Times of London, 11 March 2010: A British Airways computer expert charged with terror offences planned to take advantage of a strike by BA staff to become a temporary member of the cabin crew, a court heard today. Rajib Karim, 30, from Newcastle upon Tyne, faces three charges under counter terrorism legislation. He is accused of two counts of planning suicide bombings and his own martyrdom. It is alleged that Mr Karim came to Britain, obtained a passport and secured a job at the airline as part of the conspiracy.

Prosecutor Colin Gibbs told City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court that the charge sheet alleges he shared information about his work, including security measures, and offered to take advantage of planned strikes by BA staff to join the airline’s cabin crew. . . . .

♦ CI CENTRE COURSE: 163–Dying to Kill Us: Understanding the Mindset of Suicide Operations

The Muslim Brotherhood in the United States (pdf)
By Steven Merley
Center on Islam, Democracy, and the Future of the Muslim World
HUDSON INSTITUTE

Synopsis
The leadership of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood (MB, or Ikhwan) has said that its goal was and is jihad aimed at destroying the U.S. from within. The Brotherhood leadership has also said that the means of achieving this goal is to establish Islamic organizations in the U.S. under the control of the Muslim Brotherhood. Since the early 1960s, the Brotherhood has constructed an elaborate covert organizational infrastructure on which was built a set of public or “front” organizations. The current U.S. Brotherhood leadership has attempted to deny this history, both claiming that it is not accurate and at the same time that saying that it represents an older form of thought inside the Brotherhood. An examination of public and private Brotherhood documents, however, indicates that this history is both accurate and that the Brotherhood has taken no action to demonstrate change in its mode of thought and/or activity. . . .

. . . . The MB has been establishing its organizational base in the U.S for over forty-five years. An examination of relevant documents, some of which became available only recently, makes it possible for the first time to construct a coherent timeline of how the U.S. Brotherhood has created a wide range of covert and public organizations designed to achieve its purposes. . . . These documents reveal that, throughout its history, the U.S. MB has been comprised of a covert infrastructure upon which was built a series of public organizations, sometimes referred to by the Brotherhood as “fronts.” . . . .

♦ CI CENTRE COURSE: 361–The Global Jihadist Threat Doctrine

AP, 11 March 2010: . . . .The massacre was Europe’s worst Islamic terror attack. The attackers targeted the Madrid commuter train network with 10 shrapnel-filled bombs concealed in backpacks during the morning rush hour of March 11, 2004. Twenty-eight people, mainly from North Africa, went on trial in 2007 and 21 of them were convicted of taking part in the attacks. . . .

Spain marks Madrid train bombings – six years on (EuroNews, 11 March 2010)
It was no ordinary journey to work for many in Madrid today. Thoughts turned to the rush-hour bombings exactly six years ago that killed nearly 200 people and injured almost 2,000 more. Some paid tribute by carrying flowers onto the Spanish capital’s commuter rail system where packed trains exploded on March 11th 2004. The anniversary of the al-Qaeda inspired attacks was also being marked in parliament and at other formal ceremonies to remember those who died. . . .

Joint act pays homage to Madrid bombing victims (EITB, 11 March 2010)
Acts of commemoration are being held throughout the EU on Thursday as part of the European Day for Victims of Terrorism, held every year on 11th March since 2005. Politicians in Spain laid a wreath of flowers at a plaque in the capital, marking the start of ceremonies to mark the sixth anniversary of the Madrid train bombings that killed 191 and injured 1,800 commuters when ten explosives planted by Muslim extremists went off on four commuter trains. Madrid regional government President Esperanza Aguirre placed the flowers in Puerta del Sol square at 9am, accompanied by regional leaders of the country’s main political parties. . . . .

Spiegel Online, 11 March 2010: Fifty years after Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann’s arrest by the Israeli Mossad in Argentina, basic details about his 15 years as a fugitive remain a government secret. The files kept by Germany’s foreign intelligence agency, the BND, remain classified today — allegedly for reasons of national security. A German journalist is now suing in a federal court for the release of the files.

Fifty years have passed since Adolf Eichmann’s arrest, but the German foreign intelligence agency, the BND, is still hoping to prevent the release of files detailing his post-war movements. A Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig is currently examining almost 4,500 pages of secret documents on Eichmann, a leading architect of Hitler’s plans to murder Europe’s Jews. The court is soon expected to rule whether the BND’s justifications for concealing the files are still applicable and in line with the country’s freedom of information laws. . . .

. . . .According to paperwork filed with the court, the BND maintains that secrecy is necessary because much of the information contained in the files was provided by an unnamed “foreign intelligence service.” If the information were released, the BND argues, it would deter other nations from sharing intelligence with Germany in the future. “It would adversely affect future cooperations between foreign intelligence services and German security agencies,” the agency’s lawyers argue.

The fact that the files are classified has prompted considerable speculation over the origins of the intelligence. The BND has clarified that the intelligence did not come from an American source, and it is widely assumed that it came from Israel’s Mossad, whose agents captured Eichmann in Buenos Aires in 1960. He was subsequently brought to trial in Israel, where he was convicted and hanged. . . . .

Daily Telegraph, 12 March 2010: “Large scale” electronic attacks by foreign intelligence services have sucessfully compromised the security of many large British companies, according to a Government agency. In evidence to a Parliamentary committee, The Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure, a Government agency, said that Government-backed hackers from China and Russia were behind a large proportion of the operations. Their aim is to steal government, defence and technology information. Most large firms have been targeted and, in ”many cases”, the attacks have been successful. Islamist terrorists are also behind attacks via the internet. Although their efforts are more limited, they are on the increase. The scale of the attacks was disclosed in the annual report of the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC). . . . .

Gloucestershire Echo, 11 March 2010: The battle against “electronic warfare” is being hampered – because GCHQ can’t get the right staff, a hard hitting report said today. The threat to Britain from electronic warfare must be treated “very seriously”, the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) urged.

Government information, national infrastructure and private firms are at risk from state-sponsored attacks, many from China and Russia, the cross-party parliamentary committee said. In its annual report on the work of the UK’s security agencies, the ISC warned the threat posed was “a matter for concern” that needed to be given a high priority.

Work by GCHQ to tackle the problem had yielded “tangible benefits”, it said. But it was well below the capacity initially planned because of problems with the recruitment and retention of specialist staff. . . .

Intelligence and Security Committee Annual Report 2008–2009 .pdf (UK)

Mirror, 11 March 2010: Outside the presidential palace up to 3million people were dying of starvation. Inside, dictators Kim Il-Sung and his son and heir Kim Jong-Il had their every desire met, no matter how obscene. Money was no object as they and their cronies lived a life of opulence while some countrymen resorted to cannibalism in a desperate effort merely to survive.

Nobody was more grimly aware of the shocking difference in living standards than Kim Jong-Ryul. For he was the North Korean dictatorship’s personal shopper – whose job was to travel the globe and buy every luxury his country’s corrupt rulers demanded. Armed with shopping lists of anything from gold-plated guns to expensive cars, he easily found firms more than happy to break the international trade embargo on North Korea in return for a 30% fee.

But the ex-colonel defected in disgust at the regime’s oppression of its people while living the high life. In doing so, he faked his death – knowing that if his defection was discovered his family and even his neighbours would face death. Now, aged 75, he has decided to come in from the cold for the first and last time and expose Kim Jong-Il’s tyranny in a remarkable book - In The Dictator’s Service - that lays bare the decadence and madness at the heart of the regime. “Kim Jong-Il owns everything you could imagine, at the same time as his own people suffer and starve,” says Ryul.

He spent 20 years travelling on a diplomatic passport and a suitcase full of cash, using the code name Emil. The North Korean embassy in Vienna became his European store cupboard, to which he would return laden with spy technology, weapons and luxury goods. In the Austrian capital he could count on banking secrecy, easy trade rules and lax airport control. At the embassy, his shopping was repackaged and flown out with fake papers and the help of paid-off customs officers. He did deals with Swiss, German and French firms and also Czechoslovakia. . . . He built a network of middlemen who, for a hefty cut, acquired goods the regime craved, from Belgian chocolates to Ferraris. A Romanian spy contact ran a fake firm in Vienna by which she bought hunting weapons and even a light aircraft.. . . . .

Canadian Press, 10 March 2010: If Louis Riel had been hanged in 1885 because of an informer among his Metis rebels, Canada’s spy agency might still be blocking release of that history-changing revelation 125 years later. That hypothetical scenario was put to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service last week as part of a legal battle over the government’s refusal to fully disclose decades-old intelligence gathered on socialist icon Tommy Douglas.

The agency couldn’t say for certain whether it would release the identity of Riel’s hypothetical betrayer or withhold the information on the basis of national security. The equivocal response offers a glimpse into the lengths CSIS will go to protect the secrets of the spy trade, no matter how old or historically significant.

Nicole Jalbert, Access to Information co-ordinator for CSIS, testified she routinely nixes disclosure of intelligence files that would reveal confidential sources or intelligence agents, even if they’re long dead and the information gathered decades ago. She said that rule applies to “more contemporary times” – including the files on Douglas, gathered as far back as the 1930s. Such files must remain secret “perhaps not forever” but “maybe longer” than 100 years. . . .

AP, 11 March 2010: On Christmas Day, a passenger on a Northwest Airlines flight bound for Detroit tried to blow up the plane with plastic explosives in his underwear. He failed, yet the very attempt shook the U.S. government, set federal agencies against each other and triggered months of political second-guessing.

In fact, short of mass casualties, the attack allegedly attempted by Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had exactly the kind of reaction that al-Qaida is after. And, it appears, that lesson is resonating with the terror network’s leadership.

For the first time, the group that carried out the Sept. 11 attacks and has prided itself on its ideological purism seems to be eyeing a more pragmatic and arguably more dangerous shift in tactics. The emerging message appears to be: Big successes are great, but sometimes simply trying can be just as good.

U.S. officials and counterterrorism experts say the airline attack and last November’s shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, prove that simple, well-played smaller attacks against the United States also can be harmful to the American psyche, although not as devastating as a 9/11-style attack.

In a recent Internet posting, U.S.-born al-Qaida spokesman Adam Gadahn made a public pitch for such smaller, single acts of jihad. “Even apparently unsuccessful attacks on Western mass transportation systems can bring major cities to a halt, cost the enemy billions and send his corporations into bankruptcy,” Gadahn said in a video released and translated by U.S.-based Site Intelligence Group, which monitors Islamic militant message traffic.

It’s a message that officials believe has been evolving for the last year and has turned upside down the prevailing wisdom that the next al-Qaida attack against the U.S. must be bigger and bolder than the one on Sept. 11, 2001. . . . .

AP, 10 March 2010: Colleen LaRose spent long days caring for her boyfriend’s father in a second-floor apartment in Pennsburg, a small town north of Philadelphia. But online, federal authorities say, the devoted caretaker developed a daring alter ego, refashioning herself as “Jihad Jane” while helping recruit and finance Muslim terrorists — and eventually moving overseas to try to kill an artist she perceived as an enemy to Islam.

LaRose, 46, was charged Tuesday with conspiring with jihadist fighters and pledging to commit murder in the name of a Muslim holy war, or jihad. The indictment was announced hours after authorities arrested seven suspected terrorists in Ireland allegedly linked to LaRose, who has been in prison since her Oct. 15 arrest while returning to the United States. In e-mails recovered by the FBI over 15 months, LaRose agreed to marry an online contact from South Asia so he could move to Europe. She also agreed to become a martyr, the indictment said. . . .

. . . . But online, she grew increasingly devoted to a loose band of what authorities say were violent co-conspirators from around the world. They found her after she posted a YouTube video in June 2008 saying she was “desperate to do something somehow to help” ease the suffering of Muslims, the indictment said.

She eventually agreed to try to kill Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who had angered Muslims by depicting the Prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog, according to a U.S. official who wasn’t authorized to discuss details of the investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Despite Web images that show LaRose in a Muslim head covering, Gorman said he never picked up on any Muslim leanings. She never attended religious services of any kind, he said. Gorman, 47, sensed nothing amiss in their five-year relationship until the day after his father’s funeral last August. “I came home and she was gone. It doesn’t make any sense,” he said Wednesday outside his firm in nearby Quakertown.

That same day, LaRose had removed the hard drive from her computer and set off for Europe — federal authorities won’t specify where. She had swiped Gorman’s passport and planned to give it to the co-conspirator she had agreed to marry, the indictment said. . . . .

Jihad Jane, American who lived on Main Street (CNN, 10 March 2010)

Women Jihadists (Reuters)

Christian Science Monitor, 10 March 2010: Militant groups can radicalize individuals and train them to carry out terrorist acts much more quickly today, in part thanks to the Internet, according to military and counter terrorism experts testifying on Capitol Hill Wednesday.

Militant groups and some individuals have “maximized” the use of technologies such as the Internet. Government officials say the case of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who allegedly attempted to blow up an American airliner in Detroit on Christmas Day, points to just how fast groups can radicalize an individual. Mr. Abdulmutallab was identified, contacted, recruited, and trained all within six weeks, according to a Pentagon counterterrorism official.

That’s much faster than the two and a half years it took for Osama bin Laden to hatch the plan to attack the US nine years ago. While the two plans vary widely in scope, the faster time frame indicates how adaptive radicalized groups and individuals have become, say experts. . . .

Testimony on U.S. Government efforts to counter violent extremism

Ambassador Daniel Benjamin
Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Department of State

Garry Reid
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Combating Terrorism

Lieutenant General Francis H. Kearney III, USA
Deputy Commander U.S. Special Operations Command

Douglas M. Stone
President and Chairman, Transportation Networks International

Scott Atran
Professor of Anthropology and Psychology, University of Michigan and John Jay College of Criminal Justice

James J. F. Forest*
Director of Terrorism Studies and Associate Professor of Political Science, United States Military Academy

Guardian, 10 March 2010: She lived in Main Street, Pennsburg, which in hindsight is about as rich a paradox as could be. Her apartment on the second floor of a block of flats in the Pennsylvania town was nondescript, except for some wind chimes and a star hanging from the balcony.

But today the world learned of Colleen LaRose’s alleged second life, one quite out of keeping with the low-key figure she presented. She was blonde, blue-eyed, 5ft 2ins tall and wholly unassuming, according to a former boyfriend, Kurt Gorman. “She seemed normal to me. She was a good person,” he told the Philadelphia Daily News.

But to the FBI agents who had been tracking her every move from at least as early as July last year, she was potentially a dangerous would-be terrorist intent on martyrdom and using the aliases Jihad Jane and Fatima LaRose. Today, an indictment was unsealed accusing her of plotting to murder a Swedish man in order to frighten “the whole Kufar (nonbeliever) world”. . . . .

♦ CI CENTRE COURSE: 361–The Global Jihadist Threat Doctrine

Christian Science Monitor, 11 March 2010: Pennsylvania woman Colleen LaRose, who called herself Jihad Jane, is only the latest in a string of Americans to support violent jihad. Her alleged mission to recruit fighters and murder a Swedish artist falls into a rising tide of homegrown Islamic militants who are using their passports and linguistic skills to promote global jihad.

“Homegrown terrorism is increasing. There is no doubt about it,” says Steven Emerson, author of Jihad Incorporated: A Guide to Militant Islam in the US. “Look at the last year – I think there were more than a dozen would-be attacks, and most involving homegrown Americans. We’re definitely seeing a rise,” he said Wednesday in a telephone interview. . . .

. . . . Our top 10 list is somewhat subjective. To keep it short, a number of notable US-born terrorists were not included, including Abu Yahya Mujahdeen Al-Adam, a Pennsylvania native who became an Al Qaeda operative and reportedly “close friend” of Osama bin Laden. Pakistani media have reported that he was arrested this past weekend in Karachi. Our list also leaves out the 2007 plot of six New Jersey men charged with conspiring to attack Fort Dix; the 2009 Synagogue terror plot of four men arrested for plotting to blow up Jewish centers in the Bronx; and the Lackawana plot of six Yemeni-Americans arrested in September 2002 on allegations of giving material support to Al Qaeda.

Mr. Emerson, who heads The Investigative Project on Terrorism in Washington, D.C., says the fundamentalist Islamic community is quick to pounce on young and impressionable foreign converts. “I was amazed at the way the global jihad village converged very quickly after [LaRose] offered to carry out jihad,” he says. “It was pretty eye-opening to see how quickly she was able to insert herself into a jihad plot. The question is whether there is a growth of radicalism within the American Muslim community, or whether in fact it’s always been there and it’s now being exploited by virtue of technology.”

Top 10 American Jihadis

Terrorist plots uncovered in the US since 9/11

Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee, 10 March 2010:

U.S. Government Efforts To Counter Violent Extremism
Testimony of Daniel Benjamin
Coordinator, Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, US Department of State

Words mentioned: Islam (1); Muslim (8); Jihad (0); Jihadist (0); Salafist (1); Sharia (0); Ideology (3 – ‘violent ideology’ but doesn’t identify what that ideology is)

Violent (17); Extremists (6); Extremism (13); Radicalization (9); al-Qa’ida (12)

Testimony before the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives
Hearing on “The Google Predicament: Transforming U.S. Cyberspace Policy to Advance Democracy, Security, and Trade”
10 March 2010

China’s Approach to Cyber Operations: Implications for the United States (.pdf)
Larry M. Wortzel
Commissioner, U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission

Chairman Berman, Ranking Member Ros-Lehtinen, Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear today to discuss how the People’s Republic of China approaches cyber warfare, cyber espionage, and how the United States might respond.

It is a pleasure to appear before you today on an issue of great significance to the United States and, indeed, the world. The views I will present here today are my own. They are a product not only of my service on the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, but from my service as a military officer with significant background in intelligence and counterintelligence activities as well as decades of study of China.

The attacks on Google that prompted this hearing are the most recent example of a series of penetrations into the computer networks of American companies, departments of the U.S Government, and even some members of Congress. As the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission has documented in its 2009 Annual Report to Congress, “China is the origin of extensive malicious cyber activities that target the United States.” Attribution of cyber penetrations and malicious cyber activity is difficult, and even quite sensitive, because if one describes how attribution is achieved, it tells the intruder how to modify its operations and make them more effective.

Our Commission, in a contracted report on “The Capability of the People’s Republic of China to Conduct Cyber Warfare and Computer Network Exploitation,” provided a case study of a multi-day penetration into the computer systems of an American high technology company and how the data acquired was transferred to an Internet protocol address in China. The report also discussed the principal institutional and individual “actors” in Chinese computer network operations as well as the characteristics of network exploitation activities that are frequently attributed to China. . . . .

♦ CI CENTRE BRIEFING: Chinese Cyber Trends: The 21st Century Battlefield

♦ CI CENTRE COURSE: 107—China’s Current Targeting Trends

♦ CI CENTRE COURSE: 207–An Introduction to the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) Intelligence and Counterintelligence Methodologies

Global Post, 10 March 2010: To understand radical Islam, American writer Theo Padnos pretended he was a Muslim and settled himself into Yemen’s radical mosque scene. Years later, his cover has finally been blown.

The dorm — a long corridor lined with shoebox rooms shared by roommates — was just like any other student dwelling, aside from the stained glass windows, the ornate woodwork and loudspeakers blaring with Islam’s predawn call to morning worship: “Prayer is better than sleep.” It was like any other student dwelling — aside from the absence of music. Or posters. Or women. Contact with the opposite sex was strictly banned. When he wasn’t studying the Quran, Theo Padnos — barefoot, and usually dressed in a flowing white robe — says he would wander down the hall, to see who was around.

Living several doors away was the dorm’s requisite quiet kid, who shared a room with one of Padnos’ good friends. Back in Memphis, the kid’s name had been Carlos Bledsoe. In Sanaa, Yemen, everyone knew him as Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad. Although he was nice to his friends, who were mainly other black Americans, he was suspicious and rarely spoke when Padnos was in the room. “Abdul Hakim was taciturn, withdrawn, maybe depressed,” Padnos recalls. “He didn’t like me very much. He was an ‘are you with me or are you against me’ kind of guy. And he felt I was against him. He felt that I was a fake Muslim,” Padnos says.

In June 2009, the quiet kid pushed through the doorway of a U.S. military recruiting center in Little Rock, Ark., and opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle, killing one soldier and wounding another. More recently, he passed a note to a judge admitting his crime, and claiming that he was a member of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. He faces capital murder charges in an Arkansas court.

On the topic of Padnos, Carlos Bledsoe/Abdul Hakim was right to be suspicious. Padnos now admits that he was indeed a “fake” Muslim. A curly-haired Vermont native who holds a Ph.D. in literature, in 2005 Padnos converted to Islam at a mosque in Yemen, in front of witnesses.

But he says he never really believed in the religion. He professed his faith in a quest to gain access to Yemen’s most forbidden Salafist institutions: places rarely, if ever, visited by non-believers, the mosques and madrassas that breed devout radicals and, in some cases, violent jihadists. “I wanted to know about the Quran,” Padnos says. “I wanted to know about spiritual experience in Islam. I wanted to travel across the nation. I wanted to do all the things that the converts wanted to do. I just did not believe in the god and the prophet and all that stuff.”

Until late 2008, he spent most of his time in Yemen, polishing his Arabic and burnishing his Islamic credentials, until he managed to visit some of those radical outposts. . . . .

Foreign Policy, 10 March 2010: Since last fall, five major incidents have brought the issue of “homegrown terrorism” to the fore, as Washington policy experts try to find new ways to combat what seems to be a growing trend. The U.S. government needs to refocus its efforts on extremists born and raised in American communities, through tougher confrontation of “Internet radicalization,” doing more to combat the notion that America is at war with Islam, and improving cooperation with local law enforcement, according to a report being released today by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Facing comparatively few restrictions, U.S. legal residents and citizens can travel abroad, connect with terrorist groups to gain explosives or weapons training, and return here to plan and execute attacks,” the report warns.

Rick “Ozzie” Nelson, one of the principal authors of the report, told The Cable that his group tried to find a common thread in the recent spate of high-profile domestic terrorism cases, but none was apparent. . . . . .

[ No apparent common thread? ? ? ? ? ? ? ]

♦ CI CENTRE COURSE: 361–The Global Jihadist Threat Doctrine

A Growing Terrorist Threat? Assessing “Homegrown” Extremism in the United States .pdf (CSIS)

Executive Summary

Five events during the fall of 2009 thrust concerns over “homegrown” terrorism—or extremist violence perpetrated by U.S. legal residents and citizens1—into public view:

• September 19: Najibullah Zazi, an Afghan citizen and U.S. legal resident, was arrested on charges of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction. Zazi later admitted to traveling to Pakistan to receive explosives and weapons training and to planning an attack in the United States.
• October 27: Federal authorities charged U.S. citizen David Coleman Headley with planning to attack a Danish newspaper. In December, revelations surfaced that Headley may have conspired with operatives of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani terrorist group, in the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
• November 5: Major Nidal Malik Hasan, U.S. Army, allegedly killed 13 and wounded 30 at Fort Hood Army Base, outside Killeen, Texas. Early reports revealed that Hasan had previously communicated with a radical Yemeni cleric connected to al Qaeda.
• November 23: Federal officials unsealed indictments against eight people charged in connection with the alleged recruitment of approximately two dozen Somali Americans to fight with an insurgent group in Somalia.
• December 9: Five young Northern Virginia men were arrested in Sargodha, Pakistan. U.S. and Pakistani authorities claim that the group traveled there to fight alongside Taliban militants in Afghanistan.

This rash of arrests has important implications for policymakers and officials in charge of counterterrorism and homeland security because U.S. legal residents and citizens are lucrative assets for global terrorist organizations. Facing comparatively few restrictions, U.S. legal residents and citizens can travel abroad, connect with terrorist groups to gain explosives or weapons training, and return here to plan and execute attacks. Particularly troubling are homegrown extremists who possess facility with both American and foreign cultures, including language skills. Such multicultural familiarity could allow them to operate freely both at home and overseas and to elude—far more easily than foreign nationals—U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials. . . . . .

~~~~~~~
Hmmm, what DO all these five cases of jihadists have in common??

♦ CI CENTRE COURSE: 361–The Global Jihadist Threat Doctrine

US Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, 10 March 2010:

•Russell E. Travers [view testimony]
Deputy Director, Information Sharing and Knowledge Development
National Counterterrorism Center, Office of the Director of National Intelligence

•Timothy J. Healy [view testimony]
Director, Terrorist Screening Center, Federal Bureau of Investigation
U.S. Department of Justice

•Gale D. Rossides [view testimony]
Acting Administrator, Transportation Security Administration
U.S. Department of Homeland Security

•David V. Aguilar [view testimony]
Acting Deputy Commissioner, U.S. Customs and Border Protection
U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Investigative Project on Terrorism, 9 March 2010: The “most important ideological struggle in the world today is the battle over the future of Islam,” writes Hudson Institute scholar Zeyno Baran. Baran is the editor of an important new book, which goes on sale March 16, entitled The Other Muslims: Moderate and Secular – a compilation of personal analyses from 10 American and European Muslims who warn of the danger posed by radical Islamism. . . .

. . . . For several decades, Wahhabists and Muslim Brotherhood groups have been courted by Western governments and treated by the media as representatives of a near-monolithic “Muslim community.” But an alternate narrative has emerged in the Muslim world – one that rejects the Islamist worldview as anti-democratic. Baran, director of Hudson’s Center for Eurasian Policy, minces no words in describing the danger.

“Islamism has much [in] common with totalitarian ideologies such as Nazism, Fascism, and Marxism-Leninism, including anti-Semitism, ethno-religious hatred, ambition to restructure the world, and an embrace of violence,” she writes in the introduction to the book. “However, unlike purely political totalitarian movements, Islamism has a profound and deeper appeal that derives from its claim to stem from the will of Allah.”

At a March 3 Hudson Institute forum launching The Other Muslims, Baran, Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, chairman of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, and Hedieh Mirahmadi, an Iranian-American lawyer and activist, said that officials in Western democracies mistakenly try to promote nonviolent Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood as “alternatives” to violent Islamists like Al Qaeda.

But the real differences between these organizations are tactical in nature. Both believe that Islam is superior to other religions and seek to impose sharia law in order to regulate virtually every aspect of life. “The West has lost sight of a fundamental truth: empowering Islamists, regardless of whether or not they are violent, sows the seeds for future radicalization that undermines our civilizational structures and breeds terrorism,” Baran writes. “It is difficult to understand that ‘nice people’ who may even share an outwardly secular lifestyle still firmly believe that their lives should be governed according to a legal code of seventh-century Arabia.”

The book’s other contributors are Muslims from a wide variety of backgrounds who also oppose Islamists. Some are devoutly religious, while others are relatively secular. They are united in the belief that Islam is fully compatible with Western liberal democracy, and that Western governments should not be yielding to Islamist demands for the creation of “parallel societies,” where they will be forced to live under Sharia. . . .

Human Events/Robert Spencer, 10 March 2010: Al-Qaeda spokesman Adam Gadahn in a new videotape released Sunday declared:

“I am calling on every honest and vigilant Muslim in the countries of the Zionist-Crusader alliance in general and America, Britain and Israel in particular to prepare to play his due role in responding to and repelling the aggression of the enemies of Islam.”

He called upon Muslims to be imaginative in their choice of jihad targets:

“You shouldn’t make the mistake of thinking that military bases are the only high-value targets in America and the West. On the contrary, there are countless other strategic places, institutions and installations which, by striking, the Muslim can do major damage.”

Gadahn, who is known in jihadist circles as “Azzam the American,” is the first U.S. citizen to be indicted for treason since World War II. His new video shows that the charge is entirely justified.

In it, he held up 9/11 as a model for jihad attacks: “As the blessed operations of September 11th showed, a little imagination and planning and a limited budget can turn almost anything into a deadly, effective and convenient weapon.” He exhorted Muslims to sow mayhem in the U.S. and elsewhere in the West “by killing or capturing people in government, industry and the media.”

As surprising as it may be to hear an American fantasizing about mass murders in his native land, it is no surprise coming from Gadahn, who in a September 11, 2006 message called America “enemy soil.” And in his new communiqué, the pudgy Al-Qaeda operative even praised Nidal Hasan, the Islamic jihadist who murdered thirteen people at Fort Hood in November 2009, as

“the ideal role-model for every repentant Muslim in the armies of the unbelievers and apostate regimes,” and as a “pioneer, a trailblazer and a role-model who has opened a door, lit a path and shown the way forward for every Muslim who finds himself among the unbelievers.”

Earlier videotapes show that mass murders on American military bases, such as the one eventually committed by Hasan, were long the stuff of Gadahn’s dreams. In July 2006, while engaging in an extended exercise in grievance theatre over alleged murders of children by American troops in Iraq, he said: “It’s hard to imagine that any compassionate person could see pictures, just pictures, of what the Crusaders did to those children, and not want to go on a shooting spree at the Marines’ housing facilities at Camp Pendleton.” He was anxious to demonstrate his own bloodlust, declaring: “We love nothing better than the heat of battle, the echo of explosions, and slitting the throats of the infidels.”

And therein lies the core of the problem. Gadahn has become a traitor who plots violence against Americans because of his allegiance to Islam, and his concomitant belief that he has a responsibility before the supreme deity to kill Infidels whom he believes to be at war with Islam. Yet aside from vague and loophole-laden condemnations of terrorism, Muslim groups in America have done nothing to counter the appeal of jihad recruiters to young men like Gadahn. We know from the recent flow of Somali immigrants in Minneapolis back to their homeland to wage jihad that jihad recruitment is continuing on American soil; and the people who converted Adam Gadahn to Islam and convinced him that Allah was pleased when he murdered people are still active, still spreading Islam among unsuspecting and alienated young Americans.

Reports Sunday that Gadahn had been captured just as his videotape was released turned out to be false. In fact, another American convert to Islam who is active in Al-Qaeda was the one who was captured – which shows anew that officials have ignored the conversion of rootless young Americans and their recruitment for the jihad to our great detriment. Gadahn himself, in any case, is still at large — and while American forces should continue to hunt for him in Pakistan and Afghanistan, law enforcement officials stateside should be on the lookout for an even greater threat emanating from those Muslims in this country who have taken his words, and the words of those who inspired and influenced him, to heart.

♦ CI CENTRE COURSE: 362–Informant Development for Law Enforcement to Fight Terrorism

♦ CI CENTRE COURSE: 361–The Global Jihadist Threat Doctrine

Gulf News, 10 March 2010: Dubai Police have warned spies operating in the Gulf to leave the region within one week or face consequences. “Those spies that are currently present in the Gulf must leave the region within one week — if not, then we will cross that bridge when we come to it,” Lieutenant General Dahi Khalfan Tamim told Gulf News. . . .

. . . . The ultimatum indicates that Dubai Police are aware of the identities of spies operating in the UAE and the Gulf region and appears to be a warning of exposure if they do not comply. Asked if the alleged spies are holders of European passports, the police chief said: “Europeans and others”, but he did not respond when asked if he was also referring to spies holding Arab passports. It is unclear if Dahi was referring to spies working for European governments or those who use European passports to spy for others. . . .

Los Angeles Times, 10 March 2010: Using e-mail, YouTube videos, phony travel documents and a burning desire to kill “or die trying,” a middle-aged American woman from Pennsylvania helped recruit a network for suicide attacks and other terrorist strikes in Europe and Asia, according to a federal grand jury indictment unsealed Tuesday.

Colleen R. LaRose, who dubbed herself “JihadJane,” was so intent on waging jihad, authorities said, that she traveled to Sweden to kill an artist in a way that would frighten “the whole Kufar [nonbeliever] world.” With blond hair and green eyes, the 46-year-old woman bragged that she could go anywhere undetected, boasting in one e-mail that it was “an honour & great pleasure to die or kill for” jihad, or holy war, the indictment said. . . . .

. . . “She appeared to be one of those people who spend a lot of time online and go to all these radical websites and chat rooms,” said one law enforcement source, who, like others interviewed, requested anonymity when discussing the case. “If there was some moment in her life that changed her, I don’t know,” another law enforcement source said. . . . .

♦ CI CENTRE COURSE: 361–The Global Jihadist Threat Doctrine

♦ CI CENTRE BRIEFING: Inside Jihad: Recruited and Radicalized Into Terrorism

Jihad Jane, an American woman, faces terrorism charges

AP, 9 March 2010: A traditional Islamic concept about protecting the faith and its followers has become a judicial weapon for Iran’s rulers: charging opponents as so-called enemies of Allah with the threat of possible death sentences. Iran’s accusations of “moharebeh” — literally “waging war” in Arabic — have opened deep rifts between ruling clerics and Islamic scholars questioning how an idea about safeguarding Muslims can be transformed into a tool to punish political protesters.

The outcry increased last week after an appeals court reportedly upheld the death sentence for Mohammad Amin Valian, a 20-year-old student convicted of moharebeh crimes, which Iran’s legal code defines as “defiance of Allah” — or the state — and punishable by hanging. . . .

. . . . On Sunday, Iran’s semi-official ILNA news agency reported that a former Tehran University dean, Mohammad Maleki, was charged with moharebeh for alleged contact with unspecified foreign groups and working to undermine the Islamic system. In January, Iran hanged two men on moharebeh offenses — convicted of plotting to overthrow “the Islamic establishment” and planning assassinations and bombings. They were arrested months before the June election, but were brought before judges last summer in a trial of more than 100 pro-reform activists and politicians. Some were sentenced to death, while more than 80 received prison terms ranging from six months to 15 years.

A hard-line cleric, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, described the executions in ominous terms in a nationally broadcast sermon in January. “If you show weakness now, the future will be worse,” Jannati said. “There is no room for Islamic mercy.” . . . .

. . . . The concept has its roots in a Quranic verse that calls for death, maiming or banishment for those who “wage war” against Allah, the Prophet Muhammad or bring corruption into society. Many Islamic scholars interpret the references to acts that defy universal codes such as intentionally killing civilians during warfare or causing random destruction.

Iranian authorities, however, have pushed the meaning to cover any challenges to the stability and survival of the Islamic state — built largely around the idea that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is divinely empowered. “Iran’s leaders use the Quran as the cornerstone of their rule. They also are using the Quran to justify the punishment of those challenging the existing order,” said Azzam Tamimi, director of Institute of Islamic Political Thought in London. “In this sense, Iran’s leaders see no contradiction.”

Blurring religious and political muscle is not new in the region, with the Taliban using Islamic law to rule Afghanistan until being ousted after the 9/11 attacks. But Iran’s case has evolved in a distinct way: starting as a political clash over disputed elections and gradually turning into a defense of the Islamic Revolution. . . .

♦ CI CENTRE COURSE: 1700–Fundamentals of Iran Training Program — 1701: Crossroads of Conflict in the Middle East, 1702: Iranian Terrorism and Counterintelligence in the Modern Age

AP, 9 March 2010: Evidence collected by the United States against an East African charged with providing support to a Somali terrorist organization linked to al-Qaida includes lengthy statements he made to authorities, a prosecutor told a judge Tuesday. Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher LaVigne made the revelation during a plea proceeding for Mohamed Ibrahim Ahmed in Manhattan. Ahmed’s lawyer, Sabrina Shroff, entered a not guilty plea on his behalf.

Ahmed, 35, a citizen of Eritrea, was brought to the United States on Saturday from Nigeria on charges that he supported al-Shabaab, a violent extremist group in Somalia. Prosecutors say he gave the organization 3,000 euros and studied weapons and explosives at a training camp. They say he bought an AK-47 rifle, ammunition and two grenades in April in Somalia. Al-Shabaab was designated by the U.S. as a terrorist group in 2008. . . .

. . . . An indictment charging Ahmed with providing material support to the organization and receiving training from the group said a former leader of al-Shabaab who trained with al-Qaida in Afghanistan prior to 2001 had called for foreign fighters to go to Somalia to join al-Shabaab in a “holy war” against the Ethiopian and African Union forces in Somalia. The indictment said al-Shabaab’s recruitment efforts had led men from other countries including the United States to go to Somalia to engage in violent jihad — holy war.

The indictment said al-Shabaab was believed to have provided protection and safe haven for al-Qaida operatives wanted for a 2002 hotel bombing in Kenya and the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that resulted in 224 deaths, including 12 Americans.

It said al-Shabaab in April declared it was responsible for mortar attacks against a U.S. congressman visiting Somalia. A year before that, al-Shabaab leaders declared that their fighters would “hunt the U.S. government” and warned that the U.S. and Ethiopia should keep its citizens out of Somalia, the indictment said.

Al-Shabaab is the most active group of violent extremists targeting Somalia’s weak U.S.-backed transitional government. The indictment said it has carried out assassinations of civilians and journalists and had distributed a videotape depicting the slow decapitation of an accused spy. . . .

Washington Post, 10 March 2010: A petite, blond-haired, blue-eyed high school dropout who allegedly used the nickname JihadJane was identified Tuesday as an alleged terrorist intent on recruiting others to her cause, as federal prosecutors unsealed criminal charges that could send her to prison for life.

Colleen Renee LaRose, 46, has been quietly held in U.S. custody since October on suspicions that she provided material support to terrorists and traveled to Sweden to launch an attack, according to federal officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the case is continuing to unfold.

LaRose, who lived in suburban Philadelphia, allegedly recruited men and women in the United States, Europe and South Asia to “wage violent jihad,” according to an indictment issued in Pennsylvania. She fueled her interests on the Internet over the past few years and used Web sites such as YouTube to post increasingly agitated messages, the court papers said.

As an American citizen whose appearance and passport allowed her to blend into Western society, LaRose represents one of the worst fears of intelligence and FBI analysts focused on identifying terrorist threats. She is one of only a handful of women to be charged with terrorism offenses in the United States, national security experts said. . . .

Pennsylvania Woman Indicted in Plot to Recruit Violent Jihadist Fighters and to Commit Murder Overseas (DOJ, 9 March 2010)

David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for National Security, and Michael L. Levy, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, together with Janice K. Fedarcyk, Special Agent-in-Charge of the FBI in Philadelphia, today announced the unsealing of an indictment charging Colleen R. LaRose, aka “Fatima LaRose,” aka “JihadJane,” with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, conspiracy to kill in a foreign country, making false statements to a government official, and attempted identity theft.

The indictment charges that LaRose (an American citizen born in 1963 who resides in Montgomery County, Pa.) and five unindicted co-conspirators (located in South Asia, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, and the United States) recruited men on the Internet to wage violent jihad in South Asia and Europe, and recruited women on the Internet who had passports and the ability to travel to and around Europe in support of violent jihad.

The indictment further charges that LaRose and her unindicted co-conspirators used the Internet to establish relationships with one another and to communicate regarding their plans, which included martyring themselves, soliciting funds for terrorists, soliciting passports, and avoiding travel restrictions (through the collection of passports and through marriage) in order to wage violent jihad. The indictment further charges that LaRose stole another individual’s U.S. passport and transferred or attempted to transfer it in an effort to facilitate an act of international terrorism.

In addition, according to the indictment, LaRose received a direct order to kill a citizen and resident of Sweden, and to do so in a way that would frighten “the whole Kufar [non-believer] world.” The indictment further charges that LaRose agreed to carry out her murder assignment, and that she and her co-conspirators discussed that her appearance and American citizenship would help her blend in while carrying out her plans. According to the indictment, LaRose traveled to Europe and tracked the intended target online in an effort to complete her task.

“Today’s indictment, which alleges that a woman from suburban America agreed to carry out murder overseas and to provide material support to terrorists, underscores the evolving nature of the threat we face,” said David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division. “I applaud the many agents, analysts, and prosecutors who worked on this important investigation.”

“This case shows the use terrorists can and do make of the Internet,” said U.S. Attorney Michael L. Levy. “Colleen LaRose and five other individuals scattered across the globe are alleged to have used the Internet to form a conspiracy to provide material support to terrorism, culminating in a direct order to LaRose to commit murder overseas. LaRose—an American citizen whose appearance was considered to be an asset because it allowed her to blend in—is charged with using the Internet to recruit violent jihadist fighters and supporters, and to solicit passports and funding. It demonstrates yet another very real danger lurking on the Internet. This case also demonstrates that terrorists are looking for Americans to join them in their cause, and it shatters any lingering thought that we can spot a terrorist based on appearance.”

“This case demonstrates that the FBI and our partners in the law enforcement and intelligence communities must continue to remain vigilant in the face of the threats that America faces, in whatever form those threats may present themselves or no matter how creative those who threaten us try to be,” said Special Agent-in-Charge Janice K. Fedarcyk of the Philadelphia Division of the FBI. “We must use all available technologies and techniques to root out potential threats and stop those who intend to harm us.”

If convicted of the charges against her, LaRose faces a potential sentence of life in prison and a $1 million fine.

This case was investigated by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force. It is being prosecuted by Jennifer Arbittier Williams, Assistant U.S. Attorney from the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and Matthew F. Blue, Trial Attorney from the Counterterrorism Section in the Justice Department’s National Security Division.

INDICTMENT: US v Colleen R. Larose aka Fatima LaRose, aka JihadJane (.pdf)