Terrorism is operating in NJ unchecked, and Bush’s Justice Dept knows about it.
A FOUR PART SERIES
by Allan P. Duncan
Introduction
Between the Fall of 1998 and June 2001, a group of Middle Eastern men living in New Jersey is caught on tape in an ATF weapons sting conspiring to buy millions of dollars of weapons including components for nuclear bombs. Three years after the operation ended, all of the people involved in the deal are free.
Federal agents who worked on the case were frustrated because it was handled as a criminal case instead of a counterterrorism case. In an in depth look at Operation Diamondback I reveal that one of the suspects who was accused of skimming millions of dollars from a fraudulent HMO to offshore accounts where the money allegedly went to finance terrorism, was defended in the HMO case by a lawyer who later became the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division, under John Ashcroft. The lawyer, Michael Chertoff, was in his position as Assistant Attorney General when Operation Diamondback ended and his client was never arrested even though an intelligence document claimed he and his brother in Egypt had links to Osama Bin Laden.
Is this why the ATF operation was handled as a criminal case and not a terrorism case by the federal government?
I will also examine the history of terror links to the North Jersey area from before the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center right up until 9–11. Michael Chertoff, by the way, was the U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey from 1990–1994 and was in office when the first attack on the World Trade Center took place. For reasons that escape me, the Jersey City area and particularly the Al Salam mosque from which the Blind Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman spewed his hatred, was allowed to continue to be one of the major hubs of terrorist activity in the United States.
Part 1: The Jersey City Rat Pack
Recent headlines over the past two weeks announced the arrest of two leaders of an Albany , New York mosque for allegedly laundering money involved in the sale of a shoulder fired missile. The arrests were the result of a year long weapons sting conducted by the FBI. (1)
Anytime someone involved in planning terrorism on US soil is taken off the streets it should be plastered all over the headlines to announce to the world that another terrorist is in the slammer and is unable to hurt, maim or kill innocent American citizens.
This case pales in comparison, however, to a pre‑9–11 weapon sting in which a 32 million dollar deal for a ship load of weapons, 500 Stinger Missiles, nuclear triggers, weapons grade plutonium and “heavy water” for a nuclear dirty bomb were the weapons of choice of Middle Eastern men seeking to arm Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban. This case never made screaming headlines when it ended in June 2001 and most people have never head about it. The attacks on 9–11 were three months away and the American press was not as eager to pounce on every story that even mentioned the word terrorist. In addition to the weapons deal, the World Trade Center was specifically mentioned as a future target by one of the characters in this drama and yet none of the people involved in this case are currently in prison. Why?
I ran across references to Operation Diamondback while doing research on terrorism and Weapons of Mass Destruction well over a year ago. I found out that a former con man named Randy Glass had posed as an undercover weapons dealer in an attempt to lure Middle Eastern weapons buyers to the US in a sting operation run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) with support from the FBI and Customs.
The sting operation was documented in two episodes of Dateline NBC; On the trail of arms merchants, which aired on August 2, 2002 (2), and Stinger missile sting operation, which was broadcast on March 18, 2003 . (3)
The case came to a screeching halt with the arrest of only a handful of suspects in June of 2001 even though there was ample evidence that some of the people who were attempting to buy these weapons had connections with the Taliban, Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden himself. The two Dateline NBC stories cited the frustration of Special Agents who worked on the operation and questioned why the case hadn’t received more attention from higher ups in federal law enforcement.
I decided to look deeper into the case myself and discovered some shocking information. I have held onto this information for over a year. I had passed it on to a few lawyers and journalists in hopes that they would follow-up on my discoveries, but to date none of them have, so I have decided to divulge the info myself.
I discovered that the “terror support system supplying U.S. enemies with sophisticated weapons” included three men from New Jersey . As I looked deeper into the story, I realized that one of the men lived in the same county wher
e I worked at the time, and that all of them had worked in the city where one of my closest relatives lives.
Needless to say, I was shocked to think that two of these same men who plotted to secure components for nuclear weapons and one of whom allegedly funneled millions of dollars to Osama Bin Laden in the years leading up to 9–11, were still free and allowed to roam the streets of New Jersey.
Enter the players in the Garden State Soap Opera…
Diaa Moshen
The August 2, 2002 edition of Dateline NBC revealed that Operation Diamondback began in the Fall of 1998 and was a two and a half year investigation. One of the first contacts Randy Glass made was with an American citizen born in Egypt who moved to New Jersey about 32 years ago named Diaa Mohsen. Moshen implied that he represented Arab men and that they needed to be very careful as to how they did business.
As the relationship between Randy Glass and Diaa Moshen developed they talked specifically about what kinds of weapons Moshen’s contacts wanted and who they would be going to. The following quotes are excerpts from taped conversations between Glass and Moshen from the Dateline transcript:
“Diaa Mohsen: “They use rocket grenades. They have howitizer. They have like 120 millimeter howitizer.”
Randy Glass: “What is that? That’s like a — what’s a howitizer? It’s like a cannon?”
Diaa Mohsen: “Artillery.”
Glass: “It’s like artillery like in the movies.”
Diaa Mohsen: “Yeah”.”
“And then Glass’s contact tells him where the potential customers can be found.
Diaa Mohsen: “I’ll take you to the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan .”
Finally, he confirms just what kind of people he’s dealing with.
Diaa Mohsen: “You know those f——-g people, they are terrorists.”
Randy Glass: “So these are terrorists?”
Diaa Mohsen: “Sure.”
Randy Glass: “That’s wonderful.”
And what else do the terrorists want? Special technology, he says, for the deadliest of weapons.
Randy Glass: “What is that?”
Diaa Mohsen: “One of the components for a nuclear weapon.”” (2)
Mohsen wanted proof that Glass could actually deliver weapons, so on January 21, 1999 a meeting was set up in a parking lot in New Jersey where Randy showed him a Stinger Missile. A photo was taken of Moshen holding the weapon and he was then off to Egypt to prove to his associates that Glass was legit.
Dick Stoltz, a decorated veteran agent with ATF, posed as an associate of Randy’s during the operation. Their initial meeting with some Egyptian men fell through, but they were soon put in touch with more people in Jersey City who were eager to deal with them.
Mohamed Malik
The next person Diaa Moshen put Randy Glass in touch with was, Mohamed “Mike” Malik, a small businessman in Jersey City who owned convenience stores, a laundromat and a long distance phone card company. On the phone with Malik, Randy agrees to travel to New York City to meet a buyer referred to in the Dateline transcript as “Abbas”. I have since determined that the full name of “Abbas” was Raja Ghulam Abbas.
Excerpts from the Dateline transcript:
“On July 22, 1999 , Glass flew to New York for a meeting at the trendy Tribeca Grill, a restaurant partly owned by actor Robert DeNiro. It was dinner for four: Glass, his first contact, Diaa Mohsen; the Jersey City businessman Mike Malik and the mystery man; Abbas.”
“Abbas gave Glass a business card saying he worked for Malik’s long distance phone card company. Glass was wearing a wire.
Mixed in with the dinner crowd were agents from the FBI’s Terrorism Task Force in case anything went wrong. Glass says Abbas was all business.
“Basically what he told me was that they were interested in purchasing a large amount of sophisticated weapons systems,” says Glass. “And they wanted an actual ship load, not a small amount.”
And who was Abbas representing in this transaction?
“Abbas was represented to me as being an ISI agent,” says Glass.
ISI is the official intelligence agency, like the CIA, of Pakistan . And this is where the stakes really get high. Because, if Abbas was telling the truth, Randy Glass and the feds were about to cut an illegal weapons deal with a Pakistani intelligence operative linked to terrorists.”
“Then, in the middle of a crowded New York restaurant, Glass s
ays the talk turned to something much more ominous: components for nuclear weapons, triggering devices and plutonium.
“They inquired if it was available,” says Glass.
What did Glass say? “Yes,” says Glass.
And they responded? “They were interested,” says Glass.
Dick Stoltz, the veteran undercover agent with the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms who worked the case, confirms Randy Glass’s account.
Stoltz had to realize that the people being talked about as customers for these weapons were the most wanted terrorists in the world.
“That’s correct,” says Stoltz.
Bin Laden? “Correct,” says Stoltz.
Did Stoltz think they were serious? “Oh absolutely,” he says.
In fact, Stoltz says Randy Glass’s dinner companions were checked out by U.S. intelligence experts and found to have real connections.
“We did confirm through various sources that Abbas and Malik did have links to weapons trafficking groups and militant operations,” says Stoltz.” (2)
About this meeting, John Pacenti, in a Palm Beach Post article dated August 2, 2002 titled, Con Man Turned Patriot Tells All states:
“At the meeting Abbas said Americans are the enemy and they will have no problem blowing up this entire restaurant because it’s full of Americans,” Glass said. “As we leave the restaurant, Abbas turns and says, ‘those towers (the World Trade Center ) are coming down.’ ”
Despite that information, available to the government two years before the World Trade Center attack, the FBI’s terrorism task force didn’t appear to take the threat seriously, Glass said.” (4)
So now we have an alleged member of the Pakistani ISI, Raja Ghulam Abbas, meeting with Randy Glass in New York City , talking about buying sophisticated weapons, components for nuclear arms and talking about the World Trade Center towers coming down. Abbas also presents a business card showing that he is in business with Mohamed “Mike” Malik. The entire meeting was recorded and according to Randy, members of the FBI Terrorism Task Force were present in case anything went wrong.
A few weeks after the meeting the buyers flew to Florida to see the weapons for sale. From the August 2nd Dateline transcript we find this:
“Stoltz says that more than anything else they wanted materials for nuclear weapons, especially a substance called heavy water, which is used to make weapons grade plutonium.
Sometimes, as on this tape, Abbas used a code name, referring to heavy water as “sweet water.”
Abbas: “And we hook up to the guys which ... in Pakistan work for us . . .”
Randy Glass: “Yeah, of course.”
Abbas: “So we say to him whatever you need, anything up to the sweet water, you know?”
Randy Glass: “Yes.”
“They would tell me: ‘The people that I’m dealing with, they have to have the heavy water,’” says Stoltz.
And unless they got it, Stoltz was told the deal was off. That was a deal breaker.
“That was a deal breaker,” says Stoltz. “They were flexible maybe on military parts for airplanes or small arms or maybe even Stingers, but they always came back to square one. Heavy water.”
For nuclear weapons?
“Correct,” says Stoltz.
And that wasn’t all the arms dealers wanted. “Dateline” has learned that Mike Malik gave the undercover agents a list of radioactive chemicals that could be used to make a so-called dirty bomb — conventional explosives laced with radioactive materials. Bin Laden’s terrorists are believed to have talked about detonating such a bomb in a major U.S. city to spread toxic radiation.
Malik and Abbas were so serious about closing a deal, Stoltz says, they went back to Pakistan to talk to their customers in person. Then, Stoltz says, Abbas informed him there was one more condition: he wanted to bring a Pakistani nuclear scientist to America who could inspect the nuclear materials that would be part of the deal. And he told Stoltz the name of the scientist.
Did Stoltz check this out?
“Of course it was passed up the line and it was confirmed that this person did exist and that’s what he did for the Pakistani government,” says Stoltz. “That he was in the field of atomic weapons. He was a scientist.”” (2)
Now we have Mohamed “Mike” Malik not only traveling with Abbas to Florida with a priority of securing heavy water for a dirty bomb, but Malik himself coming up with a shopping “list of radioactive chemicals that could be used to make a so-called dirty bomb — conventional explosives laced with radioactive materials.”
The group finally reached an agreement in December of 2000.
“The buyers would pay $32 million over several years. The first shipments would be conventional weapons. Nuclear components would come later. A Florida bank account was set up to receive the $32 million wire transfer that was supposed to come from a bank in the Middle Eastern emirate of Dubai . Federal agents waited six months, but the money never came.
“And at that point, it was decided that we would take the case down,” says Stoltz. “We thought we had gone about as far as we could with it.”
The Dateline story states that,
I was interested to see who Diaa Mohsen lived with at 927 Pavonia.
John W Yengo, seemed to be the same John Yengo who hung out with mobsters such as Elvis Irizarry.