'Terror cell' found in cradle of 9/11

By Tony Paterson in Berlin

German intelligence services were yesterday reported to have discovered a new Islamic terrorist cell operating from the port of Hamburg – the same city from which the devastating 9/11 attacks on the United States were secretly conceived and planned eight years ago.

The existence of the new militant group in the city was revealed in a secret report prepared by Hamburg-based intelligence agents which was leaked to German television's investigative documentary programme Report Mainz and Die Welt newspaper.

It said the cell, which had ten members, was headed by a German of Syrian extraction, identified only as Rami M.

All ten were said to have left Hamburg earlier this year to attend paramilitary training camps in the Hindu Kush. However two of the cell's members were reported to have recently returned.

All of them were said to have used Hamburg's Taiba Mosque as a meeting place, the same location frequented by the 9/11 leader Mohammed Atta and his accomplices before they carried out the attacks on New York's World Trade Centre and Washington.

"It is to be assumed that these persons are absolutely prepared to carry out suicide or other attacks at home or abroad," the report was cited as saying. "The members of the group have a basic commitment to jihad and belong to Hamburg's potentially violent pro-jihad scene."

The disclosures came amid heightened post-general election nervousness in Germany about the possibility of terrorist attacks and the release of some eight al-Qa'ida internet videos in German threatening violence in response to the continued deployment of 4,200 Bundeswehr troops in northern Afghanistan.

In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, Germany's security services were heavily criticised for failing to catch the perpetrators. Since then they appear to have redoubled their efforts and operate closely with their US counterparts.

The leaks about the Hamburg cell came only days after German anti-terrorist police took the unprecedented step of throwing a massive security cordon around the Munich Oktoberfest. Revellers at the world's largest beer festival held in the Bavarian capital each autumn were searched and fighter jets were put on standby near the site.

"The danger is absolutely real," said Joachim Hermann, the Bavarian Interior Minister yesterday. "We know that increasing numbers are attending these training camps."

Germany's Federal Criminal Bureau says around 180 Islamic militants have either attended or are planning to attend paramilitary al-Qa'ida-run training camps in the Hindu Kush and that about 80 had returned to Germany.

The latest of eight recent al-Qa'ida videos in German surfaced at the weekend. They included threats delivered by a 32-year-old German Moroccan called Bekkay Harrach, a student who once lived in Bonn but who is now thought to be living on the borders of Pakistan and Afghanistan. The clips also contained statements by militants hitherto unknown to the intelligence services.

In one of his statements, Harrach evidently wanted to evoke the 2004 Madrid bombings which killed 191 people days before a Spanish general election. He threatened attacks within two weeks of Germany's general election and warned Muslims living there be on their guard.

German security experts have interpreted the latest threats as an attempt to put pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel's new coalition of conservatives and liberals, which is committed to keeping troops in Afghanistan for the forseeable future.

Source: The Independent

H/T: Islam in Europe

Islamic Racism and Phobia doesn't exist, except when they exist

Toronto terror participant hated non-Muslims, court told
By Stewart Bell, National PostSeptember 23, 2009

Ali Mohamed Dirie, at left, also acknowledged that, even while behind bars serving a prison sentence for smuggling two guns into Canada, he had tried to buy more guns and recruit other inmates into the group. Dirie is one of the men involved with the Toronto 18.

BRAMPTON, Ont. — A Toronto man who admitted Wednesday he was a member of a terrorist group that planned attacks in Canada was caught on police wiretaps saying he hated non-Muslims.

Ali Mohamed Dirie, a Canadian born in Somalia, called white people the "number 1 filthiest people on the face of the planet. They don't have Islam. They're the most filthiest people."
He added that: "In Islam there is no racism, we only hate kufar (non-Muslims)."

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Somali+immigrant+admits+terror+role/2024806/story.html
H/T: PosteDeVeille.ca

Muslims must tackle theology of hate

Abdullah Saeed | August 07

EVENTS of the past decade have shown that small groups of militant extremist Muslims have a remarkable ability to create havoc in much of the world: killing, suicide bombing and destruction in the name of Islam.

That the number of these militant extremists is small is not a good reason for the majority of Muslims to remain silent.

The ideology of these small groups has become widespread at a global level and unless the silent majority in Muslim societies wakes up to the threat these militant extremists pose to their societies, their religion and to the world, there is a danger that militant extremism could become the norm in some Muslim societies.

Countering the ideology of militant extremists from 9/11 to the recent Jakarta bombings, Muslim religious leaders, theologians, academics, journalists and others have labelled such actions as anti-Islamic.

Australia, home to about 400,000 Muslims, has become a target of militant extremists, as a series of arrests this week has demonstrated. The law-abiding silent majority of Muslim Australians faces a particularly important task, now more than ever: to counter the threat of militant extremism and the hate-filled ideology of the extremists, and to save the younger generation of Muslims from this ideology.

This does not mean that Muslim Australians are somehow responsible for the acts of militant extremists; clearly they are not, and law-abiding Muslims should not be held responsible for the criminal acts of those who call themselves Muslim.

There are several things mainstream Muslim Australians can do.

Condemning the violence in the strongest terms is naturally the starting point, but it should not be the end of the story.

Mainstream Muslims have to actively counter the claims of these militant extremists, just as Muslims in the past have done so at different points throughout the history of Islam, and in doing so helped to keep the militant extremists at the margins of society.

Mainstream Muslim Australians need to recognise that Koranic verses and the sayings of the prophet Mohammed can be misused and twisted to justify the most terrible acts.

Unfortunately, all religious texts are not mathematical in their precision and are open to all forms of interpretation. Therefore, to counter the militants' arguments, it is important to show that the views and interpretations of the militants ought to be rejected because they are un-Islamic and go against mainstream Muslim thinking and practice.

The silent majority should strengthen its campaign of undermining the militancy and hatred advocated by the extremists.

This campaign should begin at Friday sermons, in mosques, at homes, through lesson at Muslim weekend and day schools, in study circles and youth camps. This is no doubt happening but more needs to be done in view of the present situation.

Read more here...

Abdullah Saeed is the director of the National Centre of Excellence for Islamic Studies at the University of Melbourne.

Source: The Australian

Melbourne terror raids spark angry local backlash

Abdurahman Osman says police should have talked to Somali leaders
before the raids. (So the terrorists would have enough time to leave)

Padraic Murphy | August 07

HATE-filled messages on a Muslim website claim an alleged plot to attack an Australian army base would have been justified.

And Somali community leaders have branded police as terrorists in the wake of this week's anti-terror swoop.

Abdurahman Osman, a leader of Melbourne's 15,000 strong Somali community, said police acted unreasonably.

"What do you call waking people up at four in the morning with guns?" he said.

"It is the police themselves that are the terrorists.

"They had 400 police and 19 raids, but they did not find anything. No guns, no ammunition, nothing.

"Now we have our kids being called terrorists at school."

Mr Osman's outburst came as a prominent Muslim website featured a photograph of Australian soldiers in uniform with the caption: "Real Australian terrorists."

It also features a photograph of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd addressing Australian troops overseas with the caption: "Terrorist mastermind delivers sermon to impressionable followers."

"Mohammed" said on the website: "Why is it called terrorist attack when the Aussie troops have been raping, killing innocent Muslims for years?

"In this country we can't trust nobody. The Australian Government is corrupted."

One posting suggested Australian soldiers were an appropriate target for the alleged Melbourne terrorist cell.

"More than a million innocent civilians have died as an outcome of the war on terror that our soldiers are involved in," Aussie-Muslim Tazza said.

Mr Osman, until now a voice of moderation between Somalis and the wider community, said police should have consulted migrant leaders.

"The federal police could have come to us first and we could have helped them," Mr Osman said.

"We have met with them now, but we don't believe they have evidence of a terrorist plot and that is the feeling of the community."

Other Somalis accused Australian authorities of bigotry.

"As a Somali-born Australian I am outraged at these raids not only because my fellow Somalis are being targeted, but once again basic human rights are being violated," said Xamxam, a 21-year-old Sunshine woman who knows the family of accused terrorist Nayef El Sayed.

"If there was strong evidence against him, I would back up the police."

Abdullahi Ahmed, a salesman who has lived in Australian for almost 30 years, said he knew accused terrorist Saney Aweys.

He said Mr Aweys was a road worker and a dedicated family man.

"He was married only about a week ago. His family are here," Mr Ahmed said.

Mr Ahmed said Somalis in Australia would petition US President Barack Obama to stop the war in Afghanistan.

"There are innocent people being killed there. The Americans and the Australians are the ones making terror."

with Mark Dunn and Keith Moor

Source: Herald Sun

Abdurahman Osman
Latest recipient of the Distinguished Islamofascist Award

Andrew Bolt: Time to talk about Islam

August 5

So I turn on the radio to hear babble about police raids in our suburbs on suspected terrorists.

I immediately suspect ... what? That the four men arrested were Presbyterians? Baptists? Greens?

Well, if I’d hopped onto the ABC website, I’d be little the wiser. In the 750 words on this alleged plot to launch suicide attacks, not one was “Islam”, “Muslim” or even “jihad”.

Not one word was used to describe what allegedly motivated these men - Lebanese and Somali Australians with reported ties to Somalia’s al-Shabaab Mujahideen terrorists - to want to kill Australian soldiers on an army base.

That’s how reluctant we are still to honestly debate Islam, terrorism . . . and immigration, suddenly the biggest elephant in a tension-filled room.

But we knew. We all did - even those eager to advertise their non-racism.

In fact, Victoria Police was forced to ditch the sensitivity manual it produced only last month to get us to not mention this war - you know, the war that only days afterwards took out three more Australians in Jakarta.

That manual is its Lexicon on Terror that Assistant Commissioner Stephen Fontana said would be sent to officials and politicians to instruct them not to use feelings-hurty words such as “war on terror”, “Islamic terrorism”, “Islamo-fascists” and “moderate Muslims”.

Such insensitive speech just made Muslims think we were at war with Islam, Fontana said, overlooking the fact that too many Muslims think Islam is at war with us.

Well, his manual didn’t survive reality for long. There was Chief Commissioner Simon Overland at yesterday’s media conference, freely linking Islam to terrorism and once more urging us not to forget all those moderate Muslims.

“I also want to assure the broader Islamic community here in Victoria we understand that the overwhelming and vast majority of the Islamic faith are not terrorists,” he preached.

Good on him for saying so, of course, but I suspect it’s now time not for non-Muslims to reassure Muslims that they mean no harm, but rather the reverse.

After all, this is not the first alleged terrorist plot by local Muslims to have been busted. Only six months ago Algerian-born preacher Abdul Nacer Benbrika was jailed in Melbourne, along with six followers, for planning terrorist attacks on Australians at the football.

We’ve also had Muslims jailed for plotting bombings in Canberra, while others have raised money for jihadists in Africa and Afghanistan, sold pro-jihad manuals at mosques, or joined Islamist terrorists in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Somalia.

There are many such reasons we’ve been given to link Islam to terrorism.

We saw the Islamic Youth Movement meet regularly in Australia’s biggest mosque, in Lakemba, to preach jihad and support terrorist chief Osama bin Laden. We heard the then Mufti of Australia, Sheik Taj el-Din al-Hilaly, praise the September 11 attacks and back terrorists in Lebanon.

We watched on television the Jordanian-born Melbourne cleric Mohammed Omran declare: “I dispute any evil action linked to bin Laden.”

And only last week we had a NSW judge describe the Islamic Friendship Association’s Keysar Trad, Hilaly’s spokesman, as a “racist” Jew-hater who stirred up hostility between Muslims and non-Muslims and said things that “appear to condone violence”.

Note: I’ve kept this list to just Islamist activity in Australia. I have not included those countless explosions of Islamist hatred overseas - such as the attacks on New York, Washington, Madrid, London, Israel, Mumbai, Kenya and Bali.

So as I said, when we heard the news yesterday, we knew. Reality trumped our manners.

But though we knew, what do we now do, other than rely on our police and courts? Let me suggest five things.

1. Make enemies only of enemies.

Overland is in fact right to make clear our quarrel is not with Muslims who believe their faith forbids terrorism.

While you may sometimes doubt just how many such Muslims there are, if most really did think the Koran obliged them to declare war on unbelievers, we would have many more terrorists to deal with than the handful so far.

Encourage the best to disown the worst. And that’s done by knowing the difference, and honouring it.

2. Defend free speech.
The real threat to peace here is not Anglo racism but Islamist radicalism.

Yet attempts to warn of hate preachers in our midst such as Hilaly, or of jihadists in the mosques who need rooting out, have too often been damned as racist or mean, especially by the ABC and Fairfax journalists.

Worse, Victoria’s Labor Government shamefully passed laws against saying hurtful things about religion - laws promptly used to punish two Christian pastors who warned their flock about the Koran’s praise of jihad.

But no frank debate means no one gets shamed who needs shaming, and without shame, who’d change?

3. Don’t think anywhere is too far to be dangerous.

The September 11 attacks showed us that no place was too far away to leave to terrorists. Even men in caves in Afghanistan could bring down skyscrapers in New York.

We know that leaving Somalia to anarchy has allowed Islamists to set up new terrorist training camps, used by Americans, Europeans and even Australians.

If we don’t fight these Islamists there, they will fight us here. So support the fight for Afghanistan, and wonder what we can do with Somalia - now a haven for pirates, terrorists, and the kidnappers who have for a year held Queenslander Nigel Brennan hostage.

4. Scrap multiculturalism.

We are all safer, and I suspect happier, if we see ourselves as one community, and not a nation of tribes.

Yet see the taxpayer money now spent on building ethnic ghettos.

The Victorian Multicultural Commission alone boasts of spending $34,700 in a year on 12 separate Somali organisations, each of which depends on staying separate from us to get yet more cash, perks and clout.

But what are we propping up? Those many groups offer a clue. The 10,000 estimated Somali refugees in Victoria are deeply divided by clans - at least four, including the Hawiye, aligned with Somalia’s radical Islamic Courts Union.

And Aden Ibrahim of the Somali-Australian Council of Victoria put the problem frankly in March: “A Somali is loyal to his clan before any court, before marriage, before any other loyalty.

“It’s like the military - the general gives the order and that’s it.”

Given that alone - leaving aside even such cultural practices as the genital mutilation of girls - do you want your money spent on keeping Somalis apart, or on giving them the talents to make their way among the rest of us?

5. Rethink immigration intakes.

There’s a million people desperate to get here, so doesn’t it make sense to choose those most likely to fit in?

Yet we keep making the same mistake, particularly in taking in people from war-torn, tribal and backward countries who, as a whole, struggle to make the best of our help.

Take the Muslim Lebanese we took in during the Lebanese civil war. Many did fit in well, but too many others ended up on welfare . . . or worse. In fact, the Lebanese-born are twice as likely as the rest of us to be in jail, and Lebanese dominate several Sydney crime gangs.

It’s not just a Muslim thing, of course. The Vietnamese are three times more likely to be imprisoned - and the rate for Tongans and Samoans is still worse.

CRIME figures for Somali immigrants are harder to prise out of police, but figures from then chief commissioner Christine Nixon suggest that refugees from neighboring Sudan are four times more likely than others to be charged.

Yes, these figures could lie, since some of these groups have a higher proportion of youths - always riper for strife.

But such figures, properly calculated, may indeed show we are importing problems we don’t need - problems that may even turn Australians against helping anyone.

Certainly, the Howard government decided in its last year to slow the intake of refugees from Africa for precisely such reasons.

Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews was monstered for this “racism”, but what would you rather? That we import more people of a group that’s struggling to fit in? More of a group that’s more prey to ideologies of hatred and jihad?

Yes, it’s hard to talk about such things without making many decent immigrants feel hurt. But ask what does more to set us at each other’s throats: frank talk, or terrorist plots on our soil?

Source: Andrew Bolt

Benbrika jailed for 27 years

Mex Cooper | February 3

The leader of a Melbourne-based terrorist cell has been sentenced to 27 years' jail.

Abdul Nacer Benbrika, 48, of Dallas, will serve 12 years' jail before being eligible for parole.

Justice Bernard Bongiorno in the Supreme Court said a terrorist organisation led by Benbrika had been dedicated to the destruction of non-believers but the group had not planned specific attacks despite the evidence of a key prosecution witness.

Benbrika became the first Australian to be convicted of leading a terrorist group last September, following the country's biggest-ever terrorism trial that lasted seven months and cost tens of millions of dollars.

The father-of-seven faced a maximum 25 years' prison for directing the terrorist group that the jury heard had discussed attacking Melbourne's Crown Casino and bombing the MCG.

Benbrika was also convicted of possessing a compact disc connected to the preparation of a terrorist act.

But in sentencing Benbrika and six of his followers today, Justice Bongiorno said he did not accept the evidence of Izzydeen Atik, who claimed Benbrika told him the terror cell had planned to target the casino on Grand Prix weekend in 2006 and the MCG on Grand Final day in 2005 and the
2006 NAB Cup.

Atik had been a member of the group before pleading guilty to belonging to a terrorist organisation in July 2007 and was jailed for just over four years.

Justice Bongiorno said Atik was a liar and a cheat who had defrauded the social security system while living in a luxury townhouse and employing a butler.

At the time, he was earning thousands of dollars a month from a credit card scam, the court heard.

But Justice Bongiorno said the terror group had still posed a "significant threat'' and may have carried out a terrorist attack if not stopped.

He said the men had committed serious crimes but not as serious as if Atik's evidence had been accepted.

Benbrika used warped teachings of Islam to recruit his young followers and encourage them to wage violent jihad against "non-believers'' in Australia.

Justice Bongiorno said although the word jihad had many meanings in Islam, Benbrika used the term only to mean a violent attack by his group to advance the Islamic cause.

He said Benbrika had admired Osama Bin Laden and believed that killing people and destroying buildings was justified as it would help pressure the Australian Government into withdrawing troops from Iraq and leaving the American alliance.

The court heard Benbrika had told one of his followers, Abdullah Merhi, not just to kill a few people but to ``do a big thing''.

Merhi had responded "like Spain,'' in reference to terrorist attacks on Madrid, Justice Bongiorno said.

In May 2004, a Victorian undercover police officer posing as a Turkish Muslim man had infiltrated the group.

Five months later, he offered to show Benbrika how to make explosives and took Benbrika to a remote bush location north of Melbourne where he detonated a device.

Benbrika asked how much explosive would be needed to blow up building and homes but did not ask the undercover agent to get him any of the bomb-making ingredients or tell any of the other members of the group about the demonstration.

Six of Benbrika's followers, aged in their 20s, from Melbourne's western and northern suburbs, will today also be sentenced.

Justice Bongiorno said terrorism laws meant those charged with offences had a criminal liability earlier than in other criminal cases.

Remy van de Wiel, QC, had argued at pre-sentence hearings that Benbrika's sentence should be tempered because he suffered from depression and an undiagnosed medical condition which caused him to have ``embarrassing involuntary movements'' and would make his prison time more
stressful.

He had said Benbrika had not properly led the group, which had never grown beyond an ``embryonic terrorist organisation''.

But Justice Bongiorno said by its existence and nature the organisation had fostered in its members the desire to commit terrorist activities.

He said the evidence suggested that Benbrika was still committed to violent jihad, had shown no contrition for his offences and had talked about continuing the group's activities behind bars if its members were jailed.

Benbrika had served 1184 days in custody after being arrested in November 2005.

Source: The Age
H/T: JR

Air plot a "hoax" according to London based Muslim academic

Azzam Tamini of the "Muslim Association" claims that the plot by three British Muslims who admitted to attempting to bomb Heathrow and the House of Commons with liquid explosives was indeed a "hoax" and the reason for this judgement was his distrust of ISI the Pakistani intelligence services.

Azzam Tamini of the Institute of Islamic Thought has said that "each reaction will cause an action" speaking to CNBC and highlighted the British born miltiant Islamic movement at play which still concerns the US and British intelligence community. Watch the video.

Source: The London Daily News