Ali Mohamed: Most Duplicitous Man

ALI MOHAMED: THE MOST DUPLICITOUS MAN IN U.S. HISTORY
By Daniel Beck
November 2021

Disclaimer
The purpose of this paper is to examine actions of United States government officials and/or agencies, according to official and mainstream media sources, for failures or potential failures to perform one or more of the following:

1. Properly execute justice
2. Operate with reasonable transparency
3. Appropriately address instances of dereliction of duty
4. Appropriately address instances of corruption

Every detail found in each section can also be found in one or more of the sources listed at the end of that section. Meaningful rebuttals, counter-rebuttals, etc., to the main points covered in this paper have been included to the best of my ability and awareness.

This paper does not assert that every detail of every section is true. In fact, every detail cannot possibly be true since some details contradict others. This paper also does not assert that all sources cited espouse the overall narrative of their sections or the paper as a whole. In fact, occasionally sources cited are skeptical or derisive of said narratives.

The method of research used for developing this paper has been called “open-source intelligence” because intelligence agencies develop most of their insights by searching through publicly available repositories of information. In the 2006 film, “9/11 Press for Truth,” which documents the creation of the 9/11 Commission, veteran CIA analyst Ray McGovern stated:

“The whole mystique of intelligence is that you acquire this very valuable information covertly. [However] if the truth be told, about 80 percent of the information that one needs is available in open-source materials.”

Open-source intelligence involves accumulating seemingly unrelated or loosely related data points from articles/books which are often given low priority/visibility in daily news cycles. However, once assembled they can form accurate narratives that may differ greatly from narratives being promoted by a given country’s government.

This paper contains copyrighted material such as media excerpts that have not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This material is included to advance the education of criminal justice, historical, political, and economic issues. I believe this constitutes a “fair use” of such material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. However, if the copyright owner believes my use of such material does not constitute fair use and would like it removed, please contact me through my website, www.danielbecklessons.com, and I will accommodate all reasonable requests.

This paper is available free of charge through my website, www.danielbecklessons.com. If you benefit from this and other books/papers/articles I’ve written, please consider supporting my work with a donation through my website. Regardless of whether you donate, thank you sincerely for taking the time to familiarize yourself with this important information.

Summary
In this summary, the following abbreviations are used:

CT = Chicago Tribune
HP = Huffington Post
NYT = New York Times
SFC = San Francisco Chronicle
WSJ = Wall Street Journal

Ali Mohamed is arguably the most duplicitous man in U.S. history. He was recruited by the CIA as a terrorism informant in 1984. The CIA claimed it immediately dumped him and put him on the terrorist watch list to prevent him from entering the United States (CT, NYT (12/1/1998)). However, he then spent the next fourteen years flying in and out of the United States 58 times on a CIA visa waiver program, which the CIA refused to comment about (Boston Globe, CT, NYT (10/30/1998)).

In the mid to late 1980s, Mohamed became an Army Sergeant who trained Special Forces officers at Fort Bragg (Boston Globe, CT, Guardian, HP (8/29/2006, 8/15/2009), Independent, NYT (10/30/1998, 12/1/1998), WSJ). While there, Mohamed broke the law by traveling to Afghanistan and fighting with the CIA-backed Mujadeen against the Soviet Union. Mohamed’s commanding officer tried to have him investigated, court marshaled, and deported, both for breaking the law and for his fanatic Islamic extremism (NYT (12/1/1998), SFC (11/4/2001)). When his reports were stonewalled, the commander concluded Mohamed must work for the CIA (SFC (11/4/2001)). Amongst Mohamed’s friends and family in the U.S., it was common knowledge that he worked for the CIA (WSJ).

In the late 1980s, Mohamed co-founded the Alkifah Center in Brooklyn, New York (CT). The Alkifah Center was a CIA recruitment center (Newsweek, New York Magazine, Independent, Boston Herald, NYT (12/1/1998)), home to Al Qaeda’s first U.S.-based terror cell (NYT (10/22/1998, 12/1/1998, 10/12/2003), Newsweek, CT), and spawning bed for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and follow-on Day of Terror plots (NYT (10/22/1998, 12/1/1998, 1/4/2000), Boston Herald). Mohamed used his Fort Bragg special operations training materials to train the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing/Day of Terror plotters (NYT (10/12/2003), Boston Globe, CT, WSJ), who were also linked to the CIA (NYT (7/22/1993), Newsweek).

Throughout the 1990s, Mohamed was one of bin Laden’s most trusted confidantes. He lived with bin Laden and trained his personal security entourage (HP (8/29/2006), SFC (9/21/2001), WSJ). He was a lead trainer of Al Qaeda operatives both in Afghanistan and Sudan (CT, NYT (12/1/1998), SFC (9/21/2001, 11/4/2001), WSJ). He helped smuggled Al Qaeda operatives into the United States (NYT (12/1/1998), SFC (9/21/2001), Guardian), including repeated trips by Osama bin Laden’s second-in-command, Al-Zawahiri (CT, WSJ). He brokered a 1994 summit conference between Osama bin Laden and Imad Mughniyeh, the head of the Iran-sponsored terrorist group Hezbollah (SFC (9/21/2001), HP (8/29/2006)). He was a key planner of the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania (SFC (9/21/2001), CT, Guardian, PBS, HP (8/29/2006), WSJ). And he used the Fort Bragg training materials (CT) to author the primary Al Qaeda training manual from which all its operatives were trained (HP (8/29/2006, 8/15/2009), NYT (8/28/2006), SFC (9/21/2001)).

Also throughout the 1990s, Mohamed served as an FBI informant (SFC (9/21/2001, 11/4/2001), Guardian, HP (8/29/2006, 8/15/2009), NYT (12/1/1998), WSJ). In 1993, Mohamed openly shared that he had trained Al Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan and Sudan (SFC (11/4/2001), WSJ). The FBI knew Mohamed had trained the WTC/Day of Terror Conspirators with Fort Bragg manuals, but did not arrest him (WSJ). Mohamed was caught by the Canadian government smuggling an Osama bin Laden aide into America in 1993, but the FBI arranged for his release (HP (8/29/2006)).

Patrick Fitzgerald was Mohamed’s lead FBI handler. Fitzgerald was the head of the FBI’s Organized Crime and Terrorism Unit and the director of its dedicated Al Qaeda/Osama bin Laden unit (HP (08/15/2009)). Fitzgerald was also the lead prosecutor for the Day of Terror trial and the 1998 U.S. Embassy Bombing trial. He was also arguably the most famous federal prosecutor in America, having won convictions against Illinois Governor George Ryan for political corruption and against Vice President Dick Cheney’s aide Scooter Libby for lying to a grand jury (CBS).

Fitzgerald named Mohamed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Day of Terror case in 1994. However, Fitzgerald permitted Mohamed to remain free and never called him to testify (HP (8/29/2006)).

Fitzgerald and fellow FBI handler Jack Cloonan met face to face with Mohamed twice in 1997. They let him go free both times (HP (8/15/2009)). This was despite the FBI having already developed hard evidence of his involvement in the embassy bombing plot (HP (8/29/2006)). It was also despite Mohamed openly telling Fitzgerald and Cloonan that he loved Osama bin Laden and personally trained his bodyguards (SFC (11/4/2001)), HP (8/15/2009)). It was also despite Mohamed openly telling Fitzgerald and Cloonan that the U.S. was the enemy of Islam and that he could activate sleepers hiding in the U.S. at any time (HP (8/15/2009)). It was also despite Fitzgerald telling Cloonan that Mohamed was the most dangerous man he had ever met and must not be allowed to go free (Guardian, HP (8/15/2009)).

After the U.S. embassy bombings in August of 1998 (which killed 224 people and injured over four thousand), the FBI did not arrest Mohamed after he told them he knew who committed the bombing, but refused to provide names (SFC (11/4/2001), WSJ). The FBI finally did arrest him after searching his apartment and finding documents describing embassy security and instructions for blowing up buildings (SFC (9/21/2001), WSJ).

Patrick Fitzgerald put Mohamed in a low-profile federal jail in Lower Manhattan under a non-descript warrant so the media would not discover the reason for his arrest (HP (8/29/2006)). Fitzgerald and the FBI filed secret charges against Mohamed in a closed court hearing and refused to comment publicly about the case (NYT (10/30/1998, 12/1/1998)).

In October of 2000, Mohamed faced the death penalty if convicted. He pleaded guilty and openly admitted to numerous crimes, including plotting the U.S. embassy bombings, conspiring to kill U.S. civilians anywhere in the world, and smuggling Al Qaeda sleeper agents into the United States (SFC (9/21/2001), WSJ). Patrick Fitzgerald and Jack Cloonan cut a secret plea bargain deal with Mohamed. As a result, he was never sentenced, he was never called to never testify in the U.S. embassy bombing trial, and he disappeared into the federal witness protection program (HP (8/29/2006)).

There were also points of overlap between Mohamed’s terrorism career and the 9/11 plot. First, in 1994, Mohamed personally trained Al Qaeda members to hijack planes for the “Bojinka” plot (HP (8/29/2006)) – the 9/11 precursor that included piloting hijacked commercial airliners into the Pentagon, the White House, Congress, and the World Trade Center Towers (Associated Press, CNN (5/18/2002, 6/5/2002))

Also, four of the 9/11 hijackers were reportedly members of the Alkifah Center terror cell (HP (8/29/2006), Fox, NYT (8/9/2005)), which Mohamed founded and trained at. In fact, Mohamed may have had personal contacts with some of the hijackers (SFC (9/21/2001)). Plus, many of the hijackers’ tactics came straight out of the Al Qaeda terrorism manual Mohamed authored (CT).

Even though Mohamed was in the custody of Fitzgerald and the FBI for three years before 9/11, they extracted no information about the 9/11 plot (Guardian). This was despite Mohamed knowing every detail of the 9/11 plot before it occurred. In fact, days after the attacks, Cloonan met with Mohamed and had him write it all down (HP (8/29/2006)).

Five-time Emmy award-winning investigative journalist and ABC News producer Peter Lance documented Mohamed’s exploits in fine detail in his 2006 book, “Triple Cross,” which contains over 600 pages and over 1,400 footnotes (HP (8/15/2009)).

In 2005, Lance signed a contract with the National Geographic Channel to produce a documentary based on the book, which included exposing Fitzgerald, Cloonan, and the FBI for not stopping the 1998 embassy bombings or 9/11. The contract stipulated that Lance was to be the documentary’s principal narrator, executive producer, and editor. However, the FBI pressured National Geographic to omit Mohamed’s involvement with the FBI and made Mohamed’s handler Jack Cloonan the new producer and narrator instead of Lance. (HP (8/15/2009))

Fitzgerald wrote 32 pages of threatening letters over 20 months trying unsuccessfully to compel HarperCollins to back out of publishing Lance’s book (CBS, HP (8/15/2009)). Lance then publicly mocked Fitzgerald’s empty lawsuit threats in the Huffington Post and challenged him to call Mohamed to testify before Congress (HP (8/15/2009)).

Sources:
Associated Press, 3/5/2002, “U.S. Authorities Warned of Hijack Attack Plotting in 1995”
Boston Globe, 2/3/1995, “Figure Cited in Terrorism Case Said to Enter U.S. with CIA Help”
Boston Herald, 1/24/1994, “Sources Claim CIA Aid Fueled Trade Center Blast”
CBS News, 6/9/2009, “Fitzgerald Threatens To Sue Publisher Over Book”
Chicago Tribune, 12/11/2001, “Terrorists Evolved in U.S.”
CNN, 5/18/2002, “Prior Hints of September 11-Type Attacks”
CNN, 6/5/2002, “Insight”
Fox News, 8/28/2005, “Third Source Backs ‘Able Danger’ Claims About Atta”
Guardian, 11/16/2006, “Joining the Dots of Ineptitude”
Huffington Post, 8/29/2006, “Triple Cross: Nat Geo Channel’s Whitewash of the Ali Mohamed Story,” by Peter Lance
Huffington Post, 8/15/2009, “Mr. Fitzgerald, In Your Threat to Sue for Libel, Please, Either Put Up or Shut Up,” by Peter Lance
Independent, 11/1/1998, “Terror ‘Blowback’ burns CIA”
New York Times, 7/22/1993, “C.I.A. Officers Played Role in Sheik Visas”
New York Magazine, 3/17/1995, “The CIA’s Jihad” by Robert Friedman
New York Times, 10/22/1998, “U.S. Sees Brooklyn Link to World Terror Network”
New York Times, 10/30/1998, “U.S. Ex-Sergeant Linked to bin Laden Conspiracy”
New York Times, 12/1/1998, “The Masking of a Militant: A special report.; A Soldier’s Shadowy Trail In U.S. and in the Mideast”
New York Times, 1/4/2000, “The New Face of Terrorism” (opinion)
New York Times, 10/12/2003, “Why America Slept”
New York Times, 8/9/2005, “Four in 9/11 Plot Are Called Tied to Al Qaeda in ‘00”
New York Times, 8/28/2006, “Slipping Through the Cracks: Bin Laden’s Mole”
Newsweek, 9/30/2001, “War on Terror: The Road to September 11”
PBS Frontline, “The U.S. Embassy Bombings Trial”
San Francisco Chronicle, 9/21/2001, “Bin Laden's man in Silicon Valley”
San Francisco Chronicle, 11/4/2001, “Al Qaeda Terrorist Worked with FBI / Ex-Silicon Valley”
Wall Street Journal, 11/26/2001, “Sergeant Served U.S. Army and bin Laden, Showing Failings in FBI’s Terror Policing”

CIA Claims to Have Dumped Terrorist Informant Ali Mohamed Despite Media Reports and Compelling Evidence to the Contrary
According to the Wall Street Journal, in the early 1980s, Ali Mohamed was an ex-Egyptian army major and member of a terror organization called Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which was implicated in the 1981 assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. Per the New York Times, Mohamed was fluent in Arabic, Hebrew, English, and French. Per the Chicago Tribune, Egyptian Islamic Jihad went on to work closely with Al Qaeda beginning in the early 1990s and formally merged with it in 1998.

In 1984, while still in Egypt, Mohamed reached out to the CIA and offered to work as an informant on Middle Eastern terrorist groups. According to the CIA’s narrative, the agency briefly tried him out, but dismissed him after he spoke openly about his work for the CIA with other potential terrorists. The Chicago Tribune quoted former CIA employee and deputy director of the State Department's Office of Counter Terrorism, Larry Johnson, as stating:

“The agency tried him out, but because he told other possible terrorists or people possibly associated with terrorist groups that he was working for the CIA, clearly he was not suitable.”

Larry Johnson further said that after the CIA dumped Mohamed, he was put on the U.S. terrorist watch list to prevent him from entering the United States. The New York Times (12/1/1998) stated:

“The agency discovered the next year that… Mohamed, was trying to enter the United States, and it put his name on a State Department ‘watch list’ intended to prevent terrorists and other security threats from getting visas…”

Despite this claim, Mohamed flew to the United States in 1985, became a U.S. citizen, and went on to fly in and out of the United States several dozen times over the next 10-plus years, according to court records cited. The Chicago Tribune stated:

“On the day of the embassy blasts, Mohamed… had made 58 trips from America overseas, court records show.”

The explanation of how Mohamed achieved this appears to have emerged during the 1995 “Day of Terror” trial. (The “Day of Terror” was a plot to blow up New York City tunnels, bridges, and landmarks, including the United Nations.) The Boston Globe reported:

“Senior officials say Mohamed… benefited from a little known visa-waiver program that allows the CIA and other security agencies to bring valuable agents into the country, bypassing the usual immigration formalities. Intelligence sources say that waivers are controlled by the CIA’s Department of Operations, the clandestine side of the agency…”

Likewise, one senior official told the Globe:

“His presence in the country is the result of an action initiated by Langley.”

The New York Times, citing the Boston Globe article, questioned the CIA on this point in October of 1998. The result:

“…an agency spokesman declined to comment.”

Sources:
Boston Globe, 2/3/1995, “Figure Cited in Terrorism Case Said to Enter U.S. with CIA Help”
Chicago Tribune, 12/11/2001, “Terrorists Evolved in U.S.”
New York Times, 10/30/1998, “U.S. Ex-Sergeant Linked to bin Laden Conspiracy”
New York Times, 12/1/1998, “The Masking of a Militant: A special report.; A Soldier’s Shadowy Trail In U.S. and in the Mideast”
San Francisco Chronicle, 9/21/2001, “Bin Laden's man in Silicon Valley”
San Francisco Chronicle, 11/4/2001, “Al Qaeda Terrorist Worked with FBI / Ex-Silicon Valley”
Wall Street Journal, 11/26/2001, “Sergeant Served U.S. Army and bin Laden, Showing Failings in FBI’s Terror Policing”

Mohamed Joins Army Special Forces, Defies Regulations; Appears to Enjoy CIA Protection
But the difficulties with the CIA’s claim of broken ties with Mohamed since 1984 don’t end there. In 1986, Mohamed enlisted in the U.S. Army where he quickly rose to become a supervising trainer of elite Green Beret and Delta Force Officers at the highly secure JFK Special Warfare School at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. This accomplishment was documented by numerous media outlets, including the Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Guardian, Huffington Post, Independent, and New York Times.

While at Fort Bragg, Mohamed openly announced that he would defy army regulations during his vacation by traveling to Afghanistan and fighting with the CIA-backed Mujadeen against the Soviets invaders. One month later, per the San Francisco Chronicle and New York Times, he returned and bragged that he had killed two Soviet soldiers.

Mohamed’s commanding officer at Fort Bragg – Lieutenant Colonel Robert Anderson – wrote multiple reports asking Army intelligence to investigate, court-martial, and deport Mohamed. The requests were based not only on his illicit actions in Afghanistan, but also on his terrorist background and bizarre behavior, which led Anderson to describe him as a “dangerous fanatic.” The New York Times quoted Mohamed in one Fort Bragg training videotape as stating:

“From the Islamic perspective, nobody can recognize Israel has the right to live, because Israel stole an Islamic territory. We do not accept peace. No international conference. Nothing. No compromise.”

However, all of Lieutenant Colonel Anderson’s reports were ignored, which led him to conclude Mohamed must be working for the CIA. The San Francisco Chronicle quoted/paraphrased him as stating:

“I think you or I would have a better chance of winning Powerball, than an Egyptian major in the unit that assassinated Sadat would have getting a visa, getting to California, getting into the Army and getting assigned to a Special Forces unit. That just doesn't happen.” (Quote)

“It was equally unthinkable that an ordinary American GI would go unpunished after fighting in a foreign war.” (Paraphrase)

“…all this convinced [me] that Mohamed was ‘sponsored’ by a U.S. intelligence service… I assumed the CIA.” (Paraphrase and quote)

Mohamed’s friends corroborated Anderson’s suspicions. The Wall Street Journal stated:

“[Mohamed’s] new friends back home in California took for granted that Mr. Mohamed was helping the Central Intelligence Agency in its proxy war against the Soviets in Afghanistan.”

It quoted Mohamed’s close friend, San Jose obstetrician Ali Zaki as stating:

“Everyone in the community knew he was working as a liaison between the CIA and the Afghan cause, and everyone was sympathetic.”

It likewise quoted University professor and former Egyptian intelligence officer Nabil Sharef as stating:

“…he was moving back and forth between the U.S. and Afghanistan. It’s impossible the CIA thought he was going there as a tourist… If the CIA hadn't caught on to him, it should be dissolved and its budget used for something worthwhile.”

When the Wall Street Journal reached out to the CIA, the agency “decline[d] to comment.”

Sources:
Boston Globe, 2/3/1995, “Figure Cited in Terrorism Case Said to Enter U.S. with CIA Help”
Chicago Tribune, 12/11/2001, “Terrorists Evolved in U.S.”
Guardian, 11/16/2006, “Joining the Dots of Ineptitude”
Huffington Post, 8/29/2006, “Triple Cross: Nat Geo Channel’s Whitewash of the Ali Mohamed Story,” by Peter Lance
Huffington Post, 8/15/2009, “Mr. Fitzgerald, In Your Threat to Sue for Libel, Please, Either Put Up or Shut Up,” by Peter Lance
Independent, 11/1/1998, “Terror ‘Blowback’ burns CIA”
New York Times, 10/30/1998, “U.S. Ex-Sergeant Linked to bin Laden Conspiracy”
New York Times, 12/1/1998, “The Masking of a Militant: A special report.; A Soldier’s Shadowy Trail In U.S. and in the Mideast”
San Francisco Chronicle, 9/21/2001, “Bin Laden's man in Silicon Valley”
San Francisco Chronicle, 11/4/2001, “Al Qaeda Terrorist Worked with FBI / Ex-Silicon Valley”
Wall Street Journal, 11/26/2001, “Sergeant Served U.S. Army and bin Laden, Showing Failings in FBI’s Terror Policing”

Mohamed Becomes Founder and Trainer of a CIA Recruitment Center That Trained WTC Bombers and “Day of Terror” Terrorists
But the difficulties with the CIA’s claim of broken ties with Mohamed since 1984 don’t end there. As discussed in my 1993 World Trade Center Bombing paper, the primary defendant of the aforementioned 1995 “Day of Terror” trial was the plot’s mastermind, Omar Abdul-Rahman, A.K.A. the Blind Sheikh. Also discussed in that paper were the following points:

Rahman was approved for travel visas by CIA officers four times in the years leading up to the plot despite being a high-profile figure on the U.S. terrorist watch list. (New York Times)
Rahman was the spiritual leader of the Alkifah Center (Independent), where both the 1993 WTC Bombing and the “Day of Terror” plot were hatched and where many of the key conspirators received training. (New York Times, Boston Herald)
The Alkifah Center reportedly became Osama Bin Laden’s and Al Qaeda’s operational headquarters in the United States. (New York Times, Newsweek, Chicago Tribune)
The Alkifah Center was reportedly used by the CIA during Operation Cyclone to train Islamic militants who were then sent to Osama bin Laden in Pakistan before being inserted into the Afghan-Soviet War. (New York Times, Newsweek, New York Magazine, Independent, Boston Herald)

Now we turn Ali Mohamed’s role at the Alkifah Center. First, he was one of its founders. The Chicago Tribune wrote of the center:

“…Mohamed… established the first U.S. outpost for what would evolve into Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network.”

Second, Mohamed was one of the Alkifah Center’s key paramilitary trainers. While still working at Fort Bragg Mohamed regularly traveled to the Alkifah Center on weekends to train the recruits in military tactics using classified U.S. military videotapes and training manuals he brought from Fort Bragg. While many of the lessons he gave were applicable to the Soviet-Afghan War, others appeared only to apply to acts of terrorism. Mohamed directly trained many of the WTC Bombing and Day of Terror terrorists.

The New York Times stated:

“Armed with official U.S. Army videotapes and military documents marked ‘Top Secret,’ Mohamed conducted a series of weekend ‘training’ classes and a two-week-long intensive seminar. At those training classes were… terrorists… convicted in the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993.”

The Chicago Tribune stated:

“Mohamed… [would] teach U.S. recruits how to communicate in code, build bombs from garden-store materials and pose as ‘normal’ Americans by shaving their long beards and avoiding mosques. At a terrorist camp in Afghanistan, he also taught how to target buildings for explosions.”

The Boston Globe said regarding the “Day of Terror” trial:

“Ali Mohamed… is said by defense attorneys to have provided the 12 defendants with their initial training in the handling of bombs and weapons.”

The Chicago Tribune also stated:

“Mohamed's classes… [utilized] binders full of military manuals… [which] included military training schedules and a topographical map of Ft. Bragg, the locations of military forces in the Middle East, and a military guide with drawings on how to commit assassinations and create bombs.”

Per the Huffington Post, Mohamed was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the “Day of Terror” trial by the lead prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald. Strangely, Mohamed was never arrested or called to testify. However, Fitzgerald was also Mohamed’s primary handler during his work as an FBI informant throughout the 1990s, as we will discuss in more detail shortly.

Like all of Mohamed’s reported post-1984 connections to the CIA, there was no official sanctioning of Mohamed’s Alkifah activities by the federal government. Each of the aforementioned sources mentioned this, as did the San Francisco Chronicle, which stated:

“Although the United States was then providing training and money to the anti-Soviet rebels, the government said Mohamed's activities were unauthorized.”

Interestingly, one of the Alkifah/Day of Terror terrorists publicly claimed otherwise. Per the Chicago Tribune, El Sayyid Nosair often hosted Mohamed during his weekend visits. After his arrest, the authorities discovered binders full of Mohamed’s Fort Bragg military manuals in his home. The Independent pointed out that during Nosair’s trial:

“At his trial, Mr. Nosair claimed that the reason he had military manuals was that he was being trained by the US, not because he was intent on terrorism.”

Sources:
Boston Globe, 2/3/1995, “Figure Cited in Terrorism Case Said to Enter U.S. with CIA Help”
Boston Herald, 1/24/1994, “Sources Claim CIA Aid Fueled Trade Center Blast”
Chicago Tribune, 12/11/2001, “Terrorists Evolved in U.S.”
Guardian, 11/16/2006, “Joining the Dots of Ineptitude”
Huffington Post, 8/29/2006, “Triple Cross: Nat Geo Channel’s Whitewash of the Ali Mohamed Story,” by Peter Lance
Huffington Post, 8/15/2009, “Mr. Fitzgerald, In Your Threat to Sue for Libel, Please, Either Put Up or Shut Up,” by Peter Lance
Independent, 11/1/1998, “Terror ‘Blowback’ burns CIA”
New York Magazine, 3/17/1995, “The CIA’s Jihad” by Robert Friedman
New York Times, 7/22/1993, “C.I.A. Officers Played Role In Sheik Visas”
New York Times, 10/22/1998, “U.S. Sees Brooklyn Link to World Terror Network”
New York Times, 10/30/1998, “U.S. Ex-Sergeant Linked to bin Laden Conspiracy”
New York Times, 12/1/1998, “The Masking of a Militant: A special report.; A Soldier’s Shadowy Trail In U.S. and in the Mideast”
New York Times, 1/4/2000, “The New Face of Terrorism” (opinion)
New York Times, 10/12/2003, “Why America Slept”
New York Times, 8/28/2006, “Slipping Through the Cracks: Bin Laden’s Mole”
Newsweek, 9/30/2001, “War on Terror: The Road to September 11”
San Francisco Chronicle, 9/21/2001, “Bin Laden's man in Silicon Valley”
San Francisco Chronicle, 11/4/2001, “Al Qaeda Terrorist Worked with FBI / Ex-Silicon Valley”
Wall Street Journal, 11/26/2001, “Sergeant Served U.S. Army and bin Laden, Showing Failings in FBI’s Terror Policing”

Mohamed Becomes Osama Bin Laden’s Trusted Confidante
As we discussed in my 1993 World Trade Center Bombing paper, according to numerous reports (Independent, New York Times 4/11/1993, Chicago Tribune), the “Services Office,” or “Office of Services” in Peshawar, Pakistan, is where the Alkifah recruits were sent for additional military training after completing their initial training in the U.S. The Services Office was founded and run by the founders of Al Qaeda – Osama bin Laden and his mentor Sheikh Azzam. The New York Times stated in January of 2001:

“…Mr. Azzam set up… the Office of Services… to recruit and train Muslim volunteers for the Afghan fronts… Mr. bin Laden embraced the idea from its inception and became Mr. Azzam’s partner, providing financial support and handling military affairs… in early 1989, bin Laden and Azzam decided that their new organization should not dissolve. They established what they called a base (al Qaeda) as a potential general headquarters for future jihad.”

Correspondingly, the head of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia consulate during Operation Cyclone, whistle-blower Michael Springman said he was forced by high-level State Department officials to approve visas for hundreds of Islamic militants so they could travel to the U.S. for training before being sent to Pakistan for further training by Osama bin Laden before being sent into battle. For example, Springman told BBC Newsnight:

“What I was protesting was, in reality, an effort to bring recruits, rounded up by Osama bin Laden, to the US for terrorist training by the CIA. They would then be returned to Afghanistan to fight against the then-Soviets.”

He also told Fox News:

“…what I was doing was challenging a CIA program to bring people to the United States for terrorist training, people recruited by the CIA and its asset, Osama bin Laden… to get them trained and send them back to Afghanistan to fight the then Soviets.”

When the Associated Press asked a State Department representative about Springman’s allegation, his reply was not lengthy:

“The State Department had no comment on Springman’s allegations except to say final authority over visa decisions rests with the consular officer in charge, not with Springman.”

Now we turn to Ali Mohamed’s role at the Services Office. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Ali Mohamed often traveled there as a trainer in the same timeframe that he trained at the Alkifah Center. The New York Times said that this may have been where he first met Osama bin Laden.

Mohamed quickly became one of bin Laden’s most trusted confidantes. ABC News producer, five-time Emmy-winning reporter, and best-selling political author Peter Lance thoroughly documented the life and exploits of Ali Mohamed in his 2006 book, Triple Cross. Lance wrote for the Huffington Post that Mohamed was so trusted by the Al Qaeda chief that he “lived with bin Laden and personally trained his security detail.” The San Francisco Chronicle echoed:

“Mohamed…trained bin Laden's own personal security cadre and was a top aide and confidant of the shadowy terrorist kingpin himself.”

Mohamed went on to become a lead trainer of Al Qaeda operatives at Bin Laden’s training camps both in Sudan and Afghanistan, per the Chicago Tribune, New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and Wall Street Journal.

Sources:
Associated Press, 7/16/2002, “Ex-Official Details U.S. Operations”
BBC Newsnight, 11/6/2001, “Has Someone Been Sitting on the FBI?”
Chicago Tribune, 12/11/2001, “Terrorists Evolved in U.S.”
Fox News (The Big Story with John Gibson), 7/18/2002, Interview With Michael Springman, by John Gibson
Huffington Post, 8/29/2006, “Triple Cross: Nat Geo Channel’s Whitewash of the Ali Mohamed Story,” by Peter Lance
Huffington Post, 8/15/2009, “Mr. Fitzgerald, In Your Threat to Sue for Libel, Please, Either Put Up or Shut Up,” by Peter Lance
Independent, 11/1/1998, “Terror ‘Blowback’ burns CIA”
New York Times, 4/11/1993, “After Blast, New Interest in Holy-War Recruits in Brooklyn”
New York Times, 10/30/1998, “U.S. Ex-Sergeant Linked to bin Laden Conspiracy”
New York Times, 12/1/1998, “The Masking of a Militant: A special report.; A Soldier’s Shadowy Trail In U.S. and in the Mideast”
New York Times, 1/14/2001, “One Man and a Global Web of Violence”
San Francisco Chronicle, 9/21/2001, “Bin Laden's man in Silicon Valley”
San Francisco Chronicle, 11/4/2001, “Al Qaeda Terrorist Worked with FBI / Ex-Silicon Valley”
Wall Street Journal, 11/26/2001, “Sergeant Served U.S. Army and bin Laden, Showing Failings in FBI’s Terror Policing”

Mohamed Performs Invaluable Exploits for Al Qaeda Throughout the 1990s
Upon gaining Osama bin Laden’s deepest trust, Ali Mohamed accomplished several invaluable exploits for Al Qaeda during the 1990s. Here are several.

In 1991, per the Chicago Tribune and San Francisco Chronicle, Mohamed secured “safe transport for bin Laden from Afghanistan to [a] new base in Sudan.” The Huffington Post added:

“In 1991 Mohamed moved bin Laden and 100’s of al Qaeda terrorists from Afghanistan to Sudan, set up al Qaeda’s training camps in Khartoum [Sudanese capitol]…”

American officials told the New York Times that “this was a complex operation, involving the transfer through several countries…”

Mohamed also “helped smuggle bin Laden agents into the United States via Canada,” per the San Francisco Chronicle. And according to court records cited by the Chicago Tribune, Mohamed repeatedly smuggled in Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al Qaeda’s second-in-command, on a fake passport to covertly visit mosques across the U.S. to raise funds for Al Qaeda. The San Francisco Chronicle, Huffington Post, Wall Street Journal and Guardian echoed this point.

In 1993, Mohamed (per the Guardian, Huffington Post, New York Times, and San Francisco Chronicle) traveled to Somalia to help train guerillas and plan attacks on American soldiers there. The Huffington Post stated:

“In 1993 he trained members of the al Qaeda contingent that downed two U.S. Blackhawk helicopters in Somalia…”

In 1994, per the San Francisco Chronicle and Huffington Post, Mohamed brokered a summit conference between Osama bin Laden and Imad Mughniyeh, the head of the Iran-sponsored terrorist group Hezbollah. Mohamed also oversaw the security arrangements for this meeting.

Around the same time, per numerous outlets (CBS News’ 60 Minutes, PBS Frontline, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, New York Times, Huffington Post, Wall Street Journal, Guardian), Mohamed established an Al Qaeda cell in Kenya to scout out potential bombing targets. Shortly thereafter, Osama bin Laden personally selected the Nairobi, Kenya U.S. embassy as a future target. PBS Frontline put it this way:

“…Mohamed told Judge Leonard Sand of the U.S. District Court in Manhattan that at the request of bin Laden, he had conducted surveillance of… targets in Nairobi, including the U.S. embassy. He then delivered pictures, diagrams, and a report to bin Laden in Khartoum, Sudan. He said that bin Laden looked at a photograph of the U.S. embassy and pointed to the place where a bomb truck could be driven through.”

Mohamed continued to act as a key planner for the embassy bombing conspiracy for the next several years. Per the San Francisco Chronicle, from 1994 until the year of the bombing, the FBI traced phone calls from Mohamed’s residence to bin Laden associates in Kenya. The precisely coordinated plot came to fruition on August 7, 1998, when bomb-laden trucks were driven into U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania (400 miles apart), killing 224 people (12 Americans) and injuring more than four thousand. Later that month, per the Chronicle, the FBI searched his apartment and found “documents describing embassy security.”

Sources:
Associated Press, 3/5/2002, “U.S. Authorities Warned of Hijack Attack Plotting in 1995”
CBS News 60 Minutes, 9/26/2001, “By The Book: Inside Bin Laden's Terror Manual”
Chicago Tribune, 12/11/2001, “Terrorists Evolved in U.S.”
CNN, 5/18/2002, “Prior Hints of September 11-Type Attacks”
CNN, 6/5/2002, “Insight”
Guardian, 11/16/2006, “Joining the Dots of Ineptitude”
Huffington Post, 8/29/2006, “Triple Cross: Nat Geo Channel’s Whitewash of the Ali Mohamed Story,” by Peter Lance
Huffington Post, 8/15/2009, “Mr. Fitzgerald, In Your Threat to Sue for Libel, Please, Either Put Up or Shut Up,” by Peter Lance
New York Times, 12/1/1998, “The Masking of a Militant: A special report.; A Soldier’s Shadowy Trail In U.S. and in the Mideast”
New York Times, 8/28/2006, “Slipping Through the Cracks: Bin Laden’s Mole”
PBS Frontline, “The U.S. Embassy Bombings Trial”
San Francisco Chronicle, 9/21/2001, “Bin Laden's man in Silicon Valley”
San Francisco Chronicle, 11/4/2001, “Al Qaeda Terrorist Worked with FBI / Ex-Silicon Valley”
Wall Street Journal, 11/26/2001, “Sergeant Served U.S. Army and bin Laden, Showing Failings in FBI’s Terror Policing”

Mohamed Authors the Al Qaeda Manual from U.S. Special Forces Training Manuals
On top of all the aforementioned exploits, the Huffington Post, New York Times, and San Francisco Chronicle all reported that Mohamed authored Al Qaeda’s primary terrorism manual. The San Francisco Chronicle said lessons were included on “how to reconnoiter targets for terror bombings” and “how to create cell structures that could be used for operations.”

However, the Chicago Tribune offered more detail than the other sources. According to the Tribune, the 18-chapter, 180-page document was entitled, “Military Studies in the Jihad Against the Tyrants.” Its contents were largely “patched together” from Fort Bragg Special Forces training guides. It served as a “blueprint for assassinations and bombings.” It gave a “step-by-step tutorial on the proper way to hold a gun, make bombs from common materials and brew poisons from plants.” The manual also contained “heavy doses of religion and terrorism history.” Besides all this, Mohamed also authored “dozens” of supplementary “how-to manuals.”

A September of 2001 episode of CBS News’ 60 Minutes described the manual in some detail as well. It said the manual was so valuable to the Al Qaeda organization that:

“Bin Laden himself seems to know the Al-Qaeda training manual chapter and verse.”

Lesson four advises cell members to rent apartments on the first floor to “facilitate escape,” to change the locks, to avoid loud speech that might be heard through the walls by neighbors, and to speak in code or to speak disinformation over phone lines that are potentially monitored by authorities. Lesson five says cells should not know each other so that if one is exposed, the others’ work will “proceed normally.” Lesson eight teaches cell members how to blend in to western society. For example, they are instructed to:

“…have a general appearance that does not indicate Islamic orientation… [and] carry falsified personal documents and know all the information they contain… [and] do not travel with wives, a wife with an Islamic appearance attracts attention.”

It further encourages cell members to break Islamic taboos to blend in, such as shaving beards, carrying cigarettes, wearing cologne, and carrying western magazines. Also, the manual covers all types of surveillance and “how to resist torture how to inflict torture.”

Sources:
CBS News 60 Minutes, 9/26/2001, “By The Book: Inside Bin Laden's Terror Manual”
Chicago Tribune, 12/11/2001, “Terrorists Evolved in U.S.”
Huffington Post, 8/29/2006, “Triple Cross: Nat Geo Channel’s Whitewash of the Ali Mohamed Story,” by Peter Lance
Huffington Post, 8/15/2009, “Mr. Fitzgerald, In Your Threat to Sue for Libel, Please, Either Put Up or Shut Up,” by Peter Lance
New York Times, 8/28/2006, “Slipping Through the Cracks: Bin Laden’s Mole”
San Francisco Chronicle, 9/21/2001, “Bin Laden's man in Silicon Valley”
San Francisco Chronicle, 11/4/2001, “Al Qaeda Terrorist Worked with FBI / Ex-Silicon Valley”

Mohamed Serves as an FBI Informant
At the same time he was serving as an irreplaceable Al Qaeda operative, Ali Mohamed also served as an FBI informant throughout the 1990s. The San Francisco Chronicle wrote:

“…by the early 1990s [Mohamed] had also established himself as an FBI informant.”

The New York Times stated:

“By the early 1990's, Mr. Mohamed was… simultaneously collaborating with Mr. bin Laden’s organization and talking regularly with Federal agents about the Saudi exile…”

The Wall Street Journal explained:

“The FBI used Mr. Mohamed as an informant… extracting from him its first known comprehensive briefing on al Qaeda all the way back in 1993… the earliest insider description of al Qaeda that is publicly known…”

“Mr. Mohamed said Mr. bin Laden was running a group called al Qaeda ‘and was building an army’… He also told the bureau he had trained terrorists at Mr. bin Laden's military camps in Sudan and Afghanistan.”

Likewise, the San Francisco Chronicle (citing a 1998 FBI affidavit) said Mohamed told the FBI in 1993 that he had “trained bin Laden followers in intelligence and anti-hijacking techniques in Afghanistan.”

The Wall Street Journal added that this interview occurred after the FBI had already found Mohamed’s Fort Bragg training manuals in the home of one of the 1993 bombing conspirators, yet the FBI still let him go after the interview without further investigation. As a brief aside, the Wall Street Journal also pointed out that the FBI secretly videotaped Mohamed training five of the 1993 WTC bombers at a rifle range outside New York City.

Following Mohamed’s 1993 FBI interview, the New York Times reported:

“In the next few years… [the] Government tracked his movements and phone calls…”

Likewise, according to the Chicago Tribune, Mohamed was technically considered “under investigation” by the FBI from 1993 to 1997.

In 1993 Mohamed was caught in Canada trying to sneak an Osama bin Laden aide into America using a false passport. When he was interrogated by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, he “admitted to working closely with bin Laden’s group” and said he hoped his arrest “wouldn't hurt his chances of getting a job as an FBI interpreter.” FBI special agent John Zent, who was part of the FBI’s dedicated Osama bin Laden unit called “Squad I-49,” vouched for Mohamed to the Canadians and got him released, per the Huffington Post.

In 1994, Mohamed was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Day of Terror case by the infamous federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. Nevertheless, Fitzgerald permitted Mohamed to remain free and never called him to testify during the trial. Fitzgerald was also Mohamed’s FBI handler.

Fitzgerald figures heavily into the Ali Mohamed saga so let’s pause for a moment to discuss his background. Per Peter Lance (writing for the Huffington Post), Fitzgerald was the head of the FBI’s “Organized Crime and Terrorism Unit” and was “effectively directing” Squad 1-49 during Mohamed’s term as an FBI informant. Lance called Fitzgerald “the most intimidating Federal prosecutor in America,” in part because he had New York Times reporter Judith Miller imprisoned for 85 days for leaking sensitive CIA information. CBS News pointed out that Fitzgerald won convictions against Illinois Governor George Ryan for political corruption and against Vice President Dick Cheney’s aide Scooter Libby for lying to a grand jury in a CIA leak investigation. He was also a lead prosecutor for the Blind Sheik’s Day of Terror trial and the 1998 U.S. Embassy Bombing trial (for which Mohamed entered a guilty plea, but did not testify). For reasons we are have seen and are about to see, Peter Lance was ruthless in his criticism of Fitzgerald, as well as Squad 1-49 special agents Jack Cloonan and John Zent.

In 1996, per Peter Lance, Fitzgerald “buried probative evidence” of an Al Qaeda cell in New York City to which both Ali Mohamed and some of the 9/11 hijackers were connected, including wiretaps of key cell members.

In April of 1997, Fitzgerald and Cloonan had a face-to-face meeting with Mohamed. Afterward, according to both Peter Lance and the affidavit cited by the San Francisco Chronicle, Fitzgerald told Cloonan:

“[Mohamed] is the most dangerous man I’ve ever met… we cannot let this man out on the street.”

Yet Mohamed went free.

In the fall of 1997, per Peter Lance, Fitzgerald developed “hard evidence” that Mohamed was a “major player in the Embassy bombing plot.” Fitzgerald then flew across the country to meet him once again face to face in a restaurant across from the California Statehouse. During this meeting, per the affidavit, Mohamed told Fitzgerald that he had “trained bin Laden's bodyguards,” that he “loved bin Laden and believed in him,” and that it was “obvious that the United States was the enemy of Muslim people.” Per Peter Lance, Mohamed further said that he had multiple “sleepers” hiding in the U.S. that he could “activate at any time.” Nevertheless, Fitzgerald once again let Mohamed go free.

Sources:
CBS News, 6/9/2009, “Fitzgerald Threatens To Sue Publisher Over Book”
Chicago Tribune, 12/11/2001, “Terrorists Evolved in U.S.”
Guardian, 11/16/2006, “Joining the Dots of Ineptitude”
Huffington Post, 8/29/2006, “Triple Cross: Nat Geo Channel’s Whitewash of the Ali Mohamed Story,” by Peter Lance
Huffington Post, 8/15/2009, “Mr. Fitzgerald, In Your Threat to Sue for Libel, Please, Either Put Up or Shut Up,” by Peter Lance
New York Times, 12/1/1998, “The Masking of a Militant: A special report.; A Soldier’s Shadowy Trail In U.S. and in the Mideast”
San Francisco Chronicle, 9/21/2001, “Bin Laden's man in Silicon Valley”
San Francisco Chronicle, 11/4/2001, “Al Qaeda Terrorist Worked with FBI / Ex-Silicon Valley”
Wall Street Journal, 11/26/2001, “Sergeant Served U.S. Army and bin Laden, Showing Failings in FBI’s Terror Policing”

Mohamed Arrested, Charged, Hidden, Never Sentenced
As stated, bomb-laden trucks driven into U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania killed 224 people and injured over a thousand on August 7, 1998. Mohamed was one of the principal planners. Per the San Francisco Chronicle, when the FBI first questioned Mohamed he told the agents that he knew who committed the bombing, but “refused to provide the names.” On August 24th, per the Chronicle, the FBI searched Mohamed’s Sacramento apartment and found documents describing “embassy security” and instructions on how to “blow up buildings.”

The following month, Mohamed testified before a New York grand jury. Afterward, he was arrested for lying under oath. Per Peter Lance, Fitzgerald put Mohamed in a low-profile federal jail in Lower Manhattan under a “John Doe warrant” for fear the media would “get wind of their negligence.” In October of 1998, the New York Times reported federal prosecutors had filed “secret charges” against Mohamed. The article went on to say that Mohamed was charged in a “closed court hearing,” the federal judge “refused to make the charges against him publicly available,” prosecutors “declined to say” why the charges were made secret, and FBI officials “declined to discuss” the case.

In October of 2000, per the Chronicle, Mohamed was facing the death penalty if convicted. He pleaded guilty. In his testimony before a New York federal judge, per the San Francisco Chronicle, Mohamed explained that his terrorism links dated back to 1981 when he joined the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, stating:

"I was involved in the Islamic Jihad organization… [which] had a very close link to al Qaeda… the objective… [was] to attack any Western target in the Middle East… I taught my trainees how to create cell structures that could be used for operations… [and] military and basic explosives training.”

He then openly admitted to a long list of crimes, including:

Training guerrillas who attacked American soldiers in Somalia in 1993
Organizing an inter-organization terrorism summit in Sudan in 1994
Smuggling Al Qaeda sleeper agents into the United States from Canada
Plotting American embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania
Conspiring to kill “United States civilians anywhere in the world”

After his guilty plea and open confession, Mohamed was never sentenced. Peter Lance reported that Patrick Fitzgerald and Jack Cloonan cut an “undisclosed plea bargain” deal with Mohamed, who was subsequently disappeared into the federal witness protection program. Mohamed never testified in the U.S. Embassy bombing trial. Peter Lance explained:

“Fitzgerald and Cloonan… actually prevented [Mohamed] from testifying in the Embassy bombing trial in 2001 because of the embarrassment that cross-examination of Mohamed would cause the Bureau and the Justice Department which had allowed bin Laden’s top spy to work as an FBI informant.”

Sources:
Huffington Post, 8/29/2006, “Triple Cross: Nat Geo Channel’s Whitewash of the Ali Mohamed Story,” by Peter Lance
Huffington Post, 8/15/2009, “Mr. Fitzgerald, In Your Threat to Sue for Libel, Please, Either Put Up or Shut Up,” by Peter Lance
New York Times, 10/30/1998, “U.S. Ex-Sergeant Linked to bin Laden Conspiracy”
New York Times, 12/1/1998, “The Masking of a Militant: A special report.; A Soldier’s Shadowy Trail In U.S. and in the Mideast”
San Francisco Chronicle, 9/21/2001, “Bin Laden's man in Silicon Valley”
San Francisco Chronicle, 11/4/2001, “Al Qaeda Terrorist Worked with FBI / Ex-Silicon Valley”
Wall Street Journal, 11/26/2001, “Sergeant Served U.S. Army and bin Laden, Showing Failings in FBI’s Terror Policing”

Mohamed Appears to Have Considerable Connections to 9/11
Several points of overlap exist between Mohamed’s terrorism career and the 9/11 plot. To begin, Peter Lance pointed out that in 1994 Mohamed personally trained Al Qaeda members to hijack planes for the Bojinka plot – the 9/11 precursor that included piloting hijacked commercial airliners into the Pentagon, the White House, Congress, and the World Trade Center Towers, according to CNN and the Associated Press. Lance wrote:

“…the [Bojinka] plot had commenced in 1994 in Manila, almost four years before Ali’s capture. As the man who had lived with bin Laden and personally trained his security detail, Mohamed knew every twist and turn of it. Within days of 9/11 [FBI agent] Cloonan… interviewed Ali… and demanded to know the details of the plot. At that point Ali wrote it all out – including details of how he’d counseled would-be hijackers on how to smuggle box cutters on board aircraft and where to sit, to effect the airline seizures.”

Next, Peter Lance wrote that there were “key links” between the Alkifah Center terror cell (which Mohamed founded and trained at, as we already saw) and four of the 9/11 hijackers, including “ringleader” Mohammed Atta, which were identified in 2000 by the military intelligence program called “Able Danger.” These links were covered by other outlets as well. For example, Fox News (8/28/2005) reported:

“…the [Able Danger] unit came to know Atta through Omar Abdul Rahman [a.k.a. the Blind Sheik, Alkifah Center leader], part of the first World Trade Center bomb plot in 1993. Smith said Able Danger used data mining techniques — publicly available information — to look at mosques and religious ties and it was, in part, through the investigation of Rahman that Atta's name surfaced.”

Likewise, the New York Times (8/9/2005) stated:

“…the original [Able Danger] chart [from 2000]… included the names and photographs of Mr. Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi, as well as Mr. Mihdhar and Mr. Hazmi, who were identified as members of what was described as an American-based ‘Brooklyn’ cell…”

Five eyewitness team members of the Able Danger program testified of this foreknowledge under oath before congress. I cover the Able Danger program in much more detail in my Mohamed Atta paper.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Mohamed may have had “personal contacts with some of the hijackers.” The Chicago Tribune said that “many of their tactics” came “straight from Mohamed's lessons” contained in the Al Qaeda terrorism manual Mohamed authored. The Guardian pointed out that Mohamed was in the custody of Fitzgerald and the FBI for three years before 9/11 and yet were “unable to extract any information from him about the looming 9/11 plot.” Likewise, Peter Lance stated via the Huffington Post:

“…while they had Ali in custody for three years, Fitzgerald and Cloonan failed to extract the 9/11 plot from him, even though… Mohamed knew every twist and turn of it.”

U.S.-based media outlets consistently criticized the competence but never the motives of the CIA, military, and FBI officials Mohamed interacted with over fifteen-plus years. Peter Lance likewise used language to the effect that U.S. officials never knowingly facilitated Mohamed’s jihadist agenda. For example, he said Mohamed “snookered” the FBI, “tricked” U.S. intelligence, and “duped” the armed services. However, the Guardian suggested precisely the opposite – that Mohamed’s unbelievable career could indicate that parts of the U.S. government were involved in the 9/11 plot. Here we quote the article at length:

“What if I told you that a member of Osama bin Laden's inner circle operated with impunity within the United States for years before September 11? That despite being an ardent and avowed jihadi, he managed to become a naturalised citizen, to join the US Army, to get posted to the Special Warfare Centre where Green Berets and Delta Force train, and to work with both the CIA and the FBI? And all the while he was a top al-Qaida operative, hosting its second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri when he traveled to the US in the 1990s to raise money, and training both Bin Laden's personal bodyguard and radical Muslims who would go on to…detonate a truck bomb at the World Trade Centre?”

“Would you take it as evidence that our so-called intelligence community was abjectly incompetent and dysfunctional in the months and years before 9/11? Or would you see it as further proof that the powers-that-be were the powers behind 9/11…?”

“…some contend that Mohamed's intimate relations with the FBI and CIA are proof of government involvement in a 9/11 plot… Whatever your faith and belief, the Ali Mohamed story seems key to understanding the full truth of 9/11.”

Sources:
Associated Press, 3/5/2002, “U.S. Authorities Warned of Hijack Attack Plotting in 1995”
Chicago Tribune, 12/11/2001, “Terrorists Evolved in U.S.”
CNN, 5/18/2002, “Prior Hints of September 11-Type Attacks”
CNN, 6/5/2002, “Insight”
Fox News, 8/28/2005, “Third Source Backs ‘Able Danger’ Claims About Atta”
Guardian, 11/16/2006, “Joining the Dots of Ineptitude”
Huffington Post, 8/29/2006, “Triple Cross: Nat Geo Channel’s Whitewash of the Ali Mohamed Story,” by Peter Lance
Huffington Post, 8/15/2009, “Mr. Fitzgerald, In Your Threat to Sue for Libel, Please, Either Put Up or Shut Up,” by Peter Lance
New York Times, 8/9/2005, “Four in 9/11 Plot Are Called Tied to Al Qaeda in ‘00”
San Francisco Chronicle, 9/21/2001, “Bin Laden's man in Silicon Valley”
San Francisco Chronicle, 11/4/2001, “Al Qaeda Terrorist Worked with FBI / Ex-Silicon Valley”

FBI Interferes to Whitewash National Geographic Channel Documentary
In the fall of 2005, Peter Lance presented the content of his book Triple Cross to John Ford, the president of programming for the National Geographic Channel. Both parties immediately agreed to a contract to turn the book into a documentary. In December of 2005, Lance wrote a “ten-act treatment outlining the two key parts of the Ali Mohammed story,” as he later explained via the Huffington Post. The first part included Mohamed’s commission at Fort Bragg and his work for Al Quaeda (moving bin Laden to Sudan, setting up Al Qaeda training camps, training the WTC bombers and Day of Terror conspirators, training the Somali guerrillas, brokering the Al Qaeda-Hizbollah summit, bringing Al Qaeda’s second-in-command and other terrorists into America, and plotting the 1998 Embassy bombing). The second part chronicled Mohamed’s role as an FBI informant throughout the 1990’s – including his numerous interactions with Patrick Fitzgerald, Jack Cloonan, and John Zent – and the cover-up that followed. Lance summarized:

“…going in, the Nat Geo Channel bought a documentary from a five-time Emmy winning reporter that, once and for all, would expose the negligence of the Dept. of Justice on the road to 9/11.”

“In effect, my telling of the Ali Mohamed story holds Cloonan, Fitzgerald and a host of other key Feds responsible for not stopping the 1998 Embassy bombings or the 9/11 plot.”

According to the contract he signed with National Geographic Channel, Peter Lance was to be the “principal narrator, executive producer and editorial voice” of the documentary. However, in June of 2006, Jack Cloonan and two other counterterrorism officials pressured National Geographic to omit the second part of the documentary. The National Geographic Channel complied, cut Lance “out of the production and post production process,” and made Cloonan the new lead narrator. Lance summarized:

“In effect, NGC ended up replacing me with Jack Cloonan, one of the very Feds that my research had found grossly negligent.”

All of this was documented via a series of correspondences between Peter Lance and National Geographic executives, which Lance posted on his website, along with the documentary’s original script before part two was removed. The documentary aired in August of 2006. The New York Times published an article on it. The article did not mention the omission, but stated vaguely that Peter Lance “originally intended to provide narration for the documentary… [but] has since distanced himself from it.”

Peter Lance refused the sign a non-disparage agreement that the National Geographic Channel asked him to sign and instead wrote for the Huffington Post:

“…for those viewers who thought that they got the truth on Ali Mohamed from the Nat Geo Channel, I can assure them, as the principal investigative reporter to uncover his story, what they got was a whitewash.”

Peter Lance Publicly Mocks Patrick Fitzgerald’s Empty Lawsuit Threats
In June of 2009, per CBS News, Patrick Fitzgerald threatened to sue HarperCollins if they moved forward with their plans to publish Peter Lance’s book Triple Cross, documenting the Ali Mohamed saga. CBS quoted Fitzgerald as stating:

“The book lied about the facts and alleged that I deliberately misled the courts and the public in ways that in part caused the deaths in the 1998 embassy bombing attacks and in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.”

The publication went forward. Two months later, Peter responded to Fitzpatrick via the Huffington Post in an article entitled, “Mr. Fitzgerald, In Your Threat to Sue for Libel, Please, Either Put Up or Shut Up.” Therein, Lance explained that Fitzgerald had written 32 pages of threatening letters over 20 months trying to compel the publisher to back out. Lance subsequently posted all 32 pages to his website. Regarding Fitzgerald’s claim to grounds for a libel suit, Lance replied:

“Fitzgerald would be hard pressed to clear that hurdle, since the hardcover edition of Triple Cross ran 604 pages, with 1,420 end notes and 32 pages of documentary appendices including a series of FBI 302 memos and a 1999 affirmation sworn to by Fitzgerald himself. “

Lance then addressed Fitzgerald directly, stating:

“Put your summons and complaint for libel where your mouth was all those months. If you think you have a viable defamation case against me and HarperCollins mount it now… I, for one, would welcome a chance to sit across a legal conference table where you would be compelled to testify at a deposition under oath… If you don’t have what it takes to file that threatened lawsuit, Mr. Fitz, then at least have the honesty to withdraw your specious claim and support my call for Ali Mohamed to testify before a committee of Congress.”

Sources:
CBS News, 6/9/2009, “Fitzgerald Threatens To Sue Publisher Over Book”
Huffington Post, 8/15/2009, “Mr. Fitzgerald, In Your Threat to Sue for Libel, Please, Either Put Up or Shut Up,” by Peter Lance