9/11 Mastermind Linked to Youseff in Philippines (OKC Bombing)

MANILA, Philippines –– The man suspected of masterminding the Sept. 11 attacks lived lavishly in the Philippines with his nephew, the 1993 World Trade Center plotter, partying, scuba-diving and renting a helicopter as they planned attacks against Americans, according to a former police official who investigated al-Qaida.

U.S. counterterrorism officials have said that since Sept. 11, evidence has mounted that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was chief among Osama bin Laden lieutenants organizing the plot that sent hijacked passenger jets crashing into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field, killing more than 3,000 people.

Abu Zubaydah – a senior al-Qaida member who is now in U.S. custody – has apparently identified Mohammed as the organizer, and investigators have learned he transferred money that was subsequently used in the attacks.

Mohammed, the FBI's most wanted terrorist after bin Laden, reportedly lived in the Philippines in 1994-95 with his nephew, Ramzi Yousef, said Rodolfo Mendoza, a northern Philippine police official who once supervised operations against suspected al-Qaida agents in the country.

Yousef was later convicted and sentenced to life in prison for his role in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.

"Many of the things (Mohammed) is suspected of plotting may have been planned" in the Philippines, Mendoza said in an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Mohammed, 37, has not been charged in the Sept. 11 attacks, but he has been charged in a 1995 plot to bomb or hijack 11 U.S.-bound flights originating in Asian countries, including the Philippines. U.S. officials say he also allegedly worked with Yousef on the initial World Trade Center bombing in 1993.

Using the aliases Abdul Majid and Salem Ali, Mohammed arrived in the Philippines in early 1994 and stayed mostly in Yousef's Manila apartment.

In December 1994, Mohammed and Yousef went to Puerto Galera, a beach resort south of Manila, to take a weeklong scuba diving course, Mohammed said.

Yousef's Filipino girlfriend told police she had met Mohammed, who portrayed himself as a rich businessman from Qatar. One meeting took place in a five-star hotel in Makati, Manila's financial district, Mendoza recalled. Mohammed and his companions also frequented nightclubs and hotel bars in Manila, Mendoza said.

The uncle and nephew even rented a helicopter to impress a dentist Mohammed was courting.

The woman challenged Mohammed, who flew the helicopter himself, "to rent an aircraft and fly over (her clinic) while talking with the lady dentist through his mobile phone and waving," Mendoza said.

The U.S. government is offering up to $25 million for information leading to Mohammed's arrest. He is believed to be hiding somewhere in Afghanistan.

Much of the information on Mohammed's past activities in the Philippines was revealed in a series of interrogations with Abdul Hakim al Hashim Murad, a Pakistani arrested in Manila in 1995 for allegedly plotting to kill Pope John Paul II and conspiring in the plot to hijack or bomb U.S.-bound airliners.

Mohammed appeared to have supervised the planning for those two attacks, which would have been carried out by Yousef, Murad and several companions had the plots not been discovered.

"He was organizing things, the others were operatives," Mendoza said of Mohammed.

A confidential Philippine police report prepared by Mendoza said Mohammed, Yousef, Murad and Osama Asmurai, an al-Qaida agent also known as Wali Khan Amin Shah, coordinated with al-Qaida's support networks in the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia while planning the plot to down airliners.

Police arrested Murad in 1995 when he returned to retrieve belongings from a rented Manila apartment, which he and Yousef abandoned hours earlier after a small explosion from chemical bomb ingredients sent smoke billowing out the window.

One of the most important items found in Yousef's room was a laptop computer, which contained details on the plot and information on al-Qaida figures, including a picture of Mohammed, Mendoza said.

After Murad's arrest, Yousef fled to Pakistan, where he was later arrested and then handed over to U.S. custody. Mohammed fled the Philippines for an unknown destination.

Murad told interrogators that he first met Mohammed in July 1993 at Mohammed's house in Karachi, Pakistan, which he and Yousef visited. In that and succeeding meetings, their conversations focused mainly on aircraft because of Mohammed's intense interest in pilot training, Mendoza quoted Murad as saying.

Maybe one or two top people in the government and secret service of X.

I wouldn't expect too many more than that. It was a secret mission, after all.

But the number of people doesn't matter. It's an all-or-nothing question: Did Atta operate under some outside authority? If so, his actions are part of an overall strategy still being pursued by the larger organization. If not, he just added his personal mark of disorder and death to the world, and the Muslim extremist groups are simply trying to figure out, after the fact, how to build on Atta's actions and take advantage of the resulting situation.

If we think in terms of this being back in WWII days, and all these terrorists being the Germans,Japs, and Italians,who were joined in a fight to the finish to kill us all, it is easier to handle.

All these terrorists, Islamic radicals,are joined by their common goal,the death of us all.

Their funding comes from all over the world, including America.

I refuse to get caught up in the small details.

We know who the enemy is. We know they are joined.We know that much of it is internal to America.

We know that in World War II we closed our borders and didnt let in millions of Germans, Japs and Italians.

We know that we deported thousands .

Why is it soo hard to think of Islamic terrorists as wearing an enemy uniform?

If we saw three Nazizs in uniform in three different areas of the world, would we not know they are one and the same?

Would we not know that they are working together?

Kill them all now!

You did an excellent job of connecting the dots, explaining the logic and connections for 9/11 and OKC with your links in your reply #13.

I appreciate your contributions and hard work.

The terrorism story is too big for any one person and we all need each others help to do what we can to inform others and to save our country and lives.

Did Atta operate under some outside authority?
If so, his actions are part of an overall strategy
still being pursued by the larger organization.
If not, he just added his personal mark
of disorder and death to the world,
and the Muslim extremist groups are simply trying
to figure out, after the fact,
how to build on Atta's actions
and take advantage of the resulting situation.

I think the situation is more complex than that.
I don’t believe that before 09-11-01 Al-Qaeda existed
except in the delusional brain of Bin Laden
and his 300 raggle-taggle followers.
Terrorism is scattered around the world
in diverse groups of like-minded people
that have different names
in different places and at different times.
It has no center and I think it closely resembles the internet
X in country A has connections with Y and Z in country B.
If destroyed in one place the entire structure survives virtually intact.
I don’t expect there will be an attack as severe as 09-11-01 for some time.
(Maybe a conventional bomb or two).
There aren’t really that many Attas around,
though eventually another probably will appear.

There aren’t really that many Attas around, though eventually another probably will appear

We need to flag this post, Nogbad. I hope you aren't proven wrong tomorrow.

I would suggest that, while there probably aren't too many people around (thank God) with Atta's intellect,skills, discipline, determination, connection, and hatred..(What did you call him last night, a maniac, I think? Good word)There are hundreds and hundreds of lesser maniacs in the Middle East willing to kill themselves and as many others as possible.

India and Pakistan both have the bomb, remember. So all it really takes is one.

Maybe one or two top people in the government and secret service of X.

Maybe just the secret service, as opposed to the civilian government or the regular military.

If so, this begs the question, at least for Pakistan, as to who controls the nuclear weapons: the civilian government, the regular military, or the secret service? (Or is it possible that nuclear weapon control there is not unified, that each of these power centers within the government controls some of the nuclear weapons?)

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