Homeland Security

[Soldier4Christ]

FedEx Truck Hijacked In New York City - Strange Event

Many aspects of this story just don’t make sense to me. Maybe I’ve just been doing this too long and I over analyze things.

On one hand it appears to be a planned crime and not a crime of opportunity (guns, handcuffs, badge). However, if that was the case why didn’t the hijackers bring along some type of tools to break open the seals on the containers?

Next, the hijackers had the truck for nearly 9 hours. To me that seems like plenty of time to figure out some method for opening the containers (hack saw, bolt cutters, etc), even if you hadn’t planned for this.

This is where I begin to over-analyze. What if the truck was hijacked for some other purpose and the hijackers hadn’t planned on it being full of merchandise? What if they were actually hoping to take control of an empty truck just before Christmas and use it for some other purpose?

What other purpose you ask?

Oh, I don’t know… Do you suppose that a large FedEx truck might be able to access some area of a mall or airport during the holidays without raising suspicions?

When you add to this, the hijackers talk of their Albanian homeland, the driver being released and given $60.00 to get back to Manhattan, and the fact nothing was missing when the truck was located, this story just doesn’t add up.

For now, I’ll chalk it up to too much coffee on a Sunday afternoon and an over-stimulated imagination.

The hapless hijackers who stole a loaded FedEx truck and kidnapped its driver only to abandon both after they were unable to get at the locked-up loot told their captive stories about their supposed lives in Albania and stopped for pizza during an odd five-hour odyssey, the driver said.

Forced to ride face-down and handcuffed in a sport utility vehicle with a gun to the back of his head, “I kept saying to myself, ‘If they’re going to kill me, I hope it’s fast and doesn’t hurt,” Robert McGarry said Saturday, a day after he was released on a Brooklyn street. “It was a nightmare.”

Police said Sunday no arrests had been made in the case.

McGarry, 47, said he was ambushed shortly after driving out of a FedEx facility on Manhattan’s West Side around 8:30 p.m. Thursday. A swerving SUV cut him off on 11th Avenue, and one of the hijackers leaped out, rammed a gun against the FedEx truck window, flashed a badge and yelled “police,” McGarry said.

Two forced him into the SUV while a third drove off in his delivery truck. McGarry’s captors drove him through the city, one threatening him while the other struck a more congenial, calming tone, he said.

The 18-wheeler was laden with holiday shipments, but the thieves weren’t able to get at them. They let the driver go at about 1:30 a.m. Friday in the Williamsburg neighborhood. He said the robbers gave him $60 so he could get back to Manhattan; instead, he quickly waved down a police car.

The truck was found abandoned, its contents still locked in metal air freight containers, at about 5:30 a.m. in nearby Greenpoint, police said.

Representatives for Memphis, Tenn.-based FedEx Corp. said no packages were missing.

[Soldier4Christ]

New York Presses To Deploy More Bioweapons Sensors
DHS Priority Is Development Of Next-Generation Devices

City officials last month quietly activated some of the nation's newest generation of early warning sensors to detect a biological attack, turning on a limited number of filing-cabinet-size air filters in sensitive, high-volume areas of Manhattan.

But city officials say their effort to expand the program has run into surprising resistance from the White House, which is not widely deploying the machines.

Five years ago, officials here note, the Bush administration was prodding local authorities to move faster to detect the use of biological weapons and pouring billions into biosecurity-related initiatives. New York's leaders now say the administration's enthusiasm and sense of urgency has flagged in its final year in office.

The dispute is partly over whether the new sensors -- each with a $100,000 price tag -- are reliable and affordable enough for widespread deployment. But it is also about whether Washington's early support for such security enhancements has been undermined by distraction and competing budgetary demands.

"We'd like to see a little bit more focus in that area. . . . I think the federal government could do a better job," New York Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said in an interview this week. He was referring to New York City officials' desire for more detectors and enhanced capabilities under a federal government program known as BioWatch, under which air samplers were installed in 2003 in more than 30 major U.S. cities to detect the airborne release of biological warfare agents such as anthrax, plague and smallpox.

BioWatch was meant to speed up the response of health authorities in the critical hours before disease could spread and symptoms appeared in people. More than $400 million has been spent so far, but officials in New York and elsewhere say the older air samplers installed under the program do not work as well as intended.

The older samplers catch airborne particles in filters that are manually collected once a day and taken to a laboratory, requiring up to 30 hours to detect a pathogen. They may not preserve live organisms that scientists use to select treatment options. And the process is cost- and labor-intensive, leading to false alarms, quality-control problems and limits on the system's size, despite an $85 million-a-year national budget.

New York officials say they prefer the newer model activated last month, known as Autonomous Pathogen Detection Systems and developed by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory with federal support. They can automatically sniff the air hourly for a week unattended, identify up to 100 harmful species by using two types of genetic and biochemical reaction tests, preserve live specimens and transmit results immediately to headquarters.

"The whole name of the game with BioWatch is to buy yourself time," said Richard A. Falkenrath, Kelly's deputy commissioner for counterterrorism and a former Bush White House homeland security aide.

The faster authorities can pin down the time of exposure, the more aggressively they can go after perpetrators, treat victims in time to help them and avoid the overwhelming logistical challenge and likely panic of having to distribute vaccines or antibiotics to millions of people. "We won't have to make the worst-case assumption," Falkenrath said.

In New York, which Kelly notes was targeted in both the 2001 World Trade Center and anthrax mailing attacks, authorities believe that model could help investigators pin down the moment a pathogen is released. "We see ourselves in the cross hairs here," Kelly said.

In President Bush's 2003 State of the Union address, he cited the early deployment of air samplers as an example of "unprecedented measures to protect our people and defend our homeland." Now Jeffrey W. Runge, chief medical officer and assistant secretary for the Department of Homeland Security's office of health affairs, said more research and technical improvements are needed before a costly full-scale deployment.

BioWatch backers in New York say they have a sympathetic ear and strong partner in Runge, but that it has been hard to him to obtain the administration's support to move faster. Runge, however, called Kelly's criticism unfounded, given that DHS has paid 90 percent of the cost to install New York's system and all of its operating costs.

Runge said technical challenges remain in ensuring new sensors' accuracy and reducing their size and operating costs. He said DHS plans to begin pilot tests this year of alternative sensors -- which it hopes will be better than those made by Lawrence Livermore -- and to oversee a competition between two private bidders, IQuum and Microfluidic Systems, beginning in 2009. As a result, Runge said, decisions on what and how big a system to deploy will be left to the next administration. "That decision has not been made," he said, "and I won't be around for this decision."

"I don't know what better job Washington can do other than having a multiyear, multimillion-dollar research program in how to get better automated pathogen detection," Runge said. "But what we have to do as a federal government is improve on the technology, to make sure other cities that don't have the billions that New York has can actually afford automated detection."

Some policy experts and members of Congress take an even more skeptical position, questioning the premises of the BioWatch program. Last month, for example, lawmakers set aside $2 million of BioWatch's $77 million operating budget for a "cost-benefit" analysis by the National Academy of Sciences of whether BioWatch's basic strategy -- of detecting the use of bioweapons through technology rather than through careful monitoring of disease patterns -- is flawed.

The study is meant to examine whether it would be better to improve diagnostic tests at traditional medical facilities such as hospitals, expand electronic medical recordkeeping and upgrade data links that enable the government to monitor unusual health and agricultural sector disease patterns.

Tara O'Toole, director of the Center for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, asked Congress in October, "Does it make sense to invest limited biodefense funds in more advanced BioWatch technology even as we cut funds for public health personnel needed to analyze BioWatch data, as we are now doing?"

[Soldier4Christ]

Local Flight School Under Investigation

The wings of an El Cajon flight school are clipped for now, as it goes under the microscope of a federal agency. Immigrantion and Customs Enforcement agents are investigating Anglo-American Flight School.

It may have been sloppy recordkeeping which caused ICE agents to swarm the offices of Anglo-American Flight School at Gillespie Field in El Cajon. Dozens of agents plowed through paperwork in what ICE officials would only call a criminal investigation.

"It's focusing on technical violations of immigration rules that allow schools such as these to provide documents to foreigners for permission to come to the United States as students. If there was some sort of technical violation, obviously we want to deal with it, we will correct it," Anglo-American Flight School attorney Jeremy Warren said.

Sources tell News 8 that agents specifically seized flight and repair logs. Investigators are also apparently looking closely at I-20 forms, which foreign students fill out regarding their schooling plans, including tuition and residency costs.

Since 9/11, it's no secret the government has been tightening up on flight schools around the country amid concerns of potential security breaches.

"These are people who have never been in trouble with the law before, and they intend to get through this and I think at the end of the day, everyone will be satisfied," Warren said.

SD Flight Training International owner Phil Thalheimer says ICE spot checks used to make him jittery, but not anymore.

"It's really important, and it's an added burden, but we took the responsibility of having international students here," Thalheimer said. "With that responsibility and that benefit comes this type of enforcement."

Thalheimer says he's learned to make sure his business is in complete compliance with the feds.

"We're pretty careful now - no one's perfect - and they've been pretty good with us," he said. "They checked some stuff and generally we're fine, and when they've asked for some changes we've made them immediately."

Phil Thalheimer says his company is seeing an influx of students from India, where piloting has undergone an explosion.

The owners of Anglo-American Flight School are hoping to get back in the air as soon as possible.

The company incorporated back in 1994 to offer intense training courses exclusively for international students.

[Soldier4Christ]

3 convicted in Islamic charity trial
Duped U.S. into awarding organization tax-exempt status by hiding pro-jihad activities

Three former leaders of an Islamic charity were convicted Friday of duping the U.S. government into awarding their organization tax-exempt status by hiding the group's pro-jihad activities.

Care International Inc., which is now defunct, described its mission as helping war orphans, widows and refugees in Muslim nations. But prosecutors said the organization also distributed a newsletter promoting jihad and supported Muslim militants involved in armed conflicts around the world.

Emadeddin Muntasser, the founder of Care International; Muhammed Mubayyid, the group's former treasurer; and Samir Al-Monla, the president of Care from 1996 to 1998, were charged with tax code violations, making false statements and conspiracy to defraud the United States.

After a two-month trial and more than two weeks of deliberations, a federal jury found them guilty on all counts, except a false-statements count on which Al-Monla was acquitted. The fraud and false-statement charges each carry maximum sentences of five years in prison and fines of $250,000, while the tax charges carry a maximum three years in prison and a $100,000 fine.

U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV scheduled sentencing hearings in early April.

``Today's verdict is a milestone in our efforts against those who conceal their support for extremist causes behind the veil of humanitarianism. For years, these defendants used an allegedly charitable organization as a front for the collection of donations that they converted for the purpose of supporting violent jihadists,'' Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Wainstein in Washington said in a statement.

Defense attorneys, who did not immediately return calls for comment Friday, had accused prosecutors of trying to sensationalize the charges into a terrorism case by highlighting the newsletter.

Muntasser, 43, owner of the Logan Furniture Co., was born in Libya and now lives in Braintree. Mubayyid, 42, was born in Lebanon and now lives in Shrewsbury. Al-Monla, 50, was born in Kuwait, now lives in Brookline and is a U.S. citizen.

Their group, which was not affiliated with the well-known global relief organization CARE International, raised $1.7 million in donations from 1993 to 2001.

Prosecutors said the men failed to disclose that Care was a successor to the Boston branch of the Al-Kifah Refugee Center in New York, which was linked to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The center was a recruitment office for Mektab al Khidmat, which Osama bin Laden co-founded in the 1980s to recruit mujahideen to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan, according to the 9-11 Commission.

Prosecutors alleged that Care was raising money to support mujahideen, defined in the indictment as ``Muslim holy warriors,'' and that it published the pro-jihadist newsletter called ``al-Hussam,'' which means ``The Sword'' in Arabic.

Prosecutors acknowledged Care did some legitimate charity work, but said the group concealed non-charitable activities from the government. Specifically, prosecutors said the men did not tell the government it supported mujahideen in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya, Pakistan and other countries. Care also used a portion of its donations to publish an English translation of ``Join the Caravan,'' a pro-jihad book.

[Soldier4Christ]

Court nixes NASA background checks
Says practice threatens workers' constitutional rights

A federal appeals court ruled Friday that NASA should be blocked from conducting background checks on low-risk employees at its Jet Propulsion Laboratory, saying the practice threatens workers' constitutional rights.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the 28 scientists and engineers who refused to submit to the background checks ``face a stark choice - either violation of their constitutional rights or loss of their jobs.''

The decision written by Judge Kim Wardlaw reversed a ruling by U.S. District Judge Otis Wright and sent the case back to him with orders to issue an injunction on the workers' behalf.

The workers sued the federal government, claiming that NASA was invading their privacy by requiring the investigations, which included probes into medical records and questioning of friends about everything from their finances to their sex lives.

If they didn't agree to the checks, they could be fired.

NASA has argued that requiring employees to submit to the investigations was not intrusive and that the directive followed a Bush administration policy applying to millions of civil servants and contractors.

Every government agency was ordered to step up security by issuing new identification badges. Employees were required to be fingerprinted, undergo background checks and allow federal investigators access to personal information.

The plaintiffs have worked for many years at the labs that are jointly run by NASA and the California Institute of Technology. JPL is known for its scientific explorations of space and study of Earth.

None of the plaintiffs work on top-secret projects at JPL, which employs about 5,000 workers, but several are involved in high-profile missions such as the Galileo probe to Jupiter and the Cassini spacecraft to Saturn.

``We're ecstatic,'' workers' attorney Dan Stormer said. ``This represents a vindication of constitutional protections that all of us are entitled to. It prevents the government from conducting needless searches into backgrounds.''

If the workers were forced to quit rather than submit to invasive questions, it would hurt the space program, affecting Mars rover and other programs, Stormer said.

The higher court said Wright abused his discretion and committed several errors when he ruled that there was no merit to the claim that the scientists would suffer irreparable harm by signing the authorization forms.

It said that the lower court was wrong to conclude that the form which employees were asked to sign was ``narrowly tailored.''

``This form seeks highly personal information using an open-ended technique including asking for 'any adverse information which ... may have a bearing on this person's suitability for government employment,''' Wardlaw wrote. ``There is nothing 'narrowly tailored' about such a broad inquisition.''

The decision appeared to reverse a ruling by Wright late Thursday dismissing Caltech as a defendant in the lawsuit. The 9th Circuit said any injunction must also apply to Caltech.

It said the case ``raises serious questions as to whether the university has in fact now become a willful and joint participant in NASA's investigation program, even though it was not so initially.''

Veronica McGregor, a spokeswoman for Caltech and JPL, would not comment because the litigation was ongoing.

[Soldier4Christ]

Fuel Truck Stolen From Penn. Located In D.C.

For the second time in less than a week a fuel truck has been stolen in Pennsylvania. This time it made officials a little nervous as they tracked it, using the trucks GPS system, heading towards Washington D.C.

Washington officials were worried about terrorism on Tuesday night when someone stole a tanker truck and drove it toward D.C.

The truck was stolen from Pennsylvania and ended up in Northeast Washington. However, police said it appeared that the crook wasn’t interested in terrorism.

The fuel truck that was the subject of a nationwide terrorism alert was found on a residential street in Northeast Washington a few miles from the White House on Tuesday night.

The truck was reported stolen early Tuesday morning at a commercial fueling station in Lancaster, Penn.

The lettering on the door reads “Heating Oil Partners, East Hartford, Conn.,” the name of the company that owns the truck.

Investigators called for officers from the bomb squad to make sure that the vehicle was not rigged with any explosives or booby traps.

They said they think whoever stole the truck did so, not for terrorism, but for profit.

“We don’t see any nexus to terrorism,” said D.C. police Sgt. James Manning. “We believe it was probably stolen for financial gain of some sort.”

By the time the truck was tracked down via a GPS system, some 3,500 gallons of diesel fuel had been pumped out and presumably stolen.

Heating Oil Partners sent a mechanic and a driver to recover the truck.

“It wasn’t here today, this morning when I left,” said Vince Tompkins, who lives nearby. “On my return it was there. (I left at) 6:30 a.m. this morning.”

D.C. police said they have learned this was the second fuel truck stolen in a few days from the same area of Pennsylvania.

“We’ve heard that there’s been other thefts of Heating Oil trucks in Lancaster,” Manning said. “We’re working with the Lancaster Police Department. I don’t believe any of those other trucks have been found around this area, though.”

Police said there has been an increase in thefts like this as fuel prices continue to rise.

[Soldier4Christ]

Man named Jihad caught driving with loaded gun, tazer

A MAN who had ammunition in his pocket and a loaded pistol on the back seat of his car when he was pulled over told police he was, "going hunting with my uncle".

The gun was ready to fire when police pulled over Mahmud Jihad, 26, in Rooty Hill on Tuesday.

Also in a bag in the back seat was a tazer, Mount Druitt local court heard yesterday.

A further three pistols - including a Russian semi-automatic - were found when police raided Jihad's Shalvey home later the same day.

Along with the cache of guns and ammunition found in the bedroom of the builder's labourer, was $59,550 in cash.

Jihad yesterday faced court on 15 charges, including having a firearm in a public place.

The court heard Jihad was sentenced to 12 months' jail in 2005 for similar offences.

Jihad's estranged parents and sister were in court yesterday when he applied for bail.

His lawyer Charles Zarb argued that although his client had priors for similar offences, he had always turned up at court, even when a jail sentence was likely.

But prosecutor Pauline McCann said Jihad's actions demonstrated that he was an active risk to the public.

Jihad was refused bail and remanded in custody to appear again on March 28.

[Soldier4Christ]

FBI denies file exposing nuclear secrets theft
The FBI has been accused of covering up a file detailing government dealings with a network stealing nuclear secrets

THE FBI has been accused of covering up a key case file detailing evidence against corrupt government officials and their dealings with a network stealing nuclear secrets.

The assertion follows allegations made in The Sunday Times two weeks ago by Sibel Edmonds, an FBI whistleblower, who worked on the agency’s investigation of the network.

Edmonds, a 37-year-old former Turkish language translator, listened into hundreds of sensitive intercepted conversations while based at the agency’s Washington field office.

She says the FBI was investigating a Turkish and Israeli-run network that paid high-ranking American officials to steal nuclear weapons secrets. These were then sold on the international black market to countries such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

One of the documents relating to the case was marked 203A-WF-210023. Last week, however, the FBI responded to a freedom of information request for a file of exactly the same number by claiming that it did not exist. But The Sunday Times has obtained a document signed by an FBI official showing the existence of the file.

Edmonds believes the crucial file is being deliberately covered up by the FBI because its contents are explosive. She accuses the agency of an “outright lie”.

“I can tell you that that file and the operations it refers to did exist from 1996 to February 2002. The file refers to the counterintelligence programme that the Department of Justice has declared to be a state secret to protect sensitive diplomatic relations,” she said.

The freedom of information request had not been initiated by Edmonds. It was made quite separately by an American human rights group called the Liberty Coalition, acting on a tip-off it received from an anonymous correspondent.

The letter says: “You may wish to request pertinent audio tapes and documents under FOIA from the Department of Justice, FBI-HQ and the FBI Washington field office.”

It then makes a series of allegations about the contents of the file – many of which corroborate the information that Edmonds later made public.

Edmonds had told this newspaper that members of the Turkish political and diplomatic community in the US had been actively acquiring nuclear secrets. They often acted as a conduit, she said, for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s spy agency, because they attracted less suspicion.

She claimed corrupt government officials helped the network, and venues such as the American-Turkish Council (ATC) in Washington were used as drop-off points.

The anonymous letter names a high-level government official who was allegedly secretly recorded speaking to an official at the Turkish embassy between August and December 2001.

It claims the government official warned a Turkish member of the network that they should not deal with a company called Brewster Jennings because it was a CIA front company investigating the nuclear black market. The official’s warning came two years before Brewster Jennings was publicly outed when one of its staff, Valerie Plame, was revealed to be a CIA agent in a case that became a cause célèbre in the US.

The letter also makes reference to wiretaps of Turkish “targets” talking to ISI intelligence agents at the Pakistani embassy in Washington and recordings of “operatives” at the ATC.

Edmonds is the subject of a number of state secret gags preventing her from talking further about the investigation she witnessed.

“I cannot discuss the details considering the gag orders,” she said, “but I reported all these activities to the US Congress, the inspector general of the justice department and the 9/11 commission. I told them all about what was contained in this case file number, which the FBI is now denying exists.

“This gag was invoked not to protect sensitive diplomatic relations but criminal activities involving US officials who were endangering US national security.”

[HisDaughter]

You know what...why do we even bother.  Our own government betrays us, not that it's anything new.  What happened to hanging traitors?  If we DID hang all the traitors in America we wouldn't have anyone left in government and we could just start over.  Actually that probably wouldn't work either.  I am really feeling that the whole America situation is hopeless.  There is no good news anywhere you turn.  I really don't see a future or a "fix" for us.
Just hurry up and come Jesus.  I'm so ready.

Yvette

[nChrist]

You know what...why do we even bother.  Our own government betrays us, not that it's anything new.  What happened to hanging traitors?  If we DID hang all the traitors in America we wouldn't have anyone left in government and we could just start over.  Actually that probably wouldn't work either.  I am really feeling that the whole America situation is hopeless.  There is no good news anywhere you turn.  I really don't see a future or a "fix" for us.
Just hurry up and come Jesus.  I'm so ready.

Yvette

Hello GrammyLuv,

Sister Yvette, I'm usually a fairly optimistic person, but things are looking more and more that what you've said is completely correct. If these are the last days of this Age of Grace, we should expect things like this and much WORSE. However, I don't think we should give up - just the opposite. I think we should act like AND do the work of Christians until JESUS CHRIST comes to take us home. I plan to keep praying that GOD will give us guidance, strength, and courage to do HIS WILL until the last moment. Other things are obviously going to get worse and worse throughout the world in the last days of this Age of Grace, but that doesn't hint that Christians should be getting worse along with the rest of the world. It might also become dangerous for Christians, but that wouldn't hint that we would stop being Christians or stop following the WILL OF GOD.

Love In Christ,
Tom

 

[Soldier4Christ]

Jose Padilla sentenced on terror charges
He gets 17 years, four months, in case far removed from 'dirty bomb'

Jose Padilla, once accused of plotting with al-Qaida to blow up a radioactive “dirty bomb,” was sentenced Tuesday to 17 years and four months on terrorism conspiracy charges that don’t mention those initial allegations.

The sentence imposed by U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke marks another step in the extraordinary personal and legal odyssey for the 37-year-old Muslim convert, a U.S. citizen who was held for 3½ years as an enemy combatant after his 2002 arrest amid the “dirty bomb” allegations. He had faced up to life in prison.

Cooke said she was giving Padilla some credit — over the objections of federal prosecutors — for his lengthy military detention at a Navy brig in South Carolina. She agreed with defense lawyers that Padilla was subjected to “harsh conditions” and “extreme environmental stresses” while there.
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“I do find that the conditions were so harsh for Mr. Padilla ... they warrant consideration in the sentencing in this case,” the judge said.

Cooke also imposed prison terms on two other men of Middle Eastern origin who were convicted of conspiracy and material support charges along with Padilla in August. The three were part of a North American support cell for al-Qaida and other Islamic extremists around the world, prosecutors said.

'No evidence' of carrying out terror
But Cooke said that as serious as the conspiracy was, there was no evidence linking the men to specific acts of terrorism anywhere.

“There is no evidence that these defendants personally maimed, kidnapped or killed anyone in the United States or elsewhere,” she said.

Padilla was added in 2005 to an existing Miami terrorism support case just as the U.S. Supreme Court was considering his challenge to President Bush’s decision to hold him in custody indefinitely without charge. The “dirty bomb” charges were quietly discarded and were never part of the criminal case.

Cooke sentenced Padilla’s recruiter, 45-year-old Adham Amin Hassoun, to 15 years and eight months in prison and the third defendant, 46-year-old Kifah Wael Jayyousi, to 12 years and eight months. Jayyousi was a financier and propagandist for the cell that assisted Islamic extremists in Chechnya, Afghanistan, Somalia and elsewhere, according to trial testimony. Both also faced life in prison.

The men were convicted after a three-month trial based on tens of thousands of FBI telephone intercepts collected over an eight-year investigation and a form Padilla filled out in 2000 to attend an al-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan. Padilla, a former Chicago gang member with a long criminal record, converted to Islam in prison and was recruited by Hassoun while attending a mosque in suburban Sunrise.

Padilla sought a sentence of no more than 10 years. Hassoun asked for 15 years or less and Jayyousi for no more than five years.

Prosecutors invoked Osama links
Padilla’s arrest was initially portrayed by the Bush administration as an important victory in the months immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, and later was seen as a symbol of the administration’s zeal to prevent homegrown terrorism. Prosecutors repeatedly invoked al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden in the criminal case.

Civil liberties groups and Padilla’s lawyers called his detention unconstitutional for someone born in this country and contended that he was only charged criminally because the Supreme Court appeared poised to order him either charged or released.

Jurors in the criminal case never heard Padilla’s full history, which according to U.S. officials included a graduation from the al-Qaida terror camp, a plot to detonate the “dirty bomb” and a plot to fill apartments with natural gas and blow them up. Much of what Padilla supposedly told interrogators during his long detention as an enemy combatant could not be used in court because he had no access to a lawyer and was not read his constitutional rights.

Padilla’s lawyers argued for a lenient sentence, in part because of his minor role in the conspiracy that was the subject of last year’s trial and because of claims that he was mistreated and tortured while he was held at a Navy brig in Charleston, S.C. U.S. officials denied those claims repeatedly.

Attorneys for Hassoun and Jayyousi argued that any assistance they provided overseas was for peaceful purposes and to help persecuted Muslims in violent countries. But FBI agents testified that their charitable work was a cover for violent jihad, which they frequently discussed in code using words such as “tourism” and “football.”

[Soldier4Christ]

Former IAP President Indicted For Naturalization Fraud

Yaser Bushnaq, a former president of the Islamic Association for Palestine has been indicted in Virginia for naturalization fraud.

In applying to become a U.S. citizen in 2000, Bushnaq is accused of failing to disclose his affiliations with a series of organizations that the indictment links to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. The indictment clearly defines the IAP as "an overt arm of the covert organization known as the Muslim Brotherhood."

In addition, it alleges that when Bushnaq applied to become a citizen he failed to disclose:

    * He was the IAP's president from 1989-1991.
    * That he worked under the pseudonym Yaser Saleh.
    * He was a board of trustees member for the Al Aqsa Education Fund, "an organization that sought to raise funds for Hamas."
    * He was an authorized signatory for the Marzook Legal Fund, established in 1996 to support Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook after his arrest by U.S. authorities.

The indictment claims he also failed to disclose a 1996 trip to Iran, which had been subject to U.S. sanctions as a state sponsor of terrorism the year before. And, the indictment alleges, Bushnaq did not tell immigration officials he spent most of 1998 living and working in Saudi Arabia. That extended absence from the United States "would have disqualified the defendant from obtaining naturalization because he no longer would have been a valid legal permanent resident."

A grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia indicted Bushnaq Sept. 12 but it was not unsealed until Tuesday. Bushnaq remains at large and his whereabouts may be unknown. In a motion dated January 10, Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Kromberg wrote that unsealing the indictment would not jeopardize any ongoing investigation.

Bushnaq is an unindicted co-conspirator in the Hamas-support trial of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF), which, along with the IAP, is listed as part of the Muslim Brotherhood's Palestine Committee operating in America. The committee was created to advance the Hamas cause in the U.S. Its members gathered in Philadelphia in the fall of 1993 to discuss ways to "derail" the Oslo Peace Accords, which the group feared would marginalize the Islamist Hamas.

Intercepted telephone calls show Bushnaq was invited to the Philadelphia meeting but did not attend. The HLF case is expected to be retried later this year after jurors deadlocked on most of the counts involved. Evidence presented at the trial showed the IAP and HLF had a close working relationship.

Bushnaq's Hamas support has been known for more than a decade. A 1996 Dallas Morning News story described the 1989 IAP conference this way:

But audience members at the December 1989 conference of the Islamic Association for Palestine shouted "Allahu Akbar" ("God is great") when the masked Hamas spokesman talked about an ocean of blood.

In a videotape of the conference, Yaser Bushnaq, a Dallas resident who was then president of the Islamic Association for Palestine, welcomed participants. A Hamas banner draped a table, from which one speaker after another praised Hamas. The conference was named after Abdullah Azzam, considered a Hamas martyr.

Bushnaq's work with the Marzook Defense Fund is not the only instance of his support for people directly involved in plotting on behalf of terrorists. Bushnaq derided the September 2003 arrest of American Muslim Council President Abdurrahman Alamoudi as an attack on Muslims in America. In a release from Solidarity International, Bushnaq called the arrest "extremely tragic" adding "The United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia and the U.S. Attorney General have apparently begun to destroy the lives of Arab Americans and Muslims based on newspaper articles and fabricated allegations."

Alamoudi pled guilty to illegal financial dealings with a State sponsor of terrorism and confessed to his role in a plot to assassinate the then-Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. A 2005 U.S. Treasury Department press release stated:

[t]he September 2003 arrest of Alamoudi was a severe blow to al Qaida, as Alamoudi had a close relationship with al Qaida and had raised money for al Qaida in the United States.

Bushnaq was pictured with Alamoudi and Ahmed Yousef, also an unindicted co-conspirator in the HLF trial and now a Hamas spokesman in Gaza, at what was called the "Beirut Conference" in early 2001. During a daily press briefing on February13, 2001, a State Department spokesman said the meeting included "members of several terrorist organizations (who) met in Beirut in late January and that the pledged to work together against Israel. We believe the participants included Hizballah and Palestinian rejectionist groups."

Bushnaq worked with Alamoudi in creating Solidarity USA, a civil rights
group formed after the Sept. 11 attacks against America. In that role, Bushnaq was among the signatories to a March 2002 ACLU letter to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, urging that FBI guidelines on domestic surveillance not be relaxed. Such a move "is unwise, and unsound law enforcement policy," the letter stated.

Despite his fairly obvious Islamist ties, Bushnaq was often treated as a credible spokesman by gullible media outlets, such as NPR (which characterized Bushnaq as "help[ing] protect the rights of Muslim Americans" after the terror attacks of 9/11), the Voice of America, and the Washington Post, in which he defended his friend Alamoudi's criminal behavior. From a September 2003 piece:

Yaser Bushnaq, chief coordinator of the Solidarity USA civil rights group, which Alamoudi helped launch, said yesterday that if Alamoudi was trying to improve U.S.-Libyan relations, "it would fit with the man I know, who would try to bring a just solution between the two countries, and for the victims of the Pan Am incident." He said that "Alamoudi believes in reconciliation, and in America."

As is the case with other Hamas-linked and Islamist individuals in the U.S., Bushnaq contributed to the congressional campaigns of Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) and former Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA).

The statute Bushnaq is accused of violating carries a maximum prison sentence of 25 years if the crime helped "an act of international terrorism," or 10 years if the terrorism connection is not found by the court.

[Soldier4Christ]

Al-Arian's Third Strike

In a ruling issued Friday, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals found that Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) operative Sami Al-Arian can't duck a grand jury subpoena in Virginia based upon a phantom claim that his 2006 guilty plea ruled out any future cooperation with law enforcement.

Al-Arian was serving out the remainder of a 57-month sentence for conspiring to provide goods and services to the PIJ when a federal grand jury in Northern Virginia subpoenaed him to testify about the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT). The IIIT is a think tank under investigation since at least 2002 for suspected terror financing. It was among the largest patrons of Al-Arian's own think tank, the World and Islam Studies Enterprise (WISE), which was based in Tampa during the early 1990s and housed no less than four members of the PIJ's governing board.

Al-Arian refused to testify despite a grant of immunity, and waged a highly publicized hunger strike while appealing a resulting contempt citation. For every day the contempt order existed, he gained no credit on completing his sentence. A judge lifted the contempt charge in December, when the grand jury's term neared expiration. It isn't known whether a new grand jury might now subpoena Al-Arian again.

If it doesn't, Al-Arian could be released this spring and deported. If it does, Al-Arian will have to find a new argument. The 11th Circuit decision noted there's no language in the plea deal covering a grand jury subpoena and Al-Arian had been asked point blank at sentencing whether any other promises were made to him. He said no. Further, the opinion states:

        The exclusion of a standard plea agreement provision requiring a defendant to cooperate with the government, whether voluntarily or under subpoena, does not establish that the government immunized Al-Arian from future grand jury subpoenas. This contention is especially dubious where, as here, the plea agreement contains an integration clause stating that there are no other promises, agreements, or representations except those set forth in the agreement, and Al-Arian denied at his plea hearing that he pled guilty in reliance on any promises or inducements except for those found in the agreement.

In other words, Al-Arian may have lied, making up the promise that, for pleading guilty to a felony, he could escape the obligations facing anyone else subpoenaed for information. The entire opinion is here.

"This is politics, this is not law," his attorney, C. Peter Erlinder, told the Associated Press after the ruling. That's not very sporting; variations of Erlinder's argument are now at least 0-for-3 in federal courts. It was rejected by the sentencing court in Tampa and by the 4th Circuit in Virginia as reported in March 2007:

        The federal appeals court said Friday that it found no merit in al-Arian's claim that he does not have to testify because "a cooperation clause was discussed during the plea negotiations, but was not agreed to and not included in the written plea agreement."

        The plea agreement "contains no language which would bar the government from compelling appellant's testimony before a grand jury," the appeals court said.

        Turley called the subpoena a "direct violation of the [plea] agreement."

That's Jonathan Turley, who represents Al-Arian in his Northern Virginia contempt fight. In November, Turley crowed on his blog, "[t]he use of civil contempt to prolong his punishment has been a shocking abuse of the system by the Justice Department. Unable to convict Dr. Al-Arian before a jury, prosecutors have sought to mete out their own brand of justice through the grand jury system."

He made the same claim about Abdelhaleem Ashqar, a Hamas operative sentenced to 11 years in prison in November after he refused to testify before a grand jury investigating Hamas activity. Turley twists the nature of the Chicago case in an effort to gain public sympathy for his client, writing:

        Abdelhaleem Ashqar, 49, a former associate professor of business at Washington's [Howard University], was sentenced this week to more than 11 years in a very controversial sentencing after he refused to testify in a grand jury. It is a case that follows a new and disturbing trend by the Bush Administration in using grand juries against individuals who they fail to convict in criminal cases.

        Individuals, like my client Dr. Sami Al-Arian, are given the choice of a perjury trap is (sic) they testify or a contempt citation if they do not testify.

        In a major loss for the Justice Department, Ashqar and co-defendant Muhammad Salah were acquitted of taking part in a racketeering conspiracy aimed at bankrolling Hamas in its violent attacks on the government of Israel. The prosecutors then pulled him into a grand jury and granted him immunity so that he could not invoke the privilege against self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment.

        That, of course, is completely untrue. The same jury which acquitted Ashqar of racketeering in support of Hamas also convicted him of obstruction of justice and criminal contempt. Ashqar was not somehow dragged before a grand jury after his acquittal on bigger charges in some sort of exercise of "sour grapes" on the part of prosecutors.

Turley is not only Al-Arian's attorney, but also a law professor at George Washington University, a position where attention to detail might be considered important. So how to explain the fact that Turley got such a basic fact of the Ashqar case wrong? Had Turley read Ashqar's indictment, he would have seen that the first count against him was the racketeering charge and counts four and five were obstruction of justice and criminal contempt, related to Ashqar's refusal to testify in a separate grand jury investigation, occurring well before this trial which resulted in Ashqar's 11 year sentence.

Turley's fear of a "perjury trap" for a client like Al-Arian is a little more understandable. Both the 11th and 4th Circuit rulings express doubts about the existence of any promise not to be called to testify. And a look at the record shows he's been lying through his teeth for more than 15 years.

In January 1991, FBI agent Manny Perez interviewed Al-Arian at the request of FBI headquarters. Al-Arian assured the agent he had nothing to do with the PIJ and opposed terrorism. Three months later, Al-Arian was helping raise money at a Cleveland mosque, where he was introduced as the head of "the active arm of the Islamic Jihad movement in Palestine" that operated under a benign name "for security reasons."

In 1994, Al-Arian registered to vote, swearing he was a U.S. citizen when, in fact, his application for naturalization was under review. He was never granted citizenship, but he voted anyway. It was all a misunderstanding, he said.

That same year, he told me he had nothing to do with the PIJ and, at one point, even asked what the initials stand for. Wiretaps released at his trial show that earlier that year, Al-Arian spent days on the telephone arguing with PIJ leadership about the group's direction in the face of a money crisis. Trial evidence showed Al-Arian served as secretary of the PIJ governing board.

A year later, when PIJ founder and commander Fathi Shikaki was gunned down in Malta, Al-Arian told reporters there was no way a former associate from his think tank, Ramadan Shallah, had been appointed as new PIJ secretary general. His own attorneys had no choice but to acknowledge that was a lie. Ramadan Shallah still holds the job today.

Earlier in 1995, and after PIJ was designated as a terrorist group by an Executive Order from President Clinton, Al-Arian used the occasion of a brutal double suicide bombing to seek donations to the PIJ. In a letter to a Kuwaiti legislator, Al-Arian cited the attack, which killed 22 people, as an example of "what the believing few can do" adding:

        I call upon you to try to extend true support effort to the jihad effort in Palestine so that operations such as these can continue.

Those are among the examples that prompted U.S. District Judge James Moody to call Al-Arian a "master manipulator" at sentencing.

Given all that, Turley may have a legitimate fear of perjury. While asking a question and expecting a truthful answer may prove personally challenging in Al-Arian's case, it is hardly a trap.

And in Ashqar's case, concern about a "perjury trap" didn't seem to be an issue after all. Press reports from the sentencing hearing indicate Ashqar clearly defined his refusal to testify as part of his loyalty to the jihadists he serves.

"He said he would rather go to prison than betray his people as they strived to free themselves from Israeli domination," the Associated Press reported. ‘"The only option was to become a traitor or a collaborator,"' Dr. Ashqar said, "'and this is something that I can't do and will never do as long as I live.'"

We'll see if Al-Arian has to make a similar choice.

[Soldier4Christ]

FBI Investigates Gas Station Explosion

Many questions are left surrounding the death of a young Palestinian man. And, the FBI wants answers.

22-year-old Farid Karaka was burned alive after a gas station explosion early Wednesday morning on Busch Boulevard.

How did it happen?

Why was Karaka at a local Citgo mechanic’s garage at almost midnight. The garage was closed. He had just left friends at a local coffee shop and was en route to meet them at another location.

The FBI is asking all of these questions. But, they are tight-lipped on telling the media anything. They even refused comment on any connection of Karaka to 2 USF students who were recently arrested.

The question again is why. Have they established a connection? Are they looking into this as a matter of precaution? It would seem odd that a federal agency is involved in a matter left up to local fire investigators.

A local Muslim advocate group, CAIR, is welcoming any questions. And, wanting answers.

“Obviously when any crime happens or any accident happens, we welcome authorities and agencies getting to the bottom of things,” Ahmed Bedier told Tampa Bay’s 10 News at the scene of the fire. “We have lost a good young man.”

In keeping with Muslim tradition, the family wants the victim buried as soon as possible, which will most likely happen in Tampa. Karaka’s close family is located in Palestine. He was working in the United States to send money back home. Relatives in Brandon now have the somber task of burying their loved one, just 2 months before he was to marry a fiancé in New York.

Original Story

Tampa Fire Rescue crews say one person was killed in a fire at a gas station early Wednesday morning.

Crews say witnesses reported hearing an explosion and then seeing flames as high as the treetops coming from the Citgo Gas Station on West Busch Boulevard just after midnight. Two men who worked across the street from the gas station saw what was happening, and ran to help. They say they found a man lying inside the garage area of Jacob’s Lube Repair Shop, which is attached to the gas station. They say they ran inside, but the flames were just too intense.

“I ran inside, and I reached down in there and slowly eased my way towards him, and the flames were so high and the smoke—it overtook me. All I could do was touch his boot a couple times, and I kept calling for him to look up it at me. He was just in so much pain, and so much trauma was going on that all I could do was just keep talking to him.”

Fire crews arrived at the scene, and they say they found smoke and flames coming from the building. They also say the doors of the service bay area have been blown off by the explosion.

When firefighters pulled the man from the burning building, they say he was already dead. He was later identified as Farid IA Karakra, a 22-year-old mechanic who worked there. Coworkers told investigators he left work around 7:30 p.m., but they’re not sure why he would have returned.

Fire crews worked quickly to put out the blaze, extinguishing the flames within about 30 minutes. They say the damage was contained to the west end of the building, which appears to be a car service area.

Investigators are still working to determine the cause of the fire. On Wednesday morning, agents from ATF, FBI and the Tampa Bomb Squad were also at the scene, possibly looking into the cause of the explosion.

[Soldier4Christ]

ATF Midland County Sheriff’s Investigate Theft of 200 Guns - Sanford Michigan

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) joined the Midland County Sheriff’s Office in the investigation of a reported theft of more than 200 firearms, both handguns and long guns, from a federally licensed firearms dealer in Sanford.

On Feb. 6, 2008, at approximately 8:00 a.m., a breaking and entering was discovered at Joe Gun Inc., 152 E Saginaw Rd., Suite 6, Sanford, MI 48657. Thomas E. Brandon, special agent in charge of ATF in Michigan, said, “The theft of firearms from licensed gun dealers is a top priority for ATF. Our experience shows us that these guns quickly become used in violent crimes.

We also know that tips from the public have resulted in the recovery of stolen firearms.” ATF is offering a reward of up to $5,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person(s) responsible. Anyone with information is asked to call the anonymous and toll-free ATF crime gun hotline at 1-800-ATF-GUNS (1-800-283-4867) or the Midland County Sheriff’s Tip Line at 989-839-4609.

ATF is the lead federal law enforcement agency with jurisdiction in violent crimes involving firearms, and regulates the firearms industry.