* NYT MH370: “Yazid Sufaat, a Malaysian who studied biochemistry at California State University and experimented with biological weapons for Al Qaeda before Sept. 11, proposed crashing a commercial airliner into a passing American warship, the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk, according to a local intelligence report cited in Mr. Conboy’s book on Jemaah Islamiyah,” The Second Front.”
Posted by DXer on March 17, 2014
CASE CLOSED ... what really happened in the 2001 anthrax attacks? 
DXer said
Project California:
So many unknowns about Hambali’s Malaysian cohorts, Jan 24, 2021
https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2021/01/24/so-many-unknowns-about-hambalis-malaysian-cohorts
Meanwhile, Farik, 45, from Kajang, Selangor, studied locally and went to Afghanistan in July 2000 to attend arms training and met up with Osama, to whom he also pledged his loyalty and allegiance.
He was handpicked by Hambali, whose real name is Riduan Isamuddin, to be part of the so-called Project California and was also his bodyguard and lookout man.
Project California refers to a planned attack on the 73-storey Library Tower/US Bank Tower, the tallest building in downtown Los Angeles.
Thai police arrested Farik in June 2003 and he was later handed over to the US Central Intelligence Agency.
In 2003, the two Malaysians and Hambali himself were detained in secret locations before being transferred to the high-risk prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in September 2006.
DXer said
Chilling threat sent to air traffic controllers vowing revenge for killing of Iranian general is under investigation, Jan 5, 2021
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/threat-air-traffic-control-iranian-general-qassem-soleimani-revenge/
DXer said
There’s at Least One Commercial Airline Pilot Fighting for ISIS
By Caroline Bankoff
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/07/commercial-airline-pilot-fighting-for-isis.html
***
If you’re not already somewhat afraid of ISIS, perhaps this will do the trick: There’s at least one commercial airline pilot fighting for the group, and some of his colleagues might be interested in joining him.
According to an Australian Federal Police document obtained by the Intercept, an Indonesian AirAsia pilot named Ridwan Agustin arrived in the Islamic State stronghold of Raqqa, Syria, sometime in March 2015. (His wife, an AirAsia flight attendant, likely came along.) Prior to his departure, Agustin, who started working at AirAsia around 2009, was fairly open about his interest in ISIS:
[In] September 2014, something changed. Interspersed with photos of pristine white sand beaches, motorcycle rides and goofy tarmac photos with his colleagues came postings in support of the Islamic State. He began friending and interacting online with other pro-ISIS profiles — including Indonesian foreign fighters documenting their battles in Syria or Iraq. Agustin changed his profile name to Ridwan Ahmad Indonesiy and expressed interest in joining the fight in Kobani.
Agustin isn’t the only aviation professional to have expressed support for ISIS on social media. The Intercept reports that Tommy Hendratno, “a former member of the Indonesian military” who most recently worked as a pilot for a charter flight company, began posting pro-ISIS material online in mid-2014. (He also received training at a St. Louis facility in February 2015, by which time he was endorsing the Islamic State on Facebook “nearly every day.”) On June 1, Hendratno quit his job and now seems to have vanished.
DXer said
ISIS in the skies: Fears of 9/11-style attack as two commercial pilots join terror group
FEARS of a new 9/11-style terror attack on the West have been raised after two commercial pilots were revealed to have joined Islamic State (ISIS).
By TOM BATCHELOR
PUBLISHED: 00:00, Fri, Jul 10, 2015 | UPDATED: 09:34, Fri, Jul 10, 2015
The men were employed by separate international airlines and were flying as recently as March, Australian authorities said.
Tommy Abu Alfatih and Ridwan Agustin, both Indonesian pilots working for high-profile airlines AirAsia and Garuda Indonesia, developed links with the jihadi group through social media.
A leaked document from the Australia Federal Police seen by Western security services stresses the threat to flight security the pair could pose.
References to the September 11 attacks in 2001 – or “past global events” – suggest authorities feared a copycat attack of a similar type and scale to those on New York and Washington almost fourteen years ago.
Worryingly, Abu Alfatih was still employed as a pilot up until just a few months ago, although his whereabouts are now unknown.
Agustin was sacked by AirAsia after he began showing signs of extremist influences, including posting supportive messages on ISIS websites and messaging foreign fighters in the Middle East.
***
The pair also followed various Facebook pages which posted graphic ISIS executions.
“Both appear to be influenced by pro-ISIS elements including extremist online propaganda by well-known radical Indonesia outlets and a suspected foreign terrorist fighter who is likely to be either in Syria or Iraq,” the report warns.
***
“It is noted that a recent edition of the al-Qaeda magazine Inspire actively encouraged attacks within the aviation environment.”
DXer said
Feds Say That Banned Researcher Commandeered A Plan, May 15, 2015
http://www.wired.com/2015/05/feds-say-banned-researcher-commandeered-plane/
Hacker told F.B.I. he made plane fly sideways after cracking entertainment system
National News | May 15, 2015 by Jorge Barrera
http://aptn.ca/news/2015/05/15/hacker-told-f-b-made-plane-fly-sideways-cracking-entertainment-system/
United Will Reward People Who Flag Security Flaws—Sort Of
Kim Zetter, Wired
May 15, 2015
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/united-will-reward-people-who-flag-security-119047056814.html
DXer said
From Syracuse FBI Agent:
“I submit there is probable cause to believe that the Device(s) are or contain evidence, fruits, and instrumentalities of violations of Title 18, United States Code, Sections 1030(a)(2), 1030(a)(5).”
Click to access warrant-for-Roberts-electronics.pdf
DXer said
04.21.15
2:02 PM
FEDS WARN AIRLINES TO LOOK OUT FOR PASSENGERS HACKING JETS
http://www.wired.com/2015/04/fbi-tsa-warn-airlines-tampering-onboard-wifi/
DXer said
GAO reports warns hackers could bring down plane using passenger Wi-Fi
http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2015/04/15/gao-reports-warns-hackers-could-bring-down-plane-using-passenger-wi-fi/
Published April 15, 2015
FoxNews.com
DXer said
Fearing United plane was hacked, FBI pulls security expert off flight
http://money.cnn.com/2015/04/17/technology/security/fbi-plane-hack/
Roberts said he eventually tested out the theory himself 15 to 20 times on actual flights. He’d pull out his laptop, connect it to the box underneath his seat, and view sensitive data from the avionics control systems.
“I could see the fuel rebalancing, thrust control system, flight management system, the state of controllers,” he said.
If a fellow passenger ever asked what he was doing, Roberts would simply say, “We’re enhancing your experience by putting in new systems.”
***
“Yeah,” Roberts said. “Do I occasionally nudge the rules? Damn right I do. If not, I wouldn’t do the research I do.”
Comment:
Does Roberts in fact know his computer devices heading back to him? Or in this article has he provided probable cause to access his devices? (I don’t know and don’t have a bet on the table).
DXer said
Here is a meaty article that incorporates and threads a number of the cybersecurity expert’s tweets.
“FBI agents pull cybersecurity expert off plane in Syracuse in response to in-flight tweet”
By John O’Brien | jobrien@syracuse.com
on April 17, 2015
http://www.syracuse.com/crime/index.ssf/2015/04/fbi_agents_pull_cybersecurity_expert_off_plane_in_syracuse_in_response_to_in-fli.html
DXer said
FBI Accosts Security Researcher Over Fear That He Hacked His Flight
MADDIE STONE
http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2015/04/fbi-accosts-security-researcher-over-fear-that-he-hacked-his-flight/
As Roberts told CNN Money, anyone can plug a laptop into a box underneath his or her seat and access critical plane controls, including the engine and cabin lighting. He’s tested the theory out on over a dozen flights, connecting his own computer to the box under his seat and viewing sensitive avionics information including the thrust control and flight management systems.
In an interview with CNN money, Roberts admitted that the cavalier tweet was “probably a little more blunt than I should have been,” but expressed deep frustration that his warnings have fallen on deaf ears. Aeroplane companies, he says, haven’t yet learned the lessons of technology firms like Microsoft about how to properly respond to security vulnerabilities disclosed by researchers.
“It feels like this [airline] industry is going through the same issues,” Roberts told The Security Ledger. “The problem is, if I break a F5 device or a Cisco device, I’m not harming anybody. I screw around with an aeroplane, I’m taking 100 to 400 people out of the sky and you’re not recovering from that.”
DXer said
Computer security expert blocked from flight after tweets
Elizabeth Weise, USATODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015/04/19/chris-roberts-one-world-labs-united-rsa-computer-security-tweets/26036397/
EFF, which has taken on his case, said Saturday that United’s refusal to allow him to fly “is both disappointing and confusing. As a member of the security research community, his job is to identify vulnerabilities in networks so that they can be fixed,” EFF’s Andrew Crocker said on the organization’s website.
DXer said
Forbes:
Hacker In Trouble With Feds After Tweeting About ‘Playing’ With Plane Comms Mid-Flight
“What’s the first rule of flight club? No, it’s not “don’t talk about flight club”. The first rule is: do not tweet about hacking flight systems when using the on-board Wi-Fi. But pro hacker and founder of One World Labs, Chris Roberts, did just that on a trip from Denver to Syracuse yesterday [Wednesday]. His tweet wouldn’t have made much sense to the average Twitter user…
But it made sense to US government officials, who evidently picked up on the references to on-board communications systems (the tweets did not refer to compromising flight control technologies). Rogers said when the flight landed, he was grabbed by FBI agents, questioned for four hours and when Rogers declined to hand over his computing equipment, they seized it all, including an iPad, a MacBook Pro, three hard drives, a flash drive and some USB sticks.”
DXer said
Chris Roberts reports he made it the plane, tweeting:
Chris Roberts @Sidragon1 · 3 hours ago
Ok made it TO plane in Syracuse…now let’s see what happens 🙂 still NO warrant, and no electronics…..
Earlier in the tweet on flight en route here he had tweeted:
https://twitter.com/Sidragon1/status/588433855184375808
“Find myself on a 737/800, lets see Box-IFE-ICE-SATCOM, ? Shall we start playing with EICAS messages? “PASS OXYGEN ON” Anyone ? :)”
DXer said
An incident in Syracuse, NY arrest Wednesday night is being reported in the international news. A computer security expert was reportedly pulled off flight by FBI after he revealed security flaws with airlines’ in-flight entertainment systems in interview.
Chris Roberts of One World Labs grabbed after plane landed in Syracuse, New York. Two FBI agents spent four hours questioning him about cyberhacking. The agents confiscated electronic devices and computer files from Roberts. He flew in to give talk at aerospace conference about plane vulnerabilities. Roberts has been featured on Fox News’ On the Record with Greta Van Susteren. He reportedly is regarded as one of the world’s top experts on counter-threat intelligence.
DXer said
Security expert pulled off flight by FBI after exposing airline tech vulnerabilities
By Malia ZimmermanPublished April 17, 2015
FoxNews.com
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/04/17/security-expert-pulled-off-flight-by-fbi-after-exposing-airline-tech/
“Wednesday night, FBI agents confiscated Roberts’ numerous electronic devices and computer files including his laptop and thumb drives and demanded he give them access to his data. They wanted to forensically image his laptop, but it is a company-owned asset with client information, research and intellectual property, some of which is sensitive in nature and encrypted.
So after consulting with his CEO, Roberts told the agents they would need a warrant, something they still have not presented.
FBI agents disclosed to Roberts that they also had questioned fellow passengers and forensically examined the plane to determine if any areas had been tampered with.
“You have one element in the FBI reaching out to people like me for help, but another element doing a hell of a job burning those bridges,” Roberts said. “Those of us who do threat research are doing it for the right reasons, and we work to build relationships with the intelligence community because we want to help them identify weaknesses before they become a problem.”
Roberts flew from Denver to Chicago to Syracuse at the invitation of a defense contractor to speak an aerospace conference about vulnerabilities in airplane systems, a topic Roberts commented on for Fox News in late March, when he said commercial and even military planes have an Achilles heel that could leave them vulnerable to hackers or terrorists on the ground due to flaws in the entertainment and satellite communications systems.
***
The worst-case scenario is a terrorist with a laptop sitting among passengers and taking control of the airplane using its passenger Wi-Fi, said Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee who requested the investigation. …
Roberts isn’t sure what will happen next. He had to make his presentation to the defense industry Thursday in Syracuse without his electronics. Friday morning, he was scheduled to fly back to Denver, something he hopes he will be allowed to do.”
DXer said
On Wednesday, I was in Liverpool (near Hancock Air Base) having lunch with my graphic artist discussing how his computer had been destroyed. (I’m lucky if I can figure out how to turn on a computer and so I believe I was cleared). Some men in uniform walked by and the graphics person asked whether there was a military base nearby.
It will be fascinating to see if the FBI is able to obtain a warrant. It is far easier in life just to not have any secrets that you don’t mind your mom and the FBI knowing.
DXer said
Prosecution using old news report to paint Sosma detainees in bad light, court told
BY IDA LIM
http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/prosecution-using-old-news-report-to-paint-sosma-detainee-in-bad-light-cour
Tuesday April 14, 2015
05:40 PM GMT+8
UPDATED:
April 14, 2015
Former army captain Yazid Sufaat is also charged under Section 130KA of the Penal Code. — File pic
KUALA LUMPUR, April 14 — The prosecution is attempting to paint two terror suspects on trial here in a bad light by using a three-year-old news report as evidence, the latter’s lead defence lawyer Amer Hamzah Arshad told the court today.
Today was the second day of trial of the first two individuals detained under the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act 2012 (Sosma) — Yazid Sufaat and Muhammad Hilmi Hasim.
Amer Hamzah objected today to the prosecution’s bid to ask local newspaper The Star’s journalist Tarshini Sukumaran to testify as its sixth witness, questioning the relevance of this evidence to the charges against Yazid and Muhammad Hilmi.
“Unless she can give evidence pertaining to the charges, then I don’t see the relevance,” he said.
Prosecutor Nurdeenie Abdul Rashid replied, however, that the objection was “premature”, maintaining that the journalist’s testimony would be relevant.
The judge then allowed Tarshini to proceed with her testimony and the journalist confirmed that she had written a news report in The Star titled “Ex-militant: We send new recruits straight to the frontlines” on October 29, 2012.
She confirmed conducting a phone interview with former Internal Security Act (ISA) detainee Yazid after receiving instructions from her editor.
Throughout her testimony, Amer Hamzah repeatedly raised strong objections, arguing: “I don’t see how this evidence can give any benefit save by casting bad aspersion on the accused. It’s highly prejudicial.
“Look at the article in question, the heading itself is highly prejudicial… It is clear this article clearly shows they are trying to show (the) accused in bad light. Evidence of bad character cannot be allowed,” he insisted, claiming at one point that allowing evidence that “taints” the accused’s character could lead to a “mistrial”.
Both sides finally agreed to submit further arguments on whether Tarshini’s testimony and news report should be admitted as evidence, with High Court judge Datuk Mohd Azman Husin expected to decide on allowing the journalist to continue testifying on her interview with Yazid when trial resumes on May 5.
Former army captain Yazid is accused of knowingly encouraging terrorist acts with the intention to promote an ideological purpose that is intended to threaten the public in Syria, while his cafeteria assistant Muhammad Hilmi was charged with abetting him in doing so.
They were charged under Section 130G(a) of the Penal Code, which covers the offence of inciting and promoting the commission of a terrorist act and carries a maximum 30-year jail term and fine.
Yazid and Hilmi were also charged under Section 130KA of the Penal Code with being members of a terrorist group — Tanzim al-Qaeda Malaysia — with those convicted of this offence liable to a maximum life imprisonment and a fine.
DXer said
Yazid Sufaat’s daughter, always fascinating, posts on her twitter feed a link to a video showing what happens when lithium batteries are exposed to oxygen.
https://twitter.com/Learn_Things/status/577473427654737920
DXer said
Document produced to Judicial Watch under FOIA from Qa’Idah Al-Jihad in the Arabian Peninsula
Click to access 1488-Full-Production.pdf
OPERATION HEMORRHAGE
…
We, in the Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula would like to convey to our nation the glad news and the awaited surprise: We have been enabled by Allah to blowup a UPS cargo plane on the 3rd of September 10, after its takeoff from Dubai Interrnational Airport.
We have succeeed in bringing down the UPS plane but because the enemy’s media did not attribute the operaiton to us we have remained silent so we may repeat the operation. This time we sent two explosive packages, one was sent through UPS, and the other through FedEx.
We would like to ask: Why didn’t the enemy reveal the truth about what happened with the downed UPS plane? Is it because the enemy could not discover why the plane was brought down? Or was it because the Obama administration wanted to conceal the truth so it doesn’t expose the failure of this administration especially that it was during an election season?
Since the two operations have succeeded, it is our plan to disseminate the idea to the mujahidin worldwide and to expand its deployment onto both Civilian aircraft in the West as well as Cargo aircraft.
DXer said
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/07/24/ups-crash-dubai-lithium/2582213/
Crash investigators in the United Arab Emirates traced the fire that destroyed a UPS plane in 2010 to the cargo of lithium batteries, and found that smoke-detection equipment took too long to alert the crew, according to a report released Wednesday.
That country’s General Civil Aviation Authority found that heat from the fire disabled the crew’s oxygen system and that toxic smoke filled the cockpit within three minutes of the first alarm, obscuring the view of controls and terrain.
Both crewmembers were killed when the 747-44AF crashed Sept. 3, 2010, near Dubai.
The authority recommended in its 322-page report that the Federal Aviation Administration and its European counterpart develop better firefighting standards and equipment for cargo planes, with visual warnings about where a fire is located.
The crash highlighted the risks of lithium batteries, which are being investigated in more recent incidents. The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board held a two-day meeting in April to learn more about the batteries that are embraced for being smaller and recharging faster than other batteries, but that carry the risk of overheating.
DXer said
According to Bob Roth’s civil deposition in Hatfill v. United States, in the Fall of 2001, Agent Roth and his colleagues on the Amerithrax Task Force cut off Cathleen Corkin, the counterterrorism prosecutor getting briefing on the Fall 2001 anthrax mailings. SHe thought she wasn’t sharing and conducting a parallel investigation — and so they cut her off.
She went on to prosecute Richard Reid and the underwear bomber. In documents produced this week to Judicial Watch concerning Anwar Awlaki, a lengthy operation called Operation Hemmorhage, claiming to have blown up a UPS plane in 2010 without claiming responsibility, leads off with discussing Richard Reid and the underwear bomber.
The purpose in not claiming responsibility was to be able to do it again.
The article explains the code of the addresses used:
“In order to revive and bring back this history we listed the names of Reynald Krak and Diego Diaz as the recipients of the packages. We got the former name from Reynald de Chatillon, the lord of Krak des Chevaliers who was one of the worst and most treacherous of the Cruader’s leaders.”
…
The name we used for the second package was derived from that of Don Diego Deza, the Inquisitor General of the Spanish Inquisition after the fall of Granada who along with the Spanish monarchy supervised the extermination and expulsion of the Muslim presence on the Iberian Peninsula …”
“Today we are facing a coalition of Crusaders and Zionissts and we in al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula will never forget Palestine.”
…
We were very optimistic about the outcome of this operation. That is why we dropped into one of the boxes a novel titled, Great Expectations.
Click to access 1488-Full-Production.pdf
DXer said
I find Awlaki’s cargo planes bomb plot fascinating. I hope the Fox News’ Terror Pixie Catherine Herridge remembers who brought her to the party. It’s one thing to go after documents about Awlaki that haven’t previously been disclosed (and kudos to her and Judicial Watch for obtaining the documents under FOIA). But it would be quite another to jump to the conclusion that the drone attack was wrong because some FBI Agent was arranging an interview with him and had email exchanges and traded telephone messages. That’s the FBI’s and AUSA’s job — to find out stuff. So in being in contact with Awlaki, they were doing their job. That someone is on a first name basis with a bad guy doesn’t necessarily mean the President shouldn’t drop a missile on the bad guy’s head. (Such policy issues are beyond the scope of Lew’s blog). Not having a missile in their pocket or up their sleeve, some people have to use charm and good manners.
What do you think the inside joke/ code was in connection with putting the novel “The Mill on the Floss” in the next dry run? (I have no idea and haven’t yet looked to see what it is about or what the words in the title mean. AQ explained the reason for putting in the novel “Great Expectations” in the earlier flight.
Kudos to Saudi intelligence for thwarting the plot involving the mailed bombs addressed to Chicago — intended to blow up in mid-air.
Check out the Wikipedia entry. Interesting subject — and it’s all new to me. My focus has always been on Awlaki in July and August 2001 when he was speaking abroad in Canada and the UK with Ali Al-Timimi and others.
http://www.amerithraxwordpress.com
DXer said
Cargo planes bomb plot
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_planes_bomb_plot
In mid-September 2010, U.S. intelligence intercepted three packages linked to AQAP that had been shipped from Yemen to Chicago.[21][41][60] They searched the packages, but did not find any explosives.[41] One of the packages included the 1860 novel The Mill on the Floss, by English novelist George Eliot, a woman who wrote under an assumed identity.[60] The packages, addressed to “random addresses” in Chicago, were not confiscated.[41]
Authorities surmised, after the October incident, that the September parcels may have been a test run.[41] The September packages may have been used as a way to test the accuracy of tracking information available online form carriers such as UPS,[29] information that could potentially be used to time the detonation of the October bombs.[41] Richard Clarke, former chief counter-terrorism adviser on the U.S. National Security Council, said: “The dry run is always important to Al-Qaeda. In this case they wanted to follow the packages using the tracking system.”[61]
***
The Guardian reported that unnamed U.S. counter-terrorism officials suspected that Anwar al-Awlaki of AQAP was behind the plot. “Anybody associated with al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is a subject of concern,” Brennan said.[69] The New York Times reported that “some analysts believe the [attempted Chicago bombing] may also be linked to Mr. Awlaki”.[70] The Daily Telegraph reported that “U.S. and British security officials believe” al-Awlaki was behind the attack.[71] U.S. Ambassador to Yemen Gerald Feierstein said “al-Awlaki was behind the two … bombs.”[72]
**
Al-Awlaki
On November 2, four days after the bombs were discovered, al-Awlaki was charged in absentia in Sana’a with plotting to kill foreigners and being an al-Qaeda member in an unrelated matter.[88] On November 6, Yemeni Judge Mohsen Alwan ordered that al-Awlaki be caught dead or alive.[89]
DXer said
So Awlaki’s code in the first mailing of two bombs was “Great Expectations” because the plotters had great expectations — which fortunately were thwarted (again, kudos apparently go to Saudi intelligence).
The title dropped in the dry run of the next operation was “The Mill on the Floss”, a classic 1860 novel. The title refers to an abandoned mill on a river.
The address to which the particulate mixer was delivered was very near the Hudson River.
https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=jv-US&gbv=2&ie=UTF-8&fb=1&gl=us&q=244+Main+St,+Fort+Lee,+NJ+07024&ei=muwtVP7EK9GtyATx5oHwCw&ved=0CBIQ8gEoADAA
Which raises, in my mind, who does Syed Athar Abbas think was responsible for the Fall 2001 anthrax mailings?
Atta Made the 911 Reservation With Nawaf Al-Hazmi At Yuricom; If No Cars Were Passing And He Had Been There A Month Or Two Earlier, He Could Have Seen The Particulate Mixer Being Delivered By The Delivery Truck
Posted on January 27, 2012
Did AUSA Rachel Lieber And Investigator Edward Montooth Know That In Late August 2001 When Atta Booked The 911 Flight, He Was 88 Yards From Where The Particulate Mixer Had Been Delivered?
Posted by Lew Weinstein on January 27, 2012
In Late August 2001, Atta Went With Jdey’s Associate Nawaf Al-Hazmi From The Fort Lee, NJ Main Street Location That The Particulate Mixer Had Been Delivered To Laurel, MD Where The FBI Later Has Atta On Film At KINKOS Copying; 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
Posted by Lew Weinstein on January 25, 2012
p.s. Someone who looks at the $300 that Awlaki regularly paid prostitutes might conclude that things are not always what they seem.
DXer said
In connection with Awlaki’s mail bomb plot, authorities warned that terrorists hoped to mail chemical and biological materials as part of an attack. Authorities wondered whether “The Mill on the Floss” was a subtle calling card from Anwar Awlaki. FN 1/
Cathleen Corkin, I wrote a lengthy memo to the CIA in December 2001. I would hate to think you didn’t see it before Amerithrax’ Bob Roth shut you out.
You needed that memo — not Bob Roth’s anthrax smelling bloodhounds or Daniel Seikaly’s sensational leaked stories about Tinkerbelle.
You definitely didn’t need Rachel’s stuffing 52 rabbits down a hat.
It’s never too late to be right — until it is.
http://www.amerithraxwordpress.com
FN 1/
By MATT APUZZO and EILEEN SULLIVAN
The Associated Press
Wednesday, November 3, 2010; 12:09 AM
WASHINGTON — Even after a suspected test run in September, last week’s attempted mail bombings from Yemen were a shot in the dark for al-Qaida, which could not have known exactly where its packages were when they were set to explode, U.S. officials said Tuesday.
When investigators pulled the Chicago-bound packages off cargo planes in England and the United Arab Emirates Friday, they found the bombs wired to cell phones. The communication cards had been removed and the phones could not receive calls, officials said, making it likely the terrorists intended the alarm or timer functions to detonate the bombs.
“The cell phone probably would have been triggered by the alarm functions and it would have exploded mid-air,” said a U.S. official briefed on the investigation, who like other officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the case.
The official also said Tuesday that each bomb was attached to a syringe containing lead azide, a chemical initiator that would have detonated PETN explosives packed into each printer cartridge. Both PETN and a syringe were used in the failed bombing last Christmas of a Detroit-bound airliner.
Officials on three continents thwarted last week’s mail bomb plot, the culmination of more than a month of intelligence-gathering, officials said. The Obama administration, which has been monitoring intelligence on possible mail plots since at least early September, was preparing new security rules for international cargo in response to the attempted attack.
Investigators believe al-Qaida mailed three innocent-looking packages from Yemen to Chicago in mid-September to watch the route they took.
One of those packages contained a copy of British author George Eliot’s 1860 novel “The Mill on the Floss.” Authorities were investigating whether it was a subtle calling card from Anwar al-Awlaki, the U.S.-born Yemeni cleric who has inspired a string of attempted attacks against the West.
The militant cleric is now a fugitive, targeted by a U.S. kill or capture list. Yemeni authorities put him on trial in absentia Tuesday, charging him as a new defendant in the October killing of a French security guard.
Al-Awlaki became well versed in English literature while in prison in Yemen from 2006 to 2007 and later posted online book reviews slamming Shakespeare and praising Charles Dickens. Beyond that, however, there was no immediate connection between al-Awlaki and the book found in the package mailed in September, one U.S. official said.
**
The bombs were not designed to detonate upon opening the packages, a U.S. official said.
U.S. intelligence officials warned in September that terrorists hoped to mail chemical and biological materials as part of an attack on America and other Western countries using the mail. The alert came in a Sept. 23 bulletin from the Homeland Security Department and obtained by The Associated Press.
DXer said
Awlaki apparently read the book while in prison in Yemen in 2007.
The CIA hasn’t come close to telling the public what it knows about Awlaki. The 900 heavily redacted pages is drivel in comparison to what the CIA knows.
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/millonthefloss/themes.html
Themes, Motifs, and Symbols
Themes
The Claim of the Past Upon Present Identity
Both characters and places in The Mill on the Floss are presented as the current products of multi-generational gestation. The very architecture of St. Ogg’s bears its hundreds of years of history within it. Similarly, Maggie and Tom are the hereditary products of two competing family lines—the Tullivers and the Dodsons—that have long histories and tendencies. In the novel, the past holds a cumulative presence and has a determining effect upon characters who are open to its influence. The first, carefully sketched out book about Maggie and Tom’s childhood becomes the past of the rest of the novel. Maggie holds the memory of her childhood sacred and her connection to that time comes to affects her future behavior. Here, the past is not something to be escaped nor is it something that will rise again to threaten, but it is instead an inherent part of Maggie’s (and her father’s) character, making fidelity to it a necessity. Book First clearly demonstrates the painfulness of life without a past—the depths of Maggie’s childhood emotions are nearly unbearable to her because she has no past of conquered troubles to look back upon with which to put her present situation in perspective. Stephen is held up as an example of the dangers of neglecting the past. Dr. Kenn, a sort of moral yardstick within the novel, complains of this neglect of the past of which Stephen is a part and Maggie has worked against: “At present everything seems tending toward the relaxation of ties—toward the substitution of wayward choice for the adherence to obligation which has its roots in the past.” Thus, without a recognition of the past with which to form one’s character, one is left only to the whims of the moment and subject to emotional extremes and
DXer said
Of course, I don’t need moral lessons from someone who regularly frequented prostitutes and murdered innocents.
DXer said
In terms of whether Anwar Aulaqi read the book “Mill on the Floss” in prison, perhaps prison records would show whether it was one of the english novels his family provided him or that he ordered. Perhaps they pulled his fingerprints from “Mill on the Floss.” He did review English novels. He especially liked Dickens. But he didn’t read novels outside of prison. He had read “Great Expectations” included in the first bomb.
Aulaqi’s active bombing plots would explain why they targeted him by a drone — to include the apparently successful bombing of the one UPS plane (a 747-400 cargo plane, I believe). His group published that they were going to move on to passenger planes.
http://sayfullaah.blogspot.com/2011/10/sheikh-anwar-al-awlaki-book-reviews.html
June-9-2008 (From Shaykh Anwar’s Blog )
Assalamu alaykum all,
In this set of short blogs I will review the books that I had a chance to read while I was in jail. Here is the first:
This was during my first two months in the Political Security Jail. This was a time when I was allowed no visitors, no contact with family, and no contact with other prisoners. In fact I wasn’t even allowed to speak to the prison guards except in whispers and only for urgent needs. This was a time of complete isolation from the outside world.
I was in an underground solitary cell made up of four concrete walls with an iron gate on one side and on the opposite side a small window -rather a hole- covered with iron mesh to allow for some fresh air to come in. I couldn’t see much from it because it was about four meters high. Then there was the roof with a bulb hanging from it which was on continuously day and night. Then the floor with a mattress 2-3 inches thick, a blanket, a worn off pillow, a plastic plate, a bottle for water, and an empty bottle “just in case”.
****
During that blessed period of over two months … I was free of any distractions except for the interrogation worries
***
Book Review 3: In the Shade of the Quran by Sayyid Qutb
***
Book Review 5 …
A few days after sending for the book, I received it. And as soon as I received it, I started reading it. But then the light bulb in my cell burned out. This meant that I was in almost complete darkness at night, except for a glimpse of light that would come in from the corridor. I was also in almost total darkness during the day, except for some light that comes in from a small window close to the roof. It was impossible for me to see the print day or night. I informed the wardens about it but nothing happened that evening. I didn’t mind staying in the dark because I had been in artificial light continuously for a few months at that point so it was a nice break to experience darkness again. We forget that everything is a blessing, even darkness.
I wanted to read the book and I was very eager to do so. I asked the wardens again and they said that the process includes informing their supervisor who will then write a report that will be submitted to the head of the prison and he who will send a request to the electrician, who will apply for the lamp from the prison storage. It was going to be a while. What was I to do?
There was one warden who was polite towards me that offered to open the window on the iron door. This small window is used by wardens to pass small items to prisoners without opening the door. They also use it to peek in and see what the prisoners are doing. By leaving it open, a ray of light would come from the lamp in the corridor directly onto the floor about half a meter from the door. It was an inconvenient location, being very close to the door, but because I was so eager to go through the book I placed it under this ray of light and read that way for about 2 or 3 days until the light bulb was replaced.
For a period of about 4 to 5 days I was totally immersed in the Afterlife. Looking through the lens of the Hereafter puts everything in this world in the right perspective. We need to think about death and what will happen after death constantly. Rasulullah said: “Frequently remember the destroyer of enjoyment (i.e., death).” We ask Allah to wake us up from the state of unawareness we are in!
***
Book Review 9: English Novels
(From Shaykh Anwar’s Blog ) August-1-2008
There was a particularly mean Prison Head who decided to ban me from having any Islamic books. I then asked if I would be allowed to have English novels. He agreed. I have never been fond of novels. Most of my reading has been in Arabic. When I have read English, it has been Non-fiction, mostly related to current affairs. But, because any book that I ordered would have to be subjected to review by the prison administration, I was worried that if I ordered any current affairs books, that they would be banned. And that might lead to a temporary, or even permanent, ban preventing me from having any English books after that.
Before going to jail, I had received one book that I was eager to read: Michael Scheuer’s Imperial Hubris, but this would be too much for them to allow. I did read it after my release and I strongly recommend it. So, I asked my family to bring me Moby Dick by Herman Melville. This book was given to me as a gift by a friend of my father in the US when I was a child. I was very young at the time and it would have made no sense for me to read such a book. This book had stayed on my shelf for over 20 years because it was written in destiny that I would read it in jail. Now, I cannot say that it was a good novel; but in jail, anything is good. Even local government newspapers, which I would never contemplate wasting my time with, made interesting reading.
Following Moby Dick, I asked for more books without specifying which ones, so my parents brought me whatever was lying around in the house. This time it was King Lear by Shakespeare and Hard Times by Charles Dickens. Shakespeare was the worst thing I read during my entire stay in prison. I never liked him to start with. Probably the only reason he became so famous is because he was English and had the backing and promotion of the speakers of a global language. On the other hand, I read Hard Times thrice. So, I ordered more Charles Dickens and read Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, and his masterpiece: David Copperfield. I read this one twice.
What fascinated me with these novels were the amazing characters Dickens created and the similarity of some of them to some people today. That made them very interesting. For example: the thick and boastful Mr. Josiah Bounderby of Coketown was similar to George W. Bush; Lucy’s father, Mr. Gradgrind, was similar to some Muslim parents who are programmed to think that only Medicine and Engineering are worthy professions for their children; the amazing cruelness of Stephen Blackpool was similar to some people who appear on the surface to be decent and kind human beings; and Uriah Heep was similar to some pitiful Muslims today.
Another novel was Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge, which was an interesting imagination of the twists of destiny and the tragic ending for the evil and the favorable ending for the righteous.
Now, I want to stress that I do not encourage any serious Muslim brother or sister to waste time with novels. If it wasn’t for the fact that I was prevented from anything else, I wouldn’t have read them. And, I read them because apparently a person can begin forgetting his language, even if it is his mother tongue, if he does not use it for long time. There is even a joke that a man emigrated from an Arab country to America and did not learn English and ended up forgetting Arabic. Being in solitary confinement and not speaking English for a long time I needed refreshment.
So, there is some benefit in reading novels for those in the fields of public speaking and writing. And, once in while, there is a novel that is worth reading because of a pointed message that it tries to convey; such as the message in Animal Farm about communism, and the relevance of 1984 regarding how the West is treating Muslims today. But, for he who has the choice, there are better alternatives. There is so much out there to read. One should not spend the valuable time Allah has blessed them with on anything except that which will draw one closer to Allah.”
The Al Hayat letter bombs involved lethal letters sent to newspapers in NYC and DC and symbolic targets relating to the WTC 1993 plotters. Were the Al Hayat letter bombs the model for the Amerithrax letters? Were the same people responsible?
Posted by Lew Weinstein on November 25, 2010
DXer said
Has Halimah been captured? Alternatively, has she secretly been detained and is she cooperating? Trained as an attorney, she was Chomel’s religious instructor. (Chomel, a Sacramento State alum, is Yazid Sufaat’s wife).
DXer said
Court orders duo to stand trial for promoting terrorism in Syria
http://news.malaysia.msn.com/tmi/court-orders-duo-to-stand-trial-for-promoting-terrorism-in-syria
Both had applied to the High Court to strike out the charges against them before their trial began.
The High Court allowed their application and freed them. On appeal by the prosecution, the Court of Appeal overturned the High Court ruling.
The Federal Court today upheld the decision by the appellate court.
Lead counsel Amer Hamzah Arshad told The Malaysian Insider he would apply for an early hearing date as the duo have been languishing in prison since last year for a non-bailable offence of “promoting terrorist activities in Syria.”
Earlier, Amer submitted to the court that the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act 2012 (Sosma) procedures could not be applied to Yazid and Hilmi because their alleged terrorist acts did not pose a threat to the federation.
…
“The defence can raise the use of procedures under Sosma at any stage of the trial,” [Chief Justice] Arifin said.
…
Yazid was previously detained in 2001 for seven years under the now repealed ISA on suspicion of being involved with the Jemaah Islamiyah militant group.
DXer said
Malaysian police round up suspected terrorists; unrelated to MH 370, police say
By Ben Brumfield, CNN
updated 5:06 AM EDT, Sun May 4, 2014
http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/04/world/asia/malaysia-terror-arrests/
(CNN) — Police in Malaysia are holding 11 people on suspicion of involvement in a militant group responsible for planning acts of terror, police spokesman Datin Asmawati said Sunday.
There is no indication that the group, arrested last week, has any connection to the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, she said.
The detainees are also suspected of having links to terrorists in other countries. Police plan to detain other suspects as a preemptive measure, Asmawati said.
The arrests were made in the city of Selangor, just outside the capital Kuala Lumpur, and in the state of Kedah, which borders on Thailand.
The neighboring country has closed and closely monitored the border with that region of Malaysia in a crackdown on terrorism, according to the CIA World Factbook.
The violence in Thailand stems from ethnic Malay Muslim separatists. This year, they began targeting Thai Buddhist woman, killing them and mutilating their bodies, Human Rights Watch has reported.
DXer said
Missing Malaysia Airlines plane: 11 terrorists with links to Al Qaeda being questioned over vanished jet
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/missing-malaysia-airlines-plane-11-3493814#ixzz30jorzu32
DailyMirror
The suspects are said to be members of a violent new terror group said to be planning bomb attacks in Muslim countries
A group of 11 terrorists with links to Al Qaeda were last night being quizzed on whether they are behind the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.
The suspects were arrested in the capital Kuala Lumpur and in the state of Kedah last week and are said to be members of a violent new terror group said to be planning bomb attacks in Muslim countries.
In a dramatic development, investigators, including the FBI and MI6, asked for the militants, who are aged from 22 to 55, to be interrogated.
They include students, odd-job workers, a young widow and business professionals, to be questioned intensively about Flight MH370.
The Beijing-bound plane vanished nearly two months ago soon after take-off from Kuala Lumpur and no trace has been found despite a huge sea search costing hundreds of millions of pounds. It is thought to have crashed into the Indian Ocean with 239 people on board.
An officer with the Counter Terrorism Division of Malaysian Special Branch said yesterday the arrests had heightened suspicion that the flight’s disappearance may have been an act of terrorism.
‘The possibility that the plane was diverted by militants is still high on the list and international investigators have asked for a comprehensive report on this new terror group,’ the officer said.
In interviews conducted so far, some suspects have admitted planning ‘sustained terror campaigns’ in Malaysia but denied being involved in the disappearance of the airliner, he added.
DXer said
MALAYSIA
IGP: 11 terror suspects not linked to MH370
MAY 4, 2014E
Inspector General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar denied claims that the 11 suspected terrorists nabbed here and in Kedah had links to the mysterious disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. — Picture by K.E. Ooi
Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar reportedly confirmed this to English daily The Star today.
“That’s rubbish! This has nothing to do with the plane,” the police chief was quoted saying in The Star Online.
According to reports in UK’s Daily Mirror and the New York-basedInternational Business Times (IBTimes) today, foreign investigators involved in the probe on MH370 had requested for a full report on the 11 Malaysians, believing they may have been involved in the plane’s disappearance.
IBTimes quoted an unnamed officer from the counter-terrorism division of Malaysia’s Special Branch as having revealed that the 11 were interrogated yesterday over MH370’s mysterious disappearance nearly two months ago.
“The possibility that the plane was diverted by militants is still high on the list and international investigators have asked for a comprehensive report on this new terror group,” the officer was quoted as saying.
The IBTimes news report also said it is believed the 11 who were arrested at several locations within the city here and in Kedah over the past week may be members of a new terror group that has been planning bomb attacks in Muslim countries.
The 11 are aged between 22 and 55 and includes Saiden Ismail from student activist group Solidariti Anak Muda Malaysia (SAMM).
The group was hauled up by Malaysian police under the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act 2012 (SOSMA) for their alleged involvement in a plan to fight in Syria’s civil war.
Malaysian authorities also believe the 11 may be linked to Yazid Sufaat, who was previously detained under counter-terrorism laws for trying to incite terror outside the country.
Yazid was arrested last year for openly calling on volunteers to join Sunni rebels in the armed fight against the forces of Syria’s Shiah president Bashir al-Asad.
The Beijing-bound Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 took off from the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) at 12.41am on March 8 and disappeared barely an hour later when it lost contact with the Subang Air Traffic Control (ATC).
At the time, the plane’s last known location was 120 nautical miles off the coast of Kota Baru in Kelantan.
But a week after the aircraft’s mysterious disappearance, Malaysia announced that the Boeing 777 jetliner had diverted from its path to Beijing through deliberate action and that it was focusing investigations on the 12 crew and 227 passengers on board.
The announcement suggested the possibility of pilot suicide or a terrorist attempt by a person or persons aboard the wide-body jet. But no leads have been found yet to prove this.
Investigators, which include a massive team of experts from around the world, have so far concluded that the aircraft carrying 239 people had “ended” in the Indian Ocean, based on satellite and radar data.
– See more at: http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/igp-11-terror-suspects-not-linked-to-mh370#sthash.PtAOhAyP.dpuf
DXer said
This article that mentions both Obama and Yazid Sufaat, has the speaker questioning whether the recent arrests were just to show the visiting Obama that Malaysia is able to deal with the issue of terrorism. He speaker suggests that the same was done when President Johnson visited in 1966.
Tahan 9 individu untuk tunjuk kepada Obama?
ANIS NAZRI | 29 April 2014.
http://bm.harakahdaily.net/index.php/berita-utama/27490-tahan-9-individu-untuk-tunjuk-kepada-obama
DXer said
The recently wannabe airplane bomber who escorted anthrax planner Zawahiri and Atef on a tour of Indonesia in June 2000 has disappeared. (When Yazid Sufaat was released in December 2008, he reportedly went to Pakistan). This fellow Agus was arrested boarding a plane with C-4 plastic explosives and bomb parts in his possession. He was released in January of this year.
He returned in early January and spent a few days at his home in Makassar, but his whereabouts have since been unknown, Indonesian officials say.
Indonesian with alleged JI and al-Qaeda ties, vanishes
Agus Dwikarna was a Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) operative who according to the UN, guided al-Qaeda’s Ayman al-Zawahiri on a trip to Aceh.
By Aditya Surya for Khabar Southeast Asia in Makassar, South Sulawesi
April 24, 2014
This alleged Al-Qaeda-linked terrorist from Sulawesi disappeared days after coming home from the Philippines, where he had been imprisoned since 2002 on charges of possessing illegal explosives.
…
Agus was serving a 17-year sentence when the Philippines deported him to Indonesia. He arrived in Makassar on January 1st, according to Tribunnews.
A Filipino court convicted Agus 12 years ago for trying to board a flight to Bangkok from Manila with C-4 plastic explosives and bomb parts in his possession.
***
Though Agus denied those charges, he had an extensive history of involvement in terrorist-related activities, according to the UN. In September 2003, the UN’s Security Council Committee listed him among people with alleged ties to the al-Qaeda network and direct involvement with the terror group’s most senior leaders.
“Agus was a Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) member and facilitator for al-Qaeda in Indonesia,” according to the committee’s online profile of him.
Until his 2002 arrest in Manila, Agus was “a major figure” of Laskar Jundullah in Makassar, military wing of the Indonesian Mujahedeen Council (MMI), the UN said. He also worked as a regional head of the Indonesian branch of the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, which funnelled al-Qaeda money into Southeast Asia and gave its operatives cover as charity workers, the UN said.
Also according to the UN, apart from running a Sulawesi training camp, Agus escorted two of al-Qaeda’s top leaders on a tour of Aceh Province: Ayman al-Zawahiri, now the terrorist group’s top leader, and Mohammed Atef, head of al-Qaeda’s military wing, who has since been slain. According to the UN, the two al-Qaeda leaders visited Aceh in June 2002, but other sources date their trip to June 2000.
DXer said
Where is Agus Dwi Karna (Dwikana or Dwirkana)?
Excerpts from news reports from 2002:
“Tamsil Linrung, Agus Dwi Karna and Abdul Jabal were arrested on March 14 at
Manila’s international airport for alleged possession of explosives as they
arrived on a flight from Bangkok for what they claimed was a business
meeting.
Authorities said they found materials for explosives and other “sophisticated
gadgets” in luggage and called Karna “the prime suspect” in five nearly
simultaneous bombs that rocked Manila on December 30, 2000, killing 22 people
and injuring more than 120.
Colonel Jaime Caringal, of the Philippine National Police, says Karna is a
“confirmed member” of the Jemaah Islamiyah, a cell with suspected links to
the al-Qaeda terror network.”
—
“Intelligence officials in Manila said that the three had met with associates
of another Indonesian suspect, Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi, who was arrested in
January, and has since admitted to plotting a string of deadly bomb attacks
in Manila in 2000.
Al-Ghozi is an explosives expert with the Jemaah Islamiyah Islamic movement,
which officials say is the Southeast Asian wing of the Saudi militant Osama
bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network.”
DXer said
Another Malaysia Airline emergency prompts consideration of possible sabotage:
http://www.nst.com.my/latest/font-color-red-mh192-font-police-to-look-into-elements-of-sabotage-1.574526
MH192: Police to look into elements of sabotage
By KOI KYE LEE | kklee@nst.com.my
PUTRAJAYA: Investigations would be carried out to see if there were elements of sabotage on Malaysia Airlines Flight MH192.
Inspector General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar said the investigation would be made as the plane had made an air turn back early this morning.
He was responding to Acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein’s call for the police to conduct an investigation.
MH192 was en route to Bangalore from Kuala Lumpur when the tyre burst and right hand landing gear malfunctioned.
The 166 passengers including crew members were unharmed as the plane had landed safety at approximately 1.56am.
DXer said
Congratulations to the pilot and crew — I presume there is video of the landing.
Malaysian Airlines flight: Passengers recount mid air scare
Monday, 21 April 2014 – 9:03pm IST | Agency: PTI
Actually soon after the take-off itself we heard a sound.
It was like a tyre burst type. Then it was like fully shaking.
Immediately after the take-off the pilot announced that the plane is returning to Kuala Lampur due to techinal snag,” Shetty said.
“We were four hours in the air. The pilot made two attempts to land the aircraft, but he did so on third attempt,” she said.
She, however, had words of appreciation for the crew, especially the pilot. “The crew was very good. Even the pilot was often talking to us,” she said.
Another woman passenger said after being in the air for four hours, the plane finally landed because they wanted to finish off the fuel which was there in the flight. “Landing – we were scared but was fine. We were all praying too,” she said.
DXer said
http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/tech_ops/read.main/66269/
“The leading cause for tire bursts under normal operations (apart from FOD obviously…) is underinflation of the tire. Underinflation causes excessive flex in the tire when the aircraft is rolling (i.e. a specific point on the aircraft tire is constantly “loaded and flexed” and “unloaded and unflexed” while the aircraft is rolling). This is similar to metal fatigue and causes a weakening of the tire. To further aggravate the problem, the constant flexing of the tire generates a significant amount of heat, which cannot be neglected and contributes to the degradation of the tire.
It should be noted that tire retread seperations are more frequent than actual tire bursts. Aircraft tires are certified to be retreaded a fixed number of times (around 12 ) once the tread is worn to limits. Tire retreads fail exactly as described above (flexing generating fatigue and heat which degrades the retread) apart from the fact that the tire carcass remains intact. Tire retread seperation mostly happen on takeoff when the centrifugal force (generated by the speed at which the aircraft is travelling) are important enough to provoke the failure of the already weakened retread.”
DXer said
There’s still been no public explanation why Malaysia Airlines descended
“The aircraft then climbed to 39,000 feet, just short of the Boeing 777-200ER’s 41,000-foot safe operating limit, and maintained that altitude for about 20 minutes over the Malaysian Peninsula before beginning to descend, the source said.”
Source: Malaysia Airlines jet soared high briefly, then descended
By Tom Watkins and Faith Karimi, CNN
updated 12:03 AM EDT, Sat April 19, 2014
http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/18/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-plane/
DXer said
Missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370: Co-pilot call claims denied
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/missing-malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-copilot-call-claims-denied-9256304.html
The Malaysian government has denied claims that the co-pilot of the missing flight MH370 tried to make a call just before it disappeared.
The New Straits Times quoted unnamed sources saying investigators traced a call from the Malaysia Airlines plane to Fariq Abdul Hamid’s phone.
Hishammuddin Hussein, Malaysia’s acting Transport Minister, denied the claims and said many leads from local and foreign media had been baseless.
“If this did happen, we would have known about it earlier,” he told the paper.
“Unless we can have verifications, we can’t comment on these reports.
DXer said
Call made ‘after MH370 turned’
Published: 12 Apr 2014
KUALA LUMPUR: A call was made from the mobile phone of the co-pilot of Flight MH370 after it made an unscheduled U-turn and shortly before satellite and radar contacts were lost, a local newspaper reported on Saturday.
The New Straits Times quoted unnamed sources saying the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 was flying at an altitude low enough for a telecommunication tower in northern Penang state to pick up a phone signal.
Investigators traced the call – which reportedly ended abruptly – to the phone belonging to the 27-year-old co-pilot of Flight MH370.
The paper said its sources declined to reveal who Fariq Abdul Rahman was trying to call.
“The tower established the call that he was trying to make. On why the call was cut off, it was likely the aircraft was fast moving away from the tower and had not come under the coverage of the next one,” the source was quoted as saying.
Flight MH370 with 239 passengers and crew was bound for Beijing from Kuala Lumpur on March 8 when ground control lost contact with it less than an hour after departure. Its last known location then was above the South China Sea.
Military radar later detected that the plane had turned back towards the Malay Peninsula and headed northward toward the Andaman Sea. Analyses of satellite data later pointed to the plane “ending” in the southern Indian Ocean, where a search continues for thed flight recorder and wreckage.
Investigators concluded that someone on board had deliberately switched off the plane’s communication systems, prompting police to launch a criminal investigation.
A separate source told the New Straits Times that Fariq’s phone was “detached” before the plane took off.
“This is usually the result of the phone being switched off. At one point, however, when the airplane was airborne between the Igari waypoint and the spot near Penang, the line was ‘reattached’,” the source was quoted as saying.
“A ‘reattachment’ does not necessarily mean that a call was made. It can also be the result of the phone being switched on again.”
DXer said
Experts said it was possible for a mobile phone to be connected to a telecommunications tower at an altitude of 7,000 feet.
An NST exclusive on March 16, quoted investigators as saying that the jetliner had dropped to as low as 5,000 feet after it made the turnback at waypoint Igari in the South China Sea before it crossed Peninsular Malaysia headed towards Penang.
Meanwhile, Fariq’s cousin Nursyafiqah Kamarudin, 18, told the NST on Monday that Fariq, who would have turned 28 on April 1, was very close to his mother.
“If Fariq could make one call before the plane disappeared, it would have been to her.”
Police have not cleared the 227 passengers of the flight MH370 of possible foul play. Clearance has also not been given to the crew.
Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar had, on April 2, said they had “obtained some clues” on what might have happened to the flight, based on the statements recorded from 176 people. This number has climbed to 205 as of yesterday.
Khalid had also said the crew were among the main “subjects of the investigations”.
Their probe had been focused on four possible areas — hijack, sabotage, as well as personal and psychological problems.
They are investigating the case under Section 130C of the Penal Code, which deals with hijacking, terrorism and sabotage offences, as well as the Security Offences (Special Measures) and Aviation Offences Acts.
On why these findings were not made known, the sources said, like criminal investigations by any police force, details of an ongoing probe would not be made public.
“Not only are they not obliged to, it also puts the investigation at risk if the findings are revealed,” the sources said.
The team carrying out this probe is separate from the International Investigating Team (IIT), which comprises agencies with expertise in satellite communications and aircraft performance.
While some details from the IIT’s investigations have been released to appease family members’ and the media’s demand for information, police said they were not at liberty to divulge details of the probe for fear that it could jeopardise their investigation.
The FBI has been assisting police, including sharing intelligence and expertise.
***
It was also learnt that while Fariq and chief stewardess Goh Sock Lay, 45, communicated via the WhatsApp messenger application at 11.30pm, pilot Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, made his last contact through the application at 7.45pm, some five hours before flying off.
Read more: Call traced to co-pilot’s phone – General – New Straits Times http://www.nst.com.my/nation/general/call-traced-to-co-pilot-s-phone-1.562612#ixzz2yeqItKyK
DXer said
I believe Yazid Sufaat hid his 4 tons of ammonium nitrate at a palm oil plantation in the District of Muar in Johor. Today authorities announced that the mangosteens on MH 370 only were crated in Muar, but that they originated elsewhere.
Whose plantation in Muar had all the ammonium nitrate buried around the grounds?
0:57AM Apr 11, 2014
MH370 mangosteens not from Muar, clarifies IGP
http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/259711
MH370 The police clarified today that the crates of mangosteens on Flight MH370 did not all come from orchards in Muar but were just packed in the Johor town.
This followed the assertion of the Federal Agricultural Marketing Authority (Fama) that mangosteens were not in season in Johor when MH370 disappeared last month.
“I did not say they were from Muar, just that the suppliers were from Muar and that we will investigate to the extent (of who plucked the fruits).
“They were collated in Muar… before they were sent to KLIA (to be loaded onto MH370),” Inspector-General of Police Khalid Abu Bakar explained at a press conference.
Berita Harian earlier reported that the tropical fruits may have come from Perak, where some orchards are still bearing fruit, despite the mangosteen being off season.
Khalid, who was largely tightlipped on the MH370 investigation, said that his comments on the mangosteens had caused the mangosteen supplier distress.
“The supplier called me to say ‘Please don’t let them know my name’ because the press people are harrassing them.
“You (the press) can run after me but not everybody likes to be run after,” Khalid said.
Flight’s caterers too will not be identified
He said that this is also the reason why he will not reveal the identity of the flight’s caterers, whom police are also probing.
This despite the joint venture between Malaysia Airlines Catering Division and LSG Sky Chefs Brahim Sdn Bhd & LSG SKY CHEFS Brahim Sdn Bhd being public knowlege, with MAS being is a public-listed company.
DXer said
This author explains that in addition to the four tons of explosives that authorities dug up, an additional four tons of explosives was missing and never found. The book on the same page describes a plot targeting U.S. navel vessels doing joint training operations with the Indonesia navy. (Fast forward to 2014, joint operations were underway on March 8).
So a few questions occur to me: First, does Yazid Sufaat know where the missing four tons of explosives was hidden? Second, what was the name of the plantation in Muar where he had hidden his four tons? Finally, in 2014, what is the name of the party that crated the mangosteens in Muar?
Here is a Wiki entry on Muar where Yazid Sufaat had hid the four tons of ammonium nitrate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muar_town
Militant Islam in Southeast Asia: Crucible of Terror
By Zachary Abuza (2003)
“The four tons of ammonium nitrate purchased by Yazid Sufaat were found in March 2003 in southern Malaysia, hidden in a palm-oil planation]. Some explosives that al-Ghozi purchased were never recovered. Upon further investigation of the firm that sold exlosives to Mukhlas and al-Ghozi, an inventory audit revealed that some 3,600 kilograms (four tons) of explosives are missing.”
[ I believe “Mukhlas” is Mukhlis, Hambali’s right-hand man, an explosives expert trained in an anthrax in Afghanistan. ]
The same page discusses planned suicide attack on U.S. naval vessels that were in Surabya in May 2002 for joint training operations with the Indonesia navy. The book notes that they had to fly in Al-Qaida operatives due to a shortage of local operatives.
Here is another story today about the official’s “clarification.”
KUALA LUMPUR, April 11 — The four tonnes of mangosteen stashed as part of Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH370’s cargo were not harvested in Muar, Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar clarified today, after reports pointed out that the Johor township does not even have mangosteen orchards.
Khalid said the local fruit was only packed into crates in Muar before they were transported to the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) and place aboard the missing jetliner.
“I did not say the mangosteens were from Muar. I said that the supplier was from Muar and that we will investigate everything, including the extent of who plucked the fruits,” Khalid told reporters after launching a police function at the Buddhist Maha Vihara here.
Khalid’s response comes after the Federal Agricultural Marketing Authority (FAMA) asserted that mangosteens were not in season in Johor when the Boeing 777-200ER aircraft disappeared last month.
According to FAMA’s Johor branch director Faridul Atrash Md Mokri there were no orchards in the state that had produced the shipment that allegedly made part of the cargo onboard MH370.
– See more at: http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/igp-kills-suspicion-over-mh370-mangosteens-says-fruits-not-from-muar#sthash.y9l6lNmZ.dpuf
DXer said
Here are two additional items on the subject of the explosives once found in Muar:
From Straits Times, Singapore
10 February 2002
Mr Lee spoke in an interview aired on CNN Talk Asia last night.
But he expressed surprise when investigations here revealed a group of
about 20 men already organised into four cells, which were receiving
directions from bomb experts outside the country.
He did not refer to the group – Jemaah Islamiah – by name, but said it
had obtained access to four tonnes of ammonia nitrate kept in Muar,
Malaysia.
It had also been given money to buy 17 more tonnes of the chemical, as
well as seven trucks.
The trucks were each to contain three tonnes of nitrate and to be used
as bombs, creating seven simultaneous explosions.
But the men’s attempts to order the nitrate gave them away and alerted
the Government to the extremist group. …
‘We nabbed, we were able to get 15. The others got away.’
As to whether he was worried that there could be new terrorist
movements in the future, he said the battle against terrorism was an
ongoing one.
‘They know that we’ll be very alert to nitrates and trucks.
Here is a 2003 article about the discovery of the explosives in Muar — I believe this would be the second four tons that had been purchased, much of what was missing.
Malaysia aims to widen terror hunt
Friday, March 21, 2003
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/southeast/03/21/malaysia.terror/
His comments came after Malaysian police confirmed Friday that they had recovered a quantity of ammonium nitrate, which was buried at a palm oil plantation near the town of Muar, about 190 kilometers (120 miles) south of Kuala Lumpur. Several people were arrested in connection with the seizure.
Initial reports said the fertilizer weighed four tonnes. But Norian said the weight was much less, though he declined to give details.
Police think the material was to have been used for JI terrorist attacks against targets in Singapore, including the U.S., U.K., Australian and Israeli diplomatic missions there. …
…
Malaysia’s Malay Mail Website reported on Saturday that former army captain Yazid Sufaat, 37, had bought the ammonium nitrate on Hambali’s orders.
Comment:
So I vote for the FBI being allowed access to Yazid Sufaat without the Malaysian government’s defensiveness that characterized events in 2001.
DXer said
The Wikileaks file for Hambali role in these various plots involving airplanes in Southeast Asia.
http://wikileaks.org/gitmo/prisoner/10019.html
For example, on KSM’s instruction, he looked into the use of a helicopter for attacking the American embassy in Jakarta due to the difficulty of getting cars near the embassy.
Hambali tasked Mohd Farik Bin Amin to case Israeli El-Al flights out of Don Muang airport in Bangkok and to purchase a surface-to-air missile.
He and Mohd Farik Bin Amin received information on surface-to-air missiles.
“They gathered information about the security practices and defensive postures for US air carriers. In February 2000, Mohd Farik Bin Amin briefed UBL and [KSM] on their findings. When Zuhail Abdo Anam Said al-Sharabi and Mohd Farik Bin Amin arrived in Malaysia, they stayed at the detainee’s home.”
In 1999, Zuhail Abdo Anam Said al-Sharabi and several other al-Qaida members were designated as suicide operatives in the attacks, which were originally intended to occur simultaneously with those in the US on 11 September 2001. UBL cancelled the Southeast Asia part of the operation due to the difficulty in synchronizing the attacks.”
[Another operation considered] involved the Caltex oil refinery located in the Malacca Straits. Mohd Farik Bin Amin reported back to detainee that Dr. Azahari stated the operation would be very difficult to conduct. detainee speculated that Dr. Azahari chose to conduct the Bali nightclub bombing versus the original operations against Caltex, Exxon/Mobil, and/or the gold mine.”
“In September 2000, detainee tasked JI operative, Father Rohman al-Ghozi, to acquire between five to seven tons of explosves for use against western and Israeli targets in Singapore.”
…
[And, of course, for good measure] Detainee was involved in the a-Qaida biological weapons program. ****
DXer said
Here is 2003 news report about the ammonium nitrate in Muar referring to the “nagging fear that the fertliizer remained in the wrong hands.”
The exercise is to identify the palm oil plantation in Muar and then separately to identify the party that packed the mangosteens in Muar. I presume they will be different.
The article explains that Yazid Sufaat, although confirming it was somewhere in Muar, could not pinpoint exactly where it was. The exact location was pinpointed upon the arrest of Mohamed Amin Musa, 29.
This report says they found 3 out of the 4 tons.
Found at last: JI’s 4 tonnes of bomb powder
Arrested suspect leads police to ammonium nitrate that was meant for use against Singapore targets
By Brendan Pereira
On Sunday, Malaysian police found three tonnes of the ammonia nitrate in a shed at an oil palm plantation in Muar, Johor. They believe that the remaining amount — possibly up to a tonne – was utitlized as fertilizer at the plantation. The breakthrough followed the arrest of a JI member on March 12 [2003]. The suspect, Mohamed Amin Musa, 29, is a relative of Taufik Abdul Halim, the Malaysian who is serving a life prison sentence in Jakarta for bombing a mall and several churches in Indonesia, and Zulkifli Hir, a senior member of the JI who is still on the run.
The consignment of ammonia nitrate was purchased in 2000 by Yazid Sufaat, a biochemist who has been tagged by US investigators as an Al-Qaeda operative.
The graduate of California State University is also said to have hosted Sept 11 hijackers Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaq Alhazmi, who visited Kuala Lumpur in 2000.
In September of that year, Yazid bought the ammonia nitrate, and it was transported from a shop in Klang to Muar.
The chemicals were to be used by the Singapore chapter of the JI to make truck bombs to attack foreign embassies in the Republic.
Informed sources told The Straits Times that after being detained and interrogated, Yazid provided the police with some leads on the consignment of fertiliser.
He told them that the chemical was still in Muar and that the arrests of JI members on both sides of the Causeway had scuttled plans to use it in a bombing campaign.
However, he could not pinpoint the exact location of the fertiliser. That missing link was provided by Amin, the JI member arrested last week.
Malaysian police have waged a battle against the JI since early 2001.
More than 80 suspected militants have been detained under the Internal Security Act, which allows for detention without trial for two years.
The authorities here believe that the terrorist organisation has about 120 members, most of whom are foot soldiers.
They are still looking for Hambali, the point man for Al-Qaeda operations in the region, and Associate Professor Mohamad Azahari, believed to be an explosives expert for the group.
The JI’s ultimate aim is to set up Islamic states in Malaysia, Indonesia, the southern Philippines and Brunei.
DXer said
After Yazid Sufaat was released unexpectedly in December 2008, he reportedly left the country. (see article below) Is that true?
If so, how did he manage the documents he used for travel?
If he in fact went to Pakistan as reported, did he meet anthrax letters suspect Adnan El-Shukrijumah, who currently is head of Al Qaeda’s External Operations? (El-Shukrijumah at the time, I believe, was in Pakistan).
Pakistan: Security Agencies Looking for Suspected Malaysian Al-Qa’ida Operative
Report by MANSOOR KHAN: “Qaeda suspect present in country: Report”
The Nation
Saturday, February 28, 2009
KARACHI – The secret service agencies who are looking for a suspected Malaysian national Al-Qaeda (Al-Qa’ida) operative believe that he has arrived in Pakistan, The Nation learnt here on Thursday (26 February).
According to the report, one of the masterminds of the 9 /11 and expert of Anthrax, namely Yazid Bin Sufaat who is believed to have close links with Osama Bin Laden and professionally a microbiologist has reached Pakistan.
A letter written by an intelligence agency revealed to this scribe that Yazid Bin Sufaat, an operative of Al-Qaeda had vanished since his release from the custody of Malaysian authorities.
In the letter written by a joint director of a secret agency asserted that Sufaat, who was born on January 20, 1964 at Johor, Malaysia, bears a passport number A-10472263 and Malaysian ID card number 640120-015529, has disappeared after serving a seven-year detention in Malaysia.
It is believed that Sufaat could be in Pakistan, therefore it has also been asserted, “The individual is a concrete and significant security threat and has been at the watch-list of western countries.” It was also pointed out that the said suspect has links with various terrorist groups, head a group name “Jemaah Islamiyah” and has been masterminding the Al-Qaeda’s Anthrax programme.
It has also been asserted that he may also try to conduct a terror attack in Pakistan.
In the letter, authorities have sought information about Sufaat’s whereabouts and directed to freeze his financial assets. The letter stated that it was requested that any information of Yazid including his previous visits to Pakistan must be shared with SRHQ-IB for necessary action. The said agency has dispatched the said letter to the Home Secretary Sindh Arif Ahmed Khan and Inspector General Sindh Police Salahuddin Baber Khattack.
(Description of Source: Islamabad The Nation in English — Conservative daily, part of the Nawa-i-Waqt publishing group. Circulation around 20,000.)
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Nation/2014/04/12/IGP-Mangosteens-came-from-various-orchards/
Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar said the fruits were from various orchards in the country.
Khalid was asked to clarify the origins of the fruits after a report last week from a Malay daily which quoted Johor Federal Agricultural Marketing Authority (Fama) director Faridul Atrash Md Mokri as saying that according to their records, no orchards in the state had produced the shipment that allegedly made part of the cargo on board MH370.
This is not even mangosteen season. The fruits are just in budding stages and they can only be harvested around June,” Faridul Atrash was quoted as saying.
DXer said
Malaysia’s transport minister said FBI and Chinese intelligence officials have been asked to ‘re-intensify’ their investigations
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/missing-malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-everyone-on-board-remains-under-suspicion-9253581.html
Hishammuddin Hussein, Malaysia’s defence minister and acting transport minister, confirmed that the criminal investigation is ongoing, and told Sky News: “Everyone on board remains under suspicion as it stands.”
He said. “As we look into the black box, we look into new facts. It isn’t just MI6 involved in the investigation, it is Chinese intelligence, it’s also the FBI.
“I’ve asked them to re-intensify their investigations, just as we did with the radar data.”
DXer said
He’s been saying the same thing for weeks. Authorities understandably want to proceed full bore until they obtain the black boxes and learn what happened.
MSN Malaysia News
China urged to re-look into passenger manifest
Malaysia Kini-Mar 17, 2014
However, Hishammuddin said the Chinese authorities have been requested earlier today to “re-look and re-intensify” efforts to scrutinise the …
DXer said
The memorandum “Al-Qaeda’s Odyssey to the Global Jihad, by Yoram Schweitzer and Aviv Oreg (March 2014) contains an Appendix, “Selected Global Jihadist Activity against Western Targets in the Decade following September 11, 2001.”
In considering the modus operandi of Al Qaeda and affiliates, it is useful to see the breadth of plots involving planes and ships.
• December 2001: An attempted attack to crash two US passenger planes using suicide bombers with explosives hidden in their shoes was foiled. One of the would-be suicide bombers, Sajid Badat, changed his mind at the last minute, whereas the so-called shoe bomber, Richard Reid, managed to board the plane targeted for attack but failed to carry out the attack because of technical malfunction.
• December 2001: An attack supervised by al-Qaeda, to be carried out in cooperation with the Singapore cell of Jamma’a al-Islamiyah, was foiled. It was to have involved several simultaneous attacks using truck bombs against Western targets in Singapore, including the embassies of the United States, Great Britain, Australia, and Israel.
• December 2001-December 2003: Al-Qaeda’s special ops unit, headed by Khaled Sheikh Muhammad, planned several attacks similar to 9/11. In the United States, it was discovered that the organization was planning such an attack on the West Coast; the organization’s Saudi cell planned to hijack planes in Eastern Europe and crash them into selected targets in Great Britain; using Jamma’a al-Islamiyah operatives, al-Qaeda planned on carrying out a 9/11-style attack in the Far East; an ambitious al-Qaeda plan to carry out an attack similar to the 9/11 outline at the enormous oil terminal in Port Rashid in the UEA was foiled.
***
• Spring 2002: An attempt to carry out suicide attacks against US and British ships sailing through the Straits of Gibraltar was foiled.
• October 2002: An explosives-laden boat was detonated near the French oil tanker Limburg sailing in the Gulf of Aden.
***
• 2002: A plan to carry out an attack on a hotel in the Israeli resort town of Eilat, by crashing a Saudi Air force fighter jet flown by an al-Qaeda suicide RAF pilot into the hotel building, was foiled.
***
***
• Summer 2006: A dramatic plot meant to crash half a dozen to a dozen US and British passenger planes at the same time above the Atlantic Ocean was foiled.
Al-Qaeda affiliates
***
• June 2003: Jamma’a al-Islamiyah planned attacks on an El Al plane and
the ASEAN conference in Bangkok. Both were foiled.
***
• December 2009: An attempt to blow up a US passenger plane in the air by AQAP using Nigerian suicide terrorist Farouk al-Mutaleb, an economics
student in London, was foiled.
***
• August 2010: The Saudi branch of the Abdullah Azzam Brigades carried
out a suicide attack on a Japanese oil tanker sailing in the Strait of Hormuz.
***
• October 2010: The IJU’s plans to attack international airports throughout Germany were foiled.
***
• October 2010: AQAP’s attempt to blow up two US cargo planes, using explosives packed into printer boxes, was foiled. As the story came to light, the organization claimed responsibility for the crash of a third US cargo plane two months earlier in the airspace above the Persian Gulf; up to that point, the crash had been attributed to technical failure.
***
Local Initiatives by Groups and Individuals Inspired by Radical Islamic Ideology, without External Help
• July 2002: An Egyptian carried out a gunfire attack at the check-in counter
of an El Al flight at the Los Angeles airport.
***
• December 2005: A terrorist cell formed in a Zurich mosque planned to fire an RPG rocket at an El Al passenger plane at the Geneva international airport. Swiss security forces foiled the attempt.
***
• January 2006: An attack at JFK airport in New York was foiled.
***
• 2010: A British citizen of Pakistani origin intended to attack Heathrow
airport in London. His plan was foiled.
***
• March 2011: Nadil Olak, a refugee from Kosovo, carried out a gunfire
attack on a US Army bus at the airport in Frankfurt.
DXer said
http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/10/world/malaysia-airlines-plane-questions/
Flight 370: A wealth of info, a welter of questions
By Tom Watkins, CNN
updated 2:35 PM EDT, Thu April 10, 2014
What about the dip in altitude?
The Boeing jetliner disappeared from military radar for about 120 nautical miles after it had crossed back over the Malaysian Peninsula, sources say. This means the plane must have dropped to an altitude of 4,000 to 5,000 feet, a senior Malaysian government official and a source involved in the investigation tell CNN.
DXer said
Commentators have discussed cellphones and GPS without discussing radiotelephony.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiotelephone
Marine radiotelephony first became common in the 1930s, and was used extensively for communications to ships and aircraft over water.
DXer said
Comment: When they dropped altitude, it was rural area with fewer cell towers, making holding a connection much more problematic. For example, the co-pilot initiated a call on his cell phone that seems to have ended abruptly.
According to a report by news agency AFP, the Transport Ministry will issue a response on the latest revelation by the New Straits Times (NST).
The English daily today claimed in an exclusive report that co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid had tried to call someone when the plane was flying low near Penang on March 8.
Read more at:http://english.astroawani.com/news/show/mh370-transport-ministry-to-explore-co-pilots-reported-phone-call-33708?cp
DXer said
In today’s news:
Bomb Hidden in Fruit Crate Kills 20 in Pakistan’s Capital
By Fakhar ur Rehman
The fruit in today’s bomb was guavas. On MH 370, they had two or three tons of mangosteens.
DXer said
Here is a website that shows the traffic of ships in the Indian Ocean.
http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/
What ships, of any type and flag, were in the Indian Ocean on March 8, 2014, especially in the vicinity estimated for the crash?
What US warships were located in the Indian Ocean on March 8, 2014?
The Wayback Machine, which doesn’t save pages daily necessarily, seems to have saved the page for March 7, 2014 but not March 8.
DXer said
Trivia question: Yazid Sufaat hid 4 tons of ammonium nitrate at a plantation. (He said he had meant to buy 40 tons but there had been a typo). What did the plantation grow?
(Given that Hambali was grousing about the expense I’m not sure that Yazid was telling the truth that they meant to buy 40.)
April 3, 2014 – Malaysia Chronicle
WAS A BOMB SMUGGLED ONTO MH370: M’sian cops interview farm workers who handled plane’s fruit cargo
Malaysia’s police chief confirmed today that detectives probing the disappearance of flight MH370 have been to a farm to interview everyone who handled a cargo of mangosteens, an exotic fruit.
Supporting an exclusive report in the Daily Mail last month which raised the question of whether an explosive device could have been planted in the cargo of four tons of mangosteens, Inspector-General Tan Sir Khalid Abu Bakar said the cargo was under investigation.
Revealing that police ‘have clues’ to the disappearance of the aircraft – without saying what they were – he did reveal that one aspect of the widespread investigation involved the purple-coloured fruit, about the size of a tangerine.
Full article: http://www.malaysia-chronicle.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=255981:was-a-bomb-smuggled-onto-mh370-msian-cops-interview-farm-workers-who-handled-planes-fruit-cargo&Itemid=2#ixzz2xrHmPJvU
DXer said
I believe it was a palm oil plantation in the District of Muar in Johor.
DXer said
MH370: Malaysian police probe fruit farmers as investigation widens
Malaysian police investigate mangosteens in the missing plane’s cargo hold as probe expands but fails to find leads
TELEGRAPH By Jonathan Pearlman, Perth
3:08PM BST 03 Apr 2014
.
Malaysian police have expanded an investigation into the missing Malaysia Airlines plane to include ground crew, caterers and the farmers who picked four tons of mangosteens – a tropical fruit – that were in the hold.
Despite failing to find any suspicious evidence about any of the passengers or crew, Khalid Abu Bakar, Malaysia’s police chief, said he was confident the case would be solved. He said police traced the mangosteens – a tangy Asian fruit with leathery skin around juicy white flesh – to an orchard in the city of Muar and examined both the farmers and the Chinese importers.
“Imagine how many people we must interview to rule out sabotage – and that is just for mangosteens,” he said. “We tracked down to who plucked the fruits, who packed and shipped them out, and who put them on the plane.
“Then, we had to see who was to receive them in China and who paid for it, and how much.”
***
Authorities believe “someone on the plane” deliberately disabled the communications and turned the aircraft westward within an hour of taking off From Kuala Lumpur during a flight to Beijing on March 8.
Following criticism of Malaysia’s handling of the probe, Mr Khalid said police were examining all aspects of the flight including the caterers, who were investigated to ensure the food served on the plane was not poisoned.
DXer said
FBI Finishes Probe into Malaysia Airlines Captain’s Flight Simulator
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2014/04/no-clues-to-missing-malaysia-airlines-plane-in-captains-flight-simulator/
“They (FBI analysts) have finished with the simulator. There is nothing suspicious whatsoever about what they found,” a senior U.S. official told ABC News.
“There’s nothing at all (criminal) about the pilot. Right now there is zero evidence of a criminal act by the flight crew,” the official said.
The sources said this creates even more of a need to find the plane and so-called black boxes because the background checks on passengers and crew, at least those done by U.S. officials, have not come up with anything definitive.
DXer said
MH370 passengers “cleared” in four probe areas: Malaysian police
The police have “cleared’ all passengers of a missing Malaysian airliner of hijacking, sabotage and psychological and personal problems, but are still investigating the cabin crew including the pilot and co-pilot, said Inspector-General of Police Khalid Abu Bakar on Wednesday.
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/mh370-passengers-cleared/1056364.html
“I’m sorry, there are things we cannot reveal to you; it is not that I don’t want to reveal them to you, but we cannot do that. Because it’s a criminal investigation, it is ongoing; we have not concluded the whole thing and we are still awaiting reports from experts overseas and internally.
“You must understand that. I think we have been very consistent (about the investigation). Who knows, maybe there will be prosecution later on. So, this will affect the prosecution’s case if we start revealing our findings,” he said.
DXer said
In the movie NON-STOP, a poison dart blow-gun was used through a hole in the lavatory to incapacitate the captain. A year or two ago, I had a poison blow-gun hanging up over my kitchen table — I think I had brought it home years ago from some place in Indonesia (maybe Lombok). But going through customs upon arriving in Hanoi, it was the swords concealed in canes that I noticed while standing behind the fellow watching the X-ray. (It likely was a common tourist item). That was awkward — I had a lot of young nephews and so had bought a lot of concealed swords.
While I have no theory as to what happened to flight MH 370, I do think that terrorism and violence serves no purpose. I think of it as the very least effective form of advocacy in accomplishing goals. I mean, does anyone think of Abu Hamza as an effective advocate for change?
Malaysia tightens flight security in wake of MH370
Published on Mar 31, 2014
http://www.straitstimes.com/the-big-story/missing-mas-plane/story/malaysia-tightens-flight-security-wake-mh370-20140331
KUALA LUMPUR (THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) – Malaysia Airlines (MAS) and Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) have tightened flight security in the air and on the ground in the wake of the Flight MH370 tragedy.
The pilot and a co-pilot are now not allowed to be left alone in the cockpit, even when one of them is taking a toilet break, according to a MAS circular.
Under the new rules, a cabin crew member has to be in the cockpit until the pilot or co-pilot returns from the restroom.
When bringing food to the cockpit, a flight attendant is required to stand guard at the door to make sure no passenger enters the restricted area.
Datuk Capt Missman Leham, MAS chief pilot for flight safety and human factors, issued the circular to all flight deck crews.
On the ground, MAHB has made it mandatory for anyone taking an international flight to pass through two metal-detectors and undergo a body search before they board.
The travellers must now also remove their shoes, belt, jackets and any electronic devices such as cellphones and laptop computers for separate scanning. Bottled drinking water is not allowed to be brought aboard.
The United States, Britain and Australia had asked that security checks on all passengers flying to the countries be increased.
MAHB has also extended such checks to other international flights and has adopted the same prohibited items list applied by the US Transportation Security Administration.
The rules came into effect the week of March 8, the day that Flight MH370 to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur disappeared with 239 passengers and crew aboard.
A MAS spokesman confirmed that the airline has increased security and enhanced monitoring procedures on board all its aircraft.
“However, for security purposes we are unable to discuss any of these procedures publicly.
***
There are already several security and safety procedures for cockpit crew and aircraft, a MAS pilot told The Star.
He said there was a rule that pilot and co-pilot were each served a different set of meal, which was to avoid any likelihood of both coming down with food poisoning at the same time.
“Another measure requires crew members to thoroughly check all compartments in the cockpit, cabin, crew rest areas, galley and toilets for any foreign objects before the passengers board.
“Stewards and stewardesses must also watch out for travellers behaving suspiciously or passengers taking hand luggage into the toilet,” said the pilot who asked not to be identified.
Missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 now classified as a criminal investigation
• APRIL 02, 2014
Police are also investigating the cargo and the food served on the plane to eliminate possible poisoning of passengers and crew, he said.
http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/missing-malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-now-classified-as-a-criminal-investigation/story-fnizu68q-1226871783527
http://www.digitalspy.com/video/v3264826541001/non-stop-preview-clip-whatever-it-takes.html
DXer said
Missing Malaysia Airlines plane: Minister says ‘deliberate’ act responsible
April 2, 2014
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/missing-malaysia-airlines-plane-minister-says-deliberate-act-responsible-20140401-zqph2.html#ixzz2xeSvFZfI
“MH370’s movements were consistent with deliberate action by someone on the plane,” Malaysia’s acting transport minister Hishammuddin Hussein said on Tuesday night.
The comments refute growing speculation that a mechanical failure led to cabin depressurisation that caused the pilots to become unconscious after turning the plane around over the South China Sea.
Mr Hishammuddin said international investigators and Malaysian authorities believe the plane was subjected to deliberate action until the time it left military radar after it had turned back from its route to Beijing and travelled back over peninsula Malaysia to the Straits of Malacca.
DXer said
Live: Malaysia releases full transcript of communications from MH370 by Arun George Apr 1, 2014
5.30 pm: Malaysia govt could sue newspapers over ‘false media’ reports Malaysia’s authoritarian government, said on Tuesday it would compile “false” media reports over the crisis and consider filing lawsuits, reports AFP. Transport and Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said on his Twitter feed the country’s attorney general had been instructed to “compile evidence and advise” on possible legal action. Hishammuddin, who has run the government’s near-daily briefings on the situation, has repeatedly denied various anonymously-sourced reports revealing details of Malaysia’s investigation into the March 8 disappearance of MH370 with 239 people aboard. He took particular aim on Monday against British tabloid the Daily Mail, which at the weekend quoted a “source close to the family” of pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah as saying police had learned he was emotionally unstable before the flight amid alleged marital trouble. 5.16 pm: Malaysia releases full transcript of of communications between the pilots of missing Flight MH370 and air traffic controllers Malaysia releases full transcript of of communications of communications between the pilots of missing Flight MH370 and air traffic controllers, from preparations for takeoff to the last exchange of words in-flight on March 8, reports AFP.
Read more at: http://www.firstpost.com/world/live-search-for-mh370-could-drag-on-says-australia-1424627.html?utm_source=ref_article
DXer said
http://www.courthousenews.com/2014/03/31/66621.htm
MANHATTAN (CN) – After testifying via video against an al-Qaida propagandist this month, a would-be shoe bomber must explain why he should not appear in person the next time around, a federal judge ruled Monday.
In early March, convicted terrorist Saajid Badat appeared via closed circuit TV in Manhattan to tell a federal jury about his complicity with “Shoe Bomber” Richard Read during the trial of Sulaiman Abu Ghaith.
We were supposed to bring down flights,” the U.K.-based Badat testified , helping to seal Abu Ghaith’s fate on charges carrying a potential life sentence.
Now, a different set of U.S. prosecutors want to call Badat to help convict Mustafa Kamel Mustafa aka Abu Hamza al-Masri.
The radical Islamic cleric is charged with conspiring to kidnap 16 tourists in Yemen, create al-Qaida training camps in Bly, Ore., and aide the terrorist group in Afghanistan.
Having reportedly lost much of his forearms and one of his eyes fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, Mustafa is commonly pictured wearing an eye patch and hooked hands.
Before his 2012 extradition, Mustafa spent seven years incarcerated in the United Kingdom for soliciting murder and racial incitement for his incendiary sermons at London’s Finsbury Park Mosque.
DXer said
Former Malaysia Airlines pilot shares missing jet theory
http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20140331/NEWS/403310313
DXer said
Malaysia Digs Deeper Into Airport Security, People Aboard Flight 370
Interviews, Background Checks Turn Up Nothing to Incriminate Passengers and Crew
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304157204579470852435044352?mg=id-wsj
March 30, 2014 6:28 a.m. ET
Hundreds of interviews and background checks have turned up nothing to incriminate the passengers and crew in the disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines jet, authorities say, prompting officials to look again and more thoroughly in a bid to identify possible suspects while scrutinizing airport security procedures.
“We cannot zero in on any faults by passengers or crew members so we are focusing on getting into value-added information in order to strengthen our investigative findings,” Malaysian Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi told reporters Saturday in Kuala Lumpur. He didn’t elaborate.
Mr. Zahid also said that officials were re-examining airport security procedures. “We are revisiting our standard operating procedures,” he said, “especially the protocol of our security at our entry points; especially at our Kuala Lumpur International Airport.”
***
“It would be quite challenging to do very thorough checks,” said Mr. Gosling, since some countries do not have nationalized databases to share information between relevant departments. More thorough checks could involve looking at travel habits of the passengers but those would likely involve non-law enforcement networks, such as immigration databases, he said. “And then you also have to join the dots from all the different countries.”
Indonesia said it had cleared all seven of the Indonesian nationals on Flight 370. “We did a thorough check on them using international standards. We check their background, their track records. We found that they are not linked to any forbidden organizations,” said police spokesman Agus Rikwanto.
China, which had 153 nationals on board Flight 370, has also cleared its own passengers. Chinese officials didn’t respond to requests to comment about the process.
“Malaysian police can effectively investigate our own citizens,” said P. Sundramoorthy, head of criminology research at Universiti Sains Malaysia. But he added that diplomatic relations can be a sticky business. “You must understand that the sovereignty of a nation goes beyond all. Just because we are investigating here, it does not compel the other countries involved in this to provide” comprehensive information.
DXer said
Feinstein: No terror link in Malaysia Airlines case
http://www.politico.com/blogs/politico-live/2014/03/dianne-feinstein-no-terror-link-in-malaysia-airlines-185981.html
By NICK GASS | 3/30/14 9:23 AM EDT
The chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee says there’s no evidence of terrorism with the missing Malaysia Airlines flight, which disappeared more than three weeks ago en route to Beijing.
“So far, there’s been none,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) told CNN’s Candy Crowley Sunday on “State of the Union.” “There’s speculation, but there’s nothing.”
With the three-week search so far turning up only minor clues as to what happened to the airliner, the senator was hesitant to speculate on its fate or difficulties with the search.
“This is a very difficult mission,” she said. “The fact that so many nations are participating … it also indicates that there is no method of calculation that’s functioning” very well.
Asked if more sophisticated satellites could be used in the area, she said she was not sure.
“I’m not going to go in to what we do have or what we don’t have,” she said when asked about American capabilities. “You have to understand that American intelligence doesn’t gear itself to be ready for plane crashes.”
DXer said
Sunday, 30 March 2014 08:07
SHOCK REVELATION: ‘He wasn’t the father I knew. He was lost and disturbed’ – daughter of MH370 pilot
Full article: http://www.malaysia-chronicle.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=253401:shock-revelation-he-wasnt-the-father-i-knew-he-was-lost-and-disturbed-daughter-of-mh370-pilot&Itemid=2#ixzz2xRZr1dNe
The Mail on Sunday can reveal that the pilot’s wife, Faizah Khanum Mustafa Khan, has told investigators that he stopped speaking to her in the weeks before the fateful flight on March 8, and spent time alone in his room where he had built a flight simulator. ‘He just retreated into a shell,’ she said.
Meanwhile, Aishah Zaharie, 28, the pilot’s daughter, said that in her last conversations with her father, she barely recognised the man who used to dote on her. ‘He wasn’t the father I knew. He seemed disturbed and lost in a world of his own,’ she said.
Last week, Faizah and Aishah, along with other family members, were interviewed in detail by police in Kuala Lumpur. The lengthy interviews, described in detail to The Mail on Sunday by a source close to the pilot’s family, revealed that:
• Zaharie was on the brink of divorcing his wife after nearly 30 years of marriage.
• He refused to attend marriage counselling with Islamic elders.
• He shunned family and spent hours alone on his flight simulator.
• He expressed ‘utter frustration’ at the jailing of his political hero, Anwar Ibrahim, hours before the flight.
Despite the pilot’s behaviour, his family are convinced that he was not responsible for the plane’s disappearance
Faizah, who was just 16 when she first met Zaharie, broke down repeatedly during two lengthy interviews with police, the family source said. One of the interviews lasted more than four hours.
She was initially reluctant to discuss the breakdown of her marriage, and refused to accept her husband might be involved in the flight’s disappearance, protesting: ‘It’s unfair to blame my husband.’
However, over the course of the interviews, she told police how her husband became increasingly distracted in the months leading up to the flight.
‘I found him distant and difficult to understand,’ she said. She told investigators that although they continued to live in the same house, Zaharie spent his time alone.
Faizah said her husband was so withdrawn he hardly spoke to his sons and was not close to them. ‘He just retreated into a shell,’ she said.
When he wasn’t working, Zaharie spent ‘more time with friends than with family members’. She confirmed they had spoken of separating but had not taken any formal steps towards getting a divorce.
The pilot’s wife has told investigators that he stopped speaking to her in the weeks before the fateful flight on March 8, and spent time alone in his room where he had built a flight simulator
She said he appeared agitated and to be suffering from ‘frayed nerves’. Of his three children, Zaharie appears to have been closest to Aishah, who flew back from Melbourne, Australia, to be with her family after MH370 went missing.
She spoke to her father by phone in the weeks before the flight, and told investigators: ‘He wasn’t his usual self. He was distant and cranky.’
Full article: http://www.malaysia-chronicle.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=253401:shock-revelation-he-wasnt-the-father-i-knew-he-was-lost-and-disturbed-daughter-of-mh370-pilot&Itemid=2#ixzz2xRZXdoEY
DXer said
Malaysia Airlines MH370: stricter security checks in wake of disaster
March 30, 2014 – 6:05PM
After a stoush with Interpol over its screening of airline passengers, Malaysia will introduce stricter security checks in the wake of the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 disaster.
***
Spy agency MI6 as well as the CIA are also helping the Malaysian authorities, which has addded to speculation the aircraft was hijacked by terrorists.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/malaysia-airlines-mh370-stricter-security-checks-in-wake-of-disaster-20140330-zqoou.html#ixzz2xQnof5AN
DXer said
Mistrust Between U.S., Malaysia Strains Probe
By ANDY PASZTOR and RICHARD C. PADDOCK CONNECT
March 28, 2014 8:36 p.m. ET
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303779504579467820263341390?mg=reno64-wsj
Most of the 14 countries with passengers on the plane haven’t disclosed how they conducted the background checks or what guidelines they followed in clearing passengers. Chinese officials didn’t respond to requests for comment how it conducted its background checks on the 153 Chinese citizens on board. Malaysia, too, hasn’t provided details other than to say it focused on possible terrorism, sabotage and personal or psychological issues.
Indonesia said it relied on international guidelines in clearing all of its seven passengers, but didn’t say who wrote the guidelines. “We don’t use our own standard,” said police spokesman Agus Rikwanto. “We use the standard used internationally that is used in investigating any suspicious individual. The results are they are cleared.”
DXer said
Hushmail is NOT a secure E-mail provider.
So to start law enforcement should kick down the door of the party who send the claim of responsibility.
Hushmail is NOT a secure E-mail provider.
Given the disappearance of Lavabit and Silent Circle, people are looking for alternatives that protect privacy.
Hushmail should not be considered an alternative.
To quote from an article in The Register:
Hushmail has updated its terms of service to clarify that encrypted emails sent through the service can still be turned over to law enforcement officials, providing they obtain a court order in Canada.
September court documents (pdf) from a US federal prosecution of alleged steroid dealers reveals that Hush Communications turned over 12 CDs involving emails on three targeted Hushmail accounts, in compliance of court orders made through the mutual assistance treaty between the US and Canada. Hushmail is widely used by privacy advocates and the security-conscious to send confidential emails.
Hush Communications, the firm behind Hushmail, previously claimed “not even a Hushmail employee with access to our servers can read your encrypted email”.
However an updated explanation states that it is obliged to do everything in its power to comply with court orders against specified, targeted accounts. Unlocking targeted accounts involves sending a rogue Java applet to targeted users that captures a user’s passphrase and sends it back to Hush Communications. This information, when passed onto law enforcement officials, allows access to stored emails and subsequent correspondence sent through the service.
The possibility that law enforcement officials can tap targeted accounts exists whether or not Hushmail users use the supposedly more secure Java applet option or a simpler web server encryption set-up. The updated terms of service explain:
“Hushmail is a web-based service, the software that performs the encryption either resides on or is delivered by our servers. That means that there is no guarantee that we will not be compelled, under a court order issued by the Supreme Court of British Columbia, Canada, to treat a user named in a court order differently, and compromise that user’s privacy.”
• http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/11/hushmail_turns.html
• http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2007/11/encrypted-e-mai/
• http://www.cybercrimereview.com/2012/11/hushmail-provides-unencrypted-e-mails.html
DXer said
I guess you don’t need a bomb. You just need a knife. And with two pilots, you just need one man with a knife and to gain access to the cockpit.
China knife massacre culprits wanted to wage jihad abroad, official says
Communist party chief of Yunnan province says group staged Kunming attack after it was prevented from leaving country
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/05/china-knife-massacre-wage-jihad-abroad
DXer said
Can the NSA trace the claim of responsibility that used Hushmail (despite the encryption)?
Chinese group claims responsibility for missing jet
By Bob Fredericks and Post WiresMarch 10, 2014
http://nypost.com/2014/03/10/chinese-group-claims-plane-disappearance-amid-parallels-to-lockerbie/
The message was delivered through an anonymous, encrypted Hushmail service that is virtually impossible to trace, they said.
DXer said
MH370: FBI found nothing sinister in Capt Zahari’s flight simulator, says Hisham
http://news.asiaone.com/news/malaysia/mh370-fbi-found-nothing-sinister-capt-zaharis-flight-simulator-says-hisham
PUTRAJAYA – The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) has found nothing sinister in MH370 pilot Capt Zaharie Ahmad Shah’s flight simulator, said acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein.
However, he withheld further comments on the matter until the findings were corroborated by police here.
That will be announced by the Inspector-General of Police, who had highlighted the four possible scenarios of what could have caused the plane to disappear two weeks ago, which are terrorism, hijacking, personal and psychological problems, or technical failure.
“These scenarios have been discussed at length with different intelligence agencies,” Hishammuddin said, adding that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the UK Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and Chinese agencies have been involved in investigations over the flight simulator.
see also
Neighbours discount Malaysian pilot’s terror links
IANS | Kuala Lumpur March 29, 2014 Last Updated at 14:58 IST
http://www.business-standard.com/article/news-ians/neighbours-discount-malaysian-pilot-s-terror-links-114032900354_1.html
Comment: I imagine one scenario they are considering is that someone on a cleaning or meintenance (trained to fly a plane) snuck and hid below in the hold. IMO the more likely scenario is that a bomb blew a hole in the craft, causing everyone to die (allowing the pilots only time to redirect the flight). The Malaysian plane operation plotters planned to use a shoebomb near the fusalage — not to vaporize the plane but merely to depressurize it suddenly, killing all on board. We may know more if the plane is located. In the meantime, both the Captain and co-pilot seemed to have a lot to live for, a love of life, and to be men of high caliber and character.
Concluding the fellow who might have reason to be upset in his personal life did it absent direct evidence is a weak conclusion given the possibilities of relatively untraceable access by a third party.
As to the claim of responsibility, was any more detail contained in the claim that Ramzi Yousef had drafted to send on his computer in the 1990s? When the group with the made-up name claimed responsibility?
Why would they describe how they did it when they would want to do it again?
Indeed, the uncertainty and frustration just adds to the intended effect.
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
With respect to my suggestion that maybe a shoebomb or other bomb blew a hole in the cabin, we can only hope that the plane will be found in water that is not too deep. With respect to hiding a bomb amidst two or three tons of mangosteens, I expect the blast might be considerably suppressed. For example, the bomb protocol in the movie “Non-Stop” contemplated dropping to 8,000 feet (to avoid depressurization), placing the bomb next to the rear back door, and then putting as much stuff in front of it so as to direct the blast only toward the door. In “Non-Stop” the pilot was able to successfully land because the bomb went off while they were only at 8,000 feet.
DXer said
F.B.I. Finds Few Clues on Malaysia Air Pilot’s Flight Simulator
By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT, THOMAS FULLER and MICHELLE INNISMARCH 27, 2014
WASHINGTON — The flight simulator and hard drives that the pilots of Flight 370 had at their homes appear to be a dead end, yielding few clues that shed any light on whether they deliberately diverted the missing jet, according to two people briefed on the investigation.
DXer said
Flight 370 pilot’s son dismisses speculation about his father
By Jethro Mullen and Mitra Mobasherat, CNN
updated 6:43 AM EDT, Thu March 27, 2014
http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/27/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-plane/
“Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (CNN) — The youngest son of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah has broken his family’s silence on the plane’s disappearance, rejecting speculation that the veteran aviator was somehow responsible.
“I’ve read everything online. But I’ve ignored all the speculation. I know my father better,” Ahmad Seth Zaharie, 26, said in an interview published Thursday by the New Straits Times, an English-language Malaysian newspaper.
***
The idea that Zaharie or co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid were responsible for the plane’s baffling disappearance is one of many theories investigators continue to pursue.
One line of speculation suggests Zaharie might have hijacked the plane as a political act. He has been identified as a supporter of a high-profile Malaysian opposition figure.
Ahmad rejected such theories.
Wife grieves for husband missing on MH370Source: Flight 370 turned, dropped
“We may not be as close as he travels so much. But I understand him,” Ahmad said of his father in the interview, which was conducted Tuesday.
Comments from government officials on the investigation so far support the Ahmed’s view.”
[Note: To illustrate the alternate spelling of names, that CNN in this story has varied in the spelling (Ahmad –> Ahmed) Intelligence analysts, like journalists, don’t have an easy job in a time-pressured world. ]
A senior Malaysian government official on Wednesday told CNN law enforcement analyst Tom Fuentes that authorities have found nothing in 19 days of investigating the two pilots that leads them to any motive, be it political, suicidal or extremist.
And an ongoing FBI review of the two pilots’ hard drives, including one in a flight simulator Zaharie had built at his home, has not turned up a “smoking gun,” a U.S. official with knowledge of the investigation told CNN.
“They have accessed the data,” the official said. “There is nothing that’s jumping out and grabbing us right now.”
And investigators haven’t found anything suspicious with any of the other crew members or passengers, leaving them struggling to find an explanation.
“I don’t think there is a prevailing theory,” one U.S. official told CNN. “There are counterarguments to every theory right now.”
DXer said
By Dana BlantonPublished March 26, 2014FoxNews.com
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/03/26/fox-news-poll-few-say-terrorism-responsible-for-missing-jet/
Malaysia Airlines flight 370 disappeared March 8 after leaving Kuala Lumpur. Investigators have concluded deliberate action was taken to disable tracking on the plane and divert it from its course. On Monday Malaysia’s Prime Minister announced that an analysis of satellite data determined the aircraft was lost in the southern Indian Ocean and there were no survivors. Authorities, however, still cannot say what happened aboard the plane.
The new poll finds that 16 percent think flight 370 was the victim of a terrorist plot, while 20 percent think it crashed by accident. However the largest number — 40 percent of voters — thinks the airliner was hijacked by someone for reasons other than terrorism. Nearly one in four is unable to offer an opinion (24 percent).
Meanwhile, pluralities of men and women think flight 370 was hijacked, yet the second most cited reason among women is terrorism, while the second choice among men is accident.
The Fox News poll is based on landline and cell phone interviews with 1,015 randomly chosen registered voters nationwide and was conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R) from March 23 to March 25, 2014. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points for the total sample.
DXer said
March 26, 2014 12:34 PM EDT — Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said in a joint press conference with his British counterpart that the U.S. can’t rule out causes for the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 at this point, including terrorism. (The Associated Press)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/posttv/world/hagel-cant-rule-out-terrorism-in-flight-370-mystery/2014/03/26/e2c451bc-b505-11e3-bab2-b9602293021d_video.html
DXer said
Malaysia jet disappearance no accident, investigator says
Mahi Ramakrishnan, Special for USA TODAY1:22 p.m. EDT March 26, 2014
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/03/26/malaysia-missing-plane/6907359/
DXer said
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/466933/Malaysia-Airlines-Jet-passengers-were-knocked-out-at-45-000ft-in-pilot-s-suicide-plunge
Experts believe he took the plane to 45,000ft, which caused the oxygen to run out and left the passengers unconscious.
An aviation expert said: “It was flying at this altitude for 23 minutes before descending. Oxygen would have run out in 12 minutes, rendering passengers unconscious.”
A source close to the investigation said: “This has been a deliberate act by someone on board who had to have had the detailed knowledge to do what was done. Nothing is emerging that points to motive.” …
At around this altitude, where the atmosphere thins, it would not take long for hypoxia – a lack of oxygen – to set in, incapacitating anyone who had not taken precautions. …
Within the many-faceted investigation, Malaysian police are also closely looking into the background of Tan Size Hiang, a flight steward on the doomed jet.
They are particularly interested after it emerged that he also owned a flight simulator at home.
DXer said
From March 10, 2014:
Tan Size Hiang: Father and Flight Steward, MH370
http://www.sharelor.net/1/post/2014/03/tan-size-hiang-father-and-flight-steward-mh370.html
Before each flight, Size Hiang would call his father once then once again upon arriving back in Kuala Lumpur.
Kenny also described Size Hiang as a family-orientated man who not only takes care of his own wife and daughter but his siblings and parents as well.
He has worked with Malaysia Airlines for almost 18 years and just like Captain Zaharie, he has his own flight simulator at home. In his pastime, he is a passionate football fan.
DXer said
“The captain of Flight 370 was in no state of mind to fly the day it disappeared and could have taken the Boeing 777 for a “last joyride” before crashing into the Indian Ocean, a fellow pilot says.
Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah’s world was crumbling, said the long-time associate. He had been facing serious family problems, including separation from his wife and relationship problems with another woman he was seeing.
The man, who spoke to the Herald on condition of anonymity, said Captain Zaharie was “terribly upset” when his wife told him she was leaving and believed he may have decided to take the Malaysia Airlines plane to a part of the world he had never flown in.”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/air-accidents/news/article.cfm?c_id=665&objectid=11226334
DXer said
A key fellow in the Southeast Asia plane hijacking plot was Attash, Yazid Sufaat’s houseguest at the 911 planning summit. Attash had been Bin Laden’s bodyguard.
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,
“Detainee stated that, upon returning to Afghanistan from Malaysia in early 2000, he discussed his plans with UBL. UBL, on the other hand, wanted detainee to sit in the economy class section of a 747 on a flight between Bangkok and Hong Kong to find out how many US citizens were on a typical Southeast Asia flight on a US carrier. UBL was worried it would be mostly Southeast Asians in economy class, as UBL wanted to make sure most of the passengers were US persons, thus ensuring he would kill the largest number of US persons possible.”
[On flight MH 370, passengers were mostly Chinese — Zawahiri recently spoke about China and the Uighurs].
“Detainee did not know why UBL cancelled the Southeast Asia portion of the 9/11 operations. Detainee speculated that because the planning for the Southeast Asia portion was not moving as fast as the US portion, the hijacking plan in Southeast Asia was cancelled.”
Attash had previously focused on attacking USS COLE.
“Detainee assisted in planning the 12 October 2000 attack on the USS COLE on 12 October 2000. Detainee’s involvement in the bombing of the USS COLE primarily involved acquiring the exposives used in the operation.”
“The detainee helped coordinate and aquire materials for the 12 October 2000 bombing of the USS COLE in Aden, YM. He also participated in casing security measures of US-based air carriers out of Southeast Asia for the intended Southeast Asia portion of the 11 September 2001 hijacking operations.”
http://projects.nytimes.com/guantanamo/detainees/10014-walid-bin-attash
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
CNN on March 18, 2014 focused on the Badat-described plot rather than Sufaat’s plan by the NYT on March 17 –
“In the weeks after 9/11, [OBL] revived a whittled down version of the plan by tasking the Malaysians to carry out a hijacking.” …
“Investigations revealed the “pilot” Badat referred to in his testimony attended a flight school in Malaysia before dropping out shortly after 9/11.”
According to those sources, the Malaysia group consisted of half a dozen young men linked to the Indonesian al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah who travelled for training in Afghanistan in the period before 9/11.
When they got there, they were recruited into Mohammed’s eventually aborted plan to target a dozen aircraft in South East Asia.
After 9/11, those still in Afghanistan were tasked with carrying out a smaller-scale version of the plot, with the idea being that Reid and Badat would target aircraft over the United States around the same time, the sources said.
To refine these plans, Mohammed dispatched Reid, Badat and the Malaysians to see his nephew, Ammar al Baluchi, in Karachi. The group travelled in a convoy of three vehicles from Kandahar via Quetta and were lodged by al Baluchi in several safe houses in Karachi.
The Malaysian group refused to have Reid stay with them because they judged him “too crazy looking,” according to the intelligence sources. Their ringleader was a man in his late 20s known as Abdulaziz. He was 5 foot 6, slim, had a goatee, wore glasses, and spoke some English.
Badat, Reid and Baluchi met several times in a McDonald’s between December 1-5, 2001. They discussed targeting planes over the United States with shoe bombs, the sources said.
Badat later revealed that the plan was for them to sit near the window so they could blow a hole in the fuselage. They did not expect their devices to blow the planes out of the sky. Rather, they hoped to bring the planes down by blowing open a large hole to rapidly depressurize the aircraft.
…
During the meeting, Badat got the impression the Malaysians were not too worried if, in later trying to blow open a cockpit door with his explosive shoe, they brought down the plane, but that was not their original intent.
But if they were going to use one of Badat’s shoes, the Malaysians had to make an additional purchase. In Karachi, they bought an identical pair of shoes so they could match up his explosive footwear….
Two Jemaah Islamiyah operatives responsible for the 2002 Bali bombings – Hambali (real name: Riduan Isamuddin) and Ali Ghufron (real name: Huda bin Abdul Haq) – are also suspected of having had a role in the plot, according to the U.S. intelligence sources.
DXer said
Attash did surveillance on the airline security in Malaysia for KSM by sneaking a razor blade. At one point, he flew out of Kuala Lumpur on Malaysia Airlines Flight #782.
Paras. 15, 17.
Click to access referredcharges040412.pdf
DXer said
http://jasonbeets.blogspot.com/2014/03/walid-bin-attash.html
Walid Bin Attash
ISN: 10014
Nationality: Yemeni
Walid Bin Attash told his CSRT that he helped plan the attack on the USS Cole in 2000.
“I participated in the buying or purchasing of the explosives. I put together the plan for the operation a year and a half prior to the operation. Buying the boat and recruiting the members that did the operation. Buying the explosives.”
He told his CSRT that he was a coordinator of the US embassy bombings in East Africa in 1998.
“I was the link between Usama bin Laden and his deputy Sheikh Abu Hafs Al Masri and the cell chief in Nairobi. I was the link that was available in Pakistan. I used to supply the cell with what ever documents they need from fake stamps to visas, whatever. Sending them from Afghanistan to Pakistan and individuals, cell members.”
Walid Attash’s DAB says that he told US interrogators that his flights throughout Southeast Asia were surveillance missions for the canceled Southeast Asia part of the 9/11 attacks.
…
Walid Attash was captured with Ammar al Baluchi by Pakistani forces in Karachi, Pakistan in April 2003.
Walid Attash has been charged for his alleged role in the 9/11 attacks. The pretrial hearings in his case are currently underway.
DXer said
There is low tech and then there’s high tech. Attash’s sneaking a razor blade on to Malaysian Airlines as a test for KSM as part of his Southeast Asia plane operations planning is hard to beat when it is combined with a desire to die and immoral thinking, rather than a desire to live and respect for life.
DXer said
The Malaysians released the head of Al Qaeda’s anthrax lab Yazid Sufaat in December 2008 and he reportedly promptly left for Paksitan. Did they also release the Malaysian militants planning on hijacking an airliner as part of a Southeast Asia planes operation?
What do Walid bin Attash and Ali Ghufron (real name: Huda bin Abdul Haq) say about the separate plot to hijack airplanes in Southeast Asia?
Separately, what airport and destination did Badat’s planning relating to the shoebomb involve?
From 2012:
Operative Details al Qaeda Plans to Hit Planes in Wake of 9/11
Posted on: 8:26 am, April 25, 2012, by Ted Achladis
Within weeks of the September 11, 2001, attacks, Osama bin Laden was planning follow-up operations to bring down airliners in the United States and Southeast Asia, according to a convicted al Qaeda operative testifying in a terror trial in New York.
Saajid Badat was speaking via a video deposition from the United Kingdom, where he is serving a jail sentence for his role in plotting to blow up a U.S.-bound aircraft in December 2001.
t’s the first time that an al Qaeda operative has publicly provided such detail about plans to bring down airliners in the wake of 9/11.
Badat testified that a few weeks after the 9/11 attacks, he met with Abu Hafs al Masri, then bin Laden’s right-hand man, in the Jalalabad-Kabul area in Afghanistan.
“Abu Hafs asked me to take an explosive device onboard an airplane, a domestic airline (in the United States) and then detonate it,” Badat testified. He was then called to meet bin Laden himself.
“It was just the two of us in the room and he explained to me his justification for the mission,” Badat said.
“He said that the American economy is like a chain. If you break one link of the chain, the whole economy will be brought down. So after September 11th attacks, this operation will ruin the aviation industry and in turn the whole economy will come down,” he added. ***
During his video deposition he stated he was ready to testify against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other top leaders to expose the hollowness of what he called their “bulls**t cause.”
Badat, who joined al Qaeda in Afghanistan in 2000, was testifying at the trial in New York of Adis Medunjanin, an American of Bosnian descent charged with involvement in a plot to explode bombs on the subway in September 2009. Though the two never met, Badat met at least one al Qaeda member Medunjanin is alleged to have encountered.
Badat also revealed that he and Reid left Afghanistan for Pakistan with a group of Malaysians militants.
“I learned that they had a group ready to perform a similar hijacking to 9/11,” Badat testified.
According to a 9/11 Commission report, al Qaeda initially planned to hijack a dozen airliners in Southeast Asia at the same time as in the United States, but bin Laden scrapped the Southeast Asian portion of the plan.
A senior U.S. counterterrorism official told CNN al Qaeda planned to hijack aircraft in Southeast Asia using militants who had begun training in flight schools in the region, but the plan was never carried through.
The official said Khalid Sheikh Mohammed orchestrated the post-9/11 Southeast Asia hijacking plot and was assisted by Walid bin Attash, a Yemeni al Qaeda terrorist also now being held in Guantanamo Bay.
Two Jemaah Islamiya operatives responsible for the 2002 Bali bombings — Hambali (real name: Riduan Isamuddin) and Ali Ghufron (real name: Huda bin Abdul Haq) — are also suspected of having had a role in the plot, according to the official.
…
Days before 9/11, Badat was dispatched to Belgium to meet with Nizar Trabelsi, a Tunisian then planning a terrorist operation who also met bin Laden in Afghanistan.
Trabelsi was arrested two days after the terrorist attacks on the United States and later admitted to plotting an attack on the Klein Brogel NATO base in Belgium.
He is currently in prison in Belgium and fighting an extradition request to face terrorism charges in the United States.
Badat described meeting several times in Afghanistan with Adnan Shukrijumah, an American al Qaeda operative. At the time he knew the American as “Jaffar.” Shukrijumah, he stated, never had any knowledge of the shoe bombing plot.
U.S. authorities allege that Shukrijumah helped orchestrate the 2009 plot to attack New York subways and met Medunjanin in a camp in South Waziristan in September 2008. They say Shukrijumah has emerged as a senior operational planner for the network and is still believed to be at large in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.
Comment: I have urged that Adnan El-Shukirjumah from KSM’s house ( where anthrax lab head Yazid Sufaat also stayed) was the mailer of the anthrax letters in Fall 2001. He called his mom immediately upon 911 and told her he was coming to the US.
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
Aviation mag chief sees botched hijack, takeover in MH370 disappearance
MARCH 26, 2014
See more at: http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/aviation-mag-chief-sees-botched-hijack-takeover-in-mh370-disappearance#sthash.Hn8ds8hL.dpuf
“While it’s horrific to imagine, a botched hijacking or failed pilot commandeering of the airplane are still the most likely scenarios,” Groyer wrote. – See more at: http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/aviation-mag-chief-sees-botched-hijack-takeover-in-mh370-disappearance#sthash.Hn8ds8hL.dpuf
“Yesterday, UK daily The Telegraph cited unnamed sources as saying that investigators are leaning towards the idea of pilot suicide in the case of MH370.”
“Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar later revealed that investigators were examining four possibilities for the plane’s disappearance: hijack, sabotage, personal problems and psychological issues with those on the flight.
Khalid later said, however, that several intelligence agencies have cleared all 227 passengers from the flight.”
DXer said
Pinckney and Kidd were not aircraft carriers. Where were the aircraft carrier or carriers in the region located? Kidd I think was part of the strike group of the aircraft carrier John C. Stennis.
DXer said
In such a plot imagined by Yazid Sufaat, how one would the suicide operative locate the ship at sea?
After learning from a Pakistan local newspaper that he had gone to Pakistan after his release, I once publicly asked where he was.
He much later obliged by posting his GPS coordinates — which I presume were back at his wife’s food stall where he would bring home groceries and have dinner with jihadists he allegedly was recruiting.
“February 11, 2013 at 11:07 am
When Yazid sent this map
lat 3.11707 and long 101.93646,”
Let’s consider the hypothetical scenario of a port call in Manila by U.S.S. Pinckney (which occurred in February 2014). One of the locals socializing with a sailor turns on the geolocator of the sailor’s IPhone or IPAD.
Would that suffice to identify the location of the U.S.S. Pinckney west of Malaysia in the South China Sea? (I have no idea what security there is on board such a ship).
Here is a post, for example, where GPS is used to track the person’s friend’s phone flying as high as 40,000 ft.
http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/4839126/
This is the result from one of “my friend’s” phone
Created by My Tracks on Android.
Total Distance: 827.05 km (513.9 mi)
Total Time: 1:18:31
Moving Time: 1:09:39
Average Speed: 698.87 km/h (434.3 mi/h)
Average Moving Speed: 712.46 km/h (442.7 mi/h)
Max Speed: 754.20 km/h (468.6 mi/h)
Min Elevation: 6775 m (22228 ft)
Max Elevation: 12104 m (39711 ft)
Elevation Gain: 12151 m (39865 ft)
Max Grade: 24 %
Min Grade: -1 %
DXer said
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/malaysia-airlines-pilots-ko-fire-aviation-lawyer-article-1.1732739
Garmin Mobile
http://www8.garmin.com/mobile/mobilext/
Google Local Search gives you access to points of interest near your current location and enables you to navigate directly to the destination
What can affect GPS reception on my Garmin Smartphone App?
http://support.garmin.com/support/searchSupport/case.faces?caseId=%7B1935df60-88d8-11e1-6a4c-000000000000%7D
In addition, the Garmin GLO can be used to increase the GPS reception for your smartphone application. The Garmin GLO brings you the best of both worlds by combining GPS/GLONASS receivers with Bluetooth® technology so you can enjoy precise position information on your iPad, iPhone or Android device. More information on the Garmin GLO can be found by clicking here.
These days, nearly all cell phones on the market now include some sort of GPS capability.
***
Today, all of the major iPhone apps (including TomTom 1.8, Magellan RoadMate 2.0, Garmin StreetPilot Onboard, and TeleNav GPS Plus) have virtual feature parity not just with each other, but with standalone GPS devices as well.
All include lifetime map and real-time traffic updates, as well as ever-expanding POI (point-of-interest) databases.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2363154,00.asp
DXer said
Both of the men in Connecticut possessed the classified document discussing a U.S. Navy battle group’s movements and vulnerability to attack. The fellow who testified in the Ghayth trail about the Malaysian plane plot will testify in connection with Babar Ahmad’s sentencing. He will testify from Britain — if he were to come to the US, he would be indicted.
http://www.mynews3.com/content/news/national/story/Conn-judge-allows-shoe-bomb-plotter-to-testify-in/sDhKZu6eM0-0f6Kry8FWgw.cspx
NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) — A man convicted in a failed 2001 plot to bring down an airplane with a shoe bomb will be allowed to testify at the sentencing in July of two British citizens who pleaded guilty in Connecticut to supporting terrorists through websites.
Judge Janet Hall in New Haven on Monday granted the request of prosecutors to have the witness testify by video from Britain.
She ordered the government to pay the travel expenses of attorneys for Babar Ahmad and Syed Talha Ahsan to attend.
Prosecutors say the witness is expected to testify that Ahmad sent him to Afghanistan to train for violent jihad and that he moved on from Ahmad and was trained by al-Qaida members for the shoe bomb plot.
British terrorist Babar Ahmad pleads guilty in U.S. court to running …
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2521780/British-terrorist-Babar-Ahmad-pleads-guilty-U-S-court-running-terrorist-website-faces-25-years-jail.html
Dec 11, 2013 –
British man Babar Ahmad has pleaded guilty to supporting terrorists in Afghanistan through websites that sought to raise cash, recruit fighters and solicit items such as gas masks.
Ahmad, along with fellow Briton Syed Talha Ahsan, pleaded guilty in US District Court in New Haven to charges of providing material support to terrorists and conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists.
***
Both men possessed a classified document discussing a U.S. Navy battle group’s movements and vulnerability to attack, authorities said.
DXer said
1. USS Kidd, USS Pinckney to Deploy to Western Pacific
From Naval Surface Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet Public Affairs
Posted January 3, 2014
Both Kidd and Pinckney have crews of more than 300 Sailors each and are multi-mission ships designed to operate independently or with an associated strike group. While deployed, both ships will conduct theater security cooperation and maritime presence operations with partner nations.
…
Kidd is named in honor of Rear Adm. Isaac C. Kidd who was killed on board his flagship, USS Arizona (BB 39), during the Dec. 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for conspicuous devotion to duty, extraordinary courage, and complete disregard of his own life during the attack.
2. U.S.S. Pinckney moored Feb. 19, 2014 – Hong Kong
3. U.S.S. Pinckney – Gulf of Thailand, March 9 2014, after being deployed there by Malaysia in search for MH 370 (where did it travel from?)
4. A U.S. Navy MH-60R Seahawk helicopter from the USS Pinckney and the Malaysian Navy ship KD Terengganu conduct a coordinated air and sea search for the missing Malaysia Airlines jet in the Gulf of Thailand, March 12, 2014.
http://defensestandard.com/2014/03/coordinated-search/
5. U.S.S. Kidd, March 16, 2014, Indian Ocean
http://defensestandard.com/2014/03/search-and-rescue/
DXer said
Posted: Mar 08, 2014 3:00 PM EST
http://www.cbs8.com/story/24922997/uss-pinckney-to-help-search-for-missing-plane
SAN DIEGO (CNS) – The San Diego-based USS Pinckney and its two helicopters moved towards Vietnam’s southern coast to assist in the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.
The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer had been conducting training and maritime security operations in international waters of the South China Sea, when it was diverted to aid in the search for the Boeing 777, according to the Navy.
Navy officials said this morning they expected the Pinckney to be in the vicinity of where the jet went missing within 24 hours.
DXer said
US 7th fleet in Indian Ocean
http://www.dawn.com/news/1073993/us-7th-fleet-in-indian-ocean
KARACHI: Washington has not officially confirmed that the US Seventh Fleet will extend its operations to the Indian Ocean, but American newspapers continue to publish inspired reports.
The reports say the US Government’s aim is to contain Communist China, as well as “show displeasure” to Pakistan ….
DXer said
U.S. 7th Fleet
18 hours ago
As our US Navy P8 and P3 aircraft continue search efforts for the missing Malaysian flight #MH370 in the South Indian Ocean, 7th Fleet is conducting exercises from South Korea to Guam to the South China Sea in exercises Foal Eagle, Ssang Yong and our Cruiser/ Destroyer exercise “Multi-Sail” including the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Mustin (DDG 89). Seventh Fleet is all about presence throughout the entire region, from Guam to the India Ocean and Japan to Australia.
U.S. 7th Fleet
March 23
INDIAN OCEAN (March 23, 2014) Naval Aircrewman Operator 2nd Class Mike Burnett, an electronic warfare operator attached to Patrol Squadron (VP) 16, monitors his workstation on a P-8A Poseidon during a mission to assist in search and rescue operations for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 March 23. VP-16 is currently deployed in the U.S. 7th Fleet area of responsibility supporting security and stability in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Eric A. Pastor
DXer said
About the same time as the spokesman (Ghath) threatening the storms of planes was grabbed and brought to the US, there was a fellow (Babar Ahmad) extradited from the UK who years earlier had been in contact with the U.S. Naval fellow about the location of ships in connection with a brainstormed attack.
The same fellow (Badat) who testified this month about the plot by the four Malaysians and a “pilot” to hijack an airline will testify at Babar Ahmad’s upcoming trial in Connecticut.
Shoe-bomb plotter testimony allowed in Connecticut
By JOHN CHRISTOFFERSEN, Associated Press | March 18, 2014 |
http://www.chron.com/news/crime/article/Shoe-bomb-plotter-testimony-allowed-in-Connecticut-5327454.php
Click to access 311.pdf
Ahmad’s Possession of Classified U.S. Naval Plans
In December, 2003, British law enforcement officials also searched AHMAD’s parent’s house, at 42a Fountain Road, Tooting, London, which AHMAD used as a personal residence at the time. In one bedroom, officials found a significant amount of records, documents, files, and reflecting a “last modified” date of April 12, 2001. This file discusses a U.S. Navy battle group, each of its member ships (including the U.S.S. Benfold), the specifications and assignments of each ship, the battle group’s planned movements, and a drawing of the group’s formation when it was to pass through the Straits of Hormuz. The document specifically notes that the battle group was tasked with enforcing sanctions against Iraq and conducting operations against Afghanistan and Al Qaida. Navy officials have confirmed the battle group composition; the dates and location of the movements of this battle group in the documents are accurate and were classified at the time this document appears to have been written. The document states that the battle group was scheduled to pass through the Straits on April 29, 2001, at night, under a communications blackout, and explicitly describes the group’s vulnerability to a terrorist attack:
Communication with a U.S. Naval Enlistee
Several of the e-mail exchanges between late 2000 through 2001 are with an individual who described himself as an enlistee in the United States Navy on active duty in the middle east; the e-mail header information indicates that the individual was communicating from the U.S.S. Benfold at the time, one of the ships listed in the diagram described above found on a floppy disk in AHMAD’s room. One of the e-mails, sent in July 2001, describes the reaction of officers and other enlistees to a briefing given on the ship. The e-mail indicates that the briefing was provided to help Naval personnel protect against terrorist attacks similar to the March 2001 attack on the U.S.S. Cole.
Voicing enmity towards the “American enemies” and strong support for the “Mujahideen Feesabilillah,” the e-mail praises those who attacked the U.S.S. Cole and “the men who have brought honor this week to the ummah in the lands of Jihad Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya, etc.” The response sent from the Azzam Publications e-mail account praised the enlistee’s comments and encouraged the enlistee to “Keep up with the Dawah and the psychological warefare [sic].” I understand that the term “dawah” is an Islamic term that means missionary work for Islam. The Azzam Publications reply e-mail was sent on July 19, 2001, from the e-mail address azzampublications ***** to the enlistee and also to qoqaz ****
Evidence recovered from AHMAD’s possession demonstrate that AHMAD accessed and used this e-mail account during the period the enlistee communicated with Azzam Publications about his ship. A July 24, 2001, e-mail addressed to the same qoqaz ****** e-mail account was recovered from the same floppy disk that described the U.S. Navy battlegroup, which had been recovered from AHMAD’s effects at 42a Fountain Road, London. E-mails to Azzam Publications that discussed sending gas masks and funds to the Taliban and funds to Chechen mujahedin leaders, and requested assistance in reaching Chechen mujahedin leader Basayev, were also sent to qoqaz **** and stored in the same Azzam Publications administrative e-mail account.
DXer said
The U.S.S. Pinckney seems to have been in the South China Sea on March 8.
http://news.asiaone.com/news/malaysia/missing-mh370-uss-kidd-being-moved-position-indian-ocean
It was deployed to join its sister ship, the USS Pinckney (DDG-91) on March 10, after the Pinckney was diverted from a training mission in the South China Sea on March 8 to assist with the search and rescue operations.
“Both the Kidd and Pinckney, which are home-ported at San Diego were conducting training and maritime security operations in international waters in the South China Sea before being sent to assist in the search efforts.”
DXer said
Was a terrorist targeting the USS Kidd?
https://www.facebook.com/pages/USS-KIDD-DDG-100/206138246082651
USS KIDD Expands Search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 into Indian Ocean
By Ens. Brooke E. Schaffer, Public Affairs Officer, USS KIDD (DDG 100)
INDIAN OCEAN (March 16, 2014) – The search continues for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 as Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Kidd (DDG 100) expands its patrol area from the northwest entrance of the Strait of Malacca into the Indian Ocean and Andaman Sea March 16th.
Upon receiving the updated tasking, Kidd and the two embarked MH-60R helicopters immediately transited to the new search area to continue the search and rescue mission. Kidd is covering more than 300 square miles of water space every four hours and is meticulously investigating anything that may be evidence associated with aircraft debris.
“Our helicopters are an extension of the ship’s capabilities and provide us with the best chance of finding airplane debris,” said Lt.j.g. Eric Bachtel of Phoenix, Az, the ship’s Combat Information Center Officer. “With extra watch standers in place, we are able to comb through any debris spotted from the ship or the aircraft and if needed retrieve the objects via grappling hook, small boats, or with our Search and Rescue swimmers deployed from the ship or helicopters.”
Kidd searches more than 1500 square miles of ocean each day, investigating any possible debris that may be linked to the airliner’s crash. Kidd continues to support the overall Malaysian government search effort by sharing information and investigating possible leads. The Kidd crew remains persistent and hopeful that they will find indications as to the possible disappearance site of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 in order to shed some light on this tragedy.
DXer said
The U.S.S. Harry Truman, which came to mind, is in the 5th Fleet Area of Responsibility but the Indian Ocean is in the 7th Fleet Area of Responsibility. Was there a US aircraft carrier transiting the Indian Ocean that someone might have been targeting? … then running out of gas?
7th Fleet Area of Responsibility
https://www.facebook.com/7thfleet
DXer said
Where was the U.S.S. Harry Truman? Did the 777 try to locate into an US warship that had been supporting the war in Afghanistan?
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370: Pilot Used ‘Emergency and Combat Scenarios’ Simulator
• By Tom Porter March 23, 2014
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-pilot-used-emergency-combat-scenarios-simulator-1441460
Pilot of missing Malaysian plane shared his flight simulator passion online
March 24, 2014 10:26am
http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/353867/news/world/pilot-of-missing-malaysian-plane-shared-his-flight-simulator-passion-online
Looking through the flight logs in these simulator games is a key part of the investigation,” said an official with direct knowledge of the investigation into Zaherie and his co-pilot.
“X-plane 10 was interesting to investigators because it was the latest thing Zaharie bought. Also it is the most advanced out there and had all sorts of emergency and combat scenarios.” …
The software, currently a focus for investigators, would have allowed him to practice landing at more than 33,000 airports, on aircraft carriers, oil rigs, frigates, which pitch and roll with the waves, and heli-pads atop buildings.
Malaysia Airlines crash: Suicide mission theory of MH370 investigators
Sources close to investigation tell Telegraph that team working on MH370 mystery believe it was crashed deliberately
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/malaysia/10720237/Malaysia-Airlines-crash-Suicide-mission-theory-of-MH370-investigators.html
light MH370 crashed into the Indian Ocean in an apparent suicide mission, well-placed sources revealed have revealed, as Malaysia’sprime minister announced that everyone on the missing aircraft had died.
The team investigating the Boeing 777’s disappearance believe no malfunction or fire was capable of causing the aircraft’s unusual flight or the disabling of its communications system before it veered wildly off course on a seven-hour silent flight into the sea. An analysis of the flight’s routing, signalling and communications shows that it was flown “in a rational way”.
An official source told The Telegraph that investigators believe “this has been a deliberate act by someone on board who had to have had the detailed knowledge to do what was done … Nothing is emerging that points to motive.”
Asked about the possibility of a plane malfunction or an on-board fire, the source said: “It just does not hinge together… [The investigators] have gone through processes you do to get the plane where it flew to for eight hours. They point to it being flown in a rational way.”
***
Malaysian authorities have come under intense criticism for their handling of the ordeal, including claims they hid information and bungled the search.
Foreign intelligence agencies have conducted two rounds of checks on the passengers and found nothing suspicious about any. Nor have any leads emerged from an intensive police investigation into the two prime suspects, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, the 53-year-old pilot, and Fariq. Neither has any known background of extremism or psychological problems.
Police have interviewed more than a hundred friends and family members of the pilots, conducted a forensic investigation of a flight simulator seized from Zaharie’s home, combed through their laptops and flying records, and enlisted the help of the FBI and Interpol. But a source involved in the police investigation told The Telegraph: “We are still clueless. We have not collected anything suspicious.”
DXer said
Was missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 on a suicide mission? The search for answers goes on
• MARCH 25, 2014
• http://WWW.HERALDSUN.COM.AU/NEWS/WAS-MISSING-MALAYSIA-AIRLINES-FLIGHT-MH370-ON-A-SUICIDE-MISSION-THE-SEARCH-FOR-ANSWERS-GOES-ON/STORY-FNIZTVNE-1226864212548
***
SUICIDE MISSION
Did one of the plane’s pilots or someone else on board deliberately crash the airliner into the ocean thousands of kilometres away in a different direction from its scheduled route to Beijing? An unnamed official source quoted in the UK’s Daily Telegraph newspaper says that is exactly what investigators currently believe.
“This has been a deliberate act by someone on board who had to have had the detailed knowledge to do what was done … Nothing is emerging that points to motive,” they said.
An analysis of the flight’s routing, signalling and communications reportedly shows that it was flown “in a rational way”.
…
Police say they have interviewed more than a hundred friends and family members of the pilots, combed through their laptops and flying records, and enlisted international investigative agencies to help — all without any significant leads.
A source involved in the police investigation told the Telegraph: “We are still clueless. We have not collected anything suspicious.”
…
However, authorities recently revealed that the last transmission from the aircraft’s reporting system showed it was heading to Beijing — apparently undercutting the theory that someone reprogrammed the plane’s flight path before the co-pilot signed off with air traffic controllers for the last time.
CNN aviation analyst Miles O’Brien said this evidence was a “game changer”.
“Now we have no evidence the crew did anything wrong,” he said. “And in fact, now, we should be operating with the primary assumption being that something bad happened to that plane shortly after they said good night.”
A passenger may have gained access to the cockpit and hijacked the plane for a political, psychological or financial reason. If the passenger was armed, they might have threatened the pilot and forced them to fly off course.
Otherwise, if the passenger was a trained pilot, they could have taken over the controls.
While all this is plausible, intelligence agencies around the world have conducted two rounds of checks on the passengers and found nothing suspicious about any.
Investigators reportedly now believe no malfunction or fire was capable of causing the aircraft’s unusual flight or the disabling of its communications system before it veered wildly off course.
…
Seventeen days after it vanished from radar screens, there has no substantiated demands from any known or unknown terror groups.
DXer said
Should authorities be on the look-out for thousands of floating mangosteens? How long will a mangosteen float?
DXer said
Apples float in water because they are 20-25% air.
http://www.ask.com/question/why-do-apples-float-in-water
With several tons of mangosteens on board MH 370, we can ask: what percentage of air are mangosteens? Do they float?
“As for the mystery of mangosteens with different densities and floating or sinking propensities, I have no clue what the answer is but they make for great conversation starters when you ask someone “why do you think some mangosteens sink while others float?” — air inside the fruit? ”
http://www.marketmanila.com/archives/sculptural-colorful-calla-lilies
Who was the vendor of these mangosteens? Do mangosteens of that subspecies of comparable ripeness and density float? (In the interest of marketing, we’ll assume none had worms).
“Scientists seem to be infatuated with objects that float and sink. Even non-scientists find great joy in dropping stuff in water to see if it floats or sinks. Fans of David Letterman are quick to point out one of Dave’s favorite segments called, “Will It Float?” Here’s the latest float or sink challenge: Why do lemons float in water but limes sink?”
https://www.stevespanglerscience.com/lab/experiments/floating-lemons-and-sinking-limes
episode guide with various items tested on Letterman –
http://www.ddy.com/dl21.html
Oranges float so long as the orange is not peeled.
But what about mangosteens?
DXer said
Could a small BOMB have been hidden inside one of the crates of fruit stacked in the cargo hold on MH370? A new theory being investigated
• Authorities are investigating whether a bomb was concealed in a crate of mangosteen fruit
• The seemingly harmless cargo was ordered by companies in China
• ‘Three to four tons’ of mangosteens were on the aircraft
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2583207/Could-small-BOMB-hidden-inside-one-crates-fruit-stacked-cargo-hold-MH370-A-new-theory-investigated.html
But an intelligence source in Kuala Lumpur said today that it would not be difficult to ‘bury’ some kind of explosive material inside the fruit, particularly if it was in the centre of a crate.
That explosive could then be set off electronically by someone on board the aircraft, prepared to die if the blast brought the jet down.
The triggering device could have been hidden inside an innocent looking mobile phone, experts say.
Investigators have not ruled out the possibility of a major catastrophic event causing the aircraft to suddenly soar up to 45,000ft, rendering everyone on board unconscious, particularly if a blast in the cargo hold had torn a hole in the side of the frame.
Out of control, it could have turned sharply westwards and continued flying straight out into the Indian Ocean until it ran out of fuel.
‘This is yet another theory,’ said a police officer. ‘But we are not discounting anything.’
DXer said
Maybe the key to a successful search algorithm is how efficiently it excludes false positives — while still reliably and efficiently excluding possible leads.
Chinese Report “Suspicious Objects” in Search for Jet, March 24, 2014
http://abcnews.go.com/International/missing-malaysia-airlines-plane-chinese-report-suspicious-objects/story?id=23030383
Missing Malaysian Airlines plane flew low but authorities ignored eyewitnesses: report
Date
March 24, 2014
http://www.smh.com.au/world/missing-malaysian-airlines-plane-flew-low-but-authorities-ignored-eyewitnesses-report-20140324-hvm98.html#ixzz2wreVtbEk
“If confirmed the plane was flying as low as 3650 metres it would support a theory the pilots were trying to save the plane by abruptly dropping altitude after a catastrophic event on board.
Police have focused their investigations on the possibilities of hijacking or sabotage but have not ruled out technical failure.”
I have a computer scientist friend from southern India who is defending his PhD thesis this week on a new search algorithm — he once explained it to me by describing the search for a ship in the ocean. I haven’t wanted to intrude on him the week before his defense with the puzzle of the missing Malaysian Airlines 370.
Because of his defense he is going to miss a scrabble tournament fundraiser for a literacy group. His team would handily win each year because players could prepare based on the winning solutions he programmed in a computer.
There is a celebrated novel NAMESAKE by Jhumpa Lahiri that starts with a train accident in India. Last week I won a book cover design contest based on NAMESAKE sponsored by CNY Reads.
My cover had an application for an identity card in the background. The protagonist’s name was chosen based on a book the future PhD candidate was holding at the time of the accident.
In MH 370, what was the name used in the false identity? More importantly, what was the image? Was it Sufaat’s colleague, Halimah? Did the woman have a prominent mole?
Coming full circule, I’m donating the contest prize to a university literacy group sponsoring the scrabble fundraiser this week — which makes sense because my team (led by a Girl Scout) will win only because my brilliant friend from India won’t be there (along with the ace player from Singapore).
The take-home is that you play with the players and tiles you have — while doing your best to make sound judgments about what coincidences are merely serendipitous.
But, most of all, you check your facts.
FBI to quiz wife of Flight MH370 pilot amid fears of cockpit hijack of missing plane
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/missing-malaysia-airlines-flight-fbi-3276536#ixzz2wrfbcQTD
“American intelligence agents are said to be steering Malaysian officials towards examining the backgrounds of Captain Shah, 53, and his co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid, 27.
However a source close to the probe revealed today that vetting on Hamid is almost complete – and has so far thrown up nothing untoward.
It means [Captain] Shah has now become the primary focus.
The insider said: “There seems to be nothing in the life of [co-pilot] Fariq Hamid to suggest a motive for hijacking.”
In Amerithrax, the psychiatrists never vetted their facts by in-person interviews — and when it was pointed out to them that their key witness reports that she got her instructions from an alien who controlled her through a microchip implanted in her butt — and gave her instructions each night — they never corrected their facts. She thought murderous astral entities were attached to the clients in her new part-time counseling gig and were trying to kill her. The psychatrists continued to make their formal and very public pitch to DNI as late as 2011.
And that, to a large degree, is why Amerithrax crash and burned.
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370: Do new accounts debunk cockpit foul play theory?
By Sara Sidner, Catherine E. Shoichet and Evan Perez, CNN
updated 7:14 PM EDT, Sun March 23, 2014
Earlier Sunday, Malaysian authorities said the last transmission from the missing aircraft’s reporting system showed it heading to Beijing — a revelation that appears to undercut the theory that someone reprogrammed the plane’s flight path before the co-pilot signed off with air-traffic controllers for the last time.
That reduces, but doesn’t rule out, suspicions about foul play in the cockpit.
The new details give more insight about what happened on the plane, but don’t explain why the plane went missing or where it could be.
Analysts are divided about what the latest clues about what happened aboard the plane could mean. Some argue the new information is a sign that mechanical failure sent the plane suddenly off course. Others say there are still too many unknowns to eliminate any possibilities.
CNN aviation analyst Miles O’Brien called the fresh information about the flight a “game changer.”
http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/23/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-plane/
DXer said
Investigators are seeking a mystery woman who made a two-minute call to the captain from a mobile phone obtained under a false identity, The Daily Mail reported. The phone’s SIM card was traced back shop in Kuala Lumpur, where it was bought by someone with a woman’s name, who used a false identity, according to The Mail. The find reportedly raised fears that Zaharie had ties to terror groups, who are known to use similar phones.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/chinese-satellite-spots-object-officials-hope-find-missing-malaysia-airlines-plane-article-1.1730211
DXer said
Phone SIM card link to MH370 pilot
ninemsn staff 4:20pm March 23, 2014
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/2014/03/23/16/20/phone-sim-card-link-to-mh370-pilot
The report says investigators are looking into the incident as anyone buying a pre-paid SIM card in Malaysia is subject to an identity check to ensure mobile phone numbers can be traced to people.
In this case the SIM card used to call Captain Shah’s phone was traced to a shop in Kuala Lumpur and had been purchased recently by a woman using a false identity.
The practice is common amongst terror groups and every other person who spoke to Captain Shah before the flight has since been interviewed.
DXer said
http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2014/03/23/spotlight-on-pilots-mystery-caller-and-wife/
Investigators were keen to trace the caller and interview them, although they have stressed that the fact the SIM card was registered to a non-existent ID card does not necessarily indicate a criminal or terrorist connection.
The Mail on Sunday also reported that it has learned the investigators were now poised to question Zaharie’s wife in detail.
“They have waited two weeks out of respect, but will now begin formally interviewing Faizah Khan following pressure from FBI agents assisting the inquiry,” added the report.
It further quoted a source as saying: “Faizah has been spoken to gently by officers but she has not been questioned in detail to establish her husband’s behaviour and state of mind in the days leading to the incident.”
“This is partly for cultural reasons. It is not considered appropriate in Malaysia to subject people in situations of terrible bereavement to the stress of intensive questioning.”
The daily said that the softly-softly approach has been challenged by the team of FBI agents working with Malaysian police.
They have pointed out that she may hold “vital clues and information” to Zaharie’s mental state.
“The whole world is looking for this missing plane and the person who arguably knows most about the state of mind of the man who captained the plane is being left alone,” said a source close to the FBI team.
“If we want to eliminate the chief pilot from the inquiry, we must interview her in detail to find out what his state of mind was.”
Malaysia Airlines MH370, carrying 239 passengers and crew, dropped off civilian radar on March 8 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, and two weeks later Malaysian investigators still believe it was deliberately diverted by someone on board.
Three scenarios have gained particular traction: hijacking, pilot sabotage, and a sudden mid-air crisis that incapacitated the flight crew and left the plane to fly on auto-pilot for several hours until it ran out of fuel and crashed.
Finding wreckage in the remote southern Indian Ocean would undermine the hijacking theory, which many relatives continue to cling to.
Comment:
Authorities similarly had not interviewed the father of the Execujet flight engineer on board.
The Captain’s wife might say that she and the children had moved out the day prior because the Captain had a girlfiend. Speaking with her might quickly serve to exclude him.
I hope the Malaysian authorities allow the FBI agents to interview Yazid Sufaat. He is quite relaxed and given his previous Al Qaeda plot to hijack an airliner for the purpose of crashing into a US warship, I don’t think he will be offended. He has said authorities are never going to hear the truth from his mouth because he is offended about being detained. But it is still worth meeting and talking with him.
DXer said
MISSING MH370: IGP denies Daily Mail report
By Atiqa Hazellah |
Read more: MISSING MH370: IGP denies Daily Mail report – Latest – New Straits Times http://www.nst.com.my/latest/font-color-red-missing-mh370-font-igp-denies-daily-mail-report-1.528105#ixzz2wmmssk1k
KUALA LUMPUR: Police have refuted an online version of a British tabloid report that MH 370 flight Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah had received a call from a mystery woman before take-off.
Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar described the report as “mere speculation”.
He added that investigations were ongoing and confidential.
“If the portal can provide the caller’s number, that will help. If not, as I said, it is a mere speculation,” he said in a short messaging message (SMS) to the New Straits Times.
Khalid was responding to a Daily Mail report saying Zaharie had received a two-minute call before take-off from a mystery woman using a mobile phone number obtained under a false identity.
^^^
After the Sept 11 attack in 2001, customers who purchase prepaid SIM cards, are required to give details, including their MyKad or passport number.
This was one of the anti-terrorism measures to ensure that every number is registered to a traceable person.
DXer said
I certainly don’t want to speculate — given that so many viable hypotheses are wide open. But I think the minute a Captain’s plane goes missing, as a condition of employment, authorities should by consent be able to promptly know everything — including what he had for breakfast. Such an approach is in the collective interest of all crew and passengers, including the Captain. (Indeed, a Captain logically can be subject to coercion or extortion).
Yazid’s daughter enigmatically writes:
“Soraya Yazid @sorayaanur Mar 21
Don’t vaporize yourself, informations. Stay there, stay where you were meant to be.”
(I think Yazid’s wife Chomel might best advise his daughter to not post on the subject of missing airliner — studying, cats, food are safe subjects for a thoughtful, sweet and studious 18-year-old under the circumstances.)
I’ve emailed Soraya to ask that she ask her father whether he knows anything about the missing airliner.
If the mystery remains unresolved, at some point I think that running down potential leads would become of interest to the US Secret Service.
“Missing airline complicates Obama’s plans to visit and increase ties with Malaysia,” March 20, 2014
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/missing-airliner-complicates-obamas-plans-to-visit-and-increase-ties-with-malaysia/2014/03/20/f1b1d2ee-afa1-11e3-9627-c65021d6d572_story.html
I don’t think we need to pause to assess any blame or even spend too much time prioritizing hypotheses — all efforts are best focused on clarifying and eliminating alternative potential leads.
For example, precisely how were the lithium batteries packed? It seems that the cargo manifest should have been transmitted to countries participating in the search already.
In contrast, that was not done in Amerithrax; instead, the psychiatrist got breathless over the report by the former counselor who now explains that she was controlled by an alien who had implanted a microchip in her butt. She says she got her instructions from the alien at night. The psychiatrist urged that he be allowed to publish his public smear of the fragile Dr. Ivins based on heavy reliance of his first counselor’s reports.
DXer said
Report: Investigators Now Looking for ‘Mystery Woman’ who Called Malaysia Airlines Pilot Before Takeoff
Mar. 23, 2014 8:16am Sharona Schwartz
The Daily Mail also reported Sunday that Malaysian investigators are set to question the pilot’s “estranged wife” after waiting two weeks “out of respect” of her situation of stress.
The paper reported that the couple was separated, but had been living in the same house. They have three children.
TheBlaze is unable to independently verify either the report on the mystery caller or that Shah was estranged from his wife.
According to other reports, for example in Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald on Sunday, Shah was “a happily married pilot with three adult children.”
…
FBI team told the Daily Mail. “If we want to eliminate the chief pilot from the inquiry, we must interview her in detail to find out what his state of mind was.”
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/03/23/report-investigators-now-looking-for-mystery-woman-who-called-malaysia-airlines-pilot-before-takeoff/
Question: How old is the woman in the false ID who bought the SIMS card? Note that Yazid Sufaat’s female co-defendant. Halimah, is on the lam. Chomel’s reiligous teacher is an attorney by training and was charged along with Yazid for recruiting men to jihad.
I vaguely recall her to be 53.
OTOH, if the Captain was separated from his wife, a romantic interest seems an even more very viable theory.
DXer said
Was the photo of the woman in the false ID similar to Halimah, who is on the lam? As the co-defendant with the fellow who had the plot to crash a US airliner into a US warship, Halimah seems someone whose picture should be shown the seller of the SIMS card.
Alternatively, do mistresses use false IDs? It seems an unnecessary step when telephone numbers can simply be shielded from a wife (at least that is the case in the US.)
Halimah is pretty readily identifable by the mole. So it seems that she too might be excluded if the vendor remembers the recent sale.
A-G confirms Halimah skipped bail
New Straits Times\
http://www.nst.com.my/nation/general/a-g-confirms-halimah-skipped-bail-1.437566#ixzz2wn2sVijk
DXer said
picture of the fugitive they have a national alert out for – whose colleague had the plot to crash a US airliner into a warship
DXer said
One newspaper account today notes:
“On the other hand, the use of a prepaid SIM using a false identity would not necessarily point to terrorism. The Daily Mail noted that political activists in Malaysia have in the past masked their identities when purchasing SIM cards of concern their phones are being bugged by the government.”
DXer said
Missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 could have been hijacked during handover between Malaysian and Vietnamese air traffic controllers
• Mar 21, 2014 21:44
• By David Collins, Russell Myers
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/missing-malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-3269867#ixzz2wdcYrFa4
A newly-released transcript has pinpointed the exact moment the jet flew into the “dead space” between the two air traffic control zones – where it is not being monitored from the ground.
Investigators are still probing today’s claims the Malaysian Airlines jet could have flown for seven hours before crashing into the sea off the coast of Australia after the crew and passengers became incapacitated by an onboard emergency.
And the missing plane was carrying highly flammable lithium batteries, the chief executive of Malaysian Airlines admitted today. Four days ago Ahmad Jauhari denied the dangerous cargo was onboard the plane.
Lithium-ion batteries have caused 140 mid-air incidents in last 20 years and are classed as dangerous by The International Civil Aviation Organisation. Some experts believe Flight MH370 could have been brought down by a catastrophic onboard fire.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/missing-malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-3269867#ixzz2wdc9KI7N
DXer said
Missing Plane: Expert Rules Out Fire Theory
Posted on Friday 21 March 2014
http://www.key103.co.uk/news/uk-and-world/20140321-missing-plane-expert-rules-out-fire-theory/
A safety expert has ruled out fire as a cause for the disappearance of the missing Malaysia Airlines plane after it emerged lithium ion batteries were being carried in its hold.
Ahmad Jauhari Yahya, chief executive of the airline, revealed the batteries – which have posed safety concerns after causing fires on board Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft – were in the cargo hold.
He said: “We carry some lithium ion batteries but they are approved and not declared as dangerous goods.
“Airlines do this all the time; these goods have been flown many times.”
One of the theories behind the plane’s disappearance has focused on a fire breaking out and causing the pilots to become incapacitated.
But David Learmount, operations and safety editor of Flightglobal, said the pilots would have alerted air traffic control if a fire broke out onboard.
He told Sky News Online: “The problem if you have a lot of them (batteries) and they start reacting with each other is that they cause an enormous amount of heat and that causes fire.
“The pilots would be immediately aware because of detectors and fires in the hold can be very dangerous because you can’t get into it from the aircraft.
“They would be turning for the nearest airport as fast as possible and telling air traffic control – fire on any aircraft is absolutely terrifying for everyone.
“This aircraft has not come down because of fire. The idea that a pilot would keep a fire quiet is absolutely unthinkable.”
Mr Learmount said the theory that the aircraft was deliberately turned off course by someone who knew what they were doing was the most plausible explanation for its disappearance.
Malaysian authorities have said the plane turned west and travelled back over the Malay Peninsula and out into the Indian Ocean after it vanished from radar during its flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8.
DXer said
Missing Malaysian Flight 370 raises fear that it was stolen by terrorists to use it as weapon
Since 9/11, the federal government has beefed up security to detect and defend against suspicious planes. But the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 has created the possibility that the plane was stolen to be used for an attack.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/missing-jetline-raises-fears-9-11-attack-article-1.1727525#ixzz2wc5BOfd2BY JOSEPH STRAW / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
It’s the possibility that terrorists or a rogue state are hiding the lost Boeing 777 with plans to use it as a weapon of mass destruction against the U.S., much like Al Qaeda did with four hijacked planes on Sept. 11, 2001.
Defense experts said Wednesday that such an attack would be far tougher to pull off than on 9/11.
But we’re not invincible.
Since the U.S. government was caught flatfooted on 9/11, the Pentagon and other agencies have worked hard to reduce the likelihood of a repeat attack.
One change: The Pentagon now has real-time access to the Federal Aviation Administration’s civilian air-traffic control system, allowing the military to immediately begin tracking any plane deemed suspicious by FAA personnel.
In addition, the nation’s borders are now covered by a chain of overlapping radar arrays jointly overseen by the FAA and the Air Force to provide warning of an inbound threat.
The radar network has transformed since 9/11 “from one focused primarily on external air threats coming over the pole to a total North American coverage,” Capt. J.C. Stadnyk of the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, told the Daily News.
At the same time, the Air Force and Air National Guard have more than doubled the number of “alert” bases where armed fighter jets sit prepped to launch in seconds.
There were just seven of those bases on 9/11, but the number had jumped to 18 by last year under Operation Noble Eagle, with jets and crews standing by for orders from NORAD to scramble and intercept, according to a Government Accountability Office report.
The military also has land- and ship-based anti-aircraft missiles that can take down a rogue jet. Commanders, however, prefer to have a pilot’s eyes on any suspicious aircraft before giving the order to fire, said Loren Thompson, a military analyst with the Lexington Institute in Arlington, Va.
“Being able to position a fighter pilot close to an aircraft is your best assurance against shooting down an innocent airliner,” Thompson said.
Flight 370 vanished March 8 with 239 people onboard.
Reports indicate a flight path change was programmed into the plane’s navigation system — and the aircraft’s data transmission systems shut off — before the co-pilot told air-traffic controllers, “All right, good night.”
The search for the plane or its wreckage centers on a patch of the Indian Ocean west of Australia, and a nearly 3 million-square mile arc from that area northwest to southwest Asia.
President Obama on Wednesday called the search “a top priority,” telling KDFW-TV of Dallas that the U.S. has “put every resource that we have available at the disposal of the search process.”
If fully fueled, the missing plane has a range of roughly 9,000 miles, potentially placing a large part of the globe in its reach.
If the plane secretly landed at some villain’s lair, its satellite transmission systems could be completely shut before its next takeoff, blocking the ability to home in on the plane’s signal, said Hans Weber, an aviation consultant. Any plane can be flown “silently,” Weber said.
Another danger: a soft spot in the ground-based radar systems protecting the U.S. coast. Such radar can be late to spot an aircraft inbound at an extremely low altitude.
“If it’s flying 50 feet off the Earth you won’t see it till it’s near Coney Island,” Thompson said.
Radar systems operated from Air Force AWACS planes can plug this hole in the air-defense safety net. It is unclear whether the military has stepped up its use of such aircraft since Flight 370 vanished.
Satellite-based radar also can detect a low-flying plane. A space-based radar warning system was proposed after 9/11. Thompson said the proposal may have been scrapped — or it could be operating now, in secret.
Thompson said even if Flight 370 is lost, the threat will remain.
“You don’t have to believe that this aircraft is available to terrorists somewhere to see that the incident suggests the possibility of future hijacking with the intent of attacking America,” he said.
DXer said
Missing plane was heading for US terror base in 9/11 style attack
The missing Malaysian airliner was hijacked for a terror attack on British territory, it was claimed last night.
http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/370722/Malaysia-Airlines-missing-plane-was-heading-for-US-terror-base-in-9-11-style-attack
Fears grew that the Boeing 777 flew towards a secretive US airbase leased from Britain on the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.
Hijackers may have planned to slam the Malaysia Airlines jet with 239 passengers and crew into the base in a 9/11 style attack.
The chilling new theory emerged after a satellite spotted pieces of wreckage, one 78ft long, floating 1,500 miles off the coast of Perth, Western Australia.
Australia’s Maritime Safety Authority boss John Young said surveillance planes were searching for the debris.
Last night an international fleet of boats, including British survey ship HMS Echo, was sailing there.
Malaysian Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein hailed the wreckage discovery, which came 13 days after the plane disappeared, as “credible”.
The suspected crash site is in the opposite direction of the plane’s intended destination of Beijing, China, leaving investigators in little doubt that it deliberately veered off course.
Intelligence sources say the evidence is now pointing to it being hijacked perhaps by Islamic extremists. The possible crash site is around 2,000 miles off Diego Garcia, which is part of Britain’s Indian Ocean territory.
But any hijacker could have easily flown off course before running out of fuel.
Another theory is that passengers may have rebelled against the hijackers after realising their deadly final destination and altered the flight path.
Diego Garcia’s US airbase houses 1,400 workers and was used as a CIA “black site” to hold captured Islamic terror suspects.
The remote island is also said to have been used for “extraordinary rendition” flights, in which terrorist figures were transported around the world.
Internet conspiracy theorists backed claims that a hijacker may have been trying to fly there.
One wrote: “I have been saying look at Diego Garcia all along. I believe we might now be skating dangerously close to the truth to where the plane was going.”
And another hit back at sceptics, insisting: “What else is out there? The only target could be Diego.”
Last night there was also speculation the plane may have flown in a straight line directly south after some sort of catastrophe on board like a rapid decompression.
Robert Mark, editor of Aviation International News Safety magazine, said an on-board emergency may have knocked out the crew, leaving it to fly on auto-pilot until it ran out of fuel.
He said: “A mechanical fault or emergency seems plausible.”
DXer said
KUALA LUMPUR, March 21— After repeated background checks, foreign intelligence agencies have found nothing “suspicious” among passengers on board Flight MH370 to suggest a link with any global terrorism activity, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein said today.
“I can confirm my discussion with some of the intelligence and international agencies have come back to me that (they have) not found anything unusual from the manifest,” the acting transport minister said in a press conference which was broadcast live on television.
He added that Malaysia had specifically requested that the background information of the passengers be “relooked” following terrorism fears worldwide.
Hishammuddin also said that Ukrainian police had cleared two of its nationals who were on board the missing flight.
Malaysian police have maintained that four possibilities are still being pursued — hijack, sabotage, psychological and personal problems — in the case now classified under Section 130C of the Penal Code, which covers hijacking, sabotage, and terrorism offences, among others.
– See more at: http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/mh370-passengers-get-clean-bill-on-terror-suspicion#sthash.Btb4poGz.dpuf
DXer said
What does Yazid Sufaat think about the missing plane? His thoughtful and hardworking daughter, Soraya Nur, noted yesterday that she hasn’t spoken (been able to speak) to him in a month — and noted it has been a year since his arrest. When she does have a chance to speak with him, I hope she asks him if he has an information bearing on what might have happened to the plane — given the emotional ordeal of the families of the passengers.
As I recommended to his wife, Chomel, my thought is that it would be in his interest to explain the history of Dr. Ayman’s anthrax program — it might help put having tea with the young men who announced they were going to Syria in context.
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 Lew Weinstein on May 1, 2012
Al Qaeda anthrax lab director Yazid Sufaat’s former assistant indicted in Israel for holding biological weapons
Posted by Lew Weinstein on February 5, 2014
2014 Straits Times report : Into what weapons did Yazid Sufaat attempt to load anthrax?
Posted by Lew Weinstein on February 23, 2014
DXer says: Adnan El-Shukrijumah is the anthrax mailer … on or about 9/13/2001, he phoned from KSM’s house to tell his mom he was coming to the US
Posted by Lew Weinstein on June 6, 2013
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2013/06/06/dxer-adnan-el-shukrijumah-is-the-anthrax-mailer-on-9132001-he-phoned-from-ksms-house-to-tell-his-mom-he-was-coming-to-the-us/
DXer said
Rohan Gunaratna is a highly experienced expert who has interviewed a lot of detained jihadists. His black notebooks on interviews take up numerous shelves. He and Rene Pita have written thoughtfully about Amerithrax. I hope Rohan recommends that so long as the FBI is in KL, they might usefully interview Yazid Sufaat.
Missing MH370: Experts cautious on terror attack theory
http://news.asiaone.com/news/malaysia/missing-mh370-experts-cautious-terror-attack-theory
Is the plane’s disappearance engineered by a lone-wolf operator or a group with terrorist links?
These are some of the questions being discussed in terrorism analysis circles as a probe deepens into the case of Flight MH370, which went missing in the early hours of March 8 with 239 people on board, many of them from China.
In particular, the theory of a 9/11-style attack was triggered by revelations last week from Al-Qaeda informant Saajid Badat that a group of Malaysians had been planning to take control of a Malaysia Airlines plane by blowing up the cockpit door with a bomb hidden in a shoe.
He said he had given the Malaysians a shoe bomb to “access the cockpit” in the 2002 plot, according to British media.
He was speaking to a court in the United States via video link in the trial of Osama bin Laden’s son-in-law, in the 9/11 case.
Some aviation experts and pilots suggested that the MH370 cockpit could have been compromised and pilots could have deliberately crashed the plane to prevent a 9/11-style attack.
Meanwhile, former US Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott added to concerns at the weekend with his tweet that MH370 may have been hijacked for a 9/11-type attack in India.
Terrorism analysts said the possibility of a terror attack would have to be ruled out by investigators, but added that evidence so far does not clearly suggest it was one.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak had said at the weekend that “deliberate” action was likely taken to disable the plane’s communication systems and to turn the airliner back across Peninsular Malaysia, from its position to the east.
But the absence of interceptions and Web chatter, and the limited capability of Muslim militant groups such as the Al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiah (JI) of Indonesia, or the Uighur separatists of China’s Xinjiang province, are leading analysts to be circumspect, pending new evidence that points to a terrorist attack.
“An incident of this magnitude has to have a trail,” said Singapore-based terrorism analyst Rohan Gunaratna.
“If pilot error and mechanical failure have been discounted, and the Malaysian Prime Minister has said it was deliberate, the possibilities are that it could be a criminal act, a terrorist attack or one driven by psychological stress,” said the head of the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research.
“If it was criminal, where is the financial trail? If terrorism was the motive, why is there no intelligence yet?
“Background checks on all crew members and passengers will have to be conducted to rule out psychological motives.”
DXer said
Last month another oft-quoted expert discussed Yazid Sufaat.
Low-Tech Terrorism
Bruce Hoffman
February 25, 2014
http://strategicstudyindia.blogspot.com/2014/03/low-tech-terrorism.html
***
The movement’s efforts in the biological-warfare realm, however, were far more advanced and appear to have begun in earnest with a memo written by al-Zawahiri on April 15, 1999, to Muhammad Atef, then deputy commander of Al Qaeda’s military committee. Citing articles published in Science, the Journal of Immunology and the New England Journal of Medicine, as well as information gleaned from authoritative books such as Tomorrow’s Weapons, Peace or Pestilence and Chemical Warfare, al-Zawahiri outlined in detail his thoughts on the priority to be given to developing a biological-weapons capability.
One of the specialists recruited for this purpose was a U.S.-trained Malaysian microbiologist named Yazid Sufaat. A former captain in the Malaysian army, Sufaat graduated from the California State University in 1987 with a degree in biological sciences. He later joined Al Gamaa al-Islamiyya (the “Islamic Group”), an Al Qaeda affiliate operating in Southeast Asia, and worked closely with its military operations chief, Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali, and with Hambali’s own Al Qaeda handler, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed—the infamous KSM, architect of the September 11 attacks.
In January 2000, Sufaat played host to two of the 9/11 hijackers, Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, who stayed in his Kuala Lumpur condominium. Later that year, Zacarias Moussaoui, the alleged “twentieth hijacker,” who was sentenced in 2006 to life imprisonment by a federal district court in Alexandria, Virginia, also stayed with Sufaat. Under KSM’s direction, Hambali and Sufaat set up shop at an Al Qaeda camp in Kandahar, Afghanistan, where their efforts focused on the weaponization of anthrax.
***
Meanwhile, a separate team of Al Qaeda operatives was engaged in a parallel research-and-development project to produce ricin and chemical-warfare agents at the movement’s Derunta camp, near the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad. As one senior U.S. intelligence officer who prefers to remain anonymous explained, “Al Qaeda’s WMD efforts weren’t part of a single program but rather multiple compartmentalized projects involving multiple scientists in multiple locations.”
The Derunta facility reportedly included laboratories and a school that trained handpicked terrorists in the use of chemical and biological weapons. Among this select group was Kamal Bourgass, an Algerian Al Qaeda operative who was convicted in British courts in 2004 and 2005 for the murder of a British police officer and of “conspiracy to commit a public nuisance by the use of poisons or explosives.” The school’s director was an Egyptian named Midhat Mursi—better known by his Al Qaeda nom de guerre, Abu Kebab—and among its instructors were a Pakistani microbiologist and Sufaat. When U.S. military forces overran the camp in 2001, evidence of the progress achieved in developing chemical weapons as diverse as hydrogen cyanide, chlorine and phosgene was discovered. Mursi himself was killed in 2008 by a missile fired from a U.S. Predator drone.
Mursi’s death dealt another significant blow to Al Qaeda’s efforts to develop nonconventional weapons—but it did not end them. In fact, as the aforementioned senior U.S. intelligence officer recently commented, “Al Qaeda’s ongoing procurement efforts have been well-established for awhile now . . . They haven’t been highlighted in the U.S. media, but that isn’t the same as it not happening.” In 2010, for instance, credible intelligence surfaced that Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula—widely considered the movement’s most dangerous and capable affiliate—was deeply involved in the development of ricin, a bioweapon made from castor beans that the FBI has termed the third most toxic substance known, behind only plutonium and botulism.
Then, in May 2013, Turkish authorities seized two kilograms of sarin nerve gas—the same weapon used in the 1995 attack on the Tokyo subway system—and arrested twelve men linked to Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, Al Nusra Front. Days later, another set of sarin-related arrests was made in Iraq of Al Qaeda operatives based in that country who were separately overseeing the production of sarin and mustard blistering agents at two or more locations.
Finally, Israel admitted in November 2013 that for the past three years it had been holding a senior Al Qaeda operative whose expertise was in biological warfare. “The revelations over his alleged biological weapons links,” one account noted of the operative’s detention, “come amid concerns that Al Qaeda affiliates in Syria are attempting to procure bioweapons—and may already have done so.”
ut before we simply conclude that the threat from either Al Qaeda or terrorism has disappeared, it would be prudent to pause and reflect on the expansive dimensions of Al Qaeda’s WMD research-and-development efforts—and also to consider the continuing developments on the opposite end of the technological spectrum that have likewise transformed the threat against conventionally superior militaries and even against superpowers. Like it or not, the war on terrorism continues, abetted by the technological advances of our adversaries and thus far mercifully countered by our own technological prowess—and all the more so by our unyielding vigilance.
Bruce Hoffman is a contributing editor to The National Interest, a senior fellow at the U.S. Military Academy’s Combating Terrorism Center, and a professor and director of the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University.
http://nationalinterest.org/article/low-tech-terrorism-9935?page=show
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
James Vandevelde explained at the conference moderated by Lew in DC that the bio program was far more elite and compartmentalized than the chem program. He has always struck the theme: we don’t know what we don’t know.
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370: No Uighur terrorist links, says China
By Chris Brummitt, Associated Press / March 18, 2014
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Latest-News-Wires/2014/0318/Malaysia-Airlines-Flight-370-No-Uighur-terrorist-links-says-China
DXer said
Indonesia clears seven nationals on MH370 of link to terrorism
MARCH 20, 2014
http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/indonesia-clears-seven-nationals-on-mh370-of-link-to-terrorism
Susilo based his statement on a report submitted by Co-ordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs Djoko Suyanto that there was nothing ‘peculiar’ about their background.
“This matter has to be communicated clearly and there should be no speculation and incorrect news,” Susilo said.
DXer said
Malaysia plane search: Why terrorist attack is unlikely (BBC outlines why – in 60 seconds)
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-26648941
DXer said
Malaysia Airlines flight not hijacked says Lockerbie expert
An aviation expert who gave evidence at Lockerbie trial says the plane was not hijacked, and its pilots are likely heroes
Billie Vincent, the former head of security at the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) and a key witness in the Lockerbie bombing trial, said he believed MH370 diverted off course in a desperate bid to reach safe harbour as the cabin filled with smoke.
“As opposed to being hijackers, the crew were heroically trying to save the airplane, themselves and the passengers when this catastrophe hit,” he told The Telegraph.
Mr Vincent gave expert evidence in the civil trial that followed the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, where families successfully sued Pan Am for $500 million (£300 million) in compensation.
The former air traffic controller said he believed MH370 had suffered a “catastrophic event” that filled the cabin with smoke or noxious fumes shortly after the pilots made final contact with ground control at 1.19am on March 8.
…
Mr Vincent, who helped design Kuala Lumpur International Airport’s security systems, said smoke could have been caused by an electrical fire, hazardous materials in the cargo hold or a small bomb that failed to destroy the aircraft.
He said he thought a bomb unlikely as no group had taken credit for an attack.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/10709251/Malaysia-Airlines-flight-not-hijacked-says-Lockerbie-expert.html
DXer said
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/03/17/what-mh370-hijacking-theories-cant-explain/
What MH370 hijacking theories can’t explain
• BY ADAM TAYLOR
March 17 at 5:39 pm
[interesting historical discussion of hijackings from 1969-1970 era]
It’s now been nine days since MH370 disappeared, and not only have we not heard any demands from anyone, but it seems that terrorist organizations seem to be going out of their way to say they didn’t do it (“We wish we had an opportunity to hijack such a plane,” one Pakistani Taliban commander told Reuters). So far, few theories can explain that.
DXer said
BIn Laden initially denied responsibility for 9/11 until it was beyond dispute.
CNN.com – Bin Laden says he wasn’t behind attacks – September 17 …
edition.cnn.com/2001/US/…binladen…/index.html?…
Terjemahke koco iki
Sep 17, 2001 – Islamic militant leader Osama bin Laden, the man the United States considers the … on New York and Washington, denied any role Sunday in the actions believed to have killed thousands. … Report cites warnings before 9/11.
So while it may very well prove that the plane was not hijacked, these arguments rest on a flawed premise.
DXer said
“Search for Missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 Drastically Narrows,” ABC News, March 19, 2014
http://abcnews.go.com/International/search-missing-malaysia-airlines-flight-370-drastically-narrows/story?id=22975958
“American and British aviation officials have refined satellite signals from the missing Malaysia Flight 370 and created two possible flight paths that dramatically narrow the scope of the search to an area off the coast of Australia.
The two possible paths have the plane heading toward the South Pole and ending, experts believe, off of Australia.
U.S. officials familiar with the investigation tell ABC News that the hourly satellite pings from the jet had yielded far more clues than expected, enabling the focus of the search to be cut in half – from an area roughly the size of Texas to that of Arizona.
Calculations by UK and US experts had now been handed over to the Australians to help with the search.”
DXer said
Yazid Sufaat – i dirottatori e Moussaoui
DXer said
White House says FBI ‘aiding MH370 investigation’
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-26649690
“The acting transport minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, stressed the captain should be considered innocent until proven guilty and that members of his family were co-operating with the investigation. Deleting files would not necessarily be suspicious, particularly if it were done to free up memory space.”
Indeed, I would think it is not “suspicious” even apart from freeing up memory space. It is part of routine housekeeping and avoiding clutter.
I do think, though, that there would have been public safety grounds to do this examination 10 days ago.
DXer said
Missing MH370: Passenger who is a flight engineer comes under scrutiny
http://news.asiaone.com/news/malaysia/missing-mh370-passenger-who-flight-engineer-comes-under-scrutiny
His father said he was confident his son played no part in the mysterious disappearance of the plane.
“I am not worried about my son being a suspect. I have raised him up, and I am confident he has nothing to do with the missing plane. If he is really involved, I will let the authorities arrest him,” Mr Selamat Umar, 60, told The Straits Times at Everly Hotel Putrajaya, where families of passengers and crew have stayed since the flight went missing on March 8.
Mr Selamat said he had not been contacted by the Royal Malaysia Police or any intelligence agency about his son despite reports that Malaysian police are investigating a flight engineer, who would have technical flying knowledge.
Mr Selamat said as of Monday, police had not approached him or visited his son’s new home in Shah Alam.
Mr Selamat said his son, who has been a flight engineer for more than a decade, has worked for Swiss-based jet charter firm Execujet Aviation Group for close to five years. Mr Mohd Khairul was heading to Beijing to repair a private jet which had broken down, said Mr Selamat.
He said his son’s love for aviation began when he was about 15 years old. “He loved to play with those remote-controlled aeroplanes.”
Mr Mohd Khairul studied for an aviation engineering diploma at Tafe College in Seremban.
DXer said
https://offers.lendingtree.com/pages/reverse-mortgage-2/product.aspx?icid=124-DrewReverse&800num=800-291-8066&esourceid=6125506&cchannel=display&csource=Google_Display_Network&cmethod=14854927&cname=189161334723695982&ccontent=LT_031113_ReverseMortgageRed_CalculateIncome_300x600_07032013_html&cterm=LendingTree___display_campaign&mpt=65677922&mpvce=1&mpch=ads
Missing flight MH370: Hijack suspect’s father fights to keep hope alive (and insists his son is innocent)
19 MARCH 2014
They have reportedly found nobody with flying experience but looked hard at Mr Selamat’s son because of his experience with aircraft.
“The focus is on anyone else who might have had aviation skills on that plane,” a senior police official recently said.
At the Everly hotel in Putrajaya, an administrative satellite town south of Kuala Lumpur, Mr Selamat said police had not questioned him about his son, but that the family was happy to help if needed.
DXer said
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/missing-malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-hijack-suspects-father-fights-to-keep-hope-alive-and-insists-his-son-is-innocent-9203343.html
According to the company’s managing director, Graeme Duckworth, Mr Selamat’s son worked as as an airframe and engine engineer. He often worked on Learjet and Bombardier Challenger planes. “He is an excellent employee, well respected,” Mr Duckworth told The Independent.
wife and son
DXer said
I envy news junkies who can read more than one language. They immediately have access to different vantage points.
http://www.cna.com.tw/news/aopl/201403170447-1.aspx
（中央社記者江今葉紐約17日專電）馬來西亞航空編號370班機失聯超過1週，至今下落不明。美國高階官員說，目前沒有證據指向恐怖攻擊，卻抱怨馬來西亞當局拒絕美國大規模協助，以致調查受阻。
8日從吉隆坡起飛前往北京的這架班機，起飛後不久自雷達螢幕消失，包括正副駕駛與237名機組員與乘客，生死未卜。雖然調查指向因人為操控以致飛機失聯，但真相不明、一團迷霧。
「紐約時報」（New York Times）報導，美國高階官員指出，美國調查單位藉由龐大的情報資料庫，逐一過濾機組員和所有乘客，並研判是否蓋達組織（Al-Qaida）、大陸維吾爾反政府或主要恐怖組織所為，或者某人的自殺行為，但這些假設目前都不成立。
這位官員另表示，確實備感挫折，因馬來西亞政府拒絕接受美方提供的協助，以致美國無法直接接管，掌握的資訊有限，能做的不多。
報導並引述美國作家康柏矣（Ken Conboy）的著作「第二戰線」（The Second Front）指出，馬來西亞聖戰組織成員蘇法特（Yazid Sufaat）曾建議，以商用飛機撞擊美國戰艦小鷹號（Kitty Hawk）。蘇法特去年在馬來西亞被捕。
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DXer said
http://wn.com/yazid_sufaat_interviews
DXer said
Let’s consider Kenneth J. Conboy’s discussion of Yazid Sufaat’s plot to crash an airliner into a US warship (and he cites the intelligence report) in the context of Yazid Sufaat’s travels dating to 1999.
If it turns out that MH370 was hijacked and Yazid Sufaat is involved in the plot’s early planning — and folks are pursuing the hypothesis that the plane may have been landed — I would give priority to finding out the location of the island off Java where Yazid apparently travelled prior to the July/August 2000 (according to hacked emails in 2000). He was already focused on attacking US military interests in the region. The travel might have dated to late 1999 when they went to Bogor, Indonesia on Java.
By way of the history recounded by Kenneth J. Conboy, back in 1999, KSM and Atef and Hambali heard of AQ’s desire to attack U.S. interests in Singapore. One JI operative had already had a visit JI’s Singapore branch had made on its own. They recorded the area of Sembawang naval wharf where U.S. military personnel congregated on the way to Sembawang. JI proposed attack U.S. nationals at that locale.
In September 1999, Atef made an additional request: Could he find help for AQ’s anthrax program. (p. 82) (Thus, it certainly best to characterize Rauf Ahmad’s work with Zawahiri and Sufaat’s work as parallel operations — and a mistake to think of Sufaat as the successor of Rauf Ahmad beginning only in Spring 2001.) By Conboy’s account, Sufaat, while a technician in the Army, knew next to nothing about biological weapons. (In contrast, Sufaat, in his public interviews, says he lied to interrogators; and reports that it was revealed to his interrogators that he had been part of a secret, since abandoned biological weapons program but that he refused to cooperate with his interrogators because he was angry with his interrogators over being arrested and that the CIA was not going to hear it from his mouth. In correspondence with me, he pleads the Fifth as to the Fall 2001 anthrax mailings). Putting aside whether he is telling the truth, few can deny that Yazid Sufaat is an affable chap, if you overlook his participation in the murder of innocents.
Hambali had a family friend at the microbiology division of an Indonesian institute in Bogor. Bogor is a city on the island of Java in the West Java province of Indonesia. It is 60 miles south of Jakarta. So Hambali and Yazid Sufaat went to Bogor in Indonesia in 1999. Second Front, p. 83.
The 40-year-old chainsmoker that Hambali and Sufaat interviewed in Bogor, however, “seemed fixated on the material things in life and probably had little stomach for conservative religious doctrine.”
The year before Yazid Sufaat made his renewed pitch in Fall 2001 to Hambali in Karachi about crashing an airliner into a US warship — while he was still actively working on operational matters with Hambali in Indonesia — Yazid became known on the internet to the cyber world around July / August 2000 in a forum titled “Thorikat gebang chat.”
Below is google translation of a post in early 2002 about Yazid Sufaat, based on Yazid’s earlier pre-911 posts on the internet.
Automatic google translation does not do a good job on this post. But as I understand it, someone hacked Yazid Sufaat’s account and revealed that it looks like that by July and August 2000 he stopped in seveal places in Sumatra and Java, on the road to and island off Java that was not identified.
By then, I believe KSM had already tasked him with recruiting four Indonesian pilots for a suicide mission involving airliners. (In their travels, he and Hambali also interviewed the prospective anthrax scientist that Conboy discusses). (I’ve seen the scientist alternative described as a firend of Hambali’s family or as a relative).
(As evidence of Sufaat’s bad character, before traveling to Afghanistan, Sufaat participated in Project Natal, the JI operation to bomb multiple churches in Indonesia on December 24, 2000; I can’t imagine more shameful conduct.)
By 2001, AQ only had found one pilot, a Malaysian. It was then that Yazid pitched Hambali again on a revised plan that involved a suicidal pilot crashing into a US warship. In Karachi, Malaysian cell members were holed up — to include some hijackers and a pilot).
But evidence of Yazid Sufaat’s travels to an island off Java — perhaps on a scouting mission — might be found in hacked emails from before 9/11.
In 2000, on the internet, Yazid attacked by various Thorikat practitioners, making accusations of polytheism, heresy and so on and invite others to convert.
I believe someone offended hacked Yazid’s emails and uploaded emails to his wife which revealed the general location of his travels.
I don’t know Indonesian geography, but as a google earth surfer, I would go past Sumatra and then onto the even more densely populated Java, to include Bogor (where Hambali’s relative was located) and then offshore and start looking at the private and uninhabited islands in the Java Sea — perhaps beginning with the uninhabited and private ones in the Thousand Islands.
Chomel might know the island in the Java Sea he visited but while she is very gracious, I am not in touch.
Yazid Sufaat Si-badot Lemah, FBI, & Amerika yang Nampak Sangat Nak Balun Malaya
https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en&fromgroups=#!topic/soc.culture.malaysia/f-_n0ZP6jBQ
Rene Pita (unduly influenced by Milton Leitenberg who is wong IMO on the critical issues) seems to think that Sufaat went to Bogor shortly before being arrested in December 2001. But I think, respectfully, Rene is mistaken on his timeline. Yazid was captured going through Thailand, coming from the north. In any event, I think we can credit Conboy’s well-sourced discussion of Hambali and Sufaat’s interview of the Bogor scientist in late 1999. (Rene only cites conversations with officials knowledgeable about Sufaat’s interrogation; of course, maybe Sufaat went to Bogor both in late 1999 and again in late 2001).
Personelly, I think Rene and others are foolish to credit Sufaat’s denials in interrogation he was working with a virulent strain — Sufaat expressly told KSM that he and his assistants were vaccinated to protect them. See leaked Wikileak materials.
It’s really simple: Unless working with a virulent strain one doesn’t need to be vaccinated.
Moreover, Milton, who Rene relies upon heavily, even reversed the undated letters from Rauf Ahmad (compare NYT treatment with later Wash Po treatment). It was the second lab that had the thousands of pathogens in the B3.
And so even before we get to the testing done by Dr. Relman, Vice-Chair of the NAS Committee in SCIENCE, we have this uncritical acceptance of the uncorroborated denials of people who would be implicating themselves in murder. I have no idea why Milton does not appreciate that Yazid would be strongly motivated to lie and make false denials. Not to me, of course. I’m way too nice a guy for Yazid to have been motivated to lie to me. To me, he pleads the Fifth as to the mailings.
Although I am obligated to be equally skeptical of Yazid’s veracity, Sufaat before his arrest said that in interrogation he wasn’t about to let the CIA hear it from his mouth — he was pissed at this government for arresting him.
Although there are huge uncertainties in the case of MH370, I hope the island that Yazid Sufaat visited prior to 9/11 is a hypothesis that Indonesian military will check out.
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
I went to the press with the Conboy cite of the intelligence report last weekend only after contacting a former US Captain. The fellow — and there is no one whose judgment I respect more — pointed out that aircraft carriers can move fast and would be hard to hit with a 777.
I foolishly neglected to say: Except when it’s parked, like at Pearl Harbor.
DXer said
Alternatively, this discussion by Mr. Goodfellow, an experienced pilot familiar , seems very sensible.
A Startlingly Simple Theory About the Missing Malaysia Airlines Jet
• BY CHRIS GOODFELLOW
• 03.18.14
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2014/03/mh370-electrical-fire/
***
When I heard this I immediately brought up Google Earth and searched for airports in proximity to the track toward the southwest.
The left turn is the key here. Zaharie Ahmad Shah was a very experienced senior captain with 18,000 hours of flight time. We old pilots were drilled to know what is the closest airport of safe harbor while in cruise. Airports behind us, airports abeam us, and airports ahead of us. They’re always in our head. Always. If something happens, you don’t want to be thinking about what are you going to do–you already know what you are going to do. When I saw that left turn with a direct heading, I instinctively knew he was heading for an airport. He was taking a direct route to Palau Langkawi, a 13,000-foot airstrip with an approach over water and no obstacles. The captain did not turn back to Kuala Lampur because he knew he had 8,000-foot ridges to cross. He knew the terrain was friendlier toward Langkawi, which also was closer.
Take a look at this airport on Google Earth. The pilot did all the right things. He was confronted by some major event onboard that made him make an immediate turn to the closest, safest airport.
For me, the loss of transponders and communications makes perfect sense in a fire. And there most likely was an electrical fire. In the case of a fire, the first response is to pull the main busses and restore circuits one by one until you have isolated the bad one. If they pulled the busses, the plane would go silent. It probably was a serious event and the flight crew was occupied with controlling the plane and trying to fight the fire. Aviate, navigate, and lastly, communicate is the mantra in such situations.
What I think happened is the flight crew was overcome by smoke and the plane continued on the heading, probably on George (autopilot), until it ran out of fuel or the fire destroyed the control surfaces and it crashed. You will find it along that route–looking elsewhere is pointless.
Ongoing speculation of a hijacking and/or murder-suicide and that there was a flight engineer on board does not sway me in favor of foul play until I am presented with evidence of foul play.
…
Evidently the ACARS went inoperative some time before. Disabling the ACARS is not easy, as pointed out. This leads me to believe more in an electrical problem or an electrical fire than a manual shutdown. I suggest the pilots probably were not aware ACARS was not transmitting…
Get on Google Earth and type in Pulau Langkawi and then look at it in relation to the radar track heading.
Comment: While I think Mr. Goodfellow’s is a fine one — I disagree with any suggestion that there no reason not to simultaneously be pursuing alternative hypotheses. Time is of the essence under any scenario.
DXer said
http://www.haveeru.com.mv/news/54062
Residents of the remote Maldives island of Kuda Huvadhoo in Dhaal Atoll have reported seeing a “low flying jumbo jet” on the morning of the disappearance of the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.
Whilst the disappearance of the Boeing 777 jet, carrying 239 passengers has left the whole world in bewilderment, several residents of Kuda Huvadhoo told Haveeru on Tuesday that they saw a “low flying jumbo jet” at around 6:15am on March 8.
They said that it was a white aircraft, with red stripes across it – which is what the Malaysia Airlines flights typically look like.
***
Satellite data suggests that the last “ping” was recieved from the flight somwhere close to the Maldives and the US naval base on Diego Garcia.
DXer said
The Maldives, a group of about 1,200 islands, separated into a series of coral atolls, is just north of the Equator in the Indian Ocean. Only 200 of the islands are inhabited.
http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/asia/mv.htm
DXer said
List of airports in the Maldives with GPS locations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airports_in_the_Maldives
DXer said
FWIW, the Captain’s flight simulator had five runways Male International Airport in the Maldives pogrammed into it. The runway is 1000 metres long.
For that matter, he also had the runway at Diego Garcia programmed.
http://www.news.com.au/world/search-off-wa-for-missing-malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-as-anwar-ibrahim-reveals-family-tie-to-pilot/story-fndir2ev-1226857475087
DXer said
Eyewitness reports of a possible sighting of missing Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 flying near the Maldives have been officially discounted in a statement issued by the Maldives National Defence Force.
These reports were also confirmed by Malaysia’s Transport Minister, Hishamuddin Hussein.
“Based on the monitoring up to date, no indication of Flight MH370 has been observed on any military radars in the country,” the statement said.
***
A plane did fly near the island,” said the witness who was not named. “It wasn’t that big, as big as people say.”
“These days, people will be out fishing every morning. Around 30 people would always be there in the morning – but no one talked about it then. If it was that noticeable, loud and big, people would talk.”
When asked about the possibility of a plane of this size landing on an isolated airstrip in the atolls, Maldives National Defence Force spokesman Major Hussain Ali said this was not possible.
“If you are asking are there any landing strips outside of the main commercial airports, the answer is no,” Major Hussain said.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/missing-malaysia-airlines-plane-maldives-discounted-as-possible-location-for-mh370-20140319-hvkjq.html#ixzz2wQJXyFR0
DXer said
Did terrorists take control of Flight 370?
By Peter Bergen, CNN National Security Analyst
updated 9:36 AM EDT, Tue March 18, 2014
http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/17/opinion/bergen-flight-370-terrorism-role/
DXer said
MALAYSIA
Uighur professor: I was not the one on MH370
BY MELISSA CHIMARCH 15, 2014
– See more at: http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/uighur-professor-i-was-not-the-one-on-mh370#sthash.Ivgbo26H.dpuf
PUTRAJAYA, March 15 — A Chinese Uighur mistakenly identified by a local daily as a passenger aboard missing flight MH370 has come out to deny he is the individual the newspaper said was being examined by police.
Sharing the same name as the Uighur passenger on the still-missing flight, the scholar said his name has been confused by the media with that of the other man.
“All my colleagues and my students can witness that I have been working here every day and I have not been out of Turkey since May, 2013. I have never been to Malaysia, either,” Dr Mamatjan Yasin (Yasheng Maimaitijiang in Chinese) told The Malay Mail Online via e-mail today.
The Malay Mail Online also contacted a colleague of his assistant, professor Dr Dundar Yilmaz, who corroborated Yasin’s account.
Comment: Thus, the assistant professor said to have flight simulator experience was not on the plane — a case of mistaken identity.
DXer said
http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/19/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-plane/
Reports that the plane was sighted by people in the Maldives are “not true.”
DXer said
Yazid tells me could do “magic” — he says that he was part of a long since abandoned secret Malaysian biological weapons program.
DXer said
Link to today’s NYT article:
As U.S. Looks for Terror Links in Plane Case, Malaysia Rejects Extensive Help
By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT and SCOTT SHANEMARCH 16, 2014
Additional sources:
Kenneth J. Conboy, The Second Front: Inside Asia’s Most Dangerous Terrorist Network, by Kenneth J. Conboy, p. 151.
Citing undated report from a regional intelligency agency, “Pendedhan Yazid Sufaat Berkaitan Projek Keganasan di Indonesia dan Singapura.”
http://books.google.com/books?id=-JlKtzgo81QC&pg=PA151&lpg=PA151&dq=%22Yazid+Sufaat%22++pilot&source=bl&ots=Z54Sn4ABg1&sig=cr7e93nEBPrDkgAMqA-VldSpPw0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=NnkkU4n9K8nV0QGym4DwBA&ved=0CDAQ6AEwATgK#v=onepage&q=%22Yazid%20Sufaat%22%20%20pilot&f=false
See also
Al Qaeda anthrax lab technician tells DXer [ me ] 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”?
Posted by Lew Weinstein on May 1, 2012
Background on Sufaat
Al Qaeda anthrax lab tech Yazid Sufaat discusses Zacarias Moussaoui in this 2011 French language television interview
Posted by Lew Weinstein on March 28, 2012
Amerithrax: In February 2002, the FBI Failed To Take Custody of Al Qaeda Anthrax Scientists Rauf Ahmad and Yazid Sufaat
Posted by Lew Weinstein on September 14, 2013
Before his recent arrest, Yazid Sufaat declined to tell DXer the strain of the “anthrax spore concentrate” harvested July 4, 2001
Posted by Lew Weinstein on May 29, 2013
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 Lew Weinstein on May 1, 2012
Al Qaeda anthrax lab director Yazid Sufaat’s former assistant indicted in Israel for holding biological weapons
Posted by Lew Weinstein on February 5, 2014
Al Qaeda anthrax lab director Yazid Sufaat told his family in 2001 that he was going to join a Taliban medical brigade
Posted by Lew Weinstein on May 29, 2013
In February 2002, NEWSWEEK described Al Qaeda anthrax lab director Yazid Sufaat’s role in the 911 attacks that killed 3000 civilians.
Posted by Lew Weinstein on May 29, 2013
Hank Crumpton Says Yazid Sufaat’s “mission was bio-attacks against American targets”
Posted by Lew Weinstein on May 14, 2012
2014 Straits Times report : Into what weapons did Yazid Sufaat attempt to load anthrax?
Posted by Lew Weinstein on February 23, 2014
DXer says: Adnan El-Shukrijumah is the anthrax mailer … on or about 9/13/2001, he phoned from KSM’s house to tell his mom he was coming to the US
Posted by Lew Weinstein on June 6, 2013
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2013/06/06/dxer-adnan-el-shukrijumah-is-the-anthrax-mailer-on-9132001-he-phoned-from-ksms-house-to-tell-his-mom-he-was-coming-to-the-us/
Al Qaeda anthrax lab tech Yazid Sufaat discusses Zacarias Moussaoui in this 2011 French language television interview
Posted by Lew Weinstein on March 28, 2012
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http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com