konane's Blog

"Standing up to U.N. on guns

Another Constitutional right preserved for the time being. 
However, the UN  will be back again chipping away on the same issue ... that you can bet on.
Emphasis added mine. 

 
"Standing up to U.N. on guns

David Keene,
Source  The Hill

July 11, 2006

<excerpt"
Conservatives upset with the Bush administration’s performance in many areas should be more than pleased with the president’s continuing willingness to do whatever is required to defend and protect Second Amendment rights.

That willingness was on display last week at the final session of something called the “United Nations Conference to Review Progress Made in the Implementation of the Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects.”

The delegates have been meeting for five years. The process was originally designed to address the easy availability of military hardware to terrorists, rogue nations and various groups of organized thugs around the world but became a battleground pitting domestic and international anti-gun groups against nations and organizations that believe in the private ownership of sporting, collectible and hunting firearms.

At this final conference, dozens of so-called NGOs, or nongovernmental organizations, milled around doing what they could to advance the anti-gun agenda. Spokesmen for nation after nation pandered to them, parroted their agenda, denounced firearm ownership and in the process took a jab or two at George W. Bush’s United States.

To most of them the United States stands virtually alone blocking the worldwide ban on the manufacture, sale and possession of “small arms” that they so fervently seek. Oh, a few other countries side with us, and some others dare not speak up but silently applaud our intransigence on the issue, but without the opposition of the United States there is little doubt they would have their way.

The simple truth, of course, is that they are dead right. In 2001, when the conference convened for its initial sessions, the Bush administration sent its newly minted Undersecretary of State John Bolton to New York to let the delegates know just what the United States would and would not tolerate. Bolton reminded them that this nation’s citizens enjoy a constitutionally protected right to “keep and bear arms.”

Bolton said then that as long as the conferees focused on military weaponry and its illicit use the United States would be with them. At the same time he warned them that we would not tolerate direct or indirect threats to the rights of Americans or seek to inject the United Nations into our internal affairs.

This was not the sort of speech the conferees came to hear and not one they would have had to sit through if the Democrats had managed to retain the White House in 2000.

At that first conference, it became clear to anyone paying attention that a significant number of those attending, while expressing concern about the availability of military weaponry in Third World nations, were just as interested in restricting the ability of civilians to own firearms of any sort.

If they had their way they would impose by treaty, U.N. mandate or other international edicts the anti-gun regime that the Charles Schumers of this country have been unable to enact through the democratic process "...
http://www.hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/Comment/DavidKeene/071106.html
Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, .....
Entry #442

"Judge: FBI Raid on Lawmaker's Office Legal

Same person they have on tape accepting $100,000 bribe then finding $90,000 of that in his freezer.


"Judge: FBI Raid on Lawmaker's Office Legal


WASHINGTON (AP) -- A federal judge on Monday upheld the FBI's unprecedented raid of a congressional office, saying that barring searches of lawmakers' offices would turn Capitol Hill into "a taxpayer-subsidized sanctuary for crime."

Chief U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan rejected requests from lawmakers and Rep. William Jefferson to return material seized by the FBI in a May 20-21 search of Jefferson's office.

The overnight search was part of a 17-month bribery investigation of Jefferson, a Louisiana Democrat.

In a 28-page opinion, Hogan dismissed arguments by Jefferson and a bipartisan group of House leaders that the raid violated the Constitution's protections against intimidation of elected officials.

Hogan acknowledged the "unprecedented" nature of the case. But he said the lawmakers' "sweeping" theory of legislative privilege "would have the effect of converting every congressional office into a taxpayer-subsidized sanctuary for crime."

A member of Congress is bound by the same laws as ordinary citizens, said the judge, who had approved the FBI's request to conduct the overnight search of Jefferson's office.".........

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/R/RAID_ON_CONGRESS?SITE=7219&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2006-07-10-16-33-19

Entry #440

"Republican says US readying crackdown on leaks

Now if they'll do something real like making examples out of all of them, perhaps journalists will think twice before giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

 


"Republican says US readying crackdown on leaks
By David Morgan

 

<excerpt>

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration is preparing a crackdown on intelligence leaks to the media and will try to pursue prosecutions in some recent cases, the chairman of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee on Tuesday.

Michigan Republican Rep. Peter Hoekstra also suggested some unauthorized leaks could have been deliberate attempts to help al Qaeda. "..............


http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyid=2006-07-12T003233Z_01_N11276431_RTRUKOC_0_US-SECURITY-HOEKSTRA.xml&src=rss&rpc=22

 
Entry #439

Win98, 98SE, ME plug pulled today

Can't Blame Microsoft for Pulling the Plug

By Rob Pegoraro
Tuesday, July 11, 2006; Page D01


Microsoft pulls the plug on Windows 98, 98 Second Edition and Millennium Edition today: no more bug fixes, no more technical support, no more nothing.

Before people start revolting in protest, consider this: It's Microsoft's business decision to make, and it makes sense.

Can't Blame Microsoft for Pulling the Plug
By Rob Pegoraro
Tuesday, July 11, 2006; Page D01

 

Microsoft pulls the plug on Windows 98, 98 Second Edition and Millennium Edition today: no more bug fixes, no more technical support, no more nothing.

Before people start revolting in protest, consider this: It's Microsoft's business decision to make, and it makes sense.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/10/AR2006071001331.html

Entry #438

"The New World Disorder

Referring to Todd's post about the internet being intensely sniffed and probed, also World Net Daily staying on this issue like white on rice it makes me very uneasy.

And the MSM is remaining oblivious per usual.  As Tenaj has aptly said .... they could check the back of their *** and find their head stuck in it.  Crazy

_________

World Net Daily is a source I trust due to their research and tenacity getting to the ugly bottom of an issue.  Emphasis mine. 

Readers might want to do some research on the Council of Foreign Relations.


"THE NEW WORLD DISORDER
"U.S.-Mexico merger opposition intensifies
Some see secret efforts to scrap dollar, end U.S. sovereignty, combine nations
Posted: July 9, 2006
11:59 p.m. Eastern

By Joseph Farah
Source 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

"WASHINGTON – Are secret meetings being held between the corporate and political elites of the U.S., Mexico and Canada to push North America into a European Union-style merger?

Is President Bush's reluctance to control the border and enforce laws requiring deportation of foreigners who enter the country illegally part of a master plan to all but eliminate borders between the U.S., Canada and Mexico?

Does the agenda of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America include a common currency that would scrap the dollar in favor of what some are calling the "amero"?

It may be the biggest story of the 21st century, but few press outlets are telling it. In fact, until very recently, few in the U.S. were aware of the plans and even fewer denouncing what appears to be the implementation of an effort some have characterized as "NAFTA on steroids."

But opposition is mounting.

Perhaps the most blistering criticism has come from Lou Dobbs of CNN – a frequent critic of Bush's immigration policies.

"A regional prosperity and security program?" he asked rhetorically in a recent cablecast. "This is absolute ignorance. And the fact that we are -- we reported this, we should point out, when it was signed. But, as we watch this thing progress, these working groups are continuing. They're intensifying. What in the world are these people thinking about? You know, I was asked the other day about whether or not I really thought the American people had the stomach to stand up and stop this nonsense, this direction from a group of elites, an absolute contravention of our law, of our Constitution, every national value. And I hope, I pray that I'm right when I said yes. But this is -- I mean, this is beyond belief."

What has Dobbs and a few other vocal critics bugged began in earnest March 31, 2005, when the elected leaders of the U.S., Mexico and Canada agreed to advance the agenda of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America.

No one seems quite certain what that agenda is because of the vagueness of the official declarations. But among the things the leaders of the three countries agreed to work toward were borders that would allow for easier and faster moving of goods and people between the countries.

Coming as the announcement did in the midst of a raging national debate in the U.S. over borders seen as far to open already, more than a few jaws dropped.

Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo. and the chairman of the House Immigration Reform Caucus as well as author of the new book, "In Mortal Danger," may be the only elected official to challenge openly the plans for the new superstate.

Responding to a WorldNetDaily report, Tancredo is demanding the Bush administration fully disclose the activities of the government office implementing the trilateral agreement that has no authorization from Congress.

Tancredo wants to know the membership of the Security and Prosperity Partnership groups along with their various trilateral memoranda of understanding and other agreements reached with counterparts in Mexico and Canada.

Jim Gilchrist, co-founder of the Minutemen, welcomed Tancredo's efforts.

"It's time for the Bush administration to come clean," Gilchrist said. "If President Bush's agenda is to establish a new North American union government to supersede the sovereignty of the United States, then the president has an obligation to tell this to the American people directly. The American public has a right to know."

Geri Word, who heads the SPP office, told WND the work had not been disclosed because, "We did not want to get the contact people of the working groups distracted by calls from the public."

WND can find no specific congressional legislation authorizing the SPP working groups nor any congressional committees taking charge of oversight.

Many SPP working groups appear to be working toward achieving specific objectives as defined by a May 2005 Council on Foreign Relations task force report, which presented a blueprint for expanding the SPP agreement into a North American union that would merge the U.S., Canada and Mexico into a new governmental form.

Phyllis Schlafly, the woman best known for nearly single-handedly leading the opposition that killed the Equal Rights Amendment, sees a sinister and sweeping agenda behind the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America.

"Is the real push behind guest-worker proposals the Bush goal to expand NAFTA into the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, which he signed at Waco, Texas, last year and reaffirmed at Cancun, Mexico, this year?" she asks. "Bush is a globalist at heart and wants to carry out his father's oft-repeated ambition of a 'new world order.'"

She accuses the president and others behind the effort of wanting to obliterate U.S. borders in an effort to increase the Mexican population transfer and lower wages for the benefit of U.S. corporate interests.

"Bush meant what he said, at Waco, Texas, in March 2005, when he announced his plan to convert the United States into a 'Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America' by erasing our borders with Canada and Mexico," she said. "Bush's guest-worker proposal would turn the United States into a boardinghouse for the world's poor, enable employers to import an unlimited number of 'willing workers' at foreign wage levels, and wipe out what's left of the U.S. middle class. Bush lives in a house well protected by a fence and security guards and he associates with rich people who live in gated communities. Yet, for five years, he has refused to protect the property and children of ordinary Arizona citizens from trespassers and criminals."

That's unusually harsh criticism of a Republican president from one of Ronald Reagan's most loyal supporters.

At least one of the nation's daily newspapers has officially weighed in in opposition to the mysterious plans for closer cooperation in security, commerce and immigration between the three North American nations.

Recently, the Pittsburgh Tribune Review questioned the unchallenged momentum toward merger.

"Will Americans trade their dead presidents for Ameros?" the newspaper asked in an editorial last month.

The paper chided efforts at replacing the U.S. and Canadian dollars and Mexican peso with "the amero" – a knockoff of the euro – along with the building of "a looming NAFTA-like superstate." Citing the meeting between the three national leaders at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, in March 2005, the editorial warned: "Canadians, Mexicans and Americans who value the sovereignty of their respective countries should be concerned."

The Tribune Review editorial saw synergy between the plans of the national leaders and the ambitious agenda of the Council on Foreign Relations – seen by many as a kind of secretive, shadow government of the elite. The CFR issued a bold report in the spring of 2005, shortly after the joint announcements in Waco by Bush and his counterparts.

"The Council on Foreign Relations published a report in May -- "Building a North American Community" -- calling for, among other things, redefining the borders of the three nations, creating a super-regional governance board and the North American Paramilitary Group to ensure that Congress does not interfere with whatever the trilateral union feels like doing," said the paper. "Must the Bush administration happily sacrifice every shred of American sovereignty for the greater good of the New World Order?"

In fact, the CFR report is a five-year plan for the "establishment by 2010 of a North American economic and security community" with a common "outer security perimeter."

Some see it as the blueprint for merger of the U.S., Canada and Mexico. It calls for "a common economic space ... for all people in the region, a space in which trade, capital and people flow freely."

The CFR's strategy calls specifically for "a more open border for the movement of goods and people." It calls for laying "the groundwork for the freer flow of people within North America." It calls for efforts to "harmonize visa and asylum regulations." It calls for efforts to "harmonize entry screening."

In "Building a North American Community," the report states that Bush, Mexican President Vicente Fox and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin "committed their governments" to this goal March 23, 2005, at that meeting in Waco, Texas.

Alan Burkhart, who describes himself as a free-lance political writer, cross-country trucker "and proud citizen of one of the reddest of the Red States – Mississippi," is another critic seething over these plans that seem to have a life of their own – with little or no real public debate.

"As time passes, American corporations will find it unnecessary to move their facilities out of the country," writes Burkhart. "Our already stagnant wages will be just as low as those of Mexico. The cultures of three great nations will be diluted. Our currency will be replaced with the 'Amero.' And, we’ll be one giant step closer to the U.N.’s perverse dream of a one-world government."

The Amero is not a new concept. It was first proposed by the Fraser Institute, a Canadian think tank, in a monograph titled "The Case for the Amero" in 1999.

Last month, the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America made one of its most visible and public moves since it was first announced last year. In Washington, on June 15, U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, Mexican Economy Minister Sergio Garcia de Alba and Canadian Minister of Industry Maxime Bernier joined North American business leaders to launch the North American Competitiveness Council. It was a major development that showed the March 2005 meeting was no fluke – and that the plans announced by the three national leaders then were continuing to take shape. The NACC was first announced by Bush, Harper and Fox.

Made up of 10 high-level business leaders from each country, the NACC will meet annually with senior North American government officials "to provide recommendations and help set priorities for promoting regional competitiveness in the global economy."

Officially, the council has the mandate to advise the governments on improving trade in key sectors such as automobiles, transportation, manufacturing and services. The three countries do more than $800 billion in trilateral trade.

Gutierrez said the Bush administration is determined to develop a "border pass" on schedule despite worries about its implementation. The new land pass is to be in effect for Canadians, Americans and Mexicans by Jan. 1, 2008.

The U.S. executives involved in the NACC include: United Parcel Service Inc. Chairman Michael Eskew; Frederick Smith, chairman of FedEx Corp.; Lou Schorsh, chief executive of Mittal Steel USA; Joseph Gilmour, president of New York Life Insurance Co.; William Clay Ford, chairman of Ford Motor Co.; Rick Wagoner, chairman of General Motors Corp.; Raymond Gilmartin, CEO of Merck & Co. Inc.; David O'Reilly, chief executive of Chevron Corp.; Jeffrey Immelt, chairman of General Electric Co.; Lee Scott, president of Wal-Mart Stores Inc.; Robert Stevens, chairman of Lockheed Martin Corp.; Michael Haverty, chairman of Kansas City Southern; Douglas Conant, president of Campbell's Soup Co. and James Kilt, vice-chairman of Gillette Inc.

The concerns about the direction such powerful men could lead Americans without their knowledge is only heightened when interlocking networks are discovered. For instance, one of the components envisioned for this future "North American Union" is a superhighway running from Mexico, through the U.S. and into Canada. It is being promoted by the North American SuperCorridor Coalition, or NASCO, a non-profit group "dedicated to developing the world’s first international, integrated and secure, multi-modal transportation system along the International Mid-Continent Trade and Transportation Corridor to improve both the trade competitiveness and quality of life in North America."

The president of NASCO is George Blackwood, who earlier launched the North American International Trade Corridor Partnership. In fact, NAITCP later morphed into NASCO. A NAIPC summit meeting in 2004, attended by senior Mexican government officials, heard from Robert Pastor, an American University professor who wrote "Toward a North American Community," a book promoting the development of a North American union as a regional government and the adoption of the amero as a common monetary currency to replace the dollar and the peso.

Pastor also was vice chairman of the May 2005 Council on Foreign Relations task force entitled "Building a North American Community" that presents itself as a blueprint for using bureaucratic action within the executive branches of Mexico, the U.S. and Canada to transform the current trilateral Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America into a North American union regional government."

 http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=50981

Entry #437

"West mounts 'secret war' to keep nuclear North Korea in check

No wonder President Bush seemed nonchalant about the little gargoyle shooting off missiles when the press was grilling him. 

He'd already pulled out a truckload of whoop@$$ ..... and began using it.  Yes, that's the USA way of getting things done!!  US Flag

Addendum:  For anyone sympathetic with Kim Jong II, have read articles about N Koreans being so starved that children have disappeared and human flesh has been sold in markets.  Has been declared illegal to do so but in pure desperation people resort to all kinds of measures to maintain their lives and lives of their families.


"West mounts 'secret war' to keep nuclear North Korea in check
Michael Sheridan, Far East Correspondent

Source Timesonline.co.uk


"A PROGRAMME of covert action against nuclear and missile traffic to North Korea and Iran is to be intensified after last week's missile tests by the North Korean regime.
Intelligence agencies, navies and air forces from at least 13 nations are quietly co-operating in a "secret war" against Pyongyang and Tehran.

It has so far involved interceptions of North Korean ships at sea, US agents prowling the waterfronts in Taiwan, multinational naval and air surveillance missions out of Singapore, investigators poring over the books of dubious banks in the former Portuguese colony of Macau and a fleet of planes and ships eavesdropping on the "hermit kingdom" in the waters north of Japan.

Few details filter out from western officials about the programme, which has operated since 2003, or about the American financial sanctions that accompany it.

But together they have tightened a noose around Kim Jong-il's bankrupt, hungry nation.

"Diplomacy alone has not worked, military action is not on the table and so you'll see a persistent increase in this kind of pressure," said a senior western official.

In a telling example of the programme's success, two Bush administration officials indicated last year that it had blocked North Korea from obtaining equipment used to make missile propellant.

The Americans also persuaded China to stop the sale of chemicals for North Korea's nuclear weapons scientists. And a shipload of "precursor chemicals" for weapons was seized in Taiwan before it could reach a North Korean port.

According to John Bolton, the US ambassador to the United Nations and the man who originally devised the programme, it has made a serious dent in North Korea's revenues from ballistic missile sales.

But the success of Bolton's brainchild, the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), whose stated aim is to stop the traffic in weapons of mass destruction, might also push North Korea into extreme reactions.

Britain is a core member of the initiative, which was announced by President George W Bush in Krakow, Poland, on May 31, 2003. British officials have since joined meetings of "operational experts" in Australia, Europe and the US, while the Royal Navy has contributed ships to PSI exercises. The participants include Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Italy, Spain and Singapore, among others.

There has been almost no public debate in the countries committed to military involvement. A report for the US Congress said it had "no international secretariat, no offices in federal agencies established to support it, no database or reports of successes and failures and no established funding".

To Bolton and senior British officials, those vague qualities make it politically attractive.

In the past 10 months, since the collapse of six-nation talks in Beijing on North Korea's nuclear weapons, the US and its allies have also tightened the screws on Kim's clandestine fundraising, which generated some $500m a year for the regime.

Robert Joseph, the US undersecretary for arms control, has disclosed that 11 North Korean "entities" - trading companies or banks - plus six from Iran and one from Syria were singled out for action under an executive order numbered 13382 and signed by Bush.

For the first time, the US Secret Service and the FBI released details of North Korean involvement in forging $100 notes and in selling counterfeit Viagra, cigarettes and amphetamines in collaboration with Chinese gangsters.

The investigators homed in on a North Korean trading company and two banks in Macau. The firm, which had offices next to a casino and a "sauna", was run by North Koreans with diplomatic passports, who promptly vanished.

The two banks, Seng Heng bank and Banco Delta Asia, denied any wrongdoing. But the Macau authorities stepped in after a run on Banco Delta Asia and froze some $20m in North Korean accounts."............


Continued page 2 and 3

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2261782,00.html

Entry #436

Headline/story contradiction

Does anyone else see a contradiction between this headline with the actual story??? 

Is this agenda = news?  One might wonder.

Gay rights groups shot themselves in the foot nation wide by failing to designate their goal as domestic partnership with same rights as marriage.



"Mass. Court Backs Gay Marriage on Ballot

By DENISE LAVOIE
AP Legal Affairs Writer

<excerpt>
BOSTON (AP) -- The same court that made Massachusetts the first state to legalize gay marriage ruled Monday that a proposed constitutional amendment to ban future same-sex marriages can be placed on the ballot, if approved by the Legislature.

The ruling was the result of a lawsuit brought by gay-rights supporters who argued that Attorney General Tom Reilly was wrong to approve the question, saying that the state constitution bars any citizen-initiated amendment that seeks to reverse a judicial ruling.

n a unanimous decision, the Supreme Judicial Court said the constitution does not bar citizen initiatives from making prospective changes to the constitution, even if that effectively overrules the effect of a prior court decision, because that change would not be a reversal. 

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/G/GAY_MARRIAGE?SITE=7219&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2006-07-10-09-55-17

Entry #435

"Dallas hospital plans to bill Mexico

Probably going to be as successful as getting blood out of a turnip, but good idea anyway.


"Dallas hospital plans to bill Mexico
By Hugh Aynesworth
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
July 9, 2006


DALLAS -- Parkland Memorial Hospital plans to bill Mexico and other countries to help cover the costs of health care for indigents.
The plan, which also seeks payments from adjoining counties in Texas, has brought a negative response from the Mexican government, with a diplomat terming it "an act of discrimination."
Last year, hospital officials said, Dallas County spent $76.5 million to treat people from outside Dallas. Of that, almost $27 million was not reimbursed.
Much of the cost was for treating patients from adjoining counties in Texas, which Dallas County officials claim is unfair to local taxpayers.
Collin County, just north of here and one of the state's richest counties, owed the most of any single entity, Parkland officials said -- about $7.6 million.
County Judge Margaret Keliher said she was not hopeful that other counties -- or countries -- would pay up.
But, she said, the county commission thought the matter should be made public and bills sent.
"If you're not Dallas County residents, we think where you are from should pay for your indigent health care," Judge Keliher said.
Hugo Juarez, a consul official at the Mexican Consulate in Dallas, was visibly perturbed.
He called the statements made by the judge "a strange posture, a strange reasoning." He said there had been no agreement or contract between his nation and Dallas County that would make such action legal.
Lobbyists and county officials last year tried unsuccessfully to get the Texas Legislature to come up with a law that forced counties to reimburse those hospitals that took in large numbers of indigents.
"What's wrong with sending them a bill?" commission member Maurine Dickey said. She said officials "hoped" the counties that sent their citizens to Parkland would pay something. "We owe it to taxpayers to at least try."

http://washtimes.com/national/20060708-114247-7891r.htm

Entry #433

"Rudy for president?

Been hoping he'd run, and would love to see Guiliani/Rice ticket for '08 because they're totally electable.  And Rice ascending to the presidency in 8 years would be a really good thing.  Big Grin  She's tough as nails, brilliant and principled  ... the hallmark of true presidential material.

Would sure throw a monkey wrench in the Hillary BS machine!!  Oh to be a fly on the wall!! 

Wouldn't vote for McCain on a bet due to his PRO-AMNESTY stance. 


 

"Rudy for president?
By Robert Novak
Townhall.com

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Well-connected public figures report that they have been told recently by Rudolph Giuliani that, as of now, he intends to run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008.

The former mayor of New York was on top of last month's national Gallup poll measuring presidential preferences by registered Republicans, with 29 percent. Sen. John McCain's 24 percent was second, with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich third at 8 percent. National polls all year have shown Giuliani running either first or second to McCain, with the rest of the presidential possibilities far behind." 

http://townhall.com/Columnists/RobertDNovak/2006/07/08/rudy_for_president

Entry #432

"Bomb tunnel, flood city" plot foiled

One point for the good guys, zip for terrorists this time.  WTG, FBI!!!!  They're functioning like they should!!  Hurray! 


"Bomb tunnel, flood city

One man is busted in Beirut, others hunted across
globe and terrorists are seen linked to Zarqawi



BY ALLISON GENDAR in New York
and JAMES GORDON MEEK in Washington
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

The FBI has uncovered what officials consider a serious plot by jihadists to bomb the Holland Tunnel in hopes of causing a torrent of water to deluge lower Manhattan, the Daily News has learned.
The terrorists sought to drown the Financial District as New Orleans was by Hurricane Katrina, sources said. They also wanted to attack subways and other tunnels.

Counterterrorism officials are alarmed by the "lone wolf" terror plot because they allegedly got a pledge of financial and tactical support from Jordanian associates of top terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi before he was killed in Iraq, a counterterrorism source told The News.

It's not clear, however, if any cash or assistance was delivered.

The News has learned that at the request of U.S. officials, authorities in Beirut arrested one of the alleged conspirators, identified as Amir Andalousli, in recent months. Agents were scrambling yesterday to try to nab other suspects, sources said.

They didn't indicate how many people were the target of the international dragnet but said they were scattered all over the world."...........

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/433227p-364959c.html

Entry #429