Al Qaeda Terrorist Claims His Warnings Ignored

According to a CNSNews.com article from Oct 10th, an Al Qaeda terrorist who is currently serving a 12-year prison term in Zenica prison in Bosnia-Herzegovina (flag right) for terrorism and robbery, said that he had sent repeated warnings for more than three years about threats to Britain, Italy and Spain, but that they have all gone unheeded:

Ali Ahmed Ali Hamad, who is currently serving a 12-year prison term in Zenica prison in Bosnia-Herzegovina for terrorism and robbery, states that for more than three years - from November 2001 to January 2005 -- he repeatedly offered in letters and "official interviews" to provide information on al Qaeda's operations in Bosnia and elsewhere.

Hamad adds that his efforts included two letters, sent on Jan. 12 and 19 of 2004, to Lord Paddy Ashdown, the international community's High Representative to Bosnia-Herzegovina, which, according to Hamad, Ashdown ignored.

On Jan. 10 of this year, Hamad wrote a nine-page letter from prison, addressed to local news editors in Bosnia, complaining about being ignored. Cybercast News Service obtained a copy of the letter and confirmed its contents in a conference call with Hamad's newly-appointed attorney, Dusko Tomic, and an independent translator.(Click here to view copy of original letter. Click here to read English translation.)

One has to wonder why anybody like this would be ignored, but part of me wants to think that his warnings were taken to heart, but either: a) they couldn't prove them, or b) they did heed them and were working on gathering further intel.

The article goes on to further state:

In August, Cybercast News Service posted an edited version of a video, which had been obtained from ISSA, showing a jihadist training camp in Bosnia.The Cybercast News Service article accompanying the terrorist training camp video ended up on the front pages of news organizations in the Balkans, but Bosnian government officials and Gen. David Leakey of the European Union Force in Bosnia and Herzegovina (EUFOR) denied there were any terrorist camps in the region.

Bosnia's top Muslim weekly, Slobodna Bosna, confirmed the existence of the training camps and insisted the European Union general was "playing dumb."

One month later, al Qaeda activity in the area was confirmed by German intelligence sources as well, as reported by United Press International.

Hamad's letter also singles out Gen. Virgil Packett, the former commander of the Stabilisation Force in Bosnia and Herzegovina (SFOR) for doubting that there were al Qaeda terrorists in the region, even while admitting that there could be "sleepers."

"[T]he terrorists who perpetrated the September 11 attacks ... were peaceful sleepers before they received their order to attack," warned Hamad in his letter.

What a stark yet true observation of something that did come to fruition!

Folks, in this day and age, even if something does turn out to be proven false, then the only harm to be done that I can find is that we would get into the "boy who cried wolf" complacency. Well guess what? Even though that boy hasn't cried wolf that much lately anyway, I believe we have truly forgotten the lessons of the past, and that complacency does exist in us... like it or not.

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