Complete 911 Timeline

In an interview for Parade magazine Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld apparently says the Pentagon was hit by a missile. In the printed interview and a Defense Department website re-posting he is quoted as saying: “Here we’re talking about plastic knives and using an American Airlines flight filled with our citizens, and the missile to damage this building and similar (inaudible) that damaged the World Trade Center.” [Parade Magazine, 10/12/2001] This will be taken by some who think the Pentagon was not hit by American Airlines Flight 77 (see Early March 2002) as an accidental admission of a missile strike. However, in 2004 Parade will say that a “transcription error led to the confusion, but conspiracy theorists latched onto Rumsfeld’s supposed admission and spread it over the Internet.” Although the transcription error is not specified, if the word “and” is replaced by the word “as” the statement becomes “[…] using an American Airlines flight filled with our citizens as the missile to damage this building.” [Parade Magazine, 9/4/2004]

Entity Tags: Donald Rumsfeld

Category Tags: Other 9/11 Investigations

An al-Qaeda representative offers to arrange a television interview of Osama bin Laden. There are two versions of how this offer is made. According to CNN, an al-Qaeda contact of the Qatar-based Al Jazeera, with which it has a footage-sharing agreement, invites CNN and Al Jazeera to submit questions to bin Laden. CNN, worried about accusations of improper conduct, contacts the other major US television news stations and tells them it will share any footage that emerges. It also says it will only air the interview as long as it is newsworthy and not “propaganda.” CNN then draws up six questions about al-Qaeda’s role in 9/11 and the recent anthrax attacks in the US. It gives the questions to Al Jazeera, which adds another 25 and sends them to its Kabul bureau, which, in turn, passes them on to its al-Qaeda contact. The ethics of this are hotly debated in the US media, with Fox News publicly refusing to participate. Nevertheless, an Al Jazeera manager will later say: “I assure you they [Fox] contacted me to send more questions of their own. I got calls and emails from them.” Fox will later admit to the contacts, but say it would only have agreed to take part in the event of a regular interview. However, Al Jazeera media relations manager Jihad Ballout will contradict CNN’s account of the offer, saying the two organizations are approached independently, and al-Qaeda eventually chooses Al Jazeera. [Miles, 2005, pp. 175-176, 179-180] The interview will take place on October 20 (see October 20, 2001).

Entity Tags: Jihad Ballout, Al Jazeera, Al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, CNN, Fox News

Category Tags: Osama Bin Laden

Czech foreign minister Jan Kavan briefs Secretary of State Colin Powell in Washington about the alleged trip 9/11 plotter Mohamed Atta took to the Czech Republic in April 2001 (see April 8, 2001). Kavan tells Powell that the BIS, the Czech intelligence service, has reason to believe that Mohamed Atta may have met near Prague with Iraqi spy Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani. [New York Times, 10/20/2001 Sources: Jan Kavan]

Entity Tags: Jan Kavan, Colin Powell, Mohamed Atta, Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani

Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion

Category Tags: Alleged Iraq-Al-Qaeda Links

Yassin al-Qadi, a Saudi multimillionaire businessman, was officially declared a terrorist financier in October 2001 (see October 12, 2001). [Arab News, 9/26/2002] That same month, a number of employees at Ptech, a Boston-based computer company that al-Qadi and other individuals suspected of financing officially designated terrorist groups invested in (see 1994), tell the Boston FBI about the connections between Ptech and al-Qadi. However, FBI agents do little more than take their statements. A high-level government source later will claim the FBI does not convey the Ptech-al-Qadi link to Operation Greenquest, a Customs Department investigation into al-Qadi and other suspected financiers, and none of the government agencies using Ptech software are warned about the possible security threat Ptech represents. [Boston Globe, 12/7/2002; WBZ 4 (Boston), 12/9/2002] According to a private counterterrorism expert involved in investigating Ptech at the time, “Frighteningly, when an employee told [Ptech president Oussama Ziade] he felt he had to contact the FBI regarding al-Qadi’s involvement in the company, the president allegedly told him not to worry because Yaqub Mirza, who was on the board of directors of the company and was himself a target of a [Greenquest] terrorist financing raid in March 2002 (see March 20, 2002), had contacts high within the FBI.” [National Review, 5/27/2003] A Ptech investigation will finally begin in 2002 after more whistleblowers come forward (see May-December 5, 2002).

Entity Tags: US Customs Service, Yacub Mirza, Operation Greenquest, Yassin al-Qadi, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Ptech Inc., Oussama Ziade

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Terrorism Financing, BMI and Ptech, FBI 9/11 Investigation

The Boston Herald reports: “Three banks allegedly used by Osama bin Laden to distribute money to his global terrorism network have well-established ties to a prince in Saudi Arabia’s royal family, several billionaire Saudi bankers, and the governments of Kuwait and Dubai. One of the banks, Al-Shamal Islamic Bank in the Sudan, was controlled directly by bin Laden, according to a 1996 US State Department report.” A regional expert states, “I think we underestimate bin Laden. He comes from the highest levels of Saudi society and he has supporters at all levels of Saudi Arabia.” [Boston Herald, 10/14/2001] The US has yet to take any official steps against the Al-Shamal bank, and some suggest this is because of its ties to influential Saudi figures (see September 24, 2001 and After).

Entity Tags: Osama bin Laden, Al-Shamal Islamic Bank

Category Tags: Saudi Arabia

Gloria Irish. [Source: AP / St. Petersburg Times]The FBI confirms that Gloria Irish rented an apartment to two of the 9/11 hijackers. Her husband is Michael Irish, who is an editor of the Sun, a Florida tabloid newspaper, and the first victim of the anthrax attacks earlier this month. Bob Stevens, who also worked at the Sun, and several others at the tabloid offices were injured. The FBI says that Irish rented different apartments in Delray Beach, Florida, to hijackers Marwan Alshehhi and Saeed Alghamdi during the summer of 2001. But one FBI spokesperson says, “Right now it looks like a coincidence,” and another calls it a “strange coincidence.” Two of the hijackers, including Mohamed Atta, also had subscriptions to the Sun. [Knight Ridder, 10/14/2001; Guardian, 10/16/2001] But Irish says “there is no way” the hijackers could have known about any Sun connection through her. [Washington Post, 10/15/2001] Michael Irish is a licensed pilot who was a member of the Civil Air Patrol based at Lantana Airport. Atta reportedly rented a plane at that airport in August. Stevens, who died of anthrax on October 5, also lived in Lantana. But there is no evidence that Irish or Stevens crossed paths with Atta. [St. Petersburg Times, 10/15/2001] The story will quickly die after nothing more is found to the connection.

Entity Tags: Mohamed Atta, Saeed Alghamdi, Marwan Alshehhi, Bob Stevens, Gloria Irish

Timeline Tags: 2001 Anthrax Attacks

Category Tags: Counterterrorism Policy/Politics

At a press conference in Italy, President Bush says “there may be some possible link” between the recent anthrax attacks (see October 5-November 21, 2001) and al-Qaeda. He adds: “We have no hard data yet, but it’s clear that [Osama] bin Laden is a man who’s an evil man. He and his spokesmen are openly bragging about how they hope to inflict more pain on our country. So we’re watching every piece of evidence.” [CNN, 10/15/2001] A senior FBI official will claim in 2008 that this comment came shortly after the FBI told the White House that the anthrax strain was most likely too technically advanced to have been made by al-Qaeda (see Shortly After October 5, 2001).

Entity Tags: George W. Bush, Osama bin Laden, Al-Qaeda

Timeline Tags: 2001 Anthrax Attacks

Category Tags: Counterterrorism Policy/Politics

The Bank of Nova Scotia gold vault, located under WTC Building 4, is examined in late October 2001. [Source: Leslie E. Robertson and Associates]Workers at Ground Zero discover large amounts of gold and other precious metals stored below the ruins of the WTC. As debris is removed they are able to access parts of the 16-acre WTC basement, which drops 70 feet below ground level. Precious metals are stored in numerous vaults within this area. The London Times says the quantity of these “has been a carefully guarded secret,” but estimates $750 million of gold and silver in vaults belonging to the Comex metals trading division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. There appears to have been an attempt, since 9/11, to break into a Comex vault containing $200 million of precious metals belonging to the Bank of Nova Scotia. A government official involved in the recovery work says, “It looked like they used a blowtorch, a crowbar,” but a bank spokeswoman denies there has been any attempted break-in. The banks later states that “All of the silver, gold, platinum, and palladium stored in its vaults at 4 World Trade Center” has been relocated to a depository in Brooklyn. Other gold is discovered in a service tunnel below WTC 5. According to the London Times, this was being transported through the tunnel on the morning of 9/11 (see (Before 9:59 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [New York Daily News, 10/31/2001; London Times, 11/1/2001; New York Times, 11/1/2001; Reuters, 11/17/2001]

Entity Tags: Comex

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Other Post-9/11 Events

A British Muslim radicalized at Finsbury Park mosque in London, which is run by British intelligence informer and radical imam Abu Hamza al-Masri (see Early 1997), fights against British troops in northern Afghanistan. The man’s name is not known, but he will be said to be a former DJ of Lebanese descent from a rich family. [O'Neill and McGrory, 2006, pp. 88]

Entity Tags: Finsbury Park Mosque

Category Tags: Londonistan - UK Counterterrorism

According to the Moscow Times, the Russian government sees the upcoming US conquest of Afghanistan as an attempt by the US to replace Russia as the dominant political force in Central Asia, with the control of oil as a prominent motive: “While the bombardment of Afghanistan outwardly appears to hinge on issues of fundamentalism and American retribution, below the surface, lurks the prize of the energy-rich Caspian basin into which oil majors have invested billions of dollars. Ultimately, this war will set the boundaries of US and Russian influence in Central Asia—and determine the future of oil and gas resources of the Caspian Sea.” [Moscow Times, 10/15/2001] The US later appears to gain military influence over Kazakhstan, the Central Asian country with the most resource wealth, and closest to the Russian heartland (see March 30, 2002).

Entity Tags: United States, Russia

Timeline Tags: War in Afghanistan

Category Tags: Afghanistan, US Dominance

The envelope to the Tom Daschle letter. [Source: FBI]Two Democratic senators are targets of the 2001 anthrax attacks (see October 5-November 21, 2001). On this day, Senator Tom Daschle’s office opens a letter mailed October 9, containing a lethal dose of anthrax (see October 6-9, 2001). A similar letter to Senator Patrick Leahy mailed the same day and from the same location is misrouted to Virginia on October 12, and is not discovered until November 17. Neither Leahy nor Daschle come into contact with the anthrax, but some of Daschle’s staffers do. [South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 12/8/2001]

Entity Tags: P. Patrick Leahy, Tom Daschle

Timeline Tags: 2001 Anthrax Attacks, US Domestic Terrorism

Category Tags: Internal US Security After 9/11

Mohamed Kamel Bellahouel is arrested and held for five months after investigators discover he worked at a restaurant where Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi sometimes ate lunch in South Florida. In a sworn statement, Michael Rolince, head of the FBI’s International Terrorism Operations Section, says, “It is likely that Bellahouel would have waited on both Atta and Alshehhi since Bellahouel had worked at the restaurant for 10 months, and both Atta and Alshehhi were frequent patrons during shifts that Bellahouel worked.” Rolince also alleges Bellahouel may have waited on a third hijacker, Saeed Alghamdi, and says that a cinema employee claims Bellahouel saw a film with a fourth hijacker, Ahmed Alnami. However, Bellahouel, who denies going to the cinema with Alnami, has trouble gaining access to the evidence used against him. His attorney comments, “They won’t call it secret evidence and they won’t call it classified, but they won’t give it to you, either.” He is held in prison without bond and without charge from October 15, 2001 to March 1, 2002. After he is released, US authorities attempt to deport him, as he entered the US as a student, but then dropped out of college and started work, marrying a US citizen in June 2001. His attorney says the problem is that he is a Muslim. “If he were a Catholic coming from Venezuela or Colombia, they would have let him adjust his immigration status.” Bellahouel sues the government over his incarceration, but the case is shrouded in secrecy and the press only learns the case is ongoing due to a court error. [Miami Daily Business Review, 3/14/2003] For example, a journalist, who does not event know Bellahouel’s name, attempts to attend a hearing in March 2003. But the court is closed. After some effort, the reporter finally finds the name in the electronic docket. When he tells a court official Bellahouel’s name is on the docket, the official replies, “Is it? We’ll have to fix that, too,” and the name disappears. [Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, 12/2004] In February 2004 the Supreme Court declines an appeal from Bellahouel to have an open hearing, and media organizations are prevented from accessing sealed court proceedings. [New York Times, 1/5/2004; CNN, 2/23/2004]

Entity Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Michael Rolince, Ahmed Alnami, Mohamed Kamel Bellahouel, Saeed Alghamdi, Mohamed Atta

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline, Civil Liberties

Category Tags: Mohamed Atta, FBI 9/11 Investigation

Abdullah bin Laden, Osama bin Laden’s oldest son, confirms in an interview that he works with the family business, the Saudi Binladin Group, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. He declares his allegiance to the Saudi government, but also defends his father and refuses to disown him. Two knowledgeable sources from within Saudi Arabia claim that Abdullah is being prevented from leaving Saudi Arabia, with the implication that the government could bring harm to him if Osama attacks Saudi Arabia. [Wall Street Journal, 10/2/2001; New Yorker, 11/5/2001] Abdullah also says that he lived with Osama in Sudan until 1996, but then moved back to Saudi Arabia when his father moved to Afghanistan, as he did not want to experience the hardships there. [New Yorker, 12/5/2005] In 2005 it will be reported that Bakr bin Laden, the family patriarch and chairman of the Saudi Binladin Group, is said to frequently dine in public restaurants in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, with Abdullah. [Der Spiegel (Hamburg), 6/6/2005]

Entity Tags: Abdullah Awad bin Laden

Category Tags: Saudi Arabia, Bin Laden Family

Referring to the claim that 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta met with Iraqi Counsel al-Ani on April 8, 2001 (see April 8, 2001), Stanislav Gross, the Czech interior minister, states, “I can only confirm one visit in the summer” and Petr Necas, chairman of the parliamentary defense committee, says, “I haven’t seen any direct evidence that Mr. Atta met any Iraqi agent.” Citing a senior Czech Republic official, the New York Times will report on October 20 that “firm documentary evidence existed only that Mr. Atta had passed through the Prague airport from Germany to take a flight to Newark.” [New York Times, 10/20/2001] The rumors, which had first surfaced shortly after the attacks, were based on information from a Czech intelligence source inside Prague’s Middle Eastern community. The source had told the BIS, the Czech Republic’s intelligence service, that he had seen Atta meeting al-Ani in a restaurant outside of Prague on April 8 earlier that year (see April 8, 2001). [CNN, 9/19/2001; Newsweek, 4/28/2002]

Entity Tags: Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, Stanislav Gross, Mohamed Atta, Petr Necas

Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion

Category Tags: Alleged Iraq-Al-Qaeda Links

The government releases flight control transcripts of three of the four hijacked planes [New York Times, 10/16/2001; New York Times, 10/16/2001; New York Times, 10/16/2001] ) . Strangely, Flight 93 is left out. Yet even the three released transcripts are incomplete (for instance, Flight 77’s ends at least 20 minutes before it crashes), and certain events that are part of the official story do not show up on these transcripts.

Entity Tags: Bush administration

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Other 9/11 Investigations

Two men, Moshe Elmakias and Ron Katar, are arrested in rural Pennsylvania after being found with a detailed video of the Sears Tower in Chicago. In addition, a woman named Ayelet Reisler is found with them, carrying conflicting identification information. They are arrested for illegal dumping, using a van with the name Moving Systems Incorporated. The video contains extensive zoom in shots of the Sears Tower; it is not known when the video was filmed. [Mercury (Philadelphia), 10/17/2001]

Entity Tags: Ron Katar, Sears Tower, Ayelet Reisler, Moshe Elmakias

Category Tags: Israel

“The Financial Services Authority—Britain’s main financial regulator—has cleared bin Laden and his henchmen of insider trading. There has been a widespread suspicion that members of the al-Qaeda organization had cashed in on the US attacks, dumping airline, aerospace and insurance company shares before September 11th. The Authority says that after a thorough investigation, it has found no hard evidence of any such deals in London.” [American Public Media, 10/17/2001] On September 24, Belgium’s Financial Minister had claimed there were strong suspicions that British markets may have been used for 9/11-related insider trading in early September. [CNN, 9/24/2001]

Entity Tags: Al-Qaeda, Financial Services Authority

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Insider Trading/ Foreknowledge

Gen. Richard Myers, acting Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman on 9/11, says of 9/11, “You hate to admit it, but we hadn’t thought about this.” He was promoted from Vice-Chairman to Chairman three days after 9/11. [American Forces Press Service, 10/23/2001]

Entity Tags: Richard B. Myers

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Warning Signs, 9/11 Denials

Vice President Cheney chairs a National Security Council meeting because President Bush is overseas. According to journalist Bob Woodward, who later interviews many participants in the meeting, the topic of the recent anthrax attacks is discussed (see October 5-November 21, 2001). CIA Director George Tenet suggests that al-Qaeda is behind the attacks. He also adds, “I think there’s a state sponsor involved. It’s too well thought out, the powder’s too well refined. It might be Iraq, it might be Russia, it might be a renegade scientist,” perhaps from Iraq or Russia. Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff I. Lewis Libby also suggests the anthrax attacks were state sponsored. “We’ve got to be careful on what we say. If we say it’s al-Qaeda, a state sponsor may feel safe and then hit us thinking they will have a bye because we’ll blame it on al-Qaeda.” Tenet replies, “I’m not going to talk about a state sponsor.” Vice President Cheney comments, “It’s good that we don’t, because we’re not ready to do anything about it.” [Woodward, 2002, pp. 244] No strong evidence will emerge tying the attacks to al-Qaeda or any state sponsor. The anthrax attacks still remain completely unsolved.

Entity Tags: George J. Tenet, Bob Woodward, National Security Council, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby

Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, 2001 Anthrax Attacks

Category Tags: Counterterrorism Policy/Politics

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz issues a memorandum to senior officials throughout the Defense Department stating that, following President Bush’s declaration of a national emergency on September 14, Defense Department employees should exercise great caution whenever discussing information relating to their department’s work. The memo instructs: “Do not conduct any work-related conversations in common areas, public places, while commuting, or over unsecured electronic circuits. Classified information may be discussed only in authorized spaces and with persons having a specific need to know and the proper security clearance. Unclassified information may likewise require protection because it can often be compiled to reveal sensitive conclusions. Much of the information we use to conduct [the department]‘s operations must be withheld from public release because of its sensitivity. If in doubt, do not release or discuss official information except with other [Defense Department] personnel.” According to the memo, “the security of information critical to the national security will remain at risk for an indefinite period.” [US Department of Defense, 10/18/2001; Washington Times, 10/23/2001]

Entity Tags: US Department of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz

Timeline Tags: Civil Liberties

Category Tags: Counterterrorism Policy/Politics

Governor of the United Emirates Central Bank Sultan Nasser al-Suwaidi first says that hijacker pilots Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi had accounts in the United Arab Emirates, but then later contradicts this saying that Atta did not have one. Initially, he admits that Atta had an account at a Citibank branch in Dubai, but says it was closed a year before the attacks. “Mohamed Atta was like any adult expatriate in the UAE,” he says. The account was apparently busier than normal, with frequent transfers of $10,000 to $15,000. [Los Angeles Times, 10/20/2001; CNN, 10/22/2001] Although the existence of Alshehhi’s account is confirmed (see July 1999-November 2000), al-Suwaidi denies Atta had an account a few days later. He says that his bank had confused Atta with an Afghan who had a similar name, but different photo, age, and occupation. “They are different people, different nationalities,” he insists. The Afghan had an account with Citibank from 1997 to December 2000, but there were apparently no suspicious transfers to Afghanistan. [UAE Interact, 10/25/2001; Gulf News, 10/25/2001]

Entity Tags: Sultan Nasser al-Suwaidi, Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta

The contents of the anthrax letter to the New York Post. [Source: FBI]The New York Times suggests there could be a link between the recent anthrax attacks (see October 5-November 21, 2001) and the 9/11 hijackers. The Times reports that investigators “say they suspect that the rash of contaminated letters is related to the Sept. 11 attacks and are investigating the possibility that al-Qaeda confederates of the hijackers are behind the incidents.… Senior government officials said investigators were focusing on the ability of the hijackers or their accomplices to obtain highly refined anthrax from a foreign or domestic supplier. While they have not ruled out the possibility that another criminal could be behind the anthrax attacks, investigators are looking intensely at evidentiary threads linking the letters to the hijackers.”
Little to No Evidence behind this Theory - FBI agents are said to have recently searched the Jersey City home of three men arrested on suspicion of links to the 9/11 attacks after learning they kept some magazines and newspaper articles about biological warfare there. These men include Ayub Ali Khan and Mohammed Azmath. Both men will later be cleared of having any al-Qaeda ties (see October 20, 2001). The hijackers did show some interest in crop dusters, which could be used in a biological attack, but a senior government official says no actual evidence has appeared linking any of the hijackers to the anthrax attacks in any way.
Domestic Loner Theory - The article notes that the FBI is also pursuing a competing theory, “that a disgruntled employee of a domestic laboratory that uses anthrax carried out the attacks.” However, no evidence has emerged yet to support this.
Iraq Not Likely - The article is dismissive of theories that Iraq or another foreign government was behind the attacks. It notes that the anthrax letters used the Ames strain of anthrax, and experts say the Iraqi government never obtained that strain. For instance, former UN weapons inspector Richard Spertzel says, “The Iraqis tried to get it but didn’t succeed.” [New York Times, 10/19/2001]

Entity Tags: Richard Spertzel, Mohammed Azmath, Syed Gul Mohammad Shah

Timeline Tags: Domestic Propaganda, 2001 Anthrax Attacks

Category Tags: Counterterrorism Policy/Politics

Hassan Almrei. [Source: Public domain via CBC]Hassan Almrei, a Syrian national and an associate of Nabil al-Marabh, is arrested in Canada. He was al-Marabh’s Toronto apartment roommate in early 2001. Canadian authorities say Almrei’s honey and perfume business in the Middle East helped finance al-Qaeda. Following a raid on his apartment, police say they confiscated computers and disks that hold information about Osama bin Laden, numerous images of bin Laden and other al-Qaeda members, a hijacking planner, diagrams of plane cockpits and military weapons, and copies of passports and official IDs. Within a week of his arrest, the Canadian government declares Almrei a “threat to national security” and announces its intention to deport him to Syria. The Federal Court of Canada will later agree with investigators that Almrei is a “a member of an international network of extremist individuals who support the Islamic extremist ideals espoused by Osama bin Laden,” and was “involved in a forgery ring with international connections that produces false documents.” The court will approve his deportation. [Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 10/27/2001; Toronto Sun, 1/14/2002; ABC News 7 (Chicago), 1/31/2002] Almrei will admit to attending training camps in Afghanistan and lying about his past to get into Canada as a refugee claimant in 1999, but will deny any link to al-Qaeda. As of late 2005, he will still be in a Canadian prison, appealing his deportation. He will say he fears death or torture if he is returned to Syria. [Toronto Sun, 10/20/2005] Almrei will be released from prison in Canada in December 2009 when he wins an appeal against the security certificate he is being held under. The judge, Justice Richard Mosley, says there were “reasonable grounds to believe that Hassan Almrei was a danger to the security of Canada when he was detained in 2001, [but] there are no longer reasonable grounds to believe that he is a security risk today.” [Toronto Star, 12/15/2008]

Entity Tags: Hassan Almrei, Nabil al-Marabh, Richard Mosley, Canada

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Nabil Al-Marabh, Key Captures and Deaths

Serhane Abdelmajid Fakhet. [Source: Spanish Interior Ministry]Serhane Abdelmajid Fakhet, later considered one of about three masterminds of the 2004 Madrid train bombings (see 7:37-7:42 a.m., March 11, 2004), is already being monitored by Spanish intelligence. On this day, he is photographed with Barakat Yarkas, leader of al-Qaeda’s main cell in Spain. Yarkas will be arrested for an alleged role in the 9/11 attacks less than a month later (see November 13, 2001). [El Mundo (Madrid), 8/16/2005] Fakhet had been under surveillance since 2000. [Irujo, 2005, pp. 182-186] He will allegedly blow himself up not long after the bombings (see 9:05 p.m., April 3, 2004). There are allegations that he was an informant at least by 2003 (see Shortly After October 2003). Also seen in the pictures are Yusuf Galan, another member of Yarkas’s cell who will be arrested with Yarkas and later convicted (see September 26, 2005), and Mouhannad Almallah, who has been under surveillance since at least 1998. Almallah will later be sentenced to 12 years in prison for a role in the Madrid bombings (see October 31, 2007). [El Mundo (Madrid), 10/27/2004]

Entity Tags: Serhane Abdelmajid Fakhet, Centro Nacional de Inteligencia, Barakat Yarkas, Mouhannad Almallah, Yusuf Galan

Category Tags: Al-Qaeda in Spain, 2004 Madrid Train Bombings

Mohammed Azmath, left, and Syed Gul Mohammad Shah/ Ayub Ali Khan, right. [Source: Associated Press]The New York Times reports that, although 830 people have been arrested in the 9/11 terrorism investigation (a number that eventually exceeds between 1,200 and 2,000 (see November 5, 2001), there is no evidence that anyone now in custody was a conspirator in the 9/11 attacks. Furthermore, “none of the nearly 100 people still being sought by the [FBI] is seen as a major suspect.” Of all the people arrested, only four, Zacarias Moussaoui, Ayub Ali Khan, Mohammed Azmath, and Nabil al-Marabh, are likely connected to al-Qaeda. [New York Times, 10/21/2001] Three of those are later cleared of ties to al-Qaeda. After being kept in solitary confinement for more than eight months without seeing a judge or being assigned a lawyer, al-Marabh pleads guilty to the minor charge of entering the United States illegally (see September 3, 2002) and is deported to Syria (see January 2004). There is considerable evidence al-Marabh did have ties to al-Qaeda and even the 9/11 plot (see September 2000; January 2001-Summer 2001; January 2001-Summer 2001; Spring 2001; Early September 2001). [Washington Post, 6/12/2002; Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 8/27/2002] On September 12, 2002, after a year in solitary confinement and four months before he was able to contact a lawyer, Mohammed Azmath pleads guilty to one count of credit card fraud, and is released with time served. Ayub Ali Khan, whose real name is apparently Syed Gul Mohammad Shah, is given a longer sentence for credit card fraud, but is released and deported by the end of 2002. [Village Voice, 9/25/2002; New York Times, 12/31/2002] By December 2002, only 6 are known to still be in custody, and none have been charged with any terrorist acts (see December 11, 2002). On September 24, 2001, Newsweek reported that “the FBI has privately estimated that more than 1,000 individuals—most of them foreign nationals—with suspected terrorist ties are currently living in the United States.” [Newsweek, 10/1/2001]

Entity Tags: Nabil al-Marabh, Al-Qaeda, Mohammed Azmath, Syed Gul Mohammad Shah, Zacarias Moussaoui, Federal Bureau of Investigation

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline, Civil Liberties

Category Tags: FBI 9/11 Investigation

Osama bin Laden admits “inciting” the 9/11 attacks in a controversial interview by the Qatar-based Al Jazeera TV station. The interview is conducted by Tayseer Allouni, Al Jazeera’s Kabul correspondent. Allouni had discussed a possible interview of bin Laden with al-Qaeda about a week previously (see Mid-October 2001), but nothing further had been said and Allouni assumed the interview would not be conducted.
Taken Blindfolded to Bin Laden - However, he is contacted by al-Qaeda representatives, who tell him they will take him to a story. He is blindfolded and driven around in circles outside Kabul for some time, until the car stops, the blindfold is taken off, and he finds himself in an unknown place, face-to-face with bin Laden. The al-Qaeda leader is wearing camouflage fatigues and has a sub-machine gun close by; there are other armed men present. Allouni is told he cannot use his own questions, but will ask a set of questions prepared by al-Qaeda.
Bin Laden 'Ambiguously' Discusses Responsibility for 9/11 - The interview lasts for over an hour and covers several topics. On the key question of responsibility for 9/11, author Hugh Miles will point out that bin Laden speaks “ambiguously, seeming first to deny, then confirm, his involvement in the attacks.” When asked about US allegations of his responsibility, bin Laden answers: “America has made many accusations against us and many other Muslims around the world. Its charge that we are carrying out acts of terrorism is unwarranted.” However, a few seconds later he adds, “If inciting people to do that is terrorism, and if killing those who kill our sons is terrorism, then let history be witness that we were terrorists.” He then says: “We kill the kings of the infidels, kings of the crusaders, and civilian infidels in exchange for those of our children they kill. This is permissible in Islamic law and logically.” Allouni interrupts him and asks, “They kill our innocents, so we kill their innocents?” The reply is, “So we kill their innocents.” Bin Laden also gives a vague non-answer to a question about his responsibility for the recent anthrax attacks in the US: “These diseases are a punishment from God and a response to oppressed mothers’ prayers in Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine, and everywhere.”
Interview Not Broadcast - Al Jazeera decides not to broadcast the interview. Its media relations manager, Jihad Ballout, will later say the decision is taken because the questions Allouni was forced to ask came from bin Laden, and because “bin Laden was using Al Jazeera to give out a very edited and sanitized statement to his people. It was a message, a pure message.” Neither does Al Jazeera inform CNN of the interview. However, western intelligence services will obtain it (see Before November 11, 2001) and it will eventually be broadcast on CNN in early 2002 (see January 31, 2002). [CNN, 2/5/2002; Miles, 2005, pp. 177-179, 182]

Entity Tags: Jihad Ballout, Al-Qaeda, Al Jazeera, Tayseer Allouni, Osama bin Laden

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Other 9/11 Investigations, Osama Bin Laden, Alleged Al-Qaeda Media Statements

A Washington Post article hints at the US government’s use rendition and torture. It refers to four suspects out of the hundreds arrested in the US—Zacarias Moussaoui, Nabil al-Marabh, Ayub Ali Khan, and Mohammed Azmath—who may actually have links to al-Qaeda (see October 20, 2001). The article quotes an “experienced FBI agent involved in the investigation,” who says: “We are known for humanitarian treatment, so basically we are stuck.… Usually there is some incentive, some angle to play, what you can do for them. But it could get to that spot where we could go to pressure… where we won’t have a choice, and we are probably getting there.” The article goes on to mention: “Among the alternative strategies under discussion are using drugs or pressure tactics, such as those employed occasionally by Israeli interrogators, to extract information. Another idea is extraditing the suspects to allied countries where security services sometimes employ threats to family members or resort to torture.” [Washington Post, 10/21/2001] Although it is little known in the US at the time, the CIA has already been renditioning suspects to countries known for practicing torture (see September 23, 2001), and has made arrangements with NATO countries to increase the number of such renditions (see October 4, 2001). Azmath and Khan will later be cleared of al-Qaeda ties and released (see October 20, 2001). Al-Marabh will be deported to Syria under mysterious circumstances and rearrested by the Syrian government (see Spring 2004). Moussaoui will be sentenced to life in prison in the US (see May 3, 2006).

Entity Tags: Mohammed Azmath, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Nabil al-Marabh, Syed Gul Mohammad Shah, Zacarias Moussaoui

Timeline Tags: Torture of US Captives

Category Tags: Nabil Al-Marabh, Zacarias Moussaoui, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics

Radical al-Qaeda-linked imam Abu Qatada claims to The Observer that shortly after 9/11, the British intelligence agency MI5 offered him a passport, an Iranian visa, and an opportunity to escape to Afghanistan. He claims he turned them down because he didn’t trust them. “If I get on a plane, I am afraid I will be shot or handed over to the Jordanians, the Egyptians, or the Saudis.” [Observer, 10/21/2001] Abu Qatada’s claim will gain credibility when it is later revealed that he was an MI5 informant (see June 1996-February 1997) and that MI5 hid him in Britain from December 2001 until he made comments supporting the 9/11 attacks in late 2002 (see Early December 2001 and October 23, 2002). His fear of being handed over will also gain credibility as the CIA’s rendition program is slowly made public in succeeding years.

Entity Tags: Abu Qatada, UK Security Service (MI5)

Category Tags: Abu Qatada, Londonistan - UK Counterterrorism

Khalfan Khamis Mohamed. [Source: FBI]Four men are sentenced to life in prison for their roles in the African embassy bombings (see 10:35-10:39 a.m., August 7, 1998). The four are:
Wadih El-Hage.
Khalfan Khamis Mohamed.
Mohamed al-Owhali.
Mohammed Saddiq Odeh. [CNN, 10/21/2001]
Another man in custody for the embassy bombings, Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, attempted to stab a prison guard and was removed from the trail and eventually given 32 years in prison for the stabbing instead. [CNN, 5/4/2004] Double agent Ali Mohamed is also in custody and pleads guilty for a role in the bombings, but he is never sentenced and his fate remains murky (see July 2001-December 2001). A New York jury considered the death penalty for some of them, but deadlocked on that and opted for life in prison without parole instead. Over a dozen people remain wanted for their alleged roles in the embassy bombings, including all of the suspected masterminds. [CNN, 10/21/2001]

Entity Tags: Mohammed Saddiq Odeh, Mohamed al-Owhali, Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, Ali Mohamed, Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, Wadih El-Hage

Category Tags: 1998 US Embassy Bombings, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics, Wadih El-Hage

White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer makes a comment about the recent anthrax attacks (see October 5-November 21, 2001). He says: “There is a suspicion that this is connected to international terrorists. Having said that, investigators also do not rule out that it could be something domestic, that it could be a lone person operating doing this, or it could be terrorism. The suspicion is that it is terrorism, but there is no hard evidence yet at this point to lead anybody who is investigating these matters to reach a conclusion on any of these sources.” [Voice of America, 10/23/2001] The same day, House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-MO) echoes Fleisher’s comment and links the attacks to overseas terrorists. He says, “I don’t think there’s a way to prove that, but I think we all suspect that.” [US Department of State, 10/23/2001] In 2004, Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen will say that, at the time it was widely believed that the anthrax attacks were somehow connected to the 9/11 attacks several weeks before. He will cite Fleischer and Gephardt’s comments as one reason why so many made the connection. [Washington Post, 7/22/2004]

Entity Tags: Ari Fleischer, Richard Cohen, Richard Gephardt

Timeline Tags: 2001 Anthrax Attacks

Category Tags: Counterterrorism Policy/Politics

The Gulfstream V with tail number N379P used to rendition Jamil Qasim Saeed Mohammed and many others. [Source: Washington Post]Jamil Qasim Saeed Mohammed, a microbiology student from Yemen who is suspected of membership in al-Qaeda and involvement in the bombing of the USS Cole, is apprehended in Pakistan by the Pakistani ISI at the request of the US. [Associated Press, 10/28/2001; St. Petersburg Times, 10/28/2001; Washington Post, 3/11/2002] In the early hours of October 23, 2001, he is taken to a secluded part of Karachi International Airport. Shackled and blindfolded, the Pakistanis deliver him to US agents, according to the Washington Post, “without extradition or deportation papers.” [Washington Post, 3/11/2002] From there, at about 2:40 a.m., Mohammed is put on a US-registered jet and flown to Jordan. His fate is unknown from then on. [Amnesty International, 8/19/2003] The plane is a Gulfstream V with tail number N379P, owned by a company named Premier Executive Transport Services Inc. (PETS), in Dedham, Massachusetts. The company is apparently a CIA front. [Washington Post, 12/27/2004] Reporter Fredrik Laurin later discovers that the chartered Gulfstream is leased almost exclusively to the US administration. [Guardian, 9/13/2004] Since its discovery, this Gulfstream will be spotted at Washington’s Dulles International Airport, Guantanamo Bay, Amman (the military airport), Baghdad, Baku, Cairo, Dubai, Islamabad, Karachi, Kuwait City, Rabat, Riyadh, and Tashkent, Frankfurt, Glasgow, Stockholm, Larnaca on Cyprus, and other airports in England and Ireland. [Washington Post, 7/25/2004; Washington Post, 12/27/2004] The jet will further be found to have a permit to land at US military bases around the world. [Guardian, 9/13/2004] As of early 2008, he still has not been seen or heard of anywhere. Amnesty International has asked the Jordanian government for information on his whereabouts but has not received an answer. [Washington Post, 12/1/2007]

Entity Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, Pakistan Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, Jamil Qasim Saeed Mohammed

Timeline Tags: Torture of US Captives

Category Tags: 2000 USS Cole Bombing, Counterterrorism Action After 9/11

The Chinese internet news site Zhongxin Wang publishes a detailed account of the purported assassination of Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar, according to James S. Robbins, a professor of international relations at the National Defense University’s School for National Defense Studies. According to the account, both men were killed by associates at an underground base near Kandahar on October 16. The associates shot them twice in the back, and one of bin Laden’s sons and two of Omar’s were also killed. The report will be picked up by a Japanese daily and the National Review Online, which will cite some circumstantial evidence it says supports the claim. [National Review Online, 10/25/2001] However, both bin Laden and Mullah Omar will later be reported to have lived past this date (see, for example, November 7, 2001 and October 6, 2002).

Entity Tags: Osama bin Laden, Al-Qaeda, Mullah Omar, Taliban, James S. Robbins

Category Tags: Osama Bin Laden

Abdul Haq. [Source: Abdul Haq Foundation]Abdul Haq, a leader of the Afghan resistance to the Taliban, is killed. According to some reports, he “seemed the ideal candidate to lead an opposition alliance into Afghanistan to oust the ruling Taliban.” [Observer, 10/28/2001] Four days earlier, he had secretly entered Afghanistan with a small force to try to raise rebellion, but was spotted by Taliban forces and surrounded. He calls former National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane (who had supported him in the past) who then calls the CIA and asks for immediate assistance to rescue Haq. A battle lasting up to twelve hours ensues. (The CIA had previously rejected Haq’s requests for weapons to fight the Taliban, and so his force is grossly underarmed.) [Sydney Morning Herald, 10/29/2001] The CIA refuses to send in a helicopter to rescue him, alleging that the terrain is too rough, even though Haq’s group is next to a hilltop once used as a helicopter landing point. [Observer, 10/28/2001; Los Angeles Times, 10/28/2001] An unmanned surveillance aircraft eventually attacks some of the Taliban forces fighting Haq, but not until five hours after Haq has been captured. The Taliban executes him. [Wall Street Journal, 11/2/2001] Vincent Cannistraro, former head of the CIA’s Counter Terrorism Center, and others suggest that Haq’s position was betrayed to the Taliban by the ISI. Haq was already an enemy of the ISI, which may have killed his family. [Village Voice, 10/26/2001; USA Today, 10/31/2001; Knight Ridder, 11/3/2001; Toronto Star, 11/5/2001]

Entity Tags: Robert C. McFarlane, Central Intelligence Agency, Pakistan Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, Taliban, Vincent Cannistraro, Abdul Haq

Timeline Tags: War in Afghanistan

Category Tags: Pakistan and the ISI, Afghanistan

Czech interior minister Stanislav Gross says during a press conference that 9/11 plotter Mohamed Atta had in fact met with Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, the consul and second secretary of the Iraqi embassy, in the Czech Republic after arriving in Prague on April 8, 2001 (see April 8, 2001). “We can confirm now that during his… trip to the Czech Republic, he did have a contact with an officer of the Iraqi intelligence,” he says. He also says that Atta had been in Prague at least twice—in May 2000 after coming to Prague from Germany on his way to the United States and then again in April when he allegedly met with Ahni. [New York Times, 10/27/2001; CNN, 10/27/2001] Also, by this time, the FBI claims it has physical evidence of Atta’s trip to Prague. The New York Times reports, “On April 4 he was in Virginia Beach. He flew to the Czech Republic on April 8 and met with the Iraqi intelligence officer… By April 11, Atta was back in Florida renting a car.” [New York Times, 10/27/2001 Sources: Unnamed US officials, Jan Kavan] But this will later be disputed. In late April 2002, Newsweek will report, “The FBI could find no visa or airline records showing he had left or re-entered the United States that month,” quoting an unnamed US official who says, “Neither we nor the Czechs nor anybody else has any information he was coming or going [to Prague] at that time.” [Newsweek, 4/28/2002 Sources: Unnamed US official, Jan Kavan] And in late 2003, Edward Jay Epstein will similarly report in Slate that there “were no car rental records in Virginia, Florida, or anywhere else in April 2001 for Mohamed Atta, since he had not yet obtained his Florida license… [n]or were there other records in the hands of the FBI that put Atta in the United States at the time.” But Epstein will note that Atta would likely have traveled to Prague using false documents anyway. [New York Times, 11/19/2003]

Entity Tags: Stanislav Gross, Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, Mohamed Atta

Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion

Category Tags: Alleged Iraq-Al-Qaeda Links

President Bush signs the Patriot Act into law. [Source: White House]President Bush signs the USA Patriot Act (see October 2, 2001) into law. The act’s provisions include:
1) Non-citizens can be detained and deported if they provide “assistance” for lawful activities of any group the government chooses to call a terrorist organization. Under this provision the secretary of state can designate any group that has ever engaged in violent activity as a terrorist organization. Representative Patsy Mink (D-HI) notes that in theory supporters of Greenpeace could now be convicted for supporting terrorism. [San Francisco Chronicle, 11/12/2001]
2) Immigrants can be detained indefinitely, even if they are found not to have any links to terrorism. They can be detained indefinitely for immigration violations or if the attorney general decides their activities pose a danger to national security. They need never be given a trial or even a hearing on their status. [San Francisco Chronicle, 9/8/2002]
3) Internet service providers can be ordered to reveal the websites and e-mail addresses that a suspect has communicated to or visited. The FBI need only inform a judge that the information is relevant to an investigation. [Village Voice, 11/26/2001; San Francisco Chronicle, 9/8/2002]
4) The act “lays the foundation for a domestic intelligence-gathering system of unprecedented scale and technological prowess.” [Washington Post, 11/4/2001] It allows the government to access confidential credit reports, school records, and other records, without consent or notification. [San Francisco Chronicle, 9/8/2002] All of this information can now be given to the CIA, in violation of the CIA’s mandate prohibiting it from spying within the US. [Village Voice, 11/26/2001]
5) Financial institutions are encouraged to disclose possible violations of law or “suspicious activities” by any client. The institution is prohibited from notifying the person involved that it made such a report. The term “suspicious” is not defined, so it is up to the financial institutions to determine when to send such a report.
6) Federal agents can easily obtain warrants to review a library patron’s reading and computer habits (see January 2002). [Village Voice, 2/22/2002] Section 215 allows the FBI to ask the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) for an order to obtain documents relating to counterterrorism investigations without meeting the usual standard of legal “probable cause” that a crime may have been committed. Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI—see October 9, 2001) says that Section 215 can allow the FBI to “go on a fishing expedition and collect information on virtually anyone.” Librarians will make Section 215 the centerpiece of their objections to the Patriot Act, arguing that the government can now “sweep up vast amounts of information about people who are not suspected of a crime.” In 2005, one librarian will say, “It reminds me of the Red Scare of the 1950s.” However, some FBI officials find it easier to use provisions of Section 505, which expands the usage of so-called “national security letters” (see November 28, 2001). [Roberts, 2008, pp. 39-40]
7) The government can refuse to reveal how evidence is collected against a suspected terrorist defendant. [Tampa Tribune, 4/6/2003]
Passes with No Public Debate - The law passes without public debate. [Village Voice, 11/9/2001; Village Voice, 11/26/2001] Even though it ultimately took six weeks to pass the law, there were no hearings or congressional debates. [Salon, 3/24/2003] Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) says: “This was the least democratic process for debating questions fundamental to democracy I have ever seen. A bill drafted by a handful of people in secret, subject to no committee process, comes before us immune from amendment” (see October 2-4, 2001 and October 24, 2001). [Village Voice, 11/9/2001] Only 66 congresspeople, and one senator, Feingold, vote against it. Few in Congress are able to read summaries, let alone the fine print, before voting on it. [Los Angeles Times, 10/30/2001] Feingold says, “The new law goes into a lot of areas that have nothing to do with terrorism and have a lot to do with the government and the FBI having a wish list of things they want to do.” [Village Voice, 11/9/2001] Supporters of the act point out that some of its provisions will expire in four years, but in fact most provisions will not expire. [Chicago Tribune, 11/1/2001]
Mounting Opposition - One year later, criticism of the law will grow. [San Francisco Chronicle, 9/8/2002] Dozens of cities will later pass resolutions criticizing the Patriot Act (see January 12, 2003).

Entity Tags: George W. Bush, USA Patriot Act, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, US Congress, Patsy Mink, Russell D. Feingold, Barney Frank

Timeline Tags: Civil Liberties

Category Tags: Counterterrorism Policy/Politics, Internal US Security After 9/11

Carlyle Group logo. [Source: Carlyle Group]The Carlyle Group, based in Washington, DC, is one of the world’s largest private-equity investment firms. One of its brochures described it as investing “in niche opportunities created in industries heavily affected by changes in governmental policies.” [Fortune, 3/18/2002] It is also the 11th-largest defense contractor in the US. [Red Herring, 12/11/2001] Since being established in 1987, it has signed up many former politicians and used their contacts and influence to promote itself. [Guardian, 10/31/2001] Those on its payroll include former Secretary of State James Baker, former White House budget director Dick Darman, former British Prime Minister John Major, and former US President George H. W. Bush. Its chairman is former CIA Director Frank Carlucci. [Fortune, 3/18/2002] Following 9/11, news reports revealed that Carlyle had a business relationship with Osama bin Laden’s family. According to a Carlyle executive, in 1995 the bin Ladens invested $2 million in the Carlyle Partners II fund, which includes various defense holdings. This was a fairly small amount considering the entire fund is worth $1.3 billion. However, a foreign financier with ties to the bin Ladens claimed their overall investment with Carlyle was much larger. [Wall Street Journal, 9/27/2001; London Times, 5/8/2003] Shafig bin Laden, one of Osama’s brothers, had actually been in Washington, DC, on the morning of 9/11, attending the Carlyle Group’s annual investor conference there (see (9:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Former President George H. W. Bush, who is senior adviser to Carlyle Group’s Asian Partners fund, has twice met with the bin Laden family on behalf of the company (see November 1998; January 2000). On this day though, the Carlyle Group ends its relationship with the bin Ladens, and gives them back their investment. [Red Herring, 12/11/2001; Fortune, 3/18/2002] But the family is very well-connected, and their investment in Carlyle is hardly unusual for them. The New Yorker will note, “Much of the family’s private banking is handled by Citigroup, which is chaired by former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin. The family has equity investments with Merrill Lynch and Goldman, Sachs. Among the family’s business partners is General Electric. A spokesman for Jack Welch, the chairman of G.E., says that the family threw a party for him in the nineteen-nineties in Saudi Arabia, and that Welch ‘considers them good business partners.’ One American diplomat says, ‘You talk about your global investors, it’s them. They own part of Microsoft, Boeing, and who knows what else.’” [New Yorker, 11/5/2001]

Entity Tags: Carlyle Group, Bin Laden Family

Category Tags: Saudi Arabia, Bin Laden Family

Furious government intelligence officials accuse the NSA of destroying data pertinent to the 9/11 investigation. They claim that possible leads are not being followed because of the NSA’s lack of cooperation. [Boston Globe, 10/27/2001]

Entity Tags: National Security Agency

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: FBI 9/11 Investigation, Remote Surveillance

The US government no longer thinks al-Qaeda is behind the anthrax attacks (see October 5-November 21, 2001). The Washington Post reports in a front-page story: “Top FBI and CIA officials believe that the anthrax attacks… are likely the work of one or more extremists in the United States who are probably not connected to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda terrorist organization, government officials said yesterday.” An unnamed senior official adds, “Everything seems to lean toward a domestic source… Nothing seems to fit with an overseas terrorist type operation.” The Post suggests neo-Nazi and/or right-wing hate groups could be behind it. [Washington Post, 10/27/2001] Not long after, the FBI releases a profile of the perpetrator of the anthrax attacks. He is suspected of being a lone, male domestic terrorist, with a scientific background and laboratory experience who could handle hazardous materials. [St. Petersburg Times, 11/10/2001]

Entity Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, Osama bin Laden, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Al-Qaeda

Timeline Tags: 2001 Anthrax Attacks, US Domestic Terrorism

Category Tags: Counterterrorism Policy/Politics

The press reports that the US has put together a multi-billion dollar aid package for Pakistan that includes “sweeping debt rescheduling, grants stretching over many years and trade benefits as a reward for its support against terrorism.” Critics such as Representative Jim McDermott (D-WA) complain the aid is a “blank check” that could go towards supporting the Pakistani military and Islamic militants fighting in India. [New York Times, 10/27/2001]

Entity Tags: Pakistan, Jim McDermott, United States

Category Tags: Pakistan and the ISI

Suspected al-Qaeda operative Mohammed Haydar Zammar travels from Germany to Morocco. Not long after, perhaps in November, he is arrested by Moroccan police with US assistance. Although he is a German citizen and under investigation by Germany, German intelligence remain unaware of his arrest, and only learn about it from the newspapers in June 2002. He is sent to Syria, where there are formal charges against him (see December 2001). Zammar reportedly now claims he recruited Mohamed Atta and others into the al-Qaeda Hamburg cell. [Washington Post, 6/19/2002] It is widely suspected that the US arranged for Zammar to be sent to Syria so that he could be more thoroughly interrogated using torture. The Germans are angry that the US has been submitting questions for Zammar and learning answers from Syria, but have not informed Germany of what they have learned [Daily Telegraph, 6/20/2002; Christian Science Monitor, 7/26/2002]

Entity Tags: Mohammed Haydar Zammar, Germany, Mohamed Atta, Syria

Timeline Tags: Torture of US Captives

Category Tags: Al-Qaeda in Germany, Key Captures and Deaths

Attorney General John Ashcroft issues a second terror alert for the month (see October 11-29, 2001). The intelligence received by the FBI does not, he says, “contain specific information as to the type of attack or specific targets.” [Rich, 2006, pp. 36]

Entity Tags: John Ashcroft, Federal Bureau of Investigation

Category Tags: Terror Alerts

Michael Ledeen, speaking at an event sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), states: “No stages. This is total war. We are fighting a variety of enemies. There are lots of them out there. All this talk about first we are going to do Afghanistan, then we will do Iraq… this is entirely the wrong way to go about it. If we just let our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely and we don’t try to piece together clever diplomacy, but just wage a total war… our children will sing great songs about us years from now.” [Institute, 10/29/2001; Village Voice, 11/21/2001] Interestingly, several sources credit fellow AEI neoconservative Richard Perle, and not Ledeen, with the quote, including John Pilger’s book The New Rulers of the World [Pilger, 2002, pp. 10] and former State Department and USAID official William Fisher. [Informed Comment, 2/1/2005] Perle is the moderator of the AEI event where Ledeen speaks. [Institute, 10/29/2001; Village Voice, 11/21/2001]

Entity Tags: Richard Perle, Michael Ledeen, American Enterprise Institute

Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, Neoconservative Influence

Category Tags: US Dominance, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics

Arthur Cebrowski. [Source: Publicity photo]Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announces the establishment of a new unit within the Office of the Secretary of Defense, called the Office of Force Transformation (OFT). Rumsfeld had called for the establishment of this office “as part of President Bush’s broad mandate to transform the Department of Defense. This transformation process challenges the organizational status quo with a new architecture for American defense in order to ensure an overwhelming and continuing competitive advantage for America’s military for decades to come.” He appoints retired Navy Vice Admiral Arthur Cebrowski—the former president of the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island—as its director. [US Department of Defense, 11/26/2001; New York Times Magazine, 3/10/2002] Also recruited for this new department, as assistant for strategic futures, is Thomas Barnett, a senior strategic researcher at the Naval War College. As the “vision guy,” Barnett’s job is “to generate and deliver a compelling brief that would mobilize the Defense Department toward generating the future fighting force demanded by the post-9/11 strategic environment.” Barnett claims that, over time, senior military officials will come to cite his brief as “a Rosetta stone for the Bush administration’s new national security strategy.” [Barnett, 2004, pp. 5-6] Prior to 9/11, Barnett was the director of a research partnership between the Naval War College and the Wall Street bond firm Cantor Fitzgerald, called the New Rule Sets Project (see May 1, 2000-June 4, 2001). Considering that the OFT is a personal initiative of the defense secretary, it is interesting that Rumsfeld was in the late 1990s one of the founders of the neoconservative think tank, Project for the New American Century (PNAC) (see June 3, 1997). [BBC, 8/25/2005; Washington Post, 6/12/2006; Federal Computer Week, 9/4/2006] In September 2000, PNAC published a strategy document called “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” (see September 2000). Among other things, this laid out the need to establish “four core missions” for US military forces, one of these being to “transform US forces to exploit the ‘revolution in military affairs.’” The OFT appears to be fulfilling this mission. However, the PNAC document had continued, “the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event—like a new Pearl Harbor.” [Project for the New American Century, 9/2000, pp. iv and 51 ]

Entity Tags: Donald Rumsfeld, Thomas Barnett, Office of Force Transformation, Art Cebrowski

Category Tags: Other Post-9/11 Events

From left to right: Oded Ellner, Omer Marmari, and Yaron Shmuel. Three of the five accused Israelis briefly appear on Israeli television in November 2001 after being released and deported. [Source: Public domain via Israeli television] (click image to enlarge)Around this time intense political pressure is put on US officials holding five Israeli men arrested for suspicious behavior at the time of the 9/11 attacks (see 3:56 p.m. September 11, 2001). According to the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and two unidentified “prominent New York congressmen” lobby heavily for their release. According to a source at ABC News, well-known criminal lawyer Alan Dershowitz also becomes involved as a negotiator to help get the men released. (Dershowitz will later refuse to comment on the matter.) [CounterPunch, 2/7/2007] ABC News will later report that was “high-level negotiations between Israeli and US government officials” over the five men, resulting in a settlement. [ABC News, 6/21/2002] Apparently the political pressure will succeed because the men will be released a few weeks later (see November 20, 2001]).

Entity Tags: Sivan Kurzberg, Yaron Shmuel, Paul Kurzberg, Oded Ellner, Alan M. Dershowitz, Omer Marmari, Richard Armitage

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Israel, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics

Melek Can Dickerson begins working for the FBI as a Turkish translator with top security clearance. She joins Sibel Edmonds and Kevin Taskasen (see September 20, 2001 and Early October 2001, respectively) as the FBI’s only Turkish translators. The FBI hired Dickerson without verifying that the information she provided on her application was correct. Had the bureau done this they would have learned that she spent two years working as an intern for the American-Turkish Council (ATC), a group that is being investigated by the FBI’s own counterintelligence unit and whose phone calls she will be listening in on as an FBI translator. [Anti-War (.com), 7/1/2004] On her application, Dickerson failed to disclose that she had worked for the organization. She also hid her tie to the group when she was interviewed as part of her background security check. [Vanity Fair, 9/2005] According to Sibel Edmonds, it’s not clear that Dickerson’s background check was ever completed. [Anti-War (.com), 7/1/2004]

Entity Tags: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Melek Can Dickerson

Category Tags: Sibel Edmonds

Gary Bernsten. [Source: CNN]Veteran CIA agent Gary Berntsen leads a CIA undercover team, codenamed Jawbreaker, to capture or kill bin Laden in Afghanistan (see September 26, 2001). In a 2005 book, also called Jawbreaker, Berntsen will describe how his team monitored multiple intelligence reports tracking bin Laden on a path through Jalalabad to Tora Bora (see November 13, 2001). He will claim that at the start of December 2001, one of his Arabic-speaking CIA agents finds a radio on a dead al-Qaeda fighter during a battle in the Tora Bora region. This agent hears bin Laden repeatedly attempt to rally his troops. On the same radio, that agent and another CIA agent who speaks Arabic hear bin Laden apologizing to his troops for getting them trapped and killed by US aerial bombing. Based on this information, Berntsen makes a formal request for 800 US troops to be deployed along the Pakistani border to prevent bin Laden’s escape. The request is not granted. Berntsen’s lawyer later claims, “Gary coordinated most of the boots on the ground. We knew where bin Laden was within a very circumscribed area. It was full of caves and tunnels but we could have bombed them or searched them one by one. The Pentagon failed to deploy sufficient troops to seal them off.” Although the area is heavily bombed, bin Laden is able to escape (see Mid-December 2001). [Berntsen and Pezzullo, 2005, pp. 43-64; London Times, 8/14/2005; MSNBC, 12/29/2005; Financial Times, 1/3/2006] A Knight Ridder investigative report will later conclude, “While more than 1,200 US Marines [sit] at an abandoned air base in the desert 80 miles away, Franks and other commanders [rely] on three Afghan warlords and a small number of American, British, and Australian special forces to stop al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters from escaping across the mountains into Pakistan.” Military and intelligence officials warn Franks that the two main Afghan commanders cannot be trusted. This turns out to be correct, as the warlords accept bribes from al-Qaeda leaders to let them escape. [Knight Ridder, 10/30/2004] In 2005, Berntsen will call himself a supporter of Bush and will say he approves of how CIA Director Porter Goss is running the CIA, but he will nonetheless sue the CIA for what he claims is excessive censorship of his book. [London Times, 8/14/2005; MSNBC, 12/29/2005]

Entity Tags: Taliban, Osama bin Laden, Gary Berntsen, Al-Qaeda, Central Intelligence Agency, Thomas Franks

Timeline Tags: War in Afghanistan

Category Tags: Afghanistan, Escape From Afghanistan

In late October, US intelligence reports begin noting that al-Qaeda fighters and leaders are moving into and around the Afghan city of Jalalabad. By early November, Osama bin Laden is said to be there. [Knight Ridder, 10/20/2002] Counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke will later recall: “We knew from day one the likely places that bin Laden would flee to. There had been lots of work done before 9/11 on where did he hang out, statistical analysis even. We knew Tora Bora was the place where he would be likely to go. People in CIA knew that; people in the counterterrorism community knew about it. We knew that what you should have done was to insert special forces—Rangers, that sort of thing—up into that area as soon as possible.” [PBS Frontline, 6/20/2006] Knight Ridder Newspapers will later report: “American intelligence analysts concluded that bin Laden and his retreating fighters were preparing to flee across the border. However, the US Central Command, which was running the war, made no move to block their escape. ‘It was obvious from at least early November that this area was to be the base for an exodus into Pakistan,’ said one intelligence official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity. ‘All of this was known, and frankly we were amazed that nothing was done to prepare for it.’” [Knight Ridder, 10/20/2002] The vast majority of al-Qaeda’s leaders and fighters will eventually escape into Pakistan. In 2006, Newsweek reporter and columnist Michael Hirsh will write that Bush’s decision to ignore accurate intelligence about bin Laden’s presence in Tora Bora in favor of realigning the US’s war effort to focus on the “gathering threat” of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein was a strategic blunder that ranks alongside Adolf Hitler’s decision to invade the USSR in 1941. [Rich, 2006, pp. 208]

Entity Tags: Michael Hirsh, Al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, Central Intelligence Agency, George W. Bush

Timeline Tags: War in Afghanistan

Category Tags: Osama Bin Laden, Afghanistan, Escape From Afghanistan

The Justice Department issues a regulation that allows eavesdropping on attorney-client conversations in federal prisons wherever there is “reasonable suspicion… to believe that a particular inmate may use communications with attorneys to further or facilitate acts of terrorism.” The regulation requires written notice to the inmate and attorney, “except in the case of prior court authorization.” Officials no longer have to show probable cause or get a court order. The Los Angeles Times says the new policy is “sharply criticized by a broad array of lawyers and lawmakers.” [Los Angeles Times, 11/10/2001; San Francisco Chronicle, 11/12/2001]

Entity Tags: US Department of Justice

Timeline Tags: Civil Liberties

Category Tags: Counterterrorism Policy/Politics

According to author Ron Suskind, some time in November the US makes a deal with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. Pakistan will seal off the passages to Pakistan from the Tora Bora region in Afghanistan where Taliban and al-Qaeda forces are expected to gather. In return, the US will give Pakistan nearly a billion dollars in new economic aid. Pakistan will fail to effectively seal the border in the next month (see December 10, 2001) and almost the entire force in Tora Bora will escape into Pakistan. [Suskind, 2006, pp. 58]

Entity Tags: Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan, United States

Timeline Tags: War in Afghanistan

Category Tags: Afghanistan, Escape From Afghanistan

Mohamed Alanssi, a Yemeni currently in the US on business, goes to the FBI’s New York field office to offer his services as an informant against al-Qaeda. He offers the bureau information on alleged al-Qaeda financers working in Yemen and quickly becomes an important mole. His case is handled by Robert Fuller, an FBI agent who failed to locate the 9/11 hijackers in the US before 9/11 (see September 4, 2001, September 4-5, 2001, and September 4-5, 2001). Alanssi travels to Yemen to gather intelligence on occasions, and will film a key terrorism financier, Mohammed Ali Hassan al-Moayad, making incriminating statements in 2003 (see January 2003). In an affidavit supporting Moayad’s arrest warrant, Fuller will say that he has been working with a Yemeni informant, apparently Alanssi, since November 2001 and that the informant has provided reliable information and “contributed, in part, to the arrests of 20 individuals and the seizure of over $1 million.” However, the relationship between Alanssi and the bureau will later go sour and Alanssi will immolate himself in front of the White House (see November 15, 2004). [Washington Post, 11/16/2004]

Entity Tags: FBI New York Field Office, Mohamed Alanssi, Robert Fuller, Federal Bureau of Investigation

Category Tags: Other Possible Moles or Informants, Terrorism Financing, Counterterrorism Action After 9/11

An air traffic controller at the FAA’s New York Center who was recorded recalling her actions during the 9/11 attacks is denied a request to listen to her taped statement, possibly while she is preparing a written statement about the attacks. [US Department of Transportation, 5/4/2004 ] Six controllers at the New York Center who communicated with, or tracked, two of the hijacked aircraft on 9/11 were recorded later that day giving their personal accounts of what happened (see 11:40 a.m. September 11, 2001). [Washington Post, 5/6/2004] Mike McCormick, the center’s manager, told the union official representing these controllers that they would be able to use their taped statements to help them prepare written ones (see (Shortly Before 11:40 a.m.) September 11, 2001).
Controller Told No One Can Hear Tape - However, when one of the controllers asks to listen to her own oral statement, she is told by Kevin Delaney—the New York Center’s quality assurance manager, who is the tape’s custodian—that the tape is not meant for anyone to hear. It is unclear if the controller wants to hear the tape to help her prepare a written statement about the attacks. According to a 2004 report by the Department of Transportation’s Office of Inspector General (see May 6, 2004), she asks “to listen to the tape in preparing her written statement.” The five controllers that were recorded on September 11 who subsequently provide written statements prepare those statements within three weeks of 9/11 (see (Between September 11 and October 2, 2001)), but, according to Delaney, this controller asks to listen to the tape in November 2001, which would be after the written statements are provided.
Controller Requests Tape Again in 2003 - The tape of the controllers’ statements will be destroyed at some point between December 2001 and February 2002 (see Between December 2001 and February 2002), without any of the controllers having listened to it. The controller who requests to hear her own recorded statement will again ask to listen to the tape around September or October 2003, when she is to be interviewed by the 9/11 Commission, but, as it has already been destroyed by then, the tape cannot be located. [US Department of Transportation, 5/4/2004 ; Air Safety Week, 5/17/2004]

Entity Tags: Kevin Delaney

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Other 9/11 Investigations

FBI agent Jack Cloonan arrives in Sudan with several other FBI agents and is given permission by the Sudanese government to interview some al-Qaeda operatives living there. The interviews were conducted at safe houses arranged by Sudanese intelligence. Cloonan interviews Mubarak al Duri, an Iraqi. He lived in Tuscon, Arizona, in the late 1980s and early 1990s and was al-Qaeda’s chief agent attempting to purchase weapons of mass destruction (see 1986). Cloonan will later claim that al Duri and a second Iraqi al-Qaeda operative laughed when asked about possible bin Laden ties to Saddam Hussein’s government. “They said bin Laden hated Saddam.” Bin Laden considered Hussein “a Scotch-drinking, woman-chasing apostate.” Cloonan also interviews Mohammed Loay Bayazid, an American citizen and founding member of al-Qaeda (see August 11-20, 1988), who ran an al-Qaeda charity front in the US (see December 16, 1994). [Los Angeles Times, 4/29/2005] The CIA will interview them in 2002, but they apparently remain free in Sudan (see Mid-2002).

Entity Tags: Saddam Hussein, Mukhabarat (Sudan), Mohammed Loay Bayazid, Mubarak al Duri, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, Jack Cloonan

Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion

Category Tags: Alleged Iraq-Al-Qaeda Links, Counterterrorism Action After 9/11

The FAA’s New York Center submits a “formal accident package” of evidence relating to the 9/11 attacks to FAA headquarters in Washington, DC, but a manager at the center deliberately excludes from it an audio tape on which several air traffic controllers recalled their experiences with the hijacked aircraft. [US Department of Transportation, 5/4/2004 ; Washington Post, 5/6/2004] This tape was created on September 11, shortly after the attacks occurred, when six controllers at the New York Center who communicated with, or tracked, two of the hijacked aircraft were recorded giving their personal accounts of what happened (see 11:40 a.m. September 11, 2001). [Washington Post, 5/6/2004] The tape was then logged into the center’s formal record of evidence. [US Department of Transportation, 5/4/2004 ]
Evidence Package Required for Air Accidents - FAA policy requires that a formal accident package be provided for all aircraft accident investigations, including military investigations, when FAA air traffic facilities were, or may have been, involved in the accident. A formal accident package must include “all pertinent records, personnel statements, transcriptions of voice recordings, charts, operation letters, letters of agreement, and facility memoranda.” [Federal Aviation Administration, 8/16/2000 ] Kevin Delaney, the New York Center’s quality assurance manager, has had an argument with FAA headquarters over whether the events of 9/11 should be declared an aircraft accident or an incident. Less information needs to be provided in an incident package than in an accident package. But as the 9/11 attacks are deemed an accident, Delaney is supposed to provide the names of everyone involved in them, including those that died at the World Trade Center. He must also provide transcripts and other information relating to the status of the aircraft involved, which would not be included in an incident package. [9/11 Commission, 9/30/2003 ]
Package Returned for Extra Work - The New York Center submits its formal accident package to FAA headquarters in November 2001, but the package is returned to the center the following month for additional work. It is re-sent and finalized in May 2002.
Delaney Decides to Omit Tape - The formal accident package includes written statements about the 9/11 attacks that have been provided by controllers whose accounts were recorded on the audio tape (see (Between September 11 and October 2, 2001)). But Delaney makes a conscious decision not to also include that tape in the package. His reason for this, he will later say, is that including it would mean losing control of the tape, thereby being unable to keep a promise he made to the National Air Traffic Controllers Association that he would “get rid of” it (see October 2001-February 2002). At some point after the initial submission of the package, between December 2001 and February 2002, Delaney deliberately destroys the tape of the controllers’ statements (see Between December 2001 and February 2002). [US Department of Transportation, 5/4/2004 ]

Entity Tags: New York Air Route Traffic Control Center, Kevin Delaney, Federal Aviation Administration

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Other 9/11 Investigations

In the late autumn of 2001, when US-allied forces are overrunning Taliban positions in Afghanistan, the Darunta camp run by al-Qaeda is seized and searched. Al-Qaeda leader Midhat Mursi (a.k.a. Abu Khabab al-Masri) ran al-Qaeda’s WMD program and conducted crude chemical weapons experiments there. The CIA recovers one document there by Mursi that refers to connections between al-Qaeda and Pakistani nuclear scientists. It reads, in part, “As you instructed us you will find attached a summary of the discharges from a traditional nuclear reactor, amongst which are radioactive elements that could be used for military ends. One can use them to contaminate an area or halt the advance of the enemy. It is possible to get more information from our Pakistani friends who have great experience in this sphere.” [Bergen, 2006, pp. 345; Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 294] This could be a reference to links between al-Qaeda and the Pakistani nuclear scientists working with the Ummah Tameer-e-Nau charity front (see 2000 and Mid-August 2001).

Entity Tags: Midhat Mursi, Central Intelligence Agency, Al-Qaeda, Darunta training camp

Timeline Tags: A. Q. Khan's Nuclear Network

Category Tags: Pakistan and the ISI, Pakistani Nukes & Islamic Militancy

FBI translator Melek Can Dickerson recommends in a proposal to supervisor Mike Feghali that the Bureau’s Turkish language department adopt a new system for assigning translation tasks. Instead of the current system that randomly distributes assignments to translators, she suggests that each translator be permanently responsible for certain targets. Included with her proposal is a list of recommended assignments for each of the department’s translators. Under the proposed arrangement, she would be assigned to the phone lines of the American-Turkish Council (ATC) along with three other “high-value” diplomatic targets. Dickerson formerly worked for the ATC as an intern and is currently a personal friend of at least one of those high-value targets. She discusses her proposal alone with Feghali in his office for most of the afternoon. The following day, Feghali sends an email announcing that he has decided to adopt the new system proposed by Dickerson. [Vanity Fair, 9/2005] As a result of the new arrangement, Dickerson, a mere “monitor,” has exclusive access to her targets’ wiretapped communications. (An FBI translator is either a “linguist” or a “monitor” for any given language. Linguists are more qualified and consequently have broader roles. For example, while linguists can to do verbatim translations, monitors may only produce summaries. [Anti-War (.com), 7/1/2004] ) From this point on, none of the recorded conversations for these targets will be reviewed by an official department linguist, or any other translator for that matter. [Vanity Fair, 9/2005]

Entity Tags: Mike Feghali, Melek Can Dickerson

Category Tags: Sibel Edmonds

Dennis Saccher, the FBI’s special agent in charge of Turkish counter-intelligence, develops suspicions about Melek Can Dickerson, a translator in his department who has lost information on several wiretaps and who he believes has forged signatures on certain documents. He reports his concerns to the FBI headquarters and his boss, Supervisory Special Agent Tom Frields. [Anti-War (.com), 8/22/2005]

Entity Tags: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Melek Can Dickerson, Dennis Saccher, Thomas Frields

Category Tags: Sibel Edmonds

Al-Qaeda documents found in Kabul by CNN reporters [Source: CNN]As US forces invade Afghanistan, they and the journalists following them, uncover a quantity of al-Qaeda documents in training camps and houses used by the organization. The documents reveal a chilling array of terrorist plots. Some documents are apparently related to the planning of the 9/11 attacks. [Observer, 11/18/2001] A New York Times reporter finds two houses in Kabul’s diplomatic district containing, among other papers, a map showing the locations of power plants in Europe, Africa and Asia; training notebooks in military tactics and bomb-making; a list of Florida flight schools and a form that comes with “Microsoft Flight Simulator 98”; a document entitled “Before and After Precautions For Using Chemical, Biological, and Nuclear Warfare”; and a notebook on how to make nitroglycerine, dynamite, and fertilizer bombs, with a note next to one of the formulas saying “the type used in Oklahoma.” [New York Times, 11/17/2001] CNN reporters are led by Afghan police to a house in an upscale district of Kabul, which is apparently the same as the one visited by the New York Times reporter. In it they find a quantity of documents revealing al-Qaeda’s interest in acquiring nuclear weapons (see Mid-August 2001) and conventional explosives. According to David Albright, a nuclear weapons expert who is asked by CNN to analyze the documents, “These are people who are thinking through problems in how to cause destruction, for a well-thought-through political strategy.” [CNN, 12/4/2001; CNN, 1/24/2002; CNN, 1/25/2002; Albright, 11/6/2002] However, an extensive review of the documents later concludes that al-Qaeda’s main activity was to support the Taliban. “Reporters for The New York Times collected over 5,000 pages of documents from abandoned safe houses and training camps destroyed by bombs.… The documents show that the training camps, which the Bush administration has described as factories churning out terrorists, were instead focused largely on creating an army to support the Taliban, which was waging a long ground war against the Northern Alliance.… They show no specific plans for terror operations abroad, and while hinting at an ambition to use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, they contain no evidence that the groups possess them.” [New York Times, 3/17/2002]

Entity Tags: Al-Qaeda

Timeline Tags: War in Afghanistan

Category Tags: Other 9/11 Investigations, Afghanistan, Counterterrorism Action After 9/11

When investigators search the home of Amer el-Azizi, a known al-Qaeda operative, they find an e-mail address that connects him to 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM). El-Azizi helped arrange a meeting between lead hijacker Mohamed Atta and an associate, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, in the run-up to 9/11 (see July 8-19, 2001), although he was monitored by Spanish authorities at the time (see Before July 8, 2001) and arrested in Turkey in 2000 (see October 10, 2000). His arrest shortly after 9/11 will be frustrated by Spanish intelligence (see October 2001 and Shortly After November 21, 2001) and he will go on to be involved in the 2004 Madrid bombings (see Before March 11, 2004 and 7:37-7:42 a.m., March 11, 2004). An indictment released in 2004 will say, “A fundamental document… connects Amer el-Azizi directly with those responsible for the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and concretely with Khalid Shaikh Mohammed via the e-mail address identified as Safar86@usa.net.” The e-mail address “was being used by an individual who facilitated trips for al-Qaeda members in direct connection with [KSM], organizer of the attacks.” A detainee will also later say that el-Azizi was in contact with the 9/11 plotters via e-mail. [Los Angeles Times, 4/29/2004] After 9/11, however, when the Spanish want to indict el-Azizi, the US will be reluctant to turn the information over to them, and it will take six months to get it. Despite this, problems persist in information sharing between the US and Spain and this has an impact on prosecutions (see Mid-2002-June 1, 2006). [Wall Street Journal, 5/4/2004]

Entity Tags: Amer el-Azizi, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Other 9/11 Investigations, Al-Qaeda in Spain

Recently hired FBI translator Melek Can Dickerson (see (Late October 2001)) begins marking as “not pertinent” wiretapped conversations that concern certain high-value surveillance targets working at the American-Turkish Council (ATC). As it later emerges, Dickerson previously worked as an intern for the ATC and maintains ongoing relationships with at least two individuals under investigation. [Washington Post, 6/19/2002; New York Observer, 1/22/2004; Vanity Fair, 9/2005] She also manages to obtain, and prevent from being translated, assignments designated for co-worker Sibel Edmonds. These wiretaps, which she marks as being completed by Edmonds, concern the same targeted persons. [New York Observer, 1/22/2004]

Entity Tags: Sibel Edmonds, American-Turkish Council, Melek Can Dickerson

Category Tags: Sibel Edmonds

A US grand jury secretly indicts Saeed Sheikh for his role in the 1994 kidnapping of an American. The indictment is revealed in late February 2002. The US later claims it begins asking Pakistan for help in arresting and extraditing Saeed in late November. [Associated Press, 2/26/2002; Newsweek, 3/13/2002] However, it is not until January 9, 2002, that Wendy Chamberlin, the US ambassador to Pakistan, officially asks the Pakistani government for assistance. [Associated Press, 2/24/2002; CNN, 2/24/2002; Los Angeles Times, 2/25/2002] Saeed is seen partying with Pakistani government officials well into January 2002. The Los Angeles Times later reports that Saeed “move[s] about Pakistan without apparent impediments from authorities” up until February 5, when he is identified as a suspect in the Daniel Pearl kidnapping. [Los Angeles Times, 2/13/2002] The London Times reports: “It is inconceivable that the Pakistani authorities did not know where he was” before then. [London Times, 4/21/2002]

Entity Tags: Daniel Pearl, Wendy Chamberlin, Pakistan, Saeed Sheikh

Category Tags: Pakistan and the ISI, Saeed Sheikh

Juma al-Dosari. [Source: PBS]In November 2001, al-Qaeda operative Juma al-Dosari is captured in Afghanistan. He is soon transferred to the Guantanamo prison. During interrogation in the spring of 2002, he reveals several aliases and that he was trying to recruit a group of US citizens in New York state known as the “Lackawanna Six.” Based on the aliases, US intelligence realizes they have already intercepted communications between him and Osama bin Laden’s son Saad bin Laden, and also him and al-Qaeda leader Khallad bin Attash. They learn he has a long history with al-Qaeda, having fought in Afghanistan, Bosnia, and Chechnya. He was arrested in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia on different occasions for involvement in the 1996 Khobar Towers bombings (see June 25, 1996). He first went to the US in 1999, staying several months in Indiana. Then he got a job at a mosque in Bloomington, Indiana, in the autumn of 2000. He began traveling around the US as a visiting imam, but investigators believe this was just his cover while he worked to recruit for al-Qaeda. In April 2001, he visited Buffalo, New York, and helped convince the “Lackawanna Six” to go to Afghanistan (see April-August 2001). He left the US for Afghanistan in late September 2001. The FBI gets this information in May 2002 and begins monitoring the “Lackawanna Six,” as they are all back in the US. Investigators suspect al-Dosari recruited others in other cities, but they do not know who. [PBS Frontline, 10/16/2003; PBS Frontline, 10/16/2003] In 2007, al-Dosari will be released from Guantanamo without explanation and set free in Saudi Arabia (see July 16, 2007).

Entity Tags: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Tawfiq bin Attash, Juma al-Dosari, Saad bin Laden

Category Tags: "Lackawanna Six", Key Captures and Deaths, Counterterrorism Action After 9/11

According to a September 2002 USA Today article, the decision to invade Iraq is made at this time. Significantly, the decision is made independent of normal policy-making procedures—a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq was not requested, members of Congress were not consulted, and the concerns of senior military officers and intelligence analysts were ignored. Explaining why the White House did not request a NIE on Iraq, an unnamed US intelligence official explains it didn’t want to detail the uncertainties regarding the threat Iraq allegedly poses to the US. A senior administration official says the White House did not believe an NIE would be helpful. However in September 2002, an NIE will finally be requested as a result of pressure from Congress. The classified version of the document will include many qualified and nuanced statements, but the shorter, unclassified version, which is given to Congress, will not include these uncertainties (see October 1, 2002). [USA Today, 9/10/2002 Sources: officials at the White House, State Department, Pentagon, intelligence agencies, Congress and elsewhere]

Entity Tags: George W. Bush, US Congress

Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion

Category Tags: Alleged Iraq-Al-Qaeda Links, Iraq War Impact on Counterterrorism

Many locals in Afghanistan reportedly witness a remarkable escape of al-Qaeda forces from Kabul around this time. One local businessman says, “We don’t understand how they weren’t all killed the night before because they came in a convoy of at least 1,000 cars and trucks. It was a very dark night, but it must have been easy for the American pilots to see the headlights. The main road was jammed from eight in the evening until three in the morning.” This convoy was thought to have contained al-Qaeda’s top officials [London Times, 7/22/2002]

Entity Tags: Al-Qaeda

Timeline Tags: War in Afghanistan

Category Tags: Afghanistan, Escape From Afghanistan

Mohammed Junaid Babar. [Source: London Times]In early November 2001, a young man using the name Mohammad Junaid appears in several print interviews in Pakistan. He appears unmasked in video interviews shown on CNN in the US and ITN in Britain. He says that he is going to fight US soldiers in Afghanistan with the Taliban even though he is a US citizen and his mother was in the World Trade Center on 9/11 and barely survived the attack. He says, “I will kill every American that I see in Afghanistan, and every American I see in Pakistan.” In fact, his full name is Mohammed Junaid Babar. [Boston Globe, 11/6/2001; London Times, 5/3/2007] He is a long-time member of Al-Muhajiroun, a radical Islamist group based in Britain but which also has a New York branch that Babar is involved with. [Guardian, 4/30/2007]
Placed on Watch List and Monitored - Babar is immediately placed on no-fly watch lists and monitored by intelligence agencies. The Washington Post will later report, “US counterterrorism officials said Babar first hit their radar screen in late 2001…” [Washington Post, 7/25/2005] Jon Gilbert, who interviews him in Pakistan in November 2001, will later say, “The authorities had been diligently tracking him since the day our first interview had been aired.” Babar left the US shortly after the 9/11 attack, and apparently had no ties with Islamist militants prior to his departure.
Babar Lives in Pakistan, Works with Al-Qaeda - He does not return there for some time. Instead, he lives in Pakistan and frequently makes trips to Britain (but is not stopped from coming or going, despite being on the watch list). He becomes increasingly involved in helping al-Qaeda with logistics, such as fund-raising, supplying equipment from overseas, and helping to set up training camps in Pakistan’s tribal regions. He also becomes actively involved in a fertilizer bomb plot in Britain. in 2002, he sometimes he attends talks by radical imam Abu Hamza al-Masri with other members of the fertilizer plot in London’s Finsbury Park mosque. [Washington Post, 7/25/2005; Guardian, 4/30/2007; London Times, 5/3/2007]
Monitored Meeting with Key Militants - Meanwhile, intelligence agencies continue to monitor him. Details on such surveillance are scanty, but he apparently is monitored meeting with lead 7/7 London bomber Mohammad Sidique Khan in England in 2003 (see 2003). Newsweek will also later mention that “Babar was tracked flying off [in early 2004] to South Waziristan in Pakistan, where he attended what some analysts believe was a terror summit that included the notorious al-Qaeda operative Adnan Shukrijumah and Dhiren Barot, the operative suspected of casing New York financial institutions a few years earlier” (see March 2004). His Internet use at a public library is also monitored, and he is said to exchange messages with al-Qaeda operatives. [Newsweek, 1/24/2005]
Arrested in US - Babar finally returns to the US on April 6, 2004, although why he does this is a mystery since his confederates in the fertilizer bomb plot had been arrested in Canada, Britain, and Pakistan just days earlier, and their arrests had been immediately publicized (see Early 2003-April 6, 2004). Babar is arrested by the FBI four days after his arrival, and quickly begins completely cooperating with the authorities (see April 10, 2004).
Suspicions He Was US Agent Since 2001 - The London Times will later comment, “Some suggest that he may have already been an FBI agent” before he was arrested. [London Times, 5/3/2007] The BBC will similarly say, “Inevitably there were suspicions that he’d been an FBI agent all along.” [BBC, 5/25/2007] But while that issue remains unclear, he proves to be an increasingly valuable source of information about al-Qaeda as more is learned about what he knows. One US law enforcement official will say in late 2005, “This guy’s connection to different cells and plots just seems to be expanding. He is the fish that is getting bigger.” [Washington Post, 7/25/2005]

Entity Tags: Al-Muhajiroun, US intelligence, Al-Qaeda, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Mohammed Junaid Babar

Category Tags: Other Possible Moles or Informants, Londonistan - UK Counterterrorism, Counterterrorism Action After 9/11, Omar Bakri & Al-Muhajiroun

General Wesley Clark, the former supreme allied commander of NATO, meets with an unnamed senior general at the Pentagon. Six weeks earlier, this general had told him, “We’ve made the decision we’re going to war with Iraq” (see September 20, 2001). Now Clark asks if the plan to attack Iraq is still under consideration. [Democracy Now!, 3/2/2007; Salon, 10/12/2007] According to Clark, the general replies, “Yes, sir, but it’s worse than that.” He holds up a piece of paper and says: “I just got this memo… from the office of the secretary of defense upstairs. It’s a, it’s a five-year plan. We’re going to take down seven countries in five years. We’re going to start with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, then Libya, Somalia, Sudan, we’re going to come back and get Iran in five years.” When the general says the paper is classified, Clark tells him, “Well, don’t show it to me, because I want to be able to talk about it.” [WesPAC, 10/13/2006] Clark will tell CNN this paper “wasn’t a plan. Maybe it was a think piece. Maybe it was a sort of notional concept, but what it was was the kind of indication of dialogue around this town in official circles.” [CNN, 9/16/2007] Clark also later claims that when he sees the general again around early 2006 and asks him about the paper, the general replies: “Sir, I didn’t show you that memo! I didn’t show it to you!” [Democracy Now!, 3/2/2007]

Entity Tags: Wesley Clark

Category Tags: Alleged Iraq-Al-Qaeda Links, US Dominance, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics

New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani angers firefighters when he decides to severely reduce the number of them that can search for remains at Ground Zero. Until now, up to 300 firefighters at a time have been involved in the search and recovery effort. Giuliani’s decision will mean no more than 25 at a time can do so in future. The International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) later alleges that, also at this time, Giuliani makes “a conscious decision to institute a ‘scoop-and-dump’ operation to expedite the clean-up of Ground Zero in lieu of the more time-consuming, but respectful, process of removing debris piece by piece in hope of uncovering more remains.” So far, the bodies or remains of 101 firefighters have been recovered, out of the 343 who died at the World Trade Center on 9/11. According to the IAFF, the mayor refuses to even meet with local union presidents about the decision. Due to the ensuing public outcry, Giuliani will modify his policy and allow firefighters back on the pile at Ground Zero. The remains of another 113 firefighters will subsequently be found. The IAFF later alleges that “the mayor’s switch to a scoop-and-dump coincided with the final removal of tens of millions of dollars of gold, silver and other assets of the Bank of Nova Scotia that were buried beneath what was once the towers” (see (Mid-October-mid November 2001)). “Once the money was out, Giuliani sided with the developers that opposed a lengthy recovery effort, and ordered the scoop-and-dump operation so they could proceed with redevelopment.” [Firefighting News (.com), 3/8/2007; Bloomberg, 3/9/2007; Associated Press, 3/10/2007] IAFF President Harold Schaitberger later says, “in my opinion, it was more important for him [to] find the gold than it was to continue to find and recover remains.” [MSNBC, 7/12/2007]

Entity Tags: Rudolph (“Rudy”) Giuliani, International Association of Fire Fighters, New York City Fire Department

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Other Post-9/11 Events

The US, lacking local agents and intelligence in Afghanistan, is said to be heavily reliant on the ISI for information about the Taliban. The US is said to be confident in the ISI, even though the ISI was the main supporter of the Taliban up until 9/11. Knight Ridder Newspapers comments, “Anti-Taliban Afghans, foreign diplomats, and Pakistani government security officials say that pro-Taliban officers remain deeply embedded within ISI and might still be helping America’s enemies inside Afghanistan.” A leader of the resistance to the Taliban says, “There are lots of (ISI) officers who are fully committed to the way of the Taliban and Osama bin Laden.” Former ISI Director Hamid Gul says, “It is a foolish commander who depends on someone else’s intelligence, especially when that someone doesn’t like him and was once friendly with the enemy.” [Knight Ridder, 11/3/2001] Later in the month another article notes that the CIA continues to rely on the ISI for covert actions against the Taliban. One CIA agent says, “The same Pakistani case officers who built up the Taliban are doing the translating for the CIA. Our biggest mistake is allowing the ISI to be our eyes and ears.” [Toronto Star, 11/5/2001]

Entity Tags: Hamid Gul, Osama bin Laden, Taliban, Central Intelligence Agency, Pakistan Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence

Timeline Tags: War in Afghanistan

Category Tags: Pakistan and the ISI, Afghanistan

Subash Gurung. [Source: CNN/Courtesy WLS-TV]A young Nepalese man named Subash Gurung is arrested at Chicago’s O’Hare airport trying to board a United Airlines flight to Omaha with numerous knives, a can of mace, and a stun gun. He is in the US on an expired student visa. He is unemployed at the time of his arrest. Gurung claims that he was in a hurry and was unaware of the knives and other items in his luggage. But CNN reports that Gurung gave as his address an apartment building in Chicago that was also used by one of two terror suspects arrested on September 12, 2001 (see September 19, 2001 and After and October 20, 2001). This individual, Ayub Ali Khan (whose real name is apparently Syed Gul Mohammad Shah), lived in New Jersey but also used a Chicago address. A CNN government source says “many phone calls were made to and from that apartment, and credit card bills were paid from that address.” After being released by local police on bond, Gurung will be re-arrested the following day by the FBI for a weapons violation. Despite the apparent link to Ayub Ali Khan, the FBI denies any terror connection: “There is no allegation that this incident involves any suspected terrorist activity.” [CNN, 11/5/2001; CNN, 11/6/2001] Gurung will be convicted of a weapons charge in October 2002, and then deported. [New York Times, 10/9/2002]

Entity Tags: Subash Gurung, Syed Gul Mohammad Shah, Mohammed Azmath

Category Tags: Counterterrorism Action After 9/11

The Italian newspaper La Repubblica reports that Saddam Hussein’s interpreter, known only by the alias A.S., claims Mohamed Atta was an agent of el-Mukhabarat, the Iraqi secret services. A.S. is sponsored by the Iraqi exile group the Iraqi National Congress (INC). He claims that it was Atta who planned the 9/11 attacks, not with bin Laden or the other 18 hijackers but with two officials of the Iraqi secret services: Farouk Hijazi, a former Iraqi ambassador to Turkey, and Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, a member of the Iraqi diplomatic corps in Prague, Czech Republic. [La Repubblica (Rome), 11/3/2001]

Entity Tags: Farouk Hijazi, Mohamed Atta, Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani

Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Mohamed Atta, Alleged Iraq-Al-Qaeda Links

In the months following 9/11, Vice President Dick Cheney is frequently moved away to undisclosed locations, supposedly for security reasons (see September 12, 2001-2002). He will tell CBS News, “[W]e feel it’s important, especially when the threat level goes up, to keep the president or myself separated.” He suggests there is a risk that terrorists could “take out the entire leadership of our government.” [CBS News, 11/14/2001] Yet, in spite of this supposed threat, Cheney goes ahead with a pheasant-hunting trip at the Paul Nelson Farm in South Dakota. He goes to this private retreat each year with friends, and on this occasion is joined by his daughter Mary. The trip had been planned before January this year, and the party has the entire facility to itself. [Associated Press, 11/5/2001; Washington Post, 11/19/2001; Hayes, 2007, pp. 363] CBS News’s Gloria Borger later questions Cheney about this trip, saying, “The American people are on a terror alert. You’re at an undisclosed location. Then the other week we learned that you went on a hunting trip. So did the Secret Service give you the all clear and say it’s fine to do that?” Cheney replies, “Well, the key thing here was I was away from the president. I wasn’t in the same location he was. We could not have both been eliminated at the same time by a terrorist attack.” [CBS News, 11/14/2001]

Entity Tags: Mary Cheney, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Counterterrorism Policy/Politics

The Justice Department announces that it has put 1,182 people into secret custody since 9/11. Most all of them are from the Middle East or South Asia. [New York Times, 8/3/2002] After this it stops releasing new numbers, but human rights groups believe the total number could be as high as 2,000. [Independent, 2/26/2002] Apparently this is roughly the peak for secret arrests, and eventually most of the prisoners are released, and none are charged with any terrorist acts (see July 3, 2002; December 11, 2002). Their names will still not have been revealed (see August 2, 2002).

Entity Tags: US Department of Justice

Timeline Tags: Torture of US Captives, 9/11 Timeline, Civil Liberties

Category Tags: FBI 9/11 Investigation

The Binladin Group logo. [Source: Bin Ladin Group]The New Yorker points to evidence that the bin Laden family has generally not ostracized itself from bin Laden as is popularly believed, but retains close ties in some cases. The large bin Laden family owns and runs a $5 billion a year global corporation that includes the largest construction firm in the Islamic world. One counterterrorism expert says, “There’s obviously a lot of spin by the Saudi Binladin Group [the family corporation] to distinguish itself from Osama. I’ve been following the bin Ladens for years, and it’s easy to say, ‘We disown him.’ Many in the family have. But blood is usually thicker than water.” The article notes that neither the bin Laden family nor the Saudi royal family have publicly denounced bin Laden since 9/11. [New Yorker, 11/5/2001]

Entity Tags: Bin Laden Family, Saudi Binladin Group, Osama bin Laden

Category Tags: Saudi Arabia, Bin Laden Family

Abu Zeinab al-Qurairy, posing as Jamal al-Ghurairy for Frontline. [Source: PBS]An Iraqi defector identifying himself as Jamal al-Ghurairy, a former lieutenant general in Saddam Hussein’s intelligence corps, the Mukhabarat, tells two US reporters that he has witnessed foreign Islamic militants training to hijack airplanes at an alleged Iraqi terrorist training camp at Salman Pak, near Baghdad. Al-Ghurairy also claims to know of a secret compound at Salman Pak where Iraqi scientists, led by a German, are producing biological weapons. Al-Ghurairy is lying both about his experiences and even his identity, though the reporters, New York Times war correspondent Chris Hedges and PBS’s Christopher Buchanan, do not know this. The meeting between al-Ghurairy and the reporters, which takes place on November 6, 2001, in a luxury suite in a Beirut hotel, was arranged by Ahmed Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress (INC). Buchanan later recalls knowing little about al-Ghurairy, except that “[h]is life might be in danger. I didn’t know much else.” Hedges recalls the former general’s “fierce” appearance and “military bearing.… He looked the part.” Al-Ghurairy is accompanied by several other people, including the INC’s political liaison, Nabeel Musawi. “They were slick and well organized,” Buchanan recalls. Hedges confirms al-Ghurairy’s credibility with the US embassy in Turkey, where he is told that CIA and FBI agents had recently debriefed him. The interview is excerpted for an upcoming PBS Frontline episode, along with another interview with an INC-provided defector, former Iraqi sergeant Sabah Khodada, who echoes al-Ghurairy’s tale. While the excerpt of al-Ghurairy’s interview is relatively short, the interview itself takes over an hour. Al-Ghurairy does not allow his face to be shown on camera.
Times Reports Defectors' Tale - Two days later, on November 8, Hedges publishes a story about al-Ghurairy in the New York Times Times. The Frontline episode airs that same evening. [New York Times, 11/8/2001; Mother Jones, 4/2006] Hedges does not identify al-Ghurairy by name, but reports that he, Khodada, and a third unnamed Iraqi sergeant claim to have “worked for several years at a secret Iraqi government camp that had trained Islamic terrorists in rotations of five or six months since 1995. They said the training at the camp, south of Baghdad, was aimed at carrying out attacks against neighboring countries and possibly Europe and the United States.” Whether the militants being trained are linked to al-Qaeda or Osama bin Laden, the defectors cannot be sure, nor do they know of any specific attacks carried out by the militants. Hedges writes that the interviews were “set up by an Iraqi group that seeks the overthrow of… Hussein.” He quotes al-Ghurairy as saying, “There is a lot we do not know. We were forbidden to speak about our activities among each other, even off duty. But over the years, you see and hear things. These Islamic radicals were a scruffy lot. They needed a lot of training, especially physical training. But from speaking with them, it was clear they came from a variety of countries, including Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Algeria, Egypt, and Morocco. We were training these people to attack installations important to the United States. The Gulf War never ended for Saddam Hussein. He is at war with the United States. We were repeatedly told this.” He uses Khodada’s statements as support for al-Ghurairy’s, identifies Khodada by name, and says that Khodada “immigrated to Texas” in May 2001 “after working as an instructor for eight years at Salman Pak…” He quotes the sergeant as saying, “We could see them train around the fuselage. We could see them practice taking over the plane.” Al-Ghurairy adds that the militants were trained to take over a plane without using weapons. Hedges reports that Richard Sperzel, the former chief of the UN biological weapons inspection teams in Iraq, says that the Iraqis always claimed Salman Pak was an anti-terror training camp for Iraqi special forces. However, Sperzel says, “[M]any of us had our own private suspicions. We had nothing specific as evidence.” The US officials who debriefed al-Ghurairy, Hedges reports, do not believe that the Salman Pak training has any links to the 9/11 hijackings. Hedges asks about one of the militants, a clean-shaven Egyptian. “No, he was not Mohamed Atta.” Atta led the 9/11 hijackers. Hedges notes that stories such as this one will likely prompt “an intense debate in Washington over whether to extend the war against Osama bin Laden and the Taliban government of Afghanistan to include Iraq.” [New York Times, 11/8/2001; Columbia Journalism Review, 7/1/2004]
Heavy Press Coverage - The US media immediately reacts, with op-eds running in major newspapers throughout the country and cable-news pundits bringing the story to their audiences. National security adviser Condoleezza Rice says of the story, “I think it surprises no one that Saddam Hussein is engaged in all kinds of activities that are destabilizing.” The White House will use al-Ghurairy’s claims in its background paper, “Decade of Deception and Defiance,” prepared for President’s Bush September 12, 2002 speech to the UN General Assembly (see September 12, 2002). Though the tale lacks specifics, it helps bolster the White House’s attempts to link Saddam Hussein to the 9/11 hijackers, and helps promote Iraq as a legitimate target in the administration’s war on terror. (Five years later, the reporters involved in the story admit they were duped—see April 2006.)
Complete Fiction - The story, as it turns out, is, in the later words of Mother Jones reporter Jack Fairweather, “an elaborate scam.” Not only did US agents in Turkey dismiss the purported lieutenant general’s claims out of hand—a fact they did not pass on to Hedges—but the man who speaks with Hedges and Buchanan is not even Jamal al-Ghurairy. The man they interviewed is actually a former Iraqi sergeant living in Turkey under the pseudonym Abu Zainab. (His real name is later ascertained to be Abu Zeinab al-Qurairy, and is a former Iraqi general and senior officer in the Mukhabarat.) The real al-Ghurairy has never left Iraq. In 2006, he will be interviewed by Fairweather, and will confirm that he was not the man interviewed in 2001 (see October 2005). [Columbia Journalism Review, 7/1/2004; Mother Jones, 4/2006] Hedges and Buchanan were not the first reporters to be approached for the story. The INC’s Francis Brooke tried to interest Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff in interviewing Khodada to discuss Salman Pak. Isikoff will recall in 2004 that “he didn’t know what to make of the whole thing or have any way to evaluate the story so I didn’t write about it.” [Columbia Journalism Review, 7/1/2004]
"The Perfect Hoax" - The interview was set up by Chalabi, the leader of the INC, and former CBS producer Lowell Bergman. Bergman had interviewed Khodada previously, but was unable to journey to Beirut, so he and Chalabi briefed Hedges in London before sending him to meet with the defector. Chalabi and Bergman have a long relationship; Chalabi has been a source for Bergman since 1991. The CIA withdrew funding from the group in 1996 (see January 1996) due to its poor intelligence and attempts at deception. For years, the INC combed the large Iraqi exile communities in Damascus and Amman for those who would trade information—real or fabricated—in return for the INC’s assistance in obtaining asylum to the West. Helping run that network was Mohammed al-Zubaidi, who after 9/11 began actively coaching defectors, according to an ex-INC official involved in the INC’s media operations (see December 17, 2001 and July 9, 2004). The ex-INC official, Adnan Ihsan Saeed al-Haideri, did everything from help defectors brush up and polish their stories, to concocting scripts that defectors with little or no knowledge could recite: “They learned the words, and then we handed them over to the American agencies and journalists.” After 9/11, the INC wanted to come up with a big story that would fix the public perception of Saddam Hussein’s involvement in the 9/11 attacks. Al-Zubaidi was given the task. He came up with al-Ghurairy. He chose Zainab for his knowledge of the Iraqi military, brought him to Beirut, paid him, and began prepping him. In the process, al-Zainab made himself known to American and Turkish intelligence officials as al-Ghurairy. “It was the perfect hoax,” al-Haideri will recall in 2006. “The man was a born liar and knew enough about the military to get by, whilst Saddam’s regime could hardly produce the real Ghurairy without revealing at least some of the truth of the story.” Al-Haideri will say that the reality of the Salman Pak story was much as the Iraqis claimed—Iraqi special forces were trained in hostage and hijack scenarios. Al-Zubaidi, who in 2004 will admit to his propaganda activities, calls Al-Zainab “an opportunist, cheap and manipulative. He has poetic interests and has a vivid imagination in making up stories.” [Mother Jones, 4/2006]
Stories Strain Credulity - Knight Ridder reporter Jonathan Landay later says of al-Qurairy, “As you track their stories, they become ever more fantastic, and they’re the same people who are telling these stories, until you get to the most fantastic tales of all, which appeared in Vanity Fair magazine.” Perhaps al-Qurairy’s most fabulous story is that of a training exercise to blow up a full-size mockup of a US destroyer in a lake in central Iraq. Landay adds, “Or, jumping into pits of fouled water and having to kill a dog with your bare teeth. I mean, and this was coming from people, who are appearing in all of these stories, and sometimes their rank would change.… And, you’re saying, ‘Wait a minute. There’s something wrong here, because in this story he was a major, but in this story the guy’s a colonel. And, in this story this was his function, but now he says in this story he was doing something else.’” Landay’s bureau chief, John Walcott, says of al-Qurairy, “What he did was reasonably clever but fairly obvious, which is he gave the same stuff to some reporters that, for one reason or another, he felt would simply report it. And then he gave the same stuff to people in the Vice President’s office [Dick Cheney] and in the Secretary of Defense’s office [Donald Rumsfeld]. And so, if the reporter called the Department of Defense or the Vice President’s office to check, they would’ve said, ‘Oh, I think that’s… you can go with that. We have that, too.’ So, you create the appearance, or Chalabi created the appearance, that there were two sources, and that the information had been independently confirmed, when, in fact, there was only one source. And it hadn’t been confirmed by anybody.” Landay adds, “[L]et’s not forget how close these people were to this administration, which raises the question, was there coordination? I can’t tell you that there was, but it sure looked like it.” [PBS, 4/25/2007]
No Evidence Found - On April 6, 2003, US forces will overrun the Salman Pak facility. They will find nothing to indicate that the base was ever used to train terrorists (see April 6, 2003).

Entity Tags: Osama bin Laden, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, Richard Sperzel, Newsweek, Saddam Hussein, Taliban, New York Times, Sabah Khodada, Washington Post, United Nations, Vanity Fair, Nabeel Musawi, Public Broadcasting System, Mother Jones, Ahmed Chalabi, Adnan Ihsan Saeed al-Haideri, Abu Zeinab al-Qurairy, Chris Hedges, Al-Qaeda, CBS News, Bush administration, Central Intelligence Agency, Mukhabarat, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, Francis Brooke, Lowell Bergman, Michael Isikoff, Mohammed al-Zubaidi, Jonathan Landay, John Walcott, Jamal al-Ghurairy, Jack Fairweather, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Christopher Buchanan, Iraqi National Congress

Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, Domestic Propaganda

Category Tags: Alleged Iraq-Al-Qaeda Links

A video still of bin Laden filmed during his interview with Hamid Mir in November 2001. [Source: National Geographic]Pakistani reporter Hamid Mir is taken blindfolded to a location somewhere in the mountains of Afghanistan to interview bin Laden. The sound of antiaircraft fire can be heard in the distance. Bin Laden looks paler and his beard is greyer. While he doesn’t claim responsibility for the 9/11 attacks, he says that Muslims were behind it and that Muslims have the moral right to commit such attacks because they are done in self-defense. He says, “I wish to declare that if America used chemical or nuclear weapons against us, then we may retort with chemical and nuclear weapons. We have the weapons as deterrent.” He also says, “This place may be bombed. And we will be killed. We love death. The US loves life. That is the big difference between us.” [Reuters, 11/10/2001; Newsweek, 11/26/2001]

Entity Tags: Hamid Mir, Osama bin Laden

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline, War in Afghanistan

Category Tags: Osama Bin Laden, Afghanistan, Escape From Afghanistan, Other 9/11 Investigations, Alleged Al-Qaeda Media Statements

Italian police raid Youssef Nada’s villa in Lugano, Italy. [Source: Keystone]The US and other countries announce the closure of the Al Taqwa Bank and the Al Barakaat financial network. President Bush says, “Al Taqwa and Al Barakaat raise funds for al-Qaeda. They manage, invest and distribute those funds.” US officials claim that both entities skimmed a part of the fees charged on each financial transaction it conducted and paid it to al-Qaeda. This would provide al-Qaeda with tens of millions of dollars annually. Additionally, Al Taqwa would provide investment advice and transfer cash for al-Qaeda. Al Taqwa is based in Switzerland while Al Barakaat is based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Over 100 nations are said to be cooperating with efforts to block the funds of these two groups. [New York Times, 11/8/2001] Swiss authorities raid Al Taqwa-related businesses and the homes of bank leaders Youssef Nada, Ali Himmat, and Ahmad Huber, but no arrests are made. In January 2002, Nada will announce that the Al Taqwa Bank is shutting down, due to bad publicity after the raids. He will maintain that he and his organization are completely innocent. [Newsweek, 11/7/2001; Reuters, 1/10/2002] Days after 9/11, Huber called the 9/11 attacks “counterterror against American-Israeli terror,” the World Trade Center a “the Twin Towers of the godless,” and the Pentagon “a symbol of Satan,” yet he will claim to have no ties to the attackers. [Playboy, 2/1/2002; Newsweek, 3/18/2002] In searching Nada’s house, Swiss authorities discover a document entitled “The Project,” which is a strategic plan for the Muslim Brotherhood to infiltrate and defeat Western countries (see December 1982). By late 2002, both the US and UN will declare Al Taqwa Bank, Nada, and Ahmed Idris Nasreddin, another founder and director of the bank, supporters of terrorism. All of their accounts will be declared frozen worldwide. [US Department of the Treasury, 8/29/2002] However, while Al Taqwa itself will be shut down, later reports will indicate that other financial entities operated by the directors will continue to operate freely (see June-October 2005).

Entity Tags: Al-Qaeda, US Department of the Treasury, Muslim Brotherhood, Ali Himmat, Al Taqwa Bank, George W. Bush, Youssef Nada, Ahmad Huber, Al Barakaat

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Terrorism Financing, Al Taqwa Bank, Counterterrorism Action After 9/11

Gary Berntsen, leader of the CIA effort in Afghanistan, names the four most wanted terrorist suspects in Afghanistan at a meeting of his team. They are al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, his second in command Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda military commander Mohammed Atef, and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM). Berntsen places one of his subordinates in charge of these four men, giving orders to “find and kill” them. Berntsen also wants the Taliban’s top three intelligence officials killed. [Berntsen and Pezzullo, 2005, pp. 114] While the connections between the other three and al-Qaeda are well known by this time, the US government apparently first develops information indicating KSM is the mastermind behind 9/11 during FBI questioning of military training camp facilitator Abu Zubaida around April 2002. [New York Times, 4/22/2009] However, KSM is an known terrorist and one of the top 22 fugitives named by the FBI the previous month (see October 10, 2001).

Entity Tags: Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Gary Berntsen, Mohammed Atef, Osama bin Laden, Central Intelligence Agency

Category Tags: Ayman Al-Zawahiri, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Osama Bin Laden

President Bush follows up Attorney General John Ashcroft’s declaration of victory over terrorism (see November 8, 2001) with a prime-time speech calling for the formation of a volunteer civil-defense service and a larger National Guard presence at airports, both to keep Americans safe from future terror attacks. Bush gives the speech in front of a backdrop emblazoned with the words, “United We Stand.” Bush ends his speech with the exhortation, “Let’s roll!” thought to be the final words of Flight 93 passenger Todd Beamer before he and his fellow passengers attacked their plane’s hijackers (see Shortly Before 9:58 a.m. September 11, 2001). Of the four major news networks, only ABC airs Bush’s speech live. [Rich, 2006, pp. 36-37]

Entity Tags: George W. Bush

Category Tags: Counterterrorism Policy/Politics

After issuing several terror alerts that came to nothing (see October 11-29, 2001 and October 29, 2001), Attorney General John Ashcroft declares victory in overcoming the threat: “[T]he home front has witnessed the opening battle in the war against terrorism, and America has emerged victorious.” He claims that “two periods of extremely high threat have passed” without incident. But in 2006, author Frank Rich will note that this assessment is based solely on Ashcroft’s word, since no evidence of actual threats will ever be advanced. [Rich, 2006, pp. 36-37]

Entity Tags: Frank Rich, John Ashcroft

Category Tags: Terror Alerts

Czech Prime Minister Milos Zeman tells Colin Powell and CNN that during the alleged April 2001 meeting in Prague between 9/11 plotter Mohamed Atta and Iraqi diplomat Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, the two men discussed plans to bomb the Radio Free Europe building in Prague, which also housed Radio Free Iraq. The claim is reportedly based on footage from surveillance cameras at the Radio Free Europe building which had shown al-Ani surveying the building in April 2001 (see 1999). The Prime Minister will later back away from the claim, explaining it was just a hypothesis raised by Czech intelligence. [CNN, 11/9/2001; Associated Press, 12/16/2001; Newsweek, 4/28/2002; Washington Post, 5/1/2002]

Entity Tags: Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, Mohamed Atta, Colin Powell, Milos Zeman

Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion

Category Tags: Alleged Iraq-Al-Qaeda Links

Western intelligence services obtain a copy of a secret Al Jazeera interview of Osama bin Laden. Al Jazeera had decided not to broadcast the interview, conducted on October 20 (see October 20, 2001), because its correspondent had not been allowed to ask his own questions, but had been told what to say by bin Laden. [Miles, 2005, pp. 179, 181] The fact that the video is obtained by Western intelligence is first revealed by the Daily Telegraph, which says the transcript proves bin Laden’s responsibility for 9/11 and that it will soon be used as the “centrepiece of Britain and America’s new evidence against bin Laden.” [Daily Telegraph, 11/11/2001] Author Hugh Miles will note that bin Laden is actually ambiguous about his responsibility for 9/11 on the tape, and will speculate about how it was obtained. According to Miles, al-Qaeda kept a copy of the tape, but it is unlikely that al-Qaeda would give it to Western intelligence or CNN, which will air it later (see January 31, 2002). Therefore, the tape was probably obtained for the West by US authorities, who “made it their business to know all of Al Jazeera’s internal affairs.” [Miles, 2005, pp. 179-182] On November 14, British Prime Minister Tony Blair will refer to the video in a speech before the House of Commons and say, “The intelligence material now leaves no doubt whatever of the guilt of bin Laden and his associates.” [CNN, 11/14/2001; UK Prime Minister, 11/14/2001] Yet the British government will say it does not have a copy of the video, only information about it from intelligence sources. [Washington Post, 11/14/2001]

Entity Tags: Al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, Al Jazeera, Tony Blair, Hugh Miles

Category Tags: Counterterrorism Action After 9/11

Daily Telegraph reporter Christina Lamb is arrested and expelled from Pakistan by the ISI. She had been investigating the connections between the ISI and the Taliban. [Daily Telegraph, 11/11/2001]

Entity Tags: Pakistan Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, Taliban, Christina Lamb

Category Tags: Pakistan and the ISI

In a speech to the United Nations General Assembly, President Bush states, “We must speak the truth about terror. Let us never tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories concerning the attacks of September the 11th; malicious lies that attempt to shift the blame away from the terrorists, themselves, away from the guilty.” [US President, 11/19/2001]

Entity Tags: UN General Assembly, George W. Bush

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Media, US Government and 9/11 Criticism

Th Los Angeles Times reports, “The FBI is increasingly convinced that the person behind the recent anthrax attacks is a lone wolf within the United States who has no links to terrorist groups but is an opportunist using the Sept. 11 hijackings to vent his rage…” The FBI is said to base this conclusion on “case studies, handwriting and linguistic analysis, forensic data and other evidence.” FBI investigators say they are looking for “an adult male with at least limited scientific expertise who was able to use laboratory equipment easily obtained for as little as $2,500 to produce high-quality anthrax.” They believe he is an “anti-social loner” who “has little contact with the public and carries deep-seated resentments but does not like direct confrontation.” However, these investigators admit that psychological profiling is a rough science, especially since they have little more than a small number of words written on the anthrax-laced letters. The letters appear to have tried to frame Muslims for the attacks. For instance, each letter contains the phrase “Allah is great.” Investigators say they are not completely ruling out an overseas connection to the letters, such as an Iraqi or Russian connection, but they consider it very unlikely. Investigators have not explained why they are so confident the attacks were caused by only one person. [Los Angeles Times, 11/10/2001]

Entity Tags: Federal Bureau of Investigation

Timeline Tags: 2001 Anthrax Attacks, US Domestic Terrorism

Category Tags: Counterterrorism Policy/Politics

Abdurahman Khadr. [Source: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation]On November 10, 2001, Abdurahman Khadr is arrested in Afghanistan as a suspected member of al-Qaeda. His father is Ahmed Said Khadr, a founding member of al-Qaeda, and virtually everyone in his family is linked to al-Qaeda. He has known Osama bin Laden and played with his children since he was a little boy, and has frequently attended al-Qaeda training camps. However, Abdurahman has always been the “black sheep” of the family and reluctant to embrace the militant jihadist ideology. He begins cooperating with the US military. Due to his in-depth knowledge of al-Qaeda operations, soon he is frequently leading US officials on tours of Kabul, pointing out the locations of what were al-Qaeda and Taliban safe houses and strongholds. For nine months, he lives in a CIA safe house near the US embassy in Kabul. In the summer of 2002, the CIA trusts him enough to offer him a formal paid job as an informant. He accepts. In early 2003, he agrees to pretend to be captured so he can be shipped to Guantanamo and inform on the prisoners there (see Spring 2003). [PBS Frontline, 4/22/2004; Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 4/20/2006]

Entity Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, Ahmed Said Khadr, Abdurahman Khadr

Category Tags: Other Possible Moles or Informants, Counterterrorism Action After 9/11

Pakistani forces capture Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, a Libyan national, apparently as he is trying to flee Afghanistan. Al-Libi is considered an al-Qaeda leader and head of the Khaldan training camp in Afghanistan for many years. [Washington Post, 6/27/2004] He is the first al-Qaeda figure captured after 9/11 of any importance. He will be transferred to US custody one month later (see December 19, 2001).

Entity Tags: Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi

Timeline Tags: Torture of US Captives, War in Afghanistan

Category Tags: Key Captures and Deaths, Counterterrorism Action After 9/11

Aysel Senguen. [Source: CBC]Authorities in the US discover a letter apparently written by Flight 93 hijacker Ziad Jarrah. It is believed the four-page letter, dated September 10, was written just hours before the 9/11 attacks. It is part of a package Jarrah mailed from the US to his Turkish girlfriend Aysel Senguen, a medical student living in the western German city of Bochum. The letter says, “I have done what I had to do.… You should be very proud, because it is an honor and in the end you will see that everyone will be happy.” It adds, “Hold on to what you have until we see each other again.” The package arrived in Germany shortly after September 11. However, due to Jarrah having made an error in writing the address, it was returned to the US and ended up in the hands of the FBI. Oddly, considering the letter is supposedly Jarrah’s farewell to Senguen, the rest of his package reportedly includes papers about his flight training and scuba-diving instructions. It is believed to also contain some small presents. Ziad’s uncle Jamal Jarrah says he thinks the letter is fabricated, and that it is suspicious that the address on it contained a mistake, as Ziad had known his girlfriend for five years and would not have made such an error. [Associated Press, 11/17/2001; Los Angeles Times, 11/18/2001; Observer, 11/18/2001; Daily Telegraph, 11/18/2001; BBC, 11/19/2001]

Entity Tags: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Jamal Jarrah, Aysel Senguen, Ziad Jarrah

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: FBI 9/11 Investigation

Gul Agha with US General D. K. McNeill. [Source: Rob Curtis/ Agence France-Presse]On November 11, 2001, top Taliban leader Mullah Omar concedes defeat and orders thousands of Taliban to retreat to Pakistan. Within a week, large sections of Afghanistan are abandoned by the Taliban. The Northern Alliance, however, does not have the means or the support to occupy those areas, and warlords take effective control of most of the country. On November 19, the New York Times reports, “The galaxy of warlords who tore Afghanistan apart in the early 1990s and who were vanquished by the Taliban because of their corruption and perfidy are back on their thrones, poised to exercise power in the ways they always have.” The warlords all claim some form of loyalty to the Northern Alliance, but some of the same warlords had previously been allied with the Taliban and bin Laden. For instance, the new ruler of Jalalabad let bin Laden move from Sudan to Jalalabad in 1996. [New York Times, 11/15/2001; Guardian, 11/15/2001; New York Times, 11/19/2001] For the next few weeks, there is widespread “chaos, rape, murder, and pillaging” in most of Afghanistan as old scores are settled. The Western media does little reporting on the brutality of the situation. [Observer, 12/2/2001] The central Afghanistan government will later officially confirm the warlords’ positions with governor and minister titles (see June 20, 2002). In late 2005, it will be reported that warlords generally still retain their positions and power, even after regional elections. [Independent, 10/8/2005] The US made a conscious decision shortly after 9/11 not to allow peacekeepers outside of the capital city of Kabul, creating a power vacuum that was filled by the warlords (see Late 2001). Further, in some cases the US military facilitates the return of former warlords. For instance, Gul Agha Sherzai ruled the Kandahar area in the early 1990s; his rule was notorious for bribery, extortion, drug dealing, and widespread theft. Yet the US arms his militia and US Special Forces personally escort him back to Kandahar, and he will become governor of Kandahar province. [New York Times, 1/6/2002; GlobalSecurity (.org), 4/27/2005] In 2003, Jane’s Terrorism and Security Monitor will look back at the US decisions in late 2001 and opine, “Perhaps the most serious tactical error was the restoration of warlords in Afghanistan. The common people were disaffected by the proteges and stooges of foreign occupiers who had carved Afghanistan into fiefdoms. Most or all of them were driven out by the Taliban and Pakistan and the remainder were on the verge of collapse or on the run.… US forces brought the warlords back, arming, financing and guiding them back to their lost thrones.” [Jane's Terrorism and Security Monitor, 2/24/2003] Journalist Kathy Gannon will later write, “At the heart of these misguided machinations was Zalmay Khalilzad, the US president’s hand-picked envoy to Afghanistan, who choreographed the early US decisions” in the country. [Gannon, 2005, pp. 113]

Entity Tags: Bush administration, Gul Agha Sherzai, Taliban, Mullah Omar, Zalmay M. Khalilzad, Northern Alliance

Category Tags: Afghanistan

Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon issues an indictment of militants based in Spain who are said to be tied to the 9/11 attacks. Some of them are arrested soon after (see November 13, 2001), although some are not and go on to be involved in the Madrid train bombings (see November 13, 2001). In the indictment, Garzon highlights the links between the Spain-based operatives and militants in Britain. Leading London imam Abu Qatada is described as “the spiritual head of the mujaheddin in Europe,” a view shared by many intelligence agencies in Europe, and accused of moving money to finance al-Qaeda operations. The indictment also says that Barakat Yarkas, head of an al-Qaeda cell in Spain, visited Britain 20 times (see 1995-February 2001) and repeatedly met with Abu Qatada and three other al-Qaeda leaders in Britain, Abu Walid, Abu al-Hareth, and Abu Bashir. Abu Qatada has been working with the British security services for some time and continues to do so (see June 1996-February 1997, Early December 2001, and October 23, 2002). [Independent, 11/21/2001; The Independent, 11/21/2001; O'Neill and McGrory, 2006, pp. 107] Authors Sean O’Neill and Daniel McGrory will write, “Judge Garzon in Spain claims that if you take every major al-Qaeda attack, including 9/11 and the Bali bombings, then list all those who played a part in their planning, funding and execution, you will find a line that always draws you back to Britain.” [O'Neill and McGrory, 2006, pp. 112]

Entity Tags: Abu al-Hareth, Abu Qatada, Abu Bashir, Abu Walid, Baltasar Garzon

Category Tags: Abu Qatada, Al-Qaeda in Spain, Londonistan - UK Counterterrorism

Baltasar Garzon. [Source: Associated Press]Spanish intelligence has been watching an al-Qaeda cell in Madrid for years, and has been aware since 1995 that cell members are committing a variety of crimes in Spain (see 1995 and After and Late 1995 and After), but none of them have ever been arrested. Finally, after investigators find links between the cell and the 9/11 hijacker cell in Hamburg (see Shortly After September 11, 2001), the decision is made to shut the cell down. On November 13, 2001 Spanish police arrest cell leader Barakat Yarkas, a.k.a., Abu Dahdah, and ten other alleged members of his cell, including Yusuf Galan and Mohamed Needl Acaid. Spanish police, led by judge Baltasar Garzon, appear confident that they smashed the al-Qaeda presence in Spain. However, a number of suspects are left at large who will go on to take part in the 2004 Madrid bombings (see November 13, 2001). [New York Times, 11/14/2001; New York Times, 10/26/2004] Yarkas, Galan, Acaid, and others will be convicted for various crimes in 2005 (see September 26, 2005).

Entity Tags: Centro Nacional de Inteligencia, Yusuf Galan, Baltasar Garzon, Barakat Yarkas, Mohamed Needl Acaid

Category Tags: Al-Qaeda in Spain, 2004 Madrid Train Bombings, Key Captures and Deaths, Counterterrorism Action After 9/11

On November 13, 2001 Spanish police arrest cell leader Barakat Yarkas and ten other alleged members of his cell. Spanish police, led by judge Baltasar Garzon, appear confident that they have smashed the al-Qaeda presence in Spain (see November 13, 2001). However, a number of likely suspects are left at large:
Moutaz Almallah. Spanish police will later say that he had contacts with Yarkas as far back as 1995, the year police began to monitor Yarkas. He is said to have served as the “political chief” of Yarkas’s cell. He and Yarkas were seen meeting with an al-Qaeda courier in 1998. He will move to London in 2002 to live with radical imam Abu Qatada (see August 2002). He will be arrested in 2005 for a role in the Madrid bombings but has yet to be tried (see August 2002). Curiously, in 1995, a police officer who also served as Garzon’s bodyguard, sold Almallah an apartment and stayed friends with him (see November 1995). [El Mundo (Madrid), 3/2/2005; BBC, 3/24/2005]
Amer el-Azizi, who may have had a role in the 9/11 plot, is able to flee a police raid due to a tip-off from Spanish intelligence (see Shortly After November 21, 2001).
Jamal Zougam, even though he has been under suspicion since 2000, and has been tied to al-Qaeda-linked imam Abu Qatada and Mohammed Fazazi, who preached at the mosque attended by the 9/11 hijackers (see 2000-Early March 2004). [New York Times, 11/20/2001; Irujo, 2005, pp. 162-164] A French investigator had warned Spanish intelligence in June 2001 that Zougam was an important Islamist militant in a number of countries and that he should be arrested (see June 2001). Zougam’s Madrid apartment was searched by police on August 10, 2001, and investigators found phone numbers of three other members of the cell, plus a video of mujaheddin fighters in Chechnya. [Associated Press, 3/17/2004]
Serhane Abdelmajid Fakhet. Spanish intelligence began monitoring him in 2000 for his links to other members of the cell. He was photographed with Yarkas in October 2001 (see October 19, 2001). [Irujo, 2005, pp. 182-186] Another informant who later appears as a protected witness will claim that Fakhet was also a government informant (see Shortly After October 2003).
Said Chedadi is arrested, but is later released. He had been monitored traveling to London with Yarkas and giving money to Qatada. He will go on to have a role in the Madrid bombings (see 1995-February 2001). He also is roommates with Dris Chebli up until Chebli is arrested in June 2003 (see April-June 2003). [New York Times, 11/14/2001; El Mundo (Madrid), 10/27/2004]
El-Azizi flees overseas, but allegedly instructs the other cell members not arrested to constitute new cells in Madrid and Morocco. Fakhet becomes a leader of the new cells. Even though the vast majority of those not arrested remain under surveillance, including Fakhet and Zougam (see Shortly Before March 11, 2004), they are able to stage the March 2004 Madrid train bombings (see 7:37-7:42 a.m., March 11, 2004). Fakhet will blow himself up shortly after those bombings, while Zougam will get life in prison for his role. El-Azizi has yet to be captured. Yarkas and most of the others arrested with him will be convicted for al-Qaeda ties in 2005 and given prison terms (see 7:37-7:42 a.m., March 11, 2004). [Irujo, 2005, pp. 165-174] A Spanish investigator will later call Yarkas the mastermind of the Madrid bombings even though he was in prison since 2001, because virtually all of the bombers were connected to him in some way. “It is very clear to me, that if by mastermind we mean the person who has put the group together, prepared the group, trained it ideologically, sent them to Afghanistan to be prepared militarily for terrorism, that man is [Yarkas], without any doubt.” [New York Times, 10/26/2004]

Entity Tags: Centro Nacional de Inteligencia, Baltasar Garzon, Serhane Abdelmajid Fakhet, Amer el-Azizi, Moutaz Almallah, Jamal Zougam, Said Chedadi, Barakat Yarkas

Category Tags: Al-Qaeda in Spain, 2004 Madrid Train Bombings

Bin Laden gave a speech in front of about 1,000 supporters on November 10, 2001 in the town of Jalalabad, Afghanistan. [Christian Science Monitor, 3/4/2002] On the night of November 13, a convoy of 1,000 or more al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters escapes from Jalalabad and reaches the fortress of Tora Bora after hours of driving and then walking. Bin Laden is believed to be with them, riding in one of “several hundred cars” in the convoy. The US bombs the nearby Jalalabad airport, but apparently does not attack the convoy. [Christian Science Monitor, 3/4/2002; Knight Ridder, 10/20/2002] The Northern Alliance captures Jalalabad the next day. [Sydney Morning Herald, 11/14/2001]

Entity Tags: Osama bin Laden, Al-Qaeda, Taliban, United States

Timeline Tags: War in Afghanistan

Category Tags: Afghanistan, Escape From Afghanistan, Osama Bin Laden

Two days after the opening of the UN General Assembly, and one day after the Taliban defeat, the Security Council adopts Resolution 1378. Although it stays short of endorsing the military campaign, it comes very close to actually providing retroactive authorization. The resolution applauds the goals of the US’s actions, supports its motives, and condemns the the Taliban and al-Qaeda. [United Nations, 11/14/2001]

Entity Tags: United Nations

Timeline Tags: War in Afghanistan

Category Tags: Afghanistan

At the request of the Pakistani government, the US secretly allows rescue flights into the besieged Taliban stronghold of Kunduz, in Northern Afghanistan, to save Pakistanis fighting for the Taliban (and against US forces) and bring them back to Pakistan. Pakistan’s President “Musharraf won American support for the airlift by warning that the humiliation of losing hundreds—and perhaps thousands—of Pakistani Army men and intelligence operatives would jeopardize his political survival.” [New Yorker, 1/21/2002] Dozens of senior Pakistani military officers, including two generals, are flown out. [NOW with Bill Moyers, 2/21/2003] In addition, it is reported that the Pakistani government assists 50 trucks filled with foreign fighters to escape the town. [New York Times, 11/24/2001] Many news articles at the time suggest an airlift is occurring. [Independent, 11/16/2001; New York Times, 11/24/2001; BBC, 11/26/2001; Independent, 11/26/2001; Guardian, 11/27/2001; MSNBC, 11/29/2001] Significant media coverage fails to develop, however. The US and Pakistani governments deny the existence of the airlift. [US Department of State, 11/16/2001; New Yorker, 1/21/2002] On December 2, when asked to assure that the US did not allow such an airlift, Rumsfeld says, “Oh, you can be certain of that. We have not seen a single—to my knowledge, we have not seen a single airplane or helicopter go into Afghanistan in recent days or weeks and extract people and take them out of Afghanistan to any country, let alone Pakistan.” [MSNBC, 4/13/2003] Reporter Seymour Hersh believes that Rumsfeld must have given approval for the airlift. [NOW with Bill Moyers, 2/21/2003] However, The New Yorker magazine reports, “What was supposed to be a limited evacuation apparently slipped out of control and, as an unintended consequence, an unknown number of Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters managed to join in the exodus.” A CIA analyst says, “Many of the people they spirited away were in the Taliban leadership” who Pakistan wanted for future political negotiations. US intelligence was “supposed to have access to them, but it didn’t happen,” he says. According to Indian intelligence, airlifts grow particularly intense in the last three days before the city falls on November 25. Of the 8,000 remaining al-Qaeda, Pakistani, and Taliban, about 5,000 are airlifted out and 3,000 surrender. [New Yorker, 1/21/2002] Hersh later claims that “maybe even some of bin Laden’s immediate family were flown out on those evacuations.” [NOW with Bill Moyers, 2/21/2003]

Entity Tags: Taliban, Pakistan, Taliban, Al-Qaeda, Donald Rumsfeld

Timeline Tags: War in Afghanistan

Category Tags: Afghanistan, Escape From Afghanistan

Mohammed Atef. [Source: FBI]Al-Qaeda leader Mohammed Atef (a.k.a. Abu Hafs) is believed to have been killed in Gardez, near Kabul, Afghanistan. Atef is considered al-Qaeda’s military commander, and one of its top leaders. Initial reports claim he was killed by a US bombing raid, but later reports will reveal he was hit by Hellfire missile fired from a Predator drone. [US Department of State, 11/16/2001; ABC News, 11/17/2001; Newsweek, 11/11/2002] CIA Director George Tenet will later indicate that Atef was “a key player in the 9/11 attacks,” but the exact nature of his role has not been revealed. [Tenet, 2007, pp. 187] Documents and videotapes are discovered by US forces in the rubble after the raid. Details on two upcoming al-Qaeda attacks are discovered. Investigators examining the videotapes find images of about 50 al-Qaeda operatives (see November 15-Late December 2001). [Suskind, 2006, pp. 57]

Entity Tags: Al-Qaeda, Mohammed Atef

Timeline Tags: War in Afghanistan

Category Tags: Afghanistan, Escape From Afghanistan, Key Captures and Deaths

Ismail Khan. [Source: US Navy]Independent warlord Ismail Khan’s troops and other Northern Alliance fighters are reportedly ready to take back Pashtun areas from Taliban control at this time. Khan, former and future governor of Herat province and one of Afghanistan’s most successful militia leaders, later maintains that “we could have captured all the Taliban and the al-Qaeda groups. We could have arrested Osama bin Laden with all of his supporters.” [USA Today, 1/2/2002] However, according to Khan, his forces hold back at the request of the US, who allegedly do not want the non-Pashtun Northern Alliance to conquer Pashtun areas. British newspapers at the time report bin Laden is surrounded in a 30-mile area, but the conquest of Kandahar takes weeks without the Northern Alliance (see November 25, 2001). However, more reliable reports place bin Laden near Tora Bora by mid-November (see November 13, 2001). [CNN, 11/18/2001]

Entity Tags: Al-Qaeda, United States, Taliban, Osama bin Laden, Ismail Khan, Northern Alliance

Timeline Tags: War in Afghanistan

Category Tags: Afghanistan, Escape From Afghanistan

For the first time, a major newspaper publishes an article strongly suggesting Flight 93 was shot down. The Philadelphia Daily News quotes numerous eyewitnesses who believe the plane was shot down. The FBI has reported a half-ton piece of an engine was found “a considerable distance” from the main crash site. “That information is intriguing to shootdown theory proponents, since the heat-seeking, air-to-air Sidewinder missiles aboard an F-16 would likely target one of the Boeing 757’s two large engines.” The article concludes, “No one has fully explained why the plane went down, or what exactly happened during an eight-minute gap from the time all cell phone calls from the plane stopped and the time it crashed.” [Philadelphia Daily News, 11/15/2001]

Entity Tags: Federal Bureau of Investigation

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Other 9/11 Investigations

A still from the casing video shows a US warship docked in Singapore. [Source: CBC]After killing al-Qaeda military commander Mohammed Atef and other operatives with a Predator drone (see November 15, 2001), US forces search the building where he was killed and find lots of evidence about al-Qaeda members and various plots. One of the pieces of evidence found is a casing video for an attack on US personnel in Singapore, which al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) have been plotting for some time (see June 2001). [Suskind, 2006, pp. 56-57] Shortly before dying, Atef instructed JI leader Hambali to conduct the operation fast, because of the US invasion of Afghanistan. [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 3/8/2006; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 3/8/2006] In addition, JI is also plotting a wave of embassy attacks. A senior Western diplomat will later comment: “There was an imminent danger. Their plans could have been operational in a week.” However, many militants are arrested in Southeast Asia in mid-December and the attacks never happen. US officials initially claim that the passage of the video to Singapore helps with the arrests. But Singapore authorities later point out that they did not receive the tape until the end of December and they had already arrested everybody by then based on information they had acquired on their own. They had also found a copy of the video in a suspect’s house in Singapore. [Washington Post, 2/3/2002; Washington Post, 2/3/2002; Dallas Morning News, 3/16/2002]

Entity Tags: Mohammed Atef, Jemaah Islamiyah, Hambali

Category Tags: Hambali, Counterterrorism Action After 9/11, Al-Qaeda in Southeast Asia

Khaled al-Harbi (right) talking to Osama bin Laden or one of his doubles. [Source: US Department of Defense]A conversation between Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda spokesman Suliman abu Ghaith, and Khaled al-Harbi, a veteran of al-Qaeda’s jihad in Bosnia, is videotaped. A portion of the taped conversation is later said to be found by the US and will be used as evidence of bin Laden’s involvement in 9/11. [Unknown, 2001; Guardian, 12/13/2001; Kohlmann, 2004, pp. 28-9] According to a translation released by the Pentagon, the man said to be bin Laden says: “… we calculated in advance the number of casualties from the enemy, who would be killed based on the position of the tower. We calculated that the floors that would be hit would be three or four floors. I was the most optimistic of them all… (inaudible)… due to my experience in this field, I was thinking that the fire from the gas in the plane would melt the iron structure of the building and collapse the area where the plane hit and all the floors above it only. This is what we had hoped for.” He continues: “We had notification since the previous Thursday that the event would take place that day. We had finished our work that day and had the radio on. It was 5:30 p.m. our time… Immediately, we heard the news that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. We turned the radio station to the news from Washington… At the end of the newscast, they reported that a plane just hit the World Trade Center… After a little while, they announced that another plane had hit the World Trade Center. The brothers who heard the news were overjoyed by it.” [US Department of Defense, 12/13/2001 ] The release of the tape, which will be said to be found by US intelligence officers in Jalalabad, will be a major news story, and the tape will be taken by the media as proof of bin Laden’s guilt. President Bush comments, “For those who see this tape, they’ll realize that not only is he guilty of incredible murder, he has no conscience and no soul, that he represents the worst of civilization.” British foreign secretary Jack Straw adds, “By boasting about his involvement in the evil attacks, Bin Laden confirms his guilt.” [BBC, 12/14/2001; Fox News, 12/14/2001; CNN, 12/16/2001] However, the tape will later be disputed from three points of view:
The accuracy of the translation will be questioned (see December 20, 2001). For example, the man thought to be bin Laden does not say “we calculated in advance the number of casualties,” but “we calculated the number of casualties;”
An analyst will conclude that the tape was actually made earlier as a part of a US-run sting operation (see (September 26, 2001));
Some commentators will question whether the person in the video is actually bin Laden (see December 13, 2001).

Entity Tags: Jack Straw, George W. Bush, Central Intelligence Agency, Khaled al-Harbi, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Bush administration, Suliman abu Ghaith, Osama bin Laden

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Ayman Al-Zawahiri, Osama Bin Laden, Other 9/11 Investigations, Counterterrorism Action After 9/11

Atif Ahmed, an alleged co-conspirator of Zacarias Moussaoui, is arrested in London, but is released soon after. Ahmed was named as an associate by Moussaoui in August (see August 17, 2001) and the arrest follows a search of his flat, which produces enough evidence for an arrest warrant. The FBI works closely on the case with the New York Police Department and London police, and evidence about Ahmed comes from various parts of the FBI’s 9/11 investigation. Investigators also find a phone call that suggests Ahmed and Moussaoui were working together. [ABC News, 11/14/2001] However, Ahmed is released a few days later and British security sources will later describe Ahmed as a minor figure in the London Islamist underground. [Financial Times, 9/19/2002] Moussaoui will later claim that Ahmed is a British agent and had foreknowledge of 9/11 (see July 25, 2002).

Entity Tags: Atif Ahmed, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Zacarias Moussaoui

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Other Possible Moles or Informants, Zacarias Moussaoui, Londonistan - UK Counterterrorism

Hazrat Ali. [Source: Robert Nickelsberg / Getty Images]Hazrat Ali and Haji Zaman Ghamsharik, warlords in the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan, both later claim that they are first approached in the middle of November by US officers and asked to take part in an attack on Tora Bora. They agree. [Christian Science Monitor, 3/4/2002] By late November, the US-allied warlords assemble a motley force of about 2,500 Afghans supported by a fleet of old Russian tanks at the foot of the Tora Bora mountains. They are poorly equipped and trained and have low morale. The better-equipped Taliban and al-Qaeda are 5,000 feet up in snow-covered valleys, forests, and caves. [New York Times Magazine, 9/11/2005] On December 3, a reporter for the Christian Science Monitor overhears Ali in a Jalalabad, Afghanistan, hotel making a deal to give three al-Qaeda operatives safe passage out of the country. [Christian Science Monitor, 3/4/2002] The US chooses to rely mainly on Hazrat Ali’s forces for the ground offensive against Tora Bora. Ali supposedly pays one of his aides $5,000 to block the main escape routes to Pakistan. But in fact this aide helps Taliban and al-Qaeda escape along these routes. Afghan villagers in the area later even claim that they took part in firefights with fighters working for Ali’s aide who were providing cover to help al-Qaeda and Taliban escape. [Christian Science Monitor, 3/4/2002] Author James Risen later claims, “CIA officials are now convinced that Hazrat Ali’s forces allowed Osama bin Laden and his key lieutenants to flee Tora Bora into Pakistan. Said a CIA source, ‘We realized those guys just opened the door. It wasn’t a big secret.’” While the US will never publicly blame Ali for assisting in the escape, the CIA will internally debate having Ali arrested by the new Afghan government. But this idea will be abandoned and Ali will become the new strongman in the Jalalabad region. [Risen, 2006, pp. 168-169] CIA official Michael Scheuer later will comment, “Everyone who was cognizant of how Afghan operations worked would have told Mr. Tenet that [his plan to rely on Afghan warlords] was nuts. And as it turned out, he was.… The people we bought, the people Mr. Tenet said we would own, let Osama bin Laden escape from Tora Bora in eastern Afghanistan into Pakistan.” [PBS Frontline, 6/20/2006]

Entity Tags: Osama bin Laden, Taliban, Michael Scheuer, Hazrat Ali, Al-Qaeda, Haji Zaman Ghamsharik

Timeline Tags: War in Afghanistan

Category Tags: Afghanistan, Escape From Afghanistan