* DXer says: Adnan El-Shukrijumah is the anthrax mailer … on or about 9/13/2001, he phoned from KSM’s house to tell his mom he was coming to the US
Posted by DXer on June 6, 2014
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CASE CLOSED ... what really happened in the 2001 anthrax attacks? 
DXer said
9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed appears in court for first time since COVID-19 shut case down
https://news.yahoo.com/9-11-mastermind-khalid-sheikh-133900824.html
DXer said
Judge Bars Statements Made by Guantánamo Detainees During F.B.I. Interrogations
By Charlie Savage
• Aug. 17, 2018
In a potentially major setback for the effort to prosecute five Guantánamo Bay detainees accused of aiding the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, a military commission judge ruled on Friday that prosecutors may not use a key piece of evidence against the men: statements they made to F.B.I. interrogators shortly after their transfer out of the C.I.A.’s “black site” prisons nearly a dozen years ago.
The decision brought to a head a long-running and potentially irreconcilable tension in the case: Defense lawyers say they need to thoroughly investigate the torture of their clients at the hands of the C.I.A. for there to be a fair death penalty trial. But the government says there is a national security imperative to keep certain facts related to that period … secret.
The ruling centered on a fight over a technique the F.B.I. used to try to get statements out of the detainees — including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described architect of the attacks — that could be used as courtroom evidence, despite their abuse in C.I.A. custody.
To attenuate that, the bureau sent in a “clean team,” whose agents did not know what the detainees had previously said, to start over with questioning them. But defense lawyers argue that the lingering effects of their clients’ previous torture tainted those interrogation sessions, too.
DXer said
July 5, 2017 at 5:23 am
Miami judge rules out FOIA trial, says FBI document on 9/11 funding to remain secret
Filed under 9/11, A1 Top Story {no comments}
http://www.floridabulldog.org/2017/07/miami-judge-rules-out-foia-trial/
“The court sees no need for further facts to be elicited at trial,” Altonaga wrote in her seven-page order granting the FBI’s request keep secret large portions of an FBI slide show titled “Overview of the 9/11 Investigation.” The FBI had argued the information was exempt from public disclosure because it “would disclose techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions.”
Altonaga’s decision reversed her May 16 order that the 60-page document – referred to in court papers as “Document 22” – that was shown to the 9/11 Review Commission on April 25, 2014, should be largely opened for public inspection. The commission is also known as the Meese Commission, after its most prominent member, Reagan-era attorney general Ed Meese.
Florida Bulldog attorney Thomas Julin said the judge “should have ordered the FBI to stand trial for its decision to withhold information about its investigation.” He added that an appeal is being considered.
“The order requires the FBI to release information that was illegally redacted. That information will shed light on 9/11, but we did not get everything we wanted,” said Julin. “Much of what we did get confirmed the Bulldog’s reporting about Sarasota has been 100 percent correct and the FBI lied to the public about that. This case may be headed to the Supreme Court.”
Florida Bulldog, working with Irish author Anthony Summers, first reported in September 2011 about a secret FBI investigation into a Saudi family living in Sarasota who abruptly departed their home in an upscale, gated community about two weeks before the 9/11 attacks – leaving behind their cars, clothes, furniture and food in the refrigerator. A senior counterterrorism agent said authorities later found phone records and gatehouse security records that linked the home of Abdulaziz and Anoud al-Hijji to 9/11 hijackers, including Mohamed Atta.
The FBI kept its Sarasota investigation secret for a decade. Former Sen. Graham has said the FBI did not disclose it to either the Joint Inquiry or the original 9/11 Commission.
An April 2002 FBI report released by the FBI during the litigation confirmed that account, saying agents found “many connections” between the Sarasota Saudis and “individuals associated with the terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001.” The FBI has since sought to discredit that report, saying the unnamed agent who wrote it had no basis for doing so.
The lawsuit forced the FBI to review 1,858 pages of records and to release parts of 713 pages. The FBI withheld 1,145 pages.
“The FBI violated FOIA by failing to respond to the Bulldog’s request for the Meese Commission records,” said Julin. “The Bulldog would not have gotten any of the records if it had not filed the lawsuit.”
The FBI PowerPoint pages Judge Altonaga has now ruled should remain under wraps include: ***
Four pages titled “Ongoing Investigation”
DXer said
May 22, 2017 at 5:31 am
Trial looms as judge denies FBI request to keep 9/11 records secret for privacy reasons
Filed under 9/11, A1 Top Story, FBI {5 comments}
By Dan Christensen, FloridaBulldog.org
New York World Trade Center’s North Tower ablaze on Sept. 11, 2001
In a ruling that could lead to the release of significant new information about 9/11, including details about who funded the al Qaeda terrorist attacks, a Miami federal judge has rejected FBI assertions that many records should be kept secret due to privacy considerations.
At the same time, U.S. District Court Judge Cecilia Altonaga granted summary judgment in the FBI’s favor regarding more than 1,000 pages of classified records it withheld from public view citing national security and other exemptions to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Those records, about which little is known, will remain secret.
***
‘Significant public interest’
“Plaintiffs have identified the significant public interest in information about who may have been involved in the September 11 attacks…Given the significant public interest in learning about possible suspects involved in the attacks, the FBI has not met its burden of showing Exemptions 6 and 7(c) apply to the selectively redacted names.”
***
Other partially-declassified FBI documents similarly appear to be chock full of deleted information about September 11th that Judge Altonaga determined is being improperly withheld from the public.
Among the most compelling is a PowerPoint presentation given to the 9/11 Review Commission on April 25, 2014 in a closed meeting. The title of the PowerPoint was “Overview of 9/11 Investigation,” and court papers say it “covers the hijackers, where they attended flight school, how they adapted to Western life and blended in, and known co-conspirators.”
The PowerPoint pages that Judge Altonaga now has identified as being improperly blanked out include these topics:
“Funding of the 9/11 Attacks” and “Early to Mid-2001 Additional Funding.” Two pages.
“KSM Non-Immigrant Visa Application.” KSM is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the Guantanamo detainee identified by the 9/11 Commission as “the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks.”
“Early to Mid-2000: Pilots/Intended Pilots Arrive U.S.’’
“Investigative Findings” regarding hijacker “Identification” and “Financial. Ample Financing was provided.”
“Early to Mid-2001: Non-Pilots Arrive U.S.”
“July – August 2001: Knife purchases”
“August 2001: Reserving 9/11 Tickets”
“Al-Hawsawi Credit Card Statement Supplemental Card Activity.” Like KSM, Mustafa al-Hawsawi is one of 17 “high-value” Guantanamo detainees. The Department of Defense says he was a “senior” al Qaeda member who helped facilitate “the movement and funding of 9/11 hijackers to the U.S.”
“Standard Chartered Bank KSM Supplemental Visa Application.”
“Ongoing Investigation.” Four pages.
Questions about who bankrolled the 9/11 attacks are at the heart of massive litigation in New York against principal defendants, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Saudi High Commission for Relief of Bosnia & Herzegovina. The consolidated lawsuits were brought by relatives of the nearly 3,000 people who died in the attacks, survivors and businesses that suffered property damage.
***
Judge Altonaga’s order gives both sides until Thursday, May 25, to file a joint status report “advising how they wish to proceed to conclude the case, and if a trial is to be held, to propose a trial period.”
On Monday afternoon, the FBI requested an extension until June 2.
“The FBI is currently working to determine how to proceed with the information as to which the Court denied summary judgment, i.e., whether the information will be released to Plaintiffs or whether the agency must persist in defense of its claimed FOIA exemptions,” says the motion filed by Miami Assistant U.S. Attorney Carlos Raurell. “This process, which is already under way, requires not only the FBI’s own internal analysis, but also consultation with the Justice Department’s Civil Appellate Division and with at least one other government agency.”
DXer said
Aren’t Cliff Kincaid and Ken Dillon mistaken? Isn’t Adnan El-Shukirjumah the mailer?
Special Counsel Mueller Will Get His Man
https://www.aim.org/aim-column/special-counsel-mueller-will-get-his-man/
DXer said
KSM was leading the planned anthrax attack on the US, according to the recent 2 hour interview of former lead Amerithrax investigator Richard Lambert (that I’m transcribing and posting as I listen to it).
“That was their design and was being directed by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed..” (23:52)
At 23:04
Question: “The person or persons or group had to be kinda ready…. to get going. They only had a week, from 911 to the mailing…
They had to have been planning this prior to 911 to have this anthrax ready and the letters.. right?”
Lambert: “Yes, that’s exactly right. It has now been declassified and it is out there in the media that what we know is that Al Qaeda had a very robust biological program. that was getting very close to having an anthrax weapon developed. They were moving quickly in that direction. They had a microbiologist that they had hired. They had a laboratory set up outside of Kandahar in Afghanistan and they were actively seeking pathogens.”
“You know in my mind I believe the 911 attacks actually preempted an anthrax by Al Qaeda because clearly they were moving in that direction. That was their design and was being directed by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed..” (23:52)
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
Questioner: “But the actual anthrax in the letters here in the United States came from military labs here in the United States… right?”
Lambert: “Well…… we don’t… what I can say is this… It was the Ames strain of anthrax.”
(At 24.__)
DXer said
At 26.40 of his recent interview, says Battelle had the same genetic abnormality as the Ames at USAMRIID. ( 26.40) (In addition to its Ohio facility, Battelle operated Dugway in Utah; this blog commonly uses the phrase “four morphs”).
DXer said
Questioner: “Wasn’t this weaponized grade anthrax.. because it was so light?” … “and immediately dispersed into the air?” (26.54)
Lambert: “Well, um… Weaponization… when we say weaponized… there are a set of characteristics that would indicate that something has been produced to be used as a weapon.
There are a lot of things that can be done to anthrax to make it more effective as a weapon.
One would be the particle size. Anthrax spores are very small and you want a particle size such that the particles remain aloft in the air so they can be inhaled…”
[Then he discusses the issues of electrostatic charge and moisture content.]
“So there are a number of things that can be done to anthrax to make it more effective as a weapon.”
“I would be hesitant to describe the anthrax in either one of the mailings as weaponized.”
“The first anthrax sent to New York City was very different from the anthrax mailed 21 days later.”
“The anthrax mailed to New York in the first set mailing to New York was brown, granular and almost had the consistency of sand.” (29.00)
[Disclaimer: I am multitasking and rushing. See audio for precise phrasing.]
DXer said
How hard is it to at least confirm Shukrijumah’s death through DNA analysis?
DXer said
What does Dr. Zawahiri mean when he threatens “thousands” of 9/11 attacks? Is it meaningless hyperbole?
Al Qaeda chief threatens ‘thousands’ of 9/11 attacks
https://www.google.com/search?site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=980&bih=493&q=anthrax+letters&oq=anthrax+letters&gs_l=img.3..0j0i8i30k1j0i24k1l4.9250.11420.0.11639.15.15.0.0.0.0.155.1380.8j6.14.0….0…1ac.1.64.img..1.14.1372…0i30k1j0i5i30k1.6xLf-XfMEtU#imgrc=a23CcLrt-5rpaM%3A
DXer said
Given the date of the successive anthrax letters was listed as “9/11”, when Dr. Ayman Zawahiri threatens thousands of 9/11 attacks, it makes me wish that the FBI’s “Ivins Theory” had been more convincing…. makes me wish the former lead Amerithrax investigator Richard L. Lambert has not publicly alleged that the FBI is withholding a staggering amount of information exculpatory of Dr. Ivins. It makes me wish DOJ Attorney Matt Hurd had produced Notebook 4282 instead of just rubberstamping the FBI’s failure to produce the notebook. It makes me wish I had gotten a Post Office Box already. It makes me hope that Congress adopted Tom Ridge’s recommendation in the OpEd this past week about tracking packages coming from abroad sent by US Mail.
DXer said
Zawahiri’s threat of thousands of 9/11 attacks makes me wish I knew what Shehata told his interrogators in 2014 after he was arrested in Egypt. He had been in charge of EIJ’s special operations. And such letters were Zawahiri’s modus operandi. Zawahiri is just too clever to brag. He believes war is deception.
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
Secret Saudi-9/11 files shed little light on terrorist ties to Sarasota family
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20160715/NEWS/160719719
By Billy Cox & Lee Williams
Staff Writers
Published: Friday, July 15, 2016 at 7:56 p.m.
Last Modified: Friday, July 15, 2016 at 7:56 p.m.
Newly declassified pages from a congressional report into 9/11 released Friday have reignited speculation that some of the hijackers had links to Saudis, including government officials — allegations that government officials say were never substantiated by later U.S. investigations into the terrorist attacks.
Congress released the last chapter of the inquiry that has been kept under wraps for more than 13 years, stored in a secure room in the basement of the Capitol. Lawmakers and relatives of victims of the attacks, who believe that Saudi links to the attackers were not thoroughly investigated, campaigned for years to get the pages released.
Sarasota connections
The document does little to shed any light on the hijackers’ ties to Saudis who were living in Sarasota County shortly before the 9/11 attacks, but does lay out a potential network in California that mirrors what some investigators outside of government believe existed in Southwest Florida, where several of the hijackers trained to fly.
The potential details in this region are still awaiting a ruling from U.S. District Court Judge William Zloch in Fort Lauderdale, who is overseeing a freedom of information lawsuit filed by a South Florida journalist and joined by the Herald-Tribune.
***
Working off interviews with an unnamed counterterrorism agent and the security officer of a gated Sarasota neighborhood, and writing for the Florida Bulldog, journalists Anthony Summers and Dan Christensen revealed Atta and Jarrah had multiple contacts with a Saudi Arabian family that abruptly left their luxury three-bedroom residence in the Prestancia enclave of Sarasota County on or about Aug. 30, 2001.
Alerted by neighbors’ suspicions about a lack of activity and three vehicles apparently abandoned in the driveway and garage, FBI agents converged on 4224 Escondito Circle within weeks of the 9/11 attacks. According to the counterterrorism operator and then-Prestancia Homeowner’s Association director Larry Berberich, the family left mail on the table, dirty diapers in the bedroom, made beds, a refrigerator full of food, and closets with entire wardrobes intact.
The 3,300 square-foot home was owned by Saudi businessman and Royal family confidant Esam Ghazzawi, but its primary residents were his daughter Anoud, son-in-law Abdulaziz al-Hijji, then a recent University of South Florida graduate, and two small children. The Bulldog reported that gate records and security-camera photos of visitors’ license plates, along with phone records, indicated Jarrah and Atta knew the al-Hijjis well.
Phone records connected the Ghazzawis with 11 other suspected al-Qaeda members. One, Walid al-Shehheri, died with Atta during the World Trade Center attack. Another — Adnan Shukrijumah, on the FBI’s Most Wanted List — was killed by the Pakistani army in 2014.
***
Miami attorney Tom Julin, who represents Christensen and Florida Bulldog in a freedom of information suit, said the document demonstrates the Saudis’ broad activities in the U.S. before 9/11: “As Bob Graham told us, the FBI did not call to Congress’ attention the connection they found in Sarasota to the Saudis. What is in the documents, is a good amount of information about what the FBI did discover in other places.”
One of the most startling revelations, Julin said, was that two of the people alleged to have provided assistance and support to the hijackers were Saudi intelligence officers. Still, Julin says, he did not realize the allegations contained in the 28 pages would be so strong.
“Bob Graham has been telling everyone to read this, and now I see why,” he said. “It’s a pretty strong indictment of Saudi Arabia and the FBI. We all need to read this carefully.”
DXer said
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/05/03/kenya-police-disrupt-alleged-plot-by-extremist-medics.html
Africa
Kenya reportedly foils ISIS-linked anthrax plot
Published May 03, 2016
FoxNews.com
Police in Kenya said Tuesday they broke up a terror cell linked to the Islamic State after uncovering plans for “large-scale attacks” including a plot to unleash Anthrax on that country.
Anti-terror officers arrested Mohammed Abdi Ali, a medical intern at the Wote District Hospital in Makueni County, along with his wife, Nuseiba Mohammed Haji, a medical student in Uganda.
The suspects had aimed to launch attacks on the scale of the 2013 Westgate Mall siege in Nairobi, Reuters reports. That assault, on a busy shopping day, killed more than 60 people.
Separately, the group was in touch with medical experts who helped plot a biological attack using anthrax, investigators add.
DXer said
Terror Watch: Tangled Ties
By Michael Isikoff On 4/6/04 at 8:00 PM
http://www.newsweek.com/terror-watch-tangled-ties-125287
But other transactions raised eyebrows at the FBI. The Riggs accounts showed a number of checks to flight schools and flight-school students in the United States as well as 50 separate $1,000 American Express travelers checks issued by Bandar to Saudi employees between July 9, 2001 and Aug. 28, 2001–including seven that were deposited that summer at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas. Riggs also reported $19,200 in payments from the Saudi Embassy to Gulshair al-Shukrijumah, a Florida-based imam who once served as an interpreter for the “blind Sheik” Omar Abdul Rahman, who was convicted in 1996 of a plot to blow up New York City landmarks. Gulshair al-Shukrijumah’s son, Adnan al-Shukrijumah, also known as “Jaffar the Pilot,” is a suspected Al Qaeda operative who is the subject of a worldwide FBI manhunt. (In response to U.S. demands to impose tighter controls, the Saudis have since terminated the payments to Gulshair al-Shukrijumah, along with a number of other clerics who were being supported by the embassy.)
DXer said
Is Broward terrorist figure Adnan Shukrijumah dead? FBI can’t confirm it
June 4, 2015 8:56 AM·
http://eyesonnews.com/is-broward-terrorist-figure-adnan-shukrijumah-dead-fbi-cant-confirm-it-20751/
By Dan Christensen, FloridaBulldog.org, Special to EyesOnNews.com, June 4, 2015 – Six months after former Broward resident and suspected al Qaeda leader Adnan El Shukrijumah was reported killed by the Pakistan army, the FBI has not confirmed his death and continues to include him on its list of “Most Wanted Terrorists.”
***
“The United States government has not yet confirmed the death of El Shukrijumah. He will remain on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists List until the time a confirmation is made,” the FBI’s Office of Public Affairs said in an email statement.
DXer said
Note the difference between my view with this CIA fellow about what KSM knew. I certainly agree with this lead CIA analyst that there was great compartmentalization in Al Qaeda’s bio program — more so than its chem program.
But consider the possibility that the interrogation — whether coerced and uncoerced — might not have been successful in revealing all KSM knows , particularly as to the role of Adnan Shukrijumah. Might KSM have been protecting precious truths surrounded by a bodyguard of lies, just as interrogators suspected? KSM seems to have persuaded the CIA interrogators that he was out of the loop as to some anthrax program details. (It is true that he very likely knew nothing about Rauf Ahmad; he had no need to know).
Yet, consider that he is the one who passed on Atef’s instruction to have the biological equipment transported to Kandahar in early May 2001. (KSM unconvincingly claims only later surmised what it was for.) Consider also that both Hambali and Al-Hawswawi took their commands from KSM.
“Mohammed Ahmad Rabbani was one of two who Khalid Mohammed (KSM) used to help Atef and Sufaat moving a roomful of crates purchased in Pakistan to Kandahar for the Al Qaeda anthrax program. KSM’s assistance had been sought by Abu Harith al-Masri.”
Posted by Lew Weinstein on May 6, 2011
And it was KSM’s assistant, al-Hawsawi, who had the scanned anthrax drying documents on a laptop seized when KSM was arrested.
“Al Hawsawi, who had the anthrax processing documents scanned on his laptop, was closely affiliated with Adnan El-Shukrijumah”
Posted by Lew Weinstein on September 22, 2014
Hambali was Sufaat’s supervisor and Sufaat briefed Hambali and Zawahiri at one point on his progress. (I believe the briefing was in August 2001).
So while I most definitely agree that Dr. Ayman Zawahiri was calling the shots (while reporting to Atef), I am unconvinced that KSM did not know or could not deduce more than he admitted to interrogators — even if Zawahiri kept operational details on a “need to know” basis. For example, KSM said he knew Sufaat was working with virulent anthrax (and it was safe because he had been vaccinated). Indeed, Sufaat came to stay with KSM.
If Yazid Sufaat and his assistants had not been working with virulent anthrax at the Kandahar lab, there would have been no reason for them to have been vaccinated
Posted by Lew Weinstein on September 22, 2014
And so I think it is highly relevant that KSM instructed Adnan El-Shukrijumah to prepare to travel to the US, smuggling himself in from Mexico. Why does this former CIA analyst think KSM sent Shukrijumah to the United States?
Senate Torture Report: KSM wrote bin al-Shibh a letter referencing “Jafar the Pilot” and indicating that “Jafar” “ought to prepare himself” to smuggle himself from Mexico ; the letter was seized in September 2002
Posted by Lew Weinstein on December 10, 2014
When are KSM, Hambali and Al-Hawsawi coming to trial? Why is it taking years to resolve Ali Al-TImimi’s appeal? Or even years to address FBI’s document production of the Sarasota materials? Our legal system does not work. It seems we need more judges and clerks and fewer lawyers.
DXer said
Bruce Hoffman Edwin Meese III Timothy J. Roemer, in their March 2015 report, “The FBI: Protecting the Homeland in the 21st Century: Report of the Congressionally-directed 9/11 Review Commission
To The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation By Commissioners” addressed the FBI’s failure to develop its intelligence analysis capability.
http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/protecting-the-homeland-in-the-21st-century
Excerpt:
“The Review Commission views its recommendation to enhance the analyst career service as a top priority among the following other proposals to improve analysis, collection, and training for both analysts and special agents:
• (U) The career service, led by the Executive Assistant Director (EAD) for Intelligence, should incorporate analyst managers at senior levels throughout the Bureau and the USIC. It should establish standards for training and education (and access to it) and for periodic rotations to other agencies.
• (U) The career service should set criteria for promotions based on the mastery of explicit analytic skills. The FBI should provide appropriate incentives for subject matter experts. The Review Commission strongly recommends that a group of outside experts be convened to monitor the progress of this career service.
• (U) The Bureau should implement changes to demonstrate its value as an intelligence workforce, including staffing the IB organization with more intelligence professionals.
• (U) The analysts should be further trained and incentivized to do strategic and domain analysis, supporting criminal investigation, national intelligence priorities, and the requirements from other agencies. To accomplish this, they must be empowered and equipped with cutting edge technology, desk-top connectivity to the USIC, and strong local incentives that encourage special agent and analyst collaboration to produce forward-looking, integrated domain analysis and collection plans. This must be at the highest priority for FBI leadership at all levels.
• (U) Leadership should focus on building the domain analytic capability at the field office level, including tradecraft development, improved access to information, increased analytic collaboration between Headquarters and the field, and enhanced training.
• (U) The FBI must improve the Human Intelligence (HUMINT) program with greater emphasis on the integration of analytic, technical, and national-intelligence resources; HUMINT and operational squads should collectively identify gaps and mitigation strategies; and established metrics for this program should institute career tracks and reward innovative thinking and efforts towards identifying new threats.
• (U) The Bureau should provide consistent managerial guidance for the staff operations specialist (SOS) career field, as well as a codified path that allows for transition into other professional roles.
• (U) Training should be provided to new Special Agent in Charge (SACs), prior to assuming their posts, on current or new national-level intelligence requirements as they relate to the FBI and to the role of the Domestic Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Representatives.
• (U) The Review Commission recommends FBI Assistant Directors in Charge (ADICS)/SACs be briefed on procedural review requirements, as well as reasonable anticipated timelines, for investigative activities to be approved by the National Security Division (NSD). The Justice Department’s NSD should be requested to provide a review and approval timeline so that the FBI will have realistic expectations of how quickly a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant may be reviewed and submitted for approval by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC).
• (U) The requirements for intelligence collection and analysis should be more fully reflected in consistent and clearly defined criteria for inspections at field offices and Headquarters.”
Amerithrax represents the omitted Exhibit A in the March 2015 discussion of the FBI’s intelligence analysis.
1. The FBI apparently never tracked down and eliminated as potential suspects all of the persons who had, or may have had, access to the anthrax strains used in the attacks
The FBI’s genetic analysis merely narrowed things to several hundred scientists and others who had access. And, any one of them could have given the genetically matching Ames strain to someone else. Security at labs was very lax. Anyone with access to a lab could simply walk out with a pathogen.
The FBI had estimated up to 377 persons had access which required elimination — and that was just at USAMRIID. US Attorney Taylor nonetheless falsely claimed in August 2008 that only 100 needed to be eliminated. He premised his conclusion on the claim that only those with access at USAMRIID’s Building 1425 had to be eliminated, overlooking the fact that the genetically matching Ames was also stored in Building 1412.
2. There has been broad access to the anthrax strain used in the attacks
The potential access to Ames is not reasonably disputed. For example, a microbiologist connected to the Al Qaeda network, Ali Al-Timimi, shared a suite with two leading DARPA-funded Ames anthrax researchers at George Mason University. One, Ken Alibek, was formerly a Soviet physician, microbiologist and biological warfare expert. The other, Charles Bailey, had been the former commander of USAMRIID.
As another example of potential access, a non-US citizen from Sudan and then Egypt for a few days in 1998 worked alongside Bruce Ivins in the B3 with Ames anthrax. He studied at Cairo Medical where Dr. Ayman Zawahiri recruited students to jihad every Friday. Dr. Ayman’s sister Heba taught microbiology at Cairo Medical.
David Relman, the Vice-Chairman of the National Academy of Sciences panel that reviewed the science relied upon in Amerithrax, explained in “Science” that Ames anthrax was detected at a lab in Afghanistan. Indeed, Ames was detected in the remains of the hijacker Ahmad Al-Haznawi, who came to the US in June 2001. Al-Haznawi had been at Kandahar, where Yazid Sufaat’s anthrax lab was located.
Whenever there was a positive finding, however, the FBI concluded it was a false positive. When a genetics test narrowed 700-1000 researchers to 300, the FBI closed the case.
Yazid Sufaat told Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was identified as “the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks” by the 9/11 Commission Report), that he was not at risk because he and his two assistants had been vaccinated to protect them against their work with virulent anthrax. One of those assistants was tortured and then kept in secret prisons in Jordan and Israel. He told his CIA interrogators that “I made the anthrax” but then later would recant.
3. Dr. Ivins’ time in his lab is readily explained
The main evidence relied upon by the FBI was Dr. Ivins’ work at night and on weekends in late September and early October 2001. The documents eventually produced by USAMRIID under FOIA and published on Lew’s blog, however, show that Dr. Ivins was working on an experiment with 52 rabbits. Checking on animals at night and on weekends was a one person job and would take a couple of hours. That is the amount of time Dr. Ivins spent in the lab. The binding and mandatory protocol required that the principal investigator conduct the observations for the first 7 days after the rabbits were injected in early October 2001. US Attorney Taylor in explaining Ivins’ overtime in Fall 2001 (including November and December) overlooked the 2-person rule first implemented in January 2002 that precluded such overtime. That is why there would have been no continuing late night hours working alone past December 2001. The FBI’s Amerithrax Investigative Summary makes no mention of the rabbits.
Either it was (a) negligent for the FBI not to know of the experiment or (b) the 52 rabbits were knowingly stuffed down into a hat.
4. handwriting evidence is exculpatory for Ivins
Other evidence was exculpatory. For example, a handwriting report by the FBI’s handwriting expert — nowhere mentioned in the Amerithrax Investigative Summary — concluded that Dr. Ivins probably did not write the letters.
5. a contaminant found in the attack anthrax was not found in Dr. Ivins lab
The genetically distinctive b. subtilis contaminant found in the Brokaw and New York Post anthrax letters was not found in Dr. Ivins’ lab. Similarly, meglumine and diatrizoate were in Flask 1029 but not in the mailed anthrax.
The FBI acknowledges it did not swab all the other suspect labs for the b. subtilis contaminant.
6. the psychological profile of Ivins is not reliable
The FBI, in the case they initially touted as being established by the scientific evidence, then turned to its stock psychological profile of a lone nut. The FBI’s key witness, however, was Dr. Ivins’ first counselor who has written a 2009 book explaining that when she counseled Dr. Ivins, she was receiving her instructions each night from an alien. She reports that the alien had implanted a microchip in her butt. She thought that murderous astral entities were attached to her clients in her new part-time addictions counseling gig. In her book, she explained that each night she would fly to Afghanistan and Ground Zero. The astral entities would chase her back home, and she would narrowly escape through a vortex of energy that would close up behind her. That counselor annotated the psychiatrists’ notes. Her notes and her annotations were handed to a second counselor in July 2008.
The second counselor then sought a restraining order that day against Dr. Ivins, alleging he was a murderous sociopath, just as the first counselor controlled by the alien had claimed. This was part of the tragic chain of events that led to Dr. Ivins suicide.
7. Al Qaeda had a deep involvement in anthrax over many years
Dr. Ayman Zawahiri’s colleagues explained in 1998 that he intended to use anthrax against US targets to retaliate for the rendering of senior Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) leaders, including the Blind Sheik Abdel Rahman. Ali Mohammed, the EIJ head of intelligence, had a document on his computer seized by the FBI that outlined principles of cell security that would be followed. Ali Mohammed trained Dahab, a Cairo medical drop-out, to make deadly letters. Dahab was involved in the founding of the Blind Sheik’s Services Organization in Brooklyn.
Zawahiri recruited Pakistan government scientist Rauf Ahmad to infiltrate Porton Down-sponsored conferences in the UK in 1999 and 2000. In1999, after visiting a first lab that did not have pathogenic strains, Rauf Ahmad arranged to visit a second lab. He ominously began a letter to Dr. Ayman about that visit to the second lab: “I have successfully achieved the targets.”
The public still does not know the identity of that second lab.
Rauf Ahmad reported to Dr. Ayman that he had made contacts that were helpful in learning processing tricks. The official history of MI5 indicates that Ahmad was intercepted leaving with equipment and strains after the 2000 conference. At the 2000 conference, Rauf Ahmad and his co-authors presented a paper on harvesting anthrax in the wild and killing mice with 100 injected spores. That abstract is online. The FBI and CIA thus had reason to know that Al Qaeda’s anthrax scientist already had been working with virulent anthrax.
The information on what the Al Qaeda anthrax scientist took with him from the 1999 lab continues to be suppressed.
So it should be no surprise that the label of “anthrax spore concentrate” harvested in April 2001 appears to be in the handwriting of Rauf Ahmad. CIA Director Tenet reports in his book that Ahmad helped set up Yazid Sufaat’s lab in Kandahar in May 2001. Rauf Ahmad, in occasional correspondence, would not cooperate with me unless I paid him money. The Washington Post correspondent in Pakistan once arranged to conduct an interview but then the Pakistan Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence backpedaled on its consent.
8. Who were the real perpetrators?
I think it is most likely that Adnan El-Shukrijumah was the mailer of the letters containing anthrax in Fall of 2001, based on the following evidence.
A number of the individuals associated with Al Qaeda’s anthrax program were closely associated with Adnan El-Shukrijumah. Adnan El-Shukrijumah was the son of a salaried Saudi missionary who while the family lived in Brooklyn would translate for Blind Sheik Abdel-Rahman. Shukrijumah was at a Sarasota, FL home with his accomplice, 911 lead hijacker Mohammed Atta.
Shukrijumah called his mother on or about September 11, 2001 to tell her he was coming to the United States. He insisted he was coming over her protests that he would be arrested. The FBI reported that El-Shukrijumah, traveling under an alias, entered the United States sometime after September 1, 2001. Shukrijumah was with Atta and the other hijackers at a Sarasota, FL home associated with a close advisor of a key Saudi Arabian prince.
The FBI did not tell the “Joint Inquiry” about Shukrijumah even though he was known to be an associate of Mohammed Atta.
Leaked detainee statements from Guantanamo indicate that Shukrijumah lived in safe houses in Karachi from February 2002 to April 2002. Hawsawi was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s assistant and had documents explaining how to turn anthrax into a powder. Al Qaeda’s anthrax lab was equipped with a dryer, centrifuge and the other equipment the FBI deems necessary to make a dried powder out of anthrax.
Shukrijumah was killed in a raid in Pakistan’s tribal area late last year. The public may learn more about Shukijumah and his association with Mohammed Atta in a litigation under FOIA .
2001 anthrax attacks … summary of conclusions
1. The FBI’s suggested solution is not established by the evidence it has presented.
2. There is much evidence which strongly suggests an al Qaeda involvement.
3. And, moving forward, the Al Qaeda anthrax threat remains very real.