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08-05-2004, 02:22 AM
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The Christians of Iraq bombed terrior alerts
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Someone is poisoning baby food in the stores could this be more muslim terroism in america? The el-quati are out to do any harm that they can.The goverment warns us to watch and report any odd behavior and report it as people did during WWII and other big wars that involved terrism. Do we have the will to resist these evil people? THEY are bombing churches in Irak now just because the christians are there. Are we prepared to resist our churches being targets here, as the election growes near? -------------------- R H -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posts: 486 | From: Antioch TN | Registered: Oct 2001 | IP: Logged Locksley 4 Point Member # 1548 posted 08-01-2004 07:43 PM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Christians of Iraq Monday 02 August 2004, 2:37 Makka Time, 23:37 GMT Ex-deputy premier Tariq Aziz is the best known Iraqi Christian Related: Several dead as bombs target Iraq's churches Tools: Email Article Print Article Send Your Feedback Religious minorities in Iraq, including Christians, represent some 3% of the population, or approximately 700,000 out of a total population of 24 million mainly Shia and Sunni Muslims. Iraq's provisional new constitution signed in March and in force until a general election guarantees freedom of all religions. Article Seven says Islam is the official state religion "and a source of the legislation". "This Constitution respects the Islamic identity of the majority of the Iraqi population while guaranteeing complete freedom of all other religions and religious practices," it says. The 1970 constitution adopted under the old regime guaranteed freedom of religion and prohibited any religious discrimination. It also acknowledged that the people of Iraq consisted of "two principal nationalities," Arab and Kurd, and "other nationalities," whose rights were considered legitimate. In December 1972, the head of the ruling Baath Party identified these by decree as the Assyrians, Chaldeans and Syriacs. The Chaldeans, whose 600,000 people represent the majority of Christians in Iraq, are an oriental rite Catholic community. The Chaldean church emerged from the Nestorian doctrine which it renounced in the 16th century while preserving its rites. Many Chritians started leaving Iraq in the early 1980s Former Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, currently in custody, is the best known of the Chaldeans. The Assyrians, believed to be approximately 50,000 in number, are Christians who remained faithful to the Nestorian doctrine. The Nestorian church became a dissident movement in the year 431 after the Council of Ephesus, affirming two separate personalities within Christ, namely both human and divine nature, and not a single personality possessing both human and divine nature as Catholicism asserted. In Iraq, there are also Catholic and Orthodox Syriacs, Catholic and Orthodox Armenians, and more recently since the time of the British mandate after World War I, Protestants and Roman Catholics. Bilingual Many Iraqi Christians still speak Aramaic-Syriac, the language of Christ. During the 1970s, bilingual cultural magazines in Arabic and Syriac were published and and radio and television transmitted programmes in Aramaic. In the northern region of Kurdistan, Christians number about 150,000, mostly Chaldeans. Christians are represented by only one minister in the interim Iraqi government to which the US-led occupation handed over power on June 28. Poverty and war induced many Christians to start leaving Iraq starting in the early 1980s. Nearly half-a-million have gone in the last 15 years. -------------------- R H -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posts: 486 | From: Antioch TN | Registered: Oct 2001 | IP: Logged Locksley 4 Point Member # 1548 posted 08-02-2004 02:06 AM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Several killed in attack on Iraqi churches Car bombs have exploded outside at least five Christian churches in Iraq, killing more than a dozen people and wounding many more. FULL STORY Several killed in attack on Iraqi churches Monday 02 August 2004, 8:11 Makka Time, 5:11 GMT At least 15 people are known to have died from the attacks so far Related: The Christians of Iraq Tools: Email Article Print Article Send Your Feedback Car bombs have exploded outside at least five Christian churches in Iraq, killing more than a dozen people and wounding many more. In an apparently coordinated attack timed to coincide with evening prayers, four blasts hit churches in Baghdad and two in the northern city of Mosul on Sunday. At least 12 worshippers died at a Chaldean church in southern Baghdad when an attacker detonated himself and his vehicle in the building's car park. An explosion at the Armenian church in Baghdad shattered stained glass windows and sent chunks of hot metal flying. Another bomb exploded 15 minutes later at a nearby Assyrian church. "Worshippers were inside the church and during the service a bomb went off," said worshipper Shakib Musa Jibril. An ambulance driver said two people were killed in the explosion at the Assyrian church and several wounded. "We are expecting a huge number of casualties," an Interior Ministry source told journalists, confirming five explosions. "Those are terrorist acts against the Iraqi people and against Iraq, and we're going to finish them [the perpetrators]," Interior Minister Falah al-Naqib told reporters at the Assyrian church. Vatican condemnation The Vatican condemned the blasts - the first attacks on churches during the 15-month insurgency - echoing concerns among Iraqis that they aimed to inflame religious tensions. "It is terrible and worrying because it is the first time that Christian churches are being targeted in Iraq," said Vatican deputy spokesman Father Ciro Benedettini. US Colonel Mike Murray of the 1st Cavalry Division said at least 50 people had been wounded at one church alone, some seriously. In Mosul, officials said at least one person was killed in a blast at a church and 15 wounded. The US military said the attackers fired a rocket at the Mar Polis Catholic Church before detonating a car bomb. It put the toll from the attack at one dead and seven wounded. There are about 700,000 Christians in Iraq, most of them in Baghdad. Several recent attacks have targeted alcohol sellers throughout Iraq, most of whom are Christians of either the Assyrian, Chaldean or Armenian denominations. Home Site Guide Contact Us Set As HomePage Add to favorites The Christians of Iraq Monday 02 August 2004, 8:11 Makka Time, 5:11 GMT Ex-deputy premier Tariq Aziz is the best known Iraqi Christian Related: Several killed in attack on Iraqi churches Tools: Email Article Print Article Send Your Feedback Religious minorities in Iraq, including Christians, represent some 3% of the population, or approximately 700,000 out of a total population of 24 million mainly Shia and Sunni Muslims. Iraq's provisional new constitution signed in March and in force until a general election guarantees freedom of all religions. Article Seven says Islam is the official state religion "and a source of the legislation". "This Constitution respects the Islamic identity of the majority of the Iraqi population while guaranteeing complete freedom of all other religions and religious practices," it says. The 1970 constitution adopted under the old regime guaranteed freedom of religion and prohibited any religious discrimination. It also acknowledged that the people of Iraq consisted of "two principal nationalities," Arab and Kurd, and "other nationalities," whose rights were considered legitimate. In December 1972, the head of the ruling Baath Party identified these by decree as the Assyrians, Chaldeans and Syriacs. The Chaldeans, whose 600,000 people represent the majority of Christians in Iraq, are an oriental rite Catholic community. The Chaldean church emerged from the Nestorian doctrine which it renounced in the 16th century while preserving its rites. Many Chritians started leaving Iraq in the early 1980s Former Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, currently in custody, is the best known of the Chaldeans. The Assyrians, believed to be approximately 50,000 in number, are Christians who remained faithful to the Nestorian doctrine. The Nestorian church became a dissident movement in the year 431 after the Council of Ephesus, affirming two separate personalities within Christ, namely both human and divine nature, and not a single personality possessing both human and divine nature as Catholicism asserted. In Iraq, there are also Catholic and Orthodox Syriacs, Catholic and Orthodox Armenians, and more recently since the time of the British mandate after World War I, Protestants and Roman Catholics. Bilingual Many Iraqi Christians still speak Aramaic-Syriac, the language of Christ. During the 1970s, bilingual cultural magazines in Arabic and Syriac were published and and radio and television transmitted programmes in Aramaic. In the northern region of Kurdistan, Christians number about 150,000, mostly Chaldeans. Christians are represented by only one minister in the interim Iraqi government to which the US-led occupation handed over power on June 28. Poverty and war induced many Christians to start leaving Iraq starting in the early 1980s. Nearly half-a-million have gone in the last 15 years. by Nicholas Aljeloo The Assyrian Australian Academic Society (TAAAS), Sydney, Australia July 2, 2000 Introduction Although uniting the children of one nation through their ancestral language, the term ?Syriac-speaking? also allows much space for them to divide themselves into Assyrians, Chaldeans, Aramaeans, Syriacs, Syrians, Maronites, and the list goes on. It does not allow for one national designation for one people. Some may disagree but the people that call themselves any of the above things today are Syriac-Speaking or of a Syriac-Speaking background and heritage and hence are of Assyrian origin. Many issues disputing whether they are Assyrian, apart from the concept of self determination, can be answered by some statements and research made by eminent historians and scholars, purely from a historical and scholarly perspective. In this paper I shall set out to demonstrate first of all about whom we can say are Assyrians, the regions inhabited by Assyrians in the Middle East and what Assyrians have always called themselves. I have gathered and shall be using the opinions of eminent scholars to back up these arguments and using them I shall make apparent the origin of the word Syriac itself, linking to the ancient Assyrians. Although the research has not yet been exhausted, it has been proven without a doubt that all ?Syriacs? are Assyrians. The Political Dictionary of the Modern Middle East[1] defines Assyrians as, ?Remnants of the people of ancient Mesopotamia, succeeding the Sumero-Akkadians and the Babylonians as one continuous civilization. They are among the first nations who accepted Christianity. They belong to one of the four churches: the Chaldean Uniate, the Syrian Orthodox Church, the Syrian Catholic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East. Due to the ethnic-political conflict in the Middle East, they are better known by these ecclesiastical designations. The Assyrians use classical Syriac in their liturgies while the majority of them speak and write a modern dialect of this language. They constitute the third largest ethnic group in Iraq with their communities in Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Iran, Russia and Armenia. Today they remain stateless and great numbers of them have left their homeland and settled in Western Europe, the United States and Australia.? The author of this fails to mention the members of the Syriac Maronite Church as Assyrians or to recognise the existence of non-Christian Assyrians.[2] The Assyrian homeland encompasses what was once the core of the Assyrian Empire of antiquity and are now the areas of northern Iraq, northwestern Iran, southeastern Turkey and northeastern Syria, although there are Assyrian communities all over the Middle East, especially Lebanon. Northern Iraq includes the regions of Mosul, Dohuk, ?Aqra and Zibar, Mezuriyeh, Gourzan (Gahra), Supna (Amadiya), Zakho and Adiabene (Arbil and Kirkuk). Southeastern Turkey includes the Assyrian regions of Hakkiari (Hakkari), Van, Bohtan (Cizre), Bedlis (Bitlis), ?Ayn-Sliwa / ?Ayn-Slibo (Siirt), Amed / Omed (Diyarbakir), Lagga / Lago (Lice), Tur-?Abdin (Jebel Toor), Mirda / Merdo (Mardin), Siverek, Tella-Shleela (Viransehir), Kharput (Harput), Malatya, Perin (Adiyaman), Palu, Gerger, Shmeishat (Samsat), Urhay / Urhoy (Sanliurfa), and ?Ayn-Tawa / ?Ayn-Towo (Gaziantep). Northwestern Iran includes the Assyrian region of Urmia and Salamast and northeastern Syria includes the Khabour region, the Euphrates valley and the villages around Aleppo. Now, though, Assyrians no longer inhabit many of these places as a result of the persecutions that are the topic of today?s seminar.[3] The Assyrians, whatever their region of origin, call themselves ?Surayeh / Suroyeh? and their language ?Surit / Surayt? according to their plentiful dialects[4]. Those of the Nineveh Plains and those of the southern and eastern regions of Hakkiari in southeastern Turkey call themselves ?Sorayeh? and their language ?Surath?, those of the northern and central regions of Hakkiari and Van in southeast Turkey and Salamast in northwestern Iran call themselves ?Su-reh? and their language ?Soorit?, those of the Urmian regions of northwestern Iran call themselves ?Surayi? or ?Suryayi? and their language ?Suyrit? or ?Suyrayi?, and those of the regions to west of the Tigris River in southeastern Turkey, Syria and Lebanon, call themselves ?Suroyeh? or ?Suryoyeh? and their language ?Surayt? or ?Suryoyo?. To be sure, many opinions have been expressed about this name, but relatively few of them have approached the truth. It is safe to say that the ethnic, national, civic, administrative and other aspects of Assyrian daily life stopped being written and preserved by the Assyrians after the fall of Nineveh in 612 BC, with the exception of the few periods when the smaller Assyrian kingdoms of Adiabene, Haran and Osrhoene were in power. Thus, Assyrian history entered a national literary vacuum and began to live its long period of foreign manipulation. The Word ?Syriac? - its Meaning and Link to Assyrian The name ?Assyrian? is read differently in different languages. In the Egyptian hieroglyphics it is read as ?Iswer?[5], in ancient Assyrian Aramaic and latter Syriac records, ?Athor / Othur?, in Biblical Hebrew and Arabic Assyrian is translated variously as ?Ashouri? or ?Athouri?, in Greek Assyria becomes ?Assyrios? and Assyrians, ?Assyrioi?. In accordance with the law of phonetics[6] ?Athoraya / Othuroyo? has changed to ?Assuraya / Ossuroyo? because in the evolution of certain words we see that the letter ?TH? changes into ?S?. According to these phonetic rules, the sounds T, TH, S and SH are all interchangeable. The change of sound from ?TH? to ?S? is noticeable in the dialects of the Assyrians of Sena (Sanandaj, Iran)[7], Margosoreh (near Zakho, Iraq) and S?irt (Siirt, Turkey)[8] in the Eastern group of dialects and those of Mlahso / Mlahtho and ?Ansha (near Diyarbakir, Turkey)[9] and Bo-Qisyon / Ba-Qisyan (in Tur-?Abdin, Turkey) in the western group. The Assyrians of these villages pronounce the word ?qriytha / qriytho? as ?qriysa / qriyso? (village) and the word ?Allahutha / Alohutho? as ?Allahusa / Alohuso? (divinity). By the same law of phonetics it becomes very easy to identify the word ?Assuraya / Ossuroyo? with ?Suraya / Suroyo?.[10] We may also say that ?Suraya / Suroyo? comes from ?Ashuraya / Ashuroyo?. As Dr. John A. Brinkman[11] points out, the name Ashur is written the same way, in cuneiform, for different usages and was only prefixed with different syllables signifying city, god, or country (matu ? the modern Assyrian mata / motho). Around 1000 BC, the pronunciation of Ashur changed to Assur[12], again showing the interchangeability of the letters SH and S. Probably as early as 337 BC when Alexander the Great and his men passed through Assyria, they called the ?Ashurians? they met ?Assurioi? not only because of the new pronunciation of Ashur, but also because they do not have the letter SH in their alphabet and it is also a non-existent sound in the Hellenic language. What we now know as Syria once consisted of several city-states, which were later incorporated into the Assyrian Empire. The region became known as ?Abar-Nahra (?Across the River?) by the Assyrians, Babylonians and later by the Persians. The Greeks and the Romans knew it as Syria, short for Assyria, because it had long remained under Assyrian rule[13]. When, in 64 BC the Roman Emperor Pompey annexed the land west of Euphrates and incorporated them into the Roman Empire, the area came to be known as Syria, short for Assyria, as Assyria proper lay within the boundaries of the Persian Empire[14]. As The Encylopedia Americana writes, under the entry Syria, ?It is now certain that the name ?Syria? is derived from the older ?Assyria?[15] Herodotus, a well-known Greek historian from the mid-fifth century BC, clearly indicates that the word ?Syrian? is merely a Greek corruption of the word ?Assyrian?. He describes the Assyrian infantry in the Persian Army during the rule of King Xerxes (485-465 B.C.) as follows: ?The Assyrians went to war with helmets upon their head, made of brass, and plated in strange fashion, which is not easy to describe... These people, whom Greeks call Syrian, are called Assyrian by the barbarians. The Babylonians serve at their rank?[16] The last part of this passage has also been translated as, ?The Greeks call these people Syrians, but others know them as Assyrians.?[17] In the first century prior to the dawn of Christianity, the geographer Strabo (64 BC-21 AD from Amisos in Pontus) confirms Herodotus? statement by writing that, ?When those who have written histories about the Syrian empire say that the Medes were overthrown by the Persians and the Syrians by the Medes, they mean by the Syrians no other people than those who built the royal palaces in Babylon and Ninus (Nineveh); and of these Syrians, Ninus was the man who founded Ninus, in Aturia (Assyria) and his wife, Semiramis, was the woman who succeeded her husband... Now, the city of Ninus was wiped out immediately after the overthrow of the Syrians. It was much greater than Babylon, and was situated in the plain of Aturia.?[18] Strabo also lists several of the traditional cities (including Nineveh and 'Calachene' [Kalhu]) in the Assyrian heartland, which he calls ?Aturia?. Mor Michael the Great, Jacobite Patriarch of Antioch and all the East (1166 - 1199), wrote[19] that those who inhabit the land to the west of the Euphrates River were properly called Syrians, and by analogy, all those who speak the same language, which he calls Aramaic (Aramaya / Oromoyo), both east and west of the Euphrates to the borders of Persia, are called Syrians. He continues that the basis of the Syriac language is from Edessa (Sanliurfa, Turkey). Even more interesting is his list[20] of the names of peoples who possessed writing. Among them are ?Aturayeh d-hawiyn Suryayeh / Othuroye d-hawiyn Suryoyeh? (?Assyrians?, i.e. ?Syrians?), by which presumably he means the ancient Assyrians, whom he identifies with his contemporary speakers of Syriac. This book by a learned native speaker shows the continuous equating of the terms ?Syrian? and ?Assyrian? for many Eastern Christians. His late Holiness, in his famous history book, also makes mention that, ?It has been shown by Assyrian and Chaldean kings that they used the Aramaic language and were familiar with its literature? and that, ?They are all, then, usually named; the Chaldeans by their old name and the Ashurayeh / Oshuroyeh, i.e. Athorayeh / Othuroyeh, are called after Ashur who settled Nineveh. This is what Eusebius says. The Jewish writer Josephus, calls Ashur Assur, as in the Greek language, and makes mention of, Assur, the ancestor of the Assurayeh / Ossuroyeh, who built Nineveh. He mentions that the Chaldeans are those that with the Assyrians (Assurayeh / Ossuroyeh) and Aramaeans form the Syriac (Suryayeh / Suryoyeh) people.?[21] The name Syrian was never used by Arabs to identify themselves with until the creation of the Syrian Arab Republic. Even then, they do not call themselves Syriani / Suryani (the name of the Christian ?Syrians?) but Suri.[22] After many centuries, it is evident that the Syriac appellation had not really changed. Badger in early nineteenth century noted that the oldest and the most important Chaldean community in Diyarbakir could only boast of the name ?Sooraya? and ?Nestoraya?[23]. Even by the end of the nineteenth century Rassam concedes that, ?the peasantry do certainly call themselves ?Sooraya? and ?Msheehaya???[24] It is also worth noting that the historically constant designation of the Assyrians by the Armenians, Turks and Persians is Asori / Asuri (Assyrian; an adjective meaning ?belonging to Ashur?). Horatio Southgate wrote the following about the Assyrians of the Kharput region, ?I began to make enquiries for the Syrians? I observed that the Armenians did not know them under the name which I used, Syriani; but called them ASSOURI, which struck me the more at the moment from its resemblance to our English name Assyrians, from whom they claim their origin, being sons, as they say, of Assour, (Asshur,)??[25] and ?Their common language in the district is Turkish, in which language it is that the Athour of the Syriac and Arabic is converted into Asour, and the Athouri of the Arabic, (Syriac, Othoroyo,) into Asouri, the common name of the Syrians.?[26] Assyrians and the Aramaic Language Dr. Brinkman states that in the 7th century BC, Aramaic had begun to replace Assyrian in Assyria and the king had to insist that letters from his officials be written in Assyrian and not Aramaic. He also theorises that the Aramaic language took over because of its simple alphabet as opposed to the 600-700 syllables of the Assyro-Babylonian language.[27] In fact it had attained such a high status in the Assyrian imperial period and was used so profusely by Assyrians that, as highly esteemed Assyriologist Dr. Simo Parpola relates, ?The Greek historian Thucydides reports that during the Peloponnesian wars (ca. 410 BC) the Athenians intercepted a Persian who was carrying a message from the Great King to Sparta. The man was taken prisoner, brought to Athens, and the letters he was carrying were translated ?from the Assyrian language?, which of course was Aramaic??[28]And so it becomes evident that, just as Aramaic was the Imperial Assyrian language, the very similar Syriac (or if one agrees with the Greek historians - Assyrian) also later became the ecclesiastical language of the Assyrian Eastern Churches. Assyrian Continuity? Anglican missionary, Rev. W. A. Wigram, in his book The Assyrians and Their Neighbours[29] (1929), writes, ?The Assyrian stock, still resident in the provinces about the ruins of Nineveh, where Mosul, Arbela, and Kirkuk were already great cities, seem to have been left to its own customs in the same way.?[30] Esteemed Assyriologist, H.W.F. Saggs, Professor Emeritus of Semitic Languages of the University College at Cardiff, tells us of the continuity of the Assyrian identity from the fall of the Assyrian Empire and into the Christian era, in his book, The Might That Was Assyria[31]. He states that, ?The destruction of the Assyrian Empire did not wipe out its population. They were predominantly peasant farmers, and since Assyria contains some of the best wheat land in the Near East, descendants of the Assyrian peasants would, as opportunity permitted, build new villages over the old cities and carried on with agricultural life, remembering traditions of the former cities. After seven or eight centuries and after various vicissitudes, these people became Christians. These Christians, and the Jewish communities scattered amongst them, not only kept alive the memory of their Assyrian predecessors but also combined them with traditions from the Bible. The Bible, indeed, came to be a powerful factor in keeping alive the memory of Assyria and particularly of Nineveh. Nineveh was at the center of one of the most fascinating of the Old Testament legends, the story of the prophet Jonah who attempted in vain to escape the God-given duty of preaching to the great pagan capital. On part of the ruins of Nineveh there was a sacred mound, and this - probably originally an Assyrian temple - Christians and Jews came to identify with the spot where Jonah preached. A church was built on the site. When the Muslims conquered Mesopotamia in the seventh century AD, they adopted the local traditions of the Christians and Jews amongst whom they lived, and Jonah became significant to Muslims no less than to Jews and Christians. A mosque replaced the church but retained - and retains to this day - the association with Jonah.?[32] Dr. John A. Brinkman[33] states that, ?For several centuries people lived in Assyria after the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire (614-610 BC) and followed the Assyrian religion and can be classified as Assyrians.?[34]When asked if there was racial continuity in Assyria after the empire Dr. Brinkman replied, ?There is no reason to believe that there would be no racial or cultural continuity in Assyria since there is no evidence that the population of Assyria was removed.?[35] The Historical Evidence Dr. Brinkman makes mention of the fact that Assyrian cuneiform did not die out with the empire?s destruction, four Assyrian texts written by Assyrians in the Assyrian dialect and script being found at a site called Dur-Katlimmu (Sheikh Hamed), on the Khabour River in Syria. These are ?couched in Assyrian legal formulae? and date to the second and fifth years of Nebuchadnezzar II, king of Babylon, i.e. from 603-600 BC, between nine and twelve years after the fall of Nineveh. So Assyrian cuneiform had survived the empire.[36] James Henry Breasted in his book; The Conquest of Civilization[37], mentions that, ?... the remnants of the Assyrian army fled westward and with Egyptian support held together for a short time...?[38]. Professor Saggs also says that, even after the empire?s fall, the Assyrians were ?not yet finished?[39]. Those of the Assyrian army that were able to flee Nineveh escaped hundreds of miles westward to Harran, where Ashur-Uballit II of the Assyrian royal family was proclaimed king of Assyria. Konstantin Petrovich Matveev in his book The Assyrians and the Assyrian Question[40] writes that, ?It has been documented that Meneshe, an Assyrian prince, was able to escape towards the north during the fall of Nineveh and fortify in the mountains of Ashur.? (Translated from Arabic by Fred Aprim[41]). A report by Reuters from 1987, states that, ?The new evidence shows that rather than dispersing, surviving Assyrians formed small societies some distance away from their main cities.?[42] The new evidence refers to Assyrian Tells (mounds) in Iraq dating to the third century BC, three centuries after the fall of their empire. Dr. Brinkman also states that in the Assyrian religious capital Assur, Assyrians tried to keep the religion alive by rebuilding two shrines and reusing inscriptions and decorations from the old temples.[43] Rev. W. A. Wigram in his book The Assyrians and Their Neighbours also states that, ?At least they [the Assyrians] were there in days of Tiglath-Pileser I, the founder of the Assyrian Empire in the year 1000 BC, and they were there still in the year 400 BC, when Xenophon with his Greeks fought his way homeward through their mountains.?[44] In 400 BC, a Greek general named Xenophon, employed by the Persian king Cyrus son of Darius, wrote his chronicle[45] as he and his 10,000 strong army retreated through Assyria along the river Tigris.He always comments on the plentiful supplies that were available, arguing a considerable production of grain. He writes that Assur, which was now called Kinai, was a prosperous city and that his army bought cheese and wine from the local inhabitants. It seems, from his writings, that many of the buildings and houses had survived the destruction of the city in 614 BC. He also wrote of many surviving villages in Kalhu, which was now called Larissa, and of a village called Mespila near a large undefended fortification, which may be identified with today?s Mosul.[46]By careful examination of the topography described by Xenophon, scholars have determined[47] that the fortification was the city of Nineveh, though under the eponymic name of Ninus. Mespila, on the other hand, as suggested by Hayim Tadmor[48] and Stephen A. Kaufman[49], is the Aramaic ?mashplah? as heard by Xenophon from the local population, meaning "the fallen one". The Assyrians living in Mosul have never forgotten that their city had a glorious past. As E.B. Soane wrote in 1892, ?The Mosul people, especially the Christians are very proud of their city and the antiquity of its surroundings. The Christians, regard themselves as ?direct descendants of the great rulers of Assyria?[50] Documents show that when Hurmizd Rassam was negotiating with the authorities to excavate one of the two tells at Nineveh, he was told that its legal name was ?Ninua?. Though according to Xavier Koodapuzha, Mar Yuhannan Sulaqa, the first ?Chaldean? Patriarch, was proclaimed Patriarch of ?Mosul and Athour? on February 20th 1553 by Pope Julius III and Vatican documents originally refer to Sulaqa as the elected Patriarch of ?the Assyrian Nation.?[51] Henry Burgess explains that this should not sound odd as, ?In many Syriac manuscripts, Mosul is styled as Athour and it is not uncommon practice with ecclesiastical writers of the present day to use the same phraseology.?[52]Stephanie Dalley, though, writes that, ?In Syriac Church literature ?Athour? is the name of Mosul, on the bank of the Tigris opposite Nineveh; but it also designates a metropolitan see, including Mosul, Nineveh and other towns.?[53] Dr. Brinkman also makes mention that the Romans captured Nineveh, which they called Ninus, in 115 BC and again in 200 AD when they set up the province, which they named Assyria.The temple of Nabu at Nineveh was also repaired in the first century AD. Assyrian, Aramaic, and Greek inscriptions have been found in Nineveh, dating to this time. Kalhu was also resettled and the temples rebuilt.Assur became a great and prosperous city again and the temple of Assur restored. The inhabitants, though, had now lost the idea of a ziggurat as a religious building and began to use it solely as a watchtower.All the gods of the Assyrian pantheon were still being worshipped 800 years after the fall of the Assyrian empire.[54] This is backed up by esteemed archaeologist and historian Georges Roux in his book Ancient Iraq.[55] Between the second century BC and third century AD, authors Patricia Crone and Michael Cook state in their book Hagarism[56] that, ?Assyria? had been left virtually alone by the Achaemenids and Seleucids; condemned to oblivion by the outside world, it could recollect its own glorious past in a certain tranquillity. Consequently when the region came back into the focus of history under the Parthians, it was with an Assyrian, not a Persian let alone Greek, self-identification: the temple of Ashur was restored, the city was rebuilt, and an Assyrian successor state returned in the shape of the client kingdom of Adiabene.?[57] Georges Roux, the author of Ancient Iraq[58], mentions that after the introduction of Christianity into Assyria, ?We know that some of the ancient temples were restored, that Ashur was worshipped in his home town, that a cult was rendered to Nabu in Borsippa until, perhaps, the fourth century AD.? Roux further states that, "After the fall of Assyria, however, its actual name was gradually transferred to Syria. Thus, in the Babylonian version of Darius I inscriptions, Susa f, Eber-nari ("across-the-river," i.e. Syria, Palestine and Phoenicia) corresponds to the Persian and Elamite Athura (Assyria). Besides, in the Behistun inscription, Izalla, the region of Syria renowned for its wine, is assigned to Athura.? (Izalla or Izla / Izlo is the southern part of the Tur-?Abdin region in which is the famous monastery of St. Eugenius) Assyrians and Syriac Christianity Aziz Suryal Atiya, a historian and professor of history, discusses the origin of Syriac / Assyrian Christianity under the heading of ?Age of Legend? thus, ?Assyrian or Syriac traditions link the establishment of Syrian [the Greek for Assyrian] Christianity with the earliest Apostolic age. Some even assert that the evangelization of Edessa occurred within the lifetime of Jesus Christ himself. Accordingly, the Nestorians promoted three legends in support of that contention while relating them to the three Magi and their visit to the infant Jesus, the story of King Abgar of Edessa, and the Acts of St. Thomas the Apostle... Whatever the historicity of those legends may be, the moral is that the roots of Assyrian Christianity are deep in antiquity. Though it may be hard to accept the hypothesis of Abgar V?s conversion around the middle of the first century AD, Abgar VIII (176-213) is known to have been a Christian from the testimony of Sextus Julius Africanus, who visited his court.?[59] We read in ?Edessa the Blessed City?[60] by J.B. Segal that Abgar the black of the first century AD wrote a letter to Narsai King of Assyria. Historical evidence indicates that Narsai King of Adiabene also known as King of Assyria was a contemporary of the Abgar the Great (177-204 AD). Reportedly the Parthians drowned Narsai in the Great Zab for his pro-Roman symphaties.[61] A reference from the Encyclopedia Britannica CD 98 takes one back to the fourth century AD of Assyrian Christianity. ?Aphraates became a convert to Christianity during the reign of the anti-Christian Persian king Shapur II (309-379), after which he led a monastic life, possibly at the monastery of St. Matthew near Mosul, Iraq... insulated from the intellectual currents traversing the Greco-Roman ecclesiastical world, the "Homilies" manifest a teaching indigenous to early Assyrian Judeo-Christianity.? The history of the Assyrian Churches has no shortage of names of martyrs who affixed Assyrian to their names from the early days of Christianity. We read of Tatian the Assyrian, a philosopher who was born in AD 130, and Mar Behnam and his sister Sarah, the children of Sennacherib, king of Ashur, who were martyred in AD 352.[62] Rev. Aubrey R. Vine in his book The Nestorian Churches[63] mentions that the Church of the East had Metropolitan Sees at Nisibis and Adiabene (Arbil) and Bishoprics at Nineveh and Singara, all formerly Assyrian imperial cities.[64] Philip Hitti, Professor of Semitic literature at Princeton University, in his book History of Syria[65], writes that, ?Before the rise of Islam the Syrian (Suryani) Christian Church had split into several communities. There was first the East Syrian Church or the Church of the East. This communion, established in the late second century, claims uninterrupted descent in its teachings, liturgy, consecration and tradition from the time the Edessene King Abgar allegedly wrote to Christ asking him to relieve him of an incurable disease and Christ promised to send him one of his disciples after his ascension. This is the church erroneously called Nestorian, after the Cilician Nestorius, whom it antedates by about two and a half centuries...?[66] Hitti continues later, ?The East Syrian Church was represented at the beginning of the First World War by? members domiciled around Urmiyah, al-Mawsil (Mosul) and central Kurdistan. Those who survived have since drifted into Iraq and Syria. As an ethnic group they would rather be called Assyrians, an appellation that does not seem inappropriate when the physical features of many of them are compared with the Assyrian type as portrayed on the monuments.?[67] Conclusion The Assyrian nation, apart from undergoing an ongoing genocide, has also suffered a cultural genocide that has attacked the Assyrian identity and questioned its origins and unity as a people. Assyrians have come to be called Nestorians, Chaldeans, Jacobites, Syriacs, Syrians, Maronites and Melkites through religious influences and by the governments that now rule over portions of what is their ancestral homeland. As esteemed social anthropologist Dr. Arian Ishaya of UCLA in her paper Intellectual Domination and the Assyrians[68] states, there are different ways of dominating a people, those most direct being to take hold of their land and resources, deny them statehood, and force their manpower to do the labour work or fight the battles of the conqueror. But she also mentions that domination may also come in a more indirect, abstract form which is intellectual, this form being the most dangerous as it penetrates the victim?s inner feelings and thoughts. Thus, she determines, the victim remains unaware and willingly subjugates itself to intellectual domination.[69] Dr. Ishaya goes on to point out that, last century the Assyrians fell victim to the wave of western Orientalism that swept the world, which attacked the culture of the ?Easterners? and was an era when numerous diplomats and missionary movements attempted to ?civilise? them. In the twentieth century, though, social scientists and academics replaced the missionaries or the diplomats of the previous century as the ?experts? on the Assyrians. But although the experts have changed, the orientalist bias is still there, and reappears in a new guise. If one examines recent manuscripts and publications on the Assyrians one will notice that it has become almost fashionable for most dissertations, books, or articles to either directly or indirectly start with the question: ?Are contemporary Assyrians really Assyrian?? Some claims from certain groups thus question the linkage of today?s Assyrians to those of antiquity. We hear of claims hinting that the Assyrians of antiquity simply disappeared and vanished from the face of the earth after the fall of their last capital in 612 BC, while, others imply that today?s Assyrians are different peoples, and it just happened that they coincidentally acquired that name some 150 years ago. One good example may be found in The Church of the East and the Church of England[70] by J.F. Coakley. This question is then followed by a painstaking comparison of the racial and cultural traits of the Assyrians of today with the remnants of archaeological relics to establish if the historical continuity between the two exists or not! In Dr. Ishaya?s opinon, ?What these scholars and some of their readers do not seem to realize is that to question the legitimacy of the name of today?s Assyrians is not a ?scientific? act; it is a political one, because this is the type of question that the colonial powers raise to deny the territorial and cultural rights of several dominated peoples.?[71] Dr. Ishaya then continues to mention the Kurds in Turkey, the Africans in South Africa and the Assyrians in Iraq, within the borders of which, the heartland of ancient Assyria lies. All of these peoples face the same problem. Their very name is denied so as to deny their national legitimacy. For the Turkish government the Kurds are ?Mountain Turks?, and for the Afrikaners, the former white ruling minority of South Africa, the native Africans were just diverse Bantu tribes, and not a single people. In the same way the Assyrians are merely ?Syriac-speaking Christians" from the perspective of the Arab Ba?athist government of Iraq, which also calls them Arab or Kurdish Christians. What Dr. Ishaya does not address is that the Turkish government also denies its Assyrian population the right to a national identity, calling them ?Semite-Turks? or ?Turco-Semites? or even, derogatorily, ?Armenians?.[72] Dr. Ishaya goes on to state that it is evident, in view of these facts, that, ? ? scholars, by posing the very question of identity, are providing the ruling powers with a weapon to use against their minorities. What other purpose can an utterly unscientific question serve? Why is the question unscientific? Because there has been a tremendous amount of cultural and racial admixture among human societies through the centuries. Cultural and racial continuity is impossible to be established for ANY national group. Moreover, during the 20th century old nations have been dismantled and new ones created without any regard to cultural and historical realities - as a glance on the map of Europe readily shows. In Europe after World War I people who shared the same language and culture were torn apart to constitute different ?nations? and people with diverse linguistic and racial characteristics forcefully sandwiched together to form one nation. And since the arrangement suited the superpowers, no questions are asked as to the legitimacy of these nations on cultural or historical grounds and yet the Assyrians are on the millstone for those very reasons!?[73] The Assyrians call themselves and other people of Syriac-speaking heritage Assyrians for a very simple and convincing reason: they are the age-old inhabitants of ancient Assyria. It is their homeland. They have churches there that date as far back as third and fourth century AD and still others, such as St. Mary at Kharput[74] and St. Mary at Urmia[75], that are of apostolic foundation. That is sufficient and says it all. There is no need to engage in the inconclusive argument of racial and cultural purity. When any nation says that it is what it is, it is that because its forefathers inhabited that region since time immemorial. The Assyrians say they are Assyrians because their forefathers inhabited Assyria and the French say that France is their homeland because they have lived there for many centuries. One claim is as valid as the other. What makes the French claim more respectable and that of the Assyrians questionable isn?t science. It is politics pure and simple. Thus, Dr. Ishaya concludes, ? ? the question of whether the contemporary Assyrians are Assyrians, should never be asked. When a scholar makes that a topic of research, he is playing POLITICAL GAME in the guise of science. There is no excuse for the academics to remain naive any longer. The scholars have no choice but to decide what they want to do with their profession: put it in the service of the people or use it to promote the interest of the ruling powers. Whatever choice they make, they can be sure that they can no longer fool the people.?[76] Thank you! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Korbani, Agnes G. (1995), The Political Dictionary of the Modern Middle East, Lanham, Md.: University Press of America [2] ?But if it be maintained, that the modern Nestorians are descendants of the ancient Chaldeans, and may therefore justly lay claim to the title, no valid objection can be urged against the assumption; but in this national acceptance of the term, the Nestorian proselytes to Rome, the Jacobites, Sabeans, Yezeedees, and many of the Coords of this district, may with equal right take to themselves the appelative, there being as much proof to establish their descent from the Chaldeans of old, or rather the Assyrians, as there is in the case of the Nestorians.? p. 179 Badger, G.P. (1987), The Nestorians and their rituals : with the narrative of a mission to Mesopotamia and Coordistan in 1842-1844, and of a late visit to those countries in 1850 : also, researches into the present condition of the Syrian Jacobites, Papal Syrians, and Chaldeans, and an inquiry into the religious tenets of the Yezeedees London : Darf Publishers [3] The fact that Assyrians inhabit or once inhabited these areas is well attested by the varied accounts of travellers such as Austen Henry Layard, George Percy Badger, E.B. Soane, Justin Perkins, the Wigrams, Lord Warkworth, Lady Bishop, F.N. Heazell, Asahel Grant, W.H. Browne and countless others. [4] ?[the Nestorians and Chaldeans] call themselves Sooraye (Syrians), and their language Soorith (Syriac).?Op. cit. no. 2, p. 178 [5] Figure 1.1, p.4 of Demovic, M. & Baker, C. (1999), New Kingdom Egypt South Melbourne: Addison Wesley Longman, 1999 [6] As demonstrated in ?The Fluidity of Language? table, p. 185 of Rohl, D. (1998), Legend: the Genesis of Civilisation London: Random House [7] Quoting Mar Toma Oddo on p. 69 of Dr. Pera Sarmas (1965), Who Are We? Assyrian Youth Cultural Society Press: Tehran, Iran [8] Ibid., p.69 [9] An extensive study of this particular dialect has been published by esteemed scholar of Aramaic, Otto Jastrow (1994), Der neuaram?ische Dialekt von Mlahs? Wiesbaden : Harrassowitz [10] This explanation is also advocated by Dr. Pera Sarmas op. cit. no. 7, pp. 68-70 [11] Charles H. Swift Distinguished Service Professor of Mesopotamian History in the Oriental Institute and in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilisations at the University of Chicago, Editor of the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary and Curator of the Oriental Institute?s Cuneiform Tablet Collection. [12] Dr. Brinkman in a lecture entitled Assyrians After the Empire, held at the Mesopotamian Museum in Chicago on January 17, 1999, hosted by the Assyrian Academic Society in conjunction with the museum. This is mentioned at http://aas.net/brinkman.htm [13] Professor Richard N. Frye of Harvard University, USA Ethnic Name Designations: the Case of the Assyrians The Assyrian Australian Academic Journal, Vol. 4 (July 1999) Sydney: TAAAS p. 7 [14] Ibid, 7-8 [15] The Encyclopedia Americana, International ed. (c1986) Danbury, Conn.: Grolier [16] Herodotus, translation by Aubrey de S?lincourt (1972), Herodotus: The Histories Harmondsworth: Penguin Books [17] Herodotus, trans. Harry Carter (1958), The History of Herodotus New York: The Heritage Press [18] P. 195 (16. I. 2-3) of Strabo, translated by Horace Jones (1917), The Geography of Strabo London : W. Heinemann ; New York : G.P. Putnam's Sons [19] His Holiness Patriarch Mor Michael the Great (1899), The Book of the Histories Paris [20] Ibid, Vol. 1, p. 32 [21] Ibid, p. 748 [22] Assad Sauma-Assad, The Origin of the Word Suryoyo-Syrian The Harp, Vol. VI No. 3 (December 1993) Kottayam, India: SEERI p. 171-172 [23] Op. Cit. no. 2, p. 180 [24]Rassam, H. (1897), Asshur and the Land of Nimrod London [25] Southgate, H. (1844) Narrative of a Visit to the Syrian [Jacobite] Church of Mesopotamia : With Statements and Reflections Upon the Present State of Christianity in Turkey and the Character and Prospects of the Eastern Churches New York: D. Appleton p. 80 [26] Ibid, p. 87 [27] Op. Cit. no. 12 [28] In Assyrians After Assyria by Dr. Simo Parpola. Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies, Vol. XIII No. 2, 1999 Published at Chicago, USA [29] Rev. W.A. Wigram (1929), The Assyrians and Their Neighbours London [30] Ibid, p. 26 [31] H.W.F. Saggs (1984), The Might That Was Assyria London: Sidgwick & Jackson [32] Ibid, p. 290 [33] Op. cit. no.12 [34] Ibid [35] Ibid [36] Ibid; also Assyria 1995: Proceedings of the 10th Anniversary Symposium of the Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project / Helsinki, September 7-11, 1995. [37] Breasted, H.J. (1954), The Conquest of Civilization New York, Harper & Row, 1954 [38] Ibid, p.175 [39] Op. cit. no. 29, p. 120 [40] Qustantin Bitrufij Matfif Barmti (1989), al-Ashuriyun wa-al-mas'alah al-Ashuriyah fi al-`asr alhadith Dimishq : al-Ahali lil-Tiba`ah wa-al-Nashr wa-al-Tawzi` [41] http://www.nineveh.com/continuity.htm [42] Printed in Nabu Magazine, Vol. 3, Issue 1 (1997) [43] Op. cit. no. 12 [44] Op. cit. no. 27, p. 7 [45] The Persian Expedition by Xenophon text, with introduction and notes by Jeremy Antrich and Stephen Usher Bristol : Bristol Classical Press, [1981?] [46] Op. cit. no. 12 [47] Also based on narratives in Ktesias, as preserved in Diodorus Siculus (II: 26-27) [48] Tadmor, H. (c. 1991), Ah, Assyria: studies in Assyrian history and ancient Near Eastern historiography Jerusalem: Magnes Press, Hebrew University [49] Kaufman, S.A. (1974),The Akkadian influences on Aramaic Chicago : University of Chicago Press [50] Soane, E.B. To Mesopotamia and Kurdistan in Disguise John Murray: London, 1912 p. 92 [51] Koodapuzha, Xavier Faith and Communion in the Indian Church of St. Thomas Christians Oriental Institute of Religious Studies: Kerala, India p. 59 [52] Burgess, Henry The Repentance of Nineveh Sampson Low: Son and Co., London, (1853) p. 36 [53] Dalley, Stephanie (1993) Nineveh After 612 BC Alt-Orientanlische Forshchungen #20 p.134 [54] Op. cit. no. 12 [55] Roux, Georges (1964), Ancient Iraq Great Britain: Allen & Unwin Ltd. p. 351-352 [56] Patricia Crone and Michael Cook (1977), Hagarism Malta: Interprint [57] Ibid, p. 55 [58] Op. cit. no. 53, p. 353 [59] Aziz Suryal Atiya (1968), A History of Eastern Christianity London: Methuen [60] Segal, Judah Benzion (1970), Edessa ?The Blessed City? Oxford : Clarendon Press [61] Ibid, pp. 70, 79 [62] Read Poutrus Nasri (1974), History of Syriac Literature Cairo [63] Rev. Aubrey R. Vine (1937), The Nestorian Churches: a Concise History of Nestorian Christianity in Asia from the Persian Schism to the Modern Assyrians London: [s.n.] [64] Ibid, p. 57 [65] Hitti, Philip Khuri (1957), History of Syria, including Lebanon and Palestine Macmillan; St. Martin's P.: London, New York [66] Ibid, p. 517 [67] Ibid, p. 519 [68] Intellectual Domination and the Assyrians, Nineveh Magazine, Vol. 6 No. 4 (Fourth Quarter 1983), published in Berkeley, California. Dr. Arian Ishaya wrote this article when she was a Ph.D. candidate in anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles. [69] Ibid [70] J.F. Coakley (1992), The Church of the East and the Church of England : a History of the Archbishop of Canterbury's Assyrian Mission Oxford [England]: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press. [71] Op. cit. no. 66 [72] pp. 13-16 Des Suryoye vus par le ?Turkish Daily News?? / Suryoye Seen by the ?Turkish daily News??, Droits de l?homme: Sans Frontiers ? Journal Europeen des Droits de l?homme, 9e annee no. 1-2 / 1997, published in Brussels, Belgium [73] Op. cit. no. 66 [74] Horatio Southgate confirms this whan he writes that, ?The priest informed me that the Church was built originally by the Apostle Adi, or Thaddeus?? op. cit. no. 23, p. 86 [75] Arthur John Maclean and William Henry Browne write, ?It is said to have been built by the Magi, and to contain the tomb of one of them.? In The Catholicos of the East and his People: being the impressions of five years' work in the "Archbishop of Caterbury's Assyrian mission," an account of the religious and secular life and opinions of the Eastern Syrian Christians of Kurdistan and Northern Persia (known also as Nestorians) , London : S.P.C.K. ; New York : E. & J.B. Young. This point is also supported by Dr. Abraham Yohannan (1916) in The Death of a Nation, or, The Ever Persecuted Nestorians or Assyrian Christians, New York : G.P. Putnam's Sons, where he openly states this fact and mentions it in the caption under the picture of the church. [76] Op. cit. no. 66 -------------------- R H -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posts: 486 | From: Antioch TN | Registered: Oct 2001 | IP: Logged Locksley 4 Point Member # 1548 posted 08-02-2004 08:59 AM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Security Tightened at Financial Centers Government Warns Terrorists May Try to Target Economy By KATHERINE PFLEGER SHRADER, AP NEW YORK (Aug. 2) -- Federal authorities had prominent financial institutions in New York, Washington and Newark, N.J., under heavy scrutiny Monday after unusually detailed information on a purported al-Qaida plot prompted them to raise the government's terror alert. The government acted on intelligence that Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge called alarmingly specific, but he said officials could not tell whether an attack might be imminent and he encouraged people to go about their business. ''We have to go on being America,'' he said on ABC's ''Good Morning America.'' ''We can't button up and be what we're not.'' A cache of recently obtained information - including photos, drawings and written documents - indicates that al-Qaida operatives have undertaken meticulous preparations to case five specific buildings: The Citigroup Center building and the New York Stock Exchange in New York, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank buildings in Washington and Prudential Financial Inc.'s headquarters in Newark. Ridge on Sunday raised the terror threat level for financial institutions in the three cities to orange, or high alert, the second highest level on the government's five-point spectrum. Elsewhere, he said, the alert would remain at yellow, or elevated. AP Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge holds a press conference on the threats. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Broadband Only Video Watch Ridge's Announcement D.C. Mayor Williams Responds N.Y. Mayor Bloomberg Responds Question of Politics Raised on Alert ''Iconic economic targets are at the heart of (the terrorists') interest,'' Ridge said. The fresh intelligence did not give crucial details about when, where or how terrorists may strike, Ridge said, but government analysis indicates terrorists may favor car or truck bombs or other means to physically destroy targets. In New York, police were banning trucks, starting Monday, from the Manhattan-bound side of the Williamsburg Bridge, which connects Brooklyn and lower Manhattan. Commercial vehicles also were banned from the inbound of the Holland Tunnel from New Jersey, among other measures. In Newark, police set up metal fences surrounding the Prudential Plaza building, blocked off two city streets and toted assault rifles. And in Washington, Mayor Anthony Williams put the entire city on an orange alert, although the Homeland Security Department has not officially raised the threat level outside financial-sector buildings. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey said teams of bomb-sniffing dogs would sweep areas around the World Bank and IMF headquarters, and officers will conduct more traffic stops of large vehicles in the area. Officials have warned that the al-Qaida network, blamed for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, may launch a large-scale assault in hopes of disrupting the Nov. 2 elections and demonstrating that it remains capable of offensive actions despite international efforts to combat terrorism. Talk About It ? Chat | Post Messages ? Top News Boards An example of that international cooperation, Sunday's warning stems in large part from Pakistan's capture of an al-Qaida operative several weeks ago, a U.S. counterterrorism official said, speaking only anonymously. Officials would not identify the operative. That detention led to the discovery of the documentary information about the extensive surveillance of the five buildings, the counterterrorism official said. The official said the scouting was going on before and after Sept. 11, 2001, but it's unclear how recently. That information was also discovered in Pakistan. Ridge would not comment on specific sources of the intelligence, but he credited strong partnerships with allies around the world, specifically citing Pakistan. Pakistan's information minister, Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, told The Associated Press on Monday that Pakistani intelligence agents discovered plans for new attacks on the United States and Britain on a computer seized during the arrest of a high-ranking al-Qaida operative. He said the plans were in e-mails on the computer of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian arrested July 25 after a gunbattle in the eastern city of Gujrat. ? Experts Praise Warning's Specificity ? New Challenges for Government, Public ? Terrorists Hope to Disrupt Economy ? Focus on Car and Truck Bombs -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ? AOL Search: Al-Qaida Authorities have also arrested another top al-Qaida suspect believed to be a computer and communications expert, and that that man was cooperating with investigators, Ahmed said. A senior intelligence official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the intelligence gathered from several sources indicated scouting had been done to identify security in and around these buildings; the best places for reconnaissance; how to make contact with employees who work in the buildings; traffic patterns; and locations of hospitals and police departments. Examples of the detail the official cited: midweek pedestrian traffic counts of 14 people per minute on each side of the street for a total of 28 people. The official said he had not seen such extraordinary detail in his 24 years in intelligence work. Officials in New York, New Jersey and Washington encouraged people to continue their normal activities but remain vigilant. All the buildings identified as potential targets were to open for business. Local authorities in Washington said additional security measures were being put in place at the IMF and World Bank, as well as at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, where the nation's paper currency is produced, and the Federal Reserve, the most potent symbol of America's financial strength. 08-02-04 0831 EDT Copyright 2004 The Associated Press -------------------- R H -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posts: 486 | From: Antioch TN | Registered: Oct 2001 | IP: Logged Locksley 4 Point Member # 1548 posted 08-02-2004 09:21 AM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Al Qaeda Seeks to Disrupt U.S. Economy, Experts Warn By DON VAN NATTA Jr. and LESLIE WAYNE Published: August 2, 2004 he five financial buildings in New York, Washington and Newark singled out as terrorist targets were barricaded yesterday behind fences, flanked by armed police officers and otherwise sealed up. The extra security reflected both the new threats and a growing reality that the country's financial institutions were becoming increasingly attractive targets for terrorist attack. Al Qaeda's leaders have spoken more openly in recent months about using terrorist attacks to disrupt the American and world economies, counterterrorism officials and experts saidyesterday. Since the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, Osama bin Laden has implored terrorists on several occasions to strike targets that will harm the economy in the United States and elsewhere. But a man claiming to be Mr. bin Laden went even further in a tape-recorded statement released April 29, saying that the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks devastated the American economy and the United States government's budget. For the first time, it appeared, Mr. bin Laden estimated the economic impact by citing specific statistics. "After the strike of the New York blessed days, thanks to God, their losses exceed a trillion dollars," the recording said in assessing the overall damage to the American economy. "Their budgets have been in deficits for the third year in a row." In recent weeks, on Web sites and in chat rooms connected to Al Qaeda, statements have highlighted the economic impact of past terror strikes, including the train bombings on March 11 in Madrid that killed 191 people. One recent Web site message attributed to a Qaeda affiliate hailed the "disruption" to the economy of several recent attacks. "As a result of the blessed strikes in Madrid, for instance, the entire European economy suffered," the message read. Financial institutions, already under tightened security since the Sept. 11 attacks, were taking additional precautions following yesterday's announcement from Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge warning of terrorist plans to strike the five buildings. In Washington, the two institutions identified as targets, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, said they had taken additional security measures, including the addition of two bomb-sniffing dog units to patrol the World Bank. Both institutions are just blocks from the White House. At the Newark headquarters of Prudential Financial, identified as another target, police officers armed with assault rifles have been put into place, and a two-block radius around the firm has been sealed off. Many financial institutions were reluctant to discuss their security measures, saying that merely to be identified as a potential target might draw attention to them. Others said they were worried that Mr. Ridge had publicly identified this group, rather than warning them in private. Mr. Ridge's public action, they said, could become self-fulfilling, almost daring terrorists to attack. "We don't want to raise our heads, because that could put lives at risk," said an official at one financial firm who asked not to be identified. Counterterrorism officials and experts said they had noticed a shift in the statements attributed to Al Qaeda's leaders, and their allies, in recent months. They talk less about the symbolism of attacks, and much more about the practical effects, they said. "An attack on Citibank headquarters in New York would still make a powerful statement, but it would also have huge consequences for the economy," one official said. The desire by Al Qaeda's leaders to inflict economic damage on the United States, Britain and other Western countries is not a new goal, several officials said yesterday. But the unusual decision by Mr. Ridge to identify five individual buildings that he said were live targets seemed to surprise several counterterrorism officials based in Europe. An Arab intelligence official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said intelligence accumulated since even before the Sept. 11 attacks showed that Al Qaeda and its affiliates wanted to attack financial institutions. "This was not something that was just learned yesterday," the official said. However, the official said there had been a spike in recent intelligence pointing to financial targets. He said he believed that two banks in New York were specific targets, although he declined to identify them. He also said intelligence showed that Al Qaeda and its affiliates wanted to bomb banks in Britain and Switzerland. "They don't just want to attack buildings - they want to attack the financial structure of the United States, Britain and other European countries," the official said. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, terrorists have struck economic targets numerous times. The October 2002 bombings in Bali were intended to harm the tourist industry. Last November, terrorists bombed the Turkish headquarters of HSBC, the London-based international bank, as part of coordinated attacks in several locations in Istanbul, including the British Consulate, that killed a total of 62 people. And in recent months, terrorists in Saudi Arabia have struck at the infrastructure of the oil industry. "They know they are hitting the Saudi system at its most sensitive points, because of what the price of oil means to the American economy and the world economy," Michael Chandler, the former chairman of the United Nations Monitoring Group concerning Al Qaeda, said yesterday. "They are not stupid, these guys. They have some very good ideas, and they know what will have an impact.''Experts Praise Narrow Focus of Terrorism Warning By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN, AP WASHINGTON (Aug. 2) - The government's uniquely detailed warning to financial institutions raises questions about the next step for terrorists and defenders, even as it may deter this bombing plot. There was wide praise for the detail and narrow focus of the warning Sunday to a handful of financial institutions in New York, Washington and Newark, N.J. - even among security experts and former counterintelligence officials who had criticized previous terrorism warnings as too vague or perhaps politically motivated. In the long run, the plot and the warning raise such questions as: Couldn't the al-Qaida network easily shift such a truck bomb plot to nearby targets that were not warned? How far should security against truck bombs go in closing streets? Will al-Qaida begin letting U.S. agents discover detailed false plots to divert attention from real ones, or has it already? The short-run outlook was more optimistic. "If I worked in one of those buildings, I would feel very safe now," and not just because their security will be tightened, said Vince Cannistraro, a former CIA counterterrorism chief. "Given that it's captured material and now made public, there's a good chance it won't happen. Al-Qaida has to realize the mission has been compromised." Among the extraordinary detail that al-Qaida operatives had assembled about potential target buildings, a senior intelligence official said: Architectural elements that might prevent collapse; a count of 14 pedestrians per minute along the sidewalk outside one building at midweek; locations of security checkpoints inside buildings and identification of days when fewer guards worked or elevators were off. That level of detail suggests U.S. agents got hold of a surveillance report and operational plan of the kind prepared for Osama bin Laden's personal approval before big attacks, Cannistraro said. A similarly detailed operational plan covering targets in Singapore and prepared for top-level al-Qaida approval was captured during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, but the ouster of al-Qaida from its normal bases there apparently aborted that plan, he said. American targets as prominent as those disclosed Sunday represent the kind of ambitious attack al-Qaida's leaders long for and might be unwilling to risk after a public warning, Cannistraro said. The government's willingness to cite specific buildings as targets "is a step forward, compared to the past when they just waved a red flag and said `al-Qaida's coming, al-Qaida's coming'," said I.C. Smith, a retired FBI field office chief who spent most of his 25-year career in counterintelligence. "You are going to end up with some awfully nervous people who work in and around those buildings," Smith said, instead of citizens mystified over what to do about the vaguer earlier warnings. But if the captured data isn't outdated or part of a discarded plot, the warning could abort a planned truck bombing, Smith said. A counterterrorism official, requesting anonymity because of the subject's sensitivity, said al-Qaida operatives conducted the vulnerability assessments in the captured material both before and after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Smith said authorities need to be alert for possible al-Qaida deception. "Someday they are going to send us indications they are going one way and then go another way," he said. John Pike, a defense analyst with GlobalSecurity.org, said Sunday's alert "was outstanding compared to previous ones. At least I know which buildings to stay away from." But the proximity of the target buildings to the street raised questions in Pike's mind. Would Pennsylvania Avenue be closed outside the World Bank? Washington police planned tighter vehicle checks but did not immediately close any streets. "And all the enemy has to do is dial down its list of prominent targets," Pike added. "If they can't reach the World Bank, maybe they'll go for the Federal Reserve or the FBI," both only a handful of blocks away in either direction. At some point, he said, "if you going to try to defend all the high-value targets in Washington from truck bombs, you might turn the entire federal core into a pedestrian mall." EDITOR'S NOTE: Michael J. Sniffen has covered intelligence and law enforcement in Washington for 30 years. 08/02/04 04:16 EDT Copyright 2004 The Associated PressOfficials Say Their Focus Is on Car and Truck Bombs By DAVID JOHNSTON and ANDREW C. REVKIN Published: August 2, 2004 ASHINGTON, Aug. 1 - Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said on Sunday that federal authorities believed terrorist plotters were conducting intense surveillance intending to destroy a large financial institution using a car or truck bomb, the most reliable and still one of the most deadly weapons in Al Qaeda's improvised arsenal. Mr. Ridge said analysts had determined that whoever was behind the scouting operations planned to use a bomb-laden vehicle. "Based on what we've gleaned so far, the preferred method of attack or what's being suggested in the reporting is car and truck bombs - the physical destruction or attempted physical destruction of these facilities,'' he said, adding that security would be tightened in the vicinity of specific buildings that have been under surveillance by unidentified terrorists. The concern about truck and car bombs was apparent in an announcement by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which said that beginning at 12:01 a.m. Monday, commercial traffic would be indefinitely banned from the Holland Tunnel under the Hudson River. The possibility that terrorists might use car or truck bombs indicated how vulnerable buildings and their inhabitants remain to such weapons - whose devastating power was first brought home to many Americans in April 1995, when two men with little technical training or money detonated a fertilizer and fuel-oil bomb packed in a rental truck outside the Oklahoma City federal building, killing 168 people and injuring hundreds of others. Vulnerabilities to terrorism still permeate the American trucking industry, experts and industry officials say. The gaps are particularly worrisome, they have said, because trucks laden with fuel, explosives or both have proved to be a popular mobile weapon, used from Oklahoma City to Baghdad, from Tunisia to Israel. "We still do live in a very vulnerable situation," said Clifford J. Harvison, the president of National Tank Truck Carriers, a trade association representing 200 companies with 60,000 trucks used to haul fuels, chemicals and other liquid products. Most of the attacks carried out by Al Qaeda since the mid-1990's have used cars, trucks or boats packed with dynamite, military explosives or even crude materials like ammonium nitrate and fuel oil. In some bombs, like those used in the Bali attacks carried out by a Qaeda affiliate in 2002 that killed more than 200 people, propane tanks were packed into the vehicles to create an even more terrifying fireball effect. Sometimes the bombs have been detonated by suicide attackers, sometimes by remote control. There have also been instances in which officials have said they suspect some drivers were blown up by remote control to make an attack appear as if it was carried out by a Qaeda follower on a "martyrdom mission.'' In part, counterterrorism officials say, they believe the apparent preparations they uncovered involved a car or truck bomb because the suspected target buildings and meticulous scouting operations, as described by officials on Sunday, suggest Al Qaeda was planning precisely such an attack. One senior official said intelligence gathered from several sources indicated that surveillance had been conducted to identify security in place at these buildings, the best positions for reconnaissance, architectural plans for the buildings, and days when there might be gaps in security. Moreover, counterterrorism officials say, they believe the people involved in the latest threat lack the technical and organizational skill required for more exotic types of weapons. In addition, car bombs are cheap and relatively easy to build using stolen or legally purchased chemicals and using rudimentary designs that were taught at several of Osama bin Laden's camps in Afghanistan- like the remote-control bombs used in March in the commuter train attacks in Madrid. Some initiatives to cut the risks of truck attacks have moved ahead. Trucking companies are now required to have corporate-wide programs in place to secure their fleets and spot potential terrorists or suspicious activities like someone scouting out a fuel depot. Mr. Harvison said the program was proving effective and companies faced random audits. At any time, he said, federal transportation officials "will walk into a carrier's headquarters and say, 'We want to see your security program and training records of individuals who've attended security sessions.' " A 1998 trucking-safety program, Highway Watch, has been transformed into a security program and in March was bolstered with $19.3 million from the Transportation Security Administration to train 400,000 people. The program includes a staffed office handling hot-line calls from truckers, said Mike Russell, a spokesman for the American Trucking Association, the largest trade group for the industry. But many security experts say these types of efforts, while helpful, cannot possibly plug the many gaps in the country's vast trucking network, with more than 2.6 million tractor-trailers rolling on highways every day. Such experts, and some truck drivers, say truckers still frequently take rest stops by parking on a darkened highway ramp or in a corner of a parking lot. In cold weather, trucks are often left running while a driver seeks a cup of coffee or a meal. David Johnston reported from Washington for this article, and Andrew C. Revkin from New York. We're not going to let threats or this kind of information turn us into Fortress America," Tom Ridge, the homeland security secretary, said on Sunday as he raised the threat level for the financial sector in New York, northern New Jersey and Washington. "We're going to keep on being America." But what kind of country has America already become in this strange and episodic semi-war? One that just escaped a week of the Democratic National Convention in Boston unscathed, or one that must yet fear the worst when the Republicans gather in New York at the end of the month? One that is safer for being forewarned, or more at risk for unknown months to come? There is no ready answer, no simple response. For all its frightening precision - a possible truck or car bomb at the New York Stock Exchange or Citigroup in Manhattan, the headquarters of Prudential Financial in Newark and the International Monetary Fund and World Bank here - the warning means one thing for the thousands of people who work in those buildings or live near them, quite another for the millions more who live in the same region, and still another for the rest of the nation. "If there's a plane on the way, or a bomb outside, I'm not going to go into it," Thomas Schwartz, 20, in Washington for a job interview, said as he walked by the White House, just blocks from the World Bank, where police cars with flashing lights stood like silent sentinels. "But I'm not going to be changing my lifestyle or sweating bullets for terrorists. That's what they want." A show of similar bravado led the New York Stock Exchange to announce that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg would ring the opening bell on Monday, and all the threatened institutions urged their employees to come to work, promising stepped-up but unspecified security measures. "You should go about your business," Mr. Bloomberg said. In one sense, such advice is obvious. But in ways that are harder to measure, it may not be easy to follow. In recent months, as Mr. Ridge's periodic warnings bounced back and forth from orange to yellow without a new attack, some commentators found the whole scheme easy to mock. Earlier, internal warnings to police departments about possible instruments of terror (crop-dusting planes, scuba gear) or about targets themselves (strip malls, the Golden Gate Bridge) invariably seeped out, again without disaster in their wake. But Mr. Ridge's personal and public warning, delivered Sunday to television audiences in the midst of baseball games and other national pastimes, seemed an altogether different matter, even for the vast majority of Americans who would not be affected in immediate or concrete ways. "Outside of New York and Washington, this is a national problem and not a personal problem," said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press here. "When terrorist warnings are elevated, people understandably react to them, but not to the point of paralysis. However, I wonder what will happen if there's a continuing drumbeat about an attack before the election." That is a possibility that might play out at many levels. Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, doubtless spoke for much of official Washington and the public when he said on "Late Edition" on CNN that he doubted President Bush or Mr. Ridge "would raise an alert level and scare people for political reasons." But in a larger sense, a big part of the current election is a real and sharp debate about how best to respond to the threat of terrorism in a post-Sept. 11 world, and whether Mr. Bush has made the nation safer or more at risk through his actions. The commission on the Sept. 11 attacks recently questioned the utility of declaring war on terror without also addressing the causes of poverty, anti-Americanism and violent fundamentalism in the Muslim world. In that debate, Mr. Ridge, the former Republican governor of the vital swing state of Pennsylvania, did not shrink Sunday from taking a side. "We must understand that the kind of information available to us today is the result of the president's leadership in the war against terror," Mr. Ridge said. "The reports that have led to this alert are the result of offensive military operations overseas, as well as strong partnerships with our allies around the world such as Pakistan. Such operations and partnerships give us insight into the enemy so we can better target our defensive measures here and away from home." The alert, and the intelligence that prompted it, puts the Bush administration in a bind. If the administration had such specific warnings of possible attack and failed to share them, it would be fairly accused of withholding vital information from the public. But the mere revelation of the new threat also serves to underscore the administration's contention that it has yet to finish the job against Al Qaeda and its ilk. One member of the Sept. 11 commission, former Senator Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, now president of the New School University in Manhattan, said the warning should spur Congress and the president "to put a line in the Department of Defense budget that is just for New York City, before they ever get to how much to appropriate for homeland security." For the rest of the nation, Mr. Kerrey added: "After a while, you've got to live. You can't let these moments cause you to run aground and run away. You just can't. We've just got to stay calm and continue our lives. Enough is enough." -------------------- R H -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posts: 486 | From: Antioch TN | Registered: Oct 2001 | IP: Logged Locksley 4 Point Member # 1548 posted 08-02-2004 09:25 AM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Captured Man Led Way to Information Behind Warning By DOUGLAS JEHL and DAVID ROHDE, The New York Times WASHINGTON, Aug. 1 - The unannounced capture of a figure from Al Qaeda in Pakistan several weeks ago led the Central Intelligence Agency to the rich lode of information that prompted the terror alert on Sunday, according to senior American officials. The figure, Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, was described by a Pakistani intelligence official as a 25-year-old computer engineer, arrested July 13, who had used and helped to operate a secret Qaeda communications system where information was transferred via coded messages. A senior United States official would not confirm or deny that Mr. Khan had been the Qaeda figure whose capture led to the information. But the official said "documentary evidence" found after the capture had demonstrated in extraordinary detail that Qaeda members had for years conducted sophisticated and extensive reconnaissance of the financial institutions cited in the warnings on Sunday. One senior American intelligence official said the information was more detailed and precise than any he had seen during his 24-year career in intelligence work. A second senior American official said it had provided a new window into the methods, content and distribution of Qaeda communications. "This, for us, is a potential treasure trove," said a third senior American official, an intelligence expert, at a briefing for reporters on Sunday afternoon. The documentary evidence, whose contents were reported urgently to Washington on Friday afternoon, immediately elevated the significance of other intelligence information gathered in recent weeks that had already been regarded as highly troubling, senior American intelligence officials said. Much of that information had come from Qaeda detainees in Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia as well as Pakistan, and some had also pointed to a possible attack on financial institutions, senior American intelligence officials said. The American officials said the new evidence had been obtained only after the capture of the Qaeda figure. Among other things, they said, it demonstrated that Qaeda plotters had begun casing the buildings in New York, Newark and Washington even before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Among the questions the plotters sought to answer, senior American intelligence officials said, were how best to gain access to the targeted buildings; how many people might be at the sites at different hours and on different days of the week; whether a hijacked oil tanker truck could serve as an effective weapon; and how large an explosive device might be required to bring the buildings down. The American officials would say only that the Qaeda figure whose capture had led to the discovery of the documentary evidence had been captured with the help of the C.I.A. Though Pakistan announced the arrest last week of a Qaeda member, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian wanted in connection with the bombings of American embassies in East Africa in 1998, the American officials suggested that he had not been the source of the new threat information. An account provided by a Pakistani intelligence official made clear that the crucial capture in recent weeks had been that of Mr. Khan, who is also known as Abu Talha. The intelligence official provided information describing Mr. Khan as having assisted in evaluating potential American and Western targets for terrorist attacks, and as being representative of a "new Al Qaeda." The Pakistani official described Mr. Khan as a fluent English speaker who had told investigators that he had visited the United States, Britain, Germany and other countries. Mr. Khan was one of thousands of Pakistani militants who trained in Afghanistan under the Taliban in the 1990's, the Pakistani official said. If indeed Mr. Khan was the man whose arrest led the C.I.A. to new evidence, his role as a kind of clearinghouse of Qaeda communications, as described by the Pakistani intelligence official, could have made him a vital source of information. Since his arrest, Mr. Khan has described an elaborate communications system that involves the use of high and low technology, the Pakistani official said. The question of how much to rely on information obtained from captured foes has always weighed on the intelligence business. In recent weeks, even as they cited accounts from some captured Qaeda members as the basis for new concerns about terrorism, American intelligence officials have acknowledged that another captured Qaeda figure, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, had recanted claims that Iraq had provided training in illicit weapons to Qaeda members. Mr. Libi's earlier claims had been the primary basis for assertions by President Bush and his top advisers that Iraq had provided training in "poisons and gases" to Qaeda members. In explaining the decision to call a new terror alert, American officials would say only that the evidence obtained by the C.I.A. after the arrest of the Qaeda figure in Pakistan had provided a richer, more credible source of intelligence than could have been provided by any single individual. They declined to say whether the "documentary evidence" included physical documents or might also include electronic information stored on computers, like copies of e-mail communications. The Qaeda communications system that Mr. Khan used and helped operate relied on Web sites and e-mail addresses in Turkey, Nigeria and the northwestern tribal areas of Pakistan, according to the information provided by a Pakistani intelligence official. The official said Mr. Khan had told investigators that couriers carried handwritten messages or computer disks from senior Qaeda leaders hiding in isolated border areas to hard-line religious schools in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province. Other couriers then ferried them to Mr. Khan on the other side of the country in the eastern city of Lahore, and the computer expert then posted the messages in code on Web sites or relayed them electronically, the Pakistani official said. Mr. Khan had told investigators that most of Al Qaeda's communications were now done through the Internet, the official said. After a message was sent and read by the recipient, the entire communication and related files were deleted to maintain secrecy, he said. Mr. Khan had told investigators that e-mail addresses were generally not used more than a few times. The young computer engineer, who received a bachelor's degree from a university in Karachi, is the unemployed son of an employee of Pakistan's state airline and a college botany professor, the official said. Heavily built and 6 feet 2 inches tall, he speaks English with a British accent, and was arrested carrying a fake Pakistani identification card. The Pakistani official said Mr. Khan told investigators that he had received 25 days of training at a militant camp in Afghanistan in June 1998. By the time Mr. Khan had risen to his current position, the official said, Qaeda figures had arranged his marriage and were paying him $170 a month for rent for his house in Lahore and $90 for expenses. Mr. Khan was in contact with the brother of the Indonesian Qaeda leader Hambali, who was studying in a religious school in Karachi, and who was deported in December 2003. Mr. Khan has told interrogators that his Qaeda handler was a Pakistani he knew as Adil or Imran, who assigned him tasks related to computer work, Web design and managing the handler's messages. His correspondents included a Saudi-based Yemeni, Egyptian and Palestinian nationals and Arabs in unknown locations, and someone described as the "in-charge" in the city of Khost in eastern Afghanistan. Asked about the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Mr. Khan has told interrogators that even the top Qaeda commanders do not know, the Pakistani intelligence official said. Douglas Jehl reported from Washington for this article, and David Rohde from Karachi, Pakistan. 08-02-04 06:45 EDT -------------------- R H -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posts: 486 | From: Antioch TN | Registered: Oct 2001 | IP: Logged Locksley 4 Point Member # 1548 posted 08-02-2004 09:33 AM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Updated: 10:17 AM EDT Bombs Sow Fear of More Horror for Iraq's Christians By Matthew Green, Reuters BAGHDAD (Aug. 2) - Bombings at Iraqi churches did more than kill worshippers, smash tombstones and shatter stained glass -- they destroyed any hope among the Christian community of staying off the hit list for attacks. "Now, as a Christian I feel like a target," said 40-year-old factory owner, Ayad Zaya, speaking a day after car bombs at five churches killed at least 11 people. "This is the first time that this has happened in the history of Iraq," he said, standing near a bomb site at the Assyrian church in Baghdad. "When I leave my house I say my prayers in the name of the father, the son and the holy spirit." Already scared of what could happen to them in the uncertainty gripping postwar Iraq, one of the Middle East's oldest Christian communities is reeling from the shock of the first attacks on churches during 15 months of insurgency. Christians, who make up only about three percent of Iraq's population of 25 million people, have traditionally kept a relatively low political profile, mindful of the precariousness of their position in an overwhelmingly Muslim society. A spate of recent attacks on alcohol sellers fuelled fears that Christians might be singled out for attacks, but unlike the mosques targeted by extremists for bombings in the past year, their places of worship had seemed sacrosanct. Faceless enemies changed that on Sunday, when four car bomb attacks in Baghdad and one in the northern city of Mosul killed and maimed worshippers at evening prayers. Now many fear there may be more to come. "Christians are frightened," said Imad, 30, a taxi driver, standing near the blackened walls of the Armenian Church in the capital, where the smell of burned rubber wafted from cars scorched in one of the blasts. "Ignorant people might think we're infidels because we're Christians like the Americans," he said. While many Christians hated Saddam for his oppression, they were generally free to worship in their churches while majority Shi'ite Muslims faced years of persecution. Conscious of their status on the political margins, Christians are nevertheless proud that their faith came to Iraq in the first century while Islam only entered the area in the 7th century. Since then, their relative numbers have plunged. Many Christians fled abroad after last year's U.S.-led invasion to escape crime flourishing in the chaos, further whittling down their numbers. "We're the Red Indians of Iraq," said Shmael Benjamin, a member of the political bureau of the Assyrian Democratic Movement, a Christian political party. "We were the majority, today we're the minority, our percentage is reducing day by day in this country." Raising the spectre of religious strife, Iraqi officials say they fear the attacks on the churches aimed to foment tensions between Iraq's communities -- although there was no sign of friction at the scene of the bombing at the Assyrian church. "There's no problems between us, we live together like brothers," said Adnan Mohammed, a 53-year-old Muslim, visiting his brother's house which was damaged in the blast. But for Christians who count many Muslims among their friends, the shock of the bomb attacks proved that as far as Iraq's future is concerned, there are few certainties. Adil al-Sabbagh, 64, gazed at the crater in front of the Assyrian church where he was married in 1970, remembering how Muslim friends mingled with the other guests, not dreaming that the church would one day be hit by bombers. "Once they've attacked a church, and a mosque, there's nothing sacred for them," he said, as a man swept away broken glass. "The people who did this are capable of anything." 08/02/04 09:58 ET A group linked to Zarqawi also executed a Turkish hostage. In response to the killing and a wave of kidnappings of Turkish drivers, a Turkish truckers' group said it would stop transporting goods to U.S. forces in Iraq. Muslim leaders including top Shiite cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani condemned the car bombings, which were timed for Sunday evening church services in Baghdad and the northern city of Mosul. The attacks were the first on the minority Christian community's churches since the start of a 15-month insurgency. ''There is no shadow of a doubt that this bears the blueprint of Zarqawi,'' said national security adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, adding the militants wanted to spark religious conflict. Talk About It ? Post a Message | Chat ? Top News Boards ''Zarqawi and his extremists are basically trying to drive a wedge between Muslims and Christians in Iraq. It's clear they want to drive Christians out of the country,'' he told Reuters. The Jordanian-born militant has claimed responsibility for many major car bombings in Iraq since Saddam Hussein was ousted last year and also the killing of several foreign hostages among dozens seized in recent months. TURK EXECUTED In a videotape of the Turk's execution shown on Islamist Web sites, a masked man shot the hostage while he was seated. When he fell to the ground, the gunman shot him twice more with a pistol while shouting ''God is Greatest.'' The Turkish captive, dressed in a shirt and trousers, earlier identified himself on the tape as Murat Yuce. ? Bombs Sow Fear in Iraq's Christians ? Turkey Won't Truck Goods to U.S. Forces Prisoner Abuse Investigation ? Danish Officer Faces Inquiry -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ? AOL News: News From Iraq ''I saw American oppression in Iraq with my own eyes. But I stayed here to earn a bit of money,'' he said before being shot. The Turkish truckers' decision was a blow for Washington and another success for kidnappers who have forced Philippine troops to withdraw and several firms to halt operations in Iraq. ''Until security can be guaranteed we have stopped transporting goods for U.S. forces,'' said Cahit Soysal, head of the International Transporters' Association (UND). The group represents around 30 to 40 companies. Many Turkish firms are involved in reconstruction projects in Iraq. Sunday's car bombs hit at least five churches in Iraq, including four in Baghdad. Police defused two more bombs outside other churches, one in Baghdad and the other in Mosul. The attacks killed at least 11 people and wounded 55, the U.S. military and police said. Christians make up three percent of the Iraqi population and have generally had good ties with the Muslim community, although several recent attacks have targeted alcohol sellers, most of whom are Christians. Some Christians, fearing growing Islamization in Iraq, have fled to Syria and Jordan. Insurgents have mainly tried to provoke conflict between Sunni Muslims and members of the Shiite Muslim majority. MUSLIM LEADERS, POPE CONDEMN ATTACKS In a statement, Sistani condemned the blasts as ''grotesque crimes'' and said Iraqi minorities had to be protected. Adnan al-Asadi, a senior member of the Shi'ite Dawa Islamic party, added that Muslims shared the pain of the Christians. ''We reject these criminal acts which want to create religious and sectarian strife in Iraq,'' he said. Pope John Paul branded the bombings ''unjust aggression.'' Human Rights Minister Bakhtiar Amin said the interim government of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi was trying its best to combat the insurgents and uproot their networks. ''This shows there are no borders to the barbarity of the crimes of these terrorists,'' he said in response to the attacks. Parish priest Bashar Muntihorda, speaking outside a Chaldean church in Baghdad that was hit, said Christians were devastated. ''The damage that was done is so high to the courage of the people, to their feelings, to their hopes that a bright future is coming,'' Muntihorda said, as volunteers swept up debris, including a broken stained-glass window depicting the figure of Christ. Adding to Iraq's burden is the wave of hostage-taking. In one hostage stand-off, a tribal sheikh is negotiating to secure the release of seven foreign truck drivers. The seven, three Indians, three Kenyans and an Egyptian, were taken last month and threatened with death. A Somali held by militants also linked to Zarqawi will be freed after his Kuwaiti employer agreed to halt operations in the country, Al Jazeera television said. Scores of hostages from two dozen countries have been seized by kidnappers in the last four months. Most have been freed but several have been executed -- at least four by beheading. 08-02-04 10:08 EDT -------------------- R H -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posts: 486 | From: Antioch TN | Registered: Oct 2001 | IP: Logged Post #5 | Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged 08-02-04 03:53 PM locksly Member Registered: Mar 2003 Location: Antioch TN Posts: 61 NEW YORK (Aug. 2) - Police searched trucks, blocked streets and posted machine-gun toting officers outside financial landmarks Monday, a day after the government's chilling warning that terrorists might target the buildings with bombs. Thousands of employees at some of the largest financial institutions in the country stood in line to get to work, patiently showing identification tags. "You realize that's the world you live in, and you deal with it," said Kenneth Polcari, a trader at the New York Stock Exchange, one of five buildings the government says al-Qaida operatives have studied. Recent intelligence - including photos, drawings and written documents - indicates terrorists have focused on the stock exchange and The Citigroup Center in Manhattan, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank buildings in Washington and Prudential Financial Inc.'s headquarters in Newark, N.J., officials said. "What we're talking about here is a very serious matter based on solid intelligence," President Bush said. Employees at the targeted buildings began their work week with extra checks of bags and identification, added barricades and police officers outside. Potential Targets -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Watch Video Reacting to New Intelligence Ridge Answers Questions Source: AP Police closed Manhattan streets around Grand Central Terminal and banned trucks from some bridges and tunnels. Trucks passing landmarks or traveling on major thoroughfares also were subject to random searches. In some cases, truck drivers were asked to show documentation on where they were headed. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Gov. George Pataki rang the opening bell at the stock exchange to show confidence in the city's security response. "America and New Yorkers are pulling together here, and they're not going to be cowed," Bloomberg said. He and Pataki visited the Citigroup building with First Lady Laura Bush and her twin daughters in the afternoon. "I want to thank people for coming to work. I'm really glad to be here today," the first lady said as she stopped to chat with some office workers at the 59-story skyscraper in midtown Manhattan. Peter Manzi, a banker from suburban Long Island, said seeing the high-profile entourage at Citigroup was "very encouraging." "You can't let the bad guys win," he said after briefly meeting the president's family. Authorities said the terror intelligence did not specify timing of an attack. "Since 9/11 I think any of us who work here know we're a target," said Donna Mendez, who works on the 27th floor. "We're not going to let (terrorists) stop us from doing what we do. That's what they want." In Newark, officials set up concrete barriers and police teams around the 24-story Prudential building, where about 1,000 employees work. They showed identification to get into the building and its underground parking garage. "I'm a little nervous," said analyst Tracy Swistak, 27. "But I'm confident Prudential's doing everything they can to ensure our safety." Bush vs. Kerry on Intelligence Czar Getty Images President Bush called for a new national counterterrorism center and intelligence czar position Monday, but he said the czar should not be in the White House as the 9/11 panel suggested. Listen: 'Standalone Group' Reuters John Kerry accused Bush of being sluggish to institute reforms since 9/11 and said the intelligence czar position should be within the White House. Listen: 'More Out of the Position' Get the Story | Watch Video Greater security was also more visible in the nation's capital, where authorities have already fortified key buildings against terrorism. Capitol Hill was filled with tourists on a busy summer morning while police went on 12-hour, six-day-a-week shifts in response to the heightened security alert, spokeswoman Sgt. Contricia Ford said. Police checked identity cards as employees filed in to the World Bank headquarters; inside, security guards checked them again. Across the street, guards at the International Monetary Fund swept the underside of cars with detecting devices as they entered the garage. "I'm concerned, but we have to carry on as normal," said IMF employee Shirley Davies. 'Preferred Method' "Based on what we've gleaned so far, the preferred method of attack... is car and truck bombs." -- Tom Ridge, Homeland Security Secretary | Get the Story -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some Deadly Vehicle Bomb Attacks Sources: AP, CNN, World Book Washington, D.C., police chief Charles Ramsey said the upgraded security is likely to continue at least until after the November election. None of the newly discovered terror intelligence involved specific threats to the Republican convention in Manhattan or the election process, authorities said Monday. The warnings won't affect security for the convention, which begins Aug. 30. "It's not going to require any significant shift," said Paul Browne, chief spokesman for the New York Police Department. Security plans for the convention already included extra protection for Wall Street and other financial centers - long considered possible targets for terrorists. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge on Sunday raised the terror threat level for financial institutions in the three cities to orange - high alert, the second highest level on the government's five-point spectrum. Elsewhere, he said, the alert would remain at yellow, or elevated. Treasury Secretary John Snow, quick to reassure investors and Americans, said the nation's financial system operated normally under the alert. "People around the world rightly have confidence in the U.S. financial markets," Snow said. "While we must always remain vigilant against terror, we will not be intimidated and prevented from enjoying our lives and exercising our freedoms." Nevertheless, the specter of an attack shadowed the market, weighing on stock prices. John Thain, chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, said security has been a priority since the Sept. 11 attacks. "Our business is going forward as normal," he said. 08/02/04 17:13 EDT Post #6 | Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged 08-03-04 02:09 AM locksly Member Registered: Mar 2003 Location: Antioch TN Posts: 61 This kind of throws a big wrench in the Liberals crying that the treat is 2-3 years old. _____________ Fresh Details Back Threats Tue Aug 3, 7:55 AM ET By Josh Meyer and Greg Miller Times Staff Writers WASHINGTON ? Some of the surveillance files that triggered the nation's latest terrorism alert were reviewed and updated by Al Qaeda just months ago and dovetail with other, fresh intelligence that indicates the terrorism network remains intent on launching a major U.S. attack during the presidential election campaign, U.S. authorities said Monday. Despite the elaborate details about five financial institutions in New York; Newark, N.J.; and Washington that are contained in the files, officials said they had been unable to learn whether Al Qaeda had agents in this country preparing for attacks. But several senior U.S. counterterrorism officials said that the surveillance, obtained in Pakistan and reviewed late last week by authorities in Washington, came amid a continuing stream of intelligence corroborating Al Qaeda's determination to launch strikes in the U.S. "It's like you have this blank piece of paper and it's filling up with more and more dots. It all points to an attack," said one senior Department of Homeland Security official... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=sto...reats&printer=1 
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http://www.wten.com/Global/story.asp?S=2135442
Two Men Arrested In Albany for Suspected Terrorism Activity Two men have been arrested in Albany and are being held on criminal complaint for materiallysupporting terrorism. The two men, 34 year-old Yassim Muhhidin, Imam of the Majid Al Salam mosque in Albany, and 49 year-old Mohammed Mosharref Hoosain, founder of the mosque, have links to the Ansar al Islam Iraqi terror group. They sought help from a confidential informant and were attempting to launder money to purchase shoulder launching missiles. This was a long-running FBI sting op. WTEN will continue to bring you updates throughout the day as this story unfolds.
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I'd rather be historically accurate than politically correct.
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#3
08-05-2004, 06:49 AM
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U.S. Chopper Downed Amid Fierce Fighting in Iraq
Car Bomb South of Baghdad Kills Five By JAMIE TARABAY, AP BAGHDAD (Aug. 5) -- Insurgents loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr downed a U.S. helicopter during fierce clashes Thursday in the holy city of Najaf, and the wounded crew was evacuated. Also Thursday, a suicide car bombing killed five people and wounded 27 at a police station south of Baghdad, the Interior Ministry said. The fighting in Najaf began early in the morning when al-Sadr's Mahdi Army attacked a police station on Revolution of 1920 Square with mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and Kalashnikov rifles. Najaf's governor, Adnan al-Zurufi, told the Al-Jazeera satellite channel that the U.S. Marines intervened ''to help the policemen protect the police stations and the city.'' Al-Zurufi said armed militias attacked the police station at about 1:50 a.m. and two people had been killed so far. During the battle, a UH-1 helicopter was hit and crashed. The crew was hurt and evacuated to safety. The Najaf fighting, the fiercest in weeks, threatens a fragile cease-fire between the Mahdi Army and Iraqi and U.S. authorities. Al-Zurufi warned of ''very bad consequences'' if the militiamen did not disarm and leave the holy city. In the vehicle bombing in Mahawil, 53 miles south of Baghdad, a bus approached, two gunmen clad in police uniforms hopped out and opened fire on the police station. They escaped, while the bomber inside the bus died in the bomb explosion. The blast damaged the gate of the station and a dozen nearby cars and left a crater in the ground. ''I was outside the building when I saw a car heading toward us. We started shooting. I'm sure we shot him but he managed to explode the car,'' said police Capt. Adel Omran, who has shrapnel in his leg said. Insurgents have repeatedly targeted police as part of their campaign to destabilize the interim government - killing 710 from April 2003 to May 2004. The guerrillas see police as collaborators with the American-led coalition forces. ''What do these criminals want from Iraqis? They sometimes target the Sunnis, the Shiites and the Christians and other times they target the police and the army. They, however do nothing to the Americans,'' said Zayd Hadi, a civilian who was outside the station and suffered wounds to his face and stomach. Farther north, a series of battles between Iraqi authorities and insurgents in the city of Mosul killed 14 civilians and eight insurgents Wednesday, the U.S. military said. Iraqi authorities said Thursday that 17 people had been killed and 47 wounded. Iraqi authorities clamped a curfew on the area and sealed off bridges into the city to restore order. The fighting was the fiercest in Mosul in months, and local authorities said insurgents appeared to be testing the police. No Iraqi or coalition forces were killed in the violence, the U.S. military said. Two of the militants killed included a member of the al-Qaida-linked militant group Ansar al-Islam and a cousin of the group's founder, said Sarkawt Hassan, security chief in the Kurdish province of Sulaimaniyah. The body of Sayed Omar Omar Mohammed, also known as Sayed Qutb, the cousin of founder Mullah Krekar, was found in a car in al-Yarmouk area in Mosul, Hassan said. In the southern city of Basra, militants loyal to al-Sadr threatened Thursday to attack British forces in the area unless they freed four men detained in a raid on al-Sadr's party's office in Basra two days before. ''Otherwise the Mahdi army will confront the British forces, enter the city and take over important government buildings,'' said Salam al-Maliki, a spokesman for al-Sadr's Mahdi army militia. The British said they hadn't received a formal ultimatum, ''only rhetoric,'' said Maj. Ian Clooney. He said the men had been detained for further questioning, and did not elaborate. On Tuesday, police said that al-Sadr's militias had kidnapped police officers apparently to use as leverage to force authorities to release militants being detained. His group denied the accusations, saying police were provoking al-Sadr's supporters by trying to arrest some of the group's leaders. Insurgents have kidnapped scores of foreign hostages to force foreign companies and coalition troops from Iraq. In an effort to save the hostages, several companies have said they would stop their work here, and last month the Philippines withdrew its 51-member troop contingent to secure the freedom of a Filipino truck driver. In a move to show kidnappers that none of the 31 other countries in the coalition would follow suit, the United States issued a statement Wednesday vowing not to make concessions to hostage-takers. Many of the other coalition members were expected to issue similar statements in the coming days, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said. ''We are united in our resolve to make no concessions to terrorists,'' read the statement. ''We understand that conceding to terrorists will only endanger all members of the multinational force, as well as other countries who are contributing to Iraqi reconstruction and humanitarian assistance,'' it said. 08-05-04 0754 EDT
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#4
08-05-2004, 08:20 AM
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We In Western Culture:
We in Western Culture don't really understand the Muslim thought patterns.
Muslims, even the more moderates desire complete domination of the World. The ultra conservatives want to make the whole world into a Taliban rule world. That is there aim. They will terrorize the world into submission. The only thing the radical Muslim understands is: an Eye for Eye. Or returned violence on an equal basis in which they dish it out. The talk coming out of Washington D.C. shows me that many if not most of our elected officials don't comprehend what is really going on. All this stupid, naive talk about making alliances for peace is nothing more than a pipe dream of some sort. (Like Chamberlain and Hilter) They don't honor anything. The reality of all this is: things are going to get a lot worse before the world really realizes the tremendous threat the Muslim mind set brings to this world. Saudi Arabia will fall and when it falls all hell will break loose. Most of the U.S. just doesn't comprehend the threat even after 9-11. There will be more 9-11s. Just because we have such an open society, which makes us easy targets for terrorism. Both Democrats and Republicans need to get a good dose of reality and begin to talk to the public in plain simple terms they can understand. Of course that isn't politically correct but we need some honesty from our leadership and we need to be able to swallow the pill of reality. Keith
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#5
08-06-2004, 05:44 AM
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Keith,
The other day I was speaking to a woman who had participated in an all female group from America who climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro. She said, during the time they spent on the mountain, they were in no danger, but it was a different story in Dar es Salaam and Arusha, two towns in Tanzania. They were constantly harassed by the men for showing "so much flesh" and were called whores and temptresses. One woman was even struck with a cane when she was riding "shotgun" in the van because she had her bare arm outside the window! Talk about a socially...and sexually...repressed society.
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I'd rather be historically accurate than politically correct.
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#6
08-06-2004, 06:10 AM
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Man says he didn't mean to board plane with gun, knife
http://www.sacbee.com/state_wire/sto...11150748c.html
SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) - A man pleaded not guilty Monday to knowingly attempting to board a plane with a loaded handgun, folding knife, and 10 syringes in his carry-on bag. Ali Reza Khatami, 65, was arrested June 24 when the .38-caliber pistol and 3.5-inch knife were found during a security screening, Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Staples said. He had been preparing to board a United Airlines flight to Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C. Defense attorney Ben Wasserman said at Khatami's bail hearing last month that his client had forgotten he was carrying the weapons. He said his client was on his way to Virginia to sell some property. Khatami told authorities he had planned to put the gun and knife in his bag to take them to a safe in his garage, but didn't remember. Then he planned to leave them at his son's house, he said, but he was in such a rush that he forgot again. Staples said Khatami was a danger because he had given inconsistent statements to investigators. Staples said the gun had been packed into an oven mitt, which he described as "essentially a low-tech silencer." Magistrate Judge Marc Goldman agreed to release Khatami on $100,000 bail, saying he was not convinced that Khatami intended to take the weapons on the plane. The case is set for trial before U.S. District Judge James Selna on Sept. 7.
__________________
I'd rather be historically accurate than politically correct.
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