Moussaoui Jury Misled About Identity of Top 9/11 Paymasters

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The Los Angeles Times cites a US government report that lays out new details about pre-9/11 al-Qaeda leadership. That report was presented Monday to the jury in the Moussaoui case, naming a previously unidentified top al-Qaeda planner involved in the 9/11 attacks. That information appears to have been, at the very best, incomplete and was likely highly misleading about the structure, leadership and financing of the organization Mossaoui now claims to have had a key role in.

The LAT article identifies a Jordanian as a a previously unnamed top commander in the plot. That is contradicted by a report coming out of The Tribune of India which, if credible, casts new light on what U.S. and western intelligence knew in advance about the 9/11 attack. It focuses on the role within al-Qaeda of a Pakistani with a British passport, Saeed Sheikh, identified as being in charge of the attack group's finances and communications. At the same time, Sheikh was working as an intelligence asset for Pakistan, the US, and UK. See,
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-ksm29mar29,0,6134245.story?coll=la-home-nation ;cf.,
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2006/20060327/main2.htm

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Both of these accounts claim to offer new information about previously undisclosed key players in the 9/11 attack. The US report shared with the jury in the Moussaui case makes no mention of the Pakistani, while the Indian report doesn't make reference to the Jordanian.

What are we to make of this discrepancy, and the allegation, repeated in both the Indian and Pakistani press, that the 9/11 Commission Report omitted key information about the role of Pakistan at the behest of lobbyists paid by the Musharraf regime? See, http://www.telegraphindia.com/1060313/asp/nation/story_5962372.asp ; http://www.thefridaytimes.com/ Fri. 3/9/06 Issue.


The LAT article claims it is based in new information extracted from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), who is generally acknowledged to have had overall operational command within al-Qaeda over the 9/11 attack operation. The Times story states:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-ksm29mar29,0,6134245.story?coll=la-home-nation


According to a 58-page summary read in court Monday, Mohammed broke the Sept. 11 participants into six groups, each having a different level of involvement in the plot or prior knowledge of it.

"In the top tier were Osama bin Laden, his loyal aide and military commander Mohammed Atef and Mohammed himself, along with his designated liaison to the hijackers, Ramzi Binalshibh, the summary stated.

"The only other member of the top tier was Abu Turab al-Urduni — a Jordanian who, according to Mohammed's statement, had "full knowledge" of the plot as trainer of 10 of the "muscle" hijackers; their job was to commandeer the planes, subdue the pilots and keep the passengers at bay.

"Abu Turab, as he was referred to in the summary, had years of experience with Al Qaeda and was working at the terrorist network's Al Matar complex in Afghanistan in late 2000 and early 2001 when 10 would-be hijackers were given to him for training, Mohammed's interrogation summary said."

The LA Times story goes on to identify two figures, Ammar al-Baluchi and Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, as the primary paymasters for the attack cell:

"The disclosures, if true, are significant in that one of the more senior co-conspirators of the Sept. 11 attacks — Abu Turab — has never been identified publicly until now despite years of investigations, public hearings and commission reports. Mohammed also named two Al Qaeda officials, whose identities were known, as having played previously undisclosed but lesser roles in the attacks.One is Ammar al-Baluchi, a nephew of Mohammed who rose to become one of Al Qaeda's top operatives before being captured in Pakistan in May 2003.

"Mohammed identified Baluchi as a key travel and financial facilitator for the hijackers, along with Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, whose role as a United Arab Emirates-based paymaster for the attacks has been acknowledged by U.S. officials since he was captured with Mohammed in raids in Pakistan in March 2003.The other operative whose role Mohammed detailed was Abd Al-Rahim Ghulam Rabbani, also known as Abu Ramah. Mohammed said Abu Ramah helped several of the hijackers go through Pakistan on their way in and out of Afghanistan. The interrogation summary also alludes to seven lower-level participants who have not been publicly identified, but it did not include their names."

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On March 26, Tribune of India carried a story that identified Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh as a member of bin Laden's Majlis Al-Shura, the al-Qaeda command that planned the the 9/11 hijacking, which also included KSM and Ramzi bin al-Shebh. The latter two are familiar 9/11 figures also named in the U.S. report, along with Mohamed Atef. This appears to be the same operational group, but US and Indian accounts differ with respect to the identity of possible third, fourth and fifth key members. We have to wonder why these group portraits overlap, but are so different.

The Tribune story concludes: " the military government of General Pervez Musharraf succeeded in getting vital information removed from the final (9/11) report." According to Tribune, an American military intelligence officer named John M. Newman identified Saeed Sheikh, who had been accused of a 1999 bombing an Indian Airliner, as being a top al-Qaeda figure who actually arranged money and communications for the 9/11 attack. Newman is reported as having revealed information that was removed from the final draft of the public 9/11 Commission Report:

“Saeed Sheikh was probably a triple agent” who operated for Pakistani, American and British intelligence while being an Al-Qaida’s top functionary. After his release in 1999, Ahmad Omar Saeed Sheikh, a British national of Pakistani origin, was appointed member of the Majlis Al-Shura by Osama Bin Laden, said the testimony, which did not find mention in the final report on 9/11.

SNIP

"Sheikh, who carried many names, including Mustafa Ahmed, Mustafa Shmed al-Hasawi, Mustafa Mahmoud Saeed Ahmed, Mustafa Mohammed Ahmed, is a hijacking, kidnapping and financial expert. He was tasked with killing Daniel Pearl and is understood to have funded 9/11 by wiring $100,000 to Mohammed Atta.
"Sheikh, the man about whom the Commission of Inquiry report utters no word, overhauled Al-Qaida’s logistics, communications and financial networks and was given responsibilities in international liaisons such as relations with the Hezbollah or the Sudanese National Islamic Front.

"To facilitate financial and communications needs, he designed a new secure, encrypted, web-based communications system for Al-Qaida. There was talk that he would someday succeed Bin Laden. Over and above all these responsibilities, Sheikh had another extremely sensitive job for Al-Qaida. He was the group’s principal liaison with the ISI. He worked closely with various current and former officers of Pakistani intelligence, including Lieut-General Mohammed Aziz Khan, who along with President Pervez Musharraf himself, was the most powerful commander in Pakistan. A product of the London School of Economics, he went on to play a vital role in 9/11 by financing the hijackers. For his trouble, he received the same impersonal budget as the two other key coordinators, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi bin Al-Shibh."

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Clearly, the Moussaoui jury was given information that is closely related, but different from the account that has been made public elsewhere. Someone is way off base here. The Indian and Pakistani media have been known to serve as conduits for disinformation inspired by their respective government's intelligence services. But, that is as well the case for major American newspapers.

We do know that the 9/11 Commission Report redacted 27 pages of materials reportedly related to Saudi financing of the 9/11 attacks. It has been alleged that similar information was withheld from the final draft at the behest of Pakistan. What do we know about the source cited by the Asian reports about Saeed Sheikh? We know that John Newman exists, and for 21 years was US Army Intelligence officer, served as Assistant to the Director of the NSA, and is currently Professor of History at the University of Maryland. This is his Biography at the JFK Library, where he desposited the papers from his 1992 book about the Vietnam War: http://www.jfklibrary.net/fa_newman.html

Biographical Note
John M. Newman is a faculty member of the University of Maryland, University College, where he teaches courses in Soviet, Chinese Communist, East Asian, and Vietnam War history, as well as Sino-Soviet and U.S.-Soviet relations. Major Newman served in the Armed Forces in Thailand, the Philippines, Japan, and China.

Collection Overview
This collection consists of photocopies of documents John Newman collected for his research on his 1992 book, JFK and Vietnam: Deception, Intrigue, and the Struggle for Power. Many of the items were recently declassified.

John Newman had this to say on July 22, 2005:


Unofficial transcript of John Newman’s statement at the July 22nd Congressional Briefing: The 9/11 Commission Report One Year Later: A Citizens’ Response – Did They Get It Right?

http://www.gnn.tv/blogs/10734/John_Newman_Former_Military_Intelligence_July_22nd_2005
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It’s a pleasure to be here, an honor to be here today, and to make my small contribution. It falls to me this morning to bring to your attention the story of Saeed Sheikh, whose full name is Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, and his astonishing rise to power in Al Qaeda, his crucial role in 9/11, which is completely, utterly, missing from the 9/11 Commission report…and also to deal with what US Intelligence knew about his links to the ISI, (Pakistani Intelligence), and what, if anything, was said or not said in the Commission report about these things.

This 28 year-old British national of Pakistani extraction left the prestigious London School of Economics in 1993 to hook up with Pakistani terrorists in Bosnia. After that he took up Jihad and trained in the terror camps in Afghanistan. In 1994 he tried to spring a terrorist leader from a jail in India, by luring an American and 3 Britons to locations where they were kidnapped, but the plot failed, and he ended up in jail instead, the hostages were rescued.

Pakistan’s Intelligence Service, (the ISI), paid for his lawyer, but he was never tried during his 5 years of incarceration. In 1995, five hostages, including an American, were killed in an attempt to spring Omar Saeed Sheikh from jail. An Indian citizen was murdered in 1999 when Al Qaeda and the ISI succeeded in freeing Saeed Sheikh by hijacking Indian Airlines flight 814.

Bin Laden immediately appointed Saeed Sheikh as a member of the Majis Al-Shura, the elite political council of Al Qaeda, and referred to Sheikh as his special son. No attempt was made to arrest him when he returned to Pakistan; the ISI gave him a home, and protection from the police. He lived openly and frequented swanky parties attended by senior government officials. US government sources told Newsweek he was a ‘protected asset’ of the ISI.

During his imprisonment there was no indictment and no trial in India, there were no indictments in Britain or the United States either. Despite his kidnapping of British citizens he was allowed to immediately travel to London… go figure.

On January 2nd, 2000 the British Foreign Office spokesman would only say that this was so because he was a British Citizen and had not been convicted of any offenses overseas. There was no conviction because there had been no trial, and Britain could have indicted and tried Said Sheikh if they’d wanted to, the fact is, they didn’t want to.

They waited until after a September 2002 conviction for the murder of Daniel Pearl, (most Americans know about this man), to ask questions of the Indian government about his connections with the first kidnapping.

The British press called this long delay a mystery, but the outraged families of Sheikh’s victims condemned it, and called their government’s decision a disgrace, and a signal to others to do the same.

The Americans did not act either. Even though he had kidnapped an American citizen in 1994, and another American had died in an attempt to break him out in ’95. These events led to no indictment in 1994, no indictment in ’95, and there was no indictment after the hijacking of flight 814 in 1999. The United States would wait until after the 9/11 attacks to take action, sealing an indictment of Saeed Sheikh for the 1994 kidnapping in November 2001.

The question is, why? Did the United States not indict Saeed Sheikh because he was a British informant?

While the CIA itself claims that it failed to penetrate Al Qaeda’s leadership, the agency has acknowledged on Capitol Hill and various forums that there were numerous sources being handled by foreign intelligence services.

Did the agency receive information provided by Saeed Sheikh from British or Pakistani intelligence? This would help explain why Saeed Sheikh was not indicted and escaped justice for his crimes and traveled freely around England.

If this is correct, then if Saeed Sheikh had been arrested, the best penetration of the Al Qaeda leadership would have been lost. Al Qaeda had learned in the early 1990’s from the Ali Mohammed case… that the benefits far outweighed the risks of becoming an informant for a Western intelligence agency…

If the foregoing analysis has any merit, Western intelligence agencies were receiving reports from a senior Al Qaeda source. Once again, however, Al Qaeda had used Western intelligence to accomplish its own mission.

Saeed Sheikh was probably a triple agent.

According to Pakistani police reports for two years after his release Saeed Sheikh traveled regularly to training camps in Afghanistan where he trained recruits for Al Qaeda. According to British police reports he trained the 9/11 terrorists in hijacking techniques. Said Sheikh turned Al Qaeda, (oh, by the way he reported directly to Abu Zubaydah, Al Qaeda’s chief of external operations), into the more secure and capable operation that it was on the morning of 9/11.

Saeed Sheikh, the man about whom the Commission report utters not one word, overhauled Al Qaeda’s logistics, communications and financial networks and was given responsibilities in international liaisons, such as relations with the Hezbollah, or the Sudanese National Islamic Front.

SNIP

They had indeed found the smoking gun but had no idea of the bombshell they would uncover one week later. Then, Mustafa Mohammed Ahmed, like Mustafa Mahmoud Saeed Ahmed before him were dropped as the Dubai paymaster, and the 9/11 Commission does not mention either of those names in the extensive list of those connected to the plot.

At the end of the first week of October an FBI team investigating the 9/11 attacks made a startling breakthrough, the first details emerged on CNN’s coverage, the investigation now identified Mustafa Ahmed al-Hasawi as our Saeed Sheikh. The man released from prison in India less than 2 years ago after hijackers of an Indian Airlines flight demanded his freedom, the sources for this CNN report were said to be ‘senior level US government sources’, and US investigators. Two days later on CNN, they followed up the story reporting Indian and US authorities now see a link between the 1999 Indian Airlines flight 814 hijacking and the September 11th attacks in the United States. Freed was Omar Saeed Sheikh whom authorities say used a pseudonym to wire $100,000 to Mohammed Atta who distributed the money in the United States.

But there was more. An FBI team, working with cell phone numbers provided by Indian intelligence uncovered a new smoking gun. They learned that the chief of the ISI, Mahmoud Ahmed, had ordered Saeed Sheikh to send $100,000 of the kidnapping ransom to Mohammed Atta, a month before the 9/11 attack. This ugly detail emerged when the FBI team ran traces on Saeed Sheikh’s cell phone number. Beginning in July, the ISI chief’s number was among the regular people that Saeed Sheikh communicated with.

On Oct. 7th, President Musharaf sacked Ahmed for this nefarious act, this story was widely covered in the press around the world, not covered here in the United States, one piece was added on Oct. 9th, that Musharaf had done this at the behest of the US authorities which asked for his removal after they confirmed the role of the money transfer to Atta.

This bombshell could not have come at a worse time, Washington and London were preparing to invade Afghanistan, while securing Pakistan as an ally, it’s hard to imagine a revelation more damaging than the fact that Pakistan’s intelligence service and most powerful army commanders were behind were behind the 9/11 attack, and the paymaster, a known terrorist who had been able to carry out his mission because the US and UK had set aside justice for his crimes.

More than the ISI chief had been involved in Pakistan, the investigation established that there were others, General Aziz Khan and others (I’ll skip over that because I’m out of time).

It’s now clear that these Islamist generals who installed Musharaf in the 1999 coup were behind Saeed Sheikh. Musharaf fired them all the same day, October 7th, the day after Saeed Sheikh’s links to them were discovered.

SNIP

It’s long past time to come clean, about Ahmed Saeed Sheikh.

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This really makes one wonder, what else the Moussaoui jury hasn't heard about what U.S. intelligence actually knew in advance about the organization that carried out the 9/11 attacks, and withheld from FBI investigators. One has to conclude that was far more than Zacarias Moussaoui could ever have known.



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2006. Mark G. Levey