Also this issue:

GOP, Independents At-Large
-Daryl Gale

Green: Machine?
Green Party of Philadelphia fields its first Council at-large candidate.
-Juliet Fletcher

Bending Over For Bush
-Daniel Brook

Riding the Railroad
-Mary F. Patel

The Bell Curve
City Paper's weekly gauge of Philly's Quality of Life

April 3- 9, 2003

city beat

Target: Philly

City ports are on an al-Qaeda hit list. Plus, the scene at Al Mansour.

by Brendan McGarvey

Law enforcement sources who work the anti-terrorism detail in the Delaware Valley say that the Delaware River Port, as well as ports in New York and New Jersey, are on an al-Qaeda hit list.

Sources in Homeland Security and in local law enforcement claim that American troops searching the caves of Afghanistan for the Taliban and al-Qaeda terrorists stumbled upon a terror plan that involved blowing up oil tankers in the ports -- including one opposite the Philadelphia International Airport.

The sources claim that is why armed Coast Guardsmen and Homeland Security officials seized control of the Aldawah, an oil tanker flying the flag of Qatar, in the Delaware Bay on March 20, the first day of the war with Iraq.

The Aldawah had an Iraqi captain and chief engineer on board and the Coast Guard refused to allow them to run the ship. An American pilot was helicoptered to the Aldawah for the trip up the Delaware River. It was off-loaded at a refinery in Gloucester County, N.J., under the watchful eyes of armed federal agents.

"The ship fit the profile for a possible terrorist attack by al-Qaeda or the Iraqis, that’s why they grabbed it," one source says. "But it turned out to be a false alarm."

The Aldawah was escorted back out to sea by the Coast Guard and sent on its way to Africa.

Stephen Gale, co-chairman of the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Center on Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism, says, "Plans by al-Qaeda to use oil tankers to attack American ports are well known. The plans were discovered in Afghanistan when American troops went after Osama bin Laden and the Taliban." But Gale did not know of any specific terror plots against the Delaware River Port.

"The Philadelphia port is safe," says the FBI’s Linda Vizi. "We know of no terrorist plot specifically targeting our port."

Vizi adds that the FBI recently had a "tabletop" exercise with other federal agencies to practice for an oil tanker attack in the harbor.

The Department of Homeland Security did not return phone calls.

Earlier this week, President Bush visited the port of Philadelphia, where he met with Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge to discuss ways to help guard American ports against possible terrorist attacks in the future.

They gather every evening inside the Al Mansour grocery store and restaurant at B and Wyoming -- which sells the latest newspapers and magazines from the Middle East, as well as music cassettes from Kuwait, Egypt, Algeria and Pakistan -- to watch the war on TV and talk treason. They drink Turkish coffee and smoke tobacco in hookas.

They eat as they watch the Arab news reports about the war on Al-Jazeera, Iraqi TV and Abu Dubai television. Al Mansour has a satellite dish that downloads the grim news directly from Baghdad. Most of the Arab news channels present a very different version of the war than America sees -- images of dead children, scared American POWs and defiant followers of Hussein.

The patrons of Al Mansour are Iraqi Americans and Palestinians and Egyptians. Some support the war in Iraq and hate Saddam Hussein while others hate Saddam but believe the war is an Israeli-U.S. plot to seize oil and power in the Middle East and to further the interests of the Zionists. Sometimes they accuse one other of treason -- against their adopted country, the U.S. or against their homeland, Iraq.

Outside the restaurant, an undercover police car slowly slides by as the cops eye the Arabs sitting at the tables closest to the big window.

Mahdi Jonny stops by Al Mansour at least once a day for a good meal, Arabic newspapers and to visit friends. He said that many of Al Mansour’s customers have been visited by the FBI.

"The FBI’s been very nice to us," Jonny says. "The FBI wants to know about Iraqis here who might fight for Saddam Hussein. We don’t know anybody like that. We’re all in America to work hard. We left Iraq to come here for a better life."

According to many Iraqi Americans who hang at Al Mansour, the FBI has handed out numerous business cards and asked them to report any instances of ethnic intimidation. But the Iraqi customers told City Paper that nobody has bothered them.

"You should talk to him," several men inside Al Mansour say. "The FBI has been to his house two or three times."

The man they pointed out was an angry, middle-aged Egyptian who refuses to give his name. "This is Bush’s war," the Egyptian says. "All Americans hate Muslims. George Bush and the Jews want to destroy Muslims."

The Egyptian brags that the FBI tried to contact him twice. "I was not home so they left a card." The Egyptian said he once worked at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland -- the place where the U.S. military tests explosives.

"America will be defeated," he says. "This war is not about Saddam Hussein, it is about George Bush killing Muslims, destroying Muslims, trying to conquer us."

"That Egyptian frightens me," an Arab patron says. "Before Sept. 11 he said American was Great Satan. Telling everyone Muslims will defeat Israel and America. Sept. 12 he still thinks the same, but now he doesn’t say so much out loud. But the war with Iraq makes him angry again. Who knows what he will do?"