NOTE From Dee:
Let me be the first to give you the message I received from
J.F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and others around them.
They said early this morning. "We will beat this!"
DO YOU SEE THE DEVIL IN THESE PHOTOS?
HOW ABOUT IN THESE?
FALSE/HOAXED NOSTRADAMUS QUATRAINS
Attack on
America
Attack on America
- Part 2
How the Government Blew Up Manhattan
Credible
Deception: The NY Times and the Sudan missile attack
by Jared Israel (Written 8-28-98, revised 9-16-99, reposted 2-18-2001)
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/rozoff/abyss.htm
http://emperors-clothes.com/interviews/dekkers.htm
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/sudan.html
http://emperors-clothes.com/docs/anatomy.htm
Bin Laden was propelled into power as part of the U.S. drive to create
an Islamist terrorist movement to crush the former Soviet Union. See,
the truly amazing account from the 'Washington Post,' 'Washington's Backing
of Afghan Terrorists: Deliberate Policy.'
http://emperors-clothes.com/docs/anatomy2.htm
http://clients.loudeye.com/imc/wash...afghanistan.ram
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/madein.htm
While Washington points to Osama bin Laden as "suspect # 1" in
yesterday's
horrific violence, the truth is not being told to the American people:
'Washington Created Osama bin Laden
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/navy.htm
As one considers the terrible events of Sept. 11 and observes U.S. media
reaction, so pervasive and consistently military that it appears choreographed,
doubts increase. - Jared Israel
[Start report from Russia] “Generally it is impossible to carry out
an act of terror on the scenario which was used in the USA yesterday.”
This was said by the commander-in-chief of the Russian Air Force, Anatoli
Kornukov. “We had such facts [i.e., events or incidents] too”,
- said the general straightforwardly. Kornukov did not specify what happened
in Russia and when and to what extent it resembled the events in the US.
He did not advise what was the end of air terrorists’ attempts either.
As it turns out the way the terrorists acted in America is not unique. The
notification and control system for the air transport in Russia does not
allow uncontrolled flights and leads to immediate reaction of the anti-missile
defense, Kornukov said. “As soon as something like that happens here,
I am reported about that right away and in a minute we are all up,”
- said the general. [End report from Russia.]
FOR SECURITY REASONS - BUSH AND CHENEY WORK AND SLEEP IN SEPARATE LOCATIONS
MORE TERRORISTS STILL TRYING TO GET ON
PLANES
THEY TRIED TO BOARD PLANES EARLIER AND RAN WHEN QUESTIONED
NOW THEY ARE IN JAIL
ALL AIRPORTS HAVE AGAIN BEEN CLOSED
USAMA BIN LADEN UNDER HOUSE ARREST?
CONGRESS AWARDS G.W. BUSH $40 BILLION DOLLARS TO FIGHT THE WAR ON TERRORISM.
HE HAD ASKED FOR $20 BILLION
3 ARABS DETAINED AT J.F.K. AIRPORT - THEY CLAIMED THEY WERE PILOTS
MANY BUILDINGS AND AIRPORTS EVACUATED - BOMB THREATS IN THE HUNDREDS
CONGRESSIONAL BUILDING EVACUATED
PENTAGON CATCHES FIRE FOR THE SECOND TIME
1 WOMAN AND 5 RESCUERS RESCUED
MISSING PEOPLE REPORTED 4763 -
BODY BAGS ORDERED ON 9-12-2001 - 6000
BODY BAGS ORDERED ON 9-13-2001 - 11,000
BODIES FOUND TO DATE - 126
BODY PARTS? DON'T ASK!
MANY BODIES PROBABLY EVAPORATED IN FIRE AND WILL NEVER BE FOUND
Thursday, 13 September, 2001, 21:29 GMT 22:29 UK
'Fifty' suspects in FBI investigation
German police raided a Hamburg flat on an FBI tip-off
The FBI says the identities of many of those involved in the terror attacks on America are known.
US Attorney General John Ashcroft said on Thursday that there were at least 18 hijackers, armed with knives, on the four planes.
There have been unconfirmed reports that rescue teams have found the body of one of the terrorists involved in the attacks - and the body of an air stewardess with her hands tied behind her back.
Progress of the investigation so far:
Black box retrieved from wreckage of hijacked airliner in Pennsylvania and signal received from black box of plane that crashed at the Pentagon.
Mr Ashcroft says the FBI is working on "thousands and thousands" of leads. 2,055 tip off calls to FBI hot line and over 22,000 tips sent to special web-site. About 7,000 FBI agents in biggest manhunt in US history
The FBI says it has identified as many as 50 people involved in "well financed" operation. Some were trained as pilots in the US
About 7,000 agents involved in the biggest manhunt in American history are searching for as many as 50 others reported to have helped execute the plan.
German police, acting on an FBI tip-off, arrested a man on Thursday after a raid on a Hamburg flat where two of the suspected terrorists are believed to have lived.
'Pilot' quizzed
The suspects, Mohamed Atta,
33, and Marwan Al-Shehhi, 23, were each on one of the two planes which smashed
into the World Trade Center, said Hamburg security officials.
It is thought they were trained for their devastating mission at a flying school in Florida.
According to German records, both men are from the United Arab Emirates. (Saudi Arabia)
German prosecutors said they were investigating a Hamburg-based terrorist network formed "to attack the United States in a spectacular way through the destruction of symbolic buildings".
CNN reported that another suspect arrested in Florida is helping the FBI. (One held a U.N. driver's license which only diplomats can get)
Adnan Bakhari, described as a Saudi pilot, was arrested on Wednesday, after police seized a rented car in Maine.
Mexico alert
Mohamed Atta: Suspect
Officials at Ciudad Juarez airport close to Mexico's border with the United States said that US authorities have asked them to look out for six people suspected of involvement.
Three of the six are said to hold Pakistani passports.
Airport security chief, Juan Carlos Martinez, said he believed that the US authorities had given similar information to other Mexican airports along the 2,000km border with the United States.
Law enforcement agents also searched homes and businesses in Florida in connection with the attacks, focusing on the Huffman Aviation School where two suspects may have received flight training.
In Boston, a car believed to belong to the hijackers was confiscated. Officials said it contained an Arabic-language flight manual.
Thailand search
Investigators also raided two hotels near Boston thought to have been used by the hijackers. In one room a link was found to a name on one of the flight passenger lists.
In Thailand, security police said they were on the lookout for 15 Arab men wanted by the CIA in connection with Tuesday's devastation.
Mr Mueller said the bureau had established command posts at the places of origin and destination of the flights, where the investigation was being assisted by:
4,000 special agents
3,000 support personnel
More than 400 laboratory personnel.
One group of hijackers is believed to have crossed from Canada and to have had ties to Mr Bin Laden.
The FBI is dealing with 700 leads from the public and has set up a website containing a form people can use to report any new information on the attacks.
US Attorney General John Ashcroft also said the government had "credible evidence" that both the White House and the presidential jet, Air Force One, had been targeted in the attacks.
THE INVESTIGATION
As F.B.I. Tracks Hijackers, bin Laden Tie Is Cited
By DAVID JOHNSTON and JAMES RISEN
A car with Virginia license plates was towed on Wednesday from a parking garage at Logan International Airport in Boston after investigators found documents that they said included a flight manual written in Arabic.
The Second Day
Bill Speer for The New York Times
Police officers in Venice, Fla., removed boxes of student records on Wednesday from Huffman Aviation, a flight school where two suspects in Tuesday's hijackings had been students.
ASHINGTON, Sept. 12 — The hijackers who commandeered commercial jets that attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were followers of Osama bin Laden, the Islamic militant who has been blamed for some of the bloodiest attacks against Americans, federal authorities said today.
The authorities said they had also identified accomplices in several cities who had helped plan and execute Tuesday's attacks. Officials said they knew who these people were and important biographical details about many of them but declined to provide their names or nationalities.
Seperately, government officials disclosed that at least two people believed to be associates of Mr. bin Laden, and who may have been involved in the attack, entered the United States recently, slipping into the country before the Immigration and Naturalization Service was told to prevent their entry.
Acting swiftly today, investigators obtained warrants and searched businesses and homes in New Jersey, Massachusetts and Florida. They made no arrests but interrogated several people, compiling an outline of the terror group's structure. They prepared biographies of each identified member of the hijack teams and began tracing the recent movements of the men.
Attorney General John Ashcroft said that each flight was seized by three to six hijackers who boarded as passengers, then, with knives and boxcutters, overwhelmed the crew.
Officials said the hijackings featured many elements of previous operations sponsored by Mr. bin Laden: small teams; a coordinating commander who arrives on the scene at the final moment; and logistical support by local sympathizers. Investigators were focusing on possible confederates in Boston, metropolitan Washington and Union City, N.J. — near the three airports from which the hijacked planes departed.
Mr. Ashcroft said that the hijack teams included pilots who had been trained in the United States, at least two of them at a commercial flight school in Florida.
Officials said that a breakthrough came when a witness alerted the authorities to a rental car parked at Logan International Airport in Boston. The vehicle yielded an Arabic- language flight manual and other documents that contained a name on the passenger list of one of the flights. Also from the car search, officials said, investigators found names of other suspects.
Separately, officials said a group of about five men were now under investigation in Union City, suspected of assisting the hijackers. In addition, the officials said the men had apparently set up cameras near the Hudson River and fixed them on the World Trade Center. They photographed the attacks and were said to have congratulated each other afterward, officials said.
Investigators were reviewing the activities of Mr. bin Laden's associates around the world in recent months. A senior federal official said that American intelligence had recently identified several people believed to be linked to Mr. bin Laden and his organization and had told the immigration service that they should be placed on a watch list to prevent them from entering the United States. "There was intelligence that these guys were potential problems," the official said.
After a check following that notification, immigration officials responded that at least two of those identified people were already in the United States, the official said. The F.B.I. was told, and began a search for them, the official said. The official, who did not provide their names, said that it is possible the people were involved in Tuesday's attacks.
"Of course, just because they were possible associates of Osama bin Laden doesn't tell you that the World Trade Center is about to be attacked," the official added.
Another official said that one passenger aboard American Flight 77, which left from Dulles International Airport and struck the Pentagon, had been placed on the list after entering the country in June through Los Angeles. It was unclear whether the man, who traveled using a Saudi passport, was one of the bin Laden associates cited in the report.
With 4,000 F.B.I. agents and 3,000 support personnel on the case, Mr. Ashcroft called the inquiry "the most massive and intensive investigation ever conducted in America."
Officials said that each of the four hijacking teams had a leader but worked independently, though the teams appeared to be aware that their actions were being closely coordinated with the other groups.
At least one team entered the United States via Canada and made its way to Boston, where the flights of the two aircraft that struck the World Trade Center originated.
Each team was aided by confederates in Newark, Boston and Virginia, who were responsible for logistical support, including money, rental cars, credit cards and lodging, law enforcement officials said today.
In addition to the flights from Boston that struck the trade center and the one from Dulles which crashed into the Pentagon, a fourth flight, departing from Newark International Airport, crashed in a field in southwestern Pennsylvania.
Officials also said the teams were coordinated by one supervising commander who has not been identified, but who apparently helped select the flights and targets and orchestrated the attacks to occur at roughly the same time. The whereabouts of the commander are unknown.
The officials said they reached that conclusion after assembling information from the flights' passenger lists; pay telephone records; phoned reports from passengers aboard the hijacked flights and evidence taken from the rental car found at Logan Airport.
Robert S. Mueller III, the director of the F.B.I., said the bureau was investigating the activities of several suspected hijackers who were known to have lived for months in Florida and attended flight training school.
As of tonight, several people, whom the authorities declined to identify, had been detained on immigration violations and were being questioned.
In Massachusetts, law enforcement officials said they were investigating whether several hijackers crossed the border from Canada and flew from Portland, Me., to Boston.
At Logan Airport, F.B.I. agents and the local police seized a car that was registered in Virginia. A witness reported the car to authorities, recalling two men having an argument next to the car on Tuesday morning.
In Maine, a spokesman for Gov. Angus S. King Jr. said that the F.B.I. had determined that two suspected hijackers took an early-morning commuter flight from Portland to Logan on Tuesday, before boarding a flight that was hijacked.
At the request of the F.B.I., the local police impounded a rental car the men left at the Portland airport, according to John Ripley, Governor King's spokesman.
Early today, F.B.I. agents searched Huffman Aviation in Venice, Fla., where they believed two suspected hijackers learned to fly commuter jets last year.
Rudi Dekkers, the company's president, said that agents asked him about two former students, Marwan al-Shehhi and Mohammed Atta.
Mr. Dekkers said that both men attended his flight school from July until November 2000 for training on single- and multi-engine small jets. Mr. Dekkers said they completed the course and graduated to training for larger jets, but he did not know where they conducted that training.
"We gave the F.B.I. the files and passport copies and everything," Mr. Dekkers said. "We hold them for every student." He added that the authorities "suspect they had something to do with the hijackings."
The school has conducted flight training for 20 years. Mr. Dekkers said that thousands of students from around the world attend it. "I am mad as you are about what happened," he said. "There is no way of knowing what they had in mind."
State-owned television in Abu Dhabi reported today that two suspects connected to the flights from Logan were Wa'el Mohammad al- Shihri and Ahmad Ibrahim Ali al- Hazzouni. The network said that the pair carried Saudi passports.
The police in Coral Springs, Fla., said that F.B.I. agents also searched an apartment there late on Tuesday.
Federal authorities released a bulletin for two vehicles — a 1989 two- door red Pontiac with license number D79 DDV or DVD, and a tan four- door Oldsmobile with license number VEP 54N.
A senior crash investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board said it would be a huge challenge to find the voice and data recorders — the "black boxes" — from the planes that hit the trade center.
First, he said, the sonic pingers that let searchers home in on boxes only function in water.
Then, he added, "The airplanes are probably so fragmented, and with all the other debris there, that coming up with those boxes is going to be a very difficult task, assuming they even survived the blast and fire."
CNN USING 1991 FOOTAGE of celebrating Palistinians to manipulate you
by Marcio 9:10am Thu Sep 13 '01
address: State University of Campinas - Brazil
All around the world we are subjected to 3 or 4 huge news distributors, and one of them - as you well know - is CNN. Very well, I guess all of you have been seeing (just as I've been) images from this company.
I'd like to add some ideas from here, down south.
There's an important point in the power of press, specifically the power of CNN.
All around the world we are subjected to 3 or 4 huge news distributors, and one of them - as you well know - is CNN. Very well, I guess all of you have been seeing (just as I've been) images from this company. In particular, one set of images called my attencion: the Palestinians celebrating the bombing, out on the streets, eating some cake and making funny faces for the camera.
Well, THOSE IMAGES WERE SHOT BACK IN 1991!!! Those are images of Palestinians celebrating the invasion of Kuwait! It's simply unacceptable that a super-power of cumminications as CNN uses images which do not correspond to the reality in talking about so serious an issue.
A teacher of mine, here in Brazil, has videotapes recorded in 1991, with the very same images; he's been sending emails to CNN, Globo (the major TV network in Brazil) and newspapers, denouncing what I myself classify as a crime against the public opinion. If anyone of you has access to this kind of files, serch for it. In the meanwhile, I'll try to 'put my hands' on a copy of this tape.
But now, think for a moment about the impact of such images. Your people is hurt, emotionally fragile, and this kind broadcast have very high possibility of causing waves of anger and rage against Palestinians. It's simply irresponsible to show images such as those.
Finally, I'd like to say that we all regret and condemn all that has happened in the last days; but Nikos has a point here. I really don't want to be misunderstood here, but the truth is that US government had shown no respect for other countries in the last decades. In the 60s and 70s they had halped lots of military coups throughout the world (including Brazil in 64). Later, with Reagan and Bush Father, the Washington Consensus have been demolishing the bases of our economies, making us more and more dependant (and, many of us, prehocupied with this situation).
Your current president quickly made things worse: Kioto Protocol, Star Wars, Colombia Plan, the exchange of rain forest for pieces of external debt, tha abandonment of the position of third party in negotiations between IRA and England, and between Palestinians and Israel. All those mistakes in US external politics made your country more hatred than before, and, of course, more vulnerable.
Listen, I'm NOT justifying the terrorist actions that took place in your country; but it seems to me that, if your leaders had come along another path of thoughts and actions, you wouldn't be suffering what you are now.
Best regards, and the hope that everything is resolved for the best of all of us
Marcio A. V. Carvalho
State University of Campinas - Brazil
WTC DESIGNED FOR 707 HIT -say top engineers!!!
Posted By: PsyOpNews
Date: Tuesday, 11 September 2001, 11:23 p.m.
TWO WTC DESIGNERS SAY BUILDING DESIGNED FOR PLANE IMPACT
Towers' collapse shocks engineers
"I designed it for a (Boeing)707 to hit it." !!!
---said Lee Robertson, the WTC project's structural engineer, addressing a conference in Frankfurt, Germany, LAST WEEK, on problem of terrorism on high-rises, according to Chicago engineer Joseph Burns to the Chicago Tribune.
ALSO:
"It was designed around that eventuality [of a plane] to survive this kind of impact"
---Aaron Swirski, one of the architects of the World Trade Center, talks exclusively to Jerusalem Post Radio on the World Trade Center collapse after the double attack.
http://www.jpradio.com/Archive/2001/09/11/asx/010911swi.asx
Tuesday, 11 September 2001 19:50 (ET)
DETROIT, Sept. 11 (UPI) -- A lead engineer who worked on New York's World Trade Center Towers expressed shock Tuesday that the 110-story landmarks in Lower Manhattan collapsed after each tower was struck by a hijacked passenger jetliner.
Lee Robertson, the project's structural engineer, addressed the problem of terrorism on high-rises at a conference in Frankfurt, Germany, last week, Chicago engineer Joseph Burns told the Chicago Tribune.
Burns said Robertson told the conference, "I designed it for a (Boeing)707 to hit it."
"Fire melts steel," Burns told the Tribune, speculating that the impact from the planes had damaged sprinkler systems in both towers. "You never know in an explosion like that whether they get cut off," Burns said. Because of the buildings' heights, engineers used tubular construction of tightly spaced steel columns. The floor trusses were built across to this central core.
Copyright 2001 by United Press International.
All rights reserved.
Reason is the enemy of terror.
By Fintan Dunne, co-Editor
Subj: [RMNEWS2] 25 Million Body Bags Ordered In 1998 By US Government
Date: 9/13/2001 10:23:31 AM Pacific Daylight Time
From: cropolis@your-net.com (Spider Piglet)
http://wealth4freedom.com/bodybags.html
25 Million Body Bags
by Sam Foster
Just when you thought it couldn't possibly get any sicker, it was recently discovered (and announced on Art Bell's show 3-19-99) that your government - the USofA - has ordered 25 million body bags. The country's second largest manufacturer of these products, DOW Chemical, has now confirmed this order as taking place in August of 1998.
Did you or do you understand the depths of that statement?
That quantity, 25 million, is ten times more than all those men and women killed in all US wars COMBINDED! (Civil War, World War I, World War II, Korea, Viet Nam, Desert Storm, 1812, Revolution, Spanish American War).
The only answer possible is civilian casualties. How could this government, or any government, predict an event that could possibly cause that many deaths? The answer? They can't, unless they are creating the event themselves.
No, it's not nuclear war, because that doesn't leave much in the way of bodies.
You see…when you murder people in gas chambers or in summary executions in the field say, in a city like Los Angeles, you need to store the body so that germs don't spread. Hence, the bag.
May His Wisdoms guide you in this time of peril.
They are coming…they are coming quickly. Do not hesitate at the moment of truth.
From: Constitution76@webtv.net (Freedom of Speech) Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1999
Note from Wisdom and Freedom editor: the email address above for author is dead and was when we came across this article. In searching the Art Bell website, the story was listed. However, at this time, that listing has also disappeared. Makes us wonder as some folks suspect Mr. AB of working for "black ops", i.e. a disinformation project which is a very good weapon for causing confusion. For example, a complete fabrication is put in front of the public and the bad guys prove that it is baloney. But at the same time the baloney is tied in with other material which is the truth.
Both are linked as being in the same baloney sandwich and the public ignores the truth, which is harmful. And the Russians thought they were the masters of this practice?
Wisdom And Freedom produced by WORLD NEWSSTAND Copyright © 1999. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
HALF A MILLION IN WTC --NOT 50,000
Posted By: PsyOpNews
Date: Thursday, 13 September 2001, 2:35 a.m.
"HALF A MILLION WORKED IN WTC --NOT 50,000"
Aaron Swirski, one of the architects of the World Trade Center, talks exclusively to Jerusalem Post Radio on the World Trade Center collapse.
"It was built as a pipe. Each floor is hemetrically sealed"
"In a fire there are shutters which seal off. All those people could not get out."
He disputes media reports of 50,000 working there and says the facility holds 500,000 and is very distressed discussing the issue of the automatic sealing off of the floors.
Interview HERE, Media Player
http://www.jpradio.com/Archive/2001/09/11/asx/010911swi.asx
Please copy if you have netaudio s/ware
1 WORLD TRADE CENTER - NORTH TOWER
Built: 1970
Height: 110 Floors
Floor Sizes: (9 - 105) 45,000-50,000 sf
Elevators: 97 passenger, 6 freight
2 WORLD TRADE CENTER - SOUTH TOWER
Built: 1972
Height: 110 Floors
Floor Sizes (2 - 109) 45,000 - 50,000 sf
Elevators: 97 passenger, 6 freight
Thursday, 13 September, 2001, 21:29 GMT 22:29 UK
Blow to New York survivor hopes
Thousands are feared dead beneath the rubble
The denial of a miraculous rescue has dealt a severe blow to hopes of finding survivors in the ruins of New York's World Trade Center, as the search goes on for almost 5,000 people still missing.
Earlier it was reported that five firefighters had been rescued from a vehicle in which they had been trapped since Tuesday.
But it later emerged that this had simply been a misinterpretation of a less dramatic rescue - of two people who had been searching the debris several hours earlier and got trapped in an air bubble.
New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said 4,763 were so far listed as missing, although he warned that this figure may not represent an accurate death toll.
He said 94 bodies had been recovered from the ruins, 46 of which had been identified.
Only 10 people have so far been pulled alive from the debris left behind from the unprecedented attacks at the city's financial heart.
Mr Giuliani said those missing included people on board the two planes, the number provided by companies searching for employees, rescue workers, and those reported unaccounted for by telephone callers.
He said the city had some 30,000 body bags available.
"We also have the gruesome, horrible situation where we recover body parts, and there are 70 people in that category. There are 70 body parts," he said.
"I am sorry I have to describe it that way."
The rescue operation, using cranes and heavy machinery, has been slow and painstaking.
The emergency services fear more haste could dislodge wreckage and harm any survivors, although they harbour little hope now of finding many more alive.
Searching for friends
Four hijacked planes crashed on Tuesday with a total of 266 people on board, all of whom are assumed dead.
Two of the jets crashed into the 110-storey towers of the World Trade Center, once among the world's tallest buildings, just as workers were starting their day.
Many people were evacuated safely but in less than two hours, explosions and fires fed by fuel from the two aircraft caused both towers to collapse completely.
The explosions caused the twin towers to collapse
Eighteen rescue teams are operating in the city, with support staff and vehicles brought in from other US states.
The emergency teams digging through the debris are also searching for their colleagues, workers crushed by the collapsing building as they were trying to rescue people just after the jets struck.
Mr Giuliani said 259 uniformed officers, including police and fire-fighters, remained unaccounted for.
Of five people pulled earlier from the debris, three are police officers.
One had guided workers to him using his mobile phone, but the case is proving an exception.
In Washington the Pentagon was briefly evacuated on Thursday morning after a telephoned bomb threat.
Death toll
All 266 on board the four planes are feared dead
Around 190 may have died at the Pentagon.
94 bodies recovered from WTC
4,763 missing in New York
Half of the building, which has a gaping hole in its side where a plane ploughed through it, is closed, but most employees are back at work.
About 70 bodies have been removed from the building.
Pentagon officials said just under 200 people are still unaccounted for, including people on board the plane and army soldiers who were in the Pentagon.
Workers are continuing to search through the debris, but officials have said they have no hope of finding anyone alive.
Empty beds
Over 1,000 people were treated at local hospitals in Manhattan and about 2,000 walking wounded were ferried across the Hudson River to New Jersey.
But hospital representatives said they had hoped to see more survivors brought in for care.
"I think so many people are dead. It's a bad sign that there are no mass casualties," said Dr James Dillard at St Vincent's Hospital in lower Manhattan.
Date: 9/13/2001 8:58:06 AM Pacific Daylight Time
From: pointmanusa@yahoo.com (Pointman USA)
Enemies and "Assets"
by William Norman Grigg
The World Trade Center bombers had some curious connections
FROM: www.thenewamerican.com
Following the outbreak of communist revolutions across Europe in 1848, Frederic Bastiat, a French champion of free enterprise, took note of the fact that many of his government's supposedly anti-communist policies were actually creating communist-style controls over the economic and political life of his country. As a member of the French Assembly, Bastiat chided his government for "concocting the antidote and the poison in the same laboratory" and for devoting "half of its resources to destroying the evil it has done with the other half."
Our own federal government's ever-escalating "war" on terrorism displays similar dynamics. The same Clinton Administration that urges the expansion of federal power -- and the contraction of personal liberties -- in the struggle against terrorism has eagerly courted the Syrian terror regime and has played host to representatives of the IRA, the Russian mafia, the Red Chinese arms-smuggling industry, and Muslim terrorist factions. This same bizarre duality is apparent in the Administration's domestic "anti- terrorism" initiatives. As the November 11th Washington Post reported, "Since the Oklahoma City bombing [of] April 19, 1995, the FBI, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF), and other federal law enforcement agencies have embarked on a preemptive strategy to uncover domestic terrorist conspiracies while they are in the planning stages. This strategy requires aggressive and potentially controversial tactics as investigators infiltrate groups and bring charges on the basis of allegedly criminal plans that are conceived but not carried out."
Federal Entrapment
The new federal anti-terrorism strategy has resulted in the arrest, prosecution, and (in some cases) conviction of militia members on conspiracy charges in Georgia, Arizona, Washington, and West Virginia. However, it has also produced convincing evidence that the federal informants have acted as agents provocateurs, urging militia members to undertake potentially criminal actions.
In the case of the "Viper Team" in Phoenix, for example, it was a "confidential informant" who infiltrated the militia and suggested that the group rob banks in order to finance its activities. (For more on the "Viper" case, see page 19.) In the Georgia militia case, federal informants who had infiltrated the militia urged its leaders to manufacture pipe bombs; after failing to win support for their idea, the informants planted pipe-bomb components on property belonging to the militia group's leaders.
In the more recent case of the Mountaineer Militia in West Virginia, an FBI informant -- posing as an arms dealer -- asked militia leader Floyd Ray Looker to sell him plans of a local FBI computer facility for $50,000. Although U.S. Attorney William D. Wilmoth has acknowledged that "the facility itself was never in any direct danger" from the Mountaineer Militia, seven members of the group were arrested on terrorism charges on October 11th in what the Washington Post called an "unprecedented use of a new anti-terrorism law...." None of the militias targeted for "preemptive" federal action has a track record of violence. What would happen if federal agents were to use the same tactics on an authentic terrorist cell -- one composed of genuinely ruthless people possessing both the will and the means to carry out lethal acts of political violence?
Bungling or Abetting?
One answer was provided by the February 26, 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City, an attack that killed six Americans, wounded more than a thousand others, inflicted $500 million in damage, and dispelled America's sense of immunity to international terrorism. The leaders of the radical Islamic network responsible for the bombing, who later planned a campaign of urban terrorism which could have claimed the lives of thousands of Americans, were given financial aid and training by the CIA.
Furthermore, at several critical junctures where the conspiracy could have been exposed and its leaders arrested, federal law enforcement either ignored that network or actually provided crucial help to it.
The central figure of that terrorist network was Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, the "spiritual leader" of the Egyptian extremist group Gama al-Islamiya. In January 1996, Sheik Omar was convicted of "seditious conspiracy" and sentenced to life in prison for his part in planning the bombing; his nine co-conspirators were handed sentences ranging from 25 years to life. The sheik's defense team attempted to depict the prosecution of their client as an instance of anti-Muslim persecution. However, Sheik Omar's religious vocation, unlike that of the vast majority of devout, peaceful Muslims, was steeped in violence and hatred.
Sheik Omar and his followers were arrested in June 1993, six months after the Trade Center bombing; at the time of the arrest, some of the plotters were literally mixing chemicals to manufacture bombs. Following the January 1996 convictions of Sheik Omar and his disciples, Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew C. McCarthy declared, "There is a support system for terrorism in the United States whose designer is Sheik Abdel-Rahman.... [It would be] naive to think it has been destroyed." According to Two Seconds Under the World, an account of the Trade Center bombing by New York Newsday's Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative team of Jim Dwyer, David Kocieniewski, Deidre Murphy, and Peg Tyre, Sheik Omar's followers have established cells in Texas, California, Illinois, and Michigan. Although Sheik Omar may have been the "designer" of this terrorist network, its "support system," as we will see, included the CIA, the U.S. Army, and -- arguably -- federal law enforcement agencies.
CIA Connection
Sheik Omar, who was accused of complicity in the plot to assassinate Anwar Sadat, has devoted his adult life to the overthrow of the secular Egyptian government and the propagation of his variety of Islam. In 1987, the U.S. State Department placed Sheik Omar's name on its "watch list" of non-Americans believed to be involved in terrorism. However, this did not prevent the CIA from enlisting Sheik Omar as a "valuable asset" in covert operations involving the Afghan mujahideen during the 1980s.
Between 1980 and 1989, the CIA pumped more than $3 billion in aid into the mujahideen, the Islamic resistance to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. The mujahideen's rank and file was composed of brave and motivated men who displayed astonishing courage in their effort to evict the Soviets from Afghanistan. However, as veteran foreign correspondent Kurt Lohbeck documented in his study Holy War, Unholy Victory: Eyewitness to the CIA's Secret War in Afghanistan, the CIA invested most of its aid in the least combat-worthy and most anti-American factions of the mujahideen. Among the CIA's dubious beneficiaries was Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman.
Writing in the May 1996 issue of The Atlantic Monthly, foreign correspondent Mary Anne Weaver pointed out that it was in Peshawar, Pakistan in the late 1980s that Sheik Omar "became involved with U.S. and Pakistani intelligence officials who were orchestrating the war" against the Soviets, and that the "sixty or so CIA and Special Forces officers based there considered him a 'valuable asset' ... and overlooked his anti-Western message and incitement to holy war because they wanted him to help unify the mujahideen groups."
Sheik Omar and his associates created an institution in Peshawar, Pakistan called the Service Office, which recruited Muslims from around the world as volunteers to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. However, as Weaver pointed out, "Money flowed into the Service Office from the Muslim Brotherhood" -- one of the most radical and violently anti-Western factions of the Pan-Islamic movement. Along with hundreds of millions of dollars from Saudi Arabia, Muslim Brotherhood money was distributed through branches of the Service Office in Europe and the United States, thereby providing a ready slush fund for terrorists and anti-Western agitators. While the Service Office sluiced money into the coffers of terrorists, Sheik Omar preached his gospel of jihad in Pakistan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, and in Islamic population centers in Turkey, Germany, England, and even the United States -- despite his listing on the State Department's "watch list." Sheik Omar's CIA-aided access to the United States continued after the Soviets vacated Afghanistan in 1989.
On May 10, 1990, Sheik Omar was granted a one-year visa from a CIA agent posing as an official at the U.S. Consulate in Khartoum, Sudan, and he arrived in New York in July 1990. In November of the same year Sheik Omar's visa was revoked, and the State Department advised the Immigration and Naturalization Service to be on the lookout for him. So attentive was the INS to this advisory that it granted Sheik Omar a green card just five months later.
Terrorist Network
The American-based radicals who sponsored Sheik Omar's 1990 trip to the U.S. included Mahmud Abouhalima, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and a CIA-supported veteran of the Afghan campaign. Abouhalima had networked with radical Muslims and American Black Panthers since the mid- 1980s. Also helping to make arrangements for the sheik's visit was Mustafa Shalabi, the Brooklyn-based director of Alkifah, a support fund for mujahideen fighters.
Another leader of Sheik Omar's American network was El Sayyid Nosair, an Egyptian expatriate who was later acquitted of the 1990 murder of Jewish militant Rabbi Meir Kahane.
Abouhalima and Nosair were eventually among those convicted of conspiring with Sheik Omar to wage urban warfare in the United States, and in that campaign they made use of skills imparted to them by the CIA and the U.S. military. During the conspiracy trial, attorneys for Sheik Omar and his disciples introduced a file documenting that in 1989, the U.S. Army had sent Special Forces Sergeant Ali A. Mo hammed to Jersey City to provide training for mujahideen recruits, including Abouhalima and Nosair. But even as Abouhalima and Nosair underwent that training, according to Two Seconds Under the World, the FBI had them under surveillance as possible terrorists.
Although Sheik Omar provided "spiritual" guidance to his network, the Abu Nidal-trained Nosair was the conspiracy's field commander, and Abouhalima was his most important lieutenant.
The FBI engaged in a curiously timed fit of incompetence when the opportunity arose for a preemptive strike against Sheik Omar's network.
Following the shooting of Rabbi Meir Kahane in November 1990, the FBI seized and impounded 49 boxes of documents from Nosair's New Jersey apartment; the cache included bomb-making instructions, a hit list of public figures (including Kahane), paramilitary training materials, detailed pictures of famous buildings (including the World Trade Center), and sermons by Sheik Omar urging his followers to "destroy the edifices of capitalism."
But the FBI made none of the evidence available to New York City Assistant District Attorney William Greenbaum, who prosecuted the case. In fact, the FBI ignored the material until after the Trade Center bombing in 1993.
Veteran radical lawyer William Kunstler offered his services as Nosair's defense attorney. Kunstler deployed his entire arsenal of sophistries, and presiding Judge William Schlesinger of the New York State Supreme Court granted Kunstler extraordinary procedural latitude (including the privilege of dismissing white potential jurors on racial grounds). Schlesinger's penchant for Kunstler was so pronounced that he invited the notorious Marxist barrister to a Christmas party in his chambers during jury deliberations.
Hamstrung by the FBI's decision to withhold the evidence collected at Nosair's apartment, and stymied by Judge Schlesinger's visible partiality toward the defense, prosecutor Greenbaum was unable to secure a murder conviction against Nosair. When the verdict was announced on December 20, 1991, Kunstler was carried triumphantly away from the courtroom on the burly shoulders of Muslim Brotherhood terrorist Mahmud Abouhalima. Nosair, who was convicted on lesser firearms-related charges, began a seven-year term in Attica prison, where he continued to direct the affairs of Sheik Omar's terrorist network.
The violence pulsating through Sheik Omar's network was not directed solely at predictable enemies like Kahane. By March 1991, Sheik Omar and his associates had seized control of the Alkifah fund, which had by then swollen to an estimated $2 million -- and Shalabi, the fund's manager, was found murdered shortly after a confrontation with three of Sheik Omar's disciples.
The CIA-originated fund helped finance Nosair's trial defense. It was also used to procure many of the bomb components that were assembled under the expert supervision of Afghan terrorist Ramzi Yousef, who was imported by the Sheik Omar network in late 1992.
FBI Foreknowledge
Yousef was convicted on September 8, 1996 of plotting a 48-hour campaign of bombings against American commercial flights over the Pacific Ocean. The campaign would have targeted a total of 12 jetliners and as many as 4,000 passengers. Yousef is also accused of carrying out the December 11, 1994 bombing of a Philippine jetliner that killed a Japanese passenger, as well as plotting to assassinate Pope John Paul II. Yousef met Abouhalima in Afghanistan in 1988, and it was Abouhalima who brought the Afghan terrorist to the United States in September 1992 on behalf of Sheik Omar's network.
Shortly after Yousef's arrival, the FBI subpoenaed two dozen of Sheik Omar's followers and questioned them about the sheik, Nosair, and Abouhalima. However, no arrests were made, no grand jury investigation was launched, and the FBI chose to downgrade its scrutiny of Omar's network -- just as plans were being finalized for the Trade Center bombing. This curious decision is even more peculiar in light of the fact that the FBI had obtained intelligence on the network's capabilities and intentions from Emad A. Salem, a former Egyptian Army officer and FBI informant who served as Omar's security guard.
Salem's relationship with the FBI was turbulent, and there were suggestions of impropriety in his personal contacts with FBI handler Nancy Floyd.
However, he had repeatedly warned the FBI that Nosair was running a terrorist ring out of his prison cell, and he had supplied detailed descriptions of the Sheik Omar network's plans. But the FBI was doubtful of Salem's reliability and severed its contacts with him seven months before the bombing.
In the aftermath of the Trade Center bombing, the FBI renewed its association with Salem, paying him a reported $1 million to infiltrate Sheik Omar's group once again. Salem secretly recorded many of his conversations with law enforcement agents, including exchanges in which it was revealed that the FBI had detailed prior knowledge of the Trade Center bomb plot. According to Salem, the FBI had planned to sabotage the Trade Center bomb by replacing the explosive components with an inert powder. The October 28, 1993 New York Times reported that in one conversation Salem recalled assurances from an FBI supervisor that the agency's plan called for "building the bomb with a phony powder and grabbing the people who [were] involved in [the plot]." However, the supervisor, in Salem's words, "messed it up."
Salem recalled that when he expressed a desire to lodge a protest with FBI headquarters, he was told by special agent John Anticev that "the New York people [wouldn't] like the things out of the New York office to go to Washington, DC." Unappeased, Salem rebuked Anticev: "... you saw this bomb went off and you ... know that we could avoid that.... You get paid, guys, to prevent problems like this from happening."
Perhaps the most remarkable illustration of the depth of the FBI's knowledge of the Sheik Omar network came after the World Trade Center bombing, when the Bureau employed Salem's services as an informant once again. As the Wall Street Journal reported, from March to June 1993 Salem "helped organize the 'battle plan' that the government alleged included plots to bomb the United Nations and FBI buildings in New York, and the Holland and Lincoln tunnels beneath the Hudson River. Working with a charismatic Sudanese man named Siddig Ali, a follower of Sheik Omar, Mr. Salem recruited seven local Muslims to scout targets, plan tactics and obtain chemicals and electrical parts for bombs...." By the time the FBI closed in on the plotters on June 23rd, it had literally hours of videotapes documenting the conspiracy in intimate detail -- including footage of conspirators mixing fertilizer and diesel fuel to build a bomb.
Predictably, defense attorneys for Sheik Omar and his followers insisted that Salem's actions amounted to entrapment. While the court rejected this defense, the FBI's proficiency at using Salem to assemble a radical Muslim terrorist cell is unsettling, to say the least. Clearly, Salem knew his way around the sheik's network, and was well-versed in the techniques of terrorism; just as clearly, the FBI knew how to make use of Salem's abilities. It is difficult to believe that the FBI was incapable of cracking down preemptively on the sheik's followers before the Trade Center bombing.
Poison and Antidote
However, the fact that Sheik Omar's network consistently benefited from the actions of the federal government -- from direct CIA aid to instances of peculiar neglect by the FBI -- suggests that the cabal should be considered as much a creature of our federal government as it was a creation of a particular strain of Muslim extremism. Furthermore, the influence and activities of Sheik Omar's co-conspirators are not limited to the United States.
As Mary Anne Weaver pointed out in The Atlantic Monthly, "the CIA helped to train and fund what eventually became an international network of highly disciplined and effective Islamic militants -- and a new breed of terrorists as well." According to Weaver, the CIA's handiwork is on display across the Middle East -- in the December 1995 car bomb attack in a crowded market in Peshawar, Pakistan that killed 36 people and wounded 120 more, and also in two nearly identical car bombings in November 1995 that targeted U.S. military advisers in Saudi Arabia and the Egyptian Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan. The same network could also be considered a prime suspect in last summer's unsolved terrorist attack on U.S. troops in Daharan, Saudi Arabia, terrorist bombings in Algeria and the Philippines, and perhaps even the downing of TWA Flight 800. Weaver quoted a former U.S. diplomat who told her, "The common element in all these attacks -- whether in Cairo or Riyadh, Islamabad or Algiers, Europe or New York -- is today's equivalent of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade" -- namely, a CIA-trained terrorist network.
Some intelligence analysts describe the emergence of that network as an example of "blowback" -- unintended negative fallout from a covert operation. However, a more accurate analysis might make use of Frederic Bastiat's metaphor of government creating the poison and the antidote in the same laboratory. The same power elite that created the "poison" of the post-Afghanistan terrorist network stands poised with an equally dreadful "antidote." As Richard Haass, director of national security programs at the influential Council on Foreign Relations, asserted in a Washington Post op-ed column, the war against terrorism will require "a willingness to compromise some of our civil liberties, including accepting more frequent phone taps and surveillance. Those who would resist paying such a price should keep in mind that terrorism could well get worse in coming years."
In such fashion, American citizens will pay the price for evils nurtured by a government that poses as their protector.
By JAMES CHAPIN
NEW YORK, Sept. 12 (UPI) -- The twin towers of the 110-story World Trade Center came down in what apparently was a "pancake collapse," said the commissioner of New York City's Department of Environmental Protection.
The 110-story towers, filled with thousands of workers, were struck in succession by hijacked commercial jetliners in their upper floors.
Joel Miele, the commissioner of New York's Department of Environmental Protection. and a builder whose previous position was commissioner of the Department of Buildings, explained what he believes happened.
He said that both buildings were arranged around a solid core with peripheral walls. The plane crashes penetrated both the peripheries and the cores, and in one tower the explosion blew through the far periphery. The resulting fires began to melt the steel beams which held up the entire structure.
The exterior walls for the two World Trade Center towers were part of the load-bearing structure, and engineer said, not just a skin around a structural skeleton.
The result was what builders call a pancake collapse, when the 30 floors above the break fell together, in a domino effect, on all the floors below. The puff of air visible just as the fall began was a sure sign of that kind of collapse, they said.
Miele said the steel beam structures fell straight down and were demolished.
Tuesday afternoon, the No. 7 building of the World Trade Center compound also collapsed. The 47-story building had housed the city's emergency center, which had moved before the larger towers collapsed earlier in the day. The building had been burning since the two plane crashes in the twin towers.
Late Wednesday, there was concern that Building 5 also might fall.
Where once stood the twin towers, a pair of buildings only 28 years old but familiar not only to all New Yorkers but many people around the world, there now stands a vast pall of smoke, a marker for the people who died there Tuesday.
"We had a lot of emergency plans, but none of them envisaged the total collapse of the World Trade Center," said Diana Chapin, first deputy commissioner of the environmental protection department, which handles the water, sewers, and air quality in the huge city.
--
United Press International.
Why the Arabs Hate America
Over the last 24 hours, I have watched in disbelief as the events in New York unfolded. The televised explosions, and subsequent loss of life have been commented upon by every news gathering agency in America.
Notably absent from this commentary, however, is any credible explanation of what motives the terrorists, or their sponsors, mayhave had. Several years ago I had the opportunity to live in Israel. During that time I had many conversations with Arabs of different nationalities. The opinions that they expressed about America, and the West in general, have been completely censored from the American media, including most of the internet.
To start, I should say that hatred of Israel is certainly a factor. It is not however, the most important factor. The unspoken message of most American news media is that we are paying the price for our support of Israel. The corollary to this argument would then be simple: Abandon Israel, and become friends with the Arabs. If only it were that simple.
The true nature of this conflict has political and social roots that extend much deeper than simple questions about Palestinian refugees, Arab nationalism, or oil. The Arabs, at the core of their cultural identity, are deeply religious, family oriented, and proletariat.
Nowhere in the world is a sense of honor more deeply ingrained into the young men, and a sense of family responsibility ingrained into the young women, than in Islamic communities. Marriage and children are regarded as an expression of God’s destiny. Every little girl fully expects to become a wife and mother, it is a priority.
America and the Arab nations are on a cultural collision course. The first signs of serious friction began to appear when female American troops served in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf war. Arab men were appalled at the sight of armed females giving orders. This was the highest possible dishonor. They remember it to this day.
Female troops, however, are only the tip of the iceberg. Modern American ideology is described by many as “left-wing liberal democracy”. This term is supposed to indicate compassion, and fairness. To many people however, especially Arabs, it represents Communism and Satanism.
Why do they feel this way? Simple. Arab intellectuals, and Muslim Clerics, examine the American social and political system in order to guage the effect that it has on American children. The effect has clearly been a disaster, American children are emotionally devastated. The Arabs know that with improvements in technology, such as cell phones and the internet, the American feminist/socialist school of thought will begin to influence their own children, as well.
As parents, they have to ask a question. Do we want our children to become Americanized? After examining the disaster that has taken place within the American family over the last twenty years, they have an answer: “No”.
“No” to pornography. “No” to widespread use of “legal” and illegal drugs. “No” to the destruction of honor. “No” to abortion on demand. “No” to feminism and gender warfare. “No” to divorce. “No” to atheism. “No” to a culture of entitlement, that teaches children malice and greed. In other words, “No” to America, and all that they feel she represents.
The reasons given above offer important clues as to why the true nature of the conflict is never discussed on television. The mainstream media has invested heavily in the left as a result of pressure from feminists, homosexuals, and Socialists. To discuss true Arab motives, would require acknowledging that our globalized left-liberal agenda is failing, and may eventually result in the collapse of the United States. The American media, and the American government, are simply not ready for that kind of honesty.
Ultimately, this war must be viewed as a social conflict, rather than a military engagement. America is a super-power and can probably punish those responsible, wherever they may be. In the long term, however, the country that maintains strong family bonds, traditional values, a just society, and a meaningful relationship with God is the one that will emerge victorious.
Therein lies the problem. The Arabs represent a widely dispersed, rural agrarian economy with a young population, high birth rate, strong family values, and absolute conviction in the rightness of their cause. The United States represents a capitalist alliance of overlapping business and political “interest groups”. The individuals who populate America no longer form a cohesive social fabric. We have all become free agents.
The truth then, is that in spite of how many foreign enemies we may have, the real war will take place on American soil. We must re-establish the principals upon which this nation was founded: God, Country, heterosexual marriage, and the nuclear family. That will be the war that matters.
Ron Liebermann
ronogram@aol.com
Thursday 13 September 9:14 AM
Bin Laden under house arrest: report
Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia had placed alleged terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden under house arrest in the wake of the suicide attacks on the United States, an Arabic online newspaper reported.
Quoting "fundamentalist Arab sources", Ilaf said the "Taliban have arrested Osama bin Laden before placing him under surveillance with several of his assistants," including the head of the Egyptian branch of Al-Jihad Ayman Al-Zawahri and bin Laden's military commander, Muhammad Atef Al-Makni.
"A number of Afghan fighters are under house arrest along with bin Laden," said the report late Wednesday.
But a diplomat at the Taliban's embassy in Abu Dhabi said he could not confirm the report.
"All we know is that he (bin Laden) is somewhere in Afghanistan, but we are not aware if he is under house arrest," the diplomat said.
Bin Laden and commander Atef have been indicted for the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
Bin Laden has emerged as the prime suspects in yesterday's kamikaze hijacked passenger jet strikes on New York and Washington.
Bin Laden congratulates attackers
By AP
Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden congratulated the people who carried out the deadly terrorist strikes in the United States, but denied today that he was involved, a Palestinian journalist said.
"Osama bin Laden thanked Almighty Allah and bowed before him when he heard this news," Jamal Ismail, Abu Dhabi Television's bureau chief in Islamabad, said, quoting a close aide of bin Laden's. Ismail said the aide, whom he wouldn't identify by name, called him early today on a satellite telephone from a hide-out in Afghanistan.
Bin Laden praised the people who carried out the attacks in Washington and New York, Ismail said, quoting the aide. "But he had no information or knowledge about the attack" ahead of time, Ismail said.
The journalist has long-standing ties with bin Laden and has won rare interviews with him several times over the last few years.
In a series of coordinated attacks yesterday, terrorists crashed two airliners into the World Trade Center in New York, and a third plane slammed into the Pentagon in Washington. A fourth one crashed in Pennsylvania.
Bin Laden is a key suspect in the bombing of two US embassies in East Africa in August 1998 that killed 224 people, including 12 US citizens.
Washington wants bin Laden to be tried for the bombing but Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia rulers have refused to hand him over, despite tough UN sanctions against the Taliban.
The Taliban government calls bin Laden their guest and a hero of Islam.
The aide said that bin Laden has described the devastation in the United States as "a punishment from Allah", Ismail said. The United States had invited Allah's wrath because it is trying to control the entire world by force, Ismail said, quoting the aide.
"There are thousands of Muslims who have vowed for jihad (or a holy war) and martyrdom," according to bin Laden's aide. "They have experience to fight with all sorts of weapons."
The aide also denied reports of bin Laden's deteriorating health, according to Ismail, saying: "These are all false reports. He is well and strong."
To: gopnewsandviews@incor.com
Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2001 6:07 PM
Subject: GOP News & Views - September 13, 2001
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Repeal the Assassination Ban
Executive orders since 1976 prohibit the United States government from using the tool of assassination to protect its people in our war against terrorism. Please go to: http://www.libertypetitions.com/ and sign our online petition urging your congressman and President Bush to repeal of the ban on assassinations. We shouldn't have to fight this war with one hand tied behind our back. The lives of the innocent many outweigh the lives of the guilty few . . . or the one.
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Democrats Revert to Partisan Form Already, So We Return to "GOP" News & Views
"'In its scope and devastation, the attack drew instant comparisons to Pearl Harbor,' says a new LA Times commentary. But, the writers add, 'Bush's challenge now is quite different. Unlike Pearl Harbor, the airliner attacks came with no return address. And unlike FDR, then in his third term, Bush is in only his eighth month as president, still untested as an international leader. In that political context, the best analogy may not be Pearl Harbor, but rather the Cuban missile crisis that confronted President John F. Kennedy.'
"BUT, unlike JFK, Bush helped set the stage for the current crisis: his stances have systematically provoked anger at the US around the globe. Meanwhile, his focus has been on long-term missile shield schemes, not on the immediate threat of terrorism, thus leaving the US more vulnerable. Worse yet, he helped fund (through a $43 million donation) the very group harboring the man believed to be behind the attack."
- Democrats.com, 9/11/01
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Eight Years of Clinton/Gore/Christopher/Albright Bumbling & Neglect; But It' s Bush's Fault?
"Bush and his network of Cold War hawks have pushed their bloated missile schemes at the expense of nearly every other type of military funding - including intelligence. Over the years, underfunding and under support has lead to a serious decline in the efficiency of our national intelligence system."
- Democrats.com, 9/11/01
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Not All Arabs Are Enemies
"Chuck: Greetings from Amman, Jordan. I have been on your list for some time now, and I want to just send my deepest feelings to you and the American people. While I know that you have seen pictures on TV showing people here celebrating, I assure that it is not the general mood here. People here are very shocked and appalled by these senseless attacks. These attacks are inhumane and who carried them out should be hunted and punished. I, however, worry that everybody is passing judgment on us Arabs as a collective group. I urge that, as President Bush said last night, we all have a quiet and unyielding anger. My heart goes out to those have lost loved ones in these attacks. No words can express, only prayers that come from the heart."
- GOPN&V reader Paul Hijazin, Jordan
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Letter to Osama: Your Mission Failed
"You monster. You beast. You unspeakable bastard. What lesson did you hope to teach us by your coward's attack on our World Trade Center, our Pentagon, us? What was it you hoped we would learn? Whatever it was, please know that you failed. Did you want us to respect your cause? You just damned your cause. Did you want to make us fear? You just steeled our resolve. Did you want to tear us apart? You just brought us together."
- Columnist Leonard Pitts Jr., Miami Herald, 9/12/01
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Time to Stop Pussyfooting Around
"This is not crime. This is war. One of the reasons there are terrorists out there capable and audacious enough to carry out the deadliest attack on the United States in its history is that, while they have declared war on us, we have in the past responded (with the exception of a few useless cruise missile attacks on empty tents in the desert) by issuing subpoenas.
Secretary of State Colin Powell's first reaction to the day of infamy was to pledge to 'bring those responsible to justice.' This is exactly wrong. Franklin Roosevelt did not respond to Pearl Harbor by pledging to bring the commander of Japanese naval aviation to justice. He pledged to bring Japan to its knees. You bring criminals to justice; you rain destruction on combatants."
- Columnist Charles Krauthammer, 9/12/01
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For Want of a Gun, Thousands of Lives Were Lost
"The only thing preventing some armed citizen from being a hero yesterday were the wicked, delusional, and thoroughly evil Federal laws prohibiting citizens from exercising their absolute, God ordained, Second Amendment protected right of individual self defense. The WTC lies is ruins, in part, for the want of an armed citizen. It is an ironic and exceedingly bitter truth that New York City pioneered the gun control mindset that made sure the terrorists could safely overcome a plane load of people with crude weapons."
- GOPN&V reader Randall Dunning, 9/12/01
"Terrorists took advantage of the ultimate 'gun free zone' yesterday morning to bring the nation to its knees. The stupid notion that evil, vicious killers can be deterred by preventing law-abiding American citizens from having guns made it easy for terrorists who were armed with nothing more than small knives."
- Columnist Neal Knox, "Neal Knox Report," 9/12/01
"If I -- or someone like me -- a fat middle-aged American couch potato, but with police-quality training in firearms, had been allowed to carry my Glock 23 pistol on one of these flights, this couldn't have happened. But what is the solution of the big brains in charge of our national security? Yes, you got it. This is not a joke. Before you get on a plane, they want to take away your pen knives, nail clippers, and box cutters!
"This new FAA regulation goes into effect before they will allow commercial flights to even take off. If you still are one of those who believe in petitioning the government for a redress of grievances, please let your duly-elected public servant know what you think of Americans who board airliners being treated even more like cattle than they are already. Ask them how many Americans must die before they intend to allow us to defend our lives."
- GOPN&V reader J. Neil Schulman, 9/12/01
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The Feminization of America
"The Israelis, when hit, hit back. They hit back hard. But Israel is run by men. We are run by women. Perhaps two-thirds of the newscasters were blonde drones who spoke of the attack over and over as a tragedy, as though it had been an unusually bad storm -- unfortunate, but inevitable, and now we must get on with our lives. The experts and politicians, nominally male, were effeminate and soft little things. When a feminized society runs up against male enemies -- and bin Laden, whatever else he is, is a man -- it loses. We have."
- Columnist Fred Reed, 9/12/01
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Welcome to the REAL Real World
"The sky isn't supposed to fall in New York City. But yesterday morning it did just that. As I watched from my vantage point on the Lower East Side, I witnessed surreal, almost wartime carnage that my generation has never seen firsthand. . . . In my life, the only warfare I've seen in real time was against Iraq. That looked like some high-tech computer game transmitted from a land far away. I'm not supposed to see this. Our fathers and grandfathers saw the war. We're the lucky, pampered generation. This isn't supposed to happen in our lifetimes. To Gen Xers, battles and wars are antiquated - and only seen through fuzzy footage on the History Channel."
- Johanna Huden, New York Post, 9/12/01
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Poetic Justice
"Given what occurred in New York yesterday, I think it would be perfect poetic justice if we were to hang Osama bin Laden from the Statue of Liberty in the harbor. It would send a powerful message to other would-be terrorists as well as build American patriotism."
- GOPN&V reader David Rieben, 9/12/01
"Killing Bin Laden is too good for him. His dream was to see the World Trade Center towers toppled. We should hunt him down, capture him, encase him in concrete up to his neck and put him in the middle of where the even bigger and better World Trade Center towers will be built - forcing him to watch as we rebuild around him, with him as part of the foundation. Once the building is completed, we can then finish the job and seal his head in concrete, too. THAT is the fate this son of a bitch deserves."
- GOPN&V reader Jim Riley, 9/12/01
"We used to fight the pirates, not countries in the Caribbean, who attacked American interests. It's time to let the military go do what they do best. Hunt them down and kill them."
- GOPN&V reader Gavin Grooms, 9/12/01
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Where We Should Go From Here
"Here's what President Bush should rally us to do as a nation:
* Build a missile-defense system as quickly as possible - no matter what the cost, no matter what the sacrifice. Maybe now people will understand the threats they face in a hostile world.
* Cut off all foreign aid to Yasser Arafat and his Palestine Authority, which, despite their attempt to distance themselves from these attacks, bears at least some responsibility.
* Take the handcuffs off Ariel Sharon and Israel to respond appropriately to the terror attacks the Jewish state has endured for the last year.
* Achieve energy independence by beginning an aggressive domestic oil-drilling effort in Alaska and elsewhere, removing all misguided environmental barriers to this national security necessity.
* Repeal all restrictive gun laws so that every law-abiding American can take part in national defense against this elusive enemy who can strike anywhere, anytime.
* Require every airliner in America to include armed guards on board, require all crews to be armed and to allow properly permitted passengers to bring firearms on board as well. Think of the lives that might have been saved if any one of those four airliners was carrying some appropriately armed crew members or passengers.
* Drop all plans for relaxing controls at our borders and step up rigorous enforcement of our immigration laws. Amnesty? Forget about it.
* Call for a national day of prayer - just as our Founding Fathers would have done in a time of national emergency."
- Joseph Farah, WorldNetDaily.com, 9/12/01
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Published by the Republican Liberty Caucus "The Conscience of the Republican Party"
http://www.republicanlibertycaucus.com/
Chuck Muth, Editor
3659 Scotwood Street
Las Vegas, NV 89121
Phone: (702) 454-0350
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U.S. PLACES FORCES IN GULF ON HIGH ALERT
ABU DHABI [MENL] -- The U.S. military in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula has been placed on the highest level of alert in wake of the attacks on New York and Washington.U.S. officials in the Gulf and in Washington said military installations throughout the Gulf Cooperation Council states have been closed. U.S. soldiers have been ordered to stay on base.The alert was highest in Kuwait, where the bulk of on-shore American troops is based. About 5,000 U.S. troops are usually in Kuwait, while at least another 10,000 are on warships in the Persian Gulf.The U.S. Embassy in Kuwait, which was closed on Wednesday, also issued an alert to Americans in the sheikdom to remain on alert. The embassy alert did not inform the 8,000 Americans in the sheikdom of any specific threat.Most other U.S. embassies in the Gulf region are also expected to be closed on Wednesday. The U.S. Embassy in Abu Dhabi was closed. Americans in the United Arab Emirates were urged to remain a low profile.Security was also bolstered around U.S. installations in Yemen. A five-member FBI team has been in Yemen to conduct the investigation of the October bombing of the USS Cole.Gulf defense sources said U.S. allies in the region have been cooperating in security efforts. In Kuwait, the military was placed on maximum alert. Officials said air, sea and ground troops have been ordered to intensify patrols. Kuwait also closed its air space.
Date: 9/13/2001 6:50:48 PM Pacific Daylight Time
From: cropolis@your-net.com (Spider Piglet)
this response is from M. Amir Ali regarding the attack on Tuesday.
AIRPLANE CRASHES AT W.T.C. & THE PENTAGON WHO BENEFITS MOST?
By M. Amir Ali
Condemnation: The Muslim leadership of the Chicago area called an emergency meeting to discuss the most horrible crimes committed against American people this morning of September 11, 2001 and the press release which was issued earlier today to the media. This press release condemned terrorist attacks on WTC and the Pentagon which caused a senseless loss of innocent life. The condemnation is unconditional, unequivocal and supports an impartial investigation for bringing perpetrators to full justice. I would like to add that there should be no retaliation against any party or a country without proof but based on suspicion and prejudice. The Muslim leaders of Chicago discussed an action plan to help the victims and survivors of the terrorist attack by sending a team of doctors to New York, donating blood for the victims and sending money to help the needy. Committees were established to implement the resolutions immediately.
This attack was apparently well coordinated by people who had intricate inside knowledge, technology, money, manpower, motivation, cooperation of a large number of insiders and whatever it took to carry them out. It is, therefore, essential to find who benefits most from these horrible crimes, who would receive cooperation of the insiders, who would have detailed knowledge of vulnerable parts of targeted buildings, technology knowledge to fly those commercial airplanes correctly, knowledge of the force of impact of the airplane for penetration inside WTC and the Pentagon, probability of success without interruption from security apparatus of the U.S., escaping the radar systems and motivation to die and kill.
1. Motivation: We have to look at the motivation, balancing benefits vs. harm and find who benefits most from this crime.
(a) True Muslim Group. Those Muslims who have the knowledge of the Qur'an and teachings of the Prophet Muhammad (S) know very well that Islam strictly prohibits killing and injuring those who have not taken up arms against the Muslim even if they belong to the enemy camp. This includes men, women and children of the enemy during a war conditions. World Trade Center cannot be the target of any true Muslim group or individuals because Islamically the people in and around WTC nor those innocent people traveling in the airplanes used for crashes can justifiable be harmed. On this account, if the Pentagon is loosely justifiable as a target, certainly the lives of the passengers on the airplane that was used to hit the Pentagon is not justifiable by any stretch of the imagination. The benefits for any Muslim group are none in this crime but the harms are great. Firstly, the loss of innocent lives which certainly included two to five thousand Muslims who worked at the WTC. Secondly, the bad name given to Islam and the Muslims, which this crime will cause and will make more people hate and fear Islam and Muslims. Any true Muslim would like people to see Islam as a religion of peace, not war, a problem solving way of life, not problem creating. Thirdly, harm may be caused for the Muslims living in the West and North America. There are bigots in the West who are looking for any excuse to harm Muslims, their businesses, their institutions and their religious centers. Even on mere suspicion they are going to cause harm to Muslims and their properties. It is, therefore, obvious that no true Muslim dare do any kind of stupid and un-Islamic activity to harm non-Muslims or their properties.
(b) Osama Binladin and the Taliban. I know that Osama Binladin is a true Muslim with in depth knowledge of the Qur'an and teachings of the Prophet and I would never suspect that he would do anything against the teachings of Islam and harm anyone who is a civilian and has not taken up arms against Islam or Muslims. His pronouncements are against the military presence of the U.S. in the Muslim lands, particularly, his native land of the Arabian Peninsula, commonly known as Saudi Arabia, which is believed by the Muslims to be sacred. Besides, Osama Binladin knows that any terrorism against American civilians would bring harm to the Muslims living in the West and Islamic interests. I would absolve Osama Binladin from any culpability in any terrorist crime involving civilian and innocent people including the bombings of two American Embassies in East African countries. The Taliban are reported to be led by Islamic scholars who know that they are not to harm any civilians anywhere in the world. I would, therefore, absolve the Taliban from any part in the air crashes at WTC, the Pentagon and other places. Taliban's interpretation of Islam may be extreme but the brunt of their extremism is borne by those living within the boundaries of their government and it does not extend beyond it. Hamas cannot be implicated because their anger is against the Israelis and those who are in Palestine in support of Zionist causes. According to press reports Hamas has justification of harming Israeli civilians but I have no direct contact for verification of these reports. If they have any justification for harming civilians, this would be limited to the Israelis living in Israel. I see no justification for Hamas to launch a very complicated operation such as we are seeing today at WTC and the Pentagon.
(c) Secularized "Muslims". People like Saddam Hussein, Kaddafi, PLFP, PLO and their brethren who are free from Islamic restrictions and moral scruples behave more like Russian, American and Israeli governments who will strike the enemy on mere suspicion or take revenge beyond ratio and proportion. However, on other grounds, we shall see in the following that they are not capable of carrying out such attacks.
(d) The Israelis. The world Zionists and Israelis have no true friend left in the world except the U.S., the sole Super Power and this support is slipping out of their grip in favor of Muslims and the Arabs. American public opinion is slowly moving away from the blind and unconditional support of Israel towards neutrality and that makes Israelis very nervous. The loss of Al Gore in the year 2000 has upset Israelis very much and Bush disappoints them even more. It is the rising Muslim population in the U.S. that is very scary for the Zionists. Zionists know that sooner than later, Muslims will become politically active and economically rival the Zionists and that will be the end of American economic, political and military support for Israel. The top of the Israeli agenda is to not only arrest the Muslim growth in America but to reduce Muslim influence. By equating Islam as terrorism and Muslims as evil Israel thinks that Israel can achieve her goal. Zionists want to create terror in the minds of American people when they hear Islam, Muslim and Arab. Zionists want to see that Muslims and Arabs are attacked and their properties burned down so that the environment of the Spanish inquisition days are recreated in the 21st century U.S. so that Muslims either leave Islam for their own security or are murdered or exiled. Israel has found that terrorism outside the U.S. has not scared American people enough, therefore, it was necessary to carry out terrorism within the U.S. and label it as the work of the Muslims and Arabs. This author continues to believe that WTC bombing of 1993 was the work of Israelis which resulted in amendments of the immigration laws and the Secret Evidence Law of 1996, restricting immigration of Muslims and creating an environment of fear for some. However, this was not enough to reduce Muslim influence in America and required more work. Air crashes at the WTC and the Pentagon are their follow up to create terror in the American public so that they will turn against Muslims and the Arabs. It is, therefore obvious that the Israelis and the Zionist have a strong motivation to carry out attacks and label it upon the Muslims and the Arabs. In fact, this is the only way left for their own security and keeping the U.S. as their protector. I, therefore, suggest that any sincere investigation must include state terrorism by the State of Israel and her supporters within the U.S. and worldwide. Any material found in Arabic language or Arabic names may also be a set up to camouflage and protect real perpetrators. Furthermore, it is noteworthy that Sephardic Jews in their appearance are indistinguishable from Arabs and a majority of Israelis speak Arabic language.
2. Technology and Scientific Knowledge: This successful air crash required a lot of technology and scientific know how. As the media is saying, large commercial airplanes have a button for announcing hijacking, which were not touched in three air crashes, why not? If hijackers were in the cockpit and got control over the pilot/s at gun point, it is inconceivable that the pilot will obey their orders and crash the plane into the buildings in dead-center without trying to avoid the target and missing it. If hijackers removed the pilots from their seats and took over piloting themselves, that would require the knowledge of flying a commercial airplane and hit the target at dead-center. They needed not one but a crew of pilots for four airplanes,. Who has the capability except Israelis who have Zionists employed by the American companies and willing to strike the target at dead-center without cautioning anyone or using the hijacking warning button.
There is probability that the hijackers were familiar people to the crew and the pilots, therefore, when they entered the cockpit there was no resistance or suspicion of terrorism. Reportedly, hijackers turned off transponders in the cockpit and possibly the black box which could give clues to their identities.
Striking the target buildings require precise knowledge where the building is most vulnerable to cause maximum damage. We know that the Israelis and Zionists have or had access to the building and knew it very well.
Also, terrorists needed knowledge of the radar system and holes in the system so that they could steer the plane away from the designated flying corridor yet not be detected. This required inside knowledge of the system. New York being a Zionist dominated city has knowledge available to them and the willingness to use it.
3. Cooperation and Coordination: Successfully crashing three airplanes within two hours at three targets, two of them far apart by several hundred miles requires tremendous amount of cooperation and coordination. It has to be a military-like operation. The work would require a lot of inside information, which no other group has access to except American Zionists. Most importantly, getting on aboard airplanes with weapons or an insider without weapon, knowledge of radar system and holes within it, timing of three separate attacks require coordination. The only people who can plan, coordinate and carry it out in complete secrecy are the Zionists of America and Israelis. I am sure that there are numerous Zionists working within the radar system, working as pilots in all commercial airline companies, working in the security system and so on. Neither Hamas, nor Osama Binladin nor the Taliban nor any other group has the sophistication required for this operation.
Within the last twenty years Israel and the Zionists had two American Administrations who were very friendly and cooperative with the Israelis, the Reagan and the Clinton-Gore. Bushes were not seen by the Zionists as friendly as they would like them to be. The fact that Bush II has spoken in favor of the Muslims and the Arabs scares Israelis and they would like force Bush to work against the Muslims. Israelis hope that these air crashes would do the trick.
The world will not get a handle on terrorism until the Israelis are included as suspects in the world of terrorism and scuttle her activities. State terrorism by Israel in Palestine is well known but not well recognized. The world has to come around to blame where the blame belongs - Israel.
American Muslim Response: American Muslims should acted in two ways, (a) immediate response to bigotry and attacks against Muslims, and (b) solve the problem of terrorism by removing tyranny, injustice and the double standard of the U.S. government.
Response to Bigotry. There will be hundreds of attacks against Muslims and Arabs but Muslims and Arabs should follow the guidance of the Qur'an, kuffu aydiyakum, meaning tie down your hands. It means, take all the abuse but do not respond in any manner and this will win many hearts in our favor. Sabr in adversity (see the Qur'an 2:177) meaning patience (no revenge) and perseverance should be our response. This was the Prophet's response and he is our role model.
Long Term Strategy. There can be no alternative to educating American people about Islam, Muslims and issues, which affect Muslims and the world, such as Palestine, Kashmir, Chechnya and others. Ignorance is the mother of prejudice, hate and fear; education removes ignorance. Muslim Americans have the responsibility of educating American people and in ten years we can complete this phase of the work.
September 11, 2001
Postscript dated September 13, 2001. After watching over 52 hours of media reporting and various commentaries I do not find two aspects addressed at all:
(a) No one has mentioned that terrorism is a sign of underlying disease; what is the diagnosis and what is the disease?
(b) All the emphasis is on suppressing the symptoms, that is, terrorism.
What is being done to treat the disease. What is etiology of the disease?
My basic contention that Israelis and the Zionists should also be prime suspects. What I am hearing on the media is that the U.S. is focusing on Arabs and Muslims exclusively. For example FBI is looking only for Arabic names in the airline manifests and chasing them rather than looking at every traveler and including Jewish names for investigation. So far there are allegations against the Arabs but no hard evidence. Why did they not look for Jews obtaining pilot training?
I am appreciative of the President Bush who, while talking to the Mayor and Governor of New York, he said that Arab-Americans and Muslim Americans should be respected and they are not involved in any way in terrorism.
Pressures on the Muslim world leaders. Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yasser Arafat and the Arab world are coming under pressure to cooperate in arresting and hand over Osama Binladin to the American government. This would be wrong to arrest a Muslim leader and handing over to the enemies of Islam. First of all, the U.S. has a duty to produce hard evidence against Osama Binladin and a Muslim country should try him and convict him if there is evidence within the laws of Islam. If the Muslim leaders are not willing to learn from Islam then they need to learn from Israel. Israel refuses to hand over criminals to any country, even abducts and hijacks whom she considers to be criminals, they are tried sentenced in Israel. Even the U.S. has given in to the Israeli whims and failed in extraditing American criminals from Israel.
Leaders of the Muslim countries should not submit to the whims of the enemies of Islam but ask hard questions about solving problems of the Muslim world that includes removal of tyranny and colonialism from Palestine, Kashmir, Chechnya, Kosova, ending aggression against Sudan, ending embargoes against Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan and ending Anti-Islam campaign worldwide.
Thursday, September 13, 2001
KABUL, Afghanistan — Usama bin Laden moved to a new hiding place within minutes of the terrorist onslaught in the United States, refusing to tell anyone where he was going or where he had been when the attacks occurred, sources in Pakistan's intelligence service said Thursday.
The sources in neighboring Pakistan spoke on condition of anonymity. Pakistan is one of only three countries that recognize Afghanistan's Taliban government, and is considered to have good intelligence on Islamic militants operating here. A U.S. official, also speaking anonymously, confirmed the Pakistani report.
Bin Laden, a major suspect in Tuesday's attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, dropped out of sight in August 1998, when the United States fired cruise missiles into eastern Afghanistan following the terrorist bombing of two U.S. embassies in East Africa.
In a statement carried on Taliban radio, Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar accused U.S. investigators of focusing on bin Laden, a wealthy exiled Saudi, "without any proof but because he is so well known."
"Does Usama have planes to train pilots? Where did they get their training? Who trained them? Are they former pilots? From which country? This is the job of a government. In Afghanistan this kind of training is not possible," Omar said.
Bin Laden was last seen in public in February, at his son's wedding in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar.
Kandahar is the Taliban militia's headquarters. Witnesses and other Afghan sources say that near Kandahar's airport is a sprawling housing compound accommodating 300 so-called "Afghan Arabs" — foreign volunteers who came to Afghanistan to fight the Soviet army in the 1980s and ended up in bin Laden's al-Qaeda (The Base) group.
Since Tuesday's terrorist attacks, there have been several reports from Kandahar of Arab nationals moving out of the area, presumably to avoid U.S. retaliation.
In Kabul, the Afghan capital, where Arab nationals have become increasingly visible in recent months, several Arab families have been seen loading their belongings into vehicles and leaving.
Bin Laden is known to travel in small convoys, often in a plain white jeep accompanied by his closest bodyguards and only Arab nationals like himself. Taliban commanders who know bin Laden say he rarely stays in one place for more than two days.
In his travels, Bin Laden is usually accompanied by Ayman Al-Zawari, who was convicted in absentia and sentenced to death for the 1981 assassination of Egypt's President Anwar Sadat.
Bin Laden is known to run training camps in eastern Afghanistan's Paktia, Kunar, Nangarhar and Kandahar provinces, where mountain caves offering limitless hide-outs.
According to Taliban sources, one of Bin Laden's bases is in Paktia province. He shares it with Jalaluddin Haqqani, a former Islamic insurgent who received massive U.S. backing as part of a policy of countering the Soviet invasion.
Built with the help of U.S. money and expertise, the bases are a warren of interlinked caves. Pakistani intelligence officials who used to funnel U.S. money to the insurgents have said they are strong enough to withstand anything short of a nuclear bomb.
Last spring a Taliban security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he had accompanied bin Laden to his hide-outs in the mountains of Kunar province.
The official said five satellite dishes are camouflaged on a mountainside and that while visiting the region he heard conversations by satellite telephone in French and Arabic.
The Taliban leaders condemned Tuesday's attacks, and many Afghan citizens are expressing outrage.
The Taliban foreign minister, Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, said bin Laden has been denied communications equipment and does not have the facilities to carry out such an assault.
However, the Foreign Ministry was quick to deny rumors that bin Laden was under house arrest, and Muttawakil refused to say where he is. When asked during an interview at a hotel in Kabul three hours after the terrorist attacks, he would only say: "Well, he's not in this hotel."
Powell Names Bin Laden, Pledges to 'Rip Up' Terrorist Groups
Thursday, September 13, 2001
With Usama bin Laden identified as a prime suspect in Tuesday's terrorist attack against the United States, Washington has appealed to Pakistan to shut down its border with Afghanistan and cease funding terrorist organizations.
Bin Laden, who was named the top suspect in the attacks by Secretary of State Collin Powell Thursday, is a Saudi-born exile who operates a terrorist network out of Afghanistan under the protection of the Taliban, Afghanistan's extremist Muslim government. Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf has pledged his cooperation to Powell.
A senior Bush administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, also said Thursday that the U.S. has requested permission to fly over Pakistan's territory should the U.S. take military action.
The Bush administration has made clear it will retaliate aggressively once the terrorists behind attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon are identified.
"We will go after that group, that network and those that have harbored, supported and aided that network, to rip that network up," Powell said Thursday. "When we are through with that network, we will continue with a global assault against terrorism in general."
The U.S. moved one step closer to that action Thursday when Powell, for the first time, publicly named bin Laden as the suspected mastermind of the deadly attacks. Prior to Thursday, the administration had not spoken publicly of suspects.
"We are looking at those terrorist organizations who have the kind of capacity that would have been necessary to conduct the kind of attack that we saw," Powell said.
Hijackers commandeered four U.S. passenger jet liners Tuesday, flying two of the planes into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center and one into the Pentagon, leaving behind a death toll expected to rise into the tens of thousands. Nearly 5,000 people remain unaccounted for in New York City, where the Twin Towers have been completely destroyed.
During a news conference Thursday, Powell said the administration would not go on record with the identity of the organization it believed to be responsible, but said, "When you look at the list of candidates, one resides in the region."
When asked if he was actually referring to bin Laden, Powell said "yes."
A Pakistani intelligence source said Thursday that bin Laden changed locations within Afghanistan just minutes after reports of the attacks.
After the news conference, Powell telephoned Musharraf to seek "a specific list of things that we think would be useful for them to work on with us."
After the 10-minute talk, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher described the conversation as positive and said Msharraf had promised to cooperate.
Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage met separately with the Pakistani ambassador to Washington, Maleeha Lodhi, and the south Asian country's intelligence chief, Mahmoud Ahmed.
Armitage gave the officials a list of the assistance the United States wants from Pakistan, which includes information on terror networks, and a number of areas where Pakistan can be helpful, a senior U.S. official said.
In Islamabad, Musharraf pledged "unstinted cooperation in the fight against terrorism" and said it was difficult to describe his nation's sorrow and grief at a time of tragedy for the American people.
Powell's statements indicated that should the U.S. conclude bin Laden orchestrated the attacks, the U.S. could strike Afghanistan.
Those strikes would take the form of a sustained military campaign, Deputy of Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said Thursday.
"It's going to unfold over time," Wolfowitz told reporters at the Pentagon. "One thing that is clear is you don't do it with just a single military strike, no matter how dramatic."
When asked what targets U.S. military action might strike, Wolfowitz said "it will be a campaign, not a single action. And we're going to keep after these people and the people who support them until this stops."
Wolfowitz said a portion of the $20 billion in emergency funds President Bush has asked Congress to approve will be used to strengthen U.S. military readiness for the fight against terrorism. He could not specify how much.
"A significant piece of this is going to be used to bring our armed forces to the highest level of preparedness to do whatever the president may ask them to do," he said.
Another portion of the extra money sought by the president would pay for air patrols that have been flying over major American cities since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
"There are costs already incurred with the combat air patrols that have been maintained over a significant number of American cities, including Washington," he said. "The costs mount rapidly and they will mount more rapidly as this campaign develops."
The U.S. is also investigating Iraq's role in assisting the terrorist network, a U.S. official told the Associated Press.
Powell would not discuss a connection to Baghdad but called President Saddam Hussein "one of the leading terrorists on the face of the Earth."
Lawmakers are continuing to contemplate issuing a declaration of war. With the enemy uncertain, some advocates of the declaration have suggested that an open-ended declaration would function to indicate how seriously the U.S. government views the attack. Others have suggested a declaration against bin Laden and his followers that would include states that harbor and assist terrorists, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, the Palestinian Authority, Syria, and others.
As the ramifications of the tragedy continue to unfold, the Secret Service has engineered a security clampdown, relocating Vice President Dick Cheney to Camp David, which is under heavy guard.
Meanwhile, Armitage traveled to Russia Wednesday to seek their help in the investigation and to discuss Afghanistan. The Soviet Union fought a 10-year war with Muslim fundamentalists after invading Afghanistan and setting up a puppet government in 1979. The United States opposed the Soviet invasion and provided weapons to the insurgents through Pakistan.
The Central Asian countries that formed the underbelly of the Soviet Union have emerged as the battleground for an Islamic insurgency aided by Afghanistan that threatens to destabilize the region.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Angry U.S. prepares for 21st century war
By Alan Elsner and Arthur Spiegelman
WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - The United States is gearing up for what it has called the first war of the 21st century, naming Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden as a suspect in twin terror attacks that stunned New York and Washington and left about 5,000 either confirmed dead or missing.
At the wreckage of New York's World Trade Centre, rescue workers pawed through the wreckage in the hunt for survivors as the city braced for the worst after spectacular attacks on Tuesday brought down the two 110-story towers and surrounding structures.
At the Pentagon -- like the twin towers, hit by a hijacked jetliner -- 126 people were still unaccounted for, not including the 64 people aboard the commandeered flight that slammed into one of its famed five sides.
New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said that 4,763 people were missing from the twin towers, which were struck on Tuesday by two commandeered passenger jets and subsequently caved in.
While the official death toll from the World Trade Centre rose to 94, officials said body parts were being recovered and ordered thousands of body bags. Authorities said 3,800 were injured.
The situation was "horrible and gruesome. I'm sorry that I have to describe it that way, but that's unfortunately the situation that we're facing," the mayor said.
NATIONAL DAY OF MOURNING
An emotional President George W. Bush said the United States and its global allies were ready to "whip terrorism" and declared Friday a national day of mourning for the victims.
He planned to visit New York that day to show his support for the thousands of volunteers risking their lives to help others in an extraordinary outpouring of heroism.
Talking to reporters in the White House, with tears in his eyes, Bush said, "Now is an opportunity to do generations a favour by coming together and whipping terrorism, hunting it down, finding it and holding them accountable."
The nation's air transport system slowly began resuming operations, although with severe new security measures in place and warnings of long delays. Officials put an end to such conveniences as driving up to terminals in passengers cars and checking baggage in at the curb.
While Defence officials promised "sustained" engagement in what Bush called the first war of the 21st century, Secretary of State Colin Powell confirmed that bin Laden was a chief suspect.
He was the first U.S. official to state publicly the exiled millionaire believed responsible for murderous attacks on U.S. embassies in Africa could have organised the attacks using hijacked passenger jets on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.
However, bin Laden aides told journalists in Pakistan that the exiled multi-millionaire had denied involvement in the attacks, which he described as "punishment from almighty Allah."
U.S. stock markets remained closed and New York's financial district lay stricken as worries over the economic impact of the attacks grew. Central banks declared themselves ready to defend their currencies.
AT LEAST 18 HIJACKERS, OFFICIALS SAY
Attorney General John Ashcroft told reporters that at least 18 hijackers, all of whom had tickets as passengers, commandeered the four planes that slammed into the World Trade Centre, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania forest.
"The total number of hijackers to our best estimate and our best knowledge given the information at this time in the four planes that crashed was at least 18," Ashcroft said.
Exhausted rescue crews searched for survivors and extracted bodies from tonnes of crushed concrete and twisted steel, all that remained of the World Trade Centre, which had been the pride of the New York skyline.
"The terrible reality of this is we may never be able to recover everyone, but we are going to try," Giuliani said.
Grieving relatives wandered the city's streets, holding up pictures of missing loved ones, pleading for information. Others posted photographs on lamp posts and walls.
Hundreds of emergency workers used everything from heavy machinery to their bare hands to dig through the wreckage while sniffer dogs searched the rubble.
"They are sending the dogs in. When the dogs get a hit, they dig," said Chief Lawrence Cleary of the Fire Department from the scene of the rescue effort. "But as time goes on, it doesn't look good for finding survivors."
Knife-wielding hijackers took over three planes and deliberately smashed them into the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon near Washington. The fourth crashed in a field in Pennsylvania killing all 45 people on board after passengers fought the hijackers for control of the plane.
Federal investigators probing that crash said they could not rule out the possibility that the jetliner with 45 people aboard had been shot down.
"We have not ruled out that," FBI agent Bill Crowley told a news conference when asked about reports that a U.S. fighter jet may have fired on the hijacked Boeing 757. "We haven't ruled out anything yet."
The Defence Department has vigorously denied reports suggesting the U.S. military could have downed the hijacked flight in an effort to prevent it from reaching a target, perhaps in Washington.
In an NBC poll, 83 percent of respondents said they supported "forceful military action" against those responsible, even at the risk of retaliation or the threat of war.
7,000 HUNT THE KILLERS
The FBI committed about 4,000 special agents and 3,000 support personnel to the investigation and appeared to be making progress, both in the United States and abroad.
German police said they had detained an airport worker in connection with the attacks. Police also said two other men believed to be connected with the attacks had lived in the city of Hamburg, including Mohamed Atta, 33, who was on the passenger list of one hijacked plane.
Equity markets faced a third straight day of paralysis, the longest shutdown since the market was idled for four months at the outbreak of World War One.
Trading in Treasury bonds resumed but was thin and choppy with many traders unable to see prices formerly provided by firms in the destroyed World Trade Centre.
Europe's central bank pumped fresh money into the system to avoid a cash crunch, and expectations grew that the U.S. Federal Reserve might again cut interest rates, by as much as a half a percentage point, to bolster prospects in the world's richest economy.
Adding to a raft of cancelled sporting and entertainment events across the nation, the National Football League scrapped all 15 of its scheduled weekend games.
Both Bush and his father, former President George Bush, pleaded with Americans not to take out their anger against Arab-Americans or Muslims.
A firebomb was hurled at a mosque and