Posted on 02/18/2002 4:08:23 AM PST by Nix 2
James Crogan
The Middle Eastern connection to Oklahoma CityFebruary 17, 2002
Ever since the country was savagely attacked on Sept. 11, the FBI has relentlessly investigated flight schools, airports, universities, mosques, Middle Eastern charities and Muslim communities, looking for connections to al-Qaida or other jihadist groups.
The only stone, it seems, the bureau hasn't been willing to turn over is its own investigation into the Oklahoma City bombing. Presumably, that's because the 1995 terrorist attack was the exclusive work of homegrown extremists Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. Or was it?Even though McVeigh went to his death denying any larger plot, serious questions remain unanswered. Did John Doe No. 2 ever exist? If so, who is he? If not, why did a second suspect initially emerge? What material or witnesses did the bureau use to create its three sketches of this alleged co-conspirator?
And then there's that troublesome FBI-authorized all-points bulletin issued just minutes after the truck bomb exploded. The alert sent members of Oklahoma City law enforcement searching for two Middle Eastern-looking men seen speeding away from the blast area in a brown Chevy pickup with tinted windows and a bug shield. The APB was abruptly cancelled several hours later without explanation.
The evidence that the Oklahoma City bombing involved a larger conspiracy, one with Middle Eastern connections, is compelling. And the trail begins with that mysterious pickup.
The week after the bombing, Jayna Davis, a veteran Oklahoma City reporter at KFOR-TV, got a tip, which began her investigation of a local property management company. Dr. Samir Khalil owns Samara Properties, and several former employees told Davis they had seen a pickup, matching the APB's description, at the office.
Davis discovered that Khalil, a Palestinian expatriate, had pled guilty in 1991 to several counts of insurance fraud and served eight months in a federal prison. Khalil's court papers indicated that the FBI investigated him for alleged connections to the Palestine Liberation Organization. But Khalil vehemently denied any PLO links. And he's never responded to my calls for comment.
Former Samara employees also told Davis that six months before the bombing, Khalil hired a group of Iraqi refugees to do painting and construction work. This group had allegedly fled Iraq to escape Saddam Hussein's regime. But a Samara employee told Davis he saw them cheering the terror attack and vowing to die in Saddam's service.
Davis then used surveillance camera to take pictures of these Iraqis. Eventually, she focused on one man, Hussain Alhussaini (also known as Al-Hussaini Hussain), who seemed to match the last FBI profile sketch and description of John Doe No. 2.
Over the next several months, she interviewed witnesses who said they saw McVeigh in the company of a Middle Eastern-looking man in the days and hours before the bombing. Using KFOR's photo line-up, they identified that individual as Alhussaini.
Perhaps the most intriguing statements she collected came from a host of staff members at a motel near downtown Oklahoma City. They reported seeing McVeigh with a number of Middle Eastern men at the site in the months preceding the bombing. Using KFOR's photos, those men were identified as Samara employees. Alhussaini was included in that group.
The motel witnesses also said they saw several of the Iraqis moving large barrels around in the back of an old white truck. The barrels, they alleged, emanated a strong smell of diesel fuel, one of the key ingredients used in the Oklahoma City bomb.
Davis also discovered that the mysterious brown Chevy pickup was impounded by the FBI on April 27, 1995. The pickup had been abandoned in an apartment building lot. According to the police report, the truck had been stripped of its license plate, inspection tag and all its vehicle identification numbers. It also was spray-painted yellow, but the original color was listed as brown. One resident at the complex told the FBI the driver was "clean-shaven, with an olive complexion, dark, wavy hair and broad shoulders," in his late 20s or early 30s and of Middle Eastern descent.
Davis also used a hidden camera to interview Lana Padilla, Terry Nichols' ex-wife, about Nichols' repeated trips to the Philippines, a hotbed for terrorist activity. "Tim bought Terry the first ticket for the Philippines," Padilla said. That trip occurred in 1989. His last visit came in November 1994.
Ramzi Yousef, the Iraqi convicted for masterminding the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and a plot to blow up U.S. airliners, operated out of Mindanao and Manila in the Philippines. Yousef received funding from Osama bin Laden. According to a motion filed by the McVeigh defense team, an American fitting Nichols' description met with Yousef in the Philippines in 1992 or 1993.
Davis eventually aired a number of pieces, taking care to disguise the Iraqi's identity. However, Alhussaini voluntarily stepped forward on June 15, 1995, to publicly claim that KFOR and Davis had labeled him as John Doe No. 2.
Alhussaini told Channel 9 in Oklahoma City he was living in fear. He claimed to be working at one of Khalil's properties when the bombing occurred. And he produced a handwritten time sheet as proof. The former Iraqi soldier also denied knowing McVeigh, and demanded a public apology from KFOR.
KFOR and Davis stood by their reports and countered with witnesses who contradicted Alhussaini's assertions, including the time sheet, which was labeled a fabrication. Alhussaini responded by filing a state civil libel suit. However, he withdrew the suit the day before a judge was scheduled to rule on KFOR's motion for summary judgment.
Meanwhile, Alhussaini's suit froze KFOR's coverage of the story. And Davis eventually quit after The New York Times bought the station and the investigation was stopped. The former reporter, who had collected 22 signed affidavits from the witnesses she interviewed, was called to testify before a state grand jury that examined the bombing in 1997. With the witnesses' permission, she gave the grand jury the affidavits.
Alhussaini then refiled his libel suit in federal court. Once again attorneys for KFOR and Davis filed for a dismissal. On Nov. 17, 1999, U.S. District Judge Tim Leonard granted their motion. In his ruling, Leonard stated that all the facts in Davis' report were either true or statements of opinion, and did not libel the plaintiff. Alhussaini then appealed the ruling. A hearing was held on Sept. 10; a decision is pending.
Alhussaini moved from Oklahoma City and was reportedly living in the Boston area. His lawyer declined to give me a phone number for his client.
According to 1997 medical records produced during his federal suit, Alhussaini said he had worked for a while at Boston's Logan Airport (where two of the planes were hijacked on Sept. 11). Quoting from those records, Alhussaini first told his psychiatrist that he had quit his airport job because, "If anything happens there, I will be a suspect." However, he later told his doctor that he "wanted to look for another job because he feels unsafe in the environment he works in, the airport, given the recent events involving his being previously suspected of involvement in the Oklahoma bombing."
Alhussaini's specific job at the airport was never identified. I contacted the Massachusetts Port Authority, which oversees Logan, to obtain dates of employment. A spokesperson said the agency would not release any information.
During the course of her investigation, Davis made contact with Yossef Bodansky, executive director of the 13-year-old Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare. Bodansky told Davis the task force had warned of an impending Islamic-sponsored terrorist attack in America's heartland back in 1995.
On Feb. 27, 1995, the task force had issued its first confidential warning to federal agencies that Islamic terrorists "may soon strike Washington D.C., specifically the Capitol and the White House." This confidential alert, which he said was quietly distributed to federal intelligence agencies and law enforcement, claimed the attacks were to begin after March 21, 1995.
"Striking inside the U.S. is presently a high priority for Iran," stated the warning. The alert also stated that upcoming terrorist strikes might be directed against "airports, airlines and telephone systems." In light of Sept. 11, it was a telling note.
On March 3, 1995, the task force issued an update. This "super-sensitive" alert stated there was a "greater likelihood the terrorists would strike at the heart of the U.S." Bodansky also told Davis that after the truck bombing, he reviewed intelligence data that confirmed, "Oklahoma City was on the list of potential targets."
Bodansky gave Davis copies of the task force's original alert and some of his confidential notes detailing the update and Oklahoma City's target status. His material notes an independent warning from Israeli intelligence a month before the bombing. The warning indicated a terrorist attack was impending and that "lilly whites" would be activated. Lilly whites, Bodansky writes, were people without any background or police records who would not be suspected members of a terrorist group.
Now President Bush has labeled Iran, Iraq and North Korea an "axis of evil." And hyperbole aside, details of Iran's alleged involvement in terrorism were included in last summer's U.S. Department of Justice indictment issued in connection with the Khobar Towers attack in Saudi Arabia.
Moreover, Bodansky told me that Iran and Iraq agreed to cooperate in terrorist operations against the West.
Over the past seven months, I reviewed all of Davis' documents, including the material she got from Bodansky. I also conducted my own follow-up interviews and found no holes in her investigation. As for Davis, she's tried twice to give her material to the FBI.
According to her attorney Tim McCoy, Department of Justice attorneys prosecuting Nichols rejected Davis' documents in 1997 because they didn't want more material to turn over to the defense. McCoy testified to this at a recent hearing in Nichols' state murder case.
In 1999, former FBI agent Dan Vogel accepted the material, but he said that higher-ups later rejected it because the agency questioned Davis' ownership rights.
I called the bureau but it declined to explain this strange turn of events. Perhaps if Vogel had been allowed to testify at a recent hearing in Nichols' Oklahoma murder trial, details would have been forthcoming. But the Justice Department refused to let him take the stand.
Is this a case of FBI incompetence, political interference or the Justice Department's desire not to complicate a seemingly open-and-shut case against McVeigh and Nichols? I don't know.
I do know that too many questions remain unanswered. And I wonder: If the FBI had followed through on these leads, might agents have turned up links to sleeper cells or the network that planned the Sept. 11 massacre?
My own view is that some of the Middle Eastern terrorists were on the FBI payroll. That's why, at least in my opinion, they are very concerned about anyone finding out who these men were. It's the only explanation I have that fits all of the available facts.
Explain why the CURRENT administration and the CURRENT attorney general practically buried McVeigh alive and seem to have NO INTEREST WHATSOEVER in addressing this issue.
I just hate that the truth is always stranger than fiction. God bless Ms. Davis, wherever she is, for this important body of details.
At least two or more Iraqis with the name Hussaini were brought to the US along with several thousand other Iraqis after the Gulf War by HW Bush with the later help of William Clinton. Many of these Iraqis served in Saddam Hussein's elite Republican Guard. I wonder how many of the Iraqis who served in the Iraqi Republican Guard were brought to the US besides AlHussaini?
Michael Reagan has reported on his radio program that several of these Iraqis brought to the US committed rapes, murders and robberies.
There is a group of ten Iraqis in an Iraqi mob that have been identified by the Federal terrorism task force in OKC but nothing has been done about them.
HW Bush and the CIA worked closely with Iraqi Isan Barbouti to acquire and transfer materials and technology for weapons of mass destruction to Iraq prior to the Gulf War and this included technology from OKC (TK7 rocket fuel booster). The HW Bush transfers are in the Congressional Record, read into the Record by Congressman Henry Gonzales. These have been posted on the FreeRepublic this year. Isan Barbouti's son Heider Barbouti of Houston Texas (IBI company) allegedly helped the Iraqi Alhussini after the OKC bombing according to an attorney and reporter close to the OKC bombing case.
Paul Bedard, editor of the Washington Whispers column for the US News and World Report, wrote that last year top Pentagon officials told him that McVeigh was an Iraqi agent found with Iraqi phone numbers in his possession. Bedard said the Pentagon was upset with what they believed was a cover-up by the FBI of the Iraqi connection. At one time Bedard told me the original source of the information about McVeigh and Iraq came from Assistant Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz.
According to court documents, one of McVeigh's associates, Dennis Mahon, at the OK compound of Elohim City was paid thousands of dollars by the Iraqis before the OKC bombing.
The former ME operations chief for CIA counter terrorism, Vincent Cannistraro, told the FBI that the head of Saudi Intelligence told Cannistraro on the day of the OKC bombing (after it happened) that Saddam Hussein had paid seven Pakistanis (ISI close to BIn LAden) to help do the OKC bombing. This is in Stephen Jones and David Hoffman's books on the OKC bombing.
There is a well established Hamas cell in OKC that is believed to have helped AlHussaini and the Iraqis. The same Hamas cell sponsored a terror conference in 1992 attended by former CNN reporter and terror expert Steve Emerson who produced the video "Jihad in America".
Emerson claimed that at the OKC conference the Hamas terrorists discussed plans for the first and all subsequent attacks on the WTC. To this day the FBI has not moved against this Hamas cell which has ties to the Holy Land Foundation in Dallas represented by GW Bush attorneys. The FBI have told local news not to even report on the existence of the Hamas cell in OKC even though their presence with bomb experts was publicly confirmed in May 1995 by the former Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Dave McCurdy, in his letter which was published in the Oklahoma Gazette.
In Dallas, the FBI and FBI SAC Danny Defenbaugh (Inspector for the OKC bomb task force) have been tracking members of Bin Laden's terrorists, AlQaeda, connected to the Hamas cell, the OKC bombing and the 9/11 hijacker pilots since at least 1998. Some of the pilots like Atta (met with the Iraqis in Prague and paid by the Pakistani ISI)were trained near OKC in flight schools known about in detail by the FBI since 1999.
The head of the US Marshals, Eduardo Gonzales, put out an alert on MArch 25, 1995 to all US Marshals at all Federal Buildings (including the bombed Murrah building in OKC) for a ME assisted attack due to a Fatwah issued in conjunction with the holding of defendants in the first WTC attacks which were planned in the OKC Hamas sponsored conference in 1992. The alert was described in an article by Robert Rudolf in the Newark Star Ledger in March 1995. The Federal judge in OKC, Wayne Alley, was warned by the US Marshals, stayed away from the Federal building in OKC after April 4, 1995 and had his grandchildren taken out of the Murrah building day care center. The Alley story was reported in an interview Alley gave to the Oregonian newspaper in 1995.
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US Congressman Ernest Istook of Oklahoma allegedly told two OK Deputy Sheriffs on the night of April 19, 1995 in front of the Murrah Building rubble that he knew the FBI and US government had received a terror threat against a Federal Building in OKC(there were only two and they were across the street from each other) about a week to ten days before the bombing from a known ME terror group in OKC.
This known ME terror group referred to by Istook is believed to be the Hamas cell in OKC referred to in my earlier reply #9 which has been here for over ten years, helped plan the WTC attacks and who have helped McVeigh and later the hijacker pilots (Atta) in the 9/11 attacks.
The two deputy sheriffs, Don Hammonds and Dave Kochendoerfer, put out sworn affidavits at a news conference in OKC in 1997 and also testified before the OK County grand jury investigating the bombing. The sheriffs were treated badly by FBI agent James Carlyle who told them he was going to write up what amounted to a false FBI 302 interview report falsely claiming that the sheriffs were just repeating "scuttlebutt" they had heard. The sheriffs objected to what Carlyle told the sheriffs Carlyle was going to write in this FBI 302 report. The sheriffs they stuck to their stories by writing a letter of complaint to the FBI in DC and the local FBI SAC in OKC, Mr. Kucker, at the time.
David Kochendoerfer is considered a pillar of morality in his community and has taught Sunday school for years.
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Did you see Larry Johnson, former CIA officer, on fox news today at about 1:00pm? He said he had reviewed Davis' information, and thought it was credible. He raised this case as an example of problems in the FBI counter terrorism efforts, in spite of the efforts of many good field agents. (reply #20 from Triple)
The CIA agent referred to in Triple's reply #20, Mr. Johnson, also told Congress last year that the Egyptian Ali Mohammed had fooled the FBI as a triple or double agent for the FBI and Bin Laden.
Ali was indicted for the first WTC bombing (planned by Hamas in OKC), the Kenyan and Tanzanian embassy bombings, for training AlQaeda cells in the US on how to bomb public buildings and for setting up AlQaeda cells in the US and around the world. Ali helped move Bin Laden from Sudan to Somalia. Ali worked closely with Laden's secretary elHage who lived in Dallas, Texas and lLi and elHage are strongly believed to have helped in the OKC bombing with the Hamas and Iraqi groups in OKC and Dallas which FBI inspector Danny Defenbaugh knew about when he was on the OKC bombing case and also later when he was tracking Bin Laden terrorists out of Dallas in 1998 as Dallas FBI SAC.
Ali did all the above while he worked for the FBI out of Sacramento California from 1992 to 1998. Prior to that Ali was an instructor for US Special Forces and worked briefly for the CIA.
elHage told a Federal judge at the embassies bombing trials in a letter in 2000 that he had forewarned the FBI about the Kenyan and Tanzanian bombing but was ignored. And Ali made a similar claim to have forewarned the FBI. The FBI knew about plans to bomb these embassies six months before they were bombed according to several articles posted on FreeRepublic in 2000.
Ali's and elHage claims are plausible since both also were involved in the first WTC attacks and it is known now that the FBI had advanced knowledge of the first WTC bombing from another informant besides Ali, Mr Salem, who objected that FBI superiors had not listened to his FBI handlers to do enough to stop the bombing.
Janet Reno did a special plea bargain with Ali Mohammed (to cover up US screw ups and forewarning and foreknowledge about Bin Laden terror group attacks?) after it was revealed by Andrea Mitchell (Greenspan's wife who works for MSNBC) that US intelligence believed the Egyptian airliner was crashed into the sea by the Egyptian pilot in protest for the incarceration of fellow Egyptian Ali Mohammed.
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Sounds to me as if Davis ME info (which I helped develop along with many others) has made it to the closed door Congressional Intelligence hearings underway in DC. Larry Johnson has testified before their committees last year about Ali Mohammed and has access to the members of the intell committees.
I recommended to Davis last year after the 9/11 attacks that she and David Schippers approach the Intell committees. I called the Senate Intell committee in Jan 1999 to get backing for Davis to ensure that the FBI would receive her evidence (which Dan Vogel did in Jan-Feb 1999).
And please do not forget there were also domestic John Does and FBI informants involved with the ME types in the OKC bombing case. I have clearly identified some of the domestic individuals in my articles posted on FreeRepublic.
There appears to have been domestic informants for the FBI working on the inside of the OKC bombing preparations with McVeigh. Some have been identified in articles on the FreeRepublic and to the AG Ashcroft who did nothing. It is believed that another possible motive for the FBI cover-up-up of OKC is because the FBI not only had foreknowledge and forewarning, but somehow screwed up with their own domestic informants which could get the FBI in trouble with Congress and the American people.
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What is even worse is that Davis' attorneys tried to turn over the evidence of a ME connection to the US prosecutor Sean Connelly for several years and even before they tried with the FBI and Connelly refused to accept it saying he did not want to help the defense.
Now Connelly is the special prosecutor assigned to Ashcroft writing the final report to be out in a month of the DOJ investigation of how the FBI mishandled evidence (lost and then found, ha!) in the OKC case. This is likely to be a cover-up and white wash by Connelly given his behavior with the ME evidence. Connelly put out an earlier report last year on the FBI performance with the evidence which I wrote about on the FreeRepublic and Connelly's report was filled with falsehoods in my opinion.
After the FBI finally received the Davis evidence in early 1999, Connelly later told Judge Matsch at an appeals hearing for Terry Nichols (July 7, 1999) that the prosecutors had given all known and relevant evidence of the ME connection to the defense attorneys. This was blatant perjury in my opinion given what happened with Davis's attorneys and with Connelly and with the FBI over some of the ME evidence.
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According to some reliable witnesses, McVeigh was to have been on April 18, 1995 at the Grand Continental motel (now torn down) on I-35 a few miles south of downtown OKC. Witnesses also report seeing the Ryder truck and the Brown Chevy truck at the Plaza Inn motel the night before just down the street from the Continental and the morning of the bombing. The FBI showed up and confiscated the motels' records by 10 am on April 19, 1995 just an hour after the bombing!.
Alleged BATF and FBI informant Gary Hunt who was also an associate of McVeigh, was identified by witnesses at the Grand Continental (James Culwell) as having stayed at the Continental before and after the OKC bombing.
The owner of the Continental was an Iranian who had ties to ME terror groups in OKC (Hamas and the employer of the Iraqi AlHussaini) including Iranian men who worked down the street at Lucy's restaurant at I-35 and SE 44th St.
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Here is the link for the other article by Jim Crogan on OKC Bombing I posted on FR last year.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/535166/posts
Heartland Conspiracy: Unanswered questions about Timothy McVeigh’s and Terry Nichols’ possible links to the Middle East
LA Weekly | September 28, 2001 | Jim Crogan
Posted on 9/28/01 6:01 PM Pacific by OKCSubmariner
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