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Al Qaeda Undercover Video of New York City Led to Life Sentence
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ShareNovember 07, 2006 6:32 PM
The surveillance tape, centering on New York's Wall Street area, was made by an al Qaeda operative posing as a tourist from London five months before the 9/ll attacks.
He focuses on entrances to the New York Stock Exchange, identifying security cameras and police guards.
At a nearby home for the elderly, the camera zooms in on a Star of David.
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At one point, the camera is put on its side, apparently simulating what would happen if a plane flew into the World Trade Center towers, complete with sound effects.
The man authorities say made the tape and was planning the attacks is a 34-year-old British citizen of Indian descent, Dhiren Barot, sentenced today in London to a minimum of 40 years in prison.
"The case is that he could easily have caused hundreds, if not thousands, of deaths," said Peter Clarke, head of Scotland Yard's Anti-Terrorist Branch. "That is the way it was put to the court and has been accepted by the judge."
Security on Wall Street has vastly improved since the tape was made, but still, it was upsetting to some who watched it outside the stock exchange today.
"It makes me feel nervous. I'm actually nervous. I don't feel comfortable with it at all," said one man.
Barot also prepared elaborate blueprints for attacks on other possible targets, including the headquarters of Citicorp in New York City, which he thought he might be able to bring down using gasoline tanker trucks, "Recommendation: hijacking petrol/oil tankers and steering in."
Of another Citicorp skyscraper, a glass tower, he notes the devastating effects of a bomb, "Each piece of glass becomes a potential flying piece of cutthroat shrapnel!"
Barot also concluded he could avoid scrutiny by using stretch limousines, preferably black, not white, and filling them with explosives or gas cylinders.
All part of "a synchronized, concurrent execution on the same day and time."
Authorities found other surveillance reports on financial locations in Newark, New Jersey and Washington, D.C.
But in the end, he apparently decided security was too tight in the U.S., and his plan, when he was arrested, was to attack subways and buildings in London.
November 7, 2006 | Permalink | User Comments (3)
i think the info put out in the broadcast was way too open. he messed up, got caught, but you publicly announced all of his plans to give ideas to other terroists/wannabe's to try. way to go, Brian, way to go
Posted by: Hooper | Nov 7, 2006 8:36:46 PM
Posted by "Hoooper": "i (sic) think the info put out in the broadcast was way too open. he messed up, got caught, but you publicly announced all of his plans to give ideas to other terroists/wannabe's to try. way to go, Brian, way to go"
The last time I checked, Brian Ross can write whatever he wishes so long as his words do not incite or directly cause harm to others. It seems to me that none or very few of us had the idea to crash planes into buildings before 9/11; an isolated group of evil and perverse people invented those plans and carried them out. If Brian Ross, or any other investigative reporter for that matter, revealed the relative ease of hijacking a plane and crashing it into a building, then would we be less safer? I personally think we would be much safer if we considered all possible ways that terrorists could attack us.
Remember, the two flights that crashed into the WTC and the flight that crashed into the Pentagon were all considered hostage hijackings; the passengers had only reason to believe they would land and then be negotiated for. I seriously believe that if we, the public, were aware of attack possibilities, lives lost in the Pentagon and WTC attacks would plummet. Mr. Ross, I commend your write-up of this story. I, for one, enjoy being an informed citizen. It is like this: "If the master had known at which hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into." Since we don't know when the terrorists will strike, we must be fully aware of how they will strike.
Posted by: Andrew Elgert | Nov 9, 2006 7:27:07 PM
Yeah right...like there's no other terrorists out there who haven't figured out this crap. Everything Brian put out there is obtainable from open sources, and if you think they don't already know where to hit us where it hurts the most, then you need to lay off the reefer. Brian's a great journalist in a time when journalism is dying and if it wasn't for him we'd have never heard about the shipping container loophole. I for one am happy he's still working hard to report real threats without giving out new information to those who threaten us.
Posted by: Alex | Nov 9, 2006 8:55:05 PM
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