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Posted on 06/04/2002 3:35:30 PM PDT by sixmil
WASHINGTON (AP) - Investigators believe they have identified a Kuwaiti lieutenant of Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) as the likely mastermind of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a senior U.S. counterterrorism official said Tuesday.
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U.S. investigators believe Mohammed planned many aspects of the Sept. 11 attacks, turning bin Laden's calls for dead Americans into reality.
"There's lots of links that tie him to 9-11," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "He's the most significant operational player out there right now."
A second U.S. official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said Mohammed played a key role in planning the attacks as did Abu Zubaydah, the al-Qaida leader now in U.S. custody.
Within three months of Sept. 11, according to the official, the FBI learned that Mohammed had moved money that was used to pay for the attacks and since then the United States has gathered other significant evidence pointing to him as the key planner. The official declined to go into detail, citing a need to protect intelligence information.
Mohammed is accused of working with Ramzi Yousef in the first bombing of the World Trade Center, which left six dead in 1993. He and Yousef, hiding in the Philippines, also are accused of plotting in 1995 to hijack and bomb several trans-Pacific airliners heading for the United States. Yousef, now serving a life sentence in the United States, also has been accused of plotting to crash a plane into CIA (news - web sites) headquarters.
Mohammed was charged by federal prosecutors in New York in 1996 in connection with the alleged 1995 plot. The FBI describes him as in his mid-thirties, sometimes wearing a beard and glasses, and slightly overweight. His aliases include Ashraf Refaat Nabith Henin, Khalid Abdul Wadood, Salem Ali and Fahd Bin Abdallah Bin Khalid.
U.S. officials have repeatedly said that capturing or killing bin Laden's cadre of lieutenants — men like Mohammed — is a key goal in the war on terrorism. In some ways, they are considered as dangerous as bin Laden: Where al-Qaida's leader serves as an inspiration to his followers, his top aides conduct the nuts-and-bolts planning of attacks.
The lieutenants are said to pick targets and attack dates, provide money and training to the foot soldiers and overseas cells chosen to carry them out — sometimes at the cost of their own lives — and maintain operational secrecy.
Most of the 19 suicide hijackers are thought not to have known the entirety of the Sept. 11 plot — or that they were going to die — but Mohammed apparently did, the counterterrorism official said.
Mohammed has not been charged in connection with the attacks, which crashed hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center and Pentagon (news - web sites), leaving more than 3,000 dead.
He was a close associate of Abu Zubaydah, officials said.
Some of the hijackers trained at Abu Zubaydah's Khalden camp in Afghanistan, the counterterrorism official said. Generally, though, the hijackers trained in groups of one or two at several camps, and they were kept apart from most other trainees.
Abu Zubaydah, captured in Pakistan in March, is said to have told U.S. interrogators that the hijacked plane that crashed in Pennsylvania was destined for the White House, suggesting he knew of the planning.
According to investigators, the Sept. 11 attacks were largely paid for by Shaikh Saiid al-Sharif, also known as Mustafa Ahmed al-Hisawi, who is bin Laden's financial chief. Officials traced a number of financial transactions between him and several of hijackers, but Shaikh Saiid was not believed to have the wherewithal to plan an operation of Sept. 11's magnitude. He is at large.
A fourth bin Laden lieutenant, Tawfiq Attash Khallad, is also suspected of playing a planning role. He met with future hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in January 2000, just before Almihdhar and Alhazmi entered the United States. Khallad paid for some of the pair's travel before Sept. 11, the counterterrorism official said.
Khallad, also accused of being one of the two chief planners of the October 2000 USS Cole (news - web sites) bombing, remains at large, the official said.
Some key connections have yet to be worked out, the official acknowledged, such as who selected chief hijacker Mohammed Atta and the rest for the operation.
Bin Laden and his top two deputies, Ayman al-Zawahri and Mohammed Atef, were believed to have known about the attacks in advance, by virtue of their rank in al-Qaida. Al-Zawahri's family was killed by a U.S. airstrike in Afghanistan. It is not known where he is.
Atef, killed by military and CIA airstrikes in November, also had a martyrdom video of one of the so-called "20th hijackers" — the ones who never made it on a plane — at his house. Ramzi Binalshibh was a member Atta's cell in Germany, but was unable to enter the United States. He remains at large.
The official said the video remains one of the key connections between Atta and bin Laden's inner circle.
Bin Laden himself — assuming he wasn't just boasting — admitted foreknowledge of the Sept. 11 attacks on a Nov. 9 videotape of him having dinner with a Saudi sheik, al-Zawahri and some other supporters.
It's time we had some new legislation (almost gagged at the thought, though) that SEVERLY punishes "leakers" that jeopardize national security. Talking about JAIL TIME.
Would that this could be accomplished. Thoughts of many criminal dims in jail is very pleasing. Too bad this will never happen.
My guess is that they are still figuring things out. Making the connections. Could be, also, that interrogation of certain captives is bearing some fruit. If it were up to me, Abu Zubaydah, and any similarly knowledgeable al-queda senior, would be walking around in a drugged out state with half a testicle by now.
I liked that one too. Has a nice ring to it.
For every inhabitant of the turd wurld -- and especially of that wurld's islamanazi states -- is [Just like the inhabitants of America's universities -- and most Europeans] either himself psychopathologically hesporophobic and/or is terrorised by those around him who are.
The end result is that -- until we destroy every last one of their despotic states -- every last one of the bastards is a threat.
No, not "profiling" or "generalizations"! That's not the problem. You are taking a position that it's OK to wipe out a whole country just because one guy who was born there but who does not live there is now our enemy.I wasn't actually taking a "wipe out" position, but I will certainly keep that in mind. Actually, I think you could send a message by "wiping out" far fewer people than an entire country, just as Al Queda did on 9/11. Your absolutist arguments are strange in that I think you were actually trying to paint me as an absolutist, and the part about "born there but does not live there" is completely non sequitor if you think about it for even a fraction of a second. But, don't mind me; I will keep tallying up the allies that hate us while you come up with excuses for us keep tolerating them.
Shucks. Credits: "Clymer[iated]" instead of "Ass[ociated]" is with thanks to W's off-mike comment during the campaign. "Pressholes" is with thanks to Freeper Lazmataz...
It's one thing to be blamed for stuff simply because you have a bad guy associated with you or your country. It's quite another to be blamed for stuff because there is a bad guy somewhere. Just hit the following URL ref to find what you need:
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