07-Oct-17: A quiet evening

London's museum precinct this afternoon: The driver
is pinned down by police [Image Source]

It's an ordinary Saturday night here in  Jerusalem.

Alright, not so ordinary since the whole country is in the midst of the Jewish religious festival of Sukkot which runs for a week and whose central motif is the temporary and generally-flimsy dwellings that are built by hundreds of thousands of families all over the country, and wherever in the world Jews live. It's the tail end of summer, the days are still sunny and warm and the evenings - Jerusalem's summer evenings are like this - are breezy and pleasant. A relaxing time.

All of which has gotten us thinking about the range and volume of news reports about terror in tonight's bulletins. A selection:

• Authorities in New York City revealed last night (Friday) that they have arrested three ISIS sympathizers who planned terror attacks on various New York locations including the MTA subway, music concerts and targets in the Times Square area. NBC News says the FBI arrested Abdulrahman El Bahnasawy, 19, a Canadian citizen, who [source] has been in US custody since May 2016 when he was arrested in New Jersey and who pleaded guilty to terrorism charges in October 2016; Talha Haroon, 19, an American citizen living in Pakistan and arrested there; and Russell Salic, 37, a Filipino who is being sent to the US for trial. It quotes Federal prosecutors saying the three men’s goal "was to kill and injure as many people as possible"  and that El Bahnasawy had already acquired bomb-making materials and secured a cabin to build them. They also planned - shades of last week's Las Vegas massacre - to shoot civilians "at specific concert venues". Reuters says "documents unsealed in federal court in Manhattan on Friday [showed] El Bahnasawy and Mr Haroon planned to carry out attacks during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which ran from early June to early July."
• In Switzerland, a man wielding two knives rushed at police and two refugees inside a refugee center in the southern Italian-speaking region of Ticino at 2:00 am, local time, today. Police fired at the attacker as a result of which he is now dead. The French news agency AFP says the assailant was a 38 year old Sri Lankan "asylum seeker". Police were called to break up a fight in Brissago, on the shores of Lake Maggiore and were in the building when the man with the knives attacked the other people. 
• French police yesterday (Friday) charged three men in Paris with launching an explosive attack on a residential building in the city's upscale 16th Arrondissment. The plot failed when the gas canisters they rigged up failed to ignite. According to Times of Israel, two of the suspects were already on a police terror-watch list. The three, identified as Amine A, his cousin Sami B, and Aymen B., are now charged with multiple crimes and in detention. Police found four gas cylinders after being called to the scene: two in the hallway attached to a mobile phone which evidently served as a detonator and two more on the sidewalk outside the building. Associated Press says the charges against the three are attempted murder linked to a terrorist enterprise, transporting explosives and participating in a terrorist association aimed at preparing attacks. All three have prior French criminal convictions; we are not yet able to learn the details.
• In Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, a little-reported shootout today between police and terrorists, according to an RT news story, resulted in the deaths of a "gunman and two guards... as the Saudi Arabian security forces prevented a terrorist attack near the royal Al Salam Palace... There has so far been no confirmation of the attack from Saudi authorities. The US Embassy in Saudi Arabia has issued a security warning to American citizens in Jeddah over the reported attack." This is bound to get more coverage but there's almost none tonight. 
• Another little-reported terror attack though on a much larger scale in the huge (but almost invisible to Western eyes) West African state of Niger. CNN says "three US Green Berets were killed and two others were wounded... near the Mali-Niger border when a joint US-Nigerien patrol was attacked Wednesday... Initial indications are the Green Berets were ambushed by up to 50 fighters who are thought to be affiliated with ISIS... The Green Berets were part of a team advising and assisting local forces when they were attacked." A sizable French and US military presence is seeking to stem the incursion of ISIS forces into Niger: some 800 US troops are currently based there; some are called advisers but that's likely to be mere foreign policy camouflage. CNN: "The US military has maintained a presence in the northwest African country for five years, with small groups of US Special Operations Forces advising local troops as they battle two terrorist groups, ISIS-affiliated Boko Haram and al Qaeda's North African branch, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb." 
• In Malaysia, where the authorities have been on high alert for human bombs and shooters since "Islamic State launched multiple attacks in Jakarta, the capital of neighboring Indonesia, in January 2016", Reuters says 8 people, four foreigners and four Malaysians, were taken into custody today "for suspected involvement in terrorist activities linked to Abu Sayyaf, the Islamic State and Jemaah Islamiah". Those arrested are said to include three Filipinos, one Albanian (a law lecturer at a local university) and two people convicted in 2016 of participating in terrorist activities (so people might be asking why are they free now).
• And here in Israel, the death of Reuven Shmerling, a Jewish Israeli in his 70s who lived with his family in Elkana and whose body was found on Wednesday at a location on the outskirts of Kafr Qassem, an Israeli town whose residents are overwhelmingly Arab, now appears (after the police expressed initial doubt) to have been the result of terrorism. Haaretz says "Shmerling left his home on Wednesday morning and went to a warehouse in Kafr Qasem, which belonged to his son. When his wife Hanna noticed he did not return home and is not answering his phone, his son was called to the warehouse, where he discovered his father's body. Paramedics pronounced Shmerling dead. In a statement, Shmerling's family stressed they have no doubt he was killed in a terror attack."

Two additional alarming reports turn out (so far at least) to be unrelated to terror:

• An incoming-missile alert was sounded in the Israeli communities closest to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip around the time we started writing this report. As of now (10:30 pm Saturday), the alert appears to be without basis and there were no actual rockets. This happens.
• In London, a car drove onto the sidewalk outside a popular museum at 2:20 pm London time today. According to Financial Times, this happened "at the junction of Exhibition Road and Cromwell Road, between the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Natural History Museum — is part of a shared space experiment and the pavement is at the same level as the road." The response from security services was rapid and large: "dozens of armed officers flooded the area and a 200 metre cordon was created around the scene. Witnesses fled in panic as police told them to "keep running" and put businesses around the area in lockdown." [Telegraph UK]
  The BBC quotes the Metropolitan Police saying one person was arrested. But earlier concerns that this was a terror attack were now being set aside, and "the incident was being treated as "a road traffic collision". London Ambulance said the people it treated - including the detained man - had mostly sustained head and leg injuries. Nine were taken to hospital." Meanwhile the driver "is being held in custody at a north London police station." The British are uncommonly tense over the prospects of more terror in their lives; as BBC notes tonight: "The current terror threat in the UK is at "severe" - the second highest level - meaning an attack is highly likely."

Life is so much more relaxed when you ignore what terrorists are planning and doing. But the difficult reality is that ignoring them doesn't make them go away.

19-Jun-15: Lone-wolf Islamist terror attack in NY: Four arrests so far

Mumuni [Image Source]

Here's a follow-up to the arrest in New York City of an alleged Islamist terrorist, a "lone wolf", about which we posted on Wednesday: "17-Jun-15: Just hanging around a bridge: They're pursuing terrorists in every one of the US states".

There have been four arrests so far.

The first is Munther Omar Saleh, a college student from Queens. The charges against him assert that he's a "fervent supporter" of Islamist "militants" (a word that conceals more than it reveals) and ISIS. He was arrested on Saturday.

A second male was also arrested in connection with the same offences. Reuters says he has not yet been publicly identified.

On Wednesday, Fareed Mumuni, 21, a student of social work at the College of Staten Island and a Ghana-born US citizen, was arrested and charged with attempted murder. Authorities came to his Mariners Harbor, Staten Island, home that morning with a search warrant relating to the same alleged attack on behalf of ISIS for which Saleh, the "lone wolf" had already been arrested. Ignoring their orders to sit down, he lunged at an FBI agent while brandishing a kitchen knife and attempted repeatedly to stab him. The agent, protected by body-armor, suffered minor injuries. In court, Mumuni appeared wearing "a religious robe and flip-flops". His court-appointed defense lawyer unexpectedly says Mumuni is a “quiet, soft-spoken, very bright young man” whose relatives are "surprised by the charges".

Topaz [Image Source]

Samuel Rahamin Topaz, 21, from Fort Lee, New Jersey, who had been in close contact with Saleh, was charged Thursday with conspiracy to provide material support to ISIS. The motivations to do this, according to material presented to the court yesterday, were that "they" promised him (a) $7,000 a week and (b) four wives, "possibly in Iraq". A 24-page affidavit filed by an FBI Special Agent says he is "vulnerable... impressed with the promise of money and multiple wives", His younger brother told NBC the suspect is "just any other person... just a calm, regular kid [who] does whatever anybody else would do... Everyone in my household believes in a different religion, so you can understand how ridiculous it is."

We think the "lone wolf" notion - whether or not it's factually accurate - is unhelpful when people try to understand the spread of pro-Islamist terrorism sentiment outside the Arab and Moslem world. The growing number of arrests in this case, where the original suspect who made the first headlines seems not to have acted alone, shows how it works in reality.

About eight months ago, a syndicated UPI news article quoted a warning

released by the Army Threat Integration Center [based on] a Tweet from an Islamic State jihadist calling for individuals to use social media sites to track down and kill U.S. service members. The assessment was published Sept. 25 by ARTIC in collusion with the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command, and listed a variety of possible threats that IS forces pose to the homeland, including lone wolf attacks on service personnel... [UPI, October 5, 2014]

The Army Threat Integration Center (ARTIC) exists to create and publish

all-source threat information for commanders and force protection officials at all levels within the Army to provide shared situational awareness, enable effective risk-based decisions, and protect Army personnel, assets, and information worldwide [Source]

An ARTIC bulletin, quoted by Fox News, refers to published information that

Islamic State fighters have increased calls for "lone wolves" to attack U.S. soldiers in America in recent months, citing one tweet that called for jihadists to find service members' addresses online and then "show up and slaughter them,,," 

If lone wolves exist, there seem to be many of them around, and as the New York arrests indicate, they move in packs.

17-Jun-15: Just hanging around a bridge: They're pursuing terrorists in every one of the US states

Saleh and father, according to a Daily Mail UK published image. The father
says "it's a misunderstanding, he has been set up,
and had merely been conducting simple Internet searches"

Munther Omar Saleh, a student at Queens College in New York, appeared in Brooklyn Federal Court on Saturday. The allegations against him stem initially from when he was spotted by a Port Authority of NY security officer acting in a way that aroused suspicion at the George Washington Bridge in March.

The following day, he was found on the bridge again. The suspicions are grave. Saleh, evidently a US citizen, is said to have been

"making efforts to prepare an explosive device for detonation in the New York metropolitan area on behalf of ISIL,” according to court papers filed by Special Agent Christopher Buscaglia with the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of New York. [Source]

He is of course completely innocent under the law until found otherwise by the judicial process, which will presumably take note of the evidence that, after he was arrested, instructions for how to make a pressure-cooker bomb were found on his computer. So were pictures of New York landmarks, along with tips for how to evade the police.

In college this year, he began studying electrical circuitry, which can be key in bomb making, federal authorities said... In May and early this month, Saleh searched online for bomb-making materials; notable New York City landmarks and tourist attractions; a map of surveillance cameras; chemical masks; weapons and remote-controlled helicopters and drones, federal officials said. He was working with two unnamed co-conspirators, according to the complaint, and early Saturday, the three practiced "anti-surveillance" maneuvers in their Jeep Cherokee, including driving with lights off, the complaint said. Just off the Whitestone Expressway about 4 a.m. that day, the Jeep was at a red light when Saleh and a co-conspirator ran toward the vehicle tailing them, federal officials said. The undercover driver reversed the vehicle to avoid an attack, the complaint said. [Newsday, June 16. 2015]

The New York Times says ["College Student in Queens Is Charged With Conspiring to Support ISIS", June 16, 2015] he is being charged

with conspiring to support a foreign terrorist organization after a monthslong investigation found that he was planning to attack various New York City landmarks on behalf of the Islamic State, according to the authorities.

A second male was arrested with him. He is not named in the court documents and, according to Reuters, could not immediately be identified.

According to Queens Courier today

An investigation by the New York Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) revealed that Saleh, also known as “Abu Omar al Ramil” and “Abu Omar ar-Ramil,” “espouses violent jihadists beliefs and is a fervent supporter” of ISIL, the complaint said... [When stopped by law enforcement officials in the small hours of Saturday June 13] Saleh and the passenger were arrested at the scene and a search turned up a Smith & Wesson folding tactical knife in the waistband of the passenger’s pants.

Reuters reminds us that

U.S. authorities have charged a number of so-called "lone wolf" plotters in recent months who have apparently been inspired by Islamic State, and authorities have said they are pursuing similar cases in all 50 states.

All fifty states. And at a wild guess, we would say there might be more than one such investigation in certain of those states.

UPDATE Friday June 19, 2015: As to whether it makes sense to think of this suspect as someone who plotted alone, take a look at "19-Jun-15: Lone-wolf Islamist terror attack in NY: Four arrests so far"

06-Apr-15: Just a day in the life

Nothing obvious has happened to make the past 24 hours especially dangerous in terms of terrorist attacks. So let's assume that what we are seeing via the snippets below is a work in progress: simply a day in the life of a world falling victim to unthinkable violence of a kind most societies are ill-equipped to challenge, let alone thwart. A day among many not-so-different days.

New York

NY Daily News, April 3, 2015

NY Terror Case: Women Wanted an Active Military Role in ISIS 
Stassa Edwards | Jezebel.com | April 5, 2015

When Noelle Velentzas and Asia Siddiqui were arrested early Thursday morning at their Queens home, officers found pressure cookers, gas tanks, hand-written instructions for bomb making and jihadist pamphlets. According to the AP, Velentzas’ and Siddiqui’s arrest indicates a shift in women’s participation in “militant Islamic jihad.” Unlike women that have previously sought to join terrorist groups, Velentzas and Siddiqui had no interest in the roles traditionally reserved for women: marrying an ISIS fighter or nursing. Rather, the government alleges that the two women wanted to take active an military role by building a bomb and attacking a domestic target.

Accused bomb plotter’s husband says propane tanks were for barbecues
Beckie Strum | New York Post | April 6, 2015

The husband of accused ISIS-savage wannabe Noelle Velentzas insists she really loves America — and says building bombs made out of gas tanks, fertilizer and a pressure cooker was the very furthest thing from her mind. The 51-year-old man, who uses the admitted alias Abu Bakr, was sure the propane tanks authorities found at the home of his wife’s alleged accomplice would never have been used for explosives. “You can’t convince me that those propane tanks were going to be used for that because I know they were going to be used for barbecues,” he claimed... Velentzas did have an image of bin Laden on her phone, Abu Bakr conceded. And he admitted her political views might even “raise a few eyebrows.” But he had an explanation for all of that, too. Her admiration for the man who attacked New York City is based only on the fact that he helped the Afghans to drive out the Russians. “She doesn’t support 9/11,” the husband said... “They took two knives, which I had for more than 15 years,” he said. “They were in a box packed up. They also took two machetes I occasionally use... to clear yards and do gardening.”
...Abu Bakr said he’d never believe the accusations against his wife. “She couldn’t even hit the baby,” he said, referring to their 5-year-old daughter. “I just want people to know that’s not her . . . She never had any intentions of hurting anybody. This is her country, these are her people,” he said. "She’s a role model for women who really, really want to live as God-fearing women," Abu Bakr said proudly. "She’s passionate about her religion."

Malaysia

Malaysia detains 17 people suspected of plotting terror acts

Associated Press | April 6, 2015

Malaysian police have detained 17 suspected militants who authorities said Monday had planned to attack police stations and army camps to acquire weapons and carry out terrorist acts in Kuala Lumpur. Inspector General of Police Khalid Abu Bakar said they were detained Sunday. Khalid tweeted that two of them had just returned from Syria. This brought the number of suspected supporters of the Islamic State group arrested since last year to 92, a police official said. Home Minister Zahid Hamidi said the 17, aged between 14 and 44, were planning to attack police stations and army camps to acquire weapons... Authorities also believe the suspects were trying to make bombs as police found notes on bomb-making written by Imam Samudra, an Indonesian who was convicted and executed for his role in carrying out the 2002 Bali bombings, Zahid said. The suspects included two army personnel and two students, and some of them had received militant training in Afghanistan and Indonesia's Sulawesi province... "This is a real threat and prevention measures are needed," Zahid said.

United Kingdom
Boy, 14, and girl, 16, arrested by anti-terror police
The Telegraph UK, April 5, 2015

A 14-year-old boy and 16-year-old girl have been arrested on suspicion of preparing a terror act. Counter-terrorism police detained the boy in Blackburn, Lancashire, before arresting the girl in Manchester the following day. Officers refused to say whether the case was Syria-related... The investigation is being run by the North West Counter-Terrorism Unit and the two youngsters have been bailed to May 28. The boy was arrested on Thursday after police had examined a number of electronic items, a spokesman for Greater Manchester Police said. The next day, police raided a home in Longsight, Manchester, and detained a 16-year-old girl.
Both are suspected of "engaging in conduct in preparation for acts of terrorism". The teenage girl lives with her parents and brothers in a semi detached house in Longsight. A green Nissan Micra was in the driveway of the house yesterday but no one answered the door. A next door neighbour said:" I know the girl very well and she is very nice - she goes to the school where I work. But I do not want to say anything other than they are a very nice family." Another neighbour, who also did not wish to be named, added: "There were police outside and inside the house on Friday and we did not have a clue what was going on. "The girl who was arrested has always been very pleasant to me - we have never had any problems with the family at all. "I used to see her chatting to her brothers outside in the street - they seemed just like normal kids to me." 

Kenya

Kenya Defence forces soldiers at Garissa University after the
terrorist massacre [Image Source]

Shame of slow response in 15-hour campus terror

The Nation, Kenya | April 4, 2015

The alarm... was sounded at 6 a.m. on Thursday last week. As they gathered, officers of the elite paramilitary unit were informed that a possible terrorist attack had been launched on Garissa University College... They quickly assembled their gear and got ready for deployment... But seven hours later the officers were still in Nairobi. [Our comment: Garissa is 370 km from Nairobi; driving time is about 5 hours at a normal civilized non-emergency rate.] After the long wait, the team would finally leave Wilson Airport after midday and finally enter Elgon hostel on the campus, the terrorists’ last stand, nearly 11 hours later. This was long after the killing had started and a majority of the 142 young Kenyans had been slaughtered by the extremists... On arrival in Garissa, the GSU [Wikipedia defines it as "a paramilitary wing of the Kenya Defence Forces and Kenyan Police, consisting of highly trained police officers and special forces soldiers"] team was briefed on the situation for two hours and when the ones that had travelled by road arrived, they launched the final assault on the terrorists at about 5 p.m., who they are reported to have subdued within half an hour... The Sunday Nation established that prior to the attack, local police had received intelligence of an impending attack... Four police officers were deployed at the university to provide security... Judging by security actions that preceded the attack, it was clear the government was aware of the threat, particularly targeting institutions of higher learning... On Friday, Maj-Gen (rtd) Nkaissery said: “This incident which happened today is one of those incidents which can surprise any country.” 

India

Security agencies warn of possible terror attack in Delhi

Times of India | April 5, 2015

Security agencies have alerted the Delhi Police about the possibility of [Pakistan-based] terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) carrying out a 'fidayeen' attack in the city... Asking the Delhi Police to remain on alert, the advisory said senior police officers, particularly Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCPs), should take all necessary preventive and precautionary measures in their area of jurisdiction in order to avoid any untoward incident, official sources said.

05-Feb-15: Hundreds of innocents would have been murdered if this terrorist had not been stopped

Naseer and co-conspirators in a surveillance photo submitted
as evidence during the trial [Image Source]

A court in the United States has just convicted yet another in a long line of men the contours of whose lives are defined by the Islamist rhetoric they spout. The verdict is making waves in the UK where his murderous plans were hatched, and where the police say were onto him and could have stopped him but did not.

Abid Naseer, 28, was found guilty by a New York jury of providing material support to al-Qaeda and conspiracy to use a destructive device. He faces up to life imprisonment at sentencing. Evidence at Naseer's trial included a document found in the raid of the bin Laden compound and MI5 officers testifying in wigs.
A jury returned the verdict after a day of deliberation following closing arguments on Monday. Prosecutors argued Naseer was part of a broader al-Qaeda conspiracy to attack various Western locations, including a Manchester shopping centre and the New York subway system.
Abid Naseer... was previously arrested in the UK over a bomb plot in Manchester
In closing arguments on Monday, prosecutors said Naseer lied about his history during his defence, including becoming radicalised in Pakistan.
"If the defendant hadn't been stopped, hundreds of innocent men, women and children wouldn't be alive today," prosecutor Zainab Ahmed said during closing arguments... Naseer, who represented himself in court, said in closing arguments the prosecution had not directly connected him to al-Qaeda. He insisted his emails were simply harmless banter about finding a wife... They also relied on the testimony of two co-conspirators who pleaded guilty to the subway plot - Najibullah Zazi and Zarein Ahmedzay - who said certain words in Naseer's emails about marriage were code. [BBC, "UK bomb plot suspect Abid Naseer found guilty", February 4, 2015]

The nonsense about the terrorist looking for a woman to love him is taken apart in a New York Post article: "Online code word for al Qaeda mall attack was ‘marriage’: prosecutors".

Why was Naseer not prosecuted in the UK where he was arrested, but instead allowed to walk the streets freely after being picked up by police? And to file an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights against being extradicted? The New York Times says

Prosecutors argued during the trial that Mr. Naseer had helped organize a plot to bomb the shopping center in April 2009. He was arrested in Britain that month, and the plot was not carried out... In the final email that Mr. Naseer sent to his purported Qaeda handler before being arrested, he said that his marriage was set for a range of dates in April and that he expected many guests. By then, prosecutors showed, Mr. Naseer had broken up with his girlfriend and was no longer speaking to her, making it unlikely that he was planning a wedding... British intelligence officers who tracked Mr. Naseer for several weeks in March and April 2009 were expected to provide key evidence against him. Instead, they testified about watching him go grocery shopping and taking the bus around Manchester... British authorities released Mr. Naseer and his alleged co-conspirators after his 2009 arrest because of a lack of evidence.

Fortunately that evidentiary "lack" was cured on the other side of the Atlantic. Now angry Brits are left wondering "Why was terrorist free to walk British streets? Questions raised over UK bomb plotter" [Mirror UK, February 5, 2015], and "Police chiefs ask why Al-Qaeda plotter WASN'T prosecuted in Britain" [Express UK, today]. If true and frank answers ever emerge, we suspect they might cause some widespread British discomfort.

18-Sep-13: Striking back at the money that enables the terrorists

650 Fifth Avenue at 52nd Street
[Image Source]

From National Post, Canada, yesterday: "Canadian bank accounts linked to Iranian government frozen as terror victims seek damages"

A judge has frozen more than a dozen Canadian bank accounts linked to the government of Iran at the request of victims trying to collect damages from the Islamic republic over its sponsorship of Middle East terror groups. The list of Iran’s accounts and other state assets in Canada was disclosed last week by the Department of Foreign Affairs in an effort to help victims hold Tehran responsible for financing, training and arming Hezbollah and Hamas. The five-page decision by Justice David Brown of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice ordered banks to lock down the 14 Royal Bank, Scotiabank, CIBC and BMO accounts named by Foreign Affairs, which contain at least $2.6-million. Banks were given until Friday to disclose the names of the account holders and their contact information to lawyers representing the victims. On Sept. 30, the lawyers are scheduled to return to court to ask for a default judgment against Iran... The Ontario court order is the latest fallout from legislation enacted last year that allows victims of terrorism committed anywhere in the world since Jan. 1, 1985 to seek redress through Canadian courts. While foreign governments were previously shielded from lawsuits, the Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act lifted that immunity from nations Canada has designated state sponsors of terrorism. Iran and Syria were placed on the list of state sponsors last September. Tehran has long bankrolled Palestinian terrorists, partly through its militant Revolutionary Guards Corp. It has also used the Lebanese Shi’ite extremist group Hezbollah as a proxy force for attacking Iranian targets internationally, from South America to Europe.

In a separate seizure/forfeiture action against Iran, perhaps the largest court-ordered asset seizure ever, a court in New York City ruled [see the court order here] that federal authorities could seize a 36-storey Fifth Avenue office tower worth half a billion dollars or more from its owners, Alavi Foundation and Assa Company, declaring them to be fronts for the Iranian regime. (This 2009 report provides some of the background as of when this legal effort got started.)

Assa, the entity that holds a 35 percent share in the building, has a single solitary employee and is registered in in the British Channel Islands tax haven of Jersey. (More details on Wikipedia.) 

A Justice Department announcement, published yesterday, says:

"Assa was (and is) a front for Bank Melli, and thus a front for the Government of Iran.’ The Judge’s ruling that Alavi and Assa committed IEEPA and money laundering violations paves the way for the largest-ever terrorism-related forfeiture, and provides a means of compensating victims of Iranian-sponsored terrorism.”

From the Alavi Foundation's website

The 36-storey building, located at the corner of 650 Fifth Avenue and 52nd Street on the edge of Rockefeller Center, was once called the Piaget Building. It was constructed during the time of the Iranian Shah on behalf of his Pahlavi Foundation, and then seized in December 2008 by the Asset Forfeiture Unit and Terrorism and National Security Unit of the US Attorney's Office. 

Last year, we surveyed here just some of the Iranian-enabled terrorist attacks directed around the world. Counterjihad Report says

Victims of Iranian-sponsored terrorist attacks have secured billions of dollars in civil judgments against the Islamic Republic for financing and providing other assistance to the killers. Little of those damages have been collected, however, as victims often find themselves fighting the U.S. government in their attempts to seize Iranian assets in the United States. 

With this week's breakthrough, the US government can proceed to turn a small part of Iran's holding into cash and ultimately provide compensation to some of Iranian-funded terrorism's many victims. Perhaps a corner has now been turned. 

26-Feb-13: What we learned, twenty years ago today, in the first attack on the Twin Towers

February 26, 1993 outside the World Trade Center, New York City [Image Source]

Twenty years ago today, one of this site's two bloggers was in New York City on a business trip. 

On February 26, 1993, a Friday, he was standing in a phone booth in Lower Manhattan, waiting for several associates to show up for a meeting they had set for 12 noon. A short time before the rendezvous, they asked to move it from the lobby of one of the World Trade Center towers, which was meant to be the meeting point, to a less well-known nearby location, the old AT&T headquarters building on Broadway. And they were running late. 

It was already around 12:15 pm and they had not shown up, so we called them again. Standing there in the phone booth on the ground floor, we became aware that something odd was happening: the building's lights flickered off for a moment and there was a distinct sense that the ground was shaking. Then it stopped. And soon after, the people showed up. 

We sat for a few moments and talked, and then we headed out into the traffic and bedlam of the city and took a taxi to where we were all heading: an office building in New Jersey directly across the river from the Twin Towers. What we saw from the NJ side, looking back, was a surreal sight whose memory still makes our blood run cold today: helicopters buzzing around the WTC buildings as smoke billowed upwards and outwards. 

Among the things we did not know until much later: a group of Islamist terrorists had detonated about 1,200 pounds of explosives concealed inside a rented van that they drove unhindered into the World Trade Center's underground parking garage. They fled for their lives shortly before the bomb went off. The explosion - at the exact moment we were in that phone booth - blasted a five-storey crater beneath the towers, killing six people, injuring more than 1,000 people including 88 firefighters, 35 police officers, and an emergency medical services worker. Some 50,000 people had to be evacuated from the WTC, and chaos reined over all of southern Manhattan. 

On 9/11, some eight and a half years later, we were in Israel. 

That was a difficult day for us already before the horrific crash of two aircraft into the Twin Towers and another into the Pentagon. The life of our greatly-loved fifteen year old daughter had ended in a restaurant massacre in our country's capital city just a month earlier. September 11, 2001 happened to be the date on which our local community here in Jerusalem held a shloshim memorial service in honour of the murdered lives of two children: Malki, our daughter, and her friend Michal, the daughter of our neighbours. 

By the time we all gathered in a neighborhood park that evening, the events of 9/11 in far-off New York had happened during the afternoon, Israel time. The world would never again be the same. 

Here is the full text of Jonathan Tobin's essay, "The Day the War on America Began", which appears today on the Commentary website, and deserves a wide audience.

Exactly 20 years ago on this date, a terrorist attack at the World Trade Center took the lives of six people and injured more than a thousand others. The tragedy shocked the nation but, as with other al-Qaeda attacks in the years that followed, the WTC bombing did not alter the country’s basic approach to Islamist terrorism. 

For the next eight and a half years, the United States carried on with a business-as-usual attitude toward the subject. The lack of urgency applied to the subject, as well as the disorganized and sometimes slap-dash nature of the security establishment’s counter-terrorist operations, led to the far greater tragedy of September 11, 2001 when al-Qaeda managed to accomplish what it failed to do in 1993: knock down the towers and slaughter thousands. 

All these years after 9/11 and the tracking down and killing of Osama bin Laden, are there any further lessons to be drawn from that initial tragedy? To listen to the chattering classes, you would think the answer is a definitive no. Few are marking this anniversary and even fewer seem to think there is anything more to be said about what we no longer call the war on terror. But as much as many of us may wish to consign this anniversary to the realm of the history books, the lessons of the day the war on America began still need to be heeded.   

It should be acknowledged that the United States has come a long way in the last 20 years when it comes to awareness of the forces that launched that first attack. The 9/11 attacks changed the government’s priorities and forced those in charge of the security apparatus to make fighting al-Qaeda a priority, which was something that was nowhere on the country’s radar screen even after the atrocity that took place on February 26, 1993. The death of bin Laden in 2011 seemed to signal that the long battle against the Islamists had been fought and won by the U.S., allowing Americans to go back to sleep about terror–or at least to put it in our collective rear-view mirrors. 

But as the 9/11/2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya demonstrated once again, the forces that launched the attacks on America are by no means as dead as bin Laden. Indeed, they continue to be a potent force throughout the Maghreb and the Middle East. The Taliban, al-Qaeda’s old allies and hosts, are poised for a comeback in Afghanistan as the United States gradually abandons what President Obama and the Democrats once called the “good war.”   

Even more ominously, al-Qaeda’s ideological allies in the Muslim Brotherhood now rule Egypt in place of a secular regime, which, though undemocratic, was a vital ally in the global war on Islamist terror. Here in the U.S., cases of home-grown Islamist terror continue to crop up as a new generation of Islamists continue to sow the seeds of an unending war against the “Great Satan” of the United States as well as its Israeli ally.  

Unlike in 1993, the problem is no longer whether our intelligence and security establishment is serious about fighting terror, but rather whether we as a nation have the will and the patience to go on doing so. The willingness of the Obama administration to embrace the Brotherhood and to go on, as it did after Benghazi, pretending that the war on terror is over, is a sign that our will may be faltering. 

It is no small thing that the Islamist government of Egypt that the U.S. has embraced has called for the freeing of Omar Abdel Rahman, the so-called “blind sheik” who was the al-Qaeda mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center attack. As we think back on the 20 years since six Americans died as a prelude to the murder of thousands more by the same group, the sympathy for their killer ought to remind us that the fight against Islamism is far from over. 

You might find this interesting too: "The 1993 World Trade Center bombers: Where are they now?", from the CBS News website. 

And this: "The Online Presence Of Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman: The Blind Sheikh" which describes the thriving social media network - including Twitter, Facebook and online videos garnering thousands of views - that today serves as an ongoing tribute to the achievements of the man convicted by a federal jury of planning to wage a "war of urban terrorism" against the United States, including blowing up the United Nations building, the Holland and Lincoln tunnels, the main federal office building in Manhattan, and the George Washington Bridge.

6-Apr-12: It's not necessarily paranoia when you discover there are enemies living in your neighbourhood

Hezbollah rallies its forces in Lebanon: Coming
soon to (or may already be in) a neighbourhood
near you [Image Source]

A syndicated news report from Reuters yesterday uncovers the deep concerns of law enforcement officials in the United States over the presence of 'sleeper' jihadist terrorists in major American urban centers, principally in the service of the Iranian-owned  Hezbollah global terrorist organization.

Some key points from the article.

• The terrorists of Hezbollah last carried out mass-casualty bombings against American targets in the 1980s. They have avoided repeats because they are doing so well with their North American fund-raising operations and do not want that interrupted.
• The US counter-terrorism community sees Hezbollah as "the most potent and disciplined" of the Islamic terrorists organizations, "even more so than al Qaeda". And now, with the growing confrontation over Iran’s nuclear activities, the anxiety level has risen sharply. 
• Why's that? Well for one thing, Iranian "diplomats" and "possible Hezbollah operatives" have been seen conducting surveillance missions at sensitive targets including New York subways and bridges, public buildings in Las Vegas and Los Angeles, and nuclear power plants and tunnels elsewhere in the United States over a period of ten years. If you're surprised to hear this, you're hardly alone.
• Those surveillance missions, combined with recent attacks and uncovered plots in other countries, have brought the US government to appreciate the danger of "considerable violence directed against U.S. targets". Those include a thwarted plan by Iranian agents to kill the Saudi ambassador in Washington and other Iranian plots uncovered in Thailand, India, Azerbaijan and Georgia this year.
• This might be aimed at American overseas installations or businesses. Or it might be directed at Americans within the borders of the United States. And before we ask "how", the article quotes a congressional report that says "U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials, along with private experts, say there is little doubt Hezbollah has an extensive network of supporters, fund-raisers and potential operatives in the United States."
• The New York Police Department, under severe attention and considerable criticism because of its cautious monitoring of Muslim communities, says there are 200-300 Hezbollah "sympathizers" living in New York City. Ten or more are family members of Hezbollah terrorists killed in action - from the Lebanese towns of Bint Jbeil (the Reuters report erroneously refers to it as two towns: Bint and Jbeil), Yanoun and Yatar. 
• Several of these New York residents have undergone military training with Hezbollah  in Lebanon. But "pinpointing" the Hezbollah men is difficult because of the group’s operational security. [For us, this is the most alarming statement in the article, unless the resort to the word "difficult" is an attempt  at disinformation.]
• The estimates quoted in the report are that Hezbollah has “several thousand sympathetic donors” in the United States and “hundreds” of operatives. Translation: the word operatives, like the words militants and activists and other similar circumlocutions, is media-double-speak for terrorists. 

What these people train to do, and what they will do, in New York and Los Angeles and anywhere else they choose, in the United States and when the moment is right, based on their years of carrying out their surveillance missions, is called terror.

15-May-11: Tentacles: Terrorism charges and arrests in New York City, Florida

From yesterday's New York Daily News [link]

The Wall Street Journal today describes how Justice Department officials are busy trying to gain the trust of Muslim communities around the US while guarding against possible reprisal attacks following the killing of Osama bin Laden. But it isn't going so well for them.

Saturday, six perfectly ordinary people, good neighbours all, were arrested in Florida by federal authorities and charged with being part of the Taliban terrorist organization. The six "are charged with conspiracy and providing material support to murder, maim and kidnap" and include

"two imams at mosques in Florida, have been indicted on charges that include providing support to Pakistani Taliban terror plots, federal prosecutors said Saturday. Miami U.S. Attorney Wilfredo Ferrer announced the charges following the arrests of Hafiz Muhammed Sher Ali Khan, 76-year-old imam of the Miami Mosque; his son Izhar Khan, 24 years old, an imam at Jamaat al-Mu'mineen Mosque in Margate, Fla., a nearby suburb; and another son, Irfan Khan, 37 years old. All three are U.S. citizens of Pakistani rigin and residents of south Florida. Federal Bureau of Investigation agents arrested Hafiz Khan after early morning services outside his Miami mosque and Izhar Khan was arrested in the parking lot of his mosque around the same time early Saturday, said John Gillies, special agent in charge of the FBI's Miami office. Irfan Khan was arrested at a hotel in Los Angeles, he said. Also charged are Amina Khan, her son Alam Zeb, and Ali Rehman, all residents of Pakistan. They haven't been arrested. Ms. Khan is a daughter of Hafiz Khan, and Mr. Zeb a grandson." 

A law enforcement official is quoted saying:

"Despite being an imam, or spiritual leader, Hafiz Khan was by no means a man of peace. Instead, as today's charges show, he acted with others to support terrorists to further acts of murder, kidnapping and maiming."

A little further north, two so-called "lone wolves" planned to dress up as Hasidic Jews and slaughter worshipers at city synagogues after selling guns and drugs to finance the diabolical plot, in the words of police quoted in the New York Daily News. Their goal was to hit so-far-unspecified New York City  synagogues using grenades and guns.

"Details of the mission were revealed Thursday after the Queens duo - whom neighbors called knuckleheads - were charged with terrorism and hate crimes... Cops say the ringleader, Algerian-born Ahmed Ferhani, 27, who sought asylum here with his family in 1999, also fantasized about blowing up the Empire State Building and a Queens church. Ferhani enlisted a Moroccan pal, Mohamed Mamdouh, 20, in a plan to sneak into "a major synagogue in Manhattan" disguised in Orthodox-style beards and side curls to plant a bomb. "He was committed to violent jihad, and his plan became bigger and more violent with each passing week," Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. said. [According to NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg] "New York City police officers were watching them and were in position to take them into custody before they could maim and murder innocent New Yorkers"... Ferhani, a former cosmetics salesman at Saks Fifth Avenue, had discussed avenging the treatment of Muslims. "He was fed up with the way Muslims were being treated around the world," said Kelly, quoting Ferhani telling an undercover cop... Ferhani was arrested last year on charges he tied up and robbed a woman who invited him back to her room at the Park Central Hotel in midtown, but a grand jury declined to indict. He also has prior arrests for marijuana possession, disorderly conduct and weapon possession. Mamdouh has a burglary case on his rap sheet. He's a graduate of Flushing High School, the alma mater of several suspects implicated last year in a terror plot to bomb city subways." 

Suspects have never been charged before under the New York state anti-terror laws that were passed after the 9/11 attacks. It is reported that US federal prosecutors declined to press the case, saying the plan was more aspirational than operational.

It's clear that the ongoing lessons in this ongoing war, including those of 9/11, need to be relearned and retaught in an ongoing way because the threats are not diminishing. They're growing.

11-Sep-08: Remembering the victims of terror

At the UN this week

One of this blog's two authors addressed the United Nations this past Tuesday, September 9, 2008, at the United Nations Secretary-General’s Symposium on Supporting Victims of Terrorism in New York:

Mr Chairman,

Until the Secretary-General's invitation reached me, I never imagined having the extraordinary privilege to speak from this place and to invoke international solidarity while raising my voice in condemnation of terrorism and in support of the campaign against it.

I don't know a more fitting way to reflect (using the words of your invitation) on the human face of the consequences of terrorism than to speak about my daughter.

Malki, my child. Your life ended in a crowded pizza restaurant filled with mothers and children in the center of Jerusalem - the capital city of our country.

Your school holidays were nearly over. You spent them by helping children with special needs, children with disabilities, to enjoy their summer. The pleasure you gained from simple, practical, concrete actions to help others was reflected in the way you looked. The loveliest aspect of your pretty, optimistic face was the smile that almost always adorned it.

And then a young man, not very different in his external appearance from other young men but burning with an inner religious passion to maim and hurt and kill, walked into that restaurant. Unlike today, there was no security guard on duty at the entrance. In those simpler times, we still had not realized the depths to which hatred and intolerance can take a man or a woman.

As a talented musician yourself, you might have noticed him walk alone into the pizza restaurant with a guitar case on his back. Perhaps you were thinking that here was a person capable of bringing pleasure to others, as you yourself so often did. But he was not that sort of person.

Acting in the name of a cause in which he had been instructed to believe, the terrorist faithfully exploded the package on his back. He had no intention of taking strategic control of the pizza restaurant. He did not ask for political concessions from our family, and not even from our government. You and the 130 others who were maimed and murdered by his exploding guitar case were not collateral damage. You were not caught in any cross-fire. You and the other children and mothers were precisely the target of that man and of those who sent him. You were 15 years old.

Malki, your mother and brothers and sisters and I, your community and your nation can never comprehend hatred and intolerance as vicious and powerful as those that ended your life.

We learned from your smile. We were inspired by your love of helping children with disabilities. We established the Malki Foundation in your memory. It gives practical, concrete support to families from every part of Israel's social spectrum - Christians, Jews, Moslems, Druze and others. The more than 2,000 families we have helped in these past few years have in common one thing only: the passion to help their special-needs child.

Like you, the Malki Foundation has no politics. Like you, it optimistically celebrates life, tolerance, the human spirit.

Dozens, hundreds, of other Israeli families who have suffered like us have responded by following the ancient tradition of the Jewish people: when something truly awful enters our lives, we undertake actions that we intend to be constructive and life-affirming.

This does not stop the terrorists. They keep coming. And we know that we absolutely must remain constantly vigilant against them by every possible means.

These personal, positive, humanitarian actions give us a moral basis for continuing our lives. For getting out of bed each morning. For going on after the most unthinkable, man-inflicted tragedy.

Your death, Malki, and our pain were not the end of the struggle to stop the terrorists. They are not even the beginning of the end. Today, terrorism infects nearly every corner of the world. It belongs no less to the present and to the future than to the past.

The challenge to the nations is to find and adopt policies that will end it.

The challenge to individuals, to the victims who endure terrorism, is to find and adopt ways to survive the evil of the perpetrators of terrorism. To reaffirm our humanity, our dignity, our generosity, and our optimism.

The entire proceedings were webcast. Arnold Roth's speech can be viewed via the link below.