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Literature Discussion - Lit-Talk.com
1999 - Pre-2001 – Escalation to Disaster
Part 2
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See Chris Cobar Article List at bottom of page.
Why We Should Expect Another 9/11
Article #13 –
1999-Pre-2001 – Escalation to Disaster - Part 2
By
Chris Cobar
The East African Embassies Bombings in August, 1998 finally caught the attention of Washington. The federal government actually figured out that somebody or some bodies were out the get them. It only took them 5 years to figure it out, but what the hell; nobody’s perfect.
For those of you who have not seen the earlier articles, I will give you a short recap of my personal experience vis a vis the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) in the Muslim Philippines.
November, 1993 At the request of the FBI, my Muslim Prince
and I began to investigate the ASG.
16 December 1994 I submitted to the FBI, on behalf of the Prince
Datu, our offer for dismantling the ASG.
1 November 1995 The US State Department informed me that
the ASG was an “internal” Filipino problem.
15 April 1996 The FBI, ignoring the offer, informed me that I had given them nothing that would fall under their jurisdiction.
8 October 1997 The US State Department designated the ASG a “foreign terrorist group.”
From the time that the FBI initially contacted me regarding the ASG, it took Uncle Sam almost four years to get around to classifying the Abu Sayyaf as a foreign terrorist group, despite repeated kidnappings of American citizens.
Naively, after the State Department made their announcement about the ASG, the Prince and I waited to be contacted and have our offer accepted. It never happened. Perhaps they were unfamiliar with foreign potentates offering assistance and didn’t have any manuals which covered the situation. Whatever the case, it remained all quiet on the eastern front.
The East African Embassies Bombings brought everyone into the spotlight. The gloves were off. This was war:
26 May 1998 Bin Laden held a press conference and promised “to
bring the war to America.”
And
“New terrorist actions would happen within ‘weeks’.”
6 August 1998 The day before the Embassies Bombings, Ayman Al-
Zawahiri of Egyptian Jihad and bin Laden’s'’ No. 2 man, announced that they would soon deliver a message to the Americans:
“which we hope they read with care, because we will write it, with God’s help, in a language they will understand.”
We didn’t have to wait long. The following day, the American Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania were bombed between 10:30AM – 10:40AM local time. A total of 224 people were killed and over 4,500 wounded. The message had been delivered, loud and clear.
1998 ended without further incident.
1999 began without incident. However, bin Laden and his boys were really ready to ring in the new Christian Millennium with a really big bang:
12 November 1999 Rockets were fired at US/UN facilities in
Islamabad, Pakistan.
30 November - Jordanians arrested 15 Al-Qaeda terrorists,
5 December 1999 attempting to bomb the SAS Radisson Hotel
and various religious sites near Mt. Nebo in Israel.
14 December 1999 U.S. arrested an Algerian resident, Ahmed
Hassan, of Montreal, Quebec, Canada, while
trying to cross the border from British
Columbia to Washington State with radio-controlled detonators and over 100 lbs. of explosives.
19 December 1999 Lucia Garofalo and Bouabide Chamchi,
suspected terrorists, were arrested at the Canadian-Vermont border.
19 December 1999 Pakistan arrested 200+ suspected terrorists, who were plotting millennial attacks against American nationals.
The above are the recorded attempted attacks. I have no idea if there were others that somehow didn’t make it into the news. We got lucky – repeatedly. The other side didn’t get lucky – this once.
The long border between Canada and America was extremely porous. It was only our guys/gals out on the streets that protected us from major disasters.
Everything was geared for the 2000 millennial festivities.
In the next article, we will address the pre 9/11 events, those that were not recorded in the press. It was situation normal – nobody cared.
Until then,
Chris Cobar
Thanks for your comments, please keep them coming –
Chris Cobar: rajamuda001@aol.com
Please visit my new blog, www.terrorlog.com
P.S. For those of you who want more than a snappy synopsis of the whys and wherefores of 9/11, I refer you to www.intelwire.com. It is managed by a good friend, John Berger. He is a certified terrorist consultant, who documents his colons and commas. If it's there, you can take it to the bank.
