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Title: FBI worries about al-Qaida ties to mob
Source:
AP
URL Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061001 ... oDMTBhZDhxNDFzBHNlYwNtZW5ld3M-
Published: Oct 2, 2006
Author: PAT MILTON
Post Date: 2006-10-02 15:02:33 by Eoghan
Ping List: *Russian Oligarchs* Subscribe to *Russian Oligarchs*
Keywords: None
Views: 98
Comments: 7
The FBI's top counterterrorism official harbors lots of concerns: weapons of mass destruction, undetected homegrown terrorists and the possibility that old-fashioned mobsters will team up with al-Qaida for the right price. Though there is no direct evidence yet of organized crime collaborating with terrorists, the first hints of a connection surfaced in a recent undercover FBI operation. Agents stopped a man with alleged mob ties from selling missiles to an informant posing as a terrorist middleman. That case and other factors are heightening concerns about a real-life episode of the Sopranos teaming with Osama bin Laden's followers. "We are continuing to look for a nexus," said Joseph Billy Jr., the FBI's top counterterrorism official. "We are looking at this very aggressively." The new strategy involves an analysis of nationwide criminal investigations, particularly white collar crime, side by side with intelligence and terrorist activity. "We have developed an ability to look harder and broader in a greatly enhanced way to see if there is any crossover," Billy said in an interview with The Associated Press. Organized crime syndicates could facilitate money transfers or laundering, human smuggling, identification fraud or explosives and weapons acquisitions, officials said. The options are many for terrorists groups. There are the five reputed La Cosa Nostra families in New York, Russian criminal enterprises from Brighton Beach in the New York borough of Brooklyn to Moscow, and the emerging Asian crime syndicates that operate in many Islamic countries with al-Qaida offshoots. A contract study produced recently for the Pentagon and obtained by the AP warned that the potential for organized crime assisting terrorists is growing. "Although terrorism and organized crime are different phenomena, the important fact is that terrorist and criminal networks overlap and cooperate in some enterprises," the study said. "The phenomenon of the synergy of terrorism and organized crime is growing because similar conditions give rise to both and because terrorists and organized criminals use similar approaches to promote their operations." The traditional mafia has highly developed networks for acquiring goods and services and money, all for a price. The mob's potential interest in helping a terrorist has nothing to do with ideology or sympathy but with greed, said Matt Heron, head of New York FBI's organized crime unit. "They will deal with anybody, if they can make a buck," Heron said. "They will sell to a terrorist just as easily as they would sell to an order of Franciscan monks. It's a business relationship to them." "If the mob has explosives and a terrorist wants them and they have the money, they could become instant friends," he said. Pat D'Amuro, a retired senior FBI official and now chief executive of Giuliani Security, said a Mafia boss once acknowledged that the mob would help terrorists. "I am aware of a high-level Mafia figure, who was cooperating with authorities, being asked if the Mafia would assist terrorists in smuggling people into Europe through Italy," D'Amuro said. "He said, 'The Mafia will help who ever can pay.'" Officials said they have no specific evidence that such a relationship has been cemented. But concerns were heightened last year after an Armenian immigrant was arrested in New York for allegedly leading a plot to sell military weapons to an FBI informant posing as a middleman for terrorists. Arthur Solomonyan had claimed to be able to deliver shoulder-fired missiles from his connection in Russian organized crime to the informant, who claimed to have ties to al-Qaida, federal prosecutors said. Solomonyan and 17 others in New York, Florida and California were charged in the case. Solomonyan is scheduled for trial this month. His lawyer, Seth Ginsberg, said he plans to "vigorously contest" the charges and call the government's confidential informant to the stand to challenge his motives. The Italian, Russian, and Asian mafia remain active, particularly in New York, even though the government has successfully prosecuted numerous figures in recent years. In the past three years, well over 100 associates from all five La Cosa Nostra families have been arrested in New York, Heron noted. While the potential of a gangster-terrorist marriage is on the FBI's radar, homegrown terror cells and weapons of mass destruction are also big concerns for those in the FBI given the job of stopping the next terrorist attack. "We are not only aware that they want to come across the ocean to attack us but they may be physically here developing in our own homeland," Billy said. The Internet has become the new Afghanistan, allowing terrorist sympathizers to promote their radical ideas and to recruit and train followers right their home computers. That makes it far more difficult for investigators to identify them. Billy said his biggest concern remains weapons of mass destruction. While Hezbollah and Hamas are more defined terrorist groups, with a territorial focus and a political platform, al-Qaida is more unpredictable. "We know they were trying to acquire it prior to 9/11, bin Laden's own words said that," said Billy. "What makes us think they are still not trying?"
Poster Comment: Need a little Habeus Corpus on the Kosher Nostra...
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#1. To: Eoghan (#0)
Need to prepare the way for roundups of anti-government conspiracy nuts.
The Talmudic Khazar-Jew dream; Christians killing Muslims and Muslims killing Christians. What could be better than that? Well, Whites killing non-Whites and non-Whites killing Whites, of course.
In fact, they could be anywhere, right there in your home town, citizen. Your next door neighbor may even be one of them. It is a good thing that the Government has been given the tools it needs to root out such dissenters and agents provocateur, to quickly sweep them from the communities and protect you, citizen. So if your neighbor disappears, and is held without trial or charge, and you wonder what happened to him, trust the Department of Homeland Security to know what it is doing, when they tell you that inquiring after him might not be a good idea. You don't want to be accused of materially aiding a terrorist sympathizer, do you? Because trust us, citizen, we know more than you do. We know the truth, and we're here to protect you, citizen. So obey, do not question, and remain free.
the law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal bread.
LOL. Excellent! Zieg Heil Mein Fuhrer Bush!!! [And if they're so damned worried about "them" setting up shop HERE, why may I ask is the border open SENOR WHORE BUSH?? Why do you wish to grant 20 million illegals amnesty???? I hope I live to see him and his cronies hang for treason.
Need a little Habeus Corpus on the Kosher Nostra...
#2. To: Eoghan (#0)
"We are not only aware that they want to come across the ocean to attack us but they may be physically here developing in our own homeland," Billy said.
#3. To: bluedogtxn (#2)
(Edited)
***LEAP***
"I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. Government will lead the American people, and the West in general, into an unbearable hell and choking life.
-- Osama bin Laden
"A prohibition law strikes at the very principles upon which our govt was founded."
- Lincoln
All our liberties are due to men who, when their conscience has compelled them, have broken the laws of the land.
--William K Clifford
#4. To: Eoghan (#0)
Well, Joe, if you look hard enough, I'm sure you'll find something!! Perfect timing, now that the pres can torture US citizens he merely accuses of being terrorists. Let's bring some of this fed nazism into the homeland. Bush to the mob: Bring 'em on!
"We are continuing to look for a nexus," said Joseph Billy Jr., the FBI's top counterterrorism official. "We are looking at this very aggressively."
#5. To: Neil McIver (#4)
He better do something to torture these squirrels all over the University of Oregon campus too. Every one of these fox squirrels run away without answering me when I ask them if they are el Qaeda operatives. They are obviously guitly as sin of being exactly that. The horror...the horror... Not a nut is safe with them out there.
#6. To: IndieTX (#3)
Amen.
I hope I live to see him and his cronies hang for treason.
#7. To: Eoghan (#0)
Tread carefully, comrades. You all have ties to Al Qaeda: just like them, you breathe air and piss water. That is quite enough to ship you to Gitmo for some "water sports".
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