ITS IN THE MANUAL

Flashed onto a large screen for members of the jury to see, the map pinpointed a bin Laden home and said the Taliban had "45,000 troops plus the bin Laden bases and training camps." Various extracts of the textbook, translated into English, were read to jurors detailing how to plant mines, wage sabotage and recruit youngsters aged 15-17, and leaders no older than 23. "A person of this age is more receptive... and he is ready to sacrifice for it," according to the translated text. Other titbits dealt with assassinations and kidnappings, with the advice: "Do not prolong the period of detention and start executing hostages" to show your zeal.

also, finally we get to hear testimony from Oregon! From a very colourful sounding witness:


...According to al-Masri’s lawyer last week, the camp was similar to being in the “Cub Scouts,’’ with the men riding horses, tending to little lambs and telling campfire stories. 

 But Hatley said one of the arrivals, militant Oussama Kassir, boasted about previously running training camps in Afghanistan and being a “hit man” for Osama bin Laden.

 She said Kassir told her that al-Masri was his “leader” and that al-Masri sent him and others to the Bly ranch to create a “training camp” where men would learn to shoot guns, throw knives and do calisthenics along open, spacious fields abutting a ravine and desolate dirt roads.

 “He said he was there to train men for jihad,” she said. “He said that Abu Hamza sent him. He intended to train them to fight.”

The visitors, she claimed, said the ranch resembled Afghanistan. She added that some had CDs with information on how to make poisons to “kill people” and regularly “talked” about “robbing and killing truck drivers” on nearby roads.

Kassir, she recalled, claimed there were plans to eventually dig a hillside compound at the ranch for al-Masri to hide out in.

“I was shocked,” said Hatley, who claims she fled the ranch in fear in December 1999, four months after moving in.

 During cross-examination, al-Masri’s lawyer Jeremy Schneider painted the gun-loving Hatley as paranoid and having a shady track record. She admitted to him under oath that she agreed to marry her husband after only their first encounter — and had tricked him into thinking she had money.

 She claimed she feared that Rule — who was married four previous times and had 18 kids — wanted to kill her and had “suffocated” his previous wife to death.

When asked if Rule, al-Masri, Kassir or others who stayed at the ranch had ever threatened her, she said, “No, but I am still afraid.”

Hatley went into witness protection in 2004 but was kicked out years later for telling one of her new neighbors her secret. She was given a second chance, but the feds booted her again after she violated multiple rules, including driving with a suspended license...

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