The candidate Bush meets with Muslim leaders in Austin, Texas. Abdurahman Alamoudi (right of Bush) heads the sister organization of terror connected IIRO.
Posted on 07/29/2004 8:33:40 PM PDT by Bobby777
And what's an Islamist hooking up with Gaddafi for? Why would he be taking $300,000 to Syria?
By the way, why would Alamoudi, who spends much of his time here, have the power and wherewithal to arrange an assassination in Saudi?
This al-moody guy was in indicted in 2003. Looks as if the FBI has been on his case for quite awhile.
/adjusting tin foil
Alamoudi is also a founder of the American Muslim Armed Forces and Veteran Affairs Council, one of two organizations approved to nominate military chaplains. Alamoudi claimed that he was the first Muslim certifying agent for the military’s chaplain program in 1991.
Ain't that just peachy?
From Yossef Bodansky, "Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America", 160ff:
---
Three distinct factions within the House of al-Saud were fighting for the Saudi throne in 1995-96: 1) the increasingly isolated Prince Abdallah; 2) the younger-generation Sudairis led by Prince Bandar and enjoying the support of his father, Prince Sultan; 3) the Salman-Nayif group, led by two other full brothers of King Fahd. . .
In December 1995, once the gravity of King Fahd's debilitation had been ascertained, the king's Sudairi brothers--Sultan, Salman, and Nayif--tried to form a coalition to bolster their joint position. . .to undermine the prospects of King Saud's faction. . .
The issue of Islamist terrorism as a factor in the succession struggle was first brought up in this context. Prince Sultan also asked the ulema to support his effort to dismiss Prince Abdallah from the position of head of the National Guard because of the November 1995 bombing in Riyadh, an inside job. . .
This was an audacious if not desperate move by Prince Sultan. Prince Abdallah is a devout Islamist. . .He is also a staunch supporter of pan-Arab and pan-Islamic causes, including worldwide jihads, and moreover is anti-Western and mistrustful of the United States. The Abdallah faction is convinced that the United States is conspiring to empower Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to Washington. . .The official ulema is therefore a natural aly of Prince Abdallah. Members of the ulema not only refused to support Prince Sultan, citing his close ties to the United States as the reason for his unsuitability for the throne, but also reported the conspiracy to Prince Abdallah.
In fact, the Abdallah faction felt shamed by the November 1995 Islamist terrorist attack against the National Guard in Riyadh and was increasingly worried by Salman-Nayif's widely publicized struggle against Islamic terrorism and the political gains that resulted. . .
Salvation came from Damascus. Prince Abdallah has unique and close relations with Damascus, in particular the Assad clan, the family of Syria's president Hafiz al-Assad. In early spring 1996 some members of Prince Abdallah's inner circle developed a plan to bring about the downfall of the Sudairis. Syrian intelligence would run a series of low-level anti-American "terrorist operations" that would be attributed to an assortment of Islamist organizations. The conspirators concluded that such a wave of terrorism would shame the Sudairis because they are responsible for national security. . .
There was little benevolence in President Assad's support for anti-Riyadh terrorism. Beyond repeated and profound conflicts with King Fahd Riyadh over relations with Tehran and Baghdad and the extent of Iranian influence in the Persian Gulf, Damascus was receiving special aid from Prince Abdallah. Beginning in the early 1990s, Abdallah had arranged for the tacit transfer of a few billion American dollars from the Saudi treasury for construction of a huge chemical warfare plant in Aleppo, in northern Syria; acquistion of ballistic missiles from North Korea and the People's Republic of China; and construction of a vast system of underground tunnels to ensure the safety of these surface-to-surface missiles and their chemical warheads. . .
Typo here caused by trying to type too fast:
"to undermine the prospects of King Saud's faction. . ."
s/b "to undermine the prospects of Prince Abdallah's faction."
"Colonel Ghaddafi is a mystery in an enigma, wrapped up in a riddle ... "
But not wrapped up real tight.
The timing is suspicious.
Kind of interesting that all of this is unsourced. Have all articles on the plot been anonymously sourced?
Could it be we ran an operation with Khaddafi's help to trap Alamoudi.
The only way we could get him.
And to burn him in regards to his Saudi AQ connections and sympathies.
Now even his AQ wahhab cohorts won't trust him.
He'll hopefully spill his guts about AQ, 911, the Saudi Royals etc.
Murky story with layers like an onion.
However, here the details are in Alamoudi's plea agreement (see the "Statement of Facts" which begins about halfway through), so I suppose it's to be taken seriously. The story goes that officials from Libya's principal Islamic organization passed money to Alamoudi's Swiss bank account, which he then passed to "Saudi dissidents" in London, who were then supposed to find people in Saudi Arabia itself who could cause trouble for Abdullah, i.e. assassinate him. The peculiar thing (fact 51), as Shermy points out, is that Alamoudi was first apprehended at Heathrow Airport in the UK, carrying hundreds of thousands of dollars, and headed to Syria. How does Syria fit in? Perhaps the Saudi assassins were going to get their money from a Syrian contact.
Alamoudi is not being charged with conspiracy to kill a foreign statesman (is there such a charge under American law?), but with tax and immigration fraud, and failure to report dealings with a sanctioned state. The details of the assassination plot all come out incidentally, as it were, in the statements of fact. And since there's a Sealed Annex containing other things we don't know about yet, someone evidently chose that those details should be public.
Alamoudi also has some role in the American branch of the Muslim Brotherhood (al Ikhwan) - I read somewhere that he's the leader, although I can't find the reference now. The Muslim Brotherhood was the original organization set up to restore the caliphate, around 1928. Many al-Qaeda personalities have passed through its ranks (although Zarqawi, for one, disdains the Brotherhood as being all talk and no jihad). Hamas appears to be run by the Palestinian branch of the Brotherhood. Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed supposedly came from the Kuwaiti branch. I think Sayyid Qutb, the major modern ideologist of jihad, was from the Egyptian branch (the biggest and oldest); and Hassan Turabi, bin Laden's host in Sudan, is probably head of the Sudanese branch. Yousef Qaradawi, al-Jazeera's star preacher, is somewhere close to the global summit of the movement, and quite a few other al-Jazeera staffers are also said to be a part of it. Retired CIA officer Bob Baer implies in his second book, Sleeping with the Devil, that the Brotherhood is the ultimate social matrix supporting the Sunni terrorist groups, just as Hezbollah is for the Shiite groups.
Thanks, that helps fill in some background information. Still trying to figure out the Libya/Syria angles. From what I'm reading on the link you give I'm inferring the Soviets via Qaddafi, etc. were backing that 1979 Saudi uprising:
"Although the assault was in the name of the return to the purity of Islam, most of the 500 leading attackers had been trained and equipped in Libya and especially South Yemen by instructors from East Germany, Cuba, and the PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine). These attackers included Communists in command positions who demonstrated excellent organizational and tactical skills. Furthermore, fifty-nine of the participating Yemenis had been trained in Iran and received weapons via the Iranian Embassy in Sana."
This brings up a subject of great personal interest, and that is the general Soviet role in the turbulence throughout the Islamic world, circa 1978-1980. 1979 was the start of the new Islamic century, after what was generally perceived as the disastrous 14th century (the Arabs got their independence, but the caliphate was abolished and Israel created). The Iranian revolution is the most enduring legacy of those years, but you also had this Saudi uprising, Islamization in Pakistan, the Islamic revolt against Communism in Afghanistan that eventually prompted the Soviet invasion, the ongoing Lebanese civil war, and finally Saddam seizing the Iraqi presidency in 1979. Oh yes, and Egypt was making peace with Israel.
Now consider the geopolitical context. It was the age of detente. The USA was in its post-Vietnam epoch of malaise. OPEC had discovered the oil weapon in 1973, ending the postwar economic boom and enriching the oil states like Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. Brezhnev's USSR appeared so strong that it had brought Nixon and Mao together, a very unlikely pairing. In the Middle East, Iraq had replaced Egypt as the major Soviet client. Then the new Islamic century hits, and everything goes nuts.
I suspect that the USSR was making a grab for the oil fields, going for the economic jugular at a time when the West seemed weak, and they tried opportunistically to take advantage of the prevailing militant atmosphere. In Iran (which under the Shah was part of the Eurasian ring of containment surrounding the Communist world), it was about whether the Islamists or the socialists would prevail. Another option was to try to detach Pakistan's coastal province of Baluchistan, which had a left-leaning independence movement, and which lay directly south of Afghanistan. If Afghanistan and Baluchistan had fallen into the Soviet orbit, they would have constituted a corridor leading directly to the Persian Gulf, access to which is a very long-standing strategic goal of Russia. In this regard, I think Iraq may have fronted for the USSR by supporting the Baluch nationalists. Iraq's interest in doing so was that Iran too has a Baluch province, so it was a way to weaken the Shah, and later, Khomeini.
Much later, during the "tanker war" phase of the Iran-Iraq war, the USSR repeatedly suggested that a multilateral naval force be introduced to the Persian Gulf in order to protect the oil tankers. Reagan rejected this and instead cut a deal with Kuwait under which the US Navy would guard their tankers. (This was the context in which the USS Vincennes shot down the Iranian Airbus in 1988, which in turn gave Khomeini a reason to accept the ceasefire - he said it meant that the USA was now openly joining the attack, and Iran simply couldn't find Iraq and the USA.)
I suppose that, given the alleged role of eastern-bloc trainers, this Libyan-supported Saudi uprising might have been another gambit in this same battle to control the Middle East.
Another thing to note: Baluchistan is where al Qaeda's real masterminds - Ramzi Yousef, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed - originate! So I think they probably owe their existence to this same collision of Islamic awakening and geopolitical strategic competition. Baluchistan today has a Chinese presence (especially in the port city of Gwadar), so one may suppose that China will seek influence in the Middle East by way of the Central Asian land routes into Pakistan that it has helped to construct (and which have probably been used to ferry North Korean missiles and nukes... there's a story that Pakistan's sixth nuke test in 1998 was actually a North Korean device). Ironically, it was Pakistan's role as mediator between USA and China which facilitated Nixon and Mao's get-together.
One more thing. Saddam's rise to power in 1979 might seem to be an exception to the rule of Islamic militancy in that year. In a way it definitely was. But Islam does have a central place in the Baathist ideology - it's considered the greatest achievement of Arab culture. So arguably the Iran-Iraq war was about whether Islamism or Arabism would achieve hegemony in the Middle East (although Saddam argued that Khomeini's Islam was a distortion and was really just Persian imperialism). In the end, Saddam had only a few years on top (1988-1990), and then his defeat in the Gulf War led him to join the Islamist tide as well, insofar as his ideology could be stretched in that direction.
I want to emphasize - this is basically my interpretation of what was going on, and I'm no expert. There may be crucial omissions or mistakes in the picture I just painted...
I meant "fight", of course.
And one other thing... what does all this suggest about the origin of the Gulf crisis in 1990? The USSR had just lost Eastern Europe! On the one hand, the very public collapse of dictatorships like Ceausecu's Romania was very threatening for a state like Saddam's Iraq. On the other hand, he may have interpreted it as a sign that it was time for the creation of the new Arab superpower with himself at its head. But what interests me is the Soviet role in events. If Iran had just crumbled when Saddam made his grab for the oil-rich, ethnically Arab province of Khuzestan in 1980, would Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have been swallowed up in quick succession? Was the Gulf crisis of 1990 just what was supposed to happen ten years earlier? We hear so much about Saddam's words with US ambassador April Glaspie in 1990 - but what were his discussions with the Soviet ambassador like? Did the USSR secretly encourage Iraq to stay on in Kuwait, as one last roll of the geopolitical dice? Did the USA and Iran cut a deal over the future of the central Asian republics? Etc.
I suspect that the USSR was making a grab for the oil fields, going for the economic jugular at a time when the West seemed weak, and they tried opportunistically to take advantage of the prevailing militant atmosphere.
[SNIP]
I suppose that, given the alleged role of eastern-bloc trainers, this Libyan-supported Saudi uprising might have been another gambit in this same battle to control the Middle East.
Thanks for the very interesting thoughts--that Baluchistan angle is particularly thought-provoking. These are exactly the type of issues I'm wondering about, including the Russian role as well as the roles of China and Europe, esp. France. On China's role in the Middle East and the related topic of North Korea's role, here is something I've read you may find interesting to factor into the analysis:
A History of Ballistic Missile Development in the DPRK
Here are some of the relevant highlights:
Aside from the Paekkom program, factors that contributed to the DPRK’s decision to establish a ballistic missile program included: the continued instability in DPRK-Soviet relations and the Soviet refusal to provide additional missiles and FROG-5 rockets; the solidification of the internal situation within the DPRK as embodied in Chu’che (self-reliance) and the national military policies of “Fortress Korea” and “Four Military Lines”; the growing military and economic strength of the ROK; and the Egyptian and Syrian use of tactical ballistic, coastal-defense, and anti-ship cruise missiles during the October 1973 War.(20)
[SNIP]
Due to the poor state of relations between Moscow and P’yongyang, the DPRK was not able to secure the FROG-7B directly from the Soviet Union. Attempts to acquire the FROG-7B were therefore limited to those countries that had previously received the system from the Soviet Union; were on good terms with the DPRK; and were willing to incur Moscow’s displeasure by selling or transferring the systems to the DPRK. At the time only a few countries met all of those conditions, including Egypt, Romania, and Syria.
As a result of the precipitous decline in Egyptian-Soviet relations and in return for the DPRK’s assistance during the October 1973 War, Egypt’s President Anwar el Sadat transferred a small number of Soviet-supplied FROG-7B TELs and rockets to the DPRK and agreed to cooperate in the field of missile development. This transaction may have been repayment for DPRK assistance during the 1973 War, or for spare parts and weapons acquired after the war. Approximately 24 to 56 9M21E Luna-M (FROG-7B) rockets, six to eight TELs, and six to eight rocket transporter vehicles were delivered in 1975 and 1976. Syria may have been involved in this particular transfer or Damascus may have, in a separate move, provided a small number of its own FROG-7B rockets. This, however, remains unconfirmed.(27)
[SNIP]
FIRST BALLISTIC MISSILES, 1979-1989. . .To overcome these limitations, the DPRK again turned to Egypt, and the two countries concluded a series of new agreements to cooperate in missile development. The central focus of this cooperation was a program to reverse-engineer the Soviet R-17E (the version of the Scud B exported to Egypt) as an interim step towards future production of indigenously designed ballistic missiles with greater ranges and improved accuracies. Part of this agreement called for the exchange of scientists and technicians between the two countries. Egypt had long desired to produce long-range ballistic missiles, and shortly after the October 1973 War, it had initiated several feasibility studies for an improved Scud B.(39) Cairo viewed cooperation with P’yongyang as a means to advance its own ballistic missile ambitions while conserving its resources. In addition to this expanded cooperation with Egypt, the DPRK apparently requested and received PRC assistance in the areas of rocket engine design/production, metallurgy, and airframe technology.
[SNIP]
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Libya has both pursued its indigenous al-Fatah missile program and provided varying levels of financing to the DPRK missile program. Although this financing has been primarily in support of the Syrian and Iranian missile programs, Libya has also purchased DPRK missile components and technology. DPRK components and technology have been used to maintain Libya’s existing R-17s and incorporated into the al-Fatah and possibly other missile programs. While there have been numerous reports indicating Libyan interest in purchasing the Hwasong 6, none are known to have been delivered.(95)
During the 1990s, the DPRK’s relations with Sudan have grown steadily closer (probably as a result of growing Iranian-Sudanese relations). During 1998-1999, the DPRK is reported to have offered to sell Sudan a complete production facility for the manufacture of the Hwasong 5/6. The status of this offer is presently unknown.(96)
It is estimated that between 1987 and 1992, the DPRK exported 250 missiles and related technology worth $580 million to Egypt, Iran, Libya, and Syria. Hwasong 5 and Hwasong 6 missiles are estimated to cost $1.5 to $2 million apiece.(97)
[SNIP]
Throughout the 1990s, there have been reports that Egypt, Libya, and Syria have been interested in obtaining or producing the No-dong. To date, there are no known sales of complete missile systems to any of the three countries. . .Libya has probably received No-dong components and technology. There have also been reports indicating the development of a joint DPRK-Libyan missile test facility in Libya. This, however, remains to be verified.(142)
Regarding the question you raise about the Soviet role in the Gulf War, I have read somewhere that Saddam was initially counting on Soviet support for his invasion of Kuwait, though I don't remember the source or know whether this is true.
Paul Wolfowitz is reportedly interested in the notion that ex-KGB and ex-Stasi officers may be working with al Qaeda. There appears to be one definite link to a 9/11 hijacker - an uncle of Flight 93 pilot Ziad Jarrah was a Stasi informant, liaising with Abu Nidal's group. I also wonder what activities the former East German elite gets up to in contemporary Germany...
The young Schroeder was a Marxist and environmentalist. In the early 1970s he idolized SPD chancellor Willy Brandt, whose Ostpolitik promised better relations with communist Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.
A long lost relative of German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder was an employee of the East German secret police, it has emerged.
There's a collection of Stasi-related articles here: CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY: 1998 - 2003: Stasi Files. I find this part particularly interesting:
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY: Stasi Files: 1999
Boyes, Roger. "CIA to Return Stasi Papers." Times (London). 19 Jan. 1999. [http://www. the-times.co.uk]: "The Central Intelligence Agency, giving way to intense German lobbying, has agreed to hand over thousands of files on agents who spied for communist East Germany."
Drozdiak, William. "The Cold War in Cold Storage: Washington Won't Part With East German Spy Files; Bonn Wants Them Back." Washington Post, 3 Mar. 1999, A17. [http:// www.washingtonpost.com]: When German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder visited the United States last month, he "was fervently hoping he would return home with ... the top-secret archives of East Germany's foreign spy operations that the CIA spirited away after the fall of the Berlin Wall." However, President Clinton would not even discuss the issue. The Chancellor's "senior aides said privately" that he "was outraged by the ... refusal to surrender files that Germany considers its property. They warned that the impasse soon could seriously damage cooperation on intelligence and other matters between the countries."
Pincus, Walter. "Berlin to Get CIA Copies of 320,000 Stasi Files." Washington Post, 27 Oct. 1999, A27. [http://www.washingtonpost.com]: U.S. and German officials stated on 26 October 1999 that the CIA will turn over to Germany "copies of a significant part, but not all," of the Stasi files obtained after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. According to U.S. officials, "[f]iles relating to foreigners who worked for the Stasi in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere will not be turned over."
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY: Stasi Files: 2000 - 2003
New York Times. "U.S. Gives Cold-War Spy Files to Germany." 6 Apr. 2000. [http://www. nytimes.com]: According to a German government spokesman on 5 April 2000, " the Central Intelligence Agency has handed over the first of a large cache of East German files listing intelligence agents and their code names." Tony Czuczka, "Former Spy Files Returned to Germany," Associated Press, 5 Apr. 2000, reports that German government spokesman Uwe-Karsten Heye said that "the first CD-ROM arrived at Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's office last Friday [31 March 2000]. It was still sealed and had not yet been analyzed, he said. Some 1,000 further discs are to follow over the next 1 1/2 years."
Hmm--from another page on the same site, here's an interesting angle related to the Libya connection you mention:
Sunday Times (London). [Introduction to Documents.] 26 Nov. 2000. [http://www. sunday-times.co.uk]: On 26 November 2000, the Sunday Times published "a selection of the information concerning Great Britain obtained from the computer database of East Germany's foreign intelligence service. This list comes from a variety of searches undertaken by us in Berlin at the Gauck commission." An accompanying report by Stephen Grey and John Goetz, "Target Britain," Sunday Times, 26 Nov. 2000, notes that the information "reveals the full scale of Stasi penetration in Britain. Sources in Whitehall provided sensitive intelligence, including, it seems, prior warning of British support for the American bombing of Libya in 1986. The British Army was infiltrated, the security of military bases in West Germany was compromised and advances in nuclear weapons and submarines were disclosed to East Berlin, which told the KGB in Moscow everything it knew. Informers inside the Labour party also supplied confidential documents....
bttt
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