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They Tried to Warn Us: Foreign Intelligence Warnings Before 9/11
The Congressional Joint Inquiry into 9-11 is now finished, but the findings that have been released fail to mention any warnings from foreign governments. The US mainstream media also has paid little attention to warnings from foreign governments.
Yet there were so many warnings—from both our friends and enemies alike—often specifically suggesting the targets or method of attack. In at least one case, the warnings actually mentioned hijackers by name. This type of communication between intelligence agencies normally occurs in secret, so one can only wonder what additional warnings or details were provided to us that have never been made public.
No US publication has ever put all the various foreign government warnings in one place; even Internet skeptics of Bush have paid scant attention to this issue. Here, for the first time, is such a list of warnings.
First, General Warnings
- In late July 2001, Afghanistan’s Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil learned that Osama bin Laden was planning a “huge attack” on targets inside America. The attack was imminent, and would kill thousands, he learned from the leader of the rebel Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which was closely allied with al-Qaeda at the time. Muttawakil sent an emissary to pass this information on to the US Consul General, and another US official, “possibly from the intelligence services.” Sources confirmed that this message was received, but supposedly not taken very seriously, because of “warning fatigue” arising from too many terror warnings. [Independent, 9/7/02, Reuters, 9/7/02]
- Also in late July 2001, the US was given a “concrete warning” from Argentina’sJewish community. “An attack of major proportions” was planned against either the US, Argentina, or France. The information came from an unidentified intelligence agency. [Forward, 5/31/02]
- An undercover agent from Morocco successfully penetrated al-Qaeda. He learned that bin Laden was “very disappointed” that the 1993 bombing had not toppled the World Trade Center, and was planning “large scale operations in New York in the summer or fall of 2001.” He provided this information to the US in August 2001. [Agence France Presse, 11/22/01, International Herald Tribune, 5/21/02, London Times, 6/12/02]
- Hasni Mubarak, President of Egypt, maintains that in the beginning of September 2001 Egyptian intelligence warned American officials that al-Qaeda was in the advanced stages of executing a significant operation against an American target, probably within the US. [AP, 12/7/01, New York Times, 6/4/02] He learned this information from an agent working inside al-Qaeda. [ABC News, 6/4/02]
Warnings the Attack Will Come from the Air
Many warnings specifically mentioned a threat coming from the air.
- In 1999, British intelligence gave a secret report to the US embassy. The report stated that al-Qaeda had plans to use “commercial aircraft” in “unconventional ways,”“possibly as flying bombs.” [Sunday Times, 6/9/02] On July 16, 2001, British intelligence passed a message to the US that al-Qaeda was in “the final stages” of preparing a terrorist attack in Western countries. [London Times, 6/14/02] In early August, the British gave another warning, telling the US to expect multiple airline hijackings from al-Qaeda. This warning was included in Bush’s briefing on August 6, 2001. [Sunday Herald, 5/19/02]
- In June 2001, German intelligence warned the US, Britain, and Israel that Middle Eastern terrorists were planning to hijack commercial aircraft and use them as weapons to attack “American and Israeli symbols which stand out.” Within the American intelligence community, “the warnings were taken seriously and surveillance intensified” but “there was disagreement on how such terrorist attacks could be prevented.” This warning came from Echelon, a spy satellite network that is partly based in Germany. [Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 9/11/01, Washington Post, 9/14/01]
- In late July 2001, Egyptian intelligence received a report from an undercover agent in Afghanistan that “20 al-Qaeda members had slipped into the US and four of them had received flight training on Cessnas.” To the Egyptians, pilots of small planes didn’t sound terribly alarming, but they passed on the message to the CIA anyway, fully expecting Washington to request information. “The request never came.” [CBS, 10/9/02] Given that there were 19 hijackers and four pilots (who trained on Cessnas) in the 9/11 plot, one might think this would now be a big news item. But in fact, the information has only appeared as an aside in a CBS “60 Minutes” show about a different topic.
- In late summer 2001, Jordan intelligence intercepted a message stating that a major attack was being planned inside the US and that aircraft would be used. The code name of the operation was Big Wedding, which did in fact turn out to be the codename of the 9/11 plot. The message was passed to US intelligence through several channels. [International Herald Tribune, 5/21/02, Christian Science Monitor, 5/23/02]
- Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly stated that he ordered his intelligence agencies to alert the US in the summer of 2001 that suicide pilots were training for attacks on US targets. [Fox News, 5/17/02] The head of Russian intelligence also stated, “We had clearly warned them” on several occasions, but they “did not pay the necessary attention.” [Agence France-Presse, 9/16/01] The Russian newspaper Izvestia claimed that Russian intelligence agents knew the participants in the attacks, and: “More than that, Moscow warned Washington about preparation for these actions a couple of weeks before they happened.” [Izvestia, 9/12/02]
- Five days before 9/11, the priest Jean-Marie Benjamin was told by a Muslim at an Italian wedding of a plot to attack the US and Britain using hijacked airplanes as weapons. He wasn’t told time or place specifics. He immediately passed what he knew on to a judge and several politicians in Italy. Presumably this Muslim confided in him because Benjamin has done considerable charity work in Muslim countries and is considered “one of the West’s most knowledgeable experts on the Muslim world.” [Zenit, 9/16/01] Benjamin has not revealed who told him this information, but it could have come from a member of the al-Qaeda cell in Milan, Italy. This cell supplied forged documents for other al-Qaeda operations, and wiretaps show members of the cell were aware of the 9/11 plot. [Los Angeles Times, 5/29/02, Guardian, 5/30/02, Boston Globe, 8/4/02] For instance, in August 2000, one terrorist in Milan was recorded saying to another: “I’m studying airplanes. I hope, God willing, that I can bring you a window or a piece of an airplane the next time we see each other.” The comment was followed by laughter [Washington Post, 5/31/02]. In another case in January 2001, a terrorist asked if certain forged documents were for “the brothers going to the United States,” and was angrily rebuked by another who told him not to talk about that “very, very secret” plan. [Los Angeles Times, 5/29/02] In March 2001, the Italian government gave the US a warning based on these wiretaps. [Fox News, 5/17/02]
What Did Israel Know?
But the most remarkable warnings of all come from Israel. The issue of Israeli foreknowledge of 9/11 is highly controversial. The story is too complicated to go into detail here, but a number of respected publications (for instance, Fox News, 12/12/01, Forward, 3/15/02, ABC News, 6/21/02, Salon, 5/7/02, Ha’aretz, 5/14/02, Le Monde, 3/5/02, Reuters, 3/5/02, AP, 3/5/02, AP, 3/9/02, Cox News, 3/5/02, Guardian, 3/6/02, Independent, 3/6/02, New York Post, 3/6/02, Jane’s Intelligence Digest, 3/15/02) have written about an Israeli “art student” spy ring operating in the US for several years before 9/11. The name “art student” is used because most of these scores of spies were posing as college art students. There have been suggestions that some of these Israeli spies lived close to some of the 9/11 hijackers. For instance, a US Drug Enforcement Administration report from before 9/11 noted that Israeli spies were living in the retirement community of Hollywood, Florida at 4220 Sheridan Street, which turned out to be only a few hundred feet from lead hijacker Mohamed Atta’s residence at 3389 Sheridan Street (see the DEA report, 6/01). Israeli spies appear to have been close to at least ten of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers. [Salon, 5/7/02] In fact,Forward, the most widely circulated publication in the US targeting the Jewish audience, has admitted the spy ring existed, and that its purpose was to track Muslim terrorists operating in the US. [Forward, 3/15/02]
Some have claimed that the existence of this spy ring shows that Israel was behind the 9/11 attacks, an argument that is beyond the scope of this essay. But if the mainstream media is to be believed, Israel gave the US several specific warnings of the 9/11 attacks. In the second week of August 2001, two high-ranking agents from the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, came to Washington and warned the CIA and FBI that 50 to 200 al-Qaeda terrorists had slipped into the US and were planning an imminent “major assault on the US” aimed at a “large scale target” [Telegraph, 9/16/01, Los Angeles Times, 9/20/01, Ottawa Citizen, 9/17/01 Fox News, 5/17/02]. Near the end of August, France also gave a warning that was an “echo” of Israel’s. [Fox News, 5/17/02]
In October 2002, the story broke in Europe and Israel that on August 23, 2001, the Mossad had given the CIA a list of 19 terrorists living in the US. The Mossad had said that the terrorists appeared to be planning to carry out an attack in the near future. It is unknown if these are the same 19 names as the actual hijackers, or if the number is a coincidence. However, the four names on the list that are known are names of the 9/11 hijackers: Nawaf Alhazmi, Khalid Almihdhar, Marwan Alshehhi, and Mohamed Atta. [Die Zeit, 10/1/02, Der Spiegel, 10/1/02, BBC, 10/2/02, Ha’aretz, 10/3/02] These are also probably the four most important of the hijackers (and two of the pilots). From them, there were many connections to the others. The CIA had already been monitoring three of them overseas the year before, and two, Alhazmi and Almihdhar, were put on a watch list the same day the Mossad gave this warning. [AFP, 9/22/01,Berliner Zeitung, 9/24/01, Observer, 9/30/01, New York Times, 9/21/02]
Such detailed warnings of exact names fit in well with the reports that Israeli spies were tracking the hijackers for months before 9/11. Yet, as Jane’s Intelligence Digestput it, “It is rather strange that the US media seems to be ignoring what may well be the most explosive story since the 11 September attacks…” [Jane’s Intelligence Digest, 3/13/02] The spy ring story did get a little coverage in the US, but more recent stories claiming that Israel knew the exact names of at least some of the hijackers hasn’t been reported here at all. Perhaps the story is too controversial for the US media to touch?
Read more here: http://www.historycommons.org/essay.jsp?article=essaytheytriedtowarnus
