The Investigative Project on Terrorism website (includes audio and ideo clips)

About The Investigative Project on Terrorism

The Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) is a non-profit research group founded by Steven Emerson in 1995. It is recognized as the world's most comprehensive data center on radical Islamic terrorist groups. For more than a decade, the IPT has investigated the operations, funding, activities and front groups of Islamic terrorist and extremist groups in the United Statesand around the world. It has become a principal source of critical evidence to a wide variety of government offices and law enforcement agencies, as well as the U.S. Congress and numerous public policy forums. Research carried out by the IPT team has formed the basis for thousands of articles and television specials on the subject of radical Islamic involvement in terrorism, and has even led to successful government action against terrorists and financiers based in the United States.

For audio and video clips:
http://www.investigativeproject.org/multimedia.php

Mortgage Fraud Funding Jihad

The nexus between mortgage fraud and terrorism investigations. An excerpt from Front Page Magazine:

Tarik Hamdi was charged last year for immigration and mortgage-loan fraud as part of an investigation into the role of an Islamic charity, the International Institute for Islamic Thought of Herndon, Virginia, that Hamdi worked for and was being investigated for ties to terrorist financing. According to an August 2005 Washington Post article, Hamdi was personally responsible for delivering a satellite phone battery to al-Qaeda operatives for Osama bin Laden’s personal device, which was used to coordinate the 1998 US Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. Hamdi was also responsible for facilitating an interview with bin Laden for ABC News in May 1998.

Last year a Dearborn, MI man pled guilty to mortgage fraud in a plea deal with federal authorities to prevent being charged additionally with terrorist activities. At the time of his arrest, federal authorities found books, posters and recruitment videos for the Hezbollah terrorist organization inside the home of Nemr Ali Rahal. According to the Detroit News, a picture was also recovered of Rahal tearing up an American flag. Rahal had fraudulently obtained more than $500,000 by falsifying information on a mortgage application. Customs officials had also stopped Rahal and his son the previous year for having military-grade explosive residue on their passports as they reentered the US from Canada.

In another Dearborn-area case, two men, Mohammed Krayem and Mahmoud Youssef Kourani were accused in 2004 of transferring more than $200,000 obtained through real estate fraud and cigarette smuggling to Kourani’s brother, Haider Kourani, the Hezbollah chief of military security for southern Lebanon. The money was to be used for purchasing military equipment from the United Nations Protection Force for use in attacks against Israel.

One of the co-defendants in the Sami al-Arian terrorism trial, Sameeh Taha Hammoudeh, pled guilty to three counts of tax evasion, immigration and mortgage fraud – the only crimes that Hammoudeh was convicted of after his acquittal on terrorism charges (Al-Arian later pled guilty to several terrorism charges and admitted his role in supporting Palestinian Islamic Jihad). Had prosecutors not secured Hammoudeh’s plea agreement, there would not have been any basis to deport him back to Palestine. Even though he faced up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine for these crimes, a US federal judge sentenced Hammoudeh to time served, five years probation, and waived all fines except $300.

In June 2005, two Dearborn-area men, Ahmad and Musa Jebril, were convicted of mortgage fraud charges after defrauding six banks for $250,000 and dozens of people of up to $400,000. The Jebrils were active supporters of Hamas, and federal authorities said that Ahmad Jebril was training a cell of local men to wage jihad against the US. Both Musa and Ahmad Jebril had been thrown out of their local mosque, where Musa had been an imam, for their radical activities. A local Muslim writer has described in an article for Beliefnet the climate of fear that the two men created in the Islamic community by their jihadist preaching and activities. The indictment also noted that immediately following the November 1995 car bombing in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, which killed four Americans, the Jebrils faxed a statement in support of the attacks to CNN. Subsequent to their conviction of mortgage fraud, the Jebrils and one of their associates were additionally charged by the federal government with trying to bribe a juror during their fraud trial.

Shin Bet: Palestinians Working to Improve Missile Capabilities

From Shin Bet: Palestinians Working to Improve Missile Capabilities:

The Palestinians are taking advantage of the restraint demonstrated by the Israel Defense Forces to bolster their arms and improve the range of their rocket fire, Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) Director Yuval Diskin told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Tuesday. He said Hamas was sending hundreds of men to Iran for prolonged periods of advanced training, and that 31 tons of explosive material had been smuggled into Gaza in the last year by terror groups, a six-fold increase. Palestinian terror groups are attempting to increase their rocket range to strike Kiryat Gat and Ashkelon; Islamic Jihad succeeded in launching a Grad rocket some 16
kilometers last July. In the West Bank, both the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades of Fatah and Islamic Jihad aspire to be the first to launch rockets into Israel. Diskin said the Palestinians have employed improved roadside bombs, some capable of penetrating armored vehicles.

Jordanian Islamists Accused of Plot to Assassinate Bush

From Jordanian Islamists Accused of Plot to Assassinate Bush:

Jordan on Wednesday put on trial three suspected Islamists for conspiring to assassinate President George W. Bush when he visited the country last year, as part of a previously undisclosed plot to bomb the U.S. and Danish embassies.

Report: Jihadist threat to Britain worst since 9/11

Via Jihad Watch:

"It is thought the plotters could number more than 2,000," up from the 1600 estimated last November. "Secret report: Terror threat worst since 9/11," by Sean Rayment for the Telegraph:

The terrorist threat facing Britain from home-grown al-Qaeda agents is higher than at any time since the September 11 attacks in 2001, secret intelligence documents reveal.

The number of British-based Islamic terrorists plotting suicide attacks against "soft" targets in this country is far greater than the Security Services had previously believed, the government paperwork discloses. It is thought the plotters could number more than 2,000.

Tiny Minority of Extremists Alert:

Under the heading "International Terrorism in the UK", the document - seen by The Sunday Telegraph - states: "The scale of al-Qaeda's ambitions towards attacking the UK and the number of UK extremists prepared to participate in attacks are even greater than we had previously judged."

It warns that terrorist "attack planning" against Britain will increase in 2007, and adds: "We still believe that AQ [al-Qaeda] will continue to seek opportunities for mass casualty attacks against soft targets and key infrastructure. These attacks are likely to involve the use of suicide operatives."

The document, which has been circulated across Whitehall to MI5, Scotland Yard's Counter Terrorist Command, the Home Office, the Cabinet Office and the Ministry of Defence, also reveals that al-Qaeda has grown into a world-wide organisation with a foothold in virtually every Muslim country in North Africa, the Middle East and central Asia.

Eliza Manningham-Buller, the director general of MI5, warned recently that there were more than 1,600 "identified individuals" actively engaged in plotting terrorist attacks. There were 200 known networks involved in at least 30 terrorist plots. It is thought that the number of British citizens involved in plots could be well in excess of 2,000.

MI5 believes that soft targets, such as the transport system and economic targets such as the City of London and Canary Wharf, are most at risk.

A senior political source said the picture painted by the document was "particularly bleak and unlikely to improve for several years".

He said: "The Security Services have constantly warned that the task of countering Islamist terrorism is a daunting one. There will be more attacks in Britain."

Patrick Mercer, the Tory spokesman for homeland security, said: "This document absolutely underlines the threat and makes me wonder why the Government still has a counter-terrorist strategy that has been officially declared obsolete. It does make the Government's response look hugely complacent."

Entitled Extremist Threat Assessment, the document, which was drawn up this month, also discloses that Afghanistan, where more than 7,000 British troops will be based by the end of May, is expected to supersede Iraq as the location for terrorists planning Jihad against the West.

It says that al-Qaeda's influence extends from North Africa, including Egypt, through to Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan, and into Somalia and Sudan. Al-Qaeda is "resilient and effective" in Iraq, its "operating environment and financial position" in Pakistan has improved and a new group had emerged in Yemen.

British Muslim beheading plot foiled

Sky News reports that a total of nine British Muslims have now been arrested in a plot to kidnap a British soldier who is a Muslim and has fought in Afghanistgan, and "post a video of the hostage being tortured and killed on the internet." The suspects are said to be of "Pakistani origin." A police spokesman who gave a press interview a little while ago said, "We are in the foothills of a very major investigation." Sky News says that the suspects have been under investigation for approximately six months, and that the authorities acted because the kidnap plot was believed to be "coming to fruition."

Muslim suicide bomber kills 3 in Israeli resort town

From CBCNews:

The first suicide bomber to attack Israel in nine months three other people Monday after targeting a small bakery in a resort town. Two Palestinian militant groups, Islamic Jihad and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, claimed joint responsibility for the attack, which occurred in a residential neighbourhood in the southern Israeli town of Eilat. The attacker came from the West Bank, a spokesman for Islamic Jihad said, but gave no further details. The suicide attack was the first since last April and the first to hit Eilat, prompting Israel to raise its alert level to the highest, police said. "Our assumption is that it's not one bomber, and there might be more bombers in Eilat right now," Eilat police commander Bruone Stein told the Associated Press. The blast scattered shards of glass and bread trays in the streets. The town is on the Red Sea near the Jordanian and Egyptian borders, and its distance from Israel's major population centres has generally insulated it from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Eilat is a four-hour drive from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

What was the Maalot High School Massacre?

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