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Al Qaeda's Hidden Roots
Frontpagemagazine ^ | September 25, 2006 | By Laurie Mylroie

Posted on 09/25/2006 2:55:48 PM PDT by april15Bendovr

Al Qaeda's Hidden Roots By Laurie Mylroie The American Spectator | September 25, 2006

Cyrus Nowrasteh, scriptwriter for ABC's docudrama The Path to 9/11, defends the film's controversial, invented scenes, noting that the first attack on the World Trade Center occurred one month after Bill Clinton took office, and eight years passed in which Clinton did little to thwart the growing menace. Nowrasteh makes a crucial point, but it is not necessary to resort to fiction. Our understanding of the terrorist attacks -- going back to the 1993 Trade Center bombing -- has become loaded with errors obscuring Clinton's fecklessness. Correct those errors, which, unfortunately the film reproduces, and this essential point is far clearer.

The film links Ramzi Yousef, mastermind of the 1993 bombing, to Osama bin Ladin. But, in fact, Yousef and bin Ladin had nothing to do with each other. Bin Laden is not indicted for the Trade Center bombing -- intended to topple the towers and kill 250,000 people -- despite an extensive effort to discover such links. Nor is that attack included in the military charges against Guantanamo Bay detainees, which outline al Qaeda's conspiracy against America. Indeed, bin Laden was not indicted until June 1998, when he was charged with one count: "conspiracy to attack defense utilities of the United States." The target is not identified, and no actual attack occurred.

Al Qaeda was long a small, secretive organization. There is virtually no public mention of it during its first decade -- a Lexis-Nexis search produces five articles -- until the August 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies. Only after those attacks, is al Qaeda added to the official U.S. list of terrorist groups. The 9/11 Commission notes, "While we now know that al Qaeda was formed in 1988, at the end of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the Intelligence Community did not describe this organization in documents we have seen, until 1999 (emphasis added.)

It would have been a truly massive failure of virtually every U.S. agency responsible for fighting terrorism if bin Laden had backed a plot to kill 250,000 Americans in 1993, but the Justice Department only charged him with any crime five years later and the intelligence community only began to analyze his organization the following year.

Terrorist Family Extraordinaire

George Tenet told the Congressional Joint Inquiry, "We now believe that a common thread runs between the first attack on the World Trade Center in February 1993 and the 11 September attacks....Mukhtar is the uncle of Ramzi Yousef, who masterminded the 1993 bombing plot against the World Trade Center. Following the 1993 attack, Yousef and Mukhtar plotted in 1995 to blow up [twelve] U.S. planes flying East Asian routes."

"Mukhtar" was an alias for Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM), the 9/11 mastermind. "Since September 11, the CIA has come to believe that KSM may have been responsible for all bin Laden operations outside Afghanistan," the Joint Inquiry reports. Yet U.S. authorities only learned of KSM's key role after the capture and interrogation of a senior al Qaeda figure in 2002. A U.S. intelligence official later told the Washington Post, "It wasn't until recently that any of us even realized he was part of al Qaeda....The big problem nailing him down is that the informants that we relied on, especially before 9/11, were mujaheddin. They'd been in Afghanistan, in Sudan, back in Afghanistan. Khalid was never a part of any of that" (emphasis added)

Ammar al-Baluchi (aka Ali Abdul Aziz Ali) -- Ramzi Yousef's first cousin and another KSM nephew -- was KSM's "right-hand man." Al-Baluchi sent the "primary funding" to the hijackers and coached nine of them on how to behave in America.

Following KSM's capture in 2003, U.S. authorities told the Washington Post they were "concerned that his nephews -- the brothers of imprisoned terrorist Ramzi Yousef -- may be positioned to take over planning of future terror attacks." They named two men: Abdul Munim and Abdul Karim. Nothing further has been reported about Abdul Munim, but Abdul Karim proved a key figure. Captured in May 2004, his interrogation led to further arrests and the discovery of a major plot against US financial centers.

Thus, the official U.S. position holds that a family essentially forms the core expertise for the major attacks that began with the 1993 Trade Center bombing, culminated in 9/11, and even continued afterwards. Yet no precedent exists for a single family to be the sole, or even the key, source of expertise for a major terrorist group.

According to U.S. intelligence, this family is Baluch, a Sunni Muslim people, living in Eastern Iran and Western Pakistan (The Path to 9/11 erroneously identifies Yousef as Palestinian.) Following Yousef's arrest in Islamabad, the New York Times reported:

The Pakistan newspaper, The News, which is said to have good sources in the Pakistani military's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, said that "if features could betray geography," Mr. Yousef appeared to Pakistani investigators "as if he is from the coastal belt of Baluchistan."...[They] had noted that President Saddam Hussein's Government in Iraq had tried to exploit animosities against the Iran Government among Baluch tribal people in southeastern Iran during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. The newspaper said this could explain how Mr. Yousef came into possession of the Iraqi passport that he used when he arrived in New York in September 1992, six months before the World Trade Center bombing. "If Ramzi is in fact of Iranian Baluch origin, it would not have been big problem for him to get an Iraqi passport," the newspaper said. [February 13, 1995]

Yet the Clinton administration did not want to hear this. (In the 1992 presidential campaign, I was Clinton's adviser on Iraq; in later encounters with the White House, I found it strongly resistant to hearing about evidence linking Saddam to terrorism.)

An Alternative Explanation

An alternative explanation for al Qaeda's terrorism exists. After bin Laden was expelled to Afghanistan in 1996, two groups joined forces: 1) the original al Qaeda, represented by bin Laden and those around him; and 2) the Baluch: KSM and his extended "clan," which is probably not a family, but an elite squad. Probably, these individuals were selected in the same way we would recruit such a group: they were chosen for their special aptitudes from a much larger pool and then given additional training -- most likely, by Iraq.

The path to 9/11 really began with the Baluch before their alliance with al Qaeda -- with the 1993 Trade Center bombing and the 1995 plane bombing plot. Only after KSM joined with bin Laden, bringing with him the skills of his group, did al Qaeda's major attacks against the U.S. begin -- starting with the 1998 embassy bombings. This would help explain how a virtually unknown organization like al Qaeda managed to bomb two U.S. embassies nearly simultaneously and then carry out the most lethal single attack in U.S. history a mere three years later.

Laurie Mylroie is an adjunct fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and author of Study of Revenge: The First World Trade Center Attack and Saddam Hussein's War Against America (AEI Press, 2001). This piece is based on her article in the October issue of The American Spectator, "How Little We Know."


TOPICS: Extended News; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: 1993; 1993wtcbombing; 1998; abledanger; alqaeda; balochistan; baluch; baluchi; baluchistan; iran; iraq; ksm; lauriemylroie; mukhtar; mylroie; ramziyousef; usembassybombings
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1 posted on 09/25/2006 2:55:49 PM PDT by april15Bendovr
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To: april15Bendovr; WhistlingPastTheGraveyard

Thanks for the post!

LAURIE MYLROIE PING!


2 posted on 09/25/2006 2:58:19 PM PDT by cgk (I don't see myself as a conservative. I see myself as a religious, right-wing, wacko extremist.)
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To: april15Bendovr
Ramzi Yousef was the one who ran up a couple thousand dollars worth of phone bills calling Iraq after the 1993 bombing right?
3 posted on 09/25/2006 3:03:56 PM PDT by Harmless Teddy Bear (De inimico non loquaris sed cogites)
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To: cgk

"Yet the Clinton administration did not want to hear this. (In the 1992 presidential campaign, I was Clinton's adviser on Iraq; in later encounters with the White House, I found it strongly resistant to hearing about evidence linking Saddam to terrorism.)"


4 posted on 09/25/2006 3:04:09 PM PDT by april15Bendovr
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To: april15Bendovr

bump


5 posted on 09/25/2006 3:06:29 PM PDT by GOPJ (Muslim outrage would be taken more seriously if Muslims weren't such "double standard" hypocrites.)
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To: Harmless Teddy Bear

Statement of Laurie Mylroie to the
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States
July 9, 2003



http://www.9-11commission.gov/hearings/hearing3/witness_mylroie.htm

In addition, two of Ramzi Yousef's older brothers--Abdul Karim and Abdul Monim-have been identified as al Qaeda masterminds, capable of assuming Mohammed's role. Also, an individual, Ali Abdul Aziz, who played an important role in the financial transfers involved in the 9/11 attacks, is said to be Yousef's "younger cousin."


6 posted on 09/25/2006 3:09:23 PM PDT by april15Bendovr
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To: april15Bendovr

Bump.

Was Ramzi Yousef an Iraqi agent?


7 posted on 09/25/2006 3:12:23 PM PDT by S.S. Monkeyface
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To: Harmless Teddy Bear

THE WORLD TRADE CENTER BOMB: Who is Ramzi Yousef? And Why It Matters (1993)
The National Interest ^ | Winter, 1995/96 | Laurie Mylroie


http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/521246/posts


8 posted on 09/25/2006 3:13:10 PM PDT by april15Bendovr
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To: Harmless Teddy Bear

Mohammed Salameh--Palestinian fundamentalist, Nosair accomplice and early plotter; left a trail of phone calls to Iraq.


9 posted on 09/25/2006 3:14:52 PM PDT by april15Bendovr
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To: S.S. Monkeyface

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/521246/posts

Ramzi Yousef, a.k.a. Abdul Basit Karim -the key man; likely Iraqi agent.


10 posted on 09/25/2006 3:19:42 PM PDT by april15Bendovr
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To: april15Bendovr
In the 1992 presidential campaign, I was Clinton's adviser on Iraq; in later encounters with the White House, I found it strongly resistant to hearing about evidence linking Saddam to terrorism. -Laurie Mylroie

President Clinton's "allergy" to tying Saddam to terrorism isn't explained here, but I assume it is because action against state sponsorship of terrorism would have:
1. gummed up the already weak efficacies (but good PR) of lollipop diplomacy and
2. militated away from the law enforcement approach to terrorism which he (and most of the whole risk-averse establishment) was loathe to abandon.

11 posted on 09/25/2006 3:22:56 PM PDT by NutCrackerBoy
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To: april15Bendovr

Thank you for the links. I have much reading to do.


12 posted on 09/25/2006 3:26:54 PM PDT by Harmless Teddy Bear (De inimico non loquaris sed cogites)
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To: Harmless Teddy Bear

Thank you for your interest.


13 posted on 09/25/2006 3:32:44 PM PDT by april15Bendovr
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To: april15Bendovr; Mia T

important stuff.



Mylrioe's consistent argument has been that Clinton changed US Policy which previously had as a default setting regarded terrorism as state sponsored, and therefore immediately devoted resources upon such events (e.g. Lockerbie) to look for the sponsor. Only in the Clinton administration was it assumed without investigation (of state sponsorship) that the terrorist act (1993 WTC) was a law enforcement issue. Mylroie makes the point that the Justice Dept./FBI did not attempt to look for evidence of state sponsorship and the CIA / State Department was refused access to evidence that might have helped determined state sponsorship. Such policy induced myopia even left Richard Clarke saying that as to the 1995 supposedly domestic terrorism at Oklahoma City, it was known that Terry Nichols and Ramsey Yusef were in CEBU city (Phillipines) at the same time, and it is also known that before Nichols went there his bombs were ineffective and that when he came back they were devasting. As well it is established Nichols continued to make numerous calls to CEBU on his return, when he had no apparent reason to be calling there, unless it was to talk to Yusef.

Yusef of course was tied directly to the mid 90's plot to simulatenously blow up multiple passenger aircraft.

Mylroie has consistently made the point that abundant evidence exists to conclude Yusef was an Iraqi intell agent. This article for the first time, I have seen, persuasively explains the connection to and rise of Al-Queda.

All of which took place under the protection of the Gorelick Wall and similar policy imposed restrictions.


14 posted on 09/25/2006 3:40:50 PM PDT by Gail Wynand
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To: april15Bendovr

Ramsi was nick-named "the Iraqi" by his New Jersey cohorts. Of course he arrived from Iraq on an Iraqi passport, in response to a request from Abdul Rahman Yasin, another Iraqi agent. But native arabic speakers would know the difference between an arab speaking with an Iraqi accent, and a south asian speaking with an Iranian or Pakistani accent, I would think.

So I tend to think he is not Baluch, but Iraqi, and his Baluch identity is just part of his cover.


15 posted on 09/25/2006 3:43:21 PM PDT by marron
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To: april15Bendovr
Oddly enough I was just thinking about the 1993 bombing today so this post was very timely.
16 posted on 09/25/2006 3:52:32 PM PDT by Harmless Teddy Bear (De inimico non loquaris sed cogites)
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To: Gail Wynand

9/11 COMMISSION IGNORED KEY FACTS ON HIJACKERS
By Michelle Malkin · August 11, 2005 07:44 AM

http://michellemalkin.com/archives/003223.htm

The 9/11 Commission was supposed to give the America people a complete, unbiased story of the government failures that led up to the September 11 terrorist attacks. But the Commission now admits its acclaimed Final Report ignored key information provided by a U.S. Army data mining project, Able Danger, which identified Mohammed Atta and several other hijackers as potential terrorists prior to the September 11 attacks. The Able Danger team recommended that Atta and the other suspected terrorists be deported. That recommendation, however, was not shared with law enforcement officials, presumably because of the "wall" between intelligence activities and domestic law enforcement.


17 posted on 09/25/2006 3:52:50 PM PDT by april15Bendovr
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To: Gail Wynand

Memos show Gorelick involvement in 'wall'

By Charles Hurt and Stephen Dinan
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040429-122228-6538r.htm


18 posted on 09/25/2006 4:10:31 PM PDT by april15Bendovr
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To: april15Bendovr; WhistlingPastTheGraveyard
Mylroie: "Saddam's Fingerprints on N.Y. Bombings" (1993)
19 posted on 09/25/2006 4:35:27 PM PDT by cgk (I don't see myself as a conservative. I see myself as a religious, right-wing, wacko extremist.)
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To: Peach; backhoe

ping...


20 posted on 09/25/2006 4:39:18 PM PDT by cgk (I don't see myself as a conservative. I see myself as a religious, right-wing, wacko extremist.)
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