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New Jersey
and Terrorism…Perfect Together
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- By Allan P. Duncan
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- September 7, 2004
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- Introduction
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- 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.
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Federal agents who worked on the case were
frustrated because it was handled as a criminal case instead of a
counterterrorism case. In an in depth look at Operation
Diamondback I reveal that one of the suspects who was accused of
skimming millions of dollars from a fraudulent HMO to offshore
accounts where the money allegedly went to finance terrorism, was
defended in the HMO case by a lawyer who later became the Assistant
Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division, under John
Ashcroft. The lawyer, Michael Chertoff, was in his position as
Assistant Attorney General when Operation Diamondback ended and his
client was never arrested even though an intelligence document
claimed he and his brother in Egypt had links to Osama Bin Laden.
Is this why the ATF operation was handled as a
criminal case and not a terrorism case by the federal government?
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
Recent headlines over the past two weeks
announced the arrest of two leaders of an Albany, New York mosque
for allegedly laundering money involved in the sale of a shoulder
fired missile. The arrests were the result of a year long weapons
sting conducted by the FBI. (1)
Anytime someone involved in planning terrorism
on US soil is taken off the streets it should be plastered all over
the headlines to announce to the world that another terrorist is in
the slammer and is unable to hurt, maim or kill innocent American
citizens.
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?
I ran across references to Operation
Diamondback while doing research on terrorism and Weapons of
Mass Destruction well over a year ago. I found out that a former con
man named Randy Glass had posed as an undercover weapons dealer in
an attempt to lure Middle Eastern weapons buyers to the US in a
sting operation run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF)
with support from the FBI and Customs.
The sting operation was documented in two
episodes of Dateline NBC; On
the trail of arms merchants,
which aired on August 2, 2002 (2), and Stinger missile sting
operation,
which was broadcast on March 18, 2003. (3)
The case came to a screeching halt with the
arrest of only a handful of suspects in June of 2001 even though
there was ample evidence that some of the people who were attempting
to buy these weapons had connections with the Taliban, Al Qaeda and
Osama Bin Laden himself. The two Dateline NBC stories cited
the frustration of Special Agents who worked on the operation and
questioned why the case hadn’t received more attention from higher
ups in federal law enforcement.
I decided to look deeper into the case myself
and discovered some shocking information. I have held onto this
information for over a year. I had passed it on to a few lawyers and
journalists in hopes that they would follow-up on my discoveries,
but to date none of them have, so I have decided to divulge the info
myself.
I discovered that the “terror support system
supplying U.S. enemies with sophisticated weapons” included
three men from New Jersey. As I looked deeper into the story, I
realized that one of the men lived in the same county where I worked
at the time, and that all of them had worked in the city where one
of my closest relatives lives.
Needless to say, I was shocked to think that
two of these same men who plotted to secure components for nuclear
weapons and one of whom allegedly funneled millions of dollars to
Osama Bin Laden in the years leading up to 9-11, were still free and
allowed to roam the streets of New Jersey.
Enter the players in the Garden State Soap
Opera…
Diaa Mohsen
The August 2, 2002 edition of Dateline NBC
revealed that Operation Diamondback began in the Fall
of 1998 and was a two and a half year investigation. One of the
first contacts Randy Glass made was with an American citizen born in
Egypt who moved to New Jersey about 32 years ago named Diaa Mohsen.
Mohsen implied that he represented Arab men and that they needed to
be very careful as to how they did business.
As the relationship between Randy Glass and
Diaa Mohsen developed they talked specifically about what kinds of
weapons Mohsen’s contacts wanted and who they would be going to. The
following quotes are excerpts from taped conversations between Glass
and Mohsen from the Dateline transcript:
“Diaa Mohsen: “They use rocket
grenades. They have howitizer. They have like 120 millimeter
howitizer.”
Randy Glass: “What is that? That’s like a — what’s a
howitizer? It’s like a cannon?”
Diaa Mohsen: “Artillery.”
Glass: “It’s like artillery like in the movies.”
Diaa Mohsen: “Yeah”.”
“And then Glass’s contact tells him where
the potential customers can be found.
Diaa Mohsen: “I’ll take you to the border between
Afghanistan and Pakistan.”
Finally, he confirms just what kind of people he’s dealing
with.
Diaa Mohsen: “You know those f——-g people, they are
terrorists.”
Randy Glass: “So these are terrorists?”
Diaa Mohsen: “Sure.”
Randy Glass: “That’s wonderful.”
And what else do the terrorists want? Special technology, he
says, for the deadliest of weapons.
Randy Glass: “What is that?”
Diaa Mohsen: “One of the components for a nuclear weapon.””
(2)
Mohsen wanted proof that Glass could actually
deliver weapons, so on January 21, 1999 a meeting was set up in a
parking lot in New Jersey where Randy showed him a Stinger Missile.
A photo was taken of Mohsen holding the weapon and he was then off
to Egypt to prove to his associates that Glass was legit.
Dick Stoltz, a decorated veteran agent with
ATF, posed as an associate of Randy’s during the operation. Their
initial meeting with some Egyptian men fell through, but they were
soon put in touch with more people in Jersey City who were eager to
deal with them.
Mohamed Malik
The next person Diaa Mohsen put Randy Glass in touch with was,
Mohamed “Mike” Malik, a small businessman in Jersey City who owned
convenience stores, a laundromat and a long distance phone card
company. On the phone with Malik, Randy agrees to travel to New York
City to meet a buyer referred to in the Dateline transcript
as “Abbas”. I have since determined that the full name of “Abbas”
was Raja Ghulam Abbas.
Excerpts from the Dateline transcript:
“On July 22, 1999, Glass flew to New York
for a meeting at the trendy Tribeca Grill, a restaurant partly owned
by actor Robert DeNiro. It was dinner for four: Glass, his first
contact, Diaa Mohsen; the Jersey City businessman Mike Malik and the
mystery man; Abbas.”
“Abbas gave Glass a business card saying he
worked for Malik’s long distance phone card company. Glass was
wearing a wire.
Mixed in with the dinner crowd were agents
from the FBI’s Terrorism Task Force in case anything went wrong.
Glass says Abbas was all business.
“Basically what he told me was that they were interested in
purchasing a large amount of sophisticated weapons systems,” says
Glass. “And they wanted an actual ship load, not a small amount.”
And who was Abbas representing in this transaction?
“Abbas was represented to me as being an ISI agent,” says
Glass.
ISI is the official intelligence agency, like the CIA, of
Pakistan. And this is where the stakes really get high. Because, if
Abbas was telling the truth, Randy Glass and the feds were about to
cut an illegal weapons deal with a Pakistani intelligence operative
linked to terrorists.”
“Then, in the middle of a crowded New
York restaurant, Glass says the talk turned to something much more
ominous: components for nuclear weapons, triggering devices and
plutonium.
“They inquired if it was available,” says Glass.
What did Glass say? “Yes,” says Glass.
And they responded? “They were interested,” says Glass.
Dick Stoltz, the veteran undercover agent with the Bureau of
Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms who worked the case, confirms Randy
Glass’s account.
Stoltz had to realize that the people being talked about as
customers for these weapons were the most wanted terrorists in the
world.
“That’s correct,” says Stoltz.
Bin Laden? “Correct,” says Stoltz.
Did Stoltz think they were serious? “Oh absolutely,” he says.
In fact, Stoltz says Randy Glass’s dinner companions were
checked out by U.S. intelligence experts and found to have real
connections.
“We did confirm through various sources that Abbas and Malik
did have links to weapons trafficking groups and militant
operations,” says Stoltz.” (2)
About this meeting, John Pacenti, in a Palm Beach Post article
dated August 2, 2002 titled, Con Man Turned Patriot Tells All
states:
"At the meeting Abbas said Americans are the enemy and they
will have no problem blowing up this entire restaurant because it’s
full of Americans," Glass said. "As we leave the restaurant, Abbas
turns and says, 'those towers (the World Trade Center) are coming
down.'"
Despite that information, available to the government two
years before the World Trade Center attack, the FBI's terrorism task
force didn't appear to take the threat seriously, Glass said.”
(4)
So now we have an alleged member of the
Pakistani ISI, Raja Ghulam Abbas, meeting with Randy Glass in New
York City, talking about buying sophisticated weapons, components
for nuclear arms and talking about the World Trade Center towers
coming down. Abbas also presents a business card showing that he is
in business with Mohamed “Mike” Malik. The entire meeting was
recorded and according to Randy, members of the FBI Terrorism Task
Force were present in case anything went wrong.
A few weeks after the meeting the buyers flew
to Florida to see the weapons for sale. From the August 2nd
Dateline transcript we find this:
“Stoltz says that more than anything else
they wanted materials for nuclear weapons, especially a substance
called heavy water, which is used to make weapons grade plutonium.
Sometimes, as on this tape, Abbas used a code name, referring
to heavy water as “sweet water.”
Abbas: “And we hook up to the guys which ... in Pakistan work
for us . . .”
Randy Glass: “Yeah, of course.”
Abbas: “So we say to him whatever you need, anything up to
the sweet water, you know?”
Randy Glass: “Yes.”
“They would tell me: ‘The people that I’m dealing with, they
have to have the heavy water,’” says Stoltz.
And unless they got it, Stoltz was told the deal was off.
That was a deal breaker.
“That was a deal breaker,” says Stoltz. “They were flexible
maybe on military parts for airplanes or small arms or maybe even
Stingers, but they always came back to square one. Heavy water.”
For nuclear weapons?
“Correct,” says Stoltz.
And that wasn’t all the arms dealers wanted. “Dateline” has
learned that Mike Malik gave the undercover agents a list of
radioactive chemicals that could be used to make a so-called dirty
bomb — conventional explosives laced with radioactive materials. Bin
Laden’s terrorists are believed to have talked about detonating such
a bomb in a major U.S. city to spread toxic radiation.
Malik and Abbas were so serious about closing a deal, Stoltz
says, they went back to Pakistan to talk to their customers in
person. Then, Stoltz says, Abbas informed him there was one more
condition: he wanted to bring a Pakistani nuclear scientist to
America who could inspect the nuclear materials that would be part
of the deal. And he told Stoltz the name of the scientist.
Did Stoltz check this out?
“Of course it was passed up the line and it was confirmed
that this person did exist and that’s what he did for the Pakistani
government,” says Stoltz. “That he was in the field of atomic
weapons. He was a scientist.”” (2)
Now we have Mohamed “Mike” Malik not only
traveling with Abbas to Florida with a priority of securing heavy
water for a dirty bomb, but Malik himself coming up with a shopping
“list of radioactive chemicals that could be used to make
a so-called dirty bomb — conventional explosives laced with
radioactive materials.”
The group finally reached an agreement in
December of 2000.
“The buyers would pay $32 million over
several years. The first shipments would be conventional weapons.
Nuclear components would come later. A Florida bank account was set
up to receive the $32 million wire transfer that was supposed to
come from a bank in the Middle Eastern emirate of Dubai. Federal
agents waited six months, but the money never came.
“And at that point, it was decided that we would take the
case down,” says Stoltz. “We thought we had gone about as far as we
could with it.”
The Dateline story states that, “A
Florida bank account was set up to receive the $32 million wire
transfer that was supposed to come from a bank in the Middle Eastern
emirate of Dubai.”
In an interesting parallel, in an article
titled Al Qaeda Moneyman Caught, by Elaine Shannon, published
by Time Magazine on May 1, 2003 (5), Shannon states:
“A Pakistani
police roundup of al-Qaeda figures in Karachi Tuesday has netted a
Bin Laden bagman who funneled nearly $120,000 to ringleader Mohammed
Atta and other 9/11 hijackers to finance their flight lessons and
living expenses in the US, according to FBI and U.S. intelligence
officials.
Ali Abd al-Aziz
(also known as Ammar al-Baluchi), a nephew of captured al-Qaeda
operations boss Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and first cousin of 1993
World Trade Center bombing mastermind Ramzi Yousef, was arrested
with a higher-ranking al-Qaeda lieutenant, Walid Ba 'Attash, aka
"Khallad" or Tawfiq Bin Attash an Osama bin Laden intimate who is
believed to have organized the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole
in Yemen.” (5)
Further on Shannon
writes about the arrangements made to transfer the money from Dubai
to a bank in Florida.
“From July 18 to
September 18, 2000, Aziz, using the Mansur alias or calling himself
"Mr. Ali" or "Hani" of "Fawaz Trding" (SIC), wired another $109,500
from the UAE Exchange Centre in Dubai to an account at Sun Trust
Bank held jointly by Al Shehhi and 9/11 hijack team leader Mohammed
Atta, while both men were attending Huffman Aviation school in
Venice, Florida.” (5)
So we have both of
these plans to wire money originating in Dubai and ending up in
banks in Florida. Coincidence?
Another interesting
parallel in the two stories is that they both involve members of the
Pakistani ISI. We know that Raja Ghulam Abbas represented himself to
Randy Glass as being a Pakistani ISI Agent. The Times of India,
in an article titled, India helped
FBI trace ISI-terrorist links ,
by Manoj Joshi, dated October 9, 2001, revealed that the head of the
Pakistani ISI, General Mahmoud Ahmad, had been fired from his
position after it was determined that he had authorized
the transfer of $100,000 to Mohamed Atta
in Florida shortly before 9-11.
“While the
Pakistani Inter Services Public Relations claimed that former ISI
director-general Lt-Gen Mahmud Ahmad sought retirement after being
superseded on Monday, the truth is more shocking.
Top sources confirmed here on Tuesday, that
the general lost his job because of the "evidence" India produced to
show his links to one of the suicide bombers that wrecked the World
Trade Centre. The US authorities sought his removal after confirming
the fact that $100,000 were wired to WTC hijacker Mohammed Atta from
Pakistan by Ahmad Umar Sheikh at the instance of Gen Mahumd.”
(6)
Further research indicates that Dubai was
the place where most Al Qaeda money transfers originated. Atta
apparently received a number of money transfers from Dubai and some
of them were sent by people other than Ali Abd al-Aziz. Atta’s name
will come up again later in this report when I tell the story of
another Operation Diamondback player.
So whatever happened
to Diaa Mohsen, Mohammed Malik and Raja Ghulam Abbas after Operation
Diamondback came to an end? Here are some of the answers from the
Dateline transcript:
“In June of last year, the feds moved in and
arrested Randy Glass’s original contact, Diaa Mohsen, and Mohamed
Mike Malik. That was three months before 9/11. After 9/11 both men
pled guilty to violating arms laws. But remarkably — even though
they were apparently willing to supply America’s enemies with
sophisticated weapons — even nuclear weapons technology — Mohsen was
sentenced to just 30 months in prison. And Malik? Mysteriously, his
sentence remains under seal. And he appears to be a free man as
“Dateline” saw recently when we visited him at his New Jersey
convenience store.” (2)
According to my own research, Diaa Mohsen spent
time in Allenwood Federal Prison in White Deer, PA and had a
projected release date of 9-13-03.
Mohamed Malik currently lives in Watchung, New
Jersey and according to reports his case has been sealed and all
references to Pakistan have been stricken from the documents.
In an article that appeared in the Washington Post titled
U.S. Reopens Arms Case In Probe for Taliban Role, lawyers for
Mohsen and Malik tried to minimize their role and discount their
contacts:
“Lawyers for the two men arrested in the sting said their
clients have no connections to terrorists or arms dealers, and
became involved only when approached by a U.S. government informant.
"None of those people who came over from Pakistan were
government officials who could get an arms deal done," said Jim
Eisenberg, attorney for Mohammed "Mike" Malik, one of the potential
buyers, who remains free and whose case is sealed.
Val Rodriguez, lawyer for Diaa Mohsen, the only man in the
case currently imprisoned, said his client also lacked the ties
necessary to arrange a secret arms deal. He acknowledged, however,
that Mohsen "kept trying to get the connections [the undercover
agent] wanted." However, both Mohsen and Malik, he added, "had
contact with people who knew terrorists."”
The statements from the lawyers contradict
statements made by ATF Special Agent Dick Stoltz and other
intelligence people who claim that the contacts Mohsen and Malik
made were with terror groups known to be enemies of the United
States.
What bothers me is that both Mohsen and Malik
were caught red-handed on tape talking about securing components for
nuclear weapons and Malik himself provided a list of specific things
they needed to build these weapons. I didn’t hear Randy Glass or
Dick Stoltz saying that they had these things for sale. I heard
Mohsen and Malik asking for them and making their deal contingent on
the acquisition of these nuclear weapons related components.
And where does a guy who supposedly just runs a
convenience store in Jersey City even know what kind of components
are needed to build a nuclear weapon unless he’s involved with
people who know what to ask for?
As for Raja Ghulum Abbas, he ended up fleeing
the country and intelligence officials claim they have lost him.
Dateline NBC was able to locate him easily enough though and
talked to him over the phone.
Part 2: The
Good Doctor Who Wasn’t So Good
In Part 1 of this series I introduced you to
three men from Jersey City who attempted to set up a weapons deal
which included among other things, hundreds of Stinger Missiles and
components for nuclear weapons. The weapons deal was part of a two
and a half year investigation called Operation Diamondback
which culminated with the arrests of two of the Jersey City men in
June of 2001.
Diaa Mohsen was sentenced to 30 months in
prison and Mohamed Malik was freed and had his case sealed and
purged of all references to Pakistan. Both men are now free and
continue to walk the streets of New Jersey.
The third man, Raja Ghulam Abbas, an alleged
Pakistani ISI Agent, fled the country and the last I heard was
living in Pakistan.
During a meeting at Robert DeNiro’s Tribeca
Grill on July 22, 1999, Abbas pointed towards the World Trade Center
and stated “those towers are coming down.” Despite the fact
that the meeting was recorded and was being watched by members of
the FBI’s Terrorism Task Force, the threat was apparently not taken
seriously. (4)
Randy Glass, the former con-man who posed as a weapons dealer
during Operation Diamondback, was so upset about the
references to the Towers coming down, that after the
investigation ended he notified his elected representatives in
Florida and reported the threats. According to an article in the
Palm Beach Post, titled Intelligence Panel Hears from Glass,
by John Pacenti published on October 17, 2002:
“In August 2001, just before Glass started to serve a
seven-month sentence for a $6 million jewelry scam, he said he
reached out to Sen. Bob Graham and U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler. He said
he told staffers for both lawmakers that a Pakistani operative
working for the Taliban known as R.G. Abbas made three references to
imminent plans to attack the World Trade Center during the probe,
which ended in June 2001.
At one meeting at New York's Tribeca Grill caught on tape,
Abbas pointed to the World Trade Center and said, "Those towers are
coming down," Glass said.” (8)
Further on in the article Pacenti reports:
“Graham acknowledged at news conference in Boca Raton last
month that Glass had contact with his office before Sept. 11, 2001,
about an attack on the World Trade Center. "I was concerned about
that and a dozen other pieces of information which emanated from the
summer of 2001," the senator said.” (8)
WPTV, an NBC affiliate in Florida did a news report where Senator
Graham is confronted about the Glass info and a video of the story
can be viewed online by checking out The Randy Glass Video
in the Resources section at the end of this article.
In Part 1 of this series, I mentioned the fact that General
Mahmoud Ahmad, the head of the Pakistani ISI, had been sacked from
his position after it was determined that he had authorized a wire
transfer of $100,000 to Mohammed Atta shortly before 9-11. (6)
On the morning of 9-11, General Ahmad was at a breakfast meeting
in Washington D.C. with Senator Bob Graham and Congressman Porter
Goss, the Chairmen of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees.
(9) One would think that as soon as Senator Graham heard about the
attack on the World Trade Center, he would have remembered the
information Randy Glass had shared with him about the threats.
Ironic, isn’t it, that Graham was sitting with the head of the
Pakistani ISI at the exact same time the attacks took place when he
had already been warned of a threat that had come directly from the
lips of an alleged Pakistani ISI Agent? No wonder Senator Graham
acted dumb when confronted with the pre 9-11 Glass warning in the
WPTV news story.
I’ve also never heard a response from either Senator Bob Graham
or Congressman Porter Goss about what their thoughts were when it
was revealed that the guy they had breakfast with on 9-11 had
actually authorized the transfer of money to Mohammed Atta?
Porter Goss has now been nominated by President Bush to head the
CIA. Many people have been lobbying to have Goss questioned about
his meeting with General Ahmad on 9-11 but I’m betting that nobody
has the guts to even bring it up during his confirmation hearings
and it seems to be a foregone conclusion that he will breeze though
the hearings with no problem.
I also alluded in Part 1, to frustrations voiced by intelligence
professionals over the lack of attention Operation Diamondback
received from higher ups in Law Enforcement. ATF Special Agent Dick
Stoltz had this to say about Operation Diamondback:
“Stoltz says he’s surprised that all the
evidence and intelligence the case generated wasn’t pursued more
aggressively at the highest levels of law enforcement in Washington.
“Quite frankly, I was always wondering when maybe the case
would be taken away from ATF,” says Stoltz.
So Stoltz thought that he was on to something so big that
ultimately FBI, perhaps CIA might take over? “Oh, FBI at the
minimum,” says Stoltz.” (2)
Other federal officials had this to say:
“Some federal officials were frustrated that the FBI, while
allowing a Florida agent to work on the probe, did not declare the
case a counterterrorism matter. That would have given ATF officials
better access to FBI information and U.S. intelligence from around
the world, and would have drawn bureaucratic backing from people all
the way to the White House, officials said.” (7)
In the same Washington Post article, Dick Stoltz added this:
"Had more attention been paid to this inside the government,
the case agents in the trenches would have had more information on
who these Pakistani people on U.S. soil were," said Stoltz, who is
now retired. "It would have steered us in other directions, and
possibly justified continuing the investigation. . . . We couldn't
understand why this wasn't treated as a national security matter."
(7)
So why was Operation Diamondback handled as a criminal matter and
not as a counterterrorism case? I believe I may have discovered the
answer which will be revealed in the following section.
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.”
Has the FBI
answered those questions? Not to Congressman Gilman’s satisfaction.
But what “Dateline” found intriguing is that less than a year after
the congressman says the FBI received the report, Dr. Elamir’s HMO
was taken over by the state of New Jersey, which opened a fraud
investigation. Why? Because, 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. Does that
mean any of the missing money went, as the intelligence report
suggests, to fund terrorist activities? We don’t know.”
(2)
This story really caught my attention since
allegations were made that Dr. Elamir had financial ties to Osama
Bin Laden for years and that Bin Laden had funded an HMO that Elamir
was operating in New Jersey. The intelligence report that Dateline
refers to also infers that Dr. Elamir may have skimmed money from
the HMO to fund “terrorist activities”.
I decided to look deeper into this story and
found the following information about Dr. Elamir:
“Magdy El Sayed El Amir, a native of Egypt, received his
medical degree from the University of Cairo in 1977. After moving to
the US with his family, he completed his neurology and psychiatry
residency before opening a storefront neurology practice in Jersey
City, NJ, in 1982. The practice catered to the area's poor, many of
whom were fee-for-service Medicaid beneficiaries.
Elamir (in this country, he'd begun eliding the two parts of
his last name) did a brisk business. Before long, his medical
practice became the nucleus for other health-related enterprises,
including several MRI centers, a limousine and ambulance company,
and a physician billing and management service. He also acquired
real estate in Hudson County, where he practiced, and in several
adjoining counties.” (10)
I also found out that in addition to the HMO fraud case referred
to in the Dateline story, that Dr. Elamir had a history of
involvement in other fraud cases.
“In 1996 and 1997, Maryland Casualty Insurance Co., National
Consumer Insurance Co., and Allstate New Jersey Insurance Co. cited
Elamir and numerous other defendants in lawsuits alleging that they
performed unnecessary medical procedures on "victims” of staged auto
accidents. As a result, Allstate stopped paying for MRIs at Elamir's
unlicensed centers, and his cash flow dropped, Elamir's attorneys
have said.
Elamir ran afoul of the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission
in 1997 after applying for a license to perform radioactive imaging
in another of his offices. The NRC found that he had listed a Long
Island doctor as his office's radiation safety officer and the sole
authorized user of the material without the doctor's knowledge, NRC
disciplinary
records show. The physician was not licensed in New Jersey,
according to the state Board of Medical Examiners.
As a result, the NRC has prohibited Elamir
from any involvement
with nuclear medicine until 2002.” (11)
In 2001 Dr. Elamir was involved in another accident fraud case in
New Jersey:
“A
Clifton lawyer and three doctors were arrested in Wednesday's
roundup of 192 defendants charged as part of an auto insurance fraud
ring, making them the first professionals to be arrested under New
Jersey's anti-runner statute.
Hudson County prosecutors said the ring staged accidents in Hudson,
Bergen, Passaic and Essex counties to try to collect $5 million in
phony claims, a few of which were paid by carriers cooperating in
the 19-month-long sting operation.” (12)
Further on in the article:
“The other doctor charged under the statute
is neurologist Magdy Elamir of Saddle River. He is accused of paying
Poller in exchange for his sending patients to Elamir's clinics for
unnecessary and expensive MRIs.
Neurologist Elamir, who operates clinics in
several cities, is no stranger to authorities. In June 2000, he was
sued by the state for allegedly draining $16.7 million from the
assets of a Newark-based HMO he and his associates ran. The
now-defunct HMO, American Preferred Provider Plan, served 44,000
poor, mostly Medicaid patients.
State Banking and Insurance Commissioner Karen Suter said at the
time that the assets were diverted to Elamir, his relatives and
associates, and other enterprises he controlled, including HMOs in
Michigan and Washington, D.C.
Bill Hine, a spokesman for Suter, says the suit against Elamir is in
discovery. The state is liquidating the Washington HMO and has taken
over the Michigan operation and sold the assets, he adds.
Elamir's clinics also came up in the discipline case against
former Newark solo practitioner Patrick Pajerowski, disbarred by the
state Supreme Court in 1998 for using a runner. In that ethics case,
two accident victims were visited by the runner -- Pajerowski's
office manager -- who referred them to a Jersey City clinic operated
by Elamir, even though they told him they were not injured. No
criminal charges were filed.”
(12)
If that wasn’t enough, I also found that in 1999, Dr. Elamir was
running a number of unlicensed MRI centers:
“A
Saddle River man accused by the state of siphoning more than $ 9
million from his financially ailing health maintenance organization
also
owns five unlicensed MRI centers that are not subject to health and
safety standards, state officials say.
Dr. Magdy Elamir, owner of the American Preferred Provider
Plan
(APPP), which was taken over by the state last month, owns magnetic
resonance imaging centers in Paterson, Passaic, Jersey City,
Irvington,
and Newark.” (13)
So here we have a prominent neurologist who is alleged to have
funneled money to Osama Bin Laden through his fraudulent HMO, and we
also discover that he has been involved in at least two accident
fraud schemes, operated unlicensed MRI centers and had a license
revoked by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The NRC license
revocation is especially troubling since unauthorized and unlicensed
personnel at Dr. Elamir’s clinics were handling nuclear materials.
In a document I
found titled Nuclear Regulatory Commission Issuances, dated
July 1- December 31, 1998, Volume 48 pages 1-415, on page 7 is
listed:
Magdy Elamir, MD
(Newark, New Jersey)
Docket 1A 97-070
Memorandum and
Order, LBP 98-25, October 8, 1998……226
This document is in the form of a PDF file and
when I scrolled down to page 226, I found five pages of information
concerning the suspension of Byproducts Material License #
29-30282-01. (14)
In an NRC News article published by the
U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
on April 4, 1997, it states:
“An NRC inspection in January found that the individuals
acting as the authorized user of radioactive materials at Newark
Medical Associates and as its radiation safety officer were not
listed on the license, as NRC requires. A subsequent investigation
by the NRC's Office of Investigations determined that the
application for the license listed an individual as the sole
authorized user and radiation safety officer without that
individual's consent or knowledge. Investigators further found that
the individual has never been associated with Newark Medical
Associates.” (15)
To make matters worse, Dr. Elamir’s own brother, Mohamed El Amir,
was implicated in Operation Diamondback:
“Dateline” has found another reason
why federal investigators might want to pay close attention to Dr.
Elamir 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. Elamir’s own
brother, Mohamed, an engineer, also a U.S. citizen now living in
Egypt. And just listen to what he was interested in.
“There was a warehouse full of weapons in Italy that they
needed shipped,” says Glass.
It was the spring of 1999. Mohamed Elamir explains that he
wants false papers that would identify a shipment of weapons — as
vegetables.
Randy Glass: “ But you’re talking about, they’re saying they
wanna ship vegetables, right? Is what they want — is what they want
on the paperwork, correct?”
Mohamed El Amir: “Yep.”
Then Randy Glass cuts to the chase.
Randy Glass: “Listen. My phone line is secure. And so I’m
just gonna talk very open with you, OK?”
Mohamed El Amir: “Yep.”
Randy Glass: “OK. They want to ship things like tanks,
correct?”
Mohamed El Amir: “Uh-huh.”
Glass: “OK. How... OK. In or— ”
Mohamed El Amir: “No, no, no, no. Just ammunition, not
tanks.”
Randy Glass: “So they just wanna do basically, small arms and
ammunition, right?”
Mohamed El Amir: “Yes.”
Did Mohamed give Glass any indication as to who was going to
get these arms?
“Never got a chance to ask him,” says Glass.
Glass says federal agents told him to drop the matter.
So, what happened to the case? “Nothing,” says Glass.
There was no follow-up. “No,” says Glass.
Was this a missed opportunity? “Hundred percent,” says Glass.
And Randy Glass doesn’t know the half of it, because that
same intelligence report that talks about Dr. Elamir also names his
brother Mohamed as having ties to Osama bin Laden.”
(2)
So at this point we now have
information that Dr. Magdy Elamir along with his brother Mohamed El
Amir have ties to Osama Bin Laden and yet neither one of them is
arrested. Randy Glass says in fact that “federal agents told him
to drop the matter.”
All of this information made me wonder what a
person has to do in New Jersey to lose his or her medical license? I
also wondered why Dr. Elamir had never been arrested for his
connections to Osama Bin Laden? The only logical reason I could
figure that Dr. Magdy Elamir was still practicing medicine was that
he must have had one fine well connected lawyer.
I then took a closer look at the articles and
court documents I had collected on Dr. Magdy Elamir and they
revealed who his lawyer was.
“Elamir did not return repeated phone calls seeking comment.
But his
attorney, Michael Chertoff, said several of the five MRI
centers may be
exempt from licensing requirements, a position questioned by state
health officials.” (13)
The same article states that Dr. Elamir’s lawyer, Michael
Chertoff, also represented him in the fraudulent HMO case:
”Chertoff, who has represented Elamir at court hearings on
the state
takeover of APPP, said he did not know why the MRI centers did not
provide financial help for the troubled HMO, as envisioned in the
agreement.
Elamir has been accused by the state of diverting state Medicaid
funds to other businesses he owns. In a civil proceeding, the state
alleges that American Preferred Provider illegally"loaned"more than
$ 4
million to two start-up HMOs in Michigan and Washington, D.C., also
owned by Elamir, and that APPP paid Elamir and various other
businesses
he owned more than $ 5 million out of Medicaid funds.” (13)
I didn’t know who Michael Chertoff was when I
ran across his name as the attorney who defended Dr. Elamir in his
fraudulent HMO and MRI cases, so I did some research. I was
completely blown away by what I discovered about Michael Chertoff.
As it turns out, Michael Chertoff was appointed
Assistant Attorney General, under John Ashcroft, in early 2001 and
was placed in charge of the Criminal Division. (16) Since
Operation Diamondback was an active case when he took office,
and culminated in arrests in June of 2001, the case would have
fallen under his pervue since it was handled as a criminal case and
not as a counterterrorism case. This means that one of his former
clients, Dr. Magdy Elamir, along with his brother Mohamed El Amir,
were now involved in a case under his supervision.
When the attacks on 9-11 occurred, Michael
Chertoff was placed in charge of the investigation. On Oct. 25,
2001, CBS reported that the Feds had launched Operation Green
Quest in an attempt to stop the financing of terrorism. Here’s
what Dr. Magdy Elamir’s former attorney had to say on the subject:
"The lifeblood of terrorism is money, and if we cut the money we
cut the blood supply," said assistant attorney general Michael
Chertoff, the head of the Justice Department's criminal division.
(17)
The next day, on October 26, 2001, Michael
Chertoff testified before Congress and had this to say:
“As an integral part of this national effort, the Department
of Justice and the FBI have established an interagency Financial
Review Group to coordinate the investigation of the financial
aspects surrounding the terrorist events of September 11th
and beyond. All members of this Committee recognize the importance
of understanding the financial components of terrorist and criminal
organizations. These financial links will be critical to the larger
criminal investigation, while also providing a trail to the sources
of funding for these heinous crimes. The importance of "following
the money," in this instance, as well as in the investigation of all
criminal enterprises, cannot be overstated.
The members of this Committee are also well aware that money
laundering constitutes a threat to the safety of our communities, to
the integrity of our financial institutions and to our national
security.” (18)
On March 25, 2002, CNN reported:
“Assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff
is the Dick Cheney of the Justice Department. Brainy, intense and
well connected, the former federal prosecutor can usually be found
at Attorney General John Ashcroft's elbow as the department's top
counterterrorism tactician. And last week Chertoff vanished to an
undisclosed location.
With no deputies along and no publicity,
Chertoff was on a stealthy swing through France, Belgium and the
Netherlands. His mission: sell Western European governments on a new
Bush Administration plan to post U.S. Justice Department prosecutors
overseas in unprecedented numbers. "The sinews that hold a terrorist
network together are money, communications and transportation,"
Chertoff told TIME before his trip. To help sever those sinews,
Chertoff wants to have American prosecutors stationed in key
capitals, where they can work behind the scenes with their
counterparts to overcome the legal and cultural obstacles to
shipping evidence to the U.S. for use in court.” (19)
Perhaps Chertoff could have saved some time and
effort and looked in his own backyard for evidence of terrorist
financing. To date, Dr. Magdy Elamir and his brother have not been
arrested and are still free.
I have a theory that Elamir was not arrested,
because if his case did come to court, then Chertoff’s role as his
lawyer in the HMO case might have been exposed. Since Elamir’s HMO
was supposedly a front for Bin Laden and millions of dollars were
allegedly skimmed from the HMO to fund terrorism, Chertoff himself
might be implicated in some way since he had to have had access to
the HMO’s books and Elamir’s finances when he defended him.
I also have a theory that this may be why
Operation Diamondback remained a criminal case and not a
counterterrorism case. As head of the Criminal Division in the
Department of Justice, the case would have been under the control of
Michael Chertoff himself. Was this the real reason why the case came
to a screeching halt with only a few arrests? Was this the reason
why Randy Glass was told to drop the matter by federal agents when
the case started focusing on Dr. Elamir’s brother Mohamed El Amir?
Was this the reason why so many federal agents were frustrated
because they felt the case hadn’t received the attention of higher
ups in federal law enforcement? Maybe it had?
On April 22, 2003 President Bush nominated
Michael Chertoff to be the Federal Circuit Judge for the Third
Circuit. Judge Chertoff now presides over federal cases in New
Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and the Virgin Islands.
Part 3:
Another Mohamed El Amir, AKA Mohamed Atta
In Part 2 of this series you had a chance to
meet Dr. Magdy Elamir and his brother Mohamed El Amir. According to
an intelligence document that Congressman Ben Gilman had been given
in 1998 and a copy of which Dateline NBC also had a chance to
review, both of the brothers had ties to Osama Bin Laden. (2)
Neither Magdy, nor his brother Mohamed, were
ever arrested by US authorities even though Magdy allegedly funneled
millions of dollars from a fraudulent HMO to fund “terrorist
activities”, and Mohamed tried to get false papers to cover up a
shipload of weapons during Operation Diamondback.
I had already done a lot of research on Dr.
Magdy Elamir but didn’t know a lot about his brother so I started
searching the internet for references to Mohamed El Amir and was
lead to of all people…Mohamed Atta!
I discovered that while Mohamed Atta was a
student at Cairo University, and also while he was living in
Hamburg, he was known to his close friends and associates as Mohamed
El Amir.
ABC in Sydney, Australia produced a
documentary on 9-11 titled A Mission to Die For, and reporter
Liz Jackson interviewed Mohamed Mokhtar El Rafei, one of Atta’s
classmates at Cairo University in the 90’s:
““Can
you tell us your reaction when you first read in the newspaper, or
saw the photograph that said the Mohamed that you knew was supposed
to be the man who flew the first plane into the World Trade Centre?”
“Well, for the first time I saw his picture
in the newspaper, and I read his name, I had a doubt that the
Mohamed what I know, because I knew him as Mohamed El-Amir, and for
the first time, I said oh, no, no, this is Mohamed Atta. He's not
Mohamed El-Amir, but… this is completely close to his face. But for
my feelings, I refused … from my inner believes that this is not
Mohamed El-Amir. Of course, he is someone similar to him. And
afterwards… when the newspaper that Mohamed El-Amir is called
Mohamed Atta in America, I was confused really, because this is not
Mohamed El-Amir what I knew, while we were in the faculty.””
Further on:
“If I go back 10 years ago, while we were in
the faculty of engineering - by the way, Mohamed El-Amir was close
to my bench number, because his name is Mohamed, the same as me -
and we joined together in so many occasions to do something.””
(20)
In a Telegraph article by Hannah
Cleaver, published on September 17, 2001, I also ran across
references to Atta as Mohamed El Amir. Here are some excerpts:
“MOHAMED ATTA had plans for the future. If
he had been scheming for years to kill himself and thousands of
others in an act of terrorism, he did nothing to betray that
intention during his eight-year stay in Germany.
The 33-year-old, who used a different part
of his name, El Amir, while in Hamburg, said he wanted to work for
charity to improve the poor areas of Cairo, the city he told friends
in Germany that was his birthplace and his home, where his family
still lived, and where he trained as an architect.
Prof Diettmar Machule said: "Mohamed El Amir
was someone who was in no way extreme. He was helpful, upstanding
and correct, hard-working, intellectual and devout in his belief.
That is something you would notice. But it was not an extreme kind
of belief.
"The man in the photograph is the Mohamed El
Amir that I knew, but I cannot believe that he would do such a
terrible thing," said the friend, a Protestant German.
He added that El Amir seemed to lead a
deeply devout and earnest but otherwise unremarkable life during his
time in Hamburg.
Marwan Al Shehhi, 23, from the United Arab
Emirates, the man thought to have steered the second jet into the
World Trade Centre, was registered at the same university and shared
El Amir's flat.
But, while El Amir was well-known on campus
and was devoted to his studies, Al Shehhi rarely turned up for
lectures or seminars. "It seems he was a phantom student," a college
spokesman said.” (21)
In another story that ran on CTV News,
Lorraine Passchier also refers to the El Amir surname and also names
Atta’s father:
“Throughout his stay in Hamburg, Atta used
his family surname of El Amir, one of eight names authorities have
traced to him. But as he travelled across the United States and to
Europe over the past year, it appears he stuck with the name Atta as
he put his suicide mission in motion.
His father, Cairo lawyer Mohammed El Amir,
told a news conference that his son was innocent following the
suicide hijackings. He called the United States the "root of
terrorism" and blamed Israel for the September attacks.” (22)
In a Press Release from the FBI on September
27, 2001, the name Mohammad
El Amir is listed as an alias of Atta’s.
“4)
Mohamed Atta - Possible Egyptian national
-Date of birth used: September 1, 1968
-Possible residence(s): Hollywood, Florida;
Coral Springs, Florida; Hamburg, Germany
-Believed to be a pilot
-Alias: Mehan Atta; Mohammad El Amir;
Muhammad Atta; Mohamed El Sayed; Mohamed Elsayed; Muhammad Muhammad
Al Amir Awag Al Sayyid Atta; Muhammad Muhammad Al-Amir Awad Al
Sayad” (23)
So now we know that Mohamed Atta was known as
Mohamed El Amir to his friends and associates in Cairo and Hamburg
and that his fathers name is also Mohamed El Amir. In addition we
find that his father is a lawyer in Cairo.
I don’t know anything about Egyptian names, so
I’m not sure if the name El Amir is as common as Smith or Jones in
the US. I do find it very interesting that Atta shares the same
surname as Dr. Magdy Elamir and the exact same name as Magdy’s
brother Mohamed El Amir.
Dateline NBC revealed that Magdy’s
brother, Mohamed El Amir was an engineer in Cairo, Egypt. We know
that Mohamed Atta studied engineering at Cairo University. Is there
a connection? Are they related?
The jury’s still out on that one.
Part 4: Dr.
Elamir, The Blind Sheikh, Ramzi Yousef and the Al Salam Mosque
In Part 3, I revealed that Mohamed Atta was
known to his friends and associates in Cairo and Hamburg as Mohamed
El Amir. I then wondered if there was any family relationship
between Mohamed El Amir Atta and Dr. Magdy Elamir, the Jersey City
neurologist who Dateline NBC claimed had ties to Osama Bin
Laden. Dateline NBC had also reported that Dr. Elamir had a
brother in Cairo named Mohamed El Amir, who tried to secure false
paperwork for a warehouse full of weapons in Italy. (2)
Dateline NBC was not apparently aware
that Atta had been known as El Amir in the past, so I emailed the
information to them well over a year ago in hopes that they might
follow-up on their story and see if there was a blood relationship
between Mohamed Atta, Dr. Magdy Elamir and Mohamed El Amir. To date
I have heard nothing back from anyone so I can only assume that they
weren’t interested in my information.
I had read where Mohamed Atta spent time in the
North Jersey area prior to 9-11 and I will document that information
a bit later on in this story. First of all I’d like to reveal
another interesting link between Dr. Magdy Elamir and one of the
true hubs of terrorism in the United States:
“Dateline”
caught up with Dr. Elamir recently outside his office. He said he
couldn’t talk about his HMO and the missing money. But he had this
to say about allegations he’s connected to bin Laden and terrorism.
Dr. Elamir: “That’s preposterous. Never.”
Chris Hansen: “Why would somebody say something like that
about you?”
Dr. Elamir: “I have no idea. I have no idea.”
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.” (2)
The mosque referred
to in the above excerpt is the Al Salam Mosque in Jersey City, the
same city where Dr. Magdy Elamir has a medical practice. Here’s a
bit of history about the mosque:
“It is nearly a
straight shot from the Jersey City waterfront overlooking the rubble
of the twin towers up to Al Salam, the third-floor mosque here that
for more than a decade has been tainted with suspicions of
terrorism.
First there was
the 1990 murder of a militant rabbi, linked to an Al Salam regular.
Then there was the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, spurred,
prosecutors said, by the incendiary sermons of blind Egyptian cleric
Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and carried out by his followers.”
“Al Salam had a
tradition of passionate preaching against the Egyptian government,
which is supported by the United States. Journal Square has a large
Egyptian population, and many worship at Al Salam.
The mosque's most
famous scholar, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, was convicted in 1995 along
with nine followers of conspiring to bomb the United Nations
headquarters in Manhattan and several other buildings, bridges and
tunnels in New York.
Prosecutors also
said Abdel Rahman had galvanized his followers to carry out the 1993
World Trade Center bombing, which killed six and wounded 1,000.
Three years
later, Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, who prosecutors said masterminded the
1993 bombing, was also convicted. Abdul Rahman Yasin, another
suspect in the 1993 bombing who lived in Jersey City, fled the
country.
In 1990, Al Salam
regular El Sayyid Nosair was charged with murdering Rabbi Meir
Kahane during a speech in New York. Initially acquitted, Nosair
eventually was retried under different charges and convicted.”
(24)
Ramzi Yousef, by the
way, is the nephew by marriage of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, yet
another engineer who was born in Kuwait to Pakistani parents and who
is acknowledged as the architect of the 9-11 attacks.
So now that we’ve
established a link between the Al Salam Mosque and Dr. Magdy Elamir,
I will now document the movements and activities of some of the
hijackers involved in the 9-11 attacks and will tie Mohamed Atta to
them in the North Jersey area.
The following was
reported by CNN:
“During the two
weeks since hijacked airliners crashed into the World Trade Center
and the Pentagon, investigators have focused on New Jersey as a
possible hub of terrorist activity.
FBI agents and
local police have fanned across the state, conducting searches in
more than a dozen cites and towns, some within sight of where the
towers used to stand.
Investigators
have pored over a top-floor apartment in a three-story, brick
building in Paterson, New Jersey, a city 20 miles from Manhattan
with a large Arab-American community, said a source with knowledge
of one search.
The source said
that the suspected hijacker identified by the FBI as Hani Hanjour
lived in the apartment for several months this year. Hanjour has
been identified as a 29-year-old Saudi national accused of being one
of five hijackers aboard an American Airlines flight that crashed
into the Pentagon. That flight, bound for Los Angeles, departed from
Washington's Dulles International Airport.
In the first days
of the investigation, FBI agents searched the Marriot hotel at
Newark's airport where several hijackers may have stayed the night
before the fatal flights. The United Airlines flight that crashed
into a Pennsylvania field embarked from Newark at 8 a.m. on
September 11.
Two suspected
hijackers, identified as Nawaf and Salem al-Hamzi from Saudi Arabia,
rented one mailbox at a Mailboxes Etc. franchise in a Fort Lee, New
Jersey, mall and also listed as an address another franchise in
Wayne, New Jersey.”
“Al-Hamzi, joined
by Hanjour, rented cars three times from the Borough Jeep-Chrysler
dealership in Wayne. Co-owner Henry Hagedoorn said that al-Hamzi
rented a minivan and then two sedans between June and August,
returning a Chrysler Concorde on September 1 after 10 days, with
1,000 miles listed as being put on the car.”
“Jersey City has
been on investigators' counterterrorism radar for years, a location
where some of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers lived and stored
explosive chemicals. A mosque there is where Sheik Omar Abdel
Rahman, the blind Egyptian cleric who was a spiritual leader to past
terrorist conspirators, sometimes preached until he was implicated
in the conspiracy to bomb the twin towers and other New York City
landmarks.”
(25)
The New York
Times had this to say about the hijackers:
“PATERSON, N.J. -- In this neighborhood of
Latinos, African-Americans and recent immigrants speaking dozens of
languages, the handful of young Arab men who came and went drew
almost no notice. In their apartment above a bodega, they did not
play loud music. They appeared not to speak English.
But now that the man who took the lease has been identified as
a hijacker, the apartment in the three-story house at 486 Union
Avenue has been identified as a hub for those who planned the
suicide missions of Sept. 11. Here, hijackers from all four of the
flights were able to meet, or at least cross paths, in the months
before the attacks.
The discovery of some kind of headquarters or rendezvous point
here has helped stitch together earlier reports that placed some
hijackers in scattered spots around northern New Jersey. Now it is
clear that North Jersey was one of several East Coast staging areas
for the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.”
“The one-bedroom apartment was rented in early spring by Hani
Hanjour, who is believed to have been at the controls of the flight
that hit the Pentagon. His landlord and neighbors said he had at
least one roommate. It is not clear how many of the hijackers ever
stayed at the apartment, but neighbors identified Salem Alhamzi and
Nawaq Alhamzi, who were also on the flight from Dulles International
Airport, as visitors and possibly roommates of Mr. Hanjour.
They said they also recognized Saeed Alghamdi, who was on the
flight from Newark that crashed in Pennsylvania, and Mohamed Atta,
who was on the first flight from Boston to hit the trade center.”
(26)
The Associated Press added the following information:
“At least six of the 19 suspected
hijackers lived in or visited New Jersey before the attacks, but
Carroll said it' s too soon to label the state as a staging area for
the nation's deadliest terror attack.
Marwan Alshehhi, who authorities say
hijacked United Airlines Flight 175 and flew it into the Trade
Center's south tower, worked as an attendant at a gas station in
Berkeley Township in Ocean County, according to customers and
neighbors.
At a graffiti-sprayed brick building in
Paterson where some doors don't have knobs, owner Jimi Nouri said he
rented an apartment for six months to a man he identified from a
photograph as suspected hijacker Hani Hanjour.
Resident Jamie Diaz, 20, said she often
saw suspect Saeed Alghamdi at the apartment, and deli owner Carmen
Tejada said that Hanjour came in several times daily to buy milk,
juice or doughnuts.
Diaz said suspect Mohammed Atta
frequently visited the apartment with several other men who appeared
to be of Middle Eastern descent.”
(27)
The same article reported that some of the hijackers may have
rented small planes to make dry runs to New York City so they could
find the best approach patterns to attack the World Trade Center.
In another article on the same subject we find more specific
information:
“NEWARK, N.J. -- The hijackers who slammed two airliners into
the Twin Towers practiced their deadly approaches to the World Trade
Center in small planes rented from New Jersey airfields, law
enforcement sources now believe.
The aerial reconnaissance missions were undertaken on a number of
occasions in the weeks before the attacks, sources said, citing the
accounts of eyewitnesses who saw the planes fly toward Manhattan and
information from Jersey airfield operators.
Sources said the obvious conclusion, from evidence developed so far,
is that the flights were practice suicide runs. "We believe that is
what happened," said a law enforcement source familiar with the
investigation.”
“For the past two weeks, the FBI has been examining the
records of dozens of flight schools and aviation centers throughout
New Jersey, including Caldwell Flight Academy at the Essex County
Airport in Fairfield where the owner has confirmed that several
suspects sought by the FBI rented planes from him.”
“Sources would not divulge the type of aircraft that were
rented in New Jersey, or specifically who made the flights.
Witnesses, though, told The Star-Ledger that Mohamed Atta -- who
federal investigators believe was at the controls of American
Airlines Flight 11, which crashed into the north tower of the World
Trade Center -- was a frequent visitor to a Paterson apartment
rented by one of the suspected hijackers.
The revelation came amid mounting evidence that New Jersey was a
major staging area for the hijacking plot.” (28)
The Record reported on June 20, 2003 that the New Jersey
State Police were claiming that Atta had lived in a motel in Wayne,
NJ for a year before the attacks. I find this report hard to
believe, however, since there were many documented sightings of Atta
during this time period, particularly in Florida.
“Mohamed Atta, the mastermind of the Sept.
11 terror attacks, lived in a Wayne motel for about a year before
the attacks, state police said Thursday.
The revelation - the first time
authorities have placed Atta in the motel - came after state police
Superintendent Joseph R. Fuentes testified Thursday afternoon before
the Assembly Homeland Security Committee about his agency's efforts
to combat terrorism.
In his testimony, Fuentes confirmed
what officials had said previously: New Jersey was one of the
launching points for the Sept. 11 attacks and that some of the 19
hijackers moved through New Jersey hotels and used New Jersey-based
criminal networks to obtain identification documents.
Fuentes would not go into detail,
but Sgt. Kevin Rehmann, a state police spokesman, later said Fuentes
was referring to Atta. Rehmann said Atta had lived in the Wayne
Motor Inn on Route 23 for a year.”
“The Record has previously reported
that several of the terrorists were seen in Passaic County and that
two unidentified terrorists stayed at the Wayne motel.
Two days after the attacks, FBI
agents searched the Wayne Motor Inn's guest records and took copies
of several receipts, hotel employees said at the time.”
(29)
Despite the fact that I don’t believe Atta lived at the Wayne
Motor Inn for a year prior to the attacks I have found evidence that
he traveled in and out of Newark, New Jersey a number of times
between June 3, 2000 and September 11, 2001.
“According to INS records, Atta first entered the United
States on June 3, 2000, at Newark International Airport in New
Jersey, after flying from Prague International Airport in the Czech
Republic. The OIG confirmed that a "hit" or a "lookout" did not
appear on the IBIS screen when the inspector swiped Atta's passport.
Atta was admitted by the primary INS inspector without being
referred to secondary. Atta received a B-2 admission that allowed
him to stay in the United States for six months until December 2,
2000.” (30)
From the 9/11 Commission Report we learn more about who was
living in the apartment in Paterson, New Jersey:
“Within a few weeks, Hanjour, Hazmi, and several other
operatives moved to Paterson and rented a one-room apartment. When
their landlord later paid a visit, he found six men living
there-Nawaf al Hamzi, now joined by his younger brother Salem,
Hanjour, Moqed, probably Ahmed al Ghamdi, and Abdul Aziz al Omari;
Hazmi’s old friend Khalid al Mihdar would soon join them.” (31)
That places seven of the hijackers in one location.
In another excerpt from the 9/11 Commission Report we find two
references to Mohamed Atta traveling in and out of Newark, New
Jersey in July and August of 2001. It also gives some details on
Atta’s actions in New Jersey and also mentions some of the other
hijackers who were living in the area and what they were doing to
prepare for the attacks. To preface the opening sentence, Atta
arrived in Spain on July 8, 2001 to meet with Ramzi Binalshibh and
left Spain on July 19th to return to Florida:
“A
week after he returned from meeting Binalshibh in Spain, Atta
traveled to Newark, probably to coordinate with Hazmi and give him
additional funds. Atta spent a few days in the area before returning
to Florida on July 30.
On August 7, Atta flew
from Fort Lauderdale to Newark, probably to coordinate
with Hazmi.Two days later, Ahmed al Ghamdi and Abdul Aziz al Omari,
who had been living in New Jersey with Hazmi and Hanjour, flew to
Miami--probably signifying that the four hijacking teams had finally
been assigned. While Atta was in New Jersey, he, Hazmi, and Hanjour
all purchased tickets for another set of surveillance flights. Like
Shehhi, Jarrah, Atta, and Waleed al Shehri before them, Hazmi and
Hanjour each flew in first class on
the same type of aircraft they
would hijack on 9/11 (a Boeing 757), and on transcontinental flights
that connected to Las Vegas.”
(32)
Up to this point we
have the Al Salam Mosque in Jersey City, once presided over by Sheik
Omar Abdel Rahman, identified as a hub for terrorists, in a
neighborhood with a large Egyptian population. We also have Dr.
Magdy Elamir who was born in Egypt and who has a medical practice in
Jersey City and who financially supported the Al Salam Mosque.
Finally, we have Mohamed El Amir Atta, an Egyptian, whose father has
the exact same name as Dr. Elamir’s brother, who spent time in the
same area with at least seven of the hijackers who crashed their
planes on 9-11.
Coincidence?
Perhaps…but I don’t
believe in coincidences.
Another interesting story that parallels the
Operation Diamondback fiasco broke on May 9th of
this year and also has links to New Jersey:
“A former waiter in a Manchester curry house
was recruited by Al-Qaeda and trained as a hijacker in preparation
for the September 11 attacks.
The British Muslim was enlisted at a mosque in Oldham and attended
terrorist training school in Pakistan. But he had second thoughts
about his suicide mission as he flew to America and surrendered to
the police after gambling away thousands of pounds given to him by
Al-Qaeda.”
The unnamed man in the article turned out to be
Niaz Khan, a Pakistani born Brit who turned himself in to the
Atlantic City Police Department who then turned him over the FBI in
Newark. From the same article we find out that:
“The FBI’s counter-terrorism taskforce
questioned the 29-year-old man for three weeks at Newark, New
Jersey, in the spring of 2000. There, agents refused to believe his
claim that terrorists were planning to fly passenger jets into
buildings, even though he passed lie detector tests.
Other hijackers were entering the United States at about the same
time and enrolling at flight schools to learn the skills they would
need, only 18 months later, to carry out the world’s most audacious
acts of terrorism.
The failure to investigate the Briton’s claims was one of a
startling series of missed opportunities that have emerged in
inquiries by a US commission examining the September 11 attacks. His
case has now been reopened amid wrangling between the FBI and
British authorities.”
Further on Khan reported to the FBI that:
“He travelled to Lahore, where he was taught
how to carry out a hijacking and familiarised with the inside of a
Boeing cockpit. “I knew they wanted me to do some kind of operation
in which I would die but my life was such a mess that in my mind I
was already dead,” he said.
“On his return to Britain, he was given a
further £5,000 and sent to New York, where he was told he would be
met at the airport.
But he had got married and during the flight thoughts of his wife
and baby helped to change his mind. He gave his contact the slip and
instead of going through with his mission, he took a bus to Atlantic
City, where he lost his money in casinos and then gave himself up.”
“He now believes that had he not given
himself up to the FBI in 2000, he would have become the only British
hijacker among those who crashed planes in New York, Washington and
Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001, killing more than 3,000 people.”
(33)
NBC News followed up in July with
additional information:
“Khan told NBC News that for the next few weeks he was trained
by al-Qaida to hijack passenger planes, and then sent to the United
States. But when he told the FBI, headquarters was skeptical and,
after several weeks, senior FBI officials ordered him released to
the custody of British intelligence. Khan said, “I told them before
the 9/11, about more than year, be… hijacking in America or on
America airline.”
Khan said that at the Lahore training compound he and up to 30
other men were taught hijacking basics, including how to smuggle
guns and other weapons through airport security, techniques to
overpower passengers and crew and how to get into a cockpit.”
Lisa Myers then gives more details on how Khan was processed by
the FBI and British Intelligence:
“For
three weeks, FBI counter-terrorist agents in Newark, N.J.
interrogated Khan, created composite drawings of his terrorist
trainer and a fellow student and then wired Khan up and took him
back to JFK airport, hoping to smoke out other conspirators. But
they had no luck.
Congress’ 9/11 report confirms that in April, 2000, an unnamed
“walk-in” told the FBI he “was to meet five or six persons” — some
of them pilots — who would take over a plane and fly to Afghanistan,
or blow the plane up. The report adds that the “walk-in” passed a
lie-detector test.
NBC News has learned that Khan passed not one but two FBI
polygraphs. A former FBI official says Newark agents believed Khan
and tried to aggressively follow every lead in the case, but word
came from headquarters saying, “return him to London and forget
about it” -- which, critics say, is exactly what the FBI did.
But the FBI insists it investigated Khan’s allegations
thoroughly, could not confirm them, and had no legal grounds to hold
him. Federal prosecutors agreed. FBI officials say they did the
right thing in turning Khan over to British authorities, and assumed
they would carefully investigate.
But NBC News has learned that New Scotland
Yard only interviewed Khan for about two hours, and then released
him.”
“Khan remains surprised that, to this day, the FBI, CIA and
Scotland Yard have never asked for his help in identifying the
street address of the Lahore safe house where he and dozens of other
men were trained. He says he saw some identifying signs and might
be able to locate it today. “I just surprised because [they] never
come back to ask some more things," he said. "[The FBI] believed me,
but maybe not seriously.””
(34)
The New York Daily News reported that Khan’s story would
be told to the 9-11 Commission:
“A Pakistani
Briton who says he warned the FBI in April 2000 that Al Qaeda wanted
to attack America with planes could soon be telling his tale to the
Sept. 11 commission.
Niaz Khan's lawyer, Ronald Motley,
said, "We have communicated with the 9/11 commission through
informal channels.”
"Mr. Khan still hasn't told his
complete story," Motley told the Daily News yesterday. "When we take
his deposition, he will talk about the extent of his Al Qaeda
training, what he knew, how things were financed, how they trained
him about the inadequacies of the American airport security
systems.’’”
“The head of the FBI's Newark
office, Joseph Billy, said agents investigated Khan's claims
thoroughly and turned over the information to other agencies, even
though it was never confirmed.
FBI officials told the bipartisan
commission investigating the intelligence failures that allowed the
terrorist attacks that they had only vague warnings Al Qaeda might
use airliners to attack American targets.”
(35)
Niaz Khan was never even mentioned in the final 9-11 Commission
Report.
The Khan case is another example of how a terrorist with links to
Pakistan ended up in North Jersey and was allowed to go free even
though federal investigators had specific information that he was
here to hijack a plane and blow it up. Just as in Operation
Diamondback, agents working on the case were told by higher ups
to “return him to London and forget about it”.
I
am left with a lot of unanswered questions that I hope to find
answers for in the future. My research and investigation into
Operation Diamondback, and the overall story of terrorist links
to North Jersey has been a fascinating journey which has certainly
opened my eyes to the spectre of terrorism right in my own back
yard. I no longer look naively towards Afghanistan, Pakistan and
Saudi Arabia as the bubbling cauldrons from which terrorism is
spawned…all I have to do is look towards the northern part of my own
home state.
I
wish at times that I didn’t know what I know, but there’s really
nothing I can do about it now. I am the one who chose to look deeper
into this story and I’ll have to live with the consequences. I just
hope that by finally revealing this information, that someone with
some power will pick it up and do something with it. Like I said in
the beginning, it bothers me to think that there are people out
there walking the streets of New Jersey who conspired to secure
heavy arms and nuclear weapons and who had documented links to Osama
Bin Laden. Two of these people were present when Raja Ghulam Abbas
told Randy Glass at a tape recorded meeting, “those towers are
coming down”, yet even after those same towers did fall on 9-11,
our government did nothing.
This week we commemorate the third anniversary of 9-11. To date, not
one person has been successfully prosecuted in the United States for
their involvement in the attacks. Likewise, not one person in the
federal government has been held accountable for failing to stop the
attacks even though there is overwhelming evidence that attacks were
imminent and terrorists identified as being the perpetrators of the
attacks had been known by intelligence and law enforcement agencies
to have been in the United States before 9-11.
On
9-11 our entire national defense system was brought to its knees by
a bunch of guys who “supposedly lived in caves”. The Pentagon, the
headquarters of the mightiest military power on the planet was sneak
attacked and the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, didn’t even
know the Pentagon was about to be attacked until he heard and felt
the ensuing explosion while sitting in his office. (36)
As
Commander-in-Chief of the military on 9-11, President George W. Bush
who prides himself as being a wartime president was anything but a
warrior that day. Fighter jets weren’t sent to intercept the
hijacked planes until it was already too late and in one instance a
pilot who was dispatched to search for Flight 11 wasn’t even aware
that it had already crashed into the World Trade Center. President
Bush had been told about the crash of Flight 11 before he went into
the classroom at Booker Elementary School in Florida, and yet chose
read a book with a bunch of students instead of finding out more
about the disaster. When he was informed in the middle of the class
exercise that Flight 175 had also just crashed into the World Trade
Center, he remained seated for another seven minutes while thousands
of people were about to experience a horrible death. There is also
some confusion about who issued the shootdown order that day. It is
the duty of the president to issue an order to shootdown a hijacked
plane but evidence points towards Vice President Cheney as being the
person who actually gave the order since apparently the president
was indisposed and his aides didn’t know what to do. (37)
The
fog of war can be a bitch…especially when you’ve never been in one.
I can only assume that Bush’s training with the “Champagne Unit” in
the Texas Air National Guard didn’t prepare him to make sober
decisions when war becomes real and our nation suffered greatly as a
consequence of his failure to defend our homeland on 9-11.
Finally, my thoughts and prayers are with those who
lost their loved ones on 9-11. I’ve gotten to know quite a few of
the family members over the past three years and my heart breaks for
them a little bit more each and every day. I appeal to those of you
who are reading this now, to dig and claw and do everything in your
power to expose those who were responsible for the deaths of the
9-11 victims and to never stop digging until they are all brought to
justice. It’s the least we can do for the families.
Acknowledgements: Thanks to Lois Ann
Battuello, an independent researcher from Napa Valley, California,
for helping me put this story together. Lois is a Stanford grad and
worked in the banking business for many years. She is a whiz at
investigating financial crimes and her input in researching the
business dealings of Dr. Magdy Elamir and his brother Mohamed El
Amir in Cairo was invaluable. Also, thanks to Paul Thompson, the
creator of the Complete 9-11 Timeline who also helped with the
research on this essay. Paul created a Randy Glass Timeline which
should be a primer for anyone interested in learning more about
Operation Diamondback. Paul has also placed a video that Randy
Glass sent to him on the web. Both the Timeline and video URL’s can
be found below under Resources. Last but not least, many thanks to
Randy Glass. I have been in frequent touch with Randy over the phone
and via email and he has given me first hand information about
Operation Diamondback that has never been published before. In
my opinion, Randy Glass is a true patriot who placed his life on the
line many times during Operation Diamondback and other operations he
worked on for the US Government. Thanks Randy!!!
Sources:
(1) Las Vegas Sun, Indictment Against Mosque
Leaders Unsealed, by Kirstan Conley, Associated Press, August
10, 2004
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/nat-gen/2004/aug/10/081003703.html
(2) Dateline NBC,
On the trail of arms merchants,
August 2, 2002
http://www.msnbc.com/news/788686.asp
(3) Dateline NBC,
Stinger missile sting operation,
March 18, 2003
http://www.msnbc.com/news/887141.asp?cp1=1
(4) Palm Beach Post, Con Man Turned Patriot Tells All, by
John Pacenti, Cox News Service, August 2, 2002
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/2002/coxnews080202.html
(5) Time Magazine,
Al-Qaeda Moneyman Caught,
by Elaine Shannon, May 1, 2003
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,448922,00.html
(6) Times of India,
India helped FBI trace ISI-terrorist links,
by Manoj Joshi, October 9, 2001
http://www1.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/articleshow?catkey=-2128936835&art_id=1454238160&sType=1)
(7) The Washington Post, U.S. Reopens
Arms Case In Probe for Taliban Role, by John Mintz, August 2,
2002
http://www.wash | 
