Posted on 03/01/2003 10:46:44 PM PST by mikegi
Khalid Sheik Mohammed, captured in Pakistan yesterday, is the self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and a central planner in al Qaeda attacks on U.S. interests -- from the failed 1995 plot to blow up 11 U.S. airliners over the Pacific to the round of threats that put the nation on extreme high alert in recent weeks. For al Qaeda networks throughout the Middle East, South Asia and Europe, he has been a central conduit for money, personnel and plans.
...
The object of a U.S manhunt for years, Mohammed narrowly escaped captured in 1996. At that time, he was staying with a member of the Qatari royal family at a farm outside Doha. The FBI wanted to snatch him, but others in the U.S. government balked. The Qatari government was notified instead, and by the time an agreement to turn him over was reached, Mohammed was gone.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
By far the longest and most detailed profile I've seen of Mohammed was the two-page article which appeared in the LA Times just before Christmas. That article seemed crafted to play up the portrait of KSM as a good little Muslim fundie, going back to his days in college in the US. It totally omitted anything that conflicted with that picture, which was striking, given the length of the article and the fact that KSM's far-from-fundamentalist proclivities had repeatedly been covered in earlier stories. One might almost suspect that the story or the reporter was being "spun."
That's interesting, because Ramzi Yousef's real, Kuwaiti name (assuming he is really a Kuwaiti) is "Basit," not "Yousef." Ramzi Yousef was the alias on the Iraqi passport "Abdul Basit" used to gain entry to the US -- again, according to the Kuwaiti theory.
Carolyn
Carolyn
Former CIA officer Robert Baer said Mohammed was known as a key terrorist since the late 1990s. The FBI nearly captured him when he was offered up by authorities in Qatar in 1997, only to be thwarted by a Qatari government minister who helped Mohammed escape. He then was traced to Prague, Mr. Baer said.
Carolyn
First, these reporters don't print anything but what they're spoon-fed by their government informants. Obviously, government informants craft their material to convey the most pragmatically useful "representation" of the story for the administration's wide objectives. The most blatant example of this was the story about the CIA and the FBI suspecting right-wing domestic terrorists as being the source of the anthrax, originally floated by Bob Woodward. Thanks to Woodward himself, we know now that was simply a bald-faced lie. But, there have been many other smaller, less dramatic examples:
To some extent, this arrest is going to be inconvenient for the administration, because certain issues that they would rather keep in the background for now are going to be thrust to the fore. However, reporters are lazy and malleable and punters are gullible in the extreme, so I don't think it's going to be too much of a problem to manage this.
Let's rewind to before the arrest, to look at the track record of media coverage and see if it suggests anything about the authorities' attitude to our understanding of KSM.
In terms of significant lacunae, the most noticeable thing was the dearth of stories about KSM. If you followed this thing closely, you had to wonder why the papers weren't all over this guy. He was, after all, the acknowledged author of 9/11, not to mention Khobar Towers, and the African embassy bombings. Indeed, he has been linked to every major anti-US terror plot since the end of the Gulf War. He was bosom buddies with Ramzi Yousef, the convicted architect of the '93 attempt to topple the WTC. He spent four years studying engineering in the United States -- supposedly -- and, if that is true, many people here knew him and remember him. He was indicted in 1996 for his collaboration with Yousef in "Project Bojinka," an obvious protype for 9/11. Amazing, then, that I saw only a handful of articles on KSM in the main press in the year-and-a-half since 9/11. One might almost think that the feds didn't want us to focus on KSM and where his trail leads. And, indeed, when congress launched an investigation into 9/11, the CIA reportedly balked completely at discussing what they knew about his role.
The second omission I noticed is that, even when stories appeared about KSM, relatively little was made of the Yousef connection. See, for example, the most detailed KSM story that appeared prior to the arrest, originally published in the Los Angeles Times: The plots and designs of al-Qaeda's engineer. Let's see, Ramzi Yousef tried to topple the WTC in 1993, KSM succeeds in doing so in 2001, the two men are bosom buddies and operate the same terrorist organization out of the Philippines, but that connection isn't interesting? Why not?
The third and subtlest of the to-be-avoided-if-possible sore points is the question of KSM's being a Kuwaiti. That is the official "line" now. Of KSM's 32 different identities, the real one is that of the Kuwaiti who studied in North Carolina in the 1980s. Just as, of Ramzi Yousef's many identities, the real one is "Abdul Basit," the Kuwaiti nephew of KSM who studied in Swansea in the 1980s. And yet, there is a noticeable tendency in these stories to avoid coming straight out and call KSM a Kuwaiti. Why is that? What do we know about Kuwait that might raise a red flag w.r.t. to a post-Gulf War uber-terrorist with multiple forged identities claiming to be a Kuwaiti? The "Kuwaiti" angle is a hot potato. Indeed, in today's story in Newsweek, they call KSM a Pakastani, and avoid mentioning Kuwait completely: The Biggest Catch Yet. What's up with that? (Needless to say, the average Newsweek reader, semi-comatose in Business Class, isn't going to notice this stuff.)
The latest Newsweek story is already spinning that the feds didn't realize the importance of KSM until almost a year after 9/11:
American intelligence was slow to recognize Mohammed’s importance. It was more than a year after 9-11 that the FBI and CIA came to appreciate that Mohammed worked as bin Laden’s chief operational planner. But in recent months, as his name kept popping up as the mastermind behind a new wave of threats, the Feds went all out to track him down.That's bullsh*t. KSM was indicted in 1996 for his involvement in Project Bojinka, an obvious protype of 9/11. He has been linked to every major anti-US terrorist outrage since the end of the Gulf War. He is the other half of the dynamic duo that tried to take down the WTC in 1993. When you see bullsh*t like this in a story, you know someone is trying to blow smoke up your ass, pure and simple. That is the only credible explanation.
My guess is that we won't be seeing much video of this "whale" of a catch in the near future. He will drop off the radar screen soon. We won't be seeing too many interviews with KSM's old North Carolina classmate, eithers: "Where did Khalid go after graduation?" -- "Kuwait." -- "Cut. Okay, that's enough interviews." KSM has had his day in the limelight, and is about to return to the well-engineered obscurity from which he came.
Supposedly he studied mechanical engineering at Chowan College for a semester before he transferred to a university in North Carolina. That could have proven difficult, since there is no engineering program at Chowan College. Indeed, there is only a "Department of Science" with 2 chemists and 1 physicist!
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