Kuwaiti Key 9/11 Suspect

Finger Points to bin Laden Aide

by Michael Hedges
The Houston Chronicle
June 5, 2002



WASHINGTON - A Kuwaiti man with long-standing ties to Osama bin Laden's terrorist group is emerging as a key suspect in the planning of the Sept. 11 attacks, a federal law enforcement official said Tuesday.

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, 37, who is believed to be in Afghanistan with bin Laden's al-Qaida followers, likely had a critical role in executing the attack, the official said.

The revelation that Mohammed is believed to have played a planning role in the attack came as congressional inquiries into intelligence failures are commencing, but did not emerge from congressional testimony.

The plump, bearded Mohammed has been sought by the FBI since he was linked to an al-Qaida plot to bomb commercial airliners in the Philippines in 1995, and was indicted by a federal grand jury in New York in January 1996. Late last year, the FBI investigation into the Sept. 11 attacks uncovered that Mohammed was involved in funneling money to the 19 men who hijacked four airliners that crashed into the World Trade Center towers, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania, officials said.

Since then, law enforcement agencies have come to see him as critical to the plot, along with bin Laden's lieutenant Abu Zubaydah, now in custody after being captured in Pakistan.

"He has long been listed as one of the top 22 terrorists we are seeking. We continue to investigate him," an FBI spokesman said Tuesday night.

The FBI and the CIA have been under intense scrutiny in recent days for perceived failures before Sept. 11.

Congressional hearings that could lead to the greatest shake-up of American intelligence agencies in decades began Tuesday with the establishment of rules to guide the inquiry through what could be months of testimony.

The pressure has grown on the FBI and the CIA in recent weeks to demonstrate progress in addressing past failures and aggressively pursuing any investigative leads into the suicide hijackings.

Mohammed has long been sought by the FBI, which has offered a $ 5 million reward for his capture. Law enforcement officials have linked him to Ramzi Yousef as one of the conspirators in the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993.

He and Yousef fled to the Philippines, where a federal grand jury said they planned to hijack and destroy several jetliners. Yousef was later captured and is now serving a life sentence in federal prison.

Mohammed is believed to have ties to several other al-Qaida leaders.

Among them is Zubaydah, captured by Pakistani soldiers in a March raid. Zubaydah has been providing U.S. intelligence officials with a wealth of information, some of which has yet to be confirmed.

Mohammed may also have been in contact with Shaikh Saiid al-Sharif, who was al-Qaida's financial officer, officials have said.

Investigators have tracked a number of financial transactions between al-Sharif and some of the hijackers. But he is believed to have been executing orders from others, including Mohammed.

The intricate ties of al-Qaida will be one subject of a far-reaching investigation that began Tuesday.

A special joint House-Senate intelligence panel convened behind the soundproof walls of the Capitol Building's most secure room to begin to determine "Who knew what? And if they didn't know it, why?" as Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., said. "We need to be aggressive and rigorous in this inquiry."

Late Tuesday, after the panel's first meeting, Rep. Porter Goss, R-Fla., who will run the first week of hearings, told reporters, "We're up and running with momentum."

Goss, who will alternate as chair of the 37-member panel with Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., said, "We will be a fact-driven inquiry . . . We will not be driven by outside pressures."

Staff members will brief the panel on the work they have done since February to prepare for the hearings today, and testimony will begin Thursday.

The first of many witnesses is expected to be a CIA counterterrorism official named Cofer Black, who ran the agency's intelligence gathering on bin Laden's al-Qaida network.

Black's testimony is expected to be given in closed session. Public hearings are not scheduled until June 25.

Members have said the goal is to forge a set of reforms for the FBI and CIA that can help avoid future intelligence failures.

The hearings are being held in S-407, a soundproof room in the attic of the Capitol guarded 24 hours a day, with special locks and safes for exhibits.

While the intelligence panel has drawn focus in recent days, a parallel probe by the Senate Judiciary Committee may produce fireworks first.

Senators from that committee met with FBI official Dave Frasca in a closed meeting Tuesday, and are expected to take testimony from FBI lawyer Coleen Rowley in Minneapolis on Thursday.

Rowley and Frasca are indirectly linked by what some officials are calling the most dramatic of the pre-Sept. 11 missed opportunities involving Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called "20th hijacker."

Frasca, who ran the FBI's radical fundamentalist unit (RFU), was informed of the arrest of Moussaoui in August after suspicions surfaced that he may have been planning a terrorist attack related to pilot training, officials said.

Rowley ignited a storm of criticism of the FBI last month when she sent a letter to director Robert Mueller complaining that headquarters had mishandled the Moussaoui probe.

Frasca's RFU had also received, one month earlier, a memo from the FBI's Phoenix office raising the prospect of bin Laden using pilots trained in the United States as terrorists. Frasca has said he didn't recall seeing the Phoenix memo, but senators have promised to grill him thoroughly on how the RFU did handle pre-Sept. 11 intelligence.

Frasca could not be reached for comment. FBI spokesman Bill Carter said he was called before the Judiciary Committee without being subpoenaed.

Bush administration officials were downplaying comments by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak that pointed to another potential intelligence failure. Mubarak told the New York Times in an interview that his intelligence service informed the United States of a pending al-Qaida attack just one week before Sept. 11.

"This was credible but not specific information that pointed to al-Qaida threats against U.S. interests, Egyptian interests, and others as well," said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher.


Copyright 2002 The Houston Chronicle Publishing Company

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