1 October 2006

The Sunday Times has got hold of a "martyrdom video" featuring Mohammed Atta and Ziad Jarrah, made "eight months" before 9/11. Atta is seen "reading his will", and sharing a joke with Jarrah.

3 October 06

One of the "Guantanamo Ten" of former British residents, al-Rawi, had helped MI5 with information on London-based Islamist leader Abu Qatada. He is the only one of the ten that the UK government is interested in getting back.

Unembedded British ITN reporter Terry Lloyd, who died "in crossfire" in southern Iraq in March 2003, may have been murdered by British special forces. He followed UK troops into Iraq during the invasion.

The first day of a week-long inquest into Lloyd's death has been held in Oxford today.

5 October 06

CIA did warn Rice of plots by al-Qa'eda
Alex Massie, The Daily Telegraph, 5 October 06, 3rd edn, p.19

'The embattled US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, admitted yesterday that she had received an intelligence briefing from CIA chiefs warning of al-Qa'eda plots two months before the attacks of September 11, 2001.

'The admission came after Miss Rice, one of President Bush's closest allies, said she did not remember a meeting in July 2001 at which George Tenet, the former CIA director, gave her a detailed briefing on the growing terrorist threat posed by al-Qa'eda.

'As the Bush administration's National Security Adviser in 2001, Miss Rice was responsible for co-ordinating the response to national security threats. ...

'... The revelation that received a detailed intelligence briefing from Mr Tenet and Cofer Black, the former head of the CIA's counter-intelligence task force [, the Counterterrorist Center, the CTC], was made in State of Denial, the latest book by the veteran investigative reporter Bob Woodward.

'Sean McCormack, her official spokesman, yesterday finally admitted that the meeting had taken place.

'"We can confirm that the meeting took place on or around July 10, 2001," Mr McCormack said during a tour of the Middle East.

'But he tried to play down the significance of the meeting, claiming that "the information presented in this meeting was not new, rather it was a good summary from the threat reporting from the previous several weeks". ...

'The White House disputes any suggestion that these warnings indicated that any attack might come in the US itself.'

They also — accurately — called the CIA's presidential daily briefing of 6 August 2001 ("Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US") a historical summary (i.e. covering the previous few years); but this was intended as a warning of the current danger.

For the context and the PDB, see 9/11 Commission Report, chapter 8, pp.256-65 [HTML version]

6 October 06

A British special-forces soldier who testified today behind a screen at the Terry Lloyd enquiry, said he saw a prone Lloyd loaded by Iraqis onto a green van after being shot.

But the ITN man leading the quest for the truth says Lloyd only had a shoulder wound from previous gunfire, and walked towards the van (evidently an ambulance), and was shot by US troops as he did so.

The ITN team had been caught in cross-fire between Iraqi and US troops on a bridge in southern Iraq. It has since emerged that British special forces saw the firefight from a quarter of a mile away.

The group of nations is "disappointed" Iran has again refused to abandon its nuclear programme.

A North-Korean nuclear-bomb test is "days away".

British-led NATO troops are to replace the Americans in eastern Afghanistan. US troops there, like Brit and Canadian in Helmand, are fighting "Taliban" phantoms (who, apparently, can neither be seen, killed or captured).

Probably troops in Helmand are, at most, fighting tribals resisting their occupation of the area. The Taliban, like Qaeda, are probably an Anglo-Saxon-contrived popinjay providing the pretext for troop-buildups to invade Iran. (Where are the "rotated" US troops going?)

8 October 06

North Korea has tested an "atomic bomb", of up to 15 kilotons, 3.6 on the Richter.

10 October 06

Fifteen minutes is missing from a US military video showing the context of the killing of ITN reporter Terry Lloyd, the inquiry into his death was told. The US military says it's all it has.

Lloyd was apparently shot by US marines as he got into a civilian Iraqi minibus. The lawyer representing his case has called for a verdict of unlawful killing. The Oxford coroner's verdict is due this Friday ().

A "researcher" working under the Defence Academy, who the Ministry of Defence called a middle-ranking officer but Newsnight described as a naval commander, said the Pakistani ISI was implicated in terrorism and that Qaeda has now become a paragon for many Muslims in the Mideast and the West.
(BBC Newsnight, 9 October 06)

This is last-ditch propaganda to protect the CIA and its satellites, the creators and exploiters of the Qaeda tool of petro-imperialism.

11 October 06

There have been almost 655,000 "excess deaths" in Iraq since the US-led invasion of spring 2003, an article published in the British medical journal The Lancet says. The figure is based on a sample survey of about 2,000 households throughout Iraq, and is a median one, with lower and upper figures of about 400,000 and about 942,000.

The survey was carried out by American and Iraqi health experts. They knocked on doors and asked a set of standard questions. Death certificates were produced by 92 percent of households.

About two-thirds of the number were violent deaths. The median figure represents a death rate of 13.6 per thousand, compared with 5.5 per thousand before the invasion.

A small plane carrying a baseball star crashed into a New York apartment block, reviving memories and fears of 9/11.

US President Bush says that US troops are expected to stay in Iraq until 2010 (at least).

12 October 06

A Hindu-turned-Muslim, Dureen Barat (no, not Borat!) has pleaded guilty to plotting simultaneous bomb attacks on financial targets in the US (including Wolfowitz's World Bank) and a radioactive dirty bomb in the UK. But there was no financing and no materials.

The Red Cross has visited "9/11 mastermind" Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Ramzi Binalshibh and twelve other detainees at Guantanamo — apparently the ones recently transferred from secret CIA jails.

The presence of British troops in southern Iraq is making the situation worse, both in Iraq and worldwide, and they should withdraw "sometime soon", says the new head of the army, Sir Richard Dannatt. His comments are published in tomorrow's Daily Mail.

And General David Richards, commander of ISAF, says British troops in Afghanistan are facing the most intense fighting since Korea or World War II (probably).

Against a "Taliban" enemy which, apparently, cannot be seen, let alone killed or captured.

14 October 06

The Oxford coroner's inquest into the death of ITN reporter Terry Lloyd has ruled that he was unlawfully killed, by US marines.

Targeting of unembedded ("unilateral") reporters was almost routine, e.g. the shelling of the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad, and similar killings in Afghanistan.

'Guantanamo abuse boasts' probed
BBC News online, 14 October 06

'The US Pentagon has ordered an inquiry into alleged abuses at Guantanamo Bay after reports that camp guards boasted of beating and mistreating detainees. ...

'Marine Sgt Heather Cerveny, who went to the base three weeks ago as a legal aide to a military lawyer, said five navy guards described in detail how they beat up detainees.

'"The one sailor specifically said 'I took the detainee by the head and smashed his head into the cell door'," she said in the affidavit. '"Front eh whole conversation [held in a bar, before they realized she was a lawyer's aide], I understood that striking detainees was a common practice," the sergeant wrote. ...'

'The US has meanwhile rejected a call by British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett to close Guantanamo Bay. ...

'... a US spokesman said the camp was needed to house "some very dangerous people", including those who were behind the 9/11 attacks. [Kissinger, Tenet et al would feel quite at home there.] ...

'Some 450 terror suspects are thought to be detained at the camp.'

16 October 06

The US has "confirmed" that N Korea conducted a nuclear test. As might be expected; the "axis of evil is the cabal's raison d'etre.

For days, US aerial tests were unable to confirm radioactive traces, but now they apparently claim to have done so. The power of the bomb is now put at only 1 kiloton, the equivalent of 1,000 tons of TNT

and indeed, it may well have been a load of chemical high explosives. A year or so ago, a massive explosion devastated a N Korean border town, missing by hours Dear Leader Kim Jong-Il, who was returning from a visit to China. This apparent assassination attempt may well have been the inspiration for the recent "nuclear test" ...

17 October 06

US President Bush has signed into law legislation allowing "tough interrogations" and military trials of terror suspects.

19 October 06

British "security sources", continuing to do their bit for Reich and Fuehrer, have told the BBC that Britain is the top target for al Qaeda. British terrorists have adopted a hierarchical cell-structure like that of — formerly! — the IRA.

And on BBC Newsnight, we learn of arms smuggled across the Iran-Iraq border. Heading west, of course.

26 October 06

From the Torture-Chambers of the CIA, the Pretexts for Petro-Imperialism are Forged ...

Many of the inmates of the CIA's secret prisons are unaccounted for, in spite of Bush's recent statement that the last 14 had been transferred to Guantanamo, reports BBC Newsnight. The number isn't known, but believed to be hundreds. So what's new?

Qaeda's "no. 3", Ibrahim al-Libi, is one of the most prominent. Ran a Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan, captured by the Americans after the invasion and held in Kandahar. Then handed over to the Egyptians, handed back, carried off in a box, over the protests of FBI men. Al-Libi (and others) interned at Bagram in boxes the size and shape of coffins, periodically taken out to be tortured under interrogation, later became clinically insane. Now disappeared.

"Information" extracted from al-Libi, of alleged links between al-Qaeda and Iraq, were used by then Secretary of State Colin Powell in Security Council as part-"justification" for Iraq attack.

Newsnight interviewed two people for this report. Jack Cloonan, FBI special agent 1977-2002 (a possible victim of the Mueller purge) warned that those responsible are known and accountable. Stephen Grey is the author of Ghost Plane, about the secret CIA flights transporting "terror suspects". (An extract is available on the Newsnight page Ghost Plane, and you can comment [subject to approval]). [Mine's in this lot.

From this we can judge the value of other "information" similarly extracted from Qaeda figures (Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Ramzi Binalshibh et al [some anonymous]) on the 9/11 attacks and Qaeda-Iran "connections". The 9/11 Commission's Final Report included <much of this material (chapters 5 and 7 are based almost exclusively on it).

A PBS interview with Cloonan, 13 July 05, contains interesting titbits about US intelligence's pre-9/11 history with al-Qaeda (as well as dealing with al-Libi): "I had been seconded to a special team that had been established as a result of President Clinton signing a presidential finding, an intelligence finding , in early January of 1996. And in that finding, he basically declared war on bin Laden [Long before bin Laden (as the 9/11 Report would have it) declared war on the US in February 1998. This is a new one on me ...], and he directed all U.S. intelligence assets, including the FBI, to go after bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and the Al Qaeda network. ...

"Mike Scheuer — otherwise known as "Anonymous" — put together this team. And we had people from the New York office of the FBI there, [and] from our office in Washington. There was a fusion cell put together to look at information, so on and so forth. [This must be the "bin Laden Issue Station" ("Alex Base"). Cloonan was the second-in-command of it? Or is he talking about an "extra-mural" affiliated unit, or a sub-unit?] ..."

And quickly they find themselves a Qaeda chap, Jamal al-Fadh, whose trying to spill his guts — he walks into the US embassy in Eritrea to do it. "[H]e raised his hand and swore ... [dieresis in original] his allegiance to Sheikh bin Laden, recruited in Brooklyn. [Yes, Cloonan said this ... Long live the Brooklyn Cell.] So we ... convinced Jamal to come to the United States voluntarily [right, did Cloonan slip that bin Laden was recruited in Brooklyn; or was al-Fadl, after Cloonan & Co. brought him to America?] ..." And al-Fadl lives with the FBI boys for three years in a safe house in the US. Taking us roughly up to spring 1999. And he gives them the dope on Qaeda.

"... [Al-Fadl] wanted to see bin Laden in an orange jumpsuit that said 'Metropolitan Correction Center' on it [in New York City, presumably]. ...

"Ultimately, we ended up talking to bin Laden's first trainer, Ali Mohammed, Ali Abdul Saud Mohammed, who is correctly in jail. [See Ali Mohammed: A Key Link?.] He taught bin Laden. In one of the first training classes that Ali Mohammed conducted was Sheikh bin Laden; Ayman al-Zawahiri; Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who's chief of military operations at the time; Saif al-Adel, who's still one of the 22 most wanted fugitives, and others ... [We're talking, of course, about the 1990s, when Mohammed gave training in Afghanistan; not 1989 when he (then still probably a sergeant with the Green Berets at Fort Bragg) trained potential mujaheddin on their way to Afghanistan, in the New York area, as part of the US's "Operation Cyclone"?? (.Again, see Ali Mohammed: A Key Link?)] ..."

9/11 happens ... and soon "We actually brought in the chief HUMINT (human intelligence) officer from Delta Force — I did — from Fort Bragg [North Carolina], brought him up to the Metropolitan Correction Center prior to them going into Afghanistan. ... And they planned. Ali took them through all the training camps he had been in in Afghanistan, and he told them what they should be looking for [i.e. how to identify them]. ...

"... It was a military operation; we [the FBI, presumably] were certainly poor cousins. The [CIA] was essentially operating independently, certainly in (Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan). ..."

And then al-Libi, etc.

31 October 06

U.S. blamed for attack on school
Pakistan calls target al-Qaida training camp

Paul Garwood, Associated Press

'Islamic leaders and Al-Qaida linked militants blamed the United States for an airstrike Monday [30 Oct. 06] on a religious school and called for nationwide demonstrations to condemn the attack that flattened the school — known as a madrasah [madrassa] — and ripped apart those inside.

'Furious villagers and religious leaders said the pre-dawn missile barrage carried out by Pakistani helicopter gunships killed students and teachers.

'Pakistani military officials said the school was a front for an Al-Qaida training camp. Eighty people were killed in the country's deadliest military operation targeting suspected terrorists.

'Pakistan used intelligence provided by U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan in the raid, but American forces did not fire any missiles, Pakistan's army spokesman said today.

'Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan declined to say how much help was provided by U.S.-led coalition forces for Monday's attack.

'"Intelligence sharing was definitely there, but to say they (the coalition) have carried out the operation, that is absolutely wrong," Sultan told the Associated Press.

'Among those killed in the attack in the remote northwestern village of Chingai, two miles from the Afghan border, was a cleric who had sheltered militants in the past and was believed to be associated with Al-Qaida's No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri. ...

'Protests were held from the northwestern city of Peshawar to the southern city of Karachi, and the largest took place in Chingai and the Bajur district's main town of Khar, where 2,000 tribespeople and shopkeepers chanted, "Death to Musharraf! Death to Bush!"

'Amid fears of unrest, Britain's Prince Charles, who arrived in Pakistan on Sunday [29 Oct. 06] for a five-day stay, canceled a visit planned for today to Peshawar. ...'

Why would the National Reconnaissance Office have a "Strategic War Gaming Division"? Does/Did it in fact have such a division?

On 9/11, CIA man John Fulton, described as head of this "division", was leading an "exercise" involving the "simulated" crash of an aircraft into a building (the accidental crash of a small business jet into one of the towers of the NRO's HQ in Chantilly, Virginia. This is four miles from Washington Dulles Airport, where AA Flight 77 took off, and it began within five minutes of Flight 77 deviating from its scheduled path, to return and hit the Pentagon — also not far from the NRO's HQ.

Because the CIA's capacity to remote-handle aircraft was developed under the guise of their Predator-drone project, to spy on and mayhap shoot at bin Laden in Afghanistan. Already in autumn 2000, the drones were being remote-handled from CIA HQ at Langley (also not far from NRO HQ and the Pentagon). (We can also speculate about the CIA's alleged "New York Station", on the top floor of 7 WTC (demolished on 9/11), being the advanced sighting station for the World Trade Center attacks.)

After the suspension of Predator Afghan recon flights late in 2000, flights were not resumed in 2001 while Cofer Black (head of the CIA's Counterterrorist Center), and "Richard" (head of the CTC's Bin Laden unit) argued for Predators armed with Hellfire missiles to hit Bin Laden. DCI Tenet was "horrified", etc; but ordered the resumption of reconnaissance flights on 4 September 2001 (after the Principals meeting on that day) ... ("The Lead-Up to 9/11")

.... It would be more interesting to compile an index of what's not in the 9/11 Commission Report. Among the topics that can be suggested ...

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