Dave Eberhart, NewsMax.com
Monday, July 15, 2002

The New York Post reported this weekend that counterterrorism officials revealed that documents captured in Afghanistan refer to a "wise man" in the U.S. who is masterminding and funding terror cells.

Although the Post's sources would not say if the identity of the wise man is known or whether he is under surveillance, they do admit he may play a role similar to that once played by the blind Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, the Islamic spiritual adviser to the terrorists who perpetrated the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.

Although federal authorities now consider Rahman, who is serving a life sentence, neutralized by being under super security at a federal facility, it was not long ago that the wise man was playing a leadership role – even from the confines of his jail cell.

Convicted in 1995 of plotting to bomb the Lincoln and Holland tunnels and the United Nations, by as late as December 2001 evidence was emerging that Rahman continued to lead his extremist following despite being hampered by a 24-hour lockdown in a windowless cell at the federal prison in Rochester, Minn.

During the trial of four followers of Osama bin Laden charged with bombing the U.S. embassies in Africa, one witness testified that Abdel Rahman smuggled a flier from prison calling on Muslims to avenge indignities he sustained as a prisoner.

'Rise Up'

"Oh people, oh men of Allah, rise up from your deep slumber. ... Rise up and see justice done," the sheik wrote in a letter smuggled out of prison.

At that time, assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said the appeal reached the ears of the sheik's followers in Al-Gamaa al-Islamiya, Egypt's largest militant organization, also known as the Islamic Group, thought to have merged with bin Laden's al-Qaeda.

By May 1997, only months after the flier made its rounds, over 60 tourists were killed in Luxor, Egypt. The Islamic Group claimed responsibility, leaving a note: "This is to free Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman."

Reportedly, by August 1998 Rahman's flier had been read in bin Laden's camps in Afghanistan. By way of corroboration, Ahmed Ressam, the terrorist behind the foiled plot to bomb Los Angeles International Airport, testified in federal court that he and his confederates were called to arms by the sheik during the U.S. millennium celebrations.

Rahman's close ties with bin Laden were also manifested by his son Ahmed Abdel Rahman, who along with a dozen other al-Qaeda operatives ran a terrorist training camp in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. Another son of the blind sheik, Assad, was plastered on bin Laden's promotional posters.

At last report, Rahman is now incarcerated in the Supermax prison in Florence, Colo. Reportedly, security on this latest move was so tight that no one – not even Rahman's lawyers – knew where he was for an entire month. Others on ice at Supermax include Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski and Ramzi Yousef, chief engineer of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Supermax is mainly underground.

Sleeper Cells

In the meantime, more details have emerged as to the nature of the sleeper cells reportedly thriving in the U.S. At least five hard-core units are suspected to be searching for radioactive material to carry out an attack.

The Washington Times reported that active units of Middle Eastern men are thought to contain about six members each and to be operating in Atlanta, Seattle, Chicago and Detroit.

Attorney General John Ashcroft said, "There are sleeper terrorists and their supporters in the U.S. whom we have not been allowed to identify."

The Seattle Times reported that a British Taliban fighter being held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has provided intelligence linking a group of Seattle-based militant Muslims and a radical mosque in London. According to the Times, in November 1999 two men from the London mosque cased a ranch in Bly, Ore., as a potential al-Qaeda training camp.

Living at the ranch at the time was Semi Osman, formerly a Muslim cleric at a defunct Seattle mosque. Osman has been arrested by federal authorities and charged with an immigration violation in support of international terrorism.

In a revelation with obvious irony, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld recently admitted that many of those in the U.S. had come here in recent months from Afghanistan – as a means of escaping allied forces.

"They clearly have moved some to the U.S., some to Yemen, some to Saudi Arabia, a variety of states," Rumsfeld said.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Al-Qaeda
Immigration/Borders
War on Terrorism

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