Terrorist Hub and Spoke

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Suspected dirty bomb terrorist Jose Padilla was finally indicted this week, albeit not for dirty bombs. The more interesting news might have been the individuals indicted with Padilla, specifically a Mr. Kifah Wael Jayyousi. Mr. Jayyousi has had some interesting jobs, most notably as a maintenance superintendent at school systems in both Detroit and Washinton, DC. If he is indeed involved in Islamic terror, that alone is disturbing.

It's also been stated that Mr. Jayyousi was a Palestinian born in Jordan. He had ties to several Muslim charities, which led in part to his indictment. But the allegation that jumped out at me was this:

All four men are also connected to Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the spiritual leader of the Armed Islamic Group, (who was jailed for life due to his part in the 1993 WTC bombings. The Armed Islamic Group's magazine, Islam Report, was published by Jayoussi . (See below article to read both The Call of Islam and the Islam Report

Ah yes the Blind Sheik, Abdul Rahman. It seems his name has been on the lips of every known terrorist to operate in the USA the past 15 years. Some of the more famous would include 1993 WTC bomber and opertion Bojinka author Ramzi Yousef (along with several charged with him), a group charged with attempting to blow New York City tunnels, and if we can believe Colonel Shaffer and his Able Danger crew, one Mohammed Atta. Yousef was one of the architects of 9/11 (KSM took over the plot and bin Laden simply endorsed it).

The next dot has been the source of much consternation. The FBI has yet to convince everyone beyond the shadow of a doubt that Atta did not meet with Iraqi ISS agent al-Ani in Prague prior to 9/11. The Czechs have never fully backed off their initial claim, although admittedly that could be related to avoiding national embarrassment.

Mr. Jayyousi is the latest in a line of persons suspected or prosecuted for ties to terrorism claiming Palestinian roots. Along with links to Rahman, the Palestinian connection seems to link many of the more notorious operators. Saddam was a large backer of the Palestinian cause. If Able Danger ever gets explored as it should, perhaps some of these dots will get connected.

I won't even go into the mystery of why the current adminstration seems to have no desire to get to the bottom of AD, sitting on the sidelines as the DoD stipped LTC Shaffer's security clearance (leaving him unsuited for his own job) in part due to "stealing government pens" years ago. You'd think such a serious charge would have roadblocked that clearance request long ago, like before he was promoted.

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As mentioned above, Jose Padilla was not charged with planning a radiological "dirty" bomb, one of the main reasons he'd been held since 2002 as an enemy combatant, detained by the military with no access to the justice system.

This New York Times story provides more details as to why he's now being charged. I'll try to summarize it briefly. Constitutional advocates had been going after the Padilla case as an illegal detention, and had appealed to the courts to stop it. The 4th District Court of Appeals recently ruled against them, saying Padilla's detention was legal. Had they ruled otherwise the adminstration would have taken it to the Supreme Court, but since they won the earlier decision they decided it was best to indict him now than risk their opponents going to the SCOTUS, the result of which could set precedent.

The question still dangling is why they couldn't bring the dirty bomb charges against Padilla. Simple--the only prosecution witnesses able to testify about the plots are Khalid Sheihk Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah, the two most guarded al Qaida captives we have. So guarded, we don't even know where they are. The Times article explains why they can't be allowed to testify:

They said any effort to introduce testimony by Mr. Mohammed and Mr. Zubaydah against Mr. Padilla could have opened the way for defense lawyers to expose details about their detention and interrogation in secret jails that the Central Intelligence Agency has worked hard to keep out of public light.

The fact that the evidence against Mr. Padilla in connection with the bombing plot depended so directly on prisoners from Al Qaeda meant that the obstacles to bring charges against him were even higher than those that prosecutors have confronted in their case against Zacarias Moussaoui, who has pleaded guilty to his role in the Sept. 11 hijackings.

Clearly, the administration believed that if they used these two as prosecution witnesses against Padilla their lawyers would turn the trial into a media circus involving waterboarding, torture and secret gulags. Also, someone might find out where they were being held. But there appears to be more:

A senior American official said, "There has been no reason to doubt that the accusations against Padilla in relation to the bombing plot were genuine."

The official said the administration had determined that concerns about subjecting Mr. Mohammed and Mr. Zubaydah to cross-examination by defense lawyers would be insurmountable.

In other words, the dirty bomb threat was quite genuine, however any information these guys might spill during cross examination was deemed the greater threat. Did you catch that?