It has to be a good sign that Wayne Madsen can say this stuff on teevee.
Archive for January 6th, 2010
1. Anwar al-Awlaki: translator of jihad
The obvious, but it must be stated, is al-Qaeda’s aim to raise its profile abroad. Every bit as important is the necessity to raise its stature with followers and potential followers in the US. Central to this strategy is the rise of Anwar al-Awlaki, a US citizen of Yemeni descent now based in that country. Awlaki’s life in the US is well documented. Notable are his close associations with September 11 hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Hani Hanjour. Most recent is Awlaki’s relationship with Major Nidal Hasan, the alleged assassin at the US military base at Fort Hood, Texas, begun at the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in northern Virginia and continued via e-mail from Yemen.
Of prime importance to al-Qaeda is Awlaki’s extensive understanding of US politics, culture and mores earned by a highly intelligent, highly educated, keenly articulate man.
…Metro Detroit is home to the two largest mosques in the US, built in a Muslim community of a density with no equal in that country. Al-Qaeda’s plan, if successful, seems designed to exacerbate already evident frictions between Muslims and the FBI in the Detroit Metro and more widely between the US Muslim community and the FBI.…It is unclear whether Awlaki survived a December 24 air strike on an al-Qaeda hideout in the mountains of Yemen’s Shabwah region. In any case, Yemen looks now to be too hot for him. Awlaki may be on the move to Somalia or Pakistan. All that is necessary to accomplish his role could be as little as a laptop, a video camera, Internet access and a prayer rug.
more here: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/LA07Ak05.html
2. and as previously noted, they expect something like this in the “jewish homeland”
Other than Hizbullah, Israel is concerned that al-Qaida is trying to recruit Europeans and Americans who have been indoctrinated with radical Islamic ideology to carry out attacks inside the Jewish state, the newspaper added.
3. Jordan disputes bomber’s ID
THE Jordanian official said Balawi had been interrogated by intelligence officers ‘around a year ago because of suspicions about his activities, but the probe found nothing and he was freed.
‘Humam left Jordan and traveled to Pakistan to continue medical studies that he had begun in Turkey. From Pakistan, he contacted the Jordanian authorities by e-mail and provided security information of extreme value that allowed (us) to abort terrorist operations that would have threatened the security of Jordan.’ He added that contact had been maintained with Balawi ‘in the interest of the security of Jordan.’
Friends close to the family said Balawi was born in Kuwait to a Palestinian family, which moved to Jordan following the Iraqi invasion of the Gulf emirate in 1990. They said he married a Turkish woman in the town of Tonya, where he was studying medicine, and that the couple has two children. AFP spoke to a sister, Hanan, but she declined to answer any questions. — AFP
AMMAN - A SENIOR Jordanian official said on Tuesday there was no proof that Jordanian Humam Khalil Abu Mulal al-Balawi was, as has been claimed, the suicide bomber who killed eight people at a CIA base in Afghanistan.
‘There is no proof that Humam was actually the author of the attack, especially given that Taleban websites claim that it was an Afghan,’ said the official who declined to be identified. He added that Balawi had provided Jordanian intelligence with valuable information, but did not say whether he was still alive….The Jordanian intelligence services, believing the bomber to be their double agent, took him to eastern Afghanistan with the mission of finding Al-Qaeda number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri, the websites and Western intelligence agents cited by US media said. But instead he blew himself up at Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost province near the Pakistani border, killing seven CIA agents and his Jordanian handler, a top intelligence officer and member of the royal family. — AFP
4. he was an al qaeda TRIPLE agent (yeah, yeah…)
A suicide bomber who killed eight people at a CIA base in Afghanistan was an al-Qaida triple agent who duped Western intelligence services for months before turning on his handlers, jihadist websites boasted on Tuesday…Western diplomats said that the revelation of Jordanian involvement in a U.S. intelligence operation in Afghanistan was a blow for the Amman government.
“Jordan is likely to be embarrassed by the fact that Captain Ali’s death has revealed its cooperation with the CIA, which is not going to go down well with a predominantly anti-American public opinion,” one Western diplomat told AFP.
5. “successful” security op kills two relatives, wounds three others, in capture of big AQ honcho, now the embassies can reopen oh thank god
Mohammed al-Hanq had evaded arrest on Monday during a security force raid in Arhab, 40 kilometres north of Sanaa, in which two of his relatives were killed and three other people wounded. He was arrested on Wednesday, along with two others who were wounded in the attack, at a hospital in the province of Amran, north of Sanaa, a security official said.
The US embassy, followed by the British and the French missions, had closed over security concerns prompted by fears of an Al-Qaeda threat against foreign interests just days after a failed attack on a US airliner claimed by the Al-Qaeda franchise in Yemen.
The US mission cited ’successful’ security operations north of the capital as it reopened for business on Tuesday, saying that Yemeni security forces had addressed a ’specific area of concern’ the previous day - thought to be a reference to the crackdown on Hanq’s group.
6. Iran tells Iranians not to talk to strangers — here are the tools used to drive the psychological operations against Iran and AGAINST THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. of course they will spin this as hysteria and paranoia, but this is a good list. the Iranians do not imagine it, and if you think they do, you been listening to people on this list:
1. Soros Foundation — Open Society
2. Woodrow Wilson Center
3. Freedom House
4. National Endowment for Democracy (NED)
5. National Democratic Institute (NDI)
6. International Republican Institute (IRI)
7. Institute for Democracy in East Europe (EEDI)
8. Democracy Center in East Europe (CDEE)
9. Ford Foundation
10. Rockefeller Brothers Foundation
11. Hoover Institute at Stanford University
12. Hivos Foundation, Netherlands
13. Menas, U.K.
14. United Nations Association (USA)
15. Carnegie Foundation
16. Wilton Park, U.K.
17. Search for Common Ground (SFCG)
18. Population Council
19. Washington Institute for Near East Policy
20. Aspen Institute
21. American Enterprise Institute
22. New America Foundation
23. Smith Richardson Foundation
24. German Marshall Fund (US, Germany and Belgium)
25. International Center on Nonviolent Conflict
26. Abdolrahman Boroumand Foundation
27. Yale University
28. Meridian Center
29. Foundation for Democracy in Iran
30. International Republican Institute [again --- see 6]
31. National Democratic Institute [again --- see 5]
32. American Initiative Institute (?)
33. Institute of Democracy in Eastern Europe
34. American Aid Center (?)
35. International Trade Center
36. American Center for International Labor Solidarity
37. International Center for Democracy Transfer
38. Community of Democracies (?)
39. Albert Einstein Institute
40. Global Movement for Democracy
41. The Democratic Youth Network
42. Democracy Information and Communication Technology Group
43. International Movement of Parliamentarians for Democracy
44. ???
45. RIGA Institute
46. The Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School
47. Council on Foreign Relations
48. Foreign Policy Committee, Germany
49. Middle East Media Research Institute (described as an Israeli institute)
50. Centre for Democracy Studies, U.K.
51. Meridian Institute [again --- see 28]
52. Yale University and all its affiliates [again --- see 27]
53. National Defense University, U.S.
54. Iran Human Rights Documentation Center
55. American Center FLENA (active in Central Asia)
56. Committee on the Present Danger
57. Brookings Institution
58. Saban Center, Brookings Institution
59. Human Rights Watch
passing the buck
Jan 6
1. where did Yemen get all the weapons? from Russia and China, according to Stockholm think tank, so if you’re gonna get mad at someone for this mess, blame Russia and China ‘kay?
NEW YORK - Russia has stolen a march over the United States in the multimillion-dollar arms market in cash-strapped Yemen, whose weapons purchases are being funded mostly by neighboring Saudi Arabia. The Yemeni armed forces, currently undergoing an ambitious modernization program worth an estimated $4 billion US, are equipped with weapons largely from Russia, China, Ukraine, eastern Europe and the former Soviet republics….According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), one of the world’s best-known think-tanks researching arms control and disarmament, Russia accounted for nearly 59% of all major weapons deliveries to Yemen from 2004 to 2008, followed by Ukraine at 25%, Italy at 10%, Australia’s 5%, and the United States at less than 1%….A resource-starved Middle Eastern nation, Yemen has negligible quantities of oil and is categorized as one of the world’s poorest countries. The US State Department has described Yemen as “desperately poor” but a “vital counter-terrorism partner”.
read more @ asia times
negligible quantities of oil? but location location location. - ed.
2. US and UK military spending in Yemen
US has increased military aid package to Yemen from less than $11m in 2006 to more than $70m in 2009
From just 11 million dollars to 70 million. A better then 6x increase? In 2009- US spent tens of millions of dollars boosting Yemen’s coastguard and border security and providing helicopters with night-vision cameras. The US has also provided intelligence gathered over Yemen by unmanned drones.
The US has not been alone, the UK has been there with them in all of 2009. The UK has also invested heavily in aid to Yemen. It has quadrupled its development assistance since 2007, allocating £105m between 2009 and 2011, though no figures on funds for military training were available
Both the US and UK have trained Yemen’s counter-terrorism unit
And the US has bombed and killed scores of civilians in Yemen Including a cruise missile attack on December 18th/09 ordered directly by the White House.
read more @ penny for your thoughts
3. CIA has been in Yemen since 2008: evidently we do the “training”
A new report released shows that the US and the CIA have opened a covert operation in Yemen against al-Qaeda to assist the nation’s military operations, according to AFP. In 2008, the CIA sent field operatives, who have experience in counterterrorism, to the region. The report further cites that the most secretive US special operations commandoes have begun training Yemeni security forces.
guns don’t kill people, people kill people…
4. speaking of weapons, Thai detention of alleged arms traffickers extended — this one’s been in teh crockpot for a while…
The Bangkok Criminal Court on Wednesday extended by 12 days the detention of five alleged weapons traffickers, the crew on a transport plane detained at Don Mueang airport, as police continue to investigate their sanctions-busting flight from North Korea. The suspects claim they believed the cargo was oil drilling equipment bound for Ukraine, according to their lawyer Somsak Saithong.
But a flight plan obtained by researchers showed the plane was bound for Iran, while US intelligence chief Dennis Blair said last month that it was headed for an unspecified Middle East destination.
read more @ bangkok post
5. more crazy people with weapons: 6 police killed in North Caucasus
MOSCOW, Jan. 6 (Xinhua) — Six police were killed and about 10 others were injured in an explosion in Russia’s restive North Caucasus republic of Dagestan, Russian new agencies reported on Wednesday. A suicide bomber detonated his car laden with explosives outside the traffic police headquarters in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, local police source said….Dagestan and the other mainly Muslim regions of Russia’s North Caucasus have been plagued by instability and violence recently. Skirmishes between troops and militants, and attacks on police and other officials have been reported daily.
6. 1 killed, 4 wounded on israeli airstrike on Gaza — who are these “witnesses”?????
GAZA, Jan. 5 (Xinhua) — A Palestinian militant was killed and four wounded during an Israeli airstrike in southeastern Gaza Strip late Tuesday, witnesses and medical sources said. An Israeli drone fired a rocket on a group of militants that was monitoring the security fence separating between Israel and Khan Younis in southern Gaza Strip, killing one and wounding four, the witnesses said.
The fighters were apparently planning to fire a missile into the Israeli lands, added the witnesses.
The dead and the wounded were transferred to Nasser hospital in Khan Younis where officials identified the dead as Jihad al-Sumiri, a member of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), an armed faction close to Gaza’s Hamas rulers.
1. a fruitless search for al qaeda in the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon
summary: camps are very crowded, dark, chaotic. multiple factions keeping order. intensive security to even get in. the Palestinians are completely isolated in these camps.
excerpt:
Almost everyone I have met in my journey through the Palestinian camps throughout 2009 tends to blame at least some of the daunting problems they face on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the specialized UN body that deals with Palestinian refugee issues.
end excerpt
read the whole thing @ asia times
Palestinian hostility toward the UN? remember that. -ed.
2. reposted from yesterday: jpost reports that Israel expects increased Hezbollah attacks on aircraft, plus:
Other than Hizbullah, Israel is concerned that al-Qaida is trying to recruit Europeans and Americans who have been indoctrinated with radical Islamic ideology to carry out attacks inside the Jewish state, the newspaper added.
radicalized Europeans and Americans carrying out attacks in the Jewish homeland? remember that. - ed.
3. report: death threats for israeli defense minister ehud barak
Army Radio says Barak receives dozens of death threats over slowed construction of West Bank settlements.
4. Rahm says Obama is fed up with all you people
White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel recently told the Israeli consul in Los Angeles that the Obama administration is fed up with both Israel and the Palestinians, Army Radio reported on Wednesday.
read @ haaretz
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1140374.html
5. remember american ‘jewish terrorist’ Jack Teitel? the israelis knew about Teitel for years and did nothing about him. i’d give you the link but they deleted my news blog database.
November 2, 2009: An American-born Israeli man, described by police as a “Jewish terrorist,” is mentally unstable and in need of psychiatric help, his attorney told CNN Monday. Israeli authorities Sunday announced the arrest of Yaakov “Jack” Teitel, 37, a West Bank settler who was arrested last month.
more @ cnn
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/11/02/israel.terror.suspect/index.html
6. spam: exhibit A reposted from last week — the “al qaeda in the palestinian camps in lebanon” plan
8. bonus: israel, the master of airport security, has a great new technology to save you from all the hassles of the extra security needed to keep you safe from terrorists! yes! it’s true! BIOMETRICS!
TEL AVIV - ISRAEL has unveiled new airport technology that it said could reduce intrusive security checks while making flying safer.
Airports Authority spokesman Maayan Malchin said the biometrics system is being tested at Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv. Instead of waiting in long lines to be checked by inspectors, travellers will swipe smart cards containing their photo, fingerprints and personal details.
The biometrics scanners are similar in size and appearance to cash machines. They are fitted with cameras that snap a picture of the traveler and compare it to the card. Travelers then answer basic security questions on the screen, Ms Malchin said.
Security checkers will stand by to assist with questions. They are also there to observe body language like excessive sweating and nervousness. Foreign travelers will be allowed to register with the system, Ms Malchin said.
The authority said the homegrown technology is the first of its kind, and if the test is successful, it could be used at all Israeli border crossings next year. Israel has long been a world leader in airport security - the result of hijackings and other attacks in past decades.
Airports around the world have gone on higher alert since a failed attempt by a Nigerian man to blow up a plane en route from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas. — AP
