Tuesday, June 5, 2007

Saudi Ties to Carribbean Muslims' JFK Plot - part 1

Caribbean becomes new breeding ground for terror
by Sean O’Neill from The Times (UK)

What the arrests do highlight is America’s continuing concern that militant Islam could gain a foothold in the Caribbean and that al-Qaeda could use the region to launch attacks on the United States ... Of much more interest to American counter-terrorism agencies is Adnan G. El-Shukrijumah, 32, a Saudi-born al-Qaeda operative believed to be in hiding in the region. A $5 million (£2.5 million) reward has been offered for information leading to his capture. El-Shukrijumah lived in America for 15 years and trained as a pilot. The FBI says that he speaks perfect English and has a Guyanese passport but may try to enter the US with Saudi, Canadian or Trinidadian documents.

Saudi Ties to Carribbean Muslims' JFK Plot - part 2

Tangled Ties
by Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball from Newsweek
April 7, 2004

Riggs Bank (where the Saudi Embassy kept its accounts) report showed a number of checks to flight schools and flight-school students in the United States as well as 50 separate $1,000 American Express travelers checks issued by Bandar to Saudi employees between July 9, 2001 and Aug. 28, 2001—including seven that were deposited that summer at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas. Riggs also reported $19,200 in payments from the Saudi Embassy to Gulshair al-Shukrijumah, a Florida-based imam who once served as an interpreter for the “blind Sheik” Omar Abdul Rahman, who was convicted in 1996 of a plot to blow up New York City landmarks.

Gulshair al-Shukrijumah's son, Adnan al-Shukrijumah, also known as “Jaffar the Pilot,” is a suspected Al Qaeda operative who is the subject of a worldwide FBI manhunt. (In response to U.S. demands to impose tighter controls, the Saudis have since terminated the payments to Gulshair al-Shukrijumah, along with a number of other clerics who were being supported by the embassy.)

Ayoon wa Azan (Stubbornness Is No Policy)

by Jihad el-Khazen from Dar Al-Hayat

It is no coincidence that the US administration is now putting pressure on the Saudi government to ban Al-Zawraa TV channel after the Pentagon banned US soldiers in Iraq from using 13 web sites, including My Space and YouTube ... American and Iraqi forces expelled Al-Zawraa TV from Iraq last year, and the Bush administration pressured Egypt and some European countries to stop airing the channel on their satellites on grounds that it promotes the Sunni resistance.

Lessons of the Six-Day War

by Ariel Cohen from the Washington Times

Today the world will commemorate the 40th anniversary of Israel's victory in the Six-Day War ... Egypt's dictator Gamal Abdel Nasser proclaimed "the Jews would be thrown into the Mediterranean." He vowed May 26, 1967, "Our basic objective will be to destroy Israel." Syria and Jordan joined the pending attack, while Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Algeria contributed troops and arms.

Global dimensions

by Walid Phares from the Washington Times

The second lesson is that the Caribbean and South America have indeed became staging grounds for jihadi groups (al Qaeda, other Salafists and Iranian-led groups) to organize, recruit and act ... In addition, the Wahhabi powers from Arabia have been funding institutions and groups also since the end of the 1980s. The growth of Salafism and linked radical groups is the direct result of oil-producing regimes' ideological thrust in these areas. The root causes of potential terror acts in New York or Toronto in this decade have been triggered by a war of ideological indoctrination waged decades ago through this hemisphere.

Sheikh Mahmood: Criticism Of The Critics And The Innocence Of The Mujahideen

translation by Umm Saad from Jihad Unspun

They Say The Mujahideen’s Aqeedah (Belief) Is Not Clear
This is said by those who call themselves Salafi’s! We have told of their ignorance a million times that the Aqeedah of the Mujahideen are of the Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet, peace be upon him, but they have rebelled. The Mujahideen read “The book of Tawheed” and “The Three Basics” and “The Four Constants”. What do we say to such people?! Who passed them these books - the Mujahideen brothers and the followers of Imam Muhammad Ibn Abd Al Wahab! And was it not for their efforts you would still be circumambulating around trees and seeking help from the stones like the condition of your forefathers. By Jihad these books reached you and they will not remain with you except through Jihad.

Empower Moroccan youth

by Steve Utterwulghe and Abou El Mahassine Fassi-Fihri from the Journal of the Turkish Weekly

The causes of suicide bombing are multiple and context-specific. In Morocco, there are essentially two main ones. The first is the rise of militant Islam due to the spread of the Salafi school of thought, which in its more extreme variation cultivates the myth of the martyr. Young women and men reportedly convert to such radicalism and become suicide bombers for purely politico-religious reasons. Numerous Internet sites of radicalised Islam corroborate this explanation.