WTOP, 12 March 2010: A growing list of terror suspects nurtured by al-Qaida is emerging. Former military interrogator Dave Gabutz informed WTOP Radio of this notion in June 2009 after he had spent years tracking al-Qaida sleeper units and recruiters. “We came across the first one in Falls Church, Va.,” Gabutz says. This “first one” was controversial Imam Anwar al-Awlaki, who worked at a location watched by Gabutz and his team. . . .
. . . Gabutz says the recruiters are spreading out. “Michigan, Florida, Texas, Nashville, Richmond, Knoxville, and California,” are prime locations, according to Gabutz. There are indications terrorist recruiters are using every available opportunity and option to lure more people into their world and plan attacks against the United States.
Hezbollah sympathizer Mahmoud Kourani was doing just that before his arrest near Detroit in 2002. “Kourani’s specialties appeared to be weaponry, spycraft, counterintelligence,” according to Tom Diaz, a former Congressional Crime Subcommittee staffer. Diaz says Khourani was recruiting people for training. Recruits were to be trained “to make things go bang, to attack, military type training, terror type training,” Diaz says. . . . .
. . . .One question that is puzzling investigators is how al-Qaida communicates with its foot soldiers and recruiters, some of whom may be embedded in the fabric of the U.S. military. With the almost daily capture and killing of key handlers in Pakistan, it seems al-Qaida is being forced to communicate in a completely different way. Since so many couriers and foot soldiers are being rolled up, al-Qaida is relying on “electronic dead-drops,” says Army Reserve Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer, a former Defense Intelligence Agency officer.
When couriers get caught, so do key al-Qaida documents, plans and key communications. Shaffer says now al-Qaida is hiding their communications on the Internet. It’s not a new concept, but certainly one that’s gaining a lot of momentum since a growing number of critical commanders and operators have either been killed or arrested. How are these dead drops happening? “Steganography in photographs is a good example of a dead drop,” says Shaffer. In a nutshell, a dead drop in a photo involves embedding a message in a picture. . . .
