we're gonna learn one day that Pence was telling the truth about Iran and 9/11
Iran helped 9/11, using the Saudis as proxies. Look at the facts. - US Treasury agrees
- Thread starter ☑︎#VoteDemocrat
- Start date
Again, what was Zawahiri doing being trained by the Russians in 1996?
Why did Bin Laden shift to attacking Americans after meeting Zawahiri in 1998?
[In my announcement yesterday regarding TOP SECRET UMBRA’s second birthday, I explained that there will be periodic Special Reports on developing topics of high importance open to all subscribers … and one immediately landed, as if on cue.]
Last night, President Joe Biden announced to the nation the death of Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the arch-terrorist who created Al-Qa’ida in 1998 with the late Osama bin Laden. Since the death of the latter jihadist at the hands of the U.S. military and intelligence services in Pakistan in May 2011, Zawahiri has headed AQ, making him one of the world’s most wanted men.
After 24 years of trying to get him – Zawahiri has been in the sights of U.S. intelligence since August 1998, when he played a key role in the East African embassy bombings – the Intelligence Community caught up with the Egyptian physician-turned-terrorist in Kabul, the Afghan capital. They found him in Sherpur, one of Kabul’s upscale districts, on Sunday morning when Zawahiri was taken out by a modified Hellfire missile fired from a CIA drone. The special missile, dubbed an R9X, has blades rather than a high explosive warhead. It’s basically a flying whirling Ginsu knife. Not to put too fine a point on it, but Zawahiri got put in something like a food processor.
That’s a fitting end for the 71-year-old terror leader, who had countless gallons of innocent blood on his hands. President Biden was careful to note that there was no “collateral damage”: nobody but Zawahiri got hurt in this very precision strike. This attack lessens a bit of the pain resulting from the Biden administration’s shambolic retreat from Kabul one year ago this month. It also reduces the effectiveness of AQ, which was already in questionable shape more than two decades after the 9/11 attacks.
As for the newly martyred Zawahiri himself, we can leave that verdict to future historians. Much has been written about him, including by this author, Needless to say he will be revered by some in perpetuity and reviled by many more. That said, some aspects of Zawahiri’s biography include intriguing black spots, none more mysterious than the half-year he spent in Russia in late 1996 and early 1997. This episode is known, it was covered in a few media accounts, vaguely. I first heard about it in Intelligence Community circles, and even there the story’s implications were so troubling that most spooks preferred to change the subject.
The only serious effort to understand Zawahiri’s Russian adventure by an informed author remains my analysis of it, published eight years ago. I will quote myself a bit to review my findings:
The outline of the story is clear. At about 4 am on December 1, 1996, Zawahiri was detained in southern Russia while attempting to enter Chechnya, the breakaway province of Moscow recently roiled by war. Accompanying the doctor in the van were two other radicals from Egypt and a Chechen guide. The Egyptians, wanted men in their home country and several others, were traveling under aliases; Zawahiri was “Abdullah Imam Mohammed Amin,” according to the Sudanese passport he carried, which had stamps from many countries – among them Yemen, Malaysia, Singapore – he had visited in the 20 months before his arrest.
Zawahiri’s two Egyptian companions were veteran mujahidin from Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ), the group Zawahiri had been associated with for years and had headed since 1993. Ahmad Salama Mabruk ran EIJ’s activities in Azerbaijan under the cover of a trading firm called Bavari-C, while Mahmud Hisham al-Hennawi had extensive experience on jihad in parts of Asia.
The three Arabs were extensively interrogated by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), which noted the inmates’ religious fervor, and the surprising support they received from Islamic organizations around the Muslim world. Twenty-six imams signed an appeal for the release of the three “businessmen”; others denounced Russian authorities of doing “the devil’s work” by detaining the hard-praying Muslims.
The FSB had ample reason to doubt the Arabs’ cover story. Among the items confiscated from the trio included details about bank accounts in Hong Kong, mainland China, Malaysia, and the U.S. (specifically St. Louis), plus substantial cash in seven currencies. Their laptop computer was seized and subjected to forensic analysis by the FSB. “Mr. Amin,” whose Sudanese passport depicted a Western-dressed middle-aged man with a very short beard, arrived in Russia possessing two forged graduation certificates from Cairo University’s medical faculty, with differing dates. FSB investigation of Bavari-C, the EIJ front company in Baku, quickly determined that no such firm existed in Azerbaijan.
Radical Muslims in Russia, including one member of the Duma, pleaded for their release, explaining that the Arabs had come to Russia to “study the market for food trade.” Various activists from across the region likewise wrote letters on the men’s behalf, claiming they embodied “honesty and decency”; the advocates included leading Arab mujahidin, among them Tharwat Salah Shehata, later head of EIJ. When Shehata got permission to visit “Mr. Amin” in his prison cell, he was given an encrypted letter by the inmate; after the visit, the FSB claimed to have found $3,000 in the cell occupied by the Arabs.
When the case finally went to court in April 1997, “Mr. Amin” prayed hard and lied effectively, claiming that he had entered Russia “to find out the price for leather, medicine, and other goods.” Rejecting the prosecution’s request for a three-year sentence, the judge gave them six months each; almost immediately they were released, time served. The FSB returned the men their possessions, including the cash, communications gear, and the laptop. After their release, Zawahiri spent ten days clandestinely meeting with Islamists in Dagestan, which presumably had been the original purpose of his trip to the region. Shortly thereafter, he headed for Afghanistan to establish his fateful alliance with bin Laden, which was cemented in the mid-February 1998 announcement of a new partnership between the men and their organizations in a Global Islamic Front for Jihad against Jews and Crusaders. Thus was al-Qa’ida officially born and the path to 9/11 was established.
I would love to tell you, dear reader, that over the intervening eight years, other investigative journalists have jumped on this tantalizing story … but that would be a lie. For reasons which I remain challenged to explain, my reporting pretty much fell down the memory hole. Neither have any Western governments, certainly not the American, decided to share anything which their intelligence services may know about this strange saga. My conclusions back in 2014 were highly tentative, by necessity, since we really don’t know what was going on between Zawahiri and the FSB:
Zawahiri has been tight-lipped about his half-year in Russia; his numerous writings and pronouncements about his life barely mention the tale. “God blinded them to our identities,” he explained. The FSB agrees that they failed to identify the leading holy warrior. “In 1997, Russian special services were not aware of al-Zawahiri,” elaborated an FSB spokesman in 2003: “However, later, using various databases, we managed to identify this former detainee.”
There are many reasons to doubt the official story told by both sides in the affair. In the first place, Zawahiri was one of the world’s most wanted terrorists in 1996, having played a leading role in the assassination of President Anwar Sadat in 1981; the doctor’s role in the subsequent public trial was televised in many countries. He was hardly a secret mujahid. Furthermore, it is difficult to believe that a security service as proficient and thorough as the FSB did not have its interest piqued by the appearance of three Arab mystery men, bearing multiple identities and cash, in the middle of a warzone. It is equally difficult to accept that the FSB was unable to uncover the mysteries contained in Zawahiri’s laptop – as the Americans would do after many such laptops belonging to al-Qa’ida leadership were captured in Afghanistan after 9/11 – had the Russians really wanted to. Last, it can be assumed that the FSB would have tortured the Arabs to obtain information, had that been deemed necessary; and Zawahiri’s breaking by the Egyptian security service through torture in the 1980s is a matter of public record, and a subject of some remorse by the al-Qa’ida leader.
So, what was really going on here? I speculated, carefully:
While the idea that Russian intelligence may have developed a relationship with Zawahiri sounds fantastic to most in the West, the notion is far from implausible, and is consistent with known Soviet/Russian espionage practices. During the Cold War, the KGB had robust ties with many terrorist groups, including several from the Middle East. Its links to the PLO, including arms and training for cadres, were substantial for decades, while Palestinian groups like PFLP-GC were, in effect, wholly owned subsidiaries of the KGB. It would be naïve to think such ties evaporated with the Soviet Union. Moreover, anyone acquainted with the Russian practice of provokatsiya (provocation) as Moscow’s preferred counterterrorism technique, finds the idea of a Russian relationship with al-Qa’ida to be entirely plausible. Indeed, such is the easiest explanation for Zawahiri’s six months in Russian custody and sudden release back to wage jihad.
Regrettably, the last non-Russian who might be able to explain this weird account died on Sunday morning.
What, then, can we conclude about al-Qa’ida’s murky Russian connection? Unsurprisingly, Dr. Zawahiri has had little to say about his half-year adventure with the FSB. He has often criticized Russia and its policies, sometimes in vehement terms. Yet he speaks of Iran with equal venom, and al-Qa’ida’s discreet yet detectable relationship with Iranian intelligence goes back to at least 1996, and apparently continues to the present day.
His two Egyptian cellmates aren’t available to add details. Mahmud Hisham al-Hennawi stayed in the Caucasus, was convicted in Egypt in 1998 on terrorism charges in absentia, receiving a ten-year sentence, and was reportedly killed in action in Chechnya in 2005. Ahmad Salama Mabruk was arrested in Azerbaijan in 1998 on terrorism charges, and was extradited to Egypt, where he was convicted on numerous charges and sent to prison. The FSB, to no one’s surprise, has said nothing publicly about this case except for a brief press release in 2003.
It is fanciful to suggest that any formal alliance exists between Moscow and al-Qa’ida; bin Laden’s mujahidin have worked with several foreign security agencies in the service of the jihad, but have never been willing to put themselves fully at the disposal of any of them.
Nevertheless, it seems justified, based on the available evidence, to suggest that Dr. Zawahiri reached a quid pro quo with Moscow while he was in FSB custody. That he underwent FSB training appears plausible; that there may be some kind of relationship even today between Russia and al-Qa’ida exists within the realm of possibility. Russia, with its large, growing, and potentially restless Muslim minority, would have ample motivation to reach terms with al-Qa’ida, in the hope of stemming radicalism.
I ended my piece with a suggestion for more research, “This vexing issue continues to offer more questions than answers, and needs additional research, particularly considering the state of relations between Moscow and the West,” yet nothing of substance has appeared since. With the death of Dr. Zawahiri, the only information which might shed light on what really happened would be first-person accounts from FSB officers or possible FSB records. The former seems like a death-wish in the current climate, while it should not be assumed that such sensitive paperwork would be retained by the Russian special services (if they have been retained they presumably are being guarded by Top Men in Moscow).
I’m regularly asked by readers when they want to know more than I can share, “Will we ever know the full truth about XYZ?” My stock reply is: “Ever is a long time.” It’s an especially long time in Russia.
Why did Bin Laden shift to attacking Americans after meeting Zawahiri in 1998?
Do traces of KGB, FSB and GRU lead to Islamic State?
This time I decided to draw attention to a significant role (which was a surprise for many experts) of Chechen terrorists in a battle of Islamic state that has become a main threat to the West. Based on this role, it is not only possible, but vital
www.academia.edu
Special Report: The Truth About Zawahiri’s Russian Sojourn Died with Him
It’s not like the media or Western governments were all that curious anyway (at least not publicly)
John Schindler22 hr ago[In my announcement yesterday regarding TOP SECRET UMBRA’s second birthday, I explained that there will be periodic Special Reports on developing topics of high importance open to all subscribers … and one immediately landed, as if on cue.]
Last night, President Joe Biden announced to the nation the death of Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the arch-terrorist who created Al-Qa’ida in 1998 with the late Osama bin Laden. Since the death of the latter jihadist at the hands of the U.S. military and intelligence services in Pakistan in May 2011, Zawahiri has headed AQ, making him one of the world’s most wanted men.
After 24 years of trying to get him – Zawahiri has been in the sights of U.S. intelligence since August 1998, when he played a key role in the East African embassy bombings – the Intelligence Community caught up with the Egyptian physician-turned-terrorist in Kabul, the Afghan capital. They found him in Sherpur, one of Kabul’s upscale districts, on Sunday morning when Zawahiri was taken out by a modified Hellfire missile fired from a CIA drone. The special missile, dubbed an R9X, has blades rather than a high explosive warhead. It’s basically a flying whirling Ginsu knife. Not to put too fine a point on it, but Zawahiri got put in something like a food processor.
That’s a fitting end for the 71-year-old terror leader, who had countless gallons of innocent blood on his hands. President Biden was careful to note that there was no “collateral damage”: nobody but Zawahiri got hurt in this very precision strike. This attack lessens a bit of the pain resulting from the Biden administration’s shambolic retreat from Kabul one year ago this month. It also reduces the effectiveness of AQ, which was already in questionable shape more than two decades after the 9/11 attacks.
As for the newly martyred Zawahiri himself, we can leave that verdict to future historians. Much has been written about him, including by this author, Needless to say he will be revered by some in perpetuity and reviled by many more. That said, some aspects of Zawahiri’s biography include intriguing black spots, none more mysterious than the half-year he spent in Russia in late 1996 and early 1997. This episode is known, it was covered in a few media accounts, vaguely. I first heard about it in Intelligence Community circles, and even there the story’s implications were so troubling that most spooks preferred to change the subject.
The only serious effort to understand Zawahiri’s Russian adventure by an informed author remains my analysis of it, published eight years ago. I will quote myself a bit to review my findings:
The outline of the story is clear. At about 4 am on December 1, 1996, Zawahiri was detained in southern Russia while attempting to enter Chechnya, the breakaway province of Moscow recently roiled by war. Accompanying the doctor in the van were two other radicals from Egypt and a Chechen guide. The Egyptians, wanted men in their home country and several others, were traveling under aliases; Zawahiri was “Abdullah Imam Mohammed Amin,” according to the Sudanese passport he carried, which had stamps from many countries – among them Yemen, Malaysia, Singapore – he had visited in the 20 months before his arrest.
Zawahiri’s two Egyptian companions were veteran mujahidin from Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ), the group Zawahiri had been associated with for years and had headed since 1993. Ahmad Salama Mabruk ran EIJ’s activities in Azerbaijan under the cover of a trading firm called Bavari-C, while Mahmud Hisham al-Hennawi had extensive experience on jihad in parts of Asia.
The three Arabs were extensively interrogated by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), which noted the inmates’ religious fervor, and the surprising support they received from Islamic organizations around the Muslim world. Twenty-six imams signed an appeal for the release of the three “businessmen”; others denounced Russian authorities of doing “the devil’s work” by detaining the hard-praying Muslims.
The FSB had ample reason to doubt the Arabs’ cover story. Among the items confiscated from the trio included details about bank accounts in Hong Kong, mainland China, Malaysia, and the U.S. (specifically St. Louis), plus substantial cash in seven currencies. Their laptop computer was seized and subjected to forensic analysis by the FSB. “Mr. Amin,” whose Sudanese passport depicted a Western-dressed middle-aged man with a very short beard, arrived in Russia possessing two forged graduation certificates from Cairo University’s medical faculty, with differing dates. FSB investigation of Bavari-C, the EIJ front company in Baku, quickly determined that no such firm existed in Azerbaijan.
Radical Muslims in Russia, including one member of the Duma, pleaded for their release, explaining that the Arabs had come to Russia to “study the market for food trade.” Various activists from across the region likewise wrote letters on the men’s behalf, claiming they embodied “honesty and decency”; the advocates included leading Arab mujahidin, among them Tharwat Salah Shehata, later head of EIJ. When Shehata got permission to visit “Mr. Amin” in his prison cell, he was given an encrypted letter by the inmate; after the visit, the FSB claimed to have found $3,000 in the cell occupied by the Arabs.
When the case finally went to court in April 1997, “Mr. Amin” prayed hard and lied effectively, claiming that he had entered Russia “to find out the price for leather, medicine, and other goods.” Rejecting the prosecution’s request for a three-year sentence, the judge gave them six months each; almost immediately they were released, time served. The FSB returned the men their possessions, including the cash, communications gear, and the laptop. After their release, Zawahiri spent ten days clandestinely meeting with Islamists in Dagestan, which presumably had been the original purpose of his trip to the region. Shortly thereafter, he headed for Afghanistan to establish his fateful alliance with bin Laden, which was cemented in the mid-February 1998 announcement of a new partnership between the men and their organizations in a Global Islamic Front for Jihad against Jews and Crusaders. Thus was al-Qa’ida officially born and the path to 9/11 was established.
I would love to tell you, dear reader, that over the intervening eight years, other investigative journalists have jumped on this tantalizing story … but that would be a lie. For reasons which I remain challenged to explain, my reporting pretty much fell down the memory hole. Neither have any Western governments, certainly not the American, decided to share anything which their intelligence services may know about this strange saga. My conclusions back in 2014 were highly tentative, by necessity, since we really don’t know what was going on between Zawahiri and the FSB:
Zawahiri has been tight-lipped about his half-year in Russia; his numerous writings and pronouncements about his life barely mention the tale. “God blinded them to our identities,” he explained. The FSB agrees that they failed to identify the leading holy warrior. “In 1997, Russian special services were not aware of al-Zawahiri,” elaborated an FSB spokesman in 2003: “However, later, using various databases, we managed to identify this former detainee.”
There are many reasons to doubt the official story told by both sides in the affair. In the first place, Zawahiri was one of the world’s most wanted terrorists in 1996, having played a leading role in the assassination of President Anwar Sadat in 1981; the doctor’s role in the subsequent public trial was televised in many countries. He was hardly a secret mujahid. Furthermore, it is difficult to believe that a security service as proficient and thorough as the FSB did not have its interest piqued by the appearance of three Arab mystery men, bearing multiple identities and cash, in the middle of a warzone. It is equally difficult to accept that the FSB was unable to uncover the mysteries contained in Zawahiri’s laptop – as the Americans would do after many such laptops belonging to al-Qa’ida leadership were captured in Afghanistan after 9/11 – had the Russians really wanted to. Last, it can be assumed that the FSB would have tortured the Arabs to obtain information, had that been deemed necessary; and Zawahiri’s breaking by the Egyptian security service through torture in the 1980s is a matter of public record, and a subject of some remorse by the al-Qa’ida leader.
So, what was really going on here? I speculated, carefully:
While the idea that Russian intelligence may have developed a relationship with Zawahiri sounds fantastic to most in the West, the notion is far from implausible, and is consistent with known Soviet/Russian espionage practices. During the Cold War, the KGB had robust ties with many terrorist groups, including several from the Middle East. Its links to the PLO, including arms and training for cadres, were substantial for decades, while Palestinian groups like PFLP-GC were, in effect, wholly owned subsidiaries of the KGB. It would be naïve to think such ties evaporated with the Soviet Union. Moreover, anyone acquainted with the Russian practice of provokatsiya (provocation) as Moscow’s preferred counterterrorism technique, finds the idea of a Russian relationship with al-Qa’ida to be entirely plausible. Indeed, such is the easiest explanation for Zawahiri’s six months in Russian custody and sudden release back to wage jihad.
Regrettably, the last non-Russian who might be able to explain this weird account died on Sunday morning.
What, then, can we conclude about al-Qa’ida’s murky Russian connection? Unsurprisingly, Dr. Zawahiri has had little to say about his half-year adventure with the FSB. He has often criticized Russia and its policies, sometimes in vehement terms. Yet he speaks of Iran with equal venom, and al-Qa’ida’s discreet yet detectable relationship with Iranian intelligence goes back to at least 1996, and apparently continues to the present day.
His two Egyptian cellmates aren’t available to add details. Mahmud Hisham al-Hennawi stayed in the Caucasus, was convicted in Egypt in 1998 on terrorism charges in absentia, receiving a ten-year sentence, and was reportedly killed in action in Chechnya in 2005. Ahmad Salama Mabruk was arrested in Azerbaijan in 1998 on terrorism charges, and was extradited to Egypt, where he was convicted on numerous charges and sent to prison. The FSB, to no one’s surprise, has said nothing publicly about this case except for a brief press release in 2003.
It is fanciful to suggest that any formal alliance exists between Moscow and al-Qa’ida; bin Laden’s mujahidin have worked with several foreign security agencies in the service of the jihad, but have never been willing to put themselves fully at the disposal of any of them.
Nevertheless, it seems justified, based on the available evidence, to suggest that Dr. Zawahiri reached a quid pro quo with Moscow while he was in FSB custody. That he underwent FSB training appears plausible; that there may be some kind of relationship even today between Russia and al-Qa’ida exists within the realm of possibility. Russia, with its large, growing, and potentially restless Muslim minority, would have ample motivation to reach terms with al-Qa’ida, in the hope of stemming radicalism.
I ended my piece with a suggestion for more research, “This vexing issue continues to offer more questions than answers, and needs additional research, particularly considering the state of relations between Moscow and the West,” yet nothing of substance has appeared since. With the death of Dr. Zawahiri, the only information which might shed light on what really happened would be first-person accounts from FSB officers or possible FSB records. The former seems like a death-wish in the current climate, while it should not be assumed that such sensitive paperwork would be retained by the Russian special services (if they have been retained they presumably are being guarded by Top Men in Moscow).
I’m regularly asked by readers when they want to know more than I can share, “Will we ever know the full truth about XYZ?” My stock reply is: “Ever is a long time.” It’s an especially long time in Russia.
Opinion | The time I met the brains of al-Qaeda - The Washington Post
Hamid MirOsama bin Laden, left, sits with Ayman al-Zawahiri during an interview on Nov. 10, 2001. (Hamid Mir/Daily Dawn via Reuters) Osama bin Laden, left, sits with Ayman al-Zawahiri during an interview on Nov. 10, 2001. (Hamid Mir/Daily Dawn via Reuters)
The first time I met Ayman al- Zawahiri, back in 1998, he was acting as Osama bin Laden’s interpreter — but it was clear he was much more than that.
It was my second interview with bin Laden, and Zawahiri impressed me right away. He translated bin Laden’s responses from Arabic into perfect English. Zawahiri, an Egyptian doctor by training, was able to pose my critical questions with a mild smile on his face, and then conveyed bin Laden’s responses to me in a very aggressive tone.
When I learned that Zawahiri had been killed by a U.S. drone strike in downtown Kabul, I thought about his deep ties to jihadism in the country. The fact that he was living openly in the capital was also a clear reminder that the Taliban has not changed its old ways — it’s evident Zawahiri was still a figure to be treated with respect, despite pledges to the West to shun international terrorists. And even if Zawahiri wasn’t the al-Qaeda operational mastermind he once was, he was clearly important for the Taliban: an Arab jihadist who openly opposed the Islamic State and saw the Taliban as a partner.
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If bin Laden was once the public face of al-Qaeda, Zawahiri was its brains.
My first interview with bin Laden took place in a cave in the Tora Bora mountains in 1997, where several of his comrades acted as interpreters. They were not Arabs, and bin Laden was clearly not satisfied with their work. The second interview a year later went very differently.
During the lunch break, I asked Zawahiri, “Where were you last year?” “I was in a Russian jail,” he answered. Bin Laden noticed my curiosity and added that it was not the first time his friend was arrested; he also spent many years in Egyptian jails. Now I wanted to know more about this man.
“Who are you?” I asked. “I am an eye surgeon, but it is no more a profession — it is just a hobby now,” Zawahiri replied. I laughed and asked about his real profession. He said he was in the business of medicines and chemicals. “Why did the Russians arrest you?” I asked. “Because I met some Chechens,” he said cryptically.
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By the end of our conversation, I learned that he had traveled to Europe, Australiaand New Zealand on different passports. He was one of the five signatories of bin Laden’s edict against the United States. This edict was the main subject of my discussion with bin Laden in that interview. “How can you justify the killing of innocent non-Muslim women and children in light of Islamic teachings?” I had asked bin Laden.
Zawahiri translated my question — then handed a book to bin Laden. Bin Laden dutifully quoted from the book. It was clear Zawahiri played a key role in justifying and amplifying al-Qaeda’s actions and objectives.
I spent two days with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan in 1998. I came to know from other al-Qaeda sources that Zawahiri traveled to Chechnya in search of some sort of portable nuclear weapon on the black market. When angered members of the Chechen mafia failed to secure a deal, they leaked the information about the presence of a mysterious Arab businessman in Grozny to the Russian security forces. Zawahiri was soon arrested with a fake Sudanese passport, but was released after six months because the Russians failed to learn his real identity.
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Within a few weeks of my second interview with bin Laden, I started receiving handwritten letters and booklets from Zawahiri through a Pakistani cleric. I met with Zawahiri again in Kabul seven weeks after the 9/11 attacks. Again, he was acting as interpreter during my third interview with bin Laden.
The United States had already launched Operation Enduring Freedom, and our interview took place in the midst of explosions and gunshots. Zawahiri seemed calm and even casually asked me about my China Xinjiang Airlines travel bag. He said he had also used the airline to travel to China. I tried to hide my worry. “You may be a James Bond of al-Qaeda, that’s why you are not looking worried, but I am not a James Bond; I am definitely worried,” I joked. “Let’s start the interview because I need to run away.”
Bin Laden claimed to have nuclear weapons in that interview. I doubted his claims, but Zawahiri said that anyone can buy nuclear weapons on the Russian black market “if you have $30 million.” His obsession with acquiring nuclear weapons made him very important for al-Qaeda.
These days, Zawahiri was seen more like a father figure for different militant groups hiding in Afghanistan. The Taliban made a mistake by allowing him to be there. In the end, his presence will be another factor hurting the people of Afghanistan, forcing countries that want to recognize the Taliban and establish diplomatic relations to continue to isolate the group.
Hamid Mir is a contributing columnist for the Global Opinions se
@88m3 @ADevilYouKhow @wire28 @dtownreppin214 @Leasy @Neo The Resurrected ONE
@dza @wire28 @BigMoneyGrip @Dameon Farrow @re'up @Blackfyre @NY's #1 Draft Pick @Skyfall @2Quik4UHoes
@987654321 look over these last few pages. I'd like your input.
You did amazing in this thread!! Wish they would acknowledge when you are correct. You have been on this for years.
Do traces of KGB, FSB and GRU lead to Islamic State?
This time I decided to draw attention to a significant role (which was a surprise for many experts) of Chechen terrorists in a battle of Islamic state that has become a main threat to the West. Based on this role, it is not only possible, but vital
www.academia.edu
MBwithadream
All Star
They gonna bomb us eventually when we least expect it.I'm going to be vindicated so hard
Just wait...you laugh now
@88m3 tell these boys my record...ask about Ukraineask about Russia
ADevilYouKhow
Rhyme Reason
Iran needs a better government
Are al Qaeda and Iran really at odds?
A photo, first posted on an anonymous Twitter account, circulated last week among terrorism watchers here in Washington. It received scant attention in the mainstream media.
www.washingtontimes.com
Are al Qaeda and Iran really at odds?
The debate about the Islamic Republic's collaboration with al Qaeda is far from over
By Jonathan Schanzer
Illustration on al Queda and Iran by Linas Garsys/The Washington Times more >
OPINION:
A photo, first posted on an anonymous Twitter account, circulated last week among terrorism watchers here in Washington. It received scant attention in the mainstream media. The now authenticated photo, dated 2015, shows three of al Qaeda’s top leaders smiling casually. Their names: Saif al Adel, Abu Muhammad al Masri, and Abu al Khayr al Masri. Their location: Tehran.
All three men served in key leadership positions for the world’s most dangerous terrorist organization. And all three men were apparently circulating freely in Iran.
Al-Adel is now believed to be on the short list of candidates to lead al Qaeda after the American assassination of Ayman al-Zawahiri in Afghanistan in early August. Al-Masri was a senior al Qaeda leader who was gunned down on the streets of Tehran, presumably by the Israeli Mossad, in November 2020. Al Masri, another senior al Qaeda leader, was felled in Syria by a U.S. drone strike in 2017.
The photo questions — yet again — the notion that al Qaeda and the Islamic Republic were at odds. If anything, they appear to cooperate, even if Sunni-Shi’ite sectarian tensions prevent a full-blown alliance.
American officials (mostly those advocating for a nuclear deal with Iran) have repeatedly and falsely asserted that the Iranian regime maintained an antagonistic relationship with al Qaeda, placing members of the world’s most dangerous terrorist group under house arrest. This assertion has been regurgitated by prominent beltway analysts such as Nelly Lahoud and Peter Bergen. Both wrote books recently, parroting lines proffered by U.S. officialdom, downplaying the ties between Tehran and al Qaeda. Both got it wrong.
Here’s just a sample of what we know:
The 9/11 Commission Report (released in 2004) states: “Iran facilitated the transit of al Qaeda members into and out of Afghanistan before 9/11 … some of these were future 9/11 hijackers.”
In 2009, the U.S. Treasury Department issued sanctions against four al Qaedaleaders based in Iran. One of them was Sa’ad bin Laden, the son of Osama bin Laden.
In 2012, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned Adel Radi Saqr al-Wahabi al-Harbi, a top al Qaeda operative in Iran. According to the Treasury press release, “Iran continues to allow al Qaeda to operate a core pipeline that moves al Qaeda money and fighters through Iran to support al Qaeda activities in South Asia. This network also sends funding and fighters to Syria.”
This came on the heels of a designation the year prior in which Treasury sanctioned “Ezedin Abdel Aziz Khalil, a prominent Iran-based al Qaeda facilitator, operating under an agreement between al Qaeda and the Iranian government.” Treasury targeted Khalil (aka Yasin al-Suri) along with five other al Qaedaoperatives, noting how Iran was a “critical transit point for funding to support al Qaeda’s activities in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This network serves as the core pipeline through which al Qaeda moves money, facilitators and operatives from across the Middle East to South Asia …”
What’s most notable about these revelations is that they were made by the Treasury during the Obama administration. When the Obama Administration inked the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear accord with the Islamic Republic in Iran, there was no discussion of this pipeline.
The administration yielded an estimated $150 billion dollars to the regime in exchange for fleeting nuclear restrictions. The regime’s malign regional activities, including its collaboration with al Qaeda, were deemed outside the purview of the agreement.
While the Obama administration ended its investigation into this collaboration, the Trump administration revived it. In 2017, the Central Intelligence Agency released (thanks to a campaign by FDD’s Long War Journal) a trove of documents from the 2011 raid by U.S. Navy SEALS on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Among the documents was a video that revealed that bin Laden’s son Hamza was married in Iran, with senior al Qaeda figures in attendance. In 2019, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo renewed the allegations of Iranian collusion with al Qaeda. In early 2021, he charged that Iran was the new home base for al Qaeda.
This did not stop the incoming Biden administration from pursuing a return to the nuclear deal that President Donald Trump exited in 2018. The deal currently being negotiated in Vienna could yield Iran an estimated $275 billion in the first year, and as much as $1 trillion over the ensuing decade. Once again, the regime’s ties to al Qaeda are not addressed.
Earlier this year, a federal judge found in favor of victims and families that sued Iran for providing “material support” to al Qaeda, among other groups that perpetrated terrorist attacks against American servicemembers and civilians in Afghanistan. The case offered new insights into this dynamic.
The debate about the Islamic Republic’s collaboration with al Qaeda is far from over. Much is already known, and there is ample evidence yet to be released. However, proponents of nuclear diplomacy with Iran hope to sweep it under the rug, for fear of scuttling talks.
Another 9/11 anniversary is approaching. For the sake of those who perished on that day, not to mention the men and women who gave their lives on the battlefields of Afghanistan, it’s time for a full and truthful account of this relationship to be released by the U.S. government. It should be produced without fear or favor.
• Jonathan Schanzer, a former terrorism finance analyst at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, is senior vice president for research at the nonpartisan think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD).
Copyright © 2022 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.
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Peep this article written in NOVEMBER 2000!
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A Glimpse at the Alliances of Terror
Nov. 7, 2000
By Milt Bearden and Larry Johnson
See the article in its original context from November 7, 2000, Section A, Page 29Buy Reprints
View on timesmachine
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As the destroyer Cole was being hauled around the Cape of Good Hope to its home port of Norfolk, Va., and amid the ruckus of the elections, a remarkable piece of intelligence dropped into the public's knowledge about international terrorism. It has drawn little notice yet, but it will likely cause the new administration to reassess American policy and search for a better formula for combating terrorism than launching a few cruise missiles at camps in Afghanistan or pharmaceutical plants in Sudan.
On Oct. 20, the Federal District Court in Manhattan accepted a guilty plea from Ali A. Mohamed, a former Green Beret sergeant and one of six men indicted for the bombings of American embassies in Africa in 1998. Mr. Mohamed not only confessed that he had taken part in a conspiracy to murder American citizens in Saudi Arabia and East Africa, but tied the assaults directly to the Saudi exile Osama bin Laden. Significantly, his confession also linked Mr. bin Laden with another terrorist at large -- the mysterious Hezbollah security chief, Imad Mughniyah.
Half of all Americans killed by international terrorists since 1980 have been murdered by groups associated with Mr. Mughniyah and Mr. bin Laden. Mr. Mughniyah, who is credibly implicated in the lion's share of the killings, is believed to have carried out the bombings of the United States Embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 and the hijacking of a TWA plane to Beirut in 1985. He is also believed to have masterminded the kidnapping of more than 50 hostages there. And he has been implicated in the bombings of Israeli installations in Argentina and a rocket attack on the Russian Embassy in Beirut.
Ali Mohamed's confession represents the first credible, public evidence not only that Mr. Mughniyah and Mr. bin Laden have been collaborating, but that Iran has been backing them. He said that between 1991 and 1993, he handled security arrangements for a meeting between the two men where they established their common goal of forcing the United States to withdraw from the Middle East. And his testimony adds authority to earlier reports that Iran's Ministry of Information and Security had called a terrorist conclave in Tehran in 1996 that included Mr. Mughniyah and a senior aide to Mr. bin Laden. Whether the connection of the two will be found to have played into the attack on the Cole is unclear, but preliminary evidence suggests it might.
The experience of the last two decades has shown that putting terrorists in American prisons is the most effective policy. Ramzi Yousef and Sheik Omar Abdel Rahma, convicted in the World Trade Center bombing, and Mir Amal Kansi, a convicted murderer of C.I.A. employees in Virginia, have stood in shackles before American justice and are fading memories in the world of militant Islam. By contrast, American attempts to blast Osama Bin Laden out of his Afghan redoubt have elevated him to levels of mystical power in the Islamic world. Yes, there is something between indictments and cruise missiles -- a middle ground of covert action and clandestine operations -- and these options should be kept on the table. But the new administration, no matter who wins today's presidential election, will have to concentrate on consistently applying diplomatic and legal pressures to the states implicated, even passively, in acts of terror.
The United States has isolated Afghanistan's ruling Taliban diplomatically as part of its demand that they hand over Mr. bin Laden for trial, but the Taliban claim that the United States has not made a convincing case against him. The testimony of Ali Mohamed might provide them with what they need to move him out of Afghanistan and into an Islamic court in a third country acceptable to the United States. At the very least, it should bring new seriousness to the dialogue now under way between Taliban leaders and American Ambassador William Milam in Pakistan.
Then there is Iran, whose leaders will have to understand that their support for Mr. Mughniyah could put an end to efforts to normalize American relations with Tehran.
The Clinton administration has shot its bolt on the terrorist problem with small effect, and a flashy show of force during the next few months will not change the record. The new administration can start afresh with a more sharply defined set of goals -- for starters, bringing Mr. Mughniyah and Mr. bin Laden and their protectors to justice -- and bring the full, coordinated force of American legal, diplomatic, military, and intelligence capabilities to bear on the problem.
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Opinion | A Glimpse at the Alliances of Terror (Published 2000)
Milt Bearden and Larry Johnson Op-Ed article notes Ali A Mohamed's confession in 1998 bombings of American embassies in Africa provides first credible, public evidence that Osama bin Laden and Hezbollah security chief Imad Mughniyah have been collaborating with Iranian backing; holds putting...
A Glimpse at the Alliances of Terror
Nov. 7, 2000
By Milt Bearden and Larry Johnson
See the article in its original context from November 7, 2000, Section A, Page 29Buy Reprints
View on timesmachine
TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers.
As the destroyer Cole was being hauled around the Cape of Good Hope to its home port of Norfolk, Va., and amid the ruckus of the elections, a remarkable piece of intelligence dropped into the public's knowledge about international terrorism. It has drawn little notice yet, but it will likely cause the new administration to reassess American policy and search for a better formula for combating terrorism than launching a few cruise missiles at camps in Afghanistan or pharmaceutical plants in Sudan.
On Oct. 20, the Federal District Court in Manhattan accepted a guilty plea from Ali A. Mohamed, a former Green Beret sergeant and one of six men indicted for the bombings of American embassies in Africa in 1998. Mr. Mohamed not only confessed that he had taken part in a conspiracy to murder American citizens in Saudi Arabia and East Africa, but tied the assaults directly to the Saudi exile Osama bin Laden. Significantly, his confession also linked Mr. bin Laden with another terrorist at large -- the mysterious Hezbollah security chief, Imad Mughniyah.
Half of all Americans killed by international terrorists since 1980 have been murdered by groups associated with Mr. Mughniyah and Mr. bin Laden. Mr. Mughniyah, who is credibly implicated in the lion's share of the killings, is believed to have carried out the bombings of the United States Embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 and the hijacking of a TWA plane to Beirut in 1985. He is also believed to have masterminded the kidnapping of more than 50 hostages there. And he has been implicated in the bombings of Israeli installations in Argentina and a rocket attack on the Russian Embassy in Beirut.
Ali Mohamed's confession represents the first credible, public evidence not only that Mr. Mughniyah and Mr. bin Laden have been collaborating, but that Iran has been backing them. He said that between 1991 and 1993, he handled security arrangements for a meeting between the two men where they established their common goal of forcing the United States to withdraw from the Middle East. And his testimony adds authority to earlier reports that Iran's Ministry of Information and Security had called a terrorist conclave in Tehran in 1996 that included Mr. Mughniyah and a senior aide to Mr. bin Laden. Whether the connection of the two will be found to have played into the attack on the Cole is unclear, but preliminary evidence suggests it might.
The experience of the last two decades has shown that putting terrorists in American prisons is the most effective policy. Ramzi Yousef and Sheik Omar Abdel Rahma, convicted in the World Trade Center bombing, and Mir Amal Kansi, a convicted murderer of C.I.A. employees in Virginia, have stood in shackles before American justice and are fading memories in the world of militant Islam. By contrast, American attempts to blast Osama Bin Laden out of his Afghan redoubt have elevated him to levels of mystical power in the Islamic world. Yes, there is something between indictments and cruise missiles -- a middle ground of covert action and clandestine operations -- and these options should be kept on the table. But the new administration, no matter who wins today's presidential election, will have to concentrate on consistently applying diplomatic and legal pressures to the states implicated, even passively, in acts of terror.
The United States has isolated Afghanistan's ruling Taliban diplomatically as part of its demand that they hand over Mr. bin Laden for trial, but the Taliban claim that the United States has not made a convincing case against him. The testimony of Ali Mohamed might provide them with what they need to move him out of Afghanistan and into an Islamic court in a third country acceptable to the United States. At the very least, it should bring new seriousness to the dialogue now under way between Taliban leaders and American Ambassador William Milam in Pakistan.
Then there is Iran, whose leaders will have to understand that their support for Mr. Mughniyah could put an end to efforts to normalize American relations with Tehran.
The Clinton administration has shot its bolt on the terrorist problem with small effect, and a flashy show of force during the next few months will not change the record. The new administration can start afresh with a more sharply defined set of goals -- for starters, bringing Mr. Mughniyah and Mr. bin Laden and their protectors to justice -- and bring the full, coordinated force of American legal, diplomatic, military, and intelligence capabilities to bear on the problem.
@88m3 @ADevilYouKhow @wire28 @dtownreppin214 @Leasy @Neo The Resurrected ONE
@dza @wire28 @BigMoneyGrip @Dameon Farrow @re'up @Blackfyre @NY's #1 Draft Pick @Skyfall @2Quik4UHoes
@BucciMane @ill I noticed yall never really took this thread seriously...
