911 Redux By The Reaper
Wed, 05/13/2009 - 14:01 |
IT WASN'T MUSLIMS
With a peer-reviewed scientific journal having published "loaded gun" (i.e. unreacted nano-thermite) evidence finally proving beyond doubt that World Trade Center Buildings 1, 2 and 7 were brought down in a series of controlled demolitions, here are a few more facts to consider.
It wasn't Muslims in an Afghan cave who had access to highly energetic nano-thermites; it was the US military and government scientists such as those connected with NIST.
It wasn't Muslims who ran a construction company that was awarded a $124 million contract for construction of the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) headquarters in Washington, DC, which oversees the Indian Head Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC-IH), which was described during the 1990s as the "National Center for Energetics", the military's term for "explosives work", and as of 1999-2000 the "only reliable source of aluminum nanopowders in the United States"; it was Tom Leppert who was CEO of Turner Construction as of 9/11/01, and who even writes parts of Presidential speeches.
It wasn't Muslims who ran a construction company that had supervised the 2000 demolition of the Seattle Kingdome, participated in the post 9/11 collection and disposal of the steel wreckage of the WTC towers, and carried out extensive renovations throughout the World Trade Center complex right up to the morning of 9/11 including fireproofing upgrades on the floors that were struck by planes and subsequently "failed", when the steel had already been certified to ASTM E119 by Universal Laboratories, and, in tests sponsored by NIST on corresponding floor assemblies subjected to greater heat exposure and protected with less fireproofing than was the case at the WTC, the test specimens "were able to sustain the maximum design load" without collapsing for as long as the tests were run (2 to 3 1/2 hours); it was Tom Leppert who was CEO of Turner Construction as of 9/11/01 and received a Torch of Conscience award from the American Jewish Congress.
It wasn't Muslims who trained their cameras on the World Trade Center Towers prior to the first aircraft impact, who danced and celebrated with high fives prior to the second impact as most onlookers still believed it had been a terrible accident rather than terrorism, and who were caught with foreign passports, $4,700 in cash hidden in a sock, maps highlighting certain places in the city, and a van that tested positive for traces of explosives; it was Israelis Sivan Kurzberg, Paul Kurzberg, Yaron Shmuel, Oded Ellner, and Omer Marmari, several of whom have been confirmed as Mossad agents, as part of their job in "documenting the event".
It wasn't Muslims who were caught on 9/11/01 operating in teams with vans full of explosives, including one team who attempted to blow up the George Washington Bridge with a truck packed with tons of explosives, and another who blew up a van between 6th and 7th on King Street with a mural painted of a remote controlled airplane diving into New York and blowing up; it was Israelis, which is why the authorities did their best to ignore and bury these reports which included a suspected van bomb driven into the WTC basement and exploded to weaken the structure.
It wasn't Muslims who were caught shortly after midnight on May 7, 2002 very close to the Whidbey Island Naval Air Station, Oak Harbor, Wash., (where the Navy conducts explosive ordnance training for bomb disposal mobile units to the consternation of local marine life) with a rental truck that tested positive for TNT and RDX plastic explosives; it was Israelis whose cover story was of "delivering furniture" but regarded by authorities as dubious because of the early morning hour, and the authorities' subsequent claim that the dog's reaction and initial tests for explosives were wrong is so full of holes that it merely demonstrates the power of the Israeli lobby.
It wasn't Muslims who were in New York on 9/11 and in London on the morning of the 7/7 attacks; it was Benjamin Netanyahu and Rudy Giuliani.
It wasn't Muslims who received advance warning of the London 7/7 attacks; it was Benjamin Netanyahu and the Mossad.
It wasn't Muslims who provided two hours' advance warning of an attack on the World Trade Center via an instant messaging company based in Herzliya; it was Israelis.
It wasn't a Muslim who fled the US on September 14, 2001; it was Dominick Suter of "Urban Moving Systems" who fled to Israel.
It wasn't over a hundred Muslims who, from around January 2000 to September 2001, posed as "art students" and attempted to penetrate US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) offices and other federal buildings including 36 sensitive Department of Defense (DoD) sites, were caught with diagrams of the interior of federal buildings and photographs of federal agents and often evaded security by entering through back doors or parking garages, and even visited the homes of senior federal officials but not those of their neighbors; it was Israelis, none of whom were "art students" but many of whom had backgrounds in Israeli military intelligence. Not surprisingly, the Press went for a limited hangout by trying to pretend the Israelis were merely shadowing "Arab hijackers" and either failed to pass on information, or "it was not treated seriously", the old canard about "intelligence failure". The operations of the Israeli fake "art students" iswell documented, including plenty of names and even descriptions. An unusually large number of these Israelis were located in Irving, Dallas, TX (p.23, previous link), which is about ten miles west of Tom Leppert's Alva Court home, which is barely more than a mile north of the Dallas home that George W. Bush moved into after leaving office.
It isn't Muslim countries that have a massive spy ring in the USA capable of tapping into much of the telecoms network and using information obtained to blackmail Americans; it is Israel.
It wasn't Muslims who received advance warning on Monday September 10, 2001, against flying the next day; it was San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, and a group of top Pentagon officials.
It wasn't Muslims who acquired a 99-year lease on the World Trade Center's Twin Towers, Buildings Four and Five and approximately 400,000 square feet of retail space, and insured for billions of dollars against terror attacks a mere six weeks before terror attacks did in fact occur, and then employed (to press for the insurance claim) a 'structural engineer' who misleadingly asserts that steel loses half its strength at "400 degrees"; it was - in a deal negotiated by Lewis Eisenberg of the Port Authority - Benjamin Netanyahu's (and Ariel Sharon's and Ehud Barak's) friend Larry Silverstein and his partner Australian billionaire and "Holocaust survivor" Frank Lowy who fought "in the Jewish underground", was embroiled in a high-level bank corruption scandal with Israeli Premier Ehud Olmert and found to be making payments to Lord (Michael Abraham) Levy who was arrested several times in relation to a "cash for honors" scandal, Levy being a "tennis partner" and advisor of Tony Blair.
It isn't Muslims who have a reputation for perpetrating arson scams in order to claim off insurance companies as evidenced by any colloquial use of the term "Muslim lightning"; it is Zionists as evidenced by the recognized term "Jewish lightning".
It wasn't Muslims who normally breakfasted at the Windows on the World restaurant on the 106th and 107th floors of the North Tower, but by some bizarre coincidence did not happen to be there on 9/11 and were thus spared the fate of occupants on that tragic day (none of whom escaped from the floors above the aircraft impact at 8:46 AM); it was Larry Silverstein who was spared due to having a "dermatologist's appointment", an event which also spared his two children who worked at Silverstein Properties.
It wasn't a Muslim who went on TV within hours of the attacks to tell everyone that "It... certainly has the fingerprints of somebody like bin Laden" and the World Trade Center had collapsed because of "the velocity of the plane" and "intense heat probably weakened the structure as well", and who reportedly on that very day advised the White House to take Cipro, an effective antibiotic against anthrax, seven days before the commencement of an anthrax letters terror campaign targeted at Democratic U.S. Senators and news media offices, who on 9/11/01 was a managing director of the crisis and consequence management group at Kroll Associates, who was an advisor to the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) regarding "epidemiological surveillance" and national security advisor at the National Institute of Health (NIH), and who gave his 'friend' John O'Neill a job as Head Of Security at the World Trade Center; it wasJerome Hauer.
It wasn't Muslims who carried out a terror campaign mailing letters containing anthrax spores that had their electrostatic charge altered so that they would disperse more readily, anthrax that was traced to the weapons grade Ames strain originating at the US Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) at Fort Detrick, neither was it the FBI's final "suspect" Roman Catholic Bruce Ivins, who, unlike the true perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks, had no motive to target news media and Opposition Senators and thereby scare them into uncritical acceptance of the "Arab hijackers" conspiracy theory. Ivins died of an overdose and alleged "suicide" in July 2008 after the FBI gave up attempting to pin the blame on Steven Hatfill because there was not a scintilla of evidence against him; a logical suspect is Philip M. Zack who left Fort Detrick under a cloud in December 1991 after having headed a clique calling itself the "Camel Club" that was racially harassing Egyptian-born Dr. Ayaad Assaad. Zack was found by a 1992 inquiry to have been caught on surveillance camera being let into a Fort Detrick lab building at 8:40 p.m. on Jan. 23, 1992 apparently by Dr. Marian Rippy, a lab pathologist and close friend of Zack. The inquiry also found someone had been in a lab late at night secretly conducting unauthorised research, evidently on anthrax believed to include the Ames strain. Nearly ten years on, during the week between 9/11 and the commencement of the anthrax campaign, the FBI received an anonymous letter attempting to frame Dr. Assaad as a "bioterrorist". The anthrax letters seemed contrived so as to appear to have been written by a Muslim, and a New York Times writer told of a "Mr. Z." who failed some FBI polygraph tests and was once caught with a girlfriend at Fort Detrick "surrounded only by blushing germs".
It wasn't a Muslim who was claimed to have been killed on the alleged American Airlines "Flight 77", to have lived at Silver Spring, Maryland (as did a certain Rabbi Dr. Dov Zakheim), and to have worked on top-secret "deep-black" projects at the Indian Head Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC-IH), a "renowned leader in energetics" which operates an "Energetics Manufacturing Technology Center", carries out "advanced research in energetic systems" and "absorbed the function of the closed Naval Ordnance Laboratory, formerly in White Oak, MD" which is a couple miles from Silver Spring; it was William E. Caswell.
It wasn't Muslims who were claimed to have been killed on the alleged "Flight 77" and who worked for government or defense, particularly the Navy; it was John Yamnicky who, strangely, for the first time did not tell his daughter that he was going on travel, and who, like William Caswell, had worked for the Navy on top-secret "black" projects. Others included Charles Burlingame, a former Navy fighter pilot who used to work in the section of the Pentagon that was hit and who had formulated a response for the eventuality of an airliner being flown into the Pentagon and whose daughter Wendy subsequently died in a "suspicious fire" at a 50-story high-rise in New Jersey in December 2006, Wilson "Bud" Flagg, a retired American Airlines pilot and Navy Admiral, Stanley Hall, an expert in anti-radar technology and a director of program management at Raytheon, Bryan Jack, a senior executive and top budget analyst who worked at the Pentagon, Chandler Keller, a Boeing propulsion engineer, Dong Lee, a Boeing engineer who worked for their Integrated Defense Systems and who had worked for the National Security Agency (NSA) for 14 years, Barbara Olson, CNN commentator and wife of the US Solicitor General who claimed to have received cell phone calls from "Flight 77", Ruben Ornedo, a Boeing propulsion / satellite communications engineer, Robert Penniger, an electrical engineer with BAE Systems, and another dozen alleged "Flight 77 passengers" who were linked to defense and government who, we are told, all just happened to be on this unusually low occupancy flight. These people, well loved and respected as honest, decent heroes, are the very sort of characters whose work could have been horrifically exploited without their knowledge, and whom the 9/11 perpetrators would need to eliminate to prevent them speaking out after the attacks.
It wasn't Muslims who profited by speculating on airline and insurance stocks in advance of 9/11; it was Israelis.
It wasn't Muslims who concocted a hoax about pork-swilling, money-eschewing, celibate, truthful, courageous, pro-animal rights, "devout Zionists" who were "suicide hijackers / pilots", almost half of whom later turned up alive and well; it was Zionists who concocted a hoax about drinking, gambling, strip joint-frequenting, womanizing, "devout Muslims" who were "suicide hijackers / pilots", almost half of whom later turned up alive and well.
It wasn't a Muslim who was a former unit team leader in an elite special forces unit and whose father was a senior aide, secretary and pallbearer to a man who in 1937 was commander of the Irgun Tzvai Leumi, a Jewish terrorist organization responsible for atrocities such as the King David Hotel bombing; it wasBenjamin Netanyahu.
It wasn't a Muslim who was the mentor of Benjamin Netanyahu's father Benzion and who wrote a column in the Revisionist Zionist magazine Doar Hayom under the title "From the Notebook of a Fascist", praising Mussolini and referring to one-time commander of the Irgun Ze'ev (Vladimir) Jabotinsky as "our Duce"; it was Abba Ahimeir the founder of Revisionist Maximalism, a Jewish fascist ideology.
It wasn't Muslim terrorists who plotted to assassinate British foreign secretary Ernest Bevin; it was Jewish terrorists.
It wasn't Muslims who orchestrated, and whose operatives were caught red-handed in, a failed false-flag terrorist campaign in Egypt; it was Israel.
It wasn't Muslims who attacked the USS Liberty killing 34 Americans, and had the US President saying "I don't give a damn if every man drowns and the ship sinks. I don't want to embarrass our allies"; it was Israel.
It wasn't Muslims who were evacuated "apparently due to a specific security threat" in advance of the Amman, Jordan terror attacks on November 9, 2005 (9/11 by Israeli and European calendars), which included a blast at the Radisson hotel that was known to have emanated from a bomb hidden in a false ceiling, even though the official story held that it was really the work of "suicide bombers" and therefore by some bizarre coincidence the ceiling bomb must have been placed there previously by someone else; it was Israelis who were evacuated in advance of these attacks in which there were no Jewish casualties, most of the dead were Jordanian Sunni Muslims, two Israeli casualties were both Arabs, and five Palestinians died including Major-General Bashir Nafeh, the head of military intelligence in the West Bank.
It wasn't Muslims who were caught and arrested inside the Mexican Congress chamber on October 10, 2001 in possession of guns, grenades, dynamite, detonators and wiring while posing as "press photographers"; it was Mossad agent Salvador Guersson Smecke and Israeli illegal immigrant Saur Ben Zvi at the very time that Zionists would obtain maximum benefit from a false-flag terror attack that would mobilize support for the war on "Muslim terrorists" in Afghanistan that had been launched only three days previously.
It wasn't Muslims who were convicted and jailed for six months in 2004 for fraudulently attempting to obtain a New Zealand passport in the name of a tetraplegic man; it was Mossad agents Uriel Kelman and Eli Cara who were seeking to create a false identity for Zev Barkan.
It wasn't Muslims who claimed to know the identity of "suicide hijackers" Abdulaziz al-Omari and Saeed al-Ghamdi when, since individuals with the exact same names and other personal details such as birth date, place and occupation subsequently turned up alive and well, the population of Saudi Arabia in 1975 was 7,180,000 and even given a high annual birth rate of 30 per 1,000 and ignoring infant mortality the daily birth rate was only 590 and so it is highly improbable that individuals would share the exact same name, birth date, place and occupation, al-Omari's passport had been stolen in 1995 when his apartment was burgled in Denver, Colorado (a state where Mossad agents have been active), and only utter cretins would steal the identities of people with a different appearance but having their exact same name, place, date of birth and occupation, ergo those hypothetical "suicide hijackers" would have had entirely different names; it was the FBI who published a list claiming that the 9/11 perpetrators included Abdulaziz al-Omari and Saeed al-Ghamdi in addition to several others who had turned up alive and well, and even though the FBI admitted that some hijackers may have used stolen identities and that there is "no legal proof to prove the identities of the suicidal hijackers," they denied having misidentified the alleged "suicide hijackers" and refused to change the names, photographs or backgrounds on their list - albeit obfuscating and trying to cover themselves by including multiple spellings and aliases.
It wasn't Muslims who were behind a failed coup in Turkey; it was crypto-Jew and Mossad agent pseudo-Rabbi Tuncay Guney, who fled to Canada in 2004, and who in 2001 lived in New Jersey towns that were centers of activity for Mossad Urban Moving Systems operatives.
It wasn't Muslims who set up an "al Qaeda cell" in Palestine; it was the Israeli Mossad.
It wasn't Muslims who had established a reputation for having the capability to stage false-flag terror attacks, i.e., to target U.S. forces and make it look like the act of a third party, prior to 9/11; it was the Mossad.
It wasn't a Muslim who infiltrated the Pentagon and betrayed his country of birth by selling classified documents to another country that were then traded to the USSR; it was convicted spy Jonathan Pollard whose treachery resulted in stolen nuclear secrets being passed on to the USSR with Israel as the paying intermediary.
It wasn't Muslims who were running an exercise commencing at 9:00 a.m. on the morning of 9/11 involving a plane crashing into a tower; it was officials at the National Reconnaissance Office, Chantilly, VA.
It wasn't a Muslim who, in response to the question "Do the orders still stand?" regarding the response - or more precisely, the lack of response - to an aircraft that was rapidly homing in on the Pentagon and ten miles out after both of the Twin Towers had already been hit by planes more than half an hour previously, whipped his neck around and replied "Of course the orders still stand. Have you heard anything to the contrary?"; it was Dick Cheney.
It wasn't a Muslim who was CEO of a company that made remote control "Flight Termination Systems" that could electronically hijack in-flight aircraft and steer them into targets by means of a "Command Transmitter System"; it was Rabbi Dov Zakheim.
It wasn't a Muslim who, well aware that a percentage of trillions of dollars is still hundreds of billions of dollars, took a position as Comptroller of the Pentagon in May 2001 when it was already public knowledge that the Pentagon's accounting systems were in complete disarray with $6.9 trillion of "adjustments" having been required in an attempt to make the figures add up, and with no receipts for $2.3 trillion of these hard to track changes on non-integrated computer systems and antiquated paperwork that could be readily taken out by a missile or plane strike on the relevant auditing section at the Pentagon, and who subsequently delivered a commemorative sermon on the Pentagon lawn to hundreds of co-religionists from 40 countries six months after such a terror strike did in fact occur killing at least 34 budget analysts / accountants / financial experts; it was Rabbi Dov Zakheim.
It wasn't a Muslim who was at a breakfast meeting with Donald Rumsfeld when the first plane hit the WTC, and was at the Army Navy Country Club "when the plane that hit the Pentagon came right over the top of the Army Navy Club and bounced down the hill and hit the side of the Pentagon"; it was Thomas E. White, who is linked to the Enron fraud, who participated in JINSA trips to Israel, e.g. with his wife Susan in 1997, and who was sworn in as Secretary of the Army on May 31, 2001 which is 27 days after George W Bush appointed Rabbi Dov Zakheim as Undersecretary of Defense and Comptroller of the Pentagon, both White and Zakheim having been placed by Bush at the Pentagon where more than $2 trillion of transactions had no receipts and Pentagon finances were vulnerable to a "terror attack" that would target the appropriate auditing section.
It wasn't Muslims who in 2000 co-authored a document which called for a "new Pearl Harbor"; it was Roger Barnett, Alvin Bernstein, Stephen Cambone, Eliot Cohen, Devon Gaffney Cross, Thomas Donnelly, David Epstein, David Fautua, Dan Goure, Donald Kagan, Fred Kagan, Robert Kagan, Robert Killebrew, William Kristol, Mark Lagon, James Lasswell, I. Lewis Libby, Robert Martinage, Phil Meilinger, Mackubin Owens, Steve Rosen, Gary Schmitt, Abram Shulsky, Michael Vickers, Barry Watts, Paul Wolfowitz, and Rabbi Dov Zakheim.
It wasn't Muslims who had a motive for employing a "Flight Termination System" to take control of EgyptAir Flight 990 - a Boeing 767 - on October 31, 1999 (after a bizarre coincidence in which "air crash victims grief counselor" Ed McLaughlin of the Family Enterprise Institute was the only person to board the ill-fated plane in Los Angeles and get off at New York), send it plunging into the Atlantic 60 miles south of Nantucket killing all 217 on board, none of whom were Israelis but 33 of the casualties were Egyptian army officers including two Air Force brigadier generals and two army major generals, and promote the concept of "Muslim suicide pilots" to a gullible public; it was Zionists who would have needed to conduct a trial run of electronically hijacking in-flight Boeing aircraft for their imminent false-flag terror operation that was to be blamed on "Muslim suicide pilots / hijackers", with the EgyptAir Flight 990 "inquiry" beingoverseen by Zionist Jew Bernard Loeb who had Jewish translators transcribe the cockpit recordings, and the FBI conducting a character assassination to smear the alleged "suicidal" co-pilot.
It wasn't Muslims who wrote in 1998 of a "transforming event" rather like "Pearl Harbor"; it was John Deutsch, Ashton Carter and Philip Zelikow.
It wasn't a Muslim who served as Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission, whose expertise and job entailed the creation and maintenance of public myths or "presumptions", and who confirmed that the Iraq war had been for Israel's benefit; it was Philip Zelikow.
It wasn't Muslims who published a paper in 1996 entitled A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm, which mentioned "removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq" and introduced the concept of pre-emptive strikes for which some phony pretext such as halting drug money or striking counterfeiting infrastructure or "weapons of mass destruction" could be devised that Americans would sympathise with; it was The Institute for Advanced Strategic & Political Studies (IASPS) of Jerusalem and Washington which, for new Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu, discussed how such a policy would benefit Israel.
It wasn't a Muslim who, in a 1995 book, predicted that "if the West doesn’t wake up to the suicidal nature of militant Islam, the next thing you will see is militant Islam is bringing down the World Trade Center"; it was Benjamin Netanyahu.
It wasn't Muslim security officials who, in 1991, inspected the garage of a Muslim shipping company in the World Trade Center and concluded that the WTC garage was vulnerable to a car bomb, two years before the WTC garage was in fact hit by a car bomb and the FBI were aware of the plot yet let it go ahead killing six people and injuring more than a thousand, and ten years before the WTC was demolished one week after the very same shipping company had moved out of the WTC; it was Israeli security officials and an Israeli shipping company.
It wasn't Muslims who paid Ali al-Jarrah more than $300,000 for services rendered, i.e., posing as a "supporter" of the Palestinian cause while betraying his country to an enemy state, and who was a cousin of Ziad al-Jarrah who was alleged to be one of nineteen 9/11 "suicide hijackers"; it was Israel that paid this Mossad asset.
It wasn't Muslims who 1) broadcast the pilot episode on March 4, 2001 of The Lone Gunmen TV series, an episode about a plot by a secret cabal within the US government to electronically hijack by remote control a Boeing heading for Boston and divert it to crash into the World Trade Center 2) said in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks that no one had ever conceived of aircraft being used by terrorists as missiles to target buildings; it was 1) Fox TV, owned by Rupert Murdoch, a long-time friend of Benjamin Netanyahu 2) National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice / acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of StaffGeneral Richard Myers / President George W. Bush / Vice President Dick Cheney / White House spokesman Ari Fleischer.
It wasn't a Muslim who said he'd seen the (first) plane hit the (North) Tower and reckoned it must have been "one terrible pilot" and "a horrible accident" before going into a classroom and subsequently being informed of the second impact when the first impact was not broadcast live on TV; it was George W. Bush.
It wasn't Muslims who, on Tuesday, October 2 through Friday, October 5, 2001: 1) met with, and 2) received $3 million in gifts for "funds for victims" from Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifah Al-Thani, the Emir of Qatar who started the Al Jazeera channel in 1996 with a $150 million grant, the channel which broadcasts audios and videos purporting to be of "Osama bin Laden" aka Emmanuel Goldstein; it was: 1) George W. Bush, Dick Cheney (an "old friend") - Cheney also met the Emir on October 20, 2001 to discuss the "Osama" interviews, Rudy Giuliani, Colin Powell, Paul Wolfowitz, and Richard Myers 2) Rudy Giuliani, Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Myers.
It wasn't Muslims who fabricated a fairy story about Pfc. Jessica Lynch being ambushed, stabbed, shot, bravely continuing to shoot Iraqis, being abused, raped, and held captive in a hospital by Iraqi guards, and later rescued by elite US forces; it was "unnamed US officials" who lied, since in fact there was no "rescue", Lynch's gun had jammed with sand, she was being cared for by the Iraqis after being injured in a car crash, she had no "bullet holes" or "knife wounds", the hospital was not "under guard", and doctors had even tried to return Lynch to US forces themselves.
It wasn't Muslims who conspired to invade a defenseless nation by lying about "weapons of mass destruction" ("WMDs") when they had already made up their minds to invade for "regime change", resulting in excess Iraqi deaths estimated at 655,000 to one million, the displacement of more than four million, the sacrifice of thousands of troops and throwing away of $3 trillion to no avail save for enriching a few war criminals and profiteers to the tune of billions of dollars in this proxy war for Israel; it was George W. Bush and Tony Blair.
It wasn't a Muslim who ordered aides to plan for striking Iraq barely five hours after the Pentagon was attacked on 9/11; it was Donald Rumsfeld.
It wasn't Muslims who ordered 250 police to smash their way into a house in Forest Gate, London, in the middle of the night and arrest two brothers after shooting one of them in the shoulder, on the basis of intelligence said to be from a "reliable", single source regarding a conspiracy involving a "cyanide bomb", with the brothers being released without charge several days later before it was subsequently revealed that the source was a man with an IQ of 69 who was already in jail on a terror conviction; it was Jewish supremacist lackeys MI5, Tony Blair and John Reid.
It isn't Muslim countries that have hundreds of nuclear warheads and submarines equipped with cruise missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads with a 900-mile range; it is Israel.
It isn't Muslims that have a powerful political lobby capable of extorting vast sums; it is Israel.
It wasn't a Muslim who boasted "We Muslims control America, and the Americans know it"; it was Ariel Sharon who boasted "We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it".
It isn't Muslims who fake phony "hate crimes" against themselves, such as vandalising their own cars or graves, or poisoning their dogs and defacing their houses with swastikas, or cutting their clothes and drawing swastikas on their stomachs; it is Zionists.
It wasn't Muslims who took control of The New York Times in 1896, or who indeed own and control much of the mainstream media today; it was and is Zionists.
It isn't a Muslim country that crushes peace protesters to death with bulldozers or shoots them, or shells a picnicking family on a beach (and then refuses to own up) when it wants to launch a war within the next three weeks, or warns civilians to flee after blowing up bridges so it can target them like sitting ducks, or shoots at Red Cross ambulances or UN observers after promising they would be safe, or bombs a power station so that more than ten thousand tonnes of crude oil leaks into the Mediterranean as a "collective punishment"; it is Israel.
It isn't Muslims who routinely employ weapons such as phosphorus shells to inflict grave and horrific injuries on civilians, and who deliberately fire more than a million cluster bomblets of which 40% fail to detonate on impact and 90% are employed in the final three days before a ceasefire so they can "get them all in while the going is good"; it is Israel.
It isn't a Muslim nation that holds the world record for defying UN resolutions; it is Israel.
It wasn't Muslims who ganged up on a handicapped Jew for hiking on his own land, beat him with clubs, dragged him along the ground, tied him to a power pole and continued to beat and kick him as Muslim soldiers did nothing to stop it and police merely advised the thugs to pour water on the victim's head to wash away the blood before journalists and photographers arrived; it was a gang of four cowardly, bigoted Jewish settlers who beat up a handicapped Palestinian with impunity, basking in the knowledge that Jewish soldiers and police would not act impartially, and even returning a week later to torment the neighbors, ransacking their home and destroying their few possessions.
It wasn't Muslim soldiers who beat up and killed a Jew with clubs and rifle butts and kicks to the head and then, after an 'investigation', concluded that the soldiers had "acted properly"; it was the Israeli "Defense" Forces who smashed three holes in a Palestinian teenager's skull killing him as he merely waited at a bus stop, continuing to beat him as he lay unconscious, then made up a story about him "pulling a knife" and suggested that he was "mentally unstable" in a case that is sadly all too typical of violence perpetrated by racist, bigoted right-wing extremist Jewish supremacists upon those whom they perceive as "animals in human form".
It wasn't Muslims who created a global organization named the "Anti Defamation League" in order to defend Muslim criminals by playing the race card and accusing their pursuers of being "racists" and "anti-Semites" who were guilty of "hate crimes"; it was Zionists who set up the Anti Defamation League of B'nai B'rith in response to the lynching of Leo Frank, president of the Atlanta chapter of the B'nai B'rith Jewish secret society who had been convicted of murdering 13-year-old Mary Phagan who worked at Frank's pencil factory, with the lynching of Frank being in response to the commuting of his death sentence to life imprisonment after organized Jewry had tried to cast doubt on Frank's conviction by shifting the blame to a black man even though ritual murder is a known Jewish tradition, the ADL being used thereafter to denounce anti-criminals as "anti-Semites" whenever the criminals happened to be Zionists.
It isn't Muslims who, for political and financial gain, demolished the World Trade Center with nano-thermite and crashed remote-controlled planes into it in order to set up a hoax about "Jewish kamikaze pilots" and then attempt to throw researchers off the scent by pretending to "investigate" the demolitions whilst 'accidentally' plumping for the wrong hypothesis (e.g. H-bombs rather than thermite), and then stubbornly refuse to change to a hypothesis that is in accordance with the evidence; it is Zionists who set up a hoax about "Muslim kamikaze pilots" and have their deliberately misleading 'work' about the demolitions hosted at sites that are owned and edited by Zionists.
It wasn't Muslims who practised pseudo-science by refusing to look for Iron Blue at Auschwitz or explosives at the World Trade Center, in order that their 'investigation' would come up with the required financially and politically motivated result; it was Jan Markiewicz, Wojciech Gubala, and Jerzy Labedz of the Jan Sehn Institute at Krakow (Auschwitz fraud), and "scientists" and "engineers" at NIST (WTC fraud).
It wasn't Muslims who took over the "investigation" of the World Trade Center collapses when FEMA were making a hash of the cover up, mixed up Figures 11-51 and 11-52 in NCSTAR1-9Vol2 on their WTC7 report which was published two days after the mysterious death of eyewitness Barry Jenningswhose testimony of explosions in WTC7 before either Tower had collapsed - note he specifically says (4:43) "I was trapped in there when both buildings came down" - blew their politically motivated assumptions and conclusions apart, failed to spot their mistake in their accompanying description, assumed unrealistically high gas temperatures in order to derive their required unrealistically high steel temperatures, published a preposterous hypothesis of a "thermal-expansion"-based collapse with the logical conclusion that the 180 kip shear capacity of four bolts in a seated connection would be exceeded if the steel heated up from 20 C to 32 C making the force to completely resist the thermal expansion 191 kip, irrespective of the fact that no steel-framed high-rises had ever collapsed due to "fires" or "impacts" apart from the three that allegedly did so on 9/11, claimed inward bowing of the WTC1 perimeter columns between floors 94 to 100 peaking at 55 inches at column 316 on the 96th floor which could not be reconciled with the fact that the columns' moment of inertia or second moment of area was at least 342 ins^4 along the minor axis and a maximum deflection of 55 inches given fixed - fixed boundary conditions and a distributed load would have required the failure within 102 minutes of at least ten consecutive floors, many of which did not have any fireproofing 'dislodged' by a plane and did not even experience substantial fires; it was NIST, whose top scientists and engineers have extensive knowledge of nano-thermites, but said they had found "no evidence" of explosives at the WTC and later admitted that they had not bothered to look for any. The 9/11 perpetrators had to ensure those in charge of the "investigation" were aware of that which they must not find.
It wasn't a Muslim who announced on Sunday September 16, 2001 that a "hijacker's passport" (allegedly that of Satam al Suqami) had been found "several blocks from the ruins of the World Trade Center", with other reports asserting that the passport was found "in the vicinity of Vesey Street"; it was former Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik who was indicted November 2007 on multiple counts including lying, fraud and conspiracy, which is consistent with the fact that the laws of aerodynamics dictate that the passport should have been found in the vicinity of Liberty Street, the scriptwriter forgot that Suqami was supposed to be on Flight AA11 approaching from the north, and, of several attempts made by the authorities to guess where the passport should have been found, not one of them was correct!
It wasn't Muslims who had JFK killed; it was Zionists.
It wasn't Muslims who stole elections by exploiting electronic voting machines that biased the results such that the odds for several swing states to swing as much as they did from the exit polls was 250 million to one against; it was George W. Bush.
It isn't Muslims who exhibit traits of supremacist megalomaniacs by referring to their enemies as "grasshoppers", "beasts", "crocodiles" and "cockroaches"; it is Zionists.
It wasn't a Muslim who set up a Ponzi scheme that netted $50 billion; it was a Jew.
It wasn't Muslims who made a record about doing "The Wall Street Shuffle" and whose other songs included scatological references; it was Zionists.
It isn't Muslims who rule the world by proxy and get others to fight and die for them in wars; it is Zionists, whose modus operandi is to select rich host populations that will let them in, pose as their "ally" whilst draining them of hard-earned wealth, employ deception to trick the hosts into fighting poorer nations, and reap the spoils of war such as Afghan opium trafficking, missing Pentagon funds, looting of oil-for-food funds, etc, along with other opportunistic scams such as the $550 billion electronic run on the banks. Note: some reports incorrectly state Thursday September "15", 2008 for the latter; it should of course be September 11, the Thursday prior to September 15.
It isn't Muslims who have been expelled from countries on numerous occasions, it is Zionists who keep getting kicked out as soon as the host gets wise to the fact that Zionists' only loyalty is to their own tribe, rather than the host nation to whom Zionists pose as an "ally".
It wasn't Muslims who started a World War in 1914 in the hope that they could successfully launch a hoax about "six million" of their number being killed in order to obtain their own country and net a substantial fraction of global wealth in "reparations", failed, but also exploited the opportunity to annex and loot Russia and indulge in horrific blood-letting and oppression as a means of settling old scores with the Rus who had chased them westwards from former Khazaria; it was Khazar (fake) 'Zionists'.
It wasn't Muslims who blew up Francois Duprat's car killing him and maiming his wife, beat up Dr. Robert Faurisson at least ten times in which his jaw was broken / teeth knocked out / nearly killed several times / hospitalized for weeks and was persecuted in legal battles and had his home raided by police, tried to kill Ernst Zundel on at least three occasions in arson and pipe bomb attacks and had him and Germar Rudolf deported to Germany and jailed for years, beat Jurgen Rieger unconscious and blew up his car, beat up David Cole and threatened to kill him and his family, persecuted and beat Joseph Burg, attackedFrank Walus seven times and nearly killed him in an acid attack, forced Ivan Lagace to resign from his job as a crematory expert after endless threats from thugs claiming to be from the Jewish Defense League, perpetrated numerous terrorist attacks in France including sulfuric acid sprayed into faces / attacks with iron bars / baseball bats / gas sprayed / excrement strewn around, had historian David Irving spend 400 days in jail before being released on Appeal from a three year sentence which was for two speeches and a newspaper interview he gave 16 years earlier, had Dr. Frederick Toben jailed in Germany for ten months for using his Australian website to express his views, and who had dozens more jailed, fined, and financially ruined by character assassination and legal battles; it was Zionists attempting to prop up their idiosyncratic brand of "truth" which profited them handsomely for decades.
It wasn't Muslims who fabricated a hoax about "six million" of their people being "murdered" involving an evidence-free conspiracy theory about a plot to exterminate them in "gas chambers" which netted them - by way of a huge, illegitimate land grab - their own sovereign state, colossal profits in "reparations", hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign "aid" and "loan guarantees" and waiving / subsidizing of interest payments, etc, and now serves as their "sword and shield" to practice apartheid and kill and oppress their enemies with impunity; it was Zionists.
It wasn't Muslims who were caught red-handed forging fake "smoke" onto wartime photographs of Auschwitz; it was the Simon Wiesenthal Center, whose suitability as guardians of truth is comparable to a choice of Count Dracula as a maintainer of blood banks.
It isn't Muslim mathematics that holds that the sum of a set of variables a + b + c + d + e... remains constant, e.g. at "six million", when several variables fluctuate downwards by, say, nearly three million and about half of that, in the absence of any corresponding upwards revision; it is financially and politically motivated Jewish "mathematics".
It isn't Muslim physics and chemistry that holds that corpses may be rapidly and economically cremated with between a pound and a kilogram of coke per body when the firebricks of the cremation ovens are not even replaced after some 20,000 cremations (which is rather like expecting a Trabant to be capable of doing 100,000 miles non-stop at 100 mph on 100 gallons of gasoline and a couple of cans of motor oil); it is politically and financially motivated Jewish "physics" and Jewish "chemistry".
It wasn't Muslims - or even the "Russian police" - who behave as if they authored The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion; it is International Jewry, and if it hisses like a snake and rattle.
June 22, 2002 by ABC News, The White Van, Were Israelis Detained on Sept. 11 Spies?
Millions saw the horrific images of the World Trade Center attacks, and those who saw them won't forget them. But a New Jersey homemaker saw something that morning that prompted an investigation into five young Israelis and their possible connection to Israeli intelligence.
Maria, who asked us not to use her last name, had a view of the World Trade Center from her New Jersey apartment building. She remembers a neighbor calling her shortly after the first plane hit the towers.
She grabbed her binoculars and watched the destruction unfolding in lower Manhattan. But as she watched the disaster, something else caught her eye.
Maria says she saw three young men kneeling on the roof of a white van in the parking lot of her apartment building. "They seemed to be taking a movie," Maria said.
The men were taking video or photos of themselves with the World Trade Center burning in the background, she said. What struck Maria were the expressions on the men's faces. "They were like happy, you know … They didn't look shocked to me. I thought it was very strange," she said.
She found the behavior so suspicious that she wrote down the license plate number of the van and called the police. Before long, the FBI was also on the scene, and a statewide bulletin was issued on the van.
The plate number was traced to a van owned by a company called Urban Moving. Around 4 p.m. on Sept. 11, the van was spotted on a service road off Route 3, near New Jersey's Giants Stadium. A police officer pulled the van over, finding five men, between 22 and 27 years old, in the vehicle. The men were taken out of the van at gunpoint and handcuffed by police.
The arresting officers said they saw a lot that aroused their suspicion about the men. One of the passengers had $4,700 in cash hidden in his sock. Another was carrying two foreign passports. A box cutter was found in the van. But perhaps the biggest surprise for the officers came when the five men identified themselves as Israeli citizens.
‘We Are Not Your Problem’
According to the police report, one of the passengers told the officers they had been on the West Side Highway in Manhattan "during the incident" — referring to the World Trade Center attack. The driver of the van, Sivan Kurzberg, told the officers, "We are Israeli. We are not your problem. Your problems are our problems. The Palestinians are the problem." The other passengers were his brother Paul Kurzberg, Yaron Shmuel, Oded Ellner and Omer Marmari.
When the men were transferred to jail, the case was transferred out of the FBI's Criminal Division, and into the bureau's Foreign Counterintelligence Section, which is responsible for espionage cases, ABCNEWS has learned.
One reason for the shift, sources told ABCNEWS, was that the FBI believed Urban Moving may have been providing cover for an Israeli intelligence operation.
After the five men were arrested, the FBI got a warrant and searched Urban Moving's Weehawken, N.J., offices.
The FBI searched Urban Moving's offices for several hours, removing boxes of documents and a dozen computer hard drives. The FBI also questioned Urban Moving's owner. His attorney insists that his client answered all of the FBI's questions. But when FBI agents tried to interview him again a few days later, he was gone.
Three months later 2020's cameras photographed the inside of Urban Moving, and it looked as if the business had been shut down in a big hurry. Cell phones were lying around; office phones were still connected; and the property of dozens of clients remained in the warehouse.
The owner had also cleared out of his New Jersey home, put it up for sale and returned with his family to Israel.
‘A Scary Situation’
Steven Gordon, the attorney for the five Israeli detainees, acknowledged that his clients' actions on Sept. 11 would easily have aroused suspicions. "You got a group of guys that are taking pictures, on top of a roof, of the World Trade Center. They're speaking in a foreign language. They got two passports on 'em. One's got a wad of cash on him, and they got box cutters. Now that's a scary situation."
But Gordon insisted that his clients were just five young men who had come to America for a vacation, ended up working for a moving company, and were taking pictures of the event.
The five Israelis were held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, ostensibly for overstaying their tourist visas and working in the United States illegally. Two weeks after their arrest, an immigration judge ordered them to be deported. But sources told ABCNEWS that FBI and CIA officials in Washington put a hold on the case.
The five men were held in detention for more than two months. Some of them were placed in solitary confinement for 40 days, and some of them were given as many as seven lie-detector tests.
'Plenty of Speculation'
Since their arrest, plenty of speculation has swirled about the case, and what the five men were doing that morning. Eventually, The Forward, a respected Jewish newspaper in New York, reported the FBI concluded that two of the men were Israeli intelligence operatives.
Vince Cannistraro, a former chief of operations for counterterrorism with the CIA who is now a consultant for ABCNEWS, said federal authorities' interest in the case was heightened when some of the men's names were found in a search of a national intelligence database.
Israeli Intelligence Connection?
According to Cannistraro, many people in the U.S. intelligence community believed that some of the men arrested were working for Israeli intelligence. Cannistraro said there was speculation as to whether Urban Moving had been "set up or exploited for the purpose of launching an intelligence operation against radical Islamists in the area, particularly in the New Jersey-New York area."
Under this scenario, the alleged spying operation was not aimed against the United States, but at penetrating or monitoring radical fund-raising and support networks in Muslim communities like Paterson, N.J., which was one of the places where several of the hijackers lived in the months prior to Sept. 11.
For the FBI, deciphering the truth from the five Israelis proved to be difficult. One of them, Paul Kurzberg, refused to take a lie-detector test for 10 weeks — then failed it, according to his lawyer. Another of his lawyers told us Kurzberg had been reluctant to take the test because he had once worked for Israeli intelligence in another country.
Sources say the Israelis were targeting these fund-raising networks because they were thought to be channeling money to Hamas and Islamic Jihad, groups that are responsible for most of the suicide bombings in Israel. "[The] Israeli government has been very concerned about the activity of radical Islamic groups in the United States that could be a support apparatus to Hamas and Islamic Jihad," Cannistraro said.
The men denied that they had been working for Israeli intelligence out of the New Jersey moving company, and Ram Horvitz, their Israeli attorney, dismissed the allegations as "stupid and ridiculous."
Mark Regev, the spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, goes even further, asserting the issue was never even discussed with U.S. officials.
"These five men were not involved in any intelligence operation in the United States, and the American intelligence authorities have never raised this issue with us," Regev said. "The story is simply false."
No 'Pre-Knowledge'
Despite the denials, sources tell ABCNEWS there is still debate within the FBI over whether or not the young men were spies. Many U.S. government officials still believe that some of them were on a mission for Israeli intelligence. But the FBI told ABCNEWS, "To date, this investigation has not identified anybody who in this country had pre-knowledge of the events of 9/11."
Sources also said that even if the men were spies, there is no evidence to conclude they had advance knowledge of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11. The investigation, at the end of the day, after all the polygraphs, all of the field work, all the cross-checking, the intelligence work, concluded that they probably did not have advance knowledge of 9/11," Cannistraro noted.
As to what they were doing on the van, they say they read about the attack on the Internet, couldn't see it from their offices and went to the parking lot for a better view. But no one has been able to find a good explanation for why they may have been smiling with the towers of the World Trade Center burning in the background. Both the lawyers for the young men and the Israeli Embassy chalk it up to immature conduct.
According to ABCNEWS sources, Israeli and U.S. government officials worked out a deal — and after 71 days, the five Israelis were taken out of jail, put on a plane, and deported back home.
While the former detainees refused to answer ABCNEWS' questions about their detention and what they were doing on Sept. 11, several of the detainees discussed their experience in America on an Israeli talk show after their return home.
Said one of the men, denying that they were laughing or happy on the morning of Sept. 11, "The fact of the matter is we are coming from a country that experiences terror daily. Our purpose was to document the event."
ABCNEWS' Chris Isham, John Miller, Glenn Silber and Chris Vlasto contributed to this report.
November 2, 2003, The Sunday Herald, Five Israelis were seen filming as jet liners ploughed into the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, by Neil Mackay,
Were they part of a massive spy ring which shadowed the 9/11 hijackers and knew that al-Qaeda planned a devastating terrorist attack on the USA? Neil Mackay investigates
THERE was ruin and terror in Manhattan, but, over the Hudson River in New Jersey, a handful of men were dancing. As the World Trade Centre burned and crumpled, the five men celebrated and filmed the worst atrocity ever committed on American soil as it played out before their eyes.
Who do you think they were? Palestinians? Saudis? Iraqis, even? Al-Qaeda, surely? Wrong on all counts. They were Israelis – and at least two of them were Israeli intelligence agents, working for Mossad, the equivalent of MI6 or the CIA.
Their discovery and arrest that morning is a matter of indisputable fact. To those who have investigated just what the Israelis were up to that day, the case raises one dreadful possibility: that Israeli intelligence had been shadowing the al-Qaeda hijackers as they moved from the Middle East through Europe and into America where they trained as pilots and prepared to suicide-bomb the symbolic heart of the United States. And the motive? To bind America in blood and mutual suffering to the Israeli cause.
After the attacks on New York and Washington, the former Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was asked what the terrorist strikes would mean for US-Israeli relations. He said: "It's very good." Then he corrected himself, adding: "Well, it's not good, but it will generate immediate sympathy [for Israel from Americans]."
If Israel's closest ally felt the collective pain of mass civilian deaths at the hands of terrorists, then Israel would have an unbreakable bond with the world's only hyperpower and an effective free hand in dealing with the Palestinian terrorists who had been murdering its innocent civilians as the second intifada dragged on throughout 2001.
It's not surprising that the New Jersey housewife who first spotted the five Israelis and their white van wants to preserve her anonymity. She's insisted that she only be identified as Maria. A neighbour in her apartment building had called her just after the first strike on the Twin Towers. Maria grabbed a pair of binoculars and, like millions across the world, she watched the horror of the day unfold.
As she gazed at the burning towers, she noticed a group of men kneeling on the roof of a white van in her parking lot. Here's her recollection: "They seemed to be taking a movie. They were like happy, you know ... they didn't look shocked to me. I thought it was strange."
Maria jotted down the van's registration and called the police. The FBI was alerted and soon there was a statewide all points bulletin put out for the apprehension of the van and its occupants. The cops traced the number, establishing that it belonged to a company called Urban Moving.
Police Chief John Schmidig said: "We got an alert to be on the lookout for a white Chevrolet van with New Jersey registration and writing on the side. Three individuals were seen celebrating in Liberty State Park after the impact. They said three people were jumping up and down."
By 4pm on the afternoon of September 11, the van was spotted near New Jersey's Giants stadium. A squad car pulled it over and inside were five men in their 20s. They were hustled out of the car with guns levelled at their heads and handcuffed.
In the car was $4700 in cash, a couple of foreign passports and a pair of box cutters – the concealed Stanley Knife-type blades used by the 19 hijackers who'd flown jetliners into the World Trade Centre and Pentagon just hours before. There were also fresh pictures of the men standing with the smouldering wreckage of the Twin Towers in the background. One image showed a hand flicking a lighter in front of the devastated buildings, like a fan at a pop concert. The driver of the van then told the arresting officers: "We are Israeli. We are not your problem. Your problems are our problems. The Palestinians are the problem."
His name was Sivan Kurzberg. The other four passengers were Kurzberg's brother Paul, Yaron Shmuel, Oded Ellner and Omer Marmari. The men were dragged off to prison and transferred out of the custody of the FBI's Criminal Division and into the hands of their Foreign Counterintelligence Section – the bureau's anti-espionage squad.
A warrant was issued for a search of the Urban Moving premises in Weehawken in New Jersey. Boxes of papers and computers were removed. The FBI questioned the firm's Israeli owner, Dominik Otto Suter, but when agents returned to re-interview him a few days later, he was gone. An employee of Urban Moving said his co-workers had laughed about the Manhattan attacks the day they happened. "I was in tears," the man said. "These guys were joking and that bothered me. These guys were like, 'Now America knows what we go through.'"
Vince Cannistraro, former chief of operations for counter-terrorism with the CIA, says the red flag went up among investigators when it was discovered that some of the Israelis' names were found in a search of the national intelligence database. Cannistraro says many in the US intelligence community believed that some of the Israelis were working for Mossad and there was speculation over whether Urban Moving had been "set up or exploited for the purpose of launching an intelligence operation against radical Islamists".
This makes it clear that there was no suggestion whatsoever from within American intelligence that the Israelis were colluding with the 9/11 hijackers – simply that the possibility remains that they knew the attacks were going to happen, but effectively did nothing to help stop them.
After the owner vanished, the offices of Urban Moving looked as if they'd been closed down in a big hurry. Mobile phones were littered about, the office phones were still connected and the property of at least a dozen clients were stacked up in the warehouse. The owner had cleared out his family home in New Jersey and returned to Israel.
Two weeks after their arrest, the Israelis were still in detention, held on immigration charges. Then a judge ruled that they should be deported. But the CIA scuppered the deal and the five remained in custody for another two months. Some went into solitary confinement, all underwent two polygraph tests and at least one underwent up to seven lie detector sessions before they were eventually deported at the end of November 2001. Paul Kurzberg refused to take a lie detector test for 10 weeks, but then failed it. His lawyer said he was reluctant to take the test as he had once worked for Israeli intelligence in another country.
Nevertheless, their lawyer, Ram Horvitz, dismissed the allegations as "stupid and ridiculous". Yet US government sources still maintained that the Israelis were collecting information on the fundraising activities of groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Mark Regev, of the Israeli embassy in Washington, would have none of that and he said the allegations were "simply false". The men themselves claimed they'd read about the World Trade Centre attacks on the internet, couldn't see it from their office and went to the parking lot for a better view. Their lawyers and the embassy say their ghoulish and sinister celebrations as the Twin Towers blazed and thousands died were due to youthful foolishness.
The respected New York Jewish newspaper, The Forward, reported in March 2002, however, that it had received a briefing on the case of the five Israelis from a US official who was regularly updated by law enforcement agencies. This is what he told The Forward: "The assessment was that Urban Moving Systems was a front for the Mossad and operatives employed by it." He added that "the conclusion of the FBI was that they were spying on local Arabs", but the men were released because they "did not know anything about 9/11".
Back in Israel, several of the men discussed what happened on an Israeli talk show. One of them made this remarkable comment: "The fact of the matter is we are coming from a country that experiences terror daily. Our purpose was to document the event." But how can you document an event unless you know it is going to happen?
We are now deep in conspiracy theory territory. But there is more than a little circumstantial evidence to show that Mossad – whose motto is "By way of deception, thou shalt do war" – was spying on Arab extremists in the USA and may have known that September 11 was in the offing, yet decided to withhold vital information from their American counterparts which could have prevented the terror attacks.
Following September 11, 2001, more than 60 Israelis were taken into custody under the Patriot Act and immigration laws. One highly placed investigator told Carl Cameron of Fox News that there were "tie-ins”" between the Israelis and September 11; the hint was clearly that they'd gathered intelligence on the planned attacks but kept it to themselves.
The Fox News source refused to give details, saying: "Evidence linking these Israelis to 9/11 is classified. I cannot tell you about evidence that has been gathered. It's classified information." Fox News is not noted for its condemnation of Israel; it's a ruggedly patriotic news channel owned by Rupert Murdoch and was President Bush's main cheerleader in the war on terror and the invasion of Iraq.
Another group of around 140 Israelis were detained prior to September 11, 2001, in the USA as part of a widespread investigation into a suspected espionage ring run by Israel inside the USA. Government documents refer to the spy ring as an "organised intelligence-gathering operation" designed to "penetrate government facilities". Most of those arrested had served in the Israeli armed forces – but military service is compulsory in Israel. Nevertheless, a number had an intelligence background.
The first glimmerings of an Israeli spying exercise in the USA came to light in spring 2001, when the FBI sent a warning to other federal agencies alerting them to be wary of visitors calling themselves "Israeli art students" and attempting to bypass security at federal buildings in order to sell paintings. A Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) report suggested the Israeli calls "may well be an organised intelligence-gathering activity". Law enforcement documents say that the Israelis "targeted and penetrated military bases" as well as the DEA, FBI and dozens of government facilities, including secret offices and the unlisted private homes of law enforcement and intelligence personnel.
A number of Israelis questioned by the authorities said they were students from Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, but Pnina Calpen, a spokeswoman for the Israeli school, did not recognise the names of any Israelis mentioned as studying there in the past 10 years. A federal report into the so-called art students said many had served in intelligence and electronic signal intercept units during their military service.
According to a 61-page report, drafted after an investigation by the DEA and the US immigration service, the Israelis were organised into cells of four to six people. The significance of what the Israelis were doing didn't emerge until after September 11, 2001, when a report by a French intelligence agency noted "according to the FBI, Arab terrorists and suspected terror cells lived in Phoenix, Arizona, as well as in Miami and Hollywood, Florida, from December 2000 to April 2001 in direct proximity to the Israeli spy cells".
The report contended that Mossad agents were spying on Mohammed Atta and Marwan al-Shehi, two of leaders of the 9/11 hijack teams. The pair had settled in Hollywood, Florida, along with three other hijackers, after leaving Hamburg – where another Mossad team was operating close by.
Hollywood in Florida is a town of just 25,000 souls. The French intelligence report says the leader of the Mossad cell in Florida rented apartments "right near the apartment of Atta and al-Shehi". More than a third of the Israeli "art students" claimed residence in Florida. Two other Israelis connected to the art ring showed up in Fort Lauderdale. At one time, eight of the hijackers lived just north of the town.
Put together, the facts do appear to indicate that Israel knew that 9/11, or at least a large-scale terror attack, was about to take place on American soil, but did nothing to warn the USA. But that's not quite true. In August 2001, the Israelis handed over a list of terrorist suspects – on it were the names of four of the September 11 hijackers. Significantly, however, the warning said the terrorists were planning an attack "outside the United States".
The Israeli embassy in Washington has dismissed claims about the spying ring as "simply untrue". The same denials have been issued repeatedly by the five Israelis seen high-fiving each other as the World Trade Centre burned in front of them.
Their lawyer, Ram Horwitz, insisted his clients were not intelligence officers. Irit Stoffer, the Israeli foreign minister, said the allegations were "completely untrue". She said the men were arrested because of "visa violations", adding: "The FBI investigated those cases because of 9/11."
Jim Margolin, an FBI spokesman in New York, implied that the public would never know the truth, saying: "If we found evidence of unauthorised intelligence operations that would be classified material." Yet, Israel has long been known, according to US administration sources, for "conducting the most aggressive espionage operations against the US of any US ally". Seventeen years ago, Jonathan Pollard, a civilian working for the American Navy, was jailed for life for passing secrets to Israel. At first, Israel claimed Pollard was part of a rogue operation, but the government later took responsibility for his work.
It has always been a long-accepted agreement among allies – such as Britain and America or America and Israel – that neither country will jail a "friendly spy" nor shame the allied country for espionage. Chip Berlet, a senior analyst at Boston's Political Research Associates and an expert in intelligence, says: "It's a backdoor agreement between allies that says that if one of your spies gets caught and didn't do too much harm, he goes home. It goes on all the time. The official reason is always visa violation."
What we are left with, then, is fact sullied by innuendo. Certainly, it seems, Israel was spying within the borders of the United States and it is equally certain that the targets were Islamic extremists probably linked to September 11. But did Israel know in advance that the Twin Towers would be hit and the world plunged into a war without end; a war which would give Israel the power to strike its enemies almost without limit? That's a conspiracy theory too far, perhaps. But the unpleasant feeling that, in this age of spin and secrets, we do not know the full and unadulterated truth won't go away. Maybe we can guess, but it's for the history books to discover and decide.
September 14, 2001, Fox News, One Arrested, Others Detained at NY Airports,
At least one man claiming to be a pilot has been arrested and up to nine others detained in at least two of New York's three area airports, as officials probed the possibility some of those held were carrying knives, tickets booked for flights Tuesday morning and might be hijackers.
The arrest and detainments caused the immediate closure of all three of the city's airports, which had opened just hours earlier. Peter Yerkes, a spokesman for the Port Authority, which runs the airports, said planes in the air were being allowed to land, but no planes were allowed to take off. The hold went into effect shortly before 5 p.m.
A source knowledgable of the workings of the airline industry said the man arrested at John F. Kennedy International Airport checked in sometime between noon and 4 p.m. The man was trying to board American Airlines flight 299 bound for San Jose.
The man had been scheduled for an earlier flight on Tuesday bound for Los Angeles, but that flight was canceled after the terrorist attack began on the World Trade Center, the source said. A subsequent strip search found the man had a pilot's certificate from a Florida school, the source said.
The FBI was already investigating whether an altercation at Kennedy Airport on Tuesday was linked to the World Trade Center explosion, a law enforcement source told The Associated Press on Thursday.
March 7, 2007, Information Clearing House, High-Fivers and Art Student Spies, What Did Israel Know in Advance of the 9/11 Attacks? by Christopher Ketcham,
September 12, 2001, The Record, [Bergen, New Jersey] Five men detained as suspected conspirators, by Paulo Lima, Staff Writer,
ABOUT eight hours after terrorists struck Manhattan's tallest skyscrapers, police in Bergen County detained five men who they said were found carrying maps linking them to the blasts.
The five men, who were in a van stopped on Route 3 in East Rutherford around 4:30 p.m., were being questioned by police but had not been charged with any crime late Tuesday. The Bergen County Police bomb squad X-rayed packages found inside the van but did not find any explosives, authorities said.
However, sources close to the investigation said they found other evidence linking the men to the bombing plot.
"There are maps of the city in the car with certain places highlighted," the source said. "It looked like they're hooked in with this. It looked like they knew what was going to happen when they were at Liberty State Park."
Sources also said that bomb-sniffing dogs reacted as if they had detected explosives, although officers were unable to find anything. The FBI seized the van for further testing, authorities said.
Sources said the van was stopped as it headed east on Route 3, between the Hackensack River bridge and the Sheraton hotel. As a precaution, police shut down Route 3 traffic in both directions after the stop and evacuated a small roadside motel near the Sheraton.
Sources close to the investigation said the men said they were Israeli tourists, but police had not been able to confirm their identities. Authorities would not release their names.
East Rutherford officers stopped the van after the FBI's Newark Field Office broadcast an alert asking surrounding police departments to look for a white Chevrolet van, police said.
"We got an alert to be on the lookout for a white Chevrolet van with New Jersey registration and writing on the side," said Bergen County Police Chief John Schmidig. "Three individuals were seen celebrating in Liberty State Park after the impact. They said three people were jumping up and down."
The East Rutherford officers summoned the county police bomb squad, New Jersey state troopers, and FBI agents, who waited alongside the van as prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney's Office tried to obtain a warrant to search the van late Tuesday, Schmidig said.
By 10 p.m., members of the bomb squad were picking through the van and X-raying packages found inside, Schmidig said.
Sources said the FBI alert, known as a BOLO or "Be On Lookout," was sent out at 3:31 p.m.
It read:
"Vehicle possibly related to New York terrorist attack. White, 2000 Chevrolet van with New Jersey registration with 'Urban Moving Systems' sign on back seen at Liberty State Park, Jersey City, NJ, at the time of first impact of jetliner into World Trade Center.
"Three individuals with van were seen celebrating after initial impact and subsequent explosion. FBI Newark Field Office requests that, if the van is located, hold for prints and detain individuals."
FBI spokeswoman Sandra Carrolldeclined to comment on the incident late Tuesday.
State police Lt. Col. Barry W. Roberson confirmed the traffic stop at a late night news briefing at state police headquarters in Trenton. He would not elaborate, however.
Business records show an Urban Moving Systems with offices on West 50th Street in Manhattan and on West 18th Street in Weehawken. Telephone messages left at the businesses Tuesday evening were not immediately returned.
Business records show the owner as Dominik Suter of Fair Lawn. A woman answering the telephone at Suter's home acknowledged he owned the company but refused to comment further. She also declined to identify herself.
It was not clear Tuesday whether the van stopped by police is related to Suter's company.
A business traveler staying at the Homestead Studio Suites Hotel said she watched state troopers drive the suspects away in a procession of state police cars about 5 p.m.
The woman, who asked not to be identified, said the people detained appeared to be white men, but she could not give more details. About 5:30 p.m., police evacuated the hotel without offering guests an explanation.
"First, they told us we could hang out in the lobby, but then they told us we had to leave," the traveler said.
At 10 p.m., the hotel guest said she could see at least two police officers searching through the van while a crowd of other officers kept their distance. Except for police vehicles and a tow truck, the service road beside Route 3 was empty, she said.
Staff Writer Wendy Ruderman contributed to this report.
November 21, 2001, New York Times, Dozens of Israeli Jews Are Being Kept in Federal Detention, by Tamar Lewin with Alison Leigh Cowan,
Among the more than 1,100 people the government has detained since Sept. 11 are dozens of young Israeli Jews who came to the United States in recent months and took jobs selling trinkets at shopping malls throughout the country.
Charged with working without proper papers, some have been kept in detention by the Immigration and Naturalization Service for nearly a month. In some cases, the immigration service has invoked special post-Sept. 11 laws to keep the Israelis in jail but presented no evidence of a link to the terrorism investigation.
''We think there are about 50 in detention now, in San Diego, Houston, Kansas City, St. Louis and Cleveland, and there are some who have been released,'' said Ido Aharoni, a spokesman for the Israeli consulate in New York. ''It's not easy to get an exact count. They may be embarrassed that they were working illegally, and we only find out when their mothers call, because they haven't been in touch, and we check and find them in jail.''
Normally, working without papers is treated as a minor offense, for which foreigners are not detained.
While both the detainees and their lawyers say they are baffled by the detentions, some of those familiar with the cases said they believed the impetus was the interest of law enforcement officials in companies that offer young Israelis -- and perhaps others in the Middle East -- help in coming to, and working in, the United States.
''It's hard to understand,'' said Suzanne Brown, a St. Louis lawyer representing 5 of the 10 Israelis detained there. ''Just today, I talked with the I.N.S. officer in charge of the St. Louis office, who said he doesn't know who is conducting the investigation of the Israelis. And what are they investigating? I don't know.''
In Ohio, on Oct. 31, the immigration service detained nine men and two women, all of whom had valid passports and tourist visas. Nine of the 11 were released on bond on Friday, but two remain in the Medina County jail, outside of Cleveland. The next hearing for the Israelis -- all in their early 20's and recently finished with their Israeli army service -- is scheduled for Nov. 27, in Cleveland.
''It doesn't make sense that they held any of these kids as long as they did, and we don't know of any reason why they're still holding two,'' said David Leopold, the Cleveland lawyer representing them. ''You hear there's more than 1,000 detainees, and if these cases are any example, you have to wonder if they're just locking people up to make it look like they're getting somewhere on their investigation.''
Dan Nelson, a spokesman for the Justice Department, said that he was unaware of the Israeli detainees, but that generally, since Sept. 11, there has been greater scrutiny of those who violate immigration laws.
''We are taking every step we can to prevent future terrorist attacks,'' Mr. Nelson said. ''We are conducting the largest investigation in U.S. history, and we are leaving no stone unturned.''
In New York, immigration officials began deporting five young Israeli moving men who have been in federal custody since Sept. 11. Two of the deportees, Oded Ellner and Omer Gavriel Marmari, landed in Tel Aviv yesterday. The others, Paul Kurzberg and his brother Sivan, and Yaron Shmuel, were expected to fly to Israel today.
The five aroused attention in New Jersey after people noticed them going to unusual lengths to photograph the World Trade Center ruins and making light of the situation. One photograph developed by the F.B.I. showed Sivan Kurzberg holding a lighted lighter in the foreground, with the smoldering wreckage in the background, said Steven Noah Gordon, a lawyer for the five.
As objectionable as their behavior may be, Mr. Gordon said of their long incarceration, ''It's not a crime and they were being treated as if it was.''
The five were asked to take polygraph tests before being allowed to leave. But Paul Kurzberg refused on principle to divulge much about his role in the Israeli army or subsequently working for people who may have had ties to Israeli intelligence, Mr. Gordon said. His client had trouble with one seven-hour polygraph test administered last week, but did better on a second try.
Mr. Kurzberg's lawyer said it was his understanding that Attorney General John Ashcroft had to sign off on his release.
In the Ohio cases, the immigration service said at a hearing last week that the 11 Israelis were ''special'' nonterrorist cases. But Judge Elizabeth Hacker, the immigration judge conducting the hearing, questioned the agency's case for keeping the Israelis in jail.
''Although the service alleges that these cases are 'special,' it has failed to present any credible evidence of the basis for this finding,'' Judge Hacker said in a bond memorandum. ''Indeed, the service has failed to submit any evidence of terrorist activity or of a threat to the national security. There is no evidence of the risk of harm to the community.''
Russell Bergeron, a spokesman for the immigration service, said decisions on when to refuse bond were made case by case.
When Judge Hacker set bond, the government filed an emergency appeal, which, under procedures adopted last month, automatically allows the government extra time to detain people.
At the hearing, the government lawyers said the Israelis were the subject of a criminal investigation by the F.B.I. of an individual or company that promised living and travel expenses in return for selling at shopping-mall pushcarts. The government says the Ohio detainees worked for Quality Sales Inc., a Florida concern.
Tom Dean, the lawyer representing Quality Sales, declined to provide information about the company or its principals, but he said the company was cooperating with federal authorities to resolve ''any concern about possible criminal conduct.''
The F.B.I. refused to comment on its dealings with Quality Sales or other such companies.
Some of those familiar with the cases said such companies may provide an open channel for terrorists to enter the country without background checks.
The Israelis who were detained in Ohio lived in three apartments in Findlay, Ohio, south of Toledo, and worked in several different malls.
''When they came Oct. 31, the immigration agents knocked on the door, and waked us from sleep,'' said Ori Ben-Tur, one of the Ohio detainees who was released on Friday. ''When we asked why they arrest us, they said they suspect we work in illegal jobs. They told us we could probably come back to our apartment the same day, or the day after.''
When the detention dragged on, he said, the Israelis became increasingly worried, and, after several days in detention, arranged legal representation by Mr. Leopold.
Mr. Ben-Tur said he and the others had been interrogated separately.
''Some of the questions weren't so nice for an Israeli, who has served in the army, and fought against terrorism,'' he said. ''I asked them, do they know what Israel thinks of the Arab countries, do they know Israel thinks of America as a big, big friend?''
Mr. Ben-Tur, and his lawyer, said they had no idea why he and most of the others had been released, while two, Oren Behr and Yaniv Hani, were still being detained.
Photo: Ori Ben-Tur and his girlfriend, Rachel Sabag, in background, were among 11 Israeli Jews detained in Findlay, Ohio. The Immigration and Naturalization Service referred to the detainees as ''special'' nonterrorist cases. (Michael Nash for The New York Times)
August 25, 2008, What Really Happened, The Five Dancing Israelis Arrested On 9-11,
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,34250,00.html
At least one man claiming to be a pilot has been arrested and up to nine others detained in at least two of New York's three area airports, as officials probed the possibility some of those held were carrying knives, tickets booked for flights Tuesday morning and might be hijackers.
The arrest and detainments caused the immediate closure of all three of the city's airports, which had opened just hours earlier. Peter Yerkes, a spokesman for the Port Authority, which runs the airports, said planes in the air were being allowed to land, but no planes were allowed to take off. The hold went into effect shortly before 5 p.m.
A source knowledgable of the workings of the airline industry said the man arrested at John F. Kennedy International Airport checked in sometime between noon and 4 p.m. The man was trying to board American Airlines flight 299 bound for San Jose.
The man had been scheduled for an earlier flight on Tuesday bound for Los Angeles, but that flight was canceled after the terrorist attack began on the World Trade Center, the source said. A subsequent strip search found the man had a pilot's certificate from a Florida school, the source said.
The FBI was already investigating whether an altercation at Kennedy Airport on Tuesday was linked to the World Trade Center explosion, a law enforcement source told The Associated Press on Thursday.
The Tuesday incident occurred about 9 a.m. -- the same time two hijacked jet airliners crashed into the World Trade Center towers, toppling the two 110-story buildings. The source said the FBI is investigating whether the incident may have been an aborted hijacking attempt.
After the plane was boarded, United Airlines officials told passengers that United Airlines Flight 23, bound for Los Angeles, had been cancelled. Three males traveling refused to disembark. The argument with a member of the flight crew became so heated that the crew member called airport security. But before security arrived, the men had vanished, said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
On Thursday, according to the airline industry source, a man presented a ticket for Tuesday's Los Angeles flight at the counter -- but told airline employees that he had changed his mind and now wanted to travel to San Jose.
People at the ticket counter were suspicious, but they changed the ticket and alerted a supervisor who, in turn, notified Port Authority police. Authorities tracked the man to the gate, where he passed through security checks, including metal detectors. He was then stopped at the gate by security.
A short time later, three more men arrived at Kennedy and boarded American Airlines flight 133 to Los Angeles. Minutes later, law enforcement officers secretly boarded the plane using a catering cart, according to the industry source. The officers, with weapons drawn, then removed the three from the plane.
The industry source was unable to account for the other two people detained.
ABC News reported Thursday night that 10 people in all were detained trying to board flights at JFK and LaGuardia. They included nine men and one woman carrying knives, false identification cards, and flying licenses/certificate from Flight Safety International in Vero Beach, Fla. Four men and a woman were detained sometime before 5 p.m. at JFK, ABC said. Another five were detained between 7:30 and 8:15 p.m. at LaGuardia.
Early Friday, U.S. and Philippine authorities raided a hotel in the Philippines in connection with the attacks, Philippines President Gloria Arroyo said.
Arroyo, speaking at a Tokyo news conference, said the "joint action" was taken at the Bayview Hotel, which is near the U.S. Embassy in Manila.
The investigation was fueled by the discovery of the black box from United Airlines Flight 93 in Pennsylvania and the reception of a signal from the black box of the plane that crashed at the Pentagon.
Search crews will not be able to retrieve the black box at the Pentagon, which could contain information about the last minutes of American Airlines Flight 77, until they are able to enter the collapsed area of the Pentagon, where the plane's fuselage rests.
They were to begin moving into the collapsed area sometime Thursday night, said Arlington County Fire Capt. Scott McKay.
The Justice Department said Thursday that at least 18 hijackers were on the four planes that crashed; two planes with five and two with four. There are reports Thursday that up to 50 suspects have been identified, with 40 accounted for, many of them dead, and 10 missing.
Meanwhile, one person was arrested Thursday in connection with the attacks in Hamburg, Germany, Fox News has confirmed.
"Most of it today points to Usama bin Laden but the speculation at the end of the road is that he and his network were very much involved with Hezbollah, Fatah" and other terrorist organizations, Sen. Charles Grassley said.
FBI Searches Florida
On Wednesday, a Venice, Fla., man said FBI agents told him that two men who stayed in his home in July 2000 while training at a local flight school were two of the hijackers. Charlie Voss said agents identified the men as Amanullah Atta Mohammed and Marwan Alshehhi.
FBI agents "informed me that there were two individuals that were students at Huffman Aviation, my employer, and FBI told me they were involved in yesterday's tragedy," Voss said.
A former employee at a Florida flight school where some of the terrorists may have trained said Atta and Marwan had arrived from Germany in July 2000, reports say.
Federal agents had warrants to search the Florida homes of at least four men listed on the manifest of American Airlines Flight 11, The Miami Herald reported Thursday.
Some of the FBI agents sought information on a graduate of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, The News-Journal of Daytona Beach reported.
Citing two unidentified law enforcement sources, the newspaper reported that Waleed Al Shehri, 25, was listed as a passenger on the American Airlines flight that left Boston and crashed into the World Trade Center.
FBI agents removed student files from the Florida Flight Training Center, which is down the street from Huffman Aviation and offers the same type of pilot training. School owner Arne Kruithof would not give specific information about what the agents were seeking but said one of the files was related to a student from Tunisia.
Agents in Vero Beach asked Hank Habora about a neighbor, Amer Kamfar, 41. Kamfar was licensed as a flight engineer to fly turbojets and listed a Saudi Airlines post office box as his address in FAA records.
Federal agents were also interviewing Adnan Bukhari, who worked for Saudi Airlines and was in Vero Beach for more flight training.
Landlord Lonny Mixel said Thursday the tenant in the house adjacent to Bukhari's was Abdulrahman Alomari, who he said arrived in July 2000 and told him he was a commercial pilot from Saudi Arabia and was in Vero Beach to attend Flight Safety Academy.
Alomari said he would be out of the house by the end of August 2001. Then he pushed the date back until Sept. 3 and moved out that day.
Alomari told Mixel that he knew Bukhari.
Bukhari and his wife began renting a home from Paul Stimelind in June 2000, Stimelind said.
The couple's lease was up Aug. 31, but Bukhari asked for a two-week extension, through Sept. 15.
Stimelind said Bukhari told him he would be leaving by Sept. 17.
"He never gave a reason," Stimelind said. "He said he had a couple of things to clear up."
Attorney General John Ashcroft said authorities believe the hijackers were professionally-trained pilots. At least one hijacker on each of the four planes was trained at a U.S. flight school, authorities say.
The London-based Ash-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper reported Thursday that the Taliban forced an Afghan pilot and a retired Pakistani general to train 14 young Arab, Afghan and Pakistani radicals how to fly in Afghanistan.
The group was said to have left Afghanistan a year ago and to carry European passports.
Eyes on bin Laden
Officials were said to be focusing their efforts almost exclusively on bin Laden, who had recently warned of massive attacks against the United States.
Secretary of State Colin Powell said Thursday that bin Laden was a "prime candidate" in the attacks. He denied, however, that bin Laden was a suspect.
Early evidence, including communications between bin Laden supporters discussing Tuesday's attacks, indicated the attacks were tied to the suspected terror mastermind.
Bin Laden congratulated the people who carried out the attacks but denied that he was involved, a Palestinian journalist said.
Authorities were also investigating a possible network of bin Laden supporters in Boston.
At least one set of hijackers thought to have ties to bin Laden is believed to have crossed from Canada en route to Boston, from where two of the deadly flights launched.
Officials confirmed a car containing an Arabic language flight manual was confiscated at Boston's Logan Airport.
Abu Dhabi Television in the United Arab Emirates reported that two men with Saudi Arabian passports and international drivers licenses issued in the UAE were linked to the Mitsubishi sedan.
Officials said authorities were gathering evidence about four terrorist cells that may have had prior involvement in earlier plots against the United States. Those include the USS Cole bombing in Yemen and the foiled attack on U.S. soil during the millennium celebrations.
Bin Laden is linked to both of these plots, as well as the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Africa.
Other Leads
Fox News has confirmed that 2 weeks ago, American Airlines issued a memo to their employees to be on alert for imposter pilots after burglars broke into flight crews' rooms in Rome, stealing uniforms and ID badges.
The New York Times reported Thursday that a group of five men had set up video cameras aimed at the Twin Towers prior to the attack on Tuesday, and were seen congratulating one another afterwards.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
September 12, 2001, Fox News, Arafat Horrified by Attacks, but Thousands of Palestinians Celebrate; Rest of World Outraged,
As thousands of Palestinians celebrated in the West Bank and in Lebanese refugee camps, governments across the globe offered condolences to an America that looked more vulnerable than ever after Tuesday's terror attacks.
People on every continent watched in horror as astonishing images of terror in the United States filled their television screens. But in the West Bank town of Nablus, Palestinians cheered and distributed candy to passers-by, and Iraqi television played a patriotic song that began "Down with America!" as it showed the World Trade Center towers collapsing.
About 3,000 people poured into the streets of Nablus shortly after the attacks began, chanting "God is Great" and -- in their traditional gesture of celebration -- handed out candy.
There were no reports of celebrations elsewhere in the West Bank and Gaza.
"At this most difficult hour, Israelis stand with you ready to provide any assistance," said Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. "The government of Israel declares tomorrow a day of mourning as we bow our heads and share the pain of the American people."
Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres offered the U.S. the assistance of a highly-specialized military emergency team to come and help rescue people in the demolished buildings and to provide other support functions. Israeli officials said a plane was waiting on a runway in Tel Aviv with 100 to 200 people ready to fly over if the U.S. said the word.
September 17, 2001, Ha'aretz, Five Israelis detained for "puzzling behavior" after WTC tragedy, by Yossi Melman,
FIVE Israelis who had worked for a moving company based in New Jersey are being held in U.S. prisons for what the Federal Bureau of Investigation has described as "puzzling behavior" following the terror attack on the World Trade Center in New York last Tuesday. The five are expected to be deported sometime soon.
The families of the five, who asked that their names not be released, said that their sons had been questioned by the FBI for hours on end, had been kept in solitary confinement for three days, and had been humiliated, stripped of their clothes and blindfolded.
The mother of one of the young men explained the chain of events as she understands it to Ha'aretz:
She said that the five had worked for the company, which is owned by an Israeli, for between two months and two years. They had been arrested some four hours after the attack on the Twin Towers while filming the smoking skyline from the roof of their company's building, she said. It appears that they were spotted by one of the neighbors who called the police and the FBI.
The mother said that the families and friends of the five in Israel had known nothing of the men's whereabouts for a number of days.
"When they finally let my son make a phone call for the first time to a friend in the United States two days ago, he told him that he had been tortured by the FBI in a basement," the mother said. "He was stripped to his underwear; he was blindfolded and questioned for 14 hours. They thought that because he has citizenship of a European country as well as of Israel that he was working for the Mossad [Israel's secret service]."
Seven FBI agents later stormed the apartment of one of the Israelis, searched it and questioned his roommate. The Israeli owner of the company, who has U.S. citizenship, was also questioned. Both men were subsequently released.
The families here complained that the Israeli consulate in New York and the situation room set up by the Foreign Ministry there to locate missing Israelis had done nothing to help their sons. The Foreign Ministry told the families that the FBI had denied holding the five and that the consulate had chosen to believe the FBI, the mother said.
The five were transferred out of the FBI's facility on Saturday morning and are now being held in two prisons in New Jersey by the Immigration and Naturalization Services. They are charged with illegally residing in the United States and working there without permits.
The Foreign Ministry said in response that it had been informed by the consulate in New York that the FBI had arrested the five for "puzzling behavior." They are said to have had been caught videotaping the disaster and shouting in what was interpreted as cries of joy and mockery.
May 5, 2009, ABC News, 20/20, Were Israelis Detained on Sept. 11 Spies?
Millions saw the horrific images of the World Trade Center attacks, and those who saw them won't forget them. But a New Jersey homemaker saw something that morning that prompted an investigation into five young Israelis and their possible connection to Israeli intelligence.
Maria, who asked us not to use her last name, had a view of the World Trade Center from her New Jersey apartment building. She remembers a neighbor calling her shortly after the first plane hit the towers.
She grabbed her binoculars and watched the destruction unfolding in lower Manhattan. But as she watched the disaster, something else caught her eye.
Maria says she saw three young men kneeling on the roof of a white van in the parking lot of her apartment building. "They seemed to be taking a movie," Maria said.
The men were taking video or photos of themselves with the World Trade Center burning in the background, she said. What struck Maria were the expressions on the men's faces. "They were like happy, you know … They didn't look shocked to me. I thought it was very strange," she said.
She found the behavior so suspicious that she wrote down the license plate number of the van and called the police. Before long, the FBI was also on the scene, and a statewide bulletin was issued on the van.
The plate number was traced to a van owned by a company called Urban Moving. Around 4 p.m. on Sept. 11, the van was spotted on a service road off Route 3, near New Jersey's Giants Stadium. A police officer pulled the van over, finding five men, between 22 and 27 years old, in the vehicle. The men were taken out of the van at gunpoint and handcuffed by police.
The arresting officers said they saw a lot that aroused their suspicion about the men. One of the passengers had $4,700 in cash hidden in his sock. Another was carrying two foreign passports. A box cutter was found in the van. But perhaps the biggest surprise for the officers came when the five men identified themselves as Israeli citizens.
‘We Are Not Your Problem’
According to the police report, one of the passengers told the officers they had been on the West Side Highway in Manhattan "during the incident" — referring to the World Trade Center attack. The driver of the van, Sivan Kurzberg, told the officers, "We are Israeli. We are not your problem. Your problems are our problems. The Palestinians are the problem." The other passengers were his brother Paul Kurzberg, Yaron Shmuel, Oded Ellner and Omer Marmari.
Millions saw the horrific images of the World Trade Center attacks, and those who saw them won't forget them. But a New Jersey homemaker saw something that morning that prompted an investigation into five young Israelis and their possible connection to Israeli intelligence.
Maria, who asked us not to use her last name, had a view of the World Trade Center from her New Jersey apartment building. She remembers a neighbor calling her shortly after the first plane hit the towers.
She grabbed her binoculars and watched the destruction unfolding in lower Manhattan. But as she watched the disaster, something else caught her eye.
Maria says she saw three young men kneeling on the roof of a white van in the parking lot of her apartment building. "They seemed to be taking a movie," Maria said.
The men were taking video or photos of themselves with the World Trade Center burning in the background, she said. What struck Maria were the expressions on the men's faces. "They were like happy, you know … They didn't look shocked to me. I thought it was very strange," she said.
She found the behavior so suspicious that she wrote down the license plate number of the van and called the police. Before long, the FBI was also on the scene, and a statewide bulletin was issued on the van.
The plate number was traced to a van owned by a company called Urban Moving. Around 4 p.m. on Sept. 11, the van was spotted on a service road off Route 3, near New Jersey's Giants Stadium. A police officer pulled the van over, finding five men, between 22 and 27 years old, in the vehicle. The men were taken out of the van at gunpoint and handcuffed by police.
The arresting officers said they saw a lot that aroused their suspicion about the men. One of the passengers had $4,700 in cash hidden in his sock. Another was carrying two foreign passports. A box cutter was found in the van. But perhaps the biggest surprise for the officers came when the five men identified themselves as Israeli citizens.
‘We Are Not Your Problem’
According to the police report, one of the passengers told the officers they had been on the West Side Highway in Manhattan "during the incident" — referring to the World Trade Center attack. The driver of the van, Sivan Kurzberg, told the officers, "We are Israeli. We are not your problem. Your problems are our problems. The Palestinians are the problem." The other passengers were his brother Paul Kurzberg, Yaron Shmuel, Oded Ellner and Omer Marmari.
December 17, 2001, The Globe & Mail, U.S. arrests of Israelis a mystery, Most charged with immigration violations either have been deported or will be, by Doug Saunders,
[Original Link] With a report from Associated Press, Monday – Print Edition, Page A7
LOS ANGELES -- U.S. officials have arrested, detained and questioned hundreds of people on vague suspicions of ties to terrorism since Sept. 11, but a few dozen cases are especially mysterious: They are Israelis, young and apparently Jewish, working in the United States on temporary visas and have little obvious connection to Islamic extremism.
The U.S. government has offered no explanation for the detentions, estimated to be as many as 60 in number, and some of them have begun speaking out in protest and asking courts to end their detention. But Washington appears to be treating them as palpable threats: Many remain in jail. Most have been charged with immigration violations, and either have been or will be deported.
Based on what the Israelis say about the questions they have been asked, federal officials appear to believe they are either Muslim extremists hiding behind false Israeli identities or spies working for the Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency.
If the latter is the case, it raises the possibility that Washington is using its antiterrorism campaign as an excuse to round up other groups of people it wants out. "They asked if I was spying on anybody," said Yaniv Hani, 22, who spent four weeks in custody after Sept. 11 and now faces charges from the Immigration and Naturalization Service for working with an improper visa. He said
Federal Bureau of Investigation officials asked him whether he was really Muslim before switching to questions about possible ties to Mossad. Mr. Hani worked for a number of years for Israel's military police.
Israel has protested the arrests. Mark Regev, a spokesman for the Israeli embassy in Washington, said the FBI has not contacted Israel about spying allegations, and that "not a single one has been charged with intelligence violations. It has all been visa violations."
Another possibility is that the FBI suspects the Israelis of taking part in a clandestine operation. A majority of those arrested were employees of a Florida company, Quality Sales, that hires vacationing Israeli youth to work at vending carts in U.S. shopping malls.
Thomas Dean, a lawyer for the company, acknowledged that the Israelis had been issued the wrong type of visa, since they were tourists on working vacations rather than permanent workers.
However, he noted that their cases had all been labelled "special interest" by the INS, a new designation indicating that they are suspects in the antiterrorism campaign, not regular immigration violators.
"Clearly that was what the FBI, from the very beginning, was very interested in talking about -- their activity in the Israeli military or any kind of intelligence agency."
(Israel does have a history of spying against the United States, even though the two nations are officially allies. The most famous case is that of Jonathan Pollard, a U.S. military official convicted in 1987 of espionage for stealing top U.S. military secrets on behalf of Israel.)
Also, five of the Israelis came to the FBI's attention after they were seen by New Jersey residents on Sept. 11 making fun of the World Trade Center ruins and going to extreme lengths to photograph themselves in front of the wreckage. The FBI seized and developed their photos, one of which shows Sivan Kurzberg flicking a cigarette lighter in front of the smouldering ruins in an apparently celebratory gesture.
Steven Noah Gordon, a lawyer for the five, told The New York Times that their behaviour may have been offensive, but said the behaviour was not criminal -- "and they were being treated as if it was." The five have since been deported.
U.S. officials have offered no explanation for the arrests, even to immigration judges. Last month, when the INS asked that bail be denied to 11 of the Israelis, a judge rejected the request, saying the government had been less than forthcoming with evidence.
"Although the [INS] alleges that these cases are 'special,' it has failed to present any credible evidence of the basis for this finding," Judge Elizabeth Hacker wrote. "The service has failed to submit any evidence of terrorist activity or of a threat to national security."
Copyright © 2001 Globe Interactive, a division of Bell Globemedia Publishing
November 2, 2001, In Hebrew, from Yediot America, Midnight Express,
LAST Thursday we arrived at the detention facility of the immigration authorities in Brooklyn. The penitentiary stands in the heart of a blue-collar neighborhood, next to a chewing gum factory which spreads its sweet scent all around. Before we got used to the smell, we were stopped in a blockade four blocks from the jail. Two FBI agents wearing bulletproof vests told us we couldn't proceed without a permit. "But you can photograph the building from any other direction, as long as you won't enter the restricted area," they explained courteously.
Following their advice, we went to the back of the building, where there was a police barrier and an empty police car. The photographer started snapping his camera but after 30 seconds about 20 FBI agents appeared out of nowhere and with pointed guns ordered us to surrender our equipment (a camera, a pen and a notebook) and raise our hands. Traffic on the nearby road was immediately stopped and drivers were diverted to a side street. With our hands up and barrels pointing at our necks, we were interrogated by the officers on our actions. We didn't know whether to laugh or cry. We came to the penitentiary writing an article on the Israelis arrested a day after the terrorist attack, and soon, we thought, we'll find ourselves in the cell, next to them.
The story ended with the film's confiscation, a warning not to return and an apology from the force's commander. "You have to understand the situation we're in," he told us and sent us on our way. If until then we didn't fully comprehend how much the city changed during the last couple of months, now we know.
Steven Gordon is the lawyer representing the five detainees, held in Brooklyn. The five, Yaron Shmuel, Oded Helmar, the brothers Paul andSivan Kretzberg, and a fifth man named Omer, were arrested in New York a few hours after the disaster. They worked for the Urban Moving Company; whose offices are located in Hoboken, New Jersey. The company's offices closed down following the arrests, and the owner, an Israeli named Dominick [Suter],could not be located. Many versions of the reasons leading to the arrests and the events following them have been circulating in the last weeks. Gordon's is the most complete and reliable one.
"On the day of the disaster, three of the five boys went up on the roof of the building where the company office is located," said Gordon. "I'm not sure if they saw the twin towers collapse, but, in any event, they photographed the ruins right afterwards. One of the neighbors who saw them called the police and claimed they were posing, dancing and laughing, against the background of the burning towers. The five denied dancing. I presume the neighbor was not near them and does not understand Hebrew. Furthermore, the neighbor complained that the cheerful gang on the roof spoke Arabic. As far as I understand it, that neighbor has had previous problems with the company, and she could have been waiting for an opportunity to avenge the owners.
"Anyhow, the three left the roof, took an Urban truck, and drove to a parking lot, located about a five-minute drive from the offices. They parked, stood on the roof of the truck to get a better view of the destroyed towers and took photographs. A woman who was in the building above the lot testified that she saw them smiling and exchanging high-fives. She and another neighbor called the police and reported on Middle-Eastern looking people dancing on the truck. They copied and reported the license plates.
"The five men then drove to Yaron's friend's place in New Jersey. At around 2:30 p.m. they decided to go to the Brooklyn apartment of Oded, Sivan and Paul. They headed toward the George Washington Bridge, but, after hearing radio reports about traffic jams and police blockades at entrances to Manhattan, they decided to return to the company's offices in Hoboken and spend the night there. On their way, a policeman stopped them, using the description provided by the neighbors. FBI agents were summoned instantly and the five were arrested."
The agents found a few items that raised their suspicion. Yaron, who also has a German nationality, hadtwo passports, and $4,000 in cash were found in the belongings of one of the men. Police were also alarmed that none of the five were American. News broadcasts reported that a truck full of explosives was caught on its way to blow up the George Washington Bridge. Photos of the Urban truck accompanied the reports, which said there were five young men in the truck, apparently terrorists, who were taken to an FBI facility.
The five were taken to a police station near the Meadowlands sports complex. Gordon said that the FBI agents who questioned them understood after a few hours of interrogation that the suspects had no connection to the World Trade Center disaster and no intention of blowing up a bridge. But during the investigation, it was found the men had no work permits and that some were staying in the United States illegally. The agents called the Immigration and Naturalization Services, which took responsibility for the detainees.
The days turned into weeks, and the five are still under arrest. Gordon said he did not understand why.
"The authorities know for certain they are not involved in the attack. The simplest explanation is the lack of manpower in the INS. I think the paperwork in their case just didn't reach whoever should sign the release. . . It's not supposed to take 120 days, maybe 120 minutes. All the answers I got about this issue were bull. . . In the detention facility, I was told they are not there, which is a total lie. I have no sensible explanation for why they are still arrested."
Translated from the Hebrew by Oren Yaniv.
Website note: The Orwellian memory-hole yawns again: Like the original Fox News TV series (see links below), the original New Jersey newspaper story of the 5 Israeli "movers" has been removed from the Bergen Record web site: it was archived as "2bombvan200109125.htm"
New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs press release: State Granted Access to Moving Company's Storage Facility | |Washington Post journalist suggests story is "a hoax" FBI Probes Mossad Espionage at Clinton White House Two found with video of Sears Tower Evidence of Mossad Treachery in the WTC
Property magnate Larry Silverstein had just signed $3.2 billion deal on WTC towers Trade Towers Leaseholder Sues Insurers
December 12, 2001, Fox News, Carl Cameron Reports, Part 1, What did the Mossad know in advance about September 11 (and not pass on to USA allies?)
BRIT HUME, HOST: It has been more than 16 years since a civilian working for the Navy was charged with passing secrets to Israel. Jonathan Pollard pled guilty to conspiracy to commit espionage and is serving a life sentence. At first, Israeli leaders claimed Pollard was part of a rogue operation, but later took responsibility for his work.
Now Fox News has learned some U.S. investigators believe that there are Israelis again very much engaged in spying in and on the U.S.,who may have known things they didn't tell us before September 11. Fox News correspondent Carl Cameron has details in the first of a four-part series.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CARL CAMERON, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Since September 11, more than 60 Israelis have been arrested or detained, either under the new patriot anti-terrorism law, or for immigration violations. A handful of active Israeli military were among those detained, according to investigators, who say some of the detainees also failed polygraph questions when asked about alleged surveillance activities against and in the United States.
There is no indication that the Israelis were involved in the 9-11 attacks, but investigators suspect that they Israelis may have gathered intelligence about the attacks in advance, and not shared it. A highly placed investigator said there are "tie-ins." But when asked for details, he flatly refused to describe them, saying, "evidence linking these Israelis to 9-11 is classified. I cannot tell you about evidence that has been gathered. It's classified information."
Fox News has learned that one group of Israelis, spotted in North Carolina recently, is suspected of keeping an apartment in California to spy on a group of Arabs who the United States is also investigating for links to terrorism. Numerous classified documents obtained by Fox News indicate that even prior to September 11, as many as 140 other Israelis had been detained or arrested in a secretive and sprawling investigation into suspected espionage by Israelis in the United States.
Investigators from numerous government agencies are part of a working group that's been compiling evidence since the mid '90s. These documents detail hundreds of incidents in cities and towns across the country that investigators say, "may well be an organized intelligence gathering activity."
The first part of the investigation focuses on Israelis who say they are art students from the University of Jerusalem and Bazala Academy. They repeatedly made contact with U.S. government personnel, the report says, by saying they wanted to sell cheap art or handiwork.
Documents say they, "targeted and penetrated military bases." The DEA, FBI and dozens of government facilities, and even secret offices and unlisted private homes of law enforcement and intelligence personnel. The majority of those questioned, "stated they served in military intelligence, electronic surveillance intercept and or explosive ordinance units."
Another part of the investigation has resulted in the detention and arrests of dozens of Israelis at American mall kiosks, where they've been selling toys called Puzzle Car and Zoom Copter. Investigators suspect a front.
Shortly after The New York Times and Washington Post reported the Israeli detentions last months, the carts began vanishing. Zoom Copter's Web page says, "We are aware of the situation caused by thousands of mall carts being closed at the last minute. This in no way reflects the quality of the toy or its salability. The problem lies in the operators' business policies."
Why would Israelis spy in and on the U.S.? A general accounting office investigation referred to Israel as country A and said, "According to a U.S. intelligence agency, the government of country A conducts the most aggressive espionage operations against the U.S. of any U.S. ally."
A defense intelligence report said Israel has a voracious appetite for information and said, "the Israelis are motivated by strong survival instincts which dictate every possible facet of their political and economical policies. It aggressively collects military and industrial technology and the U.S. is a high priority target."
The document concludes: "Israel possesses the resources and technical capability to achieve its collection objectives."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
A spokesman for the Israeli embassy here in Washington issued a denial saying that any suggestion that Israelis are spying in or on the U.S. is "simply not true." There are other things to consider. And in the days ahead, we'll take a look at the U.S. phone system and law enforcement's methods for wiretaps. And an investigation that both have been compromised by our friends overseas.
HUME: Carl, what about this question of advanced knowledge of what was going to happen on 9-11? How clear are investigators that some Israeli agents may have known something?
CAMERON: It's very explosive information, obviously, and there's a great deal of evidence that they say they have collected none of it necessarily conclusive. It's more when they put it all together. A bigger question, they say, is how could they not have known? Almost a direct quote.
HUME: Going into the fact that they were spying on some Arabs, right?
CAMERON: Correct.
HUME: All right, Carl, thanks very much.
BRIT HUME, HOST: It has been more than 16 years since a civilian working for the Navy was charged with passing secrets to Israel. Jonathan Pollard pled guilty to conspiracy to commit espionage and is serving a life sentence. At first, Israeli leaders claimed Pollard was part of a rogue operation, but later took responsibility for his work.
Now Fox News has learned some U.S. investigators believe that there are Israelis again very much engaged in spying in and on the U.S.,who may have known things they didn't tell us before September 11. Fox News correspondent Carl Cameron has details in the first of a four-part series.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CARL CAMERON, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Since September 11, more than 60 Israelis have been arrested or detained, either under the new patriot anti-terrorism law, or for immigration violations. A handful of active Israeli military were among those detained, according to investigators, who say some of the detainees also failed polygraph questions when asked about alleged surveillance activities against and in the United States.
There is no indication that the Israelis were involved in the 9-11 attacks, but investigators suspect that they Israelis may have gathered intelligence about the attacks in advance, and not shared it. A highly placed investigator said there are "tie-ins." But when asked for details, he flatly refused to describe them, saying, "evidence linking these Israelis to 9-11 is classified. I cannot tell you about evidence that has been gathered. It's classified information."
Fox News has learned that one group of Israelis, spotted in North Carolina recently, is suspected of keeping an apartment in California to spy on a group of Arabs who the United States is also investigating for links to terrorism. Numerous classified documents obtained by Fox News indicate that even prior to September 11, as many as 140 other Israelis had been detained or arrested in a secretive and sprawling investigation into suspected espionage by Israelis in the United States.
Investigators from numerous government agencies are part of a working group that's been compiling evidence since the mid '90s. These documents detail hundreds of incidents in cities and towns across the country that investigators say, "may well be an organized intelligence gathering activity."
The first part of the investigation focuses on Israelis who say they are art students from the University of Jerusalem and Bazala Academy. They repeatedly made contact with U.S. government personnel, the report says, by saying they wanted to sell cheap art or handiwork.
Documents say they, "targeted and penetrated military bases." The DEA, FBI and dozens of government facilities, and even secret offices and unlisted private homes of law enforcement and intelligence personnel. The majority of those questioned, "stated they served in military intelligence, electronic surveillance intercept and or explosive ordinance units."
Another part of the investigation has resulted in the detention and arrests of dozens of Israelis at American mall kiosks, where they've been selling toys called Puzzle Car and Zoom Copter. Investigators suspect a front.
Shortly after The New York Times and Washington Post reported the Israeli detentions last months, the carts began vanishing. Zoom Copter's Web page says, "We are aware of the situation caused by thousands of mall carts being closed at the last minute. This in no way reflects the quality of the toy or its salability. The problem lies in the operators' business policies."
Why would Israelis spy in and on the U.S.? A general accounting office investigation referred to Israel as country A and said, "According to a U.S. intelligence agency, the government of country A conducts the most aggressive espionage operations against the U.S. of any U.S. ally."
A defense intelligence report said Israel has a voracious appetite for information and said, "the Israelis are motivated by strong survival instincts which dictate every possible facet of their political and economical policies. It aggressively collects military and industrial technology and the U.S. is a high priority target."
The document concludes: "Israel possesses the resources and technical capability to achieve its collection objectives."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
A spokesman for the Israeli embassy here in Washington issued a denial saying that any suggestion that Israelis are spying in or on the U.S. is "simply not true." There are other things to consider. And in the days ahead, we'll take a look at the U.S. phone system and law enforcement's methods for wiretaps. And an investigation that both have been compromised by our friends overseas.
HUME: Carl, what about this question of advanced knowledge of what was going to happen on 9-11? How clear are investigators that some Israeli agents may have known something?
CAMERON: It's very explosive information, obviously, and there's a great deal of evidence that they say they have collected none of it necessarily conclusive. It's more when they put it all together. A bigger question, they say, is how could they not have known? Almost a direct quote.
HUME: Going into the fact that they were spying on some Arabs, right?
CAMERON: Correct.
HUME: All right, Carl, thanks very much.
December 13, 2001, Fox News, Carl Cameron Investigates (Part 2 of 4)
This partial transcript of Special Report with Brit Hume, Dec. 12, was provided by the Federal Document Clearing House.
BRIT HUME, HOST: Last time we reported on the approximately 60 Israelis who had been detained in connection with the Sept. 11 terrorism investigation. Carl Cameron reported that U.S. investigators suspect that some of these Israelis were spying on Arabs in this country, and may have turned up information on the planned terrorist attacks back in September that was not passed on.
Tonight, in the second of four reports on spying by Israelis in the U.S., we learn about an Israeli-based private communications company, for whom a half-dozen of those 60 detained suspects worked. American investigators fear information generated by this firm may have fallen into the wrong hands and had the effect of impeding the Sept. 11 terror inquiry. Here's Carl Cameron's second report.
BRIT HUME, HOST: Last time we reported on the approximately 60 Israelis who had been detained in connection with the Sept. 11 terrorism investigation. Carl Cameron reported that U.S. investigators suspect that some of these Israelis were spying on Arabs in this country, and may have turned up information on the planned terrorist attacks back in September that was not passed on.
Tonight, in the second of four reports on spying by Israelis in the U.S., we learn about an Israeli-based private communications company, for whom a half-dozen of those 60 detained suspects worked. American investigators fear information generated by this firm may have fallen into the wrong hands and had the effect of impeding the Sept. 11 terror inquiry. Here's Carl Cameron's second report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) CARL CAMERON, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Fox News has learned that some American terrorist investigators fear certain suspects in the Sept. 11 attacks may have managed to stay ahead of them, by knowing who and when investigators are calling on the telephone. How?By obtaining and analyzing data that's generated every time someone in the U.S. makes a call.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What city and state, please?
CAMERON: Here's how the system works. Most directory assistance calls, and virtually all call records and billing in the U.S. are done for the phone companies by Amdocs Ltd., an Israeli-based private elecommunications company.Amdocs has contracts with the 25 biggest phone companies in America, and more worldwide. The White House and other secure government phone lines are protected, but it is virtually impossible to make a call on normal phones without generating an Amdocs record of it. In recent years, the FBI and other government agencies have investigated Amdocs more than once. The firm has repeatedly and adamantly denied any security breaches or wrongdoing. But sources tell Fox News that in 1999, the super secret national security agency, headquartered in northern Maryland, issued what's called a Top Secret sensitive compartmentalized information report, TS/SCI, warning that records of calls in the United States were getting into foreign hands -- in Israel, in particular. Investigators don't believe calls are being listened to, but the data about who is calling whom and when is plenty valuable in itself. An internal Amdocs memo to senior company executives suggests just how Amdocs generated call records could be used. "Widespread data mining techniques and algorithms.... combining both the properties of the customer (e.g., credit rating) and properties of the specific 'behavior….'" Specific behavior, such as who the customers are calling. The Amdocs memo says the system should be used to prevent phone fraud. But U.S. counterintelligence analysts say it could also be used to spy through the phone system. Fox News has learned that the N.S.A has held numerous classified conferences to warn the F.B.I. and C.I.A. how Amdocs records could be used. At one NSA briefing, a diagram by the Argon national lab was used to show that if the phone records are not secure, major security breaches are possible.Another briefing document said,
"It has become increasingly apparent that systems and networks are vulnerable.…Such crimes always involve unauthorized persons, or persons who exceed their authorization...citing on exploitable vulnerabilities."
Those vulnerabilities are growing, because according to another briefing, the U.S. relies too much on foreign companies like Amdocs for high-tech equipment and software.
"Many factors have led to increased dependence on code developed overseas.... We buy rather than train or develop solutions."
U.S. intelligence does not believe the Israeli government is involved in a misuse of information, and Amdocs insists that its data is secure. What U.S. government officials are worried about, however, is the possibility that Amdocs data could get into the wrong hands, particularly organized crime. And that would not be the first thing that such a thing has happened. Fox News has documents of a 1997 drug trafficking case in Los Angeles, in which telephone information, the type that Amdocs collects, was used to "completely compromise the communications of the FBI, the Secret Service, the DEO and the LAPD."We'll have that and a lot more in the days ahead -- Brit.
HUME: Carl, I want to take you back to your report last night on those 60 Israelis who were detained in the anti-terror investigation, and the suspicion that some investigators have that they may have picked up information on the 9/11 attacks ahead of time and not passed it on. There was a report, you'll recall, thatthe Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, did indeed send representatives to the U.S. to warn, just before 9/11, that a major terrorist attack was imminent. How does that leave room for the lack of a warning?
CAMERON: I remember the report, Brit. We did it first internationally right here on your show on the 14th. What investigators are saying is that that warning from the Mossad was nonspecific and general, and they believe that it may have had something to do with the desire to protect what are called sources and methods in the intelligence community. The suspicion being, perhaps those sources and methods were taking place right here in the United States.
The question came up in select intelligence committee on Capitol Hill today. They intend to look into what we reported last night, and specifically that possibility -- Brit.
HUME: So in other words, the problem wasn't lack of a warning, the problem was lack of useful details?
CAMERON: Quantity of information.
HUME: All right, Carl, thank you very much.
HUME: Carl, I want to take you back to your report last night on those 60 Israelis who were detained in the anti-terror investigation, and the suspicion that some investigators have that they may have picked up information on the 9/11 attacks ahead of time and not passed it on. There was a report, you'll recall, thatthe Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, did indeed send representatives to the U.S. to warn, just before 9/11, that a major terrorist attack was imminent. How does that leave room for the lack of a warning?
CAMERON: I remember the report, Brit. We did it first internationally right here on your show on the 14th. What investigators are saying is that that warning from the Mossad was nonspecific and general, and they believe that it may have had something to do with the desire to protect what are called sources and methods in the intelligence community. The suspicion being, perhaps those sources and methods were taking place right here in the United States.
The question came up in select intelligence committee on Capitol Hill today. They intend to look into what we reported last night, and specifically that possibility -- Brit.
HUME: So in other words, the problem wasn't lack of a warning, the problem was lack of useful details?
CAMERON: Quantity of information.
HUME: All right, Carl, thank you very much.
December 14, 2001, Fox News, Carl Cameron Investigates (Part 3 of 4)
BRIT HUME, HOST: Last time we reported on an Israeli-basedcompany called Amdocs Ltd. that generates the computerized records and billing data for nearly every phone call made in America. As Carl Cameron reported, U.S. investigators digging into the September 11 terrorist attacks fear that suspects may have been tipped off to what they were doing by information leaking out of Amdocs.
In tonight's report, we learn that the concern about phone security extends to another company, founded in Israel, that provides the technology that the U.S. government uses for electronic eavesdropping. Here is Carl Cameron's third report.
BRIT HUME, HOST: Last time we reported on an Israeli-basedcompany called Amdocs Ltd. that generates the computerized records and billing data for nearly every phone call made in America. As Carl Cameron reported, U.S. investigators digging into the September 11 terrorist attacks fear that suspects may have been tipped off to what they were doing by information leaking out of Amdocs.
In tonight's report, we learn that the concern about phone security extends to another company, founded in Israel, that provides the technology that the U.S. government uses for electronic eavesdropping. Here is Carl Cameron's third report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CARL CAMERON, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The company is Comverse Infosys, a subsidiary of an Israeli-run private telecommunications firm, with offices throughout the U.S. It provides wiretapping equipment for law enforcement. Here's how wiretapping works in the U.S. Every time you make a call, it passes through the nation's elaborate network of switchers and routers run by the phone companies. Custom computers and software, made by companies like Comverse, are tied into that network to intercept, record and store the wiretapped calls, and at the same time transmit them to investigators. The manufacturers have continuing access to the computers so they can service them and keep them free of glitches. This process was authorized by the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, or CALEA. Senior government officials have now told Fox News that while CALEA made wiretapping easier, it has led to a system that is seriously vulnerable to compromise, and may have undermined the whole wiretapping system. Indeed, Fox News has learned that Attorney General John Ashcroftand FBI Director Robert Mueller were both warned Oct. 18 in a hand-delivered letter from 15 local, state and federal law enforcement officials, who complained that "law enforcement's current electronic surveillance capabilities are less effective today than they were at the time CALEA was enacted." Congress insists the equipment it installs is secure. But the complaint about this system is that the wiretap computer programs made by Comverse have, in effect, a back door through which wiretaps themselves can be intercepted by unauthorized parties. Adding to the suspicions is the fact that in Israel, Comverse works closely with the Israeli government, and under special programs, gets reimbursed for up to 50 percent of its research and development costs by the Israeli Ministry of Industry and Trade. But investigators within the DEA, INS and FBI have all told Fox News that to pursue or even suggest Israeli spying through Comverse is considered career suicide. And sources say that while various F.B.I. inquiries into Comverse have been conducted over the years, they've been halted before the actual equipment has ever been thoroughly tested for leaks. A 1999 F.C.C. document indicates several government agencies expressed deep concerns that too many unauthorized non-law enforcement personnel can access the wiretap system. And the FBI's own nondescript office in Chantilly, Virginia that actually oversees the CALEA wiretapping program, is among the most agitated about the threat. But there is a bitter turf war internally at F.B.I. It is the FBI's office in Quantico, Virginia, that has jurisdiction over awarding contracts and buying intercept equipment. And for years, they've thrown much of the business to Comverse. A handful of former U.S. law enforcement officials involved in awarding Comverse government contracts over the years now work for the company. Numerous sources say some of those individuals were asked to leave government service under what knowledgeable sources call "troublesome circumstances" that remain under administrative review within the Justice Department. (END VIDEOTAPE)
And what troubles investigators most, particularly in New York, in the counter terrorism investigation of the World Trade Center attack, is that on a number of cases, suspects that they had sought to wiretap and survey immediately changed their telecommunications processes. They started acting much differently as soon as those supposedly secret wiretaps went into place. -- Brit.
HUME: Carl, is there any reason to suspect in this instance that the Israeli government is involved?
CAMERON: No, there's not. But there are growing instincts in an awful lot of law enforcement officials in a variety of agencies who suspect that it had begun compiling evidence, and a highly classified investigation into that possibility Brit.
HUME: All right, Carl. Thanks very much
December 17, 2001, Fox News, Carl Cameron Investigates (Part 4 of 4)
TONY SNOW, HOST: This week, senior correspondent Carl Cameron has reported on a longstanding government espionage investigation. Federal officials this year have arrested or detained nearly 200 Israeli citizens suspected of belonging to an "organized intelligence-gathering operation." The Bush administration has deported most of those arrested after Sept. 11, although some are in custody under the new anti-terrorism law.
Cameron also investigates the possibility that an Israeli firm generated billing data that could be used for intelligence purpose, and describes concerns that the federal government's own wiretapping system may be vulnerable. Tonight, in part four of the series, we'll learn about the probable roots of the probe: a drug case that went bad four years ago in L.A.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
And what troubles investigators most, particularly in New York, in the counter terrorism investigation of the World Trade Center attack, is that on a number of cases, suspects that they had sought to wiretap and survey immediately changed their telecommunications processes. They started acting much differently as soon as those supposedly secret wiretaps went into place. -- Brit.
HUME: Carl, is there any reason to suspect in this instance that the Israeli government is involved?
CAMERON: No, there's not. But there are growing instincts in an awful lot of law enforcement officials in a variety of agencies who suspect that it had begun compiling evidence, and a highly classified investigation into that possibility Brit.
HUME: All right, Carl. Thanks very much
December 17, 2001, Fox News, Carl Cameron Investigates (Part 4 of 4)
TONY SNOW, HOST: This week, senior correspondent Carl Cameron has reported on a longstanding government espionage investigation. Federal officials this year have arrested or detained nearly 200 Israeli citizens suspected of belonging to an "organized intelligence-gathering operation." The Bush administration has deported most of those arrested after Sept. 11, although some are in custody under the new anti-terrorism law.
Cameron also investigates the possibility that an Israeli firm generated billing data that could be used for intelligence purpose, and describes concerns that the federal government's own wiretapping system may be vulnerable. Tonight, in part four of the series, we'll learn about the probable roots of the probe: a drug case that went bad four years ago in L.A.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CARL CAMERON, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Los Angeles, 1997, a major local, state and federal drug investigating sours. The suspects: Israeli organized crime with operations in New York, Miami, Las Vegas, Canada, Israel and Egypt. The allegations: cocaine and ecstasy trafficking, and sophisticated white-collar credit card and computer fraud. The problem: according to classified law enforcement documents obtained by Fox News, the bad guys had the cops beepers, cell phones, even home phones under surveillance. Some who did get caught admitted to having hundreds of numbers and using them to avoid arrest. "This compromised law enforcement communications between LAPD detectives and other assigned law enforcement officers working various aspects of the case. The organization discovered communications between organized crime intelligence division detectives, the FBI and the Secret Service." Shock spread from the DEA to the FBI in Washington, and then the CIA.
An investigation of the problem, according to law enforcement documents, concluded, "The organization has apparent extensive access to database systems to identify pertinent personal and biographical information." When investigators tried to find out where the information might have come from, they looked at Amdocs, a publicly traded firm based in Israel. Amdocs generates billing data for virtually every call in America, and they do credit checks. The company denies any leaks, but investigators still fear that the firm's data is getting into the wrong hands. When investigators checked their own wiretapping system for leaks, they grew concerned about potential vulnerabilities in the computers that intercept, record and store the wiretapped calls. A main contractor is Comverse Infosys, which works closely with the Israeli government, and under a special grant program, is reimbursed for up to 50 percent of its research and development costs by Israel's Ministry of Industry and Trade. Asked this week about another sprawling investigation and the detention of 60 Israeli since Sept. 11, the Bush administration treated the questions like hot potatoes.
ARI FLEISCHER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I would just refer you to the Department of Justice with that. I'm not familiar with the report.
COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: I'm aware that some Israeli citizens have been detained. With respect to why they're being detained and the other aspects of your question whether it's because they're in intelligence services, or what they were doing I will defer to the Department of Justice and the FBI to answer that.(END VIDEOTAPE)
CAMERON: Beyond the 60 apprehended or detained, and many deported since Sept. 11, another group of 140 Israeli individuals have been arrested and detained in this year in what government documents describe as "an organized intelligence gathering operation," designed to "penetrate government facilities." Most of those individuals said they had served in the Israeli military, which is compulsory there.
But they also had, most of them, intelligence expertise, and either worked for Amdocs or other companies in Israel that specialize in wiretapping. Earlier this week, the Israeli embassy in Washington denied any spying against or in the United States. -- Tony.
SNOW: Carl, we've heard the comments from Ari Fleischer and Colin Powell. What are officials saying behind the scenes?
CAMERON: Well, there's real pandemonium described at the FBI, the DEA and the INS. A lot of these problems have been well known to some investigators, many of who have contributed to the reporting on this story. And what they say is happening is supervisors and management are now going back and collecting much of the information, because there's tremendous pressure from the top levels of all of those agencies to find out exactly what's going on.
At the DEA and the FBI already a variety of administration reviews are under way, in addition to the investigation of the phenomenon. They want to find out how it is all this has come out, as well as be very careful because of the explosive nature and very political ramifications of the story itself Tony.
SNOW: All right, Carl, thanks.
CAMERON: Beyond the 60 apprehended or detained, and many deported since Sept. 11, another group of 140 Israeli individuals have been arrested and detained in this year in what government documents describe as "an organized intelligence gathering operation," designed to "penetrate government facilities." Most of those individuals said they had served in the Israeli military, which is compulsory there.
But they also had, most of them, intelligence expertise, and either worked for Amdocs or other companies in Israel that specialize in wiretapping. Earlier this week, the Israeli embassy in Washington denied any spying against or in the United States. -- Tony.
SNOW: Carl, we've heard the comments from Ari Fleischer and Colin Powell. What are officials saying behind the scenes?
CAMERON: Well, there's real pandemonium described at the FBI, the DEA and the INS. A lot of these problems have been well known to some investigators, many of who have contributed to the reporting on this story. And what they say is happening is supervisors and management are now going back and collecting much of the information, because there's tremendous pressure from the top levels of all of those agencies to find out exactly what's going on.
At the DEA and the FBI already a variety of administration reviews are under way, in addition to the investigation of the phenomenon. They want to find out how it is all this has come out, as well as be very careful because of the explosive nature and very political ramifications of the story itself Tony.
SNOW: All right, Carl, thanks.
June 17, 2002, NBC News, Exclusive: 911 Tapes Tell Horror Of 9/11 (Part 2)
Tapes Released For First Time
JERSEY CITY, N.J. -- They are the first 911 calls from 9/11 to be released. NewsChannel 4 has an exclusive account of the tapes from Jersey City, which sent hundreds of cops and firefighters into the thick of ground zero.
Dispatcher: Go ahead.
Official: Hold on, jets flying over here. Can you check with the controller there, we don't know if this is another one.
Official: It's getting pretty close, it looks like some type of jet plane.
Dispatcher: The news is reporting that it's jet fighters.
At one point, a cop called into a 911 center to talk with a friend, perhaps even his wife.
Officer: It's a terrorist.
Dispatcher: Once they find out who did this, that'll be the end of that country. That'll be the end of their country.
Many though were looking closer to home, wondering if the terror was over, and pointing fingers.
Dispatcher: Jersey City police.
Caller: Yes, we have a white van, 2 or 3 guys in there, they look like Palestinians and going around a building.
Caller: There's a minivan heading toward the Holland tunnel, I see the guy by Newark Airport mixing some junk and he has those sheikh uniform.
Dispatcher: He has what?
Caller: He's dressed like an Arab.
The biggest tragedy for Jersey City heroes came in its fire department that day, not for the rescue one guys who went in for search and rescue, but for a civilian who worked out of a dispatch center. Joseph Lovero was a trained EMT who volunteered to ride into New York with the Battalion 3 chief while the towers were still standing.
Official: Battalion 3 to dispatch, we've just had another explosion.
Official: Battalion 3 to dispatch, we've had additional explosion.
Dispatcher: Received battalion command. Additional explosion.
A handful of Jersey City firemen, with a civilian dispatcher, managed to survive, grouping near the still-standing north tower.
Official: Deputy one from Battalion 3, that's affirmative. I have all JCFD personnel on location.
Dispatcher: Received.
Dispatcher: Battalion 5, be advised we're trying to contact Battalion 3 at this moment to report north tower just collapsed.
Dispatcher: Dispatch. Battalion 3.
Official: Battalion 3. I am, I am Greg. North tower has collapsed.
Dispatcher: Battalion 3, all members accounted for?
All, but for Joseph Lovero, his body was found near that of his chief.
November 27, 2001, JTA Online, Global News Service of the Jewish People, As Israelis languish in U.S. jails, Jewish activists wondering why, by Michael J. Jordan,
NEW YORK, Nov. 27 (JTA) --
The revelation that dozens of Israelis have been thrown in jail since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has some American Jewish leaders wondering if this is a new government attempt at "even- handedness."
Most of the 50 or so Israelis reportedly jailed in Cleveland, St. Louis, Kansas City, Houston and San Diego are men in their 20s.
No one refutes the likelihood that they violated visa regulations, but some have been in jail for over a month for what normally would be considered petty infractions.
That leaves Jewish activists wondering if the U.S. Department of Justice is straining to show "even-handedness" in its investigation of the Sept. 11 attacks to appease Arabs concerned that Washington is targeting only Arab and Muslim suspects.
Several Arab states are vital partners in the U.S.-led coalition to hunt down the Sept. 11 perpetrators.
Nevertheless, Israeli officials say they do not believe Israelis have been singled out, and are treating the incarcerations as a consular issue rather than a political one.
"Israelis who break the law must understand there will be consequences for their actions," saidMark Regev, spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington. "America is justifiably looking much more closely at foreign visitors, and Israelis who are here illegally or doing something in contrast to their visa specifications should not consider themselves immune just because of the friendly relations between the two countries."
Israeli officials say they sent advisories to their citizens in the United States after Sept. 11, warning them to have their papers in order.
Still, that wasn't enough to reassure some American Jewish leaders, who note that visa violations typically do not result in jail time.
U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroftrefuses to disclose the names of detainees, but Israelis are believed to be the largest single national group arrested in a nationwide crackdown that has netted at least 554 on visa violations -- and 55 charged with a direct link to the attacks -- since Sept. 11.
Reports of the arrests seems to have seeped out beginning two weeks ago, and some believed that as many as 150 Israelis had been arrested.
When he read about the Israelis in news reports last week, "I couldn't see the connection. Why would Israelis even be suspected of terrorist activities here?" asked Leon Levy, president of the American Sephardi Federation and former chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. "It's very confusing. I know I'm only speculating, but it may be about giving a sense of balance between Arabs and Jews."
The Zionist Organization of America this week said it was crafting a letter to the Justice Department complaining that the large-scale arrests of Israelis "play into the hands of anti-Semites" because of the canard that Israel orchestrated the suicide attacks and that 4,000 Jews were warned not to come to their jobs at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11.
"Why aren't we also arresting people from Finland, Denmark or Sweden? There is no evidence, historically or presently, that anyone from Israel has ever been involved with terrorism against America," ZOA PresidentMorton Klein said. "Clearly, America is bending over backward to make it seem as if we are not targeting Middle Easterners, although the evidence shows clearly that it was Islamic militants who perpetrated this heinous crime."
Malcolm Hoenlein, the Conference of Presidents' executive vice chairman, urged caution in reacting to the arrests.
"There could be a real problem here but we don't know yet," Hoenlein said. "In situations like that, you have to be careful about the allegations you make. We and others are still looking into it, trying to ascertain the facts."
Ashcroft, in a news conference Tuesday, defended his actions.
"While I am aware of various charges being made by organizations and individuals about the actions of the Justice Department, I have yet to be informed of a single lawsuit filed against the government charging a violation of someone's civil rights as a result of this investigation," Ashcroft said.
"I would hope that those who make allegations about something as serious as a violation of an individual's civil rights would not do so lightly or without specificity or without facts. This does a disservice to our entire justice system."
There actually have been two separate situations involving Israelis.
The first involved five Israeli men spotted clowning around Sept. 11 along the New Jersey riverfront, taking photographs against a backdrop of the burning World Trade Centers.
The men worked for a moving company and happened to have box cutters -- one of the weapons used on the hijacked flights -- in their truck.
The men were imprisoned in Brooklyn, where one reportedly failed a polygraph test when discussing his Israeli army service.
The men were never charged with a crime, but complained that they were treated like criminals and even intentionally placed with Arab inmates, who beat them up. After two months in jail, the five were quietly deported to Israel last week.
The Anti-Defamation League took the incident seriously, but not the suggestion that Israelis are being unfairly singled out.
"There's a war, a change of scenery, and the fact that Semitic-looking people are caught in the web of ethnic profiling is an unfortunate consequence of the new reality," the national director of the ADL,Abraham Foxman, said. "My only concern is that once Israelis are arrested and detained, there needs to be sensitivity not to put them together with Arabs or Muslims, because their safety may be in danger."
Then there are the dozens of Israelis arrested nationwide, some of whom apparently aroused suspicion because they worked for a company selling trinkets that may have hired other young men from the Middle East.
Regev, however, sought to put the events in perspective.
"Israelis, better than most, can understand the problems involved with dealing with terrorism, and I think Israelis can appreciate the enormous pressure American authorities were under in the weeks following Sept. 11," he said.
While not commenting specifically on the Israelis, a spokesman for the Justice Department told The New York Times, "We are taking every step we can to prevent future terrorist attacks. We are conducting the largest investigation in U.S. history, and we are leaving no stone unturned."
Yet the secrecy surrounding the detainees' identities and the refusal to disclose the charges, if any, are fanning suspicion about the arrests. Some wonder if the Justice Department is arresting almost anyone just to create the semblance of progress in the Sept. 11 investigation.
Some Jewish activists say they are concerned not only about the Israeli detainees, but with all those held.
"In Judaism, we don't believe in collective guilt," said Rabbi Avi Weiss, national president of AMCHA -- Coalition for Jewish Concerns. "If they've overstayed a visa or some other infraction, deport them. But it's un- American to hold people without charging them. Maybe a day or two, but weeks or a month or two? It's really unpardonable. It's contrary to what America stands for."
Levy, too, was critical.
"If there is no evidence after a month of incarceration, there has to be some explaining to do," he said. "We're still a nation of laws."
Then there are the dozens of Israelis arrested nationwide, some of whom apparently aroused suspicion because they worked for a company selling trinkets that may have hired other young men from the Middle East.
Regev, however, sought to put the events in perspective.
"Israelis, better than most, can understand the problems involved with dealing with terrorism, and I think Israelis can appreciate the enormous pressure American authorities were under in the weeks following Sept. 11," he said.
While not commenting specifically on the Israelis, a spokesman for the Justice Department told The New York Times, "We are taking every step we can to prevent future terrorist attacks. We are conducting the largest investigation in U.S. history, and we are leaving no stone unturned."
Yet the secrecy surrounding the detainees' identities and the refusal to disclose the charges, if any, are fanning suspicion about the arrests. Some wonder if the Justice Department is arresting almost anyone just to create the semblance of progress in the Sept. 11 investigation.
Some Jewish activists say they are concerned not only about the Israeli detainees, but with all those held.
"In Judaism, we don't believe in collective guilt," said Rabbi Avi Weiss, national president of AMCHA -- Coalition for Jewish Concerns. "If they've overstayed a visa or some other infraction, deport them. But it's un- American to hold people without charging them. Maybe a day or two, but weeks or a month or two? It's really unpardonable. It's contrary to what America stands for."
Levy, too, was critical.
"If there is no evidence after a month of incarceration, there has to be some explaining to do," he said. "We're still a nation of laws."
March 5, 2002, Associated Press, US Deports Israelis amid warnings of Espionage Activities, by Ted Bridis, Associated Press writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Authorities have arrested and deported dozens of young Israelis since early last year who represented themselves as art students in efforts to gain access to sensitive federal office buildings and the homes of government employees, U.S. officials said.
A draft report from the Drug Enforcement Administration - which first characterized the activities as suspicious - said the youths' actions "may well be an organized intelligence-gathering activity."
Immigration officials deported them for visa violations; no criminal espionage charges were filed.
The arrests, made in an unspecified number of major U.S. cities from California to Florida, came amid public warnings from U.S. intelligence agencies about suspicious behavior by people posing as Israeli art students and "attempting to bypass facility security and enter federal buildings."
The Israelis were arrested and deported on charges of working in the United States without authorization or overstaying visits on tourist visas, said Russ Bergeron, a spokesman for the Immigration and Naturalization Service in Washington. He described dozens of arrests since early 2001 but gave no exact figures.
The DEA report said a majority of the students questioned by U.S. investigators acknowledged having served in military intelligence, electronic signals interception or explosive ordnance units in the Israeli military. The DEA said one person questioned was the son of a two-star Israeli general, one had served as the bodyguard to the head of the Israeli Army and another served in a Patriot missile unit.
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Yaffa Ben-Ari said it was "nonsense"that the students were spying on the United States.
Another Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Irit Stopper, confirmed that a few Israelis posing as art students were expelled from the United States for working without permits. However they were not accused of espionage, she said. She did not say how many Israelis were expelled and did not give any additional details.
The DEA report was first obtained by a French Web site that specializes in intelligence news, Intelligenceonline.com, and confirmed Tuesday as authentic by DEA spokeswoman Rogene Waite in Washington. The Web site said 120 Israelis had been arrested.
"That these people are now traveling in the U.S. selling art seems not to fit their background," the report said.
An FBI official, speaking on condition of anonymity, noted there were no espionage charges filed against any of the individuals and that they had been deported. Asked whether any spying activity occurred, the official repeated that no charges had been filed.
A Justice Department official, also asking not to be publicly identified,said investigators have been aware of some "alleged linkage" between the students and alleged espionage activities in the United States since early 2001, and said authorities have made arrests in Dallas, Chicago, San Diego and in south Florida. INS spokesmanRodney Germain in Miami said five or six people were arrested in that area at least six months ago on immigration counts.
Although security experts at the DEA first characterized the youths' behavior as suspicious, and INS authorities later arrested them, the FBI typically investigates espionage cases in the United States.
The DEA report said that among U.S. sites apparently targeted was Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City, home to the military's AWACS surveillance planes and the place where many of the nation's B-1 bombers are repaired. Investigators also said that one female art student went to the home of a worker for the Environmental Protection Agency in Denver to sell paintings and returned later to photograph the house, according to the report.
No one within the Justice Department has expressed concerns about the Israeli students possibly committing espionage, Justice spokesman Bryan Sierra said. The deputy U.S. attorney general, Larry Thompson, declined to discuss the arrests when asked about them during a news conference Tuesday.
The U.S. Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive, a federal agency, circulated a public warning in March 2001 urging employees to report contact with people describing themselves as Israeli art students.
"These individuals have been described as aggressive," the warning said. "They attempt to engage employees in conversation rather than giving a sales pitch."
Cooperation with Israel, a longtime key ally, is increasingly important in the U.S. war on terrorism.
March 5, 2002, Le Monde, An Enigma: Vast Israeli Spy Network Dismantled in the US, by Sylvain Cypel, Translated by Malcolm Garris, [Original French text,]
IT is undoubtedly the largest case of Israeli espionage in the United States -- that has been made public -- since 1986.
In June 2001, an investigative report detailed the activities of more than one-hundred Israeli agents, some presenting themselves as fine arts students, others tied to Israeli high-tech companies. All were challenged by the authorities, were questioned, and a dozen of them are still imprisoned. One of their tasks was to track the Al-Qaida terrorists on American territory -- without informing the federal authorities.
Elements of this investigation, taken up by American television Fox News, reinforce this thesis: that Israel did not transmit to the United States all the evidence in its possession on the preparation of the September 11 attacks.
The latest issue of the Online Intelligence Letter, a publication specializing in questions of information, has revealed that a vast Israeli spy network operating on American territory was dismantled.
It is the biggest affair involving the Mossad (the Israel's external security agency) in activity against the United States since Jonathan Pollard, an employee of the US Navy (right), was condemned to life in prison, in 1986, for spying for Israel's benefit.
What was the real scale of this network? The facts evoked by an American investigative report do not indicate if the network obtained the information it was after, or if the authorities dismantled it in its initial phase. According to the chief editor of Online Intelligence, Guillaume Dasquié, this "vast network of Israeli intelligence agents was neutralized by the counter-espionage services of the Department of Justice."It was aimed at the manufacturer of Amdocs software, placed on Wall Street, which lists, for the 25 major telephone companies of the United States, all the calls coming into and originating from American territory, as well as the companies Nice and Comverse Infosys, the latter providing the data-processing programs to American law enforcement agencies authorized to eavesdrop on private phone conversations.
The Americans "would have apprehended or expelled close to 120 Israeli nationals." M. Dasquié gives a report on a "61-page review article" from June 2001, given to the American justice department by a "task force" made up of agents of the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) and some INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) agents "who were associated the FBI and the office of investigation of the US Air Force."
Questioned by Le Monde, Will Glaspy, of the Public Affairs department of the DEA, authenticated this report, and said the DEA "holds a copy."
This is not the first time that information relating to Israeli espionage appeared in the United States since the Pollard affair. In June 1999, the review Insight had described, at length, a "secret" investigation by Division 5 of the FBI regarding Israeli phone-tapping targeting the White House, the State Department and the National Security Council.
After the attacks of September 11, very little detailed information had come out about the arrest of some sixty Israelis. Finally, from December 11 to 14, 2001, the Fox News television channel aired an investigation in four parts into Israeli espionage in the United States, in the broadcast "Carl Cameron Investigates."
The Israeli embassy in Washington immediately responded by stating that it did not contain "anything true." American Jewish organizations such JINSA (Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs), AIPAC (America-Israel Political Action Committee) and others, denounced the report as a "machination."
Fox withdrew from its Internet site, one day and half after its posting, all the material related to this investigation. Le Monde requested three times with Fox News to provide a tape of the broadcast. It was never done.
On February 26, Fox told our correspondent in New York that sending it posed "a problem," without being specific. Le Monde, however took note of the wholescript in this investigation.
Carl Cameron evokes "a vast secret investigation held there" relating to "140 Israelis made to pass for students of the University of Jerusalem or Betzalel Academy of Arts [which have] unceasingly sought to come into contact with civil servants and, according to a document, targeted and penetrated military bases, dozens of buildings of the DEA, FBI, and others."
His investigation focused on two aspects. Firstly, could the Israelis have had preliminary knowledge of the September 11 attacks and not informed the Americans? His sources, explains Carl Cameron, tell him: "The principal question is 'how could they they not have known?'"
On the screen, his editor-in-chief tells him thus:
"Certain reports confirm that the Mossad sent representatives to the United States to warn them, before September 11, of the imminence of a major terrorist attack. That does not go in the direction of an absence of warning."
Cameron's response: "The problem is not the absence of warning, but the absence of useful details" compared to those which American services suspect Israel of having held. The second round of the investigation touched on Israeli companies providing administrative services for American companies, which would conceal information.
Comverse is suspected of having introduced into its systems of the "catch gates" in order to "intercept, record and store" these wire-taps. This hardware would render the "listener" himself "listened to."
Question to Cameron: "Are there reasons to believe the Israeli government is implicated?"
Answer: "No, none, but a classified top-secret investigation is underway."
The broadcast had been shown beforehand to the highest persons in charge of the CIA, the FBI, the NSA (the agency in charge of phone-taps), the DEA and the American Justice Department, none of which objected to its airing.
The report submitted to the American Justice Department, to which Le Mondehad access, shows that many of the "fine-arts students" suspected of illicit activity have a military past in Israeli information or advanced technology units.
Some entered and left the United States on several occasions, remaining each time for short periods. Several are related to the hi-tech Israeli companies of Amdocs, Nice and Retalix. Challenged, a "coed" saw her bond of $10,000 paid by an Israeli working at Amdocs.
Questioned, two others admitted being employed by Retalix. Le Monde obtained other information not contained in this report. Six of the intercepted "students" had a cellular telephone bought by an Israeli ex-vice-consul in the United States.
Two others, at an unspecified time, arrived in Miami by direct flight from Hamburg, and went to the residence of an FBI agent, to try to sell him artwork, left again for the Chicago airport to go to the residence of an agent of the justice department, then again took a plane directly for Toronto -- all in one day. More than a third of these "students," who, according to the report, moved in at least 42 American cities, stated they resided in Florida.
Five at least were intercepted in Hollywood, and two in Fort Lauderdale. Hollywood is a town of 25,000 inhabitants to the north of Miami, close to Fort Lauderdale. At least 10 of the 19 terrorists of September 11 were residing in Florida. Four of the five members of the group that diverted American Airlines flight number 11 -- Mohammed Atta, Abdulaziz Al-Omari, Walid and Waïl Al-Shehri, as well as one of the five terrorists of United flight 175, Marwan Al-Shehhi -- resided all at various times in ... Hollywood, Florida.
As for Ahmed Fayez, Ahmed and Hamza Al-Ghamdi and Mohand Al-Shehri, who took over United flight 75, like Saïd Al-Ghamdi, Ahmed Al-Haznawi and Ahmed Al-Nami, of United flight 93 which crashed September 11 in Pennsylvania, and Nawaq Al-Hamzi, of AA flight 77 (crashed into the Pentagon), they all at one time resided at Delray Beach, to the north of Fort Lauderdale.
This convergence is, inter alia, the origin of the American conviction that one of the tasks of the Israeli "students" would have been to track the Al-Qaida terrorists on their territory, without informing the federal authorities of the existence of the plot.
Two enigmas remain.
- Why was the Israeli network a priority of drug enforcement agents? An assumption: the DEA is the main American agency inquiring into the money laundering. A network such as Al-Qaida used "dirty" [funding], and the Taliban's Afghanistan was the primary exporter of opium in the world.
- Why this astonishing "cover" of false students canvassers for poor artwork? The Israeli network seemed to hold lists of names. Its members knew at which office or which private residence to go. The objective was apparently to make contact, even for a short time.
The FBI indicated to us that it will not make "any comment at this stage." The CIA, the FBI, the DEA, the INS, the NSA, the Justice Department and the Pentagon have all designated an investigator on this file.
September 28, 2001, The Washington Post, Instant Messages To Israel Warned Of WTC Attack,
NEW YORK -- OFFICIALS at instant-messaging firm Odigo confirmed today that two employees received text messages warning of an attack on the World Trade Center two hours before terrorists crashed planes into the New York landmarks. Citing a pending investigation by law enforcement, the company declined to reveal the exact contents of the message or to identify the sender.
But Alex Diamandis, vice president of sales and marketing, confirmed that workers in Odigo's research and development and international sales office in Israel received a warning from another Odigo user approximately two hours prior to the first attack. Diamandis said the sender of the instant message was not personally known to the Odigo employees. Even though the company usually protects the privacy of users, the employees recorded the Internet protocol address of the message's sender to facilitate his or her identification.
Soon after the terrorist attacks on New York, the Odigo employees notified their management, who contacted Israeli security services. In turn, the FBI was informed of the instant message warning. FBI officials were not immediately available for comment today. The Odigo service includes a feature called People Finder that allows users to seek out and contact others based on certain interests or demographics. Diamandis said it was possible that the attack warning was broadcast to other Odigo members, but the company has not received reports of other recipients of the message.
In addition to operating its own messaging service network, Odigo has licensed its technology to over 100 service providers, portals, wireless carriers, and corporations, according to the company. Odigo is online at http://www.odigo.com .
September 28, 2001, CNN News, FBI probing 'threatening' message, firm says, by Daniel Sieberg,
The FBI is looking into whether a warning sent to employees at an instant message company less than two hours before jetliners slammed into the World Trade Center was connected to the attacks, a company executive confirmed Friday.
Alex Diamandis, vice president for sales and marketing with Odigo Inc., said there was nothing specifically about the attacks in the message, but he said it was suspicious in nature, especially because of its timing.
"I would describe it as a threat, a warning," Diamandis said from New York.
Diamandis declined to comment further on the content of the message, citing the ongoing investigation.
Two employees at the Odigo office in Herzliyya, Israel, received the message at about 7 a.m. EDT on September 11, he said. After the attacks, the staff decided to scour the server logs in order to determine the source of the message, Diamandis said. Information was then passed on to Israeli authorities, who in turn passed it to the FBI.
The FBI did not confirm whether they have received any information from Odigo.
Odigo's New York office is located four blocks from the site of the World Trade Center, in an area that was blocked off for a short time following the attacks.
December 31, 2001, New York Times / Associated Press, Lawyer: Detained Israelis Return Home,
CLEVELAND (AP) -- Two Israelis who were detained in Ohio as part of the terrorism probe have been allowed by the U.S. government to return home, their lawyer said Monday.
Yaniv Hani, 22, and Oren Behr, 25, were taken into custody Oct. 31 near Toledo, along with nine other Israelis. All had come to the United States separately and took jobs with an Israeli-owned company to sell toys in shopping mall kiosks.
Hani and Behr returned to Israel about a week ago, said lawyer David Leopold.
"They are thrilled to be home," he said. "They had no business in jail and then sitting in this country for as long as they did."
The other Israelis had been released earlier.
The Immigration and Naturalization Service said the Israelis violated their visas, and their cases were labeled "special interest," a designation used for cases arising from the attacks investigation.
Hani and Behr were released Nov. 27 after an immigration judge ruled the INS lacked any evidence to justify keeping them in custody. But the INS then issued an oral "order of safe guard" that the two should remain in the United States.
Linda Rabbett, deputy director of the Cleveland INS district, said Monday that the men were allowed to leave after a hearing before an immigration judge and posting a bond.
Leopold said his clients "understand the fear in this country" but "neither understands why they were caught up in a dragnet."
November 1, 2001, World Tribune, Six Islamic terrorists are in U.S. carrying Israeli passports,
WASHINGTON -- Islamic insurgents operating in the United States have entered the country with forged Israeli passports.
U.S. security officials said the Israeli passports were discovered in the investigation that immediately followed the Sept. 11 suicide attacks on New York and Washington. They said the passports were either stolen or forged.
Stolen or forged. An interesting discovery without examining them. But stolen should be out of the question, as by inspection the picture in the passport must have matched the person carrying it. So we are left asking it if was forged.
The FBI believes that six Arabs from the Middle East are now holding Israeli passports, Middle East Newsline reported. They have stopped Israeli nationals coming into the United States and have detained several of them.
Note also in the original story the INS denied the entire story.
Law enforcement officials are concerned that agents were sent by Saudi fugitive Osama Bin Ladenintend to launch a new series of attacks on strategic U.S. targets. These include nuclear plants and pipelines.
In Vienna, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency today urged world leaders to safeguard radioactive materials, and called for strict new controls to prevent a nuclear catastrophe.
Mohamed El-Baradei told reporters the willingness of terrorists to commit suicide and inflict massive damage makes the possibility of a nuclear-related attack much more likely now.
"We need to act quickly to protect ourselves," he said.
October 31, 2001, The Miami Herald, Nuclear plants tighten security, FBI seeking 6 men seen in Midwest,
by Martin Merzer, Curtis Morgan and Lenny Savino,
WASHINGTON -- As the nation again stands on high alert, the FBI is searching for six men stopped by police in the Midwest last weekend but released -- even though they possessed photos and descriptions of a nuclear power plant in Florida and the Trans-Alaska pipeline, a senior law enforcement official said Tuesday.
The Federal Aviation Administration imposed new flight restrictions around nuclear plants nationwide Tuesday, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission advised the nation's 103 nuclear plants late Monday to fortify security.
The FAA temporarily banned all flights near New York's Yankee Stadium, where President Bushstood before a huge crowd at a World Series game Tuesday night and -- wearing a New York City Fire Department jacket -- tossed the ceremonial first pitch.
"It helps to keep the fabric of our country strong," said spokesman Ari Fleischer.
Meanwhile, an administration official said the urgent terrorism alert sounded Monday evening byAttorney General John Ashcroft was based largely on a message transmitted Sunday night by an Osama bin Laden supporter in Canada to Afghanistan.
The message referred to a major event that was going to take place "down south" this week, the official said. It apparently was a reference to south of the U.S.-Canada border.
The Herald reported Monday that American officials feared that members of bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist network had been unleashed to launch attacks without specific permission from their superiors.
On Tuesday, agency spokesmen said the FAA's flight restrictions and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's security recommendations were based on Ashcroft's general alert rather than a specific threat. Ashcroft warned that Americans at home or abroad could be struck by another terrorist attack this week.
The incident in the Midwest apparently contributed to the new terror warning. The six men stopped by police were traveling in groups of three in two white sedans, said the senior law enforcement official, who requested anonymity.
SUSPICIOUS MATERIAL
In addition to the photographs and other suspicious material, they carried "box cutters and other equipment," the official said. They appeared to be from the Middle East and held Israeli passports.
They were let go after the Immigration and Naturalization Service determined that the passports were valid and that the men had entered the United States legally, the official said.
The FBI declined to comment. An INS spokesman called the report unfounded. "We have absolutely no information at this point in time to substantiate that story," said the agency'sRuss Bergeron.
It could not be learned in what state the six men were stopped or how they aroused suspicion. It was not known whether their true identities matched those on the passports, or why the FBI was not releasing their names or descriptions.
Investigators think the men almost certainly have changed cars by now and have fled to Canada or elsewhere.
Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller were "furious" that the INS allowed the men to be released without consulting the FBI, the official said.
Ashcroft and Mueller appeared Monday evening at a hastily called news conference to announce that the government had "credible" but vague information that another wave of terrorist attacks could strike Americans within a week.
SECURE LOCATION
Shortly after that announcement, Vice President Dick Cheney moved once again to an undisclosed secure location and remained there Tuesday.
There are three nuclear power facilities in Florida: Florida Power & Light Co.'s Turkey Point facility, south of Miami, and St. Lucie facility, near Fort Pierce, and Florida Power Corp.'s Crystal River plant, about 85 miles north of St. Petersburg.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a new threat advisory Monday night to all nuclear power plants, other electrical plants, a dozen decommissioned reactors and three nuclear fuel-manufacturing facilities, said spokesman Victor Dricks.
The action was in response to the FBI's general warning, he said, and the commission was "not aware of any specific threats" against any power plant.
The advisory suggested the plants fortify perimeter security and, if necessary, call in help from local or state law officers or the National Guard.
At least one Florida plant was doing that Tuesday.
At Crystal River, workers installed concrete road barricades at strategic spots inside the sprawling site, which includes one nuclear reactor and four fossil-fuel plants. Citrus County sheriff's deputies were summoned to supplement the plant's full-time security force, said Florida Power spokesman Mac Harris.
Florida Power & Light, which runs the two other nuclear plants in Florida, would not discuss security measures or threats in detail.
ON ALERT
Spokeswoman Rachel Scott said FPL's plants remained at the highest level of alert. "We are in very close communication with all levels of law enforcement, including the FBI, to ensure we have the security measures in place to protect the plants," she said.
Also Tuesday, the FAA restricted all flights below 18,000 feet and within 10 miles of 86 "sensitive nuclear sites" until Tuesday, the agency said. Exceptions can be made for law enforcement, medical and firefighting flights.
The 800-mile-long Trans-Alaska Pipeline, which delivers 17 percent of the nation's domestic oil production, runs from Prudhoe Bay on the Arctic Ocean to Valdez on the Pacific.
An employee at the Valdez security office for Alayeska, the company that runs the pipeline, said there has been no company-wide alert.
Still, the incident in the Midwest apparently contributed to the many pieces of information that triggered the FBI's general alert.
A senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the agency's warning was based on messages from known or suspected operatives of al Qaeda in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Jakarta, Indonesia, Afghanistan and elsewhere during the last week, coupled with a new message Sunday that suggested an attack within the next week.
However, the official said the sudden flood of messages could be "deliberate deception of the kind we saw before Sept. 11," when bin Laden associates sent a flurry of messages suggesting a forthcoming attack on U.S. interests in Europe or the Middle East. Those messages held no hint of the U.S. hijackings to come.
U.S. ATTACKS
Bin Laden is suspected of orchestrating the attacks on the four jetliners, the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon that killed nearly 5,000 people.
Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge defended the administration's decision to issue the alert and said it was unavoidably imprecise.
He said it was a "convergence of credible sources that occasioned the alert. More than the usual, is all I can tell you."
Ridge urged Americans to find new reservoirs of patience and to remain alert, but also to find a way to proceed with life as normally as possible. He noted that Bush was keeping his commitment to attend the World Series game.
"America has to continue to be America," Ridge said.
"What terrorists try to do is instill such uncertainty, such fear, such hesitation, that you don't do things that you normally do. And all we're saying with a general alert is to continue to live your lives, continue to be America, but be aware, be alert, be on guard."
Herald staff writer Alfonso Chardy contributed to this report, as did Knight Ridder reporters Sumana Chatterjee, Jackie Koszczuk and The Philadelphia Inquirer's Mark Fazlollah in Washington.
October, 26 2001, The Jerusalem Post, Israelis mistaken for terrorists may be home soon, by Melissa Radler,
NEW YORK (October 26) - Five Israeli men detained in New Jersey with box-cutters, multiple passports, and $4,000 cash on September 11, the day of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, may be deported back to Israel for immigration violations as early as next week, according to the Israeli consulate in New York.
Consul for Media and Public Affairs Ido Aharoni said the deportation order was issued by the US Immigration and Naturalization Service, and it must be approved by the Justice Department.
But the lawyer for the men, Steven Gordon, said the group is still waiting for the INS to sign the deportation order.
Gordon said the plight of the five, who were almost immediately cleared by authorities but subsequently held on relatively minor immigration violations, including overstaying a tourist visa by nine days and working illegally on a tourist visa, serves as a warning to anyone concerned with civil liberties in the wake of September 11.
"However, after ascertaining almost immediately that they had no involvement, it is just unconscionable that they have been denied bail and the government is deporting them," he said.
The consulate has visited the men twice, said Aharoni, the first time two weeks ago. Consul-General Alon Pinkas plans to visit them Monday.
Gordon said they have continuously requested, and not yet received, kosher food.
Trouble began for Sivan Kurzberg, his brother Paul Kurzberg, Yaron Shmuel, Oded Ellner and Omer Gavriel Marmari, all in their twenties and workers at a New Jersey-based moving company, on September 11 when they were picked up in a during the heightened security sweep following the attacks on New York and Washington.
A series of coincidences brought the police and FBI in hot pursuit of the men, said Gordon. After the two terrorist airplanes hit the World Trade Center, the men went to the rooftop of their workplace, and the rooftop of their moving van, and began taking pictures of the burning buildings, some with themselves in the foreground smiling.
In each location, the men, described in press reports as rugged and Middle Eastern-looking, evoked the ire of neighbors, who called the police to report suspicious activity.
Hours later, the men, who were driving back to their home in Brooklyn, were pulled over based on the description of the van given to police. With their box-cutters and cash seen as hijacker's weapons rather than tools of the moving trade, they were taken to Meadowlands police station, forced to lie down for 1.5 hours in a grassy area, then questioned by the FBI for 12-16 hours. They were not given food for the duration of the interrogation, said Gordon.
After determining the men were not connected to the attacks, they were turned over to INS custody and detained on immigration violations. A new round of interrogations began after the FBI developed their film, which, according to their lawyer, showed them posing on the rooftop and van as the World Trade Center collapsed behind them.
All five were held in solitary confinement until last week.
When asked if they had complained of being mistreated, Aharoni said, "All the reports that we received said they're in a maximum security facility. How well can you be treated in such a facility?"
September 12, 2001, [NJ] Star-Ledger, Van suspected of hauling explosives held at Meadowlands, by Brian Donohue and Tom Hester,
State Police and FBI investigators last night were searching a suspicious vehicle stopped on Route 3 East near the Meadowlands Sports Complex, possibly containing explosives, according to State Police officials and law enforcement sources.
The vehicle, which was stopped yesterday afternoon, was still being searched at 9:30 p.m. according to State Police Lt. Col. Barry Roberson. No arrests had been made. Roberson declined further comment.
Sources said police in Bergen County stopped the van and when authorities realized the enormity of the discovery, the matter was turned over to State Police.
Troopers took charge of the van and the two men and the vehicle were moved to an isolated area of the Giants Stadium parking lot, the police officials said. Sources said the van was believed to be carrying explosives and detonators.
Earlier in the day, a transmission from the Statewide Police Emergency Network was advising police to be on the lookout for a white Chevrolet Van that the FBI believed could be carrying chemical weapons. The van was described as having the words “Urban Moving System” painted on the side.
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WAS DORIC USED BY TERRORISTS?
09/14/01
By Ronald Leir
Journal staff writer
UNION CITY - Did terrorists use a local highrise apartment complex as a base for plotting the demise of the World Trade Center twin towers?
That’s a scenario that occupants of the Doric Apartments contemplated - a day after FBI agents swarmed the 23-story, 485-unit cooperative, pounding on apartment doors well past midnight, quizzing residents and searching the grounds.
Among their findings, according to tenants, were two cars in the parking lot whose owners couldn’t be accounted for and a mysterious picture of the WTC someone had drawn on a wall on the ninth floor on the building’s east side, which offered a view of the towers.
FBI Special Agent Sherri Evanina confirmed a Union City link to the terrorist puzzle. Within an hour of Tuesday’s attack, a resident spotted five men “in an area of Union City where they had a clear view of the World Trade Center and the skyline, taking photos and/or videotaping, and celebrating.”
The resident tracked the men to a van, which they got into and drove away, she said. The resident then called Union City police, reporting what she saw and the van’s plate number, Evanina said. Somewhere around 7 p.m., Evanina said police stopped the van on Route 3 in East Rutherford and took the five into custody. No weapons or explosives were found in the van, she said.
No criminal charges were filed against the men, who were turned over to the Immigration and Naturalization Service “because they couldn’t verify their immigration status,” Evanina said.
The FBI isn’t releasing the men’s identities or hometowns at this time, she said.
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FEDS SEEK CLUES, LOCALS PITCH IN
09/13/01
By Ronald Leir
Journal staff writer
Since the World Trade Center attack, federal law enforcement agents have visited locations in Jersey City and Union City to try and unearth clues that may lead to the culprits, but so far, none has led to any reported arrests.
FBI agents pounded on doors at the Doric Apartments in Union City well after midnight Tuesday night and showed photos of undocumented immigrants to tenants, on the assumption they might have met there and played some part in the attack, one well-placed lawman said yesterday.
“But it didn’t pan out,” the lawman said.
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TRIO WHO CHEERED ATTACK FACE BOOT AS ILLEGAL ALIENS
By AL GUART (NEW YORK POST)www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/
September 13, 2001 -- Three men who celebrated as the Twin Towers crumbled are facing deportation, The Post has learned. The men, described as illegal immigrants from the Middle East, were arrested Tuesday afternoon in a white Chevy van near the Meadowlands based on a tip from witnesses who saw them "cheering" and "jumping up and down" in Liberty State Park after the attack, a source said.
Witnesses took the plate number and the FBI sent out an alert to area cops, reading: "Vehicle possibly related to New York terrorist attack . . . Three individuals with van were seen celebrating after initial impact and subsequent explosion."
Port Authority cops nabbed the three as they drove along Route 3 in East Rutherford in the van, which had the words "Urban Moving Systems" painted on it. After grilling the men and searching the van in vain for explosives, the FBI turned the men over to the Immigration and Naturalization Service for deportation.
The feds declined to release the men's identities or nationalities. "The agency has decided it will not make any comments about this at this time," said INS spokesman Kerry Gill. Officials at "Urban Moving" claimed to be unaware of what had happened.
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Weehawken connection in attack?
09/15/01
By Ronald Leir
Journal staff writer
WEEHAWKEN - A warehouse in the township’s Shades section - across the street from St. Lawrence Church - has come under federal scrutiny as possibly another New Jersey piece in the World Trade Center terrorist puzzle.
Thursday night, FBI agents entered the building at 3 18th St., just off Hackensack Plank Road, where Urban Moving Systems Inc. rents space, and carted off computer hard drives and files, according to published reports.
Asked about the incident, FBI Special Agent Sandra Carroll would only say, “We are pursuing a number of investigative leads, trying to gain as much information as we can about the hijackers and any of their associates.”
Township records list the moving company’s owner as Dominik Suter, of Fair Lawn, and The Star Ledger reported that it was one of Suter’s vans that was stopped by police on Route 3 in Rutherford hours after two planes crashed into the Twin Towers on Tuesday.
It couldn’t be readily learned whether any of the five men in the van - who were turned over to federal immigration authorities for checks of their residency status - worked for the moving firm. The FBI has said the same men were reportedly seen within an hour of the first plane attack photographing or filming the WTC aftermath and celebrating on the roof of the Doric apartments in Union City.
The FBI’s Carroll said that no criminal charges have been filed against Suter or anyone else in connection with the Bureau’s warehouse action.
The men, however, were turned over to Immigration and Naturalization because their immigration status could not be determined, FBI Special Agent Sherri Evanina told The Jersey Journal.
One neighbor of the moving company, April Muraca, said she nearly applied for a bookkeeper job there when an opening occurred but changed her mind.
“It’s not Middle-Eastern people who run it - I believe they’re some type of Slavic people,” she said. “We’ve never had any trouble with them.”
Muraca said federal agents have made several visits to the place, speaking to employees in the office and “searching every truck when they come in.”
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BERGEN RECORD 9/18/01
FBI raids Weehawken company
Residents of Weehawken’s relatively quite and remote Shades area were started by an FBI presence a week ago Thursday when agents conducted a raid on a Weehawken moving company, apparently as part of the investigation to the World Trade Center terrorist tragedy.
According to Weehawken public safety director Jeff Welz, the FBI acted on a tip and raided the offices of the Urban Moving Systems Company on 18th Street and Hackensack Plank Road, across the street from St. Lawrence Church, confiscating boxes of documents and several computers in the process.
“As orders of the FBI, we are not at liberty of discussing the details of the raid,” Welz said. “The Weehawken police department has given full, 100 percent cooperation with the FBI on the matter.”
According to FBI spokesperson and special agent Sandra Carroll, the raid resulted from a tip that five Middle Eastern-looking men were spotted outside a van parked on Route 3 in Secaucus after the planes hit the World Trade Center, and that the men were jumping and cheering while looking at the debacle across the Hudson. FBI officials traced the van to Urban Moving in Weehawken and then raided the premises, she said. However, there is no indication as to whether the five men actually were affiliated with Urban Moving in any way. It has also not been proven that the men were cheering.
“We are pursuing a number of investigative leads, trying to gain as much information as we can about the hijackers and any of their associates,” Carroll said.
Carroll hinted that the investigation did not turn up links to the terrorists, but might involve a probe of more minor infractions.
“It’s now considered a criminal investigation not related to the attack,” Carroll stated.
The company’s owner, Dominik Suter of Fair Lawn, did not return phone calls by press time.
No criminal charges have been filed against Suter or the five men who were apparently in the van. But the five men have been turned over to Immigration and Naturalization authorities, because their immigration status appeared to be out of sequence, Carroll said.
An anonymous neighbor who resides in the Shades said that she applied for a job with Urban Moving three weeks ago and that the owners and operators were of Slavic-European descent and not Middle Eastern. Many of the detained terrorists have been of Middle Eastern descent.
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 13, 2001
State Granted Access to Moving Company's Storage Facility
NEWARK- The State Division of Consumer Affairs ("Consumer Affairs") is asking all citizens who have goods stored at Urban Moving Systems' Weehawken warehouse to immediately contact Consumer Affairs, Attorney General John J. Farmer, Jr., and New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs Director Mark S. Herr announced today.
The State on Wednesday obtained a court order giving inspectors from Consumer Affairs access to the facility allowing consumers access to retrieve their goods and belongings. The State, at the same time, filed a lawsuit in Hudson County Superior Court against Urban Moving Systems and its owner Dominick Suter alleging violations of both the State's Consumer Fraud Act and regulations set forth in the Public Movers and Warehousing Licensing Act.
According to the complaint, on or about September 14, 2001, Suter departed from the United States and left no one acting as an agent for Urban.
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Feds fan out in Hudson
09/20/01
By Jeff Theodore
and Falasten M. Abdeljabbar
Journal staff writers
As the FBI continues to investigate last week’s attacks on the World Trade Center and thePentagon, Hudson County is a hotbed of activity in the agency’s extensive probe.
Since last week, agents have conducted roundups or questioned residents at warehouses, hotels and apartment complexes from Weehawken to Bayonne.
The night of the attack, FBI agents swarmed the 23-story, 485-unit Doric Apartments cooperative in Union City, pounding on doors well past midnight, quizzing residents and searching the grounds.
Then on Thursday, agents entered a Weehawken warehouse on 18th Street, off Hackensack Plank Road, where Urban Moving Systems Inc. rents space. Law enforcement officials removed computer hard drives and files from the location.
It had been reported that a van stopped on Route 3 in Rutherford just hours after the attack was associated with the moving company. The five men in the van - held because their immigration status could not be determined - had been spotted within an hour of the attack “in an area of Union City where they had a clear view of the World Trade Center and the skyline, taking photos and/or videotaping, and celebrating,” the FBI has said, though
officials wouldn’t confirm that the Union City locale was the Doric.
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USA TODAY: Agents raided a Jersey City apartment believed to be the home of two men detained in Texas
09/28/2001 - Updated 09:26 PM ET
FBI questions several from New Jersey
...Agents also detained five men in a van in East Rutherford hours after Tuesday’s terrorist attacks, and later searched the Weehawken warehouse owned by the van’s owner. INS spokesman Kerry Gill said Sunday he could not confirm or deny whether the men were still in custody.
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HACKENSACK RECORD
09/28/2001 - Updated 09:24 PM ET
FBI searches New Jersey apartment
...Agents searched an Urban Moving Systems warehouse in Weehawken, seized the van of the Fair Lawn man who owned it and detained five men hours after Tuesday’s terrorist attacks.
The five men were still being detained Friday while immigration officials checked their residency status.
Officers had visited the warehouse Tuesday night, surveying it from the outside with bomb-sniffing dogs, then went inside on Thursday, The Record of Hackensack reported.
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Thursday, Sept. 27, 2001
FBI Track Terrorists From Garage
NEW YORK (AP) _ Inside a dingy garage reeking of motor oil, scores of FBI agents sit elbow to elbow on folding chairs, tapping leads about terrorists into laptop computers amid the din of ringing telephones.
Fast food and doughnuts are piled on tables, and wires for 300 new phone lines hang from the warehouse-like building that has been transformed into New York's nerve center for information about the attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center.
It used to be the place where mechanics did brake jobs and transmission work on the FBI's fleet of vehicles. The cars are gone, replaced by agents, prosecutors writing arrest warrants, and intelligence analysts poring over tips to ferret out the identities of people suspected of helping the 19 suicide hijackers.
The move from the FBI's New York headquarters, situated blocks from the trade center, was done partly for security reasons. That building was targeted by terrorists in 1993 in a failed plot to blow up New York City landmarks.
After the Sept. 11 trade center attack, ``we definitely thought we were next, that we would be a target,'' said Joe Valiquette, an FBI spokesman.
But practical reasons were also behind the decision to set up shop in the FBI garage: Dust and thick black smoke had seeped into the FBI's headquarters in lower Manhattan, and the phone lines had gone dead.
Inside the garage, little outside light filters through windows covered with grime and graffiti, and a few fans blow the musty air around. But the agents, prosecutors and members of a combined police and FBI terrorist task force do not seem to notice the dismal surroundings.
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October 8, 2001, New York Times, 5 Young Israelis, Caught in Net of Suspicion, by Alison Leigh Cowan,
As their lawyer tells it, when the five young men were picked up by F.B.I. agents in midday on Sept. 11, they had a box cutter with them. One man carried $4,000 in cash, another had two passports.
In short, there probably were good reasons to be suspicious of the men who became the subjects of widespread news coverage.
What those early news accounts missed, however, was that all five of the men were Israeli Jews, and that if they had box cutters, it was because at least four of them and possibly all five worked for Urban Moving Systems, a household moving company in New York and New Jersey.
They are now facing deportation for overstaying their visas and other immigration offenses, but their lawyer says their case is a reminder that though roughly 500 people have now been detained as part of the crackdown on possible terrorists, that does not mean all of them are part of any terror network.
Driving a large van across the George Washington Bridge toward Manhattan hours after the deadly attack on American landmarks, the five men, well-built and in their 20's, were speaking in a foreign language. They appeared to be from the Middle East. By some accounts, they seemed to be making light of the tragic situation.
Besides the cash and the passports, one man had fresh pictures of the smoldering wreckage of the trade center in his camera, images he captured by standing rather conspicuously on the roof of the van. The men were taken into custody, with news reports leaving the wide impression that authorities had detained a group of suspicious men taking pictures or rooting for the terrorists from the New Jersey side of the bridge.
They have spent much of the last 27 days inside the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, getting a firsthand glimpse of a side of New York they never dreamed of seeing when they came to the United States as tourists. As much as anything, friends and families say, they came seeking a respite from life in a war zone.
These days, they would be thrilled to return. Shortly after the five Israelis arrived at the detention center, a group of Pakistani Muslims pressured them to join in a hunger strike, according to the Israelis' lawyer, Steven Noah Gordon. That only fortified the impression that somehow "they were all together," and invited threats from non-Muslims, he said. For their own safety, he said, they now each have separate cells.
According to Mr. Gordon, his clients were also blindfolded during interrogations, cuffed in confinement, and forced to take polygraph tests. Though they were technically being held by the Immigration and Naturalization service, Mr. Gordon said, they were told ominously that if they failed to cooperate, they could be charged with violations of obscure "black- humor statutes" which, in limited circumstances, allow people to be prosecuted for cracking jokes about sensitive security matters like airplane hijackings.
A spokesman for the Justice Department in Washington, Dan Nelson, refused to discuss particulars of the Israelis' case or to confirm that they were in custody. A reporter who approached the Metropolitan Detention Center on Friday was turned away.
Mr. Gordon, who was initially hired by the family of one of the detainees, Oded Ellner, on Sept. 17, agreed to represent the other four pro bono as a favor to the Israeli consulate in New York. "This is a huge misunderstanding," said Yigal Tzarfati, an official with the consulate. The five men in detention, he said, "have nothing to do with the bombings."
Inside the prison, mistrust has been running so deep that a visiting rabbi appeared indifferent when asked to help the Israelis get bibles, or prayer books for the Jewish High Holy Days last month, according to Mr. Gordon. Mr. Gordon also recalls an officer at the jail's front desk grilling him, "I realize you're a lawyer. But how can you represent these guys?"
[Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company]
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October 27, 2001, Arutz Sheva, Five Israelis Held In New York
Five young Israelis are "on the verge of collapse," according to family members, as their incarceration in New York on charges relating to the Bin Laden attacks continues. They were arrested on Sept. 11, only hours after the World Trade Center attack, on charges of "plotting to blow up" a New York bridge.
Katie Shmuel of the Galilee town of Yokne'am, southeast of Haifa, says that her son Yaron is in "a very critical psychological situation," given that they are not allowed to have visitors and the difficult conditions in which they are being held. "Even the Israeli Consul-General in New York was allowed to visit only after asking several times and receiving a special permit," Katie told Arutz-7's Yosef Zalmanson today.
"He was allowed to talk to them only in English, and only from behind a glass partition. The Consul told me that the boys are in a bad state and that they are being held under difficult conditions."
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October 29, 2001, Senior U.S. officials join effort to free 5 Israelis held in Brooklyn, by Shlomo Shamir,
NEW YORK - Deputy U.S. Secretary of State Richard Armitage and two prominent New York congressmen are helping with efforts to release five Israelis arrested a few hours after the September 11 terrorist attacks, and held in Brooklyn under harsh conditions.
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October 26, 2001, Jerusalem Post, New York, NY -- Israelis mistaken for terrorists may be home soon, by Melissa Radler,
NEW YORK (October 26) - Five Israeli men detained in New Jersey with box-cutters, multiple passports, and $4,000 cash on September 11, the day of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, may be deported back to Israel for immigration violations as early as next week, according to the Israeli consulate in New York.
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November 11, 2001, Jerusalem Post, US keeps Israeli visa violators jailed, by Melissa Radler,
The Justice Department yesterday requested copies of the military and possible police records of the five young Israeli men detained on September 11 in New Jersey with box-cutters, cash, multiple passports, and subsequently found to have violated their tourist visas. They were cleared on terror charges, and the request is a sign that the group may be deported soon, said a source close to the issue.
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Detained Israelis allege brutal treatment, by Stewart Ain,
Courtesy of The Jewish Week
As the U.S. beefs up its homeland security by seeking to interview 5,000 foreign visitors in connection with the Sept.11 terror attack, new details surfaced this week about the alleged brutal treatment five Israelis received while imprisoned here for more than two months as suspects in the attack.
Within days of the terrorist attack, one of the five Israelis said he feared for his life when a prison guard announced to other inmates that he was the “terrorist responsible for the World Trade Center” — and then unlocked his cell.
“It was like a nightmare,” Yaron Shmuel, 26, told The Jewish Week by phone from Israel.
“I was holding the [prison] door closed against the other inmates. They were shouting, ‘This is the bomber, let’s kill him.’ ”
He said that about 10 of the 80 or 100 inmates in the prison’s common area rushed his cell door when the guard unlocked it. He said he struggled for about 15 minutes to keep the door closed.
“It felt like it was forever,” Shmuel said of his struggle. “I don’t know how I had the power to keep it closed, but when your life is in jeopardy, you get the strength.”
Shmuel said also that two of the other Israelis, whom he declined to name, had been beaten once by a guard while at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
He said that although he was not beaten, “many times the guard who came to the door shouted to us that he would take us to the population and that the other prisoners would murder us.”
The Israelis, aged 22 to 27, were released last week after being imprisoned since Sept. 11.
Ronit Ellner, the mother of one of the other Israelis, said she did not want her son, Oded, speaking to a reporter about his ordeal.
“The children are broken,” she said. “It’s too early to speak with them. I think they have trauma.”
Ellner said she would never again visit the United States.
Omer Marmari, 22, said he did not wish to discuss his imprisonment.
“It’s behind us,” he said, adding that he would “never come back” to the United States.
Shmuel’s mother, Katie, said she has never been to America and had planned to come. But now, she said, “my foot will never touch the land of the United States. Not me and not my four children.”
Several of those interviewed said they were considering filing a suit against the United States over the brutality they allege.
The lawyer who handled their immigration case, Michael Wildes, said no decision had yet been made on whether to sue.
Wildes said he has received calls about other Israelis detained for visa violations since Sept. 11.
He said some were picked up for such things as minor traffic violations. In all, a total of about 60 Israelis nationwide have been held since Sept. 11; half have been released.
A spokesman for the Israeli Consulate in New York said a consulate official visited the men four times and raised questions with prison authorities about their treatment after receiving complaints from relatives of the five.
Shmuel said he and the other Israelis were kept in solitary confinement for 40 to 45 days. And he said his eyeglasses for his far-sightedness were taken from him when he was arrested and never returned.
“Every time I asked, they said they were looking for them,” he said. “Then they said that someone threw them in the garbage.”
Shmuel’s mother, Katie, said: “Only a person who wears glasses can imagine what it is like to go two months without glasses. He couldn’t see and had headaches because of it.”
They were arrested in New Jersey after two women told police they were speaking a foreign language and taking smiling pictures of each other as the World Trade Center burned in the background.
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Dozens of Israeli Jews Are Being Kept in Federal Detention
Why Jews specifically when Israel citizenry consists of ethnic denominations from all over the world including those of Islamic persuasion, by Tamar Lewin and Alison Leigh Cowan,
The five aroused attention in New Jersey after people noticed them going to unusual lengths to photograph the World Trade Center ruins and making light of the situation. One photograph developed by the F.B.I. showed Sivan Kurzberg holding a lighted lighter in the foreground, with the smoldering wreckage in the background, said Steven Noah Gordon, a lawyer for the five.
As objectionable as their behavior may be, Mr. Gordon said of their long incarceration, "It's not a crime and they were being treated as if it was."
The five were asked to take polygraph tests before being allowed to leave. But Paul Kurzberg refused on principle to divulge much about his role in the Israeli army or subsequently working for people who may have had ties to Israeli intelligence, Mr. Gordon said. His client had trouble with one seven-hour polygraph test administered last week, but did better on a second try.
Mr. Kurzberg's lawyer said it was his understanding that Attorney General John Ashcroft had to sign off on his release.
October 29, 2001, Ha'aretz, Senior U.S. officials join effort to free 5 Israelis held in Brooklyn,
NEW YORK - Deputy U.S. Secretary of State Richard Armitage and two prominent New York congressmen are helping with efforts to release five Israelis arrested a few hours after the September 11 terrorist attacks, and held in Brooklyn under harsh conditions.
In a conversation with Israel's ambassador to the U.S., David Ivri, Armitage promised to look into the matter. Ha'aretz has also learned that two New York congressmen are trying to have their release speeded up. The relevant sources asked not to identify the congressmen.
Israel's Consul General in New York, Alon Pinkas, told Ha'aretz yesterday he plans to visit the five today and will ask the warden of the holding facility to improve their living conditions. Holding conditions for four of the Israelis were recently improved, but for some unclear reason, not for the fifth.
The five worked for a New Jersey moving company. They were arrested after they went up on the roof of a building and posed grinning for photographs with the burning Twin Towers in the background. Police found a large amount of cash in their car and suspected them of being members of a terrorist group.
In the subsequent investigation, it emerged that the five did not have permits to be living and working in the United States. Deportation orders were slapped on the five when Israeli officials became involved. The orders were issued ten days ago, but the five are still being held in Brooklyn.
April 28th, 2010, Hudson County Facts, Israeli Intelligence operations in Hudson County and 9/11,
Northeastern New Jersey—Another Vital Center of Operations for Both Sides
a. Hudson and Bergen Counties: The Operating Base of the Israeli New Jersey Group,
While the Israeli DEA groups were active in Hollywood and elsewhere in the United States, another group of Israelis (the “Israeli New Jersey Group” and, collectively with the Israeli DEA Groups, the “Israeli Groups”) was operating in Hudson and Bergen Counties in northeastern New Jersey. The Israeli New Jersey Group appears to have been unknown to federal and state law enforcement authorities until September 11, 2001.
On that day, immediately after the first aircraft, the North Tower Plane, crashed into the World Trade Center, a resident of Bergen County, New Jersey, just across the Hudson River from lower Manhattan, became alarmed when she saw a group of men celebrating “on the roof of a white van in the parking lot of her apartment building.”77 She wrote down the license number of the van and called the police. The police were told that the men were “posing, dancing and laughing against the background ”78 of the disaster, which could be plainly seen across the river. The men were “smiling and exchanging high-fives.”79 An FBI alert was promptly issued:
76 Spy Rumors Fly on Gusts of Truth, Americans Probing Reports of Israeli Espionage, by Marc Perelman and Forward Staff, the
Forward March 15, 2002.
“Vehicle possibly related to New York terrorist attack. White, 2000 Chevrolet van80 with New Jersey registration with ‘Urban Moving Systems’ sign on back seen . . . at the time of first impact of jetliner into World Trade Center. Three individuals with van were seen celebrating after initial impact and subsequent explosion. FBI Newark Field Office requests that, if the van is located, hold for prints and detain individuals.”81
The men were five Israeli citizens, Sivan Kurzberg (the driver of the van), Paul Kurzberg, Yaron Shmuel, Oded Ellner and Omer Marmari. The van was finally stopped in East Rutherford, New Jersey at 3:56 P.M. The driver and passengers were arrested by Sergeant Rivelli and Officers DeCarlo and Yannacone of the East Rutherford Police Department.
77 Transcript of ABC News telecast, June 21, 2002.
78 Statement of Steven N. Gordon, Esq., counsel for the five members of the group, as reported in Yediot America on November 2, 2001.
79 Ibid.
80 Vans of various makes were also, of course, the common means of transportation for the Israeli DEA Groups, and Chevrolet vans were used by Israeli DEA Groups in New York, Dallas, Chicago and San Diego. DEA Report, paragraph 113, p. 33, paragraph 26, p. 9; paragraph 21, p. 8; and paragraph 119, p. 35, respectively.
81 As quoted in the Bergen (New Jersey) Record, September 12, 2001. The men may have been witnessed celebrating twice, in
separate locations, once at the time of the impact of the North Tower Plane and a second time when both towers were burning. Compare the FBI statement with the ABC transcript, supra, n. 72, and the statements of the Israelis’ counsel in Yediot America, November 2, 2001.
The local police were soon joined by other law enforcement authorities. Sivan Kurzberg was asked several times to come out of
the van but, fumbling with a black leather pouch, refused to do so. Officer DeCarlo then forcibly removed him. The FBI agents who arrived on the scene or were otherwise involved included Kevin Donovan, Daniel O’Brien and Robert F. Taylor, Jr. The FBI ultimately took control of the individuals, the evidence in the van, and the investigation.
Sources close to the investigation said they found in the van “maps of the city . . . with certain places highlighted,” adding that “it looked like . . . they knew what was going to happen.”82
Yaron Shmuel lied to the police as to where the men were at the time of the World Trade Center attacks, saying that they were on the West Side Highway in New York (not celebrating across the Hudson in New Jersey). He gave his address as 1345 Drexel Avenue in Miami Beach, Florida (not far from Hollywood). Mr. Ellner was carrying $4,700 in a sock-like sack. Sivan Kurzberg told the police at the time of his arrest–
“We are Israeli. We are not your problem. Your problems are [now?] our problems. The Palestinians are the problem.”83
82 Bergen (New Jersey) Record, September 12, 2001.
83 The question in brackets is my own. The quotation, and the above related details of the arrest of the five members of the Israeli New Jersey Group, are all as set forth in greater detail in the Preliminary and Supplemental Police Reports of the arresting officers of the East Rutherford, New Jersey Polic Department, dated September 11, 2001.
All of the men were handcuffed, placed on the grass and given Miranda warnings. A sixth member of the Group, Dominik Suter of Fair Lawn, New Jersey, also an Israeli national and the owner of Urban Moving, was later questioned by the FBI at the company’s offices in Weehawken. The FBI searched Urban Moving’s premises for several hours, and removed boxes of documents and a dozen computer hard drives.84
b. The Leader of the Israeli New Jersey Group Flees to Israel and Becomes an FBI Suspect
When the FBI attempted to interview Mr. Suter once more a few days later, he had fled the United States for Israel along with his family.85 According to the New Jersey State Division of Consumer Affairs, Urban Moving’s premises were closed on September 14, 2001. On December 7, 2001 a New Jersey judge allowed the state to seize its property. Early in 2002, the New York Department of Transportation revoked Urban Moving’s license to do business in that state.86
Dominik Suter is included on the May 2002 FBI Suspect List, along with Mohamed Atta and the other hijackers and suspects, under that name and two others he has apparently used, Omit Suter and Omit Levinson.87 He is given two addresses in New Jersey, his apparent residence in Fair Lawn and an address in Jersey City, very close to that of a number of other FBI suspects.88 Though he had fled, Mr. Suter’s name did not appear on the October 2001 FBI Suspect List. This may be because in early October 2001 the FBI was unaware that Urban Moving was operating in the same area as the future hijackers of the Pentagon Plane and visiting hijackers from Florida including Mohamed Atta (see below).
84 NJ Locations Searched In Connection With Terror Attacks, Associated Press, September 14, 2001.
85 Transcript of ABC News telecast, June 21, 2002; the Forward, March 15, 2002, op. cit., note 76.
86 Ibid.
87 May 2002 FBI Suspect List, pages 17 and 21.
c. Hudson and Bergen Counties: The Staging Ground for the Future Hijackers of the Pentagon Plane
It soon became apparent, however, that Hudson and Bergen Counties were the second most important locus of the future hijackers’ U.S. operation and was the staging ground for the hijacking of the Pentagon Plane. The May 2002 FBI Suspect List shows, unlike its October 2001 predecessor, that all five future hijackers of the Pentagon Plane, Khaled al Mihdhar, Nawaf al Hazmi, Salem al Hazmi, Majed Moqed89 and Hani Hanjour (the pilot) lived or had mailing addresses or were otherwise active in towns closely interspersed, within about a four-mile radius, with the towns of the Israeli New Jersey Group (Weehawken, Jersey City, Fair Lawn and Rutherford). The future hijackers’ towns included Paterson,90 Fort Lee,91 Totowa,92 Hoboken93 and Elmwood Park.94 There were also FBI Suspects in Jersey City,95 Harrison,96 Seacaucus and Hackensack.97 See MAP 3.
88 See MAP 3.
89 No address is given on the October 2001 FBI Suspect List for Majed Moqed and his name is omitted, presumably in error, from the May 2002 FBI Suspect List. But Moqed appears to have been known by May 2002 to have lived in the hijackers’ Paterson apartment.
90 May 2002 FBI Suspect List, pp. 3, 4, 6, 7, 14. Hijacker Timeline, pp. 22, 27, 30, 41.
91 May 2002 FBI Suspect List, pp. 3, 4, 5, 7, 14. Hijacker Timeline, pp. 22, 39.
92 Hijacker Timeline, p. 41
93 May 2002 FBI Suspect List, p. 9.
Atta, al Omari, and Ahmed al Ghamdi, though based in Hollywood and (al Ghamdi) Delray Beach, Florida, were among the
hijackers who had addresses in Paterson, Fort Lee and Elmwood Park as well as in South Wayne. Up to six or more of the hijackers appear to have lived on Union Avenue in Paterson at one time or another between March and August 31, 2001.98
d. The FBI’s Conclusion: The Israeli New Jersey Group
were Mossad Intelligence Operatives Spying on Local
Arabs in Hudson and Bergen_Counties
There have been a number of press reports in the United States on the Israeli New Jersey Group, most notably in the Forward. In the same article that reported on the Israeli DEA Groups, the Forward states that the nature of the FBI’s review of the case changed after the names of two of the five Israelis appeared on a CIA-FBI database of foreign intelligence operatives. This has been confirmed by a former chief of operations for counter-terrorism with the CIA.99 At that point, the FBI launched a foreign counter-intelligence investigation. All five of the men underwent polygraph tests, one of them seven times. At the end of that investigation, the FBI concluded that the Israeli New Jersey Group had been conducting a surveillance mission for Mossad, and that Urban Moving served as a Mossad front.100 They further concluded that the Israelis were “spying on local
Arabs.”101
94 May 2002 FBI Suspect List, pp. 5, 7.
95 May 2002 FBI Suspect List, pp. 10, 15, 16, 17, 19. Hijacker Timeline, p. 53.
96 May 2002 FBI Suspect List, p. 10.
97 May 2002 FBI Suspect List, p. 7.
98 Hijacker Timeline, p. 22. Commission Final Report, p. 230. The May 2002 FBI Suspect List provides a variety of Union Avenue addresses, including the address specified in the Hijacker Timeline. The Commission’s Final Report (p. 230) does not place any Pentagon Plane hijackers in Paterson until May. Other sources place them there in March, when Hanjour and Salem al Hazmi are said to have signed the lease for the Paterson apartment. Hijacker Timeline, p. 22; Connecticut Post (Bridgeport), March 6, 2002 (preparatory hijacker meeting in March in Fairfield, Connecticut just before the move to Paterson).
8. Inadequate Israeli Warnings in August 2001
As noted above, almost immediately after September 11, reports emerged of Israeli warnings, in August, that major terrorist attacks were imminent. On September 16, 2001 the Daily Telegraph (London) reported that Israeli intelligence officials said
that they– “warned their counterparts in the United States last month that large-scale terrorist attacks on highly visible targets on the American mainland were imminent. . . .
99 See transcript of ABC News telecast, June 21, 2002.
100 Marc Perelman, op. cit., March 15, 2002. The Forward’s source was a former American intelligence official who said he was regularly briefed on the investigation by two law enforcement officials acting independently.
101 The Forward’s source in the March article also said the five men were released (Suter had fled to Israel) because “they did not know anything about 9/11.” But this statement needs to be weighed in the light of the men’s demeanor and statements, and the statements of local law enforcement officials, on September 11, 2001, the inclusion of Mr. Suter on the May 2002 FBI Suspect List, and the revelations on that List that Hudson and Bergen Counties were a critical center of operations for the future hijackers and FBI suspects as noted above. The FBI was also under pressure from U.S. political figures to release the members of the Israeli New Jersey Group, including Richard Armitage of the State Department and two New York Congressmen. Senior U.S. Officials Join Effort To Free 5 Israelis Held in Brooklyn, Ha’aretz News, October 29, 2001.
. . . (T)wo senior experts with Mossad, the Israeli military intelligence service, were sent to Washington in August to alert the CIA and FBI to the existence of a cell of as many of 200 terrorists said to be preparing a big operation.
They had no specific information about what was being planned but linked the plot to Osama bin Laden and told the Americans that there were strong grounds for suspecting Iraqi involvement.”102
The Los Angeles Times reported on September 20, 2001 that a “high-ranking U.S. law enforcement official” confirmed that–
“FBI and CIA officials were advised in August that as many as 200 terrorists were slipping into the United States and planning ‘a major assault on the United States . . . .’
The advisory was passed on by the Mossad. . . . It cautioned that it had picked up indications of a ‘large-scale target’ in the United States and that Americans would be ‘very vulnerable’, the official said. It is not known whether US authorities thought the warning to be credible, or whether it contained enough details to allow counter-terrorism teams to come up with a response. But the official said the advisory linked the information ‘back to Afghanistan and [exiled Saudi militant] Osama bin Laden.’”103
102 Israeli security issues urgent warning to CIA of large-scale terror attacks, by David Wastell in Washington and Philip Jacobson in Jerusalem, Daily Telegraph, September 16, 2001.
103 Officials Told of ‘Major Assault’ Plans, By Richard A. Serrano and John-Thor Dahlburg, Los Angeles Times, September 20, 2001. The L.A. Times retracted its story the next day, reporting that the CIA (not the source of the story) later flatly denied the statements, and that the Times’s source, the “high-ranking law enforcement official,” had based his account solely on what he read in the newspapers! The L.A. Times retraction referred to a “British newspaper account,” presumably the Daily Telegraph article. The U.S. law enforcement official’s account, however, as quoted above, said that Mossad had warned of a single “large-scale target” and had warned that the Americans would be “very vulnerable.” Neither statement was included in the Daily Telegraph article. The U.S. official’s account also made no specific mention of an “imminent” attack, and none at all of any “strong grounds for suspecting Iraqi involvement,” both reported by the Daily Telegraph.
Fox News also reported on May 17, 2002 (and apparently also on September 14, 2001)104 that— “based on its own intelligence, the Israeli government provided ‘general’ information to the United States in the second week of August that an al Qaeda attack was imminent.”
Neither the Commission in its Final Report or in its Staff Statements nor the Joint Committee Report specifically mentions any such warning from the Israeli government. These Statements and Reports do, however, defer to our intelligence community’s desire to safeguard and maintain the secrecy of its “sources and methods”. These are likely to have included Israeli warnings and the Israelis’ own sources. But in view of the dramatic questions raised by the Israeli Groups’ activities in the United States in the months leading up to September 11, these sources and methods now need to be disclosed.
As shown in the tabular comparison in Exhibit E, the accounts of Mossad’s warnings in August bear the unmistakable imprints of authenticity. Mossad’s warnings were reported by the Daily Telegraph and others right after September 11, well over two years before the Joint Committee’s report and the publication of the Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) of August 6, 2001. Yet they bear a remarkable similarity to both the Joint Committee’s description of “all-source reporting” and the PDB’s account of “clandestine, foreign government and media reports and recent FBI information.” The key differences, as shown in Exhibit E, are Mossad’s warning that (a) the attacks were imminent, (b) they were to take place on the U.S. mainland, and (c) 200 terrorists were in the United States to carry them out. Mossad also alone warned of “suspected Iraqi involvement,” though
this of course has never been established and is generally considered to be untrue.
104 Fox did not specify its source, and I have not been able to locate its piece of the “14th” to which Fox referred in a telecast of December 12, 2001.
That we did receive warnings of this general nature from Mossad seems more than likely. But the real issue, again, is, given the extensive surveillance by the Israeli Groups of U.S. Arab groups and, in all likelihood, of the future hijackers in their central bases of operation and elsewhere in the United States, were not the Israeli Groups, or some of their members, aware of what was going to happen in advance? Is this not dramatically shown by the behavior of the Israeli New Jersey Group the morning of September 11? And if so, did the Israeli government decide not to provide us with enough information to stop them?
As noted in the next section, the Israelis may have given us warning in late August 2001 of the presence in the United States of Khaled al Mihdhar and Nawaf al Hazmi, resulting in the CIA’s having them placed on the State Department’s Tipoff Watchlist.105 Or this may have been part of the Israeli warnings earlier in August. In either case, the CIA’s and the Commission’s explanation of how these two future hijackers came to be Watchlisted, which makes no mention of Israeli warnings, is highly confusing and, as we shall see, in the end difficult to believe. Even so, the Israeli warning as to the two men would have come too late, for we now know that they were then or soon hiding in an obscure motel in Maryland, from which they did not emerge until September 11.106
105 As the Commission has noted, this would not in any event have prevented Mihdhar and Hazmi from flying, but would have precluded them from obtaining visas, which they already had (they were both here). Staff Statement No. 2, p. 8.
One television documentary cited above (which did not have access to or study in any detail the documents, lists, reports and other information set forth herein, or even any knowledge of the existence of the Israeli New Jersey Group), has put the relevant question bluntly, in the form of a question, an answer and a rhetorical question
“What about this question of advanced knowledge of what was going to happen on September 11? How clear are investigators that some Israeli agents may have known something?”
“It’s very explosive information, obviously, and there’s a great deal of evidence that they say they have collected none of it necessarily conclusive. It’s more when they put it all together. A bigger question, they say, is how could they not have known?” [Emphasis supplied.]107
From
MEMORANDUM TO THE NATIONAL COMMISSION ON TERRORIST ATTACKS UPON THE UNITED STATES
THE SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE
THE HOUSE PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE
September 15, 2004, Israeli Surveillance of the Future Hijackers and FBI Suspects in the September 11 Attacks and Their Failure to Give Us Adequate Warning: The Need for a Public Inquiry,
Saturday, April 24th, 2010, Blind Sheikh Abdul Rahman, head of Journal Square mosque: The one who killed Kennedy was trained for three years.
WALL STREET JOURNAL, November 26, 2001 – In May 1993, three months after the bombing [of the World Trade Center] Sheik Omar was speaking with one of this disciples at his Jersey City, NJ, apartment when the man asked whether it would be acceptable in Islam to bomb the FBI’s Manhattan headquarters. “Slow down; slow down a little bit,” the sheik cautioned, whispering for fear the FBI was bugging his apartment – which it was. “The one who killed Kennedy was trained for three years.” It was never made clear in later court testimony which assassination the sheik was talking about.
Thursday, April 15th, 2010, Michael Chertoff, Dr. Magdy el-Amir and the terrorist intrigue in Jersey City
January 12, 2005, Did Michael Chertoff shield terror ring in New Jersey? by Daniel Hopsicker,
Michael Chertoff, appointed by President Bush to head the Homeland Security Department, may have shielded from criminal prosecution a former client suspected by law enforcement of havingfunneled millions of dollars directly to Osama Bin Laden while in charge of the U.S. Government’s 9.11 investigation.
Egyptian-born Dr. Magdy el-Amir, a prominent New Jersey neurologist, was at the center of terrorist intrigue in Jersey City.
El-Amir gave money to a conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman.
His brother in Cairo was caught on tape attempting to buy weapons from an American undercover agent for Islamic militant groups.
Before being arrested in a terrorist deal involving oil and heroin for guns and training, arms smuggler Diaa Mohsen was paid at least $5,000 by one of Dr. el Amir’s companies, NBC’s Dateline reported.
And his HMO was suspected by law enforcement of being used to funnel money directly to Osama bin laden.
Wire Transfers to “Unknown Parties”
Chertoff’s client “caused more than $5.7 million to be paid by wire transfers to unknown parties,” said the lawsuit filed shortly before the state took over his failing HMO.
News accounts about el-Amir’s legal difficulties contain unanswered questions about undue political influence and its effect on national security.
For example, how did el-Amir, who only the month before had been granted a state license to operate an HMO, finagle a lucrative contract from the state of New Jersey in 1995?
“Why was this doctor allowed to start a health plan?” asked the October 25, 1999 issue of the medical trade journal Medical Economics.
“How could this medical entrepreneur, who had no experience running a managed-care or health insurance company, receive a license for an HMO that now provides care to 44,000 of New Jersey’s most vulnerable citizens?” asked The Bergen Record. “Moreover, how could the state pay such a novice $ 6 million a month in taxpayers money to take on such a responsibility?”
Why did Michael Chertoff even take the case?
Skimming for Osama in New Jersey
Answers were slow in coming, until it was revealed that at the same time el-Amir was pitching state business he had begun making generous contributions to the governing Republican party, donating nearly $ 18,000 to various GOP candidates in 1996.
And a foreign intelligence report made available to the Chairman of the House International Committee alleged that an HMO owned by Dr. el Amir in New Jersey was “funded by Ben Laden,” and that in turn Dr. el Amir was skimming money from the HMO to fund “terrorist activities.”’…
Stuff like that doesn’t happen, does it? In New Jersey?
Barely three years after enrolling its first patient, APPP lay in financial ruins, its network doctors and hospitals were saddled with millions of dollars in unpaid claims, and its founder had retained the services of Michael Chertoff.
Did Chertoff know where the stolen money was going?
“Frankly, we can’t differentiate between terrorism and organized crime and drug dealing,” then-Asst Attorney General Michael Chertoff told the Senate Banking Committee looking into the terrorists’ money trail in the aftermath of 9.11.
“These groups don’t hold themselves independently: They work with one another. Terrorists get engaged in drug activity. They have relationships with organized crime,” Chertoff said.
Paging Tony Soprano
Chertoff was undoubtedly worth every penny Dr. Magdy paid him: though doctors and hospitals calculated they were owed more than $45 million, Dr. ElAmir faced no criminal charges.
When the MadCow Morning News first reported on Mob and terrorist connections to “Magic Dutch Boy” Rudi Dekkers and the covert operations conducted at the Venice Airport, Michael Chertoff was running the official U.S. investigation.
Dekkers remains free.
Magdy el-Amir continues to live and practice in New Jersey.
Now that Chertoff has been tapped to keep America safe, questions are sure to resurface about whether he hadn’t himself been instrumental in helping to make America dangerous.
Documents in the el-Amir case remain under seal. Fortunately, the following information does not. From the Bergen County Record (New Jersey) on January 24, 1999:
“For a while, Magdy Elamir looked like the Horatio Alger of managed care in New Jersey.”
“An Egyptian immigrant who parlayed a storefront medical practice in Jersey City into a multimillion-dollar health-care empire that served thousands of the state’s poorest citizens, he lived in a Saddle River mansion and contributed generously to candidates for political office”…
“His health maintenance organization, American Preferred Provider Plan Inc., is about to be sold by state regulators to salvage some money for doctors and hospitals who calculate they’re owed more than $ 45 million.” Link
In August 2002, NBC’s Dateline reported on the el-Amir case:
“Last fall, DATELINE obtained information about this man, Magdy el Amir. He’s a prominent doctor, a neurologist with a practice in Jersey City. Born and educated in Egypt, he moved to this country about 20 years ago and since then has built a fortune”…
Read the complete article.
The Jersey City terrorism incubator: Blind Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, Magdy Elamir — and others
Monday, April 5th, 2010, Audio of Dave Emory, Sander Hicks and Alan Duncan talking about Magdy Elamir, Michael Chertoff and Osama Bin Laden
September 2, 2004, New Jersey and Terrorism…Perfect Together, By Allan P. Duncan,
Introduction
Between the Fall of 1998 and June 2001, a group of Middle Eastern men living in New Jersey is caught on tape in an ATF weapons sting conspiring to buy millions of dollars of weapons including components for nuclear bombs. Three years after the operation ended, all of the people involved in the deal are free.
I will also examine the history of terror links to the North Jersey area from before the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center right up until 9-11. Michael Chertoff, by the way, was the U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey from 1990-1994 and was in office when the first attack on the World Trade Center took place. For reasons that escape me, the Jersey City area and particularly the Al Salam mosque from which the Blind Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman spewed his hatred, was allowed to continue to be one of the major hubs of terrorist activity in the United States .
Part 1: The Jersey City Rat Pack
This case pales in comparison, however, to a pre-9-11 weapon sting in which a 32 million dollar deal for a ship load of weapons, 500 Stinger Missiles, nuclear triggers, weapons grade plutonium and “heavy water” for a nuclear dirty bomb were the weapons of choice of Middle Eastern men seeking to arm Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban. This case never made screaming headlines when it ended in June 2001 and most people have never head about it. The attacks on 9-11 were three months away and the American press was not as eager to pounce on every story that even mentioned the word terrorist. In addition to the weapons deal, the World Trade Center was specifically mentioned as a future target by one of the characters in this drama and yet none of the people involved in this case are currently in prison. Why?
The Strange Story of Dr. Magdy Elamir
The August 2, 2002 edition of Dateline NBC, brought to light the story of another North Jersey character named Dr. Magdy Elamir.
“Last fall, “Dateline” obtained information about Magdy Elamir. He’s a prominent doctor, a neurologist with a practice in Jersey City . Born and educated in Egypt , he moved to this country about 20 years ago and since then has built a fortune. He lives in a mansion, is generous to local charities and is an active supporter of both political parties.
Should counterterrorism investigators take an interest in Dr. Elamir? Well, “Dateline” obtained a document last fall — foreign intelligence report, that makes a startling allegation about the doctor — that he has had financial ties with Osama bin Laden for years. The report was given to a senior member of Congress, Ben Gilman, back in 1998, when he was Chairman of the House International Relations Committee.
“We have a former FBI person on our staff and I asked him to look it over,” says Congressman Gilman. “He thought it was credible enough to turn it over to the intelligence people. And we turned it over to the FBI practically immediately.”
This was in 1998.
The report alleges that an H.M.O. owned by Dr. Elamir in New Jersey was “funded by ben [sic] Laden” and that in turn Dr. Elamir was skimming money from the H.M.O. to fund “terrorist activities.”
January 12, 2005, Mad Cow Morning News, Did Bush's New Homeland Chief Sheild Terror Ring in New Jersey?
Michael Chertoff, appointed by President Bush to head the Homeland Security Department, may have shielded from criminal prosecution a former client suspected by law enforcement of having funneled millions of dollars directly to Osama Bin Laden while in charge of the U.S. Government’s 9.11 investigation.
Egyptian-born Dr. Magdy el-Amir, a prominent New Jersey neurologist, was at the center of terrorist intrigue in Jersey City.
El-Amir gave money to a conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman.
His brother in Cairo was caught on tape attempting to buy weapons from an American undercover agent for Islamic militant groups.
Before being arrested in a terrorist deal involving oil and heroin for guns and training, arms smuggler Diaa Mohsen was paid at least $5,000 by one of Dr. el Amir's companies, NBC’s Dateline reported.
And his HMO was suspected by law enforcement of being used to funnel money directly to Osama bin laden.
Wire Transfers to "Unknown Parties"
Chertoff’s client "caused more than $5.7 million to be paid by wire transfers to unknown parties," said the lawsuit filed shortly before the state took over his failing HMO.
News accounts about el-Amir’s legal difficulties contain unanswered questions about undue political influence and its effect on national security.
For example, how did el-Amir, who only the month before had been granted a state license to operate an HMO, finagle a lucrative contract from the state of New Jersey in 1995?
“Why was this doctor allowed to start a health plan?” asked the October 25, 1999 issue of the medical trade journal Medical Economics.
“How could this medical entrepreneur, who had no experience running a managed-care or health insurance company, receive a license for an HMO that now provides care to 44,000 of New Jersey's most vulnerable citizens?" asked The Bergen Record. “Moreover, how could the state pay such a novice $ 6 million a month in taxpayers money to take on such a responsibility?”
Why did Michael Chertoff even take the case?
Skimming for Osama in New Jersey
Answers were slow in coming, until it was revealed that at the same time el-Amir was pitching state business he had begun making generous contributions to the governing Republican party, donating nearly $ 18,000 to various GOP candidates in 1996.
And a foreign intelligence report made available to the Chairman of the House International Committee alleged that an HMO owned by Dr. el Amir in New Jersey was “funded by Ben Laden,” and that in turn Dr. el Amir was skimming money from the HMO to fund “terrorist activities.”’…
Stuff like that doesn’t happen, does it? In New Jersey?
Barely three years after enrolling its first patient, APPP lay in financial ruins, its network doctors and hospitals were saddled with millions of dollars in unpaid claims, and its founder had retained the services of Michael Chertoff.
Did Chertoff know where the stolen money was going?
"Frankly, we can't differentiate between terrorism and organized crime and drug dealing," then-Asst Attorney General Michael Chertoff told the Senate Banking Committee looking into the terrorists’ money trail in the aftermath of 9.11.
“These groups don't hold themselves independently: They work with one another. Terrorists get engaged in drug activity. They have relationships with organized crime," Chertoff said.
Paging Tony Soprano
Chertoff was undoubtedly worth every penny Dr. Magdy paid him: though doctors and hospitals calculated they were owed more than $45 million, Dr. ElAmir faced no criminal charges.
When the MadCow Morning News first reported on Mob and terrorist connections to "Magic Dutch Boy” Rudi Dekkers and the covert operations conducted at the Venice Airport, Michael Chertoff was running the official U.S. investigation.
Dekkers remains free.
Magdy el-Amir continues to live and practice in New Jersey.
Now that Chertoff has been tapped to keep America safe, questions are sure to resurface about whether he hadn’t himself been instrumental in helping to make America dangerous.
Documents in the el-Amir case remain under seal. Fortunately, the following information does not. From the Bergen County Record (New Jersey) on January 24, 1999:
“For a while, Magdy Elamir looked like the Horatio Alger of managed care in New Jersey.”
“An Egyptian immigrant who parlayed a storefront medical practice in Jersey City into a multimillion-dollar health-care empire that served thousands of the state’s poorest citizens, he lived in a Saddle River mansion and contributed generously to candidates for political office”…
“His health maintenance organization, American Preferred Provider Plan Inc., is about to be sold by state regulators to salvage some money for doctors and hospitals who calculate they’re owed more than $ 45 million.” Link
In August 2002, NBC’s Dateline reported on the el-Amir case:
“Last fall, DATELINE obtained information about this man, Magdy el Amir. He’s a prominent doctor, a neurologist with a practice in Jersey City. Born and educated in Egypt, he moved to this country about 20 years ago and since then has built a fortune”…
My brother likes tanks, is all.
“Well, take a look at this document obtained by DATELINE last fall. A foreign intelligence report that makes a startling allegation about the doctor, that he has had financial ties with Osama bin Laden for years. The report was given to a senior member of Congress, Ben Gilman, back in 1998 when he was chairman of the House International Relations Committee”…
“The report alleges that an HMO owned by Dr. el Amir in New Jersey was “funded by Ben Laden,” and that in turn Dr. el Amir was skimming money from the HMO to fund “terrorist activities.”’…
“Less than a year after the congressman says the FBI received the report, Dr. el Amir’s HMO was taken over by the state of New Jersey… according to sources close to the investigation, more than $15 million is unaccounted for. Where did the money go? DATELINE has reviewed documents that show at least some of it went into hard-to-trace offshore bank accounts”…
“But the intelligence report suggests one thing that he doesn’t deny, that he has donated money to the mosque where the blind sheik once preached, Omar Abdel-Rahman, who is now in prison for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing”…
“DATELINE has found another reason why federal investigators might want to pay close attention to Dr. el Amir and his family. It’s something we learned when we interviewed Randy Glass, the con man-turned-undercover operative who helped the government break up an illegal weapons ring allegedly tied to terrorist groups. It turns out that one of the people recorded trying to arrange an arms deal with Randy Glass was Dr. el Amir’s own brother, Mohamed, an engineer, also a US citizen now living in Egypt. And just listen to what he was interested in”…
“Mr. GLASS: (From tape) OK. They want to ship things like tanks, correct?”
“Mr. EL AMIR: (From tape) Uh-huh… No, no, no, no, just ammunition, not tanks.”
“Glass says federal agents told him to drop the matter”…
“That same intelligence report that talks about Dr. [Magdy] el Amir also names his brother Mohamed as having ties to Osama bin Laden.” Link
Chertoff for the Defense
The el-Amir’s appear to be intimately linked with Osama bin Laden, making the following report from The Bergen Record quite puzzling, dated December 11, 1998:
“A Superior Court judge on Thursday ordered state Insurance Commissioner… to take control of American Preferred Provider Plan Inc., a health-maintenance organization for Medicaid patients allegedly bled dry by its Saddle River owner, neurologist Magdy Elamir”…
“But in a hint of the gravity of his legal predicament, he was represented in court by Michael Chertoff, the former U.S. attorney in Newark and counsel to U.S. Sen. Alfonse D’Amato’s Whitewater investigation.” Link
Yes, the soon-to-be Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff represented a known bin Laden operative. Perhaps more troubling, Chertoff also headed the U.S.’s investigation into the September 11th attack. From the New Jersey Law Journal, August 4, 2003:
The Sept. 11 investigation was supervised by Assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff, head of the U.S. Criminal Justice Division, who is now a Third Circuit judge.”Link
More on Chertoff from the New Yorker, November 5, 2001:
“Since the September 11th terrorist attacks, Chertoff’s office has become the funnel for what is probably the most important criminal investigation in American history, as prosecutors and F.B.I. investigators pour in to seek the boss’s approval. What leads can we use from the search of a hijacker’s car in Portland, Maine? Where do the hijackers’ credit-card records lead?… For day-to-day decisions, Chertoff has the last word”…
“Graduating from Harvard Law School, in 1978… he served as a model for an intense and brilliant character in his classmate Scott Turow’s book “One L,”…Link
Intense, brilliant...corrupt?
Though el-Amir’s HMO was known to be affiliated with bin Laden since the mid-1990s, Chertoff offers an alternate view of the HMO’s financial statements. From The Record, December 18, 1998:
“Elamir’s attorney, Michael Chertoff, the former U.S. attorney in Newark, offered the doctor’s first in-depth defense to the state charges Thursday, insisting that Elamir had not misappropriated any funds from APPP [el-Amir’s HMO].” Link
Also from The Record, December 16, 1998:
“Michael Chertoff, a former U.S. attorney who is Elamir’s attorney, said the state’s papers don’t give the complete picture of the company’s finances. “It’s a one-sided picture of what’s going on,” he said.” It would be unfortunate if the state’s approach is to find someone to punish, rather than solve the problem.”’
“Chertoff said Elamir would like to work with the state in its effort to rehabilitate the HMO.” Link
Chertoff’s comments on the case made The New York Times on December 18, 1998:
"“Dr. Elamir’s lawyer, Michael Chertoff, said that all transactions were approved by state agencies and that his client has done nothing improper.” Link
The Bergen Record printed a post-trial wrap-up of the case on February 22, 2000:
“A year after a Medicaid HMO accused of misusing state and federal funds was dissolved by the state, its founder is still enjoying a millionaire’s income while the hospitals and doctors who allegedly were defrauded delay programs for the poor and fight for restitution”…
“APPP’s founder, Saddle River neurologist Magdy Elamir, continues to practice medicine in a Jersey City storefront office and lives in a $1.8 million mansion in one of Bergen County’s toniest suburbs, court records show. His car leases alone total $65,000 per year, the records show.”
“The Egyptian immigrant also operates a chain of MRI facilities in Newark, Irvington, and Paterson, a limousine company, and a medical management company. Combined with his medical practice, his income totals more than $ 18,000 weekly, nearly $ 1 million a year, records show.”
A Republican voice for the downtrodden
‘“He’s still in good spirits,” said Michael Chertoff, the former U.S. attorney in Newark whom Elamir hired as his defense lawyer.”
“Public records in the civil case contain no reference to a criminal investigation, but court officials said some documents in the case were under seal. The state Attorney General’s Office would neither confirm nor deny an investigation. The state’s Medicaid fraud division is not involved in the case, a Medicaid spokesman said”…
“Elamir’s property and bank accounts are worth more than $ 8.8 million, according to his financial statement, but mortgages and other liens reduce his net worth to $ 760,000”... Link
Why would New Jersey’s Top Attorney Michael Chertoff represent a person of el-Amir’s relatively modest financial position? Though comfortable, el-Amir had failed to reach millionaire status. Not exactly Chertoff’s typical clientele, as reported by The Bergen Record on June 19, 2000:
“New Jersey is home to about 65,000 lawyers, some of whom are quite good at what they do. But if the state had a First Lawyer, or a Lawyer Laureate, it just might be Michael Chertoff”…
“His counsel is sought by public corporations, politicians, government agencies, and high-profile defendants”…
“Columbia/HCA, the health-care consortium… is the ninth-largest employer in the United States… As the lead attorney for Columbia, Chertoff negotiated a partial settlement of the case in May for about $ 745 million”…
“When he entered private practice, Chertoff said he would not represent drug dealers and mobsters, preferring to work for “decent people.”’ Link
Well, after all, it was only a preference.
At a Glance: Possible Links between N.J. neurologist/terrorist Magdy el-Amir and 9.11 ringleader Mohamed Atta
Magdy El Sayed El Amir
Mohamed El Amir Awad El Sayed
Egypt
University of Cairo
Jersey City, New Jersey
October 21st, 2009, A curious sidebar to 9/11 is Jersey City physician Magdy Elamir.
A curious sidebar to 9/11 is Jersey City physician Magdy Elamir. Dr. Elamir continues to practice at a prominent Summit Avenue location, a block from the Hudson County superior courthouse.
In the ’90s, Dr. Elamir founded an HMO that went belly-up to the tune of $45 million.
Reports allege:
- Magdy Elamir was involved with Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind Sheikh of Journal Square, now serving a life sentence for conspiracy in the ’93 bombing of the World Trade Center.
- A weapons smuggler paid at least $5,000 to an Elamir company.
- Magdy Elamir’s brother in Egypt attempted to buy weapons for Islamic militants from an American undercover agent.
- Papers filed before NJ took over the failing HMO claim that Elamir “caused more than $5.7 million to be paid by wire transfers to unknown parties.”
- Law enforcement suspected that Elamir’s HMO funnelled money directly to Osama Bin Laden. NBC’s Dateline stated that according to a Congressional report, Dr. Elamir “has had financial ties with Osama bin Laden for years.”
Despite the grave and dramatic nature of the news stories, neither has Magdy Elamir been charged, nor have there been any media retractions.
October 18th, 2009, White Van in Liberty State Park, Jersey City on 9/11/2001
Sunday,
Sunday,
Ground Zero as seen from Jersey City on 9/11
On September 11, 2001, after the collapse of the Twin Towers, Jersey City Police radio relayed a FBI alert concerning a white van in Liberty State Park. The report stated that well in advance of the planes crashing into the buildings the vehicle’s occupants had set up camera equipment on the Jersey City side of the Hudson River directly across from the World Trade center. The FBI bulletin directed law enforcement to exercise caution when approaching the van and warned that the occupants might be armed with unconventional, chemical weapons.
Audio recordings of Jersey City Police radio broadcasts identifying the White Van
January 5th, 2010, Clues that many had advance knowledge of 9/11,
In addition to the White van in Liberty Park, there were other clues that many in Hudson County had advance knowledge of 9/11.
The Twin Towers were visible from the window of a Jersey City grammar school. Pointing, a young student of Middle Eastern extraction remarked to the teacher, “My Uncle said that those building are going to come down.”
A Jersey City police officer walked a beat in the Jersey City neigborhood around Journal Square. The small businesses were not mom and pop shops; they were mom, pop, kids, grandparents, cousins, in-laws, etc. shops. In the weeks before 9/11, this police officer noticed that less and less people were behind the counters, in each instance dwindling down to just one man. The police officer inquired about the families. The answer was always the same: “Went back home for a visit.” The follow up question of if there was any sickness or other problem got the same reply: “No, no problem, just went back home for a visit.” Did they leave because they knew in advance about the attacks planned for September 11 and feared civil unrest?
In addition to the White van in Liberty Park, there were other clues that many in Hudson County had advance knowledge of 9/11.
The Twin Towers were visible from the window of a Jersey City grammar school. Pointing, a young student of Middle Eastern extraction remarked to the teacher, “My Uncle said that those building are going to come down.”
A Jersey City police officer walked a beat in the Jersey City neigborhood around Journal Square. The small businesses were not mom and pop shops; they were mom, pop, kids, grandparents, cousins, in-laws, etc. shops. In the weeks before 9/11, this police officer noticed that less and less people were behind the counters, in each instance dwindling down to just one man. The police officer inquired about the families. The answer was always the same: “Went back home for a visit.” The follow up question of if there was any sickness or other problem got the same reply: “No, no problem, just went back home for a visit.” Did they leave because they knew in advance about the attacks planned for September 11 and feared civil unrest?
March 7, 2002, The Telegraph, US arrests 200 young Israelis in spying investigation, by Ben Fenton in Washington,
UP to 200 young Israelis, some of them former members of military intelligence units, have been arrested in America in the past year, a leaked government report disclosed yesterday.
Some had used cover stories to gain access to sensitive government buildings and the homes of American officials. The report said the actions of so
None of the Israelis, about 140 of whom are believed to have been detained before the September 11 attacks, has been charged and most have been deported, according to the US government.
A spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Yaffa Ben-Ari, said it was "nonsense" that they had been spying on America. There has been no formal American allegation of spying by Israel although Tel Aviv has launched espionage operations against its principal ally in the past.
The leaked report was compiled by the Drug Enforcement Administration after some of its offices were allegedly targeted by Israelis posing as art students. "That these people are now travelling in the US selling art seems not to fit their background," the DEA report said.
On Oct 31, the FBI and Immigration and Naturalisation Service officers arrested about 60 young Israelis in San Diego, Kansas City, Cleveland, Houston and St Louis. All had been selling toys at kiosks in shopping centres across America and the FBI is reported to have been investigating this as a front operation for espionage activities.
Before that date, about 140 young Israelis had been detained, some for long periods, by the FBI and other federal agencies.
There is no evidence linking these arrests to the September 11 attacks although some intelligence commentators have pointed to allegations that Israel may have been shadowing Arab militants in America without sharing its knowledge with Washington.
The DEA report said most of the students questioned by American investigators acknowledged having served in units of the Israeli armed forces specialising in military intelligence, electronic signals interception or explosive ordnance.
It added that one person questioned was the son of an Israeli general, another had served as the bodyguard to the head of the Israeli Army and a third served in a Patriot missile unit.
Young Israelis are required to serve in the military and there is a long tradition that after completing their national service they take advantage of their freedom to go out and see the world.
In 1984, Jonathan Pollard, a US naval intelligence officer, was sentenced to life in prison for spying for Israel.me of the Israelis, most of whom had outstayed tourist visas, "may well be an organised intelligence-gathering activity".
August 19, 2009, Calgary Sun, "Israeli art scam" preying on people's kindness, by Renato Gandia,
Gillian Butler suspected she was being scammed by a con artist, who claimed to be an art student from Israel.
Still, the Cochrane woman fell prey and spent $360 for a pair of reproduced canvas paintings, because she wanted to help impoverished students supposedly on an exchange program to Calgary from Israel.
"They're targeting residents who are just moving into their houses because they know they'd need something to put up their blank walls," said Butler.
Last week, a young man came to her door with a portfolio of oil paintings on canvas.
The man claimed that he's a member of a group of Israeli art students.
"When he showed me the art, he also told me stories about the paintings," said Butler.
One piece he showed was supposedly created by a third-year art student and explained to her what technique was used.
"You'd really buy into the whole story."
She was also coaxed into buying frames for the paintings so she could save money because stretching and framing them could be costly.
The framed art works were delivered to her last Thursday by another person who came in a rental van, which raised Butler's suspicion, especially when the delivery man ripped off the packages before walking to her door.
"I was watching from my window," she said.
Butler said she had a feeling something wasn't quite right, but she couldn't pinpoint what.
She went to search for the phrase "Israeli art scam" on the Internet and found entries upon entries of materials written about it.
She also found a website featuring the paintings, which were printed in China and on sale between $15 and $5.
"They probably paid less if they bought the paintings in bulk," said Butler.
As soon as she found out she had been scammed, she cancelled the $500 cheque she gave the delivery man.
RCMP Sgt. Patrick Webb said con artists usually try to make transactions go quicker.
"These people usually want an answer right now because they don't want to waste any time on you if you're going to check into it," he said.
"And if something is too good to be true, it usually is."
March 7, 2002, The Washington Post, U.S. officials dismiss report of Israeli spies, by John Mintz and Dan Eggen,
WASHINGTON — An array of U.S. officials have dismissed reports that the U.S. government had broken up an Israeli espionage ring that consisted of young Israelis attempting to penetrate U.S. agencies by selling artwork in federal buildings.
"This seems to be an urban myth that has been circulating for months," said Justice Department spokeswoman Susan Dryden on Tuesday.
"The department has no information at this time to substantiate these widespread reports about Israeli art students involved in espionage."
Several officials said the allegations — first reported by a French online publication and later by other news organizations — of a massive U.S. probe of Israeli spies appear to have been circulated by a single employee of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) who is angry that his theories have not gained currency.
This week, the Paris-based Intelligence Online service quoted from what it said was a 61-page report by a federal task force, led by the DEA, which said that 120 Israelis posing as art students had been deported as part of an espionage crackdown and that the spy scandal had been hushed up.
But two law-enforcement officials said the disgruntled DEA agent, who disagreed with the conclusion of FBI and CIA intelligence experts that no spying was taking place, appears to be leaking a memo that he himself wrote.
Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) spokesman Russell Bergeron said several dozen Israelis in their 20s had been arrested and deported in the first nine months of 2001 for being employed without proper INS work papers. A law-enforcement official said some were investigated for possible fraud charges.
"These were routine, normal cases," Bergeron said. "I have no knowledge of any espionage-related issues with these people."
DEA spokesman Thomas Hinojosa said that multiple reports of suspicious activity on the part of young Israelis had come into the agency's Washington, D.C., headquarters from agents in the field.
The reports were summarized in a draft memo last year, but Hinojosa said he did not have a copy and could not vouch for the accuracy of news-media reports describing its contents.
May 13, 2002, Ha'aretz, Spies, or students? Were the Israelis just trying to sell their paintings, or agents in a massive espionage ring? by Nathan Guttman,
WASHINGTON - It could be the biggest espionage scandal of the century, or the greatest journalistic non-starter in many a decade, but it's clear that the story of the Israeli art students in New York - dozens of alleged spies living in the United States - refuses to die down. Anyone who believes the story says that everything is accurately documented and confirmed, and that only a conspiracy on the part of the U.S. administration - which is desperate to keep the affair quiet, partly out of shame and partly because of its warm relations with Israel - is keeping the affair out of the spotlight of public discussion. Those who repudiate the affair say it is baseless, just another unfounded urban legend that has taken on a life of its own on various marginal Internet sites.
Either way, the story of the Israeli spies is alive and kicking. The most recent mention of the affair came last week in the highly respected Internet magazine, Salon.com, which recapped the main points of the scandal and even added some new details of its own. The official Israeli response was the same as ever: "Nonsense," they say. The outline of the scandal is the same wherever it is published, with the more respectable journals taking more care over the details and relying more on reports and documented evidence, while the more marginal publications pile on spurious details and compare the scandal to the great conspiracies of the past.
According to reports of the scandal, around 120 young Israeli citizens, posing as art students and selling paintings door-to-door, have been arrested and deported from the United States. The door-to-door sale of art works, it is claimed, was a front for a sophisticated spy ring: the students would turn up at homes and offices - especially at buildings housing federal authorities and military bases, and even went to the homes of those employed in these offices. The students attempted to form friendships with federal employees, photograph their offices, tap their phone lines and infiltrate their databases.
It is also claimed that the spy ring kept tabs on Arab targets inside the United States, including Arab Americans who were in contact with the Al-Qaida network. According to some speculations, the Israelis' intelligence work enabled the spy ring to know in advance of the planned terror attack on September 11, without lifting a finger to prevent it.
Beware students selling art
There is one source for all these stories and it is not an unreliable one. The source is the 60-page draft of an internal report by the intelligence division of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). Thedraft was leaked to the media and its existence was confirmed by spokesmen from the DEA and the Justice Department, which is responsible for running the DEA. But confirming that the report exists is not the same as verifying its contents.
According to the report's author, whose identity has never been published, DEA officials identified an increase in the number of incidents in which young Israelis, claiming to be art students, tried to sell them works of art. "It is entirely possible," said the report, "that this is an organized intelligence-gathering activity."
A warning was sent out by the federal anti-espionage office to other federal agencies in March 2001,warning them to be wary of students trying to sell them art works and gain entry to federal facilities. The document records several encounters between DEA officials and Israelis all over the United States. In one incident, the report documents an attempt to gain entry to the Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City, where the AWACS spy plane and the B-1 bombers are serviced.
What is really keeping this story alive is the claim of a link between the Israeli "students" and Israeli intelligence. The original report, as well as subsequent media reports, say that many of the young Israelis arrested served in the IDF's Intelligence Corps and were involved in operating electronic bugging equipment; one even said he was the son of a senior Israel Defense Forces officer. It took just one small leap to turn this into a conspiracy, whereby all the Israelis arrested were in the pay of the Mossad.
The report also documents how those arrested in the U.S. were connected to Israeli companies that had provided telephony services for American companies and U.S. federal authorities, while also claiming the Israeli companies should be investigated, in case they had installed "back door" services, which would allow some future operative to access the American companies' systems. The DEA, it is claimed, purchased communications equipment worth some $100 million from Israeli companies five years ago, and that is said to be the reason for the widespread Israeli activity around this agency.
One paranoid official
Even though the claims made by the DEA and the various journals that have delved into the affair sound convincing and well-based, so do the Israeli counter-claims. Firstly, say anonymous Israeli representatives in the United States, it is true that more than 100 young Israelis were arrested in the U.S. following the events of September 11 - all of them for immigration and visa infringements. Most of those arrested were deported after being charged by the U.S. immigration service. The sources also admit that many Israelis are currently working illegally in the U.S., occasionally as door-to-door art salespersons.
As far as Israel is concerned, this is the only explanation for the affair, and anything more is just a fabrication based on the original reports, which in itself is based on the paranoia of one government official. There is also an explanation for the military background of the arrested Israelis: every Israeli has a military background, often in the various intelligence units. But this is not easy to explain to the Americans, who see the Israelis as "former intelligence officers" or "retired officers." As for the supposed connection between the young Israelis and various high-tech companies, all the companies mentioned strongly deny any involvement.
Those who deny that there is a spy ring in action also ask why none of the Israelis arrested was ever charged with espionage-related crimes. Why were their cases handled by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), rather than the FBI, which is responsible for investigating spies? And the main question - why did Israel chose the DEA as its espionage target? Those who back the spy theory say that because the DEA is not usually involved in security matters it is easier to infiltrate, and that the DEA's war on the international drug trade has provided it a wealth of information that could be useful to Israel in a wide range of areas.
But while each side of the argument is sticking to its guns, without either party presenting clear evidence that could clear up the affair once and for all, the media is carrying out its own merry dance around a fascinating spy story - whether it's true or not.
The first mention of a mass arrest of Israeli art students on suspicion of involvement in spying was on Fox News on December 12, 2001. The dramatic report stated that around 60 Israelis had been arrested for immigration offenses, but were suspected of spying against the United States, and added that some of those arrested were members of the Israeli military. The report also stated that some of those arrested had failed lie-detector tests.
Instead of raising a storm, however, Fox's story slowly died away and was only briefly reported in the international press. Three months later, however, the affair came back to life, this time on a French Internet site, Intelligence Online. The story was immediately picked up by Le Monde. This time, the reporters claimed to have the entire DEA report, and the number of people arrested climbed to 120.
At this stage, the American media also woke up to the story. News agencies based their reports of the story on a French Internet site and on the official U.S. reaction. The Justice Department confirmed that it had investigated the alleged connection between Israeli students and anti-American espionage; the DEA confirmed that it had prepared a draft report, but did not say what had become of it; the FBI said that it had not received any complaint relating to spying by Israeli students.
The New York Times, according to sources in Washington, looked into the affair but, having concluded that it lacked a suitable factual base, decided not to write about it. The Washington Post, on the other hand, did publish an article, but cast doubt on the veracity of the affair. Post reporters found that the report was written by a "disgruntled [DEA] employee," who was upset that his claims of Israeli espionage were not being treated seriously.
Even this report was not enough to finally kill off the affair. Two weeks later, the New York Jewish weekly, Forward, published a report connecting the spy affair with the arrest in New Jersey, on September 11, of five Israelis whose behavior was defined as suspicious. The five were employed by a moving company and did not have valid work permits. According to Forward, the FBI concluded that the five were on a spy mission on behalf of the Mossad, and that the moving company was nothing more than a front. This story also died out quietly.
The final round of publications started last week with the publication of the art student affair in Salon.com, which repeated all the known details of the affair. It even added a claim that the spy ring was active in more than 40 cities across the U.S., and included offices belonging to the secret service, the FBI and the U.S. military.
Now the story is coming to life once more, with news agencies and at least one national television station regurgitating all the details. The American public will continue to be divided over the truth behind the so-called spy ring, with some believing that the original DEA report was the work of a problematic employee and others convinced that shadowy government officials are involved in covering up the exposure of one of the largest spy rings ever to operate on American soil.
March 2001 Volume 1, Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive, CIND (Counterintelligence News and Developments) Suspicious Visitors to Federal Facilities,
In the past six weeks, employees in federal office buildings located throughout the United States have reported suspicious activities connected with individuals representing themselves as foreign students selling or delivering artwork. Employees have observed both males and females attempting to bypass facility security and enter federal buildings.
If challenged, the individuals state that they are delivering artwork from a studio in Miami, Florida, called Universal Art, Inc, or that they are art students and are looking for opinions regarding their work. These individuals have been described as aggressive. They attempt to engage employees in conversation rather than giving a sales pitch.
Federal police officers have arrested two of these individuals for trespassing and discovered that the suspects possessed counterfeit work visas and green cards. These individuals have also gone to the private residences of senior federal officials under the guise of selling art.
Other reporting indicates that there may be two groups involved, and they refer to themselves as "Israeli art students." One group has an apparently legitimate money- making goal while the second, perhaps a non-Israeli group, may have ties to a Middle Eastern Islamic fundamentalist group.
Federal employees observing any activity similar to that described above should report their observations to appropriate security officials.
October 7, 2002, The Art Student Story Resurfaces,
Two estimable blog owners, Charles Johnston and the Shark himself, have been gulled by a German Die Zeit piece Sharkansky has had translated here. It's basically a retelling of the leaked DEA memo about an Israeli fraud ring involving fake "art students" that was working in the U.S. in early 2001. The full memo's here. This was previously used by Justin Raimondo of antiwar.com and others to prove their wild-assed theories about Israeli involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks. The Shark is now citing it as evidence that the Mossad at least knew, and hence U.S. intelligence probably did as well, about Mohammed Atta and friends. This is somewhat more sane, but given the quality of the evidence, hardly compelling. Here's a few of the obvious problems with the Die Zeit piece:
Die ZEIT obtained the 61-page final report, according to which, 120 Israelis, organized into cells of four to six persons, formed a tightly organized and efficient espionage network.
The memo never concludes that the art student ring was definitely an espionage network. That's Die Zeit talking. The memo lists 125 names in an appendix at the back... not all are "art students." The memo says they were actually organized in groups of 8-10, not 4-6.
The Israelis were arrested, interrogated and subsequently deported.
Many Israelis without proper documents were deported following Sept. 11. There is no public evidence how many, if any of those students previously identified as part of the "art ring" were among them, even if they were still in the country at that time. Few, if any, were arrested or deported for their activities prior to Sept. 11, and certainly none for "espionage."
Both [Sept. 11 conspirators Atta and Al-Shehi] lived in Hamburg before they settled in Hollywood, Florida in order to plan the attacks.
Atta and Al-Shehi lived in Hollywood, Florida for a little over one month in all, arriving in early May, 2001 and leaving on June 13. That's not "settling," and the planning of the attacks was obviously well underway by that point.
A Mossad team was also operating in the same town. The leader, Hanan Serfati, had rented several dwellings. "One of Serfati's apartments was located on the corner of 71st St. and 21st Ave. in Hollywood, right near the apartment of Atta and al-Shehi.", French intelligence reported later.
There is no 71st St. and 21st Avenue intersection in Hollywood, to start with. As you can read below, the DEA picked up a group of Israelis for questioning on March 1, 2001, including Hanane Sarfati, 24 (also referred to as Hanan Serfaty in the DEA memo; the French report has yet another spelling), Eli Cohen, 23, and Oshirt Zaguri, 23. Cohen and Zaguri gave their addresses as apartments 207 and 4205 respectively in the building at 701 S. 21st Street. Apparently French intelligence has trouble understanding American address nomenclature. Anyway, two and a half months later, on May 13, Atta and Al-Shehi moved into their own rented apartment at 1818 Jackson Street, a half mile south west of the place Cohen and Zaguri had been staying at. (They apparently picked the place after a couple nights at the Bimini Motel Apartments, several kilometres east). There is no evidence the two pairs of Mediterranean tourists were ever renting their respective apartments at the same time: obviously spying on Atta when Atta was actually IN TOWN would have been too easy for these highly trained Mossad SpyKids (23? Come on...), so they decided to do their spying months before he even ARRIVED.
The chief Israeli agent was staying right near the post office where the terrorists had a mailbox.
This was the piece of info that got Justin Raimondo convinced the Israelis were behind Sept. 11. For the record, four of the terrorists who arrived in June used the Mailbox Rentals store at 3389 Sheridan, in Hollywood, as their address while in the U.S. Mr. Sarfati (or whatever) was living in an apartment at 4220 Sheridan, about half a mile west, when the DEA picked him up in March.
Here once again, is the story of how that "tightly organized and efficient Mossad team" was fingered and picked up by the brilliant police work of the DEA, according to the DEA's own report. Note the particularly clever spylike behaviour bolded below. It can be hard to fathom the complex workings of these superspies, who were in this country cleverly disguised as stupid petty criminals. I know it would be easy to conclude from the paragraphs below that these were really a bunch of kids working a simple con game, who then turned scared and witless after they were picked up by the cops, but you have to realize that's all part of their cunning, secret-squirrel plan, the details of which only a supergenius of Justin Raimondo's calibre could derive from the raw field report details below. If it helps, try humming the "Mission Impossible" theme in your head while you read it:
"76. On March 1, 2001, at approximately 3:00 p.m., SA Kevin McLaughlin of theTampa DO [DEA office] responded to a knock at one of the fifth floor office doors. (It should be noted that the Tampa DO occupies the fourth and fifth floors of a First Union bank Office building. The reception area is on the fourth floor, with the fifth floor doors being locked, and possessing no signs of identification.) At the door was a young female who immediately identified herself as an Israeli art student who had beautiful art to sell. She was carrying a crudely made portfolio of canvas, matted, but unframed pictures... When asked her name, she identified herself as Bella POLLCSON, and pointed out one of the paintings was signed by that name. She then changed her story and said that the paintings were not for sale, but that she was there to promote an art show in Sarasota, FL, and asked for the agents' business cards so that information regarding the show could be mailed to them. She was not able to say when, or where the show would take place. After this discrepancy, the agents began to question her more closely, and her responses were evasive at best. When asked whom she was with, she stated that she was dropped at this office building by her Team Leader, who knew everything and could answer more questions. The Team Leader was described as a male driving a red van, dropping off this female, with another four females and a male.The DEA memo goes on to state that checking with local police showed that this group had been canvassing parts of the Tampa-Fort Lauderdale area with their phony art for at least a week previously. As I said back in May, the DEA efficiently identified the ringleader of all these silly groups of Israeli kids (Serfaty's team was one of many, it's true) as Michael Calmanovic, a resident of Irving, TX, current phone number 972-252-4504. So if Congress or anyone else really thought this was ever worth their time (Charles? Shark?), it wouldn't be hard.
"77. Tampa DO agents then began searching the area around the Tampa DO office and found the individuals described by the young female. Two of the girls were on a street corner near another busy office complex area and as agents were speaking with them, the red van pulled up. All were escorted to the Tampa DO for questioning.
"78. Agents from the Tampa DO then interviewed each of the subjects. Through identification that was produced, it wat revealed that the female who approached the Tampa DO and identified hersclf as Bella POLLCSON, was now identified as Inbal VAKSHI. The other subjects were: Sussie OSHRA, Keren KUZNITZ, Keren MATATIA, Livnat SELLA, Eli COHEN, Oshirt ZAGURI, Rachel KENDEL, and Hanan SERFATY. SERFATY, the driver of the red van, was identified as the Team Leader. All of the subjects gave ambiguous answers to the agents, but keeping to the story that they were Israeli art students.
79, VAKSHI produced an Israeli identification card, an Israeli passport, a student identification card, and a Florida driver's license for Sarah Minna SASSOON. VAKSI stated that she had received the license from a friend of hers who was no longer living in Florida.
"80. S/A David Keikin interviewed subject Hanan SERFATY. SERFATY stated that he served in the Israeli military between the ages of 18-21. He further indicated that he arrived in the U.S. approximately one year ago at the age of 23. When questioned as to what he did between the ages of 21 and 24, he refused to answer. The interviewing agent indicated that SERFATY's command of the English language was excellent, even the utilization of slang words. SERFATY indicated that he resides in Hollywood, FL, with a phone number of (954) 478-1006. He further related that he purchases the paintings from an Anglo male, TOM for $8.00-$15.00/piece, In turn, each piece of artwork is subsequently sold for $50-80. TOM allegedly resides in Hollywood/Ft. Lauderdale area, and reportedly has a storage unit in south Florida where he keeps the artwork to be picked up.
"81. It should be noted that in SERFATY's possession were deposit and withdrawal slips for Washington Mutual Bank account #038300002297689, dating, from December 19, 2000 through February 21, 2001. The fifty-one (51) slips were for transactions at various banks in Dade and Broward County, FL, banks, specifically in Coral Gables, Miami, Hollywood, Aventura, and Tamarac, The deposits for the timeframe totaled $93,252,00, with withdrawals totaling $86,000. Also in SERFATY's possession were four (4) deposit slips for First Union Bank account #1010017986436, from February 26, 2001 through March 1, 2001, totaling $14,250."
You can read more about this Israeli fraud ring, and how people have mistaken it for something else, in the Flit entries for May 15.
May 15, 2002, RAIMONDO'S SMOKING GUN,
(See previous entry) It's actually kind of interesting to see how far our favourite antiwar.com writer had to stretch the truth of this DEA memo to "prove" Israeli culpability in Sept. 11.
Example 1: paragraphs 53-57 describe how the INS interviewed 3 Israeli computer programmers that flew into Dallas. One had a printout with the word "DEA" on it in his luggage. There was NO other connection between them and the rest of this story. Raimondo, however, describes them as "on their way to join their fellow 'art students'... something tells me these are no ordinary art students." Given that the only thing connecting them to the art ring was they were Israelis visiting the U.S at the same time, I suppose he's technically correct.
Example 2: One group of art sellers was apprehended (paras 76-82) when one girl knocked on an unmarked DEA office door in a Tampa bank building. To Raimondo, that's "a group [sic] of these "students" were apprehended trying to enter a locked, unmarked office." (The leader of the group had been depositing a lot of cheques recently... can't for the life of me think why a con man would have money like that, can you?)
Example 3: A wife of a DEA agent (para 135-7), had "virtually no dialog" with an individual selling art on her street and "immediately closed the door" on him. Raimondo: "One of the "students" tried to gain entry into [the agent's] home – no doubt, I am told, in order to plant a bugging device."
Example 4: One art seller was noticed while trying to enter a back door to a Richmond, Va DEA office (paras 131-32). Raimondo calls this a "break-in."
Example 5: Four sellers were picked up in Midwest City, OK, and held on visa violations (paras 175-77). Raimondo: they were "spies... nabbed... in the vicinity of Tinker AFB."
Example 6: Two Israeli tourists were picked up taking photos of a runway on a Wisconsin Air National Guard base (paras 178-82). One reacted angrily when asked if he'd ever been involved in the art ring. They asked to phone the Israeli embassy. Raimondo: "no doubt to receive further orders."
Example 7: The clincher for Raimondo, proving the art students' involvement in Sept. 11. Quoting another crackpot, he writes:
"An address for the Sept. 11 hijacking leader, Mohammad Atta, is 3389 Sheridan St. in Hollywood, Fla., only a few blocks and a few hundred feet from the address of some of the Israelis, at 4220 Sheridan."
Actually, that's not quite accurate. 3389 Sheridan Street is the address of a Mailbox Rentals store which was a mail drop for 4 of the other hijackers (Atta was not one of them). One (not some) of the Israeli art sellers apparently had an apartment on the same street around the same time. And according to Mapquest, the two addresses are about a kilometre apart, not a "few hundred feet."
There's Justin's smoking gun. That's the whole evidence trail, laid out before you, that has him crowing of proof positive that Israel was behind Sept. 11. The man's articulate: I can't believe the guy doesn't see how weak a collective body of evidence it is. But once you're on your "antiwar" horse, I'm sure it's devilishly hard to get off... maybe the only thing left to do is play the busted flush for all its worth. Either that or he's an anti-Semitic idiot. Your call.
PS: Okay, let's peek through into Justin's Bizarro world for a sec and assume for argument's sake that the 24 year-old Israeli "art student," Hanane Sarfati (also referred to in the memo as Hanan Serfaty), whose apartment was a kilometre down the street from where the 4 hijackers were picking up their mail, was actually a spy, keeping tabs on Atta and co (or as Raimondo suggests, giving the hijackers their orders). So why was he:
a. Driving around his team of 6-8 art students, all in their early 20s, in a red van in Tampa, conveniently for investigators with all his bank deposit records on him?
b. Having one of his team go knock on the door of a Tampa DEA office?
c. Having other members of the team selling art all day in office building lobbies in Tampa and Fort Lauderdale?
d. Being so conspicuous that his team is repeatedly picked up by the authorities and questioned?
Atta was controlled/being surveilled by this crew? Come on...
Posted by BruceR at 10:31 PM
THE ISRAELI ART STUDENT MYSTERY
The Israeli conspiracy theorists continue to look for evidence that Israeli intelligence is somehow connected with Sept. 11. The U.S. has long been concerned about transfer of U.S. weapons technology to third-parties by the Israeli arms industry, particularly to China. They also got a rude awakening when one of their own spies, Jonathan Pollard, turned his coat and gave secrets to the Israelis in the mid-1980s. Rumours of Israeli spying have hovered around the edges of American consciousness more and more in the last five years... in early 1997, Bill Clinton told Monica Lewinsky he believed a "foreign embassy" was bugging his phones, widely seen as an accusation directed at Israel. Carl Cameron of Fox News has singlehandedly created a cottage industry around collecting Israeli spying claims, none of which have stood up to much scrutiny.Akin to those is the recent "Israeli art student" story. What the Washington Post describes as a "disgruntled" DEA employee leaked a 60-page memo he wrote compiling contacts between federal agents and self-proclaimed art students going door to door, both at their homes and offices, over the last couple years: apparently he believed it worthy of further investigation, but his superiors were not convinced. That memo is now available online, here, so everyone can draw their own conclusions. It's a fairly detailed summary of raw field reports, which added up seem really impressive, but likely aren't. There certainly does seem to be some kind of Israel-based fraud ring selling cheap paintings in the United States, using illegal immigrant labour... the suggestion however that these kids driving around in vans full of knock-offs are serious spies, or even targeting agents, have to be taken with a grain of salt. A revealing paragraph is this one:
94. [Student Nimrod] SIMKIN explained that they are part of a group of Israeli students who are working to earn money so that they may continue their education in Israel. All of the students travel to the United States on tourist visas and pay for their own airfare and living expenses. They remain in the U.S. for a period of four months then return to Israel. SIMKIN did not know how many students participate in this program but stated that in addition to himself and the three females currently with him there are three other students residing in Ft. Lauderdale. These students learn of this opportunity in Israel and they are put in touch with a several outlets where they purchase paintings out of pocket. The students then sell the paintings and they retain any profit for themselves.
Here's another one, in which a real Israeli intelligence officer tries to tip off American authorities while passing through:
125. On December 12, 2000, Shay ASHKENAZI, male, Israeli, DOB: 11-12-74, Israeli Passport number 6847902, arrived at the SEA TAC International Airport via Northwest Airlines flight 33 from Tel Aviv, Israel. He was referred for secondary inspection by the I&NS Inspectors. As reported by I&NS Intelligence officer Omar N. Nuri, ASHKENAZI stated he was a former Israeli intelligence officer, and was now traveling to "enjoy life". He claimed to have been in the U.S. in April 2000, when he was involved in a car accident in South Carolina. The purpose of this trip was to finalize the case with his attorney and to receive medical treatment. ASHKEHAZI volunteered information that a fraud scheme involving Israeli nationals was taking place in the U.S. He stated that young male and female Israelis are being recruited in Israel to enter the U.S. with B-1/B-2 tourist visas and be employed as door-to-door salesmen of paintings that are shipped to the U.S. from Israel. He claimed that one of the individuals involved in this is "Mikaeel" (sic) and is present in Texas operating this business.
PS: The memo identifies the "spies'" ringleader as Michael Calmanovic of Irving, Texas. Phone no from Infobel: 972-252-4504... I suppose you could always phone him and ask him how he's planning to subvert the Drug Enforcement Agency, if you wanted. (Never let it be said I don't try to make journalists' lives easier.) But if it's true he's a nogoodnik and this was all it took to identify Israel's top spy in the United States, that would make this the worst. Spy Ring. Ever...
Update: Justin Raimondo says this memo is damning evidence that of course the Israelis knew about Sept. 11 in advance!
With the publication of "the ‘Israeli Art Student’ Papers," however, we are faced with only two possible explanations:
The Israelis knew, but didn’t tell us, and [Carl] Cameron’s surmise is confirmed, or:
The Israelis knew and did tell us, but the incompetence of the US government got in the way of effective preventive action.
Posted by BruceR at 03:49 PM
SO WHO WAS "Z"? Students
SO WHO WAS "Z"?Students of Israeli journalism have their own little mystery, similar to the "Who Was Deep Throat?" mystery in the United States.
In 1982, at the height of the Lebanon war, well known Israeli writer Amos Oz published an interview in the journal Davar with "Z" (in some translations, "C"), which stunned Israel. Z is described as 50 years old then, "well known for his (military) actions... associated with famous operations" blond, stocky, affluent (with servants and plantations), with a scar on his neck; a heavy smoker. The interview caused a sensation: many at the time thought "Z" was Defence Minister Ariel Sharon.
Among Z's more famous quotes:
Even today I am willing to volunteer to do the dirty work for Israel, to kill as many Arabs as necessary, to deport them, to expel and burn them... Even if it means blowing up one or two synagogues here and there, I don't care. And I don't mind if after the job is done you put me in front of a Nuremberg Trial and then jail me for life. Hang me if you want, as a war criminal.
Recently, that quote in particular has repeatedly cropped up as a Sharon attribution. This is despite the fact that Oz, despite being a vocal opponent of Sharon and his policies as prime minister, has said Z was not Sharon, that he's never interviewed Sharon, and that Z himself died 11 years ago.
Which leads to the inevitable followup question: so who WAS this Z? One leading suspect is Mordechai "Motta" Gur, who commanded the brigade that took Jerusalem in 1967. However, Gur died of cancer in 1995, not in the early 90s as Oz suggested. Oz, who like Bob Woodward, has never revealed the name of his source, has never confirmed or denied any suggestion other than to say it was not Ariel Sharon.
Posted by BruceR at 11:58 AM
March 22, 2002, Antiwar.com, THE TRUTH, AT LAST: Leaked gov't report exposes Israeli spy ring,
In the gray, matter-of-fact bureaucratese so typical of a government document, the leaked "Israeli Art Student Papers" – posted on Antiwar.com yesterday – confirm what we have been saying in this space all along: that an underground apparatus of Israeli covert agents, centered in the southwestern US but extending nationwide, carried out extensive operations in the months prior to 9/11. Their targets were US government offices, including not only the Drug Enforcement Administration (as previously reported), but the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Federal Protective Service, the Bureau of Alchohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF), the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and a host of state and federal courthouses and other buildings, as well as military bases. There is no longer any doubt about whether the spy ring existed. Now we are left with the nagging question: what was its purpose?
UP TO NO GOOD
The leaked document – provided to us by the heroic John Sugg, ofCreative Loafing(Atlanta) and the Weekly Planet (Tampa) -- describes in excruciating detail the doggedly persistent efforts of Israelis claiming to be "art students" to get into the offices and even the homes of federal law enforcement agents and government officials. In this 60-odd page report, incident is piled on incident until, at a certain point, even the most mentally challenged reader -- even one who wants to give the Israelis the benefit of every doubt -- is forced to conclude that our friends, the Israelis, were up to no good: and, perhaps, far worse than that….
AN OVERVIEW
We are given, first, a broad overview of this covert operation, where the reader learns about:
The timeframe: these Israeli covert ops have been going on, we are told, "since at least the beginning of 2000," right up until the weeks before 9/11.
The geography: the operation extended from California to Florida, and, although concentrated in the southwest and Florida, included at least 40 states. According to the report:
"The Hollywood, Florida, area seems to be a central point for these individuals, with several having addresses in this area."
The personnel: a majority of Israeli agents intercepted and interrogated by US law enforcement agencies, including but not limited to the DEA, the INS, and the FBI, served in intelligence, electronic intercept, and explosive ordnance units of the Israeli army.
SECURITY ALERT!
DEA Internal Security became aware of a systematic effort to bypass security at their various offices in January of 2001, and the next month an official Security Alert was issued, instructing agents to watch for and detain these "art students" as they tried to talk their way into the offices and homes of DEA personnel. Just how these "students" found the home addresses of a large number of government employees is what apparently shocked somnolent federal agencies into action.
THIS IS A RAID
By the end of March, 2001, several law enforcement agencies were on the lookout for these students of Israeli "art," and 13 were busted in Irving, Texas, on immigration charges, and detained. The detainees were interrogated, revealing that the two principals of the operation were Itay Simon and Michael Calmanovic (pp. 12-13, paragraphs 39-41). The former was identified as in charge of the overall operation by an unidentified Israeli, while the latter was tagged as the leader of the Texas operation. Calmanovic had rented a number of apartments at two apartment complexes, and the landlady at one of them said that the approximately 25 Israelis in five different apartments had hurriedly abandoned the place right after the first 13 were busted.
HIDDEN RIDGE
Calmanovic and Simon were tracked down to another apartment complex, Hidden Ridge Apartments, also in Irving, where they were interrupted in the process of making their escape (p. 15, paragraph 49). Simon told his interrogators that he "did ‘classified work for the Israeli army.’" According to the report, "Simon refused to answer questions about his military service" As for Calmanovic, he stated that he was a recently discharged "electronic intercept operator for the Israeli military" (p. 15, paragraph 50).
THE AMDOCS CONNECTION
Both were arrested on immigration charges, and held on $50,000 bond. "This bond was immediately posted," the report says, but we are not told by whom. In another case of arrested "art students" of the Israeli persuasion, we aretold who posted bail: one Ophir Baer, an employee of AMDOCS (p. 13, paragraph 42), an Israeli-based company that has a virtual monopoly on phone-billing in the US, and is mentioned prominently both by Carl Cameron of Fox News and Paul Rodriguez of Insight magazine in their respective exposés of Israeli penetration of US communications systems. The octopus, once rattled, began to surface….
AN OMINOUS SENSE
Reading the leaked document is a strange experience. The cumulative effect of these dry-as-sand descriptions of incident after incident of attempted penetration of US government offices and officials’ homes is to instill, in the reader, an ominous sense of growing urgency. The plot-line, as it slowly develops, is clear by the time we get to page 17, paragraph 54: this section describes an encounter with yet more "discharged" Israeli special operations officers at Dallas Fort Worth airport, on their way to join their fellow "art students." One of them has a printed-out "read-me" file in his luggage with a reference to a file named "DEA Groups." Something tells me these are no ordinary "art students"…
AN INTERESTING GUY
According to the report, on March 23, 2001, the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) issued a National Security Alert that described "the apparent attempts by Israeli nationals to learn about government personnel and office layouts." In St. Louis, they were caught "diagramming" the DEA building (p. 23, paragraph 71). At the Tampa District Office of the DEA, in March 2001, a group of these "students" were apprehended trying to enter a locked, unmarked office on the fifth floor of the building, which no ordinary member of the public would even realize is a DEA office. Included in the haul was one Hanan Serfaty, 24, who told his interrogators that he had served in the Israeli army between the ages of 18-21:
"When questioned as to what he did between the ages of 21-24, he refused to answer" (p. 27, paragraph 80).
An interesting guy, made even more fascinating by a number of documents in his possession: 51 deposit and withdrawal slips from various Florida banks, totaling $107,502 in deposits, and $86,000 in withdrawals. Pretty good money for a poor Israeli "art student" trying to sell enough paintings to get by.
A SMOKING GUN
One particularly telling incident took place on May 3, 2001. When Peer Segalovitz, 27, showed up at the DEA Orlando District Office, peddling his line about being an "Israeli art student," federal agents pounced on him, detaining and interrogating him for four hours. According to the report:
"[He] was untruthful about his reasoning to be in the US for approximately the first three hours. Segalovitz finally admitted that he was one of approximately 30 Israeli art students who are currently in Florida. [He] would not admit what their purpose was in Florida, but did state that they were not here for legitimate means" (p. 31, paragraph 96).
This innocent "art student" had been a platoon leader in the Israeli army; he and his men, Segalovitz told his interrogators, "specialized in demolition." He also begged the federal agents "not to divulge this information to Israel, because it would lead to his arrest in Israel." To add a real cloak-and-dagger note to this affair, a car that had been parked outside the Orlando office as Segalovitz was being interviewed "sped away" when approached.
A RIVER NAMED DENIAL
Other highlights of this amazing document: the wife of a member of the DEA’s Office of Investigative Technology related an incident during which one of the "students" tried to gain entry into her home – no doubt, I am told, in order to plant a bugging device – and was shown "the photographs of the individuals who have been included in the Security Alert Bulletin." So we know that at this point – mid-March, 2001 -- the investigation was active and ongoing: an investigation that the US government now denies.
A QUESTION OF DEMEANOR
In Richmond, Virginia, one of the Israeli "students" tried to break into DEA District Office, and was apprehended. Tinker Air Force Base, in Oklahoma City, was also targeted: after an alert was issued, four spies were nabbed in the vicinity, and arrested. Volk Field Air National Guard Base, in Camp Douglas, Wisconsin, saw an incursion by two young Israeli nationals, who were observed photographing the facilities and subsequently taken into custody. Both were asked if they had been involved in selling artwork in this country, and one, Gal Cantor,
"Became very up over this, and questioned [why] they were being asked about that…. Sgt. Kurt Moore of Volk Field stated that when asked about the art sales, Kantor’s whole demeanor changed, and he became uncooperative."
Yeah, I’ll just bet his demeanor changed: perhaps the color ran out of his face, as he realized the jig was up. Naturally, both "students" asked to telephone the Israeli embassy, no doubt to receive further orders. But what were theiroriginal orders?
DUAL MISSION
To begin with, the primary mission of any spook is surveillance – and the persistent attempts to enter offices and residences of US government employees clearly point to an effort to plant bugging devices, as well as provide photographic and other intelligence on the physical layout of federal and military facilities. Another purpose, however, was more specific and limited to the peculiar circumstances of this particular operation, which, you’ll remember, took place in the months leading up to 9/11. As John Sugg points out in his excellent (and recently updated) article published in the Weekly Planet:
"Many of the apparent [Israeli] operatives had set up shop at addresses only stones' throws from Arabs in San Diego, Little Rock, Irving, Texas, and in South Florida. The Planet also has obtained a watch list of mostly Arabs under scrutiny by the U.S. government. The addresses of many correspond to the specific areas where the Israelis established bases.
"For example, an address for the Sept. 11 hijacking leader, Mohammad Atta, is 3389 Sheridan St. in Hollywood, Fla., only a few blocks and a few hundred feet from the address of some of the Israelis, at 4220 Sheridan."
SINCE WE’RE NEIGHBORS…
Let’s see: a nest of Israeli "ex"-special forces, electronic interception and explosives experts are holed up blocks away from Mohammed Atta and his fellow hijackers. Is it even credible that the former didn’t know about the existence of the latter? Certainly not. And, just as certainly, the Israelis – let’s just call them what they are: spies-- had the means at their disposal to not only detect the presence of Al Qaeda operatives, but to find out what they were up to. And that, my friends, is the very leastwe can surmise….
EXPLOSIVE TRUTHS
One striking fact stands out, and that is the large number of "art students" who were experts in the art of handling explosives. What were these guys doing during their stay in this country before it was so rudely interrupted by the feds – or, rather, what were they preparingto do?
WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT?
When I first began reporting on this story, in November of last year, mine was a lone voice crying out in the wilderness. Now, we have everyone from Jane’s Intelligence Digest to Le Monde horning in on the action. The release of the "’Israeli Art Student’ Papers" ensures that this story is not going to go away. But, amid all the voluminous details – incident reports strewn with names, license plate numbers, telephone numbers, and a bewildering array of personal and corporate interconnections -- what is this story about, anyway?
FACT AND THEORY
It is, in short, aboutcomplicity: some degree of Israeli complicity with Atta and his fellow monsters. At the very least, the mechanics of what is obviously a covert operation directed by Israel imply a certain degree of foreknowledge. At worst, the details of this complex and by-no-means completely uncovered spy ring may wind up pointing to active (albeit one-sided) Israeli collusion with the mass murderers of 9/11. While the first conclusion is a virtual certainty, the second is, admittedly, speculation. What’s scary is that such theorizing is not without a certain basis in fact.
WHODUNIT
Who was responsible for the horror of 9/11? That’s what this case is all about, and the question it raises is the one that was on everyone’s lips in the hours and days following the terrorist attacks. How could a small band of Arab terrorists have pulled off such a feat of coordination and organization without state aid: this had to be an act of state-sponsored terrorism. Yet none of the alleged links to Iraq, Iran, or any of the other the usual suspects panned out….
A SMOKESCREEN?
Meanwhile, news of the Israeli spy operation had been effectively – if temporarily – stifled, and so we were left with the theory that the hijackers had acted alone, patiently boring into American society and making their plans, which they carried out with deadly precision on the appointed day. This aura of ruthlessly efficient evil, single-minded and deadly, covered the hijackers with a kind of malevolent glory, and made them seem a formidable enemy against which the whole might of the US had to be mobilized. This set the stage for a perpetual "war on terrorism." But what if this air of mystery and power also covered up the trail of the other half of the terrorist conspiracy, coming from a quarter that no one in the West would ever suspect? What if….?
A BABE IN THE WOODS
I include myself among the unsuspecting. My first reaction to statements coming from the Arab world that "the Zionists" were reallybehind the terrorist attacks was to dismiss them as authored by certifiable nutballs: I devoutly wished they would shut up. Little did I know, or want to know, that our best friend, valiant little Israel, was involved in any way, shape, or form. While a frequent critic of Israeli government policies, I am not hostile to Zionism per se, and my opinion of the current regime was never that low. It wasn’t until the end of November, when the first reports of detained Israelis began to be widely circulated, that I even suspected there was an Israeli angle.
TWO EXPLANATIONS
As the story developed, however, one thing became all too clear: the Israelis could well have had foreknowledge of 9/11, and, as Carl Cameron averred, failed to inform the US. With the publication of "the ‘Israeli Art Student’ Papers," however, we are faced with only two possible explanations:
The Israelis knew, but didn’t tell us, and Cameron’s surmise is confirmed, or:
The Israelis knew and did tell us, but the incompetence of the US government got in the way of effective preventive action.
SHINE THE LIGHT
Given what we now know, either explanation is possible. We won’t know for sure, of course, until a thorough investigation is undertaken. But that won’t happen until and unless the media takes up this story, and starts reporting it to the American people. Then and only then will Congress be moved, perhaps, to awaken from its post-9/11 trance and come to life, awakened, perhaps, by the prospect of political gain, or the suspicion that the wool is being pulled over their eyes – maybe both. Whatever the motive, the results of such an investigation can only lead to the shedding of more light on a very dark subject.
November 23, 2001, The Washington Post, 60 Israelis on Tourist Visas Detained Since Sept. 11, by John Mintz,Washington Post Staff Writer,
Government Calls Several Cases 'of Special Interest,' Meaning Related to Post-Attacks Investigation, Friday, Page A22,
At least 60 young Israeli Jews have been arrested and detained around the country on immigration charges since the Sept. 11 attacks, many of them held on U.S. government officials' invocation of national security.
Federal officials have presented no evidence that the Israelis, most of whom worked selling toys and trinkets at kiosks in shopping malls, had anything to do with terrorism. In one of the few cases to reach a hearing, a federal administrative law judge in Cleveland rejected any suggestion that the 11 Israelis before her had any ties to terrorists.
The cases -- in Ohio, Missouri, Texas and California -- originated in the weeks after the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks. Tipsters apparently called the FBI or the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to report suspicions about Middle Eastern-looking people who were were living together in apartments and working in groups at shopping malls, sources involved in the cases said.
Federal agents arrested dozens of the Israeli men and women in late October and early November on charges of working without authorization while in the United States on tourist visas, documents that don't allow their holders to be employed. Agents interrogated the Israelis and in most cases ordered them held without bond.
In several cases, such as those in Cleveland and St. Louis, INS officials testified in court hearings that they were "of special interest to the government," a term that federal agents have used in many of the hundreds of cases involving mostly Muslim Arab men who have been detained around the country since the terrorist attacks.
An INS official who requested anonymity said the agency will not comment on the Israelis. But he said the use of the term "special interest" means the case in question is "related to the investigation of September 11th."
Justice Department spokesman Dan Nelson also declined to comment on the cases but added that, in general, "post-9-11, every time somebody's picked up on an immigration law violation, there's going to be greater scrutiny.
"We're conducting the largest investigation in U.S. history, and we're trying to prevent and disrupt terrorist attacks," Nelson added. "We're leaving no stone unturned."
Israeli officials said that the cases involved only the Israelis' apparently illegal employment in the United States and that U.S. officials are not making any claim that any of them were involved in terrorism.
"Israelis visiting the U.S. have to respect the laws of the host country," said Mark Regev, a spokesman for the Israeli Embassy here, which has been in touch with many of its detained citizens. "If they're in violation of their visa, there are consequences to be paid, especially after September 11th."
All the Israeli detainees are in their early twenties and are observing a time-honored tradition in their country -- touring the world after their mandatory service in the Israeli military. A number of them had served in counterterrorist units in Israel, a close U.S. ally in the fight against terrorism.
"It was obvious they mistook us" as Arabs from Israel, said Israeli army veteran Liron Diamant, 24, in describing his arrest on Oct. 31 at an apartment in Findlay, Ohio. In an hours-long interrogation by FBI agents, he and his friends were questioned in detail about their Israeli military service, Diamant said.
"All of us cooperated fully with them," he said. "We want to help the U.S. anti-terror effort, since we fight the same enemy in our country."
INS officials ordered Diamant and 10 co-workers, who sold rubber band-propelled toy helicopters at malls around Toledo, to be held without bond. In a hearing last week, the government also asked Justice Department immigration judge Elizabeth Hacker to keep the Israelis in custody.
But Hacker rejected the officials' arguments, setting bond for all 11 at $10,000 each. "Although the [INS] alleges that these cases are 'special,' it has failed to present any credible evidence of the basis for this finding," she wrote in her decision. "Indeed, the service has failed to submit any evidence of terrorist activity or of a threat to the national security."
The INS then appealed her finding, which under the law automatically means the Israelis cannot be released on bond. Within a few days, the INS partially reversed itself, allowing nine of the Israelis to be released on $10,000 bond and holding the other two on no bond.
David Leopold, a Cleveland immigration lawyer representing the 11 Israelis, said that ordinarily the INS would not bother with a case of unauthorized employment by a foreign tourist-visa holder.
"If they're still holding people who clearly have no tie-in to September 11th, what does it say about the quality of the overall investigation" and detention of hundreds of Arabs? Leopold said. "The government is using immigration statutes to pull people into this wide web, and once in it, it's difficult to get out."
In one hearing on the Cleveland case, agents said that, among other things, the Israelis are "the subject of an ongoing criminal investigation by the FBI into an individual or company who had agreed to pay living and travel expenses" in exchange for their work at the malls, the judge said in her decision.
Thomas Dean, an attorney for Miami-based Quality Sales Inc., which employed the Israelis in Ohio, said his client "wants to cooperate in any way it can" and added that the government is indeed looking into the circumstances surrounding the hiring of the Israelis.
Dean added that a government official told him that one possible avenue of the probe is that an overseas terrorist group could somehow insert an operative into a group of employed foreigners. Almost all the visiting Israelis made contact with the trinket companies only after they entered the United States, although some people in Israel had steered them toward the firms, he said.
The investigations of the Israelis working at malls is separate from another case of detained Israelis, in New York. On Sept. 11, five young Israeli army veterans who worked for a moving company were observed at a park on the Hudson River in New Jersey snapping photographs of the burning World Trade Center and seemingly clowning around. To complicate matters, when authorities arrested them they had box-cutters in their moving van, the types of weapons used by the terrorist hijackers. Two other Israelis working for the same firm were arrested later.
Officials found they all had overstayed their visas, and they were held in a federal jail in Brooklyn until this week, when they began to be returned to their homes in Israel.
Back in Ohio, Diamant is waiting for his next court date, and for word that he and his friends, too, can return to their country.
"We just want to go home," he said, "and get this adventure behind us."
October 1, 2004, The Middle East, With friends like these ... The Israeli government has strenuously denied involvement in the current spy scandal in the United States but the episode has undoubtedly opened up old wounds, by Ed Blanche,
THE SCANDAL OVER A suspected Israeli mole in the Pentagon who allegedly passed highly sensitive policy documents on Iran to Israeli agents in Washington has rekindled suspicions long held by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and others in Washington, that the Jewish state systematically spies on its strategic ally and benefactor.
Shortly before George Tenet retired as director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in June, he alleged that an Israeli agent was operating in Washington. Tenet was challenged to identify the agent, but for reasons that were never explained apparently did not do so.
Nonetheless, that episode underlined growing unease in some quarters in Washington about the influence Israel's right-wing might have in the Bush administration through the pro-Likud neo-conservatives, largely in the Pentagon, and the politically powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and its associated organisations, such as the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
The Israeli government and AIPAC have strenuously denied they were involved in the current scandal. But others claim Israel's intelligence organisations have been spying on the US and running clandestine operations since the Jewish state was established, from spiriting an estimated 200lbs of weapons-grade uranium for its secret nuclear arms programme in the 1960s to widescale industrial espionage.
Much of this is believed to be conducted by the highly secret Scientific Liaison Bureau, known by its Hebrew acronym Lakam, run by the Defence Ministry and its equally little-known successor, Malmab (the Security Authority for the Ministry of Defence).
The General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of the US Congress, reported in April 1996 that Israel "conducts the most aggressive espionage operation against the United States of any US ally". And it is not the only US government agency to condemn the Israelis for their subterfuge. But no action, publicly at least, seems to have been taken to prevent this or any warning issued to Israel to stop its illegal activities or face the consequences.
According to Duncan Clarke of the American University's School of International Service in Washington, who wrote a damning paper on Israel's industrial espionage in the US: "The United States and Israel agreed in 1951 not to spy on each other. There is little evidence that the United States has conducted economic espionage against Israel, but the agreement has been flouted repeatedly and flagrantly by Israel.
"Israeli economic espionage has infuriated the US intelligence community, especially the FBI and the Customs Service and has left a legacy of distrust in that community ... The greater concern, however, is not Israel's behaviour. Rather it is with those senior US officials and legislators who tolerate it.
"This aspect of the 'specialrelationship' with Israel annoys, even embitters, much of the permanent national security bureaucracy. It is also a latent domestic political issue with divisive overtones. Whatever immediate advantages Israel's illicit practices may bring, they could eventually weaken the long-running relationship that is the ultimate guarantee of Israel's security," Clarke adds.
In the latest episode, FBI officials allege that Lawrence A. Franklin, a former Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) analyst attached to the Office ofSpecial Plans run by leading neocon Douglas Feith, the under-secretary of defence, passed confidential documents, including a draft policy paper, on US policy on Iran to two lobbyists affiliated with AIPAC, who--the rumour goes--relayed them to Israeli intelligence.
US policy towards Iran is crucial to the Israelis, who have threatened to launch preemptive strikes against Iran's nuclear installations to prevent the Islamic Republic acquiring nuclear weapons they say could be used against the Jewish state. US officials are concerned because the draft document was being debated by policy-makers at the time, possibly putting the Israeli government in a position to influence the final directive.
Franklin is an ideological comrade of Feith, an outspoken supporter of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Likud Party, and a disciple of Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defence. Wolfowitz and Feith were the most forceful promoters of invading Iraq and have long advocated regime change in two of Israel's primary adversaries, Iran and Syria. Feith served as a Middle East specialist with the National Security Council during the Reagan administration.
The Franklin case is part of a more extensive, two-year-old investigationby the FBI into whether AIPAC has systematically funnelled classified US material, including National Security Agency electronic intercepts, to Israel.
In the only major case of Israeli espionage that went to court in the US, Jonathan Pollard, a civilian intelligence analyst with the US Navy, was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1987 for spying for Israel. During his 18 months of betrayal, for $2,500 a month and other inducements, Pollard, a Jew, stole at least 1,800 classified documents amounting to 800,000 pages. The case caused immense damage to US-Israeli relations.
Pollard's Israeli handlers from the highly secretive Lakam, set up by Shimon Peres in the 1960s, evaded arrest. But ever since then, the FBI has been looking for a high-level mole in the US government who provided the numbers and dates of the secret documents Pollard's handlers instructed him to steal during their weekly meetings in an apartment near the Israeli Embassy in Washington.
Pollard pleaded guilty and thus never appeared in open court where Israeli intelligence activities could be exposed to the light of day. But the case was considered a breakthrough for the FBI. "Until then," The Washington Times wrote on 16 November 1998, "its agents had been forced by US policy to turn a blind eye to Israeli spying the United States. Said one counter-intelligence agent: 'We would often catch theIsraelis and then be told to let them go'."
The full extent of the damage caused by Pollard's treason remains unknown to this day because theIsraelis have refused to return the most sensitive documents he passed to them. For years after Pollard's arrest, the Israelis claimed his spying was an unsanctioned rogue operation. But in January 1996 Israel granted Pollard citizenship. In May 1998, after more than a decade of denials, Binyamin Netanyahu'sgovernment admitted that Pollard had operated as an Israeli agent against the US "handled by high-ranking officials".
Whether there is any link there with the Franklin case is not known, although given the intervening years it is unlikely. But because AIPAC has been implicated in the Franklin case, diplomatic sources say it could, if prosecutions ensue, turn out to be far more damaging to US-Israel relations than Pollard's treason. Indeed, the signs are that other leading neocons could be dragged into the FBI probe.
Suspicions about a highly placed Israeli mole in the US governmentresurfaced in May 1997. US National Security Agency surveillance and wiretapping of the Mossad station in Washington intercepted a telephone conversation between senior Israeli agents in January of that year in which they mentioned someone codenamed "Mega" in relation to obtaining a copy of a confidential letter then-Secretary of State Warren Christopher had sent to Yasser Arafat regarding the Arab-Israeli peace process.
That suggested to counter-intelligence officials that "Mega" could be a senior figure in the Clinton administration who was passing secrets to the Israelis. Israel denied the allegations and said the eavesdroppers had mistranslated the codeword "Elga", used to refer to the CIA, and that there was no such person as "Mega".
The Clinton administration did not pursue the case, in public at least, and apparently accepted the glib Israeli explanation, although, apparently, with some misgivings. At that time, relations between Washington and Israel were in serious trouble over the efforts by Netanyahu to sabotage the peace process, and both sides wanted to avoid an open rift.
It remains to be seen whether Franklin or others will be charged with espionage, which would be deeply embarrassing for Israel, AIPAC and the Bush administration. But he has also been the subject of another investigation, this time by the Senate Intelligence Committee, involving alleged "rogue" intelligence activities. These include clandestine contacts with opponents of the Tehran regime and the prospects of overthrowing it.
THE SCANDAL OVER A suspected Israeli mole in the Pentagon who allegedly passed highly sensitive policy documents on Iran to Israeli agents in Washington has rekindled suspicions long held by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and others in Washington, that the Jewish state systematically spies on its strategic ally and benefactor.
Shortly before George Tenet retired as director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in June, he alleged that an Israeli agent was operating in Washington. Tenet was challenged to identify the agent, but for reasons that were never explained apparently did not do so.
Nonetheless, that episode underlined growing unease in some quarters in Washington about the influence Israel's right-wing might have in the Bush administration through the pro-Likud neo-conservatives, largely in the Pentagon, and the politically powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and its associated organisations, such as the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
The Israeli government and AIPAC have strenuously denied they were involved in the current scandal. But others claim Israel's intelligence organisations have been spying on the US and running clandestine operations since the Jewish state was established, from spiriting an estimated 200lbs of weapons-grade uranium for its secret nuclear arms programme in the 1960s to widescale industrial espionage.
Much of this is believed to be conducted by the highly secret Scientific Liaison Bureau, known by its Hebrew acronym Lakam, run by the Defence Ministry and its equally little-known successor, Malmab (the Security Authority for the Ministry of Defence).
The General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of the US Congress, reported in April 1996 that Israel "conducts the most aggressive espionage operation against the United States of any US ally". And it is not the only US government agency to condemn the Israelis for their subterfuge. But no action, publicly at least, seems to have been taken to prevent this or any warning issued to Israel to stop its illegal activities or face the consequences.
According to Duncan Clarke of the American University's School of International Service in Washington, who wrote a damning paper on Israel's industrial espionage in the US: "The United States and Israel agreed in 1951 not to spy on each other. There is little evidence that the United States has conducted economic espionage against Israel, but the agreement has been flouted repeatedly and flagrantly by Israel.
"Israeli economic espionage has infuriated the US intelligence community, especially the FBI and the Customs Service and has left a legacy of distrust in that community ... The greater concern, however, is not Israel's behaviour. Rather it is with those senior US officials and legislators who tolerate it.
"This aspect of the 'special relationship' with Israel annoys, even embitters, much of the permanent national security bureaucracy. It is also a latent domestic political issue with divisive overtones. Whatever immediate advantages Israel's illicit practices may bring, they could eventually weaken the long-running relationship that is the ultimate guarantee of Israel's security," Clarke adds.
In the latest episode, FBI officials allege that Lawrence A. Franklin, a former Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) analyst attached to the Office of Special Plans run by leading neocon Douglas Feith, the under-secretary of defence, passed confidential documents, including a draft policy paper, on US policy on Iran to two lobbyists affiliated with AIPAC, who--the rumour goes--relayed them to Israeli intelligence.
US policy towards Iran is crucial to the Israelis, who have threatened to launch preemptive strikes against Iran's nuclear installations to prevent the Islamic Republic acquiring nuclear weapons they say could be used against the Jewish state. US officials are concerned because the draft document was being debated by policy-makers at the time, possibly putting the Israeli government in a position to influence the final directive.
Franklin is an ideological comrade of Feith, an outspoken supporter of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Likud Party, and a disciple of Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defence. Wolfowitz and Feith were the most forceful promoters of invading Iraq and have long advocated regime change in two of Israel's primary adversaries, Iran and Syria. Feith served as a Middle East specialist with the National Security Council during the Reagan administration.
The Franklin case is part of a more extensive, two-year-old investigation by the FBI into whether AIPAC has systematically funnelled classified US material, including National Security Agency electronic intercepts, to Israel.
In the only major case of Israeli espionage that went to court in the US, Jonathan Pollard, a civilian intelligence analyst with the US Navy, was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1987 for spying for Israel. During his 18 months of betrayal, for $2,500 a month and other inducements, Pollard, a Jew, stole at least 1,800 classified documents amounting to 800,000 pages. The case caused immense damage to US-Israeli relations.
Pollard's Israeli handlers from the highly secretive Lakam, set up by Shimon Peres in the 1960s, evaded arrest. But ever since then, the FBI has been looking for a high-level mole in the US government who provided the numbers and dates of the secret documents Pollard's handlers instructed him to steal during their weekly meetings in an apartment near the Israeli Embassy in Washington.
Pollard pleaded guilty and thus never appeared in open court where Israeli intelligence activities could be exposed to the light of day. But the case was considered a breakthrough for the FBI. "Until then," The Washington Times wrote on 16 November 1998, "its agents had been forced by US policy to turn a blind eye to Israeli spying the United States. Said one counter-intelligence agent: 'We would often catch the Israelis and then be told to let them go'."
The full extent of the damage caused by Pollard's treason remains unknown to this day because the Israelis have refused to return the most sensitive documents he passed to them. For years after Pollard's arrest, the Israelis claimed his spying was an unsanctioned rogue operation. But in January 1996 Israel granted Pollard citizenship. In May 1998, after more than a decade of denials, Binyamin Netanyahu's government admitted that Pollard had operated as an Israeli agent against the US "handled by high-ranking officials".
Whether there is any link there with the Franklin case is not known, although given the intervening years it is unlikely. But because AIPAC has been implicated in the Franklin case, diplomatic sources say it could, if prosecutions ensue, turn out to be far more damaging to US-Israel relations than Pollard's treason. Indeed, the signs are that other leading neocons could be dragged into the FBI probe.
Suspicions about a highly placed Israeli mole in the US government resurfaced in May 1997. US National Security Agency surveillance and wiretapping of the Mossad station in Washington intercepted a telephone conversation between senior Israeli agents in January of that year in which they mentioned someone codenamed "Mega" in relation to obtaining a copy of a confidential letter then-Secretary of State Warren Christopher had sent to Yasser Arafat regarding the Arab-Israeli peace process.
That suggested to counter-intelligence officials that "Mega" could be a senior figure in the Clinton administration who was passing secrets to the Israelis. Israel denied the allegations and said the eavesdroppers had mistranslated the codeword "Elga", used to refer to the CIA, and that there was no such person as "Mega".
The Clinton administration did not pursue the case, in public at least, and apparently accepted the glib Israeli explanation, although, apparently, with some misgivings. At that time, relations between Washington and Israel were in serious trouble over the efforts by Netanyahu to sabotage the peace process, and both sides wanted to avoid an open rift.
It remains to be seen whether Franklin or others will be charged with espionage, which would be deeply embarrassing for Israel, AIPAC and the Bush administration. But he has also been the subject of another investigation, this time by the Senate Intelligence Committee, involving alleged "rogue" intelligence activities. These include clandestine contacts with opponents of the Tehran regime and the prospects of overthrowing it.
October 2, 2002, Translated from Die Zeit, Deadly Mistakes, by Oliver Schröm,
A few hours earlier 19 terrorists had hijacked four airplanes and flown two of them into the towers of the World Trade Center. The third crashed into the Pentagon and the fourth smashed into a field in Pennsylvania. Firemen were at the crash sites searching for survivors and President George W Bush already announced who was behind the attacks: Osama bin Laden.
Really? The voices were loud, the proof was wanting. Secretary of State Colin Powell announced that he would present documents very soon. Finally Powell let British Prime Minister Tony Blair present the evidence. The 20-page document that Blair published was an agglomeration of evidence and speculation that would prove that only bin Laden's terror organization was capable of planning and implementing such an act of terror. According to the document: "There is evidence of a very specific nature relating to the guilt of bin Laden and his associates that is too sensitive to release."
Indeed. The evidence shows not only that two of the hijackers had close contact with the Al Qaeda terror organization. But it in fact also illustrates the failure of the CIA, which learned that terror attacks were being planned 18 months before September 11, yet didn't take any action against the terrorists.
In the meantime a congressional Joint Intelligence Committee is investigating those events. Die Zeit has heard from eyewitnesses and examined the committee's reports. The commission uncovers new details almost daily, slowly turning grim hunches into certitude: The CIA could have prevented the September 11 attacks if systematic errors hadn't been made.
Kuala Lumpur, January 5, 2000 The terrorist Tawfiq bin Atesh called a few trusted followers to a meeting in the Malaysian capital. Bin Atesh, whosenom de guerre is Khalid, is a close confidante of Osama bin Laden. Together they fought the Red Army in Afghanistan and bin Atesh lost a leg. The one-legged bin Atesh deliberately chose Kuala Lumpur as his meeting place. Malaysia had established Islam as the state religion years earlier. Muslims can enter without a visa. A Malaysian member of Al Qaeda owns an eight-story apartment building on the edge of Kuala Lumpur. One of the apartments was regularly used as a safe house by the terror organization. The one-legged man invited his accomplices there to plan an attack.
The CIA learned of the correct time and place for the meeting and asked the Malaysian Secret Service to place it under surveillance. As the terrorists left the apartment, the Malaysian police clicked away with their cameras. There was enough material for a whole photo series. The terrorists strolled around town like regular tourists. They casually searched out an Internet cafe and spent many hours in front of the computers, always surreptitiously watched by an observation team. Along with the one-legged man the Malaysian police also photographed Ramzi Mohammed Binalshibh. The then 27-year-old Yemeni had lived in Germany since 1995. He was the logistics man for the Hamburg Al Qaeda cell, whose members would murder 3,000 people only 18 months later.
Binalshibh came to the meeting directly from Germany. But for still unexplained reasons the CIA never told their German counterparts that the logistics man was in Malaysia. He was able to return to Germany unchallenged and started to organize the attacks with the other members of his Hamburg cell. There are many indications that the decisive plans for the attacks on the US were formed in Malaysia. Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Midhar also took part in that meeting. They were later among the 19 hijackers.
Al-Midhar was well known to the CIA. US intelligence knew his name, passport number and other personal details long before his appearance in Malaysia. The CIA also knew that Al-Midhar had long had a Multiple Entry Visa to the US, which he obtained at the US consulate in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia. It was valid until April 6, 2000.
Al Midhar unknowingly brought the CIA with him to Malaysia. The Saudi citizen and his clan had long been in the agency's sights. Al-Midhar's father-in-law owned an apartment in the Yemeni capital San'a which served as an Al Qaeda safehouse. The apartment was an important node in the terror organization's network. Information about operations from around the world converged there. And therefore investigators were in the picture.
The FBI had landed on this apartment as early as the end of August 1998. At the time they were tracking down the perpetrators of the bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Suicide commandos blew up the US government buildings almost simultaneously, killing 223 people and injuring 5,000. Shortly after the attacks, a fax claiming credit was sent to London. The FBI managed to trace its origin to Baku, in Azerbaijan. From there the trail led directly to Al-Midhar's father-in-law's apartment in Yemen. The FBI successfully placed the house and telephone under surveillance. A member of the suicide squad called Al-Midhar's father-in-law from Kenya and said "Tell them that I haven't started the journey". The attacker lost his courage seconds before the attack and jumped out of the car which contained the bomb. Shortly thereafter the FBI agents recorded another call. This time it was from a satellite telephone assigned to Osama bin Laden. Since then the CIA had also been monitoring Al Midhar's brother-in-law's telephone. And so the agency learned of the planned meeting in Malaysia a month in advance.
Los Angeles, January 15, 2000 After the rendezvous with the one-legged bin-Atesh, al-Midhar and al-Hazmi left Kuala Lumpur separately. Al-Midhar headed toward Los Angeles with a stop in Bangkok. His accomplice traveled there by way of Hong Kong. The security precautions and controls at LAX at the time were as strict as never before. A month earlier an Algerian Al Qaeda member was arrested at the US-Canadian border with 50 kilos of explosives in the trunk of his car. The Algerian was on his way to Los Angeles where he intended to blow up the airport on New Year's Eve.
But al-Midhar and al-Hazmi presumably knew about none of that, as they gave their information to the immigration control. Both had US visas, in their own names, which the CIA were familiar with. The immigration officers didn't give them any trouble and the computer terminals gave no indication that the two Saudi citizens were involved with terrorists. Because for still inexplicable reasons neither the CIA nor the FBI informed either the INS or the State Department that the two were not innocent students. This may well be the most fateful error in a whole chain of failures and mishaps that ultimately led the American security agencies to give a free pass to the eventual September 11 attackers.
Al-Midhar and al-Hazmi presumably already had a clear assignment when they arrived in Los Angeles. Only the place, time and exact game plan for the attacks were still unclear. They both stayed briefly in Los Angeles and went on to San Diego where they rented an apartment. At the Parkwood Apartments, a 175 unit complex, they rented number 127. Al-Hazmi signed the lease. They apparently weren't the least concerned about being discovered. There were no signs that they tried to disguise their identities. Al-Hazmi got a telephone line and allowed his address and number to appear in the local directory. He bought a 1988 blue Toyota Corolla for $3,000 and registered the car in his own name.
In May 2000, four months after arriving in the US, Al-Hazmi and Al-Midhar called on a San Diego flying school. The both took a six-hour theory class at the Sorbi Flying Club. They didn't make a secret of the fact that they wanted to learn how to fly Boeings as soon as possible. But first they had to start with small Cessnas. The very first flight was a disaster. The terrorists were exceptionally maladroit, they had no talent for flying planes. As al-Hazmi was preparing to land under the instructor's guidance, al-Midhar panicked, and started praying loudly. "Nothing's going to come of this", said the instructor. He refused to train them both.
Frankfurt, June 2000 The mission of the two terrorists appears to have ended, even before it actually began. Al-Midhar traveled to Frankfurt in June 2000. What he was doing in Germany is unclear. He probably met with Binalshibh, the logistics man for the Hamburg cell. Al-Midhar was able to enter the country unobserved, because the CIA didn't tell its German counterparts about the terrorists. Al-Midhar and Binalshibh were seen most recently in Malaysia, but they knew each other long before the meeting in Asia. They were related. Binalshibh was Al-Midhar's wife's cousin. Presumably al-Midhar told his in-law that the pilot training didn't work out, and that he would have to find a replacement.
This presented the logistics man with a formidable problem, at least in the short term. He registered by phone with a flight school in the States, but he still wasn't going to become a pilot. On May 17, two weeks before al-Midhar's arrival in Germany, the US Embassy told Binalshibh that he wasn't going to get a visa. Other members of the Hamburg cell had better luck. Like Binalshibh, they applied for their visas immediately after their return from Malaysia, and inquired by phone or e-mail about the training programs at 31 American flight schools.
Shortly after al-Midhar arrived in Germany, Mohammed Atta and two other members of the Hamburg Al Qaeda cell went to the US and started their pilot training in Florida. On September 11, 2001 Atta would fly the plane that sped into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
Al-Midhar also went back to the US. After it became clear that he and Al-Hazmi weren't going to become pilots, his assignment was to coordinate the planning for the attacks. But first he had to take care of his ability to stay in the country. His visa was running out. On July 7, 2000 he went to see the INS. Shortly before that CIA headquarters in Langley received yet another explicit notice from its Malaysia station that the Al Qaeda terrorist al-Hazmi had already entered the U.S. in January. But in Langley they stayed calm. Al-Hazmi wasn't designated for investigation, and neither the FBI, the State Department, nor the INS were informed. Consequently, nobody had any reason to be suspicious when al-Hazmi applied to extend his visa, giving his address in San Diego. His wish was granted.
San Diego, September 2000 The neigbors in San Diego grew suspicious. Al-Hazmi and Al-Midhar lived in the apartment complex for eight months and still didn't have any furniture. They slept on the floor and regularly made calls from phone booths even though they had a phone in their apartment. The two Saudis apparently noticed the skeptical glances of their neighbors. They terminated the lease and moved in with Abduss Attar Sheikh, a Muslim they met at the Mosque in San Diego. This friend, a retired English teacher, rented them a room and helped them open a bank account and get Internet access.
As it turned out, the retiree was also helping out the local FBI. He was providing the police information on militant Muslims in San Diego. His contact officer regularly visited him at home. Al-Midhar and al-Hazmi were in the house during some of these visits. Sheikh quickly closed the living room door at such moments so his boarders wouldn't find out about his activities as an informer. Neither the informer nor his officer had any idea that the two young men were Al Qaeda terrorists.
Al-Midhar moved out after six weeks. He told his host that he was returning to his wife and children in Saudi Arabia. In fact he was involved in an act of terrorism. On October 12, 2000 a suicide squad carried out an attack on the naval ship USS Cole in Aden harbor. A dinghy packed with explosives rammed into the port side of the ship. 17 US soldiers died, 38 were wounded. The CIA assumes that al-Midhar took part in the attack.
Al-Hazmi remained in San Diego for the time being, still living with the FBI informant. The latter never had any idea what was going on while the worst act of terrorism in American history was being prepared in his house. Al-Hazmi would sit at the computer and spend hours surfing the Internet. He told his landlord he was looking for a wife, preferably a Mexican. The informer tried to teach al-Hazmi a few Spanish phrases, like "Que pasa?"
At the end of December 2000 al-Hazmi also left the house in San Diego. He moved in with his fellow countryman Hani Hanjur in Mesa, Arizona. Hanjur had been living in the US since 1996 and earned his license at a flight school in Scottsdale. After al-Hazmi and al-Midhar's flight training didn't work out, Hanjur would now fill the role for the trained pilot.
But the pilot still needed some actual flying time. So he tried to take a few lessons at a flight school in Phoenix. Despite the fact that he had been in the States for several years, his English was so bad that the flight school operator assumed that he couldn't have had a valid pilot's license. He assumed the license certificate was a forgery and notified the FAA. But the suspected license turned out to be genuine.
Washington, DC January 2001. Both the FBI and the CIA are tracking down the perpetrators of the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen. The CIA conclusively determined that the one-legged bin Atesh was the mastermind of the attack. They consulted the observation report from the meeting in Malaysia. It suggested that the attack on the Cole was decided and planned in Kuala Lumpur. The other participants at the meeting, among them al-Hazmi and al-Midhar, were now under suspicion, at least implicated in the planning of the attack. Although the CIA had enough information to know that al-Midhar possessed a valid visa and that al-Hazmi still had to be in the USA, it didn't raise a red flag with the investigators, and they didn't bother to notify the FBI. The CIA, as the foreign intelligence agency, is forbidden by law from operating inside the US.
Pursuit of terrorists from bin Laden's network was the CIA's top priority. "We are at war [with Al Qaeda]", wrote CIA Director George Tenet in an internal memo "I want no resources or people spared in this effort". In February 2001, shortly after Bush's inauguration, the CIA Director, speaking to the Senate Intelligence Committe, explicitly warned of further attacks by the terrorist organization. "Osama bin Laden and his global network of lieutenants and associates remain the most immediate and serious threat to US national security". And "As the United States has strengthened security around government buildings and fixed military facilities, terrorists are seeking out 'softer' targets [to guarantee the greatest losses]"
There was still a lot left to be organized. Al-Hazmi was constantly driving around in his old Toyota. He didn't always obey the speed limit. On April 1, 2001 he was caught in a speed trap on I-40 in western Oklahoma. He was stopped by the police and had to show his ID, license and registration. The officer radioed in to see if there was anything on the driver. The police database had nothing. Al-Hazmi got a ticket and kept driving. The fine for speeding was $138. He paid it by mail.
New York, June 11, 2001. FBI agents from the New York bureau and from headquarters in Washington met with representatives of the CIA to exchange information and make progress in the USS Cole investigation. The CIA agents showed their colleagues from the FBI the photos from Malaysia and finger the one-legged bin Atesh as the mastermind behind the attack. They casually let slip the name of Al-Midhar, who was in one of the pictures with bin Atesh. When the FBI asked for more specific details, the CIA kept quiet. They didn't mention to the FBI that Al-Midhar had a valid US visa and was probably in the US at that moment. A year later one of the CIA agents told an investigating committee with tears in his voice that they weren't authorized at the time to disclose this to the FBI.
Internally the CIA feared the worst. Its agents reported their analysis to leading members of the adminstration. "Based on a review of all-source reporting over the last five months, we believe that UBL [Usama bin Laden] will launch a significant terrorist attack against US and/or Israeli interests in the coming weeks. The attack will be spectacular and designed to inflict mass casualties against US facilities or interests." A likely date of July 4, 2001 was mentioned.
On July 4 al-Midhar returned to the US on Saudi Arabian Airlines flight 53 after an absence of several months. Shortly before that, while still in Saudi Arabia, he extended his US visa until October 3, 2001. Although the CIA had in the meantime implicated him in the attck on the Cole, he had no problems entering the US. He presented his Saudi passport, which was in his own name, and on his immigration form gave his local address as the Marriott Hotel in New York. He subsequently made his way to Arizona to see al-Hazmi and others.
Phoenix, July 10, 2001. Kenneth Williams is an experienced policeman. He has been working at the FBI counter-terrorism unit in Phoenix for eleven years. Today Williams sent a multiple page report to his superiors at FBI headquarters in Washington and to his counter-terrorism colleagues in New York who have been experts on Islamic extremism since the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993.
Williams has grown concerned over the last few months that there has been an increase in the number of young Muslims from the Middle East undergoing pilot training in Arizona. Williams counted a total of 10 individuals from Pakistan, India, Kenya, Algeria, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. Some of them have taken flight time, others are studying aircraft construction or international aviation security. The FBI has questioned several of these students and heard them making hostile statements about the United States.
Williams noticed, moreover, that these students were suspiciously well informed about American airport security measures. In his report Williams concluded that these aviation students could have been followers of Osama bin Laden. He thought it was plausible that terrorists might want to become pilots so as to hijack passenger airliners.
The FBI agent recommended looking at all flight schools. His New York colleagues deemed his arguments "speculative and not particularly significant". As it would turn out in a few months, someone from one of the flight schools that Williams was looking at was an acquaintance of the death pilot who crashed the hijacked jet into the Pentagon.
Crawford, August 6, 2001. George W Bush is on vacation. He wanted to spend the whole month at his ranch in Texas. "The Presidential Daily Brief" was part of his morning routine. In the PDB, as its called in CIA jargon, a senior CIA official presents the President with a summary of the security situation. On this morning the CIA Director personally briefs the President. Instead of the usual two or three pages, today's briefing paper consists of eleven and a half printed page and carries the title "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.". The CIA chief argued that Al Qaeda was now also attempting to carry out attacks inside the US, and there were probably already members of the terror organization located in the US for some time. It's not clear whether or not the CIA Director told the President about statements made by Al Qaeda members who were already in custody. According to their statements, the terror organization had long thought about hijacking airplanes in order to use them as missiles.
Minneapolis, August 15, 2001. One flight school in Minneapolis informed the FBI that one if its students was interested in flying Boeings, although he didn't even have a license for small Cessnas. The flight student was arrested the next day, officially for immigration violations. He was a French citizen of Moroccan origin named Zacharias Moussaoui. His letters and his laptop were confiscated and immediately sent to FBI headquarters in Washington, where they sat unexamined.
An FBI agent took up the case at the flight school. The 47-year-old Coleen Rowley, a 21-year veteran of the FBI, got in contact with French authorities and learned that Moussaoui was suspected in France of having ties to Islamic extremists. She informed FBI headquarters and asked to have Moussaoui's laptop examined closely. Her request was denied. "We don't know he's a terrorist. You don't have enough to show he's a terrorist". The investigator persisted, asking permission to examine the laptop herself. Headquarters got irritated and told her not to bring this subject up again. In fact, the Frenchman was in close contact with the September 11 attackers. Evidence of this was found on his laptop, which was, however, closely examined after September 11. One clue led to Germany. Moussaoui received a money transfer from Binalshibh, the logistics man of the Hamburg cell.
Rowley didn't know about any of this when she composed a memo to her superiors at the end of August 2001. She wrote that the circumstances indicated that Moussaoui was taking flying lessons solely for the purpose of flying into buildings, and that he was probably planning to fly a plane into the World Trade Center.
Langley, August 23, 2001. The Israeli Mossad intelligence agency handed its American counterpart a list of names of terrorists who were staying in the US and were presumably planning to launch an attack in the foreseeable future. According to documents obtained by Die ZEIT, Mossad agents in the US were in all probability surveilling at least four of the 19 hijackers, among them al-Midhar. The CIA now does what it should have done 18 months earlier. It informs the State Dept., the FBI and the INS.
The names al-Midhar and al-Hazmi are promptly put on an investigation list, as probable members of Al Qaeda. al-Midhar is expressly noted as a probable accomplice in the USS Cole attack. The first acknowledgement arrives quickly. The INS writes that according to its information, both men are currently in the US.
Now both men are pursued vigorously. On his entry into the US al-Midhar gave his address as the Marriott Hotel in New York. FBI agents visited all the chain's hotels in the New York area, without success.
One of the FBI agents on the case called headquarters in Washington and asked for reinforcements. He wanted to expand the investigation for al-Midhar. The agent properly assessed the danger that al-Midhar posed. He had already been working on the USS Cole investigation for months.
In this context he had met with his colleagues from the CIA once and al-Midhar's name slipped out. Now that he reads this name in the investigation file, with the note that al-Midhar was implicated in the Cole attack, the FBI agent became angry with his CIA colleagues. They had previously withheld this detail from him.
But his anger increases when his own headquarters declines to give him additional support. The attorneys at the FBI's National Security Law Unit made very clear that the law prescribes a strict wall between intelligence and police investigations. And the search for al-Midhar has now returned to being an intelligence matter. "someday someone will die - and wall or not - the public will not understand why we were not more effective and throwing every resource we had at certain 'problems'." one frustrated FBI agent writes to his headquarters on August 29, 2001. "Let's hope the National Security Law Unit will stand behind their decisions then, especially since the biggest threat to us now, UBL [Usama bin Laden], is getting the most protection."
Laurel, Maryland, August 25, 2001. Al-Midhar is staying in room 343 of the Valencia Motel in Laurel. He is not alone. With him are al-Hazmi, his brother, the pilot and another terrorist. The five seldom left the room. Whenever the maid knocked and wanted to make the beds, the terrorists opened the door only a crack and took fresh hand towels. "We thought they were gay, five men in one room", a neighboring guest later said.
The timing and schedule for the attacks had been set. One after another they bought their tickets. Twelve days remaining. Everything is going according to plan.
Washington, DC, September 11, 2001. Early in the morning the five terrorists drive to Dulles Airport. Police later seize the Toyota and find a receipt for tuition at the Phoenix flight school, four diagrams of a Boeing 757 cockpit, a carpet knife, a map of Washington and slips of paper with notes and phone numbers.
At 7:30 the terrorists check in. Investigators have been searching everywhere for al-Hazmi and al-Midhar for the last 20 days. Despite that, the two pass unhindered through security along with their accomplices. Both the tickets and passports which they presented were in their own names. A few hours later the hijacked planes started infernos in New York and Washington.
The CIA Director learned of this over breakfast at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington, only a few meters from the White House. He said that all signs pointed to Osama bin Laden. The President would have to be informed who was most likely behind the attack. Tenet rose from the breakfast table and made a hasty good-bye.
Washington, DC, September 12, 2001. The large police investigation in American history is underway. Thousands of FBI agents fan out across the country and within days reconstruct the lives of the hijackers. It wasn't especially difficult because in the US the terrorists conducted themselves as anything but a secret conspiracy. Al-Hazmi had even called the police once after he was assaulted. FBI Director Robert Mueller, who started his term only a few weeks before the attacks, put it this way: "I can't say for sure that there wasn't a possibility that we would have come across some leads that would have led us to the hijackers."
CIA Director George Tenet, who has been in his position since the Clinton Administration, told the Senate Intelligence Committee that he was proud to be able to say about the CIA: The agency had nothing to be ashamed of. The attacks were "not the result of the failure of attention and discipline and focus and consistent effort".
New York, October 23, 2001. It is clear that Hamburg was the "central base" for the September 11 attacks, Attorney General John Ashcroft said, accompanied by German Interior Minister Otto Schily during a press conference in New York. The investigation in Europe would therefore need to be intensified.
Minneapolis, May 21, 2002. When FBI agent Coleen Rowley could no longer stand seeing the authorities covering up their failures, she sat at her computer and wrote a 13 page letter to the FBI director enumerating all of the mistakes and failures that she was aware of. She had warned insistently about the possibility of attacks by Muslim militants back in August 2001. "I have deep concerns", she wrote, "that a delicate and subtle shading/skewing of facts by you and others at the highest levels of FBI management has occurred and is occurring." The agent personally brings her file to Washington and hands two copies to the Senate Intelligence Committee. Two weeks later a picture of her letter adorns the cover of Time Magazine under the headline "The Bombshell Memo". The FBI gets pilloried.
Washington, DC, June 4, 2002. The FBI doesn't want to take all the blame for what the CIA dragged it into. The CIA finally has to contend with its decisive error in which it failed for 18 months to pass along its information about al-Hazmi and al-Midhar. This information was leaked to Newsweek, which quotes an unnamed FBI official as saying if the bureau had had more on the two it could have tied all the 19 hijackers together in one plot. The spy agencies mud-wrestling is now out in the open. Did the FBI and CIA make catastrophic errors? A joint committee of the House and Senate would be dealing with this question.
Washington, DC, September 11, 2002. The joint committee has been working for three months, but was torpedoed by the Bush Administration, as Richard C. Shelby, vice chair of the committee, was now telling the New York Times. The Administration refused to disclose what information the intelligence agencies had given the President prior to the attacks. Shelby said that he was sure that the committee's questioning had only "scratched the surface".
As further information about the mistakes and failures of the CIA and FBI made it into the media, accusations were made against members of the committee. The FBI lead an investigation and asked the Senators and Congressmen if they were prepared to submit to lie detector tests.
Washington, DC, September 18, 2002. The committee's public hearings have begun. Survivors of the September 11 victims also testify. 1,300 of them have formed an association. Their spokesman is Stephen Push, who lost his wife. She was sitting in the plane that al-Midhar's comrades flew into the Pentagon. "had the CIA and FBI displayed any initiative", he told the committee, his wife would still be alive.
After that FBI and CIA agents addressed the committee, under a pledge of anonymity. A curtain protected the agents from the eyes of the audience. Many of the survivors sat there, silently taking souvenir photographs.
As some of the agents confess with tears in their voices how their supervisors prevented them from investigating, it was too much for the widow of one fireman, who died in the World Trade Center. "These people were guilty of malfeasance", she complained. "They should stand trial. They are at least partially responsible for the deaths of 3,000 people."
translated by Stefan Sharkansky
My translation of Die Zeit's companion article that explains why there were so many Israeli art students in the US prior to 9/11 is here
October 2, 2002, translated from Die Zeit, Next Door to Mohammed Atta, by Oliver Schröm
Note: This report appears to based mainly on questionable and previously discredited sources, mainly a DEA investigation report on the so-called art students. Blogger Bruce Rolston fact-checks a number of Die Zeit's claims in this story. I'm inclined to go along with Rolston's interpretation and to disregard this article. Oliver Schröm's responds to these questions here, but nothing in his reply mitigates my skepticism. Stefan.
Israeli agents were living in Florida and tailing the future death pilots -- until their cover was blown.
On April 30 of last year the US Air Force sounded an alarm. The security division of the Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City warned of an "intelligence ring of Israeli art students". American law enforcement agencies had earlier learned that a noticeably large number of Israeli students had applied for jobs at software development and technology firms that primarily served government agencies. The obvious suspicion was that the young Israelis were members of a spy ring. A specially formed task force, consisting of employees of the DEA, INS and Office of Security Programs, looked into the matter.
The young Israelis were placed under surveillance and their personal details were analyzed by computer. Die ZEIT obtained the 61-page final report, according to which, 120 Israelis, organized into cells of four to six persons, formed a tightly organized and efficient espionage network. A few of the putative students were actually specialists on eavesdropping, radio technology, or counter-terrorism.
The Israelis were arrested, interrogated and subsequently deported. In the world of intelligence, espionage among friends is an everyday occurrence. In this case too many people were involved for the matter to be covered up. But both the Israeli government and American authorities tried to downplay it.
Not until after the attacks of September 11 did the consequences of the spy ring become clear. Apparently the agents were not interested in military or industrial facilities, but were shadowing a number of suspects, who were later involved in the terrorist attacks against the US. According to a report of the French intelligence agency that Die ZEIT examined, "according to the FBI, Arab terrorists and suspected terror cells lived in Phoenix, Arizona, as well as in Miami and Hollywood, Florida from December 2000 to April 2001 in direct proximity to the Israeli spy cells."
According to the report, the Mossad agents were interested in the leader of the terrorists, Mohammed Atta and his key accomplice, Marwan al-Shehi. Both lived in Hamburg before they settled in Hollywood, Florida in order to plan the attacks. A Mossad team was also operating in the same town. The leader, Hanan Serfati, had rented several dwellings. "One of Serfati's apartments was located on the corner of 701st St. and 21st Ave. [sic] in Hollywood, right near the apartment of Atta and al-Shehi.", French intelligence reported later. Everything indicates that the terrorists were constantly observed by the Israelis. The chief Israeli agent was staying right near the post office where the terrorists had a mailbox. The Mossad also had its sights on Atta's accomplice Khalid al-Midhar, with whom the CIA was also familiar, but allowed to run free. The Mossad apparently warned their American counterparts several times about the terrorists, especially about al-Midhar. The American government later admitted that they had received such warnings prior to September 11. But at most that there were attacks planned against American installations outside the United States.
Die ZEIT has learned that a few weeks before the attacks, Israeli intelligence gave US authorities a list with names of suspects who were staying in the US for the purpose of preparing attacks. Apparently not until shortly before September 11 did the CIA recognize that al-Midhar was dangerous and asked law enforcement agencies to look for him.
March 15, 2002, The Forward, Spy Rumors Fly on Gusts of Truth; Americans Probing Reports of Israeli Espionage, by Marc Perelman, Forward Staff,
Despite angry denials by Israel and its American supporters, reports that Israel was conducting spying activities in the United States may have a grain of truth, the Forward has learned.
However, far from pointing to Israeli spying against U.S. government and military facilities, as reported in Europe last week, the incidents in question appear to represent a case of Israelis in the United States spying on a common enemy, radical Islamic networks suspected of links to Middle East terrorism.
In particular, a group of five Israelis arrested in New Jersey shortly after the September 11 attacks and held for more than two months was subjected to an unusual number of polygraph tests and interrogated by a series of government agencies including the FBI's counterintelligence division, which by some reports remains convinced that Israel was conducting an intelligence operation. The five
Israelis worked for a moving company with few discernable assets that closed up shop immediately afterward and whose owner fled to Israel.
Other allegations involved Israelis claiming to be art students who had backgrounds in signal interception and ordnance. (See related story, Page 8.)
Sources emphasized that the release of all the Israelis under investigation indicates that they were cleared of any suspicion that they had prior knowledge of the September 11 attacks, as some anti-Israel media outlets have suggested.
The resulting tensions between Washington and Jerusalem, sources told the Forward, arose not because of the operations' targets but because Israel reportedly violated a secret gentlemen's agreement between the two countries under which espionage on each other's soil is
to be coordinated in advance.
Most experts and former officials interviewed for this article said that such so-called unilateral or uncoordinated Israeli monitoring of radical Muslims in America would not be surprising.
In fact, they said, Israeli intelligence played a key role in helping the Bush administration to crack down on Islamic charities suspected of funneling money to terrorist groups, most notably the Richardson, Texas-based Holy Land Foundation last December.
"I have no doubt Israel has an interest in spying on those groups," said Peter Unsinger, an intelligence expert who teaches justice administration at San Jose University. "The Israelis give us good stuff, like on the Hamas charities."
According to one former high-ranking American intelligence official, who asked not to be named, the FBI came to the conclusion at the end of its investigation that the five Israelis arrested in New Jersey last September were conducting a Mossad surveillance mission and that their employer, Urban Moving Systems of Weehawken, N.J., served as a front.
After their arrest, the men were held in detention for two-and-a-half months and were deported at the end of November, officially for visa violations.
However, a counterintelligence investigation by the FBI concluded that at least two of them were in fact Mossad operatives, according to the former American official, who said he was regularly briefed on the investigation by two separate law enforcement officials.
"The assessment was that Urban Moving Systems was a front for the Mossad and operatives employed by it," he said. "The conclusion of the FBI was that they were spying on local Arabs but that they could leave because they did not know anything about 9/11."
However, he added, the bureau was "very irritated because it was a case of so-called unilateral espionage, meaning they didn't know about it."
Spokesmen for the FBI, the Justice Department and the Immigration and Naturalization Service refused to discuss the case. Israeli officials flatly dismissed the allegations as untrue.
However, the former American official said that after American authorities confronted Jerusalem on the issue at the end of last year, the Israeli government acknowledged the operation and apologized for not coordinating it with Washington.
The five men — Sivan and Paul Kurzberg, Oded Ellner, Omer Marmari and Yaron Shmuel — were arrested eight hours after the attacks by the Bergen County, N.J., police while driving in an Urban Moving Systems van. The police acted on an FBI alert after the men allegedly were seen acting strangely while watching the events from the roof of their warehouse and the roof of their van.
In addition to their strange behavior and their Middle Eastern looks, the suspicions were compounded when a box cutter and $4,000 in cash were found in the van. Moreover, one man carried two passports and another had fresh pictures of the men standing with the smoldering wreckage of the World Trade Center in the background.
The Bergen County police immediately handed the suspects to the INS, which turned them over to a joint police-FBI terrorism task force set up after September 11 to deal with all possible links with the attacks.
The five Israelis were detained in the high-security Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn in solitary confinement until mid-October.
On September 25, they all signed papers acknowledging violations of Uimmigration law. At the end of October, the INS issued a deportation order which was enforced a month later after a review by the Justice Department and prodding by Jewish and Israeli officials.
However, the former official said, this is just the official story.
In fact, he said, the nature of the investigation changed after the names of two of the five Israelis showed up on a CIA-FBI database of foreign intelligence operatives, he said. At that point, he said, the bureau took control of the investigation and launched a Foreign Counterintelligence Investigation, or FCI.
FBI investigations into possible links to the September 11 attacks are usually carried by the bureau's counterterrorism division, not its counterintelligence division.
"An FCI means not only that it was serious but also that it was handled at a very high level and very tightly," the former official said. That view was echoed by several former FBI officials interviewed.
Steven Gordon, an American lawyer hired by the families to help secure their release, said he could not confirm which FBI division was in charge of the investigation. However, he acknowledged that "there were a lot of people involved, including counterintelligence officials from the FBI."
The men all underwent at least two polygraph tests each, the lawyer added. He said one of the Israelis took the test seven times, a very unusual total according to several polygraph experts interviewed by the Forward.
After the men were arrested, FBI agents searched the warehouse of Urban Moving Systems in Weehawken, N.J., seizing computer hard drives and documents. The warehouse was closed on September 14, said Ron George, a spokesman for the New Jersey State Division of Consumer Affairs.
On December 7, a New Jersey judge ruled that the state could seize the goods remaining inside the warehouse. The state also has a lawsuit pending against Urban Moving Systems and its owner, Dominik Otto Suter, an Israeli citizen.
The FBI questioned Mr. Suter once. However, he left the country afterward and went back to Israel before further questioning. Mr. Suter declined through his lawyer to be interviewed for this article.
Earlier this year, the New York State Department of Transportation revoked Urban Moving System's license after discovering that the company's midtown Manhattan base was only a mailing address.
After they returned to Israel at the end of November, the five men told local media that they were kept in solitary confinement, beaten, deprived of food and questioned while blindfolded and in their underwear.
Mr. Ellner, one of the five Israelis, said on two occasions in recent weeks that the five men had decided not to grant any interviews right now "because we went through a very difficult period and we are not ready for this."
Their Israeli lawyer, Ram Horwitz, told the Forward he was still waiting for the results of the medical tests undertaken by the men in Israel to make a decision on an eventual lawsuit in the United States for mistreatment.
Mr. Horwitz insisted the men were not intelligence officers.
Irit Stoffer, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, said the allegations were "completely untrue" and that there were "only visa violations."
"The FBI investigated those cases because of 9/11," Ms. Stoffer said.
Charlene Eban, a spokeswoman for the FBI in Washington, and Don Nelson, a Justice Department spokesman, said they had no knowledge of an Israeli spying operation.
"If we found evidence of unauthorized intelligence operations, that would be classified material," added Jim Margolin, a spokesman for the FBI in New York.
One leading expert in American intelligence operations, Chip Berlet, a senior analyst at the Boston-based Political Research Associates, explained that there "is a backdoor agreement between allies that says that if one of your spies gets caught and didn't do too much harm, he goes home. It goes on all the time. The official reason is always a visa violation."
September 03, 2004, The Forward, Espionage Ruled Out in Case of Bad Art, by Seamus Mcgraw,
Is it espionage or — worse — bad art?
While officials in the United States are busy grappling with the question of whether Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin passed sensitive information to Israel and compromised national security, authorities in our neighbor to the north are trying to tamp down speculation that a platoon of goateed and dreadlocked Israeli art students who infiltrated Canada may have been working as spies.
The Israeli embassy in Ottawa has emphatically denied any link to the students and is dismissing allegations of possible espionage bandied about on the Internet. The claims also have been raised in Canadian newspapers, but with caveats and disclaimers, and then flatly rejected as “preposterous.” Government officials in Canada also insist that no evidence exists to suggest that the students who were picked up last month in Calgary, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Toronto and Ottawa and deported were part of a fifth column targeting the far side of the 49th parallel.
The students and their handlers, Guy Grinberg and Jackie Yakov Senior, were charged earlier this month under Canadian law with working in the country illegally, and faced no other charges, said Robert Ferguson, director of immigration enforcement for the Canada Border Services Agency in Canada. A similar operation gained widespread media attention amid allegations of espionage when it surfaced in the United States in 2000.
In the most recent case, government authorities in Canada have insisted that all the evidence collected indicates the young, self-described “art students” — all of them Israelis in the country on visitor’s visas — were involved in something far more prosaic than espionage: the importation of tragically bad, dirt-cheap paintings from the Far East that were then sold at wildly inflated prices door-to-door in some of the more upscale neighborhoods in western Canada. In some cases, the paintings sold for more than 100 times their value, prompting authorities in Calgary to issue a warning to the public to be wary of art fraud, said Detective Frank Cattoni of the Calgary Police Department. The alert made no mention of espionage.
“We have no… information in our possession other than to indicate that they were selling art… and that’s how our department dealt with it,” Ferguson said. “Basically, they were seen as working illegally.”
But the official declarations have not succeeded in quelling all public uneasiness about the art students and their motives, talk that has dogged reports of the operation on both sides of the border for more than three years.
In an August 7 report on the detention of 15 members of the Canadian ring, for example, the Calgary Herald declared that the door-to-door art scam “has for years puzzled authorities on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border and raised the specter of international espionage.”
The art-selling operation, which first surfaced in the United States in 2000, has been reported on by The Washington Post, Fox News, Salon.com, Ha'aretz and most extensively by the Atlanta-based alternative newspaper Creative Loafing. It has for three years now been a hotly debated topic among amateur spy watchers and on conspiracy theory Web sites.
Over the years, government officials from the United States, Israel and Canada have all officially dismissed speculation about the ring. In one instance, an American official described allegations of spying as "an urban myth." Despite all the media attention, no evidence has ever been uncovered proving that the operation involves anything more than college-age students, recruited by handlers in Israel, to go door-to-door trying to persuade office managers and affluent housewives to pay up to several thousand dollars for $20 paintings hammered out in Far Eastern workshops.
Reports of the scam and allegations that it might be a front for Israeli espionage first surfaced in the United States in 2000, when American officials, among them agents of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, first began noticing that as many as 120 young Israelis, many of them veterans of the Israeli military's intelligence corps or experienced in signal interception and ordnance, were traveling door-to-door from Atlanta to Texas. They often turned up at offices of the DEA and other government agencies, on one occasion at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma, where American spy planes are serviced, and on several occasions at the homes of federal law enforcement agents. In at least one case, the students were spotted in an Atlanta-area office that housed an FBI office not widely known to the public.
A 60-page draft report detailing the students’ activities was compiled by a DEA agent and later leaked to the press. Among other things, the report’s author, who never has been identified, warned that it was entirely possible that the operation actually was “an organized intelligence-gathering activity.”
The report did not conclusively point the finger of blame at anyone. But John Sugg, an associate editor for Creative Loafing and the first journalist to publish details of the report, said his sources opined that it was possible the students could have been trying to glean information for the Mossad, perhaps as part of an operation to monitor Arab groups in the United States and the American government’s reaction to them. But, Sugg said, it was equally possible that they were targeting DEA and related offices on the orders of Israeli organized crime factions that were then consolidating their control over the illicit Ecstasy market.
By March 2001, federal anti-espionage authorities were concerned enough about the Israeli art students to issue a warning to government officials to be on the lookout for attempts to infiltrate federal buildings.
At that point, the alert was a closely held secret among federal agents. But on December 12, 2001, three months after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Fox News reported that dozens of Israelis, among them art students, had been arrested on immigration charges and were suspected of spying on the United States. They were deported and faced no additional charges. In the months that followed, Sugg and the French newspaper Le Monde published stories detailing the contents of the DEA report. Months later, the Forward also raised the specter of Israeli espionage, publishing a report that the art students were suspected by some to be part of a larger operation, an operation that came to light with the arrest of five Israeli citizens on September 11, 2001. All five were deported even though, according to a former American official briefed on the case, "a counter-intelligence investigation by the FBI concluded that at least two of them were in fact Mossad operatives."
Reporters for several major newspapers, including The Washington Post and The New York Times, looked into the allegations as well, but were never able to find a conclusive link between the art students and either the Mossad or the underworld.
In fact, in its report, the Washington Post quoted government officials who downplayed the significance of the DEA report, claiming that it was the work of one disgruntled employee who was unhappy that higher-ups were not taking seriously enough his warnings of possible Israeli espionage in the United States.
But still the story wouldn’t die.
As late as last year, the respected Internet magazine Salon.com revived the spy ring allegations in a lengthy and detailed report recounting the charges and suggesting that the group may have been operating in as many as 40 American cities.
By that point, however, the operation had moved across the border to Canada. According to Canadian officials, the operation took root there in 2002, about the same time as it began to peter out in the United States. But there was a difference. Canadian officials insist that unlike the events detailed in the DEA report in the United States, there was no evidence that the art scammers in Canada targeted government officials or government offices. Instead, the ring seemed to focus exclusively on wealthier neighborhoods.
Ofir Gendelman, spokesman for the Israeli embassy in Ottawa, says the students, many of whom, he quickly noted, “are from good families,” are recruited for the overseas art scam by scurrilous business people using newspaper ads and word-of-mouth solicitations. Not only are they not spies, he says, but in most cases, they also are so gullible that they don’t even know they’re being hired to work illegally. "They have no idea," Gendelman said. "The people who run those companies tell them that because [the recruiters are] legal here those Israelis are also legal, and so they eat the bait."
Such gullibility is hardly a qualification for spy duty, and Gendelman freely expressed frustration with the persistence of rumors of a cloak-and-dagger operation involving the young students. "It's ridiculous," he said. "Those allegations are absolutely baseless."
And there are many, both inside and outside government, who agree.
While the original allegations of espionage in the United States were controversial and lacked real evidence, they were not wholly beyond the realm of possibility, said Chip Berlet, an expert in intelligence operations who also studies conspiracy theories at Boston-based Political Research Associates.
"If I were an intelligence agency and I wanted to hide people, I might pick this kind of group," Berlet said. "On the other hand, it's unlikely that everyone in the group would be intelligence agents because then there wouldn’t be a cover."
Even if there were some kernel of truth to the original spying allegations, it is unlikely, Berlet said, that such an operation would have survived the media storm it encountered when details of the DEA report surfaced in the United States. It’s even more unlikely, he says, that such an operation would be resurrected immediately afterward in Canada or anywhere else.
"It strains credulity that once you have an operation blown, you'd simply recycle it," Berlet said. "That's almost unheard of; that's not done. You're placing your agents at too high a risk."
October 17, 2001, The Mercury [Pottstown, Philadelphia] Two found with video of Sears Tower, by Michelle Mowad,
THE SCANDAL OVER A suspected Israeli mole in the Pentagon who allegedly passed highly sensitive policy documents on Iran to Israeli agents in Washington has rekindled suspicions long held by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and others in Washington, that the Jewish state systematically spies on its strategic ally and benefactor.
Shortly before George Tenet retired as director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in June, he alleged that an Israeli agent was operating in Washington. Tenet was challenged to identify the agent, but for reasons that were never explained apparently did not do so.
Nonetheless, that episode underlined growing unease in some quarters in Washington about the influence Israel's right-wing might have in the Bush administration through the pro-Likud neo-conservatives, largely in the Pentagon, and the politically powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and its associated organisations, such as the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
The Israeli government and AIPAC have strenuously denied they were involved in the current scandal. But others claim Israel's intelligence organisations have been spying on the US and running clandestine operations since the Jewish state was established, from spiriting an estimated 200lbs of weapons-grade uranium for its secret nuclear arms programme in the 1960s to widescale industrial espionage.
Much of this is believed to be conducted by the highly secret Scientific Liaison Bureau, known by its Hebrew acronym Lakam, run by the Defence Ministry and its equally little-known successor, Malmab (the Security Authority for the Ministry of Defence).
The General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of the US Congress, reported in April 1996 that Israel "conducts the most aggressive espionage operation against the United States of any US ally". And it is not the only US government agency to condemn the Israelis for their subterfuge. But no action, publicly at least, seems to have been taken to prevent this or any warning issued to Israel to stop its illegal activities or face the consequences.
According to Duncan Clarke of the American University's School of International Service in Washington, who wrote a damning paper on Israel's industrial espionage in the US: "The United States and Israel agreed in 1951 not to spy on each other. There is little evidence that the United States has conducted economic espionage against Israel, but the agreement has been flouted repeatedly and flagrantly by Israel.
"Israeli economic espionage has infuriated the US intelligence community, especially the FBI and the Customs Service and has left a legacy of distrust in that community ... The greater concern, however, is not Israel's behaviour. Rather it is with those senior US officials and legislators who tolerate it.
"This aspect of the 'specialrelationship' with Israel annoys, even embitters, much of the permanent national security bureaucracy. It is also a latent domestic political issue with divisive overtones. Whatever immediate advantages Israel's illicit practices may bring, they could eventually weaken the long-running relationship that is the ultimate guarantee of Israel's security," Clarke adds.
In the latest episode, FBI officials allege that Lawrence A. Franklin, a former Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) analyst attached to the Office ofSpecial Plans run by leading neocon Douglas Feith, the under-secretary of defence, passed confidential documents, including a draft policy paper, on US policy on Iran to two lobbyists affiliated with AIPAC, who--the rumour goes--relayed them to Israeli intelligence.
US policy towards Iran is crucial to the Israelis, who have threatened to launch preemptive strikes against Iran's nuclear installations to prevent the Islamic Republic acquiring nuclear weapons they say could be used against the Jewish state. US officials are concerned because the draft document was being debated by policy-makers at the time, possibly putting the Israeli government in a position to influence the final directive.
Franklin is an ideological comrade of Feith, an outspoken supporter of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Likud Party, and a disciple of Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defence. Wolfowitz and Feith were the most forceful promoters of invading Iraq and have long advocated regime change in two of Israel's primary adversaries, Iran and Syria. Feith served as a Middle East specialist with the National Security Council during the Reagan administration.
The Franklin case is part of a more extensive, two-year-old investigationby the FBI into whether AIPAC has systematically funnelled classified US material, including National Security Agency electronic intercepts, to Israel.
In the only major case of Israeli espionage that went to court in the US, Jonathan Pollard, a civilian intelligence analyst with the US Navy, was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1987 for spying for Israel. During his 18 months of betrayal, for $2,500 a month and other inducements, Pollard, a Jew, stole at least 1,800 classified documents amounting to 800,000 pages. The case caused immense damage to US-Israeli relations.
Pollard's Israeli handlers from the highly secretive Lakam, set up by Shimon Peres in the 1960s, evaded arrest. But ever since then, the FBI has been looking for a high-level mole in the US government who provided the numbers and dates of the secret documents Pollard's handlers instructed him to steal during their weekly meetings in an apartment near the Israeli Embassy in Washington.
Pollard pleaded guilty and thus never appeared in open court where Israeli intelligence activities could be exposed to the light of day. But the case was considered a breakthrough for the FBI. "Until then," The Washington Times wrote on 16 November 1998, "its agents had been forced by US policy to turn a blind eye to Israeli spying the United States. Said one counter-intelligence agent: 'We would often catch theIsraelis and then be told to let them go'."
The full extent of the damage caused by Pollard's treason remains unknown to this day because theIsraelis have refused to return the most sensitive documents he passed to them. For years after Pollard's arrest, the Israelis claimed his spying was an unsanctioned rogue operation. But in January 1996 Israel granted Pollard citizenship. In May 1998, after more than a decade of denials, Binyamin Netanyahu'sgovernment admitted that Pollard had operated as an Israeli agent against the US "handled by high-ranking officials".
Whether there is any link there with the Franklin case is not known, although given the intervening years it is unlikely. But because AIPAC has been implicated in the Franklin case, diplomatic sources say it could, if prosecutions ensue, turn out to be far more damaging to US-Israel relations than Pollard's treason. Indeed, the signs are that other leading neocons could be dragged into the FBI probe.
Suspicions about a highly placed Israeli mole in the US governmentresurfaced in May 1997. US National Security Agency surveillance and wiretapping of the Mossad station in Washington intercepted a telephone conversation between senior Israeli agents in January of that year in which they mentioned someone codenamed "Mega" in relation to obtaining a copy of a confidential letter then-Secretary of State Warren Christopher had sent to Yasser Arafat regarding the Arab-Israeli peace process.
That suggested to counter-intelligence officials that "Mega" could be a senior figure in the Clinton administration who was passing secrets to the Israelis. Israel denied the allegations and said the eavesdroppers had mistranslated the codeword "Elga", used to refer to the CIA, and that there was no such person as "Mega".
The Clinton administration did not pursue the case, in public at least, and apparently accepted the glib Israeli explanation, although, apparently, with some misgivings. At that time, relations between Washington and Israel were in serious trouble over the efforts by Netanyahu to sabotage the peace process, and both sides wanted to avoid an open rift.
It remains to be seen whether Franklin or others will be charged with espionage, which would be deeply embarrassing for Israel, AIPAC and the Bush administration. But he has also been the subject of another investigation, this time by the Senate Intelligence Committee, involving alleged "rogue" intelligence activities. These include clandestine contacts with opponents of the Tehran regime and the prospects of overthrowing it.
THE SCANDAL OVER A suspected Israeli mole in the Pentagon who allegedly passed highly sensitive policy documents on Iran to Israeli agents in Washington has rekindled suspicions long held by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and others in Washington, that the Jewish state systematically spies on its strategic ally and benefactor.
Shortly before George Tenet retired as director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in June, he alleged that an Israeli agent was operating in Washington. Tenet was challenged to identify the agent, but for reasons that were never explained apparently did not do so.
Nonetheless, that episode underlined growing unease in some quarters in Washington about the influence Israel's right-wing might have in the Bush administration through the pro-Likud neo-conservatives, largely in the Pentagon, and the politically powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and its associated organisations, such as the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
The Israeli government and AIPAC have strenuously denied they were involved in the current scandal. But others claim Israel's intelligence organisations have been spying on the US and running clandestine operations since the Jewish state was established, from spiriting an estimated 200lbs of weapons-grade uranium for its secret nuclear arms programme in the 1960s to widescale industrial espionage.
Much of this is believed to be conducted by the highly secret Scientific Liaison Bureau, known by its Hebrew acronym Lakam, run by the Defence Ministry and its equally little-known successor, Malmab (the Security Authority for the Ministry of Defence).
The General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of the US Congress, reported in April 1996 that Israel "conducts the most aggressive espionage operation against the United States of any US ally". And it is not the only US government agency to condemn the Israelis for their subterfuge. But no action, publicly at least, seems to have been taken to prevent this or any warning issued to Israel to stop its illegal activities or face the consequences.
According to Duncan Clarke of the American University's School of International Service in Washington, who wrote a damning paper on Israel's industrial espionage in the US: "The United States and Israel agreed in 1951 not to spy on each other. There is little evidence that the United States has conducted economic espionage against Israel, but the agreement has been flouted repeatedly and flagrantly by Israel.
"Israeli economic espionage has infuriated the US intelligence community, especially the FBI and the Customs Service and has left a legacy of distrust in that community ... The greater concern, however, is not Israel's behaviour. Rather it is with those senior US officials and legislators who tolerate it.
"This aspect of the 'special relationship' with Israel annoys, even embitters, much of the permanent national security bureaucracy. It is also a latent domestic political issue with divisive overtones. Whatever immediate advantages Israel's illicit practices may bring, they could eventually weaken the long-running relationship that is the ultimate guarantee of Israel's security," Clarke adds.
In the latest episode, FBI officials allege that Lawrence A. Franklin, a former Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) analyst attached to the Office of Special Plans run by leading neocon Douglas Feith, the under-secretary of defence, passed confidential documents, including a draft policy paper, on US policy on Iran to two lobbyists affiliated with AIPAC, who--the rumour goes--relayed them to Israeli intelligence.
US policy towards Iran is crucial to the Israelis, who have threatened to launch preemptive strikes against Iran's nuclear installations to prevent the Islamic Republic acquiring nuclear weapons they say could be used against the Jewish state. US officials are concerned because the draft document was being debated by policy-makers at the time, possibly putting the Israeli government in a position to influence the final directive.
Franklin is an ideological comrade of Feith, an outspoken supporter of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Likud Party, and a disciple of Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defence. Wolfowitz and Feith were the most forceful promoters of invading Iraq and have long advocated regime change in two of Israel's primary adversaries, Iran and Syria. Feith served as a Middle East specialist with the National Security Council during the Reagan administration.
The Franklin case is part of a more extensive, two-year-old investigation by the FBI into whether AIPAC has systematically funnelled classified US material, including National Security Agency electronic intercepts, to Israel.
In the only major case of Israeli espionage that went to court in the US, Jonathan Pollard, a civilian intelligence analyst with the US Navy, was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1987 for spying for Israel. During his 18 months of betrayal, for $2,500 a month and other inducements, Pollard, a Jew, stole at least 1,800 classified documents amounting to 800,000 pages. The case caused immense damage to US-Israeli relations.
Pollard's Israeli handlers from the highly secretive Lakam, set up by Shimon Peres in the 1960s, evaded arrest. But ever since then, the FBI has been looking for a high-level mole in the US government who provided the numbers and dates of the secret documents Pollard's handlers instructed him to steal during their weekly meetings in an apartment near the Israeli Embassy in Washington.
Pollard pleaded guilty and thus never appeared in open court where Israeli intelligence activities could be exposed to the light of day. But the case was considered a breakthrough for the FBI. "Until then," The Washington Times wrote on 16 November 1998, "its agents had been forced by US policy to turn a blind eye to Israeli spying the United States. Said one counter-intelligence agent: 'We would often catch the Israelis and then be told to let them go'."
The full extent of the damage caused by Pollard's treason remains unknown to this day because the Israelis have refused to return the most sensitive documents he passed to them. For years after Pollard's arrest, the Israelis claimed his spying was an unsanctioned rogue operation. But in January 1996 Israel granted Pollard citizenship. In May 1998, after more than a decade of denials, Binyamin Netanyahu's government admitted that Pollard had operated as an Israeli agent against the US "handled by high-ranking officials".
Whether there is any link there with the Franklin case is not known, although given the intervening years it is unlikely. But because AIPAC has been implicated in the Franklin case, diplomatic sources say it could, if prosecutions ensue, turn out to be far more damaging to US-Israel relations than Pollard's treason. Indeed, the signs are that other leading neocons could be dragged into the FBI probe.
Suspicions about a highly placed Israeli mole in the US government resurfaced in May 1997. US National Security Agency surveillance and wiretapping of the Mossad station in Washington intercepted a telephone conversation between senior Israeli agents in January of that year in which they mentioned someone codenamed "Mega" in relation to obtaining a copy of a confidential letter then-Secretary of State Warren Christopher had sent to Yasser Arafat regarding the Arab-Israeli peace process.
That suggested to counter-intelligence officials that "Mega" could be a senior figure in the Clinton administration who was passing secrets to the Israelis. Israel denied the allegations and said the eavesdroppers had mistranslated the codeword "Elga", used to refer to the CIA, and that there was no such person as "Mega".
The Clinton administration did not pursue the case, in public at least, and apparently accepted the glib Israeli explanation, although, apparently, with some misgivings. At that time, relations between Washington and Israel were in serious trouble over the efforts by Netanyahu to sabotage the peace process, and both sides wanted to avoid an open rift.
It remains to be seen whether Franklin or others will be charged with espionage, which would be deeply embarrassing for Israel, AIPAC and the Bush administration. But he has also been the subject of another investigation, this time by the Senate Intelligence Committee, involving alleged "rogue" intelligence activities. These include clandestine contacts with opponents of the Tehran regime and the prospects of overthrowing it.
October 2, 2002, Translated from Die Zeit, Deadly Mistakes, by Oliver Schröm,
U.S. investigators knew that terror attacks were being planned, but let the suspects roam free. There are increasing signs that the CIA and FBI could have prevented the attack on America.
Washington, D.C. September 11, 2001A few hours earlier 19 terrorists had hijacked four airplanes and flown two of them into the towers of the World Trade Center. The third crashed into the Pentagon and the fourth smashed into a field in Pennsylvania. Firemen were at the crash sites searching for survivors and President George W Bush already announced who was behind the attacks: Osama bin Laden.
Really? The voices were loud, the proof was wanting. Secretary of State Colin Powell announced that he would present documents very soon. Finally Powell let British Prime Minister Tony Blair present the evidence. The 20-page document that Blair published was an agglomeration of evidence and speculation that would prove that only bin Laden's terror organization was capable of planning and implementing such an act of terror. According to the document: "There is evidence of a very specific nature relating to the guilt of bin Laden and his associates that is too sensitive to release."
Indeed. The evidence shows not only that two of the hijackers had close contact with the Al Qaeda terror organization. But it in fact also illustrates the failure of the CIA, which learned that terror attacks were being planned 18 months before September 11, yet didn't take any action against the terrorists.
In the meantime a congressional Joint Intelligence Committee is investigating those events. Die Zeit has heard from eyewitnesses and examined the committee's reports. The commission uncovers new details almost daily, slowly turning grim hunches into certitude: The CIA could have prevented the September 11 attacks if systematic errors hadn't been made.
Kuala Lumpur, January 5, 2000 The terrorist Tawfiq bin Atesh called a few trusted followers to a meeting in the Malaysian capital. Bin Atesh, whosenom de guerre is Khalid, is a close confidante of Osama bin Laden. Together they fought the Red Army in Afghanistan and bin Atesh lost a leg. The one-legged bin Atesh deliberately chose Kuala Lumpur as his meeting place. Malaysia had established Islam as the state religion years earlier. Muslims can enter without a visa. A Malaysian member of Al Qaeda owns an eight-story apartment building on the edge of Kuala Lumpur. One of the apartments was regularly used as a safe house by the terror organization. The one-legged man invited his accomplices there to plan an attack.
The CIA learned of the correct time and place for the meeting and asked the Malaysian Secret Service to place it under surveillance. As the terrorists left the apartment, the Malaysian police clicked away with their cameras. There was enough material for a whole photo series. The terrorists strolled around town like regular tourists. They casually searched out an Internet cafe and spent many hours in front of the computers, always surreptitiously watched by an observation team. Along with the one-legged man the Malaysian police also photographed Ramzi Mohammed Binalshibh. The then 27-year-old Yemeni had lived in Germany since 1995. He was the logistics man for the Hamburg Al Qaeda cell, whose members would murder 3,000 people only 18 months later.
Binalshibh came to the meeting directly from Germany. But for still unexplained reasons the CIA never told their German counterparts that the logistics man was in Malaysia. He was able to return to Germany unchallenged and started to organize the attacks with the other members of his Hamburg cell. There are many indications that the decisive plans for the attacks on the US were formed in Malaysia. Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Midhar also took part in that meeting. They were later among the 19 hijackers.
Al-Midhar was well known to the CIA. US intelligence knew his name, passport number and other personal details long before his appearance in Malaysia. The CIA also knew that Al-Midhar had long had a Multiple Entry Visa to the US, which he obtained at the US consulate in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia. It was valid until April 6, 2000.
Al Midhar unknowingly brought the CIA with him to Malaysia. The Saudi citizen and his clan had long been in the agency's sights. Al-Midhar's father-in-law owned an apartment in the Yemeni capital San'a which served as an Al Qaeda safehouse. The apartment was an important node in the terror organization's network. Information about operations from around the world converged there. And therefore investigators were in the picture.
The FBI had landed on this apartment as early as the end of August 1998. At the time they were tracking down the perpetrators of the bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Suicide commandos blew up the US government buildings almost simultaneously, killing 223 people and injuring 5,000. Shortly after the attacks, a fax claiming credit was sent to London. The FBI managed to trace its origin to Baku, in Azerbaijan. From there the trail led directly to Al-Midhar's father-in-law's apartment in Yemen. The FBI successfully placed the house and telephone under surveillance. A member of the suicide squad called Al-Midhar's father-in-law from Kenya and said "Tell them that I haven't started the journey". The attacker lost his courage seconds before the attack and jumped out of the car which contained the bomb. Shortly thereafter the FBI agents recorded another call. This time it was from a satellite telephone assigned to Osama bin Laden. Since then the CIA had also been monitoring Al Midhar's brother-in-law's telephone. And so the agency learned of the planned meeting in Malaysia a month in advance.
Los Angeles, January 15, 2000 After the rendezvous with the one-legged bin-Atesh, al-Midhar and al-Hazmi left Kuala Lumpur separately. Al-Midhar headed toward Los Angeles with a stop in Bangkok. His accomplice traveled there by way of Hong Kong. The security precautions and controls at LAX at the time were as strict as never before. A month earlier an Algerian Al Qaeda member was arrested at the US-Canadian border with 50 kilos of explosives in the trunk of his car. The Algerian was on his way to Los Angeles where he intended to blow up the airport on New Year's Eve.
But al-Midhar and al-Hazmi presumably knew about none of that, as they gave their information to the immigration control. Both had US visas, in their own names, which the CIA were familiar with. The immigration officers didn't give them any trouble and the computer terminals gave no indication that the two Saudi citizens were involved with terrorists. Because for still inexplicable reasons neither the CIA nor the FBI informed either the INS or the State Department that the two were not innocent students. This may well be the most fateful error in a whole chain of failures and mishaps that ultimately led the American security agencies to give a free pass to the eventual September 11 attackers.
Al-Midhar and al-Hazmi presumably already had a clear assignment when they arrived in Los Angeles. Only the place, time and exact game plan for the attacks were still unclear. They both stayed briefly in Los Angeles and went on to San Diego where they rented an apartment. At the Parkwood Apartments, a 175 unit complex, they rented number 127. Al-Hazmi signed the lease. They apparently weren't the least concerned about being discovered. There were no signs that they tried to disguise their identities. Al-Hazmi got a telephone line and allowed his address and number to appear in the local directory. He bought a 1988 blue Toyota Corolla for $3,000 and registered the car in his own name.
In May 2000, four months after arriving in the US, Al-Hazmi and Al-Midhar called on a San Diego flying school. The both took a six-hour theory class at the Sorbi Flying Club. They didn't make a secret of the fact that they wanted to learn how to fly Boeings as soon as possible. But first they had to start with small Cessnas. The very first flight was a disaster. The terrorists were exceptionally maladroit, they had no talent for flying planes. As al-Hazmi was preparing to land under the instructor's guidance, al-Midhar panicked, and started praying loudly. "Nothing's going to come of this", said the instructor. He refused to train them both.
Frankfurt, June 2000 The mission of the two terrorists appears to have ended, even before it actually began. Al-Midhar traveled to Frankfurt in June 2000. What he was doing in Germany is unclear. He probably met with Binalshibh, the logistics man for the Hamburg cell. Al-Midhar was able to enter the country unobserved, because the CIA didn't tell its German counterparts about the terrorists. Al-Midhar and Binalshibh were seen most recently in Malaysia, but they knew each other long before the meeting in Asia. They were related. Binalshibh was Al-Midhar's wife's cousin. Presumably al-Midhar told his in-law that the pilot training didn't work out, and that he would have to find a replacement.
This presented the logistics man with a formidable problem, at least in the short term. He registered by phone with a flight school in the States, but he still wasn't going to become a pilot. On May 17, two weeks before al-Midhar's arrival in Germany, the US Embassy told Binalshibh that he wasn't going to get a visa. Other members of the Hamburg cell had better luck. Like Binalshibh, they applied for their visas immediately after their return from Malaysia, and inquired by phone or e-mail about the training programs at 31 American flight schools.
Shortly after al-Midhar arrived in Germany, Mohammed Atta and two other members of the Hamburg Al Qaeda cell went to the US and started their pilot training in Florida. On September 11, 2001 Atta would fly the plane that sped into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
Al-Midhar also went back to the US. After it became clear that he and Al-Hazmi weren't going to become pilots, his assignment was to coordinate the planning for the attacks. But first he had to take care of his ability to stay in the country. His visa was running out. On July 7, 2000 he went to see the INS. Shortly before that CIA headquarters in Langley received yet another explicit notice from its Malaysia station that the Al Qaeda terrorist al-Hazmi had already entered the U.S. in January. But in Langley they stayed calm. Al-Hazmi wasn't designated for investigation, and neither the FBI, the State Department, nor the INS were informed. Consequently, nobody had any reason to be suspicious when al-Hazmi applied to extend his visa, giving his address in San Diego. His wish was granted.
San Diego, September 2000 The neigbors in San Diego grew suspicious. Al-Hazmi and Al-Midhar lived in the apartment complex for eight months and still didn't have any furniture. They slept on the floor and regularly made calls from phone booths even though they had a phone in their apartment. The two Saudis apparently noticed the skeptical glances of their neighbors. They terminated the lease and moved in with Abduss Attar Sheikh, a Muslim they met at the Mosque in San Diego. This friend, a retired English teacher, rented them a room and helped them open a bank account and get Internet access.
As it turned out, the retiree was also helping out the local FBI. He was providing the police information on militant Muslims in San Diego. His contact officer regularly visited him at home. Al-Midhar and al-Hazmi were in the house during some of these visits. Sheikh quickly closed the living room door at such moments so his boarders wouldn't find out about his activities as an informer. Neither the informer nor his officer had any idea that the two young men were Al Qaeda terrorists.
Al-Midhar moved out after six weeks. He told his host that he was returning to his wife and children in Saudi Arabia. In fact he was involved in an act of terrorism. On October 12, 2000 a suicide squad carried out an attack on the naval ship USS Cole in Aden harbor. A dinghy packed with explosives rammed into the port side of the ship. 17 US soldiers died, 38 were wounded. The CIA assumes that al-Midhar took part in the attack.
Al-Hazmi remained in San Diego for the time being, still living with the FBI informant. The latter never had any idea what was going on while the worst act of terrorism in American history was being prepared in his house. Al-Hazmi would sit at the computer and spend hours surfing the Internet. He told his landlord he was looking for a wife, preferably a Mexican. The informer tried to teach al-Hazmi a few Spanish phrases, like "Que pasa?"
At the end of December 2000 al-Hazmi also left the house in San Diego. He moved in with his fellow countryman Hani Hanjur in Mesa, Arizona. Hanjur had been living in the US since 1996 and earned his license at a flight school in Scottsdale. After al-Hazmi and al-Midhar's flight training didn't work out, Hanjur would now fill the role for the trained pilot.
But the pilot still needed some actual flying time. So he tried to take a few lessons at a flight school in Phoenix. Despite the fact that he had been in the States for several years, his English was so bad that the flight school operator assumed that he couldn't have had a valid pilot's license. He assumed the license certificate was a forgery and notified the FAA. But the suspected license turned out to be genuine.
Washington, DC January 2001. Both the FBI and the CIA are tracking down the perpetrators of the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen. The CIA conclusively determined that the one-legged bin Atesh was the mastermind of the attack. They consulted the observation report from the meeting in Malaysia. It suggested that the attack on the Cole was decided and planned in Kuala Lumpur. The other participants at the meeting, among them al-Hazmi and al-Midhar, were now under suspicion, at least implicated in the planning of the attack. Although the CIA had enough information to know that al-Midhar possessed a valid visa and that al-Hazmi still had to be in the USA, it didn't raise a red flag with the investigators, and they didn't bother to notify the FBI. The CIA, as the foreign intelligence agency, is forbidden by law from operating inside the US.
Pursuit of terrorists from bin Laden's network was the CIA's top priority. "We are at war [with Al Qaeda]", wrote CIA Director George Tenet in an internal memo "I want no resources or people spared in this effort". In February 2001, shortly after Bush's inauguration, the CIA Director, speaking to the Senate Intelligence Committe, explicitly warned of further attacks by the terrorist organization. "Osama bin Laden and his global network of lieutenants and associates remain the most immediate and serious threat to US national security". And "As the United States has strengthened security around government buildings and fixed military facilities, terrorists are seeking out 'softer' targets [to guarantee the greatest losses]"
There was still a lot left to be organized. Al-Hazmi was constantly driving around in his old Toyota. He didn't always obey the speed limit. On April 1, 2001 he was caught in a speed trap on I-40 in western Oklahoma. He was stopped by the police and had to show his ID, license and registration. The officer radioed in to see if there was anything on the driver. The police database had nothing. Al-Hazmi got a ticket and kept driving. The fine for speeding was $138. He paid it by mail.
New York, June 11, 2001. FBI agents from the New York bureau and from headquarters in Washington met with representatives of the CIA to exchange information and make progress in the USS Cole investigation. The CIA agents showed their colleagues from the FBI the photos from Malaysia and finger the one-legged bin Atesh as the mastermind behind the attack. They casually let slip the name of Al-Midhar, who was in one of the pictures with bin Atesh. When the FBI asked for more specific details, the CIA kept quiet. They didn't mention to the FBI that Al-Midhar had a valid US visa and was probably in the US at that moment. A year later one of the CIA agents told an investigating committee with tears in his voice that they weren't authorized at the time to disclose this to the FBI.
Internally the CIA feared the worst. Its agents reported their analysis to leading members of the adminstration. "Based on a review of all-source reporting over the last five months, we believe that UBL [Usama bin Laden] will launch a significant terrorist attack against US and/or Israeli interests in the coming weeks. The attack will be spectacular and designed to inflict mass casualties against US facilities or interests." A likely date of July 4, 2001 was mentioned.
On July 4 al-Midhar returned to the US on Saudi Arabian Airlines flight 53 after an absence of several months. Shortly before that, while still in Saudi Arabia, he extended his US visa until October 3, 2001. Although the CIA had in the meantime implicated him in the attck on the Cole, he had no problems entering the US. He presented his Saudi passport, which was in his own name, and on his immigration form gave his local address as the Marriott Hotel in New York. He subsequently made his way to Arizona to see al-Hazmi and others.
Phoenix, July 10, 2001. Kenneth Williams is an experienced policeman. He has been working at the FBI counter-terrorism unit in Phoenix for eleven years. Today Williams sent a multiple page report to his superiors at FBI headquarters in Washington and to his counter-terrorism colleagues in New York who have been experts on Islamic extremism since the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993.
Williams has grown concerned over the last few months that there has been an increase in the number of young Muslims from the Middle East undergoing pilot training in Arizona. Williams counted a total of 10 individuals from Pakistan, India, Kenya, Algeria, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. Some of them have taken flight time, others are studying aircraft construction or international aviation security. The FBI has questioned several of these students and heard them making hostile statements about the United States.
Williams noticed, moreover, that these students were suspiciously well informed about American airport security measures. In his report Williams concluded that these aviation students could have been followers of Osama bin Laden. He thought it was plausible that terrorists might want to become pilots so as to hijack passenger airliners.
The FBI agent recommended looking at all flight schools. His New York colleagues deemed his arguments "speculative and not particularly significant". As it would turn out in a few months, someone from one of the flight schools that Williams was looking at was an acquaintance of the death pilot who crashed the hijacked jet into the Pentagon.
Crawford, August 6, 2001. George W Bush is on vacation. He wanted to spend the whole month at his ranch in Texas. "The Presidential Daily Brief" was part of his morning routine. In the PDB, as its called in CIA jargon, a senior CIA official presents the President with a summary of the security situation. On this morning the CIA Director personally briefs the President. Instead of the usual two or three pages, today's briefing paper consists of eleven and a half printed page and carries the title "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.". The CIA chief argued that Al Qaeda was now also attempting to carry out attacks inside the US, and there were probably already members of the terror organization located in the US for some time. It's not clear whether or not the CIA Director told the President about statements made by Al Qaeda members who were already in custody. According to their statements, the terror organization had long thought about hijacking airplanes in order to use them as missiles.
Minneapolis, August 15, 2001. One flight school in Minneapolis informed the FBI that one if its students was interested in flying Boeings, although he didn't even have a license for small Cessnas. The flight student was arrested the next day, officially for immigration violations. He was a French citizen of Moroccan origin named Zacharias Moussaoui. His letters and his laptop were confiscated and immediately sent to FBI headquarters in Washington, where they sat unexamined.
An FBI agent took up the case at the flight school. The 47-year-old Coleen Rowley, a 21-year veteran of the FBI, got in contact with French authorities and learned that Moussaoui was suspected in France of having ties to Islamic extremists. She informed FBI headquarters and asked to have Moussaoui's laptop examined closely. Her request was denied. "We don't know he's a terrorist. You don't have enough to show he's a terrorist". The investigator persisted, asking permission to examine the laptop herself. Headquarters got irritated and told her not to bring this subject up again. In fact, the Frenchman was in close contact with the September 11 attackers. Evidence of this was found on his laptop, which was, however, closely examined after September 11. One clue led to Germany. Moussaoui received a money transfer from Binalshibh, the logistics man of the Hamburg cell.
Rowley didn't know about any of this when she composed a memo to her superiors at the end of August 2001. She wrote that the circumstances indicated that Moussaoui was taking flying lessons solely for the purpose of flying into buildings, and that he was probably planning to fly a plane into the World Trade Center.
Langley, August 23, 2001. The Israeli Mossad intelligence agency handed its American counterpart a list of names of terrorists who were staying in the US and were presumably planning to launch an attack in the foreseeable future. According to documents obtained by Die ZEIT, Mossad agents in the US were in all probability surveilling at least four of the 19 hijackers, among them al-Midhar. The CIA now does what it should have done 18 months earlier. It informs the State Dept., the FBI and the INS.
The names al-Midhar and al-Hazmi are promptly put on an investigation list, as probable members of Al Qaeda. al-Midhar is expressly noted as a probable accomplice in the USS Cole attack. The first acknowledgement arrives quickly. The INS writes that according to its information, both men are currently in the US.
Now both men are pursued vigorously. On his entry into the US al-Midhar gave his address as the Marriott Hotel in New York. FBI agents visited all the chain's hotels in the New York area, without success.
One of the FBI agents on the case called headquarters in Washington and asked for reinforcements. He wanted to expand the investigation for al-Midhar. The agent properly assessed the danger that al-Midhar posed. He had already been working on the USS Cole investigation for months.
In this context he had met with his colleagues from the CIA once and al-Midhar's name slipped out. Now that he reads this name in the investigation file, with the note that al-Midhar was implicated in the Cole attack, the FBI agent became angry with his CIA colleagues. They had previously withheld this detail from him.
But his anger increases when his own headquarters declines to give him additional support. The attorneys at the FBI's National Security Law Unit made very clear that the law prescribes a strict wall between intelligence and police investigations. And the search for al-Midhar has now returned to being an intelligence matter. "someday someone will die - and wall or not - the public will not understand why we were not more effective and throwing every resource we had at certain 'problems'." one frustrated FBI agent writes to his headquarters on August 29, 2001. "Let's hope the National Security Law Unit will stand behind their decisions then, especially since the biggest threat to us now, UBL [Usama bin Laden], is getting the most protection."
Laurel, Maryland, August 25, 2001. Al-Midhar is staying in room 343 of the Valencia Motel in Laurel. He is not alone. With him are al-Hazmi, his brother, the pilot and another terrorist. The five seldom left the room. Whenever the maid knocked and wanted to make the beds, the terrorists opened the door only a crack and took fresh hand towels. "We thought they were gay, five men in one room", a neighboring guest later said.
The timing and schedule for the attacks had been set. One after another they bought their tickets. Twelve days remaining. Everything is going according to plan.
Washington, DC, September 11, 2001. Early in the morning the five terrorists drive to Dulles Airport. Police later seize the Toyota and find a receipt for tuition at the Phoenix flight school, four diagrams of a Boeing 757 cockpit, a carpet knife, a map of Washington and slips of paper with notes and phone numbers.
At 7:30 the terrorists check in. Investigators have been searching everywhere for al-Hazmi and al-Midhar for the last 20 days. Despite that, the two pass unhindered through security along with their accomplices. Both the tickets and passports which they presented were in their own names. A few hours later the hijacked planes started infernos in New York and Washington.
The CIA Director learned of this over breakfast at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington, only a few meters from the White House. He said that all signs pointed to Osama bin Laden. The President would have to be informed who was most likely behind the attack. Tenet rose from the breakfast table and made a hasty good-bye.
Washington, DC, September 12, 2001. The large police investigation in American history is underway. Thousands of FBI agents fan out across the country and within days reconstruct the lives of the hijackers. It wasn't especially difficult because in the US the terrorists conducted themselves as anything but a secret conspiracy. Al-Hazmi had even called the police once after he was assaulted. FBI Director Robert Mueller, who started his term only a few weeks before the attacks, put it this way: "I can't say for sure that there wasn't a possibility that we would have come across some leads that would have led us to the hijackers."
CIA Director George Tenet, who has been in his position since the Clinton Administration, told the Senate Intelligence Committee that he was proud to be able to say about the CIA: The agency had nothing to be ashamed of. The attacks were "not the result of the failure of attention and discipline and focus and consistent effort".
New York, October 23, 2001. It is clear that Hamburg was the "central base" for the September 11 attacks, Attorney General John Ashcroft said, accompanied by German Interior Minister Otto Schily during a press conference in New York. The investigation in Europe would therefore need to be intensified.
Minneapolis, May 21, 2002. When FBI agent Coleen Rowley could no longer stand seeing the authorities covering up their failures, she sat at her computer and wrote a 13 page letter to the FBI director enumerating all of the mistakes and failures that she was aware of. She had warned insistently about the possibility of attacks by Muslim militants back in August 2001. "I have deep concerns", she wrote, "that a delicate and subtle shading/skewing of facts by you and others at the highest levels of FBI management has occurred and is occurring." The agent personally brings her file to Washington and hands two copies to the Senate Intelligence Committee. Two weeks later a picture of her letter adorns the cover of Time Magazine under the headline "The Bombshell Memo". The FBI gets pilloried.
Washington, DC, June 4, 2002. The FBI doesn't want to take all the blame for what the CIA dragged it into. The CIA finally has to contend with its decisive error in which it failed for 18 months to pass along its information about al-Hazmi and al-Midhar. This information was leaked to Newsweek, which quotes an unnamed FBI official as saying if the bureau had had more on the two it could have tied all the 19 hijackers together in one plot. The spy agencies mud-wrestling is now out in the open. Did the FBI and CIA make catastrophic errors? A joint committee of the House and Senate would be dealing with this question.
Washington, DC, September 11, 2002. The joint committee has been working for three months, but was torpedoed by the Bush Administration, as Richard C. Shelby, vice chair of the committee, was now telling the New York Times. The Administration refused to disclose what information the intelligence agencies had given the President prior to the attacks. Shelby said that he was sure that the committee's questioning had only "scratched the surface".
As further information about the mistakes and failures of the CIA and FBI made it into the media, accusations were made against members of the committee. The FBI lead an investigation and asked the Senators and Congressmen if they were prepared to submit to lie detector tests.
Washington, DC, September 18, 2002. The committee's public hearings have begun. Survivors of the September 11 victims also testify. 1,300 of them have formed an association. Their spokesman is Stephen Push, who lost his wife. She was sitting in the plane that al-Midhar's comrades flew into the Pentagon. "had the CIA and FBI displayed any initiative", he told the committee, his wife would still be alive.
After that FBI and CIA agents addressed the committee, under a pledge of anonymity. A curtain protected the agents from the eyes of the audience. Many of the survivors sat there, silently taking souvenir photographs.
As some of the agents confess with tears in their voices how their supervisors prevented them from investigating, it was too much for the widow of one fireman, who died in the World Trade Center. "These people were guilty of malfeasance", she complained. "They should stand trial. They are at least partially responsible for the deaths of 3,000 people."
translated by Stefan Sharkansky
My translation of Die Zeit's companion article that explains why there were so many Israeli art students in the US prior to 9/11 is here
October 2, 2002, translated from Die Zeit, Next Door to Mohammed Atta, by Oliver Schröm
Note: This report appears to based mainly on questionable and previously discredited sources, mainly a DEA investigation report on the so-called art students. Blogger Bruce Rolston fact-checks a number of Die Zeit's claims in this story. I'm inclined to go along with Rolston's interpretation and to disregard this article. Oliver Schröm's responds to these questions here, but nothing in his reply mitigates my skepticism. Stefan.
Israeli agents were living in Florida and tailing the future death pilots -- until their cover was blown.
On April 30 of last year the US Air Force sounded an alarm. The security division of the Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City warned of an "intelligence ring of Israeli art students". American law enforcement agencies had earlier learned that a noticeably large number of Israeli students had applied for jobs at software development and technology firms that primarily served government agencies. The obvious suspicion was that the young Israelis were members of a spy ring. A specially formed task force, consisting of employees of the DEA, INS and Office of Security Programs, looked into the matter.
The young Israelis were placed under surveillance and their personal details were analyzed by computer. Die ZEIT obtained the 61-page final report, according to which, 120 Israelis, organized into cells of four to six persons, formed a tightly organized and efficient espionage network. A few of the putative students were actually specialists on eavesdropping, radio technology, or counter-terrorism.
The Israelis were arrested, interrogated and subsequently deported. In the world of intelligence, espionage among friends is an everyday occurrence. In this case too many people were involved for the matter to be covered up. But both the Israeli government and American authorities tried to downplay it.
Not until after the attacks of September 11 did the consequences of the spy ring become clear. Apparently the agents were not interested in military or industrial facilities, but were shadowing a number of suspects, who were later involved in the terrorist attacks against the US. According to a report of the French intelligence agency that Die ZEIT examined, "according to the FBI, Arab terrorists and suspected terror cells lived in Phoenix, Arizona, as well as in Miami and Hollywood, Florida from December 2000 to April 2001 in direct proximity to the Israeli spy cells."
According to the report, the Mossad agents were interested in the leader of the terrorists, Mohammed Atta and his key accomplice, Marwan al-Shehi. Both lived in Hamburg before they settled in Hollywood, Florida in order to plan the attacks. A Mossad team was also operating in the same town. The leader, Hanan Serfati, had rented several dwellings. "One of Serfati's apartments was located on the corner of 701st St. and 21st Ave. [sic] in Hollywood, right near the apartment of Atta and al-Shehi.", French intelligence reported later. Everything indicates that the terrorists were constantly observed by the Israelis. The chief Israeli agent was staying right near the post office where the terrorists had a mailbox. The Mossad also had its sights on Atta's accomplice Khalid al-Midhar, with whom the CIA was also familiar, but allowed to run free. The Mossad apparently warned their American counterparts several times about the terrorists, especially about al-Midhar. The American government later admitted that they had received such warnings prior to September 11. But at most that there were attacks planned against American installations outside the United States.
Die ZEIT has learned that a few weeks before the attacks, Israeli intelligence gave US authorities a list with names of suspects who were staying in the US for the purpose of preparing attacks. Apparently not until shortly before September 11 did the CIA recognize that al-Midhar was dangerous and asked law enforcement agencies to look for him.
March 15, 2002, The Forward, Spy Rumors Fly on Gusts of Truth; Americans Probing Reports of Israeli Espionage, by Marc Perelman, Forward Staff,
Despite angry denials by Israel and its American supporters, reports that Israel was conducting spying activities in the United States may have a grain of truth, the Forward has learned.
However, far from pointing to Israeli spying against U.S. government and military facilities, as reported in Europe last week, the incidents in question appear to represent a case of Israelis in the United States spying on a common enemy, radical Islamic networks suspected of links to Middle East terrorism.
In particular, a group of five Israelis arrested in New Jersey shortly after the September 11 attacks and held for more than two months was subjected to an unusual number of polygraph tests and interrogated by a series of government agencies including the FBI's counterintelligence division, which by some reports remains convinced that Israel was conducting an intelligence operation. The five
Israelis worked for a moving company with few discernable assets that closed up shop immediately afterward and whose owner fled to Israel.
Other allegations involved Israelis claiming to be art students who had backgrounds in signal interception and ordnance. (See related story, Page 8.)
Sources emphasized that the release of all the Israelis under investigation indicates that they were cleared of any suspicion that they had prior knowledge of the September 11 attacks, as some anti-Israel media outlets have suggested.
The resulting tensions between Washington and Jerusalem, sources told the Forward, arose not because of the operations' targets but because Israel reportedly violated a secret gentlemen's agreement between the two countries under which espionage on each other's soil is
to be coordinated in advance.
Most experts and former officials interviewed for this article said that such so-called unilateral or uncoordinated Israeli monitoring of radical Muslims in America would not be surprising.
In fact, they said, Israeli intelligence played a key role in helping the Bush administration to crack down on Islamic charities suspected of funneling money to terrorist groups, most notably the Richardson, Texas-based Holy Land Foundation last December.
"I have no doubt Israel has an interest in spying on those groups," said Peter Unsinger, an intelligence expert who teaches justice administration at San Jose University. "The Israelis give us good stuff, like on the Hamas charities."
According to one former high-ranking American intelligence official, who asked not to be named, the FBI came to the conclusion at the end of its investigation that the five Israelis arrested in New Jersey last September were conducting a Mossad surveillance mission and that their employer, Urban Moving Systems of Weehawken, N.J., served as a front.
After their arrest, the men were held in detention for two-and-a-half months and were deported at the end of November, officially for visa violations.
However, a counterintelligence investigation by the FBI concluded that at least two of them were in fact Mossad operatives, according to the former American official, who said he was regularly briefed on the investigation by two separate law enforcement officials.
"The assessment was that Urban Moving Systems was a front for the Mossad and operatives employed by it," he said. "The conclusion of the FBI was that they were spying on local Arabs but that they could leave because they did not know anything about 9/11."
However, he added, the bureau was "very irritated because it was a case of so-called unilateral espionage, meaning they didn't know about it."
Spokesmen for the FBI, the Justice Department and the Immigration and Naturalization Service refused to discuss the case. Israeli officials flatly dismissed the allegations as untrue.
However, the former American official said that after American authorities confronted Jerusalem on the issue at the end of last year, the Israeli government acknowledged the operation and apologized for not coordinating it with Washington.
The five men — Sivan and Paul Kurzberg, Oded Ellner, Omer Marmari and Yaron Shmuel — were arrested eight hours after the attacks by the Bergen County, N.J., police while driving in an Urban Moving Systems van. The police acted on an FBI alert after the men allegedly were seen acting strangely while watching the events from the roof of their warehouse and the roof of their van.
In addition to their strange behavior and their Middle Eastern looks, the suspicions were compounded when a box cutter and $4,000 in cash were found in the van. Moreover, one man carried two passports and another had fresh pictures of the men standing with the smoldering wreckage of the World Trade Center in the background.
The Bergen County police immediately handed the suspects to the INS, which turned them over to a joint police-FBI terrorism task force set up after September 11 to deal with all possible links with the attacks.
The five Israelis were detained in the high-security Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn in solitary confinement until mid-October.
On September 25, they all signed papers acknowledging violations of Uimmigration law. At the end of October, the INS issued a deportation order which was enforced a month later after a review by the Justice Department and prodding by Jewish and Israeli officials.
However, the former official said, this is just the official story.
In fact, he said, the nature of the investigation changed after the names of two of the five Israelis showed up on a CIA-FBI database of foreign intelligence operatives, he said. At that point, he said, the bureau took control of the investigation and launched a Foreign Counterintelligence Investigation, or FCI.
FBI investigations into possible links to the September 11 attacks are usually carried by the bureau's counterterrorism division, not its counterintelligence division.
"An FCI means not only that it was serious but also that it was handled at a very high level and very tightly," the former official said. That view was echoed by several former FBI officials interviewed.
Steven Gordon, an American lawyer hired by the families to help secure their release, said he could not confirm which FBI division was in charge of the investigation. However, he acknowledged that "there were a lot of people involved, including counterintelligence officials from the FBI."
The men all underwent at least two polygraph tests each, the lawyer added. He said one of the Israelis took the test seven times, a very unusual total according to several polygraph experts interviewed by the Forward.
After the men were arrested, FBI agents searched the warehouse of Urban Moving Systems in Weehawken, N.J., seizing computer hard drives and documents. The warehouse was closed on September 14, said Ron George, a spokesman for the New Jersey State Division of Consumer Affairs.
On December 7, a New Jersey judge ruled that the state could seize the goods remaining inside the warehouse. The state also has a lawsuit pending against Urban Moving Systems and its owner, Dominik Otto Suter, an Israeli citizen.
The FBI questioned Mr. Suter once. However, he left the country afterward and went back to Israel before further questioning. Mr. Suter declined through his lawyer to be interviewed for this article.
Earlier this year, the New York State Department of Transportation revoked Urban Moving System's license after discovering that the company's midtown Manhattan base was only a mailing address.
After they returned to Israel at the end of November, the five men told local media that they were kept in solitary confinement, beaten, deprived of food and questioned while blindfolded and in their underwear.
Mr. Ellner, one of the five Israelis, said on two occasions in recent weeks that the five men had decided not to grant any interviews right now "because we went through a very difficult period and we are not ready for this."
Their Israeli lawyer, Ram Horwitz, told the Forward he was still waiting for the results of the medical tests undertaken by the men in Israel to make a decision on an eventual lawsuit in the United States for mistreatment.
Mr. Horwitz insisted the men were not intelligence officers.
Irit Stoffer, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, said the allegations were "completely untrue" and that there were "only visa violations."
"The FBI investigated those cases because of 9/11," Ms. Stoffer said.
Charlene Eban, a spokeswoman for the FBI in Washington, and Don Nelson, a Justice Department spokesman, said they had no knowledge of an Israeli spying operation.
"If we found evidence of unauthorized intelligence operations, that would be classified material," added Jim Margolin, a spokesman for the FBI in New York.
One leading expert in American intelligence operations, Chip Berlet, a senior analyst at the Boston-based Political Research Associates, explained that there "is a backdoor agreement between allies that says that if one of your spies gets caught and didn't do too much harm, he goes home. It goes on all the time. The official reason is always a visa violation."
September 03, 2004, The Forward, Espionage Ruled Out in Case of Bad Art, by Seamus Mcgraw,
Is it espionage or — worse — bad art?
While officials in the United States are busy grappling with the question of whether Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin passed sensitive information to Israel and compromised national security, authorities in our neighbor to the north are trying to tamp down speculation that a platoon of goateed and dreadlocked Israeli art students who infiltrated Canada may have been working as spies.
The Israeli embassy in Ottawa has emphatically denied any link to the students and is dismissing allegations of possible espionage bandied about on the Internet. The claims also have been raised in Canadian newspapers, but with caveats and disclaimers, and then flatly rejected as “preposterous.” Government officials in Canada also insist that no evidence exists to suggest that the students who were picked up last month in Calgary, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Toronto and Ottawa and deported were part of a fifth column targeting the far side of the 49th parallel.
The students and their handlers, Guy Grinberg and Jackie Yakov Senior, were charged earlier this month under Canadian law with working in the country illegally, and faced no other charges, said Robert Ferguson, director of immigration enforcement for the Canada Border Services Agency in Canada. A similar operation gained widespread media attention amid allegations of espionage when it surfaced in the United States in 2000.
In the most recent case, government authorities in Canada have insisted that all the evidence collected indicates the young, self-described “art students” — all of them Israelis in the country on visitor’s visas — were involved in something far more prosaic than espionage: the importation of tragically bad, dirt-cheap paintings from the Far East that were then sold at wildly inflated prices door-to-door in some of the more upscale neighborhoods in western Canada. In some cases, the paintings sold for more than 100 times their value, prompting authorities in Calgary to issue a warning to the public to be wary of art fraud, said Detective Frank Cattoni of the Calgary Police Department. The alert made no mention of espionage.
“We have no… information in our possession other than to indicate that they were selling art… and that’s how our department dealt with it,” Ferguson said. “Basically, they were seen as working illegally.”
But the official declarations have not succeeded in quelling all public uneasiness about the art students and their motives, talk that has dogged reports of the operation on both sides of the border for more than three years.
In an August 7 report on the detention of 15 members of the Canadian ring, for example, the Calgary Herald declared that the door-to-door art scam “has for years puzzled authorities on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border and raised the specter of international espionage.”
The art-selling operation, which first surfaced in the United States in 2000, has been reported on by The Washington Post, Fox News, Salon.com, Ha'aretz and most extensively by the Atlanta-based alternative newspaper Creative Loafing. It has for three years now been a hotly debated topic among amateur spy watchers and on conspiracy theory Web sites.
Over the years, government officials from the United States, Israel and Canada have all officially dismissed speculation about the ring. In one instance, an American official described allegations of spying as "an urban myth." Despite all the media attention, no evidence has ever been uncovered proving that the operation involves anything more than college-age students, recruited by handlers in Israel, to go door-to-door trying to persuade office managers and affluent housewives to pay up to several thousand dollars for $20 paintings hammered out in Far Eastern workshops.
Reports of the scam and allegations that it might be a front for Israeli espionage first surfaced in the United States in 2000, when American officials, among them agents of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, first began noticing that as many as 120 young Israelis, many of them veterans of the Israeli military's intelligence corps or experienced in signal interception and ordnance, were traveling door-to-door from Atlanta to Texas. They often turned up at offices of the DEA and other government agencies, on one occasion at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma, where American spy planes are serviced, and on several occasions at the homes of federal law enforcement agents. In at least one case, the students were spotted in an Atlanta-area office that housed an FBI office not widely known to the public.
A 60-page draft report detailing the students’ activities was compiled by a DEA agent and later leaked to the press. Among other things, the report’s author, who never has been identified, warned that it was entirely possible that the operation actually was “an organized intelligence-gathering activity.”
The report did not conclusively point the finger of blame at anyone. But John Sugg, an associate editor for Creative Loafing and the first journalist to publish details of the report, said his sources opined that it was possible the students could have been trying to glean information for the Mossad, perhaps as part of an operation to monitor Arab groups in the United States and the American government’s reaction to them. But, Sugg said, it was equally possible that they were targeting DEA and related offices on the orders of Israeli organized crime factions that were then consolidating their control over the illicit Ecstasy market.
By March 2001, federal anti-espionage authorities were concerned enough about the Israeli art students to issue a warning to government officials to be on the lookout for attempts to infiltrate federal buildings.
At that point, the alert was a closely held secret among federal agents. But on December 12, 2001, three months after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Fox News reported that dozens of Israelis, among them art students, had been arrested on immigration charges and were suspected of spying on the United States. They were deported and faced no additional charges. In the months that followed, Sugg and the French newspaper Le Monde published stories detailing the contents of the DEA report. Months later, the Forward also raised the specter of Israeli espionage, publishing a report that the art students were suspected by some to be part of a larger operation, an operation that came to light with the arrest of five Israeli citizens on September 11, 2001. All five were deported even though, according to a former American official briefed on the case, "a counter-intelligence investigation by the FBI concluded that at least two of them were in fact Mossad operatives."
Reporters for several major newspapers, including The Washington Post and The New York Times, looked into the allegations as well, but were never able to find a conclusive link between the art students and either the Mossad or the underworld.
In fact, in its report, the Washington Post quoted government officials who downplayed the significance of the DEA report, claiming that it was the work of one disgruntled employee who was unhappy that higher-ups were not taking seriously enough his warnings of possible Israeli espionage in the United States.
But still the story wouldn’t die.
As late as last year, the respected Internet magazine Salon.com revived the spy ring allegations in a lengthy and detailed report recounting the charges and suggesting that the group may have been operating in as many as 40 American cities.
By that point, however, the operation had moved across the border to Canada. According to Canadian officials, the operation took root there in 2002, about the same time as it began to peter out in the United States. But there was a difference. Canadian officials insist that unlike the events detailed in the DEA report in the United States, there was no evidence that the art scammers in Canada targeted government officials or government offices. Instead, the ring seemed to focus exclusively on wealthier neighborhoods.
Ofir Gendelman, spokesman for the Israeli embassy in Ottawa, says the students, many of whom, he quickly noted, “are from good families,” are recruited for the overseas art scam by scurrilous business people using newspaper ads and word-of-mouth solicitations. Not only are they not spies, he says, but in most cases, they also are so gullible that they don’t even know they’re being hired to work illegally. "They have no idea," Gendelman said. "The people who run those companies tell them that because [the recruiters are] legal here those Israelis are also legal, and so they eat the bait."
Such gullibility is hardly a qualification for spy duty, and Gendelman freely expressed frustration with the persistence of rumors of a cloak-and-dagger operation involving the young students. "It's ridiculous," he said. "Those allegations are absolutely baseless."
And there are many, both inside and outside government, who agree.
While the original allegations of espionage in the United States were controversial and lacked real evidence, they were not wholly beyond the realm of possibility, said Chip Berlet, an expert in intelligence operations who also studies conspiracy theories at Boston-based Political Research Associates.
"If I were an intelligence agency and I wanted to hide people, I might pick this kind of group," Berlet said. "On the other hand, it's unlikely that everyone in the group would be intelligence agents because then there wouldn’t be a cover."
Even if there were some kernel of truth to the original spying allegations, it is unlikely, Berlet said, that such an operation would have survived the media storm it encountered when details of the DEA report surfaced in the United States. It’s even more unlikely, he says, that such an operation would be resurrected immediately afterward in Canada or anywhere else.
"It strains credulity that once you have an operation blown, you'd simply recycle it," Berlet said. "That's almost unheard of; that's not done. You're placing your agents at too high a risk."
October 17, 2001, The Mercury [Pottstown, Philadelphia] Two found with video of Sears Tower, by Michelle Mowad,
PLYMOUTH --Two men whom police described as Middle Eastern were detained in the township by federal immigration authorities after being found with detailed video footage of the Sears Tower in Chicago.
Plymouth Police encountered the men after an officer responded to Pizzeria Uno on the 1000 block of West Ridge Pike at 2:40 p.m. Thursday for a report of illegal dumping, according to reports.
A manager there advised the police officer that a tractor-trailer was observed backed up to the Dumpster at the rear of the restaurant. The manager noticed a freshly dumped pile of furniture adjacent to the Dumpster, according to police.
The manager confronted the vehicle's operator, a Middle Eastern man, police said.
The man, who later identified himself as Moshe Elmakias, 30, denied that he did anything and fled the scene, heading west on West Ridge Pike, according to police.
The manager was able to provide township police with the Floridaregistration number of the tractor-trailer and said that a sign posted on the side of the vehicle read "Moving Systems Incorporated" and included a phone number, police said.
The area was searched by township police, and the vehicle was spotted parked on the curb in front of John Kennedy Ford on Ridge Pike, just west of Industrial Way.
An officer proceeded to make contact with the occupants of the truck by knocking on the cab, according to reports.
A Middle Eastern man, later identified as Ron Katar, 23, exited the sleeper area of the cab and said that the operator was across the street as he pointed toward the Don Rosen Porsche dealer, reports said.
Elmakias and a white female, Ayelet Reisler, 23, were approaching the vehicle from the dealership, but the female then began walking in a different direction, acting as if she were not with Elmakias, according to reports.
Reisler was detained and checked for identification. She had a German passport in her name and medication in a different name, police said.
Plymouth Police Sgt. Thomas Longowas notified and responded to the incident.
Elmakias allegedly admitted to being behind Pizzeria Uno, although he said that he did not dump furniture, he was only turning around.
Elmakias said that his destination was New York and that he was also coming from New York. He said he was in Plymouth because he was supposed to make a pickup from a male in the morning and pointed toward the Storage USA facility on Belvoir Road and West Ridge Pike, police said.
Elmakias could not, however, provide a name or telephone number of the customer.
Township police dispatched a request for a Motor Carrier Safety Assistance Program Inspector. Officer Gerald Schwartz of the Whitpain Police Department responded.
Schwartz discovered through his investigation that the operator's log had been falsified and put the truck out of service due to violations, police said. In addition, the vehicle reportedly had numerous equipment violations that rendered the truck unsafe.
Inspection of the tractor-trailer's contents revealed a load three-quarters full containing household items, including furniture and boxes.
Among the items in the truck was a Sony video camera.
Plymouth Police Officer David McCann reviewed the tape found inside the camera. The tape had video footage of Chicago with zoomed-in shots of the Sears Tower, according to police.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation was notified of the incident and all three subjects were transported to the Plymouth Police station.
The subjects were then processed through the National Crime Information Center and placed into detention, according to the report.
FBI Agents James Sweeney andRichard Tofani arrived at the station and proceeded to investigate both the subjects and their belongings with the assistance of Immigration and Naturalization Services.
Elmakias and Katar were eventually detained by INS and transported to a federal facility, said police. Reisler was released.
All evidence collected by Plymouth and Whitpain officers was transferred to federal facilities with the exception of a VCR.
Special Agent Linda Vizi, a spokeswoman for the Philadelphia FBI, could not be contacted for comment on further investigations.
March 11, 2002, Insight Magazine, Intelligence Agents Or Art Students? By Paul M. Rodriguez
From Paris to Washington to New York City and back again, a story has reverberated about an alleged Israeli spy ring that was busted in the United States last year. Intelligence Online, a well-respected Internet news service broke the explosive story, which quickly was picked up by Le Monde in France, then the Associated Press (AP) in Washington and other news outlets.
These stories all seem to track a similar report last December by Carl Cameron of Fox News outlining concerns among U.S. law-enforcement and intelligence agencies that an Israeli-based network of operatives was spying or otherwise engaged in information-gathering activities within the United States. All the news agencies said or mentioned that many of those under investigation subsequently were deported by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) for visa violations. Most also quoted named and unnamed Israeli spokesmen as saying that Israel doesn't spy on the United States and that whatever these Israeli citizens were doing was not criminal even if inappropriate and in violation of their visas.
Insight already was investigating such allegations and had obtained numerous documents for what from the beginning was planned as an investigative report. Amid the breaking news of the so-called "Israeli spy-ring bust," it is time to clear the air on a variety of real and half-baked charges reported by others. Specifically:
"It is a very alarming set of documents," says one high-ranking federal law-enforcement official when told of the cache of materials collected by Insight. "This shows how serious DEA and Justice consider this activity."
Indeed, says a senior Justice Department official briefed on an ongoing multiagency task force, "We think there is something quite sinister here but are unable at this time to put our finger on it." But, said another federal law-enforcement source: "The higher-ups don't want to deal with this and neither does the FBI because it involves Israel."
One report, Suspicious Activities Involving Israeli Art Students at DEA Facilities, lists more than 180 documented-incident cases. Analysts tell Insight they appear to be attempts "to circumvent the access-control systems at DEA offices" and to capture personal information about private lives of DEA law-enforcement officers, such as where they live, what cars they drive and how they behave outside of their official offices. This was concluded, in part, based on photographs made of U.S. law officers and other materials seized by a variety of federal and local law-enforcement officers during searches.
"The nature of the individuals' conduct, combined with intelligence information and historical information regarding past incidents involving Israeli organized crime, leads IS [DEA's Internal Security division] to believe the incidents may well be an organized intelligence-gathering activity," a classified document euphemizes.
The documents do not clearly label the activities of the so-called art students as a government-sanctioned spying operation, as widely reported. But they do make clear there is a covert nature to the well-orchestrated activities. In one reference, DEA said telephone numbers obtained from one encounter with its agents in Orlando, Fla., "have been linked to several ongoing DEA MDMA [the illegal drug Ecstasy] investigations in Florida, California, Texas and New York now being closely coordinated by DEA headquarters" in Washington.
A review of passports obtained by law enforcement also showed that a majority of the students traveled to numerous countries, including Thailand, Laos, India, Kenya, Central and South America, Australia, Germany, the Netherlands and Canada.
Besides federal law-enforcement incidents, DEA's IS unit found that several military bases also had experienced unauthorized entries by some of the students, including two bases from which Stealth aircraft and other supersecret military units operate. Unauthorized photographing of military sites and civilian industrial complexes, such as petroleum-storage facilities, also was reported to the DEA, the documents show and interviews confirm.
In virtually every incident of the many reported by the entire DEA field-office structure the pattern was similar: Students would attempt to enter secure buildings, take photographs, follow federal agents when they left buildings, show up at their homes, take pictures of their cars and circle their neighborhoods, visiting only their houses and then departing.
"This is very odd behavior under any situation," says a current DEA official who had heard but not yet seen the reports until Insight shared them. "The patterns are clear and they pose a significant danger to our officers in the field." Maybe U.S. national security.
On March 4, Intelligence Online reported that U.S. authorities had busted an Israeli spy ring in the United States that had sought to penetrate various federal law-enforcement agencies and military establishments. According to one wire report, the online service also said that documents it had obtained showed "a huge Israeli spy ring operating in the United States was rolled up by the Justice Department's counter-espionage service" last year.
Once newspapers and the AP picked the story up, FBI officials downplayed it, telling reporters that no charges of espionage had been filed. The carefully worded statements left out any mention of whether spying was suspected. FBI and INS officials told newsmen that most of those involved — an estimated 100 or so "Israeli art students" — overstayed their visas and had been deported. Some also were found to have illegal drugs or admitted to illegal-drug usage and were deported for this, too, documents showed and officials confirm to Insight.
A spokesmen for the Israeli Embassy in Washington says suggestions of espionage are nonsense and that all that might have been involved was a few visa violations. "If there were crimes committed then why weren't any of these people charged?" a spokesman asked. "That's not to say that there isn't any organized crime involving Israeli citizens," said another Israeli official when asked about DEA concern that the art students might have been tied to a criminal syndicate. "If that is so, I hope they put them in jail. We don't need those types of people, no matter who they are, loose on the streets."
This Israeli government official also tells Insight that his government's police and intelligence services cooperate fully with their counterparts in the United States, including the ongoing Ecstasy investigation mentioned in one of the DEA documents this magazine has obtained. "It is unfortunately a big problem, and we are working to help stop it," the Israeli official confirms.
FBI and Justice spokesmen have sought either to downplay or knock out the stories — even discredit the DEA reports and their authors. But if DEA was wrong then how can Justice explain this item Insight discovered that was circulated by a little-known but sensitive White House agency called the U.S. Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive.
That agency not only circulated an internal warning to intelligence, federal law enforcement and White House planners — three full months before DEA issued its own internal report — but also posted on its site a warning to all federal employees about Israeli art students aggressively trying to enter federal facilities and going to the homes of senior federal agents. The same thing apparently was going on with a non-Israeli outfit with possible ties to a Middle Eastern Islamic fundamentalist group.
Paul M. Rodriguez is managing editor of Insight.
December 20, 2001, Jewish Telegraph Agency, Jews worry that "baseless" report on Sepember 11 could be a blow to Israel, by Matthew E. Berger,
Plymouth Police encountered the men after an officer responded to Pizzeria Uno on the 1000 block of West Ridge Pike at 2:40 p.m. Thursday for a report of illegal dumping, according to reports.
A manager there advised the police officer that a tractor-trailer was observed backed up to the Dumpster at the rear of the restaurant. The manager noticed a freshly dumped pile of furniture adjacent to the Dumpster, according to police.
The manager confronted the vehicle's operator, a Middle Eastern man, police said.
The man, who later identified himself as Moshe Elmakias, 30, denied that he did anything and fled the scene, heading west on West Ridge Pike, according to police.
The manager was able to provide township police with the Floridaregistration number of the tractor-trailer and said that a sign posted on the side of the vehicle read "Moving Systems Incorporated" and included a phone number, police said.
The area was searched by township police, and the vehicle was spotted parked on the curb in front of John Kennedy Ford on Ridge Pike, just west of Industrial Way.
An officer proceeded to make contact with the occupants of the truck by knocking on the cab, according to reports.
A Middle Eastern man, later identified as Ron Katar, 23, exited the sleeper area of the cab and said that the operator was across the street as he pointed toward the Don Rosen Porsche dealer, reports said.
Elmakias and a white female, Ayelet Reisler, 23, were approaching the vehicle from the dealership, but the female then began walking in a different direction, acting as if she were not with Elmakias, according to reports.
Reisler was detained and checked for identification. She had a German passport in her name and medication in a different name, police said.
Plymouth Police Sgt. Thomas Longowas notified and responded to the incident.
Elmakias allegedly admitted to being behind Pizzeria Uno, although he said that he did not dump furniture, he was only turning around.
Elmakias said that his destination was New York and that he was also coming from New York. He said he was in Plymouth because he was supposed to make a pickup from a male in the morning and pointed toward the Storage USA facility on Belvoir Road and West Ridge Pike, police said.
Elmakias could not, however, provide a name or telephone number of the customer.
Township police dispatched a request for a Motor Carrier Safety Assistance Program Inspector. Officer Gerald Schwartz of the Whitpain Police Department responded.
Schwartz discovered through his investigation that the operator's log had been falsified and put the truck out of service due to violations, police said. In addition, the vehicle reportedly had numerous equipment violations that rendered the truck unsafe.
Inspection of the tractor-trailer's contents revealed a load three-quarters full containing household items, including furniture and boxes.
Among the items in the truck was a Sony video camera.
Plymouth Police Officer David McCann reviewed the tape found inside the camera. The tape had video footage of Chicago with zoomed-in shots of the Sears Tower, according to police.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation was notified of the incident and all three subjects were transported to the Plymouth Police station.
The subjects were then processed through the National Crime Information Center and placed into detention, according to the report.
FBI Agents James Sweeney andRichard Tofani arrived at the station and proceeded to investigate both the subjects and their belongings with the assistance of Immigration and Naturalization Services.
Elmakias and Katar were eventually detained by INS and transported to a federal facility, said police. Reisler was released.
All evidence collected by Plymouth and Whitpain officers was transferred to federal facilities with the exception of a VCR.
Special Agent Linda Vizi, a spokeswoman for the Philadelphia FBI, could not be contacted for comment on further investigations.
March 11, 2002, Insight Magazine, Intelligence Agents Or Art Students? By Paul M. Rodriguez
From Paris to Washington to New York City and back again, a story has reverberated about an alleged Israeli spy ring that was busted in the United States last year. Intelligence Online, a well-respected Internet news service broke the explosive story, which quickly was picked up by Le Monde in France, then the Associated Press (AP) in Washington and other news outlets.
These stories all seem to track a similar report last December by Carl Cameron of Fox News outlining concerns among U.S. law-enforcement and intelligence agencies that an Israeli-based network of operatives was spying or otherwise engaged in information-gathering activities within the United States. All the news agencies said or mentioned that many of those under investigation subsequently were deported by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) for visa violations. Most also quoted named and unnamed Israeli spokesmen as saying that Israel doesn't spy on the United States and that whatever these Israeli citizens were doing was not criminal even if inappropriate and in violation of their visas.
Insight already was investigating such allegations and had obtained numerous documents for what from the beginning was planned as an investigative report. Amid the breaking news of the so-called "Israeli spy-ring bust," it is time to clear the air on a variety of real and half-baked charges reported by others. Specifically:
- The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) began an "unprecedented" internal-security investigation early last spring following reports from field agents and regional offices involving suspicious activities by Israeli citizens engaged in the sale of artwork and paintings throughout the Southeast, South and Southwest, including Florida, Texas and California.
- The "Israeli art students" — so dubbed because that's how they described themselves to various law-enforcement officials when confronted — were both male and female and, as appropriate to their ages and required under Israeli law, served that nation's military.
- These alleged students traveled in "organized" teams of eight to 10 people, with each group having a team leader.
- Reports of Israeli art students calling on DEA employees began at least as early as January 2000 and continued through at least June 2001.
- These unusual visits at both the homes and offices of DEA officers were expanded to include employees of "several other law-enforcement and Department of Defense agencies."
- "The number of reported incidents has declined" since spring 2001, though the "geographic spread of the incidents has increased to Wisconsin, Oklahoma and Los Angeles."
- The stories offered by the Israeli art students "are remarkable in their consistency" insofar as they state they either are from the University of Jerusalem or the Bezalel Academy of Arts in Jerusalem."
- Despite the students' claims that they had themselves produced the artwork or paintings they were offering for sale, "information has been received which indicates the art is actually produced in China."
"It is a very alarming set of documents," says one high-ranking federal law-enforcement official when told of the cache of materials collected by Insight. "This shows how serious DEA and Justice consider this activity."
Indeed, says a senior Justice Department official briefed on an ongoing multiagency task force, "We think there is something quite sinister here but are unable at this time to put our finger on it." But, said another federal law-enforcement source: "The higher-ups don't want to deal with this and neither does the FBI because it involves Israel."
One report, Suspicious Activities Involving Israeli Art Students at DEA Facilities, lists more than 180 documented-incident cases. Analysts tell Insight they appear to be attempts "to circumvent the access-control systems at DEA offices" and to capture personal information about private lives of DEA law-enforcement officers, such as where they live, what cars they drive and how they behave outside of their official offices. This was concluded, in part, based on photographs made of U.S. law officers and other materials seized by a variety of federal and local law-enforcement officers during searches.
"The nature of the individuals' conduct, combined with intelligence information and historical information regarding past incidents involving Israeli organized crime, leads IS [DEA's Internal Security division] to believe the incidents may well be an organized intelligence-gathering activity," a classified document euphemizes.
The documents do not clearly label the activities of the so-called art students as a government-sanctioned spying operation, as widely reported. But they do make clear there is a covert nature to the well-orchestrated activities. In one reference, DEA said telephone numbers obtained from one encounter with its agents in Orlando, Fla., "have been linked to several ongoing DEA MDMA [the illegal drug Ecstasy] investigations in Florida, California, Texas and New York now being closely coordinated by DEA headquarters" in Washington.
A review of passports obtained by law enforcement also showed that a majority of the students traveled to numerous countries, including Thailand, Laos, India, Kenya, Central and South America, Australia, Germany, the Netherlands and Canada.
Besides federal law-enforcement incidents, DEA's IS unit found that several military bases also had experienced unauthorized entries by some of the students, including two bases from which Stealth aircraft and other supersecret military units operate. Unauthorized photographing of military sites and civilian industrial complexes, such as petroleum-storage facilities, also was reported to the DEA, the documents show and interviews confirm.
In virtually every incident of the many reported by the entire DEA field-office structure the pattern was similar: Students would attempt to enter secure buildings, take photographs, follow federal agents when they left buildings, show up at their homes, take pictures of their cars and circle their neighborhoods, visiting only their houses and then departing.
"This is very odd behavior under any situation," says a current DEA official who had heard but not yet seen the reports until Insight shared them. "The patterns are clear and they pose a significant danger to our officers in the field." Maybe U.S. national security.
On March 4, Intelligence Online reported that U.S. authorities had busted an Israeli spy ring in the United States that had sought to penetrate various federal law-enforcement agencies and military establishments. According to one wire report, the online service also said that documents it had obtained showed "a huge Israeli spy ring operating in the United States was rolled up by the Justice Department's counter-espionage service" last year.
Once newspapers and the AP picked the story up, FBI officials downplayed it, telling reporters that no charges of espionage had been filed. The carefully worded statements left out any mention of whether spying was suspected. FBI and INS officials told newsmen that most of those involved — an estimated 100 or so "Israeli art students" — overstayed their visas and had been deported. Some also were found to have illegal drugs or admitted to illegal-drug usage and were deported for this, too, documents showed and officials confirm to Insight.
A spokesmen for the Israeli Embassy in Washington says suggestions of espionage are nonsense and that all that might have been involved was a few visa violations. "If there were crimes committed then why weren't any of these people charged?" a spokesman asked. "That's not to say that there isn't any organized crime involving Israeli citizens," said another Israeli official when asked about DEA concern that the art students might have been tied to a criminal syndicate. "If that is so, I hope they put them in jail. We don't need those types of people, no matter who they are, loose on the streets."
This Israeli government official also tells Insight that his government's police and intelligence services cooperate fully with their counterparts in the United States, including the ongoing Ecstasy investigation mentioned in one of the DEA documents this magazine has obtained. "It is unfortunately a big problem, and we are working to help stop it," the Israeli official confirms.
FBI and Justice spokesmen have sought either to downplay or knock out the stories — even discredit the DEA reports and their authors. But if DEA was wrong then how can Justice explain this item Insight discovered that was circulated by a little-known but sensitive White House agency called the U.S. Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive.
That agency not only circulated an internal warning to intelligence, federal law enforcement and White House planners — three full months before DEA issued its own internal report — but also posted on its site a warning to all federal employees about Israeli art students aggressively trying to enter federal facilities and going to the homes of senior federal agents. The same thing apparently was going on with a non-Israeli outfit with possible ties to a Middle Eastern Islamic fundamentalist group.
Paul M. Rodriguez is managing editor of Insight.
December 20, 2001, Jewish Telegraph Agency, Jews worry that "baseless" report on Sepember 11 could be a blow to Israel, by Matthew E. Berger,
WASHINGTON, Dec. 20 (JTA) - American Jews have been complaining that a four-part series on Fox News last week insinuated that Israeli intelligence had foreknowledge of the Sept. 11 terror attacks but didn't tell American authorities.
Israeli officials have called the stories "totally baseless," and the reports were not picked up by other media outlets. Still, some American Jews are concerned the report will foster negative images of Israel that they feared in the immediate aftermath of the attacks.
"In the conspiracy media world and the hate groups, its going to have lots of legs," said Alex Safian, associate director of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, or CAMERA.
The series, reported by Carl Cameron in Washington, alleges that Israeli intelligence may have had foreknowledge of the Al Qaida terrorist attacks because Israelis have been spying on the movements of Arabs in the United States.
"There is no indication that the Israelis were involved in the September 11 attacks, but investigators suspect that the Israelis may have gathered intelligence about the attacks and not shared it," Cameron said in the first segment of the series. "A highly placed investigator said there are 'tie-ins.' "
Israeli officials denied the spying charges, and said that most of the Israelis rounded up after the Sept. 11 attacks were held for minor visa infractions and have since been released.
Later parts of the series accuse an Israeli telecommunications company, Amdocs Ltd., of not protecting private call records and billing data, which Fox said could have hindered the American investigation into the terrorist attacks.
A second Israeli telecommunications firm, Comverse Infosys, is accused of illegal moves in providing private phone information to the Israeli government.
Critics say the pieces offer no on-the-record sources and rely heavily on innuendo and hypothesis.
Safian cites one example, in which Cameron says the U.S. government "looked at Amdocs" when trying to determine the cause of leaks in a Los Angeles drug investigation of suspects linked to Israeli organized crime.
What the reporter fails to mention, Safian says, is that someone unrelated to Amdocs later pleaded guilty to leaking the information.
Other charges against Fox News -- which Jewish groups felt generally has been fair in its reportage on Israel -- is that the station did not seek on-camera comments or rebuttals from Israeli officials or the companies cited, and that it recycled previously aired stories.
However, American Jewish and Israeli officials are baffled about what might have led Fox or Cameron to pursue so controversial a story on the basis of evidence they regard as so flimsy.
Jewish groups that have spoken to reporters following up on Cameron's charges have been told that American government sources have debunked the allegations. Virtually no other American media organization has run a piece on the Fox allegations -- a sign that the story lacks merit, Jewish leaders say.
A Fox News spokesman said, "We stand by the story," but would not go into further detail.
American Jewish leaders and Israeli officials said they are holding conversations with Fox News representatives, but refused to elaborate.
Jewish organizations have been receiving frantic calls from Jews concerned that the reports may fuel anti-Semitism. In the first days after the Sept. 11 attacks, Jewish organizations feared attempts to link the attacks, and Al Qaida's hatred of the United States, to U.S. support for Israel.
While such linkage has been successfully refuted, those fears have been reawakened by the Fox report.
Fox "comes to the conclusion that if maybe" the Israelis "spied, they had the information and didn't share it," said Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League. "That's insidious. It almost said the Israelis were responsible for what happened."
Foxman said the report falls just "one step below" Arab claims that Israel was responsible for the terrorist attacks. So far, there is no evidence that Arab countries or groups are incorporating the report into their anti-Israel propaganda.
Most Jewish organizations have chosen not to issue formal statements about the Fox News report for fear that it would give the allegations undue exposure.
"When a serious news outlet decides to run with a story that is factually incorrect, I think that more public damage is ultimately going to be done to the reputation of that news outlet than the target of the story," said Mark Regev, spokesman for the Israeli embassy in Washington
Israelis 'spied on al-Qa'ida in America'
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.j...
The Israeli 'Art Student' Mystery
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2002/05/07/students/i...
Urban Myth, My Ass!
http://atlanta.creativeloafing.com/2002-03-27/fishwrapp...
Update: The Spies Who Came In From the Art Sale
http://atlanta.creativeloafing.com/2002-03-20/fishwrapp...
Fundamentalist link in cheap art scam?
Israeli "art students" arrested and deported in Canada just last week. "The scam has attracted the attention of American counter-intelligence agents, who warn the bogus art was being used as a front for Islamic fundamentalist fundraisers."
http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/WinnipegSun/News/2004/08/...
I'm not legally allowed to agree with you.
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