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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Terrorist plot

Terrorist plot

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I don’t know why this story isn’t getting more press, given how much attention other planned terrorist attacks have gotten:

Intelligence officials and people familiar with an unfolding terrorist plot to target Europe tell NPR that Osama bin Laden is involved.

Several months ago, source say, bin Laden used couriers to send a message to al-Qaida’s affiliates and partners: He told them that he would like to see a Mumbai-style attack on at least three strategic targets — the United Kingdom, Germany and France.

Reader Interactions

79Comments

  1. 1.

    Tonal Crow

    Everyone knows that the *real* terror threat comes from climate “scientists”, Al Gore, Howard Dean, and George Soros.

    Amirite?

  4. 4.

    Jewish Steel

    I know!

    I saw that shit yesterday. WTF, msm?

    Terrorism not sensationalist enough for ya?

    It’s a sad day when even the jihaddis can’t get their attention.

  9. 9.

    Zifnab

    Maybe all the high pumbas are on vacation. Maybe FOX is just sitting on it until they can spin the whole thing as “Obama Determined to Attack America”.

  10. 10.

    Martin

    This works against the narrative. The plot was uncovered which means that Chocolate Carter didn’t fail, and it reminds everyone that OBL is still around when Bush should have taken care of him, well, nearly a decade ago now.

  12. 12.

    Allan

    He told them that he would like to see a Mumbai-style attack on at least three strategic targets — the United Kingdom, Germany and France.

    The reason for the lack of interest in this story in the US is contained in this sentence.

  13. 13.

    zattarra

    It’s simple. They are actually preventing something from happening and not ignoring a threat. Reporting this would therefore destroy the meme that Obama is soft on terrorism or is incompentant. This cannot be allowed to be said on our “liberal” media.

    Also, if we talk about Osama Bin Laden planning something it will draw attention to why we are still fighting in Afghanistan and on the Paksitani border – can’t allow that either or the stories of that being Obama’s Vietnam and us floundering there for no reason might get questioned also.

    There is no ratings in the msm addressing where things might be going right, they can’t frame that into how Dems are blowing the elections. If it doesn’t link back to politics and what does this mean in terms of electoral politics and power in Washington than the msm won’t care until there is a failure so they can then blame Democrats and tell us how this will hurt them in the elections.

  14. 14.

    Kryptik

    @Allan:

    The reason for the lack of interest in this story in the US is contained in this sentence.

    The lack thereof, you mean?

  15. 15.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    What everybody else said.

    The MSM has one mission right now – destroy the Dems in Congress and provoke a civil war between the Obama admin and GOPerville. Everything else is a distraction from the main goal of drawing the maximum number of eyeballs, which in an era of collapsing ad revenue is not just everything, it is the only thing. Eyes on the prize, ladies and gentlemen, eyes on the prize.

    And yes, I do think that we’ve reached the point where our news media are openly and frankly treasonous and would gladly destroy the country if they could get epic ratings covering the collapse. Why do you ask?

  16. 16.

    Norwegian Shooter

    Whatever the reason, it seems justified to me. The initial, and possibly only source:

    Ahmad Siddiqui had been flagged as someone of interest to counterterrorism officials. He allegedly knew Mohamed Atta, one of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers, in Germany and worshipped at the same mosque.

    Well, he’s a terrorist for sure! And how does this sh*t still not stink:

    “We know that Osama bin Laden issued the directive,” said an official familiar with the intelligence surrounding the plot. “And if he issued the directive, we just don’t believe that the U.S. wouldn’t be on his short list of strategic targets. It has to be.”

    and this

    Siddiqui told them that he trained in Pakistan and was given sanctuary by a Pakistani group called the Haqqani network while he was there. The Haqqani network is a group based in Pakistan with close ties to the Taliban and, by extension, al-Qaida.

    I believe all big new terror attack stories have hit when an actual suspect, not an informant, is in custody.

  17. 17.

    Jewish Steel

    Or maybe it’s a little too “on the nose” for the jaded coastal elites.

    You know, explosions, bearded foreign villains, fanaticism, “never forget.” Puh-leez!

  18. 18.

    AndyFarquhar

    Are you being sarcastic? This is already old news. It was the lead story on both NBC and CBS evening news LAST night (I’m a little embarrassed to say I was watching both). It’s a completely inchoate threat – just “chatter” on “known terrorist networks” or some bs. Just ginning up fear before the election. Wait, there’s a missing blond teenager.

  19. 19.

    slag

    Osama bin Laden is involved

    Every time I read about this guy, it just galls me that he’s still alive and not in jail. It’s the same feeling I get every time I read about Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and Alberto Gonzales. No justice.

  20. 20.

    licensed to kill time

    No video of blood and guts. It ain’t bleedin’ yet so how can it lead?

    And if I see that same video of the six guys practicing their kickboxing techniques in turbans one more time I’m going to scream. I believe I have seen it approximately eleventy billion times by now.

  21. 21.

    David

    They mentioned it many times on the BBC but not as much as I thought they would. Perhaps it’s a good thing that it’s not all over the news.

  22. 22.

    New Yorker

    Because who cares? Those are funny countries where everyone eats funny foods and speaks funny languages that Jesus didn’t speak and everyone hates Real ‘Murkans there also too.

    Plus, healthcare reform is the greatest threat this country has ever faced. 9/11 is nothing compared to what Obama will do to this country. Just ask Newt Gingrich.

  25. 25.

    Captain Haddock

    Well, Jesus man, you can’t expect the networks to cover terrorism when there are Dancing with the Stars updates!

  26. 26.

    kommrade reproductive vigor

    I don’t know why this story isn’t getting more press,

    They’re waiting for complete reports of the damage to fReichtard panties before they tell us exactly how Obama is to blame for the Sharts of Ass Destruction.

  27. 27.

    Sasha

    [cynic] Because suddenly scared populaces tend to support the party in power. But the Dems are in power now, it’s just before a critical election, and Fox and the “liberal media” don’t want a resurgent Democratic party. [/cynic]

  28. 28.

    Poopyman

    I heard a very short piece on the radio yesterday about this. IIRC (I was driving and not paying full attention to the radio), the US is giving classified briefings to heads of security of hotels, theme parks, etc. I guess the particulars are, well, classified.

  29. 29.

    joe from Lowell

    I’d like to think this was a result of our media growing up and realizing that hyping terrorism only helps the terrorists, but that would be way too optimistic.

    It’s almost certainly what zattarra said in #13.

  30. 30.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    Weird how terrorism just fades away as an issue when the nefarious Dick Cheney isn’t using it to further some diabolical plan for world domination.

  31. 31.

    MikeJ

    @slag:

    Every time I read about this guy, it just galls me that he’s still alive and not in jail.

    Turns out a president can’t order an assassination. Until they get a warrant from a court and then send police into the hinterlands of Pakistan to arrest him, sadly our hands are tied.

    Or so I’m led to believe.

  32. 32.

    Corner Stone

    Everything I’ve read through on this has been extremely light on actual “threat reportage”.
    I’m waiting for something a little more solid.

    Now as to why the MSM isn’t cramming their soiled panties down our throats? Meh.

  34. 34.

    trollhattan

    I miss the good ol’ days when Dick Cheney would go out to the White House porch and personally shove the threat needle to orange, say, “Mrrrr, mRRr!” and order somebody to give a Gitmo prisoner an extra kick in the balls that day. Then Sunday it would be time to hit all talk shows.

    Good times.

  36. 36.

    Blotto von Bismarck

    If Osama bin Laden wasn’t at the top of George W. Bush’s priority list, then that’s good enough for me. You silly treefrogs need to stop worrying about abstract possibilities and start worrying about the scary truth, such as Imam Rauf and his monument.

  37. 37.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    It’s getting plenty of attention in the French press. (I don’t read German, so I don’t know about that.)

    @zattarra: You’ve put your finger on it. It doesn’t fit the dominant narrative.

  38. 38.

    aimai

    @Kryptik:

    Correct, if the media could use the international media coverage term for “No Humans Involved” they would. Obviously, if an attack is happening in any country other than the US it is simply insignificant. See also Mel Brooks’ definition of comedy and tragedy.

    aimai

  39. 39.

    Binzinerator

    Because the greatest danger to this country is the kenyan lau tribesman sociaIist antichrist blackety-black-black foreign-born moozlim magic negro lurking in the white house.

    That is all.

  40. 40.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @freelancer: I went to the the Universities of Amsterdam and Maastricht this summer. That is, while I was in those cities, I went to the physical sites of the universities and looked around. Maybe that is what Christine meant.

  41. 41.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @freelancer: I went to the the Universities of Amsterdam and Maastricht this summer. That is, while I was in those cities, I went to the physical sites of the universities and looked around. Maybe that is what Christine meant.

  42. 42.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    My conspiracy theory is that the media is waiting to see if something happens. Then they can report it as a surprise attack that the Obama administration knew nothing about because they are inept. Evidence to the contrary means nothing.

    @MikeJ: Everyone will argue that is OK because he’s not American (IOKIHNA).

  44. 44.

    Svensker

    What did the French ever do to OBL? The Germans, I can understand — who likes them? But why the French?

  45. 45.

    Karen

    Oh it’s easy why the msm isn’t really covering this.

    Osama was Bush’s fault, not Obama’s. There is no way they can blame Obama for this so there’s no interest on their end.

  46. 46.

    fasteddie9318

    @Svensker:

    What did the French ever do to OBL? The Germans, I can understand—who likes them? But why the French?

    Well of course he hates them for their FREEEEEEEEDOM, but if you’re serious then the real reasons for Muslim anger toward France, aside from general anger towards the West, are Algeria and Mandate Syria.

  47. 47.

    joe from Lowell

    @Svensker:

    What did the French ever do to OBL?

    Won at Tours. OBL is like those Serbian fanatics who are still obsessed with the Turks vandalizing a church 1000 years ago, except even moreso.

    This certainly wouldn’t be the first al Qaeda attack attempted on the French. Contrary to Condi’s “nobody could have predicted,” there was a plot uncovered in, I think, 1999 to hijack a plane and crash it into the Eiffel Tower.

  48. 48.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Svensker: Probably the headscarf ban and general callousness towards Islam.

    Either that, or _Cahiers du cinema_. Osama bin Laden, it turns out, really hates auteurism.

  50. 50.

    joe from Lowell

    How’s this for optimistic, but still plausible:

    The American press isn’t focusing on this story, unlike previous terrorism threats, because the American government isn’t actively hyping this story to the media as part of a political strategy, the way they did under Bush. Instead, perhaps they’re handling it quietly, they way they’re supposed to.

  51. 51.

    Glenndacious Greenwaldian (formerly tim)

    Oh please…OBL has been dead for years.

    He is being kept “alive” as a bogey man, and apparently it works with a lot of people.

    This is yet another thing that pisses me off about Obama. If OBL is dead, then it follows that Obama knows that, and is actively promoting the fiction that he’s still alive.

    I know, I know, CONSPIRACY THEORIST!!!!! ZOMG!

    But it’s probably true.

  53. 53.

    Bob L

    @ThatLeftTurnInABQ:

    The MSM has one mission right now – destroy the Dems in Congress and provoke a civil war between the Obama admin and GOPerville. Everything else is a distraction from the main goal of drawing the maximum number of eyeballs, which in an era of collapsing ad revenue is not just everything, it is the only thing. Eyes on the prize, ladies and gentlemen, eyes on the prize.

    And that is about it.

  54. 54.

    Wile E. Quixote

    @David Hunt:

    You’ve almost got it right. Think about it. Have you ever seen Osama bin Laden and Howard Dean in the same place at the same time?

    Plus how do we know that Osama bin Laden wasn’t pretending to be Howard Dean and posting to Journolist under an assumed screen name? I will not rest until John Cole proves that he and Osama bin Laden were not pretending to be Howard Dean and posting to Journolist under assumed screen names.

  55. 55.

    Bob Loblaw

    @joe from Lowell:

    No, it’s pretty much exclusively because the threat wasn’t America.

    How many Americans even remember the 2005 terrorist attack in Britain? 20%, maybe 30%?

    How many Americans have even heard of Mumbai, even now?

  57. 57.

    R-Jud

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I went to the the Universities of Amsterdam and Maastricht this summer. That is, while I was in those cities, I went to the physical sites of the universities and looked around. Maybe that is what Christine meant.

    Heh. I saw a Modern Toss cartoon like that in Private Eye last week:

    Interviewer: “It says here you went to Cambridge.”
    Interviewee: “Yeah, I had to drop something off, I was back by six.”

  61. 61.

    Three-nineteen

    @MikeJ #30: Well, we’ve indicted bin Laden, which means that a court or grand jury has seen evidence and determined that there is plausible evidence he committed a crime. So that means we do have a warrant for him.

  62. 62.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Three-nineteen:

    we’ve indicted bin Laden, which means that a court or grand jury has seen evidence and determined that there is plausible evidence he committed a crime.

    I hadn’t thought of that. Was it a “public” proceeding or a “secret” proceeding? IANAL, so I’m not sure that’s the right vocabulary… What I mean is, was it pretty much rubber-stamped (like some of the FISA provisions allow), or did it involve summoning a bunch of everyday people who live in the district to hear the evidence and weigh it?

  63. 63.

    Wile E. Quixote

    @mclaren:

    Remember – capturing Osama bin Laden is our number one priority.

    And you can judge our success by the number of times we’ve killed or captured the number two man in Al Qaeda. As an aside I have to wonder whether or not number two man in Al Qaeda is a better or worse job than “red-shirted crewman” or “assistant crack-whore”.

  65. 65.

    joe from Lowell

    @Wile E. Quixote:

    And you can judge our success by the number of times we’ve killed or captured the number two man in Al Qaeda.

    It’s the number 3 guy we keep killing.

    Apparently, the al Qaeda charter creates three constitutional offices: Mastermind, Vice-Mastermind, and Keeper of the GPS Beacon.

  68. 68.

    Bokonon

    Because it is about EUROPEANS, not Americans!

    Those people over there? Terrorist attacks? Who cares!

    Unless and until America is impacted some way (or our taxes go up because of it), it didn’t happen. Cable news won’t cover it. Right wing bloggers won’t gnash their teeth about it. The newspapers won’t discuss it (except maybe a one paragraph wire service report buried on a back page). We won’t be paying attention, and will be talking about Lindsay Lohan’s new drug arrest, and what’s happening on reality TV … even though this is apparently part of that war against terror that has consumed us for the last decade.

    Because the targets ain’t us.

    And … the media won’t cover it unless people already care (or are hysterical about the subject).

    And that in turn is because collectively, as a nation, we are a bunch of self-indulgent, narcissistic and provincial jerks.

  69. 69.

    Arclite

    The targets are dirty hippie Europeans, so who cares?

    Now if the targets were New York, Chicago, and L.A., we’d be hearing about it 24/7.

  70. 70.

    Mike G

    He told them that he would like to see a Mumbai-style attack on at least three strategic targets — the United Kingdom, Germany and France.

    Only one thing can stop this — a giant tax cut.

    After 9/11 the French said “We are all Americans now”.
    If there were a major attack on France I doubt our drooling wingnut assholes would hold back their sneering, guffawing and renaming food for more than five minutes.

  71. 71.

    Kyle

    If OBL is dead, then it follows that Obama knows that

    Not necessarily. There is a long history of the spooks hiding stuff and deceiving the President, and not just with aggressive dumbfucks like Bush or paranoid drunks like Nixon who need to be kept in the dark for the good of the country.

  72. 72.

    Ken Lovell

    ‘He told them that he would like to see a Mumbai-style attack on at least three strategic targets — the United Kingdom, Germany and France.’

    Yeah, cos terrorists would never even of thought of that without a hint from the boss, which is why we need to keep occupying Afghanistan. Why so many people fail to grasp these simple truths is beyond me.

  73. 73.

    El Cid

    @joe from Lowell: The thing is, being promoted to #3 in Al Qa’ida is a punishment.

    ‘You know, Abdul, um, that operation, you know, in France you were doing. We know it didn’t work and the bomb guy was caught. But, you know, we appreciate a good effort. In fact, we’re promoting you to…’

    ‘Oh no…’

    ‘Al Qa’ida #3! And here’s your red shirt to go with it!’

  75. 75.

    El Cid

    Time magazine seems to notice another threat to the Republic, and it’s actually not Mooozlims.

    The Secret World of Extreme Militias
    __
    By Barton Gellman
    __
    …This August weekend of grueling mock combat, which left some of the men prostrate and bloody-booted, capped a yearlong training regimen of the Ohio Defense Force, a private militia that claims 300 active members statewide. The fighters shot blanks, the better to learn to maneuver in squads, but they buy live ammunition in bulk. Their training — no game, they stress — expends thousands of rounds a year from a bring-your-own armory of deer rifles, assault weapons and, when the owner turns up, a belt-fed M-60 machine gun. The militia trains for ambushes, sniper missions, close-quarters battle and other infantry staples.
    __
    What distinguishes groups like this one from a shooting club or re-enactment society is the prospect of actual bloodshed, which many Ohio Defense Force members see as real. Their unit seal depicts a man with a musket and tricorn hat, over the motto “Today’s Minutemen.” The symbol invites a question, Who are today’s redcoats? On that point, the group takes no official position, but many of those interviewed over two days of recent training in and around the abandoned Roseville State Prison near Zanesville voiced grim suspicions about President Obama and the federal government in general. (See Obama’s troubled first year.)
    __
    “I don’t know who the redcoats are,” says Brian Vandersall, 37, who designed the exercise and tried to tamp down talk of politics among the men. “It could be U.N. troops. It could be federal troops. It could be Blackwater, which was used in Katrina. It could be Mexican troops who are crossing the border.” …
    __
    …Within a complex web of ideologies, most of today’s armed radicals are linked by self-described Patriot beliefs, which emphasize resistance to tyranny by force of arms and reject the idea that elections can fix what ails the country. Among the most common convictions is that the Second Amendment — the right to keep and bear arms — is the Constitution’s cornerstone, because only a well-armed populace can enforce its rights. Any form of gun regulation, therefore, is a sure sign of intent to crush other freedoms. The federal government is often said in militia circles to have made wholesale seizures of power, at times by subterfuge. A leading grievance holds that the 16th Amendment, which authorizes the federal income tax, was ratified through fraud. __
    In a reversal of casting, the armed antigovernment movement describes itself as heir to the founders. As they see it, the union that the founders created is now a foreign tyrant.
    __
    “It’s like waking up behind enemy lines,” says Terrell. He says he smelled a setup when the FBI arrested nine members of Michigan’s Hutaree militia in March and charged them with plotting to kill police. (Their trial is set to begin in February.) Terrell and other leaders put their forces on alert, anticipating a roundup. “There was a lot of citizens out there in the bushes, locked and loaded,” he says. “It’s only due to miracles I do not understand that civil war did not break out right there.”
    __
    Some groups, though not many overtly, embrace the white-supremacist legacy of the Posse Comitatus, which invented the modern militia movement in the 1970s. Some are fueled by a violent stream of millennial Christianity. Some believe Washington is a secondary foe, the agent of a dystopian new world order…
    __
    None of these movements are entirely new, but most were in sharp decline by the late 1990s. Their resurgence now is widely seen among government and academic experts as a reaction to the tectonic shifts in American politics that allowed a black man with a foreign-sounding name and a Muslim-born father to reach the White House…
    __
    One answer comes from former Alabama militia leader Mike Vanderboegh, who wrote an essay that is among the most widely republished on antigovernment extremist sites today. In “What Good Is a Handgun Against an Army?” Vanderboegh says the tactical question is easy: Kill the enemy one soldier at a time.
    __
    A patriot needs only a “cheap little pistol and the guts to use it,” he writes, to shoot a soldier in the head and take his rifle; with a friend, such a man will soon have “a truck full of arms and ammunition.” Vanderboegh is hardly a man of action himself, living these days on government disability checks. Even so, when he wrote a blog post in March urging followers to protest the health care bill by breaking windows at Democratic Party offices, they did so across the country. (Read “The War Over Patriotism.”)
    __
    Another answer comes from Richard Mack, who is holding constitutional seminars for county sheriffs from coast to coast, urging them to resist what he describes as federal tyranny by force.
    __
    In his presentations, he shows movie clips to illustrate his point, like a scene from The Patriot in which Mel Gibson says, with fire in his eyes, “You will obey my command, or I will have you shot.”

    You see, the Republic only needs the services of a militia steeped in fascist and white supremacist beliefs when there’s a Democratic President.

    “[M]ost were in sharp decline by the late 1990s…”

    Yeah. After one of them blew up a federal building with a day care center, they came under a bit more scrutiny.

    STOP THE FEDRUL UNCONSTUSHULL TYRANNY AND KEEP GIVIN’ ME MY DAMN DISABILITY!

    Maybe Jon Stewart can point out that, you see, we need to get a hold of the extremism on both sides, where one side is gearing up for a paramilitary war to shoot soldiers in order to overthrow the Constitution whenever a Democrat is President, and sometimes there are rallies where people carry a sign with a hammer and sickle or say nice things about Hamas. See? Both sides!

    Maybe they could hook up with the various Islamic extremist would-be terrorists who want to shoot up highly populated buildings, and exchange notes on how to use small arms for the widest terror effect.

  76. 76.

    anticontrarian

    I don’t know why this story isn’t getting more press, given how much attention other planned terrorist attacks have gotten:

    cuz there’s a democrat in the white house. duh.

  77. 77.

    HE Pennypacker, Wealthy Industrialist

    I was shocked to hear the word “chatter” on the news the other night. Brought me right back to the GWB days.

  79. 79.

    dopey-o

    question 1: how do we know that OBL is even alive?

    question 2: OBL sent couriers. how do the president’s new internet-tapping powers help stop couriers?

    question 3: can we be sure that AQ’s new strategery isn’t just sending out random missives to random cells, in the hope that a few of them get caught, spill the beans, and rachet up fear in the west? isn’t that basically their mission statement, to induce fear in us?

    question 4: could AQ’s commando-style attacks kill nearly as many Americans as cuts to Social Security will?

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