injuring more than 800.

The fertilizer is safe by itself, but when mixed with fuel oil or other ingredients, it makes a powerful explosive.

There was no indication that Canadian police altered the fertilizer to make it unusable in a bomb.

The FBI said the Canadian suspects might have had “limited contact” with two men recently arrested on terrorism charges in Georgia. There was no indication Sunday, however, that the 17 detainees were trying to plan an attack in the United States.

Another imam, Aly Hindy, said he knew nine of the suspects and complained that Canada’s spy agency, CSIS, has unfairly targeted his mosque and congregants for years.

“They have been harassed by CSIS agents and this is what they come up with?” Hindy said. “I’m almost sure that most of these people will be freed.”

Engineer Mohammed Abdelhaleen said he feared his son, Shareef, had already been convicted in the court of public opinion.

“He just goes and prays in a mosque,” the father said. “That’s all he does.”

Muslim leaders voiced worries about a backlash.

A mosque in northwest Toronto was vandalized, with 25 windows and three doors smashed, police said.

Mohamed Elmasry, president of the Canadian Islamic Congress, said that he and other Muslim leaders were getting threatening e-mails.

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Muslim leaders divided over existence of extremism in their communities (National Post, 060605)

TORONTO — While Muslim leaders distanced themselves from the extremist ideology said to be behind the sweeping terrorism charges laid on the weekend, some community members say they are seeing more young men attracted to a radical influence.

“So many people in our community think it is not here, that it is nothing to worry about,” said Ahmed Amiruddan, chairman of the Ahlus Sunnah Foundation of Canada. “I keep saying, you have to be careful of extremist ideology. It is in our community. More than 80 per cent of our mosques are being penetrated by these guys,” he said.

Salman Hasan, director of the Islamic Foundation of Toronto, a large Islamic centre, said he has recently found some members of his mosque exhibiting signs of extremism, but dismisses them as misguided young men.

“They were just like other confused young minds that needed love and guidance,” he said Sunday.

Other Muslim community members, however, said the notion of extremist Islamic ideology in Canadian mosques is largely a media concoction.

“We don’t see what you hear (about us) in the media,” said Haroon Salamat, head of the TARIC Islamic Centre of Toronto. Salamat was one of several leaders of the city’s Muslim community at a press conference Sunday, with Toronto police Chief Bill Blair, to condemn the alleged terrorist plans.

When the leaders were asked if they had witnessed talk of extremism in their mosques, Imam Hamid Slimi, leader of the Rexdale mosque that had its front windows smashed in early Sunday morning, said: “Absolutely not.”

“And if any of us ever hear, or have heard, of any of our members speaking about acts of violence or death, we would obviously call the police,” he said.

“Canadian Muslims absolutely condemn any acts of violence, or threats of violence, including terrorism,” said Mohammad Alam, president of the Islamic Foundation of Toronto. “We, as all Canadians, are shocked by the recent arrests of young Muslim men and teenagers and the very serious allegations against them.”

The actions of these men “do not reflect the ideology of the Muslim faith,” said Abdul Patel, co-chair of Blair’s Muslim consultative committee.

“We should not (all) be brush-painted with such a broad brush.”

Blair said he has instructed his divisional commanders to reach out to Muslim community leaders and “increase their patrols in and around mosques and Muslim community centres.”

Aly Hindy, Imam at the Salaheddin Islamic Centre in suburban Scarborough, Ont., said the charges are politically motivated and anti-Muslim.

“This is an attack on the Muslim community. Canada has the best Muslim community we are very safe and peaceful,” said Hindy on the weekend when attending the court appearances for the accused men.

“We are abusing our boys for the sake of pleasing George Bush,” he said outside the courtroom. “The CSIS and RCMP are feeling threatened not of terrorism, but of losing their jobs. They need to create an atmosphere of fear in the country to keep their jobs.”

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Frightened rural Ontario residents describe ‘terror-training camp’ (National Post, 060605)

WASHAGO, Ont. — It was the bursts of automatic gunfire that made the farmer in this tiny central Ontario tourist community think something was amiss as he fed his animals after dark.

“I feed my animals at night,” the farmer said Sunday. “So I’d be outside late at night and I’d heard the gunfire from over there, automatic gunfire. I’d hear rat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tat.

“I just knew there was something wrong about them. It was obvious they were doing some kind of military training.”

The sounds of war were coming from what police now describe as a terrorist training camp on an isolated property just outside Washago, about 150 kilometres north of Toronto.

Late last year, residents began noticing groups of as many as a dozen men, dressed in camouflage clothing, drifting into town. The strangers drove up from Toronto in three or four vehicles at a time. They would converge at the property, staying for a week at a time, sometimes longer.

“They were out there almost every other week,” said one neighbour, who like all of the local residents willing to speak with the National Post Sunday, was too frightened to give their names. “I would see like eight of them at a time usually, sometimes as many as a dozen.

“They were all wearing camouflage gear and carrying big bags of equipment coming and going at all times of the day or night.”

The newcomers quickly drew suspicious stares in this small, closely knit rural community on the edge of Ontario’s cottage country.

“You weren’t going to tell me these guys were cottagers or even hunters for goodness sake,” said one woman who lived down a quiet country lane from the group’s makeshift training camp.

“It was kind of hard to miss them,” she added.

The men were using property that belonged to a local described as “a bit of a hermit,” a rocky section of land covered with stands of poplar and red pine, overgrown pasture and swamp.

They would drive down a long dirt lane, through a gate marked No Hunting Or Trespassing and set up tents, obstacle courses and firing ranges throughout the sprawling property.

There is little sign now of what police allege was a training camp for a group of Toronto-area men charged on the weekend with plotting terrorist attacks in Southern Ontario.

All that remains is a derelict building with its roof partially collapsed and a missing front door, which may have been the door shown by police at a Saturday RCMP news conference to announce the arrests. Police believe the door, riddled with bullet holes, may have been used for target practice.

It is believed the building was used as a makeshift headquarters for the training, which began late last fall and continued until last weekend.

Local residents said there were increasingly alarming signs that something illegal was happening at the property.

Finally, late last December, one neighbour decided he had had enough and called police.

“You can tell when someone’s suspicious,” the man said. “They were up to no good, that’s for sure.”

Police quickly honed in on the camp, setting up surveillance cameras in nearby rural mailboxes and in barns overlooking the entrance to the property.

“The police were all over these guys,” said the farmer. “They had cameras all over the place, taking pictures of everyone coming and going from there and helicopters flying over almost every day.”

One resident said the men gave a thin cover story to explain their activities.

“They told (the property owner), they were doing extreme camping, whatever that’s supposed to mean,” the man said. “Pretty extreme camping if you ask me.”

Everyone in the area said they were shocked and worried by revelations of what was happening in their midst.

“This is not small time - these guys were into some big-time stuff,” said one neighbour. “It’s scary to think they were just down the road.”

Bill Duffy, the mayor of Ramara Township, which includes the community of Washago, said he didn’t know about the activities at the camp, but added that he was not surprised given the area’s remoteness and rugged terrain.

In fact, marijuana-grow operations have been springing up in the areas during recent years.

“I had no inkling that was going on in my township,” Duffy said. “But it doesn’t really surprise me.”

“There’s a lot of rural area, a lot of back roads and a lot of isolated properties. This is kind of the perfect spot for something like this.

“We have a lot of problems with people growing marijuana out in the back concessions,” he added. “It’s a rugged, back-hills area. It’s easy to hide a grow-op. But terrorism is something new around here.”

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It’s the Jihad, stupid (townhall.com, 060607)

by Michelle Malkin

Canadian law enforcement officials should be proud of busting a reputed Islamic terrorist network that may span seven nations. Instead, our northern neighbors are trying their damnedest to whitewash the jihadi ties that bind the accused plotters and their murder-minded peers around the world.

We live on a doomed continent of ostriches.

A Royal Canadian Mounted Police official coined the baneful phrase “broad strata” to describe the segment of Canadian society from whence Qayyum Abdul Jamal and his fellow adult suspects Fahim Ahmad, Zakaria Amara, Asad Ansari, Shareef Abdelhaleen, Mohammed Dirie, Yasim Abdi Mohamed, Jahmaal James, Amin Mohamed Durrani, Abdul Shakur, Ahmad Mustafa Ghany and Saad Khalid came.

“Broad”? I suppose it is so if one defines “broad” to mean more than one spelling variation of Mohammed or Jamal. Or perhaps, as Internet humorist Jim Treacher (jimtreacher.com) suggests, “broad” refers to the “strata” of the suspects’ beard lengths.

Undeterred by the obvious, Toronto police chief Bill Blair assured the public that the Muslim suspects “were motivated by an ideology based on politics, hatred and terrorism, and not on faith. . . . I am not aware of any mosques that these individuals were influenced by.” Well, Chief Blindspot, try the Al-Rahman Islamic Center for Islamic Education. That’s the Canadian storefront mosque where eldest jihadi suspect Qayyum Abdul Jamal is, according to his own lawyer, a prayer leader and active member — along with many of the other Muslim males arrested in the sweep.

Many clueless North Americans remain shocked, shocked, that jihadis live among them — despite the open secret of our northern neighbor’s reputation as an Islamic terrorist safe haven. A cloud of befuddlement looms. The Toronto Star reports, with jaw-dropping dim-wittedness, that “it is difficult to find a common denominator” among those who would kill us.

Pass me a clue-by-four: It’s the jihad, stupid. It’s been going on since before the Crusades. And it continues under our noses.

The Canadian plot has been tied to the arrests of two young Georgia Muslim men earlier this year. One is Ehsanul Islam Sadequee. Note to editors: please do not substitute “Islam” with the word “Peace.”

Sadequee and Syed Haris Ahmed traveled to Toronto last March and met with several other targets of a Joint Terrorism Task Force probe. They discussed terrorist strikes on oil refineries and military bases, and “plotted how to disable the Global Positioning System.” Ahmed went on to Pakistan in an effort to obtain “Islamic schooling” at a terrorist training camp, according to an FBI affidavit.

The ranks of the infidel-annihilating plotters among us are legion.

In May, Shahawar Matin Siraj was convicted of plotting to blow up the Herald Square subway station in New York City. He caught the attention of law enforcement after ranting against the United States at a local Islamic bookstore.

Also last month, Virginia Death Row inmate and Nation of Islam convert John Allen Mohammed was convicted of six Maryland murders from his fall 2002 Beltway-area criminal spree. His brainwashed Muslim protege, Lee Malvo, testified that the duo plotted to kill children, cops and pregnant women — and to recruit and train 140 homeless men at a Canadian compound who would commit mass terror in cities across America.

In April, a federal jury convicted 23-year-old Hamid Hayat, a Lodi, Calif., man, of attending a terrorist training camp in Pakistan and returning to the U.S. to commit violent jihad against his fellow citizens.

In March, Iranian-born U.S. citizen Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar drove a rented Jeep Cherokee into a mass of students on the campus of the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill to avenge U.S. actions against Muslims around the world. “I live with the holy Koran as my constitution for right and wrong and definition of injustice,” the UNC engineering grad wrote.

Last summer, officials busted a terrorist plot to attack infidels at military and Jewish sites in Los Angeles on the fourth anniversary of 9/11 or the Jewish holy days. It was devised by militant Muslim converts of Jam’iyyat Ul-Islam Is-Saheeh (Arabic for “Assembly of Authentic Islam”) who had sworn allegiance to violent jihad at California’s New Folsom State Prison.

No common denominator? Please extract your infidel heads from the blinding sands before you lose them.

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Monitor the mosques (townhall.com, 060607)

by Ben Shapiro

On June 2 and 3, Canadian law enforcement in Toronto arrested 17 Muslim men for planning terrorist attacks on Canadian targets. The leader of the group, Qayyum Abdul Jamal, 43, recruited young Muslim males by speaking at Al-Rahman Islamic Center for Islamic Education, a storefront mosque in Mississauga. Law enforcement officials across the globe are searching for suspects connected to the Toronto 17; American law enforcement has already discovered at least two terrorism suspects who spoke with members of the Canadian terrorist cell.

In May 2004, London authorities arrested hook-handed, one-eyed imam Abu Hamza al-Masri. The United States immediately filed charges against al-Masri and asked that Britain expedite him for trial. Among other terrorist acts, the indictment charged al-Masri with attempting to set up a terrorist cell in Oregon. Al-Masri was also linked to terrorists Zacarias Moussaoui, who was involved in the Sept. 11 plot, and Richard Reid (a.k.a. Tariq Raja and Abdul Rahim), the shoebomber. Al-Masri was the imam of the Finsbury Park Mosque in London, where he used his pulpit to recruit terrorists and preach hate.

In September 2002, American law enforcement arrested six members of a larger terrorist cell in Buffalo, New York. All six were young Muslim men, and all six had attended terrorist training in Afghanistan. The leader of the group, Kamal Derwish, had recruited all six arrested members by speaking at his local mosque in Lackawanna. All six men pled guilty to terrorism charges.

Mohammed Atta, one of the Sept. 11 hijackers, used a mosque in Hamburg, Germany to network with potential recruits, including Ramzi Binalshibh, who would act as a coordinator for the attacks. Two of the potential Sept. 11 terrorists, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, hooked up with an imam at Rabat Mosque, Anwar Aulaqi; Aulaqi would later aid al-Hazmi and Mihdhar’s replacement, Hani Hanjour, in relocating east as Sept. 11 approached.

Mosques across the globe have provided material aid to terrorist groups ranging from al-Qaeda to Islamic Jihad to Hezbollah to Hamas. Muslim terrorists use mosques as networking sites and often as recruitment centers for future terrorist comrades. There is no doubt that law enforcement should be heavily scrutinizing the membership and administration of mosques. Doing so before Sept. 11 could have prevented that catastrophe, just as scrutiny of a small, seemingly insignificant storefront mosque may have prevented major terrorist attacks in Canada. Muslim terrorists are, above all, religious. They will attend mosques, even if only to pray. Forget racial profiling—monitoring mosques is simple common sense.

Leaders in the Muslim community don’t seem to get it. “People are suspicious and there’s anger,” complains Aly Hindy, imam at the Toronto-based Salaheddin Islamic Center in Scarborough. “We are being targeted not because of what we’ve done but because of who we are and what we believe in.”

No doubt this is true to some extent. But that is the difference between prevention of crime and after-the-fact investigation of crime. For attempts to remain attempts, suspects must be stopped in the inchoate processes leading up to attacks. Prevention is undoubtedly the only option if civilized nations wish to preserve their citizenries from the sadistic barbarism of our enemies. Monitoring mosques is the simplest and most effective way of preventing terrorist attacks. Many imams are trustworthy; many mosques are clean. Nonetheless, law enforcement must pursue a strategy of “trust, but verify.” Lives depend on it.

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What did Canadians do to deserve this? (townhall.com, 060608)

by Clifford D. May

Are you surprised that terrorists appear to have set their sights on such unlikely targets as the Parliament building in Ottawa and the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. in Toronto? Astonished that anyone would even consider sawing off the head of a Canadian Prime Minister? Are you thinking: What could anyone have against free, democratic, liberal, multicultural, diverse and tolerant Canada?

The question answers itself. Freedom, democracy, liberalism, multiculturalism, diversity and tolerance – these are precisely the attributes that Militant Islamists find most offensive.

This reality is difficult for some people to fathom. It shouldn’t be. The Nazis disdained liberal societies as decadent. The Communists rejected democratic values as bourgeois. Now Militant Islamists regard Western nations as blasphemous. This is old totalitarian wine in new bottles.

Sayed Qutb, the Marx of Militant Islamism, stated unequivocally: “Truth and falsehood cannot coexist on earth...the liberating struggle of jihad does not cease until all religion belongs to God.” Looking at the world through such eyes, freedom, tolerance and democratic values are not virtues – they are symptoms of weakness and moral decline.

In the Islamist perception, Canadians have failed to distinguish between right and wrong, have refused to discriminate between monotheists on the one hand, and infidels, idolaters and polytheists on the other. And Canada awards to its citizens rights and powers that belong exclusively to God.

Those who know God’s will have an obligation to spread His message to the benighted masses. That can be accomplished with sermons; or with bombs. History suggests the latter can vastly increase the persuasiveness of the former.

No doubt, Canada’s Militant Islamists have other grievances as well. It has been reported that those arrested last week planned to take hostages and demand the withdrawal of Canadian troops in Afghanistan.

Militant Islamists do not subscribe to the fashionable view that the smashing of the Taliban was justifiable in a way that toppling Saddam Hussein was not. On the contrary, they believe the Taliban provided just the sort of leadership nations such as Canada ought to be enjoying.

Those arrested last week were acting locally but linking globally. According to Canada’s National Post, “before police tactical teams began their sweeps around Toronto on Friday, at least 18 related arrests had already taken place in Canada, the United States, Britain, Bosnia, Denmark, Sweden, and Bangladesh.” That doesn’t mean those arrested are part of a global organization. It does suggest they are part of a global movement. You don’t defeat such movements by forfeiting battlefields or attempting appeasement. How you do defeat such movements we are only beginning to figure out – one must hope.

The suspects arrested in Canada are all Canadian citizens or legal residents. Early reports insisted they “represent the broad strata of our society” but that description did not withstand scrutiny.

It should be obvious that most Canadian Muslims are not terrorists. It should be equally obvious that Canada’s Muslim community has a serious problem to address. What were these young men taught by the religious leaders in their mosques? Did their neighbors not see where they were heading? Was it sympathy or fear that prevented them from speaking up? If it was fear – fear of whom?

Americans generally expect immigrants to adopt not just American citizenship but also American nationality: to embrace American values, to revere the U.S. Constitution and to learn to speak English. Our more multicultural neighbors to the north have demanded less of those who apply for their passports. Canadians have asked immigrants few questions about their religious and political convictions. Recently, the Canadian government has even been considering allowing Muslims to substitute Islamic Sharia law for civil law. It will be instructive to see if this episode prompts any changes in Canadian thinking.

That is not to suggest that every immigrant to Canada must attempt to become a Molson-drinking, hockey-playing, Dudley Do-Right, proudly pronouncing “z” as zed. But would it be too demanding for Canadians to insist that those who want to make their homes in the Great White North not aspire to be suicide bombers and decapitators of infidels?

Free peoples, if they are to stay free, need to exercise control over their borders. They also need to exercise discretion about who they welcome as neighbors and compatriots.

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North of the border (Washington Times, 060608)

There are important lessons to be learned from the arrests of 17 Canadian Muslims in the plot to attack Ontario landmarks. Canadian prosecutors claim the men plotted to storm the Canadian parliament building in Ottawa, take hostages and behead Prime Minister Stephen Harper if the Canadian government refused to withdraw its 2,300 troops from Afghanistan. The group also considered bombing a nuclear power plant, taking over Canadian Broadcasting Corporation studios in Toronto, targeting the CN Tower and the Toronto Stock Exchange and attacking Canadian Security Intelligence Service facilitiles in Toronto or Ottawa.

As was the case with last July’s London subway bombings, the Canadian arrests remind us that the terrorist threat comes not only from foreign nationals who obtain visas to travel to the West, but from Muslim residents of Western societies who become inculcated with hatred and resentment toward their “home” countries. The latest arrests further undermine the dubious premise that killing or capturing senior al Qaeda terrorists like Osama bin Laden or Abu Musab Zarqawi (desirable as that would be) constitutes some kind of magic bullet that will defeat the Islamofascists.

The best news to come out of this case is that there is extensive U.S.-Canadian cooperation in combatting terrorism — cooperation that will be essential to preventing future attacks on North America. Canadian authorities learned of the existence of this alleged jihadist cell through monitoring radical Islamist Web sites through a surveillance program similar to the National Security Agency’s much-maligned system of monitoring foreign phone calls to the United States placed by persons with al Qaeda links. In the fall of 2004, Canadian agents noticed that some youths were spewing stridently anti-Western rhetoric in a chat room, and that some teens were posting to radical Muslim Web sites. By November, the investigators, believing they had obtained enough information to launch a criminal probe, brought in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. In March, two Americans living in Georgia who had been communicating with the Ontario jihadists, took a bus to Toronto where they discussed possible strategic targets to attack on American soil. Those Americans are in federal custody.

As Canadian forces stepped up operations in Afghanistan, the group of jihadists discussed hitting a Canadian military base. Police decided to arrest cell members June 2, when they attempted to purchase three times the amount of ammonium nitrate that was used in the April 1995 terrorist bombing in Oklahoma City.

While the Canadians are to be commended for their vigilance in breaking up what appears to have been a major terrorist plot, there are storm clouds on the horizon: The most serious ones are that Canada is becoming a refuge for jihadists and that it has been making cuts to CSIS operations. Last month, for example, Deputy CSIS Director Jack Hooper told Canadian senators that about 90% of immigration applicants from Pakistan and Afghanistan have not been adequately screened. Janice Kephart, who led the team that investigated border security for the September 11 commission, says there are at least 350 known jihadists and more than 50 terrorist groups in Canada, and their members could cross the porously defended border with the United States at any time — moreover these jihadists speak perfect English and have no difficulty fitting into Canadian society.

The No. 1 lesson is clear: Despite the Canadian arrests, a huge security threat remains on our northern border.

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Zarqawi and His Role Model: The lessons of two parallel jihadist lives. (Weekly Standard, 060609)

HISTORY NEVER REPEATS ITSELF precisely, but it often rhymes. Coalition forces killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in a safe house just outside Baghdad. More than 800 years earlier, the life of Zarqawi’s role model, Nur ad-Din Zanki (1118-1174), came to an end in Damascus, another power center of the ancient Islamic world. The long overlooked connection between the two men should provide a note of instruction for the future in dealing with the Iraq insurgency.

Most tyrants and terrorists are inspired by a charismatic figure who triumphed in a heroic past. Hitler looked back to Napoleon and Frederick the Great. Lenin measured his achievements against the record of the Paris Commune of 1870.

Zarqawi’s role model was twelfth century Arab fighting king Nur ad-Din Zanki. Zanki had two missions in life: to drive the Crusaders from Arab lands and to crush Shiite rulers. Few understood the importance that Zarqawi placed on him. In interviews with Iraq and Zarqawi specialists at the State Department, Defense Department and West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center, we found no one who understood the importance that Zarqawi placed on Zanki.

A survey of the available literature on Zarqawi in English shows virtually no reference to Zarqawi’s relationship to Zanki. In the Arab world, though, there has been a fair amount of discussion about the two men.

We recently acquired a new, never-before-translated Arabic-language book on Zarqawi, Al Qaeda’s Second Generation, by Jordanian journalist Fouad Hussein, who has been linked to Hezbollah’s al-Manar television network. An independent translation that we commissioned reveals that

Zanki was in fact Zarqawi’s ideological guiding star. Hussein’s book reprints a long personal communication from Saif al-Adel, who heads the military wing of al Qaeda, about Zarqawi. Hussein and al-Adel put great emphasis on the fact that Zanki is Zarqawi’s role model.

“One cannot understand Zarqawi and cannot attempt to predict the future of his organization and the next steps that it will take without being familiar with Nur ad-Din Zanki. Zarqawi was simply fascinated by Nur ad-Din,” al-Adel told Hussein. “Regardless of where he was, Zarqawi would always look for books about Nur ad-Din. The best presents he ever got from his acquaintances were history books that would lengthily describe the jihad that Nur ad-Din Zanki waged against the crusaders and the triumphs that he led his followers to.”

Hussein, who is well-acquainted with al Qaeda leaders, contends that Zarqawi made strategic decisions based on his devotion to Zanki: “This fact enables us to answer the proverbial question of why Zarqawi, of al Qaeda leaders, specifically chose to settle in Iraq after the American military occupied Afghanistan. Perhaps he wants to begin liberating Iraq from Mosul and to spread the tawheed [Islamic monotheism] in Syria, Northern Iraq and Egypt as a preliminary step before liberating Jerusalem. Perhaps it is possible for us to adopt the theory that says that those who closely study history sometimes take on their heroes’ roles and follow their footsteps in order to reshape the course of history.”

“By reading Nur ad-Din [Zanki]’s biography we can understand why Zarqawi chose to trust Syrians from Humaa, Allazeekia, Halab and the Jazeera area of northern Syria first. After reading Nur ad-Din’s story we finally realize why he chose northern Iraq that lies on the banks of the Euphrates as a first stronghold from which to attack the American occupiers of Iraq,” Hussein writes.

Saif al-Adel told Hussein, “I believe that what Abu Musab [Zarqawi] had read about Nur ad-Din [Zanki] and the fact that he started off in Mosul, Iraq greatly influenced his decision to move to Iraq after the Islamic regime in Afghanistan had collapsed.”

ZANKI’S FATHER governed both Aleppo and Mosul. Zanki himself ranged over northern Iraq and Syria (as did Zarqawi). Shortly after his father was assassinated, Zanki devoted himself to vanquishing the Crusaders, a bloody goal he accomplished in Syria through a series of daring raids. After a few reverses in battle, Zanki became reflective and more religious. He was soon noted for his piety and those who praised him received large sums to build new mosques and schools.

Zanki’s newfound religiosity also led him to a new enemy—the Shiites. Zanki’s wars against the Shiites are legendary, culminating in the toppling of the Fatimid caliphate.

When Zanki captured Egypt, he found an extensive bureaucratic state run by Shiites. He took little time destroying it. He began systematically replacing Shiite officials with Sunni appointees. The Shiite form of the call to prayer and Isma’ili lectures at al-Azhar University and elsewhere were eliminated. Sunni jurists replaced Shiite ones throughout the country. When, two years later, Zanki’s viceroy had the sermon read in Cairo in the name of the Sunni caliph, denouncing the Fatimids as infidels, two centuries of Shiite rule officially ended.

Zanki’s belief, summed up by British Arab historians David Luscombe and Jonathan Riley-Smith, that “the jihad against heresy must be pursued as vigorously as the

jihad against the crusaders,” has an obvious resonance with the language of heresy that was mobilized by Zarqawi against the Shiites in Iraq.

To be sure, Zarqawi, like most jihadists, also derived inspiration from Saladin, who battled Richard the Lionhearted and recaptured Jerusalem for the Muslims. But this was likely complicated for Zarqawi, given Zanki’s relationship with Saladin.

Saladin served as Zanki’s general in his military campaigns against the Fatimids, before robbing Zanki of his opportunity to be remembered as the man who reconquered Jerusalem—an honor that Saladin wanted for himself. When Zanki tried to organize a campaign against Jerusalem, Saladin offered a camel train of excuses, waiting until Zanki eventually died. Then Saladin struck.

Zanki’s death, and the subsequent defection of many of his allies to Saladin’s side, helped paper over the differences between Zanki and his more illustrious successor, giving the anti-Crusader struggle an exaggerated sense of continuity.

LIKE ZANKI, Zarqawi was a fighter first, and became religious only after personal reversals. In his Jordanian hometown of Zarqa, Zarqawi was known as a thug, a brawler, a gang enforcer. He was frequently arrested for petty crimes. He was fired from the only job he ever had after a few weeks, leaving him destitute and unmarriageable. The post-Soviet feuds in Afghanistan drew him there in 1993, where he immersed himself in radical Islam.

THE CONNECTION BETWEEN Zanki and Zarqawi should have been viewed as more than a historical footnote: It could have opened a new window into our fight in Iraq.

One aspect of Zarqawi’s jihad that would have been illuminated was his selection of northern Iraq as a central stage for his fight against the Americans. Zanki’s prominence in Zarqawi’s imagination may also have provided clues about where he intended to strike next—such as trying to emulate his idol’s expansion into Syria and Egypt.

And realizing this connection could have opened further opportunities for the United States. Since Zarqawi was doubtless aware of why his role model failed in retaking Jerusalem, the U.S. military and intelligence community might have embarked on a “Project Saladin” psy-ops mission to make Zarqawi suspect that his closest lieutenants’ ambitions would produce similar betrayal. Zanki’s legendary hatred of the Shiites and eradication of that sect’s influence from the Fatimid caliphate might also have been used to drive a wedge between Zarqawi and his Iranian Shiite allies.

Killing Zarqawi does not end the war against al Qaeda in Iraq. A successor will emerge, even if he is not of Zarqawi’s caliber. Hopefully, American intelligence will learn about the historical role models of his successor, and use it to their advantage.

Richard Miniter is the author of two New York Times bestsellers, Losing bin Laden and Shadow War. Daveed Gartenstein-Ross is a Washington, D.C.-based counterterrorism consultant whose first book, My Year Inside Radical Islam, will be published in Winter 2007 by Tarcher/Penguin.

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A Shattering of Memes: The career of Zarqawi’s likely successor highlights Iraqi ties to al Qaeda. (Weekly Standard, 060611)

WITH THE DEATH of Abu Musab Zarqawi, a great deal of attention has focused on Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the Egyptian-born terrorist that Major General William Caldwell singled out as the “most logical” choice by al Qaeda in Iraq to replace Zarqawi. What all of this attention has missed, however, is what it means concerning U.S. pre-war claims about Iraqi collaboration with al Qaeda.

According to the information provided by the U.S. military, al-Masri traveled to Iraq in 2002 before Zarqawi and established the first al Qaeda cell in the Baghdad area. From both his nationality and connections with al Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri, it can be reasonably concluded that al-Masri was a member of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the group that al-Zawahiri headed prior to his merger with bin Laden’s organization. This is significant, given the 9/11 Commission report’s cryptic note that al-Zawahiri had “ties of his own” to the former Iraqi regime and al-Masri’s presence in Saddam’s Baghdad.

With the advantage of hindsight, it appears that al-Masri was one of two “senior Egyptian Islamic Jihad associates” that then-CIA Director George Tenet referenced to Senator Jack Reed before the Senate Armed Services Committee:

SEN. REED: I—I—the issue is—and I want to be clear. I understand your response. This issue is his relationship to Saddam Hussein, to Baghdad, to—if he is operating in concert explicitly with Saddam Hussein, or is there for the—his own convenience and safety—can you comment on that?

TENET: The argument—the specific line of evidence and argument we have made is they’re providing safe haven to him. And we know this because a foreign government approached the Iraqis twice about Zarqawi’s presence in Baghdad, and he disappeared. The second troubling piece of this, sir, is, as I mentioned yesterday, the two dozen other associates and two senior Egyptian Islamic Jihad associates that’s indistinguishable from al Qaeda because they merged there. And the third piece I’d say to you is Baghdad’s not Geneva. It is inconceivable that these people are sitting there without the Iraqi intelligence services knowledge of the fact that there is a safe haven being provided by people to people who believe it’s fairly comfortable to operate there. That’s as far as I can take the story today.

SEN. REED: All right. Following up, the presence—all of these individuals you’ve cited are in Baghdad, based on your information?

TENET: Yes.

SEN. REED: Do you have any information that, beyond providing the safe haven, as you seem to have clear evidence, that the Iraqi regime is facilitating their operations?

TENET: That’s what we’re trying to understand more of, sir.

It should be noted in the exchange cited above that Sen. Reed acknowledged to Director Tenet that there appeared to be “clear evidence” that the Iraqi regime was providing safe haven to Zarqawi and two senior Egyptian Islamic Jihad associates (one of whom was al-Masri). Secretary Powell later described these same individuals before the U.N. Security Council as having “established a base of operations” in Baghdad where they could “coordinate the movement of people, money and supplies into and throughout Iraq . . . they’ve now been operating freely in the capital for more than eight months.”

Powell also alleged that “We know these affiliates are connected to Zarqawi because they remain even today in regular contact with his direct subordinates, including the poison cell plotters, and they are involved in moving more than money and materiel.” This is perhaps the most alarming accusation. The State Department’s 2002 Patterns of Global Terrorism report notes that, “In the past year, al-Qaida operatives in northern Iraq concocted suspect chemicals under the direction of senior al-Qaida associate Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi and tried to smuggle them into Russia, Western Europe, and the United States for terrorist operations.”

CRITICS OF THE ADMINISTRATION claim that the presence of Zarqawi and his associates in Baghdad, like the body of administration claims of Iraqi collaboration with Zarqawi, were the result of “cherry-picked” or manipulated intelligence. The bipartisan Senate Select Intelligence Committee, whose members include several of the administration’s most strident critics, found otherwise, concluding that “the information provided by the Central Intelligence Agency for the terrorism portion of Secretary Powell’s speech was carefully vetted by both terrorism and region analysts” and that “none of the portrayals of the intelligence reporting included in Secretary Powell’s speech differed in any significant way from earlier assessments published by the Central Intelligence Agency.”

TWO FURTHER ASPECTS of al-Masri’s career cut deeply into critics’ understanding of Zarqawi and his organization. While some have alleged that bin Laden and Zarqawi existed as rivals prior to the invasion of Iraq, this interpretation is belied by General Caldwell’s statement that Zarqawi first met al-Masri at

al-Farouk, an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan, and has had a “very close relationship” with him since arriving in Iraq.

The acknowledgement by Caldwell that al-Masri was in contact with al-Zawahiri likewise belies critics’ charges that no real connection exists between al Qaeda in Iraq and its parent organization headed up by Osama bin Laden. See the calls among Zarqawi’s online followers for bin Laden to appoint a new emir of al Qaeda in Iraq so that their jihad can continue. Clearly, whatever the differences between Zarqawi and bin Laden, they were more than willing to cooperate when it came to killing Americans.

The potential rise of Abu Ayyub al-Masri in al Qaeda in Iraq provides a welcome opportunity for the administration to both clarify misperceptions concerning the nature and identity of our enemies and rebut critics who falsely accuse the administration of having brought terrorism to Iraq. Whether or not the administration chooses to seize this opportunity will be another matter altogether.

Dan Darling is a counterterrorism consultant.

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Now for the Bad News: Zarqawi is dead, but the damage he did remains. (Weekly Standard, 060613)

ABU MUSAB AL ZARQAWI is among the least interesting Islamic terrorists since modern Islamic terrorism took shape in Iran and Egypt in the 1950s and ‘60s. Compared with Osama bin Laden, with his elegant prose, his appreciation for redolent historical Muslim narrative, his seemingly conscious imitation of the Prophet Muhammad, and his refined, almost feminine movements, Zarqawi was Islamist trailer trash, a crude man whose love of violence was unvarnished, organic, perhaps perversely sexual. But Zarqawi was a man of his age: He is a big red dot on the graph charting the Islamic world’s moral free fall since modernity began battering traditional Muslim ethics, with ever-increasing effectiveness after World War One.

It is by no means clear that Zarqawi is near the bottom of this plunge. His joy in massacring infidels—along with all the Muslims the extremists deem apostates—could even become the defining feature of bin Ladenism in the future. Zarqawi’s death is a cause for jubilation, especially among Iraq’s Shiites, whom he zealously slaughtered. No single man did more to bring on the sectarian strife that is crippling Iraq. If the Shiites give up on the idea of Iraqi brotherhood—which grows ever more likely as half-hearted, undermanned American counterinsurgency strategies continue to fail—and grind the Sunni Arab community into dust, possibly provoking a vicious duel among Sunnis and Shiites across the region, Zarqawi can posthumously and proudly take credit.

Zarqawi was tailor-made for post-Saddam Iraq: a barbaric, very modern Sunni fundamentalist in a society pulverized and militarized by Saddam Hussein. Through

oppression and support, Saddam had energized Sunni militancy. Starting in the late 1980s, the Butcher of Baghdad became one of the great mosque builders of Islamic history, and under his domes, Islamic fundamentalists increasingly gathered. Long before Saddam fell, a reinvigorated Sunni Islamic identity was replacing the desiccated, secular Baath party as a, if not the, lodestone of the Sunni community. Always looking outward toward the larger Sunni Arab world (and away from the Shiite Arabs and Sunni Kurds, who comprise about 80% of Iraq’s population), Iraq’s Sunni Arabs were playing catch-up with their foreign brethren, who had already downgraded, if not buried, secular Arab nationalism as an inspiring ideology and given birth to bin Ladenism.

Zarqawi lasted as long as he did in Iraq because he had many sympathizers, probably even among those who were revolted by his gruesome tactics, often aimed at Shiite women and children. Zarqawi and his men were regularly, so it is said, obliged to move their headquarters and areas of operation because of Iraqi Sunni resistance to his methods and his overbearing ways. This may well be true. But Iraq’s Sunni insurgents could have easily killed him and his foreign and Iraqi jihadist allies. Their numbers and means dwarfed his. They could have betrayed him long ago, to either his American or his Iraqi enemies. Sunni Arab Iraq is a region of villages, towns, and cities surrounded by great swaths of desert where city kids, like Zarqawi and his foreign holy warriors, cannot sustain themselves. (Important rule about modern Islamic holy warriors: They are urbanites who know not camels.)

The Sunni will to power is deep-rooted and ferociously strong in Iraq. Underestimating this force and failing to confront it head on early in the occupation remains perhaps the single greatest analytical error of the U.S. military, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Coalition Provisional Authority under Ambassador L. Paul Bremer. It distorts and has so far defined the ethics of the Iraqi Sunnis as a community.

Their belief in Sunni supremacy has made mincemeat of those Americans and secularized Iraqis who were certain that Iraqis thought of themselves as Iraqis first, without reference to sectarian loyalties. Sunni hubris has made compromises with the Kurdish and especially the Arab Shiite communities extraordinarily difficult. Whether it be dividing oil wealth, assigning senior positions in government, or striking the balance between purging and tolerating the former Baathists, Iraq’s Sunnis could surely have cut a better deal without the Sunni insurgency. More than any other factor, the insurgency has converted Iraq’s traditional Shiite clergy from hostility to federalism in Iraq to neutrality or even sympathy. Zarqawi understood the dynamic here and did all that he could to ensure that sectarian sensitivities were inflamed after Saddam’s fall.

It would be comforting to believe that Zarqawi’s atrocities have made the Iraqi Sunnis more reflective. The Jordanian holy warrior forced them to look into the abyss. Certainly, killing Zarqawi is both a tactical and philosophical triumph. Contrary to much left-wing mythology, there is not an endless supply of operational talent in third-world “liberation” movements, be they religiously or secularly based. Chop the head off military organizations, even when they are fairly rag-tag, and you can damage them severely, perhaps mortally. The ongoing political process in Iraq, which is drawing in more Sunnis, may have had something to do with Zarqawi’s death.

His demise will give Iraqi Sunnis a moment to pause, reflect, and perhaps helpfully rewrite their own history. It would be too much to ask for the leaders of this community to confess the extent to which they contributed to the Zarqawi phenomenon in Iraq; certainly the surrounding Arab Sunni world seems quite willing to accept that decent men and women should experience frissons whenever bin Laden launches lethal attacks on the United States.

Few Sunni Arab intellectuals have responded with joy to the news of Zarqawi’s death. Many seem uncomfortable with the tactics Zarqawi used (so, too, it appears, were bin Laden and his Egyptian second, Ayman al-Zawahiri, the tactically sensitive moral conscience of al Qaeda). Far fewer appear to be uncomfortable with Zarqawi’s overall objective—humbling the Americans, the Shiites, and the Kurds. We will see in the coming weeks whether a serious, critical discussion of Zarqawi’s barbaric treatment of the Shiites develops and who abstains from calling him a martyr.

If the Iraqi Arab Sunnis can stop speaking sympathetically of foreign jihadists, then they might be able to begin to question the ethic of martyrdom that fuels their insurgency against the new order in Iraq. If they can stop using the specter of violence as a negotiating strategy, then they might even be able to abort the growing Shiite violence against them before it consumes the country, destroying the clerically backed effort to create a functioning democracy. This may already be impossible, now that Shiite militias are terrifying the Sunni community. Again, Zarqawi knew what he was doing: Reconciliation would be brutally difficult once the Shiites started doing to Sunnis what the Baathists and the Sunni insurgents and holy warriors had been doing to the Shiites for years.

The dimensions of Zarqawi’s possible success are thus enormous—greater than what bin Laden accomplished on September 11. Zarqawi was the right man, with the right tactics, at the right moment. In all probability, he would not have mattered if the United States had actually occupied the Sunni Triangle after the deposing of Saddam Hussein, thereby giving the fallen Sunni Arab community a chance to breathe before they became sentimentally and physically enmeshed by the homegrown insurgency and imported holy war.

But Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld chose not to send more troops to Iraq after the fall of Saddam, even after it became blindingly obvious that the insurgents, not the Americans, controlled the roads throughout the Sunni Triangle. General John Abizaid, the commander of American forces in the Middle East, married Rumsfeld’s mania for new-age warfare and his lack of interest in post-Saddam Iraqi society with a very new-age, “light footprint” approach to counterinsurgency.

As this thinking has it, American forces, if deployed in large numbers, are more likely to provoke trouble than secure the peace. We are, as General Abizaid likes to say, “antibodies” in the Muslim Middle East. This is an odd position to hold after three years of ever-worsening insurgency—especially when violence has dropped in Iraq every time the Bush administration has increased U.S. troop levels for a national election. It’s an odd position to hold after the victory in Tal Afar, where the American command saturated the town with U.S. troops, and the freed Sunni Arab residents were thankful.

It may well be that the manner of Zarqawi’s death will send the wrong signal to the U.S. military, which seems determined to continue its “intelligence-driven” counterinsurgency. Good intelligence was followed by laser-guided munitions—just the kind of action that warms Secretary Rumsfeld’s heart. But neither we nor the Iraqis are going to find salvation through good intelligence and smart bombs.

If we continue on this “easy” path, we will only guarantee that Abu Musab al Zarqawi’s name will endure. Odds are decent that a historian looking back on our sojourn in Mesopotamia and the Iraqis’ valiant effort to create a democracy on the ruins of Saddam’s totalitarianism will find on our epitaph some tribute to Zarqawi, our monument no doubt safely inside the Green Zone, far from the carnage that this most savage of terrorists fathered.

Reuel Marc Gerecht is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a contributing editor to The Weekly Standard.

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No Posthumous Victory: for Zarqawi (Weekly Standard, 060613)

ON WEDNESDAY, June 7, U.S. military forces, in President Bush’s words, “delivered justice to the most wanted terrorist in Iraq,” Abu Musab al Zarqawi.

Before considering the possible implications for the war in Iraq and the global struggle against terror, we should pause to celebrate so striking an instance of injustice avenged, and justice vindicated. The unjust—even the barbarically unjust—prevail all too often in this world. It is good for civilized people to see, as Marshall Wittmann put it, that “evil has suffered a setback.” In the blunt words of Paul Bigley of the United Kingdom, whose brother Ken was captured and beheaded by Zarqawi, the terrorist “deserved what he got and may he rot in hell.”

One might also pause to point out that if we had followed the advice of those who want to pull out from Iraq, Abu Musab al Zarqawi would today be alive and well, and triumphant.

What are the implications for the war in Iraq? That depends on some factors that we can’t yet know with any confidence—the resilience of al Qaeda’s leadership in Iraq, for one thing, and the true sentiment among the Sunnis of Iraq. But it also depends on what we do. Do we take advantage of this opportunity politically and militarily? Do we pursue the enemy aggressively now when it may be rattled and divided? Or do we do look on this as an excuse to begin to get out—as John Kerry and many others are already advocating? If we do the latter, we

will give Zarqawi a victory in death that he could not achieve in life.

What needs to be done now seems clear: a renewed offensive to wipe out what remains of Zarqawi’s organization and to defeat the insurgency. We highly recommend the strategy laid out three weeks ago in these pages by Frederick W. Kagan (see “A Plan for Victory in Iraq,” May 29) for a comprehensive execution of the clear/hold/build approach in the Euphrates Valley, to be accomplished by Iraqi and U.S. forces working together—something that cannot be accomplished if we draw down U.S. forces. Some counterinsurgency experts would put a priority on sending additional troops to establish order in Baghdad.

But whatever operational choices are made, now is the time to take our best shot at really improving the situation on the ground in Iraq. If this requires 90% of the president’s time, if it requires stressing the Pentagon and shaking up business as usual elsewhere in the administration—so be it. There is no other successful path forward for the Bush administration than victory in Iraq.

It is also the time to revisit the case for the war. Zarqawi is a perfect reminder of why we had to fight in Iraq. Would we be safer if he were living there, under Saddam’s protection, securely planning attacks around the world and working on his chemical and biological weapons projects? Zarqawi’s life and death remind us that we are engaged in a global struggle. When he died, Palestinian foreign minister Mahmoud al-Zahar, a leader of Hamas, linked the “resistance” in Iraq to that against Israel, deploring what he termed the “assassination” of Zarqawi. As Saul Singer noted in the Jerusalem Post, we are “witnessing the seamlessness of jihad. Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, and al Qaeda come from different sides of the Sunni-Shiite divide, but they agree on the need to wage jihad against the West, particularly Israel and the United States. The death of Zarqawi saddens all of them, just as it causes encouragement for free peoples everywhere.”

Zarqawi was a cunning and effective leader of the forces of jihadist terror. His brutality against civilians—Shiites mostly, but also Sunnis who wanted to work to create a new Iraq—helped push Iraq dangerously close to a sectarian civil war and ethnic cleansing, and gravely endangered Iraq’s brave experiment in democratic federalism and freedom. But he did not succeed, though the threat he helped create is very much with us.

Al Qaeda’s top priority remains what it was in Ayman al-Zawahiri’s letter to Zarqawi last July: “Expel the Americans from Iraq.” To which, surely, Americans must respond: No posthumous victories for Zarqawi.

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Zarqawi connections (Washington Times, 060613)

In the wake of Abu Musab Zarqawi’s death, mainstream media organs like the New York Times and Newsweek have run chronologies of the archterrorist’s life that omit mention of his stay in Baghdad in 2002, while others, including the Associated Press, have attempted to discredit the Bush administration’s claims that Zarqawi was a link between Iraq and al Qaeda. As Stephen Hayes shows in the Weekly Standard, the AP account is wrong. While the full extent of Zarqawi’s connections with Baghdad are still a matter of debate, it is false to assert, as AP and others have done since Zarqawi’s death, that talk about the connection is little more than “myth-making” on the part of the Bush administration.

According to AP reporter Patrick Quinn’s account, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell’s Feb. 5, 2003, presentation to the U.N. Security Council, in which he cited Zarqawi’s presence in northern Iraq as proof of Saddam Hussein’s links with al Qaeda, was “later debunked by U.S. intelligence officials.” Mr. Quinn was wrong, as Mr. Powell’s statement was actually confirmed by the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report. In his remarks before the Security Council, Mr. Powell, (who is not known for pro-war bombast) bluntly informed the council that there was a “sinister nexus between Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network, a nexus that combines classic terrorist organizations and modern methods of murder. Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network headed by Abu Musab al Zarqawi, an associate and collaborator of Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda lieutenants.”

The secretary of state mentioned Zarqawi’s terrorist training in Afghanistan, and the fact that he had set up a chemical weapons facility in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq. But in addition, Mr. Powell noted that in May 2002, Zarqawi traveled to Baghdad for medical treatment and spent two months recuperating there: “During this stay, nearly two dozen extremists converged on Baghdad and established a base of operations there. These al Qaeda affiliates, based in Baghdad, now coordinate the movement of people, money and supplies into and throughout Iraq for his network, and they’ve now been operating freely in the capital for more than eight months.” Saddam Hussein’s aides denied any link with al Qaeda, but this was demonstrably false, Mr. Powell said: “We know these affiliates are connected to Zarqawi because they remain even today in regular contact with his direct subordinates, including his poison cell plotters, and they are involved in moving more than money and material.”

According to the AP story, Mr. Powell’s statement was “debunked.” This is untrue. As noted by the intelligence committee’s July 9, 2004, report on prewar intelligence, the U.N. speech “was carefully vetted” by U.S. officials, and none of the information in the speech “differed in any significant way” from earlier CIA assessments. Indeed, a careful reading of the section of the report dealing with prewar intelligence (much of it blacked out for intelligence reasons) suggests that the Zarqawi connection was just one of many reports of links between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda that U.S. intelligence devoted considerable time to investigating in the years leading up to the war.

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Jordan’s helping hand (Washington Times, 060613)

According to U.S. intelligence sources the Pentagon’s “Task Force 145” tracked the most wanted man in Iraq for a long time, but it was thanks to human intelligence, or HUMINT — more specifically to the work of a Jordanian special forces team operating inside Iraq — that helped nab a man who later led the American and Iraqi special forces to capture Abu Musab Zarqawi.

Earlier reports spoke of very limited Jordanian cooperation in helping track down the Jordanian-born terrorist. However, a Jordanian intelligence source told United Press International that Jordanian Special Forces had been operating inside Iraq for some time. “We had to learn to play the game,” the source told UPI.

In Washington, Jordanian Ambassador Karim Kawar told UPI, “Jordan and the United States have long cooperated in fighting terrorism.”

And as in all epic manhunts, despite the fancy electronic spy gadgetry, the multibillion-dollar satellites in space able to photograph the face of a person back on Earth, in the final analysis it all comes back to the work of a single informant able to provide that critical piece of information needed to crack the case. The informant usually has his own motive — be it revenge, monetary rewards, or for reasons only he knows, and with which he will have to live with the nightmare of having sold a man’s life for just 30 pieces of silver — or the modern equivalent.

In Zarqawi’s case, the U.S. had the Iraqi informant nabbed by the Jordanians, who agreed several months ago to finger Zarqawi’s spiritual adviser to the U.S.-led counterterrorism force. At this point, the United States made use of its TECHINT, or technical intelligence. They identified and were able to monitor the cell phone of the terrorist leader’s imam. Predator planes were brought in to track the spiritual adviser to the safe house where he met Zarqawi. Special teams of Task Force 145 and units of the Iraqi army were also called in to surround the house where the most notorious man in Iraq was hiding out, to ensure he could not escape.

At this point the United States called in an air strike on the house. Two 500-pound bombs were laser-guided to their targets, killing most of the people inside. According to some reports, Zarqawi survived the initial attack. He was picked up and placed on a stretcher by Iraqi troops and died shortly after from his wounds, but not before he was able to utter a few words to his captors as he lay in a stretcher.

Many in the know say it took two months to field the black special forces team that was to target Zarqawi’s Baqouba safe house, much as targeting is done in Afghanistan.

At least six serving U.S. intelligence sources confirmed to UPI that Zarqawi’s death was authentic. But many officials are still showing extreme caution, though U.S. and Iraqi authorities have confirmed the death on the basis of his physical appearance, scars on the body and comparison of fingerprints.

Until last April, no one quite knew what Zarqawi looked like. Not the United States, nor the Iraqis — not even the Israelis. There were no reliable pictures of him available. Like most guerrilla leaders who spend time in the shadows, Zarqawi never liked to be photographed. He was very security-conscious. But then surprisingly, on April 26, 2006, a Web site associated with al Qaeda disseminated a video-recorded message showing his face. Presuming the picture in this video was really that of Zarqawi and that the fingerprints used for comparison really belonged to him, the confirmation of his death should be treated as authentic.

Still, many say it’s too early to determine whether he was really killed by the Americans in an air strike as claimed or by the Iraqi resistance fighters, who had reportedly developed differences with him, and his body thrown away to be subsequently recovered by the American and Iraqi forces. The latter is being investigated as a possibility because since last year, there were indications the al Qaeda leadership in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region and Iraqi resistance fighters were unhappy over some of the methods adopted by Zarqawi. His virulently anti-Shi’ite diatribe calling for an intersectarian jihad had made even Ayman al-Zawahri, the No. 2 to bin Laden in al Qaeda, very uncomfortable. He had expressed his misgivings in a letter to Zarqawi.

The Iraqi resistance fighters were, according to some, unhappy over Zarqawi’s expanding the Iraqi jihad to foreign territories, such as Jordan. Others disputed his desires to give the jihad a pan-Islamic dimension.

Although some were quick to label Zarqawi the “Arab Che,” Zarqawi lacked the charisma, the dogma and the leadership qualities of Che Guevara. And his anti-Shi’ite vendetta seemed to have caused more bad than good for his cause.

As for the immediate future, intelligence sources told UPI we would probably see in Iraq a denouement similar to what we have been seeing in Saudi Arabia, where every time a leader considered important is killed by the security forces, another person takes up the leadership and keeps the jihad going. The more leaders killed by the Saudi security forces, the more the new leaders who have come up and rallied the cadres and motivated them to keep the jihad going.

Meanwhile bin Laden and Zawahri must be worried about their own security. If they were killed, would their movement survive? And now that Zarqawi is out of the way, the U.S. will certainly renew efforts to find and kill the two top al Qaeda chiefs.

Claude Salhani is international editor for United Press International.

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Why strike Canada? (townhall.com, 060614)

by Joel Mowbray

In the predictable stories reporting the “astonishment” of friends and neighbors about the Canadian terror suspects arrested last week, one tidbit serves as a cautionary tale for the threat of homegrown terrorism in the U.S.

One of the 17 arrested, Qayyum Abdul Jamal, was an imam at a small storefront mosque in suburban Toronto. Those who listened to his sermons have told reporters that they didn’t promote violent jihad or advocate killing non-Muslims. In a post-9/11 environment less hospitable to such rhetoric, these denials actually could be true.

But the arrested imam didn’t need to preach violence in order to prime the terror pump.

A local Muslim community center director explained to the Associated Press that Mr. Jamal had told his congregants “that the Canadian Forces were going to Afghanistan to rape women.” And this slander almost certainly was not uttered in isolation.

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In many ways, such outrageous propaganda is more troubling than chants of “Jihad! Jihad!” or “Death to America.” Convincing impressionable youths that their fellow Muslims are under attack can have a profound impact, simultaneously dehumanizing non-Muslim neighbors while building the case that killing them is not just morally acceptable, but in fact, obligatory.

What makes propaganda so pernicious is that it doesn’t raise the same red flags. It appears no one reported Imam Jamal’s slanders, and even followers who don’t support violence probably wouldn’t have considered the vile lies particularly dangerous. But they are.

Just ask the former valedictorian of the Saudi Academ y.

After he was arrested for plotting to assassinate President George W. Bush, Abu Ali gave a videotaped confession in which he explained why he “immediately” accepted al Qaeda’s offer to join the Jihad. His reason? His “hatred of the U.S.”—the country where he was born and raised. He doesn’t appear ever to have suffered any oppression or been victimized because of his Muslim faith. But that didn’t matter. His hatred for his home country was fueled by “what I felt was [the U.S.’s] support of Israel against the Palestinian people.”

Abu Ali was an American kid, and his affiliations with Palestinians were at best loose. Yet he was willing to give his life—and wage holy war against his neighbors—for reasons having little to do with his personal experience.

Some would no doubt seek to blame Israel or the U.S. for his turn to terrorism, just as a disturbing number of apologists have taken at face value jihadists who point the finger at U.S. presence in Iraq or the Jewish one in “Palestine.”

But if the real motivation for Islamic terror is an aggressive U.S. foreign policy or Israel’s supposed oppression of the Palestinians, why did 17 young Muslim men allegedly plot to strike Canada?

Canada has no soldiers in Iraq. Few would consider it a good friend of Israel. Canada has offered its warm embrace for Muslims from around the globe. Canadian Muslims experience minimal discrimination, let alone anything even resembling oppression.

Why Canada?

Leaders of Islamic terrorist groups, from Osama bin Laden to Shiekh Yassin (the “handicapped” and “elderly” founder of Hamas), universally agree that no government is legitimate unless it is Islamic. Establishing an Islamic state is, in fact, what most unifies jihadists around the world.

So why Canada? Because it is not an Islamic state.

But the drive for an Islamic state is probably not enough of a salient motivator for foot soldiers, as it is still a somewhat intellectual ideal. Hence the slanders. Telling young Muslims that their non-Muslim neighbors are going halfway around the world to rape Muslim women strikes a raw nerve.

Believing that members of the Ummah (the world body of Muslims) need to be defended makes someone far more susceptible to messages that violence should be waged in the name of Islam.

How many Imam Jamals are there in the U.S.? How many imams are brainwashing their followers with vicious lies about their fellow Americans? How many American Muslims believe that their Jewish and Christians neighbors—and not jihadists—are the ones responsible for the mass murder of innocent Iraqis? How many believe that Israeli soldiers slaughter Palestinian women and children for sport—and that the U.S. openly supports it?

The answer to all of the above is: At least some. We know this from the public record, particularly information stemming from various terror arrests.

Here is the more pertinent question: Who is actually fighting the propaganda? Who is combating the spread of radical Islam?

Law enforcement can intervene to thwart planned violence, but what can it do about hate speech? Not much. Even fire-breathing imams enjoy Constitutional protections. They don’t, however, enjoy freedom from condemnation. Their followers are free to run them out of town for spewing venom and demonizing non-Muslims.

Thus the most important question of all is not how many Imam Jamals there are here in the U.S., but rather, how many American Muslims will take a stand against indoctrination that pushes kids in the direction—if not into the arms—of terrorists?

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Spinning Zarqawi: What three al Qaeda terrorists had to say about Zarqawi’s and al Qaeda’s cooperation with Saddam. (Weekly Standard, 060615)

NOW THAT ABU MUSAB AL ZARQAWI IS DEAD, perhaps the American press can also lay to rest the biggest myth about the mass murderer: that he had nothing to do with Saddam’s regime prior to the war. It is not clear where this claim originated, but it is widely accepted. In the cover story for this month’s Atlantic Monthly, for example, Mary Anne Weaver writes, “In his address to the United Nations making the case for war in Iraq, Powell identified al-Zarqawi—mistakenly, as it turned out—as the crucial link between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein’s regime.”

Similar statements can be found throughout the coverage of Zarqawi’s barbarous life. But this says more about the desire to keep Saddam’s reign separated from the rise of al Qaeda in Iraq’s terror network than it does about the actual facts.

There is abundant evidence that Saddam’s regime, at the very least, tolerated Zarqawi’s existence in regime-controlled areas of Iraq prior to the war. Moreover, at least three high-level al Qaeda associates have testified to Saddam’s warm welcome for Zarqawi and his associates.

Consider what a top al Qaeda operative, Abu Zubaydah, told his CIA interrogators after his capture in March 2002. According to the Senate Intelligence Report, Zubaydah said “he was not aware of a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda.” But, he added that “any relationship would be highly compartmented and went on to name al Qaeda members who he thought had good contacts with the Iraqis.” Zubaydah “indicated that he heard that an important al-Qaida associate, Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi, and others had good relationships with Iraqi intelligence.”

Zubaydah’s testimony has since been further corroborated by a known al Qaeda ideologue, Dr. Muhammad al-Masari. Al-Masari operated the Committee for the Defense of Legitimate Rights, a Saudi oppositionist group and al Qaeda front, out of London for more than decade. He told the editor-in-chief of Al-Quds Al-Arabi that Saddam “established contact with the ‘Afghan Arabs’ as early as 2001, believing he would be targeted by the US once the Taliban was routed.” Furthermore, “Saddam funded Al-Qaeda operatives to move into Iraq with the proviso that they would not undermine his regime.”

Al-Masari claimed that Saddam’s regime actively aided Zarqawi and his men prior to the war and fully included them in his plans for a terrorist insurgency. He said Saddam “saw that Islam would be key to a cohesive resistance in the event of invasion.” Iraqi officers bought “small plots of land from farmers in Sunni areas” and they buried “arms and money caches for later use by the resistance.”

Al-Masari also claimed that “Iraqi army commanders were ordered to become practicing Muslims and to adopt the language and spirit of the jihadis.”

Just as Saddam ordered, many of Iraq’s senior military and intelligence personnel joined or aided Zarqawi’s jihad. Many of the more prominent supporters and members of Zarqawi’s al Qaeda branch, in fact, came from the upper echelon of Saddam’s regime. Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri (aka the “King of Clubs”) and his sons allied with Zarqawi, as did members of Muhammad Hamza Zubaydi’s (aka the “Queen of Spades”) family. Zarqawi’s allies included Muhammed Hila Hammad Ubaydi, who was an aide to Saddam’s chief of staff of intelligence, and some of his more lethal operatives served as officers in Saddam’s military, including Abu Ali, “Al-Hajji” Thamer Mubarak (whose sister attempted a martyrdom operation in Jordan), Abu-Ubaidah, and Abdel Fatih Isa.

THESE BAATHISTS, and others, have spilled much blood in Zarqawi’s name. Their attacks were among “Zarqawi’s” most successful, including an assault on the Abu Ghraib prison and the first attack on the U.N.’s headquarters. The latter strike was among al Qaeda’s earliest, killing Sergio de Mello, the U.N.’s special representative in Baghdad, in August 2003.

In addition to Abu Zubaydah and Muhammad al-Masri, a third high-ranking al Qaeda associate has explained Saddam’s support for al Qaeda prior to the war. Hudayfa Azzam, who is the son of one of al Qaeda’s earliest and most influential leaders, Adullah Azzam, gave an interview with Agence France Presse in August 2004 in which he explained Saddam’s support for al Qaeda’s members as they relocated to Iraq:

“Saddam Hussein’s regime welcomed them with open arms,” Azzam explained, “and young al Qaeda members entered Iraq in large numbers, setting up an organization to confront the occupation.” Al Qaeda’s terrorists “infiltrated into Iraq with the help of Kurdish mujahideen from Afghanistan, across mountains in Iran.” Once in Iraq, Saddam “strictly and directly” controlled their activities, Azzam added.

Curiously, in all of the coverage of Zarqawi’s death there has been no mention of Abu Zubaydah’s, Muhammad al-Masri’s, or Hudayfa Azzam’s comments. This is not entirely surprising. Many of the basic facts surrounding Zarqawi’s early days in Iraq have been muddled by those vested in the notion that Saddam’s Iraq never supported al Qaeda.

Even when al Qaeda terrorists themselves admit that Saddam offered them safe haven

and support, their words fall on the mainstream media’s deaf ears.

Thomas Joscelyn is an economist and writer living in New York.

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Dozens killed as at least 7 explosions rock commuter trains in Mumbai (National Post, 060711)

MUMBAI, India — Seven explosions rocked Bombay’s commuter rail network during Tuesday evening rush hour, ripping apart train compartments, a railway spokesman said. At least 20 people were killed, police said.

There was chaos throughout Mumbai’s crowded rail network following the explosions, and authorities struggled to determine how many people had been killed and injured.

Bombay Police Chief A.N. Roy said on Indian television that 20 bodies had been taken to hospitals and that the death toll could go higher.

Indian television reported the death toll could be in the dozens. News channels broadcast video of the wounded sprawled on train tracks and being carried through stations to ambulances, past twisted and torn train compartments.

Witnesses reported seeing bodies parts strewn about stations.

Pranay Prabhakar, the spokesman for the Western Railway, confirmed that seven blasts had taken place.

He said all trains had been suspended and appealed to the public to stay away from train stations in the city.

The blasts appeared to have come in quick succession - a common tactic employed by Kashmiri militants who have repeatedly targeted India’s cities.

The first explosion hit the train at a railway station in the northwestern suburb of Khar, said a police officer who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the news media.

India’s CNN-IBN television news, which had a reporter travelling on the train, said the blast took place in a first-class car as the train was moving, ripping through the compartment and killing more than a dozen people.

Another CNN-IBN reporter said he had seen more than 20 bodies at one Mumbai hospital.

All of India’s major cities were reportedly on high alert following the attacks, which came hours after a string of grenade attacks by Islamic separatists killed eight people in the main city of India’s part of Kashmir.

Kashmir was divided between India and Pakistan in war after they gained independence from Britain in 1947, and they fought another full-scale conflict over the region in 1965.

But even as the two nuclear rivals have talked peace in the last two years, New Delhi has continued to accuse Pakistan of training, arming and funding the militants. Islamabad insists it offers the rebels only diplomatic and moral support.

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Ties that Bind: Terror returns to India. (National Review Online, 060712)

Bombay’s residents are an eclectic and colorful bunch. Strolling through the city’s neighborhoods, you’re likely to find Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Parsees, Sikhs, Christians, Jains — possibly others, too. It is simply not possible that the seven explosions on Bombay’s busy trains yesterday could have discriminated between and among these groups. It was an attack on them all.

Over the next few days and weeks, responsibility for Tuesday’s bombings will be assigned, possibly to Kashmir-based separatist groups, possibly to jihadists hiding among India’s mostly peaceful Muslim population. The attack may even be traced back to Pakistan’s notorious Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) or elsewhere in that country’s government.

Punishing those directly responsible is a necessary but short-term priority. The United States must also reevaluate its long-term, strategic approach to the Indian subcontinent, as well as its approach to terror-sponsoring states. Specifically, the Bush administration must do three things: First, it should forge closer strategic links with India, something it failed to do after the attacks on the Indian parliament in 2001. Second, it should abandon the unfortunate tendency to view our enemies in this war as a shadowy network of terrorists — les déchets de la mondialisation — with only a tenuous connection to actual states. This should lead, third, to the United States pursuing a more hard-line policy against Pakistan.

“Outside Tony Blair’s Britain,” Tom Donnelly, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies has written, “only India stands as a natural great-power partner in building the next American century.” Donnelly is absolutely right. India is a peaceful, liberal democratic country facing a militant Islamist threat from jihadists within its territory. India and the United States already cooperate with one another on nuclear technology and nonproliferation matters. The Bush administration should begin openly campaigning for India to join the Security Council, and increase joint military training operations and knowledge sharing — this could form the basis for an even closer partnership.

This is the right thing to do not only because of the shared values between the United States and India, but also because of the shared challenges. Over the long-term, just as the United States must confront the rise of a despotic China, so will India. Better India be allied firmly in our camp than pursue, as it did during the Cold War, a policy of nonalignment; already, China’s extensive military cooperation with Pakistan should be reason enough for deeper cooperation between the United States and India.

There is an unfortunate tendency to view our enemy in the war on terrorism as a loosely connected network of militant Islamists. This is only half the story. Hezbollah is completely dependent on Iran and Syria for support. Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda network did not thrive off the failed state in Afghanistan, it prospered because of active support from the Taliban government in Afghanistan.

Likewise, most Kashmir-based separatist groups either received seed money from the Pakistani government or elements within it, or depend on them for logistical support and safe cover in the event of hot pursuit. The war against terrorism is not just against the terrorist networks, but against their support networks as well.

The United States must confront the tricky question of relations with Pakistan, which is, at best, an ally sui generis in the war on terrorism. When President Bush distilled the realities of the war on terrorism into a simple, terse statement — “Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists” — Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf, manfully, chose us.

President Musharraf has given the United States rhetorical support as well as valuable logistical and operational help. The Pakistani government was instrumental in the capture of terrorists like Khalid Sheik Mohammed, Ramzi Yousef, and Mir Aimal Kansi. Pakistan has undoubtedly assisted us in other areas, too.

There are, however, many areas where Pakistan has been less than helpful: It has been unable to control its borders, which has allowed jihadists to travel with impunity to Afghanistan and Kashmir. Pakistan’s sheltering of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the nuclear engineer responsible for selling nuclear-weapons technology to Libya, Iran, and North Korea, is a disgrace. A recent story in the London Times reported that the government is denying the United States access to Pakistan’s Dr. Strangelove, even though he would be a valuable source of information about Iran and North Korea’s nuclear program, he having sold them the plans. While acknowledging Pakistan’s shift in approach and tone after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the United States needs to stop coddling the Musharraf government, and needs to pressure it to provide us with more actual support.

India’s war on terror is the same as the one the United States is fighting. The same terrorists who happily slaughter innocent Indians wouldn’t blink an eye if given the opportunity to kill innocent Americans. Al Qaeda had been waging war on the United States since well before September 11, 2001. But it was the September 11 terrorist attacks that gave America the resolve to finally fight back. Likewise, the United States should use this barbaric attack on India’s most populous city as an opportunity to form a common front against the threats that both countries face.

— Alykhan Velshi is manager of research at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. He is currently writing a book of poetry, “Temures the tyrant and Other Poems.”

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Terror in Buenos Aires: A lesson in Hezbollah terror. (National Review Online, 060724)

Last Tuesday morning, a siren sounded in Buenos Aires to mark the 12th anniversary of the bombing of the AMIA building, the chief offices of Argentina’s Jewish community. The bombing killed 85 people and injured over 250. It was the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. It was the work of Hezbollah, working closely under Iranian sponsorship, and it perfectly illustrates Hezbollah’s intentions, capabilities, and modus operandi. As the West hurtles into a confrontation with Iran, sparked by the current Israeli-Hezbollah conflagration, it is worth examining this deadly effective attack in Argentina over a decade ago.

The AMIA bombing was not Hezbollah’s first strike in Argentina. Two years earlier, a Hezbollah suicide bomber hit the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, killing 29 and wounding over 200. This attack was in retaliation for Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Abbas Musawi. His replacement was Hezbollah’s current leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Two years later, Hezbollah, under orders from the Iranian leadership, struck again in Buenos Aires. Israel had just captured a senior Hezbollah leader, Mustafa Dirani, who had helped capture Israeli airman Ron Arad. At the same time, Israel had recently bombed a Hezbollah training base, killing over 20 Hezbollah fighters. Finally, Argentina’s President Carlos Menem, had, under U.S. pressure, reneged on deals to provide ballistic-missile and nuclear technology to Syria and Iran. Argentine intelligence believes that the orders for these attacks came from the very top of the Iranian regime. Both of the Buenos Aires terror attacks illustrate how Iran and Hezbollah play hardball with their opponents.

Terrorism requires organization and logistics. Hezbollah’s ability to carry out an attack in Buenos Aires, halfway across the world from their primary base in Lebanon, is impressive. One factor in the AMIA bombing’s success was, according to Argentine intelligence, the support from the Iranian embassy. Mohsen Rabbani, the “cultural attaché,” coordinated the operation. Reportedly he purchased the Renault van used in the bombing. This pattern of Iranian-Hezbollah cooperation is not unique to the Buenos Aires operations. Hezbollah carried out a series of bombings in Paris from December 1985 to September 1986. These bombings were linked to a translator at Iran’s embassy in Paris and led to a diplomatic standoff between France and Iran.

Another factor explaining Hezbollah’s long reach is the organizational genius of Hezbollah’s security chief, Imad Mughniyah. A former gunman with Yasser Arafat’s elite Force 17, Mughniyah is on the FBI’s most-wanted list for his role in the 1985 hijacking of TWA 847 in which a U.S. Navy diver was tortured and killed. Linked to numerous terrorist attacks, including suicide bombings and hostage taking in Lebanon, and the Buenos Aires attacks, Mughniyah is currently believed to be coordinating Iranian and Hezbollah support for Palestinian terrorists. He also met with Osama bin Laden in the early 1990s to forge an alliance between al Qaeda and Hezbollah. Wanted by several governments, Mughniyah keeps a low profile. However, he is believed to have appeared publicly, for the first time in over a decade, with Iran’s President Ahmadinejad at a meeting in Damascus in January.

Finally, the AMIA attack had consequences beyond the mayhem of the bombing itself. The AMIA bombing created an open wound in Argentine politics that has festered for a decade as the investigation has been mired in corruption, cover-ups, and incompetence. This aftermath is typical of Hezbollah terrorism. Time and again, Hezbollah terror attacks have had a profound strategic impact. Hezbollah’s first attack in April 1983 against the U.S. embassy in Beirut wiped out the Beirut CIA station — a blow from which the agency has yet to recover. The double bombing of the U.S. Marines barracks and the French barracks led to the withdrawal of the U.S. led multinational peacekeeping force from Lebanon, leaving Lebanon to the tender mercies of the Syrians and Iranians. Hezbollah’s hostage taking in the 1980s led to secret negotiations by the American and French governments with Iran. These negotiations triggered the Iran-Contra scandal in the U.S. and a similar scandal in France.

The AMIA bombing was the epitome of an Iranian-Hezbollah terror attack. It was a sophisticated act of mass murder that sent a brutal message to Iran’s enemies, while leaving deep political scars.

As the fighting increases, Hezbollah may again turn to international terror. Besides Latin America, Hezbollah has carried out attacks across the Middle East and Europe. Hezbollah cells have been found in the Far East, North America, and Central Asia. It is very likely that Hezbollah retains a formidable international network — and if pressured will use it. In a recent interview with al-Jazeera, Hezbollah Secretary-General Nasrallah stated that Hezbollah was going to take “the initiative” and “offer some surprises.” The AMIA bombing was one Hezbollah surprise and remembering it is a reminder of the danger Hezbollah poses, not only to Israel, but also to the world.

— Aaron Mannes, author of the TerrorBlog and Profiles in Terror: The Guide to Middle East Terrorist Organizations, and he researches terrorism at the Maryland Information and Network Dynamics Laboratory at the University of Maryland.

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More Of John Kerry’s Retroactive Campaign Promises (Ann Coulter, 060726)

On Sunday, John Kerry said of Israel’s war against Hezbollah, “If I was president, this wouldn’t have happened,” adding, “we have to destroy Hezbollah.”

But wait a minute — Hezbollah didn’t attack us on 9/11! Wouldn’t fighting Hezbollah distract us from the urgent task of finding Osama bin Laden?

Democrats can’t come out and admit that they refuse to fight any war in defense of America, so they utter the “Where’s Osama?” incantation to pretend that they’d be doing something. To wit: dedicating the entire resources of the U.S. military to locating Osama bin Laden.

Thus, in the third presidential debate, Kerry complained about the cost of the war in Iraq, saying the war was “the result of this president taking his eye off of Osama bin Laden.”

After making the capture of Osama bin Laden their sole objective in the war on terrorism, now Democrats expect us to believe they would have been fighting every other Muslim jihadist on the planet like mad — just not one of the main sponsors of Islamic terrorism, Saddam Hussein. But they’d be merciless with every other mass-murdering, Islamic terror-sponsoring lunatic.

Israel’s recent tussle with Hezbollah reminds us how absurd the Democrats’ fixation on Osama is. America has been under attack from Muslim extremists for nearly 30 years. Not just al-Qaida and certainly not just Osama bin Laden.

Here’s the highlights reel for anyone still voting for the Democrats:

— November 1979: Muslim extremists (Iranian variety) seized the U.S. embassy in Iran and held 52 American hostages for 444 days, following Democrat Jimmy Carter’s masterful foreign policy granting Islamic fanaticism its first real foothold in the Middle East.

— 1982: Muslim extremists (mostly Hezbollah) began a nearly decade-long habit of taking Americans and Europeans hostage in Lebanon, killing William Buckley and holding Terry Anderson for 6 1/2 years.

— April 1983: Muslim extremists (Islamic Jihad or possibly Hezbollah) bombed the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, killing 16 Americans.

— October 1983: Muslim extremists (Hezbollah) blew up the U.S. Marine barracks at the Beirut airport, killing 241 Marines.

— December 1983: Muslim extremists (al-Dawa) blew up the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait, killing five and injuring 80.

— September 1984: Muslim extremists (Hezbollah) exploded a truck bomb at the U.S. Embassy annex in Beirut, killing 24 people, including two U.S. servicemen.

— December 1984: Muslim extremists (probably Hezbollah) hijacked a Kuwait Airways airplane, landed in Iran and demanded the release of the 17 members of al-Dawa who had been arrested for the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait, killing two Americans before the siege was over.

— June 14, 1985: Muslim extremists (Hezbollah) hijacked TWA Flight 847 out of Athens, diverting it to Beirut, taking the passengers hostage in return for the release of the Kuwait 17 as well as another 700 prisoners held by Israel. When their demands were not met, the Muslims shot U.S. Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem and dumped his body on the tarmac.

— October 1985: Muslim extremists (Palestine Liberation Front backed by Libya) seized an Italian cruise ship, the Achille Lauro, killing 69-year-old American Leon Klinghoffer by shooting him and then tossing his body overboard.

— December 1985: Muslim extremists (backed by Libya) bombed airports in Rome and Vienna, killing 20 people, including five Americans.

— April 1986: Muslim extremists (backed by Libya) bombed a discotheque frequented by U.S. servicemen in West Berlin, injuring hundreds and killing two, including a U.S. soldier.

— December 1988: Muslim extremists (backed by Libya) bombed Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 259 on board and 11 on the ground.

(Then came an amazing, historic pause in Muslim extremists’ relentless war on America after Ronald Reagan won the Cold War by doing the opposite of everything recommended by Democrats, depriving Islamic terrorists of their Soviet sponsors. This confuses liberals because they don’t understand the concept of terror sponsors, whether it’s the Soviet Union or Iraq.)

— February 1993: Muslim extremists (al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya, possibly with involvement of friendly rival al-Qaida) set off a bomb in the basement of the World Trade Center, killing six and wounding more than 1,000.

— Spring 1993: Muslim extremists (al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya, the Sudanese Islamic Front and at least one member of Hamas) plot to blow up the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, the U.N. complex, and the FBI’s lower Manhattan headquarters.

— November 1995: Muslim extremists (possibly Iranian “Party of God”) explode a car bomb at U.S. military headquarters in Saudi Arabia, killing five U.S. military servicemen.

— June 1996: Muslim extremists (13 Saudis and a Lebanese member of Hezbollah, probably with involvement of al-Qaida) explode a truck bomb outside the Khobar Towers military complex, killing 19 American servicemen and injuring hundreds.

— August 1998: Muslim extremists (al-Qaida) explode truck bombs at U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224 and injuring thousands.

— October 2000: Muslim extremists (al-Qaida) blow up the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Cole, killing 17 U.S. sailors.

— Sept. 11, 2001: Muslim extremists (al-Qaida) hijack commercial aircraft and fly planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania, killing nearly 3,000 Americans.

America’s war with Islamic fanaticism didn’t start on 9/11, but it’s going to end with 9/11 — as long as Americans aren’t foolish enough ever to put a Democrat in the White House.

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Where the Taliban Still Rule: Not in Afghanistan, but in Pakistan. (Weekly Standard, 060728)

RECENT EVENTS in Afghanistan, notably the temporary seizure of the Afghan towns of Garmser and Naway-i-Barakzayi, have once again provoked a wave of speculation concerning a renewed Taliban offensive. The ability of the Taliban and their allies in al Qaeda and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hizb-e-Islami to organize such attacks suggests that they have succeeded at establishing a new safe haven—in northern Pakistan.

Contrary to the optimistic pronouncements of the Pakistani military, the Taliban and their al Qaeda allies have been able to establish control of a broad swath of territory across northern Pakistan, particularly in the Waziristan region that was described to Newsday by American and Afghan officials in February 2006 as “the primary engine of the continued Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.” Quoting Pakistani journalist Behroz Khan, Newsday reported that “The Taliban controls the roads, acts as the police force and judicial authority and openly runs offices to recruit fighters to their ranks.” These claims appear to be verified by Taliban propaganda distributed both online and via CD, which according the Italian news agency Adnkronos International, shows the following:

Thousands of young men wearing turbans are seen moving with their weapons. Their commanders select a squad among them to carry out a guerrilla mission to attack the US base in the south-eastern Afghan province of Khost. The men are seen wearing headbands bearing the slogan: “There is no God but one God, Mohammed is the messenger of God”.

The youths then emerge out from their bases in the night and attack a US base in Khost. After a 30-minute battle, the US base is in flames and the members of the squad return to their base.

Their animosity has not been limited to the United States. Taliban and al Qaeda propaganda outlets have begun distributing execution videos of individuals purported to be thieves, drug dealers, or American agents. Yet while other governments might be concerned by the establishment of a known terrorist sanctuary on their soil, the Pakistani response has been surprisingly lax, particularly in comparison to how they dealt with the ethnic-based insurrection in neighboring Baluchistan. Even while the Pakistani military has been actively fighting the Taliban in North Waziristan, the local newspaper Daily Times reports that “Local Taliban in South Waziristan have been allowed to establish an office in Wana to “help restore law and order” in the area” and that their leader Maulvi Abbas “was wanted by the government until he signed an agreement last year not to participate in or encourage attacks on security forces.” Yet despite this agreement, the problem remains to such an extent that in April 2006 Federal Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao was reported as having stated that:

The local Taliban have killed as many as 150 pro-government tribal leaders [Maliks] in North and South Waziristan and openly challenging the writ of the federal government and engaging a number of security forces’ personnel in the area.

. . . So great has been the impact that the local “Maliks” and political administration have all been limited to their houses and offices, reports the Daily Times.

“The Taliban’s sphere of influence has expanded to DI Khan, Tank and the Khyber Agency, where clerks of the area have started to join them. There has been a sharp increase in attacks on heavily-defended military targets in these areas as well,” said Sherpao.

. . . The local Taliban have taken control of most of North and South Waziristan and enforced a strict Islamic code, including a ban on sale of music and films. They have also ordered the men to not shave off their beards.

While they have established an Islamic court in Wana, headquarters of South Waziristan, replacing the traditional jirga, in Miramshah, capital of North Waziristan, curfew has been imposed after bloody clashes between federal forces and alleged Al Qaeda militants.

THE TALIBAN CONTINUE to retain their alliance with al Qaeda. The Daily Times reported last month that Maulana Faqir Muhammad, the leader of the Tehrik-e-Nifaz Shariah Muhammad and a major figure within the Pakistani Taliban, narrowly escaped the American missile attack on Damadola, which targeted a number of al Qaeda leaders (including bin Laden’s second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri). And while both al-Zawahiri and Muhammad survived the Damadola attack, Abu Khabab, the head of al Qaeda’s wmd program did not. The fact that Muhammad and other senior members of the Pakistani Taliban continue to openly associate with both their Afghan brethren and some of the most wanted terrorists on the planet is evidence enough that their rise to power inside Pakistan constitutes a threat. For instance, one of the senior Taliban commanders killed by the Pakistani military in March 2006 was the Chechen Emir Asad; other senior commanders of note within the group include Tahir Yuldashev of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and Sheikh Essa al-Masri of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, both of which are tied to al Qaeda’s international jihad.

It is time to acknowledge the continuing threat of al Qaeda’s rear bases and discuss how to deal them, whether or not it makes the Pakistani government uncomfortable.

Dan Darling is a counterterrorism consultant.

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What fate for Islamofascism? (Washington Times, 060728)

By Austin Bay

Hezbollah and other Islamo-fascist terrorists concluded long ago that “if it bleeds it leads” doesn’t simply apply to the sensation-hungry media. Islamo-fascist mass murderers maintain public bloodletting (their enemy’s and their own) is a victory in itself.

We know “big bloodletting” means big headlines. But for Hezbollah’s philosophers, mass bloodletting serves another purpose: It is demonstrates terrorist commitment and moral will.

Islamo-fascist “death cult” terrorists are convinced their forceful willpower (when combined with actions demonstrating millenarian certitude) ultimately guarantees defeat of liberal Western couch potatoes and sheep.

The Islamo-fascists aren’t the first international mass murder movement to deserve the moniker of “death cult.” In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, transnational anarchists touted “politics of the bomb” and “propaganda by deed.”

The anarchists spilled blood — over a seven-year period (1894-1901) they killed a French president, a Spanish prime minister, an Italian king and a U.S. president (William McKinley). However, they failed to ignite a global revolution they claimed would produce an earthly paradise of justice once the ancien regimes disappeared in flames. The anarchists believed their own propaganda, and by doing so misjudged the enormous strengths of liberal capitalist democracies. They totally underestimated the United States.

Unfortunately, the anarchists’ agitprop techniques inform contemporary terrorists, and the dregs of its half-baked philosophies continue to deform a few lost corners of human culture. A romantic notion of anarchist violence energizes much of the radical-chic rhetoric emanating from American college campuses, providing pseudo-intellectual tropes for anti-Americanism and “anti-globalization.”

These are the rear-guard actions of a dead-end ideology posing as the avant-garde.

We will all be better off when Islamo-fascism follows anarchism’s path. Pray for the day when the proponents of Hezbollahism and bin Ladenism are mere academic crackpots. But defeating Islamo-fascism means men and women who love their own liberty enough to defend it (wherever they live on this often tortured planet of ours) must once again display more spine than the killers.

Defeating death cults entails persevering despite loss of life and heinous outrage. At the moment, the world’s most critical demonstration of the will to persevere and destroy terrorism is Israel’s confrontation with Hezbollah in northern Israel and southern Lebanon.

During the 1990s, Hezbollah (with Iranian and Syrian support) fought a grinding guerrilla war against Israel’s occupation of south Lebanon. Under international pressure to withdraw as a prelude to a peace deal, Israel pulled out. Hezbollah touted Israel’s withdrawal as a loss of Israeli will to fight.

But Hezbollah’s Iranian masters never thought the U.S. would be in both Afghanistan and Iraq. The Iraqi election of January 2005 ignited Lebanon’s “Beirut Spring” pro-democracy rallies. Those rallies shook even the most willful tyrants in Tehran and Syria. The appeal of liberal democracy brought couch potatoes and sheep into the streets — indicating they weren’t couch potatoes.

That is why I know this Israel-Hezbollah war is no accident. Tyrants and terrorists must dash the hopes of couch potatoes and sheep. The will of the tyrants and terrorists cannot be successfully mocked and challenged or it’s over for them. And, oh yes, Iran’s holy quest for a nuclear weapon cannot be thwarted, either.

But tyrants and terrorists’ willpower and warfare are being challenged. Over the last two weeks, criticism of Israel from the usual amen corners has been conspicuously circumspect. It appears U.S.-led diplomatic efforts designed to give Israel the time to defeat Hezbollah are working.

Let’s hope Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice can buy Israel a couple of months. Israel indicates it intends to destroy, bunker by bunker, Iran’s investment in Hezbollah. The Israelis are killing Hezbollah’s fighters — and letting the sensation-hungry media document their deaths.

Hezbollah can proclaim a victory-in-death, but like the claims of its global anarchist antecedents, the bloody tout will be desperately hollow.

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Terror Plot Suspects Planned ‘Dry-Run’ of Attacks in Next 2 Days, Sources Say (Foxnews, 060810)

LONDON — Suspects arrested Thursday for planning to stage a massive mid-air terror attacked were in the final stages of planning and planned to run a dry-run of the plan within two days, U.S. intelligence officers said Thursday.

One official said the suicide attackers planned to use a peroxide-based solution that could ignite when sparked by a camera flash or another electronic device.

The test run was designed to see whether the plotters would be able to smuggle the needed materials aboard the planes, these officials said. They spoke only on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject matter.

The development came as British authorities said they were “urgently” seeking the arrests of up to 10 more suspects in the terrorist plot uncovered early Thursday morning to blow up U.S.-bound flights with liquid explosives carried onto planes via carry-on luggage, FOX News learned.

Police arrested 24 main suspects were arrested earlier Thursday, according to Scotland Yard, in what U.S. officials suspect was an Al Qaeda-planned attack.

French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said the suspects in an alleged plot to “appear to be of Pakistani origin,” and Pakistani intelligence officials say they assisted in the arrests.

Pakistani intelligence officials helped British security agencies crack a terror plot to blow up U.S.-bound aircraft from Britain and arrested two or three suspects in recent days, authorities said Thursday. (Full story)

The intelligence official said an Islamic militant arrested near the Afghan-Pakistan border several weeks ago provided a lead that played a role in “unearthing the plot,” that helped authorities arrest suspects in Britain.

President Bush called the plot a “stark reminder” of the continued threat to the United States from extremist Muslims. (Full story)

Britain disclosed no details about the plot or those arrested, although one police official indicated the people in custody were British residents. A French official in contact with British authorities described the arrested as originating from predominantly Muslim Pakistan.

Officials raised security to its highest level in Britain — suggesting a terrorist attack might be imminent — and banned carry-on luggage on all flights. Huge crowds backed up at security barriers at London’s Heathrow airport as officials searching for explosives barred nearly every form of liquid outside of baby formula.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the terrorists planned to use liquid explosives disguised as beverages and other common products and set them off with detonators disguised as electronic devices.

An American law enforcement official who was briefed on the investigation said it appeared the liquid to be used was a “peroxide-based solution” to be detonated by an electronic device that was not specified, but could be anything from a disposable camera to a portable digital music player. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because British authorities had asked that no information be released.

The extreme measures at a major international aviation hub sent ripples throughout the world. Heathrow was closed to most flights from Europe, and British Airways canceled all its flights between the airport and points in Britain, Europe and Libya. Numerous flights from U.S. cities to Britain were canceled.

Washington raised its threat alert to its highest level for commercial flights from Britain to the United States amid fears the plot had not been completely crushed. The alert for all flights coming or going from the United States was also raised slightly.

Two U.S. counterterrorism officials said the terrorists had targeted United, American and Continental airlines. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case.

A U.S. intelligence official said the plotters had hoped to target flights to major airports in New York, Washington and California. A counterterrorism official said the plot involved 10 flights.

British authorities said 24 people were arrested in London, its suburbs and Birmingham following a lengthy investigation, including the alleged “main players” in the plot. Searches continued in a number of locations, and police cordoned off streets in several locations.

Bush said during a visit to Green Bay, Wis., that the foiled plot was a “stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists.” Despite increased security since Sept. 11, he warned, “It is a mistake to believe there is no threat to the United States of America.”

While British officials declined to publicly identify the 24 suspects, French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said in Paris they “appear to be of Pakistani origin.” He did not give a source for his description, but said French officials had been in close contact with British authorities.

Pakistan’s government said later its intelligence agents helped Britain crack the plot and had arrested some suspects.

“Pakistan played a very important role in uncovering and breaking this international terrorist network,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Tasnim Aslam said, but she declined to give details.

The suspects arrested in Britain were “homegrown,” though it was not immediately clear if they were all British citizens, said a British police official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case. Police were working closely with the South Asian community, the official said.

The suicide bombing assault on London subway trains and a bus on July 7, 2005, was carried out by Muslim extremists who grew up in Britain.

The police official said the plotters intended to simultaneously target multiple planes bound for the United States.

“We think this was an extraordinarily serious plot and we are confident that we’ve prevented an attempt to commit mass murder on an unimaginable scale,” Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Stephenson said.

Prime Minister Tony Blair, vacationing in the Caribbean, briefed Bush on the situation Wednesday. Blair issued a statement praising the cooperation between the two countries, saying it “underlines the threat we face and our determination to counter it.”

White House spokesman Tony Snow said Bush also had been briefed by his aides while at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, where he has been on vacation.

“We do believe the plot involved flights from the U.K. to the U.S. and was a direct threat to the United States,” Snow said.

While Snow called the plot a serious threat, he assured Americans that “it is safe to travel.”

Chertoff, the homeland security chief, said the plot had the hallmarks of an operation planned by al-Qaida, the terrorist group behind the Sept. 11 attack on the United States.

“It was sophisticated, it had a lot of members and it was international in scope. It was in some respects suggestive of an al-Qaida plot,” Chertoff said, but he cautioned it was too early in the investigation to reach any conclusions.

It is the first time the red alert level in the Homeland Security warning system has been invoked, although there have been brief periods in the past when the orange level was applied. Homeland Security defines the red alert as designating a “severe risk of terrorist attacks.”

“We believe that these arrests (in London) have significantly disrupted the threat, but we cannot be sure that the threat has been entirely eliminated or the plot completely thwarted,” Chertoff said.

He added, however, there was no indication of current plots within the United States.

Chertoff said the plotters were in the final stages of planning. “We were really getting quite close to the execution phase,” he said, adding that it was unclear if the plot was linked to the upcoming fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

A senior U.S. counterterrorism official said authorities believe dozens of people — possibly as many as 50 — were involved in the plot. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.

The plan involved airline passengers hiding masked explosives in carry-on luggage, the official said. “They were not yet sitting on an airplane,” but were very close to traveling, the official said, calling the plot “the real deal.”

Passengers in Britain faced delays as tighter security was hastily enforced at the country’s airports and additional measures were put in place for all flights. Laptop computers, mobile phones, digital music players, and remote controls were among the items banned from being carried on board.

Liquids, such as hair care products, were also barred on flights in both Britain and the U.S.

In the mid-1990s, officials foiled a plan by terrorist mastermind Ramzi Youssef to blow up 12 Western jetliners simultaneously over the Pacific. The alleged plot involved improvised bombs using liquid hidden in contact lens solution containers.

Huge lines formed at ticket counters and behind security barriers at Heathrow and other airports in Britain.

Ed Lappen, 55, a businessman from Boston, who was traveling with his wife and daughter to Russia, found himself unable to travel further. “We’re safe, we’re OK,” he said at Heathrow. “Now my daughter is going to get a shopping trip in London.”

Hannah Pillinger, 24, seemed less concerned by the announcement. “Eight hours without an iPod, that’s the most inconvenient thing,” she said, waiting at the Manchester airport.

Most European carriers canceled flights to Heathrow because of the massive delays created after authorities enforced strict new regulations banning most hand baggage.

Tony Douglas, Heathrow’s managing director, said the airport hoped to resume normal operations Friday, but passengers would still face delays and a ban on cabin baggage “for the foreseeable future.”

Security also was stepped up at train stations serving airports across Britain, said British Transport Police spokeswoman Jan O’Neill. At London’s Victoria Station, police patrolled platforms with bomb-sniffing dogs as passengers boarded trains carrying clear plastic bags.

Margaret Gavin, 67, waiting to board a train, said she wasn’t scared. “Why should I change my life because some idiots want to blow something up?” she said.

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Why They Fight: Mary Habeck’s “Knowing the Enemy” provides a window into the jihadist worldview. (Weekly Standard, 060803)

AFTER 9/11 BROUGHT RADICAL ISLAM to the country’s attention, some Americans wondered, “Why do they hate us?” Since then, many answers have been offered. But the best way to understand what drives jihadists is an examination of their own words. To that end, Professor Mary Habeck’s book Knowing the Enemy: Jihadist Ideology and the War on Terror (Yale University Press 2006) makes a vital contribution. It is the most thorough and valuable explanation of jihadist ideology available in English to date.

Central to Habeck’s argument is the failure of most Western scholarship to comprehend religion as a sociopolitical factor. Most academics, journalists and policymakers in the increasingly secular West have never considered religion an important part of their lives, and have trouble understanding how it can be a prime motivating force in world affairs. Thus, they tend to look to factors such as poverty, colonization, and imperialism to explain jihadist grievances.

Such an analysis fails to provide us with deep insight into jihadist thought. As Habeck points out, U.S. support for Israel alone doesn’t explain the 9/11 attacks. Jihadist ideologue Sayyid Qutb’s anger was focused on the United States in the early 1950s, more than a decade before America became associated with Israel. Nor do colonialism and imperialism provide a convincing answer. Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab “developed his version of radical and violent Islam long before the West colonized Islamic lands, indeed at a time when Islam seemed triumphant.”

SO WHAT DOES EXPLAIN jihadist hatred of the West? It is true that factors such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can help drive people into the enemy’s camp. (Habeck refers to that conflict as the jihadists’ “single best recruiting tool.”) But Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and their comrades aren’t simply reacting to U.S. policies. Their pronouncements reflect “their own most deeply held religio-political views of the world.”

While Habeck draws a sharp distinction between jihadist theology and traditional interpretations of Islam, she notes that jihadist ideas “did not spring from a void, nor are all of them the marginal opinions of a few fanatics.” For example, the scholar Ibn Taymiya (d. 1328), who is widely respected in Muslim circles, lived when the Mongols ruled over the Islamic world. Although they claimed to be Muslims, the Mongols’ system of laws was based on their native customs rather than Islamic law (sharia).

Disturbed by this situation, Ibn Taymiya argued that the Islamic faith requires state power because the Koran only says that Muslims are the “best community” when they “enjoined the good and forbade the evil.” In failing to base their legal system on Islamic law, the Mongols disregarded that Koranic injunction. Thus, Ibn Taymiya said that Muslims were required to take up arms against the Mongols.

Contemporary jihadists liken the modern rulers of the Muslim world to the Mongols. And there are scholars beside Ibn Taymiya to whom they can look for inspiration, including Abdul Wahhab and the three major jihadist thinkers of the twentieth century: Hassan al-Banna, Sayyid Abul A’la Maududi and Sayyid Qutb.

DRAWING UPON AN IMPRESSIVE ARRAY of primary-source material from these and like-minded Islamic radicals, Habeck makes her greatest contribution by illuminating the building blocks of the jihadist worldview.

It begins with the notion that only the Koran and ahadith (the sayings and traditions of Prophet Muhammad) are relevant to ordering the Muslim community. The views of more modern legal scholars, which may have a moderating effect on the faith, are given far less weight. With the Koran and ahadith as their only guides, jihadists believe that it is their duty to discover the “comprehensive ideology” contained in the Islamic faith.

For the jihadists, that comprehensive ideology begins with a concept known as tawhid. An Arabic term denoting the oneness of God, all Muslims have a shared belief in tawhid—but, as with so many theological concepts, the jihadists have a somewhat idiosyncratic interpretation of its implications. Echoing Ibn Taymiya, jihadist thinkers like Maududi and Qutb argue that if only God can be worshipped and obeyed, then only God’s laws can have any significance or legitimacy. This provides them with justification not only for violently overturning social systems that aren’t based on a “correct” understanding of Islam, but also for declaring fellow Muslims to be non-believers if they accept secular rule in place of the Islamic order that jihadists seek to impose.

The consequences of the view that only sharia law has legitimacy are far-reaching. For one thing, jihadists’ unwillingness to accept secular rule places them on an inevitable collision course with the West. The jihadist thinker Fathi Yakan, for example, wrote of the need for jihad in response to “attacks from every materialistic ideology and system that threatens the existence of Islam as

a global paradigm of thought and system of life.”

Not only do jihadists see this clash between Islam and the non-Muslim world as an integral part of God’s plan, but many also seek to portray Islam’s enemies as the aggressors. In this view, the “mother of all crimes” was Kemal Ataturk’s abolition of the caliphate in 1924. (Jihadists regard Ataturk as a tool of the Jews and colonialists.) Qutb went so far as to argue that no truly Islamic societies existed since the caliphate was abolished.

With that in mind, many jihadists contend that their warfare against insufficiently Islamic regimes is defensive. Qutb said that defense should be understood as “‘the defense of man’ against all those elements which limit his freedom.” Because true freedom can only be found through adherence to God’s law, fighting to impose sharia is defensive: It protects man from the secular rule that would otherwise abridge his freedom.

Just as jihadist theology informs the movement’s stance on warfare, so too does it determine their strategic vision. While the endgame differs from one jihadist group to another, all strategies attempt to emulate Muhammad’s life. As Muhammad and the early Muslims undertook the hijra (a migration from Mecca to Medina in response to severe persecution), Qutb argued that “true” Muslims should form a community requiring state power to carry out God’s commands. “At this point,” Habeck writes, “the group, however small it might be, had to follow Muhammad and migrate [to] set up the kernel of an Islamic state.” This would then become the new caliphate.

Despite a diversity of jihadist visions of how the caliphate would come about, there is a consensus that this is what they are fighting for. Some, such as Hizb ut-Tahrir, have even begun to envision what this caliphate might look like. (In Hizb ut-Tahrir’s vision, it would be a totalitarian society where the state even regulates secret thoughts.) And there is a unanimity that once the caliphate is reborn, Muslims can really get serious about the war with the infidels.

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross is a senior consultant for the Gerard Group International LLC. His book My Year Inside Radical Islam will be published in February 2007 by Tarcher/Penguin.

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The One-Percent Problem: Dick Cheney is right. (National Review Online, 060811)

By Rich Lowry

Ron Suskind’s best-selling book The One Percent Doctrine refers to Vice President Dick Cheney’s axiom that if there is a one-percent chance of a nuclear bomb going off in an American city, the U.S. government has to respond with all the urgency as if there is a 100% chance of such an event. When Suskind’s book appeared, there was much clucking about Cheney’s thinking — so dire, so dark, so unmodulated.

But Cheney’s vision can only be considered unhinged if a fog of complacency descends about the terror threat facing us. Whenever that threat becomes clear again, as it has in the wake of the breakup of a plot in Britain to blow airliners from the sky, everyone begins to think like Dick Cheney, or maybe more so: If there is a mere .0001-percent chance of a terrorist smuggling liquid explosives on a flight from Denver to Green Bay, Wis., no one can carry on hair gel, and new mothers must present their baby formula for inspection.

The fact is that we live in a one-percent world. We face a shadowy enemy who represents a threat that is unspeakably awful when it is actualized, but is too easy to discount when it isn’t. Who even remembers that suspects were arrested in Miami two months ago in the very early stages of plotting perhaps to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago? It’s always possible to let the mind wander, until thousands of innocent civilians are killed.

The British plot serves as a reminder that Islamic fanatics are intent on committing violent acts against the West, but really, how many reminders do we need? Since 9/11 there have been the Bali bombings (October 2002), the Madrid bombings (March 2004), and the British subway bombings (July 2005), among others. Terrorists are very good about reminding us of their threat at regular intervals — it’s just that there is a segment of Western opinion that willfully wants to forget.

Fresh from rallying around the Democratic Senate candidate in Connecticut who vanquished their party’s most prominent hawk, the Democrats reflexively condemned the Iraq War as a distraction from the war on terror in response to the British news. A case can be made that Iraq has indeed prevented us from taking tough measures elsewhere in the world. But Democrats simply oppose tough measures, in Iraq or anywhere else.

The same Democrats who oppose the war in Iraq tend to oppose the National Security Agency surveillance program, condemn aggressive interrogations, and complain about the Patriot Act. It is all part of a worldview that wishes away dangers when they demand philosophically uncongenial responses, defined as roughly anything that doesn’t involve shoveling federal money to localities.

We will learn more about how the Brits managed to unravel the airline plot in the coming days, but surely it involved extensive monitoring and the strictest secrecy, capped off by an act of preemption when Scotland Yard arrested the plotters. All of these have been in a bad odor among liberals lately. They will say they support them in this case, never mind that they look askance at them during our stretches of complacency.

We are engaged in a multifaceted war on terror. To fight it requires the military, law enforcement, international cooperation, and preventive domestic-security measures. The ultimate center of gravity is the hearts and minds of Muslims. We have to reach into the Middle East, because so long as the cradle of Islamic civilization is a cauldron of chaos and failure, it will spin off murderous fanatics. We also must engage in an ideological struggle within the West, where radicalism infects Muslims living among us. Britain is a study in how not to do the latter. It doesn’t insist on assimilation and routinely courts exactly the Islamic extremists who should be shunned.

All of this is the work of decades. In the meantime, get used to the 1% world.

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Connecticut? This is London Calling. Al Qaeda reminds us to hang on to our patriots. (National Review Online, 060811)

By Andrew C. McCarthy

We are reading only about 24 arrests today. If we were already in the heralded antiwar world of Ned Lamont and the war-against-the-war crowd, it could be much different. We could just as easily be reading about ten jumbo jets exploded out of the sky. Or 3,000 murdered innocents — mostly American and British citizens.

Reality has once again inconveniently burst the antiwar, anti-security, anti-American balloon, just as the November victory ballrooms were being booked.

Just as central casting was whipping the articles of impeachment into shape. The high crimes and misdemeanors of George W. Bush include: hunting down terrorists, detaining them, interrogating them, penetrating their communications, and following their money.

These damn jihadists just won’t cooperate. Can’t they read the polls?

As British authorities continue trying to round up around 50 — fifty! — mostly homegrown Muslim militants who were attempting to execute over the Atlantic the very plan master terrorists Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed nearly pulled off over the Pacific a dozen years ago, it’s worth reminding the triumphalist antiwar Left of an important point.

As much as they sometimes seem to have in common with jihadists when they speak about America, its government, its military, and its president, the two are drastically different in one crucial particular.

The antiwar Left wants to wield American power. The jihadists want to destroy it … and us. All of us.

The antiwar Left has a conveniently flexible moral compass. Consequently, the Clinton era Echelon program was fine, but Bush’s NSA Terrorist Surveillance Program is an impeachable offense.

Mishandling classified information by a Clinton CIA director was worthy of a pardon, and destroying classified information (and lying to investigators about it) by a former Clinton national-security adviser was worthy of a pass, but leaking the unremarkable fact that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA is the crime of the century.

Bombing Kosovo without U.N. approval was a moral imperative; invading Iraq after over a dozen U.N. resolutions is a violation of international law.

Renditions conducted between 1994 and 2000 were just good national-security sense; renditions conducted between 2001 and 2006 are war crimes.

Indicting Osama bin Laden in 1998 and then doing nothing to capture him while he bombed two American embassies and an American naval destroyer, killing hundreds, was aggressive yet intelligently modulated counterterrorism; allowing Osama bin Laden to evade capture in Tora Bora while killing and capturing hundreds of his operatives and decimating his hierarchy is irresponsibly incompetent.

Wet fingers firmly in the wind, the Left looks you in the eye and tells you that what is depends on what the definition of “is” is, then votes for it before voting against it. The object of the game is power, and they are willing to gamble, even with our lives, to get it or keep it.

Jihadists are very different. When it comes to our national security, they’re not partisan politicizers. They wanted to kill us when Reagan was in charge, when Clinton was in charge, now that Bush is in charge, and tomorrow no matter who is in charge. They want to kill us where Tony Blair is in charge, where Ehud Olmert is in charge, and — no matter how he contorts himself — even where Jacques Chirac is in charge.

They are not foul-weather fiends. Iraq, Lebanon, Israel, Shebaa Farms, Gitmo, flushed Korans, Salman Rushdie, the Crusades, etc., etc., etc…. These are not causes. They are excuses.

Jihadists believe passionately — many of them passionately enough to die for it — that they are commanded by their religion to kill us. They won’t be reasoned, cajoled, moderated, Westernized, modernized or democratized out of their views.

They have to be defeated. They have to be defeated in Iraq — whether or not one agrees that we should have gone there in the first place, and whatever one thinks of how competently the post-Saddam occupation has been managed. They still have to be defeated in Afghanistan. They have to be defeated in Lebanon — and ultimately Iran. They have to be stopped in Sudan. They can’t be allowed to set up new command-and-control beachheads in Pakistan, Somalia, and elsewhere. They have to be monitored throughout the West — including in our own country — because the operatives here are the ones who pose the greatest threat to our safety.

This is a daunting task. It’s a job for adults and patriots, not opportunists and power-mongers.

On Tuesday, Democrats in Connecticut showed the door to Senator Joe Lieberman, a patriotic adult who happens to be a liberal, and ushered in an antiwar Left opportunist who, until about five minutes ago, was a Lieberman supporter.

On Wednesday, al Qaeda reminded us that it will gladly kill opportunists of any political stripe.

The Democrats need to hold on to their patriots. The nation needs to hold on to the Democrats’ patriots.

This is going to be a very long haul.

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Don’t LET Up: The transatlantic air plot and the problem of British Islam. (Weekly Standard, 060811)

by Stephen Schwartz

BRITISH AUTHORITIES have been slow to acknowledge openly the Pakistani-Muslim background of the suspects arrested in the mass terror conspiracy that brought chaos to British and American airports Thursday. At first, official sources in the United Kingdom would confirm only that they were working with “the South Asian community” on the case; then it was disclosed that the Pakistani government was involved in the investigation.

This reticence in naming the focus of so significant a terrorism inquiry is a symptom of the larger problems of Islam in Britain, and of “Euro-Islam” more generally. Put plainly, Pakistani Sunnis in Britain—more than a million strong—are the most radical Muslims in Europe. British Islam is dominated by Pakistan-born clerics. It is saturated with extremist preaching, media, and charity efforts which support the recruitment of terrorists.

News from Pakistan itself indicates the main trail from there to Heathrow. British and Pakistani sources linked the plan to the Pakistani government’s house arrest of Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, founder of the armed paramilitary movement Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET, or Army of the Righteous). LET, which is designated a terrorist organization by the State Department, is an ally of al Qaeda and is present wherever Pakistani Sunnis congregate and violence is hatched.

In America, LET was behind the Northern Virginia jihad network, whose members were jailed beginning in 2003 and sentenced to varying federal prison terms for terrorism-related acts. LET was also accused in the Bombay train bombings in India last month. It has significant resources in Pakistan, Britain, and elsewhere.

Yet notwithstanding the courage of Tony Blair, the British government appears paralyzed in dealing with this radical influence over British-Asian Muslims. Instead of confronting Pakistani-born extremist imams on British territory, the Brits organized a roadshow in their Muslim communities under the rubric of “the radical middle way”—an extraordinarily inept promotional conceit—in which young Muslims are called to renounce extremism.

The British and other media are referring to the arrested suspects in the airline conspiracy—as they did when bombs exploded in the London Underground last year—as “homegrown.” If history is any guide, politicians will soon wring their hands and ask why people brought up in the West turned so violently against it. Leftists and isolationists will blame the war against terror for terror.

But the force that drives mosque congregants and their children to build bombs in Britain does not originate in social conditions experienced by Muslims in Europe. Rather, it represents a doctrine brought from the Arab world, via Pakistan and well-funded groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba, to communities from Birmingham, England, to Fairfax, Virginia.

Britain must take off the blinders of political correctness when examining Islam in its Pakistani population and should insist on British training for Muslim clerics officiating on its soil.

Otherwise, London’s 7/7 bombs and the latest transatlantic travel conspiracy could mark the emergence of Britain as the main theater of jihadist violence in Western Europe.

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Day of terror strikes was planned for August 16 (WorldNetDaily, 060811)

Terrorists were planning to unleash a series of deadly mid-air explosions on flights between London and America on August 16, it has been revealed today.

Members of the terror group, who were arrested in a series of raids by anti-terror police yesterday, were due to mount a dry run today to check if they could smuggle components for liquid explosives through Britain’s airports.

United Airline tickets dated next Wednesday were found by police at the home of one of the raided addresses.

One US intelligence official told today’s Evening Standard: “The bombers were a couple of days from a test, and a few days from doing it.”

The airlines targeted were United, American and Continental, which fly to New York, Washington and California.

Today the Bank of England named and froze the assets of 19 of the 24 air terror suspects arrested. The bank was acting under the instruction of Chancellor Gordon Brown and on the advice of the police and security services.

It acted under powers granted by the United Nations to tackle the financing of terrorism in the wake of the September 11 2001 attacks. Its action means it is a crime to make their money available without a licence from the Treasury.

The oldest of the named suspects is 35 and the youngest 17. Thirteen of them are from east London - nine from Walthamstow, one from Chingford, one from Leyton, one from the Limehouse and Poplar area and one from Clapton.

Four are from High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, and the other two are from Birmingham and Stoke Newington, north London.

The imam of Walthamstow mosque, where many of the suspects live, urged the Muslim community to remain calm and assist the police in their inquries. The unnamed imam added: “We’d like to remind people that the suspects are innocent until proven guilty.”

Meanwhile, a senior Pakistani government official said today that two British nationals arrested in Pakistan provided information about the alleged UK air terror plot.

The UK remains on a “critical” level of alert against terrorism and air passengers at UK airports are expected to face widespread disruption again today following the introduction of new anti-terrorism measures yesterday including a ban on hand luggage.

The plot, which was described as an attempt to commit “mass murder on an unimaginable scale” by blowing up passenger jet, may have been thwarted just days before it was due to be carried out.

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No more ambulances for terror (Townhall.com, 060830)

By Michelle Malkin

What kind of cold-blooded thugs use ambulances as killing aids or propaganda tools? Islamic terrorists, of course, have an unsurpassed history of using emergency vehicles as tools of their murderous trade. International charities and media dupes have gone along for the ride.

In March 2002, Israeli Defense Forces discovered a bomb in a Palestine Red Crescent Society ambulance near Jerusalem. The bomb, packed in a suicide belt, was hidden under a gurney carrying a Palestinian child. The driver confessed that it was not the first time ambulances had been used to ferry explosives.

Veteran U.S. civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson, right, walks past an anti-U.S. banner placed among the rubble of a building that was destroyed following Israeli bombardment during the 34-day long Hezbollah-Israel war, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2006. Jackson, who said Tuesday that an Israeli soldier seized by Palestinian militants and two others held captive by Hezbollah are alive, also said Syria, a main backer of both Hamas and Hezbollah, wanted to be involved in a prisoner swap that included the three Israelis and Syrian nationals detained by Israel in the Golan Heights. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Tawil)

Female suicide bomber Wafa Idris, who blew herself up in a January 2002 attack in Jerusalem, was a medical secretary for the PRCS. Her recruiter was an ambulance driver for the same organization, which receives support from governments worldwide and the American and International Red Cross.

As I reported in May 2004, an Israeli television station aired footage of armed Arab terrorists in southern Gaza using an ambulance owned and operated by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) — which has received more than $2.5 billion in taxpayer subsidies. Palestinian gunmen used the UN emergency vehicle as getaway transportation after murdering six Israeli soldiers. Senior UNRWA employee Nahed Rashid Ahmed Attalah confessed to using his official UN vehicle to bypass security and smuggle arms, explosives and terrorists to and from attacks. Nidal ‘Abd al-Fataah ‘Abdallah Nizal, a Hamas activist, worked as an UNRWA ambulance driver and admitted he, too, had used an emergency vehicle to transport munitions to terrorists.

Peter Hansen, the head of the UNRWA, huffily denied that its vehicles were being exploited by terrorists. But a few months later, he told Canada’s CBC TV: “I am sure that there are Hamas members on the UNRWA payroll and I don’t see that as a crime.”

When they’re not being used to ferry weapons, ambulances serve as major stage props for Hizballah news productions. I remind you again of CNN anchor Anderson Cooper’s description last month of Hizballah’s ruse: “They had six ambulances lined up in a row and said, OK, you know, they brought reporters there, they said you can talk to the ambulance drivers. And then one by one, they told the ambulances to turn on their sirens and to zoom off, and people taking that picture would be reporting, I guess, the idea that these ambulances were zooming off to treat civilian casualties, when in fact, these ambulances were literally going back and forth down the street just for people to take pictures of them.”

Keep all this context in mind — and keep the summer’s bombshell blog revelations of Photoshopped war fauxtography by Reuters and staged photos by other media outlets in mind—as we move on to the events of July 23. According to the Lebanon Red Cross, two of its ambulances were deliberately struck by weapons in Qana, Lebanon, while performing rescue missions. The international press, which has stubbornly ignored the prolonged exploitation of emergency vehicles by terrorists, immediately accused Israel of committing “war crimes.”

Photos and accounts of the alleged ambulance targeting were disseminated widely by newswires, the BBC, ITV, The New York Times, the Boston Globe and countless others. It should be noted that Western journalists were not allowed onto the scene, but received video and pictures from locals. Bloggers have again raised pointed doubts about what those photos really show (see http://zombietime.com/fraud/ambulance/ and my Internet video report at http://hotair.com/archives/2006/08/29/ambulances-for-jihad/). The roof of one Red Cross ambulance said to have been hit by a missile had a neat hole punched dead center — in the same location that ventilation holes of other ambulances are positioned.

Massive rust and corrosion around the hole suggest the damage may have occurred before the alleged strike. Moreover, a missile explosion inside an ambulance would not leave the rest of the vehicle as intact as the supposedly targeted ambulance remained. A paramedic quoted by several media organizations claimed a “big fire” engulfed the inside of the vehicle. But photos of the ambulance allegedly consumed by the fire showed gurneys and seats intact and minimal damage to the interior.

What is the response from all of the media hypers of the alleged Red Cross ambulance missile strike last month? The same response they’ve had to the jihadists’ past ambulance hoaxes: Nothing.

Maybe your political representatives will have more to say. Many of the UN and Red Cross ambulances and ambulance drivers being exploited by the likes of Hamas and Hizballah are supported by American taxpayers and charitable groups. Isn’t it time to cut off the ambulances-for-terror lifeline?

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Britain ‘is now biggest security threat to US’ (Telegraph, UK, 060829)

Britain now presents a greater security threat to the United States than Iran or Iraq, an American magazine said yesterday.

In an article on Islamists headlined “Kashmir on the Thames”, the New Republic painted Britain’s Muslim communities as a breeding ground for violent extremism.

Citing recent opinion poll evidence suggesting that one in four British Muslims believed that last year’s London Tube bombings were justified, the magazine said: “In the wake of this month’s high-profile arrests, it can now be argued that the biggest threat to US security emanates not from Iran or Iraq or Afghanistan, but rather from Great Britain, our closest ally.”

The magazine, with a circulation of 60,000-a-week, has its roots on the Democratic Left although in recent years it has backed much of President George W Bush’s foreign policy. The claim is the latest in a series of hostile reassessment of Britain by Americans in the wake of the alleged plot to bring down transatlantic airliners.

Many have been appalled both by the existence of enthusiastic jihadis in British cities and by the call from some of their leaders for a change in the country’s foreign policy.

Other publications and the think-tanks that shape public debate in America have also issued stern criticism both of Britain’s Muslims and of the Government. Nile Gardiner, of the Right-wing Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Telegraph yesterday that Americans were coming to view Britain as “a hornet’s nest of Islamic extremists” and thought it posed “a direct security threat to the US”.

He said that if British-based terrorism continues, America is likely to respond harshly.

“A major concern would be the tightening of travel restrictions unless the authorities start to crack down on Islamist militancy,” he said. More than four million Britons enter America annually using the visa waiver programme. Any change would force Britons wishing to visit the US into lengthy queues at American diplomatic missions.

Mr Gardiner said the issue had not yet acquired a head of steam in Congress, but that another plot, or a “successful” attack by British Muslims on an American target, would be likely to spur an immediate response.

Investor’s Business Daily has already demanded an end to the programme because it “allows Pakistani Britons to dodge security background checks”.

Much of the outraged American response this month was sparked by the call from Muslim leaders for a change in British foreign policy. The letter from six Muslim MPs and 38 community leaders said “current British Government policy risks putting civilians at increased risk both in the UK and abroad”.

The theme was taken up by the Wall Street Journal, which said: “It is typical of some of Britain’s so-called moderate Muslims, who seem less concerned with fighting extremists in their midst than in excusing them.”

The newspaper went on to attack Tony Blair’s government for “cultivating and promoting such pseudo-moderate Muslim organisations”. The BBC and the Foreign Office, described as “a preserve of Arabists”, were also lambasted both for quoting extremists and allowing them into Britain.

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“Der Terror Ist Da”: Germany wakes up, sort of. (Weekly Standard, 060907)

Berlin

A COLLEAGUE TELLS ME of a friend who was at the Hamburg train station during a recent bomb scare. Passengers, evacuated from the suspect train, were quite upset—about the delay. No one took the threat seriously. I confess to my own mundane thoughts in a similar situation. I was at the Zurich airport last month departing for London when the news came that flights to Britain were cancelled because the Brits had thwarted a major terrorist plot. My first thought was, How in the world will I ever get my checked suitcase back?

This summer’s thwarted plot to blow up two trains in Germany has started a long overdue debate here about the nature of the terrorist threat. Until now the conventional wisdom has been that Germany was immune from Islamic terrorism because Gerhard Schröder kept the country out of the Iraq war. Britain was attacked because Tony Blair is a poodle of the Americans. Spain suffered attacks because José María Aznar helped remove Saddam Hussein from power. This is all nonsense, of course. The Canadians uncovered a plot this summer in which terrorists sought to attack the parliament and behead the prime minister. Canada was against the Iraq invasion. Al Qaeda has murdered innocents in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim country, which opposed the Iraq war.

Alexander Ritzmann, a talented young Free Democratic member of the Berlin senate, says it will still take some time for Germans to get the picture: “It’s not what we do, it’s who we are that

makes us a target.” Ritzmann calls this “the central reality Germany has been avoiding.” Last week, he gave his own plea on the floor of the Berlin senate for Germany to wake up. To be sure, Chancellor Angela Merkel has already had a sobering effect on the German foreign policy and security debate. Merkel is empirical, a scientist by training. Last February at the annual international security conference in Munich, an Iranian official stood up and informed her that Iran has a law requiring it to enrich uranium. “Then change the law,” she said.

The Schröder era was not a complete wasteland. Otto Schily, the dour interior minister—a Green turned Social Democrat—was tough as nails and proved a serious ally for the United States and others. But the debate about Islamic terrorism during those years was mostly silly and irresponsible. Mathias Döpfner, the chairman and CEO of the Springer publishing company, wrote a searing column a couple years ago in which he argued that the German debate had been reduced to the goofy and lazy formula “Bush is dumb and bad.”

The events of the summer have at least gotten Germans’ attention. The first of four arrested was a 21-year-old Lebanese student in Kiel named Youssef Mohammed E.H. On July 31, he had planted bombs aboard two commuter trains on their way to Koblenz and Dortmund. The bombs failed to explode. Nothing has been concluded, but it appears that there might have been an al Qaeda connection. Last week Stern magazine announced that “Der Terror ist da!” (“Terror is here”). Der Spiegel’s latest cover story is on the new German angst. But the debate “has still not really heated up,” says Ritzmann. “We still need a huge step,” he adds.

There are those who have been trying. The most important, perhaps, has been Hans Magnus Enzensberger, one of the country’s leading literary figures and social critics. Enzensberger debated the Iraq war with another of Germany’s leading intellectuals, Jürgen Habermas. Habermas insisted that Europe, with its superior humanistic values, go its separate way from America. Enzensberger vigorously dissented in the pages of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

Earlier this year, Enzensberger published “Men of Terror,” an essay on “the Radical Loser.” Enzensberger blames neither poverty nor George W. Bush for the scourge of Islamic terror. He sees its roots in an intolerant vision of Islam, traceable to the Muslim Brotherhood’s founding in Egypt in the 1920s. The essay quotes generously from the U.N. Human Development Report and concludes that massive deficits in education and self-government in the Arab world have helped create an incubator for the dreadful complexes of inferiority and alienation that produce the “radical loser.” Enzensberger’s essay is a big step toward serious debate. But otherwise the state of discourse has been underwhelming. Germany’s most celebrated Middle East hand, an elderly eccentric author and journalist named Peter Scholl-Latour, has argued al Qaeda is a trumped-up rag-tag team mostly invented by the Americans.

The good news in all this? A majority of Germans now say they see a real threat. But then the Brits do, too. 80% say yes to the war on terror, but chiefly through more hawkish domestic policies and not in alliance with the United States. Just wait until Tony Blair’s exit to see how bad things can become. We can only hope Angela Merkel will step up. Europe needs a serious debate, and only serious leadership will bring it about.

Jeffrey Gedmin is director of the Aspen Institute Berlin and a columnist for Die Welt.

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Five Years Safe: The government has kept us safe from another attack. (National Review Online, 060908)

By Rich Lowry

There has been one constant in the five years since the terror attacks of 9/11 — there has been no follow-up attack in the United States. It is the most blessed non-event in recent American history.

Of course, that could change in an awful instant. It is nonetheless the signal accomplishment in the war on terror. While the smoke was still clearing from downtown Manhattan, no one would have said that the fight against terror should be judged on whether the U.S. is popular abroad or able to spread democracy. The standard was avoiding another attack in the U.S., and by that standard, the war on terror is a tentative success.

There are rival explanations for this success. Critics of President Bush tend to chalk it up to luck or to discount it on grounds that the terror threat was always exaggerated. The first explanation is too fatalistic, implying that our initiative doesn’t matter; it is fate that keeps us safe (or not). The second is circular. Only because we have prevented another attack is it possible to downplay the threat. If terrorists had managed to blow a couple of airliners from the sky a few weeks ago, their threat would look as terrifying as it did immediately after 9/11.

The first important step in thwarting terror was the passage of the Patriot Act. It was a bipartisan accomplishment, although Democrats subsequently obscured this when they realized that smearing the act played well with the Bush-hating left. The Patriot Act tore down the wall that made it difficult for law enforcement and intelligence agents to communicate, and it updated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act so that law enforcement no longer needed a new warrant every time a terror suspect switched phones. The Patriot Act — coupled with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s new prevention-oriented rather than after-the-fact approach to terrorism prosecutions — tightened up the homeland security considerably.

Overseas, the war in Afghanistan — also a bipartisan initiative — destroyed al Qaeda’s base and its training camps. Those camps were so important to indoctrination, to testing a recruit’s commitment, and to forging relationships that, as Brian Michael Jenkins of the Rand Corporation points out, “Al-Qaida still relies heavily on these now-dispersed Afghan veterans.” If the Patriot Act and the Afghan War were obvious pieces of the war on terror, many of the others were submerged from view until the last year or so, when leaks to the press and statements from Bush officials revealed and fleshed them out.

The National Security Agency has been running a secret program to monitor terrorist communications; the Treasury Department has been secretly tapping a huge database of financial transactions to track terrorist money transfers; the CIA has been running secret prisons where top al Qaeda officials are held and aggressively interrogated for information to detain their co-conspirators. All of this is controversial, although one suspects that immediately after 9/11, Democrats would have signed onto it too. This is the secret war that has disrupted al Qaeda so badly that in the latest Atlantic Monthly, liberal writer James Fallows calls (prematurely) for declaring the war on terror won.

Fallows quotes Jenkins, “Because of increased intelligence efforts by the United States and its allies, transactions of any type — communications, travel, money transfers — have become dangerous for the jihadists.” Terrorism expert John Robb tells Fallows that in a large-scale attack: “the number of people involved is substantial, the lead time is long, the degree of coordination is great and the specific skills you need are considerable. It’s not realistic for al-Qaida anymore.”

This is the one area where government has recently proved effective. Yes, gobs of federal money have been wasted on homeland security, and the Transportation Security Agency’s blunderbuss approach at the airports is a parody of bureaucratic excess. But the government has done what is most needful — it has kept us safe. Much work remains to be done — especially in the ideological fight against Islamic extremism, the ultimate source of the terror threat. But this is an anniversary when we should be thankful for non-events.

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The Real Jack Bauers: There are real reasons we haven’t been attacked again. (National Review Online, 060911)

The United States hasn’t been hit by a terrorist attack in five years — about five months longer than most had predicted immediately after 9/11.

Vice President Cheney often reminds that this record isn’t an accident. There are a number of reasons why we haven’t been hit. Some of the reasons we know about: the efforts of the military in Afghanistan and Iraq; the Patriot Act; generally heightened security; the SWIFT program; NSA surveillance; intelligence coordination with allies, etc. Other reasons are less discernable.

President Bush indicated that many of the victories against terrorists would be hidden from view; they will never be recorded in history. Many of these victories have been won by the military’s elite units — special-forces/counterterrorism units and others that the media knows little, if anything about. Indeed, Kiefer Sutherland got more coverage in five minutes at the Emmys than all of the Rangers, Green Berets, Marine Force Recon, SEALs / DevGru, and Delta operators combined.

And that’s as it should be. Very little public information is available about elite warriors so that terrorists are kept in the dark until it’s too late. Most of what the general public knows or suspects about elite forces comes from fictional accounts in movies, television shows or novels. Sure, lots of people know or have met Green Berets or SEALs, particularly people living near the southern Virginia and southern California coasts or in central North Carolina (it’s fairly certain, however, that every woman in the U.S. who’s ever set foot in a local watering hole has met a SEAL, who’s usually using the ingenious cover of a slightly overweight sales rep from Cleveland). Videos about SEAL and Green Beret physical training are a cottage industry. And there are several books by former Special Forces operators. But none of these accounts provides more than a non-classified peek into the training, techniques, and operations of elite warriors. Yet what the peeks reveal is astonishing nonetheless.

The superhuman physical conditioning of special-forces personnel is legendary. Anyone who’s worked out with elite athletes such as pro-football players or Olympians on the one hand and Rangers and SEALs on the other will tell you there’s no comparison — not even apples and oranges. Put your money on a SEAL breezing through a month of two-a-days at any pro football training camp versus a pro-football player surviving just a couple of days of SEAL training.

Interminable running, incessant push-ups, and spine-fusing overhead presses are standard features of special-forces PT. Each unit, however, has its own peculiar brand of hell. Stress fractures from Delta’s nonstop 40 mile marches with 50 pound rucksacks and hypothermia from the SEALs’ repeated nighttime immersions in frigid surf require team members to transcend ordinary limits of human pain and endurance. At the Delta, SEAL and Force Recon levels it’s less about physical invincibility than about extraordinary mental discipline

There are plenty of tough, brave, superbly conditioned soldiers among the roughly 1 million U.S. Army personnel on active duty and in the Guard and reserves. Yet fewer than 4000 are Green Berets. And only a handful are Delta operators.

The latter cohorts must not only possess exceptional physical prowess but have the reflexes, instincts, intelligence, and presence of mind to make multiple rapid fire judgments under impossible circumstances with absolutely no margin for error. They’re experts in demolition, surveillance, escape and evasion, hand-to-hand combat, infiltration, hostage rescue — i.e., every aspect of counterterrorism. They can handle the most exotic weapons imaginable, several adapted specifically for their use. They’re the most lethal individuals on the planet. And among the most level-headed, dedicated, and trustworthy.

Although their operations are clandestine, it’s widely acknowledged that forces such as Delta and the SEALs played crucial roles in Grenada, Panama, Somalia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Given the nature of the threat of terrorism, it’s likely that there are numerous other operations around the world in which special forces are presently engaged. Since their operations are largely classified, we won’t know when one of them has made the ultimate sacrifice for our country. Someone will be missing from Coronado or Ft. Bragg, but we won’t know who or why, and we won’t get a chance to thank him. It happens with enough frequency that funds such as the Special Operations Warriors Foundation have been established to assist the children of fallen elite warriors.

While it may be apocryphal, Winston Churchill is often quoted as having said (supposedly paraphrasing Orwell) “We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.” We owe it to these gentlemen not to take for granted the undisturbed sleep we’ve enjoyed the last five years. Without them we might not have been so fortunate.

— Peter Kirsanow is a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. He also is a member of the National Labor Relations Board. These comments do not necessarily reflect the positions of either organization.

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Lessons learned and unlearned: Five years after September 11 (Townhall.com, 060911)

By Chuck Colson

Today is the fifth anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, as well as United Flight 93 in Pennsylvania, which took 3,000 innocent lives. At the time, more than a few commentators predicted that, henceforth, our era would be divided between “pre-September 11” and “post-September 11.”

Thus, we need to know how things have changed, if at all, in these past five years. What lessons have we learned, and how have these lessons changed the way we live?

President Bush speaks at Austin Straubel International Airport Thursday, Aug. 10, 2006, in Green Bay, Wis. Bush said a plot to blow up multiple flights between Britain and the United States shows “this nation is at war with Islamic fascists.” (AP Photo/Morry Gash)

The answers are mixed.

The good news is that the terrorists have failed in their attempt to disrupt our way of life. After the shock of September 11 subsided, Americans returned to normalcy, which is a good thing. We refused to give the jihadists what they wanted: that is, frightened acquiescence to their agenda. We took sensible precautions to increase our security and went after al-Qaeda, which has prevented further attacks on the United States—much credit due to our government.

The bad news is that five years and hundreds of deaths later—in places like Bali, Madrid, and London—many of us in the West still don’t understand what we’re up against.

This lack of understanding can be seen in the recent flap over the president’s use of the expression “Islamo-fascists.” As I’ve told you, the term fascist can properly be applied to the likes of bin Laden. The president’s critics, for the most part, don’t deny this.

Instead, their objection is that the term is inflammatory and offensive. They think that an acceptable combination of rhetoric and concessions will divert Islamist radicals from their path. This is dangerous nonsense. As the London Telegraph put it, quoting an Islamist leader, our enemy isn’t trying to exact concessions from us; it’s trying to eliminate us.

That’s why European attempts to link the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the war on terror are absurd. Even if that conflict were resolved, that wouldn’t satisfy the jihadists. First of all, they want Israel annihilated. Secondly, the jihadists’ goals extend well beyond the Middle East to Europe and to the United States.

The failure to understand the threat stems, in part, from the West’s own loss of faith. For many of us, religion is something we do - or don’t do - depending on how it makes us feel. We don’t look to religion to tell us how we should live our lives, and, thus, we fail to understand how religion, and the worldview it inspires, might affect other people.

Thus, the British, after allowing jihadist preachers to operate freely, are now shocked to learn that their citizens pose “the biggest threat to U.S. security,” as the foiled plot to bomb airliners illustrates.

People who have stopped taking their religion seriously have trouble appreciating what other people’s religion might drive them to do. And it’s not just Europe. At home, our secular elites totally miss the point. When they are not downplaying the threat, they are making grotesque comparisons between Islamist radicals and politically active Christians.

On a day like this, we ought not only remember what happened but why it happened, as well. Understanding that “why” starts with taking religion, and the worldviews it produces, seriously and recognizing Islamo-fascism for what it is: a deadly and dangerous enemy that wants to destroy us.

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Al Qaeda’s “New” Ally: Ayman al-Zawahiri promises more attacks and formally welcomes the GSPC into the al Qaeda fold. (Weekly Standard, 060915)

TIMED FOR THE FIFTH ANNIVERSARY of September 11, Ayman al-Zawahiri released a video tape calling for another round attacks. The tape includes at least two important items that should not be overlooked.

The early reporting on the tape indicated that Zawahiri had threatened Arab Gulf States. He made specific references to Iraq, but he also threatened attacks against one or more of the other Gulf States, including Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, or the United Arab Emirates. But it is now clear that he also threatened strikes against America (again). Of perhaps greater note, Zawahiri announced that a long-time al Qaeda affiliate, the Algerian Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), had “joined” al Qaeda.

According to the Hindustan Times, Zawahiri claimed, “Osama bin Laden has told me to announce to Muslims that the GSPC has joined al Qaeda.” Zawahiri openly threatened attacks on America and France from this “new” al Qaeda force, “We pray to God that they will be a thorn in the side of the American and French crusaders and their allies.”

He added, “We pray to God that our brothers from the GSPC succeed in causing harm to the top members of the crusader coalition, and particularly their leader, the vicious America.” And according to an account from Reuters he called for the GSPC to become “a bone in the throat of the American and French crusaders” and to put fear “in the hearts of the traitors and the apostate sons of France.”

THE GSPC is an offshoot of an Algerian group named the GIA (Armed Islamic Group). The GIA grew out of the violence that engulfed Algeria in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Hundreds of Arab-Afghan veterans were part of the group’s founding. Osama bin Laden is said to have arranged financing and arms supplies for the group early in its existence.

The GIA and the Algerian government waged a brutal civil war which killed upwards of 100,000 people throughout ‘90s. But the GIA’s violence was not confined to Northern Africa. The group was also responsible for a series of attacks on targets in France and Europe, including an eerie forerunner of the September 11 attacks. In December 1994, four GIA terrorists hijacked an Air France flight leaving Algiers. Their goal was to force the pilot to fly the plane into the Eiffel Tower. Their plan failed when the plane landed in Marseille and French Special Forces boarded it, killing the hijackers in the process.

In 1998 there was a falling out between the core of al Qaeda’s leadership and some of the GIA’s senior leaders, resulting from the GIAs murder of thousands of Algerian civilians—which in turn had alienated much of the country and jeopardized al Qaeda’s chances for establishing an Islamist regime there.

In order to distance themselves from the GIA’s unpopular tactics, bin Laden and Zawahiri selected a young GIA emir named Hassan Hattab to establish a new al Qaeda affiliate in Algeria. Thus, the GSPC was born.

SINCE THEN, the GSPC has been an especially active al Qaeda affiliate. Acting in concert with al Qaeda affiliates from Morocco and Tunisia, the GSPC’s North African terror network provides al Qaeda easy access to the European mainland. In the last two years, several major GSPC plots have been uncovered on European soil, including a plot in Italy that may have aimed to kill as many as 10,000 people.

The GSPC was also central to al Qaeda’s last attempt to strike America prior to September 11, 2001. On December 14, 1999, an Algerian man named Ahmed Ressam was arrested on a ferry going from Victoria, British Columbia to Port Angeles, Washington after it was discovered that his truck with packed with explosives. Ressam was on his way to the LAX airport where he intended to take part in al Qaeda’s millennium bomb plot. An attack planned to simultaneously hit a hotel in Amman, Jordan, was also broken up.

The investigation into Ressam’s activities revealed his ties to both the Algerian GSPC and the senior leadership of al Qaeda. A PBS Frontline documentary provided a useful timeline of Ressam’s life. Culled from Ressam’s testimony and other evidence presented at his trial, the Frontline documentary notes that Ressam traveled to Canada in February 1994. There he stayed in an apartment building “identified by Canadian and international police as the Montreal headquarters of a terrorist cell connected to the Osama bin Laden network, and, more specifically, to an Algerian terrorist organization called the . . . GIA,” the GSPC’s predecessor.

Ressam supported himself through petty crimes, including robbery and trafficking in stolen identity documents. Ressam and his accomplices marketed stolen “driver’s license numbers, bank cards, and Social Security cards” and “provided Canadian passports and other identity documents to terrorist associates around the world.”

Ressam’s affiliation with the GIA was discovered by French authorities following a failed attempt to bomb a G-7 meeting in Belgium in March 1996. French authorities foiled the plot and, in the process, shot and killed a GIA member. On his person was “found an electronic organizer with the Montreal telephone number of the apartment Ressam was sharing with friends from Algeria.” The French authorities “notified CSIS, the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service” and from then on “Ressam was under surveillance as part of a large investigation into a suspected terrorist ring from 1996 until he left for Afghanistan in 1998.”

RESSAM LEFT MONTREAL looking for trouble. On his way to Afghanistan, he met Abu Zubaydah, who served as al Qaeda’s travel facilitator and training camp coordinator. Zubaydah approved Ressam’s admission into one of al Qaeda’s training camps, where he received the usual training in “light arms . . . the use of explosives and poison gas, methods for assassination, sabotage, and urban warfare.”

After his training was completed, according to Frontline, Ressam said “he was assigned to the European-based cell of the Algerian group in the camp, and that the members of the cell planned to travel separately and meet in Canada to commence ‘an operation’ in America before the end of 1999.” Zubaydah also requested that Ressam “send original Canadian passports to be supplied to other members of the network.”

Ressam re-entered Canada under a nom de guerre and the Canadians never picked up on his presence. His part in the millennium plot was halted only because a suspicious customs agent thought Ressam seemed evasive under questioning. Ressam’s plot demonstrates that even after the schism between the old guard of the GIA and bin Laden’s new GSPC, that Algerian operatives were central to al Qaeda’s international designs.

And while the LAX plot and other al Qaeda plots involving the GSPC were foiled, Spain’s investigation into the March 11, 2004 Madrid train bombings shows that several of the terrorists involved were tied to the GSPC and its al Qaeda affiliates from North Africa.

AS THE WEEKLY STANDARD has reported, there were ties between al Qaeda’s Algerian affiliates (first the GIA and then the GSPC) and Saddam’s regime. In a USA Today article from December 2001, Stanley Bedlington, a former senior analyst in the CIA’s counterterrorism center, explained that the CIA had collected evidence in the early 1990s demonstrating that Saddam and bin Laden were both tied to the GIA.

Earlier this year, THE WEEKLY STANDARD reported that 11 intelligence officials confirmed the existence of a set of documents and photographs demonstrating that Saddam ran training camps for thousands of terrorists. Among the terrorists trained at these camps were members of the Algerian GSPC.

There is no knowing, of course, if any of these terrorists are poised to strike the West. But now would be a good time to figure out who and where these terrorists are. After all, al Qaeda has used GSPC terrorists to strike the West since the early 1990s.

And Ayman al-Zawahiri now promises to do so again.

Thomas Joscelyn is an economist and writer living in New York.

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On the right road (Townhall.com, 060915)

By Rebecca Hagelin

Pop Quiz: Name five accomplishments in the last five years as a result of our War on Terror.

Bet you can’t come up with more than one off the top of your head.

Why? Because the liberal news media isn’t reporting the tremendous strides we’ve made in making America a safer place to live.

Hopefully, you were able to name the one major accomplishment: the fact that we’ve gone five-plus years without suffering another attack — which even the biggest optimist wouldn’t have predicted in those uneasy days after 9/11. We’ve remained safe because our great president took the fight to the enemy. Now the terrorists must use their finite resources to fight the world’s best-trained troops on their soil.

And although the hunt for Osama bin Laden continues, does anyone know we’ve captured some of al Qaeda’s most evil masterminds, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (the chief architect of 9/11), Hambali (Southeast Asian commander) and Abu Musab al Zarqawi (a feared and powerful al Qaeda leader in Iraq)?

Oh, and can you say, “SADDAM HUSSEIN”? Or guess which mad terrorist leader isn’t torturing and terrorizing his own people or threatening and scheming against the United States anymore?

As Heritage Foundation analyst James Carafano points out, freedom is also on the move in the Middle East because of the resolve of our president, whose support of democracy has allowed Iraqis to become part of the governing process for the first time in fifty years: “In Iraq, despite efforts to disrupt the political process, two free and fair national elections have been held and a sovereign government was established. And despite great efforts to inflame sectarian violence, even the most outrageous atrocities have not sparked a civil war.” And let’s not forget the amazing fact that we have liberated 50 million people in Iraq and Afghanistan. Haven’t heard much about that, have you?

We’ve gotten a lot smarter at home, too — improving airport screening, strengthening port security, passing the Patriot Act, monitoring the communications and financial transactions of terrorists. But you won’t hear about our improved security from the many journalists in the “mainstream” media. As a new report from the Media Research Center shows, “network reporters are presuming the worst about the government’s anti-terror efforts, and permitting their coverage to be driven by the agenda of leftist groups such as the ACLU.”

Take the Patriot Act. About two out of every three stories about the Act emphasize claims that the legislation infringes on the civil liberties of ordinary Americans and threatens privacy. Some reports make it sound as if we live in a police state. Yet critics are vague on specifics. “I have never had a single [verified] abuse of the Patriot Act reported to me,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said on the Senate floor in 2003. “My staff e-mailed the ACLU and asked them for instances of actual abuses. They e-mailed back and said they had none.” In reality, the Patriot Act has been instrumental in keeping our country safe. (To better sort fact from fiction, check out The Heritage Foundation’s “Patriot Act Reader.”)

Now, no one’s arguing that the war effort has been perfectly executed, and some improvements can be made. Perhaps most important, as Carafano wrote in a recent paper, is for our elected officials not to make things worse. “At least three pieces of legislation — port security, chemical security, and FEMA reorganization — will be at the top of the list of measures considered” in the days ahead, he writes. “In their zeal to act, legislators must avoid compromises that will make America less safe, free and prosperous.”

Because of the brave resolve and effort of our president, and committed men and women at various levels of our government, we have uncovered and stopped numerous planned attacks since 9/11, five of them within the last year alone.

President Bush often soberly reminds us that in order to remain safe and thwart attacks, we have to be right 100% of the time – yet the terrorists only have to be right one time in order to nail us. Yet, we have come a very long way, and have reason to be optimistic about our future, as the president also reminded us in a recent radio address:

“The war on terror will be long and difficult, and more tough days lie ahead. Yet we can have confidence in the final outcome, because we know what America can achieve when our nation acts with resolve and clear purpose. With vigilance, determination and courage, we will defeat the enemies of freedom, and we will leave behind a more peaceful world for our children and our grandchildren.”

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Former Head of CIA bin Laden Unit Says Clinton Had 10 Chances to Get Terror Mastermind (Foxnews, 060926)

By Brit Hume

Bill Clinton told Chris Wallace during their interview on “FOX News Sunday” that he had battle plans drawn to go into Afghanistan, overthrow the Taliban and launch a full-scale search for Usama bin Laden after the attack on the USS Cole in 2000.

But Michael Scheuer, who led the CIA effort to get bin Laden, is telling a different story. Scheuer says in The New York Daily News that plans for an invasion were never presented or discussed in his presence. And he says the only order he received following the attack on the Cole was to come up with a target list for air strikes. He also says Mr. Clinton had 10 chances to kill or capture bin Laden before 9/11, but the president did not use the information he was given.

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At Least 92 Dead After Tamil Rebel Attack on Naval Convoy (Foxnews, 061016)

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Tamil Tiger rebels rammed a truck loaded with explosives into a naval convoy in central Sri Lanka on Monday, killing at least 92 sailors and wounding more than 150, in what the military described as a cold-blooded massacre.

“All these people were without weapons and were going on leave,” military spokesman Brig. Prasad Samarasinghe said.

Samarasinghe said the attack happened near the town of Dambulla, about 90 miles northeast of the capital Colombo, when the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam rammed a small truck loaded with explosives into a convoy of military buses.

The blast killed 92 sailors, while more than 150 were wounded and evacuated to nearby hospitals.

He said the buses were carrying sailors from the port town of Trincomalee.

President Mahinda Rajapakse’s office said in a statement that the attack “was further proof of the LTTE’s unmitigated commitment to violence to achieve its ends and was in total disregard of international demands for it to abandon violence and seek peaceful means to achieve its goals.”

The military called the attack, one of the deadliest since a Norwegian-brokered 2002 cease-fire, a “cold-blooded massacre.”

“This inhuman act is a clear revenge by the terrorists on the navy who inflicted successive defeats for LTTE against their attempts of smuggling arms and explosives,” a military statement said.

The navy on Sunday destroyed a trawler loaded with arms along the west coast, killing at least five Tamil Tiger separatists.

A witness said that several of the buses attacked had caught fire, while the truck driven by the suicide bomber was destroyed. He said the body of the truck driver was found about 50 yards from the scene.

The attack comes as a Japanese envoy held talks with the Sri Lankan president Monday amid intensified diplomatic efforts to strengthen the peace process between the government and rebels ahead of scheduled talks between the two sides later this month in Switzerland.

It was not immediately clear what impact the attack would have on those talks. There was no immediate comment from the rebels on the attack, although they routinely deny their involvement.

Yasushi Akashi also planned to travel to the rebel stronghold in the north to talk with the Tiger leadership during his five days in Sri Lanka. A Japanese Embassy spokesman said he had no information yet on whether those plans would change following the attack.

Thorfinnur Omarsson, a spokesman for the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission, urged the government and rebels to keep their commitment to the peace talks despite the deadly attack.

“Obviously this is a brutal attack and a serious threat to the peace process,” Omarsson said. “But the people of Sri Lanka deserve that the talks will take place as planned.”

Norwegian peace envoy Jon Hanssen-Bauer was also scheduled to return to the island this week ahead of the planned Oct. 28-29 peace talks, while U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Central and South Asian Affairs Richard Boucher will make a two-day visit to Sri Lanka starting Thursday.

The flurry of diplomatic activity comes after some of the bloodiest fighting since the cease-fire was signed in 2002, temporarily ending nearly two decades of civil war. Heavy battles last Wednesday on the northern Jaffna Peninsula left hundreds of combatants dead, despite commitments by both the government and rebels to return to the negotiating table.

The military controls nearly all of the Jaffna Peninsula, which the ethnic Tamil minority claims as their cultural heartland. The Tigers still hold small pockets in the area.

Fighting has left about 2,000 people dead this year, according to the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission, set up to oversee the cease-fire.

The Tigers have been fighting since 1983 for a separate homeland for the Tamil minority in the north and east, citing decades of discrimination by the majority Sinhalese. About 65,000 people were killed before the 2002 cease-fire.

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A New Terrorist Haven: The frightening advance of Islamists in Somalia. (Weekly Standard, 061025)

WHEN FIGHTERS from the radical Islamic Courts Union (ICU) seized Mogadishu, capital of Somalia, in early June, the Western world briefly noticed. Analysts and talking heads were concerned that the country could become a terrorist haven. Then the media largely lost interest, though the situation remains dire. The ICU is on the verge of winning an even bigger strategic victory, and its links to international terrorism have become impossible to deny.

After Mogadishu fell, Somalia’s beleaguered transitional government holed up in the south-central city of Baidoa and watched as the ICU won a rapid series of strategic gains. It took control of critical port cities—most recently, Kismayo, captured on September 25—that give it access to the Indian Ocean. The ICU’s advances have met with little resistance, as typified by the capture of the town of Beletuein on August 9. The governor, escorted by a couple of “technicals”—pickup trucks mounted with machine guns—fled to Ethiopia shortly after fighting broke out between his forces and ICU militiamen.

Now, in late October, the ICU controls most of the country’s key strategic points. It can move supplies from south to north, and ICU troops effectively encircle Baidoa. In the past month, the ICU has begun to make overt moves against the transitional federal government. The most dramatic came on September 18, when the presidential convoy faced a multi-pronged suicide car bombing attack just minutes after President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed delivered a speech to the transitional parliament. Six government officials died in what was the first suicide strike

in Somalia’s history. There were further casualties in an ensuing gun battle, but President Ahmed escaped unscathed.

That attack occurred against the backdrop of ICU-inspired protests in Baidoa. The ICU used local supporters to organize demonstrations against the transitional government, forcing government police to disperse a crowd with gunfire.

The bottom line is that Baidoa is a city under siege, as evidenced by a stream of defections from the transitional government’s military to the more powerful ICU. Over 100 government fighters stationed near Baidoa have defected. All that prevents the transitional government’s destruction is the presence of some Ethiopian soldiers. Early this month, witnesses saw at least thirty Ethiopian armored vehicles pass through Baidoa en route to military barracks about twenty kilometers east of the city, and these troops have set up roadblocks in an effort to protect the transitional government.

Intelligence sources, however, doubt the Ethiopian forces can prevent Baidoa from falling. Some believe that the main reason the ICU hasn’t yet mounted a full assault is a desire to prevent the transitional government from escaping to Ethiopia or another sympathetic country and becoming a permanent thorn in the ICU’s side: The radicals would like to see all major figures in the transitional government killed or captured.

The primary reason Westerners should care about these developments is the ICU’s increasingly clear support for international terrorism. Longtime al Qaeda ally Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys has been appointed head of the ICU’s consultative shura council. The United States named Aweys a specially designated global terrorist in November 2001. He is one of three individuals believed responsible for the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania who are currently sheltered by the ICU. Aweys’s protégé, Aden Hashi ‘Ayro, reportedly received terrorist training in Afghanistan as the United States was preparing to attack the Taliban in 2001.

These men have seized power in a country that contains 17 operational terrorist training camps, as described in a confidential report prepared by the nongovernmental group Partners International Foundation in 2002. The claim in this report has been confirmed by a military intelligence source. Today, hundreds of terrorists from Afghan istan, Chechnya, Iraq, Pakistan, and the Arabian peninsula are said to be flocking to Somalia to train in or staff these camps. According to a military intelligence source, the camps provide training in the use of improvised explosive devices to counter Ethiopian vehicles.

According to press accounts, the ICU has received funding from the Arabian peninsula that allows it to arm its fighters with new weapons. Sheikh Aweys told a group of 600 fighters at the Hilweyne training camp, “This is the beginning, but thousands of other gunmen will be trained. You are the ones who will disarm civilians, restore law and order, and help enforce sharia law.”

But the presence of foreign fighters in Somalia suggests that Sheikh Aweys and the ICU have ambitions beyond Somalia. Some ICU leaders, such as Sheikh Yusuf Indohaadde, have denied the presence of foreign fighters in the country in order to distance themselves publicly from al Qaeda. In a late June press conference, Sheikh Indohaadde said, “We want to say in a loud voice that we have no enemies, we have not enmity toward anyone. There are no foreign terrorists here.” Within a few weeks of this unequivocal statement, how ever, the Associated Press obtained a copy of an ICU recruiting videotape directed at both Somali and Arab audiences (with Arabic subtitles) that showed Sheikh Indohaadde in the desert alongside fighters from Arab Gulf states.

Another senior ICU leader, Sheikh Hassan “Turki” Abdullah Hersi, openly admitted foreign involvement in Somalia during a speech to supporters after the seizure of Kismayo. “Brothers in Islam, we came from Mogadishu and we have thousands of fighters, some are Somalis and others are from the Muslim world,” he said. “If Christian-led America brought its infidels, we now call to our Muslim holy fighters to come join us.”

Nor is the ICU’s support for international jihad lost on the movement’s highest leaders. In an audiotape released in late June, Osama bin Laden stated, “We will continue, God willing, to fight you and your allies everywhere, in Iraq and Afghanistan and in Somalia and Sudan, until we waste all your money and kill your men and you will return to your country in defeat as we defeated you before in Somalia”—a clear nod to the rise of the Islamic courts. In July, bin Laden issued an even stronger statement: “We warn all the countries in the world from accepting a U.S. proposal to send international forces to Somalia. We swear to God that we will fight their soldiers in Somalia and we reserve our right to punish them on their lands and every accessible place at the appropriate time and in the appropriate manner.”

The rise to power of the ICU is reminiscent of the Taliban’s rise in the 1990s. Both radical groups are allied with al Qaeda and other foreign terrorists. And like the Taliban, the ICU is now instituting an extremely strict version of sharia.

In Somalia, as in Afghanistan in the 1990s, the implementation of sharia is facilitated by lawlessness and desperate poverty. The Taliban im posed its harsh rule on what Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid called an “exhausted, war-weary population,” many of whom saw the movement “as saviors and peacemakers.” Likewise, Somalia, since the toppling of President Muhammad Siad Barre in 1991, has been at the mercy of rival warlord factions known for indiscriminate violence. Rapes and other crimes have been commonplace. It is thus unsurprising that many Somalis view the ICU as a force that can deliver the stability they crave.

In both countries, however, many citizens were unable to accept the radicals’ draconian regime. By the time the Taliban was ousted from power in 2001, few Afghans were sad to see them go. Likewise, the influx of tens of thousands of Somali refugees into Kenya shows that not all of the ICU’s subjects are happy with their rule.

Where it has taken power, the ICU attempts to regulate virtually every facet of Somali citizens’ lives, even barring them from watching soccer matches. ICU forces shot at least two people who demanded to watch a World Cup semifinal this summer. And in mid-September, in the course of raiding a Mogadishu hall where a crowd was watching an English Premier League soccer match, they shot and killed a 13-year-old boy. The ICU has also conducted mass arrests of citizens watching videos, cracked down on live music at weddings, and arrested a karate instructor and his female students because the lessons constituted mixing of the sexes.

Beyond the religious basis for these laws, there is clearly a desire to cement the ICU’s control. This can also be seen in the ICU’s crackdowns on the media. The Islamic courts have closed several radio stations to stifle dissent. On October 8, they gave the press in Mogadishu 13 rules of conduct that the press freedom advocacy group Reporters sans Frontières describes as a “draconian charter.” It prohibits publishing information “contrary to the Muslim religion,” information “likely to create conflicts between the population and the Council of Islamic Courts,” and the use of “the terms which infidels use to refer to Muslims such as ‘terrorists,’ ‘extremists,’ etc.” A Reporters sans Frontières press release contends that this charter would result in “a gagged, obedient press, one constrained by threats to sing the praises of the Islamic courts and their vision of the world and Somalia.”

The ICU is also moving to disarm the population. In mid-October, the Islamic courts announced the door-to-door collection of weapons owned by Somali citizens and organizations. Only ICU-affiliated Somalis would be allowed to retain their firearms. This move, ostensibly designed to instill order, clearly diminishes citizens’ ability to resist the Islamic militia.

Although the situation in Somalia looks grave, the United States has more options for dealing with the ICU than it has in some other areas where terrorist factions have made gains lately, such as the Waziristan region of Pakistan.

Ethiopia’s military presence—still relatively light, and meant principally to help the transitional government escape once Baidoa falls—creates an initial opportunity for the United States. Back in the mid-1990s, Ethiopia intervened in Somalia to destroy the predecessor of the ICU, the al Qaeda-backed al-Ittihad al-Islamiya, which was sponsoring Islamic separatist groups in the Ethiopian border province of Ogaden. The Islamic courts are unlikely to be friendlier to Ethiopia than their predecessor. Sharif Ahmed, the head of the ICU’s executive council, has openly called for a jihad against Ethiopian soldiers in the country. ICU military commanders have made similar calls.

Nor is Ethiopia the only neighbor concerned about the ICU’s rise. On October 5, the ICU moved 15 of its technicals to the village of Liboi, in southern Somalia near the border with Kenya. While an ICU spokes man claimed that this was intended to “check the security in the area,” the Kenyans viewed the move as provocative. Concern about the ICU’s intentions had already prompted senior Kenyan officials to undergo anti terrorist and counterinsurgency training; when the ICU advanced to Liboi, Kenyan military helicopters responded with a show of force. Kenyan defense minister Njenga Karume later announced that “anybody who might touch Kenya will face the full force of our military.”

Since then, Kenya has deployed forces along its border with Somalia. Moreover, the governments of the semiautonomous regions of Puntland and Somaliland are hostile to the Islamic courts.

The United States has significant assets at Camp Lemonier in neighboring Djibouti, where the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa is made up of Marines, Special Operations forces, civil affairs teams, and a U.S. and international naval task force. The Combined Joint Task Force’s primary missions have been patrolling the East African coast and the straits of the Bab el Mandeb oil choke point, training regional militaries to fight the spread of Islamic terror groups, performing goodwill missions designed to improve the lives of Africans, and undertaking covert intelligence and hunter-killer missions. A Predator drone said to be operating from Djibouti killed Qaed Salim Sinan al-Harethi, al Qaeda’s chief operative in Yemen, in November 2002.

All is not lost in Somalia. While the transitional government has no power base to rely on, there is enough concern in the region about the ICU’s rise that the United States has potential partners with whom it could fashion an appropriate response if it wanted to. The critical question is whether we can muster the will—or for that matter even the awareness—to address the problem.

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross is a senior consultant for the Gerard Group International and author of the forthcoming book My Year Inside Radical Islam (Tarcher/Penguin). Bill Roggio is an independent military blogger who served in the Army from 1991 to 1995.

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Hamas Must-See TV: America’s so-called allies help spread terrorist propaganda. (National Review Online, 061027)

By Clifford D. May

Hamas may not have funds to pay the salaries of civil servants and improve social services for Palestinians. But resources to fund its propaganda efforts? That, evidently, is not a problem. This month, the terrorist organization that governs Gaza and the West Bank launched a satellite television station.

The new station will be broadcast by Arabsat, majority-owned by the Saudi government. Arabsat, along with Nilesat, owned by the Egyptian government, already distribute the programming of Al Manar, the television station of Hezbollah.

Hamas, Hezbollah, and Al Manar have all been officially designated by the U.S. government as terrorist entities. Meanwhile, the Saudi government runs commercials in the U.S. claiming to be America’s “ally” in the War on Terrorism. And the Egyptian government presents itself as our moderate Arab friend — in exchange for billions of dollars in American aid.

The Hamas television station is called “The Light of Al Aqsa.” Thanks to the Saudi government, its broadcasts will be available throughout the Middle East, North Africa and Europe as well. A senior Hamas official, Fathi Hammad, was candid enough to say that its mission would be to challenge “the Western culture that has invaded our territory.”

If the model for Al Aqsa is Al Manar, it will feature a steady drumbeat of vilification and dehumanization of Americans, Israelis and Jews. It also will glorify suicide bombing, help recruit terrorists, raise funds for terrorist operations and directly incite terrorism.

Why is Hamas doing this now? One strong possibility is that Hamas expects to soon be at war — with Israel, certainly, but also possibly with Fatah, the Palestinian organization it defeated at the polls early this year.

During the recent war in Lebanon, Al Mana proved an effective weapon for Hezbollah. Through its broadcasts — and with the help of its Saudi and Egyptian satellite providers — Hezbollah was able to drive its messages to the Arab world, into Europe and beyond. Among those messages: that Israel was intentionally targeting civilians, rather than Hezbollah fighters. That false charge diverted attention from the fact that Hezbollah was using Lebanese Christian and Muslim civilians as human shields, while also firing missiles at the Jews and Muslims who coexist peacefully in the northern Israeli city of Haifa.

Hamas wants to have the same communications capability, particularly if the conflicts it has been cultivating escalate. The relationship between Hamas and Fatah’s leader, Palestinian Authority Chairman president Mahmoud Abbas, has been growing increasingly tense. Hamas Interior Minister Said Sayam has accused Abbas of planning a coup and has announced the deployment of a new, armed operational force in the West Bank where Fatah support is strongest. Abbas has reportedly ordered PA security forces to prevent such deployment.

At the same time, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is deciding what he needs to do to stop the Kassam missiles that have been raining down from Gaza virtually every day since the Israeli withdrawal from that territory more than a year ago. Also on his to-do list: blocking the smuggling of arms into Gaza through the Philadelphi route and Rafah crossing, destroying the anti-tank missiles and industrial explosives already smuggled into Gaza, and demolishing the tunnels that Hamas has been building in the direction of Israel’s security fence.

In addition, Israelis would like to secure the release of Cpl. Gilad Shalit, a soldier captured in June by Hamas combatants operating on Israeli soil. This week, Israel’s U.N. ambassador, Dan Gillerman, accused Iran of paying money to Hamas to make sure Shalit’s captivity continues.

In these circumstances, Hamas wants the ability to deliver its spin directly to Arab audiences, to win their sympathy and support, to raise money and perhaps recruit volunteers. And it wants to use satellite television to reach deep into Europe to incite Arabic speakers — for example in the suburbs of Paris where French police are taking casualties daily in what they term an “intifada;” in London, where British security officials are desperately trying to track proliferating al Qaeda cells; and elsewhere in Europe where radical jihadist activity is on the rise.

The Europeans appear to be doing little to stop the Saudis and Egyptians from helping Hamas and Hezbollah incite terrorism. By contrast, it will not be surprising if — besides missile factories and weapons warehouses— the Israeli army soon targets Hamas television studios. And should a Palestinian civil war break out, it is not hard to imagine that Fatah might do the same.

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Venezuelan IDs help terrorists enter U.S.: Chavez provides support to Middle Easterners headed north, charges congressional report (WorldNetDaily, 061026)

WASHINGTON – Venezuela, whose leader Hugo Chavez has stood with Iran against the U.S., is providing documents that could help terrorists infiltrate the U.S.-Mexico, charges a new congressional report on homeland security.

“Venezuela is providing support – including identity documents – that could prove useful to radical Islamic groups,” says the report of the subcommittee on investigations of the House Homeland Security Committee. “The Venezuelan government has issued thousands of cédulas, the equivalent of Social Security cards, to people from places such as Cuba, Colombia and Middle Eastern nations that host foreign terrorist organizations.”

The documents can be used to obtain Venezuelan passports and American visas, which in turn allow the holder to elude immigration checks and enter the United States.

The report found that the Chavez government has issued thousands of these identity documents that could help terrorists elude immigration checks and enter the United States.

“The potential is certainly there for terrorists to infiltrate the U.S. through Mexico,” said Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, who chaired the subcommittee. “We apprehended five Pakistanis on the U.S. Mexico border with fraudulent Venezuelan documents.”

The report, “A Line in the Sand: Confronting the Threat at the Southwest Border,” says the number of aliens other than Mexican, known as OTM, illegally crossing the border has grown at an alarming rate over the past several years.

Aliens from “special interest” countries known to harbor terrorists or promote terrorism are routinely encountered and apprehended according to the report. The countries include Iran, Syria, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.

Federal law enforcement personnel told the subcommittee’s staff it is difficult to provide the total number of special interest aliens entering the U.S. because they pay large amounts of money, between $15,000 and $60,000, to employ the more effective Mexican alien smuggling organizations and are less likely to be apprehended.

In August, an Afghani man was found swimming across the Rio Grande River in Hidalgo, Texas. Last July in Jim Hogg County, Border Patrol agents found a discarded jacket with patches from countries where al-Qaida is known to operate. The patches feature Arabic-language martyrdom slogans that read “way to eternal life” and depict a jetliner crashing into the World Trade Center towers.

McCaul is concerned that Chavez is turning Venezuela into a staging area for terrorism in America’s backyard.

“We know that Mr. Chavez in Venezuela has openly embraced the Islamic jihad world,” he said. “We know that Hezbollah operatives have been given safe haven in Venezuela. So the threat is very real.”

Last year, FBI Director Robert Mueller Jr. revealed to members of Congress that “individuals from countries with known al-Qaida connections have attempted to enter the United States illegally using alien smuggling rings and assuming Hispanic appearances.”

He also testified that a Hezbollah cell had been “dismantled” after discovering that the terror organization was smuggling operatives across the U.S. -Mexico border to carry out terror attacks inside the U.S.

The McCaul report also points out that radical Islamic groups that support Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamiya Al Gamat are all active in Latin America.

“Given the ever-present threat posed by al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations – a threat that has been underscored by the recent events in London and the vulnerability of our borders – the need for immediate action to enforce our borders could not be more apparent,” says the report.

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Raid kills 80 at Pakistani school (Washington Times, 061031)

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistani helicopter gunships yesterday destroyed a religious school that the military said was fronting as an al Qaeda training camp, killing 80 persons in the country’s deadliest military operation targeting terrorism suspects.

Islamic leaders and al Qaeda-linked militants blamed the United States for the air strike and called for nationwide demonstrations to condemn the attack that flattened the school — known as a madrassa — and ripped apart those inside. Furious villagers and religious leaders said the pre-dawn missile barrage killed innocent students and teachers.

U.S. and Pakistani military officials denied American involvement.

Among those killed in the attack in the remote northwestern village of Chingai, two miles from the Afghan border, was a cleric who had sheltered militants and was thought to be associated with al Qaeda’s deputy leader, Ayman al-Zawahri.

The raid threatens efforts by President Pervez Musharraf to persuade deeply conservative tribesmen to back his government over pro-Taliban and al Qaeda fighters, who have strong support in many semiautonomous regions in northern Pakistan. The planned signing of a peace deal between tribal leaders and the military was canceled yesterday in response to the air strike.

Gen. Musharraf has been under intense pressure, particularly from the United States and Afghanistan, to rein in militant groups, particularly along the porous Pakistan-Afghanistan border, where al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and al-Zawahri are thought to be hiding. The Pakistani leader, as well as Afghan President Hamid Karzai, met with President Bush in Washington last month to address the issue.

Protests were held from the northwestern city of Peshawar to the southern city of Karachi, the largest occurring in Chingai and the Bajur district’s main town of Khar, where 2,000 tribesmen and shopkeepers chanted, “Death to Musharraf. Death to Bush.”

Fearing unrest, Britain’s Prince Charles, who arrived in Pakistan on Sunday for a five-day stay, canceled a visit planned for today to Peshawar.

The raid was launched after the madrassa’s leaders, headed by cleric Liaquat Hussain, rejected government warnings to stop using the school as a training camp for terrorists, said army spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan.

“These militants were involved in actions inside Pakistan and probably in Afghanistan,” Gen. Sultan told the Associated Press.

Militant groups in Bajur are thought to ferry fighters, weapons and supplies to Afghanistan to target U.S. forces there and Pakistani soldiers on this side of the ethnic Pashtun majority tribal belt.

Gen. Sultan said 80 persons were killed in the building, which was 100 yards from the nearest house. Local political officials and Islamic leaders corroborated the death toll.

Gen. Sultan denied reports that al-Zawahri was in the area at the time of the attack. “It is all wrong, speculative, and we launched this operation on our own to target a training facility,” he said. A Bajur-area intelligence official said word was spreading among residents that al-Zawahri may have been expected at the madrassa, but he said the reports were wrong.

Hussain, the cleric thought to have been a deputy of al-Zawahri, was among those killed, the intelligence official and residents said.

Another al-Zawahri lieutenant, Faqir Mohammed, apparently left the madrassa 30 minutes before the strike, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.

Hours later, Mr. Mohammed addressed 10,000 mourners at a funeral for some of the victims.

“We were peaceful, but the government attacked and killed our innocent people on orders from America,” said Mr. Mohammed, who was surrounded by dozens of militants brandishing semiautomatic weapons. “It is an open aggression.”

Three funerals were held one after the other in a field near the madrassa, where the remains of at least 50 persons were laid on wooden beds placed side by side in rows and covered with colored blankets.

Villagers walked among the beds and offered prayers. Militants, their faces covered with brown and red scarves, patrolled the crowd.

On Saturday, Mr. Mohammed led a rally of 5,000 Taliban and al Qaeda supporters nearby, during which he denounced the Pakistani and U.S. governments and praised bin Laden.

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British Intelligence Agency Tracking 1,600 Potential Terror Conspirators (Foxnews, 061110)

LONDON — British authorities are tracking almost 30 terrorist plots involving 1,600 individuals, the head of Britain’s MI5 spy agency said, adding that many of the suspects are homegrown British terrorists plotting homicide attacks.

In a speech released by her agency Friday, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller said MI5 had foiled five major plots since the July 2005 transit bomb attacks in London.

Speaking to a small audience of academics in London on Thursday, Manningham-Buller said officials were “aware of numerous plots to kill people and to damage our economy.”

“What do I mean by numerous? Five? Ten?” she said. “No, nearer 30 that we currently know of.”

She said MI5 and the police were tackling 200 cells involving more than 1,600 individuals who were “actively engaged in plotting or facilitating terrorist acts here and overseas.”

Senior anti-terrorist officials have said before that they have foiled several plots since the July 2005 attacks, but Thursday’s talk contained the first public estimate of the threat by the head of Britain’s domestic spy agency.

Manningham-Buller, who has headed MI5 since 2002, said the plots “often have linked back to Al Qaeda in Pakistan, and through those links Al Qaeda gives guidance and training to its largely British foot soldiers here on an extensive and growing scale.”

She warned that radicalization, especially of young people, was one of the biggest problems facing anti-terror investigators.

On July 7, 2005, four suicide bombers killed 52 people on three subway trains and a bus in London. Three of the four bombers were British-born.

This August, police said they had foiled a plot by a British terrorist cell to blow up trans-Atlantic airliners in midair. More than a dozen people, all British, are awaiting trial in the case.

On Tuesday, a British Muslim convert, Dhiren Barot, was sentenced to life in prison for plotting to attack U.S. financial landmarks and blow up London targets with limousines packed with gas tanks, napalm and nails.

Manningham-Buller said some of the plots MI5 was tracking could be less threatening than the deadly 2005 ones, but that they still must be investigated.

She said the threat from international terrorism “is serious, is growing, and will, I believe, be with us for a generation.”

“It is the youth who are being actively targeted, groomed, radicalized and set on a path that frighteningly quickly could end in their involvement in mass murder of their fellow U.K. citizens,” Manningham-Buller said. “Young teenagers are being groomed to be suicide bombers.

“Today we see the use of homemade improvised explosive devices, but I suggest tomorrow’s threat will include the use of chemicals, bacteriological agents, radioactive materials and even nuclear technology,” she added.

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Al Qaeda welcomes Democratic victory (Washington Times, 061122)

By Walid Phares

The latest audio by al Qaeda’s Iraq commander — posted 48 hours after the midterm elections — sends a clear signal to the readers of the jihadi strategic mind: Al Qaeda and its advisers around the world want to provoke an “American Madrid.” Portraying the United States as a bleeding bull in disarray, the war room projects its wish to see America’s will crippled. The video attempts to do the following:

1. Convince the jihadists that the United States is now defeated in Iraq and beyond. While no reversal of the balance of power has taken place on the ground, the jihadi propaganda machine is linking the shift in domestic politics to a withdrawal from Iraq. It projects the change in Washington as a crumbling of the political process in Baghdad and America’s foreign policy. Interestingly, others in the region are also “announcing” the upcoming defeat of America in the war on terror. Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah declared: “The Americans are leaving, and their allies will pay the price.”

2. Spread political chaos at home. Jihadists portray the Democratic takeover of Congress and the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld (and maybe others) as signs of American weakening in the resolve to fight jihadism. The video had a potential to frustrate U.S. citizens if it is not accurately interpreted by experts. Americans may end up believing that the message reflects the situation in the Middle East and that it is a logical outcome of a faulty U.S. policy. If the Bush administration and the new congressional leaders do not respond adequately to the video, some “chaos” of this sort may ensue.

3. The terminology used in the videotape is a powerful indicator that al Qaeda’s political network relies on Western-educated minds, familiar with political processes in the United States and serving as advisers to the jihadists. A regular al Qaeda emir does not use the term “lame duck.” It is more likely that a U.S.-based cadre, who understands the impact of political jargon on domestic audiences, had suggested the use of this word. Abu Hamza al Muhajir’s use of the term batta arjaaa (lame duck) is striking to any native speaker of Arabic. This term does not exist in Arab culture, let alone in jihadi rhetoric. Its use is yet another proof of the Americanization jihad has undergone. Thus, Iraq’s al Qaeda is using the term as a weapon — something most likely requested by the jihadi brains operating on the other side of the Atlantic.

So what do the speechwriters want to achieve with these kinds of tapes? They aim at sapping American public morale during a time when reorganization is taking place in the U.S. government. Reading from the jihadi wishful thinking, the audiotape of al Muhajir and the statements made by other radical Islamists send the following message: Americans are being thanked for removing Mr. Bush’s party from the leadership of Congress, which the jihadists attribute to the war on terror rather than U.S. domestic problems. Al Qaeda’s audio tells citizens in the United States that they were wise for having responded positively to the previous messages by Osama bin Laden. Al Masri’s words aim at convincing the American public to pressure their newly elected legislators to pull U.S. forces hastily from Iraq.

In short, al Qaeda wants an American Madrid: it wishes that a change of power in January would be accompanied by a change of national determination, not just a change of course within Iraq.

In the Salafis chat rooms, the commissaries explained to their audiences, that the Democratic Party victory in Congress means that America is now divided and al Qaeda can push to create more cracks in the system — as it has successfully done in Spain. The masters of the forum, emulating al Masri’s audiotape, said not only that “we got their soldiers on the run in Iraq,” but “we got their citizens on the run on their own soil” referring to the November electoral outcome. They promised that with more killings in Iraq, they will break the will of Americans at home; and that the new Congress, seeking to fulfill one of its electoral promises will force the Bush administration to pack up and leave the Middle East.

In Washington, both the administration and the new congressional leaders failed to seriously respond to the al Qaeda message. Grave mistake; for ignoring the speech would help convincing the jihadists that America is divided and crumbling and would embolden them to strike further, not only in Iraq but also inside the United States. The silent treatment works in favor of the Salafi combatants: It only leads them to believe that they are right and that their strategy is working; just as Allah had crushed the Soviets in Afghanistan, he has divided the Americans. It is, therefore, imperative that Washington strikes back in a unified manner at every opportunity that arises. It must tell the dreamers of a terror caliphate that American democracy will not serve as a weapon to defeat freedom worldwide.

Walid Phares is a senior fellow with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and the author of “Future Jihad: Terrorist Strategies against America.”

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Book: A jihadist template (Washington Times, 061219)

Insurgents, Terrorists, and Militias: The Warriors of Contemporary Combat

By Richard H. Shultz Jr. and Andrea J. Dew

Columbia University Press, $29.50, 316 pages

Richard H. Shultz Jr. and Andrea J. Dew have done more than write a book on America’s new enemies. The two authors have done a public service.

Anyone interested in the current struggle against Islamic extremists would better understand the fighting after reading “Insurgents, Terrorists, and Militias.” The authors are academicians, but the book is not a tedious professorial term paper. Instead, it is a plain-English, but detailed, explanation of who these Islamists are and why it is so difficult to defeat them.

The military has taken to calling its new foes “non-state actors,” but the problem is more complex. To understand the enemy, Mr. Shultz and Ms. Dew first explain the clan and tribal systems that dominate Islamic countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq. They write of the tradition of Jihad (tribes fight ferociously and forever). And finally, Islam’s history of rejecting invaders, no matter how noble their cause. Historically, their tactics shun distinct battle lines and conventional formations. Instead, they rely on ambush, planted bombs and sabotage to wear the invaders down.

It is too bad “Insurgents, Terrorists and Militias” did not come out while the Bush cabinet planned war in Iraq. For whatever reason, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, et al, never took into account the possibility of a robust post-Saddam Hussein insurgency, aided by outsiders. Instead of immediately launching counter-insurgency operations and Sunni-Shiite diplomacy in 2003, the Americans went looking for weapons of mass destruction and tried to start an interim government. Unbothered, thousands of Saddam loyalists plotted the next war. And in the south, a little known cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr, created an anti-American militia. We are living with those planning mistakes today.

The book reminds us of what history clearly shows: Whenever an Islamic country is pierced by invaders, two developments follow: the tribal or clan ethos of fighting; and outside actors. In Somalia, an anti-American warlord mobilized an insurgency that began ambushing and murdering United Nations troops. Al Qaeda terrorists arrived, teaching the militias new tactics for shooting down low-flying U.S. helicopters. “The form of warfare they practiced had little in common with the principles set down by the founding fathers of modern Western warfare,” the authors point out.

Their motives far less noble, the Soviets ran up against much the same tactic in Afghanistan. An estimated 50,000 Islamic fighters around the world flocked to the occupied country. Soon, Soviet supply lines got ambushed. Casualties mounted. The Soviets eventually went back home.

The point is, Somalia and Afghanistan showed these conflicts are never fought in isolation. Yet few, if any, inside the administration predicted the jihadist template for Iraq.But it happened. Rising up were homegrown insurgents built around tribal and clan leaders, and augmented by foreign jihadists and outside actors Iran and Syria.

Planners should have done research. Mr. Shultz and Ms. Dew write that the Iraqi way of fighting has its roots in the ancient tactics of Bedouins, the nomadic Arabic tribes who settled in Iraq. “Bedouin social customs and tribal structure were ideally suited for the key operational feature of irregular warfare — the raid,” the authors write. “Avoid the opponent’s strength and exploit targets of opportunity through highly mobile and unpredictable attacks.”

Mr. Shultz, who is director of the International Security Studies Program at Tufts University’s Fletcher School, is one of the country’s leading experts on terrorism and intelligence. Ms. Dew is a research associate at the school. Mr. Shultz boasts an impressive list of military students who went on to higher achievement. And he is good at convincing senior leaders to come talk to his class. In 2002, with commandos playing a huge role in the war against al Qaeda, Air Force Gen. Charles Holland, then head of U.S. Special Operations Command, was seen walking across the Tufts campus going to brief some Shultz students.

The military is now engaged in massive “lessons learned” exercises to find ways to fight non-state actors who fight by sneak attack, car-borne snipers, roadside explosives and suicide bomb. The authors add to the mix. War planners must first recognize the enemy will not fight fair, so to speak. Then they must study its cellular structure, and identify its leaders and where they operate. This was not done in Iraq early on. The insurgency’s Sunni component set up shop in areas north and west of Baghdad and operated with near-impunity for two years. And commanders must plan for foreigners, such as brutal terrorists Abu Musab Zarqawi, to descend on any West-Islamic struggle.

If only this book had come out in 2002 and been briefed inside the Pentagon. Someone needed to be reminded of the Islamists’ centuries-old methods of fighting.

Rowan Scarborough, the author of “Rumsfeld’s War,” is a reporter for The Washington Times.

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Skill, luck credited for terror-free year (Washington Times, 070102)

MADRID — Bombs left on commuter trains in a busy station in Germany, a plot to blow up tunnels and flood New York City’s financial district, another to bring down packed commuter airliners flying out of London.

Islamic militants had no shortage of murderous ideas in 2006, but for the first time since the September 11, 2001, attacks, the year closed without a major attack in the West.

In a wide-ranging analysis, security and intelligence leaders around the world told the Associated Press that their success was a result of more than just luck.

Far greater human and technological resources, tougher counterterrorism laws, a deeper understanding of the homegrown nature of the threat and the hard lessons learned from past failures — all these have all helped avert catastrophe, they said.

But they also cautioned against complacency, saying another attack is inevitable. A senior Spanish intelligence official who recently stepped down as head of a national counterterrorism unit warned that the absence of deadly attacks in 2006 does not mean the world should expect similar results in 2007.

Reinforcing the reality that high-casualty terrorism is still a threat, not only in the West, a bomb attack on trains in Bombay in July killed more than 200 people. India suspects Islamic organizations both at home and in neighboring Pakistan of being behind the bombings.

Muslim militants were not blamed for a Saturday car bombing at Madrid International Airport, which left 26 persons injured and two missing. The attack was thought to be the work of the Basque terrorist group ETA.

Anger among many Muslims is still high over the war in Iraq, the publication of cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, Israel’s war against Hezbollah militants in Lebanon and remarks by Pope Benedict XVI that many Muslims considered insulting despite his explanation to the contrary.

“The fact that these threats have not materialized [in 2006] is not for a lack of trying by terror organizations,” the Spanish official said. “It is because the counterterrorism fight in Europe and North America has been effective in detecting these aspiring terror groups early,” before they could strike.

In Britain, an official familiar with the country’s anti-terror policies said the July 7, 2005, bombings of London subways and a bus were a wake-up call, and that intelligence and security protections put in place since those attacks had helped thwart several new plots, including a foiled August scheme to target U.S.-bound jetliners with liquid explosives.

While authorities have said little about how they stopped the carnage, they have acknowledged that some of the suspects were under surveillance for months, both in Britain and Pakistan.

“The extra resources we’ve devoted since the 7/7 attacks have helped us stop plans that had been in the works for years,” said the government official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity owing to the sensitive nature of his work. “Our database is growing. We have more people on the ground. We are a lot more aware now.”

MI5, the British domestic spy agency, has added hundreds of staff members in recent years, and Government Communications Headquarters, once home to World War II code breakers, has doubled its corps of analysts to 5,000 — becoming Britain’s largest intelligence agency.

Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, the head of MI5, has said her agency had foiled five major plots since the 2005 bombings, and that her agents were tracking almost 30 terrorist plots involving 1,600 suspects.

Magnus Ranstorp, a terrorism expert at the Swedish National Defense College, said the absence of attacks on European soil in 2006 reflects a better understanding of how the terror networks operate — and a little bit of luck.

“Authorities have started to organize much, much better now, and that is starting to show results,” Mr. Ranstorp said. “We have much better insight into the networks now, because we have focused our resources on the right problems. I think the security agencies have this under better control than you might think, and know the lay of the land rather well.”

Analysts and intelligence officials say the nature of the threat has changed dramatically since September 11, 2001, with concern largely focused on homegrown groups driven by local grievances, rather than professional terrorists trained by al Qaeda and with direct links to Osama bin Laden.

While these groups have the advantage of being small, they are often less sophisticated and easier to catch. Thousands of suspected radicals are under surveillance across Europe, making it harder for plots to emerge.

The closest call in 2006 may have come in Cologne, Germany, when two crude bombs on trains failed to detonate. The biggest threat was the London airliner plot. Lesser defined schemes against the Jewish Quarter in Prague, a church in Bologna, Italy, and the Milan, Italy, subway also failed.

In the United States and Canada, authorities uncovered plots — some seemingly little more than fantasies — to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago, flood Lower Manhattan by blowing up tunnels under the Hudson River, and attack public buildings in Ontario.

Authorities in Morocco arrested at least 56 persons, among them soldiers, police and the wives of Royal Air Maroc pilots, over a purported plot to blow up foreign targets. Indonesia, one of the countries most frequently hit by Islamic radicals, enjoyed its first attack-free year since 1999.

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Why Do They CAIR about Jack Bauer? 24 is an opportunity for American Muslims to fight the real enemy: Islamism. (National Review Online, 070129)

By M. Zuhdi Jasser

Yet again, the old, tired “major” American Muslim organizations have come out in full force to object to something unobjectionable. This time, they’re angry about the storyline of 24, the highly popular TV drama on Fox: When the recent premiere episode ended with a terrorist network detonating a nuclear device in a Los Angeles suburb, the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) announced its fear that “this would serve to increase anti-Muslim prejudice in American society.” The show had begun with a depiction of an America gripped in fear after an eleven-week run of suicide bombings, apparently by radical Islamist terror cells, in cities across the country.

The show addresses a real concern. While the U.S. has not been the victim of an attack since 9/11, a vast array of networks have been dismantled around the world — including a plot run out of London that was targeting the U.S. And, since 9/11, there have been a number of successful attacks upon civilian populations in other parts of the globe — in Bali, Istanbul, Spain, London, Egypt, Jordan, and other places.

As an American and as a Muslim, I find 24 to be not only a profoundly engaging program, but one whose portrayal of Muslims in quite fair. In the show, the president’s sister works for a “leading” Muslim civil-rights organization in D.C.; she is portrayed as a protector of constitutional freedoms. The head of this Muslim organization, who is in detention, reports to authorities on prisoners’ terrorism-related conversations that have alarmed him.

The show also shows the darker, extremist side of Islam — for example, an Arab-Muslim youth, a previously beloved neighbor in suburban L.A., turns out to be a terrorist thug who provides a key part of the nuclear device while terrorizing his friend’s family. This is another, undeniable part of today’s Muslim reality: While suitcase nuclear devices have yet to be used, the threat is there, and such characters are probably quite true to life in their depiction of members of al Qaeda cells or other jihadist networks in the West.

Any ethnic group can, of course, voice complaints regarding its portrayal in pop culture. From the frequently maligned American Italian community in organized-crime dramas to the Russian community that was the focus of last year’s 24, no ethnic group is entirely safe from the silver screen. But the sad reality is that such crime rings or “networks,” which exploit ethnic and religious communities, exist; and they do affect our security.

For American Muslims, though, 24 offers an opportunity to address a key question: To the extent Muslims have a bad image on TV, what can we do to change that?

All patriotic American Muslims who watch 24’s evil Muslim characters unfold their plot to destroy the U.S. quite naturally are enraged. We have an overwhelming desire to reach into the TV set and let all the non-Muslim characters witness a Muslim leading the nullification of this radical Islamist threat.

But the public face of American Muslim activity against terror — and the against the ideology that feeds it — has so far been inadequate. Other than press-release condemnations, there has been virtually no palpable public effort from the greater Muslim community in this regard. If that public movement against Islamism existed, 24’s writers would probably have included it in the story line.

So if this drama hits too close to home, perhaps offended Muslims should use this TV program as an emotional stimulus for change. To this point, the Muslim community has been able to completely avoid any real debate over Islamism. In fact, we see now a movement in England and the West to blame the West’s foreign policy as a root cause of terror rather than the real root cause — theocratic Islamist ideology.

It’s time for hundreds of thousands of Muslims to be not only private but public in their outrage — and to commit themselves to specific, verbal engagement of the militants and their Islamism. We, as American Muslims, should be training and encouraging our Muslim-community youth to become the future Jack Bauers of America. What better way to dispel stereotypes than to create hundreds of new, real images of Muslims who are publicly leading this war on the battlefield and in the domestic and foreign media against the militant Islamists.

Condemnations by press release and vague fatwas are not enough. We need to create organizations — high-profile, well-funded national organizations and think tanks — which are not afraid to identify al Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah by name, and by their mission as the enemies of America.

If Muslim organizations and the American Muslim leadership were seen publicly as creating a national, generational plan to fight Islamism — rather than searching for reasons to claim victimhood — then the issues and complaints surrounding such TV shows would disappear. The way to fight the realities of 24 is to create a Muslim CTU, a deep Muslim counterterrorism ideology and a national action plan for our security.

—M. Zuhdi Jasser is the chairman of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy and a former U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander.

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Jack Bauer for president (WorldNetDaily, 070129)

There’s a reason Fox’s “24” is the most popular show on television.

It’s not just the suspense. It’s not just the action. It’s not just the great premise, the great writing, the great performances and the great production values.

It’s because America loves Jack Bauer. We recognize we need him.

If you have watched even a few episodes of “24,” you realize it’s not decisions by the president of the United States that save Americans from disaster after disaster. It’s individual initiative and courage displayed by Jack Bauer – the man we’re constantly reminded is “expendable.”

Viewers understand Jack Bauer is the one indispensable character. They recognize without him, or others like him, all is lost. Presidents come and go. Jack Bauer remains – and, as long as he remains, there is hope the bad guys will continue to be foiled in their efforts to kill Americans and destroy their country.

To say Jack Bauer’s methods are “controversial” would be an understatement. Quite frankly, his methods would be illegal in the real America – and not only in the way they are employed inside the country against citizens, but even on America’s battlefields and in foreign places with names like Abu Graib and Guantanamo Bay.

Back in the real world, President Bush is hoping to win his war in Iraq by sending in 20,000 more U.S. troops. But what he needs, figuratively speaking, is Jack Bauer.

He needs new tactics. He needs intelligence. He needs information extracted from captives on the battlefield and enemies picked up on the streets of America. Actually what he needs is a dose of common sense – not really anything new.

He needs to turn our brave fighting men loose. He needs to free their hands of the restraints he and the Congress of the United States have placed on them with regard to interrogation techniques. He needs to return to the rules of engagement that made the American military the envy of the world.

Prior to November 2004, there was little question anywhere that America was accomplishing its mission in Iraq. It was destroying the enemy and transforming the country into a U.S. ally in the Middle East.

But what happened in November 2004 changed all that. It wasn’t a victory on the battlefield by al-Qaida. It wasn’t a spontaneous uprising by America’s enemies. It wasn’t any failure by U.S. troops.

It was a public-relations disaster called Abu Graib. That media coup for the enemy set off a chain of events that ultimately led the politicians in Washington to handcuff our troops – ensuring the quagmire that followed.

Abu Graib spelled the end of coercive interrogations. Now enemy captives know they don’t have to talk. They know exactly what U.S. interrogators will and won’t do to get information. They have no fear. They know Jack Bauer isn’t coming.

That’s why Bush’s plan for more troops won’t work. It’s not more troops we need. It’s taking the handcuffs off the troops already on the battlefield that is needed.

When we stopped performing coercive interrogations, we no longer had the ability to prevent attacks before they happened. We no longer had the human intelligence we had prior to November 2004. What we get from prisoners now is nothing, nada, zilch, zip … bupkiss.

Does anyone in Washington watch “24”? Does President Bush? Does Nancy Pelosi? Does Harry Reid? What do they think of it? Do they cheer on Jack Bauer? Or, do they scream at the television: “Arrest that man!”

I really wonder.

Because America needs Jack Bauers. We will lose Iraq if we fail to recognize war is a dirty business that must be waged with the understanding that anything short of victory is unacceptable.

There will be a presidential election in 2008, God willing.

I hope there will be a Jack Bauer among the candidates.

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British police arrest 9 in plot (Washington Times, 070201)

BIRMINGHAM, England — Counterterrorism police yesterday arrested nine men in a suspected kidnapping plot that reportedly involved torturing and beheading a British Muslim soldier and broadcasting the killing on the Internet.

The kidnapping plot was the first of its kind to be uncovered in Britain, said counterterrorism officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case.

Police would not confirm the occupation of the intended victim or details of the plot, which was unraveled in the predominantly Pakistani neighborhood in central England. A dozen houses and two Islamic bookshops were cordoned off and searched.

Counterterrorism units have conducted several raids across Britain since July 7, 2005, when 52 persons in London were killed in suicide bombings carried out by Muslim extremists who grew up in Britain. Several sweeps have been conducted in Birmingham. In August, suspects there were arrested in a major plot to use liquid explosives to blow up at least 10 planes between the United States and Britain.

The intended victim of the latest plot, a British Muslim soldier, was under police protection, Sky News reported, saying the kidnapping was to end in an “Iraq-style” execution. The British Broadcasting Corp. also reported that the plan was to kidnap a soldier.

“The threat of terrorism has been growing over the years,” said David Shaw, a police spokesman in Birmingham. The operation took months.

Birmingham is the hometown of Britain’s first Muslim soldier to be killed in Afghanistan last year. The death prompted militant Islamist Web sites to denounce Cpl. Jabron Hashmi, 24, as a traitor. The site of extremist British sect al-Ghurabaa posted an image of the soldier surrounded by flames.

Last year, a London street vendor was sentenced to six years in prison in a plot to kill a decorated British soldier. Abu Baker Mansha was accused of targeting Cpl. Mark Byles, whose address and other materials were found in Mansha’s apartment.

Cpl. Byles was awarded a military cross for bravery after an attack in which several Iraqi insurgents were killed, and his exploits were covered by British newspapers. One of the articles with Cpl. Byles’ name was circled and found in Mansha’s apartment.

The Defense Ministry said 330 Muslims are serving in the British armed forces. It would not comment on reports that the intended victim was a soldier.

Dozens of people have been kidnapped in Iraq, and captors often have broadcast their pictures on the Internet.

One widely publicized kidnap-slaying was that of Kenneth Bigley, 62, from Liverpool. He was abducted from a Baghdad suburb, where he was working in September 2004, and beheaded three weeks later. His death was captured on video.

“People don’t trust their own children anymore,” said Shabir Hussain, chairman of the Ludlow Road Mosque in Birmingham. “You feel like you should challenge your son or daughter: ‘Where are you going at night? What are you watching on TV? What are you doing on the Internet?’ “

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Obama Blasts Aussie Prime Minister for Iraq Policy Criticism (Foxnews, 070212)

One day into his formal bid for the U.S. presidency in 2008, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama slammed Australian Prime Minister John Howard Sunday for suggesting terrorists are awaiting the election of a Democrat — specifically Obama — to the White House.

“I think that it’s flattering that one of George Bush’s allies on the other side of the world started attacking me a day after I announced” my candidacy for president, Obama said during a news conference in Iowa, the first state to hold party caucuses. “I take that as a compliment.”

In a television interview on Australia’s Nine Network, Howard criticized Obama’s candidacy kickoff speech in Springfield, Ill., in which Obama said one of the United States’ first priorities should be ending the war in Iraq. Obama has also introduced a bill in the Senate to prevent President Bush from increasing American troop levels in Iraq and remove U.S. combat forces from the country by March 31, 2008.

Noting that Obama is a “long way from being president of the United States,” Howard said the Democratic senator’s approach to Mideast problems is “wrong.”

“I think that will just encourage those who want to completely destabilize and destroy Iraq and create chaos and a victory for the terrorists to hang on and hope for an Obama victory,” Howard said. “If I were running Al Qaeda in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008 and pray as many times as possible for a victory not only for Obama but also for the Democrats.”

Asked by the interviewer whether a Democratic presidency would spell “bad news for the alliance,” Howard, who is seeking a fifth term in office later this year, responded: “Well I’ll tell what would be even worse news for the fight against terrorism, if America is defeated in Iraq.”

Howard is facing growing domestic unease to his commitment to keep 1,400 Australian troops in Iraq, mainly in noncombat roles. Recent polls suggest voters want him to set a deadline for withdrawing Australian troops.

“You either rat on the ally or you stay with the ally,” Howard said of his continued support. “If it’s all right for us to go, it’s all right for the Americans and the British to go, and if everybody goes, Iraq will descend into total civil war and there’ll be a lot of bloodshed.”

Howard added that setting a deadline for withdrawal would only light a fire under terrorists waiting to seize and destroy Iraq.

“Al Qaeda will trumpet it as the greatest victory they’ve ever had ... And, if America is defeated in Iraq, the hope of ever getting a Palestinian settlement will be gone,” he said.

If Howard had hoped to deter Obama, that’s not the response he got from the freshman senator. Attacking the U.S. and Australian leaders at once, Obama said pre-war intelligence shows that President Bush was wrong to go into Iraq. He added that “the threat of terrorism has increased as a consequence of our actions in Iraq.”

“Howard may have quibbles with our intelligence estimates. Maybe he has better ones?” Obama said.

“I would also note that we have close to 140,000 troops on the ground now. And my understanding is that Mr. Howard has deployed 1,400. So if he’s ginned up to fight the good fight in Iraq, I would suggest, he calls up another 20,000 Australians and sends them up to Iraq,” he continued.

While Obama and Howard duke it out rhetorically, Australian Labor Party leaders appeared stunned by Howard’s comments about a U.S. politician and party.

“It’s the first time that I can recall that an Australian prime minister has engaged in American politics in such a partisan way ... actually telling American people what side of politics they should vote for,” said opposition foreign affairs spokesman Robert McClelland.

“It’s most inappropriate, it demeans the Australia-United States alliance to suggest it’s a relationship between political parties rather than an enduring relationship between two people,” he said.

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Pentagon Transcripts Show Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Confesses to Sept. 11 Attacks (Foxnews, 070314)

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, confessed to that attack and a string of others during a military hearing at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to a transcript released Wednesday by the Pentagon.

“I was responsible for the 9/11 operation from A to Z,” Mohammed said during the session, which was held last Saturday.

Mohammed claimed responsibility for planning, financing, and training others for bombings ranging from the 1993 attack at the World Trade Center to the attempt by would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight with explosives hidden in his shoes.

Mohammed also admitted to planning assassination attempts on former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, as well as Pope John Paul II.

In all, Mohammed said he was responsible for planning 28 individual attacks, including many that were never executed. The comments were included in a 26-page transcript released by the Pentagon, which blacked out some of his remarks.

The Pentagon also released transcripts of the hearings of Abu Faraj al-Libi and Ramzi Binalshibh.

Binalshibh, a Yemeni, is suspected of helping Mohammed with the Sept. 11, 2001, attack plan and is also linked to a foiled plot to crash aircraft into London’s Heathrow Airport. Al-Libi is a Libyan who reportedly masterminded two bombings 11 days apart in Pakistan in December 2003 that targeted President Pervez Musharraf for his support of the U.S.-led war on terror.

The hearings, which began last Friday, are being conducted in secret by the military as it tries to determine whether 14 alleged terrorist leaders should be declared “enemy combatants” who can be held indefinitely and prosecuted by military tribunals.

Hearings for six of the 14 have already been held. The military is not allowing reporters to attend the sessions and is limiting the information it provides about them, arguing that it wants to prevent sensitive information from being disclosed.

The 14 were moved in September from a secret CIA prison network to the prison at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, where about 385 men are being held on suspicion of links to Al Qaeda or the Taliban.

Mohammed’s confession was read by a member of the U.S. military who is serving as his personal representative, and it also claimed he shared responsibility for three other attacks, including an assassination attempt against Musharraf.

The transcripts also lay out evidence against Mohammed, saying that a computer seized during his capture included detailed information about the Sept. 11 plot — ranging from names and photos of the hijackers to photos of hijacker Mohammad Atta’s pilot’s license and even letters from Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Al-Libi also made a statement through his personal representative largely claiming that the hearing process is unfair and that he will not attend unless it is corrected.

“The detainee is in a lose-lose situation,” his statement said.

Binalshibh declined to participate in the process and the hearing was conducted in his absence. Military officials expected some of the 14 suspects not to participate.

Legal experts have criticized the U.S. decision to bar independent observers from the hearings from the high-value targets. The Associated Press filed a letter of protest, arguing that it would be “an unconstitutional mistake to close the proceedings in their entirety.”

The military held 558 combatant status review tribunals between July 2004 and March 2005 and the panels concluded that all but 38 detainees were “enemy combatants” who should be held. Those 38 were eventually released from Guantanamo.

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Detainee admits beheading Pearl, plotting attacks (Washington Times, 070316)

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, mastermind of the September 11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, confessed to U.S. military officials he beheaded Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl “with my blessed right hand.”

In revised transcripts released yesterday by the Pentagon of a Saturday hearing at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to determine his enemy-combatant status, Mohammed said he decapitated “the American Jew” in Karachi, Pakistan, in January 2002 because he was seeking information about a now-convicted shoe bomber.

“For those who would like to confirm, there are pictures of me on the Internet holding his head,” he said.

The confession was withheld in the first release of the 26-page transcript on Wednesday night, Pentagon officials said, to allow time for Mr. Pearl’s family to be notified.

The veteran reporter was abducted in the Pakistani port city of Karachi on Jan. 23, 2002, as he tried to contact Islamic militant groups to investigate possible connections between then-shoe-bombing suspect Richard C. Reid and al Qaeda, founded by fugitive terrorist Osama bin Laden. The reporter’s grisly Feb. 20, 2002, death was recorded on a video that surfaced in Pakistan, his throat slit by a man in a hood.

Mr. Pearl left behind a widow, Marina, who was about to give birth to their first child.

Mohammed, who was captured in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, in March 2003 and later transferred to U.S. custody, was suspected early on as the reporter’s killer.

During the hearing, he told the court in English about the killing, but he claimed it was not an al Qaeda operation. “It’s like beheading Daniel Pearl. It’s not related to al Qaeda,” he said, adding instead that it involved the Pakistan Mujahideen.

In the hearing, Mohammed also said he had planned a second round of terrorist strikes on U.S. soil after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon — targeting some of the country’s tallest skyscrapers, suspension bridges and nuclear power plants.

In the unclassified documents, Mohammed said he dispatched an al Qaeda loyalist to the United States “to case targets for a second wave of attacks” and claimed responsibility for “planning, training, surveying and financing” the attacks on the U.S. Bank Tower in Los Angeles, the Sears Tower in Chicago, the Plaza Bank in Seattle and the Empire State Building in New York.

He also said he planned to target suspension bridges in New York, the New York Stock Exchange and other financial institutions, and was in charge of surveillance for planned attacks on nuclear power plants in several states.

While he said he had planned to destroy the Sears Tower by burning “a few fuel or oil tanker trucks beneath it or around it,” the documents do not outline any specific information on the intended targets, how the attacks were going to be carried out, how far the planning had progressed or other sites that might also have been involved.

In October 2005, President Bush said federal authorities had successfully disrupted at least 10 serious al Qaeda terrorist plots worldwide since September 11, including three targeting U.S. sites. He also said at the time that five al Qaeda efforts to case targets in the United States or infiltrate operatives into the country also had been foiled, although he did not elaborate.

According to the transcript, Mohammed admitted being in charge of “managing and following up” on a terrorist cell for the production of biological weapons, including anthrax, and directing the operations of another cell seeking to conduct “dirty bomb” attacks on U.S. soil.

The documents do not contain any information on either cell. Dirty bombs are devices that use conventional explosives to scatter radioactive material.

Admitting to a total of 31 terrorist attacks that took place or plots that were never carried out, Mohammed described himself as the “principal planner, trainer, financier, executor and/or a personal participant” in a panoply of global terrorism activities, including the World Trade Center attacks in 1993 and 2001, the shoe-bomber operation to down two U.S. aircraft, bombings in Kuwait and Bali, and operations aimed at destroying U.S. Navy vessels and oil tankers in the Straits of Hormuz and Gibraltar and in the Port of Singapore.

Mohammed, 41, a Pakistani national, also said he planned to bomb the Panama Canal; nightclubs frequented by Americans in Thailand; U.S. embassies in Indonesia, Australia and Japan; U.S. military bases and nightclubs in South Korea; and an American oil company in Sumatra “owned by the Jewish former secretary of state, Henry Kissinger.”

Many of the intended plots have been known for some time, although others Mohammed outlined during the hearing had not been previously disclosed or were unconfirmed reports. They included assassination plots against former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton and against Pope John Paul II.

“What I wrote here, is not I’m making myself hero, when I said I was responsible for this or that,” Mohammed said, addressing the unidentified Navy captain who presided over the hearing. “But you are military man. You know very well there are language for war.”

The validity of Mohammed’s claims is not clear. The September 11 commission has described him as being noted for his extravagant ambitions. But he has long been identified by U.S. authorities as a key al Qaeda operative and the planner of several terrorist missions, including September 11.

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‘Bombs more precious than children’: Hamas TV shows daughter telling suicide bomber mother she will ‘follow her path’ (WorldNetDaily, 070322)

A ‘music video’ broadcast on a Palestinian Hamas TV station on Wednesday had a simple message for its viewers: Carrying out a suicide bomb attack is more important than raising one’s children.

The video, broadcast on al-Aqsa TV, was made available by Palestinian Media Watch and can be viewed on YouTube.

It features a young Palestinian girl singing to her mother who is preparing to carry out a suicide bomb attack.

“Duha, daughter of suicide bomber Reem Riyashi, sings to her mother,” the caption on the video read. In 2004, Riyashi killed four Israelis after blowing herself up on a border crossing between Israel and Gaza.

“Mommy, what are you carrying in your arms instead of me,” begins the song, while a little girl is seen looking at her mother hiding explosives.

“A toy or a present for me? Mommy Reem! Why did you put on your veil? Are you going out, mommy?” the song continues.

“Come back quickly mommy,” the girl sings, as she is seen waving her mother goodbye. “I can’t sleep without you, unless you tell me and Ubaydah a bedtime story,” the song says. The girl is then shown seeing a picture of her mother on the TV news.

‘I am following mommy in her steps’

She runs to her father, upset. “My mother! My mother! Me and Ubaydah are awake and waiting for you to come to put us to sleep… still need you to wipe our tears,” she cries.

“Instead of me you carried a bomb in your hands,” the song goes, as the mother is seen blowing herself up.

“Only now, I know what was more precious than us,” it adds, as a picture of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem is shown. “May your steps be blessed, and may you be flawless for Jerusalem. Send greetings to our messenger Muhammad.”

The little girl is then seen preparing herself to become a suicide bomber. “My love will not be (merely) words,” she sings, adding: “I am following mommy in her steps.” She repeats the lyric three times.

The girl is then seen opening a drawer containing explosives, picking them up, and looking at the camera.

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Britain Was Once Great Britain (townhall.com, 070410)

By Dennis Prager

It is painful to see the decline of Great Britain.

Greatness in individuals is rare; in countries it is almost unique. And Great Britain was great.

It used to be said that “The sun never sets on the British empire.” That is how vast Britain’s influence was. And that influence, on balance, was far more positive than negative. Ask the Indians — or the Americans, for that matter. The British colonies learned about individual rights, parliamentary government, civil service and courts of justice, to name of few of the benefits that the British brought with them. Were it not for British involvement, India might still have sati (burning wives on the funeral pyre of their husband), would have no unifying language, and probably no parliamentary democracy or other institutions and values that have made that country a democratic giant, now on its way to becoming an economic one as well. But today, the sun not only literally sets on an extinct British empire; it is figuratively setting on Britain itself.

Two recent examples provide evidence:

One is the way Britain handled the recent act of war against it by Iran. Everything about the British reaction revealed a civilization in decline.

Whether the British sailors and marines should have put up more resistance — i.e., any resistance — to the unprovoked Iranian military attack is something for military and other experts to decide. Whether the captured sailors and marines offered more information and more cooperation, and more smiles than was necessary to the leader of their kidnappers, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, will also be determined in ongoing investigations. Whether the British government engaged in appeasement of Iran or ineffective diplomacy will also have to be judged.

What does seem clear, however, is that the British government did not confront the Iranians in any way reminiscent of a great country, let alone of Britain’s great past. If we judge the British government’s reaction alone — without any reference to the behavior of the British sailors and marines — Iran was the feared power, not Great Britain, which acted like the supplicant.

But what really makes one weep for Britain’s lost greatness is what has happened since the sailors and marines were released.

The UK Minister of Defense, Labor MP Desmond Browne, announced that the released sailors and marines were all free to sell their stories to the media, “as a result of exceptional media interest.” If this is not unprecedented, it would certainly be difficult to find anything similar in the annals of military history. Some of the captured sailors and marines have already earned large sums of money. The Guardian newspaper said the one woman who had been captured, Faye Turney, agreed to a deal with The Sun and ITV television for approximately $200,000. (American soldier Jessica Lynch, who was captured when her Army convoy was ambushed in 2003, received a $500,000 advance for her book, “I Am a Soldier, Too.” But that was a book published later and she had never charged the news media when interviewed by them.)

And John Tindell, the father of another of the hostages, said the marines were planning to sell on eBay the vases given to them by the Iranians.

As The Australian reported, “Some of the sums being offered to the captives are higher than the money paid to service personnel maimed in Iraq or Afghanistan. The standard tariff for the loss of an arm is 57,500 pounds.”

The Labor government’s decision was described well by the mother of a British soldier killed in Iraq. As reported by Reuters: “The mother of a 19-year-old British soldier killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq at the weekend said she would be ‘very shocked’ if any of the detainees were paid for their stories. ‘If you are a member of the military, it is your duty to serve your country,’ Sally Veck, mother of Eleanor Dlugosz, told the Times. ‘You should do your duty and not expect to make money by selling stories.’”

That pretty well sums up the revulsion many feel at the British government’s decision.

The other current example of Great Britain’s decline is the widely reported (in the UK) decision of schools in various parts of that country to stop teaching about the Holocaust in history classes. The reason?

As reported by the BBC, “Some schools avoid teaching the Holocaust and other controversial history subjects as they do not want to cause offence, research has claimed. Teachers fear meeting anti-Semitic sentiment, particularly from Muslim pupils, the government-funded study by the Historical Association said.”

No comment necessary.

But a word of caution: If Great Britain can cease to be great in so short a time span, any country can. All you need is an elite that no longer believes in their country, that manipulates history texts to make students feel good about themselves, that prefers multiculturalism to its own culture, and that has abandoned its religious underpinnings. Sound familiar, America?

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Worldwide Terror Attacks Up By 25% in 2006 (Foxnews, 070430)

WASHINGTON — Terrorist attacks worldwide shot up 25% last year, particularly in Iraq where extremists used chemical weapons and suicide bombers to target crowds.

In its annual global survey of terrorism to be released Monday, the State Department says about 14,000 attacks took place in 2006, mainly in Iraq and Afghanistan. These strikes claimed more than 20,000 lives - two-thirds in Iraq. That is 3,000 more attacks than in 2005 and 5,800 more deaths.

Altogether, 40% more people were killed by increasingly lethal means around the globe.

The report attributes the higher casualty figures to a 25-percent jump in the number of nonvehicular suicide bombings targeting large crowds. That overwhelmed a 12-percent dip in suicide attacks involving vehicles.

In Iraq, the use of chemical weapons, seen for the first time in a November 23, 2006 attack in Sadr City, also “signaled a dangerous strategic shift in tactics,” it says.

With the rise in fatalities, the number of injuries from terrorist attacks also rose, by 54%, between 2005 and 2006, with a doubling in the number wounded in Iraq over the period, according to the department’s Country Reports on Terrorism 2006.

The numbers were compiled by the National Counterterrorism Center and refer to deaths and injuries sustained by “non-combatants,” with significant increases in attacks targeting children, educators and journalists.

“By far the largest number of reported terrorist incidents occurred in the Near East and South Asia,” says the 335-page report, referring to the regions where Iraq and Afghanistan are located.

“These two regions also were the locations for 90% of all the 290 high-casualty attacks that killed 10 or more people,” says the report, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press ahead of its official release.

The report says 6,600, or 45%, of the attacks took place in Iraq, killing about 13,000 people, or 65% of the worldwide total of terrorist-related deaths in 2006. Kidnappings by terrorists soared 300% in Iraq over 2005.

Afghanistan had 749 strikes in 2006, a 50-percent rise from 2005 when 491 attacks were tallied, according to the report.

However, it also details a surge in Africa, where 65% more attacks, 420 compared to 253 in 2005, were counted last year, largely due to turmoil in or near Sudan, including Darfur, and Nigeria where oil facilities and workers have been targetted.

The report says that terrorists continue to rely mainly on conventional weapons in their attacks, but noted no let up in an alarming trend toward more sophisticated and better planned and coordinated strikes.

For instance, while the number of bombings increased by 30% between 2005 and 2006, the death tolls from these incidents rose by 39% and the number of injuries rose by 45%, it says.

The report attributes the higher casualty figures to a 25-percent jump in the number of non-vehicular suicide bombings targetting large crowds that more than made up for a slight 12-percent dip in suicide attacks involving vehicles.

Of the 58,000 people killed or wounded in terrorist attacks around the world in 2006, more than 50% were Muslims, the report, says with government officials, police and security guards accounting for a large proportion, the report says.

The number of child casualties from terrorist attacks soared by more than 80% between 2005 and 2006 to more than 1,800, while incidents involving educators were up more than 45% and those involving journalists up 20%, the report says.

Twenty-eight U.S. citizens were killed and 27 wounded in terrorist incidents in 2006, most of them in Iraq, where eight of the 12 Americans kidnapped by terrorists last year were taken captive, it says.

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British Traitors (National Review Online, 070501)

David Pryce-Jones

Five Islamist terrorists have just received sentences of life imprisonment in Britain. There is much to be learnt from the case. All were British, though their origins were in Pakistan — with one exception, an Algerian who had changed his name to Anthony Garcia, presumably hoping to pass himself off as Mediterranean. All had benefited from the British way of life, its toleration and multiculturalism. Reasonably well educated by prevailing standards, reasonably well off and middle class, they could have been expected to lead decent and productive lives. The leader, one Omar Khyam, even had a grandfather who served in the British army in the Second World War. First and foremost, they all are traitors, and the presiding judge did not hesitate to condemn them as such.

Omar Khyam seems to have had the most fertile imagination, proposing blowing up shopping malls and nightclubs, crashing planes in the 9/11 manner, suicide missions, even buying a dirty bomb from the Russian mafia. To some extent, he and his fellows were fantasists, but at the same time prolonged training in al Qaeda camps in Pakistan had given their amateurishness a professional veneer. Operationally, they were in contact with the suicide bombers responsible for the London bombings of July 2005, which killed 52 people and wounded over 700 more. A picture emerges of young Muslims convinced by their preachers to declare war on society, and recruited into a globalized movement that gives them the means to wage that war. The man alleged to have been their controller, for instance, is Abdul Hadi al-Iraqi, close to Osama bin Laden, and as it happens lately captured entering Iraq from Iran, and so transferred to Guantanamo. What can this be called except a war waged by an international terror movement?

British intelligence got on to the track of these men more by luck than judgment. An observant lady informed the intelligence services about secretive activities in a lock-up where the terrorists were storing the raw materials for their explosives. In the course of surveillance, the identities of the July 2005 bombers were also revealed a year or so before they committed their crimes, but the intelligence services then did not follow up these particular terrorists, leaving them free to kill. In this battle of wits, some 30 Islamist networks involving 1,600 potential terrorists are currently under surveillance.

Evidently the intelligence services have greater material resources than the Islamists, but they will remain at the mercy of events until they acquire an imagination equal to those they are up against.

Fortuitously, Edward Fitzgerald used the name Omar Khyam as the title for his famous poem, though he spelled it Omar Khayyam. Time was when every British school child knew the lines: “A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread – and Thou…” Yes, this idyllic picture was a romanticizing of Islam, and the brute reality of today has put paid to it for ever.

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6 Arrested in Alleged Fort Dix Murder Plot (Foxnews, 070508)

MOUNT LAUREL, N.J. — Six people were arrested on charges they plotted to attack the Fort Dix Army base and “kill as many soldiers as possible,” federal authorities said Tuesday.

The suspects were scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Camden later Tuesday to face charges of conspiracy to kill U.S. servicemen, said Michael Drewniak, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Jersey.

A news conference was scheduled for 2:30 p.m. at the U.S. District Courthouse in Camden.

The men were identified in court papers as Mohamad Ibrahim Shnewer, Dritan Duka, Eljvir Duka, Shain Duka, Serdar Tatar and Agron Abdullahu. Checks with Immigration and Customs Enforcement show that Dritan Duka, Eljvir Duka and Shain Duka are illegally living in the United States, according to FBI complaints unsealed with their arrests

Officials said four of the men were born in the former Yugoslavia, one in Jordan and one in Turkey. All had lived in the United States for years. Three were in the United States illegally, two had work permits, and the other is a U.S. citizen.

“There are a number of immigrations issues that are being worked out,” federal sources told FOX News.

Five of them lived in Cherry Hill, about 10 miles east of Philadelphia and 20 miles southwest of Fort Dix, Drewniak said.

“They were planning an attack on Fort Dix in which they would kill as many soldiers as possible,” Drewniak said.

The suspects were described as “Islamic radicals” by Greg Reinert, a spokesman for the United States Attorney’s Office. A law enforcement source told FOX News that all of the suspects are recent converts and were not born Muslims.

White House spokesman Tony Snow said Tuesday there is “no direct evidence” that the men have ties to international terrorism.

“They are not charged with being members of an international terrorism organization,” Snow said. “At least at this point, there is no evidence that they received direction from international terror organizations.”

The FBI was tipped off in early 2006 after someone brought a video to a store to be copied onto DVD, according to the agency’s criminal complaint. The video showed 10 men, including the six arrested, shooting assault weapons in militia style and calling for jihad, the complaint said.

“What concerns us is, obviously, they began conducting surveillance and weapons training in the woods and were discussing killing large numbers of soldiers,” said Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd.

U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., said U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie told him one of the suspects had a job delivering pizzas to the base and used that opportunity to scout out the possible attack.

“He delivered pizzas to the base and that gave him the ability to map out the who, what, where, when and why of their activities,” Smith said.

Smith said the men had been under surveillance for 16 months and practiced their attacks in the Pocono Mountains in northeastern Pennsylvania. He said they also watched Osama bin Laden videos.

“While the group’s alleged actions are alarming, it may not have gone beyond the concept stage,” a federal source told FOX News.

Authorities believe the men trained for the attack in the woods in the Poconos and allegedly conducted surveillance at other area military institutions, including the Army’s Fort Monmouth, the official said. Federal sources told FOX News the alleged targets went beyond military installations “to other targets of opportunity in the area.”

The complaint alleges some of the men conducted surveillance last August of Dover Air Force Base in Delaware and the Coast Guard building in Philadelphia.

The official said the men had lived in the United States for some time and were arrested as part of a joint federal and local investigation.

State Police Capt. Al Della Fave said Tuesday that the investigation had been in the works for about a year. Much of the information obtained in the case came from cell-phone conversations and Internet chats. The case documents are still sealed.

The Star-Ledger of Newark reported on its Web site that the men had agreed to buy AK-47 assault rifles from an arms dealer who was secretly cooperating with the FBI. It cited a law enforcement person who spoke on condition of anonymity because the source was not authorized to speak about the arrests.

The description of the suspects as “Islamic militants” renewed fears in New Jersey’s Muslim community. Hundreds of Muslim men from New Jersey were rounded up and detained by authorities in the months following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, but none was connected to that plot.

“If these people did something, then they deserve to be punished to the fullest extent of the law,” said Sohail Mohammed, a lawyer who represented scores of detainees after the 2001 attacks. “But when the government says ‘Islamic militants,’ it sends a message to the public that Islam and militancy are synonymous.

“Don’t equate actions with religion,” he said.

Fort Dix is used to train soldiers, particularly reservists. It also housed refugees from Kosovo in 1999.

At the main gate of the sprawling Army base, military police officers ordered reporters to leave the area immediately.

Republican U.S. Rep. James Saxton, who represents Fort Dix, said the base, along with adjacent McGuire Air Force Base, has been on its highest security alert level.

“This serves as a stark reminder that the threat of jihadists around the world and even here at home is very, very real,” Saxton said. “It is not a threat that exists only in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East.”

Since 2001, the base has been closed to the public. There are heavily armed guards at entrances, along with X-ray machines. Yet the main road through neighboring Cookstown cuts through the base and is accessible to the public. A half-dozen locations on the base, including at least two where soldiers were conducting maneuvers Tuesday morning, were only a few hundred yards off the main road.

Jeff Sagnip, a spokesman for Saxton, said Fort Dix typically has 15,000 people, including 3,000 soldiers, while McGuire, which is adjacent to Fort Dix, has about 11,500 people.

Soldiers at Fort Dix have been training for warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan, Sagnip said.

“Everything is a replica of what they would face in the field,” he said.

In 1999, Fort Dix sheltered more than 4,000 ethnic Albanian refugees during the NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia.

After the war, refugees were allowed to return to the U.N.-run province of Kosovo in the new nation of Serbia or to seek permanent residency and citizenship in the United States. The U.N. Security Council is considering whether to approve a plan to grant Kosovo independence from Serbia under the supervision of the European Union and the United States.

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Some “Thank You”: Our hospitality and open borders are exploited again. (National Review Online, 070509)

By Michelle Malkin

Well, here is the thanks we get. Eight years ago, America opened its arms to tens of thousands of ethnic Albanian refugees from Kosovo. The first planeload landed at Fort Dix, New Jersey. Military leaders worked day and night to turn the base into a child-friendly village. They coordinated medical and security checkups, mental-health and trauma counseling, and ethnic-food preparations.

Soldiers from Fort Bragg traveled up from North Carolina to assist in refugee operations at Fort Dix. Then-U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Mitchell M. Zais also assembled a team of about 80 soldiers from the U.S. Army Reserve Command in Atlanta. The New Jersey National Guard and American Red Cross teamed up to coordinate charity relief. The military also supported the relief effort’s interagency task force, headed by the Department of Health and Human Services.

In addition to food and shelter, we provided translators, welfare consultants, and Muslim chaplains. The base constructed prayer rooms and handed out Muslim “sensitivity” cards to the troops. Said Gen. Zais: “We want to welcome these people to America the way we might wish our grandparents and great-grandparents had been welcomed to Ellis Island.”

Fast forward from 1999 to Tuesday’s headline news: “Fort Dix Plot Aimed At Soldiers; Authorities Say 6 Islamic Militants Arrested, Were Plotting Attack At N.J. Base.” Three of the alleged plotters were illegal alien brothers from the former Yugoslavia. Another was a legal permanent resident from the former Yugoslavia. Another hailed from Jordan, and the sixth was a naturalized American citizen originally from Turkey.

According to the criminal complaint against Dritan Duka, one of the illegal alien brothers accused of knowingly and willfully conspiring with the jihadi gang to kill U.S. soldiers, the plotters have schemed for more than a year to murder our troops. They scoped out Dover Air Force Base and Fort Monmouth, as well as the port of Philadelphia, before settling on Fort Dix. One of the participants used to deliver pizza to the base — used to supply food to our men and women in uniform giving him business — and knew the military facility “like the palm of his hand.”

You think all our hospitality and charity bred good will in these young men — all in their 20s and enjoying the fruits of the American Dream? Forget about it. The criminal complaint describes the plotters, along with a confidential informant, gathering at a rental house to train with mujahedeen video games:

Members of the group pointed out that United States military vehicles were shown being destroyed in various attacks. [Illegal alien] Shain Duka pointed out that a United States Marine’s arm had been blown off, at which point laughter erupted from the group.

Just hard-working “undocumented citizens” plotting the plots and laughing at the anti-American atrocities ordinary Americans wouldn’t laugh at, yeah? If they had only laid low a few extra months, they might have gotten that illegal alien amnesty President Bush and Congress are so eager to hand out.

According to the criminal complaint, they laughed at our troops getting maimed and killed. They soaked up Osama bin Laden’s evil rants. They studied the 9/11 hijackers’ last wills and testaments. They contemplated infiltrating our armed forces to frag soldiers from the inside. They relished the thought of spilling American blood on American soil. Is yours boiling yet?

“My intent is to hit a heavy concentration of soldiers,” Jordanian-born naturalized U.S. citizen Mohamad Shnewer is quoted telling the plotters. “You hit four, five, six humvees, and light the whole place [up] and retreat completely without any losses.”

Eight years ago, at the Clinton administration’s behest, this nation welcomed refugees escaping a genocidal regime whose military spread fear and brutalized its people. Eight years later, we have a homegrown jihad plot targeting a base that symbolizes the best, the brightest, and the most compassionate our military has to offer.

And what is the Muslim community doing to condemn the accused traitors in our midst? Carping about the government’s actions to stop jihad in its tracks:

“If these people did something, then they deserve to be punished to the fullest extent of the law,” said Muslim lawyer Sohail Mohammed. “But when the government says ‘Islamic militants,’ it sends a message to the public that Islam and militancy are synonymous.’”

The thanks we get, huh?

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‘Albanian’ vs. ‘Yugoslav’ (Washington Times, 070509)

As news emerged yesterday of a thwarted terrorist attack on New Jersey’s Fort Dix Army base, a familiar transformation occurred. First the accused were “Yugoslav.” Then they were “Albanian and Middle Eastern.” Next, the terms changed. They were “described by U.S. federal prosecutors as ‘Islamic militants.’ “ Finally, they were self-described “jihadists” who watch Osama bin Laden videos, intending to murder as many American military personnel as possible. Three are illegal-alien Albanians, a fourth is an Albanian of unspecified status, the fifth a Jordan-born naturalized U.S. citizen and the sixth a Turkish-born legal resident. This is quite a transformation.

We don’t mean to be unduly harsh regarding media coverage in a fast-changing story like this one. Surely some leeway is warranted when the facts are up in the air, and a news organization’s first priority is to get it right and get it right first. One day’s worth of confusion is not so terrible in the grand scheme of things. But when a fact — “Albanian” — emerges, report it. The public has a right to know. The sanitization of language is at war with the public’s right to an understanding of the facts. We can’t ignore it.

“Yugoslav” is a sanitizer. Radio listeners and consumers of Internet news nationwide yesterday heard “Yugoslav” but clearly wondered: “Is this Islamist terrorism?” They were not wrong to wonder.

Early in this story, the Albanian connection emerged in some outlets, but “Yugoslav,” a term we associate with Slobodan Milosevic or Josip Tito more than Islamist violence, persisted. The connotations of “Albanian” begin with the fact that 70% of Albanians are Muslim. Now, combine “Albanian” with the allegation of a thwarted assault-rifle attack on Fort Dix. This suggests a working hypothesis. The hypothesis: An attack by Islamist terrorists may just have been thwarted. It has nothing to do with anti-fascist partisans or Communist apparatchiks.

Our news organizations seem now to be acting upon the desire to avoid fueling that speculation as long as possible. We’re not clear why, except for their biases, or perhaps their worry of offending people. Thus they conclude with quotes like this one, which appeared at the end of CBS’s dispatch yesterday: “ ‘If these people did something, then they deserve to be punished to the fullest extent of the law,’ said Sohail Mohammed, a lawyer who represented many of the detainees. ‘But when the government says ‘Islamic militants,’ it sends a message to the public that Islam and militancy are synonymous.’ “

No, it doesn’t, and news organizations should not end stories with such spurious claims. The government can and should say “Islamic militants” if in fact there is credible evidence that the accused are Islamic militants. In this case, federal prosecutors have the recordings of an informant to illustrate it.

The American people are smart enough to figure it out. They need this information when it is available. As long as our news organizations fail to report the facts they know to be true, they are failing to do their job. They should not engage in “perception management.”

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Fort Dix Jihad: The Media Misses the Point: It’s not about the organization, it’s the ideology. (National Review Online, 070509)

By Andrew C. McCarthy

The mainstream media is atwitter this morning over the six Muslim men arrested in south Jersey for conspiring “to kill as many soldiers as possible” at the Fort Dix U.S. army base. The case, they tell us, reflects the new terrorism: inept, atomized cells, disconnected from al Qaeda or any other regimented international terrorist organization.

Here’s the template setter, the New York Times: “The authorities described the suspects as Islamic extremists and said they represented the newest breed of threat: loosely organized domestic militants unconnected to — but inspired by — al Qaeda or other international terror groups.”

The Washington Post echoes:

[The group] … was portrayed as a leaderless, homegrown cell of immigrants from Jordan, Turkey and the former Yugoslavia who came together because of a shared infatuation with Internet images of jihad, or holy war. Authorities said the group has no apparent connection to al-Qaeda or other international terrorist organizations aside from ideology, but appears to be an example of the kind of self-directed sympathizers widely predicted — and feared — by counterterrorism specialists. The defendants allegedly passed around and copied images of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and the martyrdom videos of two of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers.

Meet the new terrorism. Same as the old terrorism.

In 1993, Mohammed Salameh, a Palestinian immigrant who was a member of no known foreign terrorist organization, helped bomb the World Trade Center. The attack was carried out by a homegrown jihadist cell that was formed in the late 1980s. The group was inspired by the fiery cleric, Omar Abdel Rahman (the Blind Sheikh). Though Sheikh Abdel Rahman was the head of an Egyptian terrorist organization, Gama’at al Islamia (the Islamic Group), the American cell was not a Gama’at operation. It was a motley crew of Egyptians, Palestinians, Pakistanis, Iraqis, Sudanese, and others. What bound them together was ideology — not connection to a particular organization.

That ideologically inspired cell had already claimed some victims. In 1990, Salameh’s cohort, a naturalized American citizen from Egypt named El Sayyid Nosair, murdered Rabbi Meir Kahane (founder of the Jewish Defense League) at a hotel in New York City, shooting and wounding a 70-year-old man and a postal police officer as he attempted to flee. Nosair, who had helped organize the paramilitary training, was a ne’er-do-well who kept recordings and notes of jihadist preaching in his home.

Salameh, meanwhile, turned out not to be the sharpest tool in the shed — reminiscent of this morning’s media depiction of the Fort Dix plotters. He was arrested largely because, after using a rental van to house and transport the bomb into the bowels of the Twin Towers, he figured — even as his co-conspirators fled the country — that it would be a good idea to try to get his deposit back. Investigators, furthermore, found that Salameh and his confederates seemed, at times, to be Keystone terrorists, storing nitroglycerine in a refrigerator, amateurishly mixing chemicals, getting involved in traffic mishaps. None of the ineptitude, however, left the World Trade Center any less bombed or the victims any less dead.

It is often assumed, incorrectly, that the ‘93 bombing was an al Qaeda initiative because its prime-mover, Ramzi Yousef, had trained in al Qaeda camps. But thousands of young Muslim men have been through the rigors of those camps; the vast majority never formally joins al Qaeda. The issue is not, and has never been, membership in an organization. The point is that those who attend the camps are in a process of being catalyzed by jihadist ideology. In any event, it is far from certain that Yousef was ever a formal member of al Qaeda. Even if he had been, the al Qaeda that existed in 1993 was a different and much less capable entity than the organization that carried out the 1998 embassy bombings, and, as noted above, the other conspirators were not al Qaeda operatives.

The bombing was almost immediately followed by a second, more ambitious (and thankfully unsuccessful) plot for simultaneous strikes against New York City landmarks — the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels, the UN complex, and the FBI’s lower Manhattan headquarters. Again, few if any of the rag-tag would-be bombers were members of any formal foreign terrorist organization; they were mostly Sudanese immigrants (one of whom had ties to Sudan’s government), a Palestinian with possible Hamas ties, and a pair of Americans. At trial, the evidence showed one of the latter (a Puerto Rican named Victor Alvarez, aka “Mohammed the Spanish”) to be so dim-witted his defense became that he lacked the necessary sophistication to grasp that his associates were at war with America. The jury, exercising the sort of common sense absent from much of today’s coverage, decided that neither a Ph.D. nor the key to al Qaeda’s executive men’s room was a prerequisite for ideologically motivated mass murder.

Al Qaeda is a powerful force. It is a sprawling, atomized, international network of cells. It has proved quite adept at orchestrating savage attacks. But the main danger it poses has never been the orders its generals give to its colonels and on down some regimented chain-of-command. If we had only to worry about members of al Qaeda carrying out orders of al Qaeda, the war on terror would be neither as uphill nor as infinite as it seems to be. The principal challenge posed by al Qaeda is that it spearheads the spread of a strong, though noxious, ideology.

Indeed, al Qaeda does not purport to give direction only to its own members, or even that the directions it does impart are al Qaeda’s own directions. The network presumes to be guiding all Muslims toward what Islam compels. This is abundantly clear from Osama bin Laden’s infamous 1998 fatwa — “infamous” in the sense that it is often mentioned in press, although, to judge from today’s coverage and “expert” commentary, not much attention has been given to what it actually says. Here’s bin Laden (italics mine):

The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies — civilians and military — is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it[.] … This is in accordance with the words of Almighty God, “and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together,” and “fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in God.”

The direction is to everyone. And he is not ordering that it be done because Osama says so, like the mafia does something because the don says so, or the army does something because the commanding officer says so. In bin Laden’s mind, he is merely the medium; the direction, he insists, comes from Allah. In fact, bin Laden plainly knows he is not enough of an authority figure to command terrorist attacks. He needs to cite scripture to convince Muslims that it is the ideology itself which announces these commands. Commands which this ideology compels every Muslim, not just every al Qaeda operative, to perform.

Nothing new here. Bin Laden is not a religious scholar. He does not have the status in Islam to issue fatwas. After the 9/11 attacks, he claimed the authority for the operation came from the scriptures. To the extent a fatwa was necessary, he pointed to Sheikh Abdel Rahman, a Koranic scholar who does have the required status. Here’s what the Blind Sheikh said in 1996 of Americans (again, the italics are mine):

“Muslims everywhere [should] dismember their nation, tear them apart, ruin their economy, provoke their corporations, destroy their embassies, attack their interests, sink their ships, . . . shoot down their planes, [and] kill them on land, at sea, and in the air. Kill them wherever you find them.”

For the government and the media, it has long been an article of faith that we needn’t trouble ourselves with articles of faith … if the faith in question is Islam. The problem, we’re told — in defiance of reason and experience — is only these terrorist organizations, not their ideology. The organizations, of course, have never seen it that way. And they’re quite right: it has never been that way.

The majority of Muslims is not beholden to the various strains of jihadist ideology, especially at the juncture where word becomes deed. But the ideology indisputably springs from Islam. For that reason it has cachet and it has not been rejected out of hand even by the many faithful who regard it as an outdated, hyper-literal radicalism. And for that reason, a certain percentage of Muslims — hopefully at some point, an increasingly small percentage — will embrace it.

With modern weaponry, it doesn’t take a lot of terrorists or a lot of attacks to do a lot of damage. That was demonstrated on 9/11, but it has been true for a very long time. In a 1990 lecture in Denmark, the Blind Sheikh urged his followers that they could drive the mighty United States armed forces out of the Persian Gulf if ad hoc “Muslim battalions” would just “do five or six operations to the Americans in surprise attacks like the one that was done against them in Lebanon [i.e., Hezbollah’s 1983 attack on the Beirut barracks, killing 241 marines].” And as one of those arrested yesterday, Dritan Duka, is alleged to have put it, “We can do a lot of damage with seven people.”

My friend Bill Bennett likes to quote Hanna Arendt’s aphorism, “Nothing so inoculates a person against reality than the hold of ideology.” If we want to understand why we are at risk from cells in places like Cherry Hill which have no ties to known foreign terror groups, and if we want to learn what authentic, moderate Muslim reformers are up against, we need to open our eyes to what motivates jihadists. It is powerful, enduring and frightening because it is a doctrine, not an organization.

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Jihad in Jersey: A Garden State reminder we’re at war. (National Review Online, 070509)

By Symposium

Based on what we’re learning about the plot, the cell, and how their plans were averted, National Review Online asked a group of experts: What’s the most important lesson we should take from the averted terrorist attack on Fort Dix?

Mary Habeck

There are three important lessons to learn about these six men. First, they seem to have taken to heart Abu Musab al-Suri’s advice to create a decentralized global Islamic resistance. Al-Suri — a key member of the al Qaeda leadership before his arrest last year — published a 1,600-page screed online in which he argued that every local jihad had failed, including those supported by al Qaeda, because jihadist groups had centralized control over their wars. The proper way to conduct a global guerrilla campaign, al-Suri argued, was to inspire men ideologically, give them training through the Internet, and then allow them to carry out attacks whenever and wherever they deemed appropriate. Al Qaeda’s leadership seems to have rejected this advice, and has spent the past two years attempting to bring local jihads under stricter, not looser, control. But Muslims around the world (including those who carried out the attacks in Madrid) have been inspired by al-Suri’s work.

Second, most of the men were Muslims (and Albanians) from the former Yugoslavia. While we may see our actions in this war-torn part of the world as one of our “good deeds,” in the jihadist conspiratorial vision of events, the U.S. was only involved in this conflict in order to kill Muslims. The intervention of foreign jihadis decisively turned the tide against the Serbs, not U.S. military action. It is also worth noting that extremist Islamic preachers have remained in Bosnia and Albania, winning converts to radical Islam and to jihadism.

Finally, the reports describe a video showing “ten young men” firing weapons, yet only six were arrested. This is not over.

— Mary Habeck is associate professor of strategic studies at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University and author of Knowing the Enemy: Jihadist Ideology and the War on Terror.

Victor Davis Hanson

The Fort Dix arrests raise the same-old/same-old script.

X-numbers of jihadists are caught trying to plot assassination, or to attack an airliner, or to take out a mall. They all will deny it.

Someone like CAIR will jump in, perhaps with the ACLU, alleging improper this and that; and the public after privately sighing relief and a few guarded grumbles along the politically incorrect lines of “Who in the hell let these people in this country?” will return to its normal state of amnesia.

And as long as these plots are not successful — or for that matter others like the recent Saudi effort to blow up an oil field, or those uncovered in Britain promising more killing — then we can have our hot-house arguments over whether we are really in a “war against terror” as we put scare quotes on anything associated with the notion of an Islamic threat.

But, if just one time, one of these plots succeeds and reaches a magnitude of 9/11 then the media will revert to form — suddenly dropping the “Bush took away our civil liberties” for “Bush didn’t do enough to protect us.”

And then, of course, the irony of it all can be seen in the profile of the suspects: Islamic terrorists from the former Yugoslavia, on whose behalf the U.S. bombed a European Christian country; illegal aliens at a time when those who object to the immigration crisis are considered nativists; a former resident of Jordan, a country showered with U.S. aid. At some point, we see how insidious are the effect of Middle East ingratitude, and how the envy and hatred of that region permeates its expatriates, the more so the United States has tried to help them.

— Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is author of A War Like No Other. How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War, among other books.

M. Zuhdi Jasser

News of the FBI’s arrests of six militant Islamists in New Jersey who plotted to kill our soldiers at Fort Dix was met yet again with the same tired responses of shock and dismissal from the mainstream media (MSM) and from major American Islamist organizations. An FBI agent poignantly noted that we “dodged another bullet.” The enemy is certainly rearming and germinating another cell somewhere. Rather than the same old tired minority politics, we in the Muslim community should be accepting the responsibility of cleaning our own house. More Muslims, more media, and more government officials should be noting that:

1) While most Muslims have never met militants like those arrested, Muslim organizations should understand that only Muslims hold the keys to the way to overwhelm and counter the ideology which fuels these radicals. Muslim organizations should be clamoring to expose and infiltrate the ideology and sources which drove these traitors to sprout their radical cell. We need an Islamic vaccine (the separation of spiritual Islam from political Islam) to the virus which afflicted these men. Until Muslim anti-Islamists can defeat Islamism (political Islam) as an ideology, we will not make any headway at preventing the germination of the next cell. We will only be left waiting, praying, for the FBI to help us, yet again, dodge the next bullet.

2) Will the FBI’s success here answer the question as to why we need to protect each and every citizen in America who practices the principle of “see something, say something” as the heroic video-store clerk (“John Doe”) did here? What if this “John Doe” had contrarily chosen to be silent due to a fear of litigation?

3) Will we continue to deny the fact that America is not exactly that far behind Europe in our susceptibility to homegrown terror cells?

— M. Zuhdi Jasser is the chairman of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy based in Phoenix, Arizona. He is a former lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy.

Daniel Pipes

I draw two lessons. First, that immigrants seeking refuge in the West must be grilled for their attitudes toward our civilization, our religion, and politics. Whether it be Somali refugees in the United Kingdom, Algerian ones in France, or Balkan ones in the United States (remember the Salt Lake City shooter in February, as well as four of the current six accused terrorists), individuals given the privilege and benefits of a new life then with some regularity turn around and attack their adapted fellow citizens. This unacceptable pattern has to be scrutinized to prevent future such atrocities.

Second, mercifully, terrorists can be counted on to make dumb mistakes. I established an honorary “Stupid Terrorists Club” in 2005; its founding members gained entry with such acts as having returned to retrieve the deposit on a van they had used to blow up a building, not wearing a car seat belt while transporting terrorist gear, or ordering $3,300 (in American dollars) worth of airline-related goods with an overdrawn credit card. This new group of six joined the Club by dint of its sending a jihadi DVD to a store be copied commercially and choosing as its target Fort Dix, a hardened military installation (among other components, it includes a prison).

— Daniel Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum and author of Miniatures.

Robert Spencer

Four of the Fort Dix plotters are in the United States because of America’s support for the jihad of the Kosovo Albanian Muslims. They are among those who have taken advantage of American officialdom’s refusal to consider the implications of the flow of jihadists from Afghanistan and elsewhere into the Balkans in the 1990s, and of the ideological affinity between the Kosovar jihadists and jihadists elsewhere. While the U.S. supported the Kosovo jihad, it was infiltrated and ultimately co-opted by al Qaeda; after that, members and supporters of the jihadist Kosovo Liberation Army were allowed to enter this country with little or no scrutiny.

The Fort Dix episode thus illustrates how foolish it is for the U.S. to assume that it can ally with jihadists, or at very least use them in order to defeat enemies who are perceived as being a more urgent immediate threat. By concluding such alliances America will never win, in any significant numbers, hearts and minds away from the jihad ideology of Islamic supremacism, which ultimately views all non-Muslims as to be converted to Islam, subjugated as inferiors, or killed. The Fort Dix plot is just the latest illustration of how seriously jihadists take that imperative.

— Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and the author of The Truth About Muhammad.

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Sleeper cells: A ticking clock (Washington Times, 070509)

By Arnaud de Borchgrave

Invading Iraq to unload the Saddam Hussein regime would go a long way to shrinking the menace of transnational terrorism. At least, that’s what some of the war planners firmly believed. Saddam, the “neocons” argued, was the evil genius behind September 11, 2001. At one point, 60% of the American people went along with the disinformation. Fighting the terrorists over there so they wouldn’t come over here was a popular refrain. Now, the stats tell a totally different story.

Terrorist incidents have increased sevenfold since Saddam was overthrown. Pointing to the increasing use of suicide car and truck and chemical bombs, the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) said casualties from terrorist strikes rose 40% in 2006 compared to 2005. The NCTC stats also said there had been a 91% increase in attacks in the Middle East and South Asia, including the latest terrorist refinement of chlorine bombs.

Five chlorine truck bombs in Iraq killed scores in Iraq and injured many more after they breathed the toxic fumes. Even more alarming, the U.S. Chlorine Institute, a trade group that represents 200 companies that make and distribute the stuff, alerted the FBI to several thefts and attempted thefts of 150-pound chlorine tanks from water purification treatment plants in California. But then, the FBI says it has no evidence of al Qaeda-type “sleeper cells” in the United States.

Day in and day out, there are new revelations about terrorist sleeper cells in the U.K. and other European countries. In Britain, with a population of 1.8 million Muslims, most of the suspects arrested and/or tried had links to Pakistan, where they had undergone terrorist training or visited madrassas, the Koranic schools that fire up the enthusiasm of teenagers for martyrdom.

Admittedly, the U.S. environment is not propitious for recruitment. Most Muslims are integrated in American society at a higher level than the one they, or their parents, left in the old country. But then, young terrorist extremists arrested in Europe came from comfortable middle-class families. And U.S. intervention in Iraq has been the driver and force multiplier for suicide bombers. It would be a miracle if all young American Muslims had been immunized by their parents against conceding any sympathy for the jihadis.

The Internet’s 5,000-plus pro-al Qaeda Web sites operate in the virtual ummah, a global, borderless caliphate in cyberspace where the only law is Shariah, or Islamic law. Some of these sites carry recipes for all manner of explosive cocktails.

The principal reason for the sleeper cells in the U.S. that are still asleep with “Don’t Disturb” signs on their doorknobs, is the ongoing acute shortage in the language skills the problem requires — Urdu, Pushtu and Farsi. There are also inhibitions by Muslims inclined to answer the call to serve lest they become Mosque informants for the FBI, or stoolies.

London is a six-hour flight from New York. Last summer, the Brits discovered a terrorist scheme to hijack 10 airliners bound for the U.S. from London, and arrested 24 suspects. And for the last six years since September 11, South Asian Muslims holding British passports were free to enter the U.S. without visas. In fact, any Muslim holding a European Union passport enjoyed the same dispensation.

In the U.K., a joint police-MI5 investigation, codenamed Operation Rhyme, uncovered new plots directly funded and controlled by al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan and Afghanistan. They involved “dedicated and well-trained” British terrorists.

Last week, MI5’s Operation Crevice, begun in 2003, saw the end of a yearlong trial and life sentences for five men accused of conspiring to set off explosions with 1,300 pounds of ammonium nitrate fertilizer. It was Britain’s largest ever counterterrorism operation that involved tens of thousands of surveillance hours and a tap on 97 phone lines and cells. But it missed the July 7, 2005, plot that led to the attacks on three London subway trains and one double-decker bus.

One survey among some 800,000 Pakistani Brits showed roughly 9,000 youngsters nodding approval of the attacks that killed 49 and injured 700. Crevice intercepts traced al Qaeda messages from Pakistan to terrorist cells of Pakistani origin in the Thames Valley, Sussex, Surrey and Bedfordshire.

A star witness for Crevice was Omar Khyam, a former militant jihadist who turned state’s evidence. Then suddenly he recused himself, explaining that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) had warned his family to silence him. The trial also established the plan to buy a radio-isotope bomb from the Russian mafia in Belgium. Khyam got 40 years. He had already testified the terrorist group worked for Abdul Hadi, reputedly al Qaeda’s current No. 3.

Among those arrested in another recent plot was Dhiren Barot, a Muslim convert sentenced last November for conspiracy to murder in a radioactive “dirty bomb” plot. Former Security Service (as MI5 is officially known) chief Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller said last November her counterintelligence domestic agency had targeted more than 1,600 individuals active in plotting attacks in the U.K. and other countries and no less than 200 terrorist “networks” were based in Britain.

Similar networks of homegrown terrorists have been uncovered in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and Spain. But so far, not one such network was uncovered in the U.S. since September 11, 2001. (Last year’s farcical entrapment of would-be al Qaeda jihadi volunteers in Miami’s Liberty City does not count.)

Something doesn’t quite compute. The law of averages would indicate the near-certainty of terrorist sleeper cells in the United States. The FBI, with 12,000 agents for 300 million people, is roughly comparable to Britain’s counterterrorism MI5 that employs 2,400 agents for 60 million people (scheduled to rise to 3,500 next year).

But MI5 has a wider and deeper writ. Admittedly, the FBI’s cultural shift has been arduous work. Door-kicking crime investigations that lead to the arrest of bad guys are a different adrenaline rush than patient and diligent intelligence gathering that may uncover the next September 11. The new mission also includes what is officially denied: racial and religious profiling. The Brits would be nowhere without it.

National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell told a Senate Committee last week, “We are actually missing a significant portion of what we should be getting.” Former CIA chief George Tenet, promoting his new book “At the Center of the Storm,” says al Qaeda’s nuclear threat is “real.” In spring 2003, “senior al Qaeda leaders were negotiating for the purchase of three Russian nuclear devices.” And Russian President Vladimir Putin admitted he could not account for all of Moscow’s 10,000 nuclear weapons.

Both the FBI and MI5 and allied agencies know they are working against the clock.

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Combating Terror in Paradise (Townhall.com, 070615)

By Oliver North

TAWI-TAWI ISLAND, Philippines — As the 10 men approached, the crowd parted in front of them. When they were about 20 feet away, I noticed that they were all wearing the uniform of the Moro National Liberation Front — not long ago considered a vicious terrorist organization. The U.S. Navy SEAL standing beside me edged closer, his short-barrel carbine at the ready.

“We want to tell you why we are here,” said the apparent leader of the small band of men. He spoke in Tausig, one of several dialects spoken on this tiny island, and he waited patiently for our interpreter to translate into English. His comrades looked about, seemingly bemused at the hubbub they had created.

Tawi-Tawi is one of the most remote of the 7,100 islands in the Philippine archipelago. Just 25 nautical miles from Malaysia, and less than 5 degrees north of the equator, its name means “Far-Far” in Malay. To get here our FOX News “War Stories” team flew to a Philippine Navy base aboard a U.S. Navy H-60 helicopter, and then boarded two patrol boats with Philippine SEALs and their U.S. counterparts. After a swift transit through crystal blue water, we arrived at the coastal village of Balingbing, where many of the 12,000 mostly Muslim inhabitants live in homes built on wooden stilts over the sea.

The ostensible purpose of our visit was to document the opening of a new boat dock, set to coincide with the 109th anniversary of Philippine independence. On June 12, 1898, Emilio Aguinaldo had marched triumphantly into Manila and declared victory over Spain — but that wasn’t the only reason several thousand people were clamoring over the shore of this seaside town. What had brought them — and the uniformed men from the MNLF — to the waterfront was a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new boat landing.

Designed and built for less than $75,000 by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) with a 25% contribution from the provincial government, the opening of the new pre-cast concrete commercial pier was wildly applauded by the island’s inhabitants. Nearly all of them reap their livelihoods from the sea — as fishermen, shrimpers or seaweed farmers. Noel Ruiz, the engineer who supervised the construction for USAID, noted, “Most Americans would see this as a very modest project, but for the people of Tawi-Tawi this boat landing is proof that the Philippine and American governments really do care about what’s happening here.”

And what’s been happening here isn’t just good news for the predominantly Muslim population on a tiny island in the Sulu Sea, it’s also good news for America’s war against Islamic terror.

“For years these islands were havens for radical Islamic groups like Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiyah,” said Lt. Col. Arturo Biyo, commanding officer of the Philippine 2nd Marine Battalion Landing Team, headquartered on Tawi-Tawi. “If things had not turned around down here,” he added, “these islands could well have become a new training ground for international terrorists — just like Afghanistan in the 1990s.”

Col. Biyo should know. In January, his battalion succeeded in tracking down Judnam Jamalul, a notorious Abu Sayyaf commander who had dubbed himself “The Black Killer.” Maj. Joseph Cuizon, the Marine Battalion Executive Officer, personally led the 14-man force that found and killed “the killer.” When I asked him what turned things around, his reply was straightforward: “Good intelligence, the appropriate use of force when necessary and consistent civil-military programs that help the people. And here, the third is essential for the first two.”

These sentiments are echoed by others with experience in this region. Armando de Rossi is an Italian immigrant to the United States and a highly successful engineer who has worked on hydroelectric projects all over Asia for more than 30 years. He says, “The Muslims in the Southern Philippines don’t hate Americans and they don’t like the terrorists. But they need education. They need jobs to put food on the table for their families. They need decent medical care when they are sick or hurt.” De Rossi doesn’t just talk the talk — he walks the walk. His 3P Foundation, a privately funded charity devoted to the “promotion of peace and prosperity,” is complementing the work done by USAID by building water supply systems, donating ambulances, training first-responders and building schools.

Do those kinds of things really change hearts and minds? The lean men in the MNLF uniforms had the answer to my question. “We used to fight against our government, but we are here today to thank America for Arms to Farms,” a U.S.-Filipino program initiated when a peace deal was struck with the MNLF. “I am now a seaweed farmer,” their leader said through our interpreter. Then in broken English he added proudly, “and today I have a daughter in college.”

It’s an interesting photo: a gray-haired retired U.S. Marine they took to calling “The Silver Fox” towering over smiling men once wanted for acts of terrorism. It’s enough to make one wonder if this way of combating radical Islam might work elsewhere.

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Terrorists Release Video of Kidnapped BBC Journalist Alan Johnston Wearing Explosive Vest (Foxnews, 070625)

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — A video recording released Monday shows kidnapped British journalist Alan Johnston wearing an apparent explosives belt of the type homicide bombers use and warning it will be detonated if an attempt is made to free him by force.

The video, about one minute, 42 seconds long, was posted on a Web site that has been used by militant groups in the past. It opens with the title “Alan’s Appeal” in both English and Arabic and features the logo of the Army of Islam, a shadowy group that has claimed responsibility for snatching Johnston, a British Broadcasting Corp. correspondent.

“Captors tell me that very promising negotiations were ruined when the Hamas movement and the British government decided to press for a military solution to this kidnapping,” Johnston says in the recording, looking nervous and stressed.

“And the situation is now very serious, as you can see.”

Johnston is seen wearing a red sweater with a blue and white checked vest strapped around his body — the apparent bomb belt.

“I have been dressed in what is an explosive belt, which the kidnappers say will be detonated if there is an attempt to storm the area,” he continues. “They say they are ready to turn the hide-out into what they describe as a death zone if there is an attempt to free me by force.”

BBC said in a statement on its Web site that it is “very distressing for Alan’s family and colleagues to see him being threatened in this way.”

“We ask those holding Alan to avoid him being harmed by releasing him immediately,” it said.

Since Hamas took over the Gaza Strip earlier this month, Hamas leaders have been saying that Johnston’s release was imminent. Hamas officials have indicated they know where he is, but have not moved in for fear of harming him.

Mahmoud Zahar, a hardline Hamas leader, said Saturday that Johnston’s captors were hesitant to release him, fearing retaliation after he is freed. He said Hamas is trying to convince the group that it would not be targeted if Johnston is handed over, even providing “written guarantees.”

Asked more than a week ago whether force could be used to free Johnston, Hamas spokesman Abu Obeida said all options were open but stressed Hamas wants to resolve the case “in a way that protects the safety and security of the kidnapped journalist.”

Johnston was seized from a Gaza street on March 12. His captors have previously said they want a Palestinian militant jailed in Britain to be released in exchange for Johnston.

In the video, Johnston was standing and shaking his head as he spoke. Light entered the room from above, and an Arabic translation was provided on the screen. Nobody else appears in the video.

“I do appeal to the Hamas movement and the British government not, not to, resort to the tactics of force in an effort to end this,” he says in a jittery tone.

“I’d ask the BBC and anyone in Britain who wishes me well to support me in that appeal,” he says. “It seems the answer is to return to negotiations, which I am told are very close to achieving a deal.”

A spokeswoman for the British Foreign Office condemned the release of the video, saying it adds to the distress of Johnston’s family, according to the BBC report.

It was not known when the video was made. Deposed Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas referred to it in a two-hour speech Sunday in Gaza City, but it was not posted to the Web site until early Monday.

The first time Johnston was seen after his abduction was in a video posted on another Web site on June 1. In that tape, the journalist appeared calm and said his captors had treated him well. He also criticized Britain for its role in Israel’s creation and blamed British and American troops for the spiraling violence in Iraq.

The Army of Islam is dominated by the Doghmush family, a powerful Gaza clan with its own large militia. Although the group participated in a Hamas-backed operation to kidnap Israeli Cpl. Gilad Shalit last year, its relations with the militant Muslim group have since soured.

Johnston had reported from Gaza since 2005 and was the only foreign journalist to remain based there after Palestinian infighting erupted last year. There has been a series of kidnappings of foreign journalists in Gaza in the past two years, but Johnston’s captivity has been the longest.

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Official: Diffused Bomb in Central London Would Have Caused Significant Damage (Foxnews, 070629)

LONDON — Police thwarted an apparent terror attack Friday near the famed Piccadilly Circus in the heart of London, defusing a bomb made of a lethal mix of gasoline, propane gas, and nails after an ambulance crew spotted smoke coming from a silver Mercedes outside a nightclub.

Later Friday, police closed a major road in central London because of a suspicious vehicle.

A police spokesman said there was no immediate information about the vehicle on Park Lane, on the eastern edge of Hyde Park. He said there was nothing immediately to suggest it was linked to the earlier incident.

The bomb in the city’s theater district was powerful enough to have caused “significant injury or loss of life” — possibly killing hundreds, British anti-terror police chief Peter Clarke said.

Britain’s new home secretary, Jacqui Smith called an emergency meeting of top officials, calling the attempted attack “international terrorism.”

“We are currently facing the most serious and sustained threat to our security from international terrorism,” she said afterward. “This reinforces the need for the public to remain vigilant to the threat we face at all times.”

Police planned to examine footage from closed-circuit TV cameras in the area, Clarke said, hoping the surveillance network that covers much of central London will help them track down the driver of the rigged Mercedes.

Officers were called to The Haymarket, just south of Piccadilly Circus, after an ambulance crew — responding to a call just before 1:30 a.m. about an injury at a nearby nightclub — noticed smoke coming from a car parked in front of the club, Clarke said.

A bomb squad manually disabled the bomb.

Early photographs of the silver Mercedes showed a canister bearing the words “patio gas,” indicating it was propane gas, next to the car. The back door was open with blankets spilling out. The car was removed from the scene midmorning.

The busy Haymarket thoroughfare linking Piccadilly Circus to the Pall Mall is packed with restaurants, bars, a cinema complex and West End theaters, and was buzzing at that hour.

It was ladies’ night Thursday, nicknamed “Sugar ‘N Spice,” at the massive Tiger Tiger nightclub, a three-story venue that at full capacity can pack in 1,770 people and stays open until 3 a.m.

The Haymarket venue is Tiger Tiger’s flagship club; owner Novus Leisure also has clubs in other cities across Britain.

Police said they did not have any suspects, and urged people who were out in the area to call Britain’s anti-terror hot line with any information.

Authorities closed the Piccadilly Circus subway station for eight hours and cordoned off a 10-block area around the scene.

Clarke said police would examine footage from the so-called “ring of steel” — a network of video cameras equipped with license plate recognition software.

The cameras were put in place following a series of IRA bombing attacks in London in the 1990s — and to enforce London’s congestion charge, a toll levied on cars entering central London during certain times of the day.

The British security official said there were similarities between the device and vehicle bombs used by insurgents in Iraq.

The official also said the domestic spy agency MI5 would examine possible connections between Friday’s bomb attempt and at least two similar foiled plots — to attack a London nightclub in 2004 and to pack limousines with gas canisters and shrapnel.

In the 2004 plot, accused members of an al-Qaida-linked terror cell were convicted of plotting to blow up the Ministry of Sound nightclub. A recording made by MI5 captured the plotters discussing an attack on the nightclub, one of London’s biggest and most famous venues.

One man is heard saying the plan was to “Blow the whole thing up.”

The discovery of the bomb resurrected fears that followed the July 7, 2005, suicide bombings that killed 52 people on three London subways and a bus and failed attacks on the transit system just two weeks later. Those attacks deepened divisions between Muslims and non-Muslims in Britain and provoked an angry debate over religious tolerance and ethnic assimilation.

Three of the suicide bombers were British-born men of Pakistani descent, and all four were Muslim. The fact that seemingly unremarkable British youths could become suicide bombers caused soul-searching across the country, and raised fears of a threat from homegrown terrorists.

Gordon Brown, who only Wednesday succeeded Tony Blair as prime minister, called it a stark reminder that Britain faces a serious and continuous threat of terrorist attacks. He urged people to be on alert.

“I will stress to the Cabinet that the vigilance must be maintained over the next few days,” he said.

The terror threat level has remained at “severe” — meaning a terrorist attack is highly likely — since last August.

One analyst said the bombers could be trying to send Britain’s new leader a message.

“It’s a way of testing Gordon Brown,” said Bob Ayers, a security expert at the Chatham House think tank. “It’s not too far-fetched to assume it was designed to expedite the decision on withdrawal (from Iraq).”

U.S. Homeland Security officials said the event has been classified as a “local incident” and there would be no change to the threat level in the United States. At this point, one official said, there’s no evidence of an international tie.

The officials said they had been in contact with Scotland Yard and information about the device had been passed on to state and local law enforcement.

President Bush was briefed by National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley about the apparent terror attack. Bush is at his family’s home in Kennebunkport, Maine, where he will meet Sunday and Monday with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The White House had no immediate comment on the incident.

Steve Purl, a former Scotland Yard investigator, told FOX News the evidence so far did not point to an international terror group.

“This to me has the hallmark of a different kind of terror” he said. “It just doesn’t have the hallmarks of Al Qaeda in my opinion.”

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Al Qaeda Warned British Cleric: ‘Those Who Cure You Will Kill You’ (Foxnews, 070704)

LONDON — Months before failed bombings in Britain that were linked to several foreign doctors, a British cleric says an Al Qaeda chief made a cryptic warning to him: “Those who cure you are going to kill you.”

Canon Andrew White, a senior British cleric working in Baghdad, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that he met with the Al Qaeda leader and Sunni Muslim tribal and religious leaders in the Jordanian capital of Amman on April 18.

He said the man, identified to him by the other Sunni leaders as an Al Qaeda chief who traveled from Syria, warned of several British attacks during the meeting.

“At one moment in the meeting he said, ‘Those who cure you are going to kill you,’” White recalled.

White — who runs Baghdad’s only Anglican parish and has been involved in several hostage negotiations in Iraq — said he did not understand the threat’s significance at the time.

Although he said he passed the general threat warning on to Britain’s Foreign Office, White said he did not mention the comment hinting at the involvement of doctors.

White added he gave the man’s identity to the Foreign Office, but would not say publicly what it was.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown, meanwhile, announced a crackdown on immigrants taking skilled jobs such as doctors. Recruitment practices of health service staff will be reviewed, and background checks will be expanded, he said.

As the new information surfaced, more details emerged about the eight suspects arrested after last week’s failed car bombing attacks. Several of the men were on an MI5 watch list, a British government security official said, indicating their identities previously had been logged by agents.

One of the men on the list had posted a comment on an Internet chat room condemning Danish cartoons portraying the Prophet Muhammad in a derogatory way, The Evening Standard reported, citing unidentified intelligence sources.

It was unclear why the other suspects might have been put on the watch list.

One suspect, Iraqi doctor Bilal Abdulla, reportedly had links to radical Islamic groups, and several others were linked to extremist radicals listed on the MI5 database, The Times of London reported.

“Some, but not all, have turned up in a check of the databases, but they are not linked to any previous incident,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the material.

The official said Britain’s security services are currently watching around 1,600 people and have details logged of hundreds more.

Shiraz Maher, a former member of a radical Islamic group, said he knew Abdulla at Cambridge University.

“He was certainly very angry about what was happening in Iraq. ... He supported the insurgency in Iraq. He actively cheered the deaths of British and American troops in Iraq,” he told BBC television’s “Newsnight.”

He said Abdulla berated a Muslim roommate for not being devout enough, showing him a beheading video and warning this could happen to him.

He also said he had a number of videos of Al Qaeda’s former leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed by a U.S. airstrike last year.

Abdulla had been disciplined by his employers at the Royal Alexandra Hospital, outside Glasgow, for spending too much time on the Internet, according to the Evening Standard, suggesting the men may have planned the attacks in cyberspace.

Police seized several computers from hospitals in Glasgow, Stoke-on-Trent and Liverpool.

While information held on the MI5 database did not alert authorities to the attacks, it did help police to round up suspects quickly, British media reported, quoting several unidentified government sources.

A senior U.S. counterterrorism official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said none of the eight suspects was on any American lists of potential terror suspects.

The eight suspects include one doctor from Iraq and two from India. Also in custody are a physician from Lebanon and a Jordanian doctor and his medical-assistant wife. Another doctor and a medical student are thought to be from the Middle East, possibly Saudi Arabia.

Some worked as colleagues at hospitals in England and Scotland, experts and officials say the evidence points to the plot being hatched after they met in Britain, rather than overseas.

No one has yet been charged in the plot, in which two car bombs failed to explode in central London Friday and two men rammed a Jeep Cherokee loaded with gas cylinders into the entrance of Glasgow International Airport and set it on fire the following day.

The family of one suspect — Muhammad Haneef, a 27-year-old doctor from India arrested Monday in Brisbane, Australia — professed his innocence. Haneef worked in 2005 at Halton Hospital near Liverpool in northern England, hospital spokesman Mark Shone said.

“He has been detained unnecessarily. He is innocent,” Qurat-ul-ain, Haneef’s mother, told the AP in the southern Indian city of Bangalore.

Sumaiya, Haneef’s sister, said Wednesday he was coming to Bangalore to see his daughter, who was born a week ago.

Another suspect arrested in Liverpool was Sabeel Ahmed, a 26-year-old doctor, whose family in Bangalore, India, said Wednesday that he was related to Haneef but did not say how.

“Both these boys are just caught in between,” said his mother, Zakia Ahmed, a doctor, in front of her Bangalore home, which is in an upscale neighborhood about 7 miles from Haneef’s home.

She said Ahmed and Haneef had studied at the same medical school in Bangalore.

She said she spoke to Ahmed briefly on Tuesday and he was “keeping well.”

Investigators believe the main plotters have been rounded up, though others involved on the periphery, including at least one British-born suspect, were still being hunted, the British security official said.

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“Stupid Terrorist”: Is it any surprise? (National Review Online, 070702)

By Michael Ledeen

Many commentators have unburdened themselves of the observation that the British terrorists don’t seem very smart. Or technologically ept. They failed to blow themselves up in London, despite having lots of martyrdom gear. They failed to crash through barricades at Glasgow Airport, and you’d think they might have noticed the obstacles. Beloved Allahpundit remarks, in response to stories suggesting that the failed terrorists came from al Qaeda and received guidance from Iran, that “a joint AQ-Iran operation would have run a lot more smoothly and packed a considerably bigger wallop that these attacks did.”

Did you really expect high-I.Q. martyrs? Maybe clever killers, but somebody should have pointed out — long since — that it isn’t very smart to blow yourself up. And for the most part, the martyrs haven’t come from the best-educated sectors of the population. But so many scribblers have been impressed by the deep faith of the suiciders, that they’ve shied away from this fairly obvious point. And one could go further. Indeed one should go further: All those parents and siblings who speak with reverence of their exploded child or brother or sister or cousin or uncle, they should be ashamed of themselves. Because they’re fools.

And their leaders, who play them for fools, know it and delight in that knowledge. No terrorist leader has ever blown himself up. No way, that’s not their job. Their job is to get other people to blow themselves up. The leader sends them to die, and pays off the family, having done whatever it takes to convince the martyr-to-be to go through with it. Which isn’t always so easy, by the way. There are abundant stories about martyrs taking drugs before and during the Great Day of the Virgin Orgy. There are slightly less-abundant stories about martyrs having been chained to their car bombs, and there are plenty of stories from Iraq — broadcast throughout the Middle East, but so far as I know not over here — about jihadis ordered to drive explosives-laden vehicles to point X, having been assured it’s perfectly safe, only to have the thing blow up before they leave. They were scheduled to have been martyred by their leaders — the smart guys — and their families back home in Saudi or Yemen or North Africa were told that they sacrificed themselves for The Cause. Unfortunately for the template, some of them survived and bitterly told their stories. And remember that several — perhaps most — of the 9/11 terrorists were not told that day would be their last.

My Iranian friends delight in these operations, which they see as a double delight: some of our guys get killed, mayhem is visited upon our allies in Iraq or Afghanistan or India, etc., and it’s all done by some stupid Arab (the mullahs have a dim view of Arabs). You may have noticed that there haven’t been many Iranian martyrs in Iraq. Yes, there have been martyr recruitment campaigns around Iran, and tens of thousands have signed up, but the “volunteers” are unlikely to have volunteered, and so far as I know they haven’t shown up to challenge the surge. Accounts of Iranian martyrs in the war against us are just not there. Debka claims that “contingents of Revolutionary Guards Corps of suicide fighters” have been deployed to southern Iraq. I don’t believe it (I rarely believe Debka). The IRGC forces kill others, not themselves. The British press was almost certainly more accurate when they reported that Iranian helicopters had carried terrorists into southern Iraq. No surprise there.

Which takes me back to the British terrorists. You may recall that the last time around (some date with a “7” in it, wasn’t it?), there were explosives that failed to detonate, terrorists who hightailed it away from their mission, and cars were found with explosives in them. Just like now. It’s not rare; it’s quite common. If you ask our military guys in Iraq how this compares with their experience, they’ll tell you that plenty of IEDs fail to go off, and that suicide belts often misfunction. Sometimes the martyr-to-be has (second? first?) thoughts and runs off.

The theory that “it couldn’t have been al Qaeda and Iran because they’re too smart for this sort of buffoonery” doesn’t stand up. Al Qaeda is not the SAS, their fighters wouldn’t pass the physical, and they’d probably be rejected on the grounds that they’re not very good at thinking clearly under pressure and can’t adapt to changing circumstances. And as for Iran, there seems to be a shortage of high I.Q. atop the mullahcracy, doesn’t there? Only a totally incompetent leadership could have so thoroughly wrecked the country. Gasoline shortages in a country with all that petroleum? Breathtaking stupidity. The suicide terrorists’ competitive advantages to date have been basically two: there’s lots of them, so even if many of them fail, a few succeed and kill lots of people. Second, they’ve got a great theme song, and their brand has sold well.

There are other reasons for their ongoing failures, of which the most important is undoubtedly their declining success in Iraq. Lots of believers raced to join the jihad when it looked like the winning horse, but no one this side of Big John Murtha believes they’re on top in either Iraq or Afghanistan. They announced a big Spring offensive in Afghanistan, and instead they’ve lost hundreds of men. Their ranks have been decimated in Iraq, and they’ve lost Anbar Province, which deprives them of a comfortable environment in the Euphrates Valley, through which they have long infiltrated their killers from Syrian bases. And they’ve lost a lot of their top personnel. Some have been killed or captured, others — including Revolutionary Guards officers — have defected. Their main man in Iraq, Moqtada al Sadr, just denounced Iran — his source of money and prestige — for supporting al Qaeda. Most likely they fired him and he’s trying to remake himself as a thoughtful patriot instead of a foreign-supported crazy man, but his Mahdi army is not the menace it used to be, and one will get you eight that lots of his guys aren’t reupping.

In short, clear-eyed young men, even those obsessed with the dream of killing an infidel and burdened with the I.Q. of a blonde heiress, are not as enthusiastic as they once were to sign up for the big slaughter in Iraq.

On the other side, we’re learning, and we’re slowly improving. That’s our M.O., by the way; it’s what we did in the First and Second World Wars. The happy result is that it’s getting harder and harder to be a terrorist. Not that we’re perfect, by any means. It seems that the guy who drove the silver Mercedes in front of that night spot in London was in jail not so long ago, suspected of being a member of the group that planned to set off similar bombs in London, New York, Newark, and Washington. They let him go, but fortunately he failed — just how, we don’t yet know — and ran away.

Again, nothing new. It shouldn’t surprise us.

That said, they don’t have to be great, they only have to be lucky from time to time, and they are tenacious. For all their blunders, they seem to have planned a sequence of terror attacks in London and Scotland, and are undoubtedly planning others there and elsewhere. It’s highly unlikely they will always fail (nobody’s perfect, after all). But smart people don’t sign up for suicide missions. It takes a fool.

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Islamic Terror Strikes the U.K. … Again: Five are in custody as the investigation moves quickly. (National Review Online, 070702)

By Andrew C. McCarthy

The investigation of the latest terror plot to target the United Kingdom is very fluid. Right now, the headlines are these: There have been at least three attempted car-bomb attacks, the perpetrators were Islamic radicals, five people are in custody, and the police have searched various places in England and Scotland.

Many questions remain, the most pressing being: Have there been other attempts that have not yet been revealed publicly? Are additional attacks likely? Is this an al Qaeda operation? What has triggered it at this particular time?

To deal first with what we know, there were two attempted bombings in London’s West End in the wee hours of Friday morning and one at the airport in Glasgow late Saturday morning. Investigators deem them related: Aside from the timing and geographical proximity, the method of attack across-the-board involves cars loaded with gas canisters, the cars used in London are reportedly tied to Glasgow (likely, registered there), and there is good reason to believe the terrorists are all Muslims — although, as usual, the British government and press, all on their best P.C. behavior, are careful to refer to the suspects as “Asian” or, when they get really daring, “South Asian.”

So why are we thinking Islamic terror? Well, generally speaking, that is what most terror is, and we know there is a large, angry foreign (or, “South Asian,” if you will) population in the U.K. which sympathizes with jihadists and has threatened renewed attacks. British intelligence has recently indicated that it is monitoring 1,600 known terrorist suspects in 200 identified cells.

More specifically, information has begun to leak out about the five suspects in custody. Two were arrested Saturday in the foiled attack on Glasgow airport. Witnesses say one, engulfed in flames, was yelling, “Allah, Allah,” as he fought police off while his comrade unsuccessfully labored to torch the fuel-laden SUV they had rammed into the terminal. Both men are now in custody. The burned man is in critical condition, and some reports indicate he was also wearing an explosive suicide belt that had to be removed from him in the hospital.

Further, late Saturday night, on the Glasgow-bound M6 highway in northwest England, police arrested a 26-year-old Iranian-Kurd named Mohammed Asha and the 27-year-old woman who was with him (whose identity has not been disclosed). According to the New York Times, Asha is a medical doctor who works at North Staffordshire Hospital near Midlands. One of the other detainees — likely, one of the two detained in Scotland — also reportedly works at a hospital, in Glasgow.

Finally, a fifth suspect has been apprehended in Liverpool amid intriguing details that suggest the possibility of another attempted bombing. Specifically, authorities reportedly seized a suspicious vehicle Saturday at the John Lennon Airport, which was abruptly closed — though it, like the airport in Glasgow, reopened Sunday.

There are, moreover, strong indications of yet another bombing attempt. The Times report this morning refers in passing to “a controlled explosion on a car in the parking lot of a hospital near Glasgow,” which police carried out Sunday. Investigators declined to give details other than that the vehicle was somehow related to the plot.

Britain’s new prime minister, Gordon Brown, has been explicit in his public statements that this new series of attacks is linked to al Qaeda. The nature of that linkage is has not been revealed, and many experts have expressed skepticism about the possibility because the explosive devices here were poorly constructed. This, though, gives way too much credit to al Qaeda. Yes, several of its operations have been highly professional, but its operatives are not all ten feet tall and they have produced their share of amateur-hour moments.

In any event, because the Brits make extensive use of video surveillance, there are apparently good photographs of the suspects in the Friday attempts. One of them, in early reports, was said to bear a very strong resemblance to a man briefly detained two years ago in connection with an unsuccessful terrorist plot that authorities call “Operation Rhyme.” It was spearheaded by Dhiren Barot, aka “Abu Musa al-Hindi,” a known al Qaeda operative who pled guilty last year to various terror charges and is now serving a 30-year sentence.

The suspected connection to Operation Rhyme is also interesting because, as the Wall Street Journal has reported, one aspect of it bore a striking similarity to the ongoing plot: The method of filling vehicles with gas canisters and then detonating them remotely by cell-phone triggers. (Evidently, there were futile efforts to detonate the first two London bombs by cell-phone.) If it pans out, the Barot tie would be additionally alarming given that he was hoping to hit major American sites as well as targets in the U.K.

On the other hand, the Iranian-Kurdish heritage of Asha, the one detainee who has been identified, has authorities theorizing about potential connections to Ansar al-Islam, an al Qaeda-affiliated terror group whose hub was the Kurdish region of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Ansar has been ejected in the ongoing war, and, like other Qaeda-tied terrorists, found a soft place to land in Iran. Last spring, British intelligence warned of the possibility that the group would stage attacks timed to coincide with Tony Blair’s departure from office … which, of course, happened last week.

And there is a ton of other speculation, as is always the case in the early stages of these episodes. The attacks are said to be related to anger over Iraq, or over the recent knighthood of Salman Rushdie; the timing means they must be harbingers of more and deadlier strikes to mark July 7, when jihadists’ deadliest terror attacks on Britain occurred two years ago; the Glasgow angle is thought indicative of a special warning of some kind to Brown, a Scot, as he takes the reins from Blair. On it goes.

But, for now at least, these foiled attacks are best understood as new rounds in a long, global war, provoked by the challenge of radical Islam. As the new prime minister noted with apt chagrin, that challenge “is not going to go away” any time soon.

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Terrorism and an open society (Washington Times, 070704)

Tony Blankley

The world seems to be divided into people who see the silver lining in a darkly clouded sky, and those who are transfixed by the slightest bit of cloud in an otherwise azure sky.

Last week’s terrorist events in England and Scotland have certainly brought out the silver lining spotters. Exemplifying such giddy optimists is The Washington Post’s Anne Applebaum, writing from London. While not in the group of people (usually intense Bush-haters) who even deny the reality of the terrorist threat, nonetheless, Ms. Applebaum concluded her article with the proposition that this week’s terrorists events are “an excellent reminder that we — and our open societies, and our liberal values — are still winning [the terrorist war on the west].”

She based her belief that we are “winning” on the response of the open British society and the level headedness of the British people: “the London bomb plot failed because open western societies are more resilient than we sometimes think they are... That Britain has functional ambulance services and working traffic wardens (the people who reported the cars to the police) all of whom are civic minded enough to call the police when they suspect something is amiss, may not sound extraordinary. But these are precisely the kinds of institutions that are missing in many places, among them Baghdad.”

Now, as a former Englishman, I certainly share Ms. Applebaum’s admiration for the phlegmatic and sensible British disposition. And I also agree that Western democratic societies (particularly the English-speaking ones) are deeply resilient. But I strongly reject her conclusion that we are currently winning; and, more importantly I am not yet convinced that our open, liberal democratic culture is necessarily an unalloyed competitive advantage in the struggle against culturally aggressive and violent radical Islam.

As to the first point about winning, I would remind Ms. Applebaum of the careful words Winston Churchill used to celebrate the return of 300,000 Allied troops from under the Nazi’s guns and warplanes at Dunkirk in May and June 1940. He reminded a relieved British people not to confuse such a deliverance with a victory. Victories are not gained by moving backward — even successfully backward (a point those calling for retreat from Iraq might want to keep in mind).

The failure of the terrorist efforts in Britain last week was not the product of effective British (and Western) intelligence. It was not the product of a border and immigration control system effectively screening foreign terrorists from entering Britain. It was not even the product of the vaunted thousands of TV cameras placed around urban Britain. In Glasgow it was not even the product of being able to physically block a terrorist’s car from driving through the front door of the air terminal.

Success last week was merely the product of dumb luck: Failed terrorist detonators and plucky Englishman spotting and reporting what they alertly saw.

Amazingly, a British “expert” on television even claimed that the fact that the terrorists were imported rather than home grown was further evidence that the British are winning the war. His far-fetched argument was that the terrorist apparently had to import foreigners because the British government had such a firm control on the local potential terrorists.

Yet I was personally told last year when I was in London by a very senior British counter-intelligence official that they judged there was a pool of more than 100,000 Muslims who might potentially be recruited to terrorism — and that the British are hopelessly undermanned in their capacity to even monitor several hundred suspects simultaneously.

In a war, any war, it is always dangerous — and sometimes fatal — to over-estimate your sides strengths and the enemy’s weaknesses.

It may well be that the great debate that we have not yet had (both in the United States and the West) is Ms. Applebaum’s assertion that an open, liberal society is an asset in the struggle against radical Islam.

Of course, I devoutly hope that she is right. We all cherish the openness of our society. But what is the value of a once open, but eventually vanquished society. From Lincoln to Wilson to FDR, American presidents during existential wars have always curtailed civil liberties in the interest of effective war fighting.

And I would point out that today we do not celebrate the Declaration of Openness, but rather the Declaration of Independence. It is our liberty from foreign forces —not the degree of openness between ourselves — that we celebrate.

There is undoubted wisdom in Ms. Applebaum’s recognition that openness is — all things equal — a strengthening element in our society. It is certainly a pleasant element. But in the midst of a war with a relentless enemy, we must assess coldly and objectively which of our many “open” features benefit us, and which benefit the enemy.

As a first of such elements to assess, what do we think of the value of thousands of street cameras — as the free and open British have inflicted on themselves? Is that intrusion into our privacy justified? And after that, what about national biometric identification cards for everyone?

It is a lamentable commentary on the times in which we live (or perhaps on my distorted vision) that I — who entered politics from the libertarian wing of the Reagan revolution — on July 4, 2007 feel compelled to say yes to both the cameras and the cards.

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British Prime Minister Bans Use of ‘Muslim’ in Connection With Terrorism (Foxnews, 070704)

[KH: >90% of the terrorists in the world are Muslims. This is an “ostrich policy”.]

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has instructed his ministers not to use the word “Muslim” in connection with the recent terrorist incidents in Glasgow and London, the Daily Express reports.

The phrase “War on Terror” has also been dropped in an effort to improve community relations with the nation’s Islamic community, the paper reported.

“There is clearly a need to strike a consensual tone in relation to all communities across the UK,” a spokesman told the paper. “It is important that the country remains united.”

The move has drawn some criticism from Brown’s opponents in the Tory Party.

“I don’t know what purpose is served by this,” Tory member Philip Davies told the paper. “I don’t think we need (to) pussyfoot around when talking about terrorism.”

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Today’s jihadists: educated, wealthy and bent on killing? U.K. suspects radicalized in West, researchers say (National Post, 070704)

Craig Offman, National Post

The arrests of medical doctors in the plots to kill Brits and Scots en masse might seem a frightening twist in the war on terror, but the development is not surprising, experts say.

For years now, the intelligence community has insisted that al-Qaeda’s leadership is well-educated and well-steeped in Western ways. They join the movement for what they see as intellectual, not emotional reasons. They view themselves as concerned humanitarians, not mass murderers.

“Of course they’d want to be involved,” said Dr. Marc Sageman, who wrote the landmark study in 2003 on al-Qaeda, Understanding Terror Networks. “Who wouldn’t want to do something out of concern for the people?”

In his findings, Dr. Sageman found that 62% of group members had a university education, a percentage that surpasses the United States. These conclusions helped dispel the idea that poverty and ignorance are the main motivators of violent acts of despair.

The vast majority of terrorists, his survey discovered, came from solid middle-class backgrounds; their leadership hailed from the upper middle class.

Some of the doctors under suspicion today, including the Jordanian surgeon Mohammed Jamil Abdelkader Asha, also had well-heeled histories.

“These doctors remind me of the second wave of al-Qaeda leadership,” said Dr. Sageman, who delivered testimony to the 9/11 Commission. “They are the best and brightest who went West to study, and they were radicalized there.”

British authorities have not officially said whether the suspects are thought to belong to an al-Qaeda-affiliated group or cell, and some security experts have noted the failed attacks in London and Glasgow were not as well planned as other strikes attributed to seasoned terrorists.

Dr. Sageman said the new suspects could simply be a bunch of similar-minded men who met through medical circles.

To many, however, the recent round-up of suspects indicates the continuing resonance of al-Qaeda’s message in the affluent parts of the Islamic community and amid professions such as medicine and engineering. “It’s the ‘Yuppification’ of al-Qaeda,” said Tarek Fatah, the Toronto-based Muslim political activist and author. “The movement has gone upscale.”

Mr. Fatah cited recently thwarted alleged terrorist cells In Toronto: Many of their members came from comfortable backgrounds.

Historically, there is a well-trodden path of well-funded professionals who travelled West and later became violent radicals, beginning with 19th-century Russian anarchists bent on assassinating the Czarist leadership.

Recent examples of physician-turned-terrorists include George Habash, the radical Palestininan who studied pediatrics. Al-Qaeda’s Egyptian second-in-command, Ayman Al-Zawahri, is also a doctor.

In May, Florida doctor Rafiq Abdus Sabir, 52, was found guilty of conspiracy to provide material support to al-Qaeda by a U.S. federal court.

To most, a doctor who is a terrorist commits a double transgression against humanity, but in the end these are radicals who are driven by a near-Messianic sense of vision.

“What we’re seeing tells us that ideology can trump morality, humanity and in this case, the Hippocratic oath,” said Brian Michael Jenkins, the counterintelligence expert and author of Unconquerable Nation: Knowing Our Enemy, Strengthening Ourselves.

Mr. Jenkins, who is senior advisor at the Washington, D.C., think-tank Rand Corporation, hypothesized that a terrorist doctor’s interests transcend his own profession and nation-state, which is dominated by man-made law, not God-given edicts. The doctor would consider himself part of a universal brotherhood, and the plight of Muslims in the world is the concern of all Muslims, says Mr. Jenkins.

“As a physician, part of the appeal is humanitarian,” said Mr. Jenkins. “For example, he’d say that the U.S. embargo led by the U.S. that denied Iraqi hospitals medical supplies and equipment led to the deaths of tens of thousands of women and children.” Mr. Fatah also says that there is a prestige factor at play as well. “By devoting yourself and your resources to jihad, you are giving your worldly estate to charity.”

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Pastor: Slain Korean Hostage Was Killed For Refusing To Convert (Christian Post, 070904)

The youth pastor who was leading the group of 22 South Korean aid volunteers in Afghanistan was killed for refusing to convert to Islam, the head pastor of the church revealed after the final 19 former hostages arrived home.

“Among the 19 hostages who returned on the second (of September), some were asked by the Taliban to convert and when they rejected, they were assaulted and severely beaten,” reported Park Eun-Jo, pastor of hostages’ home church – Saemmul Presbyterian Church in bundang, just south of the south korean capital seoul.

“I heard from the hostages that they were threatened with death,” he added, according to the seoul-based christian today newspaper. “especially it is known that the reason pastor bae hyung-kyu was murdered was because he refused the taliban’s demand to convert.”

A hospital chief also said on monday that some of the 5 south korean men freed from captivity last week reported being beaten by their taliban abductors for refusing to convert to islam and for protecting their female colleagues.

“We found through medical checks that some male hostages were beaten,” cha seung-gyun told reporters, according to agence france-presse.

“They said they were beaten at first for refusing to take part in islamic prayers or for rejecting a demand to convert.”

Meanwhile, medical examinations showed no signs that the last 12 women were raped and none reported being sexually harassed despite reports from the first two released hostages – both women – who said they were repeatedly raped by their captors, according to an abc news report on saturday.

Mirajuddin pathan, the governor of ghazni province, had also said he received reports that “various taliban commanders were fighting over the women hostages” and that “[t]hey were abused over and over,” according to abc news.

Although park had heard that some of the female hostages were in danger of being raped, he said they were able to “overcome the crisis” through strong resistance.

Furthermore, at least two male hostages were beaten or threatened with death when they refused to leave behind female hostages, according to hospital chief cha.

While all the men were said to have fully recovered and now show no external signs of their beating, cha reported that six or seven female hostages show symptoms of insomnia and depression and continue to worry about their lives even after returning to korea. Moreover, some of the patients still suffer from shock from news that two of their male colleagues were murdered.

The hospital chief predicts that the former hostages will need about two weeks of treatment.

More reports on the freed hostages’ six-week ordeal have been emerging since the release of the final 19 aid workers – 14 women and five men – last week and their safe return to their homeland on sunday.

The original group of 23 korean christian volunteers had been kidnapped by taliban militants on july 19 while on their way to provide free medical aid to poor afghans. Over the course of their 40-day captivity, the rebels killed two men and freed two women before releasing the last groups of hostages last wednesday and thursday.

To free the remaining hostages, south korea promised to ban korean missionaries from afghanistan and pledged to pull out its 210 troops by the end of the year – a move it was already planning to make prior to the hostage crisis.

Ally countries such as canada, germany and afghanistan have publicly criticized seoul for negotiating with the taliban – which they consider a terrorist group – and seemingly giving into them.

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White House Adviser Calls Bin Laden ‘Virtually Impotent’ (zfn, 070909)

WASHINGTON — Al Qaeda terror network leader Usama bin Laden is a “man on the run” who has demonstrated in his latest videotape release that he is “virtually impotent” and capable of nothing more than threats, the White House’s chief homeland security adviser said Sunday.

Frances Townsend told “FOX News Sunday” that the tape out Friday from bin Laden was made recently, possibly in the last several months. While the intelligence community is still evaluating the tape to determine the terror leader’s health, possible whereabouts and other details, it does not appear to be a trigger for an attack.

“There’s nothing overtly obvious in the tape that would suggest this is a trigger for an attack,” she said.

“We know that Al Qaeda is still determined to attack, and we take it seriously. But this tape appears to be nothing more than threats. It’s propaganda on their part,” Townsend added.

The tape was the first time that the fugitive Al Qaeda leader has appeared in a new video since 2004. In the recording, he tells Americans they should convert to Islam if they want the war in Iraq to end. He makes no overt threats and does not directly call for attacks.

“This is about the best he can do,” Townsend said. “This is a man on a run, from a cave, who’s virtually impotent other than these tapes.”

Speaking two days before the six-year anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack that killed about 3,000 people in New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia, the homeland security adviser acknowledged that the latest National Intelligence Estimate shows the terror group has gained some capability and operational leadership.

The network is believed to be regrouping in the lawless Pakistan-Afghanistan border region, but according to Townsend, is also actively trying to establish sleeper cells in the United States. She refused to talk about ongoing investigations, and said the No. 1 priority for the FBI and U.S. intelligence is to keep Al Qaeda cells out of the U.S.

“What they haven’t seemed to be able to do is find a way to get the operatives inside the United States. The estimate, the intelligence estimate, makes clear Al Qaeda views the United States as a more difficult target to attack. And frankly, that’s the result of the efforts of thousands of public servants who work very hard every day to stop the next attack,” she said.

The United States is safer than it was after Sept. 11, 2001, she added, and said comments like one by Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards suggesting the contrary are “irresponsible and unwarranted” and “not supported by facts.”

Townsend also called the war in Iraq a “propaganda tool” used by enemies, but objected to a Washington Post op-ed written by Lee Hamilton and James Baker, co-chairmen of the Iraq Study Group, who called the Iraq war a distraction in the War on Terror

It is “not a distraction” but an “integral part of the war effort,” she said of the effort in Iraq.

Asked about the courts and Congress making it tougher to use surveillance tools to prevent terror, Townsend said, “We need those tools to continue to win the War on Terror” and reform of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which provides the court structure for warrants on terror suspects, should be made permanent.

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Taliban hostages tell of terrorization: ‘They aimed their guns at us, and a pit was before us’ (WorldNetToday, 070922)

Survivors of a team of South Korean Christians taken hostage by the Taliban while on a missions outreach in Afghanistan are telling of the terrorization they were subjected to while they were held, according to the Voice of the Martyrs, the worldwide ministry to persecuted Christians.

Nineteen remaining team members recently were released under a negotiated agreement with South Korea. Two were released earlier and two of the team’ leaders were murdered by the Taliban.

Returning members of the team have told of being beaten and ordered at gunpoint to convert to Islam during the six weeks they were held, according to statements publicized by the British Broadcasting Corp.

“We were beaten with a tree branch or kicked around,” said former hostage Jae Chang-hee. “Some kidnappers threatened us with death at gunpoint to force us to follow them in chanting their Islamic prayer for conversion.

“I was beaten many times. They pointed a rifle and bayonet at me and tried to force me to convert,” the missionary said. “We lived like slaves. We had to level the ground for motorbikes, and get water and make a fire.”

The capture created turmoil in South Korea, where President Roh Moo-Hyun was under intense domestic pressure to win the safe return of the hostages, mostly women in their 20s and 30s.

Government officials said in exchange for the release, South Korea agreed to keep to its plan to withdraw its 200 troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2007 and to halt Christian teams’ evangelical outreaches there.

Indonesian officials as well as leaders of the Afghan Red Crescent had served as mediators in the dispute.

The team’s leader, Pastor Bae Hyung-kyu and another man taken hostage were executed by the Taliban.

Han Ji-young, in tears after being freed, recalled her pastor’s death.

“Bae didn’t even look at us when he was leaving the room. He only said, ‘Overcome witih faith,’” she said.

Yu Jung-hwa told interviewers that there were times when the hostages thought their lives were over.

“The most difficult moment, when I had a big fear of death, was when the Taliban shot a video. All 23 of us leaned against a wall and armed Taliban aimed their guns at us, and a pit was before us. They said they will save us if we believe in Islam,” she said. “I almost fainted at the time and I still cannot look at cameras.”

The Christians had been taken hostage July 19 while traveling by bus from Kabul to Kandahar.

A Japanese newspaper later reported that South Korea paid a ransom – speculated to be as high as $20 million – for the hostages. The reports have had said the payment was made after South Korea decided it was the only way to resolve the crisis, even though officials for both South Korea and the Taliban denied a payment was made.

VOM is a non-profit, interdenominational ministry working worldwide to help Christians who are persecuted for their faith, and to educate the world about that persecution. Its headquarters are in Bartlesville, Okla., and it has 30 affiliated international offices.

It was launched by the late Richard and Sabina Wurmbrand, who started smuggling Russian Gospels into Russia in 1947, just months before Richard was abducted and imprisoned in Romania where he was tortured for his refusal to recant Christianity.

He eventually was released in 1964 and the next year he testified about the persecution of Christians before the U.S. Senate’s Internal Security Subcommittee, stripping to the waist to show the deep torture wound scars on his body.

The group that later was renamed The Voice of the Martyrs was organized in 1967, when his book, “Tortured for Christ,” was released.

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Germany’s new role against terror (Washington Times, 071002)

Yonah Alexander

In the post-September 11, 2001 era, the United States has emerged as the leading nation in combating terrorism. The United Kingdom, as America’s most loyal partner in Europe, has provided vital political and strategic support in the global war against al Qaeda and its affiliates.

Since Gordon Brown replaced Tony Blair on June 27, the question has arisen whether No. 10 Downing Street will focus more on national challenges rather than regional and global security concerns, particularly in light of last summer’s car bomb plots in London and Glasgow. If the answer is yes, it is likely Germany, the United States’ other pre-eminent European ally in the War on Terror, will replace Britain as the key counterterrorism player in the region.

After all, Germany, under the leadership of Angela Merkel (who became the chancellor in 2005) has already undertaken important strategic and tactical steps in its capacity as president of the European Council during the first six months of 2007.

Mention should be made of Germany’s leadership in implementing EU counterterrorism strategy in regard to preventing radicalization and the recruitment of terrorists, protecting ordinary citizens and infrastructure, pursuing and investigating suspects, and improving the response to consequences of attacks.

The visit to Washington, D.C. last month by Minister of Interior Wolfgang Schaeuble is the latest example of Germany’s international cooperation efforts.

If one is to assess the possible outlook for Berlin’s role in the coming months and years, it is important to provide a historical context of the country’s past experience and lessons learned. Indeed, Germany has faced both domestic and international terrorism for decades. The domestic challenge to Germany initially developed in the late 1960s and 1970s, partly as a result of “under-identification” with the postwar democracy because of the nation’s Nazi past.

The Red Army Faction (RAF), also known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang, became one of the most durable terrorist groups in Europe, operating into the early 1990s. Right-wing political violence, particularly against foreigners in Germany, also challenged national security. Moreover, the country had to cope with Middle Eastern spillover terrorism, including Iranian, Palestinian, Kurdish and Algerian threats.

As early as the 1970s, Germany established a computerized police and intelligence apparatus. The domestic databases, used for “grid searching,” were adjusted in the post-September 11, 2001, period in an effort to prevent future attacks on the country.

Since 2002, the government also allocated substantial funding to combat terrorism and provide a strong legal framework to deal with multifaceted needs, including the “First Security Package” (e.g., banning the Hamas-related charity al-Aqsa) and the “Second Security Package” (e.g., marshals on civilian airliners). Additionally, in 2005, other policy changes improved German counterterrorism capabilities, such as greater centralization of the security services.

These efforts resulted in expanded investigations of suspects and the arrest of numerous Islamist extremists, both homegrown and linked with foreign terrorist networks. In 2006, for example, two Lebanese students living in Kiel failed to explode suitcase bombs deposited in regional trains at the Cologne station. And only this month two German converts to Islam and a German Turk were arrested in New Ulm, where they plotted spectacular car bomb attacks directed at the United States diplomatic and military facilities in Germany.

Reportedly, those apprehended and other suspects were members of a cell associated with the Islamic Jihad Union (a splinter group of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan) and were trained in al Qaeda camps in the Afghan-Pakistan border area.

Subsequently, the interior ministers of Germany’s 16 states urged the government to make training at a terrorist camp a criminal offense. This request, as well as other initiatives such as online surveillance, including the use of “Trojan” software sent by e-mail to secretly search terror suspects’ hard drives, has already triggered a broader debate about the balance between civil liberties and security.

Regardless of the outcome of this debate, it is becoming increasingly clear that any specific tactical response will be a function of the perceived nature of the threat within and outside the country. The latest view on this issue is the statement by Franz Josef Jung, Germany’s defense minister, who asserted that he would order a hijacked passenger plane shot down to avert a September 11-style attack, despite the ruling of the highest court that such an action would be illegal.

To be sure, a particularly significant development in Germany’s strategy is the shift from considering terrorism a law-enforcement challenge to a strategic threat warranting military involvement. The government, therefore, has deployed military forces in counterterrorism roles, as illustrated by Germany’s contribution to Operation Enduring Freedom and Afghanistan’s reconstruction.

In addition, Germany has become a major participant in the antiterrorism naval task forces off the Horn of Africa and the Mediterranean whose mission is to ensure the security of shipping lanes and to disrupt supply and escape routes used by terrorists. Also in Iraq, Germany provides training to the national police force and contributes humanitarian and reconstruction assistance.

Other international cooperative efforts are worth noting. For instance, in 2004, Germany signed a bilateral Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty with the United States related to criminal cases. Additionally, Germany signed the 12 existing U.N. counterterrorism conventions and protocols and became a strong supporter of combating terrorism through other intergovernmental bodies, including NATO and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

Against the foregoing background, coupled with growing realization that the terrorist threat still exists, it can be anticipated that Germany will assume a leading role in the international battle against extremism, radicalization and violence at the political, legal, intelligence, law enforcement and educational levels.

Yonah Alexander is professor and director, the International Center for Terrorism Studies (at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, Arlington, Va.). Research background was provided by Tobias Senzig and Judith Koehler at Germany’s University of Trier.

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Taliban Execute Teen for Teaching English in School (Foxnews, 071116)

KABUL, Afghanistan — A teenage boy who was teaching English at a local school was dragged into the street and executed by Taliban militants, the provincial police chief reported.

The brutal killing sparked a clash that left two suspected Islamist fighters and two policemen dead, an official said.

“The boy, who was teaching English to other students after school hours, had been warned by the militants to stop teaching,” provincial police chief Esmatuallh Alizai said.

Taliban militants have killed several teachers and students in the past for attending the government-run schools, which they regard as un-Islamic.

Officials on Friday said Afghan and foreign forces clashed with Taliban militants in southern Afghanistan, leaving 25 suspected insurgents and two policemen dead.

In southern Kandahar province, meanwhile, a roadside bomb hit a police patrol vehicle, killing four policemen, said Zhari district chief Niaz Mohammad Serhadi. Militants also opened fire on an SUV carrying two newlywed couples and their relatives, killing both couples and a child, said Kandahar provincial police chief Syed Agha Saqib. Another man and child were wounded.

In southwestern Nimroz province, a homicide bomber blew himself up next to a NATO convoy, but there were no casualties, said ISAF spokesman Maj. Charles Anthony.

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The Future of the ‘War on Terror’ (townhall.com, 071102)

By Oliver North

WASHINGTON — This week, the Pentagon released official figures on how dramatically the security situation has improved in Iraq. Terrorist attacks, secular violence, roadside bombings, Iraqi civilian deaths and U.S. casualties are all down. The announcement received scant notice from the so-called mainstream media. About the only news from the global war on radical Islamic terror to receive less attention this week was the erroneously headlined story on The Associated Press wire: “Army captain from Fort Lewis, WA, drowns in the Philippines.”

The item immediately captured my attention for two reasons: First, the struggle against Islamic terror in the Philippines is the topic of this week’s episode of “War Stories” on FOX News Channel (Saturday at 9 p.m. EDT/6 p.m. PDT). Second, but of greater import, while shooting this documentary, we lived in the field with U.S. and Filipino special operations troops working to eliminate the Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiyah — terrorist groups closely affiliated with al-Qaida. As I read the article, I selfishly hoped that the soldier who had perished so far from home was not one of those we had come to know so well.

It turns out that 27-year-old Staff Sgt. Joseph F. Curreri of the 2nd Battalion, 1st Special Forces Group, was not one of the brave Americans we lived alongside in the fetid jungle. According to a U.S. Army news release, he was on his first deployment and drowned in a training accident not far from where we were embedded with members of Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines. The terse announcement, typical of those when special operations personnel are killed in the line of duty, noted that Curreri joined the Army in 2004 and that he “grew up in suburban Baltimore and swam and played water polo in high school before attending University of Southern California in Los Angeles. He was a four-year letterman on the USC swim team and captain of the team in his senior year.”

Now in case you or any of the Democratic candidates, who discussed UFOs in this week’s nationally televised debate, missed it, here are the salient parts of this story:

Staff Sgt. Joseph F. Curreri is now a deceased American hero. He was smart; he had to be to get into USC. He was a gifted athlete — the captain of his college swim team. With our nation already at war, he volunteered to serve in the Special Forces. And when he died, he was serving our country in the southern Philippines helping their fight against radical Islam.

Unfortunately, given the unwillingness of the mainstream media to print or broadcast anything positive about the men and women in our armed forces, most of us never hear or read about bright, brave young Americans such as Curreri. Nor will those who count on the major networks and newspapers for information be able to grasp how we are going to win a global war against the Islamic radicals who are dying to kill us.

That’s why FOX News Channel sent our “War Stories” team to the southern Philippines — so that we could chronicle a dramatic but little-known success story. Even critics of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan agree that the campaign in the southern Philippine archipelago could well become the model for how to win the war against Islamic terror.

Everyone we talked to, from Washington to Manila, recognizes there are enormous differences between what we have documented for “War Stories” in 10 trips to Southwest Asia and what we saw happening in the Sulu Archipelago. Most visibly, there are nearly 170,000 American troops in Iraq and nearly 25,000 in Afghanistan. Though the actual number is classified, there are fewer than 1,000 U.S. Special Forces soldiers, Navy SEALs, Marines and airmen in Col. Dave Maxwell’s Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines.

And equally important, President Gloria Arroyo of the Philippines serves as the head of state for the kind of established, functioning democracy that people in Iraq and Afghanistan can only hope for. This week, millions of Filipinos turned out to vote in municipal elections, despite threats by Islamic militants to disrupt the balloting. When I asked President Arroyo about political controversy over the U.S. military mission, she emphasized the long-standing relationship between the American and Filipino people: “We have been together through the second world war. We’ve been together through the war in Korea, through the war in Vietnam, and now we’re together in the war against terrorism.”

That’s the same kind of response we got from every Filipino officer and enlisted soldier, sailor, airman and Marine with whom we talked. And all of that is thanks to bright, brave Americans such as Staff Sgt. Joseph F. Curreri of the U.S. Special Forces. I’m sorry that he couldn’t be here to see the episode starring his comrades in arms, who showed us the future of the “war on terror.”

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It Hasn’t Happened Again: Thank a counterterrorist today. (National Review Online, 071121)

By Deroy Murdock

As Americans enjoy the peace and comfort of Thanksgiving weekend, be grateful that the U.S. has suffered no significant terror attack since the September 11 massacre. As the Heritage Foundation demonstrates, this is no accident.

Since 9/11, officials have thwarted at least 19 terrorist bids to kill Americans. (Additional dismantled plots may remain classified.) These 19 include:

o The Lackawanna Six. These Americans of Yemeni descent from upstate New York pleaded guilty in 2003 to training with and providing material support to al-Qaeda. They are locked up for seven to ten years.

o The Virginia “Jihad” Network’s 11 members had ties to al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and Lashkar-i-Taiba, a terror group that opposes India’s government. Since 2003, they have been imprisoned for conspiring and training to commit terrorist acts.

o Dhiren Barot ran a terror cell that planned to assail the New York Stock Exchange, Prudential’s Newark, New Jersey headquarters, and Washington, D.C.’s World Bank headquarters. Pakistani police found car-bomb plans on Barot’s laptop computer in July 2004. Barot is serving 40 years in a British jail for masterminding what he called a “memorable black day for the enemies of Islam.”

o James Elshafay is serving five years and Shahawar Matin Siraj 30 for endeavoring to blast Manhattan’s Herald Square subway station during the 2004 Republican National Convention.

o Yassin Aref and Mohammed Hossain — both Albany, New York mosque leaders — agreed to help an FBI informant purchase a shoulder-fired grenade launcher to kill a Pakistani diplomat in New York City. Aref and Hossain were convicted of conspiracy, money laundering, and concealing material support to terrorists.

o Also on ice are “shoe bomber” Richard Reid, so-called “dirty bomber” Jose Padilla, and Iyman Faris, who sought acetylene torches to cut the Brooklyn Bridge’s cables and plunge it 119 feet into the East River.

o Among those arrested and awaiting trial are suspected terrorists who allegedly videotaped the U.S. Capitol while preparing to assault it, and others who planned to strike California synagogues. Officials say one cell hoped to hit New Jersey’s Fort Dix Army base, while more aimed to bomb New York’s JFK Airport, Chicago’s Sears Tower, and 10 passenger jets crossing the Atlantic between London and America.

This chilling roster proves that Islamo-fascism is real, not just “a figment of the neocon imagination,” as writer Paul Krugman claimed in a recently published hallucination. He also believes he sees “fear of dark-skinned people in general” as Republicans’ rationale for fighting militant Islam.

Defeating Islamo-fascism is not about color. It’s about carnage, such as what Americans collectively experienced on live TV seven Septembers ago. If Krugman cannot fathom this, he should put down his quill pen and pick up Heritage’s report.

While the conservative think tank merits praise for publishing this document, it’s a shame it ever needed to do so. The Bush Administration’s maddening sense of modesty is among its greatest failings. Unlike its critics’ ceaseless heckling and catcalls, the president and his top aides rarely proclaim their victories, even in this vital area. Rather than trumpet terror plans unraveled and bombs defused, the White House emits a passing mention here and a presidential mumble there. Into this relative silence stroll Krugmanite detractors who denounce Team Bush as paranoid cranks who worry too much about a supposedly minor terrorist challenge. So, they argue, let’s all just move on to universal health care.

The White House needs a constant communications effort — from presidential speeches to TV, print, and the Internet — to highlight the deadly danger that Islamo-fascism poses and how U.S. laws, intelligence, policing, interrogation, and military action jointly stop Muslim fanatics from murdering Americans and innocents abroad.

“The best means to prevent terrorist attacks is effective intelligence collection, information sharing, and coordinated, determined counterterrorism operations that can stop attacks before they are mounted,” concludes Heritage Foundation foreign-affairs specialist James Carafano, this report’s author.

Americans have been kept secure by laws and initiatives like the Patriot Act and the Terrorist Surveillance Program that have foiled schemes to kill us by the tens, hundreds, and thousands. The fact that none has transpired reflects the diligence of U.S. and allied cops, spies, soldiers, and concerned citizens who have said something when they have seen something. This Thanksgiving, they all deserve every American’s undying gratitude.

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Coordinated bomb attacks rock India (Paris, International Herald, 071123)

NEW DELHI: At least 10 people were killed and more than 50 were wounded Friday in five nearly simultaneous bomb blasts outside courthouses in three cities in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, police officials said.

The motive for the explosions was not clear, but there was speculation that a recent decision by lawyers in Uttar Pradesh not to offer to defend terrorist suspects might have played a role. Padam Kriti, a spokesman of the Uttar Pradesh Bar Association, told The Associated Press that it “looks like” that decision might have prompted the attacks.

A 24-hour news and entertainment television channel, India TV, said it had received a telephone call from a group calling itself Indian Mujahadeen warning of the attacks a few minutes before they occurred.

The first blast went off in the state capital, Lucknow, just outside the entrance to the city courthouse, near a bicycle stand used by lawyers. No one was killed, but television stations broadcast images of lawyers, dressed in the uniform of the legal profession, black suits, high collars and white ties, fleeing the area. Two more explosions went off within five minutes of the first.

A powerful blast was detonated outside the courts in the holy city of Varanasi, killing seven and wounding more than 42. Another went off in Faizabad, again near the entrance to the courts, killing three and wounding at least 10, an official at the police control room in Lucknow said by telephone.

He warned that those were preliminary estimates of the death toll and that the figure could rise.

A junior Home Ministry official condemned the coordinated attacks as terrorism designed to stir up hatred between religious groups.

“I believe it is the handiwork of groups that are trying to spread terror in our country,” the minister, Sriprakash Jaiswal, said on television, adding that the intention was “to disturb communal harmony.”

Indian television later showed soldiers in khaki uniforms carrying corpses away from the blast sites. One wounded man was shown riding away from one of the explosions on a motorbike, bleeding profusely from the neck.

In Faizabad and Varanasi, two smaller blasts were thought to have been detonated before the larger explosions. Television reports suggested that at least some of the devices were attached to motorcycles or bicycles.

India has witnessed a large number of terrorist attacks in recent years, but the blasts usually are targeted at religious sites or at crowded shopping markets. In August, two bombs killed 43 people in the southern city of Hyderabad. In July 2006, bombs on seven Mumbai commuter trains killed more than 200 people.

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Islamic Militants Sentenced for Attacks on Christians in Indonesia (Christian Post, 071204)

Six Islamic militants have been sentenced to up to 19 years in Indonesia for a string of violent offences against Christians on Sulawesi Island.

The men where convicted for their involvement in the assassination of a Protestant priest, the beheading of three Christian schoolgirls and a bombing that killed 22 people in a market in Tentena town.

Ten of the defendants had been arrested and charged earlier this year under anti-terrorism laws. They appeared in separate court rooms in the South Jakarta District court.

One of the accused, Syaiful Anam, was sentenced to 18 years by Judge Haryanto for involvement in the bombing in Tentena in 2005.

Anam appeared unrepentant after the sentencing. “This sentence is a consequence of jihad. Whether it had been 18 years or the death penalty it would have been no problem,” he told reporters.

Another militant, Abdul Muis, was sentenced to 19 years for shooting a Christian priest and for assembling the bomb used in a separate market attack.

Rahman Kalahe, Yudi Parsan and Agus Nur Muhammad were jailed for 19 years, 10 years three months, and 14 years, respectively, for their involvement in the beheading of the three schoolgirls.

Amril Ngiode was sentenced to 15 years for making the bomb used in the Tentena market attack as well as for possession of illegal weapons and assault.

The militants’ actions all occurred in the Poso region of central Sulawesi, which was an area of intense Muslim-Christian conflict from 1999 to 2001. Over 2,000 people were killed in the conflict.

Although a peace accord was implemented in 2001, violence still occasionally flares up and often the perpetrators are not prosecuted for their actions.

Next week, four other defendants will be sentenced, including Muhammad Basri and Adrin Djanatu who are believed to be leaders of a group linked to Jemaah Islamiah (JI), a regional militant network.

JI is thought to be responsible for a number of attacks in Indonesia including the 2002 Bali bombings which killed over 200 people. Since then hundreds of militants thought to be linked to JI have been arrested.

Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim nation. Around 220 million people (85% of the population) in Indonesia are Muslim. However in some eastern parts of the country, like Poso, there are nearly equal numbers of Christians and Muslims.

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Al Qaeda Use of the Web Spreading at an Alarming Rate (Foxnews, 071205)

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Al Qaeda has established a firm presence on anywhere between 5,600 and 17,000 Web sites, and could add as many as 9,000 more sites a year unless nations agree on ways to counter the terrorist organization.

That dire picture was presented by Saudi Internet security specialist Khaled Al-Firm, who told the conference on Information Technology and National Security that nations need to do more to combat radicalism and terror, according to the Arab News newspaper.

Al-Firm quoted Saudi Prince Abdul Aziz on the proliferation of Al Qaeda sites, which he warned were bent on finding new recruits and “brainwashing people.”

“Terrorists do not just focus on military success. There is a third angle to the operation which is the glory of publicity, which compensates for the failure of the operation,” Al-Firm told the conference.

“The real battle with Al Qaeda is no longer on the ground, but rather a media battle, and it is a real threat to national security,” he added.

Al-Firm said it was difficult to track the sites because they often change addresses to avoid detection or restart elsewhere once discovered.

Saudi intelligence launched a public Web site this week asking the public to send information anonymously about any suspicious activity, Reuters reported.

“For Al Qaeda, media coverage is more important than the actual operations,” Al-Firm said.

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The 63-year-old Algerian suicide bomber (Paris, International Herald, 071218)

ALGIERS: As a suicide bomber he was most unusual. But the story of Rabah Bechla, a 63-year-old grandfather of seven who rammed a truck packed with explosives into a United Nations office here last week, killing 17, is in many ways the story of Algeria itself.

Bechla’s age has thrown into shock a nation accustomed to terrorism - but a terrorism usually associated with the malleable impulsiveness of youth. If his associate that day, a 30-year-old former convict who triggered the other bomb, has been described as the textbook case of a young radicalized man, Bechla represents a break with stereotype.

His case casts further doubt on the effectiveness of using profiling to detect Islamist radicals. As one prominent journalist here observed: “If a grandfather can blow himself up, anyone can.”

The hunger among Algerians for an explanation has been evident in a series of disclosures about Bechla’s personal life in the local press, some true - that he was very ill - others apparently wrong. For instance, two of his sons did not die for the jihadist cause; indeed they are alive and gave a long interview in their family home outside Algiers and denied that they were part of the Islamist movement.

Algerians are further intrigued by Bechla because his life contains the story of the problems that have haunted this country for six decades. As recounted by family members at Bechla’s home, a cement shack in the village of Heraoua, some 30 kilometers, or 20 miles, from the capital, the family history in those years stretches from his grandfather who fought for France against Germany in World War II, his father, who they say was tortured and killed by the French during the War of Independence, and his own decision to vote for the Islamists in the 1991 presidential election.

The trajectory continues. One of his sons did something that many other young Algerians have tried: He made a desperate decision to try to get into Spain as an illegal immigrant.

“Many Algerians can identify with this story,” said Mouloud Hamrouche, a former prime minister of the same age as Bechla who opposed the decision to scrap a 1991 election once it became clear that Islamists would win. “He is a real-life example of what has gone wrong over the years.”

At the home in Heraoua, footsteps away from the local police station, Bechla’s children and his 82-year-old mother, Zohra, were still in shock.

“We are against terrorism; we are against this act,” his oldest daughter, Hadra, 33, said, sitting on an embroidered cushion in a living room crammed with women in colorful head scarves, some weeping, others shaking their heads. Behind her, on a wooden shelf, stood a worn color photograph of Bechla in his 40s, a serious-looking man with a graying beard and piercing blue eyes.

“All we ask is that people also see the other side,” she said, turning her eyes to the photograph. “My father was a victim, too.”

According to Hadra, Bechla started out as an enthusiastic supporter of the National Liberation Front, the governing party, which was born of the armed force that won independence from France in 1962. But she said he grew increasingly disillusioned with a regime that failed to pass on the country’s energy riches to ordinary people.

In 1990, the authorities denied Bechla a taxi license when rheumatism and kidney problems made it impossible for him, an illiterate, to continue working as a vegetable trader. “He felt betrayed, after his father had died for this country,” said another daughter, Assia, 28.

The family said that a year later, in what were hailed as Algeria’s first free parliamentary elections, Bechla was among the millions who voted for the Islamic Salvation Front, which campaigned on a platform of generous welfare programs and won the first round handily before the army intervened.

In 1995, Assia said, Bechla learned of the arrests and torture of several sympathizers of the Islamic Salvation Front and decided to go into hiding in the eastern scrublands where Islamist militants were active. “He said that he was not strong enough to stand torture,” Assia said.

Eventually, he apparently joined up with the group now called Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. After several years without contact, the family heard of Bechla through friends. His wife, Aisha, who since died, urged him to accept a government amnesty and to come home.

To hear his family tell it, Bechla was not always at ease with the militants. “He wanted to come back, but he was scared: scared of the government and scared of Al Qaeda,” Assia said.

“He said it was out of his hands,” she added. “He could not leave them.”

Hadra disputed the notion that Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb had paid the family compensation for the father’s suicide bombing. “Al Qaeda has given us nothing,” she said, pointing at the makeshift oven in the kitchen and the plastic sheet that replaced a broken window in the bathroom. “We have nothing to do with them.”

She said one of her sisters only narrowly escaped the second bomb last week. And a nephew of Bechla named Ihab was killed by Islamists some years ago, she said.

One of Bechla’s three sons, Younes, said initial reports that two of Bechla’s sons had joined Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and died in clashes with government forces were false. Athmane, the youngest, was also in the house. Halfway through the afternoon, the third son, Mokhtar, called the family mobile phone and was put on speaker phone, recounting to loud cheers that he had just made it Melilla, a Spanish enclave on the North African coast.

“Some go to the mountains to join the terrorists, and some try to go to Europe,” Hadra said. “The country is rich, but the people are poor.”

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Homicide Attacker Detonates Nail Bomb, Killing 50 (Foxnews, 071221)

SHERPAO, Pakistan — A homicide bomber killed at least 50 people inside a mosque packed with holiday worshippers at the residential compound of a former top security official for President Pervez Musharraf, police said.

Pakistani police on Friday raided an Islamic school and arrested seven students but officials would not confirm if the raid was related the attack, which had occurred just hours earlier.

Suspicion likely will focus on the pro-Taliban or Al Qaeda militants active in northwest Pakistan — near the Afghan border — where the attack occurred. The attack also deepened the sense of uncertainty in Pakistan as it heads into Jan. 8 parliamentary elections.

As interior minister, Sherpao was deeply involved in Pakistan’s efforts to combat the Taliban and drive out Al Qaeda. A candidate for parliament, he left office last month as a caretaker government took over ahead of the elections.

The bombing, which left bloody clothes, shoes and pieces of flesh scattered across the house of worship, was the second homicide attack in eight months apparently targeting Aftab Khan Sherpao, who escaped injury.

Musharraf condemned the blast and directed security and intelligence agencies to track down the masterminds, the state Associated Press of Pakistan reported.

After the bombing, dozens of police and intelligence agents raided an Islamic school in the nearby village of Turangzai and arrested seven students, some of them Afghans, two police officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

The blast deepened the sense of uncertainty in Pakistan ahead of Jan. 8 parliamentary elections, which Sherpao, as head of the Pakistan Peoples Party-Sherpao, is contesting.

The bombing turned a prayer service crowded with hundreds of people celebrating the Islamic holy day of Eid al-Adha into a scene of carnage at the mosque inside Sherpao’s residential compound in Sherpao, a village 25 miles northeast of the city of Peshawar.

The bomber was in a row of worshippers when he detonated the explosive, provincial police chief Sharif Virk said.

“There was blood and body parts everywhere. There was panic everywhere. People were running. Some people were injured in the chaos,” said Iqbal Hussain, a police officer in charge of security at the mosque.

District mayor Farman Ali Khan said between 50 and 55 people were killed, and authorities were collecting information on their identities. Local police chief Feroz Shah said over 100 were wounded.

Witnesses said the dead included police officers guarding Sherpao, who was praying in the mosque’s front row at the time of the attack. He was not harmed, but one of his sons was wounded.

The hospital in Peshawar was wracked with chaos as the injured arrived in pickup trucks, ambulance sirens wailed and wounded screamed for help. The bomb contained between 13 and 17 pounds of explosives and was filled with nails and ball bearings to maximize casualties, said the head of the bomb unit at the scene, who declined to give his name.

A bulldozer was brought in to help volunteers with shovels dig graves for the dead next to the mosque.

Minhaj Khan was digging a grave for the dismembered body of Shah Jee, a 28-year old father of two from the village.

“He was a poor laborer. Now who will look after his family?” he asked. “It is nothing but extreme cruelty to kill people on such a holy day for Muslims.”

Hussain, the police officer, said everyone entering was forced to pass through a body scanner and was searched with metal and explosive detectors. “We don’t know how the bomber got in,” he said.

Hamid Nawaz, the current interior minister, insisted there was no security lapse.

“All possible care had been taken, there was no lapse as such ... but such an incident can happen at such a gathering,” Nawaz told Aaj TV.

After the blast, Sherpao’s house was protected by about a dozen police and paramilitary troops.

As interior minister, Sherpao was Pakistan’s top civilian security official in the administration recently dissolved ahead of the elections.

Islamic militants have repeatedly targeted top figures in the government of Musharraf, a key ally in the U.S.-led war on terror. In April, Sherpao was slightly wounded by a bomber, and Musharraf himself narrowly escaped assassination in two bombings a few days apart in December 2003.

Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters have extended their influence over tracts of Pakistan’s volatile northwest in the past two years and in recent months have launched numerous homicide attacks, usually targeting security forces and their families.

The army says the most recent attacks could be retaliation for a military operation against militants in the Swat valley, where it claims to have killed about 300 militants since last month.

The violence came as Pakistan struggled to emerge from months of political turmoil.

Musharraf recently declared emergency rule for six weeks — a move he said was necessary to combat rising Islamic extremism, but was widely seen as a ploy to prolong his own presidency. Thousands of his opponents were rounded up and Supreme Court justices fired.

On Friday, police rearrested prominent opposition lawyer Aitzaz Ahsan, according to his son, Ali Aitzaz. Aitzaz Ahsan, who had been at the forefront of a lawyers’ protest movement, was released Thursday for three days for the holy day, but detained again after just one day.

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Belgian Forces Arrest 14 Extremists in Plot to Free Jailed Terror Suspect (Foxnews, 071221)

BRUSSELS, Belgium — Belgian police Friday arrested 14 Muslim extremists suspected of planning to free an Al Qaeda sympathizer imprisoned for planning a terrorist attack on U.S. air base personnel, officials said.

Security was heightened at airports, subway stations and other public places across the capital, and the U.S. Embassy issued a warning to Americans that “there is currently a heightened risk of terrorist attack in Brussels” although it had no indication of any American targets.

Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt said the government had information suggesting “preparation of an attack.”

“Other acts of violence are not to be excluded,” he said.

The prisoner, Nizar Trabelsi, a 37-year-old Tunisian who played soccer for several German teams, was sentenced to the maximum 10 years in prison four years ago. He had admitted planning to drive a car bomb into the canteen at Kleine Brogel, a Belgian air base where about 100 American military personnel are stationed.

According to the U.S.-based military affairs think tank GlobalSecurity.org, the Kleine Brogel Air Base is home to Belgian F-16 warplanes equipped with nuclear weapons that are under U.S. control.

Trabelsi, who testified that he intended kill American soldiers, says he met Usama bin Laden in Afghanistan and asked to become a homicide bomber. He was arrested in Brussels on Sept. 13, 2001. Police later discovered the raw materials for a huge bomb in the back of a Brussels restaurant.

The federal prosecutor’s office said the 14 were planning to free the terrorist by force. “Trabelsi would be helped by a group of people, driven by an extremist vision of Islam,” said a statement from the prosecutor’s office.

The Interior Ministry called on citizens to be vigilant throughout the Christmas period. “You can point out possible suspect objects and actions to the local police,” said a statement.

The U.S. Embassy issued its alert to U.S. citizens living or traveling in Belgium to maintain a high level of vigilance, especially in crowded public places,

Its statement said it had “no information to indicate that U.S. citizens or facilities are an intended target.”

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Purported Al Qaeda Video Shows Prisoners Burned Alive (Foxnews, 080216)

Al Qaeda’s latest display of terror has made its way onto the Internet, showing horrifying images of what appear to be prisoners in Iraq being doused with an inflammatory liquid and then burned alive.

The video, which appears to have been posted first on Google last December in an alleged anti-Al Qaeda Web film, shows five insurgents standing behind three blindfolded prisoners kneeling at the edge of a burning pit.

“And now that we have captured these scums who committed this dreadful crime, we will burn them with this fire,” the Al Qaeda leader says in Arabic. “The same fire which they committed their crime with.

“And I swear by God almighty that, I swear by God almighty that we will have no mercy on them,” he continues. “Allahuakbar, Allahuakbar.”

As he speaks, two of the insurgents pour liquid on the blindfolded prisoners. Then they push the bound men into the pit, where they are engulfed in flames.

According to the summary — in Arabic and German — included in the nearly 15-minute video posted on Google, many of the clips were found in Diyala, Iraq. The makers of the film say that the originals were “passed to us by others.”

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Al Qaeda Trains Young Boys as Terrorists, Tapes Show (Foxnews, 080206)

WASHINGTON — Al Qaeda propaganda tapes released by the Pentagon reveal a possible new trend in the group’s terror strategy in Iraq.

The tapes, obtained by FOX News and later released to the media, are training videos showing black-masked Iraqi children between 6 and 14 being taught how to hold AK-47s, stop a car and carry out a kidnapping, break into a house and break into a courtyard and terrorize the individuals living there.

Footage aired for reporters showed an apparent training operation in which the boys are seen storming a house and holding guns to the heads of mock residents. Another tape showed a young boy wearing a suicide vest and posing with automatic weapons.

They also are shown being taught to use rocket-propelled grenade launchers.

“These were young boys all masked and hooded, all outfitted with weapons; adults were doing the training,” said Rear Adm. Greg Smith, a spokesman for Multinational Forces Iraq.

“Al Qaeda is clearly using children to exploit other children to get the interest of Jihad spread among teenagers far and wide. They use this footage on the Internet to encourage other young boys to join the jihad movement.”

And at a U.S. military briefing on Wednesday in Baghdad’s heavily guarded Green Zone, he added: “Al Qaeda in Iraq wants to poison the next generation of Iraqis. It is offering children as the new generation of mujahedeen,” he said, using the Arabic term for holy warriors.

The five videotapes found included raw footage that the U.S. military believes was to be used in future propaganda tapes. They obtained the material in a Dec. 4 raid in Khan Bani Sad — about halfway between Baghdad and Baquba.

Other scenes from the Khan Bani Saad video showed masked boys forcing a man off his bicycle at gunpoint and stopping a car and kidnapping its driver along a dusty country road. At one point the boys — wearing soccer jerseys with ammunition slung across their chests — sit in a circle on the floor, chanting slogans in support of Al Qaeda.

Coalition forces also obtained another tape that led to the release of a kidnapped 11-year-old Iraqi boy being held for ransom.

Acting on a tip from a local Iraqi, the forces planned a surprise raid last week on a home in Kirkuk where an 11-year-old boy, the son of a Kurdish mechanic, was being held for a $100,000 ransom by Al Qaeda.

The kidnappers had held the boy, Ammar, for four days.

Kidnapping and extortion are how Al Qaeda in Iraq finances its attacks. It is big business. But this time there was a happy ending.

“As he came out from under that curtain you could tell he looked terrified,” Smith told FOX News in an interview, speaking about the boy. “He gave his name and they said, ‘You’re the one we are looking for,’ and you could tell he was much relieved at that point.”

The raid began before dawn.

“They approached on foot,” Smith said from Baghdad. “They knew precisely what door they needed to go to. They came down a small alleyway. The door was locked, they yelled inside for it to be unlocked, it was not unlocked so they broke the door down.”

The security forces entered a small room.

“The Al Qaeda member who had custody of this young boy was also in shock by the entrance and the quick operations by the Iraq security forces,” Smith said.

One of the kidnappers was caught inside the room where the boy was hiding. All of the shooting and shouting left the boy terrified, according to those who participated in the raid.

“They got him into the car,” Smith recalled. “They handed him a cell phone so he could call his mother, and he was very composed. He just said, ‘Hello. This is Ammar.’

“He said, ‘I am here. I am safe.’”

An officer on the other end of the line could hear the family screaming and shouting. Soon after, the boy was delivered back to cheering neighbors and family members.

This story had a happy ending, but most kidnappings in Iraq do not. Ammar was from a simple family, and his father never could have paid the $100,000 ransom.

In an interview after his son was returned to the family, Ammar’s father said, “The kidnappers told us that if we fail to pay the ransom, they will behead my son and put his head in the garbage can in front of my house. We told them that we don’t have money.”

The raid netted five kidnappers and led the coalition forces to another boy being held in a hideout nearby. He was freed on Sunday.

Al Qaeda’s networks are not difficult to unravel once a successful raid has been completed. Its operatives’ obsessive need to keep accurate books, such as an accountant might, has provided coalition troops with a treasure trove of intelligence.

Much like the Nazis in World War II, Al Qaeda operatives document their every action, be it a bombing or kidnapping. It is the way they get paid by the organization.

The kidnapping ring that was broken last week had recorded 26 other kidnappings. Coalition forces did not know how many had ended in release, and how many in death.

Iraqi Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammed al-Askari told reporters that militants are kidnapping more and more Iraqi children, though he could not offer details or numbers.

“This is not only to recruit them, but also to demand ransom to fund the operations of Al Qaeda,” al-Askari said.

The group included about 20 children being “trained.” At the end of the hourlong video they are sent into their parents’ arms, suggesting the training has parental approval and that the children likely come from Al Qaeda-affiliated households.

The tapes’ discovery adds to Al Qaeda’s exploitation of children as well as women; just last weekend two female homicide bombers wrapped in explosives targeted a Baghdad market, killing nearly 100 people.

Smith said pictures of the bombers’ remains show their faces to have distinctive Down Syndrome features, making them unlikely suspects.

After the attack, Iraqis in Baghdad demanded more protection for markets, saying one of the bombers was not searched because she was known as a local beggar and the male guards were reluctant to search women because of Islamic sensitivities, as women are not searched in public places.

The police are recruiting female officers, yet there does not appear to be a plan to train them to search members of their own sex.

As for the children in the tapes, “We don’t think they were being trained precisely to go out and conduct operations any time soon,” Smith said. “But clearly there is a pattern of training and a pattern of indoctrination that is being used by Al Qaeda.

“Very young individuals who are very obviously innocent and impressionable, these videos convince them early on that the jihadist movement, the Al Qaeda movement, is something they should belong to and look up to.”

All of this suggests that Al Qaeda in Iraq is planning to continue its recruiting operations for years to come, Smith said.

“In this instance we believe it was for a greater purpose than trying to produce footage for film,” Smith said.

“That footage can be used again on the Internet to convince other young boys around the world to join the movement.”

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Iraq Hospital Chief Allegedly Supplied Patients for Bombings (Foxnews, 080212)

The acting director of a Baghdad psychiatric hospital has been arrested on suspicion of supplying Al Qaeda in Iraq with the mentally impaired women it used to blow up two crowded animal markets in the city on Feb. 1, killing about 100 people.

Iraqi security forces and U.S. soldiers arrested the man at al-Rashad hospital in east Baghdad on Sunday. They then spent three hours searching his office and removing records. Sources told The Times that the two female bombers had been treated at the hospital in the past.

“They [the security forces] arrested the acting director, accusing him of working with Al Qaeda and recruiting mentally ill women and using them in suicide bombing operations,” a hospital official said.

Ibrahim Muhammad Agel, director of the hospital, was killed in the Mansour district of Baghdad on Dec. 11 by gunmen on motorbikes. Colleagues suspect he was shot for refusing to cooperate with Al Qaeda.

Even before Sunday’s arrest, U.S. officials believed that Al Qaeda was scouring Iraq’s hospitals for mentally impaired patients whom it could dupe into acting as homicide bombers. They said that Al Qaeda had used the mentally impaired as unwitting bombers before.

“We have fairly good reason to believe this is not the first time they have recruited mentally handicapped individuals,” said one senior officer, though he did not think there had been more than half a dozen cases.

The attraction of mentally impaired women to Al Qaeda was obvious, he said. Being women they could get close to targets with less chance of being stopped or searched; being mentally impaired, they were “less likely to make a rational judgment about what they are being asked to do.”

The Feb. 1 attacks were the deadliest — and most chilling — to hit the Iraqi capital in months. One of the women was given a backpack full of explosives and ballbearings, the other a suicide vest laden with explosives. They were sent into the middle of al-Ghazl and New Baghdad markets, which were packed with people. Their explosives were then detonated by remote control.

The Times was shown photographs of the two young women’s severed heads, which were recovered from the wreckage. One very obviously had Down syndrome. The other had the round face, high forehead and other features often associated with Down syndrome, but her symptoms were less pronounced.

An insight into the way Al Qaeda thinks came in a letter written by one of its leaders in Anbar province that the U.S. military seized in November and released in part on Sunday. “It is possible to use doctors working in private hospitals and where the infidels/apostates are treated who have serious conditions to be injected with [air bubbles] that will kill them,” it said.

The U.S. military believes Al Qaeda is adopting these extreme tactics because the prevalence of checkpoints and concrete barriers is making car bombings harder, and fewer foreign bombers are reaching Iraq.

The number of car bombs has fallen steadily from a peak of 112 last March to 27 last month. Conversely, there were 16 pedestrian homicide bombs in January, the second-highest total in 13 months.

Foreign jihadists — invariably male — used to carry out 90% of the homicide bombings in Iraq, but the U.S. military believes that tighter controls have halved the influx to 50 or 60 a month.

The officer conceded that protecting public places against individual bombers was almost impossible. “You really can’t stop a determined bomber from blowing themselves up,” he said. “The key is continuing to take down the terrorist network that conducts these operations.”

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Imad Mughniyeh, Leading Hezbollah Official Wanted by U.S., Killed (Foxnews, 080213)

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Imad Mughniyeh, the suspected mastermind of dramatic attacks on the U.S. Embassy and U.S. Marine barracks that killed hundreds of Americans in Lebanon in the 1980s, has died in a car bomb in Syria, Iranian state media and a Syrian rights group said Wednesday.

The Islamic militant group Hezbollah and its Iranian backers blamed Israel for the killing. Israel denied involvement.

Hezbollah did not say how or where Mughniyeh was killed. But Iranian state television and the National Organization for Human Rights in Syria said he died in a car bombing in the Syrian capital Damascus on Tuesday night.

Hezbollah’s announcement of the death came a few hours after a late night explosion in Damascus destroyed a vehicle. Witnesses in the Syrian capital said at the time that a passerby was killed as security forces sealed off the area and removed the body. But authorities there would not give details.

“This action is yet another brazen example of organized state terrorism by the Zionist regime,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said, according to the state news agency IRNA. He called on the world to “prevent the Zionist regime from taking these actions that are a clear violation of international law.”

Mughniyeh, 45, was Hezbollah’s security chief in the 1980s. He was believed to have directed a group that held Westerners hostage in Lebanon. Among them was journalist Terry Anderson, a former Associated Press chief Middle East correspondent who was held captive for six years.

Mughniyeh, who had been in hiding for years, was one of the fugitives indicted in the United States for the 1985 hijacking of a TWA airliner in which a U.S. Navy diver was killed. He is on an FBI wanted list with a $25 million bounty on his head. The bounty is equal to that the U.S. has put for Al Qaeda leader Usama bin Laden.

Israel accused him of involvement in the 1992 bombing of Israel’s embassy in Argentina in which 29 people were killed and the blast at a Buenos Aires Jewish center two years later that killed 95.

Hezbollah, whose top leader Hassan Nasrallah has been largely in hiding since the 2006 war fearing Israeli assassination, did not immediately threaten revenge.

“With all pride, we declare a great jihadist leader of the Islamic resistance in Lebanon joining the martyrs,” said a statement carried on Hezbollah television. “The brother commander hajj Imad Mughinyeh became a martyr at the hands of the Zionist Israelis.”

Iranian media reported that an Iranian school and a Syrian intelligence office were in the same area of Kafar Soussa where the explosion in Damascus occurred.

One report said Mughniyeh was leaving his house and about to get into his car when it exploded. Another said he was attending a ceremony at the Iranian school in Damascus and was killed as he left the function.

Israel denied involvement and said it was looking into the death.

“Israel rejects the attempt by terror groups to attribute to it any involvement in this incident. We have nothing further to add,” read the statement from Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s office.

Syria has not commented on the death. If confirmed that Syria was hosting Mughniyeh, it would be an embarrassment for the government of President Bashar Assad. Syria is accused of hosting a number of Palestinian extremist groups and has been accused by the U.S. of sponsoring terrorism.

The death could also could further stir up turmoil in deeply divided Lebanon, where a Hezbollah-led opposition is locked in a bitter power struggle with the Western-backed government. Hezbollah called for a massive gathering of its supporters for Mughniyeh’s funeral in southern Beirut on Thursday.

Mughniyeh was Hezbollah security chief during a turbulent period in Lebanon’s civil war. He has been accused of masterminding the April 1983 car bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut that killed 63 people, including 17 Americans, and the simultaneous truck bombings of the U.S. Marine barracks and French military base in Beirut, killing 58 French soldiers and 241 Marines.

He was indicted in the United States for the 1985 TWA hijacking in which Shiite militants seized the 747 and flew it back and forth between Beirut and Algiers demanding the release of Lebanese Shiites captured by Israel. During the hijacking, the body of Navy diver Robert Stethem, a passenger on the plane, was dumped on the tarmac of Beirut airport.

During Lebanon’s civil war, Mughniyeh was also believed to have directed a string of kidnappings of Americans and other foreigners, including Anderson — who was held for six years until his release in 1991 — and CIA station chief William Buckley, who was killed in 1985.

Mughinyeh’s killing is the first major attack against a leader of Hezbollah since the 1992 helicopter strike that killed the Hezbollah secretary-general Sheik Abbas Mussawi in southern Lebanon.

Little has been known about him since the end of the Lebanese civil war and Hezbollah has regularly refused to talk about him. Wednesday’s announcement of his death was the first mention of him in years.

Al-Manar on Wednedsay aired a rare picture of Mughniyeh — showing a burly, bespectacled man with a black beard wearing a military camouflage and a military cap. It did not say when the picture was taken. Mughniyeh has been reported by the media and intelligence agencies to have undergone plastic surgery to avoid detection as he moved around in the 1990s.

American intelligence officials have described Mughniyeh as Hezbollah’s operations chief, who was believed to have moved between Lebanon, Syria and Iran in disguise.

Mughniyeh’s last public appearance was believed to be at the funeral of his brother Fuad, who was killed on Dec. 12, 1994, when a booby-trapped car blew up in the southern suburb of Beirut.

In 2006, Mughniyeh was reported to have met with hardline Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Syria. Tehran and the country’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guards have never publicly disclosed the extent of their links with their protege Hezbollah.

Hezbollah did not threaten immediate revenge. Its al-Manar television, which broke into Koranic verses after the announcement, broadcast another statement from the Shiite Muslim militant group, saying a funeral will be held on Thursday.

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The death of a terrorist: Retaliation and the rule of law (Paris, International Herald, 080214)

The car-bomb assassination in Damascus of the terrorist mastermind Imad Mughniyeh will mean different things to different parties. But for anyone who cherishes the sunlight of legal justice, Mughniyeh’s obscene career and violent end should be emblems of a lawless netherworld where terrorists kill civilians and security services hunt the killers.

Mughniyeh, who was operations chief for the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah, has a long rap sheet. He was behind the 1985 hijacking of a TWA passenger jet that lasted 17 days and included the killing of a U.S. Navy diver, Robert Dean Stethem. American investigators hold Mughniyeh responsible for the 1983 bombings of U.S. Marine and French paratrooper barracks in Beirut, killing more than 300, and also for 63 more deaths in a bomb attack the same year at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut.

During the mid-’80s, Mughniyeh led an Iranian-sponsored group in Lebanon known as Islamic Jihad, a gang that kidnapped dozens of Americans and other Westerners. It was to ransom some of those hostages that Ronald Reagan sold missiles to Iran in the so-called Iran-Contra scandal.

Mughniyeh was indicted in Argentina for the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that took 85 lives. And an arrest warrant was issued for him in connection with the 1992 bombing in Buenos Aires of the Israeli embassy.

Illustrating the inverted value system of the terrorist netherworld, Hezbollah’s TV station al-Manar issued a statement Wednesday saying, “With pride and honor, we announce the martyrdom of a great resistance leader who joined the procession of martyrs in the Islamic resistance.”

The official U.S. reaction was the antithesis of Hezbollah’s, reflecting Mughniyeh’s standing atop America’s most-wanted terrorist list, with a bounty of $25 million on his head. He was second only to Osama bin Laden. “The world is a better place without this man in it,” a State Department spokesman said Wednesday. “One way or another, he was brought to justice.”

Israel, for its part, denied killing Mughniyeh. Whether it did or not, Israel is already being blamed by Hezbollah and its allies in Iran and Syria. There is almost certain to be a retaliatory strike against Israel that Hezbollah will call revenge for the execution of Mughniyeh.

Hezbollah and its Iranian backers can be expected to target Israel whether or not they obtain proof the Damascus bombing was an Israeli operation.

They know that the secret services of several Western and Arab capitals also had scores to settle with Mughniyeh. But in the shadow world of terrorists and counterterrorists there are no rules of evidence, no presumption of innocence, and no legal justice. This is why the fight against terrorism must include a foreign policy that fosters the rule of law.

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U.S. Military Kills Al Qaeda Leader in Iraq (Foxnews, 080302)

BAGHDAD — A U.S. military helicopter fired a guided missile to kill a wanted Al Qaeda in Iraq leader from Saudi Arabia who was responsible for the bombing deaths of five American soldiers, a spokesman said Sunday.

U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Gregory Smith said Jar Allah, also known as Abu Yasir al-Saudi, and another Saudi known only as Hamdan, were both killed Wednesday in Mosul.

According to the military, al-Saudi conducted numerous attacks against Iraqi and U.S. forces, including a Jan. 28 bomb attack that killed the five U.S. soldiers.

In that attack, insurgents blasted a U.S. patrol with a roadside bomb and showered survivors with gunfire from a mosque. The soldiers died in the explosion, the deadliest on American forces since six soldiers perished Jan. 9 in a booby-trapped house north of Baghdad.

Intelligence gathered in the Mosul area led the U.S. military to al-Saudi, who was in a car with Hamdan. A precision helicopter strike killed both and destroyed their vehicle. U.S. forces then confirmed the men’s identities.

Smith said their deaths brought to 142 the number of Al Qaeda insurgents killed or captured in Mosul since the beginning of the year.

Al-Saudi was the man who headed up the Al Qaeda network in southeast Mosul, an insurgent hotbed where U.S. forces wage daily battles against the group.

“Mosul is the center of Al Qaeda’s terrorist activities today. Mosul is a critical crossroads for Al Qaeda in Iraq. Baghdad has always been Al Qaeda’s operational center of gravity, but Mosul remains their strategic center of gravity as it provides access to the flow of foreign fighters,” Smith said.

Mosul is located at the locus of roads that connect Iraq with Syria to the west, Turkey to the north and Iran to the east. Many fighters smuggled in from Syria make their way through Mosul, where they can easily blend in with city’s ethnically and religiously diverse population.

“It is their strategic center of gravity. One-half to two-thirds of attacks in Iraq today are in and around Mosul,” Smith said.

A successful program to recruit and fund Sunni tribesmen has also slashed Al Qaeda’s influence in Baghdad and western Anbar province, pushing the group into Diyala province and up toward Mosul — fighting as they retreat north.

In one incident Sunday, 13 gunmen were killed and eight were injured in clashes with American and Iraqi forces in the town of Tal Afar — on the road from Syria to Mosul. Tal Afar Mayor Maj. Gen. Najim Abdullah said that two police officers were also killed and four were injured.

In two other separate attacks in Diyala, police reported that five people were killed when a roadside bomb hit a bus, while another assault killed a patrolling police officer.

It remains unclear if Al Qaeda was responsible for Friday’s kidnapping of Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho and the killing of three people who were with him. Smith said that Iraqi and U.S. forces were searching for those who abducted the cleric as he left Mass in the northern city of Mosul. The European Union also appealed for his release and condemned the kidnapping in an announcement.

Smith said there was no way to predict when Mosul would be rid of Al Qaeda, adding that “there is no timetable per se to turn over security in any particular area of Iraq, including Baghdad” to Iraqi forces.

According to the military, al-Saudi planned and conducted numerous attacks against Iraqi and U.S. forces, including a reported attempt with a 5,000-lb vehicle bomb that would have killed hundreds of people if it had exploded.

Al-Saudi was a close associate of al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri and arrived in Mosul with a group of foreign fighters last August after spending time fighting in Afghanistan.

“After fighting and training in Afghanistan, he was brought to Iraq by Abu Ayyub al-Masri in November 2007, one of four Saudi Arabians appointed to supervise Al Qaeda activities in Mosul. He was quickly moved up to run all of the terror network’s operations in southeast Mosul, becoming the most visible and active Al Qaeda operative in the area,” Smith said.

In another incident, the military expressed regret over the killing of a teenager Friday by a helicopter gunship that thought it was firing on suspected roadside bombers planting a device, the military said.

It added that residents later told troops that a group of boys had been digging up roots for firewood.

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Terror Plots Targeting Beijing Olympics, Jetliner Foiled in China (Foxnews, 080309)

BEIJING — Chinese police broke up a terror plot targeting the Beijing Olympics, and a flight crew foiled an apparent attempt to crash a Chinese jetliner in a separate case, officials said Sunday.

Wang Lequan, the top Communist Party official in the far western region of Xinjiang, said materials seized in a Jan. 27 raid in the regional capital, Urumqi, suggested the plotters’ planned “specifically to sabotage the staging of the Beijing Olympics.”

“Their goal was very clear,” Wang told reporters at a meeting of Xinjiang delegates in Beijing.

Wang cited no other evidence or sources of the information and earlier reports on the raid had made no mention of Olympic targets.

Wang said the group had been trained by and was following the orders of a Uighur separatist group based in Pakistan and Afghanistan called the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, or ETIM. The group has been labeled a terrorist organization by the United Nations and the United States. East Turkestan is another name for Xinjiang.

China says its main terror threat comes from ETIM. Although the group is not believed to have more than a few dozen members, terrorism experts say it has become influential among extremist groups using the Internet to raise funds and find recruits.

Chinese forces reported raiding an ETIM training camp last year and killing 18 militants allegedly linked to al-Qaida and the Taliban.

Wang said security forces would take pro-active measures to crush terrorism, religious extremism, and separatism.

“These guys are fantasizing if they think they can disrupt the Olympics,” said Wang, known for his hardline stance on crushing dissent. “They don’t have the strength.”

Speaking at the same meeting, Xinjiang’s governor said a flight crew prevented an apparent attempt to crash a China Southern flight from Urumqi to Beijing on Friday. Nur Bekri did not specifically label the incident a terrorist act, saying it remained under investigation. No passengers were injured and police were investigating, he said.

The incidents may give greater force to China’s arguments that extreme measures are necessary to ensure social stability and the safety of the August Olympics, already the focus of negative publicity from the regime’s critics.

While deadly violence is less common in China than in many countries — Beijing bans virtually all private gun ownership — officials were quick to assert that a deadly hostage drama involving 10 Australian travel agents last week was not an embarrassment in the run-up to the Olympics.

The hostage-taker was shot and killed by a police sniper after an almost three-hour standoff in the northern tourist hub, Xi’an. The hostage-taker’s motive was not known.

Chinese forces have for years been battling a low-intensity separatist movement among Xinjiang’s Uighurs, a Turkic Muslim people who are culturally and ethnically distinct from China’s Han majority. Iron-fisted Chinese rule has largely suppressed the violence, however, and no major bombing or shooting incidents have been reported in almost a decade.

China has ratcheted up anti-terror preparations ahead of the Games, with the nation’s top police official last year labeling terrorism the biggest threat facing the event.

Although terrorism experts say the threat is not high given China’s tight social controls, they warn that Beijing’s counterterrorism capabilities are weak, especially in intelligence gathering and analysis.

Earlier reports said police found guns, homemade bombs, training materials and “extremist religious ideological materials” during the January raid in Urumqi, in which two members of the gang were killed and 15 arrested. Authorities have not identified those killed and arrested or their specific targets.

The Global Times newspaper published by the Communist Party had earlier said the group planned bombings and other “violent terrorist incidents” for Feb. 5, the last business day before the start of the Lunar New Year holiday.

Few details were available about the alleged attempt to crash the China Southern Airlines flight Friday morning. Bekri indicated that more than one person was involved, but did not specify whom police suspected in the attempt, saying it remained under investigation.

“From what we presently know, this was an attempt to crash the plane,” Bekri said.

“Because this incident just occurred, questions as to who these people were, where they came from what their goal was, what kind of background, we are currently investigating. Once we’ve investigated clearly, I believe you will then know,” Bekri said.

He said the crew responded and the plane made an emergency landing in the western city of Lanzhou with no damage or injuries. He said it continued to its original destination, Beijing, after about one hour.

A man who answered the phone at China Southern’s Urumqi office said the incident was under investigation and he had no further details. He hung up without giving his name.

An airline spokesman reached at its southern hub of Guangzhou refused to answer questions about the incident and said all press inquiries had to be faxed to corporate headquarters.

While Bekri refused to further characterize the incident, he prefaced his remarks with a harsh denunciation of Uighur separatists, saying “high-pressure tactics” were the only way of dealing with the problem.

“Those in Xinjiang pursuing separatism and sabotage are an extremely small number,” Bekri said.

“They may be Uighurs, but they can’t represent Uighurs. They are the scum of the Uighurs,” Bekri said.

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US/IRAQ: Female suicide bombers (Paris, International Herald, 080304)

Oxford Analytica

US/IRAQ: Female suicide bombers An increasing share of the suicide bombings that occur in Iraq are conducted by women. US and Iraqi policymakers have noted the phenomenon, which has also developed in Pakistan, but have offered differing explanations as to whether it signals the weakness of militant groups, or if it is simply an effective terrorist tactical innovation.

Since March 2003, when the US war in Iraq began, the percentage of terrorist suicide attacks carried out by women has inexorably increased; women now account for more than a quarter of such bombings (28%). Last year marked a new record for both the number of such attacks carried out by women and the death toll. More than a dozen women have already executed attacks this year, which suggests the upward trend will continue, unless security officials, the Iraqi government, and the international community develop effective counter-measures.

More than a decade of research by RAND experts on women in conflict zones — particularly the role of women in suicide bombing — indicates that most of the psychological factors that have stimulated such acts in the past are present in Iraq.

Murderous motives. Over the past year, the publicly available data on Iraqi suicide bombers has shown that the involvement of women has been responsible for the persistently high level of such attacks. RAND research suggests that there are several psychological motivators that are particularly relevant in Iraq:

• Maternal love and loss. A cathartic desire for revenge appears to have motivated several mothers, who had lost children to sectarian violence, to become suicide bombers. The especially high value assigned to sons in Iraqi culture is a particularly strong driver; losing a beloved son appears to have been a common denominator among many of the attackers who were mothers. One former professor at Baghdad University, who has surveyed bombings by women, said that mothers who had lost sons often saw “no reason to live” beyond a desire for revenge. • Xenophobia and nationalism. During the rule of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, many women were given light arms training to protect their families against the threat of an Iranian invasion — particularly during the nearly decade-long Iran-Iraq war (1980-88). Today, many of these women have assumed responsibility for protecting their families (ie after a husband dies or is otherwise absent) against sectarian attacks and the perceived threat posed by the presence of foreign troops. Some of these women are also die-hard Iraqi nationalists. For example, the first suicide attack by two women, in March 2003, involved bombers who asserted that it was their duty to save their country from the US-led occupation. Particularly in the early days of the conflict, many other Iraqi women expressed a primal fear of being ruled by an external force — and were thus willing to condone otherwise unthinkable acts of violence.

• ‘Cleansing’ exercise. Suicide terrorism as an act of culturally motivated desperation also applies to Iraq’s women. Like many Muslim women, Iraqi females guard their chastity. When this chastity is perceived to have been blotched by sinful acts, women can be manipulated to perceive violence as a way to ‘free’ or cleanse themselves of such transgressions — thus, suicide becomes an act of restitution. This form of atonement through bloodletting sometime echoes the exhortations of certain Iranian-trained female Shia scholars — particularly during religious holidays, such as the month of Muharram and the day of Ashura, which feature both mourning and vows of atonement. During this period Iranian imama (female religious leaders) have sometimes directed vitriolic speeches at both US military forces and Iraq’s Sunni population. These enjoinders can tip sentiment among a few Shia women — those who suffer from strong feelings of religious guilt or shame — towards suicidal violence.

• Exploitation. The bombing conducted last month by two women with Down’s Syndrome involved a more simple, and common, abuse of vulnerable women by terrorist groups. This is not a new trend; Iraqi hospital administrators have occasionally ‘exchanged’ physically and mentally disabled patients for money, and these individuals may sometimes end up in the custody of insurgents. However, the insurgents’ exploitation of handicapped Iraqi women reveals a desolation and despair not often present in other conflicts. Countering the threat of suicide attacks by Iraqi women who are fully cognisant of their actions is difficult enough for US and Iraqi security forces; halting bombings by handicapped people who do not understand how they are being exploited may be even more challenging.

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Al Qaeda Seeks Tech Geeks to Run Multimedia Wing (Foxnews, 080306)

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — In an Internet age, Al Qaeda prizes geek jihadis as much as would-be homicide bombers and gunmen. The terror network is recruiting computer-savvy technicians to produce sophisticated Web documentaries and multimedia products aimed at Muslim audiences in the United States, Britian and other Western countries.

Already, the terror movement’s al-Sahab production company is turning out high quality material, some of which rivals productions by Western media companies. The documentaries appear regularly on Islamist Web sites, which Al Qaeda uses to recruit followers and rally its supporters.

That requires people whose skills go beyond planting bombs and ambushing American patrols in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“The Al Qaeda men who are coming today are not farmers, illiterate people,” said Qari Mohammed Yusuf, an Afghan and self-declared al-Sahab cameraman. “They are Ph.D.s, professors who know about this technology. Day by day they are coming. Al Qaeda has asked them to come.”

It was impossible to verify Yusuf’s claim, although a former police chief in Yusuf’s home province of Kunduz verified his links to Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Yusuf’s information has proven reliable in the past.

Nevertheless, Western experts who monitor Islamist Web sites say the technical quality of Al Qaeda postings — including those from Iraq and Afghanistan— has dramatically increased from the grainy, amateurish images that were the hallmark of al-Sahab’s work only a few years ago.

Now, postings are often in three languages — Arabic, English and Urdu, the language of Pakistan where Al Qaeda hopes to draw fresh recruits. Videos look like professionally edited documentaries or television news broadcasts, with flashy graphics, maps in the background and split screens.

Footage lifted from Arab and Western television is often interlaced into the videos — and al-Sahab appears to have a wide-ranging video library.

A speech by deputy Al Qaeda leader Aymen Al-Zawahiri issued to mark last year’s 9-11 anniversary included U.S. television interviews with wounded American soldiers, CIA analysts and talking-head journalists and experts, excerpts from a President Bush press conference, audiotape of Malcolm X, even old World War II footage — all edited in to back Al-Zawahiri’s case that the United States is losing the war on terror.

“What has changed dramatically is the quality, with documentaries and messages sometimes in three languages,” said Rita Katz, director of SITE Intelligence Group, a U.S. terrorism research center. “They are trying to outreach to as many people as possible.”

Use of the Internet enables Al Qaeda to reach a broad global audience within the worldwide Muslim community rather than having to rely on Arabic language satellite stations, whose audiences are limited to the Middle East and who exercise some degree of editorial control.

“What is really amazing to me is watching how would-be terrorists living in the West are drawn in and captivated by al-Sahab videos,” said Evan Kohlmann, a terror consultant for Globalterroralert.com.

He said watching al-Sahab videos eventually leads some Muslim youth in the West into “making official contact with the Al Qaeda organization.”

Katz said the quality of some recent al-Sahab productions was “good enough to be on the Discovery Channel.”

“We are not talking about people who don’t know technology,” she said. “They are very skilled. Al-Sahab must have a large team of people who have specific computer skills. These type of technically adept individuals are in high demand by Al Qaeda.”

At the same time, the number of top quality Al Qaeda productions is on the rise.

According to the IntelCenter, a private U.S. counterterrorism organization, Al Qaeda’s propaganda wing produced and posted 74 video programs last year, an increase of 16 over 2006.

“It is clear that significant resources and efforts are being expended by al-Sahab to produce and release more videos than ever before and with consistently faster turnaround times than ever previously seen,” IntelCenter said in a report last year.

Interviewed in a car with tinted windows as it swerved through colorful buses and ox-drawn carts, the bearded Yusuf, dressed in the loose-fitting clothing of a Pakistani farmer, outlined how Al Qaeda has jumped into the Internet age.

Instead of elaborate studios and equipment, the geek jihadis use laptops, generators and the right software to edit their material. For transmission, all they need is a high-speed Internet connection, which is available at scores of Internet cafes in towns and cities throughout Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Yusuf, speaking in Pashto through an interpreter, boasted that he once transmitted video from an Internet cafe across the street from the Afghan Ministry of Interior in Kabul.

Katz said producing propaganda videos for al-Sahab is a three-step process.

The first is to shoot the video. The second step — the most time-consuming — is to edit and produce the material, a process which requires skilled technicians but can be done in a simple mud hut anywhere in Afghanistan or the rugged border area of Pakistan.

Once the material is ready, step three is transmitting through an Internet cafe.

“The al-Sahab man doesn’t have to lug his computer on his back into the cafe,” Katz said. “All he needs is a small USB stick and the high-speed Internet connection.”

Al Qaeda technicians have also become skilled at evading American detection techniques. Katz said they often use techniques such as “proxy servers” to disguise the point of origin. Documentaries are sent in multiple files to improve security.

“The al-Sahab people know and study technology, the latest law enforcement techniques,” Katz said. “They know they can transfer files and they know not to transfer the entire file, to divide it into small pieces that eventually is stored in a single location.”

Yusuf said Al Qaeda maintains its own cyberspace library, storing material in a secret server or servers so that the al-Sahab members do not have to keep incriminating material on their own laptops.

“There is a plan to make al-Sahab very big,” Yusuf said. “It is part of the strategy. There are two parts. One is the fighting and the other part of the war is the media. We should carry out the media war because it inspires our people to come and fight.”

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Al-Qaida-linked group behind China plots? Beijing claims it thwarted 2 attacks originating in Muslim region (WorldNetDaily, 080310)

Two thwarted attacks reported by Chinese authorities over the weekend appear at first glance to be isolated incidents, but they both originated in a region where Beijing has been battling a terrorist movement with ties to al-Qaida, reports Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.

One attack reportedly was slated for the Beijing Summer Olympics. In the other, an airliner flight crew prevented an apparent attempt to crash a jetliner.

According to news reports, the plotters of the alleged Olympics attack were “separatists” from the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Beijing’s term for Chinese Turkestan. The jetliner took off from the region’s capital, Urumqi.

In the Muslim-populated region, China has been battling an al-Qaida-linked jihadist group called the East Turkestan Islamic Movement. The ETIM is recognized by the U.S., China, Kazakhstan, and the U.N. as a terrorist group.

The U.S. State Department stated in its 2005 annual report on terrorism that ETIM that al-Qaida provided the group with training and funding.

In 2002, the Chinese government claimed that the group’s founder, Hasan Mahsum, met with al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and received funds from the terror leaders. The Chinese also claimed that bin Laden exported dozens of terrorists to China to assist ETIM efforts.

In the alleged Olympics plot, investigators found “extremist religious ideological materials.”

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Archbishop kidnapped in Iraq is found dead (Paris, International Herald, 080313)

ROME: A Chaldean Catholic archbishop kidnapped in Iraq last month has been found dead, the news agency of Italian bishops’ conference said Thursday.

The SIR news agency said Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho was found dead near the Iraqi city of Mosul, from where he had been abducted Feb. 29.

“Monsignor Rahho is dead. We have found him lifeless near Mosul,” the agency quoted the auxiliary bishop of Baghdad, Monsignor Shlemon Warduni, as saying. “The kidnappers had buried him.”

Rahho was kidnapped soon after he left Mass in Mosul. Three people who had been with him were killed by the kidnappers. Pope Benedict XVI immediately called for his release, and said the abduction was an “abominable” act.

The Chaldean church is an Eastern-rite denomination that recognizes the authority of the pope and is aligned with Rome.

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China says 19-year-old woman confessed to terror plot on plane (Paris, International Herald, 080327)

BEIJING: A 19-year-old woman has confessed to attempting to hijack and crash a Chinese passenger plane that had to be diverted earlier this month after suspicious liquid was found on board, Xinhua, the government news agency, said Thursday.

Xinhua said the woman confessed to a “terrorist” attempt on the March 7 flight to Beijing from Urumqi, the capital of China’s mostly Muslim Xinjiang region. The flight was diverted to Lanzhou, in the western province of Gansu, after one or more passengers were found with suspicious liquids.

The woman is from China’s Turkic Muslim Uighur minority, Xinhua said, and officials have called the attack part of a terrorist campaign to turn the region into an independent nation called East Turkestan.

China frequently says people have confessed to crimes. It was impossible to know whether the woman had a lawyer to comment on her case.

China Central Television reported Thursday that the plot was a terrorist attack that had been organized and premeditated.

A male suspect previously confessed to masterminding the plot to crash the China Southern flight, but no further details have been released.

The unidentified woman had drained soda cans, used a syringe to fill them with gasoline and poured out the contents in the plane’s bathroom, next to the fuel-filled wings, the state-run Global Times newspaper reported Wednesday.

A flight attendant who smelled the gasoline and discovered the woman was awarded 120,000 yuan, or about $17,000, for her effort, The Southern Metropolitan Daily said Thursday. The crew was given 400,000 yuan in total, the paper said.

Xinjiang is a predominantly Muslim region with a culture that is distinct from that of China’s ethnic Han majority. Uighurs have been sentenced to long prison terms or death on separatism charges. Use of the Uighur language is declining in schools and China’s ethnic Han majority dominates the region’s economy and government.

China responded to the incident by stepping up security at its airports, on top of stringent security plans being put in place for the Olympic Games in August. Passengers have been banned from carrying any kind of liquid aboard domestic flights, and passenger and luggage searches have been increased.

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Al Qaeda’s Zawahri: Militant Organization Doesn’t Kill Innocents; Threatens Egypt (Foxnews, 080402)

[KH: Of course, all non-Muslims are guilty.]

CAIRO, Egypt — Al Qaeda No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri responded to criticism Wednesday about the organization’s notoriously brutal tactics, maintaining that it does not kill innocents, in hour-and-a half-long audio response to questions submitted to the movement on extremist Web sites.

The audio message, which was accompanied by a 46-page English transcript, was the first installment of answers to a raft of online questions and focused mainly on future Al Qaeda efforts elsewhere in the region, particularly Egypt.

“We haven’t killed the innocents, not in Baghdad nor in Morocco, nor in Algeria, nor anywhere else,” he said according to the English transcript which, like the audio message, appeared on Web sites linked to the group.

The answer was in response to the question “excuse me, Mr. Zawahri, but who is it who is killing with Your Excellency’s blessing the innocents in Baghdad, Morocco and Algeria?”

Al Qaeda has taken credit for the destruction of the World Trade Center which killed nearly 3,000 people in New York City in 2001, while its affiliates in Iraq, Afghanistan and Algeria regularly set off explosives in crowded urban areas that have taken thousands of lives.

“If there is any innocent who was killed in the Mujahideen’s operations, then it was either an unintentional error or out of necessity,” Zawahri added.

He went on to say that it was their opponents who killed innocents and also noted that “the enemy intentionally takes up positions in the midst of the Muslims for them to be human shields for him.”

Zawahri reassured many of the questioners, who seemed worried about the direction of the organization, that the global jihad was on track and would soon expand elsewhere.

“I expect the Jihadi influence to spread after the Americans’ exit from Iraq, and to move towards Jerusalem,” he said to those asking when attacks on Israel would take place.

He also predicted the end of the Saudi state, which is “swimming against the tide of history” and the government of his native Egypt, which he called a “corrupt, rotten regime (that) cannot possibly continue.”

Many of the questions he chose to answer focused on restarting the jihad in Egypt, which Zawahri himself helped begin and was crushed by the government in the 1990s.

“The days will reveal to you what you didn’t know, and news will come to you from those who didn’t have it,” he said quoting an old Arabic proverb, about when the jihad would begin again in Egypt, and counseled patience.

Egypt’s plainclothes State Security officers and uniformed police were declared “permissible to kill” in the struggle for Egypt and he hinted that he had supporters in the Egyptian army, like the man who assassinated former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981.

“The Egyptian army which produced Khalid al-Islambouli ... continues to be full of those whose hearts boil with jealousy for Islam and Muslims and who long for the opportunity to remove the corrupt gang which rules Egypt,” he said.

Though the tape could not be independently verified, the message bore the logo of the Al Qaeda’s media arm, al-Sahab, and appeared on Web sites linked to the organization.

Al-Zawahri said he chose around 100 questions to answer.

Al-Sahab, announced in December that al-Zawahri would take questions from the public posted on Islamic militant Web sites and would respond “as soon as possible.”

Zawahri also addressed the issue of Al Qaeda’s founder, Usama bin Laden, assuring supporters that the reclusive leader was in good health.

“Sheik Osama bin Laden is healthy and well, by the grace of Allah,” he said, while noting he would not be there forever. “He must die one day, whereas Allah’s religion will remain.”

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Denmark evacuates embassies in Algeria and Afghanistan (Paris, International Herald, 080423)

COPENHAGEN, Denmark: Denmark has evacuated staff from its embassies in Algeria and Afghanistan because of terror threats following the reprint in Danish newspapers of a caricature depicting the Prophet Muhammad, officials said Wednesday.

Embassy employees in the Algerian capital, Algiers, and the Afghan capital, Kabul, would continue to work out of “secret locations” in those cities, and would be reachable by phone and e-mail, Foreign Ministry spokesman Erik Laursen said.

The threat “is so concrete that we had to take this decision,” Laursen told The Associated Press. “The decision is based on intelligence,” he added, declining to elaborate.

The Netherlands took similar precautions, announcing Wednesday that it had closed its embassy’s offices in Kabul two days earlier after reassessing the security situation in the Afghan capital.

Last week, Dutch Embassy personnel in Pakistan shifted to a luxury hotel in Islamabad due to heightened security concerns following the release of a film critical of the Quran, the Islamic holy book, by Dutch parliament member Geert Wilders.

The Netherlands has stationed 1,600 combat troops with the NATO-led security force in southern Afghanistan.

In Copenhagen, Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller suggested Danish embassies in other locations also could be forced to relocate their staff following a warning last month by al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

“There has been a general threat from al-Qaida which means that their cells or people who sympathize with them around the world will try to see where they can fulfill al-Qaida’s desires,” Moeller said in a TV interview. “Therefore I can certainly not say that they are the last two embassies (to be evacuated).”

In an audio recording posted on a militant Web site on March 19, bin Laden warned of a “severe” reaction against Europe over the republishing of the cartoon.

Danish intelligence officials have warned of an “aggravated” terror threat against Denmark because of the Feb. 13 reprinting of the drawing, which showed Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban. It was one of the 12 Danish prophet cartoons that sparked riots in the Muslim world in 2006.

More than a dozen newspapers reprinted the cartoon, saying they wanted to support free speech after police revealed a plot to kill the creator of the caricature.

Islamic law generally opposes any depiction of the prophet, even favorable, for fear it could lead to idolatry.

The Foreign Ministry said in a statement Wednesday that employees had been moved from the Danish embassies in Algiers and Kabul “because of terror threats.”

Laursen said the employees in Algiers were relocated “some days ago,” while the staff in Kabul was moved Wednesday.

“Right now, we are in places that we consider safe,” he said.

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Finding Nemo, the Terrorist Librarian (Foxnews, 080821)

As the war on terror continues to infiltrate the blogosphere, an increasing presence in the jihadi movement is a virtual terrorist who uses the nom de guerre Nemo.

Nemo — a name snatched from the title character of the 2003 Disney/Pixar movie “Finding Nemo” — has compiled a comprehensive archive of virtual terrorist training manuals and posted them all online.

In the past, many of these manuals and guidebooks, which contain hundreds of thousands of documents and offer would-be jihadis step-by-step guides on ways to hone their skills, were scattered across many Web sites and domains.

But Nemo regularly posts his findings among a network of some 25 radical bulletin boards, lobbying the Al Qaeda cause to select Internet users. He’s now the ultimate “Jihobbyist,” according to Jarret Brachman, a fellow with the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point.

“For Nemo, producing Al Qaeda propaganda has become a way of life,” Brachman said. “He has compiled so much relevant, ideological material and made it so widely available, that thinking of him as a simple propagandist would be understating the contribution that he’s made for groups like Al Qaeda.”

Documents and videos posted online and reviewed by FOXNews.com give detailed instructions for:

— Firing rocket propelled grenades,

— Pinpointing the most vulnerable armor on military vehicles;

— Making improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and roadside bombs;

— Manufacturing explosives using household chemicals.

In one of Nemo’s Web postings, FOXNews.com found a document, written in English, that describes the science behind building a nuclear bomb — how to detonate it, the damage done by various yields of uranium or plutonium, and when and how to attach fuses to the detonating charge.

Such information may help facilitate the production of a so-called “dirty bomb” — a weapon that combines radioactive material with conventional explosives, although Brachman said he doesn’t see it as a viable how-to guide.

Of greater concern to Brachman is the possibility that Nemo will gain access and begin to pass around more potentially dangerous information.

“There are a lot more sophisticated treatments of the science behind weaponry available on private Web pages and academic journals,” he said.

Nemo doesn’t limit himself to using the Internet as a storage facility for his training materials. There’s evidence he is also advocating using the Web’s commercial technology to plan attacks.

In July, the Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) found a message on a Jihadi bulleting board — apparently written by Nemo, using one of his aliases, “Ozooo” — in which he calls for terrorists to use mapping tools such as WikiMapia to identify and photograph strategic military installations.

Nemo included as an example a WikiMapia photo of a supposed NATO military base in the Middle East.

Not much is known about Nemo, an elusive, almost mythical character among intelligence operatives and the blogosphere. On some Web sites he uses a picture of the Nemo cartoon character to represent himself; at other times he posts a picture of a man in Arab headdress, his face partly obscured.

According to Jane’s Security News, Nemo may be Palestinian, based on some of his clothing seen in pictures. He could be called Yousef and be in his early 20s, based on one of his e-mail addresses. There is reportedly some evidence that he has a young daughter.

“The masked photos that permeate his Web sites seem to be of himself — unless it’s a security ploy,” Brachman said. “What you tend to see with jihadist Internet propagandists is a combination of youthful rage and an intense ego complex. This guy really seems to have a high feeling of self-worth, a lot of time on his hands and a dark sense of humor. Beyond a rough sketch, there’s not much more known about him in the open-source community.”

Nemo is little known on English language sites catering to extremists views, but he seems to have found his niche among the Arabic-language sites and stealthily moves among their Web forums.

He is also reportedly building his own Web site, although the URL neither works nor gives any indication that it is under construction.

The threat posed by the relative ease of access to terrorist training manuals has not gone unnoticed by politicians, academics, the intelligence community or law enforcement agencies.

In November, the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing and Terrorism Risk Assessment heard testimony about the online jihadi threat.

Information provided by Rita Katz and Josh Devon from the SITE (Search for International Terrorist Entities) Institute outlined the extent to which the virtual world is being used by terror groups to communicate, share information and avoid traditional meetings or training camps.

The SITE Institute experts also described a system of online message boards, protected by passwords, that jihadis use to talk to each other, often in code to avoid easy interception of details.

Experts say we’ve come a long way since the first online manual was posted. The first collated manual for terrorist training was said to be the “Encyclopedia of Jihad,” written by mujahideen in Afghanistan during their guerrilla fight against the occupying Soviet military in the 1980s.

That manual, which was scanned and posted online, was of poor quality, but it has since been rewritten and published in the more Internet-friendly PDF format.

These days, virtual jihadis and “terror librarians” like Nemo are publishing much more sophisticated training manuals.

Many are posted online as videos, and show detailed instructions on how to make a particular weapon or explosive, or show an attack and its aftermath as proof that the weapon can be successfully used in the field against “enemy” targets.

The Web site postings maintained by Nemo highlight numerous short video clips. Many videos are already in the public domain, perhaps gathered from news footage or academic sources, but are often “hijacked” by the virtual jihadis with their own graphics, voiceovers and music.

For now, Nemo remains at large. He continues to expand his online library of training materials, his Web sites acting as a one-stop-shop for would-be terrorists. His identity remains unknown as he urges fellow terrorists to use the Internet and technological tools to aid their jihadi cause.

Brachman doesn’t underestimate Nemo’s importance for keeping “the wind in Al Qaeda’s sails.”

“It’s guys like him,” he says, “that help to keep the true believers hooked and help to bring the fence-sitters in.”

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At Least 60 Dead in Huge Blast at Pakistan Hotel (Foxnews, 080920)

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A huge truck bomb devastated the Marriott Hotel in Pakistan’s capital Saturday, creating a chaotic, fiery scene as rescue crews searched for survivors. At least 60 people reportedly have been killed, including one American.

The blast left a 30-foot deep crater in front of the main building, where flames poured from the windows and rescuers ferried a stream of bloodied bodies from the gutted building — which was in danger of collapsing.

The five-floor Marriott in Islamabad is a favorite place for foreigners as well as Pakistani politicians and business people to stay and socialize, despite repeated militant attacks. It served as the de facto back office for the international media during the 2001 war against the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan.

More than a hundred were injured, and two hospitals told the Associated Press that 10 foreigners were among those in their treatment, including one each from Germany, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Afghanistan.

A hospital official told FOX News that one unidentified American was among the dead, and Al Jazeera reported that five Americans were wounded in the blast.

Senior Police Official Asghar Raza Gardaizi said the blast, which reverberated throughout Islamabad, was caused by more than 2,204 pounds of explosives.

Police sought in vain to shoo away bystanders and reporters for fear of gas leaks and that the building might collapse. Army engineers were heading to the scene to help look for anyone trapped in the rubble.

The attack came hours after new President Asif Ali Zardari addressed Parliament for the first time and underscored the fragility of his administration as the country finds its footing after a decade of military rule.

Leaders of Pakistan’s civilian government stated their determination to combat terrorism, though the country’s seven-year alliance with the United States has come under strain over U.S. threats to attack militants in the lawless tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.

Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani strongly condemned the attack in a statement.

“This is terrorism and we have to fight it together as a nation,” Rehman Malik, the head of Pakistan’s Interior Ministry, told reporters at a hospital overflowing with the injured.

Witnesses and officials said a large truck rammed the high metal gate of the hotel at about 8 p.m. (1400 GMT), when the restaurants would have been packed with diners, including Muslims breaking the Ramadan fast.

Gardaizi said rescuers had counted at least 40 bodies, and he feared that there “dozens more dead inside.” Many of the dead were security personnel.

Witnesses spoke of a smaller blast followed by a much larger one.

A U.S. State Department official using a section of white pipe as a walking stick led three colleagues through the rubble from the charred building, one of them bleeding heavily from a wound on the side of his head.

One of the four, who identified himself only as Tony, said they had begun moving toward the rear of the Chinese restaurant after the first blast when the second one threw them against the back wall.

“Then we saw a big truck coming to the gates,” he said. “After that, it was just smoke and darkness.”

U.S. embassy spokesman Lou Fintor said officials were trying to account for embassy staff and any other Americans affected. He said he had no other details.

Ambulances rushed to the area, picking their way through the charred carcasses of vehicles that had been in the street outside. Windows in buildings hundreds of meters away were shattered.

Mohammad Sultan, a hotel employee, said he was in the lobby when something exploded, he fell down and everything temporarily went dark.

“I didn’t understand what it was, but it was like the world is finished,” he said.

Tropical fish from the tanks inside lay among the torn furnishings in the entrance area. Scorched tree limbs from trees near the hotel were tossed hundreds of yards.

Malik told the AP that it was unclear who was behind the attack, but that authorities had received intelligence that there might be militant activity due to Zardari’s inaugural address to Parliament earlier Saturday. Security had been tightened, he said.

In his speech, Zardari vowed not to let terrorists use Pakistani territory. However, he also warned that the government would not allow “any power” to violate Pakistan’s sovereignty — a reference to U.S. strikes across the border from Afghanistan that Pakistani officials warn will fan Islamic extremism.

Pakistan has faced a wave of militant violence in recent months following army-led offensives against insurgents in its border regions, including several in the capital.

In July, a suicide bombing killed at least 18 people, most of them security forces, and wounded dozens in Islamabad as supporters of the Red Mosque gathered nearby to mark the anniversary of the military siege on the militant stronghold.

In June, a suicide car bomber killed at least six people near the Danish Embassy in Islamabad. A statement attributed to Al Qaeda took responsibility for that blast, believed to have targeted Denmark over the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.

In mid-March, a bomb explosion at an Italian restaurant killed a Turkish woman in the capital, and wounded 12 others, including four FBI officials.

IntelCenter, a group which monitors Al Qaeda communications, said senior Al Qaeda leader Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, who claimed the Danish Embassy bombing, threatened additional attacks against Western interests in Pakistan in a video timed to the recent anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

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Bush 7, Terrorists 0 (townhall.com, 080911)

by Ann Coulter

Morose that there hasn’t been another terrorist attack on American soil for seven long years, liberals were ecstatic when Hurricane Gustav was headed toward New Orleans during the Republican National Convention last week. The networks gave the hurricane plenty of breaking-news coverage — but unfortunately it was Hurricane Katrina from 2005 they were covering.

On Keith Olbermann’s Aug. 29 show on MSNBC, Michael Moore said the possibility of a Category 3 hurricane hitting the United States “is proof that there is a God in heaven.” Olbermann responded: “A supremely good point.”

Actually, Olbermann said that a few minutes later to some other idiotic point Moore had made, but that’s how Moore would have edited the interview for one of his “documentaries,” so I will, too. I would only add that Michael Moore’s morbid obesity is proof that there is a Buddha.

Hurricane Gustav came and went without a hitch. What a difference a Republican governor makes!

As many have pointed out, the reason elected officials tend to neglect infrastructure projects, like reinforcing levees in New Orleans and bridges in Minneapolis, is that there’s no glory when a bridge doesn’t collapse. There are no round-the-clock news specials when the levees hold. You can’t even name an overpass retrofitting project after yourself — it just looks too silly. But everyone’s taxes go up to pay for the reinforcements.

Preventing another terrorist attack is like that. There is no media coverage when another 9/11 doesn’t happen. We can thank God that President George Bush didn’t care about doing the safe thing for himself; he cared about keeping Americans safe. And he has, for seven years.

If Bush’s only concern were about his approval ratings, like a certain impeached president I could name, he would not have fought for the Patriot Act and the war in Iraq. He would not have resisted the howling ninnies demanding that we withdraw from Iraq, year after year. By liberals’ own standard, Bush’s war on terrorism has been a smashing, unimaginable success.

A year after the 9/11 attack, The New York Times’ Frank Rich was carping about Bush’s national security plans, saying we could judge Bush’s war on terror by whether there was a major al-Qaida attack in 2003, which — according to Rich — would have been on al-Qaida’s normal schedule.

Rich wrote: “Since major al-Qaida attacks are planned well in advance and have historically been separated by intervals of 12 to 24 months, we will find out how much we’ve been distracted soon enough.” (“Never Forget What?” New York Times, Sept. 14, 2002.)

There wasn’t a major al-Qaida attack in 2003. Nor in 2004, 2005, 2006 or 2007. Manifestly, liberals thought there would be: They announced a standard of success that they expected Bush to fail.

As Bush has said, we have to be right 100% of the time, the terrorists only have to be right one time. Bush has been right 100% of the time for seven years — so much so that Americans have completely forgotten about the threat of Islamic terrorism.

For his thanks, President Bush has been the target of almost unimaginable calumnies — the sort of invective liberals usually reserve for seniors who don’t separate their recyclables properly. Compared to liberals’ anger at Bush, there has always been something vaguely impersonal about their “anger” toward the terrorists.

By my count, roughly one in four books in print in the world at this very moment have the words “Bush” and “Lie” in their title. Barnes & Noble has been forced to add an “I Hate Bush” section. I don’t believe there are as many anti-Hitler books.

Despite the fact that Hitler brought “change,” promoted clean, energy-efficient mass transit by making the trains run on time, supported abortion for the non-master races, vastly expanded the power of the national government and was uniformly adored by college students and their professors, I gather that liberals don’t like Hitler because they’re constantly comparing him to Bush.

The ferocity of the left’s attacks on Bush even scared many of his conservative allies into turning on him over the war in Iraq.

George Bush is Gary Cooper in the classic western “High Noon.” The sheriff is about to leave office when a marauding gang is coming to town. He could leave, but he waits to face the killers as all his friends and all the townspeople, who supported him during his years of keeping them safe, slowly abandon him. In the end, he walks alone to meet the killers, because someone has to.

That’s Bush. Name one other person in Washington who would be willing to stand alone if he had to, because someone had to.

OK, there is one, but she’s not in Washington yet. Appropriately, at the end of “High Noon,” Cooper is surrounded by the last two highwaymen when, suddenly, his wife (Grace Kelly) appears out of nowhere and blows away one of the killers! The aging sheriff is saved by a beautiful, gun-toting woman.

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A Day That Will Live In... Accomodating Islam (townhall.com, 080911)

by Diana West

A high school sophomore asked me this week whether Sept. 11 would always be remembered. Would it always be, as she put it, “somber”?

Lacking a crystal ball, I have no answer. And, frankly, looking back seven years to that cataclysmic jihadist atrocity, I realize I’m probably not the most dependable prognosticator because never would I have imagined back in 2001 how successful that heinous strike would be in utterly changing us and our world.

Blame ignorance, blame cowardice: The strangest effect of 9/11 has been, on balance, an accelerated campaign of accommodation of Islam’s law in the West, a campaign boosted across the globe by the jihadist attacks of 3/11 (Madrid 2004) and 7/7 (London 2005) and many, many others. Paradoxically, such fast-track accommodation has occurred even as any and all connection between jihadist acts and Islam — specifically Islamic war doctrine — have been emphatically ruled out by our leaders, both civilian and military. It’s not that they have disproven the connection. Worse, they have chosen to ignore it.

With this in mind, it becomes possible to understand how President Bush could this week vaguely invoke the spirit of 9/11, as it were, to spur Americans to “volunteer” more. Similar statements came out of the presidential campaigns with Barack Obama also talking up the “spirit of service,” while he and John McCain jointly called on Americans to “renew” the unity of 9/11 (while honoring the dead, and grieving with those who lost loved ones). It’s not that we shouldn’t do such things — but to what end? I mean, was 9/11 a catastrophic hurricane, or a jihadist act of war?

Meanwhile, the undermining reach of Islamic law stretches across American society, from the hilltop farm in rural Vermont, where goats are now raised to be slaughtered according to Islamic law, to Wall Street, where once-mighty financial institutions, some of them having become trinkets of Islamic potentates, now adapt themselves to Sharia banking practices, to Washington, D.C., where stately government buildings have been ringed in quasi-medieval, high tech anti-jihad defenses. It may be politically incorrect to notice this expansion of Islamic influence in the West, but it is also extremely difficult not to notice it. Then again, perhaps due to a 9/11 numbing effect, too few of us do.

Just last month, for example, publishing heavyweight Random House pulled a romance novel about Muhammad from its fall line-up out of fear of Islamic violence in New York City — yawn. Also last month, Mazen Asbahi, Obama’s director of Muslim outreach, resigned over ties to the Muslim Brotherhood — snore. (According to Investor’s Business Daily, Asbahi continues to work in some capacity for the campaign.) Last spring, the U.S. government issued guidelines for the Department of Homeland Security and others that “suggest” such terms as “jihad” and “Islamic terrorism” not be used; snooze. Earlier this year, revelations that the No. 2 man at the Pentagon, Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England, was closely assisted by Hesham Islam, “an Islamist with a pro-Muslim Brotherhood bent who has brought in groups to the Pentagon who have been unindicted co-conspirators,” according to terror expert Steven Emerson, drew a big yawn, snores and a snooze.

Who could have imagined any of this, back when there was still a massive hole of burning ash at the bottom of Manhattan?

Today, of course, there is in downtown Manhattan a lavish memorial in the works, while at the Pentagon, what the Washington Post called “a memorial to loss” was unveiled this week. These and other such markers will note a day that will probably live on in somberness, to use the sophomore’s word, rather than in what an earlier generation might have described as infamy. As a society, we appear to have decided to remember 9/11 as something akin to a natural disaster that came and went rather than as a part of a diffuse but discernable push to advance the law of Islam.

I am struck by the sharp contrast between this perspective and a very different kind of 9/11 commemoration, this one planned for this year’s anniversary in Brussels.

According to initial press accounts, it was a small affair — just 50 people led by Flemish separatist leader Filip Dewinter of the Vlaams Belang party. Like last year, when this same group was brutally dispersed by Belgian police, they gathered in front of the World Trade Center in Brussels not only to mark the attacks on America but to protest the Islamization of Europe. Some number of them were arrested by the order of the mayor, who had earlier denied the group a permit for the demonstration, citing the possibility of violence over the “sensitivity” of the event, the proximity of “sensitive” neighborhoods (i.e., Muslim), and the season of Ramadan.

A somber day, indeed.

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The World Still Blames America (townhall.com, 080912)

by Michelle Malkin

Al-Qaida’s media relations department must be seething. Or rather, they must be seething beyond the usual Destroy America/Kill the Jews/Behead the Infidels/Convert-or-Die seething that is their second nature. After years of churning out throat-slitting propaganda videos, investing in the finest video editing software and studio sets, and establishing cozy relations with sympathetic international newspapers and global network news channels, the jihadists still don’t get no respect from world opinion.

They are the Rodney al-Dangerfields of global mass murderers.

A poll released this week of more than 16,000 people in 17 nations revealed that “majorities in only nine countries believe al-Qaida was behind the attacks on New York and Washington that killed about 3,000 people in 2001.” A mere 46% of individuals overall said they believed al-Qaida executed the attacks — despite all the back-patting, fist-pumping video productions from AQ’s media arm, al-Sahab, claiming credit.

In 2006, the AQ flacks released tape of Osama bin Laden at an Afghan training camp with several of the 9/11 hijackers. “I ask you to pray for them and to ask God to make them successful, aim their shots well, set their feet strong and strengthen their hearts,” bin Laden urged in the sicko promo. In April, another clip showed irate and aggrieved jihadi leader Ayman al-Zawahri lambasting Hezbollah for crediting Israel for the 9/11 attacks. “The purpose of this lie is clear — (to suggest) that there are no heroes among the Sunnis who can hurt America as no else did in history. Iranian media snapped up this lie and repeated it,” he griped.

But to no avail. Maybe this is why FBI Most Wanted Terrorist Adam Yahiye Gadahn, the American-born Muslim convert turned al-Qaida publicist, has not been heard from in a while. He’s been falling down on the job. Either that or those damned 9/11 Truther conspiracy nuts have surpassed the Islamic jihadis’ recruitment efforts on YouTube. Time to hire a new viral violence marketing team.

So, who’s stealing the bin Laden operation’s thunder around the globe and getting all the blame (er, credit) for the September 11 terrorist attacks? The citizens of the world have cast their vote. Seven years after Mohamed Atta, Hani Hanjour and their Allahu Akbar-screaming team succeeded in slaughtering nearly 3,000 innocent men, women and children, large numbers of our putative allies in the civilized world still blame America and Israel.

“Israel was behind the attacks, said 43% of people in Egypt, 31% in Jordan and 19% in the Palestinian Territories,” according to the survey. “The U.S. government was blamed by 36% of Turks and 27% of Palestinians.” The pollsters noted that no prompting was necessary: “These responses were given spontaneously to an open-ended question that did not offer response options.”

Among our great friends south of the border, Mexico boasted “the second-largest number citing the U.S. government as the perpetrator of 9/11 (30%, after Turkey at 36%). Only 33% name al-Qaida.” Which, of course, is no shock to those who remember when the U.S. soccer team was taunted with chants of “Osama! Osama! Osama!” after a match in Guadalajara four years ago; or when the team was booed again in 2005 and plastic bags filled with urine were reportedly tossed on American players.

They hate us. They still really, really hate us. And it is not all about Iraq. As a Mexican soccer fan told the Christian Science Monitor: “‘Every schoolboy knows about 1848. When they robbed our territory,’ referring to when Texas, California and New Mexico were annexed to the U.S. as part of a peace treaty ending the war between the two countries, ‘that was the beginning.’”

Not coincidentally, another world opinion poll was released this week that dovetails with the 9/11 survey. While the global community refuses to unite against al-Qaida as a common enemy to humanity, it has decided on who should be America’s next president. The BBC-commissioned poll named Barack Obama the world’s favorite candidate by an overwhelming margin of four to one. They see in their fellow “citizen of the world” a kindred spirit:

Someone whose former spiritual mentor shares the European elite’s “chickens coming home to roost” schadenfreude. Someone who has promoted the need for “empathy” toward the head-chopping jihadists. Someone who shares their fetishizing of terrorists as poor victims of imperialism in need of more “understanding” and “education.” Someone who cynically hawks “Buy American” campaign stickers while courting the “Blame America” Left at home and abroad.

Obama is their man. Never forget.

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16 are killed in attack on U.S. Embassy in Yemen (Paris, International Herald, 080917)

Heavily armed militants opened fire on the United States Embassy in Sana, Yemen, on Wednesday and detonated a car bomb at its gates, in an attack that left at least 16 people dead including six of the attackers, Yemeni officials said.

No Americans were killed or injured in the blast or when guards began to return fire, said a Yemeni official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter.

Yemeni security officials and witnesses said the death toll was at least 16, including four bystanders, one of them an Indian woman. The other dead were six attackers and six security guards, the Yemeni officials said, speaking in return for anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters.

Yemen’s official Saba news agency also reported that 16 people were killed.

Ryan Gliha, an embassy spokesman, said via e-mail that the attack took place at 9:15 a.m. The embassy would remain closed for now, he said, but gave no further details.

It was the deadliest attack in years on an American target in Yemen, a poor south Arabian country of 22 million where militants aligned with Al Qaeda have carried out a number of recent strikes.

The attack began when a car raced up to the heavily fortified embassy compound. Several attackers got out and began firing rocket-propelled grenades and automatic rifles at the guards who returned the fire, the Yemeni official said.

A second car then drove into the compound’s gate and exploded in what appeared to be a suicide bombing, the official said.

The attack was especially shocking to many Yemenis because it came during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Yemen has long been viewed as a haven for jihadists. It became a special concern for the United States in 2000, after Al Qaeda operatives rammed the U.S.S. Cole in Aden harbor, on Yemen’s southern coast, killing 17 American sailors.

After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Yemen actively pursued a counter-terrorism partnership with the United States, and its American-trained forces have had some important successes in fighting militants.

But over the past two years, jihadists claiming allegiance to Al Qaeda appear to have reorganized, releasing more propaganda material on the Internet and carrying out attacks.

In July 2007, suicide bombers killed eight Spanish tourists in eastern Yemen, and there were two unsuccessful attacks on oil installations.

Earlier this year there were several attacks on foreign embassies. In March, mortars fired at the U.S. Embassy compound in Sana struck a nearby school for girls instead, killing a security guard and wounding more than a dozen students.

The U.S. compound has also been the scene of occasional political violence in previous years, including a large demonstration against the American-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, in which two Yemenis were fatally shot and dozens injured.

Yemen has also faced serious security threats on other fronts, including an intermittent rebellion in the north that has kept the country’s military engaged, and continuing riots and instability in the south.

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Charles Dickens Hearts David Zucker (townhall.com, 080917)

by Kathleen Parker

Americans numbed by the daily barrage of politics-as-usual are about to be awakened by some new fireworks — Hollywood-style.

Imagine documentary filmmaker Michael Moore and director David Zucker (“Airplane!” and “The Naked Gun”) in the center ring and you begin to get the idea.

Zucker’s new movie, “An American Carol” (due in theaters Oct. 3), is a shot across Hollywood’s bow, aimed directly at Moore. No slouch in self-defense — or self-promotion — Moore will release his own online movie, “Slacker Uprising,” a few days before Zucker’s to reap the benefit of the backhanded buzz.

The release of both films has been timed for maximum impact on the coming election. No matter who wins this cultural crossfire, Zucker’s movie is revolutionary. He and co-writer Myrna Sokoloff (a former staffer for California Sen. Barbara Boxer), and other Hollywood renegades from the left who were mugged by reality on 9/11, are busting out of the closet — with a serious case of the giggles.

Agree or not with their politics, they’re not nobodies who can be ignored or dismissed as witless. Producer Stephen McEveety’s resume includes such mega-hits as “Braveheart” and “The Passion of the Christ.” Actors include Jon Voight, Dennis Hopper, Kelsey Grammer, James Woods, Kevin Farley and perennial villain Robert Davi.

As the title suggests, the story line is based on Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” Ghosts of the past — George Washington (Voight), Gen. George S. Patton (Grammer) and John F. Kennedy (Chriss Anglin) — squire America-bashing filmmaker “Michael Malone” around to see how the world would look if America hadn’t bothered to fight any wars.

Malone, brilliantly played by Farley, has joined forces with a left-wing group, MoveAlong.org, to ban the Fourth of July. He also has been hired by terrorists to make a propaganda film to help recruit a diminishing supply of suicide bombers.

And you thought suicide bombers weren’t funny.

The joke begins when two would-be terrorists enter a New York City subway station and are met at a security checkpoint by two NYPD officers. Just as they’re about to be searched, in rushes a squad of ACLU attorneys with a stop-search order.

“Thank Allah for the ACLU,” says one of the terrorists — and we’re off!

The vignettes keep coming so fast, it’s hard to keep up.

One memorable scene has “Rosie O’Connell” appearing on “The O’Reilly Factor” to promote her new documentary, “The Truth About Radical Christians.” The documentary shows two priests who hijack an airplane and storm the cockpit brandishing crucifixes. Next, we see two nuns festooned with explosives boarding a bus as passengers shout: “Oh no! Not the Christians!”

Another standout has Patton’s ghost showing Malone a modern-day plantation full of happy cotton pickers who thank Malone for being such a humane slave owner. Malone staggers at the sight only to learn that this is his plantation and these are his slaves — thanks to anti-war sentiment that prevented the Civil War.

In a line that filmmakers are still debating whether to cut, a smiling Gary Coleman finishes polishing a car and tosses his rag to someone: “Hey, Barack!”

No, he didn’t say that. Yes. He. Did.

That’s the movie, folks. In-your-face, off-the-charts, over-the-top, irreverent and insensitive in the extreme. “An American Carol” may not be The Best Movie You Ever Saw, but it’s something. It’s radical in its assault on the left wing; it’s brave given the risk of peer ridicule and the potential for career suicide.

And it’s funny — if you like that sort of thing. Generally, I don’t. As someone who is slapstick immune — and who hated “The Three Stooges” — I’m an unlikely cheerleader for this kind of film. But I admire its spirit.

“An American Carol” will probably be panned by jaded reviewers who will point out the film’s flaws. Some in the target audience may find certain elements too crude — nurses and doctors playing with an oversized derriere that’s been separated from the rest of the corpse.

But the film makes a serious and necessary point that can’t be missed amid the laughter and the outrage: America is not the enemy.

Zucker insists he needn’t be taken seriously, but he does believe that Islamist terrorism poses a greater threat than those Americans typically demonized by Hollywood and the left.

For delivering that message, maybe Zucker deserves not an Oscar, but a Nobel Prize.

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Indian Official Declares Seige Ended at Mumbai Hotel; Hostages Released at Three Sites; Indian Officials Probe Possible Pakistan Connection (Foxnews, 081127)

A high-ranking Indian state official says the siege has ended at Mumbai’s Taj Mahal hotel.

An official with the Maharashtra state home department, speaking on customary condition of anonymity, said there were no further details.

Sources tell FOX News that two of the last three gunmen were killed, but that there is one wounded militant still inside the hotel.

There are reports that the National Security Guard are trying to convince the remaining gunmen to surrendering.

The Times of India, meanwhile, is reporting that 70 hostages have been rescued at the nearby Trident Hotel, but that a fire continued to burn there and in the adjacent Oberoi hotel.

A state official also said eight hostages have been freed from the Mumbai headquarters of the ultra-orthodox Jewish outreach group Lubavitch Chabad, which is based in New York City.

Israeli Ambassador Sallai Meridor told FOX News that he was briefed by officials in Mumbai, and cannot confirm that all eight hostages at the center have been released.

There also were conflicting reports about whether there were any gunmen still inside the center.

In other developments:

— State Department officials say at least three Americans were injured in a wave of terrorist attacks that swept through an upscale district of Mumbai, India, Wednesday night.

There were unofficial reports that a few Americans may be among the 119 people so far reported killed in the attacks, but State Department spokesman Robert McInturff said the U.S. government has no information that any U.S. citizens died in the attacks and said that could not identify those who were injured.

U.S. officials have been checking with Indian authorities and hospitals to learn the extent of casualties involving Americans.

He said that U.S. officials also called American citizens who registered with the U.S. consulate there. McInturff also said

“We have a lot of dual citizens who travel a lot,” he said. “We have activated a phone tree. We’re taking names of those we have and see who they know.”

— The AP reported the death toll was 119, but NDTV reports 125 dead, including 14 policemen and six foreigners, though there were reports that as many as nine foreigners were killed. At least 335 people were reported wounded, a number that is expected to climb. Officials feared the death toll could also climb once the hotels were secured and security forces could conduct a room-by-room search.

The dead reportedly also included the chief of the city’s anti-terror squad.

— A FOXNews.com correspondent traveling in the region reports Indian authorities are looking into a possible Pakistan connection.

Local media reports one of the captured gunmen was identified as Abu Ismail, from Faridkot, Pakistan. Police reportedly intercepted communications between the terrorists, and that one of the gunmen instructed the others to say they were from Hyderabad, a major city in central India. The communication reportedly was in Punjab, which is not spoken in Hyderabad, but is spoken in Pakistan.

The Daily Mail reported the suspect may have been trained by Lashkar-e-Toiba, a militant group that operates training camps inside Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

— One of the gunmen in the Oberoi hotel, one of three buildings the terrorists occupied Wednesday night, reportedly told Indian TV that his hostages would only be released if “mujahideens” and Islamic militants were released from Indian jails.

“Release all the mujahideens, and Muslims living in India should not be troubled,” he said.

— Indian Coast Guard officials say they boarded the MV Alpha, a Vietnamese-registered ship that is suspected to have transported the terrorists who carried out the attacks. The ship was boarded about 70 miles off the east coast of India. Officials say the decapitated body of the ship’s captain was found onboard, and that the vessel probably carried the gunmen from a port in Gujarat, a peninsula in northwest India bordering Pakistan.

While state officials said the hostages held at the Jewish center were released, the nearby Israeli Embassy continued to express concern for its citizens. There were unconfirmed reports that some of the hostages at the Oberoi hotel were Israeli nationals.

— Reuters reports a militant at the Lubavitch Chabad Center phoned an Indian TV station with an offer to talk with government officials about the release of hostages.

The caller reportedly also complained about abuses in Indian Kashmir.

“Are you aware how many people have been killed in Kashmir?” the caller asked, speaking in Urdu. “Are you aware how your army has killed Muslims. Are you aware how many of them have been killed in Kashmir this week?”

Chabad spokesman Moni Ender in Israel said there were eight Israelis inside the house, including Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg and his wife.

The motive for the onslaught was not immediately clear, but Mumbai has frequently been targeted in terrorist attacks blamed on Islamic extremists, including a series of bombings in July 2006 that killed 187 people.

An Indian media report said a previously unknown group calling itself the Deccan Mujahideen claimed responsibility for the attacks in e-mails to several media outlets. There was no way to verify that claim.

A previously unknown group calling itself the Deccan Mujahideen claimed responsibility for the attacks in e-mails to several media outlets. While there was no way to verify that claim, security experts in India and U.S. speculated the group either is an Al Qaeda faction, or has the backing the Muslim terrorist group.

Magnus Ranstorp, a terrorism specialist with the Swedish National Defense College said the fact that Britons and Americans were singled out is one indicator of an Al Qaeda connection, along with the coordinated style of the attacks.

India’s prime minister blamed “external forces,” a veiled reference to Pakistan.

“The well-planned and well-orchestrated attacks, probably with external linkages, were intended to create a sense of panic, by choosing high profile targets and indiscriminately killing foreigners,” Singh said in address to the nation.

The gunmen appeared to be part of coordinated attacks on at least 10 sites that began around 9:30 p.m. Wednesday local time.

Police loudspeakers declared a curfew around Mumbai’s landmark Taj Mahal hotel, and black-clad commandos ran into the building as fresh gunshots rang out from the area, apparently the beginning of an assault on gunmen who had taken hostages in the hotel.

Soldiers outside the hotel said forces were moving slowly, from room to room, looking for gunmen and traps. At noon, two bodies covered with white cloth were wheeled out of the entrance and put in ambulances.

A series of explosions rocked the Taj Mahal just after midnight. Screams were heard and black smoke and flames billowed from the century-old edifice on Mumbai’s waterfront. Firefighters sprayed water at the blaze and plucked people from balconies with extension ladders. By dawn, the fire was still burning.

At the nearby upscale Oberoi hotel, soldiers could be seen on the roof of neighboring buildings. A banner hung out of one window read “save us.” No one could be seen inside the room from the road.

Officials at Bombay Hospital, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a Japanese man had died there and nine Europeans had been admitted, three of them in critical condition with gunshots. All had come from the Taj Mahal, the officials said.

At least three top Indian police officers — including the chief of the anti-terror squad — were among those killed, said and A.N. Roy, a top police official.

The attackers specifically targeted Britons, Americans and Israelis at the hotels and restaurant, witnesses said.

Alex Chamberlain, a British citizen who was dining at the Oberoi, told Sky News television that a gunman ushered 30 to 40 people from the restaurant into a stairway and, speaking in Hindi or Urdu, ordered everyone to put up their hands.

“They were talking about British and Americans specifically. There was an Italian guy, who, you know, they said: ‘Where are you from?” and he said he’s from Italy and they said ‘fine’ and they left him alone. And I thought: ‘Fine, they’re going to shoot me if they ask me anything — and thank God they didn’t,” he said.

Chamberlain said he managed to slip away as the patrons were forced to walk up stairs, but he thought much of the group was being held hostage.

The White House, meanwhile, said President Bush expressed condolences to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for the attacks.

Press secretary Dana Perino said the president had the conversation with the Indian leader while spending Thanksgiving Day with his family at the Camp David mountaintop retreat in Maryland.

Perino said that Bush offered Singh “support and assistance” as he works to restore order in the populous and growing Southwest Asian nation. The president also wished Singh success as Indian officials investigate “these despicable acts” in Mumbai.

Mumbai, on the western coast of India overlooking the Arabian Sea, is home to splendid Victorian architecture built during the British Raj and is one of the most populated cities in the world with some 18 million crammed into shantytowns, high rises and crumbling mansions. The Taj Mahal hotel, filled with Oriental carpets, Indian artifacts and alabaster ceilings, overlooks the fabled Gateway of India that commemorated the visit of King George V and Queen Mary.

A spokesman for the Lubavitch movement in New York, Rabbi Zalman Shmotkin, said attackers “stormed the Chabad house” in Mumbai.

“It seems that the terrorists commandeered a police vehicle which allowed them easy access to the area of the Chabad house and threw a grenade at a gas pump nearby,” he said.

State Home Minister R.R. Patil vowed to catch the terrorists, “dead or alive.” Patil told reporters. “An attack on Mumbai is an attack on the rest of the country.”

Indian authorities ordered schools and colleges and the Bombay Stock Exchange closed Thursday.

Blood smeared the grounds of the 19th century Chhatrapati Shivaji railroad station — a beautiful example of Victorian Gothic architecture — where attackers sprayed bullets into the crowded terminal.

Photos in the Mumbai Mirror newspaper showed a young gunman — dressed like a college student in cargo pants and a black T-shirt — walking casually through the station, an assault rifle hanging from one hand and two knapsacks slung over a shoulder.

Nasim Inam, a witness said four of the attackers gunned down scores of commuters. “They just fired randomly at people and then ran away. In seconds, people fell to the ground.”

Other gunmen attacked Leopold’s restaurant, a landmark popular with foreigners, and the police headquarters in southern Mumbai, the area where most of the attacks took place. The restaurant was riddled with bullet holes and there was blood on the floor and shoes left by fleeing customers. Gunmen also attacked Cama and Albless Hospital and G.T. Hospital, though it was not immediately clear if anyone was killed.

Relations between Hindus, who make up more than 80% of India’s 1 billion population, and Muslims, who make up about 14%, have sporadically erupted into bouts of sectarian violence since British-ruled India was split into independent India and Pakistan in 1947.

==============================

Commandos fire on militants in Mumbai (Paris, International Herald, 081128)

MUMBAI, India: Indian snipers opened fire on a Jewish community center in Mumbai on Friday morning in what appeared to be an assault against armed gunmen who had seized the center during a bloody and widespread attack on Mumbai, India’s commercial capital.

Sharpshooters fired from buildings across from Nariman House, home of the Orthodox Jewish group Chabad Lubavitch, where militants were believed to be holed up, news agencies reported. Commandos were seen being dropped from helicopters onto the roof of the building.

It was not known if hostages were being held inside.

Elsewhere in the city, Indian army and paramilitary commandos worked their way through two charred luxury hotels, searching for survivors of the bands of gunmen who unleashed two days of chaos here.

Amid early indications that the sieges were ending, fears were growing that the toll would rise past the 119 known dead. Late Thursday, smoke was still rising from one of the hotels, and people who escaped reported stepping around bodies. Dozens of people, perhaps many more, remained trapped in the hotels, though it was uncertain if any were being held hostage by the heavily armed assailants. The wounded numbered some 300.

There remained much mystery around the group behind the attack, unusual in its scale, its almost theatrical boldness and its targeting of locales frequented by wealthy Indians and foreigners.

Two men who claimed to be among the gunmen called local television stations, demanding to speak with the government. They complained about the treatment of Muslims in India and about Kashmir, the disputed territory over which India and Pakistan have fought two wars.

“Are you aware how many people have been killed in Kashmir?” a caller who identified himself as Imran asked. “Are you aware how your army has killed Muslims?”

The men said they were Indian, but the attacks appeared to ratchet up tensions in an already volatile region: In a televised speech, India’s prime minister, Manmohan Singh, blamed forces “based outside this country” in a thinly veiled accusation that Pakistan was involved.

The attacks thus risked threatening recent American efforts to reduce the overall enmity between Pakistan and India, which were meant to enable Pakistan to focus more military resources against the rising threat of the Taliban in its lawless tribal areas.

Mr. Singh issued a warning that seemed clearly aimed at Pakistan, which India has often accused of allowing terrorist groups to plot anti-Indian attacks.

“The group which carried out these attacks, based outside the country, had come with single-minded determination to create havoc in the commercial capital of the country,” he said. “We will take up strongly with our neighbors that the use of their territory for launching attacks on us will not be tolerated, and that there would be a cost if suitable measures are not taken by them.”

While many of the targets seemed to indicate a focus on tourists and Westerners, most of the victims were native Indians, who had packed into the banquet halls and restaurants in the hotels, according to witnesses and officials; even street vendors in Mumbai’s main train station were sprayed with bullets.

The chief minister of Maharashtra State, Vilasrao Deshmukh, told CNN-IBN, a private television channel, that six foreigners had been killed and seven wounded.

Hisashi Tsuda, 38, a businessman and father of two from Tokyo, was killed, his company announced Thursday. Brett Taylor, 49, a timber merchant from Sydney, Australia, had been staying at one of the besieged hotels, the Oberoi, and was confirmed dead. Antonio de Lorenzo, a businessman from Livorno, Italy, was killed at the Oberoi, according to reports quoting Italy’s foreign minister, Franco Frattini.

A German, Ralph Burkei, 51, was fatally injured when he jumped out of the other hotel under assault, the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower Hotel. According to several reports citing the Munich newspaper Abendzeitung, Mr. Burkei, a co-owner of an independent television production company in Munich, called a friend from his cellphone and said: “I have broken every bone in my body. If no one helps me now, I’m finished.” He died on the way to the hospital.

The British authorities said one Briton had been killed and seven wounded.

The American Embassy said it was unaware of any American casualties, though at least three wounded Americans were at Bombay Hospital, one of several hospitals where the injured were being taken.

Several high-ranking law enforcement officials were reported killed, including the chief of the antiterrorism squad and a police commissioner.

Throughout Thursday, Indian soldiers and paramilitary forces fanned out across the southern tip of the city, where the attacks were focused. Normally bustling, it was deserted: Stores were shuttered. Cars sailed along the empty streets. Most offices were closed, along with the Bombay Stock Exchange.

Near Leopold Cafe, a popular restaurant that was among the first places struck Wednesday night, a bloodied shoe lay on the ground beneath a car with smashed windows.

For most of the day, smoke billowed out of the Taj hotel, one of the city’s most famous landmarks. Loud explosions could be heard throughout the afternoon from inside the Oberoi hotel, also known as the Trident, which is also in South Mumbai, near the Arabian Sea. After sundown, a fire broke out on its fourth floor.

The state’s highest-ranking police official, A. N. Roy, told NDTV, a private news channel, that National Security Guards commandos, aided by the police and army and navy troops, had scoured the Taj hotel, room by room, for remaining civilians and were moving cautiously through the Oberoi because of the likelihood of hostages there. He said 14 police officers had been killed, along with five gunmen.

“We are not negotiating at all,” Mr. Roy told the channel. “We will get them and get them soon. We have some definite clues and leads. It was a very well-planned and very well-executed operation.”

It was impossible to know precisely what was going on inside the two hotels, except that intense firefights occurred between security forces and an apparently audacious band of gunmen.

Occasionally, a curtain would part, a window would open and the figure of a guest would become visible.

Hospitals were mobbed with men and women searching for their kin, and morgues received a steady stream of bodies. Doctors said the wounded had been shot. On the shaded steps of the Regal Cinema nearby sat a handful of dazed spectators. The cinema was closed; “A Quantum of Solace” would not be playing.

The gunmen appear to have come ashore at the Sassoon Docks, not far from the Leopold. They moved on to the Chhatrapati Shivaji train station, the old Victoria Terminus, and then opened fire on Cama and Albless Hospital — where some of their earlier victims encountered a second round of gunfire. At one point, the gunmen hijacked a police vehicle and opened fire on journalists and spectators gathered near a famous theater, the Metro Cinema.

Witnesses and security camera video of the gunmen built a portrait of them as young men dressed in jeans and trendy T-shirts, bearing rucksacks and guns. It remained unclear who they were, what they wanted, or how many survived. The police said at least seven of the attackers had been killed and nine suspects taken into custody.

Earlier on Thursday, Indian news channels received a claim of responsibility from a group called Deccan Mujahedeen; the name may refer to the Deccan Plateau, which dominates central and southern India. But security experts said the group might not exist.

The casualties ran the gamut of Mumbai society. A street vendor was shot and killed near the main train station, where he sold a famous snack known as bhel puri. A manager at the Oberoi survived a bullet wound to his leg, but was taken to the Cama and Albless Hospital, where a shootout erupted; he died after being transferred to a second hospital. A chef at the Taj who had been hiding under a kitchen table for most of the night was discovered by four gunmen, made to stand up and shot from behind.

Escape attempts took place sporadically at the hotels. Before dawn on Thursday, several guests and workers managed to leave the Taj, but as gunmen opened fire on them, some remained behind.

In the late afternoon, about 10 hostages left the Oberoi, waving and looking relieved, but answering no questions.

The director general of the paramilitary National Security Guards, J. K. Dutt, told CNN-IBN television that troops were trying to coax frightened people out of the Oberoi. “They are in their rooms. They are not prepared to open their doors,” he told the station. “As far as terrorists are concerned, we know exactly where they are.”

Reuters quoted the state’s deputy chief minister, R. R. Patil, as saying 100 to 200 people could be inside the Oberoi. “We cannot give you the exact figure, as many people have locked themselves inside their rooms,” he said.

The Chabad-Lubavitch center, the Jewish community hall in a crowded residential area roughly between the two hotels, was also singled out for attack. The whereabouts of Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, who runs the center, remained unknown, according to the organization. Puran Doshi, a local developer and former city councilman, said the rabbi and his wife and child had been evacuated earlier in the day.

By then, the gunmen inside had killed several locals, apparently shooting anyone they could find. Around 10 p.m. on Thursday, the lights were extinguished in and around the building.

Shortly after 11 p.m., television showed as many as a half-dozen people, including several elderly ones, being escorted out of Nariman House by security forces. The authorities said they believed gunmen might still be holed up there.

Air France issued a statement saying that 15 of its flight crew members had been unable to get out of a hotel in Mumbai. The company spokeswoman did not name the hotel or provide any details, except to say that the Paris-bound flight they were due to work on was canceled. Many international flight crews stay at the Oberoi.

The suspicions raised by the attack seemed a blow to relations between India and Pakistan, which had been recovering from a low earlier this year after India blamed the Pakistani intelligence agency for abetting the bombing of the Indian Embassy in Afghanistan. India has frequently accused Pakistan-based militant groups of fueling terrorist attacks on Indian soil, though lately it has also acknowledged the presence of home-grown Muslim and Hindu militant organizations.

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A day of reckoning as India toll tops 170 (Paris, International Herald, 081129)

MUMBAI, India: Death hung over Mumbai on Saturday.

Bodies were extracted from the ruins of the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower hotel in the hours after the standoff with militants there ended on Saturday in a gunfight and fire. At the main city hospital morgue, relatives came, clutching one another in grief, to identify their dead. By midafternoon, the morgue was running out of body bags, and by evening the death toll had risen to at least 172. Funerals, among them ceremonies for two policemen and a lawyer, went on throughout the day.

As the reckoning began after the three-day siege here, troubling questions arose about the apparent failure of the Indian authorities to anticipate the attack or respond to it more swiftly.

And tensions were high, as well, between India and Pakistan, where officials insisted that their government had nothing to do with assisting the attackers and promised that they would act swiftly if any connection was found within their country.

Perhaps the most troubling question to emerge Saturday for the Indian authorities was how, if official estimates are accurate, just 10 gunmen could have caused so much carnage and repelled Indian police officers, paramilitary forces and soldiers for more than three days in three different buildings.

As the investigation continued, it was unclear whether the attackers had collaborators already in the city, or whether others in their group had escaped. All told, the gunmen struck 10 sites in bustling south Mumbai.

Amid the cleanup effort in this stricken city, the brutality of the gunmen became plain to see, as accounts from investigators and survivors portrayed a wide trail of destruction and indiscriminate killing wherever the terrorists went.

At a gas station near the Taj hotel, attackers opened fire on two waiting cars on Wednesday, critically injuring two occupants. When a married couple in their 70s went to their third-floor window to see what was happening, the terrorists blazed away with assault rifles, killing both and leaving shards of glass that still hung in the window on Saturday.

Down the road, when the gunmen seized Nariman House, the headquarters here of a Jewish religious organization, neighbors mistook the initial shots on Wednesday night for firecrackers to celebrate India’s cricket victory over England.

But when drunken revelers in a nearby alley began throwing bottles and stones, two attackers stepped onto a balcony of Nariman House and opened fire on passers-by, killing a 22-year-old call center worker who was the sole support of his widowed mother; five others were injured. A teenage boy who stepped out onto his balcony and came within firing range was swiftly shot and killed, a witness said.

“We still don’t know why they did this,” said Rony Dass, a cable television installer who lives across the street from the gas station. He lost a lifelong friend, a tailor who was locking up his store for the night on Wednesday, only to be killed by a gunman.

At the Oberoi hotel, the second luxury hotel to be assaulted, the gunmen called guests on hotel phones; some of those who picked up were then attacked, their doors smashed open and the guests shot. At the Taj, terrorists broke in room by room and shot occupants at point blank range. Some were shot in the back.

“I think their intention was to kill as many people as possible and do as much physical damage as possible,” said PRS Oberoi, the chairman of the Oberoi Group, which manages the adjacent Oberoi and Trident Hotels, both of which were attacked.

Evidence unfolded that the gunmen killed their victims early on in the siege and left the bodies, apparently fooling Indian security forces into thinking that they were still holding hostages. At the Sir J.J. Hospital morgue, an official in charge of the post-mortems, not authorized to speak to the press, said that of the 87 bodies he had examined, all but a handful had been killed Wednesday night and early Thursday. By Saturday night, 239 people had been reported injured.

Contrary to earlier reports, it appeared that Westerners were not the gunmen’s main targets: they killed whoever they could. By Saturday evening, 18 of the dead were confirmed as foreigners; an additional 22 foreigners were injured, said Vilasrao Deshmukh, the chief minister of Maharashtra State, where Mumbai is located.

The State Department has said at least five Americans died in the attacks. Consular officials from Britain, the Netherlands and Israel went to morgues on Saturday to see if their missing citizens had turned up there.

There were reports on the first night of the attacks that gunmen had rounded up holders of American and British passports at the Oberoi and herded them upstairs. But Rattan Keswani, the president of Trident Hotels, said he had found no basis for such reports.

“Nothing seems to suggest that,” he said, noting that a range of nationalities was represented among the 22 hotel guests who died, in addition to the 10 staff members, all Indian.

The city’s police chief, Hasan Gafoor, said nine gunmen were killed, the last of whom fell out of the terrace of the Taj hotel on Saturday morning as the siege ended. His body was charred beyond recognition when it was taken to the hospital. A 10th suspected terrorist was arrested; the police say he is a 21-year-old Pakistani, Ajmal Amir Kasab.

A senior Mumbai police inspector, Nagappa Mali, said the suspect and one of his collaborators, who was slain by the police, had killed three top police officials, including the head of the antiterrorist squad, Hemant Karkare.

Karkare was cremated Saturday morning in a crowded and emotional farewell.

The bodies of four other suspected terrorists were at the morgue at the Sir J.J. Hospital in Mumbai. Officials there put their ages between 20 and 25. All four were men.

Around dawn on Saturday, gunfire began to rattle inside the Taj Mahal hotel, one of about a dozen sites that the militants attacked beginning Wednesday night. They never issued any manifestoes or made any demands, and it seemed clear from their stubborn resistance at the Taj that they intended to fight to the last.

It was not long before flames were roaring through a ground-floor ballroom and the first floor of the Taj, a majestic 105-year-old hotel in the heart of southern Mumbai.

But by midmorning, after commandos had finished working their way through the 565-room hotel, the head of the elite National Security Guards, J. K. Dutt, said the siege at the Taj was over. Three terrorists, he said, had been killed inside.

By afternoon, busloads of elite commandos, fresh from the siege of the hotel, sat outside the nearby Gateway of India and shook hands with elated spectators.

“There were so many people and we wanted to avoid any civilian casualties,” one of the commandos told a private television station, CNN-IBN. He said they were firing from various parts of the hotel. By the end of the siege, he said, the gunmen had holed up in one room and barricaded the door with explosives.

The siege may have been over, but new tensions within the region were on the rise, particularly after India’s foreign minister on Friday blamed “elements” within Pakistan for the attack.

In an attempt to defuse the situation on Saturday, the Pakistani president, Asif Ali Zardari, told an Indian television channel in a live telephone interview that he supported a thorough investigation “no matter where it may lead.”

“My heard bleeds for India,” Zardari said. “As president of Pakistan, if any evidence points to anyone in my country,” Pakistan will take action, he said.

Zardari said he did not rule out the possibility of the top official of the Pakistani intelligence agency working with Indian officials on the case. But it was too early in the investigation for the top official to meet with his Indian counterpart to share information, Zardari said.

Soon after Zardari’s interview on Indian television, the Pakistani foreign minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, said the Pakistani government was not involved in the attack.

“Our hands are clean,” Qureshi told a news conference in Islamabad, Pakistan, after a lengthy cabinet meeting called to discuss the rising tensions between the two rival countries. “We have nothing to be ashamed of.”

Qureshi also stressed that the Indian government had not blamed the Pakistani government for the attacks.

“They are suspecting, perhaps suspecting, groups or organizations that could have a presence here,” he said. “We have said if they have evidence they should share it with us.”

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Indian Police: Pakistani Group Behind Mumbai Attacks (Foxnews, 081130)

MUMBAI, India — The only gunman captured by police after a string of attacks on Mumbai told authorities he belonged to the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, a senior police officer said Sunday.

Police have said 10 gunmen terrorized Mumbai during a 60-hour siege, and all but one were shot dead.

Joint Police Commissioner Rakesh Maria said the assailant now in custody told police the group had intended to hit more targets during their attacks on India’s financial capital that left at least 174 dead.

“Lashkar-e-Taiba is behind the terrorist acts in the city,” Maria told reporters. “The terrorists were from a hardcore group in the L-e-T.”

India’s Home Ministry could not be immediately reached for comment.

The group has long been seen as a creation of the Pakistani intelligence service to help wage its clandestine war against India in disputed Kashmir.

Police arrested the lone surviving militant, Ajmal Qasab, and Maria said he confessed his links to Lashkar during interrogation.

“Ajmal Qasab has received training in a L-e-T training camp in Pakistan,” he said. “Our interrogation indicates that the terrorists had other places that they also intended to target.”

Maria declined to offer any other details.

Earlier, a United States counterterrorism official had said some “signatures of the attack” were consistent with Lashkar and Jaish-e-Mohammed, another group that has operated in Kashmir. Both are reported to be linked to Al Qaeda.

Lashkar was banned in Pakistan in 2002 under pressure from the U.S., a year after Washington and Britain listed it a terrorist group. It is since believed to have emerged under another name, Jamaat-ud-Dawa.

In April 2006, the U.S. Department of State listed Jamaat-ud-Dawa as terrorist organizations for being an “alias” of Lashkar-e-Taiba.

The Pakistani government offered no immediate response.

Speaking earlier Sunday, a spokesman for a Jamat-ud Dawa denied any link to Lashkar-e-Taiba and said he condemned the attack.

“We condemn the killings of civilians. We condemn such killings in a terrorist activity, and at the same time we condemn it happening in the shape of state terrorism, as we see in Srinagar, Kashmir,” Abdullah Muntazir said, referring to alleged Indian army atrocities in the disputed Kashmir region.

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Report: Mumbai Terror Attack Aimed to Kill 5,000 People (Foxnews, 081130)

Indian police have heard the first full account of what led up to the devastating attacks in Mumbai from the only terrorist captured alive, who told authorities that he was ordered to kill “until the last breath,” the U.K.’s Daily Mail newspaper reported Sunday.

Azam Amir Kasab, 21, the only terrorist to survive a raid by Indian commandos, told authorities that the attacks included 10 terrorists in a heavily orchestrated plan devised six months ago, that hoped to kill 5,000 people — targeting mostly “whites, preferably Americans and British,” the Mail reported.

Kasab was captured after being shot in the hand by police in south Mumbai on Wednesday night, the Sunday Times of London reported. A policeman and one other terrorist were killed in the same encounter.

Kasab was captured after being shot in the hand by police in a standoff near Chowpatty beach, a popular evening destination for local families, in south Bombay, also known as Mumbai, on Wednesday night. A policeman and one other terrorist were killed in the same encounter.

The terrorists reportedly posed as students during a visit to Mumbai a month ago, to familiarize themselves with the city’s roads and to film the “strike locations.”

Kasab confessed to being a member of the Pakistani terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani militant group believed to be connected to Al Qaeda.

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Hard questions emerge as India mourns (Paris, International Herald, 081130)

MUMBAI: India’s highest-ranking security official resigned Sunday as the government began to reckon with the fallout from a three-day standoff with militants that has raised troubling questions about the country’s vulnerability to terrorism.

The day after the end of the siege, the official death toll rose to 188 and the number of wounded to 313. But the police said they were still waiting for the final number of bodies pulled from the wreckage of the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower Hotel, the 105-year-old landmark where the attackers held out the longest. Funerals in this commercial capital continued throughout Sunday, for the second day in a row.

As an investigation moved forward, there were questions about whether the authorities could have anticipated the attack and had better security in place, especially after a report to Parliament last year that the country’s shores were inadequately protected from infiltration by sea. That is how the attackers sneaked into Mumbai.

Home Minister Shivraj Patil, responsible for public safety and internal security as one of the most senior members of the government, resigned Sunday to take responsibility for the failure of the country’s intelligence services and military to prevent the attacks in Mumbai.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh named P. Chidambaram, the finance minister, as the new home minister to begin an effort to overhaul India’s security structures.

Deputy Home Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal said Sunday by telephone that Singh had ordered an increase in the number of India’s “black-cat commandos,” the elite counterterrorism forces that slithered down ropes from helicopters and flushed the assailants from a labyrinth of hotel rooms.

The government will also double the size of the 7,400-strong National Security Guard, creating new troops for the special army forces in four additional areas across the country, Jaiswal said.

All the while, tensions are swelling with Pakistan, where officials promised that they would act swiftly if any connection to Pakistani-based militants were found but also warned that troops could be moved to the border quickly if relations with India worsened.

It was still unclear whether the attackers had collaborators already in the city, or whether others in their group had escaped. And perhaps the most troubling question to emerge for the Indian authorities was how, if official estimates are accurate, just 10 gunmen could have caused so much carnage and repelled security forces for more than three days in three buildings.

Part of the answer may lie in continuing signs that despite the country’s long vulnerability to terrorist attacks, Indian law enforcement officials remain ill-prepared. The siege exposed problems caused by inexperienced security forces and inadequate equipment, including a lack of high-power rifle scopes and other optics to help discriminate between the attackers and civilians.

Beefing up the counterterrorism forces is a first step, security experts said. The “black-cat” guard, named for their black helmets and uniforms, was created after the 1984 military disaster at the Golden Temple. Nearly 500 civilians and more than 80 soldiers were killed as the army tried to remove Sikh extremists from the temple.

But the country also needs to add counterterrorism officials and improve coordination, security professionals inside and outside the country said.

“There was an intelligence failure,” said N.K. Singh, a former police officer and retired director general from the Bureau of Police Research and Development. “Terrorists entered Indian waters in Gujarat and traveled to Mumbai, and our maritime surveillance failed in detecting them.”

Meanwhile, at the Leopold Café, where diners and waiters were killed by a grenade and heavy fire from automatic weapons in one of the first attacks Wednesday night, the staff finished cleaning the premises before it briefly reopened at midday Sunday. A few men were first to enter, yelling “Victory to mother India!” and followed by a crush of reporters.

Eight diners died in the attack, four foreigners and four Indians, said Farzad Jehani, a member of the family that has operated the restaurant for more than 75 years. The gunmen also killed two waiters, one of whom was shot in the café and staggered out into the street, where he bled to death, and the other was shot in the back as he ran down the street in an attempt to escape.

Jehani was upstairs at the time of the attack, watching India’s cricket victory over England. “It sounded like a huge blast and then the machine gunning started,” he said.

Amid the cleanup effort over the weekend, the brutality of the gunmen became plain, as accounts from investigators and survivors portrayed a wide trail of destruction and indiscriminate killing.

On Wednesday night, when a married couple in their 70s went to their third-floor window to see what was happening after hearing gunfire, the attackers blazed away with assault rifles, killing them both. Shards of glass still hung in the panes Saturday.

When several attackers seized a Jewish outreach center, Nariman House, on Wednesday, neighbors mistook the initial shots for firecrackers in celebration of India’s imminent cricket victory over England. But then two attackers stepped out on a balcony of Nariman House and opened fire on passers-by in an alley nearby. They killed a 22-year-old call-center worker who was the sole financial supporter of his widowed mother.

When a tailor locked up his store for the night, half a block from the Taj Mahal hotel, a gunman spotted him and killed him instantly, said Rony Dass, a cable television installer. “We still don’t know why they did this,” he said.

At the Taj, the gunmen broke into room after room and shot occupants at point-blank range. Some were shot in the back. At the Oberoi Hotel, the second luxury hotel to be attacked, one gunman chased diners up a stairwell and at one point turned around and shot an elderly man to death.

“I think their intention was to kill as many people as possible and do as much physical damage as possible,” said P.R.S. Oberoi, chairman of the Oberoi Group, which manages the Oberoi and Trident hotels, adjacent buildings that were both attacked.

Evidence unfolded that the gunmen had killed their victims early in the attack and left the bodies, apparently fooling Indian security forces into thinking that they were still holding hostages. At the Sir J.J. Hospital morgue, an official in charge of the post-mortems, who was not authorized to speak to the news media, said that of the 87 bodies he had examined by midafternoon, all but a handful had been killed Wednesday night and early Thursday. By Saturday night, 239 people had been reported wounded.

Contrary to early reports, it appeared that Westerners were not the gunmen’s main targets: They killed whomever they could. By Sunday evening, 28 of the dead were confirmed as foreigners, and an additional 22 foreigners were wounded, said Vilasrao Deshmukh, the chief minister of Maharashtra State, where Mumbai is located. The total dead and wounded were from 21 different nationalities.

Rattan Keswani, president of Trident Hotels, said he had found no basis for reports that gunmen had rounded up holders of U.S. or British passports at the Oberoi and herded them upstairs. “Nothing seems to suggest that,” he said, noting that a range of nationalities was represented among the 22 hotel guests who died, in addition to the 10 staff members, all Indian.

Spokesmen for the FBI and State Department in Washington said they had confirmed that six Americans were among the dead. The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, declined to provide new details on the American involvement, although they did not dispute reports that a team of FBI agents was sent Friday to work with the Indian authorities. President George W. Bush has pledged full support to India.

The police chief in Mumbai, Hasan Gafoor, said nine gunmen had been killed, the last of whom fell out of the terrace of the Taj Hotel on Saturday morning as the siege ended. His body was charred beyond recognition when it was taken to St. George Hospital nearby. A man who is suspected to be the 10th gunman was arrested; the police say he is a 21-year-old Pakistani, Ajmal Amir Kasab.

The bodies of four other men suspected of being among the terrorists were at the morgue at Sir J.J. Hospital. Officials there put their ages at 20 to 25.

A senior Mumbai police inspector, Nagappa Mali, said two of the terrorists had killed three top police officials, including the head of the antiterrorist squad, Hemant Karkare, who was cremated Saturday morning in a crowded and emotional ceremony.

There were also funerals for Anand Bhatt, a celebrated lawyer who had been dining at one of the restaurants at the Oberoi on Wednesday night, and Ashok Kapur, the chairman of Yes Bank, who was having dinner with his wife, Madhu, on the second floor of the same hotel. The Kapurs were pursued by a gunman up a staircase and became separated in the mayhem. She managed to escape; he did not. His body was found on one of the high floors of the hotel; he had been shot Wednesday night, once in the chest, once on the hand.

The last gunfire began around dawn Saturday inside the Taj Mahal hotel, one of about 10 sites that the militants attacked. They never issued any manifestoes or made any demands, and it seemed clear from their stubborn resistance at the Taj that they had intended to fight to the death.

It was not long before flames were roaring through a ground-floor ballroom and the first floor of the Taj. But by midmorning, after commandos had finished working their way through the majestic 565-room hotel, the head of the elite National Security Guards, J.K. Dutt, said the siege was over. Three terrorists, he said, had been killed inside.

There were signs that the security forces were ill prepared to handle the crisis. Much of that was because of systemic problems, interviews with officials showed. There is little information-sharing among law enforcement agencies.

Ill-paid city police officers are often armed with little more than batons. Even the elite commandos heading the charge against the Mumbai gunmen were slowed by old, bulky bulletproof jackets and had no technology at their disposal to determine where the firepower was coming from.

Sharpshooters had neither protective gear nor the high-powered telescopes that their counterparts in Western countries would most likely use in a standoff with terrorists. On Saturday afternoon, a sharpshooter who had spent over 60 hours perched outside the Taj hotel said neither he nor his partner had fired a shot because they were not sure how to distinguish the gunmen from ordinary civilians trapped inside the hotel.

Reporting was contributed by Jeremy Kahn and Ruth Fremson from Mumbai; Hari Kumar and Heather Timmons from New Delhi; Jane Perlez from Islamabad; and James Risen from Washington.

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Indian politicians face repercussions (Paris, International Herald, 081129)

MUMBAI: At midmorning on Friday, as Indian troops continued to comb through the devastated Oberoi Hotel, an unexpected guest appeared on the sidewalk: Narendra Modi, a Hindu nationalist from the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party and arguably India’s most incendiary politician.

Speaking before a row of television cameras, he said the central government had failed to tackle a growing terrorism threat, and he found fault with a speech by India’s prime minister a day earlier. “The country expected a lot from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh,” he said, “but his address to the nation was disappointing.”

The appearance of Modi - who has been barred from entering the United States for violations of religious freedom - signaled how the siege of Mumbai had instantly turned into political flint for coming national elections. After a string of attacks across Indian cities earlier this year, the Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, pledged to make national security its main campaign issue. The latest audacious attacks on the country’s commercial capital, and their timing, gave it an additional lift.

Five state elections are under way, with the city-state of Delhi going to the polls on Saturday. National balloting is expected to be held next spring.

It was only four years ago that the Bharatiya Janata Party, then leading a coalition government, was routed in national elections, partly because of at least two high-profile terrorist episodes during its tenure: a suicide attack on the Indian Parliament building in 2001 and the hijacking of an Indian Airlines plane to Kandahar, Afghanistan, in 1999.

Singh and his Congress Party hoped to ride a booming economy and rising prosperity to victory next year despite a steady series of bombings and other violence in recent months. And that had seemed a sensible course: Studies of previous national elections have shown economic issues to be the most important concern for the average voter, said Yogendra Yadav, a political analyst with the Center for the Study of Developing Societies in Delhi.

But Yadav said he doubted that pattern would stand up after this latest assault. In an intensely competitive political landscape, small margins can make a big difference, which is why he argued that the terrorist threat would inevitably figure more centrally in the next national polls.

Singh’s administration would have to be seen as doing “something fast, something visible,” he said, to shrug off the perception that it is weak on national security. The Congress Party “has to be seen to be doing something which directly addresses the widely shared popular perception that the country is being attacked from outside, that it is under aggression,” Yadav said.

On Friday, front-page advertisements appeared in several newspapers in Delhi showing blood splattered against a black background and the slogan “Brutal Terror Strikes At Will” in bold capital letters. The ads signed off with a simple message: “Fight Terror. Vote BJP.”

There were also advertisements that were cast as an appeal from Atal Bihari Vajpayee, a prime minister in the last BJP-led coalition government. They cited the loss of lives in Mumbai and concluded, “We must elect a government that can fight terror tooth and nail.”

Nor did the party’s president, Lal Krishna Advani, lose any time in pointing fingers at the coalition government of Singh, accusing it of a “nonserious approach” that allowed suspected terrorists to land on the shores of Mumbai this week.

Kapil Sibal, a veteran of the Congress Party, swiftly hit back, accusing Modi of placing his party’s interests above those of the nation and calling the BJP advertisements “a matter of national shame.” In a telephone interview on Friday night, Sibal would not say whether recent terrorist attacks - including this week’s, the most spectacular and the scariest - would have any bearing on his party’s election prospects. He called it “not relevant.”

That now may be wishful thinking. Terrorism may be grievously relevant to the fortunes of the ruling party, under whose watch Indian cities have suffered a string of attacks - six in as many months, killing roughly 375 in all. After each one, the prime minister has issued a sobering statement calling for calm. After each one, the BJP has pounced on the government as being soft on terrorism.

Singh’s government had lately hit back at the Bharatiya Janata Party with evidence that its supporters, belonging to a range of radical Hindu organizations, had also been implicated in terrorist attacks. Indeed, in a bizarre twist, the head of the police anti-terrorism unit, Hemant Karkare, killed in the Mumbai strikes, had been in the midst of a high-profile investigation of a suspected Hindu terrorist cell. Karkare’s inquiry had netted nine suspects in connection with a bombing in September of a Muslim-majority area in Malegaon, a small town not far from Mumbai.

Several BJP leaders, including Modi, had criticized the crackdown as a political vendetta. On Friday Modi, the chief minister of neighboring Gujarat state, announced financial rewards for the families of police officers killed this week in the anti-terror operations, including Karkare.

On Friday, Advani went so far as to say that intelligence agencies had been “diverted to nail so-called Hindu terror,” allowing the gunmen who struck Mumbai to “plot away undetected.”

The political fencing hides more fundamental problems: a feeble, often corrupt criminal justice system, in which suspects, whether of terrorism or common crimes, are regularly killed in skirmishes with law enforcement authorities rather than tried in courts of law. Faith and democracy also complicate the Indian battle against terrorism, as political parties compete for the loyalty of Hindu and Muslim voters.

The BJP has pressed for the resurrection of a tougher anti-terrorism law that was in place during its administration. That measure allowed for longer periods of preventive detention and enabled confessions extracted by the police to be used in court. Its critics said it was an unfair and ineffective tool used too often to round up innocent people, largely Muslims, and it was repealed in 2004 by Singh’s administration.

In a nationally televised address on Thursday, the day after the siege on Mumbai began, Singh clearly sought to convey that his government was in charge and capable of acting swiftly. He promised to “strengthen the hands of our police and intelligence authorities,” restrict financing to suspect organizations, check the “entry of suspects into the country” and get tough on Pakistan, which the Indian government has accused of providing sanctuary to militants who attack on Indian soil. It was not clear how he would do any of these things, nor whether his words would persuade voters to trust his party with another five-year term.

Friday’s newspapers scolded politicians as failing to act together in the interests of national security. “It is time we stop our political parties from using terror - Hindu or Muslim - to fuel their popularity when they are fueling a fire that can consume India,” read a front-page editorial in The Hindustan Times.

The Indian Express, in its front-page editorial, suggested that “if a tragedy like this cannot make both sides - in fact the entire political class - make amends, we have no right to call ourselves a great nation, democracy, civilization.”

Yadav’s 2005 public opinion poll on sources of insecurity in India found that terrorism ranked far lower than common crimes and communal riots. Moreover, his studies showed that terrorism resonated far more with urban voters than rural ones.

That is another reason the siege of Mumbai could give Singh cause for concern. Political redistricting this year has made the urban voter far more important nationally than ever before.

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India demands Pakistan hand over fugitives (Paris, International Herald, 081202)

MUMBAI: With tensions high between Islamabad and New Delhi after the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, the Indian foreign minister said Tuesday his country had demanded that Pakistan arrest and hand over about 20 people wanted under Indian law as fugitives.

The demand was made when India summoned Pakistan’s ambassador on Monday evening and told him that Pakistanis were responsible for the terrorist attacks here last week and must be punished.

“We have in our demarche asked for the arrest and handover of those persons who are settled in Pakistan and who are fugitive of Indian law,” Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee told reporters in New Delhi on Tuesday. A list of about 20 names was handed over to the Pakistani envoy in the diplomatic protest, he said.

The request is the first known concrete demand made by India on Pakistan since the bloody rampage last week during which at least 173 people were killed. The fugitives are not believed to be linked directly to the latest attacks in Mumbai, and the request for their handover — made by India before — may be a sign that it is trying to take advantage of the atmosphere since the attacks to gain new concessions.

Facing public anger directed against both the Indian government and Pakistan, officials of India’s Foreign Ministry suggested that the planners of the attacks were still at large in Pakistan, and that they expected “strong action would be taken” by Pakistan against those responsible for the violence, according to a statement released by the ministry. Nine of the 10 men who appear to have carried out the attacks are now dead; the remaining one is in custody.

The statement added tartly that Pakistan’s actions “needed to match the sentiments expressed by its leadership that it wishes to have a qualitatively new relationship with India.”

In an initial response, Pakistan seemed eager to lower the levels of easily-ignited passion that, in the past, have brought the two nuclear-armed neighbors into three wars. The Pakistan foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, offered in a televised address to conduct a joint investigation with India into the Mumbai killings, Reuters reported, and said now was not the time for a “blame game.”

“Pakistan wants good relations with India,” he said.

Pakistani officials have said that they are not aware of any links to Pakistan-based militants, and that they would act swiftly if they found one.

According to news reports on Tuesday, many of the fugitives sought by India were people it has been trying to arrest for years. They included Dawood Ibrahim, described in news reports as a powerful gangster and India’s most-wanted fugitive, who was accused of organizing bombings in Mumbai in 1993.

The list also included Masood Azhar, a suspected terrorist freed from prison in India in exchange for the release of hostages aboard a hijacked Indian Airlines aircraft in December, 1999, news reports said..

President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan said in a television interview Monday night that if India shared the results of its investigation, Pakistan would “do everything in our power to go after these militants.”

American and Indian intelligence officials said there was strong evidence tying the attacks to militants inside Pakistan. According to senior American government officials, satellite intercepts of telephone calls made during the siege directly linked the attackers in Mumbai to operatives in Pakistan working for Lashkar-e-Taiba, a militant Islamist group accused of carrying out terrorist attacks in Indian-administered Kashmir and elsewhere. The same group has been mentioned by some European security officials as linked to the attack. The American officials said there was still no evidence that Pakistan’s government had a hand in the operation.

The Indian government is facing strong criticism at home for its handling of the attacks, in which 173 people were killed over three bloody days here in the country’s financial capital. (The authorities revised the number downward on Monday, saying that some names had been counted twice.)

With elections just months away, the government needs to be seen as acting decisively in the face of the atrocities. But it could be accused of raising a red herring if it does not furnish convincing evidence for its claims of Pakistani involvement.

There is also a groundswell of popular anger here aimed at Pakistan, and the attacks have raised tensions between the countries to a level not seen since 2001, when a suicide attack on the Indian Parliament pushed them to the brink of war.

The ominous atmosphere poses a special challenge for the United States, a strong ally of India that also depends on Pakistan for cooperation in fighting Al Qaeda. Renewed tensions between India and Pakistan could distract Pakistan from that project.

President George W. Bush has dispatched Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to India, where she was expected to arrive on Wednesday. Speaking in London on Monday, she called on Pakistan in blunt terms “to follow the evidence wherever it leads,” adding, “I don’t want to jump to any conclusions myself on this, but I do think that this is a time for complete, absolute, total transparency and cooperation.”

India’s assertion that the attackers were all Pakistani echoes a claim by the one attacker who was captured, identified as Ajmal Amir Qasab, said Rakesh Maria, joint commissioner of the Mumbai police, in a news conference. Qasab also said he was a member of Lashkar-e-Taiba, Maria said.

However, no foreign identification documents were found, and some of the attackers had fake Indian papers, he added.

Inspector Maria also said there were only 10 attackers in all, denying earlier suggestions by public officials that there had been more. However, it remains unclear whether the attackers had at least some accomplices on the ground before the violence began on Wednesday night.

Some new details emerged on Monday about the difficulties faced by the Indian police commandos who responded to the killings here last week. The attackers used grenades to booby trap some of the bodies in the two luxury hotels where they struck, the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower and the Oberoi, so they would explode when they were moved, Inspector Maria said. It was not always clear, he added, whether the people were dead or just wounded.

That tactic made fighting the attackers more difficult, and significantly delayed the cleanup after the violence ended, Inspector Maria said. The last militants were routed on Saturday morning, but the Taj hotel was not returned to the control of its owners until Monday morning.

But those details seemed unlikely to blunt the rising public anger at the government’s handling of the attacks, which have been widely described here as India’s 9/11. The ease with which the small band of attackers mowed down civilians in central Mumbai, and then repelled police commandos for days in several different buildings, has exposed glaring weaknesses in India’s intelligence and enforcement abilities.

Indian intelligence officials issued at least one warning about a possible attack on the Taj Mahal and Oberoi hotels, but that was in September. Security was increased for a while and then relaxed, intelligence officials said. There were reports of many other unheeded warnings, but it was not clear how many were actually communicated.

On Monday, the rising public outcry pushed Vilasrao Deshmukh, the chief minister of Maharashtra State, where Mumbai is located, to offer his resignation. He is a member of the governing Congress Party, and party leaders were still considering his offer Monday night.

“I accept moral responsibility for the terror attacks,” he said at a news conference.

Earlier in the day, his deputy, R. R. Patil, officially stepped down. The two gestures came a day after India’s highest-ranking domestic security official, Home Minister Shivraj Patil, resigned, saying he took responsibility for the failure to forestall or quickly contain the killing rampage.

Also on Monday, mourners attended a memorial service for a Jewish couple who were murdered at Nariman House, a Jewish outreach center the terrorists took over during their bloody rampage.

The couple’s orphaned 2-year-old son, Moshe Holtzberg, cried out for his parents, Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, 29, from New York, and his wife, Rivka, 28, an Israeli. The boy, carrying a small orange inflatable basketball, first cried “Dada” and then inconsolably “Ima,” which means mother in Hebrew, as he accompanied his grieving grandparents and dignitaries, including Israel’s ambassador to India, Mark Sofer, at the synagogue service.

“The house they built here in Mumbai will live with them,” said Shimon Rosenberg, Rivka’s father, his voice breaking. “They were the mother and father of the Jewish community in Mumbai.”

The new home minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram, the former finance chief, briefly addressed reporters on Monday, promising to respond vigorously to the terrorist threat.

“This is the threat to the very idea of India, the very soul of India, the India that we know, the India that we love — namely a secular, plural, tolerant and open society,” he said. “I have no doubt in my mind that ultimately the idea of India will triumph.”

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Fear grows in Kashmir in aftermath of Mumbai attacks (Paris, International Herald, 081202)

GARKOT, Kashmir: When India blamed “elements” in Pakistan for the attacks in Mumbai last week, fear gripped Kashmir, the region that has been the front line of the two countries’s rivalry and strife for over 60 years.

There has been no unusual activity or heightened troop movement in recent days along the Line of Control that divides the disputed region between the nuclear-armed rivals.

But Pakistan has said it may move forces from operations on the Afghan border, where it is fighting Al Qaeda and Taliban insurgents, to the Indian border if relations worsen.

“They spit anger on Kashmir when something wrong goes between them,” said Jabbar Khan, 80, in the village of Garkot, on the heavily militarized frontier.

“There’s a sense of foreboding, as if war might at any minute break out,” he said. “We thought the days of terror were over, but these two countries are hopeless.”

Kashmir has a Muslim majority, but it is claimed by both Hindu-dominated India and Islamic Pakistan. The dispute has led to two of the three wars between the neighbors since they were born out of British India in 1947.

The two nations, both by then with nuclear weapons capabilities, were on the brink of a fourth war in 2002 after an attack on India’s Parliament was blamed on Islamist militants based in Pakistan.

Approximately 47,000 people have died in two decades of insurgency in Indian-ruled Kashmir - an insurgency that New Delhi says is supported by Pakistan, a charge Islamabad denies.

Although a high turnout in state elections currently being held in Kashmir, including one phase last Sunday, would appear to indicate a sense of normalcy, the attacks in Mumbai have cast a long shadow.

India has said the attacks, in which 173 people were killed, were carried out by militants from Lashkar-e-Taiba, one of the groups that has been fighting Indian rule in Kashmir.

At the height of the attacks, a militant holed up in a Jewish center in Mumbai called a television channel and said: “Are you aware how many people have been killed in Kashmir? Are you aware how your army has killed Muslims? Are you aware how many of them have been killed in Kashmir this week?”

At the Line of Control, the two armies regularly exchange fire, although that has dropped considerably since a peace process began in 2004. When tensions rise in the two capitals, the clashes become more frequent.

Hundreds of civilians have been killed in the clashes, and with the Line of Control just about 100 meters, or 325 feet, from Garkot, the village has borne a share of the casualties.

“Fear has returned, I am scared, like any villager would be here,” said one 45-year-old, housewife, Taja Jan. “I have asked my children to pay attention and be vigilant if shelling starts.”

Around Garkot, located on the slopes of a pine tree-covered mountain, artillery guns are draped with wire netting. Both sides have scores of military posts in the area.

As the fear rises in Kashmir, some villagers are also getting angry.

“For the past 60 years we have been living in constant trouble and fear,” said Basharat Qadri, a government employee. “Let there be a war, a decisive one, so that future generations live in peace.”

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Africa: Another anti-terrorism front (Paris, International Herald, 081212)

KATI, Mali: Thousands of miles from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, another side of America’s fight against terrorism is unfolding in this remote corner of West Africa. Green Berets are training African armies to guard their borders and patrol vast desolate expanses against infiltration by Al Qaeda’s militants so the United States does not have to.

A recent exercise by the United States military here is part of a wide-ranging plan since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, to take counterterrorism training and assistance to places outside the Middle East, including the Philippines and Indonesia. The five-year, $500 million partnership between the State and Defense Departments, aimed at Africa, also includes Algeria, Chad, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and Tunisia, and, possibly soon, Libya.

American efforts to fight terrorism in the region also include nonmilitary programs, like instruction for teachers and job training for young Muslim men who could be singled out by militant recruiting campaigns.

One goal of the program is to act quickly in these countries before terrorism becomes as entrenched as it is in Somalia, an East African nation where there is a heightened militant threat. And unlike Somalia, Mali is willing and able to permit dozens of American and European military trainers to conduct exercises here, and its leaders are plainly worried about militants who have taken refuge in its vast Saharan north.

“Mali does not have the means to control its borders without the cooperation of the United States,” Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, a former prime minister of Mali, said in an interview.

Mali, a landlocked former French colony nearly twice the size of Texas, has one of the more stable, but still fragile, democracies in West Africa. But it borders Algeria, whose well-equipped military has chased Qaeda militants into northern Mali, where they have adopted a nomadic lifestyle, making them even more difficult to track.

With only 10,000 military and other security forces, and just two working helicopters and a few airplanes, Mali acknowledges how daunting a task it is to try to drive out the militants from their territory.

The biggest potential threat comes from as many as 200 fighters from an offshoot of Al Qaeda called Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, which uses the northern Malian desert as a staging area and support base, American and Malian officials say.

About three months ago, the Qaeda affiliate threatened to attack American forces that operated north of Timbuktu in Mali’s desert, three Defense Department officials said. One military official said this warning contributed to a decision to shift part of the recent training exercise out of that area.

The government in neighboring Mauritania said 12 of its troops were killed in a militant attack there in September. By some accounts, the soldiers were beheaded and their bodies were booby-trapped with explosives.

Two Defense Department officials expressed fear that a main leader of the Qaeda affiliate in Mali, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, is under growing pressure to carry out a large-scale attack, possibly in Algeria or Mauritania, to establish his leadership credentials within the organization.

Members of the Qaeda affiliate have not attacked Malian forces, and American and Malian officials privately acknowledge that military officials here have adopted a live-and-let-live approach to the Qaeda threat, focusing instead on rebellious Tuareg tribesmen, who also live in the sparsely populated north.

To finance their operations, the militants exact tolls from smugglers whose routes traverse the Qaeda sanctuary, and collect ransoms for kidnapping victims. Last month two Austrians were released after a ransom of more than $2 million was reportedly paid. They had been held in northern Mali after being seized in southern Tunisia in February.

For those reasons, American officials still eye the largely ungoverned spaces of Mali’s northern desert with concern.

This year, the United States Agency for International Development is spending about $9 million on counterterrorism programs here. Some of the money will expand an existing job training program for women to provide young Malian men in the north with the basic skills to set up businesses like tiny flour mills or cattle enterprises.

The agency is also building 12 FM radio stations in the north to link far-flung villages to an early-warning network that sends bulletins on bandits and other threats. Financing from the Pentagon will produce radio soap operas in four national languages that will promote peace and tolerance.

“Young men in the north are looking for jobs or something to do with their lives,” said Alexander Newton, the development agency’s mission director in Mali. “These are the same people who could be susceptible to other messages of economic security.”

Concern about Mali’s vulnerability also brought a dozen Army Green Berets from the 10th Special Forces Group in Germany, and several more Dutch and German military instructors, to Mali for the two-week training exercise that ended last month.

The mock skirmish lasted just a few minutes. The Malians, shouting to one another and firing at their attackers, retreated from the ambush rather than try to fight through it.

“We’re still learning,” said Captain Yossouf Traore, a 28-year-old commander, speaking in English he learned in Texas and at Fort Benning, Georgia, as a visiting officer. “We’re getting a lot of experience in leadership skills and making decisions on the spot.”

Still, some worrisome indicators are giving some Malian government and religious leaders, as well as American officials, pause about the country’s ability to deal with security risks.

Mali is the world’s fifth-poorest country and, by some measures, getting poorer, according to United Nations and State Department statistics. One of every five Malian children dies before the age of 5. The average Malian does not live to celebrate a 50th birthday. The country’s population, now at 12 million people, is doubling nearly every two decades. Literacy rates hover around 30% and are much lower in rural areas.

There are also small signs that radical clerics are beginning to make inroads into the traditionally tolerant form of Islam practiced here for centuries by Sunni Muslims. The number of Malian women wearing all-enveloping burqas is still small, but the increase is noticeable from just a few years ago, religious leaders say.

New mosques are springing up, financed by conservative religious organizations in Saudi Arabia, Libya and Iran, and scholarships offered to young Malian men to study in those countries are also on the rise, Malian officials say.

American and African diplomats here said Mali was one of the few countries in the region that had good relations with most of its neighbors, making it a likely catalyst for the broader regional security cooperation the United States is trying to foster. American commanders expressed confidence that by training together, the African forces might work together against transnational threats like Al Qaeda.

“If we don’t help these countries work together, it becomes a much more difficult problem,” said Lieutenant Colonel Jay Connors, the senior American Special Forces officer on the ground here during the exercise.

American officials say their strategy is to contain the Qaeda threat and train the African armies, a process that will take years. The nonmilitary counterterrorism programs are just starting, and it is too early to gauge results.

“This is a long-term effort,” said Connors, 45, an Africa specialist from Burlington, Vermont, who speaks French and Portuguese. “This is crawl, walk, run, and right now, we’re still in the crawl phase.”

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UN mission chief warns Afghanistan’s allies (Paris, International Herald, 081208)

[KH: perhaps an impossible case]

KABUL: In unusually blunt remarks, the chief of the UN mission in Afghanistan warned in an interview last weekend that unless Afghanistan’s international partners conducted their military operations with more care and cultural sensitivity, redoubled their work to minimize civilian casualties and accelerated their reconstruction programs, they risked jeopardizing their efforts to stabilize and rebuild the country.

Kai Eide, the UN special representative for Afghanistan, also came to the defense of the embattled president, Hamid Karzai, saying that Karzai’s harsh public criticism of his foreign allies on both the military and development fronts had been authentic, not to mention an accurate reflection of widespread and growing frustration among Afghans.

Some foreign diplomats have dismissed Karzai’s recent remarks as a cynical effort to curry favor with Afghan voters during the prelude to national elections, Eide said.

“Listen to the concerns of the Afghan people, and listen to what President Karzai said,” Eide said. “I think he reflects a deep and growing concern within the Afghan public about the impact of what we’re doing on the ground.”

Eide said he was compelled to speak out because of what he called the “opportunity” presented by a change of presidential administrations in Washington.

“It’s a unique opportunity to mobilize energy and also to streamline our efforts,” he said.

There has been growing outrage in Afghanistan over U.S.-led military operations, including aerial bombings and house raids, that have inflicted civilian casualties and increasingly alienated the international security forces from the Afghan population that they are trying to protect.

In addition, Afghans have grown weary of the slow reconstruction process. More than seven years after the invasion that drove the Taliban from power, infrastructure still remains poor, and poverty and unemployment are high.

During a visit here late last month by a UN Security Council delegation, Karzai lashed out in a private meeting at his foreign partners, criticizing mounting civilian casualties inflicted by coalition security forces and the lack of coordination in the development sector.

Karzai, whose office later distributed a transcript of his comments publicly, also urged the international community to do more to “Afghanize” the country by strengthening its security forces and government institutions.

“Every debate about what we’re planning to do in Afghanistan must be an Afghan-led debate; it must take place on Afghan terms,” Eide said Saturday during an interview in his office in a guarded UN compound here.

“If what we seek is to strengthen Afghan institutions and strengthen the Afghan government - and that’s what we’ve been saying - then it must be clear to everybody that the debate that we are conducting involves the Afghans fully and has the Afghan in the leading role.”

Eide, a Norwegian, assumed his post in April and, among other responsibilities, is in charge of coordinating the civilian redevelopment effort. Publicly, he has cut a figure of quiet determination. But during the interview, his emotions occasionally overrode his normally low-key demeanor, his voice rising in crescendos of pique.

His comments come as the United States is planning to deploy more than 20,000 additional troops to Afghanistan to fight a strengthening insurgency, train Afghan security forces and prepare for national elections.

An army brigade is scheduled to arrive next month.

Eide said that he welcomed the debate about more deployments, but that all future deployments must include a parallel debate, informed by the concerns of the Karzai administration and the Afghan people, about the impact of the military engagement.

“Are we sufficiently sensitive to Afghan concerns?” he asked. “Are we sure that we behave in a way that brings Afghan communities closer to the government? Do we listen sufficiently to the concerns we hear from the president and so many Afghans? I’m not convinced that we are.”

He added, “We see how we can go wrong now.”

Eide referred to an episode in August in Azizabad, a village in eastern Afghanistan, where cannon fire from an AC-130 gunship against what was suspected to be a Taliban hideout killed dozens of civilians. He said the incident “shook” Karzai and helped to focus his concerns more acutely on the problem of civilian casualties and other problems of the foreign military engagement.

Taliban vows more violence

Mullah Omar, the fugitive Taliban leader, is promising more violence over the coming year, even as the United States plans to deploy thousands more troops in hopes of turning around the deteriorating war in Afghanistan, The Associated Press reported from Kabul.

In a statement posted Sunday on a militant-linked Web site, Omar also rejected Karzai’s calls for peace talks until foreign troops leave the country.

Afghanistan is going through its most violent period since the Taliban were ousted in the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.

Omar released his message at the start of Muslim holiday of Id al-Adha, or the Feast of the Sacrifice.

==============================

Pakistani spy agency linked to militants suspected in attacks (Paris, International Herald, 081208)

WASHINGTON: Lashkar-e-Taiba, the militant group based in Pakistan that is suspected of conducting the Mumbai attacks, has quietly gained strength in recent years with the help of Pakistan’s main spy service, assistance that has allowed the group to train and raise money while other militants have been under siege, U.S. intelligence and counterterrorism officials say.

U.S. officials say that there is no hard evidence to link the spy service, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, to the Mumbai attacks. But the ISI has shared intelligence with Lashkar and provided protection for it, the officials said, and investigators are focusing on one Lashkar leader they believe is a main liaison with the spy service and a mastermind of the attacks.

As a result of the assault on Mumbai, India’s financial hub, U.S. counterterrorism and military officials say that they are reassessing their view of Lashkar and believe it to be more capable and a greater threat than they had previously recognized.

“People are having to go back and relook at all the connections,” said one U.S. counterterrorism official, who was among several officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was still progressing.

Pakistani officials have denied any government connection to the siege of Nov. 26-29, in which nine gunmen and 163 other people were killed, and on Monday, Pakistani officials confirmed that security forces had initiated an operation against at least one Lashkar camp in Pakistani territory.

While Al Qaeda has provided financing and other support to Lashkar in the past, their links today remain murky. Senior Al Qaeda figures have used Lashkar safe houses as hide-outs, but Lashkar has not merged its operations with Al Qaeda or adopted the Qaeda brand, as did an Algerian terrorist group that changed its name to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, U.S. officials said.

Unlike Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants, who have been forced to retreat to mountain redoubts in western Pakistan’s tribal areas, Lashkar commanders have been able to operate more or less in the open, behind the public face of a popular charity, with the implicit support of official Pakistani patrons, U.S. officials said.

U.S. and Indian officials believe that one senior Lashkar commander in particular, Zarrar Shah, is one of the group’s primary liaisons to the ISI. Investigators in India are also examining whether Shah, a communications specialist, helped plan and carry out the attacks in Mumbai.

“He’s a central character in this plot,” one U.S. official said.

For years, U.S. intelligence analysts have described Lashkar as a group with deadly, yet limited, ambitions in South Asia. But terrorism experts said it clearly had been inspired by the success that Al Qaeda had had in rallying supporters for a global jihad.

“This is a group that years ago evolved from having a local and parochial agenda and bought into Al Qaeda’s vision,” said Bruce Hoffman, a professor and terrorism expert at Georgetown University who has followed Lashkar closely for several years.

Lashkar-e-Taiba, which means “army of the pure,” was founded more than 20 years ago with the help of Pakistani intelligence officers as a proxy force to challenge Indian control of Muslim-dominated Kashmir.

Indian officials have publicly implicated Lashkar operatives in a July 2006 attack on commuter trains in Mumbai and in a December 2001 attack against the Indian Parliament. But in recent years, Lashkar fighters have turned up on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq, fighting and killing Americans, senior U.S. military officials have said.

As U.S., European and Middle Eastern governments crack down on Al Qaeda’s finances, Lashkar still has a flourishing fund-raising organization in South Asia and the Gulf region, including Saudi Arabia, counterterrorism officials say. The group primarily uses its charity wing, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, to raise money, ostensibly for causes in Pakistan.

The Mumbai attacks, which included foreigners among its targets, seemed to fit the group’s evolving emphasis and determination to elevate its profile in the global jihadi constellation.

Lashkar also has a history of using local extremist groups for knowledge and tactics in its operations. Investigators in Mumbai are following leads suggesting that Lashkar used the Students’ Islamic Movement of India, a fundamentalist group that advocates establishing an Islamic state in India, for early reconnaissance and logistical help.

An Indian man arrested in connection with the attacks, Fahim Ahmad Ansari, had been described beforehand by Indian newspaper reports as a former member of the Students’ Islamic Movement who met with Lashkar operatives in Dubai in 2003.

U.S. officials said investigators were looking closely at the likelihood that the attackers had some kind of local support in Mumbai.

Hoffman said that Lashkar had developed particularly sophisticated Internet operations, and that intelligence officials believed the group had forged ties with regional terrorist organizations like Jemaah Islamiyah in Indonesia by assisting them with their own Internet strategies.

Although Pakistan’s government officially banned Lashkar in 2002, U.S. officials said that the group had maintained close ties since then to the Pakistani intelligence service. U.S. spy agencies have documented regular meetings between the ISI and Lashkar operatives, in which the two organizations have shared intelligence about Indian operations in Kashmir.

“It goes beyond information sharing to include some funding and training,” said a U.S. official who follows the group closely. “And these are not rogue ISI elements. What’s going on is done in a fairly disciplined way.”

Still, officials in Washington said they had yet to unearth any direct link between the Pakistan spy agency and the Mumbai attacks.

“I don’t think that there is compelling evidence of involvement of Pakistani officials,” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on CNN’s “Late Edition With Wolf Blitzer” on Sunday. “But I do think that Pakistan has a responsibility to act.”

She said evidence showed “that the terrorists did use territory in Pakistan.”

A U.S. counterterrorism official said: “It’s one thing to say the ISI is tied to Lashkar and quite another to say the ISI was behind the Mumbai attacks. The evidence at this point doesn’t get you there.”

Moreover, some terrorism analysts said that Lashkar’s dependence on its original sponsors had lessened in recent years. With wealthy donors in no short supply, an established recruiting pipeline and a series of training camps, Lashkar “has outgrown ISI’s support,” said Urmila Venugopalan, a South Asia analyst for Jane’s Information Group.

The protection that Lashkar operatives enjoy inside Pakistan has allowed the group to thrive at the same time that Al Qaeda’s leaders have been forced to hide in caves and occasionally transmit messages to one another using donkey couriers.

In a public statement in May, Stuart Levey, the under secretary of treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence in the United States, called Lashkar a “dangerous Al Qaeda affiliate that has demonstrated its willingness to murder innocent civilians.”

But other terrorism analysts offer a more nuanced view of the group’s Qaeda ties. On the one hand, Al Qaeda and Lashkar share many positions: a belief in a strict interpretation of the Koran, a desire to establish a government based on strict Islamic laws and a priority to evict U.S. troops from Afghanistan and Iraq.

Lashkar has helped Qaeda fighters move in and out of Afghanistan.

In March 2002, a Qaeda lieutenant, Abu Zubaydah, was captured in a Lashkar safe house in Faisalabad, Pakistan, according to a State Department terrorism report. Eleven detainees currently at the U.S. prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, are suspected of having connections of some kind to Lashkar.

But Lashkar and Al Qaeda do not always see eye to eye, terrorism analysts said. While Lashkar strives for the creation of a pan-Islamic state across South Asia, Al Qaeda aims to create an even larger entity. Al Qaeda also is wary of Lashkar’s relationship with the ISI, a U.S. official said.

A spokesman for Jamaat-ud-Dawa, Lashkar’s charity wing, denied last week that the group or its founder, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, had any connection to the Mumbai attacks. The surviving gunman in Mumbai has claimed to have met Saeed at a training camp in Pakistan.

==============================

With counterterror program, Saudis have turned the tide (Paris, International Herald, 090322)

RIYADH: Near the guard tower outside this country’s main counterterrorism training center, some of the concrete barriers are still scarred with shrapnel. They are kept as a reminder: in December 2004, a suicide bomber detonated his car there, in one of a series of deadly attacks by Islamist insurgents that shook the kingdom.

“It was a wake-up call,” said the commander of the training center, a tall, wiry officer in fatigues and a black beret who cannot publicly give his name for security reasons. “The situation was bad.” A plaque just inside the commander’s office bears the names of 57 Saudi officers who died fighting terrorists from 2003 to 2005.

Those deaths forced a decisive shift here. Many Saudis had refused to recognize the country’s growing reputation as an incubator of terrorism, even after the international outcry that had followed the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Since then, much has changed. When Saudi Arabia released its latest list of wanted terrorism suspects in January, all 85 of them were said to be outside the kingdom.

That fact was a measure of the ambitious counterterrorism program created here in the past few years. The government has cracked down ruthlessly on terrorist cells and their financing, rooting out officers with extremist sympathies and building a much larger and more effective network of SWAT teams. Even regular police officers now get a full month of counterterrorism training every year.

“We have killed or captured all the fighters, and the rest have fled to Afghanistan or Yemen,” said the commander, in an assessment largely echoed by Western security officials. “All that remains here is some ideological apparatus.”

The extent of that ideological apparatus remains uncertain. The list of 85 suspects that was released in January included 11 men who had been freed from the U.S. prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, had passed through Saudi Arabia’s widely praised rehabilitation program for jihadists and then had fled the country. Two of them broadcast their aim of overthrowing the Saudi royal family in a video released on the Internet by the Yemeni branch of Al Qaeda, in an embarrassing moment for the authorities here.

But the Saudi government, which once seemed unwilling to acknowledge this country’s critical role in fostering jihadist violence, has become far more open about the challenges it faces.

“We are still at the beginning; we have a lot to learn,” said Turki al-Otayan, the director of the rehabilitation program’s psychological committee. Like others involved in the program, he conceded that the return of some of its graduates to terrorism had been a blow, but he said he believed that the success rate (14 failures out of 218 graduates) was still impressive.

Mr. Otayan and his colleagues won a partial vindication last month when one of the two graduates who had fled to Yemen later returned to Saudi Arabia and gave himself up. But Mr. Otayan shrugged that off.

“We can’t guarantee that he won’t go back to Yemen again,” he added. “You’re dealing with people, not cars.”

Saudi officials are also frank about the fact that Al Qaeda still has some popular sympathy here, though far less than before the bloody attacks from 2003 to 2005.

“Changing mindsets is not easy, and it takes a long time,” said Abdul Rahman al-Hadlag, the Interior Ministry’s director of ideological security. “We have to monitor mosques and the Internet, because the extremists use these places to recruit people. Sometimes they even use after-school activities. Sleeper cells exist.”

Some of the softer approaches to fighting terrorism have been labeled as coddling by Western critics. But the Saudi state must provide many former jihadists with jobs and financial assistance, Mr. Hadlag said, because if it does not, others will.

“Sometimes the extremists leave money in envelopes under the door, with ‘From your mujahedeen brothers’ written on it,” Mr. Hadlag said. “We can’t let them be the good guys.”

The post-prison rehabilitation program, which is now being expanded, is only one part of a broader effort to address the issue of violent extremism across Saudi Arabia. It includes dialogues with, or even suppression of, the more extremist clerics. There are also a variety of outreach programs in areas known to harbor extremists, with the Interior Ministry sending its preferred clerics or sheiks to speak in schools and community centers for two or three weeks at a time.

At the same time, the kingdom has completely retooled its prison system, which had been criticized as having inhumane conditions. Five new prisons were built last year — as it happens, by the bin Laden family company — that hold 1,200 to 1,500 prisoners each.

Unlike the old prisons, the new ones allow a maximum of four inmates to a cell, and Islamists are kept separate from common criminals for the first time, minimizing the spread of jihadist ideas, or so the theory goes.

Some internal critics say that the “soft” counterterrorism strategies remain weak and that the only way to address the roots of jihadist violence is by thoroughly reforming the Saudi educational system, a task that will take decades.

“One major problem is that the sheiks they bring for these programs aren’t authoritative,” said Mshari al-Zaydi, a Saudi journalist and political analyst who is a former hard-liner, referring to the rehabilitation efforts. “They don’t have credibility because they are seen as people who take money from the government.”

In the meantime, Saudi Arabia’s main terrorist threat appears to come from Yemen, where a number of Saudi extremists have regrouped in that country’s mountainous, tribal hinterland. They have struck there repeatedly in the past year and have declared a goal of using Yemen as a base for attacks against Saudi Arabia. The border with Yemen is long and porous, and militants appear to have no trouble crossing it at will.

“We are victims of terrorism,” said the commander of the Riyadh training center. “It’s not what the world thinks.”

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FBI Credits Informant for Helping Bust New York Terror Plot (Foxnews, 090521)

Without the help of an informant who met repeatedly with four accused homegrown terrorists over the course of a yearlong undercover investigation, their plot to blow up two synagogues in New York City and to shoot down planes at an Air National Guard base would not have been thwarted, federal investigators say.

The informant began working last June with James Cromitie, one of the four Newburgh, N.Y., men arrested Wednesday night as they planted what they believed were real explosives at synagogues in the Bronx, according to the complaint.

Cromitie met with the informant in Newburgh, about 70 miles north of New York, and told him he was upset about the war in Afghanistan because his parents had lived there, according to the complaint.

Cromitie also allegedly said he was angry about the deaths of numerous Muslims in Afghanistan and Pakistan at the hands of U.S. military forces.

Cromitie told the informant he wanted to go back to Afghanistan and said he’d go to “paradise” if he died a martyr, according to the complaint. He also allegedly expressed a desire to do “something to America.”

One month later, the informant and Cromitie spoke of the Pakistan-based foreign terror organization called Jaish-e-Mohammed — and the informant told Cromitie he was affiliated with the group, the complaint said.

Cromitie allegedly told the informant that he wanted to join the group to “do jihad.”

Beginning in October, the informant and Cromitie began meeting at a house in Newburgh that the FBI had equipped with hidden video cameras and audio recorders.

During the gatherings, Cromitie and co-defendants David Williams, Onta Williams and Laguerre Payen discussed their desire to attack targets in New York, including two synagogues a few blocks apart in the Bronx and aircraft at an Air National Guard base, according to the complaint.

The plot allegedly involved detonating plastic explosives packed into a car outside the Riverdale Temple and the Riverdale Jewish Center, a Reform and an Orthodox synagogue, respectively, and shooting surface-to-air guided missiles at military jets at Stewart Airport in Newburgh.

Cromitie, David Williams and Onta Williams are all native-born Americans; Payen was born in Haiti and is a Haitian citizen, according to authorities.

The link among the four suspects was likely a Newburgh mosque they attended called Masjid al-Ikhlas, or the Islamic Learning Center, of Orange County, according to local reports.

“This was a very tightly controlled operation,” New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly told reporters early Thursday.

Cromitie allegedly asked the FBI informant to supply surface-to-air guided missiles and explosives for the attack. The informant told him he could provide C-4 plastic explosives, the complaint said.

Instead, he provided mock explosives.

Last month, according to the complaint, the four suspects chose the synagogues they wanted to target, and they began conducting surveillance of military planes at the Air National Guard base.

Cromitie and David Williams bought a 9 mm semi-automatic pistol to use during the planned terrorist operations, the complaint said. The two also allegedly traveled to the location where they planned to fire missiles at the military planes.

Early this month, Cromitie, David Williams, Payen and the informant drove together to Stamford, Conn., to pick up what the suspects were told were a surface-to-air guided missile system and three improvised explosive devices (IEDs), according to the complaint.

The informant supplied them with a missile he said he’d obtained from Jaish-e-Mohammed. But it was an FBI-made device that wasn’t capable of being fired, according to the complaint.

Cromitie, David Williams and Payen allegedly transported the bogus weapons back to Newburgh, where they inspected them and discussed details of the plot with Onta Williams.

The four men were charged with conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction within the United States and conspiracy to acquire and use anti-aircraft missiles, according to the U.S. attorney’s office. They were to appear in federal court Thursday in White Plains, N.Y.

==============================

Pakistan says Taliban chief is probably dead (National Post, 090807)

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan believes wanted Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, who has a $5 million U.S. bounty on his head, was probably killed with his wife and bodyguards in a missile attack two days ago, the interior minister said on Friday.

An intelligence officer in South Waziristan told Reuters that Mehsud’s funeral had already taken place, while Pakistani media cited their own security sources, saying Mehsud was dead.

“He was killed with his wife and he was buried in Nargosey,” the officer said, referring to a tiny settlement about 1 km (half a mile), from the site of the attack, believed to have been carried out by a pilotless U.S. drone aircraft.

Diplomats in Islamabad say Mehsud’s death would mark a major coup for Pakistan, but many doubt it will help Western troops fighting the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan. Most of his focus has been on attacking Pakistan’s government and security forces.

“We suspect he was killed in the missile strike,” Interior Minister Rehman Malik said. “We have some information, but we don’t have material evidence to confirm it.”

Other Pakistani officials struck a similar note, hedging against a chance that Mehsud might have survived the blitz.

Taliban leaders presumed dead have sometimes resurfaced later and there were reports from other media, quoting unnamed Taliban sources, that Mehsud was wounded but not killed.

Mehsud declared himself leader of the Pakistan Taliban, grouping around 13 factions in the northwest, in late 2007 and his fighters have staged a wave of suicide attacks inside Pakistan and on Western forces across the border in Afghanistan.

He is accused of being behind the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in December 2007, a charge he has denied. Conspiracy theories abound over who killed the former prime minister.

A U.S. official said there were grounds to believe Mehsud was dead. “There is reason to believe that reports of his death may be true, but it can’t be confirmed at this time,” the official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

U.S. missile attacks on Mehsud territory in South Waziristan became more frequent after Pakistan ordered a military offensive against him in June.

Neither the Pakistani nor U.S. government confirms such attacks because of sensitivities over violation of Pakistan’s territorial sovereignty.

Intelligence officials and relatives confirmed earlier that Mehsud’s second wife had been killed in the missile strike that targeted her father’s home in an outlying settlement close to Makeen village in the South Waziristan tribal region.

A relative of Mehsud’s dead wife had initially said the Taliban leader was not present when the missiles struck, but rumors persisted that he had been wounded or killed.

Intelligence agents had also picked up signs that leaders of various Taliban factions planned to gather for a shura, or council meeting, somewhere in Waziristan later Friday.

There is speculation they will choose a new leader and the names of militants Hakimullah Mehsud, Maulana Azmatullah and Wali-ur-Rehman have surfaced as possible successors.

Hakimullah Mehsud commands Taliban militants in three tribal regions of Orakzai, Khyber and Kurram and is said to be an important leader in the Taliban hierarchy.

Like Baitullah, Azmatullah also hails from the Shahbikhel, a sub-tribe of the Mehsuds. He is an important commander and a member of Taliban shura, or council of leaders.

Wali-ur-Rehman is another shura member, and is a former spokesman for Baitullah.

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Captured Pakistani Taliban Spokesman Admits Leader Is Dead (Foxnews, 090818)

ISLAMABAD — The captured spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban told interrogators that the movement’s leader was killed in a U.S. missile strike earlier this month.

U.S. and Pakistani officials have said they are almost certain that Baitullah Mehsud was killed in the Aug. 5 strike.

But several Taliban commanders had told media organizations he is alive.

Taliban spokesman Maulvi Umar was arrested Monday evening close to the Afghan border.

An intelligence official who interrogated Umar said Tuesday that he had acknowledged that Mehsud was dead.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Three intelligence officials said Tuesday that Umar was seized in a village in the Mohmand tribal region Monday night while he was traveling in a car with two associates to South Waziristan, a Taliban stronghold.

Local tribal elders assisted troops in locating Umar in the village of Khawazeo, the intelligence officials said. Pakistan army or government spokesmen were not immediately available for comments.

As the official spokesman for the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, Umar frequently called journalists to claim responsibility for terrorist attacks in Pakistan.

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Scottish Lawmakers Reamed at Emergency Meeting on Lockerbie Release (Foxnews, 090824)

Scottish lawmakers tore into their goverment Monday at an emergency session on the early release of Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, as the ruling party escaped a no-confidence vote that could have brought the reeling government down.

Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill received a ceaseless barrage of furious questions over his decision to free al-Megrahi, the only man ever convicted in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 that killed 270 people.

Al-Megrahi was released last week on compassionate grounds because he is dying of prostate cancer and received a hero’s welcome Thursday in his native Libya, where he was embraced by jubilant crowds and the country’s leader, Muammar al-Qaddafi.

Critics have called on MacAskill to resign and sought to unseat Scotland’s First Minister, Alex Salmond, who many in Scotland fear have damaged relations with the United States.

Top U.S. officials have continued to express their disappointment and disgust with the decision to send al-Megrahi packing, as the families of those aboard the doomed Pan Am flight expressed outrage at the show of compassion for a man who never repented for his crime.

A crowd hissed along from the packed public section during the emergency debate Monday in Edinburgh, as MacAskill was once again called on to defend freeing the convicted bomber after only eight years of his life sentence. Al-Megrahi served just 11 days in prison for each of the 270 victims of the bombing.

Some Scottish lawmakers hoped to distance themselves from the decision by Scotland’s nationalist administration, which advocates full independence from Britain.

“Today is about showing the world that Kenny MacAskill did not speak for Scotland in making this decision,” said Richard Baker, the Labour Party’s Scottish justice spokesman. An expected no-confidence vote was tabled before the debate Monday.

MacAskill reiterated his view that the government had to uphold “Scottish values” even in the face of al-Megrahi’s terror, but lawmakers roiled at the suggestion that there were no other defensible options open to him.

“I do not believe you hold a monopoly on values,” said member of the Scottish Parliament Karen Gillon.

“The suggestion that those who disagree with (the decision to free Megrahi) lack compassion is deeply offensive,” said member of the Scottish Parliament Margaret Curran.

Parliamentarians present pressed MacAskill for details of his discussions and briefings before al-Megrahi’s release, which he generally deflected, and asked whether the 57-year-old could have been transferred to a hospice in Scotland instead.

The justice secretary said he could not have remanded the ailing terrorist to the care of Scottish doctors, which wuold unwillingly put them at risk and in the spotlight. “I was not willing to foist Mr. Megrahi upon any hospice in Scotland,” he said.

Though he acknowledged that the release was “a global issue,” but stressed the decision to free al-Megrahi had been his alone. He regretted that assurances of a low-key arrival in Libya had been breached by Libyan authorities. The sight of cheerings crowds on the ground have further set off critics.

In a strongly worded letter to the Scottish government, FBI director Robert Mueller said al-Megrahi’s release gave comfort to terrorists, while Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said releasing the bomber was “obviously a political decision.”

MacAskill has said earlier that he followed all the correct procedures under Scottish law and was not influenced by political considerations, solely by the fact that al-Megrahi had just three months to live, according to doctors’ reports.

Including al-Megrahi, 24 prisoners have been freed on compassionate grounds in Scotland over the last decade. Another seven applications were turned down because the medical evidence did not support the claim.

But some critics have accused authorities of approving the release to boost business ties between Britain and Libya, which has vast oil reserves. Such suspicions were heightened after Libyan President Moammar Gadhafi thanked Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Queen Elizabeth II for “encouraging” the Scottish government to free al-Megrahi.

Business Secretary Peter Mandelson said the suggestion there had been a deal was “completely implausible and actually quite offensive.”

On Monday, a spokesman for Brown said al-Megrahi’s release was “a uniquely sensitive and difficult decision” but he denied allegations it pleased terrorists.

“This was a decision taken by the Scottish Justice Secretary in accordance with the laws of Scotland,” he said on condition of anonymity in line with government policy. “I don’t see that anyone can argue that this gives succor.”

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Al Qaeda Threatens Germany Ahead of Elections (Foxnews, 090918)

BERLIN — Al Qaeda has posted a new video threatening Germany, highlighting an increased threat level ahead of national elections and prompting authorities to step up security, the Interior Ministry said Friday.

The ministry gave no details of the Al Qaeda posting, but said in a brief statement it underlines the fact that the Sept. 27 elections offer “a particular background for propaganda and operational actions by terrorist groups.”

It said authorities believe there is an “increased threat situation” to which they are responding with “adjusted security measures in particular at airports and stations.”

ARD television reported that the video features a German-speaker who has featured in previous videos over the past year, issuing a threat connected to Germany’s troop presence in Afghanistan.

“If the people decides for a continuation of the war, it has delivered its own verdict,” the channel quoted Bekkay Harrach, who uses the pseudonym Abu Talha, as saying in the video. “The parliamentary election is the people’s only opportunity to shape the policy of the country.”

He adds that “with the withdrawal of the last German soldiers, the last mujahedeen also will be withdrawn from Germany.”

IntelCenter, another company that monitors terrorist propaganda, said Harrach warned that, if Germans do not vote for a change of government, there will be a “bad awakening” after the election.

He asked his Muslim “brethren” to “stay away from anything not vital for two weeks after the election,” the group said.

Germany’s federal prosecutors and Federal Criminal Police Office said the video was still being evaluated. Frank Wallenta, a spokesman for prosecutors, said it was very likely that the speaker was in fact Harrach.

Authorities have said Harrach, a German of Moroccan background, is believed to have lived for many years in Bonn and now to be in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border area.

Germany has more than 4,200 soldiers in Afghanistan. The deployment is unpopular, but has not been a significant issue in the election campaign.

Only one of the five parties in parliament, the opposition Left Party, advocates an immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan, and it has no realistic chance of joining the next government.

German officials have over recent months described new videos featuring German-speakers as part of a “new quality” of threats. The Interior Ministry underlined that on Friday.

Direct threats to Germany by Al Qaeda and other organizations since the beginning of this year “are reaching a new quality,” it said.

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Videos show Toronto 18 members handling bomb materials (National Post, 091020)

BRAMPTON -- The two scrawny terrorists are unloading bags labeled ammonium nitrate from the back of a delivery truck when one of them looks up and recoils in shock, while his partner backs into a wall and raises his hands in surrender.

A four-member police tactical team dressed all in black descends, laying them spread-eagled on the floor of the warehouse and cuffing their hands behind their backs before one of the officers raises his thumb to say mission accomplished.

The dramatic arrests of Saad Khalid and Saad Gaya, members of the "Toronto 18" terrorist group that was planning to detonate truck bombs in downtown Toronto, was captured on a video released on Tuesday by the court.

The video is among dozens of Crown exhibits that form the case against Zakaria Amara, who admitted on Oct. 8 he was the leader of the bomb plot. An Ontario judge approved their release, allowing Canadians to view them for the first time.

The videos show the terrorists testing an electronic detonator and meeting in the dark. Also released was a video of a test explosion conducted by the RCMP, which built and detonated a bomb using the same formula as the terrorists. The result is a huge blast that flipped a metal shipping container.

The Toronto 18 were homegrown al-Qaeda-inspired terrorists who attended a training camp north of Toronto and planned attacks in southern Ontario they hoped would force Canada to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan.

"The eventual plan for which the group was training was an attack which would cripple infrastructure and involved attacking Parliament and blowing up truck bombs," reads an agreed statement of facts that forms part of Amara's guilty plea.

Also released on Tuesday were messages the terrorists exchanged in thumb drives in an attempt to avoid police surveillance. In one of them, Amara tells his accomplice to conduct reconnaissance in Toronto using a camera.

"Don't do anything too suspicious. Just check out everywhere, you known downtown. Check different places just uh, oh yeah and also for the chemical set like I told you I need a filter, I need Pyrex, I need something to weigh, for weighing, you know."

Amara's rambling instructions on planning the attack are interspersed with religious tracts such as, "God all mighty says in the Koran...instructing the faithful that when they meet a group of non-believers or when they are battling they should remember God a lot and that will keep them, God willing, being steadfast."

Amara, 24, pleaded to two counts of terrorism and is to be sentenced in January. Khalid, Gaya and Ali Dirie have also pleaded guilty and another man, Nishanthan Yogakrishnan, was convicted. Another six are awaiting trial.

A Mississauga gas jockey, Amara revealed his plans to an undercover police agent, telling him the plot involved renting three U-Haul vans and packing them with explosives. The vans were to be parked at the Toronto Stock Exchange, the CSIS regional office on Front Street and at a military base between Toronto and Ottawa.

The bombs were to be detonated remotely at about 9 a.m. in mid-November, 2006. Police arrested the group on June 2, 2006, before the attacks could be carried out. A judge said the men were motivated by an extremist interpretation of Islam that portrayed Canada as a "near enemy."

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Angry Pakistani villagers surround Taliban (National Post, 090608)

ISLAMABAD — Pakistani villagers enraged with the Taliban after the bombing of a mosque battled the militants on Monday, underscoring a shift in public opinion away from the hardline Islamists.

The military has been fighting the Taliban in the Swat valley, northwest of the capital, for more than a month after the militants took advantage of a peace pact to conquer new areas.

In retaliation for the offensive, the Taliban have stepped up bomb attacks and are suspected of being behind a suicide blast at a mosque in the Upper Dir region, near Swat, that killed about 40 people on Friday.

Outraged by the attack, villagers formed a militia, known as a lashkar, of about 500 men and began fighting the militants on Saturday in an bid to force them out of their area.

A top government official in Upper Dir, Atif-ur-Rehman, said the militia fighters had pushed the Taliban out of three villages and surrounded them in another two.

“About 150 militants are believed to be there putting up resistance. But the villagers are doing well, they’re squeezing the militants,” Mr. Rehman told Reuters by telephone.

Fourteen Taliban had been killed while the militia had demolished at least dozen houses of militants, the military said.

The United States, which needs sustained Pakistani action to help defeat al-Qaeda and to cut off militant support for the Afghan Taliban, has been heartened by the resolve the government and military are showing in the Swat offensive.

Alarmed by the prospect of nuclear-armed Pakistan drifting into chaos, the United States had criticised a February pact with the Taliban in the former tourist valley of Swat.

The Swat offensive also has broad public support in a country where many people have long been suspicious of the United States and government critics have decried fighting “America’s war”.

The February pact aimed at placating the Taliban in Swat by introducing Islamic sharia law sailed through parliament with only one or two voices of dissent.

But much has changed since then.

A Taliban push into a district 100 km (60 miles) from Islamabad, a widely circulated video of Taliban flogging a teenaged girl and the Islamists’ denunciation of the constitution as “unIslamic” have sharply shifted public opinion.

The villagers’ action in Upper Dir is the latest in a series of instances of people turning on the Taliban. Mr.Rehman said security forces could help the militia if necessary.

“We don’t want to step in right now as they’re fighting at close quarters and there is a chance of losses on the villagers’ side if we use artillery,” he said.

While the government retains public support for the offensive, it could lose it if the 2.5 million people displaced by fighting in the northwest languish in misery.

The government is organising relief with the help of the United Nations and other agencies but aid officials say Pakistan faces a long-term humanitarian crisis.

The military says it has snuffed out organised resistance in Swat and it hopes people can begin returning home after the middle of this month. On Monday, the military relaxed a curfew in areas near Swat to allow people to flee or shop for supplies.

Seven militants were killed during searches over the previous 24 hours, the military said on Monday afternoon.

Meanwhile, cities are on alert for bomb attacks.

Police in Karachi said on Sunday they had arrested an associate of Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Meshud and seized “jackets” to be used in suicide attacks. Police said the suspect had confessed to planning attacks.

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Taliban Paying Thousands to Use Kids as Homicide Bombers (Foxnews, 090702)

The Taliban is buying children as young as 7 to be used as homicide bombers against U.S., Afghan and Pakistani targets, The Washington Times reported.

Baitullah Mehsud, Pakistan’s top Taliban leader, is paying between $7,000 and $14,000 for each child bomber, according to a Pakistani official who spoke to the newspaper with the contingency he not be named because of the sensitive nature of the topic.

The business of child bombers is lucrative in Pakistan where the average per-capita income is about $2,600 a year, the Times reported.

“[Mehsud] has turned suicide bombing into a production output, not unlike [the way] Toyota outputs cars,” a U.S. Defense Department official recently told reporters.

The price paid for the child depends mostly on how fast the bomber is needed and how close the child will get to the target.

A U.S. Defense Department official told the Times children are being kidnapped and sold to the Taliban just to receive the money.

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New York-Based Radical Muslim Hails Fort Hood Massacre (Foxnews, 091108)

NEW YORK — A New York City bicycle cabbie who mocked the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl and posted a prayer on the Web calling for the murder of Jews is now sending a “Get Well Soon” message to the suspected Fort Hood gunman, the New York Post reported.

Yousef al-Khattab, 41, a radical Muslim in the borough of Queens who runs RevolutionMuslim.com, claims on the site that the soldiers massacred at the Texas base deserved to be massacred, and he insists the victims are in “eternal hellfire.” As for the suspected gunman — Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan — Al-Khattab hails him as a hero.

“An officer and a gentleman was injured while partaking in a pre-emptive attack,” al-Khattab wrote on the site. “Get well soon Major Nidal. We love you.”

Al-Khattab, a Jewish-born New Jersey native formerly named Joseph Cohen, converted to Islam in 2004. Known by the FBI for posting radical messages online, al-Khattab claims that the 13 murdered and 38 wounded soldiers at Fort Hood were “terrorists” who deserved to die.

“These people are soldiers in a volunteer army,” al-Khattab told the Post. “They expect to see combat. They know the danger.”

“Rest assured the slain terrorists at Ft. Hood are in the eternal hellfire,” al-Khattab writes online.

Related StoriesNew York-Based Muslim’s Web Site Calls for God to ‘Kill the Jews’

On Oct. 7, al-Khattab posted a message on the Web calling on Allah to carry out “wrath on the Jewish occupiers of Palestine & their supporters.”

“Please throw liquid drain cleaner in their faces,” he wrote. “ … burn their flammable sukkos while they sleep … Ya Allah (Oh God) answer my duaa (prayer).” (“Sukkos” refers to the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, during which Jews build and eat their meals in outdoor huts known as “sukkahs,” which represent the huts the Jews lived in during their exodus from Egypt.)

Al Khattab insists that his hatred is protected by the First Amendment. “If it was a threat, I’d be in jail,” the 41-year-old al-Khattab told FoxNews.com in October.

Hasan — a radical Muslim — reportedly shouted “Allahu akbar,” or “God is great” in Arabic, before unloading more than 100 rounds at soldiers preparing to ship off to Iraq and Afghanistan.

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Al Qaeda Losing Ground While Islamic Terror Rising, Report Claims (Foxnews, 091215)

WASHINGTON — Targeted by drone strikes in Pakistan, Al Qaeda is losing ground and financing even as attacks by Islamist groups are on the rise, according to a report obtained by The Associated Press.

Attacks on civilian targets in Afghanistan by militant Islamic groups are on track to increase by 15-20% this year over last year’s totals, said the report by the American Security Project, a bipartisan Washington-based organization.

The group analyzes terror trends and the effectiveness of U.S. counterterror policies. The statistics do not include attacks against the military.

At the same time, many violence-prone Islamic militant groups are now increasingly focusing on local issues rather than on Usama bin Laden’s global struggle.

“There is a larger number of Islamic groups using violence to push their own agenda,” said Bernard Finel, a senior fellow with the American Security Project.

Other analysts and government reports have noted that the Taliban in Afghanistan are more focused on their internal fight. Insurgents in Somalia are concentrating on their own tribal battles with the government.

The divide comes as Al Qaeda is taking losses in leadership and money.

Armed drones, in clandestine attacks largely carried out by the CIA, have killed at least 11 of the United States’ initial top 20 Al Qaeda targets and four others who were added to an updated list, according to the security report.

Just last week, Saleh al-Somali, the group’s operations head, was killed by a missile strike in Pakistan, according to U.S. officials. Because of inadvertent uninvolved civilians’ deaths caused by the attack, approval of the U.S. approval by Pakistanis has plummeted.

The classified operations, run by the CIA, have not been confirmed openly by U.S. officials.

In contrast to the Afghan Taliban, who appear to be well-funded by crime, contributions and the opium trade, Al Qaeda is financially weaker than it has been in several years, according to an assessment by U.S. Treasury officials. That has led to a decline in influence.

The American Security Project report notes that Al Qaeda’s media arm, As-Sahab, has been less productive over the past year. The terrorist media operation issued 48 video messages in 2008, compared with 97 in 2007, the report said.

Yet the apparent diminishment of Al Qaeda influence has come as violent attacks rose sharply in Pakistan, according to the report. Islamic attacks jumped from 81 in the first half of 2008 to 220 in the first half of 2009.

In both cases, the report said, the numbers of the attacks are understated because they do not include strikes against the military. Also, in the case of Pakistan, some attacks may not be attributed to a particular terror group but “are almost certainly Islamist attacks.”

Somalia saw one of the largest spikes in violence, with 51 attacks in the first half of 2008 compared to 165 in the corresponding period in 2009.

The lawless country has become a haven for Islamic extremists, with some fighters from the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region moving to Somalia, where the Al Qaeda-linked group al-Shabab is battling to overthrow the weak U.S.-backed transitional government.

Even excluding Israel, Iraq and Afghanistan, the spike in violence worldwide remains dramatic.

According to the report, Islamist groups carried out 671 attacks worldwide in 2008. That number is on pace to shoot up by nearly 50% and surpass 1,000 for 2009.

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Homegrown Terror on the Rise in 2009 (Foxnews, 091214)

The five young Americans accused last week of traveling from Washington to Pakistan to wage jihad cap what appears to be a record year for homegrown terror plots, exposing a dangerous trend that experts say poses the biggest challenge America’s security officials have ever faced.

Not including the Pakistan case, the Rand Corporation says that of the nearly 30 homegrown terror plots uncovered in the U.S. since Sept. 11, 2001, 10 surfaced in this year alone, including two actual attacks — in Little Rock, Ark. and Fort Hood, Texas.

That puts “the level of activity in 2009 much higher than that of previous years,” Rand Senior Adviser Brian Jenkins told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee last month.

“There’s definitely a rise in jihad recruits and volunteers in the United States, whether they’re concerning plots here in the U.S. or whether they involve material support to terror plots overseas,” says counterterrorism analyst Steve Emerson, author of “American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us.”

Danny Coulson, former deputy assistant director of the FBI, agrees.

“I ran the entire terrorism program for the FBI for a period of time, and just from what you see in the newspaper there have been more American Islamic extremists terrorists arrested than years in the past,” Coulson told FoxNews.com.

A major concern, Coulson says, is that the majority of the suspects in the 2009 cases have no direct links to major terror organizations.

“They’re just homegrown terrorists who sympathize with the same Islamic extremist philosophy, and although they’re not connected by order or by organization, they’re connected by philosophy and religion,” he said.

The smaller cells tend to be less powerful than a central terrorist organization like Al Qaeda, but they are harder to detect, Emerson says.

“When the group of conspirators are small it’s much more difficult for the FBI to penetrate.... The larger the group, the greater the chances the FBI can infiltrate,” he said. “So I think the FBI has a big challenge on its hands, probably the biggest challenge it’s ever faced.”

Scott Stewart, vice president of tactictal intelligence for the global intelligence company Stratfor, says the FBI’s increased ability to infiltrate larger foreign-born plots has actually contributed to the spike in domestic terrorism.

“On 9/11 we had what we call an Al Qaeda all-star attack, where all the operatives had been dispatched from the core,” Stewart told FoxNews.com.

“But then, after the U.S. started taking them down, they really lost the ability to do that kind of operation, and so they’re regressing to the grassroots-type attacks, sometimes with an operational leader that was trained by them in the camps,” he said.

According to Rand, U.S. policy decisions are another contributing factor.

“American foreign policy should not be determined by a handful of shooters and would-be bombers, but we must accept the fact that what America does in the Middle East, Afghanistan, and Pakistan may provoke terrorism in the United States,” Jenkins said in his testimony. “Wars are no longer confined geographically.”

Emerson says it’s not the location of the wars, but the way they are perceived.

“I can tell you that the one common denominator in almost all of the cases are the views held by the jihadists that we’ve arrested or identified in terms of their believing that there’s a war against Islam,” he said.

In the case of four ex-convicts accused this year of trying to blow up two New York City synagogues and attack military aircraft, at least two of the men are believed to have adopted these beliefs while in prison.

Frank Cilluffo, director of the George Washington University Homeland Security Policy Institute, says American prisons have become a breeding ground for this kind of radicalization.

“Just as young people may become radicalized by ‘cut-and-paste’ versions of the Koran via the Internet, new inmates may gain the same distorted understanding of the faith from gang leaders or other influential inmates,” he said.

The Internet and those “cut-and-paste” versions of the Koran are the other major factor, he says, in matching the long-held intent for these attacks with the capability to organize them.

“The Internet is very significant here, for those who turn to, say, Google for their facts. There’s a lot of violent narrative out there ... it has grown exponentially and continues to grow exponentially,” he said.

“The killer ‘application’ of the Internet is the people,” he added. “Affirmation from like-minded people around the world — it plays that uniting kind of role.”

Cilluffo said that the key to stopping homegrown radicalism is the actual defeat of Al Qaeda, plus a powerful counternarrative aimed at defeating the terrorist organization’s brand.

“Al Qaeda rose to prominence through a story that explains history, justifies violence, and promises victory,” he wrote in an April report. “What’s needed ... is a global rethink about how the other side of the story — the side of the often Muslim victims — gets told.”

The answer, he says, is to tell the victims’ stories “compellingly and exhaustively.”

“That narrative could tap online social networks, creating a Facebook of the bereaved that crosses borders and cultures. A series of public service announcements, timed after attacks, could detail the innocent lives snuffed out by Al Qaeda,” he said.

“Giving its victims a chance to make their stories heard as well will cast a harsh light on Al Qaeda’s actions, helping delegitimize and deglamorize the terrorist narrative. End of story.”

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Free Speech Rights Prevented Probe Into Hasan E-Mails, Investigators Say (Foxnews, 091111)

The claim comes as officials in different branches of law enforcement and the military squabble over who knew what when about Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan’s leanings toward faith-inspired violence, and as charges fly that ‘political correctness’ prevented officials from taking action and is still being used as a crutch in explaining the rampage after the fact.

Investigators would have been “crucified” over First Amendment rights if they had launched a full-scale probe into e-mails Fort Hood massacre suspect Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan allegedly sent to a radical imam, a government investigator told Fox News.

The claim comes as the squabble grows among officials in different branches of law enforcement and the military over who knew what, and when, about Hasan’s leanings toward faith-inspired violence, and amid charges that “political correctness” prevented officials from taking pre-emptive action.

Multiple investigators familiar with the FBI’s review of the Fort Hood case told Fox News that they simply did not have enough evidence to launch an investigation. Though officials discovered Hasan’s e-mails to the imam, one government counterterrorism investigator said the messages suggested he was seeking “spiritual and religious guidance.”

“(Hasan) appeared to be at a moral impasse, a moral dilemma who was reaching out for advice,” the investigator said. “Had we launched an investigation of Hasan we’d have been crucified.”

The investigator added that the communications were shared with the “appropriate chains,” including the Department of Defense. The source suggested Hasan may have had other suspicious contacts, telling Fox News “no one missed anything or connections to nefarious individuals.”

Officials have consistently batted down suggestions that they “sat” on critical information about Hasan. One investigator said Monday that “I don’t have any evidence” Hasan was given light treatment because of his religion or fear of a discrimination suit.

But even after the attacks, some have been reluctant to cite religion as a factor, as evidence has mounted that the alleged gunman’s Muslim faith was at least a partial factor in the decision to mount the attack.

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley pointed to America’s “love” affair with guns as the driving factor behind last week’s shooting at Fort Hood, becoming the latest and possibly most prominent figure to show a reluctance to cite religion.

“Every day in society someone’s being killed. Unfortunately, America loves guns. We love guns to a point that we see the devastation on a daily basis,” Daley, whose city has suffered through a rash of violence, told reporters. “You don’t blame a group. You don’t blame a society, immigrant community because of actions of one group, one individual — you cannot say that.”

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence issued a statement last week saying that legislative measures to increase the availability of guns should be rejected in light of the attack.

“This latest tragedy, at a heavily fortified army base, ought to convince more Americans to reject the argument that the solution to gun violence is to arm more people with more guns in more places,” the organization’s president, Paul Helmke, said.

The message was aimed specifically at a proposal backed by the gun lobby and Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., to protect the right of veterans to own guns. Burr responded by accusing Helmke of exploiting the tragedy.

“It is a shame that this process has gotten to a point where some feel that they can exploit the senseless murder of American soldiers in the quest to secure personal triumph,” Burr said.

Witnesses report hearing Hasan yell “Allahu Akbar” — “God is Great” — during the rampage. Hasan once gave a presentation justifying homicide bombings, according to a witness. In one presentation, he also urged the military to let Muslim members leave the service to avoid “adverse” effects.

But some pointed to stress as a leading factor.

“We’re dealing with a very different kind of war here,” Dr. Phil McGraw, a celebrity psychologist, told CNN’s Larry King on Thursday night. “And we know that there is a tremendous degree of stress with this war. And I think the military will tell you that it’s a new animal and nobody knows exactly what to do with it.”

But with “political correctness” cited as a reason why warning signs from Hasan were potentially overlooked by the military in the first place, some see Hasan being treated the same way in the wake of the shooting.

Bernard Goldberg, a former CBS News correspondent, took the media to task for its coverage.

“What’s the story line they run with? Religion? Of course not. Can’t do that. He’s a Muslim,” he said Friday on Fox News’ “The O’Reilly Factor.” “They run with post-traumatic stress syndrome because that gives them a chance to take a shot at a couple of wars they never liked from the get-go.”

Privately, top Army officers have acknowledged that the massacre may have been a terrorist act.

In a series of e-mails sent 24 hours after the shootings and obtained by Fox News, one colonel in a two-star command instructed subordinate officers: “Please send a message to our training centers, the (logistics support bases), and the (divisions) advising them of ...(their) responsibility to provide this command a status of their respective anti-terrorism plans.”

Publicly, however, the army’s chief of staff seemed reluctant to acknowledge what appears to be the dominant factor in Hasan’s world view: his turn toward Islamist views as he turned against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“I think the speculation could potentially heighten backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers,” said Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey. “And what happened at Fort Hood was a tragedy, but I believe it would be an even greater tragedy if our diversity becomes a casualty here.”

Some other commentators took note of Hasan’s faith only to suggest that its consideration served to rile up conservatives.

“I cringe that he’s a Muslim,” said Evan Thomas of Newsweek. “I mean, because it inflames all the fears. I think he’s probably just a nut case. But with that label attached to him, it will get the right wing going and it just — I mean these things are tragic, but that makes it much worse.”

Fox News contributor Monica Crowley called that assessment “incredible.”

“I think he’s knee-deep in political correctness, as so many people are, including now, as we know, the United States military. Political correctness is turning out to be the death of this country,” she said.

Satirical blogger Barry Rubin of “The Rubin Report” wondered if today’s New York Times covering the Lincoln assassination would overlook the fact that John Wilkes Booth shouted out a Confederate motto after the shooting and report instead that he “was psychologically unstable...frightened of the Civil War coming to an end and having to face a peacetime actors’ surplus.”

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Al Qaeda’s Message Spreading Through English-Language Sites (Foxnews, 091119)

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Increasing numbers of English-language Web sites are spreading Al Qaeda’s message to Muslims in the West.

They translate writings and sermons once largely out of reach of English readers and often feature charismatic clerics like Anwar al-Awlaki, who exchanged dozens of e-mails with the Army psychiatrist accused of the Fort Hood shootings.

The U.S.-born al-Awlaki has been an inspiration to several militants arrested in the United States and Canada in recent years, with his Web-based sermons often turning up on their computers.

“The point is you don’t have to be an official part of Al Qaeda to spread hatred and sectarian views,” said Evan Kohlmann, a senior investigator for the New York-based NEFA Foundation, which researches Islamic militants.

“If you look at the most influential documents in terms of homegrown terrorism cases, it’s not training manuals on building bombs,” Kohlmann said. “The most influential documents are the ones that are written by theological advisers, some of whom are not even official Al Qaeda members.”

Most of the radical Islamic sites are not run or directed by Al Qaeda, but they provide a powerful tool for recruiting sympathizers to its cause of jihad, or holy war, against the United States, experts who track the activity said.

The number of English-language sites sympathetic to Al Qaeda has risen from about 30 seven years ago to more than 200 recently, said Abdulmanam Almushawah, head of a Saudi government program called Assakeena, which works to combat militant Islamic Web sites.

In contrast, Arabic-language radical sites have dropped to around 50, down from 1,000 seven years ago, because of efforts by governments around the world to shut them down, he said.

Al Qaeda has long tried to reach a Western audience. Videotaped messages from its leader, Usama bin Laden, and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri usually have English subtitles. But translations of writings and sermons that form the theological grounding for Al Qaeda’s ideology, along with preachers like al-Awlaki, mostly eliminate the language barrier.

Al-Awlaki’s sermons have turned up on the computers of nearly every homegrown terror suspect arrested in the United States, Kohlmann said.

Members of a group of Canadian Muslims arrested in 2006 for allegedly forming a training camp and plotting bombing attacks in Toronto listened to his online calls for jihad, according to the case against them in court. According to prosecutors, an al-Awlaki sermon on jihad was among the numerous materials — including videos of beheadings — found on the computers of five men convicted in December of plotting attacks on the Fort Dix military base in New Jersey.

On his Web site and in widely circulated lectures, the 38-year-old al-Awlaki, now in hiding in Yemen, often calls on Muslims to fight against the United States, accusing it of waging war on Islam in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Nidal Hasan, who has been charged in the Fort Hood shootings, contacted al-Awlaki nearly a year ago. In an interview published in The Washington Post, al-Awlaki said he did not pressure Hasan to carry out the shooting, but after the attack, al-Awlaki praised him as a hero. U.S. investigators have said Hasan appears to have acted alone, not on orders from anyone, when he opened fire Nov. 5 at the Texas military base, killing 13.

The cleric met two of the 9/11 hijackers at mosques where he preached in the United States, and after his return to Yemen he was detained for more than a year on suspicion of involvement in a kidnapping gang. Yemeni officials released him because they could not confirm an Al Qaeda link, but they say they are hunting for him again on suspicion he may have ties.

U.S. intelligence officials declined comment on the spread of English-language jihadist Web sites.

Such sites are expected to follow closely the upcoming trials of Hasan and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is accused of being a top architect of the 9/11 attacks, said Rita Katz, head of the U.S. based SITE Intelligence Group, which follows on line militant traffic. The Obama administration announced this week that Mohammed and four others will be put on trial in New York City.

Almushawah said clerics like al-Awlaki are “more dangerous than any other group.” And if these clerics are jailed, “it’s no big loss for Al Qaeda because they don’t belong to the network,” he said.

Many of the sites post speeches by English-speaking clerics like al-Awlaki or, more often, translations of sermons and lectures by Arabic-speaking clerics.

One site, the Pulpit of Monotheism and Jihad links to sermons by al-Awlaki, alongside English versions of speeches by some of the top sheikhs of jihadist ideology — even some who are dead like Abdullah Azzam.

The proliferation of sites in English means “potential jihadists can know only their native language and still be radicalized,” Katz said.

While al-Awlaki has become popular, “other, more prominent and influential Arabic-speaking jihadist sheikhs ... have had their works and speeches translated into English and other languages. Their works tend to be used more often by the jihadist community to justify violence,” she said in an e-mail interview. Al-Awlaki “fills a void in that he can directly interact, understand and communicate with English-speaking jihadists in a way that Arabic-speaking clerics cannot.”

Almushawah says most of the servers for the sites are in Britain, but they can be run from anywhere and most of them are operated and receive content from the U.S. Most of the clerics who appear on them are in the Arab world with some in France and England.

U.S. intelligence officials declined to comment on the spread of English language sites and their influence.

Saudi Arabia set up its Assakeena program after authorities found that 70% of Al Qaeda sympathizers were drawn to the group through the Internet. In the campaign, government-backed preachers monitor 400 radical Islamic web sites and inject a more moderate message on the sites.

The campaigners also directly contact and dialogue with militants they encounter on the Web, conversations that can take weeks or months. Of 2,631 militants contacted by the group, 1,170 withdrew their support for radicals, according to the campaign. About a fifth of the militants were from Europe and North American, and the rest from Arab countries.

Assakeena — the name is Arabic for “Tranquility from God” — is part of other hearts-and-minds programs the kingdom launched to complement its crackdown on Al Qaeda after the group carried out a series of attacks on foreigners and oil infrastructure in 2004.

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Imams issue fatwa against terrorists (National Post, 100108)

Twenty imams have issued a “fatwa” against any Muslim who would attempt to commit an act of terrorism in Canada or the United States.

Syed Soharwardy, an imam at the Al-Madinah Calgary Islamic Centre, who organized the initiative, said on Friday that any attack by foreign elements should also be considered a direct affront to the 10 million Muslims who call either Canada or the United States home.

“We want Muslims around the world who would dare to commit terrorism on our soil to know that we stand together with all Canadians and Americans.

“We are asking Muslims here not only to condemn terrorism but to also see these events as attacks on themselves.”

Imam Soharwardy said he thought of the initiative just after a Nigerian man was charged with trying to blow up a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day. At that point he began calling religious leaders here and in the United States to join his effort.

Nineteen Canadian imams and one American have signed the fatwa to date.

“The Koran teaches us that we have an obligation to stop violence. We live in a non-Muslim country called Canada where Muslims and others live side by side and this is our country, too.

“Our children are born here. Our future children will live here. That’s why we have to oppose this violence.”

Since the threats against Salman Rushdie several years ago, most people think of fatwas as death threats. But in fact, the imam notes, the vast majority of fatwas are condemnations or even non-binding directives that are meant to teach fellow Muslims the proper religious response to a given situation.

He said many Muslims he has spoken to say there lives have grown miserable and have suffered societal backlash because of the perceived association between violence and Islam.

But since 9/11, he added, it has become imperative for Muslims to vocally condemn violence — even though they have no personal responsibility for those heinous acts.

Muslims who live in this country should also stop fighting the battles that they left behind when they came to live here, he added.

“We are Canadian now. This is where our energy should be directed.”

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Is There a Jihadist in Your Church Nursery? (Christian Post, 100214)

By Russell D. Moore

He grew up just across the state line from where I did. He memorized the same Bible verses I did, probably using the same Sunday school curriculum I did. He went to Vacation Bible School, probably doing the same crafts and singing the same songs. He walked the aisle down a Southern Baptist church, just like I did, and was baptized, by immersion, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.

And now he fights for Allah in an Islamic jihadist terrorist group.

Last month, the New York Times featured a story about Omar Hammami, a leader of an Al Qaeda-linked African terrorist group. Like many jihadists, he has a Muslim father, and deep resentment against the United States.

Unlike most radical Islamic jihadists, he grew up in an Alabama Baptist church.

Omar’s father moved to the U.S. from Syria, and married an Alabama girl, a Baptist. His father liked the Bible Belt, the Times says, because “the women he encountered didn’t drink or smoke.” They gave birth to a son, and he grew up, like his Mom, in Bible Belt Christianity, with everything from youth camp to Christmas cantatas. Young Omar professed faith when he was six, and won 60 dollars for naming all the books of the Bible in a “sword drill.”

But Omar was deeply conflicted, the Times article contends. With his father’s larger family, which he would meet while traveling to Damascus, he would be confused by the two religions. His father’s relatives told him he’d be lost eternally if he didn’t submit to Islam, just the opposite of what his home church said. He wondered, the article says, how Jesus could pray to God, when Jesus is God, without being “a narcissist.”

In the end, he chose Islam, but he rejected his father’s moderate religion for the most virulent form of terrorist rage, and now trains himself and others for war somewhere in Somalia.

It’s easy to read about Omar and to let your blood pressure rise in disgust. Who could leave all the blessings he had given to him in order to fight with bloodthirsty killers? It might even be easy to wonder what was wrong with the witness of his home church, as though there’s any church in history that didn’t have prodigals.

But, if you think about it a little bit longer, you might realize that Omar isn’t as strange as you think.

I wrote above that I felt like I know Omar, even though we’ve never met. In some ways, I feel like I am Omar. I’m internally conflicted too.

I find myself often drawn more to Bible Belt morality than to the gospel. When I go without prayer, I can still recognize the goodness of a just social order, a loving marriage, a stable community. But, when that happens, I don’t see myself as a sinner and, as a result, I don’t see God in Christ. I see God in myself. Unless I see myself in Christ and him crucified, I see God as, at the core, justice, not love, as solitary, not a Trinitarian community of love. When I forget about the gospel, I imagine that God is seeing me in terms of some cosmic scale of my good deeds and sins. That leads me to pride or despair. And it’s crypto-Koranic, not Christian.

I love my country. I hate terrorism. And I’m hawkish on the war against radical Islam. But I sometimes act like a jihadist too. Every time I believe that God’s vengeance ought to be administered by me, rather than by the Cross or the Judgment Seat, well, that’s something other than the gospel (Matt. 26:52).

I don’t want to bring in the reign of God with bombs or box cutters, but I sometimes want to do it with my words, with a well-crafted rebuke, or even with my keyboard. Every time I do such, I act as though my God is a capricious, blood-thirsty idol who is sending me into the world to condemn instead of save it - instead of a loving Father who sent his Son into the world to save it instead of condemn it (Jn. 3:17).

That’s what I mean when I say I’m internally conflicted. It’s hard for me, sometimes, to see my way to the Place of the Skull. I’ll bet that’s true for you too. And I’ll bet our church nurseries are filled with babies and toddlers, just like Omar was not long ago.

They’re singing “Yes, Jesus Loves Me,” and they look awfully cute. But one day, and one day soon, they’ll be looking to us, and to our lives - not just our songs and Bible stories - to see if we really believe in the gospel of Christ - or in something else. They’ll wonder whether we really believe God is love and God is Trinity and God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.

Let’s remember what’s going on here. Yes, our government should protect us from murderous cells, like the one with which this man has aligned himself. That’s the God-granted responsibility of those who “bear the sword” (Rom. 13:3-5). But let’s also take note of what we can learn from this tragic example, what we can learn about ourselves and about the next generation for which we’ll give account. Let’s remember the gospel.

And, while we’re at it, let’s pray for an ex-Southern Baptist named Omar. He was confused, he says, on a trip to Damascus. He was confused enough to believe he could, with weapons, wipe Christianity off the face of the earth. He’s not the first.

You and I heard the gospel because of another jihadist’s trip to Damascus. Saul of Tarsus was filled with indignant zeal and, armed to the teeth, he thought he could terrorize the name of Christ off the face of the earth. What stopped him wasn’t a set of arguments. What stopped him was Christ. And the gospel he found on that sandy road was later propelled, through him, across the world right down to wherever you, and Omar, first heard it.

God saves sinners like us, and like a repentant ex-terrorist who called himself the “chief” of them (1 Tim. 1:15). This same Apostle said his story on the Damascus Road happened that way for a reason: so that “in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life” (1 Tim. 1:16).

As long as that’s true, there’s still hope that Omar could find Jesus, even on the road back from Damascus.

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American Linked to Terror Plot Brainwashed 6-Year-Old Son, Family Says (Foxnews, 100314)

The 6-year-old son of a Colorado nursing student who ran off to Europe to join a terrorist murder cell was brainwashed into a hate-filled Islamic fundamentalist zombie, his family said Saturday, The New York Post reported.

“He said that Christians will burn in hellfire,” the child’s grandmother, Christine Mott, told The Post. “That’s what they are teaching this baby.”

The boy’s mom, Jamie Paulin-Ramirez, 31, converted to Islam over the last year. Her family said she struck up an Internet friendship with another Colorado radical, Najibullah Zazi, an Al Qaeda associate who pleaded guilty last month in a plot to set off bombs in the New York subway system.

Her conversion was so complete, Paulin-Ramirez changed her son’s name from Christian to the Islamic name Walid after enrolling him in a fire-breathing Muslim school in Ireland.

The terror mom’s stepfather, George Mott, said he talked by phone once with the boy at the school and the boy said: “We are building pipes [pipe bombs], like the Fourth of July!”

Paulin-Ramirez ditched her life in the Rocky Mountain city of Leadville, Colo., last September, and allegedly joined a small group of radical Islamists in Ireland who planned to claim a $100,000 Al Qaeda bounty by killing a Swedish cartoonist who drew the prophet Mohammed as a dog.

She was arrested Tuesday in a series of raids in the cities of Waterford and Cork, along with other members of the group. They included Colleen LaRose, 46, of Pennsylvania, another blond American woman who called herself “JihadJane” and has been in custody since October.

The Colorado woman’s parents believe she was recruited by LaRose, who they say introduced her to her Algerian husband.

Paulin-Ramirez was released by Irish authorities yesterday, although charges may still be forthcoming, said a spokesman for the Irish police.

Her son, who was affectionately known to his grandmother as “Baby Huey,” occasionally contacted relatives in Colorado — and what he said stunned relatives.

“I talked to Huey on Monday. He said they taught him how to shoot a gun,” Christine Mott said. “They taught him how to kick and fight . . . We’re Democrats. We won’t even buy him a toy gun.”

Christine said that she became estranged from her daughter who sank into the radical Islamic lifestyle. But as the boy’s brainwashing became apparent, Mott confronted Paulin-Ramirez.

“When Huey said, ‘Christians will burn in hell,’ I told Jamie, ‘I’m sick and tired of this hate for Christians.’ Jamie said, ‘It’s the truth.’

“The boy was not allowed to associate with non-Muslim children, and he gets beat up by the Muslim kids because they know he’s not one of them,” she added.

George Mott, is himself a Muslim convert who speaks Arabic. He said that once as he talked to the boy on the phone, he could hear a Jihadi recruitment tape playing in the background talking of death to Zionists and America.

Before the boy left, he was like any other 6-year-old, George Mott said. He was into normal things like cartoons, cars and dinosaurs. “I figured him to be a paleontologist,” he said.

“He has not been in school since they left there,” George said. “He’s in an Islamic school. They’re teaching him hate.”

Christian’s father is a Mexican immigrant, Alejandro Carreon, who was deported a few years ago, relatives said. They do not know where he is now.

Paulin-Ramirez wore full Islamic robes and head scarves to her son’s soccer games.

“It was like a neon sign that said ‘Look at me,’ “ Christine Mott said.

George Mott said that Christian, who is currently in Irish foster care, told them his mom had married a man named Ali in New York. The Washington Post reported that Paulin-Ramirez may have been motivated to travel to Ireland for the rendezvous out of a love for him rather than by a fervent belief in terrorism.

As she began to become more deeply involved with Islam last summer, Paulin-Ramirez hit it off with failed terror bomber Zazi.

“When I saw him [Zazi] on TV, I said ‘That’s the fool Jamie’s been talking with,’ “ George said. “She was on the line with Zazi and also with ‘JihadJane,’ all talking at the same time.”

Paulin-Ramirez befriended a Pakistani man over the Internet, and offered to help him come to the United States to take flying lessons.

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Homicide Bombers Kill 38 on Moscow Subway (Foxnews, 100329)

MOSCOW — Two female homicide bombers blew themselves up on Moscow’s subway system as it was jam-packed with rush-hour passengers Monday, killing at least 38 people and wounding 102, officials said.

The head of Russia’s main security agency said preliminary investigation places the blame on rebels from the restive Caucasus region that includes Chechnya, where separatists have fought Russian forces since the mid-1990s.

The first explosion took place just before 8 a.m. at the Lubyanka station in central Moscow. The station is underneath the building that houses the main offices of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, the KGB’s main successor agency.

A second explosion hit the Park Kultury station about 45 minutes later.

Two female homicide bombers blew themselves up on Moscow’s subway system as it was jam-packed with rush-hour passengers Monday, killing at least 37 people and wounding over 100.

“I heard a bang, turned my head and smoke was everywhere. People ran for the exits screaming,” said 24-year-old Alexander Vakulov, who said he was on a train on the platform opposite the targeted train at Park Kultury.

“I saw a dead person for the first time in my life,” said 19-year-old Valentin Popov, who had just arrived at the station from the opposite direction.

In a televised meeting with President Dmitry Medvedev, Federal Security Service head Alexander Bortnikov said body fragments of the two bombers pointed to a Caucasus connection. He did not elaborate.

“We will continue the fight against terrorism unswervingly and to the end,” Medvedev said. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, on an official trip to Siberia, was being kept informed of developments, news reports said.

The blasts practically paralyzed movement in the city center as emergency vehicles sped to the stations.

In the Park Kultury blast, the bomber was wearing a belt packed with plastic explosive and set it off as the train’s doors opened, said Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for Russia’s top investigative body. The woman has not been identified, he told reporters.

A woman who sells newspapers outside the Lubyanka station, Ludmila Famokatova, said there appeared to be no panic, but that many of the people who streamed out were distraught.

“One man was weeping, crossing himself, saying ‘thank God I survived’,” she said.

The last confirmed terrorist attack in Moscow was in August 2004, when a homicide bomber blew herself up outside a city subway station, killing 10 people. Responsibility for that blast was claimed by Chechen rebels.

Russian police have killed several Islamic militant leaders in the North Caucasus recently, including one last week in the Kabardino-Balkariya region. The killing of Anzor Astemirov was mourned by contributors to two al-Qaida-affiliated Web sites.

The killings have raised fears of retaliatory strikes by the militants.

In February, Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov warned in an interview on a rebel-affiliated Website that “the zone of military operations will be extended to the territory of Russia ... the war is coming to their cities.”

Umarov also claimed his fighters were responsible for the November bombing of the Nevsky Express passenger train that killed 26 people en route from Moscow to St. Petersburg.

The Moscow subway system is one of the world’s busiest, carrying around 7 million passengers on an average workday, and is a key element in running the sprawling and traffic-choked city.

Helicopters hovered over the Park Kultury station area, which is near the renowned Gorky Park.

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Supreme Court Upholds Law Banning ‘Material Support’ for Terrorism (Foxnews, 100621)

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court has upheld a federal law that bars “material support” to foreign terrorist organizations, rejecting a free speech challenge from humanitarian aid groups.

The court ruled 6-3 Monday that the government may prohibit all forms of aid to designated terrorist groups, even if the support consists of training and advice about entirely peaceful and legal activities.

Material support intended even for benign purposes can help a terrorist group in other ways, Chief Justice John Roberts said in his majority opinion.

“Such support frees up other resources within the organization that may be put to violent ends,” Roberts said.

Justice Stephen Breyer took the unusual step of reading his dissent aloud in the courtroom. Breyer said he rejects the majority’s conclusion “that the Constitution permits the government to prosecute the plaintiffs criminally” for providing instruction and advice about the terror groups’ lawful political objectives. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor joined the dissent.

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Pakistan Bomber Attacks Gathering of Tribal Elders (Paris, International Herald, 100709)

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A suicide bomber attacked a group of tribal elders gathered near the headquarters of the civilian government in Mohmand on Friday, killing more than 50 people and wounding about 100, a senior Pakistani security official said.

The bomber detonated a car laden with explosives in the bazaar at Yakaghund, the administrative center of Mohmand, a tribal area, where elders were gathered over tea before a scheduled meeting with the assistant political agent, the security official said.

The blast blew a crater nearly five feet deep, and victims were trapped in the rubble of scores of destroyed shops, the official said.

A distribution of humanitarian goods from the United States, including wheelbarrows and tools, had taken place at Yakaghund on Thursday, officials said. The distribution was organized by the Office of Transitional Initiatives, which works under the Agency for International Development, a United States government agency that is seeking to support the civilian government in Pakistan.

The attack was aimed directly at the civilian authorities who are supposed to be helping ordinary people resist the Taliban. The Pakistani Army has been involved in a battle against the militants in Mohmand for nearly two years but has been unable to defeat them.

The assistant political agent, Rasul Khan, who is the second-ranking civilian official in Mohmand, said that children were among the dead and that rescuers were still searching for bodies in the rubble hours after the blast.

Many of the injured were taken for treatment to Peshawar, the nearby capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkwa Province, formerly known as North-West Frontier Province, Mr. Khan said.

More than 70 shops in the small township of Yakaghund were destroyed in the blast, further discouraging civilians, who had fled Mohmand because of the two years of fighting, from returning.

The strike demonstrated the resilience of the Taliban in the tribal region, even in an area like Mohmand that is adjacent to the bustling city of Peshawar.

The strategic location of Mohmand, a mountainous, heavily forested area with easy escape routes to Afghanistan, makes it relatively easy for the Taliban to organize men and weapons.

The leader of the Taliban there, Abdul Wali, has survived the army’s operations and his group of fighters remains intact, local officials say.

Earlier this week, the Pakistani government announced it would hold a bipartisan national conference to map out a strategy to combat terrorism, a move that was prompted by an outpouring of popular protest after the attack on a Sufi shrine in Lahore on July 1 that killed at least 37 people.

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After Attacks in Uganda, Worry Grows Over Group (Paris International Herald, 100712)

WASHINGTON — The deadly bombings in Uganda during the World Cup final have deepened worries among American authorities about another once localized Islamic group that is spreading its terrorism across borders, using a playbook written by Al Qaeda.

Shabab fighters patrolled a market in Mogadishu, Somalia. The group claimed responsibility for the coordinated attacks that struck Kampala, Uganda.

The group, the Shabab, claimed responsibility for the coordinated bomb attacks that tore through festive crowds in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, killing at least 70 people, including an American aid worker. The synchronized nature of the attacks, a senior American official said Monday, bore the hallmarks of a Qaeda strike, suggesting that the Shabab got support or at least inspiration from Al Qaeda and its affiliates in East Africa.

Analysts and officials said the emergence of the Shabab on the world stage fit a pattern of localized Islamic militant groups that have been able to mount sophisticated operations farther and farther afield, including the attempt by a Qaeda-linked group to blow up a plane on its way to Detroit on Dec. 25. The bombings also illustrate how the region has become a hive of Islamic militancy, complicating the efforts of the United States, which has thrown its support behind Somalia’s embattled transitional government.

“This was a localized cancer, but the cancer has metastasized into a regional crisis,” said Johnnie Carson, the assistant secretary of state for African affairs. “It is a crisis that has bled across borders and is now infecting the international community.”

The Shabab have been in the cross hairs of intelligence and counterterrorism officials for years. But the group’s growing force and alliances with a shifting array of Somali warlords has posed a constant, vexing challenge for the Obama administration’s efforts to bolster Somalia’s weak government and stabilize the country. Last year, after what a senior administration official described as a fierce internal debate, President Obama halted American food aid to Somalia after evidence mounted that the Shabab was siphoning some of the aid for its operations.

The group has also recruited young fighters from the frustrated ranks of Somali immigrants in the United States. In October 2008, a Minneapolis teenager, Shirwa Ahmed, became the first confirmed American suicide bomber, when he drove a car laden with explosives into a compound in northern Somalia. He had traveled to Somalia and was apparently trained as a fighter by the Shabab.

Despite the group’s foreign recruits, a senior intelligence official said the United States believes it is still mainly focused on fighting the Somali government and those who support it, rather than the West. On Monday, a spokesman for the Shabab threatened to single out another African country, Burundi, which, like Uganda, has sent troops to Somalia to help shore up the weak federal government.

In drawing up a list of potential terrorist targets during the World Cup, the intelligence official said, an attack somewhere in Africa was high on the list. Given the continent’s often porous borders and haphazard security, he said, it would have been relatively easy for the Shabab to send suicide bombers to Uganda. The group has conducted cross-border raids into Kenya with impunity for some time.

But other terrorism experts said that running a clandestine operation in Uganda, which lies hundreds of miles away, on Kenya’s western border, requires sophistication, as does pulling off simultaneous bombings, at a rugby field and an Ethiopian restaurant.

The Shabab appears to relish its membership in the international brotherhood of jihadi groups. In 2008, it traded messages on militant Web sites with Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born cleric now in hiding in Yemen, whom intelligence officials say had had a role in the attempt to blow up the Northwest Airlines plane to Detroit on Dec. 25.

“We would like to congratulate you on your victories and achievements,” Mr. Awlaki wrote to the group, saying it provided “a living example of how we as Muslims should proceed to change our situation.” In a response, the group thanked “Sheikh Anwar” for his recommendations and noted that the “enemies of Islam” were directing more of their efforts to the battle for “hearts and minds” through the media.

“Al Shabab is emerging as one of these archetypal 21st-century terrorist groups,” said Bruce Hoffman, an expert in counterterrorism at Georgetown University. “Ten years ago, no one would ever have heard of them. These are not the kinds of groups that would have had the ability to operate across borders.”

Mr. Hoffman said the Shabab had the ingredients to turn itself into even more of an international threat: a savvy communications operation; an expatriate Somali population from which to recruit; charismatic figures it could send out to attract followers; and a proven capacity, after this weekend, to operate in foreign countries. The Kampala attack, he said, might represent a bid by more ambitious members of the group to ally it more closely with Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda’s affiliates.

There are cracks in the group’s armor, however. The Somali population has grown increasingly fed up with the Shabab’s harsh brand of Islam, and the group’s efforts to recruit in the United States seem to have faltered after it lured several young men from the Minneapolis area two years ago. Reports about life on the battlefield apparently chilled the appetite of some potential fighters, while officials said the F.B.I. warned the Somali-American community to keep an eye on its youth.

On Sunday, Mr. Carson spoke to Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni, and said he was confident that the president would not allow the attack to bully Uganda’s government into withdrawing its troops from Somalia. A few members of the Ugandan Parliament have demanded a review of the peacekeeping force.

The United States sent three agents from the F.B.I. to help the Ugandans collect evidence, as well as two Diplomatic Security agents to help in the investigation. There is a further F.B.I. team on call in Washington. “The United States stands shoulder to shoulder with Uganda in the fight against terrorism,” said the State Department spokesman, Philip J. Crowley.

He declined to say whether the United States planned any other response. Despite the death of the aid worker, and five other Americans who hospitalized with injuries, officials said they did not believe the attacks were aimed at Americans.

The United States helps with counterterrorism operations in the countries that border Somalia, officials said. But the root causes of the problem are much larger: widespread poverty, hunger, a crippled economy and the absence of a function central government for almost 20 years.

Mr. Crowley said the United States would work with Uganda, Kenya, and other African countries to help stabilize the Somali government. But American officials said the Shabab were an outgrowth of a daunting array of other issues, including refugees, illegal trade in arms and other goods, and piracy on the seas off Somalia.

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Knowing and Naming the Enemy: Warfare Rule #1 (Christian Post, 100727)

By Chuck Colson

The Obama administration understands we’re in a war, but is strangely unwilling to name the enemy. Instead they’re using the vague and general term “violent extremism.”

Chuck Colson

President Obama wants to be kind and gentle to Muslims, at least 90% of whom are peaceful and are not at war with the United States. I can appreciate that. But talking about “violent extremism” without indentifying the violent extremists it isn’t doing anyone-including peaceful Muslims-any favors. It only takes our focus off the real threat.

That real threat reared its head a few weeks ago when the radical, American-born Muslim cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki announced that he wants terrorists to target American civilians. Al-Awlaki, you see, is a disciple of Sayyid Qutb and Qutb’s worldview is the root of the problem.

Qutb, an Egyptian, visited the United States in 1949. Here he saw what he considered unspeakable moral decay, which led him to conclude that Christianity had failed completely. When he returned to the Middle East, he was seething with hatred for Christians and the West. In Egypt he was arrested and while in prison he studied not only radical Islamists, but Nazis as well. And out of these he created a toxic worldview to challenge the West.

Before he was executed, his book, In The Shade of the Quran was published, and is now the handbook for the Muslim Brotherhood. Now, there are always going to be nuts who use religion as a pretext for violence, but what we are up against is more than that. Qutb and his followers-including Anwar al-Awlaki and Osama bin Laden-are ideological fascists. In fact, almost everything that’s being stirred up in Pakistan, Indonesia, Afghanistan, and throughout the Middle East can be traced back to the fascist worldview of Sayyid Qutb.

And at least somebody in Washington gets it: Senator Joseph Lieberman. And I’d like to nominate Lieberman for profiles in courage for bravely breaking with his own president and party. He is an honest man who thoroughly understands the nature of the threat.

“There is no question,” Lieberman wrote in the Wall Street Journal, “that violent Islamist extremists seek to provoke a ‘clash of civilizations,’ and we must discredit this hateful lie....We must recognize the nature of the fight we are in, not paper it over.” Exactly. Then he went on to note, “Muslims across the world see the ideological nature of the struggle.” Why, he asks, doesn’t the Obama administration?

Near the end of the article, Lieberman cites Dean Acheson. As President Truman’s secretary of state, Acheson announced a zone of influence which excluded South Korea. In 1950, the Communist North Koreans seized that opportunity to attack the South, and Acheson learned a valuable, costly lesson the hard way.

He later said, “No people in history have ever survived who thought they could protect their freedom by making themselves inoffensive to their enemies.”

Our enemies hold a worldview that is an ugly synthesis of Nazism and the most extreme reading of the Quran. Trying not to offend such enemies by refusing to name them is the height of foreign policy foolishness and a flat refusal to think seriously about the power of worldviews.

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Terrorism Under the Guise of a University? (Israel National News, 100805)

A university in the United States has recently been the subject of Internet blogs due to the disturbing information it provides on its website.

As reported on Pamela Geller’s blog “Atlas Shrugs” on Sunday, the San Antonio, Texas chapter of the Muslim American Society also runs a university called the Islamic American University, which is one if its main projects. Yet an examination of the university’s website has uncovered the following definition of its goals: “The Islamic American University is an institution for education, training, Da’wa and studies in the fields of Islamic Shari’a, its fundamentals, linguistics, and sciences.”

Shari’a law is the sacred Islamic law which includes some very strict behavioral rules, particularly towards women. Under Shari’a Law, for example, wives cannot obtain a divorce even if they are abused by their husbands. The law also allows a Muslim man to marry a child as young as 1 year old and to consummate the marriage by age 9. A woman is considered to be a slave to her husband under Shari’a law, can be beaten by her husband at his will, and all the while her husband is permitted to have 4 wives and a temporary wife for a limited period at his discretion.

Hamas, who controls the Gaza Strip, has implemented Shari’a law in the Strip, including the enforcement of a dress code for women on the street, in schools and in the courts, expulsion from schools of female students who do not wear a head covering and wide dresses, a requirement that women announcers on television must wear a veil and that Islamic content must be featured in television programs, and police arresting immodestly clad women and enforcing gender separation, to name a few. Rules implemented by Hamas in the past month have included prohibiting women and teenagers from smoking hookahs in public, and removing dressing rooms from women’s clothing stores.

Da’wa, another term mentioned on the university’s website, is the Islamic act of proselytizing, or convincing non-Muslims to convert to Islam.

Furthermore, the website goes on to say that “IAU aims at grooming distinguished scholars, activists, leaders, and teachers who are well-rounded in Islam as well as in the different facets of American life. The IAU board of trustees is headed by internationally renowned scholars such as Sheikh Yusuf al-Qardawi who serves as chairman and Dr. Jamal Badawi who serves as vice chairman.”

Geller’s blog explains that Qaradawi is a Muslim who is active in the Muslim Brotherhood, considered to be “the parent organization of Hamas and al-Qaeda.” He has frequently justified Palestinian suicide bombings as legitimate responses to alleged “Zionist occupation”.

Qaradawi has expressed support for the anti-U.S. insurgency in Iraq and endorsed the kidnapping and murder of American civilians there. During the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war, he voiced support for Hizbullah. He has also been barred from entering the United States since 1999 due to his support for Palestinian terrorism, and in 2008, the United Kingdom also denied him a visa on grounds that he seeks “to justify any act of terrorist violence...”

Geller added that the Muslim Brotherhood “has infiltrated every agency and institution at the highest levels” in the United States and said that one of its goals as outlined in a document that was captured and entered into evidence in the Holy Land terror trial, is “eliminating and destroying western civilization from within” and forming one global Islamic state.

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‘A leaderless jihad’: Is al-Qaeda still relevant in a world of ‘homegrown terrorists’? (National Post, 100827)

This week’s revelation of an alleged Ottawa terrorist cell with suspected links to an al-Qaeda affiliate in Afghanistan will inform the increasingly heated debate about the relevance of central al-Qaeda, which some argue is immaterial in a world now dominated by franchise groups and grassroots jihadists.

Authorities have released little information about the alleged cell, but it appears to be comprised of “homegrown terrorists” whose ringleader is believed to be tied to an insurgent group in Afghanistan. Most insurgent groups there are, in one way or another, affiliated with al-Qaeda.

And so, it seems, that long after the 9/11 attacks rocked the West, the terrorist threat continues to emanate from the lawless and militant Afghanistan-Pakistan border region — the restive land where al-Qaeda’s leaders are holed up and where their affiliated insurgent groups, such as the Taliban, are fighting coalition forces.

Regardless of whether the alleged Ottawa terrorist cell is found to be closely tied, loosely linked, or entirely removed from senior al-Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan and Pakistan, this latest investigation will no doubt shed light on a question that dogs security experts: Has the core of al-Qaeda been reduced to little more than a relic of the past — an aging pack of powerless, broke, fearful “ghosts” hiding in the Middle East? Or is the central group still operationally capable of masterminding an attack on the West?

It has been fully five years since the July 2005 London transit bombings — al-Qaeda’s most recent successful attack on a Western target. The past few years have meantime been punctuated with take-downs of senior operatives, arrests of hangers-on, and failed terrorist plots, including the alleged 2006 conspiracy to use liquid explosives to destroy U.S.-bound commercial airliners.

At its peak 10 years ago, the core of al-Qaeda had some three to five thousand members and enjoyed a steady stream of financing to support its training camps and operations. After years under the siege of the United States and its allies, time and ammunition have reportedly reduced the ranks to just a few hundred.

Despite setbacks, however, the United States and Canada have recently and repeatedly confirmed their belief that the core of al-Qaeda is a significant and ongoing security threat.

Just yesterday, Canada’s Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said, “there is undoubtedly al-Qaeda influence in some of the radicalization that is taking place,” echoing what was said far more strongly in the most recent CSIS annual report.

“The al-Qaeda ‘core’ is still keen to attack Western nations, including Canada,” the report says. “There remain credible reports of Westerners travelling to the Afghanistan/Pakistan region to receive training and tasking for acts of terrorism.”

The ringleader of the alleged Ottawa terrorist cell dismantled this week reportedly attended training camps in the Pakistan and Afghanistan region.

In the United States, congress was warned earlier this year that an attempted al-Qaeda attack on U.S. soil was “certain.” Then, on Aug. 5, the State Department said in a report that core al-Qaeda continues to “try to expand its operational capabilities by partnering with other terrorist groups.”

In fact, many of Canada’s listed terrorist entities have done just that: According to the Ministry of Public Safety, 16 groups in such countries as Pakistan, Algeria, Iraq, Ethiopia, Egypt and Somalia have all pronounced a “merger,” “links,” or “allegiance” to Osama bin Laden and the core of his organization.

Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University, said this is among the myriad of reasons why core al-Qaeda is “absolutely” still relevant. He also points to the 2009 attempted New York City subway bombings, which turned out to be part of a larger plot by al-Qaeda operatives in Pakistan as evidence that al-Qaeda still has its hands in the terrorism pot. “There are spectacular attacks being planned by core al-Qaeda, but at the same time they’re perfectly happy to enlist hangers-on,” he said. “It’s not just one al-Qaeda, it’s many al-Qaedas.”

Meanwhile, Marc Sageman, a former CIA operations officer and author of Leaderless Jihad, argues that al-Qaeda’s core has been “neutralized operationally” and that “al-Qaeda Central has receded in importance.”

In his 2008 book, he writes that “the present threat has evolved from a structured group of al-Qaeda masterminds” to a “multitude of informal local groups trying to emulate their predecessors by conceiving and executing operations from the bottom up.”

Together, “these ‘homegrown’ wannabees” form a “scattered global network, a leaderless jihad,” he said.

Scott Stewart, vice-president of tactical intelligence at U.S.-based intelligence firm Strategic Forecasting Inc., said core al-Qaeda has indeed been so “pounded” by the United States and its allies that it does not pose a significant threat — at least not on the physical battlefield.

“What we’ve seen is that these other franchise groups are assuming that mantle, for example al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the Pakistani Taliban and Al-Shabab in Somalia,” said Mr. Stewart, who is also a former diplomatic special agent with the State Department.

Among the more capable franchises, Mr. Hoffman and Mr. Stewart agreed, is Al-Shabab, the al-Qaeda franchise in Somalia that has publicly proclaimed its loyalty to Osama bin Laden and which was recently added to Canada’s list of outlawed terrorist organizations. Six Canadians are currently under investigation for having possibly joined Al-Shabab, and an increasing number are believed to have done the same.

Also among the more capable affiliates is al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which proved its desire and near-capability to strike the West with last December’s Christmas Day bomb plot. The man believed to be the leader of that group also reportedly had contact with the Fort Hood shooter and has been involved in recruiting and training camps.

Responsibility for the latter, Mr. Stewart said, has conspicuously but necessarily been devolved from core al-Qaeda. That is mostly because the core is “desperate” for money, has little ability to control operatives on the battlefield, and has been reduced to a cache of “ghosts and hermits.”

“[Core al-Qaeda] can’t send 19 guys into the United States to conduct an attack anymore,” he said. “It hasn’t happened, and I don’t think it’s for lack of intent.”

But Mr. Stewart said the core is still relevant on the ideological front, acting as a “PR agency” whose “brand” resonates with homegrown terrorists like those arrested in Ontario this week, perhaps.

However, Mr. Hoffman said it is not enough for core al-Qaeda to be a player on the ideological battlefield because people “don’t join terrorist groups to sit on their hands.”

“A terrorist group that stands still is not going to attract supporters or sympathizers, it’s not going to have a financial base, and its not going to have any real influence,” he said. “Al-Qaeda is much like a shark, which much keep moving forward — no matter how slowly or incrementally — or die.”

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Eighth suspect sought in alleged homegrown terror plot (National Post, 100828)

OTTAWA — There are now eight suspects in a massive police probe into an alleged terror plot to bomb the Parliament buildings, the Ottawa Citizen has learned.

An early Friday arrest had raised the number of people in an alleged Ottawa terror cell to seven.

But the Citizen has learned the team carrying out the investigation, known as Project Samossa, has now identified an eighth conspirator in the homegrown terrorist bomb plot against the country’s seat of government and coalition troops in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, on Friday, several police vehicles and a heavily armed tactical team converged on a vehicle in Ottawa, handcuffing the driver, who appeared to be in his late 20s, and searching the car.

RCMP said Friday the man, the seventh arrested, has not been charged and his identity was being withheld.

Three other Canadian men were arrested in Ottawa and London, Ont., Wednesday and Thursday after a year-long investigation, dubbed Project Samossa. Three others, believed to be non-citizens and out of the country, are named as unindicted co-conspirators in what police believe was a terror ring linked to the global Islamist terrorism movement.

Michel Juneau-Katsuya, a former senior CSIS counter-terrorism agent and one-time RCMP security service officer, said a source close to the investigation has told him at least one suspect, the alleged ringleader, used Ottawa Public Library computers to communicate with other members of the Ottawa-based cell.

“He was trying to avoid detection and surveillance,” Juneau-Katsuya said. “They wanted to hit Parliament Hill and there was discussion of going against public transportation in Montreal ... (and) they were not excluding the possibility to some major (Ottawa transit) hubs.”

Isabelle Tremblay, a spokeswoman for the Montreal transit agency, denied it was a target. “We checked with police and the authorities and ... it’s not true,” she said.

Juneau-Katsuya said he was told Internet messages between the men tripped computer “sniffers” at Ottawa’s Communications Security Establishment (CSE), the government’s electronic spy agency.

“One of the (CSE) filters picked up their chat,” said Juneau-Katsuya. “The way the system is established, we’ve got red flags everywhere and you can trip one of those flags anytime. If you’re travelling to Pakistan, that’s a red flag. If you’re going on certain web sites, that’s another red flag and if you use certain key words in e-mail. When you’ve got enough red flags, then you become a person of interest. My understanding is they were caught from the Internet.”

CSE alerted the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), he said. At some point, CSIS alerted the RCMP, which launched the major national security investigation.

Juneau-Katsuya said he was told a critical element in the probe involved secretly monitoring the suspects’ e-mail and other communications via the public library computers. Police, he said, obtained the IP addresses from the City of Ottawa.

On Thursday, RCMP Chief Supt. Serge Therriault, head of criminal operations for the capital region, told an Ottawa news conference that Project Samossa was forced to move on the suspects this week when police learned financial support was about to be transferred from Canada for weapons to attack western coalition forces in Afghanistan.

Another Ottawa intelligence expert, speaking on condition of anonymity, said faced with that possibility, police had little choice but to make arrests.

“These arrests would be required as it is entirely probable that the money would have been used for the purchase of IEDs (improvised explosive devices) or other weapons which would have been targeted against Canadian soldiers or allies in the NATO-led force,” the unnamed expert said.

“The commanders of such investigations are under multiple pressures, some of which are outside of their control. Investigators working at the front line of the investigation will want to open up more lines of investigation, putting pressure on scarce resources. Intelligence partners will want to continue the investigation to gather more intelligence, often without reference to the risks. Prosecutors want more direct evidence collected.

“But beyond those pressures, the investigation commander has to deal with the brutal facts that the failure to arrest may result in further deaths and injuries. It is a cruel pressure.”

The alleged plot was in its early stages and “months” away from being viable, Therriault said. “There remained, throughout, a varied degree of imminence to the threat, whether they were going to conduct an attack or not and how it was going to be done.”

Two of the accused — Hiva Alizadeh, 30, a former electrical engineering technology student, and Misbahuddin Ahmed, 26, an X-ray technician, both of Ottawa, were arrested Wednesday. The third, Khurram Syed Sher, 28, a doctor who once auditioned for Canadian Idol, was arrested in London, Ont., Thursday.

They face a variety of terrorism charges, including conspiring with at least three others — James Lara, Rizgar Alizadeh and Zakaria Mamosta — and other “persons unknown,” who have been at one time or another located in Canada, Iran, Afghanistan, Dubai and Pakistan, to facilitate “terrorist activity” between February 2008 and Aug. 24.

Sher, who recently moved to London from Montreal, is charged with a single count of conspiracy to facilitate a terrorist offence.

Lara, Rizgar Alizadeh — police won’t say whether he is related to Hiva Mohammad Alizadeh — and Mamosta, all non-Canadians, are not in Canada and have not been charged. Therriault suggested international efforts may be made to arrest them.

Hiva Alizadeh faces a separate charge of making or having an explosive substance — which can include IED components — in his possession with the intent to endanger life or cause serious damage. He is also accused of being a member of a group with links to the conflict in Afghanistan and allegedly received overseas training in building and detonating IEDs, said Therriault.

Raids on Alizadeh’s and Ahmed’s Ottawa homes Wednesday uncovered more than 50 circuit boards police believe were intended to remotely trigger detonators for IEDs.

Also seized was a “vast quantity” of schematics, videos, drawings, instructions and electronic components for IEDs.

Improvised bombs have been used for decades by terrorists and insurgents, but the war in Iraq accelerated their technological development, making roadside bombs a chief weapon against coalition troops in Afghanistan.

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America’s New Terrorist Networks (townhall.com, 100915)

Tony Blankley

While public attention was diverted by whether or not Florida pastor Terry Jones and Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf had reached a compromise, a report critical to our national security went virtually unnoticed.

Jones, under some pressure from most of the civilized world, offered to withdraw his threat to immolate a stack of Qurans, in exchange, he said, for Rauf’s relocation of Park51, the planned mosque complex he proposes to tower over the World Trade Center site. Understandably, the press preferred to cover the spectacle between Jones and Rauf, especially as it played out on live television like a bizarre parody of “Let’s Make a Deal.”

Culture wars, after all, make more scintillating copy than the earnest prose of yet another advisory report. But were it not for the distraction caused by the Jones-Rauf media circus, we might instead have focused our attention on “Assessing the Terrorist Threat,” a timely evaluation conducted for the ninth anniversary of 9/11. This sobering report, issued under the auspices of the Bipartisan Policy Center by former 9/11 Commission leaders Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton, has enormous implications for America’s counterterrorist policies.

First, the Good News: They report that the War on Terrorism has degraded al-Qaida’s capabilities to such an extent that the authors — whose assessment derives in part from close contact with U.S. intelligence officials — think another 9/11 spectacular terrorist attack in the U.S. is unlikely. Even more unlikely, they believe, is a mass casualty attack using chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.

If the authors are right, you can toss out any gas masks and duct tape in your home emergency survival kit. I personally believe they are too confident that the danger from mass attack is passing. A small band of well-prepared terrorists can unleash unspeakable killing forces. Every day, such resources become more available around the world. I still believe mass disaster is more likely than not in the coming decade.

But there is also new Bad News: What the media calls “home-grown terrorism” (more to follow about precisely where this terrorism is incubated later, but a hint for now is that it isn’t the U.S.) is the “new normal” for terrorism attacks. In the past year, al-Qaida-affiliated groups have tried to blow up a U.S. airliner, replicate the London and Madrid commuter bombings in the New York subway system, detonate a vehicle bomb in Times Square and carry out numerous other attacks inside our borders.

“Last year was a watershed in terrorist attacks and plots in the United States, with a record total of 11 jihadist attacks, jihadist-inspired plots, or efforts by Americans to travel overseas to obtain terrorist training,” the report says. “They included two actual attacks (at Fort Hood, Texas, which claimed the lives of 13 people, and the shooting of two U.S. military recruiters in Little Rock, Arkansas), five serious but disrupted plots, and four incidents involving groups of Americans conspiring to travel abroad to receive terrorist training. ... This level of threat is likely to persist for years to come.”

And it gets worse: Al-Qaida-related groups have created a recruitment pipeline inside America, according to the report. Three American citizens — Adnan el Shukrijumah, Omar Hammami and Anwar al-Aulaqi — are top commanders of al-Qaida affiliates in the Arabian Peninsula, Somalia and Yemen. From foreign havens, this trio oversees active recruitment drives among radicalized Muslims of various ethnic backgrounds in immigrant communities across our country. Their intimate knowledge of American society is applied to clandestine operations within our borders, terrorist training, selecting targets and planning attacks. According to the report, no single U.S. agency — not the NDI, FBI, CIA or DHS — is accountable for coordinating our response to this emerging threat.

In plotting the 9/11 attacks, Osama bi Laden exploited the lack of coordination between counterterrorism officials. Similar vulnerabilities exist today with regard to the terrorist plots being incubated offshore, but using U.S. citizens, permanent residents and those with legal visas as their deadly operatives.

It is vital for us to crack these networks, not just to defend against future attacks, but to take the offensive. With a clear understanding of the terrorist recruiting infrastructure inside the U.S., we will be able to insert double agents — “pipeliners” — into the foreign-based al-Qaida affiliates.

It would help if U.S. authorities could gain the cooperation and active assistance of freedom-loving, patriotic Muslims. That is why the Jones-Rauf media diversion, with its cultural divisiveness, is so corrosive. But with or without such incidents, the pull and reach of radical Islam is powerful — which is why nations from Britain to Holland to the U.S. are constantly surprised when seemingly middle-class, law-abiding Muslims suddenly turn up violent in our midst.

That is why six year ago when I was writing my first book on the topic (“The West’s Last Chance”), I warned that we in the U.S. just as in Europe would be vulnerable to home grown middle-class Muslims who would come under the sway of Internet mad mullahs and start blowing things up.

I am gratified that the study group has finally come to the same conclusion. But it is a sad commentary on the power of political correctness and a dreadful lack of imagination on the part of our policy leaders that it took the experts 10 years to reach the same obvious conclusion that a reasonably alert generalist could spot back before the London bombings.

A final implication of the Kean-Hamilton report concerns the ACLU’s lawsuit to limit the CIA’s use of drones to assassinate American terrorists like al-Aulaqi. If the ACLU prevails, we will have committed unilateral disarmament.

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Mumbai-Style Terror Attack in Europe Foiled (Foxnews, 100929)

A commando-style terror plot that allegedly called for simultaneous attacks in multiple European cities has been disrupted, a senior U.S. intelligence official told Fox News late Tuesday, after the CIA launched a barrage of drone strikes in Pakistan to help thwart the plot.

The plan allegedly included attacks on hotels frequented by Western tourists in London, as well as cities in France and Germany, and was in an “advanced but not imminent stage,” Sky News reported. The plotters were purportedly of Pakistani or Algerian origin and have been trained in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

While officials are still working to understand the plot, a leading concern is that the plotters were modeling their European assault on the 2008 attack in Mumbai, India, in which armed gunmen killed more than 200 people in coordinated attacks at hotels and other easily accessed venues, current and former officials said.

Several U.S. officials told The Wall Street Journal they haven’t seen a terror threat as serious as the European plot for many years. “This isn’t just your typical Washington talk about how the threats have evolved. People are very concerned about what they’re seeing,” the counterterrorism official said.

“There have been a succession of terror operations we’ve been dealing with over recent weeks but one to two that have preoccupied us,” said one British government official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of his work. “Still, it hasn’t been to the degree that we have raised the threat level.”

The CIA had stepped up drone strikes in Pakistan in an effort to help thwart the plot. The more than 20 strikes this month represent a monthly record, according to a tally by the New America Foundation.

“We know [Al Qaeda] wants to attack Europe and the United States,” Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said in a statement late Tuesday. “We continue to work closely with our European allies on the threat from international terrorism, including Al Qaeda.”

Since the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the United States nine years ago, Al Qaeda has moved outside of Afghanistan and Pakistan to other countries such as Somalia and Yemen.

German officials denied Tuesday they had intercepted threats, saying there had been no change to their threat level.

Without speaking directly of the European plot, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano warned last week such attacks on publicly accessible areas are a major concern.

European governments have not commented on what plots may have been disrupted, though security officials in Britain have said that the Obama administration’s stepped-up attacks in Pakistan has disrupted the ability of Al Qaeda in Pakistan to plan terrorist strikes on the west.

A suspected U.S. missile strike on Tuesday killed four militants in northwest Pakistan’s South Waziristan region, just across the border from Afghanistan, intelligence officials said. There was no word on the identities of those killed in the attack.

A counterterrorism official, who is familiar with the drone strikes and the details of the Europe terror plots, said Tuesday that the missile strikes in Pakistan are “a product of precise intelligence and precise weapons. We’ve been hitting targets that pose a threat to our troops in Afghanistan and terrorists plotting attacks in South Asia and beyond.”

In Paris, French police on Tuesday closed off the surroundings of the Eiffel Tower, France’s most visited monument, after a bomb threat was called in. Officers pulled red-and-white police tape across a bridge leading over the Seine River to the monument. Officers stood guard.

Bomb experts combed through the 1,063-foor tower and found nothing unusual, the Paris police headquarters said. Tourists were let back inside about two hours after the structure was emptied.

Jean Dupeu, a 74-year-old Paris retiree, had planned to go to dinner in the tower but found himself looking for another restaurant.

“It’s surely a bad joke,” he said of the threat, adding, “Now is not a good time.”

National Police Chief Frederic Pechenard said last week that authorities suspect Al Qaeda’s North African branch of plotting a bomb attack on a crowded location in France. His warning came after Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, claimed responsibility for the Sept. 16 abduction of five French nationals and two Africans in northern Niger.

The French parliament voted this month to ban burqa-style Islamic veils in France, a subject that has prompted warnings by AQIM. Counterterrorism officials say that is just one of several factors contributing to the heightened threat.

At the Eiffel Tower, an anonymous caller called in a warning to firefighters, the Paris police headquarters said. The company that runs the monument asked police to evacuate it.

Police responded to a similar false alert at the tower on Sept. 14, also following a phone threat. On Monday, the bustling Saint Lazare train station in Paris was briefly evacuated and searched.

As soon as the latest bomb alert ended, huge lines of eager tourists immediately formed under the tower.

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Somali-Born Teen Who Plotted Car Bombing Contacted Suspected Terrorist (Foxnews, 101127)

The Somali-born teenager who was arrested in a sting operation while trying to blow up a van he believed was loaded with explosives at a crowded Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland, Ore., e-mailed an alleged terrorist last year, authorities said.

U.S. Attorney Dwight Holton released federal court documents to The Associated Press and the Oregonian newspaper that show the sting operation began in June after an undercover agent learned that 19-year-old Mohamed Osman Mohamud had been in regular e-mail contact with an “unindicted associate” in Pakistan’s northwest, a frontier region where Al Qaeda and Afghanistan’s Taliban insurgents are strong.

An FBI document reveals that Mohamud had contact with the suspected terrorist in Aug. 2009. In Dec. 2009, Mohamud discussed the possibility of traveling to Pakistan to engage in violent jihad.

Mohamud was arrested at 5:40 p.m. Friday just after he dialed a cell phone that he thought would set off the blast but instead brought federal agents and police swooping down on him. The bomb was an elaborate fake supplied by the agents and the public was never in danger, authorities said.

Yelling “Allahu Akbar!” — Arabic for “God is great!” — Mohamud tried to kick agents and police after he was taken into custody, according to prosecutors.

“The threat was very real,” said Arthur Balizan, special agent in charge of the FBI in Oregon. “Our investigation shows that Mohamud was absolutely committed to carrying out an attack on a very grand scale,”

A law enforcement official, who was not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press on Saturday that federal agents began investigating the suspect after receiving a tip from someone who was concerned about the teenager.

The FBI affidavit that outlined the investigation alleges that Mohamud planned the attack for months, at one point mailing bomb components to FBI operatives, whom he believed were assembling the device.

According to the official, Mohamud hatched the plan on his own and without any instruction from a foreign terrorist organization, and he planned the details, including where to park the van for the maximum number of casualties.

The affidavit said Mohamud was warned several times about the seriousness of his plan, that women and children could be killed, and that he could back out, but he told agents: “Since I was 15 I thought about all this;” and “It’s gonna be a fireworks show ... a spectacular show.”

Mohamud, a naturalized U.S. citizen living in Corvallis, was charged with attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. A court appearance was set for Monday. Few details were available about him late Friday.

Authorities allowed the plot to proceed in order to build up enough evidence to charge the suspect with attempt.

Officials didn’t say if the suspect had any ties to other Americans recently accused of trying to carry out attacks on U.S. soil, including alleged efforts in May by a Pakistan-born man to set off a car bomb near Times Square or another Pakistan-born Virginia resident accused last month in a bomb plot to kill commuters.

The two used coded language in which the FBI believes Mohamud discussed traveling to Pakistan to prepare for “violent jihad,” the documents said.

In June an FBI agent contacted Mohamud “under the guise of being affiliated with” the suspected terrorist. But the documents did not say how federal officials first became aware of Mohamud.

An undercover agent met with him a month later in Portland, where they “discussed violent jihad,” according to the court documents.

As a trial run, Mohamud and agents detonated a bomb in Lincoln City, Ore., earlier this month.

“This defendant’s chilling determination is a stark reminder that there are people — even here in Oregon — who are determined to kill Americans,” Holton said.

Friday, an agent and Mohamud drove to downtown Portland in a white van that carried six 55-gallon drums with detonation cords and plastic caps, but all of them were inert, the complaint states.

They left the van near the downtown ceremony site and went to a train station where Mohamud was given a cell phone that he thought would blow up the vehicle, according to the complaint. There was no detonation when he dialed, and when he tried again federal agents and police made their move.

Omar Jamal, first secretary to the Somali mission to the United Nations, condemned the plot and urged Somalis to cooperate with police and the FBI.

“Talk to them and tell them what you know so we can all be safe,” Jamal said.

Somalia Foreign Minister Mohamed Abullahi Omaar said his government is “ready and willing” to offer the U.S. any assistance it may need to prevent similar attempts. He said the attempt in Portland was a tragedy for Mohamud’s family and the “people he tried to harm.”

“Mohamud’s attempt is neither representative nor an example of Somalis. Somalis are peace loving people,” said Omaar, whose government is holed up in a few blocks of the capital, Mogadishu, while much of the country’s southern and central regions are ruled by Islamist insurgents.

Tens of thousands of Somalis have resettled in the United States since their country plunged into lawlessness in 1991, and the U.S. has boosted aid to the country.

In August, the U.S. Justice Department unsealed an indictment naming 14 people accused of being a deadly pipeline routing money and fighters from the U.S. to al-Shabab, an Al Qaeda affiliated group in Mohamud’s native Somalia,

At the time, Attorney General Eric Holder said the indictments reflect a disturbing trend of recruitment efforts targeting U.S. residents to become terrorists.

Officials have been working with Muslim community leaders across the United States, particularly in Somali diasporas in Minnesota, trying to combat the radicalization.

The alleged plot in Portland follows a string of terrorist attack planning by U.S. citizens or residents.

In the Times Square plot, Faisal Shahzad allegedly tried to set off a car bomb at a bustling street corner. U.S. authorities had no intelligence about Shahzad’s plot until the smoking car turned up in Manhattan.

Late last month, Farooque Ahmed, 34, of Virginia was arrested and accused of casing Washington-area subway stations in what he thought was an al-Qaida plot to bomb and kill commuters. Similar to the Portland sting, the bombing plot was a ruse conducted over the past six months by federal officials.

A year ago in another federal sting, 19-year-old Jordanian Hosam Smadi was arrested on charges he intended to bomb a downtown Dallas skyscraper. Federal officials said he placed what he believed was a car bomb outside the building but was instead a decoy device given him by an undercover FBI agent.

“I think we’ve been extremely lucky so far in the United States that many of the incidents have been amateur,” said Bruce Hoffman, terrorism expert at Georgetown University. “But even if their skill level is not enough that they can pull off a successful attack, what is clear that the intention or motivation to cause mass homicide or destruction is certainly genuine.”

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Napolitano: The Ball’s In My Court Now (Ann Coulter, 101117)

After the 9/11 attacks, when 19 Muslim terrorists — 15 from Saudi Arabia, two from the United Arab Emirates and one each from Egypt and Lebanon, 14 with “al” in their names — took over commercial aircraft with box-cutters, the government banned sharp objects from planes.

Airport security began confiscating little old ladies’ knitting needles and breaking the mouse-sized nail files off of passengers’ nail clippers. Surprisingly, no decrease in the number of hijacking attempts by little old ladies and manicurists was noted.

After another Muslim terrorist, Richard Reid, AKA Tariq Raja, AKA Abdel Rahim, AKA Abdul Raheem, AKA Abu Ibrahim, AKA Sammy Cohen (which was only his eHarmony alias), tried to blow up a commercial aircraft with explosive-laden sneakers, the government prohibited more than 3 ounces of liquid from being carried on airplanes.

All passengers were required to take off their shoes for special security screening, which did not thwart a single terrorist attack, but made airport security checkpoints a lot smellier.

After Muslim terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab of Nigeria tried to detonate explosive material in his underwear over Detroit last Christmas, the government began requiring nude body scans at airports.

The machines, which cannot detect chemicals or plastic, would not have caught the diaper bomber. So, again, no hijackers were stopped, but being able to see passengers in the nude boosted the morale of airport security personnel by 22%.

After explosives were inserted in two ink cartridges and placed on a plane headed to the United States from the Muslim nation of Yemen, the government banned printer cartridges from all domestic flights, resulting in no improvement in airport security, while requiring ink cartridges who traveled to take Amtrak.

So when the next Muslim terrorist, probably named Abdul Ahmed al Shehri, places explosives in his anal cavity, what is the government going to require then? (If you’re looking for a good investment opportunity, might I suggest rubber gloves?)

Last year, a Muslim attempting to murder Prince Mohammed bin Nayef of Saudi Arabia blew himself up with a bomb stuck up his anus. Fortunately, this didn’t happen near an airport, or Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano would now be requiring full body cavity searches to fly.

You can’t stop a terrorist attack by searching for the explosives any more than you can stop crime by taking away everyone’s guns.

In the 1970s, liberal ideas on crime swept the country. Gun owners were treated like criminals while actual criminals were coddled and released. If only we treated criminals with dignity and respect and showed them the system was fair, liberals told us, criminals would reward us with good behavior.

As is now well known, crime exploded in the ‘70s. It took decades of conservative law-and-order policies to get crime back to near-1950s levels.

It’s similarly pointless to treat all Americans as if they’re potential terrorists while trying to find and confiscate anything that could be used as a weapon. We can’t search all passengers for explosives because Muslims stick explosives up their anuses. (Talk about jobs Americans just won’t do.)

You have to search for the terrorists.

Fortunately, that’s the one advantage we have in this war. In a lucky stroke, all the terrorists are swarthy, foreign-born, Muslim males. (Think: “Guys Madonna would date.”)

This would give us a major leg up — if only the country weren’t insane.

Is there any question that we’d be looking for Swedes if the 9/11 terrorists, the shoe bomber, the diaper bomber and the printer cartridge bomber had all been Swedish? If the Irish Republican Army were bombing our planes, wouldn’t we be looking for people with Irish surnames and an Irish appearance?

Only because the terrorists are Muslims do we pretend not to notice who keeps trying to blow up our planes.

It would be harder to find Swedes or Irish boarding commercial airliners in the U.S. than Muslims. Swarthy foreigners stand out like a sore thumb in an airport. The American domestic flying population is remarkably homogenous. An airport is not a Sears department store.

Only about a third of all Americans flew even once in the last year, and only 7% took more than four round trips. The majority of airline passengers are middle-aged, middle-class, white businessmen with about a million frequent flier miles. I’d wager that more than 90% of domestic air travelers were born in the U.S.

If the government did nothing more than have a five-minute conversation with the one passenger per flight born outside the U.S., you’d need 90% fewer Transportation Security Administration agents and airlines would be far safer than they are now.

Instead, Napolitano just keeps ordering more invasive searches of all passengers, without exception — except members of Congress and government officials, who get VIP treatment, so they never know what she’s doing to the rest of us.

Two weeks ago, Napolitano ordered TSA agents to start groping women’s breasts and all passengers’ genitalia — children, nuns and rape victims, everyone except government officials and members of Congress. (Which is weird because Dennis Kucinich would like it.)

“Please have your genitalia out and ready to be fondled when you approach the security checkpoint.”

This is the punishment for refusing the nude body scan for passengers who don’t want to appear nude on live video or are worried about the skin cancer risk of the machines — risks acknowledged by the very Johns Hopkins study touted by the government.

It is becoming increasingly obvious that we need to keep the government as far away from airport security as possible, and not only because Janet Napolitano did her graduate work in North Korea.

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Sweden Begins Terror Inquiry After Stockholm Bombing (Paris International Herald, 101212)

STOCKHOLM — Sweden’s domestic intelligence service will investigate two explosions that hit the heart of Stockholm’s central shopping district on Saturday, killing one man and injuring two other people, as “an act of terrorism,” authorities said Sunday.

A police forensics team examined the remains of a suspected suicide bomber in central Stockholm on Saturday.

But the country’s prime minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt, stopped short of connecting the bombs to an e-mail that a Swedish news organization received minutes before the blasts, which seemed to link the attacks to anger over anti-Islamic cartoons and the war in Afghanistan.

A car parked near the busy shopping street of Drottninggatan exploded first, shortly before 5 p.m. local time Saturday, and the wreckage of the vehicle included gas canisters, authorities said. A second blast followed minutes later, and about 200 yards away. A man’s body, with blast injuries to his abdomen, was discovered after the second explosion.

Swedish newspapers portrayed the dead man as a suicide bomber, and the newspaper Aftonbladet said on its Web site that he had been carrying pipe bombs and a backpack full of nails. But the police declined to confirm this Sunday.

Mr. Reinfeldt, speaking at a Sunday press conference, said that investigators were still working to establish links among the two explosions, the dead man and a threatening e-mail sent to the Swedish news agency Tidningarnas Telegrambyra just prior to the explosions.

At a separate press conference Sunday, Sweden’s domestic intelligence service, Sapo, announced that it, not the regular police force, would lead the investigation as the events marked an “extraordinary situation.” A police spokesman said that police presence in Stockholm would also increase.

An editor at Tidningarnas Telegrambyra, Dan Skeppe, said the agency had received an e-mail minutes before the blasts. The e-mail was also addressed to Sweden’s security police and included a sound recording addressed to “Sweden and the Swedish people.” Mr. Skeppe said the recording cited Swedish “silence” over cartoons of the prophet Muhammad drawn by the artist Lars Vilks, criticized Sweden’s 500-soldier military contingent in northern Afghanistan and threatened attacks on Swedes.

“Now, your children — daughters and sisters — will die like our brothers and sisters and children die,” it continued. “Our actions will speak for themselves. As long as you do not end your war against Islam and the insult against the prophet and your stupid support for that pig Vilks.”

The Stockholm blasts seemed certain to cause widespread shock in Sweden. The country has long prided itself on having created a stable and peaceful society at home, and on having avoided involvement in the upheavals that have ravaged much of the rest of Europe in modern times, including World War II.

It has previously escaped the types of bombings mounted elsewhere in Europe since the 9/11 attacks in the United States. The Swedish military’s current deployment in Afghanistan, adding signals intelligence specialists to a NATO-led combat mission under American command, is a rare departure from the country’s usual pattern of avoiding involvement in military alliances.

Another major change has been the impact of heavy immigration, especially Muslims. Their growing numbers, and the furor surrounding Mr. Vilks, have contributed to a rise in tensions that have led to increased support for a right-wing anti-immigration party, the Sweden Democrats, which won 20 seats this summer in a general election. The party, blaming immigration for increased crime rates, has focused its ire on the Muslim population, which accounts for about 5 percent of Sweden’s 9.3 million people.

Mr. Reinfeldt, responding to a question about potential racial tensions Sunday, encouraged Swedes to “have patience.” He said that Sweden’s “openness is worth giving ourselves the time to get to the bottom of this,” and warned of jumping to the “wrong conclusions.”

There have been no official reports of a connection to al-Qaeda or any other extremist Islamic terror organization. But in an interview Saturday a former British counter-terror official, who did not want to be named discussing a current operation, said that a number of known Islamic militants have traveled to Sweden in the past two years. The account was confirmed by an American intelligence operative, who spoke of an established al-Qaeda “cell” in Sweden. Both declined to provide further details.

The recorded message demanded that Muslims in Sweden “stop sucking up and degrading yourselves” and broadened the appeal to “all mujahedeen,” or holy warriors, in Europe. “Now it’s time to attack,” it said. “Do not wait any longer. Come forth with whatever you have, even if it is a knife, and I know that you can bring more than knives. Fear no one. Do not be afraid of jail. Do not fear death.”

Mr. Skeppe said there was no indication in the e-mail what sort of an attack was planned, or when. “They didn’t mention that anything specific would happen at all,” he said.

Several Swedish news organizations described the e-mail as having been sent anonymously, but Mr. Skeppe declined to confirm that nor to say whether the e-mail named the individual or organization who sent it. The e-mail’s reference to Mr. Vilks, a 64-year-old artist and free-speech activist, pointed to the deep anger in the Muslim world over his drawings of the prophet Muhammad in 2007.

Publication of the drawings in Swedish newspapers drew widespread condemnation in the Muslim world and death threats against Mr. Vilks, who has since lived under police protection. In March this year, Colleen R. LaRose, an American who has converted to Islam and used the pseudonym JihadJane, was charged with trying to recruit Islamic terrorists to kill Mr. Vilks.

Anwar al-Awlaki, the radical cleric associated with al-Qaeda in the Arabia Peninsula, an offshoot of the organization based in Yemen, had named Mr. Vilks in a list of figures he approved for assassination in a publication this summer.

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Airport attack hits Kremlin at home, abroad (National Post, 110125)

MOSCOW — A bomb attack on Russia’s busiest airport on Monday is a blow to the ruling ‘tandem’ of President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, clouding efforts to lure foreign investment and ensure security in an election year.

The suicide blast, which killed at least 35 people and injured about 150, underscores Mr. Putin’s failure to put a stop to insurgency after more than a decade in power. It prompted Mr. Medvedev to postpone his departure for the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where he is to pitch Russia as an investment destination in hopes of attracting more cash to modernise the energy-reliant economy.

Mr. Medvedev vowed to find and punish those responsible, in Twitter comments less than two hours after the explosion tore through the international arrivals hall.

Police said they were stepping up security.

Those promises will ring hollow for many in a nation plagued by an Islamist insurgency in the impoverished North Caucasus. Kremlin critics say the campaign is fueled by corruption and lawlessness that also helps militants slip through the cracks of law enforcement.

The blast at Domodedovo airport came less than a year after two female suicide bombers from the North Caucasus region of Dagestan set off explosives in Moscow’s subway during the morning rush hour on March 29, killing 40 people.

It eerily echoed attacks in 2004 — days before the school hostage tragedy in the North Caucasus, Christian-majority town of Beslan — when bombers bribed their way onto two flights from Domodedovo and set off explosives, downing both planes and killing 90 people.

“The strategy to deal with the root causes of the attacks has failed so far and the security services have failed to dent the militant operations,” Matthew Clements, Eurasia at IHS Jane’s Information Group in London, told Reuters.

In recent years, “the militants operating in the North Caucasus have increased the scope of operations in the North Caucasus itself and they have expanded it into ‘mainland’ Russia,” he said.

Mr. Clements saw no direct link with parliamentary elections late this year and a 2012 presidential vote, but he said there was “a heightened risk of further attacks against high-profile targets in Russia and public areas of Moscow and other cities.”

It would take more persistent mayhem to derail the ruling United Russia party, which is expected to maintain its dominance of parliament in the December vote, let alone keeping Mr. Putin’s chosen candidate out of the Kremlin in the March 2012 vote.

Mr. Putin, who vaulted into the presidency after leading the country into a second devastating war against Chechen rebels in Chechnya in 1999, is widely expected to return to the Kremlin in 2012 or endorse Mr. Medvedev for a second term.

But the blast could undermine public confidence in both Russian leaders, who have struggled in recent months with summer wildfires and acrid smoke that killed hundreds and unprecedented racist violence in which ultranationalists targeted minorities, mostly Muslims.

Glen Howard, president of the Washington-based Jamestown Foundation think tank, said it would “further exacerbate the tensions created by the right-wing demonstrations in Moscow.”

Financial analysts pointed out that investors in Russia, like its everyday citizens, are inured to terrorist attacks and that its markets have rebounded quickly from previous attacks.

“Moscow does not believe in tears,” said John Winsell Davies, lead fund manager at Wermuth Asset Management — citing a Soviet movie title that has come to symbolize the hardened attitude of many Russians and investors in the country.

“I don’t think any major investor will be deterred by a bomb attack from investing in any major Russian company,” said Zsolt Papp, of UBP Asset Management in Zurich.

“Russia is politically a stable country, remarkably stable, ... and other factors such as the oil price play a much bigger role,” he said.

But the blast is a fresh blow to Russia’s image abroad, darkened in recent weeks by a new six-year prison sentence for long-jailed former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

Mr. Medvedev seems unlikely to completely call off his trip to Davos, where his top economic aide said his main message would be that Russia’s door is open to foreign investment.

Television footage from a smoke-choked Domodedovo in the aftermath of the blast sent a starkly different message: enter at your own risk.

Once a chaotic and dilapidated place with the grit of a Soviet train station, Domodedovo is a renovated Russian window on the world, serving scores of foreign airlines.

Germany’s Lufthansa LHAG.DE briefly halted flights to Moscow after the blast, and at least one British Airways ICAG.L flight to Domodedovo turned back to London.

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CIA Looks for New Clues on Al Qaeda Trail, Reviews Evidence From Bin Laden Compound (Foxnews, 110502)

Usama bin Laden’s body sank to the bottom of the Arabian Sea Monday morning after he was buried in accordance with Islamic practice.

But while his death marked the end of one counterterror mission — a big one — it could unlock new clues as intelligence analysts start to review the materials captured at bin Laden’s Pakistan compound during the raid.

Along with bin Laden’s body, electronics and hard drives were seized by U.S. forces following the firefight Sunday afternoon.

They have started to arrive at the CIA’s Virginia headquarters, officials said. They described the cache as a “volume of materials” that will be “exploited and analyzed” at CIA headquarters.

It’s unclear what kinds of information the files might contain. Intelligence officials spent years tracking the threads of information that eventually led them to the courier that led them to bin Laden’s compound. But officials have said the successful mission Sunday is only one step in the ongoing fight against Al Qaeda and its affiliates.

White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan, without going into detail, said Monday that analysts are in the process of reviewing the materials they obtained on site, to determine the next step.

“We feel as though this is a very important time to ... take advantage of the steps of yesterday and to continue to work to break the back of Al Qaeda,” he said. Asked about the cache of evidence, he said: “It’s not necessarily quantity. Frequently, it’s quality.”

Brennan said he hopes the U.S. can also “take advantage” of this moment and convince people in the region that Al Qaeda is a thing of the past. “We’re hoping to bury the rest of Al Qaeda along with bin Laden,” he said.

He said bin Laden’s apparent successor, Ayman al-Zawahri, is not the kind of charismatic leader bin Laden was and suggested Al Qaeda’s message is losing traction in the region, particularly given the uprisings occurring across the Middle East.

“Bin Laden’s dead. The Al Qaeda narrative’s becoming increasingly bankrupt,” he said. “This is a strategic blow to Al Qaeda.”

But noting one very significant loose end, Brennan said the U.S. was pursuing all possible leads to find out how bin Laden was able to hide out in a sprawling compound a short drive from the Pakistani capital.

One official said bin Laden was “living rather comfortably” in that compound.

On the day of the raid, he was found with one of his wives in the main house. Brennan said that if U.S. forces had the opportunity to take him alive, “we would have done that.” But he and other officials said bin Laden resisted.

Senior defense and intelligence officials said bin Laden was killed toward the end of the 40-minute raid by CIA-directed Navy SEALs. Bin Laden’s code name during the raid was “Geronimo,” according to a U.S. official.

After U.S. forces killed him and took his body, they prepared the body for burial early Monday morning. His body was washed and wrapped in a white sheet before being placed on a board and “eased into the sea” at 2 a.m.

Officials said there was no alternative to a sea burial. “There was no country willing to take him,” one official said.

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Bin Laden Killed by CIA-Led SEALs Team, Death Hailed as Blow to Al Qaeda (Foxnews, 110502)

Years of tracking the world’s most-wanted terrorist culminated Sunday afternoon, when a CIA-led Navy SEALs squadron of just a few dozen men stormed Usama bin Laden’s compound and killed him.

President Obama announced the results of the top-secret operation late Sunday night, calling it the most significant blow to Al Qaeda to date. Within hours, the architect of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that killed more than 3,000 people was buried at sea.

Though the president offered only sparse information on the mission and the intelligence that led to it, details have since emerged about the heroic actions of the small, elite team dispatched to Pakistan by an order from the president last week.

According to officials, a 40-man Navy SEALs squadron raided bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, at 3:30 p.m. ET on Sunday. As officials described it, the raid was swift — the team was on the compound for less than 40 minutes and did not run into any local authorities during the firefight.

At the start of the operation, four U.S.-owned and operated helicopters launched from a base in Afghanistan and dropped about 24 men onto the grounds of the compound. One helicopter suffered a “hard landing” after experiencing a “flight control issue” and had to be destroyed on the site.

Usama bin Laden, the Saudi Arabian–born leader of Al Qaeda is widely known as the most dangerous terrorist on the planet, has been killed by a team of U.S. Navy SEALS at a compound in Pakistan.

At first, bin Laden was asked to surrender. But a military official said he resisted. In the end, he was killed in the ensuing firefight with a bullet to the head.

No Americans were hurt or killed during the raid. Besides bin Laden, three other men were killed, one of whom is believed to be bin Laden’s 24-year-old son. One woman used as a human shield was also killed, and two other women were injured.

The operation itself stemmed from a tip that came to Obama’s desk last August. Specifically, U.S. officials were tracking an Al Qaeda courier in Pakistan, based on information obtained from multiple detainees, and determined the location of the compound in Pakistan where the courier and his brother operated. It was built on a large plot of land, and was heavily secured, with 12-to-18-foot walls topped with barbed wire, officials said. Intelligence analysts determined the compound “was custom-built to hide someone of significance,” a senior administration official said.

After months of analyzing the information, U.S. officials began holding high-level meetings about how to proceed earlier this year.

On April 29, Obama gave the order to conduct the operation. The actual mission was supposed to happen Saturday night, but it was delayed due to weather.

The highly trained special forces unit had been practicing the raid a week in advance.

In announcing the successful completion, Obama said Sunday night that bin Laden’s death “is a testament to the greatness of our country.”

“For over two decades, bin Laden has been Al Qaeda’s leader and symbol,” Obama said. “The death of bin Laden marks the most significant achievement to date in our nation’s effort to defeat Al Qaeda.”

In a message to employees, CIA Director Leon Panetta said Monday that “we have rid the world of the most infamous terrorist of our time.”

“Nothing will ever compensate for the pain and suffering inflicted by this mass murderer and his henchmen. But just as evil never rests, neither does good. May the fact that Usama Bin Ladin no longer inhabits the earth be a source of comfort for the thousands of families, here in America and around the globe, who mourn the victims of Al Qaeda’s barbarity,” he wrote.

He added that while bin Laden is dead, “Al Qaeda is not.”

In the wake of bin Laden’s death, authorities around the world are being urged to take security precautions. One source said officials are concerned bin Laden’s death could incite violence or terrorist acts against U.S. personnel overseas.

The State Department issued a travel alert for U.S. citizens abroad overnight, citing “the enhanced potential for anti-American violence given recent counterterrorism activity in Pakistan.”

Obama said Americans must continue to be “vigilant.” But he said the death of the architect of the deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil should be welcomed around the world.

“Bin Laden was not a Muslim leader. He was a mass murderer of Muslims,” Obama said. “So his demise should be welcomed by all who believe in peace and human dignity.”

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Inside the Raid That Killed Bin Laden (Foxnews, 110502)

WASHINGTON – Helicopters descended out of darkness on the most important counterterrorism mission in U.S. history. It was an operation so secret, only a select few U.S. officials knew what was about to happen.

The location was a fortified compound in an affluent Pakistani town two hours outside Islamabad. The target was Usama bin Laden.

Intelligence officials discovered the compound in August while monitoring an Al Qaeda courier. The CIA had been hunting that courier for years, ever since detainees told interrogators that the courier was so trusted by bin Laden that he might very well be living with the Al Qaeda leader.

Nestled in an affluent neighborhood, the compound was surrounded by walls as high as 18 feet, topped with barbed wire. Two security gates guarded the only way in. A third-floor terrace was shielded by a seven-foot privacy wall. No phone lines or Internet cables ran to the property. The residents burned their garbage rather than put it out for collection. Intelligence officials believed the million-dollar compound was built five years ago to protect a major terrorist figure. The question was, who?

The CIA asked itself again and again who might be living behind those walls. Each time, they concluded it was almost certainly bin Laden.

President Barack Obama described the operation in broad strokes Sunday night. Details were provided in interviews with counterterrorism and intelligence authorities, senior administration officials and other U.S. officials. All spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive operation.

By mid-February, intelligence from multiple sources was clear enough that Obama wanted to “pursue an aggressive course of action,” a senior administration official said. Over the next two and a half months, Obama led five meetings of the National Security Council focused solely on whether bin Laden was in that compound and, if so, how to get him, the official said.

Normally, the U.S. shares its counterterrorism intelligence widely with trusted allies in Britain, Canada, Australia and elsewhere. And the U.S. normally does not carry out ground operations inside Pakistan without collaboration with Pakistani intelligence. But this mission was too important and too secretive.

On April 29, Obama approved an operation to kill bin Laden. It was a mission that required surgical accuracy, even more precision than could be delivered by the government’s sophisticated Predator drones. To execute it, Obama tapped a small contingent of the Navy’s elite SEAL Team Six and put them under the command of CIA Director Leon Panetta, whose analysts monitored the compound from afar.

Panetta was directly in charge of the team, a U.S. official said, and his conference room was transformed into a command center.

Details of exactly how the raid unfolded remain murky. But the Al Qaeda courier, his brother and one of bin Laden’s sons were killed. No Americans were injured. Senior administration officials will only say that bin Laden “resisted.” And then the man behind the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil died from an American bullet to his head.

It was mid-afternoon in Virginia when Panetta and his team received word that bin Laden was dead. Cheers and applause broke out across the conference room.

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From Start to Finish: How the U.S. Got Bin Laden (townhall.com, 110502)

Elisabeth Meinecke

What happened in the takedown of Osama bin Laden was the pinnacle of years of intelligence work which included the CIA, the NGA, and the NSA, according to White House senior administration officials’ reports which chronicle the details below:

It began with the CIA following leads on those bin Laden considered his closest. Detainees post-9/11 gave information on individuals who had been directly aiding bin Laden and his deputy after they left Afghanistan.

The detainees turned over one courier’s nickname who featured a repulsive resume: he was the student of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and an assistant to Al Qaeda’s former number 3, Abu Faraj al-Libbi. Even more important, this courier was one of few trusted by bin Laden and possibly was living with him and protecting him.

For years, however, the courier’s real name and location remained a secret from the U.S. Then, four years ago, his name was discovered. Two years later, the U.S. also discovered his areas of operation in Pakistan, though his living quarters eluded U.S. intel, which in itself was a further indication to the U.S. that they were pursuing something worthwhile.

In August 2010, that home was finally discovered. It’s interesting to note that the White House report describes the area as somewhat affluent and a place with much retired military. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Al Qaeda’s #3 were also captured in settled areas of the country. The sight of the 3-story, $1 million living residence surprised the U.S.: it was on a large area of land, approximately eight times larger than the other residences there. It had 12 to 18-foot walls with barbed wire perched on top. It also had internal wall sections. Those who lived there reportedly burned their trash (unlike their neighbors, who put the trash out to be picked up), and the compound’s entrances were two security gates. The 3rd floor terrace had a 7-foot privacy wall. It also had no internet or telephone service connected. The courier (and his brother) did not have an “explainable source of wealth.” At the time it was built (2005), it was relatively isolated, but other homes have since built up close by.

Then U.S. intelligence discovered there was another family living in the compound in addition to those of the two brothers. This family fit the description consistent with that which the U.S. expected would be accompanying bin Laden.

But the U.S. wanted to be sure, so it conducted red team exercises and analyzed the intel from every angle. The results consistently pointed to the secret inside the compound being Osama bin Laden.

Meanwhile, the operation to take out bin Laden had been under preparation for months, with regular briefings for President Obama. In September of last year (approximately a month after the compound location was discovered), the president and the CIA began to work “on a set of assessments” that resulted in the U.S.’s belief that bin Laden could indeed be in the compound. By mid-February, the intelligence basis justified plotting a course of action for getting bin Laden at that location. From March 14th to April 29th, the president chaired at least five National Security Council meetings on the mission. He gave the final order for the now famous mission on the morning of April 29th (at least one American who probably wasn’t watching the royal wedding live).

The mission that took bin Laden out was a collaboration between intelligence agencies and the U.S. military. A small U.S. team made a helicopter raid on the compound. The White House report details the dangers associated with the task: high walls, security setup, the relatively settled location, and it being only 35 miles north of Islamabad.

It took the U.S. team under 40 minutes in the compound to do its work. The only loss the U.S. sustained was one of the two helicopters used in the raid — the crew members were able to board the remaining helicopter to get out. The total death toll was four adult males killed — bin Laden, and supposedly the two couriers and bin Laden’s son— and one woman, who one of the men used as a human shield. Two women were also injured in the attack.

Bin Laden, who resisted the assault force, met his death in a firefight by the most well-trained military in the world — a testament to the great country he tried so hard to destroy.

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The Trial That Still Must Come – The Death of Osama bin Laden and the Limits of Human Justice (Christian Post, 110504)

By R. Albert Mohler, Jr.

Osama bin Laden is dead. President Obama spoke with clarity and resolution when he addressed the American people last night: “Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al Qaeda, and a terrorist who’s responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women, and children.”

That single sentence, delivered in a nearly unprecedented late-night Sunday address by an American president, encapsulates the moral context of the action. First, the President took responsibility for the act that ended bin Laden’s life. Osama bin Laden did not die an accidental death, nor a death by natural causes. The United States “conducted an operation” that resulted in his death. Second, the operation ended the life of one who was “a terrorist who’s responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women, and children.”

In his short and historic address, the President justified the military action in terms of an act of war. In reality, the operation was a stunning affirmation of the effectiveness of American military expertise, combined with a remarkable intelligence achievement. Bin Laden was killed even as he was within a highly-guarded, encircled compound with walls and defenders. The act was fully justified by the demands of just war theory, the historic Christian means of moral reasoning that measures the justification for acts of lethal force.

Osama bin Laden was the one human being most responsible for a series of terrorist attacks, including the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States - attacks that left more than 3,000 civilians dead. He claimed such responsibility and pledged future attacks. The death of Osama bin Laden means that all people of the world should sleep more soundly in their beds, even as those who plot their own acts of terror should sleep less soundly in their own.

The death of bin Laden was fully justified as an act of war, but not as an act of justice. The removal of a credible threat to human life - a clear and present danger to human safety - is fully justified, especially after such an individual has demonstrated not only the will, but the means to effect murder on a massive scale.

One interesting dimension of this moral context is the fact that American military and intelligence forces had identified bin Laden as such a threat long before the September 11, 2001 attacks. Furthermore, our forces had ample intelligence that would have allowed a lethal strike against him prior to the September 11 attacks. However justified such an action against bin Laden might have been then, this action after his massive attacks was more than justified.

And yet, there are two troubling aspects that linger. The first is the open celebration in the streets. While we should all be glad that this significant threat is now removed, death in itself is never to be celebrated. Such celebration points to the danger of revenge as a powerful human emotion. Revenge has no place among those who honor justice. Retributive justice is sober justice. The reason for this is simple - God is capable of vengeance, which is perfectly true to his own righteousness and perfection - but human beings are not. We tend toward the mismeasure of justice when it comes to settling our own claims. All people of good will should be pleased that bin Laden is no longer a personal threat, and that his death may further weaken terrorist plans and aspirations. But revenge is not a worthy motivation for justice, and celebration in the streets is not a worthy response.

Should we be glad that forces of the United States military have the means, the will, and the opportunity to remove this threat? Of course we should. Should we be hopeful that such an action will serve as a warning to others who might plan similar actions? Of course. Should we find some degree of moral satisfaction in the fact that bin Laden did not die a natural death outside the reach of human justice? Yes, of course.

But open patriotic celebration in the streets? That looks far more like revenge in the eyes of a watching world, and it looks far more like we are simply taking satisfaction in the death of an enemy. That kind of revenge just produces greater numbers of enemies.

The second troubling aspect is just part of what it means to live in a world in which true justice is always elusive. Osama bin Laden is dead, but we never had the satisfaction of seeing him arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced. We were robbed of the satisfaction of seeing the evidence against him laid out, and seeing him have to answer the world about his murderous actions and plans. We were robbed of the moral satisfaction that comes by means of a fair and clear verdict, followed by a just and appropriate sentence.

We have been robbed before. History is filled with examples of opportunities lost because events did not allow. Bin Laden said he would never be taken alive. He was true to his words, and he died in the midst of a firefight. It was the best we could hope for under these circumstances, and there was more than adequate justification for his death. But we still should feel the loss of the greater satisfaction of human justice.

Once again, Christians are reminded of the inherent limitations of justice in a fallen and sinful world. At our very best, we can achieve only a small proportion of adequate justice. We can convict the murderer and put him to death, but we cannot bring the dead back to life. We can put an end to Osama bin Laden, but we are robbed of the satisfaction of seeing him answer for his crimes.

We did the best we could do, and that is often where we are left. We are left with a sense of sober satisfaction. This is no small comfort to all those who are still grieving the loved ones who lost their lives on September 11 and while wearing the uniform of the United States fighting bin Laden and the forces of terror.

But, as is always the case, we are left with a sense that a higher court is still needed. Christians know that Osama bin Laden escaped the reach of full human justice and a trial for his crimes, but he will not escape the judgment that is to come. Bin Laden will not escape his trial before the court of God. Until then, sober satisfaction must be enough for those still in the land of the living.

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Pakistan Prime Minister Is Defiant as Pakistan Outs C.I.A. Agent (Paris International Herald, 110509)

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — In an address to Parliament, Prime Minister Yousaf Gilani on Monday defended Pakistan’s spy agency and indirectly criticized the United States for Osama Bin Laden’s presence in Pakistan.

The prime minister’s statement was expected to give an accounting of what Pakistan knew about the Qaeda leader’s presence in Pakistan, but instead centered on how the raid by the United States was a breach of Pakistani sovereignty. He warned that a repeat of such a raid to capture other high profile terrorists could be met with “full force.”

Mr. Gilani repeated his assertion that Bin Laden’s presence in Pakistan was an intelligence failure of the “whole world,” and said a senior army general would conduct an inquiry into the Bin Laden raid, but he gave no timeline of when that inquiry would be completed or who would participate in it.

In response to statements by officials in the Obama administration that elements in the Pakistani spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, knew about Bin Laden’s hiding place and may have supported him, Mr. Gilani said it was “disingenuous” for anyone to blame the ISI or the army of being “in cahoots” with Bin Laden. The head of the spy agency, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, and the chief of the army, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, have been described by Pakistani officials as seething over the American raid, and the failure of the Obama administration to inform Pakistan in advance.

In apparent retaliation, the ISI appeared to have told a conservative daily newspaper, The Nation, the name of the C.I.A. station chief who is posted at the American Embassy in Islamabad. A misspelled version of the station chief’s name appeared in the Saturday edition of The Nation.

In December, the prior C.I.A. station chief had to leave Pakistan after he was publicly identified in a legal complaint sent to the Pakistani police by the family of victims of the American drone campaign. The station chief received death threats after his identity was exposed. At the time, the Obama administration said it believed that the ISI had deliberately made the name public.

The new station chief was responsible for directing a large part of the operation that killed Bin Laden, including supervision of a C.I.A. safe house from which operatives spied on the compound where Bin Laden lived for five years. There was no expectation that he would leave Pakistan, American officials said.

Mr. Gilani gave a spirited defense of the ISI, an agency run by the military that his civilian government tried to take over after coming to power in 2008 but failed to do so.

He described the agency as a “national asset” that had done more than any other intelligence agency in the world to take on Al Qaeda.

“No other country in the world and no other security agency has done so much to interdict Al Qaeda than the ISI and our armed forces,” he said. But Mr. Gilani did not explain how Al Qaeda’s leader managed to remain sequestered for five years in the garrison city of Abbottabad, about 75 miles by road from the national capital.

Mr. Gilani’s account of the history of Al Qaeda essentially blamed the United States for allowing Islamic militants to take hold in Pakistan.

“We didn’t invite Osama bin Laden to Pakistan or Afghanistan,” he said.

The United States, he said, had encouraged the Islamic militants that fought against the Soviet Union to disperse into Pakistan after that war was over in the late 1980s. Similarly, he said, the bombings of Al Qaeda militants at Tora Bora after the Sept. 11 attacks “resulted in the dispersal of Al Qaeda.”

“We had cautioned international forces on a flawed military campaign,” Mr. Gilani said.

After the live broadcast of the speech, a leading Pakistani journalist, Mohammed Ziauddin, said the prime minister had failed to answer critical questions.

“People have to be told the real facts, they can’t be glossed over,” said Mr. Ziauddin, the executive editor of The Express Tribune.

In unusually blunt statements, some politicians and journalists have called for a full public inquiry and have suggested that “heads should roll.” But the prime minister’s address fell short of both demands.

A close military aide to General Kayani, Lt. Gen. Javed Iqbal, who is the adjutant general of the army, would conduct the inquiry, Mr. Gilani said.

A joint session of Parliament on May 13 would be given a briefing by the military, he said.

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Massive explosion rocks central Oslo (National Post, 110722)

OSLO — A huge explosion wrecked government buildings in central Oslo on Friday including Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg’s office, injuring several people, a Reuters journalist said from the scene.

The cause of the blast was unknown but the tangled wreckage of a car was outside one building and the damage appeared consistent to witnesses with that from car bombs. Police and fire officials declined comment on the cause.

The blast blew out most windows on the 17-storey building housing Stoltenberg’s office, as well as nearby ministries including the oil ministry, which was on fire. Heavy debris littered the streets and smoke rose over the city centre.

A Reuters correspondent counted at least eight injured people. Norwegian news agency NTB said that Stoltenberg was safe.

“It exploded — it must have been a bomb. people ran in panic and ran. I counted at least 10 injured people,” said Kjersti Vedun, who was leaving the area.

NATO member Norway has sometimes in the past been threatened by leaders of al Qaeda for its involvement in Afghanistan. However, political violence is virtually unknown in the country.

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At least 17 dead after bombing, shooting incidents in and around Oslo (National Post, 110722)

OSLO — A bomb ripped through Oslo’s central government district on Friday and a gunmen dressed as a policeman then opened fire at a youth camp on a nearby island, killing 17 people altogether, police said.

In the biggest such attack in western Europe since the London transport bombings in 2005, seven died when the bomb exploded on the Norwegian capital in mid-afternoon scattering glass, shattered masonry and twisted steel across the streets.

Shortly afterwards, a gunman opened fire at the youth camp of the ruling political party on Utoeya island, north-west of Oslo. Police said nine or 10 people were killed and they believed the two attacks were linked. The gunman was arrested.

The bomb, which shook the city centre at around 3:30 p.m., blew out the windows of the Prime Minister’s building and damaged the finance and oil ministries.

“People ran in panic,” said bystander Kjersti Vedun. With police advising people to evacuate central Oslo, apparently in fear of more attacks, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg told Norwegian TV2 television in a phone call that the situation was “very serious”. He said that police had told him not to say where he was speaking from.

A Reuters witness saw soldiers taking up positions in Oslo.

The gunman, described by a police official as tall and blond, was reported by Norwegian media to have taken advantage of the confusion caused by the bombing to attack the summer camp of Stoltenberg’s Labour party youth section.

“There was a lot of shooting … We hid under a bed. It was very terrifying,” a young woman at the camp told British Sky television.

There was no clear claim of responsibility and while the attacks appeared to bear some, but by no means all, of the hallmarks of an Islamist militant assault, analysts said it was too early to draw any conclusions.

“This is a terror attack. It is the most violent event to strike Norway since World War Two,” said Geir Bekkevold, an opposition parliamentarian for the Christian Peoples Party.

Lilit Gevorgyan, analyst at IHS Global Insight, said the most likely suspects were al-Qaeda-linked or inspired groups, but added:

“As the news continues trickling in from Utoeya, however, right-wing extremist groups or even a lone perpetrator with army training or access to ammunition and weaponry could be behind the plot.”

Deputy Oslo police chief Sveining Sponheim told reporters that the gunman in the Utoeya shootings had been disguised in a blue police-style uniform but had never been employed by the police.

He said that the police also believed that the man may have been involved in both the Oslo bombing and the shootings. So far, the detained man had not said anything to the police.

NATO member Norway has been the target of threats before over its involvement in conflicts in Afghanistan and Libya.

The attack came just over a year after three men were arrested on suspicion of having links to al Qaeda and planning to attack targets in Norway. It also came less than three months after U.S. forces killed Osama bin Laden in a raid on his hideout in Pakistan.

Violence or the threat of it has already come to the other Nordic states: a botched bomb attack took place in the Swedish capital Stockholm last December and the bomber was killed.

Denmark has received repeated threats after a newspaper published cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in late 2005, angering Muslims worldwide.

In Oslo, the building of a publisher which recently put out a translation of a Danish book on the cartoon controversy was also affected, but was apparently not the target.

Police have been on the alert for complex gun-and-bomb attacks on European cities since the assault by 10 gunmen on India’s financial capital Mumbai in November 2008 which killed 166 people. The Oslo attacks, though hitting two targets, were not simultaneous and the delay between them left open the possibility of a single perpetrator.

Madrid suffered an Islamist militant bomb attack on commuter trains in 2004 that killed 191 people. Four suicide bombers killed 52 people in an attack on London’s transport system in 2005.

The Oslo district attacked is the very heart of power in Norway, with several other key administration buildings nearby. Nevertheless, security is not tight given the lack of violence in the past.

The Reuters correspondent said the streets had been fairly quiet in mid-afternoon on a Friday in high summer, when many Oslo residents take vacation or leave for weekend breaks.

The failed December attack in Stockholm was by a Muslim man who grew up in Sweden but said he had been angered by Sweden’s involvement in the NATO-led force in Afghanistan and the Prophet Mohammad cartoons.

That attack was followed weeks later by the arrest in Denmark of five men for allegedly planning to attack the newspaper which first ran the Mohammad cartoons.

In July 2010, Norwegian police arrested three men for an alleged plot to organise at least one attack on Norwegian targets and said they were linked to individuals investigated in the United States and Britain.

Political violence is virtually unknown in a country known for awarding the Nobel Peace Prize and mediating in conflicts, including in the Middle East and Sri Lanka.

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Norway Bomb Suspect Bought 6 Tons of Fertilizer (Foxnews, 110723)

SUNDVOLLEN, Norway — The 32-year-old man suspected in bomb and shooting attacks that killed at least 91 people in Norway bought six tons of fertilizer before the massacres, the supplier said Saturday as police investigated witness accounts of a second shooter.

Norway’s prime minister and royal family visited grieving relatives of the scores of youth gunned down in a horrific killing spree on an idyllic island retreat. A man who said he was carrying a knife was detained by police officers outside the hotel, as the shell-shocked Nordic nation was gripped by reports that Norwegian gunman may not have acted alone.

The suspect in police custody — a blonde blue-eyed Norwegian with reported Christian fundamentalist, anti-Muslim views — is suspected in both the shootings at Utoya island and a massive explosion that ripped through an Oslo high-rise building housing the prime minister’s office two hours earlier, killing seven people. He has been preliminarily charged with acts of terrorism.

Oddny Estenstad, a spokeswoman for agricultural material supplier Felleskjopet, confirmed Saturday that the suspect in custody purchased six tons of fertilizer 10 weeks ago. Artificial fertilizer is highly explosive and can be used in homemade bombs.

Estenstad said police were alerted to the purchase after it emerged the man was suspected of the deadly attacks.

On the island of Utoya, panicked teens attending a Labour Party youth wing summer camp plunged into the water or played dead to avoid the assailant in the assault that may have lasted 30 minutes before a SWAT team arrived, police said.

Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said the twin attacks made Friday peacetime Norway’s deadliest day.

He was visibly shaken as he described his meeting with surviving victims of the shooting spree and families of children who had been on the island.

“This is very difficult for me because it’s a very, very demanding situation to meet so many people that are hurting so much,” he said, his voice trembling as he recited tales he had heard of how people had tried to hide from the killer to survive.

The toll in both attacks reached 91 Saturday, and police said that could still rise as they search the waters around the island for more bodies. Acting Police Chief Roger Andresen said he did not how many people were still missing. The Oslo University hospital said it has so far received 11 wounded from the bombing and 16 people from the camp shooting.

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At least 87 killed in Norway shooting, bomb attack (National Post, 110723)

OSLO – A gunman dressed in police uniform opened fire at a youth camp of Norway’s ruling political party on Friday, killing at least 80 people, hours after a bomb killed seven in the government district in the capital Oslo.

“The updated knowledge we are sitting on now is at least 80,” police chief Oystein Maeland told a news conference.

“We can’t guarantee that won’t increase somewhat,” he said.

Witnesses said the gunman, identified by police as a a 32-year-old Norwegian, moved across the small, wooded Utoeya holiday island firing at random as young people scattered in fear. Norwegian television TV2 said the gunman, described as tall and blond, had links to right-wing extremism.

Norway’s national broadcaster NRK named the suspect as Anders Behring Breivik, pictured.

It was the biggest attack in Western Europe since the 2004 Madrid train bombings that killed 191.

“I just saw people jumping into the water, about 50 people swimming towards the shore. People were crying, shaking, they were terrified,” said Anita Lien, 42, who lives by Tyrifjord lake, a few hundred metres (yards) from Utoeya island, northwest of Oslo.

“They were so young, between 14 and 19 years old.”

Many sought shelter in buildings as shots echoed across the island, ran into the woods or tried to swim to safety. Boats searched for survivors into the night, searchlights sweeping the coast. Helicopters flew overhead.

Survivor Jorgen Benone, who was on the island at the time, said: “I saw people being shot. I tried to sit as quietly as possible. I was hiding behind some stones. I saw him once, just 20, 30 metres away from me. I thought ‘I’m terrified for my life’, I thought of all the people I love.”

Police seized the gunman, who they believed was also linked to the bombing, and later found undetonated explosives on the island, a pine-clad strip of land about 500 metres long, to the northwest of Oslo.

The bomb, which shook the city centre in mid-afternoon, blew out the windows of the prime minister’s building and damaged the finance and oil ministry buildings. Stoltenberg was not in the building at the time.

“People ran in panic,” said bystander Kjersti Vedun.

With police advising people to evacuate central Oslo, and some soldiers taking up positions on the streets, the usually sleepy capital was gripped by fear of fresh attacks. Streets were strewn with shattered masonry, glass and twisted steel.

“It is the most violent event to strike Norway since World War Two,” said Geir Bekkevold, an opposition parliamentarian for the Christian Peoples Party.

“I have a message to the one who attacked us and those who were behind this,” Prime Minister Stoltenberg said in a televised news conference. “No one will bomb us to silence, no one will shoot us to silence.”

He declined to speculate on who had been involved.

OKLAHOMA BOMBING

NUPI Senior Research Fellow Jakub Godzimirski said he suspected a right-winger, rather than any Islamist group. Right wing groups have grown up in Norway and elsewhere in northern Europe around the issue of immigration.

“It would be very odd for Islamists to have a local political angle. The attack on the Labour youth meeting suggests it’s something else. If Islamists wanted to attack, they could have set off a bomb in a nearby shopping mall rather than a remote island.”

Right-wing militancy has generated sporadic attacks in other countries, including the United States. In 1995, 168 people were killed when Timothy McVeigh detonated a truck bomb at a federal building in Oklahoma City.

Deputy Oslo police chief Sveining Sponheim told reporters that the gunman in the Utoeya shootings had been disguised in a blue police-style uniform but had never been a police officer.

Police searched a flat in west Oslo where the man lived, and evacuated some neighbours.

NATO member Norway has been the target of threats before over its involvement in conflicts in Afghanistan and Libya.

Violence or the threat of it has already come to the other Nordic states: a botched bomb attack took place in the Swedish capital Stockholm last December and the bomber was killed.

Denmark has received repeated threats after a newspaper published cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in late 2005, angering Muslims worldwide.

In Oslo, the building of a publisher which recently put out a translation of a Danish book on the cartoon controversy was also affected, but was apparently not the target.

The Oslo district attacked is the very heart of power in Norway. Nevertheless, security is not tight in a country unused to such violence and better known for awarding the Nobel Peace Prize and mediating in conflicts, including the Middle East and Sri Lanka.

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Norwegian Terror Suspect Has ‘Admitted Responsibility’ For Attacks, Lawyer Says (Fox News, 110723)

OSLO – The Norwegian man accused of launching twin terror attacks in Oslo and at a nearby summer camp for teenagers that left at least 92 dead has “admitted responsibility,” his lawyer told Norway’s NRK television network Saturday.

Police labeled the attacks as acts of terrorism punishable by up to 21 years in prison according to Norwegian law, the Wall Street Journal reported. Norway does not have the death penalty.

Police said 85 people, many of them teenagers, were killed in the Friday afternoon shooting at a summer camp for the youth wing of the ruling Labor Party, on the island of Utoya.

The rampage followed a bombing 90 minutes earlier that ripped through government offices in the Norwegian capital and killed at least seven people.

Local media have identified the suspect as 32-year-old Anders Behring Breivik, although his attorney, Geir Lippestad, had asked police not to confirm his name.

Lippestad Saturday told Norway’s NRK television network that his client had “admitted responsibility” for Friday’s attacks.

“He explained that it was cruel but that he had to go through with these acts,” Lippestad said, according to AFP, adding that the attacks were “apparently planned over a long period of time.”

He said his client would explain himself in court Monday when he was arraigned, the BBC reported. The court would determine if police could continue to hold him, the report said.

According to a 1500-page manifesto apparently written by Breivik, he had been planning the operation since at least autumn 2009.

The document — entitled “2083-A European Declaration of Independence” — was published on the site www.freak.no describing the author’s background and political viewpoints.

It is part diary, part bomb-making manual and part political rant in which Breivik details his Islamophobia, attacks on Marxism and his initiation as a Knight Templar.

Dow Jones reported that several hours before the Oslo car bomb blast in a downtown government quarter, Breivik released a YouTube video calling for conservatives to “embrace martyrdom.”

“[If] the multiculturalist elites of Europe continue to refuse to voluntarily transfer political and military power to our conservative revolutionary forces ... then [the second world war] is likely going to appear as a picnic compared to the coming carnage,” the video stated in captions.

TV2 said sources within Norway’s police confirmed the video was uploaded by Breivik, who apparently used the user name AndrewBreivik, an English translation of the name Anders Breivik.

Police chief Sveinung Sponheim told a press conference Saturday that police were investigating unconfirmed witness reports of a second shooter on idyllic Utoya Island, where the gunman, disguised as a policeman, opened fire on terrified teenagers at a summer camp affiliated with the ruling Labour Party.

Sponheim said the suspect was answering questions and the interrogation was likely to continue for several days.

Police official Roger Andresen described him as a “Christian fundamentalist” who was “cooperating” with investigators in an attempt “to explain himself.”

Police were also examining the suspect’s car and computer records and hope to determine if he was affiliated with an extremist group.

As the questioning and search for an explanation went on, recovering any remaining bodies from the waters around the island of Utoya, some 25 miles northwest of Oslo, became a top priority.

Police said they would use a mini-submarine, along with Red Cross scuba divers with underwater cameras, to search the waters around Utoya.

An undetermined number of campers jumped into the sea in an attempt to flee from the gunman, who in turn opened fire on them. Police said at least four or five people were still missing.

By late Saturday, the death toll from the island rampage stood at 85, bringing the overall number of dead, including the Oslo bombing, to 92.

Police indicated it could go as high as 98 if all those missing are found dead, FOX News reported.

In Oslo, where flags flew at half-staff and members of the public and Norwegian royal family left flowers and candles at a makeshift memorial, Sponheim urged residents to stay away from buildings damaged by the car bomb and noted there were still some body remains in the buildings.

Norwegian and international media, meanwhile, tried to dissect the psyche of the boyish-looking, blond-haired Breivik. The (London) Times described him as an affluent and educated loner who lived with his mother in a wealthy area of western Oslo and had no criminal record apart from a traffic conviction ten years ago.

The Times said he set up Facebook and Twitter accounts July 17, listing Franz Kafka’s “The Trial” and George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four” among his favorite books and calling the television series “Dexter,” about a serial killer, his favorite show.

His business was described as buying, selling and managing stocks, project developing and real estate, The Times said. He also recently established an organic farming company and bought 6.6 tons of fertilizer — a potential bomb component.

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Suspect posted manifesto before mass killings in Norway (National Post, 110724)

TORONTO — Hours before the terrorist attacks in Norway, the far right Christian extremist blamed for the mass killings posted a 1,500-page manifesto to the Internet that railed against European liberalism and multiculturalism.

Written under the name Andrew Berwick but believed to have been authored by the terror suspect, Anders Behring Breivik, it calls for a violent right wing revolution across Europe “before our major cities are completely demographically overwhelmed by Muslims.”

The lengthy text, which is written entirely in English and displays a singular obsession with Muslims, is focused on European countries but also mentions Canada several times. It cites Canada as a country that uses hate speech laws “to silence infidels” who criticize Islam.

It refers to the case of Mark Harding, convicted by an Ontario court of spreading hatred of Muslims. “Harding’s case demonstrates that it is now a criminal act in several Western nations to tell the truth about the dangers posed by Muslim immigration,” it says.

The diatribe also refers to Canadian fertility rates, the Toronto 18 terror arrests, a defunct Montreal terror ring and a Canadian intelligence study that was quoted in the National Post. A copy of the manifesto was obtained by the SITE Intelligence Group.

The author claims to have spent nine years and hundreds of thousands of Euros on the manifesto. “Breivik’s goal with the book appears to be to convince others of his worldview and draw others to the cause,” the U.S.-based SITE said.

The book, as well as a video in which Mr. Breivik appears holding an automatic weapon, were both titled “2083 – A European Declaration of Independence.” The white supremacist manifesto ends with a sign off that is chilling in retrospect. “I believe this will be my last entry. It is now Fri July 22nd, 12.51.”

That afternoon, a massive bomb exploded in Oslo outside the government headquarters and a lone gunman went on a shooting spree on a nearby island where the youth wing of Norway’s ruling party was meeting. At least 93 are confirmed dead so far.

Police arrested Mr. Breivik at the scene. The 32-year-old farmer has allegedly admitted to carrying out both attacks and will appear in court on Monday. He has been quoted as describing his attacks as “gruesome but necessary.”

Thomas Hegghammer of the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment told the New York Times the manifesto was similar to those produced by al-Qaeda leaders, although from a Christian rather than a Muslim perspective.

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Norway shootings: Anders Breivik cannot get more than 21 years (Daily Telegraph, 110724)

Despite his mass killing spree, the maximum sentence Anders Breivik could be handed by a court is just 21 years.

A prisoner is required to spend at least 10 years in custody before becoming eligible for parole.

It means Breivik could be out as early as 2021.

However, it is technically possible for an offender to spend the rest of their life in prison, regardless of their sentence.

As with the penal system here, a Norwegian prisoner serving an indeterminate sentence must show they are no longer a danger to society before being granted parole.

The nature and gravity of Breivik’s crimes suggest he would always be considered a risk.

An additional five years of “containement” would be added when the sentence is due to expire.

That can be repeated at the end of each five years. However, it is also an ongoing assessment, meaning the offender can be released at any point where the authorities believe they no longer pose a risk.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said the atrocity is the worst crime since the Second World War and signalled in its immediate aftermath that the country’s penal system may have to be examined.

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Norwegian Suspect Wanted European Anti-Muslim Crusade (Foxnews, 110724)

OSLO, Norway – The man blamed for killing at least 93 people during terrorist attacks on Norway’s government headquarters and an island retreat for young people wanted to trigger an anti-Muslim revolution in Norwegian society, his lawyer said Sunday.

An Oslo district court judge decided Monday to hold the arraignment for the suspect in the twin attacks in Norway behind closed doors.

Judge Kim Heger made the decision on a request from police. The suspect, Anders Behring Breivik, 32, had asked for an open hearing.

“Based on information in the case the court finds that today’s detention hearing should be held behind closed doors,” the court said in a statement. “It is clear that there is concrete information that a public hearing with the suspect present could quickly lead to an extraordinary and very difficult situation in terms of the investigation and security.”

A chief surgeon treating the wounded from Friday’s mass shooting said he believes the attacker used special “dum-dum” bullets that cause massive internal injuries. The doctor told The Associated Press that the killer’s chosen ammo “exploded inside the body.”

The manifesto that Breivik published online ranted against Muslim immigration to Europe and vowed revenge on those “indigenous Europeans” whom he deemed had betrayed their heritage. The document said they would be punished for their “treasonous acts.”

Police said they were analyzing the approximately 1,500-page document. They said it was published Friday shortly before the back-to-back bomb and gun attacks.

Breivik’s lawyer, Geir Lippestad, said his client wrote the document alone. While police said they were investigating reports of a second assailant on the island, the lawyer said Breivik claims no one helped him.

The treatise detailed plans to acquire firearms and explosives, and even appeared to describe a test explosion: “BOOM! The detonation was successful!!!” It ends with a note dated 12:51 p.m. on July 22: “I believe this will be my last entry.”

That day, a bomb killed 7 people in downtown Oslo and, about 90 minutes later, a gunman began opening fire on about 600 young people at a retreat on Utoya Island. Police said the death toll in the shooting rose by one Sunday to 86.

That brings total fatalities to 93, with more than 90 wounded. People remain missing at both scenes. While police have not released the names of any victims, the Norwegian royal court is reporting that Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s stepbrother was among those killed in the massacre.

Authorities revealed Sunday that one of the attacker’s first victims on the island was an off-duty police officer who had been hired by the camp directors to provide private security in his spare time. Oslo Police Union Chairman Sigve Bolstad declined to identify the victim.

That detail sheds new light on the confusion many survivors described during the 90-minute massacre. The attacker arrived dressed as a policeman, and some campers were killed when they approached the killer thinking he was there to save them.

Dr. Colin Poole, head of surgery at Ringriket Hospital in Honefoss northwest of Oslo, told The Associated Press the gunman used special bullets designed to disintegrate inside the body and cause maximum internal damage. Poole said surgeons treating 16 gunshot victims have recovered no full bullets.

“These bullets more or less exploded inside the body,” Poole said. “It’s caused us all kinds of extra problems in dealing with the wounds they cause, with very strange trajectories.”

Ballistics experts say the so-called “dum-dum” bullets also are lighter in weight and can be fired with greater accuracy over varying distances. They commonly are used by air marshals and hunters of small animals. Such characteristics potentially would have allowed the gunman to carry more ammunition and fire his weapons at varying targets without adjusting his sights.

Officials at the lakeside scene of the island shooting spent Sunday continuing to account for the dead.

Six hearses pulled up at the shoreline as orange-jacketed Red Cross searchers on small boats slowly explored the extensive shoreline.

Body parts remain inside the Oslo building, which housed the prime minister’s office. In a chilling allusion to the fact that the tragedy could have even been greater, police said Sunday that Breivik still had “a considerable amount” of ammunition for both his guns — a pistol and an automatic rifle — when he surrendered.

Police and his lawyer have said that Breivik confessed to the twin attacks, but denied criminal responsibility for a day that shook peaceful Norway to its core and was the deadliest ever in peacetime. Breivik has been charged with terrorism and will be arraigned Monday.

Lippestad said his client has asked for an open court hearing “because he wants to explain himself.”

Police Chief Sveinung Sponheim said a forensics expert from Interpol was joining the investigation Sunday.

European security officials said they were aware of increased Internet chatter from individuals claiming they belonged to the Knights Templar group that Breivik describes, in fantastical terms, in the manifesto. They said they were still investigating claims that Breivik, and other far-right individuals, attended a London meeting of the group in 2002. The two officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the investigation.

The officials would not confirm whether they had identified Breivik as a potential threat.

As authorities pursued the suspect’s motives, Oslo mourned the victims. Norway’s King Harald V and his wife Queen Sonja and Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg crowded into Oslo Cathedral, where the pews were packed, and people spilled into the plaza outside. The area was strewn with flowers and candles, and people who could not fit inside the grand church huddled under umbrellas amid drizzling rain.

The king and queen both wiped tears from their eyes during the service themed on “sorrow and hope.”

Afterward, people sobbed and hugged one another in the streets. Many lingered over the flowers and candles. The royal couple and prime minister later visited the site of the bombing in Oslo. The royals then visited shooting survivors at Ringriket Hospital.

The attacker picked targets linked to Norway’s left-wing Labor Party. Breivik’s manifesto pilloried the political correctness of liberals and warned that their work would end in the colonization of Europe by Muslims.

Such fears may derive, at least in part, from the fact that Norway has grown increasingly multicultural in recent years as the prosperous Nordic nation has opened its arms to thousands of conflict refugees from Pakistan, Iraq and Somalia. The annual Labor Party retreat — which the prime minister, Stoltenberg, fondly remembers attending in his own youth — reflected the country’s changing demographics as the children of immigrants have grown increasingly involved in Labor politics.

The assaults have rattled Norway, home to the Nobel Prize for Peace and where the average policeman patrolling in the streets doesn’t carry a firearm. Norwegians pride themselves on the openness of their society and cherish the idea of free expression.

“He wanted a change in society and, from his perspective, he needed to force through a revolution,” Lippestad, the lawyer, told public broadcaster NRK. “He wished to attack society and the structure of society.”

Lippestad said Breivik spent years writing the manifesto titled “2083 - A European Declaration of Independence.” It was signed “Andrew Berwick.” The document later explained that 2083 was to be the year when European government would be overthrown en masse.

Sponheim, the police chief, said there was no indication whether Breivik had selected his targets or fired randomly on the island. The manifesto vowed revenge on those it accused of betraying Europe.

“We, the free indigenous peoples of Europe, hereby declare a pre-emptive war on all cultural Marxist/multiculturalist elites of Western Europe. ... We know who you are, where you live and we are coming for you,” the document said. “We are in the process of flagging every single multculturalist traitor in Western Europe. You will be punished for your treasonous acts against Europe and Europeans.”

The use of an anglicized pseudonym could be explained by a passage in the manifesto describing the founding, in April 2002 in London, of a group he calls a new Knights Templar. The Knights Templar was a medieval order created to protect Christian pilgrims in the Holy Land after the First Crusade in the 11th century.

A 12-minute video clip posted on YouTube with the same title as the manifesto featured symbolic imagery of the Knights Templar and crusader kings as well as slides suggesting Europe is being overrun by Muslims.

Police could not confirm whether Breivik posted the video, which also featured photographs of him dressed in a formal military uniform and in a wet suit pointing an assault rifle.

The video contained a series of slides that accused left-wing politicians in Europe of allowing Muslims to overrun the continent. One image showed the BBC’s logo with the “C” changed into an Islamic crescent. Another referenced the former Soviet Union, declaring that the end result of the left’s actions would be an “EUSSR.”

In London, the leader of Ramadhan Foundation, one of Britain’s largest Muslim groups, said mosques are being extra vigilant in the wake of the attacks. Mohammed Shafiq told The AP he was talking to European Muslim leaders and British police about the need to increase security.

The last 100 pages of the manifesto apparently lay out details of Breivik’s social and personal life, including his steroid use and an intention to solicit prostitutes in the days before the attack.

Also Sunday, police carried out raids in an Oslo neighborhood seeking explosives. Police spokesman Henning Holtaas said no explosives were found and no one was arrested.

Police said the bomb used in the Oslo blast was a mixture of fertilizer and fuel similar to what home-grown U.S. terrorists used to blow up a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995.

A farm supply store said Saturday they had alerted police that Breivik bought six metric tons of fertilizer, a popular terrorist component for car bombs.

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Christian terrorist? (World Magazine, 110729)

There’s some hot debate right now about whether Norwegian mass-murderer Anders Breivik is representative of Christianity, and of Christians. University of California, Santa Barbara, religion professor Mark Juergensmeyer believes we ought to call Breivik a “Christian terrorist,” at least so long as we call people like Osama bin Laden “Islamic terrorists.” Juergensmeyer writes of Breivik: “He would like to have a Christian army comparable to al-Qaeda’s Muslim militia.”

Meanwhile, Barry Lynn, a United Church of Christ minister and head of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, believes it’s fair to call Brievik a Christian, albeit one who lost sight of the essential role played by peace in our faith.

Sociologist Laurie Essig is far less charitable, blaming Breivik’s murders on the “far right,” which she defines in a rambling causal chain that links racists with people who believe journalists are left-wing: “Breivik’s philosophy is a lot like what many (white and male) people seem to be thinking.” While writer Sarah Posner claims Breivik’s violence is a natural extension of a Christian worldview.

Holy Cross religious studies professor Matthew Schmalz offers a voice of reason in response, rightly noting that it doesn’t make sense to call Breivik a Christian when Breivik himself distinguishes between his own “cultural Christianity” and the personal relationship with Jesus he lacks and attributes to “religious Christians.”

So we have a murderer who does not consider himself a Christian in any meaningful sense of that word, and who by his actions violates the central tenets of our faith, and yet enemies of conservatives or Christians or both want to call him a conservative Christian, because they cannot distinguish opposition to rampant immigration from, say, Nazi race theories.

But here’s the interesting question: Do Christians have a double standard here? If a crazed author of an Islam-referencing screed, one who called himself a “cultural Muslim” and who wanted to see an Islamic crusade against Christians, did what Breivik has done, would we parse words about whether he’s a Muslim terrorist?

I probably wouldn’t. Is that because I have an unreasonable prejudice against Muslims, or because I’ve grown so accustomed to seeing exploders of school buses and butchers of innocents proclaim Allah that I’m simply letting the data speak for itself?

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Lessons from Norway (World Magazine, 110728)

Jamie Dean

One of the most chilling images emerging from eyewitness accounts of last week’s Norway massacre is the vision of a clean-cut man in a police uniform coolly gunning down terrified teenagers hiding in the woods. Here was a man hunting children for sport.

Maybe that’s why I froze when I glanced at the bumper stickers on a car in front of me yesterday afternoon. The first one declared: “Welcome to America. Learn the damn language.” That’s crass, but not surprising. But just above it, another sticker read: “USA. ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT HUNTING PERMIT.” A caption added: “No Bag Limit. Tagging Not Required.” I winced: Here were people joking about hunting people.

The sentiment is unsettling, and it’s repeated in many vitriolic conversations surrounding illegal immigration. Maybe you and I wouldn’t display such a bumper sticker, but I’ve heard respectable Christians discuss this issue and speak of people made in the image of God like stray cattle that need herding.

I know the caveat: Illegal immigrants have broken the law and they should have to face the consequences. But it’s difficult to have a reasonable conversation about reasonable solutions when disdain for people is the starting point. (Often I hear that disdain spill over into animosity toward any immigrant—legal or illegal.) Jesus, the friend of sinners, invited swindling tax collectors and prostitutes to dinner. He demanded that they repent, but he didn’t lead with scorn. (Here was a man fishing for men.)

For Anders Behring Breivik—the predator who’s charged with killing at least 76 people last week—the youth he cut down on Utoeya Island represented the future of a political party with an agenda item he hated: allowing more immigration. Breivik railed against the influence of Muslim immigrants in Western Europe. And while reasonable Europeans have made some reasonable arguments for tightening immigration laws, Breivik abandoned reason and massacred people who threatened his views.

Meanwhile, he spoke of his violence, in at least some of his online ramblings, as a quest to defend “European Christendom.” Christians are rightly dismayed to hear media outlets describe Breivik as a “Christian fundamentalist” when his murderous life grossly rejects the fundamentals of Christianity.

That point brings me back to the third bumper sticker on that car yesterday afternoon. Directly across from the crass admonition to learn English and the mock permit to hunt and bag illegal immigrants was another sticker: It bore a cross and the name of one of the largest churches in town.

Maybe whoever bought the sticker doesn’t despise illegal aliens as much as the slogan suggests. And maybe some of the Christians I know don’t scorn illegal immigrants as much as their conversation sometimes suggests. But Puritan author John Owen once warned believers to fear the sinful nature of their own hearts, even when the offenses seem light:

“Sin always aims at the utmost; every time it rises up to tempt or entice, might it have its own course, it would go to the utmost sin of that kind. Every unclean thought or glance would be adultery if it could; every covetous desire would be oppression, every thought of unbelief would be atheism, might it rise to its head.”

And following the pattern of Christ’s teaching, every instance of unrighteous anger would be murder if allowed to flourish.

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Rick Warren: Suicide Bomber Attacks Saddleback’s Sister Church in Indonesia (Christian Post, 110926)

A suicide bomber has attacked an Indonesia church affiliated with Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church in Southern California, killing at least two people and injuring several others.

In a “Purpose Drive Network Alert” published on his Facebook page and Twitter account, Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, alerted followers to the attack in the early hours of Sunday morning.

He wrote: “Purpose Driven Network Alert: Our sister church in Solo City, Indonesia, Bethel Full Gospel Church, has just been bombed.”

The attack in Solo, Indonesia, came as throngs of worshippers were preparing to leave after gathering Sunday at Bethel Full Gospel Church (also referred to as Church Bethel Injil) in the capital city of Java.

According to police, the unidentified suicide bomber died in the attack, and an injured worshipper succumbed to injuries at a hospital. At least 17 people were believed to have been injured.

One worshipper, Kristano, told AFP, “I was about to head home when a very loud explosion shocked me. A crowd of people from inside the church rushed to the streets.”

Kristano added, “They were screaming and very hysterical. The peaceful Sunday has quickly become a chaotic situation.”

According to an AFP correspondent, the bomber, believed to have blown himself up directly in front of the church, was wearing a white shirt and black pants and had his left hand severed.

The attack was apparently captured by church surveillance cameras and officials expect to use the footage to identify the gunman, Australian news agency ABC News reports.

Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, allows for religious freedom with its constitution. However, religious tensions occasionally flare in the Asian country, with Christians being targeted.

On Sept. 11, six people were killed and an estimated 80 injured after violent clashes between Christians and Muslims in Ambon.

On Aug. 28, armed attackers stormed a Christian neighborhood in the same city, killing at least 12 people.

Conflicts between Christians and Muslims between 1999 and 2002 have left more than 5,000 people dead and half a million people displaced, according to BBC News.

Indonesia President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has condemned Sunday’s attack on Bethel Full Gospel Church, calling it “terrorism.”

The city of Solo is also radical Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir’s hometown. Bashir is considered the spiritual leader for the group that killed more than 200 people in Bali in 2002, according to media reports.

The Christian Post was unable to reach Saddleback Church for comment and for greater clarification on its relationship with Bethel Full Gospel Church in Solo by press time.

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Gilad Shalit release: freed Palestinian prisoner vows to ‘sacrifice’ her life (Daily Telegraph, 111020)

An unsuccessful suicide bomber released from prison as part of the deal to free Gilad Shalit, the Israeli conscript, on Wednesday vowed to fulfil a childhood ambition by “sacrificing” her life for the Palestinian cause.

As she returned to her family home in northern Gaza, Wafa al-Bis said she would seize any opportunity to mount another suicide mission – and encouraged dozens of cheering schoolchildren to follow her example.

Bis was one of hundreds of Palestinian militants freed by Israel on Tuesday in the first phase of a prisoner swap agreed with Hamas, Gaza’s Islamist overlords, to win the freedom of Sgt Maj Shalit after five years in solitary confinement.

But as Israel celebrated the return of its captive soldier, her words will chill critics of the deal who argue that many of the 1,027 Palestinians who are to be released from prison will rededicate themselves to violence once they have been freed.

Bis was just 21 when, in 2005, she volunteered to undertake a suicide mission in Israel commissioned by the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, a militant group that waged a campaign of violence during the Second Intifada. Her target, Israel says, was a hospital where she had been given permission to seek treatment for burns she sustained in a gas tank explosion. She never got there. Stopped by suspicious Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint on Gaza’s border, she was discovered with 22-lbs of explosives sewn into a belt inside her underwear. Bis tried to blow herself up but the detonator malfunctioned.

Speaking in her bedroom, the shelves of which were lined with soft toys, Bis maintained that the six years she spent in an Israeli prison cell had left her with no regrets other than her failure to kill herself and her captors – although she insisted that her target was only ever going to be a military one.

“I wanted to be the first female martyr from Gaza to kill Israeli soldiers and I wanted to kill as many as I could,” she said. “I had wanted to be a martyr since I was a kid.

“I regard what I did as an honourable thing. It was a very simple thing I did for Palestine. It was my dream to be a martyr but God didn’t let me.”

If given the opportunity, she added, she would fulfil her destiny to avenge the deaths of Palestinian children killed by Israeli forces.

“As long as there is going to be occupation over all of Palestine, martyrs will be there to resist and to fight, and I will be among the first of the strugglers,” she said. “Martyrdom operations will never be stopped.

“This is an honourable thing and I would be a suicide bomber three times over if I could.”

Bis’s mother Salma said she had no idea of her daughter’s mission – but added that she felt she had no choice but to encourage her in her chosen course of life.

“This is Jihad, it is an honourable thing and I am proud of her,” she said. “I am no saying it is easy, it is difficult, but this is what she believes in. Israelis have killed our children, they have destroyed us. Even in our homes we do not feel safe.”

Across Gaza, Bis’s fellow captives marked their first day of freedom with receptions in tents erected outside their tumbledown homes. Most were far more circumspect than the would-be suicide bomber, whose actions some Palestinians in the territory described as abhorrent.

But some insisted, in private at least, that Israel would only end its four-year blockade of Gaza and its occupation of the Palestinian territories if confronted with force.

“All forms of resistance are legitimate,” one freed prisoner said. “It is the only way.”

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New Al-Shabab message urges terrorist attacks against Canada (National Post, 111030)

TORONTO — The al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabab released an audiotape Sunday it said was a message from a Somali-American suicide bomber who struck an African Union base in Mogadishu this weekend, killing 10.

The English-language message specifically called for terrorist attacks in Canada and said it was a duty for Muslims to fight for Islam, urging listeners not to “just sit around and be a couch potato and just chill all day.”

“My brothers and sisters, do jihad in America, do jihad in Canada, do jihad in England [and] anywhere in Europe, in Asia, in Africa, in China, in Australia – anywhere you find kuffar [infidels],” it says.

“Fight them and be firm against them.”

The message appears to be the latest attempt by Al-Shabab to incite Western youths. Canadian authorities are investigating as many as 20 Canadians who are suspected of having joined the Islamist extremist group.

On March 29, police arrested a man at Pearson airport as he was allegedly leaving Canada to join Al-Shabab. Mohamed Hassan Hersi, 25, faces two terrorism-related charges but was released on bail.

A prominent Somali-Canadian leader told a U.S. congressional committee in Washington earlier this year that Canada was not doing enough to tackle the poisonous ideology of extremists.

“This dangerous and constant anti-Western narrative is fed to them by radicals in our community who do not hesitate to use these vulnerable youth as gun fodder in their desire to establish a base for the al-Qaeda terrorist group in Somalia,” Canadian Somali Congress president Ahmed Hussein testified.

Canada outlawed Al-Shabab last year due to concerns it was recruiting young Somali-Canadians. In one high-profile case, six youths left Toronto in 2009. An extremist website later reported one of them, a University of Toronto student, had been killed in battle.

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Tasha Kheiriddin: It’s time for Canada to get tough on terrorism (National Post, 110908)

How does a government strike the right balance between freedom and security? Ahead of the 10th anniversary of 9/11, in an interview with the CBC’s Peter Mansbridge, Prime Minister Stephen Harper stated that the Conservatives plan to revive two anti-terrorism measures that expired in 2007. The first allows police to arrest and detain suspects for three days, without a warrant, if there is reason to believe they may have committed a terrorist act. The second allows a judge to compel a witness to testify in camera, under penalty of jail, about past terrorist associations or pending acts of terror.

Cue the howls of opposition politicians. Interim Liberal leader Bob Rae charged, “The Harperites are always looking at changing the law as a sign of getting tough. But the issues of prevention and protection are different, more difficult and require more effort,” notably “how effective CSIS, RCMP and police are [at] working together.”

Mr. Rae seems to ignore the fact that without the proposed changes to the law, police won’t have an important tool to act (together or otherwise) on the intelligence gained by increased law enforcement co-operation: the ability to detain and interrogate people who pose a terrorist threat. While the measures weren’t actually used in the five years they were in force, they won’t cost anything to bring back, and do not preclude the other kinds of efforts Mr. Rae mentions.

For the opposition, however, they provide yet another occasion to bash the Tories’ “law-and-order” agenda, slated for debate in the House of Commons this fall. Bigger prisons, tougher penalties and truer sentences are all facing howls of protest, even louder than during the last federal election.

Personally, I’d like to see some more law and order in this country. I’d like to have seen the police take a real stand against the hockey rioters in Vancouver. I’d like to see cyclists get more than a ticket when they mow down elderly pedestrians on the sidewalk. I’d like to see people who defend themselves against criminals not have to defend their own actions in court — while their assailants get a mere slap on the wrist. And I’d like to see terrorists locked up, preferably before they take out legions of innocent people. Apparently I am not alone, since the federal Tories’ platform went over well with a public tired of feeling helpless in the face of random acts of violent crime.

Terrorism is, of course, the ultimate random crime. Terrorists may pick a symbolic target, like the World Trade Center, but the actual people they kill are rarely individualized unless they are prominent figures specifically targeted for assassination, with innocent bystanders becoming collateral damage. It is the final death toll that typically matters most to terrorists; the 9/11 bombers knew their targets would also enable them to murder as many people as possible. This logic means that no place or person is immune; the threat of terrorism is anywhere, and everywhere, at once.

But while terrorism is random, its perpetrators are generally predictable. While, as Mr. Harper correctly pointed out, there are cases such as the gruesome slaughter in Norway, launched by a deranged individual, the greatest terror threat today remains Islamicism. The Prime Minister saying so also provoked opposition outrage, with NDP foreign affairs critic Paul Dewar braying that, “Unfortunately, Stephen Harper continues to use divisive language for political purposes.… Let’s all guard against knee-jerk demonizing and overheated rhetoric.”

But Mr. Harper’s words do not constitute stereotyping or scapegoating; they are merely an acknowledgment of reality. When Ronald Reagan deemed the Soviet Union an “evil empire” in 1983, and the most significant threat to freedom worldwide, he did not stand accused of racism. Identifying Islamicization as the greatest terror threat to Canada is a statement of fact, and while it may understandably make some people uncomfortable, particularly the nearly one million law-abiding Muslims who call Canada home, no one is served by pretending it’s otherwise.

Indeed, it is Muslims themselves who must play a frontline role in the fight against terrorism, particularly of the home-grown kind. At the same time that the Ottawa revives tough anti-terror measures, it needs to connect with Islamic communities and their leaders to ensure that they are part of the solution, and work with law enforcement in combating the threat of terror.

Law and order is not merely the responsibility of government, but of all of us. The state may be tasked with striking the balance between freedom and security, but we as citizens help shape the ultimate result. We can choose to riot, or not; we can choose to steal, or not; we can choose to report suspected terrorist activity, or not. A proportionate response to threat depends on the extent of that threat — and in the present case, the Prime Minister is striking the right balance.

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