Jihad Jane – Woman Charged With Supporting Terrorists

Jihad Jane – A Pennsylvania woman known to authorities online as “JihadJane”  has been charged in federal court with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, conspiracy to kill in a foreign country, making false statements to a government official and attempted identity theft according to a Fox News report.

The indictment, unsealed Monday, charges that Colleen R. LaRose and five unindicted co-conspirators recruited men on the Internet to wage violent jihad in South Asia and Europe, and recruited women on the Internet who had passports and the ability to travel to and around Europe in support of violent jihad.

The accused co-conspirators are located in South Asia, Eastern Europe, Western Europe and the United States.

In June of 2008, LaRose posted a comment on YouTube under the username “JihadJane,” stating that she is “desperate to do something somehow to help” the suffering Muslim people, according to the indictment.

She was also know to authorities as “Fatima LaRose.” The indictment describes LaRose as in her 40s.

Read Full Article

Pa. woman accused in terror plot to kill Swedish cartoonist

From USA Today – A suburban Philadelphia woman who called herself “Jihad Jane” online has been indicted for conspiring to help and recruit Islamist terrorists overseas with whom she allegedly plotted to murder a Swedish cartoonist who drew controversial images of the prophet Mohammed.

Colleen R. LaRose, 46, of Pennsburg, Pa., is accused of offering to use her American looks and identity to help foreign terrorists, The Philadelphia Inquirer writes. She was arrested Oct. 15 but her detention was kept secret until today.

Read More

See The Indictment

Terror Chatter Increasing On The Internet

Potential terrorists are swapping tips and ways to beat security measures via the Internet and the spike in terror is “chatter” is cause for concern, reports Armen Keteyian in this CBS News report.

U.S. Intel Officials Seeing Spike in al Qaeda-Linked Internet Chatter Focused on Ways to Thwart Airport Security

CBS News has learned that U.S. Intelligence officials are seeing a marked increase in terror-related Internet chatter with a frightening focus: Jihadists bent on finding gaps in airport security – all linked to al Qaeda in Yemen, reports CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian.

On one radical website, a writer invites fellow members to post information on how to bypass airport screening.

Another member asks about explosive detection devices, writing: “We have that system in place in Algiers…does anyone know if it’s capable of detecting [the flammable gas] butane?”

On another Jihadist site, a visitor questions security involving 3D scanners at British airports asking: “Can I refuse [to pass through] for religious reasons?”

Before long comes this answer: “…advise those who wish to avoid the Heathrow scanners to take the train to Paris… and then board a plane from there.”

Perhaps most disturbing — the recent discovery of a confidential TSA document on a Yemeni Web site discussing the rules for searching passengers.

Terror Talk Growing Louder on the Web – CBS News.

Watch CBS News Video

Picture This: Art Therapy 101 for Terrorists

In an earlier post we mentioned that two of the al Qaeda leaders believed to be behind the failed terror attack on flight 253 were released after successfully completing art therapy classes. Many of our readers thought the comment was ‘tongue in cheek’. Unfortunately, it wasn’t.  Today’s New York Times reports on the art therapy program.

A cushy Saudi Arabian “rehab” center where terrorists are encouraged to express themselves through crayon drawings, water sports and video games is under scrutiny after one of its graduates re-emerged as a leader in the al Qaeda branch claiming responsibility for trying to blow up an airliner on Christmas.

Inmates like Shihri are supposed to while away the days playing ping-pong, PlayStation and soccer in hopes that the peaceful environment will help them cope with their jihadist rages.

Bomb-makers and gunmen participate in art therapy to help them explore their feelings non-violently.

In between tasty picnic-style meals of rice and lamb and snacks of Snickers along with dips in the pool, participants practice Arabic calligraphy, produce dizzying Jackson Pollack rip-offs and imagine the aftermath of car bombings in crayon.

Some 1,500 al Qaeda terrorists have “graduated” from the program, including 108 former Guantanamo Bay detainees, the Washington Post reported.

Read Full Article

Authorities Search for 5 Missing D.C. Area Muslim Men

UPDATE:Pakistani sources have confirmed the 5 men are considered to be the same five reported missing from the Washington D.C. area in yesterdays report.

UPDATE: Shortly after we posted this story, Five foreigners believed to be associated with terrorist activities were arrested in Sargodha after a raid on a house. The arrested foreigners include 2 Yeminis, 1 Egyptians, 1 Swedish and 1 US born Pakistani.

The group has taken the house on 30th November and have been living there ever since. DPO Sargodha Dr. Usman Anwar told Geo News that the police raided the house of Khalid Farooqi, an activist of banned outfit Jaish-e-Muhammad, and arrested five foreign nationals from there.

Initial investigations have identified them as Ahmed Abdullah, Waqar Hassan Khan, Eman Hassan, Yasir and Rami Zamzam.

Security agencies have initiated further investigations in this regard.

Source

The Investigative Project on Terrorism reports Federal investigators are searching for a Howard University dental student and four other missing Muslim men reported missing from the Washington, D.C. area. According to the report, there is concern they may have been sent abroad to train for jihad. The five were last seen November 29.

Press ReleaseFederal investigators are searching for a Howard University dental student and four other missing young Muslim men reported missing from the Washington, D.C. area, the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) has learned. There is concern they may have been sent abroad to train for jihad. The five were last seen November 29.

[...]

It is not clear where the men are believed to have gone, but an informed source told the IPT that at least one left behind a farewell video.

[..]

The disappearance comes as U.S. officials are increasingly concerned about the threat of homegrown Islamist extremism.

On the surface, at least, the situation in Washington resembles the case of 20 young Somalis who disappeared from the Minneapolis area a year ago. They are believed to have made their way back to Somalia, where they trained with the Al-Shabaab terrorist group.

At least three of those men have died, including one who became the first known American citizen to carry out a suicide bombing. Fourteen people have been indicted in relation to the Somali recruitment effort.

Source

Press Release

Could New Jihad Code Threaten al Qaeda

Could a new jihad code change the face and direction of radical Islam? From within Libya’s most secure jail a new challenge to al Qaeda may be emerging.

Leaders of one of the world’s most effective jihadist organizations, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), have written a new “code” for jihad. The LIFG says it now views the armed struggle it waged against Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s regime for two decades as illegal under Islamic law.

The new code, a 417-page religious document entitled “Corrective Studies” is the result of more than two years of intense and secret talks between the leaders of the LIFG and Libyan security officials.

The code’s most direct challenge to al Qaeda is this: “Jihad has ethics and morals because it is for God. That means it is forbidden to kill women, children, elderly people, priests, messengers, traders and the like. Betrayal is prohibited and it is vital to keep promises and treat prisoners of war in a good way. Standing by those ethics is what distinguishes Muslims’ jihad from the wars of other nations.”

The code has been circulated among some of the most respected religious scholars in the Middle East and has been given widespread backing. It is being debated by politicians in the U.S. and studied by western intelligence agencies.

via Read Full Article.

New Bin Laden Videotape Not New According To Experts

Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden released a new videotape on Friday however it appears to actually be the Pashto-language version of a tape released by al Qaeda several months ago.

The tape, titled “To Our People in Pakistan,” was broadly released in Arabic and Urdu on July 12, IntelCenter said. Excerpts had been aired by the Al Jazeera television network on June 3, it added.

Earlier on Friday, IntelCenter had said al-Qaeda’s as-Sahab Media had released a new video from bin Laden.

In his remarks broadcast by Al Jazeera in June, Saudi-born bin Laden said U.S. President Barack Obama had planted the seeds of “revenge and hatred” toward the United States in the Muslim world and warned Americans to prepare for the consequences.

In an audio message posted on an Islamist website in September, Osama warned Americans over their government’s close ties with Israel.

Osama is believed to be hiding in the mountainous border areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

via Bin Laden videotape not new, monitoring site says | Reuters.

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.

via Read Article.

New Bin Laden Audio Tape May Indicate Upcoming Attack

al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden’s latest message, released today, contains language considered by many in the Intelligence community to be a valid indicator of an upcoming attack.

An AFP news report posted this afternoon cites the the concern.

“This indicator when viewed in light of the five Abu Talha videos this year, three of which have been released in the last eight days and their focus on the upcoming elections in Germany, significantly raises the threat level even further,” IntelCenter said.

News Article

Site Intelligence Group Has More

Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda, addresses European peoples in a new audio message released on jihadist forums on September 25, 2009.

The audio comes in a 4 minute, 47 second video produced by al-Qaeda’s media arm, as-Sahab, and shows only a still image on bin Laden.

Bin Laden asks Europeans to cease their alliance with the US and withdraw their forces from Afghanistan, saying: “An intelligent man doesn’t waste his money and sons for a gang of criminals in Washington, and it is a shameful thing for a person to be in a coalition whose supreme commander has no regard for human life…

Site Intelligence Group

Thomas Hegghammer at Jihadica thinks bin Laden may be laying the groundwork for an attack that is months away, or hoping to inspire a grassroots group or individual in Europe to take action on his behalf.

…My guess is that these messages are primarily intended to influence German public opinion at a crucial juncture in the Western campaign in Afghanistan. Germany is a pivotal player in the coalition; her withdrawal could initiate a vicious (or virtuous, depending on one’s preferences) circle of European withdrawals from the Afghanistan enterprise. Al Qaida is focusing the weakest link in the coalition, just as the Madrid bombers were advised to do.

jihadica

Osama bin Laden Plotting New Attacks

Osama bin Laden and the core al-Qaida leadership are plotting new attacks against the United States and its allies from safe havens
in Pakistan, a senior US official warned Thursday.

Officials have said President Barack Obama’s new Afghan-Pakistan strategy will focus on destroying safe havens for terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Read more

U.S. Zeros In On Chitral Pakistan In Hunt For bin Laden

Where’s Osama? Try Chitral, once a trekkers’ paradise in Pakistan that has been sealed off to outsiders and is now regularly buzzed by American spy drones.

The U.S. won’t say it officially, but an exhaustive Daily News investigation finds the world’s biggest manhunt for the monster who murdered nearly 3,000 people on 9/11 has zeroed in on Chitral’s stunning peaks and deep valleys.

Six U.S. and foreign officials confirmed to The News that northwestern Pakistan’s impenetrable Hindu Kush mountains – which boast some of the world’s tallest climbs – in the Chitral region have been eyed as Bin Laden’s hideout since 2006 by Osama hunters aiming for the big kill.

A lengthy review of evidence, including recent Predator fly-bys, Bin Laden’s tapes since 9/11 and interviews with three dozen experts on Al Qaeda, Pakistan and special operations, point to these vast mountains as the terror chief’s most likely haven.

Captured Al Qaeda leaders have given up as his hideout. “Debriefings of Al Qaeda leaders arrested confirmed this,” said Rohan Gunaratna, author of “Inside Al Qaeda.”

Two senior foreign officials said the nearby town of Kalam also is suspect.

Source

Osama Bin Laden Releases New Audio Message

Osama bin Laden says in a new audio message that Israel attacked Gaza because of the “great and swift decline in America’s influence,” CBS News reports.

“Israelis are in a rush to get rid of their enemies in Gaza, and replace them with [Palestinian President Mahmoud] Abbas and his administration, in order for him to protect their backs,” the network quotes bin Laden as saying. “They thus carried out this horrific butchery before the end of Bush’s term in office before the American weakness shows even more.”

Bin Laden, the head of al-Qaeda, has been in hiding since the United States invaded Afghanistan in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. The network says it downloaded the unauthenticated 22-minute-long message from an Islamist website.

The Associated Press says bin Laden criticized governments in the region for keeping Arabs from fighting to “liberate Palestine.”

“There is only one strong way to bring the return of Al-Aqsa and Palestine, and that is jihad in the path of God,” the terrorist leader says, according to AP. “The duty is to urge people to jihad and to enlist the youth into jihad brigades.”

“Muslim nation, you are capable of defeating the Zionist entity with your popular capabilities and your great hidden strength — without the support of [Arab] leaders and despite the fact that most of [the leaders] stand in the barracks of the Crusader-Zionist alliance,” he says.

via Source – USATODAY.com.

Jihadis Discussed Poisoning the Water Supply of Denmark and Great Britain

A major jihadi internet forum has posted a terrorist plot to use chemical and biological agents to contaminate water resources in Europe in general and Great Britain and Denmark in particular, the latter in retaliation for insulting the Prophet Muhammad through publication of the infamous “Muhammad cartoons.” Read more