Posted on 11/11/2002 8:27:08 AM PST by Grampa Dave
FBI tracked Saudi studying at PCC
11/11/02
STEVE SUO and LES ZAITZ
More than three years before the 9/11 terror attacks, the Portland FBI began tracking a polite young Saudi who was studying aircraft maintenance at Portland Community College.
Tareq S. al-Jahini, 29, hoped to become a mechanic at Saudi Arabian Airlines, which paid the tuition for his 1998 studies. But as FBI agents traced his movements and family relationships for the next several years, they found some connections that suggested other possible motives for his interest in aviation.
There were intelligence reports that al-Jahini's younger brother, Yaser, had offered to scout terrorist targets in the American Southwest during a conversation with an al-Qaida operative. And agents learned that al-Jahini had ties to several people charged with terrorism in the Middle East, according to law enforcement officials.
In July 2001, the suspicions about al-Jahini and nine other Middle Eastern men studying aviation in the United States prompted a Phoenix, Ariz., FBI agent to warn superiors that Osama bin Laden was targeting the airline industry.
Although a summary of his still-classified memo was made public in September as evidence in a congressional investigation of clues missed prior to Sept. 11, 2001, specifics such as al-Jahini's identity have not been previously disclosed.
Officials said they had no evidence that al-Jahini took part in the Sept. 11 attacks or other terrorist acts. But Daniel Benjamin, director of counterterrorism at the National Security Council from 1998 to 1999, said the Phoenix memo should have prompted a much more aggressive response by the FBI, which shelved it.
"If there were al-Qaida operatives in U.S. flight schools, they should have been interrogated, and we might have found out something about the conspiracy," said Benjamin, author of a newly published book, "The Age of Sacred Terror."
Taking classes at PCC Al-Jahini first obtained an Oregon identification card in November 1997, giving his address at an apartment complex in Hillsboro's Tanasbourne area, across U.S. 26 from PCC's Rock Creek campus. He shared that address with another brother, Ahmed, according to an FBI document.
Instructors said Tareq al-Jahini enrolled in the two-year aircraft maintenance program early in 1998, in the first group of employees that Saudi Arabian Airlines had sent to PCC since the early 1980s. It was also the last.
"Our honeymoon with the Saudi students was short-lived," instructor Gil Bynoe said.
Bynoe said the group of 20 Saudis attended language classes before arriving at PCC, where the airline paid for their housing and tuition. But the students struggled with English, and the airline was slow paying bills. Bynoe said one student submitted a test already graded, and two others submitted tests with identical answers.
By the end of the spring 1998 term, the college asked the students, many of them failing, to finish their studies elsewhere.
"We intended to have a fairly disciplined program," said Philip Siechen, another instructor, who confirmed al-Jahini's enrollment. "They didn't find it quite as easy to contend with as apparently other programs around the country."
Saudi Airlines did not answer repeated requests for comment. Attempts to track down al-Jahini were futile.
For reasons that authorities have not revealed, the Portland FBI began monitoring al-Jahini during his stay. Charles Mathews, special agent in charge of the field office, declined to comment.
Other law enforcement sources said the bureau kept its investigation low-key, apparently hoping the monitoring would produce intelligence information. Frost Johnson, PCC's director of enrollment services, said the FBI asked general questions about the aviation program after 9/11 but did not ask about specific students. Siechen said he was never contacted.
After leaving Portland, some of the Saudis went to Spokane Community College, while al-Jahini and others went to Arizona.
Records show al-Jahini enrolled at Cochise College in Douglas, Ariz., near the Mexican border, from July 1998 to September 1999. He rented a condominium 50 miles away, in the city of Sierra Vista, for $825 a month.
Property manager Elizabeth Holmes, who died recently, recalled in an earlier interview that al-Jahini was a polite, cleanshaven man with an easy smile. He spoke good English, listed his employer as Saudi Arabian Airlines and presented a pay stub from the Saudi government.
From January to September 1999, he lived in the condominium with his wife, Afaf, who had just given birth to a daughter. Sometimes a brother and other relatives visited from nearby Bisbee. He traveled to Saudi Arabia once during his stay.
The only trouble Holmes had with al-Jahini was when he bought a goat that munched the lawn.
Then, in 1999, the FBI came to visit Holmes. She said agents wanted to look at al-Jahini's file and asked who had visited him.
Interest falls on brother Law enforcement sources say Tareq al-Jahini's brother Yaser was of more significant interest to federal investigators.
Intelligence sources suspect that he, like hundreds of other Arabs, visited Bosnia in the early 1990s to help local Muslims wage war on the Serbs. The government also thinks he told a known al-Qaida operative he would identify potential terrorism targets while in the Southwest, sources said.
Where the al-Jahinis went next is unclear. Federal Aviation Administration records show Tarek S. A. Algahini -- one of several al-Jahini aliases known to the FBI -- received a mechanic's license Aug. 30, 1999. He listed a Saudi Arabian Airlines' address in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
In early 2001, Kenneth Williams, a Phoenix FBI agent assigned to counterterrorism, connected Tareq al-Jahini to nine other instances of Middle Eastern students enrolled in aviation courses.
Eleanor Hill, staff director to the congressional committees investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, summarized the Phoenix memo in a written report.
According to Hill's summary, the memo raised questions about intelligence that suggested Islamic fundamentalists had an interest in the U.S. aviation industry.
Evidence cited by the memo included a London-based Islamic group, whose founder had issued an anti-American fatwa -- an Islamic legal decree -- citing airports as possible targets. A member of the group studied aviation security at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida.
One of the security student's associates had tried to enter a commercial airline cockpit in 1999, later saying he thought it was a bathroom. The associate was not charged, but the State Department put him on a watch list after receiving intelligence that he had learned to build car bombs in Afghanistan.
Williams pointed to the security student, al-Jahini and eight other "individuals of investigative interest" in U.S. aeronautics programs. He concluded, Hill said, that "Islamic extremists, studying everything from aviation security to flying, could be learning how to hijack or destroy aircraft and to evade airport security."
Top FBI officials dismissed Williams' memo as speculative, Hill said. The Osama bin Laden Unit in New York thought al-Qaida sent men for aviation training because it needed pilots to transport men and supplies in Afghanistan.
On Aug. 7, an FBI analyst in New York sent a copy of the Phoenix memo to a Portland colleague who repeatedly had raised questions about aviation ties of "terrorist subjects" in Portland and Seattle.
"Nothing concrete or whatever, but some very interesting coincidences," the New York analyst wrote. "I thought it would be interesting to you considering some of the stuff you were coming up with in Portland. Let me know if anything strikes you."
A month later, terrorists struck New York and the Pentagon. Within weeks, Tareq, Yaser and Ahmed al-Jahini appeared again: on an FBI list of 345 people sought internationally for information about Sept. 11. News researcher Marge Gultry contributed to this report. Steve Suo: 503-221-8288; stevesuo@news.oregonian.com Les Zaitz: 503-221-8181; leszaitz@news.oregonian.com
After leaving Portland, some of the Saudis went to Spokane Community College, while al-Jahini and others went to Arizona.
Makes you wonder how many of these Islamakazis were attracted to live in the Pacific NW due to the Political Correctness mania in the major population areas of the Pacific NW!
Ya think?...
Property manager Elizabeth Holmes, who died recently...
Any details about the death? Let us know if it was in a burning car wreck.
Why ERAU hasn't disbanded the Islamic student group is ridiculous.
This AFTER 9/11.....can you imagine arresting these folks prior to the terror attack.
Let's see ... what else is in Sierra Vista? How about Fort Huachuca, home of the US Army Intelligence Center and other interesting stuff?
I think Douglas AZ probably has apartments and condos. Signing up for a 50 mile commute from SV probably wasn't an accident.
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