Terrorism and Statecraft Al-Qaeda and Western Covert Operations after the Cold War 15,405 words © Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed “Terrorism and Western Statecraft: Al-Qaeda and Western Covert Operations After the Cold War”, Research in Political Economy (Emerald: Vol. 23, 2006) pp. 149-188 Abstract Al-Qaeda is conventionally portrayed as a monolithic, hierarchical organization whose activities -- coordinated by the network‟s leader Osama bin Laden -- are the source of international terrorism today. Al-Qaeda is considered a radical tendency within the broader Islamist Salafi movement, legitimizing its terrorist operations as a global Islamist jihad against Western civilization. Al-Qaeda‟s terrorist activity today is considered “blowback” from long finished CIA and western covert operations in Afghanistan. The conventional wisdom is demonstrably false. After the Cold War, Western connections with al-Qaeda proliferated around the world, challenging mainstream conceptions of al-Qaeda‟s identity. Western covert operations and military- intelligence connections in strategic regions show that “al-Qaeda” is a network whose raison d’etre and modus operandi are inextricably embedded in a disturbing conglomerate of international Western diplomatic, financial, military and intelligence policies today. US, British and Western power routinely manipulates al-Qaeda through a complex network of state-regional and human nodes. Such manipulation extended directly to the 9-11 hijackers, and thus to the events of 9-11 itself.1 1  1. Al-Qaeda as a Tool of Statecraft An examination of the conventional understanding of al-Qaeda raises significant doubts. Critical analysis of reports surrounding groups identified as belonging to “al-Qaeda” discloses a clear pattern: that these networks operate according to a common trajectory, conducive to Western interests. 1.1 Defining al-Qaeda There remains considerable disagreement over the nature of al-Qaeda, whether it actually exists in a concrete sense, pertains to a tenuous ideological tendency among Islamist groups around the world, or indeed whether the term usefully denotes anything objective at all outside the discourse of Western officialdom. Rohan Gunaratna (2002, p. 296) offers a detailed description of al-Qaeda as “an Islamist organization full of vitality”. It has a “politically clandestine structure”, inspired by “internationalism”, drawing on the “Marxist militant model”, using “noms de guerre” and a strict “cell structure”. It follows “the idea of a cadre party, maintains tight discipline, promotes self-sacrifice and reverence for the leadership and is guided by a program of action”. His work was widely considered the most comprehensive and reliable account of al-Qaeda‟s history, development, structure and operations. Much of Gunaratna‟s claims are deeply flawed. The study‟s biggest problem is its largely unverifiable nature, relying almost exclusively on materials made available to the author through his Western intelligence contacts. They provided him with access to alleged al-Qaeda operatives and Western counterterrorism officials whose grandiose stories are accepted uncritically and without corroboration. The lack of credibility pervading Gunaratna‟s thesis emerged when many of his most striking claims were disproved. One prominent example is his widely cited narrative of an alleged al-Qaeda plot to fly a hijacked British Airways plane into the houses of parliament in London, foiled by the grounding of planes in US airspace on and after 9-11. Gunaratna‟s source is alleged al-Qaeda operative Mohammed Afroz detained in Bombay in October 2001, who also claimed to plan to fly a plane into the Rialto Towers in Melbourne, Australia. An Indian court released Afroz in July 2002 -- New 2 Delhi authorities concluded that the claims were fabricated by Bombay police. Australia‟s Security and Intelligence Organization similarly dismissed the claim of a Melbourne plan as “lacking in credibility”.2 The most damning admission came from his book‟s British publisher, which printed a disclaimer requesting readers to treat its contents not as factual, but as mere “suggestions”: A wide range of organizations -- banks, governmental and non-governmental bodies, financial enterprises, religious and educational institutions, commercial entities, transport companies and charitable bodies are referred to in this book as having had contact or dealings with Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. Unless such references specifically state otherwise, they should be treated as nothing other than a suggestion that the organisations concerned were the unwitting tools of those who attempted, successfully or otherwise, to infiltrate, use or manipulate them for terrorist purposes. (Gunaratna, [London] 2002) 3 Gunaratna‟s thesis ought to be viewed cautiously, and perhaps not taken seriously at all. A growing number of experts challenge such conventional analyses. Terrorism expert R. T. Naylor (2002) argues that: “Al Qaeda itself does not exist, except in the fevered imaginations of neo-cons and Likudniks, some of whom, I suspect, also know it is a myth, but find it extremely useful as a bogeyman to spook the public and the politicians to acquiesce in otherwise unacceptable policy initiatives at home and abroad.” International terrorism consists of “loose networks of like- minded individuals,” who may occasionally “pay homage to some patron figure who they may never have met and with whom they have no concrete relationship”. Terrorists largely “conduct their operations strictly by themselves, even if they may from time to time seek advice”.4 Dr Andrew Sike (2003), a criminologist and forensic psychologist on the UN Roster of Terrorism Experts, notes that al-Qaeda lacks “a clear hierarchy, military mindset and centralised command”. At best, it constitutes a loose network of “affiliated groups sharing religious and ideological backgrounds, but which often interact sparingly”. Al-Qaeda is less an organization than “a state of mind”, encompassing “a wide range of members and followers who can differ dramatically from each other”. Adam Curtis (2004) in his BBC documentaries The Power of Nightmares argued that al-Qaeda does not even have members, a leader, “sleeper cells”, or even an overall strategy. As an organization “it barely exists at all, except as an idea about cleansing a corrupt world through religious violence”. US terrorism experts Kimberly A. McCloud and Adam Dolnik (2002) from the Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies, 3 note that al-Qaeda is “a loose collection of groups and individuals that doesn‟t even refer to itself as al-Qaeda”. Dolnik reports that “Bin Laden never used the term al- Qaeda prior to 9/11. Nor am I aware of the name being used by operatives on trial. The closest they came were in statements such as, „Yes, I am a member of what you call al-Qaeda.‟” The term “al-Qaeda” was invented by American intelligence services as a “convenient label for a group that had no formal name”. Its public use proliferated after the 1998 US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania (O‟Neill, November 2003). Thus, The Observer’s chief reporter Jason Burke concludes that: “Al-Qaeda is a messy and rough designation, often applied carelessly in the absence of a more useful term”. (2003) These authoritative observations suggest that al-Qaeda as conventionally described does not exist. This is not reason to deny altogether that al-Qaeda denotes some sort of identifiable entity. The late Robin Cook (2005), former British Foreign Secretary, 1997-2001, and Leader of the House of Commons, 2001-2003, revealed one day after the London bombings that the term “al-Qaeda” referred to a database contained in a computer file, listing “the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians”.5 This statement is crucial -- it demonstrates that an entity referred to as “al- Qaeda” has indeed existed since the Cold War years; it demonstrates that this existence is not commensurate with conventional discourse -- as a CIA computer database of mujahideen recruits, the term “al-Qaeda” denoted a list of individuals related to a specific category of US covert military-intelligence operations. As Janes Defence Weekly (Bedi, 2001; Chossudovsky, September 12, 2001) reported, “al- Qaeda” was created in 1988 “with US knowledge” by Osama bin Laden, a “conglomerate of quasi-independent Islamic terrorist cells” spanning “at least 26 countries”. Bin Laden‟s “al-Qaeda” network was never external to the US covert operations apparatus, deriving its infrastructure, weapons, advanced training, and core recruits under the careful tutelage of Western military intelligence. The term “al- Qaeda” was coined not by Islamists, but by the CIA to designate a computer database of mujahideen operatives, cells and groups affiliated principally through this Western military intelligence heritage. These two strands of fact -- firstly, that al-Qaeda as a centralized organization does not exist, and secondly, that al-Qaeda as a database of pseudo-Islamist covert 4 operations recruits does exist -- necessitate a more nuanced working definition. The term “al-Qaeda” can perhaps be applied as a meaningful designation if the following criteria are fulfilled: 1. There is documented evidence that an individual or group has a connection with the CIA-trained mujahideen associated with bin Laden and related senior mujahideen operatives; i.e. that they are associated with the original CIA database. 2. There is documented evidence that an individual or group is connected to Western military intelligence services, and corresponding financial and strategic interests. 1.2 Al-Qaeda as a Post-Cold War Strategic Instrument Al-Qaeda and the New Destabilization Doctrine The CIA never envisaged that the operational scope of its terrorist database would be restricted to Afghanistan. One CIA analyst told Swiss television journalist Richard Labévière, chief editor at Radio France International: The policy of guiding the evolution of Islam and of helping them against our adversaries worked marvellously well in Afghanistan against the Red Army. The same doctrines can still be used to destabilize what remains of Russian power, and especially to counter the Chinese influence in Central Asia. (Labévière, 2000, Prologue) “Al-Qaeda” activity thus pertained to a new doctrine of covert destabilization, to be implemented in new theatres of operation strategically close to Russian and Chinese influence, namely, Eastern Europe, the Balkans, the Caucasus and Central Asia. Unholy Triangle Evidence in the public record substantiates the above cited observations of Labévière‟s CIA officer. No sooner had the Cold War ended, the US perpetuated influence over various mujahideen factions in Afghanistan. European intelligence sources reveal that the CIA and the Saudis -- intent on securing a regime 5 commensurate with their joint regional interests -- agreed that they did not want to give up “the assets of such a profitable collaboration,” referring to the Cold War Afghan-US alliance controlled by bin Laden. In 1991, the CIA, Saudi intelligence, and bin Laden held a series of secret meetings. The CIA was determined to maintain its influence in Afghanistan, “the vital route to Central Asia where the great oil companies were preparing the energy eldorado for the coming millenium.” The Saudis were also intent on preserving the bin Laden-Pakistan alliance “at all costs”. (Labévière, p. 104f) This is corroborated by other sources. Posner (2003, pp. 40-42) cites a classified US intelligence report proving that in April 1991, then head of Saudi intelligence services Prince Turki al-Faisal struck a secret deal with bin Laden: the regime would publicly disown bin Laden; permit him to leave Saudi Arabia with funds and supporters; and continue financing his activities on condition that he avoids targeting the monarchy.6 US intelligence was obviously aware of the deal but did nothing: tacit consent. 1.3 Al-Qaeda in Central Asia Azerbaijan No sooner had the Soviet-backed Najibullah regime collapsed in April 1992, the Tajik and Pashtun factions, led by Ahmed Shah Massoud and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar respectively, began competing for power. Uzbek and Tajik mujahideen began launching cross-border raids against Tajikistan and later Uzbekistan. Up to 1992, the Tajik rebels were “actively supported” by Massoud and Hekmatyar “when both continued to receive aid and assistance from the United States,” through Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. These raids “contributed materially to the destabilization of the Muslim Republics in the Soviet Union (and after 1992 of its successor, the Conference of Independent States)”, a specific objective of US policy both during and after the Cold War (Scott, 2004, 2005). In 1991, the first Bush administration supported a proposed oil pipeline from Azerbaijan, across the Caucasus, to Turkey. In the same year -- during a Congressional ban on US arms sales to the country -- three veteran US covert 6 operations experts Richard Secord, Heinie Aderholt, and Ed Dearborn, all formerly active in Laos and later with Oliver North‟s Contra operations, landed in Baku under the mantle of front company “MEGA Oil”. They were career US Air Force officers, but had been frequently seconded to the CIA as CIA detailees. In Azerbaijan, they “engaged in military training”, and established an airline “which soon was picking up hundreds of mujahedin mercenaries in Afghanistan.” (Ibid.) Hekmatyar -- who was still in receipt of US aid and a bin Laden ally -- was recruiting Afghan mujahideen “to fight in Azerbaijan against Armenia and its Russian allies”. (Cooley, 2000, p. 180) By 1993, MEGA Oil had recruited at least two thousand Afghan mujahideen into Azerbaijan, and armed them with thousands of dollars of weapons. (Scott, 2003; 2004, 2005) According to Central Asian specialist Mark Erkali et. al. (2003), there is: … considerable evidence that all three prime movers in the company - former Iran-Contra conspirator Richard Secord, legendary Air Force special operations commander Harry „Heinie‟ Aderholt, and the man known as either a diabolical con-man or a misunderstood patriot, Gary Best - were in the past involved in some of the most infamous activities in the history of the CIA. The Azeri mujahideen presence was funded and supported by Osama bin Laden, who had established an NGO in Baku which became a launching base for terrorist operations across the region (National Commission, 2004, p. 58). The US covert operation contributed to the eventual coup that toppled elected president Abulfaz Elchibey, and brought to power Heidar Aliyev. A secret Turkish intelligence report leaked to the Sunday Times confirmed that “two petrol giants, BP and Amoco, British and American respectively, which together form the AIOC [Azerbaijan International Oil Consortium], are behind the coup d‟etat carried out against Elchibey in 1993.”7 Afghanistan and Pakistan The solidification of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan occurred years after the Soviet withdrawal when Osama bin Laden returned there in June 1996. He had been offered protection by Pakistan in May on condition that he aligned his forces with the Taliban. According to bin Laden, the Pakistan-brokered al-Qaeda-Taliban alliance was “blessed by the Saudis”. (Posner, 2003, pp. 105-6) Top secret State Department documents warned that bin Laden‟s settlement in Afghanistan “could prove more dangerous to US interests in the long run than his three-year liaison with Khartoum”. 7 The move granted him “the capability to support individuals and groups who have the motive and wherewithal to attack US interests almost worldwide”.8 As Ahmed Rashid reported, from 1994 to 1998, the United States supported the Taliban as a vehicle of regional influence. Between 1999 and 2000, US support continued despite growing cautions. When the Taliban conquered Kabul in 1996, a State Department spokesperson explained that the US found “nothing objectionable” in the event. (Rashid, 2000, p. 166) Radha Kumar of the Council on Foreign Relations points out that this was because the Taliban: … was brought to power with Washington‟s silent blessing as it dallied in an abortive new „Great Game‟ in central Asia… Keen to see Afghanistan under strong central rule to allow a US-led group to build a multi-billion-dollar oil and gas pipeline, Washington urged key allies Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to back the militia‟s bid for power in 1996. (Agence France-Press, 2001) One year later, in 1997, a US diplomat commented: “The Taliban will probably develop like the Saudis… There will be Aramco [consortium of oil companies controlling Saudi oil], pipelines, an emir, no parliament and lots of Sharia law. We can live with that.” (Rashid, 2000, p. 179) US sponsorship of the Taliban was confirmed as late as 1999 and 2000 in Congressional hearings. Dana Rohrabacher -- former White House Special Assistant to President Reagan and now Senior Member of the House International Relations Committee -- testified: Having been closely involved in US policy toward Afghanistan for some twenty years, I have called into question whether or not this administration has a covert policy that has empowered the Taliban and enabled this brutal movement to hold on to power… I am making the claim that there is and has been a covert policy by this administration to support the Taliban movement‟s control of Afghanistan…. [T]his amoral or immoral policy is based on the assumption that the Taliban would bring stability to Afghanistan and permit the building of oil pipelines from Central Asia through Afghanistan to Pakistan. (Rohrabacher, 1999; Ahmed, 2005, pp. 22-23, f77) To this day, Pakistan continues to be integrally involved in al-Qaeda sponsorship. As intelligence expert George Friedman (2004, p. 223) observes, Pakistan has “the closest connections to Al Qaeda and the least cooperative intelligence service, in spite of the apparent cooperation of Pakistan‟s President Musharraf”. 8 1.4 Al-Qaeda in the Balkans Bosnia-Herzegovina From 1992 to 1995, the Pentagon assisted with the movement of thousands of al-Qaeda mujahideen from Central Asia into Europe, to fight alongside Bosnian Muslims against the Serbs. (O‟Neill, September 2003) The air funnel was documented based on five years of unrestricted access to Dutch intelligence files by Professor Cees Weibes (2003) of Amsterdam University in Appendix II of the Srebrenica Report. “Mojahedin fighters were also flown in”, reported Professor Richard Aldrich (2002) of the University of Nottingham, “but they were reserved as shock troops for especially hazardous operations”. The “hidden force” behind these operations was not the CIA, but “the Pentagon‟s own secret service”. Other intelligence sources reported that “the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had full knowledge of the operation” to fly in and equip hundreds of mujahideen in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Indeed, “the CIA believed that some of the 400 had been detached for future terrorist operations in Western Europe”. Mujahideen landing at Ploce were “accompanied by US Special Forces equipped with high-tech communications equipment”. Their mission was to establish a “command, control, communications and intelligence network to coordinate and support Bosnian Muslim offensives”. The US military, in other words, was actively coordinating on the ground with bin Laden‟s mujahideen network.9 According to Yossef Bodansky (1996, Chpts 3, 9) their number was more than 10,000. Kosovo, Macedonia The US and UK had supplied military assistance to the KLA long before NATO intervention. Tim Judah (2002, p. 120) reports that KLA representatives had met with US, British, and Swiss intelligence services as early as 1996, probably even “several years earlier”. British SAS and American Delta Force instructors were training KLA fighters in “weapons handling, demolition and ambush techniques, and basic organization.” (The Herald, 27 March 2000) The US even gave KLA commanders satellite telephones, global positioning technology, and the cell phone number of NATO Commander Gen. Wesley Clark. (Sunday Times, 12 March 2000) 9 According to Ralf Mutschke, Assistant Director of Interpol‟s Criminal Intelligence Directorate, one of these commanders was an emissary of Osama bin Laden himself, sent to lead “an elite KLA unit during the Kosovo conflict”. (Grigg, 2001) The implication is that NATO liaised directly with bin Laden‟s own emissary via telephone. By 1998, the KLA was officially designated by the State Department a “terrorist organization financing its operations with money from the international heroin trade and funds supplied from Islamic countries and individuals, including Osama bin Laden.” (Bisset, 2001) US, Albanian and Macedonian intelligence reports prove that KLA fighters -- currently operating as the NLA in Macedonia -- train in al- Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and Albania, and sponsor border crossings into Kosovo from Albania, of hundreds of al-Qaeda mujahideen from Bosnia, Chechnya and Afghanistan. (Seper, 1999) In Macedonia, the al-Qaeda backed NLA receives US military intelligence assistance. As noted by Scott Taylor -- Canada‟s top war reporter, former soldier and editor of Esprit de Corps Military Magazine -- after a visit to Tetovo in 2001, “there is no denying the massive amount of material and expertise supplied by NATO to the guerrillas”.10 A leaked secret European intelligence report documented the same. The report confirmed the involvment of the Virginian-based private US defense contractor Military Professionals Resources Inc. (MPRI), as well as constant telephone contact between US officials and NLA rebels.11 The US-backed NLA remains the most prominent bin Laden-affiliated network in the Balkans. According to Bodansky, the Albanian network is headed by Muhammad al-Zawahiri, the engineer brother of Ayman al-Zawahiri who is bin Laden‟s right-hand man and mentor. Fatos Klosi -- head of Shik, the Albanian intelligence services -- confirms that a major al-Qaeda network was established in Albania in 1998. The network had “already infiltrated other parts of Europe from bases in Albania through traffic in illegal immigrants”. (Dettmer, 2002) The Macedonian Ministry of the Interior provided the US National Security Council with a detailed report on al-Qaeda activity in the Kumanovo-Lipkovo region, including lists of names and two units consisting of 370 al-Qaeda fighters. NLA members are not only ethnic Albanians, but also mujahideen from Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Jordan, and Chechnya, some trained in al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan. “Officials at the NSC and CIA were polite and received the information 10 with thanks, but little else has happened,” noted one Macedonian official. (Ibid.) Macedonian intelligence complains that NATO political pressure and US interference pose the biggest obstacles to investigating al-Qaeda‟s presence. (Taylor, October 2001) These covert operations facilitated NATO occupation of the Balkans to service Anglo-American oil and gas interests. As Gen. Sir Mike Jackson, then commander of NATO troops in the region, said in 1999: “We will certainly stay here for a long time in order to guarantee the safety of the energy corridors which cross Macedonia.” (Collon, 2000, p. 96) Gen. Jackson‟s remark related to plans described in The Guardian: A project called the Trans-Balkan pipeline has been little-reported in any British, European or American newspaper. The line will run from the Black sea port of Burgas to the Adriatic at Vlore, passing through Bulgaria, Macedonia and Albania. It is likely to become the main route to the west for the oil and gas now being extracted in central Asia. (Monbiot, 2001) 1.5 Al-Qaeda in North Africa Algeria The Armed Islamic Group (GIA) is an al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist group in Algeria. The group was first “created in the house of the Muhajirin in 1989 in Peshawar”. From here, on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan, “the first hard core of „Algerian Afghans‟ launched their terrorist campaign against Algeria”. The al- Qaeda veterans of the Afghan war against the Soviets, “trained in the Afghan militias, returned to Algeria with the help of international networks, via Bosnia, Albania, Italy, France, Morocco or Sudan.” (Boudjemaa, 2002) According to Jane’s Defense Weekly, in the late 1980s between nearly 1,000 Algerian mujahideen who trained under bin Laden in Afghanistan joined Algerian armed groups, which by January 1993 united as the GIA. (Robinson, 2003) The latter forged close links to al-Qaeda “in the early 1990s,” reports the Office of the Attorney-General in Australia, when the UK-based Abu Qatada “was designated by bin Laden as the spiritual adviser for Algerian groups including the GIA”.12 From 1997 to 1998, al-Qaeda achieved further “large-scale penetration of Algerian groups”. (Gunaratna, et. al, 2001) According to Algeria expert 11 Stephen Cook of the Brookings Institute, “there are Algerian [terrorist] cells spread all over Europe, Canada, and the United States”. (Heil, 2001) “Yussuf-Joseph” was a career secret agent in Algeria‟s securite militaire for 14 years, until he defected to Britain. He told Guardian journalists Sweeney and Doyle (1997): “The bombs that outraged Paris in 1995 -- blamed on Muslim fanatics -- were the handiwork of the Algerian secret service. They were part of a propaganda war aimed at galvanising French public opinion against the Islamists.” Civilian massacres in Algeria, blamed on the GIA, are “the work of secret police and army death squads.… The killing of many foreigners was organised by the secret police, not Islamic extremists.” GIA terrorism is “orchestrated” by “Mohammed Mediane, head of the Algerian secret service,” and “General Smain Lamari,” head of “the counter intelligence agency”. According to Joseph: The GIA is a pure product of Smain‟s secret service. I used to read all the secret telexes. I know that the GIA has been infiltrated and manipulated by the government. The GIA has been completely turned by the government…. In 1992 Smain created a special group, L‟Escadron de la Mort [the Squadron of Death]... The death squads organise the massacres... The FIS aren‟t doing the massacres. Joseph confirms that Algerian secret agents sent by Smain organized “at least” two of the bombs in Paris in summer 1995. “The operation was run by Colonel Souames Mahmoud, alias Habib, head of the secret service at the Algerian embassy in Paris”. Joseph‟s testimony has been corroborated by numerous defectors from the Algerian secret services (Ahmed, 2005, pp. 65-77; Ahmed, 2001). Western intelligence agencies are implicated. The Guardian recorded the collapse of a three-year terrorist case “when an MI5 informant refused to appear in court after evidence which senior ministers tried to suppress revealed that Algerian government forces were involved in atrocities against innocent civilians.” The report refers to “secret documents showing British intelligence believed the Algerian government was involved in atrocities, contradicting the view the government was claiming in public”. The Foreign Office documents “were produced on the orders of the trial judge” eighteen months late, and disproved “the government‟s publicly-stated view… that there was „no credible, substantive evidence to confirm‟ allegations implicating Algerian government forces in atrocities.” The documents showed that according to Whitehall‟s Joint Intelligence Committee: “There is no firm evidence to rule out government manipulation or involvement in terrorist violence”. One document stated: 12 “Sources had privately said some of the killings of civilians were the responsibility of the Algerian security services”. A January 1997 document concludes: “[Algerian] military security would have... no scruples about killing innocent people.… My instincts remain that parts of the Algerian government would stop at nothing.” Multiple documents “referred to the „manipulation‟ of the GIA being used as a cover to carry out their own operations”. A US intelligence report confirmed that “there was no evidence to link 1995 Paris bombings to Algerian militants”. On the contrary, “one killing at the time could have been ordered by the Algerian government”. (Ibid.) Algeria has the fifth largest reserves of natural gas in the world, and is the second largest gas exporter, with 130 trillion proven natural gas reserves. It ranks fourteenth for oil reserves, with official estimates at 9.2 billion barrels. Approximately 90 per cent of Algeria‟s crude oil exports go to western Europe, including Britain, France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, and Spain. Algeria‟s major trading partners are Italy, France, the United States, Germany, and Spain.13 Cooley (2000, pp. 205-206) reports the presence of “500 to 600 American engineers and technicians living and working behind barbed wire” in a collection of “protected gas and oil enclaves in Algeria”. The main American firms involved are “Arco, Exxon, Oryx, Anadarko, Mobil and Sun Oil” often in association with European firms, “Agip, BP, Cepsa or the Korean group Daewoo”. According to European intelligence sources, CIA meetings with Algerian Islamist leaders from 1993 to 1995 are responsible for the lack of terrorist attacks on US oil and agribusiness installations in Algeria. (Labévière, 2000, pp. 182-189) Libya David Shayler worked for the international terrorism desk of MI5 for 6 years before resigning in 1997. In 1995, he obtained classified MI6 data detailing a covert British intelligence plan to assassinate Libyan Head of State, Col. Mu‟ammar Gaddafi. MI6 paid over £100,000 to al-Qaeda‟s network in Libya to conduct the assassination. The operation failed. The al-Qaeda cell planted a bomb under the wrong car, killing six innocent Libyan civilians. The plot came to Shayler‟s attention in formal briefings with his MI6 colleagues, and was confirmed to the world when a classified MI6 memo detailing the plot was leaked online. (Machon, 2005; Bright, 2002) In a press release on the subject, Shayler observed: 13  We need a statement from the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary clarifying the facts of this matter. In particular, we need to know how around £100,000 of taxpayers‟ money was used to fund the sort of Islamic Extremists who have connections to Osama Bin Laden‟s Al Qaeda network. Did ministers give MI6 permission for this? By the time MI6 paid the group in late 1995 or early 1996, US investigators had already established that Bin Laden was implicated in the 1993 attack on the World Trade Centre. Given the timing and the close connections between Libyan and Egyptian Islamic Extremists, it may even have been used to fund the murder of British citizens in Luxor, Egypt in 1996. (Shayler, August 2000) The British government denied the allegations. Foreign Secretary Robin Cook described them as “pure fantasy”. (Hollingsworth, March 2000) However, the government went on to accuse Shayler of breaching the 1989 Official Secrets Act -- his statements were an alleged threat to British national security -- and subsequently prosecuted him to prevent further revelations (McGowan, October 2002). French intelligence experts Guillaume Dasquié and Jean-Charles Brisard documented that among the members of the Libyan al-Qaeda cell was one of bin Laden‟s most trusted lieutenants, Anas al-Liby. He is among the FBI‟s Most Wanted Terrorists: … in connection with the August 7, 1998, bombings of the United States Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya.… The Rewards For Justice Program, United States Department of State, is offering a reward of up to $25 million for information leading directly to the apprehension or conviction of Anas Al-Liby.14 As The Observer reported, “British intelligence paid large sums of money to an al-Qaeda cell in Libya... and thwarted early attempts to bring Osama bin Laden to justice.” The latest claim “of MI6 involvement with Libya‟s fearsome Islamic Fighting Group” is embarrassing because the latter is “connected to one of bin Laden‟s trusted lieutenants”. The cell “included Anas al-Liby” who was “with bin Laden in Sudan before the al-Qaeda leader returned to Afghanistan in 1996”. Despite suspicions of being “a high-level al-Qaeda operative, al-Liby was given political asylum in Britain and lived in Manchester until May of 2000”. (Bright, 2002) 14  2. Al-Qaeda on 9-11: Connect or Disconnect? The data discussed above demonstrates that the object identified by intelligence services as “al-Qaeda” is really a loose network of individuals, “mujahideen”, who had been involved, or are associated with people involved, in the Afghan rebellion against Soviet occupation, and thus associated with the CIA‟s original “database”. In this context, “al-Qaeda” is not an organization “out there”. Al- Qaeda denotes the fundamental organizing principle behind the disparate activities of this amorphous collection of CIA-trained mujahideen; this organizing principle, coordinating the diverse scope of mujahideen operations over space and time, is nothing other than Western financial, strategic, military, and intelligence interests. Al- Qaeda is therefore a euphemism for Western covert operations specializing in destabilization. Here, we will attempt to explore whether this “euphemism” functioned on 9-11. 2.1 The Circumstantial Case for al-Qaeda Hijackers The Anomaly: Dead or Alive? A strong case can be made challenging the US government‟s narrative of the activities of alleged al-Qaeda operatives, identified as the nineteen hijackers who took control of the four civilian aircraft on the morning of 9-11 (see Kolar, 2006). Credible sources confirmed weeks after the attacks that a number of the named individuals identified by the FBI as hijackers were alive and well. (Harrison, 2001)15 Kolar locates, using reliable documentation, as many as ten such individuals. As Newsday records: “Almost six weeks after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, the identities of several hijackers remain uncertain, complicated by aliases, invalid Social Security numbers, multiple dates of birth and phony addresses.” Alleged hijackers identified by the FBI as Abdulaziz Alomari, Ahmed Alghamdi, Hani Hanjour, Khalid al- Midhar, Majed Moqed and Salem Alhamzi are known to have obtained fraudulent ID cards in Virginia. Thus, there real identities are unknown. (Perlmann, 2002) To date, 15 no authority has publicly resolved this anomaly. This is of course a fatal flaw in the official narrative. However, a strong case can also be made based on circumstantial data in the public record, that some of the individuals identified in accordance with the official narrative did exist, were monitored by the intelligence community prior to 9-11, and were directly connected by members of that community to an al-Qaeda plan to hijack civilian aircraft and target key symbolic structures in the United States. Numerous officials within the FBI, CIA, NSA and other agencies, independently confirmed to various media outlets that individuals believed by intelligence agencies to be connected to al-Qaeda -- such as Mohamed Atta, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar, Ziad Samar Jarrah, Hani Janjour, among others -- were involved in the „planes as weapons‟ plot well in advance of the actual attacks. A number of intelligence officials were seriously concerned about the threat apparently posed, and active government efforts to obstruct legitimate intelligence investigations. (Ahmed, 2005, pp. 157-230) But this case needs to be scrutinized in relation to contradictory facts and tensions within the data, as performed below. The Alleged Chief Hijacker Mohamed Atta What these intelligence sources confirm contradicts the government‟s official narrative, which downplays the extent of advanced warning received by the intelligence community. Mohamed Atta is a case in point. According to the 9-11 Commission, Atta was simply not identified by the US intelligence community until after the successful completion of the 9-11 attacks. However, journalistic investigations confirmed this to be false. The German public TV channel ARD (23 November 2001) reported that Atta was monitored for several months in 2000 by US intelligence, when he traveled several times from Hamburg to Frankfurt and bought large quantities of chemicals potentially usable for building explosives. Washington Post columnist William Raspberry (2002) noted: “The CIA was monitoring hijacking leader Mohamed Atta in Germany until May 2000 - about a month before he is believed to have come to the United States to attend flight school. Does it make sense that the monitoring stopped when he entered this country?” 16  Further contradicting the official narrative, intelligence sources told the Miami Herald: “A secretive US eavesdropping agency monitored telephone conversations before Sept. 11 between the suspected commander of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks and the alleged chief hijacker.” The officials said that “the conversations between Khalid Shaikh Mohammed [KSM] and Mohamed Atta were intercepted by the National Security Agency… The officials declined to disclose the nature of the discussions between Mohammed [KSM], a known leader of Osama bin Laden‟s al Qaeda network who is on the FBI‟s Most Wanted Terrorists list, and Atta... Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is believed to be hiding in Pakistan… The senior intelligence official said that when the NSA monitored their conversations, Mohammed was overseas and Atta was in the United States. Mohammed [KSM] was included on the FBI‟s Most Wanted Terrorist List… because he had been indicted on charges of being involved in a failed 1995 plot to bomb 11 US airliners flying over the Pacific Ocean on a single day. (Landay, 2002) This account concords with reports of a highly classified US Army intelligence unit known as “Able Danger” pinpointing four alleged 9-11 hijackers one year before 9-11. Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, Khalid Almidhar, and Nawaf Alhamzi were identified as members of a “Brooklyn” al-Qaeda cell on a detailed chart that included visa photographs. The Army unit was established by the Special Operations Command in 1999.16 These credible reports show that disparate agencies of the US intelligence community were pursuing active investigations against individuals carrying these identities, involved in a terrorism plot. Yet there remain serious tensions. The second member of this Brooklyn al- Qaeda cell uncovered by Able Danger, Marwan al-Shehhi, has turned up “still alive in Morocco” according to the Saudi Gazette and Kaleej Times (Kolar, 2006). The third cell member, Khalid Almidhar, similarly illustrates the identity confusion. Eight days after 9-11, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. distributed a “special alert” to its member banks asking for information about 21 “alleged suspects” in the attacks. The list said “Al-Midhar, Khalid Alive,” raising the possibility that the real Almihdhar never died on the plane. “Investigators aren‟t even entirely sure that Almihdhar and Alhazmi are the men‟s real names - or that several people weren‟t using those names as aliases.” (King, 2001) In any case, the monitoring of conversations between Atta, alleged chief hijacker and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), alleged operational mastermind of 9- 17 11, prior to the attacks is extremely significant. KSM was for years identified by US intelligence as a key member of al-Qaeda, and creator of the 1995 “Project Bojinka” plot. The Herald notes only one dimension of this plot – the plan to explode hijacked civilian aircraft over the Pacific. The plan‟s second component was what eventually occurred on 9-11. Federal investigative sources confirmed that Abdul Hakim Murad -- “a close confidant and right-hand man” to Ramzi Yousef, “who was convicted of crimes relating to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center” -- “detailed an entire plot to dive bomb aircraft in the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley. Yousef had “boasted of the plot to US Secret Service agent Brian Parr and FBI agent Charles Stern on an extradition flight from Pakistan to the United States in February 1995,” as the agents later testified in court. The plan “targeted not only the CIA but other US government buildings in Washington, including the Pentagon.”17 Rafael M. Garcia III, Chairman/CEO of the Mega Group of Computer Companies in the Philippines, who often works with the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), was involved in the intelligence operation that uncovered Project Bojinka. Garcia was responsible for decoding Yousef‟s computer: “… we discovered a second, even more sinister plot.” Project Bojinka aimed to crash “planes into selected targets in the United States” including “the World Trade Center in New York; the Sears Tower in Chicago; the TransAmerica Tower in San Francisco; and the White House in Washington, DC”. These findings were submitted to NBI officials, who “turned over the report (and the computer) either to then Senior Superintendent Avelino Razon of the PNP [the Philippine National Police] or to Bob Heafner of the FBI.” US authorities confirmed that “many things were done in response to my report.” (Garcia, 2001; Cooley, 2000, p. 247) Professor Paul Monk of the Australian Defense University cites “confidential sources” in Manila and Washington further detailing that: “The flights to be hijacked were specified” in Project Bojinka. “They were all United Airlines, Northwest Airlines and Delta flights.” Further evidence suggested a probable date for the plot: “The date of Yousef‟s conviction was 11 September 1996. From that point, given the fascination terrorists have with anniversaries, 11 September should surely have become a watch date.”18 There is further such evidence. In his July 2003 testimony before the 9-11 Commission, al-Qaeda scholar Gunaratna cited CIA sources and official transcripts of 18 the interrogation of high-level al-Qaeda operatives such as Abu Zubaydah to reveal that: “The Sept. 11 attacks were given the code name „Operation Holy Tuesday‟ and precisely planned at an al Qaeda meeting in Malaysia chaired by terror mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in January 2000.” The 3-day conference “was monitored by the Malaysian secret police at the CIA‟s request,” and hosted 12 terrorists at an apartment in Kuala Lumpur, including “two hijackers, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, who flew from there to Bangkok, Thailand and to the United States without interference, as well as Tawfiq Attash, a key planner in the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen.” The conference consisted of detailed discussions on “how the hijackers should train and hide in the United States and how the attacks should be carried out.” KSM, who was “in charge of the Malaysia meeting,” told some of the participants that “the targets would include the World Trade Center and the date of the attacks would be Sept. 11, 2001, Gunaratna said.” (Blomquist, 2003)19 US officials claimed that this January 9-11 planning meeting was not recorded; this claim is untrue -- the entire conference was recorded on video with “surveillance tape” by Malaysian security services on behalf of the CIA.20 When asked about Gunaratna‟s revelations, US officials vehemently denied that KSM had attended the meeting: “We have no information to suggest that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was at the meeting in Kuala Lumpur. We don‟t believe it to be true.” (Blomquist, 2003) But CNN (August 30, 2002), citing anonymous US intelligence sources, confirmed that KSM did attend. In conclusion, Atta‟s reported ties to KSM up to the day before the attacks link him directly to an unfolding terrorism plot exactly like what occurred on 9-11. The most plausible interpretation of this evidence is that he and his associates were indeed participating in the planning and preparation for 9-11. The Plot Itself At least one of the alleged hijackers was reportedly casing the World Trade Center months before 9-11. The last man to leave the North Tower, 9-11 survivor William Rodriguez -- who had worked as a janitor in the World Trade Center for nineteen years and won a National Hero Award from the Senate of Puerto Rico for single-handedly saving fifteen, and helping to save several hundred, lives on 9-11 -- had personally seen hijacker Mohand Alshehri inside the World Trade Center before 19 the attacks. In his testimony before the 9-11 Commission, Rodriguez “swears he saw United Airlines Flight 175 hijacker Mohand Alshehri in June 2001 and told an FBI agent in the family center at Ground Zero about it a month after the attacks. He never heard back from the bureau… Rodriguez said he was working overtime one weekend cleaning rest rooms on the concourse and mezzanine levels when Alshehri approached him. „I had just finished cleaning the bathroom and this guy asks me, „Excuse me, how many public bathrooms are in this area?‟‟ Rodriguez told the Daily News. „Coming from the school of the 1993 [Trade Center] bombing, I found it very strange,‟ Rodriguez said. „I didn‟t forget about it.‟ After Al Qaeda‟s attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, Rodriguez recognized Alshehri‟s mug in newspapers. (Meek, 2004) At face value, one alleged hijacker appeared to be directly involved in the 9-11 plot, showing unusual interest in the central target, the World Trade Center. Yet a serious tension remains. The Saudi embassy in Washington and Saudi Foreign Minister confirmed that Mohand Alshehri is alive and had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks (Kolar, 2006). Zarembka (2006) in this volume documents the strong circumstantial case for concluding the four planes on 9-11 were indeed hijacked. The Flight 93 cockpit voice recording further confirms that there were several Arab hijackers who had taken control of the plane. Families of the victims of the Flight 93 crash who have heard the recording -- which has not been released to the wider public -- confirm that the hijackers spoke in Arabic. Notably, their account of the recording contradicts that of the FBI, which insists that the terrorists crashed the plane deliberately. According to the families, the recording shows something far different -- that the passengers had breached the cockpit and managed to take control of the aircraft before it crashed. In any case, the most significant conclusion for our purposes is that Arab hijackers were, according to the cockpit voice recording, on board the flight.21 The transcript and recording of a lengthy phone call made by stewardess Amy Sweeney on board Flight 11, to American Airlines Flight Service at Boston‟s Logan airport for the duration of the hijacking, confirms similar details. As Gail Sheehy reports, the transcript and recording, some of which consists of real-time notes made by American Airlines flight service manager on 9-11, Michael Woodward, is ignored by the 9-11 Commission. Despite being urged by 9-11 families to interview Woodward, he has also been boycotted. The transcript shows that Sweeney “gave seat locations and physical descriptions of the hijackers, which allowed officials to 20 identify them as Middle Eastern men by name even before the first crash.” She had calmly passed on “the seat locations of three of the hijackers: 9D, 9G and 10B. She said they were all of Middle Eastern descent, and one spoke English very well.” Twenty minutes before the plane crashed, “the airline had the names, addresses, phone numbers and credit cards of three of the five hijackers. They knew that 9G was Abdulaziz Alomari, 10B was Satam al-Suqami, and 9D was Mohamed Atta -- the ringleader of the 9/11 terrorists.” (Sheehy, 2004) Yet Alomari is reportedly alive (Kolay, 2006) According to Robert Bonner, head of US Customs and Border Protection, passenger manifests for the four hijacked flights led to the identification of 19 possible Arab hijackers. “On the morning of 9/11, through an evaluation of data related to the passengers manifest for the four terrorist hijacked aircraft, Customs Office of Intelligence was able to identify the likely terrorist hijackers,” he told the 9- 11 Commission. “Within 45 minutes of the attacks, Customs forwarded the passenger lists with the names of the victims and 19 probable hijackers to the FBI and the intelligence community.”22 Open questions remain over the government‟s refusal to release the full passenger manifest. But there are several possible explanations for this. In the absence of contrary testimony, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion -- bringing all this 9-11 evidence together with the information revealed by intelligence sources on the extensive surveillance of these individuals prior to 9-11 -- that at least some of the said individuals were involved in the hijacked 9-11 flights. Explaining the Anomaly There are a number of basic facts that can be drawn from the above documentation, which do not appear to readily cohere: 1. Approximately ten of the nineteen alleged hijackers were not who the FBI claims they are. As for the other nine, in the absence of evidence to the contrary we can assume that their identities are not problematic. 2. Many of the alleged hijackers, including those whose identities are both in question and so far undisputed, were monitored by intelligence officials and agencies in the years preceding 9-11, and were connected to just such a 21  terrorist plot -- Project Bojinka -- including specific details such as method, targets and even date. 3. Many of these sources confirm intensive intelligence surveillance of the identified alleged hijackers well in advance of the attacks, contradicting the government‟s official narrative. This lends credibility to these reports, as they are not government-sponsored. 4. Some specific data indicates that a number of the individuals identified according to the FBI‟s narrative were directly connected to, and involved in, the attacks, up to and including the actual hijackings. We are left then with a fundamental anomaly. On the one hand, there is a reasonably strong circumstantial case supporting the conclusion that there existed a number of individuals identified in accordance with the official FBI list of alleged hijackers, who were connected to the 9-11 plot, and who were under various forms of surveillance and investigation on the part of the US intelligence community. It is plausible to conclude that at least some of these individuals were involved in the hijackings of the four civilian aircraft on 9-11. On the other hand, ten of them are reportedly alive, and had no connection to 9-11. In attempting to resolve this anomaly, Kolar (2006) offers an alternative theory -- that ten of the officially identified hijackers were in fact doubles using fraudulent identities and aliases, which is why ten of the same identities belong to living people. Although the FBI was reluctant to concede this conclusively, this is ultimately the only logically possible explanation -- to date, the FBI has failed to resolve the anomaly. We are forced to conclude that at least ten of the hijackers identified, including those now reported alive yet observed prior to 9-11, were doubles using false identities that did not actually belong to them. Other reliable reports indicate that the cell of nineteen hijackers -- at least ten (and possibly all) of whom were doubles -- was penetrated by US military intelligence. 2.2 Hijackers Tied to US Covert Operations Apparatus 22 US Military Training According to reports in Newsweek, the Washington Post, and the New York Times, US military officials confirmed to the FBI “that five of the alleged hijackers received training in the 1990s at secure US military installations.” (Wheeler, 2001) Knight Ridder news cited defense sources confirming that Mohamed Atta had attended International Officers School at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama; Abdulaziz Alomari had attended Aerospace Medical School at Brooks Air Force base in Texas; and Saeed Alghamdi had been to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California. (New York Times, September 16, 2001) The Washington Post revealed that as many as “four of 19 suspected hijackers may have participated during the 1990s” in a “flight training program for foreign military trainees” at Pensacola Naval Air Station. “Two of 19 suspects named by the FBI, Saeed Alghamdi and Ahmed Alghamdi, have the same names as men listed at a housing facility for foreign military trainees at Pensacola. Two others, Hamza Alghamdi and Ahmed Alnami, have names similar to individuals listed in public records as using the same address inside the base.” (Gugliotta and Fallis, 2001) Among these, Abdulaziz Alomari, Saeed Alghamdi and Ahmed Alnami are reportedly alive (Kolar, 2006), proving that whoever these US military trainees were, they were using fraudulent aliases. The US Air Force shortly issued an official statement of denial, arguing that “the name matches may not necessarily mean the students were the hijackers because of discrepancies in ages and other personal data.” Although some terrorists “had similar names to foreign alumni of US military courses,” these biographical discrepancies “indicate we are probably not talking about the same people.” But the government has refused to substantiate the denial, by preventing publication of biographical data proving the discrepancies. On September 16, 2001, news reports asserted that: “Officials would not release ages, country of origin or any other specific details of the three individuals” -- and have refused to do so to date. (Washington Post, 22 September 2001) Daniel Hopsicker -- former producer at PBS Wall Street Week, an executive producer of NBC TV‟s Global Business, and an investigative reporter for NBC News -- queried a major in the US Air Force‟s Public Affairs Office who “was familiar with the question”. She explained: “Biographically, they‟re not the same people. Some of the ages are 20 years off.” When questioned to substantiate the specific discrepancy, 23 she was forced to admit that there was no discrepancy. According to Hopsicker: “„Some‟ of the ages? We told her we were only interested in Atta. Was she saying that the age of the Mohamed Atta who attended the Air Force‟s International Officer‟s School at Maxwell Air Force Base was different from the terrorist Atta‟s age as reported? Um, er, no, the major admitted.” Hopsicker asked if he could contact the other alleged “Mohamed Atta” at the International Officer‟s School at Maxwell Air Force Base, who was purportedly confused with the chief 9-11 hijacker, so that he could confirm that they were indeed two different individuals. The major declined without explanation, stating that she did not “think you‟re going to get that information”.23 In a separate interview, Hopsicker was told by a spokesman for the US Defense Department that some terrorists did attend US military installations, but declined to release any further details: Despite earlier denials, terrorists in the Sept. 11 attacks received training at secure US military bases, a Defense Department spokesman admitted.… the Defense Dept spokesman was asked to explain the particulars of fuzzy statements in which officials said … “we are probably not talking about the same people.” Pressed repeatedly to provide specifics, the spokesperson finally admitted, “I do not have the authority to tell you who (which terrorists) attended which schools.” So it appears certain that at least some of the previous denials have been rendered inoperative, and that a list exists in the Defense Dept which names Sept 11 terrorists who received training at US military facilities, a list the Pentagon is in no hurry to make public.24 In other words, individuals identified by the FBI as al-Qaeda‟s 9-11 terrorists, whether or not those identities were aliases, did receive clearance for training at secure US military facilities. Government Protection: FBI, CIA and DEA In the aftermath of 9-11, authorities were probing the European business associations of Venice flight school owner Rudi Dekkers, “whose school at the Venice airport” --Huffman Aviation -- “trained the nucleus of foreign national terrorist pilots”. Three of the airliners involved in 9/11 “were piloted by terrorists who had trained at two flight schools at the Venice, Florida airport”.25 Convincing circumstantial data indicates that the FBI knew about the al-Qaeda flight training long before 9-11. “The FBI was swarming Huffman Aviation by 2 a.m., just 18 hours 24 following the attack. They removed student files from two schools at the Venice airport: Huffman Aviation and the Florida Flight Training Center just down the street.”26 According to one Huffman Aviation executive interviewed by Hopsicker: “How do you think the FBI got here (Huffman Aviation) so fast after the attack? They knew what was going on here. Hell, they were parked in a white van outside my house less than four hours after the buildings collapsed.”27 One federal investigator from the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force in South Florida agreed that the speed at which the FBI furnished the names of the hijackers and located their flight schools proved that they were being monitored. He told the Miami Herald: Right after the hijackings we knew the government had a problem. Within hours of the attack we had names of the hijackers and that we needed to focus on flight schools. It was clear how the information quickly flowed down that someone in Washington must have had previous knowledge. They sat on this and they blew it and it‟s finally coming out. (Kuhnhenn and Koszczuk, 2002) As the Huffman Aviation official told Hopsicker: “… early on I gleaned that these guys had Government protection. They were let into this country for a specific purpose. It was a business deal.”28 Law enforcement officials said that Dekkers was officially indicted in his native country, Holland, on financial charges including fraud and money laundering.29 But 48 hours after the attacks, “Dekkers, known to have trained virtually the entire terrorist pilot cadre… seemed impervious to suspicion”.30 Evidence that Dekkers‟ activities were tolerated by elements of the federal government was revealed by a Venice Airport executive who told Hopsicker that Britannia Aviation -- which operates from a hangar at Rudi Dekker‟s Huffman Aviation in Venice Airport -- had a “green light” from the Justice Department‟s Drugs Enforcement Administration (DEA). The executive also confirmed that the Venice Police Department “had been warned to leave them alone.” Britannia Aviation had been awarded a five-year government contract to run a large regional maintenance facility at the Lynchburg, Virginia, Regional Airport. Hopsicker reports that: “Britannia Aviation is a company with virtually no assets, employees, or corporate history”. It even lacked “the necessary FAA license to perform the aircraft maintenance services for which it had just been contracted”. Financial statements revealed Britannia to be a “company” worth “less than $750”. “Why did a transparent dummy front company like Paul Marten‟s Britannia Aviation have a „green light‟ from the DEA?” asks Hopsicker. “A green light for 25 what?” It also emerged that the company had, according to executive Paul Marten, “for some time been successfully providing aviation maintenance services for Caribe Air, a Caribbean carrier.” Hopsicker rightly reports that Caribe Air is: … a notorious CIA proprietary air carrier which, even by the standards of a CIA proprietary, has had a particularly checkered past…. Caribe Air‟s history includes “blemishes” like having its aircraft seized by federal officials at the infamous Mena, Arkansas, airport a decade ago, after the company was accused by government prosecutors of having used as many as 20 planes to ship drugs worth billions of dollars into this country. Britannia -- a company reportedly with CIA connections operating illegally out of the same flight school which trained alleged al-Qaeda hijackers -- had a “green light” from the Justice Department‟s DEA and effective immunity from local police inquiries. In Hopsicker‟s view: “The new evidence adds to existing indications that Mohamed Atta and his terrorist cadre‟s flight training in this country was part of a so- far unacknowledged US government intelligence operation.”31 In summary, the 9-11 cell consisted of at least ten doubles, had ties to key al- Qaeda figures, was trained by the US military, and protected by the CIA and DEA. Islamist Identities of Alleged Hijackers in Question As Professors Quintan Wiktorowicz and John Kaltner (2000) point out, al- Qaeda is “a radical tendency within a broader Islamic movement known as the Salafi movement… The term Salafi is derived from the Arabic salaf, which means “to precede” and refers to the companions of the Prophet Muhammed. Because the salaf learned about Islam directly from the messenger of God, their example is an important illustration of piety and unadulterated religious practice. Salafis argue that... only by returning to the example of the prophet and his companions can Muslims achieve salvation. The label “Salafi” is thus used to connote “proper” religious adherence and moral legitimacy, implying that alternative understandings are corrupt deviations from the straight path of Islam. Salafism emphasizes and derives its legitimacy from the puritan goal of “piety and unadulterated religious practice” based on Prophetic conduct. Yet the very behaviour of the alleged 9-11 hijackers, confirmed and corroborated by multiple, credible eye-witness testimonials, demonstrates the impossibility of their having been Islamist fundamentalists. Two key hijackers, 26 Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi, visited the popular Woodland Park Resort Hotel in the Philippines several times between 1998 and 2000 according to numerous local residents and hotel workers who recognized them from news photographs. They “drank whiskey with Philippine bargirls”. Al-Shehhi threw a party with six or seven Arab friends in December 2000 at the Hotel according to former waitress Gina Marcelo. “They rented the open area by the swimming pool for 1,000 pesos,” she recounts. “They drank Johnnie Walker Black Label whiskey... They came in big vehicles, and they had a lot of money. They all had girlfriends.” But one big mistake they made was that unlike most foreign visitors, “[t]hey never tipped. If they did, I would not remember them so well.” Victoria Brocoy, a chambermaid at the Woodland, recalls: “Many times I saw him let a girl go at the gate in the morning. It was always a different girl.” (Kirk, 2001) According to US investigators, five of the hijackers including Atta, Al-Shehhi, Nawaq Alhamzi, Ziad Jarrah, and Hani Hanjour visited Las Vegas at least six times between May and August 2001. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that here, they “engaged in some decidedly un-Islamic sampling of prohibited pleasures in America‟s reputed capital of moral corrosion,” including drinking alcohol, gambling, and visiting strip-clubs. (Fagan, 2001) As the South Florida Sun Sentinel observed, the hijackers‟ frequent debauchery was at odds with the most basic tenets of Islam: Three guys cavorting with lap dancers at the Pink Pony Nude Theater. Two others knocking back glasses of Stolichnaya and rum and Coke at a fish joint in Hollywood the weekend before committing suicide and mass murder. That might describe the behavior of several men who are suspects in Tuesday‟s terrorist attack, but it is not a picture of devout Muslims, experts say. Let alone that of religious zealots in their final days on Earth. As noted by one specialist in Islamic studies, the prohibition of alcohol, gambling, and sex outside marriage are Islam‟s most fundamental precepts: “It is incomprehensible that a person could drink and go to a strip bar one night, then kill themselves the next day in the name of Islam. People who would kill themselves for their faith would come from very strict Islamic ideology. Something here does not add up.” (Benjamin, 2001) Why would individuals of such non-religious, anti-Islamic caliber want to kill themselves for a fundamentalist faith they clearly did not possess? It is possible that they were not fully aware of all details of the plot, and may not have known that one of its essential ingredients was planes being used as devastating suicidal missiles. Five 27 weeks after the attacks, FBI investigators and their European counterparts concluded that “as many as 13 members of the four terrorist teams may have believed they were part of a traditional hijacking operation aimed at landing and issuing demands.” (Eggen and Finn, 2001) Then CIA Director George Tenet told the Joint Congressional Inquiry that “most of the Sept. 11 hijackers may not have known details of their mission.” (Eggen, 2003) In any case, the conduct of the alleged hijackers was simply not consistent with Islam, Islamic fundamentalism and/or al-Qaeda Salafism. This challenges the conventional interpretation of the nature of this terrorist cell, which interpenetrated with both covert US military operations and al-Qaeda, and consisted of at least ten doubles. 3. Al-Qaeda’s Human Nodes The circle closes with evidence that some of the most prominent figures in al- Qaeda are according to reliable reports fundamentally connected to the US covert operations apparatus. Here, we will focus on three high-level al-Qaeda operatives directly linked to 9-11. 3.1 Ayman al-Zawahiri Ayman al-Zawahri is on the FBI‟s “Most Wanted Terrorist” list, which refers to him as having “been indicted for his alleged role in the August 7, 1998, bombings of the US Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya…. The Rewards For Justice Program, United States Department of State, is offering a reward of up to $25 million for information leading directly to the apprehension or conviction of Ayman Al-Zawahiri.”32 Al-Zawahiri is described as bin Laden‟s deputy and top operational commander of al-Qaeda‟s networks. Intelligence analysts believe he controls much of bin Laden‟s terrorist finances, operations, plans, and resources. In Afghanistan, al-Zawahiri has reportedly acted as bin Laden‟s spokesman. His main terrorist vehicle Egyptian Islamic Jihad has been linked with the Islamic Group of Egypt, who perpetrated the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Mohamed Atta and 28 Khalid Almidhar were reportedly members of his Islamic Jihad group. (Foden, 2001) Intelligence sources reveal that “Atta and several others in the group” responsible for the attacks, “met with senior Al Qaida leaders, most notably Ayman al-Zawahiri” in Afghanistan shortly before 9-11.” (Waller, 2001) In an extraordinary report Yossef Bodansky (1998) -- Director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare -- cited intelligence sources confirming “discussions between the Egyptian terrorist leader Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri and an Arab-American known to have been both an emissary of the CIA and the US Government in the 1980s.” Sources said that in November 1997, the CIA emissary, identified as “al-Amriki,” had “made al-Zawahiri an offer: The US will not interfere with nor intervene to prevent the Islamists‟ rise to power in Egypt if the Islamist Mujahedin currently in Bosnia-Herzegovina [B-H] refrain from attacking the US forces.” The CIA also “promised a donation of $50 million (from undefined sources) to Islamist charities in Egypt and elsewhere.” Bodansky notes that “to-date, the independent sources that provided this information have proven highly reliable and forthcoming,” and therefore that “there is no doubt” that the CIA meeting with al- Zawahiri occurred. Most disturbingly, “al-Amriki was talking only about al- Zawahiri‟s not striking out against the US forces in B-H [Bosnia-Herzegovina]. Nothing was said about transferring the Islamist Jihad to other ‘fronts’: Egypt, Israel, or the heart of America, for that matter.” On 17th November 1997, al-Zawahiri‟s forces conducted the terrorist attack in Luxor killing nearly 70 innocent Western tourists, which undermined the very economic foundations of the Mubarak regime by damaging Egypt‟s tourist industry. 33 According to Bodansky (1999, 2001, p. 213), “The virtually deafening silence of the Clinton administration” in response to the Luxor massacre “had to reassure Zawahiri and bin Laden that Abu-Umar al-Amriki had spoken with its backing, and a rejuvenated call to arms followed.” In hindsight, the ongoing activities of al-Qaeda mujahideen in the Balkans - in Kosovo and now Macedonia - supports the conclusion not only that al-Zawahri accepted the CIA offer, but further that the agreement is still active long after 9-11. 3.2 Ahmed Omar Sheikh Saeed 29  In late September 2001, ABC News reported that the FBI had “tracked more than $100,000 from banks in Pakistan to two banks in Florida, to accounts held by suspected hijack ringleader, Mohammed Atta.” (Weekly Standard, October 2001, vol. 7, no. 7) ABC News added that “some of that money came in the days just before the attack and can be traced directly to people connected with Osama bin Laden.”34 Then in early October -- as the Anglo-American invasion of Afghanistan was about to begin -- Lt. Gen. Mahmoud Ahmad, Pakistan‟s military-intelligence (ISI) chief, suddenly disappeared. According to ISI Public Relations, he had “sought retirement after being superseded” by another officer on 8th October in a routine reshuffling of staff. The Times of India found out why: Top sources confirmed here on Tuesday, that the general lost his job because of the “evidence” India produced to show his links to one of the suicide bombers that wrecked the World Trade Centre. The US authorities sought his removal after confirming the fact that $100,000 were wired to WTC hijacker Mohamed Atta from Pakistan by Ahmad Umar Sheikh at the instance of Gen Mahmud. Senior government sources have confirmed that India contributed significantly to establishing the link between the money transfer and the role played by the dismissed ISI chief… Indian inputs, including Sheikh‟s mobile phone number, helped the FBI in tracing and establishing the link. Ahmad Umar Sayeed Sheikh is a British national and a London School of Economics graduate who was arrested by the police in Delhi following a bungled 1994 kidnapping of four westerners, including an American citizen. (Joshi, 2001) The revelations were soon confirmed in Pakistan‟s Dawn magazine citing “informed sources,” 35 and again in the Wall Street Journal citing “senior government sources.” (Taranto, 2001) Ahmed Omar Sheikh Saeed continued these terrorist- financing activities under several aliases. According to the Washington Post, a figure identified as “Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi… played a central role in the financial mechanics of the Sept. 11 plot.” US officials believe that “he may be the same man as Mustafa Muhammad Ahmad, alias Shaykh Saiid, who is a top bin Laden financial lieutenant”. (Eggen, December 2001) The Post elsewhere notes that US investigators believe al-Hawsawi is “the central financial figure” of the 9-11 plot, as well as “al Qaeda‟s finance chief.” (Eggen and Day, 2002) CNN cites a top US government source confirming that investigators have verified beyond doubt that Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi is precisely the same man whose real name is Ahmed Omar Sheikh Saeed: A man suspected of playing a key role in bankrolling the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States was released from prison in India less than 30  two years ago after hijackers of an Indian Airlines flight demanded his freedom, a senior-level US government source told CNN…. This source said US investigators now believe Sheik Syed, using the alias Mustafa Muhammad Ahmad, sent more than $100,000 from Pakistan to Mohamed Atta… Investigators said Atta then distributed the funds to conspirators in Florida… 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 11.36 Terrorism expert Magnus Ranstorp describes him as “a node between al Qaeda and foot soldiers on the ground.”37 British police officials believe that Sheikh “trained the [9-11] terrorists in hijacking techniques.” (Bamber, 2001) Yet Sheikh was protected by elements of Pakistani, American and British intelligence services. Newsweek cites US law enforcement and intelligence officials who believe that “Sheikh has been a „protected asset,‟ of Pakistan‟s shadowy spy service, the Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI.” (Klaidman, 2002) According to the Pittsburgh Tribune Review: “Saeed Sheikh has acted as a „go between‟ for the „tall man‟ -- as bin-Laden is known -- and the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI).” The Review quotes high-level Pakistani government officials who also believe that Sheikh is not only an ISI agent, but also an active CIA operative: There are many in Musharraf‟s government who believe that Saeed Sheikh‟s power comes not from the ISI, but from his connections with our own CIA. The theory is that with such intense pressure to locate bin Laden, Saeed Sheikh was bought and paid for…. It would be logical for the CIA to recruit an intelligent, young political criminal with contacts in both India and Pakistan.38 Although Sheikh was convicted of the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl, the US government obstructed and avoided any attempt to investigate and indict Sheikh for his much wider role in the financial and logistical support for the 9- 11 attacks. Sheikh continues to languish in a Pakistani prison with no interest from US authorities in exposing his role on 9-11; the man who issued the order to pay Atta, former ISI chief Mahmoud Ahmad, is similarly being tacitly protected by US authorities who pressured Pakistan to quietly remove him from office. Sheikh is also apparently an MI6 informant. According to the London Times, “British-born terrorist Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh was secretly offered an amnesty by British officials in 1999 if he would betray his links with al-Qaeda.” (Hussain and McGrory, 2002) The Daily Mail similarly confirmed that: “Britain offered Sheikh a deal that would allow him to live in London a free man if he told them all he knew.” 31 (Williams, 2002) Both reports claim that Sheikh refused the offer. However, by the beginning of the next year, the British Foreign Office inexplicably decided “to allow him to enter Britain,” without even being investigated. The three Britons who had been kidnapped, held hostage, and threatened with death by Sheikh in his 1994 hijacking in India -- Rhys Partridge, Miles Croston, and Paul Rideout -- were “appalled to learn that Sheikh, a British passport holder, would be allowed to return to Britain without fear of charge.”39 Sheikh subsequently “proceeded to London, where he reunited with family” in “early January 2000.” (Anson, 2002) He again visited his London home in “early 2001” where he was spotted by a neighbor.40 A Foreign Office spokesman justified the decision: “He has not been convicted of any offences. He has not even been brought to trial.”41 This was misleading. The British government had ample evidence -- including the firsthand testimonials of the three kidnapped British citizens -- necessitating that Sheikh be immediately charged and investigated upon his arrival on UK soil. The spuriousness of this position was evident when the US government indicted Sheikh, and when the British government began pursuing a legal investigation with the Indian government, for his role in the 1994 kidnapping, long after 9-11. (Swami, 2001) Why were these measures postponed for so long? The British security services amnesty offer indicates that the government had sufficient intelligence on Sheikh‟s activities to know of his terrorist activities as an al- Qaeda operative; that his track record necessitated his arrest upon entry into the UK; and that the government was willing to bypass the law if recruited to MI6. The claim that Sheikh refused amnesty is false -- Sheikh was only to be permitted amnesty in the UK if he accepted the offer of MI6 recruitment. That the British government subsequently granted free reign to Osama bin Laden‟s very financial chief to do as he liked on British soil, indicates that Sheikh was used and tracked as an MI6 asset. 3.3 Laui Sakra Laui Sakra is a little known, but very prominent, al-Qaeda figure. His case provides invaluable insight into the dynamics of al-Qaeda as a vehicle of western covert operations. 32  Suspected of involvement in the November 2003 bombings of UK and Jewish targets in Istanbul which killed 63 people, Sakra was arrested in Diyarbakir, south- east Turkey.42 A Turkish court charged him, a Syrian, with “plotting to slam speedboats packed with explosives into cruise ships filled with Israeli tourists” according to the Associated Press. (Meixler, 2005) Sakra is reportedly “one of the 5 most important key figures in Al Qaeda,” according to Turkish officials. By his own account, “he knew Mohamed Atta” and had “helped the militants” involved in 9-11. “I was one of the people who knew the perpetrators of September 11, and knew the time and plan before the attacks,” he told police off-the-record. “I also participated in the preparations for the attacks to [sic] WTC and Pentagon. I provided money and passports.” He also claimed to have advanced knowledge of the London bombings on 7th July 2005.43 The bulk of these anecdotes are based on official police reports of their informal conversations with Sakra. In his official statement, Sakra exercised his right of silence and limited his admissions. The Turkish daily Zaman reported that: “Sakra, who confessed that he talked with bin Laden both face to face and via a courier very often, said he gave information to Laden about the London attacks.” He admitted to personally sending “many people to the United States (US), Britain, Egypt, Syria and Algeria for terrorist activity.” In his own words: Al-Qaeda organizes attacks sometimes without even reporting it to Bin Laden. For al-Qaeda is not structured like a terrorist organization. The militants have the operational initiative. There are groups organizing activities in the name of al- Qaeda. The second attack in London was organized by a group, which took initiative. Even Laden may not know about it.44 Sakra‟s description of al-Qaeda contradicts entirely the official narrative. But he went even further than that. Zaman reported incredulously the most surprising elements of Sakra‟s candid revelations during his four-day interrogation at Istanbul Anti-Terror Department Headquarters: “Amid the smoke from the fortuitous fire emerged the possibility that al-Qaeda may not be, strictly speaking, an organization but an element of an intelligence agency operation.” As a result of Sakra‟s statements: Turkish intelligence specialists agree that there is no such organization as al- Qaeda. Rather, Al-Qaeda is the name of a secret service operation. The concept “fighting terror” is the background of the “low-intensity-warfare” conducted in the mono-polar world order. The subject of this strategy of tension is named as “al- Qaeda.” 33  ... Sakra, the fifth most senior man in Osama bin Ladin‟s al-Qaeda… has been sought by the secret services since 2000. The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) interrogated him twice before. Following the interrogation CIA offered him employment. He also received a large sum of money by CIA... in 2000 the CIA passed intelligence about Sakra through a classified notice to Turkey, calling for the Turkish National Security Organization (MIT) to capture him. MIT caught Sakra in Turkey and interrogated him... Sakra was [later] sought and caught by Syrian al-Mukhabarat as well. Syria too offered him employment. Sakra eventually became a triple agent for the secret services… Turkish security officials, interrogating a senior al-Qaeda figure for the first time, were thoroughly confused about what they discovered about al-Qaeda. The prosecutor too was surprised.45 In a separate report, Zaman revealed that Sakra, like many of the alleged 9-11 hijackers, did not act in accordance with basic Islamic edicts. When Turkish Security Directorate officials told him that “he might perform his religious practices to have a better dialogue with him and to gain his confidence”, Sakra responded: “I do not pray. I also drink alcohol.” Curiously, his fellow al-Qaeda detainees and underlings, Adnan Ersoz and Harun Ilhan, did “perform their religious practices.” Police officials admitted that “such an attitude at the top-level of al-Qaeda was confusing.” Sakra was also psychologically unstable. He had been “undergoing psychological therapy,” and according to officials, “There were medicines on him for his illness when he was arrested. He is still undergoing therapy either for manic-depression or panic attacks.”46 According to the Turkish daily Hurriyet, Sakra had also deliberately changed his physical facial appearance several times. Sources said he had “undergone plastic surgery and was returning to Istanbul for another operation.”47 Sakra is a classic example of yet another high-level al-Qaeda figure functioning as a node between loose associations of mujahideen, and multiple intelligence services, particularly the CIA for whom he was by his own confession a paid agent. His description of al-Qaeda concords exactly with the thrust of this analysis: a collection of terrorist activists mobilized not by an internally cohesive hierarchical structure, but rather under the influence of Western secret services. As such, al-Qaeda denotes not an organization, but a particularly category of intelligence operations controlled by powerful state-actors, particularly the US. His psychological instability, coupled with his repeated plastic surgery to alter his facial appearance, is not merely bizarre, but is consistent with his conceded role as a “triple agent” for multiple intelligence services and with Kolar‟s “doubles” theory. This suggests that al-Qaeda itself even at senior levels consists of controlled imposters and doubles. His 34 own lack of traditional Islamic piety at a senior level within al-Qaeda illustrates again that al-Qaeda is less a truly Islamist Salafist group as such, as opposed to an organizing principle applied by Western secret services to penetrate, subvert and manipulate disparate Islamist networks using unscrupulous human and state-regional nodes. 4. Conclusions At several major strategic points in the world, Western power is symbiotically melded with an amorphous association of networks conventionally identified as “al- Qaeda”. During and after the Cold War, al-Qaeda has functioned as a vehicle of Western covert operations in the service of powerful corporate interests, particularly related to the monopolization of global energy resources. As an international command and control network-structure, al-Qaeda does not exist. Yet there is clearly an underlying structure to the operational trajectory of the collection of networks identified as affiliates within the “al-Qaeda” umbrella. This structure cannot derive from the internal organizational composition of “al-Qaeda” itself, which barely exists. Al-Qaeda cannot be meaningfully identified as a self- directed institution in its own right. Rather, it derives its geostrategic structure directly from Western interests, mediated through a number of states in strategic regions. The examples of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Algeria have been discussed here. Those, and other, states act as regional nodes, providing financial, military and intelligence assistance to mujahideen groups, while simultaneously benefiting from Western financial, military and intelligence sponsorship and protection, and further serving as permanent providers of their strategic resources, especially oil and gas, to the west. Apart from the role of these state-regional nodes in the facilitation of mujahideen activity, the documentary record additionally evidences direct liaisons between Western military intelligence services and terrorist networks conventionally identified as part of al-Qaeda, especially in Azerbaijan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia and Libya. These direct liaisons are facilitated through human nodes, of which three prominent 35 examples were furnished, al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda‟s operations chief; Sheikh Saeed, al- Qaeda‟s financial chief; Laui Sakra, al-Qaeda‟s number five. In all cases, including on 9-11 itself, al-Qaeda generated destabilization -- through state-regional nodes and direct liaisons -- systematically paves the way for, and ultimately sustains the involvement of, Anglo-American interests in the monopolization of regional resources and the establishment of military-backed geopolitical power. Invariably the single factor consistently pre-eminent in all mujahideen activity, is the directed involvement of Western financial, military and intelligence power through state-regional nodes, direct liaisons, and human nodes. Al-Qaeda is not a foreign enemy external to Western civilization. It has no existence as an independent concrete entity. It designates a highly developed category of Western covert operations designed to secure destabilization through the creation, multiplication, mobilization and manipulation of disparate mujahideen groups. The evidence suggests that this was certainly the case on 9-11. 36  References Agence France-Presse (2001) “US gave silent blessing to Taliban rise to power: analysts,” October 7 Ahmed, Nafeez Mosaddeq (2001) “Algeria and the Paradox of Democracy: The 1992 Coup, its Consequences and the Contemporary Crisis,” Media Monitors Network, May 11, http://mediamonitors.net/mosaddeq4.html. _____________________ (2002) The War on Freedom: How & Why America was Attacked, September 11, 2001, Joshua Tree, CA: Tree of Life. _____________________ (2005) The War on Truth: 9/11, Disinformation and the Anatomy of Terrorism, New York: Olive Branch Press. Aldrich, Richard J. (2002) “America used Islamists to arm the Bosnian muslims: The Srebrenica report reveals the Pentagon‟s role in a dirty war,” The Guardian, April 22, http://www.guardian.co.uk/yugo/article/0,2763,688327,00.html. Anson, Robert Sam (2002) “The Journalist and the Terrorist,” Vanity Fair, August, archived at http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/2002/vanityfair0802.html. Bamber, David, et. al. (2001) “London house linked to US plot,” The Telegraph, September 30, http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/09/30/nhunt30.xml. Beckett, Andy (2004) “The making of the terror myth,” The Guardian, October 15, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,12780,1327904,00.html. Bedi, Rahul (2001) “Why? An attempt to explain the unexplainable,” Janes Defence Weekly, September 14. Benjamin, Jody A. (2001) “Suspects actions don‟t add up,” South Florida Sun Sentinel, September 16, http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-warriors916.story. Bisset, James (2001) “War on terrorism skipped the KLA,” National Post, November 12, http://www.deltax.net/bissett/a-terrorism.htm. Blomquist, Brian (2003) “Meeting that Spawned 9/11,” New York Post, July 10. Bodanksy, Yossef (1996) Some Call It Peace: Waiting for War in the Balkans, London: International Media Corporation, http://members.tripod.com/Balkania/resources/geostrategy/bodansky_peace. _______________ (1998) “US Trade: Mubarak for S-For Safety?” Defense and Foreign Affairs: Strategic Policy, January. Online as (1998) “The Price of Washington‟s Bosnia Policy,” Houstoun: Freeman Center for Strategic Studies, February, http://www.freeman.org/m_online/feb98/bodansky.htm. _______________ (1999, 2001) Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War On America, Roseville, CA: Prima Publishing. Boudjemaa, M. (2002) “Terrorism in Algeria: Ten Years of Day-to-Day Genocide” in Jakkie Cilliers and Kathryn Sturman (ed.), Africa and Terrorism: Joining the Global Campaign, Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies, July, no. 74, http://www.iss.co.za/PUBS/MONOGRAPHS/No74/Chap6.html. Bright, Martin (2002) “MI6 „halted bid to arrest bin Laden‟”, The Observer, November 10, http://observer.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4543555-102279,00.html. Burke, Jason (2003) Al-Qaeda: Casting a Shadow of Terror, London: IB Tauris. 37 Chossudovsky, Michel (2001) “Who is Osama bin Laden?” Montreal: Center for Research on Globalization, September 12, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO109C.html. ___________________ (2001) “Osamagate,” Montreal: Centre for Research on Globalisation, October 9, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO110A.html. Collon, Michel (2000) Monopoly – L’Otan à la Conquête du monde, Bruxelles: EPO. Cook, Robin (2005) “The struggle against terrorism cannot be won by military means, ” The Guardian, July 8, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,12780,1523838,00.html. Cooley, John K. (2000) Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism, London: Pluto. Curtis, Adam (2004) The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear, London: BBC. Dettmer, Jamie (2002) “Al-Qaeda‟s Links in the Balkans,” Insight on the News, July 1, http://www.insightmag.com/main.cfm?include=detail&storyid=256955. Eggen, Dan and Peter Finn (2001) “Were all hijackers in on suicide pact?,” Washington Post, October 17. Eggen (2001) “Obscure Hijacker‟s Larger Role Revealed,” Washington Post, December 13, http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A34751- 2001Dec12&notFound=true. Eggen and Kathleen Day (2002) “US Probe of Sept. 11 Financing Wraps Up,” Washington Post, January 7, http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A6076-2002Jan6.html. Eggen (2003) “Who Aided Hijackers is Still Mystery,” Washington Post, September 10. Erkali, Mark, Tengiz Kodrarian and Cali Ruchala (2003) “God Save the Shah: American Guns, Spies and Oil in Azerbaijan”, Sobaka, May 22, http://www.diacritica.com/sobaka/2003/shah.html. Fagan, Kevin (2001) “Agents of terror leave their mark on Sin City: Las Vegas workers recall the men they can‟t forget,” San Francisco Chronicle, October 4, http://www.sfgate.com/cgi- bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/10/04/MN102970.DTL. Foden, Giles (2001) “The hunt for „Public Enemy No 2‟: Egyptian may now be running terror operations from Afghanistan,” The Guardian, September 24, http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,556872,00.html. Friedman, George (2004) “Tora Bora and Nuclear Nightmares,” in America’s Secret War: Inside the Hidden Worldwide Struggle Between America and its Enemies, New York: Doubleday. Garcia, Raphael M. (2001), “Decoding Bojinka,” Newsbreak Weekly, November 15, vol. 1, no. 43. Grigg, William Norman, (2001) “Behind the Terror Network,” The New American, November 5, vol. 17, no. 23, http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/2001/11-05-2001/vo17no23.htm. Gugliotta, Guy and David S. Fallis (2001) “2nd Witness Arrested: 25 Held for Questioning,” Washington Post, September 16, http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp- dyn?pagename=article&node=nation/specials/attacked&contentId=A38270- 2001Sep15&notFound=true. Gunaratna, Rohan and Phil Hirschkorn, et. al. (2001) “Blowback,” Jane’s Intelligence Review, August 1, vol. 13, no. 8. Gunaratna (2002) Inside Al-Qaeda: Global Network of Terror, New York: Columbia University Press. London: C. Hurst & Co. 38 Harrison, David (2001) „Revealed: the men with stolen identities‟, Telegraph, September 23, http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/09/23/widen23.xml. Hiel, Betsy (2001) “Algeria Valuable In Hunt For Terrorists,” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, November 18, http://livesite.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/columnists/hiel/s_4476.html. Hollingsworth, Mark (2000) “Secrets, lies and David Shayler: The spy agencies are pursuing the press because they are afraid”, The Guardian, March 17, http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,181807,00.html. Hussain, Zahid and Daniel McGrory (2002) “London schoolboy who graduated to terrorism,” The Times, July 16, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,171-357086,00.html. Joshi, Manoj (2001) “India helped FBI trace ISI-terrorist links,” Times of India, October 9, http://www1.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/articleshow?art_id=1454238160. Judah, Tim (2002) Kosovo: War and Revenge, New Haven: Yale University Press. King Robert P., and Sanjay Bhatt (2001) “Hijackers Had a Tough Time with Flying Lessons,” Cox News Service, October 21, http://billstclair.com/911timeline/2001/coxnews102101.html. Kirk, Don (2001) “Filipinos Recall Hijack Suspects Leading a High Life,” International Herald Tribune, October 5, http://www.intellnet.org/news/2001/10/05/7357-1.html. Klaidman, Daniel (2002) “US officials are eager to try the main suspect in Daniel Pearl‟s murder,” Newsweek, March 13, http://www.msnbc.com/news/723527.asp. Kolar, Jay (2006) “What We Now Know About the Alleged 9-11 Hijackers” The Hidden History of 9- 11-2001, Research in Political Economy, vol. 23, P. Zarembka (ed.) Amsterdam: Elsevier Kuhnhenn, James and Jackie Koszczuk (2002) “Airlines in Sept. 11 attacks got no specific warnings,” Miami Herald, May 17. Labévière, Richard (2000) Dollars for Terror: The United States and Islam, New York: Algora Publishing. Landay, Johnathan S. (2002) “Agency could have overheard terror dialogue,” Miami Herald, June 7, http://www.miami.com/mld/miami/news/nation/3417402.htm. Machon, Annie (2005) Spies, Lies and Whistleblowers: MI5, MI6 and the Shayler Affair, Brighton: Book Guild. McCloud, Kimberly A. and Adam Dolnik (2002) “Debunk the myth of al-Qaeda,” Christian Science Monitor, May 23, http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0523/p11s02-coop.html. McGowan, Patrick (2002) „Call for secret Shayler trial‟, Evening Standard, October 7, http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/articles/1488303. Meek, James Gordon (2004) „Janitor tells 9/11 panel of brush with WTC thug‟, New York Daily News, June 15, http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/203065p-175130c.html. Meixler, Louis (2005) “Turkish police detain al-Qaida suspect,” Associated Press, August 10, http://www.comcast.net/news/international/middleeast/index.jsp?cat=MIDDLEEAST&fn=/2005/08/10 /197869.html. Monbiot, George (2001) “A Discreet Deal in the Pipeline,” The Guardian, February 15, http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,438134,00.html. 39 National Commission on Terrorist Attacks (2004) The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, New York: W. W. Norton. Nayler, R. T. (2002) Wages of Crime: Black Markets, Illegal Finance and the Underworld Economy New York: Cornell University Press. Norton-Taylor, Richard (2000) “Terrorist case collapses after three years,” The Guardian, March 21, http://www.algeria-watch.org/mrv/mrvmass/guardian.htm. O‟Neill, Brendan (2003) “How we trained al-Qa‟eda,” The Spectator, September 13, http://www.balkanpeace.org/hed/archive/sep03/hed5999.shtml. ______________ (2003) “Does al-Qaeda exist?” Spiked Online, November 28, http://www.spiked- online.com/Articles/00000006DFED.htm. Perlmann, Sherley E. (2001) “Stolen Info and Fake Addresses Complicate FBI‟s Job of Naming Hijackers,” Newsday, October 22, available at http://web.archive.org/web/20011125064250/http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny- warid1021.story?coll=ny-top-headlines. Posner, Gerald (2003) Why America Slept: The Failure to Prevent 9/11, New York: Ballantine. Rashid, Ahmed (2000) Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia, New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press. Raspberry, William (2002) “Our Insane Focus on Iraq?”, Washington Post, September 9, http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A55338-2002Sep9. Robinson, Colin (2003) “Armed Islamic Group a.k.a. Groupement Islamique Arme,” Washington DC: Center for Defense Information, February 5, http://www.cdi.org/terrorism/gia_020503.cfm. Rohrabacher, Dana (1999), “US Policy Toward Afghanistan,” Washington DC: Statement before Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on South Asia, April 14. Scott, Peter Dale (2003) Drugs, Oil, and War, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. ______________ (2004, 2005) “Al-Qaeda, US Oil Companies, and Central Asia” in The Road to 9/11 [forthcoming 2006], July 19, revised September 1, http://ist- socrates.berkeley.edu/~pdscott/AAAChap9aAzerb.htm. Sike, Andrew, (2003) “Profiling terror,” Janes Police Review, August 7, http://www.janes.com/security/law_enforcement/news/pr/pr030807_1_n.shtml. Seper, Jerry (1999) “KLA rebels train in terrorist camps,” Washington Times, May 4, http://www.realitymacedonia.org.mk/web/news_page.asp?nid=1048. Shayler, David (2000) “Don‟t shoot the messenger,” The Observer, August 27, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4055752,00.html. Sheehy, Gail (2004) “Stewardess ID‟d Hijackers Early, Transcripts Show,” New York Observer, February 16, http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/M.A.Sweeney.html. Swami, Praveen (2001) “A Sheikh and the money trail,” Frontline, October 13-26, vol. 18, no. 21, http://www.frontlineonnet.com/fl1821/18210150.htm. Sweeney, John and Leonard Doyle (1997) “Algerian Regime Responsible for Massacres: Algerian regime „was behind Paris bombs,‟” Manchester Guardian Weekly, November 16, http://members.tripod.com/~AlgeriaWatch/Packet4.html. 40 Taranto, James (2001) “Our Friends the Pakistanis,” Wall Street Journal, October 10, http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=95001298. Taylor, Scott (2001) “Signs point to a bin Laden-Balkan link,” Halifax Herald, October 29, http://www.balkanpeace.org/hed/archive/oct01/hed4292.shtml. Waller, Douglas (2001) “Was Hijack „Ringleader‟ in Bin Laden Orbit?”, Time Magazine, October 5, http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,178228,00.html. Wheeler, Larry, et. al (2001) “Pensacola NAS link faces more scrutiny,” Pensacola News Journal, September 17, http://billstclair.com/911timeline/2001/pensacolanewsjournal091701.html. Wiebes, Cees (2003) Intelligence and the War in Bosnia 1992-1995: The role of the intelligence and security services, Transaction Publishers, Rutgers State University. Online at Netherlands Institute for War Documentation at http://213.222.3.5/srebrenica. Wiktorowicz, Quintan and John Kaltner (2000) “Killing in the Name of Islam: Al Qaeda‟s Justification for September 11,” Middle East Policy, Summer, vol. X, no. 2, http://www.mepc.org/public_asp/journal_vol10/0306_wiktorowiczkaltner.asp. Williams, David (2002) “Kidnapper-Guy Hotmail.com,” Daily Mail, July 16, archived at http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/2002/dailymail071602.html. Yardley, Jim (2002) “A Trainee Noted for Incompetence‟, New York Times, May 4. Zarambka, Paul (2006) “Initiation of the 9-11 Operation, with Evidence of Insider Trading Beforehand” The Hidden History of 9-11-2001, Research in Political Economy, vol. 23, P. Zarembka (ed.) Amsterdam: Elsevier 41  Notes 1 This paper advances an original argument based partially on research in Ahmed (2005), supplemented here with significant new data and analysis. Also see Ahmed (2002). 2 Kelly, Rick, “The Australian media and terrorism „expert‟ Dr Rohan Gunaratna”, World Socialist Web Site, August 8, 2003, http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/aug2003/guna-a08.shtml. 3 Ibid. [emphasis added] 4 Shaefer, Standard, “The Wages of Terror: An Interview with R. T. Nayler,” July 21, 2003 http://www.counterpunch.org/schaefer06212003.html. See Nayler (2002). 5 Reference to “al-qaeda” to mean the database is a colloquial abbreviated version of the full Arabic term, “al qaedat ma‟loomat,” which literally means “information base” or “data base.” 6 Also see Thompson, Paul, Update [Complete 911 Timeline], Center for Cooperative Research, April 8, 2004 [sections December 1991, April 1991]) http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/updates/update19.html. 7 “BP Linked to the Overthrow of Azerbaijan Government,” Drillbits and Trailings, April 17, 2000, vol. 5, no. 6, http://www.moles.org/ProjectUnderground/drillbits/5_06/1.html. 8 Judicial Watch Press Release, “Clinton State Department Documents Outlined bin Laden Threat to the United States in Summer 1996,” August 17, 2005, http://www.judicialwatch.org/5504.shtml. 9 International Media Corporation, “US Commits Forces, Weapons to Bosnia,” Defense and Foreign Affairs: Strategic Policy, October 31, 1994. Cited in Chossudovsky (October 2001) http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO110A.html. 10 Taylor, Scott, “Macedonia‟s Civil War: „Made in the USA‟”, Randolph Bourne Institute, August 20, 2001, http://www.antiwar.com/orig/taylor1.html. 11 Deliso, Christopher, “European Intelligence: The US Betrayed Us in Macedonia,” Randolph Bourne Institute, June 22, 2002, http://www.antiwar.com/orig/deliso46.html. 12 “Cause & Effect: Terrorism in the Asia Pacific Region,” ABC Asia Pacific, 2004, http://abcasiapacific.com/cause/network/armed_islamic.htm. 13 “Algeria”, United States Energy Information Administration, February 1999, http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/algeria.html. 14 “Anas al-Liby”, FBI Most Wanted Terrorists, viewed June 11, 2004, http://www.fbi.gov/mostwant/terrorists/teralliby.htm. 15 “FBI probes hijackers‟ identities,” BBC News, 21 September 2001, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1553754.stm; “Hijack „suspects‟ alive and well,” BBC News, 23 September 2001, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1559151.stm. 16 Ahmed, Nafeez Mosaddeq, „Whitewashing the Protection of Terrorists on US Soil‟, Raw Story, August 18, 2005, http://rawstory.com/news/2005/WhitewashingProtection_of__0818.html. 17 PEC Report, “Terrorist Plans to Use Planes as Weapons Dates to 1995: WTC bomber Yousef confessed to US agents in 1995,” Washington DC: Public Education Center, http://www.publicedcenter.org/faaterrorist.htm. 18 Monk, Paul, “A Stunning Intelligence Failure,” Melbourne: Australian Thinking Skills Institute, http://www.austhink.org/monk/CRACKING.doc. 19 “Operation Holy Tuesday codename for 9/11 attacks,” Irish Examiner, July 11, 2003, http://archives.tcm.ie/irishexaminer/2003/07/11/story365226268.asp; “Al-Qaida called Sept 11 attacks Operation Holy Tuesday,” Ananova, July 10, 2003, http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_798520.html?menu. 20 “2nd material witness in FBI custody,” CNN, September 16, 2001, http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/09/15/investigation.terrorism. 21 “Flight 93 Families Bash FBI Theory,” CBS News, August 8, 2003, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/08/08/terror/main567260.shtml. 42 22 Testimony of Commissioner Robert C. Bonner, US Customs and Border Protection Before the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, January 26, 2004, http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/newsroom/commissioner/speeches_statements/archives/2004/jan262004.x ml. 23 Hopsicker, Daniel, “Did Terrorists Train at US Military Schools?” Online Journal, October 30, 2001, http://www.onlinejournal.com/archive/10-30-01_Hopsicker-printable.pdf. 24 Hopsicker, Daniel, “Pentagon Lied: Terrorists Trained at US Bases,” Mad Cow Morning News, October 14, 2001, http://www.madcowprod.com/issue06.html. [emphasis added] 25 Hopsicker, Daniel, “Death in Venice (Florida),” Online Journal, September 28, 2001, http://www.onlinejournal.com/archive/10-02-01_Hopsicker-printable.pdf. 26 Hopsicker, Daniel, “What are they hiding down in Venice, Florida?”, Online Journal, October 9, 2001, http://www.onlinejournal.com/archive/10-09-01_Hopsicker-printable.pdf. 27 Ibid. 28 Hopsicker, “Able Danger Intel Exposed „Protected‟ Heroin Racket,” 9/11 Citizens Watch, August 18, 2005, http://www.911citizenswatch.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=639. 29 Hopsicker, „Jackson Stephens active in Venice, FL,‟ Online Journal, November 25, 2001, http://www.onlinejournal.com/archive/11-25-01_Hopsicker-printable.pdf. 30 Hopsicker, „Rudi Dekkers and the Lone (nut) Cadre,‟ Online Journal, October 24, 2001, http://www.onlinejournal.com/archive/10-24-01_Hopsciker-printable.pdf. 31 Hopsicker, „Venice, Florida, Flight School Linked to CIA: Firm has „green light‟ from local DEA,‟ Online Journal, March 2, 2002, http://www.onlinejournal.com/archive/03-02-02_Hopsicker.pdf. 32 “Ayman al-Zawahiri”, FBI Most Wanted Terrorists, viewed June 11, 2004, http://www.fbi.gov/mostwant/terrorists/teralzawahiri.htm. 33 Dyson, Mark and Jim Lehrer, “Terrorist Attack,” PBS Newshour Transcript, November 17, 1997, http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/july-dec97/egypt_11-17.html. 34 ABC News, “Worldwide probe leading to Bin Laden,” September 30, 2001, http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/WTC_Investigation010930.html. 35 Monitoring Desk, “Gen Mahmud‟s exit due to links with Umar Sheikh,” Dawn, October 8, 2001, http://www.hvk.org/hvk/articles/1001/101.html.31990.VINCLUDEFIX. 36 “Suspected Hijack Bankroller Freed by India in 99,” CNN, October 6, 2001, http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/10/05/inv.terror.investigation. 37 Ibid. 38 “Did Pearl die because Pakistan deceived CIA?,” Pittsburg Tribune-Review, March 3, 2002, http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/opinion/datelinedc/s_20141.html. 39 Press Trust of India, “UK Move To Allow Entry To Ultra Alarms Abducted Britons,” January 3, 2000, archived at http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/2000/pti010300.html. 40 “Profile: Omar Saeed Sheikh,” BBC News, July 16, 2002, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk/1804710.stm. 41 “Militant free to return to UK,” BBC News, January 3, 2000, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/588915.stm. 42 “Turkey arrests al Qaeda suspects,” BBC News, August 10, 2005, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4140210.stm. 43 “A „Strange‟ Al Qaeda Leader: „I Don‟t Pray, I Drink Alcohol,‟” Journal of Turkish Weekly [contributions from Turkish dailies, Zaman and Hurriyet], August 14, 2005, http://www.turkishweekly.net/news.php?id=17778. 44 Gun, Ercun, “Sakra: I Dispatched Men to US and UK for Terrorist Activity,” Zaman, August 15, 2005, http://www.zaman.com/?bl=national&alt=&trh=20050815&hn=23056. 45 Gun, “Al-Qaeda: A Secret Service Operation?” Zaman, August 14, 2005, http://www.zaman.com/?bl=national&alt=&trh=20050815&hn=22982. 43 46 Gun, “Interesting Confession: I Provided 9/11 Attackers with Passports,” Zaman, August 14, 2005, http://www.zaman.com/?bl=national&alt=&trh=20050815&hn=23006. 47 “Al Qaeda‟s Zarqawi in N.Iraq, Turkey Suspect Says,” Reuters, August 14, 2005, http://www.ezilon.com/information/article_7934.shtml. 44