Word: reid
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...similar vein, the arrest of Padilla, for all the frightening claims that Ashcroft made for his plot, may reveal a weakness in al-Qaeda's position rather than a strength. Al-Qaeda appears to be relying on irregulars--inexperienced, unsophisticated operatives like Padilla and, for that matter, Reid--rather than the highly trained, disciplined jihadis who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks. In the view of many experts on Islamic terrorism, converts to Islam who grew up in the West sometimes lack the deep conviction of those born into the faith who grew up in its Arab heartlands...
There is nothing new about terrorist groups recruiting petty criminals like Padilla, a former Chicago gang member, or Reid, a drifter from south London. "If your goal is finding people able and willing to support or plan illegal acts," says a senior French law-enforcement official, "criminals are an obvious choice." The French should know; many of those involved in the mid-1990s wave of bombings in France orchestrated by the Armed Islamic Group were street criminals who had converted to radical Islam. Islamic terrorist leaders, says a French justice official, "go to the crook, the drug dealer, the troublemaker...
...that Padilla had no radioactive material or any other bomb-making equipment. Nor had he chosen a target, or formulated a plan. And while his connections with al-Qaeda operatives were never in doubt, he suddenly began to look a lot more like the accused shoe-bomber Richard Reid (i.e. another disaffected ex-con from the West desperate to get in with al-Qaeda) than like the sophisticated professionals who put together September...
...There are plenty of reasons to suspect that al-Qaeda keeps men like Padilla and Reid at arm's length: Ex-convicts from Western prisons are inherently unreliable as recruits, not only because of their dubious past (Bin Laden's men tend to be repressed puritans rather than penitent sinners) but also because they'd be prime candidates for recruitment by Western intelligence agencies. And because Western volunteers are generally converts, al-Qaeda would not have the community and kinship networks available to them in the Arab world to verify the credentials of men like Padilla. That would dictate that...
...pointing over September 11 that the authorities may be inclined right now to avoid taking any chances by rolling him up early. An alternative explanation might be that they already knew al Muhajir was not the tip of some organizational iceberg, but rather a solo volunteer, like shoe-bomber Reid, sent on a mission al-Qaeda could claim if it succeeded but that would cause minimal organizational damage if he was captured. Indeed, officials quoted in the U.S. media suggested that al Muhajir was on the run following the April arrest, and had believed he was escaping apprehension...