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  1. #1
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    Mossad makes Al-Qaeda its top target
    Uzi Mahnaimi, Taba



    THE ISRAELI government has ordered Mossad, the foreign intelligence service, to make the hunt for Al-Qaeda terrorists its main priority after last week’s Red Sea attacks that killed at least 33 people, most of them Israeli tourists.
    Egyptian officials said yesterday they had detained dozens of bedouin tribesmen on su ion of supplying the explosives for the blasts at the Taba Hilton and at a bungalow beach camp 35 miles down the coast.



    As rescuers pulled more bodies from the wreckage of the hotel, Dan Arditi, Israel’s counterterrorism chief, urged tourists still in Egypt to come home, warning that the attacks on Thursday “don’t lessen, even in the slightest, the risk that this will happen again”.

    The order to Mossad to turn its attention from Palestinian groups to Al-Qaeda was given by Ariel Sharon, the prime minister, after Israeli intelligence sources said the size of the blasts suggested they were the work of Osama Bin Laden’s network rather than Palestinian suicide bombers.

    Confirmation may be provided by fingerprints taken from bomb fragments and DNA obtained from the remains of the suspected bombers.

    Arditi had urged Israelis on September 9 to avoid the area because of indications of an imminent terrorist attack. His warning appeared on the front pages of the country’s main newspapers on the eve of the Jewish new year.

    “This time Al-Qaeda hit our back yard,” said a security source. “If we don’t focus on them, next time it will be Tel Aviv. After four years of intifada we’ve succeeded in containing the Palestinian terror, but now we’re facing a much more ruthless enemy we can’t ignore any more.”

    It is not the first time Al-Qaeda has gone after an Israeli target, or that Sharon’s government has vowed to take it on. The group claimed responsibility for the car bombing in November 2002 of an Israeli-owned hotel in the Kenyan port of Mombasa that killed 14 people, including three Israelis.

    After that attack Sharon summoned Meir Dagan, the head of Mossad, and ordered agents living undercover in Saudi Arabia and Yemen to hunt down those responsible. Almost two years later the perpetrators remain at large — a reflection, according to the security source, of the agency’s concentration on combating Palestinian operations.

    When Mossad was presented with a list of priorities for the current year, Al-Qaeda was not on it. Its main efforts were instead to be directed at Iran’s nuclear ambitions and the activities of Palestinian terrorist groups in Lebanon and Syria.

    Israeli intelligence sources said they believed the Taba attack had been masterminded by Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian doctor regarded as Bin Laden’s deputy. In a statement broadcast this month on the Al-Jazeera satellite television channel, al-Zawahiri threatened to focus Al-Qaeda’s efforts more intensely on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

    Nothing is known about how Mossad will carry out its mission, especially against al-Zawahiri, who is believed to be in hiding near the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

    Intelligence sources said this weekend the organisation — which has no more than 150 agents operating all over the world — would not try to compete with America’s CIA.

    It would instead focus on Turkey and Thailand. “We’ll co-ordinate with the local security services, but our main aim will be to protect Israeli tourists in these two locations,” said one intelligence source.

    The agency would then work in a more systematic way, by listing top Al-Qaeda activists and trying to kill them in the same way they have done over the past 40 years in operations against various terrorist groups. “To hit an Al-Qaeda leader either in Saudi Arabia, Europe, or even Tehran is less difficult than to act in Damascus,” said one intelligence source. “It’s all a matter of priorities.” Aladin Abdel Naby

  2. #2
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    LMAO, if Osama is smart he'll turn himself in to the US before the Mossad gets hold of him.

  3. #3
    Free Throw Coach Aggie Hoopsfan's Avatar
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    That's great stuff. They don't fight with two fingers on the pulse of PC/political opinion.

    Their at ude, which is what ours should be (and what most SF types in the military I know advocate), is that we should hunt down and exterminate any of these ers who have even an inkling about killing an American before they do.

  4. #4
    Bombs Away! AFE7FATMAN's Avatar
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    The Mossad is what the CIA should be.

  5. #5
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    We'll they're close but they are better connected in the middle east than the CIA. Main difference, plus they get a little carried away...Doesn't bother me if they get carried away with Osama though.

  6. #6
    Alleged Michigander ChumpDumper's Avatar
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    Gee, imagine if we had made Osama a priority instead of Saddam....

  7. #7
    Roll The Dice Hook Dem's Avatar
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    Gee, imagine if we had made Osama a priority instead of Saddam....
    Whats the matter Chump? Only one bullet in your gun?

  8. #8
    Free Throw Coach Aggie Hoopsfan's Avatar
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    Gee, imagine if we had made Osama a priority instead of Saddam....
    When will liberals recognize that the war on terror is not a linear battle? It is multi-faceted.

    I hate to burst your bubble but we actually upped the number of troops in Afghanistan during Operation Iraqi Freedom, but that's lost on you because John Kerry says it isn't so.

  9. #9
    Alleged Michigander ChumpDumper's Avatar
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    Sorry, you can't convince me Osama is the priority.

    Follow the money.
    I hate to burst your bubble but we actually upped the number of troops in Afghanistan during Operation Iraqi Freedom
    Is Osama there? Don't hold out on the American people!

  10. #10
    Free Throw Coach Aggie Hoopsfan's Avatar
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    Like I said, maybe one day the liberals will realize that we are not fighting a linear war (i.e., wipe out point A, then move on to point B).

    Look, you're apparently too stupid to understand it, so I'll put it another way... you notice how in WWII we were fighting a European war while also fighting a Pacific battle?

    Same , different time frame. We won't win the war on terror by going to one place, then to another, etc.

    The war isn't just about Osama, it's about all of radical Islam. Guess what? We're fighting in more places than just Afghanistan or Iraq right now.

    We have Special Forces running around all over the world in the dark of the night doing a little pest extermination, you just don't hear about it. Why? Because we don't necessarily want to publicize where we are working, and certain leaders of certain countries don't want it known that they are looking the other way while we do our business.

    Again, the war on terror is not a linear process. Read, repeat, learn.

    After all, we've got Osama locked up to roll out the week before the election, remember

  11. #11
    Alabama Spurs Fan dcole50's Avatar
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    Look, you're apparently too stupid to understand it, so I'll put it another way...

    You're not exactly the greatest political mind I've ever seen, so I don't think you have the right to talk down to others and call them stupid because they don't share the same political views as you.

  12. #12
    Free Throw Coach Aggie Hoopsfan's Avatar
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    What does politics have to with fighting this war? It's simple history. WWI, WWII, the Cold War, all fought on multiple fronts.

    We fought the biggest war of the 20th century on multiple fronts, and all I ever hear from libs is "we weren't finished in Afghanistan."

    This is a GLOBAL war, and is fought on more than one front. It's not like all the terrorists or the regimes that support them are some sort of nomadic en y that just moves from place to place - they are scattered, hence we must fight a multi-front, multi-region conflict.

    That's your whole problem, you're treating the war on terror as a political issue, as are most liberals.

    This isn't some stupid American political game where only the left or only the right are affected.

    There are people around the world who hate us. They hate us because of globalization. They hate us because their economy sucks. They hate us because some "cleric" tells us we're to blame for all their problems. They hate us because some s has them believing that they are above us, and the only way to prove it is to come kill us.

    Anyone who thinks this is a political issue is doomed to fail in the eye of history.

  13. #13
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    AHF, give it up, it's a waste of time to talk war strategy with liberals...their solution to war is to nuke the living out of countries(see WWII).

  14. #14
    Alabama Spurs Fan dcole50's Avatar
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    Yes, the liberals just want to blow up the Middle East, right? Completely comparable to WWII.

    My problem with the war is that I still don't understand why we are even in Iraq. There were no WMD's, they were not the biggest threat. Please, explain to me how the world is a better place now and tell my how stupid I am for not "understanding" it.

  15. #15
    Bombs Away! AFE7FATMAN's Avatar
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    AHF

    Do you think you could get some of these folks into your Middle East History classes?
    I'm sure the Prof would have a ball.

    The world is a better place because of one less dictator.
    Why can't the Liberals understand
    RADICAL ISLAM?

  16. #16
    Pimp Marcus Bryant's Avatar
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    Gee, imagine if we had made Osama a priority instead of Saddam....
    Yeah, then LA wouldn't have been attacked last month. Oh, nevermind.

    Bush made the responsible decision. Just about every intel agency in Europe and the ME thought he had the weapons. The Clinton Administration certainly thought he had them and thought that going after bin Laden in Afghanistan would drive him to Baghdad. Kerry and Edwards thought that Hussein had to go.

    Had the US not led the invasion to drive Hussein out of power then ultimately Hussein's friends on the UN Security Council would have helped to end the sanctions. Then Hussein would have got he wanted (as the Duelfer report lays out) and he would have built back his chemical and biological weapons arsenal (some of those weapons could have been created in a matter of weeks) and gotten his nuclear program back on track. If it's a couple of years for the nukes, so what? Then you have a Hussein you could have taken out now with nukes. Brilliant idea.

    The invasion was not premised first and foremost on the existence of the WMDs, but rather that Hussein never verified that he had destroyed his weapons and ended his weapons programs after the 1991 Gulf War as well as what was believed to be the existence of those weapons, a view shared, again, by just about everyone in the world. And a major reason it wasn't known what he had with full accuracy was that he had not been forthcoming with information on his WMD programs as well as his cat and mouse games with the weapons inspections. Even Saddam's own generals did not know that the nation did not have WMDs. Hence the reason to invade and remove Saddam. The Clinton administration first made regime change in Iraq US policy.

    Bush made the right call. Hussein wasn't going to stop and he was gaming the UN to free himself to do just that.

    Senators Kerry and Edwards thought so too. Well, until they ran for the presidency.
    Last edited by Marcus Bryant; 10-15-2004 at 09:14 AM.

  17. #17
    Alleged Michigander ChumpDumper's Avatar
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    The war isn't just about Osama, it's about all of radical Islam.
    Then go after them. There is no way you can call Saddam one of those.
    The invasion was not premised first and foremost on the existence of the WMDs
    Of course it was.

    Take care of the actual threats first -- potential ones later.

  18. #18
    Pimp Marcus Bryant's Avatar
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    Out of context.

    The invasion was not premised first and foremost on the existence of the WMDs, but rather that Hussein never verified that he had destroyed his weapons and ended his weapons programs after the 1991 Gulf War as well as what was believed to be the existence of those weapons, a view shared, again, by just about everyone in the world.
    Last edited by Marcus Bryant; 10-15-2004 at 11:45 AM.

  19. #19
    Pimp Marcus Bryant's Avatar
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    Take care of the actual threats first -- potential ones later.
    When every major intel agency including your own says that he has them, then it is regarded as an "actual" threat.

    If one is allowed to use your 20/20 hindsight and condemn Bush for making the right decision given inaccurate information then one can certainly look at the decision in terms of Hussein's efforts to bribe Security Council member states in order to drop the sanctions so that he could restart his weapons programs in earnest, some which wouldn't have taken that long to produce the desired result.

    Quick, pull out the latest issue of The Nation or Mother Jones to come up with your response.
    Last edited by Marcus Bryant; 10-15-2004 at 11:47 AM.

  20. #20
    Alleged Michigander ChumpDumper's Avatar
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    When every major intel agency including your own says that he has them, then it is regarded as an "actual" threat.
    Sorry, Osama is where?

    Priorities.

  21. #21
    I don't really care... Yonivore's Avatar
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    Sorry, Osama is where?

    Priorities.
    He's dead.

  22. #22
    Alleged Michigander ChumpDumper's Avatar
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    He's dead.
    I'll need independent verification.

  23. #23
    Pimp Marcus Bryant's Avatar
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    Since Hussein was regarded as an actual threat by the world that certainly made him a priority.

  24. #24
    Mrs.Useruser666 SpursWoman's Avatar
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    OT: The le of this thread is very disturbing.

  25. #25
    Hint Hint ClintSquint's Avatar
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    Spit it on it!!

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