Daniel Pearl, ISI, Al Qaeda and F16's to Pakistan

[spooked911]

from: http://rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/2005/03/pearl-of-great-price.html

When Daniel Pearl was taken hostage in January 2002, one of his kidnappers' demands was the completion of the US transfer to Pakistan of F-16s, held up since that country's nuclear tests of 1998. That the US has at last approved the sale is only the latest reason why Pearl died in vain.
It seemed a strange demand at the time, perhaps because even that time was more innocent than this time. Since that was before we learned that Omar Saeed Shiekh, the abduction's mastermind, was both Osama bin Laden's "favourite son" and an asset of Pakistan's ISI. It was Omar who wired more than $100,000 to Mohammed Atta in the weeks before 9/11 on the instruction of ISI Director Mahmood Ahmed. All Ahmed suffered for his travails was an early retirement and a comfortable sinecure. The buddy of Atta and George Tenet was not even interrograted by the FBI, and questions regarding his role in the 9/11 money chain were scrubbed from official White House transcripts.
Here's how Bernard-Henri Lévy answers his question, Who Killed Daniel Pearl?
"Isn't that, incidentally, what President Pervez Musharraf himself said when, the day after the murder, in an astounding, angry outburst, he exclaimed that Daniel Pearl had been 'over intrusive' - too curious, sticking his nose in places he shouldn't have? Didn't Musharraf give it away when, in a comment cited in The Washington Post (among others) on 23 February 2002, he dared to declare, 'Perhaps Daniel Pearl was over inquisitive; a mediaperson should be aware of the dangers of getting into dangerous areas; unfortunately, he got over-involved in intelligence games.'
"So the question then becomes: Why? What had Pearl discovered, or what was he in the process of discovering, that condemned him to death? What is the stolent secret that, for his captors, was out of the question for him to walk away with?
"The relationship between al-Qaeda and the ISI, of course. The tight web of relations between the two organizations, the two worlds."
Though Pakistan has yet to give up the ghost of bin Laden, its "War on Terror" shadow-boxing with al Qaeda has produced preternaturally timely results for Musharraf. This has been a fairly straightforward task, on account of the broad grey zone where al Qaeda and the ISI become indistinguishable. Giving up a "terrorist" or a "mastermind" is not so hard when many of them are also operatives or stooges, whether they know it or not, of military intelligence. Musharraf gets to play America's good strong man, and the revelation that Pakistan has clandestinely purchased nuclear components from the US will not change that.
The US pursues its ambitions in Central Asia under the flag of a bogus crusade, while Pakistan plays along with the fiction it helped to engineer and strengthens its hand. So everybody's happy. Even, maybe, India, now that "Lockheed Martin has offered to build 'exclusive' F-16 fighters for the Indian Air Force."
Happiest of all, as always, the arms merchants.

[mikelewis]

1. Lawyers, Guns and Money... and drugs and Hawala

In 1999 Pearl wrote an article about the war in Kosovo.

http://www.geocities.com/spyjaguar/311299.html
Despite Tales, the War in Kosovo Was Savage, but Wasn't Genocide

The gist of the article was that the Kosovo war wasn't the genocide that the media played it out to be. This is an unpopular opinion here and has gotten me flamed a number of times but I am not the only one who feels this way. In his article, he expresses many opinions to back this up.

But other allegations -- indiscriminate mass murder, rape camps, crematoriums, mutilation of the dead -- haven't been borne out in the six months since NATO troops entered Kosovo. Ethnic-Albanian militants, humanitarian organizations, NATO and the news media fed off each other to give genocide rumors credibility. Now, a different picture is emerging.

Selective Terror

"Rwanda was a true genocide. Kosovo was ethnic cleansing light," says Emilio Perez Pujol, a Spanish pathologist who exhumed bodies after both conflicts. In his sector of western Kosovo, he says, the United Nations told him to expect as many as 2,000 victims. His team found 187 corpses, none of which showed evidence to confirm local accounts of mutilations.

Some human-rights researchers now say that most killings and burnings occurred in areas where the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army had been active, or in urban streets that backed into rural areas where KLA fighters could infiltrate. They say the Serbs were trying to clear out areas of KLA support, using selective terror, robberies and sporadic killings.

I have spoken to a few Serbians, mainly in reference to the Mujahadeen that came in to assist the ethnic Albanians. They have all told me that the whole region was in utter chaos, all groups seem to have been committing "ethnic cleansing light".

An interesting note was the description of the Afghan Mujahadeen. I was told that these guys were pretty nasty. They gained a reputation for butality. One Serbian who served as a U.S. Interpreter told me that they would cut the throats of the Serbs and leave them in the streets as a warning to others not to interfere with them. I was particularly interested in thier involvement and to what extent they exacerbated or even instigated the upheaval in the country.

The connection between the KLA and the Mujahadeen was published in an article in the Washinton Times in May 1999 entitled "KLA rebels train in terrorist camps."
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/7006/KLA-drugs.html

What cannot be denied is the flow of drugs from the Golden triangle from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran into Europe via the Balkans. It is my understanding that this flow of drugs is controlled by a group of crime families that used the chaos of the war to strengthen thier distribution chains. The governments allows them to continue thier dealings because they do not have the power to combat them and may be complicit in the trade themselves. The agreement is something similar to the relationship between Karzai in Afghanistan and the Northern Alliance and Taliban warlords that have expanded the poppy cultivation.

This is an excerpt from the same article listed above:
-snip-
The KLA's involvement in drug smuggling as a means of raising funds for weapons is long-standing. Intelligence documents show it has aligned itself with an extensive organized crime network in Albania that smuggles heroin to buyers throughout Western Europe and the United States. Drug agents in five countries believe the cartel is one of the most powerful heroin smuggling organizations in the world.
The documents show heroin and some cocaine is moved over land and sea from Turkey through Bulgaria, Greece and Yugoslavia to Western Europe and elsewhere. The circuit has become known as the "Balkan Route."

After 9/11, Daniel Pearl began investigating the terrorists by following the money trail, not to Afghanistan but Pakistan. It was a member connected to the Al Rashid Trust that was ulitimatley responsible for his death. Al Rashid was purportedly a "a ‘welfare organisation’, one of its original charters was to carry out welfare projects within Pakistan, with financial resources provided by public donations. Overtime, the ART expanded its mandate to carry out ‘relief activities’ for Muslims in Chechnya, Kosovo and Afghanistan.
http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/pakistan/terroristoutfits/Al-Rashid_Trust.htm

On October 14, 2003, the U.S. Treasury Department openly claimed "Al Akhtar is carrying on the activities of the previously designated Al Rashid Trust" and is "connected to an individual with ties to the kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal Reporter Daniel Pearl."
http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/js899.htm

Daniel Pearl would have to have known about the presence of Al Rashid in Kosovo. If he didn't realize the link at the time he wrote about the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, he certanly knew it when he went to Pakistan. He had interviewed relief agencies to get perspective on the war in Kosovo. Al Rashid would have been known by Pearl since it had sent 2.1 Million in aid to the Muslim's fighting in Kosovo. Al Rashid was one of the major funding sources for Osama Bin Laden. {See Department of Treasury Link}

"Osama Bin Laden’s activities in Albania are well known and documented. As a matter of fact, at one point the presence of his network in that country was so powerful that US Defence Secretary William Cohen cancelled a scheduled visit July 1999 for fear of being assassinated."
http://www.balkanpeace.org/our/our09.shtml

Since Osama was accused of orchestrating these attacks and Pearl would have known about his presence and the presence of Al Rashid in Kosovo, I believe that's why he went to Pakistan instead of Afghanistan find the link. He was following the trail of money.

This is a difficult trail to follow since it uses a form of money laundering known as 'Hawala'. See http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-092601money.story
"Here's how it works: The hawala banker who takes a deposit writes down the phone number or address of the payer's representative in the receiving country. Then he instructs his partner--a money trader or group of traders in that country--to pay out the required sum. Generally the contact is made by telephone or e-mail. A code word, or a recognized face or voice, is all that is required to complete the transaction."

In order for this to work, you need brokers on both ends to deliver the cash. This is how the drug money from the Balkans is distributed, most likely through organizations similar to Al Rashid.
Excerpt from the La Times article from above:
-snip-
During a reporter's visit to the Al Rashid Trust on Tuesday, an old man came in with about $20 that he wished to give as a zakat--a gift to the needy that under Islam is required of all Muslims who can afford it.

Ghyass Uddin, the bookkeeper on duty, took the cash and put it aside, recorded the gift in a ledger and handed the man a glossy receipt that looked something like a check. It was filled in with the man's name, the date, the amount of money given and the purpose--in this case simply "Afghanistan."


But here's an interesting side note about the Al Rashid Trust.
During the 1980s, many ostensibly humanitarian relief organisations came into being in Pakistan through which Western and Saudi intelligence agencies could funnel money to this Army of Islam and others fighting the Soviet troops. One such organisation got floated in Karachi by the ISI and registered as a charitable trust under the Pakistan Income Tax Act was called the Al Rashid Trust, which runs, inter alia, the weekly and online journal of the Taliban called "Zarb-e-Momin". Its founder was Mufti Rashid Ahmed.

According to this, we may have been using the Al Rashid Trust to back-channel money to the Mujahadeen in the 80's. But there were others, namely “mekhtab al khidemat” which may have served as a template for organizations like Al Rashid. Here's how a court proceeding describes “mekhtab al khidemat”.

http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/indict/2002/02cr892.pdf
A. In the latter part of the 1980’s, an organization known as “mekhtab al khidemat” (the “Services Office”) maintained offices and facilities in various parts of the world, including Afghanistan, Pakistan and the United States. The organization was operated principally by Sheik Abdallah Azzam and Usama Bin Laden for purposes including the providing of logistical support to the mujahideen (fighters) in Afghanistan. The support provided included financial assistance for military training as well as assistance with obtaining travel and identity documents and immigration status in Pakistan.

B. Until his death in or about 1989, Sheik Abdallah Azzam continued to work with mekhtab al khidemat to provide logistical and financial support to the mujahideen. After Azzam’s death, mekhtab al khidemat continued to provide such logistical and financial support. Al Qaeda

C. In or about 1988, Usama Bin Laden began directing resources to train mujahideen for eventual deployment to places outside Afghanistan. In or about August 1988, Usama Bin Laden and others (including Mamdouh Salim, a/k/a “Abu Hajer al Iraqi”) held a series of meetings in Afghanistan during which the al Qaeda (the “Base”) organization was formed. Members of al Qaeda pledged an oath of allegiance (called a “bayat”) to al Qaeda. Thereafter, Usama Bin Laden used the al Qaeda organization, as well as affiliated organizations, to provide financial and logistical support to mujahideen in various areas of the world. Al Qaeda had a command and control structure which included a majlis al shura (or consultation council) which discussed and approved major undertakings, including terrorist operations.

D. In addition to participating in armed confrontations in Afghanistan, al Qaeda, acting on its own as well as in concert with other groups, also participated in armed confrontations and violence in other locations, including Bosnia-Herzegovina and Chechnya.

E. In addition, beginning in or around 1988, Usama Bin Laden and al Qaeda received funding from various non-governmental organizations, and relied on various non-governmental organizations including charitable organizations to transfer money and provide cover for traveling al Qaeda members and associates.

"Daniel Pearl had been 'over intrusive' - too curious, sticking his nose in places he shouldn't have." I find it hard to believe, Daniel Pearl didn't know any of this was going on. Every scandal from Iran-Contra to BCCI to 9/11 uses the exact same money laundering and intelligence assets. They all involve the drug trade and ultimately revolve around George W. Bush and Company. Maybe we'll never know exactly what happened on 9/11 or to Daniel Pearl, but when you smell shit that smells this bad, you had better check your shoes.

[spooked911]

2. Great post! However---

I don't think it was looking into money laundering that got Pearl killed. I think it was finding out that the Pakistani ISI = Al Qaeda, and that the ISI was deeply involved in 9/11.

[mikelewis]

3. But that's how all of the organizations are connected

The ISI does not equal Al Qeada. It may be more accurate to say that they are seperate but equal. They share the same goals, the same methods and the same money sources. The ISI seems to feed money to Al Qeada through the Muslim practice of “mekhtab". The donations appearantly recieve tax credit via the Pakistan Income Tax Act that is somewhat similar to our ability to write off donations to charitable organizations. Problem is, the Hawala brokers are using this to funnel money to terrorist organization and the person donating gets to write it off on his taxes.

Let's say Business man Mohammad take $100 to and Al Rashid-like organization. He hands the money over to the charitable organization and gets a reciept for tax purposes. The money is then relayed to the the other offices of the organizations. These charitable organizations now have cash on hand to continue thier Hawala brokering.

That's why it seems sort of funny that Omar Saeed Shiek would wire money to Atta when he could have easily hid the transaction. Why use a bank when you can 'Hawala'. I think the purpose of the $100,000 transfer was simply to reinforce the idea that Bin Laden was responsible. That's why it was ISI Director Mahmood Ahmed who ordered the wire transfer. He could have easily used the Hawala system but that leaves no trail.

The only way to track any of these people down is to follow the flow of money and drugs. I do believe he found the connection between the ISI and Al Qeada but how would he prove this link without showing the relationship between the two?

In fact his very first call was to track down the money.
http://www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/pearlmission.htm
"Every reporter has got to start somewhere. And the place Danny Pearl began, shortly after 9/11, was with a phone call to a number in Manhattan. On the line that morning was Mansoor Ijaz, founder and chairman of Crescent Investment Management, LLC, and a U.S. born-and-bred Pakistani-American with unusual friends and interests.

"Her husband uncovered a "charity" linked to both Osama bin Laden and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4462107,00.html


http://www.american-buddha.com/journalist.terrorist.htm
A few days later Danny was back in the paper with another exclusive, date-lined Bahawalpur, headquarters of Jaish-e-Mohammed, one of the most violent jihadi groups, as well as one of the best connected to the ISI. Jaish had been banned by Musharraf, its bank accounts frozen, and its founder, Maulana Masood Azhar, placed under house arrest. However, Danny later reported that the Jaish office in Bahawalpur was still up and running, as was the Jaish account at the local bank."

He was folowing the money trail and that trail led to his death in Karachi.

[spooked911]

6. Yes, excellent points.

when I said ISI = Al Qaeda, sorry I didn't mean that literally. More that there is substantial overlap.

I think you're exactly right about the $100,000 wire transfer.

What probably got Pearl killed was solid knowledge about how intertwined the ISI and Al Qaeda were.

[mikelewis]

4. Why would the kidnappers ask for f-16's for Pakistan?

If the idea was to lay this on Al-qeada, why would the demands include such an obvious link to the ISI?

The same question applies to the $100,000 transfer from Omar Saeed Shiekh to Atta in the weeks preceding 9/11. Omar Saeed Shiekh could have made the transaction nearly invisible by using the Hawala system.

It was also this link that spurred the firing of Director General of Pakistan's Inter- Services Intelligence (ISI) Lt Gen Mahmud Ahmed and allowed Musharraf to gain complete control of Pakistan.

Something is fishy with this. How powerful was Lt Gen. Mahmud Ahmed, how much control did he have? Is it possible that this was cooked up to get rid of Gen. Ahmed and put control firmly into Musharraf's hands. There has been some speculation that Musharraf was a CIA asset. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3444.htm

Is it possible that this was a clever ruse to clean house for Musharraf and put the control of the ISI and Pakistan into his hands? If it wasn't engineered like this, the result sure seems to be the same. What's Gen. Mahmud Ahmed doing now?

[paulthompson]

5. Don't assume competence

The ISI and al-Qaeda have a mix of brilliance and keystone cop type incompetence. Witness for instance the first attack on a US warship, the USS The Sullivans, which failed when the overloaded dingy sank on the way to blow the ship up.

Similarly, note the video the ISI showed to reporters in the wake of the arrest of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, to quelch doubts about that very dubious arrest. This video was so pathetic tha even a Fox News reporter said of it, "Foreign journalists looking at it laughed and said this is baloney, this is a reconstruction."

The higher ups are smart, but the people they delegate tasks to are often dumb as bricks. I would guess the F-16 demand was done by someone not really thinking. It wasn't the sole demand, but one of a list, perhaps tacked on with a "what the heck, why not" attitude.

Regarding the transfer of money from General Mahmood Ahmed, that transfer was discovered not through tracing the money, but through tracing Saeed Sheikh's phone calls. From that, they knew were to look for the financial records.

[Dancing_Dave]

7. Hey thanks, guys!

I haven't followed this ISI/Al Qaida/CIA stuff as closely as....well, studies of how the WTC was covertly demolished, and who had forknowlege and positioned themself to reap big financial or political benefits. I lived in New York for while, and like architecture and physics, so thats more the kind of thing I can easily understand!

Part of what was going on with that hundred grand sent to Atta, may have been just bribing him to stay in the operation at all. We have plenty of evidence that Atta didn't really live like someone who would like to be a religious martyr. So he probably didn't know that what he was getting into was a suicide mission. Atta really lived like the kind of guy who likes to think he's James Bond! But he was totally duped, the people really behind all this never intended to give him even a one-in-a-million chance of getting out alive. He was a patsie who had to be disposed of.

[mikelewis]

8. Codename: Atta

For more information on Mohamed Atta see this thread. From appearances, Atta wasn't completely hostile to American Lifestyle.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1433886#1433996

I think that $100 grand was meant to discredit the head of the ISI. This is only my opinion but look at the facts.

The $100,000 wire transfer was too overt for this Top Secret Al-qeada operation and was done at the behest of the leader of the ISI. There were easier and more covert ways to move the money.

The connection was more firmly established when Atta allegedly returned several thousands of dollars to Ahmed Omar Sayed Sheikh. This again seems stupid and unnecessary.
"In addition, sources have said Atta sent thousands of dollars -- believed to be excess funds from the operation -- back to Syed in the United Arab Emirates in the days before September 11.
http://www.answers.com/topic/ahmed-omar-saeed-sheikh

Ahmed Omar Sayed Sheikh was a known terrorist who had been arrested and was serving a prison sentence in 1999 in India when he was released. He gained his freedom in a negation between the Indian government and the hijackers of Indian Airline 814.

These are the three men released in this negotiation:
# Mohammad Masood Azhar (Pakistani): The secretary-general of the Harkat-ul-Ansar, arrested on February 11, 1994. Azhar was the ideologue of the Harkat ul-Ansar, a group on a U.S. list of terrorist organizations.
# Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar (Indian National): Chief of the Al-Umar Mujahideen terrorist organization. He has been charged with executing a large number of men, women and children in cold blood.
# Ahmed Omar Sayed Sheikh (Pakistani): The 28 year-old Harkut-ul-Ansar militant is a British national of Pakistani origin. He masterminded the kidnapping of three Britons and an American during September-October 1994.
http://www.indianembassy.org/archive/IC_814.htm#Profiles%20of%20the%20released%20terrorists:


Mohammad Masood Azhar and Ahmed Omar Sayed Sheikh have direct links to the Al Rashid Trust which is linked to the ISI, the CIA and which provided funds to Al Qeada. {Confused yet?}

So either these men were incredibly stupid and ignored operational protocol just before the most spectacular terrorist assault in the history of the world, or this was a ruse. Both are possible but the latter is more likely. I am working on a profile of ISI Director Mahmood Ahmed and the power struggles in the Pakistan government prior to this transaction. I will post this in a bit, the picture is still a bit fuzzy.

But now more on Atta. An interesting side note about Atta's seemingly un-Muslim behavior may be explained by an Arabic term "taqiyya".

"According to Al-Islam.org on-line Islamic encyclopedia, taqiyya is defined as "Concealing or disguising one's beliefs, convictions, ideas, feelings, opinions, and/or strategies at a time of eminent danger, whether now or later in time, to save oneself from physical and/or mental injury." A one-word translation would be 'Dissimulation.'"

But this definition doesn't fit his situation or the protocol set forth in the Al Qeada handbook {which is a joke by the way, I'll post more on this when I get a chance. It seems it was written during the early stages of the Afghan war and was meant as a training guide for the fight against the Soviets, not a world-wide Jihad, especially since most of the operational material is quite dated and would largely prove ineffective against recent technology}

Here's a better explanation as to lack of basis for his un-Muslim like behavior. " I am not quite sure that Mohamed Atta's use of lies and deception in order to preserve his terrorist mission qualifies under this definition, especially since he resided in a country known for its tolerance of minority religions and alternative belief systems. What I am getting at here is that the dissimulation of Mohammad Atta is not the same as, for instance, the dissimulation of Lebanese Shiites living and working in Saudi Arabia - Mohammad Atta stood to be persecuted only for his intent to kill people, not for which god he believed in or what his sense of morals were. Likewise, as a resident of West Beirut I often dissimulate my American-ness by insisting on speaking Arabic or simply lying about where I am from. Because I am not lying specifically about my religion or beliefs, I am not practicing taqiyya either. Besides, considering that there is very little institutionalized persecution of Shiites going on today (at least compared to about a century ago or so) taqiyya is more or less considered an obsolete practice. Furthermore, taqiyya is altogether rejected by orthodox Sunnis as unnecessary (since the tendency of Sunnis is to be in the majority anyway) and even heretical."
http://www.blissstreetjournal.com/blogarchive_0501.htm

Clearly, a cocaine sniffing, alcohol abusing Muslim with known ties to terrorism and and a taste for pork chops doesn't fit the concept of a radical fundamentalist especially since he had no earthly reason to act in this strange unorthodox manner. There is something rotten about the idea that Mohamed Atta was a fundamentalist Islamic radical.

In my exploration of Atta, I have come across an interesting note that I wanted to share. This is an amazing coincidence that I was unaware of.

See this article: http://www.voxfux.com/articles(closed)/00000009.htm
-snip-
Just three nights before President George W Bush arrived at the swank Colony Resort on Longboat Key on the evening of Sept 10, 2001, Mohamed Atta was staying at a slightly-less tony hotel just two miles down the beach, the Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites—Longboat Key, according to eyewitnesses who contacted the FBI in the immediate aftermath of the attack. Predictably, the story went nowhere. So too did early wire reports stating that on the day of the attack Sarasota police said the Secret Service interrogated four Sudanese men after getting a tip that the men intended to harm President Bush during his visit to the city.

There is also a report that Atta was seen in Oklahoma prior to the Oklahoma City Bombing in 95.
" WHAT HAPPENED AT THE NONDESCRIPT ROADSIDE motel outside Oklahoma City was just a fleeting encounter during the twisted cross-country odyssey of the terrorists who would carry out the September 11 attacks. Mohamed Atta, alleged leader of the plot, and two companions wanted to rent a room, but couldn't get the deal they wanted, so they left.
It was an incident of no particular importance, except for one thing. The owner of the motel remembers Atta being in the company of Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called "20th hijacker," who was arrested prior to September 11 and now faces conspiracy charges in connection with the terror assaults.
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/02/36/news-crogan.php

If this last report is true, and he was in OKC before the bombing, it may prove Atta was more than a simple fundamentalist with a desire to obtain martyrdom. It would also prove that the 9/11 commissions report was also wrong about Atta. Keep in mind, an Atta is also a pesky little burrowing piss-ant that plagues Texas. Codename or coincidence, perhaps? http://www.terminix.com/Pest/Library/index.cfm?fuseaction=category&pestCategory=Ants&pestID=78




edited for P.S.
To date, there is no conclusive evidence that Atta is in fact dead. His presence on Flight 11 cannot be confirmed or denied because there is no body, no DNA to prove he was there. The idea that he went on a suicide mission for martyrdom came from the OCT which I have serious problems with. I don't know if he is dead or not but the idea that he was unaware of what he was doing or that he was a patsy doesn't make any sense. If he did commit these acts, it simply means he was a shitty Muslim who wanted to have some fun before salvation. If he was simply an intelligence operative, odds are, he didn't get on that plane.

[lockdown]

9. A possible explanation for the traceable money transfer

You mentioned this possibility yourself further up, but your post reminds me of this article, which asserts that the money transfer was meant to be uncovered and provide an explicit money trail to al-Qaida, but India fucked the whole legend up when they revealed Saeed Sheikh was acting on Mahmood Ahmed's directions, prompting a rewrite of the story. Makes interesting reading, how Saeed's story shifts as told by Corporate Media after the direct ISI link is exposed.

[mikelewis]

10. "Omar was nicely locked away in an Indian prison in 1998"

Great find.

So according to this article. At the time of the original transfer of $100,000, Shiek was resting in an Indian clink and supposedly figured out someway to get access to his bank account. I think this deserves a "... and monkey's will fly out of my butt" statement. That's beautiful!

So clearly, we have no idea who wired that money to Atta but it could not have been Omar. Also, if somehow he had managed this seemingly unlikely event, wouldn't his transactions have been flagged by our intelligence agency since he was also known to transfer money between terrorist organizations on our watch list? This also means, if they were flagged, this could have been how the other intelligence agencies knew about 9/11 prior to the attack. They were watching the money transfers. This must be the secret CIA screw ups. I wonder how many intel agencies knew. Which countries warned us about impending attacks?

[paulthompson]

13. misconceptions

Hi Mike,
It's nice to see people interested in researching these things, but some of your conclusions are based on misunderstandings. For instance, you state Atta was in Oklahoma City before the 1995. In fact, if you read that source article all the way through, it states:

"The motel co-owner, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the incident occurred around August 1, 2001, just six weeks before 9/11."

Further, you take a quote from an article that itself is riddled with errors, which states: "Omar was nicely locked away in an Indian prison in 1998" and conclude that he could have had nothing to do with the 9/11 money transfers. In fact, he was released from prison right at the end of 1999, and the first money transfers he is alleged to have participated in were in the summer of 2000. Chaim K. often makes good points, but he sometimes gets things wrong or doesn't know all the facts.

You state that the returning of money in the days before 9/11 is " stupid and unnecessary", but in fact it was standard procedure for al-Qaeda attacks before 9/11 to have such last minute funding returns. Most such attacks were done on shoestring budgets. For instance the first WTC bombing apparently failed because Ramzi Yousef didn't have a couple thousand more dollars to buy enough explosives, and the first guy to be caught in that attack was caught because he went back to the car rental agency to get his deposit back on the van they'd used in the attacks, since he otherwise didn't have enough money to leave the country.

I think you should do more research to clarify your misunderstandings regarding these money transfers. I definitely see the hand of the ISI in 9/11, and a coverup of their role. Read these two essays I wrote for some more info:

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/essay.jsp?article=essayksmcapture

(esp near the end on KSM's ISI ties)

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/essay.jsp?article=essaysaeed

They're a bit outdated now, but the evidence has only piled up even more since.

However, one thing you're very right about is suspicions regarding Atta. There are some major contradictions between his stereotyped persona of being a hyper-religious, ultra-teetotalling mama's boy, and the amoral, drug taking, womanizing guy some people ran into. I personally suspect there were two Attas. I haven't been able to fully research it, but for instance Daniel Hopsicker has pointed out conflicting press accounts with many, many eyewitnesses placing Atta in the Northeast US in the week before 9/11, vs. just as many accounts placing him in Florida until right before 9/11. That's just the tip of the iceberg regarding the mysteries surrounding him, and only one example of him being in two places at the same time.

And speaking of money, Atta seems to have had much more cash than generally believed. For instance, one account has him loaning $25,000 to a near total stranger without any paperwork. The 9/11 attack wasn't hurting for cash like virtually all previous al-Qaeda attacks (the Bojinka plot in 1995 being the only other cash-rich exception I can think of offhand). Some have suggested those last minute cash payments were actually a signal that the attacks were on, since there were transactions from each hijacking team to the same account in Dubai. Or, it could have been an attempt to mimick previously known al-Qaeda procedures, or something else.

[k-robjoe]

14. Question

I have previously read that the guy who made the bomb for the 1993 WTC bombing was an FBI informant.( http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=125&topic_id=33956&mesg_id=34114 )

The other day I saw a video with Ralph Schoenman ( http://globalresearch.ca/articles/SCH502A.html ) where he says about another person involved :


"the person who secured the rental van and organized the apartment where the preparations occurred was a Mossad operative named Guzie Hadas"

( http://www.google.com/search?as_q=&num=10&hl=nn&btnG=Google-s%C3%B8k&as_epq=guzie+hadas&as_oq=&as_eq=&lr=&as_ft=i&as_filetype=&as_qdr=all&as_occt=any&as_dt=i&as_sitesearch= )

What to think about that?

-----------------------------------------------------------

This story is reminding one about Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, and how they rented a flat of an FBI informant. (Not?)

A question about them : I allways heard that it was the CIA that kept an eye on them when they attended an Al-Qaeda meeting in Malaysia, and then the CIA failed to tell the FBI about it.

But on this video clip from CBS news, they say that CBS news has learned that BOTH the CIA and the FBI were watching them while they were in Malaysia. http://terrorize.dk/911/news/

Has this been established as the actual state of things?

----------------------------------------------------------

As an aside ( Talking about housing the patsies ) :

I came across this : "When Oswald finally returned to the United States after having defected to the Soviet Union he was met only by George DeMohrenschild whose son was a roommate of George Herbert Walker Bush. That means that Bush and George DeMohrenschild were both bosses of Lee Harvey Oswald at the time of the Kennedy Assassination."

DeMohrenschild apparently helped Oswald in various ways.

And a good question :

"Click here to read see page 308 from Volume XVIII of the Warren Commission. Entitled the Lee Harvey Oswald --Repatriation Loan, June 1 1962. It begs the question as to why would the United States government lend money to a Marine who defected to the Soviet Union for "political reasons"?"
http://www.cloakanddagger.ca/media/Home%20Page%20Links/_2$_LEE_OSWALD/lee_harvey_oswald_repatriation_l.htm

[paulthompson]

16. Hadas?

I've never heard of this Hadas before. It's something worth checking in to. But as for Schoenman, I find him extremely ideological, and his research frequently inaccurate. According to his essay, this is the main reason to peg Hadas as Mossad:

"Zafar Bangas, editor of Crescent International, an Ontario, Canada-based journal conversant in Islamic politics and one of the most widely read newspapers in the Muslim world, confirmed to this author that Guzie (Josie) Hadas was long-established as a Mossad operative."

I'm sorry, I don't find that very convincing evidence. However, that doesn't mean it isn't true. It is quite possible that Israel had foreknowledge of the 93 attack, as they would have wanted to track and infiltrate Muslim radical groups in the US. Schoenman's essay doesn't mention another more interesting character named Ahmad Ajaj, probably because he hadn't been reported on back when that essay was written in 1993. But here's my entry about him:

September 1, 1992
Terrorists Ahmad Ajaj and Ramzi Yousef enter the US together. Ajaj is arrested at Kennedy Airport in New York City. Ramzi Yousef is not arrested, and later masterminds the 1993 bombing of the WTC (see February 26, 1993). “The US government was pretty sure Ahmad Ajaj was a terrorist from the moment he stepped foot on US soil," because his “suitcases were stuffed with fake passports, fake IDs and a cheat sheet on how to lie to US immigration inspectors,” plus “two handwritten notebooks filled with bomb recipes, six bomb-making manuals, four how-to videotapes concerning weaponry and an advanced guide to surveillance training.” However, Ajaj is only charged with passport fraud, and serves a six-month sentence. From prison, Ajaj frequently calls Ramzi Yousef and others in the WTC bombing plot, but no one monitors or translates the calls until long after the bombing. (Los Angeles Times 10/14/01) An Israeli newsweekly later reports that the Palestinian Ajaj may have been a mole for the Israeli Mossad. The Village Voice has suggested that Ajaj may have had “advance knowledge of the World Trade Center bombing, which he shared with Mossad, and that Mossad, for whatever reason, kept the secret to itself.” Ajaj was not just knowledgeable, but was involved in the planning of the bombing from his prison cell. (Village Voice, 8/3/93) Ajaj is released from prison three days after the WTC bombing, but is later rearrested and sentenced to more than 100 years in prison. (Los Angeles Times, 10/14/01) One of the manuals seized from Ajaj is horribly mistranslated for the trial. For instance, the title page is said to say “The Basic Rule,” published in 1982, when in fact the title says “Al-Qaeda” (which means “the base” in English), published in 1989. Investigators later complain that a proper translation could have shown an early connection between al-Qaeda and the WTC bombing. (New York Times 1/14/01)

[spooked911]

15. I also think there were two men named "Mohamed Atta"

And that the hijacker had some sort of double.

Hopsicker says that there is a lot of evidence that Atta was in the US many months before the official 9/11 story has him coming to the US.

Also, some of the stills of "Mohmaed Atta" from security camera videos in Portland Maine on September 10th don't quite look like the guy in the famous FBI photo-- the real nasty-looking dude.

[paulthompson]

17. Atta and JFK

Kind of as a reply to this and k-robjoe's comments on the JFK assassination, does anyone recall the evidence of another guy running around ostentatiously pretending to be Oswald? I believe that's in the JFK movie, though my memory is fuzzy, but it certainly is in lots of books.

The same thing happened with Atta. Look for instance at this entry and tell me this isn't a fake Atta trying to leave a memorable impression. It's so over the top it's actually comical. Whenever I think of this incident, I can't help but think of Monty Python doing a terrorist impersonation (especially the part about him coming back disguised behind a pair of glasses):

Late April–Mid-May 2000: Atta Leaves Numerous Clues While Seeking Crop-Dusting Airplane Loan
Mohamed Atta reportedly has a very strange meeting with Johnelle Bryant of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (incidentally, one month before the official story claims he arrived in the U.S. for the first time). According to Bryant, in the meeting Atta does all of the following:
· He initially refuses to speak with one who is “but a female.”
· He asks her for a loan of $650,000 to buy and modify a crop-dusting plane.
· He mentions that he wants to “build a chemical tank that would fit inside the aircraft and take up every available square inch of the aircraft except for where the pilot would be sitting.”
· He uses his real name even as she takes notes, and makes sure she spells it correctly.
· He says he has just arrived from Afghanistan.
· He tells about his travel plans to Spain and Germany.
· He expresses an interest in visiting New York.
· He asks her about security at the WTC and other U.S. landmarks.
· He discusses al-Qaeda and its need for American membership.
· He tells her bin Laden “would someday be known as the world’s greatest leader.”
· He asks to buy the aerial photograph of Washington hanging on her Florida office wall, throwing increasingly large “wads of cash” at her when she refuses to sell it. (ABC NEWS, 6/6/02)
· After Bryant points out one of the buildings in the Washington photograph as her former place of employment, he asks her, “How would you like it if somebody flew an airplane into your friends’ building?”
· He asks her, “What would prevent (me) from going behind (your) desk and cutting (your) throat and making off with the millions of dollars” in the safe behind her.
· He asks, “How would America like it if another country destroyed (Washington) and some of the monuments in it like the cities in (my) country had been destroyed?”
· He gets “very agitated” when he isn’t given the money in cash on the spot.
· Atta later tries to get the loan again from the same woman, this time “slightly disguised” by wearing glasses.
Three other terrorists also attempt to get the same loan from Bryant, but all of them fail. Bryant turns them down because they do not meet the loan requirements, and fails to notify anyone about these strange encounters until after 9/11. Government officials not only confirm the account and say that Bryant passed a lie detector test, but also elaborate that the account is consistent with other information they have received from interrogating prisoners. Supposedly, failing to get the loan, the terrorists switched plans from using crop dusters to hijacking aircraft. As of July 1, 2004; the 9/11 Commission has failed to mention any aspect of Johnelle Bryant’s account. (ABC NEWS 6/6/02; LONDON TIMES 6/8/02) Compare Atta’s meeting with FBI Director Mueller’s later testimony about the hijackers: “There were no slip-ups. Discipline never broke down. They gave no hint to those around them what they were about.” (CNN, 9/28/02)

[paulthompson]

18. Also...

We can see the same kind of thing in the Martin Luther King assassination. When intelligence agencies are involved in crimes, they use eloborate schemes to hide the truth and blame the crime on a "lone nut." I'm going to steal this entire entry from Xymphora's blog:

http://xymphora.blogspot.com/2005_01_01_xymphora_archive.html

Sunday, January 16, 2005

Annual link to a classic article on the assassination of Dr. King. As far as I know, 'Raoul' is still alive. Philip Melanson's book The Murkin Conspiracy remains one of the most amazing works of research in conspiracy theory ever written. From a website called Seize the Night, a summary of some of Melanson's work:

"But the best and spookiest evidence of a conspiracy consists of Ray's use of sophisticated aliases during the months leading up to the assassination and directly thereafter.

All four of Ray's aliases have one very crucial connection: they were names of real people living in close proximity to one another in Toronto, Canada. But Ray visited Toronto only once in his life: while on the lam, just after King was assassinated. Yet he had been using several of the false identities months before the assassination. How had Ray come by these names? Typically, Ray's explanations have been evasive.

Melanson tracked down the Canadians, and the scenario he details in his 1989 book, The Murkin Conspiracy, is downright chilling. Months before the assassination, Ray was using the alias, 'Eric Starvo Galt.' Melanson discovered that, during the same period, the Toronto man named Eric Galt was signing his middle name, St. Vincent, as 'St. V.,' scribbling lopsided circles for the periods, so that the full name looked to the uninitiated like 'Eric Starvo Galt.' In an impressive bit of detection, Melanson found that at some point, the real Eric St. Vincent Galt changed his signature, and began signing documents and personal checks as Eric S. Galt. At about the same time, the recidivist American crook James Earl Ray changed his alias to 'Eric S. Galt.' And this was months before Ray's first and only visit to Toronto!

There were other uncanny parallels between Ray and the Canadians whose names he apparently filched - especially Galt. Ray bore a striking resemblance to Galt. Both had scars above their eyes. In fact, the other Canadians also had facial scars. Four months before the assassination, Ray - the two-bit holdup man - underwent plastic surgery, which modified his 'very distinctive pointy nose,' according to Melanson, and made him look even more like the real Galt. Moreover, the Canadian Galt was a skilled marksman who often toted guns in his car to and from the shooting range and who had visited cities of the American South frequented by Ray.

Melanson's point is very persuasive: These parallels cannot possibly be coincidences. Was someone trying to draw attention to these four hapless Canadians? In fact, that's just what happened. During the search for King's assassin, they became unwitting victims of Ray's aliases. At the time of 'the greatest manhunt in history' Galt saw his name blazoned in banner headlines. Had the FBI not identified Ray's prints on the rifle, the innocent Galt would almost surely have become the prime suspect.

What was the point of this sophisticated legerdemain with Ray's aliases? According to Melanson, Galt was the key. 'Galt was more than simply a cover: He was man who could be implicated in the crime, at least temporarily, while Ray made his escape.' The other two Canadians lived conveniently near Galt, and police might erroneously conclude that the real Galt had stolen his three 'aliases' from them. In short, the unsuspecting Galt was set up to be the 'wrong man.'

The parallels 'were surely the result of conspiratorial planning rather than coincidence,' concludes Melanson, adding that 'This was beyond the capacities of a small-time loser like Ray.'

Melanson argues that the conspirators probably selected Galt and cribbed his vital stats by gaining access to his top-secret security clearance file. For Galt was an employee at a Canadian defense firm working on a classified missile project for the U.S. military. His file was kept by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).

The CIA routinely trades information with the RCMP, raising the possibility that American intelligence had a hand in Ray's elaborate odyssey - and the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr."

Small-time hood Ray could not possibly have set up this incredibly complex system of Toronto aliases, so he must have had help. That help must have had access to files kept by the RCMP, a fact which considerably narrows the field of possible conspirators. Melanson's research on the parallel change in signatures of Galt and Ray has to go in the Hall of Fame of conspiracy research.

[k-robjoe]

19. Thanks

for posting this.

I have printed out the Ratical article, and look forward to reading it.

The elaborate planning with aliases is really stunning.

And it´s also very interesting to note that even with such elaborate planning, things can turn up that make the conspirators look like amateurs. For example when James Earl Ray decided to drive off in a car he wasn´t supposed to drive off in.

The conspirator was supposed to plant the rifle and stuff in the trunk of Rays Mustang. But to his dismay, the Mustang wasn´t there. So he just dumped it on the street.

"Suddenly the FBI's folly of the utter stupidity of the alleged assassin (Ray) dumping his own incriminating evidence on the street begins to take shape. Paul intended to drop it in the back seat of the pale yellow Mustang - Ray's - thinking that James Earl had followed instructions and was down the street getting killed. Then the FBI would have had its open and shut case. (Ray is dead and here is the "murder" weapon found in his car.) But when Paul/Raoul is suddenly confronted with the current situation of no Ray car available, he frustratingly drops the bundle in the first handy place, and he and Butch hightail it up the street in the white Mustang." http://www.patshannan.bizland.com/assassinationscoverpage.html

This is ofcourse, assuming that Jim Green ( according to himself, an unwittingly part in the conspiracy ) is telling the truth in this article. Generally I think it´s good to be sceptical about confessions, but I mention this one because it makes sense of the dumping of the evidence on the street. ( Which is one of those things that a debunker would comment : Do you really think the high level conspirators that you believe did this would be so dumb? Where´s the sense in that? )

[paulthompson]

20. Yes

It's like I said earlier in this thread. Terrorism and probably the intelligence world in general has a strange mixture of extreme brilliance with extreme stupidity. The Canadian aliases is an example of the brilliance. Sometimes you get the Saeed Shiekh types (national chess champion, a student at the London School of Economics, world class arm wrestler, etc...). But often the rank and file are complete rubes who ruin even the best laid plans. Think the likes of shoe bomber Richard Reid. In fact, one of the official 19 hijackers was such a rube that a landlady said he appeared unable to screw in a lightbulb (I forget his name, but he was one of the lesser known ones). Hani Hanjour had such a poor grasp on the concept of hygiene that a number of witnesses noted with disgust how he had a film of green slime over his teeth. And so on. Of course, those kinds of people are also the most malleable.

[Old and In the Way]

21. Does anyone remember the story about cropdusters releasing

chemicals on some barges, IIRC, somewhere in the mid-west, I think on the same day? I recall that it was reported as a terrorist incident, then I never heard about it after that. This Atta event jostled my memory. Curious tie-in, I wonder?

[RBHam]

11. His Dad said Atta phoned him after 9-11...

Claimed he was still alive, but was in hiding...

For what it's worth...

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&startpos=1100#a092401father

[mikelewis]

12. Since they have no proof that he is in fact dead...

this is a distinct possibility. How many other hijackers turned up alive? Wasn't it 7, at least? There has been no DNA evidence found at the crash site, that has been reported at least. So this is possible.

[Dancing_Dave]

22. It will be interesting to hear what Nafeez Ahmed has to say about this

In his "War on Truth".

He's really a brilliant young writer, I hope his book is something of a breakthrough...it's also likely to be reviewed in some quite "mainstream" British publications, and if does well it may be difficult for American book reviewers to ignore. I assume Gore Vidal will write a positive review and publish it somewhere...Vidals review of Ahmed's "The War on Freedom" was called "The Enemy Within", and in some ways it remains the most resonant of 9/11 truth movement essays. And now many, many more people are becoming aware that there really is an "Enemy Within".