Ramzi Yousef, Oklahoma City, and Al Qaeda: Linked in Documents?

Does an obscure document, hidden among the hundreds of documents released recently from Iraq and Afghanistan, provide evidence linking Al Qaeda operative Ramzi Yousef to the Oklahoma City attack on the MurrahBuilding?

The Arabic-language handwritten document, numbered AFGP-2002-801138, and available at http://www.ctc.usma.edu/aq/AFGP-2002-801138-Orig.pdf , contains a series of pages that were written in what appears to be some sort of daily planner.

The daily planner appears to be a standard daily calendar/agenda book, containing a daily calendar for the year 2000. The dates within the calendar are in English, and have the Islamic dates for each day as well.

The planner appears to be one sold commercially in Pakistan. The early pages of the planner are printed in English, and contain information that would be helpful to non-Urdu speaking persons in Pakistan, including emergency telephone numbers in Karachi, air travel times from Pakistan, and various other reference guides. It's interesting to note that the handwriting in the document is all in Arabic, despite the planner's Pakistani provenance.

A note at the beginning of the document states that the document was obtained from a "Boot Camp - Class of 2000" in Afghanistan. The term "Boot Camp" most likely refers to one of the Al Qaeda training camps operating in Afghanistan in that time period. Dated comments within the document confirm that the document was most likely written in the year 2000. Other notes indicate that the document is very likely a compilation of questions being prepared for use by Osama Bin Laden in the filming of a new videotape.

The document confirms the links between Al Qaeda and Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman, convicted in the US for his role in terrorism planning in New York City, and Ramzi Yousef, convicted Al Qaeda operative, calling them "brothers" (see page 122).

In respect to our Brothers who are imprisoned in the United States and other infidel countries, are there attempts or hope to release them such as sheikh 'Omar 'Abd Al-Rahman, Ramzi Yousef and others?

And in a series of questions, apparently forming a set from which Bin Laden can select questions to discuss in a video tape, goes on to implicate Yousef (and indirectly implicate Al Qaeda) in the April 1995 attack on Oklahoma City (see page 192).

We hear about the Oklahoma explosion and that it is the largest explosion in America. Is it the one planned by Ramzi Yousef or not? (Note: This question was circled and marked with two (X) marks.

The document goes on to pose other questions to Bin Laden with regards to "the Americans".

An Iraqi soldier said," America placed missiles with nuclear heads capability in Kuwait aimed on Russia and that what he saw with his own eyes. When Saddam occupied Kuwait he took these missiles along with its transporters and is still in Iraq. The United States is still looking for these missiles but could not find them because Saddam succeeded in hiding it. Is this claim true, and what do you think of it?

Many of the questions are quite ominous, and show that rumors of some sort of large scale attack against the United States was being planned in the summer of 2000.

What is the news about the battalions you are preparing? Do we have a role to play in it or not? We asked our instructors but no one gave an answer in this matter?

Why is there a delay in executing the martyrdom operations against the Americans?

We heard a lot about the (BATTALION) that will be dispatched from Afghanistan, are there news about it, and its destination?

Dear Sheikh, we pledged the legend to you to work and join Jihad movement, we will not let down, we are the soldiers of God. Please explain to us the importance of martyrdom operations against the American infidels?

What are the most famous and important American corporations that handle American interests and where is it located?

Other questions are more indirect - implying that the US of international "troublemaking".

Is it in the American interest to stir trouble in Iran? I read in a study that the United States created a Shiite state in case an eastern and a western Sunnis states clash or not with this Shiite state. The study concluded that Khumeini was delivered to Tahran during the revolution by an American combat aircraft?

As more of these documents are released and examined, it is very likely that we will find not only a wide range of "smoking gun" evidence regarding earlier terror attacks, but we will likely gain insight into the minds of Al Qaeda. Hopefully we will be able to translate this insight into prevention of future terror attacks.

For more translations and news on terrorism, visit http://www.lauramansfield.com

One particularly disturbing question discusses rumors of nuclear weapons and Iraq, implying that Iraq was already in possession of nuclear missiles in the summer of 2000. It's interesting to note the repeated references to Iraq even though the document was found in Afghanistan, but isn't surprising given the fact that many of the "mujahideen" were actually men from the Arab countries, including Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt. (See page 178):

An Iraqi soldier said," America placed missiles with nuclear heads capability in Kuwait aimed on Russia and that what he saw with his own eyes. When Saddam occupied Kuwait he took these missiles along with its transporters and is still in Iraq. The United States is still looking for these missiles but could not find them because Saddam succeeded in hiding it. Is this claim true, and what do you think of it?

So is this related?

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1489385/posts?page=2#2

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In July 1977, the head of Pakistan's army, Mohammed Zia-ul-Haq, seized power and declared martial law, and in 1979, he hanged Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the president who had promoted him. In retaliation, Carter cut off U.S. aid to Pakistan. In 1980, Herring went to Islamabad and was so entranced by Zia and his support for the Afghan freedom fighters that on her return to the United States, she encouraged Wilson to go to Pakistan. There he met Zia, learned about the Afghan moujahedeen and became a convert to the cause. Once Reagan replaced Carter, Wilson was able to restore Zia's aid money and added several millions to the CIA's funds for secretly arming the Afghan guerrillas, each dollar of which the Saudi government secretly matched.

Although Wilson romanticized the mountain warriors of Afghanistan, the struggle was never as uneven as it seemed. Pakistan provided the fighters with sanctuary, training and arms and even sent its own officers into Afghanistan as advisors on military operations. Saudi Arabia served as the fighters' banker, providing hundred of millions with no strings attached. Several governments, including those of Egypt, China and Israel, secretly supplied arms. And the insurgency enjoyed the backing of the United States through the CIA.

Wilson's and the CIA's greatest preoccupation was supplying the Afghans with something effective against the Soviets' most feared weapon, the Mi-24 Hind helicopter gunship. The Red Army used it to slaughter innumerable moujahedeen as well as to shoot up Afghan villages. Wilson favored the Oerlikon antiaircraft gun made in Switzerland (it was later charged that he was on the take from the Zurich-based arms manufacturer). Avrakotos opposed it because it was too heavy for guerrillas to move easily, but he could not openly stand in Wilson's way. After months of controversy, the Joint Chiefs of Staff finally dropped their objections to supplying the American Stinger, President Reagan signed off on it, and the "silver bullet" was on its way. The Stinger had never before been used in combat. It proved to be murderous against the Hinds, and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev decided to cut his losses and get out altogether. In Wilson's postwar tour of Afghanistan, moujahedeen fighters surrounded him and triumphantly fired their missiles for his benefit. They also gave him as a souvenir the stock from the first Stinger to shoot down a Hind gunship.

The CIA "bluebloods" fired Avrakotos in the summer of 1986, and he retired to Rome. Wilson became chairman of the Intelligence Oversight Committee, at which time he wrote to his CIA friends, "Well, gentlemen, the fox is in the hen house. Do whatever you like." After retiring from Congress in 1996, he became a lobbyist for Pakistan under a contract that paid him $30,000 a month. Meanwhile, the United States lost interest in Afghanistan, which descended into a civil war that the Taliban ultimately won. In the autumn of 2001, the United States returned in force after Al Qaeda retaliated against its former weapon supplier by attacking New York and Washington. The president of the United States went around asking, "Why do they hate us?"

Crile knows a lot about these matters and presents them in a dramatic manner. There are, however, one or two items that he appears unaware of or is suppressing. For the CIA legally to carry out a covert action, the president must authorize a document called a finding. Crile repeatedly says that Carter signed such a finding ordering the CIA to provide covert backing to the moujahedeen after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan on Dec. 24, 1979. The truth of the matter is that Carter signed the finding on July 3, 1979, six months before the Soviet invasion, and he did so on the advice of his national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, in order to try to provoke a Russian incursion. Brzezinski has confirmed this sequence of events in an interview with a French newspaper, and former CIA Director Robert M. Gates says so explicitly in his 1996 memoirs. It may surprise Charlie Wilson to learn that his heroic moujahedeen were manipulated by Washington like so much cannon fodder in order to give the USSR its own Vietnam. The moujahedeen did the job, but as subsequent events have made clear, they may not be grateful to the United States.

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