The Allmendinger Chronicles

From HuffingtonPost.com

CAIRO — Al-Qaida on Tuesday released a new 106-minute long video predicting President Barack Obama’s downfall at the hands of the Muslim world.

The Arabic-language video, entitled “The West and the Dark Tunnel,” is part of series of messages by the organization marking the eighth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. Bin Laden released a short message of his own on Sept. 14.

Like similar long messages on previous anniversaries, it featured testimony from several leading al-Qaida figures intercut with news footage from the past year.

As in the past, al-Qaida attempted to conflate Obama with his predecessor, George W. Bush, who was widely disliked by Muslims for his invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Many analysts believe that al-Qaida has been alarmed by Obama’s comparative popularity in the Middle East, especially following his landmark speech to the Muslim world in Cairo in June.

“America has come in a new, hypocritical face. Smiling at us, but stabbing us with the same dagger that Bush used,” said Al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri in the message.

“God willing, your end will be at the hands of the Muslim nation, so that the world and history will be free of your crimes and lies,” he said addressing Obama at the end of the two-part video.

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Father, son and 3rd man accused of making false statements to U.S. agents

NBC News and news services

updated 6:59 a.m. ET Sept. 20, 2009

DENVER – The FBI arrested a 24-year-old Colorado man on charges of making false statements to federal agents in an ongoing terror investigation, and supporting documents contend the man admitted receiving weapons and explosives training from al-Qaida in Pakistan.

Najibullah Zazi of the Denver suburb of Aurora was arrested late Saturday after undergoing three days of questioning by the FBI. Zazi, a legal permanent resident from Afghanistan, was due to appear in federal court on Monday.

Also arrested were Zazi’s father, Mohammed Wali Zazi, 53, in Denver; and an associate, Ahmad Wais Afzali, 37, of Queens, N.Y., the Justice Department said Sunday. Both also were charged with making false statements to federal agents, a charge that carries a penalty of eight years in prison. Court appearances for both also were set for Monday.

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Target of probe reportedly acknowledges association with al-Qaida

From Fox News:

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

AP     John Allen Muhammad

RICHMOND, Va. —  A judge has set a Nov. 10 execution date for John Allen Muhammad, mastermind of the 2002 sniper attacks in the Washington, D.C., area.

The attorney general’s office had requested a Nov. 9 execution. But Muhammad’s attorney Jonathan Sheldon says Prince William County Circuit Judge Mary Grace O’Brien delayed it one day.

That’s because Nov. 9 is a Monday and they want government offices to be open the day before in case of last-minute court action.

Muhammad was sentenced to death for the slaying of Dean Meyers, one of 10 people shot to death during a 2002 rampage that terrorized the Washington, D.C., area.

Sheldon says Muhammad will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court and ask the governor for clemency.

SOURCE

From The Intelligence Daily

The US government’s allegations back-up the explosive testimony of two former Blackwater employees. Gov’t says Blackwater shot Iraqis as “payback for 9/11”

A month ago, most major, corporate media outlets ignored the sworn statements of two former Blackwater employees, one of whom—identified in court papers as John Doe #2— alleged that the company’s owner Erik Prince “views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe,” and that Prince’s companies “encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life.” Most media outlets ignored the numerous, specific allegations contained in the sworn affidavit of John Doe #1 about Blackwater operatives shooting at defenseless civilians—most of them based on John Doe #1’s personal experience working in Iraq for Blackwater.

Now, it is not just former employees making these allegations.

On September 7, federal prosecutors in Washington DC submitted papers in the criminal case against five Blackwater operatives for their alleged role in the 2007 Nisour Square shooting in Baghdad that killed 17 Iraqi civilians and wounded more than 20 others. Blackwater forces “fired at innocent Iraqis not because they actually believed that they were in imminent danger of serious bodily injury and actually believed that they had no alternative to the use of deadly force, but rather that they fired at innocent Iraqi civilians because of their hostility toward Iraqis and their grave indifference to the harm that their actions would cause,” the acting US Attorney in DC, Channing Phillips, alleges in court papers submitted by Kenneth C. Kohl, the lead prosecutor on this case. “[T]he defendants specifically intended to kill or seriously injure the Iraqi civilians that they fired upon at Nisur Square.”

The allegation that stands out most in the court filing, as Mother Jones noted, is this one against one of the Nisour Square defendants:

During the twelve months proceeding the events charged in the indictment, while assigned to the Raven 23 convoy operating at various locations in the Red Zone in Baghdad, Iraq, defendant Nicholas Slatten made statements that he wanted to kill as many Iraqis as he could as “payback for 9/11,” and he repeatedly boasted about the number of Iraqis he had shot… [During these 12 months,] Slatten deliberately fired his weapon to draw out return fire and instigate gun battles in a manner that was inconsistent with the use of force and escalation of force policies that governed Blackwater personnel in Iraq.

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