[Wino]

This story is five days old and just heard about it on CNN earlier. Hope this is just an anomaly - but may have some legs. Really surprised it hasn't been more widely spread on the news.

No bail for woman reportedly on terror list

Her passport raised questions when she tried to catch a plane out of McAllen
By JAMES PINKERTON
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle Rio Grande Valley Bureau

HARLINGEN - U.S. Congressman Solomon Ortiz said Tuesday that a South African woman detained by immigration officers at the McAllen airport last week is on a watch list for suspected terrorists.

The Muslim woman, Farida Goolam Mahomed Ahmed, 48, was detained by U.S. Border Patrol agents July 19 after she made an attempt to board a flight at McAllen International Airport.

After a lengthy hearing Tuesday, U.S. Magistrate Dorina Ramos in McAllen ruled there was probable cause to hold Ahmed on federal charges of unlawful entry, making false statements and presenting an altered South African passport with four pages torn out. She denied bail for Ahmed.

''She was on a watch list as far as I understand, and this is coming from very credible sources" in the federal government, said Ortiz, D-Corpus Christi.

''This lady had traveled at least 250 times, all over the place, and of course this concerned officials."

On Tuesday, The Associated Press reported that numerous South African passports had been stolen from that nation's passport agency by a crime syndicate and were being sold for as little as $77 to economic migrants.

The AP quoted a South African official who confirmed that some of the passports had been found in the hands of al-Qaida members or their associates.

Repeated calls to the U.S. attorney's office in Houston, where local prosecutors in McAllen referred questions, were not returned Tuesday.

Ahmed's court-appointed attorney, Kyle Welch, said he had no information about his client's name being on a government watch list.

"She has been accused only of the charges that are in the complaint, and if you're asking me anything about a watch list, I don't know anything about that," Welch said.

''It's not something that any evidence has been presented about."

Welch, however, said Ramos was ''very concerned" that Ahmed — detained July 19 — was not brought before a magistrate until Thursday. Welch said people arrested on immigration charges are normally brought before a judge within a day or two.

In an affidavit filed with the federal charges, an FBI agent in McAllen assigned to the anti-terrorist task force said that on the second day of detention, Ahmed ''without coercion, freely stated" she had lied to immigration agents and had been smuggled into the country.

''It is certainly true that this case has not been handled in the manner that normal immigration cases are handled," Welch said, adding he doesn't know why.

Ortiz said Ahmed's arrest has increased his concerns that terrorists could enter the United States along the southern border.

He noted that many undocumented people who are not from Mexico are routinely released because of a lack of detention space.

james.pinkerton@chron.com

[Wino]

More on the story from AP:

Terrorists illegally got South African passports
By Alexandra Zavis, Associated Press | July 28, 2004

JOHANNESBURG -- Al Qaeda militants and other terrorists traveling through Europe have obtained South African passports, and authorities believe they got them from crime syndicates operating inside the government agency that issues the documents.

The illicit acquisition of the passports, which allow travel through many African countries and Britain without visas, sent shock waves through South Africa after one top police official said ''boxes and boxes" of the documents were discovered in London.

Barry Gilder, director general of the Department of Home Affairs, said he has come across a number of instances in which South African passports were found in the hands of Al Qaeda suspects or their associates in Europe -- both in his current capacity and as a former deputy director in the National Intelligence Agency.

Gilder gave no specifics, and he described these as ''isolated" cases. But he said his department is moving aggressively to counter any threat, dedicating more senior officials to fight corruption and introducing identity cards and passports containing microchips with the owner's fingerprints.

''We do not want our country to be used either as a staging post or haven for terrorists," Gilder said.

South African officials say crime syndicates selling the country's identity documents and passports for as little as $77 have operated inside Home Affairs for years.

They sell mostly to economic migrants, who find it easier to enter Europe or the United States on a South African passport than ones from their own countries. But terrorists now appear to be tapping into these networks, Gilder acknowledged.

In one instance, a Tunisian Al Qaeda suspect, Ihsan Garnaoui, told German investigators he had a number of South African passports, sources close to the case told the Associated Press. It is not clear how he got them.

Garnaoui was traveling on a forged Portuguese passport when he arrived in Germany in January 2003, on a journey via South Africa and Belgium. He is accused of planning bombings on American and Jewish targets to coincide with the start of the US-led war on Iraq.

Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi of South Africa called attention to the illegal acquisition of passports when he told the National Assembly's safety and security committee that a number of people with ''evil intentions against this country" were arrested here and sent home shortly before April 14 elections. This prompted the arrests of suspected Al Qaeda members in Jordan, Syria, and Britain, he said.

''In part of this operation, in London, the British police found boxes and boxes of South African passports in the home of one of these people, or an associate of these people," Selebi said, according to local news reports. A transcript of his remarks was unavailable, and Selebi's office did not respond to requests for details.

The fact that these were genuine South African passports, not forgeries, was of particular concern, Home Affairs Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula said.

''They [Al Qaeda members] certainly did not pick up those passports out there in their countries," she told Parliament's Home Affairs committee in June. ''A member of the department must have sold those passports to them."

The press office at Britain's Scotland Yard said it had no information on the matter, and officials at the Metropolitan Police and Home Office declined to comment.

South Africa's notoriously porous borders have repeatedly been exploited by international fugitives, including Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, a suspect in the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. But Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula said as recently as March that there were no Al Qaeda cells in the country.

Selebi did not specify who was arrested in South Africa in April, or what action they allegedly planned. But two suspects who were later released -- a South African and a Jordanian married to a South African -- told the AP they were questioned about an alleged Al Qaeda plot to attack American and British targets during the election, which coincided with the 10th anniversary of the end of apartheid.

The South African, Shaid Hassim, and the Jordanian, Mohammed Hendi, strongly denied any such plot, or involvement in supplying passports to terrorists. They said four others were also arrested in a series of raids and deported -- two Egyptian brothers, one of them with asylum status in Britain, and two Jordanians.

Khaled Abdusalam was questioned for several hours upon his return to London and released, but his brother Mahmoud is believed to be in custody in Egypt, Hassim said. Jamal Odys and Walid Nassr were arrested after returning to Jordan, but Nassr was later released, according to Hendi. Officials in the three countries said they had no information on the suspects.

Hassim said he believes they were targeted because some of them belong to a British-based group founded by Jordanian exiles called Jama'ah Tul Muslimeen, which urged Muslims not to vote in South Africa's election.

© Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.

[Wino]

And some more:

Passports Might Be Al-Qaida's Most Powerful Weapon

By WILLIAM J. KOLE, Associated Press Writer July 29, 2004

AP Enterprise: Al-Qaida and other terrorists tapping vast network of expertise in passport forgery and fraud
VIENNA, Austria - They're just little embossed rectangles in burgundy, forest green or navy blue, but they can lay a nation bare to a terrorist plot.

Passports, not box cutters or even jetliners, may be al-Qaida's most powerful weapons. Stolen and legitimate, doctored and untouched, they have enabled Osama bin Laden's network and other terror groups to plan and carry out attacks worldwide.

In its final report, the U.S. commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks touts high-tech biometric passports, still in the developmental stage, and better border guard training as key ways to tighten the United States' defenses.

But anti-terrorism experts, mindful of the ingenuity demonstrated by Islamic militants, told The Associated Press they feel humbled and helpless.

"One of the hidden criticisms (in the report) is that not only were we not prepared on Sept. 11, but the measures we've taken from Sept. 11 to today have not improved the matter that much," said Michael Greenberger, who was a Justice Department official during the Clinton administration.

"Our databases are a mess. Change a person's middle initial and he doesn't show up," said Greenberger, who now directs the University of Maryland's Center for Health and Homeland Security. "By and large, we've not been terribly successful."

The commission offers no argument.

"No one can hide his or her debt by acquiring a credit card with a slightly different name," said its report, released last week. "Yet today, a terrorist can defeat the link to electronic records by tossing away an old passport and slightly altering the name in the new one."

Conceding it has only "fragmentary" evidence of the travels of the Sept. 11 organizers and hijackers, the commission's 567-page report nonetheless is packed with detailed accounts of how the terrorists obtained and modified the passports that got them into the United States.

A key panel recommendation points up the seriousness of the threat:

"Targeting travel is at least as powerful a weapon against terrorists as targeting their money. The United States should combine terrorist travel intelligence, operations, and law enforcement in a strategy to intercept terrorists, find terrorist travel facilitators, and constrain terrorist mobility."

That, experts say, is far easier said than done.

"If you have someone who is determined to evade immigration controls, they'll do it - or at least they'll have a good chance," said Alex Standish, editor of Jane's Intelligence Digest. "I don't see any evidence to suggest that we've had any success in making (al-Qaida) any less of a threat."

Al-Qaida once brazenly operated its own passport office at the airport in Kandahar, Afghanistan, where the group "altered papers, including passports, visas and identification cards" before the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the commission notes.

Although the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan ended such Taliban-protected operations, there are plenty of terrorists worldwide who are skilled in doctoring documents, the panel warns. It says al-Qaida and others have refined half a dozen simple yet highly effective techniques.

Among the most popular is obtaining stolen passports, which authorities say are available on a lucrative black market that stretches from eastern Europe to Southeast Asia and South Africa.

There are up to 10 million lost or stolen passports in circulation worldwide, according to Interpol estimates.

"You can find all sorts of fake passports in the Balkans, including stolen or fake American" documents, a former high-ranking police official in Serbia told AP on condition of anonymity.

Experts say they're being sold for as little as $75, although U.S. passports can fetch $3,000 or more.

Al-Qaida militants and other terrorists intercepted in Europe had obtained South African passports they apparently got from crime syndicates operating within the government agency that issues the documents, officials disclosed to AP last week.

Another commonly used technique involves adding or removing visa cachets and entry and exit stamps. By doing so, experts say, terrorists can delete any evidence of their travel to suspicious destinations such as Afghanistan or Pakistan. They also can create false trails to throw authorities off track.

Two of the Sept. 11 hijackers, Nawaf al Hazmi and Khalid al Mihdhar, apparently flew to Bangkok because "they thought it would enhance their cover as tourists to have passport stamps from a popular tourist destination such as Thailand," the commission says.

Some simply would turn in passports filled with suspicion-arousing visas and stamps from countries where al-Qaida operated - even if the documents were still valid for another year - and get new, clean ones. Fourteen of the 19 suicide hijackers, exhorted by Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, obtained new passports.

Others work to acquire as many passports as possible, reasoning that a Canadian or Belgian passport is less likely to prompt scrutiny from U.S. border guards than one from Saudi Arabia.

In one case cited by the commission, convicted terrorist Ahmed Ressam obtained a blank baptismal certificate that a document vendor had stolen from a Roman Catholic church in Montreal, and used it to get a genuine Canadian passport.

Saudi hijackers had a problem: If they traveled to Afghanistan via Pakistan, and the Pakistanis stamped their passports, they risked having them confiscated back in Saudi Arabia.

"So operatives either erased the Pakistani visas from their passports or traveled through Iran, which did not stamp visas directly into passports," the commission says. Tehran has angrily denied any complicity in the Sept. 11 attacks, even though the panel contends up to 10 of the hijackers passed through Iran en route to the United States.

Al-Qaida operative Tawfiq bin Attash indicated that Malaysia repeatedly was used as a place to plot attacks "because its government did not require citizens of Saudi Arabia or other Gulf states to have a visa." Bin Attash, better known as Khallad, helped bomb the USS Cole in Yemen in October 2000, killing 17 American sailors,

Greenberger is among many pushing for the swift consolidation of travel databases "so these names start popping up." He and others also are pressing for the introduction of supposedly tamperproof biometric passports that will contain digital photographs and fingerprints.

The European Union agreed in March to fast-track the inclusion of biometric data in passports by the end of 2006. Belgium has vowed to be among the first by introducing its new travel documents next year, and Austria, Denmark and Slovenia have developed working prototypes.

"We've got to adopt the technology and get away from purely paper documents," Greenberger said.

"Nothing is going to be foolproof, but by altering the technology, I think it's possible to raise our defenses," he said. "The harder we make it to forge documents, the greater our gains in protecting the borders. You're really upping the ante."

But Standish, of Janes' Intelligence Digest, is skeptical.

"The basic problem is that if a document of any kind can be produced, it can be falsified or forged," he said.

"As an IRA terrorist once famously said to the authorities: `You have to be lucky all the time. I only have to be lucky once.'"

[Wino]

This is getting more interesting - the lady has done a lot of traveling and has lots of money for being unemployed nine months, mother of one and separated from spouse and headed to New York.

.....She left South Africa on July 8 and her flight took her through Dubai and United Arab Emirates, both on the Arabian Gulf; London, England; and finally to Mexico City. On July 19, she appeared at the McAllen airport.

Ahmed is not being charged with any kind of terrorist activity, court documents show.

Texas’ Anti-Terrorism office holds a list of countries that are considered to be sponsors of terrorism and areas of concern to the U.S., including Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Cuba, North Korea and Sudan.

Among her personal items was a duffel bag which contained a pair of wet and muddy pants. Another bag held plane tickets and flight schedules.

Ahmed admitted to entering the United States by crossing the Rio Grande.

"This is not the normal procedure for someone accused of entering the country illegally," Lindenmuth said. "My best guess is that this is being done because she is Muslim and she’s South African."

Lindenmuth said to his knowledge, Ahmed was not on any type of terrorist watch list.

"I don’t know anything about that," Lindenmuth said. "This is the first time that we have somebody from Africa crossing into the country illegally here.

"We’ve had Chinese, Indians and even couple of Yugoslavians come through," Lindenmuth said. "But what she is going through, this is well out of the ordinary."

Ahmed claimed to be unemployed for the last nine months and separated or divorced from her husband, who is also unemployed, according to court documents obtained by The Monitor.

She also listed one daughter, Soraya, age unknown, as a dependent.

Lindenmuth said it is not known how Ahmed paid for the plane tickets that got her to Mexico City. ......

link for complete article.

http://www.themonitor.com/SiteProces...&Section=Local

[Wino]

Some more along with denial of AQ connections by family:

SA woman held in US 'not al-Qaeda'

August 01 2004 at 12:18PM

By Phomello Molwedi, Peter Fabricius and Sapa-AP


The family of a South African woman arrested in the United States on suspicion that she may be linked to the al-Qaeda terrorist network are protesting her innocence and proclaiming that she is apolitical.

Farida Goolam Mohamed Ahmed, 48, was arrested in Texas two weeks ago after entering the US from
Mexico.

'I can tell you that she is not linked to al-Qaeda in any way'
Ahmed was the third South African apprehended on allegations of having links with al-Qaeda.

Earlier this week Laudium doctor Feroz Ganchi and Zubair Ismail were arrested during a raid in Pakistan where they had been on a religious holiday.

The pair were captured in Islamabad with Tanzanian Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, who was allegedly involved in the bombings of US embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam in 1998.

Ahmed was stopped at McAllen Miller International Airport while trying to board a plane to New York.

Media reports in the US quoted authorities saying that Ahmed was suspected of being a high level al Qaeda operative.

When Sunday Argus visited the family in Fairland, Johannesburg yesterday, her nephew Riaz Bassa described Ahmed as a person who was not interested in politics.

"I can tell you that she is not linked to al-Qaeda in any way. I'm certain that she is not involved in politics. She is absolutely not interested (in politics)," said Bassa.

However, Bassa would not say what Ahmed was doing in the US. He said that the family had been advised by their lawyer not to give too much detail about Ahmed's visit overseas.

On Tuesday, US magistrate Dorina Ramos in McAllen ruled there was probable cause to hold Ahmed on federal charges of unlawful entry, making false statements and presenting an altered South African passport with four pages torn out. She denied bail for Ahmed.

Solomon Ortiz, a Democrat congressman from Texas, said Ahmed was on a watch list of suspected terrorists. He said his information came from "very credible" sources in the federal government.

"This lady had travelled at least 250 times, all over the place, and of course this concerned officials."

According to reports in the US, a review of Ahmed's travel papers raised concerns.

Ahmed allegedly produced a South African passport with four pages torn out, and with no US entry stamps. She reportedly later confessed to investigators that she entered the country illegally by crossing the Rio Grande River.

The SA government has issued a warning that al Qaeda militants and other terrorists travelling through Europe have obtained South African passports. It is believed that they got them from crime syndicates operating in Home Affairs.

Ahmed is expected to appear again in court within the next 30 days when a decision will be made whether to formally charge her.

Meanwhile, the SA, Pakistani and US foreign affairs departments all claimed to be in the dark about the activities of Ganchi and Ismail who were arrested in Karachi.

Representatives of the three governments said they would not comment until Pakistan intelligence agencies had completed their investigations.

Anil Sooklal, the deputy director-general for Middle East and Asia in the department of foreign affairs, said the government knew nothing of Ganchi and Ismail's activities other than what their families had told them - that they were on a hiking holiday in Pakistan and so had been given tourist visas.

Asked whether SA would ask Pakistan or the US to hand over the men, Sooklal said that SA would comply fully with the UN anti-terrorism resolution.

Javed Khattak, first secretary at the Pakistan high commission in Pretoria, said his government's announcement that Ghailani had been caught with Feroz and Ismail made "the case more serious".

This article was originally published on page 6 of Sunday Argus on August 01, 2004

[angelize56]

It's people like her who will end up killing more innocent Americans! Interesting also about the newest threat to NY is supposed to be from terrorists sneaking across the Mexican border into the US! That warning was issued today and in my US threat thread.

[Wino]

Angel, this is getting to be a very interesting story. There was another report that stated the lady was held for three days in a room with no bed or facilities and her requests for a lawyer were denied, I still do not care how she was treated as long as they get to the bottom of her story, which has a strong rotten fish smell to it as of now.

Tom Ridge to have news conference shortly according to Fox 'News'

[angelize56]

That conference I bet is about the threat to NY specifically Manhattan I heard this morning. Something about terrorists coming in from Mexico illegally and using trucks as suicide bombs!

[Wino]

If it had not been for one lone, suspicious, on the job and inquisitive Border Patrol Agent, this lady would be in NY right now. As they say, 'we have to be right all the time, they only have to be right once'!

[angelize56]

Here's some more Wino!

TERRORISTS DON'T STOP AT THE RIO GRANDE
By Michelle Malkin July 28, 2004 04:39 PM

Ok, all you open-borders Pollyannas on both the left and right. Here is yet another example of terrorists traipsing across our southern border that you will no doubt ignore.

Meet Farida Goolam Mohamed Ahmed. Federal News Radio reports:

She was stopped at McAllen Miller International Airport on July 19 headed to New York.

Eddie Flores of the U.S. Border Patrol office in McAllen, Texas tells FederalNewsRadio.com that a review of her papers raised some concerns.

"In looking at her documents, they did not find any entry documents in her passport where she was legally admitted into the United States," says Flores.

Ahmed produced a South African passport to the agents with four pages torn out, and with no U.S. entry stamps. Ahmed reportedly later confessed to investigators that she entered the country illegally by crossing the Rio Grande River. Ahmed was carrying travel itineraries showing a July 8 flight from Johannesburg, South Africa to London. Six days later, Ahmed traveled from London to Mexico City before attempting to travel from McAllen to New York.

Government sources tell FederalNewsRadio.com that capturing this woman could be comparable to the arrest of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of 9/11. It was revealed in court Tuesday that she was on a watch list and had entered the U.S. possibly as many as 250 times.

Meanwhile, the Tombstone Tumbleweed reports "that a flood of middle-eastern males have been caught entering the country illegally east of Douglas, Arizona. The increased patrols in the Huachuca Mountains area of Cochise County, seems to have diverted the flow of OTM’s, “other than Mexicans” east to the Chiricahua Mountains." While a Border Patrol information officer publicly denied the reports, another agent told the publication that "the men were suspected to be Iranian or possibly Syrian nationals."

In justifying his support for a massive amnesty plan that would reward millions of illegal aliens who entered our country as Farida Goolam Mohamed Ahmed did, President Bush has said "family values don't stop at the Rio Grande."

Yes, well, neither do the Islamofascists.

Update: While we're on the subject of suspected female al Qaeda operatives, has anyone seen Aafia Siddiqi? Newsweek reported recently:

Documents show that while trying to trace a tangled money trail beginning with the Saudi Embassy, [terrorism] investigators soon drew startling connections between a group of Saudi nationals receiving financial support from the embassy and a 34-year-old microbiologist and MIT graduate who officials have since concluded was a U.S. operative for 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.

The microbiologist, Aafia Siddiqui, a mother of three young children, has since fled the country—most likely to her native Pakistan-and is now wanted for questioning by the FBI. But “suspicious-activity reports” (SARS) filed by Fleet Bank with the U.S. Treasury Department, suggest that Siddiqui and her estranged husband, Dr. Mohammed Amjad Khan, an anesthesiologist, may have been active terror plotters inside the country until as late as the summer of 2002.

The reports show that Fleet Bank investigators discovered that one account used by the Boston-area couple showed repeated debit-card purchases from stores that “specialize in high-tech military equipment and apparel,” including Black Hawk Industries in Chesapeake, Va., and Brigade Quartermasters in Georgia. (Black Hawk’s Web site, advertises grips, mounts and parts for AK-47s and other military-assault rifles as well as highly specialized combat clothing, including vests designed for bomb disposal.)

Fleet accounts associated with the couple also showed “major purchases” from U.S. airlines and hotels in Pittsburgh and North Carolina as well as an $8,000 international wire transfer on Dec. 21, 2001, to Habib Bank Ltd., a big Pakistani financial institution that has long been scrutinized by U.S. intelligence officials monitoring terrorist money flows.

NEWSWEEK first reported, in a June 23, 2003, cover story, that the FBI had identified Siddiqui and Khan as suspected Al Qaeda agents. Internal FBI documents showed that, after his capture in March 2003, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed told U.S. interrogators that Siddiqui was supposed to support “other AQ operatives as they entered the United States.” Agents also found evidence that she had rented a post-office box to help another Baltimore-based Al Qaeda contact who had been assigned by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed to blow up underground gasoline-storage tanks. Bureau documents also stated that Khan, Siddiqui’s husband, had purchased body armor, night-vision goggles and a variety of military manuals that were supposed to be sent to Pakistan.

Al-Qaida militants and other terrorists traveling through Europe have obtained South African passports, and authorities believe they got them from crime syndicates operating inside the government agency that issues the documents.

[Wino]

Well, it's time for GWB to tell V. Fox to 'stuff it!' ala Mrs. Kerry. GWB's Compassionate concern for illegals and open border policy is going to bite him (and us) in the butt! I'm all for a new 'Berlin Wall' or 'Israel Wall of Shame' on both north and south borders of the USA. Put all international air travelers thru one port (I don't care where they are coming from or whether they are US citizens or not) - it's time to take this seriously!

[angelize56]

That was "shove it!"

And yes....the government better start taking things regarding the security of our nation a bit more seriously! They found out the latest terror threats on a pc in Pakistan....and apparently those terrorists have been walking about freely in the buildings mentioned in the US alert for several years undetected and I'm sure they have a nice plan in effect by now! Let's hope it's not too late! Have a nice day Wino!

[Wino]

By Michelle Malkin · July 28, 2004 04:39 PM
Ok, all you open-borders Pollyannas on both the left and right. Here is yet another example of terrorists traipsing across our southern border that you will no doubt ignore.

Meet Farida Goolam Mohamed Ahmed. Federal News Radio reports:

She was stopped at McAllen Miller International Airport on July 19 headed to New York. Eddie Flores of the U.S. Border Patrol office in McAllen, Texas tells FederalNewsRadio.com that a review of her papers raised some concerns.

"In looking at her documents, they did not find any entry documents in her passport where she was legally admitted into the United States," says Flores.

Ahmed produced a South African passport to the agents with four pages torn out, and with no U.S. entry stamps. Ahmed reportedly later confessed to investigators that she entered the country illegally by crossing the Rio Grande River. Ahmed was carrying travel itineraries showing a July 8 flight from Johannesburg, South Africa to London. Six days later, Ahmed traveled from London to Mexico City before attempting to travel from McAllen to New York.

Government sources tell FederalNewsRadio.com that capturing this woman could be comparable to the arrest of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of 9/11. It was revealed in court Tuesday that she was on a watch list and had entered the U.S. possibly as many as 250 times.


Meanwhile, the Tombstone Tumbleweed reports "that a flood of middle-eastern males have been caught entering the country illegally east of Douglas, Arizona. The increased patrols in the Huachuca Mountains area of Cochise County, seems to have diverted the flow of OTM’s, “other than Mexicans” east to the Chiricahua Mountains." While a Border Patrol information officer publicly denied the reports, another agent told the publication that "the men were suspected to be Iranian or possibly Syrian nationals."

In justifying his support for a massive amnesty plan that would reward millions of illegal aliens who entered our country as Farida Goolam Mohamed Ahmed did, President Bush has said "family values don't stop at the Rio Grande."

Yes, well, neither do the Islamofascists.

[Wino]

May be they will listen to one of their own, doubt it, but we can always hope!

John McCaslin (archive)
August 18, 2004

Capitol Hill's top watchdog on illegal immigration, Rep. Tom Tancredo, is not a happy camper these days.

"I guess al-Qaida wants to fill a few jobs no American will take," said the Colorado Republican, reacting to word that an al-Qaida suspect crossed the Mexican border into the United States as thousands of other illegal aliens do every month.

Farida Goolam Mohamed Ahmed, a woman reported to have close ties to al-Qaida, was arrested in McAllen, Texas. She'd flown from London to Mexico City, then entered the United States by crossing the Rio Grande. Reports said she was on a "watch list" and possibly entered the United States as many as 250 times in the past.

"Is it going to take another September 11 to get our leaders in Washington to wake up and start minding the store?" wondered Tancredo, chairman of the House Immigration Reform Caucus.

If illegal immigrants aren't enough to worry about, the congressman has now sent a letter to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. In it he asks what safeguards exist to ensure that none of the 11,000 Muslims legally eligible for refugee status will turn out to be the next Yassin Aref, one of the two men recently detained after reportedly attempting to obtain shoulder-fired missiles as part of a terrorist plot.

"To hear reports about anyone being granted unconditional citizenship . . . is troubling to say the least," writes. Tancredo. "How can we sleep at night not knowing that our government isn't doing everything possible to prevent another terrorist attack on our own soil?"

[lighthouse]

Finding terror plans on a PC in Pakistan? - Somone in the UK found security stuff on a laptop left on the tube in London a couple of years back.