Talk:Ahmed Ressam

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Untitled[edit]

I understand that he is also accused by the French government - perhaps that charge could be detailed?

Also, perhaps it is important to describe some of his earlier life in greater detail.

As a Canadian, I dislike, of course, some of the accusations made by U.S.A. politicians concerning Canadian policy. That being said, Ressam did show considerable problems with Canadian refugee policy, and, moreover, became the basis of considerable anti-Canadian hostility in the United States - perhaps these charges should be decribed more clearly.

Nitangae

Detail of Canadian activities

Why is there no mention of the fact he came from Victoria to Port Alberni?

excellent detailed report Sherurcij (Speaker for the Dead) 02:01, 16 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Help needed to find citation for statements in article[edit]

Editors have placed a "citation needed" template by the statement

Canadian agents had been watching him for more than two years in Montreal. When he disappeared, Mounties traced him to a motel room in British Columbia where they discovered materials that could be used in making bombs. The Mounties then tipped off U.S. Customs officials of a potential bomb threat to them.

I'm having trouble finding a citation for it.

The April 29, 2004 NBC News story at MSNBC http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4864792/ says, "Customs officials confirm that no alert had gone out to the field" but says nothing about whether the Mounties (the RCMP) alerted US Customs about a bomb threat.

Representative Lamar Smith at a January 2000 Congressional hearing http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/judiciary/hju64355.000/hju64355_0.htm#15 says among other things "The Canadian Security Intelligence Service identified Ressam as a potential terrorist and tracked him for a few years, but then dropped its surveillance due to a lack of resources." Lamar goes on to say,

The Canadian Security and Intelligence Service has warned us about terrorism. "For a number of reasons, Canada is an attractive venue for terrorists. Long borders and coastlines offer many points of entry which can facilitate movement to and from various sites around the world, particularly the United States," CSIS reported last month.

  This statement echoes the service's 1998 annual report: "Most of the world's terrorist groups have established themselves in Canada, seeking safe haven, setting up operational bases, and attempting to gain access to the USA," CSIS informed the Canadian public at that time.

but that's obviously not a specific warning connected with a disappearance by Ressam or with having found materials in his British Columbia motel room that could be used in making bombs.

Kenneth Timmerman in an article http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_47_17/ai_80900390/ for Insight on the News December 27, 2001, wrote:

The Canadians never alerted U.S. authorities that Ressam was about to cross the border, and his name was not on any U.S. watch list. "He was arrested totally by chance," Bruguiere says.

Bruguiere is "the French judge and the head of the French counterespionage service [who] paid a high-profile visit to Ottawa in October 1999", and tried to get them to do something about Ressam, according to Timmerman.

This February 2000 uncredited article http://www.cbp.gov/custoday/feb2000/intuit.htm from US Customs Today mentions US Customs' getting some RCMP help in identifying Ressam after US Customs apprehended him.

If we can't find something to back up the Wikipedia article's claim, then the claim will need to be dropped. But it would be nice if we could nail down with a few further sources just what did happen, and didn't happen, regarding an advance warning from the RCMP. If anybody can help with digging up further sources, it would be appreciated. The Tetrast (talk) 19:24, 2 January 2010 (UTC). Edited The Tetrast (talk) 19:29, 2 January 2010 (UTC).[reply]

I've looked at further sources

and so on, and there is nothing about an RCMP advance warning based on Ressam's disappearance or on having found bomb-making materials in his British Columbia motel room. Investigators (including I guess the RCMP) descended on Ressam's Vancouver, British Columbia, hotel room not before but afterward. Terence McKenna in a PBS Frontline report http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/trail/etc/script.html "When arrested, Ressam was carrying this receipt for the 2400 Motel in Vancouver. A crowd of investigators descended on the motel." And of course the RCMP, as noted above, identified Rassem for US Customs. I suspect that these are the things that somehow got turned into the Wikipedia article statement. The Tetrast (talk) 20:40, 2 January 2010 (UTC).[reply]

I've deleted the text in question from the article. Here it is:

Canadian agents had been watching him for more than two years in Montreal. When he disappeared, Mounties traced him to a motel room in British Columbia where they discovered materials that could be used in making bombs. The Mounties then tipped off U.S. Customs officials of a potential bomb threat to them.[citation needed]

Instead it appears that they had watched him for more than two years in Montreal but then stopped doing so for lack of resources. (See earlier in this Talk section). Investigators found and entered Ressam's Vancouver, British Columbia motel room only after Ressam's apprehension by US Customs. But, if somebody can find a reliable source to back up the now-deleted claim - or some part of it - then it, or the supported part of it, can go back in. If somebody can find any sort of source for it, then we can at least look at putting it back in. The Tetrast (talk) 21:00, 2 January 2010 (UTC). Repaired typos. The Tetrast (talk) 21:02, 2 January 2010 (UTC). Edited. The Tetrast (talk) 21:33, 2 January 2010 (UTC).[reply]

Nobody has posted any responses on this, but I'm inclined to believe that some have in fact tried to dig up further info on all this. Thank you for your efforts, and I hope that you will post any relevant info here. For my part, I'm keeping this article on my watch list, but will now cease actively seeking further info, at least for the time being. The Tetrast (talk) 03:25, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Problem editing[edit]

My most recent edit had fixed the failure of the article to properly reflect this major part of the Ahmed Ressam story.

I'm troubled that on the heels of that (presumably good faith) failure, all mention of the fact that this month a US court of Appeals ruled he "must be resentenced because his 22-year prison term was too short" has now been deleted.

I'm not sure whether this is POV editing, or sloppy, but suggest it be fixed, and fresh eyes look over the article for possible POV.--Epeefleche (talk) 06:23, 16 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not familiar enough with Ressam's case to detect subtle POVs, but it looks to me like you're doing a lot to improve this article. The Tetrast (talk) 04:16, 28 February 2010 (UTC).[reply]
Thanks for your kind words.--Epeefleche (talk) 07:58, 28 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Google link[edit]

Epeefleche, regarding the link to The 9/11 Commission report: final report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States. - is it doing what you want it to do? It links to a search in the book, and offers various pages. Is there a particular page that you wish to target? Or does the link already work quite as you wish? (I'm kind of handy with Google books links). The Tetrast (talk) 01:32, 25 March 2010 (UTC).[reply]

What a kind offer. I'll share my thoughts, and leave it up to you to do whatever you think best. Various pages in the 9/11 report, all of which have the name Ressam in them, support the text that the refs are appended to. The link I inserted links to the 19 pages that have the name Ressam in them, so they are a narrow subset of the whole book. It would get clunky if I had separate links, say, for ref x which refers to pp. y and z in the book, and ref a which refers to pp. y and hh in the book, and so on I think. So I chose to go this way as a shorthand. Does that make sense? If it doesn't, feel free to change it as you see fit. Also -- I sometimes run into google books links problems and the like ... can I hold onto your name as an expert to contact in the event I'm stumped one day? Best.--Epeefleche (talk) 03:56, 25 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It's not really kindness, and I'm no professional, but I've done a whole lot of Google Books links (so I think I'm kind of cool but who knows), sometimes using inside-the-book searches, sometimes not, wikt:representamen#cite_note-0 and Charles Sanders Peirce bibliography#Articles by Peirce, published in his lifetime (and also links to books at Internet Archive, which by the way now has linkability to specific pages and to inside-the-book searches). So if you have a Google Books link problem or the like in the future, I'd be happy to give it a shot.
Also I want to make it easier to keep this article going well. Its misinfo about Canada's supposed advance notification of US Customs and a consequent alert from DC to field agents, had traveled far and wide. I had had an argument with a noted academic about that idea and had dug up (easily) and sent him the NBC News report. Then years later I notice people repeating the misinfo and sourcing it to here at Wikipedia. So I thought, maybe there's something to it after all (I've vindicated a few supposed red herrings in my time), but I found that the same claims elsewhere on the Internet all came back to here, and there turned out to be nothing to substantiate it from anywhere else that I could find. So I want to keep tabs on this article, I hope without having to rouse myself to such an amount of research as you've done! If you hadn't come along, I'd have had to do something eventually about the recent deletions. So I want you to be happy here!
Anyway, to get to the point. Your approach regarding links certainly makes sense. I had thought of trying to separate out the references to a given work in this wiki, and there's a way to link to specific pages in a pdf, but it would be a big job when some of the texts are cited dozens of times! This article would end up with over a hundred footnotes. I mean, you're really nailing everything down, and That's The Way It Oughta Stay, but specific links to specific pages would nail it down even better. I think that I'm too lazy and also that some Wikipedians might complain about voluminous footnotes, "too much of a good thing," etc. Come to think of it, one might end up resorting to abbreviations listed in some sidebar. The Tetrast (talk) 02:12, 26 March 2010 (UTC). Tweak The Tetrast (talk) 02:36, 26 March 2010 (UTC).[reply]

Understood. Tx.--Epeefleche (talk) 06:24, 26 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Now I've looked over your user and talk pages. If you find an Augean Stable with which you could use some assistance, don't hesitate. The Tetrast (talk) 04:42, 28 March 2010 (UTC).[reply]
Funny! Many thanks.--Epeefleche (talk) 05:09, 28 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Link between ahmed Ressam and IHH[edit]

Why isn't it mentioned that Ahmad Ressam is deeply connected (and was military trained by) the turkish IHH, the Turkish organization which organized the flotilla to Gaza? http://www.nationalpost.com/scripts/story.html?id=3094790

John —Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.66.195.47 (talk) 11:10, 4 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Copyright problem removed[edit]

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Call for discussion[edit]

The lead currently calls Ahmed Ressam an al Qaeda member.

Ahmed Ressam#Canada currently says:

"Settling east of Montreal, he lived with other Algerian immigrants in an apartment building on Avenue Malicorne, later identified as the local headquarters of a cell connected to the Armed Islamic Group, which had connections to Osama bin Laden.[7][13][16][17] He was recruited into al-Qaeda.[18] According to Canadian Security Intelligence Service officials, he was under surveillance as part of an investigation into a suspected terrorist ring from 1996 until he left the country.[13]"

Well, reference 18 dates back to when US reporters repeated claims about Abu Zubaydah without any credibility checking. Subsequently most elements of the US intelligence establishment have quietly backed away from the claim that Abu Zubaydah -- the first man the CIA acknowledges torturing -- was number 3 in al Qaeda. He wasn't even a member of al Qaeda. He wasn't a member of al Qaeda, and the camp he helped run was not an al Qaeda camp, it was a rival camp, run by a guy who had a key ideological difference from bin Laden.

Reference 18, the Seattle Times, says:

Indicted almost solely on Ressam's testimony were Samir Ait Mohamed in Montreal, who Ressam said helped him plan the LAX attacks and who once talked of setting off a bomb in a Jewish neighborhood there, and a London al-Qaida recruiter named Abu Doha.
Doha, according to Ressam's testimony, recruited for al-Qaida cells in the U.S. and Canada and he acted as go-between between Ressam and al-Qaida higher-ups, including Abu Zubaydah, who ran Osama bin Laden's terrorism training camps in Afghanistan, and bin Laden himself.

Abu Zubaydah didn't run al Qaeda training camps, he was part of the leadership of the Khaldan Camp, a rival to al Qaeda's camps. He wasn't even the leader of the Khaldan camp. Abu Zubaydah, who had experienced a serious brain injury, was responsible for vetting potential trainees, and for helping to arrange their travel, after completing the training.

Okay, WP:VER. Still, should we put in the lead an assertion that has had challenges to its underpinnings? Geo Swan (talk) 15:52, 5 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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