Terrorists Using Blogs To Engage Counter-terrorist Experts Online

This is an interesting article from the UK. Although I have never received any response from known terrorists on this site, I’ve often wondered if someone like Adnan G. el Shukrijumah, Adam Gadahn or others go online to research and read stories and posts about themselves. When someone like Gerald Posner does an in-depth investigative piece on a terrorist like el Shukrijumah, does el Shukrijumah see it? My assumption has always been that he does. Many well known terrorists have an obvious strong desire for attention in the media and this article makes that case.

A senior Arab Afghan adviser to al Qaeda and the Taliban has openly challenged an Australian counter-terrorism expert in a series of blog posts. Abu Walid al Masri has written direct responses to Leah Farrall, an Australian academic who writes the All things Counter Terrorism blog and has years of experience fighting terrorism with the Australian Federal Police.

Farrall recently described al Masri as “one of Mullah Omar’s most trusted advisers” in an op-ed for the Australian. He has written 12 books in Arabic relating to Afghanistan and al Qaeda, and has just re-emerged as an author for the Taliban’s flagship magazine publication, in which he recently encouraged the Taliban to engage in the kidnapping of British and American soldiers. Because of this, Al Masri has been one of Farrall’s “main academic interests for many years” and she was shocked read his blog posts about her: “To say that I am blown away by this would be a pretty massive understatement”.

In his first blog post, Abu Walid al Masri joked that Farrall’s “focus on academic research will give us a bit of comfort and space so we can work safely in the field (terrorism). Therefore I thought it would be a good to distract her with these dialogues so the rest of the gang can do the work.”

He compares Farrall to the “beautiful female soldiers” who tortured “our brothers” in Abu Ghraib, and then begins the dialogue sardonically:

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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.

Suicide Bomber Strikes Near Nuclear Facility in Pakistan

A Taliban suicide bomber has killed seven people near a nuclear weapons complex in Pakistan’s Punjab province. Bill Roggio at The Long War Journal has the details .

The suicide bomber detonated outside a security checkpoint near the Kamra Air Weapon Complex in the district of Attock, Geo News reported. Three security personnel and four civilians were killed in the blast, and 12 more were wounded.

[...].

The Kamra Air Weapon Complex is one of three military industrial production facilities in the Wah Cantt, according to Global Security. The Pakistani Ordnance Factories, a collection of 14 factories that produce arms and ammunition for the Pakistani armed forces, and Heavy Industries Taxila are also contained within the Wah Cantt. More than 40,000 Pakistanis are employed at the factories.

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UPDATE: A Taliban suicide bomber killed seven people outside a key Pakistani air force facility yesterday, with officials quick to deny suggestions the target was linked to the country’s nuclear program. Source

Surviving Disaster – How To Survive A Nuclear Attack

This week on Surviving Disaster, host Cade Courtley demonstrates the steps you can take to survive a nuclear attack by terrorists on a major U.S. city.

I had the opportunity to assist in the research for this episode and while it’s incredibly difficult to capture all of the information one would need to survive such a scenario in a short/concise format, the writers and producers of Surviving Disaster did an amazing job.

A 10 kiloton nuclear device detonating in a major U.S.city is a catastrophe on a scale that few can even comprehend.

Surviving Disaster strikes an excellent balance between reality and entertainment while providing a level of detail and accuracy that few others have been able to achieve.

The full episode of Surviving Disaster – Nuclear Attack is available online this week.

Each full episode of this show is available for on week after its on-air premiere. Episodes are added immediately following their premiere date. After one full week of online availability each episode is taken down for one month. After the month has gone by the episode returns and is available for you to watch indefinitely.

Please be aware that selected full episodes and clips are only available for viewing on Spike TV’s site users located within the United States and Canada.

Watch Full Episode

al-Qaeda Video Vows To Avenge Baitullah Mehsud’s Death

Pretty much as expected, al-Qaeda has released a new video vowing to avenge the death of  Taliban leader, Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed in an airstrike in northwest Pakistan on August 6th. The eight-minute video features al-Qaeda’s leader in Afghanistan, Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, and bears the logo of the terror network’s media arm As-Sahab.

It was posted to jihadist websites on Thursday.

“Brothers, we inform you that we will avenge the death of Mehsud,” Egyptian-born al-Yazid states in the video.

He appears beside a photo of Mehsud. Cicadas can be heard chirruping in the background, suggesting the video was recorded outdoors.

“I say to the Islamic nation that even if we have lost Baitullah Mehsud there are thousands of tribesmen who are like him and who will take revenge on the Americans and their allies,” al-Yazid added.

Source

Report – Giant Bunker-buster Bomb Fast-tracked To Dec. 09

Debkafile is reporting that the U.S. has fast-tracked to December 2009, the target-date for producing the first 15-ton super bunker-buster bomb (GBU-57A/B) Massive Ordinance Penetrator, which can reach a depth of 60.09 meters underground before exploding. DEBKAfile’s military sources report that top defense agencies and air force units were also working against the clock to adapt the bay of a B2a Stealth bomber for carrying and delivering the bomb.

According to Debka, The U.S. has ordered the number of bombs rolling off the production line increased from four to ten – a rush job triggered in May by the discovery that Iran was hiding a second uranium enrichment plant under a mountain near Qom – a discovery which prompted this week’s international outcry.

All this urgency indicates that the Obama administration has been preparing military muscle to back up the international condemnation of Iran’s concealed nuclear bomb program, its sanctions threat and his willingness to join the negotiations with Iran opening on Oct. 1 in Geneva. Tehran may have to take into account a possible one-time surgical strike against its underground enrichment facility as a warning shot should its defiance continue. In particular, the world powers this week demanded that Iran open up all its nuclear facilities and programs to full and immediate international inspection. Failure to do so could bring forth further US military action.

This report has not been confirmed by U.S. sources

Source

Does Iran Have A Second Uranium Enrichment Plant?

This won’t be good if true. Fox news reports in a breaking news headline that Iran apparently has a second uranium enrichment plant. Not good news.
Apparently the second plant may only be under construction however. Harretz.com reports a senior Iranian atomic official said on Sunday that Iran has chosen the site, for and started designing a new 360 megawatt nuclear power plant.

You can read that story at here.

Another story is here

AQ Khan Blows The Whistle On Pakistan…In 2003 Letter

The Times of India is reporting that A.Q.Khan has made public and official what some had long alleged: his nuclear proliferation activities that included exchanging and passing blue-prints and equipment to China, Iran, North Korea, and Libya was done at the behest of the Pakistani government and military, and he was forced to take the rap for it.

''The [edited] first used us and are now playing dirty games with us,'' Khan writes about the Pakistani leadership in a December 2003 letter to his wife Henny that has finally been made public by an interlocutor. ''Darling, if the government plays any mischief with me take a tough stand,'' he tells his wife, adding, ''They might try to get rid of me to cover up all the things they got done by me.''

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UK Report – Obama May Be Preparing Deep Cuts To US Nuclear Arsenal

The UK’s Guardian newspaper is reporting President Barack Obama wants the Pentagon to review the U.S.’s nuclear-weapons doctrine to prepare for deep cuts to the country’s nuclear arsenal. The report suggests The President rejected the Pentagon’s first draft of the review as being too timid, and not consistent with his goal of eventually abolishing nuclear weapons altogether.

In asking for more options, among the goals to be considered, according to the report:

• Reconfiguring the US nuclear force to allow for an arsenal measured in hundreds rather than thousands of deployed strategic warheads.
• Redrafting nuclear doctrine to narrow the range of conditions under which the US would use nuclear weapons.
• Exploring ways of guaranteeing the future reliability of nuclear weapons without testing or producing a new generation of warheads.

Read Full Article -  The Guardian

We have been unable to confirm this report through U.S. sources.

Airborne Laser Could Save Us From Terrorist EMP Scenario

Perhaps one of the most frightening terrorist-attack scenarios is one wherein a nuclear-tipped missile is launched by terrorists from a seemingly harmless cargo ship somewhere off the coast of the United States.

In such an attack, the missile could be hurtling skyward almost before our current missile-defense system had time to blink. The missile’s warhead could then be remotely detonated somewhere 20 to 60-plus miles above the visual horizon, and — in addition to killing everyone in the blast and radiation radius — trigger an electromagnetic pulse (EMP), which would basically fry every single electrical circuit in the blast’s line-of-sight for hundreds of miles in every direction. An EMP would effectively knock out all electrical grids, aircraft, trains, ships, automobiles, computers, medical equipment, ATM machines, cooling and heating systems, TVs, radios, telephones, blackberries, flashlights, electric toothbrushes, and children’s toys in an instant.

In less time than that required to take a breath, a huge section of North America would be catapulted back to the 18th century. Yet because we are so completely dependent upon 21st century technology, the ensuing chaos, crime, starvation, and disease would be something unimaginable.

A single enemy missile could do this to us.

The U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, however, have an answer to this threat in the Airborne Laser (ABL) program, essentially a high-energy laser-beam system housed in a Boeing 747-400 aircraft. (Boeing is the primary ABL contractor. Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman are partners developing the laser-weapon system.)

The ABL system is designed to kill enemy ballistic-missiles — short, medium, and long-range — during the boost-phase portion of the missile’s flight, shortly after the missile has been launched. And being that the system is airborne, ABL is capable of patrolling the U.S. coastline as well as near-and-above “potential enemy ballistic-missile hotspots,” worldwide.

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America Hiroshima Plotter Adnan Shukrijumah,”Jaffar The Pilot” Is On The Move

“Jafar the Pilot,” leader of al Qaeda’s post-9/11 ambitions for a nuclear attack, is on the move again. The Daily Beast’s Gerald Posner reports that he may be using a Saudi diplomatic passport.

One of the world’s most wanted terrorists, with a $5 million bounty on his head and a suspected desire to attack the United States with nuclear weapons, has been traveling across the Middle East recently with relative impunity, courtesy of a Saudi diplomatic passport, a U.S. intelligence source tells The Daily Beast.

Five-foot-four Adnan Gulshair el Shukrijumah was selected after 9/11 by Osama bin Laden to be the terror group’s next Mohamed Atta for any second wave of attacks on America. The Saudi-born el-Shukrijumah was the son of a radical Muslim cleric who moved his family to the U.S. in 1985 and settled eventually in Miramar, Florida, a Fort Lauderdale suburb. There he became friends with José Padilla, who was later arrested as an “enemy combatant,” and also with Mandhai and Shueyb Mossa Jokhan, who were jailed for plotting to blow up Florida power plants, a National Guard armory, and Jewish businesses. Adnan attended flight schools in Florida and Oklahoma, and within al Qaeda was dubbed Jafar al-Tayyar (“Jafar the Pilot”).

How Do We Know of The Existence of Adnan?

Newly declassified documents, as well as other evidence, make it clear that intelligence was gained during Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s interrogations. His confessions led to the identification of at least three al Qaeda sleeper agents who operated on U.S. soil. They are: Uzair Paracha, Adnan El Shukrijumah and Iyman Faris.

Source

A senior CIA intelligence analyst told The Daily Beast that the agency had tracked Adnan “somewhere in late spring to early summer” on several trips in the Middle East. On those travels, he used an alias—which the analyst did not disclose—and traveled with relative impunity on a Saudi diplomatic passport.The news of Adnan’s travels was alarming to the American intelligence community because it had previously concluded he was in Pakistan, coordinating the fight against Western forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. A U.S. counterterrorism official summarized to me the mainstream U.S. intelligence view: “It is generally believed that El Shukrijumah stays in the tribal areas of Pakistan—where he probably thinks he’s more secure—and does not travel abroad.”

According to the same analyst, who disclosed the discovery of Adnan’s travels on a Saudi diplomatic passport, the CIA requested “offline” that the State Department make an official inquiry of the Saudis about the passport to determine its authenticity. The CIA provided the State Department both the passport number and the alias. According to the CIA analyst, the State Department refused, telling the agency that its information was “not reliable enough” to question the Saudis.

Read the Full Article At The Daily Beast

We’ve featured several posts on Adnan Shukrijumah,”Jaffar The Pilot”, including the following:

A Mystery Man That Keeps The FBI Up At Night

Eight years ago, as 19 Al Qaeda operatives in the United States put the finishing touches on what would become the Sept. 11 attacks, a frail, asthmatic computer engineer from South Florida paid a visit to this tiny Muslim enclave where he’d lived as a boy.

Adnan Gulshair Muhammad el Shukrijumah, then 25, kept a low profile over the course of the week. He hung out with a small circle of devout older men who were leaders of the local Islamic community. They prayed in mosques, went fishing and enjoyed long walks and leisurely dinners, recalled one of the hosts, Imtiaz Mohammed.

Shukrijumah spoke fondly of his father, an influential Islamic scholar and Charlieville community leader two decades earlier. He also spoke of his family life in Miramar, Fla., his computer technician business and his travels to the Middle East and other exotic locales.

But Shukrijumah said nothing about why he was in Trinidad, nor what his plans were, acquaintances here say.

Two years later, the FBI put out an urgent all-points bulletin for Shukrijumah, depicting him as one of Al Qaeda’s most well-trained, intelligent and deadly operatives. He was described as the ultimate “sleeper agent,” intent on attacking the U.S., possibly with weapons of mass destruction.

Law enforcement officials and terrorism experts now believe Shukrijumah is one of several young, street-smart leaders of Al Qaeda handpicked by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, to keep the terrorist network alive and humming in the face of U.S.-led efforts to unravel it.

American Hiroshima

Paul L. Williams is a former consultant to the FBI on organized crime and terrorism. Since then, he has become an award-winning investigative journalist and written several books. In his new book, “The Al Qaeda Connection,” he claims Osama bin Laden has obtained nuclear weapons and smuggled them into the U.S. through Mexico for use in a plot known as “American Hiroshima.”

Ryan Mauro: Much has been written about the “American Hiroshima” report. How did you first learn about the plot?

Paul Williams: I have a unique background. I hold a Ph.D. in philosophy from Drew University and I am a seasoned and award-winning journalist. I came upon the story of bin Laden’s acquisition of tactical nuclear weapons while working as the editor/publisher of The Metro and a consultant on organized crime for the FBI. Several members of the Chechen Mafia, who had emigrated to Little Odessa, muscled into the operations of the Bufalino Crime Family in Northeast Pennsylvania by selling choice No. Four heroin, guns of every description, and stolen high-end cars from New York and New Jersey .

I learned that they came to the U.S. after Makhmud and his associates sold tactical nukes and nuclear materials to Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. I began to search for evidence of this sale and came upon stories in The Jerusalem Report and The London Times and Arab stories in Muslim magazines, Al-Watan al-Arabi and al-Majallah This led me to other sources and reports of further sales of nukes from the former Soviet Union to al-Qaida not only by the Chechens but also the Russian Mafia and black-marker arms-dealers, including Semion Mogilevic from the Ukraine . Such information can be obtained by any journalist with a telephone, a computer, and a library card.

I further learned that the sales to al-Qaida have been verified by a host of intelligence officials and weapons inspectors, including Hans Blix, former director general of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency. The sales were even verified by bin Laden and al-Zawahiri in their pronouncements that they have obtained a small arsenal of nuclear weapons from black-market sources. My research took me farther into dealings between bin Laden and Dr. A. Q. Khan and the fact that over 20 nuclear scientists and technicians from Khan’s research laboratories in Pakistan worked with al-Qaida on a regular basis to maintain and modify the weapons that had been purchased and to develop other weapons from the highly enriched uranium and plutonium that bin Laden hade purchased from Uzbekistan and other countries.

Dr. Mahmood and Dr. Majeed, two of the leading officials at the Khan facility, confessed to CIA and ISI interrogators that they participated in al-Qaida’s nuclear projects. The fact that the Chechens possessed the nukes should be no surprise to any reporter or investigator. In 1995, the Chechens under Com. Shamail Basayev planted a radiological bomb in Izmailovsky Park near Moscow . The bomb was made of cesium-137, and, if detonated, would have killed thousands of Russians. This incident represented the first case of a nuke to be deployed as a weapon of terror. Later that same year, Dzokhar Dudayev, the leader of the Chechen Mafia, offered to sell his collection of nuclear weapons to the United States in exchange for U. S. recognition of Chechnya ’s independence. The Clinton Administration declined and so the weapons were sold to al-Qaida.

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Wanted – Adnan el Shukrijumah Jafer The Pilot

DETAILS: Adnan G. El Shukrijumah is wanted in connection with possible terrorist threats against the United States.

REWARD: The Rewards For Justice Program, United States Department of State, is offering a reward of up to $5 million for information leading directly to the capture of Adnan G. El Shukrijumah.

Wanted Info

Pakistani Police – 13 Militants Arrested, Terror Plots Foiled

Pakistani police say they thwarted multiple terror plots by arresting 13 militants with links to al-Qaida or the Taliban during raids in southern and eastern Pakistan.

Police said Monday they seized seven men, suicide vests and explosives during a raid in the southern city of Karachi. Authorities said the men belong to the banned al-Qaida-linked Sunni extremist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.

The group has previously been suspected of plotting to assassinate government officials, as well as masterminding last year's bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad and the bombing of a Shi'ite mosque in 2003.

And police in eastern Pakistan say they captured six suspected Taliban militants in Punjab province. Senior police officer Usman Anwar says the suspected militants had planned to attack foreign targets and places of worship.

Authorities in both cases say the arrests foiled militants' plans to stage terror attacks.

Source

Implications of Taliban Leader Baitullah Mehsud’s Death

U.S. and Pakistani officials say they are heartened by signs of a rift between Pakistani Taliban factions following the apparent death of militant leader Baitullah Mehsud.
Mehsud was the overall head of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or Taliban Movement of Pakistan, a loose alliance of 13 factions. He is believed to have been killed in a U.S. missile strike on August 5.

Following are some possible outcomes of Mehsud’s death and the impact on Pakistan, Afghanistan and Western countries that have troops there.

CHAOS IN TALIBAN RANKS

Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi told a joint news conference with U.S. special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke on Sunday that there was confusion, disarray and many reports of infighting within the TTP following the report of Mehsud’s death. Holbrooke told reporters traveling with him to Pakistan that Mehsud was “gone” and it looked as if there was a struggle for succession among his commanders.

A splintering of the Taliban would be a major coup for Pakistan, hindering the militants’ ability to conduct coordinated attacks, as the estimated 20,000 to 30,000 fighters under Mehsud’s command are subsumed by various rival commanders.

Mehsud’s fighters are already facing tremendous pressure after security forces cordoned off their strongholds in South Waziristan as part of a government order to the military in June to pursue Mehsud and his group. They are also facing regular strikes by pilot less U.S. drone aircraft, such as the one that apparently killed Mehsud.

Analysts say Mehsud’s death could demoralize his loyalists and could enable the government to exploit divisions by winning over moderate militants to isolate more hard-core elements.

via SCENARIOS: Implications of Pakistani Taliban leader’s death | Reuters.

India PM Warns of Credible Terror Threat From Pakistan

Alarmed by evidence that Pakistan-based terror groups were plotting fresh attacks, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday sounded an alert about the continuing threat. “There is credible information about ongoing plans of terrorists in Pakistan to carry out fresh attacks. The area of operation of these terrorists today extends far beyond the confines of Jammu and Kashmir and covers all parts of our country,” Singh said while addressing a meeting of chief ministers on internal security in the capital.

The PM did not name any specific group.

Sources, however, said the warning was based on intercepts of chatter among terrorist leaders, including 26/11 accused Lashkar operatives Zaki-ur Rahman Lakhvi, Zarar Shah and Abu al Qama.

The intercepts pointed to a plot for another massive terror attack via sea route, but this time involving local Lashkar modules, not Pakistani jihadis. The conspiracy has not ripened yet because of the disarray among Lashkar’s local collaborators due to the crackdown on Indian Mujahideen.

via PM sounds terror alert: Credible threat from Pak – India – NEWS – The Times of India.

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