Did Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff represent Atta's uncle?

Yesterday, we discussed the latest permutations of the Able Danger tale. To make a long story very short, it seems the team did exist, and did finger Atta. Moreover, they connected him to unnamed individuals in the orbit of Sheik Rahman, mastermind of the first World Trade Center attack. Other sources have confirmed that -- unknown to most at the time -- Rahman was tied in with Al Qaida.

I ended yesterday's post by touching on a strange piece of history that deserves wider discussion. If you'll forgive a foray into self-quotation:

In 1994, the district attorney in New Jersey was Michael Chertoff, now the head of Homeland Security. One of the funders of Rahman's mosque was a mysterious man named Magdy El-Amir -- who has also been accused of funding Al Qaeda. When Chertoff returned to private practice, he took El-Amir as a client. Many have wondered why Bush picked the lawyer for an accused Al Qaida moneyman to head Homeland Security.

From time to time during his U.S. sojourn, Atta used the name Mohamed El-Amir. Admittedly, it is a common Egyptian name.

A reader asked:

Joseph, you'll have to research the blogs because this tidbit is lost in my mental files, but I am quite sure I read that Chertoff's client may well have been Atta's uncle.

Well -- yeah. That allegation has been made, though not by me.

This claim brings us squarely into the weird world of Mohamed Atta's father, a Cairo-based attorney whose name is usually given as Mohammed El-Amir (take note), although it is often published as Mohammed El-Amir Atta Sr. Directly after 9/11, this man told interviewers many strange things. He claimed that his son had not committed the crime, and that he (the father) had spoken to his son by phone after the tragedy.

Later, after the London train bombings, the elder Atta declared himself a mad-for-blood jihadist. For more on Atta Sr. -- including a photo -- check out this Houston Chronicle piece:

"The FBI and the CIA came to see me pretending to be journalists, but I discovered them and kicked them out," he boasts...

All of which leaves us contemplating two theories:

1. The elder Atta has simply gone nuts. ("Runs in the family," some might mutter.) Or...

2. The elder Atta always was a jihadist, and should be considered an Al Qaida associate.

A startling story, which tends to confirm possibility #2, is a Daniel Hopsicker piece discussed in this column previously. Hopsicker presents evidence that Mohammed El-Amir Atta Sr. was in the United States -- in Florida -- visiting his son two weeks before the attack on the World Trade Center.

Hopsicker's report draws from an interview with a drug store owner who insists that the elder Atta, accompanied by his son and another hijacker, used a fax machine in his store, which had one of the few public fax machines in that small town. The fax went to a number in New Jersey.

(You will recall that the Garden State is the location of the terror cell identified by the Able Danger team. It's also the home base for Rahman's associates. It's also the home base of Magdy El-Amir.)

Drug stores have security cameras, of course. The FBI, after interviewing the pharmacist, confiscated the tape, then returned it. Hopsicker reviewed the tape and found a crude excision for the day in question. (He describes his research in some detail in a radio interview archived here; scroll down to FTR 523a and 523b.) Hopsicker further notes in his online piece:

Moreover, the FBI knew about the U.S. visit of Cairo attorney Mohammed El-Amir almost immediately after the attack, when, after seeing him on television denying that his son had anything to do with the terrorist hijackings, a number of credible witnesses called the Sarasota office of the FBI to report they had seen Atta’s father in Venice with his son ten days to two weeks before the attack.

So much for Atta Sr. in Florida.

Let's turn our attention back to New Jersey -- and to Magdy El-Amir, accused financer of both Al Qaida and Sheik Rahman. No-one disputes that El -Amir was the top supporter of Rahman's mosque. Congressman Ben Gilman was given a documentation from the intelligence community linking both Magdy and his brother to Osama Bin Laden.

Magdy El-Amir ran an HMO in New Jersey. The state of New Jersey sued him (according to a June 20, 2000 article in the Bergen County Record) to recoup losses amounting to nearly $17 million. More than a third of this money went to "unknown parties. . . . by means of wire transfers to bank accounts where the beneficial owner of the account is unknown."

El-Amir was represented in the matter by none other than Michael Chertoff -- who now runs the Department of Homeland Security.

There are those who wonder why Bush would choose -- for that post -- the lawyer for a man linked by the intelligence community to Bin Laden. Still others wonder why the intelligence community doesn't do more to make this sort of information public.

Intriguingly enough, El-Amir has a brother -- whose name is (you guessed it!) Mohammed El-Amir.

All of which brings us, believe it or not, to a topic frequently discussed on this blog: Nuclear terrorism.

In 1998 and 1999, Mohammed and Magdy were named as supects in an FBI operation (back when the FBI was under the control of a rational administration) called Operation Diamondback. The feds were investigating an alleged plot by Pakistani arms merchants to provide nukes to none other than Osama Bin Laden. NBC's Dateline did a little-remembered segment on this undercover operation.

An undercover informant employed by the FBI recorded Mohammed El-Amir discussing a small-arms purchase from a notorious (and very strange) Egyptian arms dealer who has been accused of supporting terror. The FBI did not prosecute Mohammed El-Amir.

So the question comes down to this: Is Magdy's brother the same man as Mohammed Atta's rather odd father? Are we dealing with one or two Mohammed El-Amirs?

Keep in mind that -- as I said earlier -- El-Amir is by no means a rare name in Egypt. And Mohammed (in all its variants) is the most common name throughout the Islamic world.

I've seen no published report indicating that Magdy El-Amir ever included "Atta" in his family name. For what it's worth, I've seen no published report indicating that the Cairo lawyer ever spent time in New Jersey. I seem to recall (but cannot say precisely where -- sorry!) that the "Diamondback" Mohammed El-Amir is, like his brother, a doctor, not a lawyer.

For those reasons, I would have to say that we are dealing with two Mohammed El-Amirs.

Even so, I'm certainly willing to be turned around on this, and I welcome comments from those who believe the two men to be one and the same. Even the most skeptical observer would have to confess that the coincidence of names and associations is very odd. (For more, see the Kos discussion here.)

Oh -- and if all the above wasn't weird enough for you, check out the allegations made by a JFK researcher named Bruce Adamson. He claims a possible link between Mohammed Al Fayed -- yes, the father of the guy killed in the accident alongside Princess Di! -- and Atta. God knows what to make of this one...!