It is worth noting that GMU microbiology grad Ali Al-Timimi was not the only US-based insider who supports the militants. One New York-based post office worker was an Islamic Group leader according to DOJ officials. US Postal employee Ahmed Abdel Sattar was a “surrogate” for the blind sheik Abdel-Rahman and issue in Abdel-Rahman’s name a fatwa to kill jews. He distributed through the Vanguards of Conquest publicist in the Fall of 2000.
In the Spring of 1999, he had fielded a proposal by Al-Timimi’s colleagues from the Islamic Assembly of North America (IANA) quarterly journal — one of whom was the founder of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad — to channel their efforts through nonviolent means, through political participation. After that proposal was rejected, the post office worker worked closely with the head of the Egyptian Islamic Group Taha, the blind sheik’s successor. Taha was the guy pictured alongside Zawahiri and Bin Laden urging that Americans be killed and vowing to free the blind sheik. Abdel-Rahman’s voice was heard in the September 2000 videotape aired on Al Jazeera urging “avenge your sheik” and let the spilling of blood begin. The New York-based post office worker was home from work and watching the videotape as it aired in his small Staten Island apartment when the Islamic Group head Taha called to ask him what he thought.
Sattar came to the United States in 1982 as a tourist. He married a Catholic who converted. He became a naturalized American. They had four children and lived in a small apartment in Staten Island. He went to work for the main post office in Staten Island in 1988. He became a fan of the blind sheik when Abdel Rahman arrived in 1991 and was giving lectures in New Jersey and Brooklyn. He can been pictured alongside Abdel-Rahman in 1993 leaving the courthouse with the blind sheik followers. Sattar made hundreds of phone calls from his family’s small apartment to fundamentalist followers of the sheik across the globe, from Britain to Egypt to Afghanistan. He ran a diaper and baby foods business to raise funds for Abdel Rahman. Over the years, in the course of the calls he arranged, Mr. Sattar eventually joined their debates about using violence. Senior IG leaders began calling in late 1998.
The wiretapped calls show a tense dispute over whether to continue a cease-fire in their long war against the Egyptian government or return to violence. His comments suggest he came to favor the view of those who wanted to abandon the truce. Mr. Sattar’s phone calls show the debate between Sheik Salah Hashim, the group’s leader in Egypt, an outspoken proponent of the cease-fire and Taha, who opposed it. Taha was close to the Taliban and drawing ever closer to Bin Laden and Zawahiri. It was public outrage over those killings led the Islamic Group to announce the cease-fire later that year
In his opening argument, the federal prosecutor explained:
“Sattar led a double life. By day he was a postal worker. By night he was a terrorist living in a shadowy world, a world where to avoid detection people speak in code and don’t use their real names when they speak on the telephone. A world where Abdel Rahman is revered, a world where violence is solicited and terrorist conspiracies are hatched, a world where Sattar can proudly utter the words that he wants everybody to hear. These are his words: ‘Kill Jews wherever they are and wherever you find them.’”
In 1999, Sattar emphasized in a Frontline interview that reaction to what he perceived as a war against Islam was inevitable “You’re going to see the same feeling everywhere in a Muslim country toward Americans right now. In Syria, in Lebanon, in Palestine, in Egypt, in Saudi Arabia, in Morocco, everywhere you go, you’re going to have the same feeling that there is a war declared by the West on Islam, and in particular, the United States of America on Islam. And ... something has to be done about it. [The] reaction ... could be like the bombing in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. It could be some demonstrations in front of American embassies throughout the Islamic world that we saw before. Could be kidnapping of Americans.”
In 1999, US Postal employee Sattar explained his admiration for Bin Laden “I have an admiration for anybody who will stand up to a tyrant and tell him, “You are a tyrant” whether this tyrant [is a] man named [Mubarak] or [the] government of the United States of America.” Sattar described the Blind Sheik as “My friend, my mentor, my sheik, my imam, my father... “ He recognized that it made him a suspect. He explained that he had been followed days and nights, under surveillance 24 hours a day sometimes. He said he had been visited by FBI agents at his Staten Island Post Office job in an attempt to prejudice my co-workers against me. He said “To me, am I a terrorist? Nope. I am a father. I am a man who believes in his religion.”
When the Frontline interviewer in 1999 suggested that the NYC joint terrorism task force likely thought he knew a lot of people who know a lot, he said he did. But he explained that an act like the World Trade Center or Oklahoma City bombing or the 1998 embassy bombings does not need many people to do it. As the result of this operational security and compartmentalization, he is not in a position to know. “Could be four or five people like in the World Trade Center.” He continued: “I’ll tell you something. When the World Trade Center occurred here, the American government released a list. 173 names. And they called them co-conspirators of people who were living in this country, and people living abroad. 173 names. So, let’s not just jump to conclusions because the American government, you know, released a name that he must be a part of it. 173.”
Before 2000, Mr. Sattar seemed to stay aloof from the group’s internal feuds, simply connecting phone calls among its members after finishing his work at the post office. But he began to change in June of that year after Mr. Abdel Rahman issued a statement, announced by Attorney Stewart in a press release in defiance of formal prison restrictions on communication, in which he withdrew his support for the cease-fire. He rushed the news of the cleric’s new view in calls to Islamic Group members overseas. Islamic Group military leader Hamza, who was in Afghanistan at the time as was Taha, protested the sheik’s change and pleaded with Mr. Sattar not to release it to the press.
In his opening argument before the jury, the federal prosecutor explained: “But all the secret messages back and forth between Abdel Rahman and his terrorist network culminate in the spring of 2000, when a public announcement is made by Abdel Rahman, courtesy of these defendants, saying that Abdel Rahman no longer supported a cease fire by this terrorist organization, the cessation of terrorist violence between his organization and the Egyptian government. In essence, these defendants helped Abdel Rahman break out of jail to inspire his terrorist group to return to terrorism. They allowed Abdel Rahman to tell his followers, ‘Fire.’”
After the press release by Attorney Stewart announcing the blind sheik’s new position, Mr. Sattar set up conference calls and then remained on the line while Mr. Hashim speaking from Egypt and Mr. Taha speaking from Afghanistan argued angrily. Mr. Taha said the Egyptian government of President Hosni Mubarak “must be removed, and will not be removed except by using armed force.” “We are in a difficult stage; we can’t use force at all,” Mr. Hashim insisted. Many hundreds of IG members were still in jail and negotiations were underway with the government that sought their release.
At the time of these exchanges, Taha appeared with Bin Laden on a videotape that was broadcast on September 21, 2000, by Al Jazeera. The call for violent worldwide jihad, or religious struggle, to free Mr. Abdel Rahman from jail. A couple days later Mr. Taha called Mr. Sattar to get his reaction. “The words caused such an impact,” Mr. Sattar exclaimed.
In late September 2000, during an upsurge of violence between Israelis and Palestinians. Coming home from the post office each day, the transcripts show, he immediately goes to monitor Arab news Web sites and television. The images all look to him like Israeli attacks on innocent Palestinian civilians, according to the transcripts. “Animals, animals, I swear by God the Almighty,” Mr. Sattar said, referring to the Israelis. When Mr. Taha called, Mr. Sattar urged him to compose a religious decree that they could attribute to the sheik. Later he edited Mr. Taha’s draft. “Kill the Jews wherever they are found,” it says. On the day after the fatwah was published Sattar read a newspaper article to Taha. That article identified a man named Atia as the leader of the Islamic Group military wing in Egypt and so Sattar knew full well the line of work of the fellow that would be one the telephone conference call with him and Taha. Taha commented to Sattar that the writer of the article had really good information. Three days later, Taha called Sattar and told Sattar that he should contact Atia and tell them about the fatwah they had issued, the one demanding the murder of the Jews. Sattar agreed to do so and called Atia in early October 2000.
In his opening argument, the federal prosecutor explained: “Using the pretext of attorney-client visits and telephone calls, these defendants were able to break Abdel Rahman’s message of terror out of jail and deliver it to the very people who never should have heard it, other terrorists who still walk the streets and were still able to follow his instructions.” Separately, Taha wrote a legal justification for killing innocents and Sattar had a copy of the book.
Sattar helped Islamic Group leader Taha, who was in Afghanistan with the IG military commander Mustafa Hamza, compose a religious edict and release it under the sheik Abdel-Rahman’s name. He arranged for it to be uploaded to the internet and released to the press. He coordinated with Vanguards of Conquest spokesman Yasir Al-Sirri, based in London. Sattar says he was moved to order the killing of jews after the visit of Ariel Sharon to the site of the Al Aqsa mosque in September 2000. At trial, he lamented Mr. Sharon’s visit as a “violation of that holy place.” His fatwa urged young Muslims to fight Jews “by all possible means of jihad, either by killing them as individuals or by targeting their interests and their advocates, as much as they can.” The blind sheik did not see the fatwa issued in his name until the next week but approved it. The sheik has signed a power of attorney for Mr. Sattar and trusted his judgment completely.
There were among some 90,000 intercepted conversations from Sattar’s home phone made between March 1995 and March 2002, as part of a federal foreign intelligence investigation. The Assistant United States Attorney explained at trial that the “criminal investigation and any consideration of charges were put on hold due to a fear that the criminal investigation could possibly blow the intelligence investigation.” The coincidence that anthrax would be delivered by a postal worker, however, likely did not go unnoticed by those pursuing the theory that US-based supporters of Al Qaeda were responsible for the anthrax mailings.
On July 7, 2004, the restaurant two doors down fired his sons, after 8 months working there, Sattar’s sons were fired from their jobs as busboys. The son confronted the owner, after hearing from cooks and waitresses that it was because of who his father was. The ownder said: “My wife died 9-11, every time I look at you I think of my wife and I don’t want you working here!” His children wrote the judge and urged that their father had done nothing wrong and that it was too painful to be kept away from him. His wife urged leniency too, noting: “ I am convinced that you cannot truthfully evaluate a person unless you have actually had a chance to become acquainted with them.” “Honesty, respect, kindness as well as compassion towards all, qualities that are almost non existent in our youth today, are his legacy to our children.”
A May 2005 Statement of Deputy Assistant Attorney General Chief Counterterrorism Section before the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security Committee in the House of Representatives described Sattar as an Islamic Group leader. Sattar put Taha in direct contact with the head of the Islamic Group in Egypt who was hiding in southern Egypt. His name was Alla Atia. On October 11, 2000 Sattar told Taha that he had spoken with Atia. He told Taha that he believed that Atia was eager ready and able “to do things,” and that he ad o warn Atia repeatedly during their telephone call that his telephone was “not safe.” Atia then was killed in a raid a week later. In early November, Taha gave Sattar the news that Atia had been killed. Sattar claims that he realized only later that the Atia had been a key planner of an attack at the ancient ruins in Luxor, Egypt in November 1997 in which 58 tourists were killed. Taha in the calls set up by Sattar was urging him to conduct operations. Then Atia was caught and killed. “I feel guilty, guilty. I am telling you I suspect it is 90 percent my phone.”
On October 25, 2000, Sattar spoke by telephone to Taha and told Taha that an Egyptian male was involved in the bombing of the US.S. Cole and that Sattar should help in delivering a message to the US government suggesting that similar attacks wuuld occur unless Abdel Rahman were freed.
When the expert on functionalized polymers, Magdy al-Nashar who arranged for the London flat used by the 7/7 bombers is represented by Mamdouh Ismail (allegedly Zawahiri’s chief conduit to jihadis), it is significant that al-Nashar was connected to the people who did Luxor, according to the biochemist’s brother. US Postal office worker. Sattar was arrested in April 2002 at just about the time the pressure in the media on the FBI was increasing to investigate a US biodefense insider (rather than Al Qaeda) for the anthrax mailings.
The same sort of counterintuitive theory (a bioevangelist theory) was raised in connection with the earlier letter bombing of newspapers to DC and New York City and people in symbolic positions. (Al Hayat letter bombs for which there is up to a $5 million reward under the rewards for justice program) But that time it was US Post Office worker Ahmed Abdel Sattar who noted that the bombs were mailed on December 20, 1996 one day before the brief in support of the blind sheik on appeal. He questioned whether someone (like the FBI) was trying to undermine the appeal’s prospects. This time, Mr. Sattar did not need any help making the argument with respect to the anthrax letters — numerous people with political agendas rushed to do it for him.
NPR set the scene. It was January 2, 1997, at 9:15 a.m. at the National Press Building in Washington, D.C. The employee of the Saudi-owned newspaper Al Hayat began to open a letter. It was a Christmas card — the kind that plays a musical tune. It was white envelope, five and a half inches by six and a half inches, with a computer-generated address label attached. It had foreign postage and a post mark — a post mark in Alexandria, Egypt. It looked suspiciously bulky, so he set it down and called the police. Minutes later they found a similar envelope. These were the first two of four letter bombs that would arrive at Al Hayat during the day.” A fifth letter bomb addressed to the paper was intercepted at a nearby post office. They all looked the same. Two similar letter bombs addressed to the “parole officer” (a position that does not exist) arrived at the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth. It seemed evident how some Grinch had spent the holidays in Alexandria, Egypt.
Egyptian Saif Adel (Makawwi), thought to be in Iran, was involved in military planning. Adel was a colonel in the Egyptian Army’s Special Forces before joining Al Qaeda. He helped plan the 1998 attacks on the US embassies in Africa. He was also a planner in the attack on the USS Cole and has served as the liaison officer between Hezbollah and Al Qaeda. Adel assisted Atef, who had overall responsibility for Al Qaeda’s operations. There was part of a long-running disagreement with Saif Adel (Makawwi) and Ayman, however. As Attorney Al-Zayyat has said, Makkawi had many times claimed responsibility for operations that were carried out inside Egypt but when the perpetrators were arrested, it would be al-Zawahiri’s name whose name they shout loyalty to from the docks. Some would even say they did not know a person named Makkawi. After the letter al-Hayat letter bombs were sent in January 1997, Saif Adel (Makawwi) gave a statement denying responsibility on behalf of the Vanguards of Conquest. He got admonished by the unnamed but official spokesman for the Vanguards organization — chastising him as not being authorized to speak for the organization (or even being a member).
On January 7, 1997 Col Muhammad Makkawi purporting to be speaking for the Egyptian Vanguards of Islamic Conquest denied responsibility for sending the letter bombs. He said: “Those are messages of admonishment. There is no flirtation between us and the Americans in order for us to send them such alarming messages in such a manner.” Makkawi said that “the Vanguards of Conquest “are heavyweight and would not embark on such childish actions.” US press and political commentaries had hinted at the Vanguards of Conquest organization’s involvement in these attempts. In his statement to `Al-Hayat, Makkawi added “I am surprised that we in particular, and not other parties, should be accused of such an operation.”
But then someone else credited with being the Vanguards official spokesman denounced Makkawi’s authority to speak for the group, referring to the January 5th statement it had made denying responsibility. This other claimed spokesman said “We welcome any Muslim who wants to join us, and if Makkawi wants to [join us], he will be welcomed to the Vanguards march, but through the organizational channels. But if words are not coupled with actions, we tell him: Fear God, and you can use a different name other than the Vanguards to speak on its behalf.” The spokesman for the Vanguards of Conquest was Al-Sirri, who US Post Office worker Sattar would have upload a fatwa to kill jews that he wrote with the Islamic Group head Taha in September 2000. Sattar issued under Sheik’s Abdel-Rahman’s name, without him even knowing of it until after the fact.
The FBI would not speculate as to who sent the letters or why. But this was your classic “duck that walks like a duck” situation. As NPR reported at the time, “analysts say that letter bombs are rarely sent in batches, and when they are it’s generally prompted by politics, not personal animus.” Al Hayat was a well respected and moderate newspaper. It was friendly to moderate Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt — just as, say NBC and CBS. That, without more, was accurately discerned by observers at the time as sufficient to make the newspaper outlet a target of the militant islamists. The newspaper, its editor explained, does not avoid criticizing militant islamists. The Al Hayat Editor-in-Chief explained: “We’ve been opposed to all extremists in the Arab world, especially the fundamentalists.” Mohammed Salameh, a central defendant in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, was sent to Leavenworth in 1994. The other three Egyptian extremists convicted in the bombing were sent to prisons in California, Indiana and Colorado. Like the blind sheik, Abdel Rahman, Salameh had complained of his conditions and asked to be avenged. The Blind Sheik was particularly irked that the prison officials did not cut his fingernails.
Rahman was convicted in 1995 of seditious conspiracy, bombing conspiracy, soliciting an attack on an U.S. military installation, and soliciting the murder of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. His followers were indicted for plotting to bomb bridges, tunnels and landmarks in New York for which Rahman allegedly had given his blessings. The mailing of deadly letters in connection with an earlier attack on the World Trade Center, was not merely the modus operandi of militant islamists, it was the group’s signature — it’s their calling card. Khaled Abu el-Dahab, a naturalised American, from Silicon Valley in a confession detailed in a state security document from Egypt’s defense ministry dated October 28, 1998, explained that he was trained to make booby-trapped letters to send to important people, as well as asked to enroll in American aviation schools to learn how to fly gliders and helicopters. He was a friend of Ali Mohammed, a former special forces officer in the Egyptian army and former US Army Sergeant. He ran the Blind Sheik’s Services Organization in Brooklyn. Islamic Group member Islambouli, the brother of Sadat’s assassin, headed the organization in Peshawar.
After the Al Hayat letter bombs to newspapers in DC and NYC and people in symbolic positions, in January 1997, both the Blind Sheikh and his paralegal, Sattar, were quoted in separate articles in Al Hayat (in Arabic) denying that they or their supporters were responsible. The Blind Sheikh commented that al Hayat was fair and balanced in its coverage and his supporters would have no reason to “hit” them. Sattar noted that the bombs were mailed on December 20, one day before the brief in support of the blind sheik on appeal. He questioned whether someone (like the FBI) was trying to undermine the appeal’s prospects. For its part, al Hayat reporters, editor and owner were not expressing an opinion — though the owner did lay out various possibilities (e.g., Iraq, Iran etc.). The owner of the paper had commanded Saudi forces during the Persian Gulf War, when Bin Laden was so upset about American troops on the Arabian peninsula. Moreover, al Hayat had recently opened up a Bureau in Jerusalem, giving it a dateline of Jerusalem rather than al Quds, which some thought blasphemous. But none of the possibilities would plausibly explain why the letter bomb was sent to Leavensworth where three of the WTC 1993 defendants were imprisoned, including Ramzi Yousef’s lieutenant who had asked that his mistreatment be avenged. (That was the criminal genius who returned to Ryder to reclaim his deposit after blowing up the truck at WTC). Egyptian security officials claimed that said that the letters were sent from outside of Egypt, the stamps were not available in Egypt, and that the postmark was not Alexandria as reported. Whatever the place of mailing, the sender likely was someone who was upset that KSM’s and Ramzi Yousef’s associates had been imprisoned, to include, most notably, the blind sheik. Whoever is responsible for the anthrax mailings, it is a very good bet that they are upset the blind sheik is detained. That should be at the center of any classified profile of the crime.
On December 31, 1996 Mohammed Youssef was in Egypt — having gone to Egypt months before. The al Hayat letter bombs related to the detention and alleged mistreatment of the blind sheikh and the WTC bombers were sent 10 days earlier — on the Day of Measures. In 2006, he was named as co-defendant with Hassoun, Daher, Padilla and Jayyousi. Youssef was born in Alexandria. Do authorities suspect the “Florida cell” of being involved in the al Hayat letter bombs? Kifah Jayyousi’s “Islam Report” over the years — distributed by Adham Hassoun in Florida and Kassem Daher in Canada — expressed outrage at detention/extradition due to terrorism law and also what he perceived as attacks on his religion by some newspapers. His headlines on the internet groups blazed “Just In! First Muslim Victim of New Terrorism Law!: US Agents Arrest Paralegal Of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman Without Charge Prepares To Hand Him To Egyptian Regime,” soc.religion.islam, dated April 27, 1996 and “Islam Report (Newspaper Attacks Our Religion! Act Now!,” soc.religion.islam, Apr. 16, 1996
In connection with the January 1997 letter bombs, Ayman got the know-how to send sophisticated electronic letter bombs from Iraqi intelligence according to one item from the highly controversial Feith memo. In the al Hayat letter bombings, Ayman allowed the finger to be pointed at Libya. In the Amerithrax letters, he allowed the finger to be pointed to a United States biodefense insider. Tenet in his May 2007 book included Saif Adel as among “al-Qa’da’s leadership to the group’s highly compartmentalized chemical, biological, and nuclear networks.”
In September 2006, in a Sahab Media production called “Knowledge is for acting,” there is a clip in which Al Quds editor Atwan refers to his visit with OBL in 1996 (see his 2006 book The Secret History of al Qaeda) and he says that Bin Laden was planning to attack America “and America prisons in particular.” That was an apparent reference to the Al Hayat letter bombs sent to newspapers and prisons in January 1997. There were recurrent references to Abdel-Rahman in the tape.
Given that the EIJ/Vanguards of Conquest people (such as Al-Sirri and Zawahiri) are working with the Egyptian Islamic Group leaders (such as Taha and Islambouli, the brother of Sadat’s assassin), it seems that Amerithrax can be thought of as a joint operation. After the merger between Al Qaeda and EIJ, and the joining of Al Qaeda by some of the Islamic Group leaders, the group responsible can be thought of as by the code name Zawahiri used — the Greendale School. He used “school” in May 2001 correspondence announcing to his followers the course he had embarked upon.