* DXer says … Adnan El-Shukrijumah, son of Saudi missionary, was the Fall 2001 anthrax mailer and FBI is withholding relevant documents
Posted by DXer on May 12, 2016
The FBI Is Keeping 80,000 Secret Files on the Saudis and 9/11
The secret ‘28 pages’ are just the start. The FBI has another 80,000 classified documents, many of which deal with Saudi connections to the 9/11 terror plot. What’s the Bureau got?
The Obama administration may soon release 28 classified pages from a congressional investigation that allegedly links Saudis in the United States to the 9/11 attackers. A former Republican member of the 9/11 Commission alleged Thursday that there was “clear evidence” of support for the hijackers from Saudi officials.
But in Florida, a federal judge is weighing whether to declassify portions of some 80,000 classified pages that could reveal far more about the hijackers’ Saudis connections and their activities in the weeks preceding the worst attack on U.S. soil.
The still-secret files speak to one of the strangest and most enduring mysteries of the 9/11 attacks. Why did the Saudi occupants of a posh house in gated community in Sarasota, Florida, suddenly vanish in the two weeks prior to the attacks? And had they been in touch with the leader of the operation, Mohamed Atta, and two of his co-conspirators? …
Case closed? Hardly.
CASE CLOSED ... what really happened in the 2001 anthrax attacks? 
DXer said
U.S. to miss deadline for release of 9/11 probe documents, court filing shows, Reuters, March 11, 2022
By Andrea Shalal
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-miss-deadline-release-911-probe-documents-court-filing-shows-2022-03-11/
US DOJ Attorney General Merrick Garland, in my opinion, judging from his public comments and in my personal experience, is the embodiment of the rule of law.
And that context is an important consideration in judging deadlines in the production of documents.
DXer said
Attorney General Merrick B. Garland Issues New FOIA Guidelines to Favor Disclosure and Transparency
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/attorney-general-merrick-b-garland-issues-new-foia-guidelines-favor-disclosure-and
Attorney General Merrick B. Garland Issues New FOIA Guidelines to Favor Disclosure and Transparency, March 15, 2022
To mark the start of Sunshine Week, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland issued comprehensive new Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) guidelines today that strengthen the federal government’s commitments to transparency in government operations and the fair and effective administration of FOIA.
The Attorney General’s guidelines, which were announced in a memorandum, direct the heads of all executive branch departments and agencies to apply a presumption of openness in administering the FOIA and make clear that the Justice Department will not defend nondisclosure decisions that fail to do so. The guidelines also emphasize that the proactive disclosure of information is fundamental to the faithful application of the FOIA and note the Justice Department’s efforts to encourage proactive agency disclosures, including by providing more specific criteria regarding how relevant metrics should be reported in agency Annual FOIA Reports, as the Government Accountability Office recommended.
“At the Justice Department, and across government, our success depends upon the trust of the people we serve. That trust must be earned every day,” said Attorney General Garland. ***
DXer said
Exclusive: New FBI documents link Saudi spy in California to 9/11 attacks – Mike Kelly
Mike Kelly
NorthJersey.com
https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/columnists/mike-kelly/2022/03/13/sept-11-fbi-links-saudi-arabia-spy-attacks/9442454002/
DXer said
5 Other Times We Learned the Zodiac Killer’s ‘True’ Identity
Rae Alexandra
Oct 7
https://www.kqed.org/arts/13904265/zodiac-killer-gary-francis-poste-cypher-dna-other-suspects
DXer said
Daniel Fienberg
TheFienPrint
ICYMI, my review of NatGeo’s “The Hot Zone: Anthrax,” which takes an intriguing story and turns it into a formulaic procedural populated by composite characters: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-reviews/hot-zone-anthrax-review-1235052882/
DXer said
KSM was briefed on anthrax by Yazid Sufaat at his house on or about 9/11. Adnan El-Shukrijumah was there. KSM directed El-Shukrijumah to sneak into the uS across the Mexican border. Adnan called his mom to tell him he was coming to the US (and she protested that he would be arrested).
Al-Hawsawi had anthrax spraydrying documents on his laptop. (He says it was KSM’s laptop).
Attorney General Merrick Garland embodies the rule of law. 20 years after the fact, the rule of law should be reconciled with truth-telling.
Trial of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed set to resume at Guantanamo Bay
Reporters were given a tour of the facilities ahead of the proceedings.
ByJohn Parkinson andShannon K. Crawford
September 7, 2021, 5:00 AM
https://abcnews.go.com/International/trial-911-mastermind-khalid-sheikh-mohammed-set-resume/story?id=79858521
In addition to Mohammed, four other defendants charged in the 9/11 terrorist attacks will be in the courtroom: Walid bin Attash, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Ammar al-Baluchi (also known as Abd al Aziz Ali) and Mustafa al Hawsawi.
DXer said
“Biden orders declassification of Sept. 11 investigation documents.” There will be a 6 month timeline with some to be released as early as next week.
DXer said
“9/11 group requests with Biden in push for Saudi Arabia documents release”
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/9-11-group-meeting-biden-saudi-arabia-documents-release.amp
Comment: To Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Merrick, the Washington Post credits me with first publicly identifying the Pakistani scientist who was helping Dr. Ayman Zawahiri set up the anthrax lab. I am asking that you release the documents. You and the current Administration have been doing a superb job. Keep it up by overcoming the influence of money on this important issue.
DXer said
“As I promised during my campaign, my Administration is committed to ensuring the maximum degree of transparency under the law, and to adhering to the rigorous guidance issued during the Obama-Biden Administration on the invocation of the state secrets privilege,” Biden said in a statement released on Monday by the White House.
“In this vein, I welcome the Department of Justice’s filing today, which commits to conducting a fresh review of documents where the government has previously asserted privileges, and to doing so as quickly as possible,” Biden said.
DXer said
Comment:
There was an article this past week
National Security
FBI analyst took documents on bin Laden and al Qaeda and kept them for years, feds say. She’s now been charged.
FBI headquarters in D.C. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
The Washington Post once wrote an article noting that I was the first one to publicly name the Pakistani scientist helping Dr. Ayman plan his anthrax lab. Lest there be any question as to how I came across the information, let me take the opportunity of the unrelated development in the news this past week to explain.
Milton L., a well-known published researcher, once called me and asked me how I knew things before they happened. I told him I didn’t. I (a bit sarcastically) told him about “google” and explained that, at best, I might know something a few minutes after it was reported. With respect to the name of Abdur Rauf (aka Rauf Ahmad), a Pakistani scientist who helped Dr. Ayman plan his anthrax lab, I explained that I had read that in a Pakistani news article (written in English). It was a comment by a local policeman about a raid.
I then obtained correspondence between the Pakistani scientist and Dr. Ayman with the help of some DIA authors who published in “Science” and encouraged a FOIA request — to the polnt of even drafting the request. I might have gotten more than the usual requestor because I had known what Milton had been given (upon it being declassified). So I was able to press the point that it would not be fair to not give the letters between Dr. Ayman and Rauf also.
More generally, as to my focus on Dr. Ayman, and Al Qaeda’s express secret plans to use anthrax dating to the late 1990s, I learned of that from the CIA’s database FBIS, a service which translated foreign press. At the time, it was freely available at university libraries. I enjoy library research and used some good libraries. (Then the database moved behind a paywall after being taken over by DIALOG).
There was one DIA investigation about how I came to know that DIA FOIA personnel was wrongfully withholding a report about lab security. But I immediately showed the electronic trail showing that I had done nothing wrong. And the email chain accidentally sent me itself demonstrated that there was nothing classified. There was just wrongful withholding under FOIA as to that particular document sought.
Now as for my graphic artist being paid by someone other than me, I have never concealed that. But he has never told me anything classified and merely faithfully executed what I asked by way of graphic illustration. I don’t even know, to this day, who paid him and don’t really care. I like free stuff and he was very talented at graphics and has always been a fun guy to know. (There was a fascinating Newsweek article this month about the military having civilians under cover as part of a signature reduction effort.)
As for the fact that I can read through some redactions of documents posted in this blog and posted by governmental agencies, well, I don’t think it is any secret that the FBI sometimes makes mistakes in connection with difficult complex mysteries. Given the inexperience of most task members — noted by Attorney Lambert who headed the investigation — I would think that the FBI might have appreciated the help. I got involved to help avoid compartmentalization of information in the FBI bureaucracy. The answer to a mystery is sometimes hybrid and requires an overview across the several investigating Task Force squads.
Personally, I am a big fan of the FBI and appreciate their work across their wide range of responsibilities involving dangerous actors.
As for any former Zawahiri acquaintance who thinks a CIA background explains my focus — because of my many years living in Arlington — I don’t know anything I haven’t read in the newspapers or found on the internet or in a library. Most intelligence analysis is open source. And in my case, it was mainly the CIA’s then-public FBIS database that got me off to a running start.
I have no way to judge the case about the indictment below because I don’t know what her motive would have been.
As for the classified information about Adnan El-Shukrijumah, well, if I told you that, you might get in trouble. But the FBI has no monopoly on truth or publicly available information that can be stitched together by the armchair analyst.
National Security
FBI analyst took documents on bin Laden and al Qaeda and kept them for years, feds say. She’s now been charged.
FBI headquarters in D.C. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
By Derek Hawkins
May 22, 2021 at 2:44 p.m. EDT
A former FBI analyst with top-secret security clearance was indicted this week on charges that she illegally took numerous national security documents, including materials related to al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, and kept them in her home over the course of more than a decade.
The grand jury indictment, filed in federal court in Missouri and unsealed Friday, charges Kendra Kingsbury with two counts of gathering, transmitting or losing defense information, a felony that carries a maximum sentence of 10 years.
Kingsbury, a 48-year-old from Dodge City, Kan., is accused of taking a range of materials between 2004 and 2017, many of which were marked secret because they discussed intelligence sources and methods, cyberthreats and other highly sensitive matters.
One batch of documents involved “internal correspondence” about a suspected bin Laden associate in Africa, according to the indictment. The files were from 2005 and 2006, when bin Laden, who masterminded the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, was alive and on the run from U.S. forces.
Prosecutors didn’t indicate a motive for Kingsbury’s alleged offenses but said they zeroed in on her as part of their work to root out “insider threats” within the bureau.
“The breadth and depth of classified national security information retained by the defendant for more than a decade is simply astonishing,” Alan E. Kohler Jr. assistant director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division, said in a statement.
Kingsbury is scheduled to be arraigned on June 1. It wasn’t immediately clear whether she had an attorney. A message left at a phone number listed for her wasn’t immediately returned Saturday afternoon.
Criminal cases against intelligence officials accused of mishandling classified information are fairly common, but unlike Kingsbury’s case they often include allegations that the materials were leaked. In one high-profile case last year, a former Defense Intelligence Agency official was sentenced to 30 months in prison for leaking classified information to reporters. In a similar case, a former FBI agent in Minneapolis was sentenced in 2018 for sharing classified information with the media.
Kingsbury is not accused of leaking any of the documents she allegedly stored at home. But prosecutors say she was aware she wasn’t allowed to possess them.
The U.S. government has strict rules for who can view classified information and under what circumstances. The process is outlined in a series of executive orders, requiring officials to sign a nondisclosure agreement, receive a security clearance, and have a “need to know” the classified information before they see it.
Kingsbury knew the requirements, according to the indictment. She worked as an FBI intelligence analyst for more than 13 years, from June 2004 until Dec. 15, 2017, during which time she received training on the different types of classified information and how to handle them, according to the indictment.
She was also assigned to different FBI “squads” focused on issues such as illegal drug trafficking, violent crime, violent gangs and counterintelligence, according to the indictment. Prosecutors say she had access to sensitive materials at a secure area of the FBI’s Kansas City Division and through secure government computer systems.
One count of the indictment accuses Kingsbury of taking documents marked secret that covered U.S. government efforts to collect intelligence on terrorist groups. It specifically mentions bin Laden, who was killed by U.S. forces in May 2011 during a raid on his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
“The documents include information about al-Qaeda members on the African continent, including a suspected associate of Usama bin Laden,” the indictment reads. “In addition, there are documents regarding the activities of emerging terrorists and their efforts to establish themselves in support of al-Qaeda in Africa.”
Another count of the indictment charges Kingsbury with taking several “intelligence notes,” a presentation, an assessment, an evaluation document, and other materials dated between 2008 and 2014. Investigators said some of the papers described specific open investigations across multiple field offices.
Others discussed “human source operations in national security investigations, intelligence gaps regarding hostile foreign intelligence services and terrorist organizations, and the technical capabilities of the FBI against counterintelligence and counterterrorism targets,” according to the indictment.
“Kingsbury was not authorized to remove and retain these sensitive government materials, nor did she have a need to know most, if not all, of the information contained in those materials.” prosecutors said in a statement. “Kingsbury knew the unauthorized removal of classified materials and transportation and storage of those materials in unauthorized locations risked disclosure and transmission of those materials, and therefore could endanger the national security of the United States and the safety of its citizens.”
DXer said
Rep. John Katko becomes first House Republican to back Trump impeachment
Updated 5:10 PM; Today 4:41 PM
https://www.syracuse.com/politics/2021/01/rep-john-katko-becomes-first-house-republican-to-back-trump-impeachment.html
Comment: I am in Rep. Katko’s District. He has reason to be very proud of his vote. Mitch McConnell should follow Congressman Katko’s lead and leave a worthy legacy.
DXer said
John Katko should run on the Republican ticket for President in 2024.
DXer said
The United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, judging by his press conference this afternoon, seems up to the historic challenge of pursuing the numerous individuals and crimes presented by the attack on the Capitol Building.
DXer said
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s statement on Capitol riot
DXer said
Merrick Garland is an outstanding choice for US Attorney General. Smart, hardworking, experienced — he has long embodied the rule of law and principles of fairness. I once worked at the same law firm and he was very highly regarded. I once had an experience with him while he served as a member of the assignment committee. He was the last of four committee members I had to visit in making my case; I had been promised upon hiring that I wouldn’t have to work for a particular client in a particular category of cases. (In my opinion, the client was responsible for 400,000 deaths a year). He was the lone member who agreed to honor the promise.
DXer said
Man with ties to terror group indicted in alleged plot to stage 9/11-style attack
Prosecutors allege Abdi Abdullah attended a flight school from 2017 and 2019 in the Philippines and obtained training.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/man-ties-terror-group-indicted-alleged-plot-stage-9-11-n1251402
DXer said
Trump raised firing Barr in White House meeting on Friday
Kevin Liptak-Profile-ImageCNN Digital Expansion 2015
Jamie Gangel
By Kevin Liptak and Jamie Gangel, CNN
Updated 6:57 PM ET, Sat December 12, 2020
“Barr cannot be intimidated by Trump. This is the real story. None of this matters — it’s the deposed king ranting. Irrelevant to the course of justice and to Trump’s election loss,” the source said Saturday following Trump’s tweets.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/12/politics/william-barr-donald-trump-white-house-meeting/index.html
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Rep. John Katko on GOP attempts to overturn presidential election: It’s got to stop
https://www.syracuse.com/politics/2020/12/rep-john-katko-on-gop-attempts-to-overturn-presidential-election-its-got-to-stop.html
“It’s got to stop,” Katko said of GOP attempts to reverse the results of the election. “I don’t think history is going to be kind to some of the things that went on here.”
Katko has acknowledged that Biden won the election, and said he’s seen no credible evidence to back Trump’s unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud.
DXer said
Off-topic:
Bootlegger’s $150M Fortune Leads to Treasure Hunt, Newsmax, By Eric Mack | Sunday, 15 November 2020
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/prohibition-dutchschultz-treasure-hunt/2020/11/15/id/997118/
Comment:
Eric Mack,
Dutch never referred to Phoenicia in his delirium. See court reporter’s transcript. Burrough’s screen play is subtitled “A Fiction In The Form of A Screenplay” for a reason. See Wikipedia.
These searchers and producers are ignoring the historic evidence and confusing Dutch’s presence in Phoenicia in 1933 with his travels in 1935.
Now if it was referring to Stony Creek [in Stony Creek, NY] — instead of Stony Clove Creek [in Phoenicia, NY]– it would be more interesting.
See 1 hour Travel Channel show “Code of the Wild” filming the search in Stony Creek, NY using LIDAR on a drone plane. Stony Creek — the Creek — is between Warrensburg Rd and Hadley Rd.
https://www.travelchannel.com/shows/code-of-the-wild/episodes/dutch-schultzs-missing-millions#:~:text=Chris%20and%20Casey%20Keefer%20are,may%20have%20buried%20his%20treasure.
The analysis here explains the origin of the made-up reference to Phoenicia and traces it back.
Getman, “The Ongoing Search For Dutch Schultz’s Missing Millions”
https://www.treasuretracer.com/dutch-shultz/ongoing-search-for-dutch-schultzs-missing-millions/
DXer said
FBI Director Chris Wray’s father Cecil was an Adirondack Commissioner under Governor Pataki. Director Wray knows the area. Given that the FBI’s files, to include J. Edgar’s files, are such crappy copies — and most are illegible as uploaded — wouldn’t it be cool if the FBI had them pulled them and had better images of the files made? They were xeroxed from pages of onion skin. The originals would be perfectly readable and it would be possible to upload readable copies with modern equipment.
J. Edgar Hoover was trying to locate the loot at the same time as prosecutor Thomas Dewey.
Director Wray, do it for the Adirondacks.
I provided an uploaded example of the FBI files here:
Dutch Schultz in Fairfield County, Connecticut in 1935 : his horses, his hiding places, and his missing millions
https://www.blurb.com/b/1475537-dutch-schultz-in-fairfield-county-connecticut-in-1
DXer said
Adirondack mountains were “the playground” for new FBI director
BY CHRIS KNIGHT (ADIRONDACK CORRESPONDENT) , IN SARANAC LAKE, NY
https://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/story/34445/20170804/adirondack-mountains-were-the-playground-for-new-fbi-director
The FBI Director’s Dad reports that FBI Director Wray has climbed 30+ Adirondack Mountains. ( Nowadays, you can get a cool patch for 23 or so ADK fire towers; it is very doable and fun. I estimate you can knock off 2 fire towers a day if you get organized] }.
Director Wray: The key clue is that Dutch’s mountain hideout — at the time he turned himself in — could be seen from the “highest point in Saratoga.” It was northwest from Saratoga — within 25 miles. And it was 3-4 miles northwest from Corinth, NY.
The cottage had a nice stone fireplace. The FBI files would have record of its whereabouts because he turned himself in when he learned the FBI was closing in. It was hard to get to if you didn’t know the mountains.
Now the description of “highest point in Saratoga” is reasonably understood as one of two mountains — if Saratoga is understood as the County.
I climbed the firepower on Hadley Mtn. [which existed in 1935]. The other mountain was beyond my abilities — at least not easily publicly accessible. So 2 wilderness experts, with a “Code of the Wild” Travel Channel show, brought in a drone plane operator to help with the search.
As a legal matter, the address of the cottage in 1935 should be obtainable under FOIA.
DXer said
This is the tunnel my daughter and I identified for Yap Films some years ago. But the point in bringing in the others was so that they would bring a jack hammer. :0)
When the FBI investigates, they at least claim to leave “no stone unturned.”
But we can leave it as a project next semester for some archaeology students living in the house.
“Explore Dutch Schultz’s Bootlegger Tunnel”
DXer said
Busted: Pentagon Contractors’ Report on ‘Wuhan Lab’ Origins of Virus Is Bogus
https://www.thedailybeast.com/pentagon-contractors-report-on-wuhan-lab-origins-of-coronavirus-is-bogus
In debunking this report, the scientists who attended the conference are available for reporters to interview, right?
In Amerithrax, Zawahiri had a Pakistan scientist designing his lab, acquiring equipment and pathogens.
Rauf Ahmad (Abdur Rauf) was motivated by money and and wanted money to cooperate with me (although I attempted numerous times in our written correspondence over the years.)
Infiltrating Al Qaeda scientist Rauf Ahmad did a lot more than have a servant serve tea and cookies to his US interrogators at a comfortable ISI safehouse
Posted by DXer on April 26, 2015
The FBI did not take custody of the Pakistan anthrax scientist Rauf Ahmad who conducted a seminar on using a balloon to disperse the anthrax he had made
Posted by DXer on January 17, 2015
The UK Lab That Let Al Qaeda Scientist Rauf Ahmad Leave With Virulent Anthrax in 1999 Made A Mistake; To Keep The Lab’s Identity A Secret Prevents Us From Learning From History
Posted by DXer on December 5, 2014
DXer said
CIA and FBI Knew Rauf Ahmad harvested “anthrax spore concentrate” for Al Qaeda for experiment on guinea pigs on “7-4-001” – handwriting on anthrax spore concentrate is same as handwriting of Rauf Ahmad in correspondence planning anthrax lab with Ayman Zawahiri
Posted by DXer on November 26, 2014
The Chair of the Dangerous Pathogens 2000 conference at which the Al Qaeda scientist’s Rauf Ahmad’s research on killing mice with anthrax was presented, worked at the University of Maryland Biotechnology Center while advising the FBI’s Amerithrax Investigation ; the paper Dr. Baillie presented was co-authored with sequencer of the Ames strain
Posted by DXer on November 16, 2014
The FBI has known since 2001 that a paper at the 2000 UK conference chaired by the lone non-US Amerithrax advisor Les Baillie, explained how Al Qaeda’s anthrax lab scientist Rauf Ahmad had killed mice with 100 injected spores.
Posted by DXer on November 16, 2014
At the Porton Down-sponsored Dangerous Pathogens 2000 Conference, Dr. Zawahiri’s infiltrating scientist Rauf Ahmad, in addition to presenting on the isolation of Bacillus Anthracis, presented on the detection of bacterial contamination in water.
Posted by DXer on November 15, 2014
DXer said
Here is a picture and identification of the regular attendees that Dr. Ayman Zawahiri sent Rauf Ahmad to infiltrate in connection with the annual anthrax conferences being held in England.
Posted by DXer on November 15, 2014
Amerithrax: In February 2002, the FBI Failed To Take Custody of Al Qaeda Anthrax Scientists Rauf Ahmad and Yazid Sufaat
Posted by DXer on September 14, 2013
DXer said
Landmark study: Virus didn’t come from animals in Wuhan market
17 May, 2020 3:07pm
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12332538
It says they were surprised to discover the new coronavirus has remained so stable rather than adapting rapidly to humans. This resembles the earlier virus, they say, during the later stages of epidemic after it “had developed several advantageous adaptations for human transmission”. This was evident from a sample taken from a patient in Wuhan last December.
They point to “multiple branches of evolution in humans and animals in the 2002-04 epidemic”, adding: “In contrast, Sars-CoV-2 appeared without peer in late 2019, suggesting there was a single introduction of the human-adapted form of the virus into the human population.”
The team says there is no evidence if this means the virus became well-adapted to humans in bats, exists in other animal populations, was spreading undetected in humans for months while mutating or could have leaked from a laboratory. But they warn the failure to detect any “branches of evolution from a less human-adapted” form of this virus was “a major cause for concern”.
Significantly, the study says genetic examination of four samples containing the virus from the seafood market to those taken from the Wuhan patient are “99.9 per cent” identical. This suggests it came from infected visitors or vendors, indicating “Sars-CoV-2 had been imported into the market by humans”. The authors confirmed to the Mail on Sunday they had found no evidence “of cross-species transmission” at the market.
DXer said
FBI inadvertently reveals secret in 9/11 attacks
Yahoo News
MICHAEL ISIKOFF
May 12th 2020 8:01PM
https://www.aol.com/article/news/2020/05/12/fbi-inadvertently-reveals-secret-in-911-attacks/24285901/
The reference is to Mussaed Ahmed al-Jarrah, a mid-level Saudi Foreign Ministry official who was assigned to the Saudi Embassy in Washington, D.C., in 1999 and 2000. His duties apparently included overseeing the activities of Ministry of Islamic Affairs employees at Saudi-funded mosques and Islamic centers within the United States.
Relatively little is known about Jarrah, but according to former embassy employees, he reported to the Saudi ambassador in the United States (at the time Prince Bandar)
Comment:
My first exposure to Prince Bandar was decades ago from a DIA transcript of Prince Bandar talking with Sarkis Soghanalian about paying for 100 TOW-equipped helicopters to Iran. They were to be equipped with quick release pesticide mechanism and the false cover was that they were to be sold to the Iraq Agriculture Ministry for cropdusting. This was at the height of the Iran-Iraq War. Prince Bandar served as head of Saudi intelligence.
DXer said
Prince Bandar and arms trafficker Sarkis Soghanalian were at a Benihana’s restaurant. I’m not telling any secrets because before his death (and after his release from prison), Sarkis explained all this.
DXer said
An Al Qaeda operative who was detained said he had been told that Jdey was the Fall 2001 anthrax mailer — and then later a shoe bomber who took down the flight to Dominican Republic shortly thereafter. That is Dr. Dillon’s theory and key evidence. But isn’t the better theory my offered evidence that places Adnan El-Shukrijumah with Yazid Sufaat at KSM’s house on 9/11 with Adnan — calling his Mom in the US and telling her he was coming back to the States? She pled with him not to come — said he would be arrested. It would be a very long while before the FBI learned and publicly confirmed that Adnan had in fact reentered the US. But, hey, it was a very long time before FBI DC Office head Van Harp met with Task Force investigators. It was a very long time before Robert Mueller went to Malaysia after Yazid Sufaat was captured. How will the public ever be able to consider the performance of FBI and Post Office inspectors if the documents about El-Shukrijumah and Jdey are not disclosed? They are both deceased and the FOIA exemption for privacy does not apply.
In any event, doesn’t the WHO’s “Disease X” make “Agent X” pale in comparison? And hasn’t Ayman Zawahiri had a severe heart attack?
Bill Gates has reason to be very proud of the work he’s done. He will go down in history, first and foremost, as a great humanitarian.
Zawahiri will go down in history as a prickly fanatic who never accomplished anything worthwhile.
DXer said
In this chat with Yazid about his skill level and the strain he was using, Yazid Sufaat told me “I can do magic [DXer]” (he publicly has said he was part of since abandoned Malaysian biological weapons program)
Here is some of the discussion:
[DXer] “After the bombing, Boston Globe once published a picture of a large brown bottle that indicated it had been harvested on about June 7, 2001. Would that have been Sterne? Or would that have been in sutbilis? Were you involved with Abu Khabab’s research in August/September 2001 involving rabbits or was that at a different location?”
[DXer] “Did you go to Pakistan after your release as reported by local Pakistan newspapers? If so, when did you get back?”
[Yazid Sufaat] “I can do magic Ross~”
[DXer] “In southern Lombok, the Nyale worm festival was very special. Lots of good laughs. Even apart from religious faith, smiles and laughs are a good thing, I think.”
[DXer] “The authors JB Petro and David Relman in Perils of Scientific Openness in the journal, SCIENCE, listed an article taken after the bombing that discussed growing anthrax in silica. DId you grow your anthrax in silica? I’m not a scientist and so any question I ask about science may very well be poorly asked.”
[DXer] “Was your Kandahar project called Zabadi? If so, why?”
[DXer] “Yazid, the interrogation reports provided by Wikileaks provide many details of the project at Omar Hospital and Kandahar for which you, Barq and al-Sudani were vaccinated. And the US Government Accountability Office will be coming out with a report soon about the science relating to the tests that showed the Ames strain of anthrax being used. Can you confirm that it was the Ames strain of anthrax?”
DXer said
Yazid Sufaat — proposed to be released — was with Adnan El-Shukrijumah at KSM’s house on September 11, 2001. Right, Yazid Sufaat?
Yazid Sufaat should demonstrate that he won’t be any more problem by addressing all the outstanding questions.
DXer said
The Director of National Intelligence and the IC Inspector General yesterday, in their testimony, have done much to preserve confidence in government and the rule of law. I think both parties can appreciate that the two have served their country well (along with the whistleblower).
On a minor note, Attorney General Barr, without question, should recuse himself. from any involvement given that he is appropriately called as a witness in the matter.
I was a little surprised to hear the DNI say he did not know who the whistleblower was. It’s his job to know stuff — all the while protecting the whistleblower’s identity, if that is what the person wants.
DXer said
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
https://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
Declassified, but not public. Miami judge asked to release key 9/11 name
https://www.floridabulldog.org/2019/09/declassified-but-not-public-miami-judge-asked-to-release-key-9-11-name/
Youssef reviewed the 2012 FBI Summary report, the Director of National Intelligence’s classification guide and various other documents related to the 2012 report, including a pair of 2016 declarations by FBI Section Chief David Hardy in Florida Bulldog’s FOIA litigation. He concluded, “I do not believe there is a proper basis to justify the continued redaction of the name of the subject who engaged in terrorism against the United States.” Elsewhere, he added, that while classification rules forbid hiding crimes or administrative error, preventing embarrassment, or delaying the release of information that does not require protection in the interest of national security he’s seen it happen.
“During my Bureau career, particularly in the Counterterrorism Division, I learned that at times the FBI would mark material as classified that did not meet the objective classification criteria. Often documents that did not implicate Sources and Methods were classified based on a belief that the information was sensitive or potentially embarrassing,” said Youssef. “The FBI should not classify information because it identifies a Saudi government official who participated in a crime, particularly a heinous crime inside the United States.”
According to former Florida Sen. Bob Graham, who co-chaired Congress’ Joint Inquiry into 9/11, the 2012 report is important because, while highly redacted, it established that as late as Oct. 5 of that year federal prosecutors and agents were actively exploring whether to file criminal charges against a suspect for providing material support to the al Qaeda hijackers.
DXer said
FOIPA is simultaneously a disclosure and privacy statute.
The FBI should be allowed to redact information other POIs, to the extent still alive, under a (b)(6) – (b)(7) privacy exemption. That exemption should not be applied to Adnan El-Shukrijumah, who is deceased.
DXer said
Death in the Air: Revisiting the 2001 Anthrax Mailings and the Amerithrax Investigation
Glenn Cross
January 16, 2019
Book Reviews
“The book is Decker’s first-person account of his role in the case. This perspective is both the book’s major strength and its major weakness. Decker’s focus was on developing and refining the scientific approach to the investigation, so he deftly weaves a compelling account of the scientific aspects of Amerithrax. At the same time, although he certainly was aware of other aspects of Amerithrax, Decker’s book offers no insight into the efforts to examine possible international terrorist involvement in the mailings, an early concern that continued late into the case.”
https://warontherocks.com/2019/01/death-in-the-air-revisiting-the-2001-anthrax-mailings-and-the-amerithrax-investigation/
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
https://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
Comment: FOIA Plaintiff Ken Dillon thinks that Jdey was the anthrax mailer. I think El-Shukrijumah was the anthrax mailer. But in 2003 or 2004 when Ken, trained as an intelligence analyst, first suggested Jdey, my jaw dropped. The facts supporting the suggestion had been in front of me all the time and I had just missed it. While I came to favor El-Shukrijumah only as additional facts accumulated over the months and then years, Ken deserved props for his intelligence analysis long before his herculean FOIA efforts. The intelligence in US DIstrict Court Judge Contreras’ decision is matched by the intelligence in the briefing by Dillon’s FOIA litigation counsel. That’s why law is so interesting — you can follow someone’s logic and say, “Yes. I get it. Now I see the logic that applies.”
DXer said
2018. november. 07. 19:03 2018. november. 07. 19:09 Tech
Tudósok, akik rejtélyes ügyekben kutakodtak – aztán rejtélyes körülmények között meghaltak
Sok esetben a tudósok életét és halálát is olyan rejtélyek szövik át, amelyekre csak évtizedekkel vagy akár évszázadokkal később kapunk magyarázatot. Vagy soha. A Halálos hírszerzés című dokumentumfilm-sorozat kutatók és tudósok halálának körülményeit tárja fel, amelyek bioterrorizmussal, illegális emberkísérletekkel és titkosszolgálatok tevékenységeivel köthetők össze.
Translation:
In many cases, the lives and deaths of scientists are also scattered through mysteries that can only be explained decades or even centuries later. Or never. The documentary “Deadly Intelligence” reveals the circumstances of the deaths of researchers and scientists linked to bioterrorism, illegal human experimentation and the activities of secret services.
Translation of later snippet: “Many experts believe… the real culprit could be linked to al-Qaida and is still at large.”
Note: The doubt doesn’t center around that Ivins committed suicide. He surely did given the note, his previous attempted suicide, and his reasons for committing suicide. (His note protested his innocence of the Fall 2001 anthrax mailings). The doubt centers around the lack of proof he was the mailer — or involved in the mailings at all. The determination that the mailed anthrax was the anthrax strain didn’t limit things beyond the hundreds known to have permitted access (as a practical matter) to the Ames strain — and the infinite number who could have been given it or obtained it surreptitiously.
I personally believe the late Adnan El-Shukrijumah was the anthrax mailer. He came to take KSM’s place. (KSM was Al Qaeda’s #3).
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
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 Lew Weinstein on June 6, 2014
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
DXer said
We can compare the evidence in the Unabom matter and Amerithrax on the merits:
Inevitable Inaccuracies In Reported Leaks Inaccuracies inevitably arise in the reporting of news in connection with a rapidly developing story, particularly when anonymous sources are used. As Justice Department spokesman Carl Stern commented in the Unabom case: “There are times when we try informally to prevent something which is grossly untrue from being published or broadcast, but in this case I felt I couldn’t do even that.”
A Copy Of The Manifesto Was Found In The Cabin
The prosecution has explained before the Court:”In June 1995, Kaczynski sent his manuscript “Industrial Society and Its Future” to the New York Times, the Washington Post, Penthouse, and Professor Tom Tyler of the University of California at Berkeley. A copy of the manuscript was found in the cabin. That manuscript contains a lengthy description of Kaczynski’s philosophy and admits that its author ‘had to kill people’ to get it published.” Ayman Zawahiri’s Fall 2001 book is almost as revealing in terms of profiling the Amerithrax crimes but even those who have closely followed the matter for months have never read it. Ask any FBI agent you know who was on the investigation whether they have read it and see for yourself.
Copies Of The Letters Kaczynski Sent To Publications Were Also Found
The prosecution has explained before the Court:”Beginning in 1985, Kaczynski sent letters, using the alias, ‘FC,’ to various publications. A copy of each letter was discovered in Kaczynski’s cabin. Like the journals, Kaczynski’s letters also contain admissions to the charged and uncharged bombings; indeed, several letters contain an admission that encompasses both a charged and an uncharged bombing.” Here, anthrax production documents were found on Khalid Mohammed’s laptop, he made admissions about Yazid Sufaat’s role, and Zawahiri’s right-hand man as well as another shura council member made admissions about Zawahiri’s plan. Yet inexplicably no attention is paid to these stories because it is far easier to get some clerk, deputy sheriff or junior lawyer in the Department of Justice Public Affairs Office to share some gossip about some discarded junk pulled from the nearby park or some stained panties found in a cross-dresser’s garbage. At the time of the Hatfill leaks by Mr. Seikaly, he at the same time was keeping mum about the statement signed by Zawahiri’s infiltrator Rauf Ahmad over tea and cookies.
Most Of The Letters And The Manifesto Were Typed on Kaczynski’s Typewriter
According to the prosecution’s June 1997 memorandum, the third typewriter found in the cabin was a match with most of the letters, with the manifesto, and for all of the bombs that were mailed after 1981. Here, there seems little chance authorities will find the scotch tape that was used to seal both letters or the pen used to write the letters.
Number Used To Identify Unabomber Communications
The Washington Post reported that federal investigators say that the nine-digit number that was sometimes used by the Unabomber to authenticate his communications was found in Kaczynski’s cabin. (The book Mad Genius previously reported that the number used by the bomber was 553-25-4394). The number was used by the Unabomber in connection with a letter discussing the April 1995 murder of the Sacramento timber industry official Gilbert Murray, and a letter claiming responsibility for the December 1994 murder of the advertising executive Thomas Mosser at his New Jersey home. An analogous discovery would relate to the reason, if any, for the use of Greendale School. Zawahiri’s computer that showed he used “school” for Al Qaeda already is available to use in an indictment.
DNA Evidence In the UNABOM matter
DNA evidence was apparently obtained from saliva found on the stamp used to send a copy of the manuscript to professor Tom Tyler. An earlier press report had suggested that there was DNA evidence associated with the 1994 victim in New Jersey, Thomas Mosser (pronounced MOE-ser). As a general rule, however, the bomber was reportedly careful in avoiding such evidence based on hair or saliva. It is surprising that the bomber, after having been so careful to avoid DNA evidence for so many years, would suddenly have been careless in connection with the manuscript sent to Professor Tyler. The genetic evidence in the Amerithrax case relates to the strain of anthrax and will help narrow the number of possible labs where the strain was. The mailer was very careful in handling the envelope and would not have licked the envelope. The cutting edge science of water isotope ratios would be dramatic if the degree of confidence can be rise to a high level.
The affidavit filed in support of the search warrant in the Kaczynski case explained that the DNA found in connection with the stamp used to mail the manuscript to Tom Tyler limited the pool of potentially responsible persons to 3% of the United States population — or approximately 6 million people. DNA evidence would not be determinative of the prosecution given they apparently cannot further narrow the field. The evidence relating to water isotope ratios (discussed above) similarly was not determinative. The ratios are often the same for different locations. Moreover, the water isotope ratio could very well turn out to be exculpatory of any defendant charged.
Bomb And Bomb-Related Materials.
According to press reports, one completed bomb and one partially completed bomb had been found. The completed bomb had been described as similar to either the 1994 or 1995 bomb. The importance of this evidence would have depended — if the matter had gone to trial — on the strength of the forensic comparisons. Both the 1994 and 1995 bombs were sophisticated, and so if the reports by the anonymous federal officials proved to be accurate, then the finding would have been very significant. The government would have argued, through expert testimony, that the run-of-the-mill pipebomber could not have made the 1994 or 1995 bombs. (The serial bomber known as the UNABOMBER, which turned out to be Kacyznksi, was thought to have improved his bomb-making during the 1987-1993 hiatus). Here, a similar argument would be made as to the individual or individuals who could make the relatively sophisticated anthrax here. The sophistication greatly increased between the two mailings — marked by a difference of about 20 days.
The significance of the particular chemicals found in Kaczynski’s cabin would have needed to await the reports on the forensic tests. The chemicals would be compared to the residue left in the UNABOM explosions. Agents searching the cabin found containers of potassium chlorate, sodium chlorate, sugar, zinc, aluminum, lead and silver oxide, which can serve as fuels or oxidizers in an explosive device. In Amerithrax, comparison could be made with any silica powder or other additive found to be associated with the anthrax. Relatedly, there is the issue of the water isotope ratios. No connection was made to Ivins based on the silicon signature.
In the UNABOM matter, tools and hardware related to bomb-making were also found. Lab technicians have compared the toolmarks left on past bombs and bomb remnants with the tools found in Kaczynski’s cabin, and according to leaks the government were going to rely on an analysis of the tool marks in its case. The Affidavit filed in support of the search of the cabin explained that identical tool marks had been left on the staples used in a couple of the devices and in some of the correspondence. In addition, 10 three-ring binders full of meticulously drawn bomb diagrams may distinguish Kaczynski from ordinary pipebombers. The UNABOMBER is thought to have experimented with his bombs, and the prosecution likely would argue in any trial that the three- ring binders document those experiments. The notebooks have sketches of boxes that could conceal the devices; handwritten notes in English and Spanish describing how chemical compounds can create explosive charges; and logs of experiments to determine the optimal design for pipe bombs in various weather conditions. The notebooks would have been extremely powerful evidence, that may be even more powerful once comparison is made by experts between the specific entries and specific bombs used in the UNABOM incidents.
Here, the information about the anthrax production documents on Khalid Mohammed’s computer is classifed. As for Dr. Hatfill’s comments to acquaintances, they likely would not even be admissible, as no exception to the hearsay doctrine would seem to apply.
Here, the plastic tub found in the Frederick park in connection with the Hatfill Theory did not pass the “giggle test” and neither does the FBI’s sorority theory in its “Ivins Theory” as motivation.
Witness Description.
In 1987, a woman employed by CAAMS, a Salt Lake City computer store, noticed a man placing an object near a car. She apparently had a close, albeit brief, observation of the individual. She knocked on the window and motioned him away from the car. While distracted by a telephone call, another employee went out and kicked the material out of the way. The bomb was made to look like a road hazard and consisted of two boards with nails sticking up. Two main composites based on the witness’ description were drawn. One was done at the time, and one was done approximately 7 years later. The later composite has a squarer jaw. Some media reports published a version of the composite without glasses. The official composite relied upon by the Task Force has always included glasses. Extrapolating to a man pictured without glasses would be pretending to know something we don’t — did not represent a description of what the witness saw. In the Amerithrax investigation, if Hatfill were the defendant, the witness identification likely would not be admissible because witnesses were only shown Dr. Hatfill’s picture. No announcement was ever made as to whether the witness has positively identified Kaczynski as the individual she saw. The witness likely had difficulty in doing so given that Kaczynski then came to have a beard. It is unclear whether TK had a beard in 1987. He applied for a drivers license in Montana in 1986 and it may be important whether his photograph in connection with that license showed a beard. In addition, Kaczynski mother visited in the mid-1980s, and yet there has been no article reporting her recollection as to whether he had a beard.
In the Amerithrax matter, the picture shown of Hatfill (and only Hatfill) to witnesses that some in New Jersey apparently was an older picture. In any event, a long time had passed between the time witnesses were shown his picture and any passing encounter with him if he had been the mailer. No one ever identified Dr. Ivins doing anything related to processing or mailing.
In 1987, Kaczynski was significantly older than in the witness’ description. The individual was estimated by the witness to be between the age of 25 and 30 years old. At the time of the sighting, Kaczynski was 43 years old. The witness described the individual as young and athletic. Witness descriptions are one of the weakest forms of evidence. Moreover, Kaczynski was likely unkempt in his appearance — as generally reported — while the witness apparently described someone with a well-trimmed mustache. Finally, at 5′ 9″, Kaczynski was 1″-3″ shorter than the man described by the witness. Thus, given the importance of the forensic evidence, it is not likely that the witness description would have been particularly significant in any trial of the UNABOM matter, as it raised too many questions. The defense likely would have been able to present other suspects that were much closer to the witness’ description. Importantly, in the affidavit filed in support of the search, the government did not claim that the witness could positively identify Kaczynski.
A blue hooded sweatshirt and a green sweatshirt were found in Kaczynski’s cabin. Although much ado has been made of the discovery of the sweatshirt, and papers featured headlines of the discovery throughout the country, none of the press accounts have addressed the color of the sweatshirt described by the witness in 1987. None of the articles mentioned that the sweatshirt described by the witness was white (or light gray). One report by a television network indicated that Kaczynski had broken his nose several times. The suggestion apparently was that he broke his nose to disguise his appearance. It is unclear how the television network, in early April, had determined Kaczynski’s intent, and there has been no further mention of the report.
Materials On Which Names Of Some Victims Appear
The names of the some victims allegedly appears on some written material. The reports are both conflicting or unclear on the nature of the materials, but the majority of reports indicate that the names of the actual victims were not in handwriting. The significance of this evidence would depend on the specifics. There were a variety of reports of individuals who have been contacted by FBI agents and told that their names were on materials found in the cabin. One widely reported story that was mistaken was that there was a handwritten list of faculty in the math department. The list had been written by an FBI agent for the purposes of contacting the individuals, and was not found in the cabin. Some reports also indicate that a handwritten sheet was found saying “hit list” — airlines, geneticists, and computers. (This likely prove to be one of the “grossly inaccurate” items mentioned by the DOJ spokesman.) Certainly, if this report had been true, it would have been very dramatic evidence.
Partial Fingerprint
A partial fingerprint was obtained from one of the devices. It did not match with Kaczynski’s, according to the affidavit filed at the time of the search. The authorities had no way of knowing whether the partial fingerprint is that of the bomber, or someone else. Thus, the prosecution likely would have discounted the failure to match as due to the fact that the print was made by someone other than the bomber. In the Amerithrax investigation, there were no fingerprints found. Of course, if fingerprints had been found on any material found in the pond, that would have been very significant.
Kaczynski’s Whereabouts
Kaczynski had lived primarily in Montana since 1971. He traveled to other areas by bus — and not by airplane as initially reported. He moved to Chicago for a short while in the late Spring of 1978 until the Summer of 1979. He applied for an Illinois driver’s license in July 1978 — six weeks after the first explosion. According to one report, he returned to Montana in the Summer of 1979. Thus, the FBI was trying to establish that he returned to Chicago in connection with the mailing of a November 1979 and a May 1980 bomb. The brother and mother were uncertain on the details. According to the affidavit filed in support of the search, the brother had said that Kaczynski came to Chicago as early as 30 days before June 20. In addition, the affidavit states that although Kaczynski left Chicago in the Summer of 1979, he apparently returned after a two month stay in Saskatchewan. Thus, according to the affidavit, the statements by the family members are not inconsistent with his presence in Chicago on May 25, 1978 or November 14, 1979. With respect to the May 1980 mailing to Percy Wood from the Chicago area, the Affidavit notes the dates of hotel stays in Park Hotel, Helena, Montana, that would have allowed an opportunity for Kaczynski to travel to Chicago to make the mailing to Mr. Wood. The Affidavit similarly noted stays at the Park Hotel generally consistent with travel to Utah at the time of the placement and mailing of bombs.
With respect to his travels to California, the potentially most significant lead was totally false. It concerned a report by a Sacramento hotel owner that he had stayed there — the clerk in fact had not worked there at the time. Absent corroborating hotel registration records, such testimony would not have been significant. For example, reports by a Burger King manager and a guard at a bus terminal in Sacramento would have been met by the incredulous question by defense counsel: you specifically remember this guy over all the other hundreds of bearded unkempt men that you see each year?
In the Amerithrax case, Dr. Hatfill has offered timesheets that, for example, on September 17, 2001 and September 18, 2001 have him working 13 hour days. Kaczynski similarly had offered a bank deposit slip that the government, through an investigator, was able to explain was not in conflict, with the date of the weekend deposit not registered as processed until the next Monday.Packages were placed in Salt Lake City in October 1981 and February 1987, and mailed from Salt Lake in May 1982 and November 1985. The FBI checked homeless shelters and inexpensive hotels looking for evidence that Kaczynski visited the area. In the Amerithrax case, authorities reportedly have no evidence that Dr. Hatfill travelled to the Trenton or Princeton area on the dates of mailing. Dr. Hatfill claims that he has never been to Princeton and would not know where it was on a map. Similarly, Dr. Ivins, in fact, reportedly has an alibi established by the withheld evidence and there is no evidence of travel whatsoever.
Psycholinguistic Analysis
The affidavit filed in support of the search has a detailed and compelling description of comparisons between a 1971 essay written by Kaczynski and the manifesto. In requesting a warrant to conduct a search of the cabin, the FBI relied on an examination by its own experts who had access to all of TK’s writings in the family’s possession (including 100 letters), and not by the analysis done by experts retained by the family who relied on only a handful of pages provided by the family’s private investigator. The Affidavit filed in support of the search of the cabin illustrates that the content, context and writing style of Theodore Kaczynski’s 6,374, 23-page essay and the 35,000 word UNABOM manuscript are very similar. Unfortunately, although the FBI has the 23-page essay and many pages of letters written by Kaczynski to his mother and brother, it appeared unlikely that authorities would be able to locate more than a couple of the 50 or so letters that TK wrote to a Mexican man. In the government Affidavit also notes the same uncommon (and in the last case inaccurate) spellings of words : “analyse” versus “analyze”, “wilfully” instead of “willfully”, “licence” instead of “license” and “instalment” rather than “installment”. In the current case, a fun exercise is to search the phrase “Brenan is” in Twitter to start a true crime armchair analysis.
In the Amerithrax case, although Don Foster cuts a fine figure on BBC jogging and thinking determinedly, psycholinguistic analysis of the 20-30 words in the letters was never likely to be probative. There is a sweet woman on the internet, a true crime fan, still mad at Dr. Foster for persistently arguing that she was actually the Ramsey son, Burke, following the true crime matter and called him to ask that he stop.
Profiling It is unlikely that profiling will be a particularly significant portion of any prosecution against Kaczynski. Kaczynski fits the profile relied upon by the Task Force in many (if not most) respects — but he differs from the profile in several important respects. His loose fit with the profile, however, would have served to support an argument, along with other evidence, that there was probable cause to search the cabin. Kaczynski was not among the top 200 suspects primarily because of his age. He was 13 years older than the age in the profile being relied upon by the Task Force. At the time of the first bomb in May 1978, he was 36. Significantly, although he may have a meticulous mind, he was very unkempt in appearance. It was thought that the serial bomber would be very neat.A detailed description of the profile being used by the Task Force in 1991 is reported in UNABOM: The University/Airline Bomber, The Police Chief, at 36-37 (October 1991). The authors were James C. Ronay, who was Chief Explosives Unit, FBI Laboratory, and Richard A. Strobel, Chief, ATF Laboratory. That profile was then substantially revised based on the writings of the bomber. The most important change was that estimates of the bomber’s intelligence were greatly increased. With the benefit of hindsight, the profilers should have realized that the bomber would walk the walk. His disdain for technology would be evidenced by a residence with no electricity — and with a nearby garden permitting him to be self-sufficient.
Telephone Records
The FBI no doubt checked the pay telephones that Kaczynski is thought to have used. The UNABOMBER called Bob Guccione of Penthouse magazine. If a telephone call was made from one of the payphones used by Kaczynski on the date and time the call by the bomber was placed, that would have been highly probative evidence. A jury would have found such evidence easy to understand. The FBI may have checked weblogs in the Amerithrax case, for example, to determine where the mailer obtained the nine-digit zipcodes or the address for the AMI publications.
Books Found In The Cabin
There were 239 books found in the cabin. Several books are of special interest in this matter. For example, VIOLENCE IN AMERICA was reportedly in his collection. Written in the 1960′s, it is a collection of dry, academically oriented articles. The book was one of the half dozen or so cited by the UNABOMBER in his manifesto. Kaczynski had evidenced awareness of the Commission’s work in a letter years ago to his family.
Finally, although not found in the cabin, another book cited in the manifesto, ANCIENT ENGINEERS, was allegedly borrowed from a local library by Kaczynski. According to the affidavit filed in support of the search, Ted Kaczynski had cited the book in a letter to his brother. Although certainly not popular or widely-read books, none of the books are rare. All three books are commonly found in libraries. Yet, the evidence would have been very powerful before a jury.
In the Amerithrax investigation, the book of the hour is “Emergence,” a partially completed novel by Dr. Hatfill and a co-author. Reasonable people can disagree on whether the unpublished novel “Emergence” would play a role here if a prosecution were brought against Dr. Hatfill. Under an Ivins Theory, the prosecutors seemed excited that Dr. Ivins had written some cute poems and liked one book that included a code. The only expert consulted and the author of the book find the FBI’s theory of the “FNY” code used in its Ivins Theory untenable.
Additional Circumstantial Evidence
There is a variety of additional circumstantial evidence that the prosecution could have relied on. For example, the prosecution could argue that Kaczynski, despite his poverty, had the necessary resources as a result of small contributions from his family. Kaczynski reportedly received a $1,000 money order from his brother shortly before the December 1994 bombing of Mr. Mosser, and another $2,000 money order from his brother before the April 1995 bombing of Gilbert Murray. Much of the circumstantial evidence, however, being reported by the press is so tenuous that it may not be legally relevant evidence at all. Moreover, many of the reports — such as the report by a Sacramento hotel owner that TK stayed at the hotel or the alleged existence of a handwritten list of Berkeley math faculty — were apparently mistaken. One misguided report suggested a connection between the bombing in early May 1978 and an unsuccessful and brief dating relationship. He went on a couple of dates with the woman in the Summer of 1978 — after the first bombing. Other reports about Kaczynski, while apparently true, are not particularly probative. For example, it was not surprising that as a bright high school student, he liked model rockets and knew how to mix chemicals (such as iodine and ammonia) so that they would go “pop.” We may all know bright high school students who were good in chemistry and had similar interests. In any event, these incidents related to a time period 20 years before the first UNABOM incident in May 1978. (In 1958, during Kaczynski’s senior year, a cow bell was used to signal the end of class periods.)
That pretty much describes all the “circumstantial evidence” alleged to exist against Dr. Hatfill or Dr. Ivins. The mistakes in the understanding of the circumstances of Dr. Hatfill’s life have been detailed elsewhere. Here, much of the imagined “circumstantial evidence” against Dr. Hatfill relates to irrelevant matters nearly a quarter century ago and would simply have no bearing on an attempted criminal prosecution. Neither do the irrelevant matters relating to Dr. Ivins that involves things a quarter century earlier — such as his theft of a book from sororities.
Conclusion
In the anthrax mailings, in my estimate Dr. Zawahiri accomplished the attack on the US “structure” he intended. With the planes, Al Qaeda struck the US trade dominance (World Trade Center) and its military might (Pentagon). With the anthrax he appears to have rounded out the field that he imagines provides support to Israel — the legislative branch and media. Analogous letter bombs were sent in connection with the earlier attack on the World Trade Center and the imprisonment of the militant islamists responsible for that attack and a related plot. Thus, relying on the postal service to send its deadly missives in connection with an earlier attack of the World Trade Center is not only Al Qaeda’s modus operandi, it is its signature.
Everyone approaches a problem from their world view and what they know. Biological weapons control activists see a US biodefense insider. Anti-semites see Zionist perpetrators. US-haters see a CIA conspiracy. The CIA’s Zawahiri Task Force sees an Al Qaeda conspiracy (at least they do if they are smart). Israeli intelligence and the Iraqi National Congress lobbied for Iraq as the culprit. The men focused on sex and children follow their own unfathomable compass. (The FBI Agent who submitted the affidavit in support of the search of Kaczynski’s cabin would later agree to 12 years in prison for child pornography.) Liberal Beltway insiders saw right-wing wackos. Journalists kowtow to the views of any government source in the investigation they deem reliable. Career-minded bureaucrats, always focused on CYA, tend to see whoever those in power want them to focus on — and here the lead prosecutor was the father of the woman who came to represent “anthrax weapons suspect” Ali Al-Timimi pro bono.
Sometimes if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck. For example, that’s a pretty loud duck quacking in the pipe bombs sent this week to Democrats. But we’ll see and we can focus on the forensics such as outlined above.
As for Amerithrax, I still think Amerithrax is the greatest failure of counterintelligence analysis in the history of the United States. That is why the FBI has found it necessary to withhold documents properly discoveable under FOIA. The US District Court judge is considering Kenneth Dillon and the FBI’s cross-motions for summary judgment in pending FOIA litigation.
I still think that information relating to the resolution of the Amerithrax matter likely will come from Pakistan, not the suburbs of Maryland or Central New Jersey. It likely will stem from those with a personal knowledge of Al Qaeda, and not those with an ideological or political axe to grind, whether against Iraq or the US biodefense establishment. The mailer likely will be someone personally recruited by Ayman Zawahiri. The FBI needed to do all they can to keep those agents in Pakistan supplied with Marlboros. (Ayman, that’s code for cowboys). Instead, Agent Borelli politely accepted tea and cookies and then came to head the FBI’s New York Field Office.
The State — consisting of individuals motivated by CYA and career-minded instincts — will decide what secrets can be kept — thank you very much. Government accountability be damned.
At home, we need to be good boy and girl scouts and be prepared — even while growing fatigued by the countless false alarms and growing nostalgic for anthrax, in a sense, in light of the work the Russias did for fun with aerosolized Marburg — all the while keeping its secret.
But y’all come back, now. Because as newspaperman Scripps once said: “The only important date on the calendar is tomorrow.”
Bad acts — such as by the Saudis — need to be punished even if the perpetrator have a lot of money and it is politically inconvenient..
DXer said
The Saudis haven’t changed much since the DIA transcribed the conversation between Bandar and Soghanalian at Benihanas in which Prince Bandar agreed to pay for the US combat-configured pesticide-spraying helicopters equipped with TOW-missiles to Iraq during the height of the Iraq-Iran war, purportedly for cropdusting missions. Yeah, right, Ollie and Tariq.
And Trump’s defense of the Saudis is that we should be able to sell weapons systems to someone who would do this because of the money involved.
Always, follow the money.
DXer said
Columbo S05 E02 A Case of Immunity
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6fko73
DXer said
Murder by mail: An anthrax primer for LE
For someone committed to implementing a biological attack, the process is simple and the organisms obtainable, despite stringent government regulations
Sep 17, 2018
By Denene Lofland, PhD
P1 Contributor
An envelope arrives in the mail. When opened, a mysterious “white substance” wafts into the air and then…panic. The recent delivery of such letters addressed to Prince Harry in London, Donald Trump Jr., and former President Obama was not only disturbing, but also a reminder of the anthrax letters sent to two senators and several news organizations in 2001, which resulted in 22 cases of anthrax and five deaths.
In the grand scheme of murder, knives and guns pale in comparison to the instruments of death that are nearly invisible to the human eye. Long before humans shaped the first stone into a weapon, viruses and bacteria silently killed both man and beast.
Nowadays, the threat of bioterrorists and biological warfare looms over our heads. A minute particle of one of these microbes can be grown and multiplied many times over. For someone committed to implementing an attack, the process is simple and the organisms obtainable, despite stringent government regulations.
https://www.policeone.com/terrorism/articles/480658006-Murder-by-mail-An-anthrax-primer-for-LE/
DXer said
If President Trump were to resign, and Dan Coats would make a fine, confidence-inspiring pick by Pence for Vice-President.
DXer said
Alternatively, if and when President Trump resigns, Pence could appoint Pompeo to be Vice-President. He appears to be smart, hardworking and well-spoken. Like Dan Coats, he has the confidence of a broad range of people.
DXer said
Florida publication seeks FBI 9/11 records on family’s ties
By curt anderson, ap legal affairs writer
MIAMI — Jul 19, 2018, 10:50 PM ET
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/florida-publication-seeks-fbi-911-records-familys-ties-56704755
Florida Bulldog attorney Thomas Julin told a three-judge panel of the court that the FBI has been dragging its heels on releasing more FBI documents about the Sarasota case submitted to the 9/11 Review Commission, improperly redacted more material and claimed too much was exempt from FOIA release. Julin wants a lower court to hold a full FOIA trial on the dispute.
“Obviously, we don’t know what is in those documents. We think there is severe over-classification,” Julin said. “All of that is a huge deterrent to people using the Freedom of Information Act.”
***
Media organizations including The Associated Press filed briefs in support of the Florida Bulldog, as did former Florida U.S. Sen. Bob Graham — a former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Graham, who attended the hearing, said in an interview that the public needs the full picture of how the hijackers pulled off attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.
“The government’s conclusion is that there is no evidence linking the Saudi government to a facilitation of the hijackers,” said Graham, also a former Florida governor. “Our feeling, to the contrary, is that there is abundant evidence.”
DXer said
For background on the lawsuit, and to remain current on developments go to FloridaBulldog.org, to see for yourself Dan Christensen’s momentous efforts to help the public understand what happened leading up to 9/11. I am rooting for him but do not know if he realizes exactly how important his efforts are.
U.S. appeals court in Miami to consider how much public can be allowed to know about 9/11
By Dan Christensen, FloridaBulldog.org
A federal appeals court panel will hear arguments in Miami on Thursday about how much the public should be allowed to know about what led up to the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.
At issue are records from the FBI’s secretive 9/11 Review Commission, also known as the Meese Commission, including reports about a Sarasota terrorism investigation the bureau once hid from both Congress and the 9/11 Commission.
Florida Bulldog sued the government two years ago after the FBI did not respond to its 2015 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for commission records. The records were sought after the Meese Commission tried to discredit without much explanation a stunning April 16, 2002 FBI report the Bulldog had forced the FBI to release through an earlier FOIA suit.
That heavily censored FBI report said that a Saudi family who fled their Sarasota-area home two weeks before 9/11 – leaving behind their cars, clothes, furniture and other belongings – had “many connections” to “individuals associated with the terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001.” The report flatly contradicted FBI public statements that its Sarasota investigation had found no connection to the 9/11 plot.
Both the Justice Department and the nonprofit South Florida news organization are appealing rulings last year by Miami U.S. District Judge Cecilia Altonaga.
What both sides want
The government wants the three appellate judges to reverse Altonaga’s order that the FBI make public the names of suspects, agents and others redacted from several reports that were made public. One of those reports concerns a 2012 investigation by agents and prosecutors in New York who were looking to file charges against a suspect for providing material support to the 9/11 hijackers and other crimes. The suspect’s name is blanked out and the outcome of the investigation isn’t known, but its disclosure marked the first confirmation of an active criminal probe more than a decade after the 9/11 Commission ended.
Attorneys from the Gunster law firm who represent Florida Bulldog want the appeal judges to send the case back to Altonaga to hold a Freedom of Information Act trial to determine both the adequacy of the FBI’s search for Meese Commission records and the propriety of its numerous redactions. Altonaga ruled out an FOIA trial at which witnesses from the FBI and other federal agencies would have to answer questions about their actions — and opponents of continued secrecy like former Sen. Bob Graham, co-chair of Congress’ Joint Inquiry into 9/11, could testify.
As a result of the lawsuit, the FBI located 1,731 pages of documents. Of those, it produced to the Bulldog 738 heavily redacted pages and withheld 993 pages entirely.
FBI agent Jacqueline Maguire testifying before the 9/11 Commission June 16, 2004
Florida Bulldog attorney Thomas Julin has also asked the appeals court to allow the deposition of FBI Agent Jacqueline Maguire. Maguire played a central role in the 9/11 investigation code-named PENTTBOMB and was likewise a key aide to the Meese Commission, where she led the FBI’s effort to disparage its embarrassing “many connections” report.
The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeal judges that will hear the case at 3 p.m. are William J. Pryor, Beverly R. Martin and Adalberto Jordan.
The Meese Commission
The Meese Commission, which gets its unofficial name from its most prominent member – Reagan-era Attorney General Edwin Meese – was originally envisioned as an independent national commission with subpoena power that would hold public hearings, take testimony, receive evidence and compel government agencies to turn over information from their files.
That did not happen. Instead, the Meese Commission became a creature of the FBI. Its three members, whose duty it was to conduct an “external review” of the FBI’s post-9/11 performance and to assess new evidence, were chosen by then-FBI Director James Comey and each was paid $80,000 plus $4,000 for travel for 11 months’ work.
The FBI spoon-fed information to Meese, ex-ambassador Tim Roemer and Georgetown University professor Bruce Hoffman, who further allowed FBI personnel to help edit their March 2015 final report to improve its “accuracy and clarity,” the report says.
Comey later praised the commission’s work as “a moment of pride for the FBI.”
Both former Sen. Graham and an alliance of news media organizations filed friend-of-the-court briefs in support of releasing more FBI records about 9/11.
Graham cited “pervasive” FBI over-classification that is “inappropriate and contrary to consistent findings that over-classification contributed to the U.S.’s inability to detect or disrupt the 9/11 attacks.”
The 17 news groups, including the New York Times, Washington Post and the Associated Press, accused the FBI of years of dishonesty in handling FOIA requests.
“The FBI’s conduct of FOIA litigation, in this case and numerous others, denies the public its right to inspect agency records, in violation of Congress’ statutory mandate of disclosure,” says the 48-page brief written by attorneys Charles D. Tobin and Steven D. Zansberg of the Washington, D.C. law firm Ballard Spahr.
“Left undisturbed, the judgment below will deprive the appellants, and the American people, of FOIA’s promise and purpose ‘to open agency action to the light of public scrutiny.’ It will also leave unanswered disturbing questions about the events of 9/11, perhaps the most traumatic shared experience in our nation’s history.”
DXer said
http://www.floridabulldog.org/2018/04/a-new-push-calls-on-trump-intelligence-chiefs-to-declassify-all-9-11-records/
A new transparency push calls on Trump, intelligence chiefs to declassify all 9/11 records
By Dan Christensen, FloridaBulldog.org
U.S. Capitol
Faced with persistent government stonewalling, opposition grounded in American hearts and taking root on Capitol Hill is calling on President Trump and the nation’s law enforcement and intelligence chiefs to declassify all documents related to investigations of the 9/11 attacks.
“After nearly 17 years there is no credible National Security reason to continue to withhold documents,” says a petition that went online last week urging declassification. “When the FBI has released documents, either via FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] or being forced by Court order, the documents are heavily redacted and have contributed to the confusion and ambiguity surrounding the origin of the September 11th attacks.” ***
Bipartisan push taking shape in Congress
In the House, a bipartisan trio of representatives introduced a resolution calling for the release of tens of thousands of pages of documents “as necessary for a full public understanding of the events and circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 attacks upon the United States.”
Those same congressmen – Rep. Walter Jones, R-NC, Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-MA, and Rep. Thomas Massie R-KY – spearheaded a similar resolution three years ago that gained widespread support and helped lead to the declassification by President Obama of the “28-pages” from Congress’ Joint Inquiry into 9/11. Those pages revealed the suicide hijackers’ connections to Saudi government officials and members of the Saudi royal family.
“What we want to do is start a national push in early June,” Jones said on Friday. “Once the Senate decides who will be the lead, we will announce that two bills, companion bills, have been introduced in the Senate and the House. That will be our kickoff.”
At the same time, litigation in New York and South Florida seeks to open long-veiled FBI records about its massive 9/11 investigation code-named PENTTBOM.
In New York, lawyers representing thousands of 9/11 families, survivors and other victims who are suing Saudi Arabia this month subpoenaed FBI records about Omar al-Bayoumi, a suspected Saudi agent in Southern California, and Fahad al-Thumairy, a Saudi diplomat who was also a Los Angeles area religious leader.
The pair has long been tied to two of the five hijackers who commandeered American Airlines Flight 77 and crashed it into the Pentagon, killing 59 passengers and crew and 125 people in the Pentagon.
Of particular interest in that case is an October 2012 FBI summary report released to Florida Bulldog in late 2016 amid its ongoing Freedom of Information Act litigation. The heavily censored report describes how federal prosecutors and FBI agents in New York were targeting an apparent support network for the two Flight 77 hijackers – Saudis Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar – and how they’d zeroed in on one suspect they were looking to charge with providing material support to the hijackers and other crimes.
The report is so sensitive that even the name of the investigation is secret for unexplained reasons of national security. But its unredacted narrative does identify Thumairy and Bayoumi as two of three “main subjects” of the probe who assisted upon their arrival in Los Angeles in January 2000. The name of a third subject was censored, but appears to be highly placed.
“There is evidence that [redacted] and tasked al-Thumairy and al-Bayoumi with assisting the hijackers,” the report says.
n Florida, Florida Bulldog is pursuing two FOIA cases against the FBI.
U.S. District Judge William J. Zloch
The first, pending before Fort Lauderdale U.S. District Court Judge William J. Zloch since 2012, seeks records of the FBI’s Sarasota investigation that found “many connections” between 9/11 hijackers and a Saudi family living in the Sarasota area yet was never reported to Congress or the 9/11 Commission. The second case, now before the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, seeks records about the FBI’s secretive 9/11 Review Commission.
The Justice Department and the FBI oppose disclosure in both cases.
Bizarre reasons to avoid disclosure
The petition also lists several bizarre reasons federal agencies have cited for withholding documents sought under FOIA, like the Justice Department’s insistence that requesters obtain a signed privacy waiver from Osama bin Laden. Also, the FBI’s assertion last year that it would not release a copy of accused 9/11 architect and Guantanamo detainee Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s “non-immigrant visa application” because it “could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”
Meanwhile, the petition continues to enlist supporters.
“The September 11th attacks are the most intensively investigated crime in history. Yet, aside from one minor al Qaeda operative, there have been no indictments, no prosecutions, hence no convictions for the murder of 2,977 people,” the petition says.
“The FBI, CIA and other Departments of the United States Government investigated the attacks. A Congressional Joint Inquiry and the 9/11 Commission based their reports on these investigations. All ten 9/11 Commissioners pledged to release the complete 9/11 Commission Archive by 2009. It did not happen. In addition the FBI, the CIA and others have consistently refused to release thousands of documents, many of which are over a decade old.”
DXer said
Did R. Scott Decker know that Adnan El-Shukrijumah had reentered the country after 9/11? Given the compartmentalization of the investigation, did he even know that Adnan had met at KSM’s house with Yazid Sufaat, the anthrax lab director on or about 9/11? And then phoned his mom to tell her he was coming to the US? Or for the next couple of years was he tethered to some anthrax smelling bloodhounds.
Never having evidenced any awareness of Shukrijumah, he wrote in his book published last year:
“The first inhalational anthrax victim in a quarter century worked a few miles from where the al-Qaeda hijackers had lived? Reports of al-Qaeda’s interest in crop dusting in southern Florida compounded the concern. What better way for al-Qaeda to gain publicity than by highlighting the United States’ vulnerabilities through a second wave of attack? The American news media seemed an ideal target. AMI’s tabloids enjoyed a wide readership in the United States, and the Enquirer’s and Globe’s unflattering stories about al-Qaeda’s leader may have brought unwanted attention to the tabloid.
The presence of al-Qaeda and rare inhalational anthrax in the same Florida county, AMI’s critical reporting on al-Qaeda’s leader, and Mike Irish’s spouse’s business association with al-Qaeda operatives sugggested this was more than chance.”
One idiot posting on the internet relied upon by Decker — the guy insists a First Grader wrote the anthrax letters — argued that the hijackers were dead, dead, dead. And therefore could not have been responsible. Yet obviously the key was whether they had an associate. It turns out that they did. El-Shukrijumah. And in the summer of 2001 he cased DC and NYC for an attack.
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
9/11 victims subpoena secret FBI records; next subpoenas to Saudi Arabia, State Dept.
By Dan Christensen, FloridaBulldog.org
A second FOIA case filed by the Bulldog six years ago also appears to be ripe for decision. That case seeks the FBI’s records about its Sarasota investigation – a probe the FBI kept hidden for a decade and later said went nowhere. The FBI has produced more than 80,000 pages of classified 9/11 records for Fort Lauderdale U.S. District Judge William J. Zloch’s private inspection.
http://www.floridabulldog.org/2018/04/9-11-victims-subpoena-secret-fbi-records/
DXer said
Robert Mueller: Commencement Speaker Unequal to Message
Accuracy in Academia-Jun 14, 2017
To make matters worse, all of this censorship occurred after Mueller’s investigation into the post 9/11 anthrax attacks was totally mishandled. Al Qaeda carried out the attacks, in conjunction with the actual 9/11 terrorist hijackings, but Mueller and his people blamed a series of American scientists.
Finally, they found one they could blame, Bruce Ivins, who committed suicide following persecution by FBI agents. Ivins was dead and could not defend himself.
The anthrax letters, which carried statements of “Death to America” and “Death to Israel,” were assumed to be the work of right-wingers working for U.S. government military or civilian labs. One of Mueller’s agents, Richard Lambert, later sued Mueller for botching the probe.
Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism, and can be contacted at cliff.kincaid@aim.org. This blog is excerpted from a column which he wrote for Accuracy in Media.
Comment: Richard Lambert was the former lead investigator. He went to work for a laboratory operated by Battelle, which had Ames in its laboratories. He was raided. I’m sure attorney Lambert, in hindsight, wishes he had obtained an ethics opinion (though it is someone in the DOJ ethics office that he views as the source of his misfortune). He had urged Mueller (and he has the highest regard for his former boss) that compartmentalization of the investigation might prevent the dots from being connected. (For example, R. Scott Decker did not have the benefit of a lot of evidence and, judging from his recent book, he appears still totally unaware of what was kept from him).
I think Attorney Lambert would agree with me that we haven’t seen persuasive proof as to who was responsible for the Fall 2001 anthrax mailings — it is still an open question. Decker and Stanley, on the other hand, are determined to claim credit for a solve of the case, even though the FBI’s own consulting scientists think that the FBI’s use of its claimed “scientific” evidence was misleading. If Mueller really believes he could have gotten a conviction of Ivins when Fraser-Liggett and Worsham and countless others were saying what they were saying, he is being unrealistic. He is rightfully proud of the FBI — and it is good for morale. But it is bad for objective connecting of the dots. The only thing worse than the stove piping that dominated Amerithrax was the CYA fervor that arose due to numerous, profound conflicts of interests. And I mean NUMEROUS and MASSIVE conflicts of interest.
But we probably would do best to keep an open mind until (if ever) better proof develops. Although I am a big fan of Cliff’s lucid thinking and writing on the subject of Amerithrax, I think “unsolved” is “unsolved.”
Personally, I vote for the late Shukrijumah for being the mailer and my pal Yazid Sufaat for being the processor. Shukrijumah met Yazid Sufaat at KSM’s house on or about 9/11 and then set off for the United States (per a conversation he had with his mom).
DXer said
“FBI asks two courts to block further disclosures about its 9/11 investigation of Sarasota Saudis,” December 11, 2017
By Dan Christensen, FloridaBulldog.org
http://www.floridabulldog.org/2017/12/fbi-asks-two-courts-to-block-further-disclosures-about-its-911-investigation-of-sarasota-saudis/
Comment:
Dan Christensen: I hope the DOJ and FBI FOIA attorneys appreciate that the (b)(6) privacy exemption does not apply to Adnan El-Shukrijumah — because he is deceased.
The FBI’s failure to produce the first requested 50 pages of the Lambert memo is now in litigation.
With respect to the outline in Lambert’s memo relating to Al Qaeda’s anthrax program, DOJ should certainly not redact El-Shukrijumah’s name under any circumstance. Similarly, the name of Yazid Sufaat’s assistant who was killed also should not be redacted under (b)(6). As for the other technician, Al-Barq, who sent abroad where he could be expected to be treated harshly in Jordan and Israel, you can expect lots of redaction to cover that up. Is Al-Barq deceased after his hard years in prison?
Moreover, the discussion of Porton Down (in the Al Qaeda section) should not be redacted because the public’s need to know outweighs the institution’s privacy interest.
Only the occasional proper name need by redacted from the Ivins text section, which – if the FBI were an efficient organization – should have taken less than 2 hours to process many, many months ago. The reason that the US is likely to suffer a massive and devastating terrorist attack is that (it often seems) the FBI bureaucracy is really, really inefficient, as demonstrated by the months and years it takes to get something simple done. Can you imagine if our hospitals or airports were as inefficient at retrieving archived information? Of course, the delays at the FBI are similar to the delays in most any judicial proceeding. In the national security realm, however, as a country, we need to be more efficient at processing information.
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
October 17, 2017 at 5:44 am
Appeal: How much information about 9/11 must FBI share with public?
Filed under 9/11, A1 Top Story {no comments}
http://www.floridabulldog.org/2017/10/appeal-how-much-information-about-9-11-must-fbi-share/
DXer said
Chris Wray is being considered for the FBI Director spot now.
http://heavy.com/news/2017/05/christopher-chris-wray-ray-fbi-director-us-attorney-comey-bio/
A former Justice Department official now working as a private attorney has been added to the list of potential replacements for ousted FBI Director James Comey.
Chris Wray, who served as assistant attorney general from 2003 to 2005, will be interviewed for the vacant FBI director job by President Donald Trump on Tuesday, Press Secretary Sean Spicer said at a press briefing. Wray worked under Comey at the Justice Department for two years, when Comey was the deputy attorney general.
“Mr. Wray chairs the King & Spalding Special Matters and Government Investigations Practice Group, which represents companies, audit and special committees, and individuals in a variety of white-collar criminal and regulatory enforcement matters, parallel civil litigation, and internal corporate investigations,” the firm says.
Wray’s group has been named the “White-Collar
***
He is considered one of the top litigators in white-collar crime and government investigations, according to several publications.
Chambers USA called him a “renowned heavy hitter in this space” and a “top-notch advocate who can provide counsel on the toughest issues,” who “brings instant credibility and will give you straight answers without blowing smoke.”
***
He Joins a List of Several Names Being Considered to Lead the FBI, Including Fellow Bush Administration Official John Pistole
[who] “is known to be close friends with Vice President Mike Pence.”
***
Christopher Wray served as the personal attorney to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie during the “Bridgegate” controversy, an investigation into the closure of lanes on the George Washington Bridge as political payback against a local politician, according to ABC News.
***
Wray graduated from Yale University in 1989 and went on to Yale Law School, receiving his law degree in 1992, according to his law firm’s website. He was the executive editor of the Yale Law Journal.
DXer said
Trump to interview Pistole for FBI director: USA Today, By Reuters
May 30, 2017
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/latestnews/2017/05/30/Trump-interview-Pistole-FBI-director-USA-Today
Pistole, who served as deputy director of the FBI from 2004 to 2010, was to meet with the Republican president at the White House, the newspaper reported, citing a former colleague of Pistole.
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
Here is a July 2003 interview with an FBI Amerithrax analyst:
“Anthrax Investigation & HQ Centralization
There are two analysts assigned to the Anthrax investigation. There are 40-50
analysts throughout the Bureau working on this investigation part time. They generally
prepare background reports on people of interest during the investigation. These analysts
are supervised by a Supervisory IRS in Oklahoma City, and it’s called the “Technical
Analysis Group.” The reason it’s run there is that after OKBOM, this office developed
certain proficiency at these types of profiles and products, and they have the most
experience with it.
On the Amerithrax investigation, most of the assignments have been top down,
although he has initiated his own projects as well. He has been able to direct collection
on some occasions. The investigation has been closely managed by HQ. There is an
Inspector at HQ, who reports to an AD, and to the Director, and the Director receives
weekly briefings on the investigation. This degree of HQ involvement is unusual. HQ is
definitely more involved than they were before 9/11. His opinion, is that this increased
involvement is “neutral.” There are now “fly away” squads, and more cases run by HQ.
New York used to be the office of origin on overseas al-Qa’ida cases, and now it’s run by
HQ. The “war” against al-Qa’ida is being run out of HQ.”
One of the participants in the interview was FBI Assistant General Counsel Bob Sinton.
DXer said
For a long time, analysts at the FBI’s Washington Field Office did not have access to Intelink. One of the problems was a lack of SCIFs.
WFO was understaffed from an analytic perspective. In July 2003, they had 700 agents, and 28 analysts. Pre 9/11, they had 4.
IT analysts.
DXer said
Fran Townsend: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know
Published 5:19 pm EDT, May 15, 2017
http://heavy.com/news/2017/05/fran-townsend-fbi-director-replacement-husband-age-bio-career-trump-cbs/
Comment:
I sense that the chance of her being named are trending up. But it seems that before being named, it should come out why she visited the White House the day before Director Comey’s firing. (see her twitter and instagram)
If there was not a reason totally unrelated to the firing, some will argue that Trump already had his eye on someone who would not be independent on the issue of the Russia investigation,
If an independent investigator were appointed, the entire brouhaha perhaps can be put to rest. It would permit an FBI DIrector to get down to the many other serious matters at hand.
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
This former FBI agent, who is not named, recommends either Townsend or Rogers.
Former FBI agent: Here’s who Trump should pick as the next FBI director
Allan Smith
http://www.businessinsider.com/fbi-agent-trump-next-director-2017-5
DXer said
Here are some the candidates who have been interviewed by Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
It’s not that I disagree with Senator Graham’s point about how it is preferable that the person not be a politician. I just think that Mike Rogers would be confirmed without any difficulty. The bipartisan approach to problem solving he has expressed is commendable.
And especially under all the circumstances, it should count for something that the FBI Agents association backs him.
For the narrow purpose of this blog, Rogers seems heads and shoulders above all the rest because he is read into more of the classified information that he needs to understand Amerithrax.
Others listed below would be so overwhelmed by their many other important responsibilities that they would never be able to get any traction.
Rogers would be much more likely be able to hit the ground running — though he has regrettable background of being part of the Trump’s transition team for 10 days in November.
If an independent prosecutor were appointed to oversee the Russia investigation — then that would no longer be an issue.
I personally think Alice Fisher, through no fault of her own, would not survive vetting under a conflict of interest analysis. Any large law firm’s representation’s would be very wide-ranging and involve the DOJ. The atmosphere is so charged right now that reporters would be digging deep. She is the managing partner, I believe, in DC.
The civil servants would be on much safer ground and more likely to withstand vetting (and the scrutiny will be on steroids).
CBS News May 15, 2017, 5:43 PM
Trump: Search for FBI director “moving rapidly”
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-search-for-fbi-director-moving-rapidly/
Alice Fisher: Fisher is a lawyer and former Justice Department official who, if selected and confirmed, would be the first woman to lead the FBI. Currently, she focuses on white collar criminal investigations as a partner at Latham & Watkins, according to the firm’s bio. She has also served as assistant attorney general in charge of the criminal division of the Justice Department.
Adam Lee: Lee, an attorney licensed in California, is currently the FBI office chief for the FBI Richmond, Virginia Office. The FBI’s profile of Lee says that he most recently served as section chief of the Public Corruption and Civil Rights Section in Washington, D.C.
Michael Garcia: Garcia is a New York State Judge who is also a former federal prosecutor with extensive experience in immigration enforcement, a top priority for this administration. He would be the first Latino to lead the FBI.
Henry Hudson: Hudson, a federal judge in Virginia, is nearly 70 years old, which could be a disadvantage, given Judge Henry Hudson is a federal judge in Virginia, and the first judge to rule against Obamacare. He’s almost 70 years old, which could work against him in a job that carries a 10-year term.
Mike Rogers: The former congressman from Michigan chaired the House Intelligence Committee, and he’s also a former FBI agent who has been endorsed the FBI Agents Association to be FBI director.
DXer said
Following the lead of an earlier politician,
Cornyn Withdraws From Consideration as FBI Director
Roll Call-1 hour ago
DXer said
Trump asked Comey to shut down investigation into Michael Flynn, report says
http://www.syracuse.com/politics/index.ssf/2017/05/trump_asked_comey_to_shut_down_investigation_into_michael_flynn_report_says.html#incart_river_home
The New York Times says Trump made the request to Comey during a February meeting. The newspaper cites a memo Comey wrote following the meeting.
DXer said
Recent 2 hour interview of former lead Amerithrax investigator Richard Lambert, that I’m transcribing and posting as I listen to it.
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 Al Qaeda had a very robust biological program. that was getting very close to having an anthrax weapon. They had a microbiologist.”
DXer said
http://lawnewz.com/important/hundreds-of-911-families-file-lawsuit-against-saudi-arabia/
JASTA lawsuits are the ultimate confluence of politics and law. …
Now that the JASTA lawsuits have begun, we can only hope that whatever due process and compensation awaits families who have suffered outweighs the global consequences likely to ensue.
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
Perhaps the first lawsuit under JASTA appears to have been last October.
“9/11 widow files lawsuit against Saudi Arabia,” October 1, 2016
http://www.edition.cnn.com/2016/10/01/politics/saudi-arabia-9-11-lawsuit/
Washington (CNN)
Stephanie DeSimone was two months pregnant when her husband, Navy Cmdr. Patrick Dunn, was killed at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.
“Now, 15 years later — and two days after Congress legally paved the way — she’s filed a lawsuit against Saudi Arabia, claiming the kingdom is partially responsible for his death.
***
In court documents filed Friday in Washington, D.C., DeSimone alleges Saudi Arabia provided material support to al Qaeda for more than a decade and was aware of the terror group’s plan to attack the US.
“Absent the support provided by the Kingdom, al Qaeda would not have possessed the capacity to conceive, plan, and execute the September 11th attacks,” the documents say. …
Earlier this year, the US released portions of a formerly classified Congressional report showing some of the 9/11 hijackers were in contact with and received support from individuals likely connected to the Saudi government.”
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
Miami judge slams ‘shameful’ FBI delays in making 9/11 documents …
Miami Herald-Mar 1, 2017
One document the FBI did release six months after that initial FOIA case was filed in September 2012 was a copy of an April 16, 2002, report that said agents …
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/broward/article135771888.html
DXer said
Adnan Shukrijumah is his real name. But in Al Qaeda he was known as Jaffar al-Tayyar. CIA documents unveiled in the CIA’s electronic reading room explain that when they learned of him from KSM under enhanced interrogation– and KSM described him as the “next Atta” — the CIA publicized his real name and he went underground and fled the country.
DXer said
Albany FBI leader to take Washington, D.C., post
Andrew Vale will move on at the end of January
By Robert Gavin
Published 9:33 pm, Monday, December 26, 2016
http://www.timesunion.com/tuplus-local/article/Albany-FBI-leader-to-take-Washington-D-C-post-10819842.php
On the wall of his office, Andrew Vale hung a portrait of himself testifying at the trial of Omar Abdel-Rahman, the blind sheik who plotted the first World Trade Center bombing and sought to blow up several key New York City landmarks.
It marked an early high point for the man who runs the FBI in Albany, back when he led the probe into the terror plot out of the bureau’s Newark, N.J., office.
***
The 1993 case, which led to Abdel-Rahman’s conviction and life sentence, was just one of many stops in a successful career that’s taken Vale from Buffalo to New Jersey to Washington and Albany, where he’s been special agent in charge since 2013.
And now Vale is set to move again. He will leave his post at the end of January to become the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Washington, D.C., field office — a major promotion.
***
Vale is modest as he speaks about his leadership role into the probe of the act of terror that took place eight years before the 9/11 attacks. Six people were killed in the truck bomb explosion at the World Trade Center set off by terrorists on Feb. 26, 1993. They were also planning to bomb the United Nations headquarters, the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, the George Washington Bridge and the FBI’s New York headquarters.
Comment: We can all wish Agent Vale good luck in his new position. FBI Agent Michael Mason had a similar and equally distinguished career path — and meant to abide by a leave no stone unturned approach. But sometimes difficult mysteries take time to come into clearer focus.
Agent Vale, these graphics were done by a federal undercover. AUSA Rachel Lieber was rushed under unfavorable circumstances and some psychiatrists and inexperienced middle managers had unhelpful sway in the course of the Task Force’s development of an Ivins Theory.
Please revisit the hypothesis that a follower of Omar Abdel-Rahman was responsible.
In particular, consider that Adnan El-Shukrijumah was the anthrax mailer. He was there when Dr. Ayman visited the Blind Sheik in Brooklyn.
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
December 23, 2016 at 5:24 am
Miami federal judge denies FBI motion to postpone trial on secret 9-11 records
http://www.floridabulldog.org/2016/12/miami-federal-judge-denies-fbi-motion-to-postpone-trial-on-secret-911-records/
Records of ‘paramount’ importance
In a motion filed Wednesday opposing further delay, Julin wrote, “The Bulldog contends the records at issue are of paramount national and international importance because they are expected to shed light on whether the FBI found evidence in 2001 and 2002 that Saudi Arabia supported the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, but withheld that evidence from Congressional and other investigators.”
Comment:
The Federal District court is not buying the FBI’s argument about the need to consult all the other agencies.
FOIA requestor Ken Dillon is faced with the same unaccountable delay due to consultation with another agency or agencies regarding this Table of Contents of a lengthy Interim memo written by FBI whistleblower Richard L. Lambert.
Is the FBI’s Dave Hardy a political appointee? Will the new Trump Administration make changes of FOIA personnel in the search for a more efficient approach to locating and producing documents bearing on the events of the Fall 2001 attack on the United States? Even where the documents may challenge a previous Administration’s view of events?
DXer said
Dan Christensen mentions the phone records between Adnan El-Shukrijumah and the Sarasota residence in this recent article.
FBI coughs up new 9/11 records about Sarasota; Documents, evidence missing
Filed under 9/11, A1 Top Story, FBI
By Dan Christensen, FloridaBulldog.org
http://www.floridabulldog.org/2016/11/fbi-coughs-up-new-9-11-records-about-sarasota/
Comment:
Why is the FBI spending $750,000 for (what to me, is very ugly artwork) rather than pulling records (and processing them under FOIA) relating to the connections of the 9/11 hijackers?
Report: South Florida FBI workers sickened by $750k wood sculpture
Local Source-7News – WSVN-TV-12 hours ago
Note: Towards the end of this linked redacted memo, this redacted memo states that “ORION was recently deployed over to Alexandria, VA police through the law enforcement online network.” (The full context for the statement eludes me).
Click to access MemorandumfortheRecord.pdf
DXer said
If the FBI cannot even confirm that Adnan El-Shukrijumah is dead, why would anyone have any confidence in their conclusion that he did not drop the letters into a mailbox in the dark of night, upon coming from KSM’s residence where he was staying with Yazid Sufaat when he called his Mom that day and told him he was coming to the US?
If you think a reprimand in some Edgewood’s General’s personnel folder due to an alleged lack of introspection is a career-stopper, wait til you see what happens upon a mass anthrax attack on NYC and DC.
http://www.floridabulldog.org/2016/11/mother-of-slain-ex-broward-al-qaeda-boss-hopes/
November 23, 2016 at 5:02 am
Mother of slain ex-Broward al Qaeda boss hopes for end to stigma
Filed under 9/11, A1 Top Story, FBI {one comment}
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FBI Director Robert Mueller with wanted poster for Adnan El Shukrijumah in 2003.
By Dan Christensen, FloridaBulldog.org
Nearly two years have passed since Miramar’s Zuhrah A. Jumah got news that her eldest son, Adnan, had been killed during a military raid on an al Qaeda hideout in a mountainous corner of northwest Pakistan.
Lately, she wonders how long Adnan El Shukrijumah’s ugly reputation as a dangerous senior al Qaeda commander will continue to trail her and her family.
“I go to the airport. My name comes up on the computer and they stop me. They say, ‘You’ve been selected’,” says Jumah, a mild-mannered widow with 13 grandchildren who has lived in the same modest home off West Hallandale Beach Boulevard for 20 years. “I’m searched. Sometimes they question me.”
Those traveling with her are also met with extra suspicion by airport security – even her 2-year-old granddaughter.
“You want to take me. Take me,” she says, tears welling in her eyes. “Just leave my grandkids alone. You’re disturbing their lives.”
The family’s names can be confusing to Westerners. Jumah explains that El Shukri is the family name, and Jumah is her last name. Broward property records dating to 1996, including the deed to her home, identify her by that name. For reasons that are unclear, however, she has often been identified in news stories by the name Zuhrah Abdu Ahmed.
Zuhrah A. Jumah, top left, and her son Adnan El Shukrijumah, right and bottom.
Jumah says the last time she spoke with Adnan was “12 to 15 years ago.” She said that a week after 9/11 he phoned her, “Did you see what happened?” he asked. She said he was “shocked and scared” because Muslims were being blamed and even then he was on the FBI’s radar as a suspect in plotting an attack in Florida. She said she believed her phone was tapped.
By then authorities had identified the 19 suicide hijackers who crashed passenger jets into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field as citizens of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Lebanon.
‘I gave him comfort’
“Did you see how they put out the claim that we did it?” Adnan Shukrijumah told his mother, who said: “I told him if you’re not involved you have nothing to fear. I gave him comfort.”
Jumah said she and her late husband, Gulshair M. El Shukri Jumah, a local imam with ties to imprisoned New York radical Sheikh Omar Abdul-Rahman, were home when the FBI arrived the day after the terrorist attacks looking for Adnan. He’d apparently left the country months before, however.
“The FBI was here the next day looking for Adnan,” she said. “They searched everything and took a computer that Adnan used.” It was not returned, she said.
The FBI has said Adnan Shukrijumah was a hardened terrorist with a $5 million bounty on his head and an outstanding warrant for his arrest on a variety of charges stemming from his 2010 federal indictment in New York playing an alleged leadership role in a plot to attack New York City’s subway system, as well as other targets in the U.S. and the United Kingdom.
FBI agents have visited Jumah’s home many times since 9/11. “They come every time something happens,” she says. The last time was in December 2014, “to see if he was really killed.” She refused to talk to them.
“We believe, as Muslims, things happen to test your faith,” she said.
Jumah, 55, says talk about her son’s ties to al Qaeda “makes no sense to me. I avoid it.” Instead, she recalls Adnan as “a nice, kind person” who wanted to have a family and a life – perhaps in South Florida. “He told me, ‘Mother, you must think what I’ve accomplished” she said, referring to his studies in computer engineering at Broward College and a side business as a computer technician.
‘He liked to travel’
Asked why, if her son was not involved in terrorism, he’d turn up in a remote region of Pakistan at an alleged al Qaeda compound, she says, “He liked to travel. He liked to move around. He’d gone there after all of the news and media and the blame and the claims.”
Adnan, born in Saudi Arabia in 1975, went to Pakistan to do business.
“He was going to look, to buy stuff and then sell it wholesale… kids’ clothes, sunglasses, jewelry – things like that. It was a business trip,” she said. Still, she doesn’t know the names of anyone Adnan worked with who could verify that account.
Adnan Shukrijumah, 39 at the time of his reported death, was killed during a firefight with Pakistani soldiers and a helicopter gunship on Dec. 6, 2014. Though it is widely accepted that he died that day, the FBI has yet to confirm it and he remains on its Most Wanted Terrorists List. An FBI spokesman has described the confirmation process as “international in scope and quite involved.”
Jumah believes that the Pakistani army killed her son. Now, she’s hoping the FBI will confirm his death and allow her to move on with her life.
“I want it to end,” she says, wearily. “I want it to be closed and finished.”
DXer said
September 28, 2016 at 5:13 am
Widow of ex-South Florida al Qaeda figure reported in Pakistan hostage swap
Filed under 9/11, A1 Top Story, FBI {no comments}
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By Dan Christensen, FloridaBulldog.org
Al Masra’s front page story last month with the story of Pakistan’s release of al Qaeda boss Ayman Zawahiri’s two daughters and the widow of ex-Miramar resident Adnan Shukrijumah.
Nearly two years after Pakistan’s army said it killed fugitive terrorist leader and ex-Broward resident Adnan El Shukrijumah, the FBI still hasn’t verified his death. But news reports this month say al Qaeda recently claimed that Shukrijumah’s widow was one of three women released by Pakistan in exchange for the son of the country’s former army chief.
The other women reportedly handed over to al Qaeda in the exchange were the adult daughters of Ayman al Zawahiri, who took over as leader after Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces in May 2011. …
The U.S. State Department had offered a $5 million reward for information leading to the capture of Shukrijumah, chief of al Qaeda’s North American operations, before the 39-year-old former Miramar resident was reported slain during a helicopter gunship assault on a hideout in a mountainous region of northwest Pakistan on Dec. 6, 2014. Shukrijumah’s widow and four children were reportedly taken into custody following a gun battle. …
The United States Government has not yet confirmed the death of El Shukrijumah,” the FBI said in a statement released to Florida Bulldog last week. “He will remain on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists List until the time a confirmation is made. The confirmation process, which is international in scope and quite involved, remains ongoing. Therefore, the FBI will not comment on it.”
Shukrijumah, indicted in 2010 for his alleged role in plots to attack New York City’s subway system and London’s Underground, was a key figure in the FBI’s Sarasota investigation of a Saudi couple, Abdulazziz and Anoud al-Hijji, that declassified FBI documents say had “many connections” to “individuals associated with the terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001.” The couple came to the FBI’s attention after neighbors reported they’d moved abruptly out of their home and returned to Saudi Arabia about two weeks before the attacks – leaving behind their cars, clothes, furniture and other personal items.
Florida Department of Law Enforcement reports obtained by Florida Bulldog say that Wissam Hammoud, a terrorist associate imprisoned on unrelated charges, told the FBI in 2004 that Abdulazziz al-Hijji introduced him to Shukrijumah at a soccer game at the property of the Islamic Society of Sarasota and Bradenton in 2000 or 2001.
The Long War Journal and the Hindustan Times reported this month that al Qaeda sources first announced the release of the three women in early August. At the time, no mention of an exchange was made, but The Journal added, “Independent accounts indicate the global jihadist organization had been trying to secure their release in exchange for the kidnapped sons of Pakistan’s elite.”
Shukrijumah’s widow
The Journal said Al Masra identified Shukrijumah’s widow as Sumaiya Murjan Salem. She was identified as the daughter of the late Sheikh Murjan Salem al Jawhari. In an interview, Journal reporter Thomas Joscelyn described Salem al Jawhari as a “Zawahiri loyalist, a guy who was prominent in ideological circles.”
Shukrijumah’s widow and Zawahiri’s daughters, and their children, were reportedly sent to Egypt. Al Qaeda’s boss, 65, was born in Egypt.
The Journal reported that al Qaeda claimed the women were released in exchange for the son of General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, who stepped down as army chief in 2013. Before that, he headed Pakistan’s Directorate General for Inter-Services Intelligence.
The Indian Express later cited unnamed “Pakistani military sources,” as denying that there was a swap for the younger Kayani, but said the sources conceded that the women were exchanged, for the son of former Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.
Ali Haider Gilani, however, was rescued in a joint U.S.-Afghan raid in May.
The Journal reported that As Sahab, “a propaganda arm for al Qaeda’s senior leadership,” had released a threat in mid-July about the “treacherous” Pakistani army’s detention of the women. It identified Umaymah al Zawahiri and Fatima al Zawahiri, both in their mid-30s, as the wives of dead al Qaeda commanders. Sumaiya Salem was listed as Shukrijumah’s widow.
“Al Qaeda accused the Pakistanis of holding the three women and their children on the ‘orders of American intelligence’ since 2014,” The Journal story said. “The jihadists claimed at the time that the negotiations to free them had ‘failed.’ Al Qaeda said it would hold the Pakistani government and its ‘American masters’ responsible.”
“On Aug. 5, al Qaeda’s social media channels lit up with news that Zawahiri’s daughters and Shukrijumah’s widow had been released,” the story said.
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
Former US Senator Bob Graham today at National Press Club about Sarasota documents that the FBI is withholding that relate, in important part, to Adnan El-Shukrijumah.
Bob Graham: Government needs to release much more about 9/11 attacks
Alex Leary, Times Washington Bure
http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/the-buzz-florida-politics/bob-graham-government-needs-to-release-much-more-about-911-attacks/2291667
“The legacy of Barack Obama is going to be stained,” when it becomes clear how much material remains hidden from view, Graham said at the National Press Club.
In particular, he said, much remains unanswered about a Saudi family that lived in Sarasota and suddenly vanished around the attack.
Graham said government attempts to conceal links between the 9/11 hijackers and the Saudi government adds to public cynicism.
“We are developing a democracy of spectators.”
DXer said
Anthrax genome reveals secrets about a Soviet bioweapons accident
By Kai KupferschmidtAug. 16, 2016 , 9:45 PM
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/08/anthrax-genome-reveals-secrets-about-soviet-bioweapons-accident
Some call it the “biological Chernobyl.” On 2 April 1979, a plume of anthrax spores was accidentally released from a secret bioweapons facility in the Soviet city of Sverdlovsk. Propelled by a slow wind, the cloud drifted southeast, producing a 50-kilometer trail of disease and death among humans and animals alike. At least 66 people lost their lives, making it the deadliest human outbreak of inhalation anthrax ever.
Now, 37 years later, scientists have managed to isolate the pathogen’s DNA from the bodies of two human victims and piece together its entire genome. The study, under review at the journal mBio and released today on the preprint server bioRxiv , answers one of the many remaining questions about the Soviet Union’s clandestine biowarfare program by showing that scientists hadn’t tinkered with the anthrax strain to make it more resistant to antibiotics or vaccines. If they had, the Soviet bioweapons would have become even more lethal.
***
When released over, say, a packed sports stadium or a city center, tens of thousands could be exposed, and many would get sick before officials even realized what happened. One study, published in 2006, estimated that releasing just 1 kilogram of anthrax spores in Washington, D.C., would be enough to infect between 4000 and 50,000 people. If too few antibiotics were available within days, or if the microbes were resistant, thousands might die.
Anthrax is a favorite weapon for bioterrorists as well. In June 1993, members of the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo sprayed the bacterium from a building in Tokyo; luckily, they made a mistake and used a strain that was innocuous to humans. Shortly after the 11 September 2001 attacks in New York City, anthrax powder was mailed to several politicians and journalists on the U.S. East Coast; 22 people were infected and five died.
***
Questions about the outbreak in Sverdlovsk—which today is called Yekaterinburg and part of Russia—still linger. The Soviet Union at first blamed contaminated meat from an animal outbreak. In 1992, when Boris Yeltsin was president, a team led by Harvard University molecular biologist Matthew Meselson was allowed to visit the area to investigate the incident. In a paper published in Science in 1994, they concluded that the geographic pattern of the outbreak clearly showed that it was caused by an aerosol that had escaped from a facility known as Military Compound 19. “Bad meat does not go in straight lines 50 kilometers long, but wind can do that,” says Meselson, whose wife and fellow team member Jeanne Guillemin wrote a book about the investigation. Many other issues, such as exactly how the cloud was released, remain mysterious.
Comment:
Professor Meselson for many, many years insisted it was contaminated meat over the strenuous objections of others. Declassified notes show DIA analysts were aghast after he left one meeting. He received a medal from Russia.
I guess it is never too late to be right — unless it is.
DXer said
http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB61/
Meselson testified before a Senate hearing in 1989 that the evidence supported the Soviet explanation, not an explosion at a Soviet biological weapons facility. U.S. intelligence for its part continued to find the Soviet “fabrications” about the accident unconvincing. (See Document No. 28)
DXer said
http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB61/
Meselson had finally came around to the view long held by the intelligence community when he published his final findings on the case in November 1994 in the journal Science.(9) Meselson was prepared to conclude that the cause of death was airborne anthrax spores released from a military installation, He also concluded the size of the release was between a few milligrams and a gram, leaving open the possibility it was the result of defensive biological warfare research, a conclusion contested by U.S. intelligence analysts, who argued the release must have involved pounds of anthrax, based on prior studies into the dispersal of biological agents. As Dr. William C. Patrick, the veteran of over 30 years as a biological weapons researcher at Fort Detrick, Maryland and expert on anthrax dispersal noted later, he and other experts “hooted” when Meselson presented his release estimates.(10) The U.S. intelligence position was also supported by Ken Alibek, who said Compound 19 was involved in the “industrial” production of anthrax. Regarding the actual cause of the release, information later obtained from people involved with the Soviet biological warfare effort revealed that the cause of the anthrax release in Sverdlovsk was the failure by maintenance personnel to replace a critical filter in a vent serving the anthrax production facility.
DXer said
Louis Bladel interview:
15 years later: FBI agent recalls nation’s greatest test
John Moody August 15, 2016
https://news.illinoisstate.edu/2016/08/15-years-later-fbi-agent-recalls-nations-greatest-test/
As an FBI special agent and a career federal law enforcement officer, he also knows how the bureau has been forced to rethink the way it does business in the 15 years that have followed the terrorist attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center.
“Now we reach out to our partners when we don’t know something about a particular group,” Bladel said. “That really didn’t happen enough prior to 9/11. There were walls set up by design between agencies.”
***
“It used to be your agency stayed in their lane, but now there’s a lot of cooperation,” Bladel said. “The cross-lane cooperation has been greatly enhanced. That cooperation is something to be proud of. We’ve done a very good job with that.”
“We focus on counterespionage, counterproliferation, and counterintelligence.”—Louis Bladel
It’s a philosophy that extends beyond domestic borders and U.S. agencies—the FBI, CIA, and the National Security Agency—to friendly foreign partners, Bladel said. That list includes “the Brits, the Canadians, the Aussies, and the New Zealanders.”
He’s been with the FBI since 1996, serving in New York City and primarily in Washington, D.C. He’s also had temporary assignments in Guam and Kenya. His current position is special agent in charge of the counterintelligence division of the New York field office.
“I worked from noon to midnight until January—and that was the whole office, not just me,” Bladel said. “But that’s no big deal. If you can’t get motivated by this, then you shouldn’t be in the FBI.”
***
By 2002 he was promoted to a supervisory special agent position in the Eurasian Section at FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., where he worked on counterintelligence and espionage investigations.
***
He’s spent the bulk of his career since working out of Washington, but as of October 2015, he’s back in the New York office, where his duties are wide ranging.
“We focus on counterespionage, counterproliferation, and counterintelligence,” he said.
***
He’s spent the bulk of his career since working out of Washington, but as of October 2015, he’s back in the New York office, where his duties are wide ranging.
“We focus on counterespionage, counterproliferation, and counterintelligence,” he said.
Comment:
It is ironic, then that the FBI use Dr. Ivins longer hours in the Fall 2001, to including December 2001, as evidence of his guilt. (The hours stopped upon the first implementation of the 2-person rule in January 2002, which the US Attorney falsely and without factual basis suggested had been in effect in September and October 2001.
The Agent perhaps knows of Malaysia’s failure to cooperate — and Yazid Sufaat’s failure to cooperate in 2002. (Sufaat felt betrayed by his country and so stubbornly failed to share with his interrogators).
Most of my insights on Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Blind Sheik Abdel-Rahman, Ayman Zawahiri, and the importance of Brooklyn, came from a hockey-loving agent out of the NYC office, who shortly after 9/11 shared online some historical background. If Amerithrax is going to be truly solved, it likely would have to come out of the FBI’s NYC office.
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
Does this fall within Louis Bladel’s purview? Jobs such as his — whether in New York or DC — must be like drinking from a firehose. It must be very difficult to dive too deeply into the complexity of a particular case or issue.
Secret Ledger in Ukraine Lists Cash for Donald Trump’s Campaign Chief
By ANDREW E. KRAMER, MIKE McINTIRE and BARRY MEIERAUG. 14, 2016
KIEV, Ukraine — On a leafy side street off Independence Square in Kiev is an office used for years by Donald J. Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, when he consulted for Ukraine’s ruling political party. His furniture and personal items were still there as recently as May.
And Mr. Manafort’s presence remains elsewhere here in the capital, where government investigators examining secret records have found his name, as well as companies he sought business with, as they try to untangle a corrupt network they say was used to loot Ukrainian assets and influence elections during the administration of Mr. Manafort’s main client, former President Viktor F. Yanukovych.
Handwritten ledgers show $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments designated for Mr. Manafort from Mr. Yanukovych’s pro-Russian political party from 2007 to 2012, according to Ukraine’s newly formed National Anti-Corruption Bureau. Investigators assert that the disbursements were part of an illegal off-the-books system whose recipients also included election officials. ***
DXer said
Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort linked to $12.7M cash payment in Ukraine ledgers
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/trump-campaign-manager-linked-12-7m-ukraine-cash-payment-article-1.2751517
The article was tweeted — just moments after it was posted online — by former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, who was fired in June after clashing with Manafort over campaign strategy for the GOP presidential nominee.
Lewandowski’s social media share generated thousands of likes and retweets.
Comment: Which poses a great national security risk? A paid lobbyist working for Russian clients (who has had difficulty keeping Trump on script) or the former campaign manager whose credo was to let Trump — who most would agree is recklessly uninformed on foreign policy — be Trump.
DXer said
Parole board says Saudi who went to U.S. flight school too dangerous to release from Guantánamo
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/guantanamo/article92789632.html#storylink=cpy
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/guantanamo/article92789632.html
Sharbi attended Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona, and later went to a U.S. flight school, where he “associated with” two of the 9/11 hijackers, according to a profile released by the Pentagon before his review board hearing.
Authorities said he later received training by al-Qaida in the manufacture of improvised explosive devices and was captured in a raid on a terrorist safe house in Faisalabad, Pakistan in 2002.
DXer said
Dan,
When Adnan El-Shukrijumah called his mom to say he was coming to the US, he was at the home of KSM — as was Al Qaeda anthrax lab director Yazid Sufaat. (Sufaat was briefing KSM on the state of his work with anthrax, which he says he successfully developed for use as a weapon).
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
National
July 15, 2016 5:23 PM
Release of ‘28 pages’ isn’t last word on possible Saudi 9/11 links
Released documents are riddled with deletions
By Dan Christensen
***
Last month, 19 survivors and relatives of those who died on Sept. 11 sent a letter to President Obama asking him to designate for “prompt declassification” nine categories of documents “relevant to responsibility for the events of 9/11.”
“We hope and trust that you regard the release of the 28 pages as only a first step in responding to the public calls for transparency and accountability,” the letter says.
The records requested for declassification are:
▪ Documents about the involvement of government-sponsored Saudi religious institutions in supporting al Qaeda. The letter identified 10 organizations that should be subject to declassification review, including the Muslim World League, Saudi High Commission for Relief of Bosnia & Herzegovina, the Saudi Red Crescent Society and Al Haramain Islamic Foundation.
▪ Documents concerning further investigations of the transactions, relationships and issues discussed in the 28 pages.
▪ Unreleased records of the 9/11 Commission. In 2004, the commission had urged that all of its records, to the greatest extent possible, be made publicly available by January 2009. “More than seven years after that target date, the bulk of the commission’s records have not been processed for declassification at all, and the limited records that have been released are in many cases so heavily redacted as to be of little use to the American public,” the letter says.
▪ Documents relating to the activities, interactions, relationships, contacts and financial transactions of the 9/11 hijackers in Florida and other areas of the United States.
▪ Documents about al Qaeda’s wealthy Gulf donors and support by Islamic banks and financial institutions. Those listed are: Al Rajhi Bank, National Commercial Banks, Saudi American Bank, Dubai Islamic Bank, al Shamal Islamic Bank, Faisal Finance and al Baraka.
▪ Records relating to Saudi Arabia’s “efforts to promote Wahhabi Islam” and the “relationship between those efforts and terrorist activity, fundraising and recruitment.” Those records are “especially pertinent” because employees of the Ministry of Islamic Affairs in the Saudi Embassy and in consulates “were implicated as possibly having provided support to the 9/11 hijackers.” Also, records about “as many as 70” Saudi diplomats associated with Islamic Affairs whose credentials were revoked in the aftermath of 9/11.
▪ Records about other investigations of al Qaeda attacks and operations. The letter seeks the “long overdue” release of records involving the 2011 raid on Osama bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound in Pakistan, the attack on the USS Cole, the 1998 African embassy bombings, the Bojinka plot and numerous other incidents.
The victims and relatives, who for years have attempted to sue Saudi Arabia for damages, expressed concern in their letter that the Obama administration’s public response to calls for transparency “have focused narrowly on the 28 pages alone.”
“Any meaningful effort to provide the American public with the truth concerning Saudi Arabia’s role in the emergence of al Qaeda and the events of 9/11 must encompass the full spectrum of evidence bearing on questions of Saudi culpability, not merely the 28 pages,” the letter says.
“By all public accounts, the 28 pages focus on a very discrete set of relationships and transactions relating to Saudi support for two of the 9/11 hijackers once they were already in the United States,” the letter goes on. “While this evidence is critically important, the broader issue, and the one principally raised by our lawsuit against the Kingdom, is the extent of Saudi Arabia’s funding and patronage of al Qaeda, and role in spreading the jihadist ideology that gave rise to bin Laden’s organization during the decade leading up to the attacks.”
Efforts to obtain access to other, still-secret 9/11 information are underway. For example, the Florida Bulldog has a number of outstanding Freedom of Information requests that seek FBI and terrorism task force records about the activities of the suicide hijackers in South Florida, northern Virginia and northern New Jersey.
More recent federal documents that may shed light on 9/11 are also being sought for public disclosure.
On June 16, Florida Bulldog’s parent, Broward Bulldog Inc., sued the FBI and the Department of Justice under the Freedom of Information Act, seeking records by and about the FBI’s 9/11 Review Commission.
The Review Commission was established a decade after the 9/11 Commission to conduct an “external review” of the FBI’s performance in implementing the original commission’s recommendations and to assess new evidence. It held no public hearings and released no transcripts or documents to explain the conclusions in its March 2015 report. The commission’s members and executive director were paid by the FBI in still-secret personal services contracts.
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article89917727.html#storylink=cpy
DXer said
Note that the “28 pages” related to information provided the committee that then merely were not disclosed to the public. The Sarasota documents were documents NEVER even provided to the Committee. Senator Graham, do you think Prince Bandar, aggravated already at how things looked, would want it known that Shukrijumah, son of a man on the Saudi dole, was a prime anthrax mailing suspect?
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
When a Trail of Clues Nearly Led the FBI to America’s Favorite Saudi
July 17, 2016 10:30 AM EDT
By
Eli Lake
http://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-07-17/when-a-trail-of-clues-nearly-led-the-fbi-to-america-s-favorite-saudi
DXer said
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/07/04/bush-by-jean-edward-smith
How Bad Can a President Be?
A new biography exposes the mysterious confidence behind George W. Bush’s greatest failures.
By Thomas Mallon
Smith points out that Bush attended no meetings of the National Security Council in the seven months prior to September 11, 2001. In her reports on these gatherings, Condoleezza Rice—Bush’s national-security adviser, workout partner, and something of an alter ego—tended to synthesize disagreements among the participants, leaving Bush with a false feeling of consensus.
Smith gives us a few interesting details about upstairs life in the White House during the weeks after 9/11 (the President and Laura Bush both began taking Cipro after the anthrax letters arrived at the Capitol)
DXer said
New Trump Campaign Manager Was a Foreign Agent for Controversial Saudi Prince
By Jordan Schachtel
This week, Paul J. Manafort became the unquestioned senior staffer on the Donald Trump presidential campaign. With the dismissal of campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, Manafort now maintains complete control of Trump’s drive to the White House.
The last time Manafort had such a prominent role, he was answering directly to the infamous Saudi royal, Prince Bandar bin Sultan. For several years, Manafort was a loyal lobbyist not only to Bandar, but to the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as their most influential foreign agent in America.
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/06/new_trump_campaign_manager_was_a_foreign_agent_for_controversial_saudi_prince_bandar.html#ixzz4CyHL3zmS
DXer said
Where in New York did the Pulse shooter live?
Orlando gunman tied to radical imam released from prison last year, say law enforcement sources
By Malia Zimmerman
Published June 12, 2016
FoxNews.com
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/06/12/orlando-gunman-tied-to-radical-imam-released-from-prison-last-year-say-law-enforcement-sources.html?intcmp=hpbt1
FoxNews.com has reported extensively on Robertson, a former U.S. Marine who served as a bodyguard to the Blind Sheik involved in the 1993 World Trade Center Attack and led a gang of New York bank robbers called “Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves” before resurfacing in Orlando, where he started an Islamic seminary. …
While in the John E. Polk Correctional Facility in Seminole County, Robertson was considered so dangerous, he was kept in shackles and assigned his own guards. Whenever he was transported to court, a seven-car caravan of armed federal marshals escorted him. He was initially moved into solitary confinement after prison authorities believed he was radicalizing up to 36 of his fellow prisoners.
***
During the same period, federal authorities claimed Robertson served as a bodyguard to Omar Abdel Rahman, nicknamed the “Blind Sheik,” who led the terrorist group that carried out the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and donated more than $300,000 in stolen funds to mosques he attended, both claims Robertson denied. Robertson has adamantly denied the claims.
After he was arrested in 1991 along with most of the other members of the gang, prosecutors cut a deal with Robertson, and let him serve four years in prison before going to work undercover for the FBI between 2004 and 2007 to document terrorists’ plans and networks in Africa, Egypt and the United States.
DXer said
Woman linked to Isis anthrax attack charged in Nairobi court
Posted on Jun 6, 2016
http://nairobinews.nation.co.ke/news/woman-linked-isis-anthrax-attack-charged-nairobi-court/
DXer said
Woman linked to Isis anthrax attack charged in Nairobi court
Posted on Jun 6, 2016
The court heard that United States’ Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is involved in the investigations and that information indicate [sic] there is a likelihood of interference with the custody of the suspect while in prison.
http://nairobinews.nation.co.ke/news/woman-linked-isis-anthrax-attack-charged-nairobi-court/
DXer said
Missing 28 Pages of the 9/11 Report
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/05/17/inside-a-senator-s-crusade-to-release-the-missing-28-pages-of-the-9-11-report.html
Former senator Bob Graham is on a mission to get the missing 28 pages from a congressional 9/11 investigation released. His biggest obstacle so far? The FBI.
Former Florida senator Bob Graham caused a stir when he used the term “aggressive deception” to describe the FBI’s treatment of 28 pages from a 2003 congressional inquiry into the 9/11 attacks.
The word choice was intentional, the co-chair of the investigation of the 9/11 terrorist attacks told The Daily Beast, because to Graham, what the FBI did was worse than the conventional Washington cover-up.
“Cover-up is a fairly passive action. You put something away and keep it out of the vision of other people who might wish to see it,” Graham explained. “Aggressive deception is where you try to change the narrative in an untruthful way, and then you keep the material that would provide the truth away from the people. So the only thing they see and are exposed to is the false narrative.”
It’s an explosive charge, a hair’s breadth away from calling the highest law enforcement officials liars, but when Graham lays out the sequence of events that brought him—a former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee— to level such a broadside, his ire is understandable.
DXer said
County distributes sample medication in anthrax release drill
http://www.fredericknewspost.com/news/health/county-distributes-sample-medication-in-anthrax-release-drill/article_21170504-4ec5-5a4c-a048-f78acea3ab5a.html
DXer said
The U.S. Army Medical Research and Material Command (USAMRMC) Headquarters Electronic Reading Room is Exhibit A in support of the agency’s powerful support of transparency and accountability using the vehicle of the Freedom of Information Act.
Army strong, the agency walks the walk.
http://mrmc.amedd.army.mil/index.cfm?pageid=foia_reading_room.overview
Advertising Sponsor:
Whirled peas: seek peas through understanding.
https://twitter.com/HydropncGarden
DXer said
I have submitted the following FOIA request to USAMRMC:
USAMRMC FOIA Officer:
Sandra Rogers
Sandra, Dr. Ivins told a superior that he would not have the Ames that he should have.
If there is someone who knows of a justification for the missing virulent Ames (see produced emails) used to kill 5 people in 2001, doesn’t the public have a right to know?
In balancing the interests, why would it be an unwarranted invasion of privacy? The disclosure, instead, is clearly warranted.
DOJ gives guidance:
Exemption 6 protects information about individuals in “personnel and medical files and similar files” when the
disclosure of such information “would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal
privacy.” …
In order to determine whether Exemption 6 protects against disclosure, an agency
should engage in the following two lines of inquiry: first, determine whether the information
at issue is contained in a personnel, medical, or “similar” file covered by Exemption 6; and, if
so, determine whether disclosure “would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal
privacy” by balancing the privacy interest that would be compromised by disclosure against
any public interest in the requested information.
The emails at issue have been uploaded here.
In case you cannot access the web link, the dates and times of the 3 emails are as follows:
(1) December 18, 2006, 9:06 a.m.
(2) December 17, 2006 7::39 a.m.
(3) December 18, 2006 9:14 a.m.
If you, John Peterson or anyone else would further briefing of the applicable precedent, let me know.
It seems an issue that warrants appeal and litigation if necessary given the public interest.
DXer said
Dr. Ivins told a superior that he would not have the Ames that he should have.
If there is someone who knows of a justification for the missing virulent Ames used to kill 5 people in 2001, doesn’t the public have a right to know?
In balancing the interests, why would it be an unwarranted invasion of privacy? The disclosure, instead, is clearly warranted.
Senator Leahy received his J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center in 1964. He has considerable experience with the polices of the federal FOIPA statute.
Senator Leahy, in the case of these particular emails, why should the name of the correspondent by redacted under (b)(6)?
DOJ gives guidance:
Exemption 6 protects information about individuals in “personnel and medical files and similar files” when the
disclosure of such information “would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal
privacy.” …
In order to determine whether Exemption 6 protects against disclosure, an agency
should engage in the following two lines of inquiry: first, determine whether the information
at issue is contained in a personnel, medical, or “similar” file covered by Exemption 6; and, if
so, determine whether disclosure “would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal
privacy” by balancing the privacy interest that would be compromised by disclosure against
any public interest in the requested information.
Some background:
“Senator Leahy: It’s Not Closed”
By Paul Kane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
DXer said
What did Al Qaeda anthrax lab head Yazid Sufaat discuss at the meeting in Kandahar with Adnan El-Shukrijumah and KSM before Adnan set off to return to the United States shortly after 9/11?
Posted by Lew Weinstein on June 7, 2013
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 on June 6, 2014
In written correspondence with the Case Closed blog, the Sacramento State graduate and former Malaysian Army Captain Yazid Sufaat has invoked the “Fifth Amendment” and declined to disclose the b. anthracis strain he was using.
Posted by Lew Weinstein on April 28, 2015
2014 Straits Times report : Into what weapons did Yazid Sufaat attempt to load anthrax?
Posted on February 23, 2014
DXer said
Amerithrax: In February 2002, the FBI Failed To Take Custody of Al Qaeda Anthrax Scientists Rauf Ahmad and Yazid Sufaat
Posted by Lew Weinstein on September 14, 2013
Abdur Rauf’s notes … as he went about his mission of obtaining anthrax spores and weaponing technology for al-Qaeda prior to the 2001 anthrax attacks.
Posted by Lew Weinstein on July 4, 2009
Abdur Rauf’s “I have successfully achieved” letter to Ayman al-Zawahiri
Posted by Lew Weinstein on July 4, 2009
Infiltrating Al Qaeda scientist Rauf Ahmad did a lot more than have a servant serve tea and cookies to his US interrogators at a comfortable ISI safehouse
Posted by Lew Weinstein on April 26, 2015
DXer said
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 on June 6, 2014
Al Hawsawi, who had the anthrax processing documents scanned on his laptop, was closely affiliated with Adnan El-Shukrijumah
Posted on September 22, 2014
One of the men who set up Yazid Sufaat’s anthrax lab in Kandahar in May 2001 acknowledged association with Jaffar al-Tayyar aka (Adnan al-Shukrijumah) but apparently the interrogator was confused by the multiple aliases
Posted by Lew Weinstein on September 22, 2014
Zawahiri and Mohammed Islambouli (brother of Sadat’s assassin) personally visited Adnan El-Shukrijumah’s Brooklyn, NY mosque, Al-Farouq
Posted on June 7, 2013
DXer said
Will the FBI produce long withheld documents about anthrax mailing suspect Adnan El-Shukrijumah?
Posted by Lew Weinstein on April 27, 2015
9/11 Congressional press conference tomorrow: Anthrax mailing suspect Adnan El-Shukrijumah, son of a salaried Saudi missionary, was at this Sarasota, FL home with his accomplice, 911 lead hijacker Mohammed Atta.
Posted by Lew Weinstein on January 6, 2015
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
In February 2003, the FBI announced that “Jafar the Pilot” (aka Adnan El-Shukrijumah) had entered the country sometime after September 1, 2001
Posted by Lew Weinstein on September 26, 2014