The Cybercast News Service is reporting that Al Qaeda's gearing up for the terrorist season starting around October - November, this year's Islamic month of Ramadan, as per a September 2nd report by noted terrorism expert Yossef Bodansky issued on GIS, a government-only information source. The report claims there're plans for a large attack or series of attacks on western countries - with Italy seemingly being mentioned most - that will dwarf 9/11 and draws together information from increased recent chatter, Zarqawi messengers, as well as interpretations of the August 8th video message from Ayman al-Zawhiri.
Bodansky's report states that "concrete preparations for the consolidation of Islamist-jihadist springboards against the heart and lair of the Great Satan are being completed -- for Western Europe in the Balkans, for Russian and Eastern Europe in Chechnya, and for the United States in the tri-border area in Latin America."
The report also mentions that hurricane Katrina is an encouragement terrorists and poses a strategic opportunity. Stratfor, on the other hand, believes that Al Qaeda's MO is to attack when ready, not around a specific event, and therefore thinks the Bodansky timing analysis is questionable.
I'm not sure where the "tri-border area" is with regards to the US, but I'm keeping an eye on this one. Hopefully the report itself will pop up in the next few days. There're a few other reports and think tank reports to read relating to this, and I'll post more.
Everone's favorite enemy combatant (no, not me) US-born, New York-native Jose Padilla* has today lost in a federal appeal in the 4th Circuit courts and is now, again, an enemy combatant, sitting in solitary. Further, Judge Luttig writing for the three-judge panel court (Luttig appointed by Bush, the other two by Clinton), said that Padilla's even more an enemy combatant than Saudi-born, Louisiana-native Yaser Hamdi.**
Padilla v. Hanft, 09/09/05 (pdf)
*
- on a pilgrimage to Mecca in 2000, was recruited to jihad by Al Qaeda
- trained and fought in Afghanistan in 2001, escaped to Pakistan
- met with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and accepted a mission to go back to the US and blow up buildings
- arrested May, 2002, suspected of a "dirty bomb" plot
- designated an "enemy combatant" June 2002 and held in solitary confinement in a naval brig in South Carolina
- won a federal ruling that in February 2005 that said he couldn't be held indefinately and that the government has to charge him with a crime or free him
**
- captured on the battlefield in 2001 in Afghanistan
- freed in October 2004 and sent to Saudi Arabia and gave up his US citizenship as conditions for his release