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US Strikes Al Qaeda Target In Somalia, Most Wanted Terrorist Killed
From ABC News:
A U.S. commando attack in Somalia has killed an al Qaeda operative who is on the FBI’s list of most wanted terrorists, sources tell ABC News.
The dead terrorist, Saleh Ali Nabhan, is believed to have taken part in the 1998 attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. He is also believed to have orchestrated the 2002 bombing of a resort hotel in Mombasa, Kenya, and a failed missile attack on an Israeli airliner leaving Mombasa airport.
Several sources tell ABC News at least one U.S. helicopter fired on a convoy carrying suspected al Qaeda targets in southern Somalia. An American official says a U.S. Navy ship was also nearby to monitor the situation and provide assistance if needed.
Ali Nabhan’s death has not yet been officially confirmed, but sources tell ABC News that his body is now in U.S. custody.
Ali Nabhan, a 28-year-old Kenyan, is on the FBI’s most wanted list for terrorist activities such as the resort and missile attacks as well as participation in the 1998 attack on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
An internal U.S. government report described to ABC News details Ali Nabhan’s efforts in Somalia as a top al Qaeda officer in East Africa. The report claims that Ali Nabhan ran training camps in Somalia for foreign fighters, including some Americans of Somali descent. Some of the graduates of these terror camps have been tied to attacks and threats around the globe, the report states.
According to one source, U.S. military helicopters attacked suspected al Qaeda elements traveling south of Mogadishu and killed all the occupants of the convoy. Initial reports say the U.S. choppers landed on the scene and took the bodies with them. Ali Nabhan’s body was among the causalities, the source said.
A U.S. official confirms that Ali Nabhan’s body was recovered by the attacking U.S. forces.
That was a gutsy move on our part. Major kudos to President Obama for having the stones to approve a mission like that. It sounds like our special ops guys once again performed flawlessly.
Read Al-Qaida’s New Book
On June 30, a terrorist named Murasil al-Fajr posted a 179-page book on a well known Jihadi website. The book was written by Abu-Yahya al-Libi (pictured above) with an introduction by Bin Laden’s #2 Ayman al-Zawahiri.
The book titled, “Guidance On The Ruling Of The Muslim Spy” is meant to provide other terrorists with religious guidance on the thorny issue of Muslim spies.
What Al-Libi lays out is a startling look at just how devastating Bush’s anti-terror policies have been.
Here are some of the highlights:
“The spies… were sent to penetrate the ranks of the Muslims generally, and the mujahidin specifically, and [they] spread all over the lands like locusts.”
“The spies are busy day and night carrying out their duties in an organized and secret manner… How many heroic leaders have been kidnapped at their hands? How many major mujahidin were surprised to be imprisoned or traced? Even the military and financial supply roads of the mujahidin, which are far from the enemy’s surveillance, were found by the spies.”
Western spies are found under every conceivable cover, al-Libi wrote. “They have among them old hunchbacked men who cannot even walk, strong young men, weak women inside their house, young girls, and even children who did not reach puberty yet. The spy might be a doctor, nurse, engineer, student, preacher, scholar, runner, or a taxi driver. The spy can be anyone….”
“The occupation armies completely rely on recruiting spies and informants from the Muslim lands they usurped and conquered… The spy lives among Muslims, being one of them: living their life, wearing their dress, eating what they eat… Therefore, he can access what the armed soldiers of the occupation cannot put hands on.”
Al-Libi goes on to say he would rather not write about this stuff, but feels obliged to because it’s such a huge problem. He writes that the issue of Western spies infiltrating their organizations must be discussed and can no longer be avoided.
“Taking into consideration the importance of the issue and the vital need to clarify its details, I found myself obliged to write about it…the issue cannot be delayed anymore.”
“This issue cannot be solved by hiding or eliminated by neglecting. It cannot be stopped if we don’t talk about it because its wickedness is overwhelming, the situation is dangerous, the damage is massive, the war fires are growing.”
The book is 88-pages after being translated into English and offers a fascinating look into the mind of the enemy. Their belief that killing Americans and other infidels is “God’s work” continues to make radical Islam the most serious threat to America.
Contrary to what President Obama says about Bush’s policies making America “less safe”, this book and mountains of other evidence show otherwise. President Bush understood that his job was not to make the whole world like us, but rather to make our enemies fear us.
Hunting down the terrorists like dogs, killing them, and/or extracting information from them by any means necessary was and is the best strategy for keeping America safe.
Secret CIA Program Revealed?
In an effort to take Obama’s economic failures off the front page, democrats once again resurrected an issue that so far has also been a failure — CIA witch hunts.
CIA Director Leon Panetta supposedly told Congress about a CIA program last week that up until that point had been kept from Congress at the behest of Vice President Dick Cheney.
Liberals in Congress predictably ran to the press and pointed to Panetta’s disclosure as proof that the CIA lies to Congress, which means Nancy Pelosi was telling the truth when she made that accusation some weeks ago.
You can’t tell the media about a “secret” program they can’t know about, because like a child they’ll keep digging and begging until they find out the secret.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting today new details on the secret program that Panetta disclosed to Congress.
Apparently, the program involved the assassination of top Al-Qaeda leaders.
Amid the high alert following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a small CIA unit examined the potential for targeted assassinations of al Qaeda operatives, according to the three former officials. The Ford administration had banned assassinations in the response to investigations into intelligence abuses in the 1970s. Some officials who advocated the approach were seeking to build teams of CIA and military Special Forces commandos to emulate what the Israelis did after the Munich Olympics terrorist attacks, said another former intelligence official.
"It was straight out of the movies," one of the former intelligence officials said. "It was like: Let’s kill them all."
I hope liberal democrats are not hanging their hat on this one. If the left thinks Americans are going to be upset about a program to kill Al-Qaeda terrorists, they’re wildly mistaken.
Terrorists should be hunted down and killed. Not arrested, not brought back for Eric Holder to give rights to, but killed on the spot.
The most troubling aspect of this latest revelation is not that such a program was being discussed, but that such a program was not immediately implemented.
More troubling still, is the fact that Director Panetta’s knee-jerk reaction to learning of the program was to cancel it.
As usual, this latest CIA dust-up is more about politics than anything else. Like Eric Holder’s determination to prosecute the very people who’ve kept us safe, Democrats are determined to play politics with our national security.
Former Gitmo Detainee Resurfaces As Leader Of Al Qaeda In Yemen
It’s ironic that less than 24 hours after president Obama signed the absurd executive order to close Gitmo within a year, we learn about yet another terrorist returning to the fight. Said Ali al-Shihri was released from Gitmo back to Saudi Arabia 10-months ago and now he’s in Yemen serving as the No.2 man in the Yemeni branch of Al-Qaeda.
Al-Shihri supposedly completed a Jihad rehabilitation program in Saudi Arabia (I kid you not) and then was released. Basically, the Saudi’s put him through a program that tells him everything that has been drilled into his head since birth about Islam and infidels is all wrong and he shouldn’t believe it anymore. Problem solved! Yeah right.
Like all liberals, Obama is naive as hell when it comes to the war on terror. Gitmo is the perfect place to house these animals and should in fact be expanded rather than closed. In the end, he’s just going to have another Gitmo setup on U.S. soil and call it something else. Closing the facility in Cuba is purely symbolic and makes liberals feel good inside even though it doesn’t actually solve anything.
The idea that we should base our foreign policy in any way on what other countries think of us or restoring our supposedly damaged image is not only stupid — it’s dangerous. All the countries who bitch about Gitmo have suffered horrific terror attacks since 9/11 while Bush’s aggressive policies have kept us safe.
Obama should remember the old phrase “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.”
Al-Qaida #2 Calls Obama “House Negro”
Al-Qaida’s #2 terrorist, Ayman al-Zawahri released a new video message filled with the usual rantings of a crazed lunatic. New this time however, were his personal attacks on Barack Obama.
Zawahri called Obama ‘abeed al-beit’ which directly translated means “house negro” or “house slave” according to the AP. The video even includes old footage of Malcom X talking about blacks working in their white masters house.
The propaganda messages come out of these people really are incredible. Malcom X? How shrewd is that?
Al-Qaeda’s No. 2 Man Appears In New Tape
Ayman al-Zawahri has surfaced in a new Internet tape praising the latest militants killed by U.S. forces in Pakistan in July.
Al Qaeda’s second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri appeared in a videotape posted on the Internet on Friday, the second recording since he was reported to have been killed or wounded in Pakistan last month.
The video posted on a Web site often used by al Qaeda showed Zawahri in white robes and white turban in front of a green backdrop, praising Abu Khabab al-Masri and three other militants killed in Pakistan’s border region in July.
There were rumors flying around that Zawahri may have been injured or killed in July when the CIA targeted a militant safehouse using a unmanned Predator drone.
Bin Laden’s Driver Pleads Not Guilty
Osama bin Laden’s driver, Salim Hamdam, pled not guilty today at the opening of his war crimes trial before a military tribunal at Gitmo.
Here’s the best part of the story:
Lawyers for Hamdan say he is not implicated in any terrorist activity even though he served as the Al-Qaeda mastermind’s driver.
They also argue that he was mistreated while in US custody and was subjected to sleep deprivation, including being awakened every hour by guards during a 50-day period in 2003.
Call me crazy, but I think being Osama bin Laden’s driver qualifies as ‘terrorist activity.’ When he was stopped by U.S. forces, he had a missile launcher in his trunk.
We disrupted his sleep? Say it isn’t so.
-Chris Jones
Israel Makes Arrests In Bush Assassination Plot
Israel arrested six Arabs today for plotting to set up an al-Qaeda cell in Israel and then shoot down President Bush’s helicopter.
Israel’s Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency monitored the suspects through electronic intercepts and other means as the plot progressed.
Israel’s Shin Bet counter-intelligence agency said one of the suspects had used his mobile phone to film helicopters at a sports stadium in Jerusalem that was used as a landing site for Bush’s delegation.
The suspect then posted queries on Web sites frequented by al Qaeda operatives, asking for guidance on how to shoot down the helicopters, the agency said in a statement.
Computers confiscated at the time of their arrest revealed bomb making manuals and other terror related materials.
Madrid Train Bombers Aquitted In Spain
This is what happens when you treat terrorism like a law enforcement matter and use civilian courts.
A Spanish court absolved four men and upheld the acquittal of a fifth on Thursday in the convoluted legal proceedings relating to the 2004 Madrid commuter train bombings that killed 191 people in the deadliest attack by Islamic militants on European soil.
The rulings followed appeals of some of 21 convictions by a lower court after a five-month trial that ended in October. Seven other people were acquitted at that time.
Most dramatically, the court on Thursday upheld the acquittal of one of the bombing’s accused masterminds, Rabei Osman, an Egyptian, who was found guilty in 2006 in Italy of belonging to a terrorist organization.
Mr. Osman was arrested in Italy in June 2004, but disputed prosecution evidence citing wiretaps in which he was purported to have said he had conceived the idea of the attacks.
After all the dust settled, 3 of the 4 masterminds of the horrific Madrid train bombings were aquitted. The only person who wasn’t aquitted was the guy who provided the explosives and he only received a 4-year sentence.
Terrorism experts said that verdict illustrated the difficulty of building a solid case against suspected Islamists when they belong to a diffuse group with local foot soldiers and no formal structure.
It’s a mistake to rely on a civilian legal system to try complex terror cases. Denial of habeas corpus rights, indefinite detention at a secret military facility, and eventually a military tribunal, is the correct way to handle these killers.
It’s inconceivable that 3 of the 4 masterminds of such a savage attack were acquitted. Those men are responsible for 191 deaths and more than 1,800 injured when they blew up four commuter trains simultaneously in Madrid, Spain on March 11, 2004.
(hat tip to Michelle)
Iraqi Army Drives Al-Qaeda From Mosul
The Times Online has a great piece about the Iraqi Army’s success in driving Al-Qaeda from the city of Mosul. Finally, after suffering through a failed strategy under Donald Rumsfeld, the situation in Iraq has completely turned around.
U.S. forces are standing up a trustworthy and competent Iraqi Army that has Al-Qaeda on the run, and is fast becoming a force to be reckoned with.
Video:Former Special Ops Soldier Wants Apology From Delahunt
Al-Qaeda Terrorist Released From Jail In Britain
Abu Qatada, a man desribed by many as “Bin Laden’s right-hand man in Europe” was released on bail today in Britain. He will have to wear an electronic monitor at all times and is specifically restricted from having any contact with Osama Bin Laden.
If his release weren’t disgusting enough, he’ll also be receiving around £1,000 per month in state benefits even though when he was stopped by Police he was in possession of more than £170,000.
Qatada is wanted in numerous countries including his home country of Jordan where he committed a series of bombings in 1998.
This is exactly the kind of crap that Barack Obama would love to make a reality here in America. Obama and other liberals would love it if the federal government had to jump through endless hoops to keep a terrorist off the street.
The appropriate way to handle a guy like Qatada is to either permanently “disappear him” or throw his ass in Gitmo forever.
This guy is a hardcore associate of Osama Bin Laden and the spiritual adviser to 9/11 hijacker Mohammad Atta. It’s simply inconceivable that he would ever see the light of day again, and the decision to release him makes Britain look weak.
The solution to the increasing difficulty in properly incarcerating terrorists both in Britain and the U.S. is to kill them. The United States and Britain should kill terrorists on the battlefield wherever and whenever possible rather than arrest them.
Hopefully, a terrible “accident” will befall Abu Qatada and the nightmare in the courts will be over.
-Chris Jones
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