The man behind al-Qaeda: Ali Mohamed -American soldier and CIA agent

[Ameridansk]

Since everyone has been deemed to immature to read anti-Bush things from an anti-government website, please allow me to repost this bit of research I've done earlier today:

Ok, for starters we know that Ali A. Mohamed first came to the U.S. in 1981 (Reagan era) to take Paratrooper and Green Beret training. To quote from this article:

“Did Bin Laden Have His Own Green Beret?”, APBnews.com, May 21, 1999.

“U.S. Army personnel records obtained by APBnews.com show that in 1981, when he was a Captain in the Egyptian Army Mohamed graduated from the U.S. Army’s Special Forces Officers Course at Fort Bragg. Earlier that same year, he also completed airborne paratrooper training at the U.S. Army’s Infantry School at Fort Benning, Ga.”

While I can no longer find an active link for this article, this training is mentioned in several other articles I have posted links to for example:

<SNIP>

Sometime in the early 1980s . . . the Egyptian army sent Mohamed to Fort Bragg for special forces training -- common for officers from countries the United States regards as friendly. Training beside U.S. Green Berets, he learned how to command elite soldiers on difficult missions such as special reconnaissance, unconventional warfare and counterinsurgency operations. After four months, he received a diploma with a green beret on it.

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http://www.diodon349.com/Attack_on_America/Attack_Stori...

After returning to Egypt and being discharged from the Egyptian Army, we find out he decides he wants to work for the CIA.

<SNIP>
In mid-1984, a former Egyptian Army officer with an engaging manner and a gift for languages approached the C.I.A. in Egypt with what seemed an intriguing offer: He volunteered to be a spy.

The agency tried him out, but the Egyptian flunked. He had made contact in Germany with a branch of Hezbollah, the Middle Eastern terrorist group, and told its members that he was working with the CIA, a betrayal the agency quickly discovered.

Soon after, C.I.A. officials branded him untrustworthy and cut off further dealings with him, suspecting that he wanted to help the terrorists spy on Americans, United States officials said.

The agency discovered the next year that the former officer, Ali A. Mohamed, was trying to enter the United States, and officials put his name on a State Department "watch list" intended to prevent terrorists and other security threats from getting visas, an American official said.

When Mohamed evaded this precaution and persuaded an American Embassy official to give him a visa, the C.I.A. issued a second warning to other federal agencies that a suspect person might be traveling to the United States.

The warnings were not heeded. Mohamed emigrated to the United States and in the next decade cultivated a range of useful relationships with the American government.

He enlisted in the army and served with one of its most elite units. Then, in the early 1990's, he became an informant for the F.B.I.

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http://www.library.cornell.edu/colldev/mideast/alimo.ht...

This is one of the article in which we need to separate fact from conjecture. We know he volunteered to work for the CIA, he later served in the US Army as a sergeant (a demotion of sorts since he was previously a Major in the Egyptian army and already had Green Beret training), and he became a US citizen.

Did the CIA really turn him down? If they had accepted him, they would have put him on a “Watch List” as well. I think it’s safe to say a guy with his skills would be wanted as a “terrorist”. All the other facts point to him being on the US intelligence network’s good side.

For example:

<SNIP>

This Egyptian terrorist was honorably discharged in 1989 with commendations for "patriotism, valor, fidelity and professional excellence." He later became an American citizen.

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http://www.american-buddha.com/bin.laden.mole.htm

Now, to we are at the supposed time of birth of al-Qaeda, which is said to have begun around the time the Soviet Union pulled out of Afghanistan.

<SNIP>

Al-Qaeda, meaning "the base", was created in 1989 as Soviet forces withdrew from Afghanistan and Osama Bin Laden and his colleagues began looking for new jihads.

<SNIP>

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/south_asia/1670089.stm

As we can see from above, Mohamed was also finished with the US Army in 1989. But he already had a jump on things because he had probably met bin Laden in 1988 :

<SNIP>

In 1988, while still on active duty, Mohamed took leave to go to Afghanistan and fight the Russians. Lt. Col. Anderson told the Chronicle this was "contrary to all Army regulations." He said he wrote reports to get Mohamed investigated, court-martialed and deported, but no action was taken.

<SNIP>

http://www.american-buddha.com/bin.laden.mole.htm

Sounds like he has friends in high places. Why would the Army let him go? What if he was captured or killed? International incident for sure.

We don’t know much about what he did immediately after his honorable discharge, but up to, and after it we have this:

<SNIP>

Near the end of his tour at Bragg, Mohamed apparently got busier in his work with terrorist groups. Documents from court cases show that he traveled on weekends to New Jersey, where he trained other Islamic fundamentalists in surveillance, weapons and explosives.

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Mohamed spent the next five years in the Army Reserves. For nine years after he left active duty, until his arrest in 1998, Mohamed shuttled between California, Afghanistan, Kenya, Somalia and at least a dozen other countries, the court records show.

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http://www.diodon349.com/Attack_on_America/Attack_Stori...

And this:

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In 1989, officers at Fort Bragg cast Mohamed as the star of a series of training videotapes intended to give soldiers a taste of how Islamic radicals view the world.

On one tape, he says of Israel, "From the Islamic perspective, nobody can recognize Israel has the right to live, because Israel stole an Islamic territory."

"We do not accept no peace," he adds. "No international conference. Nothing. No compromise."

That same year, Mohamed apparently began working more closely with Islamic extremists in the United States.

He disappeared from Fort Bragg on weekends, traveled to the New York area and offered military training to several militants associated with a refugee center in Brooklyn.

He often stayed with El Sayyid A. Nosair, the Egyptian immigrant convicted of killing Rabbi Meir Kahane, the founder of the Jewish Defense League, in 1990.

Prosecutors now assert that the refugee center was the principal base in the United States for bin Laden's group, Al Qaeda.

Mohamed met the local Muslims at an apartment in Jersey City, and taught them survival techniques, map reading and how to recognize tanks and other Soviet weapons, according to testimony by one of his students at Nosair's 1995 federal trial.

Mohamed left the army in November 1989, obtained his U.S. citizenship, and spent the next few years shuttling between New York, California, Afghanistan and the Middle East.

It is not known when he first met bin Laden. According to American officials, however, at some point in 1991 the Saudi exile asked him to help with a crucial task: moving his base of operations from Afghanistan to the Sudan.

American officials said this was a complex operation, involving the transfer through several countries of bin Laden and at least two dozen associates.

At the same time, Mohamed frequented mosques in the United States, and American officials now suspect that he was recruiting operatives for bin Laden.

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http://www.library.cornell.edu/colldev/mideast/alimo.ht...

That’s is a start for you. I’ve done this all before, and it was generally ignored, and now, the thread is not retrievable. I’ll probably add more since I haven’t mentioned how Mohamed is reported to have been far more intimately involved in all of al-Qaeda’s actions in the 1990’s than even bin Laden himself.

Actually, I've got to add things surrounding his trial for the Embassy bombings, where he pleaded guilty and never testified.

[k-robjoe]

1. Thanks

It´s interesting, in light of this, to read again about what happened the time when Atta tried to enter the U.S. with the wrong kind of visa. ( Medienanalyse also wrote about this incident here, a couple of months ago. ) :

" Atta was also held and questioned at length when he arrived at the Miami International Airport in January, on a tourist visa. Atta boldly told immigration officials that he was in the United States for flight training. Even though any kind of training would have required a student or vocational education visa, someone intervened on Atta's behalf and they let him go." - R. Joseph

Atta´s behaviour seems, mildly put, kind of puzzling.
Same thing with Khalid Al-Midhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, the two guys who came in "directly" from the A.Q.- conference in Malaysia :

" Like Atta and the others, Khalid Al-Midhar and Nawaf Alhazmi rented apartments, obtained credit cards and drivers licenses, set up bank accounts, listed their real names in the San Diego phone book, and even took flying lessons, while under "surveillance" (11).

In fact, they moved into the home of Abduss Attar Sheikh--an FBI informant! Abduss Attar Sheikh, a Muslim they met at a Mosque in San Diego, helped them open a bank account and get internet access, while simultaneously reporting this to the FBI (16,17). Local FBI agents even visited the home, on a regular basis, while al-Midhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi were present!" - R. Joseph

[Ameridansk]

2. When looking at the embassy bombing trial. . .

. . . we get a picture of Mohamed as being a devoted American with little or no interest in being with his "al-Qaeda" brothers.

First of all why did he volutarily go to trial?

<SNIP>

Shortly after bombs exploded outside the American Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, last August, killing more than 200 people and wounding more than 1,000, Federal prosecutors in Manhattan subpoenaed Mohamed to testify before a grand jury.

He flew to New York in September, made his appearance, and was arrested. Officials believe he was on his way to the Middle East.

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http://www.library.cornell.edu/colldev/mideast/alimo.htm

We also must note that neither he nor anyone else that day killed themselves in the bombings. But if he did care about his life, why would he respond to a subpoena? Why turn himself in?

Then, why plead guilty? As we have seen, it has been mighty hard for our government to convict anyone of ANYTHING regarding terrorism.

<SNIP>

However, just months before their trial was to begin in Federal District Court in Manhattan on October 20, 2000, Mohamed pled guilty to five counts of conspiracy to kill nationals of the United States and officers or employees of the U.S. government on account of their official duties, to murder and kidnap, and to destroy U.S. property.

In his plea before Judge Leonard Sand, Mohamed linked Usama bin Laden with the embassy bombings and said he worked with El Hage and others indicted in the bomb plot.

Mohamed, 48, is a former Egyptian intelligence officer who became a United States citizen and a U.S. Army sergeant assigned to a Special Forces unit at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

<SNIP>

Observers had expected Mohamed to be a key government witness against the four defendants during the trial, which began in January 2001. However, while his name was mentioned during testimony on contacts with El Hage and documents taken from his California home were entered into evidence, the former surveillance instructor never took the stand.

Mohamed's plea agreement with the government remains secret.

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http://usinfo.state.gov/is/Archive_Index/Ali_Mohamed.html

Not only is his plea agreement secret, so was his arrest:

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After Mr. Mohamed was taken into custody on Sept. 10, 1998, the office of the United States attorney, Mary Jo White, with Mr. Mohamed's consent, took the unusual step of keeping his arrest secret for eight months while it tried to negotiate a deal with him.

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http://www.crimelynx.com/terror.html


Was Mohamed one of the boys? No. He avoided them like the plague.

<SNIP>

In May 1999, when the plea bargaining talks broke down, Mr. Mohamed was publicly indicted and joined his five co-defendants in the public arraignments and hearings. But he still seemed like an outsider in their midst. When teams of defense lawyers in the broad terrorism case visited the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Lower Manhattan for group strategy meetings with their clients, the other five would show up.

Mr. Mohamed stayed in his cell.

When defense lawyers complained that the conditions of solitary confinement for their clients were too harsh, five defendants were allowed to take turns as cellmates.

Mr. Mohamed remained in solitary confinement.

In June 1999, one defendant leapt out of his chair in the courtroom and charged toward Judge Sand, while another defendant screamed "Allahu akbar," Arabic for "God is great." While they were being subdued, Mr. Mohamed sat quietly in his chair, shaking his head and looking as if he wanted no part of what was going on.

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http://www.crimelynx.com/terror.html

I have to ask, if his arrest was secret and he spent his entire time in "solitary confinement", was he ever really in prison at all?