Civil Commotion � The silver lining �
Blogger Thoughts: I just vomited on my keyboard.
Tags: 9/11 09/11/2001 Al Qaeda
Saturday, October 08, 2005
The Blog | Nathan Gardels: Salman Rushdie: Inside the Mind of Jihadists
The Blog | Nathan Gardels: Salman Rushdie: Inside the Mind of Jihadists | The Huffington Post
Blogger Thoughts: Perhaps Rushdie could write a follow up book called: "Inside the Minds of False Flag Murderous Traitors supporting the US Junta".
Tags: 09/11/2001 Terror BS Government Lies
Blogger Thoughts: Perhaps Rushdie could write a follow up book called: "Inside the Minds of False Flag Murderous Traitors supporting the US Junta".
Tags: 09/11/2001 Terror BS Government Lies
The Blog | David Corn: Why Would Rove ask to Testify to the Grand Jury Again? | The Huffington Post
The Blog | David Corn: Why Would Rove ask to Testify to the Grand Jury Again? | The Huffington Post
"...Rove would have a pressing need to engage in testimony rehabilitation..."
"...Rove would have a pressing need to engage in testimony rehabilitation..."
3rd Man Detained in Connection With Terror Plot, Official Says - New York Times
3rd Man Detained in Connection With Terror Plot, Official Says - New York Times
October 7, 2005
3rd Man Detained in Connection With Terror Plot, Official Says
By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM and JANON FISHER
A third man has been detained in a suspected plot to detonate explosives on the city's subway system, a government official said today, as police officers searched passengers' bags on subways, buses and ferries.
Authorities are holding Al Qaeda operatives in connection with the suspected plot, although no details were available on who they are, where they were detained or what agency captured them, said the government official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The official said the person who provided the information about the men had undergone explosives training with them at an Al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan.
Security in and around the city's transit network was sharply increased Thursday after city officials announced that they had been notified by federal authorities in Washington of a terrorist threat that for the first time specified the city's transit system.
The measures were made public Thursday by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, along with Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly and the head of the New York F.B.I. office, Mark J. Mershon, after an American military operation with the C.I.A. and the F.B.I. in Iraq, according to law enforcement officials. The operation, carried out this week, was aimed at disrupting the threat, the officials said.
Some officials in Washington have played down the nature of the threat. While not entirely dismissing it, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security described it as "specific yet noncredible," adding that the intelligence community had concluded that the information was of "doubtful credibility."
Today in Washington, President Bush said the city had decided on its own to inform the public about the threats.
"Our job is to gather intelligence and pass it on to local authorities," Mr. Bush told reporters in a White House picture-taking session with Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany of Hungary. "And they make the judgments necessary to respond. The level of cooperation between the federal government and the local government is getting better and better. And part of that level of cooperation is the ability to pass information on. And we did, and they responded."
When asked whether he thought New York officials had overreacted, the president demurred. "I think they took the information we gave and made the judgments they thought were necessary," he said. "And the American people have got to know that, one, we're collecting information and sharing it with local authorities on a timely basis. And that's important."
Earlier today, the White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters: "In this case, we notified New York City officials early on of the intelligence information that we had received. And while it is specific, you heard our Homeland Security officials say it is of doubtful credibility. It is something we continue to analyze."
But in an afternoon news conference in New York, Mr. Bloomberg said he believed he had made the right decision by informing the public about the possibility of a terrorist attack.
"If I'm going to make a mistake, you can rest assured it's going to be on the side of being cautious," he said. "If it happened again, I would make exactly the same decision."
Mr. Kelly agreed, saying: "I can't think of anything other than what could have been done than what we proceeded to do."
Asked about the disagreement over how seriously to take the threat, the mayor said that intelligence information is rarely clear cut.
"You'll never get a consensus in the intelligence community on any one thing," he said. "In the end, you will find that not everyone's on the same page."
At subway stations today, riders said they were generally unworried about the latest warning.
"I'm a fourth-generation New Yorker," said Alexandra Noya, 35, as she got off a train at Columbus Circle. "If it's going to happen, it's going to happen." The warning from the mayor and police commissioner, she said, "didn't deter me."
Jimmy George, 65, from Teaneck, N.J., said he doubted the seriousness of the threat. Mr. George said he believed the timing was related to the coming New York City mayoral election.
"Is it time to wag the dog?" he said. "It's election time. It seems during election times there's always some type of threat."
Bradford Ellis, who turned 35 today, said the threat was likely real, but said he was comfortable taking his chances riding the train.
"Everybody was calling me today, telling me I shouldn't get on the subway because it's my birthday," he said. "But you can't let it affect you. I think it's a possible threat, but I don't live my life on possibilities."
At the Times Square station, an M.T.A. conductor, Ray Volsario, said he was not told about the threat by supervisors, and learned about it from television news.
"They don't tell us anything," he said. "We're supposed to be the eyes and ears of the subway system - why are we the last to know?"
A portion of Penn Station was evacuated for about two hours this morning after police responded to reports about a suspicious package and a possibly toxic substance inside a bottle. Mr. Kelly, the police commissioner, said the package turned out to be harmless litter. The bottle, said Mr. Kelly, appeared to be a "Drain-O type" fluid.
"It appears to be a prank," said Mr. Kelly. Authorities took away the bottle to analyze the liquid, he said.
Information about the threat, came to light last weekend from an intelligence source who told federal authorities that the three men in Iraq had planned to meet with other operatives in New York, said several law enforcement officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
One official said the group would number about a dozen. Another official said the total was closer to 20 people involved. The men planned to use strollers, briefcases and packages to hide a number of bombs that they planned to detonate on the subways.
"It was a conspiracy involving more than a dozen people aimed at delivering a number of devices into the subway," one of the officials said.
One official said the information suggested an attack could happen as early as today; another pointed to the middle of the month.
"This is a piece of information that came in as a result of operations that go on all the time, and to corroborate that information or not we had to go after certain people," one official said.
Mr. Mershon said: "F.B.I. agents and other U.S. government personnel continue to work around the clock to fully resolve this particular threat. Thus far, there is nothing that has surfaced in that investigation or those enforcement actions which has corroborated an actual threat to the city."
Mayor Bloomberg seemed to try to inform New Yorkers without alarming them. He said that while the threat was not corroborated, it was specific enough to warrant an immediate and overwhelming response.
"It was more specific as to target; it was more specific as to timing, and some of the sources had more information that would lead one to believe that it was not the kind of thing that appears in the intelligence community every day," Mr. Bloomberg said.
The mayor urged New Yorkers to continue riding the subways, as he said he would, but cautioned them to be watchful, saying several times, "If you see something, say something."
As he spoke, thousands of city police officers were swarming the transit system. An officer will be assigned to each subway station, and Commissioner Kelly said the Police Department is significantly stepping up uniformed and plainclothes patrols, increasing sweeps through subway cars and posting officers at each subway tunnel that passes beneath city waterways. The department's heavily armed "Hercules teams" and other specialized units will also focus on the transit system, he said.
Bag searches will also be significantly increased, the commissioner said, with a focus on briefcases, baby strollers, luggage and other packages and containers, and he asked subway riders to curtail their use. The searches will take place not only on the subways, but also on buses and ferries, and the Police Department has coordinated the increased scrutiny with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, New Jersey Transit, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Amtrak. Mr. Kelly used narcotics detectives from Brooklyn and Queens and other investigators from the department's Warrant Division to increase security in the subways. Officers mobilized at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
On Thursday, Mr. Bloomberg, Mr. Kelly and Mr. Mershon declined to discuss the events in Iraq, or where they had occurred, saying that it was classified.
Counterterrorism officials in Washington said the information received this week was highly specific, including details about the possible use of suitcase bombs and explosives hidden in strollers. That information, along with the more general concern that terrorists might stage an attack modeled on the July bombings in London, prompted immediate concern, the officials said.
On an average weekday, an estimated 4.7 million rides are taken on New York's subway system, which has 468 stations.
Russ Knocke, a spokesman for Homeland Security, said the credibility of the threat was still to be determined.
He said Homeland Security "received intelligence information regarding a specific but noncredible threat to the New York City subway system."
Mr. Knocke said Homeland Security shared the information "early on with state and local authorities in New York," adding, "There are no plans to alter the national threat level or the threat level in New York City."
He would not say any more about the content of the threat or the origin of the information.
Paul J. Browne, the Police Department's deputy commissioner of public information, would not discuss whether the source information suggested that operatives were in New York. He would say only, "We're looking at all aspects of this case."
Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, city and national law enforcement authorities have at times reacted differently to similar threat information. In part, this is because of the varying roles that different agencies play. The New York Police Department, for example, is responsible for protecting the city and its subways and therefore is more likely to act quickly. The F.B.I.'s prime antiterrorism mission, on the other hand, is thwarting plots and apprehending any suspected terrorists - a task that is almost always complicated by information becoming public. But on Thursday, city and F.B.I. officials in New York stood side by side and seemed to present a similar message. Officials from Homeland Security did not take part in the briefing.
Of the information from Iraq, one official said: "Suffice it to say it was credible enough for us to be working it very hard and very diligently literally around the clock and around the world. Sometimes it looks incredibly detailed, and then it washes out into nothing, and sometimes pretty vague in nature and it turns into something real. You can't know until you go through the process, and we're going through the process."
William A. Morange, the transportation authority's security director and a member of a citywide counterterrorism task force, was informed several days ago about the threat, said Tom Kelly, a spokesman.
"We were kept well apprised of all the developments since earlier this week," Mr. Kelly said.
The Police Department also put into effect a broad range of measures aimed at stepping up security around the city that did not address the specific threat, but were aimed at tightening the city's security cordon. They included increased truck searches on East River crossings and banning trucks from the Brooklyn Bridge.
The department will also increase the use of radiation detectors, and detectives from the department's Intelligence Division will check parking lots and garages in Manhattan and in other areas of the city.
Reporting for this article was contributed by David Johnston, Eric Lipton and Eric Lichtblau, in Washington, and Sewell Chan, Kareem Fahim and Timothy Williams, in New York.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
October 7, 2005
3rd Man Detained in Connection With Terror Plot, Official Says
By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM and JANON FISHER
A third man has been detained in a suspected plot to detonate explosives on the city's subway system, a government official said today, as police officers searched passengers' bags on subways, buses and ferries.
Authorities are holding Al Qaeda operatives in connection with the suspected plot, although no details were available on who they are, where they were detained or what agency captured them, said the government official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The official said the person who provided the information about the men had undergone explosives training with them at an Al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan.
Security in and around the city's transit network was sharply increased Thursday after city officials announced that they had been notified by federal authorities in Washington of a terrorist threat that for the first time specified the city's transit system.
The measures were made public Thursday by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, along with Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly and the head of the New York F.B.I. office, Mark J. Mershon, after an American military operation with the C.I.A. and the F.B.I. in Iraq, according to law enforcement officials. The operation, carried out this week, was aimed at disrupting the threat, the officials said.
Some officials in Washington have played down the nature of the threat. While not entirely dismissing it, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security described it as "specific yet noncredible," adding that the intelligence community had concluded that the information was of "doubtful credibility."
Today in Washington, President Bush said the city had decided on its own to inform the public about the threats.
"Our job is to gather intelligence and pass it on to local authorities," Mr. Bush told reporters in a White House picture-taking session with Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany of Hungary. "And they make the judgments necessary to respond. The level of cooperation between the federal government and the local government is getting better and better. And part of that level of cooperation is the ability to pass information on. And we did, and they responded."
When asked whether he thought New York officials had overreacted, the president demurred. "I think they took the information we gave and made the judgments they thought were necessary," he said. "And the American people have got to know that, one, we're collecting information and sharing it with local authorities on a timely basis. And that's important."
Earlier today, the White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters: "In this case, we notified New York City officials early on of the intelligence information that we had received. And while it is specific, you heard our Homeland Security officials say it is of doubtful credibility. It is something we continue to analyze."
But in an afternoon news conference in New York, Mr. Bloomberg said he believed he had made the right decision by informing the public about the possibility of a terrorist attack.
"If I'm going to make a mistake, you can rest assured it's going to be on the side of being cautious," he said. "If it happened again, I would make exactly the same decision."
Mr. Kelly agreed, saying: "I can't think of anything other than what could have been done than what we proceeded to do."
Asked about the disagreement over how seriously to take the threat, the mayor said that intelligence information is rarely clear cut.
"You'll never get a consensus in the intelligence community on any one thing," he said. "In the end, you will find that not everyone's on the same page."
At subway stations today, riders said they were generally unworried about the latest warning.
"I'm a fourth-generation New Yorker," said Alexandra Noya, 35, as she got off a train at Columbus Circle. "If it's going to happen, it's going to happen." The warning from the mayor and police commissioner, she said, "didn't deter me."
Jimmy George, 65, from Teaneck, N.J., said he doubted the seriousness of the threat. Mr. George said he believed the timing was related to the coming New York City mayoral election.
"Is it time to wag the dog?" he said. "It's election time. It seems during election times there's always some type of threat."
Bradford Ellis, who turned 35 today, said the threat was likely real, but said he was comfortable taking his chances riding the train.
"Everybody was calling me today, telling me I shouldn't get on the subway because it's my birthday," he said. "But you can't let it affect you. I think it's a possible threat, but I don't live my life on possibilities."
At the Times Square station, an M.T.A. conductor, Ray Volsario, said he was not told about the threat by supervisors, and learned about it from television news.
"They don't tell us anything," he said. "We're supposed to be the eyes and ears of the subway system - why are we the last to know?"
A portion of Penn Station was evacuated for about two hours this morning after police responded to reports about a suspicious package and a possibly toxic substance inside a bottle. Mr. Kelly, the police commissioner, said the package turned out to be harmless litter. The bottle, said Mr. Kelly, appeared to be a "Drain-O type" fluid.
"It appears to be a prank," said Mr. Kelly. Authorities took away the bottle to analyze the liquid, he said.
Information about the threat, came to light last weekend from an intelligence source who told federal authorities that the three men in Iraq had planned to meet with other operatives in New York, said several law enforcement officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
One official said the group would number about a dozen. Another official said the total was closer to 20 people involved. The men planned to use strollers, briefcases and packages to hide a number of bombs that they planned to detonate on the subways.
"It was a conspiracy involving more than a dozen people aimed at delivering a number of devices into the subway," one of the officials said.
One official said the information suggested an attack could happen as early as today; another pointed to the middle of the month.
"This is a piece of information that came in as a result of operations that go on all the time, and to corroborate that information or not we had to go after certain people," one official said.
Mr. Mershon said: "F.B.I. agents and other U.S. government personnel continue to work around the clock to fully resolve this particular threat. Thus far, there is nothing that has surfaced in that investigation or those enforcement actions which has corroborated an actual threat to the city."
Mayor Bloomberg seemed to try to inform New Yorkers without alarming them. He said that while the threat was not corroborated, it was specific enough to warrant an immediate and overwhelming response.
"It was more specific as to target; it was more specific as to timing, and some of the sources had more information that would lead one to believe that it was not the kind of thing that appears in the intelligence community every day," Mr. Bloomberg said.
The mayor urged New Yorkers to continue riding the subways, as he said he would, but cautioned them to be watchful, saying several times, "If you see something, say something."
As he spoke, thousands of city police officers were swarming the transit system. An officer will be assigned to each subway station, and Commissioner Kelly said the Police Department is significantly stepping up uniformed and plainclothes patrols, increasing sweeps through subway cars and posting officers at each subway tunnel that passes beneath city waterways. The department's heavily armed "Hercules teams" and other specialized units will also focus on the transit system, he said.
Bag searches will also be significantly increased, the commissioner said, with a focus on briefcases, baby strollers, luggage and other packages and containers, and he asked subway riders to curtail their use. The searches will take place not only on the subways, but also on buses and ferries, and the Police Department has coordinated the increased scrutiny with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, New Jersey Transit, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Amtrak. Mr. Kelly used narcotics detectives from Brooklyn and Queens and other investigators from the department's Warrant Division to increase security in the subways. Officers mobilized at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
On Thursday, Mr. Bloomberg, Mr. Kelly and Mr. Mershon declined to discuss the events in Iraq, or where they had occurred, saying that it was classified.
Counterterrorism officials in Washington said the information received this week was highly specific, including details about the possible use of suitcase bombs and explosives hidden in strollers. That information, along with the more general concern that terrorists might stage an attack modeled on the July bombings in London, prompted immediate concern, the officials said.
On an average weekday, an estimated 4.7 million rides are taken on New York's subway system, which has 468 stations.
Russ Knocke, a spokesman for Homeland Security, said the credibility of the threat was still to be determined.
He said Homeland Security "received intelligence information regarding a specific but noncredible threat to the New York City subway system."
Mr. Knocke said Homeland Security shared the information "early on with state and local authorities in New York," adding, "There are no plans to alter the national threat level or the threat level in New York City."
He would not say any more about the content of the threat or the origin of the information.
Paul J. Browne, the Police Department's deputy commissioner of public information, would not discuss whether the source information suggested that operatives were in New York. He would say only, "We're looking at all aspects of this case."
Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, city and national law enforcement authorities have at times reacted differently to similar threat information. In part, this is because of the varying roles that different agencies play. The New York Police Department, for example, is responsible for protecting the city and its subways and therefore is more likely to act quickly. The F.B.I.'s prime antiterrorism mission, on the other hand, is thwarting plots and apprehending any suspected terrorists - a task that is almost always complicated by information becoming public. But on Thursday, city and F.B.I. officials in New York stood side by side and seemed to present a similar message. Officials from Homeland Security did not take part in the briefing.
Of the information from Iraq, one official said: "Suffice it to say it was credible enough for us to be working it very hard and very diligently literally around the clock and around the world. Sometimes it looks incredibly detailed, and then it washes out into nothing, and sometimes pretty vague in nature and it turns into something real. You can't know until you go through the process, and we're going through the process."
William A. Morange, the transportation authority's security director and a member of a citywide counterterrorism task force, was informed several days ago about the threat, said Tom Kelly, a spokesman.
"We were kept well apprised of all the developments since earlier this week," Mr. Kelly said.
The Police Department also put into effect a broad range of measures aimed at stepping up security around the city that did not address the specific threat, but were aimed at tightening the city's security cordon. They included increased truck searches on East River crossings and banning trucks from the Brooklyn Bridge.
The department will also increase the use of radiation detectors, and detectives from the department's Intelligence Division will check parking lots and garages in Manhattan and in other areas of the city.
Reporting for this article was contributed by David Johnston, Eric Lipton and Eric Lichtblau, in Washington, and Sewell Chan, Kareem Fahim and Timothy Williams, in New York.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
Bilderberg Conference 2005, 5-8 May, Rottach-Egern, Munich, Germany
Bilderberg Conference 2005, 5-8 May, Rottach-Egern, Munich, Germany
Blogger Thoughts: Not sure what this means....
Blogger Thoughts: Not sure what this means....
Cold Fury » Man bites dog!
Cold Fury » Man bites dog!
Blogger Thoughts: So called conservatives, right wingers, sad tools of corruption are arguing about which parts of the deception are the lies!
Blogger Thoughts: So called conservatives, right wingers, sad tools of corruption are arguing about which parts of the deception are the lies!
Majikthise : Changing minds
Majikthise : Changing minds: " I am sure I've changed more minds with spurious arguments than with sound ones"
Blogger Thoughts: Sad, but true....
Blogger Thoughts: Sad, but true....
Friday, October 07, 2005
How a bad U.S. visit influenced �Osama�s brain� - International Terrorism - MSNBC.com
How a bad U.S. visit influenced �Osama�s brain� - International Terrorism - MSNBC.com
Blogger Thought: When are they going to stop obscuring the truth about 9/11?
Tags: bin Laden 09/11/2001 September11 9/11 lies msm
Blogger Thought: When are they going to stop obscuring the truth about 9/11?
Tags: bin Laden 09/11/2001 September11 9/11 lies msm
from Website of Questionable Reliability: CIA, French intelligence kill 4, capture 5 Israelis in NY subway attack
CIA, French intelligence kill 4, capture 5 Israelis in NY subway attack: "U.S. intelligence expert Thomas Heneghen"
Blogger Thought: If Heneghen wants to be believed, he needs a better track record. If this report finds any confirmation, I'll withdraw my skeptical treatment.
CIA, French intelligence kill 4, capture 5 Israelis in NY subway attack
U.S. media and NY officials called the incident a "significant threat"
by Tom FloccoNew York City-October 6, 2005-TomFlocco.com-Earlier this evening intelligence members of the American-French Alliance stopped an attempt by Israeli Mossad operatives to blow up the New York City subway, according to national security and U.S. intelligence expert Thomas Heneghen.The federal whistleblower said four Israelis were killed in the altercation and five more were captured just minutes after virtually all U.S. cable news channels, network TV outlets and New York Mayor Richard Bloomberg were reporting their own version of the incident, adding that New York City was "facing a significant threat" in the city's subway.Heneghen said CNN had the information but host Anderson Cooper refused or was ordered not to report the real story to the American people.Adding to the Bush administration's problems and following on the heels of the August 2, 2005 Bush-Cheney indictment story on TomFlocco.com, cable news channels are now reporting that indictments against White House officials are imminent.Heneghen said his intelligence sources revealed that White House Senior Presidential Advisor has turned State's evidence and "will implicate other members of the White House" in order to cooperate with U.S. Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.The intelligence authority said "22 indictments involving both the Bush and Clinton administrations are pending in a grand jury," adding "more indictments will come quickly and in waves.""These grand juries are about to liberate the American people from two political parties who are prepared to literally blow us up in order to keep their power," said Heneghen, adding, "The New York threat is internal, not external. The individuals involved in the New York threat are now in custody of U.S. and French intelligence-and they were identified as Israeli Mossad."The whistleblower said "Tonight the AFA claimed a victory against the Mossad in the U.S. It was almost like the movement of armies on a battlefield."Heneghen also reported that "those involved in the JFK Jr. murder are now being investigated by another grand jury in New Jersey, confirming our August 31, 2005 story Division 4 names Clintons, Bush 41, 43 in JFK Jr. assassination which was also covered up by mainstream media despite a leaked intelligence preliminary investigative report calling President Kennedy's son's death "a political assassination of the first order."The leaked document originally at StewWebb.com, was ignored by the media for months and is also linked in our "Who killed John-John?" story.Webb, a long-time federal whistleblower, said "Patrick Fitzgerald is a man of great integrity and patriotism, having faced intimidation and death threats by Russian assassins operating in the U.S.A. who have already been identified in grand jury testimony as the individuals who murdered the husband and mother of Chicago's U.S. District Judge Joan H. Lefkow.Lefkow was involved in Fitzgerald's White House grand jury proceedings at the time.Supreme Court nominee subject of grand jury investigationWhile President Bush and congressional republicans hope to have Supreme Court Justice nominee Harriet Miers confirmed by the Senate before Thanksgiving, Heneghen said President Bush's White House counsel and former personal attorney is being probed by another grand jury.According to Heneghen, Miers is reportedly being investigated for "obstruction of justice regarding the shredding of documents linked to President Bush's National Guard service record," evidence that "Bush was absent without leave" from his Air Force unit and that he had been placed in "cocaine rehabilitation," all of which Miers allegedly helped cover up.It is not known at this time whether Democrats will press Miers with tough questioning regarding her role in the cover-up during Senate confirmation hearings this month, given Heneghen's revelations.The national security authority said "records are still in the possession of Miss Miers," and that the Supreme Court nominee is "directly linked to the president's National Guard scandal."In another explosive allegation, the whistleblower alleged that "Harriet Miers is an Israeli agent placed in the White House to shake down President Bushâ¤[She is] an informant [of a foreign government] who is operating in the White House and is now ready to move onto the Supreme Court."Hidden newsStew Webb reported that another grand jury is looking at evidence regarding CIA and Defense Intelligence officials who video-taped Florida Governor Jeb Bush on a military C-130 cargo plane which witnesses said was full of boxes containing Bush-Gore 2000 voter ballots which flew out over the Atlantic ocean.When the plane returned to the Fort Lauderdale airport, it was found to be empty. This, while the 2000 election presidential votes were still being counted.During their broadcast of the Heneghen-Webb U.S. Intel/AFA News Hour, Webb added that Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has reportedly been overseeing the weekly shipments of tens of millions of illegally printed U.S. currency to Russia which is then laundered back into the United States to purchase U.S. Treasury Notes.The illegal operation is artificially propping up the U.S. economy; however, the news may affect U.S. markets immediately, particularly the price of gold.Greenspan was allegedly involved with former President George H. W. Bush and Colonel Oliver North in attempting to force Colonel Russell Herman to sign over his control over multiple CIA bank accounts just two days before his torture and murder, according to his wife, Mrs. V. K. Durham.Durham has fully chronicled the illegal use of her family trust by the Clinton Bush administrations on www.theantechamber.net.Webb said the Russian mafia is still using a regularly scheduled Wednesday evening Delta Airlines flight to Russia to transport the currency, printed illegally using stolen Federal Reserve plates.Heneghen added that [former U.S. National Security Advisor] "Sandy Berger was arrested last night for driving recklessly at 83 miles-per-hour; but the "police are covering up the fact that he was drunk."Berger is reportedly involved in stealing the United States nuclear codes and passing them to the Israelis, which in turn compromised American national security and safety by selling them to the Chinese government, according to Heneghen.The former Clinton administration official is not being charged with treason, since President Bush and current National Security Advisor Dr. Condoleezza Rice reportedly permitted Berger to gain access to the storage archives.Heneghen also said "the Philippine indictments issued today by the Justice Department had nothing to do with the accused former official in the White House," adding that was just a cover for the boxes of cash coming out of the Philippines after the 9-11 attacks."The two also alleged that former New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik has been implicated in the use of credit cards issued to members of the Brooklyn terrorist cell for in activities against the United States government."Our whole system of government has been destroyed and corrupted," said Heneghen, adding, "this force of occupation must be smashed and eliminated."The national security expert said "the French are returning the favor, since Americans stormed the Omaha beaches to liberate the French from the Nazi occupation during World War II, and now, at this very minute, they're holding Israeli Mossad agents who just tried to blow up our New York subway."Webb told TomFlocco.com, "They've been helping America for 200 yearsâ¤the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and now the Al Qaeda terrorist cell at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue."
Blogger Thought: If Heneghen wants to be believed, he needs a better track record. If this report finds any confirmation, I'll withdraw my skeptical treatment.
CIA, French intelligence kill 4, capture 5 Israelis in NY subway attack
U.S. media and NY officials called the incident a "significant threat"
by Tom FloccoNew York City-October 6, 2005-TomFlocco.com-Earlier this evening intelligence members of the American-French Alliance stopped an attempt by Israeli Mossad operatives to blow up the New York City subway, according to national security and U.S. intelligence expert Thomas Heneghen.The federal whistleblower said four Israelis were killed in the altercation and five more were captured just minutes after virtually all U.S. cable news channels, network TV outlets and New York Mayor Richard Bloomberg were reporting their own version of the incident, adding that New York City was "facing a significant threat" in the city's subway.Heneghen said CNN had the information but host Anderson Cooper refused or was ordered not to report the real story to the American people.Adding to the Bush administration's problems and following on the heels of the August 2, 2005 Bush-Cheney indictment story on TomFlocco.com, cable news channels are now reporting that indictments against White House officials are imminent.Heneghen said his intelligence sources revealed that White House Senior Presidential Advisor has turned State's evidence and "will implicate other members of the White House" in order to cooperate with U.S. Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.The intelligence authority said "22 indictments involving both the Bush and Clinton administrations are pending in a grand jury," adding "more indictments will come quickly and in waves.""These grand juries are about to liberate the American people from two political parties who are prepared to literally blow us up in order to keep their power," said Heneghen, adding, "The New York threat is internal, not external. The individuals involved in the New York threat are now in custody of U.S. and French intelligence-and they were identified as Israeli Mossad."The whistleblower said "Tonight the AFA claimed a victory against the Mossad in the U.S. It was almost like the movement of armies on a battlefield."Heneghen also reported that "those involved in the JFK Jr. murder are now being investigated by another grand jury in New Jersey, confirming our August 31, 2005 story Division 4 names Clintons, Bush 41, 43 in JFK Jr. assassination which was also covered up by mainstream media despite a leaked intelligence preliminary investigative report calling President Kennedy's son's death "a political assassination of the first order."The leaked document originally at StewWebb.com, was ignored by the media for months and is also linked in our "Who killed John-John?" story.Webb, a long-time federal whistleblower, said "Patrick Fitzgerald is a man of great integrity and patriotism, having faced intimidation and death threats by Russian assassins operating in the U.S.A. who have already been identified in grand jury testimony as the individuals who murdered the husband and mother of Chicago's U.S. District Judge Joan H. Lefkow.Lefkow was involved in Fitzgerald's White House grand jury proceedings at the time.Supreme Court nominee subject of grand jury investigationWhile President Bush and congressional republicans hope to have Supreme Court Justice nominee Harriet Miers confirmed by the Senate before Thanksgiving, Heneghen said President Bush's White House counsel and former personal attorney is being probed by another grand jury.According to Heneghen, Miers is reportedly being investigated for "obstruction of justice regarding the shredding of documents linked to President Bush's National Guard service record," evidence that "Bush was absent without leave" from his Air Force unit and that he had been placed in "cocaine rehabilitation," all of which Miers allegedly helped cover up.It is not known at this time whether Democrats will press Miers with tough questioning regarding her role in the cover-up during Senate confirmation hearings this month, given Heneghen's revelations.The national security authority said "records are still in the possession of Miss Miers," and that the Supreme Court nominee is "directly linked to the president's National Guard scandal."In another explosive allegation, the whistleblower alleged that "Harriet Miers is an Israeli agent placed in the White House to shake down President Bushâ¤[She is] an informant [of a foreign government] who is operating in the White House and is now ready to move onto the Supreme Court."Hidden newsStew Webb reported that another grand jury is looking at evidence regarding CIA and Defense Intelligence officials who video-taped Florida Governor Jeb Bush on a military C-130 cargo plane which witnesses said was full of boxes containing Bush-Gore 2000 voter ballots which flew out over the Atlantic ocean.When the plane returned to the Fort Lauderdale airport, it was found to be empty. This, while the 2000 election presidential votes were still being counted.During their broadcast of the Heneghen-Webb U.S. Intel/AFA News Hour, Webb added that Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has reportedly been overseeing the weekly shipments of tens of millions of illegally printed U.S. currency to Russia which is then laundered back into the United States to purchase U.S. Treasury Notes.The illegal operation is artificially propping up the U.S. economy; however, the news may affect U.S. markets immediately, particularly the price of gold.Greenspan was allegedly involved with former President George H. W. Bush and Colonel Oliver North in attempting to force Colonel Russell Herman to sign over his control over multiple CIA bank accounts just two days before his torture and murder, according to his wife, Mrs. V. K. Durham.Durham has fully chronicled the illegal use of her family trust by the Clinton Bush administrations on www.theantechamber.net.Webb said the Russian mafia is still using a regularly scheduled Wednesday evening Delta Airlines flight to Russia to transport the currency, printed illegally using stolen Federal Reserve plates.Heneghen added that [former U.S. National Security Advisor] "Sandy Berger was arrested last night for driving recklessly at 83 miles-per-hour; but the "police are covering up the fact that he was drunk."Berger is reportedly involved in stealing the United States nuclear codes and passing them to the Israelis, which in turn compromised American national security and safety by selling them to the Chinese government, according to Heneghen.The former Clinton administration official is not being charged with treason, since President Bush and current National Security Advisor Dr. Condoleezza Rice reportedly permitted Berger to gain access to the storage archives.Heneghen also said "the Philippine indictments issued today by the Justice Department had nothing to do with the accused former official in the White House," adding that was just a cover for the boxes of cash coming out of the Philippines after the 9-11 attacks."The two also alleged that former New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik has been implicated in the use of credit cards issued to members of the Brooklyn terrorist cell for in activities against the United States government."Our whole system of government has been destroyed and corrupted," said Heneghen, adding, "this force of occupation must be smashed and eliminated."The national security expert said "the French are returning the favor, since Americans stormed the Omaha beaches to liberate the French from the Nazi occupation during World War II, and now, at this very minute, they're holding Israeli Mossad agents who just tried to blow up our New York subway."Webb told TomFlocco.com, "They've been helping America for 200 yearsâ¤the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and now the Al Qaeda terrorist cell at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue."
E. J. Dionne (WashPO) keeps the heat on...
Faith-Based Hypocrisy
Blogger Thoughts: Perhaps the fundamental thing that citizens should understand about the so-called MSM is that it controls not by excluding completely viewpoints opposed to the ruling Junta. Rather, the control is though refusing to allow a coalescence of commentary that would document the truth of the conspiracies.
Blogger Thoughts: Perhaps the fundamental thing that citizens should understand about the so-called MSM is that it controls not by excluding completely viewpoints opposed to the ruling Junta. Rather, the control is though refusing to allow a coalescence of commentary that would document the truth of the conspiracies.
Joe's Dartblog: Katrina Pushes Unemployment to 5.1%
Joe's Dartblog: Katrina Pushes Unemployment to 5.1%
Blogger Thoughts: Does Joe, even for a moment, think about the current corruption, the unparalleled govt. deficit, and the intractable problems with the underclass, which are part of the general polarization of income overall in the US?
Blogger Thoughts: Does Joe, even for a moment, think about the current corruption, the unparalleled govt. deficit, and the intractable problems with the underclass, which are part of the general polarization of income overall in the US?
Courthouse Color
This is the entrance to the County and Municipal Courthouse, normally teeming with
humanity but empty on a Sunday.
humanity but empty on a Sunday.
Cytations: reform is happening: The Myth of the Islamic Jihad Against the West
Cytations: reform is happening: The Myth of the Islamic Jihad Against the West: "The Myth of the Islamic Jihad Against the West "
Joe's Dartblog: Co-opting the Internet
Joe's Dartblog: Co-opting the Internet: "precisely because it has been left ungoverned."
Blogger Thoughts: Joe, you couldn't be more incorrect about your understanding of the "ungoverned" nature of the internet.
Blogger Thoughts: Joe, you couldn't be more incorrect about your understanding of the "ungoverned" nature of the internet.
President Bush's Major Speech: Doing the 9/11 Time Warp Again - New York Times
President Bush's Major Speech: Doing the 9/11 Time Warp Again - New York Times
October 7, 2005
President Bush's Major Speech: Doing the 9/11 Time Warp Again
Yesterday, the same day New Yorkers were warned there was a "specific threat" of a bombing on their subways, President Bush delivered what the White House promoted as a major address on terrorism. It seemed, on the surface, like a perfect topic for the moment. But his talk was not about the nation's current challenges. He delivered a reprise of his Sept. 11 rhetoric that suggested an avoidance of today's reality that seemed downright frightening.
The period right after 9/11, for all its pain, was the high point of the Bush presidency. Four years ago, we hung on every word when Mr. Bush denounced Al Qaeda and made the emotional - but, as it turned out, empty - vow to track down Osama bin Laden. Yesterday, it seemed as if the president was still trying to live in 2001. It was eerie to hear him urge Americans to take terrorism seriously. There wasn't any reason to worry about that even before subway riders were being told about the threat of a terrorist attack on their commute home.
He seemed to be reading from a very old and familiar script as he revealed that terrorists recruit "disillusioned young men and women," some of whom build weapons based on information available on the Internet. He shared his conviction that "it is cowardice that seeks to kill children and the elderly with car bombs." He said his team was "reforming our intelligence agency" and reorganizing government for "a broad and coordinated homeland defense."
Americans have seen the Department of Homeland Security in action for several years now, under two directors. The first, a former governor with whom the president had a good personal relationship, was an inept bureaucratic and political player who had a strange obsession with color-coded states of emergency. The current one was at the helm during the Federal Emergency Management Agency disaster in New Orleans, when that agency was overseen by an unqualified political appointee.
The administration is still trying to recover politically from Katrina. The hurricane was not just a bad stretch that could be cured by a promise of federal aid and a demonstration of presidential concern. The hurricane showed that despite four years of spinning, America is still unprepared for a catastrophe. It raised major questions about the caliber of people with whom Mr. Bush surrounds himself.
Ever since the terrorist attacks, the main thing Americans have wanted from Washington is a sense of safety. That takes more than hyperalertness to suicide bombing threats, important as that is. No matter what the terrorists are up to, it is not possible to feel safe if the federal government does not appear to know what it is doing on so many different levels.
Yesterday was an ideal moment for Mr. Bush to demonstrate that he was really in control of his administration. He could have taken any one of a number of pressing worries and demonstrated that he was on the job, re-examining the problems, working on answers. For instance, he could have addressed the crisis facing the overstretched military due to the endless demands made by Iraq on both the Army and the beleaguered National Guard.
The speech came one day after the White House threatened to veto a bill onto which the Senate added a ban on the use of "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment" against prisoners of the American government. This president could not find the spine to veto a bloated transportation bill that included wildly wasteful projects like the now-famous "bridge to nowhere" in Alaska. What kind of priorities does that suggest? If we ever needed the president to demonstrate that he has a working understanding of exactly where he wants to take this country, we need it now.
The president's inability to grow beyond his big moment in 2001 is unnerving. But the fact that his handlers continue to encourage him to milk 9/11 is infuriating. For most of us, the memories are fresh and painful. We mourn the people who died on Sept. 11, as we mourn Daniel Pearl and other Americans, not to mention innocents from other countries, who were murdered by terrorists. The administration's penchant for using them as political cover is offensive. It threatens to turn our wounds, and our current fears, into cynical and desperate spin.
October 7, 2005
President Bush's Major Speech: Doing the 9/11 Time Warp Again
Yesterday, the same day New Yorkers were warned there was a "specific threat" of a bombing on their subways, President Bush delivered what the White House promoted as a major address on terrorism. It seemed, on the surface, like a perfect topic for the moment. But his talk was not about the nation's current challenges. He delivered a reprise of his Sept. 11 rhetoric that suggested an avoidance of today's reality that seemed downright frightening.
The period right after 9/11, for all its pain, was the high point of the Bush presidency. Four years ago, we hung on every word when Mr. Bush denounced Al Qaeda and made the emotional - but, as it turned out, empty - vow to track down Osama bin Laden. Yesterday, it seemed as if the president was still trying to live in 2001. It was eerie to hear him urge Americans to take terrorism seriously. There wasn't any reason to worry about that even before subway riders were being told about the threat of a terrorist attack on their commute home.
He seemed to be reading from a very old and familiar script as he revealed that terrorists recruit "disillusioned young men and women," some of whom build weapons based on information available on the Internet. He shared his conviction that "it is cowardice that seeks to kill children and the elderly with car bombs." He said his team was "reforming our intelligence agency" and reorganizing government for "a broad and coordinated homeland defense."
Americans have seen the Department of Homeland Security in action for several years now, under two directors. The first, a former governor with whom the president had a good personal relationship, was an inept bureaucratic and political player who had a strange obsession with color-coded states of emergency. The current one was at the helm during the Federal Emergency Management Agency disaster in New Orleans, when that agency was overseen by an unqualified political appointee.
The administration is still trying to recover politically from Katrina. The hurricane was not just a bad stretch that could be cured by a promise of federal aid and a demonstration of presidential concern. The hurricane showed that despite four years of spinning, America is still unprepared for a catastrophe. It raised major questions about the caliber of people with whom Mr. Bush surrounds himself.
Ever since the terrorist attacks, the main thing Americans have wanted from Washington is a sense of safety. That takes more than hyperalertness to suicide bombing threats, important as that is. No matter what the terrorists are up to, it is not possible to feel safe if the federal government does not appear to know what it is doing on so many different levels.
Yesterday was an ideal moment for Mr. Bush to demonstrate that he was really in control of his administration. He could have taken any one of a number of pressing worries and demonstrated that he was on the job, re-examining the problems, working on answers. For instance, he could have addressed the crisis facing the overstretched military due to the endless demands made by Iraq on both the Army and the beleaguered National Guard.
The speech came one day after the White House threatened to veto a bill onto which the Senate added a ban on the use of "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment" against prisoners of the American government. This president could not find the spine to veto a bloated transportation bill that included wildly wasteful projects like the now-famous "bridge to nowhere" in Alaska. What kind of priorities does that suggest? If we ever needed the president to demonstrate that he has a working understanding of exactly where he wants to take this country, we need it now.
The president's inability to grow beyond his big moment in 2001 is unnerving. But the fact that his handlers continue to encourage him to milk 9/11 is infuriating. For most of us, the memories are fresh and painful. We mourn the people who died on Sept. 11, as we mourn Daniel Pearl and other Americans, not to mention innocents from other countries, who were murdered by terrorists. The administration's penchant for using them as political cover is offensive. It threatens to turn our wounds, and our current fears, into cynical and desperate spin.
TCS: Tech Central Station - Why Intelligent Design Is Going to Win
TCS: Tech Central Station - Why Intelligent Design Is Going to Win
Blogger Thought: For crying out loud!
Blogger Thought: For crying out loud!
AIG Says Indicted Employee Is Suspended - New York Times
AIG Says Indicted Employee Is Suspended - New York Times
October 6, 2005
AIG Says Indicted Employee Is Suspended
By REUTERS
Filed at 3:12 p.m. ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - American International Group Inc. (AIG.N) said it has suspended David Pinkerton, an employee indicted on Thursday for alleged violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by U.S. authorities in a case related to a $15 million investment.
AIG, the world's largest insurer by market value, said no charges had been brought against the company itself.
Pinkerton, a managing director in the AIG Global Investment Group, is on administrative leave pending resolution of the charges, AIG said.
Pinkerton pleaded not guilty to the charges in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
AIG said the charges involved an Azerbaijan privatization program that was brought to Pinkerton's group by Omega Partners Advisors, a New York hedge fund. AIG, as co-investor, contributed about $15 million of a total $180 million invested in 1998.
AIG said no client money was involved.
When AIG discovered in 1999 that it had been defrauded, it sued a person involved in the fraud and has cooperated fully with the investigation by the U.S. Attorney's office, the company said in its press release.
October 6, 2005
AIG Says Indicted Employee Is Suspended
By REUTERS
Filed at 3:12 p.m. ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - American International Group Inc. (AIG.N) said it has suspended David Pinkerton, an employee indicted on Thursday for alleged violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by U.S. authorities in a case related to a $15 million investment.
AIG, the world's largest insurer by market value, said no charges had been brought against the company itself.
Pinkerton, a managing director in the AIG Global Investment Group, is on administrative leave pending resolution of the charges, AIG said.
Pinkerton pleaded not guilty to the charges in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
AIG said the charges involved an Azerbaijan privatization program that was brought to Pinkerton's group by Omega Partners Advisors, a New York hedge fund. AIG, as co-investor, contributed about $15 million of a total $180 million invested in 1998.
AIG said no client money was involved.
When AIG discovered in 1999 that it had been defrauded, it sued a person involved in the fraud and has cooperated fully with the investigation by the U.S. Attorney's office, the company said in its press release.
Bali Suicide Bombers Said to Have Belonged to Small Gang - New York Times
Bali Suicide Bombers Said to Have Belonged to Small Gang - New York Times: "small group with no prior criminal record or link to a large organization like Al Qaeda,"
October 7, 2005
Bali Suicide Bombers Said to Have Belonged to Small Gang
By RAYMOND BONNER
JAKARTA, Indonesia, Oct. 6 - Indonesia's counterterrorism forces say the suspected suicide bombers who carried out the attack in Bali last Saturday appear to have been a small group with no prior criminal record or link to a large organization like Al Qaeda, giving the case echoes of the London subway bombings in July.
A senior Indonesian counterterrorism official said Thursday in an interview that the bombers seemed to have been "jihadists" without previous involvement in terrorist acts that would have brought them to the attention of the authorities.
A former senior member of Jemaah Islamiyah, the radical Islamic organization here, who has defected and is helping the government, said he did not recognize any of the men, the official said. The heads of the presumed bombers were severed in the blast, and pictures of them have appeared on television and in newspapers. The official spoke on condition that he not be identified, because he is not the authorized spokesman for his agency.
The Bali attack, which in addition to the 3 bombers killed 19 people, most of them Indonesians, in separate explosions at three restaurants, seems indicative of the way in which terrorism is shifting, terrorism experts say.
It was less sophisticated, complex, costly and deadly than the terrorist operation in Bali three years ago, in which a van loaded with explosives exploded in front of a nightclub, killing 202 people. And the organizations that financed the earlier attack, Al Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyah, have been severely weakened.
Yet the terrorist threat remains, while presenting a different challenge from when Al Qaeda provided training, financing and direction.
"Outside of the Middle East and North Africa, this is the first time we have seen suicide bombers walk into a restaurant and blow themselves up à la Israel," said a senior Western official who has closely monitored terrorist groups and activities for the last four years.
"It is only a matter of time before what you saw in Bali on Saturday night happens in a Western country," he said. The official spoke on condition that his name and country not be used, a condition imposed by most individuals of his position with access to intelligence information.
The threads between the London, Madrid and Bali attacks are not organizational, he said: "They are threads of the mind."
The terrorists have a common world view, a shared ideology. There is no evidence of outside direction, he said, and that makes fighting them challenging in a different way. He argued further that small attacks could add up to a devastation equal in some ways to large, catastrophic ones by eating away at people's security and at the economy.
These attacks should be seen less as a change in tactics than "a demonstration of another capability," said a security adviser with experience in the public and private sectors. He declined to be identified, in part for security reasons and because he has close ties to Western law enforcement agencies that would not be as willing to share information with him if they knew he talked to reporters.
In the London bombings it is not clear who may have been behind the bombers. Here, the main suspects as the masterminds are Azhari Husin, a skilled bomb-maker, and Mohamad Noordin Top, a charismatic recruiter and fund-raiser, who are thought to be operating on their own.
In that sense, their personal terrorist trajectories mirror the evolution of terrorism. They began as members of Jemaah Islamiyah and acted on direction from Al Qaeda, but officials here and elsewhere say they now form ad hoc groups to carry out attacks.
They have a large pool of men to recruit from. Thousands of young Indonesian men have been indoctrinated at religious schools in hatred of the West and of Jews. Some 300 Indonesian men trained in Afghanistan before the fall of the Taliban, and another 300 or so have trained at Jemaah Islamiyah camps in the Philippines. Training continues at the Philippine camps, but on a smaller scale, the officials say.
As a teenager, Mr. Azhari, who was born in Malaysia, went to Australia and studied at Adelaide University, where he showed a greater interest in motorbikes, sports and partying than in studying, Sally Neighbour wrote in "In the Shadow of Swords" (HarperCollins, 2004), a compelling account of the Southeast Asian terror network and the first Bali bombing.
He earned a doctorate from Reading University in England and then returned to Malaysia, where he became a university professor and acquired a reputation as an "irrepressible joker," Ms. Neighbour wrote.
Along the way, Mr. Azhari became a convert to fundamentalist Islam. He fell in with Abu Bakar Bashir, the spiritual head of Jemaah Islamiyah, who was then in exile in Malaysia, and Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali, who was Al Qaeda's senior operative in Southeast Asia. Mr. Noordin was part of the group.
In February 2002, Mr. Azhari and Mr. Noordin met with Hambali in Bangkok and are said to have decided to go after "soft targets," resulting in the first Bali attack. They were financed by Al Qaeda, and Mr. Bashir endorsed the attack, according to one of the men who carried it out and was later captured.
The next big Azhari-Noordin operation is said to have been the attack on the Marriott Hotel in Jakarta in August 2003, financed by Hambali and Al Qaeda. In the weeks before the Marriott bombing, Mr. Azhari sat in the lobby sketching the layout, according to the Indonesian police.
Days after the attack, Hambali was captured in a C.I.A. operation in Bangkok and is now in C.I.A. custody at a secret site. Mr. Bashir has been arrested and is in jail in Indonesia.
Jemaah Islamiyah is a shadow of what it once was, officials and experts say. "Its leadership has been decimated, it is strapped for cash and it is riven by internal dissension," said Sidney Jones, who has written extensively about the organization for the International Crisis Group. The main faction of the organization does not agree with violent terrorist acts, Ms. Jones said.
Mr. Azhari and Mr. Noordin have split off and continue to operate. In September 2004, their target was the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, according to the Indonesian police.
In making a recruiting pitch to a Muslim radical to take part in the bombing, Mr. Noordin boasted that he was "the most wanted man in Southeast Asia," Ms. Jones said.
Mr. Azhari drove the bomb-laden vehicle within a few hundred yards of the embassy, the police have said, then got out and hopped on a motorcycle, looking over his shoulder as the bomb went off.
Reward Offered in 2002 Bombings
WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 (Reuters) - The United States offered a $10 million reward on Thursday for a major suspect in the 2002 Bali bombings, the second-highest bounty Washington is promising in its effort to stem terrorism.
The reward for a tip that could help kill or capture Dulmatin, an Indonesian militant believed to be hiding in the Philippines, is exceeded only by the $25 million offered for Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
October 7, 2005
Bali Suicide Bombers Said to Have Belonged to Small Gang
By RAYMOND BONNER
JAKARTA, Indonesia, Oct. 6 - Indonesia's counterterrorism forces say the suspected suicide bombers who carried out the attack in Bali last Saturday appear to have been a small group with no prior criminal record or link to a large organization like Al Qaeda, giving the case echoes of the London subway bombings in July.
A senior Indonesian counterterrorism official said Thursday in an interview that the bombers seemed to have been "jihadists" without previous involvement in terrorist acts that would have brought them to the attention of the authorities.
A former senior member of Jemaah Islamiyah, the radical Islamic organization here, who has defected and is helping the government, said he did not recognize any of the men, the official said. The heads of the presumed bombers were severed in the blast, and pictures of them have appeared on television and in newspapers. The official spoke on condition that he not be identified, because he is not the authorized spokesman for his agency.
The Bali attack, which in addition to the 3 bombers killed 19 people, most of them Indonesians, in separate explosions at three restaurants, seems indicative of the way in which terrorism is shifting, terrorism experts say.
It was less sophisticated, complex, costly and deadly than the terrorist operation in Bali three years ago, in which a van loaded with explosives exploded in front of a nightclub, killing 202 people. And the organizations that financed the earlier attack, Al Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyah, have been severely weakened.
Yet the terrorist threat remains, while presenting a different challenge from when Al Qaeda provided training, financing and direction.
"Outside of the Middle East and North Africa, this is the first time we have seen suicide bombers walk into a restaurant and blow themselves up à la Israel," said a senior Western official who has closely monitored terrorist groups and activities for the last four years.
"It is only a matter of time before what you saw in Bali on Saturday night happens in a Western country," he said. The official spoke on condition that his name and country not be used, a condition imposed by most individuals of his position with access to intelligence information.
The threads between the London, Madrid and Bali attacks are not organizational, he said: "They are threads of the mind."
The terrorists have a common world view, a shared ideology. There is no evidence of outside direction, he said, and that makes fighting them challenging in a different way. He argued further that small attacks could add up to a devastation equal in some ways to large, catastrophic ones by eating away at people's security and at the economy.
These attacks should be seen less as a change in tactics than "a demonstration of another capability," said a security adviser with experience in the public and private sectors. He declined to be identified, in part for security reasons and because he has close ties to Western law enforcement agencies that would not be as willing to share information with him if they knew he talked to reporters.
In the London bombings it is not clear who may have been behind the bombers. Here, the main suspects as the masterminds are Azhari Husin, a skilled bomb-maker, and Mohamad Noordin Top, a charismatic recruiter and fund-raiser, who are thought to be operating on their own.
In that sense, their personal terrorist trajectories mirror the evolution of terrorism. They began as members of Jemaah Islamiyah and acted on direction from Al Qaeda, but officials here and elsewhere say they now form ad hoc groups to carry out attacks.
They have a large pool of men to recruit from. Thousands of young Indonesian men have been indoctrinated at religious schools in hatred of the West and of Jews. Some 300 Indonesian men trained in Afghanistan before the fall of the Taliban, and another 300 or so have trained at Jemaah Islamiyah camps in the Philippines. Training continues at the Philippine camps, but on a smaller scale, the officials say.
As a teenager, Mr. Azhari, who was born in Malaysia, went to Australia and studied at Adelaide University, where he showed a greater interest in motorbikes, sports and partying than in studying, Sally Neighbour wrote in "In the Shadow of Swords" (HarperCollins, 2004), a compelling account of the Southeast Asian terror network and the first Bali bombing.
He earned a doctorate from Reading University in England and then returned to Malaysia, where he became a university professor and acquired a reputation as an "irrepressible joker," Ms. Neighbour wrote.
Along the way, Mr. Azhari became a convert to fundamentalist Islam. He fell in with Abu Bakar Bashir, the spiritual head of Jemaah Islamiyah, who was then in exile in Malaysia, and Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali, who was Al Qaeda's senior operative in Southeast Asia. Mr. Noordin was part of the group.
In February 2002, Mr. Azhari and Mr. Noordin met with Hambali in Bangkok and are said to have decided to go after "soft targets," resulting in the first Bali attack. They were financed by Al Qaeda, and Mr. Bashir endorsed the attack, according to one of the men who carried it out and was later captured.
The next big Azhari-Noordin operation is said to have been the attack on the Marriott Hotel in Jakarta in August 2003, financed by Hambali and Al Qaeda. In the weeks before the Marriott bombing, Mr. Azhari sat in the lobby sketching the layout, according to the Indonesian police.
Days after the attack, Hambali was captured in a C.I.A. operation in Bangkok and is now in C.I.A. custody at a secret site. Mr. Bashir has been arrested and is in jail in Indonesia.
Jemaah Islamiyah is a shadow of what it once was, officials and experts say. "Its leadership has been decimated, it is strapped for cash and it is riven by internal dissension," said Sidney Jones, who has written extensively about the organization for the International Crisis Group. The main faction of the organization does not agree with violent terrorist acts, Ms. Jones said.
Mr. Azhari and Mr. Noordin have split off and continue to operate. In September 2004, their target was the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, according to the Indonesian police.
In making a recruiting pitch to a Muslim radical to take part in the bombing, Mr. Noordin boasted that he was "the most wanted man in Southeast Asia," Ms. Jones said.
Mr. Azhari drove the bomb-laden vehicle within a few hundred yards of the embassy, the police have said, then got out and hopped on a motorcycle, looking over his shoulder as the bomb went off.
Reward Offered in 2002 Bombings
WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 (Reuters) - The United States offered a $10 million reward on Thursday for a major suspect in the 2002 Bali bombings, the second-highest bounty Washington is promising in its effort to stem terrorism.
The reward for a tip that could help kill or capture Dulmatin, an Indonesian militant believed to be hiding in the Philippines, is exceeded only by the $25 million offered for Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
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