Declassified State Department Cables On Al Qaeda-Linked Cell in California

State Department cables obtained by INTELWIRE describe Ayman Al Zawahiri's trip to California in 1995 and the activities of an Al Qaeda-linked terrorist cell in Northern California.

The general outline of the cell's activities has been previously reported in newspapers and in Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam.

The documents, obtained from the State Department under the Freedom of Information Act, detail the trial of a group of Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operatives captured in Egypt and Albania, with the latter being deported to Egypt. Because of this, the trial became known as the "Returnees from Albania" case. One of those tried in the case was Khaled Abu El Dahab, a naturalized U.S. citizen who lived in California with the notorious Al Qaeda infiltrator Ali Mohamed. Dahab was arrested in Egypt.

Click here to read the full documents

According to the cables:

Zawahiri [who was at the time emir of Egyptian Islamic Jihad] visited the U.S. in early 1995 using a forged passport, primarily to collect contributions from Islamist circles. Abu ad-Dahhab placed Zawahiri at the Al-Nur mosque in Santa Clara, California. Three American citizens of Egyptian extraction who, per Abu ad-Dahhab, helped Zawahiri' s 1995 visit were Ali Abu al-Sa'ud Mustafa [Ali Mohamed] and two brothers, Ali and Hassan Zaki, all living in the San Franscisco area. Mustafa had served in the U.S. army for several years. [Egyptian newspaper] Al-Hayat of February 11 adds that Egyptian authorities may ask the U.S. to render Mustafa for trial in the "returnees" case, primarily for his EIJ fundraising. Mustafa apparently told Abu ad-Dahhab that the money that Mustafa had raised was used to plan the 1995 bomb attack on the Egyptian embassy in Pakistan. Mustafa is also wanted for helping to train EIJ operatives in bomb-making techniques, per Al-Hayat.

Mohamed and Zawahiri were convicted in absentia during the trial, however Mohamed was by this point under indictment in New York for his role in the 1998 East African Embassy bombings. Dahab was convicted and sentenced to prison. His current status is unknown, although according to some accounts he died in prison.

Although the cell was initially organized under the banner of EIJ, testimony from both Mohamed and Dahab, as well as other witnesses, indicated that both men took orders directly from Osama bin Laden at times, and both took part in highly sensitive Al Qaeda activities, including communications, security and the planning of terrorist attacks. For most meaningful purposes, the cell is considered an Al Qaeda operation.

Also convicted in absentia during the "Returnees" trial was Mohammed Al Islambouli, the brother of Sadat assassin Khaled Al Islambouli, who recently returned to Egypt after the fall of Mubarak and was promptly arrested. The cables state that "some observers [in Cairo] believe Muhammad Islambouli is connected with the EIJ defendants through setting up terrorist training camps in the Balkans."

If you see any interesting tidbits in this material not covered here, feel free to discuss them with me on Twitter.

For more about American jihadists, check out J.M. Berger's new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, on sale everywhere.

Labels: Ali-Mohamed, American-Al-Qaeda, American-Terrorists, Ayman-Al-Zawahiri, Egypt, Egyptian-Islamic-Jihad, Jihad-Joe, Khaled-Al-Dahab

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Defining Our Interests

As Western forces rain down fire on the forces of Moammar Gadhafi, the Arab League has already come out with criticism of an intervention they virtually demanded just days ago.

There are two problems here. One is external -- the nations of the Middle East have for some time been playing a nasty double game which consists of letting the U.S. take the heat for problems they do not find politically expedient to solve on their own.

The other is internal -- the United States has for some time been playing a nasty double game in which it allows domestic political tides, the temperature of media coverage and simple, cynical expediency to dictate the direction of our foreign policy.

Both of these problems have been around for years, and the internal problem has been exacerbated by both Republican and Democratic administrations. The problem is that our foreign policy is almost always an ad hoc affair, cobbled together on the fly based on sometimes wildly inconsistent reasoning.

There are countless examples, such as our decades of support for Mubarak's police state based on the expediency of Egypt's strategic position, which we only abandoned when the torture and brutality came out of the closet; the invasion of Iraq based on constantly shifting rationales, nearly all of which could be applied to any number of other countries; our failure to define realistic goals and benchmarks in Afghanistan; our schizophrenic public stance toward Pakistan; and now our decisive action against Libya compared to relatively subdued public posturing on concurrent crackdowns by nominal U.S. allies Yemen and Bahrain.

While the brutality in Libya far outstrips what we've seen in other Middle Eastern countries roiled by protest, it's not surprising that our military action this week looks like score-settling to some in the Middle East. After Saddam Hussein, Gadhafi has been a thorn in the side of the United States for longer than anyone.

The reason that such imprecations about U.S. policy thrive is that we don't have consistent standards for our foreign policy decisions. For more than a decade, our interventions in the Arab and Muslim worlds have been driven more by politics and media optics than by principle.

It's been like this at least since Bosnia, when the media narrative about the war finally prompted a belated U.S. intervention. In 2008, I interviewed Charles Kupchan, director for European affairs at the National Security Council during the 1990s, who said the Clinton administration only acted in Bosnia when the "political calculation" became too painful to bear. I couldn't help but think of this statement when watching the Obama administration grope toward a position on the revolution in Egypt and subsequently try to reconcile that position with events in Libya.

Politicians in the Arab and Muslim world have their own reasons for sowing suspicion about American intentions abroad, and those reasons are often petty, expedient and political.

The problem is that we have no coherent response when they speak out against us, because we have no coherent doctrine that guides our foreign interventions. A consistent doctrine would also help undercut Al Qaeda and its affiliated movements, whose primary recruiting pitch exploits the ambiguity of our intentions in the world.

We have to stop predicating our involvement in world affairs on gut feelings and political calculations emanating from the White House. We must clearly define our national interest and the boundaries of what we are prepared to do in its service.

We don't have to be hidebound to this new doctrine. The world is an unpredictable place, now more than ever. We can make exceptions if we have to. But if the doctrine exists, then U.S. leaders who want to make exceptions will be forced to explain why in concrete terms. If we behave inconsistently, it will have to be accounted for.

A new U.S. foreign policy doctrine could take any number of forms. In an ideal world, it would be pragmatic enough to survive a change of party in Washington. But even small steps toward defining our national interest and the calculus that drives our interventions abroad will go a long way.

Every time a new crisis erupts, the media, the American people and the leaders of other nations are left wondering in the dark about how the United States will respond. If we want to exert leadership on the global stage, we should do so as a rational actor who lends stability to international affairs, rather than as a lightly dozing giant who only adds to volatility and uncertainty.

The new doctrine could be hawkish or dovish. It could be interventionist or isolationist. The problem is that we have never clearly articulated the arguments for either approach in a robust public debate that looks further than the top story of the hour. That debate is a necessary next step, but I fear that no one on either side of the political spectrum is interested in taking part.

Labels: Al-Qaeda, Bosnia, Egypt, Libya

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Mubarak: The Early Days

Hosni Mubarak was Anwar Sadat's "very active alter-ego," according to a secret State Department assessment just days after Sadat's assassination and Mubarak's rise to the presidency of Egypt.

The diplomatic cable, obtained by INTELWIRE through the Freedom of Information Act, offers a glimpse of the promise U.S. policymakers once saw in the Egyptian president, who now faces the final act of his 30-year presidency.

"Sadat has groomed him for six years to instill in him the requisite political skills for just such an evenuality," the cable states.

"Mubarak is popular with the Air Force and other armed services," the cable says. "The armed forces are led by men personally loyal to him."

The cable outlines Mubarak's leadership qualities in words that that now seem ironic.

"Mubarak is a tough, determined leader who, we are confident, will not permit the situation to drift dangerously or allow events to escape his control."

Full text of cable

Labels: Anwar-Sadat, Egypt, Hosni-Mubarak

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Intelwire Sourcebook on Islamic Extremism Offered As Free Download

Due to a high level of interest, I'm making the Intelwire Sourcebook on Islamic Extremism in Egypt available as a download. If you want to print or copy pages, you'll still have to order the hard copy.

If you appreciate the download, consider a small donation to the upkeep of the site using the Paypal button below. The book's normal cover price is $24.95.

Or you can order the hard copy by clicking here. Another Sourcebook, The Sadat Assassination, may be of interest in light of recent events.

Labels: Egypt, Egyptian-Islamic-Jihad, Islamic-Group, Muslim-Brotherhood

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Exclusive: State Department History of Muslim Brotherhood, Egyptian Extremism

Given everything that's going on in Egypt, here are a couple of State Department documents which you might be interesting:

2001: History of the Muslim Brotherhood

This is a pretty good overview of the Muslim Brotherhood's development through 2001, as well as a glimpse at the pre-9/11 American attitude toward the group.

1989: Guide to Egyptian Gama'aat

This is an older document looking at the major Islamist and extremist organizations and figures in Egypt as of 1988. Don't be surprised to see some of these figures emerging in an effort to claim elder statesman status (just for for instance, Wadgy Ghoneim has issued a statement on YouTube).

Due to a high level of interest, I'm making the Intelwire Sourcebook on Islamic Extremism in Egypt available as a download. If you want to print or copy pages, you'll still have to order the hard copy.

If you appreciate the download, consider a small donation to the upkeep of the site using the Paypal button below. The book's normal cover price is $24.95.

Or you can order the hard copy by clicking here. Another Sourcebook, The Sadat Assassination, may be of interest in light of recent events.

Labels: Egypt, Egyptian-Islamic-Jihad, Islamic-Group, Muslim-Brotherhood

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Live video from Cairo protests

Click here for live stream of protests ongoing in downtown Cairo. Thanks to Blogs of War for the link.

Labels: Egypt, Tunisia

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink