Bin-Laden’s Son Would Like UN Job
November 19, 2009 by Homeland Security NTARC News
Filed under Featured
The son of Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, Omar, has told a British magazine that he would like to promote peace and work for the United Nations.
“I do not believe that I would be a good politician – I have a habit of speaking the truth, even when it does not serve me well. But I would like to be in a position to promote peace. I believe that the United Nations would be ideal for me,” said Omar Bin-Laden.
Last year in November, Omar requested asylum in Spain, but his application was refused.
He was traveling on a Saudi Arabian passport and was detained at Madrid’s Barajas Airport after arriving on a flight from Egypt.
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Is Osama Bin Laden Accidentally In New al Qaeda Video
October 28, 2009 by Homeland Security NTARC News
Filed under Featured
UPDATE: From Bill Roggio at The Long War Journal – According to one of my most trusted sources, the blurry image seen on the tape is indeed Osama bin Laden.
One of the reasons that this is convincing is that the blurry image remains in the video. As Sahab, which produces al Qaeda’s propaganda, is very selective in the information it releases, and rarely leaves garbage in its videos. As Sahab intentionally leaves in this clip, for reasons unknown. Does al Qaeda want to generate a buzz? Is this a hidden message? Perhaps this is a precursor to a new bin Laden tape?
Read more: http://www.longwarjournal.org/threat-matrix/archives/2009/10/osama_bin_blurry.php#ixzz0VNychmQ2
The Danger Room has a story that they say, may be something, may be nothing. If you check out al-Qaeda’s latest video, there’s a blurry image that bears a striking resemblance to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Danger Room features 5 stills from the video. You be the judge.
Last night, al-Qaeda’s media unit, As-Sahab productions, released a video featuring a lengthy sermon from the group’s theological star Abu Yahya al-Libi. Most of it is pretty typical stuff. But towards the end, things get interesting.
The camera blurs and closes in on the assembled crowd hugging and congratulating al-Libi. One of those fuzzy well-wishers, some in the Italian press are saying, bears a striking resemblance to one Osama Bin Laden. Danger Room pulled a few stills from the video so you can judge for yourself.
Alleged Texas Terror Suspect Made Video For Bin Laden
October 6, 2009 by Homeland Security NTARC News
Filed under Featured
No details yet, however CNN reports alleged Texas terrorism suspect Hosam Smadi recorded a seven-minute video message for al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden sometime before his arrest on charges of plotting to blow up a Downtown Dallas building, according to Monday’s testimony from an FBI agent.
No details of the message were provided in court. But FBI Special Agent Thomas Petrowski said the video was recorded in a hotel room with the assistance of undercover FBI operatives and Smadi intended for it to be delivered to or seen by bin Laden, the fugitive leader of the terrorist network behind the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.
Smadi, a 19-year-old Jordanian living in the United States illegally, is charged with plotting to set off a bomb at the base of the 60-story Fountain Plaza office tower in downtown Dallas. He was arrested September 24 after federal agents said he tried to trigger an improvised bomb attached to a vehicle at the base of the building.
Bin Laden ‘Warns’ U.S. In New Audio Tape
September 13, 2009 by national
Filed under Homeland Security News
An audio message purportedly by al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden has been released on an Islamist website. The message, entitled “a statement to the American people”, was about 10 minutes long and was accompanied by a still image of Bin Laden but no video.
In the message, a voice tells the US president that he is “powerless” to stop the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The message comes just two days after the US marked the eighth anniversary of the 11 September attacks on America.
‘No real change’
In the recording, the voice discusses what motivated the al-Qaeda network to launch the 11 September attacks. He explaining that they were, in part, fuelled by US support for Israel.
“The time has come for you to liberate yourselves from fear and the ideological terrorism of neo-conservatives and the Israeli lobby,” the voice in the tape says.
“The reason for our dispute with you is your support for your ally Israel, occupying our land in Palestine.”
The voice believed to be Bin Laden also speaks of how the conflict between al-Qaeda and the US may end.
“If you stop the war, then fine. Otherwise we will have no choice but to continue our war of attrition on every front [...] If you choose safety and stopping wars, as opinion polls show you do, then we are ready to respond to this,” it says.
In the message, the al-Qaeda leader accuses the new president of failing to fundamentally change foreign policy because of his decision to retain key figures from the previous administration, including Defence Secretary Robert Gates.
“If you think about your situation well, you will know that the White House is occupied by pressure groups,” he says.
A Former CIA Agent’s Hunt For bin Laden in Pakistan
Art Keller, a blond, blue-eyed CIA agent, sits inside a decrepit building deep inside al-Qaeda territory, staring at his computer screen. He is forbidden by his Pakistani minders from venturing out into the badlands of Waziristan to help to find and kill the world’s most wanted man.
He is sick and exhausted, and suffering from food poisoning. Back home in the US his father is dying of cancer. The plumbing is basic, the heat intense — the generator has failed again. He pores over cables looking for any scrap of information — an intercepted phone call, an aerial photograph — that might finally end the hunt for Osama bin Laden.
The fruitless search has essentially been outsourced by the US to a network of Pashtun spies run by the Pakistani intelligence services.
Mr Keller was one of an estimated 50 to 100 CIA agents and special operations officers whose mission for the past eight years has been to find and kill bin Laden and other top al-Qaeda leaders in the hostile and forbidding Pakistani border region, where he is believed to be hiding.
Mr Keller, 39, volunteered for the bin Laden team and was sent in 2006 to become acting chief of one of the CIA’s bases in the heart of al-Qaeda and Taleban territory in Waziristan. It was an experience that leaves him wondering today if the al-Qaeda leader will ever be found.
Mr Keller was not an obvious choice for the job — he spoke no Middle Eastern languages, and was not an expert on al-Qaeda or Pakistan. Yet in 2006, with many resources diverted to Iraq, the CIA was desperate for agents to join the hunt.
Today this is changing. The agency is bringing back CIA retirees — a group known as The Cadre — many of whom are veterans who worked with the Afghan Mujahidin during the Soviet occupation in the 1980s.
Mr Keller’s replacement when he left Shawshank — the nickname given to his base in Waziristan because it resembled the prison life depicted in The Shawshank Redemption — was one such man, a grey-haired, CIA veteran, 65, who speaks Pashtu.
“Some of these guys have been hunting bin Laden for years,” Mr Keller says. His replacement, whom Mr Keller believes is still in Pakistan, has spent eight months a year since the September 11 attacks working out of these CIA safe houses looking for the top al-Qaeda leadership.
Osama bin Laden To Provide A ‘Present’ to Muslims
September 3, 2009 by national
Filed under World Report
A website often used by al Qaeda supporters said on Thursday it would soon carry a “present” to Muslims from Osama bin Laden on the occasion of the holy month of Ramadan. The Islamist website gave no further details, but messages by the al Qaeda leader have usually appeared within about 48 hours of being announced on the Internet.
In his latest message in June, bin Laden said U.S. President Barack Obama had planted the seeds of “revenge and hatred” toward the United States in the Muslim world.
Bin Laden’s remarks were issued just before a major speech by Obama who said he sought a “new beginning” between the United States and the Muslim world.
Osama bin Laden’s Son Thought Killed in Predator Strike
July 22, 2009 by national
Filed under Incident Reports
Sa’ad bin Laden, the son of Osama bin Laden, is thought to have been killed in a US Predator airstrike in Pakistan’s tribal areas. The report has not been confirmed.
Sa’ad is thought to have been killed during a strike earlier this year, US intelligence officials told The Long War Journal.
“We’re pretty sure but we’re not certain,” one official said. “We are hopeful.”
US intelligence want to confirm or deny Sa’ad’s death by using DNA testing. But it is unclear if they have recovered a body from the attack site.
The officials would not identify the date or the location of the airstrike that is thought to have killed Sa’ad. The covert US air campaign has focused heavily on North and South Waziristan. Fifty percent of the attacks occurred in South Waziristan, and 38 percent took place in North Waziristan, according to data compiled by The Long War Journal. The US has killed a total of 22 High Value Targets which include some of the high- and mid-level Taliban and al Qaeda.
Hillary Clinton Says Bin Laden, Zawahiri in Pakistan
U.S. officials “firmly believe” that al-Qaida leaders who planned and carried out the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, are hiding in Pakistan near its border with Afghanistan, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday.
At a news conference concluding three days of meetings, Clinton said Washington has told the Pakistani government what it believes about the location of al-Qaida leaders on its soil.
“With respect to the location of those who were part of the planning and execution of the attack of 9/11 against our country, we firmly believe that a significant number of them are in the border area of Pakistan,” she said when asked about the U.S. view.
“We are actively looking for additional information that would lead us to them,” she added.
The Pakistani government denies that al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and his senior lieutenants are hiding on its territory.
via Newsmax.com – Hillary Clinton Says Bin Laden, Zawahiri in Pakistan.
Pakistan: Osama Bin Laden Isn’t Here
July 12, 2009 by national
Filed under World Report
Osama bin Laden and the top Al Qaeda leadership are not in Pakistan, making U.S. missile attacks against them futile, according to the country’s interior minister.
“If Osama was in Pakistan we would know, with all the thousands of troops we have sent into the tribal areas in recent months,” Rehman Malik told The Sunday Times. “If he and all these four or five top people were in our area they would have been caught, the way we are searching.”
He added: “According to our information Osama is in Afghanistan, probably Kunar, as most of the activities against Pakistan are being directed from Kunar.”
Pakistani officials say the U.S. has carried out more than 40 attacks inside its borders in the past 10 months, killing hundreds of people.
New bin Laden Tape Intercepted, ‘Our Family Pakistan’
July 12, 2009 by national
Filed under Homeland Security News
A new audio tape, reportedly from Osama bin Laden, entitled ‘Our Family Pakistan’ has been intercepted.
Targeted Actionable Monitoring Center (TAM-C) of the Institute of Terrorism Research and Response is analyzing.
UPDATE:
Osama Bin Laden told Pakistanis their leaders are “allies of Satan” in a newly released tape, urging them to fight the offensive in tribal areas where Al Qaeda and the Taliban are entrenched.
Bin Laden zeroed in on the Swat Valley and the Pashtun tribal belt on the Afghan border for his 32nd taped rant since the 9/11 attacks.
The Pakistani army has fought extremists in Swat who are imposing a brutal version of shariah, or Islamic law. The army has also moved against Waziristan – home turf of Taliban, Al Qaeda leaders and friendly warlords.
“Are you for the establishment of the shariah or are you for those who wage war against it, from America, [Pakistani President] Zardari and his aides?” Bin Laden said, according to a transcript of the tape provided to the Daily News.
“Zardari and his army are the allies of Satan.”
Al Qaeda Running Short On Cash Support
June 16, 2009 by national
Filed under World Report
A recession-driven income slide? Or a brand in terminal decline? Whatever the origin of its money worries, al-Qaida’s latest appeal for funds reveals a group struggling with a fall in donations for its attacks on the West.
In an audio message posted in militant web forums on June 10, 2009, the group’s leader in Afghanistan Mustafa Abu al-Yazid said militants were short of food, weapons and other supplies needed to fight foreign forces there.
The complaint, the latest appeal by Qaeda leaders in the past 18 months, echoes a June 3 request from Osama bin Laden for supporters’ “charity and support” for the militant network’s operations in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
So little is known about current al-Qaida operations that analysts can only speculate about the reasons for the troubles in its fund-raising, which provided an estimated annual budget of $30 million at the time of the 2001 attacks on U.S. targets.
But most agree it is a combination of tighter curbs on charities in the Arab world, a drop in lucrative al-Qaida kidnapping and extortion campaigns in Iraq and the wallet-thinning effect of recession on donors and sympathizers.
Some speculate it also shows a drop in ideological support.
CIA Chief Says bin Laden in Pakistan
June 11, 2009 by national
Filed under Homeland Security News
CIA Director Leon Panetta said on Thursday the U.S. intelligence agency believes al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is hiding in Pakistan and hopes joint operations with Pakistani forces will find him.
Asked whether he was sure that bin Laden was in Pakistan, Panetta told reporters: “The last information we had, that’s still the case.”
Bin Laden, who has eluded a U.S. manhunt since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, has issued audio and videotapes over the years demonstrating that he is still alive.
Finding bin Laden is “one of our major priorities,” Panetta said. “One of our hopes is that the Pakistanis move in militarily, combined with our operations, we may be able to have a better chance” to find the al Qaeda leader, he said.
Panetta said al Qaeda “remains the most serious security threat” to the United States and its leaders, particularly in Pakistan, continue to plot against America.
There are “a number of people” on the ground in Pakistan providing intelligence on al Qaeda targets to the United States, he said.
Bin Laden Warns Americans To Be Prepared For Consequences
June 3, 2009 by national
Filed under Homeland Security News
Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden warned Americans “to be prepared to receive the consequences of the Obama and Bush administrations.” In a new recorded audiotape aired by Arabic Al Jazeera TV Wednesday, June 3 – as Saudi king Abdullah greeted US president Barack Obama on his arrival in Riyadh – bin Laden said Obama had planted the seeds for “revenge and hatred” toward the United States in the Muslim world.
The warning was issued the day before the US president was to deliver a speech to Muslims from Cairo.
Pakistan to Attack Taliban in Bin Laden’s Lair
May 17, 2009 by national
Filed under World Report
Pakistan is to extend its war on the Taliban beyond Swat into the fiercely independent tribal areas bordering Afghanistan where Usama Bin Laden and the Al Qaeda leadership are believed to be hiding.
“We’re going to go into Waziristan, all these regions, with army operations,” President Asif Ali Zardari told The Sunday Times in an interview. “Swat is just the start. It’s a larger war to fight.”
He said Pakistan would need billions of pounds in military assistance and aid for up to 1.7m refugees, the biggest movement of people since the country’s split from India in 1947.
To help take on the militants, the Pakistan army is for the first time to accept counterinsurgency training from British and American troops on its own soil.
“We need to develop our capability and we need much more support,” said Zardari. “We need much, much more than the $1 billion [military aid] we’ve been getting, which is nothing. We’ve got 150,000 troops in [the tribal areas] — just the movement of that number would cost $1 billion.”
Pakistan’s army is geared towards conventional warfare against its old enemy India. There have long been concerns in Whitehall and Washington at its ineffectiveness and lack of commitment against militants.
