More information has transpired
about one of the designated participants in the alleged plot, which
according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was to bomb the
Holland Tunnel, connecting New Jersey with Manhattan, with the
ostensible goal of flooding the financial district of Manhattan.
Details of the plot were published in the New York Daily News today.
Sources in Lebanon revealed that a
key figure in the plot was a Lebanese national, who had been arrested in
Lebanon on April 27, 2006 upon the request of US authorities. His real
name is Assem Hammoud, who also used the name of Amir Andalousi. The
sources said he is a computer science professor. He is apparently the
only Lebanese among the eight suspects, who are from six or seven
countries. It is understood that Hammoud was close or part of the
Zarqawi group.
This is a translation of today’s
communiqué from the general-directorate of Lebanon Internal Security
Forces. (Translation was performed as a direct transcription of Arabic
words into English words)
”After information as a result
of constant surveillance of suspected internet websites, observation
took place of “chat rooms” and e-mails on extremist Islamist websites
used to recruit terrorists around the world. The result of their
analysis showed that they were connected with the planning of the
execution of a big terrorist
act targeting the tunnels in New York under
the Hudson River. As a result of rapid technical pursuit of what is
called the Internet Protocol, used by hundreds of persons, and in
cooperation and coordination with the Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI), and based upon an indication from relevant judicial authorities,
the Information Division of the Internal Security Forces identified the
wanted person, A.H., a Lebanese nicknamed Amir Andalousi, who was living
a life of pleasure, far from suspicions.
His arrest took place on April
27, 2006.
Upon an investigation of him, he
confessed that he belonged to an extremist organization and was
currently preparing to execute a big terrorist act in the United States.
For this purpose, he undertook to send detailed maps about the place and
manner of executing this operation to his partners, through the internet.
He was intending to travel to Pakistan in the near future to undertake a
training course to last for four months, provided that the time of the
operation was to be at the end of 2006. It was requested from him not to
show any religious tendencies during his stay in Lebanon and to give the
picture of a frivolous and uncommitted youth. He implemented this
expertly. During 2003, he met a Syrian in Lebanon, who gave him many
weapons courses. He headed in the Syrian’s company to Ain El-Helweh camp
and undertook a training session of light weapons during the tenth month
of 2005. He met a foreigner, who asked him to guarantee apartments to
host jihadists, recruit persons, and collect money and weapons for the
organization. He was in communication with in many persons in foreign
countries.
Coordination with security
apparati occurred so that they were able to arrest most of the members
of this group.” (End of
the communiqué)
As a quick commentary on the
Lebanese security release and the sources information, here are few
points to consider:
1. Assem Hammoud’s war name “Amir
Andalousi” evidently indicates his personal ideological interest or
connection to Spain, or al Andalous, for Andalusia. The last name is
not the only reference in Jihadi linguistics, but also his first nom
de guerre: Amir. From Arabic, it is also transcribed as Emir. In
Jihadi hierarchy “Emirs” are commanders, high or lower levels. This
could be a rank or an appointment. Hence, for our fertile imagination,
his Jihadi personality is an “Andalou Emir.” But from here on, two
tracks are possible. One is that he has the link to Spain, a past one.
But the second track is that he has chosen this nickname as just that:
a code name among Jihadists, to be used in chat rooms and within
correspondence. Keep in mind that the Andalousian fantasy is alive in
the minds of the Salafi Jihadists. As a young student in Lebanon, I do
remember vividly how intense where the fundamentalists about al
Andalous. It could also be both: that he chose that name for Jihadi
fervor, but that he also has a link. Let’s see which scenario will be
confirmed. Ironically I just came back a forum in Spain organized by a
national Think Tank, under the auspices of former Prime Minister Jose
Maria Aznar, which one of the central themes was to examine the
“Andalousian” factor in al Qaida’s doctrine.2. The “extremist organization”
he belonged to, in Lebanese legal and Governmental language is found
in the Salafist pool: It ranges from al Qaida-branch to Asbat al Ansar
to Abu Muhjen’s direct unit; but it could be another off shoot as well.
Most likely, he is linked to the al shabaka al jihadiya, which within
Lebanon’s inner Jihadi world, is a web of cells and individuals who
have aggregated together to support the worldwide Jihad since
Afghanistan’s Soviet war, and have grown in numbers through the Iraq
war. The shabaka is found in all visible groups, including the asba
and the former Harakat al Tawheed, including the Hizb al Tahrir. To
describe it dramatically as Lebanese analysts have put it: No one
knows where exactly it starts but we know where it ends: al Qaida. And
since the Lebanese battlefield was dedicated by al Qaida’s commanders
to support the general efforts in Iraq, it is then more likely that at
the Iraqi end of the network was Abu Mus’ab al Zarqawi. At the
Lebanese end, you have a web stretching into the main radical Sunni
neighborhood from Tripoli to Saida into the Palestinian camps.
3. The fact –if verified- that he is a “computer science” professor
would heighten my own suspicion of the whole context and would revive
some theories and observations I had developed since the 1990s about
the penetration of this field. But that is another story. A computer
science professor means that “technological know how” was available,
that an access to maps, data, and more was potentially requested, and
that other “colleagues” may well be in the picture. These are just
theories of course.
4. If you read this sentence
from the Lebanese security report well you’d draw very important
conclusions: “It was requested from him not to show any religious
tendencies during his stay in Lebanon and to give the picture of a
frivolous and uncommitted youth.” First start with the “it”: Who
requested this guideline from him? Obviously a higher level of command,
and a sophisticated one. In Jihadi tactics, Taqiya is just about that:
You have the right to play another personality until you perform your
mission. Unfortunately many among us are still unaware of it. Often
media reactions to arrests start with “well, he didn’t look like he
was a fundamentalist.” Well, now you have your answer. The
misinformation is not restrained to the public, but is also present in
the judicial world facing off with Terrorism. At the Detroit Terror
case where I testified as an expert in 2003, I wasn’t even able to
give a real example of Taqiya from an article published in a national
daily.
5. When you read this sentence
from the report, you raise even more questions: “He was intending
to travel to Pakistan in the near future to undertake a training
course to last for four months”. So inside Pakistan, there are
“training spaces” for Jihadists, including al Qaida. If you link most
cases in the West from London, Toronto, and many groups in the US,
you’d conclude that “going to Pakistan, or into Afghanistan,” is a
common trait. Which should begin to draw some analytical conclusions,
not just that there is “something central” in Pakistan, but that all
the Jihadi groups (or most), including the so-called “homegrown” in
different countries are linked or wish to be linked.
6. The report says that “during
2003, he met a Syrian in Lebanon, who gave him many weapons courses.”
Syria withdrew from Lebanon (officially) in April 2005. So the
question is this: Was that Syrian operating under the Syrian
Mukhabarat or as an opposition to them? Articles in the Lebanese press
between 2003 and 2005 report that Jihadists were heading into Lebanon
from various parts of the region, and many local Jihadists inside
Lebanon were shipped by buses “through” Syria to Iraq. The buses were
not traveling underground and the articles in al Nahar and al Safir
were not secret. Thus we have two theories: First, Jihadists in
Lebanon between 2003 and 2005 were acting under Syrian observation and
tolerance, as long as they were heading towards Iraq to kill Americans,
Coalition soldiers and Iraqis. Many Salafists in Lebanon, who disliked
the Baath ideologically, took advantage of the Assad umbrella to go
perform Jihad in Iraq. Just note that it was precisely for this reason,
among others, that Washington and Paris introduced then voted UNSCR
1559 in September 2004: Assad had refused to stop the Jihadi
activities across the two borders. Note too, that the one of the main
supply lines in warriors for Zarqawi started from Lebanon, and
especially inside the Islamist sectors of the Palestinian camps.
Another theory is that “al Andalousi” operated among a group of
Salafists outside Syrian observation.
7. The report continues: “He
headed in the Syrian’s company to Ain El-Helweh camp and undertook a
training session of light weapons during the tenth month of 2005;
which again point the finger at the basis of Jihadists inside the
armed camps. And also shows that a “Syrian” (we still need to uncover
his affiliation) escorted a Lebanese Jihadi inside a Palestinian camp
for training. Note the date: “Tenth month of 2005,” that is October,
i.e. 6 months after the official withdrawal of April. This would leave
the analyst with the picture that although the Syrian troop evacuated,
yet Syrian operatives are in touch with Jihadis and have access to the
camps.
8. The report goes on to state:
“He met a foreigner, who asked him to guarantee apartments to host
jihadists, recruit persons, and collect money and weapons for the
organization. He was in communication with in many persons in foreign
countries.” A foreigner means a non-Lebanese. The information
signals that a plan is designed to establish a vast network of
Terrorism in Lebanon and in foreign countries. From a background
expertise on Syrian, Hizbollah and Salafist operations out of Lebanon,
one would project that the “network” Assem Hammoud has Jihadi business
with has cells in various countries, with the very legitimate
assumption that the US isn't obviously one of them.
9. Internet use: over the past
few years, many among us, including myself have insisted that internet
and the chat rooms have become “the” new habitat of al Qaida and other
related groups. Evidently this case, especially when clarified and
confirmed, will show that cyber war with Terror is serious and is
shifting the battleground significantly. It is also opening our mind
inquiry about the whole issue of traditional monitoring of the
Terrorists with all strategic implications on the so-called NSC
domestic surveillance issue. It just shows us that the Jihadists are
way ahead of us, our legal system and our national consensus.
Fortunately the FBI and their Lebanese counterparts have been able to
catch a “fish” in the murky waters of international cooperation.
But I advise caution, and a lot
of it. We don’t know who is that “Syrian,” and where are his
allegiances. We don’t know much about the Lebanese end of the
investigation and its complexities: “Intox” could also be a factor.
But the psychological conditions are very plausible: Such an operation
would be as a revenge for Zarqawi’s elimination. I invite the reader
to re-read the speeches of eulogy by Bin laden and Zawahiri, and see
what is common to both: a threat of massive retaliation inside the US!
But having noted that, the one
remaining item for public concern are “the plans” devised by the cell:
Major cataclysm in Amrica. This reinforce the conviction that the
“strategic intentions” of al Qaida, the Jihadists, their direct and
indirect allies, and the would-be Jihadists seem to converge into one
pool: They want the US homeland’s security seriously wounded.
Dr Walid
Phares is a Senior Fellow with the Foundation for th
