Excerpt from The Beijing Conspiracy (extract posted after communication with PBA rights department):
Chapter 1: THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON DC
‘We will strike you when you least expect it, beneath Eternity
where the windmill has been stolen. This is the first of three
warnings. If you do not heed these warnings and if Allah, the Most
Kind, the Most Merciful wills it, we will be forced to implement the
final solution.’
The mood in the White House war cabinet was tense. The briefing
had been hastily convened in the cramped Situation Room beneath
the Oval Office in the West Wing. The video being viewed was
grainy, but the features of sixty-year-old Dr Khalid Kadeer were
clear enough. Like the Hydra of Greek mythology, al-Qaeda had
grown another monstrous head, and the terrorist mastermind was
calm and chillingly confident. Unlike his thinner and more familiar
colleague, Osama bin Laden, the Muslim Uighur from the Xinjiang
Autonomous Region in western China was powerfully built. He was
tall and his demeanor was menacing. His dark, oval face was etched
with the lines of a lifelong Islamic struggle against the West and the
Han Chinese, and his narrow, hooded eyes were black and coldly
calculating. An elegantly embroidered doppa, the traditional headgear
of his Uighur people, covered his fine, grey hair.
Kadeer spoke quietly, inviting President Denver Harrison and the
members of his war cabinet, the most powerful group of men and
women in the world, to dismiss the warning attack as nothing more
than rambling Islamic bravado. Agent Curtis O’Connor wasn’t so
sure. Kadeer was a brilliant microbiologist who had trained at Harvard
University. O’Connor knew Kadeer was very focused.
Curtis O’Connor, an expert on bioterrorism and one of the CIA’s
most knowledgeable agents on Islam, Central Asia and al-Qaeda,
was seated in one of the advisor’s chairs that were placed along the
dark panelled wall of the White House Situation Room. He was
forty-three, fit, with a solid physique and tall, standing at 178 centimetres.
His thick, dark hair was roughly brushed into place. His face
was tanned and his blue eyes were mischievous, although looks could
be misleading. Originally from Ireland, Curtis O’Connor was very
much his own man, and he had one of the sharpest minds in the CIA.
Some time ago he’d concluded that the President and his advisors
were in a state of denial over the war in Iraq. Somehow, he thought,
he would have to influence a change to the dangerous and arrogant
course the Administration had charted for his adopted country and
for the wider western world. O’Connor had little time for presidents
and prime ministers who started wars on false premises, or for sycophantic
advisors and generals who did their bidding, and he had
even less time for religion and the fundamentalists who misused it,
whatever their creed.
‘The West is increasingly using this so-called war on terror to
persecute Muslims all over the world,’ Kadeer continued. ‘Innocent
women and children are being slaughtered in Iraq, in Lebanon, and
in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel. Other government
authorities, like those in Beijing, have followed the lead of the United
States, Britain and Australia, using the war on terror to eliminate
Muslim Uighurs they perceive as a threat. You don’t see this in the
West, but China executes more people every year than the rest of the
world combined. Torture and imprisonment is at the whim of the
communists in Beijing, as is the blocking of the internet. Freedom
of speech is non-existent, yet you will flock to the Beijing Olympics
and show support for a murderous regime. It was the same in 1936,’
Kadeer said, a touch of sadness in his voice. ‘The Berlin Olympics
were opened by Hitler and the Third Reich used sporting teams
and the Nazi salute to glorify their regime. You seem to have forgotten
that the Olympic charter is concerned with the harmonious
development of man and the promoting of a peaceful society and
the preservation of human dignity.’ With stunning irony, Kadeer
warned, ‘If you do not change course, where Hitler failed, Islam
will succeed.’
Curtis O’Connor wondered if the first attack might be biological
and if the athletes and the Games might be the target. ‘Beneath
Eternity where the windmill has been stolen’ didn’t sound like a
bacteria or a virus, but O’Connor knew that among the terrorists on
the United States’ most-wanted list, the Muslim scientist and philosopher
had few peers, and no one was in a better position to exploit the
dark, microscopic world of bioterrorism. Despite the disdain on the
faces of President Harrison and the rest of his cabinet, O’Connor
had a feeling that somewhere within the coded first warning was a real
and present danger that the West would ignore at her peril.
***
The President’s thin mouth turned down as he struggled to comprehend
Kadeer’s message. He seemed to be taking the threat to a sinister new level.
‘The Prophet, peace be upon him, predicted that the end times
would be very near when you, the Mushrikeen, and the Jews amongst
you “swarmed against Islam from every hill”. You are swarming
against us today from every hill in all the four corners of the earth. If
your leaders persist with the destruction of the Muslim people; if you
continue to humiliate the Prophet, peace be upon him, your civilisations
will be destroyed in the final solution, as it is predicted in the
noble Qu’ran.’ The Muslim microbiologist closed his holy book.
‘September 11 was the forerunner of much worse to come. Very
soon you will be given your first warning and we will attack you
beneath Eternity. This will be followed by a second and a third warning,
and if you do not heed these warnings from Allah, the Most
Kind, the Most Merciful, you will perish when the single strand
meets its double.’
The blind sheik Abdel Rahman’s son spoke alongside Ali at the 1993 IANA conference — coming from Afghanistan. The blind sheik’s son later was on the WMD Committee that oversaw weaponizng anthrax. Did Ali know this fellow speaker at the conference who was in charge of weaponizing anthrax? Yes.
Now let’s turn to a related question. Did he know the Taliban minister reportedly in possesion of anthrax packets intended for mailing to government officials? Here is the AFP story. It is on the Defense Threat Reduction Agency website.
http://dtirp.dtra.mil/CBW/CBW/Calendar/displayEvent.cfm?link=NG/Ng_17jan07.htm
The miniater’s real name was Abdul Haq Haqiq.
This learned microbiology grad student Al-Timimi, who had a high security clearance for work for the Navy, shared a restroom with the famed Russian bioweaponeer and former USAMRIID head (who was a prolific Ames anthrax researcher. He actively supported the Taliban in a secretive operatrional way. So one key question is: did Ali know this Taliban minister? Timimi believed the Taliban perhaps represented the ideal implementation of shariah and establishment of a caliphate. See, for example, Ali’s 2001 lecture in support of the Taliban’s destruction of the Buddha statues.
Relatedly, the question is whether that alleged weaponized anthrax product pre-dated 9/11, such as Ron Suskind says the stuff seized at Kandahar in 2003 id. Kandahar is where the hijacker with the leg lesion came from. The Washington Post says that the FBI theorized that the anthrax used in the mailings was weaponized in the US and then taken to Afghanistan which is why they searched places in Afghanistan in 2004 and 2005 in connection with Amerithrax. Given that the Washington Post has also reported that the FBI suspected Al-Timimi, it is important to understand the nature and extent of the Timimi- Taliban connection.
The destruction of the two fifth-century Buddha statues lining Bamiyan Valley’s soaring cliffs, in March 2001, came after a fatwa ordered by the Taliban that all Afghan “idols” be destroyed as anti-Muslim. Islamists scholars supported the destruction of the Buddha statutes. Among the supporters was American Muslim scholar, GMU microbiology grad Al-Timimi. Ali had long travelled throughout the US and world — Australia, Singapore, London, Canada. See, e.g., Islamic Conf Leicester Univ. 25-28 Aug ‘95 UK with Bilal Philips (then in Dubai and conference speeches in Beijing in 1995) Before Taliban were “the bad guys,” had Ali met some of the ministers while travelling? Did young Hanif ever speak alongside Ali? (I don’t know).
Yazid Sufaat told his wife in 2001 that he was working for a Taliban medical brigade outside of Kandahar.
Ali’s active operational support for the Taliban is well known and a matter of public record. On September 16, 2001, Ali al-Timimi gathered together at least eight of his followers in Virginia to discuss a plan of action following the 9/11 attacks. To ensure the meeting’s secrecy, al-Timimi and the attendees drew the window blinds and disconnected the phones. Al-Timimi then told them that the gathering was an amanaa trust that should be kept secret. He stated that the 9/11 attacks were justified and that the end of time battle had begun. Al-Timimi discussed possibilities for his followers to travel abroad, stressing that the best option would be to answer the call of Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban, to fight against American troops who were expected to invade Afghanistan in pursuit of al-Qaeda.
Pakistan was the correct organization from which to obtain military training prior to taking up arms in Afghanistan, because its belief system was good and it focused on combat. After the meeting, four of al-Timimi’s followers agreed to travel immediately to L.E.T. The following day, al-Timimi told two of the four followers how to reach L.E.T. undetected. By September 22, 2001, these four followers had obtained travel visas, driven to J.F.K. airport in New York, and flown to Karachi, Pakistan. Within another two weeks, all four were training and firing weapons in L.E.T. As explained by the wonderful American University Law Review article I’m taking this discussion from, unlike the line of First Amendment cases from Schenck to Brandenburg that addressed public speech, al-Timimi’s speech dealt with private, secretive speech advocating acts dependent on a global network. These characteristics distinguish some speech scenarios in the War on Terror from the public, localized characteristics of previous free speech cases. Al-Timimi intended to incite imminent lawless action because he advocated secretive, global, and detailed action Al-Timimi offered more than abstract guidance on his interpretation of jihad1in Islamic law. Al-Timimi offered specific directions to his followers to achieve the jihadist objectives. A Department of Justice news release alleged Al-Timimi believed that an American invasion of Afghanistan was imminent because the Taliban refused the demands of the United States to turn over Usama Bin Laden. Al-Timimi directed his followers to obtain training in anticipation of the arrival of American forces to achieve a time sensitive goal, not at some indefinite future time. For example, after his meeting with five followers, al-Timimi met again with two of them the very next day and specified how to reach L.E.T. Further, al-Timimi’s insistence on the mission’s furtiveness offers support for his unlawful intentions. The window blinds were drawn, the phones were disconnected, and al-Timimi ordered the burning of the fatwas. Al-Timimi did not intend for the public to learn of his advice. Rather, al-Timimi intended that his followers act as soon as possible before the marketplace could deter his unlawful solicitation.
In October 2001, shortly after the FBI first questioned Al-Timimi, the Taliban emissary to Pakistan denied any involvement in the anthrax mailings, saying “We don’t even know what anthrax is.” The Taliban had long denied having any interest in biological or chemical weapons research. The next month, however, reporters were tipped off by a senior official of the Northern Alliance to check out the Institute of Veterinary Vaccine Production in Kabul run by the Minister of Agriculture.
The lab was repeatedly targeted by bombers but the closest of 13 B-52 bombs landed 50 feet away, causing craters. There was a walk-in incubator to develop bacteria. The equipment used to make vaccines was taken away the day before the bombardment began. The cement walls of the building were cracked. Doors were blasted off their hinges. Shards of glass were strewn on the floor. At the end of one corridor on the second floor a reporter and photographer from The Mirror (UK) were led into a small office. The word “anthrax” was scribbled on an unbroken test tube. A sign read “to be safe than sorry” — the word “better” had fallen off. When AP journalist Kathy Gannon and a photographer stood in front of a glass bottle labeled in English “anthrax spore concentrate” in the two-story building, the photographer’s reflection shone back. The scientists explained that their work at the lab was intended only to develop animal vaccines. Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that “the one place where the only vial that had English on it said ‘anthrax’ kind of gives you pause.” Testing showed that it was avirulent strain used in developing animal vaccines. The scientists complained that much of the anthrax vaccine on hand had expired and that they were having trouble getting the supplies they needed to produce more. Before 9/11, private companies in India and Iran had been their main suppliers. Shipments were halted after Sept. 11, and the laboratories have had to rely on their stocks.
Mullahs oversaw the anthrax vaccine laboratory much to the consternation of the scientist in charge of the lab. The mullahs had ordered that the lab be moved to Kabul so that they could oversee it. According to one British press report, much of the laboratory staff had disappeared some months before 9/11 and their whereabouts were unknown. The Institute once had a staff of 45 and one of Afghanistan’s most modern buildings. The scientists gathered before an AP journalist and photographer pointed to a large clear container that held concentrated anthrax spores. The scientists explained that the Taliban had taken a keen interest in their work. Although he was famed for his ability to recite the koran and not scientifically inclined, the Minister of Agriculture would come and inspect what they were doing. The head of the lab explained, “He and his Taliban superiors were interested in the technical detail of what happened here, although they had no background in science.” The International Committee of the Red Cross and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization provided the scientists technical help. The head of the lab acknowledging that the Taliban could have obtained the knowledge to handle and develop anthrax. Dr Raoufi said: “Sadly, some use what is meant to be good for their own destructive ends.”
Minister of Agriculture Mullah Qari Abdullah hated the West. Seven months before 9/11 half of the lab’s staff disappeared. “We’d rather have been running the labs on our own,” the lead scientist explained. “But the mullahs were in charge of everything and we couldn’t stop them learning about our activities. There was always a danger information could get into the wrong hands.” The lab was first built in a northern province in 1993 with equipment from India. Scientists infected three sheep to study the results in developing new vaccines. They told a reporter from the Mirror that they buried the carcasses 30 feet down away from any water supplies. “This was very dangerous work, though we knew what we were doing. We developed the technology of how to keep anthrax bacteria and how to develop it for use in vaccines.” I would be suspicious of the anthrax research and any research during the Taliban (period) because they were under the control of Osama and al-Qaida,” the deputy head of Northern Alliance military intelligence, told The Associated Press. “We have strong evidence of their involvement in chemical weapons,” he added. “We believe that they were using government facilities, like the Ministry of Agriculture, to do their research in terrorism.” A source who worked at the factory told the Mirror (UK):: “There’s no doubt the Taliban were planning chemical or biological warfare against the West. I believe anthrax might have been first on their list.”
Connect the dots. Hint: If you aren’t inclined to start with Sadat’s assassination (as you should), start in 1993.