Terrorism: A Major Strike

[EAS_Intrepid]

Well, my friends, I think you've all seen the news...
For those who weren't yet reached by the new developments:

What happened?
A british terrorist cell tried to fulfill a plan that would have ended in the largest disaster since September 11, 2001. They wanted to bomb six (or more) civilian airplanes of western airlines.

How?
They planned to bring six (or more) with fluid-explosives constructed bombs to detonation in different airplanes. This plan was not intended to be a suicide run. The bombs would have been brought aboard the these planes and brought to detonation with time-fuses, like in the Lockerbie-Attack (in which Lybia played a major role).

Who?
According to the British Police Authorities the extremists that planned and tried to execute the crimes are people with Asian roots, which leads me to the conclusion that Jemaah Islamiah, an Indonesian Al-Qaeda partner, might have supported these plans. (THAT IS MY PERSONAL OPINION, BASED UPON HOURS OF READING EVERY BOOK AND LECTURE ABOUT TERRORISM I COULD GET)

The full number of the involved people is stated as 50, the British police detained 21 suspects and I think more will be captured soon. The press also said, that the strike against this plans was the outcome of a long observation and Intelligence gathering period. If find it most notable, that these attacks weren't prevented by bombing a Lebanon house, but by month of detail work and intelligence evalutiation. The British Police (and I bet the MI-5 and MI-6, too) did a great work.

Background on the plans
These attacks are quite similiar to the Lockerbie-Attack from 1988 or the prevented 1991 bombings.
The actual plans that were intended to be fulfilled now are the alternative Al-Qaeda plan to the 9/11 attacks. Osama bin Laden himself interfered with the plannings of the Qaeda committee, because he felt that the attack on a symbol of US economic (the WTC), military (the Pentagon) and the political power (either Camp David or the White House) was a much stronger signal to the world.
The plans of bombs in airplanes however was even in 1999, when the 9/11 plannings began, nothing new. Prior to 1993, when the first attack on the WTC occured, Ramzi Jussuf tried to execute that plan, but the intervention of the Clinton Administration (mainly on the urge of Richard A. Clarke) could prevent it. Ramzi Jussuf was caught after the 1993 WTC bombing, which he directed.

Why do I think that Indonesian terrorist cells are behind the plans?
So, the Police said, Asian fundamentalists. Indonesia is the largest muslim nation on Earth (not all Muslims are extremists, keep that in your mind ALWAYS) and a very poor country with a strong hate of the Western nations. This major hate is fed by Jemaah Islamiah, one of the strongest and toughest terrorist organisation to date. They have noumerous traning camps and since Afghanistan was eliminated as major staging area and Pakistan is said to be a US-Ally Indonesia became their staging ground.
Jemaah Islamiah was always a close partner to Al-Qaeda, much closer than Hezbollah or Hamas, and has the resources to support major terrorist plots.

But the British terrorist cell operated relatively independent, as it is custom to such organisations.

What does it mean?
Well, simply that the Brits saved a lot of lives. And it means that all efforts in the past did not worked out fully. Yes, the terrorists where detained and the bombings prevented, but they got so far that they were nearly able to execute their plans.

Our fight against terrorism will be a long one.
Al-Qaeda stated, that they are patient. They are prepared to fight for more than a century and that they know that they won't reach their "goals" within a decade...

PLEASE NOTE AGAIN, THAT THE CONCLUSIONS ABOUT THE SUPPORT AND THE BACKGROUNDS ARE BASED ON MY PERSONAL LINES OF THOUGT.

 

[Paul]

yeah i saw it on the news , extra security is inplace now here in scotland

u Can only take ur passport , boardin pass and Money in the cabin . anythin else must be put in the holds

u Cant bring ANY liquids onboard , mothers with babys are forced to drink a bit of the babys milk to test it .

a ton of armed cops are around anyways . i back this anyways . they are Bombin Civilian Targets here ! . they claim this is for allah or whatever . but its only for there own selfish gains . what god would allow this murder of civilians for no just reason ? . NONE would !

 

[Jess]

mothers with babys are forced to drink a bit of the babys milk to test it .

Ewww that's disgusting, and it's a real shame that it has come to that, where airport security can't even trust that mothers haven't put anything in their babies milk in order to smuggle things on board.

I heard about it on the news, apparently they have 24 in custody now.

 

[Paul]

Terrorists do ANYTHING, but i see why they are doing it. Hell a terrorist could bring his family to the airport. Milk, there could be the bombs. Easy.

btw i forgot to mention also:

You Cant enter the terminal without a ticket, familys saying goodbye have to do it outside.

<Spelling and Grammar edited by Jess>

 

[Harrie]

But you know what it means right?

It means, whether or not anyone realizes it or not, that the terrorists are winning the battles even if they won't win the war. The fact that some airports are recommending travelers arrive three hours early (five for international flights).

Because of these recent events passangers are no longer going to be allowed to bring drinks, even those bought in the airport, and baby formula only if the mother or father carrying it is willing to drink some of it, on board the plane. This is clear proof the terrorists have met one goal, change how me live.

It used to be that you only needed half an hour, forty-five minutes at most, to get through security, now it's six times that, SIX. Just nine weeks ago my dad had a total knee replacement, and before 9/11 all he would have had to do was show this little card from his doctor explaining everything and he could keep going. But no longer.

Just yesterday for example, we went to the airport to pick up my sister and niece. When he went to go down to the loading and unloading area, security did everything short of cutting his leg open or strip searching him to prove he wasn't lying.

(Added: ) The airport we went too is one of the few that is still letting family through, though there has been talk of changing that as more spineless beuracrats move into office.

(Added: ) Actually that's another sign that we're afraid, not letting family into the boarding area. Next week it'll be that you have to have a ticket just to get into the (expletive) airport.

(Added: ) On the way into the parking lot, security did a check of our car. They opened the doors and looked around. I guess since they couldn't see any signs saying "15 megaton nuke" or "Acme C-4" they deemed it unnecessary to actually look under and in things. Kinda like the casino my parents go to every now and then, the cashiers need to see ID it cash in tokens but know that if they touch the ID they have to run the name and face through the Federal Database, and we can have it discovered that terrorists might frequent their establishment, now can we.

Now you tell me what sounds dangerous about 67 year old white guy with nothing on him but a wallet, loose change, his keys, and a cell phone when there are a dozen of people that look to be of Arab/Middle eastern descent standing within earshot, all with carry-on luggage and small suitcases that no one gives a second look at. We know that the majority, not all, but the majority of Al-Qaeda's terrorist are muslims of middle eastern descent.

9/11 changed the way we veiw the world and not in a way I like; especially when coupled with America's (insert very discriptive expletives) policy of political correctness. I would bet my grandfathers flag that four of every five middle eastern looking people that go through airports are card carrying muslims.

Now I'm going to say something some people may not like but I'm going to anyways. If it might save even one life, haul each one of them into one of them rooms people have a tendancy never to come out of. Yes, I'm talking about that oh so hated practice of racial profiling, the mere whisper of which wins court cases. Its sickening.

I think America, any government for that matter that is under a similar threat, needs a man, or woman I'm not picky, who has some backbone and is willing to go to any lenghts necessary to safe gaurd the citizens of this great nation. I don't know about the rest of the country, or the world for that matter, but I'm tired of empty promises. Do what needs to be done or step aside.

<Spelling edited by Jess>

 

[EAS_Intrepid]

Harrie, again I can only totally agree to you.

But besides the security efforts on the airports, the terrorists are going to win another battle: freedom.

Since 9/11 (and in Germany since 1970) public freedoms and the most basic rights our nations are build on are cut down!
In Germany began 1970 the terrorist crisis of the so called "Red Army Faction" and since then, the government decided to take away several rights for basic privacy. Telephones could be mintored by the Intelligence Services much easier (in terms of the law), people were forced out of (governmental) jobs because of a left-wing attitude (nothing radical, just sympathy to the very moderate left).

And now: even worse. People can be detained for only being suspected to be a "terrorist". Whatever the politicians define the term "terrorist".
Then there is Camp Delta in Guantanamo (and while my government complains and cries, they have their hands in it, too).

And, what I find most disgusting:
the sedition of cultures, not only of religious ones. Just before 9/11 here in Germany we had a good relationship between the Muslim immigrants and the Christians and the jews.
After it the Muslims were the boogeymen for just about anything concerning security.

We show fear, fear and more fear. The terrorist methods work, but on a subtle level, and Mr. Bush, Mrs. Merkel (and Mr. Schroeder), Mr. Blair and Mr. Putin and so many others think they see the real picture, that the attacks are real threat of terrorism. And they are right, to a point, but the goal of terrorism is to implement a constant state of fear and Osama bin Laden and Qaeda were very successful in that.

 

[Paul]

true , they are winning some battles . but i just hope a bunker buster gets dropped on the head's of their leaders , run em out of their hiding places and show them how to meet their maker ( in their case , allah ) . all these guys are cowards , pure and simple

<Spelling edited by Jess>

 

[Harrie]

In all truth I don't mind Guantanamo Bay. In fact I don't think it's enough. It's just like I said in my most recent RPG post "those of the city on the hill must join the heathens of the valley to survive" which is of course an allusion to the quote by John Winthrop, first governor of the Massachusetts Colony,

"We will be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us, so that if we deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword throughout the world."

This quote has been taken and applied to the United States as a whole in recent years.

What most people forget though, like I think you have Intrepid, is that during World War II and the Cold War they did the very same thing. They tapped phones and stamped out anything that could even be percieved as Nazi or Communist. Granted McCarthy got a little carried away, and yes I know how much of an understatement that is. America had 'internment' camps for Japanese-Americans and Nazi POWs, that weren't all that different than Nazi concentration camps when you consider the underlying idea of keeping possible threats where you can see them.

Tell me do you think fly planes into buildings is going to really make America bleed? I don't, give us a shiner maybe but bleed, no.

I know this is going to be slightly out of the scope of this thread but I've been waiting to voice this to someone and it does still pertain to Terrorism.

First of all, I don't want this to sound belittling of those that have died in the War on Terror and those that will. We will forever remember the sacrifices of the willing and the massacre of the innocent.

In 1898 "Remember the Maine" was the American rallying cry. In 1941, it was Pearl Harbor. So where are the brave men and women shouting "Remember the 11th" before going to battle.

The terrorist victory at 9/11 and just recently in Britain was enough to change us but not beat us. I feel that if they wanted to knock us down, to bring us low, to make us bleed, they should have hit our sacred places, the places that make us who we are. Places like the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, the Statue of Liberty, Mount Rushmore, the Golden Gate Bridge, Devil's Tower, Yellowstone, Gettysburg, Arlington Cemetary, Glacier National Park, Hoover Dam, Six Flags, Disney World, Ceder Point, Busch Gardens, the Smithsonian Museums, ect. If they had hit those, not only would they have produced a death toll with six digits but they would have knocked us off our seats a thrown the United States into true, unadulterated chaos.

Though too, if they had done that, today they would be little more than a passage for the history books. Because if they had, the giant Yamamoto is said to have spoken of after Pearl Harbor and the boiler Winston Churchill spoke of would have awoken and been started. Of this I hold no doubts. And unforunately they know it too.

<Typos edited by Jess>

 

[Harrie]

Thanks for getting those typos and spelling errors Jess, I hope there weren't many... I thought I'd gotten them all. (I hope I didn't miss anything in this post.)

Iccky, your exactly right; the people you are seem to talking about sound like politically correct bureaucrats that would have you believe in their agape, unconditional love for all things, and while many of them may genuinely care there are still enough of them to blacken the honorable names of the rest with their false smiles and deceptive words; the ones who act like they care for votes and cookies.

I can understand sending volunteers but government money? Now take a second and guess which group I like better.

If you said those who lie and cheat give yourself a pat on the back. Those who blacken are the ones, in this case, fall into my ‘Nice’ column. They will spend as much money as it takes to send hordes of volunteers, get them established, and then leave to survive on their own. It the genuine ones that go into the ‘Naughty’ list and deserve a few lumps of coal because they are the ones that will send volunteers AND not only get them established but fund them the rest of the way.

There is a third group, the non-politically correct. In the chance your wondering - they get toys for Christmas, well most of them.

 

[EAS_Intrepid]

Thanks...

However, some updates:

So, Pakistan seemed to play a major role, though the group acted quite independently from the main bodies in Indonesia and Pakistan.
As it is probably known, the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan is not secured by Pakistani or Afghan forces. US Special Forces as well as German KSK Special Forces are presumed to operate in the area to counter terrorist attempts of reestablishing a network of training camps. It seems, that these operations were semi-successful, a.k.a. some camps where destroyed but in some camps these terrorists are still trained to refunction an iPod into a fuse for a liquid-explosive charge. Well, if one isn't that stupid and knows how electric devices work, everyone could do that... and that's the problem.
Even the dumbest terrorist can use simple devices like an iPod to make a liquid charge go off and kill a hundred people.
Or as a spokesman of the BKA (a German FBI) said: "Even people with a grade D in Chemistry can build a bomb" and German teens did that already. Five death because of young Hans trying to reproduce the special effects of "Saving Private Ryan". So beware of me, I have a Grade B in chemistry, I can already do the Russian type nukes. American type nukes require Grade A.

My cynic comment leads me to the nuke question: Would they use one?
Yes, if a genius is in their ranks, with a Grade A level of an American or British or German school. And I mean that the way I wrote it.
A nuclear weapon is not just a weapon to push the button (for a Pentagon General, yes, for a terrorist, no). It has to be maintained, acquired etc. Where the bomb is placed is pretty much unimportant.
"The detonation of a nuclear weapon eradicates every burning fire within a certain range." - Quote from a Education Movie of the East-German Military before 1989.

Now these, well, attackers of London even had connections to Germany, which suggests that I am quite safe here. Because it happens to be the fact, that the Federal Republic of Germany is a safehouse for those terrorists. We have a large Muslim community and these terrorist claiming to be Muslims have a good time hiding in that community.
A muslim saying says: "Don't spit into the soup you're eating." And that's it!
While Great Britain was no longer a safehouse for those terrorists, they planned strikes there. And since the UK participated in the war in Iraq, it became a priority target, see the former London bombings on busses and trains. Same with Spain and the Madrid attacks.
Germany however did only take part in OPs Enduring Freedom and I think also in Active Endeavor, but not in OP Iraqi Freedom. That makes it less hostile, so to say.

I could write a whole essay about the history of terrorism in Germany here (since 1945)... we had it from nearly every political direction (the hard-left, the hard-right, radical environmentalists, Islamists, other fundamentalists).

_______________________
Hm, do I have to remark now, that iPod is a trademark of Apple (R)(C)(TM) ?

 

[Harrie]

I want to explain Afghanistan; I found out while doing a report this year many people don’t quite understand how bad they had it or it's recent history.

I'll bet things didn't change very much during Afghanistan because most Muslims even looked down on the Taliban. You see that's something most people don't realize. Lets use the treatment of women as an example.

As early as fifty years ago Afghanistan was something of a monarchy/dictatorship that was slowly but surely transitioning into a democracy. National elections were becoming less of a formal act, they had been something like the ones held by Hussein, and votes began to really mean something. It was also during this period around 1960 and 1970 that women began to shed their coverings, they began to westernize if you will. It was during this time that many young Muslims, including bin Laden (that is the proper spelling), were being schooled in the west, the United States in particular.

Now as you can imagine this led to them catching some looks and other began to emulate them. Then the soviets move in, 1978-1979, and instill a puppet government. Ok, lets fast forward a few years to 1992, I don't have all night unfortunately. The Soviet Union has gone the way of the dinosaur (1991), and their puppets are quickly joining them. In 1988 the Soviets pulled out and the next year a civil war erupts in Afghanistan, the scars of which are still evident, that lasts until 1992. Things quiet down for a month or two and then the fighting begins again and lasts another four years. Then in 1996 the Taliban gains power and begins laying out the laws. I'd list a few but i can't find the word file they were in. Let's leave it at that they stripped them of what little rights they had, such as having jobs and wearing dresses, things most Islamic countries are or already have accepted.

The Taliban had laws against music of all kinds, pictures (books would be burnt for merely having a colorful cover), flying kites, movies, newspapers, radio, etc. You name it they probably had a law for it. It's also unfortunate the sheer number of them were aimed at suppressing women.

You see, it's no wonder they didn't react violently, in fact many of them may have been from Afghanistan and fled when the Taliban moved in.

 

[EAS_Intrepid]

Thanks Harrie for that insight on the nation our both governments try to build up again.
"The safety of our people is defended in the Hindukush-mountains" - Peter Struck, former Defense Secretary of Germany

Yes, you are right about the Taliban regime and their oppressive policies against the Muslim majority.
What is a better example for that fact that this muslim majority is not the Taliban or the Qaeda.

Did you know that al-Qaeda can be translated as "the basis". And that is what Qaeda was supposed to be: the basis for fundamentalists to commence their fight against the western world.
And now a new stage of this basis building has been reached:
In the past the terrorists where trained in the camps, now the knowledge is teached over the internet.

I can give you more about that soon, haven't enough time now!

 

[Harrie]

(Yes this is an afterthought, this entire post come out of "over the internet")

I heard on the radio the other day that there is a lady that lives in out in the mountains of the 'big sky state' (Montana), she's in her forties I think, has two or three children (if I remember correctly, all school aged), and taught herself Arabic (which, if I've heard correctly, is a Herculean task in itself for some westerners.).

Now she, with hardware and software provided by the FBI, is hunting down terror cells through the Internet.

It’s the people like her that need should be recognized for their contributions in the history books right alongside the soldiers. I mean, she doesn’t have to do anything, neither do our soldiers. They do it anyways because it’s right. These are the things we want to know, the things that bring that, oft-times over used, word 'hope' to our hearts.

Tell me how many times do you listen to the news on television and think ‘doesn’t anything happy happen around here?’ I do it every night. I see murders, car accidents, fires, meth lab busts, police officers getting shot left and right, but the list goes on.

Rarely do I see the cop that was narrowly missed by Death’s scythe rescuing while a little girl from the powerful current of the Mississippi or the little boy whose family lost all hope for a heart transplant but then, at the 11th hour, they get a call that everything is going to be alright. The things that make us believe that no matter how bad things may get everything will turn out right. In a way though it's almost censoring, keeping us from knowing what's right with our country, because apparently bad news equals good ratings.

It's like a relationship, all of you that are married should know this, that it's the little things that matter, the small touches while having a private moment or just while sitting on the couch watching TV. The presents and such are just icing.

I’m sorry, I know this post is off topic but these are things I feel people need to hear, that they should to think on. Peace is out there but we must stop grasping at the horse’s mane and once and for all take hold of the reins and never let go.

 

[EAS_Intrepid]

Tell me how many times do you listen to the news on television and think ‘doesn’t anything happy happen around here?’ I do it every night. I see murders, car accidents, fires, meth lab busts, police officers getting shot left and right, but the list goes on.

I am not even thinking that anymore. I am already trying to recognize the different PR Companies behind the news...

But look at it: since TV became of wider use, the people wanted to get out of their small lives and see something that was new, exciting, that was danger, that was something different from their own boring lifes!
So the first Science Fiction movies established, but that's another story...
However, during the time it all got a little perverted, frankly said. The people now really wanted to see action and with the advancing globalistation TV news could be relayed faster and then even in realtime.
Because a lot of people seem to have a very boring life the newscasts with the hardcore things had high numbers of frequent watchers!

At first there where maybe a short report about a man being murdered. The reporter said something about police investigation and showed a few policemen and a police car.
Then the people wanted to see a little more, maybe because someone had the idea to show how the policemen were standing around with guns. Small escalation, but it was one.
After that the next step was that they showed the murderer and so on and so on. In the end the crime scene with the blood and the CSIs doing pictures of the scene is shown. Cases that went beyond are known.

The society became a little perverted in terms of violence and the media was happy to deliver! MONEY, it brought MONEY.
That hasn't changed, even in terms of warfare. I just think of "embedded correspondants". Reporters on the front lines to show how transparent war is today - is ought to be. "The fog of war" - Robert McNamara

And it did is task in promoting al-Qaeda: the beheadings on al-Jazeera.
And yes, the people wanna see it.

I’m sorry, I know this post is off topic but these are things I feel people need to hear, that they should to think on. Peace is out there but we must stop grasping at the horse’s mane and once and for all take hold of the reins and never let go.

No problem for off topic now. Just let's don't get off topic too much here.

So now I can tell you about the training camps and the change in Qaeda strategy of teaching.

So, when the Mudjahedin began fighting the Soviet invaders in Afghanistan, they needed to be trained somewhere. And that place was provided on Pakistani territory, in the borderlands to Afghanistan.
Later on the USA helped these Mudjahidin fighters in throwing out the Soviets, but when the Soviets went out of Afghanistan the CIA did so, too and thus the Mudjahidin were no longer controllable by the USA.

When Afghanistan was under control of the Taliban that moved into Kabul, Osama bin Laden and his organisation of the Afghanistan veterans, looked out for places to train the soldiers of Djihad. Their first partner was Oman, where Osama rested in a more or less luxury home, while his comrades slept on the ground of an old shelter.
But then Osama moved on and found that the old place where they fought was now a good place to establish a network of training camps. A bonus of Afghanistan was, that major parts of the armed forces where on the side of the Taliban and only a relative small part formed the North Alliance against the Taliban.
So Osama bin Laden had in 1995 a place for camps and training with heavier weapons as tanks or helicopters and all that stuff. But tank driving was not very relevant to Osama's pupils. More relevant was the production of explosives for suitcase bombs, or the training of urban warfare, of how to dodge the security services of the Western World etc.

Therefore the Qaeda committee responsible for the "education" of the Djihadis wrote a book called the "Big Encyclopedia of al-Qaeda". In this book all the knowledge that Qaeda assembled over the years was presented. Only seven of these "Enceclopedias" existed. There should be a few more now, and I know that Fox News TV has one! (Beware of Fox News! Esp. when they have Oliver North presenting TV programs)

Until 2001 the training camps recruited people for the fight against the people not wanting to bow down before the stupid religious views of these fundamentalists.
The main front was Chechnya and many people were sent there, especially after Putin ordered to continue the war in Chechnya in early 2000.

When the Coalition Forces that were putted together so quickly began moving in on Afghanistan destroyed these camps, Qaeda lost a main staging area. But they still had camps in the borderland between Pakistan and Afghanistan, that they further used. But the infrastructure was less developed than in Afghanistan! So another place was found: Indonesia.
Jemaah Islamiah (JI) was a long-time partner of al-Qaeda, though the Sheikh of JI and bin Laden barely met. In Indonesia then the training of the Chechnya warriors began, while the camps in Pakistan trained the combatants that should defeat the non-believers in Afghanistan and then in Iraq.
The Iraq issue itself is a very hot metal that I do not dare to touch right now... too many things are unclear, too many lies are and were told...

However, they also lost the capacities to effectively operate in Europe and the USA and thus a change in thinking was done.

In the past these Encyclopedias of the Qaeda I spoke of where limited in numbers and only those combatants that were fully trusted were allowed to use them and only those combatants were allowed to see all the "education movies" of attacks in Chechnya etc.
This strategy was adequate when having the capacities, because it took a while that a combatant was trustworthy enough to be introduced to this material.

Now, the capacities are gone and it seemed that the Qaeda heads decided to change the policy of information.
These "Big Encyclopedia of al-Qaeda" was published over the internet, as well as the terror movies, that are also sold on markets and bazaars in Pakistan and Iran.
The encyclopedia in the intenet could cynically be seen as "Qaedapedia". The knowledge and methods from other organisations as Hezbollah, Islamic Djihad, Hamas, Salafist Brigades, Al-Aksa-Brigades etc were integrated into the encyclopedia.

And Qaeda also enabled independent terrorist cells as those that was cought in London to operate without any Qaeda logistic support, making it difficult to track back these terror plots.

What does it also mean? It also means that the Qaeda veterans from Afghanistan and Chechnya, that could be detected quite easily with the established security bodies, aren't any longer the main executives of Qaeda. Now people that no-one would suspect doing the dirt work for the rich heads of Qaeda are these executives!
And it also means, that the command structure is no completly loose and would compensate a strike on the chain of command quickly, simply because this chain of command is now a very fade one. Taking out bin Laden and al-Sawahri would not cripple the terrorist network anymore.

But I actually think that the Qaeda that existed before 9/11 is quite dead. A new generation is there, taht operates independently...

 

[Harrie]

I have a short post this time.

I think, Intrepid, that you and I have been examining, not only here but in our free time, seperate sides of the coin, I maybe wrong. Because you seem to focus with what the terrorists are doing and I'm focused on what the governments should be doing. We also seem to veiw things from, to use a methaphor again, different sides as well, you have a logical view on things, whereas I am more of an emotionalist.

And no, I'm not brushing off your post, I just can't find anything to comment on.

Well except, what did Chechnya have to do with Beslan or am I think about something else?

 

[EAS_Intrepid]

I have a short post this time.

I think, Intrepid, that you and I have been examining, not only here but in our free time, seperate sides of the coin, I maybe wrong. Because you seem to focus with what the terrorists are doing and I'm focused on what the governments should/I] be doing. We also seem to veiw things from, to use a methaphor again, different sides as well, you have a logical view on things, whereas I am more of an emotionalist.

Guess why? YOU are an American. Your nation had suffered that worse attack on 9/11, while I am a European, a German that already had a terrorist organisation in the country (the Red Army Faction from 1970 to 1998) and that was not directly affected by the 9/11 attacks. I have a bigger distance to the events and, if you ask my former girlfriend, I am an emotionless rationalist.

Besides, it is my deep belief, that if you know your enemy, you can defeat it more easily. Intelligence Warfare

And no, I'm not brushing off your post, I just can't find anything to comment on.

Well except, what did Chechnya have to do with Beslan or am I think about something else?

Chechnya was the trigger for the Beslan thing. The terrorists that took that school hostage were from Chechnya and wanted Putin to release several hostages as well as a withdraw of any Russian soldier from Chechnyan ground.

 

[Harrie]

I follow an old America military idea, throw money and men at it until you win.

Well I agree with knowing your enemy but I remember telling my Psychology teacher that I didn't care if we had to tear the Islamic world down, brick by brick if need be, as long as we got all men that had anything to do with 9/11. That is the extent of my resolve.

Chechnya was the trigger for the Beslan thing. The terrorists that took that school hostage were from Chechnya and wanted Putin to release several hostages as well as a withdraw of any Russian soldier from Chechnyan ground.

That's what it was.

I remember getting a hold of some of the pictures from it late last year and planned on using them in my presentation on the War on Terror in my Advanced US History. I ended up not using them, istead I recommended they look them up themselves if they really wanted to know.

But I came across a source stating that the group that attacked Beslan had ties with al-Qaeda. Do you know if this is true or just speculation? It'd be nice to know if I was right when I stated it as an accepted fact in my written report.

 

[EAS_Intrepid]

That's what it was.

I remember getting a hold of some of the pictures from it late last year and planned on using them in my presentation on the War on Terror in my Advanced US History. I ended up not using them, istead I recommended they look them up themselves if they really wanted to know.

But I came across a source stating that the group that attacked Beslan had ties with al-Qaeda. Do you know if this is true or just speculation? It'd be nice to know if I was right when I stated it as an accepted fact in my written report.

Far ties, yes. Some of them (the combatants that led the group) were probably trained in Afghanistan and trained their followers for the strike.

Qaeda had something to do with it. Far ties, as I said.

 

[Cylon]

i was kind of cut off from the internet and tv for the last ten days so i only had a vauge idea of what happened. I just hope they managed to catch them all

 

[EAS_Intrepid]

i was kind of cut off from the internet and tv for the last ten days so i only had a vauge idea of what happened. I just hope they managed to catch them all

From what I know currently, they have still 23 detainees... the leader of the group is still on the run!

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In one of my previous posts I said that I "happen to be quite safe in Germany".

Headline SPIEGEL ONLINE (Online version of German Newsmag, translated by me)
"Germany In The Crosshairs Of Terrorism"

Well, that two radical Muslims (one of 'em has just been caught) tried to blow up two interregional trains with luiquid-explosive suitcase bombs (you know, the bombs were in trolleys, like the one Pilots sometimes use) and since then the people (esp the politicians) here are nervous.

Targets?
Two interregional trains in Western Germany

How?
Two luiquid-explosive devices fused by a time-fuse built off an alarm clock were to detonate. The liquid bottles helt about 10 liters of explosives.

Who?
The suspects seem to be Lebanese. One was already detained in the north German town Kiel, from where he planned to depart to... somewhere, maybe Lebanon. It is said that his brother has been killed three weeks ago by an Israeli airstrike or so (well, Israelis did that) and he wanted revenge now - in bombing Germans.
The other suspect hasn't been identified or found.

And now?
We (I) can be happy, that the two guys were bad in physics and chemistry, because 10 liters of explosive liquids can eradicate a whole train. The number of possible fatalities could have been up to 150 or even more, and seeing that these devices should detonate during the morning traffic in the trains, it would have been a mess.
Then, germany would be now under Emergency Conditions, our military would be allowed to operate within our borders, you would have been checked even if you would look suspicious to the police, you would be searched when entering a train station. Maybe we wouldn't be allowed to go outside between 2200 and 0300, borders would be closed etc. Said in short: the full broadside of cutting down freedoms. And if you don't believe this... well, there is a law from 1968... and the reactions of the government on the heigt of the terrorist crisis in 1977 make this all very likely to me.
And: when Germans react, their over-react.

Connections?
The suitcase bombers acted independent from any terrorist body. Mabe the said Qaida encyclopedia helped them, maybe a legal book about simple chemistry.