Musharraf: 'High-value' al Qaeda target surrounded in Pakistan Pakistan army in new al Qaeda push Thursday, March 18, 2004 Posted: 1:20 PM EST (1820 GMT) ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- Pakistani forces have surrounded what may be a "high-value" al Qaeda target in Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan, President Pervez Musharraf told CNN. "We feel that there may be a high-value target," Musharraf told CNN. "I can't say who." The ferociousness of their resistance indicates that the al Qaeda fighters are protecting someone particularly significant, he said. The military asked locals to leave and is flying helicopters overhead, "pounding" the area with artillery, he said. U.S. and Pakistani officials have said they believe al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden probably is in Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan. Word of the standoff comes after Pakistan announced it has launched a fresh offensive against suspected militants near the Afghan border. http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/03/18/pakistan.alqaeda/index.html
AYMAN AL-ZAWAHIRI MURDER OF U.S. NATIONALS OUTSIDE THE UNITED STATES; CONSPIRACY TO MURDER U.S. NATIONALS OUTSIDE THE UNITED STATES; ATTACK ON A FEDERAL FACILITY RESULTING IN DEATH Aliases: Abu Muhammad, Abu Fatima, Muhammad Ibrahim, Abu Abdallah, Abu al-Mu'iz, The Doctor, The Teacher, Nur, Ustaz, Abu Mohammed, Abu Mohammed Nur al-Deen, Abdel Muaz, Dr. Ayman al Zawahiri Remarks: Al-Zawahiri is a physician and the founder of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad. This organization opposes the secular Egyptian Government and seeks its overthrow through violent means. Al-Zawahiri is believed to now serve as an advisor and doctor to Usama Bin Laden and is currently thought to be in Afghanistan. CAUTION Ayman Al-Zawahiri has been indicted for his alleged role in the August 7, 1998, bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya. REWARD The Rewards For Justice Program, United States Department of State, is offering a reward of up to $25 million for information leading directly to the apprehension or conviction of Ayman Al-Zawahiri. SHOULD BE CONSIDERED ARMED AND DANGEROUS Amyan Al-Zawahiri In his book The New Jackals, terrorism expert Simon Reeve quotes an intelligence official who says "Going after (Osama bin Laden) to stop terror is like going after the Colonel to attack KFC." Pursuing Ayman Al-Zawahiri, on the other hand, is more going after Dick Cheney to stop the Bush administration. It's kind of crazy, but it just might work. Zawahiri is the CEO of al Qaeda, as opposed to bin Laden's chairman of the board. A lifelong jihadist with a globe-sized chip on his shoulder, Zawahiri is the No. 2 most wanted terrorist in the world, after only bin Laden himself. He's widely characterized as the No. 2 man in al Qaeda. Born in 1951, Zawahiri is a senior statesman in the world of international terrorism (owing in part to the fact that many of his colleagues have had "early retirements"). His aliases include Abu Muhammad, Abu Fatima, Muhammad Ibrahim, Abu Abdallah, Abu al-Mu'iz, The Doctor, The Teacher, Nur, Ustaz, Abu Mohammed, Abu Mohammed Nur al-Deen, Abdel Muaz. This might be useful information if you're looking to collect the $25 million bounty offered by the U.S. government for his capture, but only experienced bounty hunters need apply. Zawahiri has spent a lifetime waging jihad around the globe. His specialties include assassination and suicide bombing, and he's gathered a virtual army of mujahideen fighters around himself. Unless you happen to be Chuck Norris, you might want to stay home and read a good book.
I seriously hope they get that guy and alive if possible. After all the things he has said in letters and videos involving instilling fear and panic in America, he tops the list with Osama. Plus, he's one of the brainiacs of Al Qaeda. His time has come to face justice. First, let us hopes it him. Second, let us hope he doesn't dig a hole to China somewhere and escape. Third, let's hope Osama is with him or nearby so he can be next.
And invading Iraq which had zero to do with the hijackers has really stopped the bombings in Morocco, Spain, Saudi Arabia, etc. It really stopped the Anthrax and Recin attacks in the U.S. huh? What clinton did do was punish the people responsible.
Via Josh Marshall... __________________ Are we about to capture Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaida's #2? Clearly, something is afoot. Reports from the fighting near the Pakistani border say there is heavy resistance which suggests the fighters are protecting a 'high-value' target. What's more there are apparently intelligence reports -- from interviews with captured fighters -- to the effect that al-Zawahiri either has been or remains in just this area. On the other hand, I don't think you can avoid noting that Secretary of State Colin Powell has been in the neighborhood, most recently in India. And today, the day we hear this announcement, happens to be the very day when Powell came calling in Islamabad with the news that we're designating Pakistan a major non-NATO US ally, which carries not only prestige but significantly facilitates the purchase of US arms. One needn't assume that the Pakistanis aren't being honest with what they're saying. But I don't think you need to be too imaginative to believe that with Powell in town with a prize in hand there'd be a great desire to put the best face on what may be very ambiguous evidence. What's more, experts on the running fights through the mountains of Afghanistan in recent years note that these fighters tend to put up fierce fights whether they're protecting a bigwig or not. All of it adds up to my not really knowing what to make of it. I've talked to several al Qaida experts this afternoon and they don't really seem to know what to make of it either. The best description I could give is to say they each seem like they're in wait-and-see mode, as I guess we all should be. We'll know soon enough. -- Josh Marshall
They were just the henchmen. He didn't bother to kill the source. Instead, he passed. "It's the economy, stupid." Sure....right.
The source and leader of the group was the blind sheik. That man is one of those in prison. Mission Accomplished.
I thought it was Ramzi Yousef. <hr color=red> <a HREF="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/02/12/attack/main540376.shtml">1st Trade Center Attack: 10 Years Ago</a> <i>........By 1995, many of the men connected with the bombing and the landmarks plot had been caught, convicted and sentenced to life in prison. <b>And Yousef, the mastermind of the bombing, was on the run with a $2 million FBI reward offered for his capture. </b> Despite its successes at the time, though, law enforcement faced troubles from within. "During that period of time, we built the Chinese wall between counterterrorism agents and criminal agents higher and higher every year," Kallstrom said. "We did less intelligence sharing, not more." And the landmarks plot - which called for simultaneous strikes at multiple targets - proved that terrorists were capable of shifting tactics to stay ahead of investigators. As their sophistication grew, so did their financial backing. Court testimony shows the 1993 trade center conspirators spent only about four months plotting the attack, and drew on a bank account of less than $10,000. The 1995 capture of Yousef in Pakistan signaled the emergence of a wealthy benefactor: Osama bin Laden. Yousef was found in a guest house for Afghan war veterans financed by bin Laden. He had sought refuge there after failing in a plot in the Philippines to kill 4,000 people by blowing up 12 U.S.-bound airliners. A computer used by Yousef and interrogations of another terrorist who lived with him in Manila revealed that several Middle Eastern pilots were training at American flight schools. At least one had proposed hijacking a plane to crash into federal buildings. Authorities came to believe Yousef was among a cadre of Islamic warriors who were being trained in Afghanistan to fight for bin Laden in a holy war against the United States. But U.S. investigators remained one step behind bin Laden and his al Qaeda network, whether they were orchestrating the 1998 bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa that killed 224 people, or the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen that killed 17 sailors. Kallstrom said investigators were doomed by the flaws in the gathering and sharing of intelligence, and a lack of will to fix the problem. It took Sept. 11 to drive home the lessons of the 1993 bombing, he said. "We just never as a nation responded the way, in my view, we should have responded," he said. "It's a lot easier to have consensus when you have 3,000 people dead on the streets of New York and the Pentagon." </i> <hr color=red> <a HREF="http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_3-3-2003_pg7_40">Khalid Sheikh the biggest Qaeda catch</a> <i>ISLAMABAD: The arrest of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed on Saturday is the biggest catch in the global hunt for Al Qaeda suspects triggered by the September 11 attacks on the United States........ <b> In 1995, Ramzi Ahmed Yousef was arrested in Islamabad. Yousef, believed to be Mohammed’s nephew, was accused of being the mastermind behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and is now serving a life sentence. </b> The following year Mohammed was indicted in the United States for his alleged role in a plot to blow up 12 US civilian airliners over the Pacific. But he remained at large and according to US investigators, he travelled the globe in his role as a key Al Qaeda recruiting agent and coordinator. He is suspected of involvement in the bombing of US embassies in Africa in 1998 and the attack on a US warship in Yemen in 2000....... </i> <hr color=red> Also, since Ramzi Yousef was to an extent affiliated with bin Laden, it can be argued that bin Laden and Al Qaeda were the source of the earlier attack against the WTC and they were not stopped & punished.
I believe that while Youseff was the Mastermind, that would make him the Atta of the group, and that the Blind Sheik was the Osama.
I haven't found any indication that Ramzi Yousef undertook training and/or came to the U.S. at the request of the Blind Sheikh. It seems that they had common cause once Yousef was in the U.S., but nothing prior to that. You define the <i>mission</i> (very narrowly) as putting the Blind Sheikh on trial & in prison while others view the <i>mission</i> as stopping Radical Islam which is operating in a decentralized manner with Al Qaeda as the <i>Base</i>. <hr color=red> <a HREF="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/binladen/who/alqaeda.html">Al Qaeda</a> <i> * In approximately 1989, bin Laden and co-defendant Muhammad Atef founded "Al Qaeda," " an international terrorist group ... which was dedicated to opposing non-Islamic governments with force and violence." * "One of the principal goals of Al Qaeda was to drive the United States armed forces out of Saudi Arabia (and elsewhere on the Saudi Arabian peninsula) and Somalia by violence." * "Al Qaeda had a command and control structure which included a majlis al shura (or consultation council) which discussed and approved major undertakings, including terrorist operations." Both Atef and bin Laden sat on this council. <b> * Al Qaeda had ties to other "terrorist organizations that operated under its umbrella," including: the al Jihad group based in Egypt, the Islamic Group, formerly led by Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, and other jihad groups in other countries.</b> "Al Qaeda also forged alliances with the National Islamic Front in Sudan and with representatives of the government of Iran, and its associated terrorist group Hezballah, for the purpose of working together against their perceived common enemies in the West, particularly the United States."....... </i> <hr color=red> <a HREF="http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1998_hr/s980224c.htm">Foreign Terrorist in America (February 24, 1998)</a> <i><b>INTRODUCTION</b> ....... 1. September 9, 1991 Through September 2, 1992; Ajaj Enters The United States, Leaves To Obtain Explosives Training, And Plots With Yousef To Bomb Targets In The United States. Ahmad Ajaj first entered the United States on September 9, 1991. He settled in Houston, Texas, and filed a petition for political asylum, claiming that the Israeli government had imprisoned and tortured him in retaliation for his peaceful opposition to the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Ajaj never appeared for an INS hearing on his asylum claim. Instead, Ajaj relinquished his Houston apartment and, in April 1992, hastily left the country under an assumed name to attend a terrorist training camp on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan. After arriving in Pakistan, Ajaj traveled to Dubai and then to Saudi Arabia. In Saudi Arabia, Ajaj obtained a letter of introduction to "Camp Khaldan," a terrorist training camp located just across the border from Peshawar, Pakistan, in Afghanistan. The letter of introduction stated that the bearer, Ajaj, had come to the "land of jihad" for training, and asked the leader of the camp to provide Ajaj with training in weapons and explosives. With the letter in hand, Ajaj traveled to the Afghanistan border to attend Camp Khaldan. While at the terrorist training camp, Ajaj studied the construction of a number of explosive devices. <b> Also while in Pakistan, Ajaj made contact with Ramzi Yousef. Together, Ajaj and Yousef plotted to apply their collective explosives training and experience to bomb targets in the United States. With this objective, Ajaj and Yousef studied the voluminous materials amassed by Ajaj, including a series of printed bombmaking manuals with blue covers. Those blue books, like Ajaj's handwritten notes, contained formulae for various explosives later used by the conspirators to make the World Trade Center bomb. Specifically, in assimilating their knowledge of explosives for use in the United States, Yousef and Ajaj appear to have focused on those portions of Ajaj's terrorist materials that explain how to make a bomb using the explosive compound urea nitrate as the primary explosive - the same compound later used as the main charge of the World Trade Center bomb. Formula and instructions for making a number of other explosives later used as boosters in the World Trade Center bomb such as nitroglycerin and lead azide - were contained in Ajaj's blue books as well. In addition, the blue books set forth formulae and instructions concerning the use of explosives such as ammonium nitrate dynamite, which can be made with nitroglycerin. The conspirators were guided by these teachings when they produced the ammonium nitrate dynamite that served as a detonator for the World Trade Center bomb. </b> ........ Ajaj's terrorist studies abroad also encompassed instructional videotapes. The videos not only demonstrated how to make explosives, but also advocated a specific bombing target: the United States. For example, the opening scene in one of the videos, obviously intended to be inspirational, shows a van crashing into the front of a United States embassy. Once inside the embassy, the suicidal driver of the van detonates a bomb, which destroys the embassy. Following that introduction, the video demonstrates how to make a number of explosives. Having assimilated his explosives training and gathered his kit of terrorist materials, Ajaj and Yousef made plans illegally to enter the United States, and to bring with them Ajaj's terrorist kit. In August 1992, Ajaj and Yousef made reservations together through a travel agency to fly from Peshawar, Pakistan to New York City under assumed names. Both Ajaj and Yousef had entire identities created to support their assumed names, including passports, identification cards, bank records, education records, and medical records. </i> <hr color=red> <a HREF="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-101401warn,0,999276.story">Haunted by Years of Missed Warnings</a> <i>........"Force the Closure of Their Companies" The U.S. government was pretty sure Ahmad Mohammad Ajaj was a terrorist from the moment he stepped foot on U.S. soil. The 26-year-old Palestinian's suitcases were stuffed with fake passports, fake IDs and a cheat sheet on how to lie to U.S. immigration inspectors. And then there were the two handwritten notebooks filled with bomb recipes, the six bomb-making manuals, the four how-to videotapes concerning weaponry and the advanced guide to surveillance training. But all federal prosecutors charged him with after Ajaj flew into New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport from Pakistan on Sept. 1, 1992, was passport fraud--a crude, photo paste job on a stolen Swedish passport at that. The possession of terrorist literature, "believe it or not, was not a crime," said Eric Bernstein, the former prosecutor who handled the case. Ajaj was sentenced to six months in prison for passport violations. Over the next five months Ajaj would speak frequently over a prison phone with Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, who had flown with him to New York. Yousef left the country Feb. 26, 1993, 12 hours after his bomb killed six, injured more than a thousand and caused $550 million worth of damage in the first World Trade Center attack. Although prison phone calls are taped, no one monitored Ajaj's 20 calls to Yousef and other conspirators--or tried to translate them from Arabic--until long after the blast. And no one traced his plane ticket until after the blast to determine that he and Yousef had sat together on the first leg of their journey to New York. The result: No one figured out Ajaj's plot or identified his co-conspirators until after the attack. Indeed, Ajaj was released from prison three days after the explosion and only later was rearrested and sentenced to more than 100 years in prison for his role. "I think what we've gotten really good at is going back and re-creating the trail after an incident," said Henry DePippo, who eventually prosecuted Ajaj for conspiracy in the bombing. "We need to attack these cases with the same energy before a terrorist attack occurs." For starters, it would have helped to know just what Ajaj actually had in his Arabic-language "terrorist kit." But his manuals had not been "disseminated to the intelligence community for full translation and exploitation of the information," nine years after they were seized, L. Paul Bremer III, head of the National Commission on Terrorism, told a Senate committee in June.......</i> <hr color=red> ....and finally from Ramzi Yousef's appeal: <a HREF=http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/terrorism/usyousef40403opn.pdf">UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT (August Term, 2001)</a> Starts at page 8 in a 162 page document. <i>..... -8- GENERAL BACKGROUND1 I. World Trade Center Bombing The conspiracy to bomb the World Trade Center began in the Spring of 1992, when Yousef met Ahmad Mohammad Ajaj at a terrorist training camp on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan. After formulating their terrorist plot, Yousef and Ajaj traveled to New York together in September 1992. In Ajaj’s luggage, he carried a “terrorist kit” which included, among other things, bombmaking manuals. After Yousef and Ajaj arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport, inspectors of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (“INS”) discovered the “terrorist kit” in Ajaj’s luggage and arrested him. Although Yousef was also stopped, he and Ajaj did not disclose their connection to one another, and INS officials allowed Yousef to enter the United States. <b> 2 Once in New York, Yousef began to put together the manpower and the supplies that he would need to carry out his plan to bomb the World Trade Center. Yousef assembled a group of co-conspirators to execute his plan, including defendants Mohammad Salameh, Nidal Ayyad, Mahmud Abouhalima, and Abdul Rahman Yasin.</b> Next, Yousef began accumulating the necessary ingredients for the bomb. He ordered the required chemicals, and his associates rented a shed in -9- which to store them. Yousef and Salameh established their headquarters at an apartment they rented in Jersey City, New Jersey, an urban center located across the Hudson River from Manhattan. The apartment also functioned as their bomb-making factory. In December 1992, Yousef contacted Ismoil, who was then living in Dallas, Texas............</i>
I think there are two seperate missions. Stopping terrorism is one mission, punishing those that first attacked the WTC is a seperate, but related mission. Sorry for the confusion. I didn't mean the analagy to be so literal, that it would include training at the blind cleric's request. Just that the Blind sheik, was a spiritual leader who encouraged his followers to do the kinds of things that Yousef, and the others did. But you may be right in what you say about Yousef, and the Sheik just finding each other because of similar goals etc.
This is from the Australian Daily News... I know nothing of the source... ________________ Bin Laden's right-hand man slips net By Rodney Dalton, New York correspondent and Agencies March 20, 2004 A BULLETPROOF LandCruiser at high speed bursting out of a tribal compound in Pakistan's South Waziristan region was just the latest infuriating setback in the US's quest to bring down the top of the al-Qa'ida tree. The car, followed by two armoured vehicles and a phalanx of heavily armed militants able to wipe out dozens of crack troops sent to blast the terrorists from their nest, is believed to have contained Ayman al-Zawahiri, right-hand man to Osama bin Laden. After mounting speculation that US and Pakistani forces ranged on either side of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border were about to pounce on al-Qa'ida's key planner, a senior Taliban spokesman yesterday made the claim Washington least wanted to hear - that both Zawahiri and bin Laden were safe in Afghanistan. "He may have slipped the net," the official said. Al-Zawahiri, a 52-year-old Egyptian doctor, is one of the FBI's most wanted terrorists and has a $US25million ($33.4million) price on his head. So desperate is Washington to nail the pair, the House of Representatives yesterday doubled the reward for bin Laden's capture to $US50million. Stiff resistance from about 200 well-armed fighters holed up in fortified mud huts early in the week -- in the onslaught of Operation Mountain Storm, designed to rid the lawless border area of foreign fighters -- had led Pakistani officials to conclude they were close to a "high-value" target. Pakistan's leader, General Pervez Musharraf, told CNN exactly that, and said the fighters "are not coming out in spite of the fact that we pounded them with artillery". He did not refer to al-Zawahiri by name, but officials later said that was who they believed the President meant. The White House, keen not to raise false hopes, sought to play down the significance of the strategist's scalp. "It would be of course a major step forward in the war on terrorism ... but I think we have to be careful not to assume that getting one al-Qa'ida leader is going to break up the organisation," US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said. It now appears it was not to be. While it is still not certain al-Zawahiri was in the car, one Pakistani security official said the presence of high-powered bulletproof vehicles, and the high level of force used to provide covering fire for their getaway, supported that theory. The battle against militants dug into the 30km-diameter region continued yesterday, with hundreds more troops joining the thousands already engaged, and mortars and helicopter gunships laying down a barrage of fire. Hundreds of al-Qa'ida fighters are believed to be hiding in South Waziristan, the remotest and most conservative of Pakistan's seven semi-autonomous tribal districts. The Bush administration sees Pakistan -- an overwhelmingly Muslim country -- as an invaluable ally in the war on terrorism. This has come at great personal risk to General Musharraf, who has narrowly escaped two recent assassination attempts. Former al-Qa'ida No 3 Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was caught in Pakistan in March 2003 and the US has maintained pressure for further victories. During a visit to Islamabad on Thursday, US Secretary of State Colin Powell praised General Musharraf for his country's help and announced Washington now regarded it as a "major non-NATO ally". In recent broadcasts, al-Zawahiri has described the war on terrorism as a war on Islam, and criticised Islamic leaders who co-operated with the US. "(George W.) Bush appoints corrupt leaders and protects them," he said in a tape broadcast by Al-Jazeera television.
Mango, you're playing this one a little cute. I don't think its at all a stretch to describe Rahman as the spiritual leader of that crew.
I went back and pulled the earlier interchange: <hr color=green> <hr color=green> <hr color=red> Calling Rahman the <i>Spiritual Leader</i> of that crew is something I can agree with. I saw him described earlier in this thread as the <i>Leader</i> and the description <i>Spiritual Leader</i> appeared after my posts of last night. <hr color=red> There is an excerpt from the Posner book here: <a HREF="http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=0375508791&view=excerpt">Why America Slept</a>
