1 September 2006
Thousands of young British Muslims are involved in terrorism in some way or other, says Peter Clarke, the head of the London Metropolitan police's anti-terrorism branch, in a BBC interview. Some are going to Iraq via Syria to fight.
2 September 06
A British Nimrod surveillance aircraft crashes near Kandahar, Afghanistan. Fatalities. "The Taliban" claim they downed it, but the British deny it.
Fourteen arrested re. terrorism in UK, at "The Bridge To Chinatown" restaurant and in rural Sussex.
3 September 06
Al-Saidi, the deputy head of al-CIAduh in Iraq, has been captured. He is thought to be responsible for the bombing of the Shia mosque in Samarra, part of petro-imperialism's policy for fermenting civil war in Iraq to justify keeping troops in the country and blaming other potential invasion targets.
Al-Qaeda: Time To Talk?, Michael Crick's agitprop appetiser for the 5th anniversary of 9/11, was aired tonight on BBC 2. It included video of Michael Scheuer, the ex-head of the CIA's Bin Laden unit, and now a public agitpropnik for al-CIAduh. 6 September 06
For the first time, President Bush acknowledged the hitherto-secret network of CIA prisons outside the United States. He announced that fourteen top detainees there have been transferred to Guantanamo Bay. New facilities are being built at Camp Delta there.
Among the transferees are Ramzi Binalshibh and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed ("KSM"), "9/11's operational mastermind". The 14 will eventually be tried by military tribunals (this I've got to see!). Congress recently ruled such tribunals illegal, but Bush is hoping to get new legislation for them passed.
KSM appears to be, at least partially, a fictionalized version of Omar Saeed Sheikh, a British-born kidnapper-terrorist and agent of Pakistani military intelligence (ISI). According to stories in the press after 9/11, Saeed received large sums from the ISI's head, Mahmoud Ahmad, which he passed on to "lead 9/11 hijacker" Mohammed Atta.
Later, his role in this, and in the kidnapping of Daniel Pearl, was re-attibuted to KSM. Saeed was also said at first to have trained the "9/11 hijackers" and, once again, his role was later "usurped" by KSM (who gave some of them "cultural instruction").
See "Omar Saeed Sheikh — Khalid Sheikh Mohammed ", or"Omar Saeed Sheikh".
Israel says it will give up its sea blockade of Lebanon. German ships will "patrol" in its place. French, Italian and other troops will replace Israeli soldiers on Lebanon's territory.
Israel says, however, that it will not give up its "blockade" of Lebanon's Syrian border.
It looks like an American-Israeli deal to fob Chirac's France (and others?) off with a colonization deal for Lebanon and, later, Syria — France's old colonies returned.
And in return for that, presumably, France (and other Europeans) not to bother America in its Persian-Gulf oil colonization project.
7 September 06
A video has been shown on al-Jazeera, apparently of Osama bin Laden with two of those involved in the 9/11 plot, Ramzi Binalshibh (bin al-Shibh) and someone else. They are seen walking with bin Laden among the rocks.
Roll up! Roll up! The 9/11 5th anniversary show has begun ...
The British commander of troops in Afghanistan has called for 2,500 more troops, including 1,000 combat troops, in the "fight against the Taliban".
In news footage, troops are seen firing over base walls at an unseen enemy, reminiscent of the Qala-e-Janghi massacre of December 2001, in which US special forces could also be seen firing over fortress walls on a supposed revolt of incarcerated Taliban/Qaeda prisoners.
8 September 06
A "suicide" bombing in Kabul kills 16, the worst attack there in 5 years.
According to Channel 4 News, Waziristan has become in effect an independent Taliban state on Afghanistan's eastern border, within which the dreaded Qaedasaurus runs unchallenged.
On the eve of the fifth anniversary, history comically repeats itself?
The US clique now says that "terror plots" against Heathrow Airport in March 2003 (and how, I ask again, were tanks supposed to defend the airport against anti-aircraft missiles?) and to crash airliners into Canary Wharf later on, were thwarted by "information" extracted in secret CIA jails from Qaeda men captured in 2002 and 2003: Ramzi Binalshibh (bin al-Shibh) and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM).
British intelligence analysts think that what the US clique calls "plots" were more like chatter and braggadocio.
No, they were lies spewed out of the CIA's mincing machine.
"9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed" himself appears to be an at-least-partially fictionalized version of kidnapper-terrorist and Pakistani ISI agent Omar Saeed Sheikh (see "Omar Saeed Sheikh — Khalid Sheikh Mohammed"). It is interesting to speculate whether "KSM", recently transshipped to Guantanamo, is in fact Saeed.
As with the "muscle hijackers", KSM appears as a person whose obscure and uncertain origins provided a canvas for a CIA artist's painting.
The US has thanked Syria for thwarting a truck-bomb attack on its embassy in Damascus.
Double jeopardy is busted.
The woman in charge of the operation that shot Jean de Menezes in mistake for a suicide bomber is recommended for promotion.
13 September 06
UK Attorney General Goldsmith is to condemn the Guantanamo detention camp as "an affront to democracy". (ITV news)
14 September 06
In the UK, the defence has begun presenting its case in the "fertilizer-bomb plot" case. Omar Khyam has testified that he supported the struggle in Kashmir, and that he got weapons training from "mujahideen" there.
Nothing yet about MI5 video of Khyam visiting a half-ton of fertilizer in storage, or their audio of two "plot members" allegedly discussing blowing up "those slags dancing around" in the Ministry of Sound nightclub.
In the US, the Republican-dominated Senate Armed Services Committee has approved, by 15-9, legislation which would give more consideration to the treatment of terror suspects than that wanted by the Bush administration. This has a bearing on Guantanamo and the CIA'S extra-US prison network.
Bush wanted to define — or redefine, some feared — the term "humane treatment" in clause three of the Geneva Convention. Ex-general and secretary of state Colin Powell said in a letter he feared this would have repercussions for US PoWs in enemy hands.
15 September 06
More from the defence in the load-of-fertilizer trial. Omar Khyam denies he was involved in bomb plots against the UK, rather action in Afghanistan etc. They laughed at Fox TV.
18 September 06
When asked about the fertilizer, Omar Khyam stopped testifying. He said his family in Pakistan had been approached by the ISI, and he feared for their safety.
19 September 06
Bush made a speech about Iran.
Former Israeli commandos have been training selected Peshmerga fighters in Iraqi Kurdistan. The Israeli government denies involvement, but the holding company for the operation was headed by a former Mossad boss (until he quit to become a Knesset deputy). He denies knowledge. The Kurdish government evidently cooperated (regional critics of Kurdistan already call it an Israeli ally). BBC Newsnight speculates that a base may have been developed for Israeli military action on Iran — either as a dropping-off point for planes after an aerial attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, or for ground incursions.
The Israeli commandos withdrew in 2005. The enterprise is illegal in Israel, and enquiries (including a police investigation) have been launched — though Newsnight says that involved establishment interests cannot afford a public trial.
20 September 06
A speech in a mosque in Leytonstone, east London, by Home Secretary John Reid, where he was to lecture Muslim parents about the dangers that their children will become suicide bombers, was "pre-interrupted" by a well-known Islamist figure, Abu Izzadeen, who lectured from the floor on injustices to British Muslims (a thousand Muslims arrested, police will break down their doors and ____ their wives, etc). It is not known how he got past Reid's security.
Abu Izzadeen, of Caribbean descent and formerly named Trevor _____, has been a member of the now-banned "Islamist" groups al-Mujahiroun and al-Ghuraaba.
Some said Abu's behaviour proved John Reid's point, and this presumably is the main reason it was staged.
Ghuraaba, a spinoff of Mujahiroun, intimidatingly disrupted a speech in April 2005 by anti-war MP George Galloway, claiming to believe he was pro-war. ... (See "Al-Mujahiroun and its Spinoffs".)
And here's what the incident appears to have been timed to distract attention from (successfully, to some extent) ...
In the first day of a military trial of Corporal Payne et al, a one-minute video was shown of Payne striking Iraqi prisoners in 2003. The video was said to be a souvenir, a one-minute record out of 36 hours of systematic abuse of the prisoners who, hooded and handcuffed, were punched or kicked until they yelled or groaned in pain. Soldiers called them "the choir".
Corporal Payne, whom the prosecution said clearly enjoyed his "work", has pleaded guilty to a lesser charge, obviously in the hope of deflecting more serious charges including manslaughter. One prisoner, who kept on removing his hood and cuffs, was taken into a toilet by Payne, who kicked him in the ribs, fracturing two or three, and banged his head on the wall several times.
The prisoner, who said "Mercy! You're killing me!", subsequently died of his injuries. Payne suggested saying the prisoner had banged his own head on the wall as a cover story.
"9/11 mastermind" Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, transferred to Guantanamo from a secret CIA jail, is to get a hearing within the next few months.
21 September 06
Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf has said that former US deputy secretary of defense Richard Armitage threatened to "bomb" Pakistan back into the "Stone Age" if Musharraf didn't support the "War On Terror". He was speaking on CBS's 60 Minutes.
Armitage denied making such remarks.
Bush has reached a deal with Senate Republicans on interrogations of terror suspects. He said that it preserved the essence ...
24 September 06
A CIA report says that the Iraq occupation has worsened international terrorism.
No doubt they'll be celebrating on the 7th floor.
26 September 06
The CIA report says that international jihadists have increased in number and spread to more countries. Iraq has become a cause celebre for them.
Well, hardly, but it underlines the CIA's methods.
A "suicide bomber" has killed 18 people in Helmand province, Afghanstan. The governor's compound was hit; the dead consisted of police and people applying to go to Mecca.
Meanwhile, another bomber — not a suicider — was put on display by the authorities in Kabul, and spoke on BBC news. He had planted numbers of rockets on timing mechanisms around the city.
27 September 06
Pakistan (i.e. Musharraf) has denied that its intelligence service (the ISI) helped al-Qaeda.
28 September 06
In the UK, Jack Boot Reid has hinted at the Labour Party conference that he would like to stand for leader of the Labour Party.
An Amnesty International report says that Pakistan, under pressure from the US "War On Terror", has illegally arrested, detained and tortured hundreds of people.
Some have subsequently been handed over to US forces, when they are detained at Bagram or Kandahar (!) in Afghanistan, and maybe then passed on to Guantanamo, Cuba.
Henry Kissinger is now a key adviser of President Bush. (ITV news at 10:30pm)
'... In Wallace's interview with Woodward, to be broadcast on 60 Minutes this Sunday, Oct. 1, at 7 p.m. ET/PT, [Woodward] also claims that Henry Kissinger is among those advising Mr Bush. ...
'Woodward ... reports that the president and vice president often meet with Henry Kissinger, who was President Richard Nixon's secretary of state, as an adviser. Says Woodward, "Now what's Kissinger's advice? In Iraq, he declared very simply, 'Victory is the only exit strategy.'" [My emphases.]...'
... Woodward's new book, State Of Denial".
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