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Home Front
Peoria is part of an al-Qaeda sleeper circuit
2003-12-31
Former West Peorian Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri has been locked up as an enemy combatant, but his terrorist comrades continue to work in central Illinois.
Al-Marri was identified by Khalid as al-Qaeda’s point man in the US. Him being jugged in December 2001 probably severely damaged their network here in the US and has likely helped to prevent al-Qaeda from reconstituting its infrastructure enough to launch additional attacks.
Peoria and Champaign are part of a seven-city "circuit" that moves and disperses terrorists to specific sites across the nation, says Peoria County Sheriff Mike McCoy. McCoy got that information at a recent FBI conference in Springfield. He shares that snippet of intelligence not to panic central Illinois, but to stress what the FBI told police at the conference: America, including much of its law-enforcement community, has not taken seriously enough the threat of al-Qaida in this country. "Police and Americans don’t understand," McCoy says. "... They hate you. ... They are so focused on what they’re doing, time is no object. They’re patient."

The speaker at the police seminar was an FBI interrogator who served in the Lebanese military and speaks several dialects of Arabic. Those qualifications helped him to question 150 terrorism-related detainees at Guantanamo Bay. During his seminar, the FBI agent mentioned Peoria a handful of times in reference to al-Marri, the Bradley University graduate student arrested by the FBI in late 2001 at the West Peoria apartment he shared with his family. Federal authorities allege the Qatari national had direct ties to Osama bin Laden, Sept. 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta and alleged Sept. 11 money man Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawawi. Al-Marri was charged in federal court with running a credit-card scam to fund al-Qaida. But last June, President Bush named al-Marri an enemy combatant, one of just three nationwide, a designation that pulled him out of the civilian court system, put him under military control and stripped him of most Constitutional rights.
That caused the ACLU to turn inside out...
After the FBI seminar, Sheriff McCoy introduced himself to the speaker/agent who then told McCoy about a "circuit" that runs from the West to East coasts. The terrorists enter the United States in San Francisco and Los Angeles, then move to Phoenix, then Denver. From there, some head to Peoria and Champaign. Some terrorists remain in those communities, while others head on to New York City. McCoy says he and the agent did not get a chance to talk much more about the circuit. The agent did not specify the numbers of terrorists who may be working in central Illinois, nor did he say how the FBI is monitoring them. "One of the hard things is, you can’t infiltrate these groups," McCoy says. "They know all these guys. It’s not like you can go and say, ’I want to join your group.’ "
Thereby recruiting within known family or social circles, just like November 17 did. It keeps them from being infiltrated and helps to secure loyalty to the organization. We’ve seen that terrorism is a family affair again and again and again.
McCoy says Peoria and Champaign serve as ideal hosts for terrorists. Each city is home to a university with numerous Middle Easterners among the student body, thus enabling al-Qaida operatives to blend into each community. McCoy says al-Qaida ops in central Illinois have been performing work similar to al-Marri: raising money and working computers. That information dovetails with a June report in Newsweek magazine, which cited FBI sources in pegging the Midwest (specifically Peoria) as the brains of terrorist activity in America. McCoy says, "I’m not saying Peoria is condemned to die by terrorists. But we need to be vigilant."
Posted by:Dan Darling

#5  Ah. The fellow I attended college with. Al'Marri was an undergrad at Bradley while I was there; I think he was two years behind me.

'Round about the Gulf War, a friend of mine had a talk with one of Bradley's "international" students. This fine fellow had a map of the Middle East that differed from reality in an important way: Israel was not on it. Just a blob labeled "Palestine".
Posted by: Robert Crawford   2003-12-31 3:44:33 PM  

#4  Gkarp

Johnny Jihad Walker got in but was a basically cannon fodder. He knew very little. Padilla may know more or may not evidently we worked on him for two years.

Yes they can be infiltrated but probably only at the lower levels. Getting to the upper levels takes years.

Also, as I recall, central Illinois was the place where former pro Arab US representative Paul Findley (a republican, btw) persuaded the US arab organizations to hold annual conventions (they would use the tax subsidized and money losing convention centers in Springfield, Decatur, Peoria, etc).

Posted by: mhw   2003-12-31 8:12:17 AM  

#3  Oh, Governor Blowdry, what are you going to do?
Posted by: Anonymous2U   2003-12-31 3:09:55 AM  

#2  I don't believe they cannot be infiltrated. Johnny Jihad got in; so did Jose Padilla. US law enforcement just hasn't focused on this until the operational equivalent of about five minutes ago. With time and resources, these guys can be broken. Nobody was more insular than the mafia, and between the agents and the turncoats they're a shadow of their former selves. A lot of these jihadis are itching to open their mouths and tell us how big and scary they are, how much righteous destruction they're planning to bring down on us. We'll get inside these guys. They only think they're invulnerable. That's part of why they'll lose.
Posted by: GKarp   2003-12-31 3:06:50 AM  

#1  As they say, How will this play in Peoria?
Posted by: Vlad the Muslim Impaler   2003-12-31 2:50:54 AM  

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