Mar 14 2006
Was Zawahiri, AQ Number 2, In the US?
** Updates at the end **
The AP is reporting an FBI informant has claimed that Zawahiri, Bin Laden’s number two in Al Qaeda was in the US prior to 9-11:
An FBI informant testified today that Osama bin Laden’s right-hand man lived in the Central Valley town of Lodi before the 2001 terrorist attacks.
The man testifying in Sacramento today at a terrorism-related trial was Naseem Khan. The man he was referring to is Ayman al-Zawahri, bin Laden’s physician and top deputy.
But there was no corroboration of Khan’s testimony that al-Zawahri, an Egyptian, lived in Lodi’s largely Pakistani community and regularly attended the mosque there in 1998 and 1999.
The testimony came during an ongoing terrorism-related trial involving a father and son from Lodi, an agricultural town about 35 miles south of Sacramento.
The government informant, Naseem Khan, testified that he often saw Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden’s physician and top deputy, attending a mosque in Lodi in 1998 and 1999. Khan was living there at the time.
“Every time I would go to the mosque, (al-Zawahri) would be coming or going,” Khan testified, according to a story posted Monday on The Sacramento Bee’s Web site. “He would quietly come to the mosque and leave.”
Prosecutors offered the testimony to show why the FBI began investigating Lodi’s Islamic community. The agency recruited Khan in December 2001, and he initially focused his undercover efforts on two Muslim clerics.
This could ruin the case, not help it? He is a government witness? One thing to remember is about Able Danger is the effort by SOCOM to alert the FBI to possible terrorists in the US. Most reporting exclude the 9-11 terrorists themselves. But that is not to say other high profile terrorists could have been here. 9-11 highjackers Hamzi and Midhar were in San Diego communicating with Al Qaeda through Yemen and not detected. Probably because it was traditional for the NSA not to pass on leads against people in the US legally prior to 9-11.
Look at the dates again:
The testimony came during an ongoing terrorism-related trial involving a father and son from Lodi, an agricultural town about 35 miles south of Sacramento.
The government informant, Naseem Khan, testified that he often saw Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden’s physician and top deputy, attending a mosque in Lodi in 1998 and 1999. Khan was living there at the time.
“Every time I would go to the mosque, (al-Zawahri) would be coming or going,” Khan testified, according to a story posted Monday on The Sacramento Bee’s Web site. “He would quietly come to the mosque and leave.”
Prosecutors offered the testimony to show why the FBI began investigating Lodi’s Islamic community. The agency recruited Khan in December 2001, and he initially focused his undercover efforts on two Muslim clerics.
…
The agency recruited Khan in December 2001, and he initially focused his undercover efforts on two Muslim clerics.
The recruitment was after 9-11. The sightings of Zarwahiri were at the beginning of the Able Danger effort to find Al Qaeda. Zawahiri was definitely Al Qaeda, and worth an effort to notify the FBI in the summer of 2000. It is not unreasonable to find Zawahiri in the US it turns out:
Al-Zawahri is known to have traveled to the United States in the years before the terrorist attacks, as did members of the Taliban. Federal officials and news accounts say he passed through Northern California on fundraising missions during the late 1980s and early 1990s, travels that included visits to mosques in the San Francisco Bay area, Stockton and Sacramento.
Anybody remember this from the 9-11 Omission Report? Probably not since they only went back as far as 1996-98 or so.
He may have lived in the Sacramento area for an undetermined period in or about 1995 while visiting area mosques, according to an FBI agent in Washington, D.C., who spoke Monday on condition he not be named.
Interesting. The FBI had him in the US. This is definitely news the American people should have learned from the 9-11 Omission. Of course, this is the time that Gorelick penned her infamous Wall memo. This doesn’t make sense. Why would prosecutors push their witness into a crazy line of testimony? Unless it was true?
Addendum: The Washington Post is reporting this story, so it cannot be a total flake job.
Update: Captain Ed echoes thie gist of my reaction to this, how is it the 9-11 Report never mentioned Zawahiri in America between the two World Trade Center attacks? Just because he was here before their 1996 cutoff date? What if Bin Laden had been here? Because it is exactly the same kind of news since Zawahiri is well known to be the mastermind behind the image of Bin Laden. I am still just stunned about this revelation. How do we avoid this in the future if it was never part of the lessons learned about 9-11?
More at Michelle Malkin’s. Apparently Debbie Schlussel was on this story a while back – too bad she didn’t work for the 9-11 Omission. Then again, her obsession with Jack Baur seems a bit off the mark and very irrelevant. She seems to be from that crowd where “all Ayrabs are bad” when she rants about Keifer Sutherland stands by those not at war with us. But she did have the story though.
It will be interesting to see how this develops. Knowing that the
Washington Post has also reported it, however, seems to me more
worrying than reassuring. It seems inconceivable that the story
could be true without Zawahiri’s presence being favored by some faction within friendly intelligence agencies, given his known connection with (and incarceration for) the Sadat assassination. But that is probably exactly the unwarranted conclusion this (probable) disinformation is seeking to produce. In any case, thanks for a very provocative post. By all means keep following the ball on this and related matters.
Him living or visiting California or any state in the USA is totally credible. I read most blogs regarding Able Danger and also the recent Oklahoma University Bomber (2005), Oklahoma City Bombing (1995), WTC1 (1993) & WTC2 (2001) and how they are all tied together by the same people and their associates. I believe the best most concise information came from Jana Davis (former FOX reporter in OKC). Anyway… she and others mention him visiting Oklahoma and the infamous Norman, Oklahoma Mosque. This mosque is where everyone from Al Zawahiri to Moussaui have hung out. Also, many of Timothy McVeigh’s & Terry Nichol’s middle eastern buddies (who were never indicted despite loads of witnesses and proof… another FBI cover-up) hung out at this mosque. I think there is even word Bin Ladin himself visited this mosque and, thus, the USA.
The story about Zawahiri’s visit has been around since 9-11. It was described as a fund raising visit when first reported. I doubt it had much to do wth Able Danger. I think he had come and gone before that program was operational.
Al Qaeda’s Zawahiri Linked to California Terror Cell…
Did al Qaeda’s #2 man make a trip to Lodi, California? Strange days indeed, most peculiar momma. As you know, we’ve followed the Lodi terrorism trial fairly closely (see below). From the beginning, leaks have indicated that the terror ring……
AJ–
Maybe the Commission didn’t get/report this information because the FBI was investigating these people in America and didn’t want to tip them off.
The LA Times has this story, too.
He apparently was in the US recruiting people for the war in Afghanistan against the Soviets. Seems like we wouold have noticed that.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-lodi14mar14,1,7290907.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-california
SNIPS
Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s top strategist and personal physician, is believed to have visited the United States on at least two occasions. In 1989, he came to Brooklyn, New York, to recruit fighters for the war in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union. The FBI believes that Zawahiri returned in 1993 to raise money in Santa Clara, Calif.
In 1998, when Khan said the terrorist leader was in Lodi, Zawahiri was merging his Egyptian operation with Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda. He became a wanted man in the United States and abroad. He has been accused of planning the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
Eye on the Watcher’s Council…
As you may know the members of the Watcher’s Council each nominate one of his or her own posts and one non-Council post for consideration by the whole Council. The complete list of this week’s Council nominations is here. Here’s what…
Shaffer and Smith are suing the DoD, DIA, and four individuals:
“The suit, filed Feb. 27 in the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia, names the Defense Department, Defense Intelligence Agency, Army and four individuals, including DIA General Counsel George Peirce, Defense General Counsel William Haynes and Army Senior Deputy General Counsel Tom Taylor as defendants.”
http://federaltimes.com/index.php?S=1598136
Here is the perspective of the Daily Times of Pakistan on all of this
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006%5C03%5C16%5Cstory_16-3-2006_pg7_48