Free Republic

Inspector recalls would-be hijackerSaudi denied US entry at Fla. airport in 2001 was Al Qaeda fighter By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff, 1/27/2004 WASHINGTON -- Something gave immigration inspector Jose Melendez-Perez "the creeps" when he started to interview the Saudi who had flown from Dubai to Orlando, Fla., via London, on Aug. 4, 2001, the agent testified yesterday before the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. Mohamed al Kahtani's documents appeared to be genuine. A check of his name, birth date, and passport number turned up nothing suspicious. And immigration agents knew from experience to give "deference" to...

The Biden administration on Monday repatriated to Saudi Arabia for mental health care a prisoner who had been tortured so badly by U.S. interrogators that he was ruled ineligible for trial as the suspected would-be 20th hijacker in the Sept. 11 attacks. The prisoner, Mohammed al-Qahtani, in his 40s, is the second to be transferred from the wartime prison under the administration. *** His long-serving lawyer, Shayana Kadidal of the Center for Constitutional Rights, said the transfer was long overdue. “For 14 years I’ve sat across from Mohammed as he talks to nonexistent people in the room and makes eye...

Later the CIA did inform the FBI about these two al Qaeda agents. There was debate in the FBI about whether a full-scale criminal investigation should be undertaken, or just a background intelligence investigation. The latter was chosen. A rookie was assigned to the case. Within days he was on their trail, and he wanted to run a credit card check. A FBI superior said it was a bad idea. According to Bob Woodward, the credit card check would have revealed that these two known al Qaeda agents had bought ten airline tickets dated 9/11/01 under their own real names.

The FBI agent who led the post 9/11 investigation of Saudis who moved out of their Sarasota-area home under suspicious circumstances two weeks before the 2001 al Qaeda attacks urged the FBI to seek information from the CIA about whether they assisted the terrorist hijackers. That’s among the final disclosures the FBI made recently to conclude a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit brought by Florida Bulldog in 2012 seeking records of a bureau investigation that was once so secret its existence was withheld from both Congress and the 9/11 Commission. News that the FBI agent who led the probe...

WASHINGTON - A U.S. customs inspector praised for keeping the 20th hijacker in the 9/11 plot from getting into the country told Congress yesterday that the "hostile" Saudi gave him the creeps and vowed, "I'll be back." Jose Melendez-Perez told the 9/11 Commission, the panel probing the attacks on America, that he was spooked enough by the man identified only as "Al-Qahtani" to put him on a plane out of Orlando after he arrived in the U.S. from London and Dubai, United Arab Emirates, with a one-way ticket and $2,800 in cash. Al-Qahtani was dressed head-to-toe in black when he...

A Saudi suspected of being the "20th hijacker" in the Sept. 11 attacks has recanted his confession, saying he made false statements after he was beaten, abused and humiliated at Guantanamo, according to documents obtained Friday by The Associated Press. Mohammed al-Qahtani — who U.S. officials have said previously was subjected to harsh treatment authorized by former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld — denied knowledge of the Sept. 11 attacks in his first appearance before a military panel at Guantanamo Bay in October. "I am a businessman, a peaceful man," al-Qahtani testified under oath, nearly five years after he was...

If Donald J. Trump decides as president to throw a whistle-blower in jail for trying to talk to a reporter, or gets the F.B.I. to spy on a journalist, he will have one man to thank for bequeathing him such expansive power: Barack Obama. Mr. Trump made his animus toward the news media clear during the presidential campaign, often expressing his disgust with coverage through Twitter or in diatribes at rallies. So if his campaign is any guide, Mr. Trump seems likely to enthusiastically embrace the aggressive crackdown on journalists and whistle-blowers that is an important yet little understood component...

Hamza bin Laden, the son of the late al-Qaida leader, has married the daughter of Mohammed Atta, the lead hijacker in the 9/11 terror attacks, according to his family.

In Islam, sex is allowed only in marriage, but even then it is not viewed as an act between two complementary and equal human beings. It is an act concerning only the orgasmic need of the male. Since this need is prioritized, Islam allows the male to marry four wives at a time. The male can also go through serial marriages, since he is allowed to dissolve a marriage unilaterally at any time by simply saying to his wife: "you are repudiated." Thus, a man does not have to invest in one woman. The concept of "the couple" is shattered;...

Press Release Source: Newsweek NEWSWEEK: Case Closed Against Syrian-Owned Business in Germany to Avoid Antagonizing Syrian Government, Officials Suggest Sunday January 18, 10:11 am ET Police Reports Show Employees Had Al Qaeda Connections; One Believed to Have Recruited Muhammad Atta in Hamburg # NEW YORK, Jan. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- After a September 2002 raid near Hamburg, Germany, of a Syrian-owned textile business called Tatex that was suspected of terrorist ties, German prosecutors began preparing their case and the U.S. considered freezing Tatex's bank accounts, as it had done in dozens of other companies suspected of financing terrorism. Then last summer,...

Americans were told the 9/11 Commission looking into the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, was to recommend changes in policy and law to protect us from future terrorist attacks. So why was the commission used as a partisan attack vehicle? And why did they ignore, hide and not print a single word of possibly the most important information released to them by the small, highly classified Pentagon intelligence unit called Able Danger? Did President Bill Clinton's deputy attorney, Jaime Gorelick, really think the U.S. military would allow this information to be ignored again? Was Gorelick too busy yelling insults at...

got an instant chill when I looked at him. I got this grip in my stomach and then, of course, I gave myself a political correct slap…I thought, “My God, Michael, these are just a couple of Arab businessmen.” That was ticket agent Michael Tuohey’s recollection of his encounter with Mohammed Atta at the check-in desk of U.S. Airways in Portland on the morning of September 11, 2001. For Tuohey, the fear of being politically incorrect was greater than his instinctive fear. Better to take the remote risk of a terrorist act than the more immediate risk of being thought...

A former Iraqi intelligence officer who was said to have met with the suspected leader of the Sept. 11 attacks has told US interrogators the meeting never happened, according to US officials familiar with classified intelligence reports on the matter. Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, the former intelligence officer, was taken into custody by the US in July. Under questioning he has said that he did not meet with Mohamed Atta in Prague in the Czech Republic, according to the officials, who have reviewed classified debriefing reports based on the interrogations. US officials caution that Ani may have been lying...

INTELLIGENCE agents from Prague to Swansea are uncovering a trail of clues that point to President Saddam Hussein of Iraq having a hand in al-Qaeda’s terrorist missions. Iraqi ministers have spent the week protesting Baghdad’s innocence to the United Nations, but will not say why some of its diplomats who met Mohammed Atta, one of the suspected September 11 hijackers, disappeared from their European posts after that date. Nor will Baghdad explain why Saddam’s agents were spotted at various times this year with Atta in Germany, Spain, Italy and the Czech Republic. Many in the Pentagon are sure Saddam ...

A Saudi Arabian accused of associating with several of the September 11 hijackers and who disappeared from his home in the United States a few weeks before the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, is in London working for his country’s state oil company. Abdulaziz al-Hijji and his wife Anoud left three cars at their luxurious home in a gated community in Sarasota, Florida — one of them new — and flew to Saudi Arabia in August 2001. The refrigerator was full of food; furniture and clothing were left behind; and the swimming pool water was still...

Mauritanian national Mohamedou Ould Slahi has been held at Guantanamo for 12 years now without trial and despite a dearth of evidence. A diary he kept of his torture is now being published around the world. […] He was accused of having been acquainted with the perpetrators of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and of having provided them with support and sending them to Afghanistan to receive training. He has also been accused of involvement in the Millennium Plot, the foiled terrorist attack targeting the Los Angeles International Airport. At least that’s the claim made by Ahmed Ressam, the...

James Risen, an Investigative Journalist, and veteran New York Times Reporter, is now another name on the list of Journalists being prosecuted by the Obama Administration. Risen, whose reporting on warrantless wiretapping was published in 2006, is now facing jail time for the same material that earned him a Pulitzer Prize. According to Democracy Now, Risen’s original story was supposed to be published in the New York Times prior to the Presidential election in 2004. However, the report was not published until 2006, because Risen was under “government pressure,” due to the fact that his article could have had an...

Saddam, the ATM of Al Qaeda By Christopher S. Carson FrontPageMagazine.com | November 15, 2004 The Report of the 9/11 Commission has been digested, and the news media outlets have seized upon it as confirmation of their view that al Qaeda is a kind of purely stateless entity that never had "operational links" with rogue states like Iraq. Somehow, goes the thrust of the Report, Osama bin Laden was for years able to finance, train and supply an international terrorist corporation that had ongoing jihad operations in fifty countries - by himself, on no more than a $30 million personal...

Post your conditions or noticable behavior of your city officials here. Little Rock-

"9/11 plotter released in Syria prisoner exchange" SNIPPET: "The al-Qaeda recruiter reputed to have assembled the so-called Hamburg Cell, which planned and largely carried out the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, has been set free in a prisoner exchange between rebel and regime forces in Syria. Islamist rebel group Ahrar al-Sham has secured the release of 9/11 plotter and alleged al-Qaeda core member Mohammed Haydar Zammar, adding to concerns about the composition of the Islamic Front. A naturalized German citizen of Syrian origin, Mohammed Haydar Zammar left Germany shortly after the attacks and traveled to Morocco, where he was reportedly...