Terrorist in the Military. Now what?

[notluzn]

I know there are gang members in the military and they are known about. I'm sure most get booted as well. What will the military do now to check for Terrorist amongst us?

[WorldWatcher]

I know there are gang members in the military and they are known about. I'm sure most get booted as well. What will the military do now to check for Terrorist amongst us?


Same thing the military should do after any tragedy whether it be Ft. Hood, the USS Cole, or the Marine Barracks in Lebanon.

Throughly investigate not only what happened, but why, and what were the events leading up to the tragedy.

Conduct a through "Lessons Learned" and identify where in the chain of events some small action could have been taken that would have broken the link.

Train the NCO's to be able to recognize unusual behavior and then provide them a means of making command level authority aware of a situation so things can be evaluated correctly and if action is necessary be able to intervene prior to a drastic event.



>>>>

[Rick Rhetoric]

What will the military do now to check for Terrorist amongst us?

Nothing. What can it do? If a military commander even suggested that a Muslim soldier be questioned for alleged links to radical Muslim terrorists, the commander would instantly be charged with racism, racial profiling and booted out of the military in disgrace.

Military commanders are between a barack and a hard place -- they're damned if they do and damned if they don't. Obama and Lieberman are conducting an investigation which will find the army guilty of knowing Nidal Hasan had active ties to terrorists but failed to take any action.

What action could they have taken and not be politically incorrect?

[F_Rat-46]

Same thing the military should do after any tragedy whether it be Ft. Hood, the USS Cole, or the Marine Barracks in Lebanon.

Throughly investigate not only what happened, but why, and what were the events leading up to the tragedy.

Conduct a through "Lessons Learned" and identify where in the chain of events some small action could have been taken that would have broken the link.

Train the NCO's to be able to recognize unusual behavior and then provide them a means of making command level authority aware of a situation so things can be evaluated correctly and if action is necessary be able to intervene prior to a drastic event.



>>>>

Political Correctness did not allow any real action to be made in this particular case. You can see that when you hear General Casey speak on the manner. He is in "denial mode".

[Gengar]

Throughly investigate not only what happened, but why, and what were the events leading up to the tragedy.

What are you... some kind of apologists? It's just much easier to result to stereotypes and knee-jerk reactionism! /sarcasm

[Gengar]

Political Correctness did not allow any real action to be made in this particular case. You can see that when you hear General Casey speak on the manner. He is in "denial mode".

It's political correctness to figure out the how/why etc? Really?

[F_Rat-46]

It's political correctness to figure out the how/why etc? Really?

They know the how/why. It was political correctness to allow this to happen in the first place. Do you actually believe Command staff didn't know Hassan may be a problem?

[Gengar]

They know the how/why. It was political correctness to allow this to happen in the first place. Do you actually believe Command staff didn't know Hassan may be a problem?

Only they know.

How about all of the other killings at Ft. Hood last year? Was that all political correctness as well?

There's an obvious growing problem of the lack of help for everyone stationed at Ft. Hood. Soldiers that are seeking help, but aren't getting it. This is a much bigger issue that needs to be dealt with.

[Dacarlo]

After reading this.. any Muslims who have issues with this sort of stuff should be discharged ASAP.

The Army psychiatrist believed to have killed 13 people at Fort Hood warned a roomful of senior Army physicians a year and a half ago that to avoid "adverse events," the military should allow Muslim soldiers to be released as conscientious objectors instead of fighting in wars against other Muslims.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/09/AR2009110903618.html

[Gengar]

I'm not sure why a certain length of time really matters...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/us/10post.html

The point being? There is a major problem in the Army when it comes to dealing with disturbed people. It's been ignored for far too long. Something could have been done in every case, as far as I can tell. Even with Hasan.

[F_Rat-46]

I'm not sure why a certain length of time really matters...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/us/10post.html

The point being? There is a major problem in the Army when it comes to dealing with disturbed people. It's been ignored for far too long. Something could have been done in every case, as far as I can tell. Even with Hasan.

I deleted my original post when I found you linked to the murders in another post. I am not disagreeing with you that the Army needs to deal with disturbed people better. Most organizations who employ people who have stressfull jobs need to do that. I spent 8 years in the military with a tour in Viet Nam in the MP's and 31 years as a state trooper. I've had co-workers eat their guns over stressful situations. Probably the worst situation was a co-worker (trooper) who called his sgt and while on the phone with him, killed his wife, two daughters, then turned the gun on himself. I had just worked a shift with him the day before. But as far as Hasan goes, it seems people were afraid to point his weaknesses out for fear of reprisals or accusations of racism or intolerance.

[Impenitent]

radical terrorists in the military?

don't ask, don't tell

[yvette hoar]

I'm so sick of political correctness in this country. Can't say " War on Terror", you might insult someone. Cant kick a guy out of the military, who might be tied to terrorist, folks could get insulted. So now American Soldiers are dead, not overseas but on American soil, thats the sadest thing. We have to do whatever it takes to keep our Soldiers safe. We owe it to them, for all they do for us. Political correctness is crap.

[notluzn]

I agree that being PC helped this to happen. Now that we know terrorist can hit inside the military base, the fear of Terror will become fore front. I could just imagine if this guy would have walked into the base daycare and started murdering children in the name of his religion.

I actually don't think that the military will do anything about this other than make this guy go away. We can speak about watching for member that are suicidle but we can't question someones over hatred for the United States.

[BlackCloud09]

I know there are gang members in the military and they are known about. I'm sure most get booted as well. What will the military do now to check for Terrorist amongst us?

The problem is, this is something which is very hard to identify. There have been terrorists, of one sort or another, who have found themselves in the military or have received military training throughout our history. Lee Harvey Oswald was a former Marine, Timothy McVeigh was former U.S. Army. While I was in the Navy, I have have worked with sailors who have read, what I felt, was objectional material concerning survivalism, anti-government books and racist material. The racist material was somewhat easy to deal with (although it sometimes was hard to prove it was racist with some) but survivalist and anti-government material is subject to opinion. I find a biography of Che or Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto to be traitorous for a serviceman to have in his possession while others in positons of leadership did not.

We cannot just toss a blanket over the military's Muslim community and say that they must all be traitors for they are not. During the Iraq invasion of 2003, I worked with several Muslim officers and enlisted men aboard my ship who worked in the weapons department, flight deck and in intel. Not once did they question their duties and they carried them out in an exemplarary manner. We don't want to create an atmosphere military where we are constantly looking over our shoulder nor do we want to develop mistrust among shipmates and fellow soldiers just because of their religious views. Yet, we must also be vigilant and can't walk around with blinders on either.

From what I have read, Nidal Hasan (he's no longer an officer in my book and I'll never address him as one.) gave indications of his discontent over the Iraq War to both his co-workers, friends and superiors. If there is a failure here, it lay with his chain of command for not counseling, questioning or admonishing Nidal Hasan's bold, anti-American, statements. Personally, Hasan should have been discharged from service a long time ago. Hindsight, however, is 20/20 and this is like someone Monday morning quarterbacking the weekend football games on what should or should have not been done.

Are there bad Muslims in the military? Probably, but there are also bad Christians, Jews and Atheists to be found too who foster anti-American feelings (personally, what the heck they are doing in the military then is beyond my understanding).

In the Navy, we talked about deckplate management. Officers and non-coms should become more involved with their subordinates and listen more intently to complaints made about those within the ranks who aren't playing well with others or are openly criticizing our leaders. We are going to have to walk a fine line between being vigilant and being respectful.

[nikoloslvy]

i remind you of the government's failure to catch on to what Ali Mohamed was up to.

http://www.peterlance.com/TRIPLE%20CROSS%20Timeline.pdf

[nikoloslvy]

07 • 1986 (page 30)
Ali Mohamed moves into Linda Sanchez’s

home in
Santa Clara, California. From there he
recruits

Khalid Dahab, a former Egyptian medical
student who enters the U.S. on a student
visa. Together they set up a “sleeper cell” of at
least ten Islamic radicals. Dahab uses his onebedroom
apartment as an al Qaeda communications
hub. His al Qaeda brothers refer to
Mohamed as Ali Amiriki, “Ali the American.”



08 • August 15, 1986 (page 34)
Ali Mohamed enlists in the U.S. Army at Oakland, California. After basic
training he is transferred to the JFK Special Warfare Center at Fort Bragg.
Lt. Col. Robert Anderson,

his commanding officer, later likens the odds of
a radical ex-Egyptian army officer with EIJ ties getting posted at the
highly secure SWC to winning the lottery.
10 •

1987–89 (page 39, 50)
At Fort Bragg,

Ali Mohamed works as a supply sergeant, with no formal
security clearance, but he is able to obtain top secret records and other
key intelligence, including a list of the locations of Special Forces and
Navy SEAL units worldwide and a JCS Warning Order, a top secret communiqué
from the Joint Chiefs of Staff to all strategic Pentagon commands.
See Appendix

TK, pp. TK.

[nikoloslvy]

11 • 1988 (page 41)
During Operation Bright Star, a semi-annual U.S.-Egyptian war games
exercise, Ali Mohamed is identified as a radical Islamic sympathizer by
Egyptian military officers. The discovery almost forces a shutdown of the
exercise before he is ordered sent home to Fort Bragg. Despite his known
sympathy for Islamic extremists, Mohamed is thereafter used to make
training videos at the JFK SWC

[nikoloslvy]

12 • 1988 (page 43)
Ali Mohamed informs his commanding officer at Fort Bragg that he
intends to use his annual leave to fight with the Mujahadeen against the
Soviets in Afghanistan—an action that could be a disaster if he is caught
or killed during the CIA-supported covert war. Although Lt. Col. Anderson
balks, Mohamed makes the trip anyway. He returns with war trophies:
the belts of two elite Soviet Spetsnaz commandos he claims he killed.

[Rhonda]

i remind you of the government's failure to catch on to what Ali Mohamed was up to.

http://www.peterlance.com/TRIPLE%20CROSS%20Timeline.pdf


Thank you for the link Nik!

[nikoloslvy]

hiya rhonda :)...yw.

12 • 1988 (page 43)
Ali Mohamed informs his commanding officer at Fort Bragg that he
intends to use his annual leave to fight with the Mujahadeen against the
Soviets in Afghanistan—an action that could be a disaster if he is caught
or killed during the CIA-supported covert war. Although Lt. Col. Anderson
balks, Mohamed makes the trip anyway. He returns with war trophies:
the belts of two elite Soviet Spetsnaz commandos he claims he killed.

[Rhonda]

I agree that being PC helped this to happen. Now that we know terrorist can hit inside the military base, the fear of Terror will become fore front. I could just imagine if this guy would have walked into the base daycare and started murdering children in the name of his religion.

I actually don't think that the military will do anything about this other than make this guy go away. We can speak about watching for member that are suicidle but we can't question someones over hatred for the United States.


PC, is the religion of the left, they have sacrificed many of our freedoms for the sake of their religion, and now our own are being sacrificed on the altar of their filthy anti freedom, religious ferver for the sake of political correctness, this has got to be the first religion to go. Then we can truly start to end this type of thing.

[nikoloslvy]

13 • July 1989 (page 47)
Ali Mohamed travels from Fort Bragg to train the al Qaeda cell that will
later execute the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the Day of Terror
plot to blow up the U.N., the FBI’s New York office, and the bridges and
tunnels into Manhattan. Over four weekends, an FBI surveillance team follows
Ali’s trainees Mahmud Abouhalima, Mohammed Salameh, El Sayyid
Nosair, Nidal Ayyad, and Clement Rodney Hampton-El from the Al Farooq
Mosque to a shooting range in Calverton, Long Island. They are photographed
by the FBI firing thousands of rounds from automatic weapons

18 • November 5, 1990 (page 56)
Rabbi Meier Kahane is
murdered by El Sayyid
Nosair, another Ali
Mohamed trainee. Abouhalima,
known as “the
Red,” is slated to drive
the getaway car

19 • November 6, 1990 (page 58)
Later, at Nosair’s New Jersey house, FBI agents
and NYPD detectives seize 47 boxes of evidence,
including bomb recipes, Arabic writings
threatening the WTC, and Ali Mohamed’s top
secret memos stolen from Fort Bragg. Abouhalima
and Salameh are seized as material witnesses
but later set free.

20 • November 13, 1990 (page 74)
A week after the Kahane killing, Detective Lou Napoli of the FBI-NYPD Joint Terrorist Task Force
(JTTF) follows up on a document seized at Nosair’s house linking him to Raymond Murteza, an excop
who engaged in weapons training with Ali Mohamed’s cell members at a Connecticut gun
range. Napoli learns that on successive weekends from 1988 to 1990, the “Mid-Eastern” men
fired thousands of rounds from AK-47s and other semiautomatic weapons. But when the NYPD
declares the Kahane murder a “lone gunman” shooting, the FBI terminates the investigation. See
Appendix II, p. XXX.

21 • 1990 (page 54)
The FBI discovers that El Sayyid Nosair, the
killer of Rabbi Meier Kahane, has a mailbox at
Sphinx Trading, a Jersey City check-cashing store
four doors away from the al-Salaam Mosque,
where Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman holds court
and where Ali Mohamed showed videos from Fort
Bragg to the cell members behind the 1993
WTC bombing.

[nikoloslvy]

22 • 1991 (page 66)
A power struggle breaks out between Sheikh Rahman and Mustafa Shalabi, Abdullah Azzam’s handpicked
imam, who runs the Alkifah Center. Shalabi appeals to Ali Mohamed for help. Ali drives
Shalabi’s wife to the airport as Mustafa plans to escape home to Cairo. But he never makes it.
Shalabi is later found shot, stabbed, and bludgeoned with a baseball bat at his Seagate, Brooklyn,
home. Abouhalima IDs the body for the NYPD, but is never charged. The voice of Wadih El-Hage, a
Lebanese Christian convert to Islam, is heard on Shalabi’s answering machine. Thousands of dollars
in Alkifah funds are missing from the crime scene. Ali Mohamed has secreted away most of the
Alkifah’s most incriminating documents. The murder in the NYPD’s 61st Precinct remains unsolved

[nikoloslvy]

23 • 1991 (page 76)
Osama bin Laden chooses Ali Mohamed to handle security as he makes the treacherous move from
Afghanistan to the Sudan with his 25 wives and children. Ayman al-Zawahiri, Mohammed Atef, and
the al Qaeda Shura Council make the move under Ali’s supervision, along with two thousand
“Afghan Arabs” loyal to al Qaeda.

[Rhonda]

hiya rhonda :)...yw.

12 • 1988 (page 43)
Ali Mohamed informs his commanding officer at Fort Bragg that he
intends to use his annual leave to fight with the Mujahadeen against the
Soviets in Afghanistan—an action that could be a disaster if he is caught
or killed during the CIA-supported covert war. Although Lt. Col. Anderson
balks, Mohamed makes the trip anyway. He returns with war trophies:
the belts of two elite Soviet Spetsnaz commandos he claims he killed.


Hey Nik, you work hard for the sake of the truth and I for one appreciate that! You are a great American.

[nikoloslvy]

26 • 1992 (page 87)
While living in Santa Clara and commuting to
Khartoum to assist bin Laden and al Qaeda, Ali
Mohamed is opened as an informant by the
FBI’s San Francisco office. His control agent is
John Zent, a twenty-one-year Bureau veteran.
But within months of taking on Mohamed as a
source, Zent is embroiled in a grisly triple murder
case. He becomes the primary alibi witness
for Dana Ewell, a young Santa Clara University
student suspected by Fresno County Sheriff’s
office of conspiring to kill his father, Dale, his
sister Tiffany and his mother, Glee, in a scheme
to inherit the Ewell’s $8 million estate. Special
Agent Zent’s daughter Monica is Dana’s fiancée.
Detectives John Souza and Chris Curtice begin a two-year investigation of the crime, but
Special Agent Zent is openly critical of the detectives and declares that Dana Ewell is innocent.
While the detectives find no evidence connecting Monica Zent to the murders, she receives up to
$40,000 from Dana via his grandmother’s trust fund. Monica continues to live with Dana, sharing
bank accounts with him and proclaiming his innocence even though police later find a yearbook
picture of Monica with her eyes shot out at a secret Los Angeles apartment the couple shared.
The multi-year investigation consumes much of John Zent’s attention—at a time when he is
responsible for monitoring al Qaeda spy Ali Mohamed.

[nikoloslvy]

Hey Nik, you work hard for the sake of the truth and I for one appreciate that! You are a great American.

my one true fan who reads all my posts :)

[nikoloslvy]

35 • Fall 1992 (page 108)
With the help of Ali Mohamed’s trainees, Yousef
builds the bomb in Jersey City. Nidal Ayyad supplies
the chemicals. Mohammed Salameh helps
construct the device, and Mahmud Abouhalima
does reconnaissance runs to the WTC. Ayyad
and Salameh set up bank accounts. Thousands
of dollars are wired from the Mideast and
Europe. During this period, the FBI misses multiple
changes to interdict the plot.

[Rhonda]

When did the terrorism AKA jihad start against the military? Thew following video is about the attack in Beirut

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qwk89tu6nB8

[nikoloslvy]

42 • 1993 (page 123)
Within months of the World Trade Center bombing, Ali Mohamed is captured by the Royal Canadian
Mounted Police while trying to smuggle al Qaeda terrorist Essam Marzouk into the U.S. During his
interrogation by the Mounties, Mohamed says that he’s working with the FBI and gives them John
Zent’s number. Zent vouches for Mohamed, securing his release. Months later, Mohamed is in
Nairobi doing surveillance
for the bombing
of the U.S. embassy
there. Bin Laden himself
will use Mohamed’s
photos to target the
suicide bomb that will
kill 224 and injure thousands
in 1998.

[nikoloslvy]

05 • 1993 (page 140)
Ali Mohamed brokers an historic summit in Khartoum between terror leaders
from the two warring sects of radical Islam: Osama bin Laden, representing
the al Qaeda Sunnis, and Imad Mugniyah, representing the Shiite “Party of
God,” Hezbollah. Known as the “faceless terrorist,” Mugniyah is believed
to be the mastermind behind 1983 Beirut bombings and the Buckley
abduction, along with infamous acts of terror including the 1985 hijacking
of TWA Flight 847.
As a measure of Ali Mohamed’s clout, the summit produces a détente
between Hezbollah and al Qaeda that some analysts believe resulted in the
Khobar Towers bombing in 1996. It may have also paved the way for the
Sunni-Shiite alliance in the Iraqi insurgency beginning in 2004

[nikoloslvy]

07 • 1993 (page 128)
Ali Mohamed meets with his FBI control agent,
John Zent, and reveals that Osama bin Laden is
running an organization called al Qaeda that is
dedicated to overthrowing the government in
Saudi Arabia. Incredibly, Mohamed even confesses
that he himself has been giving hijacking
and intelligence training to al Qaeda operatives at
camps in the Sudan. Zent contacts the Pentagon, and a group of investigators from Fort Meade,
home of the National Security Agency (NSA), fly out to interview Mohamed. But nothing comes of the
investigation, and the FBI later finds out that reports of the interview have been destroyed

[nikoloslvy]

23 •
December 16, 1994 (page 157)
In Morgan Hill, California, the hometown of Special Agent John Zent, Osama
bin Laden’s brother-in-law Mohamed Jamal Khalifa is arrested by INS
agents. At the time, evidence from the Philippines National Police suggests
that Khalifa is bankrolling the Ramzi Yousef-Khalid Shaikh Mohammed
Manila cell. Khalifa’s PDA contains evidence linking bin Laden to the two
Yousef cells (in New York and Manila). Facing a death sentence in Jordan,
Khalifa is motivated to talk and might make an extraordinary witness if the
Feds push for his interrogation. A senior State Department official
describes Khalifa as “engaged in serious terrorist offenses,” and predicts
that his release will “endanger U.S. national security.” But Secretary of
State

Warren Christopher and Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick soon
advocate Khalifa’s extradition to Jordan, thus losing a key potential witness
against al Qaeda

[nikoloslvy]

35 • February 1995 (page 172)
Ali Mohamed is listed by assistant U.S. attorneys
Andrew C. McCarthy and Patrick Fitzgerald as one
of the 172 unindicted coconspirators in the Day
of Terror trial. The attorney for El Sayyid Nosair
subpoenas Mohamed to testify, but McCarthy flies
to California to meet with Mohamed and reportedly
discourages him from taking the stand. To make the California meeting, Mohamed has to fly
back to Santa Clara from Nairobi, Kenya, where he is working with embassy bombing cell operative
Wadih El-Hage. Later, the audacious Mohamed fumes because he expected the Feds to pay
for his airfare back from Africa

[nikoloslvy]

37 • March, 1995 (page 167)
Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick signs the infamous “wall memo,” in
which she calls for a separation of intelligence between FBI investigators probing
past terror crimes and agents seeking to prevent future acts of terror.
Gorelick admits that the memo goes “beyond what is legally required.” Some
analysts see the memo as a legal justification for the disconnection of dots by
DOJ officials, who may be seeking to hide past acts of negligence by the FBI
and DOJ on the road to 9/11. See memo at Appendix TK.

[nikoloslvy]

39 • 1995 (page 196)
Ali Mohamed smuggles Ayman al-Zawahiri into the U.S. for his second fund-raising tour of U.S.
mosques. Up to half a million dollars is reportedly raised on both coasts by the team, fraudulently using
the name of the Red Crescent. Traveling incognito, al-Zawahiri is accompanied on one of the U.S. trips
by San Jose obstetrician
Ali Zaki, another Egyptian
émigré, who later
claims he didn’t know
the infamous al-Zawahiri
was a terrorist

[nikoloslvy]

40 • 1995 (page 197)
According to later testimony from Mohamed’s
protégé Khalid Dahab, some of the money from
the U.S. tour goes to finance the bombing of the
Egyptian Embassy in Pakistan, an act of terror
linked directly to al-Zawahiri. Working as Ali
Mohamed’s protégé, Dahab helps set up a sleeper
cell in Santa Clara in the middle of California’s
high-tech heartland.

[nikoloslvy]

54 • 1996 (page 263)
For the New York office of the FBI, this intelligence completes a circle of evidence dating back to the surveillance
photos of the Calverton shooting sessions in 1989—proving a direct link between al Qaeda,
bin Laden, and WTC coconspirators Abouhalima,
Salameh, Nosair, and Ayyad as well as Day of Terror
defendant Hampton-El. The revelation comes five
years before 9/11, but the public doesn’t get a hint
of the link until February 2001, and the FBI itself
doesn’t understand the connection between Special
Forces Sgt. Ali Mohammed and bin Laden until
1998, following two more al Qaeda bombings.

[nikoloslvy]

01 • August 1997 (page 268)
Since his surveillance for the embassy bombing
plot in late 1993, Ali Mohamed has been in constant
touch with Wadih El-Hage, one of the key
Nairobi cell members, who had been in Brooklyn as far back as 1991 at the time of the Shalabi murder.
The Feds have had a wiretap on El-Hage’s phone since 1996, and in August 1997 Special Agent Dan
Coleman from Squad I-49 finds contact information for Mohamed in a search of El-Hage’s house. El-Hage
is allowed to leave Nairobi even though al Qaeda turncoat Jamal al-Fadl had told Fitzgerald and
Coleman in 1996 that
El-Hage was bin Laden’s
personal secretary. El-
Hage lies to a grand jury
in New York, but the FBI
lets him go.

[nikoloslvy]

02 • October 1997 (page 274)
Patrick Fitzgerald meets face-to-face with Ali
Mohamed, who has moved with his wife, Linda
Sanchez, to Sacramento, California. Fitzgerald
hopes to convince the al Qaeda spy to “turn.” But
in the company of Squad I-49 agent Jack Cloonan,
Mohamed audaciously tells Fitzgerald that he is
in touch with hundreds of people who are prepared
to go “operational” on a moment’s notice.
Mohamed also tells the Feds that he can disappear
anytime, and spurns them. He admits that
he trained bin Laden’s personal bodyguard in Sudan in 1994. In fact he lived in the Saudi billionaire’s
house at the time. Ali even tells the Feds that he “loves” bin Laden, that he believes in him,
and that he doesn’t need a fatwa or Islamic degree to attack the U.S. Since bin Laden had told CNN
seven months earlier that he had “declared jihad” against America, Mohamed’s words amount to
sedition—the same charge Fitzgerald used in 1995 to convict Sheikh Rahman. Yet again Fitzgerald
allows Mohamed to remain free.
After the meeting, Fitzgerald tells Cloonan, “This is the most dangerous man I have ever met. We
cannot let this man out on the street.” They bug his computer and tap his home phone, but the Feds
leave Ali Mohamed free.

[nikoloslvy]

07 • April 1998 (page 289)
Dana Ewell and Joel Radovich, the dropout he
hired to kill his family, go to trial. Despite overwhelming
forensic and eyewitness evidence of
their guilt, including the barrel of the AT-9 murder
weapon and the testimony of a coconspirator,
Ali Mohamed’s control agent John Zent testifies
as a character witness for Ewell. Still, the pair is
found guilty and barely escape the death penalty.
Zent’s efforts to defend Dana Ewell occur even as an al Qaeda cell is preparing to execute Mohamed’s
plan to blow up the U.S. embassy in Nairobi. It was on Zent’s word that Mohamed was released from
the RCMP in 1993 and went on to do the surveillance for the upcoming bombing plot.

08 • 1998 (page 282)
In the months before August 1998, the U.S.
receives three significant warnings of a possible
attack on the Nairobi embassy. U.S. Ambassador
Prudence Bushnell makes multiple appeals to the
State Department to harden the embassy, but little
is done. As late as November 1997, an Egyptian
informant tells the CIA that a group is planning
to detonate a truck bomb. Ali Mohamed even
tells an FBI agent in Squad I-49 that a “target” in Africa is vulnerable.

[nikoloslvy]

10 • 1998 (page 292)
More than two years after the FBI finds evidence of an al Qaeda bombing plot, the U.S. embassies in
Kenya and Tanzania are simultaneously bombed. The suicide truck is located precisely where Ali
Mohamed took the surveillance photos in 1993, and where bin Laden himself instructed the bomb to
be placed. Two hundred and twenty-four people are killed and thousands injured. After the bombing,
al Qaeda again demands the release of blind Sheikh Rahman.

[nikoloslvy]

11 • September 10, 1998 (page 296)
Days after the bombing, Ali Mohamed confesses to the Feds what should
have been obvious to them for years: that he knows who did the bombings.
But the Feds don’t search his house for several weeks. Finally, on
September 10, the FBI arrests him after he lies to a grand jury. But for the
next nine months he’s held in secrecy on a “John Doe” warrant. The Feds
are terrified that word of Ali’s duplicity will get out and that the FBI’s New York Office and the SDNY
will be held accountable for the years they allowed al Qaeda’s chief spy to remain free.

[nikoloslvy]

20 • March 21, 2000 (page 342)
Jacob L. Boesen, a contract employee with Orion
Scientific, which produces many of the link
charts visually representing the Able Danger data,
builds a declassified chart on the two Yousef cells
showing links to the WTC bombing.
The chart, which represents the most active
intelligence known to the DIA and the Able
Danger unit at that time, shows Ali Mohamed within al Qaeda’s inner circle, along with Osama bin
Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Mohammed Atef, Wadih El-Hage, and Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, bin Laden’s
brother-in-law—the funder of the Yousef-KSM Manila cell, extradited to Jordan in 1995 with the support
of Deputy A.G. Jamie Gorelick. (See Appendix IX, pp. TK.)

[nikoloslvy]

21 • April 2000 (page 346)
Weeks after Boesen’s chart is declassified, the 2.5 terabytes of data gathered
by the Able Danger operation are ordered destroyed by the Pentagon. Lt.
Col Anthony Shaffer and Cong. Curt Weldon (R-PA), who later investigates the
data destruction, now believe that elements in the
Department of Defense may have been embarrassed
at the revelation that Ali Mohamed, honorably discharged
as a U.S. Army sergeant after his service at the JFK SWC on Fort Bragg,
was also a top-tier al Qaeda spy. Between April and September 2000, three
separate meetings in which Shaffer seeks to brief the FBI on the Able Danger
findings are cancelled by lawyers for the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).

[nikoloslvy]

26 • October 20, 2000 (page 258)
After almost two years of protracted negotiations with the Feds, Ali
Mohamed finally pleads guilty and admits his role as al Qaeda’s top U.S.
spy. Though he confesses to planning and supporting the embassy bombing
plot, he is spared the death penalty. His plea deal, which remains under
heavy seal, allows him to enter witness protection. Though he has separately
been sentenced in absentia to death in Egypt, Mohamed manages
not to give up the 9/11 plot to the Feds. The media speculates that he’ll be the star witness in United
States v. bin Laden, the embassy bombing trial Patrick Fitzgerald will prosecute in February 2001.
But Mohamed never takes the stand, and the Feds are spared the embarrassment of a defense crossexamination
in which Mohamed could have exposed years of negligence by the CIA, DIA, and FBI

[nikoloslvy]

30 • July 10, 2001 (page 369)
FBI agent Ken Williams sends a memo to FBI Headquarters. He reportedly
identifies eight Middle Eastern men studying at Arizona flight schools and
urges the Bureau to do background checks. The communiqué, which will
go down in history as the “Phoenix memo,” is also sent to agents in the
FBI’s New York office, the Bureau’s office of origin for all bin Laden–related
terrorism cases. At least three people in the office see the memo, but no
action is taken.

[nikoloslvy]

31 • July 2001 (page 372)
Khalid al-Midhar and another of the nineteen 9/11
hijackers are sold fake IDs by Mohammed El-Atriss,
an Egyptian who was co-incorporator of Sphinx
Trading, the check-cashing store in Jersey City,
located four doors from the blind Sheikh’s al
Salaam Mosque. El-Atriss’s partner was Waleed
al-Noor, one of Patrick Fitzgerald’s unindicted coconspirators
in the Day of Terror trial with Sheikh
Rahman. Sphinx is the same location where El
Sayyid Nosair, one of Ali Mohamed’s trainees, kept
a mailbox discovered by the FBI in 1990. El-Atriss
makes up to seven phone calls to Hani Hanjour as
well. The Bureau could have seized al-Midhar, a
key 9/11 hijacker, if they’d been monitoring Sphinx, but once again they fail to detect al-Midhar’s presence,
despite his move from San Diego to New Jersey, where he continues to live openly while the weeks
count down toward the execution of Ramzi Yousef’s return engagement with the WTC.

[nikoloslvy]

32 • August 6, 2001 (page 374)
A Presidential Daily Briefing to George W. Bush on vacation in Crawford, Texas, is entitled “Bin Laden
Determined to Attack In the U.S.” The PDB not only references a threat to hijack a plane to free
blind Sheikh Rahman—a plan to which Greg Scarpa Jr. had alerted the Feds in 1996 after learning of
it from Ramzi Yousef—but also cites “a senior EIJ member” living in California, a reference to Ali
Mohamed. But the repeated references to the blind Sheikh and a hijack threat are ignored, even
though by the first week in September the Taliban government in Afghanistan offers to exchange
eight Christian missionaries in exchange for Sheikh Rahman. Ali Mohamed, now in witness protection,
remains silent about Yousef’s plot to hijack airliners and use them as missiles; only after 9/11 does
he confess to Special Agent Jack Cloonan that he trained hijackers in the use of box cutters.

[nikoloslvy]

33 • September 11, 2001 (page 379)
Using box cutters and other short-bladed knives, nineteen hijackers seize control of four U.S. airliners.
Mohammed Atta pilots AA 11 into the WTC’s North Tower. Marwan Al-Shehhi flies UA 175 into the South
Tower. Hani Hanjour, aided by al-Midhar and al-
Hazmi, crashes AA 77 into the Pentagon—despite
months of prior warnings to the FBI, CIA, and DIA
via the Able Danger operation. FDNY fire marshal
Ronnie Bucca, who warned for years that Yousef
would attack the WTC again, dies on the seventyeighth
floor of the South Tower as he tries to beat
back the flames, one of 343 heroic firefighters lost
that day.

[nikoloslvy]

34 • Spring 2004 (page 397)
After briefing the 9/11 Commission about the Able Danger unit’s 2000
report on the four hijackers and al Qaeda’s ties to the blind Sheikh, Lt. Col.
Anthony Shaffer’s testimony is ignored by Dietrich Snell, the former SDNY
AUSA who is now a senior counsel to the commission. In the commission’s
final report, Snell pushes the origin of the plot forward two years and alleges
that Ramzi Yousef was not involved—relying solely on the word of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who has
been tortured. Testifying before the Commission, Patrick Fitzgerald calls Ali Mohamed “one of the most
chilling examples of al Qaeda’s espionage,” but says nothing about how Mohamed outgunned the FBI
for years. Meanwhile, after talking openly about the Able Danger cover up, Shaffer has his security
clearance pulled, and the Bronze Star winner becomes the target of a DOD witchhunt.

[nikoloslvy]

37 • September 11, 2006 (page 463)
All roads lead back to Brooklyn. On the fifth anniversary of the biggest unsolved mass murder in U.S.
history, the Brooklyn D.A.’s case holds out the last best hope that a probe of the DeVecchio scandal
will shed new light on the key al Qaeda intelligence from Ramzi Yousef to Scarpa Jr. in 1996. If congressional
investigators take that line of inquiry seriously, it could lead to a new investigation into
possible obstruction of justice by senior FBI and DOJ officials on the road to 9/11.