Posted on 09/16/2001 1:33:46 AM PDT by Uncle Bill
Enemies and "Assets"
FBI Foreknowledge
"Yousef(Afghan terrorist Ramzi Yousef) was convicted on September 8, 1996 of plotting a 48-hour campaign of bombings against American commercial flights over the Pacific Ocean. The campaign would have targeted a total of 12 jetliners and as many as 4,000 passengers. Yousef is also accused of carrying out the December 11, 1994 bombing of a Philippine jetliner that killed a Japanese passenger, as well as plotting to assassinate Pope John Paul II. Yousef met Abouhalima in Afghanistan in 1988, and it was Abouhalima who brought the Afghan terrorist to the United States in September 1992 on behalf of Sheik Omar's network.
Shortly after Yousef's arrival, the FBI subpoenaed two dozen of Sheik Omar's followers and questioned them about the sheik, Nosair, and Abouhalima. However, no arrests were made, no grand jury investigation was launched, and the FBI chose to downgrade its scrutiny of Omar's network -- just as plans were being finalized for the Trade Center bombing. This curious decision is even more peculiar in light of the fact that the FBI had obtained intelligence on the network's capabilities and intentions from Emad A. Salem, a former Egyptian Army officer and FBI informant who served as Omar's security guard.
Salem's relationship with the FBI was turbulent, and there were suggestions of impropriety in his personal contacts with FBI handler Nancy Floyd. However, he had repeatedly warned the FBI that Nosair was running a terrorist ring out of his prison cell, and he had supplied detailed descriptions of the Sheik Omar network's plans. But the FBI was doubtful of Salem's reliability and severed its contacts with him seven months before the bombing.
In the aftermath of the Trade Center bombing, the FBI renewed its association with Salem, paying him a reported $1 million to infiltrate Sheik Omar's group once again. Salem secretly recorded many of his conversations with law enforcement agents, including exchanges in which it was revealed that the FBI had detailed prior knowledge of the Trade Center bomb plot. According to Salem, the FBI had planned to sabotage the Trade Center bomb by replacing the explosive components with an inert powder. The October 28, 1993 New York Times reported that in one conversation Salem recalled assurances from an FBI supervisor that the agency's plan called for "building the bomb with a phony powder and grabbing the people who [were] involved in [the plot]." However, the supervisor, in Salem's words, "messed it up."
Salem recalled that when he expressed a desire to lodge a protest with FBI headquarters, he was told by special agent John Anticev that "the New York people [wouldn't] like the things out of the New York office to go to Washington, DC." Unappeased, Salem rebuked Anticev: "... you saw this bomb went off and you ... know that we could avoid that.... You get paid, guys, to prevent problems like this from happening."
Perhaps the most remarkable illustration of the depth of the FBI's knowledge of the Sheik Omar network came after the World Trade Center bombing, when the Bureau employed Salem's services as an informant once again. As the Wall Street Journal reported, from March to June 1993 Salem "helped organize the 'battle plan' that the government alleged included plots to bomb the United Nations and FBI buildings in New York, and the Holland and Lincoln tunnels beneath the Hudson River. Working with a charismatic Sudanese man named Siddig Ali, a follower of Sheik Omar, Mr. Salem recruited seven local Muslims to scout targets, plan tactics and obtain chemicals and electrical parts for bombs...." By the time the FBI closed in on the plotters on June 23rd, it had literally hours of videotapes documenting the conspiracy in intimate detail -- including footage of conspirators mixing fertilizer and diesel fuel to build a bomb.
Predictably, defense attorneys for Sheik Omar and his followers insisted that Salem's actions amounted to entrapment. While the court rejected this defense, the FBI's proficiency at using Salem to assemble a radical Muslim terrorist cell is unsettling, to say the least. Clearly, Salem knew his way around the sheik's network, and was well-versed in the techniques of terrorism; just as clearly, the FBI knew how to make use of Salem's abilities. It is difficult to believe that the FBI was incapable of cracking down preemptively on the sheik's followers before the Trade Center bombing."
[End of Partial Transcript]
Diving Into The Kosovo Quagmire
"The chief beneficiary of U.S. military intervention, the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), is a terrorist criminal syndicate, Maoist in its ideological bent, hard-wired into the international heroin trade, and tightly allied with Osama bin Laden. Additionally, American servicemen deployed in Kosovo would serve under the operational command of foreign military officers. In brief, the mission would advance the cause of international narco-terrorism, help entrench the European network of the world’s most notorious Islamic terrorist, and accelerate the erosion of U.S. sovereignty.
..."There’s no doubt that bin Laden’s people have been in Kosovo helping to arm, equip, and train the KLA," Works declared. "Bin Laden’s the monster du jour, and here we are coming to the aid of his allies in the Balkans. There is a monster being created here, but in important ways it’s a monster of our own making. Hardly a day goes by without a terrorism alert at some U.S. embassy that has been targeted by bin Laden’s people, and the Administration’s policy in Kosovo is to help bin Laden, through the KLA, extend his reach in Europe. It almost seems as if the Clinton Administration’s policy is to guarantee more terrorism."
Do either of you have any information on a company named:
TURKEY
Nuc-On nuclear oncology
kazim karabekir cad kaval ism tip fakultesi karsisi k:3 d:11, Turkey
Phone: 432 2149649, Fax: 432 2168117
Contact: Murat bas Head
Email: nukon2000@hotmail.com
According to reports in Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, he used a Milan brokerage to invest in European markets.
The name of the broker has not been released, the newspaper added.
It said that European authorities were investigating possible financial links to Bin Laden in Luxembourg, Switzerland, Monte Carlo and Cyprus, where Bin Laden's organisation is reported to have had a base, with a company, offices and staff.
Italy's stock market authority, Consob, said it was investigating suspicious share movements on the day of the attack, as well as the previous day."
Bin Laden link to European arrests
"MILAN, Italy -- The "nerve centre" of an armed Islamic group intent on carrying out attacks across Europe has been uncovered, Italian police have said."
Bin Laden associate arrested in Spain - June 22, 2001
"Mohammed Bensakhria, 34, an Algerian, was apprehended around midday on Friday as he left a telephone calling center in Alicante in southeast Spain, the Spanish Interior Ministry said in a prepared release."
Bin Laden Tries to Buy Weapons
"MADRID, Spain (UPI) – A Syrian businessman said Monday that he turned down an offer by Saudi dissident and suspected international terrorist Osama bin Laden to purchase weapons on his behalf, and informed the Spanish authorities about the request.
...The newspaper said the arms deal was set to be covered by financial investments in a gold mine in Argentina. It quoted al-Kassar's assistant as saying that the company representing bin Laden was the British "Imperial Consultdad" company, which owns a bank in the Caribbean nation of Grenada."
Germans probe suspicious stock sales
The German agency's statement came amid market rumors that Osama bin Laden may have tried to profit from stock trading ahead of last week's attacks. Published reports have said European and U.S. investigators were checking movements in stock of three big European reinsurance companies — Germany's Munich Re, Switzerland's Swiss Re and AXA of France."
South Shore Bank in Chicago in the 80's caught the eye of the Clintons for their lending to run-down neighborhoods. Jan Piercy, Hillary's roommate from Wellesley College, joined Shorebank as a top executive in 1984. The Clintons and Shorebank established the Southern Development Bankcorp in Arkadelphia in 1986. Hillary Clinton and Mack McLarty were on the board. It was formed with an investment from Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, the Arkansas teachers pension fund, and a state corporation established by Governor Clinton. The bank and its subsidiaries used the Rose Law Firm. After Bill Clinton was elected president, the 1994 Riegle Community Development and Regulatory Improvement Act created something called the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund (CDFI), which was to be run by Treasury and which was to give $37 million to community development banks and nonprofit groups.
Shorebank got $4.5 million, the largest, Southern Development got $2 million, two other institutions related to Shorebank -- Kentucky's Louisville Development Bankcorp got $2.3 million and Douglass Bancorporation of Kansas City, Kansas -- got $1.9 million. The four institutions got about one-third of all the money. In routine investigation it was noted that these four institution's evaluation forms were uniquely undated and were all handled by Steve Rohde personally and the applications were all prepared by Shorebank. An Ernst & Young examiner wrote, a senior CDFI official "instructed reviewers to emphasize positive information for those being 'passed' and to emphasize negative information for those 'failing.'"
BANK OF CREDIT AND COMMERCE INTERNATIONAL (BCCI)
Pakistani banker Agha Hasan Abedi founded BCCI in 1972, it was incorporated in Luxembourg and expanded rapidly. By the early 1980s BCCI had become the preferred bank for such customers as the CIA, Colombian drugs cartels, arms smugglers and various third world dictators. By the mid-eighties, there was gathering evidence of financial irregularities, corruption and criminal involvement - an investigation ensued.
In December 1992, shortly after Clinton was elected, the Committee on Foreign Relations - US Senate produced a report that pointed out specific problems in the investigation and gave 20 specific areas which needed additional investigation (summarized below) The disposition of these issues is unknown. All that has come to the attention of this list is one settlement for $5 million in February of 1998.
"The BCCI was trying to buy hidden control of American banks to build its global empire and also to wield influence for its Arab patrons."
The Reputed Cocaine Bank Money Laundry Wizard For George Bush Family Arrested In Chicago
"Harris Bank also has secret and dummy accounts of reputed terrorist OSAMA BIN LADEN. His concealed accounts are reportedly jointly with SHARON PERCY ROCKEFELLER, top official in Washington, D.C. of PBS, and her family. She is the wife of U.S. SENATOR JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER 4th (D., West Virginia). Her family reportedly are in the construction business with bin Laden. [President Clinton says he cannot "find" reputed terrorist bin Laden's accounts to freeze them. Really?]
In October, 1998, we confronted top officials of Harris Bank in Chicago with their secret accounts of the mysterious 50 million dollars of federal agency funds originally parked with Household Bank which merged with Harris Bank. The funds, belonging to Joseph Andreuccetti, were secretly transferred without his permission to Little Rock, Arkansas, to try to cover up the embezzlement of Madison Guaranty S & L, for which Bill and Hillary Clinton are subject to federal criminal prosecution for stealing bank funds.
REPUBLIC NATIONAL BANK OF NEW YORK: The bank is a reputed money laundry for smuggled gold as used by the intelligence agencies, such as the American CIA. The principal owner of the Bank, Edmond J. Safra, was murdered in December, 1999."
S&L fraud suspect found dead; Suicide possible in Corson case
New York City's anti-terrorism efforts go high-tech - June 7, 1999
U.S. Warned In 1995 Of Plot To Hijack Planes, Attack Buildings
CNN
By Maria Ressa
CNN Correspondent
September 18, 2001
MANILA, Philippines (CNN) -- The FBI was warned six years ago of a terrorist plot to hijack commercial planes and slam them into the Pentagon, the CIA headquarters and other buildings, Philippine investigators told CNN.
Philippine authorities learned of the plot after a small fire in a Manila apartment, which turned out to be the hideout of Ramzi Yousef, who was later convicted for his role in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Yousef escaped at the time, but agents caught his right-hand man, Abdul Hakim Murad, who told them a chilling tale.
"Murad narrated to us about a plan by the Ramzi cell in the continental U.S. to hijack a commercial plane and ram it into the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, and also the Pentagon," said Rodolfo Mendoza, a Philippine intelligence investigator.
Philippine investigators also found evidence targeting commercial towers in San Francisco, Chicago and New York City.
They said they passed that information on to the FBI in 1995, but it's not clear what was done with it.
One week ago, two hijacked commercial jets slammed into the World Trade Center, collapsing the towers. Another jet hit the Pentagon and a fourth crashed in rural Pennsylvania. Authorities believe that fourth jet may have been headed for the Capitol or the White House. Thousands were killed in the attacks.
On Monday, FBI Director Robert Mueller insisted the agency had "no warning signs" of last week's attacks.
Yousef and Murad both have ties to Osama bin Laden, the man President Bush has labeled the "prime suspect" in Tuesday's attacks.
Authorities also found on a computer in the Manila apartment details of a separate plot to bomb 11 U.S. airliners on overseas flights.
Yousef once listed his occupation as "international terrorist" on an ID card, and he has long been considered a disciple of bin Laden.
Murad was a pilot who admitted he had been trained in Afghanistan as well as the United States. Bin Laden, a Saudi native, lives in Afghanistan.
"(Murad) was principally recruited by Yousef's group and bin Laden's group to undertake a suicide mission," said Avelino Razon, superintendent for the Philippine National Police.
Yousef was eventually caught in Pakistan and brought to New York for trial. He was sentenced to life in prison. Murad is also serving a life sentence.
[End of Transcript]
Sad bump.
Newsmax
Sept. 18, 2001
Link
Former Attorney General Ed Meese said late Tuesday that an intelligence report linking Twin Tower terror pilot Mohammed Atta to Iraqi intelligence may mean that a U.S. military response to last week's attacks could include the elimination of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
Meese made the startling prediction in an interview on Fox News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes."
HANNITY: If this turns out to be true and we connect this to Iraq and we connect this to Saddam Hussein, do we have to have a policy that it's time for him to go specifically?
MEESE: Well, I think once we're in a war, as we are now, and once we find that a nation has contributed to our enemy -- to the terrorists, those supporting the terrorists -- if our leaders are morally certain of that, then I think that everything we would do in a war is proper, is legal and is reasonable.
So I think then going after (Hussein), certainly going after his headquarters, going after his military establishment and if in the course of that we have to hit him, I think that's very appropriate. (End of Excerpt)
Hours before Meese made his comments, CBS News reported that an intelligence report obtained by U.S. officials shows terror-pilot Atta met with the chief of Iraqi intelligence in Europe earlier this year.
[End of Transcript]
Nuke em'
"The Chinese signals intelligence base in Cuba has already messed with FAA air traffic control around New York during a test last year," stated the source. "This whole situation is very troubling. The key is that these Chinese nationals were given access to 'mission-critical' parts of the FAA system. They know exactly where and how to bring it all down. If the Chinese army does take control of the U.S. air traffic control system, then planes will fall from the sky."
Bin Laden and Hussein playing cards in Saddam's bunker.
Zawahiri merged his group with bin Laden's in 1997 and is considered the terror leader's chief strategist and a top contender to succeed him.
Ateef's daughter recently married bin Laden's oldest son.
He serves as the chief propaganda officer for al Qaeda and many members of his group are believed to have been involved in the planning and execution of last week's attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
U.S. intelligence agencies believe he has frequently traveled outside Afghanistan disguised as a honey salesman to make contacts with bin Laden terror cells.
Other key figures include:
Bin Laden founded al Qaeda in 1989 and has built it into a conglomerate of Islamic extremist organizations with cells operating in at least 60 countries.
According to court documents and testimony given by informers in his organization, al Qaeda is organized into a series of committees which all report to a central council that he heads.
The four main committees are:
Outside Afghanistan, the group is split into small cells of sometimes no more than four or five people.
According to testimony given by former al Qaeda operatives, each cell is made up of four separate sections:
But however clever a money laundering scheme might be, the aim is always the same: disguising the paper trail of transactions from dirty money to clean.
Usually this happens through layers of "shell companies" - firms which exist only on paper, perhaps with directors whose sole responsibility is to be a front man with a sinecure - anonymous bank accounts, bearer shares, over-or under-invoicing on general trade deals and a range of other techniques.
But what if you could avoid the paper trail altogether?
That could prove to be the real difficulty in tracing money back to those responsible for the US attacks - especially if Bin Laden really is behind them.
The secret lies in an alternative banking system hundreds of years old, known in India as hawala and in Pakistan - and Afghanistan and the Middle East - as hundi.
According to Prof Barry Rider, director of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies in London and an expert on financial crime, the trust-based hundi system is entirely normal, and prevalent wherever there is a South Asian or Middle Eastern diaspora.
"Say I'm working in the UK and want to sent money back to a village in Pakistan," he said. "I could get a bank transfer, but that's going to be at the official exchange rate. And what good will it do my family in a village with no bank?"
Instead, he says, you find the hundi broker - often a local small businessman - give him the money, and after a short time his contacts back home will deliver the money, at the black market rate, in local currency and minus a handling fee, to your relatives.
No paper trail, no fuss. And no money ever crosses a border - discrepancies in the two-way flow are settled up at the end of the month, or perhaps every half year.
Impenetrable
Which makes it perfect for drug traffickers, for example - Afghan drug smugglers have used Pakistani hundi brokers for years.
More recently, the Chinese "chop" system - where no money changes hands at all, and instead "tokens" (often now passwords sent by email) are used as the equivalent of letters of credit for gold or diamonds deposited with trusted third parties - has been used by the Afghan drug and arms trade.
And many observers believe the chances are such a widespread, impenetrable system is certain to be used by the likes of Bin Laden.
"No intelligence organisation - except the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence in India, perhaps - has ever effectively cracked the system," says Prof Rider.
"You could count the number of successful penetrations on the fingers of one hand."
Who is Bath? A past investor in companies controlled by (are you sitting down?) … George W. Bush.
Back in 1992, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network – known as FinCEN – and the FBI were reviewing accusations that entrepreneur Bath guided money to Houston from Saudi investors who wanted to influence U.S. policy under the Reagan and Bush administrations – that's the first Bush administration, of course.
The federal review reportedly stemmed in part from court documents obtained through litigation by Bill White, a former real estate business associate of Bath. White contends the documents indicate that the Saudis were using Bath and their huge financial resources to influence U.S. policy. Such representation by Bath would require that he be registered as a foreign agent with the U.S. Department of Justice. In general, people required by law to be registered are those who represent a foreign entity seeking to influence governmental action or policy. An Annapolis graduate and former Navy fighter pilot, White, 46, claimed that Bath and the judicial system, under the veil of national security, have blackballed him professionally and financially because he has refused to keep quiet about what he regards as a conspiracy to secretly funnel Saudi dollars to the United States.
In sworn depositions, according to the Chronicle story, Bath said he represented four prominent Saudis as a trustee (one of whom was Saudi Sheik Salem M. bin Laden) and that he would use his name on their investments. In return, he said, he would receive a 5 percent interest in their deals. Tax documents and personal financial records show that Bath personally had a 5 percent interest in Arbusto '79 Ltd., and Arbusto '80 Ltd., limited partnerships controlled by George W. Bush, who now finds himself directing a war against terrorism and the No. 1 enemy of Osama bin Laden, of the same Saudi family.
Arbusto actually means "bush" in Spanish. Bath invested $50,000 in the limited partnerships, according to the documents. There is no available evidence to show whether the money came from Saudi interests.
But the financial links between the bin Laden family and Bush family get even more curious.
According to a 1976 trust agreement, drawn shortly after George Bush senior was appointed director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Saudi Sheik bin Laden appointed Bath as his business representative in Houston. Bin Laden, along with his brothers, owns Bin Laden Brothers Construction, one of the largest construction companies in the Middle East. According to White, Bath told him that he had assisted the CIA in a liaison role with Saudi Arabia since 1976.
Do these "coincidences" bother you as much as they bother me?
What does all this mean? I don't know. But I sure am eager to learn who short-sold stocks earlier this month. Think we'll ever find out?"
Bin Laden has reserve cells on Spanish coast, daily says
Looking Behind The Bushes
"PBS FRONTLINE: [From a French source] The Saudi authorities' decision to issue an arrest warrant for Osama bin Laden on 16 May 1993 does not threaten to affect the relationship between the bin Ladens and the royal family. Osama, one of Mohammed's youngest son, has been known for years for his fundamentalist activities . . . King Fahd's two closest friends were: Prince Mohammed Ben Abdullah (son of Abdul Aziz' youngest brother), who died in the early '80s and whose brother, Khaled Ben Abdullah (an associate of Suleiman Olayan), still has free access to the king; and Salem bin Laden, who died in 1988 . . . Like his father in 1968, Salem died in a 1988 air crash...in Texas. He was flying a BAC 1-11 which had been bought in July 1977 by Prince Mohammed Ben Fahd. The plane's flight plans had long been at the center of a number of investigations. According to one of the plane's American pilots, it had been used in October 1980 during secret Paris meetings between US and Iranian emissaries. Nothing was ever proven, but Salem bin Laden's accidental death revived some speculation that he might have been "eliminated" as an embarrassing witness. In fact, an inquiry was held to determine the exact circumstances of the accident. The conclusions were never divulged . . . There was also a political aspect to Salem bin Laden's financial activities . . . Salem bin Laden played a role in the US operations in the Middle East and Central America during the '80s. On his death in 1968, Sheik Mohammed left behind not only an industrial and financial estate but also a progeny made up of no less than 54 sons and daughters, the fruit of a number of marriages . . . Upon Sheik Salem's death, the leadership of the group passed to his eldest son, Bakr, along with thirteen other brothers who make up the board of the bin Laden group. The most important of these are Hassan,Yeslam and Yehia. Most of these brothers have different mothers and different nationalities as well. Each has his own set of affinities, thus contributing to the group's international scope. Bakr and Yehia are seen as representatives of the "Syrian group"; Yeslam, of the "Lebanese group". There is also a "Jordanian group." Abdul Aziz, one of the youngest brothers, represents the "Egyptian group" and is also manager of the bin Laden group's Egyptian branch, which employs over 40,000 people. Osama bin Laden is, incidentally, the only brother with a Saudi mother."
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