Category: Spooks
The NSA is listening to the Russian Mafia
I found some interesting things in National Security Agency newsletters that were leaked by Edward Snowden and published online by The Intercept.
These relate to the NSA’s little-known work in tracking transnational organized crime.
The NSA, which collects massive amounts of signals intelligence, has a unit called S2F dedicated to international crime and narcotics. A unit within S2F (S2F21) is tasked with monitoring mob bosses from Russia and elsewhere.
A 2006 memo revealed how this unit helped thwart the sale of a refinery to an Israeli organized crime figure via a front energy company.
The Israeli organized crime figure isn’t named. If you have any ideas about who this is, please contact me.
A 2003 memo revealed that NSA was tracking a Russian organized crime boss, Vladimir Kumarin, at the request of the State Department. State wanted to know if there were links between Kumarin’s Tambov gang, based in St. Petersburg, and Vladimir Putin.
The indispensable Catherine Belton writes in Putin’s People that in the 1990s, Kumarin, “with the help of Putin,” began taking control of St. Petersburg’s entire fuel and energy business. Putin also granted Kumarin an exclusive contract to supply fuel for the city’s ambulances, buses, and police cars. Kumarin became so powerful he became known as “the night governor.”
In 2006, NSA expanded its relationship with Spain’s Centro Nacional de Inteligencia (CNI) to target Russian organized crime bosses. There were numerous targets of mutual interest to both countries, including Zakhar Kalachov who was arrested in Dubai in 2006.
The NSA’s powerful tools tipped the Spanish police to a company called Vera Metalurgica, linked to Russian crime bosses. One of those crime bosses, according to Spanish authorities, was Oleg Deripaska.
Finally, in 2006, the NSA let its employees know of a interagency intelligence blog devoted to the latest bank accounts and other information collected on Semion Mogilevich, “the U.S. government’s top Russian organized crime target.”
On Red Sparrows
“There is a colossal institute of co-opted Soviet girls,” an ex-KGB man told a room full of U.S. senators. “There were many, many co-opted Soviet girls with different appearance, different talents.”
Appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee that day in 1970 was a KGB defector named Yuri Krotkov, testifying under the alias of George Karlin.
Krotkov, a Soviet screenwriter, playwright and radio correspondent who defected in 1963, called these women “swallows” because like the birds, they are “gentle” and “soft.”
Krotkov said he “recommended” — procured, one might say — “swallows” for the KGB. “The swallows are clever girls,” Krotkov continued, “they want all sorts of jobs with foreigners, they dream about them, even if it is risky, because they hope, they would marry them, maybe they would go abroad.”
One of his swallows became a mistress to Sukarno, the president of Indonesia. Another was used to seduce Maurice Dejean the French ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1955 to 1964.
The goal, Krotkov said, was to use these “swallows” to get these foreigners to do something for the KGB.
Today, these sorts of women are better known as “sparrows,” after the best-selling 2013 book Red Sparrow by former CIA officer Jason Matthews (highly recommended, and the way) and film starring Jennifer Lawrence.
The closest thing we have to a real-life “swallow” or a “sparrow” these days is Maria Butina, the redheaded Russian graduate student who went to prison for acting as a clandestine Russian foreign agent. According to the Justice Department, Butina worked at the direction of a high-level official in the Russian government, Alexander Torshin.
Prosecutors initially accused Butina of offering sex in exchange for a job. That allegation was soon withdrawn, with prosecutors saying they had misread a text.
During her time in the United States, Butina did have affairs well-connected older men, such as Paul Erickson, who helped her gain entree into Republican circles. With help from Erickson, Butina infiltrated the National Rifle Association, met with Donald Trump Jr. at an NRA annual meeting, and came very close to a meeting with President Trump. You can read more about that here.
Another man who had a romantic affair with Butina was Patrick Byrne, then the chief executive of Overtstock.com. You can read what Byrne told me about his relationship with Butina and the FBI here.
A few months ago, I met with Byrne at a hotel in downtown San Diego and he told me a story that, I think, reveals a lot about Maria Butina.
Byrne wrote part of the story last month on his blog, Deep Capture, but his account leaves out what I view as the most revealing part.
In the spring 2018, Byrne was visiting Washington, D.C. when he got a message from Butina. She somehow knew that he was in town and asked to come by his hotel room. Butina had received a master’s degree in international relations from American University and she wanted to show him her diploma. She arrived and after a while pulled out her cellphone and showed him a picture of her transcript.
“…. Then she swiped the screen. I was staring at a subpoena she had received from the Senate Intelligence Committee a few weeks earlier. She told me about being questioned by Senate Intel, about how the forces of the [U.S. government] were closing in on her.”
Missing from that account is something Butina told Byrne in that hotel room. According to Byrne, Butina told him that the Senate Intelligence Committee had spent “about a third of their time” asking about him, Patrick Byrne. “They have a stack of every message, every text, every email we every wrote,” Byrne said Butina told him.
It was the last time Byrne saw Butina. A few weeks later she was arrested on charges of being an unregistered foreign agent. Butina pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 18 months in prison. She was released last month and returned home to Russia where she was welcomed as a hero.
There’s a good reason why Byrne left out the part about the Senate Intelligence Committee asking about him: It wasn’t true.
I checked with Butina’s attorney, Robert Driscoll. Butina’s Senate testimony isn’t public but he had a copy and he reviewed it at my request. “No reference to Patrick after a pretty close skim,” he emailed me.
I relayed this to Byrne:
According to Byrne, he told her to go home to Russia. She told him she couldn’t. If she did, she would serve 15 years in prison. As Butina’s heroic welcoming in Moscow shows, this, too, was a lie. He told her to go to the FBI. She said that, as a Russian, she couldn’t.
Some will no doubt say that perhaps Byrne was lying. I don’t think so. When he told me this story, he seemed to believe it. Even so, he encouraged me to go check this account with Driscoll. That’s not something a liar would do.
I think Butina told Byrne a well-crafted lie. Since her testimony was sealed, she knew whatever she told Byrne about would be impossible to verify. Also, it’s no secret that Byrne saw himself at the center of various intrigues. Thus, it was a lie that he would be likely to accept without much fuss.
The question is why. Why would Butina lie to Byrne? Why was she using him and what for? Had someone told her to make this approach Byrne? Did she hope to provoke a reaction? Did she know that Byrne was talking to the FBI?
I wrote Butina several letters in prison to see if she was willing to talk about this. She never responded. As often happens with intelligence-related matters, we are left with more questions than answers.
But it’s a revealing glimpse into the world of woman who was much more than a foreign grad student. A “sparrow” or a “swallow” was a beautiful seductress. Maria Butina was using her brains as well as her body.
Who Is Harry Sargeant III?
As a young journalist, I was taught to write what’s known in the trade as a “nut graf,” a brief summary of what my story was all about.
I regret to inform you that it is beyond my abilities to write a sentence or two that sums up Harry Sargeant III, whose name has surfaced in the congressional impeachment inquiry into Trump and Ukraine.
The best I can do is tell you that it would include the following: Ukraine, President Trump, Rudy Giuliani, CIA, a sex tape, straw donors, prostitutes in a golf cart, “war profiteering,” the CIA, the Jordanian royal family, and overseas bribery allegations.
“Bad news”
Sargeant’s name was mentioned several times in the just-released testimony of Fiona Hill, President Trump’s former top advisor on Russia, who says Sargeant was involved in Giuliani’s Ukraine adventures on behalf of President Trump:
Hill goes on to say she learned that Sergeant was “bad news” after speaking with her colleagues in some organization whose name has been redacted, presumably because it’s related to intelligence or national security. And Sargeant had something to do with Hill’s feeling that the current Ukraine mess is her “worst nightmare.”
Q. Dr. Hill, you sajd in the last segment of your testimony that we’re now living your worst nightmare. Can you unpack that a little bit for us? What do you mean by that?
A Well, I was extremely concerned that whatever it was that Mr. Giuliani was doing might not be legal , especially after, you know, people had raised with me these two gentlemen, Parnas and Fruman. And also they’d mentioned this third individual who, I mean, I guess is actually on the list of names that you had because I didn’t recognize all the others of, Harry Sargeant and when I’d spoken to my colleagues who, you know, were based in Florida, including our director for the Western Hemisphere, and he’d mentioned that these people were notorious and that, you know, they’d been involved in all kinds of strange things in Venezuela and, you know, kind of were just well-known for not being aboveboard. And so my early assumption was that it was pushing particular individuals’ business interests.
Sargeant rarely speaks to reporters, but in a press release he put out last month, the former fighter pilot, oil billionaire, and GOP fundraiser, insisted that he “conducts no business of any kind in the Ukraine and has not visited Ukraine, even as a tourist, in well over a decade.”
Regular meetings with President Trump?
Sargeant was responding to was a report by The Associated Press that placed him inside a plot to install new management at the top of Ukraine’s massive state gas company, Naftogaz, and then steer lucrative contracts to companies controlled by Trump allies.
Also involved in the plan were Igor Fruman and Lev Parnas, two of Rudy Giuliani’s clients who were helping him dig up dirt in Ukraine on Joe Biden and his family. Parnas and Fruman were indicted in Manhattan on campaign-finance violations.
“In early March,” the AP wrote, “Fruman, Parnas and Sargeant were touting a plan to replace Naftogaz CEO Andriy Kobolyev with another senior executive at the company, Andrew Favorov, according to two individuals who spoke to the AP as well as a memorandum about the meeting that was later submitted to the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, formerly known as Kiev.”
“Sargeant told Favorov that he regularly meets with Trump at Mar-a-Lago and that the gas-sales plan had the president’s full support, according to the two people who said Favorov recounted the discussion to them,” the AP wrote.
Sargeant conceded that he did attend a March 2019 dinner with Favorov, Fruman, and Parnas “to offer his views on the global oil and gas industry.” He denies discussing taking part in any venture in Ukraine. “Attending a single, informal dinner in Houston does not place Mr. Sargeant at the center of any Naftogaz or Ukrainian business plan,” Sargeant’s release states.
And what about his regular meetings with Trump at Mar-a-Lago?
Sargeant concludes his statement with a non-denial denial: “Mr. Sargeant is not a member of Mar-a-Lago and has never met there with Donald Trump since Mr. Trump has been President.”
The Sex Tape
But Ukraine is only the beginning of the intrigues that surround Sargeant, whose life is like something ripped from the pages of a spy novel.
Sargeant currently embroiled in a court case in London that involves “video material of a sexual nature” featuring Sargeant and a “successful businesswoman in a heavily regulated industry that is reputation sensitive,” according to court filings obtained by The Financial Times.
Sargeant has sued his brother, Daniel, for unlawfully obtaining sensitive photos and videos that were stored on a corporate server belonging to Sargeant Marine, a large family-owned asphalt company.
The explicit video found its way into the hands of Daniel Hall, who ran a business tracking down assets for wealthy clients. Hall obtained the sex tape as part of an effort to try and force Sargeant to pay a $28.8 million court judgement he owed to one of his former business partners.
Sargeant Marine’s name surfaced in Brazil’s “Car Wash” for allegedly paying bribes to local government officials, but Harry Sargeant says he had nothing to do with that. He was ousted from the business several years earlier amid a vicious dispute that spawned 14 lawsuits around the country He settled the case and walked away in 2015 with $56 million.
Straw Donors and Prostitutes in a Golf Cart
Harry Sargeant is also a major GOP donor and fund-raiser. Or he used to be.
Sargeant, who is close friends with former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, donated more than $1.5 million for Florida politicians and the state Republican Party, according to campaign finance records. Sargeant raised more than $500,000 for the 2008 Republican presidential campaign of U.S. Sen. John McCain.
After he was elected governor in 2006, Crist asked Sargeant to become finance chair at the Florida Republican Party.
Sargeant resigned from the post in 2009 shortly before one of his employees was indicted for making a $5,000 illegal “straw donation” to Crist and $50,000 in illegal donations to three candidates running for president: McCain, Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton.
The employee, Ala’a al-Ali, a citizen of both Jordan and the Dominican Republic, was a sales coordinator for Sargeant Marine. He remains a fugitive.
Allegations surfaced about a notorious 2009 men-only party in the Bahamas attended by Sargeant and Crist.
One former GOP official who attended the event testified that he saw a golf cart full of women driven by one of Sargeant’s employees at the event.
“I specifically saw a golf cart with young ladies drive by, the extent of why they were there I did not specifically know,” said the official, Delmar Johnson. “But I could presume they were prostitutes.”
The testimony came in the criminal case against former Florida GOP Party Chairman Jim Greer.
The Jordanian Royal Family
So far this story has mentioned Ukraine, Venezuela and Brazil, but there’s another country where Sargeant has major financial interests: Jordan.
Sargeant had deep ties to the Hashemite Kingdom. In 2007, Sargeant introduced his friend, then-Florida Governor Crist, to the King of Jordan.
Jordan was critical to valuable contracts Sargeant was awarded to supply fuel and oil to with the U.S. military. Not long after U.S.-led forces invaded Iraq, Sargeant emerged quickly set up a business and won a lucrative contract to provide oil, and later, jet fuel, to coalition troops in Iraq. Sargeant hired Marty Martin, formerly a senior CIA operative who ran Alec Station, the unit that hunted Osama bin Laden, for his oil business.
In 2008, not long after he introduced Crist to the King of Jordan, Sargeant was sued by Mohammed Al-Saleh, a member of the Jordanian royal family who is yet another of Sargeant’s disgruntled former business partners.
Al-Saleh, the brother-in-law of the King of Jordan, said he made the whole venture possible by arranging for the Jordanian government to issue a letter authorizing the transport of oil across Jordan.
In a complaint filed in Palm Beach Circuit Court, Al-Saleh claimed that Sargeant had “conspired to swindle” him out of one third of the profits from the Iraq jet fuel contracts. Sargeant, who gave Al-Saleh the nickname of “Crazy Mo,” testified that Al-Saleh tried to blackmail him.
A competitor, Supreme Fuels Trading FZE, filed a separate racketeering lawsuit in federal court claiming that the millions of dollars paid to Al-Saleh and other Jordanian officials were “bribes” meant to ensure that Sargeant’s company was the only bidder on the fuel contracts. (Supreme Fuels won a $5 million judgement against Sargeant.)
Sergeant was ordered to pay $28.8 million to Al-Saleh after a nearly three-week trial in 2011 that was “watched by note-taking men who said they worked for the federal government, included allegations of bribery of top Jordanian officials, shadowy work by a former CIA agent and Congressional claims of war-profiteering,” the Palm Beach Post reported.
“War Profiteering”
By 2008, as the U.S. occupation of Iraq wore on, Sargeant’s Florida company, International Oil Trading Co., had earned profits of $210 million off military fuel deliveries in Iraq.
That eye-popping figure and Sargeant’s connection to GOP straw donors attracted the attention of Congressman Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
In 2008, Congressman Waxman accused Sargeant of overcharging by 36 cents a gallon for jet fuel and engaging in a “reprehensible form of war profiteering.”
Between 2004 and 2010, Sargeant’s company won four contracts for the supply of fuel to U.S. troops in Iraq through Jordan valued at $3.1 billion.
An audit by the Defense Department’s Inspector General, initiated at Waxman’s request, found that the Pentagon paid Sargeant’s company “$160 [million] to $204 million (or 6 to 7 percent) more for fuel than could be supported by price or cost analysis.”
That, however, was not the final word. Sargeant sued the Defense Department and emerged with a settlement for $40 million.
Yet another Department of Defense internal investigation concluded “no fraud vulnerabilities were identified” in his company’s contracts to provide jet fuel in Iraq.
One thing is clear from all this: Where Sargeant goes, trouble follows.
John Durham and the Ghosts of Abu Ghraib
The Trump Justice Department has decided to open a criminal investigation into the origins into the FBI’s investigation into the links between the Trump campaign and Russia. Leading this investigation is a veteran federal prosecutor named John Durham.
The New York Times reports that Durham wants to interview former officials who ran the CIA in 2016. Some CIA officials have retained criminal lawyers in anticipation of being questioned.
Durham has investigated the CIA before in a case that I know very well. And the outcome of that investigation tells us a lot about what justice means when it comes to the actions of the U.S. intelligence community.
In 2009, Durham was tapped to investigate the homicide of an Iraqi prisoner named Manadel al-Jamadi. Al-Jamadi’s corpse appears in the gruesome photos taken by U.S. soldiers in Abu Ghraib prison. Grinning soldiers flash thumbs up over his decomposing body.
Al-Jamadi was a “high-value target,” suspecting of supplying explosives in the October 2003 bombing of a Red Cross facility in Baghdad that killed 12 and a group of Navy SEALs was sent out to go and get him. The SEALs captured al-Jamadi in his home the following month in a nighttime raid. They had returned to their base. There, the SEAL and CIA team that captured ai-Jamadi took turns punching, kicking and striking him with their rifles after he was detained in a small area in the Navy camp at Baghdad International Airport known as the “Romper Room.”
A CIA interrogator threatened him, saying: “I’m going to barbecue you if you don’t tell me the information.” A government report states that another CIA security guard recalled al-Jamadi saying he was dying. “You’ll be wishing you were dying,” the interrogator replied.
Al-Jamadi was handed over to the CIA. The next day, he was dead.
A group of Navy SEALs was being prosecuted for abusing al-Jamadi – but, critically, not for killing him. Exactly how al-Jamadi died was shrouded in mystery and the CIA was working very hard to keep it that way. A team of young CIA lawyers sat with us journalists during the courtroom proceedings in a San Diego Navy base. When one of the SEALs’ defense lawyers asked a curious question – “what position was al-Jamadi in when he died?” – a CIA lawyer stood up and objected. “That’s classified,” he said.
Back then, when I working for The Associated Press, I found out that al-Jamadi had died in the shower room at Abu Ghraib a position known as a “Palestinian hanging” – a position that human rights groups condemn as torture.
His arms, which were handcuffed behind his back, were attached by a chain to the wall behind him. If he tried to sit or lie down his arms would be wrenched up painfully behind his back. And that’s how he died, with his arms wrenched behind his back. One Army guard, Sgt. Jeffery Frost, told investigators he was surprised al-Jamadi’s arms “didn’t pop out of their sockets.”
This was a crucifixion. “Asphyxia is what he died from — as in a crucifixion,” said the military pathologist who ruled the case a homicide.
There were only two people in the room with al-Jamadi when he died, a CIA interrogator and a translator. The interrogator’s name, I found out later, was Mark B. Swanner.
Swanner told guards that al-Jamadi was “playing possum” — faking it — and then watched as guards struggled to get him on his feet. But the guards realized it was useless.
“After we found out he was dead, they were nervous,” Spc. Dennis E. Stevanus said of the CIA interrogator and translator. “They didn’t know what the hell to do.” Blood was cleaned up. Evidence was disposed of and al-Jamadi was spirited out of the prison with an IV attached to his lifeless arm to make it appear that he was still alive.
But years later, all that had come of it was that a bunch of Navy SEALs were spending their life savings hiring defense attorneys. Of the 10 who were accused, nine ended up with nonjudicial punishment. A SEAL officer was acquitted at trial.
As for Swanner, nothing was happening to him. The CIA’s Inspector General referred the case to the Justice Department, but nothing happened. Jane Mayer of The New Yorker wrote a big story about Swanner. Still nothing.
Enter Durham.
In August 2009, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder directed Durham to review roughly a dozen cases of alleged abuse against “war on terror” suspects that had gone dormant. He narrowed the cases down to two: Al-Jamadi and an Afghani named Gul Rahman.
Durham convened a grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia and began calling witnesses. TIME magazine obtained a subpoena signed by Durham that stated “the grand jury is conducting an investigation of possible violations of federal criminal laws involving War Crimes (18 USC/2441), Torture (18 USC 243OA) and related federal offenses.”
Once again, the Navy SEALs who captured al-Jamadi were called up to testify. One SEAL called me after he received a subpoena. He was angry and upset that he had to go through the whole ordeal all over again. I put him in touch with a DC attorney I knew who agreed to help him out.
Three years went by. In 2012, Holder announced that “based on the fully developed factual record concerning the two deaths, the department has declined prosecution because the admissible evidence would not be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt.”
The word “admissible” is doing a lot of work in that sentence.
Durham had looked at whether Swanner had used “unauthorized” interrogation techniques. “The approach taken in the inquiry was not to prosecute anyone who acted in good faith and within the scope of the legal guidance given by the justice department’s Office of Legal Counsel regarding the interrogation of detainees,” the Guardian wrote.
In other words, CIA officers were immune from prosecution as long as they stayed within the guidelines of the dubious “Torture Memo” drafted in 2002 by John Yoo that was withdrawn, reinstated, and ultimately rescinded by President Obama. Although Yoo’s memo only applied to one high-level al Qaida suspect, the CIA treated it as a generalized authorization to use the “enhanced” techniques on detainees held at black sites.
According to Yoo’s memo, placing a prisoner on the floor with legs extended and arms raised above his head was authorized as a “stress position.” Yoo said such a position “falls far below the threshold of severe physical pain” that would constitute torture.
The legal reasoning here, as applied to Swanner, appears to have been equally tortured, for it implies that although al-Jamadi was crucified to death he didn’t experience severe physical pain.
When Durham’s decision was announced, the CIA breathed a sigh of relief; human rights advocates called it a scandal. “Continuing impunity threatens to undermine the universally recognized prohibition on torture and other abusive treatment,” said Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union.
The question is whether John Durham will find a way to do what he failed to in the al-Jamadi case: prosecute CIA officials for daring to investigate a presidential campaign that, as the Muller Report found, welcomed offers of Russian assistance.
It may be that investigating a presidential candidate carries greater risks than crucifying a man to death.
The pee tape
Someday, we may find ourselves staring in amazement at our computer screens as a man who resembles the 45th president performs unspeakable acts with prostitutes in a Moscow hotel room.
But Michael Cohen, the president’s former lawyer and fixer, thinks that day will never come. And he’s in a good position to know one way or another.
The public first learned of the possible existence of what came to be known as the pee tape from the Steele dossier. Former British MI6 officer Christopher Steele reported that prostitutes had performed a “golden shower” urination show for Trump in the Moscow Ritz where he was staying during the 2013 Miss Universe pageant. This had been recorded by Russian intelligence for purposes of blackmailing Trump.
But this claim about a pee tape wasn’t news to Cohen. Thanks to a newly released transcript from the House intelligence committee, we now know that Cohen first heard about the pee tape shortly after Trump returned from Russia.
Trump denied it, but he asked Cohen to find out where the rumors were coming from.
Testifying under oath, Cohen says he spoke to many people about the tape, including one unnamed caller who demanded $20 million.
Another person who called Cohen about the tape was Harvey Levin of the gossip site TMZ, who also had heard about the existence of the tape. (TMZ did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)
In the end, Cohen concluded that the pee tape didn’t exist for a very practical reason. If prostitutes had urinated on the bed in the Moscow Ritz, where did Trump sleep that night?
The tape had acquired a life of its own, Cohen said, much like the claim that he had attended secret meetings with Russians in Prague, which also appeared in the dossier. Cohen said under oath that all the allegations concerning him in the dossier are false.
But, Cohen also relates an interesting anecdote about the dossier. After it was published January 10, 2017 by Buzzfeed, Trump called Cohen at home.
In other words, Trump seemed very concerned. He appeared unsure whether the allegations in the dossier regarding Cohen were true or not.
So let me make sure I got this right. This is the same dossier with the golden showers allegations that Trump scoffs at. If those claims, which appear in the very front of the dossier, were false, would he really need to see Cohen’s passport in the middle of the night?
In other words, if there’s a huge lie on page one of the dossier, you don’t need to scrutinize pages two, three, four, and five, especially not in the middle of the night. It can wait until morning.
Perhaps Trump was just panicking, but it seems quite possible that something in the dossier hit the mark to cause such panic for Cohen to go rushing back to Trump Tower waving his passport. Whether that’s the pee tape or not, we don’t know.
Steele, unlike Cohen and Levin, Steele, was passing along more than a rumor about the pee tape. He claimed to have confirmed the incident with three separate sources:
- “Source D,” described as having “been present.”
- “Source E,” a “senior/western member of the staff at the hotel,” who was aware of the golden showers incident at the time it occurred in 2013.
- “Source F,” a female staffer at the hotel who confirmed the story.
I remain unconvinced. It could be Steele was the victim of a Russian disinformation effort. As I wrote in Trump/Russia, this kind of tawdry material in reports compiled by former spooks was not out of the ordinary:
What people failed to realize was that sordid allegations like the one in Steele’s report were a dirty secret of the world of private investigations. Several people familiar with this world told me that reports by companies like Kroll, K2, Mintz Group, IGI, and others were often littered with tawdry allegations. “Yes, sex stuff comes up a lot and it’s often nonsense,” a DC attorney who often hires private investigators told me. One veteran opposition researcher told me he has seen the same thing so often that he has detected a pattern: when the subject of the investigation was connected to Latin America, drugs were involved; when the connection was Russia or Eastern Europe, then it was usually sex. “Every single one of their reports has something like that,” the opposition researcher said. “That’s what they pitch the client to keep them on the hook. They then spend months trying to confirm it.”
Then again, maybe Steele got it right and one day we may find ourselves staring in amazement at our computer screens as a man who resembles the 45th president performs unspeakable acts with prostitutes in a Moscow hotel room.
Who Is Ilya Medvedovsky?
In the latest round of sanctions aimed at Russian cyberattacks, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned five companies. Three are connected with one person, a Russian cybersecurity professional named Ilya Medvedovsky.
The Problem with Russian Backdoors
During one of my media appearances for the release of Trump/Russia: A Definitive History, someone asked me an interesting question: What’s wrong with a Russian backdoor?
Five surprises in Glenn Simpson’s testimony
Glenn Simpson
Well, it took a couple of days, but I finally managed to read through Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson’s 312-page testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Thank you to Sen. Dianne Feinstein for releasing this information last week over the objections of Republicans. Sen. Feinstein said the American public deserve to make up their own minds. Couldn’t agree more. You can find the testimony here.
So I thought I would pick things that jumped out at me from Simpson’s testimony:
1. An internal source in the Trump Organization was providing the FBI with information about Russian collusion.
Simpson learned this from Christopher Steele, the former British spy he had hired to investigate Trump’s links to Russia. Steele’s findings, including the scandalous scene in the Moscow Ritz, were so alarming that he took his findings to the FBI. The FBI told Steele, yes, we’ve heard something similar from our internal Trump source. Simpson refused to answer questions about who this source might have been, but this source was not one of Steele’s source. Huge bombshell. (p. 175)
2. Someone has been killed as a result of Steele’s reports.
Simpson’s lawyer, Josh Levy, drops this on p. 279. “Somebody’s already been killed as a result of the publication of this dossier and no harm should come to anybody related to this honest work,” he says. Curiously, nobody challenges this, which makes it seem an accepted fact. Maybe they were all just tired after 9 hours of questioning. The person is not named, but presumably it’s someone in Russia. Otherwise, it would be a bigger deal, right?
3. Felix Sater is connected to Russian organized crime kingpin Semion Mogilevich This connection has been alleged in a Supreme Court petition filed in 2012 by lawyers Fred Oberlander and Richard Lerner to unseal Sater’s criminal case. The Website Deep Capture made the same claim, but the sourcing wasn’t very strong, as did two New York attorneys in court filings. (Update: Sources I’ve spoken to led me to doubt this claim.) (p.69)
4. Chris Steele broke off talks with the FBI in part because of a story in The New York Times. This was the infamous Halloween 2016 story that reported that an FBI investigation of Trump found no ties to Russia. The Times story and FBI Director James Comey’s bizarre decision to reopen the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s email made Steele concerned that the FBI was being manipulated for political ends by Trump’s people. (p. 178).
5. Bill Browder’s comical efforts to hide from Fusion GPS and Glenn Simpson.
This isn’t a single event. It’s more like a pattern. Maybe Simpson is a liar as Browder says or maybe Browder doesn’t like anybody nosing around in his business practices in Russia. Read it for yourself and see what you think pp 40-48.
Fusion GPS Speaks
Glenn Simpson
Simpson and Fritsch penned an opinion piece in today’s New York Times. The purpose of the opinion piece was to let the public know what they spent 21 hours explaining to three congressional committees.
Most of the piece rebuts the many rumors surrounding Fusion GPS, including one big one — former British spy Christopher Steele’s sources were not paid for the information that he compiled about Trump, including the scandalous watersports-in-Moscow story. This is big because paying sources undermines their credibility.
Simpson and Fritsch note their “dismay” that Buzzfeed published the Steele dossier in January 2017. This bothers me because Fusion GPS was shopping Steele and this dossier to every major news outlet who would listen. I guess this is the Washington game, but washing your hands in dirty water is not how you stay clean.
For Trump-Russia investigators, they did offer up a few tidbits:
- Simpson and Fritsch told investigators to look into the bank records of Deutsche Bank and others that were funding Trump’s businesses.
- In Manhattan, Sunny Isles Beach, Florida; Toronto; and Panama, they found “widespread evidence” that Trump had worked with “dubious Russians in arrangements that often raised questions about money laundering.”
There is a lot of information packed in to those few sentences.
Simpson and Fritsch also note, as we did recently here, that Trump’s allies in Congress have dug through their bank records to tarnish the firm and punish them for bringing light into the darkness of Trump’s Russia dealings.
One person who lit up after reading this piece was Bill Browder, Putin’s self-styled enemy No. 1 who was once his biggest fan. Here he is, borrowing from the Devin Nunes “attack the client” strategy, as he vented his anger on Twitter today:
The Steele dossier, unfortunately, is a distraction. It is raw intelligence, not evidence, and was never intended to be used in a court of law. In the public’s mind, however, it has been impossibly conflated with the legitimate investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
It does Browder no credit that he stokes this confusion and allows his hatred of Fusion GPS to become grist for conservative media outlets that seek to undermine the Mueller inquiry. (“The dossier is the foundation on which the case for Russiagate, including Mueller’s investigation, is built.”)
As Browder surely knows, since he’s paid for many an investigation himself, who hired Fusion GPS doesn’t really matter. The bottom line is that if Fusion GPS didn’t dish up facts, it wouldn’t be in business. Period.
Who is Tevfik Arif? Part I
Tefvik Arif was the chairman of Bayrock Group, the murky company that partnered with Donald Trump to build Trump SoHo in lower Manhattan.
Figuring out who he is was not an easy task.
Tevfik Arif (Тевфик Ариф) was born Toifik Arifov (Тофик Арифов) on May 15, 1953 in the Soviet Socialist Republic of Kazakhstan. He was one of four brothers born to a Turkish family in the Jambyl Region in northern Kazakhstan.
That’s about the only thing we know about his early life with any certainty.
What he did for the next 38 years is unclear. The oft-repeated facts of his background come from a short profile on Arif published in Real Estate Weekly in 2007, just as Trump was preparing to kick off sales of Trump SoHo.
Real Estate Weekly reported that Arif had received a degree from Moscow Institute of Trade and Economics and then worked in the Soviet Ministry of Commerce and Trade in the former Soviet Union for 17 years, where he served as the chief economist and deputy director of the Ministry’s Department of Hotel Management.
Many journalists have repeated this story. It may be true, but no one seems to have bothered to check. It’s worth noting that this is the only reference to a Soviet Ministry of Commerce and Trade that I found on the Internet. There is a Russian ministry that has this name, but I could find nothing from the Soviet era. (Arif did not speak English very well, so it’s possible this is a mistranslation.)
There was, however, something called the USSR Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which was run by the KGB and spied on the West. A third of the chamber’s staff were KGB, according to a US State Department report that cited CIA information. And the USS Chamber of Commerce and Industry did have a hotel division, V/0 Sovintsentr, which ran a trade center and various Moscow hotels.
In the Russian press, Arif is affiliated with the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Trade (which did exist). Or maybe he was just a Soviet hotel bureaucrat, as he claims. Whatever Arif did for the first 40 odd years of his life, he hasn’t been very open about it.
Trans World Group
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Arif left the government and made a career leap. A huge leap.
In a court proceeding in Turkey, the former Soviet hotel bureaucrat testified that he “worked in energy sector, chemical sector and metallurgy sector. I was producing coal in Russia and copper in Kazakhstan. Due to lack of coal, it was not possible to make production. I started to organize them.” He started a private company called the Speciality Chemicals Trading Co., trading in “chrome, rare metals and raw materials.”
And then he went to work for Trans World Group. TWG was a British company headed by two brothers, David and Simon Reuben. After the Soviet Union collapsed, the Reubens moved aggressively into metals production, buying up smelters and refineries.
As foreigners, however, the Reubens needed locals to build their business. Enter Arif. He became an “agent on the ground” — a fixer, in other words — for TWG in Kazakhstan, according to internal company documents reviewed by theblacksea.eu, an online investigative Website.
Arif apparently did his job well. Very well. In a few years, TWG’s holdings of steel, iron, chrome and alumina refineries in Kazakhstan generated one fifth of the entire country’s gross revenues.
Maybe Arif was just a Soviet hotel bureaucrat who seized a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get into the post-Soviet metals sector. But his hotel background would have been of little use to TWG. What TWG needed was someone with deep connections in the country’s political and business circles. The kind of people who had those connections in the Russia of the 1990s were either ex-KGB, or mobsters.
Michael Cherney
Consider another pair of fixers the Reubens brought into TWG in 1992. They were the Cherney brothers, Lev and Michael, and they formed a 50-50 partnership with TWG. It was a successful partnership. With the Cherneys help, TWG grew by leaps and bounds. The problem for the Reubens was that Michael Cherney’s name soon became publicly linked to Russian organized crime groups. The Reubens quickly bought out Cherney’s share of TWG for $410 million.
Vyacheslav Ivankov
Swiss authorities in 1996 accused Michael Cherney of “drug trafficking, money laundering, fraud and sponsoring murder” on behalf of a Russian organized crime group run by “V Ivankov.” This was the infamous Russian mob boss nicknamed “Yaponchik” who had settled in New York, where the FBI found him hiding out in Trump Tower and Trump’s New Jersey casino.
Michael Cherney has repeatedly denied these allegations, which he blames on his archenemy and former partner Oleg Deripaska, one of the wealthiest men in Russia. In 2008, the federal Swiss court exonerated him of the charges, but two years later, Spain issued an international arrest warrant for Michael Cherney’s arrest on money laundering charges.
Did Arif have links to the Russian Mafia? Felix Sater, who worked under Arif at Bayrock, seems to think so.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Sater and his attorney threatened to expose Arif’s past unless he paid Sater’s attorney fees. Sater warned of a possible lawsuit that would include details of Arif’s wrongdoing “in the post-Soviet metals business in Kazakhstan.”
In a personal memo, Sater was even more blunt: “The headlines will be, ‘The Kazakh Gangster and President Trump.'”
A High-Net Worth Individual
“The head of the family is my uncle Roustam Arif [sic],” Tevfik’s son Arif writes in 2013 in correspondence obtained by theblacksea.eu. “In our culture, the patriarch is usually the oldest member of the family. Roustam is my father’s oldest brother. Even though my father is a successful entrepreneur in his own right (hotels, construction and real estate), his younger brother Refik Arif is the principal figure in the main family business (commodities).”
In the mid-90s, Refik reportedly acquired control of the Aktyubinsk Chromium Chemicals Plant (ACCP) in Aktobe, in north-western Kazakhstan, near the border with Russia. Refik also established a highly profitable chemicals trading business. And this is an important piece of the story, because the money for Bayrock, at least part of it, came through Kazakhstan.
Consider that for a moment. The Arifs managed to pool enough capital and influence to buy what turned out to be a highly lucrative chemical plant. How was this possible? What really happened in Kazakhstan in 1990s?
Around 1999, Refik Arif’s chemical trading business was generating so much cash that the family retained Hamels, a UK tax consultancy, to help structure their investments. On its website, Hamels describes its typical clients as “high net worth individuals seeking to minimize their respective tax burdens on current income or investment streams…”
In a 2011 memo, Hamels partner Zig Wilamowski wrote, “Mr. Refik Arif is one of four brothers who have over many years built up a substantial and profitable international business from the sale of chrome-based chemicals.” Williamowski said he was in a position to verify the “good origin” of the Arif family’s wealth. You can read the document here.
With the help of Hamels, the Arifs set up a network of shell companies, many of which were established in the Caribbean tax haven of the British Virgin Islands. These companies included Bennington Trade Assets Ltd., which owns property in the center of London and Merlin Trading Assets Ltd., which owns an executive jet. There are too many companies to name them all. Many are found in the Panama Papers leak of offshore companies founded by the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca.
The real moneymaker for the family was Castello Global Ltd., which handled the profits from the chrome trading business. Here is a breakdown of Castello Global’s profits:
So much money was pouring out of Kazakhstan that Tevfik Arif decided it was time to try something big. Really big.
He moved to New York and set out to do a real estate deal with the biggest and the best. So he set up offices of his new company Bayrock Group in Trump Tower, one floor below Trump’s own offices.
To be continued…
Sergey Kislyak Timeline
Sergey Kislyak
Sergey Kislyak, Russian ambassador to the United States, is emerging as a key point of contact for members for the Trump campaign and Russia, and a reminder of the president’s ties to Vladimir Putin.
CNN reports that Kislyak is known to US intelligence officials as a spy recruiter. And that’s why he’s a touchy subject for Trump’s people.
Here’s a timeline of what we know about contacts between the Trump campaign and Kislyak:
Trump Dossier Timeline
For sourcing click following link:
Jun 18, 2013: Donald Trump tweets: “Do you think Putin will be going to The Miss Universe Pageant in November in Moscow – if so, will he become my new best friend?”
Nov 9, 2013 Trump visits Moscow for Miss Universe pageant.
Nov. 9, 2013 Interviewed in Moscow, Trump is asked by MSNBC whether he has a relationship with Vladimir Putin. “I do have a relationship, and I can tell you that he’s very interested in what we’re doing here today.”
Nov. 9, 2013 Trump tells Tass news service that he plans to build a Trump Tower in Moscow and was in negotiations with billionaire Aras Agalarov’s Crocus Group. During his Moscow visit, Trump also meets with Herman Gref, CEO of state-controlled Sberbank PJSC, Russia’s biggest bank, which is under US sanctions. Sberbank and Crocus sponsor the beauty contest.
Nov 12, 2013 Trump tells Real Estate Weekly that the pageant was a good networking opportunity. “The Russian market is attracted to me. I have a great relationship with many Russians, and almost all of the oligarchs were in the room.”
May 27, 2014 At National Press Club lunch, Trump says, “I was in Moscow recently and I spoke, indirectly and directly, with President Putin, who could not have been nicer.”
June 2016: Fusion GPS, a Washington research firm run by former journalists, hires Christopher Steele, a respected former MI6 officer who once served in Moscow, to gather opposition material on Donald Trump’s ties to Russia. Steele reportedly paid 200,000 pounds for his work.
June 20, 2016: Steele reports that Russian intelligence has videotapes of “perverted conduct” of Trump and prostitutes recorded in a Moscow hotel suite in 2013 during Miss Universe pageant. Trump’s behavior in Russia has “compromised him sufficiently to blackmail him.” Steele reports that Russian authorities have been “cultivating, supporting and assisting” Trump for years and he has accepted a regular flow of intelligence on his Democratic rivals.
Early July 2016: Steele, the former MI6 officer, acting on his own initiative, sends material he has gathered on Trump to the FBI.
July 7, 2016: Trump campaign adviser Carter Page travels to Moscow to give speech critical of U.S. policy. According to Reuters, Page declines to say whether he was planning to meet anyone from the Kremlin, the Russian government or Foreign Ministry during his visit.
July 19, 2016: Steele reports that Carter Page had held a secret meeting with Igor Sechin, head of the Rosneft state-owned oil company who is considered Vladimir Putin’s “defacto deputy.” Sechin and Page discuss lifting US sanctions against Russia. Sechin offered Page the “brokerage” on a 19 percent stake in Rosneft if sanctions lifted. According to Steele, Page also met Igor Divyekin, an internal affairs official with a background in intelligence, who warns Page that Moscow had kompromat on Trump
August, 2016: FBI asks Christopher Steele, the former MI6 officer, for all information in his possession and asked him to explain how the material had been gathered and to identify his sources.
August, 2016: A retired spy tells the BBC’s Paul Wood that he had been informed of videotapes of compromising material on Trump by the head of an East European intelligence agency.
Aug. 5, 2016: Steele’s memo identifies Dmitry Peskov, Kremlin spokesman, as the “chief protagonist” in Russia’s campaign to aid Trump and harm Clinton. Chief of staff Sergei Ivanov, longtime friend and top Putin lieutenant, said to be angry that Peskov’s team had gone too far.
Sept. 25, 2016: Carter Page sends letter to FBI Director James Comey saying that he is subject of a “witch hunt” and has not met with any “sanctioned official” in Russia in the past year.
Oct. 30, 2016 Sen. Harry Reid reveals in public letter that FBI Director James Comey possesses “explosive information of close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors and the Russian government” and urges him to share it with the American people.
Oct. 31, 2016: Mother Jones interviews Christopher Steele, and publishes article, without naming him, that reveals existence of Steele’s memos, reporting in vague terms that Russian intelligence had “compromised” Trump during his visits to Moscow and could “blackmail him.”
Nov. 4, 2016: Newsweek reports that the Kremlin has both video and audio recordings of Trump in a kompromat file.
Nov. 8, 2016: Donald Trump elected president
Nov. 18, 2016: Sir Andrew Wood, a British ambassador to Russia, speaks with Sen. John McCain at a conference in Halifax, Canada. Wood tells McCain “how Mr Trump may find himself in a position where there could be an attempt to blackmail him with Kompromat and claims that there were audio and video tapes in existence.”
Dec. 7, 2016: Rosneft sells 19.5 percent ($11B) stake to Glencore Plc and Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund
Dec. 8, 2016: Carter Page revisits Moscow
Dec. 9, 2016: Sen. John McCain, who had also acquired Steele’s memos, turns them over to FBI Director James Comey.
Dec. 26, 2016: Oleg Erovinkin, a former general in the KGB and its successor the FSB, described as a key aide to Igor Sechin, found dead in the back of his car in Moscow.
2017
Jan. 6, 2017: Heads of US intelligence agencies brief PEOTUS and POTUS and leaders of House and Senate intelligence committees on Steele’s kompromat material on Trump. Kompromat material not included in public portion of report.
Jan. 10, 2017: CNN reveals that PEOTUS and POTUS were briefed on kompromat material and were given a two-page summary of allegations.
Jan. 10, 2017: Buzzfeed.com publishes 35 pages of Steele’s dossier. Included are allegations that Trump had a golden shower party with prostitutes in the Ritz Carlton hotel in 2013. Steele’s sources also say that Russia has an alliance with Trump that goes back several years.
Jan. 10, 2017: Donald Trump derides kompromat dossier as “FAKE NEWS!”
Jan. 11, 2017: DNI James Clapper says the U.S. Intelligence Community “has not made any judgement that the information in the document is reliable, and we did not rely on it in any way for our conclusions. However, part of our obligation is to ensure that policymakers are provided with the fullest possible picture of any matters that might affect national security.”
Jan. 11, 2017: Trump tweets, “Intelligence agencies should never have allowed this fake news to ‘leak’ into the public. One last shot at me. Are we living in Nazi Germany?”
Jan. 11, 2017: Former MI6 agent Christopher Steele, author of the Trump kompromat memos, goes into hiding.
Jan. 12, 2017: Yedioth Ahranoth reports that at post-election meeting US intelligence officials warned Israeli counterparts that Russia had “levers of pressure” on Donald Trump and that information passed to the White House could be relayed to Russia and Iran.
Jan. 15, 2017: The Guardian reports that UK intelligence officials have sought assurances from the CIA that the identity of British agents in Russia will be protected because of the Trump team’s closeness to Russia.
Jan. 17, 2017: At news conference, Vladimir Putin says kompromat file was a fake used to smear Trump. “Why would he run to a hotel to meet up with our girls of limited social responsibility? Although they are, of course, the best in the world. But I doubt that Trump fell for it.”
Jan. 20, 2017: Trump inaugurated as 45th US president
Jan. 23, 2017: Steve Hall, retired CIA chief of Russia operations, tells NPR that there is a “live question” now at the CIA about what to do if President Trump asks for the source of information on something that puts Vladimir Putin in a bad light.
Jan. 24, 2017: The Wall Street Journal identifies Sergei Millian, a Trump associate and supporter, as an indirect source for Christopher Steele’s dossier, including existence of compromising videotapes
Feb. 10, 2017: CNN reports that, for the first time, US investigators say they have corroborated some of the communications detailed in Steele’s kompromat dossier. Confirmations were made with SIGINT (foreign intercepts) and relate to conversations with foreign nationals, not the the salacious “golden showers” allegations in the dossier. Confirmations give intelligence officials “greater confidence” in Steele dossier.
Report: FSB Helped CIA Pinpoint Election Hacks
Two Russian FSB officers recently arrested on treason charges helped US intelligence agents pinpoint Russian hacking during the presidential election and spied for the CIA for seven years, according to a story on the Russian Rosbalt news agency.
Sergei Mikhailov, deputy director FSB’s Centre for Information Security (see my previous post), and Dmitri Dokuchayev, said to be an ex-hacker named “Forb” who joined the FSB under threat of prosecution, were paid to pass secret data, Rosbalt reported.
Ruslan Stoyanov (via Securelist.com)
The FSB officers relayed their secrets to Ruslan Stoyanov, a manager from the cybersecurity and anti-virus company Kaspersky Lab and an unnamed representative of another cybersecurity company. The information was then transferred to “acquaintances abroad who worked closely with foreign special service.”
“This is not a one-off story, this activity was carried out for a minimum of seven years and caused substantial harm to the interests of the Russian Federation,” the source told Rosbalt.
Rosbalt reportedly has good connections to Russian intelligence. Its editor in chief, Natalia Cherkesova, is the wife of Viktor Cherkesov, a former KGB operative who served under Vladimir Putin in the FSB. Sunday’s report in Rosbalt was picked up today by the reputable Times of London.
Stoyanov, Mikhailov, and Dokuchayev all face 20 year prison terms for treason.
The question of how this allegedly long-running spy operation was exposed remains unclear, and the timing of the arrests raises troubling questions given the Trump administration’s ties to Russia.
As noted in an earlier post, the U.S. Director of National Intelligence reported Jan. 6 that “further information has come to light since Election Day” that helped increase the U.S. intelligence community’s assessments of Russia’s motivations and goals in the election hacking.
One month later, Mikhailov was led out of an FSB with a bag over his head. Again we ask: Is there a mole in the White House?
Rosbalt also reported that in an unrelated case, Mikhailov also gave a representative of the foreign intelligence services “counterintelligence materials.”
What Is Russia’s Centre for Information Security?
The New York Times reports on a series of arrests involving Russia’s FSB, the successor agency to the KGB that may be connected to the hacking of the 2016 U.S. Election.
According to the Times, one of those arrested, Sergei Mikhailov, was serving as deputy director FSB’s Centre for Information Security. He was arrested on a charge of treason. Earlier in the month, the head of the Centre, Andrei Gerasimov, was dismissed.
What is the FSB’s Centre for Information Security?
Some answers come from Jeffrey Carr, a security consultant out of Seattle who runs the consulting firm TAIA Global and published Inside Cyber Warfare. Carr describes the FSB’s Centre for Information Security (also known as Military Unit 64829) as the organization in charge of protecting Russia’s Internet.
“In sum, any Internet operation originating in Russia are almost certainly monitored and probably overseen by the FSB ISC,” Carr wrote in this analysis. “Current Russian press covers Russian intentions to implement further restrictions on RuNet to counter foreign attempts to wage “information warfare” against Russian and ideologically subvert the Russian population. Whatever final form the new restrictions take, the FSB ISC will be heavily involved.”
I would be wary of any reports that claim the Centre hacked the U.S. election. Cyberwarfare like conventional warfare is a confusing picture, with many different groups carrying out different but overlapping missions.
Different FSB components are responsible for attacks outside Russia. One is the FSB’s 16th Center, also known by the Orwellian name of the FSB Center for Electronic Surveillance of Communications, according to TAIA Global Another is the FSB’s 18th Center. Another is the FSB’s Fifth Directorate. All three were blamed for cyberattacks and propaganda during the Russian invasion of the Crimean Peninsula.
And President Obama’s executive order imposing sanctions in response to the hacking of the 2016 U.S. Election names both the FSB and the GRU, the main intelligence directorate. It’s believed that the GRU hacks were passed along to Wikileaks and other media outlets during the election.
There’s no evidence yet that the Centre for Information Security had a hand in the 2016 U.S. election hacking, but with their complete command of the Russian Internet they almost certainly would have known about it.
San Diego’s Spook Shop
Susan Lesch, own work, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://commmons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14664040
Along Interstate 5 in San Diego just south of the airport, lies a hulking building with blacked out windows and a roof that looks like a long silver saw blade. The site of a former B-24 factory during World War II, this giant piece of corrugated metal is the home of the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command or SPAWAR.
I’ve long been interested in SPAWAR (pronounced spā-wôr) mostly because exactly what it does is a bit of a mystery. Its mission is “enabling information warfare superiority” for our Naval and military forces. Operating with a $2.5 billion budget, SPAWAR employs more than 2,000 scientists, specializing in areas such as cyberwarfare, information warfare and space systems. SPAWAR’s chief technology officer holds over 100 patents. I have no idea what that all means, but it sounds like they do some very interesting stuff.
About three years ago, in the midst of Edward Snowden’s revelations about the National Security Agency, I learned that the Defense Department’s Inspector General had conducted a Top Secret investigation into allegations involving SPAWAR’s “access to U.S. persons data.”
That phrase “U.S. persons data” caught my eye. Under federal law, our intelligence agencies cannot spy on U.S. persons, i.e. American citizens. The misuse of “U.S. persons data” is intelspeak for spying on Americans so I filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act for the report.
The 37-page heavily redacted report I received began as a whistleblower complaint filed in December 2006 by an unnamed government employee. This employee claimed he was mistreated and ultimately reassigned after reporting that SPAWAR had misused classified information involving U.S. persons, which is forbidden under U.S. law.
Of the two main allegations cited in the report, one remains classified under a FOIA b(1) exemption, which involves matters of national security. The whistleblower’s second allegation was that SPAWAR personnel had been in the words of the report “photographing U.S. persons.”
There are several allegations involving misuse of imagery at SPAWAR in the report, most of which are completely or partially redacted.
The only one that is readable is a charge that SPAWAR had been collecting data without notice, warrant or authority “on U.S. persons in federal parks located at Point Loma,” a hilly peninsula in San Diego.
This allegation involved a camera is mounted on a tower at SPAWAR’s command HQ, located on the southern tip of Point Loma, adjacent to Cabrillo National Monument, which is operated by the National Parks Service. The camera, which can be rotated 360 degrees, is used for calibration purposes by pointing it at different government radars, the IG’s investigation found. The video feed from the camera goes to a laboratory and is not stored.
The IG also looked for inappropriate images on another imagery system, details of which remain classified on national security grounds. The system was tested at a site on Point Loma overlooking San Diego Harbor on the USS Dolphin, a research submarine, after it had been repaired for fire damage.
Other allegations involving satellite imagery or other technologies are heavily redacted.
The investigation by the DoD’s Inspector General did not substantiate the whistleblower’s complaints that SPAWAR was mishandling intelligence and possibly compromising U.S. persons information. The Inspector General did, however, partially substantiate the allegation that SPAWAR had failed to move quickly to correct deficiencies in its handling of intelligence information. The whistleblower had not been subject to reprisals, the IG’s investigation found.
What the report makes clear is that SPAWAR is a spook shop. It does R&D work for various components of the U.S. intelligence community. Some of the imagery allegations involved an R&D project for the Office of Naval Intelligence. Officials with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), the National Reconnaissance Agency (NRO), which runs spy satellites, and one agency whose name was blacked out were interview for the IG’s report.
San Diego FBI, Nidal Hasan, and the Webster Report
An independent commission headed by Judge William Webster, the former director of both the CIA and the FBI, has released its long-awaited report into the November 9, 2009 Fort Hood shootings. A copy of the report can be viewed here.
The report’s most damning is the refusal in May 2009, FBI officials in the Washington Field Office’s Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) to interview the Fort Hood shooter, Major Nidal Hasan, who was communicating with terrorist Anwar al-Awlaqi. The DC JTTF officials also decided not to interview Maj. Hasan’s Army superiors because that “might harm Hasan’s military career.”
This infuriated the FBI agents in San Diego who were handling the Awlaqi-Hasan investigation. Even after San Diego complained, Washington still refused to get off its ass.
According to the report, the a Defense Criminal Investigative Service agent in San Diego handling the investigation told his Washington Field Office (WFO) counterpart that “upon receiving a lead like this one, San Diego would have conducted, at the least, an interview of the subject.” (See p. 60)
According to the San Diego DCIS agent, the JTTF agent in Washington replied something along the lines of: “This is not SD [San Diego], it’s DC and WFO doesn’t go out and interview every Muslim guy who visits extremist websites.”
The San Diego FBI agent also recalled that the Washington agent indicated that this subject is “politically sensitive for WFO.”
Not surprisingly, the JTTF agent in DC doesn’t recall this conversation. The report doesn’t reveal whether the FBI agent(s) in the Washington Field Office (WFO) who refused to interview Major Hasan ecause it would have been “politically sensitive” received any disciplinary actions.
There is nothing about this in today’s print edition of The San Diego Union-Tribune, although Fred Willard’s porn theatre bust is there on p. 2. Remind me again why I subscribe to this newspaper?
San Diego Island to Become ‘Battle Lab’
Via Defense News:
The HALO Corp., San Diego-based organization founded by former Special Operations, National Security, and Intelligence personnel, which is hosting its sixth annual Counter-Terrorism Summit at the end of October at the Paradise Point Resort & Spa in San Diego.
Strategic Operations of San Diego, will help conduct tactical training exercises on the island. This should include a recreated Middle Eastern village, battlefield effects, combat wounds and medical simulations. Participants can also expect a simulated Somali pirate invasion to grace the resort’s shores. Unmanned aerial vehicles are likely to be floating overhead as well.
Keynote speakers include former NSA and CIA Director Michael Hayden; Alejandro Romero, Mexico’s interior secretary and Michael Downing, the director of LAPD’s counter-terrorism and special ops bureau. Cool classes will be offered like Social Engineering: The Art of Human Hacking by Chris Hadnagy. (Highly recommend his book).
I’d love to go, but it’s $1000 a person.
Mexican SIGINT
Mexico has been having a lot of success capturing the leaders of drug cartels.
U.S. agents cannot operate in Mexico. Nevertheless, many successful captures of important cartel figures are often backed by gringo assistance, according a secret State Department cable released by Wikileaks,
What sort of assistance? This interesting study “Sever: SIGINT and Criminal Netwar Networks” (.pdf) details the critical but unheralded role played by signals intelligence (SIGINT), commonly known as wiretapping and eavesdropping, in targeting Mexico’s drug cartels.
Buried the $1.4 billion Merida anti-drug initiative is a little-known, $3-million SIGINT system that is paid for by the U.S. taxpayer.
The Communications Intercept System in Mexico’s Federal government was installed by Verint Systems Inc., a politically well-connected firm based in Melville, N.Y. and paid for by the U.S. State Department.
The system “can monitor almost any form of electronic communication in Mexico.”
The Communications Intercept System’s central monitoring station has real time and off- line playback, fax and packet data decoding, stores all calls for at least 25,000 hours, and has cellular location and tracking. The database in the monitoring station can accommodate 8,000,000 sessions, and monitor and record 60 calls simultaneously. Four facsimiles can also be decoded simultaneously. The monitoring station is a joint Mexico-U.S. network.
Specific tools of analysis are also included in the system. Voice data banks are used for analysis, comparison, recognition and identification. The system has the ability to analyze calls and automatically generate links between them. Additionally, the system has the tools necessary to track cellular targets on a map.
Surveillance by the Drug Enforcement Administration led to the capture in 2010 of Teodoro “El Teo” Garcia Simental, a lieutenant in the Tijuana cartel, in La Paz. El Teo was responsible for hundreds of killings and kidnappings over a two year reign of terror.
Before his death in 2009, cartel leader Arturo Beltran Leyva was overheard talking to prostitutes on his cell phone before a raid. The capture of members of his network had also created the paranoia which led to his split from the Sinaloa Cartel, and its boss Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera.
Awlaki FBI FOIA Request
October 4, 2011
David M. Hardy
Section Chief, Record/Information Dissemination Section
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Attn: FOI/PA Request
170 Marcel Drive
Winchester, VA 22602-4843
Dear Mr. Hardy:
This letter constitutes a request (“Request”) pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. subsection 552.
I am requesting a copy of all records or information concerning ANWAR AL-AWLAKI (aka Anwar al-Aulaqi).
Mr. Awlaki was born in 1971 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He was killed in Yemen on Sept. 30, 2011, according to a statement President Barack Obama made the same day. I trust the attached statement of the president will serve as the proof of death you require for this request.
Awlaki was a leader in al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and was one of the most wanted terrorists in the world. He was the subject of numerous investigations by the FBI for more than a decade.
If you deny all or any part of this request, please cite each specific exemption you think justifies your refusal to release the information and notify me of appeal procedures available under the law. I expect you to release all segregable portions of otherwise exempt material.
I look forward to your reply to this Request within twenty (20) business days as required by 5 U.S.C. 552(a)(6)(A)(i).
Thank you for your assistance.
Sincerely,
Seth Hettena
Anwar al-Awlaki's Death
The US is announcing the death of Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen who moved to Yemen where he waged jihad against his former homeland. Assuming this is true — and not a repeat of what happened in 2009 when Awlaki was falsely reported as dead — it’s a major blow against one of al Qaida’s superstars.
What made Awlaki so dangerous wasn’t his so-called operational abilities, as the U.S. is now claiming, although no one is actually bothering to ask what that means. Awlaki was an intellectual, not a fighter. What made Awlaki so dangerous was his somewhat unique ability to inspire disaffected Muslims in the West to take up arms in the cause of jihad.
Awlaki may have rejected the West, but he knew how it worked. He spent many years here in San Diego and spoke both Arabic and English beautifully. Recordings of his sermons are very popular. He also knew how to use the Internet to reach people. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that U.S. counterterrorism officials started linking him to terrorism in the very same month that Awlaki started his now-defunct jihadist website.
What I always found fascinating about this so-called holy man got busted for prostitution twice in San Diego and was picked up by San Diego police for “hanging around a school.” Maybe that’s why he needed his martyrdom, so he could wash his sins away. (I’ve written about him before here. I also put together a comprehensive timeline.)
I won’t be shedding any tears for a man who plotted to kill Americans and praised the Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan as a “hero.” But Awlaki wasn’t Osama bin Laden. He wasn’t an Iraqi insurgent or a Taliban trying to kill U.S. troops. Awlaki a U.S. citizen.
He knew his death would point out the hypocrisy of a country with a constitution that guarantees its citizens due process of law and then goes out and assassinates them in Yemen with a drone strike. He knew we would succumb to our fears.
Like it or not, he was one of our own.
Who is Doug Edelman?
"Billy: The Early Years," a Rev. Billy Graham biopic produced by an employee of a secretive UK firm under congressional inquiry.
Doug Edelman is the Californian at the center of a congressional investigation into a $1.4 billion contract to supply aviation fuel at the U.S. air base in Kyrgyzstan, a critical hub for the war in Afghanistan.
Congress wants to know whether the sole-source, classified contracts awarded to Mina Corp., Ltd., and Red Star Enterprises Ltd., were really a vehicle for the U.S. government to deliver payoffs to the family of two corrupt former Kyrgyzstan presidents.
Edelman’s name first surfaced in May in London’s Daily Telegraph newspaper, which tracked Mina and Red Star to an address in London’s posh Mayfair district.
“Inside, Mina Corp and Red Star’s logos are clearly displayed,” Richard Orange wrote. “Senior staff include Chuck Squires, a former US defence attache, and Doug Edelman.”
Jeff Stein at The Washington Post’s SpyTalk blog describes Edelman as “a Californian with extensive business experience in Moscow and Central Asia.” Deirdre Tynan of Eurasianet.org and Paris-based Intelligence Online have dug deep into Edelman’s corporate affiliations. Edelman controls a network of a companies organised around an offshore financial consultancy, Aspen Wind Corporation, according to Intelligence Online. Aspen Wind Corp. registered in 2002 with New York State, listing principal executive offices in Nicosia, Cyprus.
No one seems to have yet connected the 58-year-old native of Stockton, California to the most interesting part of his biography: his role as one of the executive producers of a feature film on the life of evangelist Billy Graham.
Billy: The Early Years features Arnie Hammer, great-grandson of Armand Hammer, who led Occidental Petroleum in Los Angeles and forged close ties with the Soviet Union.
Doug Edelman’s name appears in the credits and virtually nowhere else, although there were some side benefits. One of his daughters is credited with a small role; another daughter performs a song on the film’s soundtrack.
Though a host of endorsements were offered on the film’s web page (www.billytheearlyyears.com), Franklin Graham, president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, released a statement saying that BGEA “has not collaborated with nor does it endorse the movie, Billy: The Early Years.” The film, released in 2008, bombed at the box office, grossing less than $350,000, according to boxofficemojo.
Billy: The Early Years was financed by Solex Productions, which describes itself in press materials as a “sister company” of Mina Media.
Mina Media, with an address of 15 Agiou Pavlov Street, Nicosia, Cyprus, is a subsidiary of UK-based Mina Corp. Ltd. (Click here for Mina Media’s corporate records)
It owns and operates MTV Adria in Slovenia, which broadcasts in Macedonia, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Mina Media’s Stephen MacSearraigh was a director of Mina Corp. He also served as publisher of Iraq Today, a defunct English-language newspaper financed by Mina Corp that was published in Baghdad after the U.S. invasion. (Mina Corp/Mina Media did not respond to a request for comment.)
Edelman isn’t the only Mina employee with a movie connection. MacSearraigh is credited as a consultant to the geopolitical thriller Syriana.
Former Clinton official Mark Lindsay is "educating" Congress on Mina/Red Star
Add another name to the troupe of lobbyists that the super-secret U.S. defense contractor Mina Corp/Red Star has dispatched to Capitol Hill.
Mark F. Lindsay has registered with both houses of Congress as a lobbyist for the company at the center of a congressional inquiry over $1.4 billion in contracts awarded to supply jet fuel to the U.S. airbase in Kyrgyzstan.
Lindsay describes his job as “work[ing] with the Administration and Congress to educate them on the mission of Mina Corp./ Red Star Enterprises Ltd.,” according to the registration form received by the House and Senate July 26.
Congress is investigating whether Mina/Red Star’s “mission” involved payments to the family of a corrupt former Kyrgyz president.
Lindsay was hired by Weil, Gotschal & Manges, which appears to be coordinating Mina Corp.’s response to the dirt kicked up by the Rep. John Tierney and his Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
The registration was made in Lindsay’s role as president of White House Consulting Inc., which shares the address of of Lindsay’s employer, The Livingston Group. Lindsay joined the The Livingston Group to run its health care practice last year.
Lindsay was a member of the Obama transition team and ran the Office of Management and Administration in the Clinton White House.
The lobbyist filings exempt Mina, a foreign corporation seeking to influence the U.S. government, from the much more stringent filings required by the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
Under FARA, Mina would be required to reveal the names, residences and nationalities of its directors and officers — the precise information it has worked so hard to conceal.
However, FARA provides an exemption for foreign corporations whose agents register under the weaker Lobbying Disclosure Act.
As a senator, Barack Obama in 2008 co-sponsored a bill that would have eliminated this exemption, the “Closing the Foreign Lobbying Loophole Act.” The bill died in the Foreign Relations Committee.
Palin spokesman also part of the Mina/Red Star team
McCain/Palin campaign spokesman W. Taylor Griffin is coordinating the public relations response to Mina Corp., the secretive defense contractor that is the subject of a congressional investigation into its fuel contracts for a U.S. airbase in Kyrgzystan.
Griffin is a partner in Hamilton Place Strategies LLC, the PR firm that, as I reported yesterday, employs former White House Press Secretary Dana Perino and her former colleague, Tony Fratto.
As part of the Palin team, Griffin led a crisis communications team that dealt with the “Troopergate” affair.
Griffin was part of the communications team for the 2000 and 2004 Bush presidential campaigns, and did a stint in the Treasury Department’s Office of Public Affairs and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
EXCLUSIVE: Secretive defense contractor hires Dana Perino in DC lobbying push
A secretive defense contractor that is at the center of a congressional investigation of a $1.4 billion contract to supply aviation fuel at the U.S. air base in Kyrgyzstan has hired a powerhouse D.C. lobbying team that includes Dana Perino and others from the Bush White House.
Congress wants to know whether the sole-source, classified contracts awarded to Mina Corp., Ltd., and Red Star Enterprises Ltd., were a vehicle for the U.S. government to deliver payoffs to the family of Kyrgyzstan leaders who were ousted amid charges of corruption linked to the Manas air base.
Mina Corp.’s fuel contract, awarded last year, is worth up to $730.9 million over three years for services at the Manas, the only U.S. airbase in Central Asia outside of Afghanistan.
Kyrgyzstan has also opened its own investigation, prompting the U.S. Embassy in Bishkek to say that the contract was issued in accordance with U.S. and local laws. Mina Corp has told both governments that it has never directed U.S. government funds to Kyrgyz officials.
As Congress turned up the heat on Mina and Red Star in July, the companies sent Washington lobbyists to the Hill to plead their case.
Senate lobbying disclosure forms show that on July 12 Mina Corp. hired public affairs firm Hamilton Place Strategies LLC to lobby Congress and the Defense Department.
Senate filings show the Hamilton Place team includes Perino, now a Fox News political commentator, W. Taylor Griffin, a spokesman for the McCain/Palin campaign who handled the “Troopergate” affair, and Tony Fratto, who spoke for the president on issues including intelligence matters, terrorist financing and financial crimes.
Also joining the Mina Corp. team this month were McLean, Virginia-based Dudinsky, Lisker & Associates, which says it is “monitoring and reporting Congressional activity” on behalf of Mina.” Principal Joel Lisker is a former FBI agent who headed the Justice Department’s foreign agent registration unit in the Carter years. His investigation led the president’s brother, Billy, to register as a foreign agent for Libya.
Barbour, Griffith & Rogers’ Ed Rogers, a Reagan and Bush I White House veteran, and Morris Reid, registered July 20 as lobbyists for Mina to handle a House investigation regarding Department of Defense contracts to provide jet fuel to U.S. military base in Bagham, Afghanistan.
Jeff Stein at The Washington Post’s SpyTalk blog reported last wek that after weeks of tense negotiations, a House oversight subcommittee has gotten promises of cooperation from Mina and Red Star.
“The heart of the investigation,” a source told Stein, “is why Red Star and Mina Corp. were not investigated under” the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which forbids U.S. companies from paying bribes or kickbacks to foreign officials.”
Mina Corp. has also hired the D.C. law firm, Weil, Gotschal and Manges LLP. The Weil team includes partner William Burck, who served in the Bush White House Counsel’s office. Burck specializes in FCPA investigations among other things, according to his law firm biography.
In a press release announcing last week’s agreement between Mina, Red Star and the National Security and Foreign Affairs Subcommittee of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Burck said maintaining his client’s secrecy was a key to the deal.
“We’ve worked closely with staff to make sure the Subcommittee obtains the information it seeks while preserving the confidentiality of the companies’ operations and the privacy of its personnel. Confidentiality is essential to permit the companies to meet the U.S. military’s needs in volatile areas of the world and supply vital fuel to our troops in the field.”
Burck and Perino have a close working relationship. They have penned regular columns critical of the Obama administration for National Review Online.
The Senate lobbying forms also raise fresh questions about who or what is behind Mina and Red Star.
The Defense Department has identified to Mina and Red Star Enterprises as companies based in Gibraltar. Mina Corp. was registered in London in 2003, records show.
The Senate lobbying disclosures identify Mina as a Dubai firm affiliated with “Mina Petroleum FZE” with an office in the Dubai Airport Free Zone. Companies operating within the free zone are treated as offshore, outside the United Arab Emirates.
Adding to the confusion, Mina’s webserver, minacorp.com, is registered in Vernier, Switzerland.
Anwar al-Awlaki Timeline
Contents:
Early years in America
Busted for Prostitution
The 9/11 Plot
Yemen
Fort Hood
Christmas Day Bombing
Airstrike in Yemen
April 1971: Anwar al-Awlaki born in Cruces, N.M. while father is on diplomatic posting.
1978: Leaves U.S. for Yemen.
Jan. 13, 1988: Issued U.S. passport.
Awlaki
June 5, 1990: Enters U.S. in Chicago with Yemeni passport with J-1 exchange visitor U.S. visa issued in Sana’a.
June 6, 1990: Applies for Social Security card. Claims he was born in Sana’a, Yemen.
June 8, 1990: SSN 521-77-7121 issued to Awlaki.
Aug. 21, 1991: Enters U.S. in Chicago.
1991: Attends Colorado State University on a scholarship from Yemen.
Jan. 29, 1992: Enters U.S. in New York City.
Nov. 18, 1993: Applies for a U.S. passport in Fort Collins, Colo.
1994: Graduates from Colorado State with bachelor’s in civil engineering.
1996: Named imam of Masjid al-Rabat in San Diego.
1996: Busted for soliciting a prostitute in San Diego.
Time uncertain: Arrested by San Diego police “for hanging around a school.” (9/11 Commission MFR FBI Agent #59)
1997: Busted again for soliciting a prostitute in San Diego.
1998 & 1999: Serves as vice president of Charitable Society for Social Welfare Inc., the U.S. branch of a Yemeni charity headed by Abdul Majeed al-Zindani. Federal prosecutors in a New York terrorism-financing case later describe the charity as “a front organization” that was “used to support al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.”
January 1999: Enrolls in San Diego State University master’s in educational leadership program. SDSU spokesman says the school does not have records showing Awlaki earned a degree.
June 1999: FBI investigates Awlaki after learning that he may have been contacted by Ziyad Khaleel, who bought a satellite phone bin Laden used in the 1990s.
1999-2000: During its investigation, FBI learns that Awlaki knows individuals from the Holy Land Foundation and others involved in raising money for the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. Sources alleged that Aulaqi had other extremist connections. (9/11 Commission Report)
February 2000: Four calls between Awlaki and Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi who helped Al-Hamzi and Almihdhar find an apartment in San Diego. An FBI agent tells 9/11 Commission staff he is “98 percent sure” that the two hijackers were using al-Bayoumi’s phone at this time. (9/11 Commission MFR FBI Agent #63)
Early 2000: Visited by a subject of a Los Angeles FBI investigation closely associated with Blind Sheikh [Omar Abdel] Rahman. (Congressional Joint Inquiry on 9/11)
Early 2000: Several sources tell FBI that Alwaki “had closed-door meetings in San Diego” with Alhazmi, al-Midhar and another unidentified person “whom al-Bayoumi had asked to help the hijackers.” (Congressional Joint Inquiry)
Feb. 3, 2000: FBI electronic communication, background searches re: Awlaki. (9/11 Commission report)
March 2000: FBI closes its investigation, stating “the imam … does not meet the criterion for [further] investigation.” (Congressional Joint Inquiry on 9/11)
July-August 2000: Resigns from San Diego mosque.
Summer-Fall 2000: Travels abroad to “various countries.” (SD Union-Tribune 10/1/01)
January 2001: Moves to Virginia. Employed at Dar Al-Hijra Islamic Center in Falls Church, Va., largest mosque in the country.
January 2001: Enrolls in George Washington University’s Graduate School of Education and Human Development, pursing a Ph.D in human resource development.
Unknown: Meets Nidal Hasan, future Fort Hood shooter.
Early 2001: Named Muslim chaplain at GWU.
April 2001: Al-Hazmi and Hani Hanjour arrive in Falls Church and attend Dar Al-Hijra mosque. Awlaki denies having contact with the men in Virginia. (9/11 Commission report)
July 20, 2001: Delivers sermon at Friday Jummah Prayer in U.S. Capitol.
Before Sept. 11, 2001: Awlaki returns briefly to San Diego (9/11 Commission MFR) “Reportedly acted suspiciously by declining help with boxes he was transporting in a rental car (driven only 37 miles) and by refusing to provide any local address to the rental agent.” (9/11 Commission MFR FBI Agent #59)
August 2001: According to NY Times, Awlaki tells neighbor Lincoln Higgie, “I don’t think you’ll be seeing me. I won’t be coming back to San Diego again. Later on you’ll find out why.”
Sept. 17, 2001: In comments published on IslamOnline, Alawki suggested that Israelis may have been responsible for the 9/11 attacks and that the FBI “went into the roster of the airplanes and whoever has a Muslim or Arab name became the hijacker by default.”
Sept. 15-19, 2001: Interviewed four times by FBI. Awlaki says he did not recognize Hazmi’s name but identifies his picture. Admitted meeting with Hazmi several times, he claimed not to remember any specifics of what they discussed. Describes Hazmi as a soft-spoken Saudi student who used to appear at the mosque with a companion but who did not have a large circle of friends. Does not identify Almihdhar.
September-November 2001: Interviewed numerous times by reporters, including National Geographic, Ray Suarez and The Washington Post.
2001-2002: Awlaki observed allegedly taking Washington-area prostitutes into Virginia. Authorities contemplate charging him under the Mann Act, reserved for nabbing pimps who transport prostitutes across state lines.
March 2002: Awlaki leaves for U.K.
March 31, 2002: Lectures at Quran Expo in London
April 2002: Employment with Dar Al-Hijra mosque ends.
2002: Federal prosecutors in Colorado receive information from Ray Fournier, a federal diplomatic security agent in San Diego who was investigating Awlaki for passport fraud.
June 2002: Figures in Operation Green Quest, a terrorism-related money-laundering investigation.
Mid-2002: Radwan Abu-Issa, the subject of a Houston Joint Terrorism Task Force investigation, sends money to Awlaki, according to a document in a restricted government database. Awlaki’s name was placed on an early version of what is now the federal terror watch list.
June 17, 2002: Federal magistrate in Colorado signs warrant for Awlaki’s arrest for passport fraud.
October 2002: A federal diplomatic special agent in Colorado began investigating in preparation to take the case to a grand jury learns Awlaki corrected the place of birth on his Social Security application to New Mexico.
Oct. 8, 2002: FBI electronic communication, interview re: Awlaki. (9/11 Commission Report)
Oct. 9, 2002: Arrest warrant rescinded.
Oct. 10, 2002: Arrives in New York on a Saudi Airlines flight from Riyadh. Briefly detained by INS.
Oct. 11, 2002: Criminal case terminated.
Late 2002: Visits Fairfax, Virginia home of Ali al-Timimi, a radical cleric, and asked him about recruiting young Muslims for “violent jihad.” Al-Timimi, is now serving a life sentence for inciting followers to fight with the Taliban against Americans.
Late 2002: Departs U.S. for London.
June 2003: Delivers lecture at Muslim Association of Britain symposium in London
December 2003: Islamic Forum of Europe lecture: “Stop police terror.”
Dec. 18, 2003: British MP Louise Ellman tells House of Commons calls Muslim Association of Britain is a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood; says Awlaki “is reportedly wanted for questioning by the FBI in connection with the 9/11 al-Qaeda terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.”
Early 2004: Moves to Yemen.
2004: Lectures at Imam University in Sana’a, Yemen, a school headed by Abdul Majeed al-Zindani.
Mid-2006: Awlaki arrested in Yemen. Claims he was held at the request of the U.S. government.
Oct. 17, 2006: Yemeni secret police raid swept up eight foreigners living in Sana’a, under surveillance by the CIA and British intelligence, and at least 12 other men across Yemen. Yemeni authorities insist they dismantled an al-Qa’ida cell and disrupted a gun-running ring to neighbouring Somalia, although no evidence is found. Awlaki (identified as “Abu Atiq”) said to be key to the raid.
September 2007: FBI agents interview Awlaki in prison. Ask about contacts with 9/11 hijackers.
December 2007: Awlaki released after 18 months confinement in Yemen, almost all of it in solitary confinement.
Anwar Awlaki in 2008
February 2008: Registers http://www.anwar-alawlaki.com
February 2008: U.S. counterterrorism officials link Awlaki to terrorism, The Washington Post reports. “There is good reason to believe Anwar Aulaqi has been involved in very serious terrorist activities since leaving the United States, including plotting attacks against America and our allies,” an anonymous U.S. counterterrorism official tells the Post.
Unknown: Awlaki leaves Sana’a and moves to remote Shabwa region.
Dec. 17, 2008: Maj. Nidal Hasan contacts Awlaki via e-mail. “Do you remember me? I used to pray with you at the Virginia mosque.” Awlaki tells Al-Jazeera: “He was asking about killing American soldiers and officers. [He asked] whether this is a religiously legitimate act or not.”
“…the first message was asking for an edict regarding the [possibility] of a Muslim soldier killing his colleagues who serve with him in the American army. In other messages, Nidal was clarifying his position regarding the killing of Israeli civilians. He was in support of this, and in his messages he mentioned the religious justifications for targeting the Jews with missiles. Then there were some messages in which he asked for a way through which he could transfer some funds to us [and by this] participate in charitable activities.”
December 2008: San Diego JTTF opens investigation into intercepted e-mails between Awlaki and Maj. Nidal Hasan. (FBI statement)
Jan. 1, 2009: Awlaki speaks via satellite link at London Muslim Centre. Event organized by Noor Pro Media.
January 2009: In blog post, Awlaki asks: “Today the world turns upside down when one Muslim performs a martyrdom operation. Can you imagine what would happen if that is done by seven hundred Muslims on the same day?!”
January 20, 2009: Al Qaida forces in Yemen unite under the umbrella of Al Qaida in the Arabian Pensinsula (AQAP).
February 2009: Awlaki blog post, “I pray that Allah destroys America and all its allies and the day that happens, and I assure you it will and sooner than you think, I will be very pleased.”
Early 2009: E-mail contacts continue between Awlaki and Hassan. FBI San Diego forwards two messages to Washington Field Office. Later e-mail described as “more serious” not shared.
March 15, 2009: AQAP claims credit for attacks that kills four South Korean tourists and their guide in in the city of Shibam in Hadramut; days later, a convoy of Korean officials sent to investigate is attacked.
July 2009: Awlaki praises insurgent attack on Yemeni troops in Marib.
Aug. 4: Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, Nigerian suspected of trying to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253, attends Sana’a Institute for the Arabic Language, according to the Yemeni Foreign Ministry.
August: The U.S. National Security Agency intercepts al-Qaida conversations about an unidentified “Nigerian.”
Aug. 27: AQAP claims credit for an attack that narrowly missed Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, a senior member of Saudi Arabia’s ruling family and head of the kingdom’s counterterrorism operations. Suicide bomber detonated PETN bomb hidden in his underwear.
Sept. 21: Abdulmutallab leaves Sana’a Institute.
Fall: NSA intercepts “voice-to-voice communication” between Abdulmutallab and Awlaki indicating that Aulaqi “was in some way involved in facilitating this guy’s transportation or trip through Yemen.”
October: Abdulmutallab travels to Shabwa province. The 23-year-old engineering graduate probably met with al-Qaeda operatives in a house built by Awlaki.
October: CIA rebuffs Yemeni government request for help locating Awlaki for possible capture operation, according to The Washington Post’s David Ignatius. CIA concluded that it could not assist because the agency lacked specific evidence that he threatened the lives of Americans. A Yemeni request forU.S. Special Forces’ help on the ground in pursuing Awlaki also refused.
Fall: Awlaki tells Yemeni journalist that he met Abdulmutallab:
- “Umar Farouk is one of my students; I had communications with him,” Awlaki says
- Yemeni Foreign Minister Rashad Alimi states Abdulmutallab met Awlaki at a remote meeting place in Shabwa province.
- Abdulmutallab tells FBI that Alwaki personally blessed attack.
November: U.S. official tells David Ignatius Awlaki “didn’t go operational until November. It wasn’t a case of missed intelligence, not at all. The Yemenis didn’t even think he had assumed an operational role.” This official also notes that “there was an American policy decision not to put boots on the ground,” limiting any military action.
Nov. 5, 2009: Hasan allegedly kills 13 at Fort Hood.
Nov. 7, 2009: Post on Awlaki’s website praises Hasan as a “hero.”
After the Fort Hood shooting, FBI, CIA, NSA, NCTC conduct interagency “scrub” of Awlaki’s contacts to determine who poses a threat. (Michael Leiter, testimony 1/20/09 before Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.)
Dec. 7, 2009: Abdulmutallab leaves Yemen for Ethiopia.
Dec. 14, 2009: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton designates Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula aka Al Qaeda in Yemen as a terrorist organization. Two AQAP leaders, Nasir al-Wahishi and Said Ali al-Shihri, also designated as terrorists
Dec. 23, 2009: Al-Jazeera broadcasts interview with Awlaki.
Dec. 24, 2009: Awlaki falsely reported as killed in Yemeni airstrike.
- On orders from President Barack Obama, ABC News reports, the U.S. military launched cruise missiles against two suspected al-Qaida sites: a suspected training camp north of Sanaa and a location where officials said “an imminent attack against a U.S. asset was being planned.”
- Yemen Embassy states Yemeni air forces targeted “scores of Yemeni and foreign al-Qaida operatives” at a remote location southeast of Sanaa. Awlaki “presumed to be at the site” along with Nasir al-Whaishi, senior leader of Al Qaida in the Arabian Pensinsula (AQAP) and his deputy, (former Guantanamo detainee) Said al-Shiri.
- Official Yemen state news agency, SABA, reports attack targeted an al-Qaida hideout in the Rafdh area of the al-Said district in Shabwa province.
Dec. 25, 2009: Rep. Pete Hoekstra, senior Republican on House Intelligence Committee, suggests there may be a link between Awlaki and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.
Dec. 29, 2009: Alwaki became “operational” sometime over past year, senior U.S. official tells Fox News.
“Late” 2009: Awlaki’s name added to separate lists of maintained “High Value Targets” and “High Value Individuals” maintained by U.S. Joint Special Operations Command’s list and the Central Intelligence Agency
Jan. 3, 2010: “Mr. Awlaki is a problem. He’s clearly a part of Al Qaida in Arabian Peninsula. He’s not just a cleric. He is in fact trying to instigate terrorism,” said John Brennan, deputy national security advisor for counterterrorism and homeland security.
Jan. 14: Ali Mohamed Al Anisi, the director of Yemen’s National Security Agency and a senior presidential adviser, said talks were under way with members of Mr. Awlaki’s tribe in an effort to convince the cleric to turn himself in.
Jan. 19: Awlaki tells Yemeni journalist he has no intention of surrendering and denies Yemeni government claims that negotiations were underway aiming at a surrender.
Jan. 20: Senate Foreign Relations Committee report: “Although Awlaki has not yet been accused of a crime, U.S. intelligence and military officials consider him to be a direct threat to U.S. interests.”
Jan. 25: ABC News reports, “White House lawyers are mulling the legality of proposed attempts to kill an American citizen, Anwar Awlaki … according to two people briefed by U.S. intelligence officials.”
Jan. 27: The Washington Post:
- “U.S. military teams and intelligence agencies are deeply involved in secret joint operations with Yemeni troops who in the past six weeks have killed scores of people….”
- “As part of the operations, Obama approved a Dec. 24 strike against a compound where a U.S. citizen, Anwar al-Aulaqi, was thought to be meeting with other regional al-Qaeda leaders. Although he was not the focus of the strike and was not killed, he has since been added to a shortlist of U.S. citizens specifically targeted for killing or capture by the JSOC, military officials said.”
- “Both the CIA and the JSOC maintain lists of individuals, called “High Value Targets” and “High Value Individuals,” whom they seek to kill or capture. The JSOC list includes three Americans, including Aulaqi, whose name was added late last year. As of several months ago, the CIA list included three U.S. citizens, and an intelligence official said that Aulaqi’s name has now been added.”
Jan. 31: LA Times: “While Awlaki has not yet been placed on the CIA list, the officials said it is all but certain that he will be added because of the threat he poses. … Awlaki is already on the military’s list, which is maintained by the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command.”
Feb. 2: Awlaki tells Al-Jazeera that he did not order the Christmas Day airliner bombing, but expresses support.
Feb. 3: Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair says intelligence community may assassinate U.S. citizens involved in terrorism. “We take direct actions against terrorists in the intelligence community,” he said. “If we think that direct action will involve killing an American, we get specific permission to do that.”
Feb. 5: CBS News: “The suspect in a failed Christmas Day airliner bombing attempt told federal investigators that radical Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki directed him to carry out the attack, CBS News has learned”
March 19: Awlaki calls on American Muslims to take up Jihad against the United States.
March 26: CIA Director Leon Panetta tells WSJ Awlaki is “clearly” someone the agency is seeking. “There isn’t any question that he’s one of the individuals that we’re focusing on.”
May 23: Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula released a 45-minute interview with Awlaki, who justifies killing American civilians.
June 3: DOJ reveals that Awlaki had been in e-mail contact with 29-year-0ld Barry Walter Bujol in Texas. Awlaki provided Bujol with a document entitled “42 Ways of Supporting Jihad.” Bujol asked Awlaki for advice on how to provide money to the “mujahideen” overseas.
CIA Passed Up Chance To Catch Ex-SD Imam
Last October, the Yemeni government came to the CIA with a request: Could the agency collect intelligence that might help target the network of a U.S.-born al-Qaeda recruiter named Anwar al-Aulaqi?
What happened next is haunting, in light of subsequent events: The CIA concluded that it could not assist the Yemenis in locating Aulaqi for a possible capture operation. The primary reason was that the agency lacked specific evidence that he threatened the lives of Americans — which is the threshold for any capture-or-kill operation against a U.S. citizen. The Yemenis also wanted U.S. Special Forces’ help on the ground in pursuing Aulaqi; that, too, was refused.
Even if the CIA had obtained hard evidence in October that Aulaqi was a threat, and Special Forces had been authorized for a capture operation, permission from the National Security Council would have been needed. That’s because any use of lethal force against a “U.S. person,” such as Aulaqi, requires White House review.
The subsequent chain of events was a chilling demonstration of Aulaqi’s power as an al-Qaeda facilitator: On Nov. 5, U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Hasan killed 13 of his fellow soldiers at Fort Hood, Tex.; Hasan had exchanged 18 or more e-mails with Aulaqi in the months before the shootings, according to the Associated Press. Then, on Christmas Day, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian who had been living in Yemen, tried to blow up an airliner bound for Detroit; he is said to have confessed later that Aulaqi was one of his trainers for this mission.
Former SD Imam Calls for Jihad on US
Partial transcript of remarks by former San Diego imam and SDSU grad student Anwar al-Awlaki, who’s holed up in Yemen and corresponded with Maj. Nidal Hasan before the Fort Hood shooting (Via Fox News):
… I for one was born in the U.S., I lived in the U.S. for 21 years. America was my home. I was a preacher of Islam involved in non-violent Islamic activism. However, with the American invasion of Iraq and continued U.S. aggression against Muslims I could not reconcile between living in the U.S. and being a Muslim.
And I eventually came to the conclusion that Jihad against America is binding upon myself just as it is binding on every other able Muslim. Nidal Hasan was not recruited by Al-Qaeda. Nidal Hasan was recruited by American crimes and this is what America refuses to admit. America refuses to admit that its foreign policies are the reason behind the man like Nidal Hasan — born and raised in the U.S. turning his guns against American soldiers. And the more crimes America commits the more mujahedeen will be recruited to fight against it. …
SBInet: "Can we Get a Refund?"
Two House subcommittees held a hearing today on the ongoing problems with the multi-billion dollar “virtual border fence” being built by Boeing Corp. along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Earlier this week, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano froze funding out of concerns that the program, called SBInet, was plagued with problems. More than $1b has already been spent but the system has only been installed along 28 miles of the 2,000-mile border.
At the current rate of 28 miles every 4.5 years, it would take 320 years – or until the year 2330 – to deploy SBInet technology across the Southwest border.
The GAO’s latest findings reveal that 1) he number of problems in the program are outpacing those being fixed and 2) about 70 percent of SBInet testing procedures apparently were changed at the last minute to “pass the test” rather than qualify the system.
Asked Chairman Chris Carney, D-Pa., “Can we get a refund?”
DHS Halts Border Security Boondoggle
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has ordered an immediate freeze on all funding of an expensive “virtual fence” of tower-mounted cameras and sensors along the U.S.-Mexico border called SBInet.
The program has been “plagued” with cost overruns and missed deadlines, DHS Homeland Secretary Janet Napolitano said today in a statement.
The delays mean that Border Patrol agents have had to use existing cameras that don’t work well. Thanks mostly to the Senate ,the Border Patrol also has no leader, but that’s another story.
As of July, the government had given $1.1 billion to SBInet contractor Boeing Co. according to this GAO report.
A 2006 DHS strategic plan estimated that installing the system along the Southwest border would cost $7.6 billion through fiscal 2011.
SBInet is really another name for C3I or C4I (command, control, computers, communications, and intelligence) — an Orwellian integrated surveillance system that can cover a huge area.
Greece hired a consortium led by SAIC to install a similar system for the 2004 Olympic games, but the system was delivered in time for the Beijing Olympics in 2008.
The DHS says it is re-allocating $50 million of $100 million in Recovery Act funding slated for SBInet to off-the-shelf cameras, light detectors, radios, cameras, laptops.
It’s unclear to me what prolonging a wasteful program has to do with economic recovery. Update: If you take a look at Recovery.gov, you’ll find one of the reasons — I’m not making this up — is helping the steel industry by building all those towers.
The Boeing SBInet core team includes
- Centech — Arlington, Va.
- DRS Surveillance and Reconnaissance Group — Palm Bay, Fla.
- Kollsman Inc. (an Elbit Systems of America company) — Merrimack, N.H.
- L-3 Government Services Inc. — Washington, D.C.
- L-3 Communication Systems West — Salt Lake City, Utah
- Lucent Technologies — Murray Hill, N.J.
- Perot Systems — Plano, Texas
- Unisys Global Public Sector — Reston, Va.
- USIS — Washington, D.C.
Washington Post Corrects Awlaki Story
The Washington Post has corrected its blockbuster Jan. 27 front-page story that reported that three U.S. citizens, including former San Diego imam Anwar Awlaki, were on the CIA’s “kill or capture” list.
Awlaki, a U.S. citizen who lived in San Diego in the 1990s and attended graduate school, is now living in a remote area in Yemen.
U.S. authorities believe he served as a “spiritual advisor” to some of the 9/11 hijackers and he corresponded with Maj. Nidal Hasan, the alleged Fort Hood shooter. There are also reports, which Awlaki has denied, that he directed the attempted Christmas Day jetliner bombing.
Even though he’s apparently not on a CIA list, Awlaki may still be marked for death. The military’s Joint Special Operations Command also maintains a separate list of high-value targets (HVTs) targeted for kill or capture. The Post is sticking by its original reporting that “several” Americans are on it.
Still it’s an embarrassing correction. ProPublica’s Stephen Engleberg sympathizes with the Post reporter, Dana Priest, and compares covering the intelligence community like fumbling around in a dark room.
He also notes some of the discrepancies that I pointed out earlier between Priest’s story and a Jan. 31 follow by the LA Times’ Greg Miller.
I still have doubts about this whole assassination story. As a U.S. citizen, Awlaki is protected under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Like it or not, even traitors have rights in our country.
Former Rep. Charlie Wilson Dead at 76
First John Murtha. Now former Texas Rep. Charlie Wilson has died at 76.
The ethically-challenged Wilson was made famous by the excellent book by the late George Crile (and the movie) Charlie Wilson’s War, which revealed how he secretly supplied the funds for the CIA’s covert war in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
He appears a couple of times in my book, Feasting on the Spoils, most memorably in a a scene at a poker game at the Watergate Hotel. The Watergate was a home away from home for San Diego defense contractor Brent Wilkes and his CIA buddy, Kyle “Dusty” Foggo.
Wilkes and Foggo continued their long-standing tradition of weekly card games in Washington. Foggo would invite along friends from the CIA, and Wilkes would bring the congressmen. One of the congressional guests was Charlie Wilson, who had in 1993 received the CIA’s Honored Colleague Award, the first time it was ever awarded to anyone outside the agency. At one game, Wilson invited along his friend from Texas Joe Murray, a columnist for The Atlanta-Journal Constitution. Murray met Wilson in the hotel lobby. “I’m not sure how they chose the Watergate,” Murray wrote in a May 20, 1994 column, a few days after the poker game. “Perhaps because a sense of history. Either that or a sense of humor.”Murray followed Wilson into the suite, which was filled with cigar smoke. Wilson knew a few of the CIA personnel at the game. One was Brant Bassett, a well-regarded officer who spoke fluent Russian, German, and Hungarian. Bassett was known as Nine Fingers after a motorcycle accident had cost him a finger. Wilson brought gifts, a sack full of guns that included a Soviet automatic used by Russian paratroopers. Wilson had a special pen for everyone, one that with a click fired a .32-caliber bullet. Everyone in the room started clicking his pen.
“Boy, I wish I’d had it this afternoon,” someone said.
“If only Aldrich Ames were here.”
Murray and Wilson stayed only a short while, and as they were leaving, one of the agents offered Murry one of his cigars, a Dominican. Murray offered the agent one of his, a Cuban. The agent told him, “You know, of course, this is considered contraband. But you’ve done the right thing as a good citizen. You’ve turned it in to the proper authorities. Be assured that very shortly it will be destroyed by fire.”
Wilson insisted there was no hanky-panky the night he was there. “The only activities that took place there that would be considered illegal and unlawful was cigar smoking on a nonsmoking floor,” Wilson said. Cunningham was the only other congressman who ever attended the poker games, according to Wilkes.
The “hanky-panky” Wilson is referring to were the rumors that flew around Washington that congressmen were supplied with prostitutes at these games. The FBI never found any evidence of this (the government certainly would have used it against Wilkes if they had) but people still think it’s what happened anyway.
After my book came out, Wilkes’ nephew and right-hand man, Joel Combs, testified that Wilkes told his employees to lose to Duke at poker and he yelled at one man who wasn’t losing enough.
Wilkes was sentenced to 12 years for bribing Cunningham; Foggo is serving time in prison for steering CIA contracts to Wilkes.
As for Charlie Wilson, he didn’t remember Wilkes; Foggo, however, he remembered well when I interviewed him in 2006.
When I told Wilson that Foggo had a rather unsavory reputation, Wilson said that the CIA sometimes had need of people like that in the CIA to do the dirty work against the KGB. (Foggo was no James Bond, however; he was a logistics officer.)
Ah, well, I’m sorry Charlie is gone. He made Congress fun.
Al-Jazeera Speaks to Ex-SD Imam
Excerpts of Al-Jazeera interview with Anwar Awlaki on Feb. 2, 2010. Translated and released by NEFA Foundation. Awlaki lived in San Diego in the 1990s.
Q. What is the truth about you meeting with Omar Farooq [the suspect in the attempted Christmas Day airline bombing] or that you announced a Fatwa about the legitimacy of the operation?A. The mujahid brother Omar al-Farooq—may Allah release him—is one of my students; yes, we were in correspondence, but I did not give Omar Farooq a Fatwa in regards to this operation.
Q. You envision him as a mujahid; meaning, do you back him up?
A. I support what Omar Farooq has done after I witnessed my brothers in Palestine for more than 60 years being killed, and in Iraq they are being killed, and in Afghanistan they are being killed, and the American missiles and raids killed 17 women and 23 children in my tribe; thus, don’t ask me whether al-Qaeda killed, or if it bombed an American civil jet after all of that, as three hundred Americans are nothing before the thousands of Muslims they killed.
Q. You supported [alleged Fort Hood shooter] Nidal Hasan and you justified it that the target is military and not civic. In regards to the jet [incident] of Omar Farooq it is a civic jet; meaning, the targets are the American public?
A. If the jet was military or the target was for the American army, it would be better. And, al-Qaeda Organization has its choices, and in regards to the public, the American populace is living within a democratic regime and they hold the responsibility of its policies; the American populace elected the criminal Bush for two presidential runs, and they elected Obama who’s not different from Bush, and one of his first declarations were that he will not abandon Israel despite that there were other candidates in the American elections who oppose the foreign American wars and those only received low percentages of the total votes. The American populace is a participant in all the crimes of their government, but if they weren’t supportive of that then they should change their government; they are the ones who pay taxes that are being spent on the army and they are who send their children to the army; they carry the responsibility.
Q. Do you believe that the Yemeni Government is facilitating your assassination?
A. The Yemeni government sells its own citizens to America in order to eat bloody money it received from the west, with their blood. The Yemeni officials say to the Americans: attack whatever you desire but do not adopt the actions thereof in order to not have people revolt against us, and with total impertinence the Yemeni government adopts it. For example, the Cruise Missiles were seen by the people in the region in Shabwa and Abeen and Arhab, and the some of the Cluster Bombs remained undetonated and people saw them. The state is lying in its claims, and the state adopted the operation in order to refute the accusation of being a cooperative. The American surveillance jets always revolve in the Yemeni sphere; so what is this country that allows its enemy to eavesdrop on its people and invade their privacies, then considers this cooperation accepted?
How Ex-SD Imam Will Be Marked For Death
The LATimes follows up today with an excellent story on how the bullseye will be planted on Anwar Awlaki, the former San Diego imam who U.S. counterterrorism officials believe has joined al Qaida’s forces in Yemen.
First, ABC News and then The Washington Post reported last week that the Obama administration is considering whether to order a Predator strike on Awlaki, a case that’s complicated by the fact that he’s a U.S. citizen.
The LATimes’ Greg Miller provides more detail on the process of how the CIA marks suspected terrorists for death in its “targeted killing” program:
- Memos proposing new targets are drafted by analysts in the CIA’s Counter-Terrorism Center.
- CTC analysts typically submit several new names each month to high-level officials, including the CIA General Counsel, Stephen W. Preston, and sometimes Director Leon E. Panetta.
- The list is scrutinized every six months; some names are scrubbed if the intelligence grows stale.
- The program is overseen by the National Security Council.
- The CIA does not need White House approval when adding names to the target list, unless the individual is a U.S. citizen.
Miller’s story contradicts a Jan. 27 story by Dana Priest at The Washington Post on a key point:
Miller: “No U.S. citizen has ever been on the CIA’s target list, which mainly names Al Qaeda leaders, including Osama bin Laden, according to current and former U.S. officials. But that is expected to change as CIA analysts compile a case against a Muslim cleric who was born in New Mexico but now resides in Yemen.”
Priest: “As of several months ago, the CIA list included three U.S. citizens, and an intelligence official said that Aulaqi’s name has now been added.”
Also are targeting decisions based on whether on an individual is “deemed to be a continuing threat to U.S. persons or interests,” as Miller reported. That appears to be a slightly lower threshold that what Priest describes as an individual who presents “a continuing and imminent threat to U.S. persons and interests.”
Semantics, perhaps, but we are talking about executing a U.S. citizen without due process.
Report: US Mulls Killing Former SD Imam
Can the president target an American citizen in a lethal attack?
White House lawyers are struggling with that question in the case of Anwar Awlaki, a former San Diego imam and SDSU graduate student, according to an ABC News report.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee noted last week that U.S. intelligence and military officials consider Anwar Awlaki, a former San Diego imam and U.S. citizen, to be “a direct threat to U.S. interests” although he has not yet been accused of a crime.
Awlaki corresponded with alleged Fort Hood shooter Maj. Nidal Hasan before the attack that killed 12 soldiers, and investigators believe he also met with accused “underwear bomber” Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.
- For more see my Awlaki timeline.
ABC’s Matthew Cole, Richard Esposito and Brian Ross are reporting:
According to the people who were briefed on the issue, American officials fear the possibility of criminal prosecution without approval in advance from the White House for a targeted strike against Awlaki.
The former imam at the Masjid al-Rabat al-Islami in San Diego was said to be in the Predator’s sights after the Fort Hood attack, but the strike wasn’t authorized because of questions over the citizenship of the New Mexico-born Awlaki.
President Reagan signed an an executive order in 1981 that forbid anyone employed by or acting on behalf of the U.S. government from engaging in or conspiring to engaging in assassination. That order remains in effect today.
However, we can kill those who are trying to kill us. After the Sept. 11 attacks, Congress gave the president the authority to use “all necessary and appropriate force” to prevent future acts of terrorism against the United States. The specifics are said to be set out in a secret presidential “finding” signed by President Bush after the attacks.
In 2002, a CIA drone attack in Yemen killed a carload of suspected terrorists, including the target of the operation, the top al-Qaida leader in the country. U.S. officials weren’t troubled that the strike killed Yemeni-American Kamal Derwish, a U.S. citizen. “No constitutional questions are raised here,” said National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.
Putting the bullseye on Awlaki and pulling the trigger would break new legal ground and raise fresh questions about the limits of presidential power.
At the very least, the U.S. government should make plainly clear what Awlaki has done to earn the wrath of a Hellfire missile. Meeting, corresponding and, odious as it may be, enouraging jihadists, doesn’t cut it.
The Arrest of El Teo
In The Politics of Heroin, Alfred McCoy notes that we capture a drug lord only when he is no longer a drug lord.
So it is with news of the arrest of El Teo, a vicious Tijuana drug baron who is accused of having the bodies of his enemies beheaded or dissolved in caustic soda.
McCoy reminds us that a man like El Teo, or rather, the man authorities accuse him of being, can only be arrested when the drug traffic shifts, stripping him of the power, profits and protection he needs to stay in business. In other words, the arrest of El Teo was only possible because he was already irrelevant.
While the bloodbath in Tijuana attracts the attention, the Sinaloa carter and its leader, Joaquin El Chapo (“Shorty”) Guzman, quietly prospers, as The Economist noted this week:
Sinaloa, by contrast, has stuck to drugs and money laundering and is smarter and more sophisticated. It prefers anonymity to the ostentation of others (Mr Beltrán was undone by inviting a famous accordionist to play at a Christmas party). It eschews jobless teenagers, its rivals’ rank and file, in favour of graduates, infiltration and intelligence. Although all the gangs have penetrated local governments, only Sinaloa and the Beltráns have been discovered to have bribed senior officials. Officials complain that Sinaloa operatives receive warning of pending raids. Sceptics wonder whether success against other gangs comes from tip-offs from Sinaloa.
Forbes reckons that Guzman, who bribed his way out of prison in 2001, is now the 701st richest man in the world.
Was former San Diego imam in the Predator's sights?
Spotted this in the WSJ:
Who gets on the drone approved “kill lists” is decided by a complex interagency process involving the CIA, Pentagon and White House. We hear the U.S. could have taken out the radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki after his contacts with Fort Hood shooter Major Nidal Hassan came to light in November, missing the chance by not authorizing the strike. Perhaps al-Awlaki’s U.S. citizenship gave U.S. officials pause, but after he joined the jihad he became an enemy and his passport irrelevant. (emphasis added)
So the U.S. had a bead on former San Diego imam/grad student/FBI investigative subject? Might this explain the confused initial reports from the Embassy of Yemen that Awlaki had been at the site of a Dec. 24 airstrike?
Pentagon blames FBI in DC for al-Awlaki mixup
Remember the public back-and-forth between the FBI in San Diego and Washington over who dropped the ball on the Fort Hood shooter’s e-mails to a radical cleric in Yemen? CBS’ David Martin (author of the best CIA book evah) has this:
(CBS) Less than a month after major Nidal Hasan allegedly killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, the Pentagon’s top intelligence officer sent the White House a report detailing an earlier failure to connect the dots. It reads like a dress rehearsal for the Detroit bomber case, reports CBS News chief national security correspondent David Martin.
According to that still-classified report, the terrorism task force responsible for determining whether Hasan posed a threat never saw all 18 e-mails he exchanged with that radical Yemeni cleric Awlaki whose communications were being monitored under a court ordered wiretap.
After the Washington task force decided Hasan was not dangerous, it never asked to see his subsequent communications with Alwaki….
None of the e-mails specifically mentioned Hasan’s plans for a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, but because he was a member of the military the FBI showed them to a Pentagon investigator with the note “comm” written on it. To the FBI that meant “commissioned officer.” The Pentagon investigator thought it meant “communication.”
As a result, there were no red flags that an army officer was e-mailing a radical cleric suspected of being a talent spotter for al Qaeda.
Bottom line: the lessons of the Fort Hood shootings were not learned in time to avert the near disaster on Christmas day.
Bottom line No. 2: The FBI and Pentagon aren’t speaking the language.
The story doesn’t say it but the report is by the Pentagon’s top spook, USDI James R. Clapper.
What is PETN?
The suspect in the attempted bombing of Northwest Flight 253 used a highly explosive substance called PETN, a law enforcement official told CBS News Saturday.
PETN (Pentaerythritol tetranitrate) is a high-grade explosive used for commercial and military purposes.
PETN, which usually is a white powder, can be ignited with a hammer blow and is often used by itself as a detonator.
Virtually odorless, it is very difficult to detect, making it the terrorist weapon of choice.
ABC News reports that the device involved more than 80 grams of PETN (about 3 ounces).
For reference, investigators suspect that 11 ounces of Semtex (mostly PETN) was used to bring down Pan Am103 in 1988.
Richard Reid, the “shoe bomber” who tried to bring down American Airlines Flight 63 on Dec. 22, 2001 had 8 or 10 ounces of easily-made triacetone triperoxide (TATP) and PETN (detonating cord).
Reid’s shoe was supposed to be detonated by a fuse, which failed to light, but an FBI-DHS report cited by Time magazine notes that “TATP or HMTD may be placed in a tube or syringe body in contact with a bare bulb filament, such as that obtained from inside a Christmas tree light bulb, to produce an explosion. … Terrorists have used peroxide-based explosive both as a main charge (weighing in excess of 20 pounds) and improvised detonators.”
In the Flight 253 attack, PETN appears to have been used as a secondary explosive with the syringe apparently serving as primary.
Witnesses described the syringe as “smoking.” The Nigerian suspect accused in the attack was trying to ignite the PETN with some sort of hot liquid in the syringe.
Since PETN’s autoignition temperature is 190 degrees (far less than a match) and the suspect suffered burns exactly why the device didn’t explode is a bit of a mystery.
Anwar al-Awlaki Reported Killed in Airstrike
An airstrike in Yemen reportedly killed and “targeted” former San Diego imam Anwar al-Awlaki, the man who served as a “spiritual advisor” to 9/11 hijackers and praised Fort Hood shooter Maj. Nidal Hasan as a “hero.” Background: Al-Awlaki timeline.
UPDATE: Al Jazeera reports that Awlaki is alive.
SANAA (Reuters) – “Anwar al-Awlaki is suspected to be dead,” the official said of the cleric who was on the run in Yemen, where he was on the government’s most-wanted list of terrorist suspects.
Yemen Observer: “The house of the US Fort Hood shooter’s mentor, Sheikh Anwar al-Awlaki, was raided and demolished….
Fox News.com: U.S. officials believe radical cleric Anwar Awlaki was “probably” one of dozens of militants killed in the strike, a source confirmed to FOX News.
Embassy of Yemen: Today, Yemeni fighter jets launched an aerial assault at 4:30 AM, on a remote location in the province of Shabwa. The assault targeted a meeting of senior Al-Qaeda operatives, 403 miles south east of Sana’a, the capital of Yemen. Preliminary reports suggest that the strike targeted scores of Yemeni and foreign Al-Qaeda operatives. Nasser Al-Wuhayshi, the regional Al-Qaeda leader and his deputy, Saeed Al-Shihri, alongside Anwar Al-Awlaki were presumed to be at the site. Among those targeted was Mohammed Saleh Oumair who publicly spoke couple of days ago at a rally in the province of Abyan. Reports added that the purpose of the above mentioned meeting was to plan a retaliation operation after government forces raided their hideouts last week. Less than a week ago, Yemeni forces carried out simultaneous raids killing and detaining militants in an Al-Qaeda hideouts in the provinces of Abyan and Sana’a.
SANA’A, Dec. 24 (Saba) – Yemeni Air forces carried out early on Thursday an air strike in Rafdh area of al-Said districts in Shabwa governorate killing about 30 al-Qaeda suspects from Yemeni and foreign nationalities.
An official source in the Supreme Security Committee said that the strike targeted a hideout of al-Qaeda, in which the al-Qaeda members have been holding a meeting attended by the terrorists Nasir al-Whaishi and Said al-Shihri, Saudi national.
According to the source, al-Qaeda meeting was to plan implementing a number of terrorist operations against Yemeni and foreign interests, including important economic facilities.
AFP: “Saudis and Iranians at the Wadi Rafadh meeting were also among the dead,” said the source, without going into detail.
A second security source told AFP the raid had been launched after residents had tipped the authorities off about the meeting.
The New York Times says the early morning raids were carried out with “intelligence provided in part by the United States,” while AP reports that U.S. and Saudi intelligence provided help.
END
The reports follow an interview with Awlaki broadcast by Al-Jazeera. Awlaki said that Maj. Nidal Hasan contacted him in December 2007 asking whether killing American soldiers and officers was a “religiously legitimate act.”
Q: “So he asked you that question about a year before the operation was carried out?”
A: “Yes. And I wondered how the American security agencies, who claim to be able to read car license plate numbers from space, everywhere in the world, I wondered how [they did not reveal this].”
Awlaki provided copies of the e-mails to Al-Jazeera.
FBI Finger-Pointing over Anwar Awlaki
Intelligence sharing is a bit like a game of hot potato: If you get stuck with it, you’ll get burned.
FBI officials in San Diego recently caught just such a hot potato when they intercepted e-mails between Maj. Nidal Hasan, the accused Fort Hood shooter, and a radical former San Diego imam named Anwar al-Awlaki.
These intercepts are among the government’s biggest secrets. Yet, at the same time, it would be surprising if Hasan and Nidal didn’t know that their communications were likely to be intercepted.
Awlaki had been an FBI counter-terrorism target for years. As an imam in San Diego in 2000, Awlaki served as a “spiritual advisor” to three 9/11 hijackers.
The FBI has asked him numerous times about his contacts with the hijackers, including when agents visited him in 2007 in a Yemeni prison. The intercepts were made about a year after he got out of prison. Today, he is said to be hiding in Yemen.
As for Hasan, he was a psychiatrist in the military. His contacts with Awlaki were viewed as consistent with some research he was conducting as a psychiatric resident at the U.S. Army’s Walter Reed Medical Center. A 2007 slideshow he gave at Walter Reed was titled “The Koranic World View As It Relates to Muslims in the U.S. Military.”
As many as 20 e-mails between Hasan and Awlaki were intercepted by the San Diego Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) between December 2008 and May 2009. The communications were deemed “consistent with research being conducted by Major Hasan in his position as a psychiatrist at the Walter Reed Medical Center,” the FBI says.
After the shooting that killed 13 people, a blog post on Aulaki’s website praised Hasan as a “hero.”
The communications between Awlaki and Hasan were never shared with the Defense Department, even though a member of the Defense Criminal Investigative Service was on the multi-agency San Diego JTTF.
CIA Director William Webster is conducting a review to find out what happened. According to The Washington Post, Webster will have the authority to make recommendations about possible changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which governs the highly sensitive communications intercepts at issue.
Awlaki is particularly troublesome for investigators because he is a U.S. citizen, born in New Mexico in 1971. As a result of that circumstance, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act required the JTTF to apply for a court order of surveillance at the secret FISA court or a certification from the U.S. attorney general. Investigators were required to present evidence that Awlaki was “an agent of a foreign power, or an officer or employee of a foreign power.”
Al-Qaida qualifies as a foreign power, and Charles Allen, a former CIA official and US Undersecretary of Homeland Security for Intelligence and Analysis, declared last year that Awlaki was part of al-Qaida’s reach into the U.S. homeland.
So, they got a warrant. Great. What good is such intelligence if you don’t use it?
In Hasan’s case, an investigator and a supervisor concluded that Hasan was not involved in terrorist activities or planning.
Further dissemination of the information “was neither sought nor authorized.” In plain English, the JTTF FBI supervisor wouldn’t let the folks from the Defense Department on his task force tell their commanders about the e-mails.
Officials in San Diego told Voice of San Diego’s Kelly Thornton that their counterparts in Washington are to blame:
One federal source described the probe this way: “Webster is going to investigate the Fort Hood guy and al-Aulaqi and whether the FBI screwed up. They’re saying San Diego failed to communicate the e-mails — but San Diego pestered the shit out of them, sending e-mails multiple times. The Washington field office didn’t do anything on it.”
The Washington Post reported Dec. 1 that members of Congress have identified “at least two troubling e-mails” that were intercepted by the San Diego FBI but not shared with Washington.
In a tit-for-tat battle, Thornton’s anonymous San Diego sources responded by saying that everything was fully communicated to Washington, which had “computer access” to everything San Diego had.
The Voice of San Diego, however, leaves out crucial background found in reports by the 9/11 Commission and Congressional Joint Inquiry on 9/11:
In June 1999, the FBI in San Diego investigated Awlaki after learning that he may have been contacted by a man who bought a satellite phone bin Laden used in the 1990s.
During its investigation, FBI learned that Awlaki knew individuals from the Holy Land Foundation and others involved in raising money for the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. Sources alleged that Awlaki had other extremist connections.
In early 2000, Awlaki was visited by a subject of a Los Angeles FBI investigation closely associated with Blind Sheikh [Omar Abdel] Rahman.
Around the time Awlaki was holding closed door meetings in San Diego with two of the hijackers, the FBI closed its investigation, stating “the imam … does not meet the criterion for [further] investigation.”
It wouldn’t be the first time that the FBI in San Diego misjudged Awlaki. Then again, no one bothered to tell the FBI in San Diego about two of the 9/11 hijackers whom the CIA had tracked from Bangkok to Los Angeles in 2000 until it was too late.
Two Mossad Operatives Institutionalized
One of the large mental health hospitals in Israel was recently surprised to receive a young, good-looking patient in a psychotic state who was accompanied by a personal security guard, Yedioth Ahronoth reported.
The doctors, who asked why the woman was accompanied by a guard, were shocked to learn that she was a Mossad agent and that the security guard was not assigned to her in order assure her safety or protect her life, but to ensure that she not reveal any state secrets in her shaky mental state.
The Mossad guard’s orders were clear: “It is forbidden that the organization’s secrets be passed on to those unauthorized to hear them.” The doctors, who are unaccustomed to the presence of a third party during their treatment sessions, were left with no choice but to acquiesce to their demands. In addition, the staff had to receive a security clearance before being allowed to work on her exceptional case.
To their complete amazement, another young woman, also accompanied by a secret agent charged with ensuring that the she not leak any state secrets, arrived at the institution just a short time later. The doctors learned that she, too, is a Mossad agent.
Experts said Saturday that the nature of the young women’s work was most likely the cause of their psychosis.
Anwar Al-Awlaki Timeline
Former CIA Director William Webster is taking a close look at how the FBI handled its investigation of a radical imam named Anwar al-Awlaki who had several e-mail exchanges with the suspected Fort Hood shooter, Maj. Nidal Hasan.
April 1971: Anwar al-Awlaki born in Cruces, N.M. while father is on diplomatic posting.
1978: Leaves U.S. for Yemen.
Jan. 13, 1988: Issued U.S. passport.
June 5, 1990: Enters U.S. in Chicago with Yemeni passport with J-1 exchange visitor U.S. visa issued in Sana’a.
June 6, 1990: Applies for Social Security card. Claims he was born in Sana’a, Yemen.
June 8, 1990: SSN 521-77-7121 issued to Awlaki.
Aug. 21, 1991: Enters U.S. in Chicago.
1991: Attends Colorado State University on a scholarship from Yemen.
Jan. 29, 1992: Enters U.S. in New York City.
Nov. 18, 1993: Applies for a U.S. passport in Fort Collins, Colo.
1994: Graduates from Colorado State with bachelor’s in civil engineering.
1996: Named imam of Masjid al-Rabat in San Diego.
1996: Busted for soliciting a prostitute in San Diego.
Time uncertain: Arrested by San Diego police “for hanging around a school.” (9/11 Commission MFR FBI Agent #59)
1997: Busted again for soliciting a prostitute in San Diego.
1998 & 1999: Serves as vice president of Charitable Society for Social Welfare Inc., the U.S. branch of a Yemeni charity headed by Abdul Majeed al-Zindani. Federal prosecutors in a New York terrorism-financing case later describe the charity as “a front organization” that was “used to support al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.”
January 1999: Enrolls in San Diego State University master’s in educational leadership program. SDSU spokesman says the school does not have records showing Awlaki earned a degree.
June 1999: FBI investigates Awlaki after learning that he may have been contacted by Ziyad Khaleel, who bought a satellite phone bin Laden used in the 1990s.
1999-2000: During its investigation, FBI learns that Awlaki knows individuals from the Holy Land Foundation and others involved in raising money for the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. Sources alleged that Aulaqi had other extremist connections. (9/11 Commission Report)
February 2000: Four calls between Awlaki and Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi who helped Al-Hamzi and Almihdhar find an apartment in San Diego. An FBI agent tells 9/11 Commission staff he is “98 percent sure” that the two hijackers were using al-Bayoumi’s phone at this time. (9/11 Commission MFR FBI Agent #63)
Early 2000: Visited by a subject of a Los Angeles FBI investigation closely associated with Blind Sheikh [Omar Abdel] Rahman. (Congressional Joint Inquiry on 9/11)
Early 2000: Several sources tell FBI that Alwaki “had closed-door meetings in San Diego” with Alhazmi, al-Midhar and another unidentified person “whom al-Bayoumi had asked to help the hijackers.” (Congressional Joint Inquiry)
Feb. 3, 2000: FBI electronic communication, background searches re: Awlaki. (9/11 Commission report)
March 2000: FBI closes its investigation, stating “the imam … does not meet the criterion for [further] investigation.” (Congressional Joint Inquiry on 9/11)
July-August 2000: Resigns from San Diego mosque.
Summer-Fall 2000: Travels abroad to “various countries.” (SD Union-Tribune 10/1/01)
January 2001: Moves to Virginia. Employed at Dar Al-Hijra Islamic Center in Falls Church, Va., largest mosque in the country.
January 2001: Enrolls in George Washington University’s Graduate School of Education and Human Development, pursing a Ph.D in human resource development.
Unknown: Meets Nidal Hasan, future Fort Hood shooter.
Early 2001: Named Muslim chaplain at GWU.
April 2001: Al-Hazmi and Hani Hanjour arrive in Falls Church and attend Dar Al-Hijra mosque. Awlaki denies having contact with the men in Virginia. (9/11 Commission report)
Before Sept. 11, 2001: Awlaki returns briefly to San Diego (9/11 Commission MFR) “Reportedly acted suspiciously by declining help with boxes he was transporting in a rental car (driven only 37 miles) and by refusing to provide any local address to the rental agent.” (9/11 Commission MFR FBI Agent #59)
Sept. 17, 2001: In comments published on IslamOnline, Alawki suggested that Israelis may have been responsible for the 9/11 attacks and that the FBI “went into the roster of the airplanes and whoever has a Muslim or Arab name became the hijacker by default.”
Sept. 15-19, 2001: Interviewed four times by FBI. Awlaki says he did not recognize Hazmi’s name but identifies his picture. Admitted meeting with Hazmi several times, he claimed not to remember any specifics of what they discussed. Describes Hazmi as a soft-spoken Saudi student who used to appear at the mosque with a companion but who did not have a large circle of friends. Does not identify Almihdhar.
September-November 2001: Interviewed numerous times by reporters, including National Geographic, Ray Suarez and The Washington Post.
2001-2002: Awlaki observed allegedly taking Washington-area prostitutes into Virginia. Authorities contemplate charging him under the Mann Act, reserved for nabbing pimps who transport prostitutes across state lines.
March 2002: Awlaki leaves for U.K.
March 31, 2002: Lectures at Quran Expo in London
April 2002: Employment with Dar Al-Hijra mosque ends.
2002: Federal prosecutors in Colorado receive information from Ray Fournier, a federal diplomatic security agent in San Diego who was investigating Awlaki for passport fraud.
June 2002: Figures in Operation Green Quest, a terrorism-related money-laundering investigation.
Mid-2002: Radwan Abu-Issa, the subject of a Houston Joint Terrorism Task Force investigation, sends money to Awlaki, according to a document in a restricted government database. Awlaki’s name was placed on an early version of what is now the federal terror watch list.
June 17, 2002: Federal magistrate in Colorado signs warrant for Awlaki’s arrest for passport fraud.
October 2002: A federal diplomatic special agent in Colorado began investigating in preparation to take the case to a grand jury learns Awlaki corrected the place of birth on his Social Security application to New Mexico.
Oct. 8, 2002: FBI electronic communication, interview re: Awlaki. (9/11 Commission Report)
Oct. 9, 2002: Arrest warrant rescinded.
Oct. 10, 2002: Arrives in New York on a Saudi Airlines flight from Riyadh. Briefly detained by INS.
Oct. 11, 2002: Criminal case terminated.
Late 2002: Visits Fairfax, Virginia home of Ali al-Timimi, a radical cleric, and asked him about recruiting young Muslims for “violent jihad.” Al-Timimi, is now serving a life sentence for inciting followers to fight with the Taliban against Americans.
Late 2002: Departs U.S. for London.
June 2003: Delivers lecture at Muslim Association of Britain symposium in London
December 2003: Islamic Forum of Europe lecture: “Stop police terror.”
Dec. 18, 2003: British MP Louise Ellman tells House of Commons calls Muslim Association of Britain is a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood; says Awlaki “is reportedly wanted for questioning by the FBI in connection with the 9/11 al-Qaeda terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.”
Early 2004: Moves to Yemen.
2004: Lectures at Imam University in Sana’a, Yemen, a school headed by Abdul Majeed al-Zindani.
Mid-2006: Awlaki arrested in Yemen. Claims he was held at the request of the U.S. government.
Oct. 17, 2006: Yemeni secret police raid swept up eight foreigners living in Sana’a, under surveillance by the CIA and British intelligence, and at least 12 other men across Yemen. Yemeni authorities insist they dismantled an al-Qa’ida cell and disrupted a gun-running ring to neighbouring Somalia, although no evidence is found. Awlaki (identified as “Abu Atiq”) said to be key to the raid.
September 2007: FBI agents interview Awlaki in prison. Ask about contacts with 9/11 hijackers.
December 2007: Awlaki released after 18 months confinement in Yemen, almost all of it in solitary confinement.
February 2008: Registers http://www.anwar-alawlaki.com
February 2008: U.S. counterterrorism officials link Awlaki to terrorism, The Washington Post reports. “There is good reason to believe Anwar Aulaqi has been involved in very serious terrorist activities since leaving the United States, including plotting attacks against America and our allies,” an anonymous U.S. counterterrorism official tells the Post.
Unknown: Awlaki leaves Sana’a and moves to remote Shabwa region.
Dec. 17, 2008: Maj. Nidal Hasan contacts Awlaki via e-mail. “Do you remember me? I used to pray with you at the Virginia mosque.” Awlaki tells Al-Jazeera: “He was asking about killing American soldiers and officers. [He asked] whether this is a religiously legitimate act or not.”
“…the first message was asking for an edict regarding the [possibility] of a Muslim soldier killing his colleagues who serve with him in the American army. In other messages, Nidal was clarifying his position regarding the killing of Israeli civilians. He was in support of this, and in his messages he mentioned the religious justifications for targeting the Jews with missiles. Then there were some messages in which he asked for a way through which he could transfer some funds to us [and by this] participate in charitable activities.”
December 2008: San Diego JTTF opens investigation into intercepted e-mails between Awlaki and Maj. Nidal Hasan. (FBI statement)
Jan. 1, 2009: Awlaki speaks via satellite link at London Muslim Centre. Event organized by Noor Pro Media.
January 2009: In blog post, Awlaki asks: “Today the world turns upside down when one Muslim performs a martyrdom operation. Can you imagine what would happen if that is done by seven hundred Muslims on the same day?!”
February 2009: Awlaki blog post, “I pray that Allah destroys America and all its allies and the day that happens, and I assure you it will and sooner than you think, I will be very pleased.”
Early 2009: E-mail contacts continue between Awlaki and Hassan. FBI San Diego forwards two messages to Washington Field Office. Later e-mail described as “more serious” not shared.
July 2009: Awlaki praises insurgent attack on Yemeni troops in Marib.
Aug. 4: Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, Nigerian suspected of trying to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253, attends Sana’a Institute for the Arabic Language, according to the Yemeni Foreign Ministry.
August: The U.S. National Security Agency intercepts al-Qaida conversations about an unidentified “Nigerian.”
Sept. 21: Abdulmutallab leaves Sana’a Institute.
Fall: NSA intercepts “voice-to-voice communication” between Abdulmutallab and Awlaki indicating that Aulaqi “was in some way involved in facilitating this guy’s transportation or trip through Yemen.”
October: Abdulmutallab travels to Shabwa province. The 23-year-old engineering graduate probably met with al-Qaeda operatives in a house built by Awlaki.
Fall: Yemeni Foreign Minister Rashad Alimi states Abdulmutallab meets Awlaki at a remote meeting place in Shabwa province. Abdulmutallab tells FBI that Alwaki personally blessed attack.
Nov. 5, 2009: Hasan allegedly kills 13 at Fort Hood.
Nov. 7, 2009: Post on Awlaki’s website praises Hasan as a “hero.”
Dec. 7, 2009: Abdulmutallab leaves Yemen for Ethiopia.
Dec. 23, 2009: Al-Jazeera broadcasts interview with Awlaki.
Dec. 24, 2009: Awlaki falsely reported as killed in Yemeni airstrike. The strike by Yemeni air forces targeted a meeting attended by Nasir al-Whaishi and (former Guantanamo detainee) Said al-Shiri at a hideout of al-Qaida in the Rafdh area of the al-Said districts in Shabwa governorate Yemen. U.S. and Saudi intelligence reportedly provide assistance.
Dec. 25, 2009: Rep. Pete Hoekstra, senior Republican on House Intelligence Committee, suggests there may be a link between Awlaki and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.
Dec. 29, 2009: Alwaki became “operational” sometime over past year, senior U.S. official tells Fox News.
Jan. 3, 2010: “Mr. Awlaki is a problem. He’s clearly a part of Al Qaida in Arabian Peninsula. He’s not just a cleric. He is in fact trying to instigate terrorism,” said John Brennan, deputy national security advisor for counterterrorism and homeland security.
Jan. 14: Ali Mohamed Al Anisi, the director of Yemen’s National Security Agency and a senior presidential adviser, said talks were under way with members of Mr. Awlaki’s tribe in an effort to convince the cleric to turn himself in.
John O. Brennan, counterterrorism czar
The Bergen Record ran a profile this weekend of John O. Brennan, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism aka Obama’s counterterrorism czar.
He meets with the president several times a day, he said. He is Obama’s point man, for example, monitoring the military and law enforcement investigation into the shootings at Fort Hood, Texas. He’s also been dispatched to Yemen to deliver private administration messages to leaders.
“My job is to make sure that the White House is doing everything possible … to prevent any type of catastrophe,” Brennan said in the interview, which took place before the Fort Hood shootings. “The president’s priority, first and foremost, is to save lives.”
Other crises that command Brennan’s attention include the H1N1 flu, the arrest of terror suspect Najibullah Zazi
The Record doesn’t say it, but Brennan has one of the most critical jobs in the national security apparatus.
Brennan is the “national continuity coordinator,” which means he’s responsible for agency-wide policy planning to ensure that the U.S. government survives a major catastrophe like a nuclear attack.
In the event of another 9/11, Brennan would be the White House point man. He has “direct and immediate” access to the president.
A 2007 presidential directive defines the kind of events Brennan must prepare for: “any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions.”
Brennan spent 25 years in the CIA, including a stint as station chief in Riyadh in the 1990s and George Tenet’s chief of staff. He left the agency in 2005 and became a principal intelligence advisor to Obama.
Brennan withdrew his name from consideration as Obama’s CIA director after he was attacked for public statements in support of interrogation. In a speech in August, however, Brennan said tactics such as waterboarding “were not in keeping with our values as Americans, and these practices have been rightly terminated and should not, and will not, happen again.”
Who was Anton Surikov? (Updated)
Several publications are reporting the passing of a former Russian intelligence officer named Anton Surikov, who died at the age of 48.
Axisglobe identifies Surikov as a shareholder of Far West LLC — reportedly a shadowy intelligence/military consulting group. Kavkaz Center, a Chechen website, reports that he was poisoned. Numerous reports link him to the CIA.
Surikov, born 1961 in Moscow, was the son of Victor Surikov, a designer of Soviet ICBMs. Anton Surikov was a man who at one time was apparently trusted by both sides in Russia’s bitter conflict with separatist rebels in Cechnya.
In the early 1990s, Surikov and Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev met when they both fought on behalf of separatists battling the Georgian government. Surikov commanded a detatchment of special forces for Russian military intelligence (GRU).
From 1990-1996, Surikov worked at the Institute of USA and Canada Academy of Sciences of the USSR (ISKRAN), a Russian think tank, according to an archived (Russian) copy of his bio.
In 1994, he was seconded to Department of Defense Studies at King’s College, London University, which published two of his books on various aspects of Russia’s domestic and defense policies. One of Surikov’s books, Crime in Russia: International Implications is based on documents collected by Russia’s Federal Counterintelligence Service (FSK).
While at the institute, Surikov become an advisor in 1995 for the Institute of Defense Studies.
In September 1996, Yuri Maslyukov, president of the Duma’s Committee on Economic Policy, hired Surikov as his assistant. When Maslyukov became first deputy prime minister two years later, Surikov went to work in the Kremlin.
In 1999, Surikov used his contacts with Basayev to arrange a meeting between the Chechen rebel leader and a top Russian official, Alexander Voloshin.
Surikov and the two men met in the south of France at the villa of Iran-Contra figure Adnan Khashoggi, a wealthy Saudi arms merchant.
The meeting was secretly recorded by French intelligence and later leaked to the press and been the subject of much speculation ever since. (See this 2004 paper (.pdf) from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.)
When Putin took over as president, Surikov briefly worked into Russia’s Aircraft Corporation, MiG and then became chief of staff to the Duma committee on industry, construction and high technology.
In 2001, Surikov accused Russian military officials of colluding with Afghan drug lords:
In an interview published last week (dated 29 May) in the “Moscow News” (“Moskovskie Novosti”) weekly, former Russian military intelligence officer Anton Surikov charged that a substantial portion of the drugs produced in Afghanistan had been directly shipped from the Tajik capital Dushanbe on board Russian military planes, helicopters, and trains.
Surikov said: “You can come to an arrangement [with custom officials] so that the search of military transport planes remains purely formal. The same goes for train convoys carrying military cargo [to Russia from Tajikistan].”
According to his account, Afghan opium producers usually sold drugs to Tajik citizens who smuggled them into Tajikistan with the active complicity of Russian border guards. The drugs were then put on board military planes or trains en route to Russia, where they were sold to local criminal gangs.
Surikov retired from government service in 2002, according to his bio. He was affiliated with the Institute for Globalisation Studies, a think tank headed by a leftist professor.
He also served on the board of the Swiss firm Far West Ltd., which was closely affiliated with the Internet news site, Pravda-info. Far West said it “specializes in consulting work on questions of security in conducting business in regions of the world with unstable environments and hiring personnel for foreign private military companies.” The company said it had offices in Dubai, Afghanistan, Colombia, Kosovo, Georgia, and Russia.
Most recently, Surikov was providing informed speculation to the Financial Times on the mystery the Arctic Sea, a cargo ship that vanished off the coast of Portugal:
But Anton Surikov, a Russian security expert and former military intelligence officer, advances the theory that smugglers, with the backing of elements in Russia’s security services, may have loaded ammunition and anti-tank missiles bound for Hizbollah in Lebanon, and four Kh-55 cruise missiles to be fitted to Sukhoi-24 bombers for Iran, on to the ship as it underwent repairs in Kaliningrad.
Mr Surikov says he believes that when the the ship was boarded in the dead of night on July 24 off Sweden, the attackers found the weapons cache, photographed it as evidence and left.
His scenario fits with initial reports conveyed by police in Sweden that the crew reported being attacked by about 10 men posing as Swedish policemen who searched the ship and departed in an inflatable dinghy.
The photos were then shown, thinks Mr Surikov, to the UK and US security services – which arranged a second incursion as the Arctic Sea disappeared on August 1. “A behind-the-scenes trade between state powers then began,” he says.
Detecting Border Tunnels
Authorities in San Diego have found a tunnel under construction beneath the U.S.-Mexico border:
SAN DIEGO – Mexican authorities, acting on information provided by federal investigators from the multi-agency San Diego Tunnel Task Force, conducted enforcement actions Wednesday targeting a sophisticated, but still incomplete underground passageway that originates in Tijuana, Mexico, and extends more than 860 feet into the United States.
The tunnel, which measures just under 1,000 feet in length overall and reaches a depth of 90 to 100 feet, did not have an entry point in the United States. The passageway has lighting, electrical and ventilation systems and is equipped with an elevator. When Mexican authorities entered the passageway Wednesday morning on the Mexican side, they encountered more than a dozen individuals who were subsequently taken into custody. All of those arrested are believed to be Mexican citizens.
Initial reports indicate the tunnel has been under construction for approximately two years. So far, there have been no arrests in the United States, but the investigation is ongoing.
The press release credits the inter-agency San Diego Tunnel Task Force, which “uses an array of high-tech equipment and intelligence information to pinpoint the location of underground passageways along the border in the region.”
To date, federal authorities have discovered more than 120 cross-border tunnels along the Southwest border. (The photo above is from 2007)
Truth is, these discoveries are typically the result of good, old-fashioned police work, not technology, according to a recent Science Daily story:
“All of them have been found by accident or human intelligence,” said Ed Turner, a project manager with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T). “None by technology.”
The problem of detecting underground tunnels has frustrated geologists since the 1960s when the Vietcong used them to devastating effect during the Vietnam War. In the 1970s, tunnels were discovered (through intelligence) in Korea’s DMZ. In the 1990s, the Southwest border kept the problem alive, although not a priority.
The terrorist threat, however, has opened the floodgates of money for tunnel detection.
Among the groups at work today on the problem include major defense contractors, the intelligence community, the Department of Homeland Security, numerous components of the Defense Department and unspecified “international partners.”
Technologies under development include a seismic acoustic sensors, infrared sensors and robotics. Tunnel detection systems are being tested on the ground and the air — aboard helicopters and unmanned drones.
The military’s Joint Task Force North conducted nine tactical missions last year to find underground tunnels using some of these technologies.
Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico and NORTHCOM worked with the San Diego Tunnel Task Force to test advanced acoustic technologies in Otay Mesa in 2006 and 2007, according to this PowerPoint presentation.
As even a cursory look at PowerPoint makes clear, the sensor data is extremely difficult for the layperson to understand, a problem that was underscored last year when the Department of Homeland Security put out a call for a tunnel detection system that is “simple to understand.”
Lockheed Martin is testing ground-penetrating radar in a trailer towed by a truck as part of DHS’ Tunnel Technologies Detection Project.
DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, has a Cross-Border Tunnel program to root out underground hiding places that can be exploited by terrorists.
An even spook-ier effort is the Counter Tunnel Operations Working Group, which included the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and intelligence community. The group is under the rubric of the inter-agency, anti-terrorism Technical Support Working Group.
At a 2006 Army seminar on tunnel detention, one researcher summed up the state of affairs:
Despite the longstanding effort in the geophysical community under heavy public funding, there is a dearth of success stories where geophysicists can actually claim to have found hitherto unknown tunnels.
India to join NSA's eavesdropping program?
India and the U.S. will sign an intelligence sharing and counter-terrorism pact, The Times of India reports as PM Manmohan Singh begins his three-day state visit to Washington on Monday.
Details of the pact are not being disclosed yet, but such was the importance of the agreement that CIA Director Leon Panetta flew down to New Delhi last week to discuss details with his Indian counterparts before the fine print could be drawn up. The agreement could involve exchanging and stationing more intelligence personnel in the two countries, including mobile units, to facilitate better interaction.
The Times describes this as an “intelligence upgrade” involving unspecified ”technical means” supplied by the US.
An unnamed Indian official tells India’s DNA News:
“We are looking at an agreement that could involve exchanging and stationing more intelligence personnel in the two countries. We are also seeking technology to counter terrorism, the National Investigation Agency is looking at US equipment to trace the location of mobile phone calls,” he added.
America’s National Security Agency has an expensive programme that analyses calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity. It has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth.
Anwar al-Awlaki, infidel
An insightful post on Jihadica reveals that Anwar al-Awlaki, a former San Diego imam who ministered to two of the Sept. 11 hijackers, was once denounced as an infidel (kafir) and part of a CIA plot.
Awlaki, a U.S. citizen who is said to live in Yemen, has been in the news lately because he was in e-mail contact with suspected Fort Hood shooter Maj. Nidal Hasan, whom he recently praised as a “hero.”
As I wrote earlier, Awlaki was the imam at the Rabat mosque in San Diego until mid-2000. Two future hijackers also attended the Rabat mosque. The Sept. 11 Commission reported the two hijackers “reportedly respected Awlaki as a religious figure and developed a close relationship with him.”
One of Awlaki’s sermons at the Rabat mosque came to the attention of London-based jihadi Sheikh Abdullah al-Faisal, a radical imam who was imprisoned in 2003 for soliciting murder and eventually deported from the UK for his links to one of the London Tube bombers.
This San Diego sermon so outraged al-Faisal that he devoted an entire sermon to it and ultimately declared Awlaki an infidel. One of al-Faisal’s followers can be heard in the recording suggesting that Awlaki should be killed.
Al-Faisal’s complaint about al-Awlaki is basically twofold: First, that al-Awlaki’s criteria for declaring takfir (unbeliever) was overly restrictive—someone would have to directly refute the Quran or blatantly denounce central tenets of Islam in order to receive that designation. And, second, that al-Awlaki argued that only God should judge Muslims. Al-Faisal argues that this non-judgmental understanding of Islam is pushed by the CIA in order to limit violent activism.
Al-Faisal’s sermon is titled “CIA Islam – Sheikh Faisal’s Takfeer of Anwar Awlaki.” It’s available here.
For a would-be jihadi, this sermon should been a devastating blow. Yet, today it’s Awlaki who’s seen as the dangerous radical warping Muslim winds.
The lesson, Brian Fishman says, is not that Awlaki is a moderate but that “the world of jihadi ideologues is never as simple as it seems.”
The Spy Who Conned Me
Must read Sunday Times (of London) story on Kevin R. Halligen, a British security consultant who conned the Washington defense and security establishment.
Halligen was indicted earlier this month in Washington on fraud charges. Apparently, everything about Halligen was a con. He passed himself off as a former British secret agent. Even his 2007 wedding to a Washington lawyer was a scam; according to the Times, the “priest” was really the caterer.
One of the guests was Andre Hollis, a lobbyist who became chief executive of Halligen’s Washington company. “It was like a global intelligence debutante ball,” he said. “And nobody knew it was fake.”
Not even the best man, Colonel John Garrett, a defence lobbyist for the blue-chip Washington law firm Patton Boggs, was let in on the secret. Nor was the most powerful guest in the room, Noel Koch, a security expert who has now become a deputy undersecretary in the defence department.
He said: “We found out later that it was not a real wedding. The priest was an actor.”
Halligen’s firm, Oakley International Group was paid $2.1 million to secure the release of two executives of Trafigura, a Dutch oil trading firm.
The executives were held in an Ivory Coast jail after a ship chartered by Trafigura dumped tons of toxic sludge in the Ivorian port of Abidjan that was blamed in 17 deaths and thousands of injuries.
Instead of freeing the Trafigura executives, the money went toward the purchase of Halligen’s mansion in Great Falls, Va.
Update: Halligen was arrested at a hotel in Oxford, England where he had been staying for months under the name Richard Hall. He is being held without bail and is awaiting extradition to the US.
Jihadis have learned from Internet pirates
AP has a story out reporting that the number of Arabic-language jihadi websites has declined markedly since the Sept. 11 attacks from 1,000 to around 50. Meanwhile, the number of English language sites sympathetic to al-Qaida has grown.
This article may fuel the growing hysteria over the Fort Hood shootings. The suspected shooter, Maj. Nidal Hasan, had e-mail contact with a Yemeni preacher who ran an English-language Website and called Hassan a “hero” on his blog.
It is easy to get the wrong impression from the AP story. The jihadis are much more sophisticated than this article implies.
It’s true that radical websites such as al-Qaida’s official site, alneda.com, have been shut down, but Osama bin Laden’s followers have figured out new ways to communicate with audiences in the Arabic-speaking world, which — let’s face it — supplies the overwhelming majority of recruits.
Jihadis have adopted the tools of Internet pirates who illegally share music, movies, software and porn, according to a report from West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center:
The process works as follows. When a new official jihadist group notice, video or audio file is released, multiple users upload the file to various file-hosting websites, creating hundreds of URL links to where that file can be downloaded. A large list of links, or virtual library of hyperlinks, is then posted on multiple jihadist web forums. Once a user reads the post, they then duplicate the forum posting on another forum. This practice is welcomed and encouraged by the rest of the readers, which allows the original user to gain prestige and continue ascending in the forum’s “roster.”
These files can be easily and anonymously uploaded from Internet cafes to file-sharing sites like Rapidshare. Many of these links expire quickly or are disabled by the file-hosting company, yet the sheer number of hyperlinks uploaded makes it almost impossible to stop the message from spreading.
Read the latest issue of the CTC Sentinel here (.pdf)
The Story of Semtex
The BBC is airing a fascinating radio documentary on Semtex, one of the world’s most lethal explosives.
Extremely powerful and easily concealed, Semtex is a favorite weapon of terrorists. It was Semtex that exploded on Pan Am Flight 103 in December 1988, killing 259 people on board and 11 residents of Lockerbie, Scotland.
Semtex takes its name from the town of Semtin in the Czech Republic where it is still produced today.
Tons of it were shipped — at Moscow’s approval — to the North Vietnamese Army. When the Vietnam War ended, a new customer was found: Libya.
No more than 11 ounces of the yellowish explosive brought down Pan Am 103, yet Czech President Vaclav Havel revealed that 1,000 tons of it was shipped to Libya — a claim the company disputes.
Libya, in turn, supplied Semtex to terrorist groups like Black September and the IRA. The IRA began receiving significant quantities of Semtex after the 1984 murder of a policewoman in London led to a breakdown in UK-Libya relations.
The “Semtex families” are a group of 147 British families who lost relatives and loved ones in the 1970s and 1980s to IRA bombs packed with the plastic explosive. They are now seeking $1 billion in compensation from Qadaffi’s regime.
The BBC finds the Explosia company that produces Semtex and is very touchy about what it calls the “hysteria” that surrounds Semtex. (Read Explosia’s 10 myths about Semtex.)
Imam Aulaqi and Yemen's image problem (Updated)
Anwar al-Aulaqi’s website and his statement praising the suspected Fort Hood shooter as a “hero” has vanished from the Internet. (For those who are interested, the statement in its entirety can be found at the end of this post.)
The words of the former San Diego imam — now said to be living hiding in Yemen — have received wide distribution. The timing of his Nov. 8 statement of support for Maj. Nidal Hasan, however, has escaped notice.
While Aulaqi’s name and his links to Maj. Hasan were being leaked to the Western press, U.S. military officials were quietly holding two days of talks on terrorism and other issues with their counterparts in Yemen, according to Saba, Yemen’s official state news agency.
Brig. Gen. Jefforey A. Smith, recently named deputy director for politico-military affairs in the Middle East (J5) for the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, signed a joint cooperation agreement today, confirming U.S. support for Yemen’s shaky government.
Update: The US embassy declined to comment on whether an agreement had been signed, but tells AFP that talks involving Smith had taken place and said they focused on counterterrorism efforts against groups operating in Yemen. (The AFP misidentified Smith.)
This week’s talks in Sana’a have attracted no attention in the United States. But Yemen’s Chief of the General Staff Ahmed al-Ashwal said the talks were of great concern to the government of President Ali Abdullah Salih, which is battling al-Qaida in the east and tribal rebels in the north backed by Iran.
The Economist reported this week:
Yemen’s increasing lawlessness outside shrinking zones of state control around the main cities is one reason why, earlier this year, al-Qaeda’s Saudi branch announced it was moving across the border and merging forces with its brethren in Yemen. The joint operation, calling itself “al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula”, known in intelligence circles as AQAP, has carried out sporadic attacks inside Yemen, where tacit agreements with the government appear to have broken down. But its main target still appears to be Saudi Arabia.
The most recent State Department report on terrorism described Yemen’s efforts as “mixed.” While it took action against al-Qaida, Yemen, despite pressure from the U.S., continued a surrender program for terrorists it could not apprehend and released all returned Guantanamo detainees.
All of which makes the timing of Aulaqi’s statement even more interesting:
Nidal Hassan Did The Right Thing
Nidal Hassan is a hero.
He is a man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people. This is a contradiction that many Muslims brush aside and just pretend that it doesn’t exist. Any decent Muslim cannot live, understanding properly his duties towards his Creator and his fellow Muslims, and yet serve as a US soldier. The US is leading the war against terrorism which in reality is a war against Islam. Its army is directly invading two Muslim countries and indirectly occupying the rest through its stooges.
Nidal opened fire on soldiers who were on their way to be deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. How can there be any dispute about the virtue of what he has done? In fact the only way a Muslim could Islamically justify serving as a soldier in the US army is if his intention is to follow the footsteps of men like Nidal.
The heroic act of brother Nidal also shows the dilemma of the Muslim American community. Increasingly they are being cornered into taking stances that would either make them betray Islam or betray their nation. Many amongst them are choosing the former. The Muslim organizations in America came out in a pitiful chorus condemning Nidal’s operation.
The fact that fighting against the US army is an Islamic duty today cannot be disputed. No scholar with a grain of Islamic knowledge can defy the clear cut proofs that Muslims today have the right — rather the duty — to fight against American tyranny. Nidal has killed soldiers who were about to be deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan in order to kill Muslims. The American Muslims who condemned his actions have committed treason against the Muslim Ummah and have fallen into hypocrisy.
Allah(swt) says: Give tidings to the hypocrites that there is for them a painful punishment – Those who take disbelievers as allies instead of the believers. Do they seek with them honor [through power]? But indeed, honor belongs to Allah entirely. (al-Nisa 136-137)
The inconsistency of being a Muslim today and living in America and the West in general reveals the wisdom behind the opinions that call for migration from the West. It is becoming more and more difficult to hold on to Islam in an environment that is becoming more hostile towards Muslims.
May Allah grant our brother Nidal patience, perseverance and steadfastness and we ask Allah to accept from him his great heroic act. Ameen.
Fort Hood and the San Diego 9/11 hijacking connection (Updated)
Investigators are examining connections between the suspected Fort Hood shooter and an imam named Anwar Aulaqi.
On his blog yesterday (yes, his blog), Aulaqi called Maj. Nadal Hasan “a hero.”
Nidal opened fire on soldiers who were on their way to be deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. How can there be any dispute about the virtue of what he has done? In fact the only way a Muslim could Islamically justify serving as a soldier in the US army is if his intention is to follow the footsteps of men like Nidal.
The heroic act of brother Nidal also shows the dilemma of the Muslim American community. Increasingly they are being cornered into taking stances that would either make them betray Islam or betray their nation. Many amongst them are choosing the former. The Muslim organizations in America came out in a pitiful chorus condemning Nidal’s operation.
The man who calls on fellow Muslim soldiers to kill their brothers in arms is a U.S. citizen who broadcasts his message of jihad (in English) from Yemen where he has lived since 2004. He not only has a website, but can be found on Facebook.
Before Yemen, Aulaqi had preached in Denver, San Diego, and Falls Church, Virginia.
It was in Virginia that Aulaqi may have met “brother Nidal.” Hasan attended a mosque in Falls Church in 2001 where Aulaqi was serving as imam, according to The Washington Post. Update: The Dar Al Hijrah mosque says Aulaqi was employed there from January 2001 through April 2002.
Also attending the Falls Church mosque were two Sept. 11 hijackers, Nawaf al Hazmi and Khalid Almidhar.
According to the Sept. 11 Commission’s report, the two hijackers “reportedly respected Aulaqi as a religious figure and developed a close relationship with him.”
Before moving to Virginia, Aulaqi was imam at the Rabat mosque in San Diego until mid-2000. The two hijackers also attended the Rabat mosque. They may even have met or at least talked to Aulaqi on their first day in San Diego.
According to his online biography, Aulaqi received a master’s degree in educational leadership from San Diego State University.
Aulaqi had connections to others of interest to the San Diego FBI, including Mohdar Abdullah (see my earlier post) and Omar al Bayoumi, a man believed to be a Saudi agent who helped the hijackers settle in San Diego.
From a footnote in the Sept. 11 Commission report:
The FBI investigated Aulaqi in 1999 and 2000 after learning that he may have been contacted by a possible procurement agent for Bin Ladin. During the investigation, the FBI learned that Aulaqi knew individuals from the Holy Land Foundation and others involved in raising money for the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. Sources alleged that Aulaqi had other extremist connections.
None of this information was considered strong enough to support a criminal prosecution.
The Congressional Joint Inquiry on 9/11 notes that Aulaqi was visited by a “subject of a Los Angeles investigation closely associated with Blind Sheikh [Omar Abdel] Rahman,” who was convicted in a 1993 New York City bomb plot.
In mid-2006, Aulaqi was arrested in Yemen and spent 18 months behind bars, almost all of it in solitary confinement. In this interview with a former Guantanamo detainee, Aulaqi says he was held at the request of the U.S. government and was interviewed in custody by FBI agents.
Update: TPM Muckracker’s Justin Elliott has a comprehensive post on Nidal, including The New York Times report that “intelligence agencies” intercepted 10 to 20 communications last year and this year between Aulaqi and Hasan. The messages reportedly did not suggest any threat of violence.
Homeland Security Undersecretary for Intelligence Charles E. Allen last year described Aulaqi as an al-Qaida supporter and a former “spiritual leader” to three of the Sept. 11 hijackers.
And finally, judging from these recent comments on his website here, here and here, Aulaqi is deeply missed in San Diego.
Second Update: The Falls Church, Virginia mosque where Aulaqi served as imam has openly denounced his statement of praise for Hasan:
During Mr. Al-Awlaki’s short employment at our center, his public speech was consistent with the values of tolerance and cooperation. After returning to Yemen, Mr. Awlaki now claims that the American Muslims who have condemned the violent acts of Major Hasan have committed treason against the Muslim Umaah [community] and have fallen into hypocrisy. With this reversal, Mr. Al-Awlaki has clearly set himself apart from Muslims in America.
How defense giant SAIC made $3.5b in 5 years
In the Hall of Fame of missed business opportunities, a special place is reserved for Emmit McHenry.
In 1995, McHenry sold his small company called Network Solutions for $4.7 million to the secretive and powerful San Diego defense giant SAIC.
Five years later, McHenry’s business sold again for $3.5 billion.
Network Solutions (known today as VeriSign) administers a database of 90 million domain names that includes all the dot-coms on the Internet (including this one). This database told your computer where to find the page you are now reading. Without it, there would be no Internet as we know it. No Google. No Amazon.
If you haven’t heard the full story of SAIC and Network Solutions it’s because the full story hasn’t really been told before. SAIC hasn’t exactly tooted its own horn on the whole the Network Solutions saga. Many were outraged that the government had granted the employee-owned company what amounted to a license to print money.
In this 2-part piece by my friend Bruce Bigelow at Xconomy, a local San Diego business website that I have done some work for in the past, got SAIC founder Robert Beyster to tell the story.
In SAIC’s hands, McHenry’s small company turned out to be “unbelievably profitable,” says Robert Beyster, the scientist who founded and ran SAIC until his ouster from the company in 2004. In fact, thanks to Network Solutions, SAIC may have been making too much money:
X: Why did SAIC decide to do the partial IPO in 1997? Did that turn out to be a smart thing to do? SAIC sold 3.3 million common shares, or a 21 percent-stake in Network Solutions, raising more than $59 million. SAIC retained almost 12 million shares of the stock, which carried preferential rights that basically preserved 96 percent control of the company.
JRB: The value of NSI was becoming so great that we wanted to take some of the profits we had made off the table in case of difficulties later on. (emphasis added)
There were — and still are — many people who think this never should have been allowed. The Internet had its origins in a network created by a research unit at the Pentagon and thus belonged to no one. The National Science Foundation oversaw the domain name registration database, a job that it contracted out to Network Solutions.
If McHenry didn’t realize what he had, SAIC sure did. A few months after SAIC acquired the company, the government amended the terms of Network Solutions’ contract. The amendment allowed SAIC to charge $100 to register a domain name (subsequently lowered). Equally important, the contract amendment allowed SAIC to keep 70 percent of the revenue, and gave the company a monopoly over the business.
This monopoly began to rub people the wrong way, and a spate of lawsuits were filed. So SAIC turned to its friends in Washington, says Mitch Daniels, who engineered the Network Solutions deal:
MD: We spent significant amounts of time and money at NSI educating the public, Congress, and senior government officials about aspects of the business that were really important: the Internet, domain names, Internet security, major policy questions involved with domain names, and keeping the “A” server and the other domain names servers running and secure. From 1995 until 2000, we brought at least one-half of the entire United States Senate and House members as well as senior White House and cabinet-level officials to tour our facilities in Herndon, VA.
Even if McHenry had hung on to the company, he would have been unable to marshal the kind of firepower that SAIC had in Washington. After a court held that Network Solutions was assessing an illegal tax, Congress in 1998 slipped language into an appropriations bill that retroactively made this “fee” legal. (See Thomas v. Network Solutions.) One of SAIC’s lobbyists in 1998, incidentally, was the ethically challenged former San Diego congressman Bill Lowery.
Last month, SAIC moved its headquarters to McLean, Va. At last report, it had annual revenues of more than $10 billion.
As for McHenry, he’s moved on and tries not to dwell on what could have been.
CIA Lawyers and the "Legal Principles" memo
This month’s issue of The American Lawyer includes a piece I wrote on the CIA’s Office of General Counsel. Click here to read it (.pdf).
An interesting legal issue that I didn’t mention in the piece involves a document released to the ACLU in August titled “Legal Principles Applicable to CIA Detention and Interrogation of Captured al-Qa’ida Personnel.”(.pdf)
It was written by unnamed CIA attorneys with help from John Yoo, the attorney in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. The OLC provides authoritative legal advice to the Executive Branch, and Yoo authored a whole bunch of controversial opinions dealing with torture and wiretapping and who knows what else that were later rescinded.
The “Legal Principles” was drafted in the spring of 2003. Why it was drafted isn’t clear. A few months earlier, Yoo had given the CIA specific advice on the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, (.pdf) whom President Bush called one of the top three leaders in al-Qaida.
The key difference between the classified Yoo memo and the CIA’s “Legal Principles” is that the latter broadened the application of “enhanced” interrogation, including the waterboard, to apply to anyone connected with the terrorist group.
The “Legal Principles” memo also set no limits on the number of times that the waterboard could be applied, and it added new techniques such as diapering to the list of approved interrogation techniques previously authorized.
Thus the document provided the legal cover needed for aggressive interrogation of all al-Qaida personnel, not just one.
Or did it?
Whether or not the Justice Department formally approved the “Legal Principles” and with it, the expansion of the CIA’s interrogation program, is now a matter of dispute.
The Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department said the undated and unsigned bullet points do not constitute a formal opinion, and that this position was made clear to the CIA.
According to the CIA’s Office of General Counsel, the “Legal Principles” memo “embodies DoJ agreement” that the Justice Department’s opinion “extends beyond” the interrogation of a single detainee. The agency also cited a National Security Council meeting in July 2003, during which Attorney General John Ashcroft approved use of multiple applications of the waterboard on other detainees.
Even with Ashcroft’s verbal assent, it became clear that the CIA was legally on shaky ground without a formal opinion.
In a review of the interrogation program, CIA Inspector General John Helgerson apparently recommended that CIA lawyers seek a formal opinion from the Justice Department confirming the conclusions outlined in the bullet points.
In March 2004, CIA General Counsel wrote Jack Goldsmith, head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, and asked him to “reaffirm” these “Legal Principles.” Goldsmith declined to do so.
The debate over the “Legal Principles” memo isn’t merely academic. The question of who authorized what is a critical one, especially as a federal prosecutor is reviewing the interrogation program to see whether crimes may have been committed.
As human rights lawyer John Sifton asked, “Without formal authorization, how can anyone involved in the subsequent authorization assert that their actions were legally authorized?”
The “Legal Principles” memo may be the most overlooked document in the whole torture debate.
The Strange Case of Mohdar Abdullah
Did the U.S. government consider designating San Diego college student Mohdar Abdullah (left) as an enemy combatant after the 9/11 attacks?
The suggestion appears in one of several 9/11 Commission memoranda that were recently released by the National Archives and that make it clear that U.S. authorities viewed Abdullah as a major threat. An enemy combatant designation would have allowed President Bush to order Abdullah detained indefinitely in Guantanamo or military brig.
Ten days after the attacks, Abdullah was arrested as a material witness to the 9/11 attacks and shipped off to New York. Prosecutors there considered charging him along with Zacarias Moussaoui, who is serving life in prison for conspiring to kill Americans in the 9/11 attacks but ultimately decided not to.
Commission documents show that Abdullah presented a dilemma for the government, which believed that he knew much more about the attacks than he would admit, but lacked sufficient evidence to support a terrorism charge. Abdullah was charged with visa fraud and deported to Yemen in 2004.
“If anyone in San Diego had prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks it would be Abdullah,” one unnamed FBI agent told the Commission.
Abdullah had befriended the two hijackers when they lived in San Diego in 2000 and admitted helping the two men obtain state identification, contacting flight schools on their behalf and translating for them. Abdullah knew the pair had extremist leanings and sympathized with them, according to the 9/11 Commission’s final report. After Hazmi after he left San Diego, he remained in contact with Hazmi.
For three weeks before the attacks, Abdullah had been acting strangely. Several witnesses described him as nervous, paranoid and anxious. He stopped using the phone and didn’t show up at work or school.
On the morning of Sept. 10 at the Texaco station where Abdullah worked, an FBI source reporting hearing Abdullah saying something like, “It’s finally going to happen.” That night, Abdullah wanted to marry a young woman he had met a few months earlier, according to FBI Special Agent Daniel Gonzales.
Much later, Abdullah’s fellow inmates told the FBI that he had bragged to them of advance knowledge of the attacks, but authorities couldn’t substantiate the reports.
Abdullah denied foreknowledge of the attacks.
Gonzales described Abdullah as “a ‘slick’ and charismatic ‘liar.’” The unnamed San Diego FBI agent described Abdullah as a “goofball” and didn’t think he was a willing facilitator for the hijackers.
In their efforts to deport Abdullah, U.S. authorities were “running against the clock,” Justice Department officials told 9/11 Commission staffers in 2004.
Exactly what this means is unclear. The full explanation remains classified, but there’s no doubt that authorities didn’t want to let Abdullah go.
“The fear was a worst-case scenario where the opportunity to deport disappears, criminal charges do not materialize, and Abdullah succeeds in his habeas petition and is walking the streets,” Jonathan Cohn of the Justice Department told Commission staffers.
The return of Soviet-style "active measures?"
Was Iran really the target of the planned missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic? Or was it Russia?
President Obama announced today that he was scrapping Bush administration plans to locate a radar system and 10 ground-based interceptors in Eastern Europe that were aimed, he insisted, at Iran — not Russia.
But a better question might be: Does it really matter?
Plans to build a midcourse radar in the Czech Republic (with Raytheon serving as prime contractor) stirred up massive opposition. A fascinating view on this comes from the Czech intelligence service, the BIS, which has been publicly reporting for several years about the anti-radar campaign.
In its 2007 annual report, the BIS reported that Russia’s foreign intelligence services were active in the Czech Republic:
Last year’s operations of the Russian services in the Czech Republic were mainly related to the plan of building components of the US anti-missile defence system in our country, and to Russian disputes with Baltic states. Efforts to set up concealed channels of influence in the frame of Czech government and political structures continue unabated.
In the first place, the Russian services attempted to establish contacts with public opinion-makers, political circles and the media and infiltrate organizations influencing public opinion to win them over for supporting Russian interests in debates on the issue of locating an American radar in the Czech Republic.
One of these concealed channels may have been the No to the Bases movement, which includes MIT professor Noam Chomsky on its list of supporters. No to the Bases has denied any involvement from Russia, but Czech intelligence believes the group’s well-intentioned supporters are actually unwitting pawns of Russia. The BIS reportedly was highly suspicious of free billboards given to the campaign.
The BIS reported in 2008 that Russian intelligence activity had reached a high level of intensity, and had returned to the “Soviet practice of active measures” — propaganda and disinformation — “as an important instrument for promoting foreign-policy interests of Russia in the world.” The BIS compared the efforts to 20th century Soviet espionage practices successfully applied to influence the peace movement in Western Europe.
In this CNN interview, retired Maj. Gen. Oleg Kalugin, former head of KGB operations in the US, described these “active measures” as “the heart and soul of the Soviet intelligence. The goal, he said, was to “weaken” the military, economic and psychological climate in the West.
In this sense, whether or not the missiles were aimed at Russia was almost irrelevant. The Czech radar had become part of Russia’s broader geo-strategic campaign of gaining influence in the region, according to the BIS:
Seen in a wider context, their aim is not only to feed opposition against the radar, but also to create an impression that under the patronage of the EU and NATO the Nazi ideology is being rehabilitated in Europe and the decisive contribution of the Soviet Union to the defeat of Nazism in the World War II is being denied.
One example of this could be the recent release of what Russia’s intelligence service, the SVR, said were documents showing Poland’s collaboration with Nazi Germany during World War II.
According to BIS, the operations of the Russian services targeted at the Czech Republic and its allies may be a part of a broader and prolonged campaign designed to undermine the EU and NATO integrity, isolate the United States (or encourage isolationist moods in the USA) and regain control over the security of the once Soviet-ruled territories in Europe, irrespective of the results of the anti-missile radar negotiations.
With today’s move, the Obama administration certainly didn’t give Russia any reason to think its campaign wasn’t working.
Trump / Russia 