‘Terror website’ under investigation

NATIONAL SECURITY Minister Martin Joseph said investigations were underway into a now defunct website which reportedly displayed a photo of an exploding BWIA airliner on August 25. The defunct website is alleged to belong to the Global Islamic Media Centre (GIMC), which reportedly has ties to the al Qaeda terrorist network. Joseph yesterday told Newsday: “We are doing some checks,” but declined to say anything more on the matter. BWIA communications officer Dionne Ligoure said the airline had no comment on either the photo in question or whether or not any threats were made against it recently. Officials at the US Embassy in Port-of-Spain were unavailable for comment. Meanwhile, information yesterday from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), US Department of Homeland Security and the US State Department cast serious doubts about the authenticity of the alleged photo.

Security intelligence reports from both the CIA and Homeland Security said there was no evidence of any threats being made against BWIA or of a terrorist presence in TT at this time. Speaking with local businessmen in March, Dr Angel Rabasa of the Washington DC-based Rand Corporation (a think-tank which provides critical intelligence data to key security agencies such as the CIA and Homeland Security), said there was no evidence of terrorist bases in TT. The State Department concurred with yesterday’s CIA and Homeland Security findings that TT “is considered safe.” Homeland Security also indicated that the US domestic alert status had not been upgraded from its current yellow alert status since the photo was allegedly posted on August 25.

Checks on the Internet showed that the GIMC’s website has been offline for several months with all of its recent postings being forwarded to a site called Northeast Intelligence Network (NIN). The last official GIMC posting was made on May 26 and only contained a text message which criticised the Jordanian government for its pro-Western allegiances and hailed efforts of anti-American elements in Iraq. Examinations of the other GIMC messages posted showed them to be pro-Islamic and anti-Western in content, but none contained photos of BWIA aircraft. No concrete evidence has been unearthed to date to suggest there is a connection between the GIMC, al Qaeda or any other terrorist organisation.

However on August 25, NIN posted a photo of one of the two Tupolev TU-154 airliners allegedly destroyed by terrorists 24 hours earlier, taking off from Russia’s Domodevo Airport. Government officials said modern technology allows the easy manipulation of websites to show different things at different times, and the ongoing investigations would be very thorough. Recent media reports displayed a photo of an exploding BWIA airliner, in its former colours, and claimed it was posted August 25 on a now defunct website belonging to the GIMC. The photo was allegedly posted to celebrate the downing of two Russian airliners on the previous day.