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This paper looks at mapping covert networks using data available from news sources on the World Wide Web. Specifically, we examine the network surrounding the tragic events of September 11th 2001. Through public data we are able to map a portion of the network centered on the 19 dead hijackers. This map gives us some insight into the terrorist organization, yet it is incomplete. Suggestions for further work and research are offered.
Contents Introduction and BackgroundData GatheringPrevention or Prosecution?Conclusion Introduction and Background We were all shocked by the tragic events of September 11, 2001. In the non-stop stream of news and analysis one phrase was continuously repeated - "terrorist network." Everyone talked about this concept, and described it as amorphous, invisible, resilient, and dispersed. But no one could produce a visual. Being a consultant and researcher in organizational networks, I set out to map this network of terrorist cells that had so affected all of our lives. My aim was to uncover network patterns that would reveal Al Qaeda's preferred methods of stealth organization. If we know what patterns of organization they prefer, we may know what to look for as we search them out in countries across the world.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai smiles while standing with Defense Minister Mohammad Qasim Fahim during the graduation of the first battalion of Afghan troops trained by U.S. special forces. (Reuters)
Washington Behind Indo-Pakistan Conflict: How American Special Forces organised the evacuation of Al Qaeda and Pakistan ISI Forces to Kashmir.
In interviews, however, American intelligence officials and high-ranking military officers said that Pakistanis were indeed flown to safety, in a series of nighttime airlifts that were approved by the Bush Administration. The Americans also said that what was supposed to be a limited evacuation apparently slipped out of control, and, as an unintended consequence, an unknown number of Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters managed to join in the exodus.the Administration ordered the United States Central Command to set up a special air corridor to help insure the safety of the Pakistani rescue flights from Kunduz to the northwest corner of Pakistan... [According to] an Indian assessment, thirtythree hundred prisoners surrendered... A few hundred Taliban were also turned over to
CIA, America's Premier International Terrorist Organizatio.htm
ClA-supported Mujahedeen rebels [now, 2001, part of the "Northern Alliance" fighting the Taleban] engaged heavily in drug trafficking while fighting against the Soviet-supported government and its plans to reform the very backward Afghan society. The Agency's principal client was Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, one of the leading druglords and a leading heroin refiner. CIA-supplied trucks and mules, which had carried arms into Afghanistan, were used to transport opium to laboratories along the Afghan/Pakistan border. The output provided up to one half of the heroin used annually in the United States and three-quarters of that used in Western Europe. U.S. officials admitted in 1990 that they had failed to investigate or take action against the drug
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MI5 foils al-Qaeda's London cyanide plot London Tube thought to be target for poison gas attackBy Neil Mackay, Home Affairs Editor
Startling revelations by French intelligence experts back David Shayler's alleged 'fantasy'about Gadaffi plot
Martin Bright, home affairs editorSunday November 10, 2002The Observer British intelligence paid large sums of money to an al-Qaeda cell in Libya in a doomed attempt to assassinate Colonel Gadaffi in 1996 and thwarted early attempts to bring Osama bin Laden to justice.
The latest claims of MI6 involvement with Libya's fearsome Islamic Fighting Group, which is connected to one of bin Laden's trusted lieutenants, will be embarrassing to the Government, which described similar claims by renegade MI5 officer David Shayler as 'pure fantasy'.
The allegations have emerged in the book Forbidden Truth , published in America by two French intelligence experts who reveal that the first Interpol arrest warrant for bin Laden was issued by Libya in March 1998.
Home Page Two News Portal Forum Stocks Weather Links TREASON IS THE REASONMYSTERY SPIES OUTED BY FBI WHISTLEBLOWER By: Justin Raimondo The US government can be compared to a woman with a horribly disfigured – indeed, a downright grotesque – face, who, nonetheless, manages to hide her increasingly ugly mug with such an array of near-miraculous cosmetics, roseate lighting, and diversionary tactics that the casual observer is fooled into beholding what he believes is a great beauty. But every once in a great while the mask slips at a moment when the lighting is cruelly revealing, and we get a glimpse of the horror that lurks beneath. In the wake of 9/11, federal law enforcement agencies have indeed been seen in a new – and especially cruel
Turkish Infiltration - Did FBI Deliberately Slow Translation October 27, 2002 184015.htm
'P2OG' allows Pentagon to fight dirtyBy David Isenberg "Run away from the light": Such might be the motto of a new, covert policy that the Bush administration is considering implementing. According to recent news reports, it would be the largest expansion into the world of black ops and covert action since the end of the Vietnam War in the 1970s. And that's saying quite a lot, considering that since Vietnam the Pentagon has not exactly been dormant in this area. As well-known military analyst William Arkin poin
Al-Qaeda steers clear of NSA's ears By John Diamond, USA TODAY WASHINGTON — The National Security Agency, the nation's eavesdropper, is having a hard time hearing al-Qaeda.
"Sadly, NSA had no (indications) that al-Qaeda was specifically targeting New York and Washington, D.C., (on Sept. 11, 2001), or even that it was planning an attack on U.S. soil," NSA Director Michael Hayden told a congressional hearing Thursday. Hayden, an Air Force lieutenant general, noted that before Sept. 11, "NSA had no knowledge ... that any of the attackers were in the United States."
The National Security Agency intelligence agency monitors phone calls, radio and TV broadcasts and other "signals" around the world. Those communications make up the bulk of all the raw information U.S. intelligence experts sift through every day.