[ Subject: Who Bombed the U.S. World Trade Center in 1993?
[ From: "Tim Murphy" <info@cinox.demon.co.uk>
[ NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.206.49.147
[ Date: 17 Apr 2004 20:57:32 -0500
Who Bombed the U.S. World Trade Center? 1993
Growing Evidence Points to Role of FBI Operative
By Ralph Schoenman
Simultaneous with the detonation of an explosive bomb at the World
Trade
Center in New York on February 26 of this year (1993), FBI
investigators
were en route to New York.
"Even as office workers were trying to pry their way out of stalled
elevators or stagger down smoky stairwells in the wake of a
devastating
explosion last Friday," wrote Ronald J. Ostrow and Robin Wright (Los
Angeles
Times, March 3, 1993), under the headline "U.S. Tackling Blast Probe
on
Unprecedented Scale," "a special team of men and women were leaving
FBI
headquarters here for the next flight to New York."
Not only the FBI was so prompt. "Thousands of people and dozens of
agencies
here and abroad sprang into action. I dont think Ive ever seen
anything
bigger, except maybe the Kennedy Assassination, said one counter
terrorism
official."
Officials declared that the vast scale of their "investigation"
notwithstanding, "it will take several months (emphasis added) before
the
forensic aspects are completed," if only because the bombing "could,"
according to CIA analyst Graham Fuller, "be an operational decision
dating
back a year that doesnt have any relationship with immediate events"
(Ibid.).
The ink wasnt dry on the press release before the discovery of the
alleged
culprit in the bombing was announced by these same agencies within
hours of
their prior declaration, evincing investigative skills that eclipsed
any
heretofore in evidence. How was this accomplished?
A REFUND AND A CAR FRAGMENT
"He wanted his money back," begins a story by Ralph Blumenthal under
the
subheading, "Insistence on a Refund for a Van Led to the Arrest of
Blast
Suspect" (New York Times, March 5, 1993). Mohammed A. Salameh had
returned
three times to a Ryder Truck Rental dealer in Jersey City requesting a
refund of the $400 cash deposit he had placed on a yellow Ford
Econoline van
that, he stated, had been stolen the night preceding the explosion.
How then had the authorities linked Salamehs request to the World
Trade
Center? It seemed unlikely, "(b)ecause the huge bomb had cored the
garage
with a crater spanning several parking levels, much of the vital
evidence,"
reported The New York Times in the very story implicating Salameh,
"including what remained of the vehicle suspected of delivering the
bomb,
was buried under tons of rubble at the bottom."
There appeared to be no possibility of recovering anything of use for
a very
long time, given the force of the blast. "Top officials, including
James M.
Fox, assistant director in charge of the FBIs New York office, and
Police
Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, despaired of being able to reach
evidence
because of the unstable and unsafe conditions underground.
Nonetheless, agents of the Treasury Departments Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco
and Firearms (BATF) suddenly came forward with "yellow pieces of a
vehicle
that appeared to been blown apart with particular ferocity. One of the
fragments carried a part identification number."
This discovery supposedly occurred on the Sunday morning following the
Friday blast. By the same afternoon, the FBI had identified the
presumptive
source of the explosion, describing the vehicle as "a model 350 Ford
Econoline van, color yellow," tracing it to Ryder Truck Rental (one of
the
largest lease chains in the United States) and then to a specific
Ryder
dealership on the property of Rockview Auto Sales, a used-car lot in a
section of Jersey City not far from the apartment of Salameh and from
the
walk-up mosque of a blind Egyptian cleric named Sheikh Omar Abdul
Rahman. To
date, the fragment bearing the serial number has not been produced.
Salamehs biography was distributed instantly to the media, replete
with
claimed political sympathies and associations going back years.
"Suspect
Tied to Islamic Fundamentalist Sect" was the subheading of The New
York
Times story (Ibid.) whose account of the "evidence" and Salamehs
arraigment
without bail before Judge Richard Owen of Federal District Court in
Manhattan was breathless, "concluding a tumultuous day in a case that
has
drawn national attention and statements by President Clinton, the
Governors of New York and New Jersey and other officials."
White House spokesperson George Stephanopoulos confirmed the arrest.
Acting
Attorney General Stuart M. Gerson followed Stephanopoulos, declaiming,
"Its
a remarkable day in the history of the FBI."
DISARRAY AND CONTRADICTORY SIGNALS
Federal and city field operatives seemed less than pleased by the
Washington
announcements. "the unusual statements virtually preempted
announcements by
the federal and local investigators in New York working on the case
and
touched off a flap of angry recriminations. The arrests timing brought
on
another bitter dispute. City law-enforcement officials, bristling for
days
over what they called news leaks by federal officials, said a New York
Newsday report, tracing the van to a rental agency in Jersey City, had
forced a premature arrest." Nonetheless, "there was no indication that
the
newspaper was asked to withhold the article."
The disarray amongst high ranking officials and the contradictory
signals
regarding the release of politically charged declarations was a
tell-tale
sign that there were central features of the events about which
government
officials were seriously concerned and that the authorities wished to
conceal.
The New York Times noted that at the Stephanopoulos press conference,
Acting
Attorney General Gerson became disturbed when asked about the
motivations
for the bombing. "I dont know the answer to that," he replied, adding,
"and
I wouldnt tell you if I did" (Ibid.), a cryptic reply echoed by FBI
Director William Sessions.
The New York Times article was less reticent. Salameh was linked to
Sheikh
Rahman, to "several radical groups that make up the Egyptian branch of
Islamic Jihad," through the Sheikh to "the 1982 assassination of
Egyptian
President Anwar El-Sadat." To a Brooklyn mosque, Farouq Majid, "noted
by
investigators in the 1990 assassination of Rabbi Mier Kahane," and to
El
Sayyid A. Nosair, who had been charged with and acquitted of the 1990
Kahane
slaying.
Salameh, days after the bombing, was thus connected in the press to "a
wide
array of contacts and associations with terrorist organizations." By
March
9, The New York Times published a photo of Salameh alongside Nosair at
the
time of his acquittal of the earlier assassination of Kahane, founder
of the
Jewish Defense League and a virulently anti-Arab legislator in Israel.
The authorities "pursued a dizzying array of clues and lessons on
fronts
raging from Jersey City, N.J., to Brooklyn and to the Mideast." A new
"major
suspect" was announced, Ibrahim El-Gabrowny, who was said to have ties
to
Salameh Nosair and was described as "a leading official of a Brooklyn
mosque
frequented by Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman."
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
A New Jersey storage locker was uncovered, containing "chemicals used
for
explosives," which the authorities "seized and detonated," a strange
way to
handle incriminating evidence. Two other apartments were discovered in
which
"other chemicals and electronic equipment were found linked to Mr.
Salameh and others through aliases as well as witness accounts,
officials
said." (Ibid.)
The authorities were seeking to depict a group of conspirators who had
attempted to blow up a skyscraper in Manhattan and then left their
various
apartments without removing the chemicals, wire or bomb paraphernalia
employed in the enterprise. Indeed, it was difficult to understand why
they
would leave this evidence in so many disparate places.
The explanation was instructive in its scarcely concealed racism. "One
search is leading to another," said one ranking investigator. But
these are
nomadic people. While it may lie in the culture, they bounce from
place to
place. All different people sleep there and stop there, stay a short
time,
then leave." (Ibid)
Several reporters, however, raised the obvious problem with the
official
scenario. "After five days of frantic activity since Mr. Salamehs
arrest,
investigators admit puzzlement over two key questions: the method and
the
motive. Why, they have asked, "would anyone planning a car-bomb attack
lease
a vehicle in their own name as the federal complaint contends Mr.
Salameh
to have done even if he planned to claim later that the vehicle had
been
stolen from him and he had returned on three separate occasions to the
rental office to demand a $400 refund?"
"And even if the van had been totally obliterated, officials reason,
would
not Mr. Salamehs theft report have attracted attention, at some point
leading investigators to him and his same group of associates they are
now
studying?"
The New York Times acknowledges that "such enigmas caused local
investigators to "dismiss Mr. Salameh as perhaps a patsy for others,
someone
who may have been duped into carrying out the attack and taking the
blame."
It soon emerged that the very people who worked at the Ryder rental
office
which rented the van to Salameh were FBI operatives. "The trap was set
for
Salameh by FBI agents disguised as employees of the rental outlet.
They
dickered with Salameh over the deposit, giving him $200 in a partial
refund.
He was then arrested at a bus stop near the agency"(Los Angeles Times,
March
5, 1993).
How then did they conclude that Salameh was directly engaged in the
planning, fabrication of the explosives and implementation of the
plan?
James Fox, Assistant FBI Director in charge of the New York office,
informed
journalists that the critical piece of evidence was "a telephone
number
listed on the rental agreement. Investigators traced the number to an
apartment in Jersey City where they found a letter addressed to
Salameh as
well as the tools and electronic equipment that indicated the presence
in
this apartment of a bomb maker."
This then was the pivotal evidence leading to the implication of
Salameh. In
whose name was the telephone number on the rental agreement listed,
and who
had rented the apartment in Jersey City?
SOMEONE LONG MONITORED BY THE FBI
Both the telephone number and the apartment were listed (on the rental
agreement for the Ryder Truck alleged to have contained the
explosives), and
indeed, the apartment had been rented by "a woman identified as Josie
Hadas"
(Ibid.). Her name was flaunted, almost as a signal, "the latest name
on the
mailbox was Josie Hadas who moved into the apartment before Christmas"
(Los
Angeles Times, March 7, 1993).
It was during her occupancy of this apartment that the chemicals and
bomb
components were supposedly stored there. Salameh, moreover, was being
"handled" by mysterious others whose relationship to the crucial
evidence
would become important.
"The authorities say several associates of Mr. Salameh who may have
been
involved in the bombing have dropped out of sight. One of the people
being
sought for questioning is an unidentified man who accompanied Mr.
Salameh on
two visits to the rental agency. Another is Josie Hadas, whose name
was
listed for a telephone at an apartment at 34 Kensington Avenue in
Jersey
City" (New York Times, March 8, 1993). The name placed on the rental
agreement as a reference was Josie Hadas.
Under the heading "Possible Tampering by Agent," New York Times
reporter
Joseph B. Treaster writes, "in a bizarre twist that could potentially
complicate the prosecution of the bombers [f]ederal officials were
investigating a report that an agent of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco
and
Firearms tampered with some evidence substituting her name for that
of an
investigator from another agency. John OBrien, a spokesman for the
firearms Bureau, acknowledged that one of the bureaus agents was being
questioned. James M. Fox, the head of the FBI investigation, would
not
comment on the inquiry about the agent and the evidence"(Ibid.).
"Sources," however, now disclosed to the press that Salameh had been
closely
monitored by the FBI "long before the bombing occurred. He was listed
in
the FBIs computerized terrorism information system." Officials refused
to
confirm that "the suspects mail had been intercepted or that he had
been
subjected to physical surveillance, electronic intercepts or other
investigative techniques."
Suddenly, the person who was supposedly brought to light because of
his
fortuitous request for a refund on the van which carried the bomb,
emerged
as someone long monitored by the FBI and other agencies. Indeed, the
authorities now claimed that "the arrest came as the result of one of
the
largest investigations in the nations history."
ISRAELIS ADVANCE KNOWLEDGE
Who then was the woman in whose name the telephone and apartment were
listed
and where the incriminating evidence was "found?" Josie or Guzie Hadas
was
not unknown. The International Herald Tribune (March 8, 1993) quoted
FBI
spokesman Joe Valiquettes familiar response to their reporters query
about
the role of Hadas in the Israeli secret service, Mossad: "Even if it
were
true, we wouldnt tell you anyway."
The London Periodical Impact (march 12, 1993 and April 8, 1993)
revealed, in
an article titled "Who Bombed the World Trade Center," that on
February 26,
the day the bomb exploded, an Israeli intelligence group sent an
urgent
communiqui over a telephone access computer network about the event.
The
communiqui was picked up when it was discovered accidentally on a
confidential government "information base" known in the Israeli
intelligence
community as "Matara," an official source of classified data
pertaining to
intelligence and security matters.
Either leaked or accessed by news sources, the communiqui states that
Israeli Intelligence had advance knowledge of the timing and target of
the
World Trade Center bombing and that it would be attributed to "known
activists from the Occupied Territories."
Three days after the bombing, "Anne," an Israeli operative of the Shin
Bet,
Israels FBI, was cited by journalists in Israel "boasting of Israeli
Intelligence capabilities." She stated that Israel had advance
knowledge of
the bombing, confirming the communiqui disclosed on Matara.
The next day, an Israeli Defense Force spokesperson responded to a
direct
question from a Jerusalem reporter concerning Israeli governmental
involvement in the bombing of the world Trade Center.
The Jerusalem journalist (whose name will be protected here) told
Irfan
Mirza, the author of the Impact articles, how he had confirmed that
"Israeli
intelligence knows more about the bombings than they are ever going to
disclose at this time."
This author discussed the data with journalist Lorraine Mirza, who
confirmed
that Irfan Mirzas investigation led to bomb threats which were taped.
He
has left London. On March 6, an article in the London Times confirmed
that
"Israeli intelligence has detailed information" about the World Trade
Center
bombing, adding that "the FBI has given no explanation as to why
Israel has
not come forward to the U.S. authorities with information."
Zafar Bangas, editor of Crescent International, an Ontario,
Canada-based
journal conversant in Islamic politics and one of the most widely read
newspapers in the Muslim world, confirmed to this author that Guzie
(Josie)
Hadas was long-established as a Mossad operative. She had penetrated
Islameic circles in New York, as had another intelligence operative,
Emad
Ali Salem, a colonel in Egyptian intelligence.
Bangas confirmed investigative work of Irfan Mirza concerning the role
of
Emad Ali Salem. It was he who rented the van in the name of Mohammad
Salameh, purchased and disseminated chemical and bomb materials in
various
apartments and who tipped his employers, the FBI, as to his handiwork.
The serial number released by the ATF after, supposedly, coming upon a
metal
fragment, nominally buried under five stories and tons of debris, came
from
"undercover operative, Emad Ali Salem" (Ibid.). Salameh had attempted
to
report the theft of the van rented in his name previous to the bombing
of
the World Trade Center. Despite the public impact of the explosion,
Salameh,
unaware of the significance of the van, showed up asking for the
return of
the deposit.
ROLE OF EMAD ALI SALEM
On June 24, the FBI arrested eight Muslims alleged to have plotted a
series
of bombings which would have dwarfed in global impact the bombing of
the
World Trade Center.
According to the authorities, the detainees all linked to Sheikh Omar
Abdul Rahman had advanced plans to bomb the United Nations, the New
York
headquarters of the FBI, and the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels. Some
reports
also mention the Statue of Liberty. Assassinations of New York Senator
Alfonse DAmato and United Nations Secretary General Boutros
Boutros-Ghali
were in advanced preparation.
The pre-dawn raids, which resulted in the arrest of the plotters,
followed
months of surveillance. Within hours of the arrests, FBI agents seized
documents and tapes from the Sheikhs residence. Among those arrested
was
Mahmoud Abouhalima, now declared a suspect, as well, in the World
Trade
Center bombing.
The Dallas publication, Muslim World Monitor, disclosed on July 4 that
Emad
Ali Salem was an Egyptian intelligence officer who had entered the
milieu of
the followers of Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman at the behest of the FBI. He
was
in attendance at the trial of El Sayyid Nosair, accused in the
assassination
of Rabbi Meir Kahane, and he offered his services as a bodyguard of
the
Sheikh.
Salem was "wired" throughout his association with the Muslim followers
of
the Sheikh. "A high-ranking former Egyptian intelligence officer, he
was the
informant who provided the FBI with taped conversations and all other
evidence" used in the World Trade Center arrests and those of June 24.
(Ibid.)
Salem worked with other informants for the FBI, including Mahmoud Zaki
Zakhary, who had been reporting regularly to the FBI since January 10,
1990.
Between the two, the U.S. intelligence authorities knew every
residence,
office and meeting which occurred between the Sheikh and his followers
for a
period of three and a half years.
As Muslim World Monitor explained, "Salemhad them under surveillance
long
before the February 26 blast took place." He was the source of "plans"
to
blow up the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels, the United Nations, other
targets
and the assassinations. "He has played the role, "concludes the Muslim
World
Monitor "of agent provocateur."
Defense lawyers for the eight accused assert that their clients were
entrapped in schemes of which they were unaware and were subjected to
proposals by Salem himself. "Salem was wired before, after and during
every
meeting. It is known that Salem was involved in the initial
discussions,
provided the safe houses in which bombs were allegedly manufactured,
helped
purchase the firearms and other materials that were to be used in the
attacks." (Ibid.)
From the time of the El Sayyid Nosair trial, Salem was forever
"brashly
talking about violent actions and trying to incite people to do crazy
things. "These "things" were proposed after prior discussion with
high-level intelligence authorities in the United States.
SALEMS TRIAL
Under the headline "New York Trial in Rabbis Death Planted an
Explosive
Seed," the Los Angeles Times (July 4, 1993) confirms the information
in the
Muslim press with remarkable sangfroid. It cites the role of a
"decorated
former Egyptian military officer" for the emergence of "a clandestine
cell
of terrorists who conspired to set off the World Trade Center bomb
blast,
plotted an unparalleled wave of attacks on U.S. landmarks and
political
figures and shattered Americas image of invulnerability to terrorism."
The "trail left by Salem "led from those courthouse steps to the
dramatic
raid June 24 on a makeshift bomb factory in Queens, zigzags through
militant
mosques, rural shooting ranges and seedy safehouses."
It emerges that "critical evidence had been overlooked" by U.S.
authorities,
even though it was provided to them by "the still-mysterious
cooperation of
a stranger with Egyptian military medals."
Salem became close to El Sayyid Nosair before the assassination of
Meir
Kahane, assisting him with finding lodgings and other services. After
the
assassination of Kahane, Chief of Detectives Joseph Borelli "shrugged
off
questions about the political implications of the assault." Yet, in a
police
raid of Nosairs rented house in Cliffside Park, N.J., they "discovered
manuals for building bombs. They found photos of the World Trade
Center, the
Empire State Building and the Washington Monument and a text
advocating
terrorists strikes on American soil."
A senior investigator called this collection of documents "a road map"
to
the World Trade Center. This and attendant documents concerning
bombings and
assassinations "sat" in police and FBI hands, "untranslated in about
50
storage boxes."
Thus, the FBI had all the documents concerning putative plans to blow
up the
World Trade Center and all the documents concerning like plans for the
Lincoln and Holland Tunnels and other targets as early as 1990.
By late summer 1992, "federal investigators had reports that militant
Muslims were scheming to assassinate the Secretary General of the
United
Nations, Boutros Boutros-Ghali." Their principal informant, Emad Ali
Salem,
"kept pictures of torture victims among his family albums."
Their informant had arranged "by mid-February, the massive chemical
bomb
that would kill six and injure more than 1000 at the Trade Center,
brewed in
barrels hidden in the Jersey City storage unit." All these
arrangements were
reported by a wired Salem.
"Meanwhile, stored in boxes in an FBI locker, were the documents that
would help unravel a plot to blow up the United Nations, the George
Washington Bridge, the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels, the Empire State
Building and the Washington Monument."
EXTRAORDINARY ADMISSION
This extraordinary admission that the FBI had advance plans and the
full
documentation of where to find everyone and everything was blithely
reported. Only after the detonation of the bomb in the World Trade
Center
did "the FBI finally open the boxes." They had been receiving regular
reports from "the man they called the Colonel, [who] wore a hidden
microphone as he moved the inner circle. There federal agents heard
first-hand as another plot evolved," one promulgated by their own
operative
and the rationale for the arrests of June 24.
All the while that the U.S. has sounded the alarm about "Muslim
Fundamentalist terror," it has funded the Islamic Fundamentalist group
in
Afghanistan led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who has received to date $3.3
billion in official U.S. aid administered by the CIA. Many of the
figures in
the Muslim movement in the U.S., including those accused of
involvement in
the World Trade Center bombing, were among those who organized the
sending
of CIA arms and funds to Hekmatyar. (See "Late For Work," Prevailing
Winds
#1.)
The U.S. rulers are terrorizing the American people with operations of
their
own authorship, deployed as a rationale for "maintaining vast military
budgets for devastating assaults upon Iraq, Somalia and targets now on
the
Pentagon drawing board.
) Ralph Schoenman 1
.
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