State Department Put 'Political Pressure' On FBI To Deport Brother-in-Law Of Osama Bin Laden In 1995

By J.M. Berger
INTELWIRE.com

"Pressure from the political portion of the State Department" contributed to the end of a 1995 FBI investigation into Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, who the FBI believed was a terrorist financier, according to a newly released document.

Read the document

The FBI teletype was written on May 11, 1995, just days after Khalifa was deported to Jordan after five months in U.S. custody.

Khalifa, a brother-in-law of Osama bin Laden, was arrested in December 1994 by the INS after his visa was revoked. The revocation was predicated on terrorism charges filed against Khalifa in Jordan.

Khalifa was subsequently acquitted of those charges. He steadfastly denied any connection to terrorism until his murder in Madagascar in 2007.

Shortly after Khalifa's arrest during a business trip to San Francisco in December 1994, authorities in Manila broke up a terrorist cell led by World Trade Center bombing mastermind Ramzi Yousef, who had been planning to simultaneously bomb 11 U.S.-bound airliners over the Pacific. Assisting him in this plot was Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, future mastermind of the September 11 attacks.

Wali Khan Amin Shah, an associate of Yousef implicated in the airliner plot, was in contact with Khalifa during his U.S. trip. The FBI and CIA believed Khalifa also had direct contact with Ramzi Yousef, according to sources and documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. The FBI also believed Khalifa was connected to Omar Abdel Rahman, the radical sheikh whose followers in New York had helped carry out the World Trade Center bombing.

After spending some months fighting deportation to Jordan, where he was expected to stand trial for an alleged role in a series of cinema bombings, Khalifa agreed to be deported at the end of April 1995, shortly after the Oklahoma City bombing.

According to the FBI teletype, Khalifa was thought to have agreed to the deportation "his retrial in Jordan will result in his quick acquittal."

"Khalifah's deportation to Jordan, although conforming to the express intent of the U.S. Secretary of State, likely will not result in Khalifah receiving any punishment for his criminal and terrorist activities, and will more likely lead to his quick acquittal and departure from Jordan," the teletype stated.

The FBI had petitioned the State Department to delay the deportation in order to allow more time for investigation.

At the same time, the CIA had informed State that deporting Khalifa would likely result in him being freed, according to CIA analyst Michael Scheuer, who worked on the Khalifa investigation at the time and afterward.

"When it got to the State Department, all the State Department wanted to do was get it off our plate," Scheuer said.

Even the State Department's own embassy in Amman warned that deporting Khalifa would likely result in his release, according to cables obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

"Embassy continues to believe that Khalifah will be acquitted if tried in Jordan," read the last of these warnings, sent the same day that Khalifa was extradited.

In addition to information from the embassy, the FBI has sent a team to Jordan to liase with officials there. Jordanian officials expressed "indifference" about prosecuting Khalifa there and suggested the U.S. should consider its options for criminal charges, the May 11, FBI teletype states.

"[Prosecutors in] the Southern District of New York and the New York [FBI] office attempted, in every way, to have visa fraud charges presented against Khalifah in the Northern District of California," the teletype stated. "The pressure from the political portion of the State Department, as well as the problems that were evident in the case, assured that DOJ did not insist on a prosecution in California." The teletype does not state what the "evident" problems were, nor do other documents obtained by INTELWIRE make those problems clear.

"It is unfortunate that the time needed to possibly tie Khalifah to [name redacted, likely Ramzi Yousef] and to develop more serious terrorism charges on Khalifa could not be accomplished while Khalifah was in U.S. custody," the telegraph concludes, noting that a grand jury investigation against Khalifa had nevertheless been initiated.

The ongoing FBI investigation was later closed due to the unlikelihood of Khalifa ever returning to the U.S., according to other records.

Previously on INTELWIRE:

U.S., Interpol Tracked Khalifa In Days Before Madagascar Murder

Mohammed Jamal Khalifa: Life and Death Secrets

Labels: Bojinka, Jamal-Khalifa, Philippines, Ramzi-Yousef, Wali-Khan-Amin-Shah, World-Trade-Center-Bombing

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Mohammed Jamal Khalifa Sourcebook Vol. 1 Released

By J.M. Berger
INTELWIRE.com

INTELWIRE has released the Mohammed Jamal Khalifa Sourcebook, Volume One -- more than 150 pages of primary source material and exclusive analysis concerning Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law, an alleged terrorist financier.

Documents include declassified U.S. and Philippines government records, rarely seen court records, and exclusive prisoner and INS reports from Khalifa's 1994 arrest in San Francisco and subsequent deportation. These documents are among the core sources for INTELWIRE reports concerning Khalifa.

INTELWIRE reports and documents contained in this volume also shed new light on Khalifa's January 2007 assassination in Madagascar.

Labels: INTELWIRE-Exclusive, Jamal-Khalifa

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

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Bin Laden Brother-in-Law Detained On Immigration Hold In 1995

By J.M. Berger
INTELWIRE.com

Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, a brother-in-law of Osama bin Laden, was designated as an "immigration hold" by the U.S. Justice Department through at least Aug. 31, 1995, even though he had been deported months earlier.

A new document obtained by INTELWIRE sheds light on previously reported mysteries involving Khalifa's 1995 detention by U.S. authorities but raises new questions.

Khalifa was arrested by U.S. officials and deported in 1995 under unusual circumstances (story).

U.S. and Philippines authorities have long alleged Khalifa was a top al Qaeda financier. A Saudi national, Khalifa consistently denied any link to terrorism and was never successfully convicted of a terrorist-related offense.

After his December 1994 arrest, Khalifa was imprisoned in an immigration holding cell at the Santa Rosa County Jail until on or about April 19, 1995, when the Oklahoma City bombing occurred.

U.S. officials were concerned about security risks associated with Khalifa in the wake of the bombing and prior to the identification of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols as suspects, sources said.

On the evening of the Oklahoma attack, Khalifa was moved to a maximum security federal prison in Dublin, Calif., according to a Bureau of Prisoners record obtained by INTELWIRE through the Freedom of Information Act (document).

The U.S. Marshals designated Khalifa for special handling with the notation "use extreme caution."

The BOP record indicated that Khalifa was held in U.S. custody until Aug. 31, 1995.

But INS statements, contemporaneous newspaper reports and witness accounts indicate Khalifa was deported to Jordan in early May, to face trial for his alleged role in a cinema bombing there. Khalifa was acquitted of those charges and was never successfully convicted of any terrorism offense.

Some time in August 1995, Khalifa returned to his native Saudi Arabia.

A new document obtained by INTELWIRE increases the disconnect between Khalifa's actual chain of custody and the Justice Department's paper trail.

A U.S. Marshals prisoner tracking record seems to confirm the Bureau of Prisons record indicating Khalifa remained in U.S. custody through Aug. 31, 1995.

The document, displayed below, claims Khalifa was boarded at the Dublin federal prison for 134 days.

However, a large number of sources dispute these records.

The Marshals record indicates that Khalifa was designated as an "immigration hold" through Aug. 31, 1995. An immigration hold is normally used for suspects held in the U.S. who have been charged with a crime, in order to prevent them from being released in the event they are cleared of non-immigration charges.

However, Khalifa was never publicly charged with any terrorism offense on U.S. soil.

Evidence found in Khalifa's luggage connected him to Wali Khan Amin Shah, who was later convicted of conspiring in Manila with Ramzi Yousef and future 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed to bomb U.S. airliners.

Although material taken from Khalifa was deployed to capture at least one member of the Manila cell, and some of his phone records were introduced during the trial, the Saudi was never openly charged in the plot.

The tracking form indicates Khalifa was released from the custody of the Dublin facility "to immigration hold on 8/31/95." It was unclear whether the hold was released at that time or later.

The Marshals document also contains a redacted notation dated Nov. 8, 1995. It describes Khalifa as being in the custody of U.S. Marshals, but the date was unclear.

The U.S. Marshals Service said it possessed no other documents relating to Khalifa.

Labels: INTELWIRE-Exclusive, Jamal-Khalifa

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

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Khalifa Murder Investigation Marked By Confusion, Unanswered Questions

By J.M. Berger
INTELWIRE.com

Authorities in Madagascar are investigating at least three Arab suspects in the murder of Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, a brother-in-law of Osama bin Laden, according to published reports.

U.S. and Philippines authorities have long alleged Khalifa was a top al Qaeda financier. A Saudi national, Khalifa consistently denied any link to terrorism and was never successfully convicted of a terrorist-related offense. He was killed Jan. 30 in Madagascar.

Two French-language newspapers in Madagascar, Midi Madagasikara and L'Express de Madagascar, have been closely following the murder investigation. Two additional articles appeared in an online journal, the Madagascar Tribune.

INTELWIRE could confirm few details from the reports, which conflict with each other and with information from other sources. But the articles, published in February and March, clearly reveal an investigation in flux and fraught with unresolved questions.

Khalifa was in Madagascar attending to business matters at a sapphire mine he owned there. According to reports, Khalifa was attacked by a group of 20 to 30 men. He was shot twice, apparently once in the chest and once in the back, reports said. He was also attacked with an axe, one report said.

A locally infamous bandit named "Dr. Olivier" was described as the leader of a 30-person gang of "dahalo," or bandits, that attacked Khalifa in Sakaraha, Madagascar, at the end of January. Olivier was reportedly shot in the back and killed while trying to flee from police in a dawn raid on Feb. 1.

When police searched Olivier's home, they found a newly issued passport and determined that many of his papers had been removed, reports said.

Initially, one report said, a member of Olivier's gang confessed to the crime and implicated the ringleader. However, the gang member described an attack by only six people, including Olivier. Other reports consistently indicated 20 to 30 assailants.

Few details from the newspaper reports could be confirmed by INTELWIRE. The reports themselves contain conflicting information. They also did not match up with at least one eyewitness account, according to a source close to the situation. That witness described the attackers as wearing military-style uniforms, the source said.

Other conflicts among the stories include the number of suspects identified by police, which ranged from three to 10, depending on which day and which newspaper was reporting. Three suspects were reportedly arrested within days of the murder.

As of March 13, the latest report, six people were said to have been arrested, in addition to the killing of Olivier.

At the time of the shooting, police reportedly found a safe in Olivier's possession. A laptop computer, two mobile phones and a suitcase or briefcase had been stolen during the attack on Khalifa, reports said. The reports did not indicate if any of the stolen items were in the safe.

"I think that it was pure and simple criminal act," said Albert Rakondravao, Director of the Criminal Investigation Department, told Midi Madagasikara in early February.

But around the same time, Khalifa's brother Malek began accusing local authorities of covering up a "a premeditated crime for political reasons" while still denying that Jamal Khalifa was involved with al Qaeda, according to a report in the Al Hayat newspaper.

"After I saw... the maneuvers by officials (in Madagascar)... I became convinced that the government of Madagascar sold Jamal's fate to international intelligence services," he told Al Hayat.

As the Madagascar newspapers revealed, the official investigation was indeed becoming dense and confused; the initial claims of a simple robbery soon came into question as the number of suspects expanded.

INVESTIGATION BECOMES MURKY

The investigation ground to a halt by Feb. 8 -- because three of the four suspects then identified by police were Arabs, reports said. The local police didn't speak Arabic, anonymous sources told Midi Madagasikara, and the investigation was essentially suspended while authorities sought a translator. One of the suspects was an interpreter, the report said, but investigators didn't trust him to accurately translate the interrogations.

A special task force was put in charge of the investigation, reports said, and police clamped down on the flow of information.

Toward the end of February, an additional mystery emerged. According to Midi Madagasikara, eyewitnesses identified a female suspect who the papers said was with Khalifa on the night of his assassination. One report said the woman had been shot in the foot during the attack and was initially taken into custody. Lacking any immediate evidence implicating her in the attack, she was released.

Later, investigators concluded from footprints at the scene that the woman had guided the assassins to Khalifa's room. It was unclear whether the early report that the woman had been wounded was true, or whether this account was consistent with the previous account. At one point, reports said, the woman was suspected of casing the location, and possibly providing weapons and ammunition used in the attack.

By Feb. 22, reports said, the woman had had vanished and was being sought by police. According to reports, the woman was an associate of another man, named Paul Fils, who had provided a Peugeot 405 used by Khalifa during the trip, and who was now also a suspect.

MAKING ARRANGEMENTS

Khalifa's body was flown back to Saudi Arabia in early February on a Boeing 777 rented by the family, reports said. Nineteen people were on board the flight, including an ambassador from Saudi Arabia, reports said.

One report described a delegation that had been personally dispatched by Saudi King Abdullah. Passengers on the flight were met by government officials who conveyed regrets. The car that conveyed his body to the airport received a police escort.

Khalifa was licensed to operate the mine in 2000, reports said. The papers reported that the Muslim community in Madagascar spoke out to say that Khalifa had no connections to terrorism. Khalifa employed many in the region and the mining operation was valuable, reports said.

The CIA investigated Khalifa in relation to the attacks of September 11, according to the Madagascar reports, and CIA representatives went to Madagascar in 2001 to investigate the Saudi. A worker at the mine named Amin was also questioned by the CIA, according to reports. The CIA was persuaded Khalifa was innocent, or at least that no charges could be brought, and dropped the case, the newspapers said.

Another Madagascar newspaper, the Journal of the Island, reportedly took a much harsher view, arguing that Khalifa was a terrorist who had been treated with "astonishing leniency" by the CIA and FBI, claiming those agencies withheld evidence against the Saudi.

The Journal report, which quoted in other sources but not reviewed by INTELWIRE, appears to simply reiterate charges, long circulated in the West, that Khalifa founded businesses and charities in the Philippines which were then used to financing terrorist activities and the activities of the Abu Sayyaf Group in that country.

Previously on INTELWIRE:

US, Interpol Tracked Khalifa Before Killing

INTELWIRE Exclusive Documents

Khalifa's Life-And-Death Secrets

Dossier: Khalifa Arrest and Deportation

This article was compiled from the following reports:

http://www.midi-madagasikara.mg/textes/po070206.htm

http://www.midi-madagasikara.mg/textes/cu070208.htm#cul1

http://www.midi-madagasikara.mg/textes/cu070210.htm

http://www.midi-madagasikara.mg/textes/cu070313.htm

http://www.lexpressmada.com/index.php?p=display&id=4875

http://www.lexpressmada.com/index.php?p=display&id=4906

http://www.lexpressmada.com/index.php?p=display&id=5424

http://www.lexpressmada.com/index.php?p=display&id=5586

http://www.lexpressmada.com/index.php?p=display&id=5948

http://www.madagascar-tribune.com/index.php?JOURNAL=1125&ART=21916

http://www.madagascar-tribune.com/index.php?JOURNAL=1139&ART=22190

http://www.madagascar-tribune.com/index.php?JOURNAL=1146&ART=22343

Labels: INTELWIRE-Exclusive, Jamal-Khalifa

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U.S., Interpol Tracked Khalifa In Days Before Madagascar Murder

By J.M. Berger
INTELWIRE.com

INTERPOL forwarded information concerning Mohammed Jamal Khalifa to U.S. intelligence agencies just days before the alleged al Qaeda financier was killed by gunmen.

Khalifa, a brother-in-law of Osama bin Laden, was killed on about Jan. 30, 2007, in Madagascar, according to news reports. Khalifa's family said the Saudi national was killed by a group of 20 to 30 armed men who stole his computer and briefcase.

Khalifa's family said they believe the killing was political. Terrorism analysts have speculated that an international intelligence agency might have been behind the attack.

Three INTERPOL bulletins were released today to INTELWIRE in response to a Freedom of Information Act request for all documents concerning Khalifa. The release has been heavily redacted. INTERPOL also withheld additional documents pertaining to an "open investigation."

On Jan. 22, about a week before the attack, INTERPOL's Washington bureau sent a bulletin on Khalifa to several U.S. intelligence agencies, including the National Security Agency, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.

The bulletin concerned an unnamed "project (which) was initiated to proactively target terrorism from captured terrorists (sic)."

INTERPOL is traditionally involved in the arrest, extradition and rendition of international criminal suspects. Recent U.S. counterterrorism efforts have focused on secret renditions, which often amount to armed kidnap operations performed in foreign countries.

On Friday, Jan. 26, 2007, four days before Khalifa was killed, a bulletin was sent from an unknown source to INTERPOL's Washington bureau and an unnamed branch of the organization.

According to the document, an unnamed recipient received information relevant to Khalifa from the Washington bureau and was disseminating it. "The purpose of this initiative is to obtain and share information with INTERPOL member countries in proactively targeting crime and terrorism and to prevent further terrorist attacks," the message states.

"[redacted] would like to received all information possessed by recipients relating to the information contained in this message," the document states. Only Khalifa's alias -- Abu Baraa -- is unredacted in the remainder of the document.

One additional document was released, a short INTERPOL bulletin marked "urgent" and dated April 3, 2002 with the subject line "Mohammed Jamal Khalifah."

According to the New York Times, Khalifa was arrested by the Saudi authorities shortly after September 11 and detained for about six months. This bulletin would correspond roughly to the period in which Khalifa was released.

Full Text of Documents

If reporting from these documents, please cite INTELWIRE.com as the source.

Previously:

Khalifa's Life-And-Death Secrets

Previous INTELWIRE reports and documents

Labels: INTELWIRE-Exclusive, Jamal-Khalifa

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

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Mohammed Jamal Khalifa: Life and Death Secrets

By J.M. Berger
INTELWIRE.com

The life of Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law, was wrapped in a cloak of mystery, and his death only adds fuel to the fire.

Born in Medina, Saudi Arabia, in 1957, Khalifa served alongside Osama bin Laden as a volunteer in the jihad against the Soviet Union. Khalifa said the two were best friends and roommates during that time.

After that, however, his story branches off into two conflicting accounts.

According to Khalifa, his association with bin Laden ended there, in the late 1980s, after which he worked as an international businessman and philanthropist. In his version of the tale, he never had anything to do with any sort of terrorist ever again.

According to just about everyone else, Khalifa became a top financier for al Qaeda, with ties to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and a plot to take down nearly a dozen U.S.-bound airliners with undetectable bombs created by the world's most dangerous terrorist, Ramzi Yousef.

On Tuesday, both stories came to an end when Khalifa was assassinated by a group of 25 to 30 gunmen, who burst into the Madagascar house where he was sleeping and killed him, according to family members.

UPDATE: U.S., Interpol Tracked Khalifa Days Before Killing

INTELWIRE BLOG: Brother Says Killing Was Intelligence Hit

During the late 1980s, Khalifa traveled to the Philippines and provided funding and training to the Abu Sayyaf Group, an terrorist-criminal enterprise in the southern part of the country. He also supported Muslim separatist and evangelical movements all over the region, using a network of charity organizations and legitimate businesses to hide his activities, according to U.S. and Philippines authorities.

In 1993, FBI agents investigating the World Trade Center bombing discovered several documents bearing Khalifa's name or alias, including a bomb-making manual. As the case slowly moved toward trial, other links emerged, and Khalifa was named as an unindicted co-conspirator supporting the terrorist cell that staged the bombing.

On Dec. 1, 1994, Khalifa traveled to Morgan Hill, Calif., a 20-minute drive away from an Egyptian Islamic Jihad cell based in Santa Clara. He claimed he was visiting a relative. A member of that cell, Ali Mohamed, was an FBI informant under investigation for his own role in the World Trade Center conspiracy.

Court records show Mohamed spoke with an FBI agent and a U.S. attorney investigating the Trade Center case in New York on Dec. 9. On Dec. 16, the State Department revoked the Saudi's visa.

Khalifa was arrested at the San Francisco airport as he prepared to leave the country. His traveling companion was a senior al Qaeda operative named Mohamed Loay Bayazid, who had tried to purchase uranium on behalf of al Qaeda just one year earlier, according to court testimony.

The FBI searched Khalifa's luggage and found a treasure chest of intelligence -- terror training manuals written by Khalifa himself, and more importantly, address and phone books with listings for al Qaeda's terrorist elite, including bin Laden himself.

Agents also found clues to the location of the world's most dangerous terrorists -- Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of World Trade Center bombing, and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, future architect of the September 11 attack.

Khalifa's notes contained the pager number for Wali Khan Amin Shah, a close associate of bin Laden who was conspiring with Yousef and KSM to bomb a dozen U.S. bound airliners over the Pacific Ocean during a two-day spree scheduled for January 1995.

Phone records showed that Khalifa had called Khan's apartment several times in November. Yousef was building bombs for the attack in a different apartment at the same address, a few floors up. A source close to the investigation said an address for the location was also found on Khalifa's luggage.

Three weeks after Khalifa was arrested, the Philippines police raided Yousef's apartment. At the time, authorities said they discovered the bomb factory as the result of a chance fire set by Yousef while mixing chemicals. But the FBI had forwarded its Khalifa intelligence to the Philippines police two days before the raid.

After searching Yousef's apartment, police set a trap and captured Wali Khan Amin Shah using the pager number taken from Khalifa's luggage. The source of the number was not disclosed during Yousef's trial.

Yousef and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed fled the country, but Yousef was arrested within weeks in Pakistan. Yousef later told a cellmate that Shah been betrayed by an informant and vowed the informant would be killed, according to FBI documents obtained by the late Stephen Dresch, an independent investigator.

Could Khalifa have been the informant?

At minimum, the information in Khalifa's luggage was responsible for the arrest of Shah, and likely the exposure of Yousef's entire cell. But subsequent events raise serious questions about whether things might have gone further.

At the time of his arrest, Khalifa was wanted by the government of Jordan for allegedly training a terrorist cell responsible for a series of cinema bombings there. Secretary of State Warren Christopher personally demanded Khalifa be deported to Jordan, a request that was expedited by the Justice Department.

As a result, Khalifa was blocked from asking the INS to deport him back to his native Saudi Arabia. The paperwork came down within hours of the raid on Yousef's bomb factory.

In March, after Yousef had been captured and returned to the United States, the U.S. Attorney's office in San Francisco agreed to return the contents of Khalifa's luggage. Although FBI agents carefully photocopied all the material, the most direct evidence tying Khalifa to Yousef's plot was simply handed back to the alleged terrorist.

In April, after the Oklahoma City bombing, Khalifa abruptly dropped his opposition to the deportation proceedings and cut a deal with the INS to be returned to Jordan. In exchange for his cooperation, the INS agreed to strike all terrorism charges from his record. Khalifa's full name was never disclosed during Yousef's trial, even though his phone calls to Shah were carefully logged into the record.

Khalifa was deported on May 3, but he wasn't removed from U.S. custody. Instead, according to Bureau of Prisons records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, Khalifa was transferred to the custody of an unidentified U.S. government agency which maintained jurisdiction over him until August. BOP officials refused to disclose the identity of the agency.

In July, Khalifa was cleared by a Jordanian court after a witness against him recanted. He was then sent back to Saudi Arabia, where he was greeted at the airport by Saudi officials, according to Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA's bin Laden unit, in his book "Through Our Enemies' Eyes."

Although rumors of his continued involvement in terrorism were plentiful, Khalifa maintained a low profile for several years after his arrest. He was detained by Saudi authorities after September 11, according to the New York Times, but was released without charge six months later.

He opened a seafood restaurant in Jeddah and eventually started talking to journalists, serving as a major source for prominent authors including Peter Bergen and Lawrence Wright.

During these interviews, Khalifa focused on his early years with bin Laden and steadfastly denied any involvement with terrorism. Because he was a rare source who had been close to bin Laden, the media focus shifted to his tales of the old days. The extensive and specific evidence implicating him as an accessory to Ramzi Yousef faded from memory as he achieved a certain celebrity in the role of "reformed terrorist."

But on Tuesday, Mohammed Jamal Khalifa's past caught up with him.

During a business trip to Madagascar, Khalifa was killed in a large-scale attack by gunmen who ambushed him in the house where he was staying. The team of 20 to 30 gunmen stole his computer and a briefcase, according to published reports citing Khalifa's brother as the source.

Khalifa was in Madagascar dealing with issues at a precious stones mine he owned there, according to published reports.

Obvious questions remain. Who killed Khalifa, and why?

It's possible that Ramzi Yousef's threat of revenge against an informer has finally been realized. It would have been difficult (but by no means impossible) to strike against Khalifa in Saudi Arabia, especially if he was under the protection of authorities there.

Perhaps by emerging from his nest, Khalifa opened himself to retribution. But a small battalion of gunmen would not be especially consistent with al Qaeda's modus operandi, and other possibilities remain.

CNN analyst Nic Robertson on Wednesday suggested the other obvious scenario -- that the attack may have originated with a state-sponsored intelligence service. The size of the team, and the fact that the attackers stole Khalifa's computer and papers, might point to a botched snatch-and-grab operation.

The question then: Which service, and why?

There are other possibilities. It may have been a simple robbery, as his family claims. Or it may have been a hit taken out by a rival sect or terrorist group. If the latter (which I think unlikely), the attack would speak volumes about Osama bin Laden's weakness.

Answers will come slowly, if at all. It's unclear what sort of investigation is planned, and whether the results will ever become public.

In death as in life, Khalifa's secrets remain untold.

Many of the primary documents described in this story can be found linked below. INTELWIRE plans to publish exclusive new Khalifa-related documents, including some described in this story, starting next week.

Labels: INTELWIRE-Exclusive, Jamal-Khalifa

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Jamal Khalifa Documents, Stories

By J.M. Berger
INTELWIRE.com

Mohammed Jamal Khalifa has been killed in Madagascar, according to reports from CNN and the Associated Press.

INTELWIRE Stories:

Please credit INTELWIRE when reporting from exclusive documents.

Document Dossier: Khalifa Arrest

Documents in this PDF package include Khalifa's INS deportation record, a letter from Warren Christopher to Janet Reno regarding the case, a memo from then-Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick filed as part of the deportation proceeding, a letter from the U.S. Attorney's office agreeing to return evidence seized from Khalifa's luggage, and more...

Khalifa killed (weblog)

U.S. Secretly Detained Khalifa in 1994



External Links:

CNN: Khalifa Killed

Associated Press

Labels: INTELWIRE-Exclusive, Jamal-Khalifa

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink