Hussaun Alhussaini
Posted on 11/23/2002 12:09:30 AM PST by flamefront
FBI manhunt for foreign terrorists
On April 19, 1995, I was working as an investigative reporter for the NBC affiliate in Oklahoma City, KFOR-TV and was one of the first journalists to broadcast to an international audience what Americans never expected to hear: an enormous truck bomb rocked the heartland.
The FBI immediately launched an international pursuit of several Middle Eastern looking males who were seen fleeing the Murrah Building in a brown Chevy pickup just moments before the blast. Within hours and without explanation, federal agents instructed Oklahoma County law enforcement officials to cancel the all-points-bulletin issued that morning for foreign terrorists.
However, the FBI apparently continued to aggressively seek Middle Eastern suspects. Agents detained and interrogated several Pakistanis nationals, originally from Dallas and New York, whom were spotted by an Oklahoma Highway Patrolman in Oklahoma City one hour before the bombing. The license plate on their GM Blazer had been switched from a rental car they leased at Dallas/Ft. Worth Airport the day before.
On the afternoon of April 19, the Oklahoma Highway Patrol issued an all-points-bulletin for three Middle Eastern subjects in the GM Blazer. Shortly thereafter, the men were caught and questioned, then subsequently released. Their presence in Oklahoma City and the reason for the switched plate on their vehicle were never satisfactorily explained.
Within 48 hours, the focus of the investigation shifted from the Middle East to homegrown terrorism. The FBI had two suspects in custody, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. Both were publicly labeled as disgruntled army veterans who were motivated by anti-government views.
However, the arrests of American citizens did not dissuade the federal government from employing precautionary measures to guard against further strikes by Middle Eastern terrorists. According to a Department of Defense memorandum, the FBI director contacted the defense secretary and requested that the Army Arabic linguists monitor live wiretaps in real time of "radical fundamentalist Islamic organizations" operating in several major U.S. cities. This unique correspondence was initiated in an effort to "protect the President from possible attack during his attendance of the memorial service in Oklahoma City on Sunday, April 23."
The specter of "others unknown"
When the federal grand jury issued the official indictment of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, it concluded they acted with "others unknown." Several members of the Denver juries who convicted the two Oklahoma City bombers candidly expressed their strongly held belief that after months of examining every facet of the government's evidence, they determined the April 19 bombing involved more than those who had been arrested and charged.
Lead defense counsel for McVeigh's federal trial, Stephen Jones, disclosed the American terrorist failed a polygraph examination when he denied that several unidentified conspirators aided and abetted in the construction of the truck bomb. "I believe Timothy McVeigh's role in the Oklahoma City bombing was a very minor one," Jones postulated in a nationally televised interview. "A member of the conspiracy? Yes. The leader? No. The financier? No. The organizer? No. Timothy McVeigh saw his role as the cover for everybody else, to be the person to fall on the sword. It served deep-seated emotional needs that he had, and it furthered the role of the conspiracy."
When sentencing Terry Nichols to life behind bars, U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch remarked, "It would be disappointing for me if the law enforcement agencies of the United States government have quit looking for answers."
Driven by a belief that federal prosecutors presented only a partial picture of the events of April 19, an Oklahoma state legislator spearheaded a citizens' petition drive to seat a grand jury to probe further into the looming presence of un-indicted conspirators. In December 1998, after eighteen months of research and examination of 117 witnesses, the Oklahoma County grand jury making inquiry into "conspiracy theories" swirling around the bombing returned no indictments; yet the panel carefully worded this telling statement in its final report: "However, in spite of all the evidence before us, we cannot put full closure to the question of the existence of a John Doe II."
Middle Eastern terrorist cell operating in the heart of Oklahoma City
On April 20, KFOR-TV's news director assigned me to track local leads regarding possible suspects. The assignment amounted to nothing more than monitoring satellite feeds of FBI press conferences - that is until one telephone call to the newsroom led me directly to the doorstep of what several esteemed intelligence experts later determined to be a Middle Eastern terrorist cell operating in the heart of Oklahoma City.
Several American employees at a local property management company that we were investigating claimed they saw a brown Chevy truck, which matched the getaway vehicle aggressively pursued by law enforcement, parked outside the business office in the days before the bombing.
The PLO/Iraqi connection
The company owner was a Palestinian immigrant from Tel Aviv who had pleaded guilty to federal insurance fraud in the early 1990's and served time in the penitentiary. Court records revealed that the FBI suspected the Palestinian businessman, who operated under eight known aliases, of having connections with the Palestinian Liberation Organization. This man, a psychologist from the Oklahoma State Department of Human Services, funded his vast, four million dollar rental housing empire through money he received from siblings living in Baghdad, Jerusalem, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia and Amman, Jordan.
Six months prior to the bombing, the Palestinian property owner hired a handful of Iraqi soldiers to do maintenance work at his low-income rental houses. On April 19, several witnesses watched in stunned amazement as their Middle Eastern co-workers expressed prideful excitement upon hearing the first radio broadcasts that Islamic extremists had claimed responsibility for the attack on the Murrah Building. The men exuberantly pledged their allegiance to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein vowing they would "die for Saddam." My research showed these same Middle Eastern men were absent from work on April 17, 1995, the day McVeigh rented the Ryder truck that carried the bomb. Furthermore, two of these men had just completed lengthy trips to the Middle East.
The company secretary told the FBI she became suspicious of her employer because she saw the owner's Jordanian business associate at the office before the bombing in a large yellow car similar to the now infamous Mercury Marquis that was driven by Timothy McVeigh. The witness also observed this same man in the driver's seat of a brown Chevy pickup.
The Las Vegas crossroads
Staff members related details about the Palestinian property owner's travel habits, including his frequent trips to Las Vegas where prime suspects McVeigh and Nichols were known to spend one weekend a month. Had the three men crossed paths? Terry Nichols' son Josh identified the Palestinian ex-felon from a photo lineup as a man he had seen in Las Vegas. When asked if the Middle Eastern subject met with his father, Josh refused to answer.
Lana Padilla said her ex-husband Terry Nichols and Tim McVeigh would visit Josh in her home city of Las Vegas monthly and were often accompanied by unidentified men of Middle Eastern origin. She recalled the two Oklahoma City bombers frequented a bar known as Glitter Gulch, a strip club/casino located adjacent to Binion's Horseshoe, a casino/hotel where the security staff described the Palestinian ex-patriate from Oklahoma City as a "VIP" customer and "high roller at the poker tables." According to the man's secretary, he routinely traveled to Las Vegas and returned with large amounts of cash.
On April 20, 1995, less than 24 hours after the bombing, the Palestinian businessman boarded a plane in Oklahoma City bound for Las Vegas. The next day, Terry Nichols surrendered to federal authorities at the Herington, Kansas police department. News of the interrogation of the "material witness" flooded the television airwaves. Phone records reveal that just hours later, an unknown party called Nichols' Kansas home twice from a payphone at the Las Vegas casino Circus Circus. At the time, the Palestinian businessman was registered at Binion's Horseshoe and was within walking distance of the pay phones where the calls to Nichols' residence originated.
Palestinian real estate mogul's ex-wife dies in blast
The immigrant with alleged ties to the PLO exhibited peculiar behavior in the wake of the bombing, outraging several of his longtime employees. They were baffled when he departed for Las Vegas the day after the bombing, leaving behind his 18-year-old daughter to grieve the loss of her American mother. The Palestinian immigrant divorced his American wife in 1994, reaching a settlement in which she was awarded ownership of a large number of his rental properties. This woman perished on the fifth floor of the federal complex where she worked for a government agency housed in the ill-fated Murrah Building.
The daughter reluctantly admitted that her Palestinian father discouraged her from reporting her mother missing for several weeks, instructing her not to turn over dental records which were essential for medical examiners to identify the victim's remains. The woman's name did not appear on the official list of dead and missing until forty-eight hours after I turned my evidence over to the FBI field office in Oklahoma City.
FBI halts search for John Doe 2
On May 4, 1995, two FBI agents interviewed me for several hours regarding the evidence Channel 4 had uncovered. They took receipt of KFOR-TV's surveillance tape of the Palestinian real estate mogul and the Iraqi soldiers who worked at his company. In short order, the Bureau distributed a memorandum to field offices throughout the country ordering federal agents to "hold in abeyance all leads" on John Doe 2. Just four days later, on May 8, the FBI officially pulled the plug on the tip line for leads regarding McVeigh's elusive accomplice John Doe 2.
However, the most gripping evidence was displayed on the television monitor at KFOR-TV's studio. This shocking discovery was made while shuttling through surveillance videotape of the Iraqi soldiers. One frame of video captured the side view of a former Iraqi soldier known as Hussain Hashem Al-Hussaini. Alhussaini's picture, when overlaid with the government's profile sketch of John Doe 2, was arguably a perfect match. Alhussaini also fit the general physical description of the government's arrest warrant for the Oklahoma City bomber, including a tattoo on his upper left arm.
Hussain Alhussaini is likely an Iraqi Republican Guardsman
Colonel Patrick Lang, the former Chief of Human Intelligence for the Defense Intelligence Agency, determined Hussain Alhussaini's military tattoo indicated he likely served in Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard and was recruited into the elite Unit 999 of the Iraqi Intelligence Service. Unit 999 is based in Salman Pak southeast of Baghdad and has been tasked with clandestine operations at home and overseas.
But the most incriminating evidence against the Iraqi soldier was the simple fact that his alleged alibi crumbled under scrutiny. Yet the critical link was still missing. There was no established connection between McVeigh, Nichols, Alhussaini, and his Iraqi cohorts.
Witnesses observe Alhussaini and McVeigh socializing in an Oklahoma City tavern
Then came the watershed breakthrough. On June 7, 1995, KFOR's private investigator and another reporter from the station located two eyewitnesses who independently identified the former Iraqi soldier, Hussain Alhussaini, from a photo lineup. Both were convinced he was the Middle Eastern individual they observed drinking beer with a very boisterous Timothy McVeigh in an Oklahoma City nightclub just four days before the bombing. This was no fleeting encounter. The witnesses were exposed to McVeigh and his soft-spoken friend, with distinct Middle Eastern accent, for at least three full hours.
KFOR management and legal counsel decided we had a moral obligation to report the story. At 6:00 PM that evening, the investigative report led the newscast. We carefully disguised the identities of the witnesses and the location of the establishment where the sighting occurred.
Four days later, on June 11, the tavern witness was stunned and terrified when Hussain Alhussaini returned to the nightclub. In 1998, during his civil deposition, Alhussaini volunteered he had, in fact, visited the bar after KFOR's story aired. He explained that a friend drove him to the rear entrance of the club and parked. At that moment, Alhussaini leaned forward in the passenger seat and peered inside the establishment through an open door. His testimony mirrored the story the witness told me in strict confidence regarding the encounter. She recalled how Alhussaini flashed her a threatening stare as he made eye contact with her. Most incriminating was the undisputed fact that KFOR-TV never publicly disclosed those details. The station's lawyers were the only parties who were given the information.
Three years later in a deposition, my lawyers showed our June 7, 1995 broadcast in its entirety on videotape in front of Hussain Alhussaini. At the end of the story, Channel 4's attorneys asked Alhussaini to point out how he knew the location of the bar where he had been identified socializing with Timothy McVeigh. Alhussaini was unable to provide an answer. KFOR chose not to disclose the name and address of the business in the report. Therefore, there was no reasonable explanation as to how Alhussaini could have returned to that location unless he was, in fact, the man with McVeigh on April 15, 1995.
The FBI interviewed a Chinese food deliveryman who brought an order to Timothy McVeigh's room at the Dreamland motel in Junction City, Kansas on the same day. However, the deliveryman testified during the bomber's federal trial that McVeigh was not in the room and did not receive the order. Therefore, there was no evidence that conflicted with the eyewitness accounts who placed McVeigh in Oklahoma City on the evening of April 15 with Hussain Alhussaini.
John Doe 2: a case of mistaken identity?
In mid-June of 1995, a week after KFOR unveiled the compelling testimony that McVeigh's mysterious co-conspirator could be an Iraqi national, the Department of Justice announced that John Doe 2 was a case of mistaken identity. Tom Kessinger, the mechanic at the Kansas body shop where McVeigh rented the bomb truck, admitted he was wrong about the bombing suspect. Kessinger confessed that he inadvertently described an innocent army private who visited the Ryder rental business the day after McVeigh.
The first two drawings of John Doe 2 were based upon the disavowed testimony of the body shop mechanic. However, according to published accounts, the FBI's third rendition of the suspect, which Hussain Alhussaini strongly resembled, was drafted from additional witness interviews. A downtown employee who worked near the federal complex signed an affidavit stating she spent eight hours with the FBI sketch artist who drew the man in profile. Therefore, the final illustration of John Doe 2 that was released on May 1, 1995 was not convincingly discredited.
Most significantly, the federal court record offered undeniable proof that the FBI did not rely solely upon the faulty recollection of the rental shop employee in Junction City, Kansas. The sketch artist's notes revealed that Tom Kessinger described McVeigh's alleged co-conspirator as a "heavy built" man of no less than "200 pounds." However, just hours later, when the FBI filed the official arrest warrant for the Oklahoma City bomber known only as John Doe 2, authorities dramatically departed from that description. Instead, the man who was now the target of the greatest international manhunt of the 20th Century was depicted as "175 to 180 pounds with a medium frame."
Twenty-five pounds lighter is a far cry from the original description of the suspect. The FBI obviously considered the testimonies of eyewitnesses in Oklahoma City near the crime scene more reliable. The FBI described the stories shared by those same people as credible during Timothy McVeigh's detention hearing just one week after the bombing.
...
thanx for dusting this one off, honway. makes my blood boil.
iirc, this was alleged to be oklahoma congressman istook intimidating a witness. who was the witness?
I also notice that you were invited to further discuss this subject HERE but have apparently declined to do so.
Why?
Hussaun Alhussaini
Your site does not permit access with my "Anonymizer Protection" enabled. I purchased the program just so I could vist your site anonymously. I have surfed all over the web and your site there is the only that I can't access anonymously.
Why is that?
Folks, if you haven't been to Darling Lili's HERE, I would recommend you not go there until an explanation is given as to why you can not go there anonymously.Isn't there sophisticated software associated with that capability?
The one thing I don't understand about all this -- if Al Qaeda and/or Iraq are behind the OKC bombing, how could GW Bush NOT know this by now? And if he knows it, why hasn't he told us? What the heck is he waiting for??
Absent appropriate public pressure, my guess is that there will be no House or Senate hearings on the OKC bombing.
Sources close to the Pentagon study say Timothy McVeigh did play a role in the bombing but peripherally, as a "useful idiot." The multiple bombings have a Middle Eastern "signature," pointing to either Iraqi or Syrian involvement."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The quote is from an article in the 3-20-1996 Strategic Investment Newsletter. At the time, William Colby, former CIA Director, was an editor for the publication. I believe his status as editor contributes to the credibility of the article.
It looks like the evidence supports the Pentagon report conclusion.
http://www.fas.org/irp/threat/mcveigh/part08.htm
PETITION FOR WRIT OF MANDAMUS OF PETITIONER-DEFENDANT, TIMOTHY JAMES McVEIGH AND BRIEF IN SUPPORT MARCH 25, 1997
19. May 6, 1996 Letter to Joseph H. Hartzler concerning an article in Strategic Investment magazine which referenced a classified Pentagon study concerning the bombing of the Murrah Building. This letter requested information concerning this classified study. See D.E. 1923 (Vol. III Exhibit "P").
Some dismiss it as being akin to Elvis sightings, but a few top Defense officials think Oklahoma City bomber Tim McVeigh was an Iraqi agent. The theory stems from a never-before-reported allegation that McVeigh had allegedly collected Iraqi telephone numbers. Why haven't we heard this before about the case of the executed McVeigh? Conspiracy theorists in the Pentagon think it's part of a coverup.
TXnMA (No Longer!!!)
From the Washington Times:
Lurking in the Jayna Davis files
Frank J. Gaffney Jr.
November 19, 2002On Sunday, the New York Times breathlessly reported on its front page (above the fold, no less) that, "The Bush administration has begun to monitor Iraqis in the United States in an effort to identify potential domestic terrorist threats posed by sympathizers of the Baghdad regime."
According to the Times, "A large number of government agencies are part of the new operation, including the Pentagon, the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency, the immigration service, the State Department and the National Security Agency. "
For those of us who have long been worried about the threat posed in this country by Iraqi intelligence operatives and their allies, it is heartening to hear an unnamed "senior government official" cited as saying: "This is the largest and most aggressive program like this we've ever had. We think we know who most of the bad guys are, but we are going to be very proactive here and not take any chances."
Unfortunately, it appears that at least some of the agencies charged with addressing the threat posed by Saddam's operatives and their sympathizers fail utterly to comprehend the challenge the targeted groups and individuals constitute. For example, the New York Times reports that "according to the CIA," there is no evidence Iraq has engaged in terrorist activity against the United States" since 1993, when Iraqi agents tried to assassinate former President George H.W. Bush in Kuwait.
This statement is deeply disturbing. It not only suggests a lack of appreciation of the present danger. It also evinces an obliviousness to the historical record that raises a question as to whether the existing intelligence and law enforcement agencies are up to the task at hand.
That record includes the impressive investigative research conducted by Jayna Davis, a former reporter with Oklahoma City's KFOR television station. Since the Murrah Building was destroyed in April 1995, Miss Davis has been tirelessly collecting, sifting and analyzing evidence ( including some 80 pages of affidavits from more than 20 eyewitnesses and 2,000 supporting documents) of precisely the sort that the CIA says does not exist. Among Miss. Davis' more telling discoveries are the following:
(Click on link for remainder of article)
Washington Post 08/25/93: William Claiborne
Excerpt:
More than 80 members of Congress have asked President Clinton to end what they called the "potentially dangerous and unfair policy" of resettling captured Iraqi soldiers in the United States along with deserving civilian Iraqi refugees.
Nearly 1,000 Iraqi soldiers captured by U.S. forces during the 1991 Persian Gulf War have been resettled at public expense in cities across the United States. They are among nearly 3,000 Iraqi refugees -- the majority of them civilians -- who have been resettled in the United States from internment camps in Saudi Arabia.
Another 3,000 Iraqi former POWs and their families are scheduled to be moved here on humanitarian grounds, the complaining House members said.
In August, Iraqi military forces rolled into northern Iraq and crushed the resistance effort. U.S. forces evacuated more than 6,000 Iraqis and Kurds to a NATO air base in Turkey before flying them to Guam.
During their five-month stay in Guam, the refugees were taught American civics--including, Frenzen notes with irony, the right to face one's accuser in court. They also submitted to FBI interviews.
Frenzen contends that disgruntled resistance workers, motivated in some cases by petty personal disputes with his clients, intentionally misled the FBI about their backgrounds. But because the FBI's reports of those interviews are classified, federal authorities will not disclose why the refugees are considered potential threats to national security. The INS has granted asylum to their wives and children.
Amen. The way I understand it, McVeigh only attended ONE militia meeting in his whole life, and was thrown out after the first 15 minutes and told never to return. Nichols had attended meetings, but he was told not to come back for having brought McVeigh. The press knew this of course, but for some reason didn't find it important.
Do you have any links that show an image of the Republican Guard tatoo that John Doe 2 had on his shoulder? I need to know what the tatoo looked like.
Seattle terror cell & Jafar a.k.a. "Jeff" Siddiqui bump.
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