HEADLINES

Debunking (and Rebunking) 9/11 Conspiracy Theories

NEW: Narrative overview of INTELWIRE's OKC investigation

Al Qaeda Recruited Christians In Key Terry Nichols Location

Exposed: Al Qaeda's Plot To Recruit U.S. Servicemen

McVeigh, Nichols made moves on key dates in al Qaeda recruitment plot

Linking Terry Nichols to Ramzi Yousef

Ex-Terror Czar Says Feds Can't Disprove Nichols-Yousef Link

Report: Alleged Yousef-Iraq Link Debunked By Secret Post-9/11 Mission

OKC Bomb Formulas Found in Al Qaeda Notebooks and Manuals

INS Deported bin Laden Kin Just Days After OKC Bombing

Khalifa Links run to Al-Zawahiri, Uranium Plot, Terror Finance Network and More

Complete Coverage: OKC

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Feds Transferred bin Laden Kin To High-Security Prison Just Hours After OKC Blast

KSM Interrogation Contradicts Earlier Intel On Bojinka Plot

Ten Years Too Late, FBI Warns U.S. Police That al Qaeda Is Recruiting Non-Arabs

New Report Links Jose Padilla to al Qaeda Cell That Recruited Gulf War Vets

Debunking (And Rebunking) The Nick Berg Conspiracy Theory

Cleric's Arrest in U.K. May Have Implications In Berg Slaying

Is Pakistan Still Fighting Ramzi Yousef's Terror Network A Decade After His Arrest?

Analysis: Could Chalabi Scandal Be Behind Tenet's Surprise Exit?

Qaeda-Linked Californian Confesses 'Demonic Heavy Metal' and Sloppiness

Saudi Terror Attack Targets Private Contractor With Bush Administration Links

Lawsuit Offers Graphic New Abu Ghraib Allegations

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9/11 AND BEYOND

The Cult of Impersonality

9/11: Minute by Minute (by J.M. Berger, external link)

al Qaeda Strategy Steals Identities of Captured, Killed Operatives

bin Laden Tape Contains Clues About al Qaeda Command Infrastructure

Ashcroft Slams 9/11 Commission By Declassifying Panelist's 1995 Memo

Full Text: 'Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US'

Moussaoui Order Opens Door To New Political Troubles For Bush Admin

Analysis: Condi Rice's 9/11 Testimony Comes With A Price Tag

Zawahiri Audio Attack Targets Pakistan's Weak Points

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ABU GHRAIB ABUSE

Prison Abuse Photos Unleash Tough New Problems In Terror War

Contractor Named In Iraq Torture Report Also Sells Ethics Videos To White House

Hersh Story Raises Interesting Question About Abu Ghraib Guilty Plea

Rumsfeld Details 'Sadistic' Unreleased Iraq Prison Photos And Videos

Iraqi Prison Abuse Photos From 60 Minutes II Broadcast (5/1)

Washington Post Reports Gruesome New Abu Ghraib Details

Video Recording of Abu Ghraib Abuse (external)

Pictures of Abu Ghraib Abuse (external)

Sworn Statements by Abu Ghraib Detainees (external)

New Details of Prison Abuse Emerge (external)

Two new photos of Iraqi prisoner abuses (external)

Image: Iraqi POW Attacked By Dogs (5/9/04) (external)

Second Round of Photos Of Iraqi Prisoner Abuse (5/3/04) (external)

Full Text of Military's Report on Iraqi Prisoner Abuse (PDF) (external)

U.S. Army Manual FM 34-52, Interrogation Techniques (external)

New Yorker: Seymour Hersh Reports On Torture at Abu Ghraib (external)

Many Photos of Iraqi Prison Abuse (external)

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NICHOLAS BERG

Saddam Militiaman Arrested In Berg Killing, But Details Are Murky

Fuel on the fire: Four arrested in Nick Berg beheading, but Zarqawi gets away

Violent Video Invokes Abu Ghraib Photos, But Don't Call It 'Revenge'

Berg Conspiracy Theories Run Thick, But Facts Are Few For Now

Did Moussaoui Work For Zarqawi? More On The Nick Berg Links

Images From The Berg Video -- Warning: Graphic Content

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ABOUT || RSS || J.M. BERGER ||

To buy this article on a freelance basis, or commission a customized version for your own publication, contact J.M. Berger at . Berger is also available as a consultant on terrorism and security.

The Path Not Followed

1995 Deportee's Trail Could Have Led U.S. Gov't To Ayman Al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda Uranium Plot, U.S.-based Terror Finance Network, 1998 Embassy Bombing, Southeast Asia Terror Kingpin and 9/11 Plotters

By J.M. Berger

If the FBI had thoroughly investigated Mohammed Jamal Khalifa when they had him in custody in December 1994, they could have uncovered leads to several pending terrorist attacks - up to and including September 11.

The Saudi businessman was detained by the U.S. for nearly six months before being deported to Jordan in April 1995 at the insistence of the State Department. He was allowed to leave the country despite evidence in the FBI’s possession at the time which potentially tied Khalifa to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the Bojinka plot and the Oklahoma City bombing. (full story)

In exchange for his cooperation in the deportation proceeding, the INS agreed to remove terrorism allegations from Khalifa's record. The U.S. attorney also separately agreed to return potentially incriminating evidence seized from Khalifa's luggage.

Khalifa steadfastly maintains that he has never taken part in terrorist activity. But the United States government believes otherwise. Based on information gleaned from dozens of federal documents and expert testimony, Khalifa would be potentially linked to virtually every major al Qaeda terrorist in the U.S. during the 1990s, if all the claims about him are true. (See related story: bin Laden Brother-in-Law Khalifa Denies Terror Ties, Moves To Be Dropped From 9/11 Suit)

When Khalifa was arrested in 1994, he had been in the U.S. for just over two weeks and was preparing to board an airplane bound for the Philippines, according to congressional testimony by terrorism expert Steve Emerson. As previously reported, the FBI believes he was connected to an al Qaeda terrorist cell in Manila led by World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef.

That connection is the tip of a very large iceberg, according to media reports, court filings and a host of investigations.

At the time of his arrest, Khalifa was traveling with a brother of Osama bin Laden, and Mohamed Loay Bayazid, a founding member of al Qaeda, whom the FBI alleges was then president of the Benevolence International Foundation, according to a 2002 FBI affidavit.

Bayazid had attempted to obtain uranium for al Qaeda in the Sudan just over a year earlier, according to testimony presented during a 2001 terror prosecution for the 1998 simultaneous bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

The FBI believes Bayazid was a bagman for al Qaeda, dispensing cash to fund various terror operations, often on the direct orders of bin Laden, according to various affidavits filed in relation to Benevolence. A naturalized U.S. citizen hailing from Syria, Bayazid lived in Kansas City, KS, during the late 1980s, according to U.S. News and World Report. He remained at large in the U.S. until fleeing the country in 1998, according to the FBI.

As of this writing, it is not clear whether Bayazid was even arrested in December 1994, whether any charges were filed or whether a further investigation was pursued.

One month after Khalifa was arrested in Morgan Hill, Calif., a suburb of San Jose, bin Laden's second-in-command Ayman al Zawahiri traveled to Santa Clara, another San Jose suburb about 20 minutes from where Khalifa had been staying, according to court testimony and reports in the Wall Street Journal and the San Francisco Chronicle.

Zawahiri was in the country for a fundraising trip that may have been connected to an Egyptian embassy bombing in Pakistan later that year, according to a 2001 special report in the San Francisco Chronicle. Zawahiri is now the second-most-wanted terrorist in the world, with a $25 million price on his head.

While in the U.S., Zawahiri stayed with Ali Mohammed, formerly bin Laden's personal bodyguard, who was later implicated in the 1998 embassy bombings, according to trial testimony and other reports.

The FBI was already well aware of Ali Mohammed, whom they had interrogated shortly before Khalifa's arrest, according to trial testimony and published accounts.

Ali Mohammed trained some of the World Trade Center and "Day of Terror" plotters in firearms use during 1989, an act which was photographed by the FBI at the time, according to Peter Lance, author of "1000 Years for Revenge," which examines FBI missteps investigating terrorism in the 1990s.

Khalifa was also closely tied to the Benevolence International Foundation (BIF), which the government designated a terrorist organization in 2002. Khalifa’s traveling companion Bayazid was president of Benevolence, according to FBI affidavits, and he was carrying identification which directly tied him to the group. But those ties run deeper still, according to FBI affidavits and media reports.

While in the Philippines, Khalifa founded several companies which the government now claims were fronts for al Qaeda money laundering. One of those was the Benevolence International Corp., a Manila-based predecessor company that claimed to be an import-export concern. BIC folded about the time that BIF incorporated in Chicago, Ill., according to FBI affidavits, business documents obtained for this investigations, and the Wall Street Journal.

The head of Benevolence, Enaam Arnaout, pleaded guilty in 2003 to misdirecting charity funds to aid Muslim insurgents in Chechnya. An initial indictment of Benevolence, which was later dismissed, contained an affidavit naming Khalifa and detailing his alleged ties to the organization. The U.S. government claims Arnaout was a close associate of Osama bin Laden.

Through Wali Khan Amin Shah, one of Ramzi Yousef’s Manila accomplices, Khalifa was also connected to Hambali, the Malaysian terror kingpin taken into U.S. custody earlier this year, according to federal documents.

Hambali is believed to have helped fund Yousef's Manila operation through a front company known as Konsojaya. He was subsequently discovered to be the leader of al Qaeda’s southeast Asian ally, Jemaah Islamiah, and has been directly tied to several lethal terrorist attacks in Malaysia and Indonesia, including a Bali nightclub bombing that killed more than 200 people.

Several of those attacks used ammonium nitrate bombs similar in design to the bomb used in Oklahoma City in April 1995. Jemaah Islamiah is known to have stockpiled mass quantities of ammonium nitrate for future attacks, some of which has been recovered by Malaysian authorities.

Hambali is also believed to have played a role in the September 11 attack on America. He also assisted accused al Qaeda operative Zacarias Moussaoui in traveling to the U.S., where he attended flight school, according to numerous media reports.

Shah and Hambali were both formally affiliated with Konsojaya, according to court documents. When Khalifa was detained in San Francisco in 1994, he was carrying the phone number of Wali Khan Amin Shah’s Manila apartment, where Shah was making preparations for the planned 1995 Bojinka airlines bombing.

Phone records for Shah and Khalifa indicated that the two were in close communication in November 1994, according to the 2002 BIF indictment.

In addition to Hambali and Shah, the Manila terror cell also boasted as a member the primary architect of 9/11 as a key member. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, al Qaeda's operational mastermind, was in Manila where he took part in the Bojinka plot. According to author Peter Lance, Khalid Shaikh narrowly escaped capture in 1995 when he was staying just a few floors down from Ramzi Yousef when the World Trade Center bomber was arrested in an Islamabad safehouse owned by Osama bin Laden.