Posted on 05/28/2002 4:07:45 PM PDT by gubamyster
Tue May 28, 5:12 PM ET By PIERO VALSECCHI, Associated Press Writer
MILAN, Italy - Analyses of wiretapped conversations between a sheik from Yemen and the leader of a Milan mosque have turned up what police now believe are chilling predictions of the Sept. 11 attacks, including a boast of a terrifying operation by a "madman," apparently a reference to Osama bin-Laden.
Milan daily Corriere della Sera Tuesday ran excerpts of transcripts of the conversations, which took place in 2000 and 2001 before the attacks.
The conversations were between Abdulsalam Abdulrahman, the sheik, who had traveled to Italy, and Abdelkader Mahmoud Es Sayed, who fled from Italy two months before the attacks and is considered by the United States to be the organizer of al-Qaida's cell, bin Laden's network, in Milan.
Es Sayed, an Egyptian national, was convicted of the 1997 massacre at Luxor in which 58 foreign tourists were killed.
The chief of the Milan office of DIGOS, Italy's anti-terrorism police, confirmed that the transcripts were accurate. Massimo Mazza told The Associated Press that the transcripts were turned over a few days ago to Prosecutor Stefano Dambruoso, who is leading Italy's probe into Italian-based al-Qaida operatives.
In one conversation, in summer 2000, the sheik tells the imam: "In the future, listen to the news and remember these words: `above the head.'"
The sheik says the action will be "one of those strikes that you never forget." He added that it will be a "terrifying thing, it will move from south to north, from east to west. He who made this plan is a madman, but a genius. It will turn you to ice."
The sheik also says: "Ah, yes, there are big clouds in the sky, there in that country, the fire is already lit and it's just waiting for the wing....All the newspapers in the world will write about it."
Mazza told The Ap that investigators had a hard time understanding, before Sept. 11, what the men were talking about.
"After what happened, it's now easy to draw conclusions ... but before, it was difficult to understand."
The taps were made from bugging places where the two men were, not taps of telephone lines, meaning it took a long time to remove extraneous noise from the taps and translate them.
Corriere della Sera reported that the FBI (news - web sites) helped Italian experts in deciphering the bugged conversations.
According to a transcript of a January 2001 conversation between the imam and a Tunisian who was later arrested in Milan by Italy's anti-terrorist police, there is discussion of false documents.
The Tunisian asks: "Are they needed for our brothers who will go in the United States?"
"Don't ever repeat these words!" the imam warns.
What the heck does that mean??
...a turban?
Who knows, maybe the attack would be "above the head" of the Statue of Liberty as they crashed into the WTC.
Yes, the taped conversations took place in early 2001 and so Italian police and intelligence sources knew of their existence for some time. However, they have only recently been translated and given to U.S. authorities.
The reasons given:
The tapes were difficult to hear due to lots of background noise and the terrorists spoke to each other in a little known or little used dialect.
So the whole world didn't know after all. Even if the tapes had been translated, transcribed and given to us earlier there is still not enough information on them for anyuone to determine the type of monsterous act they were planning.
This is exerpt from Osama tape translation Here
"This is America, God has sent one of the attacks by God and has attacked one of its best buildings. And this is America filled with fear from the north, south, east and west, thank God."
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