Sorry, ISI-9/11 Again!

[jproudj]

Ok chaps, I was about to post on a thread on another forum about the supposed ISI-9/11 link but I needed some more input. Had a search here but couldn't find what I wanted.

Has anyone ever uncovered further proof of Atta's $100,000? I mean, I know some of you have questioned the very existence of this wire transfer, as it doesn't make much sense, being the day before 9/11. Is the only source of this transfer (related to ISI or not) the Indian Times article?

I read on that other forum that the FBI testified to congress about the Indian Times allegation, I cannot find independent confirmation of this, is it just a lie? Seeing as nothing came of this article other than a few quick copies in Western media it would seem so.

Randy Glass, obviously a dodgy character but what happened to the tapes that reportedly recorded the comments about the WTC 'coming down', was that remark on the tapes at all? ( I realise that remark doesn't really mean anything anyway, especially just on the strength of Glass's testimony )

I have made the point that even if somebody does uncover real evidence linking an individual ISI agent to the 9/11 Terrorists, I don't see why this would be such a big story, there are plenty of influential people implicated in the 9/11 funding. What I am unsure of myself is how important these many sources of funds would be to criminal 9/11 investigations. Have people been convicted of funding the attacks? (just money)

[Gravy]

I recommend Mike Williams' pages on this subject at 911myths.com:
http://www.911myths.com/html/pakistan_s_isi_link_to_9_11_fu.html

Randy Glass apparently did not tape the purported "towers coming down" remark, and his information to the Florida state senator, which was passed on to Bob Graham's office, did not include anything about that or any specifics about any attack that came about.

I don't know if anyone was convicted solely of helping to finance the attacks. Because of the ease of money laundering and the lax nature of charitable organization registration (and donation record keeping) in the Arab world at that time, it would be difficult to prove that the original source of specific funds knew they were meant for terrorism.

ETA: I don't know about the FBI testifying to Congress about the ISI allegation.

Also, the "day before 9/11" claim is simply a myth.

[MikeW]

I read on that other forum that the FBI testified to congress about the Indian Times allegation, I cannot find independent confirmation of this, is it just a lie?
It's a misrepresentation, yes.

The most high profile version is this, from our very own British MP Michael Meacher:

Why then is Omar Sheikh not being dealt with when he is already under sentence of death? Astonishingly his appeal to a higher court against the sentence was adjourned in July for the 32nd time and has since been adjourned indefinitely. This is all the more remarkable when this is the same Omar Sheikh who, at the behest of General Mahmood Ahmed, head of the ISI, wired $100,000 to Mohammed Atta, the leading 9/11 hijacker, before the New York attacks, as confirmed by Dennis Lormel, director of FBI's financial crimes unit.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/print/0,%20,%205282550-107865,%2000.html

What Lormel actually confirmed is a $100,000 transaction, but not that it came from Sheikh, or the ISI, or anyone else, as this slightly more honest article admits:

J-e-M's accounts were frozen not long after Dennis M. Lormel, director of FBI's financial crimes unit, confirmed the $100,000 transaction, if not the source.

"They wired over $100,000 into Mr. [Mohamed] Atta a year ago," he testified in October, not identifying who "they" were.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=26249

[T.A.M.]

jproudj:

1. I agree, proof of involvement of ISI, even if more than one agent, is not surprising, or groundbreaking, or even unexpected. I would actually find it strange if there were NO infiltration of the ISI with double agents, or anti-american elements.

2. The burden of proof is on them. If they say the $100,000 transfer occured, if all they bring out is the TOI article, then throw it back at them as unsubstantiated information from an ANONYMOUS Indian intelligence source. Given relations between India and Pakistan, do you think it can be trusted as the SOLE piece of evidence? If they then quote other articles that report it, do a thorough check, and I am sure in all instances, you will find those articles are merely regurgitating the TOI article.

Make them prove it!!

TAM:)

[jproudj]

Thanks for the info guys. I think sometimes the illogical practices of the conspiracy theorists twist you into trying to prove and disprove things which are completely irrelevant anyway!

[boloboffin]

The Lormel "confirmation" in the WorldNet article doesn't confirm anything about Mahmood Ahmed or Omar Sheikh. Lormel testified in early October 2001. I'm having trouble locating his testimony, however.

But Lormel says here (http://www.fbi.gov/congress/congress02/lormel021202.htm) that the $100,000 was over a 15-month period. He simply says a pilot/leader of the 9/11 attacks was involved, and I'll call this person "Atta" for simplicity's sake.

Atta had a German checking account. An individual made many wire transfers into this German account in 1998 and 1999. Then Atta opened up a UAE checking account and gave power of attorney for the UAE account to this same individual. In the next 15 months, about $100,000 was wired from the UAE account to the German account.

So there was no bulk wiring of $100,000 at any time. Lormel's testimony may be inaccurately reflected in the WorldNet article, and that might have been influenced by the TOI article that came out in mid-October 2001 (WorldNet article is late Jan 2002).

I've totally rejected the $100,000 the day before as stupid, but $100,000 over a fifteen month period documented by the Feds is a different matter. They clearly know who the individual wiring "Atta" is. Omar Sheikh might not be a bad guess for that person.

ETA: Here's Lormel's October 3, 2001 testimony (http://www.fbi.gov/congress/congress01/lormel100301.htm). The WorldNet quote isn't there. It must have happened during questioning by the committee. Still looking.

[boloboffin]

Got it (pdf) (http://financialservices.house.gov/media/pdf/107-46.pdf).

The first mention of a $100,000 transfer is from Rep. LaFalce:

Mr. LAFALCE. Now we have got this Financial Action Task Force list of noncooperating countries and territories. Is the United Arab Emirates on that list?

Secretary O’NEILL. I don’t think so. No, they are not on that specific list.

Mr. LAFALCE. Is Pakistan on that list?

Secretary O’NEILL. I don’t think so.

Mr. LAFALCE. OK. Well, with respect to countries that are not on that list, but whose standards might not be what we think they should be, do we have a different list, and are we trying to get them to improve both their laws and their practices? I mean, I have heard and read that much of al Qaeda’s funding has come from accounts belonging to charities and others and banks in the United Arab Emirates. And apparently Mohamed Atta received a wire transfer of $100,000 from a bank account in Pakistan under the control of one of bin Laden’s lieutenants. And so I am just curious about that.

LaFlace doesn't source this, but it is something he has "heard and read" about. You can't hold him to details. O'Neill satisfies him that Pakistan and UAE are being worked with concerning accountability.

Next, Lormel mentions this:

Mr. LORMEL. I think that is highly speculative. I believe that there were clearly monies—and significant amounts of monies—coming directly to the 19 terrorists from the support mechanisms. In some regard, they will be linked to Mr. bin Laden. With regard to your concerns about the hawala accounts, we are in the front end of our investigation. What we are seeing is a pattern of cash activity which I believe——

Mrs. KELLY. Flight school cost $20,000. They had to get that money somewhere.

Mr. LORMEL. Yes. Right on the front end, ma’am, they wired over $100,000 in to Mr. Atta a year ago, and we are aware of that. And we tracked that back to accounts in the UAE.

Please note the plural word "accounts" for the record.

A big part of this particular bit of 9/11 CT disinfo developing is that people are seizing on that amount in various contexts and conflating them. For example, Lormel says in February 2002 that over $100,000 was wired to the German account from the UAE account in a 15 month period. But in October, he says that Atta gets over $100,000 from "accounts in the UAE," and the time period is "a year ago."

These are not the same set of transfers, although some may possibly overlap. The UAE account > German account set of transactions is a specific financial path over a broad time period (15 months), and the UAE > Atta set describes several paths over a tighter time period (probably June-July 2000 (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0DEFDF163FF933A25751C1A9679C8B 63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=4)). The operation is thought to have cost $500,000, so there may be several ways of grouping financial information that would produce an "over $100,000" figure.

Therefore, anyone alleging an Mahmood Ahmed > Omar Sheikh > Atta path for over $100,000 needs to specify what transactions specifically were under the control of Omar Sheikh, and evidence that Ahmed was indeed able to and did direct Omar Sheikh in these various transfers.

[jproudj]

I'm impressed!

[bofors]

Is the only source of this transfer (related to ISI or not) the Indian Times article?


No, see this: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=125x192618

[Edx]

Oh good so I dont appear to be as wrong as everyone was telling me :)

[MikeW]

No, see this: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=125x192618

Hmm. That tells us:

The original reporting, however, claimed that Saeed Sheikh wired Mohammed Atta $100,000 in the summer of 2000, not the summer of 2001. This makes much more sense, if the allegation is that Atta used funds from Saeed Sheikh to organize and carry out the 9/11 attacks.

The Times story says no such thing, though. There is a Hindu report that says this, but it came after the Times story by a day or two. And the content is quite different:

...Early this month, German authorities came across information that Ahmad Omar Sayeed Sheikh, a close associate of Jaish-e-Mohammad commander Masood Azhar, may have played a key role in the September 11 attacks. Azhar, informants told the German internal security service, may have sent a draft for $100,000 to Mohammad Atta, one of the men who crashed an aircraft into the World Trade Centre in New York. The draft, sources say, was sent in the summer of 2000 employing a pseudonym. Atta is thought to have returned $15,600 through the hawala channel just before the attack. An Egyptian national, Atta is believed to be among the central figures responsible for conceptualising and executing the attacks on the U.S.

Officials of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation are now looking into Atta's possible links with Sheikh. Sheikh, along with his long-time mentor Azhar and a third terrorist, Mushtaq Ahmad Zargar, had been released from jail in December 1999 in order to secure the freedom of 155 passengers and crew on Indian Airlines flight IC 814, which was hijacked by terrorists to Kandahar. A graduate of the London School of Economics and Political Sciences, Sheikh became involved with Islamist fascist groups while a student, and went on to be a key member of the United Kingdom-based armed action group al-Hadeed. After his release in Kandahar, Sheikh did not return to the U.K. and stayed on in Pakistan in an Inter-Services Intelligence-provided safe house in Islamabad...

"As things stand," says one senior Indian intelligence official, "the information is still very speculative. While there is no doubt that Sheikh was close to bin Laden, the precise nature of that relationship and of his financial activities still have to be discovered." Curiously, there seems to have been little international pressure on Pakistan to hand the terrorist over. Last month, the U.K. served a letters rogatory on India, asking for information on Sheikh in relation to the 1994 kidnapping of its nationals. It is unclear why it has taken that country so long to initiate the legal proceedings, and why the U.S. has chosen not to act so far. These mysteries, like the many others that have come to attention since September 11, could give rise to some interesting answers in the weeks to come.
http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl1821/18210150.htm

So here it's all uncovered by Germans, not India. And the "information is still very speculative". Something this post forgot to point out.

On confirmation, we're told:

Also, there is some confusion about sources -- namely that the only source was the Times of India. This is not correct. The Times of India was the first source, but French author Bernard-Henri Levy, CNN, Asia Times and the Wall St. Journal followed up on the story and reported that American officials (sometimes more specifically described as the FBI) had confirmed the the allegations that Sheikh wired the money at the request of Gen. Ahmad. So, the "story" is not simply that the Times of India alleged an Ahmad-Sheikh-Atta connection, but that the US government had confirmed the Indian allegations.

Levy did NOT say that the FBI had confirmed the allegations that Sheikh wired the money at the request of Gen. Ahmad.

He said this about India:

I see a note--but one I’m not allowed to take with me--which apparently is based on the contents of an FBI report: 0300 94587772... Omar’s cell phone number... the tracing of all his calls between July and October 2001 on that line. And among the numbers called, the number of General Mehmood Ahmed, who, until right after September 11, was the general director of the ISI...

Note, if this relates to the supposed transfer, then it's again saying it happened in 2001, not 2000.

When he got to the US, Levy said this:

I’ve spoken with people in Washington who confirm unofficially that the cell phone number decoded by RAW--0300 94587772--is Omar’s, and that the list of calls made from it are the same as were shown to me in India. So, if Omar is proved to be the originator of the transfers it would be difficult to deny that it was done with the knowledge of the head of ISI.

So he's saying he's had unofficial confirmation that there were calls between Sheikh and Ahmed between July and October 2001. That is not confirming "the allegations that Sheikh wired the money at the request of Gen. Ahmad.".

We're also told that:

CNN, Asia Times and the Wall St. Journal followed up on the story and reported that American officials (sometimes more specifically described as the FBI) had confirmed the the allegations

The Wall Street Journal simply reprinted what they'd read in the Times story. No sources are provided for the CNN or Asia Times claims here, so knowing the level of truther deception I think I'll reserve judgement on those until someone tells us more.

[sleahead]

More information from Assistant DA Mary Lee Warren in her written statement to the House Oversight Committee:



I have two charts available today. The first describes the terrorists‘ use of international wire transfers, an example of a formal funding mechanism. The chart depicts a series of four wire transfers from the United Arab Emirates, wired to the terrorists‘ Florida bank accounts, via a bank in New York, during July, August and September 2000. The four wires were in amounts that would not normally raise suspicions. The funds, totaling approximately $110,000, were deposited in the Suntrust Bank accounts of Marwan Al-Shehhi, one of the terrorists who hijacked American Airlines Flight 175, and Mohamed Atta, one of the hijackers of American Airlines Flight 11.
http://financialservices.house.gov/media/pdf/021202mw.pdf



It seems certain that this is the transfer B-H levy refers to. It may even be the transfer Lormel refers to in his October 2001 testimony, as it occurs just over a year previously.