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NLPWESSEX, natural law publishing |
nlpwessex.org |
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| 'FIGHT
SMART' BULLETINS THE BOGUS WAR AGAINST TERRORISM |
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| Introduction (To Go Direct To Bulletins - Click Here) |
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| Contact | 'We Need A New Way Of Thinking' - Consciousness-Based Education |
The
Omar Sheikh Files "Omar
Sheikh, a British-born Islamist militant, is waiting
to be hanged in Pakistan for a murder he almost certainly didn't commit - of the Wall
Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002. Both the US government and Pearl's wife have
since acknowledged that Sheikh was not responsible. Yet the Pakistani government is
refusing to try other suspects newly implicated in Pearl's kidnap and murder for fear the
evidence they produce in court might acquit Sheikh and reveal too much. Significantly, Sheikh is also the man who, on the instructions of General
Mahmoud Ahmed, the then head of Pakistan's
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), wired $100,000
before the 9/11 attacks to Mohammed Atta, the lead
hijacker. It is extraordinary that neither Ahmed nor Sheikh have been charged and brought
to trial on this count. Why not? Ahmed, the paymaster for the hijackers, was
actually in Washington on 9/11, and had a series of
pre-9/11 top-level meetings in the White House, the Pentagon, the national security
council, and with George Tenet, then head of the CIA, and Marc Grossman, the
under-secretary of state for political affairs. When
Ahmed was exposed by the Wall Street Journal as having sent the money to the hijackers, he
was forced to 'retire' by President Pervez Musharraf. Why hasn't the US demanded that he
be questioned and tried in court? .... It has been rumoured that Pearl was especially
interested in any role played by the US in training or backing the ISI. Daniel Ellsberg,
the former US defence department whistleblower who has accompanied [former FBI
translator Sibel] Edmonds in court, has stated: 'It seems to me quite plausible that
Pakistan was quite involved in this ... To say Pakistan is, to me, to say CIA because ...
it's hard to say that the ISI knew something that the CIA had no knowledge of.' Ahmed's
close relations with the CIA would seem to confirm this. For years the CIA used the ISI as
a conduit to pump billions of dollars into militant Islamist groups in Afghanistan, both
before and after the Soviet invasion of 1979. W ith CIA backing, the ISI has developed,
since the early 1980s, into a parallel structure, a state within a state, with staff and
informers estimated by some at 150,000. It wields enormous power over all aspects of
government. The case of Ahmed confirms that parts of the ISI directly supported and
financed al-Qaida, and it has long been established that the ISI has acted as go-between
in intelligence operations on behalf of the CIA. Senator Bob Graham, chairman of the
Senate select committee on intelligence, has said: 'I
think there is very compelling evidence that at least some of the terrorists were
assisted, not just in financing ... by a sovereign foreign government.' In that context, Horst Ehmke, former coordinator of the West German
secret services, observed: 'Terrorists could not have carried out such an operation with
four hijacked planes without the support of a secret service.' That might give meaning to
the reaction on 9/11 of Richard Clarke, the White House counter-terrorism chief, when he
saw the passenger lists later on the day itself: 'I was stunned ... that there were
al-Qaida operatives on board using names that the FBI knew were al-Qaida.' It was just
that, as Dale Watson, head of counter-terrorism at the FBI told him, the 'CIA forgot to
tell us about them'." "Pakistani
intelligence chiefs are concerned that General Musharraf may jeopardise their
relationship with British intelligence agencies after claiming that a convicted terrorist
was once an MI6
informer. The President outlines the
role played by a former London public schoolboy, Omar Sheikh,
in the kidnap and murder of Daniel
Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter, in February 2002. General Musharraf says that Sheikh, who orchestrated the abduction, was recruited by MI6 while
he was studying at the London School of Economics and sent to
the Balkans to take part in jihad operations there. " US (And UK) Backed Islamic Terrorism In The Balkans |
The Omar Sheikh Files "Pakistani intelligence chiefs are
concerned that General Musharraf may jeopardise their relationship with British
intelligence agencies after claiming that a convicted terrorist was once an MI6 informer. The President outlines the
role played by a former London public schoolboy, Omar Sheikh, in the kidnap and murder of Daniel Pearl, the Wall
Street Journal reporter, in February 2002. General
Musharraf says that Sheikh, who orchestrated the abduction, was recruited by MI6 while he
was studying at the London School of Economics and sent to the Balkans to take part in
jihad operations there. " "Less well known
is evidence of the British government's relationship with a wider Islamist terrorist
network. During
an interview on Fox TV this summer, the former US federal prosecutor John Loftus
reported that British intelligence had used the al-Muhajiroun group in London to recruit
Islamist militants with British passports for the war against the Serbs in Kosovo. Since
July Scotland Yard has been interested in an alleged member of al-Muhajiroun, Haroon
Rashid Aswat, who some sources have suggested could have been behind the London bombings.
According to Loftus, Aswat was detained in Pakistan after leaving Britain, but was
released after 24 hours. He was subsequently returned to Britain from Zambia, but has been
detained solely for extradition to the US, not for questioning about the London bombings.
Loftus claimed that Aswat is a British-backed double agent, pursued by the police but
protected by MI6. One British Muslim of Pakistani origin radicalised by the civil war in
Yugoslavia was LSE-educated Omar Saeed Sheikh. He is now in jail in Pakistan under sentence of death for the killing of
the US journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002 - although many (including Pearl's widow and the US
authorities) doubt that he committed the murder. However, reports from Pakistan suggest
that Sheikh
continues to be active from jail, keeping in touch with friends and followers in Britain. Sheikh was recruited as a student by
Jaish-e-Muhammad (Army of Muhammad), which operates a network in Britain. It has actively
recruited Britons from universities and colleges since the early 1990s, and has boasted of
its numerous British Muslim volunteers. Investigations in Pakistan have suggested that on
his visits there Shehzad Tanweer, one of the London suicide bombers, contacted members of
two outlawed local groups and trained at two camps in Karachi and near Lahore. Indeed the
network of groups now being uncovered in Pakistan may point to senior al-Qaida operatives
having played a part in selecting members of the bombers' cell. The Observer Research
Foundation has argued that there are even 'grounds to suspect that the [London] blasts
were orchestrated by Omar Sheikh from his jail in Pakistan'. Why then is Omar
Sheikh not being dealt with when he is already under
sentence of death? Astonishingly his appeal to a higher court against the sentence was
adjourned in July for the 32nd time and has since been adjourned indefinitely. This is all
the more remarkable when this is the same Omar Sheikh who, at the behest of General Mahmood Ahmed, head of the ISI, wired
$100,000 to Mohammed Atta, the leading 9/11 hijacker, before the New York attacks, as
confirmed by Dennis Lormel, director of FBI's financial crimes unit. Yet neither Ahmed nor
Omar appears to
have been sought for questioning by the US about 9/11. Indeed, the official 9/11
Commission Report of July 2004 sought to downplay the role of Pakistan with the comment:
'To date, the US government has not been able to determine the origin of the money used
for the 9/11 attacks. Ultimately the question is of little practical significance' - a
statement of breathtaking disingenuousness. All this highlights the resistance to getting
at the truth about the 9/11 attacks and to an effective crackdown on the forces fomenting
terrorist bombings in the west, including Britain." www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/WATomarsheikhgate.htm ." Ian Henshall, chair of INK the Alternative Publishers umbrella group in the UK and publisher of 911dossier.co.uk Crisis Newsletter, 27 January 2003
"It would be very
difficult to just hang Sheikh, and everyone knows that.... Its a
complicated thing [Sheikh's alleged ties to the ISI], and I dont know if I can talk
about them publicly right now. Everything is related. Of course, theres his
relationship with the ISI, but theres also his relationship with other organizations
and other countries. Its complicated and its murky." "A high-profile new
film has focused renewed attention on the case of the Wall Street Journal reporter who
was kidnapped and executed by Islamic insurgents here in 2002, and has underscored the
fact that many questions remain unanswered.... The most persistently nebulous element of
the case, analysts say, is how much Pakistan's
powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency knew
about the events surrounding Pearl's capture and execution. Pakistani military
intelligence has a history of entanglement with the Islamic militants it is charged with
policing. 'There are officials within the security services who are not entirely
interested in seeing this [investigation] go forward,' said John Harrison, a senior
researcher for the International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research in
Singapore. 'Not that they were involved in the murder itself, but there are definitely
embarrassing connections between the ISI and many of the perpetrators.' These dark and
various complexities underpin the film 'A Mighty Heart,' starring Angelina Jolie and
produced by Brad Pitt, which opens in U.S. theaters Friday. ....... Four men have been
convicted in connection with the Pearl case. But the Pakistani legal system is a
convoluted one, and appeals have been pending in the courts for years, and could take
years more to move forward. The most prominent of the four defendants was British-born Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, sentenced to death in July 2002 for helping lure Pearl to the fateful
meeting. But he is seeking to have his conviction overturned on the basis of a reported
confession by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged No. 3 in Al Qaeda, who is said to have claimed to have
personally beheaded the journalist." "While working
for the Wall Street Journal's Washington bureau in 1993, journalist Asra Nomani played
volleyball on the National Mall, explored the city's club scene and got her 'socialization
to America' with friend and colleague Daniel Pearl by her side. This fall, more than five
years after Pearl was murdered while reporting in Pakistan, [former Wall St Journal
reporter Asra] Nomani will lead a for-credit journalism seminar at Georgetown University in
Washington, D.C., that seeks to investigate the circumstances of his death.... Nomani has
a list of dozens of questions she hopes the course will be able to answer, including why
Pearl was kidnapped, who financed and distributed the video of his death, what story Pearl
was chasing, and whether Omar Saeed Sheikh, whom police have said was identified by others involved in the crime as
the mastermind, had ties to Pakistani intelligence. Sheikh has been convicted and sentenced to death for his role in the
plot; he is in jail in Pakistan awaiting an appeal, Nomani says." "I hope audiences will walk away from
the film with an important message: the story doesn't end with this film. I hope viewers
will understand that we're still navigating through the confusing labyrinth of Danny's
kidnapping and murder trying to understand what really happened. The mystery is still not
solved..... Over the last five years since Danny's kidnapping, political subterfuge has
defined the effort to understand what really happened to Danny and realize justice in his
murder." "Pakistan's Habib Bank Ltd. denied on
Thursday allegations by the widow of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl that
it transferred funds on behalf of charities supporting 'terrorist organisations'. Mariane Pearl filed a
lawsuit at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York on Wednesday
against al Qaeda, other radical groups and Habib Bank Ltd. over the 2002 abduction,
torture and murder of her husband. The government
holds a 49 percent stake in the bank, though it
plans to sell up to 7.5 percent of the bank through an initial public offering later this
month....Among those sued is Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, or Sheikh Omar, who was convicted and sentenced to death in a Pakistani
court for his role in the abduction and murder. Three others were jailed for life. Another
defendant is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a suspected high-ranking al Qaeda leader and Sept. 11 mastermind who is
in U.S. custody. Mohammed admitted to a U.S. military tribunal that he beheaded Pearl, the
U.S. military said." "As the film about the kidnap and
murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl is released in the UK, a new project
has been launched dedicated to finding out the reason
for his death. A team of 21 students is working
under the guidance of Asra Nomani, a friend and colleague of Pearl at the Wall Street
Journals Washington bureau, who was among the last people to see him before he went
to meet religious leader Sheikh Gilani in Karachi, Pakistan in January 2002....According
to testimony given to a tribunal at the US military base at Guantanamo Bay, Khalid Sheikh
Mohammed confessed to being responsible for Pearls murder. But Nomani, who is
jointly teaching the seminar at Georgetown Universitys School of Continuing Studies,
believes there are still many questions unanswered. She has worked with the
Washingtonpost.coms computer-assisted reporting expert, Derek Willis, to develop a
website that will chart all the information gathered on a collaborative project that spans
the globe. Modelled on the Intellipedia used by the United States intelligence community
and other national-security related organisations, the Pearlpedia will be used by students working on different strands of the
investigation along with a small group of stringers in Pakistan." Media References For Omar Sheikh - Click Here "I was inspired at a midpoint in my
work by a remarkably generous statement from Mariane
Pearl, widow of the murdered journalist, Daniel
Pearl. On February 22, 2002, when her husbands death had been confirmed, she said:
'Revenge would be easy, but it is far more valuable in my opinion to address this
problem of terrorism with enough honesty to question our
own responsibility as nations and as individuals for the rise of terrorism.' This kind of introspection had been almost totally absent in the
American press, particularly before 9/11.... it behooves editorial page and OpEd editors
to be sure their pages meet issues head-on, even those that run the risk of drawing
criticism from super patriots and others with strong opposing views." |
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NLPWESSEX,
natural law publishing |