Passport of al Qaeda 9/11 Plotter Said Bahaji Found

UPDATE: It is now being reported that additional passports were discovered that are believed to have belonged to additional 9/11 plotters. Another passport, from Spain, bears the name of Raquel Burgos Garcia. Spanish media have reported that a woman with the same name is married to Amer Azizi, an alleged Al Qaeda member from Morocco suspected in both the 9/11 attacks and the Madrid train bombings in 2004.

Her family in Madrid has had no news of her since 2001, according to Spanish media. Her passport included visas to India and Iran, and the army displayed a Moroccan document with Burgos Garcia’s photo and other information.

It was impossible to determine whether the passports are genuine, and German and Spanish officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, the army’s chief spokesman, said he had not realized the passports matched any prominent names, and declined further comment other than to say European militants were sprinkled throughout the area.

The U.S. has maintained for years that South Waziristan and other parts of the rugged frontier have sheltered Osama bin Laden and his senior lieutenants.

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Pakistani troops fighting Islamist militants in the mountains of South Waziristan may be closing in on the trail of a leading .al-Qaeda figure, Said Bahaji, wanted in connection with the attacks on 9/11.  The army reports it found the passport and other documents of the alleged terrorist in a mud compound in the village of Shawangai.

Bahaji, 34, lived with 9/11 plot leaders Mohamed Atta and Ramzi Binalshibh and was part of their Hamburg, Germany, cell, helping to plan the 9/11 attacks.

Ziad Jarrah, the hijacker of the United Airlines jet that crashed in Pennsylvania, attended Bahaji’s wedding.

Bahaji is believed to be alive and has rank in Al Qaeda as “a senior propagandist,” a U.S. counterterror official told The News.

He also is involved in operational activity.

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Terrorists in Kabul Attack UN Guesthouses and Hotel

UPDATE: Insurgents Wednesday morning attacked two guesthouses and a hotel in downtown Kabul that housed United Nations and other international staff, in one of their most daring attacks on the Afghan capital.

According to the Associated Press, at least seven people were killed in the guesthouse attacks, including three United Nations staff.

There also were sounds of explosions elsewhere in the city, suggesting a large-scale, coordinated attack on the capital.

The assailants managed to take over one of the guesthouses, Bakhtar, but were repelled by security guards at another, the Imperial. According to a U.N. spokesman in Kabul, three U.N. staff members were killed in the Bakhtar attack, and an unknown number was injured.

By midmorning the hostage crisis appeared to be over and the building secured, with firemen trying to extinguish fire amid billowing smoke on the roof.

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UN staff killed in Kabul attack

The attack began at dawn on Wednesday

At least three UN employees have been killed in an attack in the centre of the Afghan capital Kabul, the UN says.

Heavy gunfire and an explosion were heard at a guesthouse used by the UN, after militants entered the building.

An Afghan official later told the BBC that six foreigners and three gunmen were killed in the attack for which the Taliban claimed responsibility.

There are also reports of rockets being fired at the Serena Hotel in the city, which is used by diplomats.

There is no information yet on whether anyone has been injured or killed at the hotel, but about 100 people inside at the time were taken to secure rooms.

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Afghan forces exchanged gunfire with a group of terrorists holed up inside an international guest house in the centre of Kabul on Wednesday, police said.

The United Nations mission in Afghanistan said it was possible some of its staff and other foreigners were inside.

Intense automatic weapons fire and an explosion resounded in the capital, and plumes of black smoke rose above buildings.

A Reuters witness said a number of streets had been cordoned off by the police as the gunfire continued, and sirens reverberated across the city.

“There are five or six terrorists inside,” said Waheed Sadiqi, a policeman at the scene.

An increasingly resurgent Taliban have vowed to stage attacks ahead of a second-round run-off in Afghanistan’s presidential election on Nov. 7.

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AFP reprts

Afghan police were locked in a stand-off with a “group of terrorists” holed up in an apartment building in central Kabul on Wednesday, a police officer at the scene said.

The police officer told AFP that one of the group detonated an explosives vest before the rest of the group fled into the apartment building in a crowded neighbourhood near Kabul’s Chicken Street.

“We don’t know how many of them there are,” he said.

An AFP reporter and photographer saw a number of wounded being taken from the area to a local hospital, including at least two foreigners.

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Terror Attack Warnings Issued in Pakistan

Pakistan continues to face terrorist threats and intelligence agencies have issued increased security warnings in face of possible terror strikes across the country.

According to local media reports, the county’s major government building, offices and officials from law enforcement agencies have been placed on militant hit lists.

Awami National Party (ANP) leaders including North Western Frontier Province information minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain and other leaders are among the target list of pro-Taliban militants, a Press TV correspondent reported on Sunday.

Meanwhile, the military said at least five militants were killed and eight others injured during an offensive in the South Waziristan Agency in northwest Pakistan.

Security forces have also claimed to have seized several landmines and rocket launchers in Quetta city in southwest Pakistan late on Saturday.

via Source.

Terror Threats Closes Pakistan Schools

In the southern Sindh province, which is home to Pakistan’s financial capital Karachi, 50 000 schools and colleges have shut down until Sunday according to several news reports.

Pakistani schools and colleges have closed because of fears about militant attacks after twin suicide bombings at a university campus on Tuesday, officials said.
The federal government and armed forces already announced that they were closing their schools as a precaution against terrorism.

Two suicide bombers attacked the International Islamic University in Islamabad on Tuesday, killing four students and wounding at least 18 others. The bombers struck at mid-afternoon inside a women’s cafeteria and a faculty office in the Islamic law department at the school, which is popular with foreign students.
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“This is an internal security lapse. We have already advised the educational institutions to tighten their security,” Interior Minister Rehman Malik told reporters after the Islamabad university blasts on Tuesday.

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Hezbollah May Be Planning Attacks On U.S. and Israeli Targets

According to a leading Turkish news website, Hezbollah is planning attacks against possible targets that include American, Israeli institutions, synagogues and tourist destinations. The planned attacks are said to be in retaliation for assassination of a senior Hezbollah member in 2008.

Intelligence agencies warn against terror attacks planned by Hezbollah  against Israeli and American targets in Turkey, according to a report published on the Turkish news website “Haberturk”.

According to the report, Hezbollah is looking to attack Israeli tourists, Israeli vessels and airplanes, as well as synagogues in Turkey. Citizens are asked to take the necessary precautions.

In addition, Turkish police warned its units in Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir, saying Hezbollah might have already gathered intelligence ahead of a possible attack on Israeli and American institutions in the three major cities.

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Western Terror Recruits Are On The Rise

A rising number of Western recruits including Americans are traveling to Afghanistan and Pakistan to attend paramilitary terrorist training camps.

Midway through a propaganda video released last month by a group calling itself the German Taliban, a surprise guest made an appearance: a cleanshaven, muscular gunman sporting the alias Abu Ibrahim the American.

The gunman did not speak but wore military fatigues and waved his rifle as subtitles identified him as an American. The video contained a stream of threats against Germany if it did not withdraw its troops from the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan. Although the American’s part in the film lasted only a few seconds, it has alarmed German and U.S. intelligence officials, who are still puzzling over his background, his real identity and how he became involved with the terrorist group.

U.S. and European counterterrorism officials say a rising number of Western recruits including Americans are traveling to Afghanistan and Pakistan to attend paramilitary training camps. The flow of recruits has continued unabated, officials said, in spite of an intensified campaign over the past year by the CIA to eliminate al-Qaeda and Taliban commanders in drone missile attacks.

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Militants Pose A Serious Threat To Pakistans Future

An analysis in Sunday’s UK telegraph describes Pakistan’s government and army as being in a state of denial about the extent of the Taliban’s threat, despite nearly a dozen suicide attacks in as many days.

Pakistan’s militants are intent on nothing less than toppling the government, assassinating the ruling establishment, imposing an Islamic state and getting hold of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.

The attacks in advance of the army’s ground offensive in South Waziristan were widespread, taking place in three of the country’s four provinces and involving not just Taliban tribesmen from the Pashtun ethnic group, but extremist Punjabi factions who were until recently trained by the Interservices Intelligence (ISI) to fight India in Kashmir.

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Revolutionary Guard Commanders Killed In Bombing

Several senior Revolutionary Guard commanders have been reportedly killed in a suicide bombing, Iranian state media says.

At least five senior commanders of the elite Revolutionary Guard have died in a suicide bombing that killed several people in southeastern Iran, Iran’s official news agency reported Sunday.

The IRNA news agency said the dead included Gen. Noor Ali Shooshtari, the deputy commander of the Guard’s ground force, and Rajabali Mohammadzadeh, the Guard’s chief provincial commander. IRNA reported that about 60 people were either killed or injured.

Developing….

Source – Sky News

Turkey Detains 32 al Qaeda Terror Suspects Plotting Attacks

Reuters reports Turkish security forces have detained 32 suspected al Qaeda terrorists believed to have been plotting attacks on NATO, U.S. and Israeli targets.

The suspects were detained in simultaneous raids across eight provinces, it said, quoting security officials as saying some were believed to have been trained in al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan.

Security officials found documents linking the suspects to the outlawed group during the raids.

“Teams from the Istanbul Anti-Terror Squad have launched an operation against al Qaeda members found to be planning operations against U.S. and Israeli representative offices and NATO installations,” Anatolian reported.

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Terrorists Launch Simultaneous Attacks In Lahore Pakistan

Militants launched a series of simultaneous attacks against police facilities in Lahore Pakistan today, killing at least 18 people and plunging the Pakistani city into chaos.

Attackers armed with weapons and suicide jackets attacked the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) headquarters in the city centre and two police training centres on the outskirts just after 9am this morning.

Police said two of the attacks were over but one, at the Elite Police Training School, was continuing, with reports of explosions and intermittent gunfire. Helicopters hovered overhead as authorities deployed paramilitary forces across Punjab province.

At least three people were reported to have died at the training facility, located among fields on edge of the city. Police and paramilitary rangers surrounded the facility and appeared to be preparing to storm the building.

According to reports, the attackers included women, which would be a new departure in Pakistan’s rapidly escalating battle against extremist militancy.

Meanwhile, in North West Frontier province a Taliban suicide bomber exploded his vehicle next to a police station killing 10 people, including school children.

via Several killed as militants attack Pakistan police buildings | World news | guardian.co.uk.

Report – Terrorist Plot To Attack World Cup Thwarted

The UK’s Daily Star is reporting that a plot by al-Qaada to attack next year’s World Cup has been thwarted by police. Officers in South Africa smashed a cell planning to hit Western targets according to the report.

The plan was being hatched in Khayelitsha, a shanty town near Cape Town, by militants linked to extremists in Somalia and Mozambique, off the east coast of Africa.

The network had links with Osama bin Laden’s henchmen in Afghanistan and Pakistan, a source said. Police seized mobile phones and SIM cards after intercepting a call to the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabaab group in Somalia discussing setting off bombs.

The source said: “The interception revealed that these people planned to move en masse from Mozambique to here in 2010.”

The operation was jointly run by American agents, SA’s National Intelligence Agency and senior police forces.

But yesterday analyst Hussein Solomon, head of the International Institute of Islamic Studies in Pretoria, blasted security preparations as “woefully inadequate”.

He said: “We must not think we are protected because we are not.”

Both England and the US have qualified for the World Cup, which will be the first to be held in Africa.

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Milan Terrorist Had Accomplices, More Explosives

It’s surprising that yesterdays terror attack on the Milan army barracks is not receiving more attention. The New York Post reports that two additional suspects have been taken into custody, and if the 100kg of fertilizer that was confiscated is any indication of what the group had planned, the attack could have been much worse.

The Libyan man who tried to bomb a Milan army barracks had suspected accomplices and the group had more explosives ready, police said on Tuesday.

There was no official word on the motive for the attack but newspapers said the 35-year-old failed suicide bomber, Mohammed Game, was an unsuccessful businessman who turned to militant Islam and wanted to force Italy to pull out of Afghanistan.

Police said they had arrested two of Game’s suspected accomplices — an Egyptian and a Libyan — and found 100 kg of “fertilizers and other materials” used to make explosives at one of their homes.

Game got inside the perimeter of the Santa Barbara barracks early on Monday and detonated his bomb while shouting in Arabic. But an army corporal managed to stop him getting close to the main building and a defect meant the bomb only detonated partly.

“It could have been much worse,” said Milan anti-terrorism magistrate Armando Spataro, who was heading the investigation.

Source

Tags: milan bomb, milan bomber, milan terror, terror attack, terror plot, terrorism, terrorist

Nuclear Scientist Admits Plotting Al Qaeda Attacks

October 12, 2009 by national  
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The UK’s Daily Mail reports that nuclear scientist, Dr Adlene Hicheur, who admitted pinpointing targets for Al Qaeda was yesterday charged with ‘criminal activities related to a terrorist group’. It’s reports of this nature that remind us why so many experts have said, it’s not a question of “if” terrorists get their hands on nuclear weapons, but rather, “when”.

During a brief court appearance at the Palais de Justice in Paris, anti-terrorist judge Christophe Teissier heard how the French authorities had been working with MI5 and the CIA to track Hicheur’s movements around the world.

There were growing fears he was planning a nuclear attack.

He has admitted planning at least one attack with terrorists from Algeria.

The confession in a high-security jail near Paris came before his brother Zitouni, 25, was released without charge after three days of questioning.

U.S. monitors picked up the internet exchange between Hicheur and his North African contacts.

A British security source said: ‘It appears that Al Qaeda are now recruiting extremely intelligent people who have both the knowledge and the resources to potentially create a nuclear bomb or identify nuclear targets.

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Tags: al qaeda, collider, nuclear scientist, nuclear terror, nuclear terrorism

Taliban Gunmen Take Hostages at Pakistan’s Military HQ

October 10, 2009 by national  
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UPDATE: Pakistani security forces have launched an operation to free hostages being held by militants in Rawalpindi, near the capital Islamabad. Military spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas told the BBC the operation had been a success with most hostages freed but he could not give casualty figures.

Original Post

Fifteen people have been taken hostage in a brazen terrorist attack on Pakistan’s main army headquarters. Six soldiers are reported to have died in a shootout as suspected Taliban terrorists took over the facility.

Aleem Maqbool from BBC News in Islamabad points out in his analysis, the army’s main headquarters lies within one of the most heavily secured areas in the country. To attack it in the middle of the day, and then take hostages, shows a new level of audacity on the part of the militants.

Just a few weeks ago, the government here said it was winning its fight against the militants, and that the Taliban was in disarray. The events of this week will have many questioning those claims.

Source

From the UK Telegraph

Gunmen wearing army uniforms killed the soldiers when they attacked Pakistan’s army headquarters. They shot their way through a first checkpoint before a firefight broke out at the second checkpoint.

Four of the attackers were killed and an army spokesman declared the attack over. But soon afterwards it emerged that two more who were holed up inside the heavily fortified complex were still fighting seven hours later, as helicopters with snipers on board prowled the skies of Rawalpindi hunting for attackers who may have escaped. It became clear several hours into the incident that the attackers had taken hostages, thought to include several soldiers. Senior officers including a brigadier and a lieutenant-colonel were among the dead.

via Source.

Debka is reporting the attack on the Military HQ could be part of a much larger strategy by the Taliban, one that culminates in the takeover of at least part of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. U.S. and Pakistan authorities have repeatedly stated the nuclear arsenal is safe and that contingency plans are in place should the Taliban make such an attempt.

From Debka: Taliban gunmen take hostages at Pakistan’s military HQ, push towards its nuclear arsenal

Tags: hq, pakistan military headquarters, taliban, taliban hostages, terror attack, terrorism, terrorist

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