via BBC - EFL
This story works best when read in conjunction with the other 2 links on this topic - yielding a nice well-rounded story. A novella in 3 parts.
Saturday, 31 July, 2004, 08:41 GMT 09:41 UK
A plea bargain in a US court has revealed details of an alleged Libyan plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia's de facto leader Crown Prince Abdullah.
Leading US Muslim activist Abdurahman Alamoudi admitted taking part in the plot, as he pleaded guilty to three charges of illegal dealings with Libya. US Attorney General John Ashcroft said the case has provided "critical intelligence" in the war on terror. Libya has denied plotting to assassinate the Crown Prince.
The US Justice Department described an elaborate plot, in which Mr Alamoudi - a founder of the American Muslim Council and the American Muslim Foundation - served as a go-between between top Libyan officials and Saudi dissidents. ...more...
Plot thickens up nicely. Alamoudi clearly implicates the AMC and AMF orgs, heh. Thanx!
Posted by: .com ||
07/31/2004 6:31:02 AM ||
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As Instapundit says, Grover Norquist is loking bad. It will be interesting to see when this one stops unwinding.
Somehow I suspect the truth of this era will make Le Carre seem naive. Money is a much more effective motivator than ideology, as the KGB knew. They just didn't have as much as the Arabs do.
Posted by: Mr. Davis ||
07/31/2004 8:49 Comments ||
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From The Washington Post
.... [Abdurahman] Alamoudi ... acted as the primary go-between in a plot that emerged from the rivalries of Arab politics -- in this case, a March 2003 conference at which Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi and Prince Abdullah had a heated exchange. Angered at how Gaddafi was treated, Libyan officials recruited Alamoudi for what turned out to be the assassination plot. Even after he learned that the target was Abdullah, Alamoudi shuttled money and messages between Libyan officials and two leading Saudi dissidents in London who were coordinating the plot, the documents said. Although Gaddafi is not named as a planner, sources familiar with the case said he appears in the documents as "Libyan government official #5," who met personally with Alamoudi. Sources said the plan came close to succeeding even after Alamoudi was arrested at Dulles International Airport in September 2003, but it was broken up by Saudi intelligence officials. ...
Born in Eritrea, Alamoudi is a naturalized U.S. citizen. He automatically lost his citizenship with yesterday's plea and has signed a deportation order. The only way he could stay in the United States after his prison term is if he cooperates in other investigations, law enforcement sources indicated. Alamoudi is a longtime activist who helped found the Pentagon's Muslim chaplain program. As head of the American Muslim Council, he was deeply immersed in gaining Muslims a greater voice in American politics, meeting with senior Clinton and Bush administration officials. ...
The two Saudi dissidents, who received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Libyans, are not named in court documents. But sources knowledgeable about the case say they are Saad Faqih and Mohammed Massari. Both are influential figures who condemn what they see as Saudi corruption and the kingdom's lack of democracy, and both have a wide following in Saudi Arabia. ... The Saudi government has said for years that Faqih and Massari are closely affiliated with al Qaeda. U.S. and other western government officials have said the pair has had extensive dealings with proponents of violent jihad.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
07/31/2004 8:59:02 AM ||
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From The New York Times
A senior leader of Al Qaeda who was captured in Pakistan several months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks was the main source for intelligence, since discredited, that Iraq had provided training in chemical and biological weapons to members of the organization, according to American intelligence officials. Intelligence officials say the detainee, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, a member of Osama bin Laden's inner circle, recanted the claims sometime last year, but not before they had become the basis of statements by President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and others about links between Iraq and Al Qaeda that involved poisons, gases and other illicit weapons. Mr. Libi, who was captured in Pakistan in December 2001, is still being held by the Central Intelligence Agency at a secret interrogation center, and American officials say his now-recanted claims raise new questions about the value of the information obtained from such detainees. ...
The strongest White House assertions of ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda that involved illicit weapons were made beginning in October 2002, when Mr. Bush said in a speech in Cincinnati that "we've learned that Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb making and poisons and gases." ...
Intelligence officials declined to say precisely when Mr. Libi changed his account, and they cautioned that they still did not know for sure which account was correct. ... Mr. Libi had backed away from many of his earlier claims after American interrogators presented him with conflicting information. Both Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah, two other high-ranking Qaeda operatives now in American custody, have told interrogators that Al Qaeda had no substantive relationship with the Iraqi government .... Mr. Libi's reversal was reported to senior administration officials in an intelligence document that was circulated on Feb. 14, 2004, the intelligence officials said. ...
At the time of his capture, Mr. Libi, a Libyan, was the highest-ranking Qaeda leader in American custody. He had worked closely with Abu Zubaydah at the group's Khalden terrorist camp in Afghanistan, and was believed to have detailed knowledge of the terrorist network's plans. ....
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
07/31/2004 9:24:28 AM ||
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From The Washington Post
Three nearly simultaneous explosions ripped through the capital of Uzbekistan late Friday afternoon in apparent suicide attacks outside the heavily guarded U.S. and Israeli embassies and the headquarters of the Uzbek chief prosecutor. The bombings killed at least two Uzbek security guards employed at the Israeli Embassy in the capital, Tashkent. The violence occurred as a trial began this week for 15 people accused in a wave of attacks in Uzbekistan last spring that killed nearly 50 people, most of them the attackers, in the first known cases of suicide bombings in recent times in Central Asia. Hours later, in Pakistan, a bomber blew himself up next to a car carrying Pakistan's prime minister-designate, Shaukat Aziz, killing at least six people. .... Uzbek state television reported late Friday that the attacks in Tashkent injured nine people, but a presidential aide said later by telephone that five people may have been wounded. ... The U.S. Embassy said in a statement that no American personnel or local embassy employees were wounded in the attack ... Israeli officials also confirmed there were no casualties among their embassy staff. One of the Uzbeks killed was an embassy security guard, and the other was the personal security guard of the Israeli ambassador, the presidential aide said.
"The terrorists wanted to explode themselves inside the buildings, but they were not allowed in," the Uzbek interior minister, Zokirjon Almatov, told the Russian news agency Interfax. At the prosecutor's office, he added, "the terrorist only managed to get as far as the entrance." ...
"We think the chances are extremely high that it was a suicide bomber," said Mark Sofer, a senior Israeli Foreign Ministry official. He said the two guards were killed near the embassy's entrance and that an Uzbek police officer may also have been killed. ....
In recent years as many as 7,000 Uzbeks have been imprisoned for their religious or political beliefs, according to the State Department and several human rights groups, and Karimov has effectively banned opposition political groups from open activity. Earlier this month, the U.S. government suspended $18 million in military and economic aid to the Uzbek government because it could not certify that any improvements had been made concerning human rights or political freedoms, steps that Karimov has repeatedly promised the United States. ...
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
07/31/2004 9:06:27 AM ||
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The Fallujah Dr Ibrahim may be the same spokesdick who, back in May when the Jarines were tightening the noose, confirmed 12 dead bodies received at the hospital to a reporter - and the next day it turned out that NONE, NOBODY, ZERO, ZIP had died - and the news story was corrected to indicate 13 wounded. So what happened to the "confirmed" dead bodies? *le poof*
So I take everything these dipshits say to reporters as Sunni / jihadi / asshat spoor. The only credibile info comes from US Military sources.
They have cried "Wolf!" far far too many times to even begin to buy the civilian / children stories. But, of course, such drivel isn't aimed at me, it's for Arab and Anti-American consumption. Bon appetite 'tards.
#2
I heard it was 12 body bags for bad guys on my Conservative talk radio station...
This story is from the AP or what I call Al-Presseera.
'nuff said!
The bad Iraqis get their talking points from the Paleostinians.
#3
All of the "insurgents" in Fallujah are civilians. So was Mohammed Atta. So are the terorists in Hammas, Hizbollah, Islamic Jihad and Al Qaeda. If these scumbags are going to use the junior varsity as human shields, there will be collateral damage. Assuming its true that children died--which I doubt--the terrorists and those who tolerate and harbor them have only themselves to blame.
A candidate for the presidency in Somalia said yesterday he would encourage his supporters to kill Iraqis in Somalia if the Somali truck driver kidnapped in Iraq was beheaded by his captors. "If they (the Iraqis) behead our loved ones, we will behead their loved ones," presidential hopeful Hussein Ali Elmi was quoted by news agencies as saying. Elmi dismissed as too soft the Kenyan government's position of asking their citizens to leave Iraq after three Kenyans were abducted there last week.
Elmi said there were a few hundred Iraqis in Somalia, mainly working as shopkeepers in the capital Mogadishu. Most of them fled Iraq during Saddam Hussein's rule. Elmi said, however, that he himself would not behead anybody, but instead would ask his militias to do it. "There is no other way to defend our people," he said. There are 56 presidential candidates for Somalia. A group of around 20 are considered the Young Turks. Elmi, himself a Young Turk, said that if one of them becomes president, they would want to immediately send Somali troops to assist the new Iraqi government.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/31/2004 1:08:50 AM ||
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âIf they behead our loved ones, we will behead their loved ones,â presidential hopeful Hussein Ali Elmi was quoted
Now there's a campaign slogan we can all get behind.
EFL - the unnamed hostages are being portrayed as missionaries, but I can't imagine that anyone other than ISM fodder is walking around Palestinian territories.
JERUSALEM (AP) - Palestinian gunmen abducted an American and two other foreign church volunteers late Friday and armed militants burned a Palestinian government building as internal Palestinian unrest resurfaced just days after a government crisis was resolved.
The hostages were freed unharmed after about three hours in the West Bank city of Nablus under pressure from Palestinian authorities and other militant groups.
The gunmen seized the hostages, who included a Briton and an Irishman, at gunpoint after separating them from some other colleages, Palestinian security officials said. Their identities were not released.
State Department spokeswoman Joanne Moore could not confirm the abduction but said they were looking into the reports.
In Jenin, about a dozen armed militants wanted by Israel burned a building of the local Palestinian government to demand financial help from the Palestinian Authority, officials said.
The gunmen from the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, which is affiliated to Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, broke into the building after work hours, fired automatic weapons into the offices and set the building on fire, said the officials.
The militants say they need public support since they cannot work and must remain under ground to avoid capture by Israel.
The two incidents, though apparently unrelated, were the worst internal unrest in the Palestinian territories since Arafat and his prime minister, Ahmed Qureia, resolved a leadership crisis last Tuesday by agreeing to share control of the Palestinian security forces. A similar spate of kidnappings and attacks on the Palestinian Authority in the Gaza Strip earlier this month triggered the crisis, one of the toughest Arafat has faced in the last decade. Four French volunteers were among those briefly kidnapped in Gaza.
In the latest abductions, Palestinian security officials said five gunmen seized the foreigners, who came to Nablus more than three weeks ago on missionary activities, as they returned to their homes. No reason was given for the abduction. Officials said the kidnappers belonged to a renegade group of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades. The main militant group joined Palestinian security authorities in searching for the hostages, who were taken to the Balata refugee camp. Details of the release were sketchy, but the hostages were taken to the Palestinian intelligence headquarters. They declined to speak to reporters.
-snip-
Posted by: Super Hose ||
07/31/2004 1:03:20 AM ||
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http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/07/31/mideast/index.html
Three English teachers ...
The three were not identified beyond their nationalities -- American, Irish and Finnish.
The three who were abducted teach English at a Christian institution in Nablus, according to the governor's office.
Posted by: ed ||
07/31/2004 8:43 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
