FBI “Wanted” Poster: $25 Million for Zawahiri (L), or bin Laden
- home - Surveillance_2 - 911 Open Letters -
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Honorable Madam Chair, Judiciary Committee, Montana House of Representatives
Surveillance
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FBI “Wanted” Poster: $25 Million for Zawahiri (L), or bin Laden
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“The mission of the FBI is to uphold the law through the investigation of violations of federal criminal law; to protect the United States from foreign intelligence and terrorists activities; to provide leadership and law enforcement assistance to federal, state, local, and international agencies; and to perform these responsibilities in a manner that is responsive to the needs of the public and is faithful to the Constitution of the United States.” FBI mission statement, 1998.
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“... we may have on our hands a man who will pull down the temple with him, including me.”
- Former President Richard Nixon, Oval Office, with
AG John Mitchell and key White House aides while discussing how J. Edgar Hoover
should be asked to resign as head of the FBI., October 1971.
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Honorable Madam Chair, Judiciary Committee, Montana House of Representatives,
One of the more remarkable facets of government cover-up is brought to our attention by Patrick B. Briley's report to the Congressional 911 Commission. Regrettably, the Commission did not choose to publish Mr. Briley's report, nor give it any attention prior to publishing their report. In this letter I shall share with your Committee a substantial portion of Mr. Briley's report and link to the entire thing. We may well ask why this information has not been officially presented to the American public.
I wish to note at this time that cause and effect are never separate events in our physical universe. Neither may exist as such without the other. Without an effect, there can be no cause, and where there is no cause, there shall be no effect. I refer to this universally understood observation as the “law of cause and effect”. Cause and effect are always joined, always exist only in relationship with each other, and although an effect may sometimes seem to be causeless, our common sense tells us better.
Therefore, where there is an effect there must be a cause. Terrorism is an effect. It is an effect of a cause. That cause, I submit, is comprised of many inter-related and co-operating factors and variables, the sum of which contribute to the makeup of the greater, more generalized “cause”. The fact that Palestine and Israel are in conflict may be a part of that greater causality; the fact that Pakistan and India are in conflict may contribute to that greater causality; the fact that Iraq and Iran are in conflict may contribute to that greater causality– yet each of these conflicts, and each of countless others, individually represents but a portion of the overall cause from which the effect of terrorism is now displayed as a symptom.
Neither of the above-mentioned localized inter-Semitic feuds would in and of itself constitute the general cause of terrorism on the massive scale which we today observe. To those conflicts the Western governments, including the United States of America, have added catalysts in the form of finance, business, politics, military activity, religious attrition, media influence, and, perhaps most powerfully, the influence of myriad Intelligence community activities rendered covertly by a number of nation-states, including the Intelligence community of the United States of America. Recall, CIA began tampering with the destiny and internal affairs of middle-east nation-states when CIA assaulted and took out the government of Iran in 1953, replacing it with a U.S. sponsored "puppet government" operated the CIA-chosen Shah. CIA did indeed use government-sponsored terrorism to do that. 2 The sponsoring government was our own. The refined truth about that is that the U.S. government sponsored terrorism in a foreign nation. In doing so, the CIA created a precedent which opened the door for many further repetitions of our own government-sponsored terrorism.
The initiation of the aggression was our own and that of the British Empire. Our Intelligence operations in the middle-east have never ceased since that time. In fact, our Intelligence operations have spread vastly across the entire middle-east to encompass the western peripheries of Eurasia. For example, we now know that CIA began erecting proprietaries in Uzbekistan in 1998, preparing for what was to come. We note, coincidentally of course, that CIA's timing for establishing CIA business fronts in Uzbekistan coincided with the publication of Brzezinski's “The Grand Chessboard”3 and the formation of the PNAC. 4
But back to “cause and effect”. One of the effects of the CIA's debauchery in Iran at that time had to be a general anger toward the U.S. government. You and I would be extremely angered and vengeful if another nation assassinated some of our politicians, burned houses, bombed buildings, tampered with our economy, ran our President out of the country or had him imprisoned, and installed their puppet government here. I know of no reason to expect any other reaction from the Iranian people in the wake of our having done that to their nation.
To add insult to injury, the CIA, having successfully installed their puppet, the Shah, in power in Iran, immediately went about the gruesome task of creating for him the dreaded assassinations and torture committee named SAVAK. SAVAK was responsible for countless murders and "disappearances" and tortures for many years after the Shah was placed in power. Declassified government documents now confess all of this, as you know. Of course the people of Iran were angry at us, for they knew exactly who had been behind the coup which placed the Shah in power. They knew that the Shah was a U.S. puppet. In 1979 the Iranian people finally reacted by toppling the Shaw and taking U.S. Embassy hostages - the event which shaped the October Surprise that ditched Carter's Presidency and placed G. H. W. Bush, William Casey, and the Enterprise into the White House of an allegedly-naive Ronald Reagan.
The Shah, the CIA's puppet head of state, was overthrown by the Iranian people. I submit that the Iranian people had every moral right to detest U.S. involvement in their internal affairs, especially in light of the fact that CIA used terrorism, bombings, and murders to take down the Iranian government and install its own. Perhaps it's my libertarian mindset, but to me, a bully is always definable as someone who initiates aggression. The sad fact of undebatable history is that the U.S. Intelligence community, working in conjunction with the British Empire's Intelligence community, initiated that aggression in response to Mossadeq's decision to nationalize Iran's oil industry in 1953. It was done at the request of British Petroleum, just as the same thing was done the following year in Guatemala at the request of the Rockefeller-owned United Fruit Company.
Structure and Infrastructure
As we have already observed, there exists a hierarchy in the dispersion of authority within governmental infra-structure. 5 At the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) there is a central office, then regional offices, then localized specific field offices, then operatives, officers, and related miscellaneous affiliates such as paid and unpaid informants, underworld contacts, some law enforcement community contacts, and etc. Atop all that sits the U.S. Department of Justice with its commander, the U.S. Attorney General.
The Attorney General, and the Department of Justice (DOJ) under his leadership, are expected to follow closely the Policy of the White House, in harmony with dictates and requirements in consideration of the Congress and the Supreme Court and the U.S. Constitution. An example which illustrates that came in early 2007 when it was revealed that "eight federal prosecutors were fired last year because they did not sufficiently support President Bush's priorities..." This, by Attorney General Gonzales' former chief of staff Kyle Sampson, was published in Butte's The Montana Standard, section C page 5, March 29, 2007. In that article Mr. Sampson says: "The distinction between 'political' and 'performance-related' reasons for removing a United States attorney is, in my view, largely artificial. A U.S. attorney who is unsuccessful from a political perspective ... is unsuccessful." I think that fairly-well sums up my point here.
Issuing downwardly and outwardly from the office of the U.S. Attorney General are the many Policies which denote and define the duties of the FBI. The FBI's own internal hierarchy disperses down its chain of command those policies which are formalized in DOJ and which originated from the Policy as understood through the Common Law, from the White House or/and U.S. State Department Policy. When a sitting U.S. President appoints an Attorney General, that Attorney General is expected to reflect through his administration of DOJ's duties and activities the Policy of the appointing President. Accordingly, the U.S. attorneys are expected to reflect the Attorney General's Policy.
The agency's basic structure includes: Criminal Justice Information Services Division; Training Division; Personnel Division; Information Resources Division; National Security Division; Criminal Investigative Division; Laboratory Division; Finance Division.
The Director of FBI has for his subordinate and immediate assistance the Office of The General Counsel; the Office of the Deputy Director; the Office of the Chief of Staff; and the Inspection Division.
To look at the FBI from the bottom up, we must begin with the individual officer attached to a field office. An individual officer is assigned a work-load and a “field” or area or group in which to operate as an agent for his office. He becomes the 'man on the street', so to say, the man who contacts and observes various 'real' people. When he is tasked with the gathering of information he is expected to cultivate new sources and maintain previous sources as needed. He must do a lot of paperwork. He is expected to be on the ball, to show initiative in his work, to perform by furnishing his office results which add to the effectiveness of the office and support the entire hierarchy of the FBI from the ground up.
Often times, he is expected to operate clandestinely, to infiltrate a group or organization or network of targeted individuals deemed worthy of FBI surveillance. His purpose and goal include an obligation to reflect the Policy of the Administration and the DOJ. His work is reviewed and selections from his work are sent up the chain of command to appropriate levels of authority – sometimes, but not in all cases, as we shall see.
The FBI has an interesting perspective from which to view the world of crime, and that perspective has lately morphed into the world of “terrorism”. As we might expect, the FBI routinely seeks to infiltrate and to spy upon criminal groups, “terrorist” groups, “cells”, and networks. Toward that purpose the FBI uses the talents of its operatives and their “informants”, as well as input from other agencies both domestic and foreign.
One informant who has been used extensively by the FBI is a man named Ali Mohammed. The case of Ali Mohammed is a perpetual embarrassment for the FBI. Among his many claims to fame, Ali Mohammed personally trained Osama bin Laden's bodyguards and assisted in the writing of the CIA's manual for Jihad, which was taught to Osama bin Laden's Mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 1980s. But Ali Mohammed also worked for the FBI as an informant, and for the CIA as an asset, and for the U.S. Army as a Special Forces (Green Beret) instructor at Fort Bragg.
My attention was first drawn to the name Ali Mohammed when I read a report to the Congressional 911 Commission from Patrick B. Briley, an acquaintance of Devvy Kidd. 6 Before looking at some sections of his report to the 911 Commission, let us look at Patrick B. Briley the man.
Briley was chosen to work under Admiral Rickover at Naval Reactors. He volunteered for Naval service from 1968 to 1976 during the Viet Nam era including being in Naval ROTC, a battalion commander of his ROTC unit and a Midshipman on board the ballistic missile submarine, SSBN 624, the Woodrow Wilson, as well as serving at Naval Reactors in DC for Admiral Rickover.
" My Polaris submarine patrol in the Pacific was in far East Asia near China but I can not elaborate any more than that other than to say it was a very special, historically significant and exceptionally dangerous.”
Patrick started research and investigation into terrorist attacks after the Oklahoma City bombing. He became inspired to do so in part because of the FBI's hostile treatment of his wife, who witnessed something at the site of the Oklahoma City Murrah Federal building bombing which the FBI did not want publicized. Pat submitted his findings concerning the OKC bombing and the 9-11 attacks in briefings to high-level staff for the Senate Judiciary and Senate and House Intelligence committees, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, and the 9-11 Commission.
Having read for my own interests a number of Mr. Briley's reports, I am of the opinion, presently, that Mr. Briley does not work for the U.S. Intelligence community, is not a dis-information specialist or psy-ops operative, is not a propagandist, but, rather, is a conscientious American veteran who is dedicated to exposing those Players within the Intelligence community who facilitate the execution of crimes or who themselves commit crimes against the American people under the cover of National Security Secrecy. I invite you and your Committee to assess the man for yourselves after reading the results of his investigative ventures into the world of domestic terrorism and the role played in terrorism by the U.S. Intelligence community. From his report to the Congressional 911 Commission - 7
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Counter Terrorism Antecedents for the
9/11 Attacks - Terrorism Cover-Up 7
Source: Investigations of Author [P. B. Briley] and Attorneys
Apr 3, 2004
Author: Patrick B. Briley
Author's [Briley's] Note:
The report below has been formally transmitted to, received by and discussed
with the 9-11 Commission Staff with the full knowledge of House Speaker Dennis
Hastert's office. Hastert's office has also received and discussed the report.
The report is accompanied to the 9/11 Commission with a copy of a Federal
lawsuit OKC attorney Mike Johnston filed against Iraq in the DC court of Federal
Magistrate Deborah Robinson in March 2003 The lawsuit contains evidence relevant
to the participants and sponsors of 9/11 as well as the OKC bombing. Johnston is
also an expert and prior litigant on Iraqi acquisition of WMDS technologies
inside the US prior to the Gulf War. (snip)....
A PBS Frontline documentary aired Thursday, October 16, 2003 and was entitled "Chasing the Sleeper Cell" and examined the extended, long term FBI surveillance of an Al Qaeda terror cell at Lackawanna, New York after 9/11. In the documentary FBI official Dale Watson of the Joint FBI and CIA Counter terrorism Center (CTC) was interviewed at length: (snip)....
CTC Chief Watson said
the bureau felt it could ensure that nothing would happen "while it continued to
watch the suspects, in the hope of being led to bigger prey."
FBI CTC official Dale Watson was exhibiting the same mentality that prevailed
before 9/11 with the FBI tracking of terrorist hijackers for too long, that is,
to "continue to watch the suspects, in the hope of being led to bigger prey "
while mistakenly assuring the White House with a 99 per cent probability that
nothing bad would happen" even though the FBI intentionally left known
terrorists on the streets. This same policy and mentality affected FBI and CIA
handling of the known 9/11 hijackers before 9/11 as this report describes below.
(snip) [EA note: the FBI did finally get the Lackawanna cell off the street.]
....
But the Lackawanna cell is not the only Al Qaeda cell the FBI was monitoring at
the time and prior to 9/11. In the fall of 2001 the Washington Post and Bob
Woodward reported that the FBI was monitoring at the same time but not
moving against 5 known Al Qaeda terror groups inside the US only one of which
was the Lackawanna group.
These other 4 known cells still have not been taken off the streets to this day.
(snip)....
What should further
concern the Commission is that apparently the FBI has convinced the
administration to go back to the old way of operating prior to 9/11 to continue
to monitor for years members of six known large Al Qaeda cells inside the US
without taking them off the streets. I refer the Commission to the following
quote in the NY Times article by [Don Van Natta Jr.] from Aug 23, 2003, "Six
Groups Said to Be Monitored in U.S. for Possible Qaeda Links":
"American officials have limited their actions so far to intensive surveillance
of the suspects, who they say are spread across 40 states, in order to gather
more information about their plans and organization, the officials said. The
decision to continue the surveillance, rather than to detain some suspects,
reflects a strategic shift by United States government investigators. They said
they had concluded that at this stage it was more
valuable to try to learn more about the groups' activities and possible plans
through extended observation." (snip)....
The following is some
detailed evidence and proof of FBI, CIA and White House policy, surveillance
activities and conduct that permitted known terrorists to operate inside the US
for years prior to 9/11, the OKC bombing and the 1993 WTC bombing when some of
these same terrorists were actively involved in two and in some cases all three
of these attacks and bombings. This failed policy needs reevaluation and
correction so that attempts to stop future terror attacks inside the US will be
more successful:
1. The FBI and CIA station chief in the Philippines learned the details of plans
for the OKC bombing and plans to train hijacker pilots for a 9/11 style attack
on the WTC, other US skyscrapers and DC Federal buildings (not Project Bojinka)
in January and February 1995.
The CIA and FBI learned this information from CIA surveillance of Abu Sayeff
terrorist cell meetings involving Iraqi operative Khalid Mohammed, his nephew
Ramzi Yousef, Abdul Murad, Wali Khan, Philippino Edwin Angeles, Americans John
Lebney, and Terry Nichols, and 5 Iraqi agents including a bomb expert. [EA note:
That would be the same Terry Nichols charged in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.]
The CIA and FBI also learned of this information in debriefings from undercover
Philippine Intelligence agent Edwin Angeles who was in the meetings. John Lebney
was engaged in Chinese appliance sales and was known to the CIA. Further
information was learned by FBI interrogation of fellow cell members (arrested)
Abdul Murad and Wally Khan.
Khalid Mohammed made these plans for the 9/11 style attack with FBI and CIA
knowledge in 1995 a full year before Khalid went to Bin Laden and Al Qaeda in
1996 to finalize and gain support for his plans.
Khalid Mohammed has told US interrogators that he indeed planned the 9/11
mission in the Philippines in 1995. Philippine authorities have told CNN that
the Philippine government told the FBI and CIA of the plot in 1995. The FBI
legal attaché blocked the Pentagon terror advisor, Jesse Clear, from getting
details of 1995 Abu Sayeff meetings with Terry Nichols out of the Philippines
starting in 1996. This is according to what Jesse Clear personally told me in
late 1996.
In the Philippines in late January 1995 the FBI and CIA also obtained access to
Ramzi Yousef's computer hard drive. The computer hard drive contained a letter
from Khalid Mohammed to a Mr. Siddiqy urging greater help from Mr Siddiqy. News
reports stated that one or more Siddiqys were suspects involved in the 1993 WTC
bombing and the 1995 OKC bombing. Anis and Assad Siddiqy and Mohammed
Chafti from Brooklyn New York were arrested immediately after the OKC bombing
and then the FBI had them released the same day. [EA note: See David
Schippers/Alex Jones radio-broadcast interview below.]
The FBI claims they lost track of their arrest and the FBI 302 reports of their
arrest until they were discovered in the Dallas FBI SAC office of Danny
Defenbaugh in January 2001. FBI agent Odom from Denver twice actively tried to
intimidate the witness Debbie Burdick to keep silent about her eyewitness
account that she had seen the Siddiqy's and Chafti with McVeigh in OKC near the
bombing scene.
The Commission needs to know that Mohammed Chafti, and Anis and Assad Siddiqy
from Brooklyn New York were suspects in the 1993 WTC bombing and were
involved in the OKC bombing with McVeigh. On the day of the OKC bombing FBI
agent Floyd Zimms admitted to OKC police officers that Zimms deliberately gave
out false information concerning the vehicle driven by the men. Zimms
deliberately and falsely identified their getaway car as an old green Oldsmobile
Cutless, one Zimms used to drive, but not the vehicle the men were driving on
the day of the bombing when they fled to Dallas and were later released. The
vehicle two of the men were driving was a rental car from Dallas, the men had
switched the plates on their rental car, they were detained initially by the
Oklahoma Highway Patrol and later arrested in Dallas. One of the other men was
arrested in OKC at a motel. The FBI intervened in Dallas and OKC and had the men
later released for reasons unknown.
The CIA and Tenet should have known that Saddam Hussein and Iraq made direct
payments to 911 hijacker Mohammed Atta and mastermind Khalid Mohammed via the
Muslim and Syrian brotherhood starting over ten years before 9/11 and while they
were working with Iraqi agents.
The CIA and Tenet should have known that Iraq used Abu Nidal to train Ramzi
Youseff, Khalid Moahmmed and the 9/11 hijackers Mohammed Atta and Ziah Jarrah,
who were the roommates of fellow hijacker Al Shehhi in Hamburg.
The CIA and Tenet should have known that Ramzi Yousef traveled with Iraqi Dr.
Ishan Barbouti in the US and in England during the 1980s to acquire WMDS for
Iraq including from US companies. This is also further described in the addendum
below.
Khalid Mohammed worked with an American citizen who was also an FBI informant,
Melvin Lattimore, and they both helped carry out all three of these
attacks, 1993 WTC, the OKC bombing and 9/11. This is explained in detail in
item 7 and other items following below. [EA note: emphasis mine]
2. FBI agents visited the Norman flight school in 1999 after a visit by 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta, and told the owners that they were tracking Atta as a suspect in a terror plot involving airliners. Bin Laden's personal pilot had trained at the Norman flight school in 1996. The FBI was tracking hijacker pilots being trained in the US because the FBI and CIA had learned of the 9/11 plot by Khalid Mohammed starting in 1995 described in item 1 above. [EA note: The Abu Sayeff meetings in the Philippines in early 1995]
The FBI visited
several flight schools in Phoenix and Norman tracking the training of the
hijacker pilots well before 9/11. See items 3-8 below.
3. FBI agent Ken Williams used informant Adjai Collins in Phoenix to track
hijacker Hani Hanjour for over three years. FBI agent Steven Butler used
informant Abdussattar Shaikh in San Diego to track for at least two to three
years the hijacker pilots Hani Hanjour, Al Hazmi and Al Mihdhar.
While living with Abdussattar Shaikh, hijackers Al Hazmi and Al Mihdhar had
frequent visits from Mohammed Atta and Hani Hanjour. The FBI agent Steven Butler
who was Shaikh's handler claims that he never had reason to suspect Al Hazmi, Al
Mihdhar, Atta or his informant Abdussattar. [EA note: We might wonder – why
surveil them if they were not suspect?]
Yet the FBI knew that Shaikh paid for computers for Al Hazmi and Al Mihdhar and
that he paid for a rental car the FBI knows was driven by them between San Diego
and Phoenix for their visits with hijacker Hani Hanjour in the fall of 2000.
Al Hazmi and Al Mihdhar lived with Hanjour in a San Diego apartment from
February 2000 to September 2000 and had limousines pick them up for short rides
in the middle of the night.
Then Al Hazmi and Al Midhar moved to the house of long time FBI counter
intelligence informant Abdussattar Shaikh in September 2000 where their rent was
paid for by a Saudi Omar al-Bayoumi who worked for officials of the Saudi
Arabian consulate in Los Angeles. Al-Bayoumi is believed by the FBI to be an
intelligence officer. Al-Bayoumi put Al Hazmi and Al Mihdhar in contact with
their new landlord and FBI informant Shaikh at the local mosque where Shaikh was
a leader of the mosque.
According to an October 5, 2002 article in the New York Times the FBI refused to
allow the San Diego FBI informant Abussattar Shaikh and his handler, FBI agent
Steven Butler to testify before the Congressional hearings on 9/11 about their
monitoring of 9/11 hijackers Al Hazmi, Hani Hanjour and Al Hamdi:
"As for Butler, his criticism of FBI headquarters and the intelligence
community, in general, led to a punitive transfer and he left the FBI in
disgust."
What is important for the Commission to note is that the 9/11 Congressional
report states the best chance the FBI had to unravel the 9/11 plot was by paying
more attention to the FBI informant Abdussattar Shaikh who lived with Al Hazmi
and Al Mihdhar.
4. FBI agent Ken Williams sent a memo to an FBI unit in the CTC directed by Dale
Watson in the early summer of 2001. William's memo warned of Al Qaeda plans to
use hijacked airlines inside the US based on information Williams had learned
about hijacker Hani Hanjour from informant Adjai Collins. One should wonder if
Williams's memo was also based on information learned about Hani Hanjour
co-hijackers Atta, Al Mihdhar and Al Hazmi from FBI agent Butler and FBI
informant Abdussattar Shaikh. Williams' memo to an FBI CTC unit was ignored and
Watson claimed he did not learn of the Williams memo in time.
5. While the FBI CTC
units ignored Williams, Williams persisted and contacted the CIA directly in the
early summer of 2001 about his evidence and concerns pertaining to Al Qaeda
training pilots for attacks inside the US. Williams was reprimanded for going to
the CIA.
The Commission should determine if the Williams memo and conversations with the
CIA reached Cofer Black of the CIA part of CTC and if William's
information was included in the CIA report concerning Al Qaeda attacks inside
the US discussed by Dr. Rice at President Bush's Daily Brief on August 6, 2001.
If this information was not provided in the CIA report and part of Dr. Rice's
briefing on Aug 6, 2001, then the Commission should determine why it was not,
especially since then it should have been, because the CIA knew about it in
detail from Ken Williams in time to put it in the CIA report for Dr. Rice.
The Commission needs to be fully aware that according to Senate Intelligence
Committee staff Director Eleanor Hill, the White House ordered the classifying
and withholding from Congress all information the US knew about terror
mastermind Khalid Mohammed and his 9/11 plot plans, the foreign [Saudi]
sponsorship of the plans with money and help to 9/11 hijackers Al Hazmi and Al
Mihdhar and Hani Hanjour via Saudi Omar Al-Bayoumi and all antecedent
information the President was told about the 9/11 plot before 9/11.
The 9/11 Congressional report leaves out the most important facts that the
information from Ken Williams memo (that reached the CIA) was specific about Al
Qaeda attacks inside the US using hijacked airlines with the very
hijacker pilots ATTA, HANJOUR, AL MIHDHAR and AL HAZMI that lived with and/or
visited and were helped by the FBI informant Abdussattar Shaikh and with the
help of the Saudi Omar Al-Bayomi.
The Commission should review and investigate why this information is not in the
final 900-page 9/11 report issued by Congress and why the information was
withheld from Congress even though part of it may have once been in the redacted
28 pages of the report.
I received a phone call from James Lewis, the staff director (who helped write
and assemble the 900 page report) for the House Intelligence Committee over this
story before the Congressional report on 9/11 came out. Lewis told me
that I could provide him with information if I wanted to but he also advised me
that I would be under investigation by law enforcement such as the FBI for
anything I told him or provided him in writing.
Before the Congressional report came out I also had a phone discussion about
this same information with James Hensler, the staff director for the Senate
Intelligence Committee who also helped write the 9/11 Congressional report. The
OKC attorney with whom I have closely worked for almost 9 years, Michael
Johnston wrote Mr. Lewis and Mr Hensler providing some of this information
before the 9/11 Congressional report came out. Mr. Johnston received no response
and none of the information was included in the 9/11 Congressional report.
The discussion in items 1-5 above and in items 6-7 below provides a very strong
basis to conclude that Congress was not fully informed and in fact [was] blocked
by White House actions and classifications over the 9/11 plot plans of Khalid
Mohammed and what the FBI ,CIA , CTC and Bush and Clinton administrations knew
or should have known from tracking the 9/11 hijacker pilots for several years
before 9/11.
6. George Tenet has said publicly and recently that he and the CIA only got
incomplete information - a first name and a phone number - two years before the
9/11 attacks, from German intelligence about a member of the Hamburg cell of
Atta and Zarrah, namely 9/11 hijacker Al Shehhi.
The Tenet public explanation about Al Shehhi is inconsistent with published
accounts that CIA agent David Edger monitored the Hamburg cell of Atta, Al
Shehhi and Zarrah for almost four years before the 911 attacks with an informant
Dakalzani. The CIA and FBI also appear to not want it publicly learned that a
member of the Hamburg cell, Ziah Jarrah, had his ticket purchased on the
Pennsylvania 9/11 flight by an employee of Oklahoma University (OU) with the
knowledge of the FBI at the time when CIA agent Edger was in Norman working with
Tenet's mentor, David Boren, the former Chairman of the Senate Intelligence
Committee and the Chancellor of OU. [Oklahoma University]
Ziah Jarrah's uncle supported Ziah while working for German intelligence and Abu Nidal.
7. In 1998-2000 the
CIA learned from monitoring a Malaysian meeting with Hambali and other Al Qaeda
members that Zacahrias Moussaoui was Al Qaeda. And Moussaoui was sent from Paris
via the Hamburg cell by Khalid Mohammed to live with US citizen and FBI
informant Melvin Lattimore while attending the Norman OK Airman flight school.
Lattimore's credit card was used to buy bomb-making materials in the 1993 WTC
bombing. Lattimore was with McVeigh's car and two other FBI informants in OKC at
the time of the OKC bombing and was named to the FBI as part of the OKC bombing
one day after the bombing. CIA operative Khalid Mohammed used Lattimore for
roles in the 1993 WTC, the OKC and the 9/11 attacks.
The CIA's top man at the CTC, Cofer Black, was in a position to have known and
to have told Tenet about the connections of Moussaoui with Al Qaeda and his
monitoring in OK by FBI informant Melvin Lattimore. Groups associated with the
CTC blocked Minnesota FBI agents from searching Moussaoui's computer when the
FBI (Dale Watson) and CIA (Black) CTC knew from 1998 -2000 that Moussauoi was Al
Qaeda and training for a terror mission with hijacked airliners.
8. OKC bombing
witness Gloria Smith is the Director of the Travelers Aid that was down the
street from the bombed Murrah Federal building in OKC. Smith and three of her
co-workers saw three key suspects that were FBI informants with McVeigh's car at
the Travelers Aid.
One of the suspects is the known terrorist and the long time FBI informant,
Melvin Lattimore who is also a Black Muslim originally from St Louis.
Lattimore was Zacharias Moussaoui's roommate who Khalid Mohammed had sent via
Paris and the Hamberg cell to live with Lattimore while Moussaoui attended the
Norman OK flight school. Lattimore's credit card was used to buy bomb-making
materials for the Khalid Mohammed planned and Ramzi Yousef executed 1993 WTC
attack. Other informants named Lattimore to the FBI one day after the OKC
bombing as a participant in the OKC bombing. Yet the FBI did nothing adequate
about the FBI informant Melvin Lattimore.
Lattimore was Federally imprisoned in November 2001 for carrying a weapon in
violation of a prior felony conviction of stockpiling explosives. Lattimore was
to have been released in November 2003. Lattimore's attorney was Susan Otto,
McVeigh's original attorney, who once told attorney Stephen Jones that Jones'
opinion of the US government would never be the same if Jones learned what the
US government's role in the OKC bombing had been. Jones described the Otto
statement in his book "Others Unknown". 8
Melvin Lattimore worked with Khalid Mohammed to help do the 1993 WTC, the OKC
and the 9/11 attacks all while known to the FBI. Adanan Shukrijumah was sent to
Oklahoma after 9/11 with two other Al Qaeda accomplices by Khalid Mohammed to
conduct terrorist acts on the US. The men are pilots and are believed to be
carrying small footprint WMDS. The FBI claims that they cannot find the men even
though the FBI has confirmed that the men were inside the US twice in 2003.
Lattimore is now out of prison and could harm Smith. The DOJ and FBI should get
Lattimore off the street before he could harm Smith. Unless Lattimore is found
and stopped, Lattimore can connect up again with a known Al Qaeda terrorist Adan
Shukrijumah at large inside the US and sent by Khalid Mohammed to attempt
another terror attack inside the US.
Even as an FBI informant, Lattimore should still be considered as a terrorist
and the 911 Commission should understand that the FBI has proven three times
that the FBI's awareness of Lattimore failed to stop the 1993 WTC, the OKC and
the 9/11 attacks. A fourth attempt by the FBI to monitor Lattimore to track Al
Qaeda and other terrorists like Adnan Shukrijumah could once again prove to be a
fatal mistake.
The other two suspects and known FBI informants identified with Lattimore and
McVeigh's car by Smith and her co-workers at the Travelers Aid in OKC were Peter
Langan and James Rosencrans. See item 9 also.
Langan was taken out
of prison by the FBI and Secret Service in 1994 to do undercover work on
domestic and foreign terrorism inside the US. While working for the FBI he
robbed banks in the MidWest, was photographed painting hand grenades at the
FBI-infiltrated compound, Elohim City, and was with Rosencrans and Lattimore at
the Travelers aid with McVeigh's car just before the OKC bombing.
Rosencrans was a drug dealer and Fortier's next-door neighbor in Arizona.
Rosencrans was allowed by the FBI to keep the proceeds from the pawning of guns
that were stolen from gun dealer Roger Moore, the FBI and prosecutors had
testified (perjury) were used to fund the OKC bombings. Rosencrans was the FBI's
star witness against McVeigh at the Federal Grand Jury in OKC in June and July
1995. Yet Rosencrans had large amounts of ammonium nitrate like [that which was]
used to make the OKC bomb found dumped in his back yard right after the OKC
bombing. (snip)....
10. This item should
be known by the CIA and Tenet and should also be investigated by the 9/11
Commission:
Federal court testimony revealed that gun dealer Roger Moore was an FBI and CIA
operative at the time he knew McVeigh and encouraged him for almost two years to
attack Federal buildings and do the OKC bombing to "combat the new world order"
according to Moore's letters to McVeigh. Moore had a CIA based contract to build
nitromethane (believed used with ammonium nitrate and fuel oil in the OKC
bombing and sought out by McVeigh and Fortier in OKC) powered drug interdiction
boats in Florida with HW Bush close associate Aranow, (4) involved in Iran
Contra. Moore also introduced McVeigh to an explosives chemist, Steve Coburn in
Arizona before the OKC bombing.
Moore is the man who testified at the Nichols Federal trial and recanted his
testimony in a published letter a few months later. Nothing was ever done to
Moore about his false testimony. The US prosecutors had claimed that guns were
stolen from Moore to help pay for the OKC bombing. (snip) ....
Moore's alias with
McVeigh, “Robert Miller”, was used by FBI informant Peter Langan (see item 7) on
a phony drivers license found with Langan's belongings.
Langan's father was a high level official at the CIA. Langan was taken out of
Federal prison in 1994 by the FBI and Secret Service to do undercover work on
domestic and foreign intelligence. Langan was filmed by BATF informant Carol
Howe at the FBI and CIA infiltrated Elohim City compound in OK where CIA, FBI
and German intelligence informant Andreas Strassmeyer also worked. Strassmeyer
worked with Colonel Petroskie connected to the CIA and was protected by the US
State Department and FBI during undercover operations (1989-1995) at the Elohim
compound in Oklahoma including Strassmeyer contacts with Tim McVeigh.
15. A number of FBI
agents like Robert Wright of Chicago have publicly complained that they were
only allowed to follow known terrorists for years inside the US but never
allowed to open a criminal investigation against them for prosecution and
arrest.
16. Former FBI Director Louis Freeh told the Senate Judiciary Committee and
Senator Orin Hatch in May 1995 that the FBI was monitoring known Abu Nidal
terror cells in Dallas, LA and Virginia without taking them off the streets.
Freeh told the committee that the FBI was also deliberately helping known
terrorist individuals come into the US to populate and track the Nidal cells for
years. (emphasis EA)
The problem with this policy by Freeh which the Judiciary Committee did not
object to is that while Abu Nidal worked directly for Iraq he trained terror
mastermind Khalid Mohammed, his nephew Ramzi Yousef (1993 WTC bombing), along
with 9/11 terror hijackers Mohammed Atta and Ziad Jarrah.
17. Senator Orin Hatch openly told journalist Cal Thomas for a 1998 published
interview that the FBI was closely monitoring (but not taking off the streets)
over 2000 known terrorists inside the US. (snip)....
19. FBI agents in
Sacramento, California used Egyptian Ali Mohammed [emphasis EA – see
section on Ali Mohammed below] as an informant from 1992 until 1996 while
Ali Mohammed participated in Al Qaeda operations around the world. The CIA
should have been aware of Ali Mohammed's operations during this time as well.
Ali Mohammed wrote Bin Laden's terrorist training manual, not just Mohammed Atef,
according to what CIA official LC Johnson admitted to me.
Ali Mohammed helped Bin Laden write the Al Qaeda terrorist manual using US
intelligence manuals and information Ali gained while he served as a US Green
Beret and worked for a time for the CIA. Ali moved Bin Laden from Sudan to
Afghanistan while CIA agent Cofer Black of the CTC was in the Sudan monitoring
Bin Laden's activities.
Ali Mohammed was used by the FBI to squire Dr. Ayman Zawahiri around inside the
US in 1995 possibly along with Khalid Mohammed as well.
During that time Ali Mohammed helped Khalid Mohammed set up terrorist cells
throughout the US, trained Bin Laden terrorists in the US on how to use US
intelligence manuals and to deliver bombs, biological, chemical and possibly
nuclear weapons in the US. Ali was indicted in New York in December 1998 along
with Bin Laden's secretary el Hage for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade
Center, the Kenyan and Tanzanian Embassy bombings and for setting up Bin Laden
terrorist cells in the US.
El Hage had been
living in Dallas and [was] tracked by the FBI in Dallas for several years before
his arrest. When arrested, Ali was carrying US intelligence manuals and
documents on how to plant explosive devices in public buildings. Explosive
devices were planted inside the Murrah building based on eyewitness accounts and
forensic experts. In addition to an exploded Ryder truck, evidence of exploded
and non-exploded devices was
found at the scene.
FBI and CIA asset Ali Mohammed may have had a role with Khalid Mohammed in the
1995 OKC Oklahoma City bombing because of the direct participation of Ali and
Khalid Mohammed with the same men in the OKC bombing that were also involved in
the 1993 WTC attacks, namely Anas and Asad Siddiqy, Mohammed Chafti (see item
1), and Melvin Lattimore (see items 1,7, 8)
End quoted passages from Patrick B. Briley's report to the Congressional 911 Committee.
~
From the above we learn that the FBI had been actively surveilling a number of middle-eastern terrorists in this country for years before 911. The FBI used convicted criminals, some of whom they had released from prison for the purpose, as informants and/or double-agents. We see that the FBI and the CIA both knew in early 1995 that al Qaeda desired to use hijacked airliners as weapons, and that the FBI and CIA also both knew of the plot to bomb the Federal building in Oklahoma City later that year, which they allowed to happen on April 19, 1995.
Many who read this shall be tempted to doubt the veracity of Mr. Briley's report to the Commission. The reason many would doubt this material is because the public has not been afforded the luxury of hearing the facts which Mr. Briley has brought forth. Most Americans have been given a very different story about the major terrorist events on U.S. soil. When we pause to reflect upon that one fact - the fact that the American people have been deliberately deceived about the "terror events" on U.S. soil - we may find good reason to question not only Federal authorities but also the complicit major media and national press. Any group of people who know the truth about a public crime and refuse to divulge that truth to the American public becomes a part of the crime itself by complicity in the crime's cover-up.
But the sad truth is that the information given above in Patrick B. Briley's report to the 911 Commission is not only true, but is provable. For readers here who doubt that Mr. Briley's report may be reliable information, let us now look at one example which shall show clearly that Mr. Briley is an honorable and competent researcher and investigator. Mr. Briley mentioned Ali Mohammed. Let's check out Mr. Ali Mohammed.
Agents, Double Agents, and Triple Agents
Ali Mohammed: FBI asset; U.S. Army Special Forces Asset; CIA asset; Al Qaeda asset.
Now let's look more closely at former FBI and CIA and al Qaeda asset Mr. Ali Mohammed, who coincidentally chanced to know some of the terrorist Players who were involved in all three major centerpiece “terror” events on U.S. soil.
We note in Paul Thompson's The Terror Timeline 9 on page 10 that Ali Mohamed had been arrested by Canadian police in 1993. They released Ali when they were told by the FBI that Ali Mohamed is an FBI agent. (Thompson's notes list the Globe And Mail of 11/22/01 as his source for that.) Thompson continues by stating that Ali Mohamed would continue to work for al Qaeda for years, during which time he trained Osama bin Laden's bodyguards and trained a cell in Kenya which later blew up the U.S. embassy there. Quoting Thompson: "Meanwhile, between 1993 and 1997 he (Ali Mohamed) tells secrets to the FBI about al-Qaeda's operations."
Let's look more closely at this monster, and at his relationship with the U.S. Army Special Forces, the CIA, the FBI and Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda. I should note here, again, that the spellings of various middle-eastern names, when put down in English, have variations which contradict other equally-valid spellings. In Ali Mohamed's case, we find the name often spelled with two "m"s - Ali Mohammed. Since the U.S. State Department most frequently uses the single "m" spelling, I've decided to go with that spelling here.
Ali Mohamed was born in Egypt in 1952. From 1970 – 1984 he served in the Egyptian Army, specializing in military intelligence. He learned English in the 1980s by volunteering for a U.S. Special Forces foreign exchange program. At about the same time, he became involved with Egyptian Islamic Jihad which was led by Ayman Al Zawahiri, a splendid man we'll be looking at shortly because for years he has been Osama bin Laden's number-two man at al Qaeda. Following his fourteen years in the Egyptian Army, Ali Mohamed worked for an Egyptian airline in security. He claims that at that time he was working for the CIA. The CIA claims that he approached them to volunteer as an informant, but that they later fired him because he made unauthorized contacts with Hezbollah agents.
Ali flew to the United States of America in 1985, married a woman he met on his flight over, and thereby became a naturalized United States citizen. In 1986 he enlisted in the U.S. Army, which stationed him at Fort Bragg in the company of Green Beret commandos and CIA paramilitary operatives. The CIA claims that Ali was no longer working for CIA at that time, but for some obscure reason Ali was given a security clearance there. At Fort Bragg, Ali was an instructor in Arab culture. When Ayman Al Zawahiri decided to set up cells of his Egyptian Islamic Jihad inside America, Ali Mohammed was one of Zawahiri's earliest members, even while he was teaching Arab culture at Fort Bragg's John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center.
In the late 1980s, while the CIA's Mujahideen still fought the USSR in Afghanistan, Ali took some weeks of leave and went to Afghanistan to kill Russian soldiers. He returned to Fort Bragg after his sojourn in Afghanistan. (EA note: it has been pointed out by Professor Peter Dale Scott that it is highly illegal for the U.S. Army to allow soldiers to hire out for guerrilla wars while on active duty.) Fort Bragg's school asked him to make training films in Arab culture for troops being trained to go to the middle east. He did not do a good job of that, and his films were not used. But he was a better teacher on his “weekend job”, which he pursued in New York.... From this link we read:
~
begin passages from this link:
http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/crime/terrorists/ali-mohammed/
Mohammed's other students found him more interesting. During his time at Fort Bragg, Mohammed traveled to the New York area on the weekends to train potential jihadis in firearms and munitions. His trainees must have gotten something out of the course, because almost all of them went on to bigger and better things.
El-Sayyid Nosair, for instance, used his new shooting skills to blow the head off of a New York City rabbi in 1990. Even after shooting several witnesses during his failed escape attempt, he was acquitted of the murder and only served time for a firearms violation.
Another successful student was American-born. Clement Rodney Hampton-El was wounded while fighting in Afghanistan, before returning to the U.S. and becoming embroiled in a plot to blow up the United Nations. A third protege, Mahmud Abouhalima, was convicted of conspiring with Ramzi Yousef to bomb the World Trade Center in 1993.
After Nosair shot right-wing Rabbi Meyer Kahane in New York in November 1990, the FBI searched his apartment and found dozens of documents from Fort Bragg, including classified information about military operations in the Middle East and intelligence about the Soviets in Afghanistan. The evidence taken from Nosair's apartment was buried and largely forgotten until much later. The FBI classified the shooting as the act of a "lone gunman," all evidence to the contrary.
In late 1989, Ali Mohammed left the Army and set up shop in Santa Clara, Ca. He moved in with another Egyptian, Khalid Abu al-Dahab, in an apartment that served as as home base for their operations and as a crash pad for visiting terrorist dignitaries. Khalid helped pay his share of the rent with a job as a car salesman.
Shortly after they moved in, the Silicon Valley headquarters hosted al-Zawahiri, the head of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, who had planned a cross-country tour of the U.S. to raise funds for terrorist attacks under the guise of charitable donations. Fundraising was Dahab's specialty; he funneled money from U.S. donors to terrorist groups around the globe. During the trip, Zawahiri went by an alias. By most accounts, the results of the trip were disappointing. (snip)....
Mohammed trained terrorist operatives at al Qaeda's camps in Afghanistan, and he helped bin Laden move his operations from Afghanistan to the Sudan in 1991. Mohammed's trainees fought in Israel, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Bosnia and Egypt. He also continued training new recruits back in the U.S., and he helped smuggle foreign terrorists into the U.S, through Canada.
In the spring of 1993, a joint operation between al Qaeda and EIJ [Egyptian Islamic Jihad] in New York City became front page news with the February bombing of the World Trade Center by Yousef and several of [Ali] Mohammed's trainees. A few months later, the FBI broke up the rest of the NYC cell, which had been led by a blind Egyptian radical cleric named Omar Abdel Rahman.
Ali Mohammed walked in and out of contact with the cell during this period. In 1993, Osama bin Laden told him to start casing targets for terrorist attacks in Nairobi, Kenya, where Mohammed had helped set up an al Qaeda cell. Mohammed did surveillance on the U.S. embassy in Nairobi, and other locations in Northern Africa, taking photos, drawing blueprints and writing reports. He trained a cadre of personal bodyguards for bin Laden after an assassination attempt in 1994.
But Ali Mohammed was perhaps the ultimate workaholic. He couldn't be happy with just one job, or even three. So he also began working as an informant for the FBI.
The FBI should have known better. The feds were aware of Mohammed's connection to Nosair and other U.S.-based Islamic terrorists, but the FBI failed to connect the dots... or rather, the FBI has never publicly admitted to having connected the dots.
[EA note: or, rather, let us just say as an hypothesis: It is very likely that someone in the FBI's Radical Fundamentalist Unit did indeed connect those dots but for some reason kept the connections to himself or within a very small group of insiders at high levels of FBI administration.]
The official story is that [Ali] Mohammed volunteered information to the FBI on illegal immigrant operations that were unconnected to his own underground railroad for terrorists. According to this official story, Mohammed came to the conclusion that he could divert attention away from his own border smuggling operations through this relationship.
According to investigative journalists John Miller and Michael Stone, writing in The Cell, the relationship between Mohammed and the FBI dated back to 1990, which means he worked for the U.S. government throughout the entire planning of the World Trade Center bombing. (Other reports have the relationship starting later.)
The logic here is somewhat problematic. It's not clear how Mohammed would be better off drawing attention to himself and then diverting it away from himself. Unless, of course, he was already the recipient of attention from the FBI.
No one has said that... on the record. But by the mid-1990s, there had been plenty of reasons for the FBI to take a look at Mr. Ali Mohammed. For one thing, his fingerprints were all over the World Trade Center bombing and the U.N. bombing plot. After the WTC attack, the FBI had looked back into its Nosair file and found the Fort Bragg documents, among many other valuable pieces of intelligence which had been sitting idle for three years.
Several of Mohammed's trainees were involved in both plots, and the FBI had actually photographed Mohammed with his trainees during a 1989 firearms training course (another piece of intelligence that had been gathering dust for years).
Furthermore, [Ali] Mohammed had a previous association with the leader of the NYC cell, the blind sheikh, Abdel-Rahman. Not only had Mohammed known him in Egypt, but Rahman had been his spiritual mentor. Four soldiers from Mohammed's Army unit had assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981, not exactly a low-profile event. Rahman had been charged with inciting that assassination. (He was acquitted.)
In December 1994, Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law, Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, was arrested in Mountain View, Calif., just a few miles down the road from Ali Mohammed. Khalifa was detained for months by the federal government. It's unclear what, if anything, Khalifa might have told the feds, but Zawahiri returned to Ali Mohammed's apartment in Santa Clara just a month after Khalifa's arrest as part of another fundraising trip.
He had been the beneficiary of U.S. government incompetence for nearly a decade, but by the end of 1994, Mohammed's web of deceptions was beginning to unravel. Shortly after Khalifa's arrest, Mohammed received a phone call in Africa. The FBI was subpoenaing him to testify in the prosecution of Rahman and his co-conspirators for the U.N. bombing plot.
Mohammed played with the FBI, offering a few scraps but little of substance. He was not called to testify in the case, nor was he detained. Even as he was talking to the FBI, Mohammed was helping Zawahiri raise funds which would later be used to bomb the Egyptian embassy in Pakistan. Witness the awesome glory of your tax dollars at work.
The U.N. plotters went on trial in 1995, and Ali Mohammed was all over the case. He was not made available to testify, despite intense interest from the numerous defense attorneys representing a dozen defendants. Some of the defense attorneys openly charged that Mohammed was still working for the CIA when he had trained the U.N. plotters, who they claimed were guilty of nothing more than supporting CIA-funded jihad operations overseas. Whatever the jury thought of that specific claim, they found the defendants guilty and the investigation closed down again.
Despite being the recipient of all this attention, Mohammed continued to perform bin Laden's bidding with impunity. Mohammed obtained the complete list of un-indicted co-conspirators and faxed it to al Qaeda. The list included his own name, as well as the names of bin Laden and Khalifa.
At this point, it's fair to wonder exactly what the FBI was up to. They had clearly tied Mohammed to the New York City terror cell that executed the World Trade Center bombing. He had even told them a little about Osama bin Laden in their chats about the Rahman case.
Whatever happened behind the scenes at this point is shrouded in secrecy. But one thing was clear - they still didn't have the situation under control.
By 1996, Mohammed was again globetrotting freely. He helped move al Qaeda back to Afghanistan when the Sudan ejected bin Laden due to U.S. pressure. He was also working to complete the plan he had set in motion during his scouting trips in 1994. Although al Qaeda had already launched attacks on U.S. soil, the next phase was considered the first "official" shot of the War on Terror.
On Aug. 7, 1998, truck bombs exploded almost simultaneously at U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. More than 230 people were killed, thousands were injured.
Finally, the U.S. criminal justice system began to move. Bin Laden and Zawahiri were indicted, along with several other operatives suspected of being involved in the bombings. A handful of suspects were picked up in Kenya and Tanzania, and shipped back the U.S. At the very end of a 16-name list of indictments, the name of Ali Mohammed appeared.
Once again, Mohammed had been subpoenaed to testify in a terrorism investigation. He was called before a grand jury convened to look at the embassy bombings, and he told a fresh series of lies.
After being interrogated in 1994, Mohammed had exercised patience. He went back to California and stayed put. If he had done the same thing again, he might be free today. But this time, he made plans to leave the country and fly to Egypt. Faced with the prospect of losing him altogether, the FBI reluctantly arrested him on Sept. 10, 1998. News of the arrest was closely guarded. The U.S. secretly detained Mohammed for eight months. No one knows exactly why, but the conventional wisdom is that prosecutors were trying to cut a deal. The deal failed, and he was indicted in May 1999 along with four other suspects in the embassy bombings.
Finally, someone flinched, although it's not clear which side. A deal was struck, under terms of intense secrecy, and on October 24, 2000, he entered a guilty plea. He told the court that he was an agent of al Qaeda and Egyptian Islamic Jihad. He admitted to helping plan the embassy bombings. He admitted training al Qaeda members in the U.S. and abroad in the arts of terrorism. He admitted coaching al Qaeda recruits on how to build effective cells. He admitted training bin Laden's personal guards, and he admitted helping Zawahiri visit the U.S. to raise funds.
While all these admissions were instructive about the general outlines of al Qaeda's operations, they did little to advance the embassy bombings case. The media and virtually every observer of terrorism policy expected that Ali Mohammed would be called to testify in the embassy bombings trial, and they held their breath awaiting the information he would divulge...
And they're still holding their breath today. Ali Mohammed never testified. In fact, Ali Mohammed was never seen again.
After entering his guilty plea, Ali Mohammed's sentencing was scheduled for July 2001. In October 2001, after [911] CBS News reported that Mohammed was still "awaiting sentencing." Some time between then and now, Ali Mohammed vanished from the federal prison system.
His current whereabouts are unknown. He was Osama bin Laden's right-hand man, he apparently worked for the Army, the FBI and the CIA. And now he's just gone.
End quoted passages from above link.
~
That is one remarkable story, to be sure. However, many readers may not yet be unconvinced that it is true, so I think we should go to the government itself to verify what we've just learned about Ali Mohammed. Let us get the story from the U.S. State Department, here:
http://usinfo.state.gov/is/Archive_Index/Ali_Mohamed.html
Ali Mohamed: The Defendant Who Did Not Go to Trial
Pled guilty to conspiracy in African embassy bombing case
By Judy
Aita
Washington File Staff Correspondent
New York -- As a jury deciding the fate of four men charged in the bombing of
two U.S. embassies in East Africa completed its third full day of deliberations
May 15, another member of the group waited in an undisclosed location for his
sentencing later this year.
Ali A. Mohamed was charged in the almost simultaneous bombings of the U.S.
embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam on August 7, 1998, and with conspiring to
kill Americans, along with Wadih El Hage, Mohamed Sadeek Odeh, Mohamed Rashed
Daoud Al-'Owhali, and Khalfan Khamis Mohamed. However, just months before their
trial was to begin in Federal District Court in Manhattan on October 20, 2000,
Mohamed pled guilty to five counts of conspiracy to kill nationals of the United
States and officers or employees of the U.S. government on account of their
official duties, to murder and kidnap, and to destroy U.S. property.
In his plea before Judge Leonard Sand, Mohamed linked Usama bin Laden with the
embassy bombings and said he worked with El Hage and others indicted in the bomb
plot.
Mohamed, 48, is a former Egyptian intelligence officer who became a United
States citizen and a U.S. Army sergeant assigned to a Special Forces unit at
Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He left the U.S. Army in 1989 and in the early 1990s
became involved in the Egyptian Islamic Jihad organization, which also worked
with al Qaeda. He then trained fighters in surveillance techniques at al Qaeda
camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Observers had expected Mohamed to be a key government witness against the four
defendants during the trial, which began in January 2001. However, while his
name was mentioned during testimony on contacts with El Hage and documents taken
from his California home were entered into evidence, the former surveillance
instructor never took the stand.
Mohamed's plea agreement with the government remains secret. In
his October court appearance, Mohamed told the judge that the objective of his
activities with Islamic Jihad and al Qaeda was "to attack any Western target in
the Middle East, to force the governments of the Western countries just to pull
out from the Middle East." [emphasis mine]
Mohamed explained to Judge Sand that "based on the Marine [barracks] explosion
in Beirut in 1984 and the American pull-out from Beirut," the group planned to
use the same method to force the United States to leave Saudi Arabia. Was it
true that the plans "included conspiracy to murder persons who were involved in
government agencies and embassies overseas?" the judge asked. "Yes, your honor,"
Mohamed said. "And to destroy buildings and properties of the United States?"
the judge said. "Yes, your honor," Mohamed answered.
Detailing his activities with the alleged terrorist organizations in the Middle
East and Africa, Mohamed said that during those activities he "understood that I
was working with al Qaeda, [Usama] bin Laden, Abu Hafs [and] Abu Ubaidah, and
that al Qaeda had a shura council which included Abu Hajer al Iraqui." Mohamed
told the judge that in the early 1980s he became involved with the Egyptian
Islamic Jihad organization and in the 1990s was introduced to al Qaeda through
the Egyptian organization. In the early 1990s Ayman Al Zawihiri made two visits
to the United States to raise funds for Islamic Jihad, Mohamed said, and he
helped Zawihiri do that. Zawihiri was also indicted in the bombing but remains
at large, as does bin Laden.
"In 1991 I helped transport Usama bin Laden from Afghanistan to the Sudan,"
Mohamed said. "In 1992 I conducted military and basic explosives training for al
Qaeda in Afghanistan," training among others Harum Fadhl and Abu Jihad, and also
conducted intelligence training for al Qaeda, teaching trainees how to "create
cell structures that could be used for operations." He described his work in
helping al Qaeda set up "a presence in Nairobi" and enumerated work done by
different individuals.
Mohamed said that:
Abu Ubaidah was in charge in Nairobi until he drowned in a ferry accident in
Lake Victoria;
Khalid al Fawwaz set up the office and a car business was opened to create
income;
Wadih el Hage created a charity organization to help provide al Qaeda members
with identity documents; and
Khalid al Fawwaz paid for his surveillance expenses and photo enlarging
equipment when scouting possible bomb targets. "I personally helped El Hage by
making labels in his home in Nairobi. I personally met Abu Ubaidah and Abu Hafs
at Wadih's house in Nairobi," he said.
"We used various code names to conceal our identities. I used the name 'Jeff;'
El Hage used the name 'Norman,' Ihab used the name 'Nawawi.'" After having been
asked by bin Laden to conduct surveillance of American, British, French, and
Israeli targets in Nairobi, Mohamed said, he looked at potential targets: the
American Embassy in Nairobi, the U.S. Agency for International Development
Building in Nairobi, the U.S. Agricultural Office in Nairobi, the French
Cultural Center and the French Embassy in Nairobi. "These targets were selected
to retaliate against the United States for its involvement in Somalia," he said.
"I took pictures, drew diagrams, and wrote a report.
"I later went to Khartoum, where my surveillance files and photographs were
reviewed by Usama bin Laden, Abu Hafs, Abu Ubaidah, and others," he said. "Bin
Laden looked at the picture of the American Embassy and pointed to where a truck
could go as a suicide bomber." In 1994 bin Laden also sent him to Djibouti to do
surveillance on several facilities, including French military bases and the
American Embassy, Mohamed said.
In 1994, he said, while in Nairobi, he met with Abu Hafs and another man "in the
back of Wadih El Hage's house" and "Abu Hafs told me, along with someone else,
to do surveillance for the American, British, French, and Israeli targets in
Senegal in West Africa."
"At about this time, in late 1994, I received a call from an FBI agent who
wanted to speak to me about the upcoming trial of United States v. Abdel Rahman.
I flew back to the United States, spoke to the FBI, but didn't disclose
everything that I knew," Mohamed said.
"I reported on my meeting with the FBI to Abu Hafs and was told not to return to
Nairobi," he said. He added that in 1995 he obtained a copy of the
co-conspirator list for the Abdel Rahman trial and sent the list to El Hage in
Kenya "expecting that it would be forwarded to bin Laden in Khartoum." After an
attempt to assassinate bin Laden, Mohamed said he went to Sudan in 1994 to train
bin Laden's bodyguards and security detail working in the interior of the bin
Laden compound and coordinated their activities with the Sudanese intelligence
agents who were responsible for exterior security. While in Sudan, Mohamed said,
he also did surveillance training for al Qaeda. One of the people he trained was
Ihab Ali, also known as Nawawi, who was supposed to train others. Nawawi is also
in U.S. custody, but did not testify in the current trial.
In 1996 Mohamed learned from El Hage that Abu Ubaidah had drowned, he said. He
said that in January 1998 he received a letter from Ihad Ali that said El Hage
had been interviewed by the FBI in Kenya and gave him a contact number for El
Hage.
"I called the number and then called someone who would pass the message to
Fawwaz for bin Laden," he said.
"After the bombing in 1998, I made plans to go to Egypt and later to Afghanistan
to meet bin Laden," Mohamed said. "Before I could leave, I was subpoenaed to
testify before the grand jury in the Southern District of New York. I testified,
told some lies, and was then arrested."
Mohamed's arrest on September 10, 1998, was kept secret for eight months,
apparently while he and the government attempted to negotiate a deal. However,
he was publicly indicted in May 1999 and joined the four currently on trial,
along with another defendant who will stand trial in July for attempted murder
of a prison guard, in public arraignments and hearings. Nevertheless, Mohamed
remained distant from the rest of the group, including remaining in solitary
confinement after the others were allowed to rotate as cellmates.
Mohamed faces the possibility of life in prison. His sentencing date has been
tentatively set for July 2001.
Created: 15 May 2001
End article from U.S. State Department's International Information Program.
~
Why have we not heard about this man before? Is this man's story not one of the more important aspects of the so-called "War on Terror"? Here we have a man who has worked for the U.S. Army's Special Forces (Green Berets), worked for the FBI, worked for the CIA, and worked for al Qaeda. He has been under America's Intelligence community's nose for years, and he has worked with countless terrorists all the while. But there is more to his story, and it is perhaps even more shocking than what we've learned thus far. Before we go into what has finally happened to Mr. Ali Mohammed, and where he may be at present moment (in 2007 as I edit this); and because Ali's story is so profoundly important to our understanding of 911 - let us read on with a slight change in perspective, from here -
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/11/04/MN117081.DTL
that Ali Mohammed was a Silicon Valley resident. Let's look at that article while we're dealing with Ali Mohammed, for the article contains some perspectives which I feel are necessary for my general thesis, which would state that “elements within the U.S. government planned and assisted in the carrying out of the attacks of 911”. Specifically, upon close reading of the article below we'll see more of the amazing game which American Intelligence plays with our lives and with the Security of our nation. While the following article would seek to “whitewash” this madness as “incompetency”, I suggest that once we get into higher levels of the American Intelligence community's centralized offices we shall discover that merely a few people working together and overseeing the synthesis of field intelligence made conscious decisions which facilitated the attacks of 911. Those people have names, and we'll look at them soon in a future letter. From the above link -
Lance Williams and Erin McCormick, Chronicle Staff Writers
Sunday, November 4, 2001
A former U.S. Army sergeant who trained Osama bin Laden's bodyguards and helped plan the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Kenya was a U.S. government informant during much of his terrorist career, according to sources familiar with his case.
Ali Mohamed, an Egyptian-born U.S. citizen and longtime Silicon Valley resident who pleaded guilty last year to terrorism charges, approached the Central Intelligence Agency more than 15 years ago and offered to inform on Middle Eastern terrorist groups, a U.S. government official said.
Later, according to the sources, Mohamed spent years as an FBI informant while concealing his own deep involvement in the al Qaeda terrorist band: training bin Laden's bodyguards and Islamic guerrillas in camps in Afghanistan and the Sudan; bringing Ayman al-Zawahiri, who is bin Laden's chief deputy, to the Bay Area on a covert fund-raising mission; and planning the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, in which more than 200 people died.
The story of Mohamed's dual roles as FBI informant and bin Laden terrorist - - and the freedom he had to operate unchecked in the United States -- illustrates the problems facing U.S. intelligence services as they attempt to penetrate the shadowy, close-knit world of al Qaeda, experts said.
Mohamed "clearly was a double agent," Larry C. Johnson, a former deputy director in the State Department's Office of Counter Terrorism and a onetime CIA employee, said in an interview.
Johnson said the CIA had found Mohamed unreliable and severed its relationship with him shortly after Mohamed approached the agency in 1984. Johnson faulted the FBI for later using Mohamed as an informant, saying the bureau should have recognized that the man was a high-ranking terrorist, deeply involved in plotting violence against the United States and its allies. [EA question: If the CIA knew that about him, why did they not neutralize him by sharing that info with the FBI? A better question could be: if CIA knew that about Ali Mohammed and did tell the FBI, could someone in a key position inside FBI have sat on that information while seeking to use Ali Mohammed for a more sinister purpose?]
"It's possible that the FBI thought they had control of him and were trying to use him, but what's clear is that they did not have control," Johnson said. "The FBI assumed he was their source, but his loyalties lay elsewhere."
The affair was "a study in incompetence, in how not to run an agent," Johnson said.
FBI spokesman Joseph Valiquette declined to comment on Mohamed, as did a spokesman for Manhattan U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White, whose office prosecuted the case of the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
A law enforcement source familiar with the case said the FBI had followed appropriate procedures in attempting to obtain crucial information from Mohamed, whom he conceded was "double-dealing" and difficult.
"When you operate assets and informants, they're holding the cards," this source said. "They can choose to be 100 percent honest or 10 percent honest. You don't have much control over them.
"Maybe (the informant) gives you a great kernel of information, and then you can't find him for eight weeks. Is that a management problem? Hindsight is 20/20."
Mohamed, 49, is a former Egyptian Army major, fluent in Arabic and English, who after his arrest became known as bin Laden's "California connection." Last year, when he pleaded guilty in the embassy bombing case, he told a federal judge that he first was drawn to terrorism in 1981, when he joined Egyptian Islamic Jihad, a fundamentalist group implicated in that year's assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.
For almost as long as he was a terrorist, Mohamed also was in contact with U.S. intelligence, according to court records and sources.
In 1984, he quit the Egyptian Army to work as a counterterrorism security expert for EgyptAir. After that, he offered to become a CIA informant, said the U.S. government official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
"The agency tried him out, but because he told other possible terrorists or people possibly associated with terrorist groups that he was working for the CIA, clearly he was not suitable," the official said.
The CIA cut off contact with Mohamed and put his name on a "watch list" aimed at blocking his entrance to the United States, according to the official.
Nevertheless, Mohamed got a visa one year later. He ultimately became a U.S. citizen after marrying a Santa Clara woman. In 1986, he joined the U.S. Army as an enlisted man. He was posted to Fort Bragg, N.C., home of the elite Special Forces.
There he worked as a supply sergeant for a Green Beret unit, then as an instructor on Middle Eastern affairs in the John F. Kennedy special warfare school.
Mohamed's behavior and his background were so unusual that his commanding officer, Lt. Col. Robert Anderson, became convinced that he was both a "dangerous fanatic" and an operative of U.S. intelligence.
Anderson, now a businessman in North Carolina, said that on their first meeting in 1988, Mohamed told him, "Anwar Sadat was a traitor and he had to die."
Later that year, Anderson said, Mohamed announced that -- contrary to all Army regulations -- he intended to go on vacation to Afghanistan to join the Islamic guerrillas in their civil war against the Soviets. A month later, he returned, boasting that he had killed two Soviet soldiers and giving away as souvenirs what he claimed were their uniform belts.
Anderson said he wrote detailed reports aimed at getting Army intelligence to investigate Mohamed -- and have him court-martialed and deported -- but the reports were ignored.
"I think you or I would have a better chance of winning Powerball (a lottery), than an Egyptian major in the unit that assassinated Sadat would have getting a visa, getting to California . . . getting into the Army and getting assigned to a Special Forces unit," he said. "That just doesn't happen. "
It was equally unthinkable that an ordinary American GI would go unpunished after fighting in a foreign war, he said.
Anderson said all this convinced him that Mohamed was "sponsored" by a U.S. intelligence service. "I assumed the CIA," he said.
In 1989, Mohamed left the Army and returned to Santa Clara, where he worked as a security guard and at a home computer business.
Between then and his 1998 arrest, he said in court last year, Mohamed was deeply involved in bin Laden's al Qaeda. He spent months abroad, training bin Laden's fighters in camps in Afghanistan and Sudan. While in Africa, he scouted the U.S. Embassy in Kenya, target of the 1998 bombing. In this country, he helped al-Zawahiri, bin Laden's top aide, enter the country with a fake passport and tour U.S. mosques, raising money later funneled to al Qaeda.
According to Steven Emerson, a terrorism expert and author who has written about the case, Mohamed by the early 1990s had also established himself as an FBI informant.
"He agreed to serve (the FBI) and provide information, but in fact he was working for the bad guys and insulating himself from scrutiny from other law enforcement agencies," Emerson said in an interview.
One particularly troubling aspect of the case, Emerson says, was that Mohamed's role as an FBI informant gave bin Laden important insights into U.S. efforts to penetrate al Qaeda.
The case shows "the sophistication of the bin Laden network, and how they were toying with us," he said. [EA note: Actually, I would submit that this case possibly shows that only with help from inside the American Intelligence community could al Qaeda function inside our borders.]
Some information about the nature of Mohamed's contacts with the FBI and other law-enforcement agencies is contained in an FBI affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in New York at the time of his 1998 arrest. The document describes contacts between Mohamed and the FBI and Defense Department officials.
At times, Mohamed made alarming admissions about his links to the al Qaeda terrorists, seemingly without fear of being arrested. Mohamed willfully deceived the agents about his activities, according to the affidavit.
In 1993, the affidavit says, Mohamed was questioned by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police after a bin Laden aide was caught trying to enter the United States with Mohamed's driver's license and a false passport.
Mohamed acknowledged traveling to Vancouver to help the terrorist sneak into the United States and admitted working closely with bin Laden's group. Yet he was so unconcerned about being arrested that he told the Mounties he hoped the interview wouldn't hurt his chances of getting a job as an FBI interpreter.
(According to the affidavit, he had indeed applied for the FBI position but never got it.)
Later that year, Mohamed -- again seemingly without concern for consequences -- told the FBI that he had trained bin Laden followers in intelligence and anti-hijacking techniques in Afghanistan, the affidavit says.
In January 1995, Mohamed applied for a U.S. security clearance, in hopes of becoming a security guard with a Santa Clara defense contractor. His application failed to mention ever traveling to Pakistan or Afghanistan, trips he had told the FBI about earlier. In three interviews with Defense Department officials, who conducted a background check on him, he claimed he had never been a terrorist.
"I have never belonged to a terrorist organization, but I have been approached by organizations that could be called terrorist," he told the interviewers.
According to the affidavit, he told FBI agents in 1997 that he had trained bin Laden's bodyguards, saying he loved bin Laden and believed in him. Mohamed also said it was "obvious" that the United States was the enemy of Muslim people.
In August 1998, after the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed, he told the FBI that he knew who did it, but refused to provide the names.
Two weeks later, after lying to a U.S. grand jury investigating the embassy bombings, he was arrested. He pleaded guilty last year, but he has never been sentenced and is once again believed to be providing information to the government -- this time from a prison cell.
"There's a hell of a lot (U.S. officials) didn't know about Ali Mohamed," said Harvey Kushner, a terrorism expert and criminology professor at the University of Long Island. "He infiltrated our armed services and duped them." [EA note: Just who “duped” who remains to be seen. I hope to show that Ali Mohammed became a CIA asset and remained one, despite Agency declarations to the contrary. When we look at the names of the Watergate burglars we see that each of them was a former CIA asset who had suspended “employment by CIA” to do that burglary. Changing an asset from an employee of CIA to a “non-employee of CIA” is routine business at Langley, and either status is entirely reversible at whim of CIA.]
Yet, Kushner said, such duplicitous interactions may be a necessary component of intelligence work.
"I hate to say it, but these relationships are something we should be involved in more of. That's the nasty (part) of covert operations. We're not dealing with people we can trust."
E-mail the reporters at emccormick@sfchronicle.com and lmwilliams@sfchronicle. com.
End SFGate article.
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While Americans and Montanans fried bacon and eggs for breakfast and prepared daily to go to work; while Americans and Montanans paid their bills and raised their families; while Americans and Montanans generated the gross national product annually; while Americans and Montanans sleep-walked in dreaming the American Dream; our Intelligence community was literally playing wicked games with our lives and our future, with our fate and with the nation itself.
We average little citizens are expected to understand that the high and mighty CIA and FBI know much more about reality than we ever shall. We are expected to accept this secrecy and the insanity which it has veiled for half a century while plunging this nation into a sea of world-hatred for America and all which America once stood proudly. We are expected to put up with deadly mistakes in judgment and even with calculated exercises of God-like decisions which include the planning and plotting and production and perpetration of actual "terrorist events" on U.S. soil. We are expected to understand and believe that the ends justify the means. We are expected to understand and accept the Intelligence community's passtime of coddling dangerous criminals, rotating them in and out of prison to be alternately hidden and then used for pitching "terror events" on U.S. soil. And we are expected to suspect nothing, to believe everything we're told, and to continue to grant ever-larger budgets for this sort of madness.
Personally, I feel that the sort of insanity illustrated conclusively above is not only unacceptable but is in fact downright criminal. I trust that the government of the State of Montana is above such wickedness and evil. I trust that the government of Montana shall protect its citizens from that sort of abuse.
The above has been part one of a brief series of letters dealing with surveillance. Part two is here:
Thank you for reading, and for permitting me license to later edit-out whatever angst may have crept into my presentation above.
In Liberty,
Elias
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Notes:
1) The FBI
by Theoharis, Poveda, Rosenfeld and Powers; copyright 2000 by The Oryx Press; Checkmark Books, An imprint of Facts On File, Inc., 11 Penn Plaza, New York, NY 10001; Originally published – Phoenix, Arizona, 1999. ISBN: 0-8160-4228-4 (alk.paper) (quoting from page 149)
2) The New York Times archives' most excellent accounting on the CIA in Iran, 1953; provided to me by jmaynen in the year 2000:
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/041600iran-cia-index.html
3) The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives
by Zbigniew Brzezinski; copyright 1997 by Zbigniew K. Brzezinski; published by Basic Books, a division of Perseus Books Group; ISBN: (cloth: 0-465-02725-3) (paper: 0-465-02726-1).
4) The neo-con war-hawk think-tank central hub for Empire: http://www.newamericancentury.org/
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