There are three types of Blackhawks used :

The first one,

US UH-60 blackhawk Helicopter is for Transport.
It is ideal for loading in a bunch of paratroopers, running them over to
the other side of the map and supporting them with machine gun fire.
Hovering just off to the side of the flag the Blackhawk can suppress
resistance all around from above allowing your paratroopers to move in
and take the target.
The Blackhawk hovers easily, is very stable and is quite easy to land as
it has a wide footprint and is quite stable because the larger rotors
allow it to compensate for its weight.
It has an auto-hover feature for us button tappers. By holding down the
Alt-Fire button you can hover nice and even. The only time I find this
useful is for hovering and landing straight down from a hover. You can
move around very slowly this way but any cyclic pitch will lower your
altitude so you will have to adjust your collective anyway. I wouldn't
rely on it because its only found on the Blackhawks (no pilot weapons)
and you won't find it on any of the other helicopters. There's way more
control when you've mastered the button tapping rhythm, which on the
Blackhawk is very easy.


The second one:

UH-60L has Hellfire missiles you can fire at ground targets but thats it
and only carries one co-pilot with you. Use this in supporting
paratroopers as well by eliminating hardware threats. The missiles fire
off pretty quick so you'll be doing a lot of running back to reload.


The third one:

UH-60Q medic chopper is able to heal people as well as resupply them
(but not vehicles) and, used effectively, could turn the tide of battle.
Hover over your front lines to heal people and pass out ammo packs. Pick
up your injured and ferry them to the next spot where you can drop them
all healed up and ready to go. Heed those pick up and medic calls, they
are now talking to you directly.

-------------------------------------------------

Iraqi Mi-24 (Hind) Helicopter

Kept on a short leash it can be a extremely effective as its the fastest
chopper out there.


A hind can carry almost as many weapons as the Apache helicopter can.
The Hind has a payload of 64 S-5 rockets and 4 AT-2 missiles but what
you see is what you get. While you do get one missile reload in the air
there is no second weapons bank for reloading the rockets. The gunner
controls the autocannon in the nose and its arc of fire is a lot bigger
than the Apache's. Not bad for a transport helicopter. In the latest
build the Hind can transport a co-pilot and 2 passengers. The doors no
longer open and there is no "exiting" with the doors closed anymore so
no more repairing the Hind in flight.

actuality 16 years ago.

I served on that mission 11 years ago..

Part of the OPS division and had the pleasure to serve with another
fellows Soldier who co-Sign is BlackFive

"They came to save us, and to give us dignity. Their sacrifice will
remain in the minds of our children for the rest of their lives. We will
teach their names to our children, and keep their names in our books of
history as heroes who gave their lives for freedom." - Kurd Sheik Ahmet,
April 17th, 1994 memorial service in Zakhu, Iraq

In April, 1991, as part of U.N. Resolution 688, the National Command
Authority commanded the US Armed Forces to conduct Operation Provide
Comfort. The mission was a tough one - to provide humanitarian aid to
over one million Kurdish Refugees in northern Iraq. We began with
airdrops (food, clothing, tents, blankets, medicine) a few days later.

General John Shalikashvili, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had
this to say about the hard work of the Provide Comfort Soldiers and
Airmen:

For over 1,000 days, the pilots and crews assigned to Operation Provide
Comfort flew mission after mission, totalling over 50,000 hours...

To further stop Saddam from killing the Kurds, a northern No-Fly Zone
was placed north of the 36th parallel. Any Iraqi aircraft would be shot
down in the No-Fly Zone.

The No-Fly Zone was patrolled and kept "clean" by the USAF with fighters
(F-15s) being supported by command and control aircraft (AWACS).

On April 14th, 1994, two Blackhawk helicopters were ready for take-off
from Diyarbakir, Turkey. COL Jerry Thompson - one of the best soldiers I
had evet met - was changing command (or co-command as "command" of
Provide Comfort was shared with Turkey). He decided to show his
replacement, COL Mulhern, the lay of the land. At 0730, COL Thompson
assembled 26 people that comprised important (command group) roles for
the mission. He included French, British, and Turkish commanders and
laisons, and also brought along Kurdish para-military personnel and
linguists.

The two Blackhawks were designated Eagle-1 and Eagle-2. Their first
destination was Irbil, Iraq, but they would have to make a stop in
Zakhu, Iraq (where the military part of Provide Comfort operated). There
were plans to visit several other areas as well.

At 8:22AM, Eagle Flight departed Diyarbakir. They were headed
East-Southeast for a "gate" into the No-Fly Zone. Per Standard Operating
Procedure, the command group was split between Eagle-1 and Eagle-2 to
ensure continuity of command if one helicopter went down.

At 9:21AM, Eagle Flight called the AWACS (callsign "Cougar"). They
requested and were granted permission to enter the "gate" into the the
No-Fly Zone.

At 9:24AM, Eagle Flight lands at Zakhu, Iraq.

At 9:35AM, two USAF F-15 fighters launched from Incirlik, Turkey. They
were designated Tiger-1 and Tiger-2. Tiger-1 was the lead fighter with
Tiger-2 as the wingman. Tiger Flight was headed to patrol the No-Fly
Zone.

At 9:54AM, Eagle Flight calls the AWACS to report departure from Zakhu,
Iraq, with a destination of Irbil, Iraq.

At 10:12AM, Eagle Flight enters mountainous terrain. It's Identification
Friend or Foe system (IFF) failed.

At 10:20AM Tiger Flight passes through "gate" into No-Fly Zone.

At 10:22AM Tiger Flight picks up radar contact at forty nautical miles.
No IFF reading occurs. Tiger-1 reports, "Cougar, picked up helicopter
tracking northwest bound." AWACS says the area should be "clean".

At 10:25 AWACS responds that there are "hits there" in the No-Fly Zone -
confirming Tiger Flight's radar contact.

Tiger Flight makes visual contact with Eagle Flight at five nautical
miles.

At 10:28 Tiger-1 conducts a visual identification (VID) pass of the
helicopters. "Cougar, tally 2 HINDS."

HINDS are Soviet Helicopters used by the Iraqi Armed Forces.

AWACS replied, "Copy two HINDS".

Tiger-1 then instructed Tiger-2 to make a VID pass.

Thirty seconds later Tiger-2 confirms, "Tally 2."

Tiger-1 to Tiger-2, "Arm hot."

At 10:30AM on April 14, 1994, Tiger-1 fired an AIM 120 (medium range
air-to-air missle) at Eagle-2. Tiger-2 fired an AIM 9 (Sidewinder
air-to-air missle) at Eagle-1.

The missles hit Eagle Flight with deadly accuracy. Tiger-1 confirmed the
hits to AWACS, "Splash two HINDS."

There were no survivors..


I Make this post to honor and in Remembrance of my friends

SSG Paul Barclay (SF Commo NCO)
SPC Cornelius A. Bass (Eagle-1 Door Gunner)
SPC Jeffrey C. Colbert (Eagle-1 Crew Chief)
SPC Mark A. Ellner (Eagle-2 Door Gunner)
CW2 John W. Garrett, Jr. (Eagle-1 Pilot)
CW2 Michael A. Hall (Eagle-2 Pilot Command)
SFC Benjamin T. Hodge (Linguist)
CPT Patrick M. McKenna (Eagle-1 Pilot Command)
WO1 Erik S. Mounsey (Eagle-2 Pilot)
COL Richard A. Mulhern (Incoming Co-Commander)
1LT Laurie A. Piper (USAF, Intel Officer)
SGT Michael S. Robinson (Eagle-2 Crew Chief)
SSG Ricky L. Robinson (SF Medic)
Ms. Barbara L. Schell (State Dept. Political Advisor)
COL Jerald L. Thompson (Outgoing Co-Commander)

British Military:
MAJ Harry Shapland (Security/Intel Duty Officer)
LTC Jonathan C. Swann (Senior UK Officer)

French Military:
LTC Guy Demetz (Senior French Officer)

Turkish Army:
COL Hikmet Alp (Co-Commander)
LT Ceyhun Civas (Laison Officer)
LT Barlas Gultepe (Liason Officer)

Kurdish Partisans:
Abdulsatur Arab
Ghandi Hussein
Bader Mikho
Ahmad Mohammed
Salid Said (Linguist)

How many ground troops does the United States need?

Answering that question depends on your vision of the future --
specifically, the military challenges the United States will face over
the next 10 to 15 years.

An "old future" provides some perspective on the current debate over
U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps "end strength" (Pentagonese for the
number of active duty personnel authorized by Congress).

Let's return to 1990, just before Saddam invaded Kuwait. The U.S. Army
had around 750,000 soldiers on active duty; the U.S. Marine Corps had
197,000 Marines. That same year, the U.S. population broke 250 million.
Today, the U.S. population is slightly over 300 million.

That "old future" occurred during the final phases of the Cold War.
Department of Defense budgeteers had already begun paring Cold War force
structure. Though the Soviet Union hadn't officially dissolved,
cost-cutters identified Cold War air wings and armored divisions as
expensive legacies.

Desert Storm briefly delayed the planned decline in strength. Based on
"the near-term future" the Defense and Congress envisioned, the United
States didn't need Cold War troop levels.

However, by 1995, peacekeeping commitments began stressing the personnel
system. Then, the United States entered the Balkans, and hasn't quite
left yet.

The Army asked for a 30,000 troop "plus up" in the fiscal year 1997
budget request to meet those personnel requirements. It was denied.

The Clinton administration began using the reserves as an operational
force rather than as a strategic, war-winning reserve. The Bush
administration continued to do this after 9-11, nudging Army end
strength from around 480,000 in 2001 to approximately 515,000 today.
While that's arguably close to the 30,000 "missing" since 1996, it's a
far cry from the forces on hand on Aug. 2, 1990, when Saddam's tanks
were on the move. It's also proved to be inadequate to support Iraq,
Afghanistan, peacekeeping operations and emergency contingencies.

In December 2006, former U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Pete Schoomaker
told Congress that the active duty Army needed more soldiers. The Army
would grow to 547,000 by 2012, adding 65,000 new soldiers over a
five-year period.

However, the current Army chief of staff, Gen. George Casey, said last
week that the Army needs 547,000 active troops within the next three
years. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates supports Casey's boost. Gates
also advocates expanding the Marine Corps' active force 27,000, from
175,000 to 202,000 Marines.

I know it takes time to recruit and train soldiers, making a very rapid
build-up unwieldy if not unrealistic, but in my opinion Casey's request
is short by 100,000 troops.

Last week, the Los Angeles Times featured a discussion between Phil
Carter, a Los Angeles attorney who served with the 101st Airborne in
Iraq, and me on military-related issues. Carter and I agreed that a
650,000-soldier U.S. Army is a more realistic figure given personnel
demands and expected commitments. Carter argued that "America can no
longer afford to run its steak-and-lobster national security strategy on
a McDonald's budget."

I agreed with his assessment, but pointed out that the personnel issue
has another subtle dimension that stretches U.S. military personnel.

America expects its military to win its wars, which means having
war-fighters proficient with weaponry running from bayonets to smart
bombs. But America also expects its military to competently use a
trowel, auditing software and a doctor's bag, and occasionally provide
legal, political and investment advice. That's been the military's
burden since 1992, when the Era of Peacekeeping replaced the Cold War.
Sept. 11 replaced the Era of Peacekeeping with a global war over the
conditions of modernity, where the trowels and investment advice are
often as important as combat skills.

We need more troops. That will mean spending tax dollars -- but with 300
million people, we have the recruiting pool to support a 650,000 soldier
Army. We also need to get the skills of U.S. government civilian
agencies into the field. That will take tax dollars and focused
political leadership.

May 9, 2007

The long rumored Israeli Jericho 3 ballistic missile is apparently in
production. For over two years, there were reports that this new missile
was close to entering service. With a range of nearly 5,000 kilometers,
the Jericho 3 can drop a nuke anywhere in the Middle East. The Jericho 3
is apparently a variant of the Shavit satellite launcher. The Jericho is
probably a 30 ton, solid fuel, three stage missile, with a half ton
payload. Israel is believed to have 50-100 of the shorter range Jericho
2. This is a 26 ton missile with a max range of about 1,500 kilometers.
The Jericho 2 was the basis for the Shavit satellite launcher, which has
put several satellites in orbit since 1995.

Gardenforge no comment to your comment....By the way what was it
again????

scttrbrain cool pic

sorry Kat ... You bring up a Vague topic and to CIA we declassify to the
devulgence of total fact and information therefore no possibility of
area can be not understood or clarified enough

If there is a "fog of war," there is probably a more dense "smog of
terrorism," for the small nature of terrorist groups, their close
interpersonal communications, and their predilection for soft targets of
opportunity make it difficult to predict their f uture operations.
Counterterrorism analysts must therefore peer through a very cloudy
crystal ball when assessing the intentions, capabilities, and targets of
existing and future terrorist groups. Life would be easier if, as when
assessing a conventional army, analysts could pour over communications
intercepts to discern orders of battle and make predictions based on the
enemy's known doctrine and strategy.
The problem of penetrating the "smog of terrorism" is further
exacerbated by the fact that it is difficult to infiltrate terrorist
cells to acquire the tactical information needed to prevent, or at least
to mitigate, a potential threat or actual incident. The most
sophisticated capabilities in the arsenal of technical intelligence are
no substitutes for the HUMINT (human intelligence) capabilities that are
needed to gather information on terrorists. The problem of predictive
analysis is further complicat ed by the fact that even if terrorist
organizations have an encompassing ideology—or what is at best a
proto-strategy—it tends to be rather general in nature and directed at
establishing a broad declaration on revolutionary action that may not
provide a c lear plan for action that can enable the analyst to have a
foundation for assessing future terrorist operations.

Furthermore, predictive capabilities are challenged by the tact that
there is a whole range of potential new terrorist weapons and associated
scenarios for destruction that create major problems for those
responsible for identifying a new generation of te rrorist threats.
There are those in the field who sometimes long for the "good old days"
when a "terror network" guided by Moscow could be blamed for bombings,
hostage-taking, skyjacking and other forms of mayhem.

Given these conditions, one faces an onerous task in attempting to
assess how vulnerable the United States is to future threats and acts of
terrorism. Nevertheless, such an assessment can prove useful if it can
assist the analyst and those responsible for countering terrorism to
look beyond the immediate threats or the latest incident. In their
contingency driven, highly pressurized environment, analysts must
concentrate on the collection and analysis of what is primarily
tactical, combat or operational i ntelligence. They often lack the time
to deal with strategic threats, to veer from the current requirements
for narrowly focused, tactical intelligence.

What follows is a brief overview of the terrorist threat to the United
States based on the application of strategic intelligence. This form of
intelligence has a broader application than either operational or
tactical intelligence, forms of information an alysis dealing with
immediate threats. Strategic intelligence integrates politics, social
studies, and the study of technology. It is designed to provide
officials with long-range forecasts of what is important rather than
what is urgent.[1]

THE ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK
The analytical framework employed in this chapter will consist of the
following components. The author will attempt to identify major changes
in the international environment. He will then discuss how these changes
create new terrorist threats in the Unit ed States. The author will then
focus on probable technological/operational changes among terrorist
groups. Finally, changes in terrorist motivations and goals will be
examined. All of these components will then be analyzed in a strategic
context to asses s potential terrorist targets, operations, and
resulting vulnerabilities within the United States.
THE INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENT
Even though it probably never fully existed, the artificial superficial
equilibrium imposed by the Cold War has been destroyed. Within the
former republics of the defunct Soviet Union the order imposed by Moscow
on ethnic and nationalist movements has gi ven way to separatists'
demands often accompanied by political violence including terrorism,
various forms of low intensity conflict, rapidly growing organized
crime, and civil war. The instability has spilled over into Eastern
Europe where the former sat ellites are attempting to cope with the
uncertainties of democratization.
Additionally, now that Moscow and Washington are no longer inclined to
use regional surrogates as a way of avoiding direct confrontation, a
number of regional powers are emerging. Neither Moscow nor Washington
have either the inclination or the influence needed to constrain many of
these regional would-be superpowers. Iran is a case in point. Countries
like Iran, Syria and Libya use terrorism as a form of diplomacy and as
an adjunct to their foreign policies.[2] To these states, terrorism is
as integral a part of their diplomacy as the exchange of ambassadors.
Smaller states can easily emulate their example.

In this era of what should be called a "new world disorder" the
breakdown of central authority and the domination of the existing state
system has been under assault from a number of quarters. First, the
legitimacy of many states has been challenged by th e growing assertion
of both sub-national and transnational calls for "self-determination" by
ethnic groups and religious movements that deny the legitimacy of what
they perceive to be a discredited international order. Despite the
optimism of the past, pr imordial loyalties have not withered away in
the face of technology, democracy, and the introduction of free market
economies. Indeed, many groups and movements have fed upon a reaction to
what is sometimes viewed as the secular immorality of the West. Tr ibal
loyalties on a sub-national level share the rejection of secular mass
societies with fundamentalist movements. Some of these movements seem to
offer the chimera of psychological, sociological and political security
to people who are trying find their place in an uncertain, even
threatening, world.

New and dangerous players have emerged in the international arena. The
level of instability and concomitant violence is further heightened by
the rise to international political significance of non-state actors
willing to challenge the primacy of the stat e. Whether it be the
multinational corporation or a terrorist group that targets it, both
share a common characteristic. They have each rejected the state-centric
system that emerged 175 years ago at the Congress of Vienna.

All of these factors have accelerated the erosion of the monopoly of the
coercive power of the state as the disintegration of the old order is
intensified. And, this process will in all probability gain even greater
momentum because of the wide ranging an d growing activities of criminal
enterprises. These include everything from arms traders and drug
cartels, which will provide and use existing and new weapons in
terrorist campaigns as a part of their pursuit of profit and political
power.

In sum, present and future terrorists and their supporters are acquiring
the capabilities and freedom of action to operate in the new
international jungle. They move in what has been called the "gray
areas," those regions where control has shifted from le gitimate
governments to new half-political, half-criminal powers.[3] In this
environment the line between state and rogue state, and rogue state and
criminal enterprise, will be increasingly blurred. Each will seek out
new and profitable targets through t errorism in an international order
that is already under assault.

TECHNOLOGICAL/OPERATIONAL CHANGES
The remarkable changes in the international environment have been
accompanied by technological changes that may have serious ramifications
as regards future terrorist operations both internationally and in the
United States. Up to now, terrorists have not been especially innovative
in their tactics. Bombing, although not on the intended magnitude of
that at the Oklahoma City Federal Building, remains the most common type
of attack. Hostage taking and kidnapping are fundamental to the
terrorist repertoire and skyjacking is always a possibility. Automatic
and semi-automatic rifles and pistols remain the weapons of choice.
However, the employment of stand-off weapons like American Stinger and
Russian SA-7 hand-held anti-aircraft missiles, the U.S. Army M-72 light
anti-tank weapon (LAW), and the Russian-built RPG-7 anti-tank weapon may
be more readily available to terrorists than many like to believe. The
same may be said of terrorist bombing technologies. Dynamite has been
replaced by the more destructive and easily concealed Semtex.
Furthermore, the threat has grown as a result of increased technological
sophistication of timing devices and fuses. But weapons need not be
sophisticated to be destructive. One only has to consider what might
have happened if the pilot of the lone single-engine light aircraft
which crashed into the White House had filled his plane with somethi ng
as simple as a fertilizer bomb. That incident, even if it was not a
terrorist act, should serve as a warning for those who are concerned
with more advanced technological threats. They should remember that
smaller and more conventional instruments of de struction are still
quite lethal and can have a profound affect on the targeted individual,
corporation, government or what is often the ultimate target: public
opinion.

A growing concern is that terrorists will cross the threshold to engage
in acts of mass or "super terrorism" by using atomic, biological, and
chemical (ABC) weapons. So far, the international order has been spared
terrorist incidents involving nuclear wea pons. Indeed, those that have
been reported have turned out to be elaborate hoaxes. Fortunately, the
threats have yet to be translated into actual incidents, but many
believe it is only a matter of time before they are.[4]

All this could easily change as a result of the disintegration of the
Soviet Union. The current trade in illicit weapon's grade plutonium
serves to underscore the fact that the necessary material and attendant
technology will be increasingly available for those terrorist groups who
may want to exercise a nuclear option, be it in the form of a dispersal
of radioactive material that could contaminate a large area or the use
of a relatively small but very lethal atomic weapon. The illegal trade
in weapons an d technology will be further exacerbated by the very real
dangers resulting from the proliferation of nuclear weapons. There is
good reason to fear that either a rogue state, its terrorist surrogates,
or independent terrorist groups will have the capacity to go nuclear.
Whether this threshold will be crossed will depend in part on the
motivation, attendant strategies, and goals of present and future
terrorist groups. In sum, there is every reason to be concerned that
terrorists will engage in their own f orm of technical innovation to
develop the capacity to make the nightmare of a nuclear, chemical, or
biological threat move from the pages of an adventure novel to the
shores of the United States.

Scenarios addressing future acts of high-tech terrorism include a wide
variety of assaults on the delicate interdependent infrastructure of
modern industrialized society. These scenarios move beyond the bombing
or seizing of conventional or nuclear power plants to include the
potentially disastrous destruction of the technological infrastructure
of the information super highway. However, the scope of what constitutes
a terrorist act on computers and their associated facilities is subject
to interpretation . The bombing of a multinational corporation or a
government's crucial computer centers could be judged an act of
terrorism, but what if a terrorist hacker placed a computer virus in a
very sensitive network? The results could range from the massively inc
onvenient to dangerous or disastrous. Such an act, however, would lack
an essential element of terrorism as it is now defined: the use or
threat of the use of physical violence. Nevertheless, as the technology
expands so may definitions of what constitute s a terrorist act. From
the terrorist's point of view the following dictum may apply, "so many
new targets... so little time."

Finally, if indeed terrorism is "theater" and the people are the
audience, the stage is changing.[5] CNN and other networks provide the
terrorists with a potential and almost instantaneous means for spreading
their message of fear and intimidation. The re ality of video
proliferation is just as significant as that of nuclear proliferation.
Some terrorist groups already have the ability to stage and videotape
their acts, sending them out to either a broad or limited audience. They
can even transmit live ev ents through low power transmitter stations.
Furthermore, the next generation of terrorists may produce highly
imaginative presentations to seize the attention of a violence jaded
public, one which has grown used to the now standard images of hooded
terr orists holding hostages in embassies, prisons, or aircraft cabins.
This kind of theater of the obscene will find a ready mass audience
among those who watch the tabloid television shows and depend on the
National Enquirer for their news.[6] Given the pub lic's fascination
with television happenings like the O.J. Simpson trial, one can only
imagine what might happen if future terrorists direct and produce their
own television spectaculars.

CHANGES IN TERRORIST MOTIVATIONS AND GOALS
There are almost certainly going to be changes in both the motivation
and goals of terrorist groups. The traditional motivations for
terrorism: ethnic, tribal, and religious animosities, will continue and
intensify. Even while people of goodwill struggle to find solutions to
problems in Northern Ireland and in the Middle East, the disintegration
of the former Soviet Union and the related turmoil in the former
Yugoslavia and elsewhere have engendered new groups pursuing their own
varied agendas through vio lence, including terrorism. While much of the
violence is confined to the various regions, the potential for involving
surrounding states and for international assaults is significant. Even
in the Middle East, where the Palestine Liberation Organization ( PLO)
and Israel are moving along a tortuous road toward accommodation,
various factions, willing and able to engage in non-territorial
terrorism, will continue to "bring the war home" to Israel and its
primary supporter, the United States.
Perhaps even more ominous is the growing significance of apolitical
groups which resort to terrorism in pursuit of financial gain as a part
of criminal enterprises. While a number of these groups may, in part,
justify their actions under the rubric of pol itical rationalization,
their major goal will relate to maximizing their profits through
co-opting, corrupting, and neutralizing the authority of the states in
their respective countries and regions of operations. These groups,
which include narco-terrori sts, are particularly difficult to
counteract given their vast resources gleaned by illicit trade in drugs
or weapons, and because of their ability to influence, control or
demoralize governments in countries where they operate. This new
criminal order ca n engage in operations with the kind of violence that
makes the old Mafia seem pacifistic by comparison.

Finally, one might anticipate that in addition to existing extremists
operating according to issue-oriented movements such as radical
environmentalism, fringe elements of the pro-life movement, and
extremist animal rights groups, there will emerge new gro ups willing to
use terrorism to avenge grievances both real and imaginary. These
groups, which at the outset may be small and not tied to any recognized
social or political movement, may have the capability to maximize their
impact through the availabilit y of a wide variety of weapons, a rich
selection of targets, and the skillful use of the media and
communications technology. There will be both old and new adversaries to
threaten the international order and, more specifically, U.S. interests
and citizen s both at home and abroad.

HOW VULNERABLE IS THE UNITED STATES AND WHAT ARE THE TERRORISTS GOALS?
The following assessment is based on integrating the analytical
components presented above. The focus will be on the vulnerabilities in
the United States to attacks by international terrorist or domestic
groups or by such groups with domestic-internationa l linkages.
The new threat environment may see the emergence of a wide variety of
sub-national and transnational groups intent on venting their
frustrations with Washington for what they perceive to be a lack of
support for their causes or, conversely, for supporting their
adversaries. As the major military superpower, with an increased global
involvement, even when engaged under the United Nations, the United
States is likely to be viewed as the primary party in future disputes.
Even when neutral, Washington is lik ely to be viewed suspiciously by
one or more warring factions. In addition, when Washington moves beyond
"peace keeping" to "peace enforcement"' operations, the likelihood of a
reaction among one or more disputants is possible.

Even though the United States may not want to be the policeman or the
conscience of the world, the parties in any conflict may question
whether Washington is intentionally or unintentionally pursuing a
political agenda that may be counter to their objecti ve. The result
might be the spillover of violence to the United States by one or more
parties in the dispute. Resort to terrorism could be a punitive action
or it might be an effort to dramatize a cause. As the United States
tries to redefine the formulat ion and execution of its foreign policy
in the post-Cold War era, even if Washington is motivated by the highest
of ideals, i.e., democratization, humanitarian assistance, or
nation-building, those who will be the objects of such efforts might
resent it. Their use of terrorism on American soil is a likely response.

The potential spillover effect may be intensified by the domestic
political and economic environment. The potency of ethnic-based
politics, coupled with the tendentious debates over immigration policy,
may provide fertile ground by which ethnic-based conf licts from
overseas may be transported to the United States. Even if that is not
the case, the existence of large immigrant communities may provide the
"human jungle" in which external terrorist groups can operate. The
emergence of a variety of issue-orie nted transnational groups could
also lead extremists within their respective organizations to establish
linkages with like-minded individuals or groups within the United
States. Such groups could undertake joint operations against American
targets in an e ffort to dramatize their causes or seek changes in
public policy. Cooperation between home-grown terrorists and their
foreign counterparts cannot be understated. In an increasingly
interrelated international environment, a new "terror network" might
emerg e with issue-oriented groups launching assaults on domestic
targets.

The threat posed by fundamentalist religious groups of all faiths cannot
be discounted. Not only Islamic extremists, but other "true believers"
of a variety of faiths are likely to engage in terrorist acts against
American targets. These groups might be s upported or joined in their
operations by domestic religious extremists. In addition, they might
also seek alliances with a variety of cultists, survivalists, or
neo-fascists who, for their own reasons, reject the existing social,
economic, and political order and await their own versions of
Armageddon.

Perhaps even more dangerous will be the resort to terrorism by
apolitical terrorists who are engaged in violence and intimidation as a
pant of criminal pursuits. Such groups have operated overseas with
impunity. Inner-city America could become a fertile g round for their
operations. They will be particularly threatening since, as a result of
their illegal trade in drugs and other criminal enterprises, they may
have access to vast funds with which to corrupt local authorities. What
will make these groups es pecially dangerous may be the fact that their
threats and acts of terrorism will not necessarily be meant to achieve
publicity or to dramatize their cause.

Such groups may use terrorist tactics in extortion attempts like those
used to "shake down the neighborhood'"-only these gangs may attempt to
blackmail the entire city. With their vast revenues, they could acquire
a formidable arsenal of weapons with whic h to challenge local
authorities and carry out their acts of violence on a scale not yet
experienced in the United States. Furthermore, it may be very difficult
for our already strained criminal justice system to address the
development of new criminal ca rtels.

The scope and magnitude of future potential terrorist organizations will
be enhanced by the rapid changes in technology that will provide the
next generation of terrorists with capabilities undreamed of by the most
highly dedicated and skilled terrorist o f today. In a sense the capture
of the infamous Carlos marked the end of an era. A new generation of
terrorists armed with technologically advanced weaponry will be able to
engage in violence that is more dramatic and destructive than that
intended in the bombing in Oklahoma City. The threat at the lower end of
the spectrum is likely to grow as well. The M-16, M-10, Uzi and AK-47
assault rifles will be supplemented by stand-off weapons like Stinger
anti-aircraft missiles, LAWs and RPG-7s, already availabl e on the world
weapons market. Just because a weapon is relatively unsophisticated does
not mean it cannot cause massive casualties. A stinger missile aimed at
a jumbo jet as it takes off or as it approaches a large metropolitan
airport could cause tremen dous casualties. A LAW or RPG round lobbed
into the right area of a nuclear power plant could produce catastrophic
consequences.

Ultimately, the most fearful and recurrent terrorist nightmare may be
drawing closer to reality. The proliferation of nuclear weapons and
associated technologies, and the diffusion of knowledge needed to
manufacture chemical and biological weapons, raises the fearful specter
of mass destruction that makes concerns related to use of anthrax as a
way of spreading both disease and panic pale to insignificance. The
scary truth is that the United States is all too vulnerable to this kind
of attack. The porous borders that have allowed massive illegal
immigration are just as open to those who want to import new instruments
of mass destruction. And, because there are significant profits to be
made, there are suppliers who are willing to provide the new generatio n
of portable nuclear weapons, chemical and biological delivery systems
despite Washington's growing concern and the improving technical means
to counter such threats. Furthermore, the next generation of terrorists
will have the capability of effectively exploiting the highly
competitive electronic and print media both to dramatize their
conventional or ABC capabilities and to extort money.

Technological changes will certainly have an impact on target selection.
At the outset, the availability of more sophisticated conventional
explosives could enable terrorists to inflict greater damage on
potential targets while lessening the risk of captu re that results from
having to process or transport the material. Highly symbolic targets
like government buildings and corporate headquarters will be more
vulnerable to attack. Major public events, like the Super Bowl or the
1996 Atlanta Olympics are als o prime targets.

Despite more effective physical security and technological
countermeasures it will be increasingly difficult to harden potential
targets. Even if the range of the weapons is relatively short, it will
be a considerable challenge to expand an anti-terrorist security zone
beyond the immediate periphery of potential targets like sports
facilities, government buildings, or nuclear power plants. Defense in
depth will require broader protective measures.

Even of greater concern is the potential threat of such weapons to
aviation security. While anti-skyjacking measures have been largely
successful in the industrialized West, the possibility of the threat or
the destruction of commercial aircraft cannot be dismissed. It is
exceedingly difficult to expand a security zone beyond the confines of
an airport. Moreover, stand-off weapons provide the opportunity for
highly flexible hit and run attacks. The resulting mobility will make it
very difficult to predict or take appropriate action against terrorists.
Finally, as potential targets continue to be hardened in urban areas,
there is no reason to believe that terrorists will not seek softer
targets of opportunity either in the suburbs (corporate headquarters) or
rural areas (nuclear or thermal power plants and other installations).
Despite these threats, it will remain difficult to develop the necessary
awareness, technology and training among those corporations outside
urban areas. Too many people may not t ake the threat seriously enough
due to an "it can't happen here" syndrome.

Most ominous, however, is the threat issuing from mass or
super-terrorism. Cities may be held hostage by threats to poison the
water supply or to disseminate any number of dangerous chemical or
biological agents. Such threats must also be taken seriously given the
proliferation of ABC capabilities. The threat might be overt, in which
case the authorities will have the onerous task of reconciling the need
to take appropriate action without creating a panic. Or the threat might
be covert, in which case gove rnments will be facing a form of nuclear,
chemical, or biological blackmail unknown to the public. Finally, one
can anticipate that there will be more incidents of criminal terrorism
directed against senior executives, public officials, and their families
. The terrorists will justify such acts of hostage-taking and kidnapping
on the basis of political causation, but in many cases they will be
motivated by nothing more than a desire for ransom money. There is no
reason to believe that criminal extortion, which has become a major
industry in Mexico and throughout Central and South America, will not be
emulated within the United States. In sum, the constellation of
potential targets and the means to attack them will continue to expand
in the coming decade.

The traditional motivation behind the resort to terrorism by various
groups is sure to continue. Ethnic identification and hatred, the call
to right perceived wrongs, and the demand for self-determination will
continue to inspire terrorists. The ranks of the traditional terror
mongers will be joined by religious extremist groups who have rejected
what they view to be the excesses of Western and American secular
society. These forces of reaction may come from the Middle East, but
there will be the non-Isla mic equivalents of the HAMAS and Hizbollah
venting their anger and demanding the destruction of the "Great Satan."
These true believers, in the conduct of what they view to be a "just
war," may attack the symbols of their religious or secular rivals.

Acts such as the bombings of the Israeli Embassy and the Jewish
Community Center in Buenos Aires might be emulated in Washington or New
York. Moreover. domestic groups acting either independently or with the
support of external terrorist organizations ma y launch their own
assaults. One need only recall how a sectarian dispute within the United
States was transformed into a mass hostage taking by the Hanafi Muslims
in Washington, DC in 1977. The most alarming aspect of the religious
extremists is the fact that they did not necessarily constrain their
actions by using terror as a weapon to coerce or to propagandize for
their causes. The new true believer, armed with the certainty of faith,
may not be concerned with current public opinion or a change in the
policy of an adversary. To them, being killed while undertaking an act
of terrorism may be a way to paradise in the next life. The image of the
smiling truck bomber driving his vehicle into the Marine barracks in
Beirut may be duplicated in a large urban center in the United States.
And the nightmare only becomes more horrific if such a perpetrator uses
a nuclear device. While one does not want to overstate the threat, the
strategic thinker must be willing to "think the unthinkable" so that
appropriate responses may be conceived.

The panoply of potential attacks, save for the nuclear option or other
forms of super-terrorism, will probably not create a major change in
U.S. foreign policy or the articulation and pursuit of U.S. strategic
interests and national security objectives. H owever, in this new world
disorder terrorism may come to the United States whenever foreign
adversaries want to test Washington's resolve in continuing its support
for activities of the United Nations and friendly governments. Given the
lack of coherence in the international environment and the low threshold
of pain in regard to the taking of American casualties in ill-defined
conflicts and the emergence of neo-isolationism, one must recognize that
future acts of terrorism, if skillfully executed, might h ave a
strategic result. The bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut changed
the course of U.S. policy toward Lebanon. That kind of act could be
duplicated in the United States with even more dramatic results.

CONCLUSION
As noted at the start of this chapter, it is difficult to see through
the smog of terrorism to assess America's vulnerabilities. Furthermore,
it is dangerous to either understate or overstate the threat. If one
minimizes the threat, little action may be taken. If one overstates it,
the public and the authorities might overreact. What is needed is a
realistic assessment which avoids both extremes. While recognizing that
there is a threat, but not overemphasizing it, appropriate measures can
be taken to le ssen the likelihood of an attack. Moreover, a balanced
and cautious view can assist both the public and policymakers in
developing a consistent level of anti-terrorism awareness and
countermeasures. Constant awareness and preparedness are fundamental to
d eterring terrorists. Such a prudent approach is far better than the
overreaction that might occur after an incident. In the final analysis,
the United States is vulnerable to the changing terrorist threat. But
the threat can be met through heightened leve ls of awareness, resolve,
counterterrorism measures, and consistent policies.[7]
ENDNOTES



What is your Opinion on this and do you think it's true?

Mister Chairman, Members of the Committee. It is an honor to be asked to
participate in this important review of threats to our nation and the
challenges they present to the Intelligence Community. INR has taken to
heart your admonition to describe the spectrum of threats to the United
States and its interests, and to assess the probability, immediacy, and
severity of the dangers we face, but I will do so in a way intended to
complement the judgments presented by our colleagues in other agencies
by focusing on the way threats appear when viewed through the lens of
diplomacy.

The subject of this hearing is one on which there is broad consensus in
the Intelligence Community. INR concurs with the judgment that terrorism
is the single greatest threat to Americans, both at home and abroad, and
that the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), missiles,
and certain types of advanced conventional weapons is a close and
dangerous second. We also share most of the other threat judgments
presented by our colleagues. But rather than merely echoing their
assessments, I will approach the subject reflecting INR’s unique
perspective and responsibilities as the Secretary of State’s in-house
intelligence unit.

As Secretary Rice has made clear in recent statements, diplomacy is
critical to U.S. efforts to contain, counter, and diminish the threats
we face. On February 8 she told her audience in Paris, "We agree on the
interwoven threats we face today: terrorism, and proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction, and regional conflicts, and failed states,
and organized crime." She added that America stands ready to work with
other countries in "building an even stronger partnership" to address
these threats.

To combat the twin scourges of terrorism and proliferation requires more
than just the effective collection of hard to obtain intelligence. At a
minimum, it also requires deep understanding of the motivations and
objectives of those who resort to terrorism and/or pursue WMD. It also
takes sophisticated analysis of all-source information, informed
judgments about what we do not know, and detailed knowledge of other
countries, cultures, political systems, and the underlying causes of
discontent and radicalization. The prerequisites for meeting all these
requirements include global coverage, deep analytical expertise, and
Intelligence Community commitment to providing policymakers what they
need, when they need it, and in a form that they can use day in and day
out.

Why are terrorism and proliferation at the top of the threat list? The
short and conventional answer is that the normalization of relations
with China and demise of the Soviet Union dramatically reduced the
danger of nuclear war and eliminated or transformed fundamentally a wide
array of associated threats. But the end of the Cold War also brought
many changes to other aspects of international life, including the
erosion of constraints on "client" states, the reemergence of long
repressed political aspirations, and the rise of ethnic and religious
hatreds. Former DCI Jim Woolsey described the change as the displacement
of a few big dragons by lots of dangerous snakes. But it was, and is,
more than that. Globalization and the information revolution have
changed expectations and aspirations and made it possible for nations
and non-state actors, including individuals, to do things that would
have been unthinkable just a few years ago.

One of the many resultant developments has been the emergence of vast
differences in coercive capabilities. This, in turn, has exacerbated the
dangers of both terrorism and proliferation. The inability of all but a
few nations to deter the most powerful countries (including but not
limited to the United States) has reinforced the determination of states
that feel threatened (whether justifiably or not) to seek asymmetric
solutions to the disparity of power. For some, this means pursuit of WMD
and delivery capabilities because they know they have no hope of
deterring or defeating the attacks they fear with conventional
armaments. Perhaps the clearest illustration of this can be found in
D.P.R.K. public statements after Operation Iraqi Freedom intended to
reassure its public and warn potential adversaries that, unlike Saddam,
it had a (nuclear) deterrent; a claim reiterated February 10. Pakistan
pursued—and obtained—nuclear weapons and delivery systems to compensate
for India’s vastly superior conventional military power and nuclear
weapons.

Terrorism is at the other end of the spectrum of asymmetric responses.
State sponsors, most notably Iran, seem implicitly to warn potential
enemies that the response to any attack will include resort to terror.
They seem to be saying, in effect, "You may be able to defeat us
militarily, but you cannot protect all your people, everywhere, all the
time." Such a porcupine defense/deterrent posture is an unfortunate but
not irrational response to wide disparities of power. The situation is
somewhat analogous for non-state actors frustrated by their inability to
achieve their (however reprehensible) goals by other means. Terror and
guerrilla warfare are long-standing measures of choice (or last resort)
for weak actors confronting a much stronger adversary. The targets vary
widely, from established democracies to authoritarian regimes. However,
in some cases, terrorists also direct their attacks against those who
are seen as responsible for—by imposition or support—the actions or
existence of the regime they oppose. That appears to be one of the
reasons al-Qaida has targeted the United States in Saudi Arabia and
terrorists in Iraq have used suicide bombers and improvised explosive
devices to attack Iraqis and others supportive of the Iraqi government.
The use of terror tactics in liberal democracies is especially
problematic because in open societies, self-restraint under the rule of
law and commitment to respect human rights and dignity complicate the
challenges of mounting an effective response.

Attacking a distant country is difficult, even in the era of
globalization, and would-be assailants must choose between difficult,
high profile attacks, like those on 9/11, and easier to accomplish but
probably lower impact incidents (like sniper attacks on random
individuals or small explosions in crowded public places). We remain
vulnerable to both types of terror attack, but arguably we are now less
vulnerable to relatively large-scale, high profile attacks than we were
before 9/11. Nevertheless, it is extremely difficult to penetrate the
tight-knit groups that are most capable of carrying out such attacks on
our country and our people. We have achieved great success in disrupting
al-Qaida but may be witnessing a repeat of the pattern found in the wars
on illegal drugs and organized crime, namely, that we are fighting a
"hydra" with robust capabilities of resurgence and replacement of lost
operatives. The bottom line is that terrorism remains the most
immediate, dangerous, and difficult security challenge facing our
country and the international community and is likely to remain so for a
long time. Despite the progress we have made, it would be imprudent to
become complacent or to lower our guard.

The quest for WMD, missiles (or unmanned aerial vehicles), and advanced
conventional arms has become more attractive to, and more feasible for,
a small but significant set of state and non-state actors. This poses
major challenges to the security of the United States and our friends
and allies, but it is important to put this threat in perspective.

Nuclear Threats. The nuclear sword of Damocles that hung over our
national existence during the Cold War remains largely a concern from a
different era. Russia and China still have nuclear weapons (the number
is declining in Russia and increasing only modestly in China), but the
hostility of the past is no longer a pressing concern and neither
threatens to use them against our country. North Korea has produced
sufficient fissile material to make a small number of nuclear weapons,
but, despite its February 10 statement, there is no evidence that it has
produced such weapons and mated them to a missile capable of delivering
them to the United States. However, if it has made such weapons, it
could reach U.S. allies, our armed forces, and large concentrations of
American citizens in Northeast Asia. India and Pakistan have nuclear
weapons and the capability to deliver them to targets in the region, but
both nations are friends and neither threatens the territory of the
United States. Iran seeks but does not yet have nuclear weapons or
missiles capable of reaching the United States. INR’s net assessment of
the threat to U.S. territory posed by nuclear weapons controlled by
nation states is that it is low and lacks immediacy. But this should not
be grounds for complacency. The existence of such weapons and the means
to deliver them constitutes a latent but deadly threat. Ensuring that it
remains latent is a key diplomatic priority.

The so far theoretical possibility of nuclear weapons falling into the
hands of terrorists constitutes a very different type of threat. We have
seen no persuasive evidence that al-Qaida has obtained fissile material
or ever has had a serious and sustained program to do so. At worst, the
group possesses small amounts of radiological material that could be
used to fabricate a radiological dispersion device ("dirty bomb"). The
only practical way for non-state actors to obtain sufficient fissile
material for a nuclear weapon (as opposed to material for a so-called
dirty bomb) would be to acquire it on the black market or to steal it
from one of the current, want-to-be, or used-to-be nuclear weapons
states. The "loose nukes" problem in the former Soviet Union continues
to exist but is less acute than it once was, thanks to the Nunn-Lugar
cooperative threat reduction program and diligent efforts by Russia to
consolidate and protect stockpiles. North Korea’s possession of
weapons-grade fissile material adds a new layer of danger and
uncertainty. There is no convincing evidence that the D.P.R.K. has ever
sold, given, or even offered to transfer such material to any state or
non-state actor, but we cannot assume that it would never do so.

Chemical and Biological Weapons. Despite the diffusion of know-how and
dual-use capabilities to an ever-increasing number of countries, the
number of states with known or suspected CW programs remains both small
and stable. Most of those that possess such weapons or have the
capability to produce quantities sufficient to constitute a genuine
threat to the United States or Americans (civilian and military) outside
our borders are not hostile to us, appreciate the significance of our
nuclear and conventional arsenals, and are unlikely to transfer such
weapons or capabilities to terrorists. There are nations that might use
CW against invading troops, even American forces, on their own
territory, but we judge it highly unlikely that nation states would use
CW against the American homeland or specifically target American
citizens except as an act of desperation. Terrorists, by contrast, have
or could acquire the capability to produce small quantities of chemical
agents for use against selected targets or random individuals. We judge
the chances of their doing so as moderate to high. One or a few
disgruntled individuals or a small terrorist cell could do so in a
manner analogous to the 1995 Aum Shinrikyo sarin gas attack on a Tokyo
subway. The severity of such an attack would be small in terms of
lethality, but the psychological and political impact would be huge.

The risk posed by nation states with biological weapons is similar to
that for CW; many nations have the capability, but few have programs and
even fewer would be tempted to use them against the United States. The
danger of acquisition and use by terrorists, however, is far greater.
Though hard to handle safely and even harder to deliver effectively, BW
agents have the potential to overwhelm response capabilities in specific
locations, induce widespread panic, and disrupt ordinary life for a
protracted period, with resulting economic and social consequences of
uncertain magnitude.

Conventional Attack. INR considers the danger of a conventional military
attack on the United States or American military, diplomatic, or
business facilities abroad to be very low for the simple reason that no
state hostile to the United States has the military capability to attack
the U.S. with any hope of avoiding massive retaliation and ultimate,
probably rapid, annihilation. The only way to reach a different
conclusion, it seems to us, is to posit an irrational actor model in
which either all key decisionmakers in a hostile country are irrational
or there are no systemic constraints on a totally irrational dictator.
We judge that such conditions exist nowhere at present and hence that
U.S. military might is, and will be, able to deter any such suicidal
adventure for the foreseeable future. Here again, ensuring that this
situation continues is a major goal of American diplomacy.

A far more dangerous threat is the possibility, even the likelihood,
that advanced conventional weapons will be obtained—and used—by
terrorists. For example, the danger that groups or individuals
antithetical to the United States will obtain MANPADs or advanced
explosives is both high and immediate. The number of Americans likely to
be killed or maimed in such an attack would be small in comparison with
the casualties in a conventional war or nuclear attack, but would be
unacceptably large no matter how small the number of casualties and
could have a major economic and psychological impact. Attacks on
American nationals, whether they are aimed at workers in an American
city, American tourists abroad, U.S. diplomatic facilities, U.S.
businesses at home or abroad, or U.S. military facilities at home or
abroad, are possible and unacceptable. The fact that State Department
personnel, family members, and facilities have been frequent targets of
attack makes us acutely aware of this danger and determined to do
everything possible to thwart it. This determination is magnified
several-fold by the fact that it is an important part of the State
Department’s mission, and the Secretary of State’s responsibility, to
protect American citizens everywhere around the globe. We take this
responsibility very seriously, and an important part of INR’s support to
diplomacy involves providing information and insights that contribute
directly to the success of this mission.

States of Concern. It has become something of a convention in threat
testimony to list a number of countries that, for one reason or another,
are judged to warrant special attention from the Intelligence Community.
A few countries on this list engage in activities that directly or
indirectly threaten American lives (e.g., North Korea’s deployment of
massive military power close enough to Seoul to put at risk our ally as
well as American troops and tens of thousands of American civilians).
Most countries on the list do not threaten the United States militarily
but are important to the success of policies to protect and promote
other American interests.

Rather than enumerate a long list of countries, I will simply provide a
series of generic examples to illustrate the kinds of conditions and
concerns germane to diplomatic efforts to protect and advance American
interests. The State Department needs good intelligence on some
countries primarily because their actions could lead to internal
instability that could, in turn, threaten other American interests.
Others belong on the list because they do not or cannot prevent the
growth and export of narcotics, harbor or assist terrorist groups, have
leaders who make anti-American pronouncements, or have conditions
conducive to the rise of extremist movements. Still others illicitly
traffic in persons, weapons, conflict diamonds, or other commodities;
control critical energy resources; or have fragile political
institutions, large and dynamic economies, or any of myriad other
attributes.

What states on this long and varied list have in common is the capacity
to affect American interests and the efficacy of U.S. foreign, economic,
and security policy. Most do not and will not "threaten" the United
States in the way that we were once threatened by the Soviet Union and
the Warsaw Pact, but something, or many things, about them pose
challenges and/or opportunities for American diplomacy. The problems of
failing states and the tremendous drain on resources in developing
countries from AIDS and other pandemics, environmental stress, and
corruption affect our ability to partner with allies and friends to meet
humanitarian needs in the interest of promoting stability and democracy.
This, in turn, poses challenges and requirements for the Intelligence
Community that extend far beyond the collection and analysis of
information germane to the suppression of terrorism and limiting the
spread of WMD, delivery systems, and advanced conventional weapons.
Meeting these challenges requires global coverage, deep expertise,
extensive collaboration, and, above all, acceptance of the idea that the
mission of the Intelligence Community demands and entails more than
collecting and interpreting covertly acquired information on a
relatively small number of narrowly defined threats. Focusing on known
threats and concerns is necessary but could prove to be very dangerous
if we are not equally vigilant in trying to anticipate unknowns and
surprises.

Intelligence is, or should be, about more than addressing "threats". The
Intelligence Community has been justifiably criticized for serious
failings and shortcomings, but we should not lose sight of what we do
well and must continue to do well. For example, America’s unrivaled
military preeminence, demonstrated so dramatically in our elimination of
the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and the destruction of Saddam’s regime
in Iraq, is inextricably linked to the capabilities and accomplishments
of our Intelligence Community. Intelligence collection, analytic
tradecraft, insights gained through years of experience, and close ties
among collectors, analysts, weapons designers, military planners, and
troops on the ground are all and equally critical to the military
successes we have achieved, the predominance we enjoy, and the fact that
conventional military threats to our nation and our citizens are low and
almost certain to remain so for many years. Preserving this state of
affairs will be neither automatic nor easy, but our efforts and the
allocation of resources to do so must not foreclose equally committed
efforts to address other threats and challenges.

Terrorism and proliferation are at the top of every agency’s list of
threats, and the Intelligence Community is committing substantial effort
and resources to provide the intelligence support required to contain
and reduce those dangers. In part, this requires and involves
penetration of highly restricted and suspicious organizations and secure
systems of communication, including sophisticated measures to hide
financial transactions, obscure relationships, and deceive human and
technical collectors. But collection is only one of many essential
factors in the equation. To place the intelligence we collect in
context, to distinguish between what is true and useful and what is not,
and to develop strategies to detect and disrupt activities inimical to
American interests requires expert analysts and information on a very
wide array of critical variables. Stated another way, it is not possible
to identify, anticipate, understand, and disrupt terrorists and
proliferators without broad and deep understanding of the countries,
cultures, contexts, social networks, economic systems, and political
arenas in which they spawn, develop, and operate. Without broad and deep
expertise and information that goes far beyond what we can or should
collect through clandestine means, we will not be able to judge
accurately the information we collect, and will ultimately be reduced to
reliance on lucky guesses and chance discoveries. That isn’t good
enough. We can and must do better.

NEW YORK (AP) - No beards or other "Islamic characteristics." Do not
speak loudly or otherwise draw attention to yourself. Rent apartments in
areas where neighbors do not know each other well.

The suicide hijackers in last week's attacks apparently practiced
terrorism by the book - a 180-page manual for Muslim operatives living
undercover among their enemies in "godless areas" of the world.

The manual, "Military Studies in the Jihad Against the Tyrants," was
discovered last year during an investigation of Osama bin Laden, and
gives terrorists precise instructions on how to act while they await
their orders to strike.

Investigators have not said whether the 19 hijackers ever read the
manual, but glimpses of their lives suggest they conducted themselves
according to its instructions during the months they spent in the United
States.

Experts say the manual illustrates the inner workings of bin Laden's
al-Qaida organization, the prime suspect in the attacks. It also
foreshadows the suicide hijackings themselves, in which the terrorists
used boxcutters and knives.

For example, the manual's "Assassinations" section gives precise
instructions on how to use weapons with blades, saying the "enemy must
be struck in one of these lethal spots: Anywhere in the rib cage, both
or one eye, the back of the head, the end of the spinal column."

The hijackers "seem to have followed (the manual) as closely as they
could ... making sure no one knew the whole picture," said George
Andrew, former deputy head of anti-terrorism for the FBI's New York City
office.

The manual says anyone willing to "undergo martyrdom" should be "able to
act, pretend and mask himself" behind enemy lines.

Among its instructions:

-Do not address others with traditional Islamic greetings in which
Allah's name is invoked.

-Do not cause trouble in your neighborhood. Do not park in no-parking
zones.

-Do not live near police stations.

-Do not appear to be overly inquisitive.

-Burn letters immediately after reading them and get rid of the ashes,
too.

-Rent apartments "in newly developed areas where people don't know each
other."

-Use codes when talking on the telephone.

-Try not to be "chatty and talkative" in public.

-Maintain an appearance "that does not indicate Islamic orientation
(beard, toothpick, book, long shirt, small Koran)."

Most television images of the men thought to have been aboard the
airliners show them without beards. And people who met them said they
wore Western clothes.

Neighbors of some of the men in California, Florida and Maryland said
they lived in suburbs where they did not stand out. In Florida they
moved frequently, staying in motels and apartments around the state.

They also joined gyms. One made small talk with a neighbor about sports.
Another posted a personal ad on the Internet.

People who came into contact with them described them as quiet, friendly
and sometimes timid men who gave few, if any, hints that they harbored
deep resentment against the United States.

Nawaq Alhamzi, a suspected hijacker aboard the jet that crashed into the
Pentagon, lived last fall in a new 175-unit San Diego apartment building
where so many people came and went that he was barely noticed. He always
paid the rent on time.

Some of the hijackers appeared to bend a rule in the manual stating that
"there is nothing that permits ... drinking wine or fornicating."

Days before the World Trade Center attack, Mohamed Atta and Marwan
Al-Shehhi were seen drinking at a sports bar in Hollywood, Fla. Majed
Moqued was spotted perusing adult videos in two Laurel, Md., stores. He
did not buy anything.

FBI agents discovered the manual last year in Manchester, England, in
one of several "guest houses" authorities say al-Qaida used to harbor
terrorist cells. The FBI was investigating bin Laden and his suspected
role in the deadly 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa.

A translation of manual from the original Arabic was made public last
spring, when prosecutors in New York introduced it as evidence in the
embassy bombing trial that ended with the convictions of four bin Laden
associates.

After studying the manual, the FBI suspected that bin Laden's soldiers
were attempting to infiltrate American society, said Andrew, the former
FBI anti-terrorism official. But investigators apparently did not
conclude that terrorists had already put themselves in position to
strike.

America’s chief suspect for yesterday’s attacks on the World Trade
Centre and the Pentagon is Osama bin Laden, one of America’s ten most
wanted men. He carries a $5 million bounty on his head.

Bin Laden warned three weeks ago that he and his followers would carry
out an unprecedented attack on US interests for its support of Israel,
an Arab journalist with access to him said yesterday.

Abdel-Bari Atwan, editor of the London-based al-Quds al-Arabi, an
Arabic-language weekly news magazine, said Islamic fundamentalists led
by Bin Laden were “almost certainly” behind yesterday’s attack on the
United States.

“It is most likely the work of Islamic fundamentalists. Osama bin Laden
warned three weeks ago that he would attack American interests in an
unprecedented attack, a very big one. Personally, we received
information that he planned very, very big attacks against American
interests. We received several warnings like this.”

The US government, which appears to have suffered a catastrophic
intelligence lapse, said last night it believed bin Laden was
responsible. Soon afterwards, there were reports of air raids in
Afghanistan, his headquarters, though the US was initially denying
responsibility.

One of bin Laden’s associates was to be sentenced today over the 1998
bombing of a US embassy in Tanzania that killed 213 people. The
sentencing had been set for a federal court near the World Trade Centre.

From his several mountain hide-outs in southern Afghanistan, Bin Laden,
a Saudi millionaire, runs Al Qaeda, one of the world’s most feared
terrorist organisations. He is perhaps the only one sophisticated enough
to arrange yesterday’s stunning timetabled destruction.

Bin Laden is wanted by a US court for masterminding the bombing in 1998
of two US embassies in East Africa in which 224 people died. According
to the indictment, his organisation is “dedicated to opposing
non-Islamic governments with force and violence”.

In August 1996, after he moved to Afghanistan, he issued a “declaration
of war” against the United States, because of its position as a secular
superpower and because of the presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia.

Earlier this year, George Tenet, director of the Central Intelligence
Agency, described him as the most immediate and serious threat to US
security.

Born in Jeddah in 1955, Bin Laden is the son of a construction magnate.
He used his inherited wealth in the 1980s to run the “Services Office”
which funnelled fighters and money into Afghanistan for the war against
the Soviet occupation.

Now, long after the Soviets left, he remains in Afghanistan and sends
money and fighters to support the Taleban, the hardline Islamic regime
which is trying to create a pure but brutal Islamic state.

He is believed to be responsible for an attempted assassination attack
on Sunday against Ahmad Shah Masood, Afghanistan’s most senior
opposition commander and the only force still resisting the Taleban.

Taleban leaders have refused to hand Bin Laden over for trial, but they
insist he cannot command an international terrorist organisation from
his hide-outs. He was photographed in January, posing at the wedding of
his son, Mohammed, in Kandahar, in southern Afghanistan, in an apparent
gesture of defiance to the United States.

“Osama bin Laden came as a mujahid (a holy warrior),” Maulvi Qudratullah
Jamal, the Taleban information minister, said last month.

Like all senior Taleban ministers, Mr Jamal has met the Saudi. “He is a
very calm man and he respects Islamic law. He is good man and he doesn’t
want to harm anyone.”

Few Western analysts believe that. Al Qaeda is an advanced,
international organisation run on a system of cells. Last year, US
intelligence agencies found CD-ROM copies of a six-volume training
manual apparently used by Bin Laden to train recruits. The manual
contained information on recruiting followers and assembling bombs.

Bin Laden’s reach is extensive. According to the indictment for the US
embassy bombings, he is suspected of involvement in the killing of 18 US
soldiers in Mogadishu, in Somalia, in October 1993. He provided a safe
house for Ramzi Yousef, who bombed the World Trade Centre in 1993,
killing six people and injuring 1,000.

He is also believed to have tried to obtain components of nuclear and
chemical weapons. But it is not clear how extensive his weaponry is now.
The Pentagon said a year ago that with the nerve gases tabun and sarin
at his disposal, he might attempt to leave the realm of brutal terrorist
to become a potential world power broker.

With the Middle East in flames and teetering on the edge of war, there
are three factors making now the right time for any attack by Bin Laden.

The peace process is in ruins and the Arab world is convinced that it
cannot come back. For the first time in years, despite the brutal
lynching of Israeli soldiers, the shooting of settlers and the suicide
bomb attacks, the Palestinians have garnered a large measure of world
sympathy. With their enemies shooting children dead in the streets for
throwing stones, Israel has been losing the public relations battle with
its foes and Bin Laden is offering his fanatics a glory in death that
has evaded them in life.

The CIA sent an urgent report to the Clinton administration 18 months
ago that suicide bombers inside Israel with chemical weapon bombs could
wreak death and destruction on a massive scale. The Japanese cult that
released a small portion of sarin into the Tokyo subway system a few
years ago showed its awesome power.

The United States targeted what it said was a chemical weapons plant in
Sudan in retaliation for the bombings of US embassies in Africa that Bin
Laden carried out with lethal effect.

“But the chemicals had already gone,” said Kenneth Katzman of the US
Congressional Research Service and an expert on Middle East terrorism.
He said they had been shipped back to the terrorist training academy Bin
Laden runs in Afghanistan where they were believed to have been
“weaponised”.

Weaponising consists of turning inert chemical agents into lethal toxins
and fitting them into devices to spread the poison over a wide scale. A
teacup full of sarin in the water supply of Jerusalem would be enough to
kill every inhabitant ten times over.

The normal method of dispersing chemical agents is through an artillery
shell, but because Palestinian stone-throwers don’t possess artillery
pieces, the accepted future scenario is of an infiltration into Israel
of suicide bombers.

“Aside from the fact that he has access to millions of dollars," said a
former CIA counter-terrorism chief, Vincent Cannistrano, “Bin Laden and
his people are masters of improvisation. With his connections in Saudi
Arabia, where his father became one of the country’s richest men as a
builder, and to other areas of the Arab world, he has access to some of
the most sophisticated explosives and weapons. Semtex, nitro-glycerine,
detonators.

“By the best estimates, he probably has no more than two pounds of tabun
and sarin,” said Günther Griese, a German anti-terrorist expert. “No
matter – that is enough to wipe out Israel, Egypt, Jordan and probably
several other countries besides.”

It is ironic that Bin Laden was once backed by the United States, a
warlord who disciplined and organised Muslim youth in Soviet-occupied
Afghanistan. Now he is Washington’s most wanted man.

Mr Cannistrano said: “He is the only one out of any of the Middle East
terrorist groups who has declared a fatwa against America. He is the one
with the vision and the means to see this thing through.”

Around 2,000 Muslims have “graduated” from his terror academy over the
past five years. Bin Laden also has links with other international
terrorist organisations. He has developed close relations with Ayman
al-Zawahiri, the head of a leading faction of the Egyptian extremist
group al-Jihad, who has also sought sanctuary in Afghanistan.

Washington has tried to strike back but with limited success. Listening
stations operated by the US National Security Agency in countries around
Afghanistan are able to trace e-mail, fax and satellite calls.

The US launched 60 cruise missiles at his training camps in Khost, in
southern Afghanistan, shortly after the bombings of the US embassies in
Africa, homing in on the transmissions from one of his Inmarsat cellular
phones. Minutes before, Bin Laden escaped, suspecting a raid was
planned.


HIJACKERS: THE SUSPECTS

US INTELLIGENCE agencies will be concentrating their efforts on four
lines of inquiry until hard evidence turns up:

OSAMA BIN LADEN

The Saudi Arabian former businessman with a pathological hatred of all
things American must be the prime suspect for yesterday’s terrorist
attack.

He has a track record of striking US targets in the Middle East, Africa
and New York. His Afghanistan-based Islamic fundamentalist group
undoubtedly has the motivation to mount this type of attack, but its
sheer scale and audacity is far beyond anything he has tried before.

PALESTINIAN GROUPS

The suicide element of the hijackings would seem to have the
fingerprints of fanatical Palestinian groups with Islamic fundamentalist
links such as Islamic Jihad, the Hezbollah or others.

The year-old conflict in the occupied territories has radicalised a new
generation of Palestinian youth who are determined to strike back at
Israel’s chief paymaster and arms supplier.

MIDDLE EASTERN GOVERNMENT/ INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

The complex nature of the simultaneous multiple hi-jackings of the
aircraft perhaps points to the involvement of Middle Eastern
intelligence agencies.

They could have provided the logistics and cloak of secrecy necessary to
get the hijack teams into the US and on to the aircraft without
detection.

Elements in the Iranian, Iraqi and Libyan regimes have strong anti-US
track records and might want to provoke an overwhelming response from
the Bush administration in the hope of radicalising their populations to
continue the struggle against the "great Satan".

US RIGHT-WING GROUPS

Although groups with Middle Eastern links must be top of the US
government’s suspects list, the possibility of involvement by so-called
militia groups cannot be discounted. They have the motivation and
resources to continue their struggle against the federal government by
very violent means, as the Oklahoma bombing proved

Terrorists who hijacked American Airlines Flight 11 out of Boston on
Tuesday morning slit the throats of two female flight attendants who
tried to bar them from entering the ****pit.

The terrorists then forced their way into the locked ****pit and
commandeered the Boeing 767 to New York, where they slammed it into one
of the World Trade Center towers. The flight, carrying 81 passengers,
was bound for Los Angeles.

A third stewardess aboard the nine-crew flight – Madeline Amy Sweeney –
used her cellphone, or possibly the plane phone, to alert Michael
Woodward, her superviser back at Logan International Airport, about the
hijacking and murders. The terrorists were armed with razor-tipped
knives that looked like box cutters, she relayed.

"That was just horrific to all of us when we heard about it at about
8:15" yesterday morning, said the senior American Airlines employee, who
works at Logan and said goodbye to the crew at the gate around 7:30 a.m.
"We were, like, 'Oh my God, these poor girls are trying to save their
captain and their plane.'"

The plane left the gate at about 7:45 a.m. and took off at about 7:55
a.m. Sweeney made her call around 8:10 a.m. or 8:15 a.m., the source
says. At about 8:25 a.m., the jet turned sharply off its planned
westbound flight path and headed south toward Manhattan. The jet crashed
into the north World Trade Center tower at about 8:45 a.m. About 15
minutes later, a United Airlines jet sliced through the south tower.

According to the American source, the American captain, John Ogonowski,
managed to key the ****pit mike, apparently without the terrorists
knowing, allowing air-traffic controllers to briefly pick up their
****pit conversations. The terrorists turned off the plane's
transponder, the equipment that identifies the plane and provides other
information – such as whether it's been hijacked – to air-traffic
controllers tracking it by radar. Ogonowski flew the plane with his
first officer, Tom McGuinness.

"They were trying to clue in the tower," the airline source said.

The crew was very close, having flown the Boston-Los Angeles run
together regularly, the source said.

"This was a senior crew," she said. "They've been around. A lot of them
usually do that flight – go out on Flight 11 and come back on Flight 12
[from Los Angeles]. We all knew them really well."

In fact, a couple of the stewardesses were married to American gate
agents at Logan, she says.

"You know, I said goodbye to that crew at the gate," the American
employee said. "I was up there talking to the girls who were doing the
flight, and the crew walks by and gives us all a wave. They said, 'See
you later, we're coming back on [Flight] 12.'"

"Everyone was just stunned," she said, when they learned some 90 minutes
later of their ultimate fate in Manhattan.

As part of their investigation, FBI agents and Massachusetts state
troopers have interviewed American Airlines employees and Logan airport
workers, including custodians working the morning shift, to rule out an
inside job and establish a record of all the people who were at the
terminal that morning.

"It was pretty intense," said the American worker.

The history of terrorism against Americans and U.S. allies looks a
little like its effects: a smoking pile of rubble. By contrast, the
history of nations and their wars—with known political leaders,
generals, soldiers, and ambassadors—is downright tidy. World Wars settle
issues (temporarily, anyway) and redraw maps; terrorism, concentrated so
often on civilians, usually just terrorizes. The human toll of attacks
has recently increased as terrorists have moved from making specific
demands about prisoner release to general statements of their desire for
vast governmental changes. The following is more a journey down
nightmare lane than a neat history lesson with a beginning and an end,
but one theme does emerge: man's capacity for evil seems limitless, and
not limited to Islam's extremists.


7/28/1968
A Marxist group called the People's Front for the Liberation of
Palestine (PFLP) begins the first in a series of hijackings of Israeli
El Al airliners. For this mission, the group exchanges 48 Israeli
hostages for 16 Arab prisoners in Israeli jails.

2/21/1970
PFLP terrorists blow up a Swissair 330 in midair shortly after leaving
Geneva, killing 47.

6/10/1970
Agents of the Palestine Liberation Organization murder U.S. Embassy
attaché Army Major Robert P. Perry at home in Amman, Jordan.

9/6/1970
PFLP terrorists seize four airliners at the beginning of what would
become known as "Black September." The hijackers demand the release of
Palestinian prisoners in Germany, Switzerland, and Israel. They fly two
planes to Dawson's Field in the Jordanian desert and blow up one in
Cairo after releasing passengers and crew. On the fourth plane, the
terrorists are overpowered and the plane returns to London. British
authorities take Leila Khaled, who commanded the terrorist operation,
into custody. The PFLP then demands Ms. Khaled's release and hijacks
another plane bound for Beirut, landing a third plane at Dawson's Field.
PFLP releases 255 hostages (retaining 56) and blow up the three planes.
At the end of Black September, Great Britain releases Ms. Khaled and six
other Palestinian guerrillas in exchange for the remaining hostages.

3/1/1971
A U.S. Senate office building sustains heavy damage from a bomb planted
by the radical Weather Underground.

5/11/1972
The Red Army Faction (also known in its early years as the
Baader-Meinhof Gang) carries out six separate bombing attacks aimed at
U.S. Army personnel and a West German Supreme Court Justice. One bomb
kills an Army officer and injures 12 other servicemen. A short time
later, both Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof are captured and
imprisoned.

9/5/1972
At the Olympics in Munich, Germany, eight Black September terrorists
take nine Israeli athletes hostage and kill two others. They demand the
release of 200 Palestinians in Israeli jails, as well as freedom for
terrorists of the Japanese Red Army and the Red Army Faction. A Black
September grenade kills the athletes during an unsuccessful rescue
attempt. Five terrorists die in a shootout and three are captured.

10/29/1972
Black September hijackers seize a Lufthansa flight from Beirut to
Ankara, and gain the freedom of the three remaining Munich assailants.

3/1/1973
Black September terrorists take 10 hostages at the Saudi embassy in
Khartoum, Sudan. The terrorists murder the U.S. ambassador and charge
d'affaires, as well as a Belgian diplomat. They later surrender to
authorities.

2/5/1974
Leftist radicals of the Symbionese Liberation Army kidnap newspaper
heiress Patricia Hearst. In April, she totes a gun in a San Francisco
bank robbery. In May, police kill six SLA members in a shootout. The FBI
arrests Ms. Hearst in September 1975. She claims she only pretended to
support the SLA to survive, but she must serve time in prison until
President Carter pardons her in 1979.

4/13/1974
The New People's Army, the guerrilla arm of the Communist Party of the
Philippines, kills three U.S. Navy personnel near Subic Bay Naval Base.

1/24/1975
At New York City's historic Fraunces Tavern, where in 1783 George
Washington said farewell to his troops, a bomb by a doorway explodes
during the lunch hour, killing four people and wounding 60. The Puerto
Rican terrorist group FALN claims responsibility.

1/28/1975
Weather Underground detonates a bomb at the U.S. State Department
building.

8/4/1975
Five terrorists from the Japanese Red Army shoot their way into the
American consulate on the ninth floor of a downtown office building in
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. They wound four people and take 53 men, women,
and children hostage, including American consul Robert Stebbins.
Japanese officials bow to the attackers' demand for the release of five
Japanese Red Army prisoners; after difficult negotiations, Libya agrees
to accept the terrorists. After it ends, Mr. Stebbins declares of his
captors: "I hope they might someday be people with whom I can sit down
and have a cup of coffee and talk about politics."

6/27/1976
The days of coffee talk come to an end after four terrorists-two from
the Palestinian terrorist group PFLP and two from the Red Army
Faction-hijack an Air France flight from Tel Aviv to Paris, capturing
240. After refueling in Libya, they fly to Entebbe, Uganda, where
dictator Idi Amin welcomes them and allows them to land. The terrorists
demand the release of 54 colleagues who are jailed in six countries
around the world and a $5 million ransom for the PFLP. They release all
passengers with non-Israeli passports, reducing the number of hostages
to 103. On July 1, Israeli commandos raid the terminal building, killing
all four terrorists and rescuing all but two hostages who die in the
crossfire. The raid at Entebbe becomes a rallying point for the fight
against terrorism.

3/9/1977
A dozen Hanafi Muslim terrorists armed with long knives, pistols, and
sawed-off shotguns seize 134 hostages in three buildings only blocks
from the White House. One man is killed and 12 are wounded in the
takeover of the Islamic Center, the international headquarters of B'nai
Brith, and the District building, Washington's city hall. They surrender
two days later after negotiations with ambassadors of Egypt, Iran, and
Pakistan.

5/17/1977
The anti-American group GRAPO (translated as the October 1 Anti-Fascist
Resistance Group) bombs the U.S. Cultural Center in Madrid on the day
Vice President Walter Mondale arrives for an official visit.

3/16/1978
Red Brigades terrorists kidnap Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro and kill
five of his bodyguards. They execute Moro and leave his bullet-riddled
body in a car in downtown Rome.

2/14/1979
The U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan dies in a hail of gunfire from Afghan
troops as others plot to rescue him from four kidnappers in a Kabul
hotel room. Just as U.S. officials believed they had persuaded Afghan
Interior Ministry officials not to storm the room, a gunshot was heard,
spurring the spray of bullets.

6/20/1979
Serb nationalists hijack an American Airlines flight from New York to
Chicago, seeking the release of a priest involved in a bombing of a
Yugoslavian consular official's home in Chicago four years earlier. The
hijackers fail and are taken into custody.

6/25/1979
NATO Allied Supreme Commander (and future Secretary of State) Alexander
Haig barely escapes death when a bomb explodes just a few feet behind
his chauffeur-driven Mercedes-Benz in Belgium. The Red Army Faction
claims responsibility for the attack.

8/27/1979
The Irish Republican Army blows up the boat of Lord Mountbatten, killing
the cousin of Queen Elizabeth II.

11/4/1979
In response to the Shah of Iran's admission to the United States for
medical treatment and American refusals to extradite him, about 500
Iranians take over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. They hold 52 Americans as
hostages. President Jimmy Carter applies economic pressure on Iran by
halting Iranian oil imports and freezing Iranian assets in the United
States. On April 24,1980, the Carter administration attempts a rescue
mission that fails when three of the mission's eight helicopters are
damaged in a sandstorm. After Ronald Reagan's election in November,
successful negotiations begin and Iran releases the hostages shortly
after President Reagan is inaugurated on January 20, 1981.

12/2/1979
Puerto Rican terrorists kill two U.S. Navy sailors on a bus in Puerto
Rico.

7/22/1980
Daoud Salahuddin (formerly David Belfield), an American Khomeini
supporter, kills Ali Akbar Tabatabai, a press aide for Iran during the
reign of Shah Reza Pahlavi and a strong critic of Ayatollah Khomeini's
revolution, at his home in Bethesda, Md.

10/5/1980
Armenian terrorists claim responsibility for two bombings of Turkish
interests in the United States, injuring one person near the Turkish
consulate in Los Angeles.

3/7/1981
Colombian kidnappers kill American Chester Allen Bitterman, 28, after
holding him for six weeks. Bitterman had worked for Wycliffe Bible
Translators, and his assailants demand that Wycliffe close its Latin
American branch. Wycliffe doesn't comply.

5/9/1981
The Irish Republican Army detonates a bomb at a North Sea oil factory
during a visit by Queen Elizabeth. The bomb misses the queen's party.

5/13/1981
Turkish-born terrorist Mehmet Ali Agca shoots Pope John Paul II as he
greets a crowd of thousands in St. Peter's Square. The pope survives and
later visits with Mr. Agca for 20 minutes in a Rome prison to forgive
him.

8/31/1981
The Red Army Faction detonates a bomb inside a Volkswagen in a parking
lot at the U.S. Air Force base in Ramstein, West Germany. The explosion
injures two West Germans and 18 Americans and knocks down bystanders a
hundred yards away. The blast is part of a series of incidents in
response to German leftist Sigurd Debus's death by hunger strike at a
Hamburg jail.

9/15/1981
The Red Army Faction attempts to kill the commanding general of U.S.
forces in Europe, Army Gen. Frederick Kruesen. RAF terrorists fire two
RPG-7 grenades at the general's car as he and his wife ride along a
highway near Heidelberg. The Kruesens suffer minor injuries.

10/6/1981
Terrorists jump off a parade vehicle during an Egyptian parade, firing
weapons and throwing grenades at the reviewing stand. They kill Egyptian
President Anwar Sadat along with eight others and injure 20, including
four American diplomats.

12/17/1981
The Red Brigades kidnap U.S. Army Brigadier General James Lee Dozier
from his home in Verona, Italy. After 42 days, 10 Italian
counter-terrorist agents free Dozier in a raid on a Red Brigades
hideout.

1/18/1982
In Paris, Lebanese Marxists murder American military attaché Lieutenant
Colonel Charles R. Ray near his apartment.

6/1/1982
Terrorist bombs rip through four U.S. military installations in West
Germany, including the U.S. Army headquarters in Frankfurt, as President
Reagan prepares to tour Europe. The West German terrorist group
Revolutionary Cells claims credit.

7/19/1982
David Dodge, the acting president of American University of Beirut, is
kidnapped and held in Lebanon and then Iran. He is released a year
later, and the Reagan administration gives credit to Syrian leader Hafez
Assad, who told the Iranians that Mr. Dodge, as AUB president, had
contributed to the culture of the Middle East.

8/21/1982
A bomb planted by Lebanese Marxists beneath the car of an American
embassy employee in France explodes as technicians attempt to disarm it,
killing one technician and injuring two.

4/18/1983
A man drives a van carrying 2,000 pounds of explosives into the front
portion of the seven-story U.S. Embassy in Beirut, killing 63 (including
17 Americans) and injuring 120. Islamic Jihad claims responsibility.

9/16/1983
Puerto Rican terrorists strike the West Hartford, Conn., terminal of
Wells Fargo Company, escaping with $7.2 million, one of the largest bank
robberies in American history.

10/23/1983
In the early morning at the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, a truck
loaded with compressed gas-enhanced explosives crashes through
chain-link fences and barbed-wire entanglements. While guards open fire,
the truck smashes through the doors of the four-story barracks and
explodes, killing 241 U.S. servicemen as they sleep. Islamic Jihad
claims responsibility. At almost the same time, a nearly identical
suicide bombing attack kills 56 soldiers at the eight-story French
military barracks in Beirut.

11/6/1983
A bomb explodes around 11 p.m. near the Senate chamber in the U.S.
Capitol, blowing out the windows of the Republican cloakroom and
throwing large chunks of plaster through the air. A group called the
Armed Resistance Unit claims responsibility, saying it is protesting the
invasion of Grenada and American involvement in Lebanon.

12/12/1983
Suicide terrorists ram a truckload of explosives into the American and
French embassies in Kuwait. Five people, but no Americans, are killed at
the U.S. embassy, since the driver hits a small administrative annex
rather than the crowded chancellery building. The explosion at the
French embassy blows a 30-foot hole in the wall around the compound, but
kills no one. Analysts later blame the attacks on the banned Al-Dawa
party, a radical Shiite group with ties to Iran.

12/31/1983
Puerto Rican terrorists carry out four simultaneous bombings of
government targets in New York City, including city police headquarters,
FBI offices, and a federal courthouse. One city detective loses a leg,
one loses the fingers on his right hand, and another loses an eye. Some
of the wounded later protest when President Clinton pardons FALN
activists in 1999, claiming the pardons are intended to curry favor with
Puerto Ricans to help Hillary Clinton's Senate race in New York.

1/18/1984
Malcolm H. Kerr, president of the American University of Beirut, is
slain by two gunmen as he steps off an elevator near his office. Islamic
Jihad claims responsibility.

6/14/1985
Lebanese gunmen hijack TWA flight 847 bound from Athens to Rome with 104
Americans and 49 other passengers and force it to fly to Beirut, where
they pick up more gunmen, and then to Algiers. The hijackers release
passengers until the number is down to 39. They demand the release of
766 Lebanese prisoners being held in Israel. On the second day of the
standoff, the plane returns to Beirut, and the hijackers kill U.S. Navy
diver Robert Stethem and throw his body out on the runway. Israel
releases 31 Lebanese prisoners, but insists the release is not related
to the standoff. After 17 days in captivity, the hostages are
transported to Damascus, Syria, and released.

8/8/1985
The Red Army Faction detonates a car bomb at the U.S. Air Force base at
Rhein-Main, West Germany, killing two and injuring 17. The night before,
the assailants killed an off-duty U.S. serviceman, and they use his
military identification to enter the base.

10/7/1985
Four heavily armed Palestinian terrorists from the Popular Liberation
Front hijack the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro, carrying more than
400 passengers and crew, off Egypt. The terrorists demand that Israel
release 50 Palestinian prisoners. They murder 69-year-old disabled
American tourist Leon Klinghoffer and throw his body overboard with his
wheelchair. After two days of tension, the hijackers surrender in
exchange for a promise of safe passage. But when an Egyptian jet tries
to fly them to freedom, U.S. Navy F-14 fighters intercept it and force
it to land in Sicily, where Italian authorities take the terrorists into
custody.

11/25/1985
As customers shop at a U.S. military post exchange in Frankfurt,
Germany, a bomb hidden in a silver BMW parked about 250 yards away from
the PX explodes, injuring 35 people, most of them Americans.

4/2/1986
A bomb explodes aboard a TWA jet in Greece, killing four people, but the
plane lands safely. The timing device in the bomb was activated when a
passenger sat on the seat it was placed under.

4/5/1986
An explosion rips through La Belle Disco in West Berlin, killing two
American soldiers (and one other person) and injuring almost 230,
including dozens of off-duty U.S. servicemen. President Reagan orders
air strikes against Libya 10 days later as a "swift and effective
retribution" for its role in the disco bombing.

4/24/1987
A remote-control bomb injures 16 U.S. servicemen in Greece in an attack
by the group Revolutionary Organization 17 November, a Marxist-Leninist
group known for lengthy ideological statements. The same group injures
another 10 servicemen in Greece in another bus attack on Aug. 10.

10/26/1987
The communist New People's Army kills four Americans within 15 minutes
near Clark Air Base.

12/26/1987
One U.S. serviceman is killed and nine others are injured when Catalan
separatist groups in Spain launch hand grenades into a USO bar in
Barcelona.

4/14/1988
Japanese suicide bomber Junzo Okudaira drives a car bomb into a USO club
in Naples, Italy, killing a U.S. Navy enlisted woman and four others. A
Japanese Red Army front group claims responsibility. Two days earlier,
JRA member Yu Kikumura was arrested at a New Jersey Turnpike rest area
with three powerful bombs and other explosives. Both attacks were
planned in retaliation on the second anniversary of the U.S. bombing of
Libya.

6/28/1988
A car bomb detonated by Revolutionary Organization 17 November kills
Captain William Nordeen, a defense attaché at the U.S. embassy in
Athens, Greece.

8/8/1988
A group calling itself the "Simon Bolivar Commandos" explodes a bomb as
a motorcade carrying Secretary of State George Shultz passes on a
highway outside the Bolivian capital city of La Paz. There are no
injuries.

12/21/1988
Pan Am Flight 103 from London to New York explodes over Lockerbie,
Scotland, killing all 259 people on board (including 189 Americans) and
11 villagers on the ground. Crashing parts of the jet destroy 21 homes.
In 1991 the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency charges two Libyan
terrorists with the crime. On January 31, 2001, a former Libyan Arab
Airlines official and suspected Libyan spy, Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi,
is convicted of mass murder for his role in the bombing. The other
defendant, Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, is found not guilty and receives a
hero's welcome upon his return to Libya.

2/28/1989
Two Berkeley, Calif., bookstores are firebombed during the night to
protest the sale of Iranian author Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses.
Iranian authorities had issued a fatwa calling for Rushdie to be killed
for disparaging Islam.

3/10/1989
A bomb explodes in a van driven by the wife of U. S. Navy Captain Will
C. Rogers. She is unhurt. The attack is believed to be in retaliation
for the July 1988 downing of an Iranian civil airliner by the USS
Vincennes, commanded by Capt. Rogers.

3/17/1990
Narco-terrorists firebomb Drug Enforcement Agency offices in Fort Myers,
Fla. Two months later the FBI rounds up Colombians employed by drug
kingpin Pablo Escobar in Florida as they attempt to buy 24 stolen
Stinger anti-aircraft missiles for an estimated $6 million dollars.
Stinger missiles are capable of destroying the largest airliners.

9/26/1990
Gunmen kill the captain of President Corazon Aquino's guard, as well as
two American employees of Ford Aerospace, in attacks that coincide with
Vice President Dan Quayle's visit to the Philippines.

12/25/1991
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics dissolves. The fall of the
Soviet Union and the Eastern communist bloc leads to the dissolution of
remaining "Red" terrorist groups, especially with the opening of Soviet
and East German archives.

1/25/1993
Mir Amal Kansi, a Pakistani living in the United States since 1991,
shoots two CIA employees, Lansing Bennet and Frank Darling, and wounds
three others near the gate of the CIA's 258-acre headquarters in
Langley, Va.

2/26/1993
A minibus containing 1,100 pounds of explosives blows up in the garage
beneath the World Trade Center complex. The blast kills six people,
injures 1,000, and causes $300 million worth of damage. The towers are
cleaned, repaired, and reopened in less than a month. Courts later
convict six Middle Eastern men, including mastermind Ramzi Yousef. They
claim to be retaliating against U.S. support for the Israeli government.

3/8/1995
A gunman kills two employees of the U.S. consulate in Karachi,
Pakistan-CIA communications technician Gary Durell and consulate
secretary Jackie Van Landingham. No one claims responsibility, but
analysts suggest it could be meant to cripple warming relations between
the U.S. and Benazir Bhutto's government in Pakistan.

3/20/1995
Members of Japan's Aum Shinrikyo cult release sarin nerve gas in Tokyo's
subway system. The attack kills twelve and renders thousands sick.

9/13/1995
A masked assailant fires a rocket-propelled grenade across a busy street
during rush hour at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, destroying a copier and
causing minor damage in a 6th-floor office in protest against American
air strikes in Bosnia.

4/19/1995
A truck bomb explodes outside the Alfred R. Murrah Federal Office
Building, collapsing walls and floors and killing 168 persons, including
19 children and one person who died in the rescue effort. Over 220
buildings sustain damage. Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols are later
convicted in a plot to avenge the fiery end of the Branch Davidian
standoff in Waco, Texas, exactly two years earlier. The government
executes McVeigh in 2001.

6/25/1996
Terrorists drive a tanker truck loaded with at least 5,000 pounds of
plastic explosives into the parking lot of Khobar Towers in Dhahran,
Saudi Arabia, a housing facility for U.S. and allied forces enforcing a
no-fly zone over the southern portion of Iraq. Nineteen Americans are
killed and almost 500 wounded as the explosion drills a crater 35 feet
deep and rips the front off an apartment building. The Justice
Department announces indictments of 13 members of Hezbollah on June 12,
2001.

11/12/1997
In Karachi, Pakistan, two gunmen murder four American auditors for Union
Texas Petroleum Company just 36 hours after a jury in Fairfax, Va.,
found Pakistani Mir Amil Kansi guilty of the two CIA headquarters
murders. Kansi was captured a few months before, on June 17, in
Pakistan.

8/7/1998
More than 300 people are killed and more than 5,000 injured in
simultaneous car bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The explosion rips apart the back of the Kenyan
embassy, which was located at an intersection and had no security fence
in front, although it had an eight-foot-high steel fence on the other
three sides. The Tanzanian blast occurred within the embassy walls,
meaning the car had passed through a security check. Authorities suspect
Osama bin Laden's network is responsible.

8/20/1998
In response to the embassy bombings, President Clinton authorizes
cruise-missile attacks on terrorist targets in Sudan and Afghanistan
three days after his sworn testimony in the Monica Lewinsky
investigation. Administration officials also freeze the assets of Saleh
Idris, who owns the Sudanese factory that is bombed, claiming he has
terrorist ties. In May 1998, facing legal action, the administration
unfreezes the assets.

12/14/1999
Authorities arrest Algerian Ahmed Ressam as he tries to enter the United
States from Canada at Port Angeles, Wash. They find more than 100 pounds
of explosives in his car, foiling a plot to detonate a bomb at Los
Angeles International Airport in the days before millennium celebrations
on 1/1/2000. Three Algerians-Mr. Ressam, Abdel Ghani Meskini, and
Mokhtar Haouari-are convicted in New York. Mr. Ressam testifies that he
was trained at a camp in Afghanistan that American officials say is run
by Osama bin Laden.

10/12/2000
In the port of Aden, Yemen, a pair of suicide bombers in a small boat
pull alongside the U.S.S. Cole, an advanced Arleigh Burke-class
destroyer carrying Aegis anti-missile weaponry. After taking a mooring
line to a buoy to defuse suspicion, the bombers stand at attention as
their small boat blows up, blasting a 40-foot-by-40-foot hole in the
ship's hull, killing 17 American military personnel and injuring 39.
U.S. officials suspect al-Qaeda, the network of Osama bin Laden, who
speaks of the ship as having sailed "to its doom" along a course of
"false arrogance, self-conceit, and strength."

9/11/2001
Hijackers take over two large jetliners, both en route from Boston to
Los Angeles, and fly them into the north and south towers of the World
Trade Center in New York City, collapsing both towers and killing more
than 5,000 people in the buildings and on the ground. Minutes later
another hijacked jet smashes into the west side of the Pentagon. A
fourth hijacked plane crashes in a field near Shanksville, Pa. Bin
Laden's network is implicated. President George W. Bush, in a speech to
Congress, says his administration will make no distinction between
terrorists like bin Laden and the states that support them. Four weeks
later, the bombing of Afghanistan begins.

The Taliban grew up in the desperately poor outskirts of Pakistan. As
they grew in power because of their ruthless tactics they spread over
the border into neighboring Afghanistan during the years of the Soviet
occupation. The United States CIA gave them guerilla training equipped
them with military hardware including Stinger missiles which changed the
course of the Afghan's war. One of the prominent students was a rich
Saudi named Osama bin Laden. His parents were billionaires in the
construction business. Osama backed the Taliban group financially when
he became upset at the US for using air bases in Saudi Arabia during the
Desert Storm war to save Kuwait and Saudi from Iraqi invasion. The
Taliban was to become his weapon and his power base. These terrorists
from Pakistan then went to war against the native Afghans after they
were finished expelling the Soviets. They now occupy all but 15% of
Afghanistan and are committing acts on the populace that show that they
couldn't care less about Islam. Islam, the Moslem religion is just a
shield for their actions. These people commit rape, torture, and murder
at will to terrorize any population they seek to subjugate. That is
until they tried their tactics on the United States this time. Before
this they attacked the administration of BJ Clinton. They knew he was in
fact a weak president and would let them continue their terror with
little more than token retaliation. This time however they attacked a US
led by a President with solid credentials and a powerful array of
legitimate advisors. Suddenly the terrorists are afraid from what I am
beginning to see a week after their attack. Pakistan is doing what we
told them to do or risk bombing of their own country. The Taliban is
suddenly saying that although Osama bin Laden has been "their guest"
they would like him to leave Afghanistan "voluntarily". And the US has
said that is not good enough and the retaliation is now on the way

Sunday, October 21, 2001 6:39 a.m

FORT BRAGG - Ali Mohamed lived a double life that seemed more fiction
than fact. He served in the heart of the U.S. military at Fort Bragg and
in the inner circle of Osama bin Laden's Islamic fundamentalist
terrorists' network.

Long before he was arrested in connection with the 1998 car-bombing
attacks on the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, there were
questions about Ali Mohamed, a retired U.S. Army sergeant. He had
puzzled fellow soldiers with his haughty attitude toward America and
avowed Islamic fundamentalist beliefs.

Now, as the United States wages war on terrorism, the case of Mohamed
shows what the CIA and FBI are up against: terrorist operatives who
weave themselves into the fabric of America.

After al-Qaeda's car-bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and
Tanzania, it became clear where his allegiance lay. Investigators linked
Mohamed to the attacks, which killed 224 people and injured more than
4,500. He was arrested 34 days later and has since pleaded guilty and
described his central role in the attack.

Even more than the hijackers of Sept. 11, Mohamed lived and trained in
the United States. He had training as a Green Beret officer and turned
those skills against the United States. Although law enforcement and
intelligence agencies collected information on Mohamed, they assembled
the pieces of the puzzle too late -- after the embassies had been
bombed.

Identifying such terrorists resembles police work more than traditional
warfare, experts say. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies need to
cooperate and not compete over turf, if they are to apprehend terrorists
like Mohamed.

"He was an active source for the FBI, a double agent," said Larry
Johnson, a former CIA agent and director of counterterrorism at the
State Department during the elder Bush's administration.

The FBI "did a lousy job of managing him," Johnson said. "He was holding
out on them. He had critical information years ago and didn't give it
up."

The FBI declined to be interviewed for this article.

So just who is this educated soldier, fluent in at least four languages,
who trained on the drill grounds and red-clay firing ranges of Fort
Bragg and taught Green Berets about the Middle East and Islamic
fundamentalism? And how did he move back and forth between an outwardly
normal immigrant's existence and the hidden world of al-Qaeda?

Mohamed's relationship with the FBI and intelligence services remains
wrapped in secrecy. His plea agreement is sealed, as are many of the
court documents and much of the testimony. Mohamed was expected to
testify -- but did not -- at the trial where the four others were
convicted. Mohamed and his lawyer have declined all interview requests.

But a picture emerges from court documents, interviews, trial
transcripts and published accounts.

Ever since the attacks Sept. 11, Jason T. Fogg has found himself
thinking about Ali Mohamed. He remembers a tall, serious former Egyptian
Army major with a haughty attitude toward America.

Fogg, who knew nothing about Mohamed's role in al-Qaeda until a reporter
told him, said he and Mohamed had spent three months together in Army
training. Mohamed constantly compared the U.S. military with his own,
and the former officer always found the American military wanting.

"To be in the [enlisted ranks] and have so much training was weird,"
said Fogg, now a supervisor with a freight company in Spring Hill, Tenn.
"And to be in the U.S. military and have so much hate toward the U.S.
was odd. He never referred to America as his country."

Mohamed was quiet but with a ferocious temper and very religious, Fogg
said. This echoes court testimony by admitted al-Qaeda members earlier
this year about the man they called "Abu Mohamed al Amriki" -- Mohamed
the American.

Some al-Qaeda members, however, found spiritual shortcomings in the
salty-tongued Mohamed.

"He is not a good practitioner of Islam," testified L'Houssaine
Khertchou, a witness in the embassy bombings trial. "You can hear from
him some bad words."

Egyptian army experience

Born in Alexandria in 1952, Mohamed joined the Egyptian army in 1971.
With a bachelor's in psychology and two years of training at Egypt's
military academy, he rose to major in the Egyptian special forces.

Sometime in the early 1980s, after Egyptian President Anwar Sadat made
peace with Israel in the Camp David accords, Mohamed joined the
fundamentalist group Egyptian Islamic Jihad.

About this time, the Egyptian army sent Mohamed to Fort Bragg for
special forces training -- common for officers from countries the United
States regards as friendly. Training beside U.S. Green Berets, he
learned how to command elite soldiers on difficult missions such as
special reconnaissance, unconventional warfare and counterinsurgency
operations. After four months, he received a diploma with a green beret
on it.

Returning home, he served in the Egyptian army for three more years. In
1984, he left to work as a security expert for Egypt Air -- and started
to make contact with the CIA.

"This individual approached the CIA to offer information," a U.S.
official told The News & Observer, speaking on condition that no further
identification be provided. "Some time later, we found out he was
talking to known terrorists and had identified himself as a CIA agent.
We felt him to be untrustworthy, and we put him on the State Department
watch list."

The CIA also warned other U.S. government agencies about Mohamed and
urged them to detain him if possible, the official said.

The next year, in 1985, Mohamed managed to get a visa to enter the
United States. One year later, he enlisted as a regular soldier in the
U.S. Army at the age of 34, unusually old for a recruit. He was assigned
to the U.S. Special Operations Command in Fort Bragg, the home of the
Green Berets and the Delta Force, the elite counterterrorism squad.

Fluent in Arabic, Hebrew, French and English, Mohamed brought extensive
knowledge of the Arab world. Though officially a supply sergeant, he
spent much of his time teaching soldiers about the Mideast.

Robert Anderson, a retired lieutenant colonel, remembers him vividly.
Anderson said Mohamed made no secret of his religious views.

"He had identified himself as a fundamentalist, but after I interviewed
him I identified him as a fanatic," said Anderson, who lives in
Fay-etteville. "So after the interview I said, 'Well, there's one thing
I would like to say: Anwar Sadat was a hero to Egypt and to the United
States.' He looked at me with these steely eyes and said, 'Sadat was a
traitor, and he had to die.' "

Mohamed's beliefs were not just talk.

In 1988, he told Anderson and others that he was using his leave to join
the war in Afghanistan against Soviet occupation. The United States was
then secretly supporting the Afghan rebels and supplying them with
weapons; but it was highly irregular, if not illegal, for an active-duty
U.S. soldier to fight in a foreign war. If the Soviets captured him and
learned his identity, it would embarrass the United States and further
aggravate international tensions.

Anderson and another of Mohamed's superiors speculated that Mohamed
would end up in a military prison if he went. Anderson said he submitted
an intelligence report to his superiors two weeks before Mohamed
departed, but it was ignored.

Mohamed returned about a month later, Anderson said. He had clearly lost
weight, suggesting that the trip had been strenuous.

"He comes back and brings me a belt from a Russian special forces
soldier that he said he killed," Anderson said.

Anderson wrote up a second report and again heard no response.

Questions about Mohamed

Other soldiers who served with Mohamed said they had unanswered
questions about him.

Lamar A. Wood, who worked in the motor pool attached to the 5th Special
Forces Group, recalled a time when Mohamed was shipped back to the
United States in 1988 during the annual Egypt-U.S. desert war games
known as Operation Bright Star.

"He had to come back to the states only after three days or so," Wood
said. "There was some trouble there."

Near the end of his tour at Bragg, Mohamed apparently got busier in his
work with terrorist groups. Documents from court cases show that he
traveled on weekends to New Jersey, where he trained other Islamic
fundamentalists in surveillance, weapons and explosives.

He continued this training after he was honorably discharged in 1989
with commendations in his file, including one for "patriotism, valor,
fidelity and professional excellence."

Mohamed spent the next five years in the Army Reserves. For nine years
after he left active duty, until his arrest in 1998, Mohamed shuttled
between California, Afghanistan, Kenya, Somalia and at least a dozen
other countries, the court records show.

It was through his contacts with the Egyptian Islamic Jihad that he met
bin Laden, but the date is not clear. It may have been in 1991, when
Mohamed again went to Afghanistan to fight. That year, Mohamed helped
move bin Laden from Afghanistan to Sudan.

Mohamed was soon handling some of bin Laden's most sensitive security
matters, details of which he made public during his guilty plea. After a
failed 1994 assassination attempt on bin Laden, Mohamed trained the
inner circle of bodyguards for the Saudi exile.

He handled security when bin Laden moved his al-Qaeda entourage from
Sudan back to Afghanistan in 1996, as well as when bin Laden met the
Hezbollah chief who had directed the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine
barracks in Beirut.

Mohamed also shared his extensive military knowledge. He gave basic
explosives training for al-Qaeda soldiers in Afghanistan in 1992 and
translated training manuals from English to Arabic. In 1993, he trained
Somali clansmen in the months leading up to a furious gun battle that
took the lives of 18 U.S. soldiers.

Mohamed taught the terrorists how to create cell structures that
preserved secrecy and how to move undercover in Western countries. He
taught surveillance techniques: how to case targets, photograph them and
write attack plans.

And he played a central role in the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in
Nairobi, Kenya. In the early 1990s, he set up a cell in the Kenyan
capital to support al-Qaeda's operations in Somalia, using a car
business and a charity as cover.

"We used various code names to conceal our identities," Mohamed said in
his guilty plea. "I used the name 'Jeff.' " In late 1993, al-Qaeda
ordered Mohamed to scour Nairobi for targets that would avenge the U.S.
involvement in Somalia.

Mohamed conducted surveillance of the U.S. Embassy, the U.S. Agency for
International Development and two French facilities. He drew maps and
diagrams and rigged a darkroom in a colleague's apartment to avoid
dealing with a commercial developer. He later showed the photos to bin
Laden in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum.

"Bin Laden looked at the picture of the American Embassy and pointed to
where a truck could go as a suicide bomber," Mohamed told the court last
year.

Bombings planned patiently

In planning the embassy attacks, Mohamed and his al-Qaeda associates
showed the kind of patience that would later characterize the 2001
attacks in America. It was not until August 1998 -- four years later --
that Mohamed's partners parked a truck full of plastic explosives in the
very spot bin Laden had chosen. The suicide bomb crumpled buildings,
twisted and incinerated buses and shattered windows as far as five
blocks away. The blast killed 224 people and injured more than 4,500.

Within two weeks, FBI agents led a squad of 10 into Mohamed's apartment
in Sacramento, Calif., using a key provided by his apartment manager,
according to testimony at the trial. They copied computer files and
photographed documents.

The evidence they found of Mohamed's terrorist activities included
documents from his cell in Kenya and materials on how to run terrorist
cells and penetrate security cordons. Mohamed was subpoenaed to appear
before a grand jury on Sept. 10, 1998. He was arrested as he left the
grand jury room.

At the request of the U.S. Attorney, federal judges kept the arrest
secret for almost a year, filing his case as "United States v. John Doe"
and clearing the courtroom whenever it came up. Much of the case remains
sealed.

Mohamed would have come first to the attention of the FBI in late 1990
after the murder of the Rabbi Meier Kahane, a radical Jewish leader.
When authorities searched the home of El Sayyid Nosair, who was charged
with Kahane's murder, they found U.S. Army training manuals, videotaped
talks that Mohamed delivered at the Kennedy Special Warfare Center at
Fort Bragg, an operation plan for Operation Bright Star and other
materials marked "Classified" or "Top Secret."

Mohamed, who often stayed in New Jersey with Nosair, was the source of
these documents. The documents didn't surface during Nosair's 1991 trial
when he was acquitted of killing Kahane, but they did in 1995 when
Nosair was convicted of conspiring to blow up the World Trade Center and
other New York landmarks in 1993.

Roger Stavis, Nosair's attorney, argued to the jury that the U.S. Army
sent Mohamed to New Jersey to do the training. One witness, Khalid
Ibrahim, testified that he was trained by Mohamed in New Jersey and then
saw him later in Afghanistan.

"He's on active duty, helping Muslims train to help Muslims in
Afghanistan, as part of a U.S. government effort," Stavis said in an
interview.

The FBI has acknowledged in court filings that its agents interviewed
Mohamed several times after he left active duty. In 1993, he told the
FBI that bin Laden "ran an organization called al-Qaeda and was building
an army which may be used to overthrow the Saudi Government." In 1994,
he told the FBI that he had moved bin Laden out of Afghanistan in 1991.

In a 1997 interview, Mohamed admitted to a much deeper involvement in
al-Qaeda. An FBI agent wrote that Mohamed said that "he loved Bin Laden
and believed in him" and that "one did not need a fatwah [religious
ruling] to go against the United States since it was 'obvious' that the
United States was the enemy."

However, not all of Bin Laden's people trusted Mohamed. In 1994, Mohamed
Atef, the al-Qaeda commander credited with engineering the attack Sept.
11 on New York and Washington, refused to let Mohamed know what name and
passport he was traveling under.

Atef "doesn't want Abu Mohamed al Amriki to see his name, because he was
afraid that maybe he is working with United States or other
governments," L'Houssaine Khertchou testified at the embassy bombing
trial in February.

Defense lawyers and many other observers believe that Mohamed, who has
not yet been sentenced, is now cooperating with the United States,
though the government has never confirmed this. When he is finally
sentenced, Mohamed could receive as little as 25 years under his plea
agreement, which would allow him to be free at 73.

David Ruhnke, attorney for one of the four embassy bombing defendants,
said that Mohamed's deal with the government might strike the jury as
unfair, because the the government was seeking the death penalty for two
defendants.

"Some of the things [Mohamed] admitted were so serious," Ruhnke said.
"The government worried it would impact the jury."

But Larry Johnson, the former State Department counterterrorism chief,
has a more skeptical interpretation: Putting Mohamed on trial would
unearth material extremely embarrassing for the government.

"The reason he didn't testify was so they wouldn't have to face
uncomfortable statements on the FBI," Johnson said. "They are more
interested in covering their ass."

There are lessons to be learned, Johnson said. The FBI should have
polygraphed Mohamed and used counterintelligence techniques to see if he
was forthcoming. The CIA and the FBI should have worked together on
Mohamed.

Mohamed has not spoken in public since his guilty plea, but his prior
statements carry warnings to the country in whose military he served.

"He knows, for example, that there are hundreds of 'sleepers' or
'submarines' in place who don't fit neatly into the terrorist profile,"
a 1997 FBI report said. "These individuals don't wear the traditional
beards and don't pray at the mosques

A cult that displays these characteristics may then produce three

social-psychological components, referred to as the "Lethal Triad," that

predispose a cult towards violence aimed at its members and/or

outsiders.40 Cults in which members are heavily dependent on the leader

for all decision making almost always physically and psychologically

isolate their members from outsiders, the first component of the

triad.41 The other two components interact in the following way:



"... isolation causes a reduction of critical thinking on the part of

group members who become entrenched in the belief proposed by the group

leadership. As a result, group members relinquish all responsibility

for group decision making to their leader and blame the cause of all

group grievances on some outside entity or force, a process known as

projection.



Finally, isolation and projection combine to produce pathological

anger, the final component of the triad."42



Of the nearly 1000 cults operating in the United States, very few

present credible threats for millennial violence. Law enforcement

officials should concentrate on those cults that advocate force or

violence to achieve their goals concerning the endtime, as well as those

cults which possess a substantial number of the distinguishing traits

listed above.43 In particular, cults of greatest concern to law

enforcement are those that: (1) believe they play a special, elite role

in the endtime; (2) believe violent offensive action is needed to

fulfill their endtime prophecy; (3) take steps to attain their beliefs.

Those factors may culminate in plans to initiate conflict with

outsiders or law enforcement.



The violent tendencies of dangerous cults can be classified into two

general categories defensive violence and offensive violence.

Defensive violence is utilized by cults to defend compound or enclave

that was created specifically to eliminate most contact with the

dominant culture.44







44 Jeffrey Kaplan, Radical Religion in America, p.57. 45 Ibid., p.165.
46

Lisa Beyer, "Target: Jerusalem," Time Magazine, January 18, 1999.









































29



The 1993 clash in Waco, Texas at the Branch Davidian complex is an

illustration of such defensive violence. History has shown that groups

that seek to withdraw from the dominant culture seldom act on their

beliefs that the endtime has come unless provoked.45



Cults with an apocalyptic agenda, particularly those that appear ready

to initiate rather than anticipate violent confrontations to bring about

Armageddon or fulfill "prophesy" present unique challenges to law

enforcement officials. One example of this type of group is the

Concerned Christians (CC). Monte Kim Miller, the CC leader, claims to be

one of the two witnesses or prophets described in the Book of

Revelation who will die on the streets of Jerusalem prior to the second

coming of Christ. To attain that result, members of the CC traveled to

Israel in 1998 in the belief that Miller will be killed in a violent

confrontation in the streets of Jerusalem in December 1999. CC members

believe that Miller's death will set off an apocalyptic end to the

millennium, at which time all of Miller's followers will be sent to

Heaven. Miller has convinced his followers that America is "Babylon the

Great" referred to in the Book of Revelation. In early October 1998, CC

members suddenly vanished from the United States, an apparent response

to one of Miller's "prophesies" that Denver would be destroyed on

October 10, 1998. In January 1999, fourteen members of the group who had

moved to Jerusalem were deported by the Israeli government on the

grounds that they were preparing to hasten the fulfillment of Miller's

prophecies by instigating violence.46



Ascertaining the intentions of such cults is a daunting endeavor,

particularly since the agenda or plan of a cult is often at the whim of

its leader. Law enforcement personnel should become well acquainted

with the previously mentioned indicators of potential cult violence in

order to separate the violent from the non-violent.







47 Arabs refer to this site as Haram al-Sharif, which is Arabic for

"Noble Sanctuary." Israelis refer to it as Har HaBayit, which is Hebrew

for "Temple Mount." American news organizations almost always refer to

it as the Temple Mount.



Therefore, for the sake of simplicity and continuity, the term Temple

Mount will be used in this report when referring to this section of

Jerusalem.













































30



VIII. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF JERUSALEM



The city of Jerusalem, cherished by Jews, Christians, and Muslims

alike, faces many serious challenges as the year 2000 approaches. As

already evidenced by the deportation of various members of the

religious cult known as the Concerned Christians, zealotry from all

three major monotheistic religions is particularly acute in Israel,

where holy shrines, temples, churches, and mosques are located. While

events surrounding the millennium in Jerusalem are much more problematic

for the Israeli government than for the United States, the potential

for violent acts in Jerusalem will cause reverberations around the

world, including the United States. The extreme terrorist fringes of

Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are all present in the United States.



Thus, millennial violence in Jerusalem could conceivably lead to

violence in the United States as well. Within Jerusalem, the Temple

Mount, or Haram al-Sharif, holds a special significance for both

Muslims and Jews.47 The Temple Mount houses the third holiest of all

Islamic sites, the Dome of the Rock. Muslims believe that the prophet

Muhammad ascended to Heaven from a slab of stone the "Rock of

Foundation" located in the center of what is now the Dome of the Rock.

In addition, when Arab armies conquered Jerusalem in 638 A.D., the

Caliph Omar built the al-Aqsa Mosque facing the Dome of the Rock on the

opposite end of the Temple Mount. The Western (or Wailing) Wall, the

last remnant of the second Jewish temple that the Romans destroyed in

70 A.D., stands at the western base of the Temple Mount. The Western

Wall has long been a favorite pilgrimage site for Jews, and religious

men and women pray there on a daily basis. Thus, the Temple Mount is

equally revered by Jews as the site upon which the first and second

Jewish Temples stood.



Israeli officials are extremely concerned that the Temple Mount, an

area already seething with tension and distrust among Jews and Muslims,

will be the stage for violent encounters between religious zealots.

Most troubling is the fact that an act of terrorism need not be the

catalyst that sparks widespread violence. Indeed, a simple symbolic act

of desecration, or even perceived desecration, of any of the holy sites

on the Temple Mount is likely to trigger a violent reaction. For

example, the Islamic holy month of Ramadan is expected to coincide with

the arrival of the year 2000. Thus, even minor provocations on or near

the Temple Mount may provide the impetus for a violent confrontation.



The implications of pilgrimages to Jerusalem by vast numbers of

tourists are ominous, particularly since such pilgrimages are likely to

include millennial or apocalyptic cults on a mission to hasten the

arrival of the Messiah. There is general concern among Israeli officials

that Jewish and Islamic extremists may react violently to the influx of

Christians, particularly near the Temple Mount. The primary concern is

that extreme millennial cults will engage in proactive violence designed

to hasten the second coming of Christ.



Perhaps the most likely scenario involves an attack on the Al-Aqsa

Mosque or the Dome of the Rock. Some millennial cults hold that these

structures must be destroyed so that the Jewish Temple can be rebuilt,

which they see as a prerequisite for the return of the Messiah.





















31



Additionally, several religious cults have already made inroads into

Israel, apparently in preparation for what they believe to be the

endtimes.



It is beyond the scope of this document to assess the potential

repercussions from an attack on Jewish or Islamic holy sites in

Jerusalem. It goes without saying, however, that an attack on the Dome

of the Rock or the Al-Aqsa Mosque would have serious implications. In

segments of the Islamic world, close political and cultural ties between

Israel and the United States are often perceived as symbolic of

anti-Islamic policies by the Western world. Attacks on Islamic holy

sites in Jerusalem, particularly by Christian or Jewish extremists, are

likely to be perceived by Islamic extremists as attacks on Islam itself.

Finally, the possibility exists that Islamic extremist groups will

capitalize upon the huge influx of foreigners into Jerusalem and engage

in a symbolic attack.



32



IX. CONCLUSION



Extremists from various ideological perspectives attach significance to

the arrival of the year 2000, and there are some signs of preparations

for violence. The significance of the new millennium is based primarily

upon either religious beliefs relating to the Apocalypse/Armageddon, or

political beliefs relating to the New World Order conspiracy theory.



The challenge to law enforcement is to understand these extremist

theories and, if any incidents do occur, be prepared to respond to the

unique crises they will represent. Law enforcement officials should be

particularly aware that the new millennium may increase the odds that

extremists may engage in proactive violence specifically targeting law

enforcement officers. Religiously motivated extremists may initiate

violent conflicts with law enforcement officials in an attempt to

facilitate the onset of Armageddon, or to help fulfill a "prophesy." For

many on the extreme right-wing, the battle of Armageddon is interpreted

as a race war to be fought between Aryans and the "satanic" Jews and

their allies. Likewise, extremists who are convinced that the millennium

will lead to a One World Government may choose to engage in violence to

prevent such a situation from occurring. In either case, extremists

motivated by the millennium could choose martyrdom when approached or

confronted by law enforcement officers. Thus, law enforcement officials

should be alert for the following:



1) plans to initiate conflict with law enforcement;



2) the potential increase in the number of extremists willing to

become martyrs; and



3) the potential for a quicker escalation of conflict during

routine law enforcement activities (e.g. traffic stops, issuance of

warrants, etc.).







END OF REPORT

F.B.I. PROJECT MEGIDDO

V. MILITIAS



The majority of growth within the militia movement occurred during the

1990s. There is not a simple definition of how a group qualifies as a

militia. However, the following general criteria can be used as a

guideline: (1) a militia is a domestic organization with two or more

members; (2) the organization must possess and use firearms; and (3) the

organization must conduct or encourage paramilitary training. Other

terms used to describe militias are Patriots and Minutemen.



Most militias engage in a variety of anti-government rhetoric. This

discourse can range from the protesting of government policies to the

advocating of violence and/or the overthrow of the federal government.

However, the majority of militia groups are non-violent and only a small

segment of the militias actually commit acts of violence to advance

their political goals and beliefs. A number of militia leaders, such as

Lynn Van Huizen of the Michigan Militia Corps Wolverines, have gone to

some effort to actively rid their ranks of radical members who are

inclined to carry out acts of violence and/or terrorism.25 Officials at

the FBI Academy classify militia groups within four categories, ranging

from moderate groups who do not engage in criminal activity to radical

cells which commit violent acts of terrorism.26 It should be clearly

stated that the FBI only focuses on radical elements of the militia

movement capable and willing to commit violence against government, law

enforcement, civilian, military and international targets. In addition,

any such investigation of these radical militia units must be conducted

within strict legal parameters.



Militia anxiety and paranoia specifically relating to the year 2000 are

based mainly on a political ideology, as opposed to religious beliefs.

Many militia members believe that the year 2000 will lead to political

and personal repression enforced by the United Nations and countenanced

by a compliant U.S. government. This belief is commonly known as the New

World Order (NWO) conspiracy theory (see Chapter I, Introduction).

Other issues which have served as motivating factors for the militia

movement include gun control, the incidents at Ruby Ridge (1992) and

Waco (1993), the Montana Freemen Standoff (1996) and the restriction of

land use by federal agencies.



One component of the NWO conspiracy theory that of the use of

American military bases by the UN is worth exploring in further

detail. Law enforcement officers, as well as military personnel, should

be aware that the nation's armed forces have been the subject of a great

deal of rumor and paranoia circulating among many militia groups. One

can find numerous references in militia literature to military bases to

be used as concentration camps in the NWO and visiting foreign military

personnel conspiring to attack Americans.



27 Accessed at www.eagleflt.com.



























22



One example of this can be found on the website for the militia group

United States Theatre Command (USTC).27 The USTC website prominently

features the NWO theory as it portrays both Camp Grayling in Michigan

and Fort Dix in New Jersey as detention centers to be used to house

prisoners in an upcoming war. Specifically in reference to a photograph

of Camp Grayling, the USTC website states: "Note that the barbed wire

is configured to keep people in, not out, and also note in the middle of

the guard towers, a platform for the mounting of a machine gun."

Specifically in reference to a photograph of Fort Dix, the USTC website

states: "Actual photos of an 'Enemy Prisoner of War' camp in the United

States of America! (Fort Dix, New Jersey to be exact!) Is there going

to be a war here? Many more are suspected to be scattered throughout the

United States."



Law enforcement personnel should be aware of the fact that the majority

of militias are reactive, as opposed to proactive. Reactive militia

groups are generally not a threat to law enforcement or the public.

These militias may indeed believe that some type of NWO scenario may be

imminent in the year 2000, but they are more inclined to sit back and

wait for it to happen. They will stockpile their guns and ammunition

and food, and wait for the government to curtail their liberties and

take away their guns. When the expected NWO tragedy does not take place,

these reactive militias will simply continue their current activities,

most of which are relatively harmless. They will not overreact to minor

disruptions of electricity, water and other public services.



However, there is a small percentage of the militia movement which may

be more proactive and commit acts of domestic terrorism. As stated

earlier, the main focus of the militias connected to the Y2K/millennium

revolves around the NWO conspiracy theory. While the NOW is a paranoid

theory, there may be some real technological problems arising from the

year 2000.



Among these are malfunctioning computers, which control so many facets

of our everyday lives. Any such computer malfunctions may adversely

affect power stations and other critical infrastructure. If such

breakdowns do occur, these may be interpreted as a sign by some of the

militias that electricity is being shut off on purpose in order to

create an environment of confusion.



In the paranoid rationalizations of these militia groups, this

atmosphere of confusion can only be a prelude to the dreaded NWO/One

World Government. These groups may then follow through on their

premeditated plans of action.



28 See Fall 1997 edition of the Southern Poverty Law Center's

Intelligence Report, "Rough Waters: Stream of Knowledge Probed by

Officials."

































23



VI. BLACK HEBREW ISRAELITES



As the millennium approaches, radical fringe members of the Black

Hebrew Israelite (BHI) movement may pose a challenge for law

enforcement. As with the adherents of most apocalyptic philosophies,

certain segments of the BHI movement have the potential to engage in

violence at the turn of the century. This movement has been associated

with extreme acts of violence in the recent past, and current

intelligence from a variety of sources indicates that extreme factions

of BHI groups are preparing for a race war to close the millennium.



Violent BHI followers can generally be described as proponents of an

extreme form of black supremacy. Drawing upon the teachings of earlier

BHI adherents, such groups hold that blacks represent God's true

"chosen people," while condemning whites as incarnate manifestations of

evil. As God's "authentic" Jews, BHI adherents believe that mainstream

Jews are actually imposters. Such beliefs bear a striking resemblance

to the Christian Identity theology practiced by many white supremacists.

In fact, Tom Metzger, renowned white supremacist, once remarked,

"They're the black counterpart of us."28 Like their Christian Identity

counterparts, militant BHI followers tend to see themselves as divinely

endowed by God with superior status.



As a result, some followers of this belief system hold that violence,

including murder, is justifiable in the eyes of God, provided that it

helps to rid the world of evil. Violent BHI groups are of particular

concern as the millennium approaches because they believe in the

inevitability of a race war between blacks and whites.



The extreme elements of the BHI movement are prone to engage in violent

activity. As seen in previous convictions of BHI followers, adherents of

this philosophy have a proven history of violence, and several

indications point toward a continuation of this trend. Some BHI

followers have been observed in public donning primarily black clothing,

with emblems and/or patches bearing the "Star of David" symbol. Some

BHI members practice paramilitary operations and wear web belts and

shoulder holsters. Some adherents have extensive criminal records for a

variety of violations, including weapons charges, assault, drug

trafficking, and fraud.



In law enforcement circles, BHI groups are typically associated with

violence and criminal activity, largely as a result of the movement's

popularization by Yahweh Ben Yahweh, formerly known as Hulon Mitchell,

Jr., and the Miami-based Nation of Yahweh (NOY). In reality, the origins

of the BHI movement are non-violent. While the BHI belief system may

have roots in the United States as far back as the Civil War era, the

movement became more recognized as a result of the teachings of an

individual known as Ben Ami Ben Israel, a.k.a Ben Carter, from the south

side of Chicago. Ben Israel claims to have had a vision at the age of

27, hearing "a voice tell me that the time had come for Africans in

America, the descendants of the Biblical Israelites, to return to the

land of our forefathers."





29 Linda Jones. "Claiming a Promised Land: African-American settlers in

Israel are guided by idea of independent Black Hebrew Society," The

Dallas Morning News, July 27, 1997. 30 Ibid. 31 See Fall 1997 Southern

Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Report, "Rough Waters: Stream of

Knowledge Probed by Officials." 32 Jones, Dallas Morning News, July 27,

1997. 33 Ibid. 34 Ibid. In fact, in the community of Dimona where the
BHI

community resides, the Dimona Police Chief spoke in complimentary terms

as to the group's discipline, leadership, and integrity.







24



29 Ben Israel persuaded a group of African-Americans to accompany him

to Israel in 1967, teaching that African- Americans descended from the

biblical tribe of Judah and, therefore, that Israel is the land of

their birthright. Ben Israel and his followers initially settled in

Liberia for the purposes of cleansing themselves of bad habits. In

1969, a small group of BHI followers left Liberia for Israel, with Ben

Israel and the remaining original migrants arriving in Israel the

following year. Public source estimates of the BHI community in Israel

number between 1500 and 3000. 30 Despite promoting non-violence, members

of Ben Israel's movement have shown a willingness to engage in criminal

activity. For example, in 1986, Ben Israel and his top aide, Prince

Asiel Ben Israel, were convicted of trafficking stolen passports and

securities and forging checks and savings bonds.31



BHI in Israel are generally peaceful, if somewhat controversial. The

FBI has no information to indicate that Ben Israel's BHI community in

Israel is planning any activity terrorist, criminal, or otherwise

inspired by the coming millennium. Ben Israel's claims to legitimate

Judaism have at times caused consternation to the Israeli government.

BHI adherents in Israel have apparently espoused anti-Semitic remarks,

labeling Israeli Jews as "imposters."32



Neither the Israeli government nor the Orthodox rabbinate recognize the

legitimacy of BHI claims to Judaism. According to Jewish law, an

individual can be recognized as Jewish if he/she was born to a Jewish

mother or if the individual agrees to convert to Judaism.33 At present,

BHI in Israel have legal status as temporary residents, which gives them

the right to work and live in Israel, but not to vote. They are not

considered to be Israeli citizens. While BHI claims to Judaism are

disregarded by Israeli officials and religious leaders, the BHI

community is tolerated and appears to be peaceful.34



While the BHI community in Israel is peaceful, BHI adherents in the

United States became associated with violence thanks to the rise of the

NOY, which reached the height of its popularity in the 1980s. The NOY

was founded in 1979 and led by Yahweh Ben Yahweh. Ben Yahweh's followers

viewed him as the Messiah, and therefore demonstrated unrequited and

unquestioned obedience. Members of the organization engaged in numerous

acts of violence in the 1980s, including several homicides, following

direct orders from Ben Yahweh. Seventeen NOY members were indicted by a

federal grand jury in Miami in 1990-91 on charges of RICO, RICO

conspiracy, and various racketeering acts. Various members were

convicted on RICO conspiracy charges and remain imprisoned.  25



While the overwhelming majority of BHI followers are unlikely to engage

in violence, there are elements of this movement with both the

motivation and the capability to engage in millennial violence. Some

radical BHI adherents are clearly motivated by the conviction that the

approach of the year 2000 brings society ever closer to a violent

confrontation between blacks and whites. While the rhetoric professed

by various BHI groups is fiery and threatening, there are no indications

of explicitly identified targets for violence, beyond a general

condemnation and demonization of whites and "imposter" Jews. Militant

BHI groups tend to distrust the United States government; however, there

are no specific indications of imminent violence toward the government.





35 Frederick C. Mish, ed., Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary 10

th Edition (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, Incorporated, 1997), p.

282.



36 Margaret Thaler Singer and Janja Lalich, Cults in Our Midst: The

Hidden Menace in Our Everyday Lives (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass

Publishers, 1995), p. 7.



37 Singer and Lalich, p. 7.



38 Singer and Lalich, pp.8-9.



































































26



VII. APOCALYPTIC CULTS



For apocalyptic cults, especially biblically based ones, the millennium

is viewed as the time that will signal a major transformation for the

world. Many apocalyptic cults share the belief that the battle against

Satan, as prophesied in the Book of Revelation, will begin in the years

surrounding the millennium and that the federal government is an arm of

Satan. Therefore, the millennium will bring about a battle between cult

members religious martyrs and the government.



In the broadest meaning, cults are composed of individuals who

demonstrate "great devotion to a person, idea, object or movement."35

However, using that definition, many domestic terrorist groups could be

characterized as cults, including Christian Identity churches, Black

Hebrew Israelites, and some militias. For law enforcement purposes, a

narrower interpretation of groups that qualify as cults is needed. A

more useful definition of cults incorporates the term "cultic

relationships" to describe the interactions within a cult.36



Specifically, a cultic relationship refers to "one in which a person

intentionally induces others to become totally or nearly totally

dependent on him or her for almost all major life decisions, and

inculcates in these followers a belief that he or she has some special

talent, gift, or knowledge."37



This definition of cults provides important distinctions that are vital

for analyzing a cult's predilection towards violence. The origin of the

cult, the role of its leader, and its uniqueness provide a framework

for understanding what distinguishes cults from other domestic terrorist

groups that otherwise share many similar characteristics. These

distinctions are: (1) cult leaders are self-appointed, persuasive

persons who claim to have a special mission in life or have special

knowledge; (2) a cult's ideas and dogma claim to be innovative and

exclusive; and (3) cult leaders focus their members' love, devotion and

allegiance on themselves.38 These characteristics culminate in a group

structure that is frequently highly authoritarian in structure. Such a

structure is a sharp contrast to the rapidly emerging trend among

domestic terrorist groups towards a leaderless, non-authoritarian

structure.



While predicting violence is extremely difficult and imprecise, there

are certain characteristics that make some cults more prone to violence.

Law enforcement officials should be aware of the following factors:











39 Carl J. Jensen, III, Rod Gregg and Adam Szubin, "When a Cult Comes

to Town," accessed from Law Enforcement Online.

































27 Sequestered Groups: Members of sequestered groups lose access to the

outside world and information preventing critical evaluation of the

ideas being espoused by the leader.



Leader's History: The fantasies, dreams, plans, and ideas

of the leader are most likely to become the

beliefs of the

followers because of the totalitarian and authoritarian nature of

cults.



Psychopaths: Control of a group by charismatic psychopaths

or those with narcissistic character disorders.



Changes in the Leader: Changes in a leader's personality

caused by traumatic events such as death of a spouse or sickness.



Language of the Ideology: Groups that are violent use

language in their ideology that contains the seeds of violence.



Implied Directive for Violence: Most frequently, a leader's

speeches, rhetoric, and language does not explicitly call for violence,

rather it is most often only implied.



Length of Time: The longer the leader's behavior has gone

unchecked against outside authority, the less vulnerable the leader

feels.



Who Is in the Inner Circle: Cults with violent tendencies

often recruit people who are either familiar with weapons or who have

military backgrounds to serve as enforcers.



Apocalyptic cults see their mission in two general ways: They either

want to accelerate the end of time or take action to ensure that they

survive the millennium. For example, Aum Shinrikyo wanted to take

action to hasten the end of the world, while compounds in general are

built to survive the endtime safely. An analysis of millennial cults by

the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit describes how rhetoric changes

depending on whether the leader's ideology envisions the group as

playing an active role in the coming Apocalypse or a passive

survivalist role: A cult that predicts that "God will punish" or "evil

will be punished" indicates a more passive and less threatening posture

than the cult that predicts that "God's chosen people will punish . .

." As another example, the members of a passive group might predict

that God or another being will one day liberate their souls from their

bodies or come to carry them away. The followers of a more

action-oriented group would, in contrast, predict that they themselves

will one day shed their mortal bodies or transport themselves to

another place.39 40 Kevin M. Gilmartin, "The Lethal Triad: Understanding

the Nature of Isolated Extremist Groups," accessed at

www.leo.gov/tlib/leb/1996/sept961/txt. 41 Carl J. Jensen, III and Yvonne

Hsieh, "Law Enforcement and the Millennialist Vision: A Behavioral

Approach," accessed from Law Enforcement Online. 42 Ibid. 43 B.A.
Robinson

in "Factors Commonly Found in Doomsday Cults,"

(www.religioustolerance.org/cultsign.htm.) dentifies traits that

provide a framework for analyzing cults. They include the following: (1)

The leader preaches end of the world/Armageddon in 2000 or within a

reasonable time frame before and after 2000; (2) the cult expects to

play a major, elite role at the end time; (3) the cult has large

numbers of firearms, explosives or weapons of mass destruction; (4) the

cult has prepared defensive structures; (5) the cult speaks of

offensive action; (4) the cult is led by a single male charismatic

leader; (5) the leader dominates the membership through physical,

sexual and emotional control; (6) the cult is not an established

denomination; (7) cult members live together in a community isolated

from society; (8) extreme paranoia exists within the cult concerning

monitoring by outsiders and government persecution; (9) and outsiders

are distrusted, and disliked. These factors are designed to leave out

cults that have unique end-time beliefs, but whose ideology does not

include the advocacy of force or violence.

Nevertheless, Christian Identity is the most unifying theology for a

number of these diverse groups and one widely adhered to by white

supremacists. It is a belief system that provides its members with a

religious asis for racism and an ideology that condones violence against

non-Aryans. This doctrine allows believers to fuse religion with hate,

conspiracy theories, and apocalyptic fear of the future.



Christian Identity-inspired millennialism has a distinctly racist tinge

in the belief that Armageddon will be a race war of Aryans against Jews

and nonwhites.  16



The potential difficulty society may face due to the Y2K computer

glitch is considered by a number of Christian Identity adherents to be

the perfect event upon which to instigate a race war.



There are a number of issues concerning the Christian Identity belief

system that create problems when determining the threat level of groups.

First, Christian Identity does not have a national organizational

structure. Rather, it is a grouping of churches throughout the country

which follows its basic ideology. Some of these churches can be as small

as a dozen people, and some as large as the AN church, which claims

membership in the thousands. In addition, some groups take the belief to

a higher extreme and believe violence is the means to achieve their

goal. This lack of structure creates a greater potential for violent

actions by lone offenders and/or leaderless cells. It is important to

note that only a small percentage of Christian Identity adherents

believe that the new millennium will bring about a race war. However,

those that do have a high propensity for violence.



Secondly, there are many factions of the right-wing, from Christian

Identity to militias, all of which are intermingled in ideology and

members. In some cases it is easy for a person to be a member of more

than one group or to move from one to another. Often, if a member of one

group believes the group is lax in its convictions, he or she will

gravitate to a group that is more radical.



The third concern is the increased level of cooperation between the

different groups. This trend can be seen throughout the right-wing.

Christian Identity followers are pairing up with militias to receive

paramilitary training and have also joined with members of the Ku Klux

Klan and other right-wing groups. This cohesiveness creates an

environment in which ideology can easily spread and branch out.

However, it makes the job of law enforcement much more difficult as

there are no distinctive borders between groups or ideology.



Lastly, the formation of splinter groups or state chapters from larger

organizations presents an increased level of threat due to the

likelihood that the leader has diminished control over the members and

actions of the smaller groups. The AN is a large group that adheres to

the Christian Identity belief system. The group espouses hatred toward

Jews, the federal government, blacks and other minorities. The ultimate

goal of the AN is to forcibly take five northwestern states Oregon,

Idaho, Wyoming, Washington and Montana from the United States

government in order to establish an Aryan homeland. It consists of a

headquarters in Hayden Lake, Idaho, and a number of state chapters,

which often act as their own entities. While the leader may not support

or encourage acts of violence, it is easy for small cells of members or

splinter groups to take part in violent acts without the knowledge of

the leader. The individuals are associated with the group as a whole

and carry the name of the group, but may perpetrate acts on their own.



These factors make a threat assessment concerning millennial violence

difficult to determine. There is a moderate possibility of small

factions of right-wing groups, whether they be members of the same

group, or members of different groups, acting in an overtly violent

manner in order to initiate the Apocalypse.





















17



Several problems associated with the assessment for violence can be

seen when looking at the structure and actions of the AN. The AN has

been headquartered at Hayden Lake since the late 1970s and remains a

focal point for the group's activities. Its annual World Congress

attracts a number of different factions from the right-wing, including

members and leaders of various right-wing groups. The World Congress is

often viewed as a sort of round table to discuss right-wing issues.

These meetings have led to an increased level of contact between AN

members and members and leaders of other groups. This degree of

networking within the right-wing may further the AN's base of support

and help advance its cause.



One of the greatest threats posed by the right-wing in terms of

millennial violence is the formation of a conglomeration of individuals

that will work together to commit criminal acts. This has happened with

some frequency in the past. Bob Mathews formed a subgroup of the AN,

called The Order, which committed a number of violent crimes, including

murder. Their mission was to bring about a race war and there are

several groups that currently exist which hold these same beliefs.

Dennis McGiffen, who also had ties to the AN, formed a cell called The

New Order, based on Mathews' group. The members were arrested before

they could follow through on their plans to try to start a race war.

Chevie Kehoe, who was convicted of three homicides, conspiracy and

interstate transportation of stolen property also spent some time at the

AN compound. Most recently, Buford O. Furrow, Jr., the man accused of

the August 10, 1999, shooting at the Jewish Community Center in Los

Angeles, California, also spent some time at the AN compound working as

a security guard.



A relatively new tenet gaining popularity among Christian Identity

believers justifies the use of violence if it is perpetrated in order to

punish violators of God's law, as found in the Bible and interpreted by

Christian Identity ministers and adherents. This includes killing

interracial couples, abortionists, prostitutes and homosexuals, burning

pornography stores, and robbing banks and perpetrating frauds to

undermine the "usury system." Christian Identity adherents engaging in

such behavior are referred to as Phineas Priests or members of the

Phineas Priesthood. This is a very appealing concept to Christian

Identity's extremist members who believe they are being persecuted by

the Jewish-controlled U.S. government and society and/or are eagerly

preparing for Armageddon. Among adherents today, the Phineas Priesthood

is viewed as a call to action or a badge of honor.







22 Anti-Defamation League, Explosion of Hate, p 15.





































18



IV. WHITE SUPREMACY



There are a number of white supremacy groups that do not necessarily

adhere to Christian Identity or other religious doctrines. White

supremacy groups such as the National Alliance, the American Nazi Party

and the National Socialist White People's Party are largely politically,

rather than religiously, motivated.



The National Alliance is probably best known for its leader, William

Pierce, who is one of the most recognized names in the radical right.

Pierce wrote The Turner Diaries and Hunter and hosts a weekly radio

program, American Dissident Voices. Via these outlets, Pierce is able to

provide his followers with an ideological and practical framework for

committing violent acts.



The rhetoric of these groups largely shadows that of Adolf Hitler's in

content and political ideology. In 1997, Pierce stated that:



Ultimately we must separate ourselves from the Blacks and

other non-whites and keep ourselves separate, no matter what it takes to

accomplish this. We must do this not because we hate Blacks, but because

we cannot survive if we remain mixed with them. And we cannot survive

if we permit the Jews and the traitors among us to remain among us and

to repeat their treachery. Eventually we must hunt them down and get rid

of them.22



The end goal of National Socialist and Christian Identity devotees is

the same: an all white nation. However, Christian Identity followers

appear to be more of a threat concerning the millennium because of

their religious beliefs.



There are also white supremacist groups which adhere to the general

supremacist ideology, but are not political or religious in nature. For

example, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) proposes racial segregation that is not

generally based on religious ideals. The KKK is one of the most

recognized white supremacist groups in the United States. Its history is

expansive and its actions of cross burnings and rhetoric of hate are

well known.



There is currently not a singular KKK group with a hierarchical

structure, but many different KKK groups with a common ideology.



The KKK, as a whole, does not pose a significant threat with regard to

the millennium. That is not to say that a member of the KKK will not act

on his own or in concert with members of another group. Law enforcement

has been very successful in infiltrating a number of these groups,

thereby keeping abreast of their plans for action. The KKK also draws

the attention of many watchdog groups, and the Southern Poverty Law

Center produces a quarterly publication entitled "Klanwatch." It would

be difficult for any of the known KKK groups to participate in

millennial violence without law enforcement knowing.





23 "U.S. Mulls Church Probe; Ties To Killings Investigated," Chicago

Tribune, July 9, 1999. 24 "Behind the Hate," The Washington Post, July

6, 1999.



















19



Again, there is a great deal of movement that is possible throughout

the right-wing, regardless of prior beliefs. If a member of a Christian

Identity faction does not feel that his current group is taking enough

violent action, it is possible for that member to move on to other

ideologies or organizations such as Odinism, the World Church of the

Creator (WCOTC) or the National Socialist movement. Because of this

movement, it is also likely that communication exists between various

factions of the right-wing, from religious groups to skinheads. Their

end goals are similar.



The WCOTC presents a recent example of violence perpetrated by a white

supremacist in order to bring about a race war. The major creed upon

which Ben Klassen founded the religion is that one's race is his

religion. Aside from this central belief, its ideology is similar to

many Christian Identity groups in the conviction that there is a Jewish

conspiracy in control of the federal government, international banking,

and the media. They also dictate that RAHOWA, a racial holy war, is

destined to ensue to rid the world of Jews and "mud races." In the

early 1990s, there was a dramatic increase in membership due to the

growing belief in the Apocalypse and that RAHOWA was imminent.



In 1996, Matt Hale, who has come upon recent fame by being denied a

license to practice law in Illinois, was appointed the new leader of the

Church of the Creator. Hale made a number of changes to the group,

including changing the name of the organization to the World Church of

the Creator, giving it the feel of a widespread movement. As publicly

reported, there is information to indicate that the WCOTC has violent

plans for the millennium. Officials who searched Benjamin Smith's

apartment, the man who went on a racially motivated killing spree over

the 4th of July weekend, found a loose-leaf binder of handwritings.

These writings described a holy war among the races and included a

reference to the new millennium. Passages included plans of how white

supremacists would shoot at non-whites from motor vehicles after the

dawning of the new millennium.23 While the group's rhetoric does include

the belief in a race war and the creation of an all white bastion

within the United States, other than Smith's writings, there is no

indication that it is linked to the millennium.



In addition, there have been recent incidents that have demonstrated

the willingness of members to take part in violent action. WCOTC members

in Southern Florida are thought to be tied to several racially

motivated beatings. Within the last year, four Florida members were

convicted for the pistol-whipping and robbery of a Jewish video store

owner. They were supposedly trying to raise money for "the

revolution."24



Finally, Odinism is another white supremacist ideology that lends

itself to violence and has the potential to inspire its followers to

violence in connection to the millennium. What makes Odinists dangerous

is the fact that many believe in the necessity of becoming martyrs for

their cause.



































20







For example, Bob Mathews, the leader of The Order, died in a fiery

confrontation with law enforcement. Also, William King relished the fact

that he would receive the death penalty for his act of dragging James

Byrd, Jr. to his death. Odinism has little to do with Christian Identity

but there is one key similarity: Odinism provides dualism as does

Christian Identity with regard to the universe being made up of

worlds of light (white people) and worlds of dark (non-white people).

The most fundamental difference between the two ideologies is that

Odinists do not believe in Jesus Christ. However, there are enough

similarities between the myths and legends of Odinism and the beliefs of

Christian Identity to make a smooth transition from Christian Identity

to Odinism for those racist individuals whose penchant for violence is

not being satisfied.









25 Van Huizen lost re-election as commander of the MMCW in late 1997 to

the more radical Joe Pilchak. 26 See "Militias Initiating Contact,"

FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, July 1997, pp. 22-26.

The view of what Armageddon will be varies among Christian Identity

believers. Some contend there will be a race war in which millions will

die; others believe that the United Nations, backed by Jewish

representatives of the anti-Christ, will take over the country and

promote a New World Order. One Christian Identity interpretation is that

white Christians have been chosen to watch for signs of the impending

war in order to warn others. They are to then physically struggle with

the forces of evil against sin and other violations of God's law (i.e.,

race- mixing and internationalism); many will perish, and some of God's

chosen will be forced to wear the Mark of the Beast to participate in

business and commerce. After the final battle is ended and God's

kingdom is established on earth, only then will the Aryan people be

recognized as the one and true Israel.



Christian Identity adherents believe that God will use his chosen race

as his weapons to battle the forces of evil. Christian Identity

followers believe they are among those chosen by God to wage this

battle during Armageddon and they will be the last line of defense for

the white race and Christian America. To prepare for these events, they

engage in survivalist and paramilitary training, storing foodstuffs and

supplies, and caching weapons and ammunition. They often reside on

compounds located in remote areas.



As the millennium approaches, various right-wing groups pose a threat

to American society. The radical right encompasses a vast number and

variety of groups, such as survivalists, militias, the Ku Klux Klan,

neo-Nazis, Christian Identity churches, the AN and skinheads. These

groups are not mutually exclusive and within the subculture individuals

easily migrate from one group to another. This intermixing of

organizations makes it difficult to discern a singular religious

ideology or belief system that encompasses the right-wing.

The view of what Armageddon will be varies among Christian Identity

believers. Some contend there will be a race war in which millions will

die; others believe that the United Nations, backed by Jewish

representatives of the anti-Christ, will take over the country and

promote a New World Order. One Christian Identity interpretation is that

white Christians have been chosen to watch for signs of the impending

war in order to warn others. They are to then physically struggle with

the forces of evil against sin and other violations of God's law (i.e.,

race- mixing and internationalism); many will perish, and some of God's

chosen will be forced to wear the Mark of the Beast to participate in

business and commerce. After the final battle is ended and God's

kingdom is established on earth, only then will the Aryan people be

recognized as the one and true Israel.



Christian Identity adherents believe that God will use his chosen race

as his weapons to battle the forces of evil. Christian Identity

followers believe they are among those chosen by God to wage this

battle during Armageddon and they will be the last line of defense for

the white race and Christian America. To prepare for these events, they

engage in survivalist and paramilitary training, storing foodstuffs and

supplies, and caching weapons and ammunition. They often reside on

compounds located in remote areas.



As the millennium approaches, various right-wing groups pose a threat

to American society. The radical right encompasses a vast number and

variety of groups, such as survivalists, militias, the Ku Klux Klan,

neo-Nazis, Christian Identity churches, the AN and skinheads. These

groups are not mutually exclusive and within the subculture individuals

easily migrate from one group to another. This intermixing of

organizations makes it difficult to discern a singular religious

ideology or belief system that encompasses the right-wing.



Nevertheless, Christian Identity is the most unifying theology for a

number of these diverse groups and one widely adhered to by white

supremacists. It is a belief system that provides its members with a

religious asis for racism and an ideology that condones violence against

non-Aryans. This doctrine allows believers to fuse religion with hate,

conspiracy theories, and apocalyptic fear of the future.



Christian Identity-inspired millennialism has a distinctly racist tinge

in the belief that Armageddon will be a race war of Aryans against Jews

and nonwhites.  16



The potential difficulty society may face due to the Y2K computer

glitch is considered by a number of Christian Identity adherents to be

the perfect event upon which to instigate a race war.



There are a number of issues concerning the Christian Identity belief

system that create problems when determining the threat level of groups.

First, Christian Identity does not have a national organizational

structure. Rather, it is a grouping of churches throughout the country

which follows its basic ideology. Some of these churches can be as small

as a dozen people, and some as large as the AN church, which claims

membership in the thousands. In addition, some groups take the belief to

a higher extreme and believe violence is the means to achieve their

goal. This lack of structure creates a greater potential for violent

actions by lone offenders and/or leaderless cells. It is important to

note that only a small percentage of Christian Identity adherents

believe that the new millennium will bring about a race war. However,

those that do have a high propensity for violence.



Secondly, there are many factions of the right-wing, from Christian

Identity to militias, all of which are intermingled in ideology and

members. In some cases it is easy for a person to be a member of more

than one group or to move from one to another. Often, if a member of one

group believes the group is lax in its convictions, he or she will

gravitate to a group that is more radical.



The third concern is the increased level of cooperation between the

different groups. This trend can be seen throughout the right-wing.

Christian Identity followers are pairing up with militias to receive

paramilitary training and have also joined with members of the Ku Klux

Klan and other right-wing groups. This cohesiveness creates an

environment in which ideology can easily spread and branch out.

However, it makes the job of law enforcement much more difficult as

there are no distinctive borders between groups or ideology.



Lastly, the formation of splinter groups or state chapters from larger

organizations presents an increased level of threat due to the

likelihood that the leader has diminished control over the members and

actions of the smaller groups. The AN is a large group that adheres to

the Christian Identity belief system. The group espouses hatred toward

Jews, the federal government, blacks and other minorities. The ultimate

goal of the AN is to forcibly take five northwestern states Oregon,

Idaho, Wyoming, Washington and Montana from the United States

government in order to establish an Aryan homeland. It consists of a

headquarters in Hayden Lake, Idaho, and a number of state chapters,

which often act as their own entities. While the leader may not support

or encourage acts of violence, it is easy for small cells of members or

splinter groups to take part in violent acts without the knowledge of

the leader. The individuals are associated with the group as a whole

and carry the name of the group, but may perpetrate acts on their own.



These factors make a threat assessment concerning millennial violence

difficult to determine. There is a moderate possibility of small

factions of right-wing groups, whether they be members of the same

group, or members of different groups, acting in an overtly violent

manner in order to initiate the Apocalypse.