January 20, 2006

SAUDI SECURITY FORCES FOIL A TERRORIST ATTACK AND ARREST MEMBERS OF A TERRORIST CELL. THE US ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE: WE VALUE THE SAUDI EFFORTS IN FIGHTING TERRORISM. THE US COORDINATOR FOR COUNTER-TERRORISM CONFIRMS THAT COORDINATION WILL LEAD TO THE ARREST OF BIN LADEN AND AL-ZAWAHRI. Security forces have arrested five suspected Al-Qaeda militants, including one foreigner, following a raid in Riyadh. The security forces also learned that the group was planning terrorist attacks in the Kingdom. The statement from the Interior Ministry carried by the Saudi Press Agency said: "Four nationals and one (foreign) resident were arrested during a raid on a hide-out in Riyadh." There was an improvised bomb-factory inside the hide-out. None of the five men were on a list of 36 most-wanted terrorists issued by the ministry last year. "During a search of their hide-out, the (security forces) confiscated... explosive materials in addition to electronic CDs and documents which prove that they are members of the deviant group," the ministry said. The documents also indicated "criminal plans to carry out destructive attacks inside the Kingdom," the ministry said. The security forces also discovered "equipment to forge documents." Informed sources said police also confiscated more than SR1 million and 12 hand grenades from the Riyadh hideout after arresting the five. Security sources said that police arrested at least four suspected militants in raids on different houses in the northeast Riyadh neighbourhood of Al-Fahs Al-Dawry. Dozens of police cars backed by security forces filled the streets of the neighborhood which includes a number of male-only cafes and rest houses. In December, security forces killed Abdul Rahman Al-Miteb and Muhammad Abdul Rahman Al-Suwailemi, who were No. 4 and No. 7 respectively on the list of 36 most-wanted terrorists. The security forces had noticed suspicious movements of four citizens and one of the expatriates, and with the grace of Almighty Allah, these suspects were arrested in Riyadh on Monday, Jan 16, 2006, said an official source at the Interior Ministry. 'When one of their sites was searched, integrated devices and equipment for forging documents, a laboratory for manufacturing pipe bombs and explosive materials in addition to electronic devices, whose contents expose the belonging of these suspects to the deviant group as well as criminal plans for carrying out malicious operations inside the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia were found," the official source added. On the other hand US Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Anthony Wayne stressed the importance of international efforts in counter terrorism. In an interview he pointed out to the efforts exerted by his department to stop financing terrorism, which comes within the framework of plans to fight terrorism in some countries including the Kingdom of Saudi Araiba. The American official talked about bilateral regional and international cooperation in fighting terrorism adding that the USA and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia have many times used the UN mechanism to unveil terrorist and organization financing it. Anthony Wayne expressed his satisfaction over the regional efforts in the Middle East and North Africa through laws that monitors financial activities. He praised the measures taken by governments in the Middle East to stop financing terrorism and organising charitable works in order to ensure that charity donations do not end in the hands of terrorists. He lauded the Saudi efforts in this fiel. The American official praised the bilateral cooperation between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the USA in fighting terrorism and uprooting it. He talked about the strategic dialogue between the Kingdom and the US and the formation of six groups amongst which an economic group. He stressed the importance of trade exchange between the US and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the importance of exchanging visits especially between businessmen from both countries. On the other hand Pakistan cannot accept actions like an airstrike on a village that killed 18 people, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said as opposition lawmakers denounced the attack and walked out of the National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament, in protest. Officials in the tribal zone where the missile landed said separately that the strike was aimed at foreign militants invited to a dinner and that up to five of them were killed the first such confirmation by Pakistan. But following weekend protests across Pakistan, visiting former US president and now United Nations special earthquake envoy George Bush said that despite the deaths the United States was trying to help Pakistan. Aziz told a joint news conference with Bush: "Pakistan is committed to fighting terrorism, but naturally we cannot accept any action within our country which results in what happened over the weekend. "So the relationship with the United States is important, it is growing, but at the same time such actions cannot be condoned." The air raid in Damadola, a village in the Bajaur tribal agency, targeted Al-Qaeda's deputy leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri, US intelligence sources have said, although Washington has not confirmed it launched the attack. Pakistan lodged an official protest with the US Embassy on Saturday and thousands of people chanting "Down with America" took to the streets in angry protests in major cities the following day. The US counterterrorism coordinator told BBC radio that Washington believes Al-Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden is alive and hiding around the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region. "We have no intelligence or evidence that indicates that he (Bin Laden) is dead or incapacitated, so our working assumption is that he is still alive," State Department official Henry Crumpton said. The United Nations meanwhile said it has closed its offices in southwestern Pakistan for 48 hours after receiving a telephone threat mentioning Al-Qaeda. Former US President George Bush, in Pakistan as a UN earthquake relief envoy, said he hoped Pakistanis would continue to see Washington as a helper despite civilian deaths in an American airstrike. Bush was asked in Islamabad if he thought the deaths in the strike, which have dented some of the goodwill generated by the prominent US earthquake relief role, showed shortcomings in the US-led war on terrorism. "No I don't," the father of President George W. Bush, said, while adding it was for others involved in the war to comment. "I am here as a representative of the (UN) secretary-general to try to help with the relief and reconstruction effort. "I think the feeling generally is that the US has been trying to help the people of Pakistan and I hope that's what prevails." Pakistan has condemned the strike in a tribal area bordering Afghanistan, which was aimed at al Qaeda number two Ayman Al Zawaihri but killed civilians, including women and children. Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, addressing the same news conference, called the loss of lives "one unfortunate event" in a long-standing relationship with the United States. He said he would stick to plans to leave for Washington despite some calls including from within his Pakistan Muslim League to call the trip off. "We want to engage on many issues, including how we fight terrorism," Aziz said. "Pakistan is committed to the fight on terrorism, but naturally we cannot accept any action within our country which results in what happened over the weekend. "So our relationship with the US is important, it is growing, but at the same time such actions cannot be condoned." Former President Bush visited earthquake survivors at a tent camp near Islamabad yesterday but was unable to visit the quake zone itself because of poor weather, which has grounded vital relief flights since the weekend. He said his role would be to encourage those who have pledged relief and reconstruction aid to deliver. "Right now, with the weather and the winter ... it is very important that the relief effort go forward and that funds be available to get this done," he said. The October 8 quake was one of South Asia's worst disasters, killing some 87,000 and leaving about 3 million homeless. Aziz said donors had pledged about $6.4 billion $4 billion in loans and $2.4 billion in grants. A massive UN-led operation is underway, but it has only received 60 per cent of the $550 million it has sought. "We need the generosity of donors to continue, especially until the winter is over to make sure people make it through the winter alive," said UN spokesman Ben Malor. So far the relief effort has averted a feared second wave of deaths, but aid workers say cold remains a serious threat, especially to children. In London, according to Henry Crumpton, U.S. State Department Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Osama bin Laden and his Egyptian deputy, Ayman al Zawahiri will be caught after extensive coordination in the intelligence field. In an exclusive interview with Asharq al Awsat earlier in the week, the US diplomat refused to divulge the source of the information that led to an air strike on the village of Damadola , in the Bajuar region of Pakistan , by the Afghan border, targeting al Qaeda's second in command. "I cannot discuss intelligence information", he said. The latest incident, in which at least 18 people were killed, amongst them women and children, will not affect the strong relations between the U.S and Pakistan, especially in the field of counterterrorism, Crumpton said. President Pervez Musharraf's government was a major ally of the US in its fight against al Qaeda and remnants of the Taliban regime, the diplomat indicated, adding that, "We have achieved much progress through our cooperation in the war on terrorism." Washington has offered a reward of $25 million for the capture of bin Laden and al Zawahiri who remain at large since forces under the command of the US overthrew the Taliban regime in Afghanistan following the September 11 attacks on US cities. It is believed the two fugitives are hiding along the Afghan-Pakistani border, under the protection of Pashtun tribes. Crumpton was in London to take part in a two-day international conference organized by the British Royal Institute for Security and Defense Studies, which discussed cross-border terrorism and its relation to organized crime, money laundering and drug smuggling. He supported a proposal by Saudi Arabia to establish an international counterterrorism center backed by the United Nations and indicated it would open the door for cooperation between countries involved in counterterrorism. The former CIA officer revealed that bin Laden is still alive and that there was no evidence suggesting he had died since he disappeared off the news in December 2004. Intelligence is key in the search for al Qaeda's leader, Crumpton said, adding that his government will not be deal lightly with al Qaeda in the lawless tribal regions. Commenting on the 11-month period between 2001 and 2002 when he headed US intelligence in Afghanistan, the diplomat admitted that it was difficult to track down al Qaeda and Taliban supporters but indicated that his colleagues had almost 25 years pf experience in counterterrorism. Al Qaeda's leadership in Afghanistan and the tribal areas, Crumpton said, is currently under constant pressure and was being pursued. According to Crumpton, the letter by al Zawahiri to the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, the Jordanian Abu Musab al Zarqawi, which the US authorities first revealed in October 2005, pointed to the weakness of al Qaeda in Afghanistan, with al Zawahiri pleading with his counterpart in Iraq to send help, support and money. The thirteen-page letter, written sometime in June, mentioned al Qaeda's need for money, the Pakistani army's pursuit of members of the organization and the arrest of its leader Abu Faraj al Libi in May. Crumpton confirmed that the letter was authentic and vowed that the continuing efforts of the political and military levels would foil al Qaeda's terrorist designs. "We believe that al Qaeda and its affiliates are showing many characteristics of a global rebellion, aimed at overthrowing the existing world order. The aim is to replace it replacing it with a transitional government that will be fundamentalist, reactionary and tyrannical. They gather information and use deception and destruction, launch propaganda campaigns and carry out acts of sabotage. Of course, they sue terrorism as a method." In a chilling analysis of the thinking of bin Laden and his supporters, Crumpton said, "Of course terrorism is not only a destructive method. It provides them with an identity and gives others information about them. This threat will persist for decades and not just years. It requires a global response. We are involved in a long-term war." Giving a rare insight to his government's analysis of the terrorism threat, the US diplomat added, "We view the enemy as a threat of three components: the leadership, secure shelters and basic circumstances. The leaders provide leadership, inspiration, resources and guidance to the fundamentalist networks in various parts of the world. The secure shelters are often regional and provide a safe base for extremist activity. They include: 1- The material shelter or rogue governments, lawless regions and state sponsors who provide material shelter for terrorists as well as training and organization. 2- The electronic shelter or the internet and communication systems that are used to communicate, plan, transfer resources and collect information. 3- The ideological shelter or the ideological regimes and the ideas and cultural criteria that strengthen the enemy's ability to act. The US diplomat indicated that the circumstances that represent the basis for the presence of extremism are local groups, discontent and conflicts between groups and social segments, which act as fertile grounds for extremism. "In order to confront this complex threat, our strategy is to use all our national capabilities, in collaboration with out partners and allies. Our aim is to target all three essential components by establishing a reliable network that will undermine, marginalize and isolate the enemy, in addition to strengthening the legitimate alternatives to extremism. We are determined to prevent terrorist attacks before they occur. We have re-organized our government in order to enable the United States to defend itself." Efforts were currently in place to "deprive outlawed organizations, such as al Qaeda and its terrorist allies, of the ability to obtain weapons of mass destruction, which they could use without hesitation," Crumpton said. "We are also determined to prevent extremists groups from obtaining support and shelter from rogue regimes. We want to prevent fundamentalists from seizing control in any country, which they could use as a base and staging post for terrorism," the US diplomat told Asharq al Awsat. The US strategy also sought to prevent extremists from mobilizing young recruits by "establishing democracy and sowing hope in the Middle East instead of hatred and resentment." In Amman the State Security Court (SSC) upheld verdicts against 10 men, including two death sentences, for plotting attacks against US and Israeli targets during the Kingdom's millennium celebrations. The defendants were convicted by the SSC in September 2000 of plotting to carry out a bombing campaign, including plans to target foreigners. The court also convicted the men of the illegal possession of explosives and weapons. It was the defendants' fourth appeal against the charges. Khader Abu Hoshar and Osama Husni, both Jordanian nationals, had their death sentences upheld by the SSC. The court also upheld prison terms ranging from life to seven-and-a-half years for the remaining eight defendants, seven Jordanians and one Algerian, including three who have already been released after completing their sentences. Clad in blue uniforms in a heavily guarded courtroom, the defendants cursed the tribunal upon hearing the verdicts. "You are criminals and we are mujahidin... since when was jihad in the name of God considered a crime?" Husni shouted. The tribunal decided to drop charges of belonging to an illegal organisation against the defendants because the charge was included in a 1999 Royal amnesty. The Court of Cassation overturned the SSC verdicts earlier this year for the third time on the basis that some of the defendants' convictions should have also been included in the Royal amnesty. "In its previous rulings, the court declared the defendants innocent of charges of belonging to an illegal organisation but decided this time to drop the charge instead of declaring them innocent as requested by the Cassation Court," a judicial source told The Jordan Times. "I am not content with the verdict and plan to launch an appeal at the Court of Cassation," laywer Tayseer Thiab said. He said a committee comprising nine Cassation Court judges would review the case for the fourth time before issuing a final verdict. The charge sheet said Abu Hoshar began recruiting people in late 1995 to carry out armed operations against foreigners in the Kingdom. The group decided to target tourist sites during the millennium celebrations in the Kingdom but were arrested before carrying out their plans. Man given five-year prison term Also on Monday, the SSC sentenced a 28-year-old man to four years in prison after convicting him of plotting illegal activities that would undermine the Kingdom's relations with other countries. Three other men standing trial on the same charge were acquitted by the tribunal for "lack of evidence." Abdullah Mahmoud was first given a five-year prison term by the tribunal, but had his verdict commuted to four years "to give the defendant a second chance in life." The prosecution said the defendant was recruiting people to fight in Iraq. Court papers said Mahmoud travelled to Syria in May 2005 en route to join the mujahidin in Iraq and met a man named Abu Adam Al Tunisi who acted as a facilitator. Mahmoud was arrested while attempting to cross the Syrian-Iraqi border and returned to the Kingdom, court transcripts said. In June of the same year, Abu Adam contacted Mahmoud and asked him to recruit people in Jordan and send them to Iraq to launch suicide attacks, the court added. In London Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri told his followers it was their "religious duty to kill" non-Muslims, jurors heard as his trial began at the Old Bailey. Prosecutors said a "terrorism manual" was found at his London home in 2004. It explained how to make explosives, organise a terrorist unit and suggested potential targets such as Big Ben and the Eiffel Tower, it was claimed. Abu Hamza, 47, denies 15 charges including having a document "useful" to a terrorist and soliciting murder. No religion condones the murder or killing of innocent men, women or children or the dissemination of hatred and bigotry He is also accused of threatening behaviour with intent to incite racial hatred. Prosecutor David Perry said Mr Abu Hamza rallied against alcohol, adultery, democracy and said Muslims had an "obligation" to fight and kill kuffar (non-believers). The jury heard Mr Abu Hamza was born in Egypt in 1958 but had lived in this country for a number of years and was now a British citizen who had preached at Finsbury Park Mosque until 2003. Mr Perry said some of Mr Abu Hamza's talks and sermons had been recorded. About 2,700 audio tapes and 570 video cassettes were found at his home and some of them formed the basis of the prosecution's case. He told the jury: "You might have expected that, as a spiritual leader in a holy place, he would be speaking of hope, charity and compassion. "In fact (his sermons) contained very little of those matters. The prosecution case is that Sheikh Abu Hamza was preaching murder and hatred." "You will hear the tapes and we will hear that the defendant, Sheikh Abu Hamza, encouraged his listeners, whether they were an audience at a private meeting or a congregation at the mosque, to believe that it was part of a religious duty to fight in the cause of Allah, God, and as part of the religious duty to fight in the cause of Allah, it was part of the religious duty to kill." Mr Perry said the cleric preached "intolerance, bigotry and hatred", especially against Jewish people. The prosecutor stressed the case was "not a trial against Islam", or against its holy book, the Koran, but had been brought "because of what the defendant said". "What the prosecution say is that it is quite clear that no religion condones the murder or killing of innocent men, women or children or the dissemination of hatred and bigotry," Mr Perry said. An encyclopaedia found at Mr Abu Hamza's home described making plans to target museums, skyscrapers, airports, nuclear plants and football grounds and contained information about manufacturing weapons, it was alleged. Later Mr Perry said that when arrested Abu Hamza issued a statement saying his sermons were purely religious and had been taken out of context. He said Abu Hamza told police: "I have never encouraged anyone to hurt British people. I was expressing my right to freedom of expression." He said the encyclopaedia, which was written between 1989 and 1999, had been a "gift" but he had never read it. The trial began with the judge warning the seven men and five women of the jury to ignore what they may have read or heard about Mr Abu Hamza in the media and to concentrate only on evidence they heard in court. In the Netherlands the trial of 14 young radical Muslims is attracting widespread attention in Holland and elsewhere. Mohammed Bouyeri, who is already serving a life sentence for the murder of controversial Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh in November 2004, is among the 14 young Muslims whose trial started on 2005 December. All 14 have been charged with membership in a criminal terrorist organization, the so called Hofstadgroup (Hofstadt being another name for The Hague), of which Bouyeri was one of the leading figures. The Hofstadgroup is mainly comprised of second-generation Dutch youth of Moroccan descent. Members of the Hofstadgroup were under surveillance by the Dutch intelligence agency AIVD since 2002. Group members are thought to have been planning attacks on Dutch politicians and institutions. Houses where the boys lived were wired, and excerpts of the taped conversations form part of the evidence against them. Moreover, the contents of their computers and their postings on radical websites and in Internet chat rooms will also be used as evidence. Apart from Bouyeri, who killed Van Gogh, only two other members of the group were actually caught in a criminal act. Jason Walker is charged with throwing hand grenades at the police team that came to arrest him last year, badly wounding some policemen. Moreover, Nouredine el Fathni was arrested last June in Amsterdam with a loaded machine gun in his sports bag. Dutch intelligence had reason to believe he was on his way to assassinate a politician in Amsterdam. Both he and another of Bouyeri's friends, Samir Azzouz, provoked a state of high alert among the Dutch security services. Consequently, special security was put in place for all members of the Dutch cabinet, the parliament, the buildings of ministries, and Amsterdam's Schiphol airport. Their success in discovering and dismantling this network notwithstanding, the Dutch authorities have made clear there are likely many more similar networks in operation. Home minister Johan Remkes has claimed that there are ten to twenty networks of radical Muslims in the Netherlands that have the propensity to resort to terrorism. Hundreds of people are believed to be involved and the networks are described as "fluid," as members enter and leave the organization. Some of the groups are exclusively local, while some have strong and wide-ranging international contacts. At the opening of the trial, one of the women refused to repeat her allegations in court, allegedly after receiving threats. The women's testimony shows the spread of radical thinking between friends, as described by the American forensic psychiatrist Marc Sageman. Sageman's study of Islamic terrorists showed that many of them had no religious background, and became radicalized among a group of people in the same position: in a foreign country, lonely, homesick and feeling in some way humiliated. The Hofstadgroup is interesting because it clearly shows the dynamics of the group as Sageman describes it, and also the attraction of it for other young people. For even after most of the members had been detained, the group remained attractive to other young Muslims. While in prison, Bouyeri and Samir Azzouz found new followers, prompting the authorities to incarcerate the two young men in solitary confinement. Politicians in the Netherlands have called for stronger laws to prevent people like Samir Azzouz from being acquitted. Dutch law makes it difficult to try people for their intentions. This problem might arise in the trial of the Hofstadgroep, which is expected to last for at least two months. In Washington the Bush administration asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to dismiss an appeal by a terror suspect held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay. Solicitor General Paul Clement based the request on a new law the Bush administration says sharply limits challenges to the detention of hundreds of suspected al-Qaida and Taliban operatives. In November, the high court agreed to hear Salim Ahmed Hamdan's constitutional challenge to the administration's plan to try him and others by military commission for war crimes. In doing so, the justices agreed to test the president's wartime powers. In late December, the president signed legislation requiring detainees at the U.S. naval base in Cuba to appeal their detention status and punishments to a federal appeals court in Washington and not through lower federal courts. ``By establishing an exclusive review procedure for military commission challenges, Congress has made plain its judgment that judicial review of military commission proceedings should occur only after those proceedings have been completed,'' Clement told the justices in the filing. The Supreme Court's intervention - before Hamdan's trial by a military commission - was a blow to the White House, which has been repeatedly criticized for its treatment of detainees. In 2004, the high court rebuked the administration for holding ``enemy combatants'' in legal limbo. The Justice Department also cited the Detainee Treatment Act when it sought dismissal last week of nearly 200 lawsuits filed on behalf of more than 300 detainees in U.S. District Court in Washington. The act also deals with interrogation standards for captives in the administration's war on terrorism. The law's chief Democratic sponsor, Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, said it had been altered so it would not apply to pending cases. Hamdan is among about 500 foreigners who were designated ``enemy combatants'' and imprisoned at the U.S. military prison in Cuba. Initially, the Bush administration refused to let the men see attorneys or challenge their imprisonment in courts. The Supreme Court in 2004 said U.S. courts were open to filings from the detainees, although justices may be called on to clarify the legal rights of the detainees in a separate appeal. Clement, in Thursday's filing with the high court, argued that the lawsuits filed on behalf of the foreign detainees ``have consumed enormous resources and disrupted the operation of Guantanamo during time of war.'' Hamdan's lawyers want the justices to decide if Bush overstepped his authority with plans for a military trial for Hamdan, who has admitted serving as Osama bin Laden's former driver. Hamdan is one of nine Guantanamo prisoners who face trial by military commission. Human rights activists and civil libertarians have criticized the military commissions established by the Pentagon, saying they are flawed because they lack basic protections and rights for defendants. In November 2004, Hamdan's case was halted when a federal judge in Washington ruled that the administration's military commissions were legally inadequate. Hamdan, who was captured in Afghanistan in November 2001, denies conspiring to engage in acts of terrorism and denies he was a member of al-Qaida. He has been charged with conspiracy to commit war crimes, murder and terrorism.