Patterico's Pontifications

4/22/2013

Canada Disrupts Al Qaeda Plot

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 8:20 pm

On April 14, 2013, the Los Angeles Times published a story titled: With Al Qaeda shattered, U.S. counter-terrorism’s future unclear.

A growing group of analysts and former government officials say the threat from Al Qaeda affiliates is overblown. Most terrorist groups are focused on local concerns, not on America, and have little or no ability to organize a broader plot.

“To the best of our information, there is nobody out there with both the desire and the capabilities to cause any serious damage to the U.S. in any way at this moment,” said Rosa Brooks, a former deputy assistant secretary of Defense.

Note well: she didn’t say anything about Canada!

Police say they have arrested two men accused of conspiring to carry out an “al-Qaeda supported” attack targeting a Via passenger train in the Greater Toronto Area, following a cross-border investigation that involved Canadian and American law enforcement.

In a press conference that followed a report by CBC’s Greg Weston, police named the two accused as Chiheb Esseghaier, 30, of Montreal, and Raed Jaser, 35, from Toronto. They have been charged with conspiracy to carry out a terrorist attack and “conspiring to murder persons unknown for the benefit of, at the direction of, or in association with a terrorist group.”

RCMP officials said the two accused were plotting to derail a passenger train.

As I say, the Los Angeles Times article appeared April 14. The next day, two bombs took the lives of three people in Boston, including that of an eight-year-old boy.

But never fear. As long as we ignore our neighbor to the north, the story must be right about America — the Tsarnaevs notwithstanding. After all, as Stephen Hayes points out, the Obama administration has been very quick to assure the public that there is no connection between the Boston Marathon bombings and Al Qaeda.

In an exceptionally well-reported story in the Daily Beast Friday, we read this:

“One U.S. intelligence official who was regularly briefed on the investigation told Newsweek that he and his colleagues all but ruled out al Qaeda central or one of its affiliates giving direct and specific instructions for the attack.”

Those comments were published less than a full day after the authorities first revealed the pixilated photos of the two attackers taken on marathon day, just hours after the public first learned their names and well before Dzokhar Tsarnaev was captured alive.

And if the Obama administration says so, well, it must be true!

This is not, of course, the first time we’ve seen an apparent eagerness from the Obama administration to minimize or dismiss the possibility of broader ties to international terrorism after attacks or attempted attacks on U.S. interests. Three days after the attempted bombing of an airplane on Christmas Day 2009, President Obama suggested that the attempted attack was the work of “an isolated extremist.” He made the claim despite the fact that the bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, told interrogators in interviews shortly after his capture that he’d worked with al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Five months later, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano called the attempted bombing of Times Square by Faisal Shahzad a “one off” attack. Other administration officials downplayed the likelihood of ties to foreign jihadists. But several days later, Attorney General Eric Holder acknowledged that the Pakistani Taliban “helped facilitate” the attack. “We know that they probably helped finance it and that he was working at their direction.”

Perhaps most famously, the Obama administration downplayed involvement of al Qaeda affiliated terrorists in the attacks in Benghazi on September 11, 2012. Despite ample evidence of their involvement – including real-time reporting from U.S. officials on the ground in Benghazi, a memo September 12 from the CIA station chief in Tripoli with details of the attacks and who conducted them, and communications intercepts from those involved in the assault – administration officials for days (even weeks) suggested that the attacks came spontaneously in response to an anti-Islam video.

These initial assessments fit nicely with the administration’s broader narrative about the end of the War on Terror and the imminent demise of al Qaeda. They were also wrong.

Today’s Canada plot is a reminder of just how wrong they were.

And anyway: counterterrorism is not just about Al Qaeda.

Maybe we need to make sure that the terrorists’ names are spelled correctly on the watch lists and flight manifests. Maybe we need to take steps to make sure that a perfect spelling match with foreign names is not critical. Maybe we should pay attention to foreign governments when they tell us we have a dangerous radical Islamist in our midst.

President Obama, stop telling us Al Qaeda and other terrorists have been vanquished — and start making your FBI and Homeland Security protect us from those who would kill us for what we believe. Thanks!

Comments (38)

38 Responses to “Canada Disrupts Al Qaeda Plot”

Ding.
Patterico (9c670f) — 4/22/2013 @ 8:23 pm
President Obama, stop telling us Al Qaeda and other terrorists have been vanquished — and start making your FBI and Homeland Security protect us from those who would kill us for what we believe.

No, let’s just sing kumbaya and hope that they won’t attack again.
aunursa (7014a8) — 4/22/2013 @ 8:28 pm
blah blah blah blah al-qaeda supported attack blah blah blah passenger blah blah train
happyfeet (8ce051) — 4/22/2013 @ 8:31 pm
Brian Ross is desperately googling their names to see if they can tie them to reichwinger teabaggers. Maybe is was quasi-socialist Patriot tax day in Canada.
JD (b63a52) — 4/22/2013 @ 8:32 pm
Although history written by historians will paint the picture of the President’s tenure as the most wonderful time in the world, it is important to record the truth.
Ag80 (19f299) — 4/22/2013 @ 8:34 pm
Yeah, I liked it much better when we were on orange alert ad infinitum.
Derp (44a2a2) — 4/22/2013 @ 8:36 pm
Raise yôur hand if you think passive aggressive asshattery from drive by trolls is just precious.
JD (b63a52) — 4/22/2013 @ 8:40 pm
Derp, really, that’s such a loser comment.
SPQR (768505) — 4/22/2013 @ 8:46 pm
…administration officials for days (even weeks) suggested that the attacks came spontaneously in response to an anti-Islam video.

The one good thing that would come out of Islamicists succeeding in their effort to throttle the US, or the Western World in general, would be witnessing all the idiots of the left having to live under Sharia Law. Limousine liberals like Obama would be analogous to the various “progressives” in Egypt who despised Mubarak and the “imperialist” USA far more than the beautiful crowd they’re stuck with now, the Muslim Brotherhood. In a way I’d pay to see dumb-dumb liberals in America at the beck and call of the Koran—chadors, ululation, mid-day prayers, and the whole shebang.
Mark (9ce057) — 4/22/2013 @ 8:47 pm
What else do you expect from a loser?
peedoffamerican (ee1de0) — 4/22/2013 @ 8:48 pm
Pat, are you telling me that this administration is (gulp, gasp, sob) lying to me? Well just coler me shocked! Shocked I tell you! Utterly surprised!
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Okay, sarc. off.
peedoffamerican (ee1de0) — 4/22/2013 @ 8:51 pm
“Maybe we need to take steps to make sure that a perfect spelling match with foreign names is not critical.”

Good point, but the name on his passport should have matched the airline records. Airlines are pretty careful about that. And that record is what is transmitted to Homeland Security prior to takeoff.

Perhaps it was the name on the watch list that was in error, not the passport/airline records.
Corky Boyd (c2186d) — 4/22/2013 @ 8:52 pm
Are we sure these are separate cells?

This train was heading to NYC and the Boston terrorists were alleged to be heading towards NYC.
NJRob (fe68e7) — 4/22/2013 @ 8:52 pm
Derp said:

Yeah, I liked it much better when we were on orange alert ad infinitum.

Yep, those were the good old days when people were killed en masse rather than the smaller numbers of two or three or thirty like now.

Good times, you miserable git.
Ag80 (19f299) — 4/22/2013 @ 9:02 pm
Al Qaeda is dead and GM is alive and Obama’s Chechens are coming home to roost.

Good times.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 4/22/2013 @ 9:23 pm
Speaking of losers: it occurs to me, THAT’s where you see the genius of Islam.

Guys who are successful, of course, get the trappings of success.

But the awkward, odd, not-too-bright guys, the ones who never fit in, those who have “no prospects” as they say, can still find a way earn respect: channel their resentment and envy into full-blown hatred of “The Enemies of Islam” and turn to jihad.

Why feel like you’re a failure (even though you are) when you can decide that “The Jews” or “The Immoral West” or some such amorphous group is engaged in a conspiracy against your peace-loving religion; and that YOU, Super-Jihadi, can even-out the score a bit by attacking The Enemy on his own turf — where he lets down his guard and feels safe. You gird your loins, quote some appropriate words from the Prophet (“I am made victorious by terror”), and strike at the heart of the Enemy, and -live or die- you *DO* get rewarded. (You get awe and respect among your peers if you survive, or a guarantee of eternal Paradise if you die.)

We in the West don’t have a “valued purpose” for OUR –ummm– underachievers. I think Ol’ Mo latched on to something important there when he invented his new religion.
A_Nonny_Mouse (6af953) — 4/23/2013 @ 12:09 am
Can we borrow the Canadian f.b.i.
mg (31009b) — 4/23/2013 @ 4:11 am
Thanks, Rico, for noticing America’s Hat.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-04-22/guest-post-boston-marathon-attacks-chechnya-and-oil-hidden-us-connection

Well blow me down.
gary gulrud (dd7d4e) — 4/23/2013 @ 4:41 am
Well Gary, that’s true, but it’s also the strategic location that Chechnya rests on, Dagestan which doesn’t have oil, has been a similar focus of attention since the 1830s
narciso (3fec35) — 4/23/2013 @ 5:24 am
Note to daughter: You know that college fund of yours? Well, I’ve decided that you’re going to a commuter college. I can drive you there and pick you up. My tee time is 8:00 a.m.. Arrange your course schedule accordingly.
nk (875f57) — 4/23/2013 @ 5:38 am
Wrong thread, sorry.
nk (875f57) — 4/23/2013 @ 5:39 am
19. Good point.

Now, on one side we have the Russian-Chinese, ex-Marxist mobsters and on the other Salafist-Islamofascists.

No one tell Barry and lets watch him spill his rectum when he figures it out. It’ll be a gas.
gary gulrud (dd7d4e) — 4/23/2013 @ 6:08 am
And Senator Lindsay Graham is trying to excuse (or protect) bith the FBI and Russia.

Every arfticle turns upo a different fact. One article told me now that Tsarnaev’s mother was an Avar. I don’t know much abiout the Avars. (They used to be pagan, then Georgian Orthodox Christianity then Sunni Islam since the 1200s.

Read more: http://www.everyculture.com/Russia-Eurasia-China/Avars-Religion-and-Expressive-Culture.html#ixzz2RJoDviaN)

An uncle in the U.S. says that it was she who first became more “religious” and introduced tamerlan to radical clerics.

People are telling all kinds of different stories about how many interviews the FBI had and whether or not tamerlan met 6 times with some unnamed radical cleric in Dagestan. The parents aren’t very reliable, even counting that there were probably lies on the petition for political asylum, including lies about where they were living when.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 4/23/2013 @ 1:03 pm
Maybe we should pay attention to foreign governments when they tell us we have a dangerous radical Islamist in our midst.

Lindsay Graham is trying to excuse both the FBI and the Russian government but the Russian government did not give enough information.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/23/us/officials-say-they-didnt-have-authority-to-monitor-tamerlan-tsarnaev.html

In Mr. Tsarnaev’s case, the Russian government expressed fear that he could be a risk “based on information that he was a follower of radical Islam and a strong believer, and that he had changed drastically since 2010 as he prepared to leave the United States for travel to the country’s region to join unspecified underground groups,” the F.B.I. said in a statement.

The F.B.I. responded by checking government databases for any criminal records or immigration violations as well as activity on Web sites that promote extremist views and activities. The investigators found no derogatory information, officials said.

When they asked the Russians for more information to justify a search of Mr. Tsarnaev’s phone records, travel history and other more restricted information, they received no reply, a senior United States official said.

As a last resort, the F.B.I. sent two counterterrorism agents to interview Mr. Tsarnaev and members of his family. According to an F.B.I. statement, “The F.B.I. did not find any terrorism activity, domestic or foreign.”

And the Wall Street Journal reported today, as well:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323551004578439270965883486.html
POLITICS Updated April 22, 2013, 7:52 p.m. ET.

U.S. Is Probing Suspect’s Alleged Links to Militants ….

In the aftermath of the bombings, some American counterterrorism officials received information from law-enforcement officials in Makhachkala, Dagestan, detailing alleged contacts between Mr. Tsarnaev and a suspected militant being tracked by Russian officials, according to a law-enforcement official briefed on the Boston Marathon investigation.

The accuracy of that report and whether it was shared before the attack in Boston is a subject of debate. According to one account, Russia’s security service told the Federal Bureau of Investigation about it in November. U.S. law-enforcement officials said they didn’t receive any such information and are trying to determine if it is true.

Mr. Tsarnaev’s intersection with Russia security authorities came after he was interviewed by FBI agents in the U.S. in 2011. How these contacts were handled by both countries likely will be critical in determining whether officials missed possible warning signs, and whether poor communications between the two countries hampered cooperation.

The FBI interview was conducted at Russia’s request and produced no suspicious links, said a senior U.S. law enforcement official. Repeated follow-up questions to Russian authorities about Mr. Tsarnaev went unanswered, U.S. officials said.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 4/23/2013 @ 1:30 pm
That militant being tracked is now dead they say, but nobody has his name.

From the Wall Street Journal: The Russian government hasn’t officially confirmed that Tamerlan was in Dagestan last year. A Russian Federal Migration Services official in Dagestan told Russian news agencies Monday the older brother applied for a new passport in person at the office there last summer; he was granted the passport but never picked it up.

A spokesman for the Federal Security Service, the successor organization to the KGB known as the FSB, said questions only could be answered via email or fax. The service didn’t respond to questions emailed Monday by The Wall Street Journal.
The alleged contacts in Dagestan included at least six meetings between Tamerlan Tsarnaev, whose family traces its roots to Chechnya, and the unnamed suspected militant, the American law-enforcement official said.

Russia carried out an operation against suspected militants, killing the contact, and Mr. Tsarnaev left Russia before he could be questioned, the official said.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 4/23/2013 @ 1:33 pm
Also in the Wall Street Journal:

… In an interview, Anzor Tsarnaev, father of the two alleged bombers, said the FBI visited the family’s apartment in Cambridge, Mass., five times over the years.

He said each of the visits seemed to be friendly check-ups. The last visit, he said, was about a year and a half ago when three FBI agents came to the door.

Mr. Tsarnaev said the agents told him, “We know what sites you are on, we know where you are calling, we know everything about you. Everything,” Mr. Tsarnaev recalled. “They said, ‘We are checking and watching’—that’s what they said.”

The FBI disputes the father’s account. Officials said the FBI received a request from Russia to interview Tamerlan Tsarnaev in February 2011 and after conducting one interview completed its report within three months, after which it had no further contact with him.

Of course it is possible it wasn’t the FBI which visited him, but some other organization, like the Secret Service, the Drug Enforcement Agency, or the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, or even Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 4/23/2013 @ 1:35 pm
Isa Dalgatov, he’s on the videos, he’s from a nearly town, called Kayacent
narciso (3fec35) — 4/23/2013 @ 1:44 pm
By the way, we now have two denials by terrorist groups. Not only did the Pakistani Taliban disclaim responsibility but also the Mujahideen of the Caucasus did:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/22/world/europe/pilgrim-in-violent-land-suspect-found-comfort-in-dagestan.html

On Sunday, the most feared terrorist group in the Caucasus, the Mujahideen of the Caucasus Emirate, issued a statement dismissing speculation that Mr. Tsarnaev had joined them and denying any responsibility for the Boston Marathon attack. “The Mujahideen of the Caucasus are not fighting against the United States of America,” the statement said. “We are at war with Russia, which is not only responsible for the occupation of the Caucasus but also for heinous crimes against Muslims.”
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 4/23/2013 @ 1:47 pm
It’s even probably true. Tsarnaev probably did not work through any well-known organization, any more than in the 1940s, Communist spies working for the NKVD or the GRU worked through the Communist Party.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 4/23/2013 @ 1:48 pm
27. This Isa Dalgatov???

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpE6VSsrmuKMkNXPZdqU0SA

Must be this one:

http://www.rferl.org/content/umarov-names-new-commander-daghestan/24688709.html

In the four months since then, however, Daghestani police and security forces have killed 14 men subsequently identified as amirs of local sectors and up to 60 rank-and-file fighters.

The amirs were….Isa Dalgatov (Kayakent)…

Tamerlan Tsarnaev could very well have met with him, but probably at most, to help set up meetings with somebody else.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 4/23/2013 @ 1:56 pm
Dalgativ belongs to the same organization that issued a denial.

Not sure if this is the same organization:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasus_Emirate

In the same October 2007 statement in which Umarov proclaimed the Caucasian Emirate, he also described the United States, Great Britain and Israel as common enemies of Muslims worldwide.[27]

However, on November 20, 2007, Anzor Astemirov, head of the Yarmuk Jamaat, said that “Even if we wanted to threaten America and Europe every day, it is clear for anybody who understands politics that we do not have any real clashes of interests [with the West]. The people in the White House know very well that we have nothing to do with America at the moment.” In his statement, Astemirov not only described the Caucasian rebels’ threats against the West as empty, but also even asked the United States for assistance in their fight against “Russian aggression.”[28] Following its criticism, many rebel websites removed the phrase that regarded Western countries as enemies.[29]
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 4/23/2013 @ 2:00 pm
How terrorists are born – New York Daily news Sunday, April 21, 2013, pages 36-37

Page 2 of 3 on the Internet:

Our findings were presented in the 2007 publication of “Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat” — a monograph that sought to explain how and why men who had been arrested in Al Qaeda-inspired or linked plots in the West embraced a messianic brand of Islam that justifies violence against their adoptive home countries. In most cases, they started out as relatively secular individuals, with little to no knowledge of the religion of their family’s heritage.

However, as a result of a lack of strong identity, personal crisis or feelings of alienation, these individuals began to explore their religious and national heritage and origins. For some, it triggered a more personal association with a nationalistic cause related to their homelands; for others, it triggered an exploration of their Muslim heritage. For those who ultimately radicalized to violence, at some point in their development, they began to self-identify with an extreme and fundamentalist interpretation of Islam that justifies violence against enemies.

For those who adopted this ideology and indoctrinated themselves and those around them to its extremist tenets, which were in line with Al Qaeda tenets, violence was not only acceptable. It was obligatory under certain circumstances. And it was to be directed against the Western countries that, in their interpretation, were at war with Islam.

This is all well known. The process of recruitment takes place over a period of years, and there circles within circles. Only gradually does someone get introduced to more radical – and destructive – ideas. The process is so long they avoid FBI or other police agents – they know the people too well, usually from a young age, – as well as avoiding any informants or someone who will decide to turn informant.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/terrorists-born-article-1.1322915?pgno=1#ixzz2RK7nC5tW
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 4/23/2013 @ 2:20 pm
EXCLUSIVE: Feds searching home of Boston terror suspect pals — where Dzhokhar Tsarnaev might have slept off the bombing Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/feds-searching-home-boston-terror-suspect-pals-article-1.1324099#ixzz2RKAeiIZZ – New York Daily News April 23, 2013

You know those two poople with the vanity license plate that said Terrorista#1?

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is believed to have spent Monday and Tuesday night there, according to a neighbor. A search warrant was issued and the drainpipe searched. A bomb was found. Federal officials are thinking of pursuing a case against them as accomplices or for harboring a fugitive.

It depends if they knew.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/feds-searching-home-boston-terror-suspect-pals-article-1.1324099#ixzz2RKBFr7J7
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/feds-searching-home-boston-terror-suspect-pals-article-1.1324099#ixzz2RKB2ajLk
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 4/23/2013 @ 2:31 pm
Mr. Astemirov is dead;

It was eventually confirmed, however, that Astemirov was killed during a shoot-out with police in Nalchik on March 24, 2010, after two suspicious men offered armed resistance when they had been stopped for a routine identity check: one of them managed to escape, but the other one was killed in an exchange of fire, after he had repeatedly shot and wounded by a police officer (also referred to as an FSB agent in some sources). The dead man was almost immediately identified as Astemirov after checking his fingerprints, and his followers also confirmed the death of their leader soon after, in a statement on the rebel website Kavkaz Center.[2][12][13]
narciso (3fec35) — 4/23/2013 @ 2:34 pm
This was his successor,

On 29 April 2011, Dzhappuyev was amongst 10 militants, including Emir Abdul Jabbar of the North Eastern Sector and Emir Zakaria of the South Western Sector, killed by security forces in the village of Progress in Stavropol Krai.[1] Caucasus Emirate leader Dokka Umarov appointed Alim Zankishiev as his successor.[5]
narciso (3fec35) — 4/23/2013 @ 2:37 pm
Perhaps it was the name on the watch list that was in error, not the passport/airline records.

No misteak has ever been made hear at the DHS.
askeptic (b8ab92) — 4/23/2013 @ 2:38 pm
19. The more plausible oil idea would be a pipeline, but it’s not that. After 1991 Chechnya became a center of criminal activity. And smuggling.

And we don’t know what Putin was up to, but he may have arranged some atrocities to turn Russians more against Chechnyans and more friendly toward government goons and the like.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 4/23/2013 @ 2:43 pm
Except for the obvious, how did you like the play;

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/04/23/world/europe/spain-terror-arrests/index.html
narciso (3fec35) — 4/23/2013 @ 3:20 pm

4/22/2013

Canada Disrupts Al Qaeda Plot

38 Responses to “Canada Disrupts Al Qaeda Plot”

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