Replies

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/bomb174.htm

05/20/99- Updated 05:15 PM ET

Ex-Army sergeant linked to bin Laden

NEW YORK (AP) - A former Army sergeant has been indicted on federal charges that he trained members of Osama bin Laden's terrorist organization and Islamic militants who were implicated in the World Trade Center bombing.

Ali Mohamed, 46, a native of Egypt who left the Army in 1989, was added to a broad conspiracy case that includes bin Laden, the suspected architect of last summer's bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Mohamed has been jailed in New York since he was arrested Sept. 11 on a sealed complaint in federal court in Manhattan. A message left Wednesday with Mohamed's lawyer, James Roth, was not immediately returned.

Mohamed, a former Egyptian military officer, moved to the United States in 1985 and became a permanent resident. He was honorably discharged from the Army in 1989 after serving three years at the Special Forces base in Fort Bragg, N.C.

While in the U.S. military, Mohamed taught soldiers in the special forces about Muslim culture. Prosecutors say he later lent his military expertise to terrorists intent on destroying the United States to retaliate for its support of Israel and involvement in the Middle East.

The indictment said Mohamed trained members of bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist organization and helped move bin Laden from Pakistan to Sudan in 1991. He also allegedly discussed as early as 1993 with other members of al Qaeda how to attack the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi and other Israeli, British and French targets in Kenya.

Mohamed also allegedly provided training to a group of Islamic militants who were later implicated in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and in a plot to blow up New York City landmarks.

Court records say that while Mohamed was in the Army, he gave tapes and books on military techniques and weapons to a group of young men who wanted to help Afghan rebels.

Some of the materials were later recovered from the apartment of El Sayyid Nosair, the Egyptian immigrant convicted of conspiracy in the killing of Jewish Defense League founder Rabbi Meir Kahane in 1990.

The Kahane killing was once believed to be an isolated attack, but investigators now see it as the start of a U.S. terrorism campaign by Islamic fundamentalists.

The FBI also learned of the plans for the 9/11 attacks three years before 2001 by hijacker pilot Hanny Hanjour (who also traveled through Oklahoma-given a speeding ticket) from Phoenix FBI informant Adjae Collins . Collins told his story to ABC Pentagon reporter John McWethey a few months ago.

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/DailyNews/FBI_informant020523.html

Link

FBI Was Warned of Sept. 11 Hijacker
Informant Says He Provided Facts About Phoenix Hijacker

By John McWethy

May 23 — A paid FBI informant told ABCNEWS that three years before Sept. 11, he began providing the FBI with information about a young Saudi who later flew a hijacked passenger plane into the Pentagon.

Aukai Collins, the informant, said he worked for the FBI for four years in Phoenix, monitoring the Arab and Islamic communities there. Hani Hanjour was the hijacker Collins claimed to have told the FBI about while Hanjour was in flight training in Phoenix.

Twenty hours after ABCNEWS first requested a response, the FBI issued an "emphatic denial" that Collins had told the agency anything about Hanjour, though FBI sources acknowledged that Collins had worked for them.

FBI Special Agent Ken Williams wrote a memo last July 10, urging FBI headquarters to investigate Arab students in flight schools nationwide — and helped set off the furor over whether the attacks could have been prevented.

If Collins' claims are true, he would be another source who had advised the FBI to take a closer look at Phoenix, and maybe the first to identify a potential terrorist who later turned out to be one of the Sept. 11 hijackers

Collins said the FBI knew Hanjour lived in Phoenix, knew his exact address, his phone number and even what car he drove. "They knew everything about the guy," said Collins.

The FBI emphatically denies that Collins provided any information about Hanjour, but officials acknowledge they paid Collins for four years to monitor the Islamic and Arab communities of Phoenix because of his unusual background.

A self-styled Islamic holy warrior, Collins was born in the United States. After getting into trouble with police as a teenager, he says he found religion — Islam — and eventually went overseas to fight. In Chechnya, he lost his leg to a land mine.

Informant Says He Provided Basic Facts

Once in Phoenix, in 1996, the FBI asked Collins to focus on a group of young Arab men, many of whom were taking flying lessons, including Hanjour, Collins said.

"They drank alcohol, messed around with girls and stuff like that," Collins told ABCNEWS. "They all lived in an apartment together, Hani and the others."

Collins said he provided the FBI with basic facts and let the FBI take it from there.

"When I said there's this short, skinny Arab guy who's part of this crowd, drives such-and-such a car, I assumed that they would then, you know, start tracing him and see who his contacts were," he said.

FBI Never Saw Hijacker as Threat

The FBI in Phoenix either failed to monitor Hanjour's communications or Hanjour himself practiced extraordinary skill in hiding his intentions — because the FBI never regarded him as a threat.

Much to the dismay of the FBI, Collins has written a book about his exploits. Soon to be published, it is titled My Jihad.

The FBI was not alone in failing to predict Hanjour and his group were dangerous.

"I can't figure it out either," said Collins, "how they went from their back yard to flying airplanes into buildings."

Congress cannot figure it out either, as it continues to demand answers from the FBI.

Daily Oklahoman

Iraqi Arms Deals Could Prove Embarrassing to U.S.
Don Ward
05/15/1991

BOCA RATON, Fla. An Iraqi arms dealer who bankrolled a Boca Raton manufacturer is among many who twisted a U.S. government export program to funnel arms to Saddam Hussein, congressional investigators believe.

The investigators are pushing for a probe on the scale of the Iran-Contra hearings. They say the evidence will raise embarrassing questions about an Iraq trade policy so confused that it contributed to causes of the Persian Gulf War.

"U.S. policy seemed to be assisting Iraq in any way possible. We just have to nail down the facts. This is a story they'd rather not have told," said a staffer with the House Government Operations subcommittee that is investigating exports to Iraq.

Israel last year became so disgusted with U.S. arms dealing with Iraq that it marked more than a dozen arms dealers for assassination, says a former Israeli intelligence officer who recently beat espionage charges in New York. Ari Ben-Menashe says among those assassinated was Gerald Bull, who was developing a "super cannon" that could strike into the heart of Israel from Iraq. Bull was shot in the throat on the doorstep of his Brussels apartment on March 24, 1990.

Menashe says Israeli agents also had a hand in last summer's death of Ihsan Barbouti, the arms dealer who bankrolled a cherry flavoring plant in Boca Raton. The official cause of Barbouti's death is a heart ailment, but Menashe says Barbouti was one of 14 arms dealers recommended to Israeli hit squads.

The Boca Raton plant produced a cyanide-based byproduct that could be used in making chemical weapons. It was raided and closed down last September.

Menashe is scheduled to meet with House Foreign Affairs subcommittee members this week to discuss his knowledge of Iraq's chemical arms ring.

Israeli officials in Washington would not confirm the allegations.

But Yuval Rotem, Israeli government spokesman in New York, did not seem surprised by the idea. "We warned the Americans that Iraq was a threat that must be met.

"Two weeks before the invasion (of Kuwait), Israel sent its newly appointed defense minister to Washington to talk with (U.S. Defense Secretary) Dick Cheney about our concerns with Iraq, to make sure they fully understood what was going on in the Middle East. But they refused to do anything about it," Rotem said.

Barbouti funded several plants in the United States that produced parts and technology that may have been used in Iraqi weapons. His dealings have been under investigation by the U.S. Customs Office for three years, but the American businessmen who were his partners say they are being made scapegoats. They contend the investigation has been dragged out to spare the government embarrassment.

"That's been the thesis all along that factions within the government want the issue buried as deep as possible, not as much as a matter of national security as it is about national embarrassment," said Oklahoma City attorney Michael Johnston, who represents two former Barbouti associates.

"Thank God U.S. Customs was on the trail and kept this thing alive, or it would have been swept under the rug and forgotten about," he said.

Barbouti operated internationally through his parent company, IBI Industries, with offices in Houston, New York City, Paris and Frankfurt. Federal officials say he used several front companies and clandestine foreign bank accounts to cloak his transactions.

"The miracle of the war was that Saddam Hussein invaded when he did, rather than wait five years later when he would have had nuclear weapons," Rotem said. "We have Saddam Hussein to thank, because by invading, he exposed his own ambitions. He was our best PR agent. " Saddam extracted arms from just about any U.S. company doing business with him, and that includes Barbouti. If congressional investigators can link Barbouti to this scam, they hope an Iran-Contra style hearing will bring these violators to justice and expose guilty parties within the U.S. government.

Several congressmen are trying to link Barbouti to the more than $4 billion in agricultural exports to Iraq that were approved by the U.S. government. Half of those exports involved illegal purchases of weapons and high-technology equipment instead of food, congressional investigators say.

When arranging to buy agricultural products from U.S. companies, the Iraqis would ask the companies to provide other "sales services," such as supplying spare parts, trucks and military and electronic equipment, federal officials say. Eager to please a large customer, most of the companies complied.

"The Iraqis have clearly extorted money from exporters," said Rep. Charlie Rose, D-N.C., chairman of a House Government Operations subcommittee. "It appears every single American company dealing with them was asked for extra sales services. What we don't know is how many companies came across. "

Rose contends the United States used the credit program to funnel aid to Iraq to avoid offending Israel, perhaps unaware Iraq would use the program to extort military hardware from U.S. companies.

Iraq borrowed the $4 billion from the Banca del Nazionale Lavoro (BNL), a U.S. branch of an Italian bank in Atlanta, before bank regulators found out. In an arrangement that Rose calls fraud, BNL officials were extending more than their legal limits in credits to Iraq without the knowledge of the U.S. government. Iraq is not likely to repay the government-guaranteed loans, so U.S. taxpayers will be left with the bill.

Two businessmen who received funding from Barbouti Bruce Munden of Dallas and Moshe Tal of Oklahoma City also have been hoping for a grand jury indictment against Barbouti's son, Haidar Barbouti, 23, and Arie David, the Barbouti family lawyer.

They, like Louis Champon, who operated the Boca Raton plant, are involved in civil litigation to disassociate themselves from Barbouti. All three are subjects of the federal investigation.