see http://www.militaryspot.com/news/oklahoma_city_bombing/
Ms. Davis personally called me up to thank me for mentioning her in Asian Week but I haven't been able to get back to her since. The reason for all the "conspiracy theories" that prove no jihad was involved is to cover up the real conspiracy that jihadists indeed were involved. The government simply will not pursue links to jihad if it does not have to, no matter how obvious. The government still refused to prosecute or charge Fort Hood imam Anwar al-Awalki even though they decided to terminate him, nor most of the many people and mosques known to have aided the 19 hijackers.
The book New Jackals also covers this theory
This New Jackals book points out connections between Yousef in the Phillipines and Nichols:
Ramsi Yousef's movements in the days after the PAL bombing may be crucial because they may help to determine whether he was involved in the next great horror that stunned America. The massive bomb that ripped apart the Alfred P. Murrah building in Oklahoma on 19 April 1995 killed 168 people and injured 600. Since the bombing there have been extraordinary claims that Yousef met and trained Terry L. Nichols, one of the two men charged with the atrocity. ONe of Yousef's friends has even claimed that Yousef's gan was responsible for the bombing.
The possible linke was uncovered by Stephen Jones, the chief defence lawyer for Timothy J. McVeigh, who was sentenced to death ... FBI agents have dismissed Jone's claims as a legal manoeuvre to try and shift the burden of guilt from his one-time client to Nichols and create a wider conspiracy. 'He's just trying to portray McViegh as the patsy,' said one FBI source. Others believe the links are more than just mere coincidence.
The exact origins of the plot to attack the federal building in Oklahoma are still unclear, but in mid-November 1994, Terry Nichols left the US to spend Christmas with Marife, his Filipino 'mail-order' bride, and her family in Cebu.
read on here:
Was the Oklahoma City bombing the silver bullet that could have prevented 9-11?
By Jayna Davis
Is this Iraqi man, likely a member of Unit 999 of the Iraq Intelligence Service, John Doe #2?Jayna Davis was among the first correspondents on the scene of the Oklahoma City bombing. During the past nine years, Jayna has compiled a comprehensive and compelling investigative dossier, which unveils the Middle East's hand in the Oklahoma bombing. Her new book, below, expertly examines the connections between the Oklahoma City bombing, Iraq, and possibly even Al Qaeda.
- JaynaDavis.com
The Third Terrorist: The Middle East Connection to the Oklahoma City Bombing
by Jayna Davis
Was the April 19, 1995 strike on America's heartland the greatest law enforcement failure of the 20th century that led, in part, to the terrorist holocaust of the young 21st century? I believe a compelling body of evidence illustrates how Iraqi intelligence agents infiltrated the United States in order to recruit and assist Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols in the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Building.
My tumultuous journey began nine years ago, amidst the widespread death and destruction on a scale Americans had never before seen. As an investigative reporter for the NBC affiliate in Oklahoma City, KFOR-TV, I was among the first correspondents on the scene of the bombing.
Within twenty-four hours, my news director, Melissa Klinzing, assigned me to cover the international manhunt for suspects. That assignment soon became a personal quest to seek the untold story behind the murderous rage and fury that left our country forever changed. The Third Terrorist: The Middle East Connection to the Oklahoma City Bombing is the culmination of nearly a decade of exhaustive research to wrench out the truth, however ugly, in an age of political "spin" and massaging facts to suit agendas.
The evening of June 7, 1995, seemed almost surreal when KFOR-TV led the 6:00 pm newscast with a ground breaking story of Middle East complicity in the Oklahoma City bombing. The broadcast challenged the FBI's publicly espoused theory that two right-wing fanatics, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, single-handedly pulled off the crime of the century. Our story featured the steadfast testimonies of witnesses who placed an Iraqi soldier in the company of McVeigh at a local tavern a few days prior to the strike on America's heartland.
Forty-eight hours later, KFOR-TV rocked the airwaves once more. A downtown witness who stepped directly into the path of a speeding brown Chevrolet pickup just sixty seconds after the blast, picked the same Iraqi national from a photo lineup as the driver of that truck. The brown pickup matched the FBI's official all-points-bulletin for a getaway vehicle that was issued in the wake of the explosion for foreign suspects.
Eyewitness testimony
Throughout the course of my investigation, I interviewed eighty potential witnesses"twenty-two of whom I deemed credible because their testimonies could be independently corroborated and their stories did not conflict with the government's case against McVeigh and Nichols. In detailed affidavits, these eyewitnesses positively identified 8 Middle Eastern men, the majority of whom are former Iraqi soldiers, colluding with Oklahoma City bombers Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols during various stages of the bombing plot.
All of these suspects immigrated to the U.S. following the Persian Gulf War, ostensibly seeking political asylum from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein. However, my investigation revealed they were false defectors -not outspoken dissidents as they had professed.
This cadre of former Iraqi servicemen moved to Oklahoma City in the fall of 1994 and began performing handiwork for a property management company that was owned and operated by a Palestinian ex-patriate. This affluent real estate mogul, who operated under eight known aliases, funded his vast, multi-million dollar housing empire from monies contributed by siblings living in Baghdad, Jerusalem, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, and Amman, Jordan.
In the early 1990's, the Palestinian property owner pled guilty to federal insurance fraud and spent time in the penitentiary. Court records revealed the FBI once suspected this ex-convict of ties to the Palestinian Liberation Organization.
Six months prior to the bombing, the Palestinian businessman turned federal felon hired a handful of Iraqi soldiers to do maintenance work at his low-income rental houses. On April 19, several witnesses watched in stunned amazement as their Middle Eastern co-workers expressed prideful excitement upon hearing the first radio broadcasts that Islamic extremists had claimed responsibility for the attack on the Murrah Building. The men exuberantly pledged their allegiance to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, vowing they would "die for Saddam."
The majority of these Iraqi soldiers were identified colluding with McVeigh and Nichols in the months, weeks, days, and final hours leading up to 9:02 am on April 19, 1995. The most incriminating testimony centered around one man who not only fit the FBI's physical description in the official arrest warrant for John Doe 2, but according to veteran law enforcement officials, was a dead ringer for the profile sketch of the elusive suspect.
Witnesses identified this Iraqi immigrant in the company of McVeigh prior to the bombing, seated in the passenger seat of the Ryder truck the morning of April 19, stepping out of that truck at ground zero, and speeding away from downtown seconds after the blast in a brown Chevrolet pickup which was aggressively pursued by law enforcement.
Civil weapon
Who is the man identified by a plethora of witnesses as the infamous third terrorist? I sat across the table from this individual for eight days of intense interrogation. I peered inside his psychiatric file in which he confessed to having hallucinations and trepidation about being arrested for complicity in the Oklahoma bombing.
His name is Hussain Hashem Al-Hussaini.
I was able to learn intimate secrets about Al-Hussaini because he granted me an investigative tool to which few journalists have access - discovery. On August 24, 1995, weeks after the FBI announced it had abandoned the international manhunt for John Doe 2, Hussain Al-Hussaini filed a libel lawsuit against KFOR-TV.
Eyewitnesses had identified this Iraqi soldier drinking beer with McVeigh prior to the heartland massacre, seated in the explosives-laden Ryder truck the morning of April 19, descending from that truck in front of the ill-fated Murrah Building, and peeling away from the shattered and burning remains of the federal complex in a brown pickup targeted by federal authorities. Yet for some inexplicable reason, the FBI never questioned Hussaini Al-Hussaini. But more significantly, the Bureau refused my repeated requests to officially clear him as a suspect.
The Department of Justice did not hesitate to grant absolution to several men who were identified by the media as having been questioned as John Doe 2 look-alikes. Yet when Hussain Al-Hussaini issued a public plea through the Oklahoma City press for exoneration, the FBI refused to deliver.
But the inexplicable silence from federal law enforcement did not deter the Iraqi soldier from pursuing his litigation against me and KFOR-TV. I viewed that litigation as an offensive weapon which enabled me to subpoena Al-Hussaini's immigration file - that information, coupled with a photograph of a military tattoo on his upper left arm, provided a rare opportunity to deconstruct the Iraqi soldier's murky past.
Colonel Patrick Lang, the former chief of human intelligence for the Defense Intelligence Agency who served as a consultant to the U.S. military during Operation Desert Storm, evaluated Al-Hussaini's immigration records and emblematic tattoo. The conclusion - this man most likely served in Saddam Hussein's elite fighting forces - the Republican Guard, and from there was promoted up the ranks to Unit 999 of the Iraq Intelligence Service.
The lawsuit also ushered in a once-in-a-lifetime moment. In the fall of 1998, I sat face-to-face with a man I knew had been positively identified as a perpetrator of mass murder in the very city where the deposition would take place.
Much to everyone's surprise, Al-Hussaini broke down under questioning and unwittingly confessed to self-incriminating details - details known only to the dark-haired stranger seen socializing with a very boisterous Timothy McVeigh and the bar tender who served beer to the two men in an Oklahoma City nightclub.
Sweeping legal vindication
On November 17, 1999, Federal Judge Timothy Leonard dismissed the libel lawsuit in a sweeping ruling that upheld as "undisputed" all fifty statements of fact and opinion that implicated Hussain Al-Hussaini as the third terrorist in the Oklahoma City bombing. More significantly, the evidence irrefutably discredited his alibi.
Al-Hussaini could never establish for the court his whereabouts for the critical hours of April 19. Nonetheless, he appealed his case to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. On March 26, 2003, the three-judge panel issued a unanimous ruling to dismiss the case and affirmed the trial court's decision.
Nexus: 4-19 and 9-11
Soon after that fateful day in April of 1995, Al-Hussaini moved to Boston and sought employment at the Boston Logan International Airport. In November 1997, four years before two planes were hijacked from that very airport on a murderous trek to the World Trade Center, Al-Hussaini confided to his psychiatrist he was apprehensive about his airport job stating "If something happens there. I'll be a suspect."
During his deposition one year later in 1998, Al-Hussaini disclosed that during the time he was experiencing panic attacks about his airport employment, he was residing with two Iraqi Gulf War veterans who served in Saddam's army. The Iraqi veterans owned a business that provided food-catering services to the commercial airlines at Boston Logan.
In the wake of the suicide hijackings of 2001, law enforcement speculated that food service workers might have planted the box cutters aboard those doomed flights. Hussain Al-Hussaini's bizarre prediction and expressed fear about an event that might occur at Boston Logan just grazes the surface of the disturbing connections I have discovered between 4-19 and 9-11.
9-11 Commission and FBI Director Louis Freeh
The 9-11 commission recently discussed my book when commissioner John Lehman asked former FBI Director Louis Freeh about the possible Iraqi/Al Qaeda connection to the Oklahoma City bombing. Lehman boldly asserted that the startling new information contained in The Third Terrorist "begs for further investigation." Director Freeh declined to dismiss the notion of foreign complicity in the 1995 terrorist massacre.
Philippine/Al-Qaeda Connection
The evidence that I have outlined, thus far, deals solely with the collusion of Iraqi nationals with Timothy McVeigh. However, I have also uncovered strong indicators of an Al-Qaeda connection to this terrorist operation. The McVeigh defense team uncovered evidence that indicated Terry Nichols might have received bomb making expertise from Al Qaeda explosives experts based in the Philippines.
We know that this small-time Kansas farmer of modest means took expensive and unexplained trips to the Philippines, many times without his Filipino mail order bride. The court record reveals the Oklahoma City bomber was in Cebu City in December 1994 at the same time as the mastermind of the first World Trade Center attack, Ramzi Yousef.
Did these two men cross paths? According to the sworn statement of the co-founder of the Muslim terrorist group Abu Sayyaf, which is a spin-off organization of Al Qaeda, Terry Nichols and Ramzi Yousef met personally to discuss bomb making in the early 1990's.
Richard Clarke, President Clinton's former chief terrorist advisor, disclosed in his new book that the FBI "could never disprove" the theory that the Kansas farmer learned the macabre genius of terrorist bomb making under the training of Philippines-based Al-Qaeda general, Ramzi Yousef. Clarke stated, "We do know that Nichols' bombs did not work before his Philippine stay and were deadly when he returned."
Phone records revealed that Nichols received and made a slew of calls to a boarding house in Cebu City, which according to McVeigh's defense lawyers, sheltered students from a university well known for Islamic militancy. Nichols and McVeigh also made a series of cryptic calls on a phone debit card to untraceable numbers and public pay phones in the Philippines from public pay phones in Kansas in order to cover their trail. Why? That question has never been addressed or answered by the Department of Justice.
Prior warning and two "lily white" recruits
Attorney General John Ashcroft recently warned the nation to brace for a possible Al-Qaeda attack in which the Islamic militants might recruit people who appear "European"- operatives who could easily slip below the law enforcement radar screen. I have learned first hand that terrorism makes for strange bedfellows and unforeseen alliances between seemingly polar-opposite groups. As the old saying goes, "An enemy of an enemy is a temporary friend." Such was the case in the 1995 strike on the Oklahoma federal complex.
On February 27, 1995 the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare issued a prior warning that stated there would be an "Iran-sponsored Islamic attack" on U.S. soil. Washington D.C. topped the hit list. The primary targets were Congress and the White House, a prescient insight into the events of 9-11.
The warning was distributed to the FBI and other federal intelligence agencies. In response, security was beefed up in the capitol city, so the focus then shifted from Washington, D.C. to the American Midwest. On March 3, 1995 the director of the Congressional Task Force, Yossef Bodansky, issued an updated alert stating the terrorists planned to strike at "the heart of the U.S."
Twelve cities were placed on the potential target list because of the radical Islamic groups and terrorist networks already operating within those metropolitan areas. As a result, Oklahoma City made the list.
More importantly, the Task Force learned that the Middle Eastern terrorists had recruited two "lily whites" to carry out the bombing of an American federal building. In the lexicon of the intelligence community, the term lily white refers to individuals who have no criminal history and no obvious ties to Middle Eastern terrorist organizations. McVeigh, a decorated Gulf War veteran and Nichols, a farmer and former soldier, both fit that criterion.
The 1995 Task Force warnings were generated from multiple intelligence sources in several Middle Eastern countries over a period of eighteen months prior to Oklahoma City bombing. Information was also gleaned from terrorist conferences which took place in the fall of 1994 and early 1995 in which Tehran's overriding desire to strike inside the "Great Satan" was unveiled. Osama bin Laden attended several of those conferences.
There was ample evidence that an international terrorism offensive, sponsored by Iran and Syria, was about to be launched inside the United States sometime after the start of the Iranian New Year on March 21, 1995.
However, at no time did I uncover any evidence that would indicate that law enforcement had enough information to stop the bomb. They had no idea that the plan involved a Ryder truck and the Murrah Building at 9:00 AM on April 19. They only knew a general time frame and that a United States federal installation was the likely target. The lily whites were simply impossible to isolate and track in time to prevent the impending tragedy.
FBI refused to investigate
By now, many of you are asking, if the case I have presented in The Third Terrorist is indeed true, then why hasn't the FBI arrested these Middle Eastern suspects? One possibility is that this information innocently slipped through the cracks of a massive federal investigation. However, I cannot explain why the FBI flatly refused to take receipt of this information in 1997 when I offered twenty-two witness statements and hundreds of pages of corroborative documentation implicating Iraqi nationals in the Murrah Building bombing.
Officials with the DOJ told my lawyer, and later confirmed to Fox News, that they did not did not want any more "documents for discovery" that they would be compelled by law to surrender to the defense teams for McVeigh and Nichols.
In 1999, I returned to the Bureau, and a very courageous FBI agent, Dan Vogel, took custody of the twenty-two witness affidavits, and passed them up the chain of command to the legal department at the Oklahoma City field office.
From there - the documents simply vanished.
They were never turned over to the defense teams, and there was no attempt to prove or disprove veracity of the witnesses' testimonies. Not witness was called or questioned.
To this day the Department of Justice and FBI refuse to clear the man identified as the third terrorist of suspicion in deadliest terrorist attack in 20th century America. My meticulous research into the Iraqi soldier's whereabouts for the morning of April 19 proves beyond a reasonable doubt that he has no alibi.
Why has the FBI never even questioned Hussain Al-Hussaini and his Middle Eastern cohorts - I am at a loss to explain.
That is a question that should be posed to the former administration and the handful of people who were responsible for investigating and prosecuting the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Building.
Iraq War Justified
The Oklahoma City bombing, if orchestrated by an Iraqi hit squad operating under state sponsorship by Iran and Syria, would undoubtedly constitute an act of war against the United States. Given what I have discovered about the Iraqi/Al Qaeda links to the April 19, 1995 bombing, I applaud and salute the United States military for its tremendous courage and sacrifice in ousting Saddam Hussein.
How many more Americans would have been marked for death had the U.S. military not invaded Iraq and overthrown such a bloodthirsty broker of terror? I believe that our fallen soldiers have not died in vain to end the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction that have not yet been found, but to save Americans from another widespread slaughter of innocents like April 19.
About the Author
In 1986, Jayna Davis graduated at the top of her class from the University of Texas at Austin with a BA in Broadcast Journalism. During her 12-year career as a television reporter, Jayna worked as a videotape editor, producer, news anchor, general assignments and investigative reporter. She entered the broadcast industry at KXII-TV in Sherman, Texas, then moved eastward to KLTV in Tyler, where she was recognized statewide for her achievements in general assignments and medical reporting.
In 1991, Jayna reached a top 20 broadcast market when she joined the news team at KCRA-TV in Sacramento, California, the third largest NBC affiliate in the country. In 1993, Jayna found her niche in Oklahoma City when KFOR-TV hired her as an investigative reporter. During her four years at KFOR, Jayna received several awards for investigative journalism.
Shortly after 9:02 AM on April 19, 1995, Jayna found herself staring at the smoldering shell of the Alfred P. Murrah Building with a photographer by her side recording the unspeakable bloodshed and carnage. The horrifying images were broadcast via satellite to the world, documenting what was deemed America's deadliest terrorist attack of the 20th century.
Within twenty-four hours, Channel 4's news director tapped Jayna to cover the FBI's international manhunt for the perpetrators and the infamous John Doe 2.
On June 7, 1995, KFOR-TV broadcast its first story in which the disgruntled Gulf War veteran, Timothy McVeigh, was identified drinking beer with a former Iraqi soldier in an Oklahoma City tavern. During the past nine years, Jayna has compiled a comprehensive and compelling investigative dossier, which unveils the Middle East's hand in the Oklahoma bombing. The evidence raises the disturbing question: did 4-19 sound the alarm that went unheeded?
Jayna is arguably the only journalist in the country who has dedicated years of intense research into the Middle Eastern connection to the 1995 terrorist strike on the Murrah Building. In 2001, she founded a non-profit corporation, Journalists' Committee for Justice, Inc, which has carried on the mission to seek justice for those who perished in America's heartland. On April 15, 2004, WND Books/Thomas Nelson Publishers released her explosive new book, The Third Terrorist: The Middle East Connection to the Oklahoma City Bombing.
http://intelwire.egoplex.com/nichols022004.html
By J.M. BERGER
INTELWIRE.com
In November 1994, Terry Nichols and Ramzi Yousef both walked on the grounds of the same college campus in the Philippines.
Each booked a flight on the same airline, on the same route and apparently planned to travel on the same day — the exact date Yousef hoped to unleash a massive September 11-style attack on the United States.
EARLY PHILIPPINES TIES
THE EDWIN ANGELES QUESTION
YOUSEF, NICHOLS AND McVEIGH
WHERE THE SMOKING GUNS LIE
TERRY NICHOLS: HIJACKER?
AFTERWORD
NOTES (in new window)
While Nichols was in the Philippines during this visit, several al Qaeda operatives were also in the country. A longtime associate of Ramzi Yousef, Abdul Hakim Murad traveled to the Philippines in January 1990, where he enrolled in flight training.2
At around the same time, Mohammed Jamal Khalifa (a brother-in-law of Osama bin Laden) was creating a series of business fronts designed to launder money on behalf of al Qaeda.
Starting around 1988 and continuing through the early 1990s, Khalifa created several organizations and businesses These included Benevolence International Corp., a rattan furniture exporter; the International Islamic Relief Organization, a charity non-governmental organization (NGO); and Khalifa Trading Industries, a lumber and furniture import-export company.3Khalifa's businesses were based around the country, particularly in the southern regions where the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) terrorist gang was active. Khalifa funded ASG with front operations in Cotabato and Zamboanga.4
Meanwhile, Nichols was staying in Cebu City, just north of the region where Abu Sayyaf was most active. Cebu was the capital of the country's rattan industry. There, he met and eventually married a Filipina named Marife Torres. At various times through 1996, Marife Nichols lived with her parents in an apartment attached to a Cebu lumberyard.5
A considerable mythology has sprung up around Nichols' travels to the Philippines. Some sources have repeatedly alleged that Nichols made dozens of trips to the Philippines, with and without his wife. These accounts are rarely sourced in detail, and they have almost certainly been elaborated — based on some claims, Nichols could hardly have spent any time in the U.S. at all between 1990 and 1995.
However, a few trips have been confirmed in published accounts and trial testimony. Nichols wed Marife in November 1990, in Cebu, and he stayed in the country through January 1991.6 Abdul Hakim Murad traveled to the Philippines in November and stayed through February 1991.7
Published accounts conflict about when World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef first traveled to the Philippines, but it's generally accepted that his first visit began around the summer of 1991.8 Yousef trained Abu Sayyaf fighters in the south of the Philippines during this visit, an effort that led directly to the testimony that is most — and least — damning in the case of the Oklahoma City bombing.
Angeles is often cited as a primary source on the Abu Sayyaf Group by historians and law enforcement officials, but his reliability has been called into question.
Angeles told the Philippines National Police (PNP) that he was present for a meeting between Yousef, Murad, Wali Khan Amin Shah and an American he referred to as "The Farmer," whose appearance approximated that of Terry Nichols.9 The meeting allegedly took place in the southern Philippines.
The original claim was apparently made during a videotaped interrogation of Angeles by the PNP. The tape was later obtained by an attorney for Timothy McVeigh. When viewed by CNN correspondent Maria Ressa, the audio content of the tape was indecipherable.
The story has been retold in several versions, including an alleged "deathbed confession" from Angeles' wife, a report which is of doubtful pedigree. Conflicting dates have been cited for the alleged meeting. One of the alleged dates for the meeting was November 1991. Yousef, Khalifa and top al Qaeda operative named Wali Khan Amin Shah were all reported to have been in the southern Philippines in January 1992.10 Murad (named by Angeles as a participant) was attending flight school in the U.S. at the time. Nichols' whereabouts are unclear, but legal papers relating to his marriage were filed in Michigan that month.
The details of the Angeles claim have never been confirmed and some appear to be simply wrong. Angeles was murdered in 1998 by unknown assassins. In the absence of further documentation, the story must be considered unsubstantiated as of this writing.
Yousef traveled to the U.S. in September 1992 to begin work on the World Trade Center bombing plot. He and a traveling companion arrived in New York City carrying bomb-making manuals that included detailed instructions on how to build a truck bomb virtually identical to the one believed used in Oklahoma City.11
In New York, Yousef made contact with a Brooklyn al Qaeda cell operating out of the al Kifah mosque in Brooklyn. The cell provided support and accomplices for the bomb plot, even as it laid its own plans for a "Day of Terror" attack later in 1993.
A key Brooklyn cell member was Clement Rodney Hampton-El, a U.S.-born black Muslim who had trained and fought for bin Laden in Afghanistan. Hampton-El was described as an expert bomb maker, like Yousef, who was also an Afghan veteran.
Hampton-El counted weapons procurement and recruiting among his chief responsibilities in the cell, and he traveled to gun shows around the region to further these goals. In late 1992, he was tasked to recruit former U.S. servicemen as trainers and mujahideen fighters for al Qaeda.12
Shortly after a December meeting in which Hampton-El was given a list of former U.S. servicemen to recruit, Terry Nichols abruptly left the U.S. and traveled to the Philippines for a trip of about 60 days.13 He was likely in the Philippines on the date of the WTC bombing in February.
McVeigh had traveled to Florida, where a burgeoning al Qaeda operation was busy recruiting U.S.-born operatives, including Jose Padilla, a former Latino gang member who converted to Islam around the same time.14
While working at gun shows in Florida, McVeigh met Roger Moore, a gun dealer with at least casual ties to domestic antigovernment and white separatist movements which would later play a role in the plot to bomb the Murrah building.15 Both al Qaeda and local white power organizations had operations based in the area at the time, and the local gun show scene was known as a venue for terrorists seeking weapons (including a regular show at the Fort Lauderdale Armory which was attended by McVeigh).16
Nichols went to the Philippines at a time when al Qaeda was recruiting and training Abu Sayyaf Group members. Several members of the Brooklyn terror cell said under surveilliance they planned to travel to the Philippines and wage jihad from there once they had completed their terrorist attacks in the U.S. Hampton-El traveled to the Philippines himself in May 1993. Like Terry Nichols and Jamal Khalifa, and in keeping with standard al Qaeda procedure, Hampton-El intended to marry a Filipina, which would facilitate his travel and residency in the country.17
On Nov. 4, in Chicago, Ill., Nichols applied for a standard 60-day visa at the Philippines consulate.18 On Nov. 5, he made a reservation to fly out of Kansas to the Philippines but changed this arrangement later so that he would fly out of Las Vegas.
While in Las Vegas, he stayed with his ex-wife and visited with their son. When he left the country Nov. 22, he left her with a sealed package and instructions to open it if he didn't return within 60 days. Inside was a sealed letter to Timothy McVeigh, with instructions to send it after Jan. 28, 1995.
Nichols had left an estimated $60,000 to $80,000 in cash and goods secreted around his ex-wife's house and in a nearby storage locker. Some of the material had been stolen from Roger Moore, McVeigh's gun dealer associate, a few weeks earlier.19 Other material may have been associated with a bank robbery gang that has been linked to the Oklahoma bombing plot.20
On Nov. 23, Nichols unexpectedly showed up on the campus of Southwestern University, where his wife was attending classes in physical therapy. She expressed surprise at seeing him. 21
Southwestern University was known as a center for Islamic fundamentalists in Cebu City, according to several leading experts in terrorism and al Qaeda. Ramzi Yousef was known to have associates on the campus, and he visited the campus throughout the fall and winter of 1994.
Yousef had entered the country around September 1994. His other accomplices, who arrived at various times throughout the year, were Abdul Hakim Murad, Wali Khan Amin Shah and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. They had come to Manila to plan a series of spectacular terrorist attacks against the West on behalf of al Qaeda.
Yousef is documented to have visited Cebu on at least two specific occasions during this period, while testing explosives in November and December 1994, once to set a bomb in a shopping mall and the second time to set a bomb on a Philippines Airlines flight which killed a Japanese businessman in early December.22
Murad made phone calls during the same period to Khalid Hassan, a former roomate, staying in Cebu City. According to Murad, Hassan was there studying dentistry (there are two dentistry schools in Cebu City, one is Southwestern and the other, the Cebu Doctors' School, is nearby).23
Further connections, while not yet fully documented, offer a tantalizing glimpse at where definitive evidence might be found. The family of Marife Nichols stayed in an apartment attached to a lumberyard in Cebu City, she testified at her husband's trial. Her family used the lumberyard office's phone, which was presented as the reason for numerous phone calls made to the yard on a long-distance calling card used by Nichols and McVeigh.
The lumberyard was identified as "Star Gladh," according to testimony and evidence given at trial. The identification appears to come from an FBI Form 302 interrogation report detailing the interrogation of the lumberyard's owner, Serafim Uy.
INTELWIRE has not been able to confirm the particulars of the lumberyard, including its name, spelling, ownership and location (although there are Gladh timber operations worldwide). The name was taken down as a handwritten notation on the 302 by the FBI agent who conducted the investigation. Phone records used at trial did not correctly record the name of the lumberyard.
Cebu is the leading producer of rattan and plywood in the Philippines. The specifics of the lumberyard connected to Nichols' family are important in light of the business fronts used to fund al Qaeda operations in the Philippines.
Jamal Khalifa ran several furniture-related businesses in the Philippines, including a rattan import-export company. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who would later mastermind the September 11 attacks on America, posed as a plywood exporter named Salem Ali while in Manila working with Yousef.24
A direct connection between the lumberyard and one of Khalifa's business concerns would constitute a tangible link running from al Qaeda to Oklahoma City. INTELWIRE continues to research this possibility.
As documented during his trial, Nichols left his ex-wife a note that specified how she should distribute the money he left behind "if for any reason my life insurance doesn't pay." There are three primary reasons why any given life insurance policy might fail to pay its beneficiary — if the insured commits suicide, if the insured dies in the course of commiting a crime, or if the insured is murdered by the policy's beneficiary. (There is no evidence to suggest Terry Nichols was afraid of being murdered by his wife.)
Project Bojinka, which was underway at the time, would have bombed 11 airliners over the Pacific Ocean during a 48-hour period. When Murad was arrested, he confessed that another part of the plan involved a plot to crash an airplane into CIA headquarters or the Pentagon, a clear precursor to the September 11 attack.
Terry Nichols left for the Philippines on Nov. 22, 1994, on a standard 60-day visa which would have expired on Jan. 21, 1995. 25 Ramzi Yousef was planning to launch Bojinka on Jan. 21, 1995. 26
In November 1994, when boarding his flight for the Philippines, Nichols was almost stopped at the gate when U.S. airport security discovered he was carrying two stun guns on his person.27 In late 1994, Yousef and Khalid Shaikh flew several test runs in which they measured airline security by smuggling various Bojinka components onto planes.28
Nichols flew back to the U.S. on Northwest Airlines. His flight number was not available as of this writing, but the flight arrived in the U.S. in Los Angeles, Calif. (Nichols then took a connecting flight to Las Vegas, his final destination.) 29 As part of Bojinka, Ramzi Yousef planned to have one al Qaeda operative on board Northwest Airlines Flight 30 from Manila to Los Angeles.30
On January 6, 1995, Ramzi Yousef and his Bojinka plot were exposed when the hallway of the apartment building filled with smoke after an apparent accidental fire caused while Yousef and Murad were mixing chemicals for the Bojinka bombing.31 Murad was arrested on the scene.
On January 7, Yousef fled the Philippines.
On January 11, Wali Khan Amin Shah was arrested.
On January 14, Terry Nichols called his ex-wife in Las Vegas and told her he would return to the U.S. January 17 (four days before his visa would have expired).32
On January 15, Wali Khan broke out of prison, possibly with outside assistance, and fled the country. 33
On January 17, the FBI arrived in Manila to examine the Bojinka plot materials.34 Later that day, Terry Nichols left the Philippines for the last time.
On April 19, 1995, an imprisoned Abdul Hakim Murad told his U.S. captors that he and Ramzi Yousef were responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing. He repeated the claim to the FBI the next day.35
In the intervening years, the concept of a conspiracy involving "others unknown" in the OKC bombing has been significantly marginalized for a number of reasons not having to do with the credibility of the basic premise.
I plan to write more on this subject later, but the specifics are secondary at the moment. The important point is that the public's interest in and openness to alternative views of the bombing have fallen sharply — even as the evidence to support such views has dramatically grown.
Two FBI internal investigations, fully available to the public, have shown that the agency was guilty of mismanaging the case at best, and malfeasance at worst.
Credible, independent investigations by the Associated Press, the McCurtain Gazette and criminologist-author Mark Hamm have demonstrated that white supremacists associated with the militia movement and the Elohim City compound in Oklahoma almost certainly played some in the bombing.
New stories appear every day detailing the infiltration of the United States by al Qaeda sleepers. Some lived in Texas and Arizona, others in Oklahoma. Some were white Christian males — including a National Guardsman who previously pursued ties with the militia movement. al Qaeda is now known to have recruited former U.S. servicemen, including Gulf War veterans like Timothy McVeigh, as first reported on this site.
How much circumstantial evidence needs to accrue before the premise of an al Qaeda role in the OKC bombing is considered effectively true?
The mass media, and to a lesser extent the general public, will determine that threshhold. But even though the evidence remains circumstantial, as above, the premise can no longer reasonably be considered extraordinary — nor even particularly unlikely.
2. PNP interrogation record, Abdul Hakim Murad, provided to INTELWIRE by Motley Rice law firm
3. Author research, DNB Business Records, Khalifa v USA (1995 civil lawsuit), US v Benevolence International Foundation indictment
4. Ibid., see also Seeds of Terror, Maria Ressa, 2004
5. US v Terry Nichols, 96-CR-68
6. US v Nichols, PBS Frontline report citing McVeigh defense team notes (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/documents/mcveigh/)
7. Contemporary Southeast Asia, Volume 24, Number 2, August 2002, "The Role of Philippine–American Relations in the Global Campaign Against Terrorism: Implications for Regional Security"
8. The New Jackals, Simon Reeve, 2002
9. Others Unknown, Stephen Jones, 2001
10. Seeds of Terror, ibid.
11. US v Omar Abdel Rahman et al, S5 93 Cr. 181
12. INTELWIRE: Al Qaeda Recruited U.S. Servicemen: Testimony Links Plot To Saudi Gov't, US v Rahman (ibid.)
13. By Blood Betrayed; Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, July/August 2002, "The Thrill of a Good Conspiracy" By Cate McCauley
14. INTELWIRE: Jose Padilla Backgrounder
15. In Bad Company, Mark S. Hamm, 2002
16. USA Today, "Gun shows give terrorists easy access to firearms," 12/12/2001; US v Ali Boumelhem, No. 00-81013; NOW with Bill Moyers, 11/15/2002; Pritchard v. Miami Beach, 1992; US v Adham Hassoun, 2004
17. US v Rahman
18. 1000 Years for Revenge, Peter Lance, 2003
19. US v Nichols
20. In Bad Company
21. US v Nichols
22. The New Jackals, 1000 Years, Seeds of Terror, US v Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, Abdul Hakim Murad, Wali Khan Amin Shah, S1293CR.180(KTD)
23. PNP documents on interrogation of Abdul Hakim Murad, provided to INTELWIRE by law firm Motley Rice; author research.
24. US v Yousef et al, Dow Jones News Service, 1000 Years
25. New Jackals
26. New Jackals, PNP reports
27. By Blood Betrayed
28. Seeds of Terror
29. By Blood Betrayed
30. US v Yousef
31. US v Yousef, et al
32. By Blood Betrayed
33. Recent media reports indicated that Jemaah Islamiah chief Hambali, among others, assisted Wali Khan's escape from prison.
34. US v Yousef.
35. FBI FD-302 record of interrogation, Abdul Hakim Murad
http://theerant.yuku.com/topic/39080/18-Years-Ago-Today-1993-WTC-Bombing?page=#.TvKRIdSvigM
comment
ShampooWoody 02/26/11 23:33:14
RetPDDet, with all due respect, it is more than possible for American White Supremacist, anti government types to work with Muslim religious extremists, because both hate the Jew, whether it is the Zionist Occupation Government or destruction of the State of Israel and Great Satan USA. You are very knowledgeable about the subject of Islamofascists. I'm not saying US subversives had anything to do with the 1993 WTC bombing.
My only point being, it is not outside the realm of possibility two seemingly dissimilar polar opposite organizations could have worked together before the Oklahoma City bombing or after. It was McVeigh's experience in Iraq that radicalized him. The Nazis had working relationships in the Arab World, and atheist White separatists could find common ground with Wahhabi radicals today, then kill each other after their common enemies are gone.
I was at the WTC the day of the explosion with ESU, and saw absolutely no indication it was anyone other than the driver of the van and his cohorts, some of whom still walk the streets of Brooklyn free men, plotting against the USA. Just wanted to clear up that I believe the entire operation was planned and executed from a Brooklyn mosque with concrete evidence found almost immediately.
This book also points out connections between Yousef in the Phillipines and Nichols:
Ms. Davis personally called me up to thank me for mentioning her in Asian Week but I haven't been able to get back to her since. The reason for all the "conspiracy theories" that prove no jihad was involved is to cover up the real conspiracy that jihadists indeed were involved. The government simply will not pursue links to jihad if it does not have to, no matter how obvious. The government still refused to prosecute or charge Fort Hood imam Anwar al-Awalki even though they decided to terminate him, nor most of the many people and mosques known to have aided the 19 hijackers.
The book New Jackals also covers this theory
This New Jackals book points out connections between Yousef in the Phillipines and Nichols:
Ramsi Yousef's movements in the days after the PAL bombing may be crucial because they may help to determine whether he was involved in the next great horror that stunned America. The massive bomb that ripped apart the Alfred P. Murrah building in Oklahoma on 19 April 1995 killed 168 people and injured 600. Since the bombing there have been extraordinary claims that Yousef met and trained Terry L. Nichols, one of the two men charged with the atrocity. ONe of Yousef's friends has even claimed that Yousef's gan was responsible for the bombing.
The possible linke was uncovered by Stephen Jones, the chief defence lawyer for Timothy J. McVeigh, who was sentenced to death ... FBI agents have dismissed Jone's claims as a legal manoeuvre to try and shift the burden of guilt from his one-time client to Nichols and create a wider conspiracy. 'He's just trying to portray McViegh as the patsy,' said one FBI source. Others believe the links are more than just mere coincidence.
The exact origins of the plot to attack the federal building in Oklahoma are still unclear, but in mid-November 1994, Terry Nichols left the US to spend Christmas with Marife, his Filipino 'mail-order' bride, and her family in Cebu.
read on here:
Was the Oklahoma City bombing the silver bullet that could have prevented 9-11?
By Jayna Davis
Is this Iraqi man, likely a member of Unit 999 of the Iraq Intelligence Service, John Doe #2?Jayna Davis was among the first correspondents on the scene of the Oklahoma City bombing. During the past nine years, Jayna has compiled a comprehensive and compelling investigative dossier, which unveils the Middle East's hand in the Oklahoma bombing. Her new book, below, expertly examines the connections between the Oklahoma City bombing, Iraq, and possibly even Al Qaeda.
- JaynaDavis.com
The Third Terrorist: The Middle East Connection to the Oklahoma City Bombingby Jayna Davis
Was the April 19, 1995 strike on America's heartland the greatest law enforcement failure of the 20th century that led, in part, to the terrorist holocaust of the young 21st century? I believe a compelling body of evidence illustrates how Iraqi intelligence agents infiltrated the United States in order to recruit and assist Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols in the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Building.
My tumultuous journey began nine years ago, amidst the widespread death and destruction on a scale Americans had never before seen. As an investigative reporter for the NBC affiliate in Oklahoma City, KFOR-TV, I was among the first correspondents on the scene of the bombing.
Within twenty-four hours, my news director, Melissa Klinzing, assigned me to cover the international manhunt for suspects. That assignment soon became a personal quest to seek the untold story behind the murderous rage and fury that left our country forever changed. The Third Terrorist: The Middle East Connection to the Oklahoma City Bombing is the culmination of nearly a decade of exhaustive research to wrench out the truth, however ugly, in an age of political "spin" and massaging facts to suit agendas.
The evening of June 7, 1995, seemed almost surreal when KFOR-TV led the 6:00 pm newscast with a ground breaking story of Middle East complicity in the Oklahoma City bombing. The broadcast challenged the FBI's publicly espoused theory that two right-wing fanatics, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, single-handedly pulled off the crime of the century. Our story featured the steadfast testimonies of witnesses who placed an Iraqi soldier in the company of McVeigh at a local tavern a few days prior to the strike on America's heartland.
Forty-eight hours later, KFOR-TV rocked the airwaves once more. A downtown witness who stepped directly into the path of a speeding brown Chevrolet pickup just sixty seconds after the blast, picked the same Iraqi national from a photo lineup as the driver of that truck. The brown pickup matched the FBI's official all-points-bulletin for a getaway vehicle that was issued in the wake of the explosion for foreign suspects.
Eyewitness testimony
Throughout the course of my investigation, I interviewed eighty potential witnesses"twenty-two of whom I deemed credible because their testimonies could be independently corroborated and their stories did not conflict with the government's case against McVeigh and Nichols. In detailed affidavits, these eyewitnesses positively identified 8 Middle Eastern men, the majority of whom are former Iraqi soldiers, colluding with Oklahoma City bombers Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols during various stages of the bombing plot.
All of these suspects immigrated to the U.S. following the Persian Gulf War, ostensibly seeking political asylum from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein. However, my investigation revealed they were false defectors -not outspoken dissidents as they had professed.
This cadre of former Iraqi servicemen moved to Oklahoma City in the fall of 1994 and began performing handiwork for a property management company that was owned and operated by a Palestinian ex-patriate. This affluent real estate mogul, who operated under eight known aliases, funded his vast, multi-million dollar housing empire from monies contributed by siblings living in Baghdad, Jerusalem, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, and Amman, Jordan.
In the early 1990's, the Palestinian property owner pled guilty to federal insurance fraud and spent time in the penitentiary. Court records revealed the FBI once suspected this ex-convict of ties to the Palestinian Liberation Organization.
Six months prior to the bombing, the Palestinian businessman turned federal felon hired a handful of Iraqi soldiers to do maintenance work at his low-income rental houses. On April 19, several witnesses watched in stunned amazement as their Middle Eastern co-workers expressed prideful excitement upon hearing the first radio broadcasts that Islamic extremists had claimed responsibility for the attack on the Murrah Building. The men exuberantly pledged their allegiance to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, vowing they would "die for Saddam."
The majority of these Iraqi soldiers were identified colluding with McVeigh and Nichols in the months, weeks, days, and final hours leading up to 9:02 am on April 19, 1995. The most incriminating testimony centered around one man who not only fit the FBI's physical description in the official arrest warrant for John Doe 2, but according to veteran law enforcement officials, was a dead ringer for the profile sketch of the elusive suspect.
Witnesses identified this Iraqi immigrant in the company of McVeigh prior to the bombing, seated in the passenger seat of the Ryder truck the morning of April 19, stepping out of that truck at ground zero, and speeding away from downtown seconds after the blast in a brown Chevrolet pickup which was aggressively pursued by law enforcement.
Civil weapon
Who is the man identified by a plethora of witnesses as the infamous third terrorist? I sat across the table from this individual for eight days of intense interrogation. I peered inside his psychiatric file in which he confessed to having hallucinations and trepidation about being arrested for complicity in the Oklahoma bombing.
His name is Hussain Hashem Al-Hussaini.
I was able to learn intimate secrets about Al-Hussaini because he granted me an investigative tool to which few journalists have access - discovery. On August 24, 1995, weeks after the FBI announced it had abandoned the international manhunt for John Doe 2, Hussain Al-Hussaini filed a libel lawsuit against KFOR-TV.
Eyewitnesses had identified this Iraqi soldier drinking beer with McVeigh prior to the heartland massacre, seated in the explosives-laden Ryder truck the morning of April 19, descending from that truck in front of the ill-fated Murrah Building, and peeling away from the shattered and burning remains of the federal complex in a brown pickup targeted by federal authorities. Yet for some inexplicable reason, the FBI never questioned Hussaini Al-Hussaini. But more significantly, the Bureau refused my repeated requests to officially clear him as a suspect.
The Department of Justice did not hesitate to grant absolution to several men who were identified by the media as having been questioned as John Doe 2 look-alikes. Yet when Hussain Al-Hussaini issued a public plea through the Oklahoma City press for exoneration, the FBI refused to deliver.
But the inexplicable silence from federal law enforcement did not deter the Iraqi soldier from pursuing his litigation against me and KFOR-TV. I viewed that litigation as an offensive weapon which enabled me to subpoena Al-Hussaini's immigration file - that information, coupled with a photograph of a military tattoo on his upper left arm, provided a rare opportunity to deconstruct the Iraqi soldier's murky past.
Colonel Patrick Lang, the former chief of human intelligence for the Defense Intelligence Agency who served as a consultant to the U.S. military during Operation Desert Storm, evaluated Al-Hussaini's immigration records and emblematic tattoo. The conclusion - this man most likely served in Saddam Hussein's elite fighting forces - the Republican Guard, and from there was promoted up the ranks to Unit 999 of the Iraq Intelligence Service.
The lawsuit also ushered in a once-in-a-lifetime moment. In the fall of 1998, I sat face-to-face with a man I knew had been positively identified as a perpetrator of mass murder in the very city where the deposition would take place.
Much to everyone's surprise, Al-Hussaini broke down under questioning and unwittingly confessed to self-incriminating details - details known only to the dark-haired stranger seen socializing with a very boisterous Timothy McVeigh and the bar tender who served beer to the two men in an Oklahoma City nightclub.
Sweeping legal vindication
On November 17, 1999, Federal Judge Timothy Leonard dismissed the libel lawsuit in a sweeping ruling that upheld as "undisputed" all fifty statements of fact and opinion that implicated Hussain Al-Hussaini as the third terrorist in the Oklahoma City bombing. More significantly, the evidence irrefutably discredited his alibi.
Al-Hussaini could never establish for the court his whereabouts for the critical hours of April 19. Nonetheless, he appealed his case to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. On March 26, 2003, the three-judge panel issued a unanimous ruling to dismiss the case and affirmed the trial court's decision.
Nexus: 4-19 and 9-11
Soon after that fateful day in April of 1995, Al-Hussaini moved to Boston and sought employment at the Boston Logan International Airport. In November 1997, four years before two planes were hijacked from that very airport on a murderous trek to the World Trade Center, Al-Hussaini confided to his psychiatrist he was apprehensive about his airport job stating "If something happens there. I'll be a suspect."
During his deposition one year later in 1998, Al-Hussaini disclosed that during the time he was experiencing panic attacks about his airport employment, he was residing with two Iraqi Gulf War veterans who served in Saddam's army. The Iraqi veterans owned a business that provided food-catering services to the commercial airlines at Boston Logan.
In the wake of the suicide hijackings of 2001, law enforcement speculated that food service workers might have planted the box cutters aboard those doomed flights. Hussain Al-Hussaini's bizarre prediction and expressed fear about an event that might occur at Boston Logan just grazes the surface of the disturbing connections I have discovered between 4-19 and 9-11.
9-11 Commission and FBI Director Louis Freeh
The 9-11 commission recently discussed my book when commissioner John Lehman asked former FBI Director Louis Freeh about the possible Iraqi/Al Qaeda connection to the Oklahoma City bombing. Lehman boldly asserted that the startling new information contained in The Third Terrorist "begs for further investigation." Director Freeh declined to dismiss the notion of foreign complicity in the 1995 terrorist massacre.
Philippine/Al-Qaeda Connection
The evidence that I have outlined, thus far, deals solely with the collusion of Iraqi nationals with Timothy McVeigh. However, I have also uncovered strong indicators of an Al-Qaeda connection to this terrorist operation. The McVeigh defense team uncovered evidence that indicated Terry Nichols might have received bomb making expertise from Al Qaeda explosives experts based in the Philippines.
We know that this small-time Kansas farmer of modest means took expensive and unexplained trips to the Philippines, many times without his Filipino mail order bride. The court record reveals the Oklahoma City bomber was in Cebu City in December 1994 at the same time as the mastermind of the first World Trade Center attack, Ramzi Yousef.
Did these two men cross paths? According to the sworn statement of the co-founder of the Muslim terrorist group Abu Sayyaf, which is a spin-off organization of Al Qaeda, Terry Nichols and Ramzi Yousef met personally to discuss bomb making in the early 1990's.
Richard Clarke, President Clinton's former chief terrorist advisor, disclosed in his new book that the FBI "could never disprove" the theory that the Kansas farmer learned the macabre genius of terrorist bomb making under the training of Philippines-based Al-Qaeda general, Ramzi Yousef. Clarke stated, "We do know that Nichols' bombs did not work before his Philippine stay and were deadly when he returned."
Phone records revealed that Nichols received and made a slew of calls to a boarding house in Cebu City, which according to McVeigh's defense lawyers, sheltered students from a university well known for Islamic militancy. Nichols and McVeigh also made a series of cryptic calls on a phone debit card to untraceable numbers and public pay phones in the Philippines from public pay phones in Kansas in order to cover their trail. Why? That question has never been addressed or answered by the Department of Justice.
Prior warning and two "lily white" recruits
Attorney General John Ashcroft recently warned the nation to brace for a possible Al-Qaeda attack in which the Islamic militants might recruit people who appear "European"- operatives who could easily slip below the law enforcement radar screen. I have learned first hand that terrorism makes for strange bedfellows and unforeseen alliances between seemingly polar-opposite groups. As the old saying goes, "An enemy of an enemy is a temporary friend." Such was the case in the 1995 strike on the Oklahoma federal complex.
On February 27, 1995 the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare issued a prior warning that stated there would be an "Iran-sponsored Islamic attack" on U.S. soil. Washington D.C. topped the hit list. The primary targets were Congress and the White House, a prescient insight into the events of 9-11.
The warning was distributed to the FBI and other federal intelligence agencies. In response, security was beefed up in the capitol city, so the focus then shifted from Washington, D.C. to the American Midwest. On March 3, 1995 the director of the Congressional Task Force, Yossef Bodansky, issued an updated alert stating the terrorists planned to strike at "the heart of the U.S."
Twelve cities were placed on the potential target list because of the radical Islamic groups and terrorist networks already operating within those metropolitan areas. As a result, Oklahoma City made the list.
More importantly, the Task Force learned that the Middle Eastern terrorists had recruited two "lily whites" to carry out the bombing of an American federal building. In the lexicon of the intelligence community, the term lily white refers to individuals who have no criminal history and no obvious ties to Middle Eastern terrorist organizations. McVeigh, a decorated Gulf War veteran and Nichols, a farmer and former soldier, both fit that criterion.
The 1995 Task Force warnings were generated from multiple intelligence sources in several Middle Eastern countries over a period of eighteen months prior to Oklahoma City bombing. Information was also gleaned from terrorist conferences which took place in the fall of 1994 and early 1995 in which Tehran's overriding desire to strike inside the "Great Satan" was unveiled. Osama bin Laden attended several of those conferences.
There was ample evidence that an international terrorism offensive, sponsored by Iran and Syria, was about to be launched inside the United States sometime after the start of the Iranian New Year on March 21, 1995.
However, at no time did I uncover any evidence that would indicate that law enforcement had enough information to stop the bomb. They had no idea that the plan involved a Ryder truck and the Murrah Building at 9:00 AM on April 19. They only knew a general time frame and that a United States federal installation was the likely target. The lily whites were simply impossible to isolate and track in time to prevent the impending tragedy.
FBI refused to investigate
By now, many of you are asking, if the case I have presented in The Third Terrorist is indeed true, then why hasn't the FBI arrested these Middle Eastern suspects? One possibility is that this information innocently slipped through the cracks of a massive federal investigation. However, I cannot explain why the FBI flatly refused to take receipt of this information in 1997 when I offered twenty-two witness statements and hundreds of pages of corroborative documentation implicating Iraqi nationals in the Murrah Building bombing.
Officials with the DOJ told my lawyer, and later confirmed to Fox News, that they did not did not want any more "documents for discovery" that they would be compelled by law to surrender to the defense teams for McVeigh and Nichols.
In 1999, I returned to the Bureau, and a very courageous FBI agent, Dan Vogel, took custody of the twenty-two witness affidavits, and passed them up the chain of command to the legal department at the Oklahoma City field office.
From there - the documents simply vanished.
They were never turned over to the defense teams, and there was no attempt to prove or disprove veracity of the witnesses' testimonies. Not witness was called or questioned.
To this day the Department of Justice and FBI refuse to clear the man identified as the third terrorist of suspicion in deadliest terrorist attack in 20th century America. My meticulous research into the Iraqi soldier's whereabouts for the morning of April 19 proves beyond a reasonable doubt that he has no alibi.
Why has the FBI never even questioned Hussain Al-Hussaini and his Middle Eastern cohorts - I am at a loss to explain.
That is a question that should be posed to the former administration and the handful of people who were responsible for investigating and prosecuting the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Building.
Iraq War Justified
The Oklahoma City bombing, if orchestrated by an Iraqi hit squad operating under state sponsorship by Iran and Syria, would undoubtedly constitute an act of war against the United States. Given what I have discovered about the Iraqi/Al Qaeda links to the April 19, 1995 bombing, I applaud and salute the United States military for its tremendous courage and sacrifice in ousting Saddam Hussein.
How many more Americans would have been marked for death had the U.S. military not invaded Iraq and overthrown such a bloodthirsty broker of terror? I believe that our fallen soldiers have not died in vain to end the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction that have not yet been found, but to save Americans from another widespread slaughter of innocents like April 19.
About the AuthorIn 1986, Jayna Davis graduated at the top of her class from the University of Texas at Austin with a BA in Broadcast Journalism. During her 12-year career as a television reporter, Jayna worked as a videotape editor, producer, news anchor, general assignments and investigative reporter. She entered the broadcast industry at KXII-TV in Sherman, Texas, then moved eastward to KLTV in Tyler, where she was recognized statewide for her achievements in general assignments and medical reporting.
In 1991, Jayna reached a top 20 broadcast market when she joined the news team at KCRA-TV in Sacramento, California, the third largest NBC affiliate in the country. In 1993, Jayna found her niche in Oklahoma City when KFOR-TV hired her as an investigative reporter. During her four years at KFOR, Jayna received several awards for investigative journalism.
Shortly after 9:02 AM on April 19, 1995, Jayna found herself staring at the smoldering shell of the Alfred P. Murrah Building with a photographer by her side recording the unspeakable bloodshed and carnage. The horrifying images were broadcast via satellite to the world, documenting what was deemed America's deadliest terrorist attack of the 20th century.
Within twenty-four hours, Channel 4's news director tapped Jayna to cover the FBI's international manhunt for the perpetrators and the infamous John Doe 2.
On June 7, 1995, KFOR-TV broadcast its first story in which the disgruntled Gulf War veteran, Timothy McVeigh, was identified drinking beer with a former Iraqi soldier in an Oklahoma City tavern. During the past nine years, Jayna has compiled a comprehensive and compelling investigative dossier, which unveils the Middle East's hand in the Oklahoma bombing. The evidence raises the disturbing question: did 4-19 sound the alarm that went unheeded?
Jayna is arguably the only journalist in the country who has dedicated years of intense research into the Middle Eastern connection to the 1995 terrorist strike on the Murrah Building. In 2001, she founded a non-profit corporation, Journalists' Committee for Justice, Inc, which has carried on the mission to seek justice for those who perished in America's heartland. On April 15, 2004, WND Books/Thomas Nelson Publishers released her explosive new book, The Third Terrorist: The Middle East Connection to the Oklahoma City Bombing.
http://intelwire.egoplex.com/nichols022004.html
Did Nichols and Yousef meet?
A close analysis of Terry Nichols and Ramzi Yousef timelines creates a compelling, if still circumstantial, case — and offers clues to where the smoking guns may be found
INTELWIRE.com
In November 1994, Terry Nichols and Ramzi Yousef both walked on the grounds of the same college campus in the Philippines.
Whether their paths crossed is a question that dogs researchers.
But their respective itineraries are separated sometimes by a matter of yards, feet or even inches, within a span of days, hours and sometimes minutes.
Related stories: OKBOMB on INTELWIRE
Each booked a flight on the same airline, on the same route and apparently planned to travel on the same day — the exact date Yousef hoped to unleash a massive September 11-style attack on the United States.
It remains unclear where lines are drawn between the two most notorious terrorist attacks of the 1990s — the 1993 World Trade Center bombing masterminded by Yousef, and the Oklahoma City bombing, which Nichols was convicted of assisting (the exact extent of his involvement is still the subject of an ongoing criminal prosecution).
While myth and misinformation surrounds Nichols' possible connections to al Qaeda, the provable facts in the case are shocking enough in context, and perhaps compelling merely due to the sheer volume of the circumstances.
Although such connections have not yet been proven by a "smoking gun," the circumstantial case more that enough to support a serious investigation. Unlike many so-called "conspiracy theories," the question of whether al Qaeda had some degree of involvement with the Oklahoma City bombing seems well within the reach of a credible investigation.
The strongest evidence lies in a visit to the Philippines by Nichols from November 1994 through January 1995. While he and Timothy McVeigh were in the thick of planning the Oklahoma City bombing, Nichols simply stopped. He dropped everything and went to the Philippines, on a trip he believed was more dangerous than what he was doing in the U.S.
When he arrived in the Philippines, Nichols showed up unannounced on the campus of Southwestern University, a Cebu City college with a strong Islamic fundamentalist movement where his wife was attending classes.
Yousef visited the campus during Nichols' visit. One Yousef accomplice made phone calls to a friend on campus during the same period. Two more al Qaeda operatives may be linked to a Cebu lumberyard where Nichols and his wife used the phone.
According to his visa records and trial testimony, Nichols was scheduled to return to the U.S. on January 21, 1995, the same day Ramzi Yousef hoped to bomb almost a dozen U.S.-bound airliners simultaneously and possibly crash a hijacked airplane into the Pentagon or CIA headquarters.
Letters Nichols left behind in the U.S. expressed concern that he might die before returning from the winter trip, and included specific instructions on how to handle his money if his life insurance refused to pay out "for some reason."
Nichols tried to smuggle stun guns onto his flight when he left the U.S. On his return, he flew a Northwest Airlines route out of Manila that terminated in Los Angeles, matching one of the flights targeted by Yousef. There is a strongly compelling basis to further investigate whether Nichols was recruited as an al Qaeda operative for Yousef's plan.
SECTIONS:
EARLY PHILIPPINES TIES
Terry Nichols first traveled to the Philippines after leaving the Army in 1989. He signed up with an illegal marriage-broker (or "mail-order" bride) known as Paradise Shelton Tours, based in Scottsdale, AZ1, and departed for the Philippines for the first time in November 1989.While Nichols was in the Philippines during this visit, several al Qaeda operatives were also in the country. A longtime associate of Ramzi Yousef, Abdul Hakim Murad traveled to the Philippines in January 1990, where he enrolled in flight training.2
At around the same time, Mohammed Jamal Khalifa (a brother-in-law of Osama bin Laden) was creating a series of business fronts designed to launder money on behalf of al Qaeda.
Starting around 1988 and continuing through the early 1990s, Khalifa created several organizations and businesses These included Benevolence International Corp., a rattan furniture exporter; the International Islamic Relief Organization, a charity non-governmental organization (NGO); and Khalifa Trading Industries, a lumber and furniture import-export company.3Khalifa's businesses were based around the country, particularly in the southern regions where the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) terrorist gang was active. Khalifa funded ASG with front operations in Cotabato and Zamboanga.4
Meanwhile, Nichols was staying in Cebu City, just north of the region where Abu Sayyaf was most active. Cebu was the capital of the country's rattan industry. There, he met and eventually married a Filipina named Marife Torres. At various times through 1996, Marife Nichols lived with her parents in an apartment attached to a Cebu lumberyard.5
A considerable mythology has sprung up around Nichols' travels to the Philippines. Some sources have repeatedly alleged that Nichols made dozens of trips to the Philippines, with and without his wife. These accounts are rarely sourced in detail, and they have almost certainly been elaborated — based on some claims, Nichols could hardly have spent any time in the U.S. at all between 1990 and 1995.
However, a few trips have been confirmed in published accounts and trial testimony. Nichols wed Marife in November 1990, in Cebu, and he stayed in the country through January 1991.6 Abdul Hakim Murad traveled to the Philippines in November and stayed through February 1991.7
Published accounts conflict about when World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef first traveled to the Philippines, but it's generally accepted that his first visit began around the summer of 1991.8 Yousef trained Abu Sayyaf fighters in the south of the Philippines during this visit, an effort that led directly to the testimony that is most — and least — damning in the case of the Oklahoma City bombing.
THE EDWIN ANGELES QUESTION
There is only one piece of direct testimony which explicitly ties Ramzi Yousef and Terry Nichols. In the final analysis, it comes up short.Edwin Angeles was one of the founders of the Abu Sayyaf Group, an al Qaeda-linked Islamic terror organization in the southern Philippines. Angeles was also a sometime government informer.Angeles is often cited as a primary source on the Abu Sayyaf Group by historians and law enforcement officials, but his reliability has been called into question.
Angeles told the Philippines National Police (PNP) that he was present for a meeting between Yousef, Murad, Wali Khan Amin Shah and an American he referred to as "The Farmer," whose appearance approximated that of Terry Nichols.9 The meeting allegedly took place in the southern Philippines.
The original claim was apparently made during a videotaped interrogation of Angeles by the PNP. The tape was later obtained by an attorney for Timothy McVeigh. When viewed by CNN correspondent Maria Ressa, the audio content of the tape was indecipherable.
The story has been retold in several versions, including an alleged "deathbed confession" from Angeles' wife, a report which is of doubtful pedigree. Conflicting dates have been cited for the alleged meeting. One of the alleged dates for the meeting was November 1991. Yousef, Khalifa and top al Qaeda operative named Wali Khan Amin Shah were all reported to have been in the southern Philippines in January 1992.10 Murad (named by Angeles as a participant) was attending flight school in the U.S. at the time. Nichols' whereabouts are unclear, but legal papers relating to his marriage were filed in Michigan that month.
The details of the Angeles claim have never been confirmed and some appear to be simply wrong. Angeles was murdered in 1998 by unknown assassins. In the absence of further documentation, the story must be considered unsubstantiated as of this writing.
YOUSEF, NICHOLS AND McVEIGH
But there are ample other avenues for investigation. For instance, Yousef can be directly tied to a documented al Qaeda effort to recruit Gulf War veterans.Nichols appears to have spent most of 1992 in the United States, working at his brother's farm in Decker, MI, where he moved with Marife after their wedding.Yousef traveled to the U.S. in September 1992 to begin work on the World Trade Center bombing plot. He and a traveling companion arrived in New York City carrying bomb-making manuals that included detailed instructions on how to build a truck bomb virtually identical to the one believed used in Oklahoma City.11
In New York, Yousef made contact with a Brooklyn al Qaeda cell operating out of the al Kifah mosque in Brooklyn. The cell provided support and accomplices for the bomb plot, even as it laid its own plans for a "Day of Terror" attack later in 1993.
A key Brooklyn cell member was Clement Rodney Hampton-El, a U.S.-born black Muslim who had trained and fought for bin Laden in Afghanistan. Hampton-El was described as an expert bomb maker, like Yousef, who was also an Afghan veteran.
Hampton-El counted weapons procurement and recruiting among his chief responsibilities in the cell, and he traveled to gun shows around the region to further these goals. In late 1992, he was tasked to recruit former U.S. servicemen as trainers and mujahideen fighters for al Qaeda.12
Shortly after a December meeting in which Hampton-El was given a list of former U.S. servicemen to recruit, Terry Nichols abruptly left the U.S. and traveled to the Philippines for a trip of about 60 days.13 He was likely in the Philippines on the date of the WTC bombing in February.
McVeigh had traveled to Florida, where a burgeoning al Qaeda operation was busy recruiting U.S.-born operatives, including Jose Padilla, a former Latino gang member who converted to Islam around the same time.14
While working at gun shows in Florida, McVeigh met Roger Moore, a gun dealer with at least casual ties to domestic antigovernment and white separatist movements which would later play a role in the plot to bomb the Murrah building.15 Both al Qaeda and local white power organizations had operations based in the area at the time, and the local gun show scene was known as a venue for terrorists seeking weapons (including a regular show at the Fort Lauderdale Armory which was attended by McVeigh).16
Nichols went to the Philippines at a time when al Qaeda was recruiting and training Abu Sayyaf Group members. Several members of the Brooklyn terror cell said under surveilliance they planned to travel to the Philippines and wage jihad from there once they had completed their terrorist attacks in the U.S. Hampton-El traveled to the Philippines himself in May 1993. Like Terry Nichols and Jamal Khalifa, and in keeping with standard al Qaeda procedure, Hampton-El intended to marry a Filipina, which would facilitate his travel and residency in the country.17
WHERE THE SMOKING GUNS LIE
The circumstances around Nichols' November 1994 trip to the Philippines bear the closest examination — and offer the tantalizing prospect of a smoking gun that may yet be uncovered.By November 1994, Nichols and McVeigh had stolen or purchased substantial amounts of explosive material for the Oklahoma City bombing, housing the chemicals in storage lockers located mostly in Kansas.On Nov. 4, in Chicago, Ill., Nichols applied for a standard 60-day visa at the Philippines consulate.18 On Nov. 5, he made a reservation to fly out of Kansas to the Philippines but changed this arrangement later so that he would fly out of Las Vegas.
While in Las Vegas, he stayed with his ex-wife and visited with their son. When he left the country Nov. 22, he left her with a sealed package and instructions to open it if he didn't return within 60 days. Inside was a sealed letter to Timothy McVeigh, with instructions to send it after Jan. 28, 1995.
Nichols had left an estimated $60,000 to $80,000 in cash and goods secreted around his ex-wife's house and in a nearby storage locker. Some of the material had been stolen from Roger Moore, McVeigh's gun dealer associate, a few weeks earlier.19 Other material may have been associated with a bank robbery gang that has been linked to the Oklahoma bombing plot.20
On Nov. 23, Nichols unexpectedly showed up on the campus of Southwestern University, where his wife was attending classes in physical therapy. She expressed surprise at seeing him. 21
Southwestern University was known as a center for Islamic fundamentalists in Cebu City, according to several leading experts in terrorism and al Qaeda. Ramzi Yousef was known to have associates on the campus, and he visited the campus throughout the fall and winter of 1994.
Yousef had entered the country around September 1994. His other accomplices, who arrived at various times throughout the year, were Abdul Hakim Murad, Wali Khan Amin Shah and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. They had come to Manila to plan a series of spectacular terrorist attacks against the West on behalf of al Qaeda.
Yousef is documented to have visited Cebu on at least two specific occasions during this period, while testing explosives in November and December 1994, once to set a bomb in a shopping mall and the second time to set a bomb on a Philippines Airlines flight which killed a Japanese businessman in early December.22
Murad made phone calls during the same period to Khalid Hassan, a former roomate, staying in Cebu City. According to Murad, Hassan was there studying dentistry (there are two dentistry schools in Cebu City, one is Southwestern and the other, the Cebu Doctors' School, is nearby).23
Further connections, while not yet fully documented, offer a tantalizing glimpse at where definitive evidence might be found. The family of Marife Nichols stayed in an apartment attached to a lumberyard in Cebu City, she testified at her husband's trial. Her family used the lumberyard office's phone, which was presented as the reason for numerous phone calls made to the yard on a long-distance calling card used by Nichols and McVeigh.
The lumberyard was identified as "Star Gladh," according to testimony and evidence given at trial. The identification appears to come from an FBI Form 302 interrogation report detailing the interrogation of the lumberyard's owner, Serafim Uy.
INTELWIRE has not been able to confirm the particulars of the lumberyard, including its name, spelling, ownership and location (although there are Gladh timber operations worldwide). The name was taken down as a handwritten notation on the 302 by the FBI agent who conducted the investigation. Phone records used at trial did not correctly record the name of the lumberyard.
Cebu is the leading producer of rattan and plywood in the Philippines. The specifics of the lumberyard connected to Nichols' family are important in light of the business fronts used to fund al Qaeda operations in the Philippines.
Jamal Khalifa ran several furniture-related businesses in the Philippines, including a rattan import-export company. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who would later mastermind the September 11 attacks on America, posed as a plywood exporter named Salem Ali while in Manila working with Yousef.24
A direct connection between the lumberyard and one of Khalifa's business concerns would constitute a tangible link running from al Qaeda to Oklahoma City. INTELWIRE continues to research this possibility.
TERRY NICHOLS: HIJACKER?
Previous investigations have focused on the proposition that Nichols met Yousef in order to receive bomb training, with some justification. But we now know that there were numerous al Qaeda trainers already on U.S. soil who could have assisted the Oklahoma City bombers.But bombs were not the potential interest Nichols and Yousef shared. During the 1994-1995 trip, Yousef could have been looking for someone with an American passport to serve as a suicide hijacker.As documented during his trial, Nichols left his ex-wife a note that specified how she should distribute the money he left behind "if for any reason my life insurance doesn't pay." There are three primary reasons why any given life insurance policy might fail to pay its beneficiary — if the insured commits suicide, if the insured dies in the course of commiting a crime, or if the insured is murdered by the policy's beneficiary. (There is no evidence to suggest Terry Nichols was afraid of being murdered by his wife.)
Project Bojinka, which was underway at the time, would have bombed 11 airliners over the Pacific Ocean during a 48-hour period. When Murad was arrested, he confessed that another part of the plan involved a plot to crash an airplane into CIA headquarters or the Pentagon, a clear precursor to the September 11 attack.
Terry Nichols left for the Philippines on Nov. 22, 1994, on a standard 60-day visa which would have expired on Jan. 21, 1995. 25 Ramzi Yousef was planning to launch Bojinka on Jan. 21, 1995. 26
In November 1994, when boarding his flight for the Philippines, Nichols was almost stopped at the gate when U.S. airport security discovered he was carrying two stun guns on his person.27 In late 1994, Yousef and Khalid Shaikh flew several test runs in which they measured airline security by smuggling various Bojinka components onto planes.28
Nichols flew back to the U.S. on Northwest Airlines. His flight number was not available as of this writing, but the flight arrived in the U.S. in Los Angeles, Calif. (Nichols then took a connecting flight to Las Vegas, his final destination.) 29 As part of Bojinka, Ramzi Yousef planned to have one al Qaeda operative on board Northwest Airlines Flight 30 from Manila to Los Angeles.30
On January 6, 1995, Ramzi Yousef and his Bojinka plot were exposed when the hallway of the apartment building filled with smoke after an apparent accidental fire caused while Yousef and Murad were mixing chemicals for the Bojinka bombing.31 Murad was arrested on the scene.
On January 7, Yousef fled the Philippines.
On January 11, Wali Khan Amin Shah was arrested.
On January 14, Terry Nichols called his ex-wife in Las Vegas and told her he would return to the U.S. January 17 (four days before his visa would have expired).32
On January 15, Wali Khan broke out of prison, possibly with outside assistance, and fled the country. 33
On January 17, the FBI arrived in Manila to examine the Bojinka plot materials.34 Later that day, Terry Nichols left the Philippines for the last time.
On April 19, 1995, an imprisoned Abdul Hakim Murad told his U.S. captors that he and Ramzi Yousef were responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing. He repeated the claim to the FBI the next day.35
AFTERWORD
The notion that al Qaeda may have been behind the Oklahoma City bombing can produce a reaction ranging from polite disinterest to outright contempt from many news consumers.Many people are dismissive simply because, in the days following OKC, speculation ran rampant that Islamic terrorists were behind the bombing. When Timothy McVeigh was revealed a few days later, many news consumers felt that they had been "had" and chalked up the speculation to a cautionary tale about media excess.In the intervening years, the concept of a conspiracy involving "others unknown" in the OKC bombing has been significantly marginalized for a number of reasons not having to do with the credibility of the basic premise.
I plan to write more on this subject later, but the specifics are secondary at the moment. The important point is that the public's interest in and openness to alternative views of the bombing have fallen sharply — even as the evidence to support such views has dramatically grown.
Two FBI internal investigations, fully available to the public, have shown that the agency was guilty of mismanaging the case at best, and malfeasance at worst.
Credible, independent investigations by the Associated Press, the McCurtain Gazette and criminologist-author Mark Hamm have demonstrated that white supremacists associated with the militia movement and the Elohim City compound in Oklahoma almost certainly played some in the bombing.
New stories appear every day detailing the infiltration of the United States by al Qaeda sleepers. Some lived in Texas and Arizona, others in Oklahoma. Some were white Christian males — including a National Guardsman who previously pursued ties with the militia movement. al Qaeda is now known to have recruited former U.S. servicemen, including Gulf War veterans like Timothy McVeigh, as first reported on this site.
How much circumstantial evidence needs to accrue before the premise of an al Qaeda role in the OKC bombing is considered effectively true?
The mass media, and to a lesser extent the general public, will determine that threshhold. But even though the evidence remains circumstantial, as above, the premise can no longer reasonably be considered extraordinary — nor even particularly unlikely.
NOTES
1. By Blood Betrayed, Lana Padilla, 19952. PNP interrogation record, Abdul Hakim Murad, provided to INTELWIRE by Motley Rice law firm
3. Author research, DNB Business Records, Khalifa v USA (1995 civil lawsuit), US v Benevolence International Foundation indictment
4. Ibid., see also Seeds of Terror, Maria Ressa, 2004
5. US v Terry Nichols, 96-CR-68
6. US v Nichols, PBS Frontline report citing McVeigh defense team notes (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/documents/mcveigh/)
7. Contemporary Southeast Asia, Volume 24, Number 2, August 2002, "The Role of Philippine–American Relations in the Global Campaign Against Terrorism: Implications for Regional Security"
8. The New Jackals, Simon Reeve, 2002
9. Others Unknown, Stephen Jones, 2001
10. Seeds of Terror, ibid.
11. US v Omar Abdel Rahman et al, S5 93 Cr. 181
12. INTELWIRE: Al Qaeda Recruited U.S. Servicemen: Testimony Links Plot To Saudi Gov't, US v Rahman (ibid.)
13. By Blood Betrayed; Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, July/August 2002, "The Thrill of a Good Conspiracy" By Cate McCauley
14. INTELWIRE: Jose Padilla Backgrounder
15. In Bad Company, Mark S. Hamm, 2002
16. USA Today, "Gun shows give terrorists easy access to firearms," 12/12/2001; US v Ali Boumelhem, No. 00-81013; NOW with Bill Moyers, 11/15/2002; Pritchard v. Miami Beach, 1992; US v Adham Hassoun, 2004
17. US v Rahman
18. 1000 Years for Revenge, Peter Lance, 2003
19. US v Nichols
20. In Bad Company
21. US v Nichols
22. The New Jackals, 1000 Years, Seeds of Terror, US v Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, Abdul Hakim Murad, Wali Khan Amin Shah, S1293CR.180(KTD)
23. PNP documents on interrogation of Abdul Hakim Murad, provided to INTELWIRE by law firm Motley Rice; author research.
24. US v Yousef et al, Dow Jones News Service, 1000 Years
25. New Jackals
26. New Jackals, PNP reports
27. By Blood Betrayed
28. Seeds of Terror
29. By Blood Betrayed
30. US v Yousef
31. US v Yousef, et al
32. By Blood Betrayed
33. Recent media reports indicated that Jemaah Islamiah chief Hambali, among others, assisted Wali Khan's escape from prison.
34. US v Yousef.
35. FBI FD-302 record of interrogation, Abdul Hakim Murad
http://theerant.yuku.com/topic/39080/18-Years-Ago-Today-1993-WTC-Bombing?page=#.TvKRIdSvigM
The Iraq Connection
By MICAH MORRISON
September 5, 2002
September 5, 2002
OKLAHOMA CITY -- With the Sept. 11 anniversary upon us and President Bush talking about a "regime change" in Iraq, it's an apt time to look at two investigators who connect Baghdad to two notorious incidents of domestic terrorism. Jayna Davis, a former television reporter in Oklahoma City, believes an Iraqi cell was involved in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building here. Middle East expert Laurie Mylroie links Iraq to the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, and has published a book on the subject.
Both cases are closed, of course -- in the public mind if not quite officially. Timothy McVeigh was convicted of murder in the Oklahoma City bombing and executed in June 2001; Terry Nichols was sentenced to life in prison for conspiracy and manslaughter, and faces a further trial on murder charges. In the World Trade Center bombing, prosecutors convicted six men of Middle Eastern origin on the theory that they operated in a "loose network." One suspect remains at large, but the apparent ringleader, known as Ramzi Yousef, was captured in Pakistan and is now in federal prison in the U.S.
The prosecutors in both episodes believe they got their men, and of course conspiracy theories have shadowed many prominent cases. Still, the long investigative work by Ms. Davis and Ms. Mylroie, coming to parallel conclusions though working largely independently of each other, has gained some prominent supporters. Former CIA Director James Woolsey, for example, recently told the Journal that "when the full stories of these two incidents are finally told, those who permitted the investigations to stop short will owe big explanations to these two brave women. And the nation will owe them a debt of gratitude."
The Vanishing John Doe No. 2
Ms. Davis, for example, has a copy of a bulletin put out by the Oklahoma Highway Patrol immediately after the Murrah bombing. It specifies a blue car occupied by "Middle Eastern male subject or subjects." According to police radio traffic at the time, also obtained by Ms. Davis, a search was on as well for a brown Chevrolet pickup "occupied by Middle Eastern subjects." When an officer radioed in asking if "this is good information or do we really not know," a dispatcher responded "authorization FBI." Law-enforcement sources tell Ms. Davis that the FBI bulletin was quickly and mysteriously withdrawn.
The next day, the federal government issued arrest warrants and sketches of two men seen together, John Doe No. 1 and No. 2. John Doe 1 turned out to be McVeigh, who was quickly picked up on an unrelated charge. Following the arrest of McVeigh and Nichols, the Justice Department changed course, saying the witnesses were confused and there was no John Doe 2 with McVeigh.
But Ms. Davis, who was covering the case at the time for KFOR-TV in Oklahoma City, says in fact there was a John Doe No. 2, and that she has identified him. The original warrant for John Doe No. 2 described a man about 5 feet 10 inches, average weight, with brown hair and a tattoo on his left arm. She says the man matching this description is an Iraqi political refugee named Hussain al-Hussaini, an itinerant restaurant worker who entered the country in 1994 from a Saudi Arabian refugee camp and soon found his way to Oklahoma City. She says she has more than 20 witnesses who can place him near the Murrah Building on the day of the bombing or finger him in parts of the conspiracy.
Seven weeks after the bombing, Ms. Davis's KFOR television station began broadcasting a series of reports on a possible Middle East connection. It did not name Mr. al-Hussaini, but did include photographs of him that digitally obscured his face. Mr. al-Hussaini sued for libel and defamation, denying any association with the bombing. In November 1999, U.S. District Court Judge Tim Leonard dismissed the lawsuit.
Citing defense contentions Mr. al-Hussaini's counsel failed to dispute, the judge ruled that Ms. Davis had proved that Mr. al-Hussaini "bears a strong resemblance to the composite sketch of John Doe #2," including a tattoo on his left arm, that he was born and raised in Iraq, that he had served in the Iraqi army, and that his Oklahoma City employer had once been suspected by the federal government of having "connections with the Palestine Liberation Organization."
Mr. al-Hussaini appealed Judge Leonard's decision to the 10th Circuit Court, where a ruling is pending. He is represented by Gary Richardson, a well-known Oklahoma lawyer who currently is an independent candidate for governor. In an interview, Mr. Richardson denounced the treatment of Mr. al-Hussaini as anathema to American values, saying he had been singled out because he was an Arab. "There is no evidence that Hussain al-Hussaini is John Doe No. 2," Mr. Richardson said. "He was grossly mistreated by the media in Oklahoma."
In 1996, Mr. al-Hussaini returned to Boston, where he had first entered the U.S. He found work as a cook at Logan Airport. According to his medical records, he was haunted by the Oklahoma City episode and the publicity surrounding his libel suit. He began drinking heavily and in 1997 was admitted to a psychiatric clinic for a depressive disorder and suicidal thoughts. Mr. al-Hussaini's lawyer says his client has since moved to another part of the country and is "trying to put his life back together."
According to notes taken by a nurse at the psychiatric clinic, Mr. al-Hussaini quit his job at Logan Airport in November 1997, nearly four years before planes from there were hijacked on Sept. 11, 2001. Her notes say he stated, "If anything happens there, I'll be a suspect."
Evidence supporting Ms. Davis's suspicions surfaced during discovery for the McVeigh trial. An FBI report, for example, records a call a few hours after the bombing from Vincent Cannistraro, a retired CIA official who had once been chief of operations for the agency's counter-terrorism center. He told Kevin Foust, a FBI counter-terror investigator, that he'd been called by a top counter-terror adviser to the Saudi royal family. Mr. Foust reported that the Saudi told Mr. Cannistraro about "information that there was a 'squad' of people currently in the United States, very possibly Iraqis, who have been tasked with carrying out terrorist attacks against the United States. The Saudi claimed that he had seen a list of 'targets,' and that the first on the list was the federal building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma."
Stephen Jones, McVeigh's lead lawyer, discusses the FBI report in his book, "Others Unknown: Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City Bombing Conspiracy." Mr. Cannistraro later told Mr. Jones that he didn't know if the caller "was credible or not." But Mr. Foust's memo says Mr. Cannistraro described the Saudi official as "responsible for developing intelligence to help prevent the royal family from becoming victims of terrorist attacks," and someone he'd known "for the past 10 or 15 years."
Ms. Davis's evidence was examined by Patrick Lang, a Middle East expert and former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency's human intelligence collection section. In a memo to Ms. Davis, Mr. Lang concluded that Mr. al-Hussaini likely is a member of Unit 999 of the Iraqi Military Intelligence Service, or Estikhabarat. He wrote that this unit is headquartered at Salman Pak southeast of Baghdad, and "deals with clandestine operations at home and abroad."
Larry Johnson, a former deputy director of the State Department's Office of Counter Terrorism, also has examined Ms. Davis's voluminous research. "Looking at the Jayna Davis material," Mr. Johnson says, "what's clear is that more than Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols were involved. Without a doubt, there's a Middle Eastern tie to the Oklahoma City bombing."
Mr. al-Hussaini and other former Iraqi soldiers colluded with McVeigh and Nichols in the attack, Ms. Davis charges. "There is a Middle Eastern terrorist cell operating in Oklahoma City. They were operating prior to the Oklahoma City bombing and they are still operating today."
The popular stereotype of McVeigh is of a twisted "patriot" out to avenge government actions at Waco and Ruby Ridge. But in March 1998 he penned a prison-cell "Essay on Hypocrisy" obsessed with Iraq. "We've all seen pictures that show a Kurdish woman and child frozen in death from the use of chemical weapons. But have you ever seen these pictures juxtaposed next to pictures from Hiroshima or Nagasaki?" With calls for war crimes trials of Saddam Hussein, "why do we not hear the same cry for blood directed at those responsible for even greater amounts of 'mass destruction?'"
In dismissing the al-Hussaini libel suit, Judge Leonard pointedly noted the indictment of McVeigh and Nichols included a charge of conspiracy "with others unknown." In sentencing Nichols, U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch remarked, "It would be disappointing to me if the law enforcement agencies of the United States government have quit looking for answers."
World Trade Center
The Sept. 11 airline crashes were not the first attempt to topple the World Trade Center towers. In February 1993, a bomb blast in a public parking garage below the North Tower of the World Trade Center killed six people and left a crater six stories deep. It could have been much worse. In her book, "The War Against America: Saddam Hussein and the World Trade Center Attacks," Laurie Mylroie says that the bomb was designed to topple the North Tower into the South Tower and envelop the scene in a cloud of cyanide gas. Hearing the case, Judge Kevin Duffy agreed, saying that if the plan had worked, "we would have been dealing with tens of thousands of deaths." After the bombing, the FBI rounded up four Muslims who moved in extremist circles in the New York area. Three others escaped overseas: a Palestinian, an Iraqi named Abdul Yasin, and Ramzi Yousef.
Ms. Mylroie's book argues that Iraq was complicit in this attack. At the very least, she notes, Saddam Hussein is harboring a wanted terrorist: Abdul Yasin. He came to the U.S. six months before the Trade Center attack and is charged with helping mix chemicals for the bomb. Picked up in an early sweep after the bombing, he talked his way out of an FBI interrogation and turned up back in Baghdad.
Beyond this, Ms. Mylroie contends that the bombing was "an Iraqi intelligence operation with the Moslem extremists as dupes." She says that the original lead FBI official on the case, Jim Fox, concluded that "Iraq was behind the World Trade Center bombing." In late 1993, shortly before his retirement, Mr. Fox was suspended by FBI Director Louis Freeh for speaking to the media about the case; he died in 1997. Ms. Mylroie says that Mr. Fox indicated to her that he did not continue to pursue the Iraq connection because Justice Department officials "did not want state sponsorship addressed."- (The Clinton Administration used this same tactic with the TWA Flt 800 attack)
According to phone records analyzed by Ms. Mylroie, Abdul Yasin appeared in the orbit of one of U.S. conspirators, Muhammed Salameh, some weeks after Mr. Salameh made a series of phone calls to relatives in Iraq, including to his uncle, Kadri Abu Bakr. Mr. Bakr is a senior figure in the PLO's "Western Sector" terrorist unit; at the very least, his phone calls would be monitored by Iraqi intelligence.
Ramzi Yousef also showed up after the calls to Mr. Bakr, according to Ms. Mylroie's analysis. His arrival "transformed the conspiracy from a pipe bombing plot to an audacious attack on the World Trade Center." Yousef was "the individual most responsible for building the World Trade Center bomb" -- 1,200 pounds of urea nitrate with a nitroglycerine trigger, booster chemicals, sulfuric acid and sodium cyanide.
After the bombing, Yousef vanished; he had entered with an Iraqi passport, and exited with a Pakistani passport. Yousef's Pakistani passport was in the name of Abdul Basit. He obtained it from the Pakistani consulate in New York shortly before the bombing, saying he had lost his passport and presenting photocopied pages from Abdul Basit's 1984 and 1988 passports.
Ms. Mylroie says her evidence suggests that Abdul Basit and his family were among two dozen Pakistani nationals working in Kuwait who vanished at the time of the Iraqi invasion. Law enforcement authorities believe she overplays this possibility, that Yousef is indeed Basit, and that the original Iraqi passport is the only firm link to Iraq.
After fleeing in the wake of the 1993 bombing, Yousef/Basit made his way to the Philippines, where he planted a bomb that killed the passenger taking his seat after he disembarked from a plane on the island of Cebu. Police investigating a fire in a Manila apartment he occupied found a laptop computer with plans to bomb 12 U.S. jets simultaneously. Yousef escaped but was later apprehended in Pakistan and turned over to U.S. authorities. He was convicted in both the Trade Center attack and the plane-bombing plot.
One of Yousef's confederates, Abdul Hakin Murad, was arrested at the Manila apartment and later convicted in the U.S. in the plane plot. While in custody in the Philippines, he told investigators that he and Yousef had discussed hijacking a jet and crashing it into CIA headquarters. According to a January 1995 Manila police report, Murad said "he will board any American commercial aircraft pretending to be an ordinary passenger. Then he will hijack said aircraft, control its cockpit and dive it at the CIA headquarters. There will be no bomb or any explosive that he will use in its execution. It is simply a suicidal mission that he is very much willing to execute."
The Philippine Connection
Astonishingly, the Murrah bombing and the first WTC attack share a connection.Yousef and Terry Nichols were in the Philippines simultaneously. Nichols's trips there are undisputed; his wife's relatives lived in Cebu City. Cebu is also the territory of the Islamic terrorist group Abu Sayyaf. McVeigh lawyers sought to substantiate an "others unknown" defense theory, and made extensive filings concerning Nichols's activities there.
These filings show that he was often in Cebu without his wife, and that he was in frequent contact with Ernesto Malaluan, a relative of his wife who had once lived in Saudi Arabia and owned a boarding house in Cebu City. The filing asserted that his boarding house "shelters students from a university well known for its Islamic militancy."
A defense examination of phone records found that Nichols had repeatedly called the Cebu boarding house in the weeks preceding the bombing. Some of the calls were billed to a prepaid phone card to which McVeigh also had access. The calls were often made from pay phones at truck stops and the like, and sometimes followed mysterious patterns. In one instance, for example, the same number was dialed nine times in nine minutes before someone answered and spoke for 14 minutes.
The McVeigh defense also produced two witnesses, Nichols's father-in-law and a resort worker, who said that while in the Philippines, Nichols had asked them if they knew anyone who knew "how to make bombs."
The defense team also obtained a statement from Philippines law-enforcement officials about a meeting of Nichols and Yousef. The statement was given by a putative Abu Sayyaf leader, Edward Angeles. Angeles is a murky figure. Born Ibrahim Yakub and said to be one of the founders of Abu Sayyaf, he surrendered to the Philippine Army in 1995, claiming he had been all the time a deep penetration agent for the government. Angeles was assassinated in 1999 by unknown gunmen.
The McVeigh defense filings portray the Nichols link to the Cebu City boarding house, Ramzi Yousef and Abu Sayyaf as grounds for believing that bomb-making expertise may have been passed to Nichols through "Iraqi intelligence based in the Philippines." McVeigh attorney Stephen Jones told Insight magazine recently that six months before the Oklahoma City bombing, "Tim couldn't blow up a rock. Then Terry goes to the Philippines," and their bomb-making skills take a great leap forward. The court did not grant Mr. Jones's request to comb through U.S. intelligence files in search of an Iraq connection to the Oklahoma City bombing.
Sept. 11 Footnotes
The principal reason for suspecting an Iraqi role in the Sept. 11 attacks is of course the much-discussed report of a meeting in Prague on April 8, 2001, between apparent hijacking leader Mohamed Atta and Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, an Iraqi diplomat expelled as a spy shortly thereafter. Press reports have repeatedly cast doubt on these reports, apparently because the FBI located Atta in Virginia and Florida shortly before and after the meeting and found no record of his leaving the U.S. But the latest report, in the Aug. 2 edition of the Los Angeles Times, quotes a high Bush administration official as saying evidence of the meeting "holds up." In the face of doubts and denials, Czech officials have repeatedly maintained that they're sure the meeting took place. Atta also passed through Prague on his way to the U.S. in June of 2000, returning a second time after being refused entry for lack of a visa.
There are also reports of various contacts between Iraqis and the al Qaeda terrorist network, notably a 1998 visit to Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan by Saddam Hussein's deputy head of military intelligence at the time, Faruq al-Hijazi. In congressional testimony in March, CIA Director George Tenet noted that Iraq has "had contacts with al Qaeda," adding that "the two sides mutual antipathy toward the United States and the Saudi royal family suggest that tactical cooperation between them is possible."
Espionage writer Edward Jay Epstein has pointed out that of the eight pilots and co-pilots of hijacked planes on Sept. 11, none got off a distress call. What we know of the incidents came from stewardesses and flyers with cell phones. Commercial satellite photos show the body of an airliner at Salman Pak, where the Iraqis are thought to maintain terrorist training camps. One Iraqi defector, Sabah Khalifa Alami, has stated that Iraqi intelligence trained groups at Salman Pak on how to hijack planes without weapons. Mr. Epstein details these connections at his Web site, www.edwardjayepstein.com.
None of this is "hard evidence," let alone "conclusive evidence," that Saddam Hussein was complicit in Sept. 11 or any of the other domestic terrorist attacks. But there is quite a bit of smoke curling up from various routes to Baghdad, and it's not clear that anyone except Jayna Davis and Laurie Mylroie has looked very hard for fire. We do know that Saddam Hussein plotted to assassinate former President George Bush during a visit to Kuwait in April 1993. Could he have been waging a terror offensive against the U.S. ever since the end of the Gulf War? This remains a speculative possibility, but a possibility that needs to be put on the table in a serious way.
Mr. Morrison is a senior editorial page writer at the Journal
comment
ShampooWoody 02/26/11 23:33:14
RetPDDet, with all due respect, it is more than possible for American White Supremacist, anti government types to work with Muslim religious extremists, because both hate the Jew, whether it is the Zionist Occupation Government or destruction of the State of Israel and Great Satan USA. You are very knowledgeable about the subject of Islamofascists. I'm not saying US subversives had anything to do with the 1993 WTC bombing.
My only point being, it is not outside the realm of possibility two seemingly dissimilar polar opposite organizations could have worked together before the Oklahoma City bombing or after. It was McVeigh's experience in Iraq that radicalized him. The Nazis had working relationships in the Arab World, and atheist White separatists could find common ground with Wahhabi radicals today, then kill each other after their common enemies are gone.
I was at the WTC the day of the explosion with ESU, and saw absolutely no indication it was anyone other than the driver of the van and his cohorts, some of whom still walk the streets of Brooklyn free men, plotting against the USA. Just wanted to clear up that I believe the entire operation was planned and executed from a Brooklyn mosque with concrete evidence found almost immediately.
This book also points out connections between Yousef in the Phillipines and Nichols:
The New Jackals
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The New Jackals: Ramzi Yousef, Osama bin Laden and the future of terrorism is a book by Simon Reeve.
Published in 1998, this New York Times bestseller was the first book on Osama bin Laden, Ramzi Yousef, and Al-Qaeda. Classified documents obtained by the author detailed the existence, development, and aims of al Qaeda.
According to The New Jackals, a group of several thousand men who fought against the Soviets during the Afghan War of 1980s, later dominated international terrorism. Author Simon Reeve warned that many of these men, known as the ‘Afghan Arabs’, became the core of al Qaeda. Reeve states these men were a new breed of terrorist, militants with no restrictions on mass killing. The New Jackals concluded that by 1988, the world was entering a new age of apocalyptic terrorism; Reeve predicted al Qaeda would launch massive attacks on Western targets.
Following the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, the book was republished with a new epilogue, which warns the West remains vulnerable to further attacks, possibly from biological and nuclear weapons of mass destruction.
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Book Description
The first book on Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, this New York Times bestseller warns of a new age of apocalyptic terrorism. According to ‘The New Jackals’ a group of several thousand men who fought against the Soviets during the 1980s Afghan War have since dominated international terrorism. Author Simon Reeve warns that many of these men, known as the ‘Afghan Arabs’, have become a new breed of terrorist, militants with no restrictions on mass killing. Reeve spent years investigating the two most dangerous ‘Afghan Arabs’: Osama bin Laden, currently the most wanted man in the world, and Ramzi Yousef, the young British-educated mastermind of the massive bombing of the World Trade Center bombing (WTC) in 1993. Yousef’s attack resulted in more hospital casualties than any event in American history since the Civil War. He is described by experts as a modern ‘Carlos the Jackal’ because of his astonishing crimes. The New Jackals is a true-life investigative thriller, with details of a tense two-year manhunt told through interviews with a senior FBI agent, but it also includes a series of major revelations. For example the book offers the first real insight into bin Laden’s early years. The New Jackals also reveals that in the 1993 WTC attack Ramzi Yousef wanted to topple one tower of the building into the other (killing perhaps 250,000 people) with a massive radioactive bomb that would have forced the evacuation of much of New York. The author details how Yousef detonated a bomb on a plane over Japan, planned to kill the Pope and President Clinton, blew-up an Iranian shrine, plotted to attack CIA headquarters with chemical weapons, and was stopped just days before he was due to simultaneously destroy 11 airliners over the Pacific. The New Jackals sheds new light on Yousef and bin Laden, describing them as the first of a new breed of terrorist, and reveals how they have been responsible for some of the bloodiest and most audacious acts of terrorism in history. Highly detailed and yet immensely readable, The New Jackals is one of the most prophetic books of the last decade. It is essential reading for anyone seeking insights into the new breed of terrorist behind the devastating strikes on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. A new epilogue by author Simon Reeve assesses the current status of the sinister al Qaeda network and warns the West remains vulnerable to further apocalyptic attacks.
http://www.danielpipes.org/906/the-new-jackals-ramzi-yousef-osama-bin-laden-and-the-future
http://www.danielpipes.org/906/the-new-jackals-ramzi-yousef-osama-bin-laden-and-the-future
http://www.danielpipes.org/906/the-new-jackals-ramzi-yousef-osama-bin-laden-and-the-future
The New Jackals: Ramzi Yousef, Osama Bin Laden, and the Future Of Terrorism
by Simon Reeve
Northeastern University Press, $26.95, 294 pages, illus
Reviewed by Daniel Pipes
Washington Times
December 5, 1999
Northeastern University Press, $26.95, 294 pages, illus
Reviewed by Daniel Pipes
Washington Times
December 5, 1999
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The names Ramzi Yousef and Osama bin Laden, two men who have devoted themselves to killing Americans at random, conjure up images of hatred and mayhem; but as individuals they are murky, even mysterious. Simon Reeve, an investigative journalist formerly with London's Sunday Times and now a freelance author, makes these arch-terrorists come to life in an unusual dual biography.
In a compelling reconstruction, Mr. Reeve takes the many disparate factoids we already know (that a World Trade Center bomber went back to the rental company to claim the $400 deposit on the truck he had blown up; that the pharmaceutical factory in Sudan bombed by U.S. missiles turned out to be legitimate) and makes them into a coherent and slightly horrifying account.
His two central characters cannot help but rivet one's attention. Yousef (born 1968) grew up as a second-class citizen in Kuwait, while bin Laden (born 1957) is the 17th son of one of Saudi Arabia's richest men. Both studied engineering and had their youthful wayward years.
Both then found their (anti-American) political cause and quickly rose through the ranks to become leaders. Yousef is described as an "evil genius" who invented new and undetectable kinds of bombs; bin Ladin, inspired by an extremist vision of Islam, used his huge fortune to create a personal army.
Yousef, now a lifelong guest at the Florence Correctional Institute in Colorado, is considered the most dangerous prisoner in the entire U.S. penal system; bin Laden, living out of animal-infested caves in Afghanistan, ranks as America's most dangerous criminal still on the loose.
Mr. Reeve unearths fascinating material about these two. The bomb used in the World Trade Center explosion was "the largest by weight and damage of any improvised explosive device" the FBI had ever seen.
Ramzi Yousef's laptop computer contained a cyber-business card identifying him as "International Terrorist." From this mass of information comes important insights into the nature of the current terrorism wave.
For example, Mr. Reeve shows that although Yousef has a reputation as an Islamic militant, he had a girlfriend while living in the Philippines and was "gallivanting around Manila's bars, strip-joints and karaoke clubs, flirting with women." From this and other suggestions of loose living, the author finds "scant evidence to support any description of Yousef as a religious warrior." The FBI agent in charge of investigating Yousef finds that "he hid behind a cloak of Islam." Mr. Reeve concludes that identifying Yousef simply as an Islamic terrorist is not only inaccurate, it also does an injustice to one of the world's great religions."
So, then, what motivated him? Here, Mr. Reeve mistakenly argues that Yousef had no real ideology - "no clear or definable political goals" and a generalized hatred of the United States. This analysis, however, overlooks Mr. Reeve's own plentiful evidence in "The New Jackals" that Yousef, who called himself "Pakistani by birth, Palestinian by choice," made anti-Zionism the core belief of his wretched existence.
In another note found on his computer, for example, he threatened more attacks on American targets "in response to the . . . assistance given to the Jewish State . . . by the American government."
Yousef did have a clear and definable goal: the destruction of Israel. Finding Israeli installations too well defended, he attacked American ones instead. In short, he is a Palestinian terrorist.
What makes Yousef's case odd, as again Mr. Reeve notes, is his lack of contact with Israel, never ever having been in that country. " Despite a Pakistani father and a Pakistan passport, despite a secure upbringing [in Kuwait], and several years of education in the West, Yousef chose to affiliate himself with the Palestinians and launch a devastating terrorist war against America on their behalf."
Seeking a cause, in other words, he voluntarily took up a Palestinian identity. In this he is far from alone: As Commentary magazine recently revealed, Edward Said made this same conceptual leap in the 1970s, just as he took up politics. Before him, Yasir Arafat did likewise in the 1950s; and even earlier, the leading Arab intellectual George Antonius did something similar in the 1930s.
If Mr. Reeve's account offers many such insights, it is also true he makes too many mistakes; they are minor, but for a book in which most information is uncheckable, they raise red flags. James Woolsey, a former head of the Central Intelligence Agency, was not an admiral. The fourth "Rightly-Guided" caliph of Islam was not named "Ali Radiallahu" (radi Allah `anhu is an honorific meaning may God be pleased with him). Rif`at al-Mahjub, speaker of the Egyptian parliament, was killed not in 1993 but in 1990. Jonathan Pollard was never jailed at the "Supermax" prison in Florence, Colo.
Nor is it reassuring to find contested, even conspiratorial, notions reported as facts: Mr. Reeve blithely states that CIA arranged for Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman to enter the United States (as opposed to the accepted version that he entered due to a low-level consular error).
Mr. Reeve concludes with a rousing call to arms against the new wave of terrorism represented by Yousef and bin Ladin; noting that "Bin Ladin commands an army of some 5,000 terrorists" (a figure that also includes individuals linked to groups under his umbrella organization), the author points to extraordinary dangers ahead. To the question, why so relatively few actual incidents have taken place, he indicates that they are biding their time. Some are classic "sleepers" waiting to be activated, while others are preparing for the right moment to launch an unprecedented reign of terror.
In other words, Mr. Reeve's important work, though slightly marred by its inaccuracies, is an outstanding account describing a terrible and growing peril.
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