REDTEAM NEWS 10/03/01

The Algerian Connection | HIGH CONFIDENCE

British police arrested an Algerian pilot in London Sept. 28. The pilot, Lotfi Raissi, is thought to have trained four of the hijackers responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks against the United States, according to The Times, and the FBI has requested Raissi's extradition to the United States.

Several Algerian militants are reportedly members of al-Qa'ida. With extensive experience as guerilla fighters in Algeria's nine-year civil war, these militants have broad access to and well-established networks in both Europe and North America. They represent only a tiny fraction of the world's expatriate Algerians, but their participation in Osama bin Laden's anti-American campaign will force European and North American governments to expand surveillance of Algerians on both continents. The connections to al-Qa'ida also will serve as a catalyst for closer ties between Algeria, Europe and the United States.
The military-backed government in Algiers was the first Arab government to publicly provide Washington with a list of suspected terrorists. Eager to undercut the external support of domestic terrorists, the government of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika is working to expand cooperation with Washington. The United States, in turn, needs to build cooperation with Arab regimes throughout North Africa and the Middle East -- especially in the area of intelligence -- and will now look to Algiers as a strategic ally.

MEDIUM CONFIDENCE
The most significant feature of the imminent US assault against Afghanistan is the major role to be played by Russian military might, following the new and far-reaching understanding reached between President George W. Bush and President Vladimir Putin.
Military sources reveal that the Tadjikistan based Russian 201st Motorized Rifle Division was beefed up Tuesday with staff commando units, Pashtun speakers and interpreters. Its members also received American-made anti-terrorist equipment and weapons flown in especially.
The anti-terror alliance has split its task into two parts. The Americans and Russians will go for Bin Laden and his Al Qaeda force in the Pamir Mountains, while the UK and Western allies will take on the Taliban in south Afghanistan. 
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is taking a back seat to events about to explode in Afghanistan. But Israel could find itself in the diplomatic hot seat again once the smoke clears from the initial stages of the U.S. military campaign against terrorism.
A hint of what could be in store appeared on the front pages of the New York Times and Washington Post on Tuesday. The newspapers reported, in very careful language, that several days before the September 11 terror attacks in New York and Washington, U.S. secretary of state Colin Powell planned to announce in a speech to the U.N. General Assembly the Bush administration’s support for the establishment of a Palestinian state.

 Bin Laden Readies 5 Warfronts | MEDIUM CONFIDENCE
Intelligence sources name three locations in the forbidding mountains of Little Pamir, Afghanistan, as the present hideouts of the ex-Saudi terror master, Osama Bin Laden: a set of chambers buried in the mountains south of the Sari Qul Valley; a site on the Tadjik frontier north of Buzai Gumabad, and a fort carved out of the mountains northeast of Wakhyir, the wayside station on the old caravan route to China.
None of these locations are visible to aerial or satellite surveillance.
Under 200 close followers occupy his main retreat; some 2,500-3,000 Al Qaeda partisans, his eyes and ears, are distributed at key points of Little Pamir’s mountain valleys and mingle with friendly local fundamentalists.
American strategists know more or less where he is, but reaching the locations is a tall order. They have therefore posted a small force of Special Forces commandos – mostly SEAL and Delta units – in the Tadjik center of Dzhartygumbez, no more than 35 miles from the Little Pamir panhandle, sending small squads in on reconnaissance missions to pick up any clues leading to Bin Laden’s precise whereabouts. Some have skirmished with outlying Al Qaeda patrols and sentries scattered round the mountain valleys. With the US units are Russian elite forces intelligence officers, armed with maps, Russian troops permanently posted in Tadjikistan and Tadjik mountain guides.
The Americans hope to cut the Pamir panhandle off, bottle Bin Laden up in his retreat and then move in to capture him before the cruel mountain winter sets in. The first snow has already begun to fall.
According to intelligence sources, Bin Laden though in hiding is still on top of things. Before going to ground, he divided his top officers into five autonomous commands armed with guidelines and missions.
He himself leads the Afghanistan-Pakistan-Tadjikistan command; the Central Asian command is led by the Uzbek fundamentalist Jumma Mamangani. It is based in the strategic Ferghana Valley that straddles Kyrgizia, Tadjikistan and Uzbekistan; the Balkan command comes under the Egyptian Jihad Islami chief Ayman al-Zawahri. It is based in Albania or Kosovo and covers also Europe and the UK; the commander of the Gulf-Middle East command is the Tehran-based former Hizballah hostage taker Imad Mughniyeh; and the North Africa-Spain-France command is headed by the Algerian Islamic extremist Fateh Kamel or close lieutenants in the GIA who are unknown in the West.
Al Zawahri and Kamel also lead operations in North America by the remote control of deep-cover cells and sleepers, mainly through Canada.

Return to Redteam News

(BTW, ACM2K1 has been completely ignored by all players in the security gig. bummer)