Posted on 08/06/2004 11:32:40 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
ISLAMABAD/LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. officials providing justification for anti-terrorism alerts revealed details about a Pakistani secret agent, and confirmed his name while he was working under cover in a sting operation, Pakistani sources said on Friday.
A Pakistani intelligence source told Reuters Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan, who was arrested in Lahore secretly last month, had been actively cooperating with intelligence agents to help catch al Qaeda operatives when his name appeared in U.S. newspapers.
"After his capture he admitted being an al Qaeda member and agreed to send e-mails to his contacts," a Pakistani intelligence source told Reuters. "He sent encoded e-mails and received encoded replies. He's a great hacker and even the U.S. agents said he was a computer whiz."
"He was cooperating with interrogators on Sunday and Monday and sent e-mails on both days," the source said.
The New York Times published a story on Monday saying U.S. officials had disclosed that a man arrested secretly in Pakistan was the source of the bulk of information leading to the security alerts.
The newspaper named him as Khan, although it did not say how it had learned his name. U.S. officials subsequently confirmed the name to other news organizations on Monday morning. None of the reports mentioned that Khan was working under cover at the time, helping to catch al Qaeda suspects.
President Bush defended the "orange alert" raised in New York and Washington on Sunday and said his government had an obligation to inform the public of genuine threats.
"When we find out intelligence that is real, that threatens people, I believe we have an obligation as government to share that with people," Bush told journalists.
BRITISH SWOOP
A U.S. official said on Friday one of 12 suspects caught in raids in Britain this week was a senior al Qaeda figure, and Washington would try to extradite him.
But British police said they had been forced to carry out their swoop more hastily than planned -- a day after Khan's name appeared in the New York Times as the source of information behind the U.S. alerts.
On Monday evening, after Khan's name appeared, Pakistani officials moved him to a secret location.
The next day British police mounted the sweep that caught the 12 suspects. Such raids are normally carried out late at night or in the early morning, when suspects might be at home and less likely to resist.
But showing clear signs of haste, British police pounced in daylight. Some suspects were taken in shops; others were caught in a high-speed car chase.
A British anti-terrorism police source would not comment on the reason for their quick action, but confirmed the raids were carried out faster than planned: "It would be a fair assessment to say there was an urgency. Something can happen that prompts us to take action faster than we would," he told Reuters.
A U.S. counterterrorism official told Reuters on Friday that one of the 12 British detainees, known as Abu Musa al-Hindi or Abu Eisa al-Hindi, was a key al Qaeda operative in Britain: "This arrest is a big one."
WASHINGTON TO SEEK EXTRADITION
He said Hindi was centrally involved in an effort to case possible targets in the United States for al Qaeda attacks, and said Washington would seek to extradite him.
Britain has yet to identify or charge any of the suspects or confirm whether Hindi is among them.
Intelligence and security experts said they were surprised Washington would reveal information that could expose the name of a source during an ongoing law enforcement operation.
"If it's true that the Americans have unintentionally revealed the identity of another nation's intelligence agent, who appears to be working in the good of all of us, that is not only a fundamental intelligence flaw its also a monumental foreign relations blunder," security expert Paul Beaver, a former publisher of Jane's Defense Weekly, told Reuters.
Kevin Rosser, security expert at the London-based consultancy Control Risks Group, said such a disclosure was a risk that came with staging public alerts, but that authorities were meant to take special care not to ruin ongoing operations.
"When these public announcements are made they have to be supported with some evidence, and in addition to creating public anxiety and fatigue you can risk revealing sources and methods of sensitive operations," he said.
In a separate case, British police have arrested Londoner Babar Ahmad under a U.S. warrant alleging that he helped fund militants in Afghanistan and Chechnya. At his first court appearance on Friday Ahmed said he would fight extradition.
(Additional reporting by Michael Holden in London)
Check this out!
The media will make the US/Bush divulge any and all sources in order to justify any action taken in the WOT.
The media is now, most certainly, acting treasonous.
What's the deal? WHY do we have to blab about this stuff publically and NAME NAMES? This is the first story I've actually had time to read tonite, but I've been hearing about it all day in news snippets. Is there someything I'm missing other than this was a big blunder?
On Monday evening, after Khan's name appeared, Pakistani officials moved him to a secret location.
The next day British police mounted the sweep that caught the 12 suspects. Such raids are normally carried out late at night or in the early morning, when suspects might be at home and less likely to resist.
But showing clear signs of haste, British police pounced in daylight. Some suspects were taken in shops; others were caught in a high-speed car chase."
The NY Slimes has become public enemy #1. First they tried to poo poo what was happening. Then apparently, they were shown who said what. Then they released his/Khan's name.
That alerted people up and down Khan's chain of command to get out Britain or where ever.
Our armchair generals allways want us to nuke some Arabic country or to moab a city in Iraq. Well maybe we should declare war on the NY/LA Slimes, DC Compost and ABCNNBC BS and drop a moab on their home offices during working hours. That would probably make us safer than taking out some city in Iraq.
"What's the deal? WHY do we have to blab about this stuff publically and NAME NAMES? This is the first story I've actually had time to read tonite, but I've been hearing about it all day in news snippets. Is there someything I'm missing other than this was a big blunder?"
Could it be that somebody is trying to set President Bush up with leaking "intel" to see what his response would be?
The nation is alerted that something may be up, and the first responder for the JFKerry team, Howie Dean say it is ancient news, and done for political gain.
Then it becomes a game of political hand ball to see who will say what next.
Guess what somebody has leaked a "secret" agent's name, wonder who does stuff like this....
I smell a rat operation....
I picked this up from some London paper, not the NYT, but I think it says that the Pakistanis were the source.
Captured Qaeda engineer spurred attack warnings
By Douglas Jehl and David Rohde (The New York Times)
Monday, August 2, 2004
WASHINGTON: The unannounced capture of a figure from Al Qaeda in Pakistan several weeks ago led the CIA to the rich lode of information that prompted the terror alert on Sunday, according to senior U.S. officials.
The figure, Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, was described by a Pakistani intelligence official as a 25-year-old computer engineer, arrested July 13, who had used and helped to operate a secret Qaeda communications system in which information was transferred via coded messages
A senior U.S. official would not confirm or deny that Khan had been the Qaeda figure whose capture led to the information. But the official said "documentary evidence" found after the capture had demonstrated in extraordinary detail that Qaeda members had for years conducted sophisticated and extensive reconnaissance of the financial institutions cited in the warnings on Sunday.
One senior U.S. intelligence official said the information was more detailed and precise than any he had seen during his 24-year career in intelligence work. A second senior U.S. official said it had provided a new window into the methods, content and distribution of Qaeda communications.
"This, for us, is a potential treasure-trove," said a third senior U.S. official, an intelligence expert, at a briefing for reporters on Sunday afternoon.
The documentary evidence, whose contents were reported urgently to Washington on Friday afternoon, immediately elevated the significance of other intelligence information gathered in recent weeks that had already been regarded as highly troubling, senior U.S. intelligence officials said. Much of that information had come from Qaeda detainees in Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, as well as Pakistan, and some had also pointed to a possible attack on financial institutions, senior U.S. intelligence officials said.
The U.S. officials said the new evidence had been obtained only after the capture of the Qaeda figure. Among other things, they said, it demonstrated that Qaeda plotters had begun casing buildings in New York, Washington, and Newark, New Jersey, even before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Among the questions the plotters sought to answer, senior U.S. intelligence officials said, were how best to gain access to the targeted buildings; how many people might be at the sites at different hours and on different days of the week; whether a hijacked oil tanker truck could serve as an effective weapon; and how large an explosive device might be required to bring the buildings down.
The U.S. officials would say only that the Qaeda figure whose capture had led to the discovery of the documentary evidence had been captured with the help of the CIA.
But an account provided by a Pakistani intelligence official made clear that the crucial capture in recent weeks had been that of Khan, who is also known as Abu Talha. The intelligence official provided information describing Khan as having assisted in evaluating potential U.S. and Western targets for terrorist attacks, and as being representative of a "new Al Qaeda."
Pakistan: U.S. blew undercover operation (NY Times blew double agent cover)
Drop a MOAB on the NY Times.... now that is a reasonable thought after some of their trash.
Hmmm...
See the thread linked above...
Don't have an answer, but they were talking about it on the thread linked to at post #10.
Think i will call it a night!
It seems that the reporters labelled the source of the name as coming from Pakistani officials. Are foreign sources trying to make trouble where none exists?
After re reading this and holding back on the Moab for the NY Slimes, it appears the leak came from a Packy Intel guy.
Then at the meeting these two rat reporters did some typical NY Slimes dance steps:
"The figure, Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, was described by a Pakistani intelligence official as a 25-year-old computer engineer, arrested July 13, who had used and helped to operate a secret Qaeda communications system in which information was transferred via coded messages."
The leak came from the Pakky intel official, not any US officials.
Now for the footwork of the Slimes reporters:
"A senior U.S. official would not confirm or deny that Khan had been the Qaeda figure whose capture led to the information. But the official said "documentary evidence" found after the capture had demonstrated in extraordinary detail that Qaeda members had for years conducted sophisticated and extensive reconnaissance of the financial institutions cited in the warnings on Sunday."
We have no ideal who this official was. I would bet my pension he was not appointed by GW but is some lifelong rat in State, CIA or the FBI.
The footwork continues
"One senior U.S. intelligence official said the information was more detailed and precise than any he had seen during his 24-year career in intelligence work. A second senior U.S. official said it had provided a new window into the methods, content and distribution of Qaeda communications."
Again, a safe bet these besides being career intel in the first case and who knows in the second case another career person who is probably an embedded rat.
"["This, for us, is a potential treasure-trove," said a third senior U.S. official, an intelligence expert, at a briefing for reporters on Sunday afternoon."
The above gets a little confusing, is this blabber one of the three above or another one.
The keys here are they never say administraion officials, but key or senior US officials like they did during the Wilson/Plame fiasco and later the Clarke mess.
That's it, I off to bed.
Just Moab the NY Slimes, LA Slimes, Wash Compost and ABCNNBC BS and make America safer.
I've no idea, maybe the spooks are doing it to each other.
I'll check back tomorrow!
"It seems that the reporters labelled the source of the name as coming from Pakistani officials. Are foreign sources trying to make trouble where none exists?'
It appears that you are correct.
The Pakky intel guy was probably bragging or he wanted to expose this double agent to prevent more exposure of his al qaeda buddies.
It is a known fact that they will sell each other out at the drop of a dinar in that part of the world. That I can understand, but the NY Slimeballs are traitors, plain and simple.
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