Terrorism and Pilate's question

Will the last REAL jihadi in Al Qaeda please turn out the lights?

We've learned that the great AP leak-finding effort concerned a Saudi pseudo-terrorist who infiltrated Al Qaeda in Yemen. This guy was supposed to wear an underwear bomb aboard a jet. Obviously, he did no such thing.

In the previous post, I argued that the first undie-bomber may also have been a fake.

A couple of days ago, Marcy Wheeler voiced her own suspicions about Fahd al-Quso, recently killed by a drone strike in Yemen. He allegedly masterminded undiebomber #2 (the infiltrator), and he also played a role in the first crotch-bomb effort. Al-Quso was a very odd duck. He got his start as a jihadi when he was assigned to videotape the attack on the USS Cole -- a simple enough gig, you'd think, yet he managed to screw it up by falling asleep on the job.

Funny thing: The US went out of its way not to mention Fahd until quite recently.

Whatever Quso’s role in UndieBomb 1.0, the implication of the timing is clear: he was central to the UndieBomb 2.0 plot. Indeed, it is almost certain that CIA asked AP to delay publishing their story to give time to kill Quso, who had just sent our mole off with another UndieBomb.

In other words, one plausible explanation for why DOJ did not confirm what other reports made clear is that it did not want to tip Quso off to what Abdulmutallab told them about him. That is, if they were already planning the op against him, they wouldn’t want him to know they knew how Abdulmutallab had found him 2.5 years earlier.

That is just one possibility, of course.

But if that’s the case — if DOJ obscured Quso’s role in the government’s most extensive accusations that Anwar al-Awlaki had an operational role in targeting the US — then are the claims about Awlaki true?

Marcy's thoughts aroused this interesting comment:

maybe undiebombs of all versions were CIA stings? and Fahd al-Quso was the CIA’s guy in the stings? and now that the stings were done...so is al-Quso?

In the past, I've argued that the drone killing of al-Awlaki himself was of questionable veracity, because the government of Yemen pointedly refused to verify the man's death. They never identified a body. A couple of cars sped away from the scene, and Awlaki (an American citizen) may have been in one of those vehicles.

In her most recent post, Marcy notes that -- contrary to Eric Holder's recent claim -- would-be crotch bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab may never have been in contact with Awlaki.

But even there, he doesn’t attribute Awlaki’s influence to conversations he had with Awlaki in Yemen — even Awlaki acknowledged to having contact with Abdulmutallab, though he maintained he did not order the attack. Rather, Abdulmutallab points to speeches Awlaki published, speeches which, according to other court documents, he listened to as early as 2005.

Awlaki went completely unmentioned in two earlier confessions made by Abdulmutallab.

I've argued -- and I'm not the only one -- that Awlaki himself was an infiltrator, and that his drone killing was staged. See here and here. I suspect that he may now be living under a new identity in a new country.

Why else would the U.S. later announce that his 16 year old son was also killed by a drone? There was no sensible reason to go after a mere boy.

Perhaps some drone attacks are not quite real. It's not as though any reporters are likely to go into the inhospitable wilds of Yemen to double-check whether these killings actually happened as described.

Let's review our top ten reasons for suspecting that Awlaki was something other than what we've been told:

1. He was born in New Mexico, even though he claimed to be a native-born Yemeni when he applied for an American Social Security card. (If you can figure that one out, please share with the rest of the class!)

2. He went to George Washington University, a school with strong CIA ties. (Any foreign national going to that school is a likely target for an Agency recruitment effort.)

3. Despite having undeniable ties to three of the 9/11 hijackers, the Pentagon invited him to speak at a formal luncheon. This was after the attack on the World Trade Center.

4. He was allowed to fly in and out of the country with impunity. Whenever he was outside the country, the FBI would issue statements to this effect: "Gosh, we'd really like to interview the guy, but he's beyond our reach." Yet whenever he was within our borders, he was left alone.

5. His death has been announced more than once.

6. A Murdoch-owned newspaper in Australia once as much as admitted that Awlaki cooperated with Yemeni authorities in an effort to round up Al Qaeda members in Yemen.

7. In 1994, Awlaki set up secure communications for Bin Laden using military phone lines.

8. During Awlaki's time in this country, the authorities routinely turned a blind eye to his legal problems. He was twice busted for soliciting prostitutes, yet nothing came of either incident. The man had a guardian angel.

9. He was not officially tied to the 9/11 attacks until 2008, even though he had helped the hijackers rent an apartment.

10. For the most part, nobody censored or impeded his YouTube calls for Jihad.

I could go on, but those ten points will suffice for now.

One could point to other claimed Al Qaeda double agents. The most famous example would be that bizarre Green Beret and Islamic fanatic, Ali Abdul Saoud Mohamed. For years, people have wondered whether he was a jihadi who infiltrated our military or one of "ours" who infiltrated the Bin Laden organization. To my eyes, the latter scenario seems much more likely -- especially if we keep in mind that he offered his services to the CIA as early as 1984.

The esteemed professor and former ambassador Peter Dale Scott has discussed this remarkable case:

Ali Mohamed. …. trained most of al Qaeda’s top leadership – including Bin Laden and Zawahiri – and most of al Qaeda’s top trainers. He gave some training to persons who would later carry out the 1993 World Trade Center bombing…. From 1994 until his arrest in 1998, he lived as an American citizen in California, applying for jobs as an FBI translator.11

Patrick Fitzgerald knew Ali Mohamed well. In 1994 he had named him as an unindicted co-conspirator in the New York landmarks case, yet allowed him to remain free. This was because, as Fitzgerald knew, Ali Mohamed was an FBI informant, from at least 1993 and maybe 1989.12 Thus, from 1994 “until his arrest in 1998 [by which time the 9/11 plot was well under way], Mohamed shuttled between California, Afghanistan, Kenya, Somalia and at least a dozen other countries.”

As I say in our book, in 1993 Ali Mohamed had been detained by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Canada, when he inquired at an airport after an incoming al Qaeda terrorist who turned out to be carrying two forged Saudi passports. Mohamed immediately told the RCMP to make a phone call to the United States, and the call secured his release.15 We’ve since been told that it was Mohamed’s West coast FBI handler, John Zent, “who vouched for Ali and got him released.”16

This release enabled Ali to go on to Kenya, take pictures of the U.S. Embassy, and deliver them to bin Laden for the Embassy bombing plot.

If all these latest revelations about Ali Mohamed are true, then:

1) a key planner of the 9/11 plot, and trainer in hijacking, was simultaneously an informant for the FBI.

2) This operative trained the members for all of the chief Islamist attacks inside the United States – the first WTC bombing, the New York landmarks plot, and finally 9/11, as well as the attacks against Americans in Somalia and Kenya.

3) And yet for four years Mohamed was allowed to move in and out of the country as an unindicted conspirator. Then, unlike his trainees, he was allowed to plea-bargain. To this day he may still not have been sentenced for any crime.

Here's the most recent info that Wikipedia has on the guy:

Further news sources in 2001 seem to suggest that Ali Mohamed is providing information on al-Qaeda in an attempt to reduce his sentence,[10] and that his sentencing "has been postponed indefinitely.".[19] In 2006, Mohamed's wife, Linda Sanchez, was reported in 2006 as saying, "He's still not sentenced yet, and without him being sentenced I really can't say much. He can't talk to anybody. Nobody can get to him. They have Ali pretty secretive...it's like he just kinda vanished into thin air."

And that, my friends, is it. No further details.

I think you get the picture. Would you be even slightly surprised to learn that Ali Mohamed is now a free man operating under a new identity?

One might also mention the bizarre case of Adam Gadahn, the Jewish kid from Orange county who became a key Bin Laden aide. Allegedly, he still holds a senior position in Al Qaeda. Wikipedia describes him as

...an American who is a senior operative, cultural interpreter, spokesman[2] and media advisor[3] for the Islamist group Al-Qaeda. Since 2004, he appeared in a number of videos produced by Al-Qaeda as "Azzam the American" ('Azzām al-Amrīki, عزام الأمريكي, sometimes transcribed as Ezzam Al-Amerikee).

Notice that Obama hasn't droned this guy to death, even though Gadahn has been indicted for treason.

Gadahn was thought to have been captured in Pakistan in 2010. Later, we learned that the guy they captured was actually Abu Yahya Mujahdeen Al-Adam, yet another lily-white American boy turned Al Qaeda jihadist.

Even though Al-Adam is reputedly a Philadelphia native, and even though you'd think that our media might consider him a newsworthy fellow, information on the man remains hard to come by. This site made a brave attempt to dig up further info:

According to Dawn, Al-Adam is a "close friend" of Osama bin Laden, which seems rather doubtful to me, but not impossible. It depends on the age of the man in question. Here's a little idle speculation to fill your time as we await more specific and verifiable information.

There was a jihadist during the late 1990s named Adam Mohammed Noor, who was an associate of Wadih El-Hage, an American who was actually a close associate of Bin Laden. There was also an American "Adam" who was a close friend of Ali Mohamed, another American who kept close company with Bin Laden. It's not clear if these two Adams were the same person.

I'm starting to wonder: Did Osama Bin Laden have any non-American associates?

Holder has specified that, aside from Awlaki, drones have killed three other Americans. No names; no identification. Yes, I'm indulging in wild speculation here, but I gotta ask: Could these three guys be the "American contingent" (Gadahn, EL-Hage, Al Adam) surrounding Bin Laden? And is it not possible that "drone strikes" were actually covers for operations designed to exfiltrate American penetration agents?

A 2004 story in The Times revealed that an Al Qaeda cleric named Abu Qatada was actually a double agent working for MI5.

According to the BBC, Mossad concocted an entire Al Qaeda cell in Gaza. Completely fake.

Al Qaeda is starting to remind me of the American Communist Party in the 1950s. Back then, by some estimates, FBI infiltrators amounted to half the membership. Some wags have even suggested the dues paid by the Bureau's spies kept many CP chapters afloat. Similar claims have been made about Students for a Democratic Society in the 1960s and 1970s.

Say what you will about Pontius Pilate -- at least the old bastard asked the right question.

(Note: Please look at the Rules for Comments at the top of the left-hand column. I'll be strictly enforcing Rule #2.)