Posted on 05/11/2004 11:09:39 PM PDT by TeleStraightShooter
A British Muslim trained to be a 9-11 hijacker told an FBI counterterrorism taskforce in 2000 of a plot by terrorists to fly passengers planes into buildings, but the agents did not believe him.
The 29-year-old al-Qaida recruit – interrogated for three weeks in Newark, N.J. – passed a lie detector test, the Times of London reported.
The man, whose name was withheld by the paper because of threats from militants, was a waiter in a curry restaurant in Manchester, England.
He was lured by al-Qaida at a mosque in Oldham, England, and attended a terrorist training school in Pakistan.
The interrogation came after the man had second thoughts about his suicide mission and surrendered to police, the Times said.
He had gambled away thousands of British pounds given to him by al-Qaida, reported the paper.
At that time, 18 months before the 9-11 attack, other hijackers were entering the United States and enrolling at flight schools.
The story arose from inquiries by the U.S. independent 9-11 commission examining the attacks, which has led to a reopening of the case.
The man was brought back to Britain in 2000 by two FBI agents and handed to British security officials at London's Heathrow airport. He was questioned by Special Branch, the arm of British Police that deals with national security matters.
The FBI, which wants the man to be a witness in its investigation, has criticized British authorities for ignoring a request to find him after Sept. 11, but Special Branch officers claim they went back to him and took "appropriate action," the Times said.
The man was born in Britain but grew up in Pakistan before returning to Oldham at 16. He ran up huge debts gambling, the Times said, at the time a recruiter approached him at his local mosque, offering money for "a job."
He accepted.
"If your life has no color and a mullah says you can be a hero by dying, why not?" he said, according to the Times. "I think there are a lot of frustrated Muslim youths in Britain who feel the same way."
In Lahore, Pakistan, he was trained in hijacking and became familiar with a Boeing cockpit.
"I knew they wanted me to do some kind of operation in which I would die but my life was such a mess that in my mind I was already dead," he said, according to the London paper.
"At that time if they had told me to strap a bomb to my body and blow myself up I would have done it as easily as taking a glass of water to drink."
He returned to Britian, where he was given 5,000 pounds, then was sent to New York where he was to meet an operative at the airport.
In the meantime, however, he married and had a baby.
On the flight to New York, thoughts of his family changed his mind and he decided instead to slip away to Atlantic City, N.J., where he lost his money in casinos then turned himself in.
Rick Perry?
He didn't know a thing about this.
Still doesn't in fact - prolly never will...
LOL!
The problem today, and one that politicians and the tin foil hat group ignore, is not gathering intel. If you don't hamstring yourself you can find out most anything. The real problem is that there is so much of it, it becomes ALMOST impossible to sort out the wheat from the chaff. I would love to gather the group that thinks 9/11 could have been prevented, give them a years worth of info and see what they could tell us about the future.
Other than 175 grains of Pb, that seems the only way to stop terrorists.
Early in his career, Arafat set up a very effective terrorist group (IIRC, "Black November"). Having completed their tasks, Arafat faced the problem of "turning off" a highly motivated & dangerous group. He did so by seeking out the most beautiful & desireable young single Palestinean women, and persuading them to serve their people by marrying these "heros". Upon nuptuals, the terrorists suddenly became very docile and domesticated, and ceased their lethal activities.
Give these people something to live for, and they won't want to die in a blaze of glory. (Until then, 175gr@2300fps.)
Sorry your post got deleted. I'm not really big on conspiracy theories, except for entertainment value, but I can tell you that I never heard a single jet over Manhattan until well after the towers had been hit. My best guess is that Uncle Sam got caught with his pants down.
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