CAIRO, Egypt - A new statement purportedly linked to al-Qaida is threatening attacks on Western airliners.
The warning appears on the same Islamic Web site where a video showing American Nick Berg's murder in Iraq was posted last month.
It begins with a warning that all Muslims should avoid contact with ``American and Western crusaders and all non-believers in the Arabian peninsula.''
It goes on to warn that everything connected with the ``crusaders'' ... from compounds, bases and transportation -- ``especially Western and American airliners'' -- would be the next targets.
The statement says the warning was issued to spare Muslim blood. It was signed ``Al-Qaida on the Arabian Peninsula.'' It hasn't been authenticated.
Boston Herald article
The warning appears on the same Islamic Web site where a video showing American Nick Berg's murder in Iraq was posted last month.
It begins with a warning that all Muslims should avoid contact with ``American and Western crusaders and all non-believers in the Arabian peninsula.''
It goes on to warn that everything connected with the ``crusaders'' ... from compounds, bases and transportation -- ``especially Western and American airliners'' -- would be the next targets.
The statement says the warning was issued to spare Muslim blood. It was signed ``Al-Qaida on the Arabian Peninsula.'' It hasn't been authenticated.
Yes, I know. You've heard it before. And hey, that Nick Berg film being all suspicious and such, taken together with other talk of CIA running websites created to appear as though they belong to terrorists, kind of makes me wonder about this one. Not to mention my total distrust of DoD and the Bushcons.
I have a bit of a problem going in for this stuff about warnings so that Muslims won't be killed. And just why "especially...airliners"? Because if anything has gotten beefed up security, which should make it riskier and more costly to try to attack, you'd think it would be airliners.
Whatever.
Check this out - Nick Berg's partner in Iraq, Aziz al-Taee:
Here in America, Aziz was the highly visible spokesman for a group he'd founded called the Iraqi American Council and appeared frequently on major media outlets like Fox News Channel calling for the military ouster of Saddam Hussein. Aziz' outfront role also included speaking at pre-war, pro-troop rallies. It continued even after it was reported the inner-city electronic entrepreneur had pleaded guilty in the crack-vial case in 1994 and later had legal run-ins involving stolen computers and bootlegged CDs.
Al-Taee pleaded guilty in the 1990s to selling empty plastic envelopes commonly used to package crack. He also pleaded guilty to buying stolen computers. He was sentenced to three years of probation, fined $3,000, and forced to forfeit $17,673 in profits.
He was arrested again in May 2001, on charges that the chain of electronics stores he owns in Philadelphia was selling counterfeit compact discs. A judge dismissed that case for lack of evidence on March 4. Al-Taee blamed the compact disc counterfeiting case on unscrupulous employees, who he said had acted without his approval.
By law, permanent residents with certain criminal records can be deported. It is all up to a judge, and some Arabs in America say that Al-Taee does not represent them. They claim the Iraqi-American Council is simply a Web site and a phone number designed to benefit Al-Taee.
"He doesn't represent anyone except himself," said Tawfiq Barqawi, a spokesman for the Philadelphia chapter of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, which has opposed the U.S. invasion. "What we are all trying to do is change the image of Arab-Americans, and he is going to undo all of our work."
http://www.nbc10.com/news/2098489/detail.html
He was arrested again in May 2001, on charges that the chain of electronics stores he owns in Philadelphia was selling counterfeit compact discs. A judge dismissed that case for lack of evidence on March 4. Al-Taee blamed the compact disc counterfeiting case on unscrupulous employees, who he said had acted without his approval.
By law, permanent residents with certain criminal records can be deported. It is all up to a judge, and some Arabs in America say that Al-Taee does not represent them. They claim the Iraqi-American Council is simply a Web site and a phone number designed to benefit Al-Taee.
"He doesn't represent anyone except himself," said Tawfiq Barqawi, a spokesman for the Philadelphia chapter of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, which has opposed the U.S. invasion. "What we are all trying to do is change the image of Arab-Americans, and he is going to undo all of our work."
http://www.nbc10.com/news/2098489/detail.html
Here, I like this - a poster on the forum making his last point about what's suspicious about the Berg "execution":
9) Zarqawi rises from the dead, has a letter fall into coalition hands that just happens to confirm everything BushCo is dreaming about the Iraqi situation, grows another leg, loses his Jordanian accent, puts on a forbidden gold ring, reads from a long speech that he's written in a mysterious mobius fashion across both sides of a single sheet of paper, decides to give up his hobby as a poison expert to get down and dirty with a dull knife, and carefully hides his face while screaming, "Yoo hoo - Zarqawi here!"
