veiled4allah

British right-wing terrorist plot update

Awhile ago, I posted about an apparent terrorist plot in Britain that wasn't getting any news coverage, apparently because the suspects are white right-wing extremists. When we last heard anything about this story, the suspects were scheduled to go on trial in February. So now it's February and the trial has begun, with one of the suspects pleading guilty. And now it's getting a lot of coverage in the mainstream media. These headlines give an idea why: Ex-BNP man 'wanted to shoot PM' Former BNP candidate wanted to shoot prime minister, court hears Former BNP candidate 'said he would shoot Tony Blair' Other coverage: Ex-BNP candidate admits stockpiling weapons BNP candidate who feared civil war 'had hoarded explosives' Ex-BNP candidate 'had cache of explosive chemicals' Some bloggers commenting on this story include BlairWatch, Rachel from North London, and Iain Dale. There is also a Wikipedia page devoted to the story.

terrorist plot in Britain?

Also in Britain, we learn about a raid that found the largest haul of chemical explosives ever found at a residence in the country, a rocket launcher, and "some kind of master plan" to use these weapons. Why haven't you heard about it? Apparently, because the suspects are right-wing extremists associated with the British National Party, rather than being Muslims. I first read about this in Socialist Worker: A terror raid that doesn't make the headlines - despite chemical explosives and a rocket launcher. Later I saw it again in The Bomb Factory You Won't Hear About, by bat020 at Lenin's Tomb, which found a grand total of two stories from purely local newspapers, Nelson News: Pendle Today - Chemicals Find: Two In Court and Burnley Citizen: Ex-BNP man faces explosives charge. A couple of other bloggers picked up the story from Lenin's Tomb, including Large bomb apparently found, not many informed, by jamie at Blood and Treasure and Chemicals, rocket launcher, master plan, man charged, by Thabet at under|progress. A search on Google News turned up two reprints of the Burnley Citizen report in other local newspapers in the area (1, 2) and an independent report in another local newspaper, Northwest Evening Mail: Rocket Launcher Found at Dentist's House. Also, some commentary from a Muslim news site, Mathaba News: Terror raid, rocket launchers, chemical explosives but no headlines. I think we all know that if the suspects had been Muslims, this would be a huge news story with much hyperventilating. To see it get so little coverage when the suspects are white right-wing extremists makes the double standard pretty darn blatant. Hopefully, the British blogs will be able to get more publicity for this story, inshallah. Update 10/11: Various other blogs have picked up the story including Rachel from North London, qwghlm.co.uk, Wis(s)e Words, Sunny Hundal, and Lenin's Tomb, which wrote to the BBC to find out why they weren't covering it. The London Sunday Times had a single paragraph in a "News in Brief" round-up, but so far that's it as far as any mainstream media coverage goes. Update 10/23: Little further has happened on this, but Rachel from North London reports that the suspects are in court today and she has been trying to get some media coverage for it (and thanks for the shout-out, Rachel!) Later, Tom at Blairwatch goes digging to find out what happened. According to the North-West Evening Mail, at least one of the suspects would be appearing in court on Saturday (October 28), although not the court mentioned by the BBC in its earlier reply to Lenin (according to Blairwatch, the court mentioned by the BBC does not appear to exist!). The Lancaster Unite Against Fascism blog also looks for information on what happened and a commenter reports that one of the suspects was let off, although this appears to contradict the report in the NW Evening Mail. In other words, nobody appears to have any idea what is happening! Update 10/27: I missed this for a few days, but Pickled Politics has the goods, and some news links. Apparently both suspects did appear on October 24 and their trial will be in February 2007. Sunny also discusses reporting restrictions and the media.

the enemy that wasn't there

Foreign Affairs makes a heretical (but apparently correct (also here)) suggestion: there are no real Islamist terrorist cells in America.

Intelligence estimates in 2002 held that there were as many as 5,000 al Qaeda terrorists and supporters in the United States. However, a secret FBI report in 2005 wistfully noted that although the bureau had managed to arrest a few bad guys here and there after more than three years of intense and well-funded hunting, it had been unable to identify a single true al Qaeda sleeper cell anywhere in the country. Thousands of people in the United States have had their overseas communications monitored under a controversial warrantless surveillance program. Of these, fewer than ten U.S. citizens or residents per year have aroused enough suspicion to impel the agencies spying on them to seek warrants authorizing surveillance of their domestic communications as well; none of this activity, it appears, has led to an indictment on any charge whatever. In addition to massive eavesdropping and detention programs, every year some 30,000 "national security letters" are issued without judicial review, forcing businesses and other institutions to disclose confidential information about their customers without telling anyone they have done so. That process has generated thousands of leads that, when pursued, have led nowhere. Some 80,000 Arab and Muslim immigrants have been subjected to fingerprinting and registration, another 8,000 have been called in for interviews with the FBI, and over 5,000 foreign nationals have been imprisoned in initiatives designed to prevent terrorism. This activity, notes the Georgetown University law professor David Cole, has not resulted in a single conviction for a terrorist crime. In fact, only a small number of people picked up on terrorism charges -- always to great official fanfare -- have been convicted at all, and almost all of these convictions have been for other infractions, particularly immigration violations. Some of those convicted have clearly been mental cases or simply flaunting jihadist bravado -- rattling on about taking down the Brooklyn Bridge with a blowtorch, blowing up the Sears Tower if only they could get to Chicago, beheading the prime minister of Canada, or flooding lower Manhattan by somehow doing something terrible to one of those tunnels.

Moussaoui

Bush Administration torture policies are causing serious problems for our ability to actually deal with terrorism. Per Mark Kleiman:

Isikoff's analysis: 1. When Moussaoui was captured, there was some thought that he was centrally involved in the 9-11 plot. 2. Later it was discovered that he wasn't. 3. It was decided to put him on trial anyway, because we needed someone to try. 4. The central plotters (other than bin Laden) are all in U.S. custody, but they haven't been tried and won't be tried. 5. Top people on the President's staff (Gonzales) and the Vice President's staff (Addington) decided to authorize waterboarding and related methods of "aggressive interrogation" as applied to the top plotters. 6. Having tortured them, the Administration can't now put them on trial without having their defense lawyers put the facts about their maltreatment on the official record.

As for the verdict itself (life in prison), I think it was the right one. Being too lazy busy to actually write my own content for my blog entries, I'll point to Steve Gilliard's excellent summary (salted language and all):

First, he's as crazy as a shithouse rat. Most of what he said was bullshit of the highest order, designed to provoke the death penalty and ensure he died a martyr in the hands of the evil US. Second, he was in custody when 9/11 happened and knowledge does not mean action. Murdering him would have been revenge. Third, with no state sanctioned murder, no protests, no calls for clemency, no Bush reveling in blood lust, no years of debate on his mental health, no Supreme Court case.

their terrorism, and ours

So:

The deputy leader of al-Qaeda was not in a Pakistani village near the Afghan border which was hit in an apparent missile attack, Pakistan officials say... ...The unnamed officials said the attack - in which at least 18 people were killed - was based on "false information"... ...Reporters who reached Damadola spoke of three houses hundreds of metres apart that had been destroyed. Shah Zaman said he lost two of his sons and a daughter. "I ran out and saw planes. I ran toward a nearby mountain with my wife. When we were running we heard three more explosions. I saw my home being hit. Shah Zaman said two sons and a daughter were killed in the strike "I don't know who carried out this attack and why. We were needlessly attacked. We are law-abiding people."

(via) What does this make us? Lenin of Lenin's Tomb:

[The crime] is that the US assumed the right to drop a bomb in a civilian area on the assumption that someone they want is there, regardless of how many are murdered in the process. And further, they must stand upon this right because they calculate that if he is not there, such an attack would certainly terrify anyone thinking of supporting or 'harbouring' the enemy. Were Iran to launch such an attack on a neighbouring state, one would hear 'bloody murder' hallooed from every cathode tube.

Daniel Martin Varisco of Tabsir:

But where is the intelligence in this intelligence? The occasion that was said to bring both of these high-level figures together was celebration of the Muslim eid. The idea was to kill the men, and whoever else happened to be present for the feast, while they were engaged in a religious ritual. In this sense the tactic is the same as a suicide bomber who walks into a crowded mosque and sets off a bomb or someone who assassinates a cleric because he is a cleric. Pakistanis in the region are understandably upset that their own government cannot protect them and U.S. special forces can operate seemingly at will even on one of the holiest days of the year. The problem with the way the current administration is waging this war on terrorism is that it has at times, like this case, adopted the tactics of the terrorists. In this attack it was the end that justified the means (meaning collateral damage to human beings), even if it turns out (as it usually does) that the intended target was missed. The logic here is that of Saddam Hussein rather than Thomas Jefferson. Terrorists in this region operate out of a combination of hate and passion, both of which are heightened in the overall community every time we carry out such attacks on civilian targets. How many recruits for hating America did we just create, and not just along the Pakistani border?

Between them, those two pretty much say it all.

horror in the Caucasus

I haven't seen a great amount of news coverage on the horror in the Caucusus today:

Dozens of Islamist militants launched a coordinated wave of attacks on the spa town of Nalchik in southern Russia yesterday, triggering gun battles in which up to 60 people died, bringing unrest to a previously peaceful area of the north Caucasus. Police buildings, the telephone network, the airport and the security services building were among eight targets attacked by militants in a day of violence that began at 9am. Residents cowered at home as police cordoned off gun battles that intensified throughout the day... ...Yesterday, President Vladimir Putin ordered the city, which has a population of 235,000, to be sealed off and dispatched his envoy to the region, Dmitri Kozak, to Nalchik. A shoot-to-kill policy was introduced. Alexander Chekalin, first deputy interior minister, told the Russian news agency Interfax that at least 50 militants had been killed and claimed that the remaining hostage-takers would be defeated "within the hour"... ...Arsen Bulatov, a local journalist, said last night that the bodies of the militants were still lying where they had died, waiting for forensic investigators. "Everyone is at home behind closed doors," he added. Russia's NTV television broadcast pictures of wrecked cars. A plume of black smoke from burning buildings rose above the city centre. Despite officials insisting the fighting was over, gunfire could be heard throughout the day.

One thinks of Beslan of course, and what connection there is to Chechnya (as with Beslan, although the attacks did not take place in Chechnya, Chechen militants are said to be involved). As always, I condemn acts of terrorism and killing of innocent civilians in the strongest terms.

Terrorism, again.

Terrorism in Bali. Again. Is there anything to add to what has been said so many times already? I don't know. How many different ways are there to say that this violates all the principles I believe in and hold dear? But it needs to be said anyway, because of a Muslim's moral obligation to speak out for what's right and condemn what's wrong. And because too many people still believe that murder of the innocent is part of Islamic belief. May Allah lead us away from the path of darkness and to the light of peace and justice, ameen.

another lesson of Oklahoma City

From the Kansas City Star:

There is no chair for Salam Mohammad. One hundred sixty-eight empty bronze chairs line the grassy field where the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building used to stand, each one a solemn memorial to an individual killed in the April 19, 1995, bombing. Salam did not perish on the day of the bombing. Nor did he die anywhere near the Murrah building. His name will not be mentioned on Tuesday morning, when Vice President Dick Cheney and former President Bill Clinton are scheduled to be among the dignitaries who are to speak at a 10th anniversary commemoration of the Oklahoma City bombing. But to many here in Oklahoma City's small Muslim community, the 7-month fetus was a casualty of the attack just the same, one of countless collateral victims whose hidden stories have never been told. Salam's pregnant mother, Sahar al-Moswi, was at home in her Oklahoma City apartment on the morning after the bombing caring for her two young children, listening to the news and wondering, like everyone else in America, who could have perpetrated such an awful crime. The radio and television broadcasts were filled with expert opinions confidently asserting that the bombing bore all the hallmarks of a Middle Eastern terrorist attack. Al-Moswi felt a chill. She and her husband, Haidar al-Saidi, both Shiite Muslims, had fled the persecution and torture of Saddam Hussein's Iraq in the early 1990s and, thanks to family ties, had landed in the middle American tranquility of Oklahoma City. Like many refugees and immigrants, they had tried to keep a low profile in their new neighborhood, where they stood out as the only Muslims. Suddenly the living room window shattered, sending shards of glass flying across the room. A rock landed on the carpet. "I was scared somebody shooting," recalled al-Moswi, now 35. "I did not see the rock. I heard the noise. The glass is all over the place... "I take the kids, and I go to the bathroom," she continued. "It's hard to move - big stomach and two kids. I go to the bathroom. I thought I might be safe there. I (feared) people that might come" and break into the apartment. Moments later, al-Moswi doubled over in pain and started bleeding. But, terrified that attackers might be waiting outside the bathroom, she waited nearly an hour before sending one of her children to get a portable phone from another room so she could call for help. The next day in the hospital - about the time authorities were discovering that they already had the suspected bomber, Timothy McVeigh, in custody on a traffic charge - al-Moswi suffered a miscarriage. "The doctor, he says because she heard the noise, she jumped, she lost the control of the baby," al-Saidi said. No one was ever arrested in the attack, but the family is certain they were singled out because of the initial surge of suspicion directed at Muslims. They even think they know who threw the rock - a neighbor who had always treated them warily - but they have no proof. Devastated, frightened and unable to bear staying in Oklahoma City, the couple quickly fled with their children, selling their car and possessions at a loss to raise enough money to move to Maryland, near al-Saidi's brother. "No government, no police, no anybody come and help us," al-Saidi said. "Nobody comes and says, `Sorry (for) what happened.'"

The context:

In those first frightening days after the bombing, it was assumed by many that "Middle Eastern terrorists" had carried out the attack. That faulty assumption sparked a wave of anti-Muslim hysteria that resulted in almost 250 incidents of harassment, discrimination and actual violence against American Muslims or those perceived to be Middle Eastern. Incidents ranged from a suspected arson attack on a mosque, to drive-by shootings at Islamic centers and assaults on Muslim students. Many Islamic institutions around America also reported phoned bomb threats, and in one case, a fake bomb was thrown at a Muslim day care facility. Individual Muslims reported a great increase in harassment by co-workers and in public. This harassment led to an atmosphere of fear and intimidation in the Muslim community. The collective realization that the attack was carried out by terrorists from the Midwest, not the Mideast, created a teaching moment in which the entire nation reassessed what it means to be a terrorist, and redefined terrorism to include people who look like "regular" Americans. My organization, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), documented the anti-Muslim backlash following the Oklahoma City bombing in a report called "A Rush to Judgment." That report was the first of CAIR's now-annual reports on the status of American Muslim civil rights. (CAIR's latest report is due out in May.) Unfortunately, the trend lines in each annual report have been up, not down, with a particularly sharp spike following the 9/11 terror attacks.

And a prayer for the future:

As we mark the 10th anniversary of the Oklahoma City attack, let us all remember that the use of violence and terrorism is not the sole preserve of any race, religion or ethnic group. Let us also redouble our efforts to understand one another and promote peaceful resolutions to all conflicts, whether domestic or foreign. The Quran, Islam's revealed text, states: "O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female and made you into nations and tribes that you may know each other (not that you may despise each other). Verily, the most honored of you in the sight of God is the one who is most deeply conscious of Him." (49:13) Indeed, terror knows no faith.

FBI finds no sign of al-Qa'ida sleeper cells in America

Awhile back, I posted about the lack of evidence that American Muslims constitute any kind of "fifth column" or "social base" for al-Qa'ida:

The evidence thus far, however, indicates that Muslims living in America have not constituted a social base for al-Qaeda. It is striking, in fact, that so little illegality has been uncovered in a population so thoroughly investigated and watched. The prosecutions of alleged terrorist-related activities, which should represent the most definitive picture of how the government views the internal threat, have established very little -- if anything -- that could be described as evidence of al-Qaeda cells operating in the United States. Nothing else in the publicly known record of this massive law enforcement and intelligence effort suggests that a conspiracy exists, a remarkably clean bill for these communities.

Now this fact has been confirmed by the FBI:

And for all the worry about Osama bin Laden's sleeper cells or agents in the United States, a secret FBI assessment concludes it knows of none. The 32-page assessment says flatly, "To date, we have not identified any true 'sleeper' agents in the US," seemingly contradicting the "sleeper cell" description prosecutors assigned to seven men in Lackawanna, N.Y., in 2002. "Limited reporting since March indicates al-Qa'ida has sought to recruit and train individuals to conduct attacks in the United States, but is inconclusive as to whether they have succeeded in placing operatives in this country," the report reads. "US Government efforts to date also have not revealed evidence of concealed cells or networks acting in the homeland as sleepers." It also differs from testimony given by FBI Director Robert Mueller, who warned in the past that several sleeper cells were probably in place.

some terrorists are more equal than others

Juan Cole reflects on a bombing in Madrid by ETA, a Basque separatist group:

I was struck at how little coverage US news organizations were giving this terrorist strike. If the Bush administration were serious about fighting terrorism, surely the FBI and CIA would be flying off to Madrid and trying to catch the perpetrators? There would be extensive consultations between Bush and Prime Minister Zapatero about cooperation in fighting these groups. If these bombings had been carried out by al-Qaeda, it would be front-page news and something of concern to Washington. That it isn't raises the question of anti-Muslimism. Is the difference in the way that the American press responds to ETA from the way it responds to al-Qaeda a form of racism?

Why are only some forms of terrorism considered a threat?