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August 12, 2010
To all of our faithful readers, we apologize for our long absence from your in-mail boxes. We are happy to announce that INTELANALYSIS is back. We hope this first issue will be worth the wait.
America is in deep trouble in a very troubled world. The combined threat of terrorism and economic disaster, coupled with the natural and man-made disasters around the globe (consider just the recent catastrophic floods in Pakistan and China, and the devastating BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico) all conspire to defeat our best efforts to keep our civilization safe.
INTELANALYSIS aims to help our readers make sense of the news and we encourage you to join us in doing your part in the fight against tyranny and for the democratic principles that we live by.
Please send us your comments and questions to comments@gerardgroup.com
To learn more about Gerard Group, please visit our website at www.gerardgroup.com
Ilana Freedman, Editor
The day I saw terrorist Adnan el-Shukrijumah, I was walking along a path on the campus of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and he was walking towards me. His expression was intense and he seemed deep in thought. We never made eye contact, but I recognized him immediately.
Shukrijumah is a very short man, barely 5’4", and his face is distinctive. I had been studying his activities for several months. I knew he was a master of disguise and that he had the ability to pass from country to country, seemingly at will and without being recognized or caught. But on that day, he was clean shaven and wearing casual clothing in what he must have considered a comfortable and safe setting.
I already knew that he was an insider in al-Qaeda, with multiple passports, and links to Canada, Trinidad, Saudi Arabia, Guyana, Mexico, the US, and no doubt a raft of other countries as well. He was clearly a man with a deadly mission, and a rising star among the al Qaeda elite. And his appearance at McMaster, looking like any other student, was not comforting.
I first learned about Shukrijumah from Dr. Paul Williams, author of Day of Islam, who had carried out some extensive research on Shukrijumah and first described his activities at McMaster. Williams wrote a book about what he found, in which he reported that Shukrijumah had stolen 180 pounds of nuclear material from the campus reactor. Although McMaster denied the loss and sued Williams for libel, the fact was corroborated by a number of respected experts.
It was because of Dr William’s work that I made the trip to Hamilton. I visited the campus with my colleague, Scott Winchell. Our tour included a walk through the reactor building, a small building right in the center of the campus. We walked through its open door, entering unchallenged. There was no security, not even a receptionist. We wandered briefly through and around the building, and then we explored the rest of the campus.
We visited the graduate and undergraduate engineering departments, the library, and the student union. We interviewed a number of administrators, students, and faculty members. What we found there was a lot of material for another article, but it was the chance sighting of Adnan el-Shukrijuma that made the trip most memorable.
After seeing him myself that day at McMaster, I immediately called a contact I had been given at the counter-terrorism task force of the Canadian police, but had to leave a voice mail and never received a call back. Then I called the FBI.
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As early as March 2003, the FBI had asked for help from law enforcement and the public to locate Shukrijumah. They had posted a $5 million reward on his head “for information leading directly to [his] capture”. He was the man the FBI has called “the next Mohammed Atta”, and FBI director Robert Mueller labeled Shukrijumah “the most dangerous terrorist in the western hemisphere.” On March 26, 2003 the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia issued a Material Witness Warrant for his arrest.
But when I notified the local FBI office in early November 2007, I was told that because they had no warrant for his arrest, they could do nothing about apprehending him.
Although their 2003 alert warned that Shukrijumah might be planning an al Qaeda terrorist attack in the United States, it wasn’t until last week that the FBI finally indicted Shukrijumah for plotting terrorism against US targets.
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Shukrijumah was raised in the US and speaks English without an accent. His father was an Imam who had a brief connection with the Al Farouk mosque in Brooklyn, and then took a position as an imam in Florida. Adnan studied at both Broward College in Florida and McMaster. He is known as an engineer, a bomb maker, and a pilot. He is known to have strong personal ties to Trinidad and Tobago, and went there in 2001, 2003, and 2006, although his reasons for being there are still vague. He is thought to have close ties to several terrorist groups there. It has also been reported that he spent several months in Point Fortin there working on the construction of the LNG Port, which is the largest such terminal in the world.
The implications of al Qaeda involvement in a terrorist attack using an LNG tanker as a bomb leave little to the imagination. Among other possibilities, a closed loop supply chain exists between the LNG facility in Port Fortin and Boston, whose large LNG farm is just outside the major hub of the city.
Shukrijumah is the leader of the al-Qaeda task force already here in the United States, preparing to carry out an attack they have called “more devastating than 9/11”. He has been known to use a number of aliases. The most significant of these was confirmed by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who identified a photo of Adnan Shukrijumah as ‘Jaffar the Pilot’, the man whom al Qaeda had picked to lead the next big attack against U.S. targets.
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There is no doubt that this man is clever, elusive, devious, dangerous, and thoroughly evil. Over the last few years, there have been a series of unverified sightings in various parts of the world from Venezuela to Texas to Toronto to Trinidad. He has been connected with our enemies in South America and the Middle East, and was thought to be working with hardcore gangs in Mexico. Yet, with so many sightings, law enforcement has been unable and unwilling to do what is necessary to find and apprehend him. Why?
No doubt some of these sightings were cases of mistaken identity. Some, however, were undoubtedly correct, but were disregarded or ignored. Lack of moral fiber, fear of repercussions, and political correctness taken to its illogical extreme, have brought us to a tolerance that is far beyond what is reasonable or acceptable.
Instead of becoming more firm in our resolve to protect and defend our nation, we have come to accept the very people who openly hate us and are bent on destroying us. Those who embrace radical Islam and shari’ah law, and who publicly curse America now enter our country with impunity, roam freely, take over entire communities, and exploit the freedoms they profess to despise in order to further their mission. As a result, terrorist cells have sprouted up throughout the country, while we continue to ignore the existential threat that they represent. We have now learned not only to tolerate their hatred against us, but to accept it as the norm.
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The national trauma that resulted from 9/11 created an unparalleled opportunity to marshal Americans together in a united mission based on the underlying values of our nation. Yet we are now so divided that we have become dysfunctional, teetering on the brink economic catastrophe, and singularly unprepared for the next major attack on American soil?
America stands at a decisive fork in the road. The resurfacing of Adnan el-Shukrijumah should remind us of how much is at stake and how much we have to lose. When the next 9/11 happens, the shock is likely to be far worse than the first time.
We are skidding into national insolvency, both moral and economic. While Shukrijumah continues to plot and plan the next major terrorist attack against America, our ability to survive will depend on the strength of the will and moral fortitude of the American people. It is only our determination to save this extraordinary nation that will make the difference between our capitulation to tyranny or the survival of our free nation.
I, for one, cast my lot for freedom!
Ilana Freedman has been an intelligence analyst for more than twenty-five years. She has earned an international reputation for the accuracy of her analyses and forecasts, and has participated in providing actionable intelligence for industry and law enforcement. Her work has contributed to the prevention of mass casualty terrorist attacks in the United States and abroad. Comments and questions may be addressed to ilana@gerardgroup.com
The dynamic changes that have taken place in Lebanon since 2006 have led to the most volatile and dangerous situation in recent history. Hezbollah has been armed to the teeth by Iran and Syria, and has virtually taken over the southern half of Lebanon, holding its citizens hostage in an environment of fear and dread.
Hezbollah is now thought to have close to 80,000 rockets and missiles, brought into Lebanon through Syria in large, tarp-covered trucks. The rockets are hidden under the canopies of trees in the lush valleys that dot Southern Lebanon, and in the houses of Lebanese civilians, which have either been commandeered or purchased throughout the south, to expand Hezbollah’s reach from within.
They have built extensive military training programs for their youth, some as young as seven. Their Mahdi Scouts are said to number more than 60,000 youngsters who have been trained to hate and to kill. Their targets are the “infidels” and, most particularly, Jews.
The threat emanating from Lebanon is not a local one. Hezbollah’s instructions come directly from Teheran and indirectly through Syria. Iran has supplied them with a massive arsenal that includes rockets, sophisticated missile systems, weapons of mass destruction, and hundreds of Iranian Republican Guard Corps (IRGC) officers to train the soldiers and man the weapons now aimed at Israel.
Iran has not invested in Hezbollah lightly. Its own nuclear program, still under international scrutiny, continues apace despite the mounting but ineffectual world pressure against it. A strike by Hezbollah against Israel (with simultaneous strikes from Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank), would effectively distract the world from the final stages of Iran’s nuclear development.
Should Israel be attacked in such a pincer move, with a rain of missiles and rockets targeting its populated areas from north, south, and east, Israel’s response can be expected to be immediate and powerful. And the nations of the world will not stand by silently as the crisis in the Middle East threatens to engulf them in the ensuing global—and most probably nuclear—conflagration.
The likelihood that another war in this inflamed region will remain limited becomes less likely every day. The global ramifications of an assault on Israel, however unimaginable, are nevertheless more likely every day as the situation continues to destabilize. The unintended consequences of decisions made by delusional leaders—Ahmadinejad, Assad, and Nasrallah—for whom conquest is worth risking the world, will be a global inferno that pits radical Islam against everyone else.
What makes this particularly dangerous to us is not just the threat of a third world war. Unlike the last wars, this war will also be fought on US soil. The large presence of Hezbollah members and supporters here in the US present a clear and present danger to us in our heartland.
There are active cells throughout the country, in Dearborn and Detroit, North Carolina, Arizona, and in the volatile and hostile border region of Mexico, to mention only a few. Hezbollah is only one of the dozens of radical Islamic groups that have sprung up around the country, but it may be the most dangerous of them all. The activation of these cells will open a new front for Islamic terrorism, and they will be supported by the other radical Islamic organizations, whose leaders will rally their enthusiastic followers against our society when the time comes.
This is not conspiracy theory. The threat against us right here at home is well documented, and is likely to evolve from theoretical to existential when we least expect it.
The Hezbollah cells in the US take their orders directly from the senior leadership of Hezbollah in Lebanon, who in turn take their own orders from Teheran. Their own agenda is based on the tyranny of radical Islam, the conquest of the infidel, and Shari’ah law. It is the one they will carry to battle against the freedom that characterizes the West.
Hollis Armstrong is a veteran intelligence analyst and a contributor to INTELANALYSIS. Comments and questions can be addressed to hollis@gerardgroup.com
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