Back to Basics

Good news for those of you who enjoy taking your shoes off in airports. Al-Qaeda’s chief bombmaker, a cheerful fellow named Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, who sent his younger brother off on a suicide bombing mission with a bomb up his rectum, has been working on turning everything into a bomb. Cameras, printer cartridges and even pets.

The good news is that al-Asiri isn’t very good at it. His bomb did a good job of killing his brother, but not much else. The original underwear bomb worn by the Christmas bomber didn’t work out. The bad news is that with enough cannon fodder and enough attempts, sooner or later al-Asri or another college dropout will get it right. But even if he doesn’t, the force multiplier of the threat alone will do the job.

All it took was one shoe bomber to get us to take off our shoes. A failed plan to blow up airliners with liquid explosives led to the liquid ban. In the age of underwear bombs we have naked scanners. What is going to happen when the next plot involves explosives embedded in a laptop or surgically implanted in a pet?

A bomb anywhere is a bomb everywhere. When the bombs are everywhere, then so are the security measures taken against them until life is one big bomb and one giant security measure.

We may sooner or later hunt down al-Asiri and blow him away, but taking out a twenty-something graduate of a Saudi university after a long manhunt at a cost of countless millions of dollars will not be some grand achievement. There are plenty of Saudi, Kuwaiti and Pakistani chemistry students who can step into his place.

We are not fighting a war against toothpaste, shoes or underwear. Nor against bombs. Bombs after all don’t make themselves or detonate themselves. That’s what people are for and until we come to grips with the people making and detonating the bombs, then we will live in a world of bombs, where every item, no matter how innocuous, is treated as a potential explosive device, and every person in line as a potential explosive weapon.

The formula for fighting a War on Terror without defining a vector for that terror has led to a state of terror, in which everyone is either terrified or terrorized. The official word is that anyone and everyone can be a terrorist, and even though they all seem to be Muslim, the official position is that this is a complete coincidence, a misunderstanding of the religion of peace or a result of our foreign policy.

To believe any of these things is to also believe that history is bunk. Al-Asiri’s last name indicates that he comes from the Asir province, the heartland of fanaticism in Saudi Arabia. Asir means “difficult” in Arabic. Six of the 9/11 hijackers came from Asir and Bin Laden praised its tribes as “forming the lion’s share”. Asir had been a source of violence and Islamic fanaticism long before American foreign policy mattered to anyone one outside the hemisphere. The Asiri Wahhabis had fought the Ottoman Empire in Asir going back to the early 1800′s and then they fought the House of Saud. With global access, Asiris are able to extend their wars deep into our territory.

PHOTOS.COM

Fearmongers say to beware the dog bombs, and they don’t mean to watch where we step.

Bombs in dogs, bombs in hard drives, bombs surgically implanted in people, invisible underwear bombs! Be afraid; be very afraid.

The fearmongers in government are getting desperate. Thanks to the rise of alternative media, fewer and fewer people are buying the mainstream media’s lies. They’re rejecting the police state.

So the fearmongers are making it up as they go and getting more absurd by the day. We are told al-Qaida can now turn anything and everything into a bomb. Even 18-month-olds are now terror suspects. But never fear; government is here to protect us.

What you don’t hear from the MSM is that the so-called terrorists are creations of the FBI and the CIA. Agents of our own government are the real terrorists.

Well, who knew, really? I thought something was strange about this story all along, particularly with regard to AP’s reporting. So here comes the news that the CIA planted a double agent inside al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. There’s going to be lots more information on this over the next few days so consider this developing. So far, Rep. Peter King thinks the administration is in fact jerking the public, see: “Rep. King suggests administration may have misled public on bomb plot, Calls for review.” Frankly, there’s no doubt in my mind that Obama is working national security — and coordinating press coverage according to intelligence rules — to score political points. President #GutsyCall is going rogue.

Anyway, the Los Angeles Times reports, “Al Qaeda bomb plot was foiled by double agent.”

And at the Wall Street Journal, “Bomb Plotter Was U.S. Informer: Double Agent Infiltrated Yemeni Terror Group, Fed Information to U.S. Intelligence“:

The supposed bomber at the center of a foiled plot to bring down a jetliner was actually a double agent who funneled vital information to U.S. and Arab intelligence agencies, according to officials, marking an apparently successful infiltration of al Qaeda’s most dangerous branch.

The revelation came a day after U.S. officials said the Central Intelligence Agency, working with foreign security services and other agencies, had thwarted a bomb plot by al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch aimed at bringing down a U.S. jetliner with a more advanced version of an underwear bomb used in a failed 2009 Christmas Day attempt.

The newest plot appears to provide a chilling illustration of al Qaeda’s determination to learn from its mistakes: The bomb that was recovered has two detonators, providing a crucial backup in the event one failed, a U.S. official said Tuesday.

According to a U.S. official familiar with the operation, the double agent spent several perilous weeks working inside al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, answering to a foreign intelligence service that works in concert with the CIA. Saudi intelligence officials played “a large role” in handling of the double agent inside AQAP, this official said.

The man was able to convince members of the Yemeni terror group that he wanted to carry out a suicide mission, the official said.

The man was given the bomb and general instructions for carrying out the attack, the official said. Instead of following those directions, however, when he left Yemen, he contacted intelligence authorities, turning over the bomb and fresh intelligence about AQAP.

Some of the information gathered in the course of the multiweek operation led to the U.S. drone strike in Yemen on Sunday that killed a top operative of the Yemeni group, officials said Tuesday.

The Saudi embassy in Washington had no immediate comment. In the past, some Saudi officials have chafed at characterizations that Saudi Arabia used former al Qaeda militants as informants to disrupt plots by the Yemeni branch.

Yemeni officials say they weren’t informed about the operation.

Continue reading.

The Journal also mentions the possibility of a congressional GOP investigation of Obama’s intelligence coordination and public manipulation.

A new, “more sophisticated” underwear bomb style was reportedly discovered by CIA officials in Yemen last month and publicly “uncovered” yesterday. A new, upgraded version of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s Christmas Day, 2009 underwear bomb was reportedly found confiscated by intelligence officials, although  the circumstances under which the new “sophisticated” style bomb was found are vague at best. The American press had knowledge of the plot for well over a week before disclosing the details, reportedly giving U.S intelligence operatives time to trace those associated with the bomb making “factory” and terrorists involved.

News reports indicate an overall upgrade in the style of bomb style, which, counter-terrorism authorities state, could potentially pass through airport scanners undetected. It is unclear whether the briefs were to be used by any would-be terrorist, although authorities stressed that at no time was there any danger or the apparent existence of an active plot. The underwear to be used in the new plot, if there was a plot yet formulated, is currently being analyzed by the FBI.

The bomb making material and technique has reportedly been traced to Saudi bomb maker Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri who is believed to be currently residing in Yemen. Al-Asiri is credited for constructing the first underwear bomb and other bombs reportedly built into printer cartridges shipped to the U.S. on cargo planes in 2010.He also has the unique distinction of assisting his younger brother in packing his rectum with explosives in an assassination plot against Saudi security chief Mohammed bin Nayef on August 27, 2009. While killing his younger brother, the bomb only slightly injured Mohammed bin Nayef.

Tighty-Whiteys Upgrade? Fruit of the Boom? Looking beyond the obvious

There is absolutely no doubt that Islamic terrorists exist throughout the world and want to cause a mass casualty event in the U.S. and all Western countries. Members of the cult of Islam are busy creating new and innovative ways to turn all non-Islamic countries into Sharia governed societies. Islam is also being used to promote a single “world” religion, particularly by this administration.

Based on a dubious and checkered recent history of the American intelligence apparatus used by our own political system and the agenda of the globalist elite, however, it is imperative that one looks beyond the obvious.  The U.S. already has one of the most aggressive body search programs of any country in the world for individuals traveling by air. The program includes the use of nuclear full body scanners (naked body scanners), which found their popularity following Abdulmutallab’s 2009 Christmas Day bombing attempt of Delta-Northwest Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit.

On Christmas day 2009, a total of 40 full body scanners were present at only 19 airports in the U.S., but that would soon change. Immediately following the significantly odd incident aboard flight 253, former DHS secretary Michael Chertoff and co-author of the U.S. Patriot Act took to the airwaves to lobby for the placement of the nuclear scanners at all airports. Chertoff, the head of the Chertoff Group, a private security consulting agency, served as former DHS secretary from 2005 to 2009.

It was disclosed that Chertoff’s security consulting agency included a client that manufactures the controversial scanners.

U.S. counterterrorism officials said CIA intelligence agents thwarted an attempt by al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen to destroy a U.S.-bound airliner one year after the killing of Osama bin Laden, according to a statement released on Monday. What surprised many counterterrorism experts was the sophistication of the so-called upgraded underwear bomb.

The White House said that President Barack Obama was made aware in April of an al-Qaeda affiliate’s foiled plot to blow up a U.S.-bound passenger airplane.

While no solid indications that the terrorist group al-Qaeda or its allies, such as Al-Shabbab, Boko Haram, and others, are plotting operations of revenge, counterterrorism experts have voiced their concerns and believe “it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

This thwarted terrorist plot revealed a modernized version of the “underwear bomb” that failed to detonate aboard a plane arriving at Detroit International Airport on Christmas Day 2009. This upgraded bomb was designed to be used in a passenger’s underwear, but contained a more a refined detonation system, U.S. law enforcement bomb technicians told the Law Enforcement Examiner.

“The 2009 IED [improvised explosive device] was amateurish compared to this upgraded device. It was also designed to pass through airport security screening equipment and metal detectors,” said a veteran bomb tech.

The would-be suicide bomber had not yet chosen a specific target nor did he purchase an airline ticket when he was captured by agents from the CIA.

While there are still numerous unanswered questions due to security concerns, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Homeland Security acknowledged the seizure of an improvised explosive device (IED) designed to carry out a terrorist attack in press statements.

FBI officials said they are in possession of the explosive device and conducting technical and forensics analysis on it. Initial examination indicates that the device is quite similar to the IEDs that have been used by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in terrorist attacks.

Both the White House and the Department of Homeland Security have said they were not aware of any al-Qaeda threats against the country around the anniversary of the killing of bin Laden on May 1.

“At this time, we have no credible information that terrorist organizations, including al-Qaeda, are plotting attacks in the U.S. to coincide with the anniversary of bin Laden’s death,” White House press secretary Jay Carney stated on April 26.

Body Bomb 

Earlier this year, U.S. government counterterrorism officials warned American and foreign airlines that terrorists may be planning to upgrade improvised explosive devices in an effort to defeat airport security screening. One such bomb could be surgically implanted inside the bodies of airline passengers.

The threat brings new meaning to the term “suicide bomber” and “improvised explosive device,” one official told the Law Enforcement Examiner.

“Recent intelligence brought to light the possible terrorist scheme but no specific plot had been uncovered,” according to a press release from the U.S. House of Representatives.

Rep. Peter King (R-NY), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said on Fox News Channel that a bomb implanted in airline passengers is something government security officials have been worried about for “a while.”

“This is a concern about human bombs,” King said. “We believe we’ve informed everyone.”

A U.S. security official told the Law Enforcement Examiner that a body bomb implanted is likely to come from overseas rather than domestically and that precautionary steps have been taken internationally and in the United States to be on guard for such terrorism suspects.

My Spring 2012 issue of International Security came by mail last Tuesday, May 1st — the one year anniversary of the bin Laden killing.

We also saw President Obama make his secret trip to Afghanistan last Tuesday — to spike the football for his reelection efforts. So the timing was quite interesting for reading this research paper from Bryan C. Price, “Targeting Top Terrorists: How Leadership Decapitation Contributes to Counterterrorism.” Here’s this from the introduction:

Late in the evening of May 1, 2011, President Barack Obama announced to the nation that Osama bin Laden was dead. Earlier that day, the president had ordered a team of elite military forces deep into Pakistan to kill the mastermind behind the September 11 terrorist attacks, which had shocked the country and the world nearly ten years before. During his speech, President Obama said that he had told his new director of central intelligence, Leon Panetta, that getting bin Laden was the number one priority in the United States’ counterterrorism strategy against al-Qaida. Upon hearing of bin Laden’s death, Americans broke out in spontaneous celebration, and pundits immediately began speculating about its symbolic and operational importance. But what does bin Laden’s death mean, if anything, for the future of al-Qaida? More broadly, what does it mean when terrorist groups experience leadership decapitation?

Decapitation tactics, which are designed to kill or capture the key leader or leaders of a terrorist group, feature prominently in the counterterrorism strategies of many states, including Israel and the United States. Some scholars argue that targeting the group’s leadership reduces its operational capability by eliminating its most highly skilled members and forcing the group to divert valuable time and limited resources to protect its leaders. Decapitation tactics are also intended to disrupt the terrorist group’s organizational routine and deter others from assuming power. Scholars have credited these tactics with creating intra-organizational turmoil and even organizational collapse, most notably, the demise of the Kurdistan People’s Party and the Shining Path following the arrests of their leaders. Despite questions about the legality and moral legitimacy of targeted assassinations, the United States has expanded, rather than contracted, its targeted killing program since President Obama arrived in offce. In early 2010, the U.S. government even authorized the lethal targeting of Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen living in Yemen. This unprecedented decision was fraught with constitutionality concerns about due process. Yet, five months after the bin Laden operation and amid criticism about the disregard of the United States for international sovereignty, a U.S. drone fired a Hellfire missile at al-Awlaki in a remote region inside Yemen, killing him instantly.

Domestic audiences and leadership decapitation an appealing counterterrorism tactic for a variety of reasons, but most scholars argue that it is ineffective at best and counterproductive at worst. Whereas proponents of decapitation highlight cases in which the tactic has contributed to the organizational collapse of terrorist groups, critics counter with examples in which it has increased and intensified terrorist activity. Critics argue that targeted killings are both morally and ethically wrong and warn of a backlash effect: rather than reducing the terrorist threat, leadership decapitation is likely to increase the number of willing recruits for terrorist groups to exploit, allowing these groups to grow in size and popularity.

A Pakistani teenager may spend up to 15 years in federal prison for his participation in a terrorism conspiracy with other homegrown terrorists such as Colleen LaRose who became known in the media as “Jihad Jane” and “Fatima Rose,” according to a report obtained by the National Association of Chiefs of Police and the Law Enforcement Examiner on Friday.

Mohammad Hassan Khalid, a citizen of Pakistan as well as a lawful permanent U.S. resident residing in Maryland, pleaded guilty Friday to conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, stemming from his participation in a scheme to support, recruit and coordinate members of a conspiracy in their plan to wage violent jihad in and around Europe.

Before being killed last year, Osama bin Laden was advised to halt operations in Muslim countries and start taking the battle to the real enemy — the Americans, according to newly released documents.

Declassified photograph of Osama bin Laden just days before his death at the hands of U.S. Navy SEAL Team Six last year. Photo credit: DoD/American Forces Press Service

An analysis of 17 de-classified documents captured during the May 1, 2011 U.S. Navy SEAL raid on al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden’s hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan raid. The documents were released to the Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) on the campus of the United States Military Academy at West Point, NY, and are now being posted on the CTC web site.

The analyzed documents consist of emails and drafts of letters dated between September 2006 and April 2011.  These internal al-Qaeda communiques were authored by terrorist leaders, especially Osama bin Laden, who was killed by U.S. special forces just days after writing his last letter.

The documents revealed to analysts that bin Laden’s public statements focused on the injustice of those he believed to be the “enemies” of Muslims, namely corrupt “apostate” Muslim rulers and their American “overseers.”

The focus of bin Laden’s private letters is Muslims’ suffering at the hands of his jihadi “brothers”. He is saddened by what he hears and advises jihadists to “abort domestic attacks” that cause Muslim civilian deaths and casualties and focus instead on the United States calling it “our desired goal.”

“Bin Laden’s frustration with regional jihadi groups and his seeming inability to exercise control over their actions and public statements is the most compelling story to be told on the basis of the 17 declassified documents. ‘Letters from Abbottabad’ is an initial exploration and contextualization of 17 documents that will be the grist for future academic debate and discussion,” say the CTC analysts.

For example, one document is a letter addressed to Osama bin Laden from “a loving brother whom you know and who knows you” and dated September 14, 2006. The author is critical of bin Laden for focusing al-Qaeda’s operations on “Islamic countries in general and the Arabian Peninsula in particular.” (al-Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, is currently the most powerful faction in the Middle East.)

He enumerates the negative consequences of engaging in jihad inside Saudi Arabia, and informs bin Laden that people are now repulsed by the technical term “jihad” and even forbidden to use it in lectures. The author strongly advised bin Laden to change his policies, according to the CTC translation.

“The best way to prevent the shedding of impermissible blood and not killing faithful people is to not work inside Muslim countries. I am sure that your Eminence knows that God said, ‘If it were not for faithful men and women among them, we would have punished them harshly.’ If faithful swords stopped fighting for fear of hurting the few faithful in the nonbeliever society, can you imagine the ruling when we talk about Muslim population in a Muslim society?” he said to bin Laden.

While President Barack Obama participated in last month’s Summit of the Americas in Colombia, none of the nations’ leaders even hinted about the influx of officials from Iran and their proxy warriors in the terrorist group Hezbollah. However, this week Israeli intelligence analysts are warning the United States government that Western Hemisphere countries are hosting members of the radical Islamist movement.

Since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became the sixth and current President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the main political leader of the Alliance of Builders of Islamic Iran in August 2005, Iran has extended and solidified its relations with several Latin American countries, especially Venezuela and Bolivia, both run by far-left leaders, according to an anonymous Israeli police source. With the help of proxy groups, Iran has increased its efforts to obtain a political foothold in the others this week, according to a terrorism analyst in Israel, who is a former U.S. police sergeant.

According to findings brought before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Iran has significantly increased its diplomatic representation in Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Argentina and Brazil. It was also reported that since 2005 Iran has increased the number of its embassies in Latin America from five to 11, and set up 17 “cultural centers” as well.

The common factor in these increasingly close relationships between Iran and some of the Latin American countries are their hatred for United States of America, a/k/a The Great Satan, and their pursuit of a revolutionary alternative to what they perceive as American imperialism, according to the Meir Amit Information Center in Israel.

Iran exploits those relations to strengthen its foothold in Latin America (also employing Hezbollah), to establish a presence and gain political, economic, cultural and religious influence. As in other areas of the world, in Latin America Iran employs terrorism and subversion, and works to instill radical Shi’ite Islamic ideology into the local Muslim communities.

Iran’s increased activity in Latin America is part of its global strategy, whose objectives go far beyond the desire for hegemony in the Middle East. Iran regards itself as hemmed in by the United States and its allies, stubbornly pursues the nuclear crisis with the West, and seeks to present the United States with a revolutionary challenge in its own backyard by exploiting its relative advantages with countries and populaces in Latin American: Iran’s anti-American ideology and rhetoric fall on willing ears; Iranian petrodollars, which can be used for political and propaganda purposes; and a Muslim large population, some of it Lebanese, living in key Latin American countries, according to analysts at Meir Amit.

Iran has found ideological-political sympathy in a number of Latin American countries, which may enable it to escape from its increasing political isolation and strengthen the so-called “resistance camp” it leads (including Syria, Hezbollah, and Palestinian terrorist organizations). Iran also regards Latin America as good area for defiance and also for challenging the United States in various ways: increased political and military collaboration, economic infiltration and extensive activities to disseminate Shi’ite Islam and eventually export the Islamic revolution to Latin America, according to the Israeli police source who requested anonymity.

Ahmadinejad’s last visit to Venezuela (January 9, 2012) and other Latin American countries (Nicaragua, Cuba and Ecuador) illustrated the gap between Iranian aspirations in Latin America and the limitations of its political power.