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.)