German secret service 'failed to act on terrorist warnings' (THANKS A LOT, FRITZ)

The Daily Telegraph ^ | November 24, 2001 | Toby Helm

[MadIvan]

GERMAN intelligence officers failed to follow up on a request to place under surveillance the Hamburg home of the September 11 suicide attackers and planners, according to well placed sources.

The information suggests that the German counter-intelligence service, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, missed a golden opportunity to raid the Hamburg cell and, possibly, prevent the world's worst terrorist atrocity. Around 4,000 people died in the attacks on New York and Washington.

The terrorists' flat, at number 54 Marienstrasse, Hamburg, was home to three of the suicide hijackers, including the ringleader, Mohammed Atta. The plot was believed to have been hatched there.

The information about the intelligence failure, always denied by German intelligence, comes from a source on a parliamentary committee that oversees the work of the Hamburg state secret service.

The source said it would be "absolutely right" to say that the intelligence agency had known about the flat before September 11.

The revelation adds to a growing volume of evidence suggesting that the German intelligence services were much closer to the potential terrorists in Hamburg before September 11 than they have wanted to admit.

Since the attacks on New York and Washington, the German authorities have maintained that members of the Hamburg group were just students who they had no reason to suspect because they led unremarkable lives, typical of terrorist "sleepers".

"They had completely inconspicuous lives. Nothing they did gave us cause to be suspicious," said a senior German investigator. They also claimed that they had never been directed towards 54 Marienstrasse.

However, this defence is looking less credible by the day. The Telegraph has established that a committee of MPs with responsibility for intelligence matters in Hamburg met on Sept 17 to discuss the implications of the attack.

According to a source who was there, MPs were told that the Hamburg state intelligence service had been asked by the Federal intelligence services more than a year earlier to observe 54 Marienstrasse.

The source, who did not want to be named, said the intelligence services did not react and that no evidence was ever gathered from the flat. It was unclear to him why they had not acted but one theory is that they believed the tip was based on outdated information.

The Hamburg flat had been rented since November 1998 by Atta and Said Bahaji, a German-Moroccan. Bahaji, who has since fled abroad, probably to Pakistan, is thought to have provided key logistical back-up to the suicide attackers. An international arrest warrant has been issued against him.

Two other September 11 hijackers, Marwan al Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah, had also lived or stayed in the flat, as had at least three others who police believe were involved in the planning.

While Atta, al Shehhi and Jarrah all moved to America in the summer of last year in order to learn to fly, the flat was occupied by other members of the cell until the end of February. Bahaji seems to have moved out in September 1999.

Yesterday the national headquarters of Germany's internal intelligence service said it had "no comment" when asked if they had known about 54 Marienstrasse before September 11. Last week a spokesman had strongly denied any knowledge at all.

Another source on the committee said the intelligence services had had "one clue or another" about Islamic extremists operating in Hamburg before September 11 and that they had observed the Mosque where Bahaji and Atta prayed. But she denied knowing of any firm "clues" that should have led to a raid on Marienstrasse.

The evidence suggests that German investigators, while claiming to have known nothing about a group they described as typical inconspicuous "sleepers", were in fact very close to the trail of the group.

It is also evident that the Hamburg cell's key members, particularly Atta, were behaving in ways anything but typical of impoverished student "sleepers".

Atta was a regular "club class" air traveller, visiting Spain, Italy, the Czech Republic, the United States and according to the FBI, other countries in the year before the attacks.

There is evidence that he was acting as a link between al-Qa'eda cells in Europe. "He's the guy with the scruffiest jeans on the block," said David Schiller, a former security adviser to the German police who is highly critical of the way police, the intelligence services and the federal prosecutor in Germany have handled Islamic terrorism. "Yet he goes all over the world club class and no one suspects anything."

Other intelligence sources say that the Germans in fact did have Bahaji (though not his cohorts) under observation for months if not years before September 11 because of his links to Mamoun Darkazanli, a Hamburg businessman.

Darkazanli was under observation because of his links to one of Osama bin Laden's finance chiefs, Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, who was arrested in 1998.

According to a television programme for Germany's ARD public television shown last night, the national intelligence service monitored at least one conversation between Muslim extremists in Hamburg in 1999 in which a "Mohammed" was repeatedly mentioned.

The programme makers say it is now clear to the intelligence services that this was Mohammed Atta.

Last weekend eight suspected terrorists were taken into custody in Spain, where the judge accused them of being directly linked to the September 11 attacks. It is suspected that Atta, who had visited Spain in January and July, had contacts with members of the group.

There, the police freely admit that they had the group under observation for at least two years before. Similarly, in Italy the police admit they had a Mosque in Milan, which investigators believe was an "epicentre" for an al-Qa'eda cell, under observation for 10 years.

In Germany, however, they still say that the terrorists were sleepers who they knew absolutely nothing about - despite a mounting catalogue of evidence to the contrary.

[MadIvan]

Well thanks a lot, Fritz. Nice to know we can count on you. /sarcasm.

Regards, Ivan

But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, "This was their finest hour."

Today is Trinity Sunday. Centuries ago words were written to be a call and a spur to the faithful servants of Truth and Justice: "Arm yourselves, and be ye men of valour, and be in readiness for the conflict; for it is better for us to perish in battle than to look upon the outrage of our nation and our altar. As the Will of God is in Heaven, even so let it be." - Winston Churchill, 1940

This then, my lords and gentlemen, is the message which we send forth today to all states and nations, bound or free, to all the men in all the lands who care for freedom's cause. To our Allies and well-wishers in Europe, to our American friends and helpers drawing ever closer in their might across the ocean, this is the message-lift up your hearts, all will come right. Out of depths of sorrow and sacrifice will be born again the glory of mankind. - Winston Churchill, 1941

"What kind of a people do they think we are? Is it possible that they do not realize that we shall never cease to persevere against them until they have been taught a lesson which they and the world will never forget?" - Winston Churchill, 1941

[MadIvan]

Bump!

[JohnHuang2]

Bump!

[nopardons]

What has happened to German perfectionism ?

[MadIvan]

What has happened to German perfectionism ?

Apparently it only applies to their automobiles. ;)

Regards, Ivan

[nopardons]

LOL : - )

[mdittmar]

Well thanks a lot, Fritz.

I feel a little tension in your post.

WW11,maybe?

I'm of German descent,and I want you to know I harbor no ill feelings about the Revolutionary War.

Regards,mdittmar

[MadIvan]

I feel a little tension in your post.

Well if there was a big country that had been responsible for starting two world wars in living memory, harboured a lot of lunatic greens and socialists who wanted to drag you into the European superstate and now did this, you might be a little tense too. ;)

Regards, Ivan

[Bogie]

#7

Maybe you don't, but I do. Especially when English troops stabled their horses in our Congregational Churches.

Besides,who reads the "Telegraph?"

[dixie sass]

"... just students who they had no reason to suspect because they led unremarkable lives, typical of terrorist "sleepers".

"They had completely inconspicuous lives. Nothing they did gave us cause to be suspicious,..."

Amazing, I have been hearing this same thing from and about our investigators since 9-11. Well, at least I know the investigative forces in other countries are no better and no worse than ours. Doesn't make me feel very safe and secure though.

[Brownie74]

Atta was a regular "club class" air traveller, visiting Spain, Italy, the Czech Republic, the United States and according to the FBI, other countries in the year before the attacks.

Amazing ain't it?

[jjbrouwer]

This isn't the first time the Krauts have been caught with their trousers down - as Michael Owen will testify.

[lavaroise]

Terrosism is using the same tactics of the drug trade targeting the US as a haven for easily extorted money for pleasure trips and money/migrants. It's a domino flow of drugs and terrorism from rogue states, to lesser rogue states, to promising states like Iran, to Eastern states like the Czech republic to Germany, the gateway to Eastern Europe, and then throughout Europe and the US.

[Dustbunny]

Bump!

[Churchillspirit]

Thanks for the ping, Ivan.

I have many German friends, but would never accuse them of imagination or impulsive action. Their intelligence services are probably still planning surveillance of the Hamburg appartment.

BTW As I post this, one eye is on TV - watching Then There Were Giants. Even after all these years, still brings a lump to my throat listening to Winnie's inspiring speeches.

[StoneColdGOP]

Well if there was a big country that had been responsible for starting two world wars in living memory, harboured a lot of lunatic greens and socialists who wanted to drag you into the European superstate and now did this, you might be a little tense too. ;)

I would be as well. As I recall we Yanks had a bit to do with having to solve that whole problem. Twice.