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Bin Laden Issue Station
The Bin Laden Issue Station, also known as Alec Station, was a standalone unit of the Central Intelligence Agency in operation from 1996 to 2005 dedicated to tracking Osama bin Laden and his associates, both before and after the 9/11 attacks. It was headed initially by CIA analyst Michael Scheuer and later by Richard Blee and others. Scheuer had noticed an increase in activity by Bin Laden in Afghanistan and the rise of a new organization known as al Qaeda, and suggested this be the focus of the station's work. Soon after its creation, the Station developed a deadly vision of bin Laden's activities and its work came to include the planning of search and destroy missions. The CIA inaugurated a grand plan against al-Qaeda in 1999, but struggled to find the resources to implement it. At least 5 such missions were planned by Alec Station. The planning of these missions began to factor in the use of aerial drones. In 2000, a joint CIA-USAF project using Predator reconnaissance dron ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Osama Bin Laden In 2001 (cropped)
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (10 March 1957 – 2 May 2011) was a Saudi-born extremist militant who founded al-Qaeda and served as its leader from 1988 until Killing of Osama bin Laden, his death in 2011. Ideologically a Pan-Islamism, pan-Islamist, his group is designated as a List of designated terrorist groups, terrorist group by the United Nations Security Council, the NATO, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the European Union, and various countries. Belonging to the wealthy Bin Laden family, Osama bin Laden was born in Saudi Arabia. His father was Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, a Saudi millionaire from Hadhramaut, Yemen, and the founder of the construction company, Saudi Binladin Group. His mother, Hamida al-Attas, Alia Ghanem, was from a secular middle-class family in Latakia, Syria. He studied at university in the country until 1979, when he joined Islamic Unity of Afghanistan Mujahideen, Mujahideen forces in Pakistan Soviet–Afghan War, fighting against ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alfreda Frances Bikowsky
Alfreda Frances Bikowsky (born 1965) is a Central Intelligence Agency officer who has headed the Bin Laden Issue Station and the Global Jihad unit. Bikowsky's identity is not publicly acknowledged by the Agency but was deduced by independent investigative journalists in 2011. In January 2014, the ''Washington Post'' named her and tied her to a pre-9/11 intelligence failure and the extraordinary rendition of Khalid El-Masri. The Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture, released in December 2014, showed that Bikowsky was not only a key part of the torture program but also one of its chief apologists, resulting in the media's giving her the moniker "The Unidentified Queen of Torture." CIA career Bikowsky started her CIA career in the 1990s as a Soviet analyst. She was brought into the Bin Laden Issue Station when it was created in 1996 by its first chief, Michael Scheuer. Sometime after the USS ''Cole'' bombing in October 2000, she was promoted to Deputy Chief of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Special Operations Command
The United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM or SOCOM) is the unified combatant command charged with overseeing the various special operations component commands of the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, and Air Force of the United States Armed Forces. The command is part of the Department of Defense and is the only unified combatant command created by an Act of Congress. USSOCOM is headquartered at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida. The idea of an American unified special operations command had its origins in the aftermath of Operation Eagle Claw, the disastrous attempted rescue of hostages at the American embassy in Iran in 1980. The ensuing investigation, chaired by Admiral James L. Holloway III, the retired Chief of Naval Operations, cited lack of command and control and inter-service coordination as significant factors in the failure of the mission. Since its activation on 16 April 1987, U.S. Special Operations Command has participated in many operations, fro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ahmad Shah Massoud
) , branch = Jamiat-e Islami / Shura-e Nazar Afghan Armed Forces United Islamic Front , serviceyears = 1975–2001 , rank = General , unit = , commands = Mujahideen commander during the Soviet–Afghan WarCommander of the United Islamic Front , battles = , awards = National Hero of Afghanistan Order of Ismoili Somoni , relations = , laterwork = Ahmad Shah Massoud (Dari/Pashto: , ; September 2, 1953September 9, 2001) was an Afghan politician and military commander. He was a powerful guerrilla commander during the resistance against the Soviet occupation between 1979 and 1989. In the 1990s, he led the government's military wing against rival militias; after the Taliban takeover, he was the leading opposition commander against their regime until his assassination in 2001. Massoud came from an ethnic Tajik, Sunni Muslim background in the Panjshir Valley of Northern Afghanistan. He began studying engineering at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cofer Black
Joseph Cofer Black (born 1950) is an American former CIA officer who served as director of the Counterterrorism Center in the years surrounding the September 11th attacks, and was later appointed Ambassador-at-Large and Coordinator for Counterterrorism at the State Department by President George W. Bush, serving until his resignation in 2004. Prior to his roles combatting terrorism, Black served across the globe in a variety of roles with the Directorate of Operations at the CIA. A native of Ridgefield, Connecticut, Black completed his BA at the University of Southern California in 1973. The next year he earned a master's degree in international relations, also at USC. Following his masters, he initially enrolled in a doctoral program at USC, but left in 1975 to join the CIA.Steve Coll, ''Ghost Wars'' (Penguin, 2005 edn), pp.266-7; Cofer had friends in Southern California and made trips camping to Lake Tahoe, CA and Reno, NV.Ambassador Cofer Black Becomes Vice-Chairman at Blackw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Black Jcofer Sct
Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white have often been used to describe opposites such as good and evil, the Dark Ages versus Age of Enlightenment, and night versus day. Since the Middle Ages, black has been the symbolic color of solemnity and authority, and for this reason it is still commonly worn by judges and magistrates. Black was one of the first colors used by artists in Neolithic cave paintings. It was used in ancient Egypt and Greece as the color of the underworld. In the Roman Empire, it became the color of mourning, and over the centuries it was frequently associated with death, evil, witches, and magic. In the 14th century, it was worn by royalty, clergy, judges, and government officials in much of Europe. It became the color worn by English romantic poets, businessmen a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
L'Houssaine Kherchtou
L'Houssaine Kherchtou (born May 15, 1964) was an early initiate in al-Qaeda, joining the militant group in 1991. In 2000, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to murder, but as he was the chief witness against four of his former colleagues, all of whom were subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment, his charges were withdrawn and he entered the witness protection program. Testifying in New York in the summer of 2001, he noted that al-Qaeda had trained suicide pilots to fly planes into buildings. Together with Jamal al-Fadl, his testimony forms the bulk of the information known about the early years of the Islamist group. Life Following three years of catering school,O'Neill, Sean. Daily TelegraphThe terrorist trained to fly bin Laden's plane September 21, 2001 Kherchtou spent three months in northwestern France in 1989, before making his way to Corsica and eventually Italy as an illegal immigrant. Later, he found the Islamic Cultural Institute in Milan, where he was encouraged by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jack Cloonan
Jack may refer to: Places * Jack, Alabama, US, an unincorporated community * Jack, Missouri, US, an unincorporated community * Jack County, Texas, a county in Texas, USA People and fictional characters * Jack (given name), a male given name, including a list of people and fictional characters with the name * Jack (surname), including a list of people with the surname * Jack (Tekken), multiple fictional characters in the fighting game series ''Tekken'' * Jack the Ripper, an unidentified British serial killer active in 1888 * Wolfman Jack (1938–1995), a stage name of American disk jockey Robert Weston Smith * New Jack, a stage name of Jerome Young (1963-2021), an American professional wrestler * Spring-heeled Jack, a creature in Victorian-era English folklore Animals and plants Fish *Carangidae generally, including: **Almaco jack **Amberjack **Bar jack **Black jack (fish) **Crevalle jack **Giant trevally or ronin jack ** Jack mackerel ** Leather jack **Yellow jack *Coho sal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abdullah Azzam
Abdullah Yusuf Azzam ( ar, عبد الله يوسف عزام, translit=‘Abdu’llāh Yūsuf ‘Azzām; ) was a Salafi jihadist, a Palestinian scholar, and theologian of Sunni Islam. During the Soviet–Afghan War of the 1980s, he advocated "defensive jihad" by Muslims worldwide to help the Afghan mujahideen fight against Soviet forces in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Azzam was a teacher and mentor to Osama bin Laden, and was one of the key figures who persuaded bin Laden to go to Afghanistan and back the mujahideen fighters there. Together, they cofounded the Maktab al-Khidamat, an organization that was created for the purpose of drawing foreign Muslim fighters (known as Afghan Arabs) to fight in the war. Following the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989, he promoted militant jihadist activities on behalf of other Muslims in other countries, and subsequently became known as the "father of global jihad". Azzam was killed by a car bomb in Peshawar, Pakistan, o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operation Cyclone
Operation Cyclone was the code name for the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) program to arm and finance the Afghan mujahideen in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1992, prior to and during the military intervention by the USSR in support of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. The mujahideen were also supported by Britain's MI6, who conducted their own separate covert actions. The program leaned heavily towards supporting militant Islamic groups, including groups with jihadist ties, that were favored by the regime of Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq in neighboring Pakistan, rather than other, less ideological Afghan resistance groups that had also been fighting the Soviet-oriented Democratic Republic of Afghanistan administration since before the Soviet intervention.Bergen, Peter, ''Holy War Inc''. Free Press, (2001), p. 68 Operation Cyclone was one of the longest and most expensive covert CIA operations ever undertaken. Funding officially began with $695,000 in mid-1979, was i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Al Kifah Refugee Center
The Al Kifah Refugee Center is a charity that was active in the United StatesAl Kifah Refugee Center ''Tracking the threat'' and was based in the Faruq Mosque in .Complete 911 Timeline ''Cooperative Research'' Overview Al Kifah Refugee Center had clandestine links to forces fighting in dating to the late 1980s, when the fighters enjoyed American sup ...[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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