Four of these leaders -- Saif al-Adel, Mahfouz Ould Walid, Ilyas Kashmiri and Adnan al-Shukrijuma -- are reported to be in the North Waziristan region of Pakistan, plotting new attacks and recruiting operatives for special operations.
Adel, a veteran al-Qaida chieftain and former colonel in the Egyptian army's Special Forces, moved to Waziristan in 2010 from Iran, where he had been apparently restricted since 2002.
A close associate of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, alleged mastermind of 9/11, Adel, a 50-year-old Egyptian, is one of al-Qaida's senior strategists who sat on its military committee.
He has been linked to the Oct. 12, 2000, bombing of the USS Cole in Aden harbor that killed 17 sailors, and to the U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa Aug. 7, 1998, that killed more than 200 people.
Adel -- real name Muhammad Ibrahim Makkawi -- has a $5 million U.S. bounty on his head and is wanted in the United States for allegedly training the 9/11 suicide attackers.
Ould Walid, aka Abu Hafs the Mauritanian, is a veteran jihadist who fought the Soviets in Afghanistan in 1979-89.
Aged 36, he was a close adviser to Osama bin Laden before they became separated during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan following 9/11. He accompanied al-Adel from Iran.
Arab intelligence sources say that the hard-line clerics and senior Revolutionary Guards officers who oversaw Abu Hafs and al-Adel during their sojourn in Iran allowed them to operate with considerable freedom and have access to sophisticated electronic communications systems.
The Americans mistakenly reported in January 2002 that Abu Hafs, a key military planner in the al-Qaida hierarchy, had been killed in Afghanistan.
Saudi-born Adnan Shukrijuma, 35, is one of the few al-Qaida leadership cadre who has actually lived in the United States. That makes him a key figure in the reported efforts to plan attacks inside the United States.
He is a naturalized U.S. citizen. His family moved to Florida in 1985 where he studied computer engineering and started moving in Islamist circles before going underground following 9/11.
He has a $5 million U.S. bounty on his head but has eluded a global manhunt for a decade. Al-Qaida leader Abu Zubaydah, captured in Pakistan March 28, 2002, told CIA interrogators of several al-Qaida plots.
One involved "Jaafar the pilot" -- Shukrijuma in one of his many disguises -- who he said would deliver an "American Hiroshima" using radioactive bombs.
But it wasn't until Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who was captured in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, March 1, 2003, spilled the beans about the elusive Shukrijuma that the Americans realized he had lived right under their noses in Fort Lauderdale for years.
U.S. authorities say he was the mastermind behind a failed attack on the New York subway. The Long War Journal Web site, which monitors global terrorism, calls him al-Qaida's "chief of operations for North America."
Ilyas Kashmiri, a 45-year-old Pakistani, heads al-Qaida's Lashkar al Zil, or Shadow Army, an elite jihadist unit of seasoned fighters made up of Arabs, Central Asians and Pakistanis.
He was linked to David Coleman Headley, an American arrested for involvement in the November 2008 carnage in the Indian city of Mumbai in which 160 people were killed.
Headley also has been charged with conspiring to attack Jyllands-Posten, a Danish newspaper that incensed jihadists by publishing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in 2005.
Kashmiri's operational signature is attacks by groups of highly trained gunmen as in Mumbai. He has threatened similar attacks in the West.
In a 2009 interview, Kashmiri said Mumbai "was nothing compared to what has been planned for the future."
According to Islamist sources, he joined the Pakistani-directed insurgency against India over divided Kashmir in his teens. By 1991, he was a key figure in Harkat-ul Jihad-i-Islami, one of the most ferocious of the Pakistani groups active in Kashmir.
He joined bin Laden in 2005 and is considered one of his most effective commanders and planners.
Kashmiri, who sports a red henna-dyed beard, is virtually unknown outside the intelligence community. But he's rated as a most dangerous adversary, deadly, highly innovative, bold and hard to track.
100 EUROPEANS FOR IMPENDING ATTACK??
European security authorities are concerned about reports that al-Qaida and its North African affiliate, determined to strike the United States and its allies, are recruiting European operatives able to blend into Western societies and evade capture.
France's Le Figaro newspaper recently cited French intelligence sources as saying that 100 such recruits are undergoing training in camps along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
The newspaper said French authorities were on alert for attacks and noted that 14 French citizens were among Europeans undergoing training by al-Qaida in late 2010.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy declared war on the jihadist group in North Africa, al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, in July 2010 after it beheaded a 78-year-old French captive, Michel Germaneau.
He was killed after an abortive attempt by French Special Forces to rescue him in the Sahara Desert in Mali. Six AQIM fighters were shot dead in the attack.
AQIM has stepped up its attacks on French nationals in northwest African, kidnapping at least eight and killing three.
In January 2011, Osama bin Laden threatened attacks on France, "on different fronts, inside and outside of France."
The last major successful terrorist attack in France was in 1995, when Algeria's Armed Islamic Group, or GIA, from which AQIM emerged two years ago, carried out a bombing campaign against the transportation system and tourist sites.
The jihadists' most innovative, and potentially most lethal, operation in France was on Dec. 24, 1994, during the Algerian civil war.
Four GIA members in Algerian police uniforms hijacked a Paris-bound Air France Airbus 300 at Houari Boumedienne Airport in Algiers, killed three passengers and forced the pilot to fly the jetliner to Marseille.
There they ordered the aircraft loaded with fuel and planned to crash it into the Eiffel Tower in Paris -- a forerunner of al-Qaida's Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
The plot failed when French counter-terrorism police stormed the aircraft and killed all four hijackers.
In December 2010, police forces across Western Europe arrested dozens of suspects amid warnings of continent-wide terrorist attacks hatched in Pakistan. No major attack took place and there was speculation that authorities had been spooked by faulty intelligence.
But Western intelligence sources insist that al-Qaida is planning attacks in the West that go beyond the amateurish lone-wolf type of attacks that have occurred in recent months in the United States.
The report also supported the belief among Western intelligence services that the focal point of this threat is Pakistan, now the major battleground in the war against al-Qaida.
The increase in such activity observed in recent months has occurred at a time when al-Qaida has been re-energized by the gathering of a new field leadership comprising veteran commanders drawn from other regions, many with their eyes on hitting the West hard.
These include such notorious figures as Mohammed Ilyas Kashmiri, a 45-year-old Pakistani who fought India in Kashmir for years and now heads bin Laden's Lashkar-e Zil, or Shadow Army.
Kashmiri, who joined al-Qaida in 2005, is also closely connected to bin Laden's notorious Brigade 313, one of the key components of the Lashkar-e Zil. According to the CIA, "the footprints of Brigade 313 are now in Europe."
Al-Qaida's leadership cadre has also been reinforced by the return of veteran commanders such as Saif al-Adel, an Egyptian, and other seasoned jihadists from Iran, where they were reportedly held under varying degrees of restriction since late 2001.
Adel, a former Egyptian Special Forces colonel and considered one of bin Laden's most able lieutenants, is reported to be currently operating in the North Waziristan region of Pakistan and planning major strikes against the West.
AL QAEDA TO UNLEASH WESTERN JIHADISTS
According to Syed Saleem Shahzad of Asia Times Online, who has access to jihadist circles in Pakistan and Afghanistan, reported in January 2011 that al-Qaida was planning to infiltrate white Westerners, all converts to Islam, into their home countries "to spread the flames of the South Asian war theater to the West."
Al-Qaeda began planning the operation in 2002, after the fall in late 2001 of the Taliban in Afghanistan, where the group had been given sanctuary. Al-Qaeda had regrouped in Pakistan's South Waziristan tribal area on the border with Afghanistan, and used this base to developed propaganda media structures to recruit in the West. (See The legacy of Nek Mohammed Asia Times Online, July 20, 2004.)
Now, after eight plus years, a picture is emerging that shows the failure of Western intelligence to asses the real pulse of their societies, and the inability of North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces to prevent Afghanistan from once again becoming the nerve center of al-Qaeda's terror operations.
Well-placed Taliban sources say that a group of Canadian militants is receiving jihadi training in al-Qaeda camps in North Waziristan for terror attacks in Canada, whose troops are a part of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.
Arif Wazir, a local militant of Darpakhel in North Waziristan told Asia Times Online, "In the first stage of their journey, the Canadians went to Afghanistan in February 2010; there were 12 of them. After nine months, al-Qaeda's leaders decided to send them to North Waziristan and they reached Darpakhel in November last year.
"In Afghanistan they received basic jihadi training, while currently they are busy doing some special courses. Their main learning is how to use sophisticated weapons, and how to connect with local smuggling networks in North America. They are also learning how to use ordinary material like sugar and basic chemicals to make powerful explosives. These militants will then return to their country to execute al-Qaeda's plan of targeting big cities in Canada," the militant said.
According to available information, the Canadians joined the Egyptian militant organization Jihad al-Islami (JAI), which then helped them reach Afghanistan. The head of the group goes by the alias of Abu Shahid. The 30-year-old, who sports a golden beard, converted to Islam in 2007 and joined the JAI, with which he works to collect funds for the organization. Shahid is responsible for all of the activities of the Canadians in North Waziristan. According to Taliban sources, the 12 will remain in the tribal belt until it is felt that they are sufficiently trained to successfully carry out terror activities in Canada. Shahid apparently is confident he can recruit more Canadians.
The sources gave the names of some of the Canadians undergoing training. These could not be independently verified and include: Jeam Paull (local name Sadiq Ullah), Leman Langlois (Sana Ullah), James Richard (Abdur Rehman), Otto Paul (Abu Usman), Thomas (Abdullah) and Paul Gall (Hafiz Ullah).
Various militants of other nationalities are also being trained in North Waziristan, probably the most lawless part of Pakistan. Apart from Arab and Central Asian militants, one can find jihadis from the United States, Britain and Germany.
In October 2010, eight foreigners were killed in a US drone attack in the region. These included: Brusly (local name Fayaz), Gagarin Gill (Siraj), Smith (Jamal), Anderson (Waqas), Peterson (Shaheen), Walsh (Mustafa), Johnson (Wisal) and Peterson McKenzie (Usman). Prior to this attack, in September 2010 a senior German militant named Abdul Ghaffar was killed in a drone strike.
On December 15, 2010, another drone missile killed two Britain nationals in Darpakhel. They were identified as Stephen, age 48, and Darry Smith, aged 25. Stephen (Abu Bakkar), after converting to Islam, went to Afghanistan in 2009 and joined al-Qaeda. He was accompanied by the slain Smith (Mansoor Ahmed).
Earlier, in September 2010 last year, another British senior militant named Abdul Jabbar was killed by a drone attack in North Waziristan. He was planning to establish a Taliban wing in Britain for attacking Europe.
A HUGO CHAVEZ TERROR NEXUS??
President Obama’s recent trip to South America had showcased promising partnerships in Brazil and elsewhere. But one former U.S. official, his visit, however, should have also focused attention in the region and within his administration on the fact that Iran and Venezuela are conspiring to sow Tehran’s brand of proxy terrorism in the Western Hemisphere.
According to Roger Noreiga, a former ambassador to the Organization of American States from 2001 to 2003 and assistant secretary of state from 2003 to 2005, on Aug. 22, 2010, at Iran’s suggestion, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez hosted senior leaders of Hamas, Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) in a secret summit at military intelligence headquarters at the Fuerte Tiuna compound in southern Caracas. Among those present were Palestinian Islamic Jihad Secretary General Ramadan Abdullah Mohammad Shallah, who is on the FBI’s list of most-wanted terrorists; Hamas’s “supreme leader,” Khaled Meshal; and Hezbollah’s “chief of operations,” whose identity is a closely guarded secret.
The idea for this summit sprang from a meeting between Iran’s ambassador to Syria, Ahmad Mousavi, and his Venezuelan counterpart, Imad Saab Saab, at the Venezuelan embassy in Damascus on May 10, 2010. According to the report received by Venezuela’s foreign minister, the two envoys were discussing a meeting between their presidents and Hezbollah’s leader, Hasan Nasrallah, when the Iranian suggested that the three meet Chavez in Caracas. That these infamous criminals left their traditional havens demonstrates their confidence in Chavez and their determination to cultivate a terror network on America’s doorstep.
According to information from within the Venezuelan regime, arrangements for the August conclave were made by Chavez’s No. 2 diplomat in Syria, Ghazi Nassereddine Atef Salame. Nassereddine is a naturalized Venezuelan of Lebanese origin who runs Hezbollah’s growing network in South America — which includes terror operatives and drug traffickers. A document obtained recently from a senior Venezuelan diplomat indicates that Nassereddine does business with four companies operated by Walid Makled, a cocaine smuggler indicted in the United States and detained in Colombia.
Makled has admitted his ties to the drug trade in a series of media interviews from jail. He claims to have documents and videotapes proving the complicity of Chavez’s military commander, Henry Rangel Silva, and other Chavista cronies in cocaine smuggling. Colombian authorities say they must return Makled to his native Venezuela to face a murder charge, and U.S. diplomats have concluded it is pointless to continue pressing for his extradition to face drug charges in New York. Yet the revelation that Makled can cast light on Nassereddine’s Hezbollah network should spur U.S. diplomats to renew their push for Makled’s extradition to the United States.
The danger posed by a network of terrorists in the Americas is very real. Last May, Muhammad Saif-ur-Rehm Khan, a Pakistani applying for a U.S. visa at the American Embassy in Santiago, Chile, was detained after guards detected traces of bomb-making materials on his hands. U.S. officials discovered Khan’s link to the Islamist group Jamaat al-Tabligh. It is not clear how much they shared with Chilean investigators. Lacking evidence to prosecute Khan, Chilean authorities released him in January, and he left the country bound for Turkey. A high-ranking Chilean source informed me that, before his arrest, Khan lived and associated with persons of Egyptian, Saudi and Lebanese background — many of whom carried Venezuelan passports. One of the officials accused of issuing such Venezuelan identity documents to suspicious foreigners is Chavez confidante Tarek Zaidan El Aissami. Also Venezuela’s interior minister, El Aissami is of Syrian descent; his father is known for having publicly praised Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden; and his brother, Firaz, is an associate of the cocaine smuggler Makled.
The threat posed by globe-trotting terrorists is ever-present. A U.S. security official told me in mid-January that two known al-Qaeda operatives were in Caracas planning a “chemical” attack on the U.S. embassy; on Jan. 31, the embassy was closed, and reports at the time cited “credible threats.”
A Venezuelan government source has told me that two Iranian terrorist trainers are on Venezuela’s Margarita Island instructing operatives who have assembled from around the region. In addition, radical Muslims from Venezuela and Colombia are brought to a cultural center in Caracas named for the Ayatollah Khomeini and Simon Bolivar for spiritual training, and some are dispatched to Qom, Iran, for Islamic studies. Knowledgeable sources confirm that the most fervent recruits in Qom are given weapons and explosives training and are returned home as “sleeper” agents.
U.S. authorities could act today to degrade Chavez’s ability to support terrorism and Tehran. There are money-laundering, drug-trafficking or Iran-specific statutes they could invoke. The question is whether they will respond swiftly and effectively enough to prevent a deadly attack.
37 ISLAMIC TERROR PLOTS FOILED IN THE UNITED STATES SINCE SEPTMEBER 11, 2001 ATTACKS
The focus of American newspapers when it comes to Islamist-inspired terrorism has been on plots discovered here, foiled and failed attacks on U.S. soil, the Guantanamo detainees, terrorist prosecutions, and military pre-emption in places like Pakistan and Yemen. And with good reason. When it comes to plots aimed at Americans on American soil, 2009 and 2010 have been busy years. In 2009, U.S. authorities foiled at least six terrorist plots against the United States, while in 2010 there have been plots to blow up planes, bomb Times Square, the Washington Metro, a Maryland military recruitment center, a public walkway outside Wrigley Field in Chicago, a Portland, Oregon, tree-lighting ceremony, and others. Critics of the FBI are quick to point out that several of the arrests associated with these plots have a tint of “entrapment,” in that the Bureau seems to be using (in some cases) provocateurs to induce relatively amateurish and often immature individuals to move from the column of “would-be” to “actual” plotters. In a number of instances, the Bureau appears to be throwing chum in the water and seeing what sharks start to circle.
The dilemma is that while the vast majority of Muslims in the United States are law-abiding, law enforcement’s task is to pre-empt a small percentage of radicalized Muslims from acting on their jihadist beliefs. As we learned from 9/11, London, and Madrid, it’s not good enough to clean up after an attack. But to pre-empt requires being “inside” the plotting circle, which can only be done if a) Muslims here are willing to report suspicious activities among fellow worshipers; b) local police and the FBI have reporting assets within the community as well; and c) can use that information to determine whether a jihadist in theory is willing to become a jihadist terrorist in practice. All in all, it’s a nasty business but necessary if plots are to be foiled.
Nor are we alone in this fight. News from Europe continues to be spiked with stories of pre-emptive arrests and new plots. Over the past two months, Europe has been on alert for a Mumbai-style attack during the holiday season. Germany, which to date has not suffered a major Islamist attack—although a few plots have come close to being pulled off—believes some 200 German Muslims have received training in terrorist camps along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and that four dozen more have made their way back into the country. (On a scale of one to ten for threat level, the head of the German federal police puts the current threat level at nine.) And there have been scores of arrests of suspected terrorists and their supporters in France, Germany, Spain, Belgium, and, most recently, the United Kingdom—topped off by a suicide car bombings in Stockholm by an Iraqi-born Swede who had lived, until recently, in England.
As a close reading of these cases also reveals, Europe’s police and intelligence agencies are not sitting on their heels waiting for plots to mature before stepping in. The risk simply is not worth it. In a recent book, Safety, Liberty and Islamist Terrorism: American and European Approaches to Domestic Counterterrorism, by Gary J. Schmitt, a former staff director of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and was executive director of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board during President Ronald Reagan's second term; Schmitt states pre-emption is the name of the game both in the United States and abroad. So far, this strategy has not tipped over into anything approaching gross violations of citizen rights. But as the number of plots appears to continue to rise, there is no question that squaring the circle of combining effective policing within the bounds of the rule of law and secured civil liberties will get tougher and tougher.
President Barack Obama, however, took office determined to shed the idea of a war on terrorism. Besides an obvious change in lexicon—from the "global war on terror" to "overseas contingency operation" and from "terrorism" to "man-made disaster"—there were even more consequential actions, including the decision to prosecute foreign terrorists in U.S. civilian courts, dismantlement of the CIA's interrogation abilities, lackadaisical support for the PATRIOT Act, and an attempt to shut down Guantanamo Bay within President Obama's first year in the White House. The danger of this new attitude was revealed all too quickly by the near-miss airline bomb plot of Christmas Day 2009.
Undoubtedly, the nation wants to be successful in fighting terrorists. The U.S. counterterrorism system has worked successfully in the past, as demonstrated by the foiled plots, and it can work successfully in the future. But continued success requires the White House and Congress to work together to ensure that the military, law enforcement, and intelligence community have the tools they need to defend the country. At the same time, it is essential that the Administration lay out its counterterrorism strategy to the American people, including next steps for aviation security, visa security, and intelligence and information sharing.
Terrorism and the Obama Administration
Homeland security and counterterrorism were relatively unexamined issues during the 2008 presidential campaign. Terrorism was not in the forefront of Americans' minds; the downward-spiraling economy and lost jobs were understandably front and center.
The discovery of the Zazi plot in September 2009 served as the first in a series of wake-up calls to the nation on the state of national security. Najibullah Zazi was arrested after purchasing large quantities of chemicals from beauty supply stores in a plot to detonate TATP bombs on the New York City subway. This plot was considered extremely serious and was in the later stages of development when Zazi was apprehended—which made the plot deeply troubling to many Americans.
Shortly thereafter, in November 2009, were the Fort Hood shootings. This attack, perpetrated by Major Nidal Hasan, a U.S. Army psychologist, was not a foiled plot. Hasan went on a shooting rampage, killing 12 and wounding 31. Evidence demonstrates that he was in communication with al-Qaeda via the Internet before the attack and that the U.S. government had what should have been damaging intelligence on Major Hasan before the incident occurred.
While still questioning what led to the failure to act on the known intelligence in the case of the Fort Hood shootings, the U.S. experienced a near-miss attack on Christmas Day 2009. That day, Nigerian citizen Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab—whose own father had alerted U.S. consulate officials in Nigeria to his son's radical leanings—attempted to detonate a bomb on a Northwest flight landing in Detroit. His bomb failed to ignite, and passengers restrained him so that he could not try again.
The startling failure of authorities to connect the dots and bring together valuable pieces of information has led Americans to question whether authorities were doing what needed to be done to keep them safe. Specifically, questions center on whether the homeland security system worked, why it worked in the past, and whether it will work in the future.
Here is the list of 38 Islamic terror plots foiled inside the U.S. in the nine and half years since the 9-11 attacks:
1. Richard Reid, December 2001. A British citizen and self-professed follower of Osama bin Laden trained in Afghanistan, Reid hid explosives inside his shoes before boarding a flight from Paris to Miami on which he attempted to light the fuse with a match. Reid was caught in the act and apprehended on board the plane by the flight attendants and passengers. FBI officials took Reid into custody after the plane made an emergency landing at Boston's Logan International Airport.
In 2003, Reid was found guilty on charges of terrorism, and a U.S. federal court sentenced him to life imprisonment.
2. Jose Padilla, May 2002. U.S. officials arrested Padilla in May 2002 at O'Hare airport in Chicago as he returned to the United States from Pakistan, where he met with 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and received al-Qaeda instructions and training. Upon his arrest, he was initially charged as an enemy combatant and for planning to use a dirty bomb (an explosive laced with radioactive material) in an attack against America.
Prior to his conviction, Padilla brought a case against the federal government claiming that he had been denied the right of habeas corpus (the right of an individual to petition against unlawful imprisonment). In a 5-to-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court found that the case against him had been filed improperly. In 2005, the government indicted Padilla for conspiring against the U.S. with Islamic terrorist groups.
In August 2007, Padilla was found guilty by a civilian jury after a three-month trial. He was later sentenced by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida to 17 years and four months in prison. Padilla continues to attempt to have his conviction overturned.
3. Lackawanna Six, September 2002. When the FBI arrested Sahim Alwan, Yahya Goba, Yasein Taher, Faysal Galab, Shafal Mosed, and Mukhtar al-Bakri, the press dubbed them the "Lackawanna Six," the "Buffalo Six," or the "Buffalo Cell." Five of the six had been born and raised in Lackawanna, New York. These six American citizens of Yemeni descent were arrested for conspiring with terrorist groups. They had stated that they were going to Pakistan to attend a religious training camp but instead attended an al-Qaeda jihadist camp.
All six pled guilty in 2003 to providing support to al-Qaeda. Goba and al-Bakri were sentenced to 10 years in prison, Taher and Mosed to eight years, Alwan to nine and a half years, and Galab to seven years. Mosed and Galab have since completed their sentences and have been released.
Recent reports indicate that Jaber Elbaneh, one of the FBI's most wanted and often considered to be a seventh member of the Lackawanna cell, has been captured in Yemen. It remains to be seen, however, whether he will be tried in the U.S., since the U.S. does not have an extradition treaty with Yemen.
4. Iyman Faris, May 2003. Faris is a naturalized U.S. citizen, originally from Kashmir, who was living in Columbus, Ohio. He was arrested for conspiring to use blowtorches to collapse the Brooklyn Bridge, a plot devised after meetings with al-Qaeda leadership including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The New York City Police Department learned of the plot and increased police surveillance around the bridge. Faced with the additional security, Faris and his superiors canceled the attack.
Faris pled guilty to conspiracy and providing material support to al-Qaeda and was later sentenced in federal district court to 20 years in prison, the maximum allowed under his plea agreement.
5. Virginia Jihad Network, June 2003. Eleven men were arrested in Alexandria, Virginia, for weapons counts and for violating the Neutrality Acts, which prohibit U.S. citizens and residents from attacking countries with which the United States is at peace. Four of the 11 men pled guilty. Upon further investigation, the remaining seven were indicted on additional charges of conspiring to support terrorist organizations. They were found to have connections with al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and Lashkar-i-Taiba, a terrorist organization that targets the Indian government. The authorities stated that the Virginia men had used paintball games to train and prepare for battle. The group had also acquired surveillance and night vision equipment and wireless video cameras. Two more individuals were later indicted in the plot: Ali al-Timimi, the group's spiritual leader, and Ali Asad Chandia.
Ali al-Timimi was found guilty of soliciting individuals to assault the United States and sentenced to life in prison. Ali Asad Chandia received 15 years for supporting Lashkar-i-Taiba. Randall Todd Royer, Ibrahim al-Hamdi, Yong Ki Kwon, Khwaja Mahmood Hasan, Muhammed Aatique, and Donald T. Surratt pled guilty and were sentenced to prison terms ranging from three years and 10 months to 20 years. Masoud Khan, Seifullah Chapman, and Hammad Adur-Raheem were found guilty and later sentenced to prison terms ranging from 52 months to life. Both Caliph Basha Ibn Abdur-Raheem and Sabri Benkhala were acquitted at trial.
6. Nuradin M. Abdi, November 2003. Abdi, a Somali citizen living in Columbus, Ohio, was arrested and charged in a plot to bomb a local shopping mall. Abdi was an associate of convicted terrorists Christopher Paul and Iyman Faris and admittedly conspired with the two to provide material support to terrorists. Following his arrest, Abdi admitted to traveling overseas to seek admittance to terrorist training camps, as well as to having met with a Somali warlord associated with Islamists.
Abdi has since pled guilty to conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, one of the four counts for which he was indicted. He was subsequently sentenced to 10 years in jail per the terms of a plea agreement.
7. Dhiren Barot, August 2004. Seven members of a terrorist cell led by Barot were arrested for plotting to attack the New York Stock Exchange and other financial institutions in New York, Washington, and Newark, New Jersey. They were later accused of planning attacks in England. The plots included a "memorable black day of terror" that would have included detonating a dirty bomb. A July 2004 police raid on Barot's house in Pakistan yielded a number of incriminating files on a laptop computer, including instructions for building car bombs.
Dhiren Barot pled guilty and was convicted in the United Kingdom for conspiracy to commit mass murder and sentenced to 40 years. However, in May 2007, his sentence was reduced to 30 years. His seven co-conspirators were sentenced to terms ranging from 15 to 26 years on related charges of conspiracy to commit murder and conspiracy to cause explosion.
8. James Elshafay and Shahawar Matin Siraj, August 2004. James Elshafay and Shahawar Matin Siraj, both reportedly self-radicalized, were arrested for plotting to bomb a subway station near Madison Square Garden in New York City before the Republican National Convention. An undercover detective from the New York City Police Department's Intelligence Division infiltrated the group, providing information to authorities, and later testified against Elshafay and Siraj.
Siraj was convicted and sentenced to 30 years in prison. Elshafay, a U.S. citizen, pled guilty and received a lighter, five-year sentence for testifying against his co-conspirator.
9. Yassin Aref and Mohammad Hossain, August 2004. Two leaders of a mosque in Albany, New York, were charged with plotting to purchase a shoulder-fired grenade launcher to assassinate a Pakistani diplomat. An investigation by the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and local police contributed to the arrest. With the help of an informant, the FBI set up a sting that lured Mohammed Hossain into a fake terrorist conspiracy. Hossain brought Yassin Araf, a Kurdish refugee, as a witness. The informant offered details of a fake terrorist plot, claiming that he needed the missiles to murder a Pakistani diplomat in New York City. Both Aref and Hossain agreed to help.
Aref and Hossain were found guilty of money-laundering and conspiracy to conceal material support for terrorism and were sentenced to 15 years in prison.
10. Umer Hayat and Hamid Hayat, June 2005. Umer Hayat, a Pakistani immigrant, and Hamid Hayat, his American son, were arrested in Lodi, California, after allegedly lying to the FBI about Hamid's attendance at an Islamic terrorist training camp in Pakistan.
Hamid was found guilty of providing material support to terrorists and providing false statements to the FBI. He was sentenced to 24 years in prison for these acts. Umer's trial ended in a mistrial. He later pled guilty to lying to customs agents in his attempt to carry $28,000 into Pakistan and was sentenced to "time served."
11. Levar Haley Washington, Gregory Vernon Patterson, Hammad Riaz Samana, and Kevin James, August 2005. The members of the group were arrested in Los Angeles and charged with conspiring to attack National Guard facilities, synagogues, and other targets in the Los Angeles area. Kevin James allegedly founded Jamiyyat Ul-Islam Is-Saheeh (JIS), a radical Islamic prison group, and converted Levar Washington and others to the group's mission. The JIS allegedly planned to finance its operations by robbing gas stations. After Washington and Patterson were arrested for robbery, police and federal agents began a terrorist investigation, and a search of Washington's apartment revealed a suspicious target list.
James and Washington pled guilty in December 2007. James was sentenced to 16 years in prison and Washington to 22 years. Patterson received 151 months, while Samana was found unfit to stand trial and was initially detained in a federal prison mental facility. He was later sentenced to 70 months in jail.
12. Michael C. Reynolds, December 2005. Michael C. Reynolds was arrested by the FBI and charged with involvement in a plot to blow up a Wyoming natural gas refinery; the Transcontinental Pipeline, a natural-gas pipeline from the Gulf Coast to New York and New Jersey; and a Standard Oil refinery in New Jersey. He was arrested while trying to pick up a $40,000 payment for planning the attack. Shannen Rossmiller, his purported contact, was a Montana judge who was working with the FBI. The FBI later found explosives in a storage locker in Reynolds's hometown of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Reynolds claimed that he was working as a private citizen to find terrorists.
Reynolds was convicted of providing material support to terrorists, soliciting a crime of violence, unlawful distribution of explosives, and unlawful possession of a hand grenade. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
13. Mohammad Zaki Amawi, Marwan Othman El-Hindi, and Zand Wassim Mazloum, February 2006. Amawi, El-Hindi, and Mazloum were arrested in Toledo, Ohio, for "conspiring to kill or injure people in the Middle East" and providing material support to terrorist organizations. The three men allegedly intended to build bombs for use in Iraq and verbally threatened attacks against President George W. Bush.[41] The investigation was begun with the help of an informant who was approached to help to train the group.
In June 2008, all three were convicted of conspiring to commit acts of terrorism against Americans overseas, including U.S. military personnel in Iraq, and other terrorism-related violations. Amawi was sentenced to 20 years, el-Hindi to 13 years, and Mazloum to approximately eight years.
14. Syed Haris Ahmed and Ehsanul Islam Sadequee, April 2006. Ahmed and Sadequee, from Atlanta, Georgia, were accused of conspiracy, having discussed terrorist targets with alleged terrorist organizations. They allegedly met with Islamic extremists in the U.S. and gathered videotape surveillance of potential targets in the Washington, D.C., area, including the U.S. Capitol and the World Bank headquarters, and sent the videos to a London Islamist group. Ahmed is said also to have traveled to Pakistan with the goal of joining Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Both men were indicted for providing material support to terrorist organizations and pled not guilty. In June 2009, a federal district judge found Ahmed "guilty of conspiring to provide material support to terrorists here and overseas. Ahmed was subsequently sentenced to 13 years in jail. Sadequee was also found guilty and sentenced to 17 years.
15. Narseal Batiste, Patrick Abraham, Stanley Grant Phanor, Naudimar Herrera, Burson Augustin, Lyglenson Lemorin, and Rotschild Augustine, June 2006. Seven men were arrested in Miami and Atlanta for plotting to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago, FBI offices, and other government buildings around the country. The arrests resulted from an investigation involving an FBI informant. Allegedly, Batiste was the leader of the group and first suggested attacking the Sears Tower in December 2005.
All of the suspects pled not guilty. On December 13, 2007, Lemorin was acquitted of all charges, but the jury failed to reach a verdict on the other six. The second trial ended in a mistrial in April 2008. In the third trial, the jury convicted five of the men on multiple conspiracy charges and acquitted Herrera on all counts. On November 20, 2009, the five were sentenced to prison terms ranging from six to 13.5 years, with Batiste receiving the highest sentence.
16. Assem Hammoud, July 2006. Conducting online surveillance of chat rooms, the FBI discovered a plot to attack underground transit links between New York City and New Jersey. Eight suspects including Assem Hammoud, an al-Qaeda loyalist living in Lebanon, were arrested for plotting to bomb New York City train tunnels. Hammoud, a self-proclaimed operative for al-Qaeda, admitted to the plot. He was held by Lebanese authorities but was not extradited because the U.S. does not have an extradition treaty with Lebanon. In June 2008, Lebanese authorities released him on bail. He is awaiting trial before a Lebanese military court.
17. Liquid Explosives Plot, August 2006. British law enforcement stopped a terrorist plot to blow up 10 U.S.-bound commercial airliners with liquid explosives. Twenty-four suspects were arrested in the London area. The style of the plot raised speculation that al-Qaeda was behind it, but no concrete evidence has established a link.
The United Kingdom initially charged 15 of the 24 arrested individuals on charges ranging from conspiring to commit murder to planning to commit terrorist acts. Eventually, in April 2008, only eight men were brought to trial. In September, the jury found none of the defendants guilty of conspiring to target aircraft but three guilty of conspiracy to murder. The jury was unable to reach verdicts on four of the men. One man was found not guilty on all counts.
18. Derrick Shareef, December 2006. Shareef was arrested on charges of planning to set off hand grenades in a shopping mall outside Chicago. Shareef reportedly acted alone and was arrested after meeting with an undercover Joint Terrorism Task Force agent. FBI reports indicated that the mall was one of several potential targets, including courthouses, city halls, and government facilities. Shareef, however, settled on attacking a mall in the days immediately preceding Christmas because he believed it would cause the greatest amount of chaos and damage. Shareef was also found to have connections to convicted terrorist Hassan Agujihaad, who was charged with attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and later sentenced to 35 years in prison.
19. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, March 2007. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, captured in Pakistan in 2003, was involved in a number of terrorist plots and is one of the most senior bin Laden operatives ever captured. He is being held at the U.S. military detention facility in Guantanamo Bay. In March 2007, Mohammed admitted to helping plan, organize, and run the 9/11 attacks and also claimed responsibility for planning the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and the bombings of nightclubs in Bali in 2002 and a Kenyan hotel. He has stated that he was involved in the decapitation of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl and took responsibility for helping to plan the failed shoe-bomb attack by Richard Reid, along with plots to attack Heathrow Airport, Canary Wharf, Big Ben, various targets in Israel, the Panama Canal, Los Angeles, Chicago, the Empire State building, and U.S. nuclear power stations. He had also plotted to assassinate Pope John Paul II and former President Bill Clinton.
In December 2008, Mohammed and his four co-defendants (Ramzi Binalshibh, Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, and Walid Bin Attash) told the military tribunal judge that they wanted to confess and plead guilty to all charges.[61] The judge has approved the guilty plea of Mohammed and two co-defendants but has required mental competency hearings before allowing the other two conspirators to plead guilty. In November 2009, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced that Mohammed would be relocated to the United States to face civilian trial in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, although this relocation has yet to occur.
20. Fort Dix Plot, May 2007. Six men were arrested in a plot to attack Fort Dix, a U.S. Army post in New Jersey. The plan involved using assault rifles and grenades to attack and kill U.S. soldiers. Five of the alleged conspirators had conducted training missions in the nearby Pocono Mountains. The sixth helped to obtain weapons. The arrests were made after a 16-month FBI operation that included infiltrating the group. The investigation began after a store clerk alerted authorities after discovering a video file of the group firing weapons and calling for jihad. The group has no known direct connections to any international terrorist organization.
In December 2008, five of the men were found guilty on the conspiracy charges but were acquitted of charges of attempted murder. Four were also convicted on weapons charges. The five men received sentences ranging from 33 years to life plus 30. The sixth co-defendant pled guilty to aiding and abetting the others in illegal possession of weapons and was sentenced to 20 months in jail.
21. JFK Airport Plot, June 2007. Four men plotted to blow up "aviation fuel tanks and pipelines at the John F. Kennedy International Airport" in New York City. They believed that such an attack would cause "greater destruction than in the Sept. 11 attacks." Authorities stated that the attack "could have caused significant financial and psychological damage, but not major loss of life."
Russell Defreitas, the leader of the group, was arrested in Brooklyn. The other three members of the group—Abdul Kadir, Kareem Ibrahim, and Abdel Nur—were detained in Trinidad and extradited in June 2008. Kadir and Nur have links to Islamic extremists in South America and the Caribbean. Kadir was an imam in Guyana, former member of the Guyanese Parliament, and mayor of Linden, Guyana. Ibrahim is a Trinidadian citizen, and Nur is a Guyanese citizen. The men pled not guilty to the charges and are awaiting trial.
22. Hassan Abujihaad, March 2008. Hassan Abujihaad, a former U.S. Navy sailor from Phoenix, Arizona, was convicted of supporting terrorism and disclosing classified information, including the location of Navy ships and their vulnerabilities, to Barbar Ahmad and Syed Talha Ahsan, the alleged administrators of Azzam Publication Web sites (the London organization that provided material support and resources to terrorists). Abujihaad was arrested in March 2007 and pled not guilty to charges of supporting terrorism in April 2007. In May 2008, he was convicted by a jury and sentenced to 10 years in prison. Both Babar Ahmad and Syed Talha Ahsan are being held in Britain on anti-terrorism charges and are fighting extradition to the U.S.
23. Christopher Paul, June 2008. Christopher Paul is a U.S. citizen from Columbus, Ohio. He joined al-Qaeda in the 1990s and was involved in conspiracies to target Americans in the United States and overseas. In 1999, he became connected to an Islamic terrorist cell in Germany, where he was involved in a plot to target Americans at foreign vacation resorts. He later returned to Ohio and was subsequently arrested for conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction—specifically, explosive devices—"against targets in Europe and the United States." Paul pled guilty to the charges and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
24. Synagogue Terror Plot, May 2009. On May 20, 2009, the New York Police Department announced the arrest of James Cromitie, David Williams, Onta Williams, and Laguerre Payen for plotting to blow up area Jewish centers and shoot down planes at a nearby Air National Guard Base. The four had attempted to gain access to Stinger missiles and were caught in the act of placing bombs in the buildings and in a car. (The bombs were duds, because undercover agents sold the four defendants fake explosives as part of an ongoing sting operation). All four men have pled not guilty and are awaiting trial.
25. Najibullah Zazi, September 2009 . Zazi, a 24-year-old Afghani, was arrested after purchasing large quantities of chemicals used to make a TATP bomb, the same type of weapon used in the 2005 bombing of the London Underground and the 2001 shoe-bomb plot. Zazi had traveled to Pakistan, where he received instruction in bomb-making and attended an al-Qaeda training camp. Zazi allegedly planned to detonate TATP bombs on the New York City subway.
Najibullah Zazi's father, Mohammed Wali Zazi, was also indicted for obstructing justice by helping his son cover up plans for his attack. Najibullah pled guilty and remains in jail, while Mohammed pled not guilty and has been freed on bail. Zazi's guilty plea was the result of a plea bargain, and he awaits sentencing on June 25, 2010, while Mohammed awaits trial.
At least three other individuals have since been arrested on allegations of traveling overseas with Zazi to receive terrorist training and making false statements to authorities. One of them, New York religious leader Ahmad Afzali, has pled guilty to charges of lying to federal agents about informing Zazi that he was being investigated by authorities. Zarein Ahmedzay has also pled guilty to conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction in the foiled plot.
26. Hosam Maher Husein Smadi , September 2009 . Smadi, a 19-year-old Jordanian, was apprehended in an attempt to plant a bomb in a Dallas skyscraper. Originally identified through FBI monitoring of extremist chat rooms, Smadi was arrested and charged after agents posing as terrorist cell members gave Smadi a fake bomb, which he later attempted to detonate. Smadi has pled not guilty, and trial is set to begin on June 7, 2010.
27 . Michael Finton , September 2009 . Finton, an American citizen, was arrested on September 23 by undercover FBI agents after attempting to detonate a car bomb filled with what he believed to be close to one ton of explosives outside of the Paul Findley Federal Building and Courthouse in downtown Springfield, Illinois. Evidence presented against Finton has shown that he expressed a desire to become a jihadist fighter and was aware that his planned attack would cause civilian injuries. He has been arrested on charges of attempted murder of federal employees and attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction. Finton has since pled not guilty, although court orders for mental competency training have delayed the case.
28. Tarek Mehanna and Ahmad Abousamra, October 2009. Mehanna, previously indicted for lying to the FBI about the location of terrorist suspect Daniel Maldonado, was arrested on October 21, 2009, on allegations of conspiracy to kill two U.S. politicians, American troops in Iraq, and civilians in local shopping malls. Abousamra, his co-conspirator, remains at large in Syria. However, both were indicted on charges of providing and conspiring to provide material support to terrorists, conspiracy to kill in a foreign country, and conspiracy to provide false information to law enforcement.
The two men are not believed to be associated with any known terrorist organization. Both face sentences of up to life in prison if convicted.
29. The Christmas Day Bomber, 2009. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old Nigerian engineering student living in London, boarded a plane from Nigeria to Amsterdam and then flew from Amsterdam to the U.S. when he attempted to detonate a bomb hidden in his underwear as the plane began to land. The device ignited but failed to detonate, and passengers moved quickly to stop Abdulmutallab from trying again, leading to his arrest by U.S. authorities upon landing in Detroit. The bomb, containing the explosives PETN and TATP, was similar to the failed device used by Richard Reid in 2001.
Media accounts following the plot indicate that Abdulmutallab admits involvement with al-Qaeda in Yemen. Abdulmutallab has since pled not guilty to six terrorism charges and remains in custody awaiting further trial.
30. Raja Lahrasib Khan, March 2010. Chicago taxi driver Raja Lahrasib Khan, a naturalized U.S. citizen of Pakistani decent, was arrested by the Chicago FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force for two counts of providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization. According to the charges, Khan was affiliated with Ilyas Kashmiri, leader of the al-Qaeda–linked extremist group Harakat ul-Jihad-I-Islami in Kashmir, and has previously been indicted in the U.S. on terrorism charges.
Khan originally transferred $950 to Pakistan, to be delivered to Kashmiri, and later attempted to send nearly $1,000 provided to him by an undercover agent to Kashmiri by having his son carry the money to England, where Khan then planned to rendezvous with him and carry the money the rest of the way to Pakistan. His son was stopped by government agents at Chicago O'Hare International Airport before leaving the country. The criminal complaint filed against Khan also alleges that he had discussed plans to bomb an unnamed sports stadium in the United States.
Khan has since pled not guilty. If convicted, Khan faces up to 15 years in prison for each count of providing material support.
31. May 1 2010 Times Square car bomb attempt and plot: A attempted evening car bombing in crowded Times Square in New York City failed when a street vendor saw smoke emanating from an SUV and called police. The White House has blamed Tehrik-e-Taliban the Pakistani Taliban for the failed attack and said Faisal Shahzad aged 30, an American of Pakistani origin who has been arrested in relation to the incident was working for the group. In July 2010, the Pakistani Taliban released a video featuring Shahzad in which he urged other Muslims in the West to follow his example and to wage similar attacks. On May 3 Shahzad was arrested at Kennedy Airport as he was preparing to fly to Dubai. The device was described as crude and amateurish but potent enough to cause casualties. On May 13 the F.B.I. raided several locations in the Northeast and arrested 3 on alleged immigration violations. Several suspects have bben arrested in Pakistan including the co-owner of a prominent catering firm used by the US embassy. On June 21 Shahzad plead guilty to 10 counts saying he created the bomb to force the US military to withdraw troops and stop drone attacks in a number of Muslim countries. Shahzad said he chose the location to cause mass civilian casualties because the civilians elected the government that carried out the allegedly anti Muslim policies. On October 4, 2010 Shahzad was sentenced to life in prison. During his sentencing, he threatened that “the defeat of the U.S. is imminent” and that “we will keep on terrorizing you until you leave our lands.” Shahzad planned on detonating a second bomb in Times Square two weeks later.
32. May 2010. Paul Rockwood Jr. a meteorologist who took official weather observations and his pregnant wife Nancy from King Salmon, Alaska compiled a list of 20 targets, including members of the military and media and had moved to the operational phase of their plan plead guilty to lying to FBI about the list and making false statements to the FBI. Under a plea agreement Mr. Rockwood will serve eight years in prison and three years probation while Ms. Rockwood will serve probation. Motive was revenge for alleged descecration of Islam.
33. September 20, 2010. Sami Samir Hassoun, 22, a Lebanese citizen living in Chicago, was charged with one count each of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and attempted use of an explosive device after placing a backpack with what he thought was a bomb near Wrigley Field. Alleged plot was foiled by FBI informant. Hassoun discussed other ideas for mass destruction attacks with informant.
34. October 27, 2010. Farooque Ahmed, 34, a naturalized U.S. citizen indicted for conspiracy to bomb 4 Washington Metro stations with people he thought were al-Qaeda.
35. November 26, 2010. Mohamed Osman Mohamud a 19-year-old Somali-American is alleged to have attempted a car bombing at a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland, Oregon. The device was a dud created by the FBI. Motive is reported to be Jihad.
36. December 8, 2010. Antonio Martinez, also known as Muhammad Hussain arrested after a sting operation in an alleged plot to bomb a military recruiting center in Catonsville, Maryland. The 21 year old suspect is an American who converted to Islam. The suspect was reported to be upset that the military continues to kill Muslims.
37. February 24, 2011: Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari a 20 year old Saudi Arabian student arrested for building bombs to use in alleged terrorist attacks. Targets allegedly were home of George W. Bush, hydroelectric dams, nuclear power plants, nightclubs and the homes of soldiers who were formerly stationed at the Abu Ghraib prison. In Aldawsari's journal he wrote he was inspired by the speeches of Osama Bin Ladin. Alleged plot uncovered when supplier noticed suspicious purchases.
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