American jihad, Iran, War on Terror

JFK airport attack plotter wanted help from Iran

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The New York Sun reports:

A Shiite imam accused of plotting to blow up fuel tanks at John F. Kennedy International Airport wanted to seek Iranian backing for the terrorist plot. The disclosure came yesterday in a court decision denying bail to the Trinidadian-based cleric, Kareem Ibrahim.

Mr. Ibrahim, 62, is one of four men arrested last month on charges connected to the plot. At the time, American law enforcement officials said Mr. Ibrahim encouraged his co-conspirators to seek funding for the attack from outside their home countries of Trinidad or Guyana. While American authorities have not provided more details, a judge in Trinidad wrote that evidence, including tape recordings, suggests Mr. Ibrahim intended to seek backing for the plot from individuals in Iran or Britain.

In those recordings, Judge Prakash Moosai wrote, Mr. Ibrahim “refers to an ‘Iranian brother’ passing through Trinidad and Tobago, and of sending a ‘trusted brother’ to Iran to speak to the top men of the revolutionary movement there about the plan.” The judge’s decision does not clarify whether “the revolutionary movement there” refers to the government of the Islamic Republic. Nor does Judge Moosai state whether the plotters actually disclosed the plan to contacts in Iran or simply considered doing so. Mr. Ibrahim also spoke of contacting “brothers in England,” the decision said.

Mr. Ibrahim’s alleged efforts to find foreign backing mark the second Iran connection to surface in a case that initially appeared confined to the Western Hemisphere. At the time of his arrest, another of the defendants, Abdul Kadir of Guyana, was preparing to travel to Iran to attend an Islamic conference, according to news reports. Two of Mr. Kadir’s children were studying in Iran at the time of his arrest, according to reports.

The extent of Mr. Ibrahim’s own international contacts is unclear. He has not left Trinidad since 1979, according to the court decision. But one lead under investigation by Trinidadian law enforcement is whether Mr. Ibrahim had ties to Shiite organizations in southern Iraq and Iran through an Islamic discussion group he hosted, the Trinidad Express reported last month.

Iraq, Political wind, War on Terror

Sadr heeds Reid; cuts and runs

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During the debate in the Senate today, someone ought to let Harry Reid know that at least one person has taken his advice:

Muqtada al Sadr, the leader of the Mahdi Army, has fled Iraq and sought shelter in Iran for the second time this year, according to U.S. military sources. Sadr left Iraq after Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki issued an unusually strong demand for the Mahdi Army to disband, and as Iraqi and Coalition forces have battled Sadr’s forces in Baghdad, Diwaniyah, and Samawa in the south.

In Samawa, Iraqi Army and police units deployed throughout the city “after negotiations with Sadr’s office in the city reached a ‘deadlock.'” Sadr sought a truce with the provincial government. Eight were killed and 66 wounded in the fighting over the past several days. In Diwaniyah, the 8th Iraqi Army Division paired up with the Hilla SWAT special police and killed nine members of the “rogue Jaysh al-Mahdi [Mahdi Army] militia and captured four others on July 7.” In Baghdad, Iraqi Special Operations Forces captured seven members of “a rogue Jaysh al-Madhi” cell on July 7. This cell was part of “a network involved in death squad activities, kidnapping and assassination activities.”

And the Washington Post might want to actually fact check its sources in Iraq:

While the Washington Post is reporting a massive suicide attack outside of Fallujah, claiming 23 killed and 27 wounded in an attack on an Iraqi Army recruitment center, Multinational Forces West told The Fourth Rail that this report is false. The Post report is based on a Voice of Iraq article, which claimed 17 killed and 27 wounded.

1st Lt. Shawn Mercer, the deputy Public Affairs Officer for Multinational Forces West, he denied such an attack took place in an email. “We don’t have any reports of an attack on a recruiting center (or any static location) and certainly not with that kind of death toll in our AO,” said 1st Lt. Mercer. He noted there was an IED attack near Abu Ghraib that killed one Iraqi soldier and wounded three on Saturday night, and suspected the reports may have been confused. “I’m not sure how the reporting on this got so confused but the sources were not reliable,” he stated. In March 2007, Voice of Iraq falsely reported an attack on U.S. forces outside Rutbah.