Condi Rice's 9/11 Testimony Comes With A Price Tag

By J.M. Berger

INTELWIRE.com



The White House agreed Tuesday to let National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice testify under oath in a public hearing before the 9/11 Commission.



While most media outlets depicted the move as a concession by the Bush Administration, the White House placed significant conditions on the agreement which have received little media scrutiny.



A letter drafted by White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales requires the Commission to "agree in writing it will not request additional public testimony from any White House official, including Dr. Rice." (The full text of the letter can be found here.)



It's unclear exactly who is included under the designation of "White House official." The letter also stipulates that Rice will appear before the Commission only once.



The wording is particularly important. Rather than simply stipulating that the agreement does not ensure further testimony from White House officials, the Commission agrees "not to request" testimony — which means that the Bush Administration is spared the embarrassment and possible controversy of refusing any further requests.



Allowing Rice to testify may end up being a relatively small price to pay in exchange for such a provision during an election year. The deal profoundly limits the Commission's ability to publicly investigate any new allegations or information that emerge concerning the current administration.



Even if Rice's testimony contains new bombshells (an unlikely prospect), the damage will be contained because the deal stipulates that there will be no follow-up. The new agreement ushers in the final phase of the 9/11 Commission's fact-finding mission, regardless of how many facts might remain to be found.

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Ex-Terror Czar: Feds Couldn't Disprove Nichols-Yousef Connection

By J.M. Berger

INTELWIRE.com



Federal agencies were "never able to disprove" claims that Ramzi Yousef and Terry Nichols may have met in the Philippines prior to the Oklahoma City bombing, according to the former National Security Council director of counterterrorism Richard Clarke, who also reveals that Nichols and Yousef were in Cebu City on the same days.



Amid the controversy over Against All Enemies, Clarke's expose of the Bush Administration, there has been only sporadic coverage of his brief mention of the Oklahoma City bombing and rumors that al Qaeda may have provided training to convicted conspirator Terry Nichols, which he cited as a loose end that still weighs on his mind.



"We were never able to disprove" the alleged connection, wrote Clarke, who headed a Clinton administration interagency task force on terrorism at the time. He said Nichols and Yousef "visited Cebu on the same days." Previously, the two had only been conclusively verified as being in Cebu together on one specific date (Dec. 11, 1994), but there is significant evidence to suggest more overlap.



As previously reported on INTELWIRE, Nichols and Yousef are both documented as having visited the campus of Southwestern University in late 1994 (see story, Analysis of Terry Nichols and Ramzi Yousef timelines shows close correspondences).



Furthermore, al Qaeda is known to have recruited Christians in the Cebu City area (see story, Al Qaeda Recruited Christians in Key Nichols Locale). That recruiting program is linked to Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law, Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, who has other possible connections to OKC (see story, INS Deported bin Laden Kin Just Days After OKC Bombing).



It's unclear whether the results of the investigation cited by Clarke were fully disclosed to defense lawyers for Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. The production of documents by the FBI and other federal agencies has been a major issue in the state trial of Terry Nichols.



An investigation by the Associated Press has turned up significant evidence that the FBI failed to provide and in some cases even destroyed evidence related to a broader conspiracy in the Oklahoma City bombing. AP's reports prompted the FBI to open an internal investigation into the bombing last month.



Clarke also cited the fact that Nichols had continued to call Cebu after his wife had returned to the United States, according to phone records.



During the same period of time, a cell phone registered to Abdul Hakim Murad, one of Yousef's co-conspirators, was still in use, despite the fact Murad had been arrested weeks earlier, according to Peter Lance, writing in 1000 Years for Revenge.



According to Philippines police records obtained by Motley Rice, a law firm suing Saudi Arabia for complicity in the 9/11 attacks, Murad made phone calls to Cebu at the time Nichols was staying there. Murad said the calls were made to a friend who was studying dentistry in Cebu. Nichols' wife was studying physical therapy at Southwestern University at the time. Southwestern has a dentistry program, but there is at least one other dentistry school in Cebu City.

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Zawahiri Tape Calls For Coup, Targets Pakistan's Weak Points

By J.M. Berger

INTELWIRE.com



Ayman al Zawarhiri (alt. spelling: Zawahri), al Qaeda's top leader after Osama bin Laden, has called for a military coup and popular revolt in Pakistan.



The new audiotape message, judged authentic by the CIA, calls for a popular revolution in the South Asian nation, as well as specifically addressing the military. The tape refers to Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf as a "Muslim assassin."



The timing of the message suggests retaliation for Musharraf's recent aggressive attack on tribes populating the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region. Pakistani officials claimed last week that they had Zawahiri cornered in heavy combat but suggested earlier this week that the "high-value" target they sought had escaped through a secret tunnel.



Pakistan has been deeply divided over the high-casualty assault, which has faced both political and grass roots opposition.



Musharraf has been the subject of two assassination attempts within the last year. Security was tightened in the capitol city after the audiotape was broadcast on Aljazeerah pan-Arabic television. There are three points of immediate and major concern in the message.

The message specifically calls on tribal factions to revolt. These factions have already been severely incited during last week's fighting and may only need a spark to set off the tinderbox.

The message specifically addresses the military, chiding army officials for last week's offensive. Pakistani forces may be severely demoralized after taking heavy casualties last week during a battle in which they possessed an overwhelming numerical advantage. The assault was alsoa high-profile failure since it let the "high-value" target escape. It's difficult to estimate how much influence Islamic radicals may have on the military, whose officers are mostly Muslim. An Army spokesman dismissed Zawahiri's exhortation as "absurd."

Since the tape comes from Zawahiri, there is a not-too-subtle message being conveyed about the effectiveness of Pakistan's efforts to fight al Qaeda. The boldness of such a defiant challenge only days after Zawahiri was supposedly "as good as caught" will be extremely effective at creating enthusiasm among grass roots Islamists in Pakistan.



Updated: 3/26

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Australia Presents Tempting Target For al Qaeda

By J.M. Berger

INTELWIRE.com



After Spain's startling electoral intrigue, al Qaeda (or its Southeast Asian affiliate, Jemaah Islamiah) may be eying Australia as its next political target of opportunity.



Polling indicates that incumbent Prime Minister John Howard has seen his support plunge in the year since the Iraq invasion, which Howard supported with Australian troops.



This week, Howard's position worsened substantially in the first real test of how the Madrid 3/11 attack is playing worldwide. 65 percent of Australians polled said that the nation's support for the Iraq war had increased the possibility of a terrorist attack there.



Mark Latham, Howard's Labor Party opposition, vowed this week to pull Australian troops out of Iraq if elected. The opposition seeks to call an election as early as September.



An Australian television prominently reported Monday that al Qaeda possesses suitcase-sized nuclear weapons. With its proximity to Southeast Asia, Australia is more viscerally on the front lines of the terror war than the U.S. or Britain. With Howard's support already slipping and fears running high among the population, the country is a prime candidate for a Madrid-style "October surprise" in late August (presuming a September election does take place).



The fallout from Madrid continues to be far more severe than anyone could have imagined. Whether or not al Qaeda was responsible for 3/11, and whether or not another attack takes place, fear of terrorism is already visibly shaping the electoral process around the world.



A political assassination in Afghanistan over the weekend led to hundreds of deaths and a new outbreak of revolt. And last week's disastrous attempt to capture Ayman al-Zawahri ended in a humiliating defeat for the Pakistani military.



In Indonesia, election concerns are also paramount, but the political climate is notably different in battle-scarred Indonesia than in Australia, which has yet to suffer a large-scale, high-casualty homeland attack.



It's clear that al Qaeda is not scattered and "on the run" as Western authorities and media experts have argued in recent months. Qaeda's military position remains surprisingly potent, and its political position is arguably much stronger now than it was before 9/11 and before the Iraq invasion.



A successful effort to influence the outcome of Australia's elections would potentially tip the scales even further, opening an entirely new chapter in world politics. If Howard's administration loses due to al Qaeda's intervention, the Bush and Blair administrations will be the next targets — likely on a spectacular scale.



Editor's Note: al Qaeda is believed to have several ongoing plots in progress at any given time, based on a mixture of forethought and opportunity. The above analysis is not meant as a blanket prediction of a specific event, but rather as an indication of broader strategy concerns.



Correction: An earlier posted version of this story incorrectly listed the date of the Australian election as June. The mistake has been corrected in this version of the story. INTELWIRE regrets the error.

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Zawahiri Was Within FBI's Reach During 1995 U.S. Visit

By J.M. Berger

INTELWIRE.com



Al Qaeda's No. 2 man, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, visited California to raise money for terrorist activities right under the noses of federal authorities in early 1995.



Regardless of whether Al-Zawahiri was anywhere near the early March siege in Pakistan, the latest mishap was only the latest in a decade-long series of missed opportunities.



Much has been made in recent days of a 2000 CIA spy plane image showing Osama bin Laden at an al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan.



But the opportunity represented in that video pales in comparison to the investigative failure that missed Zawahiri in California, in early 1995.



According to court records and extensive media reports, Ayman al-Zawahiri came to the U.S. in early 1995 on a fundraising trip for al Qaeda. He stayed near San Jose, Calif., with bin Laden's chief of security, Ali Mohammed — who had been subpoenaed by the Justice Department about his connections to terrorism only weeks before.



Zawahiri was in the country for a fundraising trip that may have been connected to an Egyptian embassy bombing in Pakistan later that year, according to a 2001 special report in the San Francisco Chronicle.



The FBI was already well aware of Ali Mohammed, whom the Justice Department had interrogated in December 1994, according to trial testimony and published accounts. Mohammed had links to known terrorists dating back to 1989, when the FBI photographed him training some of the World Trade Center plotters in firearms (see Peter Lance's "1000 Years for Revenge" for details).



A former sergeant in the U.S. Special Forces, Ali Mohammed had even volunteered himself to the CIA and the FBI as an informant. According to a 2001 report in the San Francisco Chronicle, Mohammed's Army superiors suspected that the Egyptian native had been sponsored to Special Forces by the CIA.



FBI officials had already captured one top al Qaeda operative in the same part of California. In December 1994, officials arrested Mohammed Jamal Khalifa in nearby Mountain View (See story, 1995 Deportee Tied To Al-Zawahiri, Uranium Plot, Terror Finance Network and Even 9/11), a brother-in-law of bin Laden.



While the CIA spy plane video of bin Laden is indeed dramatic and makes for good television, its value as an actual opportunity to capture the al Qaeda leader is negligible. Aside from the fact that bin Laden is shown in what was then a sovereign country outside of a wartime footing, the terrorist leader was highly mobile and may not have stayed in one place long enough for a strike to be mounted.



On the other hand, there is every reason to think that an effective FBI investigation of Khalifa and Ali Mohammed could have led to a real opportunity to capture Zawahiri on U.S. soil without bloodshed. Although Zawahiri was not as high-profile in 1995 as he is today, he was clearly a "high-value target" at the time.



Even without the benefit of hindsight, Ali Mohammed and Khalifa were high profile candidates for surveillance and investigation in the aftermath of the first World Trade Center bombing and the January 1995 exposure of the Bojinka plot (see story, INS Deported bin Laden Kin Just Days After OKC Bombing).

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Is al Qaeda Stealing the Identities of Captured Operatives?

By J.M. Berger

INTELWIRE.com



al Qaeda may be stealing the identities of its own operatives in order to further confuse investigators tracking its financing operations.



In at least two cases documented over the past year, a government agency has moved to freeze assets belonging to terrorists who are either dead or long imprisoned. The freeze was based on specific intelligence that al Qaeda was using the names of the terrorists in question, even after their imprisonment or death.



In September 2003, Abdul Hakim Murad and Fathur Rahman al-Ghozi were added to the Treasury Department's list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGT) — a master list of individuals whose assets have been officially frozen by the U.S. government's Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC).



Murad has been in prison since 1995, while al-Ghozi had been dead for months at the time the list was released. The SDGT list does not routinely freeze the assets of arrested or even convicted terrorists.



Murad was an accomplice to Ramzi Yousef in an al Qaeda plot to bomb U.S. airliners, a predecessor to the September 11 attack. Most of Murad's known co-conspirators are missing from the list (including Yousef), which means that investigators were almost certainly attempting to freeze some specific asset.



al-Ghozi was a master bomb-builder for al Qaeda's Southeast Asia affiliate, Jemaah Islamiah.

Strategy Traced To Ramzi Yousef

The Treasury Department refused to comment to Intelwire on the factors leading to the addition, citing OFAC policy, but a chain of seemingly unconnected events falls together when viewed in this context, with an intriguing link back to the foiled 1995 Bojinka plot.



Murad and Yousef, mastermind of the the 1993 WTC bombing, were childhood friends. Both were arrested after being exposed in Manila, the Philippines, in January 1995, where they were planning Project (or OpPlan) Bojinka, a massive attack on U.S. interests. Significant elements of the Bojinka plan were eventually used in Qaeda's 9/11 attack.



Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, another conspirator in the plot, was added to the SDGT list prior to his arrest in 2003. But none of the other accused Bojinka conspirators are listed as SDGTs. Other figures tied to the plot include Mohammed Jamal Khalifa (a brother-in-law of Osama bin Laden) and Wali Khan Amin Shah, according to U.S. investigators.



The chain of events leading to Murad's addition to the SDGT list shows that elements of Ramzi Yousef's terror network are still active, nearly a decade after his arrest.



It's possible Yousef himself devised the strategy for identity theft. Yousef was a master of identity fraud -- his real name isn't even Ramzi Yousef, but Abdul Basit. He and Murad kept dozens of passports hidden in his apartment in Manila. Yousef used at least half a dozen aliases from 1992 to 1995, and those are simply the ones known to investigators. Murad was similarly equipped with passports and alternate identities.



There is precedent for Murad's assets being used after his arrest. Murad's cell phone account in the Philippines remained active and in use for weeks after his arrest, according to investigative author Peter Lance, writing in 1000 Years for Revenge.



Yousef was at large during much of this time, until his arrest in Pakistan about a month later. Wali Khan and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed were also at large in the Philippines during the period that the phone was in use.



The specific events leading to Murad's addition to the SDGT list also point to Yousef. In July 2003, a Quetta Shi'ite mosque was bombed by an al Qaeda cell that included Daud Badini, a brother-in-law of WTC 1993 bombing mastermind Ramzi Yousef, according to Pakistani investigators quoted by the Associated Press. Badini's sister is believed to be Yousef's wife.



In August 2003, the U.S. took custody of al Qaeda's Southeast Asian kingpin Hambali. The head of al Qaeda affiliate Jemaah Islamiah, Hambali was also tied to Bojinka, which he helped fund using a Malaysian front company called Konsonjaya.



The addition of Murad and al-Ghozi to the SDGT list came less than a month after Hambali's arrest. The list included the names of several Jemaah Islamiah operatives.

Identities Actively Used After Arrests, Deaths

All the additions to the list were based in Southeast Asia, strongly suggesting that they were added as the result of information collected during Hambali's arrest or his interrogation.



An official in New Zealand, which appended the names to its own asset control list, told the media in January 2004 that al-Ghozi's assets were still at risk of being used, after a minor political fracas broke out in that country over the listing of a dead man.



As of March 17, 2004, Daud Badini, Ramzi Yousef and Mohammed Jamal Khalifa are still not named on the SDGT list. This strongly suggests Murad and al-Ghozi were added on the basis of extremely specific intelligence, some indication that assets in their name were still actively in use.



From al Qaeda's perspective, there is a compelling pragmatism to stealing the identities of captured operatives.



Murad (and operatives like him) stashed dozens of forged identity papers and passports in safehouses around the globe. Generally, it's much easier to alter existing documents than to forge brand new ones. Since many al Qaeda operatives are also close relatives (particularly within Yousef's terror network), sometimes a passport can simply be handed off without any alterations at all.



In the arcane and alias-filled world of international terrorism, there is the additional possibility that captured operatives will be misidentified at the time their arrest. This is an especially significant risk with low-profile operational workers like Murad, who was not well-known to authorities prior to his arrest in 1995.



In the case of Murad, the intense investigation of his movements dropped off significantly after his conviction on charges related to Bojinka (but may have resumed after September 11). His finances do not appear to have been of great interest to investigators at the time, according to court records and other documents.



Any assets, holdings and bank accounts which escaped investigators notice at the time of his arrest could be therefore be considered relatively safe. Further activity in Murad's name would only add to the confusing trail of transactions that is a hallmark of al Qaeda operations.



A few compelling questions remain unanswered, in light of OFAC's policy against commenting on SDGT designations.

Why isn't it standard operating procedure to freeze the assets of those who have been convicted of terrorist offenses?

Why are so many prominent figures still missing from the list?



The list of unaccounted suspects includes Badini, Yousef's brother-in-law, and Khalifa, whom the U.S. has repeatedly accused of being not only a member of al Qaeda, but a key terrorist financier -- exactly the type of suspect the OFAC list is intended to target. (See INTELWIRE Exclusives: INS Deported bin Laden Kin Just Days After OKC Bombing and 1995 Deportee Tied To Al-Zawahiri, Uranium Plot, Terror Finance Network and Even 9/11). Khalifa denies all wrongdoing and is living freely in Saudi Arabia.



Wali Khan Amin Shah, a Bojinka conspirator, was also tied to Hambali's financial network. His absence from the list is also particularly notable. With Hambali, Wali Khan was a member of the Konsonjaya board of directors.

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Madrid attacks worked exactly as planned

An al Qaeda document reveals that the terror group specificially targeted regime change in Spain, with an eye toward a Socialist Party victory and the withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq, according to a report from CNN.



Reports of the document's existence remove what little doubt may have existed that the Madrid bombings were an al Qaeda-linked effort as well as making it clear that the political ramifications of the attack were carefully thought out. The report also suggests the timing of the attack was specifically geared toward the election.



The report also again raises the specter of an "October surprise" terror attack in the U.S., just before the November elections. However, that scenario is based on the possibly debateable premise that al Qaeda desires to see regime change in the U.S.



While a successful repeat of the Spanish scenario would potentially enhance al Qaeda's standing internationally, the terror organization actually benefits from a confrontational U.S. foreign policy, which helps with recruiting and discourages countries in the Middle East, East Asia and Southeastern Asia from fully participating in American anti-terror efforts.

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The Third Party Alternative?

The incumbent government of Spain lost the general election on Sunday, setting a troubling new precedent in the war on terrorism.



The election was thrown wide open last week after a devastating bomb attack killed nearly 200 people in Madrid. Before the attack, the socialist party opposition had been an underdog with no serious prospect for victory. Thursday's bombing changed all that.



The government responded to the attack by blaming Basque separatists, a politically expedient conclusion that investigators steadfastly maintained despite numerous indicators that al Qaeda might have been involved.



After a videotape released Saturday showed an alleged al Qaeda spokesman claiming responsibility for the blast, public skepticism toward the incumbent government swelled to massive proportions, as thousands of protestors flooded the capitol to accuse the government of withholding information.



If the attack originated with Qaeda, it was perceived as being tied to Spain's support of the U.S. war on Iraq — support that the new prime minister withdrew as his first official act.



In short, regardless of who is eventually found responsible for the Madrid bombs, al Qaeda has succeeded in creating a climate in which terrorism can effect regime change in targeted countries.



This represents a radical change in al Qaeda's currency as an international power player. Indeed, if the attack proves to be an al Qaeda operation, its success dwarfs the September 11 attack for its political impact.



Even more frightening, it raises the near certain threat of an "October Surprise" in the U.S. presidential elections. While a late-breaking attack has weighed on the minds of all concerned in the 2004 presidential election, the outcome in Spain virtually assures a full-court press against the U.S. by al Qaeda in October.



Almost nothing that happens in the U.S. presidential election before October now matters (unless the campaigns now steer themselves exclusively toward how they plan to respond to an attack that month). In the space of the last week, Osama bin Laden has emeged as a shadow candidate in the U.S. political process, and his only possible role is that of the spoiler.

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Bashir Release A Crushing Blow To Public View of Terror War

There's no positive spin that the West can put on the impending release of Abu Bak'r Bashir. Accused of being the spiritual head of Jemaah Islamiah, Bashir is widely considered an Islamic extremist idealogue on the scale of Osama bin Laden.



The Indonesian government's inability to convict Bashir of any terrorism-related crimes highlights significant legalistic obstacles that lie ahead. Its political inability to hold him even for the full sentence of his term on lesser offenses highlights how the Western point of view is losing the hearts and minds of moderate Muslims in Southeast Asia.



While there is little doubt the U.S. will ensure a conviction for Osama bin Laden in the event of his capture, Bashir's acquittal serves to legitimize the role of clerics and theologians as adjuncts to operational terrorists. There was little danger of an OBL conviction being considered legitimate by fundamentalist Muslim states in the first place; the Bashir release provides a legal precedent which can only serve to bolster a pro-bin Laden viewpoint overseas.



Bashir's release is likely to revitalize JI, which had been signficantly impacted by the arrests of both Bashir and JI's former operational mastermind, Hambali. Complicating matters further, Indonesia and Malaysia have been pressing the U.S. to extradite Hambali to Southeast Asia for prosecution there. In light of how the Bashir case has been handled, the U.S. can't be enthusiastic about that course of action. But refusing to extradite Hambali runs its own risk of alienating governments whose cooperation the U.S. badly needs.



No matter how one looks at it, the Bashir precedent represents nothing short of a disaster for the West in its War on Terror, one with far-reaching implications in the practical short-term as well as the ideological long view.

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