Recent Appearances...

Warning: Undefined array key "rbname" in /data/rantburg.com/www/pgrecentorg.php on line 14
Hello !
Recent Appearances...

Khalid al Mihdhar	Khalid al Mihdhar	al-Qaeda	Home Front: Politix				20050830
Khalid al-Mihdhar	Khalid al-Mihdhar	al-Qaeda					20030921

Home Front: WoT

9/11 Hijackers Given Bank Accounts, California Apartment at ‘Behest of the CIA' – FBI Investigator

2023-04-16

[SPUTNIKGLOBE]An extraordinary legal filing revealed two of the hijackers responsible for the September 11 terror attacks had a much more intimate relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency than previously known.

At least two of the 9/11 hijackers were being closely monitored by the CIA and may have even been recruited by the agency well before they helped fly a pair of Boeing 767s into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, newly-released documents reveal.

The jaw-dropping court filing contains extensive testimony by multiple FBI investigators who maintain that the CIA obstructed official investigations into the notorious terrorist attack in order to conceal its connections to al-Qaeda*.

Perhaps even more shockingly, one FBI agent explained that American bank accounts were opened for the two hijackers — and a San Diego based apartment rented for them — "at the behest of the CIA."

Skeptics have long focused their attention on the extremely close relationship between 9/11 hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar and alleged Saudi intelligence agent Omar al-Bayoumi, who arranged a steady stipend as well as accommodations for the pair immediately after their arrival in the US. Al-Bayoumi has publicly maintained that his incredible generosity towards them was based on a mere ’chance encounter’ at a restaurant after they landed in California. According to one agent, who’s code-named "CS-23" in the documents, the CIA has long been working to stonewall the FBI’s investigation into the 2001 terrorist attack, in part by refusing to divulge information regarding the agency’s relationship with al-Bayoumi.

According to CS-23, when first asked, "CIA officials responded to the [FBI’S] San Diego field office and reported that the CIA held no files on al-Bayoumi," a claim which the agent said was "a falsehood," given "the CIA maintained ’operational files’ on Omar al-Bayoumi" and that their relationship had left a noticeable "paper trail."

Indeed, "information concerning al-Bayoumi was never passed to the FBI," the agent explained — likely because Omar al-Bayoumi was "an intelligence officer in [the] employ of the Saudi government," who was "directed to attempt to recruit Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar as intelligence sources while they were in San Diego."

Even more horrifying is the fact that "the attempt to recruit al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar was an operation directed by the Central Intelligence Agency," CS-23 maintains.

According to that FBI agent, "the CIA used their liaison relationship with the Saudi intelligence services to conduct an operation on US soil," the legal filing reveals.

Such an arrangement would be necessary since "the CIA is forbidden by law to conduct intelligence operations within the US," the agent explained, noting that "the CIA has used its relationship with allied intelligence services to conduct operations inside the United States in the past."

For decades, much of the CIA’s dirty work was carried out by a secret international grouping of pro-US intelligence services which bore the name ’The Safari Club’ — and which included Saudi Arabia. The group’s existence didn’t become public knowledge until Egyptian journalist Mohamed Heikal was granted permission by Iran’s new revolutionary government to examine the Shah’s archives and discovered a document formalizing the agreement.

Likely seeking to avoid any similar disclosure, CS-23 explained, "when FBI officials in San Diego and at FBI headquarters became aware of both al-Bayoumi's affiliation with Saudi intelligence and subsequently the existence of the CIA's operation to recruit al-Harmi and al-Mihdhar through al-Bayoumi... senior FBI officials suppressed investigations into the above."

Furthermore, the FBI investigator revealed the CIA had effectively tainted the entire inquiry before it even got off the ground by tampering with witnesses.

"CS-23 also told me that FBI agents testifying before the Joint Inquiry into the 9/11 attacks were instructed not to reveal the full extent of Saudi involvement with Al-Oaeda," the report concludes.

Link

-Lurid Crime Tales-

The FBI is very good at woke politics, not so good at catching killers

2021-04-02

[NYPost] If you watch TV crime shows, you would think the Federal Bureau of Investigation works tirelessly to protect us from terrorists and criminals. But the real FBI is a much less impressive organization.

After the horrendous Colorado shooting last week, we learned that the alleged shooter, Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, had a record of violence and arrests. His brother described him as mentally ill, paranoid and "very anti-social." He was also on the FBI’s radar because of someone with whom he associated.

In this, Alissa joins a long list of "known-wolf" killers, including Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter; the Tsarnaev brothers, who conducted the Boston Marathon bombing; Omar Mateen, the Pulse nightclub shooter in Florida; and some of the 9/11 hijackers.

The FBI’s failure to catch that last set of perpetrators is especially enraging — and shows the agency has been atrophying for a long time. "For two and a half weeks before the attacks," as Slate noted, "the US government knew the names of two hijackers. It knew they were al-Qaeda killers and that they were already in the United States."

The two, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, lived under their real names, loud and proud. Per Slate: "They used those names for financial transactions, flight school, to earn frequent flier miles and to procure a California identity card." Nevertheless, the FBI failed to nab the pair until, on Sept. 11, 2001, they slammed an airliner into the Pentagon.

The bureau’s performance disappointed FBI agents themselves. Agents trying to get a warrant to search the laptop of 9/11’s "20th hijacker," Zacarias Moussaoui, joked that Osama bin Laden must have had a "mole" in the FBI’s DC headquarters because they were meeting with so much interference.

And as the Boston Herald’s Howie Carr reminds us: "Remember serial killer Gary Sampson? Before he murdered three innocent men in 2001, he called the FBI office in Boston from a pay phone in Abington and offered to turn himself in on some unsolved bank robberies." But the FBI apparently keeps banker’s hours, and the call came on a Friday afternoon; the bureau ignored the call. "The following day, Sampson started his two-state carjacking murder spree."

So what’s the FBI good for? The answer is, the kinds of things that wouldn’t make for flattering TV.

Some of it is humorous, as when the bureau sent no fewer than 15 agents to investigate a "noose" in race driver Bubba Wallace’s garage that turned out to be an innocent pull cord.

Most of it isn’t so funny.

Agents in the FBI’s Boston office, for example, protected notorious mobster James "Whitey" Bulger from law enforcement, while simultaneously accepting gifts from him. They may even have helped him in his efforts. Carr also notes that the bureau’s Boston office was guilty of "railroading four Boston men onto death row for a 1965 murder they did not commit, allowing them to rot in prison for 35 years while corrupt FBI agents protected the real murderers from justice."
Fire everyone G-12 and above

Link

Home Front: WoT

New Evidence Suggests Radical Cleric Anwar al-Awlaki Was an Overlooked Key Player in 9/11 Plot

2011-05-21

A year-long investigation by the Fox News' specials unit has uncovered new and overwhelming evidence that the American cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki, the first U.S. citizen on the CIA's kill or capture list, was an overlooked key player in the 9/11 plot.

In a new hour-long special, "Fox News Reporting: Secrets of 9/11," which debuts May 20 at 10 p.m. EDT, federal investigators go on the record for the first time about their painstaking work to investigate how Awlaki may have facilitated the hijackers in California and Virginia and possibly knew the details of the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil.

"It was my feeling that they had to have a network," Criminal PENTTBOM (FBI's codename for the 9/11 case) investigator Jimmy Bush told Fox News in his first television interview. "There was a mosque and the imam of that mosque was Anwar al-Awlaki, which raised my suspicions."

Former FBI Agent Bob Bukowski said the evidence strongly suggested Awlaki and his mosques on the East and West coasts were at the center of a network of helpers that enabled the hijackers to find apartments and obtain fake ids. "The investigation at the time obviously was very suspicious," Bukowski said. "Knowing and proving are always two different things."

Fox News was told by multiple sources with first-hand knowledge of the 9/11 case -- including the former head of the joint congressional inquiry Sen. Bob Graham -- that the contact between Awlaki and hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdar and Hani Hanjour, three of the five hijackers who flew into the Pentagon, was not casual or coincidental but rather evidence of a purposeful relationship.
...
For the first time, Fox News reveals how those in the alleged 9/11 support network are still living in the U.S. Asked if he believes the network of helpers is still here, Graham told Fox News that the network was never disrupted -- so there is every reason to believe it remains in place. "I have no reason to believe it's not."

Also: Radical imam invited to speak about 'moderate Islam' at the Pentagon after 9/11 may have known about attacks in advance
Shortly after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, radical American-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki was invited to the Pentagon to speak about 'moderate Islam', after a flawed vetting process. New Mexico-born al-Awlaki was billed as the featured speaker on 'Islam and Middle Eastern Politics and Culture'.

According to Fox, the Defense Department lawyer who vetted al-Awlaki wrote that she 'had the privilege of hearing one of Mr. Awlaki's presentations in November and was impressed by both the extent of his knowledge and by how he communicated that information and handled a hostile element in the audience'.

The department was said to be interested in booking a 'moderate Muslim' to speak to the defense community in the aftermath of September 11.

However, it seems that the Department of Defense was unaware that Al-Awlaki had been interviewed at least four times by the FBI a few days after September 11, because of alleged ties to the hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Hani Hanjour. Those men are accused of being among the five hijackers of American Airlines Flight 77, which was flown into the Pentagon.

It is believed he may have been aware of the terrorist plot before September 11, 2001. According to Fox, the Pentagon also seemed unaware of al-Awlaki's alleged soliciting of prostitutes.

A former high-ranking FBI agent told Fox News that there was tremendous 'arrogance' about the vetting process at the Pentagon. 'They vetted people politically and showed indifference toward security and intelligence advice of others', the former agent said.

Link

Home Front: WoT

Awlaki lied to qualify for U.S.-funded college scholarship

2010-04-14

The American Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, considered by some to be one of the most wanted terrorists behind Usama bin Laden, was educated in the United States with taxpayers money, an ongoing Fox News investigation has found.

A former diplomatic security agent who was tasked with investigating Awlaki immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks told Fox News that the Yemeni-American national apparently lied on his visa application to attend Colorado State University, where he studied engineering. Rather than tell U.S. immigration officials that he was born in Las Cruces, N.M., in 1971, Awlaki stated that the was foreign born, the security agent, Ray Fournier, said.

Awlaki received $20,000 in scholarship money from a U.S. government program for his schooling in Fort Collins, Colo. When asked if Awlaki was eligible, Fournier said, No, he is absolutely forbidden to have it.' "That's the taxpayers' money," Fournier added, saying Awlaki knew that lying about his birthplace would help him get the scholarship money.

A spokesperson at Colorado State University confirmed that Awlaki listed himself as an international student during his years there. The school would not comment on his financial records citing privacy issues.

Fournier came across the scholarship information as part of a larger investigation by the Joint Terrorism Task Force, based in San Diego, in the months following 9/11. He says a large team of agents worked together tirelessly to find a reason to arrest or detain the American-born cleric because of his ties to at least two of the 9/11 hijackers, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar. The task force was a robust group of individuals,' Fournier said. We had ATF, DEA, local and state organizations, California Department of Motor Vehicles, to the Social Security Administration, the INS and the FBIabout 70 people.'

Awlaki was of special interest to the task force because he was the iman at the Rabat mosque in San Diego from 1996 to 2000 where the two hijackers worshipped. He would meet with these two -- al-Hazmi and al Mihdihar -- in a small ante-room off the main floor,' Fournier told Fox News, adding that the contact was on a regular basis. The two terrorists had a special relationship with the imam where they met frequently, in private meetings, after Friday prayers.'

Fournier was asked to specially look into passport and visa fraud. The Diplomatic Service, where Fournier worked at the time, is the law enforcement branch of the State Department. I traveled to New Mexico. I went through the Bureau of Vital Statistics records and secured his birth certificate," Fournier told Fox News. Clearly he was born here. It (the birth certificate) looked valid to me. There was nothing out of the ordinary. His parents were here as graduate students at New Mexico State University at the time.'

Link

Southeast Asia

Malaysia: 9/11 terror suspect freed in north

2008-12-11

(AKI) - The Malaysian government has released five terror suspects, including Yazid Sufaat, who was accused of aiding terrorists during the 11 September 2001 attacks in the United States. Interior Minister Syed Hamid Albar said Sufaat, allegedly linked to the Jemaah Islamiyah militant group, was released from the Kamunting detention centre in the northern Malaysian state of Perak.

"He was considered a threat to public security in Malaysia because he was part of Jemaah Islamiyah, trying to establish an Islamic government within the region," said Albar. "Yazid Sufaat and four others were released on 4 December".

However, Malaysian Inspector General of Police Tan Sri Musa Hassan said Sufaat was released with another Malaysian on 24 November. "We released him as he had shown remorse and repentance after almost seven years of rehabilitation," said Hassan quoted by Malaysian English language daily The Star.
Oh. Well. I guess it's okay then.
"He was released on several conditions. He has to report to the police regularly and cannot leave Selangor without police permission. Our officers will also be monitoring him as well as several others who have been released over the past years to ensure they do not go back to their old ways,'' he said.
And let that be a lesson to ya, me boy. Get on home now...
Sufaat, arrested in December 2001, is accused of having housed several of the terrorists involved in the 9/11 attacks when he lived in the United States. The terrorists allegedly used his house as a meeting place for Al-Qaeda members. Among those who visited his house were 9/11 attackers Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi. Both were named by the American FBI as the hijackers of American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon in Washington.

Sufaat was also accused by US authorities of helping convicted 9/11 conspirator Zacharias Moussaoui.

The other suspects that were released include two Thai separatists and two Malaysians suspected of aiding foreign intelligence groups.

Jemaah Islamiyah is widely considered South-East Asia's most dangerous terrorist organisation and responsible for the Bali bombings that killed 202 people in 2002.

Link

Home Front: WoT

Guantanamo prisoner denounces war-crime trial

2008-04-10

A Saudi prisoner today denounced the war-crimes case against him as a politically motivated "sham" and had himself removed from the courtroom in symbolic protest.

Ahmed Mohammed Ahmed Haza Al-Darbi, whose brother-in-law was among the Sept. 11 hijackers, informed the military judge hearing his terror conspiracy case that he wanted neither legal representation nor to be present at his trial.

Good. Things ought to move right along then ...

Al-Darbi, 33, has been charged with conspiracy and material support for terrorism for allegedly training with Al Qaeda and plotting to attack ships in the Strait of Hormuz. Al-Darbi, whose war-crimes case is one of seven inching their way toward trial by the military commissions, has yet to enter a plea and made clear he wouldn't be returning for future sessions.

The plea is 'nolo contendre', the judge decides based on the evidence the prosecutor puts forward, and the sentence becomes obvious.

He arrived in court in the white tunic and blue canvas shoes denoting a compliant detainee and politely told the judge, Army Col. James Pohl, that he neither wanted to be represented by the military lawyer assigned to his case nor by any civilian attorney. "History will record these trials as a scandal," Al-Darbi said. "I advise you, the judge, and everyone else who is present to not continue with this play, this sham."

Another detainee charged with attempted murder in a grenade attack that wounded two U.S. National Guardsmen in Afghanistan also refused to cooperate last month. Mohammed Jawad, a 23-year-old Afghan who had to be dragged from his cell for a March 12 arraignment, said he would boycott proceedings he considers illegitimate.

Excellent! That's another one done and it's not even lunch time yet ...

Pretrial hearings have begun for two other defendants and three await arraignment, including one this week. Prosecutors have announced their intentions to try seven other Guantanamo prisoners but have yet to serve them with the war-crimes charges announced as long as two months ago. Among those cases awaiting activation are capital charges against Sept. 11 alleged mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and five others accused of roles in those attacks.

The Army lawyer assigned to defend Al-Darbi, Lt. Col. Brian Broyles, is required by military commissions rules to represent the absent defendant anyway. But Broyles said he would seek guidance from his bar association in Kentucky, as well as from the Army judge advocate general corps, on whether ethical standards would prohibit his representation of a client who doesn't want him. Broyles faces a dilemma if he is ordered by the judge to defend Al-Darbi and advised by legal ethicists against an active role. "There's every possibility that I'll end up being a potted plant," Broyles said.

I'm sure you're a decent guy and a good lawyer, but don't lose sleep over this, okay? As a lawyer you should know by now that if your client wants to be a mook you can't stop him.

In his brief address to Pohl, Al-Darbi repeated ~~lies~~ claims that he had been abused while in U.S. custody in Afghanistan. Broyles had told journalists last month that he'd been told by Al-Darbi that an Army counterintelligence specialist had beaten him and left him hanging from handcuffs during interrogations at Bagram Air Base north of Kabul. The soldier, Pfc. Damien Corsetti, was court-martialed in 2006 for abuse involving another detainee.

Broyles indicated any trial of his client would probably be bogged down in procedural wrangling for months. Al-Darbi has never been determined to be an unlawful enemy combatant, a necessary step before the tribunal can claim jurisdiction in the case. None of the allegations against Al-Darbi tie him to the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. His brother-in-law, Khalid al-Mihdhar, was one of the five Al Qaeda hijackers who commandeered American Airlines Flight 77 on Sept. 11, 2001, and plowed it into the Pentagon.

Link

Home Front: WoT

US: Saudi GTMO detainee is kin to 9/11 hijacker

2007-12-24

A Saudi terrorism suspect facing possible charges before a military tribunal at Guantanamo has been identified as a brother-in-law of one of the Sept. 11 hijackers.

Ahmed Mohammed Ahmed Haza al-Darbi, who is accused of helping to organize an al-Qaida plot to attack a ship, is a brother-in-law of Khalid al-Mihdhar, a Saudi who was one of the hijackers who crashed a plane into the Pentagon, the military said in a statement late Friday. Al-Darbi, 32, faces possible charges that include conspiracy and providing support to terrorism and could be sentenced to up to life in prison if convicted by the military court at the U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba.

Prosecutors have drawn up the charges and informed the detainee of the accusations against him, but military legal authorities are still reviewing the case and he has not yet been formally charged.

The military says al-Darbi was a trained al-Qaida operative who met with Osama bin Laden and helped organize a plot to attack a ship off Yemen or in the Strait of Hormuz. The military did not say whether his relationship with al-Mihdhar is connected to the accusations against him.

Al-Mihdhar and another hijacker lived in San Diego, before they boarded American Airlines Flight 77 on Sept. 11, 2001, as part of a team that crashed it into the Pentagon.

Link

Terror Networks

(Another) Saudi-Osama Connection

2006-10-12

It was supposed to be one of those international ho-hum conferences, dedicated to endangered species. But in a surprise move, the government of Saudi Arabia turned it into an international confrontation, using its veto power to prevent an American conservationist group from presenting what it called actionable information that tied top Saudi and United Arab Emirates leaders to al Qaeda.

UN officials called the Saudi move to ban the U.S group, which had official United Nations observer status, unprecedented. The UN actually tried to facilitate the appearance of the U.S. group at last Fridays meeting in Geneva of the 54th Standing Committee of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). That may have been a first in UN history.

The conservationist group, the Union for the Conservation of Raptors (UCR), said it was prepared to present new evidence of ongoing smuggling operations that tied top Saudi and United Arab Emirates leaders to al Qaeda. In a letter outlying their proposed testimony, the UCR said that it would present evidence of bribes paid to UN officials by UAE and Saudi officials in order to allow the smuggling of hunting falcons.

In exchange for the bribes which I am told totaled over a half-million dollars - the UN official authorized the shipment of smuggled falcons by the UAE and the Saudi government to royal hunting camps in Central Asia, where the Arab rulers met with top al Qaeda officials and international arms dealers, said UCR spokesman Alan Parrot.

The UCR also accused a top Saudi official, Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abuldaul Aziz, of having used his diplomatic immunity to smuggle falcons to his father and uncle in Saudi Arabia. At the time, Prince Bandar was the Saudi ambassador to Washington, and his father was the Defense Minister. The UCR said that the Saudi Embassy paid a $150,000 fine in the U.S. Department of Justice in relation to the falcon shipments.

The threat of exposing Prince Bandars alleged involvement in the falcon trade is probably what triggered the unusual Saudi intervention last week in Geneva, since Prince Bandar continues to be a prominent member of the royal family and a key power broker.
Let's not forget Bandar's wife funding the 911 hijacker/pilots Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi via Saudi intelligence agents Omar al-Bayoumi and Osama Bassnan who welcomed the two the US and set them up.
Rest at link.

Link

Terror Networks

KSM clashed with Binny over 9/11

2006-04-08

TO HEAR September 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed tell it, Osama bin Laden was a meddling boss whose indiscretion and poor judgement threatened to derail the terrorist attacks.

Bin Laden also saddled Mohammed with would-be hijackers who, the ringleader thought, were ill-equipped for the job. And he carelessly dropped hints about the imminent attacks, violating Mohammed's cardinal rule against discussing the plot.

The repeated conflicts between the two al-Qaeda leaders emerged last week during the penalty phase of the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui. Jurors heard new details of the plot from the interrogation summaries of several captured al-Qaeda officials.

In a written statement for his US interrogators, Mohammed described al-Qaeda as an almost mystically efficient corporation. The portly Kuwaiti, who was captured in Pakistan in 2003, told them that they could learn a lot from the organisation.

"You must study these matters to know the huge difference between the Western mentality in administration and the Eastern mentality," he wrote.

The hallmark of the system, he said, was unquestioned control: everyone up the chain of command did as they were told and never bucked authority all for the common cause of the enterprise, which, in this case, was killing as many Americans as possible.

"I know that the materialistic Western mind cannot grasp the idea," Mohammed wrote. "But in the end, the operation was a success."

Yet Mohammed describes a terrorist outfit fraught with the same conflicts and petty animosities that plague many Western corporations.

"Mohammed stated that he was usually compelled to do whatever bin Laden wanted," the interrogation summary says. "That said, Mohammed noted that he disobeyed bin Laden on several occasions."

His independence from bin Laden had its limits, however, because it was al-Qaeda's money and operatives that enabled the plot to go forward.

Mohammed succeeded in rejecting three attempts by bin Laden to accelerate the plot. But he said his boss cancelled an overseas element of the hijacking scheme that he was orchestrating.

Presumably, bin Laden would have his own version of events. But a former FBI agent who closely tracked al-Qaeda said the testy relationship described by Mohammed was consistent with the accounts of other terrorism suspects.

"They couldn't stand each other," the former official said. "They both had huge egos."

The seeds of conflict were planted in 1996, when Mohammed first presented his idea to hijack US planes and fly them into buildings. He specifically suggested "that they send (mujahideen) to study in the flight institutes and use large planes" rather than the smaller military ones that al-Qaeda operatives were trained to fly. Mohammed said that bin Laden turned him away, saying the plan was unworkable.

Three years later, bin Laden summoned Mohammed to Afghanistan and gave him the green light. By October 2000, Mohammed had climbed the ranks and was in firm control of the September 11 plot, showing an array of management skills.

It was Mohammed who decided to send two hijackers to San Diego after finding out it had numerous flight schools. He told them to visit the zoo and other tourist sites so they would blend in while they were preparing for the suicide hijackings.

He told his interrogators he provided "personalised training" to an estimated 39 al-Qaeda operatives.

Mohammed was a stickler for security. He insisted on compartmentalising the details of the plot to such a degree that even some of al-Qaeda's top officials did not know them.

"When four people know the details of an operation, it is dangerous; when two people know, it is good; when just one person knows, it is better," Mohammed said, according to his interrogators.

Had Mohammed not insisted on such security measures, he suggested, bin Laden might have endangered the whole mission. Apparently he had a knack of forcing Mohammed to take operatives who could not follow directions or keep their mouths shut.

Mohammed had concerns from the outset about Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar.

"The only reason they were involved in the 9/11 plot was because they had (US) visas and because bin Laden wanted the two to go on the operation."

Mohammed and bin Laden also had repeated disagreements over Moussaoui. Mohammed was convinced he was not a "suitable operative".

The interrogation summary said that Mohammed was frustrated at bin Laden's repeated hints to visitors and trainees about the coming US attacks. He resisted swearing allegiance to bin Laden "to ensure that he remained free to plan operations however he chose".

Link

Home Front: WoT

How al-Qaeda and the FBI viewed the lead-up to 9/11

2006-04-01

Three weeks of testimony and dozens of documents released in the sentencing of Zacarias Moussaoui have offered an eerie parallel view of two organizations, al-Qaida and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and how they pursued their missions before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Al-Qaida, according to the newly revealed account from the chief plotter, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, took its time in choosing targets - attack the White House or perhaps a nuclear plant in Pennsylvania? Organizers sized up and selected operatives, teaching them how to apply for a visa and how to cut a throat, a skill they practiced on sheep and camels. Despite the mistakes of careless subordinates and an erratic boss, Osama bin Laden, Mohammed tried to keep the plot on course.

Mohammed, a Pakistani-born, American-trained engineer, "thought simplicity was the key to success," says the summary of his interrogation by the Central Intelligence Agency. It is all the more chilling for the banal managerial skills it ascribes to the man who devised the simultaneous air attacks.

If Mohammed's guiding principle was simplicity, the U.S. government relied on sprawling bureaucracies at feuding agencies to look for myriad potential threats. The CIA had lots of information on two of the hijackers, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, but the FBI did not know the men had settled in San Diego, where Mohammed had instructed them to "spend time visiting museums and amusement parks" so they could masquerade as tourists.

At the FBI, a few agents pursued clues that would later prove tantalizingly close to the mark, but they could not draw attention from top counterterrorism officials. A Minnesota FBI agent, Harry M. Samit, warned in a memo that Moussaoui was a dangerous Islamic extremist whose study of how to fly a Boeing 747-400 seemed to be part of a sinister plot.

"As the details of this plan are not yet fully known, it cannot be determined if Moussaoui has sufficient knowledge of the 747-400 to attempt to execute the seizure of such an aircraft," Samit wrote on Aug. 31, 2001. He had already urged Washington to act quickly, because it was not clear "how far advanced Moussaoui's plan is or how many unidentified co-conspirators exist."

But to high-level officials, the oddball Moroccan-born Frenchman in Minneapolis was only one of scores of possible terrorists who might be worth checking out. An FBI official in Washington edited crucial details out of Samit's memos seeking a search warrant for Moussaoui's possessions and said that pressing for it could hurt an agent's career, Samit testified.

The picture of a large and lumbering bureaucracy trying to defend against a small and flexible enemy is striking, said Timothy J. Roemer, a member of the national Sept. 11 commission.

"It's like the elephant fighting the snake," said Roemer, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana.

Link

Home Front: WoT

On Stand, Moussaoui Says He Knew of Plan to Attack W.T.C.

2006-03-27

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) -- Al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui testified Monday that he and would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid were supposed to hijack a fifth airplane on Sept. 11, 2001, and fly it into the White House.

This is why lawyers don't like clients taking the stand.

Moussaoui's testimony on his own behalf stunned the courtroom as he disclosed details he had never revealed before. It was in stark contrast to Moussaoui's previous statements in which he said the White House attack was to come later if the United States refused to release a radical Egyptian sheik imprisoned on earlier terrorist convictions.

Moussaoui testified Monday he lied to investigators when arrested in August 2001 because he wanted to let the attacks of Sept. 11 go forward. ''Yes, you can say that,'' Moussaoui said when the prosecution asked if that was why he misled them. The statement was key to the government's case that the attacks might have been averted if Moussaoui had been more cooperative following his arrest.

He told the court he knew the attacks were coming some time after August 2001 and bought a radio so he could hear them unfold. Specifically, he said he knew the World Trade Center was going to be attacked, but asserted he was not part of the plot and didn't know the details.

Taking the stand in his own defense in his death-penalty trial, Moussaoui said he declined to become a suicide pilot in some future attack when asked by a senior al-Qaida official in 1999. Nineteen men pulled off the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York in Washington in the worst act of terrorism ever on U.S. soil.

''I had knowledge that the Twin Towers would be hit,'' Moussaoui said. ''I didn't know the details of this.'' Asked by his lawyer why he signed his guilty plea in April as ''the 20th hijacker,'' Moussaoui replied: ''Because everybody used to refer to me as the 20th hijacker and it was a bit of fun.'' Moussaoui testified calmly in his death penalty trial, but against his lawyers' wishes.

Before he took the stand, his lawyers made a last attempt to stop him from testifying, but failed. Defense attorney Gerald Zerkin argued that his client would not be a competent witness because he has contempt for the court, only recognizes Islamic law and therefore ''the affirmation he undertakes would be meaningless.'' Asked by Zerkin if he was supposed to be one of the men who would pilot a plane on 9/11, he said no, adding: ''I'm sorry, I don't know about the number of planes but I was not the fifth (pilot) hijacker.'' The 19 terrorists on Sept. 11 hijacked and crashed four airliners, killing nearly 3,000 people in the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and on the planes.

About his guilty plea, he said: ''I took a pen. I signed it.''

He said talked with an al-Qaida official in 1999 about why a 1993 bombing at the World Trade Center failed to bring the towers down. He said ''was asked in the same period for the first time if I want to be a suicide pilot and I declined.''

Yet, he said he was taking flight training for a separate attack on the White House, when he was arrested in August 2001 on immigration charges. He was vague on whether this attack was to have been after Sept. 11 or on it. ''I know it was something going on,'' he said in French-accented English. ''We don't do single operation. We do multiple strikes.'' He told the court it was ''difficult to say'' whether he was involved in the planning for 9/11. At some point, he said, he received training on what to do if at the controls of a hijacked plane if a fighter aircraft approached.

Just before Moussaoui took the stand, the court heard testimony that two months before the attacks that a CIA deputy chief waited in vain for permission to tell the FBI about a ''very high interest'' al-Qaida operative who became one of the hijackers. The official, a senior figure in the CIA's Osama bin Laden unit, said he sought authorization on July 13, 2001, to send information to the FBI but got no response for 10 days, then asked again. As it turned out, the information on Khalid al-Mihdhar did not reach the FBI until late August. At the time, CIA officers needed permission from a special unit before passing certain intelligence on to the FBI. The official was identified only as John. His written testimony was read into the record.

''John's'' testimony was part of the defense's case that federal authorities missed multiple opportunities to catch hijackers and perhaps thwart the 9/11 plot. His testimony included an e-mail sent by FBI supervisor Michael Maltbie discussing Moussaoui but playing down his terrorist connections. Maltbie's e-mail said ''there's no indication that (Moussaoui) had plans for any nefarious activity.'' He sent that e-mail to the CIA even after receiving a lengthy memo from the FBI agent who arrested Moussaoui and suspected him of being a terrorist with plans to hijack aircraft.

Former FBI agent Erik Rigler, the first defense witness, was questioned about a Justice Department report that he said criticized the CIA for keeping intelligence about two known al-Qaida terrorist operatives in the United States from the FBI for more than a year. Under cross-examination from the prosecution, he acknowledged the report did not link the pair specifically to a civil aviation plot. But he said the report's thrust was about their preparations for what turned out to be the 9/11 attacks, and their ability to elude federal agents. ''That's why they came here,'' he said. ''They didn't come for Disney.''

The two were among the 19 suicide hijackers on 9/11. The report said they had been placed on a watch list in Thailand in January 2000, but not on a U.S. list until August 2001. Prosecutors argue that Moussaoui, a French citizen, thwarted a prime opportunity to track down the 9/11 hijackers and possibly unravel the plot when he was arrested in August 2001 on immigration violations and lied to the FBI about his al-Qaida membership and plans to hijack a plane. Had Moussaoui confessed, the FBI could have pursued leads that would have led them to most of the hijackers, government witnesses have testified.

To win the death penalty, prosecutors must first prove that Moussaoui's actions -- specifically, his lies -- were directly responsible for at least one death on Sept. 11. If they fail, Moussaoui would get life in prison. Moussaoui pleaded guilty in April to conspiring with al-Qaida to hijack planes and other crimes, but he has denied any role in 9/11. He says he was training for a possible future attack on the White House.

Link

Home Front: WoT

Terrorists on Tap

2006-01-22

Do Al Gore and other Democrats really want to keep the government from finding al Qaeda agents in the U.S.?
In a speech last week, Al Gore took another swing at the National Security Agency's electronic surveillance program, which monitors international communications when one party is affiliated with terrorists. Specifically, Mr. Gore argued that George Bush "has been breaking the law repeatedly and persistently," and that such actions might constitute an impeachable offense. The question he raises is whether the president illegally bypassed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). But the real issue is national security: FISA is as adept at detecting--and, thus, preventing--a terrorist attack as a horse-and-buggy is at getting us from New York to Paris.

I have extensive experience with the consequences of government bungling due to overstrict interpretations of FISA. As chief counsel for the Senate Intelligence Committee from 1981 to 1984, I participated in oversight of FISA in the first years after its passage. When I subsequently became deputy assistant attorney general in the Reagan administration, one of my responsibilities was the terrorism portfolio, which included working with FISA.

In 1985, I experienced the pain of terminating a FISA wiretap when to do so defied common sense and thwarted the possibility of gaining information about American hostages. During the TWA 847 hijacking, American serviceman Robert Stethem was murdered and the remaining American male passengers taken hostage. We had a previously placed tap in the U.S. and thought there was a possibility we could learn the hostages' location. But Justice Department career lawyers told me that the FISA statute defined its "primary purpose" as foreign intelligence gathering. Because crimes were taking place, the FBI had to shut down the wire.

FISA's "primary purpose" became the basis for the "wall" in 1995, when the Clinton-Gore Justice Department prohibited those on the intelligence side from even communicating with those doing law enforcement. The Patriot Act corrected this problem and the FISA appeals court upheld the constitutionality of that amendment, characterizing the rigid interpretation as "puzzling." The court cited an FBI agent's testimony that efforts to investigate two of the Sept. 11 hijackers were blocked by senior FBI officials, concerned about the FISA rule requiring separation.

Today, FISA remains ill-equipped to deal with ever-changing terrorist threats. It was never envisioned to be a speedy collector of information to prevent an imminent attack on our soil. And the reasons the president might decide to bypass FISA courts are readily understandable, as it is easy to conjure up scenarios like the TWA hijacking, in which strict adherence to FISA would jeopardize American lives.
The overarching problem is that FISA, written in 1978, is technologically antediluvian. It was drafted by legislators who had no concept of how terrorists could communicate in the 21st century or the technology that would be invented to intercept those communications. The rules regulating the acquisition of foreign intelligence communications were drafted when the targets to be monitored had one telephone number per residence and all the phones were plugged into the wall. Critics like Al Gore and especially critics in Congress, rather than carp, should address the gaps created by a law that governs peacetime communications-monitoring but does not address computers, cell phones or fiber optics in the midst of war.

The NSA undoubtedly has identified many foreign phone numbers associated with al Qaeda. If these numbers are monitored only from outside the U.S., as consistent with FISA requirements, the agency cannot determine with certainty the location of the persons who are calling them, including whether they are in the U.S. New technology enables the president, via NSA, to establish an early-warning system to alert us immediately when any person located in the U.S. places a call to, or receives a call from, one of the al Qaeda numbers. Do Mr. Gore and congressional critics want the NSA to be unable to locate a secret al Qaeda operative in the U.S.?

If we had used this ability before 9/11, as the vice president has noted, we could have detected the presence of Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi in San Diego, more than a year before they crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon.

And to correct an oft-cited misconception, there are no five-minute "emergency" taps. FISA still requires extensive time-consuming procedures. To prepare the two- to three-inch thick applications for nonemergency warrants takes months. The so-called emergency procedure cannot be done in a few hours, let alone minutes. The attorney general is not going to approve even an emergency FISA intercept based on a breathless call from NSA.

For example, al Qaeda Agent X, having a phone under FISA foreign surveillance, travels from Pakistan to New York. The FBI checks airline records and determines he is returning to Pakistan in three hours. Background information must be prepared and the document delivered to the attorney general. By that time, Agent X has done his business and is back on the plane to Pakistan, where NSA can resume its warrantless foreign surveillance. Because of the antiquated requirements of FISA, the surveillance of Agent X has to cease only during the critical hours he is on U.S. soil, presumably planning the next attack.

Even if time were not an issue, any emergency FISA application must still establish the required probable cause within 72 hours of placing the tap. So al Qaeda Agent A is captured in Afghanistan and has Agent B's number in his cell phone, which is monitored by NSA overseas. Agent B makes two or three calls every day to Agent C, who flies to New York. That chain of facts, without further evidence, does not establish probable cause for a court to believe that C is an agent of a foreign power with information about terrorism. Yet, post 9/11, do the critics want NSA to cease monitoring Agent C just because he landed on U.S. soil?

Why did the president not ask Congress in 2001 to amend FISA to address these problems? My experience is instructive. After the TWA incident, I suggested asking the Hill to change the law. A career Justice Department official responded, "Congress will make it a political issue and we may come away with less ability to monitor." The political posturing by Democrats who suddenly found problems with the NSA program after four years of supporting it during classified briefings only confirms that concern.

It took 9/11 for Congress to pass the amendment breaking down the "wall," which had been on the Justice Department's wish list for 16 years. And that was just the simple tweak of changing two words. The issues are vastly more complicated now, requiring an entirely new technical paradigm, which could itself become obsolete with the next communications innovation.

There are other valid reasons for the president not to ask Congress for a legislative fix. To have public debate informs terrorists how we monitor them, harming our intelligence-gathering to an even greater extent than the New York Times revelation about the NSA program. Asking Congress for legislation would also weaken the legal argument, cited by every administration since 1978, that the president has constitutional authority beyond FISA to conduct warrantless wiretaps to acquire foreign intelligence information.

The courts may ultimately decide the legality of the NSA program. Meanwhile, the public should decide whether it wants NSA to monitor terrorists, or wait while congressional critics and Al Gore fiddle.

Link

Warning: Undefined property: stdClass::$T in /data/rantburg.com/www/pgrecentorg.php on line 132
-12 More