[osint] Al Qaeda's Travel Network

--- begin forwarded text To: osint@yahoogroups.com User-Agent: eGroups-EW/0.82 From: "gwen831" Mailing-List: list osint@yahoogroups.com; contact osint-owner@yahoogroups.com Delivered-To: mailing list osint@yahoogroups.com Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 03:51:40 -0000 Subject: [osint] Al Qaeda's Travel Network Reply-To: osint@yahoogroups.com http://www.stratfor.com/free-scripts/comsite2.pl?page=BZdelivery&src_id=0224&trans_id=GEN20040810-257 Al Qaeda's Travel Network August 10, 2004 Summary With the recent arrests of al Qaeda operatives in Pakistan, the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates, small clues as to the structure, organization, communication and travel of al Qaeda members are emerging. The most recent detentions have revealed a transportation link between Pakistan, England and the United States that allows for the movement of militants and messages, and relies on several other countries for waypoints and key supplies. Analysis A series of detentions of suspected al Qaeda members in Pakistan, England and the United Arab Emirates, as well as the arrests of persons of interest in the southern United States, have shed light on some of the ways that al Qaeda moves messages and militants around the globe. In particular, the small piece of the al Qaeda network recently rounded up illustrates transportation links between Pakistan -- where the core leadership of the organization appears to reside -- the United Kingdom and the United States. Al Qaeda operatives rarely travel directly from Point A to Point B. Instead, they jump from country to country, with each destination having its own end use and with multiple stops between beginning and end. This method of travel serves to obfuscate the origin and destination of al Qaeda messengers and operatives, reducing the likelihood that the militants will be captured or traced back to the organization's core. Despite the arrests of several senior al Qaeda members, including Abu Zubaydah, Ramzi bin al Shibh and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden remains a mystery. The core of al Qaeda's planning leadership appears to be in Pakistan, not far from its pre-9/11 Afghanistan base. Pakistan is both a resting and planning location and, in some cases, a target for al Qaeda, which used specific attacks against the regime of President Gen. Pervez Musharraf to try to wrest some space and leeway for continued residence inside the country. Al Qaeda is cautious to not escalate actions against Islamabad for fear of losing what appears to be the final sanctuary for the jihadist network's brain. But al Qaeda is an international organization, both in scope of vision and in distribution of operatives. Moving messages, equipment and personnel requires a relatively secure transportation network, one that can hide the true origin of travelers and thus slip in under the radar screen of intelligence and law enforcement agencies who are watching certain flight routes and looking for named and profiled potential militants. One key transit point is the United Arab Emirates. The UAE was one of only three countries to recognize the Taliban's rule in Afghanistan, and al Qaeda loyalists still reside in the country. Just a few days before their July 25 arrest alongside wanted al Qaeda leader Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, two South Africans -- Dr. Feroz Ganchi and Zubair Ismail -- flew from UAE to Lahore, Pakistan. Another African, a Nigerian named Mohammed Salman Eisa, was captured at the Lahore airport on Aug. 2 while trying to board a plane bound for UAE. Eisa reportedly was carrying messages to operatives in other countries. The UAE provides an excellent transit point because safe houses, friendly sympathizers and money likely can be found. Though travel to and from Pakistan might garner suspicion, the UAE is a country thought to be without an active militant presence, and makes a good neutral stop between Pakistan and other nations. Should al Qaeda operatives obtain a UAE passport, they would receive significantly less scrutiny by the U.S. government, avoiding the standard profiling of certain passports, such as those from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Another node on the transit hub is Britain. As Stratfor has discussed, Britain is a good staging ground for planning attacks. A large Muslim, and especially Pakistani, community means those travelers can come and go without arousing much suspicion with travel authorities. Britain has a number of clerics and scholars willing to help "jihadic causes," both through their rhetoric and with operatives. Britain offers a fairly neutral stop between red-flag destinations. Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan, the suspected al Qaeda communications specialist at the center of the series of arrests, reportedly traveled often between Britain and Pakistan, using free plane tickets procured by his father, who worked for Pakistan's state-run airline. Abu Eisa al-Hindi -- a key al Qaeda operations manager believed to be responsible for much of the surveillance work done in the United States that led to the recent heightened terror alerts in parts of the country -- also traveled to the United States from Britain, allegedly as part of a three-man team that surveyed targets including the New York Stock Exchange in early 2001. South Africa also is becoming more and more prominent as a travel. Like the UAE, South Africa is not considered a hotbed of Islamist militancy -- aside, perhaps, from Johannesburg -- and therefore is less likely to raise suspicion as a possible al Qaeda source point. South Africa also provides a good source of fraudulent passports, papers and recruits for al Qaeda, and British citizens can travel freely to South Africa and back without a visa. With Muslims representing 2 percent of the population and large communities in Johannesburg and Pretoria, both money and potential recruits can be found there. Porous borders and easy access to weapons also make South Africa a dream come true for al Qaeda operatives. Crime syndicates operating inside the Department of Home Affairs reportedly have sold or given "boxes and boxes" of South African passports to al Qaeda members or their associates operating in Europe. In recent weeks three people -- one woman, Farida Goolam Ahmed and two unnamed men -- have been stopped in Mexico or the southern United States with suspicious South African passports -- often with pages missing. This reveals another key component to the al Qaeda travel network: the use of Mexico -- and likely Canada -- as key entry points into the United States. Mexico and Canada share large, and sometimes unguarded, borders with the United States. Ahmed's success in sneaking across the U.S.-Mexican border attests to the ease with which would-be terrorists could enter the United States. Ahmed, who had a South African passport with no U.S. entry stamp, was stopped at the airport in McAllen, Texas, and had with her an itinerary that showed her flying from Johannesburg to Dubai, then to London and finally to Mexico City, from whence she smuggled herself into Texas by simply forging through the brush. Canada also poses a problem. Its 4,000-mile border with the United States has one guard for every eight to 16 miles and has largely forested areas that are extremely difficult to patrol. As early as 1999, an Algerian named Ahmed Ressam was stopped in Washington state, en route from Canada, with more than 130 pounds of explosives in the trunk of his car. He had planned to blow up Los Angeles International Airport. The complexities of the transportation networks reveal al Qaeda's strengths and weaknesses. By moving through countries with a lower profile, at least as far as al Qaeda is concerned, operatives can mask their origins. Several of the foreign al Qaeda operatives in the past, like Jose Padilla, would declare their passports missing and get new ones issued while in more neutral countries, thus erasing all previous travel records. With a South African network of passports available, that becomes easier, and new passports can be used to register journeys that appear to begin far from their true origin. Although it is easier to move and hide using such a network, it also can be somewhat limiting: The revelation of the waypoint countries suddenly puts them higher on the suspicion list. Disruption of a key waypoint, then, also serves to force al Qaeda to try alternative, and perhaps less secure, routes. Ultimately, however, what we are seeing is only a small sliver of a larger transportation network -- one that spans the globe. But as slices of al Qaeda are cut away, more nodes in the transport and communication network will be revealed, forcing al Qaeda to react and change its methods again. That puts al Qaeda on the defensive, rather than the offensive. Copyrights 2004 - Strategic Forecasting, Inc. All rights reserved. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar. Now with Pop-Up Blocker. 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