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In the summer of 2001, June 29-July 3, GMU’s microbiology grad Al-Timimi participated in a seminar at the University of Alberta (Canada) and spoke along with unindicted WTC 1993 conspirator Bilal Philips, who then was operating out of the United Arab Emirates, as was 9/11 planner al-Baluchi. Philips had been Ali’s religious mentor and was an unindicted WTC 1993 conspirator.
http://web.archive.org/web/20010720074336/http://iananet.org/

You can click here to listen to his presentations, such as “Belief in the Day of Judgement” and “Actions that Negate Beliefs.”

Jon Berger, of IntelWire, has done excellent research on the subject of the IANA speaker, who would sometimes speak at the same conferences as GMU’s Ali Al-Timimi, Bilal Philips. Bilal Philips was Ali’s mentor and the father of El-Shukrijuman (aka “Jafar the Pilot”) in turn was Bilal Philip’s mentor.

There’s a $5 million reward being offered for Jafar the Pilot. He’s is said by the highest levels of the DOJ to be extremely dangerous.

Expert terrorism researcher and journalist Jon Berger explains that Bilal Philips was an al Qaeda operative who sought to recruit U.S. veterans as paramilitary trainers and combat volunteers in 1992 and 1993, at the explicit direction of a cleric who converted thousands of Gulf War soldiers to Islam on behalf of the Saudi government.

Clement Rodney Hampton-El was convicted of conspiring to blow up New York City landmarks in a 1993 terror plot linked to the World Trade Center bombing in February of that year. El-Shukrijumah’s dad testified as a character witness on his Hampton-El’s behalf.

An al Qaeda-trained bomb expert with ties to Ramzi Yousef and radical cleric Omar Abdel Rahman, Hampton-El testified that he was summoned to a meeting at the Saudi embassy in December 1992. Hampton-El was told that wealthy Saudis were sponsoring jihad operations in Bosnia, according to his testimony in the 1995 trial (US v. Rahman, S5 93 Cr. 18, August 2, 1995). Hampton-El said he was given a budget of $150,000 to train volunteer mujahideen fighters and support their families in the U.S. The day after the meeting he was given a list of US soldiers who were completing their tours of duty to recruit as potential mujahideen to fight in Bosnia. He was given the list by the religious mentor of GMU microbiology grad student Ali Timimi’s mentor. Bilal Philips had been Ali’s religious teacher in Saudi Arabia when he was a young and impressionable.

Philips gave Hampton-El the list at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, after a meeting that Hampton-El characterized as an Islamic conference for military personnel, according to the testimony.

Bilal Philips had begun working for the Saudi government in March 1991, leading an educational program for American soldiers stationed in the Gulf. Ostensibly to teach the Americans about Islamic and Saudi culture, the program was in actuality an aggressive campaign to convert U.S. soldiers to Islam, Philips acknowledges. ‘

For about five and a half months beginning in March 1991, the program converted an estimated 1,000 and 3,000 U.S. soldiers to Islam. Journalist Jon Berger reports that Philips was “made a proselytization official by the Saudi Air Force. Philips said his work on the program continued through 1994.”

After the initial conversion program ended, Philips followed up in the United States, with phone calls and visits designed to recruit recently released veterans as potential members of Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network.

Hampton-El said he had previously been given the contact information for potential recruits in Philadelphia, Baltimore and Ohio.

Members of the New York terror cell were arrested in a warehouse in June 1993, caught in the act of assembling ammonium nitrate-fueled bombs for a massive “Day of Terror” attack on New York City landmarks.

Jon Berger explains:

“In the mid-1990s, Bilal Philips taught at an Islamic school in Cotabato, the Philippines. Cotabato is a regional center for Islamic extremists in the region, including the Abu Sayyaf Group and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.”

He continues:

“In May 1993, Bilal Philips sent for Hampton-El, who was flown first to Saudi Arabia for a week, then to the Philippines for a week.”

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At the time the “Day of Terror” plot was exposed, the perpetrators were thought to be independent operators, or possibly attached to the Islamic Group, an Egyptian terror organization tied to Abdel Rahman.

But a substantial amount of evidence uncovered since then shows that the cell was almost certainly an al Qaeda-sponsored operation, either in part or in whole, as documented by Lance in “1000 Years,” and in numerous recent court filings and terror prosecutions.”

“Many operatives tied to the NYC cell were Egyptian, and some were also associated with Egyptian Islamic Jihad, a terror group run by current al Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri. The extensive cooperation on display in the NYC cell between known al Qaeda figures and known EIJ figures strongly suggests that Zawahiri joined forces with bin Laden years earlier than the conventional wisdom suggests, perhaps as early as the late 1980s. Most experts currently believe EIJ and al Qaeda merged around 1998.”

“The New York cell was intimately tied to Ramzi Yousef and the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. Once thought to be a kind of terrorist freelancer, Yousef is now believed to have been an al Qaeda operative who took money and instructions from bin Laden. While in New York, Yousef received money from Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, who would later become the top operational mastermind of al Qaeda.”

“Members of the New York cell, including Hampton-El, received training, bomb-making manuals and U.S. military documents from Ali Mohammed, a California-based al Qaeda operative who was bin Laden’s chief of security in the early 1990s, according to extensive testimony and his own guilty plea in a separate case. Ali Mohammed trained bin Laden’s personal bodyguards, a clear sign of his status within al Qaeda.”

“Hampton-El fought in Afghanistan during the period bin Laden was active there, around the time al Qaeda is alleged to have formally organized. He was closely associated with the Alkifah mosque in Brooklyn, which has also been tied to al Qaeda and its predecessor organization, the Services Office.”

And, yes, I’ll say it again — Islambouli was head of the Services Office in Peshawar. He was close to the Blind Sheik. He was the subject of the December 4, 1998 PDB to President Clinton that explained that he was travelling to the US to plan aircraft and other attacks.

Jon Berger has also done very important work in explaining the importance of the role of Khalifa, OBL’s brother-in-law. I recommend his intelwire website which is heavy on the documentary evidence that he obtains through FOIA. My apologies to Mr. Berger for plagiarizing some of the above — or unduly relying on it — but his work is too important not to get out there. And I’m rushing to catch the Bourne movie before I forget.