Let’s consider whether there is a connection between GMU microbiology student Al-Timimi, who the FBI has said they think may have been involved in the anthrax crimes, and the attempt to establish shariah in northern Iraq or plots to conduct terrorist acts of violence against US targets. Yesterday it was revealed that in October 2001, a CI claims that a message from Bin Laden to Albany imam asked him to check out flight schools and asked how close he could get to a [redacted] aircraft.
In briefing before the District Court judge in the Aref matter, the prosecutors explained the connection between Aref and Al-Timimi’s IANA colleague Rafil Dhafir, a respected oncologist in Rome, NY, and the Syracuse-based IANA spin-off/dba Help The Needy.
“Aref’s [Albany imam in 2001] 1999 journal also shows a series of contacts with Mullah Krekar (who, as discussed infra, subsequently founded the terrorist organization Ansar al Islam). Meetings in 1999 with Mullah Krekar and others, in Damascus on August 10, and in Arbil on August 27,
were followed by discussions on August 28 of “M Krekar lectures, like a center abroad,” and on August 29 of “Our resistance for abroad M. [center] for M. Krekar.” On September 15, 1999, discussions of an “American plan” are noted. (Previously, on January 24, 1999, an entry noted
“We had our daily meeting at the center we talked about the following points: 1- Changing program in America let’s keep quiet and not answer anyone. ...
Prior to meeting with Mullah Krekar, Aref already had applied for refugee status in the U.S. Less than four months after meeting with Mullah Krekar, Aref departed Syria for the U.S. (on October 26, 1999). One week earlier, an October 18, 1999 letter from the Islamic Center in Arbil (recovered in 2002 from the premises of “Help the Needy,” a charity run by Dr. Rafil
Dhafir in Syracuse, New York), introduced Aref as “our representative,” and instructed, “We expect cooperation from all of you.”
[Dr. Dhafir was the Vice-Chairman of the Islamic Assembly of North America and was close to GMU microbiology student Dr. Ali Al-Timimi and, for example, spoke alongside him in Toronto in July 2001 and in London in August 2001, as did “911 imam” Awlaki from Falls Church, VA, the fellow who met with hijacker Nawaf.
Aref’s 1999 journal reflects contacts with Dhafir on November 8 (“Dr. Rafil called me and gave me his address and offered his help”), and on November 21 (“Dr. Rafil called me and asked me for some things and talked about some plans of action”). Earlier this year, Dhafir was convicted in U.S. District Court in Syracuse of illegally sending nearly $4 million to Iraq in violation of the Iraqi embargo. United States v. Dhafir, 03-CR-064 (N.D.N.Y.) (NAM), docket 458 (jury verdict) (February 10, 2005). Dhafir is awaiting sentencing; the government calculates his sentencing guidelines range as 324-405 months. Following his arrival in the U.S., Aref maintained contact with the IMK center in Damascus. According to his Journal, on November 23, 1999 Aref “called center and spoke to Mr Azad.” Toll records for Aref’s Albany telephone reflect a call on November 23, 1999 to the IMK center in Damascus; as well as 13 other such calls, the last call in October 2001.
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According to Aref’s Journal, he was meeting with Mullah Krekar in Arbil, where the “our representative” letter to Dhafir originated, on August 27: “we arrived to Arbil at 10:30” and “tonight I saw Mamosta Sheikh Ali . . . and Mamosta Krekar ... “ The August 28 and 29 entries refer to discussions of an “abroad center” for Mullah Krekar.
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The foregoing history brings the matter full circle to the Rawah notebook. Aref has had contacts with terrorists and discussions about terrorist acts. He was introduced to the U.S. as a representative of the IMK, and had contact with someone from whom cooperation was expected, someone who illegally sent nearly $4 million to Iraq in violation of the embargo (and who faces a guideline range of 324-405 months). In June 2003, Aref’s name and telephone number were found in a notebook recovered from a terrorist camp at Rawah. The foregoing facts demonstrate dangerousness.”
Thus, the USG suspected Al-Timimi of having rock star status in a charity that was proposed to serve as the American base of a group that then joined with others to form Ansar al-Islam. The go-between was a guy who (according to an unnamed CI) was asked a few weeks after 9/11 to report back to Bin Laden about flight schools and how close he could get to a [redacted] aircraft.
So under the government’s theory of the case, the next 9/11 was indeed at stake and warranted their aggressive prosecution of these individuals.
Those not familiar with the evidence, secret and otherwise, thought it seemed like it was selective prosecution. It was selective prosecution. And thank goodness for that.
A recent letter bomber, Adel Mohamed Arnaout, is in the news in connection with letter bombs he sent in Toronto. He had grudges against a former attorney, a former employer, a former neighbor...
Profilers, however, think that usually when a batch of mailbombs go out, the motive is political.
The al-Hayat letter bombs to newspaper offices in DC and NYC and people in symbolic positions are instructive.
NPR set the scene. It was January 2, 1997, at 9:15 a.m. at the National Press Building in Washington, D.C. The employee of the Saudi-owned newspaper Al Hayat began to open a letter. It was a Christmas card — the kind that plays a musical tune. It was white envelope, five and a half inches by six and a half inches, with a computer-generated address label attached. It had foreign postage and a post mark — a post mark in Alexandria, Egypt. It looked suspiciously bulky, so he set it down and called the police. Minutes later they found a similar envelope. These were the first two of four letter bombs that would arrive at Al Hayat during the day.” A fifth letter bomb addressed to the paper was intercepted at a nearby post office. They all looked the same. Two similar letter bombs addressed to the “parole officer” (a position that does not exist) arrived at the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth. It seemed evident how some Grinch had spent the holidays in Alexandria, Egypt.
Egyptian Saif Adel (Makawwi), thought to be in Iran, was involved in military planning. Adel was a colonel in the Egyptian Army’s Special Forces before joining Al Qaeda. He helped plan the 1998 attacks on the US embassies in Africa. He was also a planner in the attack on the USS Cole and has served as the liaison officer between Hezbollah and Al Qaeda. Adel assisted Atef, who had overall responsibility for Al Qaeda’s operations. There was part of a long-running disagreement with Saif Adel (Makawwi) and Ayman, however. As Attorney Al-Zayyat has said, Makkawi had many times claimed responsibility for operations that were carried out inside Egypt but when the perpetrators were arrested, it would be al-Zawahiri’s name whose name they shout loyalty to from the docks. Some would even say they did not know a person named Makkawi. After the letter al-Hayat letter bombs were sent in January 1997, Saif Adel (Makawwi) gave a statement denying responsibility on behalf of the Vanguards of Conquest. He got admonished by the unnamed but official spokesman for the Vanguards organization — chastising him as not being authorized to speak for the organization (or even being a member).
On January 7, 1997 Col Muhammad Makkawi purporting to be speaking for the Egyptian Vanguards of Islamic Conquest denied responsibility for sending the letter bombs. He said: “Those are messages of admonishment. There is no flirtation between us and the Americans in order for us to send them such alarming messages in such a manner.” Makkawi said that “the Vanguards of Conquest “are heavyweight and would not embark on such childish actions.” US press and political commentaries had hinted at the Vanguards of Conquest organization’s involvement in these attempts. In his statement to `Al-Hayat, Makkawi added “I am surprised that we in particular, and not other parties, should be accused of such an operation.”
But then someone else credited with being the Vanguards official spokesman denounced Makkawi’s authority to speak for the group, referring to the January 5th statement it had made denying responsibility. This other claimed spokesman said “We welcome any Muslim who wants to join us, and if Makkawi wants to [join us], he will be welcomed to the Vanguards march, but through the organizational channels. But if words are not coupled with actions, we tell him: Fear God, and you can use a different name other than the Vanguards to speak on its behalf.” The spokesperson for the Vanguards of Conquest was Al-Sirri, based in London.
The FBI would not speculate as to who sent the letters or why. But this was your classic “duck that walks like a duck” situation. As NPR reported at the time, “analysts say that letter bombs are rarely sent in batches, and when they are it’s generally prompted by politics, not personal animus.” Al Hayat was a well respected and moderate newspaper. It was friendly to moderate Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt — just as, say NBC and CBS. That, without more, was accurately discerned by observers at the time as sufficient to make the newspaper outlet a target of the militant islamists. The newspaper, its editor explained, does not avoid criticizing militant islamists. The Al Hayat Editor-in-Chief explained: “We’ve been opposed to all extremists in the Arab world, especially the fundamentalists.” Mohammed Salameh, a central defendant in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, was sent to Leavenworth in 1994. The other three Egyptian extremists convicted in the bombing were sent to prisons in California, Indiana and Colorado. Like the blind sheik, Abdel Rahman, Salameh had complained of his conditions and asked to be avenged. The Blind Sheik was particularly irked that the prison officials did not cut his fingernails.
Rahman was convicted in 1995 of seditious conspiracy, bombing conspiracy, soliciting an attack on an U.S. military installation, and soliciting the murder of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. His followers were indicted for plotting to bomb bridges, tunnels and landmarks in New York for which Rahman allegedly had given his blessings. The mailing of deadly letters in connection with an earlier attack on the World Trade Center, was not merely the modus operandi of militant islamists, it was the group’s signature — it’s their calling card. Khaled Abu el-Dahab, a naturalised American, from Silicon Valley in a confession detailed in a state security document from Egypt’s defense ministry dated October 28, 1998, explained that he was trained to make booby-trapped letters to send to important people, as well as asked to enroll in American aviation schools to learn how to fly gliders and helicopters. He was a friend of Ali Mohammed, a former special forces officer in the Egyptian army and former US Army Sergeant.
Al Hayat reporters, editor and owner were not expressing an opinion — though the owner did lay out various possibilities (e.g., Iraq, Iran etc.). The owner of the paper had commanded Saudi forces during the Persian Gulf War, when Bin Laden was so upset about American troops on the Arabian peninsula. Moreover, al Hayat had recently opened up a Bureau in Jerusalem, giving it a dateline of Jerusalem rather than al Quds, which some thought blasphemous. But none of the possibilities would plausibly explain why the letter bomb was sent to Leavensworth where three of the WTC 1993 defendants were imprisoned, including Ramzi Yousef’s lieutenant who had asked that his mistreatment be avenged. (That was the criminal genius who returned to Ryder to reclaim his deposit after blowing up the truck at WTC). Egyptian security officials claimed that said that the letters were sent from outside of Egypt, the stamps were not available in Egypt, and that the postmark was not Alexandria as reported. Whatever the place of mailing, the sender likely was someone who was upset that KSM’s and Ramzi Yousef’s associates had been imprisoned, to include, most notably, the blind sheik. Whoever is responsible for the anthrax mailings, it is a very good bet that they are upset the blind sheik is detained. That should be at the center of any classified profile of the crime.
On December 31, 1996 Mohammed Youssef was in Egypt — having gone to Egypt months before. The al Hayat letter bombs related to the detention and alleged mistreatment of the blind sheikh and the WTC bombers were sent 10 days earlier — on the Day of Measures. In 2006, he was named as co-defendant with Hassoun, Daher, Padilla and Jayyousi. Youssef was born in Alexandria. Do authorities suspect the “Florida cell” of being involved in the al Hayat letter bombs? Kifah Jayyousi’s “Islam Report” over the years — distributed by Adham Hassoun in Florida and Kassem Daher in Canada — expressed outrage at detention/extradition due to terrorism law and also what he perceived as attacks on his religion by some newspapers. His headlines on the internet groups blazed “Just In! First Muslim Victim of New Terrorism Law!: US Agents Arrest Paralegal Of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman Without Charge Prepares To Hand Him To Egyptian Regime,” soc.religion.islam, dated April 27, 1996 and “Islam Report (Newspaper Attacks Our Religion! Act Now!,” soc.religion.islam, Apr. 16, 1996
In connection with the January 1997 letter bombs, Ayman got the know-how to send sophisticated electronic letter bombs from Iraqi intelligence according to one item from the highly controversial Feith memo. In the al Hayat letter bombings, Ayman allowed the finger to be pointed at Libya. In the Amerithrax letters, he allowed the finger to be pointed to a United States biodefense insider. Tenet in his May 2007 book included Saif Adel as among “al-Qa’da’s leadership to the group’s highly compartmentalized chemical, biological, and nuclear networks.”
After the Al Hayat letter bombs to newspapers in DC and NYC and people in symbolic positions, in January 1997, both the Blind Sheikh and his paralegal, Sattar, were quoted in separate articles in Al Hayat (in Arabic) denying that they or their supporters were responsible. The Blind Sheikh commented that al Hayat was fair and balanced in its coverage and his supporters would have no reason to “hit” them. Sattar noted that the bombs were mailed on December 20, one day before the brief in support of the blind sheik on appeal. He questioned whether someone (like the FBI) was trying to undermine the appeal’s prospects. The same sort of counterintuitive theory was raised in connection with the earlier letter bombing of newspapers to DC and New York City and people in symbolic positions. But that time it was Ahmed Abdel Sattar who noted that the bombs were mailed on December 20, 1996 one day before the brief in support of the blind sheik on appeal. He questioned whether someone (like the FBI) was trying to undermine the appeal’s prospects. This time, Mr. Sattar did not need any help making the argument with respect to the anthrax letters — numerous people with political agendas rushed to do it for him.
In September 2006, in a Sahab Media production called “Knowledge is for acting,” there is a clip in which Al Quds editor Atwan refers to his visit with OBL in 1996 (see his 2006 book The Secret History of al Qaeda) and he says that Bin Laden was planning to attack America “and America prisons in particular.” That was an apparent reference to the Al Hayat letter bombs sent to newspapers and prisons in January 1997. There were recurrent references to Abdel-Rahman in the tape.
It was, in part, because of the al Hayat letter bombs that the authorities only ever most seriously considered either the Egyptian militants or someone with access to threat intel information who could make it look like the Egyptian militants. With all due respect to Dr. Hatfill, he would not have been clever enough to do such a good job at framing Zawahiri.