FBI's diversion?- 9/11 Funds Traced to Pakistan Accounts

posted by ewing2001 on Thursday July 31, @03:54PM

9/11 Funds Traced to Pakistan Accounts

Update: How the Pakistan Spin might backfire on Bush
Update: Times of India strikes back again: Atta-ISI ties

AP -Jul 31

Photo: John S Pistole (FBI)

WASHINGTON - Investigators have traced the funding for the Sept. 11 attacks to al-Qaida accounts in Pakistan, a top FBI counterterrorism official told a Senate panel Thursday. Officials did little to clarify the Saudi role in the funding.

John S. Pistole, deputy assistant director of the FBI's counterterrorism division, said that investigators have "traced the origin of the funding of 9/11 back to financial accounts in Pakistan, where high-ranking and well-known al-Qaida operatives played a major role in moving the money forward, eventually into the hands of the hijackers located in the U.S."

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Pistole did not specify in his testimony to the Senate Governmental Affairs committee how those accounts in Pakistan were funded.

The FBI has estimated the Sept. 11 attacks cost between $175,000 and $250,000. That money, which paid for flight training, travel and other expenses, flowed to the hijackers through associates in Germany and the United Arab Emirates. Those associates reported to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who managed much of the planning for the attacks from Pakistan, U.S. officials said. Related Stories:

Sanctions Resistance Detailed

WP

"...The Treasury Department has sought economic sanctions for a number of Saudi groups tied to terrorism, an agency official told Congress yesterday, but has been stymied by the State Department and other government agencies.

"...John S. Pistole, deputy assistant director of the FBI's Counter-Terrorism Division, told the Senate panel he will meet with Saudi authorities in Jedda next week. He said he planned to press for more action on shutting down terror funding sources and to urge that the Saudis stop hiring defense lawyers for their citizens accused in terror-related cases, a practice Pistole characterized as "tantamount to buying off a witness."

FBI Pressrelease July 17th

"...John S. Pistole, Acting Assistant Director, Counterterrorism Division. Mr. Pistole has been appointed to step into Mr. Mefford's position, acting as Assistant Director for the Counterterrorism Division with its myriad responsibilities of overseeing, directing, and coordinating all FBI efforts to combat and prevent acts of terrorism aimed against U.S. interests worldwide.

Mr. Pistole was sworn in as a Special Agent in 1983. He has served in Minneapolis, New York, Indianapolis, and Boston. He also has taken overseas assignments to assess and train law enforcement officers in Bulgaria and at the International Law Enforcement Academy in Budapest, Hungary. Most recently he has served as Deputy Assistant Director of the Counterterrorism Division, overseeing operations in international terrorism, domestic terrorism, and terrorist financing.

How the Pakistan Spin might backfire on Bush

From 911 Skeptics Unite -the encyclopedia"

ISI
=============
Short for Inter-Service Intelligence, the Pakistan Secret Service.
According to Abdel Monam Saidali, of the Al-aram Center for Strategic Studies in Cairo, bin Laden and the "Afghan Arabs" had been imparted "with very sophisticated types of training that was allowed to them by the CIA and ISI".

The ISI, founded after WW2, was a helpful organisation during the so called Golden Crescent drug trade, which was being used to finance and equip the Bosnian Muslim Army (starting in the early 1990s) and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).

As John Cooley reports in Unholy Wars: "By 1981, when CIA chief Casey and his Saudi associates, Kamal Adhan and Prince Turki (->), were casting around for new sources of secret financing for the Afghan campaign, the bin Laden enterprises were all on a short list of possibly helpful families." In 1986, the CIA commissioned bin Laden to help build a huge tunnel complex in Khost, under the mountains near the border with Pakistan.

The CIA's aim was to provide its Afghan killers with a major arms storage depot, training facility and medical center. It was here that bin Laden decided to set up his own training camp for "Arab Afghans". He later recounted that his "volunteers were trained by Pakistani and American officers. The weapons were supplied by the Americans, the money by the Saudis".
On February 20th, 2003, Pakistan's Air Force Chief, Marshal Mushaf Ali Mir (who had ties to the ISI), was killed in a plane crash. (-> ToraBora)


ISI-Atta connection
=================
In August 2001, Mohammad Atta, as reported, received $100000 from an "unknown source" at the Pakistan Secret Service ISI.
This was the reason, why former chief Massoud later had to resign.
On the same day the United States started their retaliation against Iraq.

As later was revealed, the unknown source used at least two aliases:
Mustapha Ahmad Al-Hawsawi aka Shaikh Saeed (->).
http://www.reuters.co.uk/news_article.jhtml?type=worldnews&StoryID;=591591

One of the earliest versions of this story was released on September 30, 2001, by Brian Ross reporting on information conveyed to him by the FBI, ABC News.

Less than two weeks later, the findings of the FBI were confirmed by
Agence France Presse (AFP) and the Times of India, quoting an official
Indian intelligence report (which had been dispatched to Washington).

According to these two reports, the money used to finance the 9-11
attacks had allegedly been "wired to WTC hijacker Mohammed Atta from
Pakistan, by Ahmad Umar Sheikh, at the instance of [ISI Chief] General
Mahmoud [Ahmad]."
According to the AFP (quoting the intelligence source):

"The evidence we have supplied to the U.S. is of a much wider range
and depth than just one piece of paper linking a rogue general to some
misplaced act of terrorism."

Sources:  
The Times of India, Delhi, 9 October 2001
AFP, 10 October 2001
http://www.reuters.co.uk/news_article.jhtml?type=worldnews&StoryID;=591591
http://www.timesofindia.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=1454238160
http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=95001298


(->Adorna, Renee ->$200.000)

ISI-meeting in Washington
===================
General  Mahmoud Ahmad of the ISI (->), was in Washington for one week from September 6th- September 15th, 2001.

Ahmad had in fact arrived in the U.S. on the 4th of September, a full week before the attacks.
The purpose of his meeting at the State Department on the 13th was only made public "after" the September 11 terrorist attacks, when the Bush Administration took the decision to formally seek the "cooperation" of Pakistan in its "campaign against international terrorism."

Ahmad had two meetings with Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, respectively on the 12th and 13th. After September 11, he met Senator Joseph Biden, chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate.
Confirmed by several press reports, he had "a regular visit of consultations" with U.S. officials during the week prior to September 11, --i.e. meetings with his U.S. counterparts at the CIA and the Pentagon. This included US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Marc Grossman.

During Ahmads visit, on the 9th of September, the leader of the Northern Alliance Commander Ahmad Shah Masood was assassinated.

The reason for Ahmads' visit wasn't made public.

Later even his name was altered (changed into "inaudible") in a trabscript on questions during a Pentagon-press conference. (-> Ahmad, General Mahmud)

Only 1 day before Sep11th, Paknews speculated, that "one can safely guess that the discussions must have centred around Afghanistan, relations with India and China, disarmament of civilian outfits, country's nuclear and missiles programme and, of course, Osama Bin Laden."

Sources:
Times of India
http://www.rediff.com/us/2001/dec/24ny9.htm

Paul Thompson on KSM

Sept._11's_Smoking_Gun:_The Many_Faces_of_Saeed_Sheikh

The ISI: "The Invisible Government"

As the London Times has put it, Saeed Sheikh "is no ordinary terrorist but a man who has connections that reach high into Pakistan's military and intelligence elite and into the innermost circles of Osama Bin Laden and the al-Qaeda organization." [London Times, 4/21/02] To understand why Saeed is so important in understanding 9/11, it is necessary to first understand the Pakistan's intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). The ISI plays a much more significant role in the Pakistani government than do its counterparts in other countries. Time Magazine has noted, "Even by the shadowy standards of spy agencies, the ISI is notorious. It is commonly branded 'a state within the state,' or Pakistan's 'invisible government.'" [Time, 5/6/02] The ISI grew into its present form during the war between the Soviet Union and mujaheddin guerrillas in Afghanistan in the 1980s. The CIA thought the Afghan war could be Russia's own costly Vietnam War, and they funneled billions to the mujaheddin resistance to keep them a thorn in Russia's side. The strategy worked: Soviet soldiers withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, and the Soviet Union collapsed two years later, partly due to the costs of the war. [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 9/23/01]

But the costs to keep the mujaheddin fighting were staggering, with estimates ranging between $6 billion and $40 billion. [New York Times, 8/24/98, Nation, 2/15/99] While a substantial portion of this amount came from the CIA and the Saudi Arabian government, who were both funneling the money through the ISI, much of the cost was deferred by Afghanistan's opium trade. The Sydney Morning Herald notes, "Opium cultivation and heroin production in Pakistan's northern tribal belt and adjoining Afghanistan were a vital offshoot of the ISI-CIA cooperation. It succeeded in turning some of the Soviet troops into addicts. Heroin sales in Europe and the US, carried out through an elaborate web of deception, transport networks, couriers and payoffs, offset the cost of the decade-long war in Afghanistan." [Sydney Morning Herald, 9/27/01] Afghan opium production ballooned from 250 tons in 1982 at the start of the war to 2,000 tons in 1991 just after its end. The Minneapolis Star Tribune observed, "If their local allies were involved in narcotics trafficking" - the ISI and their allies in Afghanistan - "it didn't trouble CIA." [Star Tribune, 9/30/01]

Although the Afghan war has ended, the ISI has continued to profit from opium. In 1999, the United Nations Drug Control Programme estimated that the ISI was making around $2.5 billion annually from the sale of illegal drugs. [Times of India, 11/29/99] The drug trade helped unite the ISI and Osama bin Laden, who was said to have taken a 15% cut of the Afghan drug trade money in exchange for protecting smugglers and laundering their profits. [Star Tribune, 9/30/01]

By 1994, the Taliban, a group of Muslim radicals studying in Pakistan, began conquering Afghanistan. The Taliban had been recruited by the ISI and molded into a fanatical force that conquered Afghanistan's capital by 1996. CNN reported, "The Taliban are widely alleged to be the creation of Pakistan's military intelligence [the ISI]. Experts say that explains the Taliban's swift military successes." [CNN, 10/5/96] This support continued. For instance, in early 2001, a leading US expert on South Asia claimed that the Taliban were still "on the payroll of the ISI." [Times of India, 3/7/01] The ISI didn't create the Taliban simply for strategic reasons; they shared the Taliban's extreme radical vision. As the Wall Street Journal remarked in November 2001, "Despite their clean chins and pressed uniforms, the ISI men are as deeply fundamentalist as any bearded fanatic; the ISI created the Taliban as their own instrument and still supports it." [Asia Times, 11/15/01]

Saeed's Background

Saeed Sheikh would eventually become deeply involved in the world of the ISI, as well as al-Qaeda. But initially he seemed an unlikely candidate for a career in espionage and terrorism. He was born in Britain with the name Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, the son of a wealthy Pakistani clothing manufacturer. He grew up in London, a brilliant student attending the best private schools. He studied mathematics and statistics at the London School of Economics. While still at school, he started a successful shares and equities business and also was a chess champion, world class arm wrestler, and martial arts expert - a rare combination of physical and mental prowess. [Rediff, 2/6/02, South Asian Outlook, 3/02]

His life took a turn when he volunteered for charity work in Bosnia in late 1992. The Bosnian war was raging, and he saw atrocities committed by Serbians on Bosnian Muslims. He returned to Britain a committed Muslim radical. Because of his impressive abilities in economics and mathematics, as well as fluency in English and complete understanding of Western society, he was a very valuable asset to any terrorist group. [ABC News, 2/7/02]

In 1993 he emerged in Pakistan as a member of a militant group fighting for the liberation of Kashmir from India. Pakistan has been fighting India for years over control of Kashmir, and it appears Saeed was put on the ISI payroll around this time, to help the Pakistani cause in Kashmir. [ABC News, 2/7/02] In 1994, Saeed began training at a training camp in Afghanistan. He soon was teaching the classes. [Los Angeles Times, 2/9/02] He developed close ties with al-Qaeda while training there. By the end of the year he was known as Osama bin Laden’s "favored son" or "my special son." [London Times, 8/21/02, Vanity Fair, 8/02]

More at Cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/main/essaysaeed.html

Investigators trace 9-11 funding to accounts in Pakistan
San Francisco Chronicle, CA - 19 hours ago
... origin of the funding of 9/11 ... the planning for the attacks from Pakistan ... his office's
recommendations to freeze funding ... 11 report that officials say describe a ...
       9/11 funding traced to Pak - Times of India
       9/11 funding 'traced to Pakistan accounts' - icWales
       Cash used in 9/11 attacks linked to accounts in Pakistan - Cleveland Plain Dealer

FrontPage magazine.com
Frontpagemag.com - 12 hours ago
... attack in US history, he received funding ... German authorities after fleeing to Pakistan
a ... Considering the recently published Congressional Report on the 9 ...

Senators demand Saudis get tough against terrorists
Contra Costa Times, CA - 9 hours ago
... Some of the classified sections of the report claim that Saudi charities linked
to the ... Investigators trace 9/11 funding to accounts in Pakistan ...

Business Notes
Daily Times, Pakistan - 21 hours ago
... in housing finance, microfinance and infrastructure funding ... countries especially after
the 9/11 ... increased textile categories quotas for Pakistan ... Staff Report. ...

9-11 report slams FBI, CIA
Orlando Sentinel, FL - Jul 24, 2003

9/11 report: FBI knew of terror links
DailyStar.com - Jul 25, 2003

Agencies lost chance to foil 9/11, report says
Sacramento Bee, CA - Jul 25, 2003

9/11 Report Cites CIA, FBI Lapses
WXXI, NY - Jul 25, 2003

Saudi Arabia rejects 9 / 11 report .
Hi Pakistan, Pakistan - Jul 25, 2003
... The congressional report said: "(Since September 11) the FBI has learned that al ... that
he was a student, al-Bayoumi had access to seemingly unlimited funding ...

9/11 report: FBI knew of terror links
Arizona Daily Star, AZ - Jul 25, 2003

Times of India strikes back again: The famous ISI-Atta Ties

Times of India -August 1, 2003

9/11 funding traced to Pak

MANOJ JOSHI

NEW DELHI: India played a key role in providing US authorities the information that funding for the September 11 attacks came from Pakistan. A top FBI counter-terrorism official told the US Senate governmental affairs committee on Thursday that investigators have “traced the origin of the funding of 9/11 back to financial accounts in Pakistan.’’

John S Pistole, deputy assistant director of the FBI’s counter-terrorism division, however, did not specify how those accounts in Pakistan were funded, or the role of Pakistani elements. The Times of India first reported on October 10, 2001 that India told the US that some $100,000 had been wired to the leader of the hijackers, Mahmud Atta, by British-born terrorist Ahmad Saeed Umar Sheikh.

Indian authorities also told the US that the trail led back from Sheikh to the then chief of ISI, Lt Gen Mahmud Ahmad who was subsequently forced to retire by Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf. The FBI had been provided with the details, including Sheikh’s mobile numbers. But Pistole’s testimony is silent on these issues. The FBI has estimated the September 11 attacks cost between $175,000 and $250,000. That money — which paid for flight training, travel and other expenses — flowed to the hijackers through associates in Germany and the United Arab Emirates.

Those associates reported to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who managed much of the planning for the attacks from Pakistan, US officials have said. The Bush Administration is being cagey about declassifying 28 secret pages in a recent report on the 9/11 incident which officials say outline connections between Saudi charities, royal family members and terrorism.

US authorities are silent about the role some Pakistanis may have played in the conspiracy. The role of Sheikh and Lt Gen Ahmad has yet to see the light of the day. Sheikh, wanted for kidnapping and terrorist conspiracy in India, has since been sentenced to death in Pakistan for the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

Paul Thompson on the 9/11- ISI ties

Pakistan's role in 9/11 can be traced to at least July, 1999. That month, an FBI informant named Randy Glass recorded an ISI agent who pointed to the World Trade Center and said, "Those towers are coming down." This agent said this on two other occasions, and the informant warned US Senators and others about this BEFORE 9/11, but the warning was ignored. This informant testified before the Congressional inquiry that just released their report, but clearly his testimony has fallen into the top secret, classified sections.

But Bob Graham, as a member of that commission, must have seen it, which is probably why he has been claiming that there was more than one foreign government with direct involvement in 9/11 (in fact, Graham was even given the Randy Glass warning BEFORE 9/11!).

Here's a page about the Randy Glass case

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