Feds arrest four Southern Calif. men in terror plots

LOS ANGELES Four Southern California men have been charged with plotting to kill Americans and destroy U.S. targets overseas by joining al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, federal officials said Monday.

The defendants, including a man who served in the U.S. Air Force, were arrested for plotting to bomb military bases and government facilities, and for planning to engage in “violent jihad,” FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said in a release.

A federal complaint unsealed Monday says 34-year-old Sohiel Omar Kabir of Pomona introduced two of the other men to the radical Islamist doctrine of Anwar al-Awlaki, a deceased al Qaeda leader. Kabir served in the Air Force from 2000 to 2001.

The other two — 23-year-old Ralph Deleon of Ontario and 21-year-old Miguel Alejandro Santana Vidriales of Upland — converted to Islam in 2010 and began engaging with Kabir and others online in discussions about jihad, including posting radical content to Facebook and expressing extremist views in comments.

They later recruited 21-year-old Arifeen David Gojali of Riverside.

Authorities allege that in Skype calls from Afghanistan, Kabir told the trio he would arrange their meetings with terrorists. Kabir added the would-be jihadists could sleep in mosques or the homes of fellow jihadists once they arrived in Afghanistan.

The trio made plans to depart in mid-November to carry out plots in Afghanistan, primarily, and Yemen, after they sold off belongings to scrape together enough cash to buy plane tickets and made passport arrangements.

In one online conversation, Santana told an FBI undercover agent that he wanted to commit jihad and expressed interest in a jihadist training camp in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.

The complaint also alleges the men went to a shooting range several times, including a Sept. 10 trip in which Deleon told a confidential FBI source that he wanted to be on the front lines overseas and use C-4, an explosive, in an attack. Santana agreed.

“I wanna do C-4s if I could put one of these trucks right here with my, with that. Just drive into, like, the baddest military base,” Santana said, according to the complaint.

Santana added he wanted to use a large quantity of the explosive. “If I’m gonna do that, I’m gonna take out a whole base. Might as well make it, like, big, ya know,” he said.

According to the complaint, at the shooting range that day both Santana and Deleon told a confidential FBI source they were excited about the rewards from becoming a shaheed, which is Arabic for martyr.

Ten days later, during another trip to the shooting range to fire assault-style rifles, Santana told the source he had been around gangs and had no problem taking a life.

On Sept. 30, Gojali was recruited to the plot after he was asked if he had it in him to kill in jihad. Gojali answered, “Yeah, of course.”

“I watch videos on the Internet, and I see what they are doing to our brothers and sisters. … It makes me cry, and it gets like I’m, like, so angered with them,” Gojali said, according to the complaint.

The men wiped their Facebook pages of radical Islamist content and photos of themselves in traditional Muslim attire, and devised a cover story that they were going to Afghanistan to attend Kabir’s wedding.

Federal authorities said the trio and the FBI’s confidential source bought airplane tickets last week for a Sunday flight from Mexico City to Istanbul, with plans to later continue to Kabul.

After Kabir began talking to him about Islam, Santana said he “accepted Islam without knowing anything about it besides it being the truth” and that he believed the religion would help him “fit in and actually be able to fight for something that’s right,” according to the complaint.

If convicted, each defendant faces a maximum of 15 years in federal prison.

Kabir is being detained in Afghanistan. The other three appeared for a detention hearing Monday in Riverside, and all but Gojali were remanded to federal custody with no bail. His detention hearing was delayed.

After-hours calls left for the men’s attorneys were not immediately returned Monday.

A preliminary hearing is slated for Dec. 3, and an arraignment is set for Dec. 5.

Kabir is a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in Afghanistan. Santana was born in Mexico, while Deleon was born in the Philippines. Both are lawful, permanent U.S. residents. Gojali is a U.S. citizen.

© 2012 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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My Latest Column for Huffington Post

A HERO FROM PROVIDENCE

by Anthony Amore

Remember the story from a few weeks back about how United States military in Afghanistan burned a bunch of Korans?

How could you not? The story was plastered all over the place, with incessant stories about 1) how negligent the military was to let this happen; 2) the apology issued by President Obama; and 3) the violence that resulted from the blunder, including the death of six U.S. military personnel and 30 Afghans. That’s right: At least 36 people were killed because some books were accidentally burned. As is typical of the media, little mention was made that the Korans at issue were taken from prisoners because they were being used to communicate extremist messages.

Apparently, using the book to fuel hate isn’t sacrilegious or cause for protest, but accidentally disposing of a few of them is. At least that’s the view of senior Afghan clerics who issued a statement after a meeting with President Hamid Karzai, saying: “This evil action cannot be forgiven by apologizing. The perpetrators of the mentioned crime should be put on a public trial as soon as possible.”

Yes, you read that right: a public trial for accidentally burning books. Never mind that an inquiry into the matter proved that the disposal was clearly an accident. Or that one of the ways prescribed by Muslims to dispose of the Koran includes burning those that have been corrupted in order to prevent the message from being defiled. None of that seemed to matter. The only message out of Afghanistan seemed to be “Americans must pay.”
Correct me if I’m wrong, but haven’t a large number of Americans already paid — with their lives — to bring freedom from zealous theocracy to the oppressed people of Afghanistan? Allow me to introduce just one.

Last week, as a U.S. military convoy was making its way through Laghman Province in Afghanistan when a 29 year old National Guardsman from Providence, R.I., noticed a young girl trying to retrieve an item from under an armored vehicle that was about to take off. Sgt. Dennis Weichel Jr. leapt into action and moved the girl to safety, saving her life. Sgt. Weichel, however, wasn’t able to do so without sacrificing his own, and was struck and killed by the armored vehicle. It’s hard to imagine a more heroic act than giving your life to save a child. And so it’s hard to imagine someone more heroic than Sgt. Weichel. That he died saving a young girl in a land where girls are so notoriously undervalued and mistreated, should be emblematic of what we have spent ten years trying to accomplish.

Sgt. Weichel’s sacrifice is typical of the work so many Americans have put into the U.S. efforts in Afghanistan. What is also typical, though, is how little attention such heroism and sacrifice receives in the media. Sure, there’s the usual 100-word story culled from the military’s press release buried on the websites of the local news, and maybe Sgt. Weichel will receive mention on the 11 o’clock news sometime after the second commercial break. But accidentally burn a few books? Somehow that warrants an apology from the Oval Office and all the attention that the media has to offer. And that’s incredibly disheartening.

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My Latest on Huffington Post

CONTEMPT FOR THE CORPS AT BROWN

This week, Brown University president Ruth Simmons announced that her campus would continue its policy of excluding the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps. Simmons cited the opinion of many from the Brown community, who, according the Boston Globe, felt that currently military policies were “not in line with the university’s values.”

I wonder if the family of Kyle Coutu would agree with that. In February of 2010, Kyle, a 20 year old soldier from Pawtucket, Rhode Island — a mere minutes’ drive from Brown — was killed in Afghanistan during combat operations in…[MORE]

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Inside Al Qaeda’s hard drives

By Renny McPherson in the Boston Globe

When Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden at his Abbottabad, Pakistan, compound on May 2, the ensuing coverage focused on how the death of Al Qaeda’s leader might undercut terrorism worldwide. But the raid accomplished more than bin Laden’s removal: It yielded several computers, nearly a dozen hard drives, and about 100 other data-storage devices. Speaking on “Meet the Press” the weekend after the raid, presidential national security adviser Tom Donilon called it “the largest cache of intelligence derived from the scene of any single terrorist.”

After combing over this huge pool of data, a task force of analysts has already produced hundreds of intelligence reports geared to a primary goal: hunting down Al Qaeda operatives. Meanwhile, however, there is a second and longer-term task ahead. If studied diligently enough, the captured data is likely to provide an unparalleled look at how Al Qaeda functions. And that information may be as essential to disrupting Al Qaeda’s activities as it was to kill bin Laden.

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BREAKING: Terrorists attack luxury hotel in Kabul

Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) — Fighters armed with bombs and small arms attacked Kabul’s InterContinental Hotel, where they fought Tuesday with Afghan security forces, Chief of Criminal Investigation Mohammed Zahir told CNN.

Among the attackers were suicide bombers, he said.

Taliban bombers were responsible for the 10 p.m. attack on the hotel, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said.

The hotel is popular among international guests.

Initial reports indicate that multiple suicide bombers, mostly likely wearing explosive vests, carried out the attack, a U.S. military official told CNN. There were no indications that U.S. military or diplomatic personnel were at the hotel, the official said.

Police Chief Lt. Gen. Ayoub Salangi said Kabul police were on the grounds of the hotel, but had not been able to communicate with anyone inside, since the phone lines were down. He could not confirm any casualties.

A news conference had been scheduled to take place Wednesday in the hotel to discuss the planned transition of security from international to Afghan forces announced last week by U.S. President Barack Obama.

The hotel is on a hill on the outskirts of Kabul and is typically protected by heavy security. Three Taliban penetrated that security, and one of them detonated an explosion on the second floor, said Erin Cunningham, a journalist in Kabul for The National. “We’re continuing to hear small-arms fire right now,” she told CNN from a vantage about 500 meters (a third of a mile) from the hotel. Several snipers were on the roof firing at Afghan security forces.

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(Target: America) Conspiracy to Bomb Metro Stations in the Washington DC Area

On October 27, 2010, Farooque Ahmed, a 34-year old, naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Pakistan, was arrested after a six-month FBI controlled operation for attempting to provide material support to a terrorist organization. The FBI became aware of Ahmed after receiving a tip in January 2010 that Ahmed and an unnamed associate were making inquiries about contacting a terrorist organization in order to travel to Afghanistan and/or Pakistan to fight coalition forces. An agent from the Washington, DC FBI field office initiated contact with Ahmed via email, posing as a representative of a terrorist organization, which Ahmed presumed to be al-Qaida. Ahmed agreed to gather intelligence and conduct surveillance on Northern Virginia Metro stations and a hotel in Washington, DC as part of the pre-operational planning for simultaneous bomb attacks he believed would result in multiple deaths and injuries. (Read More)

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An update on Bibi Aisha

This update on Bibi, from The Austrian, continues the story of the young woman whose nose and ears were cut off in Afghanistan by her in-laws (who became her in-laws when she reached puberty and was married off to a soldier fighting against the US).  It’s an indicator of the important humanitarian work the US forces have done in Afghanistan, and a reminder of the way the Taliban operates.

Bibi as she appears today:

AN illiterate young woman from a village in southern Afghanistan has travelled to a vast city decorated with brightly lit evergreen trees and giant pictures of men and women in tightly fitted clothing.

Bibi Aisha, 20, who was mutilated last year and abandoned on a mountainside in the Oruzgan province, and who then became one of the most famous Afghan women in the world, was visiting Manhattan last month.

She had been to see a show off Broadway, part of a trilogy entitled The Great Game, about Western involvement in Afghanistan since 1842. When the actors arrived on stage she was asked to be quiet.

“She didn’t know she couldn’t speak in a loud voice while the theatre was on,” said Esther Hyneman, a trustee of Women For Afghan Women, the organisation that helped to bring her to the US.

MORE

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Time for Straight Talk On Afghanistan and the War on Terror by Judith Miller

In deciding to send another 1,400 Marine combat forces to Afghanistan to consolidate gains made during the troop buildup and put extra “pressure” on the insurgents, as Defense Department spokesman Col. Dave Lapan put it Thursday, President Obama is doubling down on his “surge” strategy. He is betting that more American fighters will inflict sufficient pain on the Taliban to prompt them to come to the negotiating table to make a deal, since clearly, America and its allies can’t kill or quell them all before Obama starts withdrawing his surge forces from the country.

But this is a risky bet which a growing number of even hawkish critics say is unlikely to work. The most recent among is Robert Blackwill, a tough-minded national security veteran of several Republican administrations. He warns in the new issue of Foreign Affairs that the United States and its allies are “not on course to defeating the Taliban militarily” and urges instead not more troops but what he calls “a shift to Plan B.”

The United States, he points out, now has 150,000 American-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops in Afghanistan. This, he notes, “is 30,000 more troops than the Soviet Union deployed in the 1980s, but less than half the number required to have some chance of pacifying the country, according to standard counterinsurgency doctrine.”

Adding 1,400 more Marines is not likely to change the calculus. Nor will “an occupying army largely ignorant of local history, tribal structures, languages, customs, politics, and values” be able to “win over large numbers of the Afghan Pashtuns, as counterinsurgency doctrine demands.” And it won’t make the Kabul government of Hamid Karzai less corrupt, more effective, or more credible, another indispensable ingredient of a successful counterinsurgency. “You are only as good as the government you are supporting,” as David Kilcullen has observed.

What is Blackwill”s Plan B? Essentially, MORE…

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Bin Laden’s Former Cook Al-Qosi Gets 14-year Sentence

I don’t know, and perhaps I’m an extremist in my own right, but the sentence seems pretty tame.  And if he is out in two years–no matter the deal–that would be simply unbelievable.

International Business Times (08/12/10)

A former cook and bodyguard for Osama bin Laden has been sentenced to 14 years in prison by a military jury at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility.

The sentence was handed down after 51-year-old Ibrahim Al-Qosi pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism. Prosecutors said that in addition to serving as bin Laden’s cook and driver, Qosi provided logistical services for an al-Qaida compound in Kandahar, Afghanistan, and served on an al-Qaida mortar crew near the front lines near the Afghan capital of Kabul.

In addition, Qosi was accused of conspiring with bin Laden and other al-Qaida members to plan and carry out terrorist attacks. Although Qosi–who is the first Guantanamo detainee to be sentenced since President Obama took office–has been sentenced to 14 years in prison, he is likely to serve less time than that since he accepted a secret plea deal.

There are reports that the deal could allow Qosi to serve just two years in prison.

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One of the Most Important Time Magazine Covers Ever Produced

Click here to see Time Magazine’s photo shoot of Aisha

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