|
|
|
|
SUBSCRIBE
The leading Copyright |
Before the Senate Judiciary Committee. "DOJ Oversight: Preserving Our Freedoms While Defending
Against Terrorism." An Investigation into the Modus Operandi of Terrorist Networks
in the United States: The Structure of Osama Bin Laden, Al-Qaeda, Hamas and
other Jihadist Organizations in the United States December 4, 2001 Steven Emerson is an internationally recognized expert on terrorism and national
security, a correspondent, and an author who also serves as the Executive Director
of The Investigative Project. Mr. Emerson started The Investigative Project
in late 1995 following the broadcast of his documentary film, "Jihad in
America," on public television. The film exposed video of clandestine operations
of militant Islamic terrorist groups on American soil. For the film, Mr. Emerson
received numerous awards including the George Polk Award for best television
documentary, one of the most prestigious awards in journalism. He also received
the top prize from the Investigative Reporters and Editors Organization (IRE)
for best investigative report in both print and television for the documentary.
The award from the IRE was the fourth such award he had received from that group.
Mr. Emerson first worked for the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee starting
in 1977. He then became a freelance writer in 1982, writing primarily for the
New Republic. Mr. Emerson is the author of four books. He published his first
book in 1985, "The American House of Saud: The Secret Petrodollar Connection."
Mr. Emerson joined US News and World Report magazine in 1986 as the national
security correspondent where he published two more books: "Secret Warriors"
and "The Fall of Pan Am 103: Inside the Lockerbie Investigation."
In 1990, Mr. Emerson joined CNN as a special investigative correspondent. In
1993, Mr. Emerson left CNN to begin work on his PBS "Jihad in America"
documentary that aired at the end of 1994. In the war on terrorism, the military component poses the greatest strategic
challenge and incurs the greatest potential for American casualties. But from
the widest political perspective, the greatest challenge to the United States
is the ability to recognize terrorist groups operating under false cover and
veneer. Clearly, the success of Osama Bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda network has
demonstrated, with murderous consequences, the ability of terrorist groups to
hide under the facade of "human rights," "charitable" and
"humanitarian" cover. In addition, the ability of militant Islamic
groups to hide under the protection of the larger non-violent and peaceful Islamic
community has created a challenge for policymakers and officials, the likes
of which has not been present before in American society. Sleeper cells that
are believed to number in the tens, possibly hundreds, also constitute a dangerous
threat to American society. As someone who has tracked and investigated the activities of militant Islamic
fundamentalist networks for the past eight years, I am presenting in the following
testimony the results of my recent investigations into the operations of terrorist
networks in the United States. The basic findings of my investigative findings are summarized as follows:
" Osama Bin Laden has systematically recruited American passport holders
(like Wadih El Hage, now in prison for his role in the 1998 bombings of the
United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania) in order to exploit the ease
in which these operatives can travel freely around the world as well as ship
American communications technology to the Bin Laden network. " Bin Laden recruited a United States Special Forces sergeant who then
became the secret head of security for Bin Laden, while serving as a triple
agent, pretending to assist the FBI on counterterrorism matters, even though
he was serving as a top aide to Bin Laden. " Bin Laden has created front organizations serving under false cover
as groups with missions officially tethered to "human rights," "charitable"
and "humanitarian" purposes. The most striking and hitherto secret
organization serving under the false "human rights" facade was created
by Bin Laden with offices in London (England), Kansas City (Missouri) and Denver
(Colorado). " Hamas has created a network of cover groups, "humanitarian organizations"
and commercial companies in the United States. " Militant Islamic groups based and headquartered in the United States
have exhorted their followers, behind closed doors and out of the earshot of
the American public and media, to carry out and raise funds for Jihad (in this
sense, referring to the concept of "holy war"). " Bin Laden has created, exploited and utilized a network of established
charitable conduits throughout the world, including those headquartered in the
United States. " The Islamic Jihad terrorist group secretly set up its headquarters in
the United States to promote the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization under
the false cover of an academic institute connected to the University of South
Florida and a "humanitarian" front group. The events of September 11th may well have been impossible without the support
of individuals and organizations with ties to al-Qaeda, some of which are still
operating in the United States today. Foreign terrorist organizations have utilized
numerous modes of operation within the United States to facilitate their fundraising
goals. Their infiltration into American society has occurred through the use
of domestic universities, establishment of innocuous-sounding non-governmental
organization entities, and through the utilization of "front" corporations
whether they be domestic or foreign corporations with branches within the United
States. The following are examples of these various modus operandi from actual
situations within the United States. The intricate networks of supporters for terrorists exist on the organizational
level, and the Bush administration has responded in kind. With each passing
order by the President and the Treasury Department, the United States gets one
step closer in ridding the terrorist element from our society. One such success
is the governmental shutdown of the Al-Barakaat Group of Companies, a hawala-type
bank which allegedly funneled money for Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda. A
large sum of funds used for terrorism was funneled directly from multiple branches
of Barakaat in the U.S., right under our noses. Though based in the United Arab Emirates, al-Barakaat has an abundance of subsidiaries,
scattered across the world, with nine of them in the United States , including
branches in or near Seattle, Washington DC, Minneapolis, Columbus, and Boston.
In particular, the Boston branch of Barakaat, Barakaat North America Inc., moved
more than two million dollars through an American bank. The head of Barakaat,
Ahmed Nur Ali Jumale, is said to have befriended Osama bin Laden during the
Afghani war against the Soviets. In 1988, bin Laden donated a substantial amount
of capital to Jumale, initiating the money flow between al-Qaeda and Barakaat.
The London Daily Telegraph reported that the Barakaat bank was owned by Al-Ittihad
al-Islamiya, which is on the list of terrorist organizations whose assets were
frozen by Bush's first Executive Order. The Barakaat Bank of Somalia was also
believed to be sending funds to Al-Ittihad al-Islamiya. Barakaat clearly flourished on American soil, incorporating in at least five
states and working clandestinely as a benign money-transfer business. This organization
could be one of many supposedly legitimate businesses that reside within the
United States. It is therefore imperative that suspicious organizations be scrutinized
to the fullest extent within which the law will allow. Cutting off the money
flow to terrorist organizations and their supporters is an integral part of
the war against terrorism. The war is now on our soil, and our enemy comes in
many forms, including American businesses. While businesses must be examined thoroughly, we must not forget to look at
the fundamental base of these organizations-people who actively support the
terrorist agenda. Terrorists make up these organizations, and they have exploited
the United States and its liberties in every way possible. B. U.S. Passport Holders: Terrorist Candidates American passport holders are recruited by terrorist groups enabling these
operatives to move easier, risking less suspicion than their counterparts who
hold foreign passports. There are documented cases of individuals traveling
in and out of the United States on their American passports to deliver money,
weapons and technical equipment such as satellite phones. This method of operation
is used by various terrorist groups such as Hamas who used Muhammad Salah, an
American naturalized citizen, to travel to Israel using his American passport
to enter Palestinian territories carrying hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The Al-Qaeda network used various U.S. passport holders such as Wadih El Hage,
a 40-year-old naturalized American citizen from Lebanon who was convicted earlier
this year for the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. FBI Special Agent Robert Miranda testified in 2001 at the trial of Wadih El
Hage and others for their roles in the bombings of the United States embassies
in Kenya and Tanzania regarding an interview he conducted with El-Hage on August
20, 1998: Q: Did he indicate to you why it was that he was asked to work for Usama Bin
Laden? One of Wadih El-Hage's attorneys, Sam Schmidt, emphasized this point even
further at the same trial by stating: Wadih El-Hage served as Osama Bin Laden's personal secretary in the early
1990's. In 1994, Mr. El-Hage moved to Kenya to set up businesses for Bin Laden
to be used as terrorist fronts. Mr. Hage's business card shows him as a director
of Anhar Trading, a company with addresses in Hamburg, Germany, and Arlington,
Texas. U.S. passport holders Tarik Hamdi and Ziyad Khaleel illustrate another example
of Al-Qaeda's use of American citizens. Hamdi and Khaleel delivered a satellite
telephone and battery pack to Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan in May 1998. Using
this phone, Bin Laden conferred with followers across the globe and, according
to prosecutors, ordered the bombing of the two American embassies in East Africa.
Hamdi, a resident of Herndon, Virginia, traveled to Afghanistan with an ABC
News team in order to coordinate an interview with Bin Laden. The phone itself
was purchased by Khaleel. In the same trial as mentioned above, an employee of O'Gara Satellite Networks
testified on the sale of an INMARSAT phone to Ziyad Khaleel, a resident of Columbia,
Missouri. This phone was allegedly for the exclusive use of Osama Bin Laden.
Khaleel purchased additional phone accessories and asked that the equipment
be mailed to: Tarik Hamdi at 933 Park Avenue in Herndon, Virginia 20170. In the trial transcripts on March 27, Hamdi's name was mentioned time and again
regarding the satellite phone issue and a letter from ABC World News Tonight
requesting an interview with Bin Laden, dated May 13, 1998 and addressed to
Bin Laden's senior military commander, Mohammed Atef. Apparently Hamdi was familiar
with Atef, since contained in the letter was a line referring to previous communication
through "Mr. Tarik Hamdi in Washington." Later in the trial it was
revealed that when Hamdi traveled to Afghanistan with the ABC News team, he
sent a fax from Pakistan to a Bin Laden aide named Khalid al-Fawwaz. The fax
read: "Brother Khalid: Peace be upon you. We arrived safely and now we are in
the Marriott Hotel." Soon after, Bin Laden received the battery pack that
was so instrumental in Bin Laden's communication with his worldwide network. The use of individuals with American passports was a necessity for Bin Laden
to achieve his goals. One of the privileges that an American passport brings
is the ability to travel from place to place with little or no interference.
This was obviously the case with Wadih El Hage who, with his American passport,
was able to pass in and out of the United States and into regions in Africa,
the Middle East and Asia on instructions from Bin Laden himself. This trend
should definitely raise a warning flag for future cooperation between international
terrorists and sympathetic counterparts within the United States. C. Ali Mohammed: Bin Laden's Special Operations Man Within the United States
Perhaps one of the most frightening examples of the infiltration of terrorists
into the infrastructure of the United States is that of Ali Mohammed, one of
the individuals indicted for his role in the conspiracy plot to bomb the United
States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Mohammed was an officer within the United
States Army's Special Forces based out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina. At the
same time, he was arranging for security for meetings between such individuals
as Osama Bin Laden and Hizbollah military chief Imad Mughniyeh in Sudan and
coordinating activities with other Bin Laden operatives within the United States. On November 8, 1990, FBI agents raided the New Jersey home of El Sayyid Nosair,
the Egyptian born Islamic militant, following his arrest in the shooting of
Rabbi Meir Kahane in New York City. Among the many items found in Nosair's possession
were sensitive military documents from Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The documents,
some of which were classified Secret, contained the locations of U.S. military
Special Operations Forces exercises and units in the Middle East, military training
schedules, U.S. intelligence estimates of Soviet forces in Afghanistan, a topographical
map of Fort Bragg, U.S. Central Command data and intelligence estimates of Soviet
force projection in Afghanistan. Appended throughout the documents were Arabic
markings and notations believed to be that of Ali Mohammed. Some documents were
marked "Top Secret for Training otherwise unclassified". Other documents
were marked "sensitive." The military documents had been given to Nosair by Ali Mohammed, an Egyptian
born Islamic fundamentalist who had come to live in the United States in 1985.
He had been in the United States earlier that decade, having graduated as a
captain from a Special Forces Officers School at Fort Bragg in 1981 in a program
for visiting military officials from foreign countries. He joined the U.S. military
in 1986 and received a security clearance for level "secret." He was
assigned as a sergeant with the U.S. Army Special Operations at Fort Bragg,
North Carolina. He also served unofficially as an assistant instructor at the
JFK Special Operations Warfare School at Fort Bragg where he participated in
teaching a class on the Middle East and Islamic fundamentalist perceptions of
the United States. Ali Mohammed became active in the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan and
soon connected with Islamic militants in New Jersey who had been training and
supporting the jihad. Mohammed was introduced to El Sayyid Nosair by Khalid
Ibrahim, an Egyptian born Islamic fundamentalist in New Jersey. Ibrahim had
become active in the Office of Services of the Mujihadeen, known Al Kifah, the
group that recruited volunteers and funds for the jihad in Afghanistan. Al Kifah,
headquartered in Peshawar, Pakistan, maintained scores of offices world-wide,
including three dozen in the United States, with Al Kifah's primary American
offices located in Brooklyn, Jersey City and Tucson, Arizona. According to the
current indictment against Bin Laden and others for their role in the bombing
of the United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998, the Office
of Services was transformed into the terrorist organization of Osama Bin Laden,
known as Al-Qaeda. According to transcripts of the World Trade Center bombing trials, Ali Mohammed
began giving training sessions in New Jersey in guerilla warfare in 1989 to
Islamic militants that included, among others, El Sayyid Nosair, Mahmud Abuhalima
(later convicted in the World Trade Center bombing conspiracy) and Khalid Ibrahim.
Other training sessions took place in Connecticut where Islamic militants trained
on weekends. A FBI report, based on Connecticut State Police intelligence, summarized
the activities of the training sessions using semi-automatic weapons. According to military records, Ali Mohammed left the military in November 1989
and moved to Santa Clara, California. Law enforcement officials say he traveled
to Afghanistan and Pakistan where he befriended Osama Bin Laden and other top
militants in the Islamic fundamentalist movements who had sought sanctuary in
Peshawar. From his base in Santa Clara, Mohammed soon emerged as a top aide
to Osama Bin Laden. Federal officials say that Mohammed traveled regularly to
and from Pakistan and Afghanistan, having helped oversee Bin Laden's terrorist
bases in Khost and other terrorist camps in Afghanistan. In 1991, Mohammed was
the person in charge of Bin Laden's move from Afghanistan to the Sudan. The
move was considered perilous since Bin Laden had made so many enemies. Mohammed
helped Bin Laden set up his new home and terrorist base in Khartoum, Sudan where
2000 "Arab Afghans"-the name given to the Arab veterans of the Afghanistan
jihad-were headquartered in Bin Laden terrorist camps. Mohammed continued to
travel between the terrorist camps in Afghanistan, Bin Laden's base in the Sudan
and the United States. Mohammed continued to train new Islamic recruits in the
expanded holy war, or jihad, against the United States, Israel, the Philippines,
Bosnia, Egypt and Algeria. Law enforcement records show that Mohammed's extended stays outside the United
States would range from weeks to half a year. But he would always return to
the United States, which provided him a safe base from which to travel around
the world on behalf of Bin Laden. In California, Mohammed became involved in
smuggling illegal aliens into the United States, including suspected terrorists.
Law enforcement sources say that a favorite route for Mohammed was to smuggle
illegal aliens through Vancouver, Canada. In a seemingly bizarre twist, while in California, Mohammed volunteered to
provide information to the FBI on smuggling operations involving Mexicans and
other aliens not connected to terrorist groups. Within time, officials say,
the relationship allowed Mohammed to divert the FBI's attention away from looking
at his real role in terrorism into examining the information he gave them about
other smuggling. This gave Mohammed a de facto shield in effectively insulating
himself from FBI scrutiny for his ties to Bin Laden. And the relationship helped
protect Mohammed from being scrutinized by other federal agencies. Mohammed
had succeeded in creating an ingenious scheme all the while he worked for Osama
Bin Laden. Mohammed had also tried to cultivate a relationship with the CIA,
which did not succeed, although he had far better success in playing off the
FBI against the CIA in his dealings with both agencies. Like a John Le Carre
thriller, Mohammed played the role of a triple agent and nearly got away with
it. In late 1994, Mohammed was called by the FBI who wanted to speak with him about
the trial in the World Trade Center conspiracy case. As Mohammed stated in his
plea of guilty before Judge Leonard B. Sand of the United States District Court
for the Southern District of New York on October 20, 2000, "I flew back
to the United States, spoke to the FBI, but didn't disclose everything I knew."
In other words, Mohammed was continuing to manipulate the American authorities
even when he was called to testify regarding the acts of terrorists about whom
he possessed information. Federal law enforcement officials say that Mohammed's role and association
with the Islamic militants surfaced in connection with the World Trade Center
bombing trials in 1994 and 1995. He was named on a list of some 118 potential
unindicted co-conspirators in the World Trade Center bombing conspiracy released
by federal prosecutors. Even so, Mohammed's connections with Bin Laden were
so solid that, when he obtained a copy of this list, he sent it to Wadih El
Hage, Bin Laden's personal assistant, in Kenya "expecting that it would
be forwarded to bin Laden [sic] in Khartoum." In 1996, according to intelligence reports, Mohammed helped move Bin Laden
back from the Sudan, which wanted to maintain an official arm's length relationship
(yet keeping its close connections secret), to Afghanistan. Mohammed continued
working for Bin Laden in 1997 and 1998, maintaining his role as one of Bin Laden's
top lieutenants. D. Ihab Ali: Flight School Another instance of an abuse of American citizenship is Ihab Mohammed Ali,
currently incacerated for lying to a grand jury about his role in the Al-Qaeda
network and the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. Ali and his family moved
to the United States in the 1970s, immigrating from Egypt. There he obtained
a job as a cab driver for City Cab Co in Orlando, Florida, before heading off
for Pakistan in 1989. While there, Ali worked for the Muslim World League, an
organization reportedly backed by Osama bin Laden. After being taken into custody
in May 1999 due to his alleged connections to the embassy bombings in Africa,
Ali refused to aid authorities and lied to the grand jury. According to his indictment, Ali took flight lessons in Oklahoma in 1993 like
some of the September 11 hijackers. Ali's learned to fly at the Airman Flight
School in Norman, Oklahoma. Two hijackers, Mohammed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi,
visited the Airman Flight School before deciding to learn to fly at a flight
school in Florida. Ihab Ali's exact role in the Al-Qaeda network remains unclear,
but his indictment intimates that Ali was believed to have knowledge of both
Wadih El Hage and Ali Mohammed and their actions. E. Ramadan Abdullah Shallah: The Case of the University of South Florida On March 11, 1992, the University of South Florida (USF) and the World &
Islam Studies Enterprise (WISE) entered into a formal agreement regarding cooperation
between the two entities in the fields of research and graduate student enrichment.
WISE was a seemingly benign organization which was a self-described think-tank
on Middle Eastern and Islamic issues. The individual who signed the agreement
on behalf of WISE was Ramadan Abdullah Shallah. In October 1995, following the
assassination of then-leader Fathi Shikaki, Shallah became the Secretary-General
of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), an international terrorist organization
based in Damascus, Syria, that was engaged in a jihad against the State of Israel
through a campaign of suicide bombings and other deadly attacks carried out
against Israeli civilians and soldiers alike. The role of WISE in nurturing the future leadership of PIJ was that of providing
a legitimate front for PIJ activities within the United States through agreements
such as the one between WISE and USF which leant WISE the legitimacy necessary
to overcome scrutiny for its activities. WISE, founded in 1990, was a PIJ brain-child
from its formulation. The founders of WISE all emanated from the Middle East
with a definite agenda dictated by PIJ. The Director of Administration of WISE was Ramadan Abdullah Shallah. As mentioned
earlier, Shallah currently serves as the Secretary-General of PIJ in Damascus,
Syria. The Director of Research of WISE was Bashir Musa Nafi. Nafi was deported
from the United States in 1996 based on visa violations. On his INS Order to
Show Cause, which constitutes the INS equivalent to an indictment against an
alien within the United States, a pseudonym is listed for Nafi of Ahmed Sadiq.
This alias is important to his connections to terrorism. To those in the Palestinian
Islamic Jihad, he was better known by this name. Under this pseudonym, Nafi
wrote scores of articles in journals referred to by Palestinian Islamic Jihad
head Fathi Shikaki as publications of the movement. Included among these are
Al-Mukhtar Al-Islami, which is published in Cairo, and Al-Taliah Al-Islamiah,
which was published in London (Nafi being on the Editorial Boards of both publications
during the time that he wrote for them). A master's thesis presented by Abdul Aziz Zamel at USF on April 17, 1991 referred
to Nafi as an ideological head of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad along with Fathi
Shikaki. Based on interviews with an anonymous individual identified by Zamel
as a "founder" of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Zamel wrote, on page
192 of his thesis, that Nafi had actually "published and edited a journal,
al-Taliah al-Islamiah (The Islamic Vanguard) [sic] specifically for the [Palestinian
Islamic Jihad], which was sent to the occupied territories for reproduction,
in the same shape and form, and distribution." Thomas Mayer, a researcher
who wrote an article in Emmanuel Sivan and Menachem Friedman's 1990 book entitled
Religious Radicalism and Politics in the Middle East, stated that Fathi Shikaki
regarded Bashir Nafi as "an ideological friend." Mayer also discussed
the cooperation between Nafi and Fathi Shikaki in distributing Al-Taliah Al-Islamiah
throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip. These references suggest that Nafi
was not merely a member of the movement, but a spokesperson with close ties
to Shikaki. By utilizing the agreement between WISE and USF as a means of facilitating
legitimacy for their activities, the individuals associated with WISE were able
to coordinate PIJ activities within the United States free from government scrutiny.
The government became actively involved only after one member of the inner circle
of this organization, Ramadan Shallah, emerged as the Secretary-General of PIJ
in Damascus, Syria. F. Musa Abu Marzook and UASR: The United Association for Studies and Research (UASR), an Islamic think tank
now based in Springfield, Virginia, was founded in 1989 in Chicago, Illinois
by a number of prominent Islamic radials living in the US, primary among whom
was Musa Abu Marzook. Musa Abu Marzook, a.k.a. Abu Omar, was the head of the Hamas Political Bureau
since 1988, while he was resident in the United States. Hamas (Harakat Al-Muqawama
Al-Islamia fi Filastin - The Islamic Resistance Movement in Palestine) is one
of the most militant Islamic groups in the world and is included in the United
States Department of State's list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations that are
outlawed pursuant to the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996.
Hamas has claimed responsibility for numerous suicide bombing attacks within
Israel resulting in the deaths of scores of innocent Israelis. On July 27, 1995, Marzook was arrested at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport
because "he played an important role in supervising the activities of the
military wing to Hamas [the wing responsible for the terrorist attacks] and
in appointing individuals to important leadership roles in the military wing."
In the United States, Abu Marzook was "responsible for the Muslim Brothers
organization in the U.S. and resigned from this job in order to devote his time
to activities dedicated to Palestine" following the foundation of the Hamas.
Marzook, who was born in the Gaza Strip, was a close associate of Sheikh Ahmad
Yassin, the Islamic cleric who founded Hamas as an organization distinct from
its parent group Muslim Brotherhood. Marzook first came to the United States in the late 1970s, although immigration
records show that he formally began residing in the United States starting in
1981. Marzook and his family lived in a number of locations during their 14
years in the United States, including Colorado, Louisiana and Virginia. He and
his family moved to Falls Church, Virginia in 1991.Between 1993 and 1995, Marzook
resided principally in Jordan, which deported him in June 1995 for his involvement
and senior position in Hamas. In July 1995, after making trips to Iran and Syria,
Abu Marzook attempted to reenter the United States at which time he was arrested
by customs and INS officials at the request of the Israeli Government which
sought to prosecute Abu Marzook for numerous crimes in connection with his leadership
role in Hamas. In October 1995, acting at the request of the Israeli Government,
the United States initiated extradition proceedings against Abu Marzook, based
on pending Israeli criminal charges that included murder, attempted murder and
conspiracy stemming from Hamas-sponsored terrorist acts. At the time of his arrest, Abu Marzook was a permanent resident alien of the
United States. In 1990, he and his family received their Green Cards in an INS
lottery that offered "permanent legal residency" to potential immigrants.
In affidavits filed by Deputy United States Attorney Shirah Neiman, the role
of Abu Marzook in Hamas activities was discussed as follows: The arrest of Muhammad Salah, Mohamad Jarad and Nasser Hidmi by the Israeli
authorities marked an important turning point into the investigation of Hamas.
What was revealed as a result of interrogations and confessions of these individuals
(Salah and Jarad were both residents of Chicago, Illinois, and Hidmi was a student
at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas) was the importance of the United
States as an operational base for Hamas. Under the leadership of Musa Abu Marzook,
the Hamas headquarters in the United States was able to operate virtually unimpeded
from the intense scrutiny of authorities. On January 25, 1993, Salah and Jarad, two high ranking Hamas operatives with
United States citizenship, were arrested by the Israeli General Security Services
(GSS) with the aid of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). The Israeli authorities
obtained the most significant information against Musa Abu Marzook from Salah,
a.k.a "Abu Ahmad." In these statements, Salah exposed the pivotal
role of Musa Abu Marzook in the Hamas organization. Musa Abu Marzook directed
the Hamas organization's activities, the allocation of its resources and the
transfer of funds: "Abu Marzook specifically directed funds towards Hamas'
'military' (i.e. terror) activities, encouraged acts of terror, and played an
important role in overseeing certain 'military' aspects of Hamas' operations
and in making 'military.'" On October 10, 1994, Abu Marzook appeared in a television interview broadcast
from the "Al Manar" television station in Lebanon. This was only one
day after the October 9, 1994 shootings in which two Hamas terrorists killed
two and wounded eighteen persons in a suicide attack in a pedestrian mall in
downtown Jerusalem. In the interview, Marzook stated as follows: Death is the goal to every Muslim and every fighter wants to die on Palestinian
land. This is not the first time that the Izz Al-Din Al-Qassem heroes carry
out suicide and terrorism actions…The peace process, as described by Arafat
more than once, is a failure. By these actions, we do not strive to foil the
talks and the negotiations. We are doing them for a much higher aim and they
are steps on the way for a full restitution of the rights of the Palestinian
people. On July 21, 2000, agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in
Charlotte, North Carolina, arrested eleven individuals on charges of smuggling
contraband cigarettes to Michigan from North Carolina and money-laundering.
In a superseding indictment filed in the United States District Court for the
Eastern District of North Carolina on March 28, 2001, four individuals were
charged with providing material support or resources to the Hizbollah terrorist
organization. The individuals were charged with providing "currency, financial
services, training, false documentation and identification, communications equipment,
explosives, and other physical assets to Hizbollah, in order to facilitate its
violent attacks." Another similar case was filed in Michigan against Fawzi Mustapha Assi on August
4, 1998. The charges against Assi, stated in both the Indictment and the Criminal
Complaint, included allegations that he did "(k)nowingly provide and attempt
to provide material support or resources, to wit, night vision goggles, global
positioning satellite modules and a thermal imaging camera to a designated foreign
terrorist organization." The foreign terrorist organization to whom Assi
was charged with providing these materials was the Hizbollah terrorist organization.
Unfortunately, prior to the filing of the indictment, Assi disappeared, and
allegedly reappeared in Lebanon. These two examples show how foreign terrorist organizations may develop relationships
with individuals who are already resident within the United States in order
to provide them support. In these cases, however, the support was not merely
financial but also tactical. Both in Charlotte and in Detroit, the items involved
were highly sophisticated items to be used directly in terrorist operations. In each of the above examples, different approaches by the United States government
and its many agencies would have served the purpose of shutting down the potential
for providing funds, recruitment or a base of operations for terrorists on American
soil. Conclusion: On September 11, Osama Bin Laden proved that terrorists were able to hide under
our radar screen for years without being detected by the relevant agencies or
even by what is known as the fourth branch of government, the media. The horror
of September 11 was achieved through a variety of means, not all tethered to
the specific operational details of the actual plot. Our nation's defenses and
our awareness of the threats surrounding us were numbed through false conduits,
fake companies, religious charities, exploitation of our free speech and religious
freedoms and abetted by problems in the visa system and loopholes in the terrorist
watch list. The bottom line is that if this is not to be repeated, we need to institute
new safeguards, methods of detecting false cover companies, academic institutes,
and religious charities, monitor those who are here illegally and who are connected
to known terrorist groups and demand that our government do a much better of
job of scrutinizing those who violate American law by exploiting the very freedoms
that make our country great. |
