US. Resumes assassination: Al Qaida

US. Resumes assassination campaign against Al Qaida (Pt 2)

A U.S. military official familiar with operations in the tribal areas, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk about the operations, said: "We'll get these one-off flukes once every eight months or so, but that's still not a strategy -- it's not a plan. Every now and then something will come together. What that serves to do [is] it tamps down discussion about whether there is a better way to do it."


The target is identified
During seven years of searching for Osama bin Laden and his followers, the U.S. government has deployed billions of dollars' worth of surveillance hardware to South Asia, from top-secret spy satellites to sophisticated eavesdropping gear for intercepting text messages and cellphone conversations.

Yet some of the initial clues that led to the Libi strike were decidedly low-tech, according to an account supplied by four officials briefed on the operation. The CIA declined to comment about the strike and neither confirmed nor denied its involvement.

Hours before the attack, multiple sources said, the CIA was alerted to a convoy of vehicles that bore all the signatures of al-Qaeda officers on the move. Local residents -- who two sources said were not connected to the Pakistani army or intelligence service -- began monitoring the cluster of vehicles as it passed through North Waziristan, a rugged, largely lawless province that borders Afghanistan.

Eventually the local sources determined that the convoy carried up to seven al-Qaeda operatives and one individual who appeared to be of high rank. Asked how the local support had been arranged, a U.S. official familiar with the episode said, "All it takes is bags of cash."

Kamran Bokhari, director of Middle East analysis for Strategic Forecasting, a private intelligence group, said the informants could have been recruits from the Afghanistan side of the border, where the U.S. military operates freely.

"People in this region don't recognize the border, which is very porous," Bokhari said. "It is very likely that our people were in contact with intelligence sources who frequent both sides and could provide some kind of targeting information."

Precisely what U.S. officials knew about the "high-value target" in the al-Qaeda convoy is unclear. Libi, a 41-year-old al-Qaeda commander who had slowly climbed to the No. 5 spot on the CIA's most wanted list, was a hulking figure who stood 6 feet 4 inches tall. He spoke Libyan-accented Arabic and learned to be cautious after narrowly escaping a previous CIA strike. U.S. intelligence officials say he directed several deadly attacks, including a bombing at a U.S. military base in Afghanistan last year that killed 23 people.


Observing their prey
Alerted to the suspicious convoy, the CIA used a variety of surveillance techniques to follow its progression through Mir Ali, North Waziristan's second-largest town, and to a walled compound in a village on the town's outskirts.

The stopping place itself was an indication that these were important men: The compound was the home of Abdus Sattar, 45, a local Taliban commander and an associate of Baitullah Mehsud, the man accused by both the CIA and Pakistan of plotting the assassination of Benazir Bhutto on Dec. 27.

With all signs pointing to a unique target, CIA officials ordered the launch of a pilotless MQ-1B Predator aircraft, one of three kept at a secret base that the Pakistani government has allowed to be stationed inside the country. Launches from that base do not require government permission, officials said.

During the early hours of Jan. 29, the slow-moving, 27-foot-long plane circled the village before vectoring in to lock its camera sights on Sattar's compound. Watching intently were CIA and Air Force operators who controlled the aircraft's movements from an operations center at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada.

On orders from CIA officials in McLean, the operators in Nevada released the Predator's two AGM-114 Hellfire missiles, 100-pound, rocket-propelled munitions each tipped with a high-explosive warhead. The missiles tore into the compound's main building and an adjoining guesthouse where the al-Qaeda officers were believed to be staying.

Even when viewed from computer monitors thousands of miles away, the missiles' impact was stunning. The buildings were completely destroyed, and as many as 13 inhabitants were killed, U.S. officials said. The pictures captured after the attack were "not pretty," said one knowledgeable source.

Libi's death was confirmed by al-Qaeda, which announced his "martyrdom" on Feb. 1 in messages posted on the Web sites of sympathetic groups. One message hailed Libi as "the father of many lions who now own the land and mountains of jihadi Afghanistan" and said al-Qaeda's struggle "would not be defeated by the death of one person, no matter how important he may be."

A temporary impact
Publicly, reaction to the strike among U.S. and Pakistani leaders has been muted, with neither side appearing eager to call attention to an awkward, albeit successful, unilateral U.S. military operation. Some Pakistani government spokesmen have even questioned whether the terrorist leader was killed.

"It's not going to overwhelm their network or break anything up definitively," acknowledged a military official briefed on details of the Libi strike. He added: "We're now in a sit-and-wait mode until someone else pops up."

Richard A. Clarke, a former counterterrorism adviser to the Clinton and Bush administrations, said he has been told by those involved that the counterterror effort requires constant pressure on the Pakistani government.

"The United States has gotten into a pattern where it sends a high-level delegation over to beat Musharraf up, and then you find that within a week or two a high-value target has been identified. Then he ignores us for a while until we send over another high-level delegation," Clarke said.
SOURCE:
anybody find part #1 please post link in comments.

G

.

Back Channels on "B's" assassination

Back channels indicate there were many other attacks on others same day as assassination.

Also it was a combined attack on "B"
and rogue elements involved.

Pakti press still locked down.
Great Britan has an unusually large interest in this story. 20% of surfers/ normally 5%.
UPDATE: Yesterday the British followers of exiled cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed issued a statement celebrating the murder of Benazir Bhutto. The announcement was reposted under the title Death of Bhutto: A day of joy: from Jawa Report
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Baitullah Mehsud the NEW TALIBAN LEADER for a while now and FBI has no reward for him.
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The attack yesterday at Rawalpindi bore the hallmarks of a sophisticated military operation. At first, Bhutto's rally was hit by a suicide bomb that turned out to be a decoy. According to press reports and a situation report of the incident relayed to The New York Sun by an American intelligence officer, Bhutto's armored limousine was shot by multiple snipers whose armor-piercing bullets penetrated the vehicle, hitting the former premier five times in the head, chest, and neck. Two of the snipers then detonated themselves shortly after the shooting, according to the situation report, while being pursued by local police. A separate attack was thwarted at the local hospital where Bhutto possibly would have been revived had she survived the initial shooting. . . . A working theory, according to this American source, is that Al Qaeda or affiliated jihadist groups had effectively suborned at least one unit of Pakistan's Special Services Group, the country's equivalent of Britain's elite SAS commandos. . . . "They just killed the most protected politician in the whole country," this source said. "We really don't know a lot at this point, but the first thing that is happening is we are asking the Pakistani military to account for every black team with special operations capabilities."

Lake's source stressed to him that "this was just a theory at this point"
SOURCE:

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We don't yet know whether Al- Qaeda Commander and spokesman Mustafa Abu Al-Yazid told the truth in his phone call to Italian news agency Adnkronos International (AKI) when he stated that the decision to kill Bhutto was made by Al- Qaeda No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri in October, 2007, and carried out by a cell involving a "Punjabi volunteer" of Lashkar-i-Jhangvi ("LIJ").

But the involvement of LIJ fits the past pattern of its terrorist activities, which link up with Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and which are profoundly committed to destroying secular rule in Pakistan.

As summarized by the US Department of State, LIJ is a Sunni-Deobandi Muslim extremist group, based mostly in the Punjab region of Pakistan and Karachi. It has assisted in several high-profile attacks on Westerners in Pakistan, including the January 2002 kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. In 2002, LIJ banded with two other Sunni extremist groups to form the Pakistani wing of al Qaeda. Their goal? Ending secular rule and replacing it with a Sunni Muslim state.

LIJ has implemented this goal through a series of lethal attacks on sectarian rivals, including the types of people who have the greatest symbolic value as victims of terrorism. They thus have murdered priests, diplomats, religious leaders, and people while they are actually engaged in worship. Notably, LIJ claimed responsibility for attempting to assassinate Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in 1999.

LIJ is reportedly a very small organization, with perhaps as few as 100 members. Even if it were not responsible for Bhutto's assassination, it had already exercised a disproportionately destructive impact on Pakistan, the region, and the world. And all in the name of destroying secularism, and replacing it with a Taliban-like theocracy.
SOURCE:

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In northwest Pakistan a suicide bomber detonated his bomb inside a crowded mosque on Eid al-Adha (the Islamic Feast of Sacrifice which marks the end of the annual hajj.) The attack was an attempt to kill former Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao. Forty-eight people were killed and over 100 were wounded, including Sherpao's son and two grandnephews. Sherpao was unharmed.

This was the second attempt on Sherpao’s life in eight months, the previous attempt at a political rally in nearby Charsadda, 28 were killed and Sherpao was slightly wounded.

That Islamists would attack Sherpao is unsurprising. As Interior Minister he was a top security official and a key player in the Lal Masjid Mosque crackdown that has sparked the present high levels of violence. But for an Islamist to enter a mosque on a major holiday and murder innocent worshipers should be beyond the pale - even for radical Islamists.

Read the complete post here.

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It should be noted that is not the first time that Al-Qaida and its affiliates have allegedly targeted Benazir Bhutto for assassination. During the Philippine police interrogation of Abdul Hakim Murad--an associate of 1993 World Trade Center bombing mastermind Ramzi Yousef--Murad recalled that Yousef "once made a statement that BHUTTO should be replaced as PM of Pakistan since Islamic belief does not allow a woman to occupy such position and that [mujahideen organizations] should do something to unseat her. Said statement indicates that [Yousef] might be planning to carry out an attack against the PM of Pakistan." Likewise, during the mid-1990s, the FBI recorded several telephone conversations involving Kifah Jayyousi and Adham Hassoun (who were recently convicted in federal court for their role in recruiting would-be Al-Qaida operative Jose Padilla) in which the men discussed "getting rid" of the late Pakistani Prime Minister--who they referred to as "Khanazir Bhutto" ("Bhutto the Pig"): "She's done... done... she... she was finished... finished, my brother... I was reading about the life... the life of the Prophet, peace and blessing upon him... 'Men are ruined if they are to obey women'. Praise to God."
SOURCE:

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Bhutto’s death also makes former prime minister Nawaz Sharif Pakistan’s top opposition figure. Sharif has attempted to appeal to Islamic militants, arguing that Pakistan needs to pare down its cooperation with the United States. Sharif has already capitalized on Bhutto’s death, visiting the hospital where she was declared dead, blasting Musharraf for providing Bhutto with insufficient security, and calling for a reunification of Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party and his own Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz.

Bhutto’s assassination once again spotlights the need for the U.S. to formulate a feasible Pakistan policy, something I have called for previously.
You can read the entire symposium -- which includes contributions from Bill Roggio, Jonathan Foreman, and Mansoor Ijaz, among others -- here. For more on our policy options in Pakistan, see the cover story that I wrote for the Weekly Standard back in October, "While Pakistan Burns."

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more breaking
check back

Baitullah Mehsud: Backgrounder

Our threads HERE:

Gerald


A Pakistan Govt news conference has confirmed that Benazir Bhutto was not killed from the bullet of the suicide bomber.
....

What "B" wanted to do: and binny dead? at 6:11
....
December 28: The "Pakistani government has changed the story on how Bhutto was killed three times, but evidence suggests she was shot.


Automated feed switched to Bhutto ( Right column only )

..

Al-Qaeda in Iraq Publishes assassignation List

Al-Qaeda in Iraq Publishes List of Tribal Leaders It Intends to Assassinate Before 'Id Al-Fitr

The Islamist website http://www.elshouraa.ws/vb, hosted by SoftLayer Technologies Inc. in Texas, USA, has published a list of names, some with photos, titled "Pictures of the Infidels and Apostates Wanted by the Islamic State of Iraq." The message accompanying the list praises the September 13, 2007 assassination of Al-Anbar Salvation Council head 'Abd Al-Sattar Abu Risha by the ISI, [1] and threatens other tribal leaders who oppose Al-Qaeda: "We killed your leader and sheikh on the first day of Ramadan, as we promised you. You should know that the ISI will prevent most of your [other] leaders from offering up their holiday prayers [on 'Id Al-Fitr at the end of the month of Ramadan]. You will never see 'Id Al-Fitr, because [the jihad fighters] have turned [this] Ramadan into a grave for the apostates. [Abu Risha] is the first... dead hypocrite of this month - [the month of] jihad and mujahideen - and will be followed by many others."

Below are the photos and names, as they appear in the posting. The individuals crossed out have already been assassinated by the ISI.

EXCLUSIVE OUR INTERVIEW w/LARS Vilks

Lars Vilks DREW a cartoon of a dog with Mohamed's head.

An Internet audio message said to be from al-Qaida in Iraq offered a $100,000 reward for killing a Swedish artist who caricatured the Prophet Mohammed.
The speaker, who said he was Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the head of the terrorist group, promised to increase the reward to $150,000 if Lars Vilks is slaughtered like a lamb, the BBC reported.
Our interview:

G: We know you from a death threat in a password protected jahidist web site
and gave you warning before the reward was offered.

G: What did you think when you got our warning.

L: When I got it I was lecturing for a group of people in the Schloss Friedrichhöhe in Kassel. It was not easy to understand how serious it was. The next day I was informed by the Swedish police that they together with the Swedish Secret Police considered the threat as “very serious”. They suggested that I should go underground. But I didn’t.

G: How are you doing?

L: I am doing quite well. Checking my car for bombs every day and keeping my eyes open. Otherwise I can do my regular work.

G: Do you have good security?

L: Yes. Unfortunately I cannot say anything more.

G: Why did you do this cartoon?

L: It is a long story. The main thing is an exhibition in a small place in the Swedish countryside, a group exhibitions with the theme “dog”. I decided to do a very political incorrect drawing for the artworld. That was three drawings of the prophet as a dog, the first one as a traffic roundabout dog. Everything was accepted until the day when the press came. The drawings were in the last moment censored of security reasons. Then it became news all over the country and went far outside the artworld.

G: Have moderate Muslims said anything to you?

L: Several of them have written on the subject. They are not happy, insulted and unwillingly accepting the freedom of speech. They consider the project stupid and unnecessary.

G: What do you think about other newspapers that are afraid to carry your cartoon?

L: They acted politically correct. On the other hand the drawings have been published in around 7 newspaper and in Swedish television.

G: We think AQ offering a reward for you is a sign of their Impotence.

G: they have never offered a reward before,
But their cadre have been so decimated by the war on terror
they are forced to try and out source assassination?

L: In a way I find it positive that AQ (as well as the president of Iran, Muslim organisations in the Mideast) have shown an interest in contemporary art. And, which is important, they are all a part of the artwork. My project is not the drawings but the reactions and handling of the situation. Also this interview is a contribution to the artwork.

L: I think the whole is constructive as it has made everyone involved in a debate about Islam and integration questions in Sweden. So far everything is words and fiction. Not a single drop of blood.
Best wishes

Lars Vilks


Thanks Lars.
Gerald

Lars provided insight with this phrase:

"L: In a way I find it positive that AQ (as well as the president of Iran, Muslim organisations in the Mideast) have shown an interest in contemporary art"

I see no intent here, if it be a sin Allah will deal with him.

G

UPDATE: 10.01.07

Defying al-Qaida threats, artist wants to turn prophet cartoon uproar into musical

Karl Ritter, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
KLIPPAN, Sweden - He has offended Muslims worldwide and al-Qaida wants him dead, but the Swedish artist who portrayed the Prophet Muhammad as a dog said Monday he has no regrets.
Lars Vilks, 61, told The Associated Press he might use the uproar over his drawings as the subject of a musical, with prominent roles depicting Iran's president, Sweden's prime minister and al-Qaida terrorists.

"The Muhammad cartoon project must be made into an art work," said Vilks, breaking away for an interview during a business seminar in Klippan, a small town in southern Sweden. "A musical comes to mind ... I think it would help the debate."
The eccentric sculptor said previously that the cartoons weren't meant to insult Islam but rather to test the boundaries of artistic freedom.
He purports to be unfazed by death threats over his caricatures, which rekindled the Muslim anger but not the violence that swept the world last year in fiery protests over a Danish newspaper's publication of cartoons of Muhammad.

"Personally I'm not afraid," Vilks said, although he admitted he starts his day by looking for bombs underneath his car. On the advice of Sweden's security police, he now lives in a secret location under police protection.
"I think they are trying to frighten people. That's their aim," he said of the $100,000 bounty placed on his head by al-Qaida in Iraq. "Al-Qaida is far away, but it could be some sort of challenge for the extremists we have here."
Vilks said his drawings were meant to provoke, but only the Swedish art community, which refused to display the cartoons for security reasons. But the project took on a larger dimension Aug. 19 when a Swedish newspaper printed one of the cartoons, showing Muhammad's head on a dog's body in an editorial defending freedom of expression.

Dogs are considered unclean by conservative Muslims, and Islamic law is interpreted to forbid any depiction of the prophet, even favourable, for fear it could lead to idolatry.

More Source:
UPdate CNN gutless
gutless, CNN censors cartoon.

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Woman cited for threatening Prophet Mohammed cartoonist
Stockholm (dpa) - A woman has been cited for threatening the Swedish artist who made the caricature of Islam's Prophet Mohammed depicted as a dog, police said Wednesday.
The woman, a deeply religious Muslim, was reported to be upset over the caricature by Lars Vilks and had urged others to act against him, police in the southern city of Helsingborg said.

If the case is tried and she is convicted, she faces a fine or up to 12 months in prison.

Vilks told Swedish radio Wednesday that he had received several threats but he did not regard all of them as serious.

As the debate over the publication of the cartoon continued, Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt on Tuesday visited the main mosque in Stockholm and met with members of the Muslim Council of Sweden. Source:


Al Qaeda spy in Google:




.

Lebanon: Politician Assassinated by Syria....again,again,again

Lebanon: Christian Politician Assassinated by Syria....

Basher Assad continues his ruthless assassination campaign against anti-Syrian politicians in Lebanon. His latest victim is Antoine Ghanem of the Christian Phalange Party....

BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) -- A member of the Lebanese parliament died in a Beirut bomb blast Wednesday -- the latest anti-Syrian politician to be killed in the country.

Lawmaker Walid Eido, his son, Khalid, and two of his bodyguards were killed, Lebanese media reports said.

Some are calling the attack an assassination and pointing the finger at Syria.

At least six other people died and 11 were wounded in the explosion, believed to be from a car bomb, in the seaside neighborhood of Manara, according to Lebanese security sources.

Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, an outspoken critic of Syria, blamed Eido's killing on Damascus, calling it an attempt to reduce the anti-Syrian majority in the Lebanese government.

"With this bunch of assassins in Damascus, they don't care about international justice," Jumblatt told CNN International

Gateway had more, including this list of recent assassinations of Christian and Sunni politicians by Syria....

Rafik Hariri -February 14, 2005
Samir Kassir -June 2, 2005, again
George Hawi -June 21, 2005 again
May Chidiac (attempted assassination) -September 25, 2005 again
Gebran Ghassan Tueni -December 12, 2005 again
Pierre Amin Gemayel -November 21, 2006 again
Walid Eido -June 13, 2007 again
Antoine Ghanem- September 19, 2007 again:

Source Wheaselzippers

Arrest of LTTE’s KP: Goof up or Cover up?

By Animesh Roul

Media broke the news about KP’s arrest in Bangkok on Sep 10 and later picked up by all news agencies around the world. Sri Lanka took a sigh of relief and India desperately wanted to take him home for a trial. But all this euphoria died down when Thailand authority denied his arrest on the face of all media hype. KP is Kumaran Padmanadan (also, Tharmalingam Shanmughan), LTTE's point man for international arms procurement/ trafficking and a senior cadre involved in many high profile operations, including financing the assassination of a former Prime Minister of India. KP considered as the most important players within LTTE, next to chief V. Prabhakaran and Pottu Amman, head of its intelligence wing.

There is a possibility that Thai government is hiding something worthwhile now, even though they handed over three other Tamil Tigers to Lankan authority in August after they served jail terms for arms smuggling, since 2003. It is plausible that Thai govt. conveyed the news to Lanka but never thought that it would be blown to such proportions by the media which has now brought a third player, India into the whole episode. Fearing this could be interfering in the investigation process and that New Delhi would want KP to be extradited first, Bangkok authority now wished to deny the whole incident for the time being. One thing leading observers to believe that KP is in Thai custody much before the reported date of his arrest (does not matter if detained or arrested) because Sri Lanka Navy has successfully interdicted and sank three ships reportedly carrying LTTE’s arms in the high seas recently. Lankan Navy could not have achieved this success unless until they received concrete information on the shipments. A parallel can be drawn between both events. However, this speculation aside, KP’s arrest still remains a mystery, controversial and much awaited.

Important Media Coverage on KP’s reported arrest and denial:

LTTE's international terror chief "KP" arrested in Bangkok

Top Tamil Tiger arrested in Bangkok

Thai police deny Tamil Tiger leader held in Bangkok

September 14, 2007 08:39 AM

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Paradigm intel: says target is Musharraf

CAIRO, Egypt — Web sites usually used by Islamic militant groups announced a new, major Al Qaeda video would be released soon.

"Coming soon God willing? Wait for the big surprise," said an Internet banner Thursday next to a Web animation that shows photos Al Qaeda chief Usama bin Laden and some of his key deputies, along with pictures of U.S. President George W. Bush and Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan.

The advertisement for the forthcoming video was signed by As-Sahab, the multimedia branch of Al Qaeda, and was expected to be an important release on a major recent attack, two U.S.-based terrorism monitoring groups said.

AQ and the Taliban have the most forces in Patki, Patki has killed and captured more AQ than any one else, partly because that is where most of them are.

Assassination of Musharraf could lead to an attempted coup, or civil war.

They have threatened him many times.

And he is a target of convience, they don't have to send troops any where they are already there.

If the attack doesn't kill Musharraf, he may change his mind on going after AQ along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

Iraqi Insurgent Assassins..KILLING.Al Qaeda

Iraqi Insurgent Assassins..KILLING.Al Qaeda

GO ISLAM !!!

Iraqi gunmen kill Qaeda's Fallujah leader

by Paul Schemm 1 hour, 30 minutes ago

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Unidentified gunmen shot dead a local Al-Qaeda leader in the western Iraqi city of Fallujah on Saturday, police said, as fighting between rival Sunni factions undermined the insurgency.
The assassination of the militant kingpin ( ole binny is next, GO ISLAM ) came as the US military announced that marines and Iraqi security forces had killed seven Al-Qaeda fighters in a gunbattle during an assault which led to a truck bomb factory being destroyed.
Both incidents appeared to be linked to increased cooperation between Sunni factions, once sympathetic to the Iraqi resistance, and the US military, which is encouraging nationalist factions to fight Al-Qaeda.

GO ISLAM.....
Allah said : (Allah has promised, to those among you who believe and work
righteous deeds, that He will, of a surety, grant them in the land, inheritance (of power), as He granted it to those before them; that He will establish in authority their religion -the one which He has chosen for them; and that He will change (their state), after the fear in which they (lived), to one of security and peace: 'They will worship Me (alone) and not associate aught with Me. 'If any do reject Faith after this, they are rebellious and wicked.) 55,AlNOOR.

wrong, wrong on so many levels