ABC : 9/11 Families 'Ecstatic' They Can Finally Sue Saudi Arabia

9/11 Families 'Ecstatic' They Can Finally Sue Saudi Arabia

By AARON KATERSKY and RUSSELL GOLDMAN | December 20, 2013

Families of the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks today celebrated a federal court's ruling that allows relatives of people who died in the 9/11 terror attacks to sue Saudi Arabia.

Most of the hijackers who attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001 were from Saudi Arabia, and the complaint states that much of the funding for the al-Qaeda terrorists came from Saudi Arabia.

An attempt to Saudi Arabia in 2002 was blocked by a federal court ruling that said the kingdom had sovereign immunity. That ruling was reversed Thursday by a three-judge federal panel.

"I'm ecstatic.... For 12 years we've been fighting to expose the people who financed those bastards," said William Doyle, the father of Joseph Doyle, 25, a Cantor-Fitzgerald employee who was killed in the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

"Christmas has come early to the 9/11 families. We're going to have our day in court," he told ABCNews.com.

The ruling struck down an earlier decision that found Saudi Arabia immune from lawsuits. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said it's in the "interests of justice" to allow them to proceed.

Families who lost loved ones in the Sept. 11 attacks and insurers who lost billions of dollars covering damaged businesses have alleged Saudi Arabia bankrolled al-Qaeda, knowing the money would be used for terrorism.

The lawsuit, filed a decade ago by the Philadelphia firm Cozen O'Connor, accuses the Saudi government and members of the royal family of serving on charities that financed al-Qaeda operations.

Philly Inquirer : Appeals-court panel reverses itself on Saudi 9/11 lawsuit

Appeals-court panel reverses itself on Saudi 9/11 lawsuit

Chris Mondics, Inquirer Staff Writer | December 19, 2013

In a significant reversal, a federal appeals panel Thursday restored Saudi Arabia as a defendant in a lawsuit alleging that the desert kingdom financed and provided logistical support to members of al-Qaeda in the years before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, facilitating the terrorist group's emergence as a global threat.

The lawsuit, filed by Center City's Cozen O'Connor, has been wending its way through courts since it was filed in 2003. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan ruled in 2008 that Saudi Arabia could not be sued under U.S. law. But in a highly unusual move, the court effectively acknowledged Thursday that its earlier decision was mistaken.

It restored not only Saudi Arabia, but also a government charity called the Saudi High Commission for Relief of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which plaintiffs attorneys charge provided cash and logistical support to al-Qaeda units in the Balkans during the armed conflicts there in the 1990s.

"I think it is an eminently correct decision," Stephen Cozen of Cozen O'Connor said of the Second Circuit's opinion restoring Saudi Arabia as a defendant. "The kingdom and the Saudi High Commission deserved to be back in the case as defendants, and we are prepared to meet any of their legal and factual arguments with substantial legal and factual arguments of our own."

The decision marked the second advance in the last week for lawyers representing 9/11 victims, their families, and insurers that lost billions covering businesses and properties damaged or destroyed when two hijacked commercial airliners slammed into the World Trade Center in New York City. Scores of people from the Philadelphia region lost their lives in the attacks.

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court asked the Obama administration to weigh in on an appeal by Cozen, asking for the reinstatement of another group of defendants - dozens of individuals and financial institutions accused of funneling money to al-Qaeda before the attacks. The request suggests that the court views the matter as having some importance and increases the odds that it may agree to hear the appeal.

Cozen O'Connor and several other law firms sued the government of Saudi Arabia, various Islamist charities, and alleged terrorism financiers in 2003, charging that they provided financial support to al-Qaeda over 10 years before the 9/11 attacks. The firms alleged that Saudi Arabia provided tens of millions of dollars to charities that in turn bankrolled al-Qaeda units in the Balkans, the Philippines, and elsewhere. Senior U.S. government officials warned Saudis before the 9/11 attacks that government-funded charities were bankrolling terrorist units, but, they said, the Saudis failed to react.

A federal district judge in Manhattan dismissed the Saudi government and members of the royal family as defendants in 2005, saying the government was within its right to finance the charities and was not responsible for what the charities might have done with the money.

That was upheld in 2008 by the Second Circuit. But the court said Thursday that it had decided to reverse its decisions because it had allowed a related lawsuit to go forward on the same grounds cited in the suit against the Saudis.

"It means that the Second Circuit realized that it had made a mistake and did what courts are expected to do, which is fix it," said Jerry S. Goldman, a Philadelphia lawyer with the firm Anderson Kill, who represents the estate of John O'Neill, a former head of counterintelligence at the FBI.

O'Neill, who was raised in Atlantic City, sounded some of the earliest warnings about Osama bin Laden. He was killed in the attacks on the World Trade Center, where he had gone to work as head of security after leaving the FBI only a few weeks earlier.

The case has had significant political impact, and has affected U.S.-Saudi relations.

Victims of the 9/11 attacks and their relatives have complained bitterly about the U.S. government's failure to turn over more information about its investigations of Saudi support for al-Qaeda and other jihadist organizations.

They are pushing for legislation that would reduce protections afforded by U.S. law to foreign governments against such lawsuits. The Saudis, meanwhile, have complained that lawsuits have disrupted relations between the two governments.

FOX CT : In A Reversal, Terror Suspects Agree To Plead Guilty

In A Reversal, Terror Suspects Agree To Plead Guilty

By EDMUND H. MAHONY | emahony@courant.com | The Hartford Courant | December 5, 2013

NEW HAVEN -— Two British nationals have agreed to plead guilty next week to terror-related charges accusing them of developing a ground-breaking Internet network to raise money, recruits and equipment for groups waging holy war in the Middle East.

The decisions to admit guilt by Babar Ahmad, 38, and Syed Talha Ahsan, 34, both of London, appear to end a decade-long legal fight by the two. They challenged extradition to the U.S., first in the British courts and later in the European Court of Human Rights, arguing that long sentences in high-security U.S. prisons would violate their human rights.

Ahmad and Ahsan are accused of operating a groundbreaking network of Internet sites known as Azzam publications that attracted sympathizers and support to the jihadist cause from around the world. Terror experts said the operators of the Azzam sites had direct access to leaders of the Chechen mujahedeen, the Taliban in Afghanistan and associated groups, and used it to support radical holy warriors.

Among other things, U.S. and British authorities found a document describing the classified movements of a U.S. Navy battle group operating in the Middle East during a search of Ahmad's home in London in 2003.

Ahmad and Ahsan are being prosecuted in the U.S. and, in particular, Connecticut, because of the role U.S. authorities played in closing the Azzam network and because the computer network's electronic communications passed through a Connecticut-based Internet service provider.

They were extradited to the U.S. a year ago, with three other men suspected of terror plots in the U.S. or targeting U.S. citizens abroad,

Ahmad and Ahsan faced life sentences if convicted after a trial. In their agreements with federal prosecutors, the two agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and providing material support to terrorists. The charges carry maximum sentences of 15 years.

Indictments in the case accuse the two, through their network of Azzam websites, of promoting violent jihad and distributing jihadi training manuals, interviews with al-Qaida and Chechen leaders and martyrdom videos of fallen jihadists.

Azzam also raised money through the sale of violent video recordings, filmed by jihadists, of battle scenes and the executions of Russian prisoners in Chechnya, formerly part of the Soviet Union.

Ahmad and Ahsan are accused of providing, directly or through the Azzam network, military equipment, communications equipment, lodging, training, safe houses, transportation, false identity documents and other supplies to terrorists and their recruits.

The Azzam network previously was a subject of a federal terror trial in New Haven in 2008, in a case that resulted in the conviction of Hassan Abu-jihaad, a Californian and convert to Islam. While serving as a signalman in the U.S. Navy, Abu-jihaad transmitted to Azzam the anticipated movements of U.S. warships as they moved through the 21-mile-wide Strait of Hormuz in 2001.

Abu-jihaad, drawn to Azzam through its bloody battlefield videos, was convicted of providing material support to terrorists and disclosing national defense information. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

A government terror expert who testified against Abu-jihaad said that Azzam was the premier jihadist site on the Internet while it operated.

"The reason the website was so credible was that it had real access," said Evan Kohlmann, a terror consultant who has worked with the U.S. government. "It wasn't just reprocessing material that it had gotten elsewhere. It was generating original jihadist content and it was incredibly powerful material."

Ahmad and Ahsan, computer engineers in London before their arrests, are accused of working on the Azzam network from about 1997 until authorities closed it in 2004. Before that, Ahmad fought with Islamist forces in Bosnia.

Tens of thousands of Britons joined their fight against extradition to the U.S. The men and their supporters believe that the two should be tried in the United Kingdom because that is where they are accused of committing offenses.

Copyright © 2013, The Hartford Courant

Boston : Lawmakers: Declassify documents detailing foreign support for 9/11 hijackers

Lawmakers: Declassify documents detailing foreign support for 9/11 hijackers

By Bryan Bender, Globe Staff | December 3, 2013

WASHINGTON — Representative Stephen F. Lynch introduced a resolution Monday urging President Obama to make public 28 pages from a congressional investigation of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that remain secret.

Lynch said he believes it will shed new light on the worst terrorist assault in US history. The South Boston Democrat, along with Representative Walter B. Jones, a Republican from North Carolina, recently reviewed the findings, which were almost entirely blacked out when the panel issued its final report in December 2002.

“These pages contain information that is vital to a full understanding of the events and circumstances surrounding this tragedy,” the South Boston Democrat said in a statement Tuesday.

The withheld pages have long been a source of controversy and have fueled conspiracy theories that the US government covered up certain aspects of the plot to fly hijacked civilian airliners into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania, killing nearly 3,000 people.

The final report of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees — called the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 2001 — did give some indication of what was contained.

The introduction stated the investigation uncovered “information suggesting specific sources of foreign support for some of the September 11 hijackers while they were in the United States.”

Many specialists have suggested that those sources of support for the Al Qaeda terrorists, most of whom were from Saudi Arabia, could have come from their home governments. But all the details were withheld on national security grounds.

Eleanor Hill, who served as the staff director of the inquiry and is now a Washington-based attorney, recalled Tuesday that the findings, gleaned through a combination of interviews at the time with FBI and CIA officials and a review of agency files, were alarming.

“It was disturbing,” she said. “Even back then I personally felt they could have released more of it. Somebody needs to look at it again.”

Birmingham Mail : Al-Qaida terror plots on New York and Manchester linked to Alum rock murder suspect Rashid Rauf

Al-Qaida terror plots on New York and Manchester linked to Alum rock murder suspect Rashid Rauf

Amardeep Bassey | January 6, 2013

A suspected Islamic terrorist accused of plotting attacks in the UK and the New York subway was being directed by a Birmingham Al Qaida mastermind, security sources claim.The allegation comes after the USA successfully applied for Pakistani student Abid Naseer to be extradited to face terror charges.

Naseer, 26, had originally come to Britain from his native Pakistan on a student visa to study in Manchester.

But US prosecutors believe they can prove Naseer was part of an Al-Qaida cell sent to the UK and US by former Alum Rock murder suspect Rashid Rauf, who planned for them to attack targets on both sides of the Atlantic.

The Americans claim Naseer had shopped for bomb ingredients, conducted reconnaissance and was in frequent contact with other al-Qaida operatives as part of a foiled plot to kill Easter shoppers at the Trafford and Arndale centres in Manchester in 2009, and a second suspected plot to blow up the New York subway.

An FBI source told the Sunday Mercury that investigators believe that both plots were directed by Birmingham baker’s boy turned terrorist Rauf, who had climbed the Al Qaida ranks to become a chief planner of its operations in the West.

He said: “It is highly likely that it was Rauf who briefed and sent the two teams to launch attacks in the US and the UK.

“Messages from Pakistan were remarkably similar in content and tone, suggesting they were emanating from the same person, namely Rauf, who had a very distinct and colloquially English style.”

Rauf is believed to have been killed by the CIA in a drone attack in Pakistan’s tribal areas in 2008. He fled the UK to join Islamic terror groups in Pakistan in 2002 after being implicated in the murder of his uncle in Alum Rock.

Security service investigators believe he was a vital link for foreign Al Qaida recruits because of his Western background and upbringing.

The Portsmouth University drop-out is said to have been the point of contact for the London 7/7 bombers, as well as being implicated in several Al Qaida plots across Europe.

The US source said: “Evidence suggests Rauf was directing a terror cell in the US which was eventually smashed after it was discovered they were planning to bomb the New York subway.

“Rauf was killed in late 2008 but by then the terror cells had been dispatched and briefed.”

After two years of legal arguments stalling his extradition, Naseer was finally taken from his cell at Belmarsh high security jail and put on a plane at Luton airport by officers from the Metropolitan police extradition unit last week.

Naseer was one of 12 people arrested in April 2009 in co-ordinated raids in Liverpool and Manchester after police uncovered the alleged Manchester plot. But all were released without charge because of lack of evidence.

They were ordered to leave Britain, but Naseer escaped deportation to Pakistan after a judge ruled it was likely he would be mistreated if he were sent home.

Naseer was re-arrested in July 2010 at the request of the prosecutors in Brooklyn where a federal indictment named him as a co-defendant with Adis Medunjanin.

In January 2011, a British judge approved Naseer’s extradition but acknowledged there was a “very real risk” Naseer would be tortured if the US ultimately returned him to Pakistan.

US authorities allege Medunjanin and his former high school friends Najibullah Zazi and Zarein Ahmedzay travelled to Pakistan in 2008 to seek terror training from al-Qaida.

Authorities say the trio were planning co-ordinated suicide bombings on Manhattan subway lines during rush hour near the eighth anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks in what Zazi called a “martyrdom operation”.

The alleged plot was disrupted when police stopped Zazi’s car as it entered New York.

Toronto Star : Al Qaeda airline bomber was secret informant

Al Qaeda airline bomber was secret informant

Reuters | May 8, 2012

WASHINGTON—A bomber from the Al Qaeda affiliate in Yemen sent to blow up a U.S.-bound airliner last month was actually a Saudi intelligence agent who infiltrated the group and volunteered for the suicide mission, U.S. media reported on Tuesday.

Working closely with the CIA, Saudi Arabia’s intelligence agency placed the operative inside Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, with the goal of convincing his handlers to give him a new type of non-metallic bomb for the mission, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Western intelligence agencies have identified AQAP as among the most dangerous and determined Al Qaeda affiliates in the world, dedicated in part to attacks on the West.

The explosive device was intended to be smuggled aboard an aircraft undetected and then detonated.

The double agent arranged instead to deliver the device to U.S. and other intelligence authorities waiting outside Yemen, the L.A. Times reported. The agent arrived safely in an unidentified country and is being debriefed.

Experts at the FBI’s bomb laboratory in Quantico, Va., are now analyzing the device to determine if it really could have evaded airport security, the newspaper said.

If such a device could be brought on board an aircraft, it could in theory be detonated without the knowledge of aircraft passengers and crew.

The main charge was a high-grade military explosive that “undoubtedly would have brought down an aircraft,” the New York Times reported, citing a senior American official.

It appeared to be an upgraded version of the so-called “underwear bomb” that failed to down a passenger jet over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009, the L.A. Times said.

“Like that bomb, this device bears the forensic signature of feared Al Qaeda bomb maker Ibrahim Hassan Asiri,” who is believed to be hiding in Yemen, the L.A. Times website reported.

The operation relied not on the high-tech and satellite surveillance for which the CIA has been known in recent years, but old-fashioned human intelligence work.

It did, however, produce intelligence that helped the CIA locate top Al Qaeda operative Fahd al-Quso, who was killed on Sunday when a CIA drone targeted him with a missile as he stepped out of his car in Yemen, the newspapers reported.

Quso was thought by intelligence analysts to have played a role in the bombing of guided missile destroyer USS Cole in a Yemeni port in 2000.

Long War Journal : US official explains National Counterterrorism Center's view of the enemy

US official explains National Counterterrorism Center's view of the enemy

By Thomas Joscelyn | September 23, 2010

In testimony before the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee yesterday, Michael Leiter provided an overview of how his National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) sees the terrorist threat. Leiter highlighted three types of threats: al Qaeda in northern Pakistan, al Qaeda affiliates around the world, and “homegrown” extremists who are inspired by al Qaeda’s “narrative” but do not necessarily receive guidance or assistance from senior al Qaeda leaders.

Leiter said the “range” of terrorist plots over the past year “suggests the threat against the West has become more complex and underscores the challenges of identifying and countering a more diverse array of Homeland plotting.”

Al Qaeda central

Leiter claimed that al Qaeda in Pakistan is “weaker today than at any time since the late 2001 onset of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan.” Still, al Qaeda “remains intent” on “attacking the West and continues to prize attacks against the US Homeland and our European allies above all else.”

Al Qaeda launched a plot against the New York City subways last year. In Europe, there have been five “disrupted plots during the past four years,” Leiter told Senators in his written testimony. These include “a plan to attack airliners transiting between the UK and US, a credible plot in Germany, disrupted cells in the UK and Norway, and the disrupted plot to attack a newspaper in Denmark.”

Leiter also cited al Qaeda’s “propaganda efforts” as a substantial threat since “they are intended to inspire additional attacks by motivating sympathizers worldwide to undertake efforts similar to Nidal Hassan’s attack on Fort Hood last fall.”

Al Qaeda’s affiliates

Leiter cited al Qaeda’s “personnel losses” as one reason the core of al Qaeda has been weakened in recent years. Indeed, al Qaeda has lost key leaders due to America’s ongoing drone attacks in northern Pakistan. However, Leiter’s testimony also indicates why al Qaeda has been able to remain a serious threat despite these losses.

If al Qaeda is defined as only Osama bin Laden, Ayman al Zawahiri, and their immediate followers in northern Pakistan, then the threat they pose would still be worrisome but not nearly a global menace.

Unfortunately, al Qaeda’s power reaches beyond this narrow band of individuals. Leiter’s testimony confirms, once again, that al Qaeda is the tip of the jihadist spear – the vanguard of a global jihadist movement that shares a common ideology, goals, and resources.

Afghanistan-Pakistan

Inside Afghanistan and Pakistan, al Qaeda’s senior leadership forged close relations with the heads of various jihadist organizations, thereby providing al Qaeda with strategic depth. For example, while Leiter cited the disrupted plot against a newspaper in Denmark as a success against al Qaeda, which is undoubtedly true, he noted that the plot was organized by Mohammed Ilyas Kashmiri, a commander in Harakat-ul Jihad Islami (HUJI).

HUJI was originally forged by jihadists committed to fighting the Soviets in the 1980s in Afghanistan. They received support from the Pakistani military and intelligence establishment, as did most if not all Pakistan-based jihadist organizations. In the 1990s, HUJI expanded its sphere of activity to India and Bangladesh, reportedly with assistance from Osama bin Laden.

Today, senior HUJI leaders such as Kashmiri actually work with and for bin Laden’s al Qaeda in the global jihadist struggle against America and her allies in Central and South Asia and beyond. In fact, Kashmiri is now a senior al Qaeda commander responsible for external operations – that is, operations against the West.

The same phenomenon can be seen in the disrupted plot against airliners traveling from the UK to the US in 2006, which was also cited by Leiter. Al Qaeda intended to destroy multiple airliners using liquid explosives assembled on board the planes once they were airborne. The plot was modeled after a plan named “Bojinka,” which was conceived by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his nephew Ramzi Yousef in the mid-1990s.

The plan was revived by al Qaeda after KSM’s arrest in 2003. The point man for the operation was Rashid Rauf, a senior member of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JEM). JEM was originally formed with assistance from the Pakistani military and intelligence establishment in the 1990s to fight Indian forces inside Kashmir. Like HUJI, JEM leaders serve al Qaeda’s global jihad. Thus, Rauf became one of the key figures in al Qaeda’s external operations wing.

The dossiers of terrorists like Rauf and Kashmiri illustrate that the lines between al Qaeda and other, like-minded jihadist organizations are becoming increasingly blurred.

Leiter cited other relationships in this vein. He called the Pakistani Taliban (Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP), which was responsible for the failed Times Square plot in May, al Qaeda’s “closest ally.” Leiter added, “TTP leaders maintain close ties to senior [al Qaeda] leaders, providing critical support to [al Qaeda] in the FATA and sharing some of the same global violent extremist goals.”

Counterterrorism authorities are “looking closely” at the TTP, as well as the Haqqani Network, “for any indicators of attack planning in the West,” Leiter said. Like the TTP, the Haqqani Network has “close ties” to al Qaeda.

Leiter noted that Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), another creation of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency in the 1990s, “poses a threat to a range of interests in South Asia.” Moreover, LeT’s “involvement in attacks in Afghanistan against US and Coalition forces and provision of support to the Taliban and [al Qaeda] extremists there pose a threat to US and Coalition interests.”

Leiter said that while the LeT has not launched an attack against the West, it “could pose a direct threat to the Homeland and Europe, especially should they collude with [al Qaeda] operatives.”

Yemen, Somalia, North and West Africa, and Iraq

Outside of Afghanistan and Pakistan, Leiter cited four areas where al Qaeda’s affiliates are a particular concern.

Leiter described Yemen as a “key battleground and potential regional base of operations from which [al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, AQAP] can plan attacks, train recruits, and facilitate the movement of operatives.” As evidence of the threat posed by AQAP, Leiter cited an assassination attempt on a Saudi prince last August, as well as Umar Farouq Abdulmutallab’s attempted attack on Flight 253 on Christmas Day 2009.

Al Qaeda cleric Anwar al Awlaki “played a significant role in” Abdulmutallab’s plotting, Leiter says. According to published reports, Abdulmutallab met with the al Qaeda cleric in Yemen months prior to boarding a Detroit-bound airliner.

Some commentators have tried to distance Shabaab in Somalia from al Qaeda. But Leiter said that East Africa “remains a key locale for al Qaeda associates.” In addition, some Shabaab “leaders share [al Qaeda’s] ideology and publicly have praised Usama bin Ladin and requested further guidance from the group, although Somali nationalist themes are also prevalent in their public statements.”

Leiter also noted that Shabaab “leaders have cooperated closely with a limited number of East Africa-based [al Qaeda] operatives and the Somalia-based training program established by al Shabaab and now deceased [al Qaeda] operative Saleh Nabhan, continues to attract hundreds of violent extremists from across the globe, to include dozens of recruits from the United States.”

“The potential for Somali trainees to return to the United States or elsewhere in the West to launch attacks remains a significant concern,” Leiter explained in his written testimony.

In North and West Africa, al Qaeda in the Lands of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) is a “persistent threat to US and other Western interests.” The “primary” threat, Leiter reported, comes from AQIM “conducting kidnap for ransom operations and small-arms attacks, though the group’s execution in July of a French hostage and first suicide bombing attack in Niger earlier this year punctuate AQIM’s lethality and attack range.”

Finally, counterterrorism operations have “continued to pressure” al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and “hinder its external ambitions.” But it remains a “key” al Qaeda affiliate, Leiter reported. “While AQI’s leaders continue to publicly threaten to attack the West, to include the Homeland, their ability to do so has been diminished, although not eliminated.”

Homegrown Sunni extremism

Homegrown Sunni extremist activity has spiked, according to Leiter, with “plots disrupted in New York, North Carolina, Arkansas, Alaska, Texas, and Illinois during the past year.” Although these plots were “unrelated operationally,” they are “indicative of a collective subculture and a common cause that rallies independent individuals to violence.”

A crucially important part of Leiter’s testimony is his public identification of a “US-specific narrative that motivates individuals to violence.” This narrative, according to Leiter, is “a blend of [al Qaeda] inspiration, perceived victimization, and glorification of past homegrown plotting.”

In his new autobiography, A Journey: My Political Life, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair discusses this “narrative” at length and points out that it is not only a problem in the West, but also throughout the Middle East. Blair writes:

Here is where the root of the problem lies. The extremists are small in number, but their narrative – which sees Islam as the victim of a scornful West externally, and an insufficiently religious leadership internally – has a far bigger hold. …

It is the narrative that has to be assailed. It has to be avowed, acknowledged; then taken on, inside and outside Islam. It should not be respected. It should be confronted, disagreed with, argued against on grounds of politics, security and religion.

Leiter explained that the NCTC is coordinating a number of initiatives within the US government to counter this narrative. For example, the NCTC “helps coordinate the Federal Government’s engagement with Somali American communities” in order to counter radicalization. It is not clear, however, if the NCTC has a comprehensive plan in place to counter the narrative, as Blair argues is necessary.

Leiter cited two specific terrorist attacks in 2009 as examples of the threat posed by homegrown extremism: Major Nidal Malik Hassan’s shooting spree at Fort Hood, Texas and Carlos Leon Bledsoe’s attack on an US military recruiting station in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Leiter said these attacks “serve as stark examples of lone actors inspired by the global violent extremist movement who attacked without oversight or guidance from overseas-based [al Qaeda] elements.”

Leiter’s description does not match the facts of Hassan’s and Bledsoe’s attacks. Maj. Hassan contacted Anwar al Awlaki repeatedly by email to ask about the permissibility of certain acts (e.g. turning against the American Army) under Sharia law. Awlaki gave his blessing to Hassan. Awlaki would later claim in a propaganda video that he was proud to call Hassan one of his “students.” This certainly amounts to guidance.

In a letter to the judge in his case, Bledsoe (who changed his name to Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad) admitted he was guilty of the “Jihadi attack.” It is at least possible that Bledsoe did receive some “guidance” from overseas actors as he admittedly studied jihad in Yemen, and claimed that he was a member of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. It is not clear how much of Bledsoe’s letter is true, as opposed to bluster. But it is at least plausible that he did consort with al Qaeda or other jihadist organizations in Yemen.

"Homegrown" extremism is undoubtedly a serious security threat. However, it is often poorly defined.

Reuters India : Arrests stir worry about Qaeda plots in West

Arrests stir worry about Qaeda plots in West

By William Maclean, Security Correspondent | September 7, 2010

LONDON (Reuters) - Their place in history assured, are al Qaeda's ageing leaders content merely to propagate their ideology and tactics among like-minded militant groups?

Counter-terrorism analysts say the answer is no: evidence emerging in the West shows the veteran Islamist instigators of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States retain an ambition to execute plots and not just act as propagandists.

They point to investigations into suspected conspiracies uncovered in the past 18 months in the United States, Norway and Britain, which law enforcement officials say were directed by a group of operatives in the core leadership's bases in Pakistan.

Gauging the influence and expertise of the movement's leaders, believed hiding in northwest Pakistan near the Afghan border, is important for Western strategists since Washington has said its main goal in the Afghan war is fighting al Qaeda.

In recent years the threat of U.S. drone strikes is believed to have constrained the ability of a once-active core of plotters around Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri to bring to fruition significant conspiracies beyond south Asia.

But experts say that in 2008 Saleh al-Somali, then al Qaeda external operations chief and believed close to the leadership, set in motion a plot in the United States and two alleged conspiracies uncovered in Britain and Norway.

He organised bomb-training for militants in northwest Pakistan and sent them back to prepare attacks in the United States, Britain and Norway, analysts say.

AMBITIONS UNDIMMED

A Western counter-terrorism official said the evidence of Somali's involvement suggested to Western governments that the group's leaders retained an ambition to launch attacks.

U.S. prosecutors said Somali was helped in the U.S. plot by Adnan al-Shukrijumah, a Saudi-born operative, and Rashid Rauf, a British al Qaeda-linked militant of Pakistani ancestry.

Paul Cruickshank, a terrorism expert and an alumni fellow at the Center on Law and Security at New York University's School of Law, said the plots "show al Qaeda core remains a threat".

"Westerners are still travelling (from homes in the West) to the tribal areas (of Pakistan) in significant numbers... It gives al Qaeda a chance to turn them around and send them back."

"Some of al Qaeda's most experienced bombmakers are there, and so the area remains a significant danger," he said.

For al Qaeda, carrying out a big attack in the West is key to fundraising among wealthy supporters, some of whom have been demoralised by the failure of the group to strike at the West sucessfully since London bombings in 2005 that killed 52 people.

RISK IS SPREAD

Bill Braniff, a senior expert at the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, said Somali's siting of the plots in three different countries was intended to reduce the risk that all three would be detected.

"These plots show al Qaeda's trademark complex attack, geographically distributed," he said referring to the movement's style of multiple bombings.

"If they had succeeded, you would have had a huge propaganda effect from attacks in all three countries."

The plots were dealt successive blows when Rauf was reported killed in a U.S. drone strike in Nov. 2008 and Somali was killed by a drone in Dec. 2009.

But Shukrijumah is widely believed to be alive and is now considered "a very prominent member of the inner circle" of operational planning, according to Roger Cressey, a U.S. security expert and president of Good Harbor Consulting.

Western governments are concerned that subsequent groups of militants trained in northwest Pakistan in 2009 and 2010 may have now made their way to the West to prepare other attacks.

Brynjar Lia and Petter Nesser, research fellows at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment, said the discovery of an alleged al Qaeda cell in Norway suggested the group sought a new capability to strike Europe's periphery after disruption to cells in Spain, Britain, Germany and France.

Terrorist cells hardly ever emerged in a vacuum because they needed supporters to recruit and train, they said.

"Discovery of such cells is usually a strong sign that radicalism and underground extremist networks are on the rise," they wrote in a joint article in CTC Sentinel.

LAT : Setbacks weaken Al Qaeda's ability to mount attacks, terrorism officials say

Setbacks weaken Al Qaeda's ability to mount attacks, terrorism officials say

By Sebastian Rotella | Reporting from Washington | October 17, 2009

As Al Qaeda is weakened by the loss of leaders, fighters, funds and ideological appeal, the extremist network's ability to attack targets in the United States and Western Europe has diminished, anti-terrorism officials say.

Nonetheless, Al Qaeda and allied groups based primarily in Pakistan remain a threat, particularly because of an increasing ability to attract recruits from Central Asia and Turkey to offset the decline in the number of militants from the Arab world and the West.

Al Qaeda's relative strength these days is of crucial importance in the complex debate in Washington over future U.S. troop levels and tactics in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Although factions within the Obama administration differ on how best to deal with the Taliban in Afghanistan, all agree that the paramount priority is defeating Al Qaeda. Unlike the Afghan Taliban, the terrorist network Al Qaeda remains committed to a holy war against the West with a goal of matching or surpassing its devastating attacks in 2001.

Western intelligence officials say that the group, already under pressure from U.S. drone strikes and facing a likely Pakistani army assault on its sanctuary, has been further racked by internal division and rifts with tribal groups.

"Some pretty experienced individuals have been taken out of the equation," a senior British anti-terrorism official said in a recent interview.

"There is fear, insecurity and paranoia about individuals arriving from outside, worries about spies and infiltration," said the official, who requested anonymity because of the sensitive topic. "There is a sense that it has become a less romantic experience. Which is important because of the impact on Al Qaeda the brand, the myth, the idea of the glorious jihadist."

Al Qaeda last spilled blood in the West in July 2005 when bombing attacks on the London transportation system killed 52 people. Global cooperation and aggressive infiltration by Western spy services have thwarted subsequent plots, and a stepped-up campaign of drone strikes has killed many Al Qaeda leaders and intensified divisions among extremist groups.

"There are tensions about AQ as an entity," the British official said. "It has embedded itself in [northwestern Pakistan] over the course of years with marriages, links to tribes. The drone strikes appear to be straining those bonds with the locals."

Some Arabs and Westerners still trek to the training compounds of Waziristan, though the numbers have shrunk as intelligence services get better at tracking and capturing trainees. British militants thought to have trained in Pakistan during the last year and a half number in the tens, not the hundreds, the official said.

French authorities say only small numbers of militants from France are going to Pakistan. Italian anti-terrorism officials have not detected any recruits from their country traveling to Pakistan since 2005 or '06, said Armando Spataro, a top terrorism prosecutor in Milan.

The dwindling supply of foreign recruits results partly from an ideological backlash in the Muslim world, experts say.

President Obama cited the debilitated condition of the terrorist network last week during a visit with U.S. counter-terrorism officials.

"Because of our efforts, Al Qaeda and its allies have not only lost operational capacity, they've lost legitimacy and credibility," he said.

The number of failed plots in the West, whether directed or inspired by Al Qaeda, also shows that the quality of operatives has declined, scholar Marc Sageman testified at a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week.

"Counter-terrorism is working," said Sageman, a former CIA officer and New York Police Department expert. "Terrorist organizations can no longer cherry-pick the best candidates as they did in the 1990s. There is no Al Qaeda recruitment program: Al Qaeda and its allies are totally dependent on self-selected volunteers."

In several recent cases, Western trainees in Pakistan allegedly had contact with Mustafa Abu Yazid, also known as Said Sheik, a longtime Egyptian financial boss. Abu Yazid acts as the day-to-day chief of the network while Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman Zawahiri, spend their time eluding capture, said the British official.

The training and direction of Westerners had largely been coordinated by one individual: Rashid Rauf, a Pakistani Briton who died in a missile strike in November. Investigators believe Rauf was the handler of British operatives in plots dating back to a failed 2004 bombing in London.

A French trainee who confessed this year detailed to French police the relatively small size of the network. Walid Othmani, who is of Tunisian descent, said he trained in the Waziristan region with a mostly Arab contingent of 300 to 500 fighters, according to a French police report provided by a defense lawyer.

"The chief of the Arabs is . . . of Egyptian origin," Othmani told interrogators. "The Arab group is mostly people of Saudi origin. You find people from the Middle East, North Africans, blacks, Turks and a majority of Arabs."

Anti-terrorism officials said Othmani's estimate largely matches previous intelligence.

The French militant also described a trend that may signal a new threat: the rise of Turks and Central Asians.

"There's a big Turkish group, the Arab group [the smallest of the groups], two rather large Uzbek groups, a group of Uighurs from Turkestan [the region in China officially known as Xinjiang] . . . the largest of the groups," he said under questioning. "There are also two Kurdish groups and finally a mixed group led by an Uzbek."

Western investigators worry about the Uzbek-led Islamic Jihad Union. The IJU broke off in 2002 from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, a longtime Al Qaeda ally.

The IJU has made a name for itself as a Turkic-speaking alternative to Al Qaeda for Turks and Central Asians. The Turkic groups produce Internet propaganda in amounts that rival those of Al Qaeda, and have threatened Germany because of its military presence in Afghanistan.

"For the Turkic groups, Germany is America," said Evan Kohlmann, a terrorism expert who works with law enforcement around the world.

The IJU also directed a group of converts and Turks from Germany who were convicted of plotting to bomb U.S. military targets in Germany in 2007.

An IJU video recently obtained by Kohlmann shows Germans training in Pakistani badlands along with a muscular man with a shaved head who brandishes an automatic rifle. The video identifies him as an American.

"Law enforcement is deathly afraid of these groups," Kohlmann said.

Recent attacks in Pakistan highlight other threats to the West. The bold strikes on military and government targets were blamed on joint teams of Pakistani Taliban and Punjabi militant groups, both allies of Al Qaeda that could protect or rejuvenate the network.

"The ties between Al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban are closer and closer," Jean-Louis Bruguiere, a veteran French anti-terrorism magistrate, said in an interview. "Then you have the danger of other Pakistani networks like Lashkar-e-Taiba that have had complicity in the past with elements of the state. Al Qaeda might be diluted, but it could become part of a larger threat."

Two Americans with links to Lashkar were convicted this summer in Atlanta of conspiring with militants in Canada and Europe and filming prospective targets in Washington.

In contrast, the Pakistani Taliban, like its Afghani counterpart, rarely surfaces in plots against the West.

One murky case hints at the potential: the arrests last year of a group of Pakistanis in Barcelona, Spain. Then-Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mahsud allegedly sent would-be suicide bombers to Barcelona, shadowed by a Pakistani informant working for French intelligence.

The informant called in a police raid when the suspects allegedly said they were about to commit a suicide attack on the Barcelona subway. No explosives were found, however. Some French and Spanish officials said the imminence of the attack was exaggerated and the links to Mahsud, who died in an airstrike this year, were unclear.

Nonetheless, the alliance between Al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban raises concern, Bruguiere said.

"Such ambitions by the Pakistani Taliban cannot be excluded, because they want to join in the global jihad," Bruguiere said.

rotella@latimes.com

Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times

CNN : Recruits reveal al Qaeda's sprawling web

Recruits reveal al Qaeda's sprawling web

* Interviews with accused al Qaeda members reveal how it is adapting
* Accounts show it's suffering from U.S. attacks; possible funding problems
* Now running smaller operations along Pakistan border, still planning major attacks

By CNN Senior International Correspondent Nic Robertson and Paul Cruickshank | July 31, 2009

Editor's note: This story is based on interrogation reports that form part of the prosecution case in the forthcoming trial of six Belgian citizens charged with participation in a terrorist group. Versions of those documents were obtained by CNN from the defense attorney of one of those suspects. The statement by Bryant Vinas was compiled from an interview he gave Belgian prosecutors in March 2009 in New York, and was confirmed by U.S. prosecutors as authentic. The statement by Walid Othmani was given to French investigators, and was authenticated by Belgian prosecutors.

(CNN) -- When Bryant Neal Vinas spoke at length with Belgian prosecutors last March, he provided a fascinating and sometimes frightening insight into al Qaeda's training -- and its agenda.

Vinas is a young American who was arrested in Pakistan late in 2008 after allegedly training with al Qaeda in the Afghan/Pakistan border area.

He was repatriated to the United States and in January pled guilty to charges of conspiracy to murder U.S. nationals, providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization, and receiving military-type training from a foreign terrorist organization.

In notes made by FBI agents of interviews with Vinas, he admits he went to Pakistan to join al Qaeda and kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan. But the terror group appeared to have other ideas for him. He volunteered to become a suicide bomber but was dissuaded at every turn. On Thanksgiving weekend last year, shortly after his arrest, much of the New York mass transit system was put on high alert, including Penn Station. According to the Belgian prosecutor's document, Vinas had told al Qaeda's command everything he knew about the system.

Vinas's account of his time in al Qaeda training camps in Pakistan is a playbook of how the terror group survived after 9/11 and continues to operate in the remote hills of Pakistan.

Al Qaeda has shown remarkable adaptability and remains as committed as ever to launching attacks in the West, according to the descriptions of several alleged Western recruits, including Vinas, who spent time together in al Qaeda camps in the region between September 2007 and December 2008.

In their interrogations, the recruits revealed al Qaeda's continued determination to attack mass transport systems in the West and training programs for new forms of attack, including breaking into residences to carry out targeted assassinations.

The documents provide an inside view of al Qaeda's organizational structures, training programs, and the protective measures the terrorist organization has taken against increasingly effective U.S. missile strikes.

And they arguably shed more light on the state of al Qaeda than any previously released into the public domain.

Intelligence officials say intensified U.S. Predator drone strikes have degraded al Qaeda's capabilities since the end of last year, but the accounts suggest that because of the decentralization of its organization and close ties with the Pakistani Taliban, the terrorist network will be difficult to dislodge from Pakistan's tribal areas.

Despite not being able to operate training camps on anything like the scale they did in Afghanistan, the accounts suggest that al Qaeda has been able to sustain many of its training operations by confining them to small dwellings in the remote mountains of Waziristan. Inside these dwellings bomb-making training appears to have been emphasized, some of it very sophisticated.

An American joins al Qaeda

On September 10, 2007, almost exactly six years after al Qaeda attacked New York, Vinas, a 24-year-old Queens-born American citizen boarded a flight from the city en route to Lahore, in eastern Pakistan, determined to fight jihad in neighboring Afghanistan.

Brought up a Catholic by his Latin American immigrant parents, who divorced when he was young, Vinas tried to join the U.S. army in 2002 but dropped out after just a few weeks.

In 2004 -- for reasons which are still unclear -- he converted to Islam and started frequenting a mosque in Long Island near where he lived with his father. Over the next three years he became radicalized, U.S. officials have stated, in no small part because of his exposure to pro-al Qaeda Web sites.

A former U.S. government official told CNN that youths influenced by the ideas of the British pro-al Qaeda extremist group Al Muhajiroun were known to have hung out in the vicinity of the mosque at the same time as Vinas.

The former official told CNN that they were a splinter group of the Al Muhajiroun followers who used to hang out in the New York/Long Island area in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Al Muhajiroun's American members, the former official stated, included Syed Hashmi, a Brooklyn college graduate who traveled to Pakistan in 2003 and now awaits trial on charges of providing material support to the terrorist network. He has pled not guilty.

Another who belonged to Al Muhajiroun was Mohammed Junaid Babar, a trainee Queens taxi driver, who met two of the July 7, 2005 London bombers in Pakistan and who in 2004 pled guilty to providing material support to terrorists in Pakistan. Al Muhajiroun was formally disbanded in October 2004 but still operates, CNN has discovered, under a variety of guises.

Anjem Choudhary, the former deputy leader of Al Muhajiroun, told CNN Monday that New York was one of the organization's main hubs before 2004. He says dozens of followers from the New York area still regularly tune into online sermons put together by the group's founder Omar Bakri Mohammed in Tripoli, Lebanon, where he has been living since being banned from the UK after the 2005 London bombings.

Choudhary stated that he and Bakri were still loosely affiliated with The Islamic Thinkers Society, a New York based organization, which says the peaceful restoration of the Islamic Caliphate is one of its objectives.

A March 5, 2009 posting on the homepage of its Web site states that Bakri Mohammed is "a man who has inspired thousands across the world to rise for Islam." The Islamic Thinkers Society exists legally in the United States and says it is committed solely to the political and intellectual struggle for Islam.

When Vinas arrived in Lahore he had little idea about how he was going to gain access to the fighting in Afghanistan, according to his own account. But a few days after he arrived he sought help from a New York friend whom he knew moved in militant circles.

One introduction led to another and eventually Vinas met a Jihadist commander about to return to Afghanistan. Identified in legal documents as S.S., their commander agreed to let him join his group. CNN has learned from a source briefed on the case that the initials S.S. stand for a man who goes by the name of Shah Saab, and is believed to be somewhere in Pakistan's tribal areas.

At the end of September Vinas was whisked in the commander's car into Pakistan's tribal areas and then across the border into Afghanistan to join up with a small band of fighters targeting an American base. The raid however was called off at the last minute because of American aircraft circling above.

His quick introduction to the fighting appears to have been unusual. Vinas stated it was standard for fighters to undergo military training before being selected for such missions.

It is possible he persuaded his handlers that his brief stint as a U.S. army recruit justified him being fast-tracked; or perhaps the jihadist group just needed more fighters.

On his return to Mohmand, a district in Pakistan's tribal areas, Vinas was asked by one of the fighters if he wanted to become a suicide bomber. Vinas, according to his own account, accepted and was sent to Peshawar, Pakistan, for more instruction.

But his handlers there judged that he had not received enough religious instruction to launch such an attack. Perhaps it was dawning on them just how valuable an American recruit might one day be.

Vinas stated that at this point he traveled back to a village in Waziristan where he spent time with a number of al Qaeda members, including a number of Saudis and Yemenis.

In March 2008 he successfully persuaded one of them, a Yemeni he identified as Soufran, to recommend him for formal membership in the terrorist group. Only Soufran's initials appeared in the legal document but CNN obtained his name from a source briefed on the case. His current whereabouts are unknown.

According to Vinas, al Qaeda recruits were asked to fill out forms with personal information and hand over their passports when they joined the organization, but were not required to sign a contract or take part in a ceremony to become a member of al Qaeda.

The Belgian-French group

Around this time, Vinas says in his interrogation, he came across several Belgian and French militants who had traveled to Pakistan's tribal areas at the beginning of the year, also intent on fighting in Afghanistan.

The group's members -- four Belgians and two French citizens, all of North African descent -- were recruited, Belgian police say, by Malika el Aroud and Moez Garsallaoui, a married couple who had long enjoyed a notorious reputation among European counter-terrorism services.

El Aroud's previous husband, Abdessattar Dahmane, had assassinated Ahmed Shah Massoud, the head of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, in a suicide bombing attack ordered by Osama bin Laden two days before 9/11.

When CNN interviewed the couple in 2006, El Aroud showed how she administered a pro-al Qaeda Web forum called Minbar SOS, which included pro-al Qaeda postings and propaganda videos.

Belgian investigators say the Web site played an important role in the radicalization of members of the French-Belgian group.

One of them was a 25-year-old Frenchman, Walid Othmani. He was arrested on his return to France from Pakistan. Belgian prosecutors told CNN Othmani has been charged in France with participation in a criminal conspiracy with the aim of preparing a terrorist act.

"I don't think I would have left to fight Jihad without viewing these videos [on Minbar] ... it made me aware that the European media were hiding things about the situation in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan," Othmani told French interrogators, according to Belgian legal documents obtained by CNN.

According to Belgian counter-terrorism officials, Garsallaoui, a Tunisian citizen, recruited some of those who traveled to Pakistan in person in Brussels, but relied on the Internet to recruit others.

The six recruits met Garsallaoui in Istanbul in December 2007. With Garsallaoui setting off first, they followed him towards Pakistan, paying off a series of people-smugglers between Turkey, Iran and Pakistan, to gain entry to al Qaeda's heartlands in the mountains of Waziristan.

Vinas says he met with at least three members of this group in Waziristan: its leader Moez Garsallaoui, Hamza el Alami, and Hicham Bouhali Zrioul, a Belgian-Moroccan who once worked as a taxi driver in Brussels. All three are believed by Belgian intelligence officials to be at large in the mountainous area along the Pakistan/Afghan border.

Three other members -- Hicham Beyayo, Ali El Ghanouti and Said Harrizi -- were arrested when they returned to Belgium and have been charged with participation in a terrorist group. They don't dispute they went to fight Jihad; they do deny participating in a terrorist group.

Al Qaeda's new training facilities

Between March and July 2008 Vinas stated that he attended three al Qaeda training courses, which focused on weapons, explosives, and rocket-based or propelled weaponry.

During these classes, attended by 10-20 recruits, Vinas was taught how to handle a large variety of weapons and explosives, some of them of military grade sophistication, according to his account.

Vinas stated he became familiar with seeing, smelling and touching different explosives such as TNT, as well as plastic explosives such as RDX, and Semtex, C3 and C4 -- the explosive U.S. authorities have stated was used in al Qaeda's attack on the USS Cole in 2000. Vinas also learned how to make vests for suicide bombers.

Vinas stated that he was also instructed how to prepare and place fuses, how to test batteries, how to use voltmeters and how to build circuitry for a bomb. According to his account, al Qaeda also offered a wide variety of other courses including electronics, sniper, and poisons training.

Instruction in the actual construction of bombs, he stated, was offered to al Qaeda recruits who had become more advanced in their training.

Vinas' training during this period was very similar to the training described by members of the French-Belgian group. Othmani, the French recruit, stated that the group were given explosives training and taught how to fire rocket launchers and RPGs.

Like Vinas, the group had been required to sign forms before their training. Othmani stated that his group was required to pledge absolute obedience to their handlers and indicate whether they wanted to become suicide bombers.

Othmani provided interesting new details about the training facilities being used by al Qaeda in the tribal areas.

His group trained in a small mountain shack, a far cry from the large camps al Qaeda had run in Taliban-era Afghanistan, when it had been able to operate with little danger of being targeted by military strikes.

However the wide number of training courses described by both Vinas and Othmani suggest that al Qaeda has been able to adapt well to the new security environment. By operating a larger number of smaller facilities, al Qaeda would also appear to have increased its resilience to attack.

While the classrooms are safer from drone attacks than the pre-9/11 sessions on the mountainsides the content seems to have changed to match new targeting plans.

Suicide vest and IED construction show how the curriculum is being modified for today's combat with U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Making and handling explosives, as well as fuse construction, show the sessions may also be geared for killing in Europe and the United States.

These are the very skills the July 7, 2005 London bombers Shehzad Tanweer and Mohammed Siddique came to Pakistan to learn. Al Qaeda, it would seem, may still want to pull off spectacular attacks in Europe or the United States.

Vinas says he took a course in propelled weaponry with Zrioul, the former Brussels taxi driver, whom he first met in March 2008, and formed a friendship with.

Vinas stated that when they completed their training, al Qaeda instructors did a written evaluation of their performance. Vinas had been judged qualified to participate in missile attacks against U.S. and NATO bases in Afghanistan, according to his account.

That suggests al Qaeda has maintained its capacity for administration and paperwork even in a harsher security environment.

When their training finished in the summer of 2008, Vinas and Zrioul lived in the same house in the mountains of Waziristan. Zrioul managed to acquire a computer which he rigged up to watch Jihadist videos.

According to Othmani, al Qaeda fighters numbered between 300-500 in Pakistan's Tribal Areas -- spread out in groups of 10. Such decentralization was a function of the growing deadliness of U.S. military strikes using Predator drones.

Hicham Beyayo, one of the Belgian Jihadist volunteers, said his group moved around a lot because such strikes were known to be "very effective," his lawyer, Christophe Marchand told CNN.

The loss of an increasing number of operatives, stated Othmani, prompted an order from al Qaeda's top command for fighters to remain inside as much as possible. In order to keep in touch jihadists operated a courier service across the region according to the Frenchman's testimony.

The decentralization of al Qaeda's structures appear to have created some costs for recruits.

Two members of the Belgian-French group describe feeling increasingly cut off, bored, and fed up with the primitive living conditions in their mountain shacks.

They often did not seem to know what their next orders would be or where their handlers would take them. They also described being deeply frustrated at being repeatedly given false promises that they would be able to fight in Afghanistan.

Othmani also described the group's frustration at having to pay for their own weapons and training -- at a cost of €1,300 (about $1,800) -- which if true might lend credence to reports that al Qaeda has come under financial strain. Vinas, for his part, made no mention of having to make payments to his handlers.

New attack plans

During a mountain walk with Zrioul one day, Vinas says he was told about a new course being taught by al Qaeda called "international operations" set up by the organization's head of international operations whom Vinas later identified as Abu Hafith.

Hafith, he stated, was responsible for recruitment and direction of terrorist cells, and attacks outside Pakistan and Afghanistan. Hafith was identified by his initials in the legal document but CNN obtained his name from a source briefed on the case. He is believed to be still at large in the Pakistan-Afghan border area.

Vinas was told that the training course Hafith set up focused on kidnapping and assassination, including instruction on the use of silencers and how to break into and enter a property.

The revelations raise the possibility that al Qaeda was developing a program of targeted assassinations. Though al Qaeda has carried out some assassinations in the past, most of its attacks in the West have not targeted any particular individuals but crowded areas, such as mass transport.

Vinas stated that Zrioul also discussed with him an attack on the Brussels metro, telling him it was a soft target because it was poorly protected. He said Zrioul also raised the possibility of launching an attack on a European football stadium.

A senior Belgian intelligence official told CNN that Belgian security services only learned about these conversations in March 2009 after Vinas met with Belgian prosecutors in New York. Although concerned, Belgium's intelligence service concluded that no concrete plot had likely existed, said the official.

Such conversations illustrate the terror network's continued desire to inflict mass casualties. Vinas stated that he himself gave detailed briefings to al Qaeda chiefs in Waziristan in September 2008 about how the Long Island Commuter Rail service worked, according to a federal indictment earlier this month.

Vinas' life as an al Qaeda fighter saw him rotate between fighting behind enemy lines in Afghanistan, training in remote mountain dwellings in the tribal areas, and spending downtime in Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, movements which indicate that al Qaeda has recently found it possible to operate in a large swath of territory across Pakistan's North-west.

Vinas not only had a toe amputated in Peshawar, but also went there to look for a wife. None of this would have happened without al Qaeda's blessing. Although he was ultimately arrested in Peshawar, al Qaeda would not have signed off on his visits unless they'd felt confident he'd be safe there.

Meetings with top al Qaeda leaders

During his travels Vinas met some of al Qaeda's top leaders, leaders he was able to identify to U.S. authorities after his capture. According to U.S. investigators, quoted by the Los Angeles Times, Vinas says he met with Abu Yayha al Libi, one of al Qaeda's principal spokesmen and Rashid Rauf, the British al Qaeda operative suspected of coordinating a plot against transatlantic aviation in August 2006. Rauf, who was arrested that August in Pakistan, escaped from custody in December 2007 but is believed to have been killed in a Predator strike in North Waziristan in November 2008.

Vinas says he also met with an individual by the name of Abdullah Saeed, whom he says replaced Abu Leith al Libbi as al Qaeda's military chief in Afghanistan and Pakistan in January 2008. A former jihadist told CNN that Saeed is almost certainly Mustafa Abu Al-Yazid, an Egyptian also known as Sheikh Saeed. In June Al-Yazid released an audio recording complaining of a lack of funds for the fighting in Afghanistan.

Raids into Afghanistan

Vinas stated that he met with Saeed in the late summer of 2008 in Waziristan, and al Qaeda's military chief personally instructed him to join a group of fighters targeting American bases from the tribal areas of Pakistan. This January, Vinas pleaded guilty to having targeted an American base in September 2008.

That attack however appears to have been a failure. Creeping up towards the American forward operating base Vinas and other al Qaeda fighters' first attempt to fire on the base was botched by radio problems. The second rocket attack fell short of the base, according to Vinas' account.

Attacks by his associates however may have been more deadly. In June 2008 Moez Garsallaoui, the French-Belgian group leader, wrote an email to his wife in Belgium, intercepted by U.S. counter-terrorism agencies, in which he claimed to have killed several Americans in Afghanistan, according to Belgian legal documents.

And Walid Othmani said that in July 2008 Garsallaoui told him he had killed Americans by firing rockets at an American combat outpost from Pakistan, according to the documents. As he was not specific about the date, CNN has not been able to substantiate the claim.

Both Vinas and Othmani described close ties between al Qaeda and Taliban elements in the tribal areas of Pakistan.

The relationship between the two groups was so close, Vinas stated, that members of al Qaeda were also sometimes simultaneously members of the Taliban.

Garsallaoui appears to be one such recruit. In a message he posted on Minbar SOS on May 11, 2009, discovered by CNN, he described undertaking raids with "brother Taliban" from the tribal areas of Pakistan against targets in Afghanistan. "Nothing has given me greater pleasure than encountering [American] soldiers during long days on the battlefield," he said.

A continued threat to the West.

Between late July and early December of 2008 four members of the Belgian-French group -- Beyayo, El Ghanouti, Harrizi and Othmani -- returned to Europe.

On December 11 Belgian counter-terrorism police launched one of the largest operations in the country's history, arresting six people including Garsallaoui's wife Malika el Aroud and charging them with participation in a terrorist group.

According to Belgian counter-terrorism sources, the trigger for the Brussels arrests was an intercepted e-mail sent by one of the alleged recruits, Beyayo, in early December shortly after he returned to Belgium.

The e-mail allegedly suggested Beyayo had been given the green light to launch an attack in Belgium.

However no explosives were recovered by Belgian police, and some terrorism analysts are skeptical that an attack was imminent.

Beyayo's lawyer, Christophe Marchand, told CNN in February that the e-mail was merely "tough talk" to impress an ex-girlfriend. Belgian authorities continue to insist that the alleged cell was a potential national security threat.

Vinas, for his part, was arrested by Pakistani police in Peshawar in November 2008 and transferred into American custody.

Of those still thought to be at large, Garsallaoui issued this threat to Belgium authorities on his wife's Web site on May 11, 2009: "If you thought that you could pressure me to slow down through the arrest of my wife, you were wrong. It won't stop me fulfilling my objectives... the place of my wife in my heart and the heart of all the mujahedeen is greater than ever... Surprises are sure to be in store for you in the days ahead. Those who laugh last, laugh more."

Such threats will have caused concern because of Garsallaoui's wide connections in European militant circles. Two of his Brussels associates, Bassam Ayachi, 62, and Raphael Gendron 33, are in custody in Italy, charged with being leaders of a logistical support team for al Qaeda. They have denied the charges.

The duo, who were detained in the port city of Bari in November for trying to illegally smuggle Middle Easterners into the country, had allegedly talked to each other in their detention center about what sounded like a scheme to attack Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, a conversation bugged by Italian police. French officials have said they were never aware of a concrete plot to attack the airport.

According to a senior Belgian intelligence official, Garsallaoui, his wife El Aroud, and several others who traveled to Pakistan were all connected through the Centre Islamique Belge, an organization Belgian authorities say espouses hardline Salafist and pro-al Qaeda views.

In past interviews the organization's founder Bassam Ayachi has said it concentrates on pastoral care for Muslims in Brussels and did not promote pro-al Qaeda views.

Members of the Brussels-based group are believed to have received terrorist training in other countries besides Pakistan.

In late May, several days before U.S. President Barack Obama traveled to Cairo to give a major speech, several Belgian citizens were arrested in Egypt and accused of being members of a terrorist cell affiliated with al Qaeda.

A senior Belgian counter-terrorism official told CNN that two Belgians now in Egyptian custody were known associates of Garsallaoui at the Centre Islamique Belge and are believed to have received military training with an ultra-extremist Palestinian group in Gaza.

"Anybody who gets such training is obviously a potential danger if they return to Europe," said the official.

The insider accounts of al Qaeda operations in the tribal areas of Pakistan make clear the terrorist organization's continued determination to attack the West.

While the potential pool of recruits may have shrunk significantly because of a backlash against al Qaeda in Muslim communities around the world -- due to its targeting of civilians and the fact that so many of its victims have been Muslim -- the insider accounts suggest that there are still a significant number of hardcore extremists in the West and in Muslim countries -- who are willing to join bin Laden's terrorist outfit.

The insider descriptions provided by Vinas and Othmani indicate that these violent extremists are as motivated as any of their predecessors.

Their accounts also indicate that the al Qaeda network has demonstrated a remarkable ability to adapt its operations to a much harsher security environment.

But Vinas and Othmani's accounts also suggest that al Qaeda may be having leadership problems.

While able to find fresh recruits to replace those killed and arrested it seems to have more difficulty replacing senior military trainers and other key operational figures.

A former U.S. government official, specializing in counter-terrorism, commented that the insider accounts suggest the same people are leading training as a decade ago.

The only difference, there are fewer of them. Perhaps those killed or captured along the Afghan/Pakistan border are not being replaced.

Recent reports that al Qaeda is moving some operatives out of the tribal areas of Pakistan towards safer placements in Pakistani cities, or to Jihadist fronts in other countries such as Yemen and Somalia, may indicate that the pressure from U.S. missile strikes is starting to show.

But the decentralization of al Qaeda's training and their ever closer ties with local Pakistani Taliban, mean it remains extremely difficult to eliminate from the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Above all the accounts from Vinas and others show that al Qaeda's training structures have but one goal, another 9/11.

Sunday Mercury : Birmingham terror suspect killed in US raid is 'alive'

Birmingham terror suspect killed in US raid is 'alive'

May 10, 2009

A MIDLAND terror suspect believed to have been killed in a US airstrike in Pakistan may be alive and plotting new attacks in Europe, according to security sources.

Rashid Rauf is said to have died after being targeted by an unmanned American Predator drone in the lawless North Waziristan region of Pakistan in November 2008.

US officials at the time said the attack had resulted in the deaths of al Qaida’s number three Abu Zubair Al Masri and two other senior al Qaida leaders, including Rauf.

They claimed the Birmingham Muslim had been in charge of the terror group’s external operations branch – making him responsible for attacks in Europe.

Yet his body was never produced, nor any DNA samples taken and checked to confirm that he had definitely been killed.

Rauf had fled from Alum Rock, Birmingham, to Pakistan in 2002.

Yet his family, who still live in Birmingham, have consistently denied that he is dead and his lawyer in Pakistan recently suggested his client may even be in the hands of Pakistani or American forces.

A source said: ‘‘Nobody believed the reports about him being murdered by the Americans in the tribal areas.

“His body was never produced for a burial and it always sounded too convenient to say that he was dead.

“Rashid married into a very well-connected and quite wealthy family in Pakistan and they, too, strongly believe he is still alive.”

Reports that Rauf may be alive first surfaced earlier this year after an al Qaida operative detained during a raid in Belgium claimed that he had trained him. He alleged he had been dispatched to Brussels by Rauf to conduct a suicide attack during a meeting of European leaders.

The operative also said the former Brummie had plotted attacks in major cities in Belgium, France, Holland, and England.

Rauf has also been implicated as being the director of the failed plot to conduct attacks in England on Easter Sunday.

A US intelligence source said: “We have never categorically been able to say that Rauf is dead but there was never any doubting his importance to al Qaida and their attempts to recruit western Muslims.

“Recent reports from suspects being held in Europe, and communication monitoring from the tribal region now suggest the possibility that Rauf is alive and operating in the lawless tribal areas of South Waziristan.“

Rauf first hit the headlines in August 2006 when he was named as architect of an alleged plot to blow up transatlantic airlines, which led to more than a dozen arrests in the UK.

Security officials at the time said al Qaida planned to destroy a dozen aircraft while en route to the US from London, using liquid bombs smuggled on board disguised as soft drinks.

However, at a trial of the arrested men last year the prosecution failed to prove that they had planned to target any airline with a liquid bomb attack.

Rauf was captured by Pakistani security forces in August 2006 in the city of Bahawalpur.

On December 15, 2007, he escaped from Pakistan police custody under mysterious circumstances.

Police escorts claim Rauf broke free of his handcuffs as he was visiting a mosque, while being transported from a court appearance in Islamabad to a jail in Rawalpindi.

Several police officers were later charged with being complicit in his escape.

At the time the British government was attempting to extradite Rauf to the UK.

West Midlands Police also wanted to question him over the murder of his uncle, Mohammed Saeed, in Alum Rock in 2002.

BBC : Iran 'leading terrorism sponsor'

Iran 'leading terrorism sponsor'

Iran has long been accused of supporting Shia militants in Iraq

May 1, 2009

Iran remains the "most active state sponsor of terrorism" in the world, a report by the US state department says.

It says Iran's role in the planning and financing of terror-related activities in the Middle East and Afghanistan threatens efforts to promote peace.

Al-Qaeda remains the biggest danger to the US and the West, the annual report states, noting that terror attacks are rising in Pakistan.

Iran rejected the report, saying the US was guilty of double standards.

Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said the US had no right to accuse others in light of its actions at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay.

'Existential threat'

The BBC's state department correspondent, Kim Ghattas, says the new US administration may be trying to engage Tehran, but, just like last year, Iran is still described as the most active state sponsor of terrorism.

The report charges that Iran's involvement in countries like Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan and in the Palestinian territories threatens efforts to promote peace, economic stability in the Gulf and democracy.

The report singles out the Quds force, an elite branch of Iran's Revolutionary Guard as the channel through which Iran supports terrorist activities and groups abroad.

The report also takes to task Syria, an Iranian ally in the region.

Of equal concern, our correspondent notes, is the advance of al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan where terrorist attacks are sharply on the rise while the rest of the world, including Iraq, has seen terrorist attacks decrease.

The acting coordinator for counter-terrorism for the state department, Ronald Schlicher, told journalists that al-Qaeda was using border areas of Pakistan to regroup.

"Al-Qaeda and al-Qaeda associated networks remain the greatest terrorist threat to the US and its partners," he said.

Mr Schlicher said they were using the Afghan-Pakistan border area "as a safe haven where they can hide, where they can train, where they can communicate with their followers, where they can plot attacks and where they can make plans to send fighters to support the insurgency in Afghanistan".

Washington is worried that the government in Islamabad might collapse, and last week US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the Taleban fighters posed an existential threat to Pakistan, which is a nuclear power, our correspondent adds.

Daily News (Pakistan) : ‘Do More’ mantra

‘Do More’ mantra

Khalid Khokhar | April 24, 2009

THE linking of most recently alleged terrorist plot with Pakistan unearthed in UK, is the manifestation of old-aged archetypal apprehension that “the imprints of every major act of international terrorism invariably passes through Pakistan”. The westerners believe that virtually all the participants of 9/11 tragedy had been trained, resided or met in, coordinated with, or received funding from or through Pakistani seminaries called as “Madaris”. The spat started with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown accusing Pakistan of not doing enough to control terrorist acts. The Britain police arrested 11 Pakistani-born nationals on student visas in UK on the alleged planning to attack shopping centres and a nightclub in Manchester. However, after the examination of computers recovered from raids in Manchester, Liverpool and Clithere and their hard drives, MI6 cautiously admitted that there is no evidence of ‘Pakistan connection’ with the actual plot, thus causing a deepening sense of embarrassment to the worthy PM of a most technologically advanced country. It forced the Britain police to deport the arrested Pakistanis rather than charging them in a court. The father of one accused (Abid Naseer) in the alleged plot, attributed the charges to Western Islamophobia, saying his only crime is to have a beard and pray five times a day. As perceived by many in Britain and other Western countries, youth having long and untrimmed beards are viewed with suspicion as potential terrorists and extremists. To be sure, such labialization is unfair and uncalled for.

In 2005, Pakistani seminaries came under severe scrutiny when possible links of these religious Madaris have been alleged in 7/7 London bombings. During the course of investigation, it was revealed that at least two of the bombers had visited Pakistan in the months before the attacks. In the aftermath of the deadly attacks, the then, British Prime Minister Tony Blair called on Pakistan to crack down on extremist madrassas. There are lots of attack threats and signals rumbling all round the western circles from time to time. Again in 2009, Pakistan has been accused of not doing enough, whereas it is doing enough despite limited resources. What is the myth of al Qaeda “sleeper cells” in European countries? Are these alarms emanating from jihadist propaganda videos, coded message to al Qaeda cells, or just hoax? The Government is well set on its course to ascribe a more meaningful role to the madrassas and developing the madrassa students congruent to cultural norms of Pakistani society. After reviewing the veracity of these alarms, one is left with many unanswered questions. A global dragnet has tightened around al-Qaida, made possible by a broad coalition of 84 nations, all focused on the common goal of eradicating the terrorist threat that endangers all civilized nations. Since September 11, 2001, 70 percent of al-Qaeda senior leadership and more than 3,400 lower-level al-Qaeda operatives have been detained or killed in over 100 countries. The al-Qaeda organization has been gravely wounded and is on the run. Pakistan has deployed up to 120,000 military and paramilitary forces in FATA and killed/captured hundreds of suspected al Qaeda operatives. Pakistan has made “significant” progress toward eliminating the safe haven for foreign fighters in the FATA over the past seven and a half years, capturing scores of key leaders. Pakistan, being the frontline state in the war on terror, is committed to weed out terrorism of all sorts from its soil. The objective was to deny a safe haven to al Qaeda and Taliban elements inside Pakistan. Despite substantial sacrifices rendered by Pakistan, still US counter-Terrorism department believes that “Washington rarely gets all of the help it wants from allies like Pakistan in efforts to hunt down violent extremists”.

In assessing al Qaeda and its cohort’s capabilities, many believe that US counter efforts have weakened al Qaeda’s central leadership structure and capabilities to the point where al Qaeda can not coordinate attack of 9/11 magnitude. Therefore, counter-efforts should focus more intently on homeland security, stressing such measures as improving airline security, establishing enhanced security measures for passenger train travel, and expanding security of western ports. The Britain’s Terrorism Act-2000, which authorizes indefinite detentions of immigrants; search a home or business without the owner’s or the occupant’s permission or knowledge; allows to search telephone, email and financial records without a court order; and the expanded access of law enforcement agencies to business records, can auger well with the objective of combating the scourge of terrorism. However, the Britain’s student visa system has some bugs. It is appropriate to mention here that more than 2,100 universities, independent schools and colleges normally apply to accept international students. Each institution was supposed to be assessed or visited by UK Border Agency officers as part of the vetting process. Foreign students bring with them 10 billion pound boast to the economy which the Government is keen to encourage. This leads to soft visa policy and thousands of bogus students were free to enter Britain despite new laws aimed at tightening controls on immigration. The British government issues around 10,000 student visas a year to Pakistanis, and over 50, 000 Pakistani students are presently in Britain, ostensibly studying. It was revealed that hundreds of colleges approved by the Home Office to accept nonEuropean Union (EU) students have not been inspected by it’s officers. It has also emerged that the vast majority of non-EU students would not be interviewed by the Home Office but admitted on the basis of written applications and evidence of sponsorship, educational qualifications and bank statements. They then register at the college or university that originally gave them admissions to enable them to apply for visas. However, the reality is that in a large number of cases, these institutions are little more than fronts that function only to make money from these young men and women who are seeking jobs for a better life in Britain. Another reason may be that the Europeans allow “rogue element” to seek shelter in foreign countries on the pretext of “political asylum”. The European countries, being the staunchest ally in the US-led war on terror, are unwittingly protecting and harbouring such dangerous terrorists wanted in many terrorist acts in Pakistan. Today, the continuation of militancy is a devastating outcome of western’s “human rights” policies.

The International terrorism, no matter when, by whom, where, and in what form, is a dangerous threat to the world peace. This requires mutual cooperation from all peace-loving countries. Every country should adopt “uniform strategy” in condemning and fighting terrorism resolutely. Since 2005, UK took into account how terrorism in Pakistan may affect Britain and its Muslim population. The British Metropolitan Police Counter-Terrorism Command arrested some UK nationals of Pakistani origin on the charges of “commissioning, preparing or instigating acts of terrorism”. Consequently, most of the terrorist organizations closed their offices in UK and fled away to some soft destinations, like Sweden, Italy, Norway, etc. Now, there is a strong need to take appropriate programmes and initiatives to reach out to people/organizations harbouring terrorism. All the foreign-based organizations should be taken to the task by the counterterrorism authorities of the respective country. All the websites operating in western countries responsible for fanning extremist sentiments should also be banned. The western democracies have to set aside their soft policy and should be more aggressive to conduct covert operations against masquerade terrorists exploiting the western doctrine on human rights to their benefit. International terrorism has jolted the whole world which is faceless and has no territory and is fighting its own war against terror. Pakistan itself has suffered from terrorism. Pakistan condemns terrorism in its all forms and manifestations. The public blame game only sours relations. The UK officials are equally irritated by High Commission’s statement as Islamabad is not happy with the statement of Prime Minister Gordon Brown because despite providing full co-operation in the war against terrorism, his attitude was not fair. Nevertheless, it calls for collective efforts by the international community against terrorism, instead of seeking scapegoats and blaming each other. UK and Pakistan should not worry about who is to blame, and more about how to rectify the emergent problem.

Telegraph : Terror plot: search for explosives

Terror plot: search for explosives

The hunt for explosives linked to an alleged plot to blow up shopping centres in Manchester intensified yesterday.

By Duncan Gardham, Security Correspondent | April 10, 2009

Officers believe that the alleged plot was in its final stages and could have been planned for the Easter weekend but have yet to discover any bomb-making equipment.

In the past, terrorist cells have proven adept at hiding bomb-making materials by hiring lock-ups or burying any evidence.

Police believe the plan was to launch suicide attacks on targets including the Trafford and Arndale shopping centres and St Ann's Square in the city.

Sources said officers had identified a number of "key addresses" among the properties raided in Manchester and Liverpool since Wednesday.

They suspect that Abid Naseer, 22, was the ring leader. He was living at Galsworthy Avenue, in Cheetham Hill, Manchester and two other men living at the same address have also been arrested.

At properties in Cedar Grove, Toxteth, and Earle Rd, Wavertree, a total of four men have been arrested in Liverpool, along with a fifth who was detained at John Moores University.

Two security guards arrested in Clitheroe, Lancashire, had apparently moved into a bed and breakfast hotel there from flats in Highgate Street, in Edge Hill, Liverpool.

Around a dozen black-clad armed officers raided the Highgate St flat above an off licence on Wednesday.

Two men arrested at the Cyber Net Café in Cheetham Hill Road, Manchester, are thought to be of lesser interest.

Searches are continuing at three other properties in Cheetham Hill but nothing "significant" has yet been found, sources said.

Officers have also examined two cars as part of the investigation.

The suspects at Cedar Grove in Toxteth were often seen "obsessively" adjusting their yellow Nissan Micra, neighbours said, and the vehicle was later towed away for forensic exmaination.

A silver Rover MG ZR car parked outside a house in Abercarn Close, Manchester, which contained a newspaper clipping of a man in military uniform, was cordoned off by police.

MI5 is working "around the clock" to identify material from a surveillance operation that may be of use to the investigating team.

In total, 12 people have been arrested, aged between their mid-teens and 41, of whom 11 are Pakistani nationals.

Yesterday reports emerged of arrests in Pakistan in connection with the investigation.

It is thought that a group was sent from the al-Qaeda heartlands in the tribal areas of Pakistan to attack Britain, travelling under student visas.

Sources have said the group was connected with Rashid Rauf from Birmingham, a senior member of al-Qaeda, said to have been killed in a US missile attack last year.

Sunday Times : Minister hits out at attacks by US drones

Minister hits out at attacks by US drones

David Leppard and Abul Taher | From The Sunday Times | April 12, 2009

A GOVERNMENT minister has called for Britain to distance itself publicly from the American policy of launching attacks on Al-Qaeda terrorists with pilotless drones to avoid inflaming Pakistani opinion.

Sadiq Khan, the community cohesion minister, said he had listened to the “anger and frustration” of students in Islamabad over US attacks inside Pakistan. “It’s quite clear in many Pakistani eyes that the UK is considered in the same terms as the US,” said Khan. “We want to explain that our foreign policy, especially on the issue of drone attacks, is distinct from US foreign policy.”

Khan’s comments came as the full extent emerged of what investigators believe is Pakistan-based control of the alleged Al-Qaeda plot to bomb shopping centres in Manchester over Easter.

Rashid Rauf, a fugitive British terrorist identified by MI5 as Al-Qaeda’s “director of operations” in Europe, is suspected of planning the bombing as part of a “master plan” for attacks on European cities.

Multiple cells, comprising at least 12 terrorists each, were dispatched last year from Pakistan’s tribal areas to conduct a series of atrocities in the UK, France, Belgium and elsewhere, an Al-Qaeda informant has told MI5. The cells are said to have been acting under the orders of Rauf, 27, from Birmingham, who has previously been linked to the failed suicide attack on London in July 21, 2005.

The plan was set in motion just weeks before a US Preda-tor missile strike targeted Rauf in a remote Pakistani village. Officials are still unclear whether he survived the attack last November.

Details of the plan were uncovered by MI5 last December after the arrest of 14 suspected Islamist terrorists in Brussels. Belgian prosecutors said at the time they believed the men were planning a suicide attack to coincide with a European Union summit attended by Gordon Brown.

A senior Scotland Yard official said one of the suspects had confessed that he had been “personally tasked” by Rauf to carry out the bombing. In an interview with MI5 he disclosed that Rauf, who fled to Pakistan seven years ago, had ordered a series of European attacks.

He said the Al-Qaeda chief had dispatched a cell leader to a British city to plan an attack there. Sources say the alleged Easter bomb plot is likely to have been that attack.

Last week 12 men, including 11 Pakistanis on student visas, were arrested in raids on Manchester, Liverpool and Clitheroe, Lancashire.

Telegraph : Al-Qaeda terror plot to bomb Easter shoppers

Al-Qaeda terror plot to bomb Easter shoppers

An al-Qaeda cell was days away from carrying out an "Easter spectacular" of co-ordinated suicide bomb attacks on shopping centres in Manchester, police believe.

By Duncan Gardham, Security Correspondent | April 10, 2009

Sources told The Daily Telegraph that the arrests of 12 men in the north west of England on Wednesday were linked to a suspected plan to launch a devastating attack this weekend.

Some of the suspects were watched by MI5 agents as they filmed themselves outside the Trafford Centre on the edge of Manchester, the Arndale Centre in the city centre, and the nearby St Ann's Square.

Police were forced to round up the alleged plotters after they were overheard discussing dates, understood to include the Easter bank holiday, one of the busiest shopping weekends of the year.

"It could have been the next few days and they were talking about 10 days at the outside," one source said. "We had to act." Police are now engaged in a search for an alleged bomb factory, where explosives might have been assembled.

If such a plot was carried out, it would almost certainly have been Britain's worst terrorist attack, with the potential to cause more deaths than the suicide attacks of July 7, 2005, when 52 people were murdered.

A plan to arrest the suspects in a series of co-ordinated raids yesterday morning had to be hastily brought forward to Wednesday afternoon after the country's most senior anti-terrorism officer, Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick, of the Metropolitan Police, was photographed going into Downing Street carrying a briefing paper with top secret details of Operation Pathway in full view.

Yesterday morning, Mr Quick resigned after he was told by the Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, that he had lost her confidence and that of MI5.

As a result of his blunder, hundreds of police officers had to be scrambled to arrest the suspects, who were being monitored round the clock.

Former police chiefs pointed out that rounding up suspected suicide bombers in public places in Liverpool, Manchester and Clitheroe, Lancs, had put other people at risk and could also have compromised the operation.

Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, described the alleged plot as "very big" and said investigators were looking at links with Pakistan.

Mr Brown said: "We know that there are links between terrorists in Britain and terrorists in Pakistan. That is an important issue for us to follow through and that's why I will be talking to President Zardari about what Pakistan can do to help us in the future."

All but one of the men arrested were Pakistani nationals who came to Britain on student visas. This suggested a possible new tactic by al-Qaeda, which had previously used British-based extremists who travelled to Pakistan for training.

The issue of student visas represents a potential security nightmare for the police and MI5. There are 330,000 foreign students in Britain and around 10,000 such visas are issued every year to Pakistanis alone.

Phil Woolas, the Immigration Minister, has described the student visa system as "the major loophole in Britain's border controls".

Several of the suspects who were being questioned last night, were from the al-Qaeda heartlands in Pakistan's border area with Afghanistan.

Peter Fahy, chief constable of Greater Manchester, said police had been forced to act to protect the public. Asked about al-Qaeda involvement, he added: "We know what is the nature of the threat to this country and where it comes from."

But he sought to reassure shoppers, and added: "I would like to say I would have no hesitation, or any of my family, in using any of those locations that have been mentioned."

The security services suspect that several of the men arrested were trained at religious schools in Pakistan and sent to launch suicide attacks on the West.

They were suspected to have chosen Easter as the most significant Christian holiday for an attack.

Police believe the suspects may have smuggled bomb-making equipment into the country and were ready to launch their attacks.

Yesterday, searches focused on a property in Highgate Street, Liverpool, although nothing "significant" had yet been found.

Sources said police had arrested the man they suspected was the ring-leader, Abid Naseer, 22, at an address in Galsworthy Avenue in Cheetham Hill, Manchester.

He is said to be from the tribal areas of Pakistan where the Taliban and al-Qaeda have established their base.

The alleged members of the cell had signed up for a range of student courses, while two were employed as security guards at a new Homebase store in Clitheroe, Lancs.

Among the locations raided on Wednesday afternoon was the Cyber Net Café in Cheetham Hill, where it is thought the men communicated using emails.

Security sources suspect they received their instructions from al-Qaeda commanders in Pakistan.

The leader of the Pakistan Taliban is Baitullah Mehsud, who last week claimed responsibility for an attack on a police compound in Lahore and promised to attack the West. At least one of the arrested men is from Mehsud's heartland of South Waziristan, sources in Pakistan said.