Al-Qaeda: A CIA protégé
Edited 18 September 2005
Franklin Freeman
Contents:-
The Breeding-Ground and Birth of al-QaedaThe USA, via the CIA, originally backed the Islamic guerrilla resistance against the Marxist regime and Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the late 1970s and 1980s. They focused their efforts on a hardline faction which was to spawn al-Qaeda in 1987-88. ...
"Between 1978 and 1992, the US government poured in at least US $6 billion (some estimates range as high as $20 billion) worth of arms, training and funds to prop up the mujaheddin [in Afghanistan]. Other western governments, as well as oil-rich Saudi Arabia, kicked in as much again. Wealthy Arab fanatics, like Osama bin Laden, provided millions more. ... "Washington's favoured mujaheddin faction was one of the most extreme, led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. ... Osama bin Laden was a close associate of Hekmatyar and his faction." (Norm Dixon, "How the CIA created Osama bin Laden" [autumn 2001])
"As his unclassified CIA biography states, bin Laden left Saudi Arabia to fight the Soviet army in Afghanistan after Moscow's invasion in 1979. By 1984, he was running a front organization known as Maktab al-Khidamar the MAK which funneled money, arms and fighters from the outside world into the Afghan war. "What the CIA bio[graphy] conveniently fails to specify (in its unclassified form at least) is that the MAK was nurtured by Pakistan's state security services, the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, the CIA's primary conduit for conducting the covert war against Moscow's occupation." ... (Michael Moran, "Bin Laden comes home to roost", MSNBC, 24 Aug. 1998)
"In 1986, bin Laden brought heavy construction equipment from Saudi Arabia to Afghanistan. Using his extensive knowledge of construction techniques, (he has a degree in civil engineering), he built "training camps", some dug deep into the sides of mountains, and built roads to reach them. "These camps, now dubbed "terrorist universities" by Washington, were built in collaboration with the ISI and the CIA. The Afghan contra fighters, including tens of thousands of mercenaries recruited and paid for by bin Laden, were armed by the CIA. Pakistan, the US and Britain provided military trainers. ... "Al Qaeda (the Base), bin Laden's organisation, was established in 1987-88 to run the camps and other business enterprises. It is a tightly-run capitalist holding company albeit one that integrates the operations of a military force and related logistical services with `legitimate' business operations." (Norm Dixon, "How the CIA created Osama bin Laden")
"... bin Laden split from the relatively conventional MAK in 1988 and established a new group, al-Qaida, that included many of the more extreme MAK members he had met in Afghanistan. ... Afghan vet[eran]s, or Afghanis .." (Michael Moran, "Bin Laden comes home to roost", MSNBC, 24 Aug. 1998)
Michel Chossudovsky's article "Osamagate" describes the US administrations' post-Cold-War connections with al-Qaeda, concentrating on militant-Muslim involvement in the former Yugoslavia.
The CIA apparently considered that bin Laden's "Arab Afghans" were too useful an asset to sever connections with, even after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan and the collapse of the puppet regime ...
Amongst other things, this book charts the connections between the CIA and al-Qaeda during the latter's history from its beginnings during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan to the US embassy bombings in 1998. The motives as portrayed by Labévière seem a little fuzzy to me (but they've become abundantly clear since 9/11). The CIA decided that bin Laden's "Arab Afghans" were much too useful an ally to abandon after the Soviets left Afghanistan, and in a meeting at Green's Hotel, Peshawar, Pakistan, in late 1991, between their local representatives, Prince Turki bin Faisal (Fayçal) (head of the Saudi intelligence service) and the "Arab Afghans", they decided to continue links. The "strategic" position of Afghanistan vis-a-vis Central Asian oil was a factor in this decision. (Dollars for Terror, pp.104-5) You get the impression that Labeviere is either waffling through his hat, or else grasping at something embryonic, only half-formed. The CIA's "rash" flirtation with the "Arab Afghans" (a term Labévière uses for the "proto-Qaeda", formed in Afghanistan with the CIA's help during the Soviet occupation, as well as the later "fully formed" version) is difficult to understand, something nebulous, as it appears in the book. What use the Arab Afghans were to the CIA remains pretty intangible in the book. It is only after Sept. 11, 2001, that al-Qaeda's role has become all too clear (except to those who will not see it). An excuse for the American hard right to create an oil empire abroad, and a domestic police state. Already after the US embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam in 1998, the FBI was said to have found traces of an American military explosive in the ruins, of the type of which the CIA had given to the "Arab Afghans" just three years before. This according to an article in Le Figaro published 31 Oct. 2001 (see 'Links:Le Figaro Reports CIA, bin Laden Contacts', Scoop, 2 Nov. 2001). The same article reported that the CIA's local representative, Larry Mitchell, met bin Laden in Dubai just three months before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington. In chapter 10, "The Privatization of U.S. Foreign Policy", Labévière describes how, having learned the lessons of the Iran-Contra scandal, the CIA and Pentagon have, in the ten years since, "contracted out" foreign special operations to "private companies". These companies are really only a front for these bodies; their personnel are often "former" employees of the CIA, the Pentagon, or the Special Forces. By this means they escape the oversight of Congress, which has no control over such companies. The Special Operations Command (SOCOM) is the Pentagon's "top secret ad hoc coordination group that supervises these 'private operations'"; SOCOM "provides the interface" with the Special Forces required for these operations. (Dollars for Terror, pp.191-2, 194.) In the last chapter, Labévière gets to grips with the CIA's expansion into "diplomacy", its establishment of relations with the Palestinians a recent development, just before his book was published. Also mentioned here is Ali Mohammed, the Green Beret, CIA agent, and New York trainer of Islamic militants (with the assistance of the CIA). (See the section "Ali Mohammed: A Key Link?" below.) The book ends with the prophetic remark that "new forms of totalitarianism are waiting for the right moment" (p.392). Now they've seized it!
Ali Mohammed: A Key Link?(Sources:- Andrew Marshall, "Terror 'blowback' burns CIA: America's spies paid and trained their nation's worst enemies", Independent on Sunday, 1 Nov. 1998; Lance Williams and Erin McCormick, "Al Qaeda terrorist worked with FBI ..", San Francisco Chronicle, 4 Nov. 2001; Ton Hays and Sharon Theimer, Associated Press, "Egyptian agent worked with Green Berets, bin Laden", Jerusalem Post, 31 Dec. 2001.)Ali Mohammed ("al-Amriki", the American) fits the profile of a double agent, according to Larry Johnson (former deputy chief of counterterrorism at the US State Department). Mohammed worked for the CIA, and US special forces, at different times during the 1980s and 1990s. In the same period, he also co-operated with Egyptian Islamic Jihad and al-Qaeda. But he may also have been an FBI informant. He was later convicted on terrorism conspiracy charges. Originally an Egyptian Army captain, and fluent in English, Mohammed completed a training programme for foreign officers at the Special Forces school in Fort Bragg (home of the Green Berets) in North Carolina in 1981. But at the same time he became involved with Egyptian Islamic Jihad, a militant Moslem group "later absorbed by al-Qaeda". (And he was apparently in the same army unit as the soldier who assassinated Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in 1981.) Mohammed left the Egyptian Army in 1984 and became a CIA informant. At some unspecified later time the CIA dropped him because he was "boasting" of his relationship with the agency. They put his name on a watch list aimed at blocking his entrance to the USA, according to a US government official. Nevertheless, Mohammed got a visa one year later, and returned to America. He married a Santa Clara woman and became a US citizen. Mohammed joined the US Army in 1986 and returned to Fort Bragg the following year. Here he worked as a supply sergeant for the Special Forces, and also gave briefings on Islamic fundamentalism at the Kennedy Center and School there. Mohamed's behavior and his background were so unusual that his commanding officer, Lt. Col. Robert Anderson, became convinced that he was both a "dangerous fanatic" and an operative of U.S. intelligence.In 1989 Mohammed "came to the New York area to train mujaheddin on their way to Afghanistan". His location was evidently "the Al-Khifah Refugee Center in Brooklyn's Atlantic Avenue, a place of pivotal importance to Operation Cyclone, the American effort to support the mujaheddin". There he met Nosair and other figures soon to commit acts of terror on United States soil (most prominently perhaps, the 1993 World Trade Center bombing). Ali Mohammed was "honorably discharged" from the US Army in 1989 and received at least two good-conduct medals. In the early 1990s he returned to Afghanistan, where he gave training in the al-Qaeda camps. He may have helped the terrorist organization prepare for the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Returning to California in the mid-1990s, Mohammed helped bin Laden's top aide, Ayman al-Zawahiri, raise money for Egyptian Islamic Jihad. (Zawahiri was the leader of Jihad, which was in the process of merging with al-Qaeda.) But former State Department counter-terror boss Johnson believes he was also an FBI informant, and told them, after the embassy attacks, that bin Laden was responsible. Mohammed was subpoenaed to testify before a New York grand jury in connection with the 1993 Trade Center bombing, before himself being convicted on conspiracy charges. He "has not been seen in public since" (Dec. 2001).
The CIA's "Bin Laden Issue Station", founded Jan. 1996"[I]n January 1996 [when bin Laden was in Sudan, the] CIA focused more of its resources on him by creating a dedicated component in the [CIA's] Counterterrorist Center the bin Laden Issue Station staffed by CIA, NSA, FBI and other officers. The group's mission was to track him, collect intelligence on him, run operations against him, disrupt his finances, and warn policymakers about his activities and intentions. ...
Military Intelligence Operation Able Danger "Identified Atta's Qaeda Cell in Brooklyn", 1999/2000This story emerged in August 2005. It was initially publicized by Curt Weldon, a Republican congressman and vice chairman of the House Armed Services and Homeland Security committees. The story was apparently first published in Government Security News."Able Danger", a classified military intelligence unit/operation, was set up in October 1999 "to identify potential al-Qaida operatives for U.S. Special Operations Command [SOCOM]". Within the next few months it identified about 60 suspects, in the US and abroad. Amongst them was a possible Qaeda cell consisting of Mohammed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, Khalid al-Mihdar [al-Mihdhar], and Nawaf al-Hazmi. Able Danger codenamed the potential cell "Brooklyn", the New York City district where it discovered them. (After 9/11, Atta and al-Shehhi were named by the FBI as the pilots of the planes that struck the north and south towers respectively of the World Trade Center; al-Mihdhar, known as one of the six organizers of the attacks, was "on the flight that hit the Pentagon".) In early 2000 Able Danger drew up a chart with the identities of the approximately 60 Qaeda suspects, including the "Brooklyn cell". The chart was presented to SOCOM headquarters in Tampa, Florida, in summer of that year. In September 2000 Able Danger recommended that the information on the "Brooklyn cell" be passed on to the FBI, but "Pentagon lawyers ["lawyers working for Special Ops"] rejected the suggestion because they said Atta and the others were in the country legally so information on them could not be shared with law enforcement". (The author of the first article cited below comments that this statement doesn't seem to make sense, because Atta et al were in the USA on visas; they did not have permanent-resident status.) Lt Col Anthony Shaffer was the liaison officer between Able Danger and the Defense Intelligence Agency (the DIA, for whom he worked). He told the New York Times that lawyers associated with SOCOM "did not want the information circulated because it would reveal the existence of the secret military intelligence project and lead to criticism that the military was collecting information on the American people". Navy Cmdr. Christopher Chope (of the Center for Special Operations at SOCOM, commenting in Sept. 2005) denied that military lawyers had blocked information sharing. He also added further description of Able Danger and its subsequent history. He called it an internal working group with a core of 10 staffers at Special Operations Command. [Navy Capt. Scott] Philpott was the "team leader," he said. "Able Danger was never a military unit," and it never targeted individual terrorists, he said. It went out of existence when the planning effort was finished in January 2001, he said. [My emphasis.](Kimberley Hefling, Associated Press writer, "Congressman: Defense Knew 9/11 Hijackers", The Guardian online [UK], 9 Aug. 2005, 11:46pm; Philip Shenon, Douglas Jehl, New York Times, "9/11 panel members call for new probe", San Francisco Chronicle, 10 Aug. 2005; Patrick Martin, "... Intelligence officer goes public in Able Danger exposé", World Socialist Web Site, News, 19 Aug. 2005; Robert Burns, AP, "Pentagon Finds More Who Recall Atta Intel", Washington Post online, 2 Sept. 2005; Shaun Waterman, UPI, "Congressman doubts accounts ...", World Peace Herald, 8 Sept. 2005)
The winding-up of Able Danger dovetails in time with the new Bush administration's initiation of its "ambitious plan to eliminate al-Qaeda". (See the following article.) http://www.geocities.com/libertystrikesback/afghans.html http://www.geocities.com/libertystrikesback/index.html
20 September 05 The two men broken out of an Iraqi jail yesterday were members of the UK's Special Air Service, the SAS. It was an SAS force that broke them out. The men (who are white, incidentally) had been, according to the Iraqi police, disguised as Arabs and had a quantity of arms and munitions (including a grenade or rocket launcher. They must have been involved in something really big for the SAS to rescue them in this spectacular manner. The British say that the police were about to, or had already, handed the two over to local militia, and thus their lives were in danger. Iraq's National Security Adviser says that the police have become infiltrated by militas, though he didn't know to what extent. The militias, which are "Shi'ite", are described as having links with Iran. Speculation: the SAS men were involved in preparing and/or carrying out a simulated Iranian attack. This may have been "hurried up" in order to distract from the US Senate's Judiciary Committee hearings on Able Danger (scheduled for tomorrow).
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