Now who is a better candidate for anthrax mailer? Elbaneh? Jdey? Elzahabi? Mohammed Junaid Babar? Can any of them be excluded? They all seem like fine candidates, each interesting for different reasons — connections to different players.
Elbaneh, as I recall, was connected to Khallad Attash, Bin Laden’s bodyguard who attended the January 2000 planning meeting. Also Derwish. He did not need to be present at the real estate closing on September 17, 2001 on his Buffalo home.
Jdey was part of KSM’s “second wave” and disappeared from Montreal about the time of the mailng. Is he in Turkey with his homely friend? Did he know El-Shukrijumah?
Elzahabi (the guy in Minneapolis) was coming from Ibn Khattab (Arab Chechen leader) in mid-August 2001 when he inexplicably beelined for Minneapolis and had not started his school bus job yet. He filled out the application on September 11, 2001. Ibn Khattab was killed by a poison letter in 2002. Elzahabi’s trial, I believe, has been greatly delayed and he’s pretty much been incomunicado.
Babar knew the folks in London , such as the one-eyed sheik Abu Hamza, and had arrived from Queens to Lahore by October 30, 2001. He later met Ayman’s chief aide al-Hadi. But the feds may even offer him witness protection and a new identity, and so they perhaps can exclude him based on his outbound flight. (He was the fellow from Queens filmed in Lahore on October 30 talking about killing Americans and noting that his mom had barely escaped from the 9th floor of the WTC, but hey, business is business.
Can any of these folks be excluded based on their known whereabouts on or about September 18, 2001 and about October 6-9, 2001?
The fact that the hijackers were “dead, dead, dead” to borrow Ed’s phrase has never been an impediment to an Al Qaeda theory. There has always been a wealth of Al Qaeda operatives going to and fro. The fact that the FBI was not talking about them at the time — or did not know of them yet — which is what Ed relied on rejecting an Al Qaeda theory.. .is to be expected.
The FBI kept quiet about Mohammed Junaid Babar meeting with al-Hadi, Zawahiri’s chief aide, until recently. (Al-Hadi was captured late last year and now is in Guantanamo).
But, more basic to the thread, why was there a $5 million reward offered for Elzahabi?
http://www.anthraxandalqaeda.com
I meant why was there a $5 million reward offered for Elbaneh (not Elzahabi).
Tenet says Ayman’s anthrax program was highly compartmentalized at the highest levels.
Where did al-Hadi, Ayman’s chief aide, go to school? He was an Iraqi. A former major in Saddam’s army
Given how important is “who knew who”... who did al-Hadi know growing up?
And was he working with Ayman in the Summer of 2001?
Elbaneh returned “never returned”
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Elbaneh+returned++%22never+returned%22&btnG=Search
Results 1 - 10 of about 271 for Elbaneh returned “never returned”.
Elbaneh apparently never returned in 2001. 271 google entries, including one relating, I think, to the excellent in-depth PBS “sleeper cell” documentary, agree.
Perhaps some small confusion was caused by the real estate closing on some property which he didn’t have to attend apparently.