Mossad official says Bin Laden is targeting Diaspora

cerulean · 05-22-2002, 08:52 PM

May. 23, 2002
Mossad official says Bin Laden is targeting Diaspora
By ITIM

"Y," a senior Mossad official, warned yesterday that the most serious security threat to Jewish communities in the Diaspora today comes from Osama bin Laden's "World Jihad" organization.

He told the Jewish Agency's Forum on Zionist Thought that Islamist extremists who have been arrested in Europe have told investigators Bin Laden's organization plans attacks on Jewish communities like the attack on the synagogue in Djerba, Tunisia, where 16 people were killed on April 11.

"Y" said that Bin Laden is determined to implement the religious ruling he quoted in 1998, when he spoke of the need to "fight crusaders, Jews, and supporters of the US."

http://www.jpost.com/NASApp/cs/Conte...=1021813230372

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My note: recall that the Al-Qaeda terrorist who was arrested at the Canadian/Washington state border in late 1999 has described plans to plant bombs in Montreal's Jewish community.

kauffner · 05-22-2002, 10:33 PM

IMO, Bin Laden is almost certainly dead. No one has heard from him since early December. I suppose some his former followers are still around and the group may still thrash around a bit like a snake after its head is cut off. But the "Bin Laden organization" is a thing of the past. His followers are now reduced to splicing together old videotape and sending them out to keep his memory alive, like record companies periodically releasing the old Beatles' material in their vaults.

elke · 05-23-2002, 04:57 AM

Originally posted by kauffner
IMO, Bin Laden is almost certainly dead. No one has heard from him since early December. I suppose some his former followers are still around and the group may still thrash around a bit like a snake after its head is cut off. But the "Bin Laden organization" is a thing of the past. His followers are now reduced to splicing together old videotape and sending them out to keep his memory alive, like record companies periodically releasing the old Beatles' material in their vaults.

I agree! However, with the help of Neo-Nazis and other flakes inside the Diaspora, we may well be in for some serious trouble.

We used to get regular bomb threats at the synagogue I attended in Chicago area, and that was in the '80s!

**Mediocrates** · 05-23-2002, 06:26 AM

Oy! Pursued by Cossacks, again? Mebbe this time they rape the cattle und steal the vimmin!

Vic · 05-23-2002, 06:37 AM

I wonder whether it is just another clumsy move to step up the aliyah.

cerulean · 05-23-2002, 06:48 AM

Originally posted by Vic
I wonder whether it is just another clumsy move to step up the aliyah.

I saw a speech by Sharon in which he stated he wanted a million more immigrants over the next ten to fifteen years. That seems like a high number.

Unfortunately, I suspect there is some validity to this warning (just like the other warnings about possible attacks on apartment buildings and landmarks), but I don't know what one can do about it.

**Mediocrates** · 05-23-2002, 06:59 AM

Threats are like oxygen. Although as a matter of public policy, just like the State department maintains a list of places it is not recommended that Americans travel, a general sense of threats against Jews world wide is not necessarily a bad thing. For example I have family members who put off spending their tourist dollars in Europe this spring for precisely that reason. Why ask for trouble if you can instead go somewhere else where they don't particularly care about the name of your God or the color of your passport.

Vic · 05-23-2002, 07:04 AM

Originally posted by cerulean

I saw a speech by Sharon in which he stated he wanted a million more immigrants over the next ten to fifteen years. That seems like a high number.

Btw. - he didn't offer ideas on how to put this in practice. Is he going to build housing for 100000 immigrants a year?

Unfortunately, I suspect there is some validity to this warning (just like the other warnings about possible attacks on apartment buildings and landmarks), but I don't know what one can do about it.

Which starts me musing on what can be accomplished by such attacks. 9/11 was, if anything, a spectacular event, a demonstration of power. But Djerba is already all but forgotten. Who cares about the destruction of Jewish institutions and attacks on individual Jews? After some time, this won't even make headlines.