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US District Judge Richard Roberts says that CIA interrogation videotapes may have been relevant to a case before him and orders the administration to explain why they were destroyed in 2005, and also to say whether other evidence was destroyed. The government has three weeks to produce the report, as the judge thinks the tapes may have been relevant to the case of Guantanamo detainee Hani Abdullah. The charges against Abdullah are based, at least in part, on information obtained from militant leader Abu Zubaida, who was shown on the tapes and was subjected to waterboarding and other "enhanced techniques" (see Spring-Late 2002 and Mid-May 2002 and After). The report also has to explain what the government has done to preserve evidence since Roberts issued an order in July 2005 not to destroy it, what it is doing now, and whether any other potentially relevant evidence has been destroyed. [Associated Press, 1/24/2008]
Entity Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, Hani Abdullah, Richard W. Roberts
Timeline Tags: Torture of US Captives
Category Tags: Destruction of CIA Tapes, High Value Detainees, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics
Abu Laith al-Libi. [Source: Associated Press]The US fires a missile from a Predator drone at a house in North Waziristan, in Pakistan's tribal region. The missile reportedly kills about 13 people. Some of them are said to be militants, and US officials will later confirm that one of those killed is al-Qaeda leader Abu Laith al-Libi. He is considered a top field commander and a liaison between al-Qaeda and the Taliban. [Newsweek, 3/22/2008; Washington Post, 3/27/2008] He is relatively unknown to the public, but in September 2007, the Washington Post profiled him as about one of a dozen of the most important current al-Qaeda leaders. He also survived a US rocket attack in June 2007. [Washington Post, 9/8/2007]
Entity Tags: Abu Laith al-Libi
Category Tags: Haven in Pakistan Tribal Region, Key Captures and Deaths, Counterterrorism Action After 9/11, Drone Use in Pakistan / Afghanistan
MSNBC counts the number of endnotes in the 9/11 Commission report that cite detainee interrogations and finds that more than a quarter of them—441 out of over 1,700—do so. It is widely believed that the detainees were tortured while in US custody, and that statements made under torture are unreliable. One of the detainees, alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, whose interrogations are mentioned hundreds of times in the report (see After January 2004), was extensively waterboarded (see Shortly After February 29 or March 1, 2003), and a CIA manager said that up to 90 percent of the information he provided under questioning was unreliable (see August 6, 2007). The endnotes often give the sources of the information contained in the main text. MSNBC comments: "The analysis shows that much of what was reported about the planning and execution of the terror attacks on New York and Washington was derived from the interrogations of high-ranking al-Qaeda operatives. Each had been subjected to 'enhanced interrogation techniques.' Some were even subjected to waterboarding." In addition, many of the endnotes that cite detainee interrogations are for the report's "most critical chapters"—five, six, and seven—which cover the planning of the attacks and the hijackers' time in the US. In total, the Commission relied on more than 100 CIA interrogation reports. Its Executive Director Philip Zelikow admits that "quite a bit, if not most" of its information on the 9/11 conspiracy "did come from the interrogations." Karen Greenberg, director of the Center for Law and Security at New York University's School of Law, says, "It calls into question how we were willing to use these interrogations to construct the narrative." [MSNBC, 1/30/2008]
Entity Tags: Center for Law and Security, 9/11 Commission, MSNBC, Philip Zelikow, Karen Greenberg
Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline
Category Tags: 9/11 Commission, Role of Philip Zelikow, 9/11 Investigations
On January 16, 2007, a young man known as Asim arrives in Barcelona. He had recently been living in the Pakistani tribal region of Waziristan as an informant for French intelligence. He comes to Barcelona to inform on a group of Pakistanis living in that town who spent time in Pakistani training camps and allegedly are planning a series of suicide attacks in Spain and possibly other European countries. He is posing as one of the suicide bombers. Fearing that an attack is imminent, Spanish authorities arrest most of the suspects three days later (see January 19, 2008). But the Spanish decide that they don't have enough physical evidence to successfully prosecute the arrested suspects, and they turn Asim into a protected witness for the prosecution. The New York Times will comment, "the case has caused diplomatic friction among investigators. Spain's handling of the French informant has enraged officials at France's intelligence agencies and eroded trust between the countries, French and other European officials said. The informant's value as a source was destroyed when he was made a prosecution witness and the contents of his statements were leaked to the news media." Asim's case contradicts the commonly held notion that intelligence agencies have been unable to penetrate al-Qaeda's central command (see March 20, 2008). But many questions remain. It is unclear when he first penetrated Waziristan as an informant, how much time he spent there, and how high level his al-Qaeda contacts there were. [New York Times, 2/10/2008]
Entity Tags: Al-Qaeda, Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure, Asim
Category Tags: Other Possible Moles or Informants, Al-Qaeda in Spain, Haven in Pakistan Tribal Region
The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), an organization dedicated to the protection of civil liberties, releases a statement saying it is "outraged" by revelations about the extent to which the 9/11 Commission report was based on statements from detainees who are said to have been tortured. After MSNBC finds that over a quarter of the report's endnotes cite detainee interrogations (see January 30, 2008), CCR President Michael Ratner says: "If the Commission suspected there was torture, they should have realized that as a matter of law, evidence derived from torture is not reliable, in part because of the possibility of false confession…at the very least, they should have added caveats to all those references (note: the Commission's report does contain one caveat related to two chapters—see After January 2004). The Commission's heavy reliance on tainted sources reinforces the notion that we as a nation have not yet come to terms with the reality that the US engaged in torture. Until we do so, we undermine our credibility in the eyes of the world as a nation of hypocrites." [Center for Constitutional Rights, 1/31/2008]
Entity Tags: 9/11 Commission, Michael Ratner, Center for Constitutional Rights
Category Tags: 9/11 Commission, 9/11 Investigations
Hani Hanjour (left) and Majed Moqed (right) captured by surveillance video on September 5, 2001. [Source: FBI]An FBI timeline of the 9/11 hijackers' activities compiled in late 2001 and released this month indicates that considerable video footage of the hijackers has yet to be released. Most of the footage appears to come from surveillance video discovered after the 9/11 attacks. So far, the only known footage made public has been two video stills of Hani Hanjour and Majed Moqed using an ATM machine, one still each of Waleed Alshehri and Satam Al Suqami, several stills of Mohamed Atta and Abdulaziz Alomari in Portland the night before 9/11 (see September 10, 2001), and a few more stills and footage of several hijackers in airports on the morning of 9/11 (see (Between 5:45 a.m. and 5:53 a.m.) September 11, 2001 and (7:15 a.m.-7:18 a.m.) September 11, 2001). But the FBI's timeline reveals video footage that has never even been publicly hinted at: Mohamed Atta used an ATM in Palm Beach, Florida, on July 19, 2001. Salem Alhazmi and Ahmed Alghamdi used an ATM in Alexandria, Virginia, on August 2. Hanjour and Mojed used a Kinko's for half an hour in College Park, Maryland, on August 10. Moqed and Nawaf Alhazmi shopped at an Exxon gas station in Joppa, Maryland, on August 28. Waleed and Wail Alshehri wandered around a Target store in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on September 4. Atta and Abdulaziz Alomari were in a Florida bank lobby on September 4, and the audio of Atta calling Saudi Arabia was even recorded in the process. Fayez Ahmed Banihammad used an ATM on September 7 in Deerfield Beach, Florida. Salem Alhazmi was at the Falls Church DMV on September 7. Low quality surveillance video at the Milner Hotel in Boston showed Marwan Alshehhi and possibly Mohand Alshehri on multiple occasions in the days just before 9/11. Ziad Jarrah and possibly Saeed Alghamdi were videotaped using a Kinko's for about an hour near Newark on September 10. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 10/2001 ] Additionally, an FBI document will later be made public that indicates there is footage of Saeed Alghamdi entering the Marriott Hotel at the Newark International Airport on September 8, carrying a black roll along bag (he will not have any checked luggage on 9/11). This same document indicates Ziad Jarrah is also seen on videotape shortly after midnight on September 8 at the same Marriott Hotel, making credit card and cash payments for two hotel rooms. He is accompanied by two young men, who most likely are Saeed Alghamdi and Ahmed Alnami. [Investigative Services Division, FBI Headquarters, 4/19/2002]
Entity Tags: Saeed Alghamdi, Wail Alshehri, Waleed Alshehri, Ziad Jarrah, Salem Alhazmi, Nawaf Alhazmi, Mohamed Atta, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Abdulaziz Alomari, Mohand Alshehri, Ahmed Alghamdi, Fayez Ahmed Banihammad, Ahmed Alnami, Marwan Alshehhi
Category Tags: Alhazmi and Almihdhar, Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta, Hani Hanjour, Ziad Jarrah, Other 9/11 Hijackers, FBI 9/11 Investigation, 9/11 Investigations
Abu Mansoor al-Amriki. [Source: Al-Jazeera]A militant in a video message released this month has an interesting background. The message supports Shabab, one of two radical Islamic groups fighting for power in war-torn Somalia. According to a US intelligence source, the militant in the video, Abu Mansoor al-Amriki, is an ex-US soldier who fought in Bosnia in the early 1990s. No US soldiers officially fought in the Bosnia war, but about a dozen Muslim ex-US Special Forces soldiers fought in Bosnia and trained al-Qaeda and other mujaheddin forces there around 1993 (see December 1992-June 1993). At the time, the US military and Saudi government apparently had an interest in sending Muslim ex-Special Forces there (see December 1992-June 1993 and December 1992). Mansoor is said to be a high-ranking member of al-Qaeda's East Africa leadership, and is a lead trainer for Somali insurgent forces. Although he only appears on video wearing a face mask, it is clear that he is Caucasian. [Middle East Times, 2/28/2008]
Entity Tags: Al-Qaeda, Shabab, Abu Mansoor al-Amriki
Category Tags: Al-Qaeda in Balkans, Alleged Al-Qaeda Media Statements
Willie Nelson. [Source: Adam Bielawski / Photorazzi]Renowned country singer and songwriter Willie Nelson publicly questions the official account of what happened on September 11. Appearing on Alex Jones's talk radio show, Nelson suggests the World Trade Center was brought down with explosives. He says, "I saw those towers fall and I've seen an implosion in Las Vegas, there's too much similarities between the two." Referring to WTC 7, which fell in the afternoon of 9/11 though no plane hit it, he says: "I saw the building fall that didn't get hit by nothing. So, how naive are we, you know, what do they think we'll go for?" [KVUE News, 2/4/2008; Associated Press, 2/5/2008] Nelson has previously engaged in political activism, such as raising money for small family farmers and writing a song protesting the Iraq war. [Reuters, 1/1/2004; Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 1/19/2004]
Entity Tags: Willie Nelson
Category Tags: US Government and 9/11 Criticism
The editorial board of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer calls for a new inquiry into 9/11, as it believes the 9/11 Commission's investigation may have been compromised. The call is due to a new book by New York Times journalist Philip Shenon, The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Commission. The book highlights the close relationship between 9/11 Commission Executive Director Philip Zelikow and the White House, in particular National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice, as well as an attempt he made to connect Iraq to al-Qaeda. The Post-Intelligencer writes of Zelikow that "[s]omeone with an apparent deference for the White House should not have been trusted with such a valued task." It comments, "If bulletproof, the book prompts us to add one more thing to our to-do list for the next administration: Pressure it to charge a panel of independent experts to write a real, nonpartisan report on the attacks." [Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 2/4/2008]
Entity Tags: Condoleezza Rice, Bush administration (43), Philip Shenon, Philip Zelikow, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 9/11 Commission
The Defense Department announces that it is bringing death penalty charges against six high-value enemy detainees currently being held at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. The six, all charged with involvement in the 9/11 attacks, will be tried under the much-criticized military tribunal system (see October 17, 2006) implemented by the Bush administration. They are: Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a Pakistani who claims responsibility for 31 terrorist attacks and plots, is believed to have masterminded the 9/11 attacks, and claims he beheaded Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl (see January 31, 2002). Mohammed was subjected to harsh interrogation tactics by the CIA, including waterboarding. Ali Adbul Aziz Ali, Mohammed's nephew and cousin of jailed Islamist terrorist Ramzi Yousef. He is accused of facilitating the attacks by sending $120,000 to US-based terrorists, and helping nine of the hijackers enter the US. Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, accused of being a link between al-Qaeda and the 9/11 hijackers. Bin al-Shibh is accused of helping some of the hijackers obtain flight training. Khallad bin Attash, who has admitted planning the attack on the USS Cole (see October 12, 2000) and is accused of running an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan. He claims to have helped in the bombing of the US embassy in Kenya (see 10:35-10:39 a.m., August 7, 1998). Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, accused of being a financier of the 9/11 attacks, providing the hijackers with cash, clothing, credit cards, and traveller's checks. Mohamed al-Khatani, another man accused of being a "20th hijacker;" al-Khatani was stopped by immigration officials at Orlando Airport while trying to enter the US. He was captured in Afghanistan. Many experts see the trials as part of an election-year effort by the Bush administration to demonstrate its commitment to fighting terrorism, and many predict a surge of anti-American sentiment in the Middle East and throughout the Islamic world. Some believe that the Bush administration is using the trials to enhance the political fortunes of Republican presidential candidate John McCain, who has made the US battle against al-Qaeda a centerpiece of his campaign. "What we are looking at is a series of show trials by the Bush administration that are really devoid of any due process considerations," says Vincent Warren, the executive director head of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents many Guantanamo detainees. "Rather than playing politics the Bush administration should be seeking speedy and fair trials. These are trials that are going to be based on torture as confessions as well as secret evidence. There is no way that this can be said to be fair especially as the death penalty could be an outcome." Treatment of Detainees an Issue - While the involvement of the six detainees in the 9/11 attacks is hardly disputed, many questions surround their treatment at Guantanamo and various secret "black sites" used to house and interrogate terror suspects out of the public eye. Questions are being raised about the decision to try the six men concurrently instead of separately, about the decision to seek the death penalty, and, most controversially, the admissibility of information and evidence against the six that may have been gathered by the use of torture. Details of Forthcoming Tribunals - While the charges are being announced now, Brigadier General Thomas Hartmann, the Pentagon official supervising the case, acknowledges that it could be months before the cases actually begin, and years before any possible executions would be carried out. Hartmann promises the trials will be "as completely open as possible," with lawyers and journalists present in the courtroom unless classified information is being presented. Additionally, the six defendants will be considered innocent until proven guilty, and the defendants' lawyers will be given "every stitch of evidence" against their clients. 'Kangaroo Court' - British lawyer Clive Stafford Smith, who has worked with "enemy combatants" at Guantanamo, believes nothing of what Hartmann says. The procedures are little more than a "kangaroo court," Stafford Smith says, and adds, "Anyone can see the hypocrisy of espousing human rights, then trampling on them." Despite Hartmann's assurances, it is anything but clear just what rights the six defendants will actually have. [Independent, 2/12/2008] The charges against al-Khahtani are dropped several months later (see May 13, 2008).
Entity Tags: Vincent Warren, US Department of Defense, Khallad bin Attash, Daniel Pearl, Clive Stafford Smith, John McCain, Mohamed al-Khatani, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Thomas Hartmann, Center for Constitutional Rights, Ramzi Yousef, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Bush administration (43), Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, Al-Qaeda
Category Tags: Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Al-Qaeda in Germany, 1998 US Embassy Bombings, 2000 USS Cole Bombing, High Value Detainees, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics, Ramzi Bin Al-Shibh, 9/11 Related Criminal Proceedings
Pakistan holds parliamentary elections, and opposition parties are the overwhelming winners. President Pervez Musharraf does not lose his presidency, as he was reelected by the National Assembly several months earlier (see October 6, 2007). However, his party, Pakistan Muslim League-Q (PML-Q), loses control of the National Assembly, enabling the opposition parties to select their own prime minister a short time later. Much power will now shift to the position of prime minister, which had been completely overshadowed by Musharraf and his presidency since he took power in a coup in 1999 (see October 12, 1999). The Pakistan People's Party (PPP) wins 120 seats. The PPP was led by Benazir Bhutto until her recent assassination, and is now led by her husband, Asif Ali Zardari. The Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N), the party led by former primer minister Nawaz Sharif, gets 90. Musharraf's PML-Q only wins 51 seats. Surprisingly, the Islamic parties are almost completely wiped out. The alliance of Islamic parties, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), did well and won two provincial elections in the last election in 2002, but this time it only wins six seats. A secular and moderate party, the Awami National Party, wins in the North-West Frontier Province, taking control from the MMA and forming the new provincial government there. No single party holds a majority, but the PPP immediately announces a coalition with Sharif's PML-N party, shutting Musharraf's PML-Q party out. Musharraf once had 80 percent popularity ratings in polls, but after many recent controversial moves, including declaring a state of emergency for over a month to stay in power (see November 3-December 15, 2007), his popularity rating is down to about 20 percent. [Rashid, 2008, pp. 390-391] One month later, the coalition selects a relatively unknown figure, Yousaf Raza Gillani, to be the new prime minister (see March 22-25, 2008).
Entity Tags: Benazir Bhutto, Awami National Party, Pakistan People's Party, Pervez Musharraf, Asif Ali Zardari, Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, Pakistan Muslim League-Q, Pakistan Muslim League-N, Nawaz Sharif
Category Tags: Pakistan and the ISI
Moroccan police arrest 35 people for involvement in a radical militant group led by an informant for the Belgian government. Over the next several weeks, it will gradually be leaked to the media that the arrested leader of the group, Abdelkader Belliraj, has worked for Belgian intelligence and possibly the CIA since at least 2000 (see February 29, 2008). Belliraj holds both Belgian and Moroccan citizenship and is a Shiite. His unnamed group has both Shiite and Sunni Muslim links, and is linked to Islamist militant groups like al-Qaeda as well as to traditional organized crime. Others arrested in Morocco with Belliraj include local politicians, businessmen, a police commander and Hezbollah television station correspondent. A large stockpile of weapons is found in police raids, including assault rifles, machine guns, and detonators. Two days after the raids, the small Islamist party al-Badil al-Hadari is officially dissolved after several of those arrested are found to have links to the party, including the party's secretary general. The Moroccan government claims Belliraj's group was planning a series of political assassinations in Morocco. [Los Angeles Times, 2/27/2008; Terrorism Focus, 3/4/2008]
Entity Tags: Abdelkader Belliraj
Category Tags: Other Possible Moles or Informants, Counterterrorism Action After 9/11
Attorney General Michael Mukasey and Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell write to Silvestre Reyes, the Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, about their desire to see the Protect America Act renewed. In the letter, they mention the failure to exploit NSA intercepts of calls between the 9/11 hijackers in the US and al-Qaeda's main global communications hub, which apparently had the potential to thwart the 9/11 plot (see Early 2000-Summer 2001). They write: "[O]ne of the September 11th hijackers communicated with a known overseas terrorist facility while he was living in the United States. Because that collection was conducted under Executive Order 12333, the intelligence community could not identify the domestic end of the communication prior to September 11, 2001, when it could have stopped that attack." [US Department of Justice and Office of the Director of National Intelligence, 2/28/2008 ] Executive Order 12333 became law in 1981 and governed general activities by the US intelligence community. [US President, 12/4/1981] The order did allow the NSA to disseminate information about US persons to law enforcement officials in the event of an impending terrorist act. [US Congress: House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, 4/12/2000] The letter does not give more detailed reasons why Mukasey and McConnell think the NSA could not have traced the calls and informed the FBI of the two hijackers' presence in the US (see (Spring 2000)). [US Department of Justice and Office of the Director of National Intelligence, 2/28/2008 ] Similar incorrect statements have been made by numerous intelligence officials since December 2005, when the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program was revealed (see December 17, 2005).
Entity Tags: National Security Agency, Michael Mukasey, Mike McConnell, Silvestre Reyes
Category Tags: Alhazmi and Almihdhar, Remote Surveillance, Yemen Hub
Jaber Elbaneh's appearance in court. [Source: Associated Press / Mohammed al-Qadhi.]Jaber Elbaneh, an Islamist militant wanted by the US, comes out of hiding to appear in court in Yemen, but is not arrested. Elbaneh, a US citizen and whose family came from Yemen, had lived in Lackawanna, New York, before the 9/11 attacks. He went to Afghanistan to train at an al-Qaeda training camp along with about six other men from Lackawanna, but while the others dropped out and returned to the US, Elbaneh never returned (see April-August 2001). He moved to Yemen. The Yemeni government says he also helped plan the 2002 attack on the oil tanker Limburg off Yemen's coast (see October 6, 2002). He was arrested there in 2004 after being charged in the US for attending the training camp. He was sentenced to ten years in prison, but in February 2006, he and 22 other suspected al-Qaeda operatives escaped from a high-security Yemeni prison (see February 3, 2006). The US offered $5 million for information leading to his arrest. Elbaneh was then implicated in a September 2006 bombing in Yemen that took place several days before national elections (see September 15, 2006). Some suggest the bombers may have colluded with the government to use the bombing to successfully help Yemeni President Ali Abdallah Saleh win reelection. Elbaneh was convicted, but allowed to stay at home under a loose form of house arrest. Given the outstanding $5 million reward for him, Elbaneh appears to surprise everyone by appearing in court where his conviction in the 2006 bombing was being appealed. Furthermore, he gives a speech proclaiming his innocence. He says that after his prison escape, he surrendered directly to President Saleh in May 2007, who absolved him of any jail time. The New York Times comments: "Perhaps the greatest mystery surrounding [Elbaneh] is his decision to appear in court… The Yemeni government has generally instructed the jihadists with whom it arranges amnesty to avoid the news media and keep low profiles. But Mr. Elbaneh deliberately spoke out in a public setting, with journalists present, and named the president in his brief tirade." [Reuters, 2/27/2008; New York Times, 3/1/2008]
Entity Tags: Jaber Elbaneh, Ali Abdallah Saleh
Category Tags: Yemeni Militant Collusion, "Lackawanna Six"
The Washington Post reports that US intelligence has finally determined that Anwar al-Awlaki is linked to al-Qaeda. Al-Awlaki was an imam at two different mosques attended by hijackers Nawaf Alhazmi, Khalid Almihdhar, and Hani Hanjour, and he has been suspected of assisting the 9/11 plot. An anonymous US counterterrorism official tells the Post, "There is good reason to believe Anwar al-Awlaki has been involved in very serious terrorist activities since leaving the United States [after 9/11], including plotting attacks against America and our allies." However, the US apparently did not ask Yemen to extradite him when he was arrested there in 2006, because there was no pending legal case against him. He continues to reside in Yemen and apparently still has not been charged with any crime. [Washington Post, 2/27/2008] In December 2007, just two months before this article, the US approved the release of al-Awlaki in Yemen, apparently because there still was no pending legal case against him (see Early September 2006-December 2007). He also does not appear to be on any public wanted list.
Entity Tags: Anwar al-Awlaki, Al-Qaeda
Category Tags: FBI 9/11 Investigation, Counterterrorism Action After 9/11, Possible Hijacker Associates in US, 9/11 Investigations, Anwar Al-Awlaki
A missile fired from a US Predator drone kills at least 12 people in Pakistan. The missile hits a house in the village of Kaloosha, near the Afghan border. Some suspected militants are reportedly killed, but details are scanty. [BBC, 3/16/2008; Washington Post, 3/27/2008]
Category Tags: Haven in Pakistan Tribal Region, Counterterrorism Action After 9/11, Drone Use in Pakistan / Afghanistan
Abdelkader Belliraj. [Source: Agence France-Presse]The Belgian media reports that Abdelkader Belliraj, a dual Belgian-Moroccan citizen arrested in Morocco earlier in the month, is actually a long-time informant for Belgium's internal security service, State Security. [Agence France-Presse, 2/29/2008; Los Angeles Times, 8/24/2008] The Belgian government initially denies the charges but soon tacitly admits them when the head of State Security, Alain Winants, complains about the leak of the "highly classified" status of Belliraj several days later. Agence France-Presse reports that although the "accusations were at first met with scepticism in Belgium, authorities now consider them credible." Belliraj has been personally involved in armed robberies and murders dating back to the 1980s, and has links to al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, and other Islamist militant groups. It remains unclear if Belliraj was committing all his crimes with the approval of Belgian officials or if he may have been duping them to some degree. One anonymous Belgian police official speculates: "How could he travel freely since the 1980s from Belgium to various terrorist hot-beds around the world? There are two possibilities: either he worked for a secret service or else the State Security is full of idiots." [Agence France-Presse, 3/11/2008] On Belgian newspaper claims that at the same time he was a paid Belgian informant since 2000, "It's almost certain that at the same time he worked for another foreign secret service, possibly the French DGSE or American CIA." [Het Laatste News, 3/4/2008] Another major Belgian newspaper, De Morgen, claims that Belliraj had both French and US intelligence links while working with Belgium too. [Maghreb Arabe Presse, 3/4/2008]
Entity Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure, Abdelkader Belliraj, Alain Winants, State Security (of Belgium)
Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell testifies before Congress that the security situation in Afghanistan is "deteriorating." He estimates that the official Afghan government led by Hamid Karzai controls only about 30 percent of Afghanistan, while the Taliban controls 10 percent and the rest is controlled by various tribes and warlords. He says that the key to the Taliban's success "is the opportunity for safe haven in Pakistan." Karzai's government denies McConnell's claims. However, various think tank reports echo McConnell's conclusions. One report headed by former NATO commander Gen. James L. Jones concludes that "urgent changes" are immediately required to "prevent Afghanistan becoming a failed state." [Guardian, 2/29/2008]
Entity Tags: Taliban, Hamid Karzai, James L. Jones, Mike McConnell
Timeline Tags: War in Afghanistan
Category Tags: Haven in Pakistan Tribal Region, Afghanistan
CIA Director Michael Hayden and his top aides are told about one aspect of an agency program to capture and assassinate al-Qaeda leaders. The program was proposed in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and has been under development at the agency for years, although it has not yet become operational (see Shortly After September 17, 2001). Details of what Hayden is told are unclear, although he is told about plans that involve gathering sensitive information in a foreign country. Hayden orders that the operation be scaled back and that Congress be notified if the plans become more fully developed. However, Congress is not informed before Hayden's successor cancels the program (see June 23, 2009). [New York Times, 7/14/2009]
Entity Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, Michael Hayden
Category Tags: Counterterrorism Policy/Politics
Victor Bout in handcuffs in Thailand on the day of his arrest. [Source: Associated Press]Victor Bout, the world's biggest illegal arms dealer, is arrested in Thailand. The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) had set up a sting operation to nab Bout. For months, DEA agents posed as members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a militant group linked to drug trafficking and organized crime. DEA agents and Thai police meet Bout at the five-star Sofitel Silom Hotel in Bangkok, supposedly to finalize an arms deal, and immediately arrest him and his bodyguards. According to a Thai police officer, Bout does not resist arrest but merely says, "The game is over." A relatively new DEA task force is behind Bout's arrest, even as news reports indicate Bout's fleet of aircraft has been shipping supplies to the US military in Iraq in recent years. The DEA agents posed as arms dealers working for FARC but went after Bout because of evidence that he had been involved in drug smuggling as well. Bout faces up to 10 years in prison in Thailand for taking part in illegal weapons deals there. US officials are also seeking Bout's extradition to the US so he can face more charges. Bout is a Russian citizen and has been based in Russia in recent years, but the Russian government has decided against seeking his extradition. Mother Jones comments, "Willing to work for anyone, Bout's business divorced itself from any political, philosophical, or moral constraint. It delivered military cargo with equal enthusiasm to terrorists, guerrilla insurgents, rebel warlords, embattled dictatorships, legitimate businesses, humanitarian aid groups, and sovereign governments, including the United States" (see Late April 2003-2007). He also worked with the Taliban and al-Qaeda-linked groups (see Summer 2002 and Late July 2006). Experts note that Bout's network has been unique in providing a full range of smuggling services and it is unlikely it will survive without him. [Mother Jones, 3/16/2006]
Entity Tags: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, Drug Enforcement Administration, Victor Bout
Category Tags: Victor Bout, Drugs, Key Captures and Deaths, Counterterrorism Action After 9/11
Alleged al-Qaeda leader Muhammad Rahim al-Afghani is transferred to the US-run prison in Guantanamo, Cuba, and officially declared a "high value" prisoner. Rahim was captured in Lahore, Pakistan, by local forces in July 2007 (see July 2007) and then was held in a secret CIA prison until his transfer to Guantanamo (see Late July 2007-March 14, 2008). Why Is Rahim Considered Important? - Rahim is just the 16th person the US government has declared a "high value" prisoner. Fourteen prisoners were given that label when they were transferred from secret CIA prisons to Guantanamo in September 2006 (see September 6, 2006 and September 2-3, 2006). The 15th was Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, who was held by the CIA in autumn 2006 and sent to Guantanamo in April 2007 (see Autumn 2006-Late April 2007). [Los Angeles Times, 3/15/2008] Although there had been reports in Pakistan about Rahim shortly after his arrest, virtually nothing was known about him until his transfer to Guantanamo. [Asian News International, 8/2/2007] He may have experienced extreme sleep deprivation during CIA interrogations (see August and November 2007). Hayden's Memo - There still are no published photographs of him. At the same time Rahim is sent to Guantanamo, CIA Director Michael Hayden issues a memo to CIA employees explaining Rahim's alleged importance. Hayden calls Rahim a "tough, seasoned jihadist" with "high-level contacts," and claims his arrest "was a blow to more than one terrorist network. He gave aid to al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and other anti-coalition militants." According to Hayden, Rahim sought chemicals for an attack on US forces in Afghanistan and tried to recruit people who had access to US military facilities there. He helped prepare Tora Bora as a hideout in 2001, and then helped al-Qaeda operatives flee the area when US forces overran it in late 2001. But perhaps most importantly, Rahim had become one of Osama bin Laden's most trusted facilitators and translators in the years prior to Rahim's arrest. [Los Angeles Times, 3/15/2008; New York Times, 3/15/2008]
Entity Tags: Muhammad Rahim al-Afghani, Al-Qaeda, Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, Central Intelligence Agency, Osama bin Laden, Michael Hayden
Category Tags: High Value Detainees
A missile fired from a US Predator drone kills at least 16 people in Pakistan. The missile hits a house in the village of Toog in South Waziristan, part of Pakistan's tribal region where al-Qaeda leaders are believed to be residing. The house is said to belong to an unnamed militant leader, and several militants are reportedly killed. However, details are scanty. [BBC, 3/16/2008; Newsweek, 3/22/2008]
It is revealed that Larry Silverstein, the developer of Ground Zero, is seeking $12.3 billion in damages from airlines and airport security companies for the attacks on 9/11. Silverstein sought the damages in a claim filed in 2004, alleging that the companies failed to prevent the hijackers from taking over the planes that destroyed the World Trade Center buildings. The size of his claim was previously unknown, but is now revealed at a status conference in the US District Court in Manhattan. [New York Times, 3/27/2008] Of the $12.3 billion sought, $8.4 billion would be to replace the property destroyed in the attacks, and the other $3.9 billion would cover lost income and expenses associated with renting the new buildings. Companies named in the suit include American Airlines, United Airlines, Continental Airlines, Boeing, and the Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport), which manages Logan Airport in Boston, from where the two planes that hit the WTC took off. [CNN, 3/27/2008] Silverstein's case is consolidated with similar, earlier lawsuits by other property owners and some families of 9/11 victims. Silverstein is by far the biggest of the claimants. A lawyer for the airlines says that if Silverstein wins, it could push the total claims beyond the amount of insurance the airlines and security companies have available. Silverstein, the CEO and president of Silverstein Properties, only signed the 99-year lease on the World Trade Center six weeks before 9/11 (see July 24, 2001). He has already won nearly $4.6 billion in insurance payments stemming from the attacks (see May 23, 2007). [New York Times, 3/27/2008; NY1 News, 3/28/2008]
Entity Tags: Boeing Company, Continental Airlines, American Airlines, Massachusetts Port Authority, United Airlines, Larry Silverstein
Category Tags: 9/11 Related Lawsuits
A new audio recording is released, allegedly from al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. The voice on the tape directs the message to "the intelligent ones in the European Union" and discusses a cartoon said to be offensive to Muslims—showing the prophet Muhammed with a bomb in his turban—that was recently re-printed by all major Danish newspapers. The tape, which criticises US-led bombing of "those modest mud villages which have collapsed onto our women and children," says that the "morals of fighting" should be observed in conflict, but the west has abandoned them, "even if you hold aloft its slogans in theory." However, the publication of the cartoon and other similar ones is worse than bombing innocent civilians: "Although our tragedy in your killing of our women and children is a very great one, it paled when you went overboard in your unbelief and freed yourselves of the etiquettes of dispute and fighting and went to the extent of publishing these insulting drawings. This is the greater and more serious tragedy, and reckoning for it will be more severe." The voice also claims that, despite the publication, "you haven't seen any reaction from the one and a half billion Muslims." [Council on Foreign Relations, 3/19/2008] In actual fact, when the cartoons were first published there were protests around the world in which dozens were killed, and Danish diplomatic offices were destroyed in two cities. [BBC, 3/20/2008] The voice argues that the cartoons should not have been published under freedom of expression, as US troops in Europe are not subject to European law, and, according to the voice, those who question the amount of Jews killed in the holocaust are suppressed. In addition, when the King of Saudi Arabia told Britain to stop its investigation of the corrupt al-Yamamah deal, British Prime Minister Tony Blair complied. [Council on Foreign Relations, 3/19/2008] The message comes on the fifth anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq (see March 19, 2003). [BBC, 3/20/2008] However, the man thought to be bin Laden makes no mention of Iraq on the tape. [Council on Foreign Relations, 3/19/2008] The audio message is released in video form with a graphic showing a still image of bin Laden holding an AK-47 and bearing the logo of as-Sahab, al-Qaeda's media wing. There is a written translation of the message in English. It is unclear when the message, released by posting at an Islamist website, was recorded. [BBC, 3/20/2008]
Entity Tags: As-Sahab, Osama bin Laden
Category Tags: Osama Bin Laden, Alleged Al-Qaeda Media Statements
A man thought to be Osama bin Laden releases a new audio message urging Muslims to join the insurgency in Iraq, as this is the "nearest jihad battlefield to support our people in Palestine." The message comes one day after the previous communication thought to be from bin Laden (see March 19, 2008) and just over five years after the invasion of Iraq (see March 19, 2003). According to the person thought to be bin Laden, "Palestine cannot be retaken by negotiations and dialogue, but with fire and iron," and Arab leaders were complicit in Israeli attacks on Gaza. "The people of the blessed land should sense the great favour God has bestowed upon them and do what they should do to support their mujahideen brothers in Iraq," the speaker says. "It is a great opportunity and a major duty for my brothers the Palestinian emigrants [in Arab countries], between whom and jihad on the plains of Jerusalem a barrier has been built." [BBC, 3/20/2008]
Entity Tags: Al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden
The Washington Post publishes a front page story promoting the myth that al-Qaeda has never been effectively penetrated by intelligence agencies. The article by Craig Whitlock is titled After a Decade at War With West, Al-Qaeda Still Impervious to Spies. It states that "al-Qaeda's core organization in Pakistan and Afghanistan has so far proved impervious to damaging leaks." It quotes Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA's bin Laden unit, who says that from 1992 until November 2004 (when he left the CIA), "[the CIA] worked side by side with the Egyptians, the Jordanians—the very best Arab intelligence services—and they didn't recruit a single person who could report on al-Qaeda." The article seems to be a reaction to the case of Abdelkader Belliraj, which was publicly exposed several weeks earlier, when Belliraj was arrested in Morocco (see February 18, 2008 and February 29, 2008). The article notes that Belliraj was a Belgian government informant and important Islamist militant leader who had al-Qaeda links for years and met with al-Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri in Afghanistan (see 2001). Belliraj's case seemingly undercuts the thrust of the article, but the rest of the article mostly quotes a series of anonymous intelligence officials who say penetrating al-Qaeda would be next to impossible. [Washington Post, 3/20/2008] Whitlock's article ignores numerous reports that al-Qaeda has repeatedly been penetrated by the CIA and other intelligence agencies. For instance: In 2002, US News and World Report reported, "Once thought nearly impossible to penetrate, al-Qaeda is proving no tougher a target than the KGB or the Mafia—closed societies that took the US government years to get inside." An unnamed US intelligence official said: "We're getting names, the different camps they trained at, the hierarchy, the infighting. It's very promising" (see September 22, 2002). In 2004, author Ronald Kessler wrote, "Often, the CIA used operatives from Arab intelligence services like those of Jordan, Syria, Egypt, and other countries to infiltrate bin Laden's organization." He quoted a longtime CIA officer who said, "Egyptians, Jordanians, [and] Palestinians penetrated the bin Laden organization for us. It's B.S. that we didn't" (see Before September 11, 2001). In 2006, journalist Ron Suskind reported that by late 2002, the CIA had developed "a source from within Pakistan who was tied tightly into al-Qaeda management." He also noted that other informants had been recruited since 9/11, and commented, "It has been generally acknowledged that the United States does not have any significant human sources… inside al-Qaeda. That is not true" (see Late 2002). In a 2007 book, former CIA Director George Tenet claimed that the CIA had over 100 assets in Afghanistan by 9/11 (see Before September 11, 2001). He also claimed that "a group of assets from a Middle Eastern service" sharing information with the CIA penetrated al-Qaeda, and some of them penetrated al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan before 9/11 (see Early September 2001). In February 2008, the New York Times reported that French intelligence had an informant that penetrated al-Qaeda's safe haven in Pakistan's tribal region (see Late January 2008).
Entity Tags: Al-Qaeda, Craig Whitlock, Michael Scheuer, Abdelkader Belliraj
Category Tags: Other Possible Moles or Informants, Media
President Musharraf swearing in Yousaf Raza Gillani as Pakistan's latest prime minister. [Source: Agence France-Presse - Getty Images] (click image to enlarge)In parliamentary elections in February 2008, a coalition of opposition parties led by the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) took effective political control from President Pervez Musharraf, although Musharraf remains president (see February 18, 2008). On March 22, the leader of the PPP, Asif Ali Zardari, picks Yousaf Raza Gillani to become Pakistan's new prime minister. Gillani assumes the position in a ceremony on March 25. Zardari is the husband of the recently assassinated and very popular Benazir Bhutto. He reportedly wants the prime minister position for himself, but he is not yet eligible for it as he does not hold a seat in parliament. Gillani is a relatively unknown low-key party stalwart. The New York Times comments that Gillani's selection seems a "prelude to a drive by Mr. Zardari to take the job himself in the next few months." [New York Times, 3/23/2008] Within hours of becoming prime minister, Gillani frees the judges that had been placed under house arrest during Musharraf's state of emergency several months before (see November 3-December 15, 2007). He frees Supreme Court head Iftikhar Chaudhry, the 13 other Supreme Court judges, and 48 High Court judges who refused to sign a loyalty oath. [New York Times, 3/25/2008]
Entity Tags: Yousaf Raza Gillani, Pakistan People's Party, Asif Ali Zardari, Iftikhar Chaudhry, Pervez Musharraf
Al-Qaeda second in command Ayman al-Zawahiri releases a new audio tape calling for attacks on Israeli and Western targets to avenge recent Israeli raids on the Gaza Strip. The tape is released by posting to the Internet and produced by al-Qaeda's media arm, As-Sahab. "O Muslims. Today is your day. Hit the interest of the Jews and the Americans and all those who participated in the aggression against Muslims," says al-Zawahiri. "Monitor the targets, collect the money, prepare the hardware, plan accurately, and then attack." Al-Zawahiri adds, "No one can say today that we should fight the Jews in Palestine only," and calls for Muslims to support Palestinians in the Gaza Strip against Israel. Demonstrations only serve to let off steam, he says, so Palestinians should focus on armed struggle. "Let them know that they would bleed for every dollar they spend on killing Muslims," he says. "They cannot… insult our prophet and support Israel, and expect to live in peace in their countries." Al-Zawahiri also accuses Arab leaders of colluding with the US and Israel in blockading Palestinians in Gaza. "The satanic alliance shows us its ugliness and how low it is, an alliance of the crusaders and the Jews and with them [Egyptian President Hosni] Mubarak, and [Saudi Arabia's ruling] Saud family, and the son of al-Hussein [Jordan's King Abdullah]." [Reuters, 3/24/2008]
Entity Tags: Al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, As-Sahab
Category Tags: Ayman Al-Zawahiri, Alleged Al-Qaeda Media Statements
A front page article in the Los Angeles Times reports that the US effort to fight the financing of terrorism is "foundering." Insiders complain that the Bush administration's efforts are stumbling over legal difficulties, interagency fighting, and disagreements with allied nations. Michael Jacobson, a recently retired senior adviser in the Treasury Department's Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, says, "The international cooperation and focus is dropping, the farther we get from 9/11." The Times notes that "Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and other key nations have not taken the necessary steps to crack down on terrorist financing or suspect money flowing across their borders." Designations of terrorist financiers has slowed to a "trickle." Militant groups are also using methods that are harder to trace, including sending money by donkey or mule. Robert Grenier, recently retired director of the CIA's Counterterrorist Center, says the US has exaggerated the successes of financial enforcement: "There's been a lot of work done on it, a lot of focus. But as a method for identifying and capturing terrorists, it has not been significant." [Los Angeles Times, 3/24/2008]
Entity Tags: Robert Grenier, US Department of the Treasury, Counterterrorist Center, Michael Jacobson
Category Tags: Terrorism Financing, Counterterrorism Action After 9/11, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics
Richard Falk. [Source: Richard Lord / World Council of Churches]Days before being selected for a United Nations Human Rights Council post, retired international law professor Richard Falk says he wants an official commission to investigate the role neoconservatives may have played in the 9/11 attacks. [New York Sun, 4/9/2008] Falk is professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University. [London Times, 4/15/2008] In a radio interview, he says: "It is possibly true that especially the neoconservatives thought there was a situation in the country and in the world where something had to happen to wake up the American people.… All we can say is there is a lot of grounds for suspicion, there should be an official investigation of the sort the 9/11 Commission did not engage in and that the failure to do these things is cheating the American people and in some sense the people of the world of a greater confidence in what really happened than they presently possess." Two days later, on March 26, Falk will be appointed by the UN Human Rights Council to a newly created position to report on human rights in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs. [New York Sun, 4/9/2008] In 2004, he wrote the foreword to The New Pearl Harbor by David Ray Griffin, a book that put forward evidence that the Bush administration may have orchestrated the 9/11 attacks or deliberately allowed them to happen (see March 1, 2004). [Griffin, 2004, pp. vii-x; New York Sun, 4/9/2008] Falk also contributed a chapter to the book, co-edited by Griffin, 9/11 and American Empire: Intellectuals Speak Out. [Griffin and Scott, 2006, pp. 117-127; London Times, 4/15/2008]
Entity Tags: Richard Falk
Attorney General Michael Mukasey makes an apparent reference to the intercepts of the 9/11 hijackers' calls by the NSA before the attacks in a speech pleading for extra surveillance powers. Mukasey says: "[Officials] shouldn't need a warrant when somebody with a phone in Iraq picks up a phone and calls somebody in the United States because that's the call that we may really want to know about. And before 9/11, that's the call that we didn't know about. We knew that there has been a call from someplace that was known to be a safe house in Afghanistan and we knew that it came to the United States. We didn't know precisely where it went." [FORA(.tv), 3/27/2008; New York Sun, 3/28/2008] According to a Justice Department response to a query about the speech, this appears to be a reference to the Yemen hub, an al-Qaeda communications facility previously alluded to by Mukasey in a similar context (see February 22, 2008). [Salon, 4/4/2008] However, the hub was in Yemen, not Afghanistan and, although it acted as a safe house, it was primarily a communications hub (see Early 2000-Summer 2001). In addition, the NSA did not intercept one call between it and the 9/11 hijackers in the US, but several, involving both Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, not just one of the hijackers (see Spring-Summer 2000, Mid-October 2000-Summer 2001, and (August 2001)). Nevertheless, the NSA failed to inform the FBI the hub was calling the US (see (Spring 2000)). (Note: it is possible Mukasey is not talking about the Yemen hub in this speech, but some other intercept genuinely from an al-Qaeda safe house in Afghanistan—for example a call between lead hijacker Mohamed Atta in the US and alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who may have been in Afghanistan when such call was intercepted by the NSA (see Summer 2001 and September 10, 2001). However, several administration officials have made references similar to Mukasey's about the Yemen hub since the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program was revealed (see December 17, 2005).)
Entity Tags: Michael Mukasey
Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline, Civil Liberties
Some media outlets pick up on a claim made by Attorney General Michael Mukasey on March 27, 2008, when he said that the US intercepted a call to a 9/11 hijacker in the US from an al-Qaeda safe house in Afghanistan (see March 27, 2008). This was possibly a garbled reference to an al-Qaeda hub in Yemen (see Early 2000-Summer 2001) mentioned by several administration officials since the NSA's warrantless wiretapping story was exposed (see December 17, 2005). The San Francisco Chronicle notes that Mukasey "did not explain why the government, if it knew of telephone calls from suspected foreign terrorists, hadn't sought a wiretapping warrant from a court established by Congress to authorize terrorist surveillance, or hadn't monitored all such calls without a warrant for 72 hours as allowed by law." [San Francisco Chronicle, 3/28/2008] Salon commentator and former civil rights litigator Glenn Greenwald will attack Mukasey over the story, commenting, "These are multiple falsehoods here, and independently, this whole claim makes no sense." [Salon, 3/29/2008; Salon, 4/4/2008] 9/11 Commission Comment - In response to a query from Greenwald, former 9/11 Commission executive director Philip Zelikow comments: "Not sure of course what [Mukasey] had in mind, although the most important signals intelligence leads related to our report… was not of this character. If, as he says, the [US government] didn't know where the call went in the US, neither did we." [Salon, 4/3/2008] (Note: the 9/11 Commission report may actually contain two cryptic references to what Mukasey is talking about (see Summer 2002-Summer 2004).) [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 87-88, 222] Former 9/11 Commission vice chairman Lee Hamilton initially refuses to comment, but later says: "I am unfamiliar with the telephone call that Attorney General Mukasey cited in his appearance in San Francisco on March 27. The 9/11 Commission did not receive any information pertaining to its occurrence." [Salon, 4/3/2008; Salon, 4/8/2008] Other Media - The topic will also be covered by Raw Story and mentioned by MSNBC host Keith Olbermann, who also attacks Mukasey: "What? The government knew about some phone call from a safe house in Afghanistan into the US about 9/11? Before 9/11?" He adds: "Either the attorney general just admitted that the government for which he works is guilty of malfeasant complicity in the 9/11 attacks, or he's lying. I'm betting on lying." [Raw Story, 4/1/2008; MSNBC, 4/1/2008; Raw Story, 4/3/2008] The story is also picked up by CBS commentator Kevin Drum, who appears to be unaware that information about some NSA intercepts of the hijackers' calls was first made public by the Congressional Inquiry five years previously. However, Drum comments: "[T]his deserves some followup from the press. Mukasey has spoken about this in public, so if he's claiming that FISA prevented us from intercepting a key call before 9/11 he also needs to defend that in public." [CBS, 4/3/2008; CBS, 4/4/2008] A group of Congressmen also formally asks the Justice Department for an explanation of the matter (see April 3, 2008).
Entity Tags: Michael Mukasey, Kevin Drum, Lee Hamilton, Philip Zelikow, US Department of Justice, Glenn Greenwald, Keith Olbermann
Category Tags: Yemen Hub, Role of Philip Zelikow, 9/11 Commission, 9/11 Investigations
Darrell Issa. [Source: Washington Post]Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA) says during a House subcommittee meeting that he does not understand why the federal government should pay any more money to assist 9/11 emergency responders who have become ill after working at Ground Zero. Hundreds of firefighters, police officers, and paramedics have become ill, some terminally so, from exposure to smoke and toxins released in the collapse of the World Trade Center; the subcommittee is considering whether to reinstate federal funding for the 9/11 victims' fund. Minutes after a retired New York City police officer, Michael Valentin, speaks of the serious health problems he has suffered since responding to the attacks, Issa says: "I have to ask why… the firefighters who went there and everyone in the City of New York needs to come to the federal government… How much money has the federal government put out post-9/11, including the buckets of $10 and $20 billion we just threw at the State and the City of New York versus how much has been paid out by the City and the State of New York?… It's very simple: I can't vote for additional money for New York if I can't see why it would be appropriate to do this every single time a similar situation happens, which quite frankly includes any urban terrorist. It doesn't have to be somebody from al-Qaeda. It can be someone who decides that they don't like animal testing at one of our pharmaceutical facilities." The attacks on the World Trade Center did not involve a dirty bomb or chemical weapons, Issa notes. "It simply was an aircraft, residue of the aircraft and residue of the materials used to build this building," he adds. Issa's colleague, Anthony Weiner (D-NY), is visibly enraged at Issa's comments, replying, "The notion that this is the City of New York asking for more money because we were the point of attack on this country is absurd and insulting…. There are people every single day, bit by bit by bit, who are dying from that attack." [Newsday, 4/1/2008; New York Post, 4/2/2008] A day later, Issa will retreat from the harshest of his comments after enduring a withering barrage of criticism (see April 3, 2008).
Entity Tags: Darrell E. Issa, Michael Valentin, Anthony D. Weiner
Category Tags: Internal US Security After 9/11
Jesse Ventura. [Source: Publicity photo]Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura declares that he believes the World Trade Center was destroyed with explosives, and says he regrets not asking more questions about the 9/11 attacks when he was governor. The former professional wrestler, who served as Minnesota governor from 1999 to 2003, appears on the Alex Jones Show, a syndicated radio program. He says that, based on his demolition training as a Navy SEAL, a visit to Ground Zero a few weeks after 9/11, and watching slow motion video of the collapses, he believes the Twin Towers fell due to controlled demolition. Describing the collapse of WTC Building 7, he says: "How could this building just implode into its own footprint five hours later? That's my first question.… The 9/11 Commission didn't even devote one page to that in their big volume of investigation." [Associated Press, 1/5/2008; Associated Press, 4/3/2008; MinnPost, 4/3/2008] Ventura also raises questions about 9/11 in his new book, Don't Start the Revolution Without Me! He writes: "My doubts about the official story have grown steadily over the last couple of years.… I wondered, why did President Bush put up roadblocks for two years to any type of investigation? If you have nothing to hide, you shouldn't care whether or not a commission looks into what happened.… It seemed our government wasn't reacting like an innocent victim, but like they were guilty of, or about, something." [Ventura and Russell, 2008, pp. 209]
Entity Tags: Jesse Ventura
Al-Qaeda second in command Ayman al-Zawahiri issues a 90-minute audiotape with the first part of responses to questions solicited from the public and journalists (see December 19, 2007). In the replies, he rejects criticism of attacks by al-Qaeda's followers that have killed thousands of people, maintaining al-Qaeda does not kill innocent people. "We haven't killed the innocents, not in Baghdad, nor in Morocco, nor in Algeria, nor anywhere else," says al-Zawahiri. "If there is any innocent who was killed in the mujahedeen's operations, then it was either an unintentional error or out of necessity." [Associated Press, 4/2/2008] The second part of the responses will be issued later in the month (see April 17, 2008).
Entity Tags: Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al-Qaeda
Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA) tries to back away from his comments from the day before, where he disparaged New York City first responders who are now suffering long-term disabilities and illnesses stemming from the 9/11 attacks (see April 2, 2008). Firestorm of Criticism - Frank Fraone, a California fire chief who led a 67-man crew at Ground Zero after the collapse of the World Trade Center, says: "That is a pretty distorted view of things. Whether they're a couple of planes or a couple of missiles, they still did the same damage." Republican colleague Peter King (R-NY) notes: "New York was attacked by al-Qaeda. It doesn't have to be attacked by Congress.… I'm really surprised by Darrell Issa. It showed such a cavalier dismissal of what happened to New York. It's wrong and inexcusable." 9/11 victim's relative Lorie Van Auken calls Issa's comments "cruel and heartless." She adds: "It's really discouraging. People stepped up and did the right thing. They sacrificed themselves and now a lot of people are getting really horrible illnesses." Partial Withdrawal - Issa withdraws some of his earlier statements, now saying, "I want to make clear that I strongly support help for victims who suffered physical injury as a result of an attack on America, including support from Congress and the federal government." Yet he refuses to withdraw his comments that the 9/11 attacks were little more than unremarkable plane crashes unworthy of any federal financial response. He now says that he only "asked tough questions about the expenditures." Health officials estimate that it could cost up to $1 billion to properly care for survivors of 9/11 suffering from physical and emotional disabilities. A new bill to fund that care is being prepared for House debate. [New York Daily News, 4/3/2008; New York Post, 4/3/2008] A New York Daily News op-ed accuses Issa of "demeaning 9/11" and calls his remarks "callous in the extreme." [New York Daily News, 4/3/2008]
Entity Tags: Lorie Van Auken, Peter T. King, Frank Fraone, Darrell E. Issa
A group of congressmen led by House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) asks for an explanation of a recent statement by Attorney General Michael Mukasey about a pre-9/11 NSA intercept of a call to the 9/11 hijackers in the US (see March 27, 2008 and March 29, 2008). The group calls Mukasey's statement "disturbing" and says it "appears to suggest a fundamental misunderstanding of the federal government's existing surveillance authority to combat terrorism, as well as possible malfeasance by the government prior to 9/11." Mukasey had implied that the law prior to 9/11 did not allow the call to be traced, but the congressmen state: "[I]f the administration had known of such communications from suspected terrorists, they could and should have been intercepted based on existing FISA law.… [A]s of 9/11 FISA specifically authorized such surveillance on an emergency basis without a warrant for a 48 hour period." They ask Mukasey to clarify his comments. The congressmen also ask about a secret Justice Department memo regarding the president's powers in wartime in the US (see April 1, 2008). [Raw Story, 4/3/2008]
Entity Tags: John Conyers, Michael Mukasey
Category Tags: Yemen Hub
For the first time, a scientific journal publishes a letter by scientists who think the World Trade Center buildings were destroyed by explosives, rather than impact damage and fire. The letter, cautiously entitled "Fourteen Points of Agreement with Official Government Reports on the World Trade Center Destruction," is published in the Open Civil Engineering Journal. The lead author is Steven E. Jones, a physicist formerly at Brigham Young University. The abstract says: "Reports by FEMA and NIST lay out the official account of the destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11/2001. In this Letter, we wish to set a foundation for productive discussion and understanding by focusing on those areas where we find common ground with FEMA and NIST, while at the same time countering several popular myths about the WTC collapses." [Open Civil Engineering Journal, 4/8/2008; Deseret News, 5/3/2008] However, unlike the vast majority of journals, the Open Civil Engineering Journal charges authors to publish their articles or letters in it. [Open Civil Engineering Journal, 2007]
Entity Tags: National Institute of Standards and Technology, Steven E. Jones, Federal Emergency Management Agency
Category Tags: WTC Investigation, 9/11 Investigations
Speaking before a public hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Defense Secretary Robert Gates says, "We were attacked from Afghanistan in 2001 and we are at war in Afghanistan today in no small measure because of mistakes this government made—mistakes I, among others, made—in the end game of the anti-Soviet war there some 20 years ago." [US Department of Defense, 4/10/2008]
Entity Tags: Robert M. Gates
Category Tags: Soviet-Afghan War
The US is unable to find more troops to send to Afghaninstan, due to the war in Iraq. On April 10, 2008, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Michael Mullen tells a Congressional committee: "I'm deeply concerned. In this economy of force operation, we do what we can. Requirements exist that we simply cannot fill and won't likely be able to fill until conditions improve in Iraq." The US would like to send 7,000 more troops to Afghanistan to fight the growing Taliban resistance there, but the US is unwilling to divert forces from Iraq due to renewed violence there, and NATO allies remain unwilling to send more troops as well. A study by the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office, a group funded by the European Commission, reports that there were 704 insurgent attacks causing 463 civilian deaths from January through March of 2008, compared with 424 attacks causing 264 civilian deaths during the same months in 2007. US officials privately admit that their estimates are similar. [McClatchy Newspapers, 4/15/2008]
Entity Tags: Michael Mullen
Category Tags: Iraq War Impact on Counterterrorism, Afghanistan
President Bush admits he knew about his National Security Council Principals Committee's discussion and approval of harsh interrogation methods against certain terror suspects (see April 2002 and After). Earlier reports had noted that the Principals—a group of top White House officials led by then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice—had deliberately kept Bush "out of the loop" in order for him to maintain "deniability." Bush tells a reporter: "Well, we started to connect the dots in order to protect the American people. And yes, I'm aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved." Bush says that the news of those meetings to consider extreme interrogation methods was not "startling." He admitted as far back as 2006 that such techniques were being used by the CIA (see September 6, 2006). But only now does the news of such direct involvement by Bush's top officials become public knowledge. The Principals approved the waterboarding of several terror suspects, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (see Shortly After February 29 or March 1, 2003 and March 10, 2007); Bush defends the use of such extreme measures against Mohammed, saying: "We had legal opinions that enabled us to do it. And no, I didn't have any problem at all trying to find out what Khalid Shaikh Mohammed knew.… I think it's very important for the American people to understand who Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was. He was the person who ordered the suicide attack—I mean, the 9/11 attacks." [ABC News, 4/11/2008] Bush's admission is no surprise. The day before Bush makes his remarks, law professor Jonathan Turley said: "We really don't have much of a question about the president's role here. He's never denied that he was fully informed of these measures. He, in fact, early on in his presidency—he seemed to brag that they were using harsh and tough methods. And I don't think there's any doubt that he was aware of this. The doubt is simply whether anybody cares enough to do anything about it." [MSNBC, 4/10/2008]
Entity Tags: George W. Bush, Central Intelligence Agency, Condoleezza Rice, Jonathan Turley, National Security Council, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed
Timeline Tags: Torture of US Captives, 9/11 Timeline, Civil Liberties
Category Tags: High Value Detainees, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed
Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tells an audience at Bar Ilan university in Israel that the 9/11 attacks were beneficial for Israel. "We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq. […] [The attacks] swung American public opinion in our favor." [Ha'aretz, 4/17/2008]
Entity Tags: Benjamin Netanyahu
Category Tags: Iraq War Impact on Counterterrorism, Israel
Al-Qaeda second in command Ayman al-Zawahiri issues a second set of responses to questions solicited by al-Qaeda in December 2007 (see December 19, 2007 and April 2, 2008). [NEFA Foundation, 4/17/2008 ; Associated Press, 4/22/2008; Associated Press, 4/23/2008] The response comes in a two-hour audio recording posted to an Islamic website and accompanied by the logo of As-Sahab, al-Qaeda's media arm. Al-Zawahiri's comments include: The theory that Israel carried out the September 11 attacks is false and was started by Iran and its proxy Hezbollah, through the Al-Manar television station. "The purpose of this lie is clear—[to suggest] that there are no heroes among the Sunnis who can hurt America as no [one] else did in history. Iranian media snapped up this lie and repeated it," he says. "Iran's aim here is also clear—to cover up its involvement with America in invading the homes of Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq." In recent audio recordings, al-Zawahiri has accused Iran of seeking to extend its power in the Middle East, particularly in Iraq and through Hezbollah in Lebanon. The insurgent umbrella group Islamic Nation of Iraq led by al-Qaeda is "the primary force opposing the crusaders and challenging Iranian ambitions" in Iraq. In response to a question about whether al-Qaeda plans to attack Western countries involved in Iraq, he replies: "My answer is: Yes! We think that any country that has joined aggression on Muslims must be deterred." This includes Japan, which pulled its non-combat troops out of Iraq in 2006, because "Japan provided help under the banner of the crusader coalition… therefore it participated in the crusader campaign against the lands of Islam." Global warming reflects "how criminal, brutal, and greedy the Western crusader world is, with America at the top." However, global warming will "make the world more sympathetic to and understanding of the Muslims' jihad against the aggressor America." There are no women in al-Qaeda, although "the women of the mujaheddin are playing a heroic role in taking care of their houses and sons." The Taliban have taken over 95 percent of Afghanistan and are sweeping Pakistan as well. "The crusaders and their agents in Pakistan and Afghanistan are starting to fall," al-Zawahiri adds. It is against Islamic religious law for any Muslim to live permanently in a Western country because in doing so they would "have permanent stay there under the laws of the infidels." [Associated Press, 4/22/2008; Associated Press, 4/23/2008] Al-Zawahiri also singles out some countries for threats, such as Denmark, saying: "Denmark has done her utmost to demonstrate her hostility towards the Muslims by repeatedly dishonoring our Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him salvation. I admonish and incite every Muslim who is able to do so to cause damage to Denmark in order to show your support for our Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him salvation, and to defend his esteemed honor." [NEFA Foundation, 4/17/2008 ] Al-Qaeda will attack the Danish embassy in Pakistan six weeks later. [Jyllands-Posten, 6/2/2008]
Entity Tags: As-Sahab, Al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declares: "Four or five years ago, a suspicious event occurred in New York. A building collapsed and they said that 3,000 people had been killed but never published their names.… Under this pretext, [the US] attacked Afghanistan and Iraq and since then, a million people have been killed only in Iraq." [Ha'aretz, 4/17/2008]
Entity Tags: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
A man thought to be al-Qaeda's second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri releases a 16-minute audio tape around five years after the US and others invaded Iraq. The man calls on Islamist fighters to turn Iraq into a "fortress of Islam," and says the establishment of a greater Islamic state is "the most important" duty of every Muslim. The tape contains references to recent events—testimony by US General David Petraeus to Congress and a strike by textile workers in Egypt. The man is also critical of Iran for siding with the US against Sunni Arabs in Iraq. [Guardian, 4/18/2008]
Entity Tags: Ayman al-Zawahiri
An Indonesian court officially declares Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) an illegal organization. JI is believed to be al-Qaeda's main affiliate in Southeast Asia. The Indonesian government had previously refused to ban JI, even though it supported a United Nations ban on JI shortly after the 2002 Bali bombings (see October 12, 2002 and October 24, 2002). This court decision takes place during a trial of two high-ranking JI leaders, Zarkasih and Abu Dujana, both of whom were arrested the year before. Both are sentenced to 15 years in prison for supporting terrorist activities. Counterterrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna calls the decision "a huge victory against terrorism." He adds: "This will have a direct impact on the leadership of JI, the most lethal terrorist group in Southeast Asia. Unless a terrorist was about to commit an attack, or had committed an attack, the Indonesian police couldn't arrest them. Today if anyone is distributing propaganda and that person is linked to JI, that person can be arrested." [Sydney Morning Herald, 4/22/2008]
Entity Tags: Zarkasih, Jemaah Islamiyah, Abu Dujana, Rohan Gunaratna
Category Tags: Al-Qaeda in Southeast Asia, 2002 Bali Bombings
Hamid Karzai on parade, April 27, 2008. [Source: massoud_hossaini_afp_getty]On April 27, 2008, there is an attempted assassination of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, as assailants fire guns and mortars towards him, scores of senior officials, and foreign diplomats during a military parade in downtown Kabul. Karzai escapes unharmed, but three Afghans are killed, including a member of parliament. Two months later, Afghanistan's intelligence agency accuses the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence agency, of organizing the assassination. The agency claims that phone calls from the cell phones of those arrested show a Pakistan link. Investigators suspect one assassin tried to call his supervisor in Pakistan from a nearby hotel to ask for instructions because he could not get a clear shot at Karzai from the hotel window. Investigators believe Jalaluddin Haqqani, a Taliban leader based in the Pakistani tribal region of Waziristan with long-time ISI ties, instigated the plot. Karzai's spokesman makes the same accusation against the ISI more obliquely, "Evidence shows the hallmark of a particular foreign intelligence agency which we believe was behind this attack." [Agence France-Presse, 6/25/2008; Washington Post, 6/27/2008]
Entity Tags: Hamid Karzai, Pakistan Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, Jalaluddin Haqqani, National Directorate of Security (Afghanistan)
Category Tags: Pakistan and the ISI, Haven in Pakistan Tribal Region, Afghanistan
According to a later book by New York Times reporter David Sanger, in May 2008, US intelligence records General Ashfaq Kayani, head of Pakistan's military, referring to militant leader Jalaluddin Haqqani as "a strategic asset." Haqqani heads a group of militants in Waziristan, in Pakistan's tribal region, that is known as the Haqqani network. It is considered a semi-independent branch of the Taliban. The surveillance was ordered to confirm suspicions that the Pakistani military is still secretly supporting the Taliban, even though the US gives aid to help fight the Taliban. The transcript of Kayani's comments is passed to Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell. US intelligence will later intercept calls from Pakistani military units to Haqqani, warning him of an imminent Pakistani military operation in the tribal region designed to make it appear to the US that Pakistan is taking action against militant groups. An unnamed source will later explain, "It was something like, 'Hey, we're going to hit your place in a few days, so if anyone important is there, you might want to tell them to scram.'" Further US surveillance will reveal a plot between the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence agency, and Haqqani to bomb the Indian embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan (see July 7, 2008). Pakistani officials deny they are supporting Haqqani. [London Times, 2/17/2009] An unnamed senior Pakistani intelligence official also called Haqqani an asset in 2006 (see 2006).
Entity Tags: Pakistan Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, Taliban, Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, Haqqani Network, Jalaluddin Haqqani, Mike McConnell, US intelligence
Category Tags: Pakistan and the ISI, Haven in Pakistan Tribal Region, 2008 Kabul Indian Embassy Bombing
Aden Hashi Ayro. [Source: Intelcenter / Associated Press]A US missile strike kills Aden Hashi Ayro, the alleged head of al-Qaeda's operations in Somalia. Ayro and up to ten others are killed in the region of Dusamareeb, an area a few hundred miles north of the capital of Mogadishu. The strike is said to be the fifth US attack in Somalia since Ethiopia invaded Somalia in December 2006 with US support (see December 24, 2006-January 2007). Ayro is said to have attended an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan in the late 1990s. Then he returned to Somalia in 2003 and quickly rose up the ranks of al-Shabab, the military arm of the Islamic Court Union. He is said to be in charge of al-Qaeda's operations there, although he is not a formal member of al-Qaeda. He was reportedly behind the scattered deaths of some foreigners in Somalia between 2003 and 2005. But despite this death, in recent months militant groups such as al-Shabab have been gaining ground against Somalia's weak transitional government and the occupying Ethiopian troops keeping it in power. [Washington Post, 5/1/2008; Time, 5/2/2008]
Entity Tags: Shabab, Islamic Courts Union, Aden Hashi Ayro
Category Tags: Key Captures and Deaths
Karen S. Johnson. [Source: Publicity photo]Arizona state senator Karen S. Johnson, a Republican, says she suspects a government conspiracy and calls for a new investigation into 9/11. Calling attention to the unexplained collapse of WTC Building 7, she writes: "Why, for example, did Building 7 collapse? It wasn't hit by a plane, as the towers were. The 9/11 Commission Report completely ignores Building 7. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) report discounts fire as a cause and concludes that the reasons for the collapse of Building 7 are unknown and require further research. But when FEMA issued this report, it already cleared the site and disposed of the dust and steel (evidence from a crime scene), thus possibly committing a felony and complicating any 'further research.' The National Institute of Standards and Technology, a federal agency, which evaluated the collapse of the towers, has yet to issue its report on Building 7. 'We've had trouble getting a handle on Building 7,' said the acting director of their Building and Fire Research Lab. Yet a number of private-sector engineers, architects, and demolition experts have not had that problem. They think Building 7 came down by controlled demolition. The building collapsed suddenly, straight down, at nearly free-fall speed. People heard the explosions, and saw the squibs and the characteristic billowing clouds of pulverized concrete so unique to demolitions. There is no reason to think that Building 7 came down for any other reason than explosive demolition." [Arizona Republic, 5/3/2008]
Entity Tags: Karen S. Johnson
A front-page Washington Post story reveals that, eight years after al-Qaeda bombed the USS Cole just off the coast of Yemen and killed 17 US soldiers (see October 12, 2000), "all the defendants convicted in the attack have escaped from prison or been freed by Yemeni officials." Two Key Suspects Keep Slipping from Yemeni Prisons - For instance, Jamal al-Badawi, a Yemeni and key organizer of the bombing, broke out of Yemeni prisons twice and then was secretly released in 2007 (see April 11, 2003-March 2004, February 3, 2006 and October 17-29, 2007). The Yemeni government jailed him again after the US threatened to cut aid to the country, but apparently he continues to freely come and go from his prison cell. US officials have demanded the right to perform random inspections to make sure he stays jailed. Another key Cole suspect, Fahad al-Quso, also escaped from a Yemeni prison and then was secretly released in 2007 (see May 2007). Yemen has refused to extradite al-Badawi and al-Quso to the US, where they have been indicted for the Cole bombing. FBI Director Robert Mueller flew to Yemen in April 2008 to personally appeal to Yemeni President Ali Abdallah Saleh to extradite the two men. However, Saleh has refused, citing a constitutional ban on extraditing its citizens. Other Cole suspects have been freed after short prison terms in Yemen, and at least two went on to commit suicide attacks in Iraq. US Unwilling to Try Two Suspects in Its Custody - Two more key suspects, Khallad bin Attash and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, were captured by US forces and have been transferred to the US-run Guantanamo prison. Al-Nashiri is considered the mastermind of the Cole bombing, but the US made the decision not to indict either of them because pending criminal charges could have forced the CIA or the Pentagon to give up custody of the men. Al-Quso, bin Attash, and al-Nashiri all attended a key 2000 al-Qaeda summit in Malaysia where the 9/11 attacks were discussed (see January 5-8, 2000). 'The Forgotten Attack' - A week after the Cole bombing, President Bill Clinton vowed to hunt down the plotters and promised, "Justice will prevail." But less than a month after the bombing, George W. Bush was elected president. Roger Cressey, a former counterterrorism official in the Clinton and Bush administrations who helped oversee the White House's response to the Cole bombing, says, "During the first part of the Bush administration, no one was willing to take ownership of this. It didn't happen on their watch. It was the forgotten attack." 'Back to Square One' - Former FBI agent Ali Soufan, a lead investigator into the bombing, complains,
"After we worked day and night to bring justice to the victims and prove that these Qaeda operatives were responsible, we're back to square one. Do they have laws over there or not? It's really frustrating what's happening." The Post comments, "Basic questions remain about which individuals and countries played a role in the assault on the Cole." Possible Government Complicity - One anonymous senior Yemeni official tells the Post that al-Badawi and other al-Qaeda members have had a long relationship with Yemen's intelligence agencies and have targeted political opponents in the past. For instance, in 2006, an al-Qaeda suicide attack in Yemen came just days before elections there, and Saleh tried to link one of the figures involved to the opposition party, helping Saleh win reelection (see September 15, 2006). Furthermore, there is evidence that figures within the Yemeni government were involved in the Cole bombing (see After October 12, 2000), and that the government also protected key bombers such as al-Nashiri in the months before and after the bombings (see April 2000 and Shortly After October 12, 2000). Bush Unwilling to Meet with Victims' Relatives - Relatives of the soldiers killed in the bombing have attempted to meet with President Bush to press for more action, to no avail. John P. Clodtfelter Jr., whose son died on the Cole, says, "I was just flat told that he wouldn't meet with us. Before him, President Clinton promised we'd go out and get these people, and of course we never did. I'm sorry, but it's just like the lives of American servicemen aren't that important." [Washington Post, 5/4/2008]
Entity Tags: John P. Clodtfelter Jr., Ali Soufan, Ali Abdallah Saleh, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, Fahad al-Quso, Jamal al-Badawi, William Jefferson ("Bill") Clinton, Yemen, Khallad bin Attash, Roger Cressey, Robert S. Mueller III, George W. Bush
Category Tags: 2000 USS Cole Bombing, Yemeni Militant Collusion, Counterterrorism Action After 9/11
The US military dismisses charges against Mohammed al-Khatani. In February 2008, al-Khatani was part of a small group of detainees held at the Guantanamo prison charged before a military tribunal with involvement in the 9/11 attacks (see February 11, 2008). Al-Khatani is said to be the would-be "20th hijacker" who was refused entry to the US in August 2001 (see August 4, 2001). However, he was later captured and subjected to months of torture at Guantanamo (see August 8, 2002-January 15, 2003). The Pentagon official who announces the dismissal of charges against him, Convening Authority Susan Crawford, gives no explanation. The charges are dismissed "without prejudice," which means they could be reinstated at any time. However, many believe that the charges against him are dismissed because of the torture he underwent, as well as the fact that he appears to have only been a unsuccessful low-level figure in the plot. [New York Times, 5/14/2008] In 2006, MSNBC predicted that he would never face trial due to the way he was tortured (see October 26, 2006). However, he still remains imprisoned at Guantanamo. In January 2009, Crawford will confirm that she dismissed the case against al-Khatani because he was indeed tortured (see January 14, 2009). She will say that the treatment suffered by al-Khatani "did shock me," and will continue: "I was upset by it. I was embarrassed by it. If we tolerate this and allow it, then how can we object when our servicemen and women, or others in foreign service, are captured and subjected to the same techniques? How can we complain? Where is our moral authority to complain? Well, we may have lost it." Crawford will lay much of the blame for al-Khatani being tortured at the feet of then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. "A lot of this happened on his watch," she will say. [Washington Post, 1/14/2009]
Entity Tags: Donald Rumsfeld, Mohamed al-Khatani, Susan Crawford
Category Tags: High Value Detainees, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics
President Bush says that the election of a Democrat in 2008 might lead to another 9/11-like attack on the US. Reporter Mike Allen asks: "I wonder if you—various people and various candidates talk about pulling out next year. If we were to pull out of Iraq next year, what's the worst that could happen, what's the doomsday scenario?" Bush replies, "Doomsday scenario of course is that extremists throughout the Middle East would be emboldened, which would eventually lead to another attack on the United States." After making this statement, Bush repeats several statements that he has been making for years: Iraq "just happens to be" part of the global war on terror, Iraq "is the place where al-Qaeda and other extremists have made their stand," and terrorists "can't stand to live in a free society, that's why they try to fight free societies." [Associated Press, 5/13/2008] MSNBC commentator Keith Olbermann calls Bush's claim "ludicrous, infuriating, holier-than-thou and… bone-headedly wrong," and says, "Terrorism inside Iraq is your creation, Mr. Bush." [MSNBC, 5/14/2008]
Entity Tags: Mike Allen, Al-Qaeda, George W. Bush, Keith Olbermann
Damadola Strike in May 2008. [Source: Mohammed Sajjad Associated Press]A missile fired from a US Predator drone reportedly kills al-Qaeda leader Abu Suleiman al-Jazairi. He and 15 others are killed in the strike on a house in the village of Damadola in Pakistan's tribal region. The house is said to belong to former Taliban defense minister Maulvi Obaidullah, and members of Obaidullah's family, including women and children, are thought to be among the dead. Al-Jazairi is said to be a trainer and explosives expert, and involved in planning attacks in Europe. Damadola has been hit by drones twice before (see January 13, 2006 and October 30, 2006). Al-Jazairi was little known in the media prior to the strike. [New York Times, 5/16/2008; Observer, 6/1/2008] Obaidullah apparently is not killed. He had been imprisoned in Pakistan since 2003, and had been released several days before as part of a swap for Pakistani Ambassador to Afghanistan Tariq Azizuddin, who had been kidnapped in February. [PAN, 5/20/2008]
Entity Tags: Tariq Azizuddin, Maulvi Obaidullah, Abu Suleiman al-Jazairi
Category Tags: Key Captures and Deaths, Pakistan and the ISI, Haven in Pakistan Tribal Region, Drone Use in Pakistan / Afghanistan, Counterterrorism Action After 9/11
A new audio message is released by a man thought to be Osama bin Laden. In the message, which lasts about nine minutes and is posted to a website commonly used by al-Qaeda, the speaker calls on Muslims to continue the fight to liberate Palestinian land. The speaker pledges to continue fighting the Israelis and not give up "a single inch of Palestine," adding that the Palestinian cause is the most important factor driving al-Qaeda's war with the West. The tape's release comes around the time of Israel's 60th anniversary, when US President Bush is in Israel to attend the anniversary celebrations [BBC, 5/16/2008]
A man thought to be Osama bin Laden releases an audio tape calling on Muslim fighters to help end the Israeli blockade of Gaza. In the tape, released by posting on the Internet, the speaker says it is the duty of every Muslim to fight the "oppressive closure." The tape is released two days after the previous one (see May 16, 2008), on the day US President Bush ends a visit to the Middle East. [Sky News, 5/18/2008]
Al-Qaeda second in command Ayman al-Zawahiri releases a new audio tape criticizing his native Egypt for not opening up its border to Palestinians. The 11-minute tape is released by posting to the Internet to mark the 41st anniversary of the Six-Day War between Israel and some of its Arab neighbors. "The brother from Gaza is refused entry [by Egypt], while an Israeli tourist is allowed to enter without a visa," says al-Zawahiri, calling for an end to Israel's economic blockade of the Gaza Strip. He also terms Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and his troops "criminal traitors" for perpetuating the siege of Gaza. "Salvation of the Muslim nation is through the march of its sons on the path of jihad," he adds. [Al Jazeera, 5/5/2008]
In a panel discussion hosted by PBS's Bill Moyers, journalist Jonathan Landay, discussing the US war in Afghanistan, notes that the vast majority of media coverage has been granted to the Iraq occupation. The war in Afghanistan is largely forgotten by the media, or merely rolled into Iraq coverage. Landay notes that Afghanistan is "a far more serious threat for US national security than Iraq is." Similarly, the media rarely reports on the dire terrorist threats centered in the tribal areas of Pakistan. "[T]his is a black hole virtually which the United States is deeply involved in that we don't see a lot of meaningful, I mean, in-depth coverage of," he says. [PBS, 6/6/2008]
Entity Tags: Public Broadcasting System, Bill Moyers, Jonathan Landay
Category Tags: Pakistan and the ISI, Afghanistan, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics
Members of the Frontier Corps near Shakai, in the region of South Waziristan, in August 2004. [Source: Kamran Wazir / Reuters / Corbis]The British newspaper The Observer reports that the Frontier Corps, a Pakistani government paramilitary force operating in Pakistan's tribal regions near the border with Afghanistan, sometimes join in attacks on US-led forces in Afghanistan. The article alleges there are "box loads" of after-action reports compiled after armed clashes near the border, detailing the Frontier Corps working with the Taliban and other allied militants. Some attacks are launched so close to Frontier Corps outposts that Pakistani cooperation with the Taliban is assumed. There has been a dramatic increase in cross-border incidents compared to the same time the year before. An anonymous US official says: "The United States and NATO have substantial information on this problem. It's taking place at a variety of places along the border with the Frontier Corps giving direct and indirect assistance. I'm not saying it is everyone. There are some parts that have been quite helpful… but if you have seen the after-action reports of their involvement in attacks along the Afghan border you would appreciate the problem." The US government continues to downplay such incidents, worried about its relationship with the Pakistani government. A NATO spokesman says: "The real concern is that the extremists in Pakistan are getting safe havens to rest, recuperate and retool in Pakistan and come across the border. The concerns have been conveyed to the Pakistan authorities." [Observer, 6/22/2008]
Entity Tags: Frontier Corps, Taliban
US intelligence allegedly discovers that the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence agency, and a faction of the Taliban are planning a spectacular bombing somewhere in Afghanistan. US intelligence is intercepting Pakistani government communications in an attempt to find out if the Pakistani government is still supporting militants fights US soldiers in Afghanistan. Communications intercepts already revealed an active link between the Pakistani government and the Haqqani network, a semi-autonomous branch of the Taliban headed by Jalaluddin Haqqani (see May 2008). According to a later book by New York Times reporter David Sanger, new intercepts at this time show that the ISI is working to carry out a spectacular bombing in Afghanistan. But apparently, the exact target is not known. Two weeks later, the Indian Embassy in Kabul will be bombed (see July 7, 2008). Afterwards, the US will accuse the ISI and the Haqqani network of plotting the bombing, mostly based on these intercepts from before the bombing (see July 28, 2008 and August 1, 2008). [London Times, 2/17/2009]
Entity Tags: Jalaluddin Haqqani, Haqqani Network, Taliban, Pakistan Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, US intelligence
Category Tags: Pakistan and the ISI, Haven in Pakistan Tribal Region, 2008 Kabul Indian Embassy Bombing, Counterterrorism Action After 9/11
Newsweek reports that the Justice Department's criminal investigation into the CIA's destruction of video of the torture of al-Qaeda leaders Abu Zubaida and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri is continuing, but proceeding slowly. Federal prosecutor John Durham has recently filed a federal court affidavit that states he is examining whether anyone "obstructed justice, made false statements, or acted in contempt of court or Congress in connection with the destruction of the videotapes." He is specifically attempting to determine if the destruction violated any judge's order. But progress is slow, and the investigation is likely to take six months or more, which means any criminal charges will probably come after the November 2008 presidential elections. Two sources close to former intelligence officials who are potential key witnesses in the case say these officials have not been summoned to give grand jury testimony. One of them has not even been questioned by the FBI yet. [Newsweek, 6/28/2008] Attorney General Michael Mukasey appointed Durham to head the investigation in January 2008 (see January 2, 2008).
Entity Tags: John Durham, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, Central Intelligence Agency, US Department of Justice, Abu Zubaida
Category Tags: Destruction of CIA Tapes
The Defense Department announces that it is charging al-Qaeda leader Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri with "organizing and directing" the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000 (see October 12, 2000) and will seek the death penalty. Al-Nashiri was captured in 2002 (see Early October 2002), held and tortured in secret CIA prisons until 2006 (see (November 2002)), and then transferred to Defense Department custody at the Guantanamo prison (see September 2-3, 2006). He will be tried there in a military tribunal. Al-Nashiri told a hearing at Guantanamo in 2007 that he confessed a role in the Cole bombing, but only because he was tortured by US interrogators (see March 10-April 15, 2007). CIA Director Michael Hayden has conceded that al-Nashiri was subjected to waterboarding. [Associated Press, 6/30/2008] Khallad bin Attash, who is being held at Guantanamo with al-Nashiri and other al-Qaeda leaders, allegedly had a major role in the Cole bombing, but he is not charged. Presumably this is because he has already been charged for a role in the 9/11 attacks.
Entity Tags: Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, Khallad bin Attash, US Department of Defense
Category Tags: 2000 USS Cole Bombing, High Value Detainees
The New York Times publishes a long front-page analysis of the policy disputes and mistakes that have bogged down US efforts to combat al-Qaeda's safe haven in Pakistan's tribal region. The article reveals that the US effort has often been "undermined by bitter disagreements within the Bush administration and within the CIA, including about whether American commandos should launch ground raids inside the tribal areas.… [B]y most accounts, the administration failed to develop a comprehensive plan to address the militant problem there, and never resolved the disagreements between warring agencies that undermined efforts to fashion any coherent strategy." Richard Armitage, deputy secretary of state for President Bush's first term and the administration's point person for Pakistan, says, "We're just kind of drifting." Pakistan's policy as led by President Pervez Musharraf has also been adrift and/or ineffective: "Western military officials say Mr. Musharraf was instead often distracted by his own political problems, and effectively allowed militants to regroup by brokering peace agreements with them." The Times concludes, "Just as it had on the day before 9/11, al-Qaeda now has a band of terrorist camps from which to plan and train for attacks against Western targets, including the United States." The camps are smaller than the ones used prior to 9/11, but one retired CIA officer estimates that as many as 2,000 militants train in them at any given time, up from several hundred in 2005. "Leading terrorism experts have warned that it is only a matter of time before a major terrorist attack planned in the mountains of Pakistan is carried out on American soil." [New York Times, 6/30/2008]
Entity Tags: Al-Qaeda, Richard Armitage, Pervez Musharraf, Bush administration (43)
Category Tags: Pakistan and the ISI, Haven in Pakistan Tribal Region, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics
Milt Bearden, a retired 30-year CIA veteran who served as senior manager for clandestine operations, writes: "The [Bush] administration's claims of having 'saved thousands of Americans' can be dismissed out of hand because credible evidence has never been offered—not even an authoritative leak of any major terrorist operation interdicted based on information gathered from these interrogations in the past seven years. All the public gets is repeated references to Jose Padilla (see June 10, 2002), the Lackawanna Six (see April-August 2001), the Liberty Seven (see June 23, 2006), and the Library Tower operation in Los Angeles (see October 2001-February 2002). If those slapstick episodes are the true character of the threat, then maybe we'll be okay after all. When challenged on the lack of a game-changing example of a derailed operation, administration officials usually say that the need to protect sources and methods prevents revealing just how enhanced interrogation techniques have saved so many thousands of Americans. But it is irresponsible for any administration not to tell a credible story that would convince critics at home and abroad that this torture has served some useful purpose." Bearden suggests that the CIA might have been permanently "broken" by its use of torture, and that some US officials will likely face the threat of being arrested overseas on torture charges for years to come. [Washington Independent, 7/1/2008]
Entity Tags: Milt Bearden, Central Intelligence Agency
Polish intelligence warns India and the US that the Taliban are likely to attack the Indian embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan. The embassy will be bombed one week later, killing 54 (see July 7, 2008). The document giving the warning is entitled, "Threat Report… Threat to Indian Embassy." It is based on information received one day earlier. It states, "Taliban are planning to carry out an attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul." It goes on to describe how a suicide bomber plans to use a stolen Afghan government car and stolen uniform to get past security. The document will be publicly leaked in 2010 as part of a massive WikiLeaks release of US documents relating to the US war in Afghanistan. [Press Trust of India, 7/27/2010] It is unclear how or where Polish intelligence got this information. US intelligence apparently learns around this time that the Taliban and ISI, Pakistan's intelligence agency, are planning a spectacular bombing somewhere in Afghanistan (see Late June 2008). However, it appears that India acts on at least one of the warnings, because the Indian ambassador to Afghanistan will later say that India took extra security measures in the weeks before the bombings because "we were expecting trouble." Most importantly, sand-filled blast barriers are placed around the main embassy building. That, plus the quick action of security guards, will prevent the bomber from getting closer to the building, and thus reduce the number of lives lost. [Associated Press, 7/9/2008]
Entity Tags: Pakistan Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, Taliban, Poland
Category Tags: Pakistan and the ISI, 2008 Kabul Indian Embassy Bombing, Afghanistan, Counterterrorism Action After 9/11
A suicide bombing at the Indian embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, kills 54 people and injures 140 others. The main target appears to be a diplomatic convoy that had just entered the embassy gate, directly followed by the suicide truck. Among the dead are two senior Indian diplomats, including the military attaché, Brigadier Ravi Mehta. Many of those killed are people standing in line waiting for visas. [London Times, 8/3/2008] The Indian government received at least one warning about an attack on the embassy, and it took extra security precautions that helped reduce the loss of lives (see July 1, 2008). The Afghan interior ministry quickly asserts that the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence agency, helped the Taliban with the attack. A presidential spokesman states at a news conference, "The sophistication of this attack and the kind of material that was used in it, the specific targeting, everything has the hallmarks of a particular intelligence agency that has conducted similar terrorist acts inside Afghanistan in the past." The Afghan government has asserted that the ISI is responsible for other attacks in Afghanistan, including an attempted assassination of President Hamid Karzai in late April 2008 (see April 27, 2008). The Indian government also quickly blames the ISI and the Taliban. [Financial Times, 7/8/2008; Taipei Times, 7/9/2008] The Taliban deny involvement in the attack, but the New York Times notes that the Taliban usually deny involvement in attacks with a large number of civilian casualties. [New York Times, 7/8/2008] Less than a month later, US intelligence will accuse the ISI of helping a Taliban-linked militant network led by Jalaluddin Haqqani to plan the bombing (see August 1, 2008). President Bush will even directly threaten Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani with serious consequences if another attack is linked to the ISI (see July 28, 2008).
Entity Tags: Ravi Mehta, Jalaluddin Haqqani, Haqqani Network, Taliban, Afghanistan, India, Pakistan Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence
Category Tags: Pakistan and the ISI, 2008 Kabul Indian Embassy Bombing, Afghanistan
Tehrik-i-Taliban, a group of Pakistani militants linked to the Taliban, declares the imposition of Sharia law (strict Islamic judicial code) in the Mohmand tribal area in Pakistan. Islamic courts have been established in the four regions of Mohmand, and the group has established similar courts already in the adjacent region of Bajaur. [Dawn (Karachi), 7/15/2008]
Entity Tags: Tehrik-i-Taliban
Category Tags: Haven in Pakistan Tribal Region
Aafia Siddique in Afghan custody on July 17, 2008. [Source: Associated Press]Aafia Siddiqui, a female Pakistani neuroscientist and alleged al-Qaeda operative, is arrested by Afghan police in the town of Ghazni, Afghanistan. Police reportedly also find bomb-making instructions, substances in bottles and jars, and papers describing US landmarks. There are conflicting accounts about what happens next: US Government's Version - The next day, a group of US agents come to visit her, but she is being held unsecured in a room, hiding behind a curtain. One of the US agents puts his rifle down. She allegedly picks up the rifle to shoot at the group. She shoots twice and misses, while a US agent shoots back and hits her at least once. [CNN, 8/4/2008; Reuters, 8/5/2008] Afghan Police Version - According to Reuters, "Afghan police in Ghazni however, [tell] a different story." They claim that they find Siddiqui in Ghazni after reports of her behaving suspiciously. They find maps of the town, including one of the governor's house, and arrest her and a teenage boy. US troops then request that she be handed over to them, but Afghan police refuse, according to a senior police officer there. US soldiers then disarm the Afghan police at which point Siddiqui approaches the US soldiers complaining of mistreatment by the police. The US soldiers, under the impression that she could have explosives and would attack them as a suicide bomber, shoot her and take her away. The boy remains in Afghan police custody. [Reuters, 8/5/2008] She is extradited to the US a couple of weeks later, where she is due to stand trial for attempting to murder the US agents. Siddiqui had lived and studied in the US for many years. She was in Pakistan in March 2003 when it was announced that 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed had been arrested. She disappeared several days later (see Late September 2001-March 2003). The FBI issued an alert for her arrest, alleging that she had been an al-Qaeda sleeper agent in the US. There has been speculation that she had been secretly arrested by the US or Pakistan, and what happened to her since 2003 still remains a mystery. [CNN, 8/4/2008]
Entity Tags: Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Aafia Siddiqui
Category Tags: Afghanistan, Key Captures and Deaths
Ahmed al-Mashjari (right) with unidentified associate, in propaganda video. [Source: Public domain]A suicide bomber named Ahmed al-Mashjari crashes a van full of explosives into a government security headquarters in the eastern province of Hadramaut in Yemen. Four are killed, including a Yemeni soldier. The al-Qaeda affiliate Soldiers of Yemen Brigades takes credit for the bombing, calling al-Mashjari a "heroic martyr." The Yemeni government is said to have a tacit agreement whereby al-Qaeda operatives are left alone and in return they do not attack targets within Yemen. But Nadia al-Sakkaf, editor of the Yemen Times, says: "There was a deal [with the jihadis] but it's not working any more. Now there are just fanatics who want to be hired by al-Qaeda, people who have come back from Iraq or Afghanistan and have no skills, who are not integrated into society and have no education. They are brainwashed. Jihad is all they know." [Yemen News Agency, 7/27/2008; Guardian, 7/30/2008]
Entity Tags: Al-Qaeda, Ahmed al-Mashjari
Category Tags: Yemeni Militant Collusion, Alleged Al-Qaeda Linked Attacks
Yousaf Raza Gillani. [Source: Public Domain]Pakistan's prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gillani, visits the US and meets with President George Bush in Washington, D.C. Bush privately confronts Gillani with evidence that the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence agency, has been helping the Taliban and al-Qaeda. US intelligence has long suspected that Pakistan has been playing a "double game," accepting over a billion dollars of US aid per year meant to help finance Pakistan's fight with Islamic militants, but at the same time training and funding those militants, who often go on to fight US soldiers in Afghanistan. The London Times reports that Gillani "was left in no doubt that the Bush administration had lost patience with the ISI's alleged double game." Bush allegedly warned that if one more attack in Afghanistan or elsewhere were traced back to Pakistan, the US would take "serious action." The key evidence is that US intelligence claims to have intercepted communications showing that the ISI helped plan a militant attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, earlier in the month (see July 7, 2008). US officials will leak this story of ISI involvement to the New York Times several days after Bush's meeting with Gillani (see August 1, 2008). Gillani also meets with CIA Director Michael Hayden, who confronts him with a dossier on ISI support for the Taliban. Pakistanis officials will claim they were shocked at the "grilling" they received. One Pakistani official who came to the US with Gillani will say, "They were very hot on the ISI. Very hot. When we asked them for more information, Bush laughed and said, 'When we share information with your guys, the bad guys always run away'." When the story of Bush's confrontation with Gillani is leaked to the press, Pakistani officials categorically deny any link between the ISI and militants in Afghanistan. But senior British intelligence and government officials have also told the Pakistanis in recent days that they are convinced the ISI was involved in the embassy bombing. This is believed to be the first time the US has openly confronted Pakistan since a warning given several days after 9/11 (see September 13-15, 2001). The US is said to be particularly concerned with the ISI's links to Jalaluddin Haqqani, who runs a militant network that the US believes was involved in the bombing. And the US is worries about links between the ISI and Lashkar-e-Toiba, a Pakistan-based militant group that is said to have been behind a recent attack against US forces in Afghanistan that killed nine. [London Times, 8/3/2008]
Entity Tags: Yousaf Raza Gillani, Jalaluddin Haqqani, Al-Qaeda, George W. Bush, US intelligence, Lashkar-e-Toiba, Pakistan Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, Taliban, Michael Hayden
Category Tags: Pakistan and the ISI, Haven in Pakistan Tribal Region, 2008 Kabul Indian Embassy Bombing, Afghanistan, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics
A US drone strike kills al-Qaeda leader Midhat Mursi (a.k.a. Abu Khabab al-Masri). He is one of six people killed in the strike on a compound in South Waziristan, in Pakistan's tribal region. Mursi, an Egyptian, was considered a poisons and explosives expert, and was accused of training the suicide bombers in the 2000 USS Cole bombing. He also is believed to have run the Darunta training camp in eastern Afghanistan until it was abandoned during the US invasion in late 2001. The US had put a $5 million bounty on him. A statement by al-Qaeda leader Mustafa Abu al-Yazid posted on the Internet about a week later will confirm his death. [Associated Press, 8/3/2008]
Entity Tags: Al-Qaeda, US Military, Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, Midhat Mursi
Category Tags: Key Captures and Deaths, Haven in Pakistan Tribal Region, Drone Use in Pakistan / Afghanistan
The New York Times reports that US intelligence agencies have concluded that the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence agency, helped plan the July 7, 2008, bombing of India's embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan. The attack was initially blamed on al-Qaeda-linked Islamist militants, and 54 people were killed (see July 7, 2008). It is said US intelligence intercepted communications between ISI officers and militants who took part in the attack. The communications were intercepted before the bombing, but apparently were not specific enough to stop the attack. Anonymous US officials would not specifically tell the Times what kind of assistance the ISI gave the bombers. However, it was noted that the ISI officers involved were not renegades, suggesting their actions could have been authorized by superiors. [New York Times, 8/1/2008] The US also claims to have arrested an ISI officer inside Afghanistan, apparently for a role in the attack, but who this person is and what their role exactly allegedly was remains unclear. India and Pakistan have been traditional enemies, and Pakistan is concerned about India's influence in Afghanistan. Many Western intelligence officials have long suspected that the ISI gets aid from the US and its allies and then uses this support to help the militants the US is fighting. However, solid proof has been hard to find. However, one British official tells the London Times, "The Indian embassy bombing seems to have finally provided it. This is the smoking gun we've all been looking for." [London Times, 8/3/2008] One State Department official similarly says of the bombing evidence, "It confirmed some suspicions that I think were widely held. It was sort of this 'a-ha' moment. There was a sense that there was finally direct proof." US officials believe that the embassy bombing was probably carried out by members of a network led by Jalaluddin Haqqani, who in turn has close alliances with al-Qaeda and the Taliban. US officials also say there is new evidence that ISI officials are increasingly providing militants with details about the US military campaign against them. In some cases, this has allowed militants to avoid US missile strikes in Pakistan. [New York Times, 8/1/2008] Several days before these accusations against the ISI were leaked to the press, British and US officials privately confronted Pakistani officials about the charges. President Bush even directly threatened Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani with serious consequences if another attack were linked to the ISI (see July 28, 2008).
Entity Tags: Jalaluddin Haqqani, US Department of State, US intelligence, Pakistan Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence
Category Tags: Pakistan and the ISI, Afghanistan, 2008 Kabul Indian Embassy Bombing, Pakistani ISI Links to 9/11
Sherry Rehman, Pakistan's information minister, admits to journalists that the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence agency, still contains pro-Taliban operatives. She says, "We need to identify these people and weed them out." However, she later changes her statement, claiming that the problems were in the past and there will be no purge. [London Times, 8/3/2008] Her comment comes right as US intelligence accuses the ISI of involvement in a recent bombing of the Indian embassy in Afghanistan (see July 7, 2008 and August 1, 2008).
Entity Tags: Pakistan Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, Sherry Rehman, Taliban
Category Tags: Pakistan and the ISI, Afghanistan, 2008 Kabul Indian Embassy Bombing
Pages from two passports seized in the raid. Both show pictures of Fazul but have different names. [Source: East African Standard]An al-Qaeda leader named Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, (a.k.a. Haroun Fazul), narrowly escapes capture in Kenya. The US government claims that Fazul had important roles in the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania (see 10:35-10:39 a.m., August 7, 1998) and the 2002 hotel bombing in Mombasa, Kenya (see November 28, 2002). Fazul was indicted for the embassy bombings before 9/11, and there is a $5 million reward for him. On August 2, 2008, Kenyan police raid a house in Malindi, a town on Kenya's coast. Two passports bearing Fazul's picture but different names are found, as well as his laptop computer. A Kenyan newspaper reports that a local police officer may have tipped off Fazul about the raid minutes before it took place. A half-eaten meal is discovered in the house, and the television is still on, leading police to believe that he ran out of the house just before they arrived. Three Kenyans are arrested and charged with helping to hide him. He reportedly narrowly escaped a US air strike in Somalia in 2007 (see December 24, 2006-January 2007), as well as a police raid in Kenya in 2003. [CNN, 8/4/2008; East African Standard, 8/5/2008] He will be killed in Somalia in 2011 (see June 10, 2011).
Entity Tags: Fazul Abdullah Mohammed
Category Tags: 1998 US Embassy Bombings, Counterterrorism Action After 9/11
Explosives on a chip [Source: Gary Meek/Georgia Institute of Technology]According to an article published in The Environmentalist, a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Springer Netherlands, air quality data collected by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) at Ground Zero support the hypothesis that cutting charges made with thermite were used to demolish the World Trade Center. The article by authors (and 9/11 truth activists) Kevin Ryan, James Gourley, and Steven Jones says the presence of thermite would best explain three major documented anomalies: [Ryan, Gourley, and Jones, 8/4/2008] 1) The Persistence of Fires at Ground Zero - As has been extensively reported, the rubble at Ground Zero continued to burn for months after 9/11, despite rain as well as firefighters' use of large quantities of water and of the chemical fire suppressant Pyrocool. [New York Times, 11/19/2001] There is also eyewitness and photographic evidence of molten metal (see September 12, 2001-February 2002) and of explosions accompanied by white dust clouds. The book Aftermath: World Trade Center Archive by photographer Joel Meyerowitz shows a picture of such an explosion taking place on November 8, 2001. [Meyerowitz, 2006, pp. 178] Another photography books by NYPD officer John Botte also shows a picture of smoke emerging from the pile at Ground Zero and explains: "Occasionally, a huge flame would shoot out from the middle of the pile, sounding like a blow torch, as it did here." [Botte, 2006, pp. 48-49] 2) Spikes of Certain Chemicals in the Air - EPA data shows that several spikes of chemical products of combustion, called volatile organic chemicals (VOC), occurred in October and November 2001, and in February 2002. According to the authors, these spikes indicate "abrupt, violent fires." 3) The Presence of 1,3-Diphenylpropane - A third anomaly was the presence of large quantities of 1,3-diphenylpropane (1,3-DPP) in the air, a chemical that had not been found in previous structure fires. An EPA scientist told Newsday, "We've never observed it in any sampling we've ever done." [Newsday, 9/14/2003] A possible explanation would be the presence of novel "energetic nanocomposites" which include 1,3-DPP, according to scientific articles reviewed by Ryan et al. Such materials are "amenable to spray-on applications." A 2002 report said: "The energetic coating dries to give a nice adherent film. Preliminary experiments indicate that films of the hybrid material are self-propagating when ignited by thermal stimulus." [Ryan, Gourley, and Jones, 8/4/2008] The main center for nanocomposites research is Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). An October 2000 article in a LLNL publication provided an introduction to the research conducted there: "Energetic nanocomposites have a fuel component and an oxidizer component mixed together. […] In one such material (termed a thermite pyrotechnic), iron oxide gel reacts with metallic aluminum particles to release an enormous amount of heat. 'These reactions typically produce temperatures in excess of 3,500 degrees Celsius' says [LLNL researcher Randy] Simpson." [Science & Technology Review, 10/2000] The authors conclude that "[t]he presence of energetic materials, specifically energetic nanocomposites, at [Ground Zero], has the potential to explain much of the unusual environmental data seen at the WTC. Thermite […] is such a pyrotechnic mixture that cannot be easily extinguished and is a common component of energetic nanocomposites.… [T]he detection of 1,3-DPP at the WTC supports this hypothesis. Finally, the spikes in VOCs, detected by EPA on specific dates, are more readily explained as a result of short-lived, violent fires caused by energetic materials." [Ryan, Gourley, and Jones, 8/4/2008]
Entity Tags: Steven E. Jones, James R. Gourley, Environmental Protection Agency, Kevin Ryan
Al-Qaeda second in command Ayman al-Zawahiri releases a new audio tape about Pakistan on which he speaks English. This is the first recording he has released in English, a language al-Zawahiri says he chose because he wants to speak directly to the Pakistani people, but cannot speak Urdu, the predominant language there. The message, produced by al-Qaeda's media arm As-Sahab, is aired by the ARY One World news network, but is apparently not made available anywhere else on the Internet. On the tape, al-Zawahiri lists a series of grievances he has against the Pakistani government and US involvement there, as well as relating his own personal experiences living in Pakistan. [ABC News, 8/10/2008]
Entity Tags: Al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf announces his resignation. Opposition to Musharraf's rule had been slowly growing, especially since he declared a state of emergency in late 2007 to remain in power (see November 3-December 15, 2007) following a controversial reelection (see October 6, 2007). In early 2008, opposition parties united and won parliamentary elections (see February 18, 2008). The opposition then chose Yousaf Raza Gillani as the new prime minister, and Gillani took away much of Musharraf's power (see March 22-25, 2008). The opposition parties united again to start impeachment hearings against Musharraf for his state of emergency and other claimed abuses of power. His resignation speech came hours after the opposition finalized its charges against him and prepared to launch an impeachment trial. Musharraf claims he could have defeated the charges, but he wanted to spare the country the conflict caused by the trial. Gillani remains prime minister, and the Speaker of the Pakistani Senate, Muhammad Mian Sumroo, automatically takes over as caretaker president. [BBC, 8/18/2008]
Entity Tags: Muhammad Mian Sumroo, Yousaf Raza Gillani, Pervez Musharraf
Timeline Tags: US International Relations, War in Afghanistan
The US dramatically increases the number of CIA drone attacks on Islamist militant targets in Pakistan, and no longer relies on permission from the Pakistani government before striking. Bush administration officials had been increasingly concerned about al-Qaeda's resurgence in Pakistan's tribal region. A 2006 peace deal between Islamist militants and the Pakistani government gave al-Qaeda and other militant groups a chance to recover from earlier pressures (see September 5, 2006). However, the Bush administration had close ties with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, who did not want more aggressive US action. But Musharraf resigns on August 18, 2008 (see August 18, 2008), and within days, President Bush signs a secret new policy. More Drone Strikes - From August 31, 2008, until late March 2009, the CIA carries out at least 38 drone strikes in Pakistan's tribal region. By contrast there were only 10 known drone strikes in 2006 and 2007 combined. There were three strikes in 2006, seven strikes in 2007, and 36 in 2008 (all but seven of those took place after Musharraf resigned in August). Drone capabilities and intelligence collection has improved, but the change mainly has to do with politics. A former CIA official who oversaw Predator drone operations in Pakistan will later say: "We had the data all along. Finally we took off the gloves." Permission No Longer Needed - Additionally, the US no longer requires the Pakistani government's permission before ordering a drone strike. US officials had suspected that many of their targets were tipped off by the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence agency. Now this is no longer a concern. Getting permission from Pakistan could take a day or more. Sometimes this caused the CIA to lose track of its target (see for instance 2006). [Los Angeles Times, 3/22/2009]
Entity Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, Al-Qaeda, Bush administration (43), Pakistan Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, Pervez Musharraf, George W. Bush
Category Tags: Pakistan and the ISI, Haven in Pakistan Tribal Region, Hunt for Bin Laden in Pakistan, Drone Use in Pakistan / Afghanistan
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) publicly rejects the theory that diesel fuel tanks installed in World Trade Center Building 7 played any role in the 47-story tower's collapse, late in the afternoon of 9/11. This is clearly set out in a question-and-answer factsheet published on this day, together with an announcement of NIST's draft report on the building's collapse (see August 21, 2008 and August 21, 2008). The factsheet asks, "Did fuel oil systems in WTC 7 contribute to its collapse?" The answer is "No…. The worst-case scenarios associated with fires… could not have been sustained long enough, could not have generated sufficient heat to weaken critical interior columns, and/or would have produced large amounts of visible smoke from the lower floors, which were not observed." [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/21/2008; New York Times, 8/21/2008] These findings are echoed in the draft version of its final report on the collapse. [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/2008, pp. xxxii ] WTC 7 had three emergency power systems, all of which ran on diesel fuel. The systems contained two 12,000 gallon fuel tanks and two 6,000 gallon tanks located beneath the building's loading docks, and another 6,000 gallon tank on its first floor. There were also 275 gallon tanks on the fifth, seventh, and eighth floors, and a 50 gallon tank on the ninth floor. [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/21/2008] It has previously been suggested that diesel stored in these tanks might have contributed to fires that led to WTC 7's collapse (see March 2, 2002). [New York Times, 3/2/2002] This possibility was proposed in the final report of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) investigation of the WTC collapses, published in May 2002 (see May 1, 2002). [Federal Emergency Management Agency, 5/1/2002, pp. 5-28 - 5-29] But in his summary of the findings of NIST's three-year study of WTC 7, lead investigator Shyam Sunder says the building's collapse was "not due to fires from the substantial amount of diesel fuel stored in the building." [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/21/2008]
Entity Tags: World Trade Center, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Shyam Sunder
NIST lead investigator Shyam Sunder answering questions about NIST's three-year study of the collapse of WTC 7. [Source: Don Berkemeyer / National Institute of Standards and Technology]The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) announces the findings of its study of the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7, and says the 47-story tower fell late in the afternoon of 9/11 primarily due to fires. [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/21/2008; National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/21/2008] NIST releases its findings as part of a 915-page report, which is the result of three years' work by over 50 federal investigators and a dozen contractors (see August 21, 2008). [New York Times, 8/21/2008] Collapse Is 'No Longer a Mystery' - In a news conference at NIST's headquarters in Gaithersburg, Maryland, lead investigator Shyam Sunder admits: "[W]e knew from the beginning of our study that understanding what happened to Building 7 on 9/11 would be difficult. It did not fit any textbook description that you could readily point to and say, yes, that's why the building failed." But, he says, "[T]he reason for the collapse of World Trade Center 7 is no longer a mystery." [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/21/2008; New York Times, 8/21/2008] 'New Phenomenon' Caused Collapse - Sunder says the "critical factor" that initiated the collapse was "thermal expansion of long-span floor systems located in the east side of the building," and adds that NIST's study "has identified thermal expansion as a new phenomenon that can cause structural collapse. For the first time we have shown that fire can induce a progressive collapse." Collapse Sequence - Sunder describes the sequence of events NIST believes led to the collapse of WTC 7. He says debris from the collapse of the north WTC tower "started fires on at least 10 floors of the building. The fires burned out of control on six of these 10 floors for about seven hours. The city water main had been cut by the collapse of the two WTC towers, so the sprinklers in Building 7 did not function for much of the bottom half of the building." He continues: "Fires on floors 7 through 9 and 11 through 13 were particularly severe.… Eventually, a girder on floor 13 lost its connection to a critical interior column." Floor 13 collapsed, beginning a cascade of floor failures down to the fifth floor. "With the support of these floors gone, column 79 buckled, which initiated the fire-induced progressive collapse of the building.… This in turn caused the failure of nearby columns 80 and 81 and floor failures up to the roof line.… As the roof line begins to fall adjacent columns buckle as well. In quick succession, the remaining interior columns failed from east to west across WTC 7, until the entire core began moving downward. Finally, the remaining outer shell or façade of the building fell." NIST Created 'Virtual WTC 7' Model - Sunder says that NIST reached its conclusions about the collapse "by reconstructing the entire building, beam by beam, column by column, connection by connection into a computer model, a virtual WTC 7 building. We then filled that virtual building with as much detail as possible about exactly what types of furnishings were on each floor. Then we set fire to those virtual offices on the floors where video and other visual evidence told us the fires burned." The investigators "used a well-validated computer program developed at NIST, for studying the growth and spread of fires, to calculate temperatures throughout the building.… And we used well-established data on the properties of structural steel, the sprayed fire resistive material or fireproofing, and other building materials to determine how those temperatures affected the structure." Explosives Not Used - Sunder says that the investigators "did not find any evidence that explosives were used to bring the building down" (see August 21, 2008), nor was the collapse "due to fires from the substantial amount of diesel fuel stored in the building" (see August 21, 2008). NIST commenced its investigation of the WTC collapses in 2002 (see August 21, 2002) and issued its findings on the collapses of the Twin Towers in October 2005 (see October 26, 2005). Since then it has been focused on WTC 7. [Government Computer News, 8/21/2008; National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/21/2008] Final Report to Be Released - After suggestions are made by members of the public in response to its current report, NIST will release a finished version of the same report in November 2008, thereby completing its WTC investigation (see November 20, 2008). [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 11/20/2008]
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) releases a draft version of the final report of its investigation of the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7, the 47-story skyscraper which collapsed late in the afternoon of 9/11 (see (5:20 p.m.) September 11, 2001). [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/21/2008] The report describes NIST's conclusions on how fires that followed the impact of debris from the north WTC tower's collapse resulted in the eventual collapse of WTC 7. It evaluates the emergency response and building evacuation procedures, and provides 13 recommendations for construction of buildings in the future, and improved procedures and practices. [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/2008, pp. xiii ] Some of the report's key findings are: NIST describes its theory of what caused WTC 7 to collapse: "The probable collapse sequence… was initiated by the buckling of a critical interior column.… This column had become unsupported over nine stories after initial local fire-induced damage led to a cascade of local floor failures. The buckling of this column led to a vertical progression of floor failures up to the roof and to the buckling of adjacent interior columns to the south of the critical column. An east-to-west horizontal progression of interior column buckling followed, due to loss of lateral support to adjacent columns, forces exerted by falling debris, and load redistribution from other buckled columns. The exterior columns then buckled as the failed building core moved downward, redistributing its loads to the exterior columns. Global collapse occurred as the entire building above the buckled region moved downward as a single unit." [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/2008, pp. xxxii ] The collapse of WTC 7 "represents the first known instance of the total collapse of a tall building primarily due to fires. The collapse could not have been prevented without controlling the fires before most of the combustible building contents were consumed." [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/2008, pp. 43 ] The fires in WTC 7 "were ignited as a result of the impact of debris from the collapse of WTC 1, which was approximately 370 ft to the south.… The fires were ignited on at least 10 floors; however, only the fires on floors 7 through 9 and 11 through 13 grew and lasted until the time of the building collapse." [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/2008, pp. xxxi-xxxii ] "Even without the initial structural damage caused by debris impact from the collapse of WTC 1, WTC 7 would have collapsed from fires having the same characteristics as those experienced on September 11, 2001." [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/2008, pp. 44 ] "Had a water supply for the automatic sprinkler system been available and had the sprinkler system operated as designed, it is likely that fires in WTC 7 would have been controlled and the collapse prevented." [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/2008, pp. 43 ] Other skyscrapers had previously survived comparable fires. "The fires in WTC 7 were similar to those that have occurred previously in several tall buildings (One New York Plaza, 1970, First Interstate Bank, 1988, and One Meridian Plaza, 1991) where the automatic sprinklers did not function or were not present. However, because of differences between their structural designs and that of WTC 7, these three buildings did not collapse." [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/2008, pp. 43 ] NIST found that "temperatures did not exceed 300°C in the core or perimeter columns in WTC 7," including the three interior columns that NIST says were the first to buckle in the collapse. "None of these columns were significantly weakened by elevated temperatures." [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/2008, pp. 49-50 ] NIST says it found "no evidence to suggest that WTC 7 was not designed in a manner generally consistent with applicable building codes and standards." [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/2008, pp. 53 ] The report concludes that neither explosives nor fuel oil fires fed by diesel tanks in WTC 7 played any role in the collapse (see August 21, 2008 and August 21, 2008). [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/2008, pp. 44-45 ] However, the report points out that WTC 7 "and the records kept within it were destroyed, and the remains of all the WTC buildings were disposed of before congressional action and funding was available for this investigation to begin. As a result, there are some facts that could not be discerned, and thus there are uncertainties in this accounting. Nonetheless, NIST was able to gather sufficient evidence and documentation to conduct a full investigation upon which to reach firm findings and recommendations." [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/2008, pp. xxxi ] NIST released a progress report in June 2004, which had included its "working hypothesis" at that time for the collapse of WTC 7 (see June 18, 2004). [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 6/18/2004] After suggestions are made by members of the public in response to the current draft report, NIST will release the finished version of the report in November 2008, which includes the same major findings and recommendations as the draft version (see November 20, 2008). [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 11/20/2008]
Entity Tags: World Trade Center, National Institute of Standards and Technology
After the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) announces the results of its investigation into the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7, some critics dispute its explanation for the collapse and question its apparent debunking of claims that explosives were used to demolish the building. The 47-story tower collapsed late in the afternoon of 9/11, even though no plane hit it (see (5:20 p.m.) September 11, 2001). Some have argued that fire and the falling debris from the Twin Towers' collapses should not have brought down such a large steel and concrete structure. [Associated Press, 8/21/2008] NIST Lacks 'the Expertise on Explosives' - James Quintiere, a professor of fire protection engineering at the University of Maryland who previously worked as the chief of NIST's fire science and engineering division, says that NIST does not "have the expertise on explosives, so I don't know how they came to that conclusion," that explosives did not cause the collapse. However, Quintiere says he never personally believed explosives were involved. [Los Angeles Times, 8/22/2008] Richard Gage, a California architect and leader of a group called Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, complains, "How much longer do we have to endure the cover-up of how Building 7 was destroyed?" The New York Times points out that "the collapse of 7 World Trade Center—home at the time to branch offices of the Central Intelligence Agency, the Secret Service, and the Giuliani administration's emergency operations center—is cited in hundreds of Web sites and books as perhaps the most compelling evidence that an insider secretly planted explosives, intentionally destroying the tower." [New York Times, 8/21/2008] NIST Presentation - At a presentation of its findings earlier in the day, NIST announced that, in its three-year study of the collapse, it found no evidence showing explosives were used to bring the building down. [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/21/2008; National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/21/2008] During his summary of the findings of NIST's WTC 7 investigation (see August 21, 2008), lead investigator Shyam Sunder said, "We did not find any evidence that explosives were used to bring the building down." [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/21/2008] 'No Witness Reports' of Loud Explosions - In the draft version of its final report on the collapse, which is released on this day (see August 21, 2008), NIST explains: "Blast from the smallest charge capable of failing a critical column… would have resulted in a sound level of 130 dB to 140 dB at a distance of at least half a mile if unobstructed by surrounding buildings.… This sound level is consistent with standing next to a jet plane engine and more than ten times louder than being in front of the speakers at a rock concert. There were no witness reports of such a loud noise, nor was such a noise heard on the audio tracks of video recordings of the WTC 7 collapse." [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/2008, pp. 44-45 ] NIST Rules out Thermite - Skeptics have argued that an incendiary material called thermite was used to bring down WTC 7 (see August 4, 2008), and this would not necessarily have created such a loud explosive boom. [New York Times, 8/21/2008] But in a fact sheet published on this day, NIST responds: "To apply thermite to a large steel column, approximately 0.13 lb of thermite would be needed to heat and melt each pound of steel. For a steel column that weighs approximately 1,000 lbs. per foot, at least 100 lbs. of thermite would need to be placed around the column, ignited, and remain in contact with the vertical steel surface as the thermite reaction took place. This is for one column… presumably, more than one column would have been prepared with thermite, if this approach were to be used. It is unlikely that 100 lbs. of thermite, or more, could have been carried into WTC 7 and placed around columns without being detected, either prior to Sept. 11 or during that day." [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/21/2008] Sunder says that investigators therefore decided not to use their computer model to evaluate whether a thermite-fueled fire might have brought down WTC 7. Pointing to the omission, one skeptic says, "It is very difficult to find what you are not looking for." [New York Times, 8/21/2008] In a 2006 fact sheet, NIST in fact admitted it "did not test for the residue" of explosives or thermite in the remaining structural steel from the WTC collapses (see August 30, 2006). [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/30/2006] And, as the New York Times notes, "Adding to the suspicion is the fact that in the rush to clean up the site, almost all of the steel remains of the tower were disposed of, leaving investigators in later years with little forensic evidence" (see Shortly After September 11, 2001 and September 12-October 2001). [New York Times, 8/21/2008] Extensive Preparations for Demolition - NIST's new fact sheet also points out: "For [WTC 7] to have been prepared for intentional demolition, walls and/or column enclosures and fireproofing would have to be removed and replaced without being detected. Preparing a column includes steps such as cutting sections with torches, which produces noxious and odorous fumes. Intentional demolition usually requires applying explosive charges to most, if not all, interior columns, not just one or a limited set of columns in a building." [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/21/2008]
Entity Tags: Richard Gage, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Shyam Sunder, World Trade Center, James Quintiere
US Ambassador to Pakistan Anne W. Patterson sends a diplomatic cable back to the US reporting on recent discussions she had with Pakistani leaders. In the cable, she discusses a meeting with Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani. The issue of when the next US drone strike in Pakistan's tribal region would be politically feasible came up. According to the cable, Gillani said: "I don't care if they do it as long as they get the right people. We'll protest in the National Assembly and then ignore it." The cable will later be released by the whistleblower website WikiLeaks. [Christian Science Monitor, 12/1/2010; Dawn (Karachi), 12/2/2010]
Entity Tags: Yousaf Raza Gillani, Anne W. Patterson
Category Tags: Pakistan and the ISI, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics
In his last full year in office, President Bush announces that he is again renewing the national emergency he proclaimed in response to the 9/11 attacks (see September 14, 2001). Bush issues a notice that states: "Because the terrorist threat continues, the national emergency declared on September 14, 2001, and the powers and authorities adopted to deal with that emergency, must continue in effect beyond September 14, 2008. Therefore, I am continuing in effect for an additional year the national emergency I declared on September 14, 2001, with respect to the terrorist threat." [White House, 8/28/2008] The national emergency has been renewed on a yearly basis since 2001. [US President, 9/16/2002; White House, 9/10/2004; White House, 9/8/2005; White House, 9/5/2006; White House, 9/12/2007]
Entity Tags: George W. Bush
Category Tags: Counterterrorism Policy/Politics, Internal US Security After 9/11
As the Democratic Party's nominee for US president, Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) is given his first classified intelligence briefing. The briefing includes information on the hunt for Osama bin Laden. An unnamed senior official will later say that Obama already is under the impression that bin Laden has to be hiding in Pakistan, and the briefing solidifies that view. The official says, "What I remember in terms of the aftermath of that briefing and into the transition was just how much the focus became on Pakistan." [Reuters, 5/12/2011]
Entity Tags: Osama bin Laden, US intelligence, Barack Obama
Timeline Tags: War in Afghanistan, 2008 Elections
Category Tags: Hunt for Bin Laden in Pakistan
From September to December 2008, a team of US Special Forces trainers is based in Abbottabad, Pakistan, ironically less than one mile from the compound Osama bin Laden is hiding in at the time. The trainers are in Abbottabad as part of an unpublicized mission to train Pakistani Frontier Corps forces. The training takes place in Kakul Military Academy, Pakistan's equivalent of the US's famous West Point military academy. The training is later moved to Warsak, Pakistan. [Radio Free Europe, 5/6/2011; Washington Post, 5/11/2011]
Entity Tags: Osama bin Laden, US Special Forces, Kakul Military Academy
Jalaluddin Haqqani. [Source: New York Times]A US drone attack targets the Haqqani network in the tribal region of Pakistan. Pakistani officials will say that five missiles kill 23 people and wound 18 more. The missiles hit a compound in North Waziristan run by Sirajuddin Haqqani, the son of Jalaluddin Haqqani. It appears they are targeted, since family members arrived at the compound just a half hour before. However, neither Haqqani network leader is killed. Officials say one of Jalaluddin Haqqani's two wives, his sister, sister-in-law, and eight of his grandchildren are killed. The Haqqani network is considered a semi-autonomous part of the Taliban. The US believes the Haqqani network has been involved in recent attacks in Afghanistan, including the bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul (see July 7, 2008) and a failed assassination attempt against Afghan President Hamid Karzai (see April 27, 2008). The Haqqani network is widely believed to be closely linked to the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence agency. [New York Times, 9/10/2008]
Entity Tags: Jalaluddin Haqqani, US Military, Sirajuddin Haqqani, Pakistan Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, Haqqani Network
Category Tags: Haven in Pakistan Tribal Region, 2008 Kabul Indian Embassy Bombing, Afghanistan, Drone Use in Pakistan / Afghanistan, Counterterrorism Action After 9/11
Al-Qaeda second in command Ayman al-Zawahiri releases a video accusing Iran of collaborating with the United States. Excerpts of the video are played on the Qatar-based pan-Arabic TV channel Al Jazeera, but apparently not posted to the websites usually used for disseminating such videos. Al-Zawahiri says Tehran is "cooperating with the Americans in occupying Iraq and Afghanistan," and denounces the Iranians for recognizing the two governments. "Not even one Shiite authority—whether in Iraq or elsewhere—has issued a fatwa [religious edict] obligating jihad and taking up of arms against the American crusader invaders in Iraq and Afghanistan," he adds. The video also features clips of al-Qaeda operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia. [Los Angeles Times, 9/9/2008]
Entity Tags: Al Jazeera, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al-Qaeda
Giulietto Chiesa, a prominent Italian journalist who is also a member of the European Parliament, calls for an international tribunal to probe the events of 9/11. Chiesa makes his appeal in Berlin where he is to show his documentary Zero: An Investigation of 9/11, which argues that the US government's account cannot be true. He says: "If feelings were strong enough a positive result could be obtained, but it would not happen immediately. So far it's been the US administration that has won the information fight and obtained their result—unfortunately. Our task is to inform millions of people of the true situation. Everybody should be involved in this struggle with a tribunal or commission helping once we win approval for the idea." Chiesa was a correspondent in Moscow for many years (see June 16, 1999). He announces that his film will be shown on Russian television (see September 12, 2008). [Deutsche Presse-Agentur (Hamburg), 9/8/2008]
Entity Tags: Giulietto Chiesa
'Iron atoms in steel: Black balls show irregularities that disrupt magnetic fields, weakening steel.' [Source: BBC]Sergei Dudarev, a scientist with Britain's Atomic Energy Agency, says that newly-discovered properties of steel could explain why the World Trade Center towers collapsed. Dr. Dudarev researches steel that can withstand the extreme temperatures inside a nuclear fusion reactor. He says that at about 500° Celsius, a temperature often reached in building fires, tiny irregularities in the structure of steel can cause a softening of the metal, although that is still far below the melting point. Dudarev says: "The steel didn't melt, it just became soft. It is an unusual state and the temperatures in the Twin Towers were high enough to cause it because the thermal insulation was knocked off the girders through the impact with the aircraft." [Guardian, 9/9/2008; BBC News, 9/10/2008; Independent, 9/10/2008; ABC Radio National (Australia), 9/20/2008]
Entity Tags: Sergei Dudarev
Asif Ali Zardari, the husband of assassinated former leader Benazir Bhutto, becomes president of Pakistan. Pervez Musharraf resigned as president the previous month after growing pressure suggested he could be impeached (see August 18, 2008). A three-week election campaign quickly followed, and Zardari easily won the election (an electoral college vote, not a general election). Zardari's elections completes Pakistan's return to civilian rule after Musharraf seized power in a military coup nine years earlier. [Guardian, 9/9/2008] "Mr. Ten Percent" - Zardari has a troubled history of numerous corruption allegations. His popular nickname, "Mr. Ten Percent," refers to the widespread belief in Pakistan that he took a cut from many business deals when his wife Bhutto was prime minister of Pakistan twice in the 1990s. He spent 11 years in prison on corruption charges, although he was never actually convicted of a crime. Bhutto seemed poised for a return to power, but when she was assassinated in late 2007, Zardari essentially took her place as head of her political party, the Pakistan People's Party (PPP). Supporters say he has matured during his years in prison. [Wall Street Journal, 9/5/2008]
Entity Tags: Pakistan People's Party, Benazir Bhutto, Pervez Musharraf, Asif Ali Zardari
Category Tags: Pakistan and the ISI, Haven in Pakistan Tribal Region
Mahdi Dakhlallah, a former Syrian minister of information, writes in the newspaper Teshreen that the US may have orchestrated the 9/11 attacks to justify the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. "These plans were ready and prepared [in advance]—and all that was needed was to find a pretext to begin their immediate implementation.… No one believes that it was possible to invade Afghanistan and Iraq in the same way and so fast had it not been for the 9/11 attacks. That's how it always is: the end justifies the means." [Jerusalem Post, 9/11/2008; Middle East Media Research Institute, 9/11/2008]
Entity Tags: Mahdi Dakhlallah
Russia's Channel One broadcasts Zero: An Investigation into 9/11, a documentary made by the Italian journalist Giulietto Chiesa that disputes the US government's account of the 9/11 attacks, followed by a discussion between various Russian and foreign personalities. While some panel members defend the US government's account, others reject it and praise the film. Vitaly Tretyakov, the former editor in chief of Nezavisimaya Gazeta, a major daily newspaper, calls the 9/11 Commission's report "fiction" and says he could not believe that a small group of terrorists could have masterminded the attacks. Another journalist, Mikhail Leontyev, who is a Channel One presenter and editor in chief of Profil magazine, also expresses disbelief: "A certain organization committed a totally extraordinary act from the point of view of its coordination. Allegedly, this organization still exists, it continues fighting and killing people; it is keeping the US army in two countries in the world and, at the same time, there has not been a single [terrorist] act on the territory of the United States since." He also says that the alleged organizers were controlled by US intelligence: "all the people who are regarded as the fictitious or real organizers of this [terrorist] act, all these people were controlled by the American special services." The collapse of the World Trade Center is also discussed. Ashot Tamrazyan, the director of the Risks and Security of Buildings research center, says his organization had created a model and carried out many tests that had shown that the Twin Towers could not have collapsed unless there were other contributing factors. Robert Bridge, the editor in chief of the Moscow News, an English-language newspaper, says he does not believe Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon because of the lack of debris: "In any plane crash there are remains left. There is luggage, there are seats, etc.… Why did this plane crash so differently from any other crash we have seen?" Vladimir Dezhurov, a cosmonaut who observed the 9/11 events from the International Space Station, also questions the Pentagon crash (see (Between 10:00 and 11:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001). He says an air crash always leaves debris behind. [Francesco Tre and Franco Fracassi, 2008; BBC Monitoring, 9/12/2008] Commenting on the broadcast, a Weekly Standard article entitled "The Russian Government Warms Up to 9/11 Conspiracy Theories" says that the Kremlin is promoting 9/11 skepticism to stoke anti-Americanism (see also November 2, 2008). [Weekly Standard, 10/13/2008]
Entity Tags: Giulietto Chiesa, Vladimir Dezhurov
Ahmed Alghamdi in his martyr video. [Source: Public domain]Al-Qaeda releases a martyr video of 9/11 hijacker Ahmed Alghamdi. In the ten-minute video, in Arabic with English subtitles, Alghamdi says, "There are many proofs which clarify and encourage martyrdom operations. They are one of the ways of massacring the enemies of Allah, so you must carry them out." The video was most likely recorded in Afghanistan in March 2001, at the same time most of the other hijackers recorded martyr videos (see (December 2000-March 2001)). This is the seventh one released. [Sun, 9/22/2008] Alghamdi's speech is part of a 90-minute video featuring speeches by al-Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri and others. Al-Qaeda promised through the Internet to release the video in time for the 9/11 anniversary, as it did with other 9/11 hijacker videos each year, but the video appears one week late. Some counterterrorism experts say the delay could be a sign that al-Qaeda's propaganda efforts are faltering. [Associated Press, 9/19/2008; Sun-Herald (Sydney), 9/21/2008] Al-Qaeda will not release any hijacker videos in 2009 or 2010.
Entity Tags: Ahmed Alghamdi, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al-Qaeda
Category Tags: Other 9/11 Hijackers, Alleged Al-Qaeda Media Statements
The New York Times reports that the FBI and the New York City medical examiner's office have identified the remains of 13 of the 9/11 hijackers. The remains are still in their custody because no one has claimed them (see Summer 2002). The FBI holds the remains of the nine hijackers who took over Flight 77 and Flight 93, which were recovered from the Pentagon and Shanksville crash sites. The identity of the remains was established indirectly. First, investigators identified the victims using DNA profiles provided by relatives. Those remains that could not be matched to any profile were assumed to belong to the hijackers. The New York City medical examiner's office also has the remains of four hijackers recovered from the World Trade Center site. A DNA profile for each of the 10 hijackers who took part in the New York attacks was established by the FBI from recovered personal items, such as luggage and cigarette butts left in a rental car. The FBI then supplied these profiles to the medical examiner's office but without naming them. Therefore, the examiner's office could only match the four recovered sets of remains but could not identify them by name. Both the FBI and the medical examiner's office refuse to disclose where exactly the remains are being kept. [New York Times, 9/21/2008; Newsweek, 1/12/2009]
Entity Tags: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Medical Examiner's Office, New York City
Category Tags: FBI 9/11 Investigation, 9/11 Investigations
The FBI attempts to prevent two agents who were involved in a key pre-9/11 failure from talking about it in a television interview. The agents, Doug Miller and Mark Rossini, were on loan to Alec Station, the CIA's bin Laden unit, before 9/11. They were involved in the deliberate blocking of a cable to the FBI saying that 9/11 hijacker Khalid Almihdhar had a US visa (see 9:30 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. January 5, 2000) and later, under pressure, falsely claimed not to remember anything about it when interviewed by the Justice Department's inspector general (see (February 12, 2004)). The FBI allowed Miller and Rossini to be interviewed by author James Bamford for a book and they told him they helped block the cable on the orders of a female CIA officer known only as "Michael" and the station's deputy chief, Tom Wilshire. However, when Bamford wants them to repeat their stories for a PBS documentary he is making, the FBI initially says yes, but then retracts its approval, saying the bureau "doesn't want to stir up old conflicts with the CIA." [Congressional Quarterly, 10/1/2008] However, Rossini will actually appear in the documentary, although Miller will not. [PBS, 2/3/2009]
Entity Tags: James Bamford, Mark Rossini, Doug Miller, Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation
Category Tags: Alhazmi and Almihdhar, CIA Hiding Alhazmi & Almihdhar, 9/11 Investigations, Other 9/11 Investigations
ISI Director Nadeem Taj is replaced by Ahmad Shuja Pasha. [Daily Times (Lahore), 9/30/2008] One day ago, it was reported that the US was intensely pressuring Taj and two of his assistants to resign from the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence agency, because of alleged "double-dealing" with militants. Taj became ISI head only a year ago (see 2007). [Australian, 9/29/2008] In March 2009, the New York Times will report that shortly after Asif Ali Zardari became president of Pakistan in September 2008 (see September 9, 2008), he faced accusations by the US that the ISI helped the militants bomb the Indian embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan (see July 7, 2008 and July 28, 2008). Zardari promised that the ISI would be "handled" and anyone working with militants would be fired. This apparently led to the replacement of Taj and his assistants. The Indian embassy bombing occurred during Taj's brief time as ISI director. However, the Times will also report that many US and even Pakistani officials have since complained that the ISI's support for militants remains as strong as ever (see March 26, 2009). [New York Times, 3/26/2009] In October 2001, the US also successfully pressured Pakistan to replace its ISI director and several others because of their support for Islamist militants, only to see the replacements continue the same policy of supporting militants (see October 8, 2001).
Entity Tags: Pakistan Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, Nadeem Taj, Asif Ali Zardari, Ahmad Shuja Pasha
Category Tags: Pakistan and the ISI, 2008 Kabul Indian Embassy Bombing, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics
Christiane Amanpour on "Real Time With Bill Maher" on October 3, 2008. [Source: Real Time with Bill Maher]ABC News reporter Christiane Amanpour says that Osama bin Laden is living in a villa in Pakistan, not in a cave. She makes these comments as a guest on HBO's Real Time With Bill Maher. She says: "I just talked to somebody very knowledgeable… [who] thinks that [bin Laden is] in a villa, a nice comfortable villa… in Pakistan. Not a cave." After bin Laden's death in an urban compound in May 2011 (see May 2, 2011), Amanpour will explain that she'd heard the information a short time earlier from a "US intelligence officer who had recently left a top position." [ABC News, 5/3/2011]
Entity Tags: Christiane Amanpour, Osama bin Laden, US intelligence
Category Tags: Haven in Pakistan Tribal Region, Hunt for Bin Laden in Pakistan
Mahmud Ali Durrani, Pakistan's national security adviser, visits India and meets with Indian officials. He tells them that neither the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence agency, nor any other part of the Pakistani government had a role in the bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, earlier this year (see July 7, 2008). The Indian government and other governments have blamed the ISI working with the Taliban for the bombing (see August 1, 2008). However, Durrani does admit, "We have some contacts with bad guys and perhaps one of them did it." This comment is not made publicly, but it is mentioned in a US State Department cable about the meeting that is leaked by WikiLeaks in 2011. According to the cable, Durrani later repeats the comment to a US official. [Hindu, 5/20/2011]
Entity Tags: Mahmud Ali Durrani, Pakistan Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence
Category Tags: Pakistan and the ISI, Haven in Pakistan Tribal Region, 2008 Kabul Indian Embassy Bombing, Afghanistan
A CIA drone kills al-Qaeda leader Khalid Habib. The drone strike hits the village of Taparghai, South Waziristan, in Pakistan's tribal region. The CIA claims that Habib, an Egyptian, is the group's fourth-ranking leader. Four people are said to be killed. It is said Habib became al-Qaeda's chief of operations for the tribal region after Abu Ubaida al-Masri died from hepatitis around January 2008. [New York Times, 10/17/2008; Asia Times, 10/29/2008] Little had been previously reported on Habib. But in early 2007, a New York Times article listed him as one of a handful of important new al-Qaeda leaders, and the FBI called him "one of the five or six most capable, most experienced terrorists in the world." [CBS News, 3/15/2007; New York Times, 4/2/2007] A drone strike failed to kill Habib in 2006 (see 2006).
Entity Tags: Khalid Habib, Abu Ubaida al-Masri, Al-Qaeda, Central Intelligence Agency
Category Tags: Key Captures and Deaths, Haven in Pakistan Tribal Region, Drone Use in Pakistan / Afghanistan, Counterterrorism Action After 9/11
Key Events
Day of 9/11
The Alleged 9/11 Hijackers
Alhazmi and Almihdhar: Specific Cases
Projects and Programs
Before 9/11
Counterterrorism before 9/11
Warning Signs: Specific Cases
The Post-9/11 World
Investigations: Specific Cases
Possible Al-Qaeda-Linked Moles or Informants
Other Al-Qaeda-Linked Figures
Al-Qaeda by Region
Specific Alleged Al-Qaeda Linked Attacks or Plots
Miscellaneous Al-Qaeda Issues
Geopolitics and Islamic Militancy
Pakistan / ISI: Specific Cases
Terrorism Financing: Specific Cases
'War on Terrorism' Outside Iraq
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