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We do have some posts on this already on the forum, but following the prompting of someoneisatthedoor a dedicated thread may be useful.
At the time of the "Liquid Bomb Plot" arrests, there was quite a lot of comment about the similarities to the Bojinka Plot. For example:
QUOTE
London Air Bomb Design May Also Trace To Ramzi Yousef
By J.M. Berger INTELWIRE.com
As many have noted today, the thwarted plot to bomb U.S.-bound airliners appears to date back to Ramzi Yousef's Bojinka 1995 plot.
But the plot may not be the only thing. Yousef's notebooks -- seized in Manila after his arrest -- contained copious notes on the use of peroxide and hydrogen peroxide in liquid-based bombs with a conventional battery detonator.
The major media outlets were reporting late today that the bombs in the latest plot had a peroxide base.
Ramzi Yousef's bomb designs did not retire when he did. As recently as last year, Yousef's designs were being posted to jihadist Web forums.
One design in particular -- dating back to the 1994 Manila operation -- used a Casio digital watch as a detonator timer. The specific model was worn by numerous fighters captured in Afghanistan after September 11.
Source One person alleged to have copied Yousef's designs is Abbas Boutrab, who was convicted by a Diplock Court in Northern Ireland in 2005.
QUOTE
The plans which had been developed for Bojinka would become popular amongst Islamists, who would post "recipes" for similar devices o the internet. In November 2005, an Algerian named Abbas Boutrab was found guilty in a Belfast Crown Court of possessing such information. He had downloaded recipes for a bomb which could have been disguised in a bottle of baby powder, and detonated using the battery from a CD player. Boutrab had copied this information onto 25 computer disks.
[12] The summary of MAS8 stated that it consisted of a document containing what seemed to be a course or manual on the manufacture of explosives, which included mercury fulminate, lead azide, silver azide, petric acid, tetryl, cyclonite, RDX, TNT, C4, C5, hexolite, TNT plus tetryl, a plastic explosive, a number of explosive mixtures, fuses and electric and non-electric detonators. The English text in MA8 states that it contains “A Course in the Manufacture of Explosives. For the Fighter Group Champions of Truth. Until the Will of God be Done. Prepared by Ibnul-Islam Seeking God’s Forgiveness”. The cover sheet states “In the name of the God the Merciful the Compassionate. May blessing and peace be upon the leader of Mujahideen. The Islamic Information Centre presents Equipment Of Those Longing For The Lord of the Worlds”. The text sets out methods of preparation for initiating substances and boosting substances and explosive substances and notes on fuses and detonators.
There is no explicit mention of hydrogen peroxide, TATP or HMTD, but it could be included in "a number of explosive mixtures". There is a mention of hydrogen peroxide in this intelligence document:
QUOTE
February 29, 1996 (Handwritten) Yousef told Scarpa about three steps for U.S. Airliners- 1. How to make hydrogen peroxide [sic] 2. How to make timer devices 3. How to smuggle the device and assemble it in the airplane Yousef requested $3,000 for the third step. Yousef spoke of letting Scarpa make contact with the individual terrorists who were here in the United States and on their way to the United States.
The [sic] in the original document suggests scepticism about the hydrogen peroxide, as if the handlers expected a more plausible explosive. Yousef himself had used nitroglycerin on a plane, and interestingly Professor Hans Michels (one of the few scientific experts, as opposed to terror pundits, reported at the time of the liquid bomb plot arrests) referred to nitroglycerin as the most plausible liquid explosive.
Internet searches for Ramzi Yousef and peroxide throw up a large number of results about peroxide based explosives (TATP and HMTD), but none about devices with hydrogen peroxide as the main explosive charge, with the possible exception of the [sic] reference above.
Hence all the media speculation at the time of the arrests in August 2006 was about TATP, which was rapidly discredited on the internet. I think this may be the reason that it has not been linked with Bojinka at the time of the verdicts, and instead it is being linked to Abu Ubaida al-Masri, an Egyptian bomb-maker missing one finger, in the mountains of Pakistan leading master classes on how to build hydrogen peroxide bombs.
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JM Berger is a sharp guy, there is a ton of good material in intelwire, not just his articles but thousands of pages of documents.
A couple of passages from Simon Reeve's 1999 book The New Jackals, in which he draws the stories of Bin Laden and Ramzi together in a pretty good read:
(referring to Ramzi's time at the West Glamorgan Institute of Higher Education)
QUOTE
Students who remember Yousef recall and intense young man, but one who clearly enjoyed his time in Swansea and mixed freely with locals and students. This appears to create a paradox, for while Yousef clearly enjoyed the 'sinful' pleasures of 'the West' in Wales, America and the Philippines, he also loved blowing them up. But in this apparently contradictory behaviour he is not alone. Many Islamic militants profess admiration and even love of Western culture.
QUOTE
Many reporters and analysts have applied the blanket label of 'Islamic fundamentalist' to Ramzi Yousef, suggesting - largely on the basis that he claims to be a Muslim - that his motivation is religious ideology and a wish to fight a holy war against the Christian West. It is a false assumption: there is scant evidence to support any description of Yousef as a holy warrior. 'He's not someone you would ever describe, in any shape or form, as being religious,' said Neil Herman.
(referring to one of his trials in NY)
QUOTE
Good Muslims also do not flirt with married women or view themselves as international playboys. During a brief lull in proceedings several weeks into one of Yousef's trials his attourney approached Christine Cornell, the blonde, attractive 42 year old married courtroom sketch artist, and told her Yousef would like to go on a date with her if he was acquitted. Was she interested, he wondered?
(referring to his court-appointed orthodox Jewish lawyer Avraham Moskowitz)
QUOTE
With Yousef, however, a man portrayed by elements of the media as the world's most dangerous Islamic fundamentalist, Moskowitz's religion, and his 'obvious Jewishness' was not an issue. 'He didn't say, "No I don't want you, you're a Jewish lawyer." Nor did he ever question the validitity of the advice or the motivation behind what I was telling him because of the fact that I was Jewish," said Moskowitz.
The first half of the book, about Yousef, is very interesting, and forms the basis for much of Peter Lance's later work on the same topic. The second half on Bin Laden is less so, though it is curioius to me to see Reeve realising the currency Bin Laden would later attain.
This post has been edited by someoneisatthedoor on Sep 9 2009, 11:11 AM
BOJINKA 2006: Focus On OMAR SHEIKH, RASHID RAUF & PROF.SAYEED International Terrorism Monitor-Paper No.105.
By B.Raman
As the British and American authorities downgrade the security level at airports and as the fear and excitement caused by the British Police disclosure of the discovery of a plot of catastrophic dimension to blow up 10 US-bound planes with liquid explosives die down, it is apparent that neither the British nor the Americans have so far been able to find any smoking gun ----in the form of chemicals procured for making explosives, purchase of air tickets etc. The British are yet to release the recorded cassettes containing the farewell statements of one or two of the would-be suicide bombers, which they had claimed to have seized from the arrested persons.
2. There has been only one more arrest in the UK after the initial detention of 24 of whom one was released on the ground that he was detained by mistake.There has been speculation in well-informed circles in the US that the British Police may have to release some of the 24 already arrested for want of evidence against them. The CNN reported on August 14,2006: "The British security sources suggested that some of the suspects being held may be released without charge. The sources said there may not be sufficient evidence to justify holding them."
3. If after their expected release, the number of people still detained by the British Police comes to below 20, it would be doubtful whether such a small number would have been able to carry out a catastrophic plot of such dimension. The only possible conclusion would be that either there was unwarranted hype in the initial announcement or many, who were actually involved in the plot, have managed to give the slip to the police.
4. The hype about the plans of the arrested persons to use liquid explosives was also unwise and unwarranted. It was initially made to appear as if it was a dangerously novel way of causing explosions on aircraft by escaping detection by the airport security. This over-dramatisation caused chaos in air traffice right across the world.It was known since 1995 that the jihadi terrorists were experimenting with liquid explosives. Bojinka--2006 was nothing but a copy-cat version of Bojinka-1995 plotted by Ramzi Yousef, now in jail in the US for his involvement in the February,1993, explosion at the New York World Trade Centre, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM), now in US custody for his involvement in the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US.
5. Bojinka--1995 failed to take off due to an accidental fire in Ramzi's Manila apartment, which alerted the Police. When the details of the plot were discovered by the Filipino police, neither the Bill Clinton administration in the US nor the John Major Government in the UK tried to draw political propaganda mileage out of it by indulging in orchestrated hype. They played it down in public and left it to their counter-terrorism professionals to handle the sequel in a low-profile manner.
6. After the fire in his apartment, Ramzi ran away to Pakistan where he was arrested some months later and handed over to the US'Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for trial in connection with the February,1993 case. Subsequently, it came out that during his detention in a US jail while facing trial, the Justice Department had persuaded Greg Scapra, a jail-mate, to develop friendship with Ramzi and sound him as to how to make liquid explosives. It was reported that Ramzi not only told him orally, but also gave him hand-written notes, explaining how to smuggle the liquids into aircraft, how to mix them on board aircraft to make explosives and how to detonate them. This was in 1996.
7. Thus, for nearly 11 years, it was well known that the jihadi terrorists were thinking of blowing up many aircraft with liquid explosives, which can be smuggled into aircraft without being detected.And yet, no attempt was made to find ways of stopping terrorists from carrying into aircraft liquids capable of being converted into explosives. While billions of dollars were spent and hundreds of seminars held on protection against weapons of mass destruction (WMD) terrorism and maritime terrorism, hardly any research was done on protecting civilians from liquid and other new forms of conventional explosives.
8. Mr. Douglas J.Hagmann, a US Security Analyst, who is the Director of an online anti-terrorism think-tank (www.homelandsecurityus.com), writes: "As information is being made public about the plot to blow up US planes from the skies, we can almost hear the collective gasps of surprise and horror from people, even from some within our government. This plot should come as no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention of events over the last ten years. More importantly, our government, and those in charge of protecting the flying public had well over a decade to prepare against this VERY threat, yet little has been done, and our public safety officials are seen scrambling around as if they were taken completely by surprise."
9. The hype in London and Washington after the discovery of Bojinka--2006 is reminiscent of similar past instances of hype either to cover up past inaction or inadequacies or to divert attention from other issues of a political nature. Over-dramatisation of threat perceptions, over-demonisation of suspects even before collecting evidence and over-projection of the role of Gen.Pervez Musharraf in the so-called war against terrorism have become the defining characteristics of the counter-terrorism strategy followed by the UK and the USA.
10. While future evidence may prove the initial claims of the British Police to have been correct, the present evidence available from reliable police sources in Pakistan corroborate only the following facts:
* FACT 1: Four or five of those detained by the British Police had gone to Pakistan after the earthquake of October,2005, in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK) and in the Balakote area of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) to do humanitarian relief work in camps run by the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JUD), the parent organisation of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET). * FACT 2: The Jundullah (Army of Allah), a pro-Al Qaeda organisation, took them to its training camp in the Waziristan area, trained them in the fabrication and use of explosives and dropped them back in the JUD quake relief camps.It is not clear whether they contacted the Jundullah and sought training or whether Jundullah contacted them and motivated them to join its jihad against the West. * FACT 3: Before returning to London, they met Omar Sheikh, who master-minded the kidnapping and beheading of Daniel Pearl, the US journalist in January-February,2002, in his jail in Sindh.Since nobody can meet him without the permission of the jail authorities, the latter must have been aware of their meeting with him and what was discussed. One does not know whether they immediately alerted the British authorities
11. According to the account of the sources in the Pakistani police, this was to have been a repeat of the July,2005, London blasts, but this time directed at the transportation system of Birmingham. There was also a talk of a terrorist strike at a ferry in Denmark, but one is not certain whether this was to have been carried out by the same UK-based group of persons of Pakistani origin or by specially trained members of the Pakistani diaspora in Denmark.
12. The Pakistani authorities, in their official account, have sought to corroborate the British version of a Bojinka-type plot. At the same time, they have tried to project the whole plot, which, according to them, was to have been co-ordinated by Rashid Rauf, a British citizen of Mirpuri (Punjabi-speaking Kashmiri) origin, who has been arrested by them, as having originated in the mind of Afghanistan-based Al Qaeda elements. This claim has been rebutted by the Afghan authorities, who have rightly pointed out that the remnants of the Al Qaeda are in Pakistani territory in Waziristan and not in Afghanistan.The Pakistani authorities have denied any role of Maitur Rehman, the Amir of the Jundullah, who is a Pakistani citizen, in the plot as alleged by some British and American experts.
13.Rashid Rauf has reportedly been absconding from the UK since 2002 when his uncle was allegedly murdered. It is alleged that suspecting his involvement in the murder, the British Police had at that time searched his house. Where was he hiding all these years? In Pakistan? If so, where was he in Pakistan and what was he doing?
14.Whenever the Pakistani authorities had arrested any foreign terrorist suspect in the past, they had immediately handed him over to the US authorities, who flew him out of Pakistan for interrogation. The only instance in the past in which the Pakistani authorities did not do this was in respect of Omar Sheikh. For reasons which are not clear till now, they have adamantly refused to hand him over to the US for questioning in connection with the kidnapping and murder of Pearl.It may be recalled that police sources in Sindh had alleged that this was because he had told them during his interrogation that during a visit to Kandahar in the beginning of 2001 to meet Osama bin Laden, he had come to know of Al Qaeda's plans for the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US and he had conveyed this to Lt.Gen.Ehsan-ul-Haq, the then Corps Commander at Peshawar, who subsequently became the Director-General of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). The ISI authorities did not want him to mention this to the Americans.
15. Surprisingly, in the case of Rashid Rauf also, the Pakistani authorities have not taken action to immediately hand him over to the British for interrogation. Instead, they have produced him before a court, which they never did in the past in the case of terrorist suspects handed over to the Americans. One would have thought the British would have been eager to question him immediately in order to find out whether there are other members of the plot, who might be still at large.Similarly, one would have thought that the Americans would have been equally eager to take him into their custody and question him regarding the whereabouts of bin Laden and his No.2 Ayman al-Zawahiri. But till now, neither the British nor the Americans have shown any alacrity in wanting to do so. Why?
16. The indications till now are that whatever be the nature of the Bojinka-2006 plot, it was jointly mounted by British citizens of Pakistani origin and Pakistani nationals belonging to the Jundullah (operational command and control) and the Lashkar-e-Toiba (funding). They are close to Al Qaeda, but not Al Qaeda.Omar Sheikh had also been in the picture. To divert attention from these inconvenient realities, the Pakistani authorities have been trying to project that the plot was conceived in Afghan territory by British nationals of Pakistani origin in which there was no involvement of any Pakistani national or Pakistani jihadi organisation. They have been claiming credit for having discovered this plot.
17. To find out the truth and to prevent a repeat of July,2005, in the UK or Denmark, it is important that the British and the Americans take Omar Sheikh, Rashid Rauf and Prof.Hafeez Mohammad Syeed of the LET into their custody, fly them out of Pakistan and question them without the presence of Pakistani officials.
(Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai.E-Mail: itschen36@gmail.com )
The first half of the book, about Yousef, is very interesting, and forms the basis for much of Peter Lance's later work on the same topic. The second half on Bin Laden is less so, though it is curioius to me to see Reeve realising the currency Bin Laden would later attain.
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As with Jason Burke, who tells a similar story to Reeve, much of the critical information comes from unverifiable interviews with anonymous intelligence sources.
It does seem that the more of these intelligence sources a writer interviews, the more convenient the story they end up telling. Who is pulling whose chain?
LAHORE: After claims of close ties between Osama bin Laden and PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif by the British author and journalist Simon Reeves, a former Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) officer named Khalid Khawaja has revealed similar facts during his interview to different media outlets including a Pakistani TV channel.
According to the information given by Simon Reeves in his book “The New Jackals: Ramzi Yousaf, Osama bin Laden and the future of terrorism”, backed by that of Khalid Khawaja, Bin Laden not only sponsored the election campaign of former prime minister and PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif in 1988 but paid him large sums of money to ensure protection of Al Qaeda operatives in Pakistan and to “Islamise” the state and society.
Khawaja, who also runs a non-government organisation with the name of Defence for Human Rights, has claimed in an interview to a local TV channel that Bin Laden had held five meetings with PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif.
He further stated that he had arranged these meetings between the Al Qaeda leader and Nawaz on the former prime minister’s request. He also said that he could produce evidence of these meetings to counter the denial by PML-N spokesman Siddique ul Farooq who said that no such meetings ever took place.
However, Khawaja denied that he ever stated that Osama gave more than Rs 500 million to Nawaz Sharif. He said hopefully Nawaz Sharif would not “tell a lie” in this regard, and added that the statement of PML-N spokesman Siddique ul Farooq was untrue that no such meetings had taken place.
Khawaja said that he used to be a close associate of Bin Laden in the past and might have met him more than a hundred times but he never met him after the 9/11 terror attacks.
A blogger at ABCNews.com had previously quoted the former ISI official as stating that Nawaz took a million dollar payoff from Bin Laden for turning a blind eye to Al Qaeda operatives in Pakistan.
ABC News also confirmed the same incident of payoff by quoting former FBI agent Jack Cloonan who used to interrogate one of the key Al Qaeda operatives in US custody, Ali Muhammad.
Cloonan, who is currently working as an ABC News consultant, claimed that Ali had once told him that Bin Laden paid Nawaz’s representatives $1 million for not cracking down on the militants in the Northwest Frontier Province.
Simon Reeves states in his book that after re-establishing Al Qaeda, one of Bin Laden’s first actions was to try and guarantee the security of his men living in Pakistani refugee camps by throwing money at the election campaign of Nawaz Sharif, “an energetic Pakistani politician” standing for the election of Prime Minister.
He also states in his book that Nawaz had received the money from Bin Laden with a promise to convert Pakistan into a strict Islamic state.
An American website named History Commons Website has not only confirmed Cloonan’s claim but has also mentioned another book by Scott-Clark and Levy, claiming that General Hameed Gul had contacted Osama Bin Laden who was then known to provide financial support to the Afghan mujahideen, to pay for a coup and assassination of the late Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
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QUOTE
ABC News also confirmed the same incident of payoff by quoting former FBI agent Jack Cloonan who used to interrogate one of the key Al Qaeda operatives in US custody, Ali Muhammad.
I've read a lot about the Ali Mohamed story and I've never seen a reference to him spelling his name this way.
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Ramzi Yousef, The Bojinka Plot
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