Napolitano Has Got To Go

I don't like to get into politics on this site, but Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano appeared on CNN's "The Situation Room" this evening and blew my mind. Host Suzanne Malveauz asked a direct and fairly simple question: How did she prioritize the threat of domestic extremism vs. Al Qaeda extremism vs. Other?

MALVEAUX: What is the biggest threat now facing Americans?

Is it from a domestic attack, is it from local groups or is it from foreign groups like Al Qaeda?

NAPOLITANO: You know, I don't have the luxury of ranking those things.

Remember the outrage after the underwear bombing incident, when she claimed "the system worked"? This statement makes that one look brilliant. I was willing to hold my tongue last time, hoping it was a gaffe rather than an indicator of incompetence. But if DHS can't prioritize terrorist threats, then we're in big trouble.

Obviously, someone in the federal government is deciding how to allocate resources for homeland security, and that person had better be making that decision based on the priority of the threat. But that person is supposed to be the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

Answering "What is the biggest threat?" is the JOB DESCRIPTION of the DHS chief. Anyone who can't mount a sensible response should not be filling one of the most important jobs in this country.

Napolitano has got to go.

Here's the rest of the exchange. Note that Malveaux can't quite believe the answer either, although she was too polite. Regular host Wolf Blitzer would have been better in this "situation."

NAPOLITANO (continued): We have to lean forward and be prepared for both, that it could be an international terrorist or a domestic terrorist. It could be someone who is a -- a U.S. citizen who now has been trained in an international camp and come back.

All of those things are phenomenon that are currently happening in the United States. All of them are things that, you know, we are constantly working, as I said, to -- to minimize the risk that they could actually go from those kind of extremist and violent extremist beliefs into violent action.

MALVEAUX: But certainly, Madam Secretary, there's a way of measuring which -- which organization, which group, which individual is -- is most prepared and perhaps the most potentially threatening to the United States?

NAPOLITANO: Well, I -- I'm not sure. I think that's a -- you know, I think that's a question the media might ask.

I'm not sure that's quite the way that law enforcement would respond. Because if we are attacked internationally, it doesn't give any comfort if I say, yes, well, internationally, it was ranked number two or -- or the reverse.

Labels: Al-Qaeda, Analysis, DHS, Domestic-Extremism, Janet-Napolitano, Weblog

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

A Significant Discussion About Takfir

According to Al Sharq Al Awsat, a group of senior Saudi clerics is discussing a proposal to criminalize "takfiri" fatwas which claim that people taking part in certain kinds of activity are not to be considered Muslims.

While a positive development, there is an important loophole -- the proposed rule would only prohibit takfiri fatwas from "non-official institutions." Sorry, Ahmadiyyas! Apparently takfir is OK when it's coming from the Saudi establishment.

The definition of what is an "official" institution is also in play. There are a lot of Islamic institutions outside of Saudi Arabia which rely on Saudi financial support, and not all of them are exemplars of tolerance and brotherly love. Would all of these institutions be covered by this ban, or would it just apply within the kingdom?

Furthermore, the stated motive for this proposal is not exactly pristine from an Islamic standpoint. A source explained to Al Sharq that the non-official takfiri fatwa phenomenon "diminishes the prestige of the state, as well as impacting on external relations between Saudi Arabia and the rest of the world." That sounds like nationalism, which is a no-no under the Saudi interpretation of Islam, and it also sounds like a politically expedient decision rather than a principled stand.

And what is the penalty for issuing a non-official takfiri fatwa? Will the Saudis declare takfir against offenders? And doesn't that undercut the whole point of this exercise?

Whether for good -- in that it diminishes the strength of the takfiri movement -- or for ill -- in that it highlights the hypocrisy of the Saudi establishment for all Muslims to see -- this discussion is worth watching. If a ruling emerges, there will almost certainly be repercussions. Beware the law of unintended consequences.

In other takfiri news, Dr. Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri, a prominent Islamic scholar with one foot in the east and one in the west, has issued a fatwa against terrorism which states that terrorists who are "burning the Muslims are debarred from the fold of Islam."

Will those who live by the sword of takfir also die by it? This seems a little dicey to me. Also take note that the takfir in this case applies only to terrorists who kill Muslims. The fatwa does prohibit terrorism against non-Muslim targets, but no penalty is specified.

Labels: Analysis, Saudi-Arabia, Takfir, Weblog

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

The Growing Aafia Siddiqi Problem

For most Americans, the story of Aafia Siddiqui was a flash in the pan. An American-educated scientist allegedly linked to Al Qaeda, she was placed on an FBI "wanted" list in 2003, arrested in Pakistan in 2008, tried and convicted in 2010 on charges of attempted murder and assault stemming from an incident when U.S. law enforcement officials showed up to question her after she was detained by authorities in Afghanistan. She grabbed an unsecured rifle and started shooting.

The trial did little to shed light on her alleged terrorist ties and complicating matters further, she showed significant signs of mental illness (first reported on INTELWIRE). Based on all the evidence, I'm inclined to think the mental illness is real and not a legal defense gambit.

Since news of her arrest became public, "Doctor Aafia" has become a cause celebre in her native Pakistan. The Pakistani government repeatedly went through the motions of attempting to intervene on her behalf with the United States, without success, but the efforts amplified the status of her case. Meanwhile, the Pakistani press has advanced an escalating series of stories about Siddiqui's arrest and interrogation, including thus-far unsubstantiated allegations that she was arrested long before 2008 and kept in a secret CIA prison.

Last week, Siddiqui's mother and sister told a Pakistani news outlet a lurid story about Siddiqui having been tortured and sexually abused while in U.S. custody, including a claim that she was stripped naked and forced to step on the Quran. The story is getting a lot of traction in the Pakistani media.

I don't find these tales particularly credible, particularly the latest and most-shocking allegations which are provided by Siddiqui's family but are not clearly sourced (i.e., we don't know how they know this). The family's claims include an extravagant and also-undocumented claim that all of this torture was videotaped. Some of the claims were attributed to Siddiqui herself, and as noted above, there is some reason to question her mental state.

"I am not making this up," said Siddiqui's mother, Ismat.

But my opinion isn't what counts here. Mainstream Pakistanis do find these claims credible, as do a growing number of people in the wider Muslim world and beyond. Thus far, the US has not done much to counter the emerging narrative in a country that is a vital front in the war against Al Qaeda, and whose pro-U.S. Zardari administration is getting weaker by the day.

It is probably too late to put the genie back in the bottle -- stories like this don't go away even when debunked, and those who do not trust the United States are not likely to trust the documentation provided by the United States.

But a swift and thorough disclosure of U.S. documents on the Siddiqui case might help limit the damage this story is doing to U.S. standing in the region. A brush fire left to burn unattended is certain to spread.

Labels: Aafia-Siddiqui, American-Jihadists, Analysis, Weblog

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

How Many American Jihadists?

UPDATED 1/14/2011: This post has been updated with new material derived from my forthcoming book, "Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go To War In The Name Of Islam," the first comprehensive look at the phenomenon of American jihadists from the 1970s to the present. The book is scheduled to be released in April/May 2011. Pre-orders are available now. For information about review copies or for media interviews on American jihadists, contact me here.

The question "How many American jihadists are out there?" has been posed to me by reporters and other interested people from time to time. In 2009 and 2010, a series of stories were published by journalists around the country who are just "discovering" that Americans have signed up for jihad. So I wanted to give a little bit of perspective on the history of American jihadists, which will be greatly expanded on in the book.

How long has this been going on? And how many are there?

It seems as if most people writing on this issue believe that American jihadists sprang into existence after 9/11. The linked article is particularly disappointing in its shallow pool approach, given the source.

Not only is this untrue, but it's desperately important. What U.S. policymakers need to understand is that Americans have been involved in these activities since the dawn of the modern age of terrorism -- to be more specific, at least two American citizens took part in the Siege of Mecca in 1979.

There were a few incidents before this which qualify as "jihadist," but they aren't networked jihad, more like individual expressions of political frustration. I discuss one of the most memorable of these incidents in the book.

Since 1979, Americans have taken part in every single major jihadist conflict around the globe, to a greater or lesser extent. Americans fought with the mujahideen against the Soviets in Afghanistan, they fought the Serbs in Bosnia. Every major Islamic terrorist attack against the U.S. homeland has included American collaborators, and many attacks overseas have as well.

For the book and thereafter, I have examined the following numbers of cases:

160 U.S.-born citizens have taken part in significant jihadist activity.

113 jihadists have been naturalized U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents.

353 people residing in the U.S., legally or illegally, for a substantial period of time (i.e., years) who have taken part in jihadist activity.

A few important things to remember about this list:

These are documented cases, which means cases that have resulted in prosecutions, associates of people who were prosecuted, and a number of people who I have personally become aware of, but who were not part of a prosecution. The call as to who is serious enough to merit inclusion is subjective on my part.

There are huge gaps in the data. This list is the tip of an iceberg. For instance, no one in the U.S. government tracked of how many Americans fought in Afghanistan or Bosnia. There are no figures except what can be mined from court transcripts and jihadist histories. I estimate at least 150 Americans fought the Soviets in Afghanistan and at least 30 Americans fought in Bosnia, but these are only educated guesses. These are guesses. The real numbers -- especially Afghanistan -- could be much higher.

With a few exceptions I deemed significant enough to transcend local politics, I did not document Hamas and Hezbollah cases for this list, focusing instead on the global jihad movement most dangerously represented by Al Qaeda.

The people on this list generally have a clear connection to an established jihadist movement or explicitly espoused jihadist ideology. Only one or two cases on my list are judgment calls where you could easily argue for other motives.

Keep in mind that the list covers the last 30 years.

Also important to keep in mind is that these are people whose involvement in jihadism amounted to more than just idle talk. So if you're counting the Internet "jihobbyists" (as Jarret Brachman calls them), there are still more people to think about.

How many? It depends on where you draw the line for the definition of jihobbyist. Someone who is a daily consumer of jihadist material and only an occasional contributor? Or should they be daily contributors? Do you count only those who participate on the top 10 forums (a relatively small number)? Do you count people who take part only in jihadist forums, or those who sign up for strict Salafist forums? Do they have to take part in those forums' jihadist section, or should we count those who merely enable and legitimize forums which have jihadist sections?

For every case we know about, there are X cases we don't know about. Depending on what value you assign to X and what you consider "significant" jihadist activity, the total number of Americans likely to have taken part in jihadist activity is at least in the thousands, and possibly tens of thousands.

More data will likely surface in coming months (of 2011) which will help create a more precise estimate of current activity, which I expect to on the high end. But most data is likely to focus on the post-September 11 era.

Hopefully all of this illuminates the fact that American jihadists are not necessarily a wacky new trend.

At this point, I do believe that the number of current American jihadists is higher than it was prior to September 11, but the increase is likely not as dramatic as some in the media would like to portray it.

Rather, I think the trend is that the Americans who do sign up are much more visible now, in part because we care more than we did in the 1980s and 1990s,and in part because the Internet encourages them to identify themselves, as opposed to the pre-9/11 era, when most individual consumers of jihadist propaganda talked about their interests in person and (mostly) behind closed doors.

Beyond the "significant" jihadists, lie the jihobbyists. I think the number of people casually interested in jihad is growing thanks to the Internet. Until fairly recently, we haven't seen a lot of indicators that jihobbyists were becoming active jihadists. But in 2010 and 2011, there has been a notable uptick in such cases. The conversion rate of jihobbyists to jihadists is a massive concern going forward.

Labels: American-Al-Qaeda, American-Jihadists, American-Terrorists, Analysis, Jihad-Joe

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Gadahn's Oscar Ambitions Thwarted

Back in the day, when Adam Gadahn was just getting started as guru to Al Qaeda's media operations, he released a couple of fairly slick videos designed to appeal to Western audiences by mimicking Western documentaries -- up to and including the presence of a musical soundtrack.

It is therefore interesting to note that the latest release from As-Sahab (which Gadahn basically runs at this point) opens with a short disclaimer. "ATTENTION: We do not permit musical accompaniment with our productions." One second later, a nasheed (religious song) fired up, but I guess that doesn't count.

I'm guessing this is due to input from one of Gadahn's Al Qaeda overseers. It's interesting that these guys can rationalize away visits to strip clubs but they can't handle a light orchestral score.

On the one hand, from a Western perspective, we should applaud such inconsistencies, which tend to shine a light on the hypocrisy of AQ's theological underpinnings. On the other hand, Gadahn's message indicated that AQ is increasingly sensitive to criticism of its Islamic credentials, so this may be the first stage in a rehabilitation campaign.

On the other hand, maybe they're just annoyed about badly executed music.

Labels: Adam-Gadahn, American-Al-Qaeda, American-Jihadists, American-Terrorists, Analysis, Azzam-the-American

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Convicting Khalid Shaikh Mohammed

I am out of the office, but I wanted to post a couple of quick thoughts about Attorney General Eric Holder's press conference today on the decision to prosecute Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four others for the attacks of September 11.

I am a bit ambivalent about this specific decision, due to several background issues, but I'm generally in favor of criminal trials for terrorism, especially for attacks which took place on U.S. soil. Trials are an important tool for educating the public. We the people will likely learn far more about 9/11 from this trial than we did from the 9/11 Commission (if the defendants don't plead guilty). The importance of an informed public cannot be overstated.

A couple of concerns have been raised about the trial. September 11 family members have pointed out that the suspects are likely to use this occasion to spew jihadist propaganda. This is a fair point. The sentencing statements by Ramzi Yousef and the "blind sheikh" Omar Abdel Rahman and others show both the validity of this concern but also the power of a judge to cut off comments when he or she so chooses.

Rahman mixed those talking points with protestations of his innocence and was eventually cut off by the judge. Most of Rahman's co-defendants spent their time praising America in an effort to get a lighter sentence, which did not exactly make them into international icons. Yousef, on the other hand, spouted off incendiary jihadist talking points at some length. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is more likely to follow the example of his cousin Yousef than to grovel.

The other major issue raised at the press conference was the admittedly unlikely prospect that through some technicality or twist these suspects could be acquitted or released.

This concern isn't groundless, and Holder's response -- that he's super-sure it won't happen -- was not ideal. If prosecutors controlled outcomes, we wouldn't ever see an acquittal. As far as KSM specifically, in the unlikely event of an acquittal, there are numerous other crimes he could be charged with, including an outstanding 1996 sealed indictment for the Bojinka plot.

One factor in this consideration, which seems to have gone over the heads of many pundits: Holder rather specifically said there is evidence which has not yet been released to the public, and he seemed to be pretty confident that this evidence equates to a smoking gun. That should be interesting.

One last point -- the defendants named today have confessed and pleaded guilty in their earlier tribunal appearances and basically begged to be executed. Everyone seems to be assuming this case will go to trial. This is an interesting question and shouldn't be taken for granted.

On the one hand, pleading guilty will elevate their status if the U.S. eventually decides to grant their wish for martyrdom. On the other hand, it's hard to imagine that these guys wouldn't embrace the opportunity to make some noise by dragging this out into a full trial. Either way, though, the media and pundits should not assume this is going to be a full-scale production number.

Labels: Analysis, Weblog

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

A Key Failure In Understanding Nidal Hasan

From today's Washington Post:

"[Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan] had his struggles, and he embraced his religion with such intensity that one wondered whether he" could have suffered from a form of "delusion," the [Walter Reed] staffer said. He cited as an example -- without speaking of Hasan in particular -- the belief that the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are against Muslims rather than against al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein's government and then insurgents in Iraq.

The view that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are directed at Islam is not "delusional" -- it's the product of a selective worldview shaped by an overwhelming amount of public discourse from authority figures within the Muslim world, and to a lesser extent, the Muslim-American world.

This "War on Islam" concept is an major component of radical thought, although the opinion is so widespread that it's probably unreasonable to say it's outside the Muslim mainstream (on a worldwide basis).

The "delusion" comment betrays such a profound lack of understanding and attention to the global Muslim public square that it's easy to see how Hasan's colleagues could have missed more important signs of extremism.

And for those keeping score, one of Anwar Awlaki's more popular audio tracts is titled "It's a War Against Islam."

Labels: American-Jihadists, Analysis, Anwar-Aulaqi, Anwar-Awlaki, Nidal-Malik-Hasan

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Terror Plot Targeted Newburgh Air Base Where High-Value Al Qaeda Detainees Landed

By J.M. Berger
INTELWIRE.com

An Air Force based that was allegedly targeted by terrorists in Newburgh, New York, was used as a landing site to transport high-value Al Qaeda detainees into U.S. custody.

According to a criminal complaint filed by the Justice Department, four Newburgh Muslims were planning to use "surface-to-air missile system to destroy military aircraft at the New York Air National Guard Base located at Stewart Airport in Newburgh, New York."

That air base was used in August and October of 1998 to receive two key operatives in the 1998 East African Embassy Bombings case -- Al Qaeda members Khalfan Khamis Mohamed and Mohamed Rashed Daoud Al-'Owhali, according to trial testimony in the landmark case, U.S. v. Bin Laden.

After landing at the base in Stewart, the terrorists were transported into the custody of the Justice Department's Southern District of New York where they stood trial.

Ahmed Ghailani, a detainee at Guantanamo Bay, is also accused in the 1998 bombing plot against U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. This week, Ghailani was indicted in the Southern District of New York and is expected to be transferred into Justice Department custody.

It is not known exactly when or how Ghailani will be transported to U.S. soil or whether Stewart Air Base would have been one of his stops. Stewart Air Base is also used "to transport military supplies and personnel to the U.S. Armed Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan," according to the Justice Department.

Nothing in the complaint suggests the four suspects -- James Cromitie, David Williams, Onta Williams and Laguerre Payen -- were aware that the base had been used in the past to transport arrested Al Qaeda members.

Nevertheless, the nexus of events points to the potential significance of even small, home-grown terrorist plots, while highlighting some of the challenges faced in dealing with Al Qaeda suspects on U.S. soil.

Labels: Analysis, INTELWIRE-Exclusive

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

The Legacy of the Order and the Failure of the Profile

Media reports have connected Aryan Nations and The Order to a group of would-be assassins allegedly targeting Presidential candidate Barack Obama (story).

The Order traces its roots back to the 1980s. The group has been the subject of a series of revivals and survivals. For the story of one such group (or rather collection of groups), see Intelwire's exclusive report on the PATCON operation.

Members of both the original Order and the so-called Second Order are still very much alive and active. Very few of the wider network's top leaders have ever been charged with a crime.

Authorities have tried to downplay the threat presented by the three would-be killers -- Tharin Gartrell, Nathan Johnson and Shawn Robert Adolf -- who were arrested on a traffic stop after driving erratically with a carload full of guns, ammo and drugs. On the basis of the latter factor, apparently, federal authorities have publicly dismissed the seriousness of the threat.

Indictment of Tharin Gartrell

Indictment of Nathan Johnson

Indictment of Shawn Robert Adolf

However, Timothy McVeigh was at least casually acquainted with methamphetamine. McVeigh was also arrested after a similarly careless traffic stop. He was in custody for hours before the police even realized he was connected to the Oklahoma City bombing.

In short, these suspects clearly match the historical precedent and any reasonable profile of a terrorist.

If they had been Pakistanis, the country would be whipping itself into an unparalleled frenzy over the latest terrorist threat (as noted earlier today by Mark Hosenball, investigative correspondent for Newsweek, on NPR's Talk of the Nation).

This is a critical error, in my view.

These three suspects were certainly capable of carrying out the threat -- at least from an armaments point of view. The drug use is not a disqualifying factor. In fact, meth has some history as a deliberately chosen inciting device for planned violence.

The operating pattern for U.S. white supremacists groups is decentralized "leaderless resistance" which is essentially identical to the structure of the current "Al Qaeda movement" and very similar to the modus operandi in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

For all these reasons, the cavalier law enforcement posture in this case is troubling. The response to this event should be the same as if the three men had been Egyptians or Saudis or Sudanese.

Racism and sloppy assumptions are not just wrong -- they're dangerous.

Labels: Analysis, Weblog

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

The Perils of Awakening

I've been wondering for some time just what U.S. authorities think the Awakening Councils will get up to once we leave Iraq. Unfortunately, I may have been too optimistic in assuming that the Sunni groups -- recruited by us for their anti-Al Qaeda tendencies -- were a potential problem for after we leave. An apparently serious U.S. misstep today may change that calculus.

Obviously, there are some things to like about the development of Sunni groups who wish to aid the U.S. in fighting al Qaeda. Just like there were things to like about the development of jihadist groups who wished to help us fight the Soviets in Afghanistan back in the 1980s. You remember how that worked out.

The Awakening Councils -- trained, armed and empowered by the Iraqi government and our own -- have evolved into an ad hoc army with between 60,000 and 100,000 members. Their prima facie purpose is to expel al Qaeda from Iraq. But that's not a mission statement and it's not a philosophy, it's simply a task.

There are two risks involved with this task-oriented approach. First, there's the risk they will succeed. We have an obvious interest in their success, of course, but once the task is accomplished, we find ourselves with a 100,000 strong Sunni army in the middle of a Shi'ite dominated political scene. Given the sectarian situation in Iraq over the last four years, it's not hard to guess what could happen next.

The second risk should be apparent after today's news that the U.S. military may have inadvertently bombed an Awakening checkpoint, killing six. It's difficult to estimate the political ramifications of this development. We can -- and should -- hope that it will taken as an unfortunate accident, which it almost certainly was.

Realistically, however, there is a significant chance it will be taken another way. The fragile Awakening alliance could split into pro- and anti-American camps. Or the majority of the alliance could turn against U.S. influence. In a worst-case (but probably unlikely) scenario, al Qaeda could exploit the situation to win back some of the support it has lost.

Hopefully, this is an unduly pessimistic view. But the complexity of the situation in Iraq continues to outpace our ability to analyze it. On the bright side, whatever ensues from this incident will probably help us get a better view of exactly where we stand with the Awakening Councils and (to a certain, limited extent) what we can expect from them down the road.

Labels: Analysis, Weblog

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Jihadists Add Strong Encryption To Terrorist Toolbox

By J.M. Berger
INTELWIRE.com

Al Qaeda-linked militants have rolled out improved security software that provides above-military-grade encryption for terrorists communicating online.

A copy of the software, Mujahideen Secrets 2, was obtained by INTELWIRE and forwarded to Paul A. Henry, Vice President for Technology Evangelism at Secure Computing (www.securecomputing.com), for analysis.

According to Henry, the software is a significant upgrade to an earlier version program used by jihadists. The new software can be used to encrypt chat sessions, as well as e-mail, Web forum postings and electronic communications.

The software can easily be loaded on a USB stick, according to Henry, allowing militants to encrypt communications from otherwise insecure locations such as Internet cafes.

The software is extremely easy to use, Henry said. This is a significant factor, since the computer skills (and general intelligence) of al Qaeda operatives run the gamut from highly advanced to embarrassingly inadequate.

On the higher end of that spectrum, Al Qaeda has traditionally employed fairly sophisticated computer techniques, but until recently, its implementation has generally lagged industry standards.

During the early and mid-1990s, terrorists were early adopters of laptop computers, PDAs, online publishing and digital file archiving. But while their computer habits were savvy, they were usually less than professional-level.

For instance, a laptop computer recovered from Ramzi Yousef in 1995 contained deleted files that were able to be recovered by forensic analysis. Yousef was sophisticated enough to use passwords, but not strong encryption. He removed old and sensitive files, but he didn't know to run a file shredder.

With the new software, Yousef's hard drive would have been a much tougher nut to crack. In addition to its 2,048-bit encryption, Mujahideen Secrets 2 includes a shredder and file and folder encryption.

The move to stronger encryption may have been prompted by security breaches on jihadist Web sites back in September, when the U.S. government and counterterrorism analysts obtained copies of an Osama bin Laden video release before it was widely introduced on the Web. At the time, several key jihadist sites temporarily suspended operations to address the breach.

However, it's unlikely the bulk of those security issues will be solved by strong encryption. While the debut of the software represents a significant and dangerous new development for counterterrorism officials, encryption and straight-up network security do not appear to have been the key factors in earlier breaches. The best encryption in the world won't help if you give away your passwords and encryption keys.

Mujahideen Secrets 2 appears to have been assembled and compiled from both open-source and copyrighted material, according to Henry. The software may be detectable when operating over networks or on targeted machines. This could be useful for counterterrorism professionals tracking terrorist and militant Web usage.

Labels: Analysis, INTELWIRE-Exclusive

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Yahya Al-Libbi: A Leader Who Could Revitalize Al Qaeda

By J.M. Berger
INTELWIRE.com

Yahya al-Libbi may be the next Osama bin Laden.

In fact, he might be a better bin Laden than Osama ever was.

Al-Libbi is a top al Qaeda operative captured by the Pakistanis in 2002. He was transferred to U.S. custody and subsequently escaped from a U.S.-run prison in Bagram, Afghanistan in 2005.

His much-touted escape catapulted him to the top ranks of al Qaeda's visible leadership.

Al-Libbi has produced more videos than Ayman Al-Zawahiri over the last year. He looks increasingly impressive with each appearance.

His most recent release, this week, highlighted his strengths and may point to an elevated operational role within al Qaeda's "corporate" nexus.

The message was directed toward Saudi Muslims and contained a harsh criticism of the Kingdom's corruption and moral laxity.



While that refrain has been repeated like a drumbeat by jihadi propagandists for decades, several aspects of his recent media releases bear scrutiny.

Al-Libbi is an extremely charismatic speaker. He looks good on camera -- young, strong and handsome -- and his voice is strong and clear, with very distinct enunciation. He effortlessly conveys a sense of physical competence, and the success of his prison break speaks for itself -- every statement he makes as a free man is inherently a slap in the face to the United States.

There's no contest at all between al-Libbi and Zawahiri on the charisma front. It's like comparing Bill Clinton to Dick Cheney. What's more impressive is how al-Libbi stacks up against bin Laden.

While bin Laden is known for possessing powerful charisma in person, he's a soft-spoken orator who mumbles. His camera presence has always been frail, even in his younger days, and his military experience is limited (though it has taken on legendary qualities).



Al-Libbi scores better than bin Laden for content as well as delivery. Bin Laden is a wonk for the details of Islamic history and jurisprudence. While his intelligence is evident during such dissertations, his religious scholarship has never been highly regarded. Furthermore, his speeches tend to be rooted in the minutiae of the past.

It's not that bin Laden doesn't focus on current affairs and modern problems. Rather it's a question of balance and pacing. His pronouncements deliberately evoke antiquity. Today's grievances are grounded in a long, long history. They emanate from that history and are, in turn, woven into it.

This backward-looking tendency can resonate with Arab audiences, who share bin Laden's long view on history. But these days, Al Qaeda is becoming more and more international -- its recruit base spans Europe and the Americas and is particularly strong in Al-Libbi's home base of North Africa.

Those audiences may be significantly more receptive to Al-Libbi's pragmatic here-and-now orientation. His most recent message on Saudi Arabia provides an excellent case in point.

Although al-Libbi references history and the scholars of Islam, the message continually returns to a focus on recent events -- Saudi and Arab cooperation with the United States, the corruption of regimes that claim to be Muslim and the encroachment of U.S. influence in the Arabian peninsula.

The speech is interspersed with accounts of torture, mistreatment and blasphemy from Arab regimes, and what he characterizes as the enslavement of Arab and Muslim governments to the wishes of the U.S. and its allies. By keeping it simple and relevant, al-Libbi also comes across as a more credible Islamic scholar than bin Laden.

Al-Libbi uses extremely specific anecdotes related to recent events, such as April's mass arrest of Saudi militants, highlighting the fact that he is current and involved in the struggle, out among the mujahideen -- providing a sharp contrast to the leadership-in-exile practiced by bin Laden and Zawahiri. Images distributed on extremist Web sites even show al-Libbi conducting military training before a class of Libyan jihadists.



The content of al-Libbi's messages also reflect the diverse interests of his growing international audience. He has spoken and written in depth on topics ranging from Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and even the plight of children with AIDS in Libya.

Overall, al-Libbi comes across as someone living in the present, whose viewpoint is informed by the past. In contrast, bin Laden comes across as someone who is living in the past and seeks to turn back the clock. That's intentional, and it's part of his appeal for a certain segment of the fundamentalist audience.

But it's not necessarily as attractive to new recruits, many of whom are becoming radicalized in response to relatively recent U.S. policies in the Middle East. Al-Libbi is better positioned to draw moderate and modern Muslims into the nexus of al Qaeda sympathizers and supporters.

It's noteworthy that this week's message, released by al Qaeda's al-Sahab media production arm, included English subtitles even though its message seems tailored to a Saudi audience.

In the past, messages from Zawahiri which were aimed at mainly Arab audiences have been delivered without subtitles. The extra effort reflects al-Libbi's strength in speaking to the concerns of jihadis around the world.

Al-Libbi has already been connected to significant terrorist and military attacks within Afghanistan, including a daring attempt to assassinate Vice President Dick Cheney at the very same air base where al-Libbi was once imprisoned.

He has yet to score a spectacular, mass-casualty terrorist attack outside of Afghanistan, but it's only a matter of time. Saudi Arabia, the country targeted in his latest message, could be in his sights. A map of Saudi Arabia was displayed throughout the message, reminiscent of past videos by bin Laden which were keyed to specific attacks.

Should al-Libbi be able to claim a devastating attack outside Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden may find himself officially replaced. And the United States may find itself fighting an enemy with a lot more upside potential.

Labels: Abu-Yahya-Al-Libi, Analysis, INTELWIRE-Exclusive

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

The Man Who Paved The Road To 9/11

Former Green Beret Ali Mohamed Built The Critical Infrastructure Al Qaeda Used For the September 11 Attack

By J.M. Berger
INTELWIRE.com

CLICK HERE for this story with full formatting, hypertext annotations and illustrations.

---

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald is widely regarded as the Justice Department's top gun on al Qaeda. He appeared before the 9/11 Commission in June 2004 to outline his views on the terrorist network's most critical components.
Fitzgerald spent almost an entire page of his five-page prepared statement[1] discussing one man -- Ali A. Mohamed, a senior al Qaeda associate who infiltrated the U.S. Army and played tag with the FBI for nearly a decade before being stopped.

Sidebar: Who is Ali Mohamed?

Fitzgerald did not spare a single word for Ramzi Yousef. He mentioned blind Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman only once -- as a tangent to Mohamed. Fitzgerald spent more time discussing Mohamed than talking about Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda's chief ideologist and purported second-in-command.

The emphasis could not have been more clear. Yet the final report of the 9/11 Commission did not reflect Fitzgerald's concern. The report barely mentioned Mohamed, spending a great deal of capital on Yousef, even as its findings dismissed the World Trade Center bomber as a "freelance" terrorist only loosely affiliated with al Qaeda.

While Yousef likely played a critical role devising the plot that eventually became the September 11 attack, Ali Mohamed was the utility player who created al Qaeda's terrorist infrastructure in the United States -- a series of connections, ideas, techniques and specific tools used by the plot's hijackers and masterminds.

Although Mohamed was arrested in 1998, his infrastructure remained not only intact but virtually unmonitored until after 9/11. Even as his network was dragged into the light, his role in facilitating the attacks remained obscure, in no small part because Mohamed himself has been locked away from the public and the judicial system, his pre-9/11 plea deal with the government now frozen in secret, semi-permanent limbo.

Despite the secrecy surrounding his terrorist career and subsequent detention, Mohamed's operations and connections in the United States intersect with the September 11 plot -- not just once but repeatedly.

THE POST 9/11 INTERROGATION

Immediately after the September 11 attack, Ali A. Mohamed -- like many other terrorist inmates -- was placed into a maximum security detention setting, cut off from the outside world and from all media reports.

Shortly afterward, he was interrogated by his FBI handler, Special Agent Jack Cloonan. Cloonan asked the al Qaeda trainer to tell him how they did it.

"I don't believe he was privy to all the details, but what he laid out was the attack as if he knew every detail," Cloonan said in a 2006 documentary.[2] "This is how you position yourself. I taught people to sit in first class." Mohamed described teaching al Qaeda terrorists how to smuggle box cutters onto airplanes.

"It was just kind of eerie," Cloonan said.

Cloonan believes that Mohamed did not have direct knowledge of the plot.

"I think he probably understood that the World Trade Center was a target at some point, but he wouldn't have known of the plot as it unfolded," Cloonan said. "Remember he was basically in our custody since 1998."

It may or may not be true that Mohamed had no knowledge of the specific 9/11 plot.[3]

But the Egyptian terrorist did know the tactics used by the hijackers. He knew the specific location of the private post office boxes where the hijackers received mail in the United States.

He knew al Qaeda was sponsoring flight training for terrorists. He knew of at least one specific terrorist operation centered on a suicide airplane attack. And he knew at least three terrorist pilots personally.

He was linked to at least one of the specific schools visited by the 9/11 hijackers. He knew the internal procedures of the security company that maintained two checkpoints used by hijackers at Boston's Logan Airport.

And Mohamed was one of the primary sources for the infamous Aug. 6, 2001, Presidential Daily Brief entitled "Bin Laden Determined To Strike In U.S."

Whether or not Mohamed knew the particulars of the 9/11 plot, he knew a lot. Businesses and institutions exploited by Mohamed and his close associates were re-used by virtually all of the 9/11 hijackers as they prepared for the attack.

Almost all of these investigative leads were discovered, reviewed and then forgotten or dismissed by the FBI prior to September 11. Even after the attacks, after the law enforcement investigation and two independent probes of pre-9/11 intelligence failures, virtually none of this material has been presented to the public in coherent form.

BUILDING EXPERTISE

Ali Mohamed joined Egyptian Islamic Jihad some time around 1984; he reported to Ayman Al-Zawahiri. His very first terrorist assignment was design strategies to hijack planes from the Cairo airport.[4]

Over the course of the next several years, Mohamed refined his techniques and pass them on to others. By 1992, he was formally training al Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan in hijacking techniques, including where to sit and how to smuggle small weapons onto planes -- including utility knives like those used in the September 11 plot.[5]

Mohamed trained terrorists on behalf of al Qaeda in locations from Afghanistan to New Jersey, from London to Somalia. Ramzi Yousef -- who with his uncle Khalid Shaikh Mohammed came up with the first draft of the 9/11 plan -- was a student at al Qaeda's Afghanistan camps during the years Mohamed was teaching hijacking tactics there.[6]

His uncle traveled in and out of Pakistan during the same period, although his precise movements are somewhat less thoroughly documented.

Screen shot from Intelfiles DVD STK1
While in Afghanistan in the early 1990s, Mohamed wrote the core al Qaeda training manual, a compendium of information on how to commit terrorist acts that would later become known as the Encyclopedia of Jihad. Many of Mohamed's trainees were eventually taught to be trainers themselves.

THE OTHER PILOTS

Hijacking was only part of the story, however. Mohamed was also directly linked to several initiatives to recruit and train pilots for al Qaeda.

At least three of Mohamed's close associates were trained as pilots.

Mohamed lived and worked in Santa Clara, California through much of the 1990s. His neighbor and close working partner was Khalid Abu El-Dahab, another Egyptian, who helped Mohamed recruit at least 10 American citizens as terrorists working for Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) and al Qaeda.

Dahab had taken flight training on behalf of EIJ. After his capture and interrogation by Egyptian authorities in 1998, Dahab claimed the training was intended for an improbable-sounding plan to stage a prison break at one of Egypt's most secure prisons -- using hang gliders.[7]

L'Houssaine Kherchtou, an al Qaeda member trained by Ali Mohamed, was also trained as a pilot on orders from al Qaeda. In 1993, Kherchtou attended a meeting in which al Qaeda operatives discussed air traffic control systems.[8] There are indications al Qaeda may have intended to use Kherchtou as a suicide pilot.

Although Kherchtou wasn't formally clued about these plans for his future, he did suspect the terrorist network was working on some sort of aerial attack.

"(Kherchtou) observed an Egyptian person who was not a pilot debriefing a friend of his, Ihab Ali, about how air traffic control works and what people say over the air traffic control system, and it was his belief that there might have been a plan to send a pilot to Saudi Arabia or someone familiar with that to monitor the air traffic communications so they could possibly attack an airplane," Patrick Fitzgerald told a New York court in 2001.[9]

The Egyptian "person who was not a pilot" was never identified. The other man at the meeting -- Ihab Ali -- is a different story.

Yet another of Ali Mohamed trainees, Ihab Ali provides one of the tightest links between Ali Mohamed and September 11.

NORMAN, OKLAHOMA

Ihab Ali was born in Egypt, but his family moved to Orlando, Fla., while still in high school. Recruited into an al Qaeda-linked extremist network in Texas during the late 1980s,[10] Ihab Ali helped Ali Mohamed move Osama bin Laden from Afghanistanto the Sudan in 1991. Later, Mohamed groomed Ihab Ali to become a terrorist trainer himself.[11] The two remained in close contact until Mohamed's arrest.[12]

In 1993, Ihab Ali signed up for flight training at the Airman Flight School in Norman, Oklahoma.[13] He obtained a commercial pilot's license and subsequently flew a transport craft on behalf of al Qaeda, along with Kherchtou. (It was not a successful venture; the pair crashed the plane in Khartoum.)[14]

Documents found on Ali Mohamed's computer led the FBI to Ihab Ali, who was arrested in May 1999[15] and eventually indicted -- on September 11, 2000.[16]

FBI agents traveled to the Airman school and made queries, which were soon forgotten. An INTELWIRE search of address records found that Ali had even listed the Norman school as his home address at one point. The address would take on paramount importance in the September 11 plot.

In the most crucial link, the school was visited by 9/11 cell commander Mohammed Atta and hijacker Marwan al-Shehhi in June or July 2000.

Atta had inquired about the school prior to his arrival in the U.S. When he came to America, he listed the school as his home address on a cell phone application.[17] For reasons unknown, Atta and Shehhi eventually decided to attend school in Florida instead.

Several months later, yet another al Qaeda member would enroll at the Norman school -- Zacarias Moussaoui.

Like Atta, he contacted the school before entering the country. Like both Ihab Ali and Atta, Moussaoui adopted the tactic of listing the flight school's address as his own.

And -- like Atta -- Moussaoui had been sent to the United States by al Qaeda's 9/11 masterminds, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh.

Although virtually no one now believes the early allegation that Moussaoui was the "20th hijacker," he was clearly wired into al Qaeda -- and the same part of al Qaeda that was patiently and relentlessly marching toward September 11.

Moussaoui came to the attention of the FBI and was arrested in August 2001, but bureaucratic obstacles delayed a search of his laptop computer, despite anxious efforts by FBI agents on the scene.

No one linked Moussaoui to Ihab Ali, despite the fact that the FBI had been investigated Ali's attendance at the school less than a year earlier. Ali's flight records had been introduced in the embassy bombing trial in April 2001 -- just four months earlier.

Though indicted prior to September, Ihab Ali never went to trial. His case is simply pending without further explanation in the docket. He is now cooperating with the government. Despite the fact he has never been tried, Ihab Ali today lives in an undisclosed federal prison.[18]

SPHINX TRADING CO.

The Airman Flight School was not the only location visited by Mohammed Atta that also turns up in the Ali Mohamed story.

At least nine hijackers lived in New Jersey, at least briefly, between summer 2000 and 9/11. Several witnesses reported -- to both the news media and the FBI -- seeing Atta and Shehhi in Jersey City, New Jersey, in the neighborhood of the al-Salaam Mosque, mainly during the summer of 2000.[19]

Ali Mohamed and many of his terrorist trainees visited the mosque several times in 1989, meeting with members of the nascent New York terror cell. It later became notorious as the home base for Omar Abdel Rahman during the 1990s.

The mosque was located at 2824 Kennedy Ave., Jersey City, the address for the third floor. On the second floor of the building was an Afghanistan "refugees assistance" office used by members of the cell. Mohamed used the office as a distribution node for his terrorist training manuals.[20]

On the ground floor of the same building, with the address 2828 Kennedy Ave., is a business called Sphinx Trading Co., an overseas money transfer, check-cashing and private mailbox service with branches in New Jersey and Cairo, Egypt.

Various terrorist training materials written by Ali Mohamed advise undercover operatives to keep a post office box away from their home, in a location used by others of their nationality, for communication with fellow operatives.[21]

At minimum, two Ali Mohamed-trained members of the New York cell -- El Sayyid Nosair and Siddig Ali Siddig -- are confirmed to have kept mailboxes at Sphinx Trading during the 1990s, as did the blind Sheikh himself.[22]

A decade later, the mailboxes were still being used by al Qaeda-linked terrorists.

Testifying in a sealed proceeding in 2002, a New Jersey policeman said the FBI told him that "several of the hijackers involved in the September 11th event also had mailboxes at that location."[23]

Police searched the office of a New Jersey businessman whose name appeared on the Sphinx Trading Co. incorporation papers and found the names and phone numbers of several hijackers among his papers. The businessman eventually admitted having sold fake identification cards to two of the hijackers.

The police officer testified in 2002 that the FBI had shut down the New Jersey police investigation of these connections, without explanation but amid unconfirmed rumors (reported by the New York Times) that the businessman was himself an FBI informant. All terrorism charges against the businessman were eventually dropped.[24]

Two other men connected to the Sphinx Trading location were arrested on September 11 on suspicion of being connected to the hijacking plot.

Forced off an airplane when all flights were grounded that day, the men were carrying cash, passports, hair dye and box-cutters. Both men had shaved their entire bodies, consistent with instructions followed by the 9/11 hijackers.

They lived half a block away from the Al-Salaam Mosque and Sphinx.

Their neighbors and nearby businesspeople reported having seen Mohammed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi on the same block.

One of the two men also kept a mailbox at Sphinx Trading Co.[25]

BURNS SECURITY

One of the most intriguing links between Mohamed and 9/11 is also perhaps the least explained.

During the 1990s, Mohamed made various efforts to infiltrate sensitive U.S. locations, presumably in keeping with his ongoing mission to collect intelligence on behalf of al Qaeda and Egyptian Islamic Jihad.

In 1995, Mohamed obtained employment with the Burns International Security Co., a private company that provided security services to businesses and government agencies. (Timothy McVeigh once worked for the company's armored car division.)

Mohamed was assigned as a security guard at a Northrop Grumman facility that developed sensitive components used in nuclear weapons. Mohamed sought a security clearance to work in the facility's classified areas, but his application was denied.[26]

Burns is a massive conglomerate with multiple divisions and thousands of employees. It was bought by and became a division of Securitas in 2000. So it's difficult, on many levels, to judge whether Mohamed would have been able to leverage his access usefully. Certainly, the Egyptian's track record with the U.S. Army certainly showed that he was capable of exploiting any kind of access to maximum effect.

Although it would be premature to make a definitive statement about what Mohamed may have accomplished through this job posting, Burns Security did surface on September 11 -- in two different capacities.

A Burns division known as Globe Aviation Services provided checkpoint screening at Logan Airport, including two specific checkpoints used by the 9/11 hijackers.[27] As previously noted, Mohamed did a great deal of work for al Qaeda regarding airline security, including surveillance of airports, devising hijacking schemes and smuggling box-cutters onto planes for use as a weapon.

Burns was also connected to a still-unexplained incident in Virginia. Shortly after September 11, the FBI arrested a Burns employee from the Washington, D.C. area named Mohammed Abdi.

Abdi was a Somali national. He left that country for America in 1993 -- shortly after Ali Mohamed was rumored to have trained Somali insurgents on behalf of al Qaeda.[28] After moving to the United States, he worked in a food service job at Reagan National Airport, then subsequently for Burns as a security guard at a federal mortgage processing facility.

When the FBI found the car left behind the five 9/11 hijackers who departed from Dulles Airport near Washington, they discovered a map of the D.C. area with Abdi's name and phone number written with a yellow highlighter.

Burns' Globe subsidiary provided security at both Reagan and Logan airports.[29] Investigators discovered Abdi had removed five Burns security guard jackets from his workplace before September 11. He attempted to give them to the Salvation Army three days after the attack.[30]

Like so many others who intersected -- perhaps only coincidentally -- with Ali Mohamed's long trail of associations, Abdi was never convicted of any crime related to terrorism. He was sentenced to four months in prison for check forgery and released under supervision in January 2002.

THE PRESIDENT'S DAILY BRIEF

In 2004, the White House was forced to release a top-secret intelligence briefing that had been delivered to President Bush on August 6, 2001. The Presidential Daily Brief, or PDB, consisted of a one page report on al Qaeda's past efforts and future intentions to stage attacks on U.S. soil.[31]

"If you look to the six or seventeen sentences that are in there, from what I've seen, all that information came from Ali," said FBI Special Agent Jack Cloonan.[32]

The briefing included several references that clearly pertained to Mohamed.

"Al Qaeda members -- including some who are U.S. citizens -- have resided in or traveled to the U.S. for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks.

"Two al-Qaeda members found guilty in the conspiracy to bomb our embassies in East Africa were U.S. citizens, and a senior EIJ member lived in California in the mid-1990s.

"A clandestine source said in 1998 that a bin Laden cell in New York was recruiting Muslim-American youth for attacks."

The briefing also cited foreign government sources as saying "After U.S. missile strikes on his base in Afghanistan in 1998, bin Laden told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington, and "an Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operative [ said ] at the same time that bin Laden was planning to exploit the operative's access to the U.S. to mount a terrorist strike."

The latter piece of intelligence was likely extracted from Mohamed's Santa Clara co-conspirator Khalid Dahab, an American citizen who was captured and interrogated by Egyptian authorities in 1998.

THE FIRST SUICIDE PLANE PLOT

One very specific piece of intelligence provided by Ali Mohamed did not make it onto the President's brief.

Siddig Ibrahim Siddig Ali, a Sudanese national living in the United States, had attempted to mount a suicide airplane attack as early as 1992. Under this early plan, a Sudanese Air Force pilot would steal a military plane, use to bomb the home of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarek, then crash the plane into the American Embassy.[33]

Siddig Ali was a member of a Brooklyn-centered terrorist cell led by blind Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman. The cell's most dangerous members had been trained by Ali Mohamed in New Jersey in 1989 -- and Siddig had been one of his students.

Mohamed told the FBI about the plot around the same time he was negotiating his plea agreement in 2000, according to Cloonan.[34]

The plot should not have come as news to the FBI. In spring 1993, informant Emad Salem told the FBI all about it. He even testified about the scheme in open court.

Emad Salem was an Egyptian national who infiltrated the Brooklyn group on behalf of the FBI. He had served in the Egyptian army around the same time as Mohamed. (During Rahman's 1993 trial, defense attorneys attempted to ask Salem if he had met Mohamed in Egypt, but the line of questioning was cut off as irrelevant.)

In 1993, Siddig Ali asked Salem to help the pilot find "gaps in the air defense in Egypt so he can drive to bomb the presidential house, and then turn around, crash the plane into the American embassy after he eject himself out of the plane (...) ."

Salem was also asked to assist the pilot in escaping. Salem testified that he informed his contacts in the Egyptian government of the threat. It's unclear whether the pilot was ever arrested, or whether the plot ever went beyond the discussion stage.

AFTERWORD

Despite the web of linkages between Ali Mohamed and the September 11 plot, it's very difficult to properly evaluate the scope of the intelligence failure. Many of the connections are somewhat ambiguous, but some are not.

There are a number of outstanding questions that remain to be answered. The primary obstacle is that full view of the case has been hopelessly obscured by the level of government secrecy around Mohamed and his dealings with U.S. intelligence services.

Additional complications arise from Mohamed's relationship with the Justice Department both before and after his arrest and the valid concerns faced by his custodians in terms of both protecting Mohamed's life and keeping him securely detained.

Nevertheless, the sheer volume of the linkages and their nature overwhelmingly suggest that Ali Mohamed built a substantial network of prospects, contacts, services and tactics for use by al Qaeda operatives in the United States. And Mohamed has -- without a doubt -- been succeeded by others who now maintain that network.

There is an element of the exceptional around Mohamed. There have been few figures in the known history of espionage to wreak such havoc, and to operate so openly in front of the enemy. He was a prodigy, and his skills help explain his success -- to a degree.

Yet, it is equally certain that U.S. authorities could and should have done more to stop him. Mohamed himself once remarked that "Americans see what they want to see, and hear what they want to hear."[35] Mohamed exploited that vulnerability with brazen charm.

But his skills -- formidable as they were -- do not represent a complete explanation of his career. There is more to the story.

Look for additional installments of the Unlocking 9/11 series on INTELWIRE through the fall and winter of 2006.





[1] Statement of Patrick J. Fitzgerald, United States Attorney, Northern District Of Illinois, National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, June 16, 2004
[2] All Cloonan material in this story is drawn from National Geographic Presents Triple-Cross, bin Laden's Spy in America, original air date Monday, August 28, 2006. INTELWIRE's J.M. Berger was lead researcher for the documentary. http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/triplecross/
[3]Mohamed's possible relationship to Khalid Shaikh Mohamed will be examined in a forthcoming INTELWIRE story.
[4] National Geographic Presents Triple-Cross, bin Laden's Spy in America, original air date Monday, August 28, 2006
[5] Op cit.
[6] See INTELWIRE report: Unlocking 9/11; Who Called The Shots In WTC 1993?, http://intelwire.egoplex.com/unlocking911-1-ali-mohamed-wtc.html
[7] Islamic Jihad 'Confessions' Described, FBIS-NES-1999-0309, March 6, 1999
[8] See also Report Warned Of Suicide Hijackings, CBS.com, May 17, 2002, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/05/18/attack/main509488.shtml
[9] US v. Usama bin Laden et al, S(7) 98 Cr. 1023, February 21, 2001
[10] St. Petersburg Times, Pilot led a quiet life in Orlando, Chuck Murphy, October 28, 2001
[11] USA v Ali Mohamed, S(7) 98 Cr. 1023 (LBS), Plea Hearing, October 20, 2000
[12] US v. Usama bin Laden et al, S(7) 98 Cr. 1023, May 2, 2001
[13] US v. Usama bin Laden et al, S(7) 98 Cr. 1023, April 4, 2001
[14] St. Petersburg Times, Pilot led a quiet life in Orlando, Chuck Murphy, October 28, 2001
[15] New York Times, A 6th Suspect Said to Be Tied To bin Laden Is in Custody, Benjamin Weiser, May 22, 1999
[16] Docket, 1:00-cr-00919-LAK* USAv. Ali
[17] http://intelfiles.egoplex.com/911project/atta-cell-phone-norman-ok.pdf
[18] USA v. Zacarias Moussaoui, 1:01cr455, March 7, 2006
[19]Associated Press, Mysterious pair in custody perplexes federal investigators, Wayne Parry, November 11, 2001; The Jersey Journal, Neighborhood tired of suspicions and fear, Falasten M. Abdeljabbar, December 18, 2001
[20] US v Omar Abdel Rahman, et al, S5 93 Cr. 181 (MBM),, July 13, 1995
[21]"Manchester Manual," US v. Usama bin Laden et al, S(7) 98 Cr. 1023
[22] John Kifner, "Kahane Suspect Is a Muslim With a Series of Addresses," New York Times, November 7, 1990; Author research of address records; Transcript, Sealed Bail Hearing, US v. El-Atriss, November 19, 2002
[23] Ibid. The transcripts were unsealed after a lawsuit by several organizations including the New York Times and the Washington Post. Transcript provided by attorney Louis Pashman, representing New Jersey media plaintiffs, for National Geographic Presents Triple Cross, op cit.
[24] New York Times, 4 Transcripts Are Released In Case Tied to 9/11 Hijackers, Robert Hanley and Jonathan Miller, June 25, 2003; Associated Press, Judge releases transcripts in Sept. 11 fake IDs case, Wayne Parry, June 24, 2003
[25] The men were eventually deported, but not charged with terrorist acts. See Associated Press, Mysterious pair in custody perplexes federal investigators, Wayne Parry, November 11, 2001; New York Times, Fear and Loathing, Laura Mansnerus, October 28, 2001; New York Times, Ex-Suspect Expects Deportation, Benjamin Weiser, September 19, 2002; New York Times, Former Hijacking Suspect Deported, December 31, 2002
[26]Triple-Cross, bin Laden's Spy in America, international edition
[27]INTELWIRE Exclusive document, TSA: Security Screening of the 9/11 Hijackers
[28] Human Events, Somali immigrant tied to hijackers by D.C. map worked at Reagan Airport, and as Burns guard, Timothy Carney, October 15, 2001. Sources conflict on whether Ali Mohamed actually went to Somalia, or whether he simply supported al Qaeda's efforts to train tribal leaders there in some more remote capacity. At any rate, al Qaeda's infiltration of the country in 1992 and 1993 is undisputed, as is Mohamed's active role with al Qaeda in Africaduring this period.
[29] Washington Post, Va.Man Probed For Link To Attack, Bond Is Denied For Alexandrian, Brooke A. Masters and Dan Eggen, September 27, 2001
[30] Washington Post, Va.Man With Possible Sept. 11 Tie Is Sentenced, Brooke A. Masters, January 12, 2002
[31] http://intelfiles.egoplex.com/911project/binladendetermined.pdf
[32]National Geographic Presents Triple-Cross, bin Laden's Spy in America, original air date Monday, August 28, 2006
[33] See INTELWIRE report: http://intelwire.egoplex.com/2004_04_08_exclusives.html
[34]National Geographic Presents Triple-Cross, bin Laden's Spy in America, original air date Monday, August 28, 2006
[35] US v Omar Abdel Rahman, et al, S5 93 Cr. 181 (MBM), Exhibit Nosair JJJ-1, videotape of Ali Mohamed

Labels: Analysis, El-Sayyid-Nosair, INTELWIRE-Exclusive

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Who is Ali Mohamed?

Ali Mohamed Sourcebook

Nat Geo DVD, J.M. Berger Lead Researcher

Who Is Ali Mohamed?

Al Qaeda Spy Crafted 9/11 Network

New Link Between Ali Mohamed And 9/11

Who Masterminded 1993 WTC Bombing?

'Coleman Affidavit' on Ali Mohamed

By J.M. Berger
INTELWIRE.com

Ali Abdelsaoud Mohamed is an Egyptian national, who served in that country's military for more than a dozen years, including stints with its special forces and intelligence branches. In 1984, he was purged from the army for his increasingly radical Islamic beliefs and associations.[i]

Around the same time, Mohamed was recruited into Egyptian Islamic Jihad by Ayman Al-Zawahiri. He was initially assigned to surveil the Cairo airport, study its security and suggest strategies for hijacking airplanes from the facility. He impressed Zawahiri, who subsequently assigned him to infiltrate U.S. intelligence.

After making an allegedly unsuccessful run on the CIA, Mohamed moved to the United States in 1986 and joined the U.S. Army, eventually being posted to the prestigious John F. Kennedy Special Warfare School at Fort Bragg, where America's elite Green Berets are trained. During his tour of duty, he copied and removed military training manuals and other sensitive documents, which he translated and distributed to terrorists in New York and Afghanistan.

While still in the Army, Mohamed trained several terrorists who later took part in the World Trade Center bombing and a thwarted plot to bomb other New York City landmarks.[ii]

After leaving the army in 1989, he worked for al Qaeda at training camps in Afghanistan, while building a terrorist infrastructure back in the U.S. from his home base in California.

During the early 1990s, Mohamed attempted to infiltrate the FBI on multiple occasions, and served as an occasional informant starting no later than 1993.

Mohamed also bears the apparent distinction of being the first individual to disclose the existence of al Qaeda to the United States government, in a detailed 1993 conversation with the FBI and in a follow-up debriefing by U.S. intelligence agents. The FBI was not even permitted to know what agency questioned Mohamed.

Even as he was talking with the FBI, Mohamed helped plan and carry out a series of al Qaeda operations culminating in the 1998 East African embassy bombings, the lethal terrorist attack for which he was finally arrested. 

In 2000, Mohamed struck a deal with federal prosecutors. In exchange for sentencing considerations, he agreed to provide information on al Qaeda to the authorities and pleaded guilty to several counts of conspiracy to murder Americans and attack U.S. targets in relation to the embassy bombings.

After September 11, Mohamed was locked away in a prison cell at an undisclosed location. His sentencing has been deferred without explanation by the government, and he remains in a state of legal limbo.

For more on Ali Mohamed:

NEW: The Ali Mohamed Sourcebook from INTELWIRE

Unlocking 9/11: The Man Who Built The 9/11 Network

Unlocking 9/11: Who Called The Shots In The 1993 World Trade Center Bombing?

National Geographic Documentary on Mohamed; J.M. Berger, Lead Researcher

J.M. Berger was lead researcher for a September 2006 National Geographic Channel documentary on the life of Ali Mohamed. For more on J.M. Berger and INTELWIRE, click here.

---

[i]The following information is summarized from National Geographic Presents Triple Cross, bin Laden's Spy in America, original air date Monday, August 28, 2006.   http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/triplecross/

[ii]He may have done more than that. See INTELWIRE Special Report, Who Called The Shots In WTC '93?, http://intelwire.egoplex.com/unlocking911-1-ali-mohamed-wtc.html,
September 11, 2006.

Labels: 9-11, Analysis, INTELWIRE-Exclusive, Secrets-Scandals

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Did Ali Mohamed Call The Shots In WTC '93?

Al Qaeda's Green Beret Was The Right Man, In The Right Place, At The Right Time

More than a decade after the first World Trade Center bombing, one of the most important questions remains unanswered: Who called the shots?

Click here for a version of this story with hyperlinked footnotes

Ali A. Mohamed, a shadowy Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) member who infiltrated the U.S. Army, was the right man, in the right place, at the right time. At minimum, he was an irreplaceable link in the 1993 bombing plot. At most, he may be the man responsible for unleashing Ramzi Yousef on the United States.

History, thus far, has not looked far past Yousef for the origin of the World Trade Center bombing plot. According to the widely accepted view, the plot originated with Yousef, who was a sort of terrorist "freelancer" working independently or -- at best -- informally aligned with a terrorist network. In recent years, it has become fashionable to say the attack "was al Qaeda" without explaining what that is supposed to mean.

But there are many problems with the conventional view of how the bombing was conceived and how Yousef assembled his crew of conspirators. At the center of this issues is Ali Mohamed.

Mohamed's terrorist history has long been a mystery, shrouded in official government secrecy and bedeviled by conflicting accounts and apocryphal stories.

But a close examination of the best sources reveals Mohamed's involvement in virtually every aspect of the first World Trade Center bombing plot except for building the actual bomb -- as well as providing tantalizing hints which could link him to al Qaeda's successful second foray against the building, five years ago today.

The evidence for Mohamed's role in the 1993 bombing is substantial -- and, by the standards of most terrorism investigations -- extraordinarily concrete.

Mohamed trained several members of the Brooklyn terror cell responsible for the bombing, including Mahmud Abouhalima, Mohamed Salameh, and Siddig Siddig Ali, according to extensive court records, testimony and physical evidence.

When Ramzi Yousef and an accomplice entered the U.S. in 1992 to begin work on the bombing, they were carrying terrorist training material directly linked to Mohamed, according to physical evidence presented in court.

Yousef and his accomplice flew into the country after visting an al Qaeda encampment where -- according to multiple eyewitness accounts -- Mohamed was working as a trainer and assembling terrorist training manuals.

On entering the country, Yousef immediately contacted two of Mohamed's trainees, both of whom were later indicted for the World Trade Center bombing, court records show.

The 9/11 Commission's final report concluded that the WTC bombing had been crafted in Afghanistanduring the summer of 1992, when Yousef and Mohamed were both in the region. Yousef's support network when he arrived in the United States consisted almost entirely of figures with links to Mohamed.

But when the Brooklyn cell was finally indicted in 1993, Ali A. Mohamed was not one of the defendants. He wasn't a witness. Through a tangle of intrigues, negotiations and apparent investigative oversights, Mohamed escaped prosecution until after the 1998 bombings of two U.S.embassies in East Africa.

THE BROOKLYN CELL

A former Egyptian solider, Mohamed joined Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) during the early 1980s, apparently some time after the assassination of Sadat. Serving as an intelligence officer in the Egyptian Special Forces, he was later forced out of the Army for his Islamic extremist inclinations.[1]

Mohamed initially worked with Ayman Al-Zawahiri, then a cell leader within EIJ, who specialized in recruiting military and intelligence personnel.[2]

After his discharge, Zawahiri instructed Mohamed to infiltrate the U.S.intelligence apparatus. Mohamed made a short and (allegedly) unsuccessful run on the CIA, before switching gears and moving to the United States.[3]

In the U.S., he signed up for the Army and was eventually stationed at the John F. Kennedy SpecialWarfare Schoolat Fort Bragg. Mohamed had attended an exchange program there several years earlier, while he was still in the Egyptian military.

Even as he worked for the JFKSchool as a lecturer on Middle Eastern affairs, Mohamed was also helping build a cell of professional terrorists in Brooklyn -- a rogue's gallery that would eventually unleash an unprecedented terror campaign against New York City.[4]

Ali Mohamed was not the only member of Egyptian Islamic Jihad in the United States. Mustafa Shalabi, a close associate of Zawahiri,[5] opened an office in Brooklyn to funnel cash and volunteers to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. The office opened no later than 1987.[6]

The Brooklyn center fell under the umbrella of Abdullah Azzam's "Services Office" based in Peshawar, Pakistan, near the Afghan border. As part of his duties, Shalabi traveled back and forth to Peshawar, delivering money and tending to his volunteers.[7] The organization also worked closely with a newly formed jihadist coalition known as "al Qaeda" and led by Saudi businessman Osama bin Laden.[8]

In 1988, a crucial nexus of terrorist figures came together in Peshawar. These men would dominate jihadist activity for a decade to come.

At the top of the food chain, directly beneath Azzam, were men like bin Laden and Al-Zawahiri -- who had served in a terrorist cell in Egypt alongside Shalabi.[9]

Beneath them were a cadre of followers, with various degrees of dedication and organizational involvement. Most were skilled in both combat arts and in organizing the web of charities and organizations funding the Afghan jihad.

A delegation from Brooklyntraveled to the Pakistan-Afghanistan border during the spring or summer of 1988, including Shalabi and his deputy, Fawaz Damra.[10]

Several of their known associates traveled to the region throughout 1988 for paramilitary training at jihadist camps around the border regions, and, in some cases, to fight the Soviets inside Afghanistan.

Brooklyn native Clement Hampton-El went to Afghanistan and fought, injuring his leg in the process. Brooklynresidents Mahmud Abouhalima, an Egyptian, and Siddig Siddig Ali, a Sudanese, went for training in 1988 and later returned for combat.

In 1988, a young Pakistani from Baluchistan who would later become known as Ramzi Yousef traveled to Peshawar and from there into Afghanistan, where he received his first formal training in the art of bomb-building at camps funded by bin Laden.[11]

Ali A. Mohamed also made his first known trip to the border regions in 1988. At the time, Mohamed was stationed at Fort Braggas an active duty sergeant in the U.S. Army.

Ignoring the advice of his superiors, he took 30 days of leave and traveled to Afghanistan. Later, he admitted he had performed training at al Qaeda-linked camps during that visit.[12] There is no documentation of whether Yousef and Ali Mohamed met in 1988, but their visits to the camps overlapped on more than one occasion.

TRAINING IN NEW JERSEY

The history of the Services Office in Brooklynis tale of intrigue, murder and machinations. After 1988, Shalabi and his associates began to attract an ever-larger group of extremists.

Some were sent to assist bin Laden in Afghanistan, others were positioned in New York as "sleeper agents" under the loose umbrella of two Egyptian jihadist organizations -- the Islamic Group, led by blind Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman and the new Egyptian Islamic Jihad, a breakaway group independent of the original.

The new EIJ was led by Ayman al-Zawahiri, who had chosen to cast his lot with bin Laden. Although al Qaeda and EIJ maintained some degree of separation, Zawahiri was a member of al Qaeda's ruling council. By 1992 at the latest, Zawahiri was sufficiently embedded in al Qaeda that he could give orders to sworn members of the group, and the two groups paid some operatives out of a common fund.[13]

Mohamed was positioned as a trainer and facilitator for both groups. In 1989, while he was still in the Army, he traveled to New Jersey at Shalabi's request to train members of the growing Brooklyn contingent, including Salameh, Abouhalima, and El-Sayyid Nosair, an Egyptian who would later assassinate right-wing rabbi Meyer Kahane. Mohamed provided the group with weapons, paramilitary and survival training.[14]

Mohamed also gave them training manuals, including military training materials taken from the SpecialWarfare Centerat Fort Bragg, where he was stationed. Some of the manuals were kept at Nosair's house.

Others were added to the library of the "Jersey Jihad Office" founded by Nosair in Jersey City, N.J., as a splinter from Shalabi's original Services Office in Brooklyn. Mohamed made appearances at the Jersey Jihad Office throughout the summer and fall of 1989.[15]

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Ayman al-Zawahiri's Egyptian Islamic Jihad was closely affiliated with the still-young al Qaeda organization. Zawahiri was a member of the group's ruling council and the two organizations shared funding, personnel, training camps and resources. Remaining a member of EIJ throughout the 1990s, Mohamed nevertheless began working closely with al Qaeda.[16]

As part of this work, Mohamed began assembling and translating military and terrorist manuals for al Qaeda in Afghanistan, including the material taken from Fort Bragg.

That project began no later than 1992,[17] probably earlier. Mohamed's training manual project is the key that unlocks his connection to Ramzi Yousef and the World Trade Center bombing.

MOHAMED AND YOUSEF IN AFGHANISTAN

In the spring of 1992, Ramzi Yousef and a Palestinian named Ahmad Ajaj (who had been living in Texas) traveled to Khaldan, an Al Qaeda training camp in the vicinity of Khost, Afghanistan. Yousef and Ajaj spent several months between Khost and Peshawar, engaged in high-level explosives training -- Ajaj as the trainee, Yousef the trainer.

While at Khaldan and in parallel training at the University of Dawa and Jihad in Pakistan, the pair -- along with an unknown number of additional participants -- began crafting a plot to bomb the World Trade Center.Yousef and Ajaj remained until the last day of August 1992, when they flew to New York.[18]

There are extensive testaments to Mohamed's high profile role in the area during the time Yousef and Ajaj were laying the groundwork for the World Trade Center bombing.

Three separate eyewitnesses said Ali Mohamed was working in the Khost-Peshawar area during 1992, and Mohamed himself confirmed it during a confession years later.[19]

According to a confidential informant cited in an FBI affidavit, Mohamed was seen "in Khost, Afghanistan, in about September 1992, where MOHAMED was training persons who were commanders in al Qaeda. MOHAMED was in this camp for at least four weeks."[20]

Khalid Ibrahim, an FBI cooperating witness and probably the confidential source named above, testified that in the fall of 1992 Mohamed showed up at al Qaeda's al-Farouq training camp near Khost.

"He had come from someplace else, I mean like overseas maybe, and he was there to train some of their people, some of their commanders," Ibrahim said.

During the testimony (in the 1995 trial of Omar Abdel Rahman), then-Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald tried to get Ibrahim to talk about the nearby Camp Khaldan, but Ibrahim said he couldn't remember having heard that name.[21]

Also in 1992, an al Qaeda operative named L'Houssaine Kherchtou was trained in surveillance techniques by Ali Mohamed in Hyatabad, a neighborhood of Peshawar. He described Mohamed as a "very, very strict and not gentle" trainer, adding that "You can hear from him some bad words."[22]

Finally, there is the testimony of Mohamed himself, years later, after the law finally caught up with him.

"In 1992, I conducted military and basic explosives training for al Qaeda in Afghanistan.... I also conducted intelligence training for al Qaeda. I taught my trainees how to create cell structures that could be used for operations."[23] Mohamed also confessed to moving bin Laden out of Afghanistan, via Peshawar, in 1992.

Another confidential informant -- not Ibrahim and probably not Kherchtou -- told the FBI that Ali Mohamed had been training mujahideen in Afghanistan while translating written training manuals into Arabic.[24] The latter activity provides the direct link between Mohamed and Yousef -- a link that was plainly evident to investigators as early as 1993, but which has never been illuminated in a court of law.

BY THE BOOKS

Yousef and Ajaj flew from Peshawar to New York City, arriving on Sept. 1, 1992. Ajaj carried a "cheat sheet" for talking with immigration officials, which coached him to claim he had come from Hyatabad -- the location where Ali Mohamed had carried out surveillance training.[25]

In his luggage, Ajaj was carrying a collection of terrorist and military manuals in Arabic and English. The books were virtually identical to the collection Mohamed had given to El Sayyid Nosair in New Jersey a few years earlier.[26]

In some instances pages were mixed and matched to content written in Arabic, in other cases the original manuals had simply been photocopied. Some of the material -- written in English -- begged for closer government scrutiny.

Manuals carried by Ajaj and possessed by Nosair included U.S. Army training manuals on improvised explosives, special patrolling, map reading and land navigation, booby traps and firearms. One of the books contained a note suggesting readers send feedback "directly to Commandant, United States Army, Special Warfare School, Fort Bragg, North Carolina 28307."[27]

There is a third chain of testimony and evidence tying the material to Ali Mohamed. Khalid Ibrahim -- one of multiple informants who had seen Mohamed in the Khost-Peshawar area at the same time Yousef and Ajaj were leaving -- testified that a number of similar manuals had been provided to the Jersey Jihad Office by Ali Mohamed.

Ibrahim testified that the Jersey Jihad[28] manuals were identical to the Nosair manuals, and he testified that Ali Mohamed was the source of the Jersey manuals as well.[29] The Jersey manuals as described in court also match the Ajaj manuals.

The chain of evidence here is not difficult to decipher.

1. Ali Mohamed was the source of the original set of manuals.

2. Ali Mohamed spent part of 1992 in Afghanistan copying and translating his training manuals into Arabic.

3. Ajaj came from Afghanistan carrying copies of Ali Mohamed's manuals.

The Ajaj manuals almost certainly came from Ali Mohamed. The likelihood of this conclusion is even more striking as additional facts are considered.

4. Ali Mohamed was training al Qaeda operatives in bomb-making and other skills for a significant portion of 1992, including (at minimum) the month of September.

5. Mohamed conducted training in Peshawar and also near Khost, Afghanistan.

6. Ajaj and Yousef spent the summer of 1992 in Peshawar and near Khost, Afghanistan, departing on the last day of August.

7. At minimum, Ajaj received bomb-making training while in Afghanistan.

ALI MOHAMED'S TEAM

Ajaj was stopped at the airport and arrested, when customs inspectors discovered the collection of terrorist and bomb-making manuals in his luggage. His luggage was seized and eventually transferred to the custody of the FBI.[30]

Yousef was also detained, but he was released due to overcrowding at the INS facility where he was supposed to be held.

Upon his release, Yousef went directly Brooklyn and immediately connected with Mahmud Abouhalima and Mohamed Salameh -- two of Ali Mohamed's trainees.

He didn’t pause to assimilate, and he didn't work his way through a social network. The evidence overwhelmingly indicates Yousef specifically planned to meet Abouhalima on arrival.[31]

By the time the Brooklyn cell was finally shut down (at least, in part), the list of Ali Mohamed trainees who would be implicated -- to a greater or lesser degree -- in the World Trade Center bombing was truly impressive.

Among the indictees for the direct act of bombing the World Trade Center -- Abouhalima, Salameh and Nidal Ayyad -- and potentially Ajaj and Yousef.

Among those indicted for supporting the bombing indirectly, Clement Hampton-El, Siddig Ali, and Nosair. A list of unindicted coconspirators identified by the New York US Attorney's Office included even more Mohamed trainees -- Sabri Hassan, Mikial Abdur Rahim and Khalid Ibrahim, not to mention Osama bin Laden himself, and Mohamed's close associate Mustafa Shalabi (who had been murdered in 1991).[32]

ALI MOHAMED'S M.O.

Mohamed himself has never been linked to an overt act in the World Trade Center bombing conspiracy. However, his role in another major terrorist attack -- the 1998 East African embassy bombings -- is highly instructive in analyzing the WTC plot.

In 1993 and 1994, Mohamed spent several months surveying targets and helping to craft plans to attack the U.S. embassy in Nairobi. He took his surveillance to Osama bin Laden, who in turn proposed a specific route for attack.[33]

Mohamed also helped recruit and train the terrorist cell that actually carried out the attack. But by the time the embassy was actually bombed in August 1998, simultaneous with an attack on the U.S. embassy in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, Mohamed's direct role was long finished.[34]

This separation was consistent with the terrorist techniques taught by Mohamed, who designed the basic cell structure used by al Qaeda. Mohamed wrote in terrorist training documents that the surveillance and training members of a terrorist operation should not be the same members who execute the attack.[35]

Mohamed's involvement with the World Trade Center bombing followed a similar template. He was traveling between Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Sudan during most of the period in which the overt acts of the World Trade Center bombing plot occurred.

There is no direct testimony concerning the surveillance of the World Trade Center prior to the 1993 bombing. But during interrogation after his 1998 arrest, Mohamed did display detailed knowledge of the United Nations building in New York City, which had been targeted for a second wave of attacks by Brooklyn cell members Hampton-El and Siddig Ali.[36]

It's also possible that Mohamed had a hand in guiding affairs from afar.

Every single one of Ali Mohamed's Brooklyn-area trainees were linked to Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, leader of the Brooklyn cell. Rahman repeatedly called a phone number in Peshawar, Pakistan during late 1992.

Rahman called the number several times in August, just before Ajaj and Yousef came to the U.S. Prosecutors implied that the August phone calls were for the purpose of summoning an expert bombmaker to implement the Trade Center plot. After arriving in the U.S., Yousef called the number while he worked on the bombing plot.

No one has ever conclusively identified who was on the other end of that telephone, the person who unleashed Ramzi Yousef on the United States -- a fateful act that started al Qaeda down the long road to September 11.

But the same phone number was found written on the inside cover of one of the Ali Mohamed-linked terrorist manuals carried by Ahmad Ajaj.[37]

AFTERMATH AS PRELUDE

Ali A. Mohamed's name was No. 109 on the list of unindicted coconspirators in the Brooklyn cell. The former Green Beret was never charged in the case, but he was well-known to prosecutors and FBI agents -- as an FBI informant, as an untrustworthy individual, and as a man with connections to U.S. military intelligence.

Updated 6/28/2008


The story of Mohamed's interactions with the Justice Department in the aftermath of the World Trade Center bombing, and his links to the September 11 attack on America, will be discussed in detail in upcoming installments of "Unlocking 9/11." Click here for details on the series.

J.M. Berger is a freelance journalist and researcher covering terrorism and al Qaeda for a variety of national media outlets. Full resume is available at www.jmberger.com.

NOTES

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[1] National Geographic Presents: Triple Cross: bin Laden's Spy in America, original air date, Monday, August 28, 2006

[2] The Road To Al-Qaeda: The Story of Bin Laden's Right-Hand Man (Critical Studies on Islam), by Montasser al-Zayyat, Sara Nimis (Editor), Ahmed Fekry (Translator), Pluto Press (January 20, 2004)

[3] National Geographic Presents: Triple Cross: bin Laden's Spy in America, original air date, Monday, August 28, 2006

[4] Benjamin Weiser and James Risen, "The Masking of a Militant: A Special Report," The New York Times, December 1, 1998; Tom Hays and Sharon Theimer, "Egyptian Agent Worked with Green Berets, bin Laden," The Associated Press, December 31, 2001

[5] The Road To Al-Qaeda: The Story of Bin Laden's Right-Hand Man (Critical Studies on Islam), by Montasser al-Zayyat, Sara Nimis (Editor), Ahmed Fekry (Translator), Pluto Press (January 20, 2004), page 37

[6] Cleveland Plain Dealer Prelude to terror: How Damra misled FBI, September 16, 2004, Amanda Garrett

[7] Various, see particularly Testimony of Clement Hampton-El, August 7, 1995, USA v. Omar Ahmad Ali Abdel-Rahman et al, S5-93-CR-181

[8] US v Usama Bin Laden et al., S(7) 98 Cr. 1023, Day 2, http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-02.htm. On the formation of al Qaeda, see The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, Lawrence Wright, Knopf (August 8, 2006) for the best balance of readability and comprehensiveness. Purists will also want to review USA v Enaam Arnaout, Government's evidentiary proffer supporting the admissibility of co-conspirator statements, January 6, 2003.

[9] The Road To Al-Qaeda: The Story of Bin Laden's Right-Hand Man (Critical Studies on Islam), by Montasser al-Zayyat, Sara Nimis (Editor), Ahmed Fekry (Translator), Pluto Press (January 20, 2004), page 37

[10] Testimony of Clement Hampton-El, August 7, 1995, USA v. Omar Ahmad Ali Abdel-Rahman et al, S5-93-CR-181

[11] Simon Reeve, The New Jackals, Page 120 (Paperback edition, York, Pa.: Maple Press, 2002/ © 1999)

[12] Peter Bergen, Holy War Inc., (New York: Free Press, 2001), Page 143; US v Ali Abdelseoud Mohamed, Sealed Complaint, September 1998 (Affidavit of Daniel Coleman)

[13] US v bin Laden, Days 2, 3, 4 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-dt.htm

[14] USA v. Omar Ahmad Ali Abdel-Rahman et al, S5-93-CR-181, February 7, 1995; USA v. Omar Ahmad Ali Abdel-Rahman et al, S5-93-CR-181, July 13, 1995

[15] USA v. Omar Ahmad Ali Abdel-Rahman et al, S5-93-CR-181, September 11, 1995; USA v. Omar Ahmad Ali Abdel-Rahman et al, S5-93-CR-181, July 13, 1995

[16] USA v Ali Mohamed, S(7) 98 Cr. 1023 (LBS), Plea Hearing, October 20, 2000

[17] US v Ali Abdelseoud Mohamed, Sealed Complaint, September 1998 (Affidavit of Daniel Coleman)

[18] Final Report of the 9/11 Commission, Chapter 3. See also USA v. Omar Ahmad Ali Abdel-Rahman et al, S5-93-CR-181; US v. Salameh et al, S593CR.180(KTD); Simon Reeve, The New Jackals, Page 120

[19] Ibid.; see also The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, Lawrence Wright, Knopf (August 8, 2006), pp. 160-162

[20] US v Ali Abdelseoud Mohamed, Sealed Complaint, September 1998 (Affidavit of Daniel Coleman)

[21] USA v. Omar Ahmad Ali Abdel-Rahman et al, S5-93-CR-181, July 17, 1995

[22] US v. Usama bin Laden et al, S(7) 98 Cr. 1023, February 23, 1002, Testimony of L'Houssaine Kherchtou

[23] USA v Ali Mohamed, S(7) 98 Cr. 1023 (LBS), Plea Hearing, October 20, 2000

[24] US v Ali Abdelseoud Mohamed, Sealed Complaint, September 1998 (Affidavit of Daniel Coleman)

[25] US v Ramzi Yousef et al, August 11, 1997

[26] US v Salameh et al, S593CR.180(KTD), November 10, 1993, Government Exhibit Exhibits 2781 through 2786; USA v. Omar Ahmad Ali Abdel-Rahman et al, S5-93-CR-181, September 11, 1995; USA v. Omar Ahmad Ali Abdel-Rahman et al, S5-93-CR-181, July 13, 1995

[27] US v Salameh et al, S593CR.180(KTD), November 10, 1993

[28] US v Rahman, S5 93 Cr. 181 (MBM), Defendants Exhibit J, Government Exhibit 118, among others.

[29] US v Rahman, S5 93 Cr. 181 (MBM), 7/13/95

[30] Prior to his jihad training, Ajaj lived in Texas. Questions presented during grand jury testimony suggest that U.S. investigators suspected a connection between Ajaj and Wadih El-Hage, a Texas-based member of al Qaeda who also worked closely with Ali Mohamed and who was also in Afghanistan during the crucial 1988 confluence. The connections here are sufficiently tenuous -- at the moment -- to reserve this possible link for a footnote.

[31] Simon Reeve, The New Jackals, Page 143 (Paperback edition, York, Pa.: Maple Press, 2002/ © 1999), see also US v Salameh, US v Ismoil, et al. Reeve suggests, based on an anonymous source, that Yousef spoke with Abouhalima prior to leaving Pakistan. This would not preclude Ali Mohamed's involvement in setting up the rendezvous. Reeve and others claim Yousef and Abouhalima first met in Afghanistan in 1988, around the same period when Ali Mohamed and others were there, which is entirely plausible. Even if they had met before, however, Yousef clearly had some guidance finding Abouhalima's current location.

[32] http://www.jdo.org/blacklist.htm. The contents of this list have been confirmed to be accurate by people with knowledge of the investigation.

[33] USA v Ali Mohamed, S(7) 98 Cr. 1023 (LBS), Plea Hearing, October 20, 2000

[34] US v Bin Laden, all dates; USA v Ali Mohamed, S(7) 98 Cr. 1023 (LBS), Plea Hearing, October 20, 2000; Lance Williams and Erin McCormick, "Al Qaeda terrorist worked with FBI," San Francisco Chronicle, November 4, 2001; National Geographic Presents: Triple Cross: bin Laden's Spy in America, original air date, Monday, August 28, 2006

[35] US v bin Laden, Day 20, http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-20.htm

[36] National Geographic Presents: Triple Cross: bin Laden's Spy in America, original air date, Monday, August 28, 2006

[37] USA v. Omar Ahmad Ali Abdel-Rahman et al, S5-93-CR-181, September 5, 1995

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