Japan's Al-Qaeda dragnet nails visa violations

[Taro Toporific]

Oh, great. Just what I need as I go to get a new visa: Immigration with Al-Qaeda-on-the-Brain.
Japan Arrests Two People in Al-Qaeda Investigation, Kyodo Says
Bloomberg - May 26Japanese police arrested two people for immigration violations after raiding 10 locations linked to a suspected member of the al-Qaeda network...

[GuyJean]

Oh, great. Just what I need as I go to get a new visa: Immigration with Al-Qaeda-on-the-Brain.

So they're connected to Al-Qaeda how? Because they "made false declarations on official documents."? And "had been contacted by telephone with a suspected member of the Al-Qaeda."?...

http://www.fnn-news.com/realvideo/sn2004052604_300.ram

I don't like waiting till something bad happens before taking action, but this seems pretty weeeeeak..

GJ

[Taro Toporific]

Oh, great. Just what I need as I go to get a new visa: Immigration with Al-Qaeda-on-the-Brain.

So they're connected to Al-Qaeda how? Because they "made false declarations on official documents."? And "had been contacted by telephone with a suspected member of the Al-Qaeda."?...

TNow they're up to FIVE arrests for phoning-while-gaijin. I'm sure the Japanese used-car auction biz-people are very happy about this.

Japan arrests five people in terror investigation
Straits Times, Singapore - 27 May
... raided homes and businesses linked to a Frenchman suspected of Al-Qaeda connections and ... Germany last December, was trying to build up a terror cell in Japan. ...

[GuyJean]

Al-Qaeda Suspect a Mystery in Japan
http://www.registerguard.com/news/2004/05/30/a10.japan.0530.html

..entering on a fake passport and repeatedly leaving and re-entering before slipping out again for good a year later..

Dumont's arrival in July 2002 should have raised red flags. He was put on an international wanted list in 1999 after escaping from a Sarajevo prison, where he was serving a 20-year sentence for the murder of a Bosnian policeman during a robbery.

..Dumont also was convicted in absentia by a French court in 2001 for a string of violent crimes while a member of the Roubaix gang and was sentenced to life in prison..

Why is it more difficult to fake a Bic card, than a passport?

GJ

[Taro Toporific]

]So they're connected to Al-Qaeda how? Because they "made false declarations on official documents."? And "had been contacted by telephone with a suspected member of the Al-Qaeda."?...
http://www.fnn-news.com/realvideo/sn2004052604_300.ram

Jun. 07, 2004 issue of TIME Asia Magazine
Japan's Terror Threat
What was a French terrorist suspect on an international wanted list doing in Japan?

....from Nishi-Kawaguchi, mosque chairman Raees Siddiqui, a 53-year-old Pakistani, is happy to chat about a possible backlash against Muslims due to the arrests, but he only has a few minutes: the 30-year resident of Japan, who runs a million-dollar used-car export business, says he has to be at the police station soon. No, he's not wanted for anything, or even questioning, he replies, simultaneously offended and amused at the suggestion. He requested the meeting with the police, he says, because he's concerned that the arrested men have already been convicted of being terrorists by the media before they have had their day in court. Siddiqui recalls meeting only one of the detainees, and that it was just for a few minutes about 18 months ago. Even so, he feels certain they are not terrorists. "Perhaps they overstayed their visas, but that is because they wanted to make more money for their families. They are not al-Qaeda. There is no al-Qaeda in Japan." That, of course, is for the authorities to determine, but what concerns Siddiqui the most is that the public might begin to see all Muslims in an unfavorable light: "If the media keeps this up, Japanese people will look at Muslims and say, 'Oh, he is al-Qaeda.'" And so the door to a country already famously ambivalent about immigrants could shut a little more.

That is already happening. The very day after the arrests, the government hiked the penalty for overstaying a visa tenfold, to about $27,000. It also prohibited foreigners who have been deported from re-entering the country for 10 years, twice as long as before. As Japan copes with a rapidly aging population, a major influx of foreign labor may well be the only way the nation can stay economically competitive. Yet many Japanese believe the immigration barriers aren't stringent enough, especially in the wake of the arrests. Tsuneo Taya is a tofu-shop owner in Nishi-Kawaguchi who often saw one of the recently detained men on the street, usually well-dressed and talking on his cell phone. He says the arrests have made him think twice about the delicate balance between immigration and security. "You don't want to discriminate," he says. "You don't want to be racist about it. On the other hand, it is a scary world out there."

[AssKissinger]

the government hiked the penalty for overstaying a visa tenfold, to about $27,000

That'll take a bite out of the ol' nest egg. That's a helluva charge for living while gaijin.

[GuyJean]

"You don't want to be racist about it. On the other hand, it is a scary world out there."

"That's why I believe anything the 'yes-monkeys' tell me; gives me an excuse to be racist in this scaawy world."...

There very well could be a connection with Al Qaeda, but there's so much bullshit swallowed as truth around here, it really makes me wonder..

I mean, the Oregon lawyer was linked to the Madrid bombings with fingerprint!.. Then, ooops.. Sorry!.. These visa violators possibly talked on the phone with a suspected AQ op, and they're already convicted..

Related topic: I think they're connecting the 'visa guys' with the French Terrorist:

GJ

[GuyJean]

That's a helluva charge for living while gaijin.

No sh*t!! I'm marking my visa expiration date in RED, on my calendar!

GJ

[Taro Toporific]

....could be a connection with Al Qaeda, but there's so much bullshit swallowed as truth around here, it really makes me wonder..
I mean, the Oregon lawyer was linked to the Madrid bombings with fingerprint!.. Then, ooops.. Sorry!.. These visa violators possibly talked on the phone with a suspected AQ op, and they're already convicted..
Related topic: I think they're connecting the 'visa guys' with this French Terrorist:
http://www.fuckedgaijin.com/forums/showthread.php?t=thread_deleted

Hmmmm, the rest-of-the-sad-story....

Asia Letter: He isn't from Al Qaeda, but who would know?Norimitsu Onishi /Thursday, August 12, 2004 International Herald Tribune.
TOKYO ---In May, an immigrant from Bangladesh, Mohamed Himu Islam, was arrested, along with four other Muslim foreigners living here, for allegedly having ties to Al Qaeda.....
Less than three months later, no one has been indicted on any Al Qaeda-related charge. Four of the men, sentenced for being in Japan without proper papers, appear to be facing deportation.
Meanwhile, Islam, also cleared of being a terrorist, is back living in his home in suburban Tokyo with his Japanese wife and their two children. With "Al Qaeda" stamped on his forehead, he is finding it impossible to rebuild his business....
.... his release and the lack of Al Qaeda-related convictions in the other four cases were all but ignored here, Islam was still branded as an Al Qaeda member.....
Eventually, through the help of a Bangladeshi journalist here, Islam held a news conference at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan to clear his name....
The newspapers ran tiny articles on Islam's news conference, burying them in the back pages.
He was particularly angry at one television network that ignored his conference but ran a segment on a monkey that, after suffering from an accident, had begun walking upright just like a human being.
"That monkey had the right to be on TV, but not me," Islam said. "I don't think I'm considered human here, because if I were human, I'd have human rights."

[Big Booger]

....could be a connection with Al Qaeda, but there's so much bullshit swallowed as truth around here, it really makes me wonder..
I mean, the Oregon lawyer was linked to the Madrid bombings with fingerprint!.. Then, ooops.. Sorry!.. These visa violators possibly talked on the phone with a suspected AQ op, and they're already convicted..
Related topic: I think they're connecting the 'visa guys' with this French Terrorist:
http://www.fuckedgaijin.com/forums/showthread.php?t=thread_deleted

Hmmmm, the rest-of-the-sad-story....

Asia Letter: He isn't from Al Qaeda, but who would know?Norimitsu Onishi /Thursday, August 12, 2004 International Herald Tribune.
TOKYO ---In May, an immigrant from Bangladesh, Mohamed Himu Islam, was arrested, along with four other Muslim foreigners living here, for allegedly having ties to Al Qaeda.....
Less than three months later, no one has been indicted on any Al Qaeda-related charge. Four of the men, sentenced for being in Japan without proper papers, appear to be facing deportation.
Meanwhile, Islam, also cleared of being a terrorist, is back living in his home in suburban Tokyo with his Japanese wife and their two children. With "Al Qaeda" stamped on his forehead, he is finding it impossible to rebuild his business....
.... his release and the lack of Al Qaeda-related convictions in the other four cases were all but ignored here, Islam was still branded as an Al Qaeda member.....
Eventually, through the help of a Bangladeshi journalist here, Islam held a news conference at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan to clear his name....
The newspapers ran tiny articles on Islam's news conference, burying them in the back pages.
He was particularly angry at one television network that ignored his conference but ran a segment on a monkey that, after suffering from an accident, had begun walking upright just like a human being.
"That monkey had the right to be on TV, but not me," Islam said. "I don't think I'm considered human here, because if I were human, I'd have human rights."

Mr. Islam, welcome to Japan.

[GuyJean]

"That monkey had the right to be on TV, but not me," Islam said. "I don't think I'm considered human here, because if I were human, I'd have human rights."

He should try doing monkey tricks... No, really! Or swimming in the harbor..

GJ

[torasan]

ISlaM QUOTE: "The newspapers ran tiny articles on Islam's news conference, burying them in the back pages.
He was particularly angry at one television network that ignored his conference but ran a segment on a monkey that, after suffering from an accident, had begun walking upright just like a human being.
"That monkey had the right to be on TV, but not me," Islam said. "I don't think I'm considered human here, because if I were human, I'd have human rights."

QUITE RIGHT, but this happens all over the world ISlam-san. When the TV news shows should be covering important stuff, like your PRessCon at the FCCj, the monkey who can stand is more visually appealing and they get it from a feed from the satellite so they don't have to do any work to get the get. But you, they gotta schlep out the FCCJ, go up 20 floors, listen for an hour or two, write up the story, edit it, who cares? that's how dumb stressed out cynical jaded editors think! Get over it.

And keep up the good fight. You are right. But you can't fight city hall.

The battle done be lost.

[kotatsuneko]

maybe if he ate a nice bacon sandwich or a tasty bowl of katsu don he`d get some space on the novelty spot?

oops, my bad, all news in jp is a novelty

[Taro Toporific]

Hmmmm, the rest-of-the-sad-story....
Asia Letter: He isn't from Al Qaeda, but who would know?Norimitsu Onishi /Thursday, August 12, 2004 International Herald Tribune.
TOKYO ---In May, an immigrant from Bangladesh, Mohamed Himu Islam, was arrested, along with four other Muslim foreigners living here, for allegedly having ties to Al Qaeda.....

Mr. Islam, welcome to Japan.

This is weird. The Japan Times is running the same story using the same quotes without refering to International Herald Tribune article written weeks before. I guess the Olympics make it hard to write news.


'I want to clear my name and the name of my country'
---High-profile arrest, low-key release spells disaster for Bangladeshi businessman and his compatriots living in Japan---
Japan Times / THE ZEIT GIST / Tuesday, August 31, 2004 By TONY MCNICOLOne morning Islam Mohamed Himu woke up to find the Japanese media camped outside his home, and plainclothes police officers banging on his front door.
"They arrested me in front of my wife, in front of my children. My wife was crying, my daughter was crying, I was crying. I told them 'you have made a mistake' but they arrested me by force."
So began a Kafkaesque ordeal for the 33-year-old Bangladeshi......

.... Himu's lawyer, Takeshi Furukawa believes that "the police neglected Mr. Himu's human rights, and publicly announced the allegation of his being a member of al-Qaeda to the mass media, though this allegation was completely unrelated to the reasons given for his arrest."
In short, Furukawa says that the police deliberately leaked details of their investigation to the press and implied that Himu was guilty.
The question is why?
Furukawa believes it was an attempt to save face on the part of the police.
The police had been shown up by their failure to apprehend Dumont -- and apparently even to know that he had been in Japan. "It was probably a complete loss of face for the police," he says.....

...Himu says that when he calls friends and businesses connections they ask him not to call again, fearing trouble from the authorities....
"I lost my trust, my company. I lost the company I named after my son," says Himu. "What money I had, I lost it all. I am zero . . . no, not zero, minus."
Yet, one Bangladeshi friend has some cold comfort for Himu. Despite his ruined livelihood and reputation, it could be worse, she says.
"At least he is free. If they had found anything at all they thought was suspicious, he could be in Guantanamo now."

[homesweethome]

Al Qaeda Wants you!

Terrorist organizations are using the Internet to recruit and train potential suicide bombers and general terror support staff for planned operations all over the world, but Australia, Canada and Japan seem to be at the top of their want to hit list. Career terrorists are being sought out everywhere, but the need for local (in country) staff with language skills and detailed knowledge of local potential targets is where they are focusing their recruitment efforts on presently. Japan is high on the 'terror target list' because of the large number of high profile sites in the country. Japan's participation as a junior partner of the US has also stoked the fires of revenge against Japan in the Middle East.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GH09Ak03.html

BANGALORE - Recruitment of potential suicide bombers, which has generally been shrouded in silence and secrecy, appears to be going more public. An Iranian publication recently carried an advertisement calling for applications from aspiring "martyrdom seekers".

The advertisement calls for men and women to enlist with the "Lovers of Martyrdom Garrison" and promises those who are picked that they will be given "specific and specialized training". The aim it seems is "to achieve all-round readiness against the enemies of Islam and the sacred Islamic republic and to protect the foundations of Islam". To this end, "a martyrdom-seeking division" would be set up for each province in the country.

All that aspiring candidates to the "Lovers of Martyrdom Garrison" need to submit are two photographs of themselves, a copy of their identity cards, and a filled-in application form. The advertisement even provides an address - PO Box 16535-664, Tehran - where aspiring candidates to the "Lovers of Martyrdom Garrison" should forward their application forms.

================
http://www.abc.net.au/asiapacific/location/asia/GAPLocAsiaStories_1116719.htm

Japanese authorities have arrested foreigners in the past with suspected Al Qaeda connections and they continue to investigate potential suspects with terrorist connections. What they have failed to take into account or are probably at a loss to do anything about are the large number of illegal aliens in Japan already who may be 'recruit able' or at least sympathetic to terrorist aims and ambitions. They know the local terrain and many have at least rudimentary language and survival skills already. Being disenfranchised and illegal in Japan anyway would mean many don't have so much to lose and would be open to the possibilities and glories of martyrdom, or so thinks terrorist recruiters.

What also has not escaped their notice is the large number of potential recruits among the native population. Ultra Nationalists could possibly be persuaded to make more aggressive attacks against foreign targets in country. For them to upgrade their present barrage of noise from sound speakers mounted on trucks, to more physically damaging activities is not imaginable. Aum Shinrikyo was able to be quite effective in creating fear and proved to the Japanese themselves that they are not immune to native born radical groups.
===================
http://mediachannel.org/blog/node/516

How terrorists may be able to recruit potential operatives in country has the police and government officials scratching their heads, but one very large possibility is recruitment and training over the internet.

This is the whole article

Terrorists Turn to the Web as Base of Operations
Submitted by editor2 on August 8, 2005 - 1:53pm.
By Steve Coll and Susan B. Glasser
Source: Washington Post

In the snow-draped mountains near Jalalabad in November 2001, as the Taliban collapsed and al Qaeda lost its Afghan sanctuary, Osama bin Laden biographer Hamid Mir watched "every second al Qaeda member carrying a laptop computer along with a Kalashnikov" as they prepared to scatter into hiding and exile. On the screens were photographs of Sept. 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta.
Nearly four years later, al Qaeda has become the first guerrilla movement in history to migrate from physical space to cyberspace. With laptops and DVDs, in secret hideouts and at neighborhood Internet cafes, young code-writing jihadists have sought to replicate the training, communication, planning and preaching facilities they lost in Afghanistan with countless new locations on the Internet.

Al Qaeda suicide bombers and ambush units in Iraq routinely depend on the Web for training and tactical support, relying on the Internet's anonymity and flexibility to operate with near impunity in cyberspace. In Qatar, Egypt and Europe, cells affiliated with al Qaeda that have recently carried out or seriously planned bombings have relied heavily on the Internet.

Such cases have led Western intelligence agencies and outside terrorism specialists to conclude that the "global jihad movement," sometimes led by al Qaeda fugitives but increasingly made up of diverse "groups and ad hoc cells," has become a "Web-directed" phenomenon, as a presentation for U.S. government terrorism analysts by longtime State Department expert Dennis Pluchinsky put it. Hampered by the nature of the Internet itself, the government has proven ineffective at blocking or even hindering significantly this vast online presence.

Among other things, al Qaeda and its offshoots are building a massive and dynamic online library of training materials -- some supported by experts who answer questions on message boards or in chat rooms -- covering such varied subjects as how to mix ricin poison, how to make a bomb from commercial chemicals, how to pose as a fisherman and sneak through Syria into Iraq, how to shoot at a U.S. soldier, and how to navigate by the stars while running through a night-shrouded desert. These materials are cascading across the Web in Arabic, Urdu, Pashto and other first languages of jihadist volunteers.

The Saudi Arabian branch of al Qaeda launched an online magazine in 2004 that exhorted potential recruits to use the Internet: "Oh Mujahid brother, in order to join the great training camps you don't have to travel to other lands," declared the inaugural issue of Muaskar al-Battar, or Camp of the Sword. "Alone, in your home or with a group of your brothers, you too can begin to execute the training program."

"Biological Weapons" was the stark title of a 15-page Arabic language document posted two months ago on the Web site of al Qaeda fugitive leader Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, one of the jihadist movement's most important propagandists, often referred to by the nom de guerre Abu Musab Suri. His document described "how the pneumonic plague could be made into a biological weapon," if a small supply of the virus could be acquired, according to a translation by Rebecca Givner-Forbes, an analyst at the Terrorism Research Center, an Arlington firm with U.S. government clients. Nasar's guide drew on U.S. and Japanese biological weapons programs from the World War II era and showed "how to inject carrier animals, like rats, with the virus and how to extract microbes from infected blood . . . and how to dry them so that they can be used with an aerosol delivery system."

Jihadists seek to overcome in cyberspace specific obstacles they face from armies and police forces in the physical world. In planning attacks, radical operatives are often at risk when they congregate at a mosque or cross a border with false documents. They are safer working on the Web. Al Qaeda and its offshoots "have understood that both time and space have in many ways been conquered by the Internet," said John Arquilla, a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School who coined the term "netwar" more than a decade ago.

Al Qaeda's innovation on the Web "erodes the ability of our security services to hit them when they're most vulnerable, when they're moving," said Michael Scheuer, former chief of the CIA unit that tracked bin Laden. "It used to be they had to go to Sudan, they had to go to Yemen, they had to go to Afghanistan to train," he added. Now, even when such travel is necessary, an al Qaeda operative "no longer has to carry anything that's incriminating. He doesn't need his schematics, he doesn't need his blueprints, he doesn't need formulas." Everything is posted on the Web or "can be sent ahead by encrypted Internet, and it gets lost in the billions of messages that are out there."
The number of active jihadist-related Web sites has metastasized since Sept. 11, 2001. When Gabriel Weimann, a professor at the University of Haifa in Israel, began tracking terrorist-related Web sites eight years ago, he found 12; today, he tracks more than 4,500. Hundreds of them celebrate al Qaeda or its ideas, he said.

"They are all linked indirectly through association of belief, belonging to some community. The Internet is the network that connects them all," Weimann said. "You can see the virtual community come alive."

Apart from its ideology and clandestine nature, the jihadist cyberworld is little different in structure from digital communities of role-playing gamers, eBay coin collectors or disease sufferers. Through continuous online contact, such communities bind dispersed individuals with intense beliefs who might never have met one another in the past. Along with radical jihad, the Internet also has enabled the flow of powerful ideas and inspiration in many other directions, such as encouraging democratic movements and creating vast new commercial markets.

Since the U.S. invasion of Iraq more than two years ago, the Web's growth as a jihadist meeting and training ground has accelerated.

But al Qaeda's move into cyberspace is far from total. Physical sanctuaries or unmolested spaces in Sunni Muslim-dominated areas of Iraq, in ungoverned tribal territories of Pakistan, in the southern Philippines, Africa and Europe still play important roles. Most violent al Qaeda-related attacks -- even in the most recent period of heavy jihadist Web use -- appear to involve leaders or volunteers with some traditional training camp or radical mosque backgrounds.

But the Web's growing centrality in al Qaeda-related operations and incitement has led such analysts as former CIA deputy director John E. McLaughlin to describe the movement as primarily driven today by "ideology and the Internet."

The Web's shapeless disregard for national boundaries and ethnic markers fits exactly with bin Laden's original vision for al Qaeda, which he founded to stimulate revolt among the worldwide Muslim ummah , or community of believers. Bin Laden's appeal among some Muslims has long flowed in part from his rare willingness among Arab leaders to surround himself with racially and ethnically diverse followers, to ignore ancient prejudices and national borders. In this sense of utopian ambition, the Web has become a gathering place for a rainbow coalition of jihadists. It offers al Qaeda "a virtual sanctuary" on a global scale, Rand Corp. terrorism specialist Bruce Hoffman said. "The Internet is the ideal medium for terrorism today: anonymous but pervasive."
In Afghanistan, the Taliban banned television and even toothbrushes as forbidden modern innovations. Yet al Qaeda, led by educated and privileged gadget hounds, adapted early and enthusiastically to the technologies of globalization, and its Arab volunteers managed to evade the Taliban's screen-smashing technology police.

Bin Laden used some of the first commercial satellite telephones while hiding out in Afghanistan. He produced propaganda videos with hand-held cameras long before the genre became commonplace. Bin Laden's sons played computer games in their compound in Jalalabad, recalled the journalist Abdel Bari Atwan, who interviewed bin Laden late in 1996.

Today, however, bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman Zawahiri, have fallen well behind their younger followers worldwide. The two still make speeches that must be recorded in a makeshift studio and couriered at considerable risk to al-Jazeera or other satellite stations, as with Zawahiri's message broadcast last week. Their younger adherents have moved on to Web sites and the production of short videos with shock appeal that can be distributed to millions instantly via the Internet.
Many online videos seek to replicate the Afghan training experience. An al Qaeda video library discovered on the Web and obtained by The Washington Post from an experienced researcher showed in a series of high-quality training films shot in Afghanistan how to conduct a roadside assassination, raid a house, shoot a rocket-propelled grenade, blow up a car, attack a village, destroy a bridge and fire an SA-7 surface-to-air missile. During a practice hostage-taking, the filmmakers chuckled as trainees herded men and women into a room, screaming in English, "Move! Move!"

One of al Qaeda's current Internet organizations, the Global Islamic Media Front, is now posting "a lot of training materials that we've been able to verify were used in Afghanistan," said Givner-Forbes, of the Terrorism Research Center. One recent online manual instructed how to extract explosive materials from missiles and land mines. Another offered a country-by-country list of "explosive materials available in Western markets," including France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the former Soviet Union and Britain.

These sites have converted sections of the Web into "an open university for jihad," said Reuven Paz, who heads the Project for the Research of Islamist Movements in Israel. "The main audience are the younger generation in the Arab world" who now can peruse at their own pace "one big madrassa on the Internet."

From One Site to Many
Al Qaeda's main communications vehicle after Sept. 11 was Alneda.com, a clearinghouse for new statements from bin Laden's leadership group as his grip on Afghan territory crumbled. An archive of the site, also obtained by The Post from the researcher, includes a library of pictures from the 2001 Afghan war, along with a collage of news accounts, long theological justifications for jihad, and celebrations of the Sept. 11 hijackers.

The webmaster and chief propagandist of the site has been identified by Western analysts as Yusuf Ayiri, a Saudi cleric and onetime al Qaeda instructor in Afghanistan. In the summer of 2002, U.S. authorities and volunteer campaigners who were trying to shut him down chased him across multiple computer servers. At one point, a pornographer gained control of the Alneda.com domain name, and the site shifted to servers in Malaysia, then Texas, then Michigan. Ayiri died in a gun battle with Saudi security forces in May 2003. His site ultimately disappeared.
Rather than one successor, there were hundreds.

Realizing that fixed Internet sites had become too vulnerable, al Qaeda and its affiliates turned to rapidly proliferating jihadist bulletin boards and Internet sites that offered free upload services where files could be stored. The outside attacks on sites like Alneda.com "forced the evolution of how jihadists are using the Internet to a more anonymous, more protected, more nomadic presence," said Ben N. Venzke, a U.S. government consultant whose firm IntelCenter monitors the sites. "The groups gave up on set sites and posted messages on discussion boards -- the perfect synergy. One of the best-known forums that emerged after Sept. 11 was Qalah, or Fortress. Registered to an address in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates, the site has been hosted in the U.S. by a Houston Internet provider, Everyone's Internet, that has also hosted a number of sites preaching radical Islam. Researchers who follow the site believe it may be connected to Saad Faqih, a leading Saudi dissident living in exile in Britain. They note that the same contact information is given for his acknowledged Web site and Qalah. Faqih has denied any link.
On Qalah, a potential al Qaeda recruit could find links to the latest in computer hacking techniques (in the discussion group called "electronic jihad"), the most recent beheading video from Iraq, and paeans to the Sept. 11 hijackers and long Koranic justifications of suicide attacks. Sawt al-Jihad, the online magazine of al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia, was available, as were long lists of "martyrs" who had died fighting in Iraq. The forum abruptly shut down on July 7, hours after a posting asserted responsibility for the London transit bombings that day in the name of the previously unknown Secret Organization of al Qaeda in Europe.

Until recently, al Qaeda's use of the Web appeared to be centered on communications: preaching, recruitment, community-building and broad incitement. But there is increasing evidence that al Qaeda and its offshoots are also using the Internet for tactical purposes, especially for training new adherents. "If you want to conduct an attack, you will find what you need on the Internet," said Rita Katz, director of the SITE Institute, a group that monitors and tracks the jihadist Internet sites.

Jarret Brachman, director of research at West Point's Combating Terrorism Center, said he recently found on the Internet a 1,300-page treatise by Nasar, the Spanish- and English-speaking al Qaeda leader who has long trained operatives in poison techniques. The book urged a campaign of media "resistance" waged on the Internet and implored young prospective fighters to study computers along with the Koran.

The Nasar book was posted anonymously on the hijacked server of a U.S. business, a tactic typical of online jihadist propagandists, whose webmasters steal space from vulnerable servers worldwide and hop from Web address to Web address to evade the campaigners against al Qaeda who seek to shut down their sites.

The movement has also innovated with great creativity to protect its most secret communications. Khalid Sheik Mohammed, a key planner of the Sept. 11 attacks later arrested in Pakistan, used what four researchers familiar with the technique called an electronic or virtual "dead drop" on the Web to avoid having his e-mails intercepted by eavesdroppers in the United States or allied governments. Mohammed or his operatives would open an account on a free, public e-mail service such as Hotmail, write a message in draft form, save it as a draft, then transmit the e-mail account name and password during chatter on a relatively secure message board, according to these researchers.

The intended recipient could then open the e-mail account and read the draft -- since no e-mail message was sent, there was a reduced risk of interception, the researchers said.
Matt Devost, president of the Terrorism Research Center, who has done research in the field for a decade, recalled that "silverbullet" was one of the passwords Mohammed reportedly used in this period. Sending fake streams of e-mail spam to disguise a single targeted message is another innovation used by jihadist communicators, specialists said.

Al Qaeda's success with such tactics has underscored the difficulty of gathering intelligence against the movement. Mohammed's e-mails, once discovered, "were the best actionable intelligence in the whole war" against bin Laden and his adherents, said Arquilla, the Naval Postgraduate School professor. But al Qaeda has been keenly aware of its electronic pursuers and has tried to do what it can to stay ahead -- mostly by using encryption.
Building Cells on the Web

In the last two years, a small number of cases have emerged in which jihadist cells appear to have formed among like-minded strangers who met online, according to intelligence officials and terrorism specialists. And there are many other cases in which bonds formed in the physical world have been sustained and nurtured by the Internet, according to specialists in and outside of government.

For example, Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers burst into the Ottawa home of Mohammed Momin Khawaja, a 24-year-old computer programmer, on March 29, 2004, arresting him for alleged complicity in what Canadian and British authorities described as a transatlantic plot to bomb targets in London and Canada. Khawaja, a contractor with Canada's Foreign Ministry, met his alleged British counterparts online and came to the attention of authorities only when he traveled to Britain and walked into a surveillance operation being conducted by British special police, according to two Western sources familiar with the case.

British prosecutors alleged in court that Khawaja met with his online acquaintances in an Internet cafe in London, where he showed them images of explosive devices found on the Web and told them how to detonate bombs using cell phones. The first person jailed under a strict new Canadian anti-terrorism law passed after Sept. 11, Khawaja is not scheduled to have a preliminary hearing on his case until January.

The transit attacks in London may also have an Internet connection, according to several analysts. They appear to be successful examples of "al Qaeda's assiduous effort to cultivate and train professional insurgents and urban warfare specialists via the Internet," wrote Scheuer, the former CIA analyst.

In a posting not long after the London attacks, a member of one of the al Qaeda-linked online forums asked how to take action himself. A cell of two or three people is better, replied another member in an exchange translated by the SITE Institute. Even better than that is a "virtual cell, an agreement between a group of brothers over the Internet." It is "safe," extolled the anonymous poster, and "nobody will know the identity of each other in the beginning." Once "harmony and mutual trust" are established, training conducted and videos watched, then "you can meet in reality and execute some operation in the field."

=====================
==========
Here is an article about Al Qaeda recruitment in Canada from Time

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,463428,00.html

Are terrorists openly recruiting in Japan?

The domestic post continues is xzenophobic, fear mongering, rants about the "The Terrorist Threat" and "look out for gaijin terrorists lurking in the alleys", sort of raves which never fail to sell cheap magazines in Japan.

http://www.shinchosha.co.jp/foresight/200409/topic_04.html

Which describes this reporters experience in tracking down an Al Qaeda member to a car export operation in Nigata.

To this weeks Shukan Post Top story.

http://www.ebookjapan.jp/shop/book.asp?sku=50000669
(My Translation)

Synchronized With The Terrorist Attacks in London-Tokyo Is Next!
Al Quaeda members go about their preparations for the day, "After watching it for 24 hours, I frequently visit a back alley and drop a piece of paper." Nuclear power stations and traffic intersections are on high alert. The Tokyo Metro Police Dept. carries out inspections of underground subways and facilities which adds to the high anxiety.

As a final note, this article makes the point that terrorists have already made and continue to make a large impact on the world. Being effective at creating this sort of 'economic terrorism' on the world may be the most effective weapon they have. Hitting everybody in the pocket book may be more effective than any airplane crashes or high profile bombings may make it on to CNN with dramatic but limited effectiveness. They surely have realized that.

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000006&sid=aojyLQRHywEI&refer=home

Oil Rises to Record, Nears $63 on Refinery, Middle East Concern

Aug. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil rose to a record, nearing $63 a barrel in New York, as surging fuel demand strains refineries and after a terrorist threat against the U.S. embassy in Saudi Arabia heightened concern about Middle East supplies.

[Mulboyne]

Well, Mr. Himu seems to have been vindicated.

Asahi: Kyodo News to pay for defaming Bangladeshi

The Tokyo District Court on Thursday ordered Kyodo News to pay 1.65 million yen in compensation to a Bangladeshi man and his company for an unsubstantiated report that said he may be linked to the al-Qaida terrorist network. Islam Mohamed Himu, a resident of Saitama Prefecture, said the Kyodo report had seriously damaged his reputation. "The reporter did not gather the materials necessary to substantiate its contents. The reporter was careless," Presiding Judge Jun Abe said. "There is no evidence to prove that the story is true. There are no reasonable grounds that could have showed the reporter believed the allegation was true." In 2004, Kyodo News distributed a story which reported that about 1 billion yen in dubious funds had been paid into a bank account belonging to Himu's card sales company. "There is a possibility that the money was used to fund al-Qaida," the story said.

Himu was arrested in June 2004 on suspicion of hiring foreign nationals, including his younger brother, despite the fact that he knew them to be in the country illegally. In July, Himu was fined 300,000 yen for violating the Immigration Control Law. In response to Thursday's ruling, Kyodo Deputy Managing Editor Shuichi Ito said: "Since his conviction (for violation of the Immigration Control Law), we have taken sufficient care in our reports to show that the plaintiff has no relationships with al-Qaida. "It is regrettable that our arguments were not accepted by the court," he said. "After we have considered the ruling, we will decide as to whether we will appeal to a higher court or not."

[GuyJean]

Well, Mr. Himu seems to have been vindicated.
Asahi: Kyodo News to pay for defaming Bangladeshi

I mean, the Oregon lawyer was linked to the Madrid bombings with fingerprint!.. Then, ooops.. Sorry!

So has Mr. Mayfield

$2M for False U.S. Terror Arrest
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/LAW/11/29/mayfield.suit/index.html

The U.S. Justice Department said Wednesday it is paying $2 million and apologizing to an Oregon lawyer wrongly accused of being involved with the 2004 train bombings in Madrid, Spain.

Brandon Mayfield was arrested in Portland on a material witness warrant in May 2004, less than two months after the bombings...

GJ

[Mulboyne]

Asia Letter: He isn't from Al Qaeda, but who would know?

[url=http://mdn.mainichi.jp/national/news/20071211p2a00m0na027000c.html]Mainichi: Sankei newspaper ordered to compensate foreigner over Al Qaeda slur

The Sankei newspaper has been ordered by the Tokyo District Court to pay a foreigner 3.3 million yen in compensation for implying he was linked to Al Qaeda and plotting a terrorist attack. The court found the paper had defamed 37-year-old company president Islam Mohammed Him of Toda, Saitama Prefecture, and ordered it to compensate him. "It was inappropriate to publish his name," Presiding Judge Hitomi Akiyoshi said as she handed down the ruling. Sankei officials said they were not sure how the company will react to the case. "We want to take a close look at the ruling before deciding how to respond," a Sankei spokesman said. Court records showed that Him was arrested in 2004 for forgery and fined 300,000 yen. The day after his arrest, the Sankei ran a front page story under the headline "Underground bank produces terror funds, man with links to top terrorists arrested." Sankei proceeded to write that Him had links to high-ranking Al Qaeda members and was suspected of involvement in procuring funds for terrorism.