How
al-Qaeda keeps its secrets By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KARACHI - Prior to September 11,
although United States intelligence had wind of several
possible al-Qaeda schemes involving an attack on the
World Trade Center and the highjacking or destruction of
airplanes, the precise plans for that fateful day were
so closely guarded that even Osama bin Laden didn't know
the details until September 1.
This emerges from an Asia Times Online investigation involving
intelligence sources closely connected to the
interrogation of at least three senior al-Qaeda members
after their arrest in the Pakistani port city of
Karachi.
If the beads are placed on the thread,
the bombing of the World Trade Center's car park
basement on February 26, 1993, in which six people were killed and more than
1,000 injured, kicked off the planning that
culminated in al-Qaeda's September 11 attacks on the
World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The 1993 bombing was carried out by a group
headed by Ramzi Yousef, who is serving a 240-year prison
term. US federal authorities say that Yousef's group
received financial support from al-Qaeda via Khalid
Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the September
11 attacks. But a direct al-Qaeda role in the 1993
attack hasn't been established.
However,
after the 1993 attack, al-Qaeda members concluded that,
given the architecture of the twin towers, they could not
be destroyed from their base. And so the seeds of the
outrageous plan for a plane attack on the building were
planted.
The plan gathers pace In
August 1998, the Clinton administration fired cruise
missiles through Pakistani airspace into Afghanistan in
an abortive strike meant to kill Osama bin Laden in
retaliation for suspected al-Qaeda attacks on US
embassies in Africa.
Earlier that year, bin Laden,
after forming the "Coalition against Crusaders, Christians
and Jews" - the International Islamic Front -
issued a fatwa declaring that it was the "duty of
Muslims everywhere to kill Americans, including
civilians".
The attack on Afghanistan is believed to have
acted as a catalyst for several al-Qaeda cells to
seriously begin planning a major attack on US
soil. Details of this have emerged from intelligence sources familiar
with the case of al-Qaeda operative Ramzi Binal
Shib, who was arrested after a shootout with Pakistani
security forces in Karachi on the first anniversary
of the September 11 attacks. He was interrogated
by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)
and the the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI),
jointly and separately. After these sessions, he was
finally handed over to US authorities.
Ramzi's
account of events discloses several new aspects which
clearly show why US intelligence failed to detect the of
September 11 plot. Ramzi was supposed to be the 20th
hijacker, but he failed to obtain a US visa. He claims
that his non-participation was "the greatest regret in
my life".
His revelations show that the
final execution of the attacks were plotted in Hamburg,
Germany, where an important al-Qaeda cell was based.
Its members had never carried out any missions against
US interests, and they were highly motivated
and extremely secretive. Beyond the team members,
no one knew of their plans, and apparently bin
Laden was only informed 10 days before September 11 of
the actual nature of the attack.
Ramzi
Binal Shib informed his interrogators that he was assigned
to tell bin Laden of the plan. He travelled from
Germany via Bangkok to Afghanistan, where he met bin
Laden. From Afghanistan he returned to Germany, where
he learned that his application for a US visa had been
refused. He rushed to Spain to submit a fresh
application, but was again unsuccessful, so he
returned to Afghanistan, only leaving when Kabul fell in late 2001. He ended up
in Karachi, where he was arrested on September 11, 2002.
The nature of the Hamburg cell is typical of the
manner in which al-Qaeda operates. Once members of a
particular cell are assigned a specific task, the
details of the planning and execution remain with them
alone, and they do not know what other cells are doing.
Take the case of Khalid
Bin al-Attash. He was arrested on April 29 last year
in Karachi, and was regarded as the biggest-ever
catch in the "war on terror" as a hardcore al-Qaeda
member and a close associate of bin Laden.
The one-legged operative was a suspect in the attack
on the warship USS Cole at Aden, Yemen, in October 2000.
At the time of his arrest by Pakistan's Intelligence
Bureau, al-Attash was mistakenly taken for a local
Pakistani jihadi, but under interrogation his real
identity emerged. He was later passed on to the ISI and
then the FBI, but after exhaustive questioning it became
obvious that he did not have a clue about the September
11 planning.
Similarly, Ramzi Binal Shib was
part of the September 11 team, but interrogators soon
realized that he was unaware of any other al-Qaeda
activities. The same was true of Abu Zubaida, arrested
in 2002 by a joint team of Pakistani security officials
and the FBI and known to be a part of bin Laden's inner
circle. He was unable to supply any information on
September 11, or on future plans, except for some
general information.
Against this backdrop, it is no
surprise that the September 11 plan went undetected.
According to Asia Times Online sources, a Central
Intelligence Agency memo of August 6, 2001, indicating
that al-Qaeda wanted to attack the US, was no more than
a piece of intelligence analysis, primarily extracted
from al-Qaeda's track record and bin Laden's call for an
attack on the US.
Beyond that, no specifics
were available. This raises the strong possibility that,
just like before in Hamburg, a highly secretive al-Qaeda
cell might at this very moment be in the throes of
planning another major attack.
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six people were killed and more than
1,000 injured, kicked off the planning that
culminated in al-Qaeda's September 11 attacks on the
World Trade Center and the Pentagon. 
