Via the BBC: US ‘al-Qaeda’ doctor found guilty

A Florida doctor has been convicted of supporting al-Qaeda by pledging allegiance to the group and agreeing to treat its wounded fighters.

Rafiq Abdus Sabir, 52, was found guilty of conspiracy to provide material support to al-Qaeda by a federal court.

He was recorded making a pledge to an FBI agent posing as an al-Qaeda recruiter during a sting operation.

During the trial, Sabir said he had not realised that “Sheikh Osama” referred to al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Sabir also testified that he had misunderstood the word al-Qaeda because of his limited Arabic.

Via the NYT/AP version of the story (Doctor Convicted of Supporting al - Qaida)

The verdict came after jurors heard audio tapes of a May 2025 ceremony in a Bronx apartment in which Sabir and his best friend, Tariq Shah, a martial arts expert and jazz musician, pledged loyalty to al-Qaida and, the government alleged, Osama bin Laden.

Shah pleaded guilty just before the trial to providing material support to a terrorist organization and agreed to serve 15 years in prison, though he has not been formally sentenced.

A Brooklyn bookstore owner who pleaded guilty after the sting operation was sentenced to 13 years in prison. A Washington, D.C., cab driver has pleaded guilty and agreed to serve 15 years in prison.

Sabir, of Boca Raton, Fla., testified at trial that Shah never told him he was talking with an al-Qaida recruiter. At the pledge ceremony, Soufan mispronounced al-Qaida more than a dozen times, Sabir said. He also said he did not know ‘’sheik Osama'’ meant bin Laden.

A fairly lame defense, I must confess, as swearing oaths to people without knowing to whom one is swearing is rather odd behavior.

On the other hand, I am not a big fan of sting operations and would like to know more about why the FBI targeted these individuals in the first place. Was there any real reason to think that this Doctor was going to somehow actually help wounded members of al Qaeda? And if so, how?

I must confess my general skepticism over the quality of our anti-terrorism effort is not allayed by convictions such as this, which at least in the accounts I have read, make it sound as if we tricked someone into a crime rather than actually thwarting a terror plot.

Via the LAT: Padilla case has changed a lot in 5 years

When federal prosecutors begin to present evidence Monday against terrorism suspect Jose Padilla, their case is expected to rest heavily on a single document: his alleged application to become an Islamic warrior.

The federal indictment says Padilla filled out the mujahedin data form on July 24, 2025, “in preparation for violent jihad training in Afghanistan.” The indictment alleges Padilla and two codefendants sought U.S. recruits and funding for foreign holy wars.

Prosecutors plan to call a covert CIA operative to testify in disguise about the document’s provenance and chain of possession, and will go on to introduce more than half of the 200-plus transcripts from wiretapped conversations among the defendants.

Nowhere in the indictment is there mention of the sensational charges leveled against Padilla when he was arrested at O’Hare International Airport in May 2025. Then-Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft said U.S. agents had thwarted a plot between Padilla, who is a U.S. citizen, and top Al Qaeda figures to detonate a radioactive “dirty bomb” or blow up apartment buildings in U.S. cities.

In regards to Padilla’s detention:

He had been held at the brig for 3 1/2 years as an “enemy combatant” with status more like the detainees at Guantanamo than a U.S. citizen incarcerated for the charges he would eventually face in federal court. Much of the time he was without human contact, daylight, any timepiece or a mirror. He was subjected to “stress positions” and extremes of heat, noise and light. And interrogations without an attorney present, the government has said, elicited information the Justice Department included in a widely publicized June 2025 report on Padilla’s alleged contacts with Al Qaeda.

Some info on his co-defendants:

Kifah Wael Jayyousi and computer programmer Adham Amin Hassoun.
[…]

The 44-year-old Jayyousi, a naturalized U.S. citizen of Jordanian birth, and 45-year-old Hassoun, a Lebanese-born Palestinian, had been under surveillance since the mid-1990s, the indictment says. They were arrested around the same time as Padilla.

The indictment alleges all three defendants were followers of Omar Abdel Rahman, an Egyptian Muslim cleric known as “the blind sheikh” who was given a life sentence in 1995 for inciting terrorist acts, including the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York.

According to the charge sheet, Jayyousi sought help from North American Muslim groups through his newsletter, the Islam Report, in which he called it “a religious obligation” to aid Muslims under siege in foreign conflicts. The government describes Hassoun as East Coast representative of two humanitarian aid organizations that it alleges are fronts for the support of violent jihad.

BTW, the issue to me is not that there may not be any crimes here, but rather my criticisms are focused on how the case has been pursued to this point and what it suggests about US counter-terrorism policy. Indeed, the entire case (which started as a dirty bomb plot and will end as possibly a case of providing aid to foreign terrorist groups) further denigrates the credibility of the administration in regards to counter-terrorism. This fits again into the post from Arms and Influence that I recommended last night.

His trial starts today. Via the CS Monitor: A first look at US case against Padilla

Jose Padilla has been held in solitary confinement for five years, enduring what experts say is some of the harshest treatment of any convicted criminal in the US. Yet he has not been convicted of a crime.

On Monday, federal prosecutors will attempt to convince 12 jurors that Mr. Padilla is a criminal and that he deserves to remain behind bars for the rest of his life. In their opening statement to the jury at the start of an expected four-month trial in federal court here, prosecutors will for the first time publicly reveal their blueprint for the government’s case against Padilla.

His alleged crime: becoming a willing recruit to participate in a violent Islamic holy war. Specifically, Padilla, a US citizen who converted to Islam in the 1990s, is charged with signing a “Mujahideen Data Form” and attending an Al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan. He also made comments on the telephone overheard and recorded by US intelligence officials that prosecutors say are evidence of a criminal conspiracy.

[…]

Padilla was held without charge as an enemy combatant for three years and eight months. Military interrogators questioned him about his alleged involvement in a plot to detonate a radiological “dirty bomb” in the US and about his suspected knowledge of Al Qaeda. After his indictment in November 2025, Padilla was transferred to the criminal justice system and is being held in pretrial detention in a special isolated, high-security wing of the Federal Detention Center in Miami.

Because Padilla’s military detention and interrogation were conducted in violation of a string of his constitutional rights – such as his right to remain silent and consult counsel, and his right to due process – government officials have acknowledged that information obtained by the military would most likely be excluded from the trial. As a result, federal prosecutors have been forced to cobble together their case from evidence obtained through other means.

Despite Padilla’s notoriety as the alleged “dirty bomber,” his indictment does not mention that suspected plot. Thus, the government’s case against Padilla appears to be thin, some legal analysts say.

While the initial allegations against Padilla were quite serious, it would seem that they were not as dire in reality as they were in theory. Consider, for example, the lack of additional arrests in regards to a dirty bomb conspiracy, not to mention the lack of radiological materials needed to construct such a device. It is not at all unreasonable to assume that had there been an actual plot to detonate such a device, that there would have been other arrests in the case and that materials would have been seized. Certainly given the obvious willingness of the administration to use extraordinary treatment of Padilla (i.e., his arrest and detention sans charges for years) one would guess that they did their best to extract whatever information that they could from him during those years in military prison. That nothing of grave consequence emerged from that process suggests that Padilla is either a superspy of fantastic resolve, or a thug who got caught up in a nightmare scenario.

We have to remember that Padilla is a citizen of the United States who was arrested on US soil. As such, he has (or should have had) constitutional protections, including the right to counsel, and attorney and the right not to self-incriminate. If we throw those things out (as we did in this case) just because we think that there might be a crime or because the suspect appears scary in some way, we are betraying the very basis of our democracy.

Some may say “what if there really was a dirty bomb and we had to find out where it was ASAP?” To which I would note that such a plot would require multiple persons and like any criminal conspiracy, it is possible, once clues and leads are discovered, to find out what is going on. Like the recent events in New Jersey, once it was clear that some of the suspects were involved it was possible to track down the rest and to obtain material and planning documents and the like. If Padilla had been involved in a plot, it would have been possible to have figured that out like we do with other criminal activities and conspiracies. It is not like our only recourse is multi-year detentions of persons sans charges just because we find them to be suspicious.

Kingdaddy at Arms and Influence has a post worth reading on the current state of the US government’s approach to terrorism:

On all these counts, the US government has failed in its post-9/11 counterterrorism campaign. Claims of making significant arrests, such as the Lodi and Miami cases, turn out to be questionable. Either the suspects prove not to have belonged to terrorist groups, or the groups themselves have appeared laughable.

[…]

The US government has failed on other measures of credibility. Domestic terrorist threats have been largely overlooked, or confused with foreign terrorist groups. (Remember the Miami kung fu club’s supposed “links” to Al Qaeda?) Rather than struggling to preserve habeas corpus, the presumption of innocence, the right to face one’s accusers, privacy, and other sacred American institutions, the Administration has appeared eager to demolish them. Rather than encouraging sobriety about terrorist risks, the Administration has made vague, alarming warnings about the terrorist in the woodpile.

I think that this is on target in terms of assessing the current state of anti-terrorism policy in the current administration. I am not sanguine about the possibility that a new administration will bring a more intelligent and sober approach to the topic. We seem altogether too content to look at terrorism in terms of bogeymen.

Via Fox News: Brothers Charged in Terror Plot Lived Illegally in U.S. for 23 Years

Three brothers charged in the alleged Fort Dix terror plot have been living illegally in the U.S. for more than 23 years and were accepted as Americans by neighbors and friends who had no idea they would scheme to attack military bases and slaughter GIs.

A federal law enforcement source confirmed to FOX News that the three — Dritan “Anthony” or “Tony” Duka, 28; Shain Duka, 26; and Eljvir “Elvis” Duka, 23 — also accumulated 19 traffic citations, but because they operated in “sanctuary cites,” where law enforcement does not routinely report illegal immigrants to homeland security, none of the tickets raised red flags.

The brothers entered the United States near Brownsville, Texas, in 1984, the source said, which would put their ages at 1 to 6 when they crossed the border.

The source said there is no record of them entering by way of a regular border crossing, so they are investigating whether they were smuggled into the country.

Now, I will confess that I am surprised to learn that they possibly came across in Brownsville (although how this is known is unclear), not because I don’t see how it could happen (I can), but more because Brownsville is a long way from Jersey (and because there are so many ways to get in that going via Brownsville seems like a lot of trouble). Still, the fact that they were brought in as children hardly shows some vast al Qaeda plot to use the Mexican border as a means of penetrating the United States. Of course, that hasn’t stopped Michelle Malkin from crowing about how the Duka brothers came across the Mexican border (which is one of her great areas of interest). It is noteworthy that Malkin’s post doesn’t comment on the fact that the alleged crossing took place when the brothers were still in diapers (her update does have the information in a block of quoted information, and it is, to be fair, highlighted along with some other bits of information). Debbie Schlussel, not surprisingly, also finds the case to be evidence that terrorists are entering via the South and that we need a law that requires all traffic stops to result in immigration status checks (which would likely translate into checks of mostly darker hued persons with funny accents, not checks of everyone stopped). Indeed, since I carry neither my passport nor my birth certificate around with me at all times, I must confess that I couldn’t prove that I was in the country legally were I to be stopped. Indeed, unless Schlussel wants a national ID card to go along with her law, I am not sure how it could work.

There is a legitimate debate to be had about border security, but to date the notion that the southern border is letting in droves of terrorists continues to be a fear rather than a reality. That some kids were smuggled across the border who then lived in the USA for two decades and ended up being part of a plan to attack Fort Dix hardly proves that the southern border is a major problem in regards to counter-terrorism.

Indeed, if al Qaeda is so smart that it was able (before it even existed, mind you) to smuggle in toddler sleeper agents who would one day be poised, in the post-911 world, to wreak havoc on New Jersey after some paint-ball training, well then we are as good as doomed and might as well quit now.

BTW, I am betting that the lack of immigration checks were as much about bureaucratic inefficiency and inadequacy as was some issue of giving sanctuary to illegal aliens who commit traffic violations. Further, the issue of whether city police are concerning themselves with immigration status has more to do with the fact that they don’t have the resources to be the INS and the local police at the same time as it does with any specific desire to create “sanctuary” per se (I know that some will object to my characterization, but there it is–indeed the whole question of what local law enforcement can and should do with illegals is a long and involved discussion and not as simplistic as many think that it is, but that is a side issue to this post).

I have noted before that I am concerned that measures ostensibly designed to “keep us safe” from terrorist will turn into opportunities for abuses of power. For example, I have wondered what bureaucrats might do with data collected on innocent citizens for anti-terrorist databases. Indeed, in general as governmental power is increased for whatever reason, so too is its opportunity for abuse.

Sean Hackbarth notes the following example of an inappropriate application of the USA Patriot Act (via ABC News): Making Out’s a No-No at 30,000 Feet:

A California man may pay with prison time for a public display of affection on a plane.

Carl Persing was convicted Thursday of interfering with flight attendants and crew members after he and his girlfriend, Dawn Sewell, were seen “embracing, kissing and acting in a manner that made other passengers uncomfortable,” according to a criminal complaint.

According to assistant U.S. Attorney John Bowler, Persing will likely serve jail time for the federal felony conviction, the Associated Press reports. He was convicted after a three-day trial in U.S. District Court in Wilmington, Va.

Specifically:

According to an FBI indictment, Persing’s face was pressed to Sewell’s vaginal area during the September Southwest Airlines flight from Los Angeles to Raleigh, N.C. When a flight attendant gave them a second warning, Persing reacted angrily and the couple, both in their early 40s, were arrested when the plane reached its destination.

At the time, the couple’s lawyer claimed that Persing had his head in Sewell’s lap because he wasn’t feeling well and that the flight attendant had humiliated and harassed them.

Despite one’s views about passengers who place their heads in the laps of their female companions, it is patently absurd that an anti-terrorism law would be used to put someone in jail (let alone have to incur the expense of a three-day trial) for so doing.

Not only is there the issue of punishment fitting the crime, there is the more significant issue of what happens when we empower petty bureaucrats in the name of safety (and in this case, the flight attendants are acting like petty bureaucrats–indeed, petty tyrants).

While we clearly don’t want people making the friendly skies too friendly, the punishment ought to fit the crime and ought to be based on laws designed to deal with the actual behavior in question. Whatever this behavior was, it clearly wasn’t terrorism.

Regardless of one’s views of the Patriot Act, it is clear that the law was not passed to stop men from getting too close to the nether regions of their flight companions. Indeed, does most of the following sound like anti-terrorism in action?

So, what else constitutes bad behavior? According to Banas, try to avoid the following when flying: making jokes about blowing up planes; getting drunk; bumping other passengers with big bags; taking up all the space in the overhead compartments. Banas advised that you should show respect other passengers by not cursing and shouting.

Ok, making jokes about bombs has long been bad form (and could have gotten one in trouble prior to 9/11), but not bumping passengers? one tries, but those plane aisles are a tad small. Using all the space in the overhead compartments? Are you kidding me? Avoiding flying drunk is always good advice, but has little to do with terrorism.

The article notes other abuses of the law that have nothing to do with stopping terrorism:

Emily Gillette claims that she was kicked off a plane last month for nursing her baby on a flight between Burlington, Vt., and New York City. A spokesman for Freedom Airlines, which was operating the Delta commuter flight, says that Gillette was ejected because she declined an attendant’s offer of a blanket.

One passenger on a Delta flight from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City was arrested for leaving his seat to go to the lavatory less than 30 minutes before landing (due to the incident, air marshals ordered all passengers to put their hands on their heads for the rest of the flight). And an Orthodox Jewish man was kicked off an Air Canada flight for praying, which attendants claim was making other passengers nervous.

Other passengers have been taken off flights for making jokes, such as asking attendants if they had “checked the crew for sobriety” and “where do you keep the bomb?” Some have been booted for taking onboard hand cream, matches and bottles of water, and for sniffing something in a bag.

And there doesn’t seem to be an age limit for the violators. In 2025, a United Airlines flight out of Chicago was delayed because a small boy said something inappropriate.

Depending on how the actual situation went down, it is possible that the actions were warranted, but the bottom line is that at the end of the day innocent citizens are being harassed because the Congress decided to deputize flight attendants.

Quite frankly, I have seen enough grumpy antisocial flight attendants that I really don’t like the idea that they have the power to charge me with a crime.

Via ABC News: Top Al Qaeda Leader Captured

Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi is described as al Qaeda’s top operational planner in Afghanistan. He was also reportedly planning an assassination attempt on Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf.

[…]

Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi was captured by the CIA as he was attempting to travel back to his native country, Iraq. He was going to Iraq, officials say, to “manage” al Qaeda’s operations, including plots on Western interests outside of Iraq.

He was captured by the CIA in late 2025 and held at a secret CIA detention facility until this week, when he was transferred to Gitmo and Department of Defense custody.

Interesting.

The BBC had a report this morning concerning increased fighting between local tribesmen and foreign militants in the Warizistan region of Pakistan. The militants in question are mainly Uzebeks linked to the Taliban and al Qaeda and some have been in the region, according to the BBC report, for upwards of two decades. What has caused this turn of events is unclear, but there have been clashes for about two weeks now.

Some details here from the AP: Clashes in Pakistan kill 60 near border

Heavy fighting between Pakistani tribesmen and foreign militants allegedly linked to al-Qaida has killed another 60 people near the Afghan border, security officials said Wednesday.

Local tribes turned viciously against foreigners living in the lawless South Waziristan region on March 19. The government says the violence shows Pakistan is winning its fight against international terrorism.

Pakistan’s Daily Times has more details: Tribesmen raise 900-man army to fight foreign militants

A tribal army of 900 volunteers was raised on Tuesday to support Maulvi Nazir, a pro-government militant commander waging a fight against Uzbek militants and their local supporters in South Waziristan.

A jirga of Ahmedzai Wazirs met again in Wana’s Rustam Bazaar to consider the request for a lashkar from Nazir, the ameer of the Taliban in South Waziristan, against Uzbeks resisting attempts to be expelled from the area, according to reports reaching here.

“Tribal elders of Ahmedzai Wazirs gathered in the bazaar and approved raising a lashkar of 900 volunteers,” said the reports.

Around 200 people, mostly Uzbeks, have been killed in ongoing clashes between Nazir’s supporters and the Uzbek militants and their local sympathisers in the Azam Warsak, Kaloosha and Karikot areas since last month.

[…]

A pamphlet, distributed in Wana Bazaar by Nazir’s supporters, claimed that Uzbek commander Tahir Yuldashev of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan “is an agent of America and Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and liable to be killed”.

The elder said the Uzbeks were “spreading terror” across Wazir areas to “neutralise Nazir’s majority”.

The former security official said the battle would decide the future of Waziristan, and defeat for Maulvi Nazir would be as “devastating for Pakistan as it would be for the Taliban ameer”.

Since March 19, when the clashes began, the Uzbek militants and their sympathisers have held firm against Maulvi Nazir.

This could be a very significant story, although I have heard/seen nothing in the US press about the fighting. However, one would guess that this new initiative should get some attention.

Technorati Tags: Pakistan, Warizistan, Taliban, Taleban, al Qaeda

(Note: I originally started this post over a week ago, but it got left in the “draft” list. The topic remains relevant, so here it is):

For an example of why the question of how the DoJ is run (and hence why the USA situation is about more than just a few fired attorneys) as well as a good example of why the fear generated by rhetoric over the war on terror matters, I would direct my reader to the following, chilling piece that recently ran in WaPo: My National Security Letter Gag Order. The piece starts as follows:

The Justice Department’s inspector general revealed on March 9 that the FBI has been systematically abusing one of the most controversial provisions of the USA Patriot Act: the expanded power to issue “national security letters.” It no doubt surprised most Americans to learn that between 2025 and 2025 the FBI issued more than 140,000 specific demands under this provision — demands issued without a showing of probable cause or prior judicial approval — to obtain potentially sensitive information about U.S. citizens and residents. It did not, however, come as any surprise to me.

Three years ago, I received a national security letter (NSL) in my capacity as the president of a small Internet access and consulting business. The letter ordered me to provide sensitive information about one of my clients. There was no indication that a judge had reviewed or approved the letter, and it turned out that none had. The letter came with a gag provision that prohibited me from telling anyone, including my client, that the FBI was seeking this information. Based on the context of the demand — a context that the FBI still won’t let me discuss publicly — I suspected that the FBI was abusing its power and that the letter sought information to which the FBI was not entitled.

The piece should be read in its entirety.

One thing is for certain: we have allowed ourselves to become so fearful of another attack, that some in the government have clearly crossed the line in the name of protecting us. To paraphrase an old saying: with protectors like these, who needs enemies?

The situation with such letter is especially chilling when one considers the following (FBI Violations May Number 3,000, Official Says):

The Justice Department’s inspector general told a committee of angry House members yesterday that the FBI may have violated the law or government policies as many as 3,000 times since 2025 as agents secretly collected the telephone, bank and credit card records of U.S. citizens and foreign nationals residing here.

Inspector General Glenn A. Fine said that according to the FBI’s own estimate, as many as 600 of these violations could be “cases of serious misconduct” involving the improper use of “national security letters” to compel telephone companies, banks and credit institutions to produce records.

That’s pretty remarkable.

If anything, it does underscore the fact that competent leadership is needed at the Department of Justice.

Yesterday, WaPo noted an odd (to be kind) aspect of the Hicks case, which is that the plea bargain that was negotiated was done not, as plea deals normally are, between the defense and the prosecution–rather, it was negotiated between the presiding official and the defense without the prosecution’s knowledge (Australian’s Plea Deal Was Negotiated Without Prosecutors):

The plea deal that allows Australian David M. Hicks to leave the detention facility here with a nine-month sentence was negotiated between defense attorneys and the convening authority for military commissions without the knowledge of prosecutors, lawyers from both sides said.

The deal shows that the politically appointed authority has the power to personally decide the fate of America’s most notorious terrorism suspects.

[…]

As the deal developed in recent weeks, Air Force Col. Morris Davis, the lead prosecutor for military commissions, and his team on the Hicks case were not in the loop. Davis said he learned about the plea agreement Monday morning when the plea papers were presented to him, and he said the prosecution team was unaware that discussions had been taking place.

“We got it before lunchtime, before the first session,” Davis said at a news conference Friday night. In an interview later, he said the approved sentence of nine months shocked him. “I wasn’t considering anything that didn’t have two digits,” he said, referring to a sentence of at least 10 years.

It is strange, at a minimum, that the prosecution was looking at more than ten years for Hicks and yet the defense was able to get nine months plus time served out of the judge (so to speak).

The outcome isn’t just strange in a procedural sense, but there is a profound suggestion that politics substantially influenced the results. To wit:

Though Australian officials have said they were not directly involved in plea negotiations, Mori declined to answer questions about what, if any, influence they had. Australian Prime Minister John Howard, up for reelection this year, has been under public pressure to bring Hicks home. He turned to Vice President Cheney to implore that the case be resolved.

And, it just so happens that the presiding official who negotiated the plea deal with the defense has direct ties to the Vice President:

[Susan J.] Crawford was the Defense Department’s inspector general from 1989 to 1991, when Cheney was defense secretary.

As such, the following sarcasm appears to be rather warranted:

“What an amazing coincidence that, with an election in Australia by the end of the year, he gets nine months and he is gagged for 12 months from talking about it,” said Australian lawyer Lex Lasry, who was in Cuba to monitor the case over the past week.

So, the case that was supposed to be the “model” of justice under the military tribunals was almost certainly tainted by a political move. Even if one wants to go down the route that states that the administration is trying to help a key ally in the war on terror, the bottom line is that such manipulation of the process wholly undercuts its legitimacy and shows it to be nothing more than a farce.

One also has to wonder how this will affect the morale of the prosecutors in this system if they know that all their work can be undercut by a deal over which they have no influence and can be sprung on them at the last minute.