Posner is now the chief investigative reporter for an online journal which some consider a bit sensationalistic: The Daily Beast.
Roughly a week ago, he published this profile of a Saudi Arabian called "Jafar the Pilot," a.k.a. Adnan Gulshair el Shukrijumah, allegedly the "leader of al Qaeda’s post-9/11 ambitions for a nuclear attack." Quite a lot has been previously published about Jafar, mostly by FOX News and other right-wing outlets. Here's Gerry:
One of the world’s most wanted terrorists, with a $5 million bounty on his head and a suspected desire to attack the United States with nuclear weapons, has been traveling across the Middle East recently with relative impunity, courtesy of a Saudi diplomatic passport, a U.S. intelligence source tells The Daily Beast.Translation: An intelligence source told Posner. Let's be clear on that point.
Five-foot-four Adnan Gulshair el Shukrijumah was selected after 9/11 by Osama bin Laden to be the terror group’s next Mohamed Atta for any second wave of attacks on America. The Saudi-born el-Shukrijumah was the son of a radical Muslim cleric who moved his family to the U.S. in 1985 and settled eventually in Miramar, Florida, a Fort Lauderdale suburb. There he became friends with José Padilla, who was later arrested as an “enemy combatant,” and also with Mandhai and Shueyb Mossa Jokhan, who were jailed for plotting to blow up Florida power plants, a National Guard armory, and Jewish businesses. Adnan attended flight schools in Florida and Oklahoma, and within al Qaeda was dubbed Jafar al-Tayyar (“Jafar the Pilot”).
For the longest time, American intelligence did not know the real identity of Jafar the Pilot. An FBI file was mistakenly opened in one of Adnan’s aliases, Mohammed Sher Mohammed Khan. The first detainee to give up any information about him was Abu Zubaydah, sometime after May 2002, maybe even as late as August when Zubaydah was waterboarded.Yeah. Gotta sneak in that justification for waterboarding.
It wasn’t until interrogators got hold of Khalid Sheik Mohammad—who had met Adnan in Pakistan—that they discovered he had been a Florida resident for 16 years.KSM was tortured in 2003.
A senior CIA intelligence analyst told The Daily Beast that the agency had tracked Adnan “somewhere in late spring to early summer” on several trips in the Middle East. On those travels, he used an alias—which the analyst did not disclose—and traveled with relative impunity on a Saudi diplomatic passport. The news of Adnan’s travels was alarming to the American intelligence community because it had previously concluded he was in Pakistan, coordinating the fight against Western forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. A U.S. counterterrorism official summarized to me the mainstream U.S. intelligence view: “It is generally believed that El Shukrijumah stays in the tribal areas of Pakistan—where he probably thinks he’s more secure—and does not travel abroad.”Obviously, Posner is acting as a witting conduit for the CIA. Obviously, someone at CIA wants this material out there. At the same time, the Agency does not want to put its official imprimatur on this data.
According to the same analyst, who disclosed the discovery of Adnan’s travels on a Saudi diplomatic passport, the CIA requested “offline” that the State Department make an official inquiry of the Saudis about the passport to determine its authenticity. The CIA provided the State Department both the passport number and the alias. According to the CIA analyst, the State Department refused, telling the agency that its information was “not reliable enough” to question the Saudis.
The question is: Why? No one at CIA spews out stuff like this without an ulterior motive. Frankly, it's almost as though we're beng prepped to blame this guy before the event. I shudder to imagine what that event might be.
And how does a guy like this get a Saudi diplomatic passport? Previously, the Saudis have denied that the man is, in fact, Saudi.
For a while now, Jafar has played the "official boogeyman" role. Back in 2007, Glenn Beck brethlessly told his audience that Jafar has smuggled a nuke into the U.S. over the Mexican border.
After so many lies, I can't help but wonder if the guy even exists. Jafar, I mean -- not Glenn Beck.
2 comments:
I was only 17 the day of the 9/11 attacks and I automatically thought 'Bin Laden'. How did I even know who that was? Because I had seen several different documentaries, commentary, on him just days before on the discovery channel, history, or some late night news show, not quite sure which. I always thought it was suspicious, like it was prepping the public with his name, ideology etc. Just like all the Judith Miller articles on anthrax leading up to those attacks. etcetc. This does seem like much of the same
There is probably much more here than meets the eye, but it is very difficult to decipher.
Following the Posner story, Elie Assaad, an FBI inforhttps://www.blogger.com/img/cmt/close.gifmant, had more to say about El Shukrijumah(n?), who apparently interacted with Mohammed Atta in Southern Florida.
Assaad played a primary role in the sting of the Liberty Seven. Something about that story never rang true to me. Also interesting is the setting: Liberty City, FL. Much corruption in that particular locale, I suspect. (See more on public housing scandals in Miami-Dade County.)
All this comes just before the news of Zazi, and the planned attack on NYC. Zazi appears to fit the profile of a terrorist much more closely than other suspected plotters in the news in more recent times. Until recently, Zazi lived in NYC. He also has repeatedly visited Pakistan, and allegedly attended training camps there that covered bomb-making skills. Did Zazi know or interact with El Shukrijumah?
The timing of the planned attack by Zazi is also not to be ignored. Some speculate that the plot was planned around the anniversary date of 9/11/2001. Others say that it might have more to do with the upcoming opening of the UN General Assembly. That event is particularly controversial because the Iranian president will be in NYC and is planning to attend.
Can you imaging the havoc that would be created in the Mid East if a bomb planted by Al Qaeda injured or killed Ahmadinejad while in NYC? Only a neocon could rejoice at such an occurence.
One more interesting thing: Zazi reportedly has demonstrated interest in hydrogen peroxide based bombs. Apparently, one of the red flags that law enforcement have been instructed to watch for, is individuals who have burns on their hands or faces, which higher concentrations of hydrogen peroxide can cause.
Do you suppose that's how the 911 hijackers got burns on their hands?
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