Posted on 08/07/2004 12:07:47 PM PDT by be-baw
LONDON (Reuters) - The revelation that a mole within al Qaeda was exposed after Washington launched its "orange alert" this month has shocked security experts, who say the outing of the source may have set back the war on terror.
Reuters learned from Pakistani intelligence sources on Friday that computer expert Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan, arrested secretly in July, was working under cover to help the authorities track down al Qaeda militants in Britain and the United States 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."
Last Sunday, U.S. officials told reporters that someone held secretly by Pakistan was the source of the bulk of the information justifying the alert. The New York Times obtained Khan's name independently, and U.S. officials confirmed it when it appeared in the paper the next morning.
None of those reports mentioned at the time that Khan had been under cover helping the authorities catch al Qaeda suspects, and that his value in that regard was destroyed by making his name public.
A day later, Britain hastily rounded up terrorism suspects, some of whom are believed to have been in contact with Khan while he was under cover. Washington has portrayed those arrests as a major success, saying one of the suspects, named Abu Musa al-Hindi or Abu Eissa al-Hindi, was a senior al Qaeda figure.
But British police have acknowledged the raids were carried out in a rush. Suspects were dragged out of shops in daylight and caught in a high speed car chase, instead of the usual procedure of catching them at home in the early morning while they can offer less resistance.
"HOLY GRAIL" OF INTELLIGENCE
Security experts contacted by Reuters said they were shocked by the revelations that the source whose information led to the alert was identified within days, and that U.S. officials had confirmed his name.
"The whole thing smacks of either incompetence or worse," said Tim Ripley, a security expert who writes for Jane's Defense publications. "You have to ask: what are they doing compromising a deep mole within al Qaeda, when it's so difficult to get these guys in there in the first place?
"It goes against all the rules of counter-espionage, counter-terrorism, running agents and so forth. It's not exactly cloak and dagger undercover work if it's on the front pages every time there's a development, is it?"
A source such as Khan -- cooperating with the authorities while staying in active contact with trusting al Qaeda agents -- would be among the most prized assets imaginable, he said.
"Running agents within a terrorist organization is the Holy Grail of intelligence agencies. And to have it blown is a major setback which negates months and years of work, which may be difficult to recover."
Rolf Tophoven, head of the Institute for Terrorism Research and Security Policy in Essen, Germany, said allowing Khan's name to become public was "very unclever."
"If it is correct, then I would say its another debacle of the American intelligence community. Maybe other serious sources could have been detected or guys could have been captured in the future" if Khan's identity had been protected, he said.
Britain, which has dealt with Irish bombing campaigns for decades, has a policy of announcing security alerts only under narrow circumstances, when authorities have specific advice they can give the public to take action that will make them safer.
UNNECESSARY ALARM
Home Secretary David Blunkett, responsible for Britain's anti-terrorism policy, said in a statement on Friday there was "a difference between alerting the public to a specific threat and alarming people unnecessarily by passing on information indiscriminately."
Kevin Rosser, security expert at the London-based consultancy Control Risks Group, said an inherent risk in public alerts is that secret sources will be compromised.
"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 the case of last week's U.S. alerts, officials said they had ordered tighter security on a number of financial sites in New York, Washington and New Jersey because Khan possessed reports showing al Qaeda agents had studied the buildings.
Although the casing reports were mostly several years old, U.S. officials said they acted urgently because of separate intelligence suggesting an increased likelihood of attacks in the runup to the presidential election in November.
U.S. officials now say Hindi, one of the suspects arrested after Khan's name was compromised, may have been the head of the team that cased those buildings.
But the Pakistani disclosure that Khan was under cover suggests that the cell had been infiltrated, and was under surveillance at the time Washington ordered the orange alert.
The security experts said that under such circumstances it would be extraordinary to issue a public warning, because of the risk of tipping off the cell that it had been compromised. (Additional reporting by Mark Trevelyan in Berlin)
Well, maybe if this administration wasn't forced to justify every action they take by both the major media and the Democrats, this mole would still be masked.
Yes, it's politics, but you can thank that daytime TV 9/11 report also...
Where were all these "experts" in August 2001?
(The 'medium' is the message......)
Diamonds?.....sure,....that's a medium?
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
/sarcasm
exactly...blame the NY Times.
Once the Times let the cat out of the bag then it was pointless for the U.S. to deny the identity, as Al Qaeda's people were perfectly capable of reading the Times. The Times and whoever leaked to the Times are the culprits here.
Right on! The media frenzy and their "right to expose" every national secret, as long as it makes the President look corrupt or inept, has to be reigned in!
Freedom of the press requires a sense of decency, honesty, and integrity!
DKK
Yeah, the NYT pressured the admin to do it. And I have been one to say that they need to get the word about successes.
But gesh, they could have waited a month on this one, although then they would lose control of the news cycles like they in over WMD in IRAQ.
Sitting on their arses, just like they have been ever since. I am particularly galled to see a German bagging on us for intelligence failures. The Germans haven't had effective intelligence since they shot Canaris (and it was hurting before then).
Case in point. Remember where Mohammed Atta and his boys got all fired-up about crashing planes into buildings for the Religion of Death? It was a place called Hamburg, previously best known for the whores of the Reeperbahn.
Could someone tell me what country Hamburg is in, and under whose internal security organizations' benevolent gaze was this plan hatched?
Care to name a country in which the foreign minister is a member of the anti-American Green Party?
Hint: one answer fits both questions.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
Doing NOTHING resulted in 911. Have we forgotten??
The PUBLIC needs to wake up and completely RETHINK obtaining news from the MSM.
The result of countering what that little runt "whats his name" ex abortion doctor from New England was spouting about the Orange Alert being political. He should be hanged as a first step in the war on terror.
Once the Times let the cat out of the bag then it was pointless for the U.S. to deny the identity, as Al Qaeda's people were perfectly capable of reading the Times. The Times and whoever leaked to the Times are the culprits here.
Last night Ernest at the Beach posted a very interesting thread on this.
The outing was done by a Pakki Intel guy. Then the two NY Slimes reporters did their light in the loafer dance with unnamed US sources (top $ they are in the same probably the same rat camp as Joe Wilson and Richard Clarke).
Go to this link for some insight to what happened not the Gay light in the Loafer spin of a pair playing reporter for the Old Gray Whore, the NY Slimes.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1186810/posts
Words cannot express my anger with the New York Times. They are literally killing Americans with their anti-American Internationalist attitude.
Where are the angry mobs with the torches when you need them?
Sometimes security doesn't outweigh massive loss of life.
Perhaps they are right and things rolled out as they say, but based on their previous reporting, for my money, this arab-owned news service needs several corroborative reports to be credible.
I'll wait to hear from our guys.
Well, maybe if this administration wasn't forced to justify every action they take by both the major media and the Democrats, this mole would still be masked.
YEP> Both of these say it all.
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