* Yazid Sufaat was happy with the anthrax work when he stayed with KSM for 6 days in 2001 and when he reported to Dr. Ayman on the results of his research with virulent anthrax in August 2001 with Hambali; in his correspondence with DXer, he seems happy today also (and very much in love).
Posted by DXer on May 1, 2012
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CASE CLOSED ... what really happened in the 2001 anthrax attacks? 
DXer said
Why Hambali, ‘Southeast Asia’s Osama bin Laden’ detained at Guantanamo, is not just an artefact of history
In addition to his planning of the Bali bombing and facilitating the financing of the Jakarta Marriott Hotel bombing he is accused of scheming with senior al-Qaeda leaders to carry out post-9/11 attacks against US interests; a plot to use an all-Malaysian cell to hijack an aeroplane and fly it into the Library Tower (now known as the US Bank Tower) in Los Angeles; and helping al-Qaeda develop an anthrax programme by providing Malaysian microbiologist Yazid Sufaat.
https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/people/article/3159112/why-hambali-southeast-asias-osama-bin-laden-detained-guantanamo
DXer said
Exclusive: Daniel Dae Kim and cast talk National Geographic’s “The Hot Zone: Anthrax”
by Stephanie Giang-Paunon November 24, 2021
https://theknockturnal.com/exclusive-daniel-dae-kim-and-cast-talk-national-geographics-the-hot-zone-anthrax/
DXer said
Hambali’s trial in Guantanamo for the nightclub bombing in Bali over 18 years ago is starting. I once spent a month in Bali before moving onto its sister island in Lombok. There were political whisperings even decades ago that I never appreciated.
DXer said
Hambali set for trial relating to bombings in 2002 and 2003.
Pentagon Official Approves Guantánamo Trial of 3 Men for Indonesia Bombings
The case was dormant throughout the Trump administration, and then a military official suddenly approved it as the first new case at Guantánamo since 2014.
By Carol Rosenberg
• Jan. 21, 2021
WASHINGTON — After years of delay, the U.S. official overseeing military commissions at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, on Thursday approved the prosecution of three Southeast Asian prisoners accused of conspiring in two deadly terrorist bombings in Indonesia in 2002 and 2003.
The Pentagon announced the charges two days after Lloyd J. Austin III, President Biden’s defense secretary nominee, told Congress that the administration “does not intend to bring new detainees to the facility and will seek to close it.”
Prosecutors accused the three men — Encep Nurjaman, who is known as Hambali; Mohammed Nazir Bin Lep; and Mohammed Farik Bin Amin — of murder, terrorism and conspiracy in the 2002 nightclub bombings in Bali, which killed 202 people, and the 2003 Marriott hotel bombing in Jakarta, which killed at least 11 people and wounded at least 80.
Mr. Hambali, who is Indonesian, has been in the custody of the United States since 2003. He is held at Guantánamo as the former leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, a Southeast Asian extremist group that became an affiliate of Al Qaeda before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
***
Then on Thursday, the Pentagon announced that Col. Jeffrey D. Wood of the Arkansas National Guard, who is based in Little Rock and has been the convening authority since April, approved the case for trial. It is the first new case at Guantánamo Bay since 2014, and the Pentagon provided no explanation.
Under military commission procedures, the prisoners are to be brought before a military judge for arraignment within 30 days. But there is no resident military judge at the base, the prisoners’ lawyers are based in the United States, and although the base has begun vaccinations, commanders there require all visitors to be quarantined for 14 days on arrival.
***
The three men have been held at Guantánamo since September 2006. They were captured in Thailand in August 2003 in a joint Thai-U.S. intelligence raid. Then they spent about three years in the secret C.I.A. prison network where some prisoners were subjected to waterboarding, sleep deprivation, beatings, painful shackling and other now-outlawed “enhanced interrogation” techniques.
In 2003, a C.I.A. interrogator told Mr. Hambali “that he would never go to court, because ‘we can never let the world know what I have done to you,’” according to a summary of the comprehensive study of the C.I.A. program that was released by the Senate Intelligence Committee in December 2014.
DXer said
Biological Terrorism in Indonesia
Terrorists in West Java planned to use a biological toxic agent in a bomb attack. What does this signify for the bioterrorism threat in Indonesia?
By V. Arianti
November 20, 2019
“Category A” Agents
Indonesian terrorist groups currently do not seem to have the intention or capability of using a category A biological agent such as anthrax to launch an attack. The last known effort to develop anthrax was in mid-2000, when Hambali, the Indonesian group Jemaah Islamiyah’s liaison officer to al-Qaeda (AQ) and head of JI’s Mantiqi I (the regional area of JI covering mainland Malaysia and Singapore), introduced Malaysian JI member Yazid Sufaat to al-Qaeda. According to the 9/11 Commission Report, Yazid – a member with a degree in medical technology and biochemistry from a U.S. university – led AQ’s biological weapons program. Yazid helped set up the AQ laboratory in Kandahar, Afghanistan, and would spend several months cultivating anthrax for the terror outfit. Despite AQ’s generally unsophisticated laboratory, Yazid claimed that he had been successful in developing some pathogens. He asserted that anthrax was not his “favorite” as it was good for sabotage but not enough to kill people. The laboratory was eventually destroyed when NATO bombed Kandahar in 2001. Yazid returned to Malaysia and was arrested in the same year. He was released in 2008 and rearrested in 2013. He will be released in November 2019.
DXer said
Malaysia’s coronavirus lockdowns a ‘blessing in disguise’ for reducing Isis threat: counterterrorism chief
Amy Chew
Published: 9:10pm, 14 Jan, 2021
Ahmad said political tensions could lead some people to adopt increasingly radical views and engage in violence. He emphasised that the idea of “political radicalisation” was put forth by Yazid Sufaat, a Malaysian scientist who recruited terrorists for Isis and al-Qaeda and tried to help Osama bin Laden develop anthrax for use as a biological weapon.
Yazid was released from Malaysian prison in 2019 and currently lives in Kuala Lumpur, where he is under police observation.
Ahmad said political radicalisation among extremists often started with them rejecting the country’s democracy-based political system, which they viewed as secular and “not so Islamic”.
“When I spoke with Yazid Sufaat, I asked him what was his biggest concern and he said that we don’t have to worry about terrorist radicalisation,” Ahmad said. “We should focus more on political radicalisation right now, he said, because he was politically radicalised before he [underwent] terrorist radicalisation.”
DXer said
How This Malaysian Man [Yazid Sufaat] Played A Role In 9/11 US Terror Attacks
BY KIRAT KAUR
NOVEMBER 22, 2019
https://www.therakyatpost.com/2019/11/22/how-this-malaysian-man-played-a-role-in-9-11-us-terror-attacks/
DXer said
Indonesian police squeeze Jemaah Islamiah’s secrets out of Bali bombing mastermind
https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/world/asia-news/2020/12/27/bali-bombing-mastermind-confession/
After 18 years on the run, the Indonesian leader who orchestrated the Bali bombings has bared the inner workings of the terrorist organisation, revealing that charity boxes in food stalls and mini-marts helped to fund radical Islamic causes.
Investigators have revealed that more than 20,000 charity boxes, placed in food stalls, have been used to fund the shady terror group’s operations.
The boxes have been used to collect cash in 12 regions of Indonesia, across Java and Sumatra, and the food stall owners had no idea the money was going to a terror group.
A biologist, Zulkarnaen had been on the run and eluded capture since 2002.
He was arrested in East Lampung in Sumatra and is one of 23 JI suspects locked up in the past few weeks by Indonesian counter-terror forces.
Indonesian police have arrested 228 accused terrorists in 2020.
They have released video of Zulkarnaen talking to officers after his arrest and detailing his role in a series of deadly bombings in his homeland.
And he revealed the secret meetings that led up to the decision by JI to bomb two nightclubs in Bali in October 2002, along with how other bombings were planned and executed.
Zulkarnaen told how he was called to a meeting with Hambali, al-Qaeda’s so-called lieutenant in South East Asia, who told him they needed to conduct an attack on foreigners.
DXer said
Indonesia police: Top terror suspect mastermind of attacks
By NINIEK KARMINIDecember 14, 2020
https://apnews.com/article/afghanistan-indonesia-counterterrorism-jakarta-islamic-state-group-6bab71a7261501d065e2a8f9de46c207
“He was the military commander of Jemaah Islamiyah,” National Police spokesperson Ahmad Ramadhan said at a news conference in the capital, Jakarta. “He’s been on the police wanted list for 18 years.”
Zulkarnaen, a biologist who was among the first Indonesian militants to go to Afghanistan in the 1980s for training, was an instructor at a military academy there for seven years, Ramadhan said. …
The Security Council said that Zulkarnaen, who became an expert in sabotage, was one of al-Qaida’s representatives in Southeast Asia and one of the few people in Indonesia who had had direct contact with bin Laden’s network.
He became operations chief for Jemaah Islamiyah after the arrest of his predecessor, Encep Nurjaman, also known as Hambali, in Thailand in 2003.
Ramadhan said Zulkarnaen is suspected of being involved in the making of bombs used in a series of attacks, including the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists, and a 2003 attack on the J.W. Marriott Hotel in Jakarta that killed 12.
Zulkarnaen was also the mastermind of a bomb attack on the official residence of the Philippine ambassador in Jakarta in 2000 that killed two people, a 2004 suicide attack outside the Australian Embassy that killed nine, and a 2005 bombing in Bali that killed 20, Ramadhan said.
DXer said
Indonesian police to interrogate 23 terror suspects over Bali bombings, other attacks
• The arrested suspects from the al Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiah group included its military commander Zulkarnaen, the mastermind of the Bali blasts
• The arrest has revealed the extent of Zulkarnaen’s involvement in terror attacks and sectarian violence in Indonesia in the past two decades
https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3114224/indonesian-police-interrogate-23-terror-suspects-over-bali
According to Densus 88, Zulkarnaen co-founded JI with the group’s spiritual leader, Abu Bakar Bashir, who is currently serving a 15-year jail sentence for terrorism offences.
Zulkarnaen trained as a militant in Afghanistan in 1985. In 1993, he led a terror training camp in the Philippines. From 1998, he ran the military unit of JI, named Askary, as its commander for six years.
Since May 2005, Zulkarnaen has been listed on an al-Qaeda sanctions list by the UN Security Council for being associated with Osama bin Laden or the Taliban. The council said that Zulkarnaen, who became an expert in sabotage, was one of al-Qaeda’s representatives in Southeast Asia and one of the few people in Indonesia who had had direct contact with bin Laden’s network.
The United States’ “Rewards for Justice” programme had offered a bounty of up to US$5 million for his capture. He was the only Indonesian on the list.
DXer said
JEMAAH ISLAMIYAH IN SOUTH EAST ASIA: DAMAGED BUT STILL DANGEROUS 26 August 2003
It is clear that an Indonesian connection with bin Laden was established in the mid-1980s through Abdul Rasul Sayyaf and the Afghanistan training. Hambali provided the most important ongoing contact with the al-Qaeda leadership but he was not the only person with direct connections. Zulkarnaen, Syawal Yasin, and Fathur Rahman alGhozi have similar ties.
Click to access 063_jemaah_islamiyah_in_southeast_asia.pdf
“Zulkarnaen, whose real name is Aris Sumarsono, is called Daud by fellow militants.”
https://rewardsforjustice.net/english/zulkarnaen.html
DXer said
Who was the former terrorist that the FBI interviewed in Malaysia last year about Hambali? They made several trips to Malaysia. Was it Yazid Sufaat?
When once released from prison some years ago, he then turned to work at his cafe. The authorities may have had listening devices in his salt and pepper shakers at his cafe — or at his home where he met with young men from his local mosque where he sometimes spoke. He was sentenced to 7 years for withholding information about terrorist activities. Years earlier, when I corresponded with him, although he was very gracious, he was quick to invoke the Fifth Amendment. Although easy-going in his manner, he was not one to cooperate on substantive matters.
Someone last month mentioned to me that in connection with yet another delay in Hambali’s trial, there was a reported uptick in plane traffic in and out of Guantanamo. As I reported on this blog at the time, I had no way of confirming whether that was true — and had no way to draw any inferences. The plane spotter (using aviation databases) who was the source of the report (dating to December 7 or so) said that the sharp increase began in November. He speculated that arrests would be announced this month. I still have no way of knowing whether the uptick in reported traffic of agency planes relates to investigation of matters in advance of Hambali’s trial.
In 1998, when Zulkarnaen (who would be Hambali’s successor) first went to Afghanistan, I spent a month in Bali and Lombok. In Bali, I did touristy things like seeing the dolphins in Lovina and had banana crepes for breakfast in Ubud. In the adjacent island of Lombok (which was muslim rather than Hindu like Bali), went to the Nyale worm festival. Even then there was whispers of intensity that seemed out of step with the incredible terraces of places like Ubud and the colorful ceremonial parades that would burst on the scene.
Police Chief: FBI Held Interviews in Malaysia Linked to Terror Suspect Hambali
Roni Toldanes, Muzliza Mustafa and Ahmad Syamsudin
Washington, Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta
2019-08-30
FBI agents have visited Malaysia to conduct interviews and gather statements in preparation for the potential trial of Hambali, the Guantanamo prisoner accused of masterminding the 2002 Bali bombings in Indonesia that killed more than 200 people, Malaysia’s police chief said Friday.
Pentagon prosecutors filed new and expanded charges against Hambali on April 5, accusing the Indonesian national of conspiring with al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and 47 others to commit terrorist attacks across Southeast Asia and elsewhere.
“Yes, they did. They only came here to gather statements to strengthen their case on Hambali in the U.S. courts,” Inspector-General of Police Abdul Hamid Bador told BenarNews in an interview, referring to the FBI agents. “Yes, they came a few times.”
Abdul Hamid said Malaysian authorities helped the American investigators locate people who could be interviewed in the case so that their testimony could be included in the hearing.
***
Hambali’s attorney, Maj. James Valentine, told BenarNews early this month that he and three members of his legal team had interviewed a former terrorist in Malaysia in July 2019 in relation to his case. He declined to give details.
…
Prosecutors say Hambali funded and masterminded the Bali attack in October 2002. He is also accused in a bombing that killed 12 people and injured 150 others at the Marriott Hotel in the Indonesian capital on Aug. 5, 2003.
After the trio of suspects was arrested, they were sent to a secret CIA prison network before being moved to the U.S. military prison located within the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in September 2006.
News reports had said that FBI officers had also visited Indonesia over Hambali’s case last year but Indonesian officials denied such a visit took place.
Hambali’s attorney, Valentine, said that he and two members of his team tried to enter Indonesia over Hambali’s case but were blocked from entry at the airport by immigration authorities on July 11.
DXer said
Some background on Hambali’s legal status, dating back to 2016.
Parole board says 2 former CIA prisoners are too dangerous to leave Guantánamo
By Carol Rosenberg
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/guantanamo/article110331642.html
OCTOBER 25, 2016 12:35 PM, UPDATED OCTOBER 25, 2016 05:11 PM
The Guantánamo parole board has re-branded the Indonesian former CIA captive known as Hambali as a forever prisoner, declaring him too dangerous to release from U.S. military custody.
The Periodic Review Board said in a decision released Tuesday that Encep Nurjaman Hambali, with a “lengthy history as a jihadist,” has no real remorse about his “significant role in major terrorist attacks and plotting.” When he went before the board on Aug. 18, he was “elusive and non-credible,” the panel wrote, offering “half-truths and clear attempts to minimize and conceal his pre-detention activities.”
A March 2016 intelligence profile described Hambali as “an operational mastermind in the Southeast Asia-based Islamic extremist group Jemaah Islamiyah” and the main link between that group and al-Qaida from 2000 until his capture in Thailand on Aug. 13, 2003, in a joint U.S.-Thai operation. It said he helped plan the Oct. 12, 2002, car-bombing of a nightclub in Bali, a popular tourist island, that killed 202 people. It also described two earlier board-declared indefinite detainees at Guantánamo as his lieutenants.
Hambali, now 52, was held in secret CIA prisons for three years before his September 2006 transfer to Guantánamo. The last time the Obama administration reviewed his case, a 2009 task force recommended that prosecutors consider putting him on trial, either in federal court or by military commission.
He has never been charged.
DXer said
2017 update by Carol Rosenberg reports Hambali was charged in 2017.
U.S. charges Hambali at Guantánamo with Bali, Jakarta terrorist bombings
By Carol Rosenberg
JUNE 23, 2017 03:35 PM, UPDATED JUNE 28, 2017 08:22 AM
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/guantanamo/article157887649.html
Hambali’s charge sheet dated June 20 and obtained by the Herald on Friday, alleges he directed three simultaneous bombings on Oct. 12, 2002 — in a pub, near a dance club and the U.S. Consulate — that killed 202 people in the lush, Indonesian island tourist destination of Bali that is popular with Western tourists. Australia suffered the largest number of casualties, 88 dead, followed by Indonesia with 38. The charge sheets name all the victims, including seven Americans who were killed and are the likely basis for prosecuting the case at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba.
According to the charges, the death toll in Bali “surprised” Hambali because “he did not expect so many people to die.”
Then, in 2003, the war court prosecutor alleges, Hambali had deputies pick up $50,000 from al-Qaida sent by a courier from Pakistan meant to fund a terrorist operation. The courier was Majid Khan, who pleaded guilty to the crime in 2012 and awaits sentencing after he testifies for the government, apparently against Hambali, if the charges are approved.
In pleading guilty, Khan agreed that the money could have been used to fund the Aug. 5, 2003, attack on the JW Marriott in Jakarta that killed 10 Indonesians, a Dutch citizen and wounded three Americans.
Hambali’s charges include terrorism, murder in violation of the law of war, attempted murder, intentionally causing serious bodily injury, attacking civilians and civilian objects and destruction of property, in violation of the law of war.
DXer said
Hambali told investigators that he was working on Al Qaeda anthrax program. Why wasn’t he charged with that?
Is Al Qaeda Making Anthrax? – CBS Newswww.cbsnews.com › news › is-al-qaeda-making-anthrax
Oct 9, 2003 — According to the interrogation documents, Hambali told his U.S. interrogators he had been “working on an Al Qaeda Anthrax program in …
Bali bombing survivor ‘dumbfounded’ alleged mastermind Hambali yet to face trial after 15 years in custody
7.30 / By North America correspondent Stephanie March and Roscoe Whalan
Posted MonMonday 12 FebFebruary 2018 at 2:34pm, updated MonMonday 12 FebFebruary 2018 at 5:19pm
US military defence lawyers for Riduan Isomuddin, known as Hambali, said their client was not getting justice through the war court at Guantanamo Bay, and would be open to him being tried in another jurisdiction — possibly Australia or Indonesia.
Hambali had been held without charge by the US since his capture in Thailand in 2003.
The war court prosecutor at Guantanamo drew up charges against him in June last year, but they went nowhere.
“When we first heard that charges had been sworn out against him last summer, [it] was for him sort of a hopeful sign that finally, something might happen,” Lieutenant Commander Greg Young, one of several lawyers representing Hambali, told 7.30 in an exclusive interview.
Lieutenant Commander Greg Young, US military lawyer who is representing Hambali(ABC News: Roscoe Whalan)
A second set of charges were drawn up in December and sent to a Pentagon official to approve for trial.
That official returned them to the prosecutor, and was last week abruptly fired.
The Department of Defence said the charge sheet was returned because of a “procedural” matter, but would not elaborate.
Throughout the process, Hambali has remained detained with limited access to the outside world.
His lawyers described him as a voracious reader and consumer of news. They said he was “thoughtful” and “remarkably intelligent”.
DXer said
Former CIA contractor defends brutal post-9/11 interrogations
By Associated Press
11:10am Jan 22, 2020
Under a 2006 law that set up the military commission, any statements must be voluntary to be admitted into evidence and the government is not seeking to use at the trial anything the men said while in CIA custody.
But the prisoners also gave what prosecutors have called “clean” statements to the FBI after they arrived at Guantanamo.
Lawyers for the five defendants argue that everything the men have said in custody was tainted by the torture they were subjected to while in CIA confinement.
https://www.9news.com.au/world/cia-interrogator-defends-brutal-911-suspect-detention-us-news/3677f377-f502-44aa-8085-c732153225a0
DXer said
The Death of Ayman Al-Zawahri and the Future of Al-Qaida
By Daniel Byman Thursday, November 19, 2020, 11:18 AM
https://www.lawfareblog.com/death-ayman-al-zawahri-and-future-al-qaida
DXer said
Is al-Qaeda’s leader dead? Report claims terror chief Ayman al-Zawahiri has died in Afghanistan from ‘asthma-related breathing issues’
• Security sources in Pakistan and Afghanistan claimed Ayman al-Zawahiri is dead
• Known to be in poor health, he was last heard from in a 9/11 anniversary message
• Zawahiri replaced Osama bin Laden in 2011 but the group’s influence has waned
By TIM STICKINGS FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 08:44 EST, 20 November 2020 | UPDATED: 11:08 EST, 20 November 2020
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8970231/Al-Qaedas-leader-Ayman-al-Zawahiri-died-reports-claim.html
DXer said
Off-topic:
I thought author and journalist Nate Hendley did a fine and distinguished job recounting the general history of bootlegger Dutch Schultz — and I always enjoy seeing the historical images from the period.
Prohibition-era gangster may have buried $150 million in treasure
By Mindy Weisberger – Senior Writer 2 hours ago
His death sparked rumors of a buried box filled with diamonds, gold coins and thousand-dollar bills.
https://www.livescience.com/dutch-schultz-treasure-prohibition.html
When the pandemic next allows, Mr. Hendley should let me take him and a guest to lunch or dinner at the North Plank Tavern in Newburgh, NY. I would raise the issue of locating the original of F.J. Lang’s transcription of Dutch’s deathbed remarks.
Getman and Getman, “The Ongoing Search For Dutch Schultz’s Missing Millions”
https://www.treasuretracer.com/dutch-shultz/ongoing-search-for-dutch-schultzs-missing-millions/
DXer said
Biological Terrorism in Indonesia
Terrorists in West Java planned to use a biological toxic agent in a bomb attack. What does this signify for the bioterrorism threat in Indonesia?
By V. Arianti
November 20, 2019
https://thediplomat.com/2019/11/biological-terrorism-in-indonesia/
“The last known effort to develop anthrax was in mid-2000, when Hambali, the Indonesian group Jemaah Islamiyah’s liaison officer to al-Qaeda (AQ) and head of JI’s Mantiqi I (the regional area of JI covering mainland Malaysia and Singapore), introduced Malaysian JI member Yazid Sufaat to al-Qaeda. According to the 9/11 Commission Report, Yazid – a member with a degree in medical technology and biochemistry from a U.S. university – led AQ’s biological weapons program. Yazid helped set up the AQ laboratory in Kandahar, Afghanistan, and would spend several months cultivating anthrax for the terror outfit. Despite AQ’s generally unsophisticated laboratory, Yazid claimed that he had been successful in developing some pathogens. He asserted that anthrax was not his “favorite” as it was good for sabotage but not enough to kill people. The laboratory was eventually destroyed when NATO bombed Kandahar in 2001. Yazid returned to Malaysia and was arrested in the same year. He was released in 2008 and rearrested in 2013. He will be released in November 2019.”
DXer said
“TV show hunts for gangster Dutch Schultz’s lost fortune in Stony Creek”
DON LEHMAN _______@poststar.com Apr 27, 2019
https://news.google.com/articles/CBMiiQFodHRwczovL3Bvc3RzdGFyLmNvbS9uZXdzL2xvY2FsL3R2LXNob3ctaHVudHMtZm9yLWdhbmdzdGVyLWR1dGNoLXNjaHVsdHotcy1sb3N0LWZvcnR1bmUvYXJ0aWNsZV82ODM3OTkwNS03MDcyLTU2MWQtOGExZC0yOTk2NzY5ZmJkNGQuaHRtbNIBAA?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen
Background:
Ongoing Search For Dutch Schultz’s Missing Millions
https://www.treasuretracer.com/dutch-shultz/ongoing-search-for-dutch-schultzs-missing-millions/
DXer said
In his January 17, 2019 decision, Judge Contreras of the United States District Court in Washington, DC, summarized:
“The Plaintiff in this case, Kenneth J. Dillon, is among many who have expressed doubts about the FBI’s ultimate conclusion over the years. A historian and author, Dillon questions whether Ivins was involved in the attacks at all. In pursuit of evidence that might support this belief, Dillon submitted to the FBI two different requests for records under the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”), 5 U.S.C. § 552. The first of these requests asked for various pieces of evidence that Dillon believes the FBI possesses—particular emails that Ivins sent or received and certain lab notebooks that belonged to Ivins. The second request asked for thirty-eight pages of the FBI’s Interim Major Case Summary (“IMCS”), a 2,000-page report produced in 2006, four years before the FBI concluded its investigation. Dillon asked for the report’s twenty-two-page table of contents and its sixteen pages that discuss Ivins.”
Al Qaeda anthrax scientist Yazid Sufaat, at last report, was due to be released in Malaysia this month. Perhaps given the FBI’s failure to keep the Ivins’ emails that it relied upon in concluding Yazid Sufaat was not responsible for the Fall 2001 anthrax mailings, Yazid Sufaat could write a book about Al Qaeda’s anthrax program so we can better judge the FBI’s “Ivins Theory.” A book by Sufaat would better help us understand whether former FBI Agent and book author R. Scott Decker got it wrong in relying on his key witness, who has written a book explaining that she thought murderous astral entities were attached to her patients and that she got her special psychic powers from an alien who controlled her through a microchip implanted in her butt. Maybe Decker got it wrong and just failed to read his key witness’ book she had published on Amazon. Maybe we can at least encourage him to read Yazid Sufaat’s book so that the public can more reliably assess the FBI’s Amerithrax legacy.
Al Qaeda, Anthrax and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
https://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
Terror Suspect Yazid Sufat, Who Will Be Released Soon, ‘Still Radicalized’:
Ex-al-Qaeda man has not been deradicalized, will be released next year, says expert
https://www.pressreader.com/malaysia/new-straits-times/20181102/281496457287619
Comment:
To sum things up, Yazid Sufaat keeps being detained and then going back to his old ways of recruiting young men to jihad. He should knock it off. The Sacramento State grad should understand that the Big Guy will understand if he focuses on being around his loving wife and children.
He could be like one of those reformed hackers and write a book about his experiences as being the self-described Al Qaeda Anthrax CEO. He could write the book without compromising his religious principles. I believe he once said in a television interview that the Big Guy very well might intend him to do that some day — and if so, he would oblige. Dr. Ayman certainly is not shy about picking up a pen.
Yazid Sufaat’s lovely and gracious wife Chomel should consider getting him a motorbike so that he can reclaim some of the energetic exuberance of his youth in California.
Violence is a very ineffective means of advocacy. If his purpose is still to further the cause of the Big Guy, he should consider that peaceful means are a more effective means of winning hearts and minds.
He should appreciate that there will be a listening device in his salt and pepper shaker, a GPS tracker under his muffler, and the next angry young man he meets likely is working for people who want to see him sent back to prison yet again.
DXer said
If the US fails to prepare for chemical attacks, it will be bitten
By Hamish de Bretton-Gordon
Updated 9:30 AM ET, Mon November 5, 2018
https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/05/opinions/chemical-weapons-threat-to-the-west-hdbg-intl/index.html
In the last seven years, there have been over 100 documented uses of chemical weapons by both the [Syria] regime and ISIS.
***
Another mega city, Sydney, Australia, very nearly saw a chemical attack last year when UK and Australian Security Services interdicted jihadists trying to use hydrogen sulphide as a weapon on crowds and jet aircraft.
***
Al Qaeda’s former chemical weapons expert — and since MI6 agent Aimen Dean — has just released his brilliant autobiography “Nine Lives.” He told me recently that the Sydney device was derived from work he did in the 1990s in Afghanistan.
***
Like any threat: if we prepare to counter it, we will prevail; if we stick our heads in the sand, we will be bitten.
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
How two spies from the KGB and CIA became BFFs
By Larry Getlen
September 29, 2018 | 10:41am | Updated
https://nypost.com/2018/09/29/how-two-spies-from-the-kgb-and-cia-became-bffs/
Comment: The article and book brings to mind the relationship of Stan, the FBI agent, and Oleg Burov, who had worked at the embassy. I think Stan and Oleg’s friendship and mutual respect was genuine — even though Oleg had reason to suspect Stan had betrayed him by giving the tape to the CIA.
It’s still an open question whether Stan’s new girlfriend is a Russian illegal. She has applied to work for the FBI in personnel.
The show is pretty intense — and so I’ve been watching it a single episode at a time. Elizabeth is really quite a killing machine and doesn’t have the same emotional conflicts that her fellow Russian illegal husband, Philip, does.
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
https://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
FBI Director Christopher Wray: “Terrorism today moves at the speed of social media”
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/christopher-wray-fbi-director-911-terrorism/
WRAY: So I think the threat, today’s terrorism threat, still includes sleeper cells, al Qaeda, all the kind of major terrorist organizations that you would think of, but we’re also very focused now on homegrown violent extremists, which are people who are largely here already, in the United States. … Big cities, small towns, coast to coast. And these are people who are largely radicalized online.
O’DONNELL: How do you keep them from becoming radicalized online?
WRAY: Well, the online issue is a challenge, right? I mean, terrorism today moves at the speed of social media.
DXer said
One thing we never had clarity on is Yazid Sufaat’s claim that previously he had been part of a secret Malaysian Army biological weapons program.
Are We Ready for the Future of Warfare?
The way we fight is evolving, and our science and technology must evolve with it
By Terry C. Wallace, Jr. on September 4, 2018
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/are-we-ready-for-the-future-of-warfare/
While weaponizing diseases has proven more difficult, the anthrax attack in 2001 that killed five people, infected 17 more and caused nationwide alarm is a reminder of the potential for a bio attack to kill and disrupt. This year, Germany arrested a man on suspicion of planning a ricin attack. As Bill Gates recently noted, even something as seemingly mundane as the flu could be weaponized, killing millions and hobbling the world’s economy. In addition, our ability to manipulate genes—while promising when applied to searching for cures to previously incurable diseases—also has the potential to be weaponized.
DXer said
GUANTANAMO RULING: copy of 36-page ruling:
Excerpt:
“The FBI Clean Team Statements of the Accused are suppressed and the Government will not introduce the statements for any purpose.”
https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/174-9-11-case-pohl-ruling-fbi-stat/7a980c231930247e4c0f/optimized/full.pdf#page=1
DXer said
In the forthcoming book, does Aimen Dean address Yazid Sufaat’s work?
https://oneworld-publications.com/nine-lives.html
Hardback
9781786073280 (7 Jun 2018)
RRP £18.99 / US$27.99
Buy from Amazon UK
Buy from Amazon US
The Book
As one of al-Qaeda’s most respected bomb-makers, Aimen Dean rubbed shoulders with the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks and swore allegiance to Osama bin Laden himself.
As a double agent at the heart of al-Qaeda’s chemical weapons programme, he foiled attacks on civilians and saved countless lives, brushing with death so often that his handlers began to call him their spy with nine lives.
This is the story of how a young Muslim, determined to defend his faith, found himself fighting on the wrong side – and his fateful decision to work undercover for his sworn enemy. From the killing fields of Bosnia to the training camps of Afghanistan, from running money and equipment in Britain to dodging barrel bombs in Syria, we discover what life is like inside the global jihad, and what it will take to stop it once and for all.
About the Author
Aimen Dean now consults on security and counter-terrorism for governments and the private sector with a focus on counter-terrorist finance.
Paul Cruickshank is CNN’s Terrorism Analyst and Editor-in-Chief of CTC Sentinel, the flagship publication of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. Tim Lister is a British producer and reporter who has covered international news for the BBC and CNN for more than thirty years. They wrote the international bestseller Agent Storm with Morten Storm.
Reviews
‘A compelling and invaluable account of life inside al-Qaeda through the eyes of a first-rate spy. This unique narrative throws open the shutters of the secret world of terror.’
– Lawrence Wright, author of The Looming Tower
‘Aimen Dean has been on most of the major jihadist battlefields of the past three decades and met many of the most significant figures… Not only a gripping page-turner, but also an extraordinary contemporary history of the global terror threat.’
– Raffaello Pantucci, author of “We Love Death As You Love Life”: Britain’s Suburban Terrorists
‘This captivating real-life spy-thriller is a must-read to understand the enduring threat of global terror. It provides a fascinating account of one of the most lethal terrorist groups, from the unique perspective of a courageous double agent – an excellent read all round.’
– Ali Soufan, former FBI Special Agent and author of Anatomy of Terror and The Black Banners
‘One of the most extraordinary, captivating and insightful accounts of involvement in the violent global jihad. For many years, Aimen Dean risked his life time and time again, penetrated the leadership of al-Qaeda and saved many lives. Britain owes him a debt of gratitude. A seminal book.’
– Richard Walton, Head of Counter Terrorism Command (SO15), New Scotland Yard, 2011–2016
‘An incisive history of the war on terrorism and a riveting true-life thriller… An important book that sheds new light on al-Qaeda’s violent trajectory and its continued, stubborn resilience.’
– Professor Bruce Hoffman, Georgetown University, and author of Inside Terrorism
‘A must-read for anyone interested in the inside story of the last two decades of the so-called War on Terror. This book defies easy classification. Is it an insightful book on intelligence tradecraft? Certainly so. Is it an important primer on the evolution of radical jihadism? Without question. Is it a key resource for our understanding of counter-terrorism policy and practice in the twenty-first century? Absolutely.’
– Dr Vince Houghton, Historian and Curator, International Spy Museum, Washington, DC
DXer said
Is Gina Haspel giving a shout out to Yazid Sufaat? He would be amused.
Potential contact between extremists and Pakistan nuclear scientists: Gina Haspel
“(Recently reading through a book) I was reminded that post-9/11, President Bush was concerned about reports he had received that Osama bin Laden and al Qaida were meeting with the Pakistani officials connected with their nuclear programme to gain access to a nuclear device that they might then use for a follow-on attack against the cities like Washington DC,” Cornyn said.
“Without divulging classified information, can you confirm that there were concerns about follow-on attacks using nuclear devices, biological weapons, other weapons of mass destruction that might have killed more innocent Americans as happened on 9/11? Was that the environment in which you and the country were operating in at the time?” Cornyn asked.
There were very grave concerns on that front, Haspel answered.
“And indeed, al Qaida had those kinds of programmes, efforts to acquire crude, dirty bombs, efforts to develop — they had a programme — a biological weapons programme. I remember the operative who was in charge of that,” Haspel said.
Read more at:
//economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/64105739.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
What does Yazid Sufaat say about this 2001 cyanide mailing? He was captured on the date that it was postmarked and so (depending on where it was mailed), he has an alibi — and he certainly would have an alibi for the later mailings referencing the cyanide mailed to the Herald.
Tiger Woods, the NZ Golf Open and the terrorist cyanide threat
LEITH HUFFADINE, BRAD FLAHIVE AND MEGAN GATTEY
Last updated 11:53, March 30 2018
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/102697753/tiger-woods-the-nz-golf-open-and-the-terrorist-cyanide-threat
Golf Digest reported that Woods was aware of the threat.
“Things like this do happen,” Woods said before leaving for New Zealand. “You have to go on living your life. It’s unfortunate that people have these types of views and do these types of acts. I’m going to go down there and enjoy myself.”
THE MAIN CONCERNS
Starnes said threat letters containing anti-American and anti-Israeli views were not uncommon for US embassies to receive, but Starnes said the specific mentioning of a desire to accomplish suicide attacks and acts of violence against Tiger Woods and New Zealand citizens elevated security concerns for both the New Zealand government and United States.
“At the time US embassies about the world were certainly on a higher state of alert due to the deaths that occurred at the State Department mailroom in Washington DC after some employees opened letters which contained anthrax,” he said.
Assessments were made on the credibility of the author’s intent, motive, capability and opportunity, Starnes recounted.
“The envelope containing the sugar had very poor handwriting with misspelled words and no return address. Of course, the enclosed sugar packet elevated my concerns,” he said.
Starnes processed the letter as evidence and sent it to the police for testing and investigation.
DXer said
The document left on the plane and picked up by CNN wasn’t classified. Everyone can take a deep breath and look past the titillation of the fact it relates to a hyped athletic event. We should value experience and expertise when you are looking at it.
Michael Walter, Ph.D. – gov.house.docs
Click to access HHRG-113-IF02-Bio-WalterM-20130618.pdf
Moreover, critics of Biowatch should not seize on the incident — because S— happens. And don’t sweat the small stuff. It’s the real small stuff you should sweat.
Worry a bit more, about, say, missing 340 ml. of virulent Ames anthrax or the weaponized anthrax that was shipped to USAMRIID for irradiation and reportedly turned up missing.
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
As a media driven society, we tend to eat our young while we botch the intelligence and true crime analysis of the merits of the anthrax threat.
The same thing happened to the FBI anthrax expert who left his briefcase alone briefly at a retirement seminar — the difference is that a lot of the material on that laptop was classified, involving numerous counterintelligence matters handled by the Field Office. That former Agent then became head of security at the Twin Towers and died on 9/11.
DXer said
“In order to be successful against each of these threats, we have to have a presence overseas, work closely not only with our counterparts in the law enforcement community, but also with the intelligence community.” — Robert Mueller
DXer said
Off-topic:
Now it is claimed that a stolen painting was seen somewhere in Upstate New York. (No, Mr. Gentile. You and your counsel cannot have the $10 million reward offered by the museum; I’ve promised Earle Berghman and a lot of reference librarians that we would split it). You snooze, you lose.
http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-robert-gentile-gardner-museum-sentencing-20170905-story.html
McGuigan said that the fellow inmate approached Gentile in jail in August and claimed to have seen what appeared to have been a stolen painting somewhere in upstate New York six years ago.
Comment:
Is one of the paintings with Earle Berghman in Mohawk, New York? Or is the FBI just running another scam on the gullible Robert Gentile of CT.
As I’ve often said, I think that Elene [Guarente’s wife], Jeanine [daughter] and Early Berghman [contemporary] tried to return the paintings in late 2004 and/or early 2005 with the help of lawyer Bernie G., who had represented Earle’s son for biting off an officer’s ear. Jeanine was recruited by Bernie who had been involved by a different Berghman son from Providence.
Earle last was known to be in the Utica, NY homeless shelter or in Mohawk, NY. Jeanine, Robert Guarente’s daughter, is the one who I think knows — or having been her father’s confidante, she has info sufficient to lead to where the paintings are. In any event, with respect to the gun charged, this old hapless fellow Gentile should have had better sense and appreciated that he was under the FBI’s microscope. He should have been on his very best behavior. Maybe he will get off for time served.
In Madison, Maine, I’ve always wanted to find the white house that is up the hill past the quonset hut past the house with all the garden gnomes up on the hill at the curve. To get to the white house, you would then out on the road (on which you take a right). But I was unsuccessful in trying to find it and was very short on time during my brief visit having been told to get out of Dodge. I’m told by the taxidermist down the road from the Guarente place that there was a coke bust that was hushed up in 1992 or so.
Also in Madison, ME, I’ve pointed to the concrete slab at the abandoned Guarente homestead. I have never heard that the FBI used ground penetrating radar or dug.
I do think the FBI could have been more active in its use of claw diggers — and not just sledge hammers. To include Gentile’s old used car lot (he was also in the concrete laying biz in 1992) in South Windsor, CT.
The site is on the main drag. The site definitely evidences digging and the eagle was once seen on the premises, as I recall. The small building there was razed the same time Elene discussed Gentile before the grand jury (according to the receptionist at the construction company across the interchange).
As for this last report, it is just as likely that the Feds are running another sting on these mooks. Hurricane Irma, Harvey, North Korea etc. all underly how truly unimportant these paintings are.
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
Government Terrorist Trackers Before 9/11: Higher Ups Wouldn’t Listen
By Sean D. Naylor // August 30, 2017
http://www.history.com/news/government-terrorist-trackers-before-911-higher-ups-wouldnt-listen
The road to 9/11 was littered with opportunities that the United States missed to cripple al Qaeda and to avert the attacks of September 11, 2001. Throughout the 1990s small dedicated teams of intelligence analysts and FBI agents toiled in obscurity, as al Qaeda and its associates attacked the World Trade Center in 1993, the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, and the USS Cole off the coast of Yemen in 2000, along with several smaller “lone wolf” attacks. HISTORY talked to five intelligence and law-enforcement veterans of those investigations about the challenges they faced convincing others in the government of the threat posed by al Qaeda and other Sunni Islamist groups.
Everybody needed to have a change of mindset. At the end of the Cold War, the beginning of this international Sunni terrorist organization was something nobody imagined could happen, because ‘Arabs can’t work together, and these guys are a bunch of ragheads who’ve been fighting in the mountains of Afghanistan.’ Except that we knew there was a lot of very well-educated people who had been hanging out together in Afghanistan for 10 years.
Those of us who worked it weren’t under those illusions, but that was the conventional wisdom—that they weren’t capable of doing anything. …
My experience is, from studying these things academically, it takes about 10 years to turn people’s mindsets around. We didn’t have 10 years.
It’s the first-through-the-door problem. The first people that notice something are going to be in the minority and people are going to pooh-pooh them until they get everybody on board.
Jack Cloonan, FBI agent who worked on the CIA-FBI Osama bin Laden unit from 1996-2002
You could say that while [al Qaeda] was beating up on the Soviets and helping us, that was terrific. But after the Soviets departed Afghanistan, the question [for U.S. intelligence and law-enforcement] then was, ‘Well, who are these people? What are they doing? What’s their focus? And was it the United States? If it was, when did that occur, and what were we doing about it?’ One of the things that I think about often is how these individual acts [like the 1990 assassination of ultra-nationalist orthodox rabbi Meir Kahane] were investigated, but not necessarily seen as part of a much broader, foreign-based radical Islam that was launching this and that the United States was Target Number One.
Matthew Besheer, Port Authority detective assigned to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force
When we identified Khalid Sheikh Mohammed [KSM] as the person who wired money to Ramzi Yousef for the ’93 World Trade Center bombing, we indicted him and started looking for him. But as far as the greater, bigger role that he had, it was very difficult at the time to convince higher ups what we were doing… A lot of the upper echelon within the government want a CSI-type of investigation where you start the investigation at 9 o’clock and by 10 o’clock you’re all out having a beer because you’ve made an arrest and had a trial. But many times with these terrorist investigations, you’re chasing people that basically disappear into the wind, and you’ve got to find out all their different names, you’ve got to find out their contacts—and it takes time, it takes a huge amount of effort, and it takes a lot of money.
John Anticev, FBI agent who was part of the effort to build a case against bin Laden
Only folks in New York and a handful of really good analysts and mid-level bosses in FBI headquarters knew how important—prior to the ’93 World Trade Center bombing—how important this group was.
I try to explain to people, when they go, ‘Why didn’t they do anything more?’ I just tell people, if you live on a certain street, and you know down the block is a dangerous intersection, and you go to your local official, and you say, ‘Let’s put a stop sign or a light there,’ they always tell you ‘no’ until a school bus crashes into something over there, and then they’ll put something up. The federal government works kind of the same way. You can tell them that this group is dangerous, and they’ll say, ‘Yeah, yeah, we know, we know,’ but they’re just not going to shift money and resources into it from drugs and organized crime because John Anticev says these guys are dangerous…That’s just the way it goes.
Storer: You need subject-matter experts whose job is only to look at the information—not to collect it, not to go to meetings, not to play politics. You need the experts to give you a sound read on what’s happening that’s free of political considerations. If you don’t get that, then it’s one of the way things kind of go off the rails.
Anticev: Work hard, become a subject-matter expert in what you’re doing, because the FBI now has become so transient, people are moving from one squad to another or one division to another. If you want to work with terrorism, stay with terrorism. There is no substitute for experience, sticking with a certain subject and becoming an expert in it, because it is so apparent to your adversaries—your competency when you talk to them.
Soufan: The importance of remembering we’re all on the same team. The importance of sharing information with each other, but also the importance of focusing on the ideology and focusing on the narrative, and not just getting blinded with names: ‘Is it al Qaeda? Is it ISIS? Is it Ansar al-Sharia? Is it AQIM? Is it AQAP?’ We are still fighting the same global jihadi narrative and there is no small little bit of information that’s irrelevant. Every bit of information, as small as it gets, might be important one day, and might be the piece that you need in order to put a big plot together.
Cloonan: You have to understand psychology, you have to understand their religion, you have to understand their motivation. You can’t just look at this like, ‘Oh, I’ve been given a case, I’ve got 90 days to do x, y and z.’ You need education, learning so much more about your target, and adding a level of sophistication that just wasn’t there. You need language skills. We’d be better served if we had a lot of cross-training with the CIA, if we had people of different color and many more Muslim agents. Lastly, do we think this threat is going to end any time soon? If there’s anything I’ve learned from speaking to these people, it’s that their sense of time is a lot different than ours. Their sense of revenge is a lot different, meaning that revenge in their mind extends for centuries. And if we’re going to do anything to counter this stuff, you’d better be prepared to be in this for the long haul.
Besheer: Do not think that any stone is not important. You have to look under every rock. If it takes six months’ worth of investigation to find out that he’s not connected, well then it takes six months of investigation, but you need to do it. Because in the very early days nobody was really giving a lot of credence to KSM as being a big player in all of this. And you know how it turned out later on. We also don’t need to be fighting over budgetary constraints when conducting these investigations. Unfortunately, it takes a lot of money. My daughter just had identical twin boys, and deep down in my heart I fear for what these guys are going to be fighting for in 20 years, because we still have our heads in the sand. We don’t see it…The terrorists are telling us, ‘We’re coming, we’re coming, we’re coming,’ and we’re not doing anything about it. It’s frustrating to me because I lost 37 good friends on 9/11 and every night I dream of them and every night I go to bed doubting myself that I didn’t do everything I could possibly have done, and because of that these guys are dead. It’s a terrible, terrible burden.
Check out the 3-night special Road to 9/11 premiering Monday, September 4 at 9/8C.
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
US not seeking death for Guantanamo detainee [Hambali] in Bali bombing
http://www.militarytimes.com/articles/us-not-seeking-death-for-guantanamo-detainee-in-bali-bombing
DXer said
Here is Joe Lieberman, who President Trump said this afternoon is the frontrunner for the FBI Director job, questioning Tom Inglesby about US preparedness 10 years after the anthrax attacks.
U.S. Bioterrorism Threats Clip: U.S. Bioterrorism Threats, 2012
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c678482/clip-us-bioterrorism-threats
DXer said
President Trump apparently is considering appointing Mike Rogers to be FBI Director.
Biological and Chemical Threat Preparedness, Former Representative Mike Rogers Former House Select Committee on Intelligence Chair Mike Rogers (R-MI) talked about biological and chemical threat preparedness, response, and…
https://www.c-span.org/video/?325122-1/blue-ribbon-study-panel-biodefense-response-readiness
DXer said
Why Is The FBI Reaching Out To Student Bioengineers?
Written by
Alexandra Ossola
November 28, 2016 // 05:00 AM EST
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/igem-fbi
“In order to be prepared to respond to an emerging biological threat, no matter if it’s an accidental outbreak or a biological attack, the FBI is working to create a culture of trust and transparency with the biotech community. Palmer discussed this topic last week at the Biofabricate conference for synthetic biology and design in New York City.
Biological attacks have happened in the past—in 1984, cult members poisoned patrons of 10 salad bars in Oregon with salmonella, sickening more than 750 people; in 2001, anthrax spores mailed to newsrooms and government offices killed five people.”
DXer said
Australia asked to consider conducting trial of alleged Bali terror mastermind
November 27, 2016 9:30pm
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/world/australia-asked-to-consider-conducting-trial-of-alleged-bali-terror-mastermind/news-story/6f8eea1e93888e4d5749b59cef4e09f0
DXer said
Dems Launch First Strike on Trump’s Top Gun, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn
Donald Trump may see him as the next White House national security adviser. But leading lawmakers are blasting Michael Flynn as an ‘impulsive,’ deeply conflicted choice.
Shane Harris
Kimberly Dozier
11.17.16 10:10 PM ET
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/11/17/dems-launch-first-strike-on-trump-s-top-gun-lt-gen-michael-flynn.html
“Flynn has a long career in military intelligence. Flynn served as the head of intelligence for the military’s elite Joint Special Operations Command, a position that included service in Afghanistan and Iraq from 2004 to 2007. He then moved on to become the U.S. military’s top intelligence officer in Afghanistan, where he won praise for blunt talk and his often-unconventional approach to gathering information.”
DXer said
Michael Flynn reportedly attended intel briefings while paid by foreign interests
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/11/michael-flynn-reportedly-attended-intel-briefings-while-paid-by-foreign-interests/
National Memo
18 Nov 2016 at 06:28 ET
And just last year, Flynn accepted payment from Russia’s state-owned television network to attend a celebration in Moscow. At that party he sat next to Russian president Vladimir Putin.
What makes Flynn’s lobbying role even more troubling, according to a new report by Yahoo News chief investigative correspondent Michael Isikoff, was his attendance at classified intelligence briefings with Trump last summer – while advising both the presidential candidate and his foreign clients.
President Obama’s former ethics adviser Norm Eisen, who also served as ambassador to the Czech Republic, told Yahoo News: “This is profoundly troubling and should be disqualifying,” and predicted that Flynn’s appointment as national security adviser will result in “wholesale resignations of national security professionals, and I believe some have already drafted their resignation letters.”
***
Yahoo News also quoted Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, who called Flynn’s presence at classified briefings when he was representing foreign clients “deeply disturbing.” Brian added, “It’s exactly the kind of foreign entanglements our laws are designed to prevent.”
Comment:
It reminds me of the prosecutors who become defense counsel and the FBI agents who become private investigators for drug dealers. Although it is disturbing, it seems that the time to address it would have been at the time of, and advance of, the classified briefing. If it wasn’t okay, he shouldn’t have been given the briefing. (I would hope that they would have required that Flynn update a reporting of his financial conflicts of interest.) In any event, how do existing conflict of interest statutes formally apply? I have no reason to doubt his integrity.
With respect to his lack of political correctness, I would take note that if you have someone gaining years of experience in combat theaters, being surrounded by soldiers and special forces type– fighting the enemy in life an death situations — they may develop less keen, politically correct sensibilities. These officials might do better if they avoided twitter or at least had a professional vet their posts.
DXer said
Safer behind bars
http://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2016/10/30/safer-behind-bars-the-osama-bin-laden-of-southeast-asia-has-been-a-threat-for-the-security-agencies/
FOR the last 13 years, al-Qaeda’s most powerful leader in South-East Asia, Indonesian Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali, has been held in Guantanamo Bay prison, out of public sight but still very much in the minds of militants and security agencies across the region.
Such is the potent reputation of Hambali, the man known as the Osama bin Laden of South-East Asia, alleged mastermind of Bali’s devastating 2002 bombings that killed 202, Indonesia’s Christmas Eve multi-city church bombings of 2000, and Jakarta Marriott Hotel car bombing of 2003.
Hambali, 52, has pronounced “he just wants to move on with his life and be peaceful, that he bore no ill feelings towards the United States,” during his plea for freedom before Guantanamo’s Periodic Review Board last August.
The board rejected his request last Tuesday, saying he continues to be a “significant threat to the security of the United States.”
***
Many of JI’s right hand men were nurtured by Hambali and (Malaysian) Yazid Sufaat,” notes Ayub.
Yazid is a jailed militant who hosted two of the 9/11 hijackers in his apartment in Kuala Lumpur in 2000.
Indonesian counter-terrorism officials warn a free Hambali “would be a disaster” for the country.
“It will be a disaster for Indonesia if Hambali returns as he is very dangerous,” a senior Indonesian security official says.
“He will become a hero in Indonesia and I expect all radical groups to rally round him.
“His reputation as a global extremist has earned him greater acknowledgement amongst radicals. He will revive JI,” says the official.
DXer said
Malaysia wants Guantanamo to reject militant Hambali’s release request
http://www.nst.com.my/news/2016/08/167475/malaysia-wants-guantanamo-reject-militant-hambalis-release-request
“This is a matter of national security and great priority should be given to this. These factors should outweigh the release of a jailed man who is capable to train anyone into a radical soldier,” said Nur Jazlan after a working visit to the Home Ministry Complex in Taman Setia Tropika, today. He said although Hambali was from Indonesia, the man had been residing in Malaysia for many years in the past and was involved in recruiting new JI members, including at a former base camp in Ulu Tiram, here.
No Entry For Hambali
Tuesday, 23 August 2016 09:45
“Hambali was caught on Aug 11, 2003, in Ayutthya, Thailand, where he was planning an attack during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Bangkok which was attended by world leaders, including then US president George W. Bush.
He was held in a secret US overseas prison for three years before he was transferred to the prison for high-value detainees in Guantanamo Bay on Sept 4, 2006.”
DXer said
At Guantanamo, Hambali appeared at a hearing called to determine whether he should remain in detention.
DXer said
DXer said
Indonesian prisoner seen for first time since 2003 CIA capture
Hambali, 52, was captured in Thailand in August 2003 and for the next three years kept in the CIA’s secret overseas prisons, called black sites, before his Sept. 4, 2006 transfer to the U.S. prison in southeast Cuba. Thursday, his image was broadcast from the prison to the Pentagon for the 10-minute unclassified portion of his Periodic Review Board hearing, during which a captive is forbidden to speak.
He wore horn-rimmed eyeglasses and had a mostly gray beard and showed no expression during the 10 minutes that reporters were allowed to see.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/guantanamo/article96439477.html
DXer said
Kenyan terrorists were planning biological attack
Winnie Mabel 46 minutes ago
– One of three most wanted Kenyan terrorists linked to ISIL was captured in Makueni county today
– Mohammed Abdi Ali and his group were said to be planning a Westgate siege type of attack
– The two others are still on the run and are said to be planning a biological attack on Kenyan soil using anthrax
A medical intern working at Wote Hospital in Makueni County was today on Tuesday, May 3 arrested by police for his links to an East African group associated with the Islamic State and the Levant (ISIL).
Mohammed Abdi Ali was among the most wanted criminals alongside two others in the country because they were planning an attack similar to the Westgate attack this past Friday, April 29.
According to a statement from Joseph Boinnet, the inspector general of police, Ali was arrested before the various attacks could be carried out as his co-conspirators; Ahmed Hish and Farah Dagane went into hiding. The two were also medical interns but at another hospital in Kitale.
“We believe the interns were planning to unleash a biological attack in Kenya using anthrax. This ISIL network has been facilitating Kenyan youth to secretly leave the country to join them in Libya and Syria. Ali’s terror network spreads as far as coast region, North Rift Valley and Western regions as well as Somalia,” read the statement.
DXer said
Draft law on biological weapons soon
April 28, 2016 – 2:01:29 am
http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/news/qatar/380037/draft-law-on-biological-weapons-soon
The meeting at the Emiri Diwan was chaired by Prime Minister and Interior Minister
H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani.
Under the provisions of the draft law, any natural or legal person is prohibited from developing, producing, storing, importing, exporting or re-exporting, shipping (transit), or getting in any way or possessing any biological or toxin weapon.
The draft law defines biological and toxin weapons as microbial, biological or toxin elements used in quantities which cannot be justified by preventive or other protective or peaceful purposes, whatever their origin or method.
This also included any other weapons, equipment or means of delivery designed to use microbial or biological or toxins elements for hostile purposes or in armed conflicts. The draft law also prohibits retaining biological or toxin weapon for himself or for the account of others and possessing or transferring it directly or indirectly to any place within or outside the country.
It also bans converting any biological agent or toxins to a biological weapon, building, owning or managing a facility for the production of such weapons or their acquisition or retention of any equipment designed for the production of these weapons or their means of delivery and use, or the use of weapons or any attempted use or release of biological agents or toxins in order to harm living organisms or terrify people.
DXer said
http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v8/bm/newsindex.php?id=1192880
rough translation of excerpt:
KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 23 (Bernama) – A witness told the High Court here on Monday that the former Internal Security Act (ISA), Yazid Sufaat, has struggled experience, military training in Afghanistan and had met with Osama Bin Laden ,
Muhamad Razin Sharhan Mustafa Kamal, 24, who was detained in Beirut, Lebanon on suspicion of having links with Al-Qaeda, said …
“During the meeting, he (Yazid) was the experience of jihad … including the mountain and through a variety of very demanding training of military training in Afghanistan.
***
Mohamad Razin, the 25th prosecution witness, also said he heard about Yazid after searching on the Internet and find it on Facebook.
“My goal is to find Yazid wanted to meet and get to know the experiences of jihad and contacts in Syria,” he said.
***
“I did not inform the parents about the departure to Turkey because they know they will oppose it. However, I admit there told Yazid and he knew my goal to Turkey is to enter Syria for smuggling,” he said.
Yazid faces two counts of encouraging terrorism with the intention of inciting the people of Syria and became a member of the group Tanzim Al Qaeda Malaysia while Muhammad Hilmi accused of conspiring with him.
They were charged with committing the offense at a house in Taman Bukit Cheras, Lorong Mutiara 2, Lembah Jaya, Ampang here between August 1, 2012 and February 7, 2013, under Section 130KA Penal Code (Act 574), which carries a life sentence and a fine if convicted.
The trial before Justice Datuk Mohd Azman Husin continues Tuesday.
Comment: I found Yazid Sufaat on Facebook also. I would have enjoyed meeting him if it weren’t so far away. Note the close parallel between the case being mounted against Yazid Sufaat and the one mounted against Falls Church imam Ali Al-Timimi.
Yazid Sufaat’s defense counsel may want to study Professor Turley’s arguments under the First Amendment. I’m more interested in whether it is true (as reported) that Yazid Sufaat went to Pakistan immediately upon his unexpected release from prison.
DXer said
Malaysia passes tough anti-terror law
PTI | Apr 7, 2015, 01.45 PM IST
http://Timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/Rest-Of-World/Malaysia-Passes-Tough-Anti-Terror-Law/Articleshow/46835686.Cms
Comment:
So what has happened in the legal prosecution of Yazid Sufaat in Malaysia? I haven’t noticed any updating news accounts in a very long while. I am assuming that this new law does not apply to his pending case.
DXer said
Senate report on CIA program details brutality, dishonesty
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/senate-report-on-cia-program-details-brutality-dishonesty/2014/12/09/1075c726-7f0e-11e4-9f38-95a187e4c1f7_story.html
In a briefing for the president’s chief of staff, for instance, the CIA wrote that “during KSM’s interrogation we acquired information that led to the capture of Hambali.” But the Senate found that information from KSM played no role in Hambali’s capture and in fact intelligence leading to his detention came from signals intelligence, a CIA source, and investigations by the Thai authorities
DXer said
At page 71-72, in his highly political book, “2001 Anthrax Deception”, Graeme Macqueen writes:
“(iv) Circumstantial evidence, ranging from general to specific, strongly suggested a connection between the al-Qaeda operatives who were alleged to have carried out the 9/11 attacks (the Hijackers) and the anthrax attacks. The main types of evidence fall into four categories:
(a) Locations The Hijackers had been active both in locations from which anthrax letters were sent and in places where people were exposed to the bacterium (especially in Florida). This was repeatedly noted by the FBI and the media.11
(b) Crop-duster planes The Hijackers and other Middle Eastern men presumed to be associated with al-Qaeda had a close connection to crop- duster planes, which had been feared prior to 9/11 for their ability to disperse large quantities of biological and chemical weapons. These connections in 2000-2001 seemed firm and well established.12
(c) Links There were curious apparent connections—some quite direct—between anthrax and the Hijackers. Among these links was one of special importance that appeared to connect Robert Stevens, the first anthrax fatality, closely to several Hijackers, who were also in Florida.
(d) The letters The text of the letters that accompanied several mailings of deadly spores had obviously been constructed to establish the perpetrators as extremist Muslims connected to the crimes of 9/11. …
The general public, by October 21, also appears to have accepted the al-Qaeda hypothesis as its top choice: “In a Newsweek poll out yesterday [Oct. 21], 63 percent of those surveyed attributed the anthrax attacks at least in part to bin Laden’s organization.”1
Of course, the circumstantial evidence was then corroborated by a wealth of direct evidence.
Indeed, the head of the Al Qaeda lab director does not deny responsibility for the Fall 2001 anthrax mailings.
Instead, in written correspondence with me, he pled the Fifth.
The hijacker coming from Kandahar, where Yazid Sufaat’s anthrax lab was located, had a leg lesion consistent with exposure to anthrax.
DXer … questions about 911 hijacker’s anthrax leg lesion
Posted by Lew Weinstein on March 10, 2010
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/dxer-questions-about-hijackers-leg-lesion/
Is the Flight 93 Hijacker discussed in the NAS report (whose remains tested positive for Ames) the same fellow who had the leg lesion Homeland Security biosecurity head Tara O’Toole thought consistent with anthrax?
Posted by Lew Weinstein on February 18, 2011
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/02/18/is-the-flight-93-hijacker-discussed-in-the-nas-report-the-same-fellow-who-had-the-leg-lesion-homeland-security-biosecurity-head-tara-otoole-thought-consistent-with-anthrax/
Atta’s handwriting is consistent with the Fall 2001 anthrax letters. See opinion of FBI handwriting expert being withheld and all other exemplars of Atta’s handwriting that are being withheld — FOIA requests are denied based on a law enforcement exemption.
The handwriting expert determined that Bruce Ivins probably did NOT write the letters.
In the formal handwriting examination conducted in the Amerithrax investigation, it was concluded that “Bruce E. Ivins probably did not write the writings appearing on the ‘anthrax’ envelopes and letters.” The Assistant US Attorney did not disclose that fact in the Amerithrax Investigative Summary.
Posted by Lew Weinstein on August 13, 2013
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2013/08/13/in-the-formal-handwriting-examination-conducted-in-the-amerithrax-investigation-it-was-concluded-that-bruce-e-ivins-probably-did-not-write-the-writings-appearing-on-the-anthrax-envelopes-and/
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
At page 44 of the ebook, Graeme MacQueen in his book “2001 Anthrax Deception” writes:
“That is, people had already become concerned about anthrax before the news about the anthrax attacks became public. Many began taking Ciprofloxacin, the antibiotic favored at the time for anthrax, and there was open discussion of the need for a publicly available anthrax vaccine. By September 26, even though, according to the official story, no one but the perpetrators knew anthrax had been released in the mails, there were open discussions in the press of an “anthrax scare.”
If there wasn’t talk about anthrax, then that would be pretty lousy reporting, eh?
The Administration (to include the CIA and Secret Service advising Cipro) knew that Dr. Zawahiri’s confidantes had announced Zawahiri’s intention and active plan to use anthrax against US targets.
Yazid Sufaat, Al Qaeda’s anthrax lab director in the Summer 2001, in written exchanges with me does not deny responsibility for the Fall 2001 anthrax mailings. (He “pleads the Fifth”.)
Kevin Barrett and Graeme MacQueen, for example, might more usefully interview Montasser Al-Zayat and the other Zawahiri confidantes, including those who have lived for years in Iran, about Zawahiri’s anthrax program from 1999-2001.
Neocons confess: “We did 9/11-anthrax”, PressTV, September 6, 2014
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/09/06/377832/neocons-confess-we-did-911anthrax/
See
This is the Summer 2001 Briefing That President Bush Received On Bin Laden and Planes But The February 2001 PDB On Bin Laden And Anthrax That President Bush Received From The CIA Is Still Classified
Posted by Lew Weinstein on February 13, 2012
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2012/02/13/this-is-the-summer-2001-briefing-that-president-bush-received-on-bin-ladens-and-planes-but-the-february-2001-pdb-on-bin-laden-and-anthrax-that-president-bush-received-from-the-cia-is-still-classif/
DXer … if we knew what President Bush knew in February 2001, Amerithrax would be seen with entirely different eyes
Posted by Lew Weinstein on March 2, 2010
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2010/03/02/dxer-if-we-knew-what-president-bush-knew-in-february-2001-amerithrax-would-be-seen-with-entirely-different-eyes/
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
Under the prison rules, can a reporter gain access to the former Al Qaeda lab director Yazid Sufaat, now in prison, to ask his opinion on the missing 777 ?
Did the tip of the right wing just fall off? How was it repaired when previously (as I understand the history of the particular aircraft) it was seriously damaged.
DXer said
In his new book on the Fall 2001 anthrax mailings, Vahid Majidi says “more than likely, the perpetrator(s) came into contact with aerosolized spores in committing the crime, and was probably protected against an anthrax infection by vaccination and/or antibiotics.”
I presume Vahid Majidi is aware that Sufaat explained to KSM that he and his assistants were vaccinated for their work with the virulent anthrax.
DXer said
New Snowden Leak Reports ‘Groundbreaking’ NSA Crypto-Cracking
• BY KEVIN POULSEN
• 08.29.13
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/08/black-budget/
Comment:
I’ve very much enjoyed club activities locally (led by a Newhouse professor) on innovations in journalism (and blogging), which has included a seminar in the use of encryption tools.
But at the time of the seminar on encryption methods, I found it foolish to trust encryption given the likely wiser choice of having no secrets — or at least avoiding unnecessarily putting secrets in writing. It is not enough to say “Nothing is 100%.” Better to say “Don’t gamble when you can’t afford to lose.” Better to have nothing to hide — never do anything you wouldn’t want your mom, the FBI and your wife to know about.
For example, I think it would have been very foolish to use encryption in communicating with Al Qaeda’s anthrax lab technician, Yazid Sufaat. It was done using open means of communication — and I often immediately posted the exchange.
It is especially foolhardy to gain instruction on encryption methods from someone new in town. (The new guy in town should always be assumed to be an undercover ; make the FBI hire local).
A message is more powerful when it is transparently sourced.
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
Then when the FBI and CIA fails to connect the dots, it will be easier to retrace steps and see who dropped the ball.
DXer said
Yazid Sufaat’s wife Chomel went to Sacramento State with him. If she is willing, a journalist should interview her for an update on the matter of her husband’s detention and get her current input. I emailed her but did not hear back.
DXer said
New York City Police Department and Brookhaven Lab to Conduct Airflow Study In New York City Streets and Subways This Summer
Project Represents Largest Field Study of its Kind Investigating How Airborne Contaminants Disperse in a Dense, Complex Urban Environment
April 24, 2013
The New York City Police Department and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory are scheduled to conduct this July the largest urban airflow study ever to better understand the risks posed by airborne contaminants, including chemical, biological and radiological (CBR) weapons as they are dispersed in the atmosphere and in the City’s subway system. The NYPD will use the data collected during the three days of research to optimize emergency response following an intentional or accidental release of hazardous materials.
“The NYPD works for the best but plans for the worst when it comes to potentially catastrophic attacks such as ones employing radiological contaminants or weaponized anthrax,” said Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, adding that, “This field study with Brookhaven’s outstanding expertise will help prepare and safeguard the city’s population in the event of an actual attack.”
“Brookhaven Lab is a world leader in the use of tracer gases to study airflow, and we are excited about this opportunity to apply that expertise to enhancing the safety of New York City residents and emergency responders,” said Brookhaven Lab Director Doon Gibbs.
Both agencies will be working with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to test airflow through the subway system.
“The NYPD, in partnership with the MTA, is responsible for keeping more than 5 million daily subway customers safe and secure. This study will bolster the NYPD’s understanding of contaminant dispersion within the subway system as well as between the subway system and the street, thereby improving its ability to better protect both our customers and the city population at large,” said MTA Acting Chairman Fernando Ferrer. “We are glad they are joining Brookhaven National Laboratory for such an important effort, which will benefit the New York City subway without affecting its regular operations.”
The Subway-Surface Air Flow Exchange (S-SAFE), as the project is formally known, was commissioned by the NYPD and funded through a $3.4 million Department of Homeland Security Transit Security Grant. It is the first of its scale to study airflow in a dense, complex urban environment both below and above-ground. Researchers from Argonne National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory, along with additional meteorologists and engineers, will support Brookhaven’s scientists as they track the movement of harmless tracer gases detected by air sampling devices placed in select locations on the street and in the subway system.
There will be approximately 200 sampling devices deployed during this study. During the study, researchers will disperse low concentrations of harmless gases known as perfluorocarbons at select subway and street-level locations over three, non-consecutive days in July. Weather conditions will determine which days are selected for the tests, and will be announced to the public a day in advance. The research will be conducted during daylight hours in parts of the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and in Manhattan from 59th Street to the Battery.
Perfluorocarbon tracer gases (PFTs) present no health or environmental hazard. They are non-toxic, inert, odorless, and invisible, and have been used in airflow studies since the 1980s, including a 2005 Urban Dispersion Program (UDP) conducted in Manhattan. PFTs also are used in medical applications including eye surgeries and artificial breathing systems.
The NYPD and MTA worked closely together on planning and implementation of the study, which will include 21 subway lines and several dozen stations citywide, in addition to the street-level research. The field study is designed to have zero impact on commuting and other public activity. Members of the public may notice clearly marked boxes containing the air sampling equipment secured in subway stations, on street light poles, and hand-carried by researchers.
In addition to the study in Manhattan in 2005, previous airflow studies were conducted in subway systems in Boston, and Washington, D.C. – but none as extensive as the one planned for New York City in July.
While the study is focused on the airflow and dispersion of airborne contaminants resulting from the release of a CBR agent, the findings will also enable City agencies to better understand dispersion characteristics of other potential inhalational hazards, such as smoke or fumes from chemical spills. The study is also expected to help police and other agencies decide where to best locate CBR detection equipment. Results from the study will help authorities refine evacuation or other responses in the event of an emergency.
DXer said
http://www.ibtimes.com/nsa-surveillance-fisa-court-says-justice-department-should-publish-secret-court-document-1310737
In the latest development of an ongoing legal battle, the Electronic Frontier Foundation finds itself on the frontlines of the battle for transparency on secret spy programs — like the National Security Administration’s PRISM — that collect and monitor the communications of U.S. citizens. Last week, a judge of the super-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ruled in favor of the EFF, allowing it to pursue a lawsuit aimed at making public a court decision that found Department of Justice surveillance techniques to be unconstitutional.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/theoval/2013/06/18/obama-charlie-rose-program-nsa-surveillance/2433549/
President Obama is defending National Security Agency surveillance programs, and disputing the notion that he is following in the footsteps of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.
In a PBS interview with Charlie Rose, Obama said efforts to track terrorists through phone and Internet surveillance have safeguards to prevent abusing the civil liberties of innocent Americans. Obama cited both congressional and judicial oversight.
When Rose asked, “should this be transparent in some way?,” Obama responded: “It is transparent. That’s why we set up the FISA court.”
Critics note that this court — created through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act — issues rulings in secret.
Some of those critics also say Obama is continuing programs he criticized when they were operated by President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.
Obama told Rose his goal is to prevent terrorism:
“Some people say, ‘well, you know, Obama was this raving liberal before. Now he’s, you know, Dick Cheney.’ Dick Cheney sometimes says, ‘yeah, you know? He took it all lock, stock, and barrel.’
“My concern has always been not that we shouldn’t do intelligence gathering to prevent terrorism, but rather are we setting up a system of checks and balances? So, on this telephone program, you’ve got a federal court with independent federal judges overseeing the entire program. And you’ve got Congress overseeing the program, not just the intelligence committee and not just the judiciary committee — but all of Congress had available to it before the last re-authorization exactly how this program works.”
Obama also said his conservative critics are exhibiting a fair share of hypocrisy:”What amuses me is now folks on the right who are fine when there’s a Republican president — but now, Obama’s coming in with the black helicopters.”
DXer said
Yazid Sufaat hasn’t been this happy with his anthrax work since KSM’s other guest that Fall, Adnan El-Shukrijumah, called his mom on 9/13 to tell her he was coming to the United States.
As explained by Josh Meyer in the LA Times, in 2001, El-Shukrijumah had travelled to Washington, D.C., New York City, and Montreal on a mission for KSM casing targets to attack.
FBI Director Mueller went to Malaysia after his arrest but failed to arrange for his extradition to the United States. Amerithrax is a lot simpler than people realize.
Maiden SOSMA case collapse highlights post-ISA learning curve
MAY 22, 2013
http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/maiden-sosma-case-collapse-highlights-post-isa-learning-curve
Speaking with Singapore’s The Straits Times, lawyer Amer Hamzah ― one of the lawyers acting for the three defendants ― concurred with judge’s findings that the Federal Constitution allows Parliament to legislate special laws only to deal with threats against Malaysia.
…
Speaking with Singapore’s The Straits Times, lawyer Amer Hamzah ― one of the lawyers acting for the three defendants ― concurred with judge’s findings that the Federal Constitution allows Parliament to legislate special laws only to deal with threats against Malaysia.
“The power of SOSMA is actually very broad,” said political analyst James Chin, noting that prosecutors may have been haphazard in framing the charge to allow the accused to beat them on a technicality before the trial even began.
The SOSMA was introduced as part of a larger reforms pledge made by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak in 2009. Among others, the reforms included the repeal of the ISA and the introduction of the Peaceful Assembly Act.
Although replacing the ISA, the SOSMA lost the former’s arbitrary powers to detain an individual indefinitely and without charge.
Proponents of the ISA believe this reduced power may hamper its ability as a security law to be used against global terrorism, but critics contend that there are already adequate laws to deal with such instances.
“SOSMA deals with national security, not international security,” said lawyer and former Bar Council president Ragunath Kesavan. “But if the police have evidence that someone is building a bomb, there are criminal laws in the Penal Code you can charge him under anyway. It doesn’t matter where the bomb is meant to explode.”
Experts also believe Malaysia’s intelligence force is well able to work around the new limitation.
“Malaysia’s security services are immensely competent,” political analyst Joseph Liow, an expert in regional Muslim politics and security issues from Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, told The Straits Times.
“While they may be impeded by the technicalities of the law, I think they will still be able to do their job in terms of monitoring the threat arising from extremist elements in the country.”
DXer said
Let’s review the analysis to date and see the extent to which people were right.
Martin, Stuart and Barbara did highly influential work on the science — as scientists, the key thing they need to process is that even if the anthrax was sophisticated, it was nothing beyond the reach of Yazid Sufaat, who had been a member of a state program and who had the benefit of scientist Rauf Ahmad who consulting with Porton Down scientists and USAMRIID on processing tricks. The network even had Ali Al-Timimi sharing computers with the leading DARPA funded Ames anthrax researchers., Indeed, Martin knows a former Zawahiri associate who used his B3 at LSU and so has a prime opportunity to gain insight into the sophistication and skill of people available to Dr. Zawahiri to recruit through his network of family and friends.
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
Here is a second article by the same authors.
Evidence for the Source of the 2001 Attack Anthrax
Martin E. Hugh-Jones1*, Barbara Hatch Rosenberg2, and Stuart Jacobsen3
http://www.omicsonline.org/2157-2526/2157-2526-S3-008.php?aid=10614
Now ProPublica, Frontline and McClatchy deserve tremendous accolades for devoting the resources to the issue and doing very important and influential work. They did key work on the lyophilizer in particular. They stopped short on the 52 rabbits issue only because they found it hard to sort out the documents — and many of the documents were only produced later by the heroic efforts of Sandra at USAMRIID.
New Documents Cast Doubt on Federal Anthrax Case
by Mike Wiser, FRONTLINE; Greg Gordon, McClatchy Newspapers; and Stephen Engelberg,ProPublica
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/2011/07/new-documents-cast-doubt-on-federal-anthrax-case.html#ixzz1SYHcLUow
Bruce Ivins Maybe Didn’t Send the Anthrax, Government Admits in Court Papers
By Joe Coscarelli Tue., Jul. 19 2011
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2011/07/bruce_ivins_anthrax_fbi_pbs_documentary.php
Frontline, partnering with McClatchy and ProPublica, has done important work in assessing the FBI’s conclusion in Amerithrax.
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/10/11/watch-frontlines-anthrax-program-now/
Laurie Garrett did absolutely key work on refocusing things on the 911 plot and its players. At any used book sale, you will meet people familiar with her previous award winning work in the area of public health. Pulitzer Prize winner wrote on these issues for Newsday and now has an ebook. .
A detailed analysis of Laurie Garrett’s new book
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/07/27/a-detailed-analysis-of-laurie-garretts-new-book-by-dxer/
The unsolved anthrax murder mystery
BY LAURA H. KAHN | 23 MARCH 2011
http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/columnists/laura-h-kahn/the-unsolved-anthrax-murder-mystery
I believe this powerpoint panel is by former NAS panel Nancy Connell. There are NAS panel members schooled on important scientific aspects.
THE ANTHRAX ATTACKS OF 2001, AN UNSOLVED MYSTERY (pdf)
clinical science, epidemiology, basic science and forensics
Click to access AMERITHRAX-NOV-2012pptx.pdf
The former USAMRIID colleagues like Adamovicz, Andrews, Heine, Byrne, Worsham, and numerous others deserve a medal for their lucid explanation of the issues bearing on why we can know that Dr. Ivins was mistakenly accused. We all should be so lucky to have such courageous and learned friends as these.
Colleague Says Anthrax Numbers Add Up to Unsolved Case
by Gary Matsumoto, Special to ProPublica, April 23, 2010, 11:45 a.m.
http://www.propublica.org/article/colleague-says-anthrax-numbers-add-up-to-unsolved-case
I love documentaries and Mr. Nadler’s picture of Ken Alibek abroad with his bodyguard is worth a thousand words. He also scored the Dugway interview and filming.
His film is a film worth seeing.
Nadler Renews Call for Independent Investigation of Anthrax Attacks
Mar 4, 2010
https://nadler.house.gov/press-release/nadler-renews-call-independent-investigation-anthrax-attacks
Mrs. Stevens could have just taken the millions offered by the government and said nothing. But truth is especially important to the loved one of one of the people murdered. Her lawyers, trial and appellate, are clearly good at what they do.
Widow Of Anthrax Victim Doubts FBI’s Conclusion
http://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2011/05/19/widow-of-anthrax-victim-doubts-fbis-conclusion/
Norm Covert is not just a blogger. he is the former USAMRIID PR person who was on the committee that reviewed Ivins’ protocol for the experiment with the 52 rabbits. he is an important fact witness for the GAO.
Derailing Justice Again
Norman M. Covert (former USAMRIID public affairs officer)
http://www.thetentacle.com/ShowArticle.cfm?mydocid=3637
Ivins Minus the Technicolor
Norman M. Covert (former USAMRIID public affairs officer)
http://www.thetentacle.com/ShowArticle.cfm?mydocid=3651
The journalists who interviewed Yazid Sufaat deserve an award. It was a journalist coup.
Al Qaeda anthrax lab tech says he had been part of Malaysian Armed Forces biological weapons program
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2012/03/23/al-qaeda-anthrax-lab-tech-says-he-had-been-part-of-malaysian-armed-forces-biological-weapons-program/
I of course deserve the $25 million reward.
Al Qaeda anthrax lab technician tells DXer that he realizes that by addressing these issues he may “jack myself up” but says that the “plan is on the way” — what does he mean when he says the “plan is on the way”?
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2012/05/01/al-qaeda-anthrax-lab-technician-tells-dxer-by-chat-that-he-realizes-that-by-addressing-these-issues-he-may-jack-myself-up-but-says-that-the-plan-is-on-the-way-what-does-he-mean-when-he-s/
The public deserves an explanation.
Atta Was Coordinating With Jdey’s Associate Al-Hazmi, First In Fort Lee, NJ In Late August 2001 And Then In Laurel, MD in September 2001 ; Jdey’s Associate Nawaf Al-
Hazmi Had Been At The Planning Meeting At Yazid Sufaat’s Kuala Lumpur Condo With Anthrax Planner Hambali And Anthrax Lab Director Yazid Sufaat And Yet The FBI Never Told The Public That Jdey Had Been Detained Along With Moussaoui In August 2001 (With Biology Textbooks) And Then Released
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2012/01/25/atta-was-coordinating-with-jdeys-associate-al-hazmi-first-in-fort-lee-nj-in-late-august-2001-and-then-in-laurel-md-in-september-2001-jdeys-associate-nawaf-al-hazmi-had-been-at-the-planning/
NSA ORCON: CIA and FBI Dropping the Ball In Anthrax Mailings and 9/11 Involved Same Failure To Track And Intercept Al-Midhar And Nawaf After Meeting At Kuala Lumpur Condo Of Anthrax Lab Tech Sufaat and Anthrax Planner Hambali
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2012/01/27/nsa-orcon-cia-and-fbi-dropping-the-ball-in-anthrax-mailings-and-911-involved-same-failure-to-track-and-intercept-al-midhar-and-nawaf-after-meeting-at-kuala-lumpur-condo-of-anthrax-lab-tech-sufaat/
In today’s installment of a continuing series, Al Qaeda anthrax lab technician Yazid Sufaat defends his decision to go to Afghanistan to work on his “anthrax project” for Al Qaeda
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2012/03/20/interview-yazid-sufaat-released-in-november-2008-says-he-met-osama/
Anthrax Lab Director Yazid Sufaat Wrote This Letter Of Introduction For Zacarias Moussaoui, Who Made The Cropduster Inquiries
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2012/01/23/anthrax-lab-director-yazid-sufaat-wrote-this-letter-of-introduction-for-zacarias-moussaoui-who-made-the-cropduster-inquiries/
On The Question Whether Yazid Sufaat Was Using Virulent Ames (see NAS Report), We Need One Of These Top-Flight Journalists To Succeed In Getting Substantive, On-The-Record Responses From Yazid
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2012/05/03/on-the-question-whether-yazid-sufaat-was-using-virulent-ames-see-nas-report-we-need-one-of-these-top-flight-journalists-to-succeed-in-getting-substantive-on-the-record-responses-from-yazid/
The lead Amerithrax prosecutor, born in Haifa in 1948, should explain why he leaked the hyped Hatfill story and not hide behind the Fifth Amendment.
The “Hatfill Theory” was part of the same unstoppable train wreck as the “Ivins Theory.” There was a change of cars (investigators), but it was the same flawed train of reasoning and the investigators never overcame the earlier truncated emphasis of the investigation.
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/05/10/the-hatfill-theory-was-part-of-the-same-unstoppable-train-wreck-as-the-ivins-theory-there-was-a-change-of-cars-investigators-but-it-was-the-same-flawed-train-of-reasoning-and-the-inve/
Senator Grassley deserves kudos for his dogged efforts in government oversight.
U.S. Senator Grassley … “There are no more excuses for avoiding an independent review and assessment of how the FBI handled its investigation in the anthrax case.”
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/02/17/u-s-senator-grassley-there-are-no-more-excuses-for-avoiding-an-independent-review-and-assessment-of-how-the-fbi-handled-its-investigation-in-the-anthrax-case-”/
Senator Grassley asks the FBI to explain why it retracted a Justice Department filing (in the Stevens case) that Dr. Bruce Ivins lacked access in his lab to the “specialized equipment” needed to dry wet anthrax spores into airborne powder
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/09/03/senator-grassley-asks-fbi-to-explain-why-it-suppressed-a-justice-department-filing-in-the-stevens-case-that-dr-bruce-ivins-lacked-access-in-his-lab-to-the-specialized-equipment-needed-to-dry/
In a Sept 23, 2011 letter to Senator Grassley, the DOJ says that Dr. Ivins made the dried powder in B5 using the lyophilizer even though the DOJ has proved he was in B3 tending to the rabbits, not B5 (the BL-2 lab), at the time the DOJ alleges he made the dried powder. THAT is the contradiction.
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/12/16/in-a-sept-23-2011-letter-to-senator-grassley-the-doj-says-that-dr-ivins-made-the-dried-powder-in-b5-using-the-lyophilizer-even-though-the-doj-has-proved-he-was-in-b3-tending-to-the-rabbits-not-b/
Baltimore Sun/Frontline … if Ivins was not the person who sent the anthrax, then that killer is still on the loose … and we are left with an FBI that not only failed to solve such a huge case, but overstated and maybe lied about what it did accomplish.
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/10/10/baltimore-sunfrontline-if-ivins-was-not-the-person-who-sent-the-anthrax-then-that-killer-is-still-on-the-loose-and-we-are-left-with-an-fbi-that-not-only-failed-to-solve-such-a-huge-case-but/
I’ve got to run now but others deserve kudos as well.
Deposition Excerpt of USAMRIID Scientist Stephen Little: Bruce Ivins would not have had skill, equipment, or ability to decontaminate equipment
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/07/16/deposition-excerpt-of-usamriid-scientist-stephen-little-bruce-ivins-would-not-have-had-skill-equipment-or-ability-to-decontaminate-equipment/
Deposition Excerpt of Patricia Worsham in Stevens v. United States: Product Could Not Have Been Made At USAMRIID With Equipment She Has Seen At USAMRIID
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/07/16/deposition-excerpt-of-patricia-worsham-in-stevens-v-united-states-product-could-not-have-been-made-at-usamriid-with-equipment-she-has-seen-at-usamriid/
USAMRIID Scientist Susan Welkos deposition excerpt : No data suggesting Dr. Ivins is guilty
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/07/11/usamriid-scientist-susan-welkos-deposition-excerpt-no-data-suggesting-dr-ivins-is-guilty/
Ayman Zawahiri, Anwar Awlaki, Anthrax, and Amerithrax: The Infiltration Of US Biodefense
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/04/12/ayman-zawahiri-anwar-awlaki-anthrax-and-amerithrax-the-infiltration-of-us-biodefense/
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
Justice Dept. takes on itself in probe of 2001 anthrax attacks
By Jerry Markon,January 27, 2012
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-01-27/politics/35441863_1_bruce-e-ivins-anthrax-killer-anthrax-attacks
Was FBI too quick to judge anthrax suspect the killer?
Greg Gordon | McClatchy Newspapers
last updated: April 21, 2011
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/04/20/v-print/112520/was-fbi-too-quick-to-judge-anthrax.html
Scientist Innocent of Anthrax Mailings, Former Colleague Says
April 23, 2010
http://www.nti.org/gsn/article/scientist-innocent-of-anthrax-mailings-former-colleague-says/
Science falls short in anthrax investigation
http://blogs.nature.com/news/2011/02/science_falls_short_in_anthrax.html
Editorial
Nature 454, 917 (21 August 2008) | doi:10.1038/454917a; Published online 20 August 2008
Case not closed
The FBI says it has evidence showing that Bruce Ivins was behind the 2001 anthrax attacks — but with his death, this will not be tested in court. A full enquiry into the case is needed if justice is to be done.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v454/n7207/full/454917a.html
OPINION
January 24, 2010, 7:33 p.m. ET
The Anthrax Attacks Remain Unsolved, by Edward Jay Epstein
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704541004575011421223515284.html
Eric Nadler:
THE FANTASY WORLDS OF BRUCE IVINS AND THE FBI (video)
Posted On: March 5, 2010
http://www.anthraxwar.com/1/?p=538
Anthrax Redux: Did the Feds Nab the Wrong Guy? | Wired Magazine
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/03/ff_anthrax_fbi/
NPR: FBI Faulted For Overstating Science In Anthrax Case
http://www.npr.org/2011/02/15/133775495/fbi-faulted-for-overstating-science-in-anthrax-case
Serious doubt cast on FBI’s anthrax case against Bruce Ivins – Salon …
http://www.salon.com/2011/02/16/ivans/
Feb 16, 2011 – A scientific panel concludes the Government overstated its genetic evidence against Bruce Ivins.
NAS Panel Member Nancy D. Connell in new treatise: Amerithrax May Never Be Solved
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2012/08/20/nas-panel-member-nancy-d-connell-in-new-treatise-amerithrax-may-never-be-solved/
“Tellingly, it was a target of the 2001 anthrax letters – Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont – who told Mueller at a 2008 hearing that he seriously doubted the findings of the FBI’s long and complicated anthrax investigation.”
“FBI’s longtime director faces criticism of bureau again,” Apr 27, 2013
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/27/us-usa-security-mueller-idUSBRE93Q04D20130427
PR’s John Dankowsky interviews Stephen Engleberg, Paul Keim and David Relman … RELMAN: the evidence linking the anthrax material in the letters to the material in the flask in Bruce Ivins’ lab was consistent with an association but was not conclusive or definitive … KEIM: there’s no scientific test that can prove that it came from Fort Detrick, Maryland.
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/10/29/nprs-john-dankowsky-interviews-stephen-engleberg-paul-keim-and-david-relman-relman-the-evidence-linking-the-anthrax-material-in-the-letters-to-the-material-in-the-flask-in-bruce-ivins-lab/
former USAMRIID scientists Jeff Adamovicz and Gerry Andrews … “The scientific evidence clearly shows that the (anthrax) wasn’t produced in our laboratory (USAMRIID).” … ie, IT WASN’T IVINS!!!
Posted by Lew Weinstein on October 8, 2011
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/10/08/jeff-adamovicz-and-gerry-andrews-the-scientific-evidence-clearly-shows-that-the-anthrax-wasnt-produced-in-our-laboratory-usamriid-ie-it-wasnt-ivins/
Richard Spertzel in WSJ: Bruce Ivins Wasn’t the Anthrax Culprit
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2009/05/26/bruce-ivins-wasnt-the-anthrax-culprit/
Washington Post editorial (10/21/11) calls for independent review of FBI investigation of Dr. Bruce Ivins in 2001 anthrax attacks
Posted by Lew Weinstein on October 22, 2011
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/10/22/washington-post-editorial-102111-calls-for-independent-review-of-fbi-investigation-of-dr-bruce-ivins-in-2001-anthrax-attacks-lmw-it-is-long-past-time-to-hold-fbi-director-mueller-accountab/
NYT editorial, showing no confidence in the FBI’s unraveling case against Dr. Bruce Ivins, calls for an independent review of the FBI’s anthrax investigation to assure that the culprits are not still at large … LMW: it is long past time to hold Director Mueller accountable for the FBI’s investigative failures and for the FBI’s purposeful withholding of documents that are required to be released by FOIA
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/10/18/the-nyt-calls-for-an-independent-review-of-the-fbis-anthrax-investigation-lmw-it-is-long-past-time-to-hold-director-mueller-accountable-for-the-fbis-investigative-failures-and-for-the-fbi/
NY Post editorial: a group of eminent scientists have found that the FBI’s Amerithrax conclusions may be shockingly wrong … (the FBI) clearly can’t be trusted to judge cases that reflect badly on its own conduct
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/10/24/ny-post-editorial-a-group-of-eminent-scientists-have-found-that-the-fbi’s-amerithrax-conclusions-may-be-shockingly-wrong-the-fbi-clearly-can’t-be-trusted-to-judge-cases-that-r/
an interview with David Relman, vice chair of the NAS review committee, reveals clearly that the science cannot prove that Dr. Bruce Ivins is the sole perpetrator or even involved … and, by the way, it seems Al Qaeda had Ames anthrax
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/02/25/an-interview-with-david-relman-vice-chair-of-the-nas-review-committee-reveals-clearly-how-that-the-fbi-botched-the-scientific-investigation-of-the-2001-anthrax-attacks-and-that-the-science-cannot/
Bioweapons expert Jonathan Tucker noted in his 2010 NATO briefing that skeptics had pointed out numerous holes in the FBI’s “Ivins Theory” (and see 2013 book)
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2012/11/05/bioweapons-expert-jonathan-tucker-noted-in-his-2010-nato-briefing-noted-that-skeptics-had-pointed-out-numerous-holes-in-the-fbis-ivins-theory-and-see-2013-book/
Rutgers professor and Amerithrax expert Dr. Leonard Cole … there remain important gaps in the FBI’s evidence against Dr. Bruce Ivins
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2010/03/06/rutgers-professor-and-amerithrax-expert-dr-leonard-coles-“there-remain-important-gaps-in-the-evidence-”/
Jeffrey Adamovicz and Gerry Andrews, the people who knew Dr. Ivins and his lab capabilities better than anyone else, make powerful arguments that the FBI has not made its case … and Adamovicz says “he feels morally obligated to continue to pursue the case.”
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/10/11/jeffrey-adamovicz-and-gerry-andrews-the-people-who-knew-dr-ivins-and-his-lab-capabilities-better-than-anyone-else-make-powerful-arguments-that-the-fbi-has-not-made-its-case-and-adamowicz-says/
Army microbiologist Dr. Henry Heine, until now forbidden to speak, says … Ivins is absolutely not the anthrax attacker … it was impossible that the deadly spores had been produced undetected in Dr. Ivins’s laboratory, as the F.B.I. asserts … whoever did this is still running around out there
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2010/04/23/army-microbiologist-dr-henry-heine-until-now-forbidden-to-speak-says-ivins-is-absolutely-not-the-anthrax-attacker-it-was-impossible-that-the-deadly-spores-had-been-produced-undetected-in-dr/
International anthrax expert Dr. Hugh Martin-Jones challenges the government to test his team’s hypothesis in a lab instead of with “lawyer talk” … “I hope [the findings] will add to the pressure that the investigation be actively reopened.”
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/10/12/international-anthrax-expert-dr-hugh-martin-jones-challenges-the-government-to-test-his-teams-hypothesis-in-a-lab-instead-of-with-lawyer-talk/
Doubts about anthrax story
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation-world/bal-te.anthrax05aug05,0,2121592.story#ixzz2Rr65jba8
Daily Journal Online-12 hours ago
After 9/11, there was a lethal (still unsolved) anthrax attack
•Feb 27, 2010 – The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s report on Dr. Bruce Ivins leaves too many loose ends to be taken as a definitive verdict.
Who Mailed the Anthrax Letters? – NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/18/…/who-mailed-the-anthrax-letters.html
Editorial: Decade after anthrax mail attacks, questions still remain
Published: Tuesday, October 11, 2011, 6:55 AM
By Times of Trenton Editorial Board
http://www.nj.com/times-opinion/index.ssf/2011/10/editorial_decade_after_anthrax.html
Justice Department Filing Casts Doubt on Guilt of Bruce Ivins, Accused in Anthrax Case
by Mike Wiser, PBS Frontline, Greg Gordon, McClatchy Newspapers, and Stephen Engelberg, ProPublica, July 18, 2011, 7:03 p.m.
http://www.propublica.org/article/justice-department-filing-casts-doubt-on-guilt-of-bruce-ivins-accused-in-
The Bioterrorist Attacks on America, by Yuril V. Ezepchuk (Director of Biological Sciences, University of Colorado) … hypothesis: the hijacker Ahmed Alhaznawi had been infected with the skin form of anthrax
Posted by Lew Weinstein on September 4, 2012
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2012/09/04/the-bioterrorist-attacks-on-america-by-yuril-v-ezepchuk-director-of-biological-sciences-university-of-colorado/
New leads in anthrax case
By DAILY PRINCETONIAN STAFF
Published: Wednesday, October 12th, 2011
http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2011/10/12/29020/
Obama Obstructs Oversight of FBI in Anthrax Case
By Cliff Kincaid
http://www.worldviewweekend.com:81/worldview-times/print.php?&ArticleID=5964
ProPublica, McClatchy Newspapers and PBS’ Frontline … the FBI’s case against anthrax suspect rife with questions
Posted by Lew Weinstein on October 11, 2011
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/10/11/propublica-mcclatchy-newspapers-and-pbs-frontline-the-fbis-case-against-anthrax-suspect-rife-with-questions/
Laurie Garrett … the FRONTLINE program has convinced me that Dr. Bruce Ivins is innocent of the 2001 anthrax mailings
Posted by Lew Weinstein on October 13, 2011
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/10/13/laurie-garrett-the-frontline-program-has-convinced-me-that-dr-bruce-ivins-is-innocent-of-the-2001-anthrax-mailings/
Frederick News Post: the FBI’s case against Dr. Bruce Ivins is in tatters … *LMW: we must support Congressman Holt’s call for a re-investigation … we must learn the truth
Posted by Lew Weinstein on February 21, 2011
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/02/21/frederick-news-post-the-fbis-case-against-dr-bruce-ivins-is-in-tatters-lmw-we-must-support-congressman-holts-call-for-a-re-investigation-we-must-learn-the-truth/
In Have We “Met the Enemy”?, Science 3 February 2012: Vol. 335 no. 6068 pp. 540-541, Dr. David Relman, who had been vice-chairman of the NAS Committee, explains:
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2012/03/05/in-have-we-met-the-enemy-science-3-february-2012-vol-335-no-6068-pp-540-541-dr-david-relman-who-had-been-vice-chairman-of-the-nas-committee-explains/
Claire Fraser-Liggett: the genetic analysis of the spores in Ivins’ flask does not indicate Ivins is guilty
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2009/05/20/clair-fraser-liggett-the-genetic-analysis-of-the-spores-in-ivins-flask-do-not-indicate-ivins-is-guilty/
an article by Drs. Hugh-Jones, Rosenberg & Jacobsen highlights key unanswered questions in the FBI anthrax investigation … such as where and how were the anthrax spores in the attack letters prepared?
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/06/13/new-article-highlights-key-unanswered-questions-in-the-fbi-anthrax-investigation/
Melanie Ulrich: “Ex-colleague [assistant] questions government’s case against anthrax suspect”
August 08, 2008|By ANDREW SCHOTZ
http://articles.herald-mail.com/2008-08-08/news/25159866_1_bruce-ivins-anthrax-samples-powdered-anthrax
Congressman Holt: the FBI’s “botched investigation” must be reopened … LMW: please write to your Congressman or woman and urge support for Holt’s Anthrax Commission bill
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/03/02/congressman-holt-the-fbis-botched-investigation-must-be-reopened/
HOLT, ANTHRAX and JEOPARDY: “He mailed the anthrax-laden letters in Fall 2001. Who is _______?”
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/03/03/holt-anthrax-and-jeopardy-he-mailed-the-anthrax-laden-letters-in-fall-2001-who-is-_______/
Congressman Rush Holt: The FBI repeatedly bungled the anthrax investigation … I have introduced legislation that would create a special committee to investigate the anthrax attacks
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/09/18/congressman-rush-holt-the-fbi-repeatedly-bungled-the-anthrax-investigation-without-any-direct-physical-evidence-tying-dr-bruce-ivins-to-the-attack-the-fbi-declared-in-august-2008-that-iv/
Hartford Courant: Anthrax Attacks Still A Mystery After 10 Years …
Posted by Lew Weinstein on October 4, 2011
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/10/04/anthrax-attacks-still-a-mystery-after-10-years/
AP: statements by scientists in Florida court case raise doubts regarding the FBI conclusion that Dr. Bruce Ivins prepared the anthrax used in the 2001 attacks
Posted by Lew Weinstein on May 19, 2011
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/05/19/statements-by-scientists-in-florida-court-case-raise-doubts-regarding-the-fbi-conclusion-that-dr-bruce-ivins-prepared-the-anthrax-used-in-the-2001-attacks/
Washington Post editorial calls for Congressional commission to probe all evidence in the anthrax case
Posted by Lew Weinstein on February 18, 2011
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/02/18/washington-post-editorial-calls-for-congressional-commission-to-probe-all-evidence-in-the-anthrax-case/
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
Book author Edward Jay Epstein writes on his blog:
Keith Olbermann interviews investigative reporter Gerald Posner … the FBI anthrax case is severely flawed
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2009/04/15/keith-olbermann-interviews-investigative-reporter-gerald-posner-the-fbi-anthrax-case-is-sverely-flawed/
Frederick News-Post columnist Barry Kissin – the lynching of Bruce Ivins
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2009/05/24/barry-kissin-the-lynching-of-bruce-ivins/
selected extracts from the presentation of anthrax vaccine MD Dr. Meryl Nass at the Nov 29, 2010 anthrax seminar
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2010/12/02/selected-extracts-from-the-presentation-of-dr-merl-nass-at-the-nov-29-2010-anthrax-seminar/
Stephanie Yamkovenko of Frederick Gorilla summarizes elements of the FBI’s non-existent case against Dr. Ivins
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/12/02/stephanie-yamkovenko-summarizes-elements-of-the-fbis-non-existent-case-against-dr-ivins/
Excerpts from “I Heard The Sirens Scream” by by Pulitzer Prize winning author Laurie Garrett
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/07/27/excerpts-from-i-heard-the-sirens-scream-by-by-pulitzer-prize-winning-author-laurie-garrett/
slide presentation at the Nov 29 anthrax letters seminar
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2010/12/05/ross-getmans-slide-presentation-at-the-nov-29-anthrax-letters-seminar/
Dr. Alan Zelicoff, the head of Saint Louis University’s Institute in Biosecurity, has serious doubts about the government’s official explanation of Amerithrax
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/11/10/dr-alan-zelicoff-the-head-of-saint-louis-universitys-institute-in-biosecurity-has-serious-doubts-about-the-governments-official-explanation-of-amerithrax/
Ken Dillon asks … Who Was the Real Anthrax Mailer? … the key people in the anthrax mailings were not Bruce Ivins or Steven Hatfill … instead, they appear to have been Ali al-Timimi and Abderraouf Jdey.
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2010/03/28/ken-dillon-asks-…-who-was-the-real-anthrax-mailer-the-key-people-in-the-anthrax-mailings-were-not-bruce-ivins-or-steven-hatfill-his-predecessor-as-the-fbis-target-instead-they-app/
Congressman Mike Pence & Pulitzer prize winning science writer Laurie Garrett agree on Anthrax Mailings.. Pence: “I don’t know who sent it” — I am afraid we may have missed the off-ramp to the truth.” … Garrett: “I get outraged because the FBI completely botched the investigation on the anthrax.”
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/09/11/congressman-mike-pence-pulitzer-prize-winning-science-writer-laurie-garrett-agree-on-anthrax-mailings-pence-i-dont-know-who-sent-it-i-am-afraid-we-may-have-missed-the-off-ramp-to-t/
Doubts Persist About FBI’s Anthrax Investigation 10 Years Later …
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/10/18/doubts-persist-about-fbis-anthrax-investigation-10-years-later-amid-new-bio/
4-page summary of analysis
Ayman Zawahiri, Anwar Awlaki, Anthrax, and Amerithrax: The Infiltration Of US Biodefense
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/04/12/ayman-zawahiri-anwar-awlaki-anthrax-and-amerithrax-the-infiltration-of-us-biodefense/
DXer said
Yazid’s sweet daughter is a saposexual. I think I’m in love.
Seriously, while I wish Yazid would set the history straight about anthrax — for which he already served his time — I wish him well on his motion on Monday.
I haven’t been able to figure out the difference between a Western country sending money to fighters in Syria and an islamist having tea and discussing religious views with fighters en route to Syria.
DXer said
To Soraya Yazid @sorayaanur
http://www.youtube.com/user/Oreo?v=mvIC4u3s35I
DXer said
Did Jabarah and Yazid Sufaat both stay with KSM at the same time?
DXer said
Did Malaysia go after Yazid Sufaat because he was the undisclosed source (Yazid?) told this reporter:
The article ‘Ex-militant: We send new recruits straight to the front lines’ cited a certain “former militant, who had been linked to the al-Qaeda” commenting on the arrests of the Malaysians.
The article reported, “One of them is believed to have links with a top al-Qaeda leader in Yemen, Jamal al-Badawi, who is accused of the 2000 bombing of United States navy destroyer USS Cole in Yemen.”
Comment: Did the United States just give up on having Yazid Sufaat extradited to the United States after FBI Director’s Mueller trip there in March 2002 was unsuccessful?
Is there a reason not to seek extradited now in connection with 911? And a conspiracy to use WMD? If there is a reason not to seek Yazid Sufaat’s extradition, what is it?
It may be satisfying to make a big fuss about a mensa reject buying some castor beans on bay and putting them in a coffee grinder, but is the US also applying its resources to the threat posed by Al Qaeda’s anthrax planning?
Yazid was openly rejoicing in a filmed interview on the murder of 3000 innocents. I would hope THAT was motivated his prosecution.
Police blasted for threatening journo over source
3:16PM Mar 18, 2013
National Union of Journalists Peninsular Malaysia (NUJ) has slammed the police for threatening a journalist for not revealing her sources.
According to NUJ president Chin Sung Chew, a journalist from The Star was called up by Bukit Aman yesterday over an article last October on the detentions in Lebanon of two Malaysians suspected of al-Qaeda links.
She was reportedly threatened with arrest for obstruction for refusing to divulge her sources in connection with the story.
“It is improper for the police to ask a journalist to reveal his or her sources for questioning,” said Chin in a statement today.
“It is a journalist’s privilege to uphold the principle of protecting their sources where sources are not revealed, especially in a controversial story, in order to protect their identity.
“It is akin to protecting witnesses to a crime. It is a long standing rule that journalist stand by.”
The move is part of the police investigation against former ISA detainee Yazid Sufaat (above), who is facing terrorism charges under the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act, or Sosma.
‘Confidentiality a privilege’
The article ‘Ex-militant: We send new recruits straight to the front lines’ cited a certain “former militant, who had been linked to the al-Qaeda” commenting on the arrests of the Malaysians.
The article reported, “One of them is believed to have links with a top al-Qaeda leader in Yemen, Jamal al-Badawi, who is accused of the 2000 bombing of United States navy destroyer USS Cole in Yemen.”
The source, a former Jemaah Islamiah (JI) member, was explaining how the terrorists were no longer trained in the region, but rather at the front lines of terrorist acts.
Meanwhile Chin (left) said preserving a source’s confidentiality was internationally recognised as a reporter’s privilege.
“The protection of sources, sometimes also referred to as the confidentiality of sources or as ‘the reporter’s privilege’ in some countries, means no one, including the courts or authorities, can compel a journalist to reveal the identity of an anonymous source for a story,” he said.
He called on the authorities to stop attempting to extract the identities of the source from The Star’s journalist.
DXer said
Attorney Fadiah Nadwa Fikri is making points along the lines of my daughter’s teacher this week in teaching the Bill of Rights under the United States Constitution. The teacher was explaining habeas corpus and discussing Guantanamo.
Fadiah Nadwa Fikri @FadiahNadwa
Police failed to give reasons for denying access to lawyers.Habes corpus will be filed to challenge legality of Helmi’s detention#SOSMA
Retweeted by Soraya Yazid
Fadiah Nadwa Fikri @FadiahNadwa
Instead of giving access to lawyers & family,police insist on meeting Helmi’s mother to “chit chat”.Lawyers will lodge police report#SOSMA
Retweeted by Soraya Yazid
Yazid’s family and friends confirm my point in the post above about him being a loving husband and family man.
Soraya Yazid @sorayaanur
For the past 4 years, mama and bapak is inseperable. Now they are separated again. With Allah’s Will, they will be back together again.
Soraya Yazid @sorayaanur
I’ve never seen such a loving couple. My mama is the luckiest woman in the whole wide world. She has bapak #FreeYazidSufaat
Soraya Yazid @sorayaanur
We had only four quality years with Bapak. I want more.#FreeYazidSufaat
His daughter, however, recognizes that the wheels of justice grind slowly.
Soraya Yazid @sorayaanur
Bapak tak boleh diikat jamin sampai lah kes ni selesai. This case can be delayed and delayed until god knows when.. #FreeYazidSufaat
I think everyone appreciates Yazid’s sense of humor and affable nature. I certainly do. I was hoping he would play EA Scrabble with me.
Hurun Ein @huruneinyazid
missing bapak’s lame jokes #FreeYazidSufaat
Retweeted by Soraya Yazid
But Chomel pretends not to know anything about pre-911 or his promotion of violent jihad in Syria. And Yazid was telling stories about the 4 tons of ammonium nitrate (related to the bombing campaign targeting churches), about knowing Nawaf, etc.
Effective advocacy requires one to work embrace the actual facts and work from there — otherwise a loving and good-humored nature will be dismissed as irrelevant and procedural issues of a legal nature will be overlooked.
Effective advocacy requires that the defendant is perceived as a truth-teller. Absent clarification of some facts relating to Al Qaeda’s anthrax program, that just isn’t going to happen.
Imagine how much more effective Attash might have been in standing before the judge in Guantanamo if he had smiled and cracked a joke about how they took away his book written by the former FBI agent.
DXer said
I realize it may be indelicate to ask given the wrangling over the procedure to follow:
But in KSM’s legal notes, has it been mentioned what anthrax strain Yazid Sufaat was using?
Has it been the subject of discussion at privileged attorney-client conferences?
DXer said
Perhaps JTF investigators deemed that classified information was mistakenly let through to Attash. And those documents then were removed. The defense seems to be doing a good job.
According to an April 2002 news report, Yazid Sufaat admitted to knowing Khallad bin Attash who was being refitted for a prosthetic leg in December 1999 and then moved into Yazid’s condo in early January a few days before the meeting with the 911 planners at the condo — and just a day before key 911 hijacker Nawaf arrived.
An associate from my former law firm is writing the accounts for Lawfare. I envy him his front row seat on history.
9/11 Defense Attorneys Say Legal Documents Were “Ransacked”
February 13, 2013
… was handed a note indicating that after bin Attash returned from court yesterday, his legal materials had been “ransacked,” and that “several legal documents that had been properly stamped” — meaning cleared by security officials — “were missing.”
David Nevin, lead counsel for Khalid Shekh Mohammed, and James Harrington, lead counsel for Ramzi bin al-Shibh, then told the judge that their clients had experienced a similar intrusion, but provided no details.
Earlier in the day, the very subject of inappropriate intrusions into the accused’s legal materials was before the court. Lt. Alexander Homme, a lawyer who had worked for the Staff Judge Advocate (SJA) at Guantanamo, took the stand in the morning to discuss how he had screened materials sent to the accused when he worked here in late 2011. Homme had written in a post on the US Navy JAG Force blog that the SJA faced, “immense pressure from multiple directions including those interests of defense bars, JTF Commanders, and political influences.” Among the materials he refused to allow through to bin Attash was the former FBI agent Ali Soufan’s book, The Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War against Al Qaeda, which contains specific references to bin Attash.
Bormann asked the judge, Army Col. James Pohl, to order Joint Task Force Guantanamo to provide the missing materials in court tomorrow without reviewing it or turning it over to the prosecution. Lead Prosecutor, Brig. Gen. Mark Martins expressed some concerns about reacting to hearsay evidence in the moment, but stated he “wanted to get the facts on it and … do the appropriate thing.”
The judge ordered an existing classification review team to obtain the missing documents, and, with more solid details about what actually happened in hand, the court will take on the latest controversy tomorrow morning.
From History Commons (which has hyperlinks to sources):
“Some attendees of the January 2000 al-Qaeda summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (see January 5-8, 2000), arrive early. Al-Qaeda leader Khallad bin Attash had lost a leg while fighting in Afghanistan in 1997. In early December 1999, he was in Afghanistan with Abu Bara al-Taizi (a.k.a. Zohair Mohammed Said) and others, attending a hijacking training course (see Late 1999 and Early December 1999). Bin Attash and al-Taizi have been selected by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed to be hijackers for a planned Asian portion of the 9/11 plot (which will later be cancelled).
Surgery for Bin Attash’s Leg – Bin Attash goes early to an al-Qaeda summit where hijacking plans will be discussed, in order to have prosthetic surgery for his leg. Al-Taizi goes with him. Malaysian security is said to be lax for Islamist militants, and Malaysia does not require a visa for citizens of many Middle Eastern countries. There is a clinic in Kuala Lumpur called Endolite, and other wounded militants have said they successfully concealed the origins of their combat wounds when receiving treatment there. Bin Attash got a prosthetic leg in Malaysia not long after losing his leg in 1997, but he is coming back to get a better one. He apparently gets the money for the prosthesis from his father, Osama bin Laden, and another al-Qaeda figure.
Link with Hambali – When bin Attash and al-Taizi arrive in Kuala Lumpur, they contact Hambali, the top al-Qaeda leader in Southeast Asia. Hambali picks them up at the airport and takes them to his home. Then he takes them to the Endolite clinic. Bin Attash and al-Taizi stay at or near the clinic for about 10 to 14 days. Bin Attash then takes about four flights in Southeast Asia to learn about security for the hijacking plan (see December 31, 1999-January 2, 2000), while al-Taizi apparently stays in Kuala Lumpur. According to Hambali’s later Guantanamo prison file, bin Attash and al-Taizi also investigate the security of US aircraft carriers in the region.
Others Arrive – On January 3, with bin Attash back from his flights, the two of them move to Yazid Sufaat’s condominium where the al-Qaeda summit will be held. Future 9/11 hijacker Nawaf Alhazmi arrives there the next day. 9/11 hijacker Khalid Almihdhar arrives the day after that, and other attendees are arriving as well, allowing the summit to begin (see January 5-8, 2000). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 158-159; US Department of Defense, 12/6/2006; US Department of Defense, 10/25/2008; US Department of Defense, 10/30/2008] Note that this information is based on prisoner interrogations, which can be highly unreliable. However, it should be noted that the accounts of bin Attash, Hambali, and al-Taizi appear to largely match.”
DXer said
http://online.wsj.com/article/AP5e36fcde237f465188093a61a0501121.html
A prison legal adviser, Navy Lt. Cmdr. George Massucco, testified that guards seized items that appeared to lack the correct security stamp.
The confiscated items included a photo of the Grande Mosque in Mecca inside the cell of bin Attash as well as three books inside the cell of defendant of Ramzi Binalshibh. The books included “The Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against al-Qaeda,” by former FBI agent Ali Soufan, which he received from his lawyer.
… Prison officials were still weighing whether to return the books.
Comment:
ANTHRAX AND AL QAEDA: THE INFILTRATION OF US BIODEFENSE
http://www.blurb.com/b/3459068-anthrax-and-al-qaeda-the-infiltration-of-us-biodef
DXer said
http://projects.nytimes.com/guantanamo/detainees/10019-hambali-riduan-isamuddin-
Hambali explains the timeline.
“Detainee [Hambali] stated that he originally discussed starting an anthrax program with Muhammad Atif.
According to [KSM], detainee [Hambali] told Ayman al-Zawahiri, UBL’s second-in-command, that JI member Yazid Sufaat could assist in a biological weapons program.
Yazid Sufaat stayed at [KSM’s house]. Sufaat told [KSM] that he was developing anthrax for al-Qaida and was training two students, Abu Bakr al-Filistini and al-Hud al-Sudani.
Detainee introduced Yazid Sufaat to Zawahiri in 2001 at the al-Qaida Media Committee House in Kandahar. The purpose of the meeting was for Zawahiri to assess Sufaat’s general knowledge of biology and laboratory skills. Muhammad Atif and Ayman al-Zawahiri had met with Sufaat and gave their endorsement to start the program. In late August 2001, detainee, his wife, and Sufaat traveled to Karachi and stayed for two to three weeks. The purpose of the trip was to purchase medical laboratory equipment to equip Sufaat’s laboratory.”
DXer said
DXer said
Yazid Sufaat has been arrested and charged with inciting terrorist acts that could have involved violence in Syria. Perhaps Chomel, who is his wife and very gracious, can explain the circumstances of any misunderstanding relating to the arrest. Or Yazid’s view of the applicable statute and facts. The AP reports says that he is charged with being mastermind of an effort to recruit militants.
Al-Qaida-linked Malaysian man, female acquaintance charged with promoting terrorism
BY SEAN YOONG, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FEBRUARY 8, 2013
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – Malaysian prosecutors charged an al-Qaida-linked former army captain and a woman Friday with inciting terrorist acts that could have involved violence in Syria.
Yazid Sufaat, who spent seven years in detention without trial before being freed in 2008, and Halimah Hussein face up to 30 years in prison if convicted.
The charge read in a Magistrate’s Court said that Yazid “encouraged terrorist activities” at a house in a suburb outside Kuala Lumpur sometime between early August and late October, while Halimah abetted him.
Police arrested Yazid, Halimah and another man Thursday, saying they were the masterminds of an effort to recruit militants. It was not clear whether the third suspect would be charged.
Prosecution documents offered scant details except that their actions could have threatened public safety in Syria.
Malaysia’s national news agency, Bernama, late Thursday quoted unidentified sources as saying the suspects tried to recruit young people to be trained for missions that included suicide bombings. Police officials declined Friday to comment.
The case was being transferred to a higher court that would determine hearing dates and find out whether Yazid and Halimah intended to plead innocent. The two were being held in separate prisons while awaiting trial.
Yazid was one of Malaysia’s most prominent security detainees in the last decade. A U.S.-trained biochemist and former captain in Malaysia’s army, he was detained without trial in 2001 after being accused of belonging to Jemaah Islamiyah, a Southeast Asian militant network. He was released seven years later when officials said he no longer posed a threat.
Malaysia’s Parliament last year abolished a longstanding law allowing indefinite detention without trial following decades of criticism over human rights concerns.
Yazid was previously arrested when he returned from Afghanistan, where he was suspected of working on a biological and chemical weapons program for al-Qaida.
He allegedly let several senior al-Qaida operatives, including two eventual hijackers in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, use an apartment he owned for meetings in Malaysia in January 2000. Officials have said the Sept. 11 attacks were not discussed there.
Yazid, now a cafeteria operator, has not spoken publicly about many of the previous accusations against him, but in an interview with news website Malaysiakini last year he said he had met Osama bin Laden before his detention and underwent combat training in Afghanistan.
Read more:http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Malaysia+police+detain+people+suspicion+recruiting+terrorists/7931268/story.html#ixzz2KL7tKrZZ
DXer said
Yes, I can vouch that Yazid and Chomel are very much in love and that he has been helping at the food court.
Chomel, privately, I should tell you that it looks like Abu Ghaith, once head of WAFA in Afghanistan, may be cooperating. He’s been detained in Turkey. He had come to question whether Al Qaeda was adhering to the koran and hadiths. There was some equipment that was purchased through WAFA office in Pakistan.
It would be best for Yazid to cooperate also so he’s not left holding the bag. It’s a matter of framing the anthrax program in the right way.
But everyone respects a truthteller.
http://www.nst.com.my/latest/wife-to-stand-firm-behind-yazid-sufaat-1.215263
Wife to stand firm behind Yazid Sufaat. And I can vouch for Yazid’s reasonable conduct of himself in his daily postings.
By G.Surach | surach@nst.com.my
AMPANG: Yazid Sufaat’s wife is going to stand by her man no matter how long it takes.
She was adamant that he had done nothing wrong since his release from detention under the Internal Security Act in 2008 and has been spending all his time with his family.
“I do not know what he did before his arrest under the ISA but I do know that he was always with me and our children since,” said Chomel Mohamad, adding that her family are prepared for the long trial ahead.
She further added that since his release, Yazid had always remained by her side, helping her at their drinks stall in the court cafeteria.
Commenting on his arrest, the 48-year-old said she and Yazid had returned from the market and was packing cakes at their stall when she spotted the officer that had previously detained her husband in 2001.
“There were at least 15 plainclothes policemen surrounding the stall, and our assistant (Mohd Hilmi Hasim) was immediately handcuffed.
“My husband was washing his hands at the sink when the police just grabbed and handcuffed him,” Chomel told reporters outside the Ampang court complex, here, today.
Chomel said Yazid asked the police repeatedly why he was being arrested but no one answered him.
When asked her opinion on why her husband was arrested, Chomel said that her husband had mentioned the name “Fikrie” (Mohd Noor Fikrie Abd Kahar).
Fikrie, 26, was a member of the Malaysian Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), who was shot dead by security forces in the Philippines last December.
Chomel said police then took Yazid to their home in Taman Bukit Ampang, where they searched the premises for four hours. She was also there, accompanied by lawyer Fadiah Nadwa Fikri.
“They took away several Islamic books, the Internet modem and laptop,” said the mother of four.
Meanwhile, Chomel’s stall at the court complex was operating as usual today.
His son, Zufar Arif, 21, was handling the business with several workers. Zufar, the second of four siblings, said he only knew of his father’s arrest on Thursday afternoon while he was driving back to the city from a public university in Dungun.
Read more: Wife to stand firm behind Yazid Sufaat – Latest – New Straits Times http://www.nst.com.my/latest/wife-to-stand-firm-behind-yazid-sufaat-1.215263#ixzz2KL9OlSib
DXer said
Police use ISA replacement law to arrest duo at workplace
Malaysia Chronicle-18 hours ago
Yazid Sufaat , who was released from ISA in 2008 after being detained … But the father of four, sometimes known as “CEO of Anthrax” in …
Comment: Chomel, in terms of framing, “father of four” is not of much use. The key is present Yazid has a truth-teller much as Abu Ghaith has presented himself in seeking safe haven in Turkey.
Sufaat, his wife and Hilmi run a cafeteria (just saying the word makes me hungry) at Jalan Duta High Court’s cantee. They were then taken to Yazid’s house in Taman Bukit Ampang.
Rights lawyer Fadiah Nadwa Fikri was also present during the police raid at Yazid’s home.
The article reads:
“Yazid, a US-trained biochemist, was accused by Washington of having links with Al-Qaeda.
But the father of four, sometimes known as “CEO of Anthrax” in recognition of his alleged bomb-making skills, has made no secret of his admiration of the late Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, who he claimed to have met following the September 11 attacks in 2001.”
DXer said
Yazid,
Did you know the hijacker al-Haznawi who came from to the US from Kandahar — where you had the anthrax lab in June 2001?
In the US at the time of the American Revolution in 1776, the revolutionaries did not sit around quoting Ben Franklin’s aphorisms “Common Sense.”
They spoke truth to power.
Does a man with a conviction really find it so hard to speak historical truth relating to events in 2001?
United States: Linking anthrax and al-Qaeda?; Bioterrorism
The Economist362. 8266 (Mar 30, 2002): 28.
…
ON MARCH 23rd, the New York Times revealed that one of the September 11th hijackers could well have had anthrax. Last June, Ahmed al-Haznawi visited a doctor in Florida, Christos Tsonas, about an ugly dark lesion on his leg. Dr Tsonas, who prescribed an antibiotic, later told the FBI that, on reflection, the lesion “was consistent with cutaneous anthrax”.
This is not the first link between the hijackers and bioterrorism. Last October, a pharmacist in Florida said Mohammed Atta had come looking for treatment for suspicious-looking burns on his hands. But this time there may be more in it. A team from the Johns Hopkins Centre for Civilian Biodefence Stategies, which reviewed al-Haznawi’s case, said Dr Tsonas’s diagnosis was “the most probable and coherent interpretation of the data available.” “Such a conclusion,” the team argued, “raises the possibility that the hijackers were handling anthrax and were the perpetrators of the anthrax letter attacks.” Does it?
Yes to the first part. American forces recently discovered a half- finished laboratory near Kandahar, which they believe was intended to produce anthrax (though no biological agents were, in fact, found there). Captured documents also show al-Qaeda is trying to produce biological weapons. But what about the second part: that its operatives were responsible for the anthrax letters?
The letter to Tom Daschle, the leader of the Senate, contained “weaponised” anthrax. Even if al-Qaeda terrorists had been able to produce the organism itself, they would still have needed expert help to turn it into a weapon. The process of weaponisation is technologically advanced. It requires spores to be concentrated into a powder with individual grains smaller than three microns, and then mixed with chemical agents that keep the spores dry and airborne.
Any number of government laboratories around the world may be working on weaponising anthrax, but the Daschle attack seems to have originated at home. The strain used was American, the Ames strain. Either the attackers had access to an Ames strain that had already been weaponised–in which case they can only have got it from a handful of western military laboratories. Or they had access to the information necessary to weaponise anthrax, in which case the most likely explanation for the use of the Ames strain was that it was close to hand. Either way, the virulent anthrax in Mr Daschle’s letter seems to have come from a domestic source.
The implication is disturbing. There could be two terrorist anthrax-breeding operations–the half-built affair discovered in Afghanistan, and the one that produced the letter to Mr Daschle, which is presumably run by a disgruntled scientist in an American laboratory. More disturbing is the possibility that the two may be linked. For, if it was an anthrax infection, how did the American- based al-Haznawi get infected in the first place?
DXer said
Yazid, does it amuse that scholars in the US write entire books (see the recent book by Dr. Vogel) about the anthrax weapons threat without so much as listing Dr. Zawahiri in the index? US media did not even cover the announcement in Spring 1999 about Dr. Ayman’s intention to use anthrax to retaliate against the rendering of senior EIJ leaders, to include the blind sheik.
Indeed, the US media has not even mentioned that you were a member of Malaysian biological weapons program.
That is the relevant frame and Dr. Vogel has totally missed it.
While dissing your abilities and treating you as a lowly, incompetent tech, neither Mr. Leitenberg nor Dr. Vogel have ever acknowledged your role in the Malaysian offensive weapons program.
Here is a GMU thesis on the “director or indirect influence exerted by an Al Qaeda social network actor on future biological weapon mission planning.”*/
Yazid, if you are too frightened to address the factual issues as they relate to 2013, can’t you at least address things as of 2001 on certain peripheral or background issues?
For example, as a matter of history, Yazid, didn’t you meet Nawaf al-Hazmi, a key hijacker, in KL who was associated with Anwar Awlaki in the US? Yazid, you say you knew Attash (the Cole planner) who arrived at your condo in early January 2000 for the planning meeting. But that was just the day before Nawaf then arrived at Yazid’s condo in January 2000.
**/ An analysis of the potential direct or indirect influence exerted by an al Qaeda social network actor on future biological weapon mission planning
Diss.Baken, Denise N.. George Mason University, 2007. 3284820.
DXer said
Phone Hacking Tied to Terrorists
By SOMINI SENGUPTA
Published: November 26, 2011
• Four people in the Philippines hacked into the accounts of AT&T business customers in the United States and diverted money to a group that financed terrorist attacks across Asia, according to police officials in the Philippines.
A statement from the Philippines Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, a law enforcement agency, said three men and one woman had been arrested in raids across the capital, Manila, last week.
According to the agency, the men were working with a group called Jemaah Islamiyah, a terrorist group linked to Al Qaeda and responsible for the 2002 bombings in Bali, which killed 202 people.
The group has been held responsible for several other terrorist attacks in Southeast Asia, mostly in Indonesia but including the Philippines.
If the new accusation holds up, it would point to a troubling connection between hackers and terrorist cells.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation said on Saturday that it was working with the police in the Philippines on the investigation into the telephone hacking effort, which apparently began as early as 2009.
The suspects remotely gained access to the telephone operating systems of an unspecified number of AT&T clients and used them to call telephone numbers that passed on revenues to the suspects.
AT&T said it reimbursed its customers for the charges. It said in a statement that “its network were neither targeted nor breached by the hackers.”
The company declined to say how many business customers were affected, nor how much it cost AT&T. The Philippines police agency’s statement said the scheme cost $2 million. It is known as a “remote toll fraud” and singles out telephone accounts that are protected by weak passwords.
Comment:
Everyone should go and start using better passwords.
Shout out to Yazid: Are you a member of Jemaah Islamiyah? What does membership entail?
DXer said
Thais nab FBI hacking suspect
January 7 2013 at 10:40am
By SAPA
.
File image
Bangkok – Thai police arrested an Algerian national wanted by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation for allegedly making millions from cybercrime, officials said Monday.
Hamza Bendelladj, 24, was arrested late Sunday while attempting to transit through Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport from Malaysia, Immigration Police Commissioner Lieutenant General Phanu Kerdlabpol said.
“We were tipped off to his arrival by the FBI, who have been following his case for the past three years,” Phanu said.
Bendelladj, who graduated in computer sciences in Algeria in 2008, has allegedly hacked private accounts in 217 banks and financial companies worldwide, amassing “huge amounts” in illicit earnings, the police commissioner told a press conference.
“With just one transaction he could earn 10 to 20 million dollars,” Phanu said. “He’s been travelling the world flying first class and living a life of luxury.”
A satellite phone and notebook computer were his main tools, Phanu said.
Thailand will seek to extradite Bendelladj to the US state of Georgia, where a court has issued a warrant for his arrest.
A smiling Bendelladj, who was present at the press conference, denied claims by the Thai authorities that he was on the FBI’s top-10 most wanted list.
“I’m not in the top 10, maybe just 20th or 50th,” Bendelladj said with a laugh. “I am not a terrorist.” – Sapa-dpa
DXer said
Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
Here is a press release by a book author titled INFILTRATION.
Press Release:
Infiltration Writer Lee Dodson’s Underground Homeland Terrorism Survey Produces Stunning Results
Los Angeles, California (PRWEB) December 24, 2012
Lee Dodson, author of Infiltration, initiated a small, and admittedly unscientific, survey to test the pulse of his potential readership as to their present sense of the condition of emergency preparedness in the event of another terrorist attack. His interest arose from the nature of his book, and what he saw was stunning.
The resulting responses (996,540+/- .1%) came from three press releases and a variety of twitter posts, and they surprised everyone involved. “The consciousness of my readers on the probability of another large scale attack is quite high-94%, nearly the same number believe there will be great loss of life due to a weapon of mass destruction” Dodson said. “But shocking were the numbers that dealt with governmental honesty and public sense of preparedness, and here’s the big one: there was major concern about knowing what to do in case of attack.”
“Fully 88% of respondents believed they would have to defend themselves at some point, which kind of puts in question the current 2nd Amendment discussions of the last two weeks, doesn’t it?” the writer asked.
“Talk about unintended consequences,” Dodson grinned. “I did this survey as an information gleaning and sales tool to sell Infiltration, and it went not just viral, it went ballistic.”
“My book is about self defense in a rural area, but these respondents were from urban areas as well, and I’ve been told that they feel as threatened by a silent government. The numbers (79%) say they do not believe the government is telling the truth as far as homeland terrorist attack risks go.” Dodson stated. “Just take a look at it for yourself:”
Today’s view on homeland terror
Do you expect another major terrorist attack on the United States, including Hawaii, Alaska, or any of its territories?
Yes 94%—-No 6%
Do you expect there to be great loss of life?
Yes 92%—-No 8%
Do you expect a WMD to be used in the attack, i.e. poison gas, biological weapon, nuclear weapon?
Yes 88%—-No 12%
Do you expect foreign nationals to carry out an attack?
Yes 93%—-No 7%
Do you think sleeper cells are already in the United States?
Yes 94%—-No 6%
Do you think you might have to defend yourself from terrorists in this country?
Yes 88%—-No 12%
Do you think the U.S. government will be able to defend against a homeland invasion?
Yes 41%—-No 59%
Do you believe that the current administration is truthful about terrorism in this country?
Yes 21%—-No 79%
Do you think that we as a nation believe that terrorism is over?
Yes 11%—-No 89%
Do you know enough about what to do if a terrorist attack strikes near where you live or work?
Yes 20%—-No 80%
“The book is not intended as a message. It’s an us-against-them adventure on a very personal basis, but it does tell a story that is very possible…it has to be possible to be a good read. It’s a perfect page turner that can get a new user into a Christmas Kindle, Nook, or e-reader of any kind.” Dodson said. “An empty Kindle is an unused Kindle. A good story makes all the difference.”
“I never ask anybody “buy” the book. I ask them to read Infiltration. That’s where the interest is. It’s doing well right now, and I expect it to do great as readers start talking about it. Reviews have been better than gratifying.”
Dodson’s book, Infiltration, is available in all formats from Smashwords, iTunes, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Diesel, and is now available at Amazon.
“I’m hearing that Kindle, Nook and other e-readers are top Christmas gifts this year. Might be a good idea to give a pre loaded Infiltration as a first read. Great entertainment. Remember: Never give an empty Kindle or Nook. It needs a story on it to be complete.”
Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/989466#ixzz2GUM3FMsm
DXer said
The book is a novel. He is a writer of fiction. That should be made clear at the start of the press release.
The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
Today Yazid writes:
“I hate when I’m set on running a yellow light and the person in front of me chickens out.”
Comment: I wonder if KL has cameras at the traffic lights.
Terrorist Threats: Measuring the Terms and Approaches
KA Talib, SSA Yusoff, R Ismail, S Suhor, AA Aziz… – Asian Social …, 2012 – ccsenet.org
… For example Malaysian Yazid Sufaat was responsible for the Al Qaeda anthrax project in
Afghanistan. … 8, No. 15; 2012 294 travesty is the invention to the enemies of Islam. … Detentions and
arrests have been made against suspected JI members since December, 2001. …
Profiling bioterrorism: present and potential threats
F Galamas – Comparative Strategy, 2011 – Taylor & Francis
… For example, Yazid Sufaat was one of the scientists working in alqaeda’s anthrax project who
received his college degree from a United States university with a major in biological … ”Al-Qaeda:
Anthrax Found in al-Qaeda Home,” Global Security Newswire, December 10, 2001
DXer said
One friend suggests running the light together and another proposes that a yellow light means to drive faster otherwise you may get hit from behind.
Earlier in the week Yazid was commenting that banks are mafia and the central bank is the godfather.
He had separately emphasized that knowledge without action is arrogance.
I don’t know anything about banking but I do know something about traffic tickets. I would note that sometimes a big lumbering truck ahead of you blocks your view and is the indirect cause of the accident or running the traffic light.
Here, snow banks are a definite hazard.
Once an officer laid down rubber in an intersection two cars behind me — having to stop suddenly. He pulled me over and asked him if I knew the rules of the road. I told him yes. I told him I was in the right and therefore had the right of way.
I told him that furthermore he should not have entered the intersection without seeing that he could clear it.
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
http://articles.philly.com/2012-12-26/news/36009175_1_lehigh-students-political-violence-terrorists
Lehigh students get inside terrorist mind by plotting fictional attack on campus
December 26, 2012|By Susan Snyder, Inquirer Staff Writer
Lehigh University professor Chaim Kaufmann wants his students to think like terrorists.
Even more, he wants them to plan like terrorists, try to understand their motives, and reason through their challenges.
It’s part of an unusual and engaging assignment in which freshmen in his class on political violence and terrorism are asked to weigh risk and feasibility by spending one class period mapping out a fictional attack – on their own university.
“We use Lehigh as the target because that’s what students know,” said Kaufmann, 52, an associate professor in international relations at Lehigh, in Bethlehem, Pa.
To learn best about why terrorism occurs, Kaufmann said, “you’ve got to do the thing that is uncomfortable for most of us to do most of the time . . . put aside our interests and socializations as Americans . . . and get inside the heads of the attackers and try to figure out what they are thinking.”
“It’s not as simple as ‘they hate us because we let women drive.’ ”
Over the 75-minute class period, students debated the location, time, weapon of choice, getaway plan, difficulty of getting a terrorist team into the country, and behavioral patterns of the target, among other challenges posed by their professor and each other.
Their plan ended up being anything but intricate and sophisticated. They first settled on hitting the student-center dining room at lunchtime with a truck bomb. One student pointed out that another delivery truck could be blocking the narrow entrance. They then decided to use a suicide explosive vest.
“So we do get them thinking hard about how difficult it is to guarantee that something will actually come off,” said Kaufmann, who has taught at Lehigh for 20 years. “So what I hope they’ll get out of that particular exercise is an appreciation of why it is so little has happened. It’s not as easy as all the apocalyptic scenarios talk about.”
Kaufmann, whose research focuses on international security, ethnic conflict, nuclear weapons proliferation, and U.S. foreign policy, began teaching the course after 9/11 when interest peaked. He has offered it several times over the last decade. The course in the past has drawn more than 100 students, but this semester, for the first time, it is being taught as a freshman seminar, meaning its size is kept small. It draws students from a variety of majors, this semester political science, Spanish, graphic design, business, premed, and international relations.
Comment:
The article states that the “students debated the location, time, weapon of choice, getaway plan, difficulty of getting a terrorist team into the country, and behavioral patterns of the target”
In the case of Amerithrax, the documents show that Al Qaeda military commander Atef and Ayman Zawahiri determined that with respect to anthrax the best strategy was to recruit a specialist. They, for example, recruited a former member of the Malaysian offensive biological weapons program (Yazid Sufaat). They also recruited a scientist (Rauf Ahmad) who then attended conferences sponsored by Porton Down in the UK attended by USAMRIID scientists.
Another supporter of the Salafist-Jihadi with Al Qaeda connections, for example, applied to work in the department at GMU with leading Ames anthrax researchers funded by DARPA who co-patented the process of growing anthrax in silica.
As for the getaway plan, that was easy given the total lack of vetting and biosecurity in the country’s biodefense facilities prior to 911.
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
Yazid Sufaat today is quoting 911 imam Anwar Awlaki again on his Facebook page.
DXer said
It would be a sad day for journalism if we have to learn about and process and take to heart what is known about Al Qaeda’s anthrax program only through KSM or al-Hawsawi or al-Balucchi via some show trial.
DXer said
The July 2012 article “Analysis of the Search Warrants of the Amerithrax Investigation states:
“At the outset of this process, the agencies involved could not have envisioned the missteps and false identifications that contributed to a relatively fruiltess, yet expensive, seven-year investigation.”
Might the costly mistake represented by the FBI’s “Hatfill Theory” (which reached its height in summer and Fall 2002) been avoided if the FBI had not waited 11 months before interviewing Al Qaeda anthrax lab director Yazid Sufaat?
How much money did Malaysia receive in aid relating to counterterrorism in 2002? Malaysia knew that Yazid Sufaat had been part of its bioweapons program by March 2002. Did it tell the US when Director Mueller went to Malaysia on this matter to discuss Sufaat and cooperation in matters relating to Al Qaeda?
Would it have been easier to get an answer from Yazid on the strain of virulent anthrax he was using than spend millions on a genetic analysis that merely narrowed the field roughly by half? Yazid can be stubborn (and is quick to invoke the Fifth Amendment) but he is quite amiable.
DXer said
Yazid Sufaat is a very forthright individual. He pleads the FIfth Amendment on particulars of the Fall 2001 anthrax mailings, but could answer more general questions posed by NYPD Intelligence by a means as simple as Skype or Facebook chat. Although captured in December 2001, the FBI did not interview him until November 2002. By then, Amerithrax had already gone off the tracks.
DXer said
At this week’s hearings, Judge Pohl will consider a defence request for evidence that is classified as secret, and will weigh whether the courtroom should be closed to the press and public while the issue is debated.
http://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFBRE86F19W20120716
DXer said
Jun 05, 2012
Judge estimates 30K secret spying orders approved yearly
By Michael Winter, USA TODAY
Updated 9h 45m ago
CAPTION
By Greg Mathieson, Time Life Pictures, via Getty Images
Federal judges approve about 30,000 secret warrants to spy on people in the USA every year, and the innocent probably will never know they were watched, says a U.S. jurist involved in issuing the orders.
Magistrate Judge Stephen Smith writes in a new paper, highlighted by Ars Technica, that the 2006 total outstripped the entire output of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court since it was created in 1979, and the number is probably growing.
The secret orders are authorized by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986, known as ECPA. Smith writes that the volume of such cases “is greater than the combined yearly total of all antitrust, employment discrimination, environmental, copyright, patent, trademark and securities cases filed in federal court.”
The warrants and the court’s proceedings are not open to public scrutiny. A three-judge panel reviews denials of applications for the warrants, but the court is not adversarial or open, and many orders are never unsealed.
Here are some of Smith’s findings, which will be published in the Harvard Law & Policy Review:
***
Smith calls for “structural changes” in the law to “eliminate unnecessary secrecy,” including an end to “automatic gagging” and sealing orders. He suggests a publicly available “warrant cover sheet” that features basic information about every electronic surveillance order.
Comment:
It wouldn’t be so bad except that in those nail-biting online EA Scrabble endgames where you are making a critical misstep, where is Big Brother to flash their lights and say, “No, don’t make that move.”
It’s one thing for the IC to have the arrogance to think it has located every Egyptian MB radio in the country. It’s another to obtain 30,000 warrants while not even spending $10 to buy the book by the central witness in the most complex case in United States history — where the witness says that year she was controlled by an alien who had implanted a chip in her butt.
It’s one thing to run a shop as if conflict of interest rules don’t apply — it’s another to withhold contemporaneous documents and expert reports which contradict your formal written conclusions relied upon by Congress.
The magnitude of the Amerithrax Fail is so large that it calls into legitimacy all the work of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. If this is what they do in plain daylight, one could reason, then they cannot be allowed to operate without at least the greater transparency recommended by Magistrate Judge Steve Smith. (Ironically, the greater transparency of such a cover sheet will merely then be used to justify greater funding).
DXer said
Illustrating Richard Clarke’s point that most intelligence is “open source,” I believe I first identified Rauf in 2002 after a local Pakistan news story upon the raid of the Khawaja compound. (A family of doctors were harboring EIJ leaders and their families.) When I would have email correspondence with Rauf, who was infiltrating Western biodefense for Dr. Ayman Zawahiri, I would report on it. An order under ECPA or FISA might have picked up some nice zoo photos, but this blog is intended to make the information readily available so as to permit sharing across government agencies and overcome the downsides to compartmentalization.
I first identified Yazid Sufaat in March 2002 and began posting on Sacramento State boards then looking for information.
The GAO needs to grasp how the father of Ali Al-Timimi’s pro bono lawyer — the head of the Amerithrax prosecution Daniel Seikaly — steered things to Hatfill in the Summer of 2002 to understand the seriousness of the derailment of Amerithrax. It continued in 2003 because FBI Director Mueller naively let it happen in the interest of not undermining morale. Polygraphs (which are ineffective) weren’t necessary. All they needed to do was to ask people about the leaks on-the-record and then any false denials would have been prosecutable. If you look at the FBI emails from the time, you see a gaping chasm — no one ever asked and answered the question.
Ironically, Attorney Seikaly used Daniel Klaidman for the hyped bloodhound story that served as a key distraction. Mr. Klaidman now has written a riveting book about Obama’s determination to kill Anwar Awlaki. (Mark Miller, who co-authored the piece about the bloodhounds with Mr. Klaidman, literally was switched from a story about Syed Athar Abbas to do the bloodhound story.)
Anwar Awlaki was coordinating with Ali Al-Timimi, who shared a suite with the leading DARPA-funded Ames anthrax researchers.
This isn’t rocket science.
Then years later the earnest and beautiful AUSA Lieber was forbidden by her superior from visiting Ali Al-Timimi in prison. Then she was reprimanded when she went anyway. And this was a time of great personal and professional turmoil in the office.
But the GAO needs to understand how the botching of Amerithrax in 2002/2003 played itself out again in 2008.
There would be a whole lot less killing in the world if people took greater care in connecting the dots — reading the material, contacting witnesses, authenticating materials, validating the science, rooting out conflicts of interests. etc. For one, the US wouldn’t have invaded Iraq. The US wouldn’t have had cause to occupy Afghanistan.
It’s time for murderers to go to jail. It’s time to stop suffering fools gladly.
Suspect and A Setback In Al-Qaeda Anthrax Case
By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/30/AR2006103001250.html
Rauf’s name was first publicly associated with the documents by Ross Getman, a New York lawyer who maintains a Web site devoted to the 2001 anthrax attacks.
DXer said
I do think the FBI has botched this from the beginning, but that is not a reason to establish a commission for every botched investigation. This is a case of major importance with major policy implications that we still don’t understand and still haven’t drawn all the lessons from.” — Rep. Rush Holt
DXer said
http://www.cctvcambridge.org/HomelandSecurity
DHS To Test Biological Sensors by Releasing Dead Bacteria on the Red Line
May 18, 2012
The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) came to Cambridge Wednesday night to explain to citizens gathered at the Central Square YMCA a plan, currently underway, to test sensors in Red Line stations that would, if they prove effective and are widely deployed, detect a biological terror attack which, they asserted, was a real threat for which our country should be prepared.
The sensors are already deployed in Harvard, Porter and Davis Square stations, measuring background information in order to develop a baseline. In about a month – official declined to state exactly when – DHS will, during nighttime hours when the T is otherwise closed, release bacteria into subway tunnels, run trains as if it were normal operation, and assess whether the sensors can detect the release. DHS officials, joined by public health officials representing the state, Cambridge, and Somerville, took pains to describe the ways in which this plan has no risks. The bacteria being used – Bacillus subtilis- is found routinely in the environment, will be released only after killed, would be harmless even if alive, and will only be released when no people are in the subway, they said.
Officials were unable to provide information about the cost of this exercise, and have not followed up with promised information as of posting time. Despite repeated assurances that no Cambridge dollars were being spent on this – it is funded by federal appropriations – Claude-Alix Jacob, Chief Public Health Officer for the City of Cambridge, acknowledged that Cambridge City staff are supporting this work and their salaries are not being reimbursed by the federal government.
DHS officials were also unable to provide information on the likelihood of a biological threat, nor were they able answer questions about whether these sensors would have been effective to detect any of the “credible threats” disclosed by security officials in the last decade. Instead, they repeatedly cited the 1995 Aum Shinrikyo attack on the Tokyo subway system though they acknowledged under questioning that that attack used nerve gas and thus would not have been detected by these sensors.
MBTA Police Chief Paul McMillan noted that terrorist attacks are one of the things that “keep [him] up at night.” He acknowledged, in response to a question, that during the extensive public hearings about MBTA services and costs, no citizen raised biological terror attacks as something on which the MBTA should be spending more resources.
Public health officials carefully explained their involvement in this exercise, noting that if an attack were to occur, they would be expected to respond, thus preparedness was, in their view, a requirement. They also noted that even an incorrect report that a biological attack was underway in the T would cause the system to be closed. These sensors, should they prove to be effective in testing and then be widely deployed, would eliminate the harm that would come from those false positives, they asserted. Those officials repeatedly deflected questions about financial tradeoffs, declining to talk about any other public health threats that were being ignored. As Massachusetts State Epidemiologist Dr. Al DeMaria noted, the funds supporting this testing were appropriated by Congress for this purpose and this purpose only, discussing alternatives was pointless.
In response to a question, DHS spokesman John Verrico noted that terrorists “win” not only by inflicting casualties but by inciting fear that causes changes in the American way of life. But when asked if a DHS presentation intended to raise fears of an attack and allow the government to act in ways that might not otherwise be acceptable was a sign that the terrorists had won, he said that that did not represent his views.
Comments on the document and test plan may be submitted to MBTATest@hq.dhs.gov by the close of business on June 15, 2012.
The a question and answer sheet and environmental assessment, prepared by the DHS, are displayed below.
Dxer said
Would you agree that in the end the fellow Dr. Ayman had infiltrating the portion down conferences, Rauf Ahmad, did not have the trust that Dr.Ayman placed in you …given your unswerving faithfulness and can-do attitude? In contrast to you, Rauf strikes me in correspondence and email as crassly concerned with his finances.