Jemaah Islamiyah plotted to bomb Los Angeles?
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Bush spells out 'LA terror plot'
US Bank Tower, with Los Angeles' central library in front
Bush on the plot
US President George W Bush has given details of what he said was a foiled al-Qaeda plot to fly a plane into the tallest building on the US west coast.
Mr Bush said the plan - uncovered in 2002 - involved using shoe bombs to blow open the plane's cockpit door.
The intended target was the 73-storey Library Tower in Los Angeles, renamed the US Bank Tower.
Mr Bush said al-Qaeda had recruited the militant Islamic group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) to carry out the attack.
The president said the alleged mastermind of the 11 September 2001 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, was behind the west coast plot.
Mr Bush said that instead of using hijackers of Arab origin, as in the attacks on New York and Washington, Sheikh Mohammed recruited "young men from South East Asia whom he believed would not arouse as much suspicion".
Map of Central LA showing US Bank Tower location
Planning began in October 2001, but it was derailed in early 2002 "when a South East Asian nation arrested a key al-Qaeda operative", Mr Bush said.
The plot was finally thwarted in the summer of 2003, when the suspected head of JI, an Indonesian known as Hambali, was arrested in Thailand.
The Bush administration first mentioned the alleged plot last October, without giving details, saying it was among 10 disrupted al-Qaeda plans.
The president revealed the newly declassified details in a speech on Thursday at the National Guard Memorial Building in Washington.
He said the US-led war on terror had "weakened and fractured" al-Qaeda and other groups but warned they were "still lethal".
Phone tapping
The BBC's Justin Webb in Washington says that while Mr Bush plainly meant to warn Americans of the continuing danger posed by international terrorism, the only really new detail was that of the shoe bombs.
It comes as the White House is under pressure from some of the president's own supporters to be more aggressive in talking up the successes of intelligence gathering, our correspondent says.
US BANK TOWER, LA
Height: 310m (1,018ft)
Storeys: 73
Built: 1989
Tallest building in US, west of Chicago
Formerly called Library Tower
"Crown" lights up at night
Was "blown up" in Independence Day film
The administration needs to persuade Americans that measures such as the highly controversial tapping of phones without court warrants are fully justified.
Officials would not say whether these domestic US phone taps contributed to information gained about the Los Angeles plot, our correspondent says - but they left open at least the possibility that they did.
Briefing reporters after the speech, White House counter-terrorism adviser Frances Fragos Townsend added further details to Mr Bush's revelations.
All four members of the terror cell had been arrested, she said, but refused to disclose where they were being detained.
She added that two South Asian countries and two from South East Asia had helped derail the plot, but did not identify them.
'Bush the protector'
In Los Angeles, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa told the Associated Press news agency he had not been forewarned about the president's revelations.
"I'm amazed that the president would make this [announcement] on national TV and not inform us of these details through the appropriate channels," he said.
Democratic congressman Brad Sherman told the BBC that he had concerns about why the information was being released now.
He questioned whether the president's obligation to "manage secrecy" had been over-ridden by his "natural desire to create a vivid picture of 'Bush the protector' for political reasons".
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4697896.stm -
Saw this guy on TV just now. Let's just say I do not think he is a convincing story teller.
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Great! We are part of this war on terror that helped save lives.
Anyway, the article says that Osama is now looking for non Arabs to do his bidding. Those of you who are interested like Atobe can apply by contacting the webadmin of the Ansar website. -
Originally posted by Salman:Great! We are part of this war on terror that helped save lives.
Anyway, the article says that Osama is now looking for non Arabs to do his bidding. Those of you who are interested like Atobe can apply by contacting the webadmin of the Ansar website.
Uncalled for. -
Originally posted by LazerLordz:
Thanks LazerLordz,
Original post by Salman:
Great! We are part of this war on terror that helped save lives.
Anyway, the article says that Osama is now looking for non Arabs to do his bidding. Those of you who are interested like Atobe can apply by contacting the webadmin of the Ansar website. Uncalled for.
What can we expect from one whom we recognised as a "no brainer" ? .
It is standard tactic similar to that applied by the Ruling Political Party towards persons who posed a challenge to their delusions - that is to disparage by any subtle or non-subtle means the character and persona of that person.
Hey, Salman - the "no brainer" effort surely confirm your status again. .
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Now, The US department did not identify which asian countries had done this, but It's a common knowledge. After so many years, only now did this incident came Up.. why now? Isn't this a good propaganda news to rave up the "war on Terror" theme ?
Intel pros say Bush is lying about foiling 2002 terror attack
Outraged intelligence professionals say President George W. Bush is "cheapening" and "politicizing" their work with claims the United States foiled a planned terrorist attack against Los Angeles in 2002.
"The President has cheapened the entire intelligence community by dragging us into his fantasy world," says a longtime field operative of the Central Intelligence Agency. "He is basing this absurd claim on the same discredited informant who told us Al Qaeda would attack selected financial institutions in New York and Washington."
Within hours of the PresidentÂ’s speech Thursday claiming his administration had prevented a major attack, sources who said they were current and retired intelligence pros from the CIA, NSA, FBI and military contacted Capitol Hill Blue with angry comments disputing the PresidentÂ’s remarks.
“He’s full of shit,” said one sharply-worded email.
Although none were willing to allow use of their names, saying doing so would place them in legal jeopardy, we were able to confirm that at least four of the 23 who contacted us currently work, or had worked, within the U.S. intelligence community.
But Los Angeles Mayor Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is willing to go on the record, claiming Bush blind-sided his city with the claims.
"I'm amazed that the president would make this (announcement) on national TV and not inform us of these details through the appropriate channels," the mayor says. "I don't expect a call from the president — but somebody." Villaraigosa also said he has twice requested meetings with Bush to discuss security issues for Los Angeles and was turned down both times.
Intelligence pros say much of the information used by Bush in an attempt to justify his increased spying on Americans by the National Security Agency, trampling of civil rights under the USA Patriot Act, and massive buildup of the Department of Homeland Security, now the nation’s largest federal bureaucracy, was “worthless intel that was discarded long ago.”
“A lot of buzz circulated in the months following the September 11, 2001, attacks,” says an NSA operative. “Snippets here and there were true but most was just random information that could never be confirmed. One thing we do know about al Qaeda is that they seldom use the same technique twice. They tried a car bomb to bring down the World Trade Center and it failed. Then they went to planes. The next time will be something different because we’ve geared up to prevent hijacking planes and using them as flying bombs.”
In August 2004, just as the Presidential campaign was about to heat up, the Bush White House raised the terror alert, claiming attacks were imminent on major financial institutions. The alert, apparently timed to steal thunder from Democrat John KerryÂ’s nomination for President, was withdrawn after administration officials admitted it was based on old information from a discredited informant.
The discredited information dated back to the same period when intelligence agencies began receiving reports of a planned attack against Los Angeles.
Former DHS secretary Tom Ridge admits the U.S. raised terror alerts for the wrong reasons and now says he often disagreed with the timing of such alerts but was overruled by the White House.
"More often than not we were the least inclined to raise it," Ridge says. "Sometimes we disagreed with the intelligence assessment. Sometimes we thought even if the intelligence was good, you don't necessarily put the country on alert, There were times when the White House was really aggressive about raising it, and we said, 'For that?' We often lost the argument."
Ridge left DHS in February 2005 and replaced him with Michael Chertoff who agrees with the “cry wolf” strategy of the White House.
“Chertoff is a lackey,” says Kevin Riley, a retired New York City Detective who knew Chertoff during his days as a U.S. Attorney in New York. “He’ll do whatever Bush tells him to do.”
Intelligence pros at established Washington agencies laugh at DHS operatives, calling them “Keystone Kops” and “overpaid rent-a-cops,” saying they lack any real expertise in dealing with terrorism.
“DHS is a political police force,” says a retired CIA agent. “They exist to enforce the political propaganda program of George W. Bush. That’s all they’re good for and they’re not very good at that.”
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/blog/2006/02/intel_pros_say_bush_is_lying_a.html -
Another Article......
Twenty-Three Intel Experts Say LA Terror Plot a Sham
Paul Joseph Watson/Prison Planet.com | February 10 2006
Related: Bush Plays Terror Card With Bogus LA Attack Plot
Following yesterday's highly suspiciously timed announcement that the US government had foiled a 2002 terror plot against the Los Angeles Library Tower, intelligence experts and White House reporters have uniformly debunked the story.
As we reported yesterday, in an orchestrated set-up, George W. Bush announced that a plan to fly a plane into the LA Library Tower was thwarted in 2002 and within minutes news networks were showing footage of the same building being destroyed in the movie Independence Day.
After the mayor of LA, Antonio Villaraigosa, immediately went public with comments of his absolute bewilderment concerning the alleged plot, no fewer than twenty three intelligence experts told Capitol Hill Blue that President Bush was "cheapening and politicizing their work" by creating a "fantasy world" of discredited terror alerts and using them for political points scoring.
Both current and former NSA and FBI officials vented their fury with George Bush, one telling Capitol Hill Blue that he was "full of shit."
The LA attack plot arose from the same discredited informant who said that Washington and New York financial institutions were being targeted, which led the White House to raise the terror alert right as the 2004 election campaign was beginning.
In June 2004 John Pistole, the FBI's counterterrorism director, said he was "not sure what [the CIA] was referring to," after a CIA counterterrorism official who testified under the alias "Ted Davis" said that the US had prevented aviation attacks against the east and west coast.
Even former Homeland Security secretary Tom Ridge, before he was replaced by Michael Chertoff, stated that the White House would raise the terror alert with zeal based on the flimsiest evidence.
White House press reporters questioned the timing of the bogus attack claim Thursday evening in light of the NSA spying hearings, after Bush claimed NSA surveillance was key in preventing the alleged attack.
"But is it just a coincidence? You had February 6th circled on the calendar for the hearings, the NSA hearings. Is it just a pure coincidence that this comes out today?" asked one journalist.
McClellan was clearly ruffled and all he could do was repeat the same line about how the President likes to share information with the American people, a claim that would be funny if it were not so disturbingly tragic in light of today's report highlighting White House knowledge of levee breaks in New Orleans hours after Hurricane Katrina roared ashore.
"Scott, I wanted to just ask a follow-up about the LA plot. Is there something missing from this story, a practical application, a few facts? Because if you want to commandeer a plane and fly it into a tower, if you used shoe bombs, wouldn't you blow off the cockpit? Or is there something missing from this story?" asked another.
File this with the dozens of fake terror alerts, staged 'Al-Qaeda' arrests and hoax bin Laden tapes as another brazen attempt to frighten the American people into jettisoning their own liberty for the sake of a mythical security offered by an illegitimate occupational government.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/february2006/100206plotasham.htm -
And I thought our home grown terrorists can do a better job than the arabs. I'm disapointed with them.
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Originally posted by Atobe:
Dont feed the troll, man.
Thanks LazerLordz,
What can we expect from one whom we recognised as a "no brainer" ? .
It is standard tactic similar to that applied by the Ruling Political Party towards persons who posed a challenge to their delusions - that is to disparage by any subtle or non-subtle means the character and persona of that person.
[b]Hey, Salman - the "no brainer" effort surely confirm your status again. . [/b]
Hopefully, they will soon go away.