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“UYGHUR TERRORISTS” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H5138 on May 5, 2009.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
UYGHUR TERRORISTS
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I rise on the floor again to raise the awareness of the American people and of the Congress that the safety of the United States could be put at risk should Attorney General Eric Holder approve the release of trained terrorists into our country. I repeat, released into this country, not held in jails, but let free in our neighborhoods and our communities.
Eric Holder expects us to take his word that the detainees are not a threat, and that is unacceptable. The Attorney General expects this Congress to sit idly by and the American people to sit idly by until he announces he has released the Uyghurs held at Guantanamo Bay into the United States, into your neighborhood. In fact, he will not allow career FBI and government employees to even brief Members of Congress on this. So much for this administration's promise of transparency and accountability.
Let me be clear: These detainees are trained terrorists who were caught in camps affiliated with Al Qaeda. Those who would use terror are terrorists no matter their intended target. There have been published reports that these terrorists were members of the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement, ETIM, a designated terrorist organization affiliated with Al Qaeda.
The detainees held at Guantanamo Bay are trained terrorists. They were trained in facilities affiliated with Al Qaeda and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11 who took pleasure in beheading Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.
Last month, the U.S. Treasury froze the assets of Abdul Haq, the leader of the ETIM. The Treasury Department targeted Haq as part of their efforts to shut down the Al Qaeda support network.
So here Treasury designates Haq as a terrorist, and Eric Holder wants to release the members of the terrorist group to walk the streets.
Upon making the designation, the Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence said, ``Abdul Haq commands a terror group that sought to sow violence and fracture international unity at the 2008 Olympic games in China.''
What if our people had not picked up these terrorists and they had gotten their training and had gone back to China and had blown up one of the Olympic facilities when many American citizens were there? What if? How is it that the U.S. Treasury Department can declare that this is a terrorist group that ``sought to sow violence'' while the U.S. Justice Department asserts that members of the same group caught at terrorist training camps and held for 7 years at Guantanamo should be released free and clear into the United States, yet this Congress and the American people are left in the dark about the administration's plans to release the detainees?
If the Congress doesn't really care and want to hold oversight hearings, certainly the American people have a right to know who the Attorney General is asking to place in their communities.
Last Friday, I called on this administration to declassify and provide the American people with information regarding the capture, the detention, and the threat assessment of each detainee they intend to release inside the United States. Regardless of their intended targets of terror, the American people deserve to know whether they have been further radicalized due to their exposure to Al Qaeda leaders like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. They have been down in Guantanamo with some of the most violent people that have ever walked the Earth. And now, after the radicalization that may have taken place, Eric Holder now wants to release them into our neighborhoods and into our communities.
I worry about the impact these released Uyghurs will have on our national security. I have talked with several former members who have worked in our intelligence community, and to a person they all believe that this will be dangerous for the United States. They all said, what message does their release into the United States send to Al Qaeda and other terrorist networks?
How can Attorney General Holder guarantee that the released Uyghurs will not stay in contact with Al Qaeda and provide them with intelligence within the U.S.? Has Eric Holder never heard of radicalization in prison? Some people go into prison and come out worse than they go in. If the Attorney General cannot or will not answer these questions, he should not consider releasing them.
I ask you, please, the American people need to have all of this information before a decision is made.
East Turkistan Islamic Party Appeals for New Recruits in New Video
The militant Islamist group East Turkistan Islamic Party
(ETIM) released a new propaganda video, in which it appealed to Muslims in Turkistan to join the group's camps in Waziristan, Pakistan.
The 43-minute video is entitled ``Persistence and preparation for Jihad'' and was produced by the group's media wing Sawt al Islam.
It includes a statement by the group's current leader Sheikh Abul Haq, as well as its late leader Hassan Makhdum, whose alias is Abu Mohammed al Turkistani. Abul Haq said
``jihad'' was a duty that falls on all Muslims just like any other religious duty. He also pledged more attacks against Chinese forces. ``The operations of the Islamic Turkistani Party will make China experience the same taste of shame and defeat that America has experienced in Iraq and Afghanistan,'' Abul Haq said.
Footage from the group's training camp showed a group of militants undergoing training under the supervision of military commander identified as Seifullah. Once again, he claimed credit for the bus bombings and the attack on the police station in Shanghai and Yunnan in May and July of 2008.
The attacks seem to have been carried out using remotely-detonated explosives devices. Footage shown on the video showed a member of the group placing the explosives in a small suitcase and covering it with some cloths, while having a radio detonator in his hand.
Seifullah also made an appeal to Turkistani Muslims to join the group's camps in Waziristan and train on the latest weapons used by the Chinese army's ground forces. He said that the group is currently trying to develop a training program on other weapons used by the army.
The East Turkistan Islamic Movement is a militant group that advocates the creation of an independent, Islamic state of East Turkestan, formally part of Afghanistan, in what is currently the Xinjiang region of China.
The group is thought to have links with al Qaeda. In its 2005 report on terrorism, the U.S. State Department said that the group was ``linked to al Qaeda and the international jihadist movement'' and that al Qaeda provided the group with
``training and financial assistance''.
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