Lis­ten: One Seg­ment

Updat­ing dis­cus­sion of Saudi links to the 9/11 attacks, this pro­gram high­lights insti­tu­tional con­nec­tions between ele­ments of the Saudi elite and the Al Qaeda milieu. In addi­tion, the broad­cast under­scores the alto­gether prob­lem­atic Ger­man con­nec­tions to the 9/11 attacks.

1. Begin­ning with an obser­va­tion by a uni­ver­sity pro­fes­sor with excel­lent con­nec­tions to the polit­i­cal and national secu­rity estab­lish­ments, the dis­cus­sion sets forth the con­cept of “the vir­tual state”-useful for under­stand­ing the “Under­ground Reich,” as well as Al Qaeda. “Uni­ver­sity of Texas law pro­fes­sor Philip Bob­bitt spent 10 years work­ing on a book pub­lished this year that is prov­ing eerily pre­scient. The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace, and the Course of His­tory is a daunt­ing 919 pages about the trans­for­ma­tion of war. It’s filled with polit­i­cal the­ory. It’s laced with por­traits of key diplo­matic fig­ures. It’s pages upon pages that dis­cuss the dif­fer­ences between what he terms the nation state, and the mar­ket state and the emer­gence of the vir­tual state (rep­re­sented by Al Qaeda as an enemy orga­ni­za­tion with­out a defin­able loca­tion.) [Mr. Emory views the Under­ground Reich as just such a vir­tual state.]” (“UT Pro­fes­sor Has Fin­ger on Pulse of War­fare” by Sharon Jayson; Austin American-Statesman; 12/2/2002; p. B1.)

2. Next, the pro­gram delin­eates a fright­en­ing case in which the Ger­man author­i­ties allowed a prin­ci­pal Al Qaeda sus­pect to slip through their fin­gers. Their excuse–that to detain him would have vio­lated his civil lib­er­ties and their constitution–is less than con­vinc­ing, under the cir­cum­stances. “A Ger­man man under inves­ti­ga­tion for links to top fig­ures of Al Qaeda slipped out of the coun­try last month, with­draw­ing his four chil­dren from school, ter­mi­nat­ing his lease and obtain­ing visas for Saudi Ara­bia with­out attract­ing any atten­tion from the police, accord­ing to Ger­man offi­cials. [Ital­ics are Mr. Emory’s.] Chris­t­ian Ganczarski, 36, a Pol­ish immi­grant who until recently lived in the west­ern Ger­man city of Muhlheim, had been under inves­ti­ga­tion since the Ger­man police over­heard a tele­phone call from Nizar Nawar, shortly before Mr. Nawar det­o­nated a bomb on April 11 in front of the Ghriba Syn­a­gogue on the Tunisian Island of Djerba. The blast killed 21 peo­ple, includ­ing 14 Ger­man tourists.” (“Ter­ror Suspect’s Depar­ture From Ger­many Raises Con­cern in Other Nations” by Desmond But­ler; The New York Times; 12/24/2002; p. A12.)

3. Pros­e­cu­tors over­see­ing the inves­ti­ga­tion say that under Ger­man law, the evi­dence tying Mr. Ganczarski to the bomb­ing and his own con­fes­sion of recent con­tact with Qaeda lead­ers were insuf­fi­cient to keep him under con­stant sur­veil­lance or to pre­vent him from trav­el­ing. They say those lim­i­ta­tions are the con­se­quence of a Con­sti­tu­tion devised to pre­vent the reoc­cur­rence of the country’s total­i­tar­ian past. . . .” (Idem.)

4. Tunisia is among the coun­tries decry­ing the behav­ior of the Ger­man author­i­ties in this case. “Last week, the Tunisian jus­tice min­is­ter com­plained openly about Mr. Ganczarski’s depar­ture. ‘Inves­ti­ga­tions into the attack on Djerba have moved for­ward very well, and I hope that the flight from Ger­many of an accom­plice of the sus­pected per­pe­tra­tor of the attack will not ham­per inquiries,’ the min­is­ter, Bechir Tekkari, told Agence France-Presse.” (Idem.)

5. The French were less than thrilled, as well. “In a recent inter­view, a high-ranking French offi­cial, who insisted on anonymity, expressed frus­tra­tion that Mr. Ganczarski had not been detained. Under French law, the offi­cial said, ‘he would have been.’” (Idem.)

6. Under­scor­ing the sig­nif­i­cance of the lax­ity of the Ger­man author­i­ties under the cir­cum­stances, the dis­cus­sion focuses on Ganczarski’s sig­nif­i­cance in the con­text of his con­tact with Al Qaeda lead­er­ship. “Mr. Ganczarski is a fig­ure who Ger­man pros­e­cu­tors say may have been able to pro­vide unique knowl­edge of Qaeda cells. Under inter­ro­ga­tion, he has admit­ted to trav­el­ing five times to Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, includ­ing once about a month after the Sept. 11 attacks. [Empha­sis added.]” (Idem.)

7. Under­scor­ing Ganczarski’s sig­nif­i­cance, Germany’s chief pros­e­cu­tor noted: ” ‘This sus­pect stands out from all oth­ers because he has had con­tact with the inner cir­cles of Al Qaeda,’ said Kay Nehm, Germany’s chief fed­eral pros­e­cu­tor, in a recent inter­view. ‘We do not find such a wit­ness every day. He is some­one who knows a lot.’” (Idem.)

8. Ganczarski’s sit­u­a­tion is rem­i­nis­cent of that of Ahmed Huber. “He [Ganczarski] is also a Euro­pean Mus­lim con­vert, which might pose some con­cern to inves­ti­ga­tors. ‘The blond-haired, blue-eyed Al Qaeda ter­ror­ist is an investigator’s night­mare because he does not fit the typ­i­cal pro­file.’ Col. Nick Pratt, a pro­fes­sor at the George C. Mar­shall Euro­pean cen­ter for Secu­rity Stud­ies in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Ger­many, said in an inter­view.” (Idem.)

9. The Ver­triebene groups, Ger­man orga­ni­za­tions closely con­nected to the residua of the Nazi SS. Espous­ing the cause of Ger­man eth­nic nation­als in areas for­merly occu­pied by the Third Reich, the groups also had strong con­nec­tions to the milieu of the ABN. Ganczarski is exem­plary of the Volksdeutsche-ethnic Ger­mans from Poland, who were a pri­mary ben­e­fi­ciary and con­sti­tu­tency of the Ver­triebene milieu. “Until recently, Mr. Ganczarski, who was unem­ployed, lived in Mul­heim, near the indus­try of the Ruhr Val­ley. As a child, he immi­grated to Ger­many from Poland under laws pro­vid­ing for the return of eth­nic Ger­mans from East­ern Europe.” (Idem.)

10. In addi­tion to Ganczarski, the Ger­mans also let his appar­ent Al Qaeda recruiter slip out of the coun­try. “In the mid-1990’s, Mr. Ganczarski con­verted to Islam. The police believe that he was recruited by Al Qaeda in nearby Duis­burg. The sus­pected recruiter, Elfatih Musa Ali, also under inves­ti­ga­tion in con­nec­tion with the Tunisian blast, left Ger­many for Sudan in May, accord­ing to the Ger­man weekly Der Spiegel. In the weeks fol­low­ing the bomb­ing on Djerba, Mr. Ganczarski was ques­tioned on a num­ber of occa­sions. The Ger­man police had been mon­i­tor­ing him because he had been seen in the com­pany of known extrem­ists at a mosque in Duis­burg . . .” (Idem.)

11. Although the Ger­man police claim it was impos­si­ble to prove Ganczarski’s involve­ment in the Djerba bomb­ing, a par­tial tran­script of the con­ver­sa­tion sug­gests that they were less than vig­or­ous in their pur­suit of truth. ” ‘Don’t for­get to remem­ber me in your prayers,’ Mr. Nawar told Mr. Ganczarski, accord­ing to the tran­script. ‘God will­ing,’ replied Mr. Ganczarski. ‘Do you need any­thing?’ ‘No thanks,’ came the reply from Mr. Nawar. ‘I need your bless­ing.’ ‘God will­ing, O.K.,’ Mr. Ganczarski said.” (Idem.)

12. Adding sig­nif­i­cance to the uncon­scionable release of Ganczarski is the fact that Ganczarski’s asso­ciate Nawar had appar­ently been in touch with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the prob­a­ble plan­ner of the 9/11 attacks. The Ger­man role in the 9/11 attacks is rapidly approach­ing that of acces­sory after the fact. “Shortly before the blast, Mr. Nawar had also called Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who is widely believed to be one of the chief plan­ners of the Sept. 11 attacks. . .” (Idem.)

13. Among Ganczarski’s con­tacts in Afghanistan were Mohammed and Bin Laden him­self. (Bear in mind that one of his trips was a month after 9/11.) “The fail­ure to mon­i­tor Mr. Ganczarski occurred after he had con­fessed to the police that he had been in Afghanistan five times and that he had met on occa­sions with Mr. Mohammed and once with Osama bin Laden . . .” (Idem.)

14. We exam­ined the Inter­na­tional Relief Orga­ni­za­tion, one of the Saudi char­i­ties impli­cated in the fund­ing of Al Qaeda. Closely con­nected to Yassin Al-Qadi (a promi­nent Saudi and alleged Al Qaeda backer also tied to the milieu of Al Taqwa and the 3/20/2002 Oper­a­tion Green Quest raids), the IRO was under inves­ti­ga­tion in the 1990’s. This broad­cast fur­ther devel­ops the atten­u­a­tion of that inves­ti­ga­tion. “Newly avail­able doc­u­ments show fed­eral inves­ti­ga­tors had exten­sive infor­ma­tion as early as 1997 about pos­si­ble fraud and money laun­der­ing at a Virginia-based Islamic char­ity under scrutiny for pos­si­ble ter­ror­ist links. The infor­ma­tion shows that U.S. sus­pi­cions of finan­cial irreg­u­lar­i­ties at Mus­lim char­i­ties long pre­date the Sept. 11, 2001, ter­ror­ist hijackings-and that information-sharing among fed­eral inves­ti­ga­tors remains a sig­nif­i­cant hur­dle even as this line of pur­suit has inten­si­fied since the attacks. The Inter­na­tional Relief Orga­ni­za­tion of Alexan­dria, Va., had been the sub­ject of a major probe of fraud, money laun­der­ing and pos­si­ble ter­ror­ism involve­ment launched in 1995 by the U.S. Attor­ney in Chicago. The case was an out­growth of a sweep­ing fed­eral inquiry into alleged ter­ror­ist cells in the Mid­west dur­ing the mid-1990’s fol­low­ing intel­li­gence reports of stepped-up orga­niz­ing by groups there . . .” (“U.S. Had Data on Vir­ginia Group In Ter­ror Probe as Early as 1997″ by Glenn R. Simp­son; The Wall Street Jour­nal; 12/16/2002; p. A4.)

15. Fail­ing to com­ply with the sub­poena, the lead­ers of the orga­ni­za­tion (with the appar­ent back­ing of the Saudi gov­ern­ment) frus­trated the inquiry. “The probe fal­tered after the group, which was spon­sored by the Saudi gov­ern­ment, allegedly failed to com­ply with a sub­poena from fed­eral pros­e­cu­tors seek­ing infor­ma­tion about its finances. No charges were ever brought, and for more than five years details of the case have remained under seal in fed­eral court.” (Idem.)

16. When the IRO became a renewed inves­tiga­tive focus fol­low­ing the 3/20/2002 Oper­a­tion Green Quest raids, fed­eral inves­ti­ga­tors suc­cess­fully worked to have the records of the ear­lier inves­ti­ga­tion unsealed. “The IRO came under inves­ti­ga­tion again ear­lier this year, but offi­cials had lit­tle infor­ma­tion on the ear­lier case. Then, fol­low­ing a Novem­ber report in the Wall Street Jour­nal on the 1997 IRO probe, fed­eral inves­ti­ga­tors sought the unseal­ing of tes­ti­mony and evi­dence in the case. One Fed­eral Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion affi­davit offers new details on the pre­vi­ously undis­closed 1997 probe of the IRO, includ­ing evi­dence that much of the charity’s funds were dis­persed to its own offi­cers, to related enti­ties or for vague pur­poses . . .” (Idem.)

17. High­light­ing the role of the Saudi embassy in the events sur­round­ing the IRO inves­ti­ga­tion, the dis­cus­sion under­scores the sig­nif­i­cance of the 3/20/2002 Oper­a­tion Green Quest raids. “The Saudi Embassy also is enmeshed in the IRO case: Dur­ing the 1990’s, the group received more than $400,000 through the embassy, Saudi offi­cials con­firm. U.S. offi­cials now are inves­ti­gat­ing whether some of the IRO’s funds went to groups or indi­vid­u­als sus­pected of hav­ing ties to ter­ror­ists. The prior probe ended with­out charges against IRO offi­cials, but the group and related enti­ties are at the cen­ter of a new high-priority money-laundering and ter­ror­ism inves­ti­ga­tion by fed­eral pros­e­cu­tors in Vir­ginia. The group’s offices in Alexan­dria were raided again in March by the Cus­toms Ser­vice and FBI. [These raids were the Oper­a­tion Green Quest raids of 3/20.]” (Idem.)

18. Review­ing a major point of con­tro­versy in con­nec­tion with the 3/20/2002, the pro­gram dis­cusses mil­lions of dol­lars that passed through IRO with­out hav­ing been suf­fi­ciently accounted for. “Inves­ti­ga­tors want to know what hap­pened to mil­lions of dol­lars that passed through the group’s bank accounts dur­ing the 1990’s and remain unac­counted for. They also are inter­ested in the group because it funded another Saudi-backed char­ity, Taibah Inter­na­tional, that has been accused by the Bosn­ian gov­ern­ment of involve­ment in ter­ror­ism.” (Idem.)

19. Exem­pli­fy­ing the eco­nomic milieu within which the Saudi elite’s rela­tion­ship to the Al Qaeda/Al Taqwa forces exists, the pro­gram high­lights the alleged work of an Al Qaeda oper­a­tive for the Al Rahji inter­ests. (For more about the Al-Rahjis, see-among other programs-FTR#‘s 353, 382.) The SAAR foun­da­tion, a major tar­get of the 3/20 raids, is named after the Al Rahji fam­ily. ” . . . He [Al Qaeda oper­a­tive Faisal al-Yusuf] earned a degree in com­puter engi­neer­ing, and then, accord­ing to his resume, got a job as pro­gram­mer for the ‘Al Rahji com­pany’ and al-Rahji real estate. Al-Rahji is the name of a large and promi­nent busi­ness fam­ily in Saudi Ara­bia, one branch of which con­trols a big bank, the Al-Rahji Bank­ing and Invest­ment Corp.” (“Al Qaeda Acolyte, One of Many, Vows To Die for the Cause” by Alan Culli­son and Andrew Hig­gins; The Wall Street Jour­nal; 12/30/2002; p. A9.)

20. Pos­ing a very impor­tant ques­tion, the pro­gram sets forth Saudi Arabia’s sud­den rever­sal of course with regard to allow­ing the United States to use bases in that coun­try in a war with Iraq. Hav­ing pre­vi­ously indi­cated that they would not allow the use of such bases, they have now changed posi­tion. Was there a quid-pro-quo with the Bush admin­is­tra­tion, and will Bush and com­pany now sup­press or dis­cour­age inves­ti­ga­tion of the Saudi role in 9/11 in exchange for the use of these bases? Does this Saudi rever­sal have any­thing to do with the “Polit­i­cal Plate Tec­ton­ics”? “Saudi Ara­bia has told Amer­i­can mil­i­tary offi­cials that the king­dom would make its air­space, air bases and an impor­tant oper­a­tions cen­ter avail­able to the United States in the event of war with Iraq, senior mil­i­tary offi­cials say. Saudi Ara­bia was the main stag­ing area for U.S. forces in the 1991 Per­sian Gulf War, but con­flict­ing pub­lic state­ments by top Saudi offi­cials over the past sev­eral months have cast doubt on the Saudis’ sup­port for mil­i­tary oper­a­tions against Iraq this time around.” (“Saudis to Let U.S. Use Air Facil­i­ties in Iraq War” by Eric Schmitt [’The New York Times]; San Fran­cisco Chron­i­cle; 12/29/2002; p. A8.)

21. Return­ing to the con­cept with which we began the dis­cus­sion, the pro­gram con­cludes with a look at another aspect of the inter­na­tional “Money-Go-Round” that empow­ers the “vir­tual state”-in this case Al Qaeda. Numer­ous pro­grams have dis­cussed the pro­found inter­con­nec­tions between the inter­na­tional arms trade, the trade in con­tra­band, intel­li­gence agen­cies and orga­nized crime. Because of the enor­mous prof­its derived from these over­lap­ping trades (includ­ing badly-needed hard cur­rency), these oper­a­tions tran­scend inter­na­tional bor­ders and ide­o­log­i­cal divi­sions. In addi­tion, the ubiq­ui­tous pres­ence of intel­li­gence and counter-intelligence ele­ments in this rela­tion­ship fur­ther com­pli­cates the pic­ture. These “para-political rela­tion­ships” some­times become deep polit­i­cal relationships-outside of the con­trol of those who cre­ated them. The per­pet­u­a­tion of a “vir­tual state” can be the result. A recent case involv­ing an Al Qaeda-linked dia­mond oper­a­tion revealed links to an Israeli arms dealer and a Russ­ian pro­fes­sional asso­ciate, and a Bul­gar­ian com­pany. The source for the Al Qaeda-bound weapons was to be the Nicaraguan army. ” . . . Euro­pean, U.S. and Cen­tral Amer­i­can offi­cials have recently found evi­dence that [Al Qaeda oper­a­tives] Nas­sour and Osailly were try­ing to buy weapons from the Nicaraguan army and a Bul­gar­ian com­pany. Inves­ti­ga­tors are try­ing to unravel whether that deal was meant to sup­ply al Qaeda with SA-8 surface-to-air mis­siles and sophis­ti­cated rock­ets. Doc­u­ments obtained by The Post show that on Jan­u­ary 2, 2001, an Israeli arms dealer in Panama named Simon Yel­nik sent an e-mail to a Russ­ian arms mer­chant in Guatemala dis­cussing an order that ‘our friends in Africa need.’ Attached was a list of assault rifles, ammu­ni­tion and rocket-propelled grenade as well as 20 SA-8 mis­siles and 200 rock­ets for BM-21 mul­ti­ple rocket launch­ers. The weapons provider was to be the Nicaraguan army, the doc­u­ments show.” (“Report Says Africans Har­bored Al Qaeda ter­ror Assets Hid­den In Gem-Buying Spree” by Dou­glas Farah; The Wash­ing­ton Post; 12/29/2002; p. A01.)