Saturday, October 30, 2010
At least 18 AQ Airline Bombers Out There
Dubai: Parcel Bombs Professionally Prepared
Obama's Turkey Lists Israel as Serious Threat
RADICAL UK MUSLIM CLERIC ADMITS CONSPIRING WITH JIHADISTS SEEKING TO ATTACK AMERICANS
New Bomb Threat to Aircraft Comes 36 Years After Convicted PLO-Hamas Terrorist Destroyed TWA 841, Less than Two Years After His Release from a US Jail
UPDATE: 20 EXPLOSIVE DEVICES SUSPECTED TO BE EN ROUTE TO USNBC Anchor of Appeasement Brian Williams Downplayed Terror Threat on Friday Nightly News; British Confirm Bomb Could Have Downed Plane
IRAN BRAGS ABOUT ITS FOREX RESERVES
Illegal Arms Found in Nigeria Were Loaded in Iran
US Praises India's Counter-Terror Cooperation
Friday, October 29, 2010
Morocco Smashes Al Qaeda-Linked Cells
Sunday, 31 October 2010
The attempted Al Qaeda bombing of cargo planes raises an important, disturbing question: How many trained Al Qaeda airline bombers are at large (excluding the recently released PLO/Hamas mass murderer and who-knows-how-many Hezbollah and Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps killers)?
Consider that the failed, Christmas Day underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Abdummutallab, told U.S. authorities after his capture that he had trained with some 20 other AQ terrorists in Yemen.
Minus him and the bomber who brought down the Ethiopian airliner off Beirut on January 25, that leaves around 18 more individuals ... plus a bombmaker or two ... all of whom surely have been honing their craft in the intervening months.
Turkey's crypto-Islamist, Iran-backing government, which U.S. President Barack Obama has embraced, emboldened, and encouraged, has for the first time listed Israel--a former strategic ally--as a serious threat. Click here for the story.
Forgotten history....
On September 8, 1974, TWA Flight 841 departed Tel Aviv en route to JFK International Airport with stops scheduled for Athens, Greece and Rome, Italy. After a 68 minute stop in Athens, the flight departed for Rome. But radio contact was lost 18 minutes after takeoff. The jet crashed into the Ionian Sea, and all 79 passengers and nine crew members were killed.
The United States National Transportation Safety Board determined that the probable cause of the crash was the detonation of an explosive device within the cargo compartment of the aircraft.
About six months before the crash, this reporter, then working for a national magazine, was told by the head of TWA's public relations department that he was increasingly concerned that the airline was not taking sufficient security precautions against possible terrorist attacks and hijackings. TWA, he explained, was the PLO's number one airline target after El Al because TWA was (a) a U.S. carrier and (b) the only U.S. airline with regular service to Israel.
Bombed Out of the Sky
He was right to be concerned: intelligence experts have determined that TWA 841 was bombed out of the sky and that one of the men responsible for the atrocity was a PLO/Black September terrorist, Khalid Al-Jawary, who was subsequently arrested, convicted, and imprisoned in the United States for his role in attempted car bombings. Incredibly, he was released last year from a U.S. prison after serving only half of a 30-year sentence. He received time off for good behavior, and was deported to Sudan.
Khalid Al-Jawary was let go 36 years after he placed bombs in two cars on New York City's Fifth Avenue and a third at Kennedy Airport that were timed to coincide with the arrival of Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir. The bombs did not detonate. Al-Jawary was convicted of the crime in 1993.
In 2000, Al-Jawary claimed in a sworn statement to U.S. immigration officials that he was a member of the PLO and of Hamas.
He left the U.S. on February 26, 2009, and arrived in Sudan, after Algeria changed its mind about accepting him. He had wanted to go to Jordan, where his family lives, but Jordan did not agree to accept him.
Al-Jawary has dual citizenship in Jordan and Iraq.
He has refused to admit his involvement in any other terrorist incidents, but an AP investigation found that Al-Jawary may have been involved in a lethal letter-bombing campaign in addition to the bombing of TWA 841.
His release was an early sign that the Obama administration had decided to appease Palestinian Arab and Islamist terrorists in the context of downgrading the War on Terror to the level of a law enforcement challenge and narrowing the focus of the anti-terror struggle to defeating only Al Qaeda and so-called irreconcilable elements of the Taliban.
One comment on the story that has occupied our day, and forced us to do no fewer than five special reports on the television network: While we are expected to pass along stern Government warnings--delivered by officials with stern expressions, from the President on down, and including terms like "credible terrorist threat"--it's a bit tough to get past the fact that these appear to be copy machine toner cartriges with white powder on them. One of them has what appears to be the back of an AM pocket radio circuit board attached with three screws and some would-be fasteners.
While it caused an international air cargo scare today, and while there is certainly a lot more we don't know, this story looks strange on the face of it. Our own Richard Engel, who knows Yemen and the region well, late today called this "an attempt to discombobulate." All day, Richard has been saying this reminds him of some fake IEDs he's seen planted by the side of the road in Iraq just to test the U.S. military response...in order to launch an attack the next time.
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