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This broadcast was recorded in one, 60-minute segment.
Introduction: In FTR #‘s 733 through 739, we presented our view that the so-called Arab Spring was a U.S. intelligence operation, aimed at placing the Brotherhood in power in Muslim countries dominated either by a secular dictator or absolute monarchy.
Continuing analysis from our previous program, this broadcast delves further into the networking between the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Qaeda. Against the background of the occupation of Idlib Province in Syria by Al-Qaeda, we highlight the apparent role of Morsi’s government and the Muslim Brotherhood in the events surrounding the 2012 attack on the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi, Libya.
The overthrow of Khadafy in Libya was an outgrowth of the so-called Arab Spring, as was the precipitation of the civil war in Syria. Of particular significance is the fact that the GOP-led investigations of the Benghazi attack led directly to both the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s e‑mails and the decisively significant FBI tampering with the 2016 election, as well as the alleged “hack” of Hillary’s e‑mails!
An Egyptian newspaper published what were said to be intercepted recordings of Morsi communicating conspiratorially with Muhammad al-Zawahiri, the the brother of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the head of Al-Qaeda. Much of this checks out with information that is already on the public record.
Note the networking of GOP Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham with Khairat El-Shater of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood while he was in prison, as well as the alleged links between the Egyptian Brotherhood and the cells involved in attacking the U.S. Embassy in Libya.
What we may well be looking at is a gambit along the lines of what has become known as the October Surprise–collusion between the Iranian Islamists and George H.W. Bush/CIA/GOP to (among other things) destabilize the Carter administration and 1980 re-election campaign.
In addition, we wonder about a deal having been struck to have Al-Qaeda fight against Bashar Assad in Syria, while avoiding attacks inside the U.S.?
Of primary focus in the material below is Khairat El-Shater (transliterated spellings of his name differ.) We emphasize key points which are repeated in the following analysis. El-Shater:
- Was the number two man in the Muslim Brotherhood, though not formerly a member of Morsi’s government.
- Networked with U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson and GOP Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham and Khairat El-Shater (alternatively transliterated with two “t’s”), shortly after Morsi was deposed. ” . . . . It is interesting to note here that, prior to these revelations, U.S. ambassador Anne Patterson was seen visiting with Khairat El-Shater—even though he held no position in the Morsi government—and after the ousting and imprisonment of Morsi and leading Brotherhood members, Sens. John McCain and Lindsay Graham made it a point to visit the civilian Shater in his prison cell and urged the Egyptian government to release him. . . .”
- Was deeply involved in mobilizing Al-Qaeda on behalf of Morsi and the Brotherhood: ” . . . . Also on that same first day of the revolution, Khairat al-Shater, Deputy Leader of the Brotherhood, had a meeting with a delegate of jihadi fighters and reiterated Morsi’s request that all jihadis come to the aid of the presidency and the Brotherhood. . . . ”
- Was the apparent source of a $50 million contribution by the Brotherhood to Al Qaeda: ” . . . . That the Muslim Brotherhood’s international wing, including through the agency of Khairat al-Shater, had provided $50 million to al-Qaeda in part to support the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. . . .”
- Had the passport of the alleged leader of the Benghazi attack in his home when he was arrested: ” . . . . Most recently, on July 29, 2013, Ahmed Musa, a prominent Egyptian political insider and analyst made several assertions on Tahrir TV that further connected the dots. . . . Musa insisted that he had absolute knowledge that the murderer of Chris Stevens was Mohsin al-‘Azzazi, whose passport was found in Brotherhood leader Khairat El-Shater’s home, when the latter was arrested. . . .”
- Epitomized the GOP-beloved, corporatist economic ideology and lifestyle: ” . . . . Arguably the most powerful man in the Muslim Brotherhood is Khairat El-Shater, a multimillionaire tycoon whose financial interests extend into electronics, manufacturing and retail. A strong advocate of privatization, Al-Shater is one of a cadre of Muslim Brotherhood businessmen who helped finance the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party’s impressive electoral victory this winter and is now crafting the FJP’s economic agenda. . . . . . . . the Brotherhood’s ideology actually has more in common with America’s Republican Party than with al-Qaida. Few Americans know it but the Brotherhood is a free-market party led by wealthy businessmen whose economic agenda embraces privatization and foreign investment while spurning labor unions and the redistribution of wealth. Like the Republicans in the U.S., the financial interests of the party’s leadership of businessmen and professionals diverge sharply from those of its poor, socially conservative followers. . . .”
In the wake of overthrow of Morsi, the Egyptian government sentenced more than 500 members of the Muslim Brotherhood, to the resounding condemnation of Western countries, including the U.S. What we were not told was why. THIS appears to be why.
This broadcast begins with conclusion of reading of a key article that was featured in our last program.
Key points of analysis in discussion of the Morsi/Zawahiri/Brotherhood connection include:
- Muhamed Zawahiri’s promise to bolster Morsi’s government with military support, in exchange for Morsi steering Egypt in the direction of Sharia law. ” . . . . The call ended in agreement that al-Qaeda would support the Brotherhood, including its international branches, under the understanding that Morsi would soon implement full Sharia in Egypt. After this, Muhammad Zawahiri and Khairat al-Shater, the number-two man of the Muslim Brotherhood organization, reportedly met regularly. . . .”
- Morsi’s agreement with Zawahiri’s proposal. ” . . . . Zawahiri further requested that Morsi allow them to develop training camps in Sinai in order to support the Brotherhood through trained militants. Along with saying that the Brotherhood intended to form a ‘revolutionary guard’ to protect him against any coup, Morsi added that, in return for al-Qaeda’s and its affiliates’ support, not only would he allow them to have such training camps, but he would facilitate their development in Sinai and give them four facilities to use along the Egyptian-Libyan border. . . .”
- The networking between U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson and GOP Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham and Khairat El-Shater (alternatively transliterated with two “t’s”), shortly after Morsi was deposed. ” . . . . It is interesting to note here that, prior to these revelations, U.S. ambassador Anne Patterson was seen visiting with Khairat El-Shater—even though he held no position in the Morsi government—and after the ousting and imprisonment of Morsi and leading Brotherhood members, Sens. John McCain and Lindsay Graham made it a point to visit the civilian Shater in his prison cell and urged the Egyptian government to release him. . . .”
- Note that Morsi sanctioned and Brotherhood-aided Al-Qaeda militants were apparently involved in the Behghazi attacks that led to the Benghazi investigation, the Hillary e‑mails non-scandal and all that followed: ” . . . . According to a Libyan Arabic report I translated back in June 2013, those who attacked the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, killing Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, were from jihadi cells that had been formed in Libya through Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood support. Those interrogated named Morsi and other top Brotherhood leadership as accomplices. . . . ”
- Khairat El-Shater was deeply involved in mobilizing Al-Qaeda on behalf of Morsi and the Brotherhood: ” . . . . Also on that same first day of the revolution, Khairat al-Shater, Deputy Leader of the Brotherhood, had a meeting with a delegate of jihadi fighters and reiterated Morsi’s request that all jihadis come to the aid of the presidency and the Brotherhood. . . . ”
- Khairat El-Shater was the apparent source of a $50 million contribution by the Brotherhood to Al Qaeda: ” . . . . That the Muslim Brotherhood’s international wing, including through the agency of Khairat al-Shater, had provided $50 million to al-Qaeda in part to support the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. . . .”
Next, we highlight another important article from Raymond Ibrahim about the Morsi/Al-Qaeda connection to the Benghazi attack. Supplementing the information about networking between U.S. Ambassador to Egypt Anne Patterson, John McCain, Lindsay Graham and Khairat al-Shater, we note that:
- The Benghazi attackers were apparently linked to Morsi and the Brotherhood: ” . . . . days after the Benghazi attack back in September 2012, Muslim Brotherhood connections appeared. A video made during the consulate attack records people approaching the beleaguered U.S. compound; one of them yells to the besiegers in an Egyptian dialect, ‘Don’t shoot—Dr. Morsi sent us!’ apparently a reference to the former Islamist president. . . .”
- The passport of the alleged leader of the Benghazi attack was found in the home of McCain/Graham contact Kharat al-Shater’s home when he was arrested: ” . . . . Most recently, on July 29, 2013, Ahmed Musa, a prominent Egyptian political insider and analyst made several assertions on Tahrir TV that further connected the dots. . . . Musa insisted that he had absolute knowledge that the murderer of Chris Stevens was Mohsin al-‘Azzazi, whose passport was found in Brotherhood leader Khairat El-Shater’s home, when the latter was arrested. . . .”
- The attack on the U.S. Embassy may well have been intended to take Chris Stevens hostage, in order to use him as potential barter for the Blind Sheikh: ” . . . . The day before the embassy attacks, based on little known but legitimate Arabic reports, I wrote an article titled ‘Jihadis Threaten to Burn U.S. Embassy in Cairo,’ explaining how Islamists—including al-Qaeda—were threatening to attack the U.S. embassy in Cairo unless the notorious Blind Sheikh—an Islamist hero held in prison in the U.S. in connection to the first World Trade Center bombing—was released. The date September 11 was also deliberately chosen to attack the embassy to commemorate the ‘heroic’ September 11, 2001 al-Qaeda strikes on America. . . .”
- The United States: ” . . . . first with Anne Patterson, and now with Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham, keep pressuring Egypt to release Brotherhood leaders; McCain personally even visited the civilian El-Shater, whose raided home revealed the passport of Azzazi, whom Musa claims is the murderer of Stevens. . . .”
Following the Benghazi discussion, we recap an article about the Brotherhood and apparent Al-Qaeda/Benghazi collaborator Khairat El-Shater, noting the powerful resonance between his and the Muslim Brotherhood’s values and those of the GOP and the corporate community:
- ” . . . . the Brotherhood’s ideology actually has more in common with America’s Republican Party than with al-Qaida. Few Americans know it but the Brotherhood is a free-market party led by wealthy businessmen whose economic agenda embraces privatization and foreign investment while spurning labor unions and the redistribution of wealth. Like the Republicans in the U.S., the financial interests of the party’s leadership of businessmen and professionals diverge sharply from those of its poor, socially conservative followers. . . .”
- ” . . . . Arguably the most powerful man in the Muslim Brotherhood is Khairat El-Shater, a multimillionaire tycoon whose financial interests extend into electronics, manufacturing and retail. A strong advocate of privatization, Al-Shater is one of a cadre of Muslim Brotherhood businessmen who helped finance the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party’s impressive electoral victory this winter and is now crafting the FJP’s economic agenda. . . .”
We conclude with information about the training of activists in high-tech and social media in order to launch the Arab Spring.
In a remarkable and very important new book, Yasha Levine has highlighted the role of U.S. tech personnel in training and prepping the Arab Spring online activists.
Note while reading the following excerpts of this remarkable and important book, that:
- The Tor network was developed by, and used and compromised by, elements of U.S. intelligence.
- One of the primary advocates and sponsors of the Tor network is the Broadcasting Board of Governors. As we saw in FTR #‘s 891, 895, is an extension of the CIA.
- Jacob Appelbaum has been financed by the Broadcasting Board of Governors, advocates use of the Tor network, has helped WikiLeaks with its extensive use of the Tor network, and is a theoretical accolyte of Ayn Rand.
1. An Egyptian newspaper published what were said to be intercepted recordings of Morsi communicating conspiratorially with Muhammad al-Zawahiri, the the brother of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the head of Al-Qaeda. Much of this checks out with information that is already on the public record. Note the networking of GOP Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham with Khairat El-Shater of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood while he was in prison, as well as the alleged links between the Egyptian Brotherhood and the cells involved in attacking the U.S. Embassy in Libya.
In the wake of overthrow of Morsi, the Egyptian government sentenced more than 500 members of the Muslim Brotherhood, to the resounding condemnation of Western countries, including the U.S. What we were not told was why. THIS appears to be why.
Note the profound connection between the Muslim Brotherhood government of Morsi and Al Qaeda.
. . . . Concerning some of the more severe allegations, one of Egypt’s most widely distributed and read newspapers, Al Watan, recently published what it said were recorded conversations between Morsi and Muhammad Zawahiri, al-Qaeda leader Ayman Zawahiri’s brother.
In these reports, Watan repeatedly asserts that Egyptian security and intelligence agencies confirmed (or perhaps leaked out) the recordings.
Much of the substance of the alleged conversations is further corroborated by events that occurred during Morsi’s one-year-rule, most of which were reported by a variety of Arabic media outlets, though not by Western media.
In what follows, I relay, summarize, and translate some of the more significant portions of the Watan reports (verbatim statements are in quotation marks). In between, I comment on various anecdotes and events—many of which were first broken on my website—that now, in light of these phone conversations, make perfect sense and independently help confirm the authenticity of the recordings.
The first recorded call between Muhammad Morsi and Muhammad Zawahiri lasted for 59 seconds. Morsi congratulated Zawahiri on his release from prison, where he had been incarcerated for jihadi/terrorist activities against Egypt, and assured him that he would not be followed or observed by any Egyptian authorities, and that he, Morsi, was planning on meeting with him soon. Prior to this first call, Refa’ al-Tahtawy, then Chief of Staff, mediated and arranged matters.
The presidential palace continued to communicate regularly with Muhammad Zawahiri, and sources confirm that he was the link between the Egyptian presidency and his brother, Ayman Zawahiri, the Egyptian-born leader of al-Qaeda.
It should be noted that, once released, the previously little-known Muhammad Zawahiri did become very visible and vocal in Egypt, at times spearheading the Islamist movement.
The next recording between Morsi and Zawahiri lasted for 2 minutes and 56 seconds and took place one month after Morsi became president. Morsi informed Zawahiri that the Muslim Brotherhood supports the mujahidin (jihadis) and that the mujahidin should support the Brotherhood in order for them both, and the Islamist agenda, to prevail in Egypt.
This makes sense in the context that, soon after Morsi came to power, the general public did become increasingly critical of him and his policies, including the fact that he was placing only Brotherhood members in Egypt’s most important posts, trying quickly to push through a pro-Islamist constitution, and, as Egyptians called it, trying in general to “Brotherhoodize” Egypt.
This second phone call being longer than the first, Zawahiri took it as an opportunity to congratulate Morsi on his recent presidential victory—which, incidentally, from the start, was portrayed by some as fraudulent—and expressed his joy that Morsi’s presidency could only mean that “all secular infidels would be removed from Egypt.”
Then Zawahiri told Morsi: “Rule according to the Sharia of Allah [or “Islamic law”], and we will stand next to you. Know that, from the start, there is no so-called democracy, so get rid of your opposition.”
This assertion comports extremely well with his brother Ayman Zawahiri’s views. A former Muslim Brotherhood member himself, some thirty years ago, the al-Qaeda leader wrote Al Hissad Al Murr (“The Bitter Harvest”), a scathing book condemning the Brotherhood for “taking advantage of the Muslim youths’ fervor by … steer[ing] their onetime passionate, Islamic zeal for jihad to conferences and elections.” An entire section dedicated to showing that Islamic Sharia cannot coexist with democracy even appears in Ayman Zawahiri’s book (see “Sharia and Democracy,” The Al Qaeda Reader, pgs. 116–136).
The call ended in agreement that al-Qaeda would support the Brotherhood, including its international branches, under the understanding that Morsi would soon implement full Sharia in Egypt. After this, Muhammad Zawahiri and Khairat al-Shater, the number-two man of the Muslim Brotherhood organization, reportedly met regularly.
It is interesting to note here that, prior to these revelations, U.S. ambassador Anne Patterson was seen visiting with Khairat al-Shater—even though he held no position in the Morsi government—and after the ousting and imprisonment of Morsi and leading Brotherhood members, Sens. John McCain and Lindsay Graham made it a point to visit the civilian Shater in his prison cell and urged the Egyptian government to release him.
The next call, recorded roughly six weeks after this last one, again revolved around the theme of solidifying common cooperation between the Egyptian presidency and the Muslim Brotherhood on the one hand, and al-Qaeda and its jihadi offshoots on the other, specifically in the context of creating jihadi cells inside Egypt devoted to protecting the increasingly unpopular Brotherhood-dominated government.
As I reported back in December 2012, Egyptian media were saying that foreign jihadi fighters were appearing in large numbers—one said 3,000 fighters—especially in Sinai. And, since the overthrow of the Brotherhood and the military crackdown on its supporters, many of those detained have been exposed speaking non-Egyptian dialects of Arabic.
During this same call, Zawahiri was also critical of the Morsi government for still not applying Islamic Sharia throughout Egypt, which, as mentioned, was one of the prerequisites for al-Qaeda support.
Morsi responded by saying “We are currently in the stage of consolidating power and need the help of all parties—and we cannot at this time apply the Iranian model or Taliban rule in Egypt; it is impossible to do so now.”
In fact, while the Brotherhood has repeatedly declared its aspirations for world domination, from its origins, it has always relied on a “gradual” approach, moving only in stages, with the idea of culminating its full vision only when enough power has been consolidated.
In response, Zawahiri told Morsi that, as a show of good will, he must “at least release the mujahidin who were imprisoned during the Mubarak era as well as all Islamists, as an assurance and pact of cooperation and proof that the old page has turned to a new one.”
After that call, and as confirmed by a governmental source, Morsi received a list from Zawahiri containing the names of the most dangerous terrorists in Egyptian jails, some of whom were on death row due to the enormity of their crimes.
In fact, as I reported back in August 2012, many imprisoned terrorists, including from Egypt’s notorious Islamic Jihad organization—which was once led by Ayman Zawahiri—were released under Morsi.
One year later, in August 2013, soon after the removal of Morsi, Egypt’s Interior Ministry announced that Egypt was “preparing to cancel any presidential pardons issued during Morsi’s era to terrorists or criminals.”
During this same call, and in the context of pardons, Morsi said he would do his best to facilitate the return of Muhammad’s infamous brother and al-Qaeda leader, Ayman Zawahiri, back to Egypt—“with his head held high,” in accordance with Islamist wishes—as well as urge the U.S. to release the “Blind Sheikh” and terrorist mastermind, Omar Abdul Rahman.
In March 2013, I wrote about how Morsi, during his Pakistan visit, had reportedly met with Ayman Zawahiri and made arrangements to smuggle him back to Sinai. According to a Pakistan source, the meeting was “facilitated by elements of Pakistani intelligence [ISI] and influential members of the International Organization, the Muslim Brotherhood.”
The gist of the next two calls between Morsi and Muhammad Zawahiri was that, so long as the former is president, he would see to it that all released jihadis and al-Qaeda operatives are allowed to move freely throughout Egypt and the Sinai, and that the presidential palace would remain in constant contact with Zawahiri, to make sure everything is moving to the satisfaction of both parties.
Zawahiri further requested that Morsi allow them to develop training camps in Sinai in order to support the Brotherhood through trained militants. Along with saying that the Brotherhood intended to form a “revolutionary guard” to protect him against any coup, Morsi added that, in return for al-Qaeda’s and its affiliates’ support, not only would he allow them to have such training camps, but he would facilitate their development in Sinai and give them four facilities to use along the Egyptian-Libyan border.
That Libya is mentioned is interesting. According to a Libyan Arabic report I translated back in June 2013, those who attacked the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, killing Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, were from jihadi cells that had been formed in Libya through Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood support. Those interrogated named Morsi and other top Brotherhood leadership as accomplices.
More evidence—including some that implicates the U.S. administration—has mounted since then.
Next, Watan makes several more assertions, all of which are preceded by “according to security/intelligence agencies.” They are:
- That Morsi did indeed as he promised, and that he facilitated the establishment of four jihadi training camps. Morsi was then Chief in Command of Egypt’s Armed Forces, and through his power of authority, stopped the military from launching any operations including in the by now al-Qaeda overrun Sinai.
- That, after Morsi reached Pakistan, he had a one-and-a-half hour meeting with an associate of Ayman Zawahiri in a hotel and possibly spoke with him.
- That, after Morsi returned to Egypt from his trip to Pakistan, he issued another list containing the names of 20 more convicted terrorists considered dangerous to the national security of Egypt, giving them all presidential pardons—despite the fact that national security and intelligence strongly recommended that they not be released on grounds of the threat they posed.
- That the Muslim Brotherhood’s international wing, including through the agency of Khairat al-Shater, had provided $50 million to al-Qaeda in part to support the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
One of the longer conversations between Morsi and Zawahiri reported by Watan is especially telling of al-Qaeda’s enmity for secularist Muslims and Coptic Christians—whose churches, some 80, were attacked, burned, and destroyed, some with the al-Qaeda flag furled above them, soon after the ousting of Morsi. I translate portions below:
Zawahiri: “The teachings of Allah need to be applied and enforced; the secularists have stopped the Islamic Sharia, and the response must be a stop to the building of churches.” (An odd assertion considering how difficult it already is for Copts to acquire a repair permit for their churches in Egypt.)
Zawahiri also added that “All those who reject the Sharia must be executed, and all those belonging to the secular media which work to disseminate debauchery and help deviants and Christians to violate the Sharia, must be executed.”
Morsi reportedly replied: “We have taken deterrent measures to combat those few, and new legislative measures to limit their media, and in the near future, we will shut down these media stations and launch large Islamic media outlets. We are even planning a big budget from the [Brotherhood] International Group to launch Islamic and jihadi satellite stations to urge on the jihad. There will be a channel for you and the men of al-Qaeda, and it can be broadcast from Afghanistan.”
Undeterred, Zawahiri responded by saying, “This [is a] Christian media—and some of the media personnel are paid by the [Coptic] Church and they work with those who oppose the Sharia… secularist forces are allied with Christian forces, among them Naguib Sawiris, the Christian-Jew.”
Morsi: “Soon we will uphold our promises to you.”
In fact, there was a period of time when the secular media in Egypt—which was constantly exposing Brotherhood machinations—were under severe attack by the Brotherhood and Islamists of all stripes (comedian Bassem Youssef was the tip of the iceberg). In one instance, which I noted back in August 2012, six major media stations were attacked by Brotherhood supporters, their employees severely beat.
The last call recorded between Muhammad Morsi and Muhammad Zawahiri took place on the dawn of June 30, 2013 (the date of the June 30 Revolution that ousted Morsi and the Brotherhood). Morsi made the call to Zawahiri in the presence of Asad al-Sheikha, Deputy Chief of Presidential Staff, Refa’ al-Tahtawy, Chief of Presidential Staff, and his personal security.
During this last call, Morsi incited Zawahiri to rise against the Egyptian military in Sinai and asked Zawahiri to compel all jihadi and loyalist elements everywhere to come to the aid of the Muslim Brotherhood and neutralize its opponents.
Zawahiri reportedly responded by saying “We will fight the military and the police, and we will set the Sinai aflame.
True enough, as I reported on July 4, quoting from an Arabic report: “Al-Qaeda, under the leadership of Muhammad Zawahiri, is currently planning reprisal operations by which to attack the army and the Morsi-opposition all around the Republic [of Egypt].” The report added that, right before the deposing of Morsi, Zawahiri had been arrested and was being interrogated—only to be ordered released by yet another presidential order, and that he had since fled to the Sinai.
Also on that same first day of the revolution, Khairat al-Shater, Deputy Leader of the Brotherhood, had a meeting with a delegate of jihadi fighters and reiterated Morsi’s request that all jihadis come to the aid of the presidency and the Brotherhood.
As Morsi’s trial continues, it’s only a matter of time before the truth of these allegations—and their implications for the U.S.—is known. But one thing is certain: most of them comport incredibly well with incidents and events that took place under Morsi’s government.
2. A follow-up article by Ibrahim discusses the Benghazi attack in detail, implicating the Muslim Brotherhood and Khairet El-Shater.
Evidence that Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood was directly involved in the September 11, 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, where Americans including U.S. ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens were killed, continues to mount.
First, on June 26, 2013, I produced and partially translated what purported to be an internal Libyan governmental memo which was leaked and picked up by many Arabic websites. According to this document, the Muslim Brotherhood, including now ousted President Morsi, played a direct role in the Benghazi consulate attack. “Based on confessions derived from some of those arrested at the scene,” asserted the report, six people, “all of them Egyptians” from the jihad group Ansar al-Sharia (Supporters of Islamic Law), were arrested. During interrogations, these Egyptian jihadi cell members: confessed to very serious and important information concerning the financial sources of the group and the planners of the event and the storming and burning of the U.S. consulate in Benghazi…. And among the more prominent figures whose names were mentioned by cell members during confessions were: Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi; preacher Safwat Hegazi; Saudi businessman Mansour Kadasa, owner of the satellite station, Al-Nas; Egyptian Sheikh Muhammad Hassan; former presidential candidate, Hazim Salih Abu Isma’il…
Four days after this memo appeared, the military-backed June 30 Egyptian revolution took place. Many of the Islamists in the Libyan document have either been arrested—including Safwat Hegazi and Abu Isma’il—or have arrest warrants under terrorism charges.
Walid Shoebat followed up with some important investigative work concerning the Libyan document, including by documenting that Western sources had finally acknowledged that there is a group called Ansar al-Sharia operating in Egypt with a cell in Libya, and that, with the ouster of Muhammad Morsi, it (along with al-Qaeda) had declared jihad on Egypt’s military (not to mention regular civilians in general, and Coptic Christiansin particular).
The fact is, days after the Benghazi attack back in September 2012, Muslim Brotherhood connections appeared. A video made during the consulate attack records people approaching the beleaguered U.S. compound; one of them yells to the besiegers in an Egyptian dialect, “Don’t shoot—Dr. Morsi sent us!” apparently a reference to the former Islamist president.
Most recently, on July 29, 2013, Ahmed Musa, a prominent Egyptian political insider and analyst made several assertions on Tahrir TV that further connected the dots. During his program, while berating U.S. ambassador Anne Patterson for her many pro-Brotherhood policies—policies that have earned her the hate and contempt of millions of Egyptians—Musa insisted that he had absolute knowledge that the murderer of Chris Stevens was Mohsin al-‘Azzazi, whose passport was found in Brotherhood leader Khairat El-Shater’s home, when the latter was arrested. According to the firm assurances of political analyst Musa, ‘Azzazi is currently present in Raba‘a al-Adawiya, where he, the seasoned terrorist, is preparing to do what he does best—terrorize Egypt, just as the Brotherhood have promised, in revenge for the ousting of Morsi.
But why would Morsi and the Brotherhood attack the consulate in Libya in the first place? The day before the embassy attacks, based on little known but legitimate Arabic reports, I wrote an article titled “Jihadis Threaten to Burn U.S. Embassy in Cairo,” explaining how Islamists—including al-Qaeda—were threatening to attack the U.S. embassy in Cairo unless the notorious Blind Sheikh—an Islamist hero held in prison in the U.S. in connection to the first World Trade Center bombing—was released. The date September 11 was also deliberately chosen to attack the embassy to commemorate the “heroic” September 11, 2001 al-Qaeda strikes on America. (Regardless, the Obama administration, followed by the so-called mainstream media, portrayed the embassy attacks as unplanned reactions to an offensive movie.)
The theory is this: in order to negotiate the release of the Blind Sheikh, the Islamists needed an important American official to barter in exchange. And while the violence on U.S. embassies began in Egypt, it seemed logical that kidnapping an American official from neighboring Libya would be less conspicuous than in Egypt, where Egyptians, including Morsi, were calling for the release of the Egyptian Blind Sheikh. Thus the U.S. consulate in Libya was attacked, Chris Stevens kidnapped, but in the botched attempt, instead of becoming a valuable hostage, he wound up dead.
Add to all this the fact that, despite the very serious charges filed against them—including inciting murder and terrorism, and grand treason—the Obama administration, first with Anne Patterson, and now with Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham, keep pressuring Egypt to release Brotherhood leaders; McCain personally even visited the civilian El-Shater, whose raided home revealed the passport of Azzazi, whom Musa claims is the murderer of Stevens.
Needless to say, at this point, tens of millions of Egyptians are convinced that U.S. leadership is fully aware of the Brotherhood’s connection to Benghazi—and hence desperately pushing for the release of Brotherhood leadership, lest, when they are tried in Egypt’s courts, all these scandals become common knowledge.
Meanwhile in the United States, to a mainstream American public—conditioned as it is by a mainstream media—all of the above is just a “conspiracy theory,” since surely the U.S. government is transparent with the American people—except, that is, when it’s not.
3. More about the corporatist economic philosophy of the Muslim Brotherhood follows. Note that Khairat el-Shater was alleged by Egyptian intelligence to have been running Mohamed Morsi, in effect. (We covered this in FTR #787.) In turn, he was reported to be serving as a liaison between Morsi and Mohamed Zawahiri, the brother of Al-Qaeda leader Ayman Zawahiri. Shater was also networked with: Anne Patterson, U.S. ambassador to Egypt, GOP Senator John McCain and GOP Senator Lindsay Graham. In turn, Shater was alleged to have transferred $50 million from the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood to Al-Qaeda at the time that he was networking with the Americans and Morsi. Hey, what’s $50 million between friends?
“The GOP Brotherhood of Egypt” by Avi Asher-Schapiro; Salon.com; 1/25/2012.
While Western alarmists often depict Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood as a shadowy organization with terrorist ties, the Brotherhood’s ideology actually has more in common with America’s Republican Party than with al-Qaida. Few Americans know it but the Brotherhood is a free-market party led by wealthy businessmen whose economic agenda embraces privatization and foreign investment while spurning labor unions and the redistribution of wealth. Like the Republicans in the U.S., the financial interests of the party’s leadership of businessmen and professionals diverge sharply from those of its poor, socially conservative followers.
The Brotherhood, which did not initially support the revolution that began a year ago, reaped its benefits, capturing nearly half the seats in the new parliament, which was seated this week, and vaulting its top leaders into positions of power.
Arguably the most powerful man in the Muslim Brotherhood is Khairat El-Shater, a multimillionaire tycoon whose financial interests extend into electronics, manufacturing and retail. A strong advocate of privatization, Al-Shater is one of a cadre of Muslim Brotherhood businessmen who helped finance the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party’s impressive electoral victory this winter and is now crafting the FJP’s economic agenda.
At El-Shater’s luxury furniture outlet Istakbal, a new couch costs about 6,000 Egyptian pounds, about $1,000 in U.S. currency. In a country where 40 percent of the population lives on less than $2 a day, Istakbal’s clientele is largely limited to Egypt’s upper classes.
Although the Brothers do draw significant support from Egypt’s poor and working class, “the Brotherhood is a firmly upper-middle-class organization in its leadership,” says Shadi Hamid, a leading Muslim Brotherhood expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
Not surprisingly, these well-to-do Egyptians are eager to safeguard their economic position in the post-Mubarak Egypt. Despite rising economic inequality and poverty, the Brotherhood does not back radical changes in Egypt’s economy.
The FJP’s economic platform is a tame document, rife with promises to root out corruption and tweak Egypt’s tax and subsidies systems, with occasional allusions to an unspecific commitment to “social justice.” The platform praises the mechanisms of the free market and promises that the party will work for “balanced, sustainable and comprehensive economic development.” It is a program that any European conservative party could get behind. . . .
4. In a remarkable and very important new book, Yasha Levine has highlighted the role of U.S. tech personnel in training and prepping the Arab Spring online activists.
Note while reading the following excerpts of this remarkable and important book, that:
- The Tor network was developed by, and used and compromised by, elements of U.S. intelligence.
- One of the primary advocates and sponsors of the Tor network is the Broadcasting Board of Governors. As we saw in FTR #‘s 891, 895, is an extension of the CIA.
- Jacob Appelbaum has been financed by the Broadcasting Board of Governors, advocates use of the Tor network, has helped WikiLeaks with its extensive use of the Tor network, and is a theoretical accolyte of Ayn Rand.
. . . . Within weeks, massive antigovernment protests spread to Egypt, Algeria, Oman, Jordan, Libya, and Syria. The Arab Spring had arrived.
In Tunisia and Egypt, these protest movements toppled long-standing dictatorships from within. In Libya, opposition forces deposed and savagely killed Muammar Gaddafi, knifing him in the anus, after an extensive bombing campaign from NATO forces. In Syria, protests were met with a brutal crackdown from Bashar Assad’s government, and led to a protracted war that would claim hundreds of thousands of lives and trigger the worst refugee crisis in recent history, pulling in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Israel, the CIA, the Russian Air Force and special operations teams, Al-Qaeda, and ISIL. Arab Spring turned into a long, bloody winter. . . .
. . . . The idea that social media could be weaponized against countries and governments deemed hostile to US interests wasn’t a surprise. For years, the State Department, in partnership with the Broadcasting Board of Governors and companies like Facebook and Google, had worked to train activists from around the world on how to use Internet tools and social media to organize opposition political movements. Countries in Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America as well as former Soviet sites like the Ukraine and Belarus were all on the list. Indeed, the New York Times reported that many of the activists who played leading roles in the Arab Spring–from Egypt to Syria to Yemen–had taken part in these training sessions.
“The money spent on these programs was minute compared with efforts led by the Pentagon,” reported the New York Times in April of 2011. “But as American officials and others look back at the uprisings of the Arab Spring, they are seeing that the United States’ democracy-building campaigns played a bigger role in fomenting protests than was previously known, with key leaders of the movements having been trained by the Americans in Campaigning, organizing through new media tools and monitoring elections.” The trainings were politically charged and were seen as a threat by Egypt, Yemen, and Bahrain–all of which lodged complaints with the State Department to stop meddling in their domestic affairs, and even barred US officials from entering their countries.
An Egyptian youth political leader who attended State Department training sessions and then went on to led protests in Cairo told the New York Times, “We learned how to organize and build coalitions. This certainly helped during the revolution.” A different youth activist, who had participated in Yemen’s uprising, was equally enthusiastic about the State Department social media training: “It helped me very much because I used to think that change only takes place by force and by weapons.”
Staff from the Tor Project played a role in some of these trainings, taking part in a series of Arab Blogger sessions in Yemen, Tunisia, Jordan, Lebanon, and Bahrain, where Jacob Appelbaum taught opposition activists how to use Tor to get around government censorship. “Today was fantastic . . . . really a fantastic meeting of minds in the Arab world! It’s enlightening and humbling to have ben invited. I really have to recommend visiting Beirut. Lebanon is an amazing place. . . . Appelbaum tweeted after an Arab Bloggers training event in 2009, adding“IF you’d like to help Tor please sign up and help translate Tor software in Arabic.”
Activists later put the skills taught at these training sessions to use during the Arab Spring, routing around Internet blocks that their governments threw up to prevent them from using social media to organize protests. “There would be no access to Twitter or Facebook in some of these places if you didn’t have Tor. All of the sudden, you had all these dissidents exploding under their noses, and then down the road you had a revolution,” Nasser Weddady, a prominent Arab Spring activist from Mauritania, later told Rolling Stone. Weddady, who had taken part in the Tor Project’s training sessions and who had translated a widely circulated guide on how to use the tool into Arabic, credited it with helping keep the Arab Spring uprisings alive. “Tor rendered the government’s efforts completely futile. They simply didn’t have the know-how to counter that move.” . . . .
Yasha Levine’s book was eye-opening, in many ways compatible with the excellent work you’ve been doing on technocratic fascism.
Specifically with regards to Jacob Applebaum and Libya, on social media (specifically Twitter) Applebaum openly bragged about deliberately launching cyber attacks on Libya from February 2011 throughout the war. (See image for a summary, credit to “@UmfuldCares” https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DoloqP_UwAAeatM.jpg)
Much of his publicly-hinted exploits may have been false or even deliberate deception in themselves, but in any event the implications are extremely disturbing. Wikileaks is a pro-Western far-right extremist operation masquerading as exactly the opposite of what it actually is!
As the mystery of the disappearance, and likely murder, of the missing Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi continues to roil Washington, here’s an interesting WSJ article that describes the nature of Khashoggi’s dissident views. And, surprise!, it sounds like Khashoggi was a long-time Saudi insider with views that were broadly aligned with the Saudi monarchy. He was a scion of a prominent Saudi family and embraced the Muslim Brotherhood-inspired political Islam ideology in his youth.
As a journalist, he traveled to Afghanistan during the 80’s and became the first Arab journalist to interview Osama bin Laden. During the 90’s, he would report from across the Middle East and was removed as editor of a leading Saudi daily, Al Watan, three times for his relatively dissenting views like as criticizing the religious establishment.
And yet he remained close to the Saudi establishment during this period as a dissident Saudi journalist, including being a friend of the billionaire Prince al-Waleed bin Talal and working as an advisor for Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former head of Saudi intelligence, during the prince’s time as ambassador to the U.K. and the U.S. Al-Faisal became ambassador to the UK in 2003 and succeeded Prince Bandar as the ambassador to the US in 2005. Keep in mind that close ties to Saudi intelligence chief and the Muslim Brotherhood in the later 1990’s/early 2000’s places Khashoggi in a rather interesting spot regarding the 9/11 attacks and the role Saudi intelligence and the Muslim Brotherhood played in financing, executing, and covering up those attacks.
As we’re going to see in the second article below, Khashoggi was apparently close to Khaled Saffuri. Recall how Saffuri co-founded the Islamic Free Market Institute with Grover Norquist and how Saffuri attended the 2003 meeting in the Bush White House when the investigation into Bank al-Taqwa and its role in the 9/11 attacks was interceded and thwarted.
Khashoggi’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood appears to be the fatal line he crossed. He held the view that democracy in the Muslim world was inseparable from political Islam and that the drive by the Saudi monarchy to crush the Muslim Brotherhood represented a campaign against democracy in general in the Muslim world. On August 28, he wrote, “The eradication of the Muslim Brotherhood is nothing less than an abolition of democracy and a guarantee that Arabs will continue living under authoritarian and corrupt regimes...There can be no political reform and democracy in any Arab country without accepting that political Islam is a part of it.” So from Khashoggi’s standpoint, the only acceptable form of democracy is the Muslim Brotherhood form of democracy. But as we’ve seen places like Turkey — where Erdogan is making a mockery of Turkery’s democracy — and Egypt — where the Muslim Brotherhood-led Morsi government was in the process of radically corrupting Egypt’s fledgling democracy and turning it into a state run by an Islamist high court before the military retook power — the reality is that democracy in the Muslim world is incompatible with a crypt-fascist authoritarian movement like the Muslim Brotherhood.
Khashoggi was also close to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Muslim Brotherhood-led government. He knew Erdogan personally and was a friend to some of Erdogan’s closest advisers. This probably helps explain Turkey’s extreme public anger in response to Khashoggi’s murder.
It wasn’t until the rise of Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) as the de fact head of the Saudi government that Khashoggi truly considered fleeing his country. Recall that that people as powerful as Prince Alwaleed bin Talal were arrested in ‘anti-corruption’ mass arrests last year, so it’s not like Khashoggi didn’t have reasons to fear arrest himself despite his decades of being a tolerated critic of the Saudi regime. Interestingly, it sounds like it was Khashoggi’s criticisms of President Trump after the 2016 elections, during the period when the Saudi government was buttering Trump up for better relations, that led to the MBS government banning Khashoggi from speaking publicly. It was following this ban from speaking that Khashoggi left Saudi Arabia. It was after leaving that he became an opinion writer for the Washington Post.
Khashoggi was also apparently planning on some sort of pro-democracy drive for the Arab world and formed an organization, Democracy for the Arab World Now, in early 2018. So when we trying to understand why it is that the Saudi government thought the brazen kidnapping and murder on foreign soil of one of its more prominent critics, it’s going to be important to keep in mind that the Saudi regime may have seen Khashoggi as the likely leader of an upcoming regime change operation against them. It points to the multi-dimensional tragedy of the situation: it’s tragic this guy was murdered by his government for being a dissident. It’s especially tragic that he was a dissident who appeared to be gearing up for a possible regime change campaign against a regime that most assuredly deserves to be overthrown. But perhaps the most tragic part is that it was going to be a ‘pro-democracy’ movement dedicated to installing the crypto-fascist Muslim Brotherhood in power under the guise of being ‘pro-democracy’:
“While he had become known as a dissident writer in recent years, he was a longtime insider who remained close to some of Saudi Arabia’s most powerful princes.”
A dissident Muslim Brotherhood insider. That’s more or less who Jamal Khashoggi was during his decades as a journalist, which highlights how deeply intertwined the Saudi regime and the Muslim Brotherhood really are despite the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood has officially become one of the primary enemies of the Saudi monarchy in recent years. Khashoggi even became the first Arab journalist to interview Osama bin Laden — who was leading a heavily Saudi-backed military operation in Afghanistan that was basically a militant Muslim Brotherhood offshoot — in the late 80’s:
Khashoggi was also close to one of the biggest centers of Muslim Brotherhood power in the world today: Erdogan’s AKP-led government:
And in his final column as a Washington Post opinion writer, Khashoggi wrote that the Saudi government’s attempts to crush the Muslim Brotherhood “is nothing less than an abolition of democracy and a guarantee that Arabs will continue living under authoritarian and corrupt regimes...There can be no political reform and democracy in any Arab country without accepting that political Islam is a part of it.” In other words, the only acceptable for of democracy for the Muslim world is the theocratic style of democracy backed by the Muslim Brotherhood, which isn’t really a democracy but a theocracy with a veneer of democracy:
A despite his long-standing pro-Muslim Brotherhood views, he remained quite close to the Saudi establishment, even serving as an adviser to Prince Turki al-Faisal:
But Khashoggi clearly didn’t see those establishment ties as being enough to protect him during the MBS crackdown last year, so he fled. And then started planning a pro-democracy movement, which seems like a likely trigger for his presumed murder:
So he created Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) earlier this year and months later he’s murdered by his government on Turkish soil.
Now let’s take a closer at the pro-democracy plans Khashoggi had in mind for the Middle East. In addition to DAWN, he also had plans to set up a media watch organization to track press freedoms and an economic-focused website to translate international reports into Arabic. And, of course, political Islamists were going to be promoted.
And as the article also notes, one of his friends happens to be Khaled Saffuri, co-founder of the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Islamic Free-Market Institute (also known as the Islamic Institute) he co-founded with Grover Norquist. So between his close ties to Erdogan’s government and key Muslim Brotherhood figures like Saffuri it’s pretty clear that Khashoggi’s pro-democracy project was really going to be a pro-Muslim Brotherhood project.
And that’s part of why killing Khashoggi in such an outrageous manner was such a massive risk for the Saudi monarchy. Because while the Saudis may have killed Khashoggi, it’s not like they killed the Muslim Brotherhood and now Khashoggi’s death can be used as a pro-democracy (pro-Muslim Brotherhood) rallying cry:
“Jamal Khashoggi, a prolific writer and commentator, was working quietly with intellectuals, reformists and Islamists to launch a group called Democracy for the Arab World Now. He wanted to set up a media watch organization to keep track of press freedom.”
He wanted to set up a media watch organization to keep track of press freedom. And was also close to the Erdogan government. It’s quite a contradiction.
And, of course, part of this pro-democracy project was to include political Islamists (which are typically pro-theocracy in reality) into this democracy building project. But given his views that democracy can’t function in the Arab world without political Islam, it’s hard to foresee his project as merely including political Islamists as opposed to being run by and for political Islamists:
Highlighting this is the fact one of his friends who is familiar with is pro-democracy plans is none other than ibe if the more important contemporary figures in the global network of Muslim Brotherhood entities with ties a broad array of Sunni terror groups, Khaled Saffuri:
And the other friend of Khashoggi cited in the article is Assam Tamimi, an open backer of Hamas, another Muslim Brotherhood affiliate:
So it’s looking like the murder of Khashoggi is latest chapter in this long, weird love/hate relationship between the Saudi monarchy and the Muslim Brotherhood. A relationship that has soured substantially in recent years. Recent years that happened to showcase the utility of the Muslim Brotherhood as a ‘pro-democracy’ fascist organization capable of delivery a patina of ‘democratic legitimacy’ to a country while still maintaining an underlying pro-corporatist neoliberal and authoritarian governing model.
The nurturing of the Muslim Brotherhood by the Saudis was always a gamble. A gamble that they were nurturing their eventual replacement. And given that the Saudi monarchy’s staunch western allies are also staunch Muslim Brotherhood allies it’s hard to argue that the Saudi regime should fear a Muslim Brotherhood-led revolution someday.
So let’s hope that one of the lessons the world learns from the grim chapter of Jamal Khashoggi’s apparent murder is the lesson of the profound need for the nurturing of pro-democracy movements for the Arab world that aren’t fronts for the Muslim Brotherhood and other crypto-fascist organizations.
If this this story serves as a tangential public reminder of the coverup of the profound role played by both the Saudi government and the Muslim Brotherhood in the 9/11 attacks that would also be nice.
The New York Times has a piece on Jamal Khashoggi’s background that answers one of the obvious questions that’s raised by any stories involving someone named Khashoggi: So was Jamal related to famed Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi? And it turns out the answer is yes, Adnan was Jamal’s Uncle. Although it doesn’t sound like Jamal was a beneficiary of Adnan’s wealth. In addition to all the scandals that Adnan Khashoggi was involved with — Iran Contra, BCCI, etc — it’s also worth recall the various shows done with Daniel Hopsicker that covered the ties of people moving in the orbit of the 9/11 hijackers who had ties to Adnan Khashoggi.
The article gives more information about his background working with the Muslim Brotherhood and it contains two pretty revealing observations: He’s believed by friends to have joined the Muslim Brotherhood at some point, although he later stopped attending its meetings. But he remained conversant in its conservative, Islamist and often anti-Western rhetoric and he could deploy or hide that rhetoric depending on whom he was seeking to befriend. So it sounds like the extent of his relationship and support for the Muslim Brotherhood was something he kept somewhat obscured. This is understandable given the tricky line he had to walk as a prominent Saudi figure but it also highlights the fact that he was probably a bigger supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood than he actually publicly let on. To the extent of being a secret member.
Another interesting anecdote comes for Khashoggi’s pro-Hamas friend, and Muslim Brotherhood leader, Azzam Tamimi. Following a military coup in Algerian in 1992 that prevented an Islamist political party from winning control of the Parliament, Khashoggi and Tamimi quietly set up an organization in London called “The Friends of Democracy in Algeria”. Tamimi acted as the public face of the group and hid Khashoggi’s role. So that’s one example of Khashoggi secretly working on a Muslim Brotherhood project.
The article goes on to say that by the time he reached his 50’s, Khashoggi’s relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood was ambiguous. Muslim Brotherhood members say they always felt he was with them but Khashoggi’s secular friends would have never believed it. This, again, points towards a relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood that was much deeper than publicly revealed:
“The idea of self-exile in the West was a blow for Mr. Khashoggi, 60, who had worked as a reporter, commentator and editor to become one of the kingdom’s best known personalities. He first drew international attention for interviewing a young Osama bin Laden and later became well-known as a confidant of kings and princes.”
A confidant of kings and princes and a friend of Osama bin Laden. It’s an interesting background. A background that includes being the nephew of Adnan Khashoggi:
And then there’s Jamal Khashoggi’s ambiguous ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Ambiguous because it sounds like he was hiding much deeper ties:
At the same time, his relationship with Prince Turki al-Faisal led his friends to suspect he was also a Saudi spy:
And then there’s the anecdote of Muslim Brotherhood figure Azzam Tamimi, one of Khashoggi’s friends, where the two set up a organization in 1992 to protest the Algeria coup to stop an Islamist party from taking power. And the they Tamimi describes it, Khashoggi’s role in this was kept hidden, raising questions about how many other projects like this Khashoggi may have secretly worked on with the Brotherhood over the years:
“Several Muslim Brothers said this week that they always felt he was with them. Many of his secular friends would not have believed it.”
And that’s all part of why Jamal Khashoggi really does appear to qualify for ‘International Man of Mystery’ status. He’s got deep ties to the Saudi establishment, the Muslim Brotherhood, figures like his uncle Adnan Khashoggi (another International Man of Mystery), and yet he apparently managed to obscure much of this from his secular friends. That’s pretty mysterious.
In tangential fun fact, it’s worth recalling that Adnan Khashoggi sold his famous yacht, the Nabila, to none other than Donald Trump following Khashoggi’s legal downfall. It was a $70 million yacht sold for a bargain price of $30 million:
“The night before I left New York, I was at a dinner party in a beautiful Fifth Avenue apartment overlooking Central Part. There were sixteen people, among them the high-flying Donald and Ivana Trump, one of New York’s richest and most discussed couples, and a major topic of conversation was Khashoggi’s imprisonment. “I read every word about Adnan Khashoggi,” Donald Trump said to me.”
Yep, Donald Trump was reading every world about Adnan Khashoggi and his downfall. The fact that he got Khashoggi’s yacht at a bargain price may have had something to do with that keen interest, but it’s also pretty clear Trump had a history with Khashoggi:
So Khashoggi knocked millions of dollars off the price of his yacht in order to get Trump to agree to change the name, which he was already planning on doing? Yeah, that’s mysterious.
Regarding Adnan Khashoggi’s relationship with Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos and the help he allegedly provided them in laundering $160 million, it’s worth recalling that this probably overlapped with the period with Paul Manafort was acting as a consultant for the Marcos government in the 80’s. So when we read that US authorities discovered this money laundering resulted in the purchase of four large commercial buildings in New York City, you have to wonder what role Trump, a New York real estate mogul, may have played in those dealings:
It’s example how small a world it is when you’re moving in the international men of mystery circles. A mysterious circle that appears to include Adnan’s nephew Jamal.
The Nabilia/Trump Princess yacht story gets even more interesting. Three years after Adnan Khashoggi sold it to Trump at a $51 million loss Trump turned around and sold it to Prince al-Waleed bin Talal for a $9 million profit.
Prince al-Waleed participated in at least two funding rounds for Twitter totaling at least $300 million, in August & Sept of 2011, right in the middle of the Arab Spring. As noted above, Prince al-Waleed was among those detained in the Ritz by MbS.
By following the yacht it looks like a sort of “passing the torch” between two generations of Saudi/US middlemen, with bin Talal picking up where Khashoggi left off.
I’m also very curious wether Jamal Khashoggi’s father might have been Adnan’s brother Essam, who partnered with him on the Triad projects with the Mormons in Utah.
@Covert Sphere–
Jamal’s uncle is indeed Adnan.
He was also connected to MANY other interesting interests.
Check out the latest–FTR #1027. Only the audio is available, now.
http://emory.kfjc.org/archive/ftr/1000_1099/f‑1028.mp3
I’m still working on the written description.
Best,
Dave
Here’s a pair of article about the murder of Jamal Khashoggi with some information that might help explain the motive for his murder. First, here’s a Bloomberg article that give a general background of the Khashoggi family and its ties to be both Saudi Arabia and Turkey. And at the very end of the article it includes a quote from Yasin Aktay, described as an adviser to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and a long time friend of Khashoggi. According to Aktay, “Jamal may have been seen as the focal point of an alternative governing power.” On the one hand, that could be a reference to Khashoggi’s close ties to rival factions of Saudi princes who were targeted by MBS’s ‘anti-corruption’ crackdown. But when you look at Khashoggi’s extensive ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and Turkey and you look at all the plans he had for ‘democracy building’ project, that sure sounds like a reference to the threat of a Muslim Brotherhood-led regime change operation. And, again, this is coming from someone described as Khashoggi’s friend and an adviser to Erdogan:
““The period that began with MBS’s coming to power left no room for him to express himself as an intellectual,” said Yasin Aktay, an adviser to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and a long time friend of Khashoggi. “Jamal may have been seen as the focal point of an alternative governing power.””
“The focal point of an alternative governing power.” It’s quite a characterization coming from someone like Yasin Aktay.
Next, here’s an article from The Intercept from back in March that has suddenly become very topical: MBS allegedly told confidants that Jared Kushner discussed the names of disloyal Saudis with him during an unannounced tip to Riyadh in October 2017. The article also notes that this kind of information on disloyal Saudis was part of the President’s Daily Brief during the months that followed MBS’s power grab that put him next in line to the throne, and Kushner was reportedly an avid consumer of those Daily Briefs. A week later, MBS starts his ‘anti-corruption’ crackdown that led to the jailing of a number of prominent Saudis.
Interestingly, one of the people MBS allegedly confided in about Kushner sharing these names with him was UAE Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed (MBZ). Recall that MBZ is deeply involved with both the ‘Seychelles backchannel’ mystery and the UAE/Saudi proposal to hire Psy-Group to provide Cambride Analytica-like services for the Trump campaign.
Keep in mind that Khashoggi reportedly only started his pro-democracy organization in early 2018, several months after Kushner allegedly passed this information along. But odds are the planning for such an operation would have preceded the announced creation of the group. So if Jamal Khashoggi really was planning some sort of Muslim Brotherhood-led ‘Arab Spring 2.0’ type of operation it seems highly likely the US intelligence community would have known about this in the fall of 2017 and that means Jared Kushner probably would have known too. So this might, in part, explain the Trump administration’s hesitancy in condemning the Saudi government over Khashoggi’s murder: Jared may have handed over the hit list:
“Until he was stripped of his top-secret security clearance in February, presidential adviser Jared Kushner was known around the White House as one of the most voracious readers of the President’s Daily Brief, a highly classified rundown of the latest intelligence intended only for the president and his closest advisers.”
So Jared got to read the president’s Daily Briefs for a whole year before getting stripped of his security clearance in February. It was clearly one year too many.
Then, in October 2017, Jared makes an unannounced trip to Riyadh. Following that trip, MBS reportedly tells confidants that Jared discussed the names of disloyal Saudis. A week later, MBS starts his ‘anti-corruption crackdown’:
And one of the people MBS reportedly confided in about his talks with Kushner with the UAE’s MBZ, who is also notoriously close to the Trump team at this point:
It’s worth noting that the source for the above fun fact is described as someone “who talks frequently to confidants of the Saudi and Emirati rulers.” You have to wonder if that’s George Nader.
Kushner is so close to the Saudi and UAE crown princes that he apparently communicates with them directly using WhatsApp. Jared appears to be the main point of contact between the US and Saudi government at this point, a sentiment shared by Rex Tillerson:
It’s also worth noting that President Trump actually has the legal authority to allow Kushner to disclose the information in his Daily Briefs, so it’s very possible Trump told Kushner to reveal these names. He was certainly quite supportive of the ‘anti-corruption’ crackdown that follow the meeting with Kushner:
In a foreshadow to the torture murder of Khashoggi, ine of the victims of that crackdown was also tortured to death: Maj. Gen. Ali al-Qahtani:
So we have a report from back in March about Jared handing MBS the names of disloyal Saudis shortly before ‘anti-corruption’ crackdown. And now we have comments from one of Erdogan’s advisers speculating that Khashoggi represented “focal point of an alternative governing power.” Did Jared tip off MBS about a Muslim Brotherhood regime change operation to be led by Khashoggi? Might this explain all the reports indicating that the Saudi hit team almost immediately began torturing and dismembering Khashoggi and he was dead within minutes? Because it sure doesn’t sound like they had many questions for him. Which suggests they already had all the answers they needed. Answers possibly provided by Jared.