Downing Street Memo flak - New allegations concerning AQ

Could it be more obvious?

 posted June 10, 2005, updated 11:06 a.m.

Terror allegations disappear from court filing

Different affidavit in Lodi father-son case given to media than used for court.

By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com

The Los Angeles Times reports that the Federal Bureau of Invesigation apparently gave the media a different, far more damaging version of an affidavit against a Lodi, California father and son charged with lying to federal officials than the one that was finally given to a court in Sacramento Thursday.

The affidavit filed Thursday did not contain any of the sensation material from earlier in the week which said the son's "potential terrorist targets included hospitals and groceries, and contained names of key individuals and statements about the international origins of 'hundreds' of participants in alleged Al Qaeda terrorist training camps in Pakistan."

Attorneys for the two men now say they will challenge the government on this discrepancy, which they say as a deliberate move by the FBI to prejudice the case against their clients. Defense attorney Johnny Griffin III, who represents the father, Umer Hayat, accused the government of "releasing information it knew it could not authenticate." The FBI said the different versions were the result of "unfortunate oversight due to miscommunication."

more

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0610/dailyUpdate.html

As noted above, the hysterical earlier media release of this latest roundup, with its febrile account of "hospitals and supermarkets" as so-called targets of the Lodi "suspects" has now been deep-sixed, and it again looks as though the Feds are using the wretched PATRIOT Act as a catch-all for civil violations committed by Muslims, including unspecified immigration violations and failure to declare more than $10K in US currency when travelling in or out of US.

Oh, of course we shouldn't neglect the very incriminating bit of intel that the younger Hayat has a grandfather in Pakistan who is "a close friend of Maulana Fazlur Rehman", who is said by "authorities in Pakistan" that a man identified by that name is "leading an outlawed group of extremists".  Well, there you have it, off to Gitmo with these chaps, posthaste!

Lodi inquiry highlights Pakistan's complex role in war on terrorism

- Teresa Castle, Chronicle Staff Writer

Saturday, June 11, 2005

A federal investigation into possible links between a Lodi man arrested this week and a terrorist camp in Pakistan has raised questions about the involvement of America's principal ally in the region in networks that train terrorists.

According to the FBI affidavit outlining charges against Hamid Hayat, the 22-year-old said he was trained "to kill Americans" -- even using photos of President Bush and other U.S. officials as target practice -- at a camp called Tamal near Rawalpindi, a city just outside the capital of Islamabad.

That assertion raised eyebrows among terrorism experts because Rawalpindi is home to the Pakistani army's general headquarters and also is the site of President Pervez Musharraf's official residence.

A Pakistani senior foreign ministry official, Naeem Khan, rejected the assertion this week. "There are no training camps in Pakistan," he said. "We are the frontline state in the fight against terrorism. How could we allow such camps in our country?"

But a number of experts on Pakistan said such training camps -- many of them formed to feed insurgencies in Afghanistan and Kashmir -- do exist in some parts of the country and in the part of Kashmir under Pakistan's control even as the Musharraf government works with the United States to combat terrorists.

Michael Krepon, director of the South Asia project at the Henry L. Stimson Center, a Washington, D.C., think tank that studies international security issues, said "many thousands" of young would-be recruits to al Qaeda and other extremist groups cycle through camps in various parts of the country.

Al Qaeda has long maintained a support network in Pakistan's remote, mountainous border with Afghanistan, and most experts believe that clandestine training sites operated by different jihadi organizations are concentrated in the fiercely independent North-West Frontier Province, in Waziristan, in the Punjab and in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.

The government, which has carried out highly visible campaigns to smoke out terrorists near the border with Afghanistan in the past year, "may allow the camps to remain open so they can have the militants in a known place and keep an eye on them so they don't engage in mayhem elsewhere in the country,'' said Krepon.

However, Husain Haqqani, a former senior adviser to Pakistan's government who is now a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, said recent arrests and killings in such Pakistani cities as Mardan, Faisalabad and Gujarat, far from the border, show that terrorist groups have extended their presence in the country.

Michael Weinbaum, a Pakistan expert at the Middle East Institute in Washington and former State Department analyst, expressed skepticism about the assertion in the original FBI affidavit, deleted from a later affidavit, that Hamid Hayat had been given a first-class tour of all the inner workings of terrorist camps and had seen "hundreds of attendees from various parts of the world.''

The presence of so many Arabs and Muslims from outside the region would be hard to hide, Weinbaum said. He also questioned the assertion that Hamid's father, Umer Hayat, had visited "several operational training camps" and "observed weapons and urban warfare training, physical training and classroom education."

"You don't share that information with trainees. You create tight cells," Weinbaum said. In addition, he said, "it is very difficult to approach these camps." But he added that there are Al Qaeda cells all over the country as well as militant training camps run by Pakistani and Kashmiri jihadi groups.

Rahimullah Yusafzai, a veteran Pakistani journalist who met al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in 1998, said it was "unlikely that even if such a camp existed it would be close to Rawalpindi.''

~~~

Despite the reports of terrorist training camps on Pakistani soil, analysts said the latest embarrassment would not harm Islamabad's relations with the Bush administration.

"We've made our bargain with Pakistan, and they've made theirs with us," said Weinbaum of the Middle East Institute. "There's no one out there who serves our interests as well, and we're not going to let anything jeopardize that.''

more

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/06/11/MNGS2D786Q1.DTL

Monday, June 13, 2005  

Holes in story about California arrests

By Khalid Hasan

Washington: Experts continue to find holes in the FBI's case against a California father and son, both of Pakistani extraction, and the existence of "terrorist training" camps around Rawalpindi.

Marvin Weinbaum, a South Asia expert at the Middle East Institute, expressed scepticism in an interview published by the San Francisco Chronicle at the weekend about the presence of a camp near Rawalpindi. According to the newspaper, "The former State Department analyst expressed scepticism about the assertion in the original FBI affidavit, deleted from a later affidavit, that Hamid Hayat had been given a first-class tour of all the inner workings of terrorist camps and had seen `hundreds of attendees from various parts of the world.' The presence of so many Arabs and Muslims from outside the region would be hard to hide, Weinbaum said. He also questioned the assertion that Hamid's father, Umer Hayat, had visited `several operational training camps' and `observed weapons and urban warfare training, physical training and classroom education.' `You don't share that information with trainees. You create tight cells,'Weinbaum said. In addition, he said, `it is very difficult to approach these camps.' But he added that there are Al Qaeda cells all over the country as well as militant training camps run by Pakistani and Kashmiri jihadi groups."

The newspaper quoted Pakistan foreign office official Naeem Khan as having rejected the assertion. "There are no training camps in Pakistan," he said. "We are the frontline state in the fight against terrorism. How could we allow such camps in our country?" The newspaper also quoted Pakistani journalist Rahimullah Yusafzai, who said it was "unlikely that even if such a camp existed it would be close to Rawalpindi." He said two large training camps at Muridke and Mansehra had been dismantled after 9/11. They may have been established elsewhere, he added. Michael Krepon, founder president of Stimson Centre, was, however, of the view that al Qaeda has long maintained a support network in Pakistan's remote, mountainous border with Afghanistan, and most experts believe that clandestine training sites operated by different jihadi organisations are concentrated in the North-West Frontier Province, in Waziristan, in the Punjab and in Azad Kashmir.

The San Francisco Chronicle report said other allegations made by the FBI had also raised questions. "The government's first affidavit said the training camp the Lodi man allegedly attended was operated by Maulana Fazlur Rehman. In a second affidavit, however, his name was omitted, and it is unclear what, if any, role Rehman has in the current investigation."

Arnaud de Borchgrave, director of the Transnational Threat Project at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said Rehman "used to brag that he was a friend of Osama bin Laden," even after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The veteran anti-Pakistan American journalist in the past has made several sweeping claims that have remained unproven, such as the declaration that Osama bin Laden is living in Peshawar city.

It is obvious that the FBI has confused two men with the same name: Maulana Fazlur Rehman of the JUI and Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil of the former Harkat al-Ansar. There is also much confusion about the arrest and "rendition" to the US of Abu Farraj al-Libbi, who is not on the US wanted list of al Qaeda leaders but whom the Pakistan government has billed as the "No. 3 man in al Qaeda."

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_13-6-2005_pg7_1

AP: Cleric Denies He Trained Calif. Man

By MUNIR AHMAD

Associated Press Writer

June 14, 2005, 9:10 PM EDT

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan -- A white-bearded cleric, tutor to hundreds of Islamic students at a Pakistani seminary near the capital, on Tuesday branded FBI allegations that his 22-year-old grandson received jihadist training while attending the school a "pack of lies."

Qari Saeed-ur Rehman, leader of the Jamia Islamia madrassah in Rawalpindi, said his grandson Hamid Hayat and son-in-law Umer Hayat, 47, were wrongfully arrested in California last week, and he dismissed suggestions they were linked to an al-Qaida cell.

"Hamid Hayat never received religious education at my madrassah. There is no terrorist camp here. We reject such FBI allegations," Rehman, a supporter of Afghanistan's former Taliban regime, told The Associated Press in an interview at the school, which lies inside a grand mosque in a teeming commercial district of the city -- also home to the headquarters of Pakistan's army.

"All allegations leveled against them by the FBI are a pack of lies," he said.

An FBI spokeswoman in Sacramento, Calif., said the agency stood by the allegations it made in court documents.

"Time will tell what we come up with," spokeswoman Marcie Soligo said. "That's his opinion and that's fine. We stick by what was in the affidavit."

She said the agency's investigation was still under way.

more

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-pakistan-terror-arrests,0,7654427.story?pa
ge=1&coll=sns-ap-world-headlines

Which affidavit version?

there are just not enough prisons in the world  lol

Calif. men in terror case enter not guilty pleas

22 Jun 2005 00:55:03 GMT

Source: Reuters

SACRAMENTO, Calif., June 21 (Reuters) - Lawyers entered not guilty pleas on Tuesday for a Pakistani-American father and son facing federal charges that they lied to investigators probing their alleged links to al Qaeda.

Neither Umer Hayat, 45, nor his son Hamid Hayat, 23, spoke during the hearing in federal court in Sacramento, California.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested the two Lodi, California, men earlier this month for lying to investigators.

Hamid Hayat has been charged with lying about attending a terrorist camp in Pakistan. He later told agents he trained at such a camp for about six months in 2003 and 2004, according to an affidavit by an FBI agent. Umer Hayat has been charged with denying that his son attended a camp.

The two are being held without bail in jail in Sacramento and face a maximum of eight years in prison on each charge.

Defense attorneys, who have called the government's case flimsy, requested a hearing as soon as possible to obtain evidence supporting the government's charges.

"I have a client sitting in jail charged with lying to the FBI. I have a client sitting in jail who is accused of being a terrorist. I want the information that the government is relying on as soon as possible," said lawyer Johnny Griffin.

"I don't want to wait six months before the government decides to give me whatever they're going to give me. I want the court to order them to give me whatever they're going to give me as soon as possible," said Griffin, who is representing Umer Hayat, an ice-cream truck driver.

An FBI affidavit in the case said Hamid Hayat had been trained "on how to kill Americans" and that photos of President George W. Bush and other high-ranking political figures were pasted onto targets.

more

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N21690965.htm

It should not go unnoticed that President Bush called for the Patriot Act to be renewed today.  How nice and neat that we've had two sets of arrests in a week for alledged terrorism activities (one set for each coast) -- just when the act is about to be sent on to the senate floor for "debate".  And all year we've, what, not been so "lucky"?

the medai wants to talk about anything, anything other than the Downing Street memo.

The Downing Street Memo has been out for a good long time.  Bush calls for a renewal of the Patriot Act on a regular basis.  Just using the DSM as an example, you could argue that any announcement like this made in the past couple weeks or next couple weeks would be a 'deflection.' In this case Occam's Razor suggests that the arrests and the DSM are not related.  

Talking about how the PA helps in getting such arrests on the other hand...

But,

When did we know about these alleged links to 'terror camps' (which if true means we just sold a bunch of nuke carrying F-16's to a terrorist sympathizer. The camps couldn't exist without Pak government tacit approval), and what was the reason to arrest them now?  Aren't we currently debating whether it is more valuable to allow terror web sites to exist vs shutting them down for the express reason they could lead to something more tangible, more dangerous, more important; like UBL or an actual plot?

They are merely charged with lying to the FBI.  We've seen this movie before.  Though it may be safe bet they won't be 'rendered' to Syria or Egypt because of the notoriety of the story, I very much doubt they will ever be charged with anything more serious,  just detained into obscurity.

BTW, have we caught the anthrax terrorist yet?  That incident is what motivated the passage of the PA to begin with.  Or was that more evidence of an AQ sleeper cell in the US that somehow had it in for Democrats?

cuz I don't think they are.

I just think the media might want to play this up cuz it's more sensational and easier to report than to go back, hash out, dig up, reframe etc . . . their flawed reporting in the run-up to the war and actually do some soul searching. Why do that when you can report about, OOOOOOOO! Oh my gosh! Al Qaeda in our midst!

Ya dig?  

to contemporary American culture. Played like a violin.

http://news.webindia123.com/news/showdetails.asp?id=83553&n_date=20050524&cat=Asia

and

Maulana Fazlur Rehman is an ardent critic of US policies towards the Muslims, with particular reference to Afghanistan and Iraq.

there we go, US officials meeting extremists again :)

That is absolutely priceless!  Full marks for the citation...

I haven't found anything that says Rocca actually met him, Rehman's past would make him suspect.

Reuters

~~~

Justice Department spokesman Bryan Sierra said human error was at fault. "An unfortunate miscommunication led to the inadvertent release from Washington of an affidavit that was not final," he said.

That original document charges that Hamid Hayat went to a Pakistani training camp run by Maulana Fazlur Rehman, a close friend of his father-in-law.

Rehman heads a banned Pakistani militant group, Jamiat ul-Ansar (formerly Harakat ul-Mujahidin), which the State Department called a terrorist group in an April report.

The report said the group is mainly focused on local issues. "Members conduct insurgent and terrorist activities primarily in Kashmir," it said. (Additional reporting by Adam Entous and Deborah Charles in Washington)

Monday, June 13, 2005  

Fazlur Rehman Khalil goes underground

* Agencies launch hunt for former JA chief

By Mohammad Imran

ISLAMABAD: Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil, former chief of Jamiatul Ansar (JA), has gone into hiding after the arrest of Hamid Hayat and Umer Hayat who told the Federal Bureau of Investigation that they received training from a Pakistani Al Qaeda camp allegedly run by Khalil.

Security agencies have begun efforts to arrest Khalil after Hamid Hayat and Umer Hayat were arrested in Lodi, California.

Sources said he was earlier released by security agencies after eight months' detention. "Khalil was released on the condition that he separate himself from his militant activities but after this new development security agencies have resumed efforts for his arrest," sources said.

Khalil was arrested from his house by security agencies on May 20, 2004, but sources said security agencies found no evidence of his involvement in militant activities in Afghanistan.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_13-6-2005_pg7_4