"Report From the War on Terrorism"
www.chronwatch.com Posted by Cinnamon Stillwell Friday, March 1, 2003
''When war is forced upon us, we will see it through to victory. At this hour, members of our military are serving on the scattered battlefields of a new kind of war. In Afghanistan and beyond, they’re on the trail of killers who brought death to the innocent and war to our country. The war will go on until the terrorists who struck America are fully and finally defeated.''
President George. W. Bush ¨ ¨ ¨
When the War on Terrorism began, President Bush warned America that this would be a war unlike any we’d fought before. It would be a lengthy and monumental struggle, not only against terrorism, but the backward pull of Fundamentalist Islam. Indeed, a battle between the ancient world and the West.
This has been a difficult war for many Americans to grasp. The battlefield stretches across the globe, from the skyscrapers of Manhattan, to the caves of Afghanistan, and from the resorts of Kenya, to discos in Bali. Victories in such a war are often illusive and losses not incurred at home, less likely to have the impact they should. The casualties of this war are both civilian and military, individuals and groups. Terrorist suspects are found in places as diverse as New York, Pakistan, and the cities of Europe.
It would be much easier for Americans to follow and in turn to support this war, if our media presented it in more clear and focused manner. If the front page of every newspaper simply featured a list of recent successes and losses, it would help put it all into perspective. The purpose of the ''Report from the War on Terrorism'' is to fill this void. The information provided has been culled from various news sources and the report will be posted every other Friday.
2/28/03-3/13/03 Gunmen opens fire on U.S. Consulate in Karachi, 2/28/03:
Gunmen opened fire on a police post guarding the U.S. Consulate in Karachi overnight, killing two Pakistani policemen and injuring at least five others. Police caught one of the assailants and confiscated a pistol after chasing the man through a nearby park in the southern port city. The man was identified as an Afghan national.
9/11 hijackers’ remains identified, 2/28/03:
Forensic experts in New York have identified body parts belonging to two of the 10 hijackers who flew planes into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the New York Medical Examiner's Office, said the identifications had been made using DNA samples provided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI had collected the DNA from tiny traces of skin on the steering wheels of vehicles hired by the hijackers and from hair samples recovered from their hotel rooms.
Indonesian police hand over Bashir, 2/28/03:
Indonesian police have handed over suspected terror group leader Abu Bakar Bashir to prosecutors in preparation for trial, as the Muslim cleric accused American ''infidels'' of orchestrating the case against him. Bashir is expected to be charged with treason, which is punishable by life imprisonment, and with immigration offences. Prosecutors have 14 days to decide what charges to bring. Indonesian police and foreign governments say Bashir leads the Jemaah Islamiah regional terror network, which is blamed for the October 12 bombings on Bali that killed 202 people, including 88 Australians.
Suspected 9/11 Mastermind Caught, 3/1/03:
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks in the United States, was arrested in Pakistan. Mohammed, who is on the FBI's most wanted list, was among three people arrested in Rawalpindi, near the Pakistani capital of Islamabad. Al Qaeda's No. 3 official, whom an Al Jazeera reporter said admitted to having planned the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington, is also wanted for the bombing of a synagogue in Tunisia, the planned bombing of airplanes over the Pacific Ocean and other attacks. The FBI bulletin said that in 2002 Mohammed met with Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen now in federal custody on charges that he planned to detonate a radiological ''dirty bomb'' in the United States. Mohammed will be extradited to the United States, Pakistan said after his arrest.
Saudis allegedly funded Bali bombing, 3/3/03:
Washington-based Allan Gerson, who is leading a bid on behalf of September 11 victims to sue Saudi Arabian banks, charities and royal family members, said he had evidence to show Saudi Arabians gave money to terrorists in Europe who made trips to Bali. Dr. Gerson said it was likely the European cells also helped fund the Bali attack, which killed about 190 people including 88 Australians. Dr Gerson said he could not reveal too many details because his evidence had been uncovered through judicial co-operation with European nations.
Philippine airport blast kills at least 21, wounds 145, 3/4/03:
A bomb planted inside a backpack ripped through an airport terminal in Davao, in the southern Philippines, killing at least 21 people — including an American missionary — and injuring 145 in the nation's worst terrorist attack in three years. The dead included an American missionary. Three Americans — a Southern Baptist missionary and her two young children — were among the wounded. The military suggested that the bombing was the work of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the country's largest Muslim guerrilla group. The rebels denied any involvement. No group has claimed responsibility. Police later arrested several men in connection with the airport bombing. Soon after the airport explosion, a home-made bomb went off outside a health center in the nearby town of Tagum, killing one person and wounding three.
Alleged 9/11 financier also caught, 3/4/03:
The raid that resulted in the capture of al-Qaeda operations chief Khalid Shaikh Mohammed also netted Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, the alleged financier of the Sept. 11 attacks. Al-Hawsawi, 34, is identified as a ''supporting conspirator'' in the indictment of accused terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person charged in the USA in the attacks.
The Saudi-born al-Hawsawi is said to have routed thousands of dollars to the Sept. 11 hijackers to fund the operation. In the days before the attacks, hijackers allegedly wired more than $25,000 in excess money back to al-Hawsawi in the United Arab Emirates. Along with Mohammed, al-Hawsawi and a third man, Ahmed Abdul Qadus, the CIA seized material on computer files, cellular telephones and documents that included the names of suspected terrorists.
Philippine terrorists claim link to Iraq, 3/4/03:
Islamist terrorists in the southern Philippines who have killed two American hostages in recent years say they are receiving money from Iraqis close to President Saddam Hussein. Hamsiraji Sali, a local commander of the terrorist group Abu Sayyaf on the remote southern island of Basilan, says he is getting nearly $20,000 a year from supporters in Iraq. ''It's so we would have something to spend on chemicals for bomb-making and for the movement of our people,'' Sali told a reporter this week, renewing earlier claims of support from Iraq. The payments, while small, provide additional evidence of a link between Iraq and the Abu Sayyaf — a group with long-standing ties to al Qaeda and its global terror network. The boast of an Iraqi connection was taken seriously after the expulsion of an Iraqi diplomat from Manila last week amid charges he had been in contact with the Abu Sayyaf by telephone.
Suicide bombing in Haifa, Israel kills 15, wounds 40, 3/5/03:
At least 15 people were killed and more than 40 wounded, some critically, in a suicide bombing yesterday afternoon at a main Egged bus line stop in central Haifa. The 15 killed were mostly high school and college students, including a 14-year-old American girl. The no. 37 bus route from Bat Galim near the port to Haifa University on the top of Mt. Carmel is widely used by students. At around 2:15 P.M., a bomb went off in the crowded bus when it stopped on Moriah St., halfway up the mountain.
The killer, a Palestinian aged 20 from the West Bank town of Hebron, was identified as Mahmoud Hamdan Selim Kawasme, member of a big Hebron clan and kinsman of a former mayor. A note found on his body praised to heaven the al Qaeda perpetrators of the September 11 atrocities in New York. Israel imposed a complete closure on the West Bank following the attack.
Brooklyn mosque used to funnel funds to al-Qaeda, 3/5/03:
A prominent Yemeni cleric, Sheik Muhammad Ali Hassan al-Mouyad, apprehended in Germany on charges of financing terrorism used a Brooklyn mosque to help funnel millions of dollars to al-Qaeda and boasted that he had personally delivered $20 million to Osama bin Laden. He was arrested along with his assistant Muhammad Moshen Yahya Zayed. The arrests in Frankfurt, represent one of the most important terrorist financing cases that authorities have built since the 9/11 attacks. Officials in Germany are considering a request from the U.S. to extradite the two men, which Yemen has opposed.
Documents suggest bin Laden alive, 3/6/03:
Documents seized in the arrest of alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed suggest Osama bin Laden is alive and that they were in recent contact, a senior Pakistani security official. The official said Pakistani security forces had intensified operations in the southwestern province of Baluchistan since Mohammed's arrest after reports of an al Qaeda presence, but did not elaborate. He did not give details on what the documents contained that suggested bin Laden was still alive, but said there were other indications the al Qaeda leader survived a massive U.S. bombing campaign against al Qaeda and Taliban forces in Afghanistan in late 2001.
Two of bin Laden’s sons may have been captured, 3/8/03:
The United States has refused to deny reports that two of Osama bin Laden's sons – including his heir apparent to the al-Qaeda terror network, have been captured in a gun battle with US troops. The reports, confirmed on television by a Pakistani Government official, have intensified speculation that the US is closing in on the fugitive terrorist warlord. The official said bin Laden's sons were shot in a fierce gunfight between al-Qaida fighters and US troops in Ribat, an area of Afghanistan near the borders with Iran and Pakistan. It is believed Washington is incensed that the official may have spoken too early, with US special forces tracking bin Laden in tribal lands between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
U.S. forces just miss bin Laden, 3/9/03:
The hunt for al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden and his cohorts continued with renewed vigour in the hills of Pakistan and Afghanistan yesterday. As a flood of new leads came in, US forces captured seven guerillas preparing to bomb coalition forces near Bagram, Afghanistan. And a former Taliban diplomat said bin Laden, was in the southern province of Nimroz just days before US forces launched an operation to arrest him last week. Naseer Ahmed Roohi, a former diplomat in the fallen hardline government, said he had information from reliable sources bin Laden had been in the Siakoh mountain range straddling Afghanistan and Pakistan. The latest operation has seen US and Pakistani squads closing in. It follows information gleaned from the arrest of bin Laden's deputy Khalid Sheik Mohammed in Pakistan.
Terrorist funding comes from South America, 3/10/03:
Radical Islamic groups in the Middle East are getting between $300 million and $500 million a year from various criminal networks in Latin America, a top US military commander said. General James T Hill, commander of the US Southern Command in Miami, said much of this money comes from drug trafficking, arms dealing and other illegal activities. Southern Command oversees US military relations in Latin America.
Hill said the funds are sent abroad from several Latin American areas with large Middle Eastern populations, such as the ''triple frontier'' between Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil, and Margarita island off the coast of Venezuela. ''The fastest-growing religion in Latin America today is Islam,'' Hill told The Miami Herald for its Sunday editions. ''We think that there are between 3 and 6 million people of Middle Eastern descent in Latin America. There are radical Islamic groups associated with that population that are using it to create lots of money for their organizations.''
Train bombing in India kills 10, wounds 65, 3/13/03:
A bomb ripped through a train at a suburban station in Mumbai, India, killing at least 10 people and injuring 65. Police Commissioner Ranjit Sharma said 15 of those injured in the latest attack were in serious condition. The bomb exploded on a local train at Mulund station as commuters were returning home from work. The dead included eight women and two men, said senior government official Utpal Mukhopadhyay. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
It came on the 10th anniversary of a dozen simultaneous bomb explosions in the city. The targets in the serial bombings included the Stock Exchange, offices of the national airline and the state passport office. Those attacks, by suspected Muslim militants in retaliation for the destruction of a 16th-century mosque by Hindus, killed 257 people and wounded at least 1100. ''We had increased security because we had information that some incident of this kind could happen around the anniversary. Unfortunately, it still happened,'' said Kripa Shankar Singh, home minister of Maharashtra state.
U.S. highlights Africa terror threat, 3/13/03:
The United States has warned citizens of possible new terrorist threats in East Africa from affiliates and sympathisers of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network. The statement renewed an existing January 4 alert and added seaports to a lengthy list of possible targets. ''Supporters of al-Qaeda and other extremists are still active in East Africa,'' it said. The department ''believes it is prudent to alert American citizens that such information is being received so American citizens can make an informed decision whether to travel to or remain in East Africa.''