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.

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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

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.

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[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

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Egyptian Extremist Sect Linked To 1979 Terrorist Attack On Mecca

State Department Documents Reveal Takfir Wal Hijra Role In Watershed Saudi Event

By J.M. Berger
INTELWIRE.com

An Islamic extremist sect with deep links to al Qaeda was suspected of playing a role in the November 1979 assault on the Grand Mosque in Mecca, according to State Department documents obtained by INTELWIRE.

New! The Siege At Mecca: An INTELWIRE Sourcebook

Evidence implicating Takfir Wal Hijra members in the Mecca attack was discovered in November 1981, shortly after the Oct. 6 assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, according to a State Department cable obtained by INTELWIRE through the Freedom of Information Act.

"(Egyptian) security authorities claim that evidence has been uncovered linking some of the apprehended extremists with the 1979 occupation of the Grand Mosque in Mecca," stated the Nov. 23, 1981, cable from the U.S. embassy in Cairo to the Secretary of State in Washington, D.C.

Read the State Department Cables: Takfir Wal Hijra, 10/23/81 and 11/23/81

Takfir Wal Hijra is an Islamic sect sometimes affiliated with al Qaeda. Members of the sect believe that Muslims who are judged to have failed in their religious obligations may deemed infidels and killed. At the same time, however, the organization allows members to disregard Islamic law for the purpose of infiltrating Western societies.

Takfiris, as they are known, are influential within al Qaeda, and some top members of the terror network are believed to be Takfiris, although the working relationship has not always been smooth. Al Qaeda's second-in-command Ayman Al-Zawahiri has been strongly influenced by Takfiri theology and may be an adherent of the sect.

The group originated in Egypt, where it was subjected to periodic crackdowns by the government. After an especially difficult episode that saw more than 200 members of the group arrested, several members of the group fled Egypt for Saudi Arabia.

Some of the members became associated with a radical sect called the Brotherhood (Ikhwan) Group, a Wahabbi splinter sect led by a Saudi Bedouin named Juhayman al-Oteibi. He believed that he had discovered the "madhi," an Islamic messiah figure.

Oteibi led his designated madhi and a group of followers to seize the Grand Mosque on the first day of the new century according to the Islamic calendar. Nov. 20, 1979. The timing aimed to fulfill one interpretation of a prophecy concerning the madhi.

"It was widely assumed that some took refuge in Saudi Arabia and later participated with Juhayman al-Utaybi's 'Ikhwan' Group in the 1979 seizure of the Grand Mosque in Mecca," said an Oct. 23, 1981 State Department cable obtained by INTELWIRE.

"We recall that the Saudi authorities admitted that several foreigners, including Egyptians, actively participated in the Mecca incident; Juhayman's writings and beliefs appear to bear considerable resemblance to 'Takfir Wal Hijra's' tenets," the cable stated.

The exact number of Egyptians involved in the siege is unknown. At least 300 militants took control of the mosque; reports conflict, but the total number of militants was likely over 500 and may even have been as high as 1,000, according to dozens of cables obtained by INTELWIRE.

Many of the militants were killed during the siege, others escaped. About 70 people were executed by the Saudi government. Of those, 10 were Egyptians, according to a Jan. 1, 1980 State Department cable.

State Department Cable, List of Executed Mecca Militants, 1/1/80

Interestingly, "two black Muslims from the U.S. were somehow involved," according to a Feb. 4, 1980 cable, which added that "one of them was killed during the fighting." The fate of the other American is not addressed in any of the documents released to INTELWIRE. Other known participants came from North and South Yemen, Kuwait, Iraq and the Sudan.

In addition to the Takfiri connection, another tantalizing hint of an al Qaeda link appears in the newly released State Department cables.

State Department Cable: Writings of Juhayman al-Oteibi, 2/6/80

A pamphlet of Oteibi's writings was obtained and reviewed by U.S. officials. The pamphlet "set forth a very fundamentalist version of Islam and called for a return to the true path," the cable states.

The pamphlet condemned Saudi use of Western garb and consumption of Western media, complained that the educational system in Saudi Arabia was not sufficiently Islamic, and condemned association with non-Muslims. It also accused the Saudi royal family of having abandoned true Islam.

"A young member of a prominent Jeddah family financed the publication," the cable states. The charges laid out in the pamphlet were remarkably similar to those later levied against the Saudi government by Osama bin Laden, who lived in Jeddah with other members of the bin Laden family at the time.

Bin Laden and his brother, Mahrous bin Laden, were arrested during the 1979 siege, according to Lawrence Wright's book, The Looming Tower.

Media accounts, which could not immediately be verified with independent documentation, have alleged that Mahrous bin Laden was a member of Oteibi's sect and that he helped the militants obtain floor plans to the mosque, which had been renovated by the bin Laden family a few years earlier.

While never using the actual word "madhi," Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda have repeatedly and deliberately provided cues that invite comparison to specific prophecies concerning the Islamic messiah figure, whose coming is believed to herald an apocalyptic global war for Islamic domination.

INTELWIRE has obtained hundreds of pages of previously classified documents related to the siege of Mecca, including a host of new details and a unique "as it happened" perspective on this important historical event. Inquiries from media outlets are welcome. Click here for information on how to contact J.M. Berger. Additional stories are planned, and the full collection of documents will be released to the public.

Documents linked in this story were obtained by INTELWIRE through the Freedom of Information Act. If you believe public records should be free to the public, please consider a donation to help support future document purchases.

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Major New al Qaeda Documents: Ali Mohamed, Millennium Bombing, CIA on NGOs, Somalia and More

By J.M. Berger
INTELWIRE.com

INTELWIRE has posted a set of major documents on the history of al Qaeda, providing new and exclusive details on the activities of suspected and known terrorists.

The new documents include:

Affidavit of FBI Special Agent Daniel Coleman Regarding Ali Mohamed

Published in its entirety for the first time anywhere, this affidavit provides an often-shocking account of the activities of Ali A. Mohamed, an al Qaeda associate who spied on the U.S. government for more than 10 years before being arrested. In addition to infiltrating the U.S. Special Forces and the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare School at Fort Bragg, Mohamed repeatedly provided vital information to the FBI about Osama bin Laden and his role as a trainer for al Qaeda. But most of Mohamed's revelations went unheeded. This document conclusively proves that Mohamed disclosed the existence of al Qaeda to the FBI in 1993 -- years before the earliest reference to al Qaeda found in intelligence files by a Joint Congressional Inquiry into the September 11 attacks.

Excerpt from "Tareekh Osama" Memo, Record of al Qaeda's Founding, Written By Mohammed Loay Bayazid

This memo was seized from the offices of an al Qaeda-linked charity in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Written by al Qaeda founding member Mohammed Loay Bayzid, the document offers incredible detail about the founding of al Qaeda in 1988.

1/96 CIA Memo on Use of Islamic Charities to Support Terrorism

This CIA document, provided to INTELWIRE by law firm Motley Rice, outlines the activities of several Islamic charities believed to be supporting terrorism, including the International Islamic Relief Organization and the Third World Relief Agency. This document was provided to INTELWIRE by law firm Motley Rice, which has filed a civil suit seeking to recover damages related to the September 11 attacks.

Affidavit of Saudi Intelligence Chief on bin Laden, CIA, Saudi Government

Filed in response to the aforementioned civil suit, this affidavit by former Saudi Intelligence Chief Turki Al-Faisal offers an account of the Saudi government's alliance with the CIA to fund and support the mujahideen (holy warriors) fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan. It also provides an account of Osama bin Laden's early role in that effort, and tells of failed efforts to have bin Laden extradited out of Afghanistan to face trial prior to September 11.

Memorandum Summarizing Interrogation of al Qaeda Member Mohamed Rashed Daoud Al-Owhali, Concerning East African Embassy bombings

This document provides a detailed look at the East African Embassy bombing plot. Owhali, an al Qaeda member, was supposed to die as part of the suicide bombing in Nairobi, Kenya. However, he was not killed after fulfilling his function of creating a distraction, and subsequently fled the scene. The document summarizes the FBI's interrogation of Owhali.

Letter Concerning al Qaeda Role in Somalia Written by Most-Wanted Terrorist Saif al-Adl

This document provides a fascinating glimpse into al Qaeda's role in Somalia, training militants to fight U.S. forces using RPGs during the 1990s and possibly participating in attacks. Al Qaeda has claimed credit for playing a role in the infamous 1993 "Blackhawk Down" incident that saw militants armed with RPGs destroy two U.S. helicopters. Interestingly, the document mentions an al Qaeda associate named Mukhtar who assisted at a training camp in Somalia. According to Ron Suskind's The One Percent Doctrine, Mukhtar was a code name for Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.

Sentencing Memorandum For Ahmed Ressam, Al Qaeda Associate Implicated in Millennium Bombing Plot

This sentencing memorandum provides a summary of key elements of the Millennium Bombing plot, aimed at targets on U.S. soil at the end of 1999. The plot was thwarted.

Complete list of INTELWIRE documents

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Sentencing Statement of Blind Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman and Other New York Terrorists

By J.M. Berger
INTELWIRE.com

INTELWIRE is publishing a transcript of the sentencing proceedings from UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. OMAR AHMAD ALI ABDEL RAHMAN, et al. S5 93 Cr. 181 (MBM). The transcript includes the full statements of all the defendants, providing a valuable historical window into the minds and motivations of the first wave of the War on Terror.

The historic case convicted nearly a dozen people of plotting to destroy New York City landmarks during the summer of 1993.

The conspirators were also accused of supporting the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The star defendant was "the blind sheikh" Omar Abdel Rahman, an Egpytian cleric who was considered the spiritual leader of the Islamic Group and Egyptian Islamic Jihad. The terrorist cell he led in Brooklyn was also linked to al Qaeda.

Read the transcript

This transcript was purchased by INTELWIRE.com for $218.90 from the Southern District of New York court reporter. Please credit and/or link INTELWIRE if reporting from this document.

If you believe public records should be free to the public, please consider a donation to help offset INTELWIRE's costs in obtaining documents through the Freedom of Information Act and the purchase of court records. INTELWIRE is committed to publishing a broad array of historically significant government documents on terrorism.

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The 9/11 Document Project

By J.M. Berger
INTELWIRE.com


INTELWIRE has requested thousands of pages of documents that were cited in footnotes of "The Final Report Of The 9/11 Commission" through the Freedom of Information Act and from court records. Some requests have been refused, but several have already been answered and many more are expected in the weeks and months to come.

Newest Documents


FAA: Executive Summary and Chronology of the 9/11 Attacks


TSA: Security Screening of the 9/11 Hijackers


Intelligence & Warnings

President's Daily Brief: Bin Laden Determined To Strike In U.S.

Joint Commission: Airplanes As Weapons

Joint Commission: Bin Laden Intentions Inside U.S.

Joint Commission: Midhar and Hazmi

Summary of FAA Pre-9/11 Threat Assessments

FBI: The Phoenix Memo

FBI's Five Missed Opportunities Re: al-Midhar and al-Hazmi

Real Names Of Government Employees Referred To By Alias In 9/11 Commission Report

Bin Laden 1998 Fatwa To Kill Americans


Secret CIA Files and Summaries

Interrogation of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed

On al Qaeda Training Camps


9/11 Hijackers & Plotters

Mohammed Atta Letter With Instructions For 'The Last Night'

Atta Visa Application

Ramzi Binalshibh Passport

Marwan Al Shehhi Flight School Application

Sept. 11, 2001, Ticket Information For Hijackers

Marwan Al Shehhi Passport

Binalshib Sends Money to Shehhi

Walid Al Shehri Motel Registration

Satam al Suqami And Walid Al Shehri Bank Records

Nawaf Al Hazmi Bank Statement

Atta Bank Statement

Atta Cell Phone Application

Binalshibh Frequent Flyer Club


Zacarias Moussaoui

FBI: 9/10 E-Mail "God Help Up All"

CIA: 9/10/2001 Briefing "Islamic Extremist Learns To Fly"

FBI: 8/24/01 Memo Requesting Permission To Search Moussaoui Luggage

FBI: 8/17 Memo and 8/18 E-Mail, "Islamic Martyr Profile"

FBI: 8/22/01 Moussaoui's Oklahoma Connections

FBI: 8/22/01 Colleen Rowley E-Mail

FBI: 8/24/01 Flight School Investigation

8/30/01 French Intelligence

9/6/01 Status Report

Hussein Al-Attas Affidavit on Mossaoui

Inventory Of Zacarias Moussaoui Luggage Contents

Moussaoui Bank Records

Moussaoui Address Book/Day Planner

Moussaoui Notebook 1

Moussaoui Notebook 2

Moussaoui Notebook 3

Moussaoui Notebook 4

Moussaoui Notebook 5

Labels: 9-11, INTELWIRE-Exclusive

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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

Click here for a printer-friendly version of this story with hyperlinked notes.

[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

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

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Unlocking 9/11

Keys To the Real History of al Qaeda's War on America

By J.M. Berger
INTELWIRE.com

The conventional history of al Qaeda's war on America is riddled with omissions, distortions, oversimplifications, secrets, reporting errors and even a handful of outright lies.

Many of these problems stem from the profound complexity of terrorist plots and the inevitable complications that arise when sifting through a vast mountain of data. Criminal conspiracies are, by their nature, confusing. This creates inherent problems for those reporting the history that led to September 11.

The task is further complicated by political apologists, policy-makers and pundits with agendas that drive their supposedly factual claims.

The truth has become murky, due to an abundance of bad information -- some reported by the mainstream media, some promulgated by conspiracy theorists of various stripes, and some disseminated directly by the government.

INTELWIRE presents a series of stories designed to help clarify the record on some seminal events surrounding the War on Terror and the road to September 11.

This series seeks to probe the best available sources in an effort to dispel myths and document what really happened. Original source documents will be published in full on the site whenever possible, and cited when this is not possible.

The series, launching September 11, 2006, will include:

The Solid Case: Detailed, specific and confirmable evidence that links al Qaeda to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. It's become a bit of a truism to blame the 1993 attack on al Qaeda, but no one really has a handle on exactly what that means. This story will explain al Qaeda's role as precisely as possible based on the best evidence available today.

The Green Beret: The word "mastermind" is a vague pejorative used in politics when trying to assign blame for a terrorist attack. In WTC 1993, the "mastermind" is generally considered to be Ramzi Yousef. This story examines the evidence for another "mastermind" -- Ali A. Mohamed, a former U.S. soldier and FBI informant. Click here for story.

The Khalifa Files: In Dec. 1994, U.S. authorities arrested Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, the brother-in-law of Osama bin Laden and an alleged al Qaeda financier. The story of his arrest and subsequent deportation is one of the most arcane and secretive tales in the history of the War on Terror -- and yet one of the most important. INTELWIRE has reported on this story in the past. A fully updated and revised edition later this years will reveal startling new information about the case and its relation to two critical developments in the War on Terror.

Ali Mohamed and September 11: A top al Qaeda associate and occasional FBI informant may have played a crucial role in the early stages of the September 11 plot. A look at the case, with new information about how Ali Mohamed created a terrorist infrastructure that was directly employed in the 9/11 plot.

The Secrets of Bosnia: Few Americans understand the extent to which a civil war in Bosnia-Herzegovina confounded counterterrorism efforts during the 1990s. INTELWIRE will show how terrorist suspects -- and specifically al Qaeda-linked people and organizations -- were able to use Bosnia to divert scrutiny from terrorist plots unfolding on U.S. soil.

Military Infiltrators: Perhaps the most underreported story of the pre-9/11 era concerns al Qaeda's successful program to infiltrate -- and in some cases openly subvert -- the U.S. military, a story with deep and largely unexplored ties to the Bosnia situation which continues to reverberate today.

Additional stories will be announced as they are developed. INTELWIRE will publish the first three installments in this series during the fall of 2006. Subsequent installments will be published as they become available. After reaching critical mass, the series will be collected, revised and expanded, and published in book form.

As part of this project, INTELWIRE is seeking original copies of the documents cited throughout the footnotes of the final report of the 9/11 Commission. Click here for the first installment of the 9/11 Document Project. Click here for a list of all documents on this site.

I would like to close this announcement with a few words about what I hope to accomplish with this series.

This work is intended to move the discussion and narrative of al Qaeda's war on the United States toward the truth. It will not be the final word.

Too much information is still hidden from the public through government secrecy and the isolation of convicted and suspected terrorists from the news media.

The problem is deepened by the fact that incorrect or poorly sourced reports are often repeated and cited in new books and articles, which are then themselves cited.

Another challenge stems from America's chronically short attention span and the unavoidably oversimplifying demands of media formats such as TV and radio. It is extraordinarily difficult to tell some of these stories in a form that is both accurate and brief.

I'm saying this as someone who struggles with these issues. I am also saying it as someone who has made mistakes, and whose mistakes have occasionally been amplified by others.

I don't see myself as the arbiter of truth. But I am keenly aware of the twin problems of inaccuracy and oversimplification. It's not just an issue in terrorism, and I expect to write about the broader information/complexity problem at length, later in my career.

This series is my effort to take a first step toward addressing the problem. It won't be the last. It is my hope and expectation that honest, dedicated journalists will come along and take this work to the next level, after I have done my part.

Every book on terrorism I have read contains errors -- no matter how prestigious, no matter how extensively or carefully researched. Some are large, some are small, but errors are ubiquitous, and many are patently avoidable.

It is inevitable that this series will also contain errors (among the reasons for this is that I have no full-time editor). I can only promise I will try to avoid the avoidable errors -- and to avoid imposing my expectations on the facts.

I'm committed to keeping an open mind. I have often, in the course of reporting on terrorism, been confronted by details I don't like, or facts I would prefer to ignore.

Some of my working premises have been overturned by such discoveries; others have been bolstered as new facts become available. More often than not, the most significant impact of a new discovery is to complicate an already overcomplicated story.

These stories will be updated and corrected as new information becomes available. At some point toward the end of the process, I will endeavor to make some accounting of what went wrong and why. I believe it's important for people to understand what happens when errors occur, why they occur and what is being done to correct them.

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.

Labels: Bosnia, INTELWIRE-Exclusive

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Video Excerpt of Adam Gadahn, aka Azzam the American

INTELWIRE has posted an excerpt from the new al Qaeda video featuring Adam Gadahn, aka Azzam the American, and Ayman Al-Zawahiri.

View the clip (Windows Media)

From the INTELFILES archives, here is a clip from Azzam's very first video appearance on behalf of al Qaeda, released in 2004:

View the clip (Windows Media)

Previous INTELWIRE coverage of "Azzam":

New Twists In Video From Ayman al-Zawahiri And Azzam The American

'Azzam The American' Is A Rising Star In Al Qaeda's Media Operation

California al Qaeda Admits To 'Demonic' Music, Sloppiness Before Islam

Labels: INTELWIRE-Exclusive

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

New Twists In Azzam-Zawahiri Video Urging Americans To Convert To Islam

By J.M. Berger
INTELWIRE.com

Ayman al-Zawahiri launched an interesting gambit this weekend with a new video releasing inviting Americans and others to convert to Islam. But in the process, he dropped a significant clue about how al Qaeda's As-Sahab Media production company works.

The 48-minute video is introduced by Zawahiri, but consists primarily of a homily on Islam by Adam Gadahn, a Californian better known by his alias Azzam the American. As previous reported by INTELWIRE, Azzam's star has been steadily rising in al Qaeda's propaganda operations. (story)

In his introduction, Zawahiri introduces Azzam by name and comments on the contents of Azzam's speech. Until now, most Zawahiri communiques have been standalone messages addressed to the wider public.

In other words, past messages have not betrayed any direct two-way interaction between Zawahiri and the As-Sahab media operation. Zawahiri could have been sending his communiques "blind" -- simply filming a message and sending it out to a semi-independent propaganda cell through a series of compartmentalized proxies.

The "handoff" to Azzam in the current video suggests the possibility of a much closer relationship between Zawahiri and As-Sahab. This, in turn, is a vulnerability for al Qaeda's leadership, since the video operation is one of the most accessible -- and potentially traceable -- links to terror network's fugitive chiefs.

The video also firmly sets Azzam as one of al Qaeda's primary spokesman. In recent months, his status has soared. With the death of Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, Azaam is now the third most visible al Qaeda figure, after only Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden. His output is comparable to that of Zawahiri, and significantly higher than that of bin Laden.

Al Qaeda's media operations have in the past provided an avenue to the top leadership. 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed cut his teeth producing al Qaeda propaganda videos before rising to the post of military commander.

That makes Azzam a figure to watch -- and a large potential threat. One of the few quantifiable weaknesses of al Qaeda's operations has been (arguably) a failure to understand American psychology. If Azzam becomes involved in al Qaeda's terrorist operations, he could sharpen the focus of al Qaeda attacks on the U.S.

For instance, Azzam specifically mentions several American terrorism analysts and political figures as "Zionist-Crusader missionaries of hate", including right-wing commentator Daniel Pipes; Robert Spencer, author and Webmaster of JihadWatch.org; former head of the CIA's bin Laden unit Michael Scheuer; and Investigative Project director Steven Emerson.

There is no explicit call for action against these figures; instead Azzam states that even these enemies of Islam could be saved by conversion. Nevertheless, the mention is no doubt intended to set the eyes of al Qaeda affiliates on these individuals.

In an oddly incongruous moment of Americanism during his speech, Azzam warned that soldiers killed while fighting Islam would be sent directly to hell "without passing go."

Previously on INTELWIRE:

'Azzam The American' Is A Rising Star In Al Qaeda's Media Operation




California al Qaeda Admits To 'Demonic' Music, Sloppiness Before Islam

Labels: INTELWIRE-Exclusive

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink