Spitfire List Web site and blog of anti-fascist researcher and radio personality Dave Emory.

For The Record  

FTR #705 Update on 9/11 and Related Matters

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MP3 Side 1 | Side 2

Intro­duc­tion: The pro­gram begins with an FBI infor­man­t’s con­tention that the Bureau missed a chance to inter­dict 9/11 hijack­er Moham­mad Atta’s activ­i­ties. As we have seen in our many vis­its with the hero­ic Daniel Hop­sick­er, Atta was part of an intelligence/fascist milieu in Flori­da that was, past a point, untouch­able to law enforce­ment.

Wel­come to Ter­ror­land

Very, very dis­turb­ing in light of Hop­sick­er’s inves­ti­ga­tions is news that a large, sophis­ti­cat­ed avi­a­tion net­work is linked to Latin Amer­i­can and African drug smug­gling net­works, as well as Mus­lim Broth­er­hood net­works asso­ci­at­ed with al-Qaeda.The net­work is fly­ing Boe­ing 727 jets, capa­ble of car­ry­ing up to 10 tons of car­go. They are return­ing to the Amer­i­c­as, with car­go. The pos­si­bil­i­ty that they could, ulti­mate­ly, fer­ry-in WMD’s is an unset­tling but very real prospect.

Turn­ing to the crash of Air France flight 447, the pro­gram notes that the plane appears to have bro­ken up in mid-air, sug­gest­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a bomb. Two of the vic­tims of the crash are note­wor­thy for present pur­pos­es. Argen­tine cam­paign­er Pablo Drey­fus and Swiss col­league Ronald Drey­er had been bat­tling the over­lap­ping arms and drug trade in South Amer­i­ca, two areas in which the nexus of orga­nized crime and Islamist ter­ror­ism may be found. There were also reports of pos­si­ble Islam­ic mil­i­tants on board the doomed air­craft.

Much of the pro­gram deals with the GOP/Muslim Brotherhood/terrorist axis. After not­ing that Pres­i­dent Bush enter­tained Faizul Khan–an imam who min­is­tered to the Fort Hood shoot­er and who is close­ly affil­i­at­ed with the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood milieu, the pro­gram turns to the top­ic of GOP king­pin Grover Norquist. At the recent Con­ser­v­a­tive Polit­i­cal Action Con­fer­ence, Norquist, one of the major archi­tects of the GOP/Muslim Broth­er­hood link, dis­missed any notion that Islamists are a threat as a con­coc­tion of “The Israel Lob­by.”

Pro­gram High­lights Include: Mus­lim gangs’ con­trol of the British under­world; the U.S. Attor­ney in New York’s deci­sion to merge inves­ti­ga­tions of drug traf­fick­ing and Islam­ic ter­ror­ism; GOP sen­a­to­r­i­al hope­ful Tom Camp­bel­l’s sup­port for Sami al-Ari­an; 9/11 hijack­ers’ imam Anwar Awlak­i’s close asso­ci­a­tion with Major Hasan, the Fort Hood shoot­er.

1. The pro­gram begins with an FBI infor­man­t’s con­tention that the Bureau missed a chance to inter­dict 9/11 hijack­er Moham­mad Atta’s activ­i­ties. As we have seen in our many vis­its with the hero­ic Daniel Hop­sick­er, Atta was part of an intelligence/fascist milieu in Flori­da that was, past a point, untouch­able to law enforce­ment. Whether the bureau bun­gled or was delib­er­ate­ly put off the trail of Atta and com­pa­ny is a sub­ject for spec­u­la­tion.

On the eve of the eight year anniver­sary of the 9/11 attacks, an FBI infor­mant who infil­trat­ed alleged ter­ror­ist cells in the U.S. tells ABC News the FBI missed a chance to stop the al Qae­da plot because they focused more on under­cov­er stings than on the man who would lat­er become known as 9/11 ring­leader Mohammed Atta.

In an exclu­sive inter­view to be broad­cast tonight on ABC World News with Charles Gib­son and Night­line, for­mer under­cov­er oper­a­tive Elie Assaad says he spot­ted and became sus­pi­cious of Atta in ear­ly 2001, when he was sent by the FBI to infil­trate a small mosque out­side Mia­mi. Atta was there with Adnan Shukru­ju­man, an al Qae­da fugi­tive who now has a $5 mil­lion U.S. reward on his head.

“There was some­thing wrong with these guys,” Assaad, a 36-year-old Catholic native of Lebanon who pre­tend­ed to be an Islam­ic extrem­ist, says. . . .

. . . Accord­ing to Assaad, Shukru­jumah, whose father ran the mosque, invit­ed the under­cov­er FBI oper­a­tive to meet him at his home, but the FBI told him to stay away. Instead, Assad says the agency assigned him to set up and sting what he calls wannabe ter­ror­ists, end­ing any hope of infil­trat­ing the real al Qae­da ter­ror­ists.

For­mer nation­al secu­ri­ty offi­cial Richard Clarke, now an ABC News con­sul­tant, said the case is “yet anoth­er exam­ple of the way the sys­tem broke down pri­or to 9/11.”

“If the sys­tem had worked,” Clarke said, “we might have been able to iden­ti­fy these peo­ple before the attacks.”

“FBI Infor­mant Says Agents Missed Chance to Stop 9/11 Ring­leader Mohammed Atta” by Bri­an Ross and Vic Wal­ter; ABC News; 9/10/2009.

2. Lis­ten­ers famil­iar with Hop­sick­er’s work will find the fol­low­ing arti­cle gen­uine­ly chill­ing. The above-men­tioned fascist/intelligence milieu was deeply involved with drug-smug­gling. The pos­si­bil­i­ty that a WMD might find its way into one of the rogue net­work’s aircraft–perhaps a 727–is a chill­ing pos­si­biltiy. Note that in the Nazi tract Ser­pen­t’s Walk, the Unit­ed States is destroyed by ter­ror­ist attacks using WMD’s smug­gled in through drug net­works!

In ear­ly 2008, an offi­cial at the U.S. Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty sent a report to his supe­ri­ors detail­ing what he called “the most sig­nif­i­cant devel­op­ment in the crim­i­nal exploita­tion of air­craft since 9/11.“The doc­u­ment warned that a grow­ing fleet of rogue jet air­craft was reg­u­lar­ly criss­cross­ing the Atlantic Ocean. On one end of the air route, it said, are cocaine-pro­duc­ing areas in the Andes con­trolled by the left­ist Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Armed Forces of Colom­bia. On the oth­er are some of West Africa’s most unsta­ble coun­tries.

The report, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters, was ignored, and the prob­lem has since esca­lat­ed into what secu­ri­ty offi­cials in sev­er­al coun­tries describe as a glob­al secu­ri­ty threat.

The clan­des­tine fleet has grown to include twin-engine tur­bo­props, exec­u­tive jets and retired Boe­ing 727s that are fly­ing mul­ti-ton loads of cocaine and pos­si­bly weapons to an area in Africa where fac­tions of al Qae­da are believed to be facil­i­tat­ing the smug­gling of drugs to Europe, the offi­cials say.

Al Qae­da in the Islam­ic Maghreb (AQIM) has been held respon­si­ble for car and sui­cide bomb­ings in Alge­ria and Mau­ri­ta­nia.

Gun­men and ban­dits with links to AQIM have also stepped up kid­nap­pings of Euro­peans for ran­som, who are then passed on to AQIM fac­tions seek­ing ran­som pay­ments.

The air­craft hop­scotch across South Amer­i­can coun­tries, pick­ing up tons of cocaine and jet fuel, offi­cials say. They then soar across the Atlantic to West Africa and the Sahel, where the drugs are fun­neled across the Sahara Desert and into Europe.

An exam­i­na­tion of doc­u­ments and inter­views with offi­cials in the Unit­ed States and three West African nations sug­gest that at least 10 air­craft have been dis­cov­ered using this air route since 2006. Offi­cials warn that many of these air­craft were detect­ed pure­ly by chance. They cau­tion that the real num­ber involved in the net­works is like­ly con­sid­er­ably high­er.

Alexan­dre Schmidt, region­al rep­re­sen­ta­tive for West and Cen­tral Africa for the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, cau­tioned in Dakar this week that the avi­a­tion net­work has expand­ed in the past 12 months and now like­ly includes sev­er­al Boe­ing 727 air­craft.

“When you have this high capac­i­ty for trans­port­ing drugs into West Africa, this means that you have the capac­i­ty to trans­port as well oth­er goods, so it is def­i­nite­ly a threat to secu­ri­ty any­where in the world,” said Schmidt.

The “oth­er goods” offi­cials are most wor­ried about are weapons that mil­i­tant orga­ni­za­tions can smug­gle on the jet air­craft. A Boe­ing 727 can han­dle up to 10 tons of car­go.

The U.S. offi­cial who wrote the report for the Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty said the al Qae­da con­nec­tion was unclear at the time.

The offi­cial is a counter-nar­cotics avi­a­tion expert who asked to remain anony­mous as he is not autho­rized to speak on the record. He said he was dis­mayed by the lack of atten­tion to the mat­ter since he wrote the report.

“You’ve got an estab­lished ter­ror­ist con­nec­tion on this side of the Atlantic. Now on the Africa side you have the al Qae­da con­nec­tion and it’s extreme­ly dis­turb­ing and a lit­tle bit mys­ti­fy­ing that it’s not one of the top pri­or­i­ties of the gov­ern­ment,” he said.

Since the Sep­tem­ber 11 attacks, the secu­ri­ty sys­tem for pas­sen­ger air traf­fic has been ratch­eted up in the Unit­ed States and through­out much of the rest of the world, with the lat­est mea­sures imposed just weeks ago after a failed bomb attempt on a Detroit-bound plane on Decem­ber 25.

“The bad guys have respond­ed with their own avi­a­tion net­work that is out there every­day fly­ing loads and mov­ing con­tra­band,” said the offi­cial, “and the gov­ern­ment seems to be obliv­i­ous to it.”

The upshot, he said, is that mil­i­tant orga­ni­za­tions — includ­ing groups like the FARC and al Qae­da — have the “pow­er to move peo­ple and mate­r­i­al and con­tra­band any­where around the world with a cou­ple of fuel stops.”

The lucra­tive drug trade is already hav­ing a dele­te­ri­ous impact on West African nations. Local author­i­ties told Reuters they are increas­ing­ly out­gunned and unable to stop the smug­glers.

And sig­nif­i­cant­ly, many experts say, the drug traf­fick­ing is bring­ing in huge rev­enues to groups that say they are part of al Qae­da. It’s swelling not just their cof­fers but also their ranks, they say, as drug mon­ey is becom­ing an effec­tive recruit­ing tool in some of the world’s most des­per­ate­ly poor regions.

U.S. Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma has chid­ed his intel­li­gence offi­cials for not pool­ing infor­ma­tion “to con­nect those dots” to pre­vent threats from being real­ized. But these dots, scat­tered across two con­ti­nents like flar­ing traces on a radar screen, remain large­ly uncon­nect­ed and the fleets them­selves are still fly­ing.

THE AFRICAN CONNECTION

The dead­ly cocaine trade always fol­lows the mon­ey, and its cash-flush traf­fick­ers seek out the routes that are the most­ly light­ly policed.

Beset by cor­rup­tion and pover­ty, weak coun­tries across West Africa have become stag­ing plat­forms for trans­port­ing between 30 tons and 100 tons of cocaine each year that ends up in Europe, accord­ing to U.N. esti­mates.

Drug traf­fick­ing, though on a much small­er scale, has exist­ed here and else­where on the con­ti­nent since at least the late 1990s, accord­ing to local author­i­ties and U.S. enforce­ment offi­cials.

Ear­li­er this decade, sea inter­dic­tions were stepped up. So smug­glers devel­oped an air fleet that is able to trans­port tons of cocaine from the Andes to African nations that include Mau­ri­ta­nia, Mali, Sier­ra Leone and Guinea Bissau.What these coun­tries have in com­mon are numer­ous dis­used land­ing strips and makeshift run­ways — most with­out radar or police pres­ence. Guinea Bis­sau has no avi­a­tion radar at all. As fleets grew, so, too, did the drug trade.

The DEA says all air­craft seized in West Africa had depart­ed Venezuela. That nation’s loca­tion on the Caribbean and Atlantic seaboard of South Amer­i­ca makes it an ide­al take­off place for drug flights bound for Africa, they say.

A num­ber of air­craft have been retro­fit­ted with addi­tion­al fuel tanks to allow in-flight refu­el­ing — a tech­nique inno­vat­ed by Mex­i­co’s drug smug­glers. (Car­tel pilots there have been known to stretch an air­craft’s flight range by putting a water mat­tress filled with avi­a­tion fuel in the cab­in, then stack­ing car­goes of mar­i­jua­na bun­dles on top to act as an impro­vised fuel pump.)

Ploys used by the car­tel avi­a­tors to mask the flights include fraud­u­lent pilot cer­tifi­cates, false reg­is­tra­tion doc­u­ments and altered tail num­bers to steer clear of law enforce­ment look­out lists, inves­ti­ga­tors say. Some air­craft have also been found with­out air-wor­thi­ness cer­tifi­cates or log books. When smug­glers are forced to aban­don them, they torch them to destroy foren­sic and oth­er evi­dence like ser­i­al num­bers.

The evi­dence sug­gests that some Africa-bound cocaine jets also file a region­al flight plan to avoid arous­ing sus­pi­cion from inves­ti­ga­tors. They then sub­se­quent­ly change them at the last minute, con­fi­dent that their switch will go unde­tect­ed.

One Gulf­stream II jet, wait­ing with its engines run­ning to take on 2.3 tons of cocaine at Mar­gari­ta Island in Venezuela, request­ed a last-minute flight plan change to war-rav­aged Sier­ra Leone in West Africa. It was nabbed moments lat­er by Venezue­lan troops, the report seen by Reuters showed.

Once air­borne, the planes soar to alti­tudes used by com­mer­cial jets. They have lit­tle fear of inter­dic­tion as there is no long-range radar cov­er­age over the Atlantic. Cur­rent detec­tion efforts by U.S. author­i­ties, using fixed radar and P3 air­craft, are lim­it­ed to tra­di­tion­al Caribbean and north Atlantic air and marine tran­sit cor­ri­dors.

The air­craft land at air­ports, dis­used run­ways or impro­vised air strips in Africa. One bear­ing a false Red Cross emblem touched down with­out autho­riza­tion onto an unlit strip at Lun­gi Inter­na­tion­al Air­port in Sier­ra Leone in 2008, accord­ing to a U.N. report.

Late last year a Boe­ing 727 land­ed on an impro­vised run­way using the hard-packed sand of a Tuareg camel car­a­van route in Mali, where local offi­cials said smug­glers offloaded between 2 and 10 tons of cocaine before dous­ing the jet with fuel and burn­ing it after it failed to take off again.

For years, traf­fick­ers in Mex­i­co have bribed offi­cials to allow them to land and offload cocaine flights at com­mer­cial air­ports. That’s now hap­pen­ing in Africa as well. In July 2008, troops in coup-prone Guinea Bis­sau secured Bis­sau inter­na­tion­al air­port to allow an unsched­uled cocaine flight to land, accord­ing to Edmun­do Mendes, a direc­tor with the Judi­cial Police.

“When we got there, the sol­diers were pro­tect­ing the air­craft,” said Mendes, who tried to nab the Gulf­stream II jet packed with an esti­mat­ed $50 mil­lion in cocaine but was blocked by the mil­i­tary.

“The sol­diers ver­bal­ly threat­ened us,” he said. The cocaine was nev­er recov­ered. Just last week, Reuters pho­tographed two air­craft at Osval­do Vieira Inter­na­tion­al Air­port in Guinea Bis­sau — one had been dis­patched by traf­fick­ers from Sene­gal to try to repair the oth­er, a Gulf­stream II jet, after it devel­oped mechan­i­cal prob­lems. Police seized the sec­ond air­craft.

FLYING BLIND

One of the clear­est indi­ca­tions of how much this avi­a­tion net­work has advanced was the dis­cov­ery, on Novem­ber 2, of the burned out fuse­lage of an aging Boe­ing 727. Local author­i­ties found it rest­ing on its side in rolling sands in Mali. In sev­er­al ways, the use of such an air­craft marks a sig­nif­i­cant advance for smug­glers.

Boe­ing jet­lin­ers, like the one dis­cov­ered in Mali, can fly a car­go of sev­er­al tons into remote areas. They also require a three-man crew — a pilot, co pilot and flight engi­neer, pri­mar­i­ly to man­age the com­plex fuel sys­tem dat­ing from an era before automa­tion.

Hun­dreds of miles to the west, in the sul­try, for­mer Por­tuguese colony of Guinea Bis­sau, nation­al Inter­pol direc­tor Cal­vario Ahukharie said sev­er­al aban­doned air­fields, includ­ing strips used at one time by the Por­tuguese mil­i­tary, had recent­ly been restored by “drug mafias” for illic­it flights.

“In the past, the planes com­ing from Latin Amer­i­ca usu­al­ly land­ed at Bis­sau air­port,” Ahukharie said as a gen­er­a­tor churned the fee­ble air-con­di­tion­ing in his office dur­ing one of the city’s fre­quent black­outs.

“But now they land at air­ports in south­ern and east­ern Bis­sau where the judi­cial police have no pres­ence.”

Ahukharie said drug flights are land­ing at Cacine, in east­ern Bis­sau, and Bubaque in the Bija­gos Arch­i­pel­ago, a chain of more than 80 islands off the Atlantic coast. Inter­pol said it hears about the flights from locals, although they have been unable to seize air­craft, cit­ing a lack of resources.

The drug trade, by both air and sea, has already had a dev­as­tat­ing impact on Guinea Bis­sau. A dis­pute over traf­fick­ing has been linked to the assas­si­na­tion of the mil­i­tary chief of staff, Gen­er­al Batista Tagme Na Wai in 2009. Hours lat­er, the coun­try’s pres­i­dent, Joao Bernar­do Vieira, was hacked to death by machete in his home.

Asked how seri­ous the issue of air traf­fick­ing remained for Guinea Bis­sau, Ahukharie was unam­bigu­ous: “The prob­lem is grave.”

The sit­u­a­tion is poten­tial­ly worse in the Sahel-Sahara, where cocaine is arriv­ing by the ton. There it is fed into well-estab­lished over­land traf­fick­ing routes across the Sahara where gov­ern­ment influ­ence is lim­it­ed and where fac­tions of al Qae­da in the Islam­ic Maghreb have become increas­ing­ly active.

The group, pre­vi­ous­ly known as the Salafist Group for Preach­ing and Com­bat, is rais­ing mil­lions of dol­lars from the kid­nap of Euro­peans.

Ana­lysts say mil­i­tants strike deals of con­ve­nience with Tuareg rebels and smug­glers of arms, cig­a­rettes and drugs. Accord­ing to a grow­ing pat­tern of evi­dence, the group may now be deriv­ing hefty rev­enues from facil­i­tat­ing the smug­gling of FARC-made cocaine to the shores of Europe.

UNHOLY ALLIANCE

In Decem­ber, Anto­nio Maria Cos­ta, the exec­u­tive direc­tor of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, told a spe­cial ses­sion of the UN Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil that drugs were being trad­ed by “ter­ror­ists and anti-gov­ern­ment forces” to fund their oper­a­tions from the Andes, to Asia and the African Sahel.

“In the past, trade across the Sahara was by car­a­vans,” he said. “Today it is larg­er in size, faster at deliv­ery and more high-tech, as evi­denced by the debris of a Boe­ing 727 found on Novem­ber 2nd in the Gao region of Mali — an area affect­ed by insur­gency and ter­ror­ism.”

Just days lat­er, U.S. Drug Enforce­ment Admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials arrest­ed three West African men fol­low­ing a sting oper­a­tion in Ghana. The men, all from Mali, were extra­dit­ed to New York on Decem­ber 16 on drug traf­fick­ing and ter­ror­ism charges.

Oumar Issa, Harouna Toure, and Idriss Abel­rah­man are accused of plot­ting to trans­port cocaine across Africa with the intent to sup­port al Qae­da, its local affil­i­ate AQIM and the FARC. The charges pro­vid­ed evi­dence of what the DEA’s top offi­cial in Colom­bia described to a Reuters reporter as “an unholy alliance between South Amer­i­can nar­co-ter­ror­ists and Islam­ic extrem­ists.”

Some experts are skep­ti­cal, how­ev­er, that the men are any more than crim­i­nals. They ques­tioned whether the drug deal­ers over­sold their al Qae­da con­nec­tions to get their hands on the cocaine.

In its crim­i­nal com­plaint, the DEA said Toure had led an armed group affil­i­at­ed to al Qae­da that could move the cocaine from Ghana through North Africa to Spain for a fee of $2,000 per kilo for trans­porta­tion and pro­tec­tion.

Toure dis­cussed two dif­fer­ent over­land routes with an under­cov­er infor­mant. One was through Alge­ria and Moroc­co; the oth­er via Alge­ria to Libya. He told the informer that the group had worked with al Qae­da to trans­port between one and two tons of hashish to Tunisia, as well as smug­gle Pak­istani, Indi­an and Bangladeshi migrants into Spain.

In any event, AQIM has been gain­ing in noto­ri­ety. Secu­ri­ty ana­lysts warn that cash stem­ming from the trans-Saha­ran coke trade could trans­form the orga­ni­za­tion — a small, agile group whose south­ern-Sahel wing is esti­mat­ed to num­ber between 100 and 200 men — into a more potent threat in the region that stretch­es from Mau­ri­ta­nia to Niger. It is an area with huge for­eign invest­ments in oil, min­ing and a pos­si­ble trans-Sahara gas pipeline.

“These groups are going to have a lot more mon­ey than they’ve had before, and I think you are going to see them with much more sophis­ti­cat­ed weapons,” said Dou­glas Farah, a senior fel­low at the Inter­na­tion­al Assess­ment Strat­e­gy Cen­ter, a Wash­ing­ton based secu­ri­ty think-tank.

NARCOTIC INDUSTRIAL DEPOT

The Tim­buk­tu region cov­ers more than a third of north­ern Mali, where the parched, scrub­by Sahel shades into the end­less, rolling dunes of the Sahara Desert. It is an area sev­er­al times the size of Switzer­land, much of it beyond state con­trol.

Moulaye Haidara, the cus­toms offi­cial, said the sharp influx of cocaine by air has trans­formed the area into an “indus­tri­al depot” for cocaine.

Sit­ting in a cool, dark, mud-brick office build­ing in the city where nomadic Tuareg min­gle with Arabs and African Song­hay, Fulani and Mande peo­ples, Haidara express­es alarm at the chal­lenge local law enforce­ment faces.

Using prof­its from the trade, the smug­glers have already bought “auto­mat­ic weapons, and they are very deter­mined,” Haidara said. He added that they “call them­selves Al Qae­da,” though he believes the group had noth­ing to do with reli­gion, but used it as “an ide­o­log­i­cal base.”

Local author­i­ties say four-wheel-dri­ve Toy­ota SUVs out­fit­ted with GPS nav­i­ga­tion equip­ment and satel­lite tele­phones are stan­dard issue for smug­glers. Res­i­dents say traf­fick­ers deflate the tires to gain bet­ter trac­tion on the loose Saha­ran sands, and can trav­el at speeds of up to 70 miles-per-hour in con­voys along routes to North Africa.

Tim­buk­tu gov­er­nor, Colonel Mamadou Man­gara, said he believes traf­fick­ers have air-con­di­tioned tents that enable them to oper­ate in areas of the Sahara where sum­mer tem­per­a­tures are so fierce that they “scorch your shoes.” He added that the army lacked such equip­ment. A grow­ing num­ber of peo­ple in the impov­er­ished region, where trans­port by don­key cart and camel are still com­mon, are being drawn to the trade. They can earn 4 to 5 mil­lion CFA Francs (rough­ly $9–11,000) on just one coke run.

“Smug­gling can be attrac­tive to peo­ple here who can make only $100 or $200 a month,” said Mohamed Ag Hamalek, a Tuareg tourist guide in Tim­buk­tu, whose fam­i­ly until recent­ly earned their keep haul­ing rock salt by camel train, using the stars to nav­i­gate the Sahara.

Haidara described north­ern Mali as a no-go area for the cus­toms ser­vice. “There is now a red line across north­ern Mali, nobody can go there,” he said, sketch­ing a map of the coun­try on a scrap of paper with a ball­point pen. “If you go there with fee­ble means ... you don’t come back.”

TWO-WAY TRADE

Speak­ing in Dakar this week, Schmidt, the U.N. offi­cial, said that grow­ing clan­des­tine air traf­fic required urgent action on the part of the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty.

“This should be the high­est con­cern for gov­ern­ments ... For West African coun­tries, for West Euro­pean coun­tries, for Rus­sia and the U.S., this should be very high on the agen­da,” he said.

Stop­ping the trade, as the traf­fick­ers are undoubt­ed­ly aware, is a huge chal­lenge — diplo­mat­i­cal­ly, struc­tural­ly and eco­nom­i­cal­ly.

Venezuela, the take­off or refu­el­ing point for air­craft mak­ing the trip, has a con­fronta­tion­al rela­tion­ship with Colom­bia, where Pres­i­dent Alvaro Uribe has focused on crush­ing the FAR­C’s 45-year-old insur­gency. The nation’s left­ist leader, Hugo Chavez, won’t allow in the DEA to work in the coun­try.

In a mea­sure of his hos­til­i­ty to Wash­ing­ton, he scram­bled two F16 fight­er jets last week to inter­cept an Amer­i­can P3 air­craft — a plane used to seek out and track drug traf­fick­ers — which he said had twice vio­lat­ed Venezue­lan air­space. He says the Unit­ed States and Colom­bia are using anti-drug oper­a­tions as a cov­er for a planned inva­sion of his oil-rich coun­try. Wash­ing­ton and Bogo­ta dis­miss the alle­ga­tion.

In terms of curb­ing traf­fick­ing, the DEA has by far the largest over­seas pres­ence of any U.S. fed­er­al law enforce­ment, with 83 offices in 62 coun­tries. But it is spread thin in Africa where it has just four offices — in Nige­ria, Ghana, Egypt and South Africa — though there are plans to open a fifth office in Kenya.

Law enforce­ment agen­cies from Europe as well as Inter­pol are also at work to curb the trade. But local­ly, offi­cials are quick to point out that Africa is los­ing the war on drugs.

The most glar­ing prob­lem, as Mal­i’s exam­ple shows, is a lack of resources. The only arrests made in con­nec­tion with the Boe­ing came days after it was found in the desert — and those incar­cer­at­ed turned out to be desert nomads can­ni­bal­iz­ing the plane’s alu­minum skin, prob­a­bly to make cook­ing pots. They were soon released.

Police in Guinea Bis­sau, mean­while, told Reuters they have few guns, no mon­ey for gas for vehi­cles giv­en by donor gov­ern­ments and no high secu­ri­ty prison to hold crim­i­nals.

Cor­rup­tion is also a prob­lem. The army has freed sev­er­al traf­fick­ers charged or detained by author­i­ties seek­ing to tack­le the prob­lem, police and rights groups said.

Seri­ous ques­tions remain about why Malian author­i­ties took so long to report the Boe­ing’s dis­cov­ery to the inter­na­tion­al law enforce­ment com­mu­ni­ty.

What is par­tic­u­lar­ly wor­ry­ing to U.S. inter­ests is that the net­works of air­craft are not just fly­ing one way — haul­ing coke to Africa from Latin Amer­i­ca — but are also fly­ing back to the Amer­i­c­as.

The inter­nal Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty mem­o­ran­dum reviewed by Reuters cit­ed one instance in which an air­craft from Africa land­ed in Mex­i­co with pas­sen­gers and unex­am­ined car­go.

The Gulf­stream II jet arrived in Can­cun, by way of Mar­gari­ta Island, Venezuela, en route from Africa. The air­craft, which was on an avi­a­tion watch list, car­ried just two pas­sen­gers. One was a U.S. nation­al with no lug­gage, the oth­er a cit­i­zen of the Repub­lic of Con­go with a diplo­mat­ic pass­port and a brief­case, which was not searched.

“The obvi­ous huge con­cern is that you have a trans­porta­tion sys­tem that is capa­ble of trans­port­ing tons of cocaine from west to east,” said the avi­a­tion spe­cial­ist who wrote the Home­land Secu­ri­ty report.

“But it’s reck­less to assume that noth­ing is com­ing back, and when there’s ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tions on either side of this pipeline, it should be a high pri­or­i­ty to find out what is com­ing back on those air­planes.”

“Al Qae­da Linked to Rogue Avi­a­tion Net­work” by Tim Gaynor and Tiemoko Dial­lo; Reuters; 1/13/2010.

3. Turn­ing to the crash of Air France flight 447, the pro­gram notes that the plane appears to have bro­ken up in mid-air, sug­gest­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a bomb.

Autop­sies reveal­ing frac­tures in the legs, hips and arms of Air France dis­as­ter vic­tims, cou­pled with the large pieces of wreck­age pulled from the Atlantic, strong­ly sug­gest the plane broke up in the air.

With more than 400 bits of debris recov­ered from the ocean’s sur­face, the top French inves­ti­ga­tor expressed opti­mism about dis­cov­er­ing what brought down Flight 447, but he also called the con­di­tions — far from land in very deep waters — “one of the worst sit­u­a­tions ever known in an acci­dent inves­ti­ga­tion.”

French inves­ti­ga­tors are begin­ning to form “an image that is pro­gres­sive­ly less fuzzy,” Paul-Louis Arslan­ian, who runs the French air acci­dent inves­ti­ga­tion agency BEA, told a news con­fer­ence out­side Paris.

“We are in a sit­u­a­tion that is a bit more favor­able than the first days,” Arslan­ian said. “We can say there is a lit­tle less uncer­tain­ty, so there is a lit­tle more opti­mism. ... (but) it is pre­ma­ture for the time being to say what hap­pened.”

A spokesman for Brazil­ian med­ical exam­in­ers said that frac­tures were found in autop­sies on an undis­closed num­ber of the 50 bod­ies recov­ered so far.

“Typ­i­cal­ly, if you see intact bod­ies and mul­ti­ple frac­tures — arm, leg, hip frac­tures — it’s a good indi­ca­tor of a mid­flight break up,” said Frank Ciac­co, a for­mer foren­sic expert at the US Nation­al Trans­porta­tion Safe­ty Board.

“Espe­cial­ly if you’re see­ing large pieces of air­craft as well.”

The pat­tern of frac­tures was first report­ed by Brazil’s O Esta­do de S Paulo news­pa­per, which cit­ed unnamed inves­ti­ga­tors. The paper also report­ed that some vic­tims were found with lit­tle or no cloth­ing, and had no signs of burns.

That lack of cloth­ing could be sig­nif­i­cant, said Jack Casey, an avi­a­tion safe­ty con­sul­tant in Wash­ing­ton, who is a for­mer acci­dent inves­ti­ga­tor. “In an in-air break up like we are sup­pos­ing here, the clothes are just torn away.”

Casey also said mul­ti­ple frac­tures are con­sis­tent with a midair breakup of the plane, which was cruis­ing at about 10,500m when it went down.

“Get­ting eject­ed into that kind of wind­stream is like hit­ting a brick wall — even if they stay in their seats, it is a crush­ing effect,” Casey said. “Most of them were long dead before they hit the water would be my guess.”

When a jet crash­es into water most­ly intact — such as the Egypt Air plane that hit the Atlantic Ocean after tak­ing off from New York in 1999 — debris and bod­ies are gen­er­al­ly bro­ken into small pieces, Ciac­co said. . . .

“Autop­sies Sug­gest Downed Jet Broke Up in Sky” [AP]; stuff.co.nz; 6/18/2009.

4. Two of the vic­tims of the crash are note­wor­thy for present pur­pos­es. Argen­tine cam­paign­er Pablo Drey­fus and Swiss col­league Ronald Drey­er had been bat­tling the over­lap­ping arms and drug trade in South Amer­i­ca, two areas in which the nexus of orga­nized crime and Islamist ter­ror­ism may be found. Were the vic­tims becom­ing over­ly trou­ble­some to some of the mangers of these are­nas of black com­merce?

Of par­tic­u­lar sig­nif­i­cance in this con­text is the so-called tri-bor­der area between Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina–a major area where Islamist ter­ror­ism, the arms traf­fic, drug smug­gling and fas­cist ele­ments over­lap.

Note, also, that weapons left over from African civ­il wars and Brazil­ian com­pa­nies that had pur­chased Euro­pean muni­tions com­pa­nies. For vet­er­an lis­ten­ers to this show, the German/Latin Amer­i­can link will bring to mind the Bor­mann cap­i­tal net­work.

Ard­genti­na: Argen­tine cam­paign­er Pablo Drey­fus and Swiss col­league Ronald Drey­er bat­tled South Amer­i­can arms and drug traf­fick­ingFrom Andrew McLeod

Amid the media fren­zy and spec­u­la­tion over the dis­ap­pear­ance of Air France’s ill-fat­ed Flight 447, the loss of two of the world’s most promi­nent fig­ures in the war on the ille­gal arms trade and inter­na­tion­al drug traf­fick­ing has been vir­tu­al­ly over­looked.

Pablo Drey­fus, a 39-year-old Argen­tine who was trav­el­ling with his wife Ana Car­oli­na Rodrigues aboard the doomed flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, had worked tire­less­ly with the Brazil­ian author­i­ties to stem the flow of arms and ammu­ni­tion that for years has fuelled the bloody turf wars waged by drug gangs in Rio’s sprawl­ing fave­las.

Also trav­el­ling with Drey­fus on the doomed flight was his friend and col­league Ronald Drey­er, a Swiss diplo­mat and co-ordi­na­tor of the Gene­va Dec­la­ra­tion on Armed Vio­lence who had worked with UN mis­sions in El Sal­vador, Mozam­bique, Azer­bai­jan, Koso­vo and Ango­la. Both men were con­sul­tants at the Small Arms Sur­vey, an inde­pen­dent think tank based at Geneva’s Grad­u­ate Insti­tute of Inter­na­tion­al Stud­ies. The Sur­vey said on its web­site that Dry­er had helped mobilise the sup­port of more than 100 coun­tries to the cause of dis­ar­ma­ment and devel­op­ment.

Buenos Aires-born Drey­fus had been liv­ing in Rio since 2002, where he and his soci­ol­o­gist wife worked with the Brazil­ian NGO Viva Rio.

“Pablo will be remem­bered as a gen­tle and sen­si­tive man with an upbeat sense of humour,” said the Small Arms Sur­vey. “He dis­played an intel­lec­tu­al curios­i­ty and a deter­mined work eth­ic that excit­ed and enthused all who worked with him.”

Accord­ing to the Inter­na­tion­al Action Net­work on Small Arms Con­trol (IANSA), Drey­fus’s work was instru­men­tal in the intro­duc­tion of land­mark small arms leg­is­la­tion in Brazil in 2003. Under this leg­is­la­tion, an online link was cre­at­ed between army and police data­bas­es list­ing pro­duc­tion, imports and exports of arms and ammu­ni­tion in Brazil.

Drey­fus was an advo­cate of the strin­gent labelling of ammu­ni­tion by weapons firms, argu­ing that by clear­ly iden­ti­fy­ing ammu­ni­tion not only by its pro­duc­er but also its pur­chas­er, the like­li­hood of weapons being sourced by crim­i­nals from cor­rupt police or armed forces per­son­nel is great­ly reduced.

Though a Brazil­ian ref­er­en­dum on the right to bear arms was reject­ed in 2005, Viva Rio says the cam­paign should be con­sid­ered a suc­cess because half a mil­lion weapons were vol­un­tar­i­ly hand­ed in to the author­i­ties. Anti-gun activists put the ref­er­en­dum defeat down to fears crim­i­nals would cir­cum­vent the law and con­tin­ue to gain access to small arms the usu­al way — through Paraguay and oth­er bor­der­ing coun­tries. This was not an irra­tional fear: until 2004, when Paraguay bowed to Brazil­ian pres­sure, even for­eign tourists were allowed to pur­chase small arms sim­ply by pre­sent­ing a pho­to­copy of their iden­ti­ty card. Drey­fus knew that many of the weapons from the so-called tri-bor­der area between Brazil, Paraguay and Argenti­na were reach­ing Rio drug gangs.

When uniden­ti­fied gun­men made off with a stash of hand grenades from an Argen­tine mil­i­tary gar­ri­son in 2006, Drey­fus deplored what he said was lax secu­ri­ty at mil­i­tary depots across the world. “If a super­mar­ket can keep con­trol of the amount of peas it has in stock, sure­ly a mil­i­tary organ­i­sa­tion could and should be able to do the same with equal if not greater effi­cien­cy with its weapons,” he said. “The key words are logisitics, con­trol, secu­ri­ty.”

When Rio agents smashed a cell of drug traf­fick­ers who had sourced their weapons from the tri-bor­der area, Drey­fus not­ed its lead­ers were promi­nent busi­ness­men liv­ing in apart­ments in the plush Rio sub­urbs of Ipane­ma and Sao Cor­ra­do, “not in the fave­las”.

In a recent report post­ed on the Brazil­ian web­site Comu­nidade Segu­ra (Safe Com­mu­ni­ty), Drey­fus not­ed that the Brazil­ian arms firm CBC (Com­pan­hia Brasileira de Car­tu­chos) had become one of the world’s biggest ammu­ni­tion pro­duc­ers by pur­chas­ing Ger­many’s Met­all­w­erk Elisen­hutte Nas­sau (MEN) in 2007, and Sel­l­i­er & Bel­lot (S&B) of the Czech Repub­lic in March. This would not be par­tic­u­lar­ly note­wor­thy but for the fact that CBC’s exports had tapered off in recent years due to leg­is­la­tion restrict­ing exports to Paraguay, arms that often found their way back into Brazil and on to the Rio drug gangs — the “boomerang effect”, as Drey­fus called it. “The com­mer­cial export of weapons and ammu­ni­tion from Brazil to the bor­der­ing coun­tries stopped in 2001,” wrote Drey­fus. “CBC lost com­mer­cial mar­kets in Latin Amer­i­ca, but Brazil won in pub­lic secu­ri­ty.”

How­ev­er, man­u­fac­tur­ers from oth­er coun­tries had moved in to fill the void, and before its pur­chase by CBC, S&B was already “one of the marks most cur­rent­ly appre­hend­ed” by Brazil­ian police. Drey­fus said that, in view of the fact the Czech Repub­lic was bound by the EU Code of Con­duct on weapons exports — which states that EU coun­tries must “eval­u­ate the exis­tence of the risk that the arma­ment can be divert­ed to unde­sir­able final des­ti­na­tions”, CBC should “con­sid­er the risk that some of these exports end up, via diver­sions, feed­ing vio­lence in Brazil”.

Though his focus was on Latin Amer­i­ca, Drey­fus also advised the gov­ern­ment of Mozam­bique and at the time of his death was prepar­ing to do the same for the gov­ern­ment of Ango­la, where stock­piles of weapons left over from the civ­il war con­tin­ue to pose a secu­ri­ty prob­lem.

Drey­fus and Drey­er were on their way to Gene­va to present the lat­est edi­tion of the Small Arms Sur­vey hand­book, of which Drey­fus was a joint edi­tor. It was to have been their lat­est step in their relent­less fight against evil.

“Key Fig­ures in Glob­al­Vat­tle Against Ille­gal Arms Trade Lost in Air France Crash”; Her­ald [Scot­land]; 6/6/2009.

5. There were also reports of pos­si­ble Islam­ic mil­i­tants on board the doomed air­craft.

A French sub­ma­rine with advanced sonar equip­ment began search­ing yes­ter­day for the flight recorders of the Air France air­lin­er that crashed into the Atlantic last week, killing all 228 pas­sen­gers and crew.

It was claimed yes­ter­day by the French week­ly L’Ex­press that two names on the flight’s pas­sen­ger list “cor­re­spond to peo­ple known for links to Islamist ter­ror­ism” by French intel­li­gence ser­vices.

The French nuclear sub­ma­rine Emer­aude was sent to the area to hunt for the air­craft’s “black box” flight-data recorders, which might help to explain the dis­as­ter. They are believed to lie on the ocean floor.

The Air France flight is believed to have run into trou­ble when it hit a vio­lent storm mid­way over the Atlantic Ocean.

Prob­lems with air-speed sen­sors have become one of the focal points of the inquiry.

But oth­er caus­es have not been ruled out. . . .

” ‘Sus­pect Names’ Air France Flight”; timeslive.co.za; 9/1/2009.

6. Under-report­ed is the pro­found con­nec­tion between Islamism and orga­nized crime. There is an entire chap­ter in “Dol­lars for Ter­ror” by Richard Labeviere titled “Islamist Deal-Mak­ing and Orga­nized Crime.” Our vis­its with Daniel Hop­sick­er have high­light­ed this link, to an extent.

In fact, much of the income derived by groups like Al-Qae­da, the Tal­iban and oth­er Islamist cadres comes from arms and drug sales.

A chill­ing arti­cle from the UK under­lines the extent to which Mus­lim gangs dom­i­nate the British under­world. Although they are described as not being reli­gious by mem­bers, one should bear in mind the eco­nom­ic sup­port that groups like this have, and the extent to which that influ­ence is ampli­fied by their alliance with Mus­lim Broth­er­hood sub­groups.

NB: “Asian” in pop­u­lar British lex­i­con gen­er­al­ly refers to peo­ple from Pak­istan and India, not Chi­nese, Viet­namese, Thai, etc.

In tra­di­tion­al Islam­ic head­gear, Asian ex-gang mem­ber Amir pos­es with his sword and issues the stark warn­ing: “Britain’s under­world belongs to the Mus­lims.”

The 21-year-old, whose organ­i­sa­tion turned over thou­sands of pounds a day from drug-deal­ing and cred­it card scams, claims a post‑9/11 fear of ter­ror­ism has allowed Mus­lims to devel­op a stran­gle­hold on our crim­i­nal com­mu­ni­ty.

Through Islam, he says, they have num­bers which can­not be matched, and rival gangs are being forced out by ruth­less Islam­ic crim­i­nals who only deal with each oth­er.

They recruit black and white mem­bers in Britain’s jails, tempt­ing them to con­vert to Islam in exchange for a cushi­er life inside.

Once released, the con­vert­ed cons have access to an entire­ly new net­work of Mus­lim crim­i­nal con­tacts — and are trust­ed because they pray to Allah.

Amir claims that Britain’s under­world will soon be com­plete­ly dom­i­nat­ed by Islam­ic gangs — and he says the West­’s para­noia over ter­ror­ism is to blame. “Peo­ple don’t f*** with us because they think we’re all in al-Qae­da,” he explains.

“Our sta­tus in the crim­i­nal hier­ar­chy changed lit­er­al­ly the day the Twin Tow­ers went down.

“From then, Asians have been asso­ci­at­ed with ter­ror­ism. Peo­ple, includ­ing oth­er crim­i­nals, think if you’re Asian you’ll blow up a Tube train or bomb an aero­plane.

“In the past 20 years we’ve cap­i­talised on that. If we’re going to be thought of as extrem­ists, why not use that fear?

“The real­i­ty is that Asian gangs don’t give much of [a] toss about reli­gion, but with Islam comes fear, and with fear comes pow­er. . . . ”

“How Mus­lims Took over the British Under­world” by Nick Fran­cis; The Sun [UK]; 2/15/2010.

7. The Unit­ed States attor­ney in Man­hat­tan is merg­ing the two units in his office that pros­e­cute ter­ror­ism and inter­na­tion­al nar­cotics cas­es, say­ing that he wants to focus more on extrem­ist Islam­ic groups whose mem­bers he believes are increas­ing­ly turn­ing to the drug trade to finance their activ­i­ties.

The Unit­ed States attor­ney in Man­hat­tan is merg­ing the two units in his office that pros­e­cute ter­ror­ism and inter­na­tion­al nar­cotics cas­es, say­ing that he wants to focus more on extrem­ist Islam­ic groups whose mem­bers he believes are increas­ing­ly turn­ing to the drug trade to finance their activ­i­ties.

Some West­ern law enforce­ment and intel­li­gence agen­cies have long point­ed to what they say are the sym­bi­ot­ic rela­tion­ships that some­times exist between ter­ror­ist groups and nar­cotics traf­fick­ers, from Al Qae­da in Afghanistan and Hezbol­lah in the Mid­dle East to the Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Armed Forces of Colom­bia, or FARC.

But the move by the Unit­ed States attor­ney, Preet Bharara, comes as Unit­ed States offi­cials have sug­gest­ed that some mem­bers of Islam­ic extrem­ist groups, includ­ing Al Qae­da and some of its affil­i­ates, are more fre­quent­ly turn­ing to the drug trade — as well as kid­nap­ping and oth­er crim­i­nal activ­i­ties — to help finance their oper­a­tions.

It is, they say, part­ly a response to increased pres­sure on oth­er finan­cial sources, like Islam­ic char­i­ties and pri­vate donors.

By merg­ing the units, Ter­ror­ism and Nation­al Secu­ri­ty and Inter­na­tion­al Nar­cotics Traf­fick­ing, Mr. Bharara said he is com­bin­ing two groups that have devel­oped many of the same skills — work­ing over­seas, often using clas­si­fied infor­ma­tion, to build com­plex cas­es against sophis­ti­cat­ed tar­gets.

The new unit, he said, would be bet­ter able to bring drug charges to bear against some ter­ror­ists, as well as use a new law that gives fed­er­al drug agents the author­i­ty to pur­sue nar­cotics and ter­ror­ism crimes com­mit­ted any­where in the world if they can estab­lish a link between a drug offense and a ter­ror­ist act or group. . . .

“Unit­ed States Attor­ney Plans Drug-Ter­ror­ism Unit” by William K. Rash­baum; The New York Times; 1/18/2009.

8a. Sad­ly, obser­va­tions like this come almost exclu­sive­ly from a hand­ful of con­ser­v­a­tive blogs and com­men­ta­tors, some of whom are will­ing to set forth the Bush/GOP/Islamist con­nec­tion. The Bush admin­is­tra­tion and the GOP are pro­found­ly con­nect­ed to the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood and a fund­ing appa­raus that has sup­port­ed al Qae­da, Hamas and Pales­tin­ian Islam­ic Jihad. Typ­i­fy­ing this dis­turb­ing rela­tion­ship is the vis­it of Faizul Khan to the White House.

Faizul Khan was one of the pri­ma­ry spir­i­tu­al men­tors to Major Hasan (the Fort Hood shoot­er)!

. . . In 2003 and 2004, Pres­i­dent Bush asked Faizul Khan, who is affil­i­at­ed with the Sau­di-fund­ed Islam­ic Cen­ter of Wash­ing­ton, D.C., and serves on the board of direc­tors of the Islam­ic Soci­ety of North Amer­i­ca (ISNA), to give the bless­ing. This year, the Jus­tice Depart­ment offi­cial­ly labeled ISNA as a U.S. branch of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, the move­ment aim­ing to estab­lish a glob­al Islam­ic empire, and also as an unin­dict­ed co-con­spir­a­tor in the Hamas fund-rais­ing Holy Land Foun­da­tion for Relief and Devel­op­ment tri­al still await­ing a ver­dict in Dal­las. . . .

“Guess Who Came to Iftar for Din­ner?” by Diana West; townhall.com; 10/05/07.

8b. He (Khan) is also linked to the milieu of the insti­tu­tions tar­get­ed by the Oper­a­tion Green Quest raids of 3/20/2002! Khan’s (and Hasan’s) mosque is linked to the Amana Mutu­al Fund, whose founder–Yaqub Mirza–set up the insti­tu­tions raid­ed on 3/20/2002.

One of the direc­tors of the Amana Mutu­al Fund is Talat Oth­man, a for­mer direc­tor of Harken Ener­gy, a close per­son­al friend and polit­i­cal advis­er to both Pres­i­dents Bush, the man who deliv­ered a Mus­lim bene­dic­tion at the 2000 Repub­li­can con­ven­tion, a direc­tor of Grover Norquist’s Islam­ic Insti­tute, and the man who inter­fered on behalf of the indi­vid­u­als and insti­tu­tions tar­get­ed by the 2002 Green Quest raids!

. . . We’ve also learned that, before his trans­fer to Ft. Hood last year, Hasan served as a psy­chi­a­trist at Wal­ter Reed Army Med­ical Cen­ter in Wash­ing­ton, DC, and reg­u­lar­ly attend­ed Fri­day prayer at the Mus­lim Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­ter in Sil­ver Spring, Md.

The Sil­ver Spring cler­ics have issued for­mal state­ments con­demn­ing the car­nage at Ft. Hood. But Imam Faizul Khan, long the main prayer leader at the mosque and a friend of Hasan, said he nev­er believed Hasan capa­ble of such an act. . . . And Khan is a lead­ing board mem­ber of the Islam­ic Soci­ety of North Amer­i­ca — the main Wah­habi-lob­by group in the Unit­ed States, estab­lished by Sau­di Ara­bia to impose extrem­ism on Amer­i­can Mus­lims. ISNA has a long and dis­grace­ful record of pro­mot­ing rad­i­cal Islam.

On the ros­ter of the ISNA board (list­ed on its Web site), the Sil­ver Spring cen­ter’s Imam Faizul Khan is the fourth mem­ber under its pres­i­dent.

But the mosque has worse asso­ci­a­tions. On its own Web site (mccmd.org), it pro­motes a Sharia-based finan­cial prod­uct — the Amana Mutu­al Fund, put togeth­er by the Wah­habis at the Inter­na­tion­al Insti­tute for Islam­ic Thought (IIIT), in north­ern Vir­ginia.

Fed­er­al antiter­ror­ism agents raid­ed IIIT in the Oper­a­tion Green­Quest raids of 2002. That oper­a­tion remains an ongo­ing inquiry; IIIT and the Amana fund are still under inves­ti­ga­tion. Con­vict­ed Pales­tin­ian Islam­ic Jihad leader Sami Al-Ari­an is still in US fed­er­al cus­tody because of his refusal to give evi­dence about the Vir­ginia Wah­habi ring caught in Green­Quest. . . .

“Take a Look at Hasan’s Old Mosque” by Stephen Schwartz (New York Post; 11/7/2009)

8c. Khan appears to have had a sig­nif­i­cant rela­tion­ship with Hasan, for whom he was look­ing for a wife.

. . . Hasan attend­ed prayers reg­u­lar­ly when he lived out­side Wash­ing­ton, often in his Army uni­form, said Faizul Khan, a for­mer imam at a mosque Hasan attend­ed in Sil­ver Spring, Md. He said Hasan was a life­long Mus­lim.

“I got the impres­sion that he was a com­mit­ted sol­dier,” Khan said. He spoke often with Hasan about Hasan’s desire for a wife.

On a form filled out by those seek­ing spous­es through a pro­gram at the mosque, Hasan list­ed his birth­place as Arling­ton, Va., but his nation­al­i­ty as Pales­tin­ian, Khan said. . . .

“Details Emerge about Fort Hood Sus­pec­t’s His­to­ry” by Brett J. Black­ledge [AP]; Yahoo News; 11/7/2009.

9. Anoth­er of the imams who min­is­tered to Hasan was Mr. Awla­ki, who also “min­is­tered” to some of the 9/11 hijack­ers.

. . . Who is Anwar Nass­er Awla­ki? Inves­ti­ga­tors now sus­pect he was a key facil­i­ta­tor and advi­sor, and pos­si­bly even a sur­viv­ing field com­man­der, for the 9/11 cell that hit the Pen­ta­gon. He’s also an Amer­i­can cit­i­zen. They sus­pect he knew details of the plot and gird­ed the al-Qae­da ter­ror­ists’ resolve to car­ry it out. Evi­dence is strong that he was enlist­ed to, at a min­i­mum, hold the hijack­ers’ hands and take their tem­per­a­ture as they moved clos­er to Zero Hour. In short, he’s (if as yet unof­fi­icial­ly) an unin­dict­ed 9/11 co-con­spir­a­tor, and he remains at large.

Three of the hijack­ers of that unique­ly all-Sau­di cell that tor­pe­doed the Pen­ta­gon spent time at the Sau­di-con­nect­ed Awlak­i’s mosques in both San Diego and Falls Church, Vir­ginia, where he served as prayer leader. The phone num­ber for the Falls Church mosque–Dar al-Hir­jah Islam­ic Cen­ter, con­trolled by the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood and close­ly tied to CAIR–was found in the Ham­burg, Ger­many, apart­ment of one of the plan­ners of the 9/11 attacks, Ramzi Binal­shibh. . . .

The Mus­lim Mafia by P. David Gaubatz and Paul Sper­ry; WND Books [HC]; Copy­right 2009 by P. David Gaubatz and Paul Sper­ry; ISBN 9781935071105; pp. 62–63.

10. Crit­i­cism of GOP king­pins Grover Norquist and Karl Rove, archi­tects of the Islam­ic Insti­tute (a Mus­lim Broth­er­hood adjunct to the GOP), has been sparse. A con­tin­u­ing tragedy is that much of that sparse crit­i­cism comes from mem­bers of the con­ser­v­a­tive com­mu­ni­ty, who have retained enough integri­ty to man­i­fest out­rage against the GOP’s alliance with the very Mus­lim Broth­er­hood ele­ments against which the Repub­li­cans’ amen cho­rus rails.

One con­ser­v­a­tive will­ing to break with her milieu is Pamela Geller, a for­mer edi­tor of the New York Observ­er and edi­tor of the Atlas Shrugs web­site. She recent­ly not­ed Grover Norquist’s con­tin­u­ing activ­i­ties on behalf of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood’ jihadists.

The Free­dom Defense Ini­tia­tive, a new orga­ni­za­tion I start­ed with author and schol­ar Robert Spencer, host­ed its inau­gur­al event to an enthu­si­as­tic stand­ing-room-only crowd at the Con­ser­v­a­tive Polit­i­cal Action Con­fer­ence on Feb­ru­ary 19. But this event was at CPAC, not of CPAC. Could this be because of the influ­ence of con­ser­v­a­tive king­mak­er and pow­er-bro­ker Grover Norquist, who is a mem­ber of the Board of Direc­tors of the Amer­i­can Con­ser­v­a­tive Union, which hosts CPAC? The only event con­cern­ing the war on Amer­i­ca at CPAC was worse than noth­ing at all: It was an Islam­ic pro­pa­gan­da (taqiyya) pre­sen­ta­tion enti­tled “You’ve Been Lied To: Why Real Con­ser­v­a­tives are Against the War on Ter­ror.” Its mes­sage was that “real con­ser­v­a­tives” don’t sup­port the war on ter­ror because it is a cre­ation of the “Israeli lob­by.”

How did CPAC come to this?

Grover Norquist’s ties to Islam­ic suprema­cists and jihadists have been known for years. He and his Pales­tin­ian wife, Samah Alrayyes — who was direc­tor of com­mu­ni­ca­tions for his Islam­ic Free Mar­ket Insti­tute until they mar­ried in 2005 — are very active in “Mus­lim out­reach.” Just six weeks after 9/11, The New Repub­lic ran an exposé explain­ing how Norquist arranged for George W. Bush to meet with fif­teen Islam­ic suprema­cists at the White House on Sep­tem­ber 26, 2001 — to show how Mus­lims reject­ed ter­ror­ism. . . .

It was Norquist who ush­ered these sil­ver-tongued jihadists into the Oval Office of an incu­ri­ous pres­i­dent after the worst attack ever on Amer­i­can soil. Instead of Hamas, Hezb’al­lah, and the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, Ibn War­raq, Bat Ye’or, and Wafa Sul­tan should have been advis­ing the pres­i­dent. Instead, at that Sep­tem­ber 26 meet­ing, Bush declared that “the teach­ings of Islam are teach­ings of peace and good.” It was a crit­i­cal­ly impor­tant, his­toric inci­dent. What should have been the most impor­tant teach­ing moment of the long war became a pro­pa­gan­da tool for Islam. A sin­gu­lar oppor­tu­ni­ty was squan­dered, and the result­ing harm is incal­cu­la­ble.

Bush did this because he trust­ed Norquist, who vouched for these Mus­lim lead­ers. Yet “the record sug­gests,” wrote Foer, “that [Norquist] has spent quite a lot of time pro­mot­ing peo­ple open­ly sym­pa­thet­ic to Islamist ter­ror­ists.” And this con­tin­ued for years. . . .

So it is no sur­prise that CPAC 2009, like CPAC 2010, had noth­ing address­ing the war we are actu­al­ly engaged in. This is due to the influ­ence of Norquist, Keene, and Suhail Khan, a CPAC board mem­ber. Accord­ing to Dis­cov­er the Net­works, Khan “has repeat­ed­ly been a fea­tured speak­er at MSA, ISNA and CAIR events” — that is, the Mus­lim Stu­dents Asso­ci­a­tion, Islam­ic Soci­ety of North Amer­i­ca, and Coun­cil on Amer­i­can-Islam­ic Rela­tions, three groups linked to the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, the inter­na­tion­al Islam­ic orga­ni­za­tion ded­i­cat­ed to estab­lish­ing the rule of Islam­ic law and the sub­ju­ga­tion of infi­dels world­wide.

Grover Norquist almost sin­gle­hand­ed­ly ush­ered Islam­ic suprema­cist lead­ers into Amer­i­ca’s high­est lev­els of gov­ern­ment — sub­ver­sives, the Islam­ic fifth col­umn. He gave them unpar­al­leled access. Why did­n’t Gaffney’s rev­e­la­tions, and those that pre­ced­ed and fol­lowed his exposé, end Norquist’s influ­ence among con­ser­v­a­tives? Why does he still have so much pow­er? . . .

“Grover Norquist’s Jihad” by Pamela Geller; Amer­i­can Thinker; 3/4/2010.

11. Next, the broad­cast touch­es on the remark­able Ptech com­pa­ny and one of its prin­ci­pals, Yaqub Mirza (archi­tect of the insti­tu­tions raid­ed in the Oper­a­tion Green Quest raids of 3/20/2002.) Ptech–inextricably linked with the milieu of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood and the 9/11 attacks–designed the threat assess­ment soft­ware archi­tec­ture for the Air Force, the FAA and the Depart­ment of Ener­gy (which over­sees the coun­try’s nuclear pow­er plants).

The com­pa­ny where a con­vict­ed for­mer Shrews­bury man worked was in the news recent­ly when an offi­cer of the com­pa­ny was arrest­ed after arriv­ing last week at John F. Kennedy Air­port in New York.
Buford George Peter­son, a for­mer Somerville res­i­dent liv­ing in South Korea, was the chief finan­cial offi­cer of PTech, a Quin­cy soft­ware com­pa­ny. Mr. Peter­son, along with Ous­sama Abdul Ziade, the com­pa­ny’s chair­man and chief exec­u­tive offi­cer, are charged in a 2007 indict­ment indict­ment stem­ming from a Jan­u­ary 2002 $650,000 loan appli­ca­tion to the Small Busi­ness Admin­is­tra­tion to help small busi­ness­es strug­gling because of the Sept. 11, 2001, ter­ror­ist attacks on the Unit­ed States. . . .

“US Firm hid ter­ror­ist Sau­di Backer; Shrews­bury man worked at P‑Tech” by Lee Ham­mel; Telegram and Gazette [Worces­ter, MA]; 7/19/2009.

12. Anoth­er GOP politi­cian run­ning inter­fer­ence for indi­vid­u­als from the milieu of the Oper­a­tion Green Quest raids is Sen­a­to­r­i­al can­di­date Tom Camp­bell. Camp­bell has sup­port­ed Sami al-Ari­an, the inves­ti­ga­tion of whom led to the Oper­a­tion Green Quest raids.

Repub­li­can U.S. Sen­ate can­di­date Tom Camp­bell is fac­ing a poten­tial­ly crip­pling con­tro­ver­sy over his past defense of a fired Flori­da pro­fes­sor with ties to ter­ror­ists and his incon­sis­tent state­ments regard­ing what he knew and when about the man’s actions.

Dogged for weeks by crit­i­cism over his defense of Sami Al-Ari­an, who lat­er plead­ed guilty to aid­ing ter­ror­ists, Camp­bell has denied know­ing about the man’s incen­di­ary past, which includ­ed nods to Islam­ic jihad and calls for “death to Israel.” He also said that his deal­ings with Al-Ari­an occurred before the Sept. 11 ter­ror attacks.

But Camp­bell, who was then a Stan­ford law pro­fes­sor, wrote a let­ter on Al-Ari­an’s behalf months after the Sept. 11 attacks that casts doubt on his claims of igno­rance about Al-Ari­an’s rad­i­cal­ism.

“His incon­sis­tent state­ments are par­tic­u­lar­ly dam­ag­ing because it cre­ates a cred­i­bil­i­ty prob­lem,” said John Pit­ney, a polit­i­cal sci­ence pro­fes­sor at Clare­mont McKen­na Col­lege. . . .

Tom Camp­bell Let­ter Stokes Con­tro­ver­sy over Ties to Jihadist” by Mike Zapler; San Jose Mer­cury News; 3/10/2010.

Discussion

11 comments for “FTR #705 Update on 9/11 and Related Matters”

  1. [...] FTR #705 [...]

    Posted by The controlled demolition of America on 9/11: Meet the Saudis and their Islamic nano-thermites | lys-dor.com | September 9, 2011, 9:56 am
  2. Here’s an update on the seem­ing­ly nev­er-end­ing inves­ti­ga­tions into events lead­ing up to the 9/11 attacks. The bad news in the update is that part of this seem­ing­ly nev­er-end­ing inves­ti­ga­tion was qui­et­ly for­mal­ly end­ed last year despite a moun­tain of open ques­tions. Open ques­tions includ­ing ques­tions about why the inves­ti­ga­tions haven’t been more thor­ough­ly pur­sued:

    Prompt­ed by a Sep­tem­ber 3 exec­u­tive order by Pres­i­dent Biden requir­ing a declas­si­fi­ca­tion review of 9/11 doc­u­ments, the FBI released last week a more com­plete (less cen­sored) ver­sion of an impor­tant 2012 report. And in this doc­u­ment dump we also learned that the FBI for­mal­ly close its inves­ti­ga­tion into 9/11 on May 27 of this year. The clos­ing of the inves­ti­ga­tion, known as Oper­a­tion Encore, was not pre­vi­ous­ly pub­licly dis­closed. It fol­lowed a re-exam­i­na­tion of the case file in 2019 and 2020 “to iden­ti­fy any missed leads, oppor­tu­ni­ties, or inves­tiga­tive actions which may advance the case.” That reopened inves­ti­ga­tion did not iden­ti­fy any addi­tion­al groups or indi­vid­u­als respon­si­ble for the attack.

    So the FBI’s inves­ti­ga­tion into 9/11 is for­mal­ly closed. And there­fore for­mal­ly a giant joke, as the sec­ond excerpt from the Flori­da Bull­dog below describes. Because in the flood of less-redact­ed doc­u­ments just released by the FBI, we’re get­ting more details on who they inves­ti­gat­ed and what kinds of con­clu­sions were ulti­mate­ly arrived at. And while this updat­ed ver­sion of the 2012 report does help answer some ques­tions, it still does­n’t answer basic ques­tions like why cer­tain areas of inves­ti­ga­tion were nev­er mean­ing­ful­ly pur­sued. Like the indict­ment Mohdar Abdul­lah, one of the room­mates of the San Diego hijack­er cell. For some rea­son that indict­ment nev­er hap­pened despite mul­ti­ple wit­ness­es and exten­sive evi­dence putting Abdul­lah in the mid­dle of the plot. He also hap­pened to be one of the fig­ures in the 9/11 plot direct­ly inter­act­ing with sus­pect­ed Sau­di intel­li­gence agents and was a fam­i­ly friend and asso­ciate of Anwar Alaw­ki. Might those incon­ve­nient asso­ci­a­tions have any­thing to do with Abdul­lah escap­ing with­out an indict­ment? These are just some of the mas­sive ques­tions raised by the lat­est 9/11 doc­u­ment dump. A doc­u­ment dump that, in this case, was osten­si­bly intend­ed to help close the book on the inves­ti­ga­tion :

    NBC News

    Feds closed probe into 3 Sau­di nation­als sus­pect­ed of help­ing 9/11 hijack­ers

    The FBI closed the inves­ti­ga­tion on May 27 after re-exam­in­ing the case file in 2019 and 2020, accord­ing to a new­ly released doc­u­ment.

    By Tom Win­ter and Michael Kos­nar
    Nov. 3, 2021, 3:12 PM CDT / Updat­ed Nov. 3, 2021, 3:20 PM CDT

    Two decades after 9/11, fed­er­al inves­ti­ga­tors ear­li­er this year for­mal­ly closed their inves­ti­ga­tion into three Sau­di nation­als sus­pect­ed of help­ing two hijack­ers pri­or to the attacks, accord­ing to a pre­vi­ous­ly clas­si­fied FBI doc­u­ment released by the Jus­tice Depart­ment Thurs­day.

    The three men were iden­ti­fied as Fahad Al-Thu­mairy, Omar Al-Bay­ou­mi, and Musaed Al-Jar­rah. Accord­ing to the doc­u­ment, they alleged­ly pro­vid­ed or direct­ed oth­ers to pro­vide Nawaf al-Haz­mi and Khalid al-Mihd­har with “assis­tance in dai­ly activ­i­ties, includ­ing procur­ing liv­ing quar­ters and assis­tance with assim­i­lat­ing into South­ern Cal­i­for­nia.”

    Pri­or to clos­ing the inves­ti­ga­tion on May 27, the FBI says it re-exam­ined the case file in 2019 and 2020 “to iden­ti­fy any missed leads, oppor­tu­ni­ties, or inves­tiga­tive actions which may advance the case.” That effort, the FBI doc­u­ment says, includ­ed re-inter­views of var­i­ous indi­vid­u­als locat­ed through­out the Unit­ed States.

    “No addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion was obtained as part of those inter­views and no mate­r­i­al con­tra­dict­ing state­ments were made as com­pared to the ini­tial inter­views,” says the doc­u­ment.

    “After near­ly twen­ty years after the attack, the FBI has not iden­ti­fied addi­tion­al groups or indi­vid­u­als respon­si­ble for the attack oth­er than those cur­rent­ly charged which is con­sis­tent with the final con­clu­sion of the 9/11 Com­mis­sion Report,” the doc­u­ment adds.

    The FBI doc­u­ment says that fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the South­ern Dis­trict of New York con­curred with the deci­sion and both agen­cies agreed that they would reopen the inves­ti­ga­tion if any new “deroga­to­ry” or oth­er per­ti­nent infor­ma­tion came to bear.

    The clos­ing of the probe, known as Oper­a­tion Encore, was not pre­vi­ous­ly report­ed or known pub­licly.

    The three men are no longer in the U.S., accord­ing to the doc­u­ments released Thurs­day.

    Al-Thu­mari and Al-Bay­ou­mi are named in a law­suit by 9/11 fam­i­lies accus­ing the Sau­di gov­ern­ment of being com­plic­it in the attacks.

    ...

    The FBI doc­u­ment was released along­side near­ly 700 oth­er pages of records about the FBI’s efforts to inves­ti­gate the 9/11 attacks.

    The doc­u­ments were released as a result of efforts by the fam­i­lies of 9/11 vic­tims to gath­er more infor­ma­tion about any pos­si­ble Sau­di Gov­ern­ment involve­ment or sup­port for the attacks. They rep­re­sent the sec­ond set of clas­si­fied doc­u­ments released by exec­u­tive order by Pres­i­dent Biden.

    ...

    ————

    “Feds closed probe into 3 Sau­di nation­als sus­pect­ed of help­ing 9/11 hijack­ers” by Tom Win­ter and Michael Kos­nar; NBC News; 11/03/2021

    Pri­or to clos­ing the inves­ti­ga­tion on May 27, the FBI says it re-exam­ined the case file in 2019 and 2020 “to iden­ti­fy any missed leads, oppor­tu­ni­ties, or inves­tiga­tive actions which may advance the case.” That effort, the FBI doc­u­ment says, includ­ed re-inter­views of var­i­ous indi­vid­u­als locat­ed through­out the Unit­ed States.”

    There were some re-inter­views and an re-exam­i­na­tion. And then the FBI re-closed the case, hav­ing learned noth­ing new appar­ent­ly:

    ...
    “No addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion was obtained as part of those inter­views and no mate­r­i­al con­tra­dict­ing state­ments were made as com­pared to the ini­tial inter­views,” says the doc­u­ment.

    “After near­ly twen­ty years after the attack, the FBI has not iden­ti­fied addi­tion­al groups or indi­vid­u­als respon­si­ble for the attack oth­er than those cur­rent­ly charged which is con­sis­tent with the final con­clu­sion of the 9/11 Com­mis­sion Report,” the doc­u­ment adds.
    ...

    It’s not the most excit­ing con­clu­sion, but an iron­i­cal­ly fit­ting one. Iron­i­cal­ly fit­ting because as the fol­low­ing Flori­da Bull­dog piece describes, this same FBI doc­u­ment dump includes a less-redact­ed ver­sion of the FBI’s 2012 report that should, if any­thing, act as a call for an inves­ti­ga­tion into this inves­ti­ga­tion to deter­mine why so many impor­tant leads were appar­ent­ly ignored or dis­missed. In par­tic­u­lar all of the leads sur­round­ing Mohdar Abdul­lah. Why is the FBI tak­ing a ‘See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil’ approach to some­one who appeared to be involved with the plot going back to at least June of 2020?:

    Flori­da Bull­dog

    New facts emerge as FBI dis­clos­es name of sus­pect it sought to indict for “key role” in help­ing 9/11 hijack­ers

    By Dan Chris­tensen, FloridaBulldog.org
    Novem­ber 11, 2021

    Five years after the exis­tence of the FBI’s Oper­a­tion Encore was dis­closed, the bureau has iden­ti­fied the sus­pect that agents want­ed to charge with help­ing two al Qae­da hijack­ers short­ly after their arrival in the U.S. 21 months before 9/11.

    “The FBI is seek­ing to indict Mohdar Abdul­lah (Mohdar) in the South­ern Dis­trict of New York (SDNY) for pro­vid­ing mate­r­i­al sup­port to 9/11 hijack­ers Nawaf al-Haz­mi and Khalid al-Mihd­har. Mohdar is the sub­ject of San Diego’s full field inves­ti­ga­tion,” say new­ly revealed parts of an FBI mem­o­ran­dum about “updates and ini­tia­tives (as of 5 Octo­ber 2012).”

    Abdul­lah was well known to the FBI. Among oth­er things, he and oth­er sub­jects of inter­est in the case worked with Haz­mi in the fall of 2000 at a Tex­a­co gas sta­tion in Mesa, CA owned by Osama “Sam” Mustafa. Mustafa’s involve­ment is out­lined in the 2012 report. Mustafa has denied hav­ing any ter­ror­ist con­nec­tions, but was con­vict­ed in April 2013 in a $17.7‑million con­spir­a­cy to prof­it from pho­ny fed­er­al income tax refunds. He fled the coun­try before sen­tenc­ing, but was cap­tured last year in Jor­dan.

    The FBI ini­tial­ly blanked out the iden­ti­ty of its crim­i­nal tar­get, cit­ing nation­al secu­ri­ty and oth­er rea­sons when the 2012 report was first pro­vid­ed to Flori­da Bull­dog in 2016. Bull­dog had sued to obtain the report under the Free­dom of Infor­ma­tion Act after it was men­tioned briefly in the final report of the FBI’s 9/11 Review Com­mis­sion in 2015. The code name Oper­a­tion Encore also was redact­ed at the time.

    The FBI released a more com­plete, though still thick­ly cen­sored ver­sion of the 2012 report last week amid a doc­u­ment dump sparked by Pres­i­dent Biden’s Sept. 3 exec­u­tive order requir­ing a declas­si­fi­ca­tion review of 9/11 doc­u­ments at the behest of mem­bers of Con­gress and pres­sure from lawyers for the 9/11 Fam­i­lies who are suing Sau­di Ara­bia in fed­er­al court in New York City.

    BIDEN CHANGES COURSE

    Until Biden’s order, the FBI had kept secret all oth­er doc­u­ments about Oper­a­tion Encore, and many oth­er 9/11 records. Trump admin­is­tra­tion Attor­ney Gen­er­al William Barr even swore per­son­al­ly under oath last year that those records need­ed to be hid­den because they were a ‘‘state secret’’ whose release would like­ly cause “sig­nif­i­cant harm to nation­al secu­ri­ty.”

    Pres­i­dent Biden’s order, how­ev­er, reversed the government’s course and instruct­ed the FBI to make pub­lic “in full or in part” numer­ous records about Oper­a­tion Encore and 9/11.

    The first doc­u­ment Biden ordered dis­closed was an April 4, 2016 report about Oper­a­tion Encore. It was made pub­lic, in some­what redact­ed form, on the 20th anniver­sary of the 2001 attacks. The report con­tained a vari­ety of new infor­ma­tion about the move­ments and con­tacts of the future hijack­ers.

    The Octo­ber 2012 report says Abdul­lah played “a key role in facil­i­tat­ing the dai­ly lives and assist­ing future Amer­i­can Air­lines Flight 77 hijack­ers” Haz­mi and Mihd­har. Numer­ous Oper­a­tion Encore doc­u­ments that have now been made pub­lic pro­vide sig­nif­i­cant new details about the FBI’s find­ings regard­ing Abdul­lah. What they do not address, how­ev­er, is why Abdul­lah was ulti­mate­ly not indict­ed, or explain why the FBI failed to make a pros­e­cutable case.

    New infor­ma­tion dis­closed in the 2012 report says, “Mohdar was also a fam­i­ly friend and asso­ciate of Anwar Aulaqi and they may have spent time togeth­er with the hijack­ers.”

    U.S. gov­ern­ment offi­cials have said Aulaqi, also spelled Anwar al-Awla­ki, was an impor­tant al Qae­da orga­niz­er. He was killed in Yemen in a U.S. drone strike ordered by Pres­i­dent Oba­ma in Sep­tem­ber 2011.

    AULAQI AND 9/11 SUSPECT

    Aulaqi, born in the U.S in 1971 to par­ents from Yemen, was the imam at a San Diego mosque used by the two hijack­ers. He lat­er land­ed in Falls Church, VA, where he led ser­vices at anoth­er mosque attend­ed by Haz­mi, Mihd­har and a third mem­ber of their hijack team, Hani Han­jour.

    ....

    The records show that Abdul­lah was under inves­ti­ga­tion for assist­ing the hijack­ers with­in days of 9/11. He was ini­tial­ly held as a mate­r­i­al wit­ness, and on Sept. 19, 2001 he was charged with immi­gra­tion fraud for claim­ing to be a Soma­li asylee when he was from Yemen. He pled guilty and was deport­ed to Yemen in 2004.

    While incar­cer­at­ed in an immi­gra­tion facil­i­ty, the report says, Abdul­lah “bragged to two fel­low inmates that he assist­ed the hijack­ers.’’ Abdul­lah has denied mak­ing such state­ments, and pros­e­cu­tors cast doubt “about their val­ue as wit­ness­es,” the 2012 report says.

    Those inmates, and their accounts, are dis­closed pub­licly for the first time in the new FBI reports.

    A key wit­ness was Ellsworth Black, a con­vict­ed bank rob­ber with a col­lege degree in engi­neer­ing. The report states Black, who was born in 1954 in Belize, took and passed two poly­graph tests about his sto­ry, and that he and oth­er wit­ness­es had agreed to tes­ti­fy.

    ADMISSIONS OF 9/11 SUSPECT

    In a pair of inter­views in 2012, Black told agents that guards told him that his cell­mate, Omar Basharat, was rumored to be involved in the 9/11 plot. Omar denied his involve­ment, but told Abdul­lah the two hijack­ers told him pri­or to the attacks that he would one day “will wit­ness some­thing he will not believe.” Omar also iden­ti­fied anoth­er inmate, Shamir Abdul, as hav­ing knowl­edge of the 9/11 plot.

    Black told agents he spoke direct­ly to Abdul­lah in the prison yard and through the vent in their adjoin­ing cells. “Abdul­lah admit­ted to Black he had advance notice of the 9/11 plot, but nev­er con­firmed that he knew spe­cif­ic details or the date on which the attack was sched­uled to take place.”

    “What we did was to show the U.S. that they are not so pow­er­ful,” Abdul­lah said, accord­ing to Black.

    A sec­ond FBI report says Abdul­lah “told Black that he is part of a cru­sade against the West and Israel. He told [Black] that the Roman Empire last­ed for 400 years, the Unit­ed States has only been in exis­tence 200 years, and the U.S. will fall.”

    Accord­ing to the report, Omar, Shamir and Abul­lah shared a San Diego apart­ment with Haz­mi and Mihd­har for a time. One night while pre­tend­ing to be asleep, Shamir told Black, he over­heard Abdul­lah and the hijack­ers talk about “obtain­ing false iden­ti­fi­ca­tion” and that Abdul­lah stat­ed he’d arrange for trans­porta­tion to make it hap­pen.

    “Black then said to every­one that many peo­ple died on 9/11 as a result of the attacks. Shamir con­curred and said I know. Abdul­lah then said words to the effect of what are you going to do it is done,” the report says.

    WTF???

    Abdullah’s reac­tion wasn’t so calm on 9/11, his for­mer wife told the FBI. Abdul­lah met and mar­ried the 16-year-old con­vert to Islam in Sept. 10, 2001. The Islam­ic cer­e­mo­ny was per­formed in the park­ing lot of a Denny’s. She recalled he “seemed to be in a rush to get mar­ried.”

    The cou­ple nev­er lived togeth­er, and were divorced in 2003 while Abdul­lah was incar­cer­at­ed. But in the week or two before 9/11, she told agents, the usu­al­ly “nice and easy­go­ing” Abdul­lah had a “dras­tic change in behav­ior… para­noid, ner­vous, anx­ious and very pre­oc­cu­pied about some­thing going on in his life. When asked, Mohdar said he had a lot on his mind and it was giv­ing him a headache.”

    Abdullah’s ex-wife, whose name was not made pub­lic, also told agents that on the morn­ing of Sept. 11, Abdul­lah came to the res­i­dence where his young bride lived with her moth­er and sis­ter. The tele­vi­sion was on and every­one was watch­ing events unfold at the World Trade Cen­ter and the Pen­ta­gon. Abdul­lah watched, then asked to use the phone, the Jan. 7, 2011 report says.

    Abul­lah called some­one, speak­ing only Ara­bic. His wife couldn’t hear the con­ver­sa­tion, but Abdul­lah “began scream­ing in Ara­bic into the phone, and then threw the phone into the wall shat­ter­ing it,” the report says. Abdul­lah “then stood in front of the tele­vi­sion, which con­tin­ued to show the events of Sep­tem­ber 11th ter­ror­ist attacks.

    “What the fu ck, What the fu ck?, What the fu ck?” Abdul­lah report­ed­ly yelled at the tele­vi­sion in Eng­lish. He then left the res­i­dence, the report says.

    His bride didn’t see him again for about two weeks. When she did, Abdul­lah was “act­ing more para­noid then in past weeks. (She) asked Mohdar what was wrong and Mohdar raised his fin­ger to his lips and told (her) to stay qui­et, say­ing ‘Shh­hh, peo­ple are lis­ten­ing and watch­ing. (His wife) stat­ed, ‘What do you mean?’ Mohdar replied, ‘You know.’ It was at that time that Mohdar was tak­en into cus­tody by the FBI.”

    EX-WIFE RECANTS

    A month lat­er, in Feb­ru­ary 2011 FBI agents returned for a fol­low up inter­view. This time, Abdullah’s ex-wife recant­ed her sto­ry about Abdullah’s Sept. 11 vis­it. She said Abdul­lah had not been at the res­i­dence that day and “that she could no longer remem­ber the date on which the events she described in the pre­vi­ous inter­view had tak­en place. Inves­ti­ga­tors explained that (her) rever­sal of state­ments appeared to be decep­tive. (She) stat­ed that she ‘didn’t care’ and would be con­tact­ing a lawyer who would be in touch with inves­ti­ga­tors.”

    For his part, Mohdar Abdul­lah has spo­ken sev­er­al times with FBI Encore agents. In 2011, he said he was intro­duced to Haz­mi and Mihd­har with­in days of their arrival in the U.S. by Omar al Bay­ou­mi, a sus­pect Sau­di intel­li­gence agent who is iden­ti­fied in the 2012 report as one of a trio of prin­ci­pal sub­jects of the inves­ti­ga­tion, aside from Abdul­lah. Bay­ou­mi is iden­ti­fied in the same report as hav­ing “assist­ed the hijack­ers with a place to live, open­ing a bank account and also assigned two indi­vid­u­als to care for them, one of whom was Mohdar Abdul­lah.”

    Bay­ou­mi and Fahad al Thu­mairy, a con­sular offi­cial and South­ern Cal­i­for­nia mosque leader, got their orders to assist the two hijack­ers from Musaed al-Jar­rah, direc­tor of Islam­ic Affairs at Sau­di Arabia’s Wash­ing­ton, D.C. embassy, FBI reports say.

    Sev­er­al high­ly detailed reports about what Abdul­lah had to say to agents were released, includ­ing a pair from Jan­u­ary 2014. At one point, Abdul­lah said he had “many” talks about jihad with the two future hijack­ers, who he said “praised UBL (Osama bin Laden) as a jiha­di.”

    Most intrigu­ing are the FBI’s accounts of a pair of sur­veil­lance videos tak­en at Los Ange­les Inter­na­tion­al Air­port on June 10, 2000 – the day Abdul­lah drove Mihd­har and Haz­mi to the air­port so Mihd­har could catch a flight to Yemen to see his wife and infant son. The videos have nev­er been made pub­lic.

    THE ‘LAX’ VIDEO

    A Dec. 9, 2005 mes­sage from FBI Direc­tor Robert Mueller to the CIA about a “pos­si­ble sup­port cell” for Haz­mi and Mihd­har says the video cap­tured images of Abdul­lah, the hijack­ers and “three addi­tion­al males … who may be accom­pa­ny­ing them.” One of those uniden­ti­fied males was appar­ent­ly car­ry­ing a cam­era “held at his mid-sec­tion , and as he pass­es through a dif­fer­ent mag­ne­tome­ter than the rest of the group, he turns 360 degrees, as if film­ing the entire sur­round­ings of the hijack­ers.” An FBI analy­sis, Mueller wrote, indi­cat­ed the uniden­ti­fied men “may have been part of a group of Yeme­nis who are sus­pect­ed of know­ing or aid­ing the 9/11 hijack­ers.”

    Abdul­lah repeat­ed­ly denied being able to iden­ti­fy any­one in inter­views with the FBI. One report says Abdul­lah was “angry and upset” when he was first shown the LAX video because he had been told that the unknown indi­vid­ual was there with him and the hijack­ers. “Addi­tion­al­ly, he saw what he believed to be al Mihd­har speak­ing to the (unknown indi­vid­ual) over the (individual’s) shoul­der … which exac­er­bat­ed Abdullah’s feel­ings of being used and lied to by al Mihd­har and al Haz­mi.”

    In a 2014 inter­view in Swe­den, where Abdul­lah now lives, he men­tioned he’d under­gone a poly­graph exam­i­na­tion about his involve­ment with the hijack­ers that was incon­clu­sive. Ear­li­er this year, Abdul­lah was ques­tioned again in Swe­den – this time by lawyers for the 9/11 Fam­i­lies. His depo­si­tion is clas­si­fied, as are all oth­er depo­si­tions in the case, but one plaintiff’s attor­ney called Abdul­lah “an inter­est­ing wit­ness. He had a lot to say.”

    Mueller’s 15-page mes­sage sought to enlist the CIA’s help in ques­tion­ing 9/11 mas­ter­mind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed as well as Ramzi Binal­shibh, Rasyad bin Attash and oth­er Guan­tanamo detainees about who those uniden­ti­fied men on the “LAX video” might be. Mueller iden­ti­fied two male sus­pects: Ramez Noa­man and anoth­er per­son whose name is redact­ed.

    Mueller states that Noa­man “was a mate­r­i­al wit­ness in the 9/11 inves­ti­ga­tion.” On Sept. 28, 2001 Noa­man, a stu­dent, told the FBI that Abdul­lah had intro­duced him to the two hijack­ers in May 2000. He stat­ed he lat­er befriend­ed the hijack­ers at a San Diego mosque and “pro­vid­ed inter­pre­ta­tion ser­vices to aid them in obtain­ing fly­ing lessons.”

    Noa­man also told the FBI that his school room­mate in Los Ange­les was Fuad Omar Bazarah, “a friend and co-work­er of Ramzi Binal­shibh at the Inter­na­tion­al Bank of Yemen.” Binal­shibh, a Yemeni, has been in U.S. cus­tody as an ene­my com­bat­ant since his cap­ture in Pak­istan in 2002. U.S. offi­cials have accused him of being a “key facil­i­ta­tor” of the 9/11 attacks.

    Bazarah was deport­ed to Yemen in Decem­ber 2004. “Noaman’s close asso­ci­a­tion with Barazah, and Barazah’s close asso­ci­a­tion with Binal­shibh, makes Noaman’s intro­duc­tion and rela­tion­ship to the two hijack­ers while they were in Cal­i­for­nia appear to more than coin­ci­den­tal,” the mes­sage says. “Noa­man was also relat­ed to [BLANK], believed to be the cam­era­man in the LAX video.”

    “In order to deter­mine if Haz­mi and Mihd­har were assist­ed by a Yemeni sup­port cell in Los Ange­les, we request all [Guan­tanamo] detainees be shown all the pho­tographs list­ed below for recog­ni­tion and knowl­edge,” the mes­sage says. The list includes Bazarah, Noa­man, Abdul­lah and eight oth­er Yeme­nis whose names are redact­ed. Dozens of spe­cif­ic ques­tions were attached.

    It is not known if that U.S. effort yield­ed any pos­i­tive infor­ma­tion.

    ————

    “New facts emerge as FBI dis­clos­es name of sus­pect it sought to indict for “key role” in help­ing 9/11 hijack­ers” by Dan Chris­tensen; FloridaBulldog.org; 11/11/2021

    “Until Biden’s order, the FBI had kept secret all oth­er doc­u­ments about Oper­a­tion Encore, and many oth­er 9/11 records. Trump admin­is­tra­tion Attor­ney Gen­er­al William Barr even swore per­son­al­ly under oath last year that those records need­ed to be hid­den because they were a ‘‘state secret’’ whose release would like­ly cause “sig­nif­i­cant harm to nation­al secu­ri­ty.”

    Bill Bar­r’s sworn under oath that these were state secrets like­ly to cause “sig­nif­i­cant harm to nation­al secu­ri­ty”. What is under this high­ly clas­si­fied rock? Well, we got more or a peak fol­low­ing Biden’s release order. But there’s still quite a bit that remains a secret and major ques­tions remain­ing unan­swered. Ques­tions like why the indict­ment the FBI sought against Mohdar Abdul­lah nev­er hap­pened and why the FBI was ulti­mate­ly unable to make a pros­e­cutable case. The FBI ini­tial­ly sought to indict Adbul­lah, and clear­ly had abun­dant evi­dence of his deep involve­ment in the 9/11 plot. And yet the indict­ment nev­er hap­pened. Why? We still don’t know:

    ...
    “The FBI is seek­ing to indict Mohdar Abdul­lah (Mohdar) in the South­ern Dis­trict of New York (SDNY) for pro­vid­ing mate­r­i­al sup­port to 9/11 hijack­ers Nawaf al-Haz­mi and Khalid al-Mihd­har. Mohdar is the sub­ject of San Diego’s full field inves­ti­ga­tion,” say new­ly revealed parts of an FBI mem­o­ran­dum about “updates and ini­tia­tives (as of 5 Octo­ber 2012).”

    Abdul­lah was well known to the FBI. Among oth­er things, he and oth­er sub­jects of inter­est in the case worked with Haz­mi in the fall of 2000 at a Tex­a­co gas sta­tion in Mesa, CA owned by Osama “Sam” Mustafa. Mustafa’s involve­ment is out­lined in the 2012 report. Mustafa has denied hav­ing any ter­ror­ist con­nec­tions, but was con­vict­ed in April 2013 in a $17.7‑million con­spir­a­cy to prof­it from pho­ny fed­er­al income tax refunds. He fled the coun­try before sen­tenc­ing, but was cap­tured last year in Jor­dan.

    ...

    The FBI ini­tial­ly blanked out the iden­ti­ty of its crim­i­nal tar­get, cit­ing nation­al secu­ri­ty and oth­er rea­sons when the 2012 report was first pro­vid­ed to Flori­da Bull­dog in 2016. Bull­dog had sued to obtain the report under the Free­dom of Infor­ma­tion Act after it was men­tioned briefly in the final report of the FBI’s 9/11 Review Com­mis­sion in 2015. The code name Oper­a­tion Encore also was redact­ed at the time.

    The FBI released a more com­plete, though still thick­ly cen­sored ver­sion of the 2012 report last week amid a doc­u­ment dump sparked by Pres­i­dent Biden’s Sept. 3 exec­u­tive order requir­ing a declas­si­fi­ca­tion review of 9/11 doc­u­ments at the behest of mem­bers of Con­gress and pres­sure from lawyers for the 9/11 Fam­i­lies who are suing Sau­di Ara­bia in fed­er­al court in New York City.

    ...

    The first doc­u­ment Biden ordered dis­closed was an April 4, 2016 report about Oper­a­tion Encore. It was made pub­lic, in some­what redact­ed form, on the 20th anniver­sary of the 2001 attacks. The report con­tained a vari­ety of new infor­ma­tion about the move­ments and con­tacts of the future hijack­ers.

    The Octo­ber 2012 report says Abdul­lah played “a key role in facil­i­tat­ing the dai­ly lives and assist­ing future Amer­i­can Air­lines Flight 77 hijack­ers” Haz­mi and Mihd­har. Numer­ous Oper­a­tion Encore doc­u­ments that have now been made pub­lic pro­vide sig­nif­i­cant new details about the FBI’s find­ings regard­ing Abdul­lah. What they do not address, how­ev­er, is why Abdul­lah was ulti­mate­ly not indict­ed, or explain why the FBI failed to make a pros­e­cutable case.
    ...

    First, there’s the mul­ti­ple wit­ness­es tying Adbul­lah to the plot, start­ing with the fel­low inmates who claim Abdul­lah basi­cal­ly admit­ted to his involve­ment in the plot. And yet pros­e­cu­tors cast doubt “about their val­ue as wit­ness­es”:

    ...
    The records show that Abdul­lah was under inves­ti­ga­tion for assist­ing the hijack­ers with­in days of 9/11. He was ini­tial­ly held as a mate­r­i­al wit­ness, and on Sept. 19, 2001 he was charged with immi­gra­tion fraud for claim­ing to be a Soma­li asylee when he was from Yemen. He pled guilty and was deport­ed to Yemen in 2004.

    While incar­cer­at­ed in an immi­gra­tion facil­i­ty, the report says, Abdul­lah “bragged to two fel­low inmates that he assist­ed the hijack­ers.’’ Abdul­lah has denied mak­ing such state­ments, and pros­e­cu­tors cast doubt “about their val­ue as wit­ness­es,” the 2012 report says.

    Those inmates, and their accounts, are dis­closed pub­licly for the first time in the new FBI reports.
    ...

    One of those inmates, Ellsworth Black, even passed two poly­graph tests and agreed to tes­ti­fy about what he heard. Black was cell­mate with Omar Basharat, a room­mate of of Abdul­lah and two of the hijack­ers in San Diego for a time. Black spoke direct with Abdul­lah in the cell yard. So Black claims to have heard more or less open admis­sion of involve­ment or knowl­edge of the plot from both Basharat and Adbul­lah and passed to poly­graph tests. Why did pros­e­cu­tors cast doubt on his val­ue as a wit­ness?

    ...
    A key wit­ness was Ellsworth Black, a con­vict­ed bank rob­ber with a col­lege degree in engi­neer­ing. The report states Black, who was born in 1954 in Belize, took and passed two poly­graph tests about his sto­ry, and that he and oth­er wit­ness­es had agreed to tes­ti­fy.

    ...

    In a pair of inter­views in 2012, Black told agents that guards told him that his cell­mate, Omar Basharat, was rumored to be involved in the 9/11 plot. Omar denied his involve­ment, but told Abdul­lah the two hijack­ers told him pri­or to the attacks that he would one day “will wit­ness some­thing he will not believe.” Omar also iden­ti­fied anoth­er inmate, Shamir Abdul, as hav­ing knowl­edge of the 9/11 plot.

    Black told agents he spoke direct­ly to Abdul­lah in the prison yard and through the vent in their adjoin­ing cells. “Abdul­lah admit­ted to Black he had advance notice of the 9/11 plot, but nev­er con­firmed that he knew spe­cif­ic details or the date on which the attack was sched­uled to take place.”

    “What we did was to show the U.S. that they are not so pow­er­ful,” Abdul­lah said, accord­ing to Black.

    A sec­ond FBI report says Abdul­lah “told Black that he is part of a cru­sade against the West and Israel. He told [Black] that the Roman Empire last­ed for 400 years, the Unit­ed States has only been in exis­tence 200 years, and the U.S. will fall.”

    Accord­ing to the report, Omar, Shamir and Abul­lah shared a San Diego apart­ment with Haz­mi and Mihd­har for a time. One night while pre­tend­ing to be asleep, Shamir told Black, he over­heard Abdul­lah and the hijack­ers talk about “obtain­ing false iden­ti­fi­ca­tion” and that Abdul­lah stat­ed he’d arrange for trans­porta­tion to make it hap­pen.

    “Black then said to every­one that many peo­ple died on 9/11 as a result of the attacks. Shamir con­curred and said I know. Abdul­lah then said words to the effect of what are you going to do it is done,” the report says.
    ...

    Then there’s Adbul­lah’s ex-wife, a 16 year old Mus­lim con­vert who mar­ried him lit­er­al­ly the day before 9/11. She ini­tial­ly claimed Abdul­lah spent 9/11 at her res­i­dence, where he dis­played extreme agi­ta­tion and dis­ap­peared for about two weeks before being tak­en into cus­tody by the FBI. This is what she appar­ent­ly told FBI agents dur­ing a Jan­u­ary 2011 inter­view. A month lat­er, when FBI agents return for a fol­low up inter­view, she recants it all. It’s like Mohammed Atta and Aman­da Keller all over again. Inves­ti­ga­tors report­ed­ly viewed her rever­sal as decep­tive. So it’s not as if the FBI does­n’t have ongo­ing sus­pi­cions about Abdul­lah’s involve­ment in the plot:

    ...
    Abdullah’s ex-wife, whose name was not made pub­lic, also told agents that on the morn­ing of Sept. 11, Abdul­lah came to the res­i­dence where his young bride lived with her moth­er and sis­ter. The tele­vi­sion was on and every­one was watch­ing events unfold at the World Trade Cen­ter and the Pen­ta­gon. Abdul­lah watched, then asked to use the phone, the Jan. 7, 2011 report says.

    Abul­lah called some­one, speak­ing only Ara­bic. His wife couldn’t hear the con­ver­sa­tion, but Abdul­lah “began scream­ing in Ara­bic into the phone, and then threw the phone into the wall shat­ter­ing it,” the report says. Abdul­lah “then stood in front of the tele­vi­sion, which con­tin­ued to show the events of Sep­tem­ber 11th ter­ror­ist attacks.

    “What the fu ck, What the fu ck?, What the fu ck?” Abdul­lah report­ed­ly yelled at the tele­vi­sion in Eng­lish. He then left the res­i­dence, the report says.

    His bride didn’t see him again for about two weeks. When she did, Abdul­lah was “act­ing more para­noid then in past weeks. (She) asked Mohdar what was wrong and Mohdar raised his fin­ger to his lips and told (her) to stay qui­et, say­ing ‘Shh­hh, peo­ple are lis­ten­ing and watch­ing. (His wife) stat­ed, ‘What do you mean?’ Mohdar replied, ‘You know.’ It was at that time that Mohdar was tak­en into cus­tody by the FBI.”

    EX-WIFE RECANTS

    A month lat­er, in Feb­ru­ary 2011 FBI agents returned for a fol­low up inter­view. This time, Abdullah’s ex-wife recant­ed her sto­ry about Abdullah’s Sept. 11 vis­it. She said Abdul­lah had not been at the res­i­dence that day and “that she could no longer remem­ber the date on which the events she described in the pre­vi­ous inter­view had tak­en place. Inves­ti­ga­tors explained that (her) rever­sal of state­ments appeared to be decep­tive. (She) stat­ed that she ‘didn’t care’ and would be con­tact­ing a lawyer who would be in touch with inves­ti­ga­tors.”
    ...

    Final­ly, there’s the June 10, 2000, secu­ri­ty video from LAX show­ing Abdul­lah with not just known fig­ures in the plot but what appears to be an addi­tion sus­pect­ed Yemeni cell that was involved in the plan­ning. Intrigu­ing­ly, when shown this video, where al Mihd­har is seen speak­ing with an unknown indi­vid­ual, Abdul­lah report­ed­ly had feel­ings of being used and lied to by al Mihd­har and al Haz­mi. And then, in 2014„ Abdul­lah report­ed­ly under­went a poly­graph exam­i­na­tion in Swe­den that was deemed incon­clu­sive. Is a sto­ry about Adbul­lah being an unwit­ting pawn being used as the rea­son for not indict­ing him? Inter­est­ing­ly, he was appar­ent­ly ques­tioned again this year by the lawyers for the 9/11 Fam­i­lies and was described as “an inter­est­ing wit­ness. He had a lot to say.” But what he had to say was clas­si­fied. It’s a com­pelling mys­tery:

    ...
    Most intrigu­ing are the FBI’s accounts of a pair of sur­veil­lance videos tak­en at Los Ange­les Inter­na­tion­al Air­port on June 10, 2000 – the day Abdul­lah drove Mihd­har and Haz­mi to the air­port so Mihd­har could catch a flight to Yemen to see his wife and infant son. The videos have nev­er been made pub­lic.

    THE ‘LAX’ VIDEO

    A Dec. 9, 2005 mes­sage from FBI Direc­tor Robert Mueller to the CIA about a “pos­si­ble sup­port cell” for Haz­mi and Mihd­har says the video cap­tured images of Abdul­lah, the hijack­ers and “three addi­tion­al males … who may be accom­pa­ny­ing them.” One of those uniden­ti­fied males was appar­ent­ly car­ry­ing a cam­era “held at his mid-sec­tion , and as he pass­es through a dif­fer­ent mag­ne­tome­ter than the rest of the group, he turns 360 degrees, as if film­ing the entire sur­round­ings of the hijack­ers.” An FBI analy­sis, Mueller wrote, indi­cat­ed the uniden­ti­fied men “may have been part of a group of Yeme­nis who are sus­pect­ed of know­ing or aid­ing the 9/11 hijack­ers.”

    Abdul­lah repeat­ed­ly denied being able to iden­ti­fy any­one in inter­views with the FBI. One report says Abdul­lah was “angry and upset” when he was first shown the LAX video because he had been told that the unknown indi­vid­ual was there with him and the hijack­ers. “Addi­tion­al­ly, he saw what he believed to be al Mihd­har speak­ing to the (unknown indi­vid­ual) over the (individual’s) shoul­der … which exac­er­bat­ed Abdullah’s feel­ings of being used and lied to by al Mihd­har and al Haz­mi.”

    ...

    In a 2014 inter­view in Swe­den, where Abdul­lah now lives, he men­tioned he’d under­gone a poly­graph exam­i­na­tion about his involve­ment with the hijack­ers that was incon­clu­sive. Ear­li­er this year, Abdul­lah was ques­tioned again in Swe­den – this time by lawyers for the 9/11 Fam­i­lies. His depo­si­tion is clas­si­fied, as are all oth­er depo­si­tions in the case, but one plaintiff’s attor­ney called Abdul­lah “an inter­est­ing wit­ness. He had a lot to say.”
    ...

    And that brings us to the big obvi­ous ques­tions in the case of the miss­ing indict­ment against Mohdar Abdul­lah: is the fact that he was a fam­i­ly friend and asso­ciate of Anwar Alawa­ki (Aulaqi) part of the extreme sen­si­tive of this? There’s a num­ber of ques­tions about who Awla­ki was ulti­mate­ly work­ing for. Are we look­ing at a dou­ble agent kind of sit­u­a­tion? And of course there’s the nev­er end­ing ques­tions about what sort of pro­tec­tion is being run for the Sau­di gov­ern­men­t’s involve­ment in all of this:

    ...
    New infor­ma­tion dis­closed in the 2012 report says, “Mohdar was also a fam­i­ly friend and asso­ciate of Anwar Aulaqi and they may have spent time togeth­er with the hijack­ers.”

    U.S. gov­ern­ment offi­cials have said Aulaqi, also spelled Anwar al-Awla­ki, was an impor­tant al Qae­da orga­niz­er. He was killed in Yemen in a U.S. drone strike ordered by Pres­i­dent Oba­ma in Sep­tem­ber 2011.

    AULAQI AND 9/11 SUSPECT

    Aulaqi, born in the U.S in 1971 to par­ents from Yemen, was the imam at a San Diego mosque used by the two hijack­ers. He lat­er land­ed in Falls Church, VA, where he led ser­vices at anoth­er mosque attend­ed by Haz­mi, Mihd­har and a third mem­ber of their hijack team, Hani Han­jour.

    ...

    For his part, Mohdar Abdul­lah has spo­ken sev­er­al times with FBI Encore agents. In 2011, he said he was intro­duced to Haz­mi and Mihd­har with­in days of their arrival in the U.S. by Omar al Bay­ou­mi, a sus­pect Sau­di intel­li­gence agent who is iden­ti­fied in the 2012 report as one of a trio of prin­ci­pal sub­jects of the inves­ti­ga­tion, aside from Abdul­lah. Bay­ou­mi is iden­ti­fied in the same report as hav­ing “assist­ed the hijack­ers with a place to live, open­ing a bank account and also assigned two indi­vid­u­als to care for them, one of whom was Mohdar Abdul­lah.”

    Bay­ou­mi and Fahad al Thu­mairy, a con­sular offi­cial and South­ern Cal­i­for­nia mosque leader, got their orders to assist the two hijack­ers from Musaed al-Jar­rah, direc­tor of Islam­ic Affairs at Sau­di Arabia’s Wash­ing­ton, D.C. embassy, FBI reports say.
    ...

    So as we can see, at least the FBI’s com­po­nent of the seem­ing­ly end­less 9/11 inves­ti­ga­tion did indeed come to an end about six months ago. Case closed. As long as you ignore all the open ques­tions. Espe­cial­ly the grow­ing num­ber of ques­tions about the inves­ti­ga­tion itself that seem­ing­ly nev­er get answered.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | November 11, 2021, 5:42 pm
  3. Is the 9/11 inves­ti­ga­tion the inves­ti­ga­tion that nev­er ends? Or the inves­ti­ga­tion that nev­er actu­al­ly hap­pened? Those ques­tions were again raised recent­ly fol­low­ing a pair of releas­es of pre­vi­ous­ly clas­si­fied doc­u­ments relat­ed to the inves­ti­ga­tion. Doc­u­ments that only add to the grow­ing pile of evi­dence point­ing towards a direct role played by Sau­di intel­li­gence in orga­niz­ing those attacks.

    First, as the fol­low­ing Insid­er piece from last week describes, there was a pair of FBI doc­u­ments declas­si­fied back in March that make it effec­tive­ly impos­si­ble to con­tin­ue to deny that Sau­di nation­al Omar al-Bay­ou­mi was work­ing on behalf of Sau­di intel­li­gence.

    Recall how we learned back in Novem­ber that the FBI has qui­et­ly for­mal­ly closed “Oper­a­tion Encore” in May of 2021, which was the FBI’s last remain­ing inves­ti­ga­tion into the 9/11 attacks. The inves­ti­ga­tion focused on three men — Fahad Al-Thu­mairy, Omar Al-Bay­ou­mi, and Musaed Al-Jar­rah — sus­pect­ed of pro­vid­ed or direct­ed oth­ers to pro­vide Nawaf al-Haz­mi and Khalid al-Mihd­har with “assis­tance in dai­ly activ­i­ties, includ­ing procur­ing liv­ing quar­ters and assis­tance with assim­i­lat­ing into South­ern Cal­i­for­nia.” None of the three men were ulti­mate­ly charged, and yet doc­u­ments released indi­cat­ed that the FBI had extreme­ly com­pelling cir­cum­stan­tial evi­dence of their involve­ment in the plot.

    Also recall how we’ve pre­vi­ous­ly seen how US-born al-Qae­da cler­ic Anwar al-Awla­ki was not just serv­ing as a kind of spir­i­tu­al advi­sor to the San Diego cell of the hijack­ers, but he may have been involved in what looked like a Sau­di-gov­ern­ment-spon­sored ‘dry run’ two years before 9/11. Al-Awla­ki was, of course, lat­er killed in a US drone strike in 2011.

    Final­ly, recall the bizarre May 2020 sto­ry, where the FBI acci­den­tal­ly pub­licly released Musaed Al-Jar­rah’s name in an FBI doc­u­ment that was redact­ed by appar­ent­ly neglect­ed to redact Jar­rah’s name. And in doing so basi­cal­ly admit­ted that the FBI knew back in 2012 that these indi­vid­u­als were work­ing on behalf of the Sau­di gov­ern­ment. That par­tial­ly-redact­ed doc­u­ment­ed admit­ted that FBI agents had uncov­ered evi­dence that Thu­mairy and Bay­ou­mi had been “tasked” to assist the hijack­ers by a third indi­vid­ual (al-Jar­rah) whose name was blacked out. The fam­i­lies of the 9/11 vic­tims sued to get that third name (al-Jar­rah’s) pub­licly released. Iron­i­cal­ly, the par­tial­ly-redact­ed FBI doc­u­ment was writ­ten in sup­port of a move by then-Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bill Barr to block the release of these names under the premise that doing so would cause “sig­nif­i­cant harm to nation­al secu­ri­ty.” So the FBI has more or less admit­ted that it’s long know that the fig­ures involved with the San Diego hijack­er cell were work­ing on behalf of the Sau­di gov­ern­ment. It’s an open secret.

    And that brings us to the new­ly released doc­u­ments that only fur­ther con­firm what we’ve long known: Back in March, the FBI declas­si­fied a memo con­firm­ing that, yes, Bay­ou­mi was receiv­ing a month­ly stipend from Sau­di intel­li­gence. Accord­ing to the June 14, 2017 memo, Bay­ou­mi was tasked with gath­er­ing infor­ma­tion “on per­sons of inter­est in the Sau­di com­mu­ni­ty” and pass­ing the intel­li­gence to Prince Ban­dar bin Sul­tan al-Saud, the Sau­di ambas­sador at the time. A sec­ond declas­si­fied FBI memo reports that con­fi­den­tial source told the FBI that there was a “50/50 chance” that Bay­ou­mi had advance knowl­edge of the 9/11 attacks and “assist­ed two of the hijack­ers while resid­ing in San Diego.”

    Then there was the release of a trove of doc­u­ments by British courts last month in response to law­suits by the fam­i­lies of 9/11 vic­tims. It turns out the British seized quite a bit of mate­r­i­al from Bay­ou­mi fol­low­ing the attacks. That includes a home video show­ing a par­ty host­ed by Bay­ou­mi where two of San Diego cell hijack­ers can be seen. It also includes footage of Bay­ou­mi warm­ly greet­ing and embrac­ing Al-Awla­ki. But what is per­haps the most damn­ing evi­dence release by the British courts was a draw­ing found on one of Bay­oumi’s notepads show­ing a plane descend­ing towards an object in the dis­tance and a math for­mu­la that appears to be a method for cal­cu­lat­ing dis­tances. In oth­er words, a method for cal­cu­lat­ing how to guide a plane towards an object.

    So has all of this damn­ing evi­dence changed the offi­cial stance of the 9/11 inves­ti­ga­tors? Well, not the co-chair of the 9/11 Com­mis­sion Phillip Zelikow, who told reporters that he remains skep­ti­cal that Bay­ou­mi knew any­thing about the plot or that he was work­ing for Sau­di intel­li­gence. Zelikow even went on to sug­gest that maybe Zelikow was work­ing as a paid infor­mant work­ing against the hijack­ers. In oth­er words, Zelikow insists that Bay­ou­mi was­n’t work­ing for the Saud­is, but if he was it was to help the Saud­is fight al Qae­da. Yep. Keep in mind that Zelikow was tasked with chair­ing a com­mis­sion to inves­ti­gate the ori­gins of the COVID19 out­break last year. Good luck to those inves­ti­ga­tors.

    Ok, first, here’s an Insid­er piece describ­ing how the recent­ly declas­si­fied mem­os fur­ther con­firm the long held sus­pi­cions about direct Sau­di gov­ern­ment involve­ment in the 9/11 attacks. And also describes how these fur­ther con­fir­ma­tions will not in any way change the offi­cial con­clu­sions held by fig­ures like Philip Zelikow:

    Insid­er

    Declas­si­fied FBI memo ‘con­firms’ direct con­nec­tion between Sau­di gov­ern­ment and 9/11

    Mat­tathias Schwartz
    May 5, 2022, 5:37 AM

    For more than 20 years, suc­ces­sive US pres­i­dents have giv­en Sau­di Ara­bia a pass on the ques­tion of whether the king­dom’s gov­ern­ment had any­thing to do with the 9/11 ter­ror­ist attacks. As the sto­ry goes, plen­ty of indi­vid­ual Saud­is were involved — includ­ing 15 of the 19 hijack­ers and Osama bin Laden — but there was no evi­dence to indi­cate that the Sau­di gov­ern­ment itself was behind the attacks. That’s more or less what the 9/11 Com­mis­sion con­clud­ed, and the Sau­di gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to cite the com­mis­sion’s report in offi­cial state­ments as proof that “Sau­di Ara­bia had noth­ing to do with this ter­ri­ble crime.”

    In its report, the com­mis­sion took par­tic­u­lar pains not to impli­cate Omar al-Bay­ou­mi, a Sau­di nation­al who met two of the 9/11 hijack­ers in Los Ange­les short­ly after they arrived in the US. Bay­ou­mi then helped them move to San Diego, where he signed as the guar­an­tor on an apart­ment they rent­ed.

    Bay­ou­mi has long main­tained that he met the hijack­ers by coin­ci­dence, a claim the com­mis­sion did lit­tle to con­tra­dict. Instead, it paint­ed a most­ly innocu­ous por­trait of Bay­oumi’s back­ground, con­clud­ing that he was in the US “as a busi­ness stu­dent” and that he worked for the Sau­di Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty. “I don’t believe he was a ‘Sau­di gov­ern­ment agent’ work­ing to help ter­ror­ists,” wrote Philip Zelikow, the 9/11 Com­mis­sion’s exec­u­tive direc­tor, in response to ques­tions from a jour­nal­ist in 2007.

    But over the past sev­er­al months, a raft of new doc­u­ments released by the Amer­i­can and British gov­ern­ments sug­gest that the 9/11 Com­mis­sion got it wrong. An FBI memo declas­si­fied in March, in response to an exec­u­tive order by Pres­i­dent Joe Biden, report­ed that Bay­ou­mi was receiv­ing a month­ly stipend from Sau­di intel­li­gence. In oth­er words, he was not a stu­dent but a spy. Accord­ing to the FBI memo, dat­ed June 14, 2017, Bay­ou­mi was tasked with gath­er­ing infor­ma­tion “on per­sons of inter­est in the Sau­di com­mu­ni­ty” and pass­ing the intel­li­gence to Prince Ban­dar bin Sul­tan al-Saud, the Sau­di ambas­sador at the time.

    “Alle­ga­tions of Albay­oumi’s involve­ment with Sau­di intel­li­gence were not con­firmed at the time of the 9/11 Com­mis­sion Report,” writes the mem­o­’s author, an FBI spe­cial agent at the bureau’s Wash­ing­ton field office, whose name is redact­ed. “The above infor­ma­tion con­firms those alle­ga­tions.”

    A sec­ond declas­si­fied FBI memo shows that a con­fi­den­tial source told the FBI there was a “50/50 chance” that Bay­ou­mi had advance knowl­edge of the 9/11 attacks and “assist­ed two of the hijack­ers while resid­ing in San Diego.”

    The FBI declined to com­ment. But the rev­e­la­tions appear to under­cut the Sau­di gov­ern­men­t’s claims that it had no ties to the 9/11 attacks. While US intel­li­gence agen­cies have repeat­ed­ly con­clud­ed that the Sau­di gov­ern­ment as a whole had no advance knowl­edge of the 2001 plot, they have flagged spe­cif­ic Sau­di agen­cies and mem­bers of the roy­al fam­i­ly as hav­ing ties to Al Qae­da. Last year, new­ly declas­si­fied FBI files com­pli­cat­ed anoth­er cru­cial piece of Bay­oumi’s nar­ra­tive, sug­gest­ing that his ini­tial meet­ing with the two hijack­ers had been arranged by con­tacts at the Sau­di Con­sulate in Los Ange­les.

    Zelikow, the exec­u­tive direc­tor of the 9/11 Com­mis­sion, told Insid­er he’s skep­ti­cal that Bay­ou­mi knew about the plot, or that he was work­ing for Sau­di intel­li­gence. Many high-rank­ing Saud­is, Zelikow point­ed out, were despised by bin Laden and opposed to his efforts. “The infor­ma­tion that Bay­ou­mi might have been a paid infor­mant ... if it is true, actu­al­ly tends to cut the oth­er way,” Zelikow said — sug­gest­ing that Bay­ou­mi would have been work­ing against the hijack­ers.

    In an inter­view with Insid­er, Thomas Kean, the for­mer New Jer­sey gov­er­nor who chaired the 9/11 Com­mis­sion, acknowl­edged that Bay­ou­mi “was def­i­nite­ly involved” with the Sau­di gov­ern­ment. But he remains uncer­tain about what form that involve­ment took. “There’s no ques­tion he was involved with Sau­di...” Kean said, and did not com­plete that sen­tence before con­tin­u­ing. “It’s dif­fi­cult in Sau­di Ara­bia to decide who’s who — whether it’s the roy­al fam­i­ly or Sau­di intel­li­gence.” Kean also reit­er­at­ed that the com­mis­sion found no evi­dence to sug­gest that Bay­ou­mi had advance knowl­edge of the attacks.

    But a sec­ond raft of doc­u­ments — released by the British gov­ern­ment last week in response to a civ­il law­suit against the Sau­di gov­ern­ment by the fam­i­lies of 9/11 vic­tims — points to the pos­si­bil­i­ty that Bay­ou­mi knew about the attacks before they took place. Among Bay­oumi’s papers was a dia­gram depict­ing a plane descend­ing toward a tar­get on the hori­zon. Beside the dia­gram is a for­mu­la used to cal­cu­late the dis­tance to the tar­get.

    The dia­gram was seized by British police in late 2001, but its exis­tence was­n’t not­ed until 2007 — three years after the 9/11 com­mis­sion issued its final report. It’s hard to imag­ine an innocu­ous expla­na­tion for any­one pos­sess­ing such a dia­gram short­ly before the 9/11 attacks. “Sure looks sus­pi­cious — and sin­is­ter,” said Philip Shenon, author of “The Com­mis­sion,” a his­to­ry of the 9/11 report, which recount­ed dis­sent from some of the com­mis­sion’s staff regard­ing the extent of Sau­di involve­ment. “Fair to won­der whether it sug­gests he knew in detail about the 9/11 plot.”

    Mark Rossi­ni, a for­mer FBI agent who worked as a liai­son to the CIA’s bin Laden unit, did­n’t believe the Bay­ou­mi had advance knowl­edge of the 9/11 attacks, which, he said, was lim­it­ed to a small cir­cle with­in Al Qae­da. But after review­ing the dia­gram, he changed his mind. “There’s no ques­tion that guy was a Sau­di agent,” Rossi­ni told Insid­er. “He lied. It’s unequiv­o­cal.”

    Zelikow, for his part, remains skep­ti­cal. He sug­gest­ed that the draw­ing and cal­cu­la­tions might be relat­ed to Bay­oumi’s work with the Sau­di Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty. “It is pos­si­ble that some­one work­ing in civ­il avi­a­tion might have worked on such equa­tions, for var­i­ous rea­sons,” he said.

    Bay­ou­mi, who has returned to Sau­di Ara­bia, has giv­en mul­ti­ple inter­views to law enforce­ment over the years, but the depo­si­tion he gave in the civ­il law­suit brought by the fam­i­lies of 9/11 vic­tims remains under seal. It’s unclear whether he has been asked about the dia­gram but, it’s hard to see how the core ques­tion of Sau­di involve­ment in 9/11 can be resolved with­out a full and cred­i­ble account of his actions.

    The evi­dence declas­si­fied by the British gov­ern­ment also includes videos show­ing Bay­ou­mi film­ing him­self and his cir­cle dur­ing his time in San Diego. One shows him embrac­ing Anwar al-Awla­ki, a local imam at the time who had ties to Al Qae­da. Like Bay­ou­mi, Awla­ki was close to the hijack­ers. In 2011, he was killed by a US drone strike in Yemen. A sec­ond video shows Khalid al-Mihd­har, one of the two San Diego hijack­ers, in the kitchen of the apart­ment that Bay­ou­mi helped him rent.

    The release of these new doc­u­ments comes at an incon­ve­nient time for the Biden admin­is­tra­tion. The US wants cheap oil, con­tin­ued rights for mil­i­tary bases, and a revived nuclear deal with Iran. Sau­di Ara­bia wants to end all dis­cus­sion of the state-spon­sored mur­der of Jamal Khashog­gi and a free hand to pur­sue its bru­tal proxy war in Yemen. The last thing either coun­try wants is a renewed debate over the Sau­di role in 9/11. “The sad truth is that because of geopo­lit­i­cal issues, espe­cial­ly petro­le­um, we’ll nev­er go after the Saud­is or hold them account­able,” said Rossi­ni, the for­mer FBI agent.

    ...

    ———-

    “Declas­si­fied FBI memo ‘con­firms’ direct con­nec­tion between Sau­di gov­ern­ment and 9/11” by Mat­tathias Schwartz; Insid­er; 05/05/2022

    “The release of these new doc­u­ments comes at an incon­ve­nient time for the Biden admin­is­tra­tion. The US wants cheap oil, con­tin­ued rights for mil­i­tary bases, and a revived nuclear deal with Iran. Sau­di Ara­bia wants to end all dis­cus­sion of the state-spon­sored mur­der of Jamal Khashog­gi and a free hand to pur­sue its bru­tal proxy war in Yemen. The last thing either coun­try wants is a renewed debate over the Sau­di role in 9/11. “The sad truth is that because of geopo­lit­i­cal issues, espe­cial­ly petro­le­um, we’ll nev­er go after the Saud­is or hold them account­able,” said Rossi­ni, the for­mer FBI agent.

    Yes, the sad truth is that no mat­ter how much evi­dence comes out of Sau­di gov­ern­ment involve­ment in the 9/11 attacks, the US gov­ern­ment will refuse to ever seri­ous­ly demand some sort of account­abil­i­ty. It’s becom­ing empir­i­cal­ly proven with each new release of damn­ing evi­dence that results in noth­ing. No mat­ter how com­pelling the evi­dence ulti­mate­ly is, like a 2017 FBI memo that con­clud­ed that Omar Bay­ou­mi was tasked with gath­er­ing infor­ma­tion “on per­sons of inter­est in the Sau­di com­mu­ni­ty” and pass­ing the intel­li­gence to Prince Ban­dar bin Sul­tan al-Saud, the Sau­di ambas­sador at the time. The Sau­di ambas­sador, Prince Ban­dar, was direct­ly involved with the pre-911 orga­niz­ing of the hijack­ers. This is basi­cal­ly now an estab­lished fact, estab­lished as late as 2017. A sec­ond FBI memo was also released about a source who told the FBI there’s a 50/50 chance Bay­ou­mi was aware of the 9/11 plot and assist­ed the hijack­ers. And here we are in 2022 with this infor­ma­tion final­ly com­ing out about the FBI’s con­clu­sion that Prince Ban­dar was direct­ly involved with the orga­niz­ing of the 9/11 hijack­er cells and noth­ing is going to come of it:

    ...
    In its report, the com­mis­sion took par­tic­u­lar pains not to impli­cate Omar al-Bay­ou­mi, a Sau­di nation­al who met two of the 9/11 hijack­ers in Los Ange­les short­ly after they arrived in the US. Bay­ou­mi then helped them move to San Diego, where he signed as the guar­an­tor on an apart­ment they rent­ed.

    Bay­ou­mi has long main­tained that he met the hijack­ers by coin­ci­dence, a claim the com­mis­sion did lit­tle to con­tra­dict. Instead, it paint­ed a most­ly innocu­ous por­trait of Bay­oumi’s back­ground, con­clud­ing that he was in the US “as a busi­ness stu­dent” and that he worked for the Sau­di Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty. “I don’t believe he was a ‘Sau­di gov­ern­ment agent’ work­ing to help ter­ror­ists,” wrote Philip Zelikow, the 9/11 Com­mis­sion’s exec­u­tive direc­tor, in response to ques­tions from a jour­nal­ist in 2007.

    But over the past sev­er­al months, a raft of new doc­u­ments released by the Amer­i­can and British gov­ern­ments sug­gest that the 9/11 Com­mis­sion got it wrong. An FBI memo declas­si­fied in March, in response to an exec­u­tive order by Pres­i­dent Joe Biden, report­ed that Bay­ou­mi was receiv­ing a month­ly stipend from Sau­di intel­li­gence. In oth­er words, he was not a stu­dent but a spy. Accord­ing to the FBI memo, dat­ed June 14, 2017, Bay­ou­mi was tasked with gath­er­ing infor­ma­tion “on per­sons of inter­est in the Sau­di com­mu­ni­ty” and pass­ing the intel­li­gence to Prince Ban­dar bin Sul­tan al-Saud, the Sau­di ambas­sador at the time.

    “Alle­ga­tions of Albay­oumi’s involve­ment with Sau­di intel­li­gence were not con­firmed at the time of the 9/11 Com­mis­sion Report,” writes the mem­o­’s author, an FBI spe­cial agent at the bureau’s Wash­ing­ton field office, whose name is redact­ed. “The above infor­ma­tion con­firms those alle­ga­tions.”

    A sec­ond declas­si­fied FBI memo shows that a con­fi­den­tial source told the FBI there was a “50/50 chance” that Bay­ou­mi had advance knowl­edge of the 9/11 attacks and “assist­ed two of the hijack­ers while resid­ing in San Diego.”
    ...

    But the evi­dence of Bay­oumi’s direct involve­ment in the plot is far more spe­cif­ic than just the FBI agents’ assess­ments. Doc­u­ments recent­ly released by British author­i­ties regard­ing their inves­ti­ga­tion of Bay­ou­mi includ­ed a dia­gram in Bay­oumi’s pos­ses­sion depict­ing a planed descend­ing towards a tar­get and a for­mu­la used to cal­cu­late dis­tances to the tar­get. So Bay­ou­mi was host­ing the hijack­ers and had dia­grams of math for­mu­las show­ing planes hit­ting tar­gets. You almost could­n’t come up with more com­pelling cir­cum­stan­tial evi­dence:

    ...
    But a sec­ond raft of doc­u­ments — released by the British gov­ern­ment last week in response to a civ­il law­suit against the Sau­di gov­ern­ment by the fam­i­lies of 9/11 vic­tims — points to the pos­si­bil­i­ty that Bay­ou­mi knew about the attacks before they took place. Among Bay­oumi’s papers was a dia­gram depict­ing a plane descend­ing toward a tar­get on the hori­zon. Beside the dia­gram is a for­mu­la used to cal­cu­late the dis­tance to the tar­get.

    The dia­gram was seized by British police in late 2001, but its exis­tence was­n’t not­ed until 2007 — three years after the 9/11 com­mis­sion issued its final report. It’s hard to imag­ine an innocu­ous expla­na­tion for any­one pos­sess­ing such a dia­gram short­ly before the 9/11 attacks. “Sure looks sus­pi­cious — and sin­is­ter,” said Philip Shenon, author of “The Com­mis­sion,” a his­to­ry of the 9/11 report, which recount­ed dis­sent from some of the com­mis­sion’s staff regard­ing the extent of Sau­di involve­ment. “Fair to won­der whether it sug­gests he knew in detail about the 9/11 plot.”

    Mark Rossi­ni, a for­mer FBI agent who worked as a liai­son to the CIA’s bin Laden unit, did­n’t believe the Bay­ou­mi had advance knowl­edge of the 9/11 attacks, which, he said, was lim­it­ed to a small cir­cle with­in Al Qae­da. But after review­ing the dia­gram, he changed his mind. “There’s no ques­tion that guy was a Sau­di agent,” Rossi­ni told Insid­er. “He lied. It’s unequiv­o­cal.”
    ...

    And yet, despite all that we’ve seen, 9/11 Com­mis­sion exec­u­tive direc­tor Philip Zelikow con­tin­ues to express skep­ti­cism that Bay­ou­mi knew about the plot or had any involve­ment with Sau­di intel­li­gence. Even Zelikow’s co-chair, Thomas Kean, acknowl­edges Bay­ou­mi “was def­i­nite­ly involved” with the Sau­di gov­ern­ment. It’s a naked cov­er-up:

    ...
    Zelikow, the exec­u­tive direc­tor of the 9/11 Com­mis­sion, told Insid­er he’s skep­ti­cal that Bay­ou­mi knew about the plot, or that he was work­ing for Sau­di intel­li­gence. Many high-rank­ing Saud­is, Zelikow point­ed out, were despised by bin Laden and opposed to his efforts. “The infor­ma­tion that Bay­ou­mi might have been a paid infor­mant ... if it is true, actu­al­ly tends to cut the oth­er way,” Zelikow said — sug­gest­ing that Bay­ou­mi would have been work­ing against the hijack­ers.

    In an inter­view with Insid­er, Thomas Kean, the for­mer New Jer­sey gov­er­nor who chaired the 9/11 Com­mis­sion, acknowl­edged that Bay­ou­mi “was def­i­nite­ly involved” with the Sau­di gov­ern­ment. But he remains uncer­tain about what form that involve­ment took. “There’s no ques­tion he was involved with Sau­di...” Kean said, and did not com­plete that sen­tence before con­tin­u­ing. “It’s dif­fi­cult in Sau­di Ara­bia to decide who’s who — whether it’s the roy­al fam­i­ly or Sau­di intel­li­gence.” Kean also reit­er­at­ed that the com­mis­sion found no evi­dence to sug­gest that Bay­ou­mi had advance knowl­edge of the attacks.

    ...

    Zelikow, for his part, remains skep­ti­cal. He sug­gest­ed that the draw­ing and cal­cu­la­tions might be relat­ed to Bay­oumi’s work with the Sau­di Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty. “It is pos­si­ble that some­one work­ing in civ­il avi­a­tion might have worked on such equa­tions, for var­i­ous rea­sons,” he said.
    ...

    Again, don’t for­get that Zelikow was tasks with chair­ing a com­mis­sion to inves­ti­gate the COVID19 out­break. So what­ev­er con­clu­sion that com­mis­sion arrives at will pre­sum­ably be the con­clu­sion Zelikow sticks to no mat­ter what.

    Now, regard­ing all the doc­u­ments released about Bay­ou­mi recent­ly released by British courts, note that there was more than just those damn­ing draw­ings with planes hit­ting tar­gets and math for­mu­las. The British courts also released a num­ber of home videos, includ­ing a par­ty host by Bay­ou­mi that includ­ed two of the hijack­ers along with footage of Bay­ou­mi warm­ly embrace none oth­er than al-Qae­da-affil­i­at­ed US-born cler­ic Anwar al-Awla­ki, who was lat­er killed in a US drone mis­sile strike. Keep in mind that al-Awla­ki was known to have served as a kind of spir­i­tu­al men­tor for the hijack­ers and and may have been involved in what looked like a Sau­di-gov­ern­ment-spon­sored ‘dry run’ two years before 9/11. So a US cit­i­zen cler­ic was play­ing a key role in the plots, Bay­ou­mi was clear­ly an asso­ciate of this cler­ic, and the US gov­ern­ment even­tu­al­ly killed this cler­ic, a US cit­i­zen, in a con­tro­ver­sial over­seas drone mis­sile strike. You have to won­der what’s under that rock. It’s a reminder that the US gov­ern­men­t’s extreme sen­si­tiv­i­ty around Bay­oumi’s inves­ti­ga­tion prob­a­bly have some­thing to do with the many open ques­tions about the US gov­ern­men­t’s rela­tion­ship with, and sub­se­quent killing of, Anwar al-Awla­ki:

    CBS News

    New­ly released video shows 9/11 hijack­ers with alleged Sau­di intel­li­gence oper­a­tive

    By Cather­ine Her­ridge
    April 27, 2022 / 11:02 AM

    While Pres­i­dent Biden signed an exec­u­tive order last fall to declas­si­fy 9/11 evi­dence, the fam­i­lies of some 9/11 vic­tims say they had to go through the British courts to get records and videos seized two decades ago from an alleged Sau­di gov­ern­ment oper­a­tive that have nev­er been pub­lic until now.

    “Why did it take 20 years for this infor­ma­tion to see the light of day?” Brett Eagle­son told CBS News senior inves­tiga­tive cor­re­spon­dent Cather­ine Her­ridge.

    He is lead­ing a group of fam­i­lies fight­ing for the doc­u­ments. He was 15 years old when his father, Bruce, was killed in the World Trade Cen­ter South Tow­er, and 20 years lat­er, he wants his chil­dren to know what he calls “the secret of 9/11” and who was behind the plot to kill their grand­fa­ther.

    “Will the Jus­tice Depart­ment now explain to the fam­i­lies and to Amer­i­ca why they did not pur­sue charges against (Sau­di nation­al Omar) al-Bay­ou­mi? And most aston­ish­ing­ly, why did this infor­ma­tion come from the U.K. gov­ern­ment and not our own FBI?”

    Less than two weeks after 9/11, box­es of evi­dence, includ­ing per­son­al notes and video, were seized by British police from a home in Birm­ing­ham, Eng­land.

    Buried inside the trove is a home video from 2000, now being seen pub­licly for the first time. The event was described in 9/11 Com­mis­sion records as a par­ty at the San Diego apart­ment of Nawaf al-Haz­mi and Khalid al-Mihd­har, the first two hijack­ers to arrive in the U.S. in Jan­u­ary 2000.

    While the two hijack­ers appar­ent­ly avoid­ed the video cam­era at the par­ty, a hand­ful of frames cap­tured Mihd­har in the kitchen. Along with Haz­mi, their team would lat­er com­man­deer Flight 77 that slammed into the Pen­ta­gon.

    The par­ty’s host, Sau­di nation­al Omar al-Bay­ou­mi, was arrest­ed by British police less than two weeks after the attack that killed near­ly 3,000 Amer­i­cans in New York, the Pen­ta­gon and Shanksville, Penn­syl­va­nia. British police seized the videos and doc­u­ments from Bay­ou­mi.

    Three years after the attack, the 9/11 Com­mis­sion said, “We have seen no cred­i­ble evi­dence that he (Bay­ou­mi) believed in vio­lent extrem­ism or know­ing­ly aid­ed extrem­ists groups.”

    Though a new­ly declas­si­fied and heav­i­ly redact­ed FBI memo from 2017 stat­ed, “In the late 1990s and up to Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001, Omar al-Bay­ou­mi was paid a month­ly stipend as a cooptee of the Sau­di Gen­er­al Intel­li­gence Pres­i­den­cy (GIP) via then Ambas­sador Prince Ban­dar bin Sul­tan….”

    The memo con­tin­ued, “Alle­ga­tions of al-Bay­oumi’s involve­ment with Sau­di Intel­li­gence were not con­firmed at the time of the 9/11 Com­mis­sion Report. The above infor­ma­tion con­firms these alle­ga­tions.”

    Anoth­er recent­ly declas­si­fied FBI memo from the same year, cit­ing source report­ing, said, “There is a 50/50 chance Omar al-Bay­ou­mi had advanced knowl­edge the 9/11 ter­ror­ist attacks were to occur.”

    The declas­si­fied records per­tain to a long-secret inves­ti­ga­tion, code named “Oper­a­tion Encore,” which cen­tered on the two hijack­ers who lived in San Diego and who may have assist­ed them.

    Retired FBI agent Dan­ny Gon­za­lez, who worked on Oper­a­tion Encore, told CBS News last fall that he believes Bay­ou­mi was part of the hijack­ers’ U.S‑based sup­port net­work.

    “He helped them with apart­ments, he helped them with bank accounts,” Gon­za­lez told CBS News.

    Gon­za­lez and anoth­er for­mer FBI agent, Ken Williams, are work­ing on behalf of the fam­i­lies of some 9/11 vic­tims in their lit­i­ga­tion against the King­dom of Sau­di Ara­bia. Williams wrote a memo before 9/11 that warned poten­tial ter­ror­ists were tak­ing flight lessons in Ari­zona.

    Williams said, “He was also an employ­ee of the gov­ern­ment of Sau­di Ara­bia.”

    Accord­ing to a spokesman for the 9/11 fam­i­lies, the British files con­tain over 14,000 pages of doc­u­ments, more than 20 hours of video and as many hours of audio inter­ro­ga­tions of Bay­ou­mi by British coun­tert­er­ror­ism police.

    As part of their law­suit seek­ing mon­ey from the King­dom of Sau­di Ara­bia, CBS News has learned that some of the 9/11 fam­i­lies said they sub­poe­naed the FBI for the Bay­ou­mi records in 2018, adding only a frac­tion were pro­vid­ed by the bureau and are under seal, which means they will not be pub­licly released.

    Among the records released by British author­i­ties was a notepad. As first report­ed by CBS News in August 2021, the FBI twice quizzed an Amer­i­can pilot in 2012 about the sig­nif­i­cance of the hand-drawn plane and math­e­mat­i­cal equa­tion.

    Accord­ing to a sworn dec­la­ra­tion for the court, the pilot said it might be used to view a tar­get and then cal­cu­late the rate of descent to the tar­get. “I shared with the FBI my opin­ion that there was a rea­son­able basis to believe that the draw­ing and equa­tion were used as part of the prepa­ra­tions of the al Qae­da ter­ror­ists to car­ry out the 9/11 attacks,” Navy vet­er­an and pilot Robert M. Brown said.

    In anoth­er video that is believed to be from before 9/11, Bay­ou­mi is seen warm­ly greet­ing and embrac­ing the Amer­i­can Mus­lim cler­ic Anwar al-Awla­ki, who also sup­port­ed the hijack­ers in San Diego and then in Vir­ginia in the months before the 9/11 attack.

    Lat­er killed in a CIA drone strike in 2011, Awla­ki was the first Amer­i­can tar­get­ed for death by the agency as a senior leader of the al Qae­da affil­i­ate in Yemen, which was respon­si­ble for failed plots includ­ing the attempt­ed 2009 under­wear bomb­ing of a pas­sen­ger jet on Christ­mas Day 2009. Awla­ki is also blamed for the rad­i­cal­iza­tion of Amer­i­cans through his dig­i­tal pro­pa­gan­da and the rise home­grown ter­ror­ism.

    “Al-Awla­ki first comes in con­tact with the hijack­ers here in San Diego. He next comes in con­tact with them in Falls Church, Vir­ginia,” Williams said. He believes the sup­port net­work in south­ern Cal­i­for­nia for the hijack­ers was mir­rored in Vir­ginia with Awla­ki.

    “He fol­lows them across the coun­try, or they fol­low him across the coun­try. ... To what depth was he involved? To what extent was he involved? And we’re look­ing at that right now, in our work with the lawyers for the plain­tiffs,” Williams said.

    ...

    Bay­ou­mi is believed to be liv­ing in Sau­di Ara­bia. CBS News tried to reach him through the Sau­di embassy. It did not imme­di­ate­ly respond to our ques­tions, but last fall said in a state­ment, “Any alle­ga­tion that Sau­di Ara­bia is com­plic­it in the Sep­tem­ber 11 attacks is cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly false.”

    The FBI declined to com­ment. CBS News asked if the Bureau would con­sid­er re-open­ing its inves­ti­ga­tion into Bay­ou­mi, and why the 9/11 plain­tiffs had to go through the British courts to get the records and videos, rather than get­ting them from U.S. law enforce­ment.

    ———–

    “New­ly released video shows 9/11 hijack­ers with alleged Sau­di intel­li­gence oper­a­tive” By Cather­ine Her­ridge; CBS News; 04/27/2022

    “The declas­si­fied records per­tain to a long-secret inves­ti­ga­tion, code named “Oper­a­tion Encore,” which cen­tered on the two hijack­ers who lived in San Diego and who may have assist­ed them. ”

    It was the long-secret “Oper­a­tion Encore” inves­ti­ga­tion that was the source of these doc­u­ments declas­si­fied by British courts last month. As we’ve seen, the Oper­a­tion Encore inves­ti­ga­tion was qui­et­ly for­mal­ly closed in May of 2021 despite a moun­tain of unan­swered ques­tions. So while we may get more declas­si­fied doc­u­ments from that inves­ti­ga­tion, there won’t be any new inves­tiga­tive con­clu­sions. The case is closed and all of this infor­ma­tion was intend­ed to remain a secret. At least in the US. But the British gov­ern­ment inves­ti­gat­ed Bay­ou­mi too and it was the British courts that decid­ed ulti­mate­ly release it. Giv­en that Oper­a­tion Encore has already been closed by FBI, you have to won­der if the UK’s own inves­ti­ga­tion into this mat­ter has also been for­mal­ly closed:

    ...
    “Will the Jus­tice Depart­ment now explain to the fam­i­lies and to Amer­i­ca why they did not pur­sue charges against (Sau­di nation­al Omar) al-Bay­ou­mi? And most aston­ish­ing­ly, why did this infor­ma­tion come from the U.K. gov­ern­ment and not our own FBI?”

    Less than two weeks after 9/11, box­es of evi­dence, includ­ing per­son­al notes and video, were seized by British police from a home in Birm­ing­ham, Eng­land.

    Buried inside the trove is a home video from 2000, now being seen pub­licly for the first time. The event was described in 9/11 Com­mis­sion records as a par­ty at the San Diego apart­ment of Nawaf al-Haz­mi and Khalid al-Mihd­har, the first two hijack­ers to arrive in the U.S. in Jan­u­ary 2000.

    While the two hijack­ers appar­ent­ly avoid­ed the video cam­era at the par­ty, a hand­ful of frames cap­tured Mihd­har in the kitchen. Along with Haz­mi, their team would lat­er com­man­deer Flight 77 that slammed into the Pen­ta­gon.

    The par­ty’s host, Sau­di nation­al Omar al-Bay­ou­mi, was arrest­ed by British police less than two weeks after the attack that killed near­ly 3,000 Amer­i­cans in New York, the Pen­ta­gon and Shanksville, Penn­syl­va­nia. British police seized the videos and doc­u­ments from Bay­ou­mi.

    Three years after the attack, the 9/11 Com­mis­sion said, “We have seen no cred­i­ble evi­dence that he (Bay­ou­mi) believed in vio­lent extrem­ism or know­ing­ly aid­ed extrem­ists groups.”
    ...

    And as this British court ordered release of doc­u­ments con­firms, the FBI con­clud­ed unequiv­o­cal­ly in 2017 that Bay­ou­mi was con­nect­ed to Sau­di intel­li­gence. It was no longer an open ques­tion:

    ...
    Though a new­ly declas­si­fied and heav­i­ly redact­ed FBI memo from 2017 stat­ed, “In the late 1990s and up to Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001, Omar al-Bay­ou­mi was paid a month­ly stipend as a cooptee of the Sau­di Gen­er­al Intel­li­gence Pres­i­den­cy (GIP) via then Ambas­sador Prince Ban­dar bin Sul­tan….”

    The memo con­tin­ued, “Alle­ga­tions of al-Bay­oumi’s involve­ment with Sau­di Intel­li­gence were not con­firmed at the time of the 9/11 Com­mis­sion Report. The above infor­ma­tion con­firms these alle­ga­tions.”

    Anoth­er recent­ly declas­si­fied FBI memo from the same year, cit­ing source report­ing, said, “There is a 50/50 chance Omar al-Bay­ou­mi had advanced knowl­edge the 9/11 ter­ror­ist attacks were to occur.”
    ...

    Even one of the FBI agents who worked on Oper­a­tion Encore, Dan­ny Gon­za­lez, shared with the media that he had deter­mined that Bay­ou­mi worked for Sau­di intel­li­gence. But what is tru­ly damn­ing is how FBI agent Ken Williams wrote a memo before 9/11 warn­ing about poten­tial ter­ror­ists tak­ing flight lessons in Ari­zona. And in this memo Williams has already deter­mined that Bay­ou­mi was involved and was an employ­ee of the Sau­di gov­ern­ment. In oth­er words, all the these rev­e­la­tions years lat­er about Bay­ou­mi being a Sau­di gov­ern­ment employ­ee aren’t real­ly rev­e­la­tions. The FBI knew pre-911:

    ...
    Retired FBI agent Dan­ny Gon­za­lez, who worked on Oper­a­tion Encore, told CBS News last fall that he believes Bay­ou­mi was part of the hijack­ers’ U.S‑based sup­port net­work.

    “He helped them with apart­ments, he helped them with bank accounts,” Gon­za­lez told CBS News.

    Gon­za­lez and anoth­er for­mer FBI agent, Ken Williams, are work­ing on behalf of the fam­i­lies of some 9/11 vic­tims in their lit­i­ga­tion against the King­dom of Sau­di Ara­bia. Williams wrote a memo before 9/11 that warned poten­tial ter­ror­ists were tak­ing flight lessons in Ari­zona.

    Williams said, “He was also an employ­ee of the gov­ern­ment of Sau­di Ara­bia.”
    ...

    Then there’s the released home video show­ing Bay­ou­mi warm­ly embrac­ing Anwar al-Awla­ki, who is known to have also assist­ed the San Diego hijack­er cell. The damn­ing evi­dence just keeps pil­ing up:

    ...
    In anoth­er video that is believed to be from before 9/11, Bay­ou­mi is seen warm­ly greet­ing and embrac­ing the Amer­i­can Mus­lim cler­ic Anwar al-Awla­ki, who also sup­port­ed the hijack­ers in San Diego and then in Vir­ginia in the months before the 9/11 attack.

    Lat­er killed in a CIA drone strike in 2011, Awla­ki was the first Amer­i­can tar­get­ed for death by the agency as a senior leader of the al Qae­da affil­i­ate in Yemen, which was respon­si­ble for failed plots includ­ing the attempt­ed 2009 under­wear bomb­ing of a pas­sen­ger jet on Christ­mas Day 2009. Awla­ki is also blamed for the rad­i­cal­iza­tion of Amer­i­cans through his dig­i­tal pro­pa­gan­da and the rise home­grown ter­ror­ism.

    “Al-Awla­ki first comes in con­tact with the hijack­ers here in San Diego. He next comes in con­tact with them in Falls Church, Vir­ginia,” Williams said. He believes the sup­port net­work in south­ern Cal­i­for­nia for the hijack­ers was mir­rored in Vir­ginia with Awla­ki.
    ...

    Final­ly, note how there’s still appar­ent­ly quite a bit the FBI knows about Bay­ou­mi that they aren’t releas­ing:

    ...
    As part of their law­suit seek­ing mon­ey from the King­dom of Sau­di Ara­bia, CBS News has learned that some of the 9/11 fam­i­lies said they sub­poe­naed the FBI for the Bay­ou­mi records in 2018, adding only a frac­tion were pro­vid­ed by the bureau and are under seal, which means they will not be pub­licly released.
    ...

    So let’s hope the British courts also have access to all those doc­u­ments the FBI con­tin­ues to hold under seal. Maybe they’ll see the light of day some­day. Not that it will make a dif­fer­ence.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | May 14, 2022, 4:30 pm
  4. If a tree falls in the for­est and there’s no one around to hear it, did it make a sound? It’s a mat­ter of seman­tics. But how about if the tree falls and lots of peo­ple are around to hear it but they just don’t seem to have the abil­i­ty to notice or care. Did it still make a sound? That’s the depress­ing meta-ques­tion raised by the lat­est utter­ly damn­ing series of 9/11 rev­e­la­tions. The lat­est in a series of rev­e­la­tions for years now point­ing in the same grim direc­tion: not only did US and Sau­di intel­li­gence know the 9/11 hijack­ers were prepar­ing an attack but the attacks were, in fact, the prod­uct of a joint US-Sau­di intel­li­gence oper­a­tion. An oper­a­tion that per­haps went hor­ri­bly awry. Or maybe went entire­ly as planned. We have no idea since a real inves­ti­ga­tion has nev­er been allowed.

    But what we can say with con­fi­dence at this point is that the CIA and FBI both knew about the pres­ence of the 9/11 hijack­ers on US soil, knew their al Qae­da ties, and repeat­ed­ly took steps to ensure field agents did­n’t bust them. That’s the utter­ly damn­ing con­clu­sion we can take from the lat­est round of rev­e­la­tions, this time from a 21-page dec­la­ra­tion bey Don Canes­traro, a lead inves­ti­ga­tor for the Office of Mil­i­tary Com­mis­sions, the legal body over­see­ing the inves­ti­ga­tion into the 9/11 defen­dants. As we’re going to see, that 21-page memo is filled with claims from both FBI and CIA sources Canes­traro talked to who all a pre‑9/11 pat­tern of block­ing attempts to iden­ti­fy and stop the 9/11 hijack­ers. In par­tic­u­lar, numer­ous agents from Oper­a­tion Encore, the post=9/11 inves­ti­ga­tion into pos­si­ble Sau­di involve­ment in the attacks.

    Recall how we learned back in Novem­ber 2021 that the FBI has qui­et­ly for­mal­ly closed “Oper­a­tion Encore” in May of 2021, which was the FBI’s last remain­ing inves­ti­ga­tion into the 9/11 attacks. The inves­ti­ga­tion focused on three men — Fahad Al-Thu­mairy, Omar Al-Bay­ou­mi, and Musaed Al-Jar­rah — sus­pect­ed of pro­vid­ed or direct­ed oth­ers to pro­vide Nawaf al-Haz­mi and Khalid al-Mihd­har with “assis­tance in dai­ly activ­i­ties, includ­ing procur­ing liv­ing quar­ters and assis­tance with assim­i­lat­ing into South­ern Cal­i­for­nia.” None of the three men were ulti­mate­ly charged, and yet doc­u­ments released indi­cat­ed that the FBI had extreme­ly com­pelling cir­cum­stan­tial evi­dence of their involve­ment in the plot.

    Also recall how we’ve pre­vi­ous­ly seen how US-born al-Qae­da cler­ic Anwar al-Awla­ki was not just serv­ing as a kind of spir­i­tu­al advi­sor to the San Diego cell of the hijack­ers, but he may have been involved in what looked like a Sau­di-gov­ern­ment-spon­sored ‘dry run’ two years before 9/11. Al-Awla­ki was, of course, lat­er killed in a US drone strike in 2011.

    And then there’s the bizarre May 2020 sto­ry, where the FBI acci­den­tal­ly pub­licly released Musaed Al-Jarrah’s name in an FBI doc­u­ment that was redact­ed by appar­ent­ly neglect­ed to redact Jarrah’s name. And in doing so basi­cal­ly admit­ted that the FBI knew back in 2012 that these indi­vid­u­als were work­ing on behalf of the Sau­di gov­ern­ment. That par­tial­ly-redact­ed doc­u­ment­ed admit­ted that FBI agents had uncov­ered evi­dence that Thu­mairy and Bay­ou­mi had been “tasked” to assist the hijack­ers by a third indi­vid­ual (al-Jar­rah) whose name was blacked out. The fam­i­lies of the 9/11 vic­tims sued to get that third name (al-Jarrah’s) pub­licly released. Iron­i­cal­ly, the par­tial­ly-redact­ed FBI doc­u­ment was writ­ten in sup­port of a move by then-Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bill Barr to block the release of these names under the premise that doing so would cause “sig­nif­i­cant harm to nation­al secu­ri­ty.”

    Final­ly, there was the March 2022 declas­si­fi­ca­tion of an FBI memo that con­firms that, yes, Omar Al-Bay­ou­mi was indeed receiv­ing a month­ly stipend from Sau­di intel­li­gence. Accord­ing to the June 14, 2017 memo, Bay­ou­mi was tasked with gath­er­ing infor­ma­tion “on per­sons of inter­est in the Sau­di com­mu­ni­ty” and pass­ing the intel­li­gence to Prince Ban­dar bin Sul­tan al-Saud, the Sau­di ambas­sador at the time. A sec­ond declas­si­fied FBI memo reports that con­fi­den­tial source told the FBI that there was a “50/50 chance” that Bay­ou­mi had advance knowl­edge of the 9/11 attacks and “assist­ed two of the hijack­ers while resid­ing in San Diego.” At this point so much of the mys­tery has been revealed that the biggest remain­ing mys­tery is why there has­n’t been more of a pub­lic out­cry over these rev­e­la­tions.

    And yet, despite all we’ve learned, there’s still more to learn. And the more we learn, the more damn­ing it all looks. It’s a pat­tern that con­tin­ues with the release of the new 21-page dec­la­ra­tion that makes it very clear we’re look­ing at a mas­sive coverup with many huge yet-to-be-answered ques­tions. Ques­tions that are increas­ing­ly focused on the activ­i­ties of Alec Sta­tion, the joint FBI/CIA oper­a­tion track­ing Osama bin Laden set up in 1996. As we’re going to see, Alec Sta­tion was­n’t a nor­mal unit. For starters, it was tasked with both intel­li­gence gath­er­ing AND asset recruit­ment, which is not nor­mal pro­to­col. Beyond that, the ‘ana­lysts’ at the unit were rou­tine­ly send­ing out orders to case offi­cers in the field, which is described as com­plete­ly out­side nor­mal CIA pro­to­col.

    But it’s not the unusu­al com­mand struc­ture of Alec Sta­tion that has peo­ple point­ing fin­gers at the unit. It’s the fact that the unit was repeat­ed­ly block­ing FBI and CIA agents from actu­al­ly iden­ti­fy­ing and pur­su­ing the 9/11 hijack­ers as they were oper­at­ing inside the US. And this includes block­ing actions that took place in the months and weeks lead­ing up to 9/11 as FBI agents became aware of the al Qae­da ties to the ‘San Diego cell’ of al-Haz­mi and al-Mihd­har with the assis­tance of al-Bay­ou­mi. In one very damn­ing instance, an FBI agent who stum­bled upon an “elec­tron­ic com­mu­ni­ca­tion” from FBI head­quar­ters on August 21, 2001, that iden­ti­fied al-Haz­mi and al-Mihd­har as being in the US con­tact­ed the Alec Sta­tion FBI agent who wrote the memo, Dina Cor­si, and was ordered by Cor­si to imme­di­ate­ly delete the memo. Then next day, this agent was on a con­fer­ence call between Cor­si and the FBI’s bin Laden unit chief where “offi­cials at FBI head­quar­ters” explic­it­ly told this agent to “stand down” and “cease look­ing” for al-Mihd­har, claim­ing the bureau intend­ed to open an “intel­li­gence gath­er­ing inves­ti­ga­tion” on him. Two days after this meet­ing, Alec Sta­tion final­ly informed the FBI that al-Haz­mi and al-Mihd­har were in the US.

    And that’s just one of the damn­ing claims Canes­traro col­lect­ed from a num­ber of FBI and CIA agents com­piled in this 21-page dec­la­ra­tion. Claims that paint a pic­ture of CIA and Sau­di pro­tec­tions for the 9/11 hijack­ers. The kind of pic­ture where, at best, this was a counter-intel­li­gence oper­a­tion that went hor­ri­bly awry. That’s the best spin on the sit­u­a­tion at this point. It’s so damn­ing that, of course, almost no one is talk­ing about it. Because that’s how we roll:

    The Gray­zone

    Bomb­shell fil­ing: 9/11 hijack­ers were CIA recruits

    Kit Klaren­berg
    April 18, 2023

    At least two 9/11 hijack­ers had been recruit­ed into a joint CIA-Sau­di intel­li­gence oper­a­tion that was cov­ered up at the high­est lev­el, accord­ing to an explo­sive new court fil­ing.

    A new­ly-released court fil­ing rais­es grave ques­tions about the rela­tion­ship between Alec Sta­tion, a CIA unit set up to track Al Qae­da chief Osama bin Laden and his asso­ciates, and two 9/11 hijack­ers lead­ing up to the attacks, which was sub­ject to a coverup at the high­est lev­els of the FBI.

    Obtained by SpyTalk, the fil­ing is a 21-page dec­la­ra­tion by Don Canes­traro, a lead inves­ti­ga­tor for the Office of Mil­i­tary Com­mis­sions, the legal body over­see­ing the cas­es of 9/11 defen­dants. It sum­ma­rizes clas­si­fied gov­ern­ment dis­cov­ery dis­clo­sures, and pri­vate inter­views he con­duct­ed with anony­mous high-rank­ing CIA and FBI offi­cials. Many agents who spoke to Canes­traro head­ed up Oper­a­tion Encore, the Bureau’s abort­ed, long-run­ning probe into Sau­di gov­ern­ment con­nec­tions to the 9/11 attack.

    Despite con­duct­ing mul­ti­ple lengthy inter­views with a range of wit­ness­es, pro­duc­ing hun­dreds of pages of evi­dence, for­mal­ly inves­ti­gat­ing sev­er­al Sau­di offi­cials, and launch­ing a grand jury to probe a Riyadh-run US-based sup­port net­work for the hijack­ers, Encore was abrupt­ly ter­mi­nat­ed in 2016. This was pur­port­ed­ly due to a byzan­tine intra-FBI bust-up over inves­tiga­tive meth­ods.

    When orig­i­nal­ly released in 2021 on the Office’s pub­lic court dock­et, every part of the doc­u­ment was redact­ed except an “unclas­si­fied” mark­ing. Giv­en its explo­sive con­tents, it is not dif­fi­cult to see why: as Canestraro’s inves­ti­ga­tion con­clud­ed, at least two 9/11 hijack­ers had been recruit­ed either know­ing­ly or unknow­ing­ly into a joint CIA-Sau­di intel­li­gence oper­a­tion which may have gone awry.

    ‘A 50/50 chance’ of Sau­di involve­ment

    In 1996, Alec Sta­tion was cre­at­ed under the watch of the CIA. The ini­tia­tive was sup­posed to com­prise a joint inves­tiga­tive effort with the FBI. How­ev­er, FBI oper­a­tives assigned to the unit soon found they were pro­hib­it­ed from pass­ing any infor­ma­tion to the Bureau’s head office with­out the CIA’s autho­riza­tion, and faced harsh penal­ties for doing so. Efforts to share infor­ma­tion with the FBI’s equiv­a­lent unit – the I‑49 squad based in New York – were repeat­ed­ly blocked.

    In late 1999, with “the sys­tem blink­ing red” about an immi­nent large-scale Al Qae­da ter­ror attack inside the US, the CIA and NSA were close­ly mon­i­tor­ing an “oper­a­tional cadre” with­in an Al Qae­da cell that includ­ed the Sau­di nation­als Nawaf al-Haz­mi and Khalid al-Mihd­har. The pair would pur­port­ed­ly go on to hijack Amer­i­can Air­lines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pen­ta­gon on 9/11.

    Al-Haz­mi and al-Mid­har had attend­ed an Al Qae­da sum­mit that took place between Jan­u­ary 5th and 8th 2000, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The meet­ing was secret­ly pho­tographed and video­taped by local author­i­ties at Alec Station’s request although, appar­ent­ly, no audio was cap­tured. En route, Mihd­har tran­sit­ed through Dubai, where CIA oper­a­tives broke into his hotel room and pho­to­copied his pass­port. It showed that he pos­sessed a mul­ti-entry visa to the US.

    A con­tem­po­ra­ne­ous inter­nal CIA cable stat­ed this infor­ma­tion was imme­di­ate­ly passed to the FBI “for fur­ther inves­ti­ga­tion.” In real­i­ty, Alec Sta­tion not only failed to inform the Bureau of Mihdhar’s US visa, but also express­ly for­bade two FBI agents assigned to the unit from doing so.

    “[I said] ‘we’ve got to tell the Bureau about this. These guys clear­ly are bad…we’ve got to tell the FBI.’ And then [the CIA] said to me, ‘no, it’s not the FBI’s case, not the FBI’s juris­dic­tion’,” Mark Rossi­ni, one of the FBI agents in ques­tion, has alleged. “If we had picked up the phone and called the Bureau, I would’ve been vio­lat­ing the law. I…would’ve been removed from the build­ing that day. I would’ve had my clear­ances sus­pend­ed, and I would be gone.”

    On Jan­u­ary 15th, Haz­mi and Mihd­har entered the US through Los Ange­les Inter­na­tion­al Air­port, just weeks after the foiled Mil­len­ni­um plot. Omar al-Bay­ou­mi, a Sau­di gov­ern­ment “ghost employ­ee” imme­di­ate­ly met them at an air­port restau­rant. After a brief con­ver­sa­tion, Bay­ou­mi helped them find an apart­ment near his own in San Diego, co-signed their lease, set them up bank accounts, and gift­ed $1,500 towards their rent. The three would have mul­ti­ple con­tacts mov­ing for­ward.

    In inter­views with Oper­a­tion Encore inves­ti­ga­tors years lat­er, Bay­ou­mi alleged his run-in with the two would-be hijack­ers was mere hap­pen­stance. His extra­or­di­nary prac­ti­cal and finan­cial sup­port was, he claimed, sim­ply char­i­ta­ble, moti­vat­ed by sym­pa­thy for the pair, who could bare­ly speak Eng­lish and were unfa­mil­iar with West­ern cul­ture.

    The Bureau dis­agreed, con­clud­ing Bay­ou­mi was a Sau­di spy, who han­dled a num­ber of Al Qae­da oper­a­tives in the US. They also con­sid­ered there to be a “50/50 chance” he – and by exten­sion Riyadh – had detailed advance knowl­edge of the 9/11 attacks.

    That remark­able find­ing wasn’t known pub­licly until two decades lat­er, when a tranche of Oper­a­tion Encore doc­u­ments were declas­si­fied upon the Biden administration’s orders, and it was com­plete­ly ignored by the main­stream media. Don Canestraro’s dec­la­ra­tion now reveals FBI inves­ti­ga­tors went even fur­ther in their assess­ments.

    A Bureau spe­cial agent, dubbed “CS‑3” in the doc­u­ment, stat­ed Bayoumi’s con­tact with the hijack­ers and sup­port there­after “was done at the behest of the CIA through the Sau­di intel­li­gence ser­vice.” Alec Station’s explic­it pur­pose was to “recruit Al-Haz­mi and Al-Mihd­har via a liai­son rela­tion­ship”, with the assis­tance of Riyadh’s Gen­er­al Intel­li­gence Direc­torate.

    A most ‘unusu­al’ CIA unit

    Alec Station’s for­mal remit was to track bin Laden, “col­lect intel­li­gence on him, run oper­a­tions against him, dis­rupt his finances, and warn pol­i­cy­mak­ers about his activ­i­ties and inten­tions.” These activ­i­ties would nat­u­ral­ly entail enlist­ing infor­mants with­in Al Qae­da.

    Nonethe­less, as sev­er­al high lev­el sources told Canes­traro, it was extreme­ly “unusu­al” for such an enti­ty to be involved in gath­er­ing intel­li­gence and recruit­ing assets. The US-based unit was run by CIA ana­lysts, who do not typ­i­cal­ly man­age human assets. Legal­ly, that work is the exclu­sive pre­serve of case offi­cers “trained in covert oper­a­tions” and based over­seas.

    “CS-10”, a CIA case offi­cer with­in Alec Sta­tion, con­curred with the propo­si­tion that Haz­mi and Mihd­har enjoyed a rela­tion­ship with the CIA through Bay­ou­mi, and was baf­fled that the unit was tasked with attempt­ing to pen­e­trate Al Qae­da in the first place. They felt it “would be near­ly impossible…to devel­op infor­mants inside” the group, giv­en the “vir­tu­al” sta­tion was based in a Lan­g­ley base­ment, “sev­er­al thou­sand miles from the coun­tries where Al Qae­da was sus­pect­ed of oper­at­ing.”

    “CS-10” fur­ther tes­ti­fied that they “observed oth­er unusu­al activ­i­ties” at Alec Sta­tion. Ana­lysts with­in the unit “would direct oper­a­tions to case offi­cers in the field by send­ing the offi­cers cables instruct­ing them to do a spe­cif­ic task­ing,” which was “a vio­la­tion of CIA pro­ce­dures.” Ana­lysts “nor­mal­ly lacked the author­i­ty to direct a case offi­cer to do any­thing.”

    “CS-11”, a CIA oper­a­tions spe­cial­ist post­ed to Alec Sta­tion “some­time pri­or to the 9/11 attacks” said they like­wise “observed activ­i­ty that appeared to be out­side nor­mal CIA pro­ce­dures.” Ana­lysts with­in the unit “most­ly stuck to them­selves and did not inter­act fre­quent­ly” with oth­ers. When com­mu­ni­cat­ing with one anoth­er through inter­nal cables, they also used oper­a­tional pseu­do­nyms, which “CS-11” described as pecu­liar, as they were not work­ing under­cov­er, “and their employ­ment with the CIA was not clas­si­fied infor­ma­tion.”

    The unit’s unusu­al oper­a­tional cul­ture may explain some of the stranger deci­sions made dur­ing this peri­od vis a vis Al Qae­da infor­mants. In ear­ly 1998, while on a CIA mis­sion to pen­e­trate London’s Islamist scene, a joint FBI-CIA infor­mant named Aukai Collins received a stun­ning offer: bin Laden him­self want­ed him to go to Afghanistan so they could meet.

    Collins relayed the request to his supe­ri­ors. While the FBI was in favor of infil­trat­ing Al Qaeda’s base, his CIA han­dler nixed the idea, say­ing, “there was no way the US would approve an Amer­i­can oper­a­tive going under­cov­er into Bin Laden’s camps.”

    Sim­i­lar­ly, in June 2001, CIA and FBI ana­lysts from Alec Sta­tion met with senior Bureau offi­cials, includ­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tives of its own Al Qae­da unit. The CIA shared three pho­tos of indi­vid­u­als who attend­ed the Kuala Lumpur meet­ing 18 months ear­li­er, includ­ing Haz­mi and Mihd­har. How­ev­er, as an FBI counter-ter­ror offi­cer code­named “CS-15” recalled, the dates of the pho­tos and key details about the fig­ures they depict­ed were not revealed. Instead, the ana­lysts sim­ply asked if the FBI “knew the iden­ti­ties of the indi­vid­u­als in the pho­tos.”

    Anoth­er FBI offi­cial present, “CS-12”, offers an even more damn­ing account. The Alec Sta­tion ana­lysts not only failed to offer bio­graph­i­cal infor­ma­tion, but false­ly implied one of the indi­vid­u­als might be Fahd Al-Quso, a sus­pect in the bomb­ing of the USS Cole. What’s more, they out­right refused to answer any ques­tions relat­ed to the pho­tographs. Nonethe­less, it was con­firmed that no sys­tem was in place to alert the FBI if any of the three entered the US – a “stan­dard inves­tiga­tive tech­nique” for ter­ror sus­pects.

    Giv­en Haz­mi and Mihd­har appeared to be simul­ta­ne­ous­ly work­ing for Alec Sta­tion in some capac­i­ty, the June 2001 meet­ing may well have been a dan­gle. No intel­li­gence val­ue could be extract­ed from inquir­ing whether the Bureau knew who their assets were, apart from ascer­tain­ing if the FBI’s counter-ter­ror team was aware of their iden­ti­ties, phys­i­cal appear­ances, and pres­ence in the US.

    Quite some coverup

    Anoth­er of Canestraro’s sources, a for­mer FBI agent who went by “CS-23,” tes­ti­fied that after 9/11, FBI head­quar­ters and its San Diego field office quick­ly learned of “Bayoumi’s affil­i­a­tion with Sau­di intel­li­gence and sub­se­quent­ly the exis­tence of the CIA’s oper­a­tion to recruit” Haz­mi and Mihd­har.

    How­ev­er, “senior FBI offi­cials sup­pressed inves­ti­ga­tions” into these mat­ters. “CS-23” alleged, fur­ther­more, that Bureau agents tes­ti­fy­ing before the Joint Inquiry into 9/11 “were instruct­ed not to reveal the full extent of Sau­di involve­ment with Al-Qae­da.”

    The US intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty would have had every rea­son to shield Riyadh from scruti­ny and con­se­quences for its role in the 9/11 attacks, as it was then one of its clos­est allies. But the FBI’s eager com­plic­i­ty in Alec Station’s coverup may have been moti­vat­ed by self-inter­est, as one of its own was inti­mate­ly involved in the unit’s effort to recruit Haz­mi and Mihd­har, and con­ceal their pres­ence in the US from rel­e­vant author­i­ties.

    “CS-12”, who attend­ed the June 2001 meet­ing with Alec Sta­tion, told Canes­traro that they “con­tin­ued to press FBI Head­quar­ters for fur­ther infor­ma­tion regard­ing the sub­jects in the pho­tographs” over that sum­mer. On August 23rd, they stum­bled upon an “elec­tron­ic com­mu­ni­ca­tion” from FBI head­quar­ters, which iden­ti­fied Haz­mi and Mihd­har, and not­ed they were in the US.

    “CS-12” then con­tact­ed the FBI ana­lyst with­in Alec Sta­tion who authored the com­mu­ni­ca­tion. The con­ver­sa­tion quick­ly became “heat­ed”, with the ana­lyst order­ing them to delete the memo “imme­di­ate­ly” as they were not autho­rized to view it. While unnamed in the dec­la­ra­tion, the FBI ana­lyst in ques­tion was Dina Cor­si.

    The next day, on a con­fer­ence call between “CS-12”, Cor­si, and the FBI’s bin Laden unit chief, “offi­cials at FBI head­quar­ters” explic­it­ly told “CS-12” to “stand down” and “cease look­ing” for Mihd­har, as the Bureau intend­ed to open an “intel­li­gence gath­er­ing inves­ti­ga­tion” on him. The next day, “CS-12” emailed Cor­si, stat­ing blunt­ly “some­one is going to die” unless Mihd­har was pur­sued crim­i­nal­ly.

    It was sure­ly no coin­ci­dence that two days lat­er, on August 26th, Alec Sta­tion final­ly informed the FBI that Haz­mi and Mihd­har were in the US. By then, the pair had entered the final phase of prepa­ra­tions for the impend­ing attacks. If a crim­i­nal probe had been opened, they could have been stopped in their tracks. Instead, as fore­shad­owed by the offi­cials in con­tact with “CS-12,” an intel­li­gence inves­ti­ga­tion was launched which hin­dered any search efforts.

    In the days imme­di­ate­ly after the 9/11 attacks, “CS-12” and oth­er New York-based FBI agents par­tic­i­pat­ed in anoth­er con­fer­ence call with Bureau head­quar­ters. Dur­ing the con­ver­sa­tion, they learned Haz­mi and Mihd­har were named on Flight 77’s man­i­fest. One ana­lyst on the line ran the pair’s names through “com­mer­cial data­bas­es,” quick­ly find­ing them and their home address list­ed in San Diego’s local phone direc­to­ry. It turned out they had been liv­ing with an FBI infor­mant.

    “CS-12” soon con­tact­ed Cor­si “regard­ing infor­ma­tion on the hijack­ers.” She respond­ed by pro­vid­ing a pho­to­graph from the same sur­veil­lance oper­a­tion that pro­duced the three pic­tures pre­sent­ed at the June 2001 meet­ing between Alec Sta­tion and FBI agents; they depict­ed Walid bin Attash, a lead sus­pect in Al Qaeda’s 1998 East Africa US Embassy bomb­ings and its attack on the USS Cole.

    Cor­si was unable to explain why the pho­to was not shown to FBI agents ear­li­er. If it had been, “CS-12” claims they would have “imme­di­ate­ly linked” Haz­mi and Mihd­har to bin Attash, which “would have shift­ed from an intel­li­gence based inves­ti­ga­tion into a crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion.” The FBI’s New York field office could have then devot­ed its “full resources” to find­ing the hijack­ers before the fate­ful day of Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001.

    Alec Sta­tion oper­a­tives fail upwards

    ...

    The real motives behind the CIA’s stonewalling may nev­er be known. But it appears abun­dant­ly clear that Alec Sta­tion did not want the FBI to know about or inter­fere in its secret intel­li­gence oper­a­tion. If the unit’s recruit­ment of Haz­mi and Mihd­har was pure­ly ded­i­cat­ed to infor­ma­tion gath­er­ing, rather than oper­a­tional direc­tion, it is incom­pre­hen­si­ble that the FBI had not been apprised of it, and was instead active­ly mis­di­rect­ed.

    Sev­er­al FBI sources con­sult­ed by Canes­traro spec­u­lat­ed that the CIA’s des­per­a­tion to pen­e­trate Al Qae­da prompt­ed it to grant Alec Sta­tion the pow­er to recruit assets, and pres­sured it to do so. But if this were tru­ly the case, then why did Lan­g­ley refuse the oppor­tu­ni­ty to send Aukai Collins – a proven deep cov­er asset who had infil­trat­ed sev­er­al Islamist gangs – to pen­e­trate bin Laden’s net­work in Afghanistan?

    One alter­na­tive expla­na­tion is that Alec Sta­tion, a pow­er­ful rogue CIA team answer­able and account­able to no one, sought to infil­trate the ter­ror group for its own sin­is­ter pur­pos­es, with­out the autho­riza­tion and over­sight usu­al­ly required by Lan­g­ley in such cir­cum­stances. Giv­en that Collins was a joint asset shared with the FBI, he could not be trust­ed to par­tic­i­pate in such a sen­si­tive black oper­a­tion.

    No mem­ber of Alec Sta­tion has been pun­ished in any way for the sup­posed “intel­li­gence fail­ures” that allowed 9/11 to go ahead. In fact, they have been reward­ed. Richard Blee, the unit’s chief at the time of the attacks, and his suc­ces­sor Alfre­da Frances Bikowsky, both joined the CIA’s oper­a­tions divi­sion, and became high­ly influ­en­tial fig­ures in the so-called war on ter­ror. Cor­si, for her part, was pro­mot­ed at the FBI, even­tu­al­ly ris­ing to the rank of Deputy Assis­tant Direc­tor for Intel­li­gence.

    In a per­verse twist, the Sen­ate Intel­li­gence Committee’s report on the CIA’s tor­ture pro­gram found that Bikowsky had been a key play­er in the agency’s black site machi­na­tions, and one of their chief pub­lic apol­o­gists. It is increas­ing­ly clear that the pro­gram was specif­i­cal­ly con­cerned with elic­it­ing false tes­ti­mo­ny from sus­pects in order to jus­ti­fy and expand the US war on ter­ror.

    The public’s under­stand­ing of the 9/11 attacks is heav­i­ly informed by tes­ti­monies deliv­ered by CIA tor­ture vic­tims under the most extreme duress imag­in­able. And Bikowsky, a vet­er­an of the Alec Sta­tion that ran cov­er for at least two would-be 9/11 hijack­ers, had been in charge of inter­ro­gat­ing the alleged per­pe­tra­tors of the attacks.

    The vet­er­an FBI deep cov­er agent Aukai Collins con­clud­ed his mem­oir with a chill­ing reflec­tion which was only rein­forced by Don Canestraro’s bomb­shell dec­la­ra­tion:

    “I was very mis­trust­ful about the fact that bin Laden’s name was men­tioned lit­er­al­ly hours after the attack… I became very skep­ti­cal about any­thing any­body said about what hap­pened, or who did it. I thought back to when I was still work­ing for them and we had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to enter Bin Laden’s camp. Some­thing just hadn’t smelled right…To this day I’m unsure who was behind Sep­tem­ber 11, nor can I even guess… Some­day the truth will reveal itself, and I have a feel­ing that peo­ple won’t like what they hear.

    ———–

    “Bomb­shell fil­ing: 9/11 hijack­ers were CIA recruits” by Kit Klaren­berg; The Gray­zone; 04/18/2023

    “Obtained by SpyTalk, the fil­ing is a 21-page dec­la­ra­tion by Don Canes­traro, a lead inves­ti­ga­tor for the Office of Mil­i­tary Com­mis­sions, the legal body over­see­ing the cas­es of 9/11 defen­dants. It sum­ma­rizes clas­si­fied gov­ern­ment dis­cov­ery dis­clo­sures, and pri­vate inter­views he con­duct­ed with anony­mous high-rank­ing CIA and FBI offi­cials. Many agents who spoke to Canes­traro head­ed up Oper­a­tion Encore, the Bureau’s abort­ed, long-run­ning probe into Sau­di gov­ern­ment con­nec­tions to the 9/11 attack.

    A 21-page dec­la­ra­tion by Don Canes­traro, the lead inves­ti­ga­tor for the Office of Mil­i­tary Com­mis­sions which over­saw the inves­ti­ga­tion into the 9/11 hijack­ers. That doc­u­ment is at the heart of this damn­ing new report and based heav­i­ly on the agents who head­ed up Oper­a­tion Encore, the long-run­ning FBI inves­ti­ga­tion into poten­tial Sau­di involve­ment in 9/11 that was qui­et­ly shut­tered in 2021. As we saw, the clos­ing of Oper­a­tion Encore coin­cid­ed with some doc­u­ment dumps that raised even more ques­tions about Sau­di involve­ment and ques­tions about a coverup. And now here we are with a 21-page report from the per­son who over­saw the inves­ti­ga­tion into the 9/11 hijack­ers cit­ing those Oper­a­tion Encore agents and arriv­ing at the con­clu­sion that at least two of the 9/11 hijack­ers were part of a joint CIA-Sau­di intel­li­gence oper­a­tion. It just keeps get­ting worse:

    ...
    Despite con­duct­ing mul­ti­ple lengthy inter­views with a range of wit­ness­es, pro­duc­ing hun­dreds of pages of evi­dence, for­mal­ly inves­ti­gat­ing sev­er­al Sau­di offi­cials, and launch­ing a grand jury to probe a Riyadh-run US-based sup­port net­work for the hijack­ers, Encore was abrupt­ly ter­mi­nat­ed in 2016. This was pur­port­ed­ly due to a byzan­tine intra-FBI bust-up over inves­tiga­tive meth­ods.

    When orig­i­nal­ly released in 2021 on the Office’s pub­lic court dock­et, every part of the doc­u­ment was redact­ed except an “unclas­si­fied” mark­ing. Giv­en its explo­sive con­tents, it is not dif­fi­cult to see why: as Canestraro’s inves­ti­ga­tion con­clud­ed, at least two 9/11 hijack­ers had been recruit­ed either know­ing­ly or unknow­ing­ly into a joint CIA-Sau­di intel­li­gence oper­a­tion which may have gone awry.
    ...

    But the cov­ered up find­ings are Oper­a­tion Encore are just one part of this sto­ry. A post‑9/11 chap­ter. There’s also all the pre‑9/11 events that sure look might­i­ly sus­pi­cious with the ben­e­fit of hind­sight. Or even sus­pi­cious at the time, like Alec Sta­tion, the joint FBI-CIA inves­ti­ga­tion set up to track Osama bin Laden that had the unusu­al task of both gath­er­ing intel­li­gence and recruit­ing assets:

    ...
    In 1996, Alec Sta­tion was cre­at­ed under the watch of the CIA. The ini­tia­tive was sup­posed to com­prise a joint inves­tiga­tive effort with the FBI. How­ev­er, FBI oper­a­tives assigned to the unit soon found they were pro­hib­it­ed from pass­ing any infor­ma­tion to the Bureau’s head office with­out the CIA’s autho­riza­tion, and faced harsh penal­ties for doing so. Efforts to share infor­ma­tion with the FBI’s equiv­a­lent unit – the I‑49 squad based in New York – were repeat­ed­ly blocked.

    ...

    Alec Station’s for­mal remit was to track bin Laden, “col­lect intel­li­gence on him, run oper­a­tions against him, dis­rupt his finances, and warn pol­i­cy­mak­ers about his activ­i­ties and inten­tions.” These activ­i­ties would nat­u­ral­ly entail enlist­ing infor­mants with­in Al Qae­da.

    Nonethe­less, as sev­er­al high lev­el sources told Canes­traro, it was extreme­ly “unusu­al” for such an enti­ty to be involved in gath­er­ing intel­li­gence and recruit­ing assets. The US-based unit was run by CIA ana­lysts, who do not typ­i­cal­ly man­age human assets. Legal­ly, that work is the exclu­sive pre­serve of case offi­cers “trained in covert oper­a­tions” and based over­seas.
    ...

    And it’s that pre‑9/11 sto­ry about Alec Sta­tion’s curi­ous behav­ior and the post‑9/11 coverup of Sau­di involve­ment that bring us to the remark­able pre‑9/11 sur­veil­lance of Sau­di nation­als Nawaf al-Haz­mi and Khalid al-Mihd­har and their mys­te­ri­ous rela­tion­ship to US-based Sau­di gov­ern­ment “ghost employ­ee” Omar al-Bay­ou­mi. Recall how retired FBI agent Dan­ny Gon­za­lez, who worked on Oper­a­tion Encore, told CBS News back in the fall of 2021 that he believed Omar al-Bay­ou­mi was part of the hijack­ers US-based sup­port net­work. And here we find that the CIA and NSA were close­ly mon­i­tor­ing an “oper­a­tional cadre” with­in an al Qae­da cell that includ­ed al-Haz­mi and al-Mihd­har. That close mon­i­tor­ing includ­ed track­ing the two to a Jan 2000 meet­ing in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where CIA oper­a­tives broke into al-Mihd­har’s hotel room and dis­cov­ered a mul­ti-entry US visa. Cables indi­cat­ed that the CIA claimed this infor­ma­tion was imme­di­ate­ly passed to the FBI, and yet we are now learn­ing that Alec Sta­tion express­ly for­bid its FBI agents from doing so. Alec Sta­tion was cov­er­ing up the from the FBI the real­i­ty that this al Qae­da oper­a­tive has a mul­ti-entry US visa. This is the con­stel­la­tion of facts that had FBI agent “CS‑3” con­clud­ing that al-Bayoumi’s con­tact with the hijack­ers and sup­port there­after “was done at the behest of the CIA through the Sau­di intel­li­gence ser­vice” and that Alec Station’s explic­it pur­pose was to “recruit Al-Haz­mi and Al-Mihd­har via a liai­son rela­tion­ship”, with the assis­tance of Riyadh’s Gen­er­al Intel­li­gence Direc­torate. It’s hard to get a more damn­ing set of rev­e­la­tions giv­en the cir­cum­stances:

    ...
    In late 1999, with “the sys­tem blink­ing red” about an immi­nent large-scale Al Qae­da ter­ror attack inside the US, the CIA and NSA were close­ly mon­i­tor­ing an “oper­a­tional cadre” with­in an Al Qae­da cell that includ­ed the Sau­di nation­als Nawaf al-Haz­mi and Khalid al-Mihd­har. The pair would pur­port­ed­ly go on to hijack Amer­i­can Air­lines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pen­ta­gon on 9/11.

    Al-Haz­mi and al-Mid­har had attend­ed an Al Qae­da sum­mit that took place between Jan­u­ary 5th and 8th 2000, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The meet­ing was secret­ly pho­tographed and video­taped by local author­i­ties at Alec Station’s request although, appar­ent­ly, no audio was cap­tured. En route, Mihd­har tran­sit­ed through Dubai, where CIA oper­a­tives broke into his hotel room and pho­to­copied his pass­port. It showed that he pos­sessed a mul­ti-entry visa to the US.

    A con­tem­po­ra­ne­ous inter­nal CIA cable stat­ed this infor­ma­tion was imme­di­ate­ly passed to the FBI “for fur­ther inves­ti­ga­tion.” In real­i­ty, Alec Sta­tion not only failed to inform the Bureau of Mihdhar’s US visa, but also express­ly for­bade two FBI agents assigned to the unit from doing so.

    “[I said] ‘we’ve got to tell the Bureau about this. These guys clear­ly are bad…we’ve got to tell the FBI.’ And then [the CIA] said to me, ‘no, it’s not the FBI’s case, not the FBI’s juris­dic­tion’,” Mark Rossi­ni, one of the FBI agents in ques­tion, has alleged. “If we had picked up the phone and called the Bureau, I would’ve been vio­lat­ing the law. I…would’ve been removed from the build­ing that day. I would’ve had my clear­ances sus­pend­ed, and I would be gone.”

    On Jan­u­ary 15th, Haz­mi and Mihd­har entered the US through Los Ange­les Inter­na­tion­al Air­port, just weeks after the foiled Mil­len­ni­um plot. Omar al-Bay­ou­mi, a Sau­di gov­ern­ment “ghost employ­ee” imme­di­ate­ly met them at an air­port restau­rant. After a brief con­ver­sa­tion, Bay­ou­mi helped them find an apart­ment near his own in San Diego, co-signed their lease, set them up bank accounts, and gift­ed $1,500 towards their rent. The three would have mul­ti­ple con­tacts mov­ing for­ward.

    In inter­views with Oper­a­tion Encore inves­ti­ga­tors years lat­er, Bay­ou­mi alleged his run-in with the two would-be hijack­ers was mere hap­pen­stance. His extra­or­di­nary prac­ti­cal and finan­cial sup­port was, he claimed, sim­ply char­i­ta­ble, moti­vat­ed by sym­pa­thy for the pair, who could bare­ly speak Eng­lish and were unfa­mil­iar with West­ern cul­ture.

    The Bureau dis­agreed, con­clud­ing Bay­ou­mi was a Sau­di spy, who han­dled a num­ber of Al Qae­da oper­a­tives in the US. They also con­sid­ered there to be a “50/50 chance” he – and by exten­sion Riyadh – had detailed advance knowl­edge of the 9/11 attacks.

    That remark­able find­ing wasn’t known pub­licly until two decades lat­er, when a tranche of Oper­a­tion Encore doc­u­ments were declas­si­fied upon the Biden administration’s orders, and it was com­plete­ly ignored by the main­stream media. Don Canestraro’s dec­la­ra­tion now reveals FBI inves­ti­ga­tors went even fur­ther in their assess­ments.

    A Bureau spe­cial agent, dubbed “CS‑3” in the doc­u­ment, stat­ed Bayoumi’s con­tact with the hijack­ers and sup­port there­after “was done at the behest of the CIA through the Sau­di intel­li­gence ser­vice.” Alec Station’s explic­it pur­pose was to “recruit Al-Haz­mi and Al-Mihd­har via a liai­son rela­tion­ship”, with the assis­tance of Riyadh’s Gen­er­al Intel­li­gence Direc­torate.
    ...

    And “CS‑3” isn’t the only agent who arrived at that con­clu­sion. A CIA case offi­cer with­in Alec Sta­tion, “CS-10”, agreed that al-Haz­mi and al-Mihd­har had some sort of rela­tion­ship to the CIA through al-Bay­ou­mi. Beyond that, this agent claims to have been baf­fled that Alec Sta­tion was tasked with pen­e­trat­ing al Qae­da in the first place which, again, points to the curi­ous nature of Alec Sta­tion’s dual roles in both intel­li­gence gath­er and asset recruit­ment. Beyond that, “CS-10” observed CIA ana­lysts at Alec Sta­tion issue orders to case offi­cer in the field despite such ana­lysts nor­mal­ly lack­ing such author­i­ty, an obser­va­tion shared by “CS-11”, an Alec Sta­tion CIA oper­a­tions spe­cial­ist. So even some of the CIA agents at Alec Sta­tion are con­cur­ring that this was a very unusu­al unit oper­at­ing out­side of nor­mal CIA pro­to­cols. Which rais­es an obvi­ous ques­tion: were these real­ly CIA ana­lysts? Or were those roles just a cov­er? Was Alec Sta­tion effec­tive­ly oper­at­ing as a cov­er for some­thing else?

    ...
    “CS-10”, a CIA case offi­cer with­in Alec Sta­tion, con­curred with the propo­si­tion that Haz­mi and Mihd­har enjoyed a rela­tion­ship with the CIA through Bay­ou­mi, and was baf­fled that the unit was tasked with attempt­ing to pen­e­trate Al Qae­da in the first place. They felt it “would be near­ly impossible…to devel­op infor­mants inside” the group, giv­en the “vir­tu­al” sta­tion was based in a Lan­g­ley base­ment, “sev­er­al thou­sand miles from the coun­tries where Al Qae­da was sus­pect­ed of oper­at­ing.”

    “CS-10” fur­ther tes­ti­fied that they “observed oth­er unusu­al activ­i­ties” at Alec Sta­tion. Ana­lysts with­in the unit “would direct oper­a­tions to case offi­cers in the field by send­ing the offi­cers cables instruct­ing them to do a spe­cif­ic task­ing,” which was “a vio­la­tion of CIA pro­ce­dures.” Ana­lysts “nor­mal­ly lacked the author­i­ty to direct a case offi­cer to do any­thing.”

    “CS-11”, a CIA oper­a­tions spe­cial­ist post­ed to Alec Sta­tion “some­time pri­or to the 9/11 attacks” said they like­wise “observed activ­i­ty that appeared to be out­side nor­mal CIA pro­ce­dures.” Ana­lysts with­in the unit “most­ly stuck to them­selves and did not inter­act fre­quent­ly” with oth­ers. When com­mu­ni­cat­ing with one anoth­er through inter­nal cables, they also used oper­a­tional pseu­do­nyms, which “CS-11” described as pecu­liar, as they were not work­ing under­cov­er, “and their employ­ment with the CIA was not clas­si­fied infor­ma­tion.”
    ...

    But it’s not just the FBI and CIA agents assigned to Alec Sta­tion who are now rais­ing red flags about the nature of that enti­ty. A joint FBI-CIA infor­mant, Aukai Collins, recounts how he was pre­vent­ed from pur­su­ing an invi­ta­tion to go under­cov­er into bin Laden’s camps. The FBI was all in favor of the idea, but the CIA blocked it, say­ing “there was no way the US would approve an Amer­i­can oper­a­tive going under­cov­er into Bin Laden’s camps.” As Collins puts it now, “Some­thing just hadn’t smelled right…To this day I’m unsure who was behind Sep­tem­ber 11, nor can I even guess… Some­day the truth will reveal itself, and I have a feel­ing that peo­ple won’t like what they hear”:

    ...
    The unit’s unusu­al oper­a­tional cul­ture may explain some of the stranger deci­sions made dur­ing this peri­od vis a vis Al Qae­da infor­mants. In ear­ly 1998, while on a CIA mis­sion to pen­e­trate London’s Islamist scene, a joint FBI-CIA infor­mant named Aukai Collins received a stun­ning offer: bin Laden him­self want­ed him to go to Afghanistan so they could meet.

    Collins relayed the request to his supe­ri­ors. While the FBI was in favor of infil­trat­ing Al Qaeda’s base, his CIA han­dler nixed the idea, say­ing, “there was no way the US would approve an Amer­i­can oper­a­tive going under­cov­er into Bin Laden’s camps.”

    ...

    The vet­er­an FBI deep cov­er agent Aukai Collins con­clud­ed his mem­oir with a chill­ing reflec­tion which was only rein­forced by Don Canestraro’s bomb­shell dec­la­ra­tion:

    “I was very mis­trust­ful about the fact that bin Laden’s name was men­tioned lit­er­al­ly hours after the attack… I became very skep­ti­cal about any­thing any­body said about what hap­pened, or who did it. I thought back to when I was still work­ing for them and we had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to enter Bin Laden’s camp. Some­thing just hadn’t smelled right…To this day I’m unsure who was behind Sep­tem­ber 11, nor can I even guess… Some­day the truth will reveal itself, and I have a feel­ing that peo­ple won’t like what they hear.
    ...

    Adding to the damn­ing evi­dence that the CIA was some­how run­ning cov­er for these al Qae­da oper­a­tives is an exchange recount­ed by an FBI counter-ter­ror offi­cer code­named “CS-15”: accord­ing to this agent, CIA and FBI ana­lysts from Alec Sta­tion met with senior FBI offi­cials includ­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the FBI’s al Qea­da unit. The CIA shared three pho­tos of al-Haz­mi and al-Mihd­har attend­ing that Kuala Lumpur meet­ing in Jan­u­ary of 2000, but they obscure the iden­ti­ties of one of them and refused to answer any ques­tions about where the pho­to came from. As the arti­cle describes, this looks like a dan­gle designed to find out what the FBI already knew. A dan­gle seem­ing­ly designed to probe the US’s defens­es against this al Qae­da cell three months before 9/11:

    ...
    Sim­i­lar­ly, in June 2001, CIA and FBI ana­lysts from Alec Sta­tion met with senior Bureau offi­cials, includ­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tives of its own Al Qae­da unit. The CIA shared three pho­tos of indi­vid­u­als who attend­ed the Kuala Lumpur meet­ing 18 months ear­li­er, includ­ing Haz­mi and Mihd­har. How­ev­er, as an FBI counter-ter­ror offi­cer code­named “CS-15” recalled, the dates of the pho­tos and key details about the fig­ures they depict­ed were not revealed. Instead, the ana­lysts sim­ply asked if the FBI “knew the iden­ti­ties of the indi­vid­u­als in the pho­tos.”

    Anoth­er FBI offi­cial present, “CS-12”, offers an even more damn­ing account. The Alec Sta­tion ana­lysts not only failed to offer bio­graph­i­cal infor­ma­tion, but false­ly implied one of the indi­vid­u­als might be Fahd Al-Quso, a sus­pect in the bomb­ing of the USS Cole. What’s more, they out­right refused to answer any ques­tions relat­ed to the pho­tographs. Nonethe­less, it was con­firmed that no sys­tem was in place to alert the FBI if any of the three entered the US – a “stan­dard inves­tiga­tive tech­nique” for ter­ror sus­pects.

    Giv­en Haz­mi and Mihd­har appeared to be simul­ta­ne­ous­ly work­ing for Alec Sta­tion in some capac­i­ty, the June 2001 meet­ing may well have been a dan­gle. No intel­li­gence val­ue could be extract­ed from inquir­ing whether the Bureau knew who their assets were, apart from ascer­tain­ing if the FBI’s counter-ter­ror team was aware of their iden­ti­ties, phys­i­cal appear­ances, and pres­ence in the US.
    ...

    And while it appears that, pre‑9/11, this was pri­mar­i­ly a CIA coverup, that coverup appears to have become much broad­er post‑9/11 and may have includ­ed senior FBI offi­cials in the weeks lead­ing up to 9/11. For exam­ple, there’s the claims of “CS-23”, a for­mer FBI agent who tes­ti­fied that, post‑9/11, FBI head­quar­ters and its San Diego field office quick­ly learned of “Bayoumi’s affil­i­a­tion with Sau­di intel­li­gence and sub­se­quent­ly the exis­tence of the CIA’s oper­a­tion to recruit” al-Haz­mi and al-Mihd­har, but “senior FBI offi­cials sup­pressed inves­ti­ga­tions.” But far more damn­ing are the claims of “CS-12”, who attend­ed that June 2001 meet­ing where the CIA made that appar­ent dan­gle to the FBI. Accord­ing to CS-12, they stum­bled upon an “elec­tron­ic com­mu­ni­ca­tion” from FBI head­quar­ters, which iden­ti­fied Haz­mi and Mihd­har, and not­ed they were in the US on August 23, 2001. CS-12 then con­tact­ed the FBI ana­lyst at Alec Sta­tion who authored the memo, Dina Cor­si, which result­ed in or si ordered them to delete the memo “imme­di­ate­ly”. The next day, CS-12 was on a con­fer­ence call between Cor­si and the FBI’s bin Laden unit chief, where “offi­cials at FBI head­quar­ters” explic­it­ly told “CS-12” to “stand down” and “cease look­ing” for Mihd­har, claim­ing the bureau intend­ed to open an “intel­li­gence gath­er­ing inves­ti­ga­tion” on him. Again, this was less than three weeks before 9/11:

    ...
    Quite some coverup

    Anoth­er of Canestraro’s sources, a for­mer FBI agent who went by “CS-23,” tes­ti­fied that after 9/11, FBI head­quar­ters and its San Diego field office quick­ly learned of “Bayoumi’s affil­i­a­tion with Sau­di intel­li­gence and sub­se­quent­ly the exis­tence of the CIA’s oper­a­tion to recruit” Haz­mi and Mihd­har.

    How­ev­er, “senior FBI offi­cials sup­pressed inves­ti­ga­tions” into these mat­ters. “CS-23” alleged, fur­ther­more, that Bureau agents tes­ti­fy­ing before the Joint Inquiry into 9/11 “were instruct­ed not to reveal the full extent of Sau­di involve­ment with Al-Qae­da.”

    The US intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty would have had every rea­son to shield Riyadh from scruti­ny and con­se­quences for its role in the 9/11 attacks, as it was then one of its clos­est allies. But the FBI’s eager com­plic­i­ty in Alec Station’s coverup may have been moti­vat­ed by self-inter­est, as one of its own was inti­mate­ly involved in the unit’s effort to recruit Haz­mi and Mihd­har, and con­ceal their pres­ence in the US from rel­e­vant author­i­ties.

    “CS-12”, who attend­ed the June 2001 meet­ing with Alec Sta­tion, told Canes­traro that they “con­tin­ued to press FBI Head­quar­ters for fur­ther infor­ma­tion regard­ing the sub­jects in the pho­tographs” over that sum­mer. On August 23rd, they stum­bled upon an “elec­tron­ic com­mu­ni­ca­tion” from FBI head­quar­ters, which iden­ti­fied Haz­mi and Mihd­har, and not­ed they were in the US.

    “CS-12” then con­tact­ed the FBI ana­lyst with­in Alec Sta­tion who authored the com­mu­ni­ca­tion. The con­ver­sa­tion quick­ly became “heat­ed”, with the ana­lyst order­ing them to delete the memo “imme­di­ate­ly” as they were not autho­rized to view it. While unnamed in the dec­la­ra­tion, the FBI ana­lyst in ques­tion was Dina Cor­si.

    The next day, on a con­fer­ence call between “CS-12”, Cor­si, and the FBI’s bin Laden unit chief, “offi­cials at FBI head­quar­ters” explic­it­ly told “CS-12” to “stand down” and “cease look­ing” for Mihd­har, as the Bureau intend­ed to open an “intel­li­gence gath­er­ing inves­ti­ga­tion” on him. The next day, “CS-12” emailed Cor­si, stat­ing blunt­ly “some­one is going to die” unless Mihd­har was pur­sued crim­i­nal­ly.

    It was sure­ly no coin­ci­dence that two days lat­er, on August 26th, Alec Sta­tion final­ly informed the FBI that Haz­mi and Mihd­har were in the US. By then, the pair had entered the final phase of prepa­ra­tions for the impend­ing attacks. If a crim­i­nal probe had been opened, they could have been stopped in their tracks. Instead, as fore­shad­owed by the offi­cials in con­tact with “CS-12,” an intel­li­gence inves­ti­ga­tion was launched which hin­dered any search efforts.
    ...

    Then, days after 9/11, CS-12 con­tacts Cor­si with infor­ma­tion about al-Haz­mi and al-Mihd­har, and Cor­si responds with an addi­tion­al pho­to from the same Jan 2000 Kuala Lumpur sur­veil­lance oper­a­tion, but this pho­to had­n’t been pre­sent­ed at the June 2001 FBI-CIA ‘dan­gle’ meet­ing. And as CS-12 puts it, had they shown that pho­to it would have cre­at­ed a much greater FBI response as they could have con­fi­dent­ly linked al-Haz­mi and al-Mihd­har to the USS Cole bomb­ing. Cor­si had no expla­na­tion for why this intel­li­gence was­n’t shared ear­li­er:

    ...
    In the days imme­di­ate­ly after the 9/11 attacks, “CS-12” and oth­er New York-based FBI agents par­tic­i­pat­ed in anoth­er con­fer­ence call with Bureau head­quar­ters. Dur­ing the con­ver­sa­tion, they learned Haz­mi and Mihd­har were named on Flight 77’s man­i­fest. One ana­lyst on the line ran the pair’s names through “com­mer­cial data­bas­es,” quick­ly find­ing them and their home address list­ed in San Diego’s local phone direc­to­ry. It turned out they had been liv­ing with an FBI infor­mant.

    “CS-12” soon con­tact­ed Cor­si “regard­ing infor­ma­tion on the hijack­ers.” She respond­ed by pro­vid­ing a pho­to­graph from the same sur­veil­lance oper­a­tion that pro­duced the three pic­tures pre­sent­ed at the June 2001 meet­ing between Alec Sta­tion and FBI agents; they depict­ed Walid bin Attash, a lead sus­pect in Al Qaeda’s 1998 East Africa US Embassy bomb­ings and its attack on the USS Cole.

    Cor­si was unable to explain why the pho­to was not shown to FBI agents ear­li­er. If it had been, “CS-12” claims they would have “imme­di­ate­ly linked” Haz­mi and Mihd­har to bin Attash, which “would have shift­ed from an intel­li­gence based inves­ti­ga­tion into a crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion.” The FBI’s New York field office could have then devot­ed its “full resources” to find­ing the hijack­ers before the fate­ful day of Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001.
    ...

    Final­ly, regard­ing the intrigu­ing pos­si­bil­i­ty that Alec Sta­tion was, itself, a front for some sort of deep­er intel­li­gence oper­a­tion which might explain the abil­i­ty of its ‘ana­lysts’ to issue orders to case offi­cers in the field, note how the unit’s lead­er­ship was effec­tive­ly reward­ed with pro­mo­tions and played lead­ing roles in the post‑9/11 inves­ti­ga­tion. An inves­ti­ga­tion whose con­clu­sions were based in large part on the con­fes­sions extract­ed from peo­ple in Git­mo. And look at that: it turns out Alfre­da Frances Bikowsky of Alec Sta­tion was put in charge of inter­ro­gat­ing sus­pects:

    ...
    The real motives behind the CIA’s stonewalling may nev­er be known. But it appears abun­dant­ly clear that Alec Sta­tion did not want the FBI to know about or inter­fere in its secret intel­li­gence oper­a­tion. If the unit’s recruit­ment of Haz­mi and Mihd­har was pure­ly ded­i­cat­ed to infor­ma­tion gath­er­ing, rather than oper­a­tional direc­tion, it is incom­pre­hen­si­ble that the FBI had not been apprised of it, and was instead active­ly mis­di­rect­ed.

    Sev­er­al FBI sources con­sult­ed by Canes­traro spec­u­lat­ed that the CIA’s des­per­a­tion to pen­e­trate Al Qae­da prompt­ed it to grant Alec Sta­tion the pow­er to recruit assets, and pres­sured it to do so. But if this were tru­ly the case, then why did Lan­g­ley refuse the oppor­tu­ni­ty to send Aukai Collins – a proven deep cov­er asset who had infil­trat­ed sev­er­al Islamist gangs – to pen­e­trate bin Laden’s net­work in Afghanistan?

    One alter­na­tive expla­na­tion is that Alec Sta­tion, a pow­er­ful rogue CIA team answer­able and account­able to no one, sought to infil­trate the ter­ror group for its own sin­is­ter pur­pos­es, with­out the autho­riza­tion and over­sight usu­al­ly required by Lan­g­ley in such cir­cum­stances. Giv­en that Collins was a joint asset shared with the FBI, he could not be trust­ed to par­tic­i­pate in such a sen­si­tive black oper­a­tion.

    No mem­ber of Alec Sta­tion has been pun­ished in any way for the sup­posed “intel­li­gence fail­ures” that allowed 9/11 to go ahead. In fact, they have been reward­ed. Richard Blee, the unit’s chief at the time of the attacks, and his suc­ces­sor Alfre­da Frances Bikowsky, both joined the CIA’s oper­a­tions divi­sion, and became high­ly influ­en­tial fig­ures in the so-called war on ter­ror. Cor­si, for her part, was pro­mot­ed at the FBI, even­tu­al­ly ris­ing to the rank of Deputy Assis­tant Direc­tor for Intel­li­gence.

    In a per­verse twist, the Sen­ate Intel­li­gence Committee’s report on the CIA’s tor­ture pro­gram found that Bikowsky had been a key play­er in the agency’s black site machi­na­tions, and one of their chief pub­lic apol­o­gists. It is increas­ing­ly clear that the pro­gram was specif­i­cal­ly con­cerned with elic­it­ing false tes­ti­mo­ny from sus­pects in order to jus­ti­fy and expand the US war on ter­ror.

    The public’s under­stand­ing of the 9/11 attacks is heav­i­ly informed by tes­ti­monies deliv­ered by CIA tor­ture vic­tims under the most extreme duress imag­in­able. And Bikowsky, a vet­er­an of the Alec Sta­tion that ran cov­er for at least two would-be 9/11 hijack­ers, had been in charge of inter­ro­gat­ing the alleged per­pe­tra­tors of the attacks.
    ...

    A might large tree just fell in the woods with lots of peo­ple around to hear it. And yet, it’s as if noth­ing hap­pened. No response. No mat­ter how loud the whis­tle is blown, there’s nev­er a response. No one actu­al­ly cares. We’ll see what addi­tion­al evi­dence comes for­ward. But at this point it’s pret­ty clear that more evi­dence isn’t going to make a dif­fer­ence. At least not for the gen­er­a­tion of peo­ple who actu­al­ly lived through 9/11. Unpack­ing the impli­ca­tions of this inves­ti­ga­tion is just beyond what the US is capa­ble of grap­pling with at this point in time. Who knows how future gen­er­a­tions will inter­pret these mat­ters but no major revi­sions for our col­lec­tive under­stand­ing of 9/11 just isn’t going to hap­pen. In keep­ing with tra­di­tion.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | April 20, 2023, 4:36 pm
  5. How many more major 9/11 rev­e­la­tions are we still in store for? That’s one of the many dis­turb­ing ques­tions raised by a new TMZ doc­u­men­tary exam­in­ing one of the most sig­nif­i­cant and long-over­looked chap­ters of 9/11: the 5th plane.

    As we’re going to see, the sto­ry of the 5th plane isn’t new. It’s been men­tioned for years despite nev­er mak­ing it into the 9/11 Com­mis­sion Report. But as the numer­ous inter­views in new TMZ doc­u­men­tary makes clear, this was a very real inci­dent. There real­ly was ALMOST a 5th hijack­er plane, Unit­ed Flight 23, sched­uled to take off from JFK Air­port in New York to Los Ange­les. It was only the fact that all US air­space was quick­ly shut down fol­low­ing the ini­tial plane strikes that Unit­ed 23 was kept on the ground. The plane was report­ed­ly in the process of tak­ing off right when that hap­pened.

    So what was it that leads to the con­clu­sion that this plane was almost hijacked? Well, for starters, the crew was already get­ting weird vibes from four young Arab men in first-class who seemed extra anx­ious to just take off. Then, after the ground­ing, the cab­in crew report­ed­ly bar­ri­cad­ed them­selves inside the cab­in and report­ed to ground crews their con­cerns about the four men, who quick­ly fled the air­port fol­low­ing the return of the plane to the ter­mi­nal. Box cut­ters and al Qae­da doc­u­ments were appar­ent­ly found in their bag­gage. All of their was described to the FBI and yet none of their made it into the 9/11 Com­mis­sion report.

    All of the above details were actu­al­ly report­ed back in 2011 in Wilm­ing­ton (Delaware) News-Jour­nal, fea­tur­ing inter­views above Delaware Air Nation­al Guard’s first female gen­er­al, Car­ol Tim­mons, who was the first offi­cer on Unit­ed 23. As Tim­mons puts it, she and the rest of the crew were repeat­ed­ly inter­viewed by the FBI. And yet some­how none of this made it into the 9/11 Com­mis­sion report. Why is that?

    Well, that brings us to the TMZ doc­u­men­tary, which adds a cou­ple damn­ing new details. First, it appears that two uni­formed peo­ple run­ning into the plane cab­in 20 min­utes after the plane was brought back to the ter­mi­nal and evac­u­at­ed. Author­i­ties quick­ly arrived and found the hatch lead­ing to the bel­ly of the plane left open. Intrigu­ing­ly, box cut­ters were also appar­ent­ly found in the seat pock­ets of the first class seats in the Unit­ed plane adja­cent to flight 23.

    And, of course, this is all now part of the con­text of the recent rev­e­la­tions found in Don Canes­traro’s 21-page dec­la­ra­tion filled with details point­ing towards a joint CIA/FBI intel­li­gence oper­a­tion based out of Alec Sta­tion that was shep­herd­ing and pro­tect­ing the 9/11 hijack­ers from law enforce­ment. Con­text that pre­sum­ably explains why the 5th plane became the unmen­tion­able plane as far as the 9/11 Com­mis­sion was con­cerned:

    TMZ

    ‘9/11: The Fifth Plane’ Pas­sen­gers Argued With Flight Atten­dant ... ‘We Just Want to Take Off’

    Exclu­sive

    3/18/2023 1:00 AM PT

    A Unit­ed 767 sched­uled to take off from JFK Air­port on Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001, could have been the 5th plane tar­get­ed by hijack­ers ... this accord­ing to the flight atten­dants and the pilot on that plane. TMZ will present the sto­ry of Unit­ed 23 Mon­day on FOX at 9 PM ET.

    TMZ has con­duct­ed a 6‑month inves­ti­ga­tion into Unit­ed Flight 23 — sched­uled to leave JFK at 9 AM ... bound for Los Ange­les. We inter­viewed 3 flight atten­dants, the pilot, the Unit­ed dis­patch­er, a mem­ber of the 9/11 Com­mis­sion and oth­ers about a series of sus­pi­cious activ­i­ties on the plane ... sus­pi­cious enough for the FBI to get involved.

    Four pas­sen­gers in first class aroused sus­pi­cion short­ly after they board­ed. The flight atten­dants say one of the pas­sen­gers was a man dis­guised as a woman. The purs­er [first class flight atten­dant] tells us those pas­sen­gers did not eat meat, and there were only 2 fruit plates in the gal­ley. She want­ed to get more fruit plates so the pas­sen­gers could eat, and it trig­gered a heat­ed argu­ment ... with one of the pas­sen­gers insist­ing, “We do not want to eat. We don’t need food. We want to take off ... We just want to go.”

    There were oth­er rea­sons the flight atten­dants were sus­pi­cious of the 4 pas­sen­gers in first, along with 2 oth­ers in busi­ness class.

    The plane tax­ied to the run­way and was close to tak­ing off when the World Trade Cen­ter was hit and the air­port shut down. Unit­ed 23 went back to the gate and was evac­u­at­ed — the plane was emp­ty and locked. Twen­ty min­utes lat­er, peo­ple on the ground saw 2 uni­formed peo­ple run­ning in Unit­ed 23’s pas­sen­ger cab­in. Author­i­ties came a short time lat­er, opened the door and found the hatch — that led from the bel­ly of the plane to the cab­in — was open.

    The pilot believes those 2 peo­ple may have been there to remove weapons or oth­er incrim­i­nat­ing evi­dence. We don’t know what was removed from Flight 23, but we do know some­one put box cut­ters in the first-class seat pock­ets in the plane parked next to Unit­ed 23 ... a plane that was not sched­uled to take off at that time. The Unit­ed 23 pilot believes those box­cut­ters were intend­ed to be on his flight but some­one con­fused the 2 planes.

    The FBI inter­viewed the flight atten­dants lat­er that day and even took them to a line­up at the Port Author­i­ty to see if they could ID the 4 pas­sen­gers.

    ...

    —————

    “ ‘9/11: The Fifth Plane’ Pas­sen­gers Argued With Flight Atten­dant ... ‘We Just Want to Take Off’ ”; TMZ; 03/18/2023

    Four pas­sen­gers in first class aroused sus­pi­cion short­ly after they board­ed. The flight atten­dants say one of the pas­sen­gers was a man dis­guised as a woman. The purs­er [first class flight atten­dant] tells us those pas­sen­gers did not eat meat, and there were only 2 fruit plates in the gal­ley. She want­ed to get more fruit plates so the pas­sen­gers could eat, and it trig­gered a heat­ed argu­ment ... with one of the pas­sen­gers insist­ing, “We do not want to eat. We don’t need food. We want to take off ... We just want to go.””

    Umm....how did this sto­ry escape notice until now? A man dressed as a woman in first class? One of four men behav­ing errat­i­cal­ly? This seems like the kind of inci­dent that should have gar­nered major atten­tion.

    And then we get to this omi­nous detail: twen­ty min­utes into the ground­ing of the plane, two uni­formed peo­ple were seen run­ning into the now-evac­u­at­ed plane and appar­ent­ly left open the hatch that leads to the bel­ly of the plane. It’s odd, but it’s the fact that some­one put box cut­ters in the first-class seat pock­ets of the adja­cent Unit­ed plane that turns this into a major mys­tery. A still unre­solved major 9/11 mys­tery:

    ...
    There were oth­er rea­sons the flight atten­dants were sus­pi­cious of the 4 pas­sen­gers in first, along with 2 oth­ers in busi­ness class.

    The plane tax­ied to the run­way and was close to tak­ing off when the World Trade Cen­ter was hit and the air­port shut down. Unit­ed 23 went back to the gate and was evac­u­at­ed — the plane was emp­ty and locked. Twen­ty min­utes lat­er, peo­ple on the ground saw 2 uni­formed peo­ple run­ning in Unit­ed 23’s pas­sen­ger cab­in. Author­i­ties came a short time lat­er, opened the door and found the hatch — that led from the bel­ly of the plane to the cab­in — was open.

    The pilot believes those 2 peo­ple may have been there to remove weapons or oth­er incrim­i­nat­ing evi­dence. We don’t know what was removed from Flight 23, but we do know some­one put box cut­ters in the first-class seat pock­ets in the plane parked next to Unit­ed 23 ... a plane that was not sched­uled to take off at that time. The Unit­ed 23 pilot believes those box­cut­ters were intend­ed to be on his flight but some­one con­fused the 2 planes.

    ...

    So how is it that this sto­ry is only com­ing out how? And thanks to TMZ, no less? Well, that’s just it: this isn’t the first time this sto­ry has bub­bled up. For exam­ple, back in 2011, this same sto­ry was cov­ered in the Wilm­ing­ton (Delaware) News-Jour­nal and includ­ed inter­views of the first offi­cer of Unit­ed Air­lines Flight 23, Car­ol Tim­mons, who by 2011 the Delaware Nation­al Guard’s first female gen­er­al. And as Tim­mons described, that flight was on the verge of tak­ing off before the air­port was shut down. At that point, the cab­in crew bar­ri­cad­ed them­selves inside the cock­pit and relayed their con­cern about four young Arab men in first-class who became agi­tat­ed when the take­off was can­celed. The four men fled from the plane when it returned to the ter­mi­nal and box cut­ters and al Qae­da doc­u­ments were lat­er found in their lug­gage. Yep. This was qui­et­ly report­ed in 2011. And then for­got­ten for anoth­er dozen years until TMZ picked it back up:

    WHYY

    The 5th plane to be seized on 9/11, and the ter­ror­ists who got away

    By Jan Ting
    May 16, 2011

    Have you heard about the air­lin­er which was ordered back to the gate on 9/11 when the ter­ror­ist attacks began, only to have four young Arab pas­sen­gers jump off the plane, after which box cut­ters and Al Qae­da doc­u­ments were found in their aban­doned bags?

    I’ve heard that sto­ry before, but since it was nev­er report­ed by the U.S. gov­ern­ment, and not men­tioned by the 9/11 Com­mis­sion in their offi­cial report, I thought it might be anoth­er of those urban myths. Until now.

    Yesterday’s Wilm­ing­ton (Delaware) News-Jour­nal fea­tured a front-page arti­cle on the Delaware Air Nation­al Guard’s first female gen­er­al, Car­ol Tim­mons, who was pro­mot­ed to that rank at a cer­e­mo­ny on Sat­ur­day. Gen­er­al Tim­mons has had a long career as a pilot, includ­ing time as a com­mer­cial pilot for Pan Am and Unit­ed Air­lines.

    The pro­file of Gen­er­al Tim­mons recounts that on the morn­ing of Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001, she was the first offi­cer on Unit­ed Air­lines flight 23 prepar­ing to take-off from New York’s JFK Air­port bound for Los Ange­les. The plane had already pulled away from the gate and was taxi­ing down the run­way when the air­port was shut down and the crew was ordered to secure the cock­pit.

    Tim­mons con­firmed that as the pilot grabbed the crash ax, she jumped from her seat and start­ed bar­ri­cad­ing the cock­pit door. From the oth­er side of the bar­ri­cade the cab­in crew relayed their con­cern about four young Arab men in first-class who became agi­tat­ed when the take-off was can­celled, and fled from the plane when it returned to the ter­mi­nal. Box cut­ters and Al Qae­da doc­u­ments were lat­er found in their lug­gage.

    Tim­mons, the pilot, and the rest of the crew were repeat­ed­ly ques­tioned by the FBI, though the find­ings were nev­er shared. The pilot con­clud­ed that Flight 23 would have been the next plane hijacked by ter­ror­ists if the air­port shut­down order had been delayed.

    ...

    Why wouldn’t the U.S. gov­ern­ment want to report the inci­dent? Why didn’t the 9/11 Com­mis­sion men­tion it in their offi­cial report? Were they con­cerned about pan­ick­ing the pub­lic? Were they try­ing to appre­hend the four pas­sen­gers who fled? Why main­tain offi­cial silence about the inci­dent a decade lat­er?

    ———–

    “The 5th plane to be seized on 9/11, and the ter­ror­ists who got away” By Jan Ting; WHYY; 05/16/2011

    Why wouldn’t the U.S. gov­ern­ment want to report the inci­dent? Why didn’t the 9/11 Com­mis­sion men­tion it in their offi­cial report? Were they con­cerned about pan­ick­ing the pub­lic? Were they try­ing to appre­hend the four pas­sen­gers who fled? Why main­tain offi­cial silence about the inci­dent a decade lat­er?”

    Why was­n’t any of this in the 9/11 Com­mis­sion? How could such a mas­sive addi­tion to the sto­ry have just been left out? Espe­cial­ly when this is com­ing from the crew mem­bers them­selves? What is it about these four hijack­ers that was so sen­si­tive they could­n’t even be men­tioned? This is about a thwart­ed hijack­ing, after all. On one lev­el you would expect author­i­ties to tout the quick response in shut­ting down the US air­space as hav­ing saved this plane. But nope. No men­tion. Despite box cut­ters and al Qae­da doc­u­ments lat­er being found in their bag­gage:

    ...
    The pro­file of Gen­er­al Tim­mons recounts that on the morn­ing of Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001, she was the first offi­cer on Unit­ed Air­lines flight 23 prepar­ing to take-off from New York’s JFK Air­port bound for Los Ange­les. The plane had already pulled away from the gate and was taxi­ing down the run­way when the air­port was shut down and the crew was ordered to secure the cock­pit.

    Tim­mons con­firmed that as the pilot grabbed the crash ax, she jumped from her seat and start­ed bar­ri­cad­ing the cock­pit door. From the oth­er side of the bar­ri­cade the cab­in crew relayed their con­cern about four young Arab men in first-class who became agi­tat­ed when the take-off was can­celled, and fled from the plane when it returned to the ter­mi­nal. Box cut­ters and Al Qae­da doc­u­ments were lat­er found in their lug­gage.

    Tim­mons, the pilot, and the rest of the crew were repeat­ed­ly ques­tioned by the FBI, though the find­ings were nev­er shared. The pilot con­clud­ed that Flight 23 would have been the next plane hijacked by ter­ror­ists if the air­port shut­down order had been delayed.
    ...

    So we now know that the CIA and FBI were pro­tect­ing and traf­fick­ing the 9/11 hijack­ers and we can now add the mys­te­ri­ous 5th plane to the mix. A 5th plane that may have had box cut­ters pre­emp­tive­ly plant­ed on them in advance by col­leagues of the same uni­formed fig­ures who scram­bled to remove them. Bum­bling col­leagues appar­ent­ly, if it real­ly is the case that they had the wrong plane. It under­scores how part of what we appear to be look­ing at here is a major coverup of a mas­sive scan­dal. And, in part, a mas­sive coverup of a major covert fum­ble.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | April 29, 2023, 3:57 pm
  6. Fol­low­ing up on the 9/11 “Fifth Plane” Unit­ed 23 rev­e­la­tions and the cir­cum­stan­tial evi­dence point­ing towards an inside job involv­ing air­line or air­port staff pre­emp­tive­ly plant­i­ng box cut­ters on planes, it’s worth tak­ing a look at a Sep­tem­ber 11, 2022 report by The Flori­da Bull­dog — the enti­ty that filed the ini­tial FOIA request that result­ed in the FBI’s 2016 dis­clo­sure of Oper­a­tion Encore — that includes inter­views of Unit­ed 23 Cap­tain Thomas Man­nel­lo as well as Unit­ed’s east coast dis­patch­er that day, Ed Ballinger. And while this report includes some very inter­est­ing addi­tion­al details on the Unit­ed 23 inci­dent, it’s the fact that Unit­ed 23 appears to be just one of mul­ti­ple addi­tion­al planes that were tar­get­ed for a hijack­ing that day that’s the biggest rev­e­la­tion. Impor­tant­ly, as the report reminds us, these aren’t new rev­e­la­tions either. In fact, there were main­stream media reports about box cut­ters being found in the first class seats of planes in the imme­di­ate post‑9/11 inves­ti­ga­tions on planes in Boston and San Diego too. As one gov­ern­ment offi­cial put it to Time Mag­a­zine two weeks after 9/11, “These look like inside jobs.”

    That’s all part of the con­text of the still unad­dressed recent rev­e­la­tions about the appar­ent pro­tec­tion and traf­fick­ing of 9/11 hijack­ers Khalid al-Mihd­har and Nawaf al-Haz­mi by the CIA/FBI fusion task force at Alec Sta­tion: There were pre­sum­ably more hijack­er cells that got away. Which rais­es the obvi­ous ques­tion as to whether or not they were allowed to get away. What kind of pro­tec­tive role did these FBI/CIA units play in ensur­ing no one tru­ly fol­lowed up on inves­ti­gat­ing these almost-hijacked planes? Over two decades lat­er we still have no idea. What we do know now is that we are still deal­ing with a mas­sive coverup. The kind of coverup that looks more and more damn­ing with each new belat­ed rev­e­la­tion. And more and more cov­ered up with each rev­e­la­tion too:

    FloridaBulldog.org

    Much about Sau­di ties to 9/11 now released, but there’s much more we don’t know – like the full sto­ry of Unit­ed Air­lines Flight 23

    By Dan Chris­tensen,
    Sep­tem­ber 11, 2022 5:00 am

    Through­out the past year, in response to an exec­u­tive order from Pres­i­dent Biden, the FBI has declas­si­fied and made pub­lic thou­sands of pages of records about its once-secret “sub file” inves­ti­ga­tion into Sau­di com­plic­i­ty in 9/11: Oper­a­tion Encore.

    Those records, large­ly and inex­plic­a­bly ignored by the nation’s main­stream media, reveal stun­ning new facts about the involve­ment of Sau­di Min­istry of Islam­ic Affairs offi­cials oper­at­ing out of Sau­di Arabia’s embassy in Wash­ing­ton. The FBI’s con­clu­sion: Sau­di gov­ern­ment offi­cials know­ing­ly pro­vid­ed sup­port for the first two al Qae­da hijack­ers to enter the U.S. via Los Ange­les Inter­na­tion­al Air­port 20 months before the Sept. 11, 2001 ter­ror­ist attacks on New York and Wash­ing­ton.

    But Oper­a­tion Encore, whose exis­tence was first made pub­lic by the FBI in 2016 in response to a lengthy Free­dom of Infor­ma­tion Act (FOIA) law­suit brought by Flori­da Bull­dog’s par­ent com­pa­ny Broward Bull­dog Inc., was focused on events sur­round­ing those two hijack­ers, Nawaf al Haz­mi and Khalid al Mihd­har, who with three oth­er Saud­is seized con­trol of Amer­i­can Air­lines Flight 77 and slammed it into the Pen­ta­gon.

    But 17 oth­er sui­cide hijack­ers com­man­deered and crashed three addi­tion­al pas­sen­ger jets that day and hun­dreds of agents assigned to PENTTBOM – the largest crim­i­nal inquiry in the bureau’s his­to­ry – tracked their move­ments and con­tacts, too. And giv­en the FBI’s pri­or dis­clo­sure to Flori­da Bull­dog dur­ing FOIA lit­i­ga­tion about hijack­ers’ ties to Saud­is liv­ing in Sara­so­ta that its Tam­pa field office alone con­tains more than 80,000 pages of clas­si­fied 9/11 mate­r­i­al, it’s clear that hun­dreds of thou­sands, per­haps mil­lions, of pages of addi­tion­al PENTTBOM doc­u­ments con­tin­ue to be kept from the pub­lic 21 years after the worst attack on U.S. soil since Pearl Har­bor.

    Some FBI records, no doubt, address one of the endur­ing mys­ter­ies of 9/11: whether al Qae­da planned more attacks that ter­ri­ble day – in addi­tion to seiz­ing con­trol of the four planes that were flown into the World Trade Cen­ter, the Pen­ta­gon and a field near Shanksville, Pa.

    There is evi­dence that more attacks were planned. For exam­ple, in the imme­di­ate after­math of the attacks, U.S. Depart­ment of Jus­tice offi­cials told reporters that agents con­duct­ing secu­ri­ty sweeps had found box-cut­ter knives – like those known to have been car­ried by the 9/11 hijack­ers – on two Delta pas­sen­ger jets also sched­uled to fly on Sept. 11th. At the time, it was not known how the box-cut­ters got there, and the mat­ter quick­ly fad­ed away.

    But a Sept. 24, 2001 FBI report made pub­lic in March said a box-cut­ter was found under the seat of an Amer­i­can Air­lines plane that flew from San Diego to JFK, as Flight 160, and back again on Sep­tem­ber 10. The jet­lin­er was sched­uled to fly to JFK again on 9/11 but nev­er left San Diego because of the shut down of the nation’s air­ports. Agents who inves­ti­gat­ed deter­mined the seat on Flight 160 “was occu­pied by NAME REDACTED, one of the 13 Sau­di Ara­bi­an pilots pre­vi­ous­ly report­ed on by San Diego (FBI).” At the time of the report, the FBI had not yet iden­ti­fied the occu­pant of the seat on the return flight on 9/10.

    Flori­da Bull­dog has found no FBI reports about the 13 Sau­di pilots, but our review of the records released in response to Pres­i­dent Biden’s order is con­tin­u­ing.

    FLIGHT 23

    The lit­tle-known sto­ry of Unit­ed Air­lines Flight 23 has more heft.

    Sim­i­lar to the four jets the hijack­ers crashed, Flight 23 was a sched­uled transcon­ti­nen­tal trip by a wide-bod­ied Boe­ing 767 with a load of about 160 pas­sen­gers, six flight atten­dants and more than 50,000 gal­lons of jet fuel. At 9 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2001 Flight 23 was prepar­ing to depart New York’s John F. Kennedy Inter­na­tion­al Air­port non­stop for Los Ange­les.

    Cap­tain Thomas Man­nel­lo was at the con­trols prepar­ing for push­back. His co-pilot was Car­ol Tim­mons, who a decade lat­er became the first woman gen­er­al in the Delaware Air Nation­al Guard. The sky was a crisp blue and weath­er along the route looked good, the now-retired air­line cap­tain recalled in an inter­view with Flori­da Bull­dog.

    “It was a beau­ti­ful day. The only inkling that some­thing wasn’t quite right was when the guy doing the push­back asked me if I’d heard any­thing about a fire in the World Trade Cen­ter. I said, ‘no’ and thought noth­ing more of it,” said Man­nel­lo, who today lives in Con­necti­cut.

    Man­nel­lo was cleared to taxi to a run­way where about 10 planes were lined up wait­ing to take off. He was fac­ing away from Man­hat­tan and got in line behind an Ice­landic Air­lines 757. Nobody was tak­ing off or land­ing.

    Then a report from either the tow­er or ground con­trol said a plane had crashed into the New York trade cen­ter. Man­nel­lo couldn’t con­ceive of a jet­lin­er doing such a thing. He charged it off to some­body “in a Cess­na doing some­thing stu­pid.”

    U.S. UNDER ATTACK

    What Man­nel­lo and Tim­mons didn’t know was that hijack­ers had flown Unit­ed Flight 175 into the World Trade Center’s South Tow­er at 9:03 a.m. And that 17 min­utes ear­li­er, lead hijack­er Mohamed Atta rammed Amer­i­can Air­lines Flight 11 into the North Tow­er.

    The U.S. was under attack. And in less than an hour, as pas­sen­gers made a hero­ic effort to wrest con­trol of the plane back from the hijack­ers, Flight 93 would go down in Penn­syl­va­nia at 10:03 a.m.

    On 9/11 Ed Ballinger was the Chica­go-based dis­patch­er in com­mand for all of United’s coast-to-coast flights – a total of 16 jet­lin­ers, includ­ing ill-fat­ed flights 175 and 93. 9/11 Com­mis­sion staff inter­viewed Ballinger, who now lives in Marathon, on April 24, 2004.

    Accord­ing to that “mem­o­ran­dum for the record,” all ground traf­fic at New York’s air­ports was stopped in its tracks by the Air Traf­fic Con­trol Sys­tem Com­mand Cen­ter at 9:08. At 9:20 a.m., after learn­ing the fate of Unit­ed 175, Ballinger used the ACARS (Air­craft Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Response Sys­tem) to type and trans­mit this chill­ing mes­sage: “’Beware any cock­pit intrusion…two air­craft in NY hit Trade Cen­ter Builds…”

    At JFK, Man­nel­lo said, “Car­ol and I looked at each oth­er and we both said, ‘oooh.’”

    Man­nel­lo noti­fied via inter­com the flight atten­dants and instruct­ed them not to try and enter the cock­pit. A flight atten­dant quick­ly replied, “We’ve got these four weird young Arab guys sit­ting in first class. It’s unusu­al.”

    “We were all on edge, obvi­ous­ly,” Man­nel­lo said.

    TOO LATE TO BEWARE

    On Unit­ed 93, Cap­tain Jason Dahl received the mes­sage to beware at 9:24 a.m. but was appar­ent­ly puz­zled. At 9:26 he replied, “Ed Cofirm lat­est mssg plz Jason.”

    It was too late. “That was the moment he got jumped,” Ballinger told Flori­da Bull­dog. The offi­cial record says the hijack­ers struck at 9:28 when air traf­fic con­trollers heard a shout, “Get out of here!”

    It didn’t have to hap­pen that way, says Ballinger. At 8:52 a.m. a flight atten­dant aboard doomed Flight 175 had called United’s San Fran­cis­co main­te­nance office to report that the plane’s pilots had been mur­dered and that hijack­ers were fly­ing the air­craft. A GTE air phone was used to make the call, which auto­mat­i­cal­ly rout­ed the call to main­te­nance. The result: min­utes lost before the news reached Ballinger and he sent out the alert.

    “Of all the com­mu­ni­ca­tions of 9/11, this is the one where the delay in his receipt of the infor­ma­tion con­tin­ues to trou­ble Mr. Ballinger because he felt that any infor­ma­tion received by Unit­ed rel­e­vant to any of his flights should have been passed on to him imme­di­ate­ly,” says the mem­o­ran­dum for the record. “In this par­tic­u­lar case, he con­tin­ues to won­der if he had known to send out his ACARS mes­sage to ‘beware cock­pit intru­sion’ a few min­utes earlier…whether this could have pre­vent­ed the hijack­ing of Flight 93.”

    Ballinger feels the same today. “If two min­utes could have been saved, they might have had time to (for­ti­fy) the door,” a rue­ful Ballinger said.

    Back at JFK aboard Flight 23, Ballinger’s ACARS mes­sage prompt­ed Man­nel­lo to do some­thing he’d nev­er done before. He grabbed the plane’s crash axe. Tim­mons hopped out of her seat and wedged their suit­cas­es between a met­al bulk­head and the cock­pit door. “With­out break­ing the door into pieces, no one would get in,” Man­nel­lo said.

    ‘YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN’

    Next, “I heard the strangest radio call I’ve ever heard in my life. New York ground con­trollers in the tow­er said, ‘Ladies and gen­tle­men the air­port is now offi­cial­ly closed. We’ve been ordered to evac­u­ate this facil­i­ty. You are on your own.’ ”

    ...

    Man­nel­lo said he informed the pas­sen­gers, adding “I didn’t know what was going on, but that there was some event in the city.’’ As he tax­ied back, he took a route with a view of Man­hat­tan. He and Tim­mons could see thick black smoke pour­ing out of the World Trade Cen­ter.

    Parked again at Gate 2 in Ter­mi­nal 7, Man­nel­lo and Tim­mons began the process of shut­ting down the engines as pas­sen­gers deplaned. When he and Tim­mons were ready to leave Man­nel­lo looked through the cock­pit door’s peep­hole and saw a wait­ing mechan­ic. “He says, ‘You got­ta clear out. I’m ordered to lock up the air­plane.’”

    The inside of the ter­mi­nal was “a ghost town,” Man­nel­lo said. At United’s Flight Oper­a­tions Cen­ter Tim­mons and he final­ly learned what was hap­pen­ing from a tele­vi­sion set. They heard an announc­er say that all the hijacked flights were all transcon­ti­nen­tals full of fuel.

    “I’m fly­ing a transcon full of fuel. I said, oh, sh it.” The chief pilot called the FBI.

    FBI INTERVIEWS FLIGHT 23 CREW

    The entire crew of Flight 23 was inter­viewed the next day. Man­nel­lo said that dur­ing his “three- or-four-hour inter­view” an agent told him that “there were actu­al­ly sev­en Arabs or Mus­lims who might have been Saud­is on the plane. Three were a cou­ple with a two or three-year-old baby. ‘We’re look­ing for the oth­er four gen­tle­men,’ the agent said.’’ Did the FBI ever find them? Man­nel­lo nev­er heard anoth­er word.

    Tim­mons died in August 2020. In 2011, in a sto­ry about her pro­mo­tion to gen­er­al, she told the Delaware News Jour­nal, “The FBI asks ques­tions. They don’t tell you things.”

    The 9/11 Commission’s final report to the pub­lic does not men­tion Flight 23 or the events that morn­ing at Kennedy Air­port. Miles Kara was a com­mis­sion staff mem­ber who served on a team of inves­ti­ga­tors respon­si­ble for exam­in­ing the imme­di­ate response to the 9/11 attacks, focus­ing heav­i­ly on the activ­i­ties of both mil­iary and civil­ian air traf­fic con­trollers. Anoth­er team cov­ered com­mer­cial avi­a­tion and secu­ri­ty.

    Thus, Kara was unfa­mil­iar with Unit­ed 23. He said, how­ev­er, that his own reverse engi­neer­ing of the plot “does not have room for a fifth plane. Nor does a fifth plane from yet anoth­er air­port make sense.”

    “My ini­tial take on UA23 is that the four pas­sen­gers pan­icked and fled, an unre­lat­ed event,” he said.

    But the 10-page mem­o­ran­dum for the record about Ballinger’s 2004 inter­view by two oth­er com­mis­sion staff mem­bers says, “based on reports he lat­er received from UA per­son­nel, includ­ing the Chief Pilot, Ballinger believes that the 9:20 a.m. com­mu­ni­ca­tion he sent to UA Flight 23 may have pre­vent­ed a hijack­ing.”

    Ballinger report­ed being told that the “Moslems” on the flight “nev­er claimed their bag­gage and in their bag­gage was sig­nif­i­cant infor­ma­tion of an incrim­i­nat­ing nature,” the report says.

    BOX-CUTTERS FOUND ON OTHER PLANES

    True? With the FBI con­tin­u­ing to with­hold all infor­ma­tion about Flight 23, it is dif­fi­cult to know. But some oth­er infor­ma­tion Ballinger said he was told was sim­ply incor­rect, accord­ing to Man­nel­lo. For exam­ple, Man­nel­lo said he did not “fake a mechan­i­cal prob­lem” before return­ing to the gate nor did the police have to be called to con­vince the recal­ci­trant Arabs to deplane.

    At the time, Man­nel­lo said he heard on CNN that “they picked up the four to check them out, then I heard on CNN four days lat­er that the FBI report­ed that the four were released because they weren’t involved.”

    “But there’s a big catch to that. A few days after the event the chief pilot for one of the flight man­agers called me to ask the tail num­ber of the air­plane I was on,” Man­nel­lo said.

    Box-cut­ters were found stashed on a Unit­ed jet at JFK while all planes in the coun­try were ground­ed. Author­i­ties want­ed to know if it was Mannello’s plane. Flight 23’s tail num­ber end­ed in 6002. It was parked near anoth­er plane with the num­ber 6001.

    “They found box-cut­ters on 6001,” said Man­nel­lo, who spec­u­lat­ed that per­haps “some­one made a mis­take” and put them on the wrong plane. “I would think this was all an ugly coin­ci­dence except for that fact.”

    “It’s irri­tat­ing,” Man­nel­lo said. “I just don’t under­stand why they have released no infor­ma­tion about it. I’m sure there have been a lot of inquiries. Nobody got hurt. If they picked up these guys, why not just tell the truth about it?”

    Ballinger, too, would like to know the truth about what hap­pened. “We’re look­ing at the dis­as­ter and not at those who escaped dis­as­ter,” he said.

    Flori­da Bull­dog filed a Free­dom of Infor­ma­tion request with the FBI last month seek­ing the release of its files about Flight 23.

    INSIDE JOBS?

    Two weeks after the ter­ror­ist attacks, CNN report­ed that offi­cials had said that search­es while all flights were ground­ed turned up two small knives on a sched­uled Delta flight out of Boston, and a box-cut­ter was found on an Atlanta-to-Brus­sels Delta flight. Jus­tice Depart­ment spokesman Charles Miller con­firmed to CNN that box-cut­ters were found on some planes, but pro­vid­ed no fur­ther infor­ma­tion.

    “Inves­ti­ga­tors increas­ing­ly believe that the weapons may have been prepo­si­tioned by accom­plices for use by oth­ers. As one U.S. offi­cial told Time mag­a­zine, “These look like inside jobs,” CNN report­ed.

    Were they? Again, the FBI has remained silent all these years even as doc­u­ment releas­es ordered by Pres­i­dent Biden have shown that much evi­dence link­ing puta­tive U.S. ally Sau­di Ara­bia to 9/11 was sup­pressed.

    Two decades have passed, but the nation must remain vig­i­lant, said Man­nel­lo, whose son is a Delta pilot. He recount­ed a sto­ry about how, sev­en years after 9/11, flight atten­dants told him about an inci­dent involv­ing Arab men sit­ting in first class that “seemed like a dress rehearsal. It taught me the les­son that there are peo­ple that want to repeat the event or do some­thing sim­i­lar.”

    ...

    “I just count my bless­ings that I didn’t take off that day like the oth­er guys did,” said Man­nel­lo. “Our train­ing then was com­plete­ly wrong. It was based on the Stock­holm effect to try and calm the sit­u­a­tion, make rap­port and get safe­ly on the ground. But that required hav­ing to open the cock­pit door to talk to them and in this case it would have been a death sen­tence.”

    ———–

    “Much about Sau­di ties to 9/11 now released, but there’s much more we don’t know – like the full sto­ry of Unit­ed Air­lines Flight 23” by Dan Chris­tensen; FloridaBulldog.org; 09/11/2022

    “Those records, large­ly and inex­plic­a­bly ignored by the nation’s main­stream media, reveal stun­ning new facts about the involve­ment of Sau­di Min­istry of Islam­ic Affairs offi­cials oper­at­ing out of Sau­di Arabia’s embassy in Wash­ing­ton. The FBI’s con­clu­sion: Sau­di gov­ern­ment offi­cials know­ing­ly pro­vid­ed sup­port for the first two al Qae­da hijack­ers to enter the U.S. via Los Ange­les Inter­na­tion­al Air­port 20 months before the Sept. 11, 2001 ter­ror­ist attacks on New York and Wash­ing­ton.”

    Over two decades lat­er, stun­ning 9/11 rev­e­la­tions are still being released. To a giant col­lec­tive *yaaaawn* from the main­stream media. It’s been sev­en years since Oper­a­tion Encore was first made pub­lic by the FBI in 2016, but no one seems to actu­al­ly care about this sto­ry, despite each round of rev­e­la­tions paint­ing a dark­er and dark­er pic­ture. It’s a remark­able form of col­lec­tive apa­thy. All the more remark­able when we see one piece of evi­dence after anoth­er hint­ing at a much large plot involv­ing more planes. Evi­dence like box cut­ters found on mul­ti­ple ground­ed planes in the days after 9/11. Not just Unit­ed 23. Evi­dence that points towards 9/11 involv­ing a mas­sive “inside job” com­po­nent that includ­ed airline/airport staff at mul­ti­ple major air­ports:

    ...
    But Oper­a­tion Encore, whose exis­tence was first made pub­lic by the FBI in 2016 in response to a lengthy Free­dom of Infor­ma­tion Act (FOIA) law­suit brought by Flori­da Bulldog’s par­ent com­pa­ny Broward Bull­dog Inc., was focused on events sur­round­ing those two hijack­ers, Nawaf al Haz­mi and Khalid al Mihd­har, who with three oth­er Saud­is seized con­trol of Amer­i­can Air­lines Flight 77 and slammed it into the Pen­ta­gon.

    But 17 oth­er sui­cide hijack­ers com­man­deered and crashed three addi­tion­al pas­sen­ger jets that day and hun­dreds of agents assigned to PENTTBOM – the largest crim­i­nal inquiry in the bureau’s his­to­ry – tracked their move­ments and con­tacts, too. And giv­en the FBI’s pri­or dis­clo­sure to Flori­da Bull­dog dur­ing FOIA lit­i­ga­tion about hijack­ers’ ties to Saud­is liv­ing in Sara­so­ta that its Tam­pa field office alone con­tains more than 80,000 pages of clas­si­fied 9/11 mate­r­i­al, it’s clear that hun­dreds of thou­sands, per­haps mil­lions, of pages of addi­tion­al PENTTBOM doc­u­ments con­tin­ue to be kept from the pub­lic 21 years after the worst attack on U.S. soil since Pearl Har­bor.

    Some FBI records, no doubt, address one of the endur­ing mys­ter­ies of 9/11: whether al Qae­da planned more attacks that ter­ri­ble day – in addi­tion to seiz­ing con­trol of the four planes that were flown into the World Trade Cen­ter, the Pen­ta­gon and a field near Shanksville, Pa.

    There is evi­dence that more attacks were planned. For exam­ple, in the imme­di­ate after­math of the attacks, U.S. Depart­ment of Jus­tice offi­cials told reporters that agents con­duct­ing secu­ri­ty sweeps had found box-cut­ter knives – like those known to have been car­ried by the 9/11 hijack­ers – on two Delta pas­sen­ger jets also sched­uled to fly on Sept. 11th. At the time, it was not known how the box-cut­ters got there, and the mat­ter quick­ly fad­ed away.

    But a Sept. 24, 2001 FBI report made pub­lic in March said a box-cut­ter was found under the seat of an Amer­i­can Air­lines plane that flew from San Diego to JFK, as Flight 160, and back again on Sep­tem­ber 10. The jet­lin­er was sched­uled to fly to JFK again on 9/11 but nev­er left San Diego because of the shut down of the nation’s air­ports. Agents who inves­ti­gat­ed deter­mined the seat on Flight 160 “was occu­pied by NAME REDACTED, one of the 13 Sau­di Ara­bi­an pilots pre­vi­ous­ly report­ed on by San Diego (FBI).” At the time of the report, the FBI had not yet iden­ti­fied the occu­pant of the seat on the return flight on 9/10.

    Flori­da Bull­dog has found no FBI reports about the 13 Sau­di pilots, but our review of the records released in response to Pres­i­dent Biden’s order is con­tin­u­ing.

    ...

    Flori­da Bull­dog filed a Free­dom of Infor­ma­tion request with the FBI last month seek­ing the release of its files about Flight 23.
    ...

    And this evi­dence of a much broad­er attack isn’t some­thing that only emerged years lat­er. It was part of our ini­tial under­stand­ing of the 9/11 plot, with reports quot­ing US offi­cials point­ing to these plant­ed box cut­ters and stat­ing that “These look like inside jobs.” And yet some­how that was all for­got­ten and just fell down the mem­o­ry hole:

    ...
    INSIDE JOBS?

    Two weeks after the ter­ror­ist attacks, CNN report­ed that offi­cials had said that search­es while all flights were ground­ed turned up two small knives on a sched­uled Delta flight out of Boston, and a box-cut­ter was found on an Atlanta-to-Brus­sels Delta flight. Jus­tice Depart­ment spokesman Charles Miller con­firmed to CNN that box-cut­ters were found on some planes, but pro­vid­ed no fur­ther infor­ma­tion.

    “Inves­ti­ga­tors increas­ing­ly believe that the weapons may have been prepo­si­tioned by accom­plices for use by oth­ers. As one U.S. offi­cial told Time mag­a­zine, “These look like inside jobs,” CNN report­ed.

    Were they? Again, the FBI has remained silent all these years even as doc­u­ment releas­es ordered by Pres­i­dent Biden have shown that much evi­dence link­ing puta­tive U.S. ally Sau­di Ara­bia to 9/11 was sup­pressed.

    Two decades have passed, but the nation must remain vig­i­lant, said Man­nel­lo, whose son is a Delta pilot. He recount­ed a sto­ry about how, sev­en years after 9/11, flight atten­dants told him about an inci­dent involv­ing Arab men sit­ting in first class that “seemed like a dress rehearsal. It taught me the les­son that there are peo­ple that want to repeat the event or do some­thing sim­i­lar.”
    ...

    That’s all part of what makes the mys­tery of Unit­ed Flight 23 so impor­tant: this is the ground­ed flight for which we have the most com­pelling evi­dence and wit­ness accounts. But Flight 23 appears to be only one of mul­ti­ple planes that were intend­ed to be hijacked that day. In oth­er words, any real pub­lic expo­sure of the Unit­ed 23 inves­ti­ga­tion is an invi­ta­tion for more scruti­ny into the much larg­er poten­tial scope of the 9/11 plot. Beyond that, it’s an invi­ta­tion to ask what hap­pened to the pas­sen­gers act­ing unusu­al­ly on those planes? Where they ever tracked down and inter­viewed? Or were they per­haps allowed by the FBI to leave the coun­try? Those ques­tions remain unan­swered, in part because the 9/11 Com­mis­sion report makes no men­tion of Unit­ed 23 at all. Don’t forge that we are told al Qae­da doc­u­ments were found in their bag­gage. So how does the Com­mis­sion jus­ti­fy leav­ing out this cru­cial inci­dent? Well, accord­ing to Com­mis­sion staff mem­ber Miles Kara, it was all just a coin­ci­dence and there was noth­ing to see here:

    ...
    FLIGHT 23

    The lit­tle-known sto­ry of Unit­ed Air­lines Flight 23 has more heft.

    Sim­i­lar to the four jets the hijack­ers crashed, Flight 23 was a sched­uled transcon­ti­nen­tal trip by a wide-bod­ied Boe­ing 767 with a load of about 160 pas­sen­gers, six flight atten­dants and more than 50,000 gal­lons of jet fuel. At 9 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2001 Flight 23 was prepar­ing to depart New York’s John F. Kennedy Inter­na­tion­al Air­port non­stop for Los Ange­les.

    Cap­tain Thomas Man­nel­lo was at the con­trols prepar­ing for push­back. His co-pilot was Car­ol Tim­mons, who a decade lat­er became the first woman gen­er­al in the Delaware Air Nation­al Guard. The sky was a crisp blue and weath­er along the route looked good, the now-retired air­line cap­tain recalled in an inter­view with Flori­da Bull­dog.

    “It was a beau­ti­ful day. The only inkling that some­thing wasn’t quite right was when the guy doing the push­back asked me if I’d heard any­thing about a fire in the World Trade Cen­ter. I said, ‘no’ and thought noth­ing more of it,” said Man­nel­lo, who today lives in Con­necti­cut.

    ...

    On 9/11 Ed Ballinger was the Chica­go-based dis­patch­er in com­mand for all of United’s coast-to-coast flights – a total of 16 jet­lin­ers, includ­ing ill-fat­ed flights 175 and 93. 9/11 Com­mis­sion staff inter­viewed Ballinger, who now lives in Marathon, on April 24, 2004.

    Accord­ing to that “mem­o­ran­dum for the record,” all ground traf­fic at New York’s air­ports was stopped in its tracks by the Air Traf­fic Con­trol Sys­tem Com­mand Cen­ter at 9:08. At 9:20 a.m., after learn­ing the fate of Unit­ed 175, Ballinger used the ACARS (Air­craft Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Response Sys­tem) to type and trans­mit this chill­ing mes­sage: “’Beware any cock­pit intrusion…two air­craft in NY hit Trade Cen­ter Builds…”

    At JFK, Man­nel­lo said, “Car­ol and I looked at each oth­er and we both said, ‘oooh.’”

    Man­nel­lo noti­fied via inter­com the flight atten­dants and instruct­ed them not to try and enter the cock­pit. A flight atten­dant quick­ly replied, “We’ve got these four weird young Arab guys sit­ting in first class. It’s unusu­al.”

    “We were all on edge, obvi­ous­ly,” Man­nel­lo said.

    ...

    FBI INTERVIEWS FLIGHT 23 CREW

    The entire crew of Flight 23 was inter­viewed the next day. Man­nel­lo said that dur­ing his “three- or-four-hour inter­view” an agent told him that “there were actu­al­ly sev­en Arabs or Mus­lims who might have been Saud­is on the plane. Three were a cou­ple with a two or three-year-old baby. ‘We’re look­ing for the oth­er four gen­tle­men,’ the agent said.’’ Did the FBI ever find them? Man­nel­lo nev­er heard anoth­er word.

    Tim­mons died in August 2020. In 2011, in a sto­ry about her pro­mo­tion to gen­er­al, she told the Delaware News Jour­nal, “The FBI asks ques­tions. They don’t tell you things.”

    The 9/11 Commission’s final report to the pub­lic does not men­tion Flight 23 or the events that morn­ing at Kennedy Air­port. Miles Kara was a com­mis­sion staff mem­ber who served on a team of inves­ti­ga­tors respon­si­ble for exam­in­ing the imme­di­ate response to the 9/11 attacks, focus­ing heav­i­ly on the activ­i­ties of both mil­iary and civil­ian air traf­fic con­trollers. Anoth­er team cov­ered com­mer­cial avi­a­tion and secu­ri­ty.

    Thus, Kara was unfa­mil­iar with Unit­ed 23. He said, how­ev­er, that his own reverse engi­neer­ing of the plot “does not have room for a fifth plane. Nor does a fifth plane from yet anoth­er air­port make sense.”

    “My ini­tial take on UA23 is that the four pas­sen­gers pan­icked and fled, an unre­lat­ed event,” he said.

    But the 10-page mem­o­ran­dum for the record about Ballinger’s 2004 inter­view by two oth­er com­mis­sion staff mem­bers says, “based on reports he lat­er received from UA per­son­nel, includ­ing the Chief Pilot, Ballinger believes that the 9:20 a.m. com­mu­ni­ca­tion he sent to UA Flight 23 may have pre­vent­ed a hijack­ing.”

    Ballinger report­ed being told that the “Moslems” on the flight “nev­er claimed their bag­gage and in their bag­gage was sig­nif­i­cant infor­ma­tion of an incrim­i­nat­ing nature,” the report says.
    ...

    Why on earth did the 9/11 Com­mis­sion engage in what now appears to be a bla­tant coverup of a much broad­er plot? Well, again, we return to the “inside job” aspect of this inci­dent: box cut­ters were found in the first class pock­ets on the plane next to Unit­ed Flight 23. Again, don’t for­get the accounts of two uni­formed men rac­ing to the then-evac­u­at­ed Unit­ed 23 plane. Author­i­ties quick­ly arrived and found the hatch lead­ing to the bel­ly of the plane left open, as if some­one was look­ing for the plant­ed box cut­ters. That’s part of Cap­tain Man­nel­lo’s recount­ing of being asked about the tail num­ber of his plane, 6002, which was parked next to 6001 where box cut­ters were found. As Man­nel­lo spec­u­lates, per­haps “some­one made a mis­take” and put them on the wrong plane. Per­haps. But that ques­tion has clear­ly been deemed some sort of nation­al secu­ri­ty threat. It can’t be asked:

    ...
    True? With the FBI con­tin­u­ing to with­hold all infor­ma­tion about Flight 23, it is dif­fi­cult to know. But some oth­er infor­ma­tion Ballinger said he was told was sim­ply incor­rect, accord­ing to Man­nel­lo. For exam­ple, Man­nel­lo said he did not “fake a mechan­i­cal prob­lem” before return­ing to the gate nor did the police have to be called to con­vince the recal­ci­trant Arabs to deplane.

    At the time, Man­nel­lo said he heard on CNN that “they picked up the four to check them out, then I heard on CNN four days lat­er that the FBI report­ed that the four were released because they weren’t involved.”

    “But there’s a big catch to that. A few days after the event the chief pilot for one of the flight man­agers called me to ask the tail num­ber of the air­plane I was on,” Man­nel­lo said.

    Box-cut­ters were found stashed on a Unit­ed jet at JFK while all planes in the coun­try were ground­ed. Author­i­ties want­ed to know if it was Mannello’s plane. Flight 23’s tail num­ber end­ed in 6002. It was parked near anoth­er plane with the num­ber 6001.

    “They found box-cut­ters on 6001,” said Man­nel­lo, who spec­u­lat­ed that per­haps “some­one made a mis­take” and put them on the wrong plane. “I would think this was all an ugly coin­ci­dence except for that fact.”

    “It’s irri­tat­ing,” Man­nel­lo said. “I just don’t under­stand why they have released no infor­ma­tion about it. I’m sure there have been a lot of inquiries. Nobody got hurt. If they picked up these guys, why not just tell the truth about it?”

    Ballinger, too, would like to know the truth about what hap­pened. “We’re look­ing at the dis­as­ter and not at those who escaped dis­as­ter,” he said.
    ...

    Final­ly, we get this oth­er trou­bling detail: a flight atten­dant on Flight 175 called United’s San Fran­cis­co main­te­nance office at 8:52 am to report that the plane’s pilots had been mur­dered and that hijack­ers were fly­ing the air­craft. But because they used a GTE air phone the call was auto­mat­i­cal­ly rout­ed to main­te­nance and some­how the mes­sage was­n’t passed along to Ed Ballinger, the Chica­go-based dis­patch­er in com­mand for all of Unit­ed’s coast-to-coast flights. Ballinger only end­ed up issu­ing his warn­ing to pilots to be on guard for a hijack­ing at 9:24. There are plen­ty of pos­si­ble expla­na­tions for the 32 minute gap, but giv­en that we’re deal­ing with an “inside job” sce­nario it would be inter­est­ing to get some clar­i­ty on the nature of that delay. But, of course, avoid­ing clar­i­ty is like the para­mount pri­or­i­ty with this inves­ti­ga­tion:

    ...
    TOO LATE TO BEWARE

    On Unit­ed 93, Cap­tain Jason Dahl received the mes­sage to beware at 9:24 a.m. but was appar­ent­ly puz­zled. At 9:26 he replied, “Ed Cofirm lat­est mssg plz Jason.”

    It was too late. “That was the moment he got jumped,” Ballinger told Flori­da Bull­dog. The offi­cial record says the hijack­ers struck at 9:28 when air traf­fic con­trollers heard a shout, “Get out of here!”

    It didn’t have to hap­pen that way, says Ballinger. At 8:52 a.m. a flight atten­dant aboard doomed Flight 175 had called United’s San Fran­cis­co main­te­nance office to report that the plane’s pilots had been mur­dered and that hijack­ers were fly­ing the air­craft. A GTE air phone was used to make the call, which auto­mat­i­cal­ly rout­ed the call to main­te­nance. The result: min­utes lost before the news reached Ballinger and he sent out the alert.

    “Of all the com­mu­ni­ca­tions of 9/11, this is the one where the delay in his receipt of the infor­ma­tion con­tin­ues to trou­ble Mr. Ballinger because he felt that any infor­ma­tion received by Unit­ed rel­e­vant to any of his flights should have been passed on to him imme­di­ate­ly,” says the mem­o­ran­dum for the record. “In this par­tic­u­lar case, he con­tin­ues to won­der if he had known to send out his ACARS mes­sage to ‘beware cock­pit intru­sion’ a few min­utes earlier…whether this could have pre­vent­ed the hijack­ing of Flight 93.”

    Ballinger feels the same today. “If two min­utes could have been saved, they might have had time to (for­ti­fy) the door,” a rue­ful Ballinger said.
    ...

    Again, there are plen­ty of poten­tial inno­cent rea­sons for the delays in relay­ing that infor­ma­tion. But what about this over­all coverup? What pos­si­ble inno­cent rea­son is there for what is now a mul­ti-decade coverup that looks worse and worse the more we learn? We’ll pre­sum­ably nev­er get a real expla­na­tion. Should the full scope of the evi­dence ever be revealed it will come long after every­one involved is long dead at this rate. Hope­ful­ly future gen­er­a­tions will have a capac­i­ty to absorb the impli­ca­tions of these events and the sub­se­quent coverup. Because we obvi­ous­ly can’t han­dle it, which is per­haps the most depress­ing 9/11 rev­e­la­tion of them all.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | May 1, 2023, 4:32 pm
  7. So when the CIA and FBI at Alec Sta­tion were run­ning cov­er for the San Diego 9/11 hijack­er cella cell receiv­ing sup­port from Sau­di gov­ern­ment employ­ees — what about all the 9/11 hijack­ers in South Flori­da? What kind of Sau­di gov­ern­ment sup­port was there for the South Flori­da cell? And what about the FBI and CIA at Alec Sta­tion, what sort of cov­er were they were pro­vid­ing to the South Flori­da cell? And how does this all tie into appar­ent the offi­cial cov­er up of Daniel Hop­sick­er’s report­ing on Aman­da Keller and the months she spent liv­ing with in Venice, Flori­da, with Mohammed Atta and Mar­wan al-She­hhi in the spring of 2001?

    It’s that nest of still major out­stand­ing 9/11 ques­tions that brings us to the fol­low­ing Mia­mi Her­ald arti­cle from Sep­tem­ber 8, 2021. It’s a ’20 years lat­er’ ret­ro­spec­tive arti­cle look­ing back on the lega­cy left behind in South Flori­da by the ter­ror cell. A lega­cy of lin­ger­ing unan­swered ques­tions. That’s part of what makes this arti­cle so grim­ly fas­ci­nat­ing. It’s basi­cal­ly a sum­ma­ry of 20 years of FBI 9/11 cov­er ups.

    And at the cen­ter of those lin­ger­ing ques­tions is the mys­tery of the Sara­so­ta fam­i­ly that sud­den­ly van­ished back to Sau­di Ara­bia two weeks before the 9/11 attacks. Abdu­lazzi al-Hijji and his wife, Anoud, left their home so quick­ly with their small chil­dren that they even left dirty dia­pers in one of the bath­rooms. Recall how Anoud’s father, Esam Ghaz­za­wi, was an advis­er to Prince Fahd bin Salman bin Abdu­laz­iz al-Saud, the nephew of for­mer Sau­di King Fahd. As fol­low­ing arti­cle notes, FBI agents dis­cov­ered phone state­ments and gate records for the fam­i­ly’s gat­ed com­mu­ni­ty link­ing the house to some of the hijack­ers includ­ing Mohamed Atta. Huff­man Avi­a­tion was just a few blocks away from the home. Recall how Hop­sick­er revealed that the phone records for Atta’s Venice-based phone were miss­ing from Jan­u­ary to May of 2001 despite evi­dence show­ing the phone was active dur­ing this peri­od.

    In April 2013, the FBI released a sum­ma­ry report of its Sara­so­ta inves­ti­ga­tion thanks to law­suits by the Flori­da Bull­dog. While the sum­ma­ry report redact­ed the names of the Sara­so­ta fam­i­ly and hijack­ers they inter­act­ed with, it was clear it was Atta and Mar­wan al-She­hhi that the report was refer­ring to. Intrigu­ing­ly, the report also refers to a third unnamed per­son who was liv­ing with Atta and She­hhi at the time. It’s not clear what the time­frame is for when this third unnamed per­son was liv­ing with the hijack­ers, but if this was in the spring of 2001 that was align exact­ly with the peri­od they alleged­ly spent with Keller. In 2015, the 128-page 9/11 Review Com­mis­sion Report was release. The FBI used it as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to dis­cred­it its own 2013 sum­ma­ry report, describ­ing it as “poor­ly writ­ten” and “whol­ly unsub­stan­ti­at­ed”.

    The the Flori­da Bull­dog sued the US gov­ern­ment again in 2015, and in 2016 the gov­ern­ment released a heav­i­ly redact­ed 2012 FBI report reveal­ing that its agents in New York had been explor­ing the pos­si­ble pros­e­cu­tion of an unnamed sus­pect for pro­vid­ing mate­r­i­al sup­port to the hijack­ers. The sus­pec­t’s name was redact­ed but declas­si­fied infor­ma­tion indi­cat­ed this was in rela­tion to the San Diego cell of al-Haz­mi and al-Mihd­har. As for­mer Flori­da sen­a­tor Bob Gra­ham point­ed out at the time, “This has nev­er been dis­closed before and it’s to the con­trary of every­thing the FBI has pro­duced so far that has indi­cat­ed that 9/11 is history...It’s inter­est­ing that it took them 11 years to get there, and a FOIA to get this infor­ma­tion to the pub­lic.” Days after this redact­ed 2012 FBI sum­ma­ry report was release, the FBI’s Tam­pa office released a state­ment from the agent in charge that said the Sau­di fam­i­ly had been inter­viewed and “there was no con­nec­tion found to the 9/11 plot.” The FBI state­ment also claimed the agency had pro­vid­ed all the infor­ma­tion in the Sara­so­ta probe to a con­gres­sion­al joint inquiry.

    Fit­ting­ly, the FBI’s response to this Mia­mi Her­ald arti­cle is the same as ever: the bureau “still stands by our orig­i­nal find­ings [of no Sau­di fam­i­ly con­nec­tion in the Sara­so­ta probe] as report­ed to the 9/11 Com­mis­sion and [Con­gress’] Joint Inquiry into Intel­li­gence Com­mu­ni­ty Activ­i­ties before and after the ter­ror­ist attacks of Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001.” It’s just cov­er up after cov­er up. It nev­er ends, no mat­ter how many rev­e­la­tions get exposed.

    And that endur­ing coverup in the face of all the stun­ning rev­e­la­tions over the past 22 years is why we have to ask: How does Hop­sick­er’s explo­sive and still denied report­ing on the hijack­ers’ time in Venice tie into this ongo­ing and bla­tant coverup of the Sara­so­ta 9/11 mys­tery? As Hop­sick­er made clear, a lot of effort went into obscur­ing that his­to­ry. Phone records don’t scrub them­selves. So giv­en that we’ve already learned about the FBI/CIA run­ning cov­er for the San Diego cell — a cell that had Sau­di gov­ern­ment sup­port — and giv­en that the FBI appears to be engag­ing in an ongo­ing an bla­tant cov­er up of what it dis­cov­ered in Sara­so­ta, we have to ask: was the FBI/CIA Alec Sta­tion fusion cen­ter run­ning cov­er for the Sara­so­ta cell too and would Aman­da Keller’s sto­ry reveal this? We don’t know for sure yet, but that would explain the gross bla­tant cov­er up that’s been run for over two decades now:

    Mia­mi Her­ald

    Florida’s 9/11 ter­ror cell: 20 years lat­er, ques­tions linger about Sau­di con­nec­tion

    by Jay Weaver Mia­mi Her­ald
    David Ovalle Mia­mi Her­ald
    Alex Daugh­er­ty Mia­mi Her­ald

    This sto­ry was orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished Sep­tem­ber 8, 2021, 7:00 AM.
    Updat­ed Sep­tem­ber 11, 2021 10:36 AM

    Before they exe­cut­ed the dead­liest ter­ror­ist attacks in Amer­i­can his­to­ry, most of the 9/11 hijack­ers spent months unsus­pect­ed and unde­tect­ed in Flori­da, plot­ting to com­man­deer jet­lin­ers packed with pas­sen­gers and steer them like mis­siles into land­mark build­ings.

    They trained on flight sim­u­la­tors in Mia­mi, hung out at an oys­ter bar on Hollywood’s Young Cir­cle and lived in a tourist hotel off A1A in Deer­field Beach, roam­ing many haunts across South Flori­da.

    In the years since, inves­ti­ga­tors have detailed the Islam­ic extrem­ists’ move­ments through sales receipts, rental agree­ments and count­less inter­views with peo­ple who unwit­ting­ly inter­act­ed with them before the Sept. 11, 2001, ter­ror­ist attacks, which killed near­ly 3,000 peo­ple at the World Trade Center’s Twin Tow­ers in New York City, the Pen­ta­gon in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., and in an open field in Penn­syl­va­nia.

    Yet 20 years lat­er, despite seem­ing­ly exhaus­tive probes by Con­gress, the 9/11 Com­mis­sion, the 9/11 Review Com­mis­sion and the FBI, murky mys­ter­ies remain about the al-Qai­da ter­ror cell’s oper­a­tions. The first puz­zle piece is in Sara­so­ta, where at least one FBI report found that 9/11 plot leader Mohamed Atta and two oth­er hijack­ers vis­it­ed the gat­ed com­mu­ni­ty of a Sau­di Ara­bi­an fam­i­ly, who hur­ried­ly left their home just two weeks before the attacks. The sec­ond piece is across the coun­try and sug­gests that two more cell mem­bers in South­ern Cal­i­for­nia may have been assist­ed by gov­ern­ment employ­ees of Sau­di Ara­bia, home coun­try of 15 of the 19 men who died in the sui­cide mis­sion.

    Both lin­ger­ing mys­ter­ies were unearthed more than a decade after the attacks — large­ly because of the report­ing and pub­lic-records bat­tles waged by one inves­tiga­tive reporter in Fort Laud­erdale, Dan Chris­tensen. His work raised ques­tions also pur­sued by for­mer U.S. Sen. Bob Gra­ham, D‑Florida, who accused the U.S. gov­ern­ment of with­hold­ing crit­i­cal infor­ma­tion from the joint inquiry pan­el he over­saw dur­ing the first year after the attacks.

    The sus­pi­cions of Gra­ham and oth­ers have been fueled by the government’s fight to keep thou­sands of clas­si­fied doc­u­ments secret for years and by con­tra­dic­to­ry FBI state­ments. In Sara­so­ta, for instance, Christensen’s push for records uncov­ered an FBI agent’s declas­si­fied report com­piled in the year after the attacks, claim­ing “many con­nec­tions” between the hijack­ers and the Sau­di fam­i­ly. The FBI has long insist­ed there were none.

    Some ques­tions amount to basic detec­tive work: Did inves­ti­ga­tors unrav­el the whole plot or did some co-con­spir­a­tors evade jus­tice? But the big­ger ones are com­pli­cat­ed and could have pro­found polit­i­cal impli­ca­tions. Is there some still-clas­si­fied clue in either Sara­so­ta or South­ern Cal­i­for­nia that could point to sup­port for the attack­ers from pow­er­ful forces in Sau­di Ara­bia, a crit­i­cal Amer­i­can ally in the Mid­dle East with vast oil reserves and invest­ments in the Unit­ed States?

    “This was 20 years ago and the events are still with us today,” said Chris­tensen, edi­tor of the Flori­da Bull­dog, an online news site that first dis­closed the pos­si­ble Sara­so­ta and South­ern Cal­i­for­nia links. The Mia­mi Her­ald also pub­lished his ini­tial 2011 sto­ry on the Sara­so­ta fam­i­ly and more than a dozen oth­ers on the 9/11 probe over the years. “There is so much more. All of us want to know what hap­pened. The FBI is hid­ing that from us, and I don’t think they have the author­i­ty to do that.”

    There is also still an impor­tant group of peo­ple deeply vest­ed in get­ting answers. In a New York fed­er­al court, thou­sands of fam­i­lies of the 9/11 vic­tims con­tin­ue to press a long-run­ning civ­il case against the Sau­di gov­ern­ment, the roy­al fam­i­ly, and their affil­i­at­ed banks and char­i­ties. For years, the 9/11 rel­a­tives were stymied by a U.S. sov­er­eign immu­ni­ty law pro­tect­ing the Sau­di gov­ern­ment, a tra­di­tion­al U.S. ally that the fam­i­lies argue in court records pro­vid­ed finan­cial aid to some of the ter­ror­ist sus­pects.

    They won one key vic­to­ry in 2016 when, over the objec­tions of the Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion, Con­gress passed a law giv­ing the fam­i­lies the right to sue the Sau­di gov­ern­ment in fed­er­al court.

    Last week, Pres­i­dent Joe Biden gave them anoth­er poten­tial­ly big win. Biden, who has been under pres­sure from the 9/11 vic­tims’ fam­i­lies to dis­close still-secret FBI records and had made a cam­paign pledge of trans­paren­cy, ordered the Jus­tice Depart­ment to review, declas­si­fy and release them over the next six months.

    ...

    The Sau­di gov­ern­ment has long denied any con­nec­tion to the 9/11 attacks. Its embassy in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., did not respond to a request from the Her­ald for com­ment but a spokesman did address the ques­tions ear­li­er this year.

    “Sau­di Ara­bia is and has always been a close and crit­i­cal ally of the U.S. in the fight against ter­ror­ism,” Fahad Naz­er, a spokesman for the Sau­di Embassy in Wash­ing­ton, told the New York Times Mag­a­zine. “Any sug­ges­tion that Sau­di Ara­bia aid­ed the 9/11 plot was reject­ed by the 9/11 com­mis­sion in 2004, by the F.B.I. and C.I.A. in 2005, and by a sec­ond inde­pen­dent com­mis­sion in 2015.”

    The FBI’s head­quar­ters in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. also said the bureau “still stands by our orig­i­nal find­ings [of no Sau­di fam­i­ly con­nec­tion in the Sara­so­ta probe] as report­ed to the 9/11 Com­mis­sion and [Con­gress’] Joint Inquiry into Intel­li­gence Com­mu­ni­ty Activ­i­ties before and after the ter­ror­ist attacks of Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001.”

    The FBI’s pub­lic affairs office, how­ev­er, declined to com­ment about pos­si­ble con­nec­tions between two of the 9/11 hijack­ers liv­ing in San Diego and Sau­di gov­ern­ment employ­ees.

    Back in 2004 — long before Chris­tensen detailed a pre­vi­ous­ly unre­port­ed search by the FBI and local law enforce­ment at the aban­doned Sara­so­ta house — the 9/11 Com­mis­sion had dis­missed any direct Sau­di gov­ern­ment tie, report­ing that “it does not appear that any gov­ern­ment oth­er than the Tal­iban [in Afghanistan] finan­cial­ly sup­port­ed al-Qai­da before 9/11, although some gov­ern­ments may have con­tained al-Qai­da sym­pa­thiz­ers who turned a blind eye to al-Qaida’s fund-rais­ing activ­i­ties.”

    “Sau­di Ara­bia has long been con­sid­ered the pri­ma­ry source of al-Qai­da fund­ing, but we have found no evi­dence that the Sau­di gov­ern­ment as an insti­tu­tion or senior Sau­di offi­cials indi­vid­u­al­ly fund­ed the orga­ni­za­tion. (This con­clu­sion does not exclude the like­li­hood that char­i­ties with sig­nif­i­cant Sau­di gov­ern­ment spon­sor­ship divert­ed funds to al-Qai­da.)”

    Even now, despite appar­ent cir­cum­stan­tial evi­dence in the Sara­so­ta and South­ern Cal­i­for­nia probes, there is no smok­ing gun to counter those con­clu­sions. The loose ends could amount to lit­tle. The FBI and Jus­tice Depart­ment lead­ers over the years may sim­ply be pro­tect­ing turf or push­ing back against out­side crit­ics.

    But Tom Julin, a Mia­mi attor­ney who spe­cial­izes in First Amend­ment law and rep­re­sent­ed the Flori­da Bull­dog in its pub­lic records law­suits against the Jus­tice Depart­ment and FBI, said the chang­ing offi­cial sto­ries and con­tin­u­ing rev­e­la­tions from declas­si­fied fed­er­al doc­u­ments have long flamed ques­tions about the Saud­is’ role.

    “What hap­pened in Sara­so­ta still remains a mys­tery,” Julin told the Her­ald. “There are incon­sis­ten­cies in what the FBI says pub­licly and their offi­cial inves­tiga­tive reports.”

    Con­nect­ing the dots

    Although the hor­rif­ic attacks unfold­ed hun­dreds of miles away, it was quick­ly clear that Flori­da had been the main stag­ing area for the plot­ters — the tran­sient nature of its pop­u­la­tion pro­vid­ing per­fect cov­er.

    With­in days, as a shocked coun­try braced for pos­si­ble future attacks, fed­er­al inves­ti­ga­tors dis­closed details of the 9/11 hijack­ers’ move­ments and put names and faces to the ter­ror­ists, appeal­ing to the pub­lic for leads. It was a mas­sive hunt not just to round up this cell but uncov­er oth­ers.

    Mohamed Atta, the ring­leader who would become the grim face of ter­ror­ism, trained along with anoth­er ter­ror­ist named Mar­wan al-She­hhi, first at Huff­man Avi­a­tion flight school in Venice in July 2000. Four months lat­er, they prac­ticed on a Boe­ing 727 sim­u­la­tor at an Opa-loc­ka avi­a­tion school.

    The fol­low­ing spring, Atta and many in the cell began gath­er­ing in South Flori­da, liv­ing in places such as Hol­ly­wood, Coral Springs, Deer­field Beach, Del­ray Beach and Vero Beach. As many as 14 of the 19 hijack­ers spent time in South Flori­da in the months before 9/11, often stay­ing in motels and unas­sum­ing short-term rental apart­ments. Some even obtained valid Flori­da driver’s licens­es.

    They raised lit­tle alarm among those who encoun­tered them. Infa­mous­ly, Atta and al-She­hhi drank at Shuck­ums, a raw bar on Hollywood’s Har­ri­son Street, three nights before the attacks. They hag­gled with staff over a $48 tab but ulti­mate­ly left. Despite their sup­pos­ed­ly strict Islam­ic faith, inves­ti­ga­tors would find that sev­er­al of the hijack­ers fre­quent­ed the Pink Pony strip club in Day­tona Beach.

    One hijack­er, Ziad Jar­rahi, rent­ed an apart­ment in Laud­erdale-by-the-Sea and joined a gym in Dania Beach. The stunned own­er of one flight school in Venice recalled Jar­rah as an easy­go­ing young man, mod­el stu­dent and a “super kid.”

    Atta and al-She­hhi flew the Amer­i­can Air­lines and Unit­ed Air­lines planes that respec­tive­ly crashed into the World Trade Center’s North and South Tow­ers, while Jar­rah was at the con­trols of the Unit­ed Air­lines jet­lin­er that crashed in Penn­syl­va­nia.

    After the ter­ror attacks, FBI agents swarmed South Flori­da, find­ing a trail of clues that, in ret­ro­spect, hint­ed at the ter­ror to come and missed chances to stop the dead­ly plot.

    One of the hijack­ers, Saeed al-Gham­di, was ques­tioned at length when he and anoth­er hijack­er arrived at Orlan­do Inter­na­tion­al Air­port from Lon­don in June 2001. The rea­son: inspec­tors not­ed he had no return tick­et, and they sus­pect­ed he want­ed to stay in the Unit­ed States ille­gal­ly. Still, al-Gham­di was allowed to enter the coun­try.

    In anoth­er exam­ple, Jar­rah tried enrolling an over­seas asso­ciate, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, into the avi­a­tion school in Venice. Bin al-Shibh even wired tuition mon­ey to the school. But three times, he was denied a visa to the Unit­ed States. Inves­ti­ga­tors believe bin al-Shibh, a key orga­niz­er of the attacks, would have been the 20th hijack­er had he been allowed into the Unit­ed States. He was lat­er cap­tured and is still await­ing tri­al while being held at the U.S. deten­tion cen­ter in Guan­tá­namo Bay, Cuba.

    And per­haps most haunt­ing: two days before the ter­ror­ist attacks, al-She­hhi and anoth­er hijack­er checked out of The Pan­ther Motel in Deer­field Beach. The items they left behind in Room 12: Boe­ing 757 man­u­als, flight maps, a mar­tial arts book and a box cut­ter.

    Sara­so­ta con­nec­tion

    Inves­ti­ga­tors pulled many threads in the Flori­da web of decep­tion. The curi­ous depar­ture of that Sara­so­ta fam­i­ly before the 9/11 attacks was one of them. But that would not become pub­lic until a decade lat­er, when Chris­tensen — tipped to the mys­tery by Antho­ny Sum­mers, co-author of The Eleventh Day: The Full Sto­ry of 9/11 and Osama bin Laden — found sources who out­lined seem­ing­ly trou­bling details.

    Abdu­lazzi al-Hijji and his wife, Anoud, and some small chil­dren lived in the upscale gat­ed com­mu­ni­ty of Prestancia in a three-bed­room home owned by Anoud’s father, Esam Ghaz­za­wi, an inte­ri­or dec­o­ra­tor and financier who owned sev­er­al prop­er­ties in the Unit­ed States. His wife, Deb­o­rah, was also list­ed as the own­er.

    Two weeks before the ter­ror­ist attacks, the fam­i­ly van­ished, met up with Anoud’s father in Vir­ginia and togeth­er they flew to Sau­di Ara­bia. They had appar­ent­ly left in a hur­ry, accord­ing to a senior admin­is­tra­tor and secu­ri­ty offi­cer at Prestancia. After the attacks, the property’s secu­ri­ty offi­cer, also an advis­er to the Sara­so­ta Sheriff’s Office, had a gut feel­ing about the family’s sud­den depar­ture. Anoth­er Prestancia neigh­bor also sensed some­thing sus­pi­cious and con­tact­ed the FBI.

    A team of agents soon descend­ed on 4224 Escon­di­to Cir­cle.

    Prestancia’s secu­ri­ty offi­cer, along with a counter-ter­ror­ism offi­cer, described what the fam­i­ly left behind: mail on the table, dirty dia­pers in one of the bath­rooms, clothes hang­ing in the clos­ets, a com­put­er in the mas­ter bed­room, an open emp­ty safe, and a full refrig­er­a­tor. Fan­cy fur­ni­ture was in place. And there were toys in the pool, which was still run­ning. The fam­i­ly also aban­doned three vehi­cles, includ­ing a brand-new Chrysler PT Cruis­er, in the garage and dri­ve­way.

    The counter-ter­ror­ism offi­cer, whose name the Bull­dog did not dis­close, said FBI agents made dis­turb­ing dis­cov­er­ies: Phone state­ments and the Prestancia gate records linked the house on Escon­di­to Cir­cle to some of the hijack­ers, includ­ing Atta, the reput­ed 9/11 ring­leader.

    Atta and two oth­er hijack­ers had lived in Venice — just 10 miles from the house — for much of the year before 9/11. Atta and al-She­hhi, had been stu­dents at near­by Huff­man Avi­a­tion. A block away, at Flori­da Flight Train­ing, accom­plice Jar­rah had also been tak­ing fly­ing lessons. All three obtained their pilot licens­es and spent much of their time trav­el­ing the state.

    Agents were able to track their calls based on dates, times and length of con­ver­sa­tions; they dat­ed back more than a year and lined up with the known sus­pects. The links were not only to Atta and the two oth­ers who took flight lessons in Venice, the counter-ter­ror­ism offi­cer said, but to 11 oth­er ter­ror­ist sus­pects, includ­ing Waleed al-Shehri, one of the men who flew with Atta on the first plane to strike the World Trade Center’s North Tow­er.

    The Prestancia community’s gate records, Chris­tensen report­ed, were also illu­mi­nat­ing.

    Peo­ple who arrived by car had to give their names and the address they were vis­it­ing. Gate staff would some­times ask to see a driver’s license and note the name. License plates were pho­tographed. The vehi­cle and name infor­ma­tion on Atta and Jar­rah fit that of dri­vers enter­ing Prestancia on their way to vis­it the home at 4224 Escon­di­to Cir­cle, the Bull­dog report­ed.

    The Jus­tice Depart­ment declined to com­ment in Christensen’s ini­tial sto­ry that ran a decade ago in the Mia­mi Her­ald. Days after it was pub­lished, a state­ment from the agent in charge of the FBI’s Tam­pa field office said the Sau­di fam­i­ly had been inter­viewed and “there was no con­nec­tion found to the 9/11 plot.” The FBI state­ment also said the agency had pro­vid­ed all the infor­ma­tion in the Sara­so­ta probe to a con­gres­sion­al joint inquiry.

    That was news to Gra­ham, co-chair of the con­gres­sion­al joint panel’s ini­tial inquiry into 9/11. He had long com­plained about stonewalling from the FBI, which along with oth­er intel­li­gence agen­cies had been under intense scruti­ny after miss­ing the sig­nals of a loom­ing ter­ror­ist strike.

    “Nobody I’ve spo­ken with from the joint inquiry says we got any infor­ma­tion on this,” Gra­ham said at the time. “It’s total B.S. It’s the same thing we’ve been get­ting from the FBI for the past 10 years.”

    The FBI’s own records would soon con­tra­dict that flat dis­missal.

    In April 2013, after a law­suit filed by the Flori­da Bull­dog, the FBI released a sum­ma­ry report of the agency’s Sara­so­ta inves­ti­ga­tion — even redact­ed, it echoed Christensen’s ini­tial sto­ry high­light­ing con­nec­tions between the Sau­di fam­i­ly and a few of the 9/11 hijack­ers. The Bull­dog pub­lished a fol­low-up.

    “Fur­ther inves­ti­ga­tion of the [name delet­ed] fam­i­ly revealed many con­nec­tions between the [name delet­ed] and indi­vid­u­als asso­ci­at­ed with the ter­ror­ist attacks on 9/11/2001,” an FBI agent’s April 2002 report stat­ed.

    The report did not iden­ti­fy those indi­vid­u­als but depict­ed two of them as stu­dents enrolled at the near­by Venice air­port flight school, Huff­man Avi­a­tion, where two of the 9/11 hijack­ers trained: Atta and al-She­hhi. The third per­son was described as liv­ing with the stu­dents who attend­ed the flight school.

    Two years lat­er in 2015, how­ev­er, the FBI — in a 128-page 9/11 Review Com­mis­sion report — again threw water on any Sara­so­ta link, with the unusu­al argu­ment of blam­ing a “poor­ly writ­ten” report by one of its own FBI agents that was “whol­ly unsub­stan­ti­at­ed.”

    The report, titled “The FBI: Pro­tect­ing the Home­land in the 21st Cen­tu­ry,” pro­duced with assis­tance from the FBI, said the agent’s find­ing of “many con­nec­tions” between the 9/11 hijack­ers and the Sau­di fam­i­ly was not con­firmed.

    “After fur­ther inves­ti­ga­tion, the FBI deter­mined that the state­ments in the [agent’s sum­ma­ry] were incor­rect,” accord­ing to the Review Commission’s report issued by for­mer Attor­ney Gen­er­al Ed Meese and two oth­ers. “The FBI found no evi­dence of con­tact between the hijack­ers and the [Sau­di] fam­i­ly” after ques­tion­ing wit­ness­es, includ­ing “all of the rel­e­vant fam­i­ly mem­bers” and “local indi­vid­u­als who claimed to have, or the FBI believed might have, per­ti­nent infor­ma­tion.”

    No details on the fam­i­ly mem­bers were pro­vid­ed or an expla­na­tion giv­en for why they had fled.

    That con­clu­sion nev­er sat­is­fied Gra­ham, who was unavail­able to com­ment for this sto­ry.

    At the time, Gra­ham point­ed to the U.S. government’s frag­ile alliance with the Mid­dle East­ern coun­try as an under­ly­ing fac­tor for the secre­cy. He said he was “deeply dis­turbed” by the George W. Bush administration’s redac­tion of the final 28-page chap­ter in the joint inquiry’s report, which was kept secret for “nation­al secu­ri­ty” rea­sons. Gra­ham, who retired from the Sen­ate in 2005, had read the blanked-out clas­si­fied infor­ma­tion.

    When asked whether he believed the Sau­di gov­ern­ment or any of its employ­ees and affil­i­ates sup­port­ed the hijack­ers while they were in the Unit­ed States, Gra­ham told CBS 60 Min­utes in April 2016: “Sub­stan­tial­ly.”

    Three months after Graham’s 60 Min­utes appear­ance and under pres­sure from the 9/11 rel­a­tives,the Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion declas­si­fied the final chap­ter of the joint inquiry’s report and Con­gress released it.

    The doc­u­ment did not shed any new light on the Flori­da oper­a­tions or reach a con­clu­sion on any Sau­di com­plic­i­ty. But it opened a wider path of inquiry. It named Sau­di gov­ern­ment employ­ees and asso­ciates who knew two 9/11 hijack­ers in the Los Ange­les and San Diego areas after they arrived in 2000 and helped them get apart­ments, open bank accounts and con­nect with mosques. The doc­u­ment said infor­ma­tion from FBI sources sug­gest­ed at least two peo­ple who assist­ed the hijack­ers may have been Sau­di intel­li­gence offi­cers.

    “The infor­ma­tion in the 28 pages rein­forces the belief that the 19 hijack­ers — most of whom spoke lit­tle Eng­lish, had lim­it­ed edu­ca­tion and had nev­er before vis­it­ed the Unit­ed States — did not act alone in per­pe­trat­ing the sophis­ti­cat­ed 9/11 plot,” Gra­ham said in a state­ment after its release. “It sug­gests a strong link­age between those ter­ror­ists and the King­dom of Sau­di Ara­bia, Sau­di char­i­ties, and oth­er Sau­di stake­hold­ers. The Amer­i­can peo­ple should be con­cerned about these links.”

    South­ern Cal­i­for­nia link

    At the time, the Bulldog’s Chris­tensen was also dig­ging deep­er into the Cal­i­for­nia angle. As ear­ly as 2013, he had quot­ed Gra­ham that the Sara­so­ta inci­dent sug­gest­ed a broad­er Sau­di sup­port net­work for the cell — cit­ing a “com­mon out­line” with what occurred in San Diego with Khalid al-Mihd­har and Nawaf al-Haz­mi, two of the five Sau­di hijack­ers aboard the Amer­i­can Air­lines jet flown into the Pen­ta­gon.

    A foot­note in the 9/11 Review Commission’s report piqued his curios­i­ty about how Saud­is with gov­ern­ment ties may have helped both those men in the year before the ter­ror­ist attacks. In 2015, the Flori­da Bull­dog sued the Jus­tice Depart­ment and FBI again.

    The fol­low­ing year, the U.S. gov­ern­ment released a heav­i­ly redact­ed but still-reveal­ing FBI sum­ma­ry report from 2012. It indi­cat­ed that Fahad al-Thu­mairy — a rad­i­cal imam at the Sau­di-fund­ed King Fahad mosque and an accred­it­ed diplo­mat at the Sau­di con­sulate in Los Ange­les — had pro­vid­ed assis­tance to al-Haz­mi and al-Mihd­har.

    Fur­ther, it not­ed that the FBI’s inves­ti­ga­tion of the ter­ror­ist attacks had not end­ed years ear­li­er and it con­tra­dict­ed the 9/11 Commission’s con­clu­sion there was “no evi­dence” indi­cat­ing al-Thu­mairy helped the two hijack­ers.

    As late as Octo­ber 2012, fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors and FBI agents in New York City were active­ly explor­ing fil­ing charges against an unnamed sus­pect for pro­vid­ing mate­r­i­al sup­port to the hijack­ers and oth­er crimes. The suspect’s iden­ti­ty and many details of the New York inves­ti­ga­tion were blacked out for nation­al secu­ri­ty rea­sons. But the report’s declas­si­fied por­tions indi­cat­ed the New York inves­ti­ga­tion tar­get­ed an appar­ent U.S. sup­port net­work for al-Haz­mi and al-Mihd­har.

    “This has nev­er been dis­closed before and it’s to the con­trary of every­thing the FBI has pro­duced so far that has indi­cat­ed that 9/11 is his­to­ry,” Gra­ham told the Bull­dog in 2016. “It’s inter­est­ing that it took them 11 years to get there, and a FOIA to get this infor­ma­tion to the pub­lic.”

    The FBI 2012 sum­ma­ry, orig­i­nal­ly clas­si­fied secret, was marked to “declas­si­fy on 12-31-2037.” When it was released in late 2016, the four-page report buoyed the hopes of rel­a­tives of 9/11 vic­tims in their law­suit aim­ing to show the Sau­di gov­ern­ment assist­ed the 9/11 hijack­ers.

    The FBI sum­ma­ry list­ed three “main sub­jects.” The imam, al-Thu­mairy, was described as a Sau­di diplo­mat who “imme­di­ate­ly assigned an indi­vid­ual to take care” of al-Haz­mi and al-Mihd­har when they arrived in South­ern Cal­i­for­nia in 2000.

    Omar al-Bay­ou­mi, a sec­ond sub­ject, was believed to be a Sau­di agent who befriend­ed al-Haz­mi and al-Mihd­har. The report said al-Bay­ou­mi “was liv­ing in San Diego on a stu­dent visa, despite not attend­ing class­es, and receiv­ing a salary from the King­dom of Sau­di Ara­bia for job duties he nev­er per­formed.” Al-Bay­ou­mi had told author­i­ties he acci­den­tal­ly met the two hijack­ers at a Los Ange­les restau­rant.

    The final sen­tence of the syn­op­sis indi­cat­ed the third unnamed indi­vid­ual was high­ly placed: “There is evi­dence that [redact­ed] ... tasked al-Thu­mairy and al-Bay­ou­mi with assist­ing the hijack­ers” — even while know­ing they were here to com­mit an act of ter­ror­ism.

    One for­mer agent, Stephen Moore, who led the FBI’s Los Ange­les probe of the two hijack­er sus­pects, lat­er filed a dec­la­ra­tion in the 9/11 vic­tims’ case in New York. It also con­tra­dict­ed pre­vi­ous reports deny­ing gov­ern­ment links, say­ing there was clear evi­dence that al-Thu­mairy and al-Bay­ou­mi had helped the two hijack­ers and not­ing that — like the Sara­so­ta fam­i­ly — both had left the Unit­ed States just weeks before the attacks.

    Moore said that al-Qai­da wouldn’t have sent al-Haz­mi and al-Mihd­har to the U.S. “with­out a sup­port struc­ture in place.” He said he believed al-Bay­ou­mi was a “clan­des­tine agent” and that al-Thu­mairy knew the hijack­ers “were on a com­plex pre-planned mis­sion” that would involve the use of air­planes. The for­mer agent con­clud­ed that Sau­di Ara­bi­an diplo­mat­ic and intel­li­gence per­son­nel had “know­ing­ly pro­vid­ed mate­r­i­al sup­port to the [first] two 9/11 hijack­ers [who entered the U.S.] and facil­i­tat­ed the 9/11 plot.”

    Even before Biden’s deci­sion to declas­si­fy more mate­r­i­al last week, the 9/11 vic­tims’ suit against the Sau­di gov­ern­ment had gained momen­tum in recent years, with a New York fed­er­al judge allow­ing it to pro­ceed with some depo­si­tions and inquiries.

    Ear­li­er this year, al-Bay­ou­mi and al-Thu­mairy were ques­tioned. So was the third sub­ject who was not iden­ti­fied in the FBI 2012 sum­ma­ry report: Musaed al-Jar­rah, a for­mer Sau­di Embassy offi­cial in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. Yahoo News report­ed his name was inad­ver­tent­ly revealed in an FBI fil­ing that sug­gest­ed he was sus­pect­ed of hav­ing direct­ed sup­port for the hijack­ers.

    The depo­si­tion of al-Jar­rah — who over­saw the Min­istry of Islam­ic Affairs at the Sau­di Embassy in the late 1990s and ear­ly 2000s — revealed that FBI agents ques­tioned al-Jar­rah at least three times and con­front­ed him with pho­tos of child pornog­ra­phy found on his home com­put­er in an appar­ent attempt to “flip” him, Yahoo News report­ed. The closed-door depo­si­tion of the Sau­di nation­al was tak­en in June by lawyers for the fam­i­lies of the 9/11 vic­tims.

    Al-Jar­rah spurned the FBI’s offer to become a coop­er­at­ing wit­ness in 2004, accord­ing to the depo­si­tion obtained exclu­sive­ly by Yahoo News. Still, the 600-plus page depo­si­tion revealed the extent to which the FBI pur­sued the pos­si­ble role of Sau­di offi­cials in the attacks — long after the pub­lic was led to believe that sen­si­tive issue was set­tled by the 9/11 Com­mis­sion.

    The FBI, trou­bled by what it had missed before the 9/11 attacks and what it might have missed in the after­math, con­tin­ued to inves­ti­gate the pos­si­ble Sau­di gov­ern­ment con­nec­tion through 2016 in “Oper­a­tion Encore.” That probe’s evi­dence is also still clas­si­fied.

    Lin­ger­ing con­cerns

    Although most polit­i­cal lead­ers have long since moved on, Gra­ham wasn’t the only one who remained con­cerned that the Sau­di role had not ful­ly been exam­ined.

    For­mer U.S. Rep. Jim Davis, a Flori­da Demo­c­rat who rep­re­sent­ed the Tam­pa area from 1997 to 2007, was one of the first mem­bers of Con­gress to meet with the king of Sau­di Ara­bia after 9/11.

    “We had a very blunt con­ver­sa­tion about the hijack­ing,” Davis told the Her­ald. “The king said some­thing like, ‘Why do you keep focus­ing on this top­ic?’ My response was to remind him how many of the hijack­ers were Saud­is. The meet­ing wasn’t can­celed, it didn’t blow up, but it was a painful­ly direct con­ver­sa­tion.”

    Davis said he also met with Sau­di Arabia’s sec­re­tary of edu­ca­tion to dis­cuss the anti-west­ern cur­ricu­lum in Sau­di schools that he said helped rad­i­cal­ize young Saud­is. He lat­er filed and passed a res­o­lu­tion in the U.S. House call­ing for reforms to Sau­di Arabia’s edu­ca­tion sys­tem, but he said the res­o­lu­tion stalled in the U.S. Sen­ate amid Sau­di pres­sure. Davis also tried to per­suade the Trea­sury Depart­ment and FBI to close­ly mon­i­tor finan­cial trans­ac­tions in Sau­di Ara­bia that could be a means of fund­ing ter­ror­ism.

    ...

    ———-

    “Florida’s 9/11 ter­ror cell: 20 years lat­er, ques­tions linger about Sau­di con­nec­tion” by Jay Weaver, David Ovalle, Alex Daugh­er­ty; Mia­mi Her­ald; 09/08/2021

    “Yet 20 years lat­er, despite seem­ing­ly exhaus­tive probes by Con­gress, the 9/11 Com­mis­sion, the 9/11 Review Com­mis­sion and the FBI, murky mys­ter­ies remain about the al-Qai­da ter­ror cell’s oper­a­tions. The first puz­zle piece is in Sara­so­ta, where at least one FBI report found that 9/11 plot leader Mohamed Atta and two oth­er hijack­ers vis­it­ed the gat­ed com­mu­ni­ty of a Sau­di Ara­bi­an fam­i­ly, who hur­ried­ly left their home just two weeks before the attacks. The sec­ond piece is across the coun­try and sug­gests that two more cell mem­bers in South­ern Cal­i­for­nia may have been assist­ed by gov­ern­ment employ­ees of Sau­di Ara­bia, home coun­try of 15 of the 19 men who died in the sui­cide mis­sion.

    While a num­ber of major mys­ter­ies still loomed large over the offi­cial 9/11 nar­ra­tive, it was the mys­tery of Sau­di gov­ern­ment sup­port for the hijack­ers that arguably looomed largest. Twin mys­ter­ies, with evi­dence point­ing towards Sau­di gov­ern­ment sup­port in both San Diego and Sara­so­ta. And while quite a bit has sub­se­quent­ly been revealed in recent years about the damn­ing evi­dence the FBI has col­lect­ed regard­ing the Sau­di assis­tance for the San Diego cell, much less is known about the kind of Sau­di gov­ern­ment assis­tance giv­en to the hijack­ers in South Flori­da, which is espe­cial­ly notable giv­en how many of the hijack­ers were oper­at­ing in South Flori­da, with up to 14 of the 19 hijack­ers now known to have spent time in South Flori­da. And it’s an area of mys­tery that, of course, aligns exact­ly with the numer­ous Sara­so­ta-based rev­e­la­tions uncov­ered by Daniel Hop­sick­er.

    It’s also rather notable that the offi­cial nar­ra­tive is still vague enough it’s “up to 14 of the 19 hijack­ers” and not more defin­i­tive­ly known. But it’s the fact that the entire sto­ry of the sud­den dis­ap­pear­ance of a Sara­so­ta fam­i­ly two weeks before the attack was only revealed a decade after the attacks thanks to Dan Chris­tensen, the inde­pen­dent inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ist behind the Flori­da Bull­dog that under­scores just how lit­tle offi­cial inter­est there was in the Sara­so­ta-Sau­di con­nec­tion. And a decade after Chris­tensen broke that sto­ry, there’s still been almost noth­ing offi­cial­ly revealed about the Sara­so­ta sto­ry. We’ve learned about the Sau­di sup­port for the San Diego cell. But still almost noth­ing about the Sara­so­ta sup­port. It’s the kind of infor­ma­tion black­out that points towards some­thing tru­ly hor­rif­ic hid­ing under this 9/11 Sara­so­ta rock:

    ...
    Both lin­ger­ing mys­ter­ies were unearthed more than a decade after the attacks — large­ly because of the report­ing and pub­lic-records bat­tles waged by one inves­tiga­tive reporter in Fort Laud­erdale, Dan Chris­tensen. His work raised ques­tions also pur­sued by for­mer U.S. Sen. Bob Gra­ham, D‑Florida, who accused the U.S. gov­ern­ment of with­hold­ing crit­i­cal infor­ma­tion from the joint inquiry pan­el he over­saw dur­ing the first year after the attacks.

    The sus­pi­cions of Gra­ham and oth­ers have been fueled by the government’s fight to keep thou­sands of clas­si­fied doc­u­ments secret for years and by con­tra­dic­to­ry FBI state­ments. In Sara­so­ta, for instance, Christensen’s push for records uncov­ered an FBI agent’s declas­si­fied report com­piled in the year after the attacks, claim­ing “many con­nec­tions” between the hijack­ers and the Sau­di fam­i­ly. The FBI has long insist­ed there were none.

    Some ques­tions amount to basic detec­tive work: Did inves­ti­ga­tors unrav­el the whole plot or did some co-con­spir­a­tors evade jus­tice? But the big­ger ones are com­pli­cat­ed and could have pro­found polit­i­cal impli­ca­tions. Is there some still-clas­si­fied clue in either Sara­so­ta or South­ern Cal­i­for­nia that could point to sup­port for the attack­ers from pow­er­ful forces in Sau­di Ara­bia, a crit­i­cal Amer­i­can ally in the Mid­dle East with vast oil reserves and invest­ments in the Unit­ed States?

    ...

    Mohamed Atta, the ring­leader who would become the grim face of ter­ror­ism, trained along with anoth­er ter­ror­ist named Mar­wan al-She­hhi, first at Huff­man Avi­a­tion flight school in Venice in July 2000. Four months lat­er, they prac­ticed on a Boe­ing 727 sim­u­la­tor at an Opa-loc­ka avi­a­tion school.

    The fol­low­ing spring, Atta and many in the cell began gath­er­ing in South Flori­da, liv­ing in places such as Hol­ly­wood, Coral Springs, Deer­field Beach, Del­ray Beach and Vero Beach. As many as 14 of the 19 hijack­ers spent time in South Flori­da in the months before 9/11, often stay­ing in motels and unas­sum­ing short-term rental apart­ments. Some even obtained valid Flori­da driver’s licens­es.

    ...

    Inves­ti­ga­tors pulled many threads in the Flori­da web of decep­tion. The curi­ous depar­ture of that Sara­so­ta fam­i­ly before the 9/11 attacks was one of them. But that would not become pub­lic until a decade lat­er, when Chris­tensen — tipped to the mys­tery by Antho­ny Sum­mers, co-author of The Eleventh Day: The Full Sto­ry of 9/11 and Osama bin Laden — found sources who out­lined seem­ing­ly trou­bling details.

    Abdu­lazzi al-Hijji and his wife, Anoud, and some small chil­dren lived in the upscale gat­ed com­mu­ni­ty of Prestancia in a three-bed­room home owned by Anoud’s father, Esam Ghaz­za­wi, an inte­ri­or dec­o­ra­tor and financier who owned sev­er­al prop­er­ties in the Unit­ed States. His wife, Deb­o­rah, was also list­ed as the own­er.

    Two weeks before the ter­ror­ist attacks, the fam­i­ly van­ished, met up with Anoud’s father in Vir­ginia and togeth­er they flew to Sau­di Ara­bia. They had appar­ent­ly left in a hur­ry, accord­ing to a senior admin­is­tra­tor and secu­ri­ty offi­cer at Prestancia. After the attacks, the property’s secu­ri­ty offi­cer, also an advis­er to the Sara­so­ta Sheriff’s Office, had a gut feel­ing about the family’s sud­den depar­ture. Anoth­er Prestancia neigh­bor also sensed some­thing sus­pi­cious and con­tact­ed the FBI.

    A team of agents soon descend­ed on 4224 Escon­di­to Cir­cle.

    Prestancia’s secu­ri­ty offi­cer, along with a counter-ter­ror­ism offi­cer, described what the fam­i­ly left behind: mail on the table, dirty dia­pers in one of the bath­rooms, clothes hang­ing in the clos­ets, a com­put­er in the mas­ter bed­room, an open emp­ty safe, and a full refrig­er­a­tor. Fan­cy fur­ni­ture was in place. And there were toys in the pool, which was still run­ning. The fam­i­ly also aban­doned three vehi­cles, includ­ing a brand-new Chrysler PT Cruis­er, in the garage and dri­ve­way.

    The counter-ter­ror­ism offi­cer, whose name the Bull­dog did not dis­close, said FBI agents made dis­turb­ing dis­cov­er­ies: Phone state­ments and the Prestancia gate records linked the house on Escon­di­to Cir­cle to some of the hijack­ers, includ­ing Atta, the reput­ed 9/11 ring­leader.

    Atta and two oth­er hijack­ers had lived in Venice — just 10 miles from the house — for much of the year before 9/11. Atta and al-She­hhi, had been stu­dents at near­by Huff­man Avi­a­tion. A block away, at Flori­da Flight Train­ing, accom­plice Jar­rah had also been tak­ing fly­ing lessons. All three obtained their pilot licens­es and spent much of their time trav­el­ing the state.
    ...

    But part of what makes this sto­ry so explo­sive isn’t the new rev­e­la­tions. It’s the fact that so many old explo­sive rev­e­la­tions have already come and gone with vir­tu­al­ly no offi­cial expla­na­tion or even com­ment from the FBI and oth­er agen­cies impli­cat­ed in what is now a bla­tant cov­er up. Like the fact that Chris­tensen’s ini­tial rev­e­la­tions back in 2011 were met with no com­ment by the Jus­tice Depart­ment and gross decep­tion by the FBI. These aren’t secrets that offi­cials have yet to deny or dis­tort. The denials and dis­tor­tions have been ongo­ing for years now. At least for the rev­e­la­tions already revealed:

    ...
    Agents were able to track their calls based on dates, times and length of con­ver­sa­tions; they dat­ed back more than a year and lined up with the known sus­pects. The links were not only to Atta and the two oth­ers who took flight lessons in Venice, the counter-ter­ror­ism offi­cer said, but to 11 oth­er ter­ror­ist sus­pects, includ­ing Waleed al-Shehri, one of the men who flew with Atta on the first plane to strike the World Trade Center’s North Tow­er.

    The Prestancia community’s gate records, Chris­tensen report­ed, were also illu­mi­nat­ing.

    Peo­ple who arrived by car had to give their names and the address they were vis­it­ing. Gate staff would some­times ask to see a driver’s license and note the name. License plates were pho­tographed. The vehi­cle and name infor­ma­tion on Atta and Jar­rah fit that of dri­vers enter­ing Prestancia on their way to vis­it the home at 4224 Escon­di­to Cir­cle, the Bull­dog report­ed.

    The Jus­tice Depart­ment declined to com­ment in Christensen’s ini­tial sto­ry that ran a decade ago in the Mia­mi Her­ald. Days after it was pub­lished, a state­ment from the agent in charge of the FBI’s Tam­pa field office said the Sau­di fam­i­ly had been inter­viewed and “there was no con­nec­tion found to the 9/11 plot.” The FBI state­ment also said the agency had pro­vid­ed all the infor­ma­tion in the Sara­so­ta probe to a con­gres­sion­al joint inquiry.

    That was news to Gra­ham, co-chair of the con­gres­sion­al joint panel’s ini­tial inquiry into 9/11. He had long com­plained about stonewalling from the FBI, which along with oth­er intel­li­gence agen­cies had been under intense scruti­ny after miss­ing the sig­nals of a loom­ing ter­ror­ist strike.

    “Nobody I’ve spo­ken with from the joint inquiry says we got any infor­ma­tion on this,” Gra­ham said at the time. “It’s total B.S. It’s the same thing we’ve been get­ting from the FBI for the past 10 years.”
    ...

    In 2013, those 2011 denials by the FBI about the Sara­so­ta fam­i­ly were again exposed by Chris­tensen. More pre­cise­ly, Chris­tensen’s law­suit. The FBI released a heav­i­ly redact­ed sum­ma­ry report on the Sara­so­ta inves­ti­ga­tion expos­ing ties between the Sara­so­ta fam­i­ly unnamed hijack­ers that fit the descrip­tion of Atta and al-She­hhi. And then we get to this very inter­est­ing detail: that sum­ma­ry report men­tioned a third unnamed per­son who was liv­ing with Atta and al-She­hhi in Sara­so­ta. Some­one not described as a hijack­er. In oth­er words, some­one fit­ting the descrip­tion of Aman­da Keller, who allowed Atta and al-She­hhi to live with her and her boyfriend dur­ing their time in Venice in the spring of 2001. A time that, as Hop­sick­er laid out, the trail of Atta and al-She­hhi was active­ly scrubbed from the offi­cial record. While evi­dence showed the phone Atta used in Venice was active until May of 2001, the released records for that phone only went up to late Jan­u­ary, short­ly before Atta first met Keller. The FBI then attempt­ed to dis­cred­it that sum­ma­ry report in a 2015 128-page 9/11 Review Com­mis­sion report by attack­ing the cred­i­bil­i­ty of its own agent who wrote it, call­ing it “poor­ly writ­ten” and “whol­ly unsub­stan­ti­at­ed”. That agent did­n’t exact­ly get the ‘Oswald treat­ment’, but that’s still pret­ty bru­tal all things con­sid­ered.

    And not just bru­tal for the agent. We are con­tin­u­al­ly remind­ed that there is some­thing explo­sive being hid­den here. So explo­sive that the FBI will throw its own under the bus to cov­er it up. It’s a reminder that Hop­sick­er’s exclu­sive and ground-break­ing report­ing on the 9/11 Sara­so­ta sto­ry presents poten­tial­ly crit­i­cal evi­dence for under­stand­ing these FBI dis­clo­sures years lat­er. Or to put it anoth­er way, we can’t real­ly under­stand these dis­clo­sures with­out under­stand­ing Hop­sick­er’s report­ing. It’s just as vital today as ever, in part because it’s bare­ly been digest­ed in the first pace:

    ...
    The FBI’s own records would soon con­tra­dict that flat dis­missal.

    In April 2013, after a law­suit filed by the Flori­da Bull­dog, the FBI released a sum­ma­ry report of the agency’s Sara­so­ta inves­ti­ga­tion — even redact­ed, it echoed Christensen’s ini­tial sto­ry high­light­ing con­nec­tions between the Sau­di fam­i­ly and a few of the 9/11 hijack­ers. The Bull­dog pub­lished a fol­low-up.

    “Fur­ther inves­ti­ga­tion of the [name delet­ed] fam­i­ly revealed many con­nec­tions between the [name delet­ed] and indi­vid­u­als asso­ci­at­ed with the ter­ror­ist attacks on 9/11/2001,” an FBI agent’s April 2002 report stat­ed.

    The report did not iden­ti­fy those indi­vid­u­als but depict­ed two of them as stu­dents enrolled at the near­by Venice air­port flight school, Huff­man Avi­a­tion, where two of the 9/11 hijack­ers trained: Atta and al-She­hhi. The third per­son was described as liv­ing with the stu­dents who attend­ed the flight school.

    Two years lat­er in 2015, how­ev­er, the FBI — in a 128-page 9/11 Review Com­mis­sion report — again threw water on any Sara­so­ta link, with the unusu­al argu­ment of blam­ing a “poor­ly writ­ten” report by one of its own FBI agents that was “whol­ly unsub­stan­ti­at­ed.”

    The report, titled “The FBI: Pro­tect­ing the Home­land in the 21st Cen­tu­ry,” pro­duced with assis­tance from the FBI, said the agent’s find­ing of “many con­nec­tions” between the 9/11 hijack­ers and the Sau­di fam­i­ly was not con­firmed.

    “After fur­ther inves­ti­ga­tion, the FBI deter­mined that the state­ments in the [agent’s sum­ma­ry] were incor­rect,” accord­ing to the Review Commission’s report issued by for­mer Attor­ney Gen­er­al Ed Meese and two oth­ers. “The FBI found no evi­dence of con­tact between the hijack­ers and the [Sau­di] fam­i­ly” after ques­tion­ing wit­ness­es, includ­ing “all of the rel­e­vant fam­i­ly mem­bers” and “local indi­vid­u­als who claimed to have, or the FBI believed might have, per­ti­nent infor­ma­tion.”

    No details on the fam­i­ly mem­bers were pro­vid­ed or an expla­na­tion giv­en for why they had fled.
    ...

    And note how part of what appears to have been ani­mat­ing for­mer Sen­a­tor Bob Gra­ham’s activism on this front was the fact that he was privy to noto­ri­ous 28-page chap­ter on the Sau­di gov­ern­men­t’s involve­ment that was cen­sored from the pub­lic 2002 con­gres­sion­al report. 28-pages that were even­tu­al­ly released by Pres­i­dent Oba­ma in 2016. And while those 28 pages did­n’t con­tain a clear indict­ment of the Sau­di gov­ern­men­t’s sup­port of the 9/11 hijack­ers, it did did con­firm that Sau­di gov­ern­ment employ­ees knew the hijack­ers in the San Diego/LA area. Flash for­ward to the rev­e­la­tions from ear­li­er this year about the FBI/CIA unit in Alex Sta­tion run­ning cov­er for the San Diego cell hijack­ers Nawaf al-Haz­mi and Khalid al-Mihd­har, and we can see how those 28-pages — long held secret — were just a taste of the rev­e­la­tions to come. It’s a theme on this sto­ry. For all the explo­sive awful rev­e­la­tion belat­ed released, what remains hid­den is even worse:

    ...
    That con­clu­sion nev­er sat­is­fied Gra­ham, who was unavail­able to com­ment for this sto­ry.

    At the time, Gra­ham point­ed to the U.S. government’s frag­ile alliance with the Mid­dle East­ern coun­try as an under­ly­ing fac­tor for the secre­cy. He said he was “deeply dis­turbed” by the George W. Bush administration’s redac­tion of the final 28-page chap­ter in the joint inquiry’s report, which was kept secret for “nation­al secu­ri­ty” rea­sons. Gra­ham, who retired from the Sen­ate in 2005, had read the blanked-out clas­si­fied infor­ma­tion.

    When asked whether he believed the Sau­di gov­ern­ment or any of its employ­ees and affil­i­ates sup­port­ed the hijack­ers while they were in the Unit­ed States, Gra­ham told CBS 60 Min­utes in April 2016: “Sub­stan­tial­ly.”

    Three months after Graham’s 60 Min­utes appear­ance and under pres­sure from the 9/11 rel­a­tives,the Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion declas­si­fied the final chap­ter of the joint inquiry’s report and Con­gress released it.

    The doc­u­ment did not shed any new light on the Flori­da oper­a­tions or reach a con­clu­sion on any Sau­di com­plic­i­ty. But it opened a wider path of inquiry. It named Sau­di gov­ern­ment employ­ees and asso­ciates who knew two 9/11 hijack­ers in the Los Ange­les and San Diego areas after they arrived in 2000 and helped them get apart­ments, open bank accounts and con­nect with mosques. The doc­u­ment said infor­ma­tion from FBI sources sug­gest­ed at least two peo­ple who assist­ed the hijack­ers may have been Sau­di intel­li­gence offi­cers.

    “The infor­ma­tion in the 28 pages rein­forces the belief that the 19 hijack­ers — most of whom spoke lit­tle Eng­lish, had lim­it­ed edu­ca­tion and had nev­er before vis­it­ed the Unit­ed States — did not act alone in per­pe­trat­ing the sophis­ti­cat­ed 9/11 plot,” Gra­ham said in a state­ment after its release. “It sug­gests a strong link­age between those ter­ror­ists and the King­dom of Sau­di Ara­bia, Sau­di char­i­ties, and oth­er Sau­di stake­hold­ers. The Amer­i­can peo­ple should be con­cerned about these links.”
    ...

    And all that brings us to one of the biggest lin­ger­ing ques­tions that remains unan­swered: so if Sau­di gov­ern­ment agents have been shown to have pro­vid­ed sup­port for the San Diego hijack­er cell of Khalid al-Mihd­har and Nawaf al-Haz­mi, what kind of Sau­di gov­ern­ment sup­port was there for the large num­ber of hijack­ers in South Flori­da? It’s a ques­tion that has the mys­tery of that Sara­so­ta fam­i­ly at the cen­ter of it. All the more so when, as Gra­ham point­ed out in 2016, it turns out the San Diego sup­port net­work and the Sara­so­ta fam­i­ly both sud­den­ly fled the US right around the same time, two weeks before the attacks. So when we learned in 2016 that the FBI had been cov­er­ing up the fact that its agents in New York had been active­ly explor­ing the pros­e­cu­tion of a larg­er sup­port net­work for al-Mid­har and al-Haz­mi back in 2012, we have to ask if this larg­er hijack­er sup­port net­work includ­ed the Sara­so­ta fam­i­ly and sup­port for the South Flori­da cell. Along with all the fol­low up ques­tions about why the pros­e­cu­tions nev­er hap­pened and why it was all hid­den in the first place:

    ...
    At the time, the Bulldog’s Chris­tensen was also dig­ging deep­er into the Cal­i­for­nia angle. As ear­ly as 2013, he had quot­ed Gra­ham that the Sara­so­ta inci­dent sug­gest­ed a broad­er Sau­di sup­port net­work for the cell — cit­ing a “com­mon out­line” with what occurred in San Diego with Khalid al-Mihd­har and Nawaf al-Haz­mi, two of the five Sau­di hijack­ers aboard the Amer­i­can Air­lines jet flown into the Pen­ta­gon.

    A foot­note in the 9/11 Review Commission’s report piqued his curios­i­ty about how Saud­is with gov­ern­ment ties may have helped both those men in the year before the ter­ror­ist attacks. In 2015, the Flori­da Bull­dog sued the Jus­tice Depart­ment and FBI again.

    The fol­low­ing year, the U.S. gov­ern­ment released a heav­i­ly redact­ed but still-reveal­ing FBI sum­ma­ry report from 2012. It indi­cat­ed that Fahad al-Thu­mairy — a rad­i­cal imam at the Sau­di-fund­ed King Fahad mosque and an accred­it­ed diplo­mat at the Sau­di con­sulate in Los Ange­les — had pro­vid­ed assis­tance to al-Haz­mi and al-Mihd­har.

    Fur­ther, it not­ed that the FBI’s inves­ti­ga­tion of the ter­ror­ist attacks had not end­ed years ear­li­er and it con­tra­dict­ed the 9/11 Commission’s con­clu­sion there was “no evi­dence” indi­cat­ing al-Thu­mairy helped the two hijack­ers.

    As late as Octo­ber 2012, fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors and FBI agents in New York City were active­ly explor­ing fil­ing charges against an unnamed sus­pect for pro­vid­ing mate­r­i­al sup­port to the hijack­ers and oth­er crimes. The suspect’s iden­ti­ty and many details of the New York inves­ti­ga­tion were blacked out for nation­al secu­ri­ty rea­sons. But the report’s declas­si­fied por­tions indi­cat­ed the New York inves­ti­ga­tion tar­get­ed an appar­ent U.S. sup­port net­work for al-Haz­mi and al-Mihd­har.

    “This has nev­er been dis­closed before and it’s to the con­trary of every­thing the FBI has pro­duced so far that has indi­cat­ed that 9/11 is his­to­ry,” Gra­ham told the Bull­dog in 2016. “It’s inter­est­ing that it took them 11 years to get there, and a FOIA to get this infor­ma­tion to the pub­lic.”

    ...

    One for­mer agent, Stephen Moore, who led the FBI’s Los Ange­les probe of the two hijack­er sus­pects, lat­er filed a dec­la­ra­tion in the 9/11 vic­tims’ case in New York. It also con­tra­dict­ed pre­vi­ous reports deny­ing gov­ern­ment links, say­ing there was clear evi­dence that al-Thu­mairy and al-Bay­ou­mi had helped the two hijack­ers and not­ing that — like the Sara­so­ta fam­i­ly — both had left the Unit­ed States just weeks before the attacks.

    Moore said that al-Qai­da wouldn’t have sent al-Haz­mi and al-Mihd­har to the U.S. “with­out a sup­port struc­ture in place.” He said he believed al-Bay­ou­mi was a “clan­des­tine agent” and that al-Thu­mairy knew the hijack­ers “were on a com­plex pre-planned mis­sion” that would involve the use of air­planes. The for­mer agent con­clud­ed that Sau­di Ara­bi­an diplo­mat­ic and intel­li­gence per­son­nel had “know­ing­ly pro­vid­ed mate­r­i­al sup­port to the [first] two 9/11 hijack­ers [who entered the U.S.] and facil­i­tat­ed the 9/11 plot.”
    ...

    Final­ly, note the FBI’s response to all of this report­ing back in Sep­tem­ber of 2021: an ongo­ing denial of all of these rev­e­la­tions. It real­ly is gaslight­ing at this point:

    ...
    The FBI’s head­quar­ters in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. also said the bureau “still stands by our orig­i­nal find­ings [of no Sau­di fam­i­ly con­nec­tion in the Sara­so­ta probe] as report­ed to the 9/11 Com­mis­sion and [Con­gress’] Joint Inquiry into Intel­li­gence Com­mu­ni­ty Activ­i­ties before and after the ter­ror­ist attacks of Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001.”

    The FBI’s pub­lic affairs office, how­ev­er, declined to com­ment about pos­si­ble con­nec­tions between two of the 9/11 hijack­ers liv­ing in San Diego and Sau­di gov­ern­ment employ­ees.
    ...

    It’s an unspeak­able chap­ter of his­to­ry. Even when the damn­ing doc­u­ments are released, they end up dis­cred­it­ed and denied. But per­haps the sad­dest part of all is just how wild­ly effec­tive this out-in-the-open cov­er up has been. It’s been decades of this now, each rev­e­la­tion more damn­ing than the last, and it does­n’t appear the US soci­ety has the capac­i­ty to actu­al­ly care about it. At least not out­side of the 9/11 vic­tims fam­i­lies still car­ry­ing this torch. It rais­es the sad ques­tion of how this whole inves­ti­ga­tion will ulti­mate­ly end: with the truth nev­er being revealed? Or with the truth final­ly being revealed but no one actu­al­ly car­ing one way or anoth­er? Along with the fol­low up ques­tion of which of those sce­nar­ios is sad­der.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | September 4, 2023, 6:05 pm
  8. Was Nawaf al-Haz­mi oper­at­ing in South Flori­da for part of 2001? If so, that would be quite the rev­e­la­tion con­sid­er­ing the mega-rev­e­la­tion we had ear­li­er this year about the Alec Sta­tion FBI/CIA fusion cen­ter run­ning cov­er for al-Haz­mi and poten­tial­ly try­ing to recruit him. Even more so if it turns out al-Haz­mi may have been stay­ing with Mohamed Atta and Mar­wan al-She­hhi, the two fig­ures at the heart of the mys­tery around the ‘miss­ing months’ with Aman­da Keller and the pre­pos­ter­ous ‘sec­ond Mohamed’ nar­ra­tive.

    And that brings us to the fol­low­ing part of old arti­cles, still avail­able via Pro­Quest. The first arti­cle below, a Sep­tem­ber 4, 2011, Palm Beach Post arti­cle, gives a ’10 years after’ per­spec­tive from the South Flori­da com­mu­ni­ties where the hijack­ers lived. A per­spec­tive that includes an aware­ness of just how lit­tle is offi­cial­ly known. As the arti­cle describes, the offi­cial record of what the hijack­ers did there is “scant”, with lit­tle more than a dis­joint­ed col­lec­tion of anec­dotes from local res­i­dents. That was the case 10 years after the attacks (20 years, too).

    The arti­cle includes an anec­dote of a police offi­cer who vis­it­ed the Del­ray Beach apart­ment where a num­ber of the hijack­ers were liv­ing at the time in the weeks before the attack. A neigh­bor’s dog had bit­ten Mohamed Atta’s hand and called the police to check on him and make sure he was­n’t going to have her dog put down. The offi­cer recounts see­ing a group of the would-be hijack­ers sit­ting at a table.

    Anoth­er anec­dote includes a man inform­ing the local Belle Glade police depart­ment about an inter­est­ing expe­ri­ence he had with a group of the hijack­ers ask­ing him about rent­ing a crop duster. The man com­plained that noth­ing ever hap­pened despite his com­plaint and even brought it up with Rick Horns­by of the Palm Beach Coun­ty Sher­if­f’s Office (the Palm Beach Coun­ty Sher­if­f’s office absorbed the Belle Glade police depart­ment in 2006). Horns­by said he looked into Lee’s com­plaints and found that “noth­ing was recorded...Nothing was made offi­cial.” It’s emblem­at­ic of the state of the affairs of the inves­ti­ga­tion: the anec­dotes include anec­dotes about how the inves­ti­ga­tions into the hijack­ers seem­ing­ly nev­er hap­pened.

    So with the rev­e­la­tion of the Alec Sta­tion run­ning cov­er for the ‘San Diego’ cell, and the still open ques­tion about what Alec Sta­tion was doing in rela­tion to the large num­ber of hijack­ers oper­at­ing in South Flori­da, we also have to ask: what kind of cov­er was being run for the South Flori­da hijack­er cells?

    And that brings us to anoth­er very inter­est­ing set of details that can still be found in a Sep­tem­ber 24, 2001, Palm Beach Post arti­cle. In par­tic­u­lar, the details found in an “unpub­lished cor­rec­tion” at the top of the arti­cle. An unpub­lished cor­rec­tion as fol­lows:

    Palm Beach Post

    HIJACKING SUSPECTS TRIED TO BLEND IN, OFTEN STUCK OUT AL-SHEHHI DIDN’T FIT SUICIDE BOMBER PROFILE: [FINAL Edi­tion]

    Noah Bier­man Palm Beach Post Staff Writer; West Palm Beach, Fla. [West Palm Beach, Fla]. 24 Sep 2001: 1A.

    CORRECTION: UNPUBLISHED CORRECTION: The FBI says sev­en ter­ror­ists had Del­ray Beach address­es: Fayez Rashid Ahmed Has­san Al Qadi Ban­i­ham­mad, Ahmed Algham­di, Hamza Algham­di, Mohand Alshehri, Saeed Algham­di, Ahmed Alna­mi and Ahmed Ibrahim A. Al Haz­nawi. When news of the ter­ror­ists among us broke last year, The Post report­ed the last one, Haz­nawi, lived in Hol­ly­wood in Broward Coun­ty, not in Del­ray Beach. How­ev­er, we also report­ed that Mar­wan Al-She­hhi lived at the Ham­let Coun­try Club in Del­ray Beach, while the FBI says he lived in Hol­ly­wood. In addi­tion, Flori­da dri­ver license records show anoth­er hijack­er, Nawaf Alhamzi, list­ed an address on Lin­ton Boule­vard in Del­ray Beach when he got a Flori­da dri­ver license, while the FBI shows address­es in New Jer­sey and Los Ange­les. At least sev­en, and pos­si­bly nine, hijack­ers lived in Del­ray Beach. Three oth­er hijack­ers lived in Boyn­ton Beach, so per­haps as many as 12 of the 19 had a link to Palm Beach Coun­ty.

    ...

    Yes, accord­ing to this unpub­lished cor­rec­tion, Mar­wan al-She­hhi nev­er lived in Del­ray Beach, despite the paper’s ear­li­er report­ing that yes indeed he lived in at the Ham­let Coun­try Club in Del­ray Beach. In addi­tion, the cor­rec­tion asserts that Nawaf al-Haz­mi nev­er lived in South Flori­da despite his list­ing a Del­ray Beach address when apply­ing for a Flori­da dri­vers license.

    So with all of the cov­er­ing up of the Atta/al-She­hhi/A­man­da Keller nexus, cou­pled with the rev­e­la­tions about Alec Sta­tion run­ning cov­er for al-Haz­mi, what are we to make of the fact that the FBI was refut­ing Del­ray Beach res­i­dences for both al-She­hhi and al-Haz­mi?

    Ok, first, here’s that Sep­tem­ber 4, 2011, Palm Beach Post arti­cle. Notably, while the Palm Beach Post ver­sion is only avail­able via Pro­Quest, there’s still a Sep­tem­ber 5, 2011, ver­sion pub­lished in the Seat­tle Times...which does­n’t include the part about how the Belle Glade records of the crop duster inci­dent are miss­ing. So here’s an excerpt from the orig­i­nal report,
    includ­ing the part about how the record of crop duster inci­dent no longer exists:

    Palm Beach Post

    WHEN 9/11 HIJACKERS LIVED HERE; LOCAL RESIDENTS REMEMBER:As anniver­sary nears, many won­der, ‘What if?’

    Cer­abi­no, Frank
    West Palm Beach, Fla.. 04 Sep 2011: A.1.

    Ten sum­mers ago, Del­ray Beach police offi­cer Tom Quin­lan han­dled a ser­vice call about a dog bite in a con­do ele­va­tor.

    The caller was­n’t the man who was bit­ten, but the own­er of the lit­tle white dog.

    “She was ner­vous that the guy would call ani­mal con­trol and they would take the dog away from her,” said Quin­lan, who is now retired. “She did­n’t want to get her dog in trou­ble.”

    So the offi­cer went look­ing for the dog-bite vic­tim, who had walked from the ele­va­tor into an apart­ment at the Del­ray Rac­quet Club.

    “He answered the door. He had his right hand wrapped up,” Quin­lan said. “But he said it was fine. He did­n’t want to do any­thing about it.”

    The woman was relieved. Her dog was safe.

    It seemed like one of those mean­ing­less inci­dents until weeks lat­er, after a band of 19 sui­cide hijack­ers con­duct­ed a coor­di­nat­ed attack against Amer­i­ca on Sept. 11, 2001.

    That’s when Quin­lan learned the man bit­ten by the dog was­n’t just any­body. He was Mohamed Atta, the oper­a­tional leader of those Al-Qae­da maraud­ers, the man who pilot­ed a jet­lin­er into the World Trade Cen­ter’s north tow­er.

    And that’s when the details of the offi­cer’s brief encounter with Atta took on new mean­ing.

    “When I was there that day, I could see into the kitchen,” Quin­lan recalled. “There were four or five guys sit­ting around the kitchen table and they were look­ing at a blue­print. I thought they must have been engi­neers.

    “In hind­sight, you just grit your teeth.”

    Seen at gym, library, restau­rants

    There has been a lot of teeth-grit­ting in South Flori­da dur­ing the past 10 years, par­tic­u­lar­ly in Palm Beach Coun­ty. At least sev­en and pos­si­bly nine of the hijack­ers lived in Del­ray Beach in the months lead­ing up to the attack. Three oth­ers lived in Boyn­ton Beach.

    They bid­ed their time here, work­ing out at a gym, eat­ing at restau­rants and using the pub­lic library’s Inter­net access. And along the way, they crossed paths with peo­ple who nev­er imag­ined the bold plot they were hatch­ing in our midst.

    For some, those mem­o­ries have been dis­tilled into reliv­ed “what if” moments, reflec­tions on how his­to­ry might have tak­en anoth­er route had these encoun­ters turned out dif­fer­ent­ly. And for oth­ers, it’s just a painful mem­o­ry of peo­ple they wish they nev­er met.

    ...

    Land­lord’s dream ten­ants

    Al-She­hhi even­tu­al­ly found a place to his lik­ing, a one-bed­room unit at The Ham­let Coun­try Club con­do­mini­ums in Del­ray Beach.

    At first, the unit’s own­er, Jacque­line Allen, thought her new ten­ant would just be al-She­hhi, who was described to her over the phone as “a real­ly nice young man” who had come to Amer­i­ca to learn how to fly.

    “I thought, ‘Good for him,’ ” Allen remem­bered. “So many young peo­ple these days just want to col­lect wel­fare. And here was this young man who wants to learn how to fly planes and go back to his coun­try.”

    And then she heard there would actu­al­ly be two men, not one, in the one-bed­room apart­ment.

    “So I start­ed imag­in­ing col­lege stu­dent keg par­ties,” Allen said. “But then the agent told me told me it was prob­a­bly going to be more like doilies and flow­ers. So I thought, ‘Great! They’re gay. That’s good. They’ll take care of the place.’ ”

    They seemed like dream ten­ants. They paid the whole three-months’ rent in cash upfront, and they left a month ear­ly. But after 9/11, they made Allen’s life mis­er­able.

    “It’s not been a fun time,” she said. “I’ve had three sets of FBI agents come and talk to me. I’ve coop­er­at­ed ful­ly. I’ve had death threats, and I just had my sec­ond full com­plete IRS audit.

    “I guess they need to make sure that Al-Qae­da has­n’t dropped a bun­dle of mon­ey on me,” she said.

    But it has been only a bun­dle of aggra­va­tion, she said, espe­cial­ly from peo­ple who won­der how she could have rent­ed to ter­ror­ists.

    “They had Flori­da dri­ver licens­es. They had no crim­i­nal back­grounds,” Allen said. “I’m a Real­tor. I can’t dis­crim­i­nate.”

    Chem­i­cal ter­ror from the sky?

    There’s some anec­do­tal evi­dence to sug­gest that while the hijack­ers were in Palm Beach Coun­ty wait­ing to exe­cute their plan, they did research on anoth­er type of air­borne ter­ror.

    Willie Lee, who flies agri­cul­tur­al crop-dust­ing planes, got tired of see­ing the group of Arab men dri­ve up in a rent­ed van, show­ing up unan­nounced at Belle Glade’s air­field to snoop around and ask ques­tions.

    “There was a dif­fer­ent bunch every week, but Atta was here sev­er­al times,” Lee said.

    “They’d park out by the gate and want to get on the air­plane,” Lee said. “I would nev­er tell them noth­ing. They were ask­ing the types of ques­tions that oth­er peo­ple did­n’t ask.

    “One day, I asked them, ‘Why do you want to know so much about these air­planes?’ and they said, ‘We want to spray back in our coun­try.’

    “And I said, ‘What are you going to spray? Rocks? There’s noth­ing there but rocks.’ I had a bad feel­ing about them.”

    Lee said he called the now-defunct Belle Glade Police Depart­ment to run them off, but noth­ing ever hap­pened.

    “Had the police come out here and actu­al­ly done some­thing, that whole thing could have pos­si­bly been pre­vent­ed,” Lee said. “I think about it quite often. I sit in the office and start think­ing about what could have been, or what should have been, and it both­ers me.”

    After 9/11, Lee voiced his frus­tra­tion to Rick Horns­by of the Palm Beach Coun­ty Sher­if­f’s Office. Horns­by, who has since retired and run unsuc­cess­ful­ly for sher­iff in Hendry Coun­ty, said he looked into Lee’s com­plaints.

    “I checked with the Belle Glade Police Depart­ment, and noth­ing was record­ed,” Horns­by said. “Noth­ing was made offi­cial.”

    Horns­by does­n’t doubt Lee’s sto­ry about the vis­its by Atta and his crew. Horns­by’s wife works at Air­glades Air­port in Clewis­ton, and the hijack­ers vis­it­ed there, too, he said.

    “They were in Clewis­ton look­ing at the crop dusters and ask­ing about how much chem­i­cals they can car­ry and how dif­fi­cult it is to fly one,” Horns­by said. “It makes my hair stand up just think­ing about it.

    “How ridicu­lous­ly easy it would be for some­body to get in an ag plane and go over Dol­phin Sta­di­um with 80,000 peo­ple in it, and then spray them with some chem­i­cal.”

    Drug­store almost called 911

    And there’s oth­er evi­dence to sug­gest that the hijack­ers may have been doing research on a chem­i­cal option while they were in South Flori­da that sum­mer.

    Gregg Chat­ter­ton was a phar­ma­cist at Huber Drugs in down­town Del­ray Beach. He remem­bered a vis­it by Atta and a cou­ple of the oth­er hijack­ers. Atta had come to the drug­store look­ing for oint­ment for his hands.

    “It was obvi­ous that he dipped both his hands in bleach or some­thing,” Chat­ter­ton said. “You could see the line of demar­ca­tion on both hands.”

    Chat­ter­ton said he asked Atta what had hap­pened, but the answers he got were eva­sive.

    Chat­ter­ton told him to put a prod­uct named Acid Man­tle on his hands. As Chat­ter­ton start­ed walk­ing away, Atta stopped him by stick­ing an arm across the phar­ma­cist’s chest.

    “It was one of these mar­tial arts moves, and my assis­tant looked at me and mouthed, ‘Nine one one?’ ” Chat­ter­ton remem­bered.

    A tense moment passed. Chat­ter­ton hes­i­tat­ed, and before he decid­ed what to do, Atta told him he need­ed some­thing else: cough med­i­cine for one of his friends.

    Chat­ter­ton won­ders what would have hap­pened if he had nod­ded to his assis­tant to call 911.

    “The police would have arrived, and maybe this would­n’t have hap­pened,” Chat­ter­ton said.

    “But what if I had stopped him, and he gave the orders to some­body else?” Chat­ter­ton said. “It might have been more than 3,000 peo­ple dying.”

    ‘Creeped out’ by neigh­bors

    Maria Sis­car is still not com­plete­ly over her close encounter with some of the hijack­ers. Sis­car lives in the Del­ray Rac­quet Club con­do direct­ly below the unit that had been rent­ed to Saeed Algham­di and Ahmed Alna­mi, two of the mus­cle hijack­ers aboard the Unit­ed Air­lines jet­lin­er that crashed near Shanksville, Pa.

    “I get creeped out still. When I come home, I still look up at that apart­ment,” she said. “So I changed my park­ing spot just so I won’t have to look up at it. I know they’re dead and gone and can’t both­er me, but once I looked up and I thought I saw the shades move.”

    Sis­car’s most vivid mem­o­ry of that sum­mer is the time the future hijack­ers banged on her door, ask­ing to come in.

    They had dropped a shirt and a tow­el from their bal­cony onto the roof adja­cent to Sis­car’s con­do. They want­ed to get to the roof by climb­ing out a win­dow in the wom­an’s unit. But she was afraid to let them in.

    After 9/11, she told the FBI about it. Agents, she said, dis­cov­ered evi­dence that the men even­tu­al­ly used a grap­pling hook to shim­my down from their apart­ment to retrieve the shirt and tow­el. Why was it so impor­tant?

    “The FBI vac­u­umed the roof and found a piece of paper under a piece of tile,” Sis­car said. “It was part of a plane tick­et.”

    In Del­ray, sense of unease remains

    The offi­cial record of what the hijack­ers did in South Flori­da is scant. Despite an intense inves­ti­ga­tion of their activ­i­ties here, very lit­tle infor­ma­tion has been made pub­lic. So even after 10 years, there’s still noth­ing more than a dis­joint­ed col­lec­tion of anec­do­tal snap­shots from those who crossed their paths.

    ...

    ———–

    “WHEN 9/11 HIJACKERS LIVED HERE; LOCAL RESIDENTS REMEMBER:As anniver­sary nears, many won­der, ‘What if?’ ” by Frank Cer­abi­no; Palm Beach Post; 09/04/2011

    The offi­cial record of what the hijack­ers did in South Flori­da is scant. Despite an intense inves­ti­ga­tion of their activ­i­ties here, very lit­tle infor­ma­tion has been made pub­lic. So even after 10 years, there’s still noth­ing more than a dis­joint­ed col­lec­tion of anec­do­tal snap­shots from those who crossed their paths.”

    It’s one of the endur­ing 9/11 mys­ter­ies: why is the offi­cial record of what the hijack­ers did in South Flori­da so scant? What’s the pos­si­ble expla­na­tion? That was the ques­tion implic­it­ly asked by this Palm Beach Post arti­cle near­ly ten years after the attacks. Asked but not real­ly answered. Instead, we’re left with a col­lec­tion of anec­dotes from local res­i­dents. Anec­dotes that includ­ed report­ing sus­pi­cious activ­i­ties to local law enforce­ment, like Willie Lee’s report to the now-defunct Belle Glade police depart­ment about the hijack­ers’ inter­est in rent­ing a crop duster. As Lee describes, he called the Belle Glade police but noth­ing ever came of it:

    ...
    There’s some anec­do­tal evi­dence to sug­gest that while the hijack­ers were in Palm Beach Coun­ty wait­ing to exe­cute their plan, they did research on anoth­er type of air­borne ter­ror.

    Willie Lee, who flies agri­cul­tur­al crop-dust­ing planes, got tired of see­ing the group of Arab men dri­ve up in a rent­ed van, show­ing up unan­nounced at Belle Glade’s air­field to snoop around and ask ques­tions.

    “There was a dif­fer­ent bunch every week, but Atta was here sev­er­al times,” Lee said.

    “They’d park out by the gate and want to get on the air­plane,” Lee said. “I would nev­er tell them noth­ing. They were ask­ing the types of ques­tions that oth­er peo­ple did­n’t ask.

    “One day, I asked them, ‘Why do you want to know so much about these air­planes?’ and they said, ‘We want to spray back in our coun­try.’

    “And I said, ‘What are you going to spray? Rocks? There’s noth­ing there but rocks.’ I had a bad feel­ing about them.”

    Lee said he called the now-defunct Belle Glade Police Depart­ment to run them off, but noth­ing ever hap­pened.

    “Had the police come out here and actu­al­ly done some­thing, that whole thing could have pos­si­bly been pre­vent­ed,” Lee said. “I think about it quite often. I sit in the office and start think­ing about what could have been, or what should have been, and it both­ers me.”
    ...

    Now here’s a part that did­n’t make it into the Sep­tem­ber 5, 2021, Seat­tle Times ver­sion of this arti­cle that’s still avail­able online: Palm Beach Coun­ty Sher­iff Rick Horns­by’s recount­ing of how all of the doc­u­men­ta­tion of William Lee’s reports to the Belle Glade Police Depart­ment about Atta and al-She­hhi’s bizarre inter­est in crop dusters were unrecord­ed. “Noth­ing was made offi­cial,” as Horns­by put it. Now, it’s obvi­ous­ly pos­si­ble that the lack of records are due to slop­py police work or lax record keep­ing poli­cies. And then there’s the fact that the Belle Glade police depart­ment was lat­er merged with the Palm Beach Coun­ty Sher­if­f’s office in 2006. Maybe those records got lost in the shuf­fle? Maybe. But it’s hard to just accept slop­py record-keep­ing as the expla­na­tion out­right when there’s an active and ongo­ing cov­er up of the offi­cial record on the South Flori­da cell. The fact that these details were left out of the still WWW-avail­able Seat­tle Times ver­sion of this arti­cle does­n’t exact­ly quell sus­pi­cions either:

    ...
    After 9/11, Lee voiced his frus­tra­tion to Rick Horns­by of the Palm Beach Coun­ty Sher­if­f’s Office. Horns­by, who has since retired and run unsuc­cess­ful­ly for sher­iff in Hendry Coun­ty, said he looked into Lee’s com­plaints.

    “I checked with the Belle Glade Police Depart­ment, and noth­ing was record­ed,” Horns­by said. “Noth­ing was made offi­cial.”

    Horns­by does­n’t doubt Lee’s sto­ry about the vis­its by Atta and his crew. Horns­by’s wife works at Air­glades Air­port in Clewis­ton, and the hijack­ers vis­it­ed there, too, he said.

    “They were in Clewis­ton look­ing at the crop dusters and ask­ing about how much chem­i­cals they can car­ry and how dif­fi­cult it is to fly one,” Horns­by said. “It makes my hair stand up just think­ing about it.

    “How ridicu­lous­ly easy it would be for some­body to get in an ag plane and go over Dol­phin Sta­di­um with 80,000 peo­ple in it, and then spray them with some chem­i­cal.”
    ...

    And with that dis­ap­pear­ing police report in mind, here’s a Sep­tem­ber 24, 2001, Palm Beach Post report that’s still avail­able via ProQuest.com that con­tains some very inter­est­ing ‘cor­rec­tions’ on the South Flori­da where­abouts of Atta and al-She­hhi in par­tic­u­lar. Inter­est­ing­ly, while the Palm Beach Post report­ed that Mar­wan Al-She­hhi lived at the Ham­let Coun­try Club in Del­ray Beach, the FBI insist­ed that he lived in Hol­ly­wood, Flori­da. This ‘cor­rec­tion’ was one of two unpub­lished cor­rec­tions in this arti­cle.

    The sec­ond cor­rec­tion had to with with Nawaf al-Haz­mi. Yes, there was evi­dence indi­cat­ing he too had been in South Flori­da. Evi­dence in the form of a South Flori­da dri­vers license that list­ed an address on Lin­ton Boule­vard in Del­ray Beach. The FBI was list­ing address­es in New Jer­sey and Los Ange­les for al-Haz­mi, but not the Del­ray Beach address.

    Both of these details are post­ed in the ‘unpub­lished cor­rec­tion’ at the top of this arti­cle. So giv­en that we’ve now learned, 22 years lat­er, that ‘Alec Sta­tion’ was run­ning cov­er for al-Haz­mi and pos­si­bly try­ing to recruit him as an asset, what does it tell us the FBI was appar­ent­ly try­ing to refute the notion that both al-Haz­mi and al-She­hhi were liv­ing in Del­ray Beach at one point? Is al-Hazmi’s activ­i­ty with Atta and al-She­hhi in South Flori­da part of the rea­son Aman­da Keller’s sto­ry had to be cov­ered up:

    Palm Beach Post

    HIJACKING SUSPECTS TRIED TO BLEND IN, OFTEN STUCK OUT AL-SHEHHI DIDN’T FIT SUICIDE BOMBER PROFILE: [FINAL Edi­tion]

    Noah Bier­man Palm Beach Post Staff Writer; West Palm Beach, Fla. [West Palm Beach, Fla]. 24 Sep 2001: 1A.

    CORRECTION: UNPUBLISHED CORRECTION: The FBI says sev­en ter­ror­ists had Del­ray Beach address­es: Fayez Rashid Ahmed Has­san Al Qadi Ban­i­ham­mad, Ahmed Algham­di, Hamza Algham­di, Mohand Alshehri, Saeed Algham­di, Ahmed Alna­mi and Ahmed Ibrahim A. Al Haz­nawi. When news of the ter­ror­ists among us broke last year, The Post report­ed the last one, Haz­nawi, lived in Hol­ly­wood in Broward Coun­ty, not in Del­ray Beach. How­ev­er, we also report­ed that Mar­wan Al-She­hhi lived at the Ham­let Coun­try Club in Del­ray Beach, while the FBI says he lived in Hol­ly­wood. In addi­tion, Flori­da dri­ver license records show anoth­er hijack­er, Nawaf Alhamzi, list­ed an address on Lin­ton Boule­vard in Del­ray Beach when he got a Flori­da dri­ver license, while the FBI shows address­es in New Jer­sey and Los Ange­les. At least sev­en, and pos­si­bly nine, hijack­ers lived in Del­ray Beach. Three oth­er hijack­ers lived in Boyn­ton Beach, so per­haps as many as 12 of the 19 had a link to Palm Beach Coun­ty.

    Some­time in the past few years, Mar­wan Al-She­hhi vis­it­ed his moth­er in the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates. He’d been study­ing in Ger­many since 1997. She want­ed him to return home. She offered to apply for a bank loan on his behalf so he could open a busi­ness.

    He told his moth­er no, a rel­a­tive told The Asso­ci­at­ed Press. He was leav­ing, and she should tell her son good­bye for­ev­er. It’s like­ly his moth­er did­n’t know why.

    Sept. 11, she found out.

    The FBI lists the 23-year-old as a rogue pilot of Unit­ed Air­lines Flight 175, the sec­ond jet­lin­er to smash into the World Trade Cen­ter as part of a ter­ror­ist plot that killed more than 6,000 peo­ple.

    He was a “sleep­er” ter­ror­ist, some­one who keeps a low pro­file and a clean record before strik­ing, offi­cials have said. He did­n’t fit the tra­di­tion­al sui­cide bomber rubric, either — that of an une­d­u­cat­ed and des­ti­tute teenag­er will­ing to die in a small-scale attack.

    “These are not your typ­i­cal teenage sui­cide bombers in Israel,” said Bruce Goslin, a for­mer CIA agent who now works as a con­sul­tant for Kroll in Mia­mi. “I would use the term ‘fright­en­ing’ because we haven’t seen that.”

    So many of the peo­ple who met him, includ­ing some in South Flori­da, did­n’t find him all that remark­able.

    He seemed jovial. He wore jeans, ten­nis shoes, maybe a light beard, said Brad War­rick, a rent-a-car shop own­er in Broward Coun­ty who met Al-She­hhi three times, along with his more well-known cousin Mohamed Atta. A pic­ture the FBI released reveals wire-rim glass­es and a goa­tee.

    “I thought they could have been 10- or 15-year trans­plants because they spoke well, no heavy accents, and they dressed Amer­i­can,” War­rick said.

    ...

    The scant infor­ma­tion released by the FBI, the pos­si­bil­i­ty of iden­ti­ty manip­u­la­tion by the ter­ror­ists and the pop­u­lar­i­ty of sev­er­al of the names used by the ter­ror­ists in the Arab world raise the pos­si­bil­i­ty that many of the facts report­ed about Al-She­hhi’s life, and the oth­er ter­ror­ists’ lives, are illu­sions, cre­at­ed by ter­ror­ists to con­fuse Amer­i­can law enforce­ment and the pub­lic.

    But it appears that some­one with the name Al-She­hhi spent most of his life in his native Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates, in a two-sto­ry home next to a mosque. His fam­i­ly lived in Qusaibat, a poor area with­in Ras Al Khaymah, one of the sev­en emi­rates that com­prise the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates.

    “They are good, reli­gious peo­ple,” a gro­cer who lived near Al- She­hhi’s house told Reuters.

    His father, Yusef, led the call to prayer five times a day, neigh­bors told Reuters. The soft-spo­ken, Koran-read­ing boy would fill in if his father ran late, a rel­a­tive told the AP.

    His father appar­ent­ly died three years ago, spurring his moth­er to return to her birth­place in Egypt some­time lat­er.

    In 1997, Al-She­hhi moved to Ger­many. He began a Ger­man lan­guage pro­gram at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Bonn under the name Mar­wan Lekrab, uni­ver­si­ty offi­cials have said. He lived in a res­i­dent dorm the first half of 1999 and passed a pro­fi­cien­cy test so he could apply to a Ger­man uni­ver­si­ty.

    Al-She­hhi was accept­ed and spent time between Octo­ber 1999 and 2000 at the Tech­ni­cal Uni­ver­si­ty in Ham­burg, study­ing engi­neer­ing, school author­i­ties said.

    It was then that Al-She­hhi’s life path became increas­ing­ly linked with Atta, whom news reports have iden­ti­fied as either a cousin or an uncle. The FBI says Atta was aboard the first plane to hit the World Trade Cen­ter.

    In Ger­many, offi­cials believe Al-She­hhi joined a group called Al- Qae­da, accord­ing to Agence France-Presse. Al-Qae­da is head­ed by Sau­di Ara­bi­an Osama bin Laden and among the most active ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tions in the world. Pres­i­dent Bush sin­gled out the ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion by name in his Thurs­day mes­sage to a joint ses­sion of Con­gress.

    The two lived in an off-cam­pus apart­ment togeth­er, where they did lit­tle to draw atten­tion to them­selves there. Peo­ple said they were polite and reli­gious.

    “I thought they were some kind of Koran study group,” neigh­bor Burkhardt Schroed­er told the Dai­ly Mail of Lon­don. “There was­n’t any­thing about their man­ner that was either offen­sive or gave me cause to think I had ter­ror­ists liv­ing on my doorstep.”

    ...

    As for­eign stu­dents, the men hard­ly stood out. Flori­da’s flight schools train droves of for­eign stu­dents, in part because they’re numer­ous and cheap­er than those in oth­er coun­tries. Atta and Al- She­hhi trained at Huff­man Avi­a­tion Inter­na­tion­al Flight School in Venice, Fla.

    Rudi Dekkers, who owns the flight school, said three-fourths of his stu­dents are Euro­pean and a few are Mid­dle East­ern. Atta and Al- She­hhi told him they had come from Ger­many and want­ed to become pilots, pre­sum­ably for com­mer­cial air­lines. At Huff­man, they trained on sin­gle-engine air­craft.

    Next, they came to South Flori­da. Prop­er­ty records link Al- She­hhi to neigh­bor­hoods in Broward and Palm Beach coun­ties.

    In Decem­ber, he and Atta took more fly­ing lessons. For three hours, they used a Boe­ing 727 jet at Sim­Cen­ter Inc. in Opa-loc­ka for $1,500.

    Res­i­dents in a Hol­ly­wood com­mu­ni­ty say they saw Al-She­hhi and sev­er­al oth­er Mid­dle East­ern men at a Lin­coln Street address for a few months end­ing in June or July. Sev­er­al of the res­i­dents spoke with the FBI in recent days.

    “They had their door open all the time,” said Grace Milline, who lives across the street from the apart­ment Al-She­hhi might have occu­pied. “And there were a lot of cars over there.”

    As has hap­pened often since the attacks, the res­i­dents had vary­ing accounts of Al-She­hhi’s lifestyle. Milline, for exam­ple, said sev­er­al of the men tried to pick up women. Anoth­er neigh­bor said a woman lived in the apart­ment and Al-She­hhi stayed there with her.

    It’s unclear how many times they might have left the coun­try dur­ing this peri­od. Swiss offi­cials say they spent at least a few nights there, where they bought Swiss Army knives and box cut­ters, the weapons used to com­man­deer the air­planes, accord­ing to the Swiss news­pa­per Son­ntags­Blick. Cred­it card receipts show the men stayed sev­er­al nights in Swiss hotels.

    In May, Al-She­hhi obtained a Flori­da dri­ver license and sev­er­al South Flori­da res­i­dents report­ed see­ing him through­out the late spring and sum­mer.

    He and Atta were even spot­ted walk­ing around West Palm Beach May­or Joel Dav­es’ neigh­bor­hood, adja­cent to the City­Place shop­ping and apart­ment com­plex. A rental agent on Ever­nia Street said she rec­og­nized Atta and Al-She­hhi from pho­tographs FBI agents showed her last week. She said she did not rent to them. Records also show the hijack sus­pects called the Ever­nia Street apart­ment house twice in late May, pre­sum­ably to ask about apart­ment vacan­cies.

    Del­ray Beach Library Direc­tor John Calla­han said, “We think he might have been here in July.”

    After Al-She­hhi’s face made nation­al news, ref­er­ence librar­i­an Kath­leen Hens­man said she remem­bered he and two oth­er men used the library’s Inter­net con­nec­tion.

    “I said to my col­league, ‘I haven’t seen Mid­dle East­ern peo­ple since I left Michi­gan,’ ” Hens­man said. ” ‘What’s their prob­lem? I don’t have a prob­lem with them, why are they look­ing at me?’ ”

    FBI offi­cials are exam­in­ing two library com­put­ers to deter­mine whether the men used them and for what pur­pose.

    Den­ny’s wait­ress­es at Fed­er­al High­way in Boyn­ton Beach remem­bered serv­ing cof­fee, orange juice and a veg­etable omelet to Al-She­hhi, Atta and oth­ers in June and July.

    ...

    Al-She­hhi and Atta bought one-month mem­ber­ships to the World Gym in Del­ray Beach in July, gym own­er Jim Woolard said. There, they did stick out, wear­ing but­toned-up shirts and jeans, jerk­ing weights around and clum­si­ly using their backs to lift.

    “These guys were spas­tics,” Woolard said.

    Four days before the attack, Al-She­hhi, Atta and a third man were seen at Shuck­ums, a Hol­ly­wood bar. Al-She­hhi drank Stoli Vod­ka mixed with orange juice, about five drinks in 90 min­utes. Atta did­n’t drink. When the bill came, Al-She­hhi dis­put­ed it. The bar­tender asked him whether he could afford it. Al-She­hhi pulled out a wad of bills.

    “I’m a pilot for Amer­i­can Air­lines, and I can pay my bills,” he said.

    By Sept. 11, Al-She­hhi had trav­eled to Boston. By 7:58 a.m., Al- She­hhi was list­ed on the man­i­fest as sit­ting in busi­ness class seat 6B on Unit­ed Flight 175. He had wired thou­sands of dol­lars to an asso­ciate in the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates using West­ern Union, the Hart­ford Courant report­ed.

    ...

    Staff writ­ers Howie Paul Hart­nett, Bill Douthat and Paul Lomar­tire and Palm Beach Post wire ser­vices con­tributed to this sto­ry.

    ———-

    Noah Bier­man Palm Beach Post,Staff Writer. (2001, Sep 24). HIJACKING SUSPECTS TRIED TO BLEND IN, OFTEN STUCK OUT AL-SHEHHI DIDN’T FIT SUICIDE BOMBER PROFILE: [FINAL EDITION]. Palm Beach Post

    The scant infor­ma­tion released by the FBI, the pos­si­bil­i­ty of iden­ti­ty manip­u­la­tion by the ter­ror­ists and the pop­u­lar­i­ty of sev­er­al of the names used by the ter­ror­ists in the Arab world raise the pos­si­bil­i­ty that many of the facts report­ed about Al-She­hhi’s life, and the oth­er ter­ror­ists’ lives, are illu­sions, cre­at­ed by ter­ror­ists to con­fuse Amer­i­can law enforce­ment and the pub­lic.”

    Scant infor­ma­tion and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of iden­ti­ty manip­u­la­tion. Yeah, that sounds about right for this sto­ry. Keep in mind that the report where Aman­da Keller recants her ear­li­er claims and absurd­ly asserts that it was a mys­te­ri­ous ‘sec­ond Mohamed’ who lived with her was pub­lished just three days before this, so the notion of iden­ti­ty manip­u­la­tion was very much in the air at that point. Sim­i­lar­ly, the idea that Mohamed Atta was Mar­wan al-She­hhi’s cousin or uncle was get­ting report­ed at the time, nei­ther of which ever panned out:

    ...
    In 1997, Al-She­hhi moved to Ger­many. He began a Ger­man lan­guage pro­gram at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Bonn under the name Mar­wan Lekrab, uni­ver­si­ty offi­cials have said. He lived in a res­i­dent dorm the first half of 1999 and passed a pro­fi­cien­cy test so he could apply to a Ger­man uni­ver­si­ty.

    Al-She­hhi was accept­ed and spent time between Octo­ber 1999 and 2000 at the Tech­ni­cal Uni­ver­si­ty in Ham­burg, study­ing engi­neer­ing, school author­i­ties said.

    It was then that Al-She­hhi’s life path became increas­ing­ly linked with Atta, whom news reports have iden­ti­fied as either a cousin or an uncle. The FBI says Atta was aboard the first plane to hit the World Trade Cen­ter.
    ...

    And then we get to these very inter­est details: first, the arti­cle recounts how Atta and al-She­hhi trained at Huff­man Avi­a­tion in Venice. Next, we are told, they came to the Broward and Palm Beach coun­ties, with res­i­dents of Hol­ly­wood, FL, report­ing see­ing them liv­ing there for a few months end­ing in June or July (months that notably seem to imme­di­ate­ly fol­low and not over­lap the mys­te­ri­ous four month peri­od in ear­ly 2001 peri­od when Atta and al-She­hhi were alleged­ly liv­ing with Aman­da Keller, but instead fol­low that peri­od).

    And then we get this very inter­est­ing detail: accord­ing to neigh­bor Grace Milline, who lived across the street from the apart­ment al-She­hhi might have occu­pied at one point, sev­er­al of the hijack­ers tried to pick up women. And then we get an unnamed neigh­bor claim­ing that a woman lived in the an apart­ment with al-She­hhi. We aren’t told who this neigh­bor is or which apart­ment they are refer­ring to, but it would be inter­est­ing to know of any oth­er peo­ple this mys­tery woman could be oth­er than Aman­da Keller. Was this unnamed neigh­bor per­haps refer­ring to the Sand­piper Apart­ments where Keller, Atta and al-She­hhi alleged­ly lived for four months? Was Keller still hang­ing out with them in the sum­mer of 2001?

    ...
    As for­eign stu­dents, the men hard­ly stood out. Flori­da’s flight schools train droves of for­eign stu­dents, in part because they’re numer­ous and cheap­er than those in oth­er coun­tries. Atta and Al- She­hhi trained at Huff­man Avi­a­tion Inter­na­tion­al Flight School in Venice, Fla.

    Rudi Dekkers, who owns the flight school, said three-fourths of his stu­dents are Euro­pean and a few are Mid­dle East­ern. Atta and Al- She­hhi told him they had come from Ger­many and want­ed to become pilots, pre­sum­ably for com­mer­cial air­lines. At Huff­man, they trained on sin­gle-engine air­craft.

    Next, they came to South Flori­da. Prop­er­ty records link Al- She­hhi to neigh­bor­hoods in Broward and Palm Beach coun­ties.

    In Decem­ber, he and Atta took more fly­ing lessons. For three hours, they used a Boe­ing 727 jet at Sim­Cen­ter Inc. in Opa-loc­ka for $1,500.

    Res­i­dents in a Hol­ly­wood com­mu­ni­ty say they saw Al-She­hhi and sev­er­al oth­er Mid­dle East­ern men at a Lin­coln Street address for a few months end­ing in June or July. Sev­er­al of the res­i­dents spoke with the FBI in recent days.

    “They had their door open all the time,” said Grace Milline, who lives across the street from the apart­ment Al-She­hhi might have occu­pied. “And there were a lot of cars over there.”

    As has hap­pened often since the attacks, the res­i­dents had vary­ing accounts of Al-She­hhi’s lifestyle. Milline, for exam­ple, said sev­er­al of the men tried to pick up women. Anoth­er neigh­bor said a woman lived in the apart­ment and Al-She­hhi stayed there with her.
    ...

    Adding to the mys­tery about which par­tic­u­lar apart­ment that mys­tery neigh­bor was refer­ring to where the mys­tery woman lived with al-She­hhi is this “unpub­lished cor­rec­tion” to the arti­cle: While the Palm Beach Post report­ed that al-She­hhi lived at the Ham­let Coun­try Club in Del­ray Beach, the FBI was appar­ent­ly refut­ing that Del­ray Beach address. But that’s the only instance of the FBI refut­ing that a hijack­er was liv­ing in Del­ray Beach. Records show Nawaf al-Hhaz­mi had a Flori­da dri­vers license with a Del­ray Beach address. But the FBI was appar­ent­ly refus­ing any Flori­da res­i­dence for Alhaz­mi entire­ly. Note that we were told the hijack­ers obtained Flori­da dri­vers licens­es legal­ly, with al-Haz­mi get­ting his license on June 25, 2001, list­ing “the same address as two oth­er sus­pect­ed hijack­ers”. So records showed that Nawaf al-Hawz­mi — one of the hijack­ers the ‘Alec Sta­tion’ FBI and CIA fusion cen­ter was run­ning cov­er for in the months lead­ing up to 9/11 — was using a South Flori­da address at some point, but the FBI was refut­ing this pos­si­bil­i­ty at the time. So were al-She­hhi and al-Haz­mi liv­ing in the same Del­ray Beach apart­ment at one point? If so, the FBI real­ly does­n’t want us to know about it:

    ...
    CORRECTION: UNPUBLISHED CORRECTION: The FBI says sev­en ter­ror­ists had Del­ray Beach address­es: Fayez Rashid Ahmed Has­san Al Qadi Ban­i­ham­mad, Ahmed Algham­di, Hamza Algham­di, Mohand Alshehri, Saeed Algham­di, Ahmed Alna­mi and Ahmed Ibrahim A. Al Haz­nawi. When news of the ter­ror­ists among us broke last year, The Post report­ed the last one, Haz­nawi, lived in Hol­ly­wood in Broward Coun­ty, not in Del­ray Beach. How­ev­er, we also report­ed that Mar­wan Al-She­hhi lived at the Ham­let Coun­try Club in Del­ray Beach, while the FBI says he lived in Hol­ly­wood. In addi­tion, Flori­da dri­ver license records show anoth­er hijack­er, Nawaf Alhamzi, list­ed an address on Lin­ton Boule­vard in Del­ray Beach when he got a Flori­da dri­ver license, while the FBI shows address­es in New Jer­sey and Los Ange­les. At least sev­en, and pos­si­bly nine, hijack­ers lived in Del­ray Beach. Three oth­er hijack­ers lived in Boyn­ton Beach, so per­haps as many as 12 of the 19 had a link to Palm Beach Coun­ty.
    ...

    Then there’s this mys­te­ri­ous “third man” who was hav­ing drinks with Atta and al-She­hhi just four days for the attacks at a Hol­ly­wood, FL, bar. Who is this third man?

    ...
    Four days before the attack, Al-She­hhi, Atta and a third man were seen at Shuck­ums, a Hol­ly­wood bar. Al-She­hhi drank Stoli Vod­ka mixed with orange juice, about five drinks in 90 min­utes. Atta did­n’t drink. When the bill came, Al-She­hhi dis­put­ed it. The bar­tender asked him whether he could afford it. Al-She­hhi pulled out a wad of bills.

    “I’m a pilot for Amer­i­can Air­lines, and I can pay my bills,” he said.

    By Sept. 11, Al-She­hhi had trav­eled to Boston. By 7:58 a.m., Al- She­hhi was list­ed on the man­i­fest as sit­ting in busi­ness class seat 6B on Unit­ed Flight 175. He had wired thou­sands of dol­lars to an asso­ciate in the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates using West­ern Union, the Hart­ford Courant report­ed.
    ...

    Final­ly, regard­ing the ambi­gu­i­ty on how many times they may have left the coun­try, don’t for­get one of the oth­er ‘Alec Sta­tion’ rev­e­la­tions: they were track­ing the inter­na­tion­al trav­el of al-Haz­mi and Khalid al-Mihd­har as they met with al-Qae­da oper­a­tives in Malaysia, and ini­tial­ly pre­vent­ed CIA from inform­ing the FBI that the two were back in the US after their Malaysia meet­ing. In oth­er words, the still unre­solved role Alec Sta­tion played in run­ning cov­er for the hijack­ers is pre­sum­ably part of the rea­son there was so much ambi­gu­i­ty over how many times they might have left the coun­try:

    ...
    It’s unclear how many times they might have left the coun­try dur­ing this peri­od. Swiss offi­cials say they spent at least a few nights there, where they bought Swiss Army knives and box cut­ters, the weapons used to com­man­deer the air­planes, accord­ing to the Swiss news­pa­per Son­ntags­Blick. Cred­it card receipts show the men stayed sev­er­al nights in Swiss hotels.
    ...

    There’s no short­age of dis­turb­ing anom­alies in the sto­ry of what hap­pened, both before and after the attacks. Lots of lots of anec­dotes. These hijack­ers may have kept a low pro­file, but not so low they did­n’t leave an impres­sion. And that brings us to what we don’t see in these: anec­dotes of Atta and al-She­hhi dur­ing the cru­cial ‘miss­ing four months’ from Feb-May 2001, where they were sup­pos­ed­ly already out of the Venice/Sarasota area despite every­thing we heard from Aman­da Keller. We’ve heard lots of anec­dotes about what hijack­ers were up to in South Florida...starting in June of 2001.

    Where are the detailed anec­dotes about what they were up to in the spring of 2001? Oh wait, there was that one Atta anec­dote from April of 2001: the one about how he trav­eled to Prague to secret­ly meet with an Iraqi agent. You know, the fake anec­dote used as pre­text for the inva­sion of Iraq. So there was at least one anec­dote from that peri­od.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | September 7, 2023, 6:05 pm
  9. We’ve long know that Sau­di intel­li­gence oper­a­tives were assist­ing the 9/11 hijack­ers dur­ing their time in the US, in par­tic­u­lar the assis­tance giv­en to the ‘San Diego’ of Nawaf al-Haz­mi and Khalid al-Mihd­har by pre­sumed Sau­di intel­li­gence agent Omar al-Bay­ou­mi. That just keeps get­ting con­firmed, includ­ing the remark­able rev­e­la­tion released by the British gov­ern­ment last year show­ing how al-Bay­ou­mi pos­sessed a dia­gram depict­ing a plane descend­ing toward a tar­get on the hori­zon. And thanks to the rev­e­la­tions ear­li­er this year, we know that the Alec Sta­tion CIA/FBI fusion sta­tion was appar­ent­ly track­ing al-Haz­mi and al-Mihd­har with the hope of flip­ping them into dou­ble agents insid­er al Qae­da. So if the CIA was try­ing to flip al Qae­da agents who were get­ting assis­tance from Sau­di intel­li­gence, what exact­ly was Sau­di intel­li­gence — or per­haps oth­er intel­li­gence agen­cies — telling the CIA about the ‘flip­pa­bil­i­ty’ of these al Qae­da agents? It’s one of the many mas­sive ques­tions still lin­ger­ing over this sto­ry. A ques­tion that seems to grow more mas­sive with each rev­e­la­tion point towards both Sau­di intel­li­gence and the CIA run­ning pre‑9/11 cov­er for these oper­a­tives while they were liv­ing and train­ing in the US.

    Ques­tions that bring us back to the many remark­able claims made by two of the FBI agents who were assigned to Alec Sta­tion dur­ing the months lead­ing up to 9/11: Mark Rossi­ni and Doug Miller. As Rossi­ni and Miller have recount­ed in a num­ber of inter­views over the years, when they dis­cov­ered al-Haz­mi and al-Mihd­har were back in the US in July of 2001, they were direct­ly blocked by the CIA agents at Alec Sta­tion from inform­ing the rest of the FBI. And as we’re going to see, the expla­na­tion Rossi­ni recounts hear­ing from a CIA offi­cer for why the FBI could­n’t be informed with rather remark­able: CIA offi­cer Michael Anne Casey told Rossi­ni that, “this was not a mat­ter for the FBI. The next al-Qae­da attack is going to hap­pen in South­east Asia and their visas for Amer­i­ca are just a diver­sion. You are not to tell the FBI about it. When and if we want the FBI to know about it, we will.

    Yes, the al Qae­da oper­a­tives’ time spent in US learn­ing to fly planes was all a diver­sion, accord­ing to Alec Sta­tion’s CIA staff, and the real attack is going to hap­pen some­where in South East Asia. It’s the kind of ‘expla­na­tion’ for why the FBI can’t be informed that rais­es a dizzy­ing num­ber of ques­tions. But per­haps the most per­ti­nent ques­tions is who was the tar­get of this diver­sion? Keep in mind part of the con­text of this expla­na­tion giv­en to Rossi­ni: al-Haz­mi and al-Mihd­har were tracked by the CIA to an al-Qae­da meet­ing in Kuala Lumpur, home of the 88-sto­ry tall Petronas Twin Tow­ers. Were those tow­ers the tar­gets of CIA’s ‘South­east Asia’ plot? Was Malaysian intel­li­gence the tar­get of this diver­sion? And just how many dif­fer­ent intel­li­gence agen­cies were there track­ing this al Qae­da net­work?

    And that ques­tion of how many dif­fer­ent agen­cies were there track­ing this net­work brings us to anoth­er inter­est­ing admis­sion: accord­ing to an anony­mous senior CIA offi­cer who was assigned to Alec Sta­tion, the CIA offi­cers run­ning the show were not just young and inex­pe­ri­enced but they were like­ly receiv­ing bad intel­li­gence from oth­er spies. As they put it, “I don’t think they ever per­son­al­ly talked to anybody...They just worked in their office in ten­nis shoes....They prob­a­bly got a source through liai­son. So their source [on the hijack­ers] might have been some­one in the Sau­di ser­vice who said they are talk­ing to some­body, or some­one in the Jor­dan­ian ser­vice who said he was talk­ing to some­one. As far I was con­cerned, they were a bunch of lying pieces of sh it. So they could’ve done that.” So Sau­di, or maybe Jor­dan­ian, intel­li­gence was feed­ing the CIA staff at Alec Sta­tion BS, accord­ing to the anony­mous senior CIA offi­cial assigned to the unit. There’s echoes of Ali Mohamed here.

    As we’re also go to see, Richard Clark, the nation­al secu­ri­ty advi­sor dur­ing the attacks, also con­curred that some sort of al Qae­da recruit­ment oper­a­tion was tak­ing place. As Clark told reporters, “What I was told at the time was that they were going to try, for the first time, to get sources on the inside.” Clark went on to recall an emer­gency July 10, 2001, meet­ing at the White House with then-CIA Direc­tor George Tenet and the CIA’s coun­tert­er­ror­ism lead­ers Cofer Black and Rich Blee, where there was no men­tion of the pres­ence of al Qae­da oper­a­tives on US. Why no men­tion? The way Clark puts it, the “only con­ceiv­able rea­son that I’ve been able to come up with” is that they were run­ning an ille­gal domes­tic oper­a­tion to recruit al-Mihd­har or al-Haz­mi. And they did­n’t want the FBI to get involved.

    So the way Clark sees it, the oper­a­tion run out of Alec Sta­tion was effec­tive­ly so ille­gal it had to be com­plete­ly obscured and cov­ered up after the attacks. And as we’re going see, Rossi­ni not only claims that the CIA ordered him to not men­tion any of this to con­gres­sion­al inves­ti­ga­tors, but a CIA offi­cer was actu­al­ly sit­ting in the room when Rossi­ni was pro­vid­ing his tes­ti­mo­ny.

    Was 9/11 real­ly, ulti­mate­ly, a mat­ter of young inex­pe­ri­enced CIA agents botch­ing their recruit­ment effort? A recruit­ment effort that involved allow­ing a ter­ror­ist net­work to train inside the US for well over a year to gain the pilot­ing skills need­ed to car­ry out an attack in South­east Asia? If so, that’s kind of wild­ly scan­dalous.

    And yet it’s hard to accept that as a com­plete answer, as damn­ing an answer as ‘we were facil­i­tat­ing an attack else­where but got hit our­selves instead. oops’ real­ly is as an appar­ent expla­na­tion. For all of the focus on al-Haz­mi and al-Mihd­har, we still have learned almost noth­ing about what kind CIA aware­ness of the South Flori­da cell around Mohamed Atta, the appar­ent ring leader of the oper­a­tion. Nor have we ever received a sat­is­fy­ing expla­na­tion for the mys­te­ri­ous Sara­so­ta Sau­di fam­i­ly who appears to have played a sim­i­lar role to the role al-Bay­mou­mi was play­ing in San Diego and who, like al-Bay­ou­mi, sim­i­lar­ly sud­den­ly fled the coun­try in an appar­ent pan­ic weeks before the attacks.

    Nor does this ‘flip­ping al Qae­da’ nar­ra­tive neat­ly fit with the whole Aman­da Keller sto­ry and her accounts of Atta net­work­ing with fig­ures like Wolf­gang Bohringer. Or the intense near-imme­di­ate crack­down on Keller and her sto­ry less than two weeks after the attacks. Some­thing she wit­nessed was hyper sen­si­tive to the US nation­al secu­ri­ty state. Was it evi­dence that con­firms this ‘flip­ping al Qae­da agents, but then it went awry’ nar­ra­tive? Or belies that nar­ra­tive? We still don’t know.

    Ok, first, here’s a Sep­tem­ber 9, 2021, NorthJersey.com arti­cle, pub­lished near­ly 20 years lat­er to the day, recount­ing the exten­sive paper trail left by the hijack­ers in the North Jer­sey area dur­ing their time in the US. A paper trail that includes vis­its and stays from by al-Haz­mi and Atta, all using their real names. In oth­er words, they weren’t actu­al­ly hid­ing them­selves dur­ing their time in the US or real­ly obscur­ing their move­ments at all. Which, again, rais­es all sorts of ques­tions about just how close­ly was Alec Sta­tion track­ing this net­work’s move­ments inside the US. An al Qae­da net­work that was being assist­ed by Sau­di intel­li­gence on US soil and seem­ing­ly was­n’t real­ly doing any­thing to hide itself from the enti­ties track­ing it:

    NorthJersery.com

    Exclu­sive: 9/11 hijack­ers lived in plain sight in North Jer­sey. How did they do it?

    Mike Kel­ly
    Pub­lished 4:00 a.m. ET Sept. 9, 2021| Updat­ed 9:26 a.m. ET Sept 9, 2021

    On a qui­et Tues­day in June 2001, two men walked into a store in a busy strip mall in Fort Lee, New Jer­sey, that rent­ed mail­box­es for peo­ple on the move who need­ed a tem­po­rary address to receive checks, bills or per­son­al let­ters.

    A mile away, the usu­al steady stream of cars and trucks swept across the George Wash­ing­ton Bridge, span­ning the Hud­son Riv­er. A dozen miles down the Hud­son, at the tip of Man­hat­tan, the World Trade Center’s twin tow­ers poked the sky.

    At Mail Box­es Etc. — a now defunct store­front in Fort Lee’s Lin­wood Plaza shop­ping mall — the men plunked down an inde­ter­mi­nate amount of cash and were assigned Box 417. FBI agents lat­er learned they told a clerk they rep­re­sent­ed a firm based in Pater­son, New Jer­sey, and explained they need­ed the tem­po­rary mail­box only until late Sep­tem­ber.

    Actu­al­ly, the men, Hani Han­jour and Nawaf al-Haz­mi, didn’t need the mail drop that long. And their expla­na­tion that they were from a busi­ness in Pater­son was just a ruse.

    On Sept. 11, 2001, Han­jour and al-Haz­mi joined 17 oth­er fol­low­ers of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qai­da net­work in hijack­ing four com­mer­cial jet­lin­ers and crash­ing them into the trade center’s twin tow­ers, the Pen­ta­gon in north­ern Vir­ginia and a farm field in Shanksville, Penn­syl­va­nia. Al-Haz­mi helped sub­due pas­sen­gers aboard Amer­i­can Air­lines Flight 77, which hit the west wall of the Pen­ta­gon. Han­jour pilot­ed the plane.

    Their rental of a tem­po­rary mail­box in Fort Lee rep­re­sents just one of thou­sands of exam­ples of seem­ing­ly ordi­nary move­ments by the 9/11 killers in the months lead­ing up to the attacks. These details were chron­i­cled in an exhaus­tive and now-declas­si­fied FBI report that was reviewed by the USA TODAY Net­work as Amer­i­ca com­mem­o­rates the 20th anniver­sary of the 9/11 attacks.

    In grim yet mun­dane detail — assem­bled from all man­ner of elec­tron­ic records and old-fash­ioned gumshoe police work — the report, titled “Hijack­ers Time­line,” offers a day-by-day por­trait of the 19 al-Qai­da oper­a­tives before they set off on their sui­cide-mur­der mis­sion that killed near­ly 3,000 peo­ple and set in motion America’s longest war.

    Liv­ing most­ly in cen­tral Flori­da, South­ern Cal­i­for­nia, north­ern Vir­ginia and North Jer­sey, they rent­ed cars, opened bank accounts, nav­i­gat­ed com­pli­cat­ed city streets and high­way exit ramps, rent­ed motel rooms, dialed each from pay phones in hair salons and hard­ware stores, ordered meals in din­ers, took fly­ing lessons, played video games, lift­ed bar­bells at gyms and even pur­chased sun­glass­es at a Macy’s depart­ment store.

    Their time in North Jer­sey is espe­cial­ly illu­mi­nat­ing. The crowd­ed, mul­ti­cul­tur­al ham­lets of Bergen and Pas­sa­ic coun­ties became a meet­ing ground for near­ly a dozen of the 19 ter­ror­ists dur­ing the sum­mer of 2001. And the con­nec­tion to North Jer­sey also gave rise to unfair accu­sa­tions that some mem­bers of the region’s Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty may have know­ing­ly assist­ed them.

    Some, like the 9/11 plot’s ring­leader, Mohamed Atta, flew in from Flori­da, check­ing into the King’s Inn Motel in Wayne for a few days and then leav­ing — and then return­ing days lat­er. Oth­ers, such as Han­jour and al-Haz­mi, bounced between motels and an apart­ment in a two-sto­ry home on Paterson’s Union Avenue — the same address Han­jour cit­ed as a busi­ness office when he rent­ed the Fort Lee mail drop.

    The day after rent­ing the mail­box in Fort Lee, Han­jour with­drew $161 from an ATM at a bank across the street from Holy Sepul­chre Ceme­tery in Totowa, New Jer­sey.

    Han­jour could not pos­si­bly know at the time that just two months lat­er, Holy Sepul­chre would become the final rest­ing place of the first offi­cial vic­tim of the 9/11 attacks, the Rev. Mychal Judge, the Catholic chap­lain of New York City’s fire depart­ment.

    Judge per­ished while min­is­ter­ing to fire­fight­ers at the World Trade Center’s North Tow­er. The pho­to of first respon­ders car­ry­ing his body from the rub­ble has become an icon­ic sym­bol of the pain of that day.

    The close prox­im­i­ty of the ATM and Judge’s grave, which is now an unof­fi­cial 9/11 shrine, illus­trates how close­ly inter­twined the ter­ror plot was with its trag­ic after­math. At the same time, the hijack­ers’ com­ings and goings in North Jer­sey offer a glimpse of how they open­ly took advan­tage of the good life in Amer­i­ca and its open soci­ety — before attack­ing Amer­i­ca in a way that chal­lenged that open­ness and raised ques­tions about how the U.S. might bet­ter sur­veil its cit­i­zens.

    How did they do it?

    But exam­in­ing that sto­ry now, as Amer­i­ca com­mem­o­rates the 20th anniver­sary of the 9/11 attacks, reignites one of the most per­sis­tent and con­tro­ver­sial mys­ter­ies of that trag­ic day: How did 19 men from the Mid­dle East — most of whom bare­ly spoke Eng­lish — man­age to pull off such a dead­ly mis­sion with­out being detect­ed?

    Han­jour and al-Haz­mi were espe­cial­ly active.

    The day before rent­ing the mail­box in Fort Lee, they worked out at Gold’s Gym in Totowa, New Jer­sey. Han­jour also rent­ed planes at Teter­boro and Essex Coun­ty air­ports to prac­tice fly­ing. In one case, he made a pass over the Hud­son Riv­er and the World Trade Cen­ter. Al-Haz­mi reg­u­lar­ly rent­ed cars at a Jeep deal­er­ship in Wayne.

    Nei­ther Han­jour nor al-Haz­mi — nor any of the oth­er hijack­ers — resort­ed to using fake names. Nor did they live under­ground and avoid con­tact with ordi­nary Amer­i­cans.

    “They were essen­tial­ly hid­ing in plain sight,” said John J. Farmer Jr., the for­mer New Jer­sey attor­ney gen­er­al and senior coun­sel for the 9/11 Com­mis­sion who now directs the Rut­gers Eagle­ton Insti­tute on Pol­i­tics. “They were sim­ply melt­ing into the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion the way the planes they hijacked melt­ed into the radar or ordi­nary air traf­fic.”

    Also, none of the 19 hijack­ers arrived in the U.S. with­out doc­u­men­ta­tion. They arrived on com­mer­cial jet­lin­ers with ordi­nary — and entire­ly legal — visas.

    Trag­i­cal­ly, America’s elab­o­rate and expen­sive secu­ri­ty ser­vices ignored clear warn­ings dur­ing the sum­mer of 2001 that al Qae­da want­ed to attack Amer­i­ca — and, in fact, were dis­patch­ing ter­ror­ists to U.S. soil.

    Two of the hijack­ers — al-Haz­mi and Khalid al-Mihd­har — were known to the CIA as al Qae­da oper­a­tives. The CIA even tracked al-Haz­mi and al-Mihd­har from the Mid­dle East to Malaysia to Thai­land and then to Los Ange­les. There, though, the CIA, which is pro­hib­it­ed from spy­ing inside the U.S., gave up the trail. And the CIA nev­er shared al-Haz­mi and al-Mihd­har’s move­ments with the FBI, which con­ducts counter-ter­ror inves­ti­ga­tions in Amer­i­ca.

    The botched hand-off by the CIA to the FBI is con­sid­ered one of the most embar­rass­ing secu­ri­ty fail­ures in U.S. his­to­ry. It is now a cen­ter­piece of a mas­sive fed­er­al law­suit by thou­sands of rel­a­tives of 9/11 vic­tims who claim that Sau­di Ara­bi­an offi­cials helped the hijack­ers inside the U.S.

    The fail­ure to stop al-Haz­mi and al-Mihd­har is also the source of two decades of anguish for Mark Rossi­ni, a for­mer FBI spe­cial agent and counter-ter­ror spe­cial­ist who was part of a team mon­i­tor­ing bin Laden’s al Qae­da net­work in the months lead­ing up to 9/11.

    Dur­ing the sum­mer of 2001, Rossi­ni was assigned as a FBI liai­son to the CIA’s bin Laden squad, code-named “Alec Sta­tion,” at the spy agency’s head­quar­ters in Lan­g­ley, Vir­ginia. Work­ing with the CIA, Rossi­ni learned about the arrival of al-Haz­mi and al-Mihd­har as ear­ly as 2000. He plead­ed with the CIA to pass on the infor­ma­tion to his FBI col­leagues across the Potomac Riv­er in Wash­ing­ton, D.C.

    But Rossi­ni was told to keep qui­et. The CIA con­sid­ered the infor­ma­tion top secret — not ready for the FBI. Rossi­ni said that he was told that if he broke pro­to­col and told the FBI, he would be charged with a fed­er­al crime.

    Today, Rossi­ni, 60, divides his time between France and Spain. He left the FBI in 2008 after he broke rules to exam­ine records in an unre­lat­ed case with­out per­mis­sion.

    He wish­es he broke the rules in 2001 with the CIA.

    “It’s not even frus­trat­ing. It’s debil­i­tat­ing,” Rossi­ni said in a phone inter­view from Spain with the USA TODAY Net­work. “It basi­cal­ly almost caused me to have a ner­vous break­down. It drove me to the brink. I felt like Don Quixote fight­ing wind­mills. I lost my faith in jus­tice. I lost my faith in the sys­tem. I don’t real­ly under­stand it any­more.”

    Rossi­ni said his CIA col­leagues told him the arrival of al-Mihd­har and al-Haz­mi was not a sign of an attack on Amer­i­ca but a diver­sion. Rossi­ni said the CIA believed — mis­tak­en­ly — that the next al Qae­da attack would take place in South East Asia, Rossi­ni said. Now Rossi­ni believes the CIA thought it might use al-Mihd­har and al-Haz­mi in an ill-con­ceived plan to infil­trate al-Qae­da.

    “ ‘This is CIA infor­ma­tion and you are not to tell the FBI,’ ” Rossi­ni said he was told. “I remem­ber it like it was yes­ter­day.”

    A few weeks before the 9/11 attacks, the CIA final­ly relent­ed and noti­fied the FBI that at least two al Qae­da ter­ror­ists — al-Haz­mi and al-Mihd­har — were on the loose inside Amer­i­ca. But it was too late.

    “If the FBI was told ear­li­er, the plot could have been stopped,” Rossi­ni says. “No doubt in my mind.”

    After 20 years, the CIA has still not explained why it did not pass the infor­ma­tion on al-Haz­mi and al-Mihd­har to the FBI.

    Peter Bergen, a best-sell­ing author of sev­er­al books on bin Laden and a CNN secu­ri­ty ana­lyst, said he has come to believe that the CIA did not will­ful­ly ignore the grow­ing threat of al Qae­da.

    “I think it’s incom­pe­tence,” Bergen said, explain­ing why the CIA did not sound the alarm on al-Hazmi’s and al-Mihdhar’s arrival in the U.S. “Incom­pe­tence is some­times a bet­ter expla­na­tion of human activ­i­ty.”

    ...

    ————

    “Exclu­sive: 9/11 hijack­ers lived in plain sight in North Jer­sey. How did they do it?” by Mike Kel­ly; NorthJersery.com; 09/09/2021

    “But exam­in­ing that sto­ry now, as Amer­i­ca com­mem­o­rates the 20th anniver­sary of the 9/11 attacks, reignites one of the most per­sis­tent and con­tro­ver­sial mys­ter­ies of that trag­ic day: How did 19 men from the Mid­dle East — most of whom bare­ly spoke Eng­lish — man­age to pull off such a dead­ly mis­sion with­out being detect­ed?”

    Yes, it’s quite a mys­tery two decades lat­er: how did the hijack­ers man­age to spend so much time in the US active­ly plot­ting the attacks with­out being detect­ed? Which, of course, brings us to the real mys­tery here. That being the mys­tery of how the CIA knew about the pres­ence of sus­pect­ed al Qae­da oper­a­tives in the US with­out inform­ing the FBI. A mys­tery that became far less mys­te­ri­ous fol­low­ing all of the alle­ga­tions about the high­er-ups at the FBI and CIA block­ing that infor­ma­tion, like the 2015 alle­ga­tions of FBI agent Mark Rossi­ni that we are going to look at below. Or the the rev­e­la­tions this year about the Alec Sta­tion oper­a­tion like­ly try­ing to recruit Nawaf al-Haz­mi and Khalid al-Mihd­har. But even that rev­e­la­tion still left us with the lin­ger­ing mys­tery about what the FBI and CIA may have known, and been hid­ing, about the rest of the hijack­ers’ activ­i­ties in the US. Because as we now know, the hijack­ers were all mov­ing around meet­ing each oth­er dur­ing their time in the US. Like the fact that al-Haz­mi got his dri­vers license in Flori­da list­ing a South Flori­da address. How aware was the CIA and FBI to the larg­er net­work­ing tak­ing place around al-Haz­mi and al-Mihd­har? It’s a ques­tion that looms ever larg­er when we fac­tor in the still unre­solved mys­tery and appar­ent cov­er up around Aman­da Keller’s time with Mohammed Atta. That’s all part of the con­text of these rec­ol­lec­tions — report­ed in 2021, 20 years lat­er — of the exten­sive trail of data left by the hijack­ers dis­cov­ered seem­ing­ly only after they suc­ceed­ed in oper­at­ing under the radar. Because if they weren’t actu­al­ly under the radar, it seems pret­ty obvi­ous that any­one track­ing the move­ments of al-Haz­mi and al-Mihd­har could have been made aware of this much larg­er net­work. They were leav­ing track­able trails under their real names in real-time across the US:

    ...
    Their rental of a tem­po­rary mail­box in Fort Lee rep­re­sents just one of thou­sands of exam­ples of seem­ing­ly ordi­nary move­ments by the 9/11 killers in the months lead­ing up to the attacks. These details were chron­i­cled in an exhaus­tive and now-declas­si­fied FBI report that was reviewed by the USA TODAY Net­work as Amer­i­ca com­mem­o­rates the 20th anniver­sary of the 9/11 attacks.

    In grim yet mun­dane detail — assem­bled from all man­ner of elec­tron­ic records and old-fash­ioned gumshoe police work — the report, titled “Hijack­ers Time­line,” offers a day-by-day por­trait of the 19 al-Qai­da oper­a­tives before they set off on their sui­cide-mur­der mis­sion that killed near­ly 3,000 peo­ple and set in motion America’s longest war.

    Liv­ing most­ly in cen­tral Flori­da, South­ern Cal­i­for­nia, north­ern Vir­ginia and North Jer­sey, they rent­ed cars, opened bank accounts, nav­i­gat­ed com­pli­cat­ed city streets and high­way exit ramps, rent­ed motel rooms, dialed each from pay phones in hair salons and hard­ware stores, ordered meals in din­ers, took fly­ing lessons, played video games, lift­ed bar­bells at gyms and even pur­chased sun­glass­es at a Macy’s depart­ment store.

    Their time in North Jer­sey is espe­cial­ly illu­mi­nat­ing. The crowd­ed, mul­ti­cul­tur­al ham­lets of Bergen and Pas­sa­ic coun­ties became a meet­ing ground for near­ly a dozen of the 19 ter­ror­ists dur­ing the sum­mer of 2001. And the con­nec­tion to North Jer­sey also gave rise to unfair accu­sa­tions that some mem­bers of the region’s Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty may have know­ing­ly assist­ed them.

    Some, like the 9/11 plot’s ring­leader, Mohamed Atta, flew in from Flori­da, check­ing into the King’s Inn Motel in Wayne for a few days and then leav­ing — and then return­ing days lat­er. Oth­ers, such as Han­jour and al-Haz­mi, bounced between motels and an apart­ment in a two-sto­ry home on Paterson’s Union Avenue — the same address Han­jour cit­ed as a busi­ness office when he rent­ed the Fort Lee mail drop.

    ...

    Han­jour and al-Haz­mi were espe­cial­ly active.

    The day before rent­ing the mail­box in Fort Lee, they worked out at Gold’s Gym in Totowa, New Jer­sey. Han­jour also rent­ed planes at Teter­boro and Essex Coun­ty air­ports to prac­tice fly­ing. In one case, he made a pass over the Hud­son Riv­er and the World Trade Cen­ter. Al-Haz­mi reg­u­lar­ly rent­ed cars at a Jeep deal­er­ship in Wayne.

    Nei­ther Han­jour nor al-Haz­mi — nor any of the oth­er hijack­ers — resort­ed to using fake names. Nor did they live under­ground and avoid con­tact with ordi­nary Amer­i­cans.
    ...

    And note how this arti­cle pub­lished on Sep­tem­ber 9, 2021 — almost exact­ly 20 years after the event — main­tained the nar­ra­tive that the CIA — which is barred from domes­tic US oper­a­tions — sim­ply lost track of the al-Qae­da oper­a­tives it was track­ing inter­na­tion­al­ly when­ev­er they would arrive back in the US and and mere­ly ‘botched’ the hand off of that cru­cial infor­ma­tion to the FBI. A nar­ra­tive that turns the events described the FBI agents like Mark Rossi­ni about how they were blocked by senior FBI and CIA lead­er­ship from pass­ing that infor­ma­tion along into a sim­ple ‘botch­ing’, but also a nar­ra­tive that pre­ced­ed the 2023 rev­e­la­tions about Alec Sta­tion like­ly angling to recruit at least some of the hijack­ers, the pre­sumed pre­text for block­ing the infor­ma­tion shar­ing with the FBI about al-Qae­da oper­a­tives liv­ing and engag­ing in flight train­ing inside the US. It’s an exam­ple of both how much has been revealed but ignored and how much remains cov­ered up:

    ...
    Two of the hijack­ers — al-Haz­mi and Khalid al-Mihd­har — were known to the CIA as al Qae­da oper­a­tives. The CIA even tracked al-Haz­mi and al-Mihd­har from the Mid­dle East to Malaysia to Thai­land and then to Los Ange­les. There, though, the CIA, which is pro­hib­it­ed from spy­ing inside the U.S., gave up the trail. And the CIA nev­er shared al-Haz­mi and al-Mihd­har’s move­ments with the FBI, which con­ducts counter-ter­ror inves­ti­ga­tions in Amer­i­ca.

    The botched hand-off by the CIA to the FBI is con­sid­ered one of the most embar­rass­ing secu­ri­ty fail­ures in U.S. his­to­ry. It is now a cen­ter­piece of a mas­sive fed­er­al law­suit by thou­sands of rel­a­tives of 9/11 vic­tims who claim that Sau­di Ara­bi­an offi­cials helped the hijack­ers inside the U.S.

    The fail­ure to stop al-Haz­mi and al-Mihd­har is also the source of two decades of anguish for Mark Rossi­ni, a for­mer FBI spe­cial agent and counter-ter­ror spe­cial­ist who was part of a team mon­i­tor­ing bin Laden’s al Qae­da net­work in the months lead­ing up to 9/11.

    Dur­ing the sum­mer of 2001, Rossi­ni was assigned as a FBI liai­son to the CIA’s bin Laden squad, code-named “Alec Sta­tion,” at the spy agency’s head­quar­ters in Lan­g­ley, Vir­ginia. Work­ing with the CIA, Rossi­ni learned about the arrival of al-Haz­mi and al-Mihd­har as ear­ly as 2000. He plead­ed with the CIA to pass on the infor­ma­tion to his FBI col­leagues across the Potomac Riv­er in Wash­ing­ton, D.C.

    But Rossi­ni was told to keep qui­et. The CIA con­sid­ered the infor­ma­tion top secret — not ready for the FBI. Rossi­ni said that he was told that if he broke pro­to­col and told the FBI, he would be charged with a fed­er­al crime.

    Today, Rossi­ni, 60, divides his time between France and Spain. He left the FBI in 2008 after he broke rules to exam­ine records in an unre­lat­ed case with­out per­mis­sion.

    ...

    A few weeks before the 9/11 attacks, the CIA final­ly relent­ed and noti­fied the FBI that at least two al Qae­da ter­ror­ists — al-Haz­mi and al-Mihd­har — were on the loose inside Amer­i­ca. But it was too late.

    “If the FBI was told ear­li­er, the plot could have been stopped,” Rossi­ni says. “No doubt in my mind.”

    After 20 years, the CIA has still not explained why it did not pass the infor­ma­tion on al-Haz­mi and al-Mihd­har to the FBI.

    ...

    But when we look more close­ly at Rossini’s alle­ga­tions, note what else he alleges: that his CIA col­leagues at the time told him the arrival of al-Mihd­har and al-Haz­mi was not a sign of an attack on Amer­i­ca but a diver­sion. Instead, the CIA believed that the next al-Qae­da attack would take place in South East Asia. Keep in mind that both al-Mihd­har and al-Haz­mi attend­ed flight school while they were in the US. So the CIA was appar­ent­ly will­ing to allow al-Qae­da oper­a­tives obtain flight train­ing in the US while under the belief that these oper­a­tives were involved with a plot tar­get­ed South East Asia, because they were hop­ing to even­tu­al­ly recruit them? It’s a sce­nario that begs the ques­tion: so what exact­ly did the CIA think this South­east Asian plot was going would be? Might it involve crash­ing planes into build­ings? Let’s not for­get that al-Mihd­har and al-Haz­mi were tracked by the CIA in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, a city with its own sym­bol­ic twin tow­ers. Was the CIA track­ing these two al Qae­da oper­a­tives and hop­ing to recruit them while under the sus­pi­cion that they were learn­ing to fly planes into South East Asian tow­ers? Because it kind of looks that way giv­en the avail­able facts:

    ...
    Rossi­ni said his CIA col­leagues told him the arrival of al-Mihd­har and al-Haz­mi was not a sign of an attack on Amer­i­ca but a diver­sion. Rossi­ni said the CIA believed — mis­tak­en­ly — that the next al Qae­da attack would take place in South East Asia, Rossi­ni said. Now Rossi­ni believes the CIA thought it might use al-Mihd­har and al-Haz­mi in an ill-con­ceived plan to infil­trate al-Qae­da.

    “ ‘This is CIA infor­ma­tion and you are not to tell the FBI,’ ” Rossi­ni said he was told. “I remem­ber it like it was yes­ter­day.”
    ...

    Now let’s take a clos­er look at what exact­ly Rossi­ni recalled being told by the Alec Sta­tion CIA offi­cers about the ter­ror­ists on US soil they were order­ing Rossi­ni to stay qui­et about. As we can see in the fol­low­ing 2015 Newsweek arti­cle, Rossi­ni talked about how CIA offi­cer Michael Anne Casey told him, “this was not a mat­ter for the FBI. The next al-Qae­da attack is going to hap­pen in South­east Asia and their visas for Amer­i­ca are just a diver­sion. You are not to tell the FBI about it. When and if we want the FBI to know about it, we will.

    So when the FBI was belat­ed informed about the pres­ences of al-Qae­da ter­ror­ists on US soil weeks before 9/11, that was pre­sum­ably done at the CIA’s behest. Which rais­es the ques­tion: did the CIA actu­al­ly want the FBI to find these hijack­ers? Or did the CIA know an attack was just weeks away and had con­fi­dence that the FBI was­n’t going to be able to find and dis­rupt the oper­a­tion in time, mak­ing the dis­clo­sure a kine of pre­emp­tive ass-cov­er­ing maneu­ver?

    But Rossi­ni isn’t the only fig­ure mak­ing amaz­ing claims in this arti­cle. An unnamed senior CIA offi­cer who worked at Alec Sta­tion and for­mer nation­al secu­ri­ty advi­sor Richard Clark both appear to agree that the CIA was try­ing to covert­ly recruit al Qae­da oper­a­tives. The senior CIA offi­cer tried to char­ac­ter­ize the sit­u­a­tion as a bunch of rook­ie oper­a­tives giv­en too much pow­er to con­duct an oper­a­tion they lacked the expe­ri­ence to wise­ly con­duct, in par­tic­u­lar when it came to believ­ing the intel­li­gence they were hear­ing from oth­er intel­li­gence ser­vices. As they put it, “I don’t think they ever per­son­al­ly talked to anybody...They just worked in their office in ten­nis shoes....They prob­a­bly got a source through liai­son. So their source [on the hijack­ers] might have been some­one in the Sau­di ser­vice who said they are talk­ing to some­body, or some­one in the Jor­dan­ian ser­vice who said he was talk­ing to some­one. As far I was con­cerned, they were a bunch of lying pieces of sh it. So they could’ve done that.” So accord­ing to this unnamed senior Alec Sta­tion offi­cer, it was junior agents tak­ing bad advice from ‘some­body’ — maybe some­one in Jor­dan­ian intel­li­gence, they sug­gest — while try­ing to recruit al-Qae­da oper­a­tives that led to dis­as­ter.

    Richard Clark is a bit more can­did, sug­gest­ing that the CIA was run­ning an ille­gal oper­a­tion on US soil that it was try­ing to hide from the rest of the gov­ern­ment. As Clark has told reporters, “What I was told at the time was that they were going to try, for the first time, to get sources on the inside.” And yet Clark can also recall an emer­gency July 10, 2001, meet­ing at the White House with then-CIA Direc­tor George Tenet and the CIA’s coun­tert­er­ror­ism lead­ers Cofer Black and Rich Blee, where there was no men­tion of the pres­ence of al Qae­da oper­a­tives on US. Why no men­tion? The way Clark puts it, the “only con­ceiv­able rea­son that I’ve been able to come up with” is that they were run­ning an ille­gal domes­tic oper­a­tion to recruit al-Mihd­har or al-Haz­mi. And they did­n’t want the FBI to get involved.

    So both Clark and this anony­mous senior CIA offi­cial assign to Alec Sta­tion rough­ly back up Rossini’s ver­sion of events and agree that flip­ping al Qae­da oper­a­tives was one of the CIA’s goals pre‑9/11, with the CIA offi­cial also sug­gest­ing that the Alec Sta­tion crew was get­ting bad intel­li­gence about these poten­tial dou­ble agents from some Mid­dle East­ern intel­li­gence agency. Which would sug­gest the CIA was fine with allow­ing al Qae­da oper­a­tives to get flight train­ing in the US — with the assis­tance of Sau­di intel­li­gence oper­a­tives like Omar al-Bay­ou­mi — so they could attack tall build­ings in South East Asia. Which would be incred­i­bly scan­dalous if true. Too scan­dalous to ever pub­licly admit:

    Newsweek

    The Inside Infor­ma­tion That Could Have Stopped 9/11

    By Jeff Stein On 01/14/15 at 9:24 AM EST

    Just before Christ­mas, for­mer FBI spe­cial agent Mark Rossi­ni greet­ed me with his usu­al good cheer when we met for drinks in a mid­town Man­hat­tan restau­rant. He told me his life had final­ly tak­en a turn for the bet­ter. He’s spend­ing most of his time in Switzer­land, where he works for a pri­vate glob­al cor­po­rate-secu­ri­ty firm. “Life’s good,” he said.

    Good, but with a few major changes. Rossi­ni was drink­ing club soda instead of the expen­sive caber­nets he quaffed when I first knew him as a high-fly­ing FBI offi­cial in Wash­ing­ton a decade ago, when he was a spe­cial assis­tant to the bureau’s chief spokesman, John Miller (now with the New York City Police Depart­ment). “I’ve cut back,” he said. “Feel­ing good.”

    But when I ask him how he’s real­ly doing, the light in his eyes dims. “Well, you know, I still miss the job,” he said, shak­ing his head. A bone­head­ed move—showing con­fi­den­tial FBI doc­u­ments to his actress-flame Lin­da Fiorenti­no, who said she was research­ing a script about L.A. wire­tap­per extra­or­di­naire Antho­ny Pellicano—cost him his career in 2008 and near­ly land­ed him in jail.

    “What’s past is past,” he said. But not all of it. He quick­ly told me of an encounter the day before on a street in Yonkers, where he keeps an apart­ment. He’d run into a close fam­i­ly friend who’d lost rel­a­tives at the World Trade Cen­ter on 9/11. “Mark,” she told him, “you’ve got to get to the bot­tom of this.”

    “She says that every time I see her,” he said, his mouth turn­ing down. But now, at 53, six years out of the bureau, he’s mak­ing a deter­mined effort to do just that—to close some of the gap­ing holes in the offi­cial 9/11 nar­ra­tive, which blames the attacks on a vague “intel­li­gence fail­ure.”

    Rossi­ni is well placed to do just that. He’s been at the cen­ter of one of the endur­ing mys­ter­ies of 9/11: Why the CIA refused to share infor­ma­tion with the FBI (or any oth­er agency) about the arrival of at least two well-known Al-Qae­da oper­a­tives in the Unit­ed States in 2000, even though the spy agency had been track­ing them close­ly for years.

    That the CIA did block him and Doug Miller, a fel­low FBI agent assigned to the “Alec Sta­tion,” the cov­er name for CIA’s Osama bin Laden unit, from noti­fy­ing bureau head­quar­ters about the ter­ror­ists has been told before, most notably in a 2009 Nova doc­u­men­tary on PBS, “The Spy Fac­to­ry.” Rossi­ni and Miller relat­ed how they learned ear­li­er from the CIA that one of the ter­ror­ists (and future hijack­er), Khalid al-Mihd­har, had mul­ti-entry visas on a Sau­di pass­port to enter the Unit­ed States. When Miller draft­ed a report for FBI head­quar­ters, a CIA man­ag­er in the top-secret unit told him to hold off. Incred­u­lous, Miller and Rossi­ni had to back down. The sta­tion’s rules pro­hib­it­ed them from talk­ing to any­one out­side their top-secret group.

    All these years lat­er, Rossi­ni still regrets com­ply­ing with that com­mand. If he had dis­obeyed the gag order, the near­ly 3,000 Amer­i­cans slaugh­tered on 9/11 would prob­a­bly still be alive. “This is the pain that nev­er escapes me, that haunts me each and every day of my life,” he wrote in the draft of a book he shared with me. “I feel like I failed, even though I know it was the sys­tem and the intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty on the whole that failed.”

    ‘I Final­ly Broke Down’

    The var­i­ous com­mis­sions and inter­nal agency reviews that exam­ined the “intel­li­gence fail­ure” of 9/11 blamed insti­tu­tion­al habits and per­son­al rival­ries among CIA, FBI and Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Agency (NSA) offi­cials for pre­vent­ing them from shar­ing infor­ma­tion. Out of those reviews came the cre­ation of a new direc­torate of nation­al intel­li­gence, which stripped the CIA of its coor­di­nat­ing author­i­ty. But blam­ing “the sys­tem” side­steps the issue of why one CIA offi­cer in par­tic­u­lar, Michael Anne Casey, ordered Rossini’s cohort, Miller, not to alert the FBI about al-Mihd­har. Or why the CIA’s Alec Sta­tion boss­es failed to alert the FBI—or any oth­er law enforce­ment agency—about the arrival of Nawaf al-Haz­mi, anoth­er key Al-Qae­da oper­a­tive (and future hijack­er) the agency had been track­ing to and from a ter­ror­ist sum­mit in Malaysia.

    Because Casey remains under­cov­er at the CIA, Rossi­ni does not name her in his unfin­ished man­u­script. But he wrote, “When I con­front­ed this person...she told me that ‘this was not a mat­ter for the FBI. The next al-Qae­da attack is going to hap­pen in South­east Asia and their visas for Amer­i­ca are just a diver­sion. You are not to tell the FBI about it. When and if we want the FBI to know about it, we will.’ ”

    Rossi­ni recalled going to Miller’s cubi­cle right after his con­ver­sa­tion with Casey. “He looked at me like I was speak­ing a for­eign lan­guage.… We were both stunned and could not under­stand why the FBI was not going to be told about this.”

    It remains a mys­tery. None of the post‑9/11 inves­ti­gat­ing bod­ies were able to get to the bot­tom of it, in part because Rossi­ni and Miller, who con­tin­ued to work at Alec Sta­tion after the attacks, did­n’t tell any­one what hap­pened there. When con­gres­sion­al inves­ti­ga­tors came sniff­ing around, they kept their mouths shut.

    “We were told not to say any­thing to them,” Rossi­ni said. Who told you that? I asked. “The CIA. I can’t name names. It was just under­stood in the office that they were not to be trust­ed, that [the con­gres­sion­al inves­ti­ga­tors] were try­ing to pin this on some­one, that they were try­ing to put some­one in jail. They said [the inves­ti­ga­tors] weren’t autho­rized to know what was going on oper­a­tional­ly.… When we were inter­viewed, the CIA had a per­son in the room, mon­i­tor­ing us.”

    As a result, Rossi­ni was­n’t inter­viewed by the sub­se­quent 9/11 Com­mis­sion, either. “Based on that inter­view, I guess the 9/11 Com­mis­sion [which fol­lowed up the con­gres­sion­al probe] thought I did­n’t have any­thing wor­thy to say.” He kept his secret, he said, from the Jus­tice Depart­men­t’s inspec­tor gen­er­al as well. “I was still in shock,” he added, and still fear­ful of vio­lat­ing Alec Sta­tion’s demand for omer­ta. Final­ly, when his own agency—the FBI’s Office of Pro­fes­sion­al Respon­si­bil­i­ty (OPR)—came to him in late 2004, after the con­gres­sion­al probe and 9/11 Com­mis­sion had issued their reports, he opened up.

    “Tape recorders were run­ning. I was sit­ting right next to Can­dace Will, asso­ciate direc­tor of the FBI” in charge of the OPR, Rossi­ni recalled by tele­phone ear­ly this month. “It’s when I final­ly broke down and told them what had hap­pened, what I had done, and why. Those tape record­ings are the key, that’s what has to be released.”

    The CIA has long insist­ed it shared intel­li­gence about al-Mihd­har and al-Haz­mi with the FBI, but records gath­ered by the 9/11 Com­mis­sion con­tra­dict this asser­tion. Indeed, the pan­el could find no records sup­port­ing the claim of anoth­er Alec Sta­tion super­vi­sor, Alfre­da Bikowsky, that she had hand-car­ried a report to the FBI.

    “The FBI is telling the truth,” Philip Zelikow, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the 9/11 Com­mis­sion, told Newsweek. As for why the CIA not only failed to share pre‑9/11 infor­ma­tion on Al-Qae­da oper­a­tives but for­bade the FBI agents in Alec Sta­tion from shar­ing it, Zelikow said, “We don’t know.”

    And He Comes Back...

    In such dark­ness, all sorts of con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries have flour­ished, from the absurd “truther” sce­nar­ios about pre­set charges in the World Trade Cen­ter to Israeli or even Bush admin­is­tra­tion con­nivance in the attacks. But more sub­stan­tive the­o­ries remain, some deeply dis­turb­ing.

    The issue was revived on Jan­u­ary 7, when two mem­bers of Con­gress, backed by the co-chair­man of the 9/11 Com­mis­sion, for­mer Flori­da Demo­c­ra­t­ic sen­a­tor Bob Gra­ham, unveiled a res­o­lu­tion call­ing on the Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion to declas­si­fy 28 pages of the joint con­gres­sion­al probe deal­ing with Sau­di con­tacts with and finan­cial sup­port for the hijack­ers when they were in this coun­try. Sau­di offi­cials, Gra­ham says, “knew that peo­ple who had a mis­sion for Osama bin Laden were in, or would soon be placed in, the Unit­ed States. Whether they knew what their assign­ments were takes the infer­ence too far.”

    Zelikow, who lat­er went on to work for Sec­re­tary of State Con­doleez­za Rice, sees the Sau­di Embassy’s alleged con­nec­tions to the hijack­ers as “a red her­ring.” But he said there are “loose ends” worth explor­ing, par­tic­u­lar­ly the hijack­ers’ move­ments in the U.S. that brought them close to Yemeni extrem­ist preach­ers. “The more inter­est­ing sto­ry is where they decid­ed to set­tle and why,” he added.

    Now a pro­fes­sor of his­to­ry at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Vir­ginia, Zelikow is like­wise skep­ti­cal of what for­mer White House coun­tert­er­ror­ism advis­er Richard A. Clarke said in a star­tling, video­taped inter­view with two free­lance jour­nal­ists in Octo­ber 2009—remarks that have gar­nered far less atten­tion than the hijack­ers’ Sau­di con­nec­tions.

    Clarke recalled that in 1999, the CIA’s Coun­tert­er­ror­ism Cen­ter had been tak­en over by Cofer Black and Rich Blee, two “hard-charg­ing” covert oper­a­tions vet­er­ans who “under­stood Al-Qae­da was a big threat.… What I was told at the time,” Clarke told jour­nal­ists Ray Nowosiel­s­ki and John Duffy, “was that they were going to try, for the first time, to get sources on the inside”—to turn one of the ter­ror­ists into a dou­ble agent.

    Clarke found it odd that when CIA Direc­tor George Tenet came to an emer­gency White House meet­ing with Black and Blee on July 10, 2001, “they nev­er men­tioned that already two Al-Qae­da terrorists...had entered the Unit­ed States.”

    “So you ask your­self, Why not?” he added. The “only con­ceiv­able rea­son that I’ve been able to come up with” is that they were run­ning an ille­gal domes­tic oper­a­tion to recruit al-Mihd­har or al-Haz­mi. And they did­n’t want the FBI to barge in on it.

    That would also explain why Alec Sta­tion’s Michael Anne Casey for­bade Miller and Rossi­ni to tell FBI head­quar­ters about al-Mihd­har’s mul­ti-visa pass­port to enter the U.S. Rossi­ni believes “they did” try to recruit al-Mihd­har, who had made pri­or vis­its to the U.S. As the for­mer FBI agent point­ed out, the NSA had been eaves­drop­ping on a house al-Mihd­har fre­quent­ed in Yemen. It’s how the CIA learned of the Kuala Lumpur ter­ror­ist sum­mit. “He’s a known ter­ror­ist that they fol­low around the globe,” Rossi­ni said. “He’s a sub­ject of sev­er­al cables, he comes to America…and they allow him to leave Amer­i­ca and go back to Yemen for the birth of his baby. And he comes back.”

    The CIA did­n’t tell the FBI about his pres­ence until mid­sum­mer of 2001, after they had lost track of him. “It just stands to rea­son that they had some kind of rela­tion­ship with him—or they tried,” Rossi­ni said. “So they were fol­low­ing these mer­ry men around for a year or two with­out telling us, and now all of the sud­den, in July 2001, they say, ‘Please help us find these guys!’ Why then? I can’t prove it, the only rea­son is, he went south—he told them to go fu ck themselves—or stopped respond­ing to their phone calls. They ran a clan­des­tine op in the U.S., and they did­n’t want the bureau involved in it.”

    ‘Lying Pieces of Sh it’

    A for­mer CIA oper­a­tions offi­cer who was assigned to Alec Sta­tion at the time thinks that both Rossi­ni and Clarke are onto something—but that their the­o­ry is a bit off-kil­ter. “I find that kind of hard to believe, that [al-Mihd­har or al-Haz­mi] would be a valid source,” said the for­mer CIA oper­a­tive, who spent 25 years han­dling spies in some of the world’s most dan­ger­ous places, includ­ing the Mid­dle East. “But then again, the folks that were mak­ing a lot of calls at the time there were junior ana­lysts, who had zero gen­er­al expe­ri­ence and absolute­ly zero on-the-ground oper­a­tional expe­ri­ence or any kind of oper­a­tional train­ing.”

    From the begin­ning, Alec Sta­tion, the oper­a­tive point­ed out, was run by intel­li­gence ana­lysts, many of them like the fic­tion­al hero­ine of Zero Dark Thir­ty, a com­pos­ite of real-life CIA ana­lysts. Over time, they began fan­cy­ing them­selves as field-savvy, ven­tur­ing into the operations—sometimes with dis­as­trous con­se­quences.

    “They had all these ana­lysts com­ing up with their grand schemes and fol­low­ing tar­gets,” said the for­mer offi­cer, who asked for anonymi­ty in exchange for talk­ing freely about clan­des­tine mat­ters. “But then they want­ed to call the shots on the oper­a­tional size of things, and that’s where their strengths were not.” It was an Alec Sta­tion ana­lyst, Jen­nifer Matthews, the oper­a­tive point­ed out, who recruit­ed the dou­ble agent who killed her and six oth­er CIA per­son­nel on a remote base in Afghanistan on Decem­ber 2009.

    “Their def­i­n­i­tion of a source was very dif­fer­ent from what an intel­li­gence offi­cer or case offi­cer or the [direc­torate of oper­a­tions] would con­sid­er a val­i­dat­ed bona fide source,” said the oper­a­tive. And the Alec Sta­tion ana­lysts did­n’t much like the wiz­ened old­er case offi­cers look­ing over their shoul­ders. “Some­times I’d pro­pose some­thing and they would warn me off, say­ing it might com­pro­mise some­body they were talk­ing to.”

    But who would they be talk­ing to? Not real ter­ror­ists. “I don’t think they ever per­son­al­ly talked to any­body,” the oper­a­tive said. “They just worked in their office in ten­nis shoes....They prob­a­bly got a source through liai­son. So their source [on the hijack­ers] might have been some­one in the Sau­di ser­vice who said they are talk­ing to some­body, or some­one in the Jor­dan­ian ser­vice who said he was talk­ing to some­one. As far I was con­cerned, they were a bunch of lying pieces of sh it. So they could’ve done that.”

    “That” mean­ing essen­tial­ly con­jur­ing up a rela­tion­ship with al-Mihd­har, per­haps through a very sen­si­tive source in Sau­di intel­li­gence, and sell­ing it as some­thing with great poten­tial to their CIA boss­es, who were des­per­ate to get some­thing going inside Al-Qae­da. This is essen­tial­ly what hap­pened with Matthews and her spy Humam al-Bal­awi, a doc­tor who claimed to be treat­ing Osama bin Laden’s deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri at his lair in Pak­istan. Bal­awi was served up to Matthews by Jor­dan­ian intel­li­gence, the CIA’s clos­est Mid­dle East part­ner out­side of Israel.

    Top CIA offi­cials were so excit­ed about al-Bal­aw­i’s sup­posed access to Al-Qaeda’s inner cir­cle that they were run­ning down to the White House to give progress reports on him. That is, until he was dri­ven into a CIA base with­out being searched—on Matthew’s explic­it, trag­ic orders—and blew him­self up, killing eight peo­ple alto­geth­er.

    Wait­ing for Heads to Roll

    All these years lat­er, no one has come up with a plau­si­ble expla­na­tion for why Alec Sta­tion would deny Rossi­ni and Miller the chance to tell the FBI about dan­ger­ous Al-Qae­da fig­ures com­ing into the U.S. “It’s looney,” said the for­mer Alec Sta­tion CIA ops offi­cer.

    “When the first 9/11 report came out, I was wait­ing for heads to roll,” the ops offi­cer said. “But of course they took out all the impor­tant stuff. And all the peo­ple who were respon­si­ble for not shar­ing information—their names were tak­en out. They were com­mend­ed and moved up.”

    ...

    ———-

    “The Inside Infor­ma­tion That Could Have Stopped 9/11” By Jeff Stein; Newsweek; 01/14/2015

    “That the CIA did block him and Doug Miller, a fel­low FBI agent assigned to the “Alec Sta­tion,” the cov­er name for CIA’s Osama bin Laden unit, from noti­fy­ing bureau head­quar­ters about the ter­ror­ists has been told before, most notably in a 2009 Nova doc­u­men­tary on PBS, “The Spy Fac­to­ry.” Rossi­ni and Miller relat­ed how they learned ear­li­er from the CIA that one of the ter­ror­ists (and future hijack­er), Khalid al-Mihd­har, had mul­ti-entry visas on a Sau­di pass­port to enter the Unit­ed States. When Miller draft­ed a report for FBI head­quar­ters, a CIA man­ag­er in the top-secret unit told him to hold off. Incred­u­lous, Miller and Rossi­ni had to back down. The sta­tion’s rules pro­hib­it­ed them from talk­ing to any­one out­side their top-secret group.

    As we can see, Mark Rossi­ni and Doug Miller — two of the FBI agents assigned to Alec Sta­tion — got as far as draft­ing a report for FBI head­quar­ters about they learned from the CIA that Khalid al-Mihd­har and Nawaf al-Haz­mi — known al-Qae­da oper­a­tives at that point — held mul­ti-entry that would allow them back into the US. But a CIA man­ag­er, Michael Anne Casey, forced them to back down. Because as Casey put it, the true tar­get of their attack was some­where in South East Asia and their time in was just a diver­sion. Yes, a diver­sion. Tak­en at face val­ue, it’s hard not to con­clude that the CIA was com­plic­it in allow­ing oper­a­tives use the US as not only a ‘diver­sion’, but a ‘diver­sion’ that would allow them to acquire pilot­ing skills. Which, again, rais­es the ques­tion: so did the CIA expect this South East Asia attack to include hijack­ing planes and fly­ing them into build­ings? Because it sure sounds like that’s not only the case but that the CIA was out to pro­tect the diver­sion these assumed ter­ror­ists were per­pe­trat­ing with their time in the US:

    ...
    The var­i­ous com­mis­sions and inter­nal agency reviews that exam­ined the “intel­li­gence fail­ure” of 9/11 blamed insti­tu­tion­al habits and per­son­al rival­ries among CIA, FBI and Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Agency (NSA) offi­cials for pre­vent­ing them from shar­ing infor­ma­tion. Out of those reviews came the cre­ation of a new direc­torate of nation­al intel­li­gence, which stripped the CIA of its coor­di­nat­ing author­i­ty. But blam­ing “the sys­tem” side­steps the issue of why one CIA offi­cer in par­tic­u­lar, Michael Anne Casey, ordered Rossini’s cohort, Miller, not to alert the FBI about al-Mihd­har. Or why the CIA’s Alec Sta­tion boss­es failed to alert the FBI—or any oth­er law enforce­ment agency—about the arrival of Nawaf al-Haz­mi, anoth­er key Al-Qae­da oper­a­tive (and future hijack­er) the agency had been track­ing to and from a ter­ror­ist sum­mit in Malaysia.

    Because Casey remains under­cov­er at the CIA, Rossi­ni does not name her in his unfin­ished man­u­script. But he wrote, “When I con­front­ed this person...she told me that ‘this was not a mat­ter for the FBI. The next al-Qae­da attack is going to hap­pen in South­east Asia and their visas for Amer­i­ca are just a diver­sion. You are not to tell the FBI about it. When and if we want the FBI to know about it, we will.’ ”
    ...

    But also keep in mind one of the implic­it ques­tions raised by the whole ‘diver­sion’ lan­guage: who was the tar­get of this diver­sion? Or to put it anoth­er way, just how many dif­fer­ent enti­ties were there track­ing the move­ments and activ­i­ties of these hijack­ers? Al Qae­da pre­sum­ably was­n’t car­ry­ing out a diver­sion for the CIA with its US-based net­work. Was Malaysian intel­li­gence track­ing this al Qae­da cell? Who else?

    Well, of course, there was anoth­er very sig­nif­i­cant play­er track­ing this net­work. Traf­fick­ing and direct­ly assist­ing: Sau­di intel­li­gence. As we’ve see, we don’t real­ly have to ask whether or not Sau­di intel­li­gence was assist­ing the ‘San Diego’ cell of al-Haz­mi and al-Mihd­har. Evi­dence of assis­tance by pre­sumed Sau­di intel­li­gence agent Omar al-Bay­ou­mi is exten­sive at this point, as is strong cir­cum­stan­tial evi­dence that the Sau­di fam­i­ly of inter­est in Sara­so­ta, Flori­da, vis­it­ed by Mohamed Atta was also pro­vid­ed direct assis­tance.

    And that brings us to the still remark­able com­ments from for­mer nation­al secu­ri­ty advi­sor Richard Clarke: When describ­ing the pos­si­ble ratio­nales for why it was that the CIA blocked the shar­ing of infor­ma­tion about al-Qae­da oper­a­tives on US soil, the only expla­na­tion Clarke comes up with is that the CIA was run­ning an ille­gal oper­a­tion on US soil and did­n’t want Con­gress to know about it. It’s the kind of expla­na­tion that just rever­ber­ates with pro­found ques­tions. Sure, part of the osten­si­ble expla­na­tion is that the CIA was try­ing to cul­ti­vate dou­ble agents inside al Qae­da. But that expla­na­tion real­ly does­n’t explain the ‘diver­sion’ that the CIA was try­ing to pro­tect. as the CIA allied with Sau­di intel­li­gence in set­ting up some sort of ter­ror attack in South East Asia? Because that’s abhor­rent if true. But abhor­rent or not, a sce­nario like that is where the avail­able evi­dence points:

    ...
    Clarke recalled that in 1999, the CIA’s Coun­tert­er­ror­ism Cen­ter had been tak­en over by Cofer Black and Rich Blee, two “hard-charg­ing” covert oper­a­tions vet­er­ans who “under­stood Al-Qae­da was a big threat.… What I was told at the time,” Clarke told jour­nal­ists Ray Nowosiel­s­ki and John Duffy, “was that they were going to try, for the first time, to get sources on the inside”—to turn one of the ter­ror­ists into a dou­ble agent.

    Clarke found it odd that when CIA Direc­tor George Tenet came to an emer­gency White House meet­ing with Black and Blee on July 10, 2001, “they nev­er men­tioned that already two Al-Qae­da terrorists...had entered the Unit­ed States.”

    “So you ask your­self, Why not?” he added. The “only con­ceiv­able rea­son that I’ve been able to come up with” is that they were run­ning an ille­gal domes­tic oper­a­tion to recruit al-Mihd­har or al-Haz­mi. And they did­n’t want the FBI to barge in on it.

    That would also explain why Alec Sta­tion’s Michael Anne Casey for­bade Miller and Rossi­ni to tell FBI head­quar­ters about al-Mihd­har’s mul­ti-visa pass­port to enter the U.S. Rossi­ni believes “they did” try to recruit al-Mihd­har, who had made pri­or vis­its to the U.S. As the for­mer FBI agent point­ed out, the NSA had been eaves­drop­ping on a house al-Mihd­har fre­quent­ed in Yemen. It’s how the CIA learned of the Kuala Lumpur ter­ror­ist sum­mit. “He’s a known ter­ror­ist that they fol­low around the globe,” Rossi­ni said. “He’s a sub­ject of sev­er­al cables, he comes to America…and they allow him to leave Amer­i­ca and go back to Yemen for the birth of his baby. And he comes back.”

    The CIA did­n’t tell the FBI about his pres­ence until mid­sum­mer of 2001, after they had lost track of him. “It just stands to rea­son that they had some kind of rela­tion­ship with him—or they tried,” Rossi­ni said. “So they were fol­low­ing these mer­ry men around for a year or two with­out telling us, and now all of the sud­den, in July 2001, they say, ‘Please help us find these guys!’ Why then? I can’t prove it, the only rea­son is, he went south—he told them to go fu ck themselves—or stopped respond­ing to their phone calls. They ran a clan­des­tine op in the U.S., and they did­n’t want the bureau involved in it.”
    ...

    Also note the com­ments from a for­mer unnamed Alec Sta­tion CIA offi­cer: the folks mak­ing the calls were just fre­quent­ly junior ana­lysts who eschewed the advice of their elders. A lack of wis­dom that man­i­fest­ed in the form of tak­ing ill-advised intel­li­gence from a vari­ety of sources they should­n’t have trust­ed. Sources like “some­one in the Jor­dan­ian ser­vice who said he was talk­ing to some­one”. In oth­er words, this senior CIA agent involved the Alec sta­tion is sug­gest the junior agents were mak­ing calls but made them poor­ly based on Mid­dle East­ern intel­li­gence part­ners. Or as the senior agent put it, “I don’t think they ever per­son­al­ly talked to anybody...They just worked in their office in ten­nis shoes....They prob­a­bly got a source through liai­son. So their source [on the hijack­ers] might have been some­one in the Sau­di ser­vice who said they are talk­ing to some­body, or some­one in the Jor­dan­ian ser­vice who said he was talk­ing to some­one. As far I was con­cerned, they were a bunch of lying pieces of sh it. So they could’ve done that.” It’s a strange­ly vague rec­ol­lec­tion from a senior CIA offi­cer for how things played out:

    ...
    A for­mer CIA oper­a­tions offi­cer who was assigned to Alec Sta­tion at the time thinks that both Rossi­ni and Clarke are onto something—but that their the­o­ry is a bit off-kil­ter. “I find that kind of hard to believe, that [al-Mihd­har or al-Haz­mi] would be a valid source,” said the for­mer CIA oper­a­tive, who spent 25 years han­dling spies in some of the world’s most dan­ger­ous places, includ­ing the Mid­dle East. “But then again, the folks that were mak­ing a lot of calls at the time there were junior ana­lysts, who had zero gen­er­al expe­ri­ence and absolute­ly zero on-the-ground oper­a­tional expe­ri­ence or any kind of oper­a­tional train­ing.”

    From the begin­ning, Alec Sta­tion, the oper­a­tive point­ed out, was run by intel­li­gence ana­lysts, many of them like the fic­tion­al hero­ine of Zero Dark Thir­ty, a com­pos­ite of real-life CIA ana­lysts. Over time, they began fan­cy­ing them­selves as field-savvy, ven­tur­ing into the operations—sometimes with dis­as­trous con­se­quences.

    “They had all these ana­lysts com­ing up with their grand schemes and fol­low­ing tar­gets,” said the for­mer offi­cer, who asked for anonymi­ty in exchange for talk­ing freely about clan­des­tine mat­ters. “But then they want­ed to call the shots on the oper­a­tional size of things, and that’s where their strengths were not.” It was an Alec Sta­tion ana­lyst, Jen­nifer Matthews, the oper­a­tive point­ed out, who recruit­ed the dou­ble agent who killed her and six oth­er CIA per­son­nel on a remote base in Afghanistan on Decem­ber 2009.

    “Their def­i­n­i­tion of a source was very dif­fer­ent from what an intel­li­gence offi­cer or case offi­cer or the [direc­torate of oper­a­tions] would con­sid­er a val­i­dat­ed bona fide source,” said the oper­a­tive. And the Alec Sta­tion ana­lysts did­n’t much like the wiz­ened old­er case offi­cers look­ing over their shoul­ders. “Some­times I’d pro­pose some­thing and they would warn me off, say­ing it might com­pro­mise some­body they were talk­ing to.”

    But who would they be talk­ing to? Not real ter­ror­ists. “I don’t think they ever per­son­al­ly talked to any­body,” the oper­a­tive said. “They just worked in their office in ten­nis shoes....They prob­a­bly got a source through liai­son. So their source [on the hijack­ers] might have been some­one in the Sau­di ser­vice who said they are talk­ing to some­body, or some­one in the Jor­dan­ian ser­vice who said he was talk­ing to some­one. As far I was con­cerned, they were a bunch of lying pieces of sh it. So they could’ve done that.”

    “That” mean­ing essen­tial­ly con­jur­ing up a rela­tion­ship with al-Mihd­har, per­haps through a very sen­si­tive source in Sau­di intel­li­gence, and sell­ing it as some­thing with great poten­tial to their CIA boss­es, who were des­per­ate to get some­thing going inside Al-Qae­da. This is essen­tial­ly what hap­pened with Matthews and her spy Humam al-Bal­awi, a doc­tor who claimed to be treat­ing Osama bin Laden’s deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri at his lair in Pak­istan. Bal­awi was served up to Matthews by Jor­dan­ian intel­li­gence, the CIA’s clos­est Mid­dle East part­ner out­side of Israel.
    ...

    Final­ly, note how Rossi­ni and Miller nev­er end­ed up shar­ing their expe­ri­ences with con­gres­sion­al inves­ti­ga­tors. Why? Because the two agents were told by the CIA not to say any­thing to the inves­ti­ga­tors. And when they were inter­viewed, a CIA offi­cial was sit­ting in the room mon­i­tor­ing their tes­ti­mo­ny. The full scope of what Alec Sta­tion was up to was kept a secret from con­gress under orders from the CIA. That’s a clue as to what we are look­ing at here:

    ...
    Rossi­ni recalled going to Miller’s cubi­cle right after his con­ver­sa­tion with Casey. “He looked at me like I was speak­ing a for­eign lan­guage.… We were both stunned and could not under­stand why the FBI was not going to be told about this.”

    It remains a mys­tery. None of the post‑9/11 inves­ti­gat­ing bod­ies were able to get to the bot­tom of it, in part because Rossi­ni and Miller, who con­tin­ued to work at Alec Sta­tion after the attacks, did­n’t tell any­one what hap­pened there. When con­gres­sion­al inves­ti­ga­tors came sniff­ing around, they kept their mouths shut.

    “We were told not to say any­thing to them,” Rossi­ni said. Who told you that? I asked. “The CIA. I can’t name names. It was just under­stood in the office that they were not to be trust­ed, that [the con­gres­sion­al inves­ti­ga­tors] were try­ing to pin this on some­one, that they were try­ing to put some­one in jail. They said [the inves­ti­ga­tors] weren’t autho­rized to know what was going on oper­a­tional­ly.… When we were inter­viewed, the CIA had a per­son in the room, mon­i­tor­ing us.”

    As a result, Rossi­ni was­n’t inter­viewed by the sub­se­quent 9/11 Com­mis­sion, either. “Based on that inter­view, I guess the 9/11 Com­mis­sion [which fol­lowed up the con­gres­sion­al probe] thought I did­n’t have any­thing wor­thy to say.” He kept his secret, he said, from the Jus­tice Depart­men­t’s inspec­tor gen­er­al as well. “I was still in shock,” he added, and still fear­ful of vio­lat­ing Alec Sta­tion’s demand for omer­ta. Final­ly, when his own agency—the FBI’s Office of Pro­fes­sion­al Respon­si­bil­i­ty (OPR)—came to him in late 2004, after the con­gres­sion­al probe and 9/11 Com­mis­sion had issued their reports, he opened up.

    “Tape recorders were run­ning. I was sit­ting right next to Can­dace Will, asso­ciate direc­tor of the FBI” in charge of the OPR, Rossi­ni recalled by tele­phone ear­ly this month. “It’s when I final­ly broke down and told them what had hap­pened, what I had done, and why. Those tape record­ings are the key, that’s what has to be released.”

    The CIA has long insist­ed it shared intel­li­gence about al-Mihd­har and al-Haz­mi with the FBI, but records gath­ered by the 9/11 Com­mis­sion con­tra­dict this asser­tion. Indeed, the pan­el could find no records sup­port­ing the claim of anoth­er Alec Sta­tion super­vi­sor, Alfre­da Bikowsky, that she had hand-car­ried a report to the FBI.
    ...

    So we can see how, with Alec Sta­tion, we have an oper­a­tion that is so wild­ly scan­dalous on its own it can nev­er pos­si­bly be hon­est­ly dis­cussed pub­licly due to the mas­sive rep­u­ta­tion­al dam­age that would be incurred by the US gov­ern­ment. And pos­si­bly ille­gal too, as Richard Clark point­ed out.

    And that’s part of what makes the ‘we tried to recruit them but it did­n’t go as planned’ nar­ra­tive so...convenient. Because if one was plan­ning an oper­a­tion that could NEVER EVER be revealed, run­ning that oper­a­tion through some­thing like Alec Sta­tion would be a great way to do it. Lay­er upon lay­er of nation­al secu­ri­ty excus­es already in place for why the truth can nev­er be revealed. It’s like a dia­bol­i­cal appli­ca­tion of some sort of spy game the­o­ry. If you can iden­ti­fy a moral­ly egre­gious oper­a­tion that can nev­er be revealed under any cir­cum­stances ever, what else can you slip into that oper­a­tion?

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | October 2, 2023, 5:33 pm
  10. The pic­ture keeps get­ting dark with each new rev­e­la­tion. And each new ‘oops!, we did­n’t mean for that to hap­pen’ expla­na­tion for all the ‘dropped balls’ in the months lead­ing up to 9/11. Dropped balls that increas­ing­ly appear to have been inten­tion­al­ly dropped as part of the joint CIA-FBI ille­gal domes­tic oper­a­tion seem­ing­ly run­ning cov­er for the 9/11 hijack­er on US soil. Appar­ent­ly all as part of some sort of ‘diver­sion’ in antic­i­pa­tion of an al-Qae­da attack expect­ed some­where in South­east Asia, accord­ing to the CIA agents work­ing in Alec Sta­tion.

    So with evi­dence increas­ing­ly point­ing towards the CIA and FBI effec­tive­ly ensur­ing the 9/11 hijack­ers were going to receive their flight train­ing in the US unen­cum­bered, and with the spe­cif­ic focus on pro­tect­ing the sus­pect­ed ter­ror­ist sta­tus of the two ‘San Diego cell’ mem­bers Nawaf al-Haz­mi and Khalid al-Mihd­har — osten­si­bly so the CIA could flip them to dou­ble agents — it’s worth look­ing at some of the still remark­able details that emerged in the post‑9/11 inves­ti­ga­tions. Details that sure sound remark­able famil­iar with the many mys­te­ri­ous still swirling around the sto­ry of Mohamed Atta and Aman­da Keller.

    For starters, it turns out that a pro­fes­sor who rent­ed al-Haz­mi and al-Mihd­har rooms in his home for sev­er­al months in 2000 was him­self an active FBI under­cov­er infor­mant. Not only that, but this pro­fes­sor was explic­it­ly tasked by the FBI with keep­ing an eye on the Sau­di youth com­mu­ni­ty. Incred­i­bly, it appears the pro­fes­sor nev­er told the FBI the iden­ti­ties of the two men liv­ing with him and the FBI agent assigned to this pro­fes­sor nev­er inquired.

    Keep in mind that al-Haz­mi and al-Mihd­har were hold­ing pri­vate meet­ings with none oth­er than Anwar al-Awla­ki at this time. Also keep in mind that al-Haz­mi and al-Mihd­har were the two fig­ures who ‘hap­pened to meet’ Sau­di intel­li­gence agent Omar al-Bay­ou­mi upon their arrival in San Diego. In oth­er words, by the time they end­ed up rent­ing a room from this pro­fes­sor in the fall of 2000, they were already under the pro­tec­tion of Sau­di intel­li­gence and pre­sum­ably also the CIA (pre­sum­ably in coor­di­na­tion with Sau­di intel­li­gence).

    And then we get to some details that were revealed in Sen­a­tor Phil Gra­ham’s con­gres­sion­al inves­ti­ga­tion into the attacks: while the pro­fes­sor char­ac­ter­ized the two renters as very qui­et and high­ly pious young men who kept to them­selves, Gra­ham’s inves­ti­ga­tion got a very dif­fer­ent pic­ture. One of wild par­ty­ing wand going out to night clubs and strip clubs. Al-Haz­mi even want­ed to mar­ry a strip­per at one point.

    So what’s the expla­na­tion for the FBI miss­ing how one of its own assets rent­ed a room to two of the hijack­ers? Well, accord­ing the con­clu­sions of the var­i­ous FBI or the inspec­tor gen­er­al’s reports, the FBI was more focused on drug traf­fick­ing. Which, of course, is a reminder of the fact that fed­er­al agents bust­ed a Lear Jet belong­ing to Rudy Dekkers with 43 pounds of hero­in in July of 2000. Which rais­es the ques­tion: was Dekker­s’s drug traf­fick­ing activ­i­ties — which he was bust­ed for in 2012 — some­how act­ing as a kind of diver­sion of its own? Some­thing to keep the FBI in ‘hands off’ mode while the CIA’s ille­gal ter­ror oper­a­tion plays out? We don’t know, but the more rev­e­la­tions we get the more we have to ask.

    Ok, first, here’s a Sep­tem­ber 2002 report about the then-new rev­e­la­tion about the FBI infor­mant rent­ing rooms out to two of the hijack­er. A “test­ed” asset who was work­ing close­ly with the FBI at the time. It was the kind of sig­nif­i­cant rev­e­la­tion that seems to get more sig­nif­i­cant with each new rev­e­la­tion:

    CBS News

    Hijack­ers Lived With FBI Infor­mant

    By Lloyd Vries
    Sep­tem­ber 9, 2002 / 8:30 AM / CBS

    Two of the Sept. 11 hijack­ers who lived in San Diego in 2000 rent­ed a room from a man who report­ed­ly worked as an under­cov­er FBI infor­mant, high­light­ing the lack of coop­er­a­tion by the nation’s law enforce­ment and intel­li­gence agen­cies.

    Newsweek mag­a­zine reports that Khalid Almi­hd­har and Nawaf Alhaz­mi lived with a “test­ed” under­cov­er “asset” who had been work­ing close­ly with the FBI office in San Diego.

    The mag­a­zine does not name the infor­mant.

    The con­nec­tion was dis­cov­ered by con­gres­sion­al inves­ti­ga­tors, reports Newsweek, and rais­es more ques­tions about infor­ma­tion-shar­ing among gov­ern­ment intel­li­gence agen­cies.

    A senior law-enforce­ment offi­cial told the mag­a­zine that the infor­mant nev­er pro­vid­ed the Bureau with the names of his two house­guests from Sau­di Ara­bia — but his FBI con­tact nev­er asked, either.

    The CIA was keep­ing an eye on the men after the two had attend­ed an al Qae­da sum­mit in Malaysia in Jan­u­ary 2000.

    Alhaz­mi and Almi­hd­har moved into the house in Sep­tem­ber of 2000. Almi­hd­har left six weeks lat­er and Alhaz­mi left at the end of the year.

    While there, the FBI infor­mant prayed with them and even helped one open a bank account. Alhaz­mi and Almi­hd­har took lessons at a flight school while liv­ing in San Diego.

    ...

    There is no evi­dence the infor­mant con­cealed the iden­ti­ty of the two men. In fact, after their names were report­ed in the news media fol­low­ing the attacks, the infor­mant con­tact­ed his FBI case agent to say the two men had been his room­mates.

    A big­ger ques­tions, said one counter-intel­li­gence expert, is why the case agent, who knew that two Sau­di men were stay­ing with the infor­mant, did­n’t show more curios­i­ty about them. If noth­ing else, he should have con­sid­ered them as pos­si­ble infor­mants them­selves.

    The CIA sent out an alert Aug. 23, 2001, nam­ing the two as pos­si­ble ter­ror­ists — but the FBI did­n’t know the names of the two house­guests, who had moved out months ear­li­er.

    ———–

    “Hijack­ers Lived With FBI Infor­mant” by Lloyd Vries; CBS News; 09/09/2002

    “Newsweek mag­a­zine reports that Khalid Almi­hd­har and Nawaf Alhaz­mi lived with a “test­ed” under­cov­er “asset” who had been work­ing close­ly with the FBI office in San Diego.”

    A “test­ed” under­cov­er “asset” who had been work­ing close­ly with the local FBI office. That’s who Khalid al-Mihd­har and Nawaf al-Haz­mi rent­ed a room from at one point in 2000. This was dis­cov­ered all the way back in 2002. By con­gres­sion­al inves­ti­ga­tors. Which is anoth­er way of say­ing that the FBI already knew about this but wait­ed for con­gres­sion­al inves­ti­ga­tors to find out:

    ...
    The con­nec­tion was dis­cov­ered by con­gres­sion­al inves­ti­ga­tors, reports Newsweek, and rais­es more ques­tions about infor­ma­tion-shar­ing among gov­ern­ment intel­li­gence agen­cies.
    ...

    And note how the FBI agent assigned to this room­mate nev­er asked about the iden­ti­ties of the two men rent­ing a room from this under­cov­er asset. Two room­mates who just hap­pened to be under CIA sur­veil­lance at the time over their al Qae­da ties. It was an appar­ent over­sight that became incred­i­bly con­ve­nient for the 9/11 plot when the CIA final­ly sent out that belat­ed August 23, 2001, memo nam­ing these two specif­i­cal­ly as pos­si­ble ter­ror­ists:

    ...
    A senior law-enforce­ment offi­cial told the mag­a­zine that the infor­mant nev­er pro­vid­ed the Bureau with the names of his two house­guests from Sau­di Ara­bia — but his FBI con­tact nev­er asked, either.

    ...

    There is no evi­dence the infor­mant con­cealed the iden­ti­ty of the two men. In fact, after their names were report­ed in the news media fol­low­ing the attacks, the infor­mant con­tact­ed his FBI case agent to say the two men had been his room­mates.

    A big­ger ques­tions, said one counter-intel­li­gence expert, is why the case agent, who knew that two Sau­di men were stay­ing with the infor­mant, did­n’t show more curios­i­ty about them. If noth­ing else, he should have con­sid­ered them as pos­si­ble infor­mants them­selves.

    The CIA sent out an alert Aug. 23, 2001, nam­ing the two as pos­si­ble ter­ror­ists — but the FBI did­n’t know the names of the two house­guests, who had moved out months ear­li­er.
    ...

    And all of this was known as far back as 2002. Flash for­ward to the fol­low­ing Sep­tem­ber 2011 inter­view of KPBS Inves­tiga­tive Reporter Ami­ta Shar­ma on the lives al-Haz­mi and al-Mihd­har lived dur­ing their time in San Diego, and we find some extreme­ly inter­est­ing addi­tion­al details. Details that sound very famil­iar to the ‘this nev­er hap­pened’ sto­ry around Mohamed Atta and Aman­da Keller.

    Now, accord­ing to the FBI-infor­mant pro­fes­sor who rent­ed the pair of hijack­ers rooms in his home for a time in 2000, the two were extreme­ly pious and reli­gious­ly con­ser­v­a­tive and lived qui­et lives. Notably, this pro­fes­sor was explic­it­ly tasked by the FBI with keep­ing an eye on the Sau­di youth liv­ing in the area. Keep in mind that the reli­gious activ­i­ties of the two hijack­ers at the time includ­ed pri­vate meet­ings with Anwar al-Awla­ki.

    But accord­ing to the find­ings of Sen­a­tor Phil Gra­ham, a very dif­fer­ent pic­ture emerges. One of wild par­ty­ing and going out to night­clubs and strip clubs. Al-Haz­mi even want­ed to mar­ry a strip­per at one point, accord­ing to Gra­ham’s find­ings.

    And then Shar­ma points to this extreme­ly inter­est­ing detail from Gra­ham’s inves­ti­ga­tion: part of the alleged rea­son the FBI ‘dropped the ball’ so exten­sive­ly in keep an eye out for ter­ror­ists is that it was focused on drug traf­fick­ing. Which, of course, is a reminder that Rudy Dekkers was run­ning a hero­in traf­fick­ing oper­a­tion.

    Now, on the one hand, it seems like the inclu­sion of a drug traf­fick­ing oper­a­tion with your ille­gal domes­tic ter­ror-relat­ed oper­a­tion is just ask­ing for more trou­ble. But if it real­ly was the case that the FBI’s ‘focus on drug traf­fick­ing’ was some­how sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly blind­ing the agency to a domes­tic ter­ror­ist oper­a­tion the CIA want­ed to keep hid­den, that rais­es all sorts of ques­tions about the deci­sion to have the South Flori­da ter­ror cell train­ing at Huff­man Avi­a­tion. Was com­min­gling an ille­gal domes­tic ter­ror oper­a­tion with drug-traf­fick­ing a way of keep­ing the whole this more hid­den from domes­tic law enforce­ment? And what about the San Diego cell? Was there some sort of drug traf­fick­ing angle there we nev­er learned about? We still don’t know. But the more we learn about the CIA and FBI senior lead­er­ship run­ning cov­er for the hijack­ers, the more we have to ask:

    KPBS Mid­day Edi­tion

    Retrac­ing The Sto­ry: 9/11 Hijack­ers In San Diego

    By Mau­reen Cavanaugh / KPBS Mid­day Edi­tion Co-Host, Megan Burke / News Edi­tor
    Pub­lished Sep­tem­ber 6, 2011 at 8:30 AM PDT

    The focus this Sun­day will be on New York, Wash­ing­ton and Penn­syl­va­nia as the nation remem­bers the 9/11 ter­ror attacks that seem­ing­ly came out of nowhere 10 years ago. But they did­n’t come out of nowhere. We’ve learned they were care­ful­ly planned by a net­work of Al Qae­da ter­ror­ists. The 19 hijack­ers were trained and sup­port­ed in a num­ber of dif­fer­ent places, Afghanistan, Ger­many, Flori­da and right here in San Diego.

    Guest

    KPBS Inves­tiga­tive Reporter Ami­ta Shar­ma is here to recall the part of the ter­ror plot played out in San Diego, and what intel­li­gence agen­cies have learned from their mis­takes.

    Read Tran­script

    This is a rush tran­script cre­at­ed by a con­trac­tor for KPBS to improve acces­si­bil­i­ty for the deaf and hard-of-hear­ing. Please refer to the media file as the for­mal record of this inter­view. Opin­ions expressed by guests dur­ing inter­views reflect the guest’s indi­vid­ual views and do not nec­es­sar­i­ly rep­re­sent those of KPBS staff, mem­bers or its spon­sors.

    CAVANAUGH: I’m — this is KPBS Mid­day Edi­tion am I’m Mau­reen Cavanaugh. As you heard the focus this Sun­day will be on New York and Wash­ing­ton and Penn­syl­va­nia as the nation remem­bers the 911 attacks that seem will came out of nowhere ten years ago. But they did­n’t come out of nowhere. We’ve learned they were care­ful­ly planned by a net­work of al-Qae­da ter­ror­ists. The 19 hijack­ers were trained and sup­port­ed in a num­ber of dif­fer­ent places. Afghanistan, Ger­many, Flori­da, and right here in San Diego. The fact that our city was a tem­po­rary base for two 911 ter­ror­ists is mind bog­gling even today. KPBS inves­tiga­tive reporter Ami­ta Shar­ma is here to recall that part of the ter­ror plot played out in San Diego. And what intel­li­gence agen­cies have learned from their mis­takes. Now, remind us, who were the two hijack­er who is lived in San Diego.

    SHARMA: The two hijack­ers were Nawaf al-Haz­mi, and Khalid al-Mihd­har, they helped play the plane into the Pen­ta­gon on Sep­tem­ber 11th. The two men were on in their twen­ties, they came here pos­ing as stu­dents. The rela­tion­ship he says he sent them here is he pick up a San Diego phone book at a Karachi Pak­istan flee mar­ket, went thumb­ing through it and decid­ed to send the two men here.

    CAVANAUGH: Where did they live in San Diego?

    SHARMA: When they first arrived, they lived in Claire­mont the Park­wood Apart­ments, which is a cou­ple of blocks away from the Islam­ic cen­ter at San Diego, where they prayed.

    CAVANAUGH: And when did they actu­al­ly arrive here?

    SHARMA: They came here in Jan­u­ary of 2,000. And al-Haz­mi stayed here for most of the year. Khalid al-Mihd­har, prob­a­bly stayed for about 5 or 6 months then went to Yemen for a vis­it.

    CAVANAUGH: Were they helped or set­tled in here by any­one? Where did they receive their assist­n’t beance?

    SHARMA: This is where all of this becomes extreme­ly intrigu­ing. A Sau­di man by the name of Omar al-Bay­ou­mi, who worked for a Sau­di gov­ern­ment con­trac­tor helped the two men find apart­ments in Claire­mont. He spruced them to oth­er Mus­lims in the area, he even threw a par­ty for them. Before al-Bay­ou­mi helped the hijack­er, he received $465 per month from the Sau­di con­trac­tor. After he helped then, he receive $3,700 a month. I spoke with the man who cochaired the nation­al inquiry into 911, and here’s what he thought about the jump main pay.

    NEW SPEAKER: The inter­pre­ta­tion we gave to it was that Bay­ou­mi was a con­duit of financ­ing for the two hijack­ers while they were in San Diego.

    SHARMA: Anoth­er per­son whom I want to men­tion was Anwar al-Awla­ki. He is a list of a hit list by the U.S. gov­ern­ment, for assas­si­na­tion. He was an Imam in 2000 at the mosque in La Mesa. And they would meet him in Ia pri­vate room after Fri­day prayers. Now, there are some inves­ti­ga­tors who believe that al-Awla­ki offered these men spir­i­tu­al coun­sel­ing for what lay ahead.

    CAVANAUGH: And just to reminder our lis­ten­er, al-Awla­ki is now one of the most sought after ter­ror­ists in the world is he not?

    SHARMA: He is, and he is the head of the al Qae­da in Yemen.

    CAVANAUGH: We have two dif­fer­ing reports of al-Mihd­har and al-Haz­mi while they were here in San Diego. Some peo­ple say they were qui­et and they kept to them­selves. Oth­ers say they went wild while they were here.

    SHARMA: Right. Of that’s exact­ly it. There were two sides. When I inter­viewed doc­tor shake­who rent­ed rooms to the two guy, he said they were these desert men, very sim­ple, ate and slept on the floor, prayered often, they lis­tened to cas­settes of the Koran in air bake. When I spoke to Sen­a­tor Gra­ham, he paint­ed anoth­er side of them.

    NEW SPEAKER: Well, they drank, they went to night­clubs, strip clubs, and at one point, al-Haz­mi want­ed to mar­ry one of the strip­pers, and that was final­ly quashed.

    CAVANAUGH: So where is the truth in that? Do we have any way of know some­thing.

    SHARMA: We don’t have any way of know­ing. I believe doc­tor chic saw one side of them, and then inves­ti­ga­tors also retraced these guys’ steps here in oth­er places in the coun­try. And then start­ed putting the piece of the puz­zle togeth­er and this is what they got.

    CAVANAUGH: Is this inves­ti­ga­tion, this con­gres­sion­al inves­ti­ga­tion, includ­ed in the 911 report? Or are they two sep­a­rate –

    SHARMA: They’re two sep­a­rate inves­ti­ga­tions.

    CAVANAUGH: So the two hijack­ers here in San Diego, did they train for the attacks near.

    SHARMA: They took flight lessons at sobery fly­ing club in San Diego. That’s the extent of per­haps their train­ing that at least laypeo­ple know.

    CAVANAUGH: What part of the attacks on 911 were these two men were involved in?

    SHARMA: They flew the plane into the Pen­ta­gon.

    CAVANAUGH: I see. You men­tion a doc­tor sheik, and his role in this is very inter­est­ing. What did pro­fes­sor sheik do for these two men when they were in San Diego?

    SHARMA: He rent­ed rooms. At that time, I think he was rent­ing­ly rooms in his house in Lemon Grove to a num­ber of peo­ple. He was an elder­ly man. He was divorced, I believe. And so he decid­ed one way to help maybe take away some of the lone­li­ness was to have peo­ple live with him. So he rent­ed rooms to these two guys. I spoke to him after the attacks, and he was dev­as­tat­ed to learn that these two men had been involved in some­thing so mur­der­ous, so vile. He says he nev­er had a hint. Again, that they were qui­et, they kept to them­selves, and they were extreme­ly con­ser­v­a­tive reli­gious­ly.

    CAVANAUGH: But was­n’t the pro­fes­sor work­ing for the FBI? I mean as an infor­mant?

    SHARMA: Yes, he was. And in fact, his prin­ci­ple respon­si­bil­i­ty, accord­ing to Sen­a­tor Gra­ham was watch­ing Sau­di youth in San Diego to fairet out whether they were plan­ning some­thing that was harm­ful that was detri­men­tal to the Unit­ed States.

    CAVANAUGH: That was his assign­ment?

    SHARMA: That was his assign­ment.

    CAVANAUGH: And he was pay for­ward that.

    SHARMA: He was pay for­ward that.

    CAVANAUGH: And yet there were no bells that went off about these two men in San Diego that brought them par­tic­u­lar­ly to his atten­tion.

    SHARMA: Not that we know of.

    CAVANAUGH: Now, for­mer Sen­a­tor Bob Gra­ham puts the Saud­is in the spot­light when it comes to fund­ing these hijack­erce in San Diego. What will does­ly have to say about that?

    SHARMA: He says that Omar al-Bay­ou­mi and anoth­er Sau­di man in San Diego were work­ing for the Sau­di gov­ern­ment. He does­n’t say the con­trac­tor. He says they were work­ing for the Sau­di gov­ern­ment when they gave a sig­nif­i­cant amount of finan­cial sup­port to al-Haz­mi and al-Mihd­har. And Gra­ham says that dur­ing the inquiry, con­gres­sion­al inquiry, when he tried to inves­ti­gate that link between the Sau­di gov­ern­ment and these hijack­ers that his staff was shut down by the FBI and the bush admin­is­tra­tion. I asked for­mer spe­cial agent in charge Bill Gore in San Diego about that, and he said he can’t attest to that. He nev­er shut down Sen­a­tor Gra­ham’s inves­ti­ga­tion into that. But whether peo­ple who were far more senior than him in the FBI and in the bush admin­is­tra­tion tried to do that he can’t speak to it.

    CAVANAUGH: So for­mer Sen­a­tor who was on the inves­tiga­tive com­mis­sion into 911 for the Sen­ate was — says he could­n’t get the infor­ma­tion that he need­ed to make these links of pay­ment between the Sau­di it is and the two hijack­ers that were in San Diego. It sounds as if Sen­a­tor Gra­ham did an awful lot of inves­ti­ga­tion pri­mar­i­ly on this San Diego aspect of the plot.

    SHARMA: Yes, he did. And the bit about doc­tor sheik being an infor­mant for the FBI and hav­ing these 2 Sep­tem­ber 11th hijack­ers live with him, that was­n’t lost on any of the inquiries into these attacks. The point is made in the inves­ti­ga­tions into 911, and the FBI in San Diego is crit­i­cized, A, for not fol­low­ing FBI pol­i­cy that ter­ror­ism, counter ter­ror­ism was sup­posed to be the top pri­or­i­ty. And dur­ing the inves­ti­ga­tions var­i­ous reports con­clud­ed that the FBI or the inspec­tor gen­er­al’s report con­clud­ed that the FBI was more focused on drug traf­fick­ing. They also say that the fact that sheik was an FBI infor­mant while these guys were liv­ing with him was a missed oppor­tu­ni­ty for the FBI to have scru­ti­nized Nawaf al-Has­mi and Khalid Mihd­har more close­ly. I spoke with Bill Gore about that, and he says that sheik — there was no rea­son to scru­ti­nize these two men before the attacks oth­er than the fact that they were Mus­lim. They were here legal­ly, they held valid dri­ver’s licens­es. So sec­ond­ly he says, had the CIA, which knew that the two guys had attend­ed al Qae­da meet­ings in Malaysia, that they knew at least one of them had got­ten a visa to enter the Unit­ed States, had they shared that infor­ma­tion with the FBI, then the FBI could have at least retraced their steps in San Diego and per­haps helped find these guys.

    CAVANAUGH: I just want to have one more ques­tion about the doc­tor sheik in all of this, because for­mer Sen­a­tor Bob Gra­ham says that his com­mit­tee was unable to talk to him dur­ing their inves­ti­ga­tion. Why was he unavail­able?

    SHARMA: Well, Bill Gore says that he nev­er pre­vent­ed Sen­a­tor Gra­ham or his staff in speak­ing to sheik. The deci­sion to not speak to Gra­ham is and his staff was made by doc­tor sheik him­self.

    CAVANAUGH: And there’s no way that he could be com­pelled to give tes­ti­mo­ny before this par­tic­u­lar Sen­ate inquiry.

    SHARMA: It appears not.

    ...

    ———–

    “Retrac­ing The Sto­ry: 9/11 Hijack­ers In San Diego” by Mau­reen Cavanaugh and Megan Burke; KPBS Mid­day Edi­tion; 09/06/2011

    “CAVANAUGH: We have two dif­fer­ing reports of al-Mihd­har and al-Haz­mi while they were here in San Diego. Some peo­ple say they were qui­et and they kept to them­selves. Oth­ers say they went wild while they were here.

    Two com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent reports of Khalid al-Mihd­har and Nawaf al-Haz­mi: one report — from the pro­fes­sor who rent­ed them the rooms — of pious indi­vid­u­als who kept to them­selves, and anoth­er report — from Sen­a­tor Phil Gra­ham’s con­gres­sion­al inves­ti­ga­tion — of par­ty ani­mals who went wild. Al-Haz­mi even appar­ent­ly want­ed to mar­ry a strip­per accord­ing to Gra­ham. It’s a jux­ta­po­si­tion that sure sounds awful­ly rem­i­nis­cent of the Mohamed Atta/Amanda Keller sto­ry that also alleged­ly nev­er hap­pened:

    ...
    SHARMA: Right. Of that’s exact­ly it. There were two sides. When I inter­viewed doc­tor shake­who rent­ed rooms to the two guy, he said they were these desert men, very sim­ple, ate and slept on the floor, prayered often, they lis­tened to cas­settes of the Koran in air bake. When I spoke to Sen­a­tor Gra­ham, he paint­ed anoth­er side of them.

    NEW SPEAKER: Well, they drank, they went to night­clubs, strip clubs, and at one point, al-Haz­mi want­ed to mar­ry one of the strip­pers, and that was final­ly quashed.

    CAVANAUGH: So where is the truth in that? Do we have any way of know some­thing.

    SHARMA: We don’t have any way of know­ing. I believe doc­tor chic saw one side of them, and then inves­ti­ga­tors also retraced these guys’ steps here in oth­er places in the coun­try. And then start­ed putting the piece of the puz­zle togeth­er and this is what they got.
    ...

    And note how the pro­fes­sor rent­ing the rooms was­n’t just a ran­dom FBI infor­mant. He was specif­i­cal­ly tasked with keep­ing an eye on the Sau­di youth in the San Diego area. Which makes their pri­vate meet­ings with Anwar al-Awla­ki at the time all the more remark­able:

    ...
    SHARMA: Anoth­er per­son whom I want to men­tion was Anwar al-Awla­ki. He is a list of a hit list by the U.S. gov­ern­ment, for assas­si­na­tion. He was an Imam in 2000 at the mosque in La Mesa. And they would meet him in Ia pri­vate room after Fri­day prayers. Now, there are some inves­ti­ga­tors who believe that al-Awla­ki offered these men spir­i­tu­al coun­sel­ing for what lay ahead.

    CAVANAUGH: And just to reminder our lis­ten­er, al-Awla­ki is now one of the most sought after ter­ror­ists in the world is he not?

    SHARMA: He is, and he is the head of the al Qae­da in Yemen.

    ...

    CAVANAUGH: I see. You men­tion a doc­tor sheik, and his role in this is very inter­est­ing. What did pro­fes­sor sheik do for these two men when they were in San Diego?

    SHARMA: He rent­ed rooms. At that time, I think he was rent­ing­ly rooms in his house in Lemon Grove to a num­ber of peo­ple. He was an elder­ly man. He was divorced, I believe. And so he decid­ed one way to help maybe take away some of the lone­li­ness was to have peo­ple live with him. So he rent­ed rooms to these two guys. I spoke to him after the attacks, and he was dev­as­tat­ed to learn that these two men had been involved in some­thing so mur­der­ous, so vile. He says he nev­er had a hint. Again, that they were qui­et, they kept to them­selves, and they were extreme­ly con­ser­v­a­tive reli­gious­ly.

    CAVANAUGH: But was­n’t the pro­fes­sor work­ing for the FBI? I mean as an infor­mant?

    SHARMA: Yes, he was. And in fact, his prin­ci­ple respon­si­bil­i­ty, accord­ing to Sen­a­tor Gra­ham was watch­ing Sau­di youth in San Diego to fairet out whether they were plan­ning some­thing that was harm­ful that was detri­men­tal to the Unit­ed States.

    CAVANAUGH: That was his assign­ment?

    SHARMA: That was his assign­ment.

    CAVANAUGH: And he was pay for­ward that.

    SHARMA: He was pay for­ward that.

    CAVANAUGH: And yet there were no bells that went off about these two men in San Diego that brought them par­tic­u­lar­ly to his atten­tion.

    SHARMA: Not that we know of.
    ...

    And then we get to this very inter­est­ing seem­ing expla­na­tion for why it was that the FBI had so lit­tle inter­est in men liv­ing with their FBI asset tasked with keep­ing an eye on the Sau­di youth in the com­mu­ni­ty: the FBI was alleged­ly too focused on drug traf­fick­ing. Which, of course, brings us back to the whole sto­ry of Rudy Dekkers and hero­in traf­fick­ing oper­a­tion tak­ing place at Huff­man Avi­a­tion. A sto­ry that effec­tive­ly con­firmed with the 2012 arrest of Dekkers in Hous­ton on drug traf­fick­ing charges. So with at least some of the hijack­ers train­ing at a facil­i­ty where drug traf­fick­ing was tak­ing place, was drug traf­fick­ing used as a kind of ‘don’t look for ter­ror­ists’ cov­er for this oper­a­tion? Let’s not for­get that all signs are at this point that the CIA was run­ning what was effec­tive­ly an ille­gal domes­tic oper­a­tion. Was the inclu­sion of drug traf­fick­ers part of that effort to ‘offi­cial­ly’ hide what was hap­pen­ing by giv­ing the FBI an excuse to view the oper­a­tion with spe­cial drug-relat­ed blind­ers?

    ...
    CAVANAUGH: Now, for­mer Sen­a­tor Bob Gra­ham puts the Saud­is in the spot­light when it comes to fund­ing these hijack­erce in San Diego. What will does­ly have to say about that?

    SHARMA: He says that Omar al-Bay­ou­mi and anoth­er Sau­di man in San Diego were work­ing for the Sau­di gov­ern­ment. He does­n’t say the con­trac­tor. He says they were work­ing for the Sau­di gov­ern­ment when they gave a sig­nif­i­cant amount of finan­cial sup­port to al-Haz­mi and al-Mihd­har. And Gra­ham says that dur­ing the inquiry, con­gres­sion­al inquiry, when he tried to inves­ti­gate that link between the Sau­di gov­ern­ment and these hijack­ers that his staff was shut down by the FBI and the bush admin­is­tra­tion. I asked for­mer spe­cial agent in charge Bill Gore in San Diego about that, and he said he can’t attest to that. He nev­er shut down Sen­a­tor Gra­ham’s inves­ti­ga­tion into that. But whether peo­ple who were far more senior than him in the FBI and in the bush admin­is­tra­tion tried to do that he can’t speak to it.

    CAVANAUGH: So for­mer Sen­a­tor who was on the inves­tiga­tive com­mis­sion into 911 for the Sen­ate was — says he could­n’t get the infor­ma­tion that he need­ed to make these links of pay­ment between the Sau­di it is and the two hijack­ers that were in San Diego. It sounds as if Sen­a­tor Gra­ham did an awful lot of inves­ti­ga­tion pri­mar­i­ly on this San Diego aspect of the plot.

    SHARMA: Yes, he did. And the bit about doc­tor sheik being an infor­mant for the FBI and hav­ing these 2 Sep­tem­ber 11th hijack­ers live with him, that was­n’t lost on any of the inquiries into these attacks. The point is made in the inves­ti­ga­tions into 911, and the FBI in San Diego is crit­i­cized, A, for not fol­low­ing FBI pol­i­cy that ter­ror­ism, counter ter­ror­ism was sup­posed to be the top pri­or­i­ty. And dur­ing the inves­ti­ga­tions var­i­ous reports con­clud­ed that the FBI or the inspec­tor gen­er­al’s report con­clud­ed that the FBI was more focused on drug traf­fick­ing. They also say that the fact that sheik was an FBI infor­mant while these guys were liv­ing with him was a missed oppor­tu­ni­ty for the FBI to have scru­ti­nized Nawaf al-Has­mi and Khalid Mihd­har more close­ly. I spoke with Bill Gore about that, and he says that sheik — there was no rea­son to scru­ti­nize these two men before the attacks oth­er than the fact that they were Mus­lim. They were here legal­ly, they held valid dri­ver’s licens­es. So sec­ond­ly he says, had the CIA, which knew that the two guys had attend­ed al Qae­da meet­ings in Malaysia, that they knew at least one of them had got­ten a visa to enter the Unit­ed States, had they shared that infor­ma­tion with the FBI, then the FBI could have at least retraced their steps in San Diego and per­haps helped find these guys.

    CAVANAUGH: I just want to have one more ques­tion about the doc­tor sheik in all of this, because for­mer Sen­a­tor Bob Gra­ham says that his com­mit­tee was unable to talk to him dur­ing their inves­ti­ga­tion. Why was he unavail­able?

    SHARMA: Well, Bill Gore says that he nev­er pre­vent­ed Sen­a­tor Gra­ham or his staff in speak­ing to sheik. The deci­sion to not speak to Gra­ham is and his staff was made by doc­tor sheik him­self.
    ...

    This is also a good time to keep in mind that it was 1998 when the CIA pub­licly acknowl­edged its direct role in the Iran-Con­tra crack cocaine traf­fick­ing oper­a­tions. So, again, we have to ask if there was some sort of ‘hands off, just observe and wait’ kind of pro­to­col that kicks in for drug traf­fick­ing oper­a­tions? Was the FBI get­ting hints that cer­tain drug traf­fick­ers had CIA ties and should be giv­en a wide berth? It’s just some of the many still unan­swered ques­tions hang­ing over this sto­ry. Ques­tions that simul­ta­ne­ous­ly grow more and more stale with time, and yet more and more urgent with each shock­ing rev­e­la­tion and their shock­ing impli­ca­tions.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | October 5, 2023, 5:16 pm
  11. It was the big sto­ry of the Israel/Gaza con­flict this week. The big rev­e­la­tion about what Israel knew and when it knew it. And just the lat­est rev­e­la­tion, fol­low­ing a series reports on the mas­sive ‘intel­li­gence fail­ures’ that led up to the Octo­ber 7 sur­prise mass ter­ror strike. Right away, we were told about ignored warn­ings from Egypt­ian intel­li­gence that result­ed in a rede­ploy­ment of Israeli forces away from Gaza to the West Bank. Then we learned about how Israel actu­al­ly had a high lev­el mole near Hamas’s lead­er­ship who was exposed just days before the attack. And then we learned that even the US intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty appar­ent­ly decid­ed to stop track­ing Hamas in recent years, with new ambi­tions of recruit­ing Hamas as assets against ISIS tak­ing hold. When ref­er­ences to ‘9/11-style intel­li­gence fail­ures’ the entire time.

    So, per­haps fit­ting­ly giv­en the ‘9/11-style intel­li­gence fail­ure’ theme of the nar­ra­tives that have tak­en hold, we are now learn­ing that Israel was well aware of Hamas’s plans for years now, going back to 2016 when the first plans for some­thing on the scale of Octo­ber 7 were revealed.

    The most recent play­book for the attack was a 40-page doc­u­ment giv­en the code­name “Jeri­cho Wall” by Israeli intel­li­gence. The plans includ­ed the kind of full spec­trum assault that Israel expe­ri­enced on Octo­ber 7. The doc­u­ment is said to have been wide­ly cir­cu­lat­ed among Israeli intel­li­gence offi­cials, but was deter­mined to be beyond Hamas’s capa­bil­i­ties. And yet, in July, a Unit 8200 actu­al­ly picked up on an intense, day­long train­ing exer­cise Hamas con­duct­ed that appeared sim­i­lar to what was out­lined in the Jeri­cho Wall blue­print. A senior Hamas com­man­der was observ­ing the train­ing exer­cise. Her con­cerns were brushed off by a colonel as a “total­ly imag­i­na­tive” sce­nario not indica­tive of Hamas’s capa­bil­i­ties.

    Yes, in less than two months, the nar­ra­tive has already gone from “Israel had no idea this was com­ing” to “actu­al­ly, Israel had exten­sive warn­ings this was com­ing, but brushed them off as fan­tas­ti­cal.” How will the nar­ra­tive evolve from here? We’ll see, but the fact that we now know this was­n’t actu­al­ly a sur­prise attack is pre­sum­ably not going to do any­thing to quell sus­pi­cions that this was an attack wel­comed by the extrem­ists in the far right Netanyahu coali­tion gov­ern­ment.

    It’s that fact that this was an Israeli gov­ern­ment run by far right extrem­ists who prob­a­bly wel­come this broad­er con­flict and yet some­how man­aged to over­see this amaz­ing ‘intel­li­gence fail­ure’ that brings us to one of the par­al­lels here to the pre‑9/11 ‘intel­li­gence fail­ures’ that has­n’t received much atten­tion over the last 22 years, but is only becom­ing hard­er and hard­er to ignore as time go by: the per­son run­ning the ‘Alec Sta­tion’ CIA/FBI fusion cen­ter tasked with track­ing al Qae­da is him­self an open fas­cist. That would, of course, by Michael Scheuer, the orig­i­nal sta­tion chief for Alec Sta­tion who held that posi­tion until 1999. Flash for­ward to today, and Scheuer reg­u­lar­ly calls for mass vio­lence against Democ­rats and oth­er left­ist. Calls for mass vio­lence that are only grow­ing loud­er as we get clos­er to the 2024 elec­tion cycle. In fact, back in July, Fox News host Jea­nine Pir­ro went on Scheuer’s pod­cast for an inter­view dur­ing which Scheuer expressed the sen­ti­ment that the 2nd Amend­ment is need­ed “to take care of these ver­min” who “rigged” elec­tions. So when Trump was call­ing for the mass jail­ing of “ver­min” last month, he was echo­ing Mike Scheuer.

    In addi­tion, it also turns out Scheuer’s future wife was one of the ana­lyst work­ing with Scheuer at Alec Sta­tion. Alfre­da Bikowsky was recruit­ed there in the late 90s as chief of oper­a­tions and set out to expand what “oper­a­tion” could mean. Instead of just recruit­ing for­eign nation­als, oper­a­tions also meant “fig­ur­ing out who it is that we should be look­ing for, who they’re con­nect­ed to,” accord­ing to Bikowsky. Recall how one of the unusu­al aspects of how Alec Sta­tion oper­at­ed that was seen as a con­flict of inter­est by many is how ‘Alec Sta­tion’ was­n’t just run­ning cov­er for al-Haz­mi but also pos­si­bly try­ing to recruit him as an asset. That com­bi­na­tion of sur­veil­lance and recruit­ment was­n’t stan­dard and might lead to sit­u­a­tions where the agency is con­flict­ed about what intel­li­gence it can share with the rest of the intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty. But it was how Alec Sta­tion oper­at­ed and Mike Scheuer’s future wife (they got mar­ried in 2014) is the per­son who played a key role in that unusu­al arrange­ment. In fact, Bikowsky is named by whistle­blow­ers as one of the key fig­ures who blocked the shar­ing of infor­ma­tion about the 9/11 hijack­ers. Post‑9/11, Bikowsky went on to become a cen­tral per­son in the CIA’s black site inter­ro­ga­tion pro­grams.

    Yes, the guy run­ning Alec Sta­tion until 1999 is, today, an open fas­cist call­ing for mass polit­i­cal vio­lence. And his now-wife has been named as one of the fig­ures who ran cov­er for the 9/11 hijack­ers, effec­tive­ly pro­tect­ing their ter­ror oper­a­tion from US law enforce­ment. It’s one of many inter­est­ing things about the 9/11 intel­li­gence fail­ure that has­n’t received much atten­tion over the past cou­ple of decades, in part because it was­n’t clear at first just what a fas­cist nut job Michael Scheuer was going to become. But that’s clear now.

    So with rev­e­la­tion that Israel’s far right gov­ern­ment in fact knew about Hamas’s but some­how just brushed them off as fan­ta­sy, result­ing in a mas­sive con­flict like­ly wel­comed by many of these same extrem­ists, amid grow­ing com­par­isons to the ‘9/11-style’ intel­li­gence fail­ures that took place, it’s prob­a­bly now a good time to final­ly rec­og­nize the extrem­ist pol­i­tics behind some of key peo­ple involved.

    Ok, first, here’s an excerpt of that big NY Times report on the lat­est round of rev­e­la­tions. Rev­e­la­tions that hap­pen to direct­ly con­tra­dict the ‘we had no idea this was com­ing’ ini­tial nar­ra­tive we’ve been told this whole time:

    The New York Times

    Israel Knew Hamas’s Attack Plan More Than a Year Ago

    A blue­print reviewed by The Times laid out the attack in detail. Israeli offi­cials dis­missed it as aspi­ra­tional and ignored spe­cif­ic warn­ings.

    By Ronen Bergman and Adam Gold­man
    Report­ing from Tel Aviv
    Nov. 30, 2023, 7:16 p.m. ET

    Israeli offi­cials obtained Hamas’s bat­tle plan for the Oct. 7 ter­ror­ist attack more than a year before it hap­pened, doc­u­ments, emails and inter­views show. But Israeli mil­i­tary and intel­li­gence offi­cials dis­missed the plan as aspi­ra­tional, con­sid­er­ing it too dif­fi­cult for Hamas to car­ry out.

    The approx­i­mate­ly 40-page doc­u­ment, which the Israeli author­i­ties code-named “Jeri­cho Wall,” out­lined, point by point, exact­ly the kind of dev­as­tat­ing inva­sion that led to the deaths of about 1,200 peo­ple.

    The trans­lat­ed doc­u­ment, which was reviewed by The New York Times, did not set a date for the attack, but described a method­i­cal assault designed to over­whelm the for­ti­fi­ca­tions around the Gaza Strip, take over Israeli cities and storm key mil­i­tary bases, includ­ing a divi­sion head­quar­ters.

    Hamas fol­lowed the blue­print with shock­ing pre­ci­sion. The doc­u­ment called for a bar­rage of rock­ets at the out­set of the attack, drones to knock out the secu­ri­ty cam­eras and auto­mat­ed machine guns along the bor­der, and gun­men to pour into Israel en masse in paraglid­ers, on motor­cy­cles and on foot — all of which hap­pened on Oct. 7.

    The plan also includ­ed details about the loca­tion and size of Israeli mil­i­tary forces, com­mu­ni­ca­tion hubs and oth­er sen­si­tive infor­ma­tion, rais­ing ques­tions about how Hamas gath­ered its intel­li­gence and whether there were leaks inside the Israeli secu­ri­ty estab­lish­ment.

    The doc­u­ment cir­cu­lat­ed wide­ly among Israeli mil­i­tary and intel­li­gence lead­ers, but experts deter­mined that an attack of that scale and ambi­tion was beyond Hamas’s capa­bil­i­ties, accord­ing to doc­u­ments and offi­cials. It is unclear whether Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Netanyahu or oth­er top polit­i­cal lead­ers saw the doc­u­ment, as well.

    Last year, short­ly after the doc­u­ment was obtained, offi­cials in the Israeli military’s Gaza divi­sion, which is respon­si­ble for defend­ing the bor­der with Gaza, said that Hamas’s inten­tions were unclear.

    “It is not yet pos­si­ble to deter­mine whether the plan has been ful­ly accept­ed and how it will be man­i­fest­ed,” read a mil­i­tary assess­ment reviewed by The Times.

    Then, in July, just three months before the attacks, a vet­er­an ana­lyst with Unit 8200, Israel’s sig­nals intel­li­gence agency, warned that Hamas had con­duct­ed an intense, day­long train­ing exer­cise that appeared sim­i­lar to what was out­lined in the blue­print.

    But a colonel in the Gaza divi­sion brushed off her con­cerns, accord­ing to encrypt­ed emails viewed by The Times.

    “I utter­ly refute that the sce­nario is imag­i­nary,” the ana­lyst wrote in the email exchanges. The Hamas train­ing exer­cise, she said, ful­ly matched “the con­tent of Jeri­cho Wall.”

    “It is a plan designed to start a war,” she added. “It’s not just a raid on a vil­lage.”

    Offi­cials pri­vate­ly con­cede that, had the mil­i­tary tak­en these warn­ings seri­ous­ly and redi­rect­ed sig­nif­i­cant rein­force­ments to the south, where Hamas attacked, Israel could have blunt­ed the attacks or pos­si­bly even pre­vent­ed them.

    Instead, the Israeli mil­i­tary was unpre­pared as ter­ror­ists streamed out of the Gaza Strip. It was the dead­liest day in Israel’s his­to­ry.

    Israeli secu­ri­ty offi­cials have already acknowl­edged that they failed to pro­tect the coun­try, and the gov­ern­ment is expect­ed to assem­ble a com­mis­sion to study the events lead­ing up to the attacks. The Jeri­cho Wall doc­u­ment lays bare a years­long cas­cade of mis­steps that cul­mi­nat­ed in what offi­cials now regard as the worst Israeli intel­li­gence fail­ure since the sur­prise attack that led to the Arab-Israeli war of 1973.

    Under­pin­ning all these fail­ures was a sin­gle, fatal­ly inac­cu­rate belief that Hamas lacked the capa­bil­i­ty to attack and would not dare to do so. That belief was so ingrained in the Israeli gov­ern­ment, offi­cials said, that they dis­re­gard­ed grow­ing evi­dence to the con­trary.

    ...

    Offi­cials would not say how they obtained the Jeri­cho Wall doc­u­ment, but it was among sev­er­al ver­sions of attack plans col­lect­ed over the years. A 2016 Defense Min­istry mem­o­ran­dum viewed by The Times, for exam­ple, says, “Hamas intends to move the next con­fronta­tion into Israeli ter­ri­to­ry.”

    Such an attack would most like­ly involve hostage-tak­ing and “occu­py­ing an Israeli com­mu­ni­ty (and per­haps even a num­ber of com­mu­ni­ties),” the memo reads.

    The Jeri­cho Wall doc­u­ment, named for the ancient for­ti­fi­ca­tions in the mod­ern-day West Bank, was even more explic­it. It detailed rock­et attacks to dis­tract Israeli sol­diers and send them hur­ry­ing into bunkers, and drones to dis­able the elab­o­rate secu­ri­ty mea­sures along the bor­der fence sep­a­rat­ing Israel and Gaza.

    Hamas fight­ers would then break through 60 points in the wall, storm­ing across the bor­der into Israel. The doc­u­ment begins with a quote from the Quran: “Sur­prise them through the gate. If you do, you will cer­tain­ly pre­vail.”

    The same phrase has been wide­ly used by Hamas in its videos and state­ments since Oct. 7.

    One of the most impor­tant objec­tives out­lined in the doc­u­ment was to over­run the Israeli mil­i­tary base in Re’im, which is home to the Gaza divi­sion respon­si­ble for pro­tect­ing the region. Oth­er bases that fell under the division’s com­mand were also list­ed.

    Hamas car­ried out that objec­tive on Oct. 7, ram­pag­ing through Re’im and over­run­ning parts of the base.

    ...

    Israel had also mis­read Hamas’s actions. The group had nego­ti­at­ed for per­mits to allow Pales­tini­ans to work in Israel, which Israeli offi­cials took as a sign that Hamas was not look­ing for a war.

    But Hamas had been draft­ing attack plans for many years, and Israeli offi­cials had got­ten hold of pre­vi­ous iter­a­tions of them. What could have been an intel­li­gence coup turned into one of the worst mis­cal­cu­la­tions in Israel’s 75-year his­to­ry.

    In Sep­tem­ber 2016, the defense minister’s office com­piled a top-secret mem­o­ran­dum based on a much ear­li­er iter­a­tion of a Hamas attack plan. The mem­o­ran­dum, which was signed by the defense min­is­ter at the time, Avig­dor Lieber­man, said that an inva­sion and hostage-tak­ing would “lead to severe dam­age to the con­scious­ness and morale of the cit­i­zens of Israel.”

    The memo, which was viewed by The Times, said that Hamas had pur­chased sophis­ti­cat­ed weapons, GPS jam­mers and drones. It also said that Hamas had increased its fight­ing force to 27,000 peo­ple — hav­ing added 6,000 to its ranks in a two-year peri­od. Hamas had hoped to reach 40,000 by 2020, the memo deter­mined.

    Last year, after Israel obtained the Jeri­cho Wall doc­u­ment, the military’s Gaza divi­sion draft­ed its own intel­li­gence assess­ment of this lat­est inva­sion plan.

    Hamas had “decid­ed to plan a new raid, unprece­dent­ed in its scope,” ana­lysts wrote in the assess­ment reviewed by The Times. It said that Hamas intend­ed to car­ry out a decep­tion oper­a­tion fol­lowed by a “large-scale maneu­ver” with the aim of over­whelm­ing the divi­sion.

    But the Gaza divi­sion referred to the plan as a “com­pass.” In oth­er words, the divi­sion deter­mined that Hamas knew where it want­ed to go but had not arrived there yet.

    On July 6, 2023, the vet­er­an Unit 8200 ana­lyst wrote to a group of oth­er intel­li­gence experts that dozens of Hamas com­man­dos had recent­ly con­duct­ed train­ing exer­cis­es, with senior Hamas com­man­ders observ­ing.

    The train­ing includ­ed a dry run of shoot­ing down Israeli air­craft and tak­ing over a kib­butz and a mil­i­tary train­ing base, killing all the cadets. Dur­ing the exer­cise, Hamas fight­ers used the same phrase from the Quran that appeared at the top of the Jeri­cho Wall attack plan, she wrote in the email exchanges viewed by The Times.

    The ana­lyst warned that the drill close­ly fol­lowed the Jeri­cho Wall plan, and that Hamas was build­ing the capac­i­ty to car­ry it out.

    The colonel in the Gaza divi­sion applaud­ed the analy­sis but said the exer­cise was part of a “total­ly imag­i­na­tive” sce­nario, not an indi­ca­tion of Hamas’s abil­i­ty to pull it off.

    “In short, let’s wait patient­ly,” the colonel wrote.

    The back-and-forth con­tin­ued, with some col­leagues sup­port­ing the analyst’s orig­i­nal con­clu­sion. Soon, she invoked the lessons of the 1973 war, in which Syr­i­an and Egypt­ian armies over­ran Israeli defens­es. Israeli forces regrouped and repelled the inva­sion, but the intel­li­gence fail­ure has long served as a les­son for Israeli secu­ri­ty offi­cials.

    “We already under­went a sim­i­lar expe­ri­ence 50 years ago on the south­ern front in con­nec­tion with a sce­nario that seemed imag­i­nary, and his­to­ry may repeat itself if we are not care­ful,” the ana­lyst wrote to her col­leagues.

    While omi­nous, none of the emails pre­dict­ed that war was immi­nent. Nor did the ana­lyst chal­lenge the con­ven­tion­al wis­dom among Israeli intel­li­gence offi­cials that Yahya Sin­war, the leader of Hamas, was not inter­est­ed in war with Israel. But she cor­rect­ly assessed that Hamas’s capa­bil­i­ties had dras­ti­cal­ly improved. The gap between the pos­si­ble and the aspi­ra­tional had nar­rowed sig­nif­i­cant­ly.

    The fail­ures to con­nect the dots echoed anoth­er ana­lyt­i­cal fail­ure more than two decades ago, when the Amer­i­can author­i­ties also had mul­ti­ple indi­ca­tions that the ter­ror­ist group Al Qae­da was prepar­ing an assault. The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Cen­ter and the Pen­ta­gon were large­ly a fail­ure of analy­sis and imag­i­na­tion, a gov­ern­ment com­mis­sion con­clud­ed.

    “The Israeli intel­li­gence fail­ure on Oct. 7 is sound­ing more and more like our 9/11,” said Ted Singer, a recent­ly retired senior C.I.A. offi­cial who worked exten­sive­ly in the Mid­dle East. “The fail­ure will be a gap in analy­sis to paint a con­vinc­ing pic­ture to mil­i­tary and polit­i­cal lead­er­ship that Hamas had the inten­tion to launch the attack when it did.”

    ———-

    “Israel Knew Hamas’s Attack Plan More Than a Year Ago” By Ronen Bergman and Adam Gold­man; The New York Times; 11/30/2023

    “Offi­cials would not say how they obtained the Jeri­cho Wall doc­u­ment, but it was among sev­er­al ver­sions of attack plans col­lect­ed over the years. A 2016 Defense Min­istry mem­o­ran­dum viewed by The Times, for exam­ple, says, “Hamas intends to move the next con­fronta­tion into Israeli ter­ri­to­ry.”

    The Jeri­cho Wall doc­u­ment was like a smoke detec­tor sound­ing off. But it was far from the first sign of smoke. Doc­u­ments detail­ing some sort of mas­sive attack of this nature have been obtained by Israeli intel­li­gence as far back as 2016. So when we are told that Israeli senior intel­li­gence offi­cers were inclined to casu­al­ly dis­miss the warn­ings signs in the Jeri­cho Wall doc­u­ment as more aspi­ra­tional than con­crete, it’s impor­tant to real­ize that they weren’t just dis­miss­ing the warn­ings in Jeri­cho Wall. They were also dis­miss­ing all of those pri­or warn­ings that include the fact that Hamas had pur­chased sophis­ti­cat­ed weapons, GPS jam­mers and drones and sig­nif­i­cant­ly increased the size of its fight­ing force:

    ...
    Israel had also mis­read Hamas’s actions. The group had nego­ti­at­ed for per­mits to allow Pales­tini­ans to work in Israel, which Israeli offi­cials took as a sign that Hamas was not look­ing for a war.

    But Hamas had been draft­ing attack plans for many years, and Israeli offi­cials had got­ten hold of pre­vi­ous iter­a­tions of them. What could have been an intel­li­gence coup turned into one of the worst mis­cal­cu­la­tions in Israel’s 75-year his­to­ry.

    In Sep­tem­ber 2016, the defense minister’s office com­piled a top-secret mem­o­ran­dum based on a much ear­li­er iter­a­tion of a Hamas attack plan. The mem­o­ran­dum, which was signed by the defense min­is­ter at the time, Avig­dor Lieber­man, said that an inva­sion and hostage-tak­ing would “lead to severe dam­age to the con­scious­ness and morale of the cit­i­zens of Israel.”

    The memo, which was viewed by The Times, said that Hamas had pur­chased sophis­ti­cat­ed weapons, GPS jam­mers and drones. It also said that Hamas had increased its fight­ing force to 27,000 peo­ple — hav­ing added 6,000 to its ranks in a two-year peri­od. Hamas had hoped to reach 40,000 by 2020, the memo deter­mined.

    Last year, after Israel obtained the Jeri­cho Wall doc­u­ment, the military’s Gaza divi­sion draft­ed its own intel­li­gence assess­ment of this lat­est inva­sion plan.

    Hamas had “decid­ed to plan a new raid, unprece­dent­ed in its scope,” ana­lysts wrote in the assess­ment reviewed by The Times. It said that Hamas intend­ed to car­ry out a decep­tion oper­a­tion fol­lowed by a “large-scale maneu­ver” with the aim of over­whelm­ing the divi­sion.

    But the Gaza divi­sion referred to the plan as a “com­pass.” In oth­er words, the divi­sion deter­mined that Hamas knew where it want­ed to go but had not arrived there yet.
    ...

    But that Jeri­cho Wall doc­u­ment was­n’t the only recent warn­ing sign of some­thing big com­ing. A far more con­crete warn­ing came in the form of July 6, 2023, Unit 8200 ana­lyst who learned about senior Hamas com­man­ders observ­ing com­man­do train­ing exer­cis­es in line with the Jeri­cho Wall plans. As she not­ed, dur­ing the exer­cise, Hamas fight­ers used the same phrase from the Quran that appeared at the top of the Jeri­cho Wall attack plan:

    ...
    On July 6, 2023, the vet­er­an Unit 8200 ana­lyst wrote to a group of oth­er intel­li­gence experts that dozens of Hamas com­man­dos had recent­ly con­duct­ed train­ing exer­cis­es, with senior Hamas com­man­ders observ­ing.

    The train­ing includ­ed a dry run of shoot­ing down Israeli air­craft and tak­ing over a kib­butz and a mil­i­tary train­ing base, killing all the cadets. Dur­ing the exer­cise, Hamas fight­ers used the same phrase from the Quran that appeared at the top of the Jeri­cho Wall attack plan, she wrote in the email exchanges viewed by The Times.

    The ana­lyst warned that the drill close­ly fol­lowed the Jeri­cho Wall plan, and that Hamas was build­ing the capac­i­ty to car­ry it out.

    The colonel in the Gaza divi­sion applaud­ed the analy­sis but said the exer­cise was part of a “total­ly imag­i­na­tive” sce­nario, not an indi­ca­tion of Hamas’s abil­i­ty to pull it off.

    “In short, let’s wait patient­ly,” the colonel wrote.

    The back-and-forth con­tin­ued, with some col­leagues sup­port­ing the analyst’s orig­i­nal con­clu­sion. Soon, she invoked the lessons of the 1973 war, in which Syr­i­an and Egypt­ian armies over­ran Israeli defens­es. Israeli forces regrouped and repelled the inva­sion, but the intel­li­gence fail­ure has long served as a les­son for Israeli secu­ri­ty offi­cials.

    “We already under­went a sim­i­lar expe­ri­ence 50 years ago on the south­ern front in con­nec­tion with a sce­nario that seemed imag­i­nary, and his­to­ry may repeat itself if we are not care­ful,” the ana­lyst wrote to her col­leagues.

    While omi­nous, none of the emails pre­dict­ed that war was immi­nent. Nor did the ana­lyst chal­lenge the con­ven­tion­al wis­dom among Israeli intel­li­gence offi­cials that Yahya Sin­war, the leader of Hamas, was not inter­est­ed in war with Israel. But she cor­rect­ly assessed that Hamas’s capa­bil­i­ties had dras­ti­cal­ly improved. The gap between the pos­si­ble and the aspi­ra­tional had nar­rowed sig­nif­i­cant­ly.
    ...

    Final­ly, there’s the inevitable com­par­i­son to the 9/11 intel­li­gence fail­ures. Com­par­isons that almost nev­er incor­po­rate the full scope of what we have learned over the past two decades about the nature of those ‘fail­ures’:

    ...
    The fail­ures to con­nect the dots echoed anoth­er ana­lyt­i­cal fail­ure more than two decades ago, when the Amer­i­can author­i­ties also had mul­ti­ple indi­ca­tions that the ter­ror­ist group Al Qae­da was prepar­ing an assault. The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Cen­ter and the Pen­ta­gon were large­ly a fail­ure of analy­sis and imag­i­na­tion, a gov­ern­ment com­mis­sion con­clud­ed.

    “The Israeli intel­li­gence fail­ure on Oct. 7 is sound­ing more and more like our 9/11,” said Ted Singer, a recent­ly retired senior C.I.A. offi­cial who worked exten­sive­ly in the Mid­dle East. “The fail­ure will be a gap in analy­sis to paint a con­vinc­ing pic­ture to mil­i­tary and polit­i­cal lead­er­ship that Hamas had the inten­tion to launch the attack when it did.”
    ...

    And while there is indeed a num­ber of par­al­lels with the 9/11 Intel­li­gence fail­ures, it’s worth not­ing one rather super­fi­cial sim­i­lar­i­ty: gen­der. It was a female Unit 8200 ana­lyst who raised these ignored Jeri­cho Wall warn­ings, just as it was a large­ly female team at Alec Sta­tion who were tasked with track­ing and iden­ti­fy the al Qae­da threat pre‑9/11. Or at least that’s the nar­ra­tive that’s tak­en hold. Again, it’s super­fi­cial. As we’ve seen, the Alec Sta­tion CIA/FBI fusion sta­tion was appar­ent­ly track­ing 9/11 hijack­ers al-Haz­mi and al-Mihd­har with the hope of flip­ping them into dou­ble agents insid­er al Qae­da. And as for­mer FBI agent Mark Rossi­ni claims, it was the CIA team at Alec Sta­tion who blocked him from noti­fy­ing the rest of the FBI about the pres­ence of al Qae­da hijack­ers on US soil. Accord­ing to Rossi­ni, CIA offi­cer Michael Anne Casey told Rossi­ni that, “this was not a mat­ter for the FBI. The next al-Qae­da attack is going to hap­pen in South­east Asia and their visas for Amer­i­ca are just a diver­sion. You are not to tell the FBI about it. When and if we want the FBI to know about it, we will.” If any­thing, based on the evi­dence avail­able today, it looks like the Alec Sta­tion team effec­tive­ly ran cov­er for the 9/11 hijack­ers.

    But that’s not the nar­ra­tive that’s tak­en hold. Instead, we’ve got­ten a nar­ra­tive about how the women of Alec Sta­tion warned the US intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty about the loom­ing 9/11 plot, but were ignored. A nar­ra­tive that is get­ting anoth­er boost with the pub­li­ca­tion of a new book on this chap­ter of his­to­ry, an excerpt of which was recent­ly pub­lished in The Atlantic. And while most of the arti­cle deliv­ers the stan­dard nar­ra­tive — that one of the Alec Sta­tion ana­lysts put togeth­er the August 6, 2001, Pres­i­den­tial Dai­ly Brief­ing warn­ing of an impend­ing attack that was ignored by the Bush admin­is­tra­tion — that ignores all the moves Alec Sta­tion was mak­ing to block the dis­sem­i­na­tion of knowl­edge of the 9/11 hijack­ers, the arti­cle does point towards an aspect of this sto­ry that’s received very lit­tle atten­tion over the years: the head of Alec Sta­tion until 1999, Michael Scheuer, is today an open fas­cist call­ing for mass polit­i­cal vio­lence.

    In addi­tion, it also turns out Scheuer’s future wife, Alfre­da Bikowsky, was one of the ana­lyst work­ing with Scheuer at Alec Sta­tion. Bikowsky set out to expand what “oper­a­tion” could mean, so instead of just recruit­ing for­eign nation­als, oper­a­tions also meant “fig­ur­ing out who it is that we should be look­ing for, who they’re con­nect­ed to,” accord­ing to Bikowsky. Recall how one of the unusu­al aspects of how Alec Sta­tion oper­at­ed that was seen as a con­flict of inter­est by many is how ‘Alec Sta­tion’ was­n’t just run­ning cov­er for al-Haz­mi but also pos­si­bly try­ing to recruit him as an asset. That com­bi­na­tion of sur­veil­lance and recruit­ment was­n’t stan­dard and might lead to sit­u­a­tions where the agency is con­flict­ed about what intel­li­gence it can share with the rest of the intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty. But it was how Alec Sta­tion oper­at­ed and Mike Scheuer’s future wife (they got mar­ried in 2014) is the per­son who played a key role in that unusu­al arrange­ment. In fact, Bikowsky is named by whistle­blow­ers as one of the key fig­ures who blocked the shar­ing of infor­ma­tion about the 9/11 hijack­ers. Post‑9/11, Bikowsky went on to become a cen­tral per­son in the CIA’s black site inter­ro­ga­tion pro­grams.

    So the guy run­ning Alec Sta­tion until 1999 is, today, an open fas­cist call­ing for mass polit­i­cal vio­lence. And his now-wife has been named as one of the fig­ures who ran cov­er for the 9/11 hijack­ers, effec­tive­ly pro­tect­ing their ter­ror oper­a­tion from US law enforce­ment. It’s one of many inter­est­ing things about the 9/11 intel­li­gence fail­ure that has­n’t received much atten­tion over the past cou­ple of decades, in part because it was­n’t clear at first just what a fas­cist nut job Michael Scheuer was going to become. But that’s clear now. Which is why it’s prob­a­bly worth ask­ing, belat­ed­ly, what role fas­cist extrem­ism may have played in the US’s many pre‑9/11 ‘intel­li­gence fail­ures’:

    The Atlantic

    The Women Who Saw 9/11 Com­ing

    Many of the CIA ana­lysts who spot­ted the ear­li­est signs of al-Qaeda’s rise were female. They had trou­ble get­ting their warn­ings heard.

    By Liza Mundy
    Novem­ber 18, 2023

    One day toward the end of the 20th cen­tu­ry, John Riz­zo, a career lawyer at the Cen­tral Intel­li­gence Agency, found him­self chat­ting with Jack Downing—a for­mer Marine and stal­wart Cold War­rior who had been brought out of retire­ment to over­see the clan­des­tine ser­vice.

    The two men were talk­ing about an ana­lyst named Michael Scheuer, the cere­bral but polar­iz­ing leader of a team focused on a ter­ror­ist group called al-Qae­da. Skep­ti­cal that Scheuer was up to the job, Down­ing brought up a per­ceived weak­ness of his staff. “The only peo­ple who work for him are girls,” he scoffed.

    It was a small moment, but one Riz­zo nev­er for­got. “I remem­ber him say­ing girls,” Riz­zo told me in an inter­view before his death in 2021. Iron­i­cal­ly, Down­ing, who also died in 2021, was seen as rel­a­tive­ly sup­port­ive of women at the CIA.

    Back in 2018, I met with a group of CIA his­to­ri­ans to talk about women’s roles and expe­ri­ences at the agency. The his­to­ri­ans point­ed to the strik­ing num­ber of women engaged in sev­er­al key mis­sions, chief among them the track­ing of Osama bin Laden and al-Qae­da, both before and after the 9/11 attacks; Scheuer’s team of “girls” played a key part. Over three years of book research, I inter­viewed more than one hun­dred female offi­cers at the agency, includ­ing at least a half dozen who were involved in the bin Laden effort—some of whom had not spo­ken pre­vi­ous­ly about their work, or not extensively—as well as many of their male col­leagues. What became clear in these con­ver­sa­tions was that many of the women who chart­ed al-Qaeda’s rise felt that their work was under­val­ued or ignored and that their gen­der was part of the equa­tion.

    For decades, the CIA, found­ed in 1947, had been a boys’ club. The agency made a prac­tice of hir­ing women as clerks, record-keep­ers, and sec­re­taries, but not plac­ing them in top jobs, par­tic­u­lar­ly those that involved spy­ing. Accord­ing to a series of reports con­duct­ed dur­ing the Cold War decades, the view among many offi­cers at Lan­g­ley was that women were more emo­tion­al than men, less like­ly to be tak­en seri­ous­ly abroad, and unable to suc­ceed at the vital spy­craft of run­ning agents—that is, recruit­ing for­eign nation­als to share state secrets. When the agency’s equal-oppor­tu­ni­ty office inves­ti­gat­ed a dis­crim­i­na­tion com­plaint brought by a female offi­cer in the late 1970s, the result­ing report found “unwit­ting, sub­lim­i­nal, uncon­scious dis­crim­i­na­to­ry pro­ce­dures which have become insti­tu­tion­al­ized by prac­tice.” The agency set­tled with the com­plainant, but then, in the mid-1990s, found itself set­tling two major sex-dis­crim­i­na­tion law­suits brought by women in the clan­des­tine ser­vice.

    ...

    This his­to­ry helps explain the dis­mis­sive­ness that the large­ly female group track­ing al-Qae­da per­ceived. For more than a decade begin­ning in the mid-1980s, the emerg­ing dis­ci­pline of coun­tert­er­ror­ism was a low-pri­or­i­ty mis­sion, which is one rea­son so many women were shunt­ed into it. But although they were well posi­tioned to spot the ear­li­est signs of al-Qaeda’s rise, they often had trou­ble get­ting their voic­es heard when they sound­ed warn­ings. That the male ana­lyst they were most close­ly asso­ci­at­ed with—Scheuer—was con­tentious in the build­ing didn’t help.

    Not all the women were heroes; the team had flaws just as any team of men would. They did not always make them­selves pleas­ant to col­leagues or boss­es. They did not always agree on the approach, meth­ods, or lev­el of aggres­sion war­rant­ed toward ter­ror­ists and their lead­ers. After 9/11, some were as sus­cep­ti­ble as men to the excess­es of the War on Ter­ror. But for years before­hand they endeav­ored to make known that a dis­persed group of fighters—while lack­ing a for­mal mil­i­tary or high-tech weaponry—was capa­ble of turn­ing America’s own tech­nol­o­gy against itself, and ful­ly intend­ed to do so.

    Count­less inves­ti­ga­tions have exam­ined why the Unit­ed States didn’t see 9/11 com­ing, and the expla­na­tions are many. But one fac­tor these assess­ments don’t ful­ly cap­ture is that some ana­lysts did know that such an attack could hap­pen, and that many of the ear­li­est, most tena­cious, and most per­cep­tive of them were female, in an insti­tu­tion that had long under­es­ti­mat­ed women and their work.

    One of the first offi­cers to pay atten­tion to al-Qae­da was a twen­tysome­thing ana­lyst named Cindy Stor­er, sharp-eyed, good at math, a lover of puz­zles. In 1989, Stor­er joined the desk respon­si­ble for look­ing at Afghanistan, which for 10 years had been occu­pied by Sovi­et invaders, with the CIA basi­cal­ly run­ning the resis­tance. The year she arrived on that account, the Sovi­et Army was defeat­ed; two years lat­er, the Sovi­et Union fell. Afghanistan, for most offi­cers, fad­ed into unim­por­tance. “We walked away from it,” William Web­ster, then the CIA direc­tor, lat­er admit­ted.

    Stor­er, how­ev­er, stayed on the beat, watch­ing as trib­al fac­tions fought for con­trol of the coun­try. She began notic­ing some­thing else: Arab fight­ers who had trav­eled from the Mid­dle East, Africa, and Asia to help repel the Sovi­et occu­piers were now fan­ning out across the world. In Afghanistan, they were known as “for­eign fight­ers” or “Afghan Arabs.” They called them­selves mujahideen: Islam­ic war­riors pur­su­ing jihad, or holy war, against infi­del nations. They were vio­lent, anti-West­ern, and grow­ing in num­ber.

    ...

    At least, not until she met with a more senior Near East and South Asia ana­lyst, Bar­bara Sude. Sude was a per­fect exam­ple of how women at the CIA had been fun­neled: She’d earned her PhD in the mid-1970s and applied to the agency on a whim. At the time, women were most­ly being hired as sec­re­taries, and the agency had a spe­cial test with a pink cov­er, which includ­ed ques­tions like: Would you rather spend time putting on make­up or go with­out? Upon being hired, she was rout­ed to an off­shoot unit—the For­eign Broad­cast Infor­ma­tion Service—where she worked for a decade before mak­ing her way into an ana­lyst job at CIA head­quar­ters.

    ...

    Soon, a third woman, Gina Ben­nett, joined their efforts. After Ben­nett grad­u­at­ed from col­lege in 1988, she applied to the CIA. She didn’t get an inter­view, so she took a job as a clerk-typ­ist at the State Depart­ment. She was quick­ly pro­mot­ed to the department’s Bureau of Intel­li­gence and Research, known as the INR, where she worked as a junior ana­lyst in the ter­ror­ism “watch office,” which field­ed cables about explo­sions and threats. Months into her new job, on Decem­ber 21, 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 explod­ed over Locker­bie, Scot­land. Near­ly 300 peo­ple died in a ter­ror­ist bomb­ing attrib­uted to Libyan agents.

    ...

    Even­tu­al­ly Stor­er and Sude both found their way to the CIA’s coun­tert­er­ror­ist cen­ter, a niche unit cre­at­ed in the 1980s to respond to hijack­ings and attacks in the Mid­dle East. By 1995, the agency was becom­ing more cog­nizant of the threat posed by bin Laden. A small “vir­tu­al sta­tion” was cre­at­ed with­in the cen­ter, ini­tial­ly to exam­ine his finan­cial deal­ings. Mike Scheuer head­ed the outfit—dubbed “Alec Sta­tion,” after his young son—and recruit­ed a team of most­ly women ana­lysts. Scheuer, by his own descrip­tion, was the sec­ond or third pick for that job, which was not ardent­ly sought by ambi­tious col­leagues who per­ceived that the bureau­cra­cy, over­all, still had not ful­ly embraced the mis­sion.

    The hard­work­ing Scheuer grasped ear­ly on the mag­ni­tude of bin Laden’s suc­cess in cajol­ing oth­er extrem­ist lead­ers to come togeth­er in a mul­ti­eth­nic effort to kill Amer­i­cans and dri­ve the Unit­ed States out of the Mid­dle East. But Scheuer was also aggriev­ed, con­temp­tu­ous of the polit­i­cal estab­lish­ment, prone to go after his crit­ics, and inces­sant­ly at odds with the FBI, from whom Alec Sta­tion some­times hoard­ed infor­ma­tion (and the oth­er way around). “He was always a lit­tle nuts,” as one offi­cer put it, “but he was our nut.” Stor­er and Sude each did stints work­ing along­side Scheuer’s team, though not as part of it.

    “I had enor­mous respect for the women who worked for me,” Scheuer told me, describ­ing them as “experts at minu­ti­ae, putting pieces of infor­ma­tion togeth­er or think­ing, ‘Hey, two months ago I read some­thing about this,’ and they’d go back and find it. They didn’t spend much time at all around the water­cool­er telling war sto­ries.”

    Hav­ing a female staff made it hard­er for Scheuer to get buy-in with­in the larg­er orga­ni­za­tion, how­ev­er. Oper­a­tions offi­cers scoffed at his team. “What’s his staff? It’s all female,” the ops offi­cer Glenn Car­le is quot­ed observ­ing in the jour­nal­ist Peter Bergen’s book Man­hunt. “It was just wide­ly dis­cussed at the time that it’s a bunch of chicks,” Car­le con­tin­ued. “So, the per­spec­tive was frankly con­de­scend­ing and dis­mis­sive.”

    Scheuer’s team was not giv­en its own ops offi­cers to col­lect infor­ma­tion over­seas, so he tapped his reports officers—a tra­di­tion­al­ly female job that entailed dis­sem­i­nat­ing cables—to whee­dle mate­ri­als from col­leagues on oth­er desks. Anoth­er Alec Sta­tion team mem­ber, Jen­nifer Matthews, helped cre­ate a new field—targeting—that entailed find­ing ter­ror­ists where they hid. Work­ing with her was Alfre­da Bikowsky, known as Fre­da, who com­bined a steel-trap mem­o­ry with a rest­less man­ner and an aggres­sive approach that some of the oth­er women, includ­ing Stor­er, some­times argued with. Dar­rell Block­er, a CIA offi­cer who worked with Bikowsky years lat­er and salut­ed her focus and com­pe­tence, described her per­son­al­i­ty to me as “not warm and fuzzy.” When Bikowsky came to Alec Sta­tion in the late 1990s, as chief of oper­a­tions, she set about expand­ing what “oper­a­tions” could mean: no longer just recruit­ing for­eign nation­als to pass secrets but also “fig­ur­ing out who it is that we should be look­ing for, who they’re con­nect­ed to,” she told me. It was, she said, “man­hunt­ing.” (Bikowsky lat­er drew con­tro­ver­sy when she par­tic­i­pat­ed in the post‑9/11 “enhanced inter­ro­ga­tion” pro­gram, work­ing as an ana­lyst vet­ting detainee asser­tions, and served as an archi­tect of the agency’s efforts to defend what was con­demned by many as tor­ture.)

    Gina Ben­nett, at Scheuer’s urg­ing, left the State Depart­ment and joined the CIA to work on the al-Qae­da mis­sion. Over the next few years, Alec Sta­tion grew to about two dozen peo­ple, and remained 80 per­cent female. The women did not always get along. Those work­ing for Scheuer, or some of them, exhib­it­ed feroc­i­ty and sus­pi­cion. Some, Stor­er felt, regard­ed out­siders, even Stor­er her­self, as not nec­es­sar­i­ly enti­tled to know what they knew.

    Nonethe­less, div­ing into the “troves” of files that the Alec team col­lect­ed, Stor­er had an epiphany moment: “I’m like, holy crap, it’s a ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion.” Bin Laden’s fight­ers weren’t a loose fed­er­a­tion but a bureau­cra­cy, com­plete with a pay­roll and fran­chis­es. Yet even in the coun­tert­er­ror­ist cen­ter, col­leagues on oth­er accounts remained doubt­ful that scat­tered fight­ers could pose an orga­nized threat on the lev­el of Hezbol­lah or Hamas. As Stor­er put it, many offi­cers regard­ed the ter­ror­ists as “rag­heads who lived in a cave,” when in fact the lead­ers were “doc­tors and lawyers and mil­i­tary offi­cers who knew their sh it.”

    The agency’s bureau­cra­cy pre­sent­ed anoth­er prob­lem. Most of the clas­si­fied reports the CIA pro­duces are “cor­po­rate prod­ucts,” which means that any­one with a stake in a memo or paper must sign onto it before it’s pub­lished. Con­sen­sus must be secured, desk by desk, and that’s espe­cial­ly hard when you are female, junior, and labor­ing in an obscure unit. Around 1997, Stor­er said, she set out to write a defin­i­tive paper with “every­thing you want­ed to know about bin Laden and al-Qae­da.” The draft was 60 pages long. But she “couldn’t get oth­er desks to agree,” she told me. A super­vi­sor want­ed her to break it into small parts, she recalled. Stor­er said the full ver­sion was nev­er pub­lished.

    By mid-1998, Stor­er had long been warn­ing col­leagues that bin Laden’s orga­ni­za­tion had the abil­i­ty to stage simul­ta­ne­ous attacks. On Fri­day, August 7, she turned out to be right: Major explo­sions occurred at U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tan­za­nia, killing hun­dreds and injur­ing thou­sands. When the attacks were con­clu­sive­ly linked to al-Qae­da, this was, as one oper­a­tions offi­cer lat­er wrote, a “pro­found” rev­e­la­tion, in that it showed that bin Laden could con­duct “large-scale bomb­ings of U.S. tar­gets.”

    Grad­u­al­ly, the truth was work­ing its way to the agency’s sev­enth floor and to CIA Direc­tor George Tenet, who tried to con­vey to the White House the extent of the threat. A series of plans to cap­ture bin Laden were formed but were reject­ed by top offi­cials, who wor­ried about how pre­cise the tar­get­ing was and the dan­ger of putting civil­ians at risk. After the 1998 embassy bomb­ings, Tenet paid a vis­it to Alec Sta­tion. As he wrote in his 2007 mem­oir, a female mem­ber approached him and, “quiv­er­ing with emo­tion,” con­front­ed him about one plan to appre­hend bin Laden that had got­ten nixed. Many CIA women lat­er noticed the phrase and resent­ed its impli­ca­tion that the women had been emo­tion­al and weak.

    As 2000 gave way to 2001, Stor­er found her­self read­ing ter­ror­ist com­mu­ni­ca­tions that used words like “Olympic-sized” and “Armaged­don.” In Octo­ber 2000, sui­cide bombers in Yemen blew a hole in the USS Cole, killing 17 Amer­i­can sailors, and ana­lysts were shocked when the out­go­ing Clin­ton admin­is­tra­tion did not retal­i­ate. In 2001, Tenet began beg­ging the incom­ing admin­is­tra­tion of George W. Bush to let the CIA mount an oper­a­tion that allowed for killing bin Laden rather than cap­tur­ing him. Ana­lysts expect­ed that anoth­er major attack could hap­pen in the sum­mer, and Stor­er felt respon­si­bil­i­ty and dread: This is going to hap­pen on your watch.

    In July, Bar­bara Sude was tasked with writ­ing a PDB that tack­led the ques­tion every­one was won­der­ing: Might the big attack occur on the U.S. main­land? She remem­bers her boss say­ing words to the effect of, “They are look­ing for a piece on bin Laden and the U.S.” From this loose instruc­tion, Sude fash­ioned one of the most famous warn­ings in Amer­i­can his­to­ry.

    She and a few oth­er ana­lysts had writ­ten near­ly 40 warn­ing items that year alone. She had a pile of papers two feet high on her desk, includ­ing one by the FAA about hijack­ings. Craft­ing the memo with the input of col­leagues, Sude not­ed that bin Laden had implied in TV inter­views that he want­ed to fol­low the exam­ple of the 1993 World Trade Cen­ter bomber, Ramzi Yousef, and “bring the fight­ing to Amer­i­ca.” The memo point­ed out that the 1998 bomb­ings of the embassies in East Africa, which bin Laden asso­ciates had scoped out as ear­ly as 1993, showed that al-Qae­da was patient and “not deterred by set­backs.” Al-Qae­da mem­bers “have resided in or trav­eled to the U.S. for years,” she wrote. Threat report­ing sug­gest­ed that bin Laden want­ed to hijack a U.S. air­craft, and the FBI had not­ed pat­terns of activ­i­ty sug­gest­ing “prepa­ra­tions for hijack­ings or oth­er types of attacks.”

    She faxed a draft to the FBI, and sent it up to the PDB edi­tors, who titled it “Bin Ladin Deter­mined to Strike in U.S.” But the edi­tors want­ed more sta­tis­tics from the FBI. Sude called the Bureau again and learned that it was con­duct­ing “approx­i­mate­ly 70 full field inves­ti­ga­tions” look­ing into “bin Ladin–related” activ­i­ty in the Unit­ed States. Sude added that infor­ma­tion to the draft. The item was put in the book on August 6, and the pres­i­dent was briefed.

    Sude would always won­der: When Pres­i­dent Bush was told of the exis­tence of more than 70 FBI inves­ti­ga­tions into bin Laden activ­i­ties in the Amer­i­can home­land, did the com­man­der in chief wor­ry? Did he ever call the FBI direc­tor and ask him what was going on? Bush lat­er told con­gres­sion­al inves­ti­ga­tors that he felt heart­ened to learn of so many inves­ti­ga­tions. He took it to mean that things were under con­trol. After the August 6 PDB ran, four weeks passed before the Bush admin­is­tra­tion had its first Cab­i­net-lev­el meet­ing about the threat posed by al-Qae­da, on Sep­tem­ber 4, 2001.

    The day of the attacks, the CIA staff evac­u­at­ed head­quar­ters, except for peo­ple in the coun­tert­er­ror­ist cen­ter. The women there, who thought that a plane might be head­ed for Langley—and for them—felt a mix­ture of fear, anger, fail­ure, resent­ment, and guilt. In the com­ing years, they worked to pre­vent more attacks and to track down the per­pe­tra­tors, par­tic­u­lar­ly bin Laden. One team mem­ber, Jen­nifer Matthews, died in that effort, killed along­side col­leagues when a sui­cide bomber infil­trat­ed the CIA base in Khost, Afghanistan. Some, like Cindy Stor­er and Bar­bara Sude, con­tin­ued hunt­ing ter­ror­ists for many years, until they retired. Gina Ben­nett was still at the CIA when bin Laden was found and killed on May 2, 2011, and stayed on for years after that. Fre­da Bikowsky, who went on to direct the “glob­al jihad” unit, mar­ried Michael Scheuer in 2014 (she now goes by Alfre­da Scheuer). Scheuer, mean­while, was eased out of Alec Sta­tion in 1999 and left the agency in 2004, after grow­ing more and more out­spo­ken about the Iraq War and oth­er issues. He went on to cre­ate a blog where he has expressed admi­ra­tion for QAnon, claimed that the 2020 elec­tion was stolen, sup­port­ed mob vio­lence against Black Lives Mat­ter pro­test­ers, and called for the killing of jour­nal­ists and Demo­c­ra­t­ic politi­cians, among oth­er extrem­ist views. (“He bears no resem­blance to the man I knew,” Ben­nett told me.)

    ...

    ————-

    “The Women Who Saw 9/11 Com­ing” by Liza Mundy; The Atlantic; 11/18/2023

    “The day of the attacks, the CIA staff evac­u­at­ed head­quar­ters, except for peo­ple in the coun­tert­er­ror­ist cen­ter. The women there, who thought that a plane might be head­ed for Langley—and for them—felt a mix­ture of fear, anger, fail­ure, resent­ment, and guilt. In the com­ing years, they worked to pre­vent more attacks and to track down the per­pe­tra­tors, par­tic­u­lar­ly bin Laden. One team mem­ber, Jen­nifer Matthews, died in that effort, killed along­side col­leagues when a sui­cide bomber infil­trat­ed the CIA base in Khost, Afghanistan. Some, like Cindy Stor­er and Bar­bara Sude, con­tin­ued hunt­ing ter­ror­ists for many years, until they retired. Gina Ben­nett was still at the CIA when bin Laden was found and killed on May 2, 2011, and stayed on for years after that. Fre­da Bikowsky, who went on to direct the “glob­al jihad” unit, mar­ried Michael Scheuer in 2014 (she now goes by Alfre­da Scheuer). Scheuer, mean­while, was eased out of Alec Sta­tion in 1999 and left the agency in 2004, after grow­ing more and more out­spo­ken about the Iraq War and oth­er issues. He went on to cre­ate a blog where he has expressed admi­ra­tion for QAnon, claimed that the 2020 elec­tion was stolen, sup­port­ed mob vio­lence against Black Lives Mat­ter pro­test­ers, and called for the killing of jour­nal­ists and Demo­c­ra­t­ic politi­cians, among oth­er extrem­ist views. (“He bears no resem­blance to the man I knew,” Ben­nett told me.)

    Michael Scheuer, the for­mer head of Alec Sta­tion, is an open fas­cist. That seems like an under­ap­pre­ci­at­ed aspect of the his­to­ry of the 9/11 ‘intel­li­gence fail­ures’. Scheuer is described by his col­leagues as hav­ing always been “a lit­tle nuts”. What kind of “a lit­tle nuts” are we talk­ing about? A lit­tle fas­cist nuts? Because his con­tem­po­rary fas­cism did­n’t come from nowhere:

    ...
    Even­tu­al­ly Stor­er and Sude both found their way to the CIA’s coun­tert­er­ror­ist cen­ter, a niche unit cre­at­ed in the 1980s to respond to hijack­ings and attacks in the Mid­dle East. By 1995, the agency was becom­ing more cog­nizant of the threat posed by bin Laden. A small “vir­tu­al sta­tion” was cre­at­ed with­in the cen­ter, ini­tial­ly to exam­ine his finan­cial deal­ings. Mike Scheuer head­ed the outfit—dubbed “Alec Sta­tion,” after his young son—and recruit­ed a team of most­ly women ana­lysts. Scheuer, by his own descrip­tion, was the sec­ond or third pick for that job, which was not ardent­ly sought by ambi­tious col­leagues who per­ceived that the bureau­cra­cy, over­all, still had not ful­ly embraced the mis­sion.

    The hard­work­ing Scheuer grasped ear­ly on the mag­ni­tude of bin Laden’s suc­cess in cajol­ing oth­er extrem­ist lead­ers to come togeth­er in a mul­ti­eth­nic effort to kill Amer­i­cans and dri­ve the Unit­ed States out of the Mid­dle East. But Scheuer was also aggriev­ed, con­temp­tu­ous of the polit­i­cal estab­lish­ment, prone to go after his crit­ics, and inces­sant­ly at odds with the FBI, from whom Alec Sta­tion some­times hoard­ed infor­ma­tion (and the oth­er way around). “He was always a lit­tle nuts,” as one offi­cer put it, “but he was our nut.” Stor­er and Sude each did stints work­ing along­side Scheuer’s team, though not as part of it.

    “I had enor­mous respect for the women who worked for me,” Scheuer told me, describ­ing them as “experts at minu­ti­ae, putting pieces of infor­ma­tion togeth­er or think­ing, ‘Hey, two months ago I read some­thing about this,’ and they’d go back and find it. They didn’t spend much time at all around the water­cool­er telling war sto­ries.”
    ...

    It’s also rather note­wor­thy that the Alec Sta­tion ana­lyst who end­ed up mar­ry­ing Scheuer, Alfre­da Bikows­ki, is the same per­son who report­ed­ly expand­ed the def­i­n­i­tion of “oper­a­tions” to include “fig­ur­ing out who it is that we should be look­ing for, who they’re con­nect­ed to.” Recall how one of the unusu­al aspects of how Alec Sta­tion oper­at­ed that was seen as a con­flict of inter­est by many is how ‘Alec Sta­tion’ was­n’t just run­ning cov­er for al-Haz­mi but also pos­si­bly try­ing to recruit him as an asset. That com­bi­na­tion of sur­veil­lance and recruit­ment was­n’t stan­dard and might lead to sit­u­a­tions where the agency is con­flict­ed about what intel­li­gence it can share with the rest of the intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty. But it was how Alec Sta­tion oper­at­ed and Mike Scheuer’s future wife is the per­son who played a key role in that:

    ...
    Scheuer’s team was not giv­en its own ops offi­cers to col­lect infor­ma­tion over­seas, so he tapped his reports officers—a tra­di­tion­al­ly female job that entailed dis­sem­i­nat­ing cables—to whee­dle mate­ri­als from col­leagues on oth­er desks. Anoth­er Alec Sta­tion team mem­ber, Jen­nifer Matthews, helped cre­ate a new field—targeting—that entailed find­ing ter­ror­ists where they hid. Work­ing with her was Alfre­da Bikowsky, known as Fre­da, who com­bined a steel-trap mem­o­ry with a rest­less man­ner and an aggres­sive approach that some of the oth­er women, includ­ing Stor­er, some­times argued with. Dar­rell Block­er, a CIA offi­cer who worked with Bikowsky years lat­er and salut­ed her focus and com­pe­tence, described her per­son­al­i­ty to me as “not warm and fuzzy.” When Bikowsky came to Alec Sta­tion in the late 1990s, as chief of oper­a­tions, she set about expand­ing what “oper­a­tions” could mean: no longer just recruit­ing for­eign nation­als to pass secrets but also “fig­ur­ing out who it is that we should be look­ing for, who they’re con­nect­ed to,” she told me. It was, she said, “man­hunt­ing.” (Bikowsky lat­er drew con­tro­ver­sy when she par­tic­i­pat­ed in the post‑9/11 “enhanced inter­ro­ga­tion” pro­gram, work­ing as an ana­lyst vet­ting detainee asser­tions, and served as an archi­tect of the agency’s efforts to defend what was con­demned by many as tor­ture.)
    ...

    So to get a sense of just how open­ly fas­cist Mike Scheuer has got­ten these days, here’s a Media­Mat­ters report from back in July where Scheuer tells Fox News Jea­nine Pir­ro the 2020 elec­tions were “rigged and he thanks God that “the Sec­ond Amend­ment remains in the Con­sti­tu­tion because I don’t know how else to take care of these ver­min.” That’s when, when Trump called for the mass jail­ing of Demo­c­ra­t­ic “ver­min” last month, he was echo­ing Michael Scheuer from July. Which rais­es the grim­ly inter­est­ing ques­tion as to whether or not Scheuer is going to be serv­ing in the next Trump admin­is­tra­tion. Because when it comes to appeal to the venge­ful Don­ald Trump we see today, Scheuer is cer­tain­ly putting togeth­er one hell of a resume:

    Media­Mat­ters

    Vir­u­lent anti­semite tells Jea­nine Pir­ro that the 2nd Amend­ment is need­ed “to take care of these ver­min” who “rigged” elec­tions

    Pir­ro was appear­ing on the show of Michael Scheuer, an anti­semite who has said Biden, Har­ris, and Oba­ma should be assas­si­nat­ed

    Spe­cial Pro­grams Guns & Pub­lic Safe­ty

    Writ­ten by Eric Hanano­ki
    Pub­lished 07/07/23 10:19 AM EDT

    Fox News host Jea­nine Pir­ro recent­ly appeared on a pod­cast host­ed by Michael Scheuer, a vir­u­lent anti­semite who has called for the assas­si­na­tions of Pres­i­dent Biden, Vice Pres­i­dent Har­ris, the Oba­mas, and “most” of the media. Dur­ing the inter­view, Scheuer told Pir­ro that pri­or elec­tions were “rigged” and he thanks God that “the Sec­ond Amend­ment remains in the Con­sti­tu­tion because I don’t know how else to take care of these ver­min.”

    ...

    Scheuer is an ex-CIA intel­li­gence offi­cer and for­mer Fox News reg­u­lar who has become known for open­ly call­ing for the assas­si­na­tions of count­less peo­ple in the Unit­ed States. Nation­al secu­ri­ty reporter Spencer Ack­er­man wrote in the Dai­ly Beast in 2020 that Scheuer “has spent the sum­mer call­ing for the slaugh­ter of his fel­low Amer­i­cans,” includ­ing by stat­ing on his pod­cast that “the only thing I would be upset about if it came to war is that not enough Democ­rats would get killed.”

    Media Mat­ters exam­ined some of his more recent writ­ings and found numer­ous calls for vio­lence:

    “Scheuer wrote: “Fau­ci, Gates, Birx, the Bidens, Har­ris, the Clin­tons, the Oba­mas, the Bush­es, and most media are all direct descen­dants of Mao Tse Tung, Josef Stal­in, Pol Pot, Mar­garet Sanger, Adolph Hitler, and all UN lead­ers. … It is time to rid the Unit­ed States of these depraved, mur­der­ing tyrants and their allies by any means that will per­ma­nent­ly ter­mi­nate their abil­i­ty to harm any­one. Praise God for the 450 mil­lion firearms now in the hands of the increas­ing­ly poi­soned and per­se­cut­ed cit­i­zen­ry.”

    “Scheuer urged the “assas­si­na­tion” of George Soros, writ­ing that if Israel refus­es to kill him for the Unit­ed States, the U.S. Marines should.

    “Scheuer sug­gest­ed that Anti-Defama­tion League CEO Jonathan Green­blatt will get “ret­ri­bu­tion” for his sup­port of Soros, writ­ing: “Come ret­ri­bu­tion … and it is, God will­ing, com­ing soon.”

    “Scheuer wrote: “How much bet­ter would all of us be today, if the U.S. Air Force had staged simul­ta­ne­ous bomb­ing strikes on the WEF’s [the World Eco­nom­ic Forum’s] Davos Con­fer­ence and the UN just as the last WEF meet­ing was occur­ring, with fol­low-on Warthog raids to make sure as few as pos­si­ble of the gang­sters were left alive amongst the rub­ble.”

    Scheuer is also a vir­u­lent anti­semite. He’s writ­ten:

    Jew­ish-Amer­i­cans, as whole, are unre­li­able and increas­ing­ly anti-Amer­i­can cit­i­zens.” [Link]

    Jew­ish-Amer­i­cans are opt­ing out of the Amer­i­can repub­lic and are part of the gov­ern­ing elite that – via the Wuhan Flu and Cli­mate Change – are deter­mined to make Amer­i­ca into fas­cist state.” [Link]

    “The eager­ness of Jew­ish-Amer­i­cans lead­ers to be hit­men, racists, anti-Amer­i­cans, and pro­pa­gan­dists for Biden’s fas­cists is get­ting old and, frankly, down­right annoy­ing.” [Link]

    “Recent events sug­gest that, at least in the case of Jew­ish-Amer­i­cans, they are hat­ed and attacked because their lead­ers are vir­u­lent haters of Amer­i­ca, its tra­di­tions, its dom­i­nant faith, its con­ser­v­a­tive predilec­tions, and its Con­sti­tu­tion.” [Link]

    “In 2022, how­ev­er, one might say that the myth and mask of Jew­ish-Amer­i­can loy­al­ty to the repub­lic has slipped from face to floor.” [Link]

    It seems that many Jew­ish-Amer­i­cans and most of their lead­ers sim­ply hate the Unit­ed States and its con­tin­ued exis­tence as a con­sti­tu­tion­al repub­lic. Is it truth­ful­ly sur­pris­ing that such an intense and eas­i­ly rec­og­niz­able hatred should be returned in kind by those on whom it is focused and exer­cised?” [Link]

    Scheuer is also a QAnon con­spir­a­cy the­o­rist who wrote that Democ­rats “are angry, obsessed, and ter­ri­fied with Q because they know he is the gen­uine and truth­ful har­bin­ger of the crim­i­nal, trea­so­nous, and anti-human rev­e­la­tions that will seal their well-mer­it­ed and hope­ful­ly painful doom.” (Pir­ro has also appeared on QAnon-sup­port­ing pro­grams dur­ing her media tour.)

    Semafor’s Max Tani report­ed last month that Fox News has “severe­ly lim­it­ed Pirro’s pro­mo­tion­al appear­ances by strong­ly dis­cour­ag­ing her from appear­ing at mul­ti­ple con­ser­v­a­tive reli­gious and polit­i­cal events.” But going on Scheuer’s pod­cast Two Mikes is appar­ent­ly fine, as the Fox News host did for near­ly 20 min­utes on July 3 to pro­mote her book, at one point com­plain­ing about “Soros-fund­ed pros­e­cu­tors.”

    Toward the end of the inter­view, Scheuer said that the 2024 elec­tion won’t make “any dif­fer­ence” since 2020 and 2022 “were rigged … with­out ques­tion.” He then told her: “What hap­pens then when things don’t change? I think, you know, I praise God every night that the Sec­ond Amend­ment remains in the Con­sti­tu­tion because I don’t know how else to take care of these ver­min.”

    Pir­ro replied: “Well, obvi­ous­ly you know we’re not pro­mot­ing vig­i­lan­tism, but in the end, at least we know now what we’re con­fronting. You know, Amer­i­ca was a lit­tle naive. It was Don­ald Trump who first intro­duced us to the con­cept of fake news. We did­n’t even know what that meant. But now we know that not all the news is accu­rate. Now we know that peo­ple who talk out of both sides of their mouths, you know, can’t be believed.”
    ...

    Scheuer’s pod­cast and his call for vio­lence was streamed on Rum­ble. It’s also car­ried on iHeart and Spo­ti­fy.

    ——–

    “Vir­u­lent anti­semite tells Jea­nine Pir­ro that the 2nd Amend­ment is need­ed “to take care of these ver­min” who “rigged” elec­tions” by Eric Hanano­ki; Media­Mat­ters; 07/07/2023

    “Toward the end of the inter­view, Scheuer said that the 2024 elec­tion won’t make “any dif­fer­ence” since 2020 and 2022 “were rigged … with­out ques­tion.” He then told her: “What hap­pens then when things don’t change? I think, you know, I praise God every night that the Sec­ond Amend­ment remains in the Con­sti­tu­tion because I don’t know how else to take care of these ver­min.”

    Mike Scheuer has clear­ly mas­tered the kind of fas­cist dog-whistling that defines pol­i­tics in the Trump era. Again, is he plan­ning on work­ing for the sec­ond Trump admin­is­tra­tion? Per­haps as some sort of purge mas­ter? Time will tell, but Scheuer stopped hid­ing his pol­i­tics a while ago.

    And yet there’s still the ques­tion of when exact­ly he adopt­ed these pol­i­tics. Was Scheuer a clos­et fas­cist in 1990s while work­ing at Alec Sta­tion? How about Alfre­da Bikowsky? And what about her pol­i­tics today? Does she share her hus­band’s polit­i­cal blood lust? Unpleas­ant ques­tions, no doubt, but the kinds of ques­tions that should prob­a­bly be asked at some point. And here we are, with Israel fac­ing a dis­turb­ing array of ques­tions with a num­ber of par­al­lels to this same dark chap­ter in the 9/11 ‘intel­li­gence fail­ures’. Might as well ask them them now that Mike Scheuer is agi­tat­ing for mass slaugh­ter. Bet­ter lat­er than nev­er.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | December 3, 2023, 6:00 pm

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