In the aftermath of 9/11, our intelligence services had to determine who was responsible for the attacks. If you believe their story, it wasn’t all that difficult to figure out. In fact, just a few key pieces of evidence were all they needed. Let me lay them out here, at the beginning.
Two very important pieces of evidence came from the investigation of the African Embassy bombings in 1998. Several hours before the bombs exploded in Kenya and Tanzania, someone sent a fax to an Arab media outlet in London taking responsibility for them. The Brits quickly traced the fax to a number in Baku, Azerbaijan, and they put the number under surveillance. Using that tap, the Brits identified another phone number in Yemen. The phone belonged to the father-in-law of Khalid al-Midhar, who would be one of the five hijackers on Flight 77 that crashed into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. The Brits, now working with the Americans, put that number under surveillance, too.
A member of the suicide squad called Al-Midhar’s father-in-law from Kenya and said “Tell them that I haven’t started the journey”. The attacker lost his courage seconds before the attack and jumped out of the car which contained the bomb. Shortly thereafter the FBI agents recorded another call. This time it was from a satellite telephone assigned to Osama bin Laden.
The intelligence on the bin Laden call is somewhat shaky. During the 2001 trial of African Embassy bombing suspects, the prosecutor didn’t allege that the conversation was recorded. But he did provide evidence that bin Laden’s satellite phone was used to call both the phone in Yemen and the phone in Azerbaijan.
Four hours later — shortly before the bombs went off — Karas said a call was placed to the same telephone number in Baku from a satellite phone in Afghanistan used by bin Laden and other leaders of al Qaeda, or “the Base,” bin Laden’s alleged network of Islamic extremists.
Records of calls from that satellite telephone also link al Qaeda’s leaders to an outpost in Yemen. And the Yemeni phone, in turn, had received frequent calls from residences in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi, where the embassy bombs were built, Karas explained, establishing an indirect link between the “bomb factories” and bin Laden.
But Karas’s ability to connect bin Laden to the embassy bombings remained indirect and circumstantial, in sharp contrast to forensic and documentary evidence linking three of the four defendants to the bomb plots.
Indeed, after three months of testimony, the only direct statements attributed by the government to bin Laden come from press interviews and “fatwahs,” or religious edicts, he has issued calling on Muslims to drive U.S. troops out of Saudi Arabia and to kill American soldiers and civilians around the world.While prosecutors cited records of telephone numbers in Azerbaijan, Britain and Yemen that were called from al Qaeda’s satellite telephone, the government introduced no evidence that any conversations on that phone — whether involving bin Laden or other leaders — were intercepted.
They may have had concerns about sources and methods that prevented them from introducing transcripts of the calls. Regardless, the obtained convictions without introducing any such evidence. They keys were that one of the Kenyan bombers had called the number in Yemen to tell them he had chickened out on the suicide element of the plan. That Yemeni number tracked to both the number in Baku and to bin Laden’s satellite phone. Even without hearing the contents of all the conversations, that is a very strong connection. Needless to say, the Yemeni phone-line remained under careful surveillance.
And it was on that phone-line that the NSA/CIA learned about the time (January 2000) and place for a meeting of al-Qaeda members in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The CIA contacted Malaysian Intelligence and had them photograph the comings and goings at the home of a man named Yazid Sufoot. The five people who attended are now known to be Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi (the San Diego hijackers), Ramzi Binalshibh (the Hamburg cell logistics man), an Indonesian named Hambali, and a one-legged associate of bin-Laden named Tawfiq bin Attash.
Later in 2000, al-Qaeda would strike the USS Cole in the port of Aden, Yemen, killing seventeen American sailors and putting the ship out of commission for many years. It is thought that the planning for this attack was discussed at the meeting in Kuala Lumpur and that Tawfiq bin Attash was the ringleader of the operation. Meanwhile, al-Midhar and al-Hazmi left Malaysia for Bangkok (where the CIA was too late arriving at the airport to meet them) and then slipped into the United States at LAX, before living openly in San Diego. They died in the Pentagon crash. Hambali, BinalShibh, and bin Attash are all in custody in Guantanamo Bay after spending years in the CIA’s dark prisons overseas.
So, this is the heart of the case that implicates bin Laden to the 9/11 attacks and connects the 9/11 attacks to the USS Cole bombing and the African Embassy bombings. It is hard to imagine that we are lacking evidence to prosecute any of the living attendees of the meeting in Kuala Lumpur. But, that is what is being reported in today’s Washington Post in an article about the Obama administration considering a form of indefinite detention for some the Gitmo detainees.
Tawfiq bin Attash, who is accused of involvement in the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000 and who was held at a secret CIA prison, could be among those subject to long-term detention, according to one senior official.
Little information on bin Attash’s case has been made public, but officials who have reviewed his file said the Justice Department has concluded that none of the three witnesses against him can be brought to testify in court. One witness, who was jailed in Yemen, escaped several years ago. A second witness remains incarcerated, but the government of Yemen will not allow him to testify.
Administration officials believe that testimony from the only witness in U.S. custody, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, may be inadmissible because he was subjected to harsh interrogation while in CIA custody.
First of all, why can’t Ramzi Binalshibh and Hambali testify against him, since they both attended the Kuala Lumpur meeting with bin Attash? And what about bin Attash’s own words, as reported by CNN in 2006?
During a 2000 visit to Malaysia, “[Zacarias] Moussaoui managed to annoy everyone he came into contact with,” Hambali said. “Moussaoui was constantly suggesting operations the rest of them thought were ridiculous.”
Tawfiq Bin Atash, a senior al Qaeda operative considered the mastermind of the USS Cole bombing in 2000, also assisted the 9/11 plot. He said Moussaoui called him every day on a phone al Qaeda reserved for emergencies. As a result, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed told him to break contact with Moussaoui.
Or, consider this, from the 9/11 Report:
In addition to staging actual terrorist attacks in partnership with al Qaeda, Hambali and JI assisted al Qaeda operatives passing through Kuala Lumpur. One important occasion was in December 1999–January 2000. Hambali accommodated KSM’s requests to help several veterans whom KSM had just finished training in Karachi. They included Tawfiq bin Attash, also known as Khallad,who later would help bomb the USS Cole,and future 9/11 hijackers Nawaf al Hazmi and Khalid al Mihdhar. Hambali arranged lodging for them
and helped them purchase airline tickets for their onward travel. Later that year, Hambali and his crew would provide accommodations and other assistance (including information on flight schools and help in acquiring ammonium nitrate) for Zacarias Moussaoui,an al Qaeda operative sent to Malaysia by Atef and KSM.
