Feds Disrupt Iranian-Backed Plot to Bomb Israeli Embassy, Assasinate Saudi Envoy to USA

Agents from the FBI and DEA have reportedly disrupted a terror plot liked directly to Iran's Quds force that involved simultaneous attacks against the Israeli and Saudi embassies in Washington D.C.

Federal investigatos allege that an Iranian American identified as 56 year old Mansour Arbabsiar, a Corpus Christi TX used car salesman as the man who approached what he thought was a member of the Los Zetas cartel with a proposal to kill the Saudi ambassador to the USA and bomb the Israeli embassy in Washington D.C. in exchange for $1.5 million and an undisclosed amount of opium.

Arbabsiar and the informant met twice in Reynosa in the northern Mexican state of Tamaulipas, across the border from McAllen, TX [interestingly, observers note that Reynosa is in territory still under control of the Gulf Cartel, but the accused was meeting with what he thought was an enforcer from the archrival Los Zetas- NANESB!] where Arbabsiar bragged that he had a cousin who was a high-ranking member of the Quds force of Iran's Revolutionary Guard and that they were being directed by senior-level officials of the Iranian regime.

The five count criminal complaint names Gohlam Shakuri, an Iranian based member of the Quds force still at large in Iran, as a co-conspirator in the plot. Arbabsiar and the informant negotiated a $1.5 million payment to carry out the attacks, with the accused wiring two seperate payments of $49,960 into a dummy FBI bank account. Arbabsiar also told the informant that his contacts in Iran couild provide Los Zetas with 'tons' of opium if they were interested.

Federal agents said they recorded a number of phone calls and meeting with the informant and Arbabsiar, some of the calls coming from Iran. In late September, when Arbabsiar was flying to Mexico City from Iran via Frankfurt, he was refused entry into Mexico by immigration officers at Arturo Beneitez international airport and was put on a flight to New York where he was taken into custody.

Not surprisingly, Iran has denied the charges against their regime, claiming the case is a 'prefabricated scenario' and propaganda against the Islamic regime.

Interestingly, even though Arbabsiar was taken into custody nearly two weeks ago, Attorney General Eric Holder's press conference announcing the disruption of the plot came a day before House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chariman, Darrell Issa (R- CA49) issued Holder a subpoena in regards to their ongoing Fast & Furious probe in which the ATF allowed firearms to be trafficked from the USA to Mexican drug cartels. In fact, one of the reporters brought up Fast & Furious during the press conference, only to have Holder dismiss it with a boilerplate statement about turning over the relelvant documents before walking out.

There is precedent for Iranian-backed groups co-ordinating attacks out of Latin America. In 1992, 29 people were killed when a truck bomb exploded outside the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires. A group with links to the Iranian back Hezbollah terrorist group and Iran called the Islamic Jihad organization claimed responsibility. The Isreali Embassy attacks were followed up by the 1994 bombing of the AMIA (Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina) building in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people. Argentine investigators believe that both operations were planned and financed in the Tri-Border area where the boundaries of Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil meet near Iguazu Falls and where Hezbollah has been active over the last two decades. More recently, Mexican intelligence has been aware of a Hezbollah presence in Tijuana and Durango.

Horn of Africa Update- Suspected Al Shabaab Car Bomb Kills 70 in Mogadishu; Somali Pirates Sentenced in Murder of American Yachters

MOGADISHU: The Islamic Al-Shabaab militia took credit for a deadly truck bombing that tore through the heart of Mogadishu, killing at least 70 people on a crowded street outside of the Ministry of Education this week.

A truck loaded with drums of fuel exploded outside the Ministry of Education, where students accompanied by their parents registered for scholarships offered by the Turkish government. The thunderous blast covered the city in dust more than a half-mile away, leaving blackened corpses sprawled on the debris-strewn street amid burning vehicles. One woman used a blue plastic bucket to pour water on a smoldering body.


Even in a city mired in war and anarchy for two decades, Tuesday's attack by the al-Shabab group horrified rescue workers. Ali Abdullahi, a nurse at the city's Medina Hospital, said countless victims were being brought in with amputated limbs and burns.

"It is the most awful tragedy I have ever seen," he said. "Imagine dozens are being brought here minute by minute. Most of the wounded people are unconscious and others have their faces blackened by smoke and heat."

Duniya Salad sobbed over her brother's burnt body after he died while undergoing treatment at the hospital.

"They killed him before he started university! Why was he killed? Damn to al-Shabab," she said.
Al-Shabab, which was formed about five years ago, immediately claimed responsibility for the attack on a website it uses.

"Our Mujahideen fighters have entered a place where ministers and AMISOM foreigners stay," al-Shabab said in a brief post on a website, referring to the Ugandan and Burundian forces who make up the African Union peacekeeping mission.

The attack took place on one of the busiest streets in the capital, and it was not clear whether the Ministry of Education was the intended target.

In the last few days, the death toll from the attack has climbed past 100, as hospitalized victims have succumbed to their injuries. The bomber was reportedly a dropout named Bashar Abdullah Nur who wanted Somali youth to abandon secular eduacation and take up arms in jihad instead.

This is the part where I remind you that Somalia hasn't had a functioning government since 1991 when Said Barre's autocratic regime collapsed in a civil war that fractured most of the country into feuding fiefdoms controlled by bandits, pirates, warlords, smugglers and Islamic militias.

Backed by peacekeepers from Burundi and Uganda, Somalia's transitional government was able to clear the Somali capital of al Shabaab militants over the last year, although the Islamic terrorist group still controls large swaths of territory to the south of the capital and is reportedly fighting against Yemeni government forces with their Al Qaeda counterparts on the Arabian Peninsula. To hardly anybody's surprise, Al-Shabaab has vowed to carry out further attacks.

VIRGINIA: The leader of a gang of Somali pirates who hijacked an American yacht off the coast of Yemen and murdered the 3 Californians on board received a life sentence at a federal court in Norfolk, VA this week.

Mohamud Salad Ali is the fifth of 11 men who have pleaded guilty to piracy in the case to be sentenced.

He received a second life sentence that he'll serve concurrently with the other one because he also pleaded guilty to hostage taking resulting in death. That charge carried the possibility of the death penalty, but prosecutors agreed to the lesser sentence as part of a plea deal.

Ali has detailed for investigators how piracy operations in Somalia work and has agreed to help prosecutors as they pursue charges against other men.

None of those who have pleaded guilty in the case so far are believed to have been the triggermen. Three other men are charged with murder and other death penalty-eligible counts.
Ali -- a former policeman who recruited men for the expedition -- was on board a U.S. Navy warship at the time the killings happened.

The Navy had offered to let the pirates take the 58-foot sailboat in exchange for the hostages, but the men refused because they wouldn't get the kind of money they wanted. Hostages are typically ransomed for millions of dollars.

"Mohamud Salad Ali led the pirate attack, and his refusal to release the four Americans -- even with the opportunity to proceed to Somalia with the Quest -- reveals the callous regard that Somali pirates have for their hostages and the threat they pose to any U.S. vessel on the high seas," U.S. Attorney Neil MacBride said in a written statement.

Two other pirates had been sentenced this week to life in prison for their role in the February hijacking. Aside from Californians Jean and Scott Adam, four of the Somali pirates were killed in close-quarters combat when US sailors boarded the hijacked vessel.

KENYA: Two European tourists were abducted from upscale resorts along the Kenyan coast in separate incidents in the past month. In mid September, a British tourist was shot to death and his wife was abducted by gunmen on a speedboat in the Kenyan island of Lamu, less than 50 miles south of Kenya's border with Somalia.

The defense minister for Somalia's transitional government says that it's possible that al-Shabaab could be holding the woman for ransom, but didn't rule out the possibility of bandits. Police in Kenya and the UK believe that somebody on the staff might have tipped off the kidnappers, who had checked in a few hours before the gunmen raided the resort.

Members of the al Shabaab-linked Ras Kamboni brigades have calimed credit for the kidnapping- and announced that they were using her as a human shield to protect themselves from US Predator drone airstrikes amid multiple reports that the captive Briton was being held in an Island in Somali waters.

In the beginning of October, a disabled French woman was abducted by gunmen from her vacation home on the Kenyan island of Manda- across a lagoon from Lamu. Despite a brief chase and firefight with the Kenyan Navy, the abductors were able to slip back into Somali territory and the woman is reportedly being held in a coastal area in southern Somalia's Lower Jubba Region.

SEYCHELLES: British officials have announced the formation of a task force in the Indian Ocean island chain of they Seychelles that will be dedicated to tracking the pirate financiers and ransom money.

Ministers plan to despatch officers from the Serious and Organised Crime Agency to staff a new Indian Ocean unit dedicated to hunting pirate financiers, who provide start-up cash for gangs in return for the lion's share of ransom proceeds.

A financier who offers as little $10,000 to equip a gang with skiffs, fuel and guns can easily expect a return of 10 or 20 times his money in the event of a successful hijacking.

But while such profits are now believed to run into tens of millions of dollars a year, relatively little is known about exactly where the cash ends up, beyond a widespread acknowledgement that it makes the gangs ever more powerful, and may also line the pockets of Somalia's al-Shabaab Islamist movement.

"Pirate financiers are the kingpins of piracy," said Henry Bellingham, Foreign Office minister for Africa, who will announce details of the new centre in a speech to the Chamber of Shipping in London on Wednesday. "Effectively targeting them will have a huge impact on the ability of pirates to terrorise the high seas."

The new unit will be based in the Seychelles Islands, nearly 1,000 miles east of Kenya, which have now become a key forward operating base against pirate gangs as they spread their reach across the Indian Ocean.

As Somali pirates stage attacks further east, local fishermen and tourism officials in the Seychelles fear that pirate activity could do long-term harm to the small island nation's economy.

US Born Al Qaeda Cleric Killed in Arabian Peninsula Drone Airstrike

The good news is that you still get your virgins, Anwar. The bad news is that all 72 of them look like Michael Moore.

Anwar al-Awlaki, Al Qaeda's internet savvy, New Mexico-born propagaindist was killed in Yemen on Friday when what's believed to be a CIA drone fired a missile on a convoy.

Fluent in English, al-Awlaki is said to have inspired numerous attacks against American and Western targets, including the failed Christmas 2009 underwear bomber over Detroit, an October 2010 plot to bring down aircraft using explosive parcels. The Islamic cleric is said to have corresponded via e-mail with Nidal Hasan prior to his November 2009 Fort Hood murder spree and Faisal Shahzad's botched May 2010 attempt to set off a car bomb in New York City's Times Square.

Also in may 2010, a 21 year old unemployed woman named Roshonara Choudharay who said she was inspired by al-Awlaki's online sermons and articles stabbed Labour MP Stephen Timms at the Beckton Globe library.

Beginning in 2000, al-Awlaki preached in a San Diego area mosque where he met two parishoners who were later identified as Khalid al-Midar and Nawaf al-Hamzi- two of the 9/11 hijackers. The following year, al-Awlaki moved to northern Virginia before heading back to Yemen by way of London in 2002. From Yemen's tribal controlled hinterlands, al-Awlaki delivered sermons and oversaw recruitment for Al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninusla, escaping a similar attempt on his life in May of this year.

On This Date, President Obama's Pastor Delivers Sermon Justifying September 11 Attacks on USA

There's been a school of thought out there for awhile that President Obama is some sort of clandestine Muslim based on some of his foreign policy statnces as well as his background. I refuse to believe that for a number of reasons- for starters, I actually believe that there are a number of patriotic Muslims in the USA who love this country and have valued the rights and opportunities afforded them and in some cases even served it honorably in some capacity [the Persians who fled Iran during the rise of the Ayatollahs had a firsthand glimpse of what a totalitarian regime based on Islamic supremacy looks like, for instance- NANESB!].

Also, I think the truth is much more sinister that the 'Obama is a seekrit Muslim' claims that have been circulating. Obama is not a secret Muslim, but rather he was simply paying attention to the bigoted, anti-Semitic, homophobic hate-preacher Jerimiah Wright all this time. Paying attention and possibly taking his words to heart.

But you might be asking- Fenway, you bigoted right-wing neocon dupe, this was all settled in the 2008 campaign during the primaries. Why are you bringing it up right now? This came to my attention because of the date of one of the racist preacher's sermons at the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.



The nation just recently observed the 10 year anniversary of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 that killed nearly 3000 Americans. This sermon, which at times approvingly repeats statements from Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda justifying 9/11 and previous attacks, took place at Obama's Trinity Church on September 16th, 2001; not even five whole days after the single deadliest attack against the United States. Now it goes without saying that this is a free country and that this ebony Fred Phelps is entitled to his opinion, but lets provide a little bit of context- for those of you who were bitching in 2008 about how the sermon was 'taken out of context'.



On September 16, 2001, first responders from the NYPD and FDNY along with other agencies were breathing in God-knows-what and still sifting through tons of still-burning rubble to try and recover remains of Americans who were crushed and incinerated when the towers collapsed. Instead of any sincere condolences or prayers to those who were brutally murdered, Obama's pastor laments that there isn't enough introspection over his version of American history and foreign policy [which seems to have significant overlap with Al Qaeda's- NANESB!].

This begs the question of whether or not then state Senator Barack Obama was in attendance at Wright's church that weekend. It would not be out of character for Obama to appear at the church only occasionally and ahead of an election to try and lobby the parishioners for his vote.

Moreover, if Obama found the content of Wright's sermons so objectionable [apparently the 'God Damn America!' sermon came at a later date- NANESB!], why did he only choose to distance himself from the man and his words some 7 ½ years later during a contentious Presidential primary challenge with New York Senator Hillary Clinton? Maybe it's just me, but if I were one of Wright's parishioners, I don't think it would take me several years to repudiate him or his anti-American sermons. In fact, I'm sure there are other houses of worship in Chicago- if I was truly disagreed with what Wright had to say, I'm sure I could've made my way to another church.

And ten years later, there really seems to be nothing to disprove that Obama hadn't taken the race-hustling Wright's sermons to heart, only distancing himself from the preacher and his words when it was politically expedient. And now that he won the Presidency, all things Jerimiah Wright-related seemed to have gone away aside from the occasional embarrassing flare-ups in the early going.

On April 4, 2011, President Obama announced the start of his 2012 re-election campaign. I was never convinced he deserved a first term, but since he's seeking four more years in the Oval Office, I think this issue needs to be revisited just in case the first 2 ½ years of America under the Obama Administration wasn't enough to convince you.

Joseph Trombino- The Brinks Guard Who Crossed Paths With Terrorists Before 9/11

While I was researching another subject, the background of an unassuming Brinks armoured truck guard piqued my attention. Francis J Trombino- known by many as simply 'Joe'- was a Korean war vet and truck driver who had been with Brinks since the late 1960s and lived most of his life in Clifton, NJ. He was killed on the morning of September 11th, 2001 when two World Trade Center towers collapsed.

But that sunny September morning was not the first time Trombino had crossed paths with terrorists. In 1993, his armoured truck had left the WTC complex a few hours before Islamic terrorist Ramzi Yousef drove an explosives-laden rental van into the underground parking garage and set the fuse.

However, before either of the Islamist attacks on the World Trade Center site, Trombino survived a deadly ambush and robbery from Weather Underground and black sepratist gunmen nearly 20 years before the 9/11 attacks.

As Trombino and fellow guard Peter Paige were picking up money from Nanuet Mall in Rockland County, NY, in October 1981 when masked gunmen burst from a nearby van and opened fire with shotguns and an M-16 rifle, killing Paige instantly. Trombino was able to get off a round before being hit in the shoulder, arm and upper body multiple times.

After swapping vehicles, the domestic terrorists would then try and shoot their way through a roadblock set up by police in West Nyack, NY, killing two police officers and wounding another before trying to flee on foot or carjack motorists.

Trombino's injuries would require multiple surgeries- he nearly lost his arm in the gunfight. Brinks reassigned him as a driver where he would continue to work for another 19 years. According to family, Joe hardly complained about the surgeries and therapy, telling them that 'These things are a part of life'.

Joe Trombno was about a year away from retirement on the morning of September 11th. According to co-workers, he stayed in the underground garage with his truck when the planes hit, calling the Brinks dispatcher and inquiring about the whereabouts of the gurads who had gone into the WTC buildings to make a pickup (they had managed to escape but had no means of communication). Trombino told the Brinks office in his last phone call that water was starting to seep in and the walls were starting to crumble around him.

Francis J Trombino left behind a wife of 42 years, two daughters and three grandchildren.

Ten Years Later

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and United Flight 93 crashing in a field in Shanksville, PA after passengers fought with hijackers to retake the aircraft.

It seems difficult to believe that some kids in grade school at the time of the attacks are now old enough to go to college or join the military

The terrorist assault on the United States were preceded by an attack on Afghan Mujaheddin leader Ahmad Shah Massoud, viewed by the Taliban and their Al Qaeda allies as the last cohesive group standing in the way of the Taliban taking complete control of Afghanistan. Two days prior to th 9/11 attacks, the veteran Afghan fighter was killed by two suicide bombers posing as a camera crew preparing to interview him.

Massoud's death in a nation wracked by more than two decades of conflict half a world away made little, if any, news in the USA at the time. However, the Taliban's ascendancy to power and their autocratic, fundamentalist rule was very disconcerting to anybody that was even paying the slightest bit of attention.

I distinctly remember a conversation with my father about a week before the 9/11 attacks. My grandfather was from the generation that could remember exactly where they were when they heard that Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese. My father was from the generation that could remember what they were doing when they got the news when President Kennedy was shot. So what did that leave my generation? The space shuttle Challenger disaster? The Oklahoma City bombing?

When I went to bed the night of September 10th, 2001, my biggest concern was that I had wasted a few hours watching a rather mediocre Monday Night Football game between the Denver Broncos and New York Giants. As I mentioned last year, that all changed in the bloodiest possible manner in less than 12 hours.



And lest we forget, this is how news of the atrocity was met among the parts of the Arab Street.



Although I was several states away and literally slept through the attacks, I was in New York City several weeks after the attacks. From a distance, the Manhattan skyline looked fractured and vacant without the two iconic towers there. I felt compelled to go and see what I could of Ground Zero for myself.

Washington DC Area Firefighters try to get inferno at Pentagon under control after Flight 77 struck the building.

It seemed pretty nondescript up close- acres of debris with floodlights glaring down on the recovery site for volunteers and workers as the days got shorter. The site was surrounded by some barriers and chain link fences, many of them adorned with faded 'MISSING' posters, wilted bouquets and burned out votive candles. One of the fliers struck me as especially poignant- it was from a bagpipe player who was offering his services for free for funerals of those killed in the attacks. Even if only a fraction of the victims loved ones took him up on his offer, the piper who put up the flier would've been quite busy.

On the way to and from the barrier around Ground Zero, one could see smoke lazily drifting up from grates along the sidewalk a few blocks away. Failing to appreciate the enormity of the original WTC site, it eventually dawned on me that these were smaller, isolated fires that had been smoldering underground since the twin towers collapsed. The sickly-sweet smell from the vents was mixed in with the smell of peanuts from a streetside vendor at one corner.

9/11 Tributes Past- Tribute in Light

Even across town from Ground Zero, the walkway into Grand Central station had a massive bulletin board with 'MISSING' posters- this time they were protected from the elements. The City that Never Sleeps had managed to brush itself off and resume a semblance of normalcy, but there was an almost palpable undercurrent of sorrow and uncertainty to go with the stoicism.

[Please note that I'm not trying to make this all about "me me me", just attempting to relate my firsthand but extremely limited experiences pertaining to 9/11 -NANESB!]

I mentioned this last year, but it bears repeating for as long as my fingers can find the keyboard. It's also important to avoid sugar-coating the events of September 11, 2001, such as many in the entertainment industry referring to it in neutral terms like 'tragedy' or 'disaster'. No doubt the end result is tragic, but the Towers didn't collapse in a stiff breeze. The Pentagon didn't get that chunk torn out of due to a ruptured water main. Flight 93 didn't crash in a field in Western Pennsylvania because a bird got sucked into the engine. These were calculated, meticulously planned acts of mass murder by muslim extremists- to gloss over that or say otherwise is a piss-poor attempt at re-writing history.

This is what so many mean when they say 'NEVER FORGET'.

On the plus side, this will be the first anniversary of September 11th without Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden (may he rot in hell), who was killed in a Navy SEAL raid on his Pakistani compound in May.

Mayor Bloomberg Declines to Invite First Responders, Clergy To City's 9/11 Memorial

Oh my- isn't Micheal Bloomberg one of the founding luminaries of the 'No Labels' party? I guess those labels also include "FDNY" and "NYPD".

For the first time since the September 11th terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, first responders from the New York Police Department and New York Fire Department were not invited by the city to the 9/11 Ground Zero memorial ceremonies.

The first responders are not invited to this year's September 11 memorial ceremony at ground zero, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's office confirmed Monday.

It's a painful insult for many of the approximately 3,000 men and women who risked their lives, limbs and lungs on that monumental day, puncturing another hole in a still searing wound.

In a statement, Bloomberg spokesman Andrew Brent said the commemoration ceremony is for the victims' families.

"While we are again focused on accommodating victims' family members, given the space constraints, we're working to find ways to recognize and honor first responders, and other groups, at different places and times," Brent said.

But first responder John Feal, founder of an advocacy group for the police officers, firefighters, civilian volunteers and others who worked at ground zero, assailed Brent's response, saying Bloomberg "lives in his own world."

"The best of the best that this country offered 10 years ago are being neglected and denied their rightful place," Feal said.

Denise Villamia, a first responder who worked at ground zero for several months, cried over the phone as she recalled her "totally heartbroken" reaction to the news that she could not attend the memorial service.

"I'm crying because it's really a big betrayal on the part of the city, to rob me from my way to pay homage and to find that comfort and healing," she said. "I feel that I have been robbed of my way to pay tribute."

In addition to the victims' families, several politicians, including two presidents, are expected to be in attendance

In New York City, 343 firefighters, 60 police officers and 8 paramedics were killed in the attacks. Some of the first responders and their loved ones have been circulating a petition hoping to persuade the Mayor's office to reverse course on their decision.

The mayor of New York City also declined to invite any clergy from the ceremony, defending his decision as a matter of separation of church and state.

38 Killed In Afghan Helicopter Crash, Including at least 20 US Navy SEALS

A US military helicopter carrying American and Afghan soldiers was reportedly shot down by Taliban fire on Saturday, with all 38 on board killed. The helicopter was on a nighttime mission in the Wardak province west of Kabul when it was said to have been struck by a RPG and crashed.

Among those killed in the crash were members of the Navy's SEAL Team 6, although officials stated none of the men who participated on the May raid of Osama Bin Laden's Pakistani compound were aboard the chopper.

One current and one former U.S. official said that the dead included 25 Navy SEALs from SEAL Team Six, the unit that carried out the raid in Pakistan in May that killed bin Laden. They were being flown by a crew of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because families are still being notified.

A total number of 38 people died in the crash, killing 7 Afghans and one interpreter.

The death toll would surpass the worst single day loss of life for the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan since the war began in 2001 -- the June 28, 2005 downing of a military helicopter in eastern Kunar province. In that incident, 16 Navy SEALs and Army special operations troops were killed when their craft was shot down while on a mission to rescue four SEALs under attack by the Taliban. Three of the SEALs being rescued were also killed and the fourth wounded. It was the highest one-day death toll for the Navy Special Warfare personnel since World War II.

NATO confirmed the overnight crash took place and that there "was enemy activity in the area." But it said it was still investigating the cause and conducting a recovery operation at the site. It did not release details or casualty figures.

"We are in the process of accessing the facts," said U.S. Air Force Capt. Justin Brockhoff, a NATO spokesman.

With its steep mountain ranges, providing shelter for militants armed with rocket-propelled grenade launchers, eastern Afghanistan is hazardous terrain for military aircraft. Large, slow-moving air transport carriers like the CH-47 Chinook are particularly vulnerable, often forced to ease their way through sheer valleys where insurgents can achieve more level lines of fire from mountainsides.

Thinking back to the Bin Laden raid, not even a full day afterwards, I had expressed concerns that trade secrets would be given away in the euphoria and afterglow of the operation's success- and I know I can't be the only one. I'm hoping this isn't the case, but in this epoch of wikileaks and state secrets frequently showing up in the front page of the New York Times, one can't be too sure.

I really and truly am at a loss for words over the loss the Navy Special Warfare family and the US Military in general has just suffered.

And So It Goes in Shreveport is reporting that at least two of the casualties identified on Saturday are from the northwestern Louisiana city.

AWOL Soldier Arrested With Bombmaking Materiels and Ammuntion in Texas, Confesses to Plotting 2nd Ft. Hood Attack

Police in Killeen, TX arrested a 21 year old Army private who went AWOL from Ft. Campbell, KY earlier this month and was reportedly plotting to carry out an attack on Ft. Hood similar to Nidal Hasan's November 2009 shooting spree.

An AWOL infantry soldier caught with weapons and a bomb inside a backpack admitted planning what would have been Fort Hood's second terrorist attack in less than two years, the Army said Thursday. He might have succeeded at carrying it out, police said, if a gun-store clerk hadn't alerted them to the man's suspicious activity.

The 21-year-old suspect, Pfc. Naser Abdo, was arrested Wednesday at a motel about three miles from Fort Hood's main gate. He had spoken out against the 2009 Fort Hood shootings last year as he made a public plea to be granted conscientious objector status to avoid serving in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Like the soldier charged with killing 13 people in the shootings, Abdo is Muslim, but he said in an essay obtained by The Associated Press the attacks ran against his beliefs and were "an act of aggression by a man and not by Islam."

Abdo was approved as a conscientious objector this year, but that status was put on hold after he was charged with possessing child pornography. He went absent without leave from Fort Campbell, Ky., during the July 4 weekend.

On July 3, he tried to purchase a gun at a store near the Kentucky post, according to the company that owns the store. Abdo told an AP reporter a week later that he was concerned about his safety and had considered purchasing a gun for protection, but had not yet done so.

Police in Killeen said their break in the case came from Guns Galore LLC — the same gun store where Maj. Nidal Hasan bought a pistol used in the 2009 attack. Store clerk Greg Ebert said the man arrived by taxi Tuesday and bought 6 pounds of smokeless gunpowder, three boxes of shotgun ammunition and a magazine for a semi-automatic pistol.

Ebert said he called authorities because he and his co-workers "felt uncomfortable with his overall demeanor and the fact he didn't know what the hell he was buying."

According to an Army alert sent via email and obtained by The Associated Press, Killeen police learned from the taxi company that Abdo had been picked up from a local motel and had also visited an Army surplus store where he paid cash for a uniform bearing Fort Hood unit patches.

Agents found firearms and "items that could be identified as bomb-making components, including gunpowder," in Abdo's motel room, FBI spokesman Erik Vasys said.

The Army alert said Abdo "was in possession of a large quantity of ammunition, weapons and a bomb inside a backpack," and upon questioning admitted planning an attack on Fort Hood. Officials have not offered details about a possible motive.

Baldwin, the police chief, said Abdo "was taken down rather quickly without incident."

Vasys said the FBI would charge Abdo with possessing bomb-making components and he would be transferred from Killeen police into federal custody. Vasys said there was nothing to indicate Abdo was working with others.

Abdo had gained a number of progressive admirers thanks to his opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and his applying for Conscientious Objector status with the Army last year. The 21 year old PFC grew up in the Fort Worth suburb of Garland and was most recently stationed at Ft. Campbell, KY.

Although his request to become a Conscientious Objector (CO) was ultimately approved by the US Army, he was arrested in May of this year for having images of child pornography on his computer. A hearing held under Article 32 of the UCMJ recommended that he be court-martialed from the Army on those charges- Abdo went AWOL shortly after the hearing.

[Hat tip: Support Your Local Gunfighter; Weasel Zippers; Lonely Conservative]

At Least 87 Reported Dead in Norway Bombing, Mass Shooting

Officials in Norway are saying the death toll is expected to top 80 after twin attacks in downtown Oslo and an island just outside the capital on Friday.

Seven people were killed when a bomb detonated outside of buildings housing the prime minister's office and several media outlets in Oslo. The blast was followed by two hours later by a horrific mass shooting by a gunmen disguised as a police officer at a summer youth camp on an island northwest of Oslo.

According to eyewitnesses, the gunman arrived on the island by boat and waited for the kids to assemble before opening fire with a pistol and an automatic rifle. Some of the children at the camp heard the gunfire, and were coaxed out of hiding by the uniformed shooter before being killed.

A government spokesman had initially said that the death toll was at 17, but according to eyewitnesses and investigators, there are dozens of bodies on the island of Utoeya as well as in the water and along the beaches. Rescue workers and volunteers moving to evacuate the island reported seeing as many as 20 bodies in the water.


In both instances, the target of the attacks was the ruling Labor party in Norway. The bomb heavily damaged Prime Minister Jans Stoltenberg's offices, the headquarters of state news agency NRK, Norwegian tabloid VK and the headquarters of the oil ministry. The island youth camp was run by the youth wing of the Labor party and the Prime Minister was reportedly scheduled to visit on Saturday.

Norway's justice ministry named a suspect they had in custody in the mass killings- a 32 year old farmer named Anders Behrin Bervik. Bervik is reportedly a Norwegian national and is also the prime suspect in the Oslo bombing, although investigators have not ruled out the possibility of accomplices.

Borderline Psychosis Update- Fast & Furious Twin in Fla?; PEMEX Files Suit Over Stolen Oil; If a Tree Falls in the Woods, did the Zetas Cut it Down?

NEW MEXICO: The former mayor of the small border town of Columbus, NM pled guilty to multiple counts of weapons smuggling four months after his arrest.

Eddie Espinoza, 51, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy, three counts of smuggling firearms from the United States and three counts of making false statements.

Former NM mayor admits to gun smuggling: krqe.com

Federal documents state the group smuggled more than 200 guns from New Mexico to the streets of Cíudad Juárez and Palomas, Chihuahua. The documents further state that at times the group used unmarked police cars registered toColumbus to smuggle the guns across the border. Agents had been following the illegal operation for more than a year.

Espinoza is the fourth person to plead guilty in this case so far.

Earlier this month, the village board voted to eliminate the four-man police department as a cost-cutting measure. The Luna County Sheriff's Department will be responsible for patrolling the area now.

In another development on the Columbus case, the El Paso US Attorney's office recently took over the case from the New Mexico US Attorney, although the Justice department has been tight lipped about the reasons behind the switch.

ARIZONA: Recently leaked memos from the Arizona Deparment of Public Safety confirm that Hezbollah has established ties with some of the Mexican cartels in establishing smuggling routes and warn that the terrorist organization may be stockpiling heavy weaponry south of the border.

As evidence, it points to the 2010 Tijuana arrest of Hezbollah militant Jameel Nasr, who was allegedly tasked with establishing a Hezbollah network in Mexico and South America. The memo also recalls the April 2009 arrest of Jamal Yousef in New York, which exposed a huge cache of assault rifles, hand grenades, explosives and anti-tank munitions. According to Yousef, the weapons were stored in Mexico after being smuggled from Iraq by members of Hezbollah.

The memo warns that consequences of partnerships between Hezbollah and Mexico's drug partnerships could be disastrous for Mexico's drug war, given Hezbollah's advanced weapons capabilities — specifically their expertise with improvised explosive devices (IEDs). It notes that some Mexican criminal organizations have started using small IEDs and car bombs, a marked change in tactics that indicates a relationship with Islamic militants

Hezbollah is already active in the tri-border/Iguazu region of South America where the borders of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay meet.

Some experts, while aware of Hezbollah's presence in Mexico, claim that while the organization may have no immediate plans for attacking the USA, the terrorist organization raises funds through criminal activity in Mexico and the USA.

FLORIDA: A possible counterpart to the ATF's Phoenix-based Fast & Furious has come to light in Florida in recent weeks. Guns from a suspected trafficker in Florida under surveillance by the ATF had begun turning up in Puerto Rico, Honduras and Colombia in 2010.

At the center of the operation is 63-year-old Hugh Crumpler III, a well-known Central Florida bass fishing guide and tournament pro. He and 10 others have been charged -- six of whom were in the country illegally. Nine, including Crumpler, are scheduled for sentencing next month in federal court in Orlando. The other two are fugitives and are believed to have fled the country.

Crumpler, who lives in Palm Bay, has admitted to selling the guns and knowing most of them were going out of the country to places such as Honduras, according to court documents. Records show three guns Crumpler bought were used in crimes in Puerto Rico, one just nine days after he bought it. Another gun was used in a homicide in Colombia 66 days after he bought it.

The reports prompted a letter from Congressman Gus Bilirakis (R- FL9) to the ATF enquiring about the scope of Operation Castaway and whether or not the agency allowed any weapons to be 'walked' to Central America or Colombia.

NUEVO LEON: A few weeks ago, Reuters ran a special report titled If Monterrey Falls, Mexico Falls highlighting how the northern industrial center has largely been spared the bloody narco-violence spasming the rest of the country so far, but how that is changing.

If there's any merit to using Mexico's main industrial center as a barometer, then Mexico's problems have only just begun, as the violence in the city has escalated with gunmen massacring 17 people at a bar in the city last weekend.

Monterrey, a major industrial hub, has seen a spike of violence since the Gulf and Zeta cartels began fighting for control of drug traffic there two years ago.

The medical examiner's official said his office has recovered 17 bodies, including those of women, from the crime scene. He spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record.

Police sources would not confirm the number of dead people with The Associated Press and referred the AP to local prosecutors, who are not giving an official account of the shooting.

Federal police spokesman Jose Ramon Salinas said that high-powered weapons used in the shooting indicated it might have been a drug cartel confrontation.

The uptick in violence in Nuevo Leon could be attributed to violence from neighboring Tamaulipas spilling over.


MICHOACAN: As the cartels have begun expanding their operations into illegal logging, one mountain village is barricading itself in an attempt to preserve the nearby old growth forests.

Masked and wielding rifles, the men of this mountain town stand guard at blockades of tires and sandbags to stop illegal loggers backed by drug traffickers. Their defiance isn’t just about defending their way of life; it’s one of the first major challenges to the reign of terror unleashed by Mexico’s drug cartels.

The indigenous Purepecha people of this town surrounded by mountains of pine forests and neat farmland took security into their own hands last month after loggers, who residents say are backed by cartel henchmen and local police, killed two residents and wounded several others.

“There is no fear here,” said one young man, defiantly peering out between a red handkerchief pulled up to his dark eyes and a camouflage baseball cap riding low over his brow. “Here we are fighting a David-and-Goliath battle because we are standing up to organized crime, which is no small adversary.”

Nearly all residents in the town of 16,000 in the southwestern state of Michoacan spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity because of safety concerns.

The Cheran rebellion is one of the few examples of a town standing up to drug cartels since President Felipe Calderon launched his crackdown on organized crime in late 2006, sparking a national wave of violence that has killed at least 35,000 people. Most Mexicans are too frightened to openly fight back against gangs that have terrorized the country with beheadings and massacres. Some towns in northern Mexico have emptied as cartels move in.

The rebellion in Cheran caught the attention of the federal government, which deployed troops and federal police last week to patrol the outskirts of the town.

“La Familia has the heaviest presence in the zone. Everything indicates that it’s them because they have the biggest presence, but we can’t say for sure,” said David Pena, a lawyer who has been representing the community in negotiations for protection with the federal government.

Disputes over communal woods — between those who want to log indiscriminately and those who subsist on forest products — has long been a source of conflict in southwestern Mexico. The federal government has stepped up efforts against deforestation, conducting raids and shutting down illegal sawmills.

But rogue loggers have become more violent as they align themselves with drug cartels, said Rupert Knox, a Mexico researcher at London-based Amnesty International, which has investigated the crisis in Cheran.

“Illegal logging has gone hand-in-glove with criminal gangs. They have moved into that sphere and controlled it with extreme brutality and corruption of local officials,” Knox said.

The animosity came to a head in Cheran when residents captured five illegal loggers on April 15 as their truck attempted to smuggle out illegally harvested wood.

Two hours later, a convoy of armed men rumbled into the town to free the detained loggers, accompanied by local police, according to Pena and Amnesty International. One Cheran man was shot in the head and remains in a coma. But the townspeople, through force of numbers, managed to drive out the gunmen.

In apparent reprisal, loggers shot and killed two Cheran men and wounded four others who were patrolling the woods on April 27.

Angry Cheran residents stormed the local police headquarters, seizing 18 guns. They swiftly barricaded the town, piling sandbags and tires beneath plastic tents at several checkpoints along the main road. Young men with rifles keep track of residents venturing out and question anyone trying to get in.

Classes have been suspended at the town’s more than 20 schools, which draw students from neighboring communities because both Spanish and the Purepecha language are taught. Instead, young boys hang out at the barricades, covering their faces with handkerchiefs and pretending to patrol with plastic toy guns.

“Everything is paralyzed out of fear that this gang might attack the children,” said a soft-spoken man wearing a white bandana and a black wool cap at a checkpoint.

The municipal police dissolved itself. Mayor Roberto Bautista Chapina reported the guns stolen but has otherwise stayed out of the dispute, trying not to inflame tensions. He said the Cheran men attacked the police chief and grabbed his gun.

Community leaders and Interior Department representatives met Tuesday in the state capital of Morelia and agreed on a long-term security plan, Pena said. The government promised to set up two bases outside the town for army troops and federal and state police, who will patrol the hills and forests and meet weekly with Cheran leaders. Residents will be allowed to keep protecting the town on their own.

Among many observers, this is thought to be the most direct challenge to the cartels since the reported last stand of rancher and businessman Don Alejo Garza last year. It's also worth noting that as an organization, La Familia is pretty much finished thanks to infighting and it's leadership on the run or imprisoned with the rest of the organization reconstituting themselves into the Knights Templar.

ELSEWHERE IN MICHOACAN: Speaking of the Knights Templar, Mexican Federal Police have arrested the man they claim oversees killings for the young organization. Javier Beltran Arco- aka 'El Chivo'- was arrested along with two lookouts in Michoacan this month. Also seized were two pounds of methamphetamine and three automatic rifles.

At the Lazaro Cardenas seaport, officials also intercepted containers from Shanghai, China carrying 44 metric tons worth of chemicals used to manufacture methamphetamine.

TEXAS: PEMEX, Mexico's state run oil company, has filed a lawsuit against nine companies in the US District Court in Houston, TX last month. The suit alleges that the nine companies and two individuals named in the suit have either willingly or unknowingly received oil stolen from PEMEX pipelines.

Pemex said the suit is intended to "combat the theft and smuggling of gas condensate from its facilities in northern Mexico," including tanker trucks hijacked at gunpoint in northern Mexico. The thefts involved dozens of tanker-truck loads.

The suit does not claim any of the U.S. firms participated in the actual robberies, but says some knowingly conspired to ship the stolen goods, while others unwittingly handled them.

"All of the defendants have participated and profited, knowingly or unwittingly, in the trafficking of stolen condensate in the United States," the suit says, referring to a mix of oil liquids produced as a byproduct of natural gas wells.

"Some of the defendants knew, or at least should have known, they were trading in, or transporting, stolen condensate," the suit says. "Others were ignorant that they were purchasing stolen goods. In either case, however, the defendants took possession of Mexico's sovereign property without right or title. All defendants are therefore liable for their individual usurpation of Mexico's patrimony."

The lawsuit does not name a specific amount of damages being sought, but argues that the sued companies are liable for part or all of the $300 million in oil stolen since 2006.

Pemex has "lost large amounts of its condensate, at times approaching 40 percent of the production of condensate from the Burgos Field," the suit says.

A joint U.S.-Mexico investigation in 2010 found that smuggled oil stolen from Pemex was being transported across the border and sold to U.S. refineries. The Mexican government has said drug cartel members and other criminals are responsible for many of the oil thefts.

This would not be the first time organized crime in Mexico branched out into the theft and resale of stolen natural resources as the value of said resources went up.

PEMEX, for its part, has claimed that a crackdown earlier this year has led to a decline in the amount of oil stolen from the national oil company's pipelines, but the thieves have been switching tactics as well as allegedly employing the cartels to help them smuggle and sell off the stolen product.

Gangs are still believed to earn hundreds of millions of dollars a year tapping Mexico's vast, but largely unprotected, pipeline network

We're seeing changes. They are tapping into (propane) pipelines. We've also found some double taps that the criminals use to inject water into the pipes to stop the detection of a loss of pressure," Pemex Chief Executive Juan Jose Suarez said during testimony before a congressional panel last week.

Fuel thieves traditionally focused on stealing gasoline and diesel for sale on the local black market, but gangs increasingly have set their sights on crude oil.

Pemex found 712 connections to its network last year, nearly double the number found the year before and five times the amount detected in 2005.

Two crude pipelines were the most tapped nationwide last year with 191 illegal connections, up from only five in 2005.

Pemex believes thieves siphoned off about 10,000 barrels of crude worth more than $700,000 every day last year.

Officials say the crude most likely ends up with brickmakers and other industrial customers who use it as a substitute for boiler fuel. Privately they admit criminals may be smuggling the oil out of Mexico, given the relatively small size of the domestic market for industrial boiler fuel.

Drug cartels, which extort protection money from fuel theft gangs who are often made up of current and former oil industry workers, are believed to provide the expertise to smuggle siphoned oil into the United States.

Court papers indicate that Mexican and U.S. authorities believe the Zetas cartel helped one gang move up to $300 million in condensate -- a liquid byproduct of natural gas used to make plastics -- into Texas by bribing customs officials, using false transit documents and hiring middlemen to sell it to some of the world's largest chemical companies.

A similar scheme with crude would be easy to replicate and hard to detect due to the huge size of the oil market. Pemex officials say the origin of the smuggled crude can be easily concealed by blending it with legitimately-obtained oil.

The companies named in the suit include Big Star Gathering LTD, F&M Transportation Inc., Western Refining Company LP, Joplin Energy LLC, Superior Crude Gathering Inc., Plains All-American [NYSE- PAA], TransMontaigne Partners LP of Denver, Colorado [NYSE- TLP], SemCrude LP of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and Saint James Oil Inc. of Sandy, Utah.

MEXICO CITY: Another seemingly mundane avenue that various cartels have muscled into include movie piracy.

Led by the notorious La Familia and Los Zetas drug mafias, Mexican cartels now take a big cut of the hundreds of millions of dollars in bootleg disks sold in Mexico each year, according to U.S. officials and representatives of film studios and software manufacturers.

“This is no longer a victimless crime. There is blood on the product,” said Federico de la Garza, managing director of the Motion Picture Association in Mexico City, whose own investigators work closely with the Mexican attorney general.

Disk piracy and U.S. copyright violations are a challenge around the world, but in Mexico the sale of bootleg copies of “Toy Story 3” and Microsoft Windows XP are funding the powerful mafias whose relentless violence has left more than 35,000 Mexicans dead in the past four years.

Mexico has become the pirate capital of Latin America, exporting so many bootleg movies to Central America, for example, that the major studios no longer bother to sell their products on the shelves there, according to industry watchdogs.

And in Cancun or Monterrey or Tijuana, when you buy a bootleg Disney movie for the kids, it is as likely as not to bare a stamp that shows it was distributed by the Zetas (a stallion) or La Familia (a butterfly).

Video piracy is ubiquitous in Mexico, where more than nine of 10 movie DVDs sold are counterfeits. Mexican authorities rarely seize products from street dealers or market stalls. U.S. officials in Mexico suspect many vendors give kickbacks to local authorities to allow them to operate.

While its likely that they aren't producing the bootleg DVDs themselves, the cartels usually make their money through taking over distribution routes and demanding protection money from vendors operating in territory they've taken over.


BAJA CALIFORNIA: Mexican soldiers detained 58 people and seized an estimated US$160 billion worth of pot after stumbling across a massive 300 acre marijuana plantation in the northern part of the state last month.

Mexican officials call it the largest seizure of marijuana on record and claim that the plantation had been operational for less than four months.

Army officers said that the crop was discovered under canopies less than two miles off of Route 1, the main highway that traverses the Baja Peninsula. Although 58 people were taken into custody at the time of the raid, it appears that nearly twice as many people were working there. Although the territory was controlled by the Tijuana-based Arellano Felix cartel, that organization was one of the first organizations to have been undermined by President Calderon's stepped up attacks against the narcos.

A spokesman for the Mexican Army's second region believes that Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman's Sinaloa cartel had a hand in setting up the massive plantation.

TAMAULIPAS: At least 60 inmates managed to escape a state prison in Nuevo Laredo in a jailbreak that was thought to be orchestrated by Los Zetas, across the Rio Grande from Laredo, TX.

Seven prisoners were also killed during the escape, which the government said was preceded by a large-scale fight between inmates. Five employees of the prison, the Centro de Ejecución de Sanciones (CEDES), also deserted their posts. Thirty-five of the inmates were being jailed on federal charges.

The escape marks the second time in eight months the city has seen a mass exodus of criminals from the prison. In December about 140 inmates escaped, which Cuellar attributed to a plan orchestrated by the Zetas to swell its ranks after suffering heavy losses throughout its ongoing battles against rival gangs and law enforcement. The sheriff could not confirm that today’s escape was part of a similar plan.

Between January 2010 and March 2011, more than 400 inmates have escaped from five prisons operated under the state's authority in Tamaulipas.

[Hat tip: Correspondence Committee; Borderland Beat; Friends of Ours]

Mumbai Rocked By Trio of Deadly Blasts

Three separate blasts tore through a commercial district in India's largest city of Mumbai earlier Wednesday, killing at least 17 and injuring 141.

Although no group claimed responsibility, the explosions hit locations where a terror siege nearly three years ago killed 166 people. Wednesday also coincided with the birthday of the lone surviving gunman of the 2008 attack.

Arup Patnaik, a top police officer, said the attackers used improvised explosive devices in the attack, hidden in an umbrella in the Jhaveri Bazaar jewelry market and kept in a car in the business district of Opera House.

Indian officials say they believe the responsibility of Wednesday's attack rests with the Indian Mujahideen, a group that works closely with Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Lashkar-e-Taiba is the group suspected to be behind the 2008 attack.

All three blasts happened from 6:50 p.m. to 7 p.m., when all the neighborhoods would have been packed with office workers and commuters.

The blasts hit the crowded Dadar neighborhood at rush hour, the famed jewelry market Jhaveri Bazaar and the busy business district of Opera House, an official at the city's Police Control Room said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of office policy.

The explosions happened around 7 p.m., when all the neighborhoods would have been packed with office workers and commuters.

Authorities say an early indicator of a terror strike was the close timing of the string of explosions.

The November 2008 attacks targeted a pair of landmark luxury hotels, a train station, a hospital and a Chabad house. According to diplomatic cables released via wikileaks, and testimony from a Chicago trial of a US citizen accused of scouting locations for the Mumbai attack, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI) provided training and support to Lashkar-e-Taiba members prior to the Mumbai attacks.

Indian authorities have not yet identified any suspects, although the locations of the targets and the timing of the blasts to coincide with the lone surviving Mumbai gunman's birthday hardly seem coincidental.

India's Home Affairs Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram confirmed that the explosive devices were made from ammonium nitrate and investigators believe that the devices weren't set off remotely.

Luxury Hotel Attacked by Suicide Bombers and Gunmen in Afghan Capital

Suicide bombers and gunmen launched a coordinated attack on the Intercontinental hotel in Kabul Tuesday night. Afghan sources say that 10 people were killed in the attack so far, but that number was unable to be verified independently.

An Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman says initial reports indicate three or four suicide bombers and at least two gunmen attacked the hotel. Multiple explosions have been heard on the property.

Sediq Sediqqi said Tuesday that all the bombers either blew themselves up or were killed. Two gunmen continue to fire from the roof of the hotel, he said.

"There are foreign and Afghan guests staying at the hotel," Sediqqi said. "We have reports that they are safe in their rooms, but still there is shooting."

Azizullah, an Afghan police officer who uses only one name, told The Associated Press at the scene that at least one bomber entered the hotel Tuesday night and detonated a vest of explosives.

Afghan police were battling the assailants with machine-gun fire and rocket-propelled grenades as tracer rounds went up over the blacked out building. The police have secured the area around the hotel, which is one of Kabul's most heavily guarded.

Jawid, a guest at the hotel, says the attack occurred as many people were having dinner in the hotel restaurant. He says he heard gunfire throughout the several story building.

"I was running with my family," he said. "There was shooting. The restaurant was full with guests."

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying that their operatives killed some of the hotel's guards in the initial attack and entered the property from there. Afghan police say that there are at least two gunmen firing from the roof.

The attack comes less than a week after President Obama announced the withdrawal of 10,000 US troops from Afghanistan within the year.

Two Men of Indeterminate Religous Background Arrested in Plot Against Seattle Military Recruiting Depot

Must be those Christian radicals that Representative Sheila Jackson-Lee warned us about.

Two west coast men in their 30s were arrested by authorities for plotting an assault on a military recruiting center in Seattle after a third man they attempted to recruit for the attack informed a Seattle Police detective of the plot.

Abu Khalid Abdul-Latif, also known as Joseph Anthony Davis, 33, of Seattle, and Walli Mujahidh, aka Frederick Domingue Jr., 32, of Los Angeles were arrested Wednesday and charged in a seven-count complaint unsealed in U.S. District Court in Seattle.

Among the charges were conspiracy to murder U.S. officers, conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction and unlawful possession of firearms.

Both men appeared this afternoon before U.S. Magistrate Judge Mary Alice Theiler, who ordered them held pending a detention hearing next Wednesday. A preliminary hearing is set for July 7, which will be held only if the men are not indicted by a grand jury before then.

They face a maximum of life in prison, however firearms charges carry mandatory-minimum sentences of 30 years each.

The two suspects had hoped to carry out a Fort Hood-style attack [which if you think back to 2009, emphatically WASN'T a terrorist attack- NANESB!] targeting the facility's security guards first before executing anybody in uniform. According to investigators, they were hoping their attack would inspire other Muslims to launch similar attacks on military facilities in the USA.

Since early June, authorities said they have been monitoring Abdul-Latif, 33, of Seattle, also known as Joseph Anthony Davis, and Mujahidh, 32, of Los Angeles, also known as Frederick Domingue Jr.

The men spoke about gaining access to the facility by driving a "truck that looks like the Titanic" through the "front gate," the complaint says, and Abdul-Latif told the source his objective was to "take out anybody wearing green or a badge."

“Imagine how many young Muslims, if we’re successful, will try to hit these kinds of centers,” said Abdul-Latif, according to the complaint. “Imagine how fearful America will be, and they’ll know they can’t push Muslims around.”

Earlier this month, when Abdul-Latif noticed a security guard at a Seattle military recruiting station, he appeared unconcerned.

“We’ll just kill him right away,” he told an FBI source posing as an accomplice, according to the criminal complaint. “We can kill him first.”

Abdul-Latif, who had been in and out of prison over the last decade, was operating a cleaning service around the Sea-Tac International airport that had recently gone bankrupt.

The arrests came a little over a week after hearings held by Congressman Peter King (R-NY3) into radical Islam and recruitment in American prisons was denounced by some Democrats as discriminatory and 'racist'.

I have to say, one of the few times I tuned into C-SPAN lately, I was hoping to catch some of the Fast & Furious hearings. I missed those, but instead caught a rebroadcast of the Congressman King's hearings in which Democrat after Democrat attempted to sidetrack the hearings by bringing up the national security menace posed by the Aryan Nations or radical Christians.

Frankly, if I knew C-SPAN would be this good, I would've tuned in more often. I'm not neccesarily King's biggest fan in the blogosphere, but after various Democrats attempt to deflect and obfuscate, but King's response was to point out to all the Demcorats crying racism or attempting to change the topic back to neo-nazi gangs or militant christians that if they thought those were the grave national security threats they claimed, they had FOUR YEARS in which they could've established hearings of their own on the matter.

BREAKING: White House Situation Room Photos Indicate Bin Laden Raid Took Place Much Earlier Than Announced, Situation Room Photos Doctored

The successful raid of Osama Bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan had since been followed up by a number of contradictory statements from the White House and allegations that the situation room photo released by the White House was in fact staged.

Now a leaked photo from White House sources has not only called the Administration's timeline of events into question, but even the veracity of the situation room photo that was released by the Administration.

My highly confidential and trustworthy White House sources have hinted that the SEAL raid on Bin Laden's hideout actually took place earlier and coincided with another event that had generated much international interest; the Royal Wedding at Westminster Abbey.

However, the raid also overlapped with the official White House Royal Wedding viewing party, and guests actually watched both events unfold in real-time on multiple screens in the situation room.

The above photo, believed by many anonymous insiders to be the original and unmodified situation room photo, seems to confirm this version of events and it's likely the White House waited nearly 48 hours to make the announcement in order to disseminate the doctored photos showing White House Staff, Pentagon brass and Administation officials.


When reached for comment on how the Obama Administration and Pentagon officials were able to get so many copies of her now-infamous hat in advance, a spokeswoman for Princess Beatrice of York had no comment about the hat, but pointed out that the 23 year old daughter of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson had lost some weight, was the first Royal to run in the London marathon and looks 'positively smashing' in a bikini these days.
Well- who am I to argue?

Pakistan Announces Cuts in US Military Presence After Bin Laden Raid

I can't be the only one thinking that America would be better served by cutting back on the estimated $18 billion in aid money we send to Pakistan.

Apparently, SEAL Team 6 notwithstanding, The US Military presence in Pakistan is currently limited to about 300 advisers and liaison officers. Not surprisingly, Pakistan's military and Inter-services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) are unhappy with a unilateral US special ops raid.

However, given that the Navy SEALs were able to swoop in undetected on a compound housing the world's most wanted man that was 70 miles from the Pakistani capital and a few hundred yards from the Pakistani equivalent of West Point, this also gives both the Pakistani military and ISI black eyes and bloody lips.

If the Pakistani Army or ISI were searching for Bin Laden like they has assured many Western nations, then they had failed miserably. If they were seeking to protect Bin Laden from the US Military, then they had failed spectacularly.

Pakistan is calling for cuts in the U.S. military personnel inside the country after U.S. Navy SEALs killed Usama bin Laden in his Pakistan compound -- without Pakistan's help or prior knowledge.

The siege has only increased the strain on relations between the two countries, as some U.S. lawmakers are calling for cuts to the $1.3 billion in U.S. aid to Pakistan for its failure to locate bin Laden. The Al Qaeda leader was found and killed in a large $1 million compound in an army town not far from the capital of Islamabad. Lawmakers have suggested Pakistan was either too incompetent to catch bin Laden or was complicit in protecting him.

In a statement Thursday, Pakistan's army fired back, saying U.S. military personnel inside the country would be reduced to the "minimum essential" levels to protest the American commando raid that killed bin Laden early Monday local time. The army also threatened to cut cooperation with Washington if it stages more unilateral raids on its territory.

The statement from Pakistan's army was issued after a meeting of top generals. The statement gave no details on the numbers, and a spokesman declined to elaborate.

The statement said the Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency, or ISI, had given initial information to the CIA about bin Laden, but claimed the "CIA did not share further development of intelligence on the case with the ISI, contrary to the existing practice between the two services."

The raid on bin Laden has sharpened tensions between the two countries. Despite the calls from some U.S. lawmakers for cuts in aid to the country, the Obama administration and British Prime Minister David Cameron have indicated they would continue with their policy of engaging with the country.

So when all is said and done, this is basically an empty gesture on Pakistan's part meant either for domestic consumption or to raise sovereignty issues as a means of deflecting questions about Osama Bin Laden living unmolested only a few hundred yards from the front gate of Pakistan's national military academy.

BREAKING: Osama Bin Laden And Associates Killed in US Special Ops Raid on Pakistani Compound

This has been coming in pretty rapid fire (pardon the expression) all night, and it's been difficult to keep up with the various reports and rumors that have been going on.

In an unscheduled news conference from the East Room of the White House earlier tonight, President Obama announced that fugitive al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden was killed in a Navy SEAL raid on a mansion in northern Pakistan.

Unlike previous strikes over Pakistan, this reportedly involved a prolonged firefight between helicopter-borne SEALs and Bin Laden along with his couriers and one of his sons at a compound in the city of Abbotabad, some 30 miles from the Pakistani capitol of Islamabad and less than 5 miles away from the Pakistani Military Academy in Kakul.

The U.S. had been monitoring the compound in Abbottabad for months after receiving a tip in August that Bin Laden might be seeking shelter there. He had long been said to be in the mountainous region along the Afghanistan, Pakistan border, hiding in a cave as the U.S. sought to kill him with drone strikes from above. Instead, he was in a house eight times larger than its neighbors, with a seven-foot wall and valued at $1 million. The house had no phone or television and the residents burned their trash. The house had high windows and few points of access, and U.S. officials concluded it had been built to hide someone.

According to U.S. officials, two U.S. helicopters swept into the compound at 1:30 and 2:00 a.m. Sunday morning. Twenty to 25 U.S. Navy Seals under the command of the Joint Special Operations Command in cooperation with the CIA stormed the compound and engaged Bin Laden and his men in a firefight, killed Bin Laden and all those with him.

Two Bin Laden couriers were killed, as was one of Osama Bin Laden's son, as was a woman reportedly used as a shield by one of the men. Other women and children were present in the compound, according to Pakistani officials, but were not harmed. U.S. officials said that Bin Laden himself did fire his weapon during the fight.

One of the U.S. helicopters was damaged but not destroyed during the operation, and U.S. forces elected to destroy it themselves with explosives.

The Americans took Bin Laden's body into custody after the firefight and confirmed his identity. According to a senior administration official, the U.S. is "ensuring it is handled in accordance with Islamic practice and tradition. It's something we take seriously and therefore it's being handled in an appropriate manner."

According to Pakistani officials, the operation was a joint U.S.-Pakistani operation, but U.S. officials said only U.S. personnel were involved in the raid.

On eary Monday, Pakistani television network GEO TV broadcast images of the mansion believed to have housed Bin Laden engulfed in flames.
News of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack mastermind's demise was greeted with cheers by crowds in front of the White House in Washington DC and in Times Square and adjacent to Ground Zero in New York City. Among the celebrants were members of the FDNY and NYPD- 343 Firefighters and 60 police officers were among the first responders killed in the 9/11 attacks.

So as it turns out, it wasn't a drone strike like many had predicted (on the assumption Bin Laden was even still alive) or porcine-induced rectal trauma like I had really really hoped he would have inflicted on him in his final hours, but if confirmed then this is good news indeed.

UPDATE: Multiple outlets are reporting that this op has been in the works since 2007.

The operation had been in the works for years. Since 9/11, the CIA gathered leads on those in bin Laden’s inner circle, including personal couriers. During interrogations and questioning, various detainees flagged individuals who may have been providing support to OBL and Zawahiri. One courier in particularly was identified by detainees as one of the few al Qaeda couriers who had bin Laden’s trust. He was identified as a “protégé” of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and a trusted assistant of Abu Faraj al –Libbi, the former #3 of al Qaeda, who was captured in 2005. There were even indications the courier may have been living with bin Laden.

In 2007, intelligence officers discovered his identity. In 2009, intelligence officials identified areas in Pakistan where the courier and his brother operate – but they were still unable to pinpoint precisely where.

In August 2010 came a big break. Intelligence identified a compound that aroused their suspicion – eight times larger than other homes in the area, built in 2005, on a property valued at $1 million. But access to the compound was severely restricted, with elaborate security and 12 to 18 foot walls topped with barbed wire. Incongruently, the compound has no phone service or televisions. The main building had few windows and a seven foot wall for privacy. Residents burned their trash.

Intelligence officials concluded that unit was “custom built” to hide someone. A third family was identified as living there – and the size and makeup matched the bin Laden family members most likely with him. The location and design of compound were consistent with what experts expected his hideout might look like. Their final conclusion: there was a strong probability that this was bin Laden’s hideout.

Personally, I think it would be kinda cute if we could plant a couple hundred thousand in cash in the form of Euros or US Dollars on a couple of the remaining Al Qaeda higher ups, bundled with little strips that would have a cryptic message in Arabic or Urdu about a 'job well done', only to have the cash discovered by subordinates.