There are a lot of articles "Inside the Ring" at the Washington Times. this is one and there is another interesting article about China's tests for theirTsatellite killers in their space warfare program.. should read.

Al Qaeda-trained Americans

Inside the Ring
By Bill Gertz
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The Washington Times
9:33 p.m., Wednesday, August 25, 2010

The FBI is working to track down several hundred American Muslims who traveled to Yemen in recent months and received training there at the hands of the al Qaeda terrorist group, according to U.S. government officials.

Intelligence reports from Yemen indicated that as many as 300 of the U.S. Islamist trainees had been given terrorist training and that many had converted to Islam while in U.S. prisons. It is not known specifically when the American al Qaeda trainees made the journey to Yemen, or — more significantly — how many of them returned to the United States, said officials familiar with U.S. counterterrorism intelligence and operations.

But the fact that so many U.S. nationals were given al Qaeda training has forced U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies to redouble efforts to try and penetrate al Qaeda networks in the United States.

"We are concerned about people going to Yemen for training," said a U.S. official, who suggested the trainees traveled in small numbers and not a large group.

The officials said the reports about the training had prompted the FBI to beef up its overseas presence in Yemen and other locations in the region as part of a renewed effort to better track potential terrorists going to Yemen.

Little is known about al Qaeda's networks inside the United States despite increased FBI resources to monitor domestic terrorists.

An FBI spokesman declined to comment.

However, U.S. intelligence officials have expressed growing worries that Western-appearing Islamists will be used in future terrorist attacks because they can more easily pass through security screening than those from the Middle East or South Asia.

U.S. counterterrorism officials said al Qaeda in Yemen has emerged in recent months as the most dangerous wing of al Qaeda. The clandestine Islamist group, headed by Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri and once based in Afghanistan, has undergone an evolution that now puts Yemen as its main base of operations and support.
According to the officials, al Qaeda terrorists were driven out of Afghanistan beginning in 2001 and many remain in Pakistan's tribal regions.

However, large numbers of al Qaeda members moved to Iraq after the 2003 U.S. invasion and many were killed there by U.S. forces.

In recent years, al Qaeda began moving in significant numbers to Saudi Arabia, where they found financial and ideological supporters within the oil-rich kingdom. However, Saudi authorities launched a major crackdown on al Qaeda following the failed assassination attempt in August 2009 against Prince Mohammed Bin Nayef, head of Saudi Arabia's counterterrorism operations. An al Qaeda suicide bomber blew himself up near the prince after getting through security by hiding the bomb and detonator in his rectum.

The crackdown drove the terrorists, known formally as Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, to Yemen, where today it remains one of the most dangerous Islamist terrorist groups.

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One in 10 inmates behind bars turns to Islam
Many embrace faith to help ease the desperation of prison
By Krista J. Kapralos, Herald Writer

MONROE -- The announcement rang out across the open courtyards of the Monroe Correctional Complex.

"Movement is now open."

Men wearing baggy navy-blue sweatshirts and loose-fitting pants or jeans drifted from one building to the next. They ambled along, laughing with one another and gulping in fresh air. It's free time, when prisoners who are being held for rape, burglary, murder and other crimes can attend classes or read in the library.

A small group of men, many wearing crocheted skullcaps, filed into a windowless room. They tug off their shoes and ease down cross-legged on thin rugs that have been spread on the floor for the service.

Prison is a tomb or a womb, they say. Either a man wastes his years on the inside and allows bitterness to rot his soul, or he uses the time to quiet the rage or fear or desperation that landed him in prison. Anthony Waller, like many Muslims at Twin Rivers, converted to the faith while behind bars. That changed everything, he said.

"If I wasn't a Muslim I'd still be in closed custody," Waller, 31, said, referring to prison facilities that strictly control prisoners with violent pasts.

"Or, I'd be dead," he said.

Waller, who doesn't expect to see freedom until 2033, attends a Muslim prison service every week with dozens of other men who have converted to the faith since being locked away. These "prison Muslims" are among the fastest-growing religious groups in U.S. correctional facilities.

A movement that began in the 1970s under Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan to evangelize inmates has evolved into one of the most effective religious rehabilitation agendas in the U.S. Imams under the Nation of Islam continue to draw converts, but most Muslims in prison today are Sunnis, said Lawrence Mamiya, a professor at Vassar College who has studied Muslim prison ministries.
Mamiya estimates that about 10 percent of all prison inmates have converted to Islam. Using his estimate, about 1,800 of the state's 18,000 inmates would be Muslim.

About 1 percent of Washington residents claim to be Muslim, according to a survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. That's the same as the national average.

For most men behind bars, their conversion is temporary. Just one in five who convert to Islam while in prison continue on in that faith once they are released, Mamiya said.

That makes experts wonder whether "Prison Islam" isn't a religious movement but a convenient infrastructure for a prison gang that affords members special privileges, including rugs and sticks of incense for their cells.

Chaplains who supervise Muslim services say most men are genuine in their faith.

As of August, Muslim inmates in Washington prisons have received halal meals, said John Barnes, a chaplain at McNeil Island Corrections Center. That change came after a rash of lawsuits nationwide by Muslim prisoners who claimed that they were given vegetarian meals instead of meat slaughtered as required by Islamic law.

Meals specially prepared for religious inmates are usually better quality than standard fare, said Walter Taylor, a 32-year-old inmate in Monroe. He is a devout Muslim, but said he had to claim other faiths with the prison system in order to meet requirements in the Quran for the practice of Islam.

Before the prisons began serving halal meals, Taylor registered as Jewish in order to eat kosher meals, which have similar dietary restrictions as halal meals.

He has also registered as a Wiccan for the privilege of having scented oils in his cell.

"Then I became a Sikh so I could get a turban," he said, motioning to the thin skullcap he wears to Muslim services.

Each privilege is necessary to fully practice Islam, said Taylor, who converted to the faith in prison 11 years ago -- about a year after he was incarcerated. He began studying Arabic about four years ago, and said he is now fluent. Other Muslims in the Monroe prison are dabbling in the language, too, creating a community bound not only by faith but also by tongue.

A 2006 report by George Washington University and the University of Virginia found that tight-knit communities of Muslims in prison are ripe for radicalization, and could easily become terrorist cells. A shortage of trained, federally approved imams has left openings for prisoners themselves to lead Muslim congregations, without supervision through chaplain programs.

A Monroe inmate acts as full-time imam for Muslims in the prison. He declined to be interviewed for this story.

Most of the inmates who convert to Islam are African-American, and are attracted to Islam for its discipline and belief in equality, said Faheem Siddiq, a longtime planner for the city of Everett who has acted as a Muslim chaplain in state prisons for more than five years.

"In Washington state, from Walla Walla to McNeil Island, the majority of these guys are low-income African-American converts who have an opportunity in a sober environment to try to reflect and change their lives," Siddiq said. "Islam offers them that opportunity."

Terrorist plots have been hatched in prisons, but that is a problem largely in Europe, where many Muslim prisoners are of Middle Eastern or Arab descent, Mamiya said.

"With African-Americans, it's very different," Mamiya said. "They have their own problems they want to concentrate on."

Muslim communities in prisons also provide some of the same benefits of gangs, Mamiya said. They protect one another, but they don't "demand extortion in order to be initiated," he said.

"Many of the men don't like the idea of the Christian 'turning the other cheek,' " Mamiya said. "Islam emphasizes self-defense as an ethic, so they prefer that."

There is also a strong sense of responsibility and discipline.

"In Christianity, Jesus Christ died for sins," Taylor said. "But in Islam, there's no scapegoat. I can't say that the devil made me do it."

Taylor and other Muslims say they pray five times each day. The constant reminder of their faith helps keep them on a straight path, Taylor said.

"Being a Muslim is the hardest thing you could possibly do," said Phil Thomes, 32. "Just being a Christian, it wasn't enough. Islam is a total way of life, which is good because I needed extreme change."

Most men who convert to a religion undergo a dramatic change while in prison, Barnes said.

"It changes his character," Barnes said. "He becomes more responsible, he's not self-Â*centered. ... Instead he's others-centered. He becomes a team player."

"I've seen that over and over again," he said.

Thomes has been in prison for 12 years. He converted to Islam shortly after he was incarcerated, but he said he took him nearly a decade to begin avoiding prison gangs and the trouble that comes with them. Since then, he said, his life has changed.

"A lot of people look at me like I am my crime," he said. "But I know I'm not that guy anymore. I became a brand new person."
Reporter Krista J. Kapralos: 425-339-3422 or kkapralos@heraldnet.com.


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